Grief and Cigarettes

Assholes shouldn't be allowed to be sexy, and grief shouldn't take this long to fade.

A small snippet from the POV of the protagonist of a novel I'm working on. Simply an introspective little piece to get a handle on his voice I thought I'd share.

He'd been told to ignore Casey. He'd told himself to ignore Casey.

Casey, turned out, did not like to be ignored. In fact, the harder one tried to ignore Casey, the more he seemed to go out of his way to be as in your mind and in your vision as possible.

The hunter was in his clinic damn near every day. If he wasn't there, bothering Shane, he was in the saloon across the street, feet on the railing, smoking and smirking and watching him. He kept the brim of his hat tipped down, but Shane could still see the trail of smoke coming out from under it- leading down, down, past too-blue eyes and leading to too-full lips tipped up in a knowing, crooked half-smile, like a trail leading some poor, stupid animal into a trap.

The glint of David's ring was there, too, just as much in his vision and his mind as the town's local hunter. A quiet not so quite reminder that he'd been married. That he had been claimed. That he had promised himself to someone, and just because that someone wasn't here any longer...

...you can't just replace love. You can't just replace a lover. You sure as hell couldn't replace a soft spoken, gently teasing intelligent man who never yelled, laughed quietly, kissed softly, with...

...whatever the hell Casey was. Loud. Big. He was always the biggest person in a room and never seemed to care what people thought or said about him. He was an easy smile and surprisingly soft hands and eyes that should be cold and distant like ice water with their color but instead danced bright and warm with life and vibrant laughter. Blue like a clear summer sky instead of blue like the deepest water.

David's eyes had been green. Nature and grass and gemstones, deep and rich and serious except when he wasn't. Casey was never serious.

The cigarette in Casey's slender, delicate hands lifted, slipped between his upturned lips. Shane watched with far too much interest as the small, dark man inhaled, lifted his head just a little, and met Shane's eyes abruptly.

There was no way he knew Shane was looking back. No way he knew Shane was watching. He shouldn't have been able to see Shane inside his clinic, even with the big front window. But those sharp, warm eyes were locked on his own unerringly, and Shane found himself caught by the way he pulled another drag from the cigarillo, never looking away.

Never serious except now, except when he somehow had Shane's gaze in his own across a thick glass pane and an entire street, except when he was looking at Shane like he wanted to devour him whole.

David had certainly never looked at him like that.

Predatory.

Hungry.

He touched his finger to the ring he still wore, the metal cold on his over-heated skin. He couldn't. He shouldn't. Casey was not David and Casey paled compared to David and he loved David, loved David, had loved David-

-his legs gave out, and he sank into a chair with a heavy sigh.

Had loved David. So much. For so long.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that they were both doctors and they hadn't been able to save him. Hadn't been able to save the one person who mattered most in the world.

It wasn't fair that there was the biggest jackass in the West outside his window with a beautiful crooked smile and beautiful blue eyes and soft lips and soft hands and so not David, so far from being David, and making him burn and ache anyway.

It wasn't fair that he hated himself for how much he wanted.

Shouldn't he get to move on? Shouldn't he get to live?

Should you? You couldn't save him. Do you think you deserve anything but memories? Fucking useless. Fucking murderer.

He gritted his teeth and shook off the thoughts. No. He wasn't sinking down that well. Not today. Not now.

His fingers twitched for the bottle he knew was never far away. Chase the thoughts off, wash them down, drown them-

-but you'll drown out those eyes, too. That smirk. That smile.

And deserve them or not, he didn't want to lose that just yet. How it made him feel- a way he hadn't felt in years by now.

So instead, Shane Callahan, town drunk, town doctor, opened his front door and stepped into the sun instead of shrinking further back into the shadows. The ring on his finger glinted in the sunlight, so bright it was painful, almost blinding. Hot and burning and demanding his attention.

He couldn't ignore it, and that wasn't fair, either. But he could seek shelter in the more timid warmth of Casey's blue, blue eyes.

Not that he would ever admit it to the little brat.