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CHAPTER FIVE
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THE PRODUCT OF
SILENCE AND PROXIMITY

THE SEAT WAS UNCOMFORTABLE.

It was dark when she woke, not that there would be anything different. It was not complete dark, not the pitch black dark that she had found Peter under, but darker than what she had woken that morning; at least, what she perceived to be morning.

She stirred, groaning as her body popped, shouting in protest as she began to move, begging for her to wait and let them catch up. She twisted, propping herself onto her weak arms, eyes searching the dark for another figure.

She sighed as her eyes landed on a figure curled in the passenger seat, his head lolled to the side, legs drawn up, arms wrapped around himself. He was the picture of comfort, despite his position; much like how she found him.

Looking out the window, she saw the cars which had appeared the moment she had searched for him, finding that there was no one inside. When she turned back around, the surroundings fell back into oblivion as nothing was real and the cars were not there.

Reaching out, she shook the boy awake, smiling when he made a sound of protest, pulling away from her. She shook him harder, grinning as he whined, slapping her hands away.

"Wake up, Spidey!" she whispered, her voice cutting through the silence of the car and the world around her, breaking through the nothingness.

"Doll, I'm trying to sleep," he groaned, opened his eyes to give her an unamused look.

"We should get going," she said, glancing behind her, seeing the rest of the parking lot like she expected, despite it not existing.

"Why?" he asked, looking around as well, blinking.

She shook her head, frowning. Her hand moved towards her chest, reaching for the feeling she could never touch.

"Okay," he said, not needing any more explanation, despite her own inability to understand why she asked in the first place, "C'mon, jump over." He patted the front seat, smiling.

She scoffed, vaulting over and landing in his lap, scooting over to her own seat, pushing away the arm which had immediately wrapped around her waist.

"You're so small," he said, smiling at her with the same ocean smile, and she had to force herself to keep towards the shore, not allowing herself to be pulled too far in.

"Shut up," she mumbled, starting up the car.

Peter just stayed in the same position, turned towards her, smiling as she backed out of the parking lot, headed towards the road, unsure of where they were going, yet certain of the way.

After driving for a time unknown, she spared a glance towards him, unnerved. "Why're you staring?" she demanded.

He just smiled, his whiskey brown eyes glistening in the non-existent light of the darkness, an ocean calling for her to come swim, luring her into a depth where she could not stay afloat.

An ocean she would gladly drown in.

Struggling to keep from crashing—not that it would matter if she did, as nothing existed—she ignored him as best she could, making sure she didn't look at him head on.

Icarus followed the sun, but found the ocean. Unfortunately for her, he was both.

The silence enveloped them in a white noise of nothingness, the light being the only break through the nothingness.

As she drove, she felt herself begin to drift, the nothingness consuming her into an oblivion non-existent.

○ ○ ○

"Your dad was in a while ago. I offered to leave, but he said that he didn't want to talk. He couldn't afford to cry today."

There was a long sigh, followed by the closing of a book.

"I wonder just how in control our brains are. Even if we know we're psyching ourselves out, we are still convinced of whatever our brains tell us. If we're in close proximity with a person and there's an inference that romantic feelings could fall into place, we immediately begin to connect the dots and find patterns, trying to make the assumption a truth."

The silence conveyed neither an understanding nor an dismissal.

"I don't understand relationships."

○ ○ ○

While time was irrelevant, the two had been traveling for days. Days in an understanding of sleep and awake, naps not withstanding, basing  the sleep and wake on the darkness of the non-existent surroundings.

Days of close proximity and silence. Proximity breeds relationships and silence breeds thought.

The two were sitting on the hood of the car, breathing in the air they believed to be there as they sat on the side of the road, in the middle of nothing, nowhere, and somewhere in between.

"Are we nearly upstate?" she asked, staring at the darkness of the sky, the murky alert of her focus rendering her incapable of understanding the improbability of the emptiness.

"Upstate is upstate," he replied, staring as well, fully alert, yet not once concerned.

"Okay," she yawned, moving so she was on her side, facing him.

She wasn't looking at him straight on, as he was still looking at the sky, the two having an understanding between them, leaving her in the same dark that enveloped them.

In an instant, he was looking at her, shocking her worse than he had when she first found him. Her heart raced and she struggled to breathe, unable to look away as their eyes locked, the light whiskey melding with the black as dark as the world.

He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning. The two were merely looking at each other, his calm a sharp contrast to her unexplainable panic.

He seemed ready to speak, but was rendered incapable, the nothingness keeping him silent in an effort to stay intact.

She stared at him, her hands shaking, feeling an unidentifiable urge.

Proximity bred relationship, and silence bred thought; those were all they had.

Without thinking, still filled with the murky focus, she reached out, running her hand through his hair, caressing his cheek with a kind of tenderness she had never had in all her years of living, in this world or another.

As she pulled away, he grabbed her hand, keeping it in place, his touch both safe and terrifying. It was light, yet anchoring, real in every sense, yet uncertain all the same.

After a time uncertain as it did not exist, they pulled away. Neither pulled first, rather choosing to by a force unexplainable and non-existent.

The two made their way back inside, the car starting silently, though neither noticed it as they were not paying attention, meaning that the car was less real.

They drove off, sitting together in abject silence.

Proximity and silence bred uncertainty and feeling.

º º º

A few variations of light and dark later, she wondered just how much of nowhere they were going to have to drive through until they reached somewhere new.

She tried to look at the gas tank, but found that her eyes could not focus on it, as it did not exist. Nevertheless, being as alert as she could be, she brushed it off and assumed that they were fine, not realizing that it was improbable for them to drive on no fuel; that is, if everything was as real as she believed it to be, which it was not.

"I'm hungry," she mumbled, reaching down to stomach, unsure of whether it growled or if she imagined it to be.

"I got some hotdogs in the back," Peter replied, and she didn't question how he was able to have so much food that she could not see, assuming it all came from the gas station which they had passed days before.

They continued to drive in the pitch black darkness—the night, if you will—the lights on the other side disappearing as soon as she tried to look at them, as they were not real and did not exist.

"We should stop for the night," Peter suggested, breaking her out of her reverie.

She cast a glance towards him, a familiar feeling rising into her chest, causing her to feel overwhelmed. She had been feeling this for the past few nights and it was starting to become a problem.

At least, what one would call a problem, like flying towards the sun, but not necessarily thought of as a problem by one who needed the problem to survive.

"Are you zoning out on me again?" he demanded, tone laced with mirth.

He gave her the same bright smile he always did, whiskey eyes unlit, as the non-existent sun was not peering through the empty sky as it would during the lighter dark—or the day, if you will.

She scoffed, as she always did, feeling the telltale sign of irritation. However, there was another feeling as well, one that could only be described as fondness, odd as it was.

Proximity bred feeling and silence bred thought.

Turning her attention towards the sides, she searched for a place to park, where they could be relatively safe and rest. The past few nights, they'd had to make do in the dark by the trees, closer to the nothingness than was comfortable, but blissfully unaware of it ever the same.

To her surprise, she found, on the left side, was a small campground, completely empty and waiting.

She made a left, noticing that it was close enough to the road, but far away enough so as not to be bothered by the cars, though none ever would, as they did not exist.

"Awesome," Peter said, unbuckling and climbing out, going to the back and pulling out the hotdogs.

As he did, she went to look at the campsite, noticing that there was a small place for a fire where they could cook the hotdogs. All they needed was a fire.

"Go get some more sticks, I can make a fire," Peter said, motioning towards his web slingers.

She frowned, wanting to ask him how he could make fire if that wasn't in the description of his powers, but found that she didn't want an answer, and went to do as she was told.

She paused in the middle of bending down, going to collect the first stick, appalled at herself. She had always made sure never to let anyone tell her what to do if she could help it.

Though she couldn't exactly remember why.

It was in that moment that she briefly thought back to her father. He was just standing there, in front of her in whatever scenario she had envisioned, looking at her with pure sorrow. Like Daedalus watching Icarus fly.

She shoved the thought away, shaking as she was brought back to the empty nothing of the world she stood in, different from the empty nothing with which she had envisioned.

Quickly gathering a pile of sticks, oblivious to how they seemed to be leading her towards the darkness of the nothing that was not enveloped by the darkness of the night, but was made of a darkness all of their own, she made her way back to Peter.

Her father watched her go.

Shocked by the thought, she whirled around, expecting him to be there, only to find the nothing. Still she knew he was watching her go, the sorrow eternal.

"Peter?" she called out, now afraid, racing towards him, her voice and footsteps cutting through the silence as she closed the space between them, coming to crouch near him by the fire.

She had only been gone a few moments, and was not too far away, but he had made a fire she hadn't been aware of. Yet, because of the murkiness, she did not connect the oddity.

"Here, doll," he said, handing her a hotdog on a plate.

She took the plate, wondering where he had gotten it from, but ate the sausage nonetheless, assuming he had forgotten to get hotdog buns.

They ate by the fire, letting its non-existent heat warm them from the cold they only perceived to be there.

She shivered against nothing, causing Peter to scoot closer so as to warm her, drawing his jacket closer, despite feeling nothing himself.

Silence bred thought which bred behavior. Proximity bred action.

When they finished, they made their way onto the hood of the car, staring up at the empty sky, sitting shoulder to shoulder. She was curled in on herself, trying to stay warm, though the fire was doing wonders.

It wasn't until a time pass uncertain that she noticed him staring. Glancing over, not wanting to look head on, she saw that he was now turned on his side, just looking at her.

It wasn't predatory by any means. In fact, it was almost curious, quizzical in the sense that he wondered what she was doing in a world where everything was empty and nothing was real.

In the silence, she began to think. She began to think of how much time had passed since they spent together, not caring that all she knew was 'long.' She began to think of how he had told her so much, of how he called her doll, of how all they had were each other in the endless road with headlights that passed too fast to be real.

But Peter was real.

"You wanna to kiss me?" she asked, words hidden by the silence.

He laughed, tilting his head to look up at the empty sky. "What kind of a question is that?"

But as his laugh continued to be unheard by the world, he continued, "Of course I do."

That was the only warning she was given before an arm was wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him, whatever reaction she had being silenced by a pair of soft lips.

Her hand immediately went to grip his jacket, another moving to card through his hair, messing it up more than it already was.

He pulled away, slightly out of breath, staring at her with a bright smile, his eyes lit up with a life all of its own.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and pushing his head away. "Having fun?"

He laughed, pushing himself up, pulling her back towards him, grinning when she let him, looking up at him, unamused.

"Can we go again?" he asked with a boyish grin that rendered her incapable of saying anything other than a breathy 'yeah sure,' barely able to brace herself before he pulled her back in.

There the two stayed, on the hood of the car, the rest of the world fading into the nothing that it was as she drowned in the sun.

º º º

The next day, as they continued to drive, Peter trying to distract her with requests for more kisses, trying to hold her hand, they found themselves nearing a town.

She hummed, surprised that they had passed no signs alerting them that they were near to another town. She wouldn't have been able to read them either way, as they did not exist, but the point still stood.

The thought didn't stay for long for, as soon as they parked in the empty gas stations to rest and fill up, Peter kissed her, melting the rest of the world away into oblivion.

"Calm down," she said, pushing him away, struggling to breathe.

"No," he whined, peppering kisses against her neck, trying to climb over the gear shift, "Please, doll, you're so pretty."

She scoffed, trying not to smile. "Can't argue with that, huh?"

"Nope," he said, the conversation over, sealing the deal with a kiss, silencing whatever protest she might have had.

So there they were, seated together in the silence of the car, no one watching but the empty sky.

Proximity and silence bred a wonderful tragedy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

2828 words, I'm proud

I don't know why, but I find writing these chapters easier, despite having to struggle to be poetic about it.

Also, let me just clear this up now, because I know people are confused. This takes place in two separate "universes," for lack of a better term.

Also, this isn't insta love, this is just infatuation as well as proximity and running thoughts. They don't love each other, but they're bored teenagers who think the other is pretty cute, you know?

If you'll notice, the product of proximity and silence are many things, one being the continuation of their journey. They had been traveling for days, but were only on the road until something drastic occurred. Also, it's been said that her voice cuts through the silence, but when she asks if he wants to kiss her, the silence seems to hide them.

There are a lot of mentions of him being the sun and ocean, relating this to the Icarus story, which wasn't necessarily planned, but it works!

I don't think I have any other major things to point out for understanding the story purposes so...

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!