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Pretty fucking desolate, huh?
Ray’s not sure what he expected. He grew up here - well, not here here - and he knows this state. Knows much of it’s rural country like this, barren save for the curious cow, or dog who pops up to trot beside them a while. Or onlooker.
(He tries not to look back at them, though).
He spends most of his time looking at the others. There’s energy here, at the start; it’s lively. Lively as can be, given the circumstances. He wonders how long that’ll last.
“You’re staring,” Pete points out. Because he had been. Their eyes meet, again, and Ray remembers why once he smiles. “It’s rude.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ray replies lamely. He hasn’t looked away. “Well, you’re staring back.”
“It’s either look at you…” Pete gestures vaguely up ahead. At the others, just out of both their lines of sight. “…or these other sad sacks.”
“Fuck you,” Olson cheerfully replies over his shoulder. “I’ll jitterbug on your grave, asshole.”
“Not if I bury you first.” Pete flips him the bird. But when the other boy’s turned back to face front, he looks down, pensive.
Then, for Ray’s ears only: “He can’t die.”
The words are hushed. Full of meaning, soft and raw, like he’d only just realized in that moment that Olson could die. Nevermind that he would; that he’d have to. Ray can see it all over Pete’s face - the furrow of his brow, twist of his mouth, pain behind his eyes. He’s grappling with Olson’s inevitable fate. And probably his own, too.
Ray watches him for a while. He doesn’t know what to say, at first.
Then he slings an arm over strong shoulders and declares: “Well, you can’t die, either.”
Pete snorts. “That precious, am I?”
“Yes,” Ray shoots him a grin. Pete’s eyes seem to twinkle in response. “If you die, I’ll have no one to talk to.”
If you die, I’ll have nothing to look at.
*
“Maybe on the subway,” Ray tosses out. “In the city.”
“You’ve been to New York City?” Pete asks disbelievingly. “How’d your bumpkin ass get there?”
“Yeah, twice.” Ray defends himself. Even though he’d only been once, too small to really remember. “And they’ve got these little things called trains.”
“Shit,” Pete whistles. “Wish I’d thought of that before I started walking.”
Ray laughs. Parker’s head whips around at the noise, shooting both of them a dirty look.
Ray turns back to Pete: “You go into the city a lot, right?”
“Sometimes,” Pete acknowledges. “But you know how many people ride the subway? We wouldn’t have met.”
It’s a little game they’d started playing a few miles back. Guessing how they could’ve met, if not here, not now, not like this. It’s fun to imagine; passes the time easy enough.
“You like pastrami?” Pete asks suddenly.
Ray nods, trying to ignore the way his stomach twists. Already hungry. Sick of spam and their gel rations. “Yes.”
“There’s this decent sandwich shop near me,” Pete explains. He tilts his head, clearly picturing the place. “You’d know it, if you lived in Jersey.”
“But then I’d be an asshole,” Ray can’t keep his mouth from twitching. Breaking into an actual grin when Pete playfully knocks his shoulder with his own.
“They always ran out,” Pete elaborates. “I used to go right after school, at three-thirty? Pastrami on rye. Most days, I’d get the last one.”
“Damn,” Ray snaps his fingers. “There goes my shot.”
Pete chuckles a little, then turns to look at him. His mouth curls up in a smile. The kind that lifts his scar.
“Nah,” he shakes his head. Eyes soft. “I’d split it with you.”
*
“Ray, I swear to god, man.” Pete groans. “If you die on me now, I’ll kill you.”
Ray tries to think up some clever retort, but his brain is mush. All faculties concentrated on: left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Left-
“Warning! Forty-seven! Second warning!”
Pete’s at his side, practically lifting him up. “Goddamnit, Ray!”
“Just let me go,” Ray pleads. Blinking sleep out of his eyes. Or into it. It’s hard to tell in the darkness. “I’ll slow you down.”
“Not a chance,” Pete promises. It makes something in Ray’s chest swell. The way the other boy doesn’t even hesitate. Just clutches tighter.
“It’s cold,” Ray complains. Even though he shouldn’t - yeah, fucking obviously it’s cold. No one needs the reminder.
“Think of something warm,” Pete suggests. “A fireplace.”
Somehow, Ray’s mind is able to conjure one up. He closes his eyes and he can see it: orange flames licking brick, wood snapping, sparks bursting up the chimney. It’s warm. It’s so warm that Ray actually reaches his hands out toward the flame.
Pete laughs. “That’s the spirit, man.”
It works. It actually works for a while until-
“I’m hungry,” Ray whines. Well aware he sounds like a petulant child. But he’s delirious from exhaustion, and he’s so empty, stomach in knots by this point. The thought of more spam makes him genuinely nauseous.
“We’re all fucking hungry, asswipe.” Barkovitch snaps at him from up the way. Then, at Pete: “Will you tell your girlfriend to shut up?”
“Just keep walking, Killer.” Pete replies lowly. Even in the dark, Ray can see Barkovitch’s nostrils flare, fisting up through his palm in the universal gesture: up yours.
“Friggin’ Barkovitch.” Ray mutters under his breath, well out of earshot of the other boy. Only Pete hears, and chuckles.
“Alright, you hungry?” He asks. Ray nods, letting his head loll onto the other man’s shoulder. “I got pastrami on rye.”
“Share?” Ray asks hopefully.
“Said I would, didn’t I?” Pete assures, and the fire crackles, and Ray’s filled with even more warmth. “Close your eyes again.”
Ray does. And then he can taste it: the crunch of the bread, perfectly toasted. Meat in his mouth, mustard taste exploding on his tongue. It’s delicious. It’s perfect.
Slowly, Ray blinks his eyes open. Some distant part of him is aware that there’s no fire and no sandwich.
But a bigger part of him - the part that’s got Pete pressed all the way against his side - just feels warm and full.
*
It hits him that next night. Ray doesn’t know exactly when. When the ache in his limbs, the tightness in his thighs gives way to an entirely different kind of tension.
“Been thinking about what you said,” he throws out before he can stop himself. The night is dark and long; it takes a while for Pete to look over at him.
“I say a lot of things,” he remarks once he does.
“G-goddamn right,” Olson stutters from a few paces ahead. It’s the first time he’s spoken in about twenty miles.
“About this being the horniest you’ve ever been,” Ray clarifies. He has no idea why. He immediately regrets it.
“Yeah?” Pete answers with a grin. And maybe he doesn’t regret it so much. “You with me, Ray?”
“Getting there,” Ray admits. He can feel himself blushing. He hopes the lights won’t catch it.
Pete just gives him this look, this knowing smirk. A flick of his tongue over his mouth and his eyes over Ray’s body, just briefly, before he turns back around.
*
“I’m flagging,” Ray announces. And it’s true, but also partly an excuse for Pete to put an arm around him.
He needs it. The support, the comfort. It’s just them now. Well, and Stebbins, hobbling along - but he was never one of them, was he? Still isn’t.
“Do that thing you did,” Ray requests. Tongue dry and cottony. When he presses it to the roof of his mouth, it sticks.
“What thing?” Pete mutters. Close to him.
It makes Ray shut his eyes, trying to remember. Something about warmth, food…but try as he might, he can’t recall. It feels like decades ago; timbre of Pete’s voice, low in his ear.
“When you talked about things…” Ray makes the attempt anyway. Tries to muster up some saliva. He should drink from his canteen, but he doesn’t want to have to piss again. “That’re better than this.”
“Better than this?” Pete sarcastically replies. How the hell he has it in him, at this stage, is anyone’s guess.
“Shut up,” Ray whines. He hates how pitiful he sounds. Especially when he begs: “Please?”
Pete gets a little closer then. He runs a comforting thumb under the collar of Ray’s shirt, and it makes him shudder. Then relax. “What you need, Ray? A shower?”
The thought is immediately all-consuming. Ray can feel the filth of himself everywhere; clothes sticking to his sweat. “Yes.”
“Alright,” Pete assures. “Close your eyes.”
Again, Ray obeys. He listens as Pete instructs him to pull every stitch of clothing off and over, ‘till he’s undressed. Course, he’s not actually doing it. But it feels good to imagine - to free himself of all of it.
“Ray?” Pete shakes him. He must’ve dozed off for a second, imagining too hard. “You still with me?”
“Mhm,” Ray mutters groggily. Mind muddy. “‘m getting naked, like you said.”
Pete is quiet for a long moment. So long, Ray’s half-expecting the warning siren. But no, the other man’s still next to him. Keeping pace.
“Now,” When Pete finally speaks again, he’s quiet. “Picture the water on you. It’s hot.”
“Water’s never hot,” Ray mumbles. He hasn’t had a hot shower since he was little.
“This water is,” Pete insists. “Just think about it. Let go.”
Ray does: he lets himself feel the hot spray on his bare skin, nothing short of scalding. It burns, but there’s release there, too, in the pain. The knowledge that it can’t be a dream, if it hurts. He moans.
His eyes fly open. He can’t even look at Pete. “Sorry.”
“Keep going,” Pete encourages. Apology promptly ignored. “What’s it feel like?”
“Hot,” Ray answers lamely.
“Nah, man.” Pete leans in closer. “I mean what’s it feel like?”
Ray closes his eyes. Water pressure turned high. Dirt circling the drain. The sharp, stinging spray on his flesh, searing, turning his skin pink. Branding him.
“Good,” he finally manages. It’s practically a gasp. “It feels good.”
“Yeah? You use shampoo?” Pete pries, and Ray nods his head under the water. Hair getting clean. “What about soap? What’s your soap smell like?”
“It’s like…” Ray inhales, as if to conjure it. He can see the green bar in his hand now. “Like…fresh. And minty.”
“Yeah? No shit. Mint?” Pete sounds amused. There’s a smile, there, audible in his voice. “Alright. Wash yourself.”
Ray does, going through the motions while walking. He even bends over, not slowing down as he runs his hands down clothed legs. If Pete finds any of this funny, he doesn’t laugh. Finally, Ray stands back up straight.
“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t open his eyes.
“Okay,” Pete echoes. Definitively. Ray doesn’t quite know what they’re agreeing to. “What now? You wanna lie down?”
Ray’s muscles ache. His socked feet feel wet and pulpy on the pavement. His joints practically creak from overuse. “Yes.”
“Go to bed, then.”
For a second, his body takes the directive literally. And Ray almost drops onto his back right then and there.
“Warning! Forty-seven! First warning!”
“Easy, now.” Pete mutters as he stumbles. Then holds him up. “Let me put you there.”
And that is a mistake. Those words - they’re a mistake, because now all Ray can see is Pete actually putting him in bed. It’s all there, in his mind’s eye: him taking a naked, washed Ray and setting him on the mattress, tucking him in. Would he carry him there? Could he?
“Alright, you’re laying down now.” Pete informs him, and Ray feels the weight of the mattress beneath him. Comfortable and soft. He sees the other man above him, looking at him. Waiting. “How do you feel?”
Ray shudders. He doesn’t think. “Ready for you.”
Pete doesn’t say anything. Ray’s eyes snap open again. Panicked. “Uh, I didn’t mean-“
Pete shushes him, then forcibly slows them both down. Ray tries to fight it, fearing another warning, until he realizes what the other man’s doing.
He’s letting Stebbins pass. And he does, sniffling and barely conscious. Ray isn’t much better. Stuck in dreamland as he’d been.
“What didn’t you mean?” Pete eventually asks, hushed.
Ray doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t quite know what’s happening; why the hell he’d say something like that. He fidgets with the strings of his hat just for something to do.
After a while of this - could be miles, even, he couldn’t say - Pete leans in closer. “Ray. Ray, look at me.”
Reluctantly, Ray does. When their eyes meet, Pete’s are deathly serious. “You know I’m with you, right?”
Slowly, Ray nods. He drops the strings of his hat. Resists the urge to pull it down over his face. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Pete emphasizes the syllable with a squeeze to his shoulder. “Now. Whatchu need?”
Ray groans. “Don’t make me-“
“Oh, I’m gonna make you say it.” Pete’s tone is definitive. Brokering no argument. “Now, I’ll ask again.”
But he doesn’t. Instead, his hand smooths its way over Ray’s shoulder, up to his neck. Thumb caressing the slope of it. It’s so nice; Ray can’t help but let his eyes flutter shut again. “Whatchu need, baby?”
Ray inhales. He shivers, but it’s not cold where they are. In this room, walls melting into the background. No floor, no ceiling, just this bed. Pete’s gaze heating him. “You.”
It’s hardly more than a whisper, when Ray finally gets it out. It strangles his head, his heart, and he can’t seem to get free. Fuck. Why would he want to?
“And I’m here,” Pete reminds him again. He thumbs higher, then, along Ray’s jaw. His stubble. “Need me to take care of you?”
It’s too easy, too natural, how the image falls over him. That of Pete on top of him, all around him, just everywhere. Everywhere.
He’d been so dismissive of that sort of thing. Before. What’s so good about getting a cock shoved up your ass? He used to think, crudely, and then he’d cast the thought aside. The question somehow satisfied by the lack of response.
Except this time. When his mind answers: McVries doing it.
It hits him in a burst of clarity: sudden, terrifying. Fuck, but Pete’s in there now, in Ray’s head, in his body, right where they both want to be. God. God.
Words fail him. Ray just nods.
“Then I’ll take care of you,” Pete declares. But the words are soft. Ray hangs off them, clutching tight. He won’t let go. “If that’s what you want.”
Ray does want. It’s just. He wants. Wants more than this. Just this moment, or that moment. He wants all of them. “How?”
“Any way you’d like it,” Pete drawls. Shit, he knows what it’s doing to him. When he talks like that; all cocky and sure of himself. “Would make it real good, too.”
Ray’s aware of that. Hyper aware. Anyone could tell from the way Pete carries himself - the guy knows what he’s doing in the bedroom. He’d be so-
Shit. Ray’s getting hard. There’s blood in his ears and more in his dick and there’s a fucking camera on them, Stebbins right there not five feet ahead. Damnit. What if his mom’s watching?
As if sensing his distress, Pete pulls him in closer. “Just you and me, Ray. Just you and me.”
It sounds true. When he says it like that. Ray closes his eyes and lets himself believe.
“What’re you seeing?” Pete asks. “Tell me.”
He sees Pete, all deep eyes and deeper grin: the kind that lifts his scar. He sees broad, strong hands on his waist, his hips. It’s not something he’s ever experienced before. Nothing he ever thought he would.
“Pick up the pace, Garraty!” Barkovitch had shouted some miles back. Goading him. “Might be able to shave off those extra pounds!”
“Ray.”
“You,” Ray chokes out. “See you.”
“And what am I doing?”
Whatever you want. Ray feels it hammer in his chest, the unrelenting honesty of it. Must’ve said it out loud, on accident, because Pete’s groaning in his ear. It’s the best thing he’s ever heard.
“Shit, man…” Pete runs his free hand over his face. The other still curled over the junction where Ray’s neck meets his shoulder. “I’d pull you into those bushes right now, if it didn’t mean a bullet in the back.”
Ray looks where he’s looking: at the shrubs past the pavement. Hard to see in the dark. He spits out a laugh, sharp and nerve-filled.
“Yeah?” He tries to muster up some confidence, but he knows how apprehensive he sounds. “And do what?”
Another question that’s more plea than challenge.
“Have my way with you,” Pete says it so casually. The glance he throws Ray’s direction, though, is anything but. Imbued with meaning. He opens his mouth, as if to say something else, but he doesn’t.
Ray laughs again, more of a bark-turned-cough. He tries to deflect: “After three hundred miles? You wouldn’t have the energy.”
“Damn right, I would.” Pete’s tone is strong, eyes boring into him. Serious as the grave. “For you I would, Ray. I mean that.”
Ray knows he does. But he hates it. Hates the way the other man’s looking at him: like it was something that could happen. Like it should’ve.
Like it would’ve: in one of those other places they’d have met, if not here.
“How would you do it?” Ray asks. Part innocent curiosity - he’s got no idea how any of this shit works. And part something opposite. Devoid of innocence entirely. “In a bed, I mean.”
“Too good for the bushes, huh?” Pete cracks a smile, and Ray can’t help but return it. But then his gaze softens. “Yeah. You are.”
It makes Ray flush: the knowledge that he deserves something. And, by extension, the knowledge that he doesn’t deserve this. The Walk. But he already knew that. Knows no one does.
“I’d lay you down real sweet-like…” Pete mumbles, closer now, directly into his ear. “Love on you a little…”
Ray scowls, even as the strings around his heart tug. “Cut the bullshit.”
“Ain’t no bullshit here.” Pete swears, then frowns. He looks a little sad. “You never been with anyone, Ray?”
He thinks of lying, but what’s the point now, at the end of this? At the end of everything? He and Jan never got that far. And so he shakes his head.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make it special.” Pete pulls back to wink, without losing an ounce of sincerity. “Take it easy on you, promise.”
“Gee, thanks.” Ray rolls his eyes, even as his dick runs away with the image. He inhales just once. On the exhale, he looks at the ground. “Does it feel good?”
He hates how quiet he sounds, how nervous. Like a child. He’s not a child; he’s here, isn’t he?
“‘Course it feels good, man.” Pete shakes his head in admonishment. “Why you think folks do it?”
It’s Ray’s turn to be quiet for a while. “You done it?”
“Yeah.”
“With a guy, I mean.”
“I know what you meant.” Pete suddenly looks tired, the road catching up with him. He glances at Ray again. Lets his stare linger. “I’d make it real good for you.”
Ray stares back. Not letting himself picture it. But then Pete nods, like go on, and Ray does. He closes his eyes.
The image is so vivid. Like something on a film screen, before the only theater in his town shut down. He’s in bed, and Pete’s there, caressing his thighs, kissing his way down his chest. He wouldn’t care about the extra pounds. He wouldn’t. And he’d whisper in his ear with that poet’s tongue, and Ray wouldn’t call bullshit this time. He’d just shut up and listen.
It’s so real, he can feel every bit of Pete, every kiss, every touch: right down to the spirals in his fingertips. Hot breath ghosting his ear - though, that might actually be happening - and a calloused palm squeezing his bare side. Though, that might actually be happening, too.
Sure enough, when Ray opens his eyes Pete’s hand has migrated down his waist and up under his shirt. He palms at Ray’s fleshy middle, none too shy about it. Unconcerned with the soldiers not three feet away. Who say nothing.
“Ray…” Pete whispers, sounding wrecked. Ray wonders how much of it is the Walk and how much of it is this, right now. “Fuck. Want you.”
Ray’s harder than he’s ever been. Just tenting his pants as he plods on, for God and the Major and every goddamn soul in their country to see. He can’t be fucked to care about it anymore.
Pete had been right. Just you and me, Ray. Just you and me.
“Yeah,” Ray lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“I’d make it real nice.” Pete vows. And Ray shuts his eyes again, suddenly feeling dizzy. This reality and that going topsy-turvy in his head. “Give it to you however you want.”
Ray can’t help it; he whimpers. Maybe it’s the Walk. The Walk did things to your head - every winner said that. But it’s not just his head that’s affected, is the thing.
Because he’s feeling it. Feeling it in his body, in his veins, Pete’s inside him, and it’s incredible. Beyond. There’s never been a more perfect unity.
“God, yes.” Ray gasps. Tears in his eyes. He can’t believe it. “I can feel you.”
“Yeah,” Pete practically purrs. Running both hands up his sides now, fucking feeling him up, voice crooning in his ear. “Feel so good, baby. Just wanna hold you.”
And Ray - Ray presses the heel of his hand to his crotch in an attempt to stave it off, but that just brings it on, instead. And he feels it like a wave, almost literally knocking over with the force of it. White-hot pleasure hitting him, aching muscles relieved for one sweet minute by the thought of Pete taking him. Whatever good and ready looked like, that’s what Ray was, and Pete’d have him, and it wouldn’t hurt, he’d be gentle, and he’d love it, they both-
Ray comes down with a gasp, shaking, stars in his eyes. He has no idea how he’s still standing, let alone walking at 3MPH. Then he realizes: Pete’s still holding him up.
Before he can take a second to process any of it, Pete’s gripping his jaw. Heat surely steaming off of his ruddy cheeks.
“Hey,” Pete calls him back to present. Eyes searching. “It’s just you and me, right?”
Ray blinks. Own eyes searching. Looking for that place that’s better than this; the crackle of a fireplace and pastrami on rye and Pete, who just wants to love and hold him. For one second, all he can do is nod into the other man’s grip.
The next second, he feels Pete’s hand atop the hat on his head. Then he’s pulling it down and over their faces, shielding them from view as he leans in. Taking their moment.
It’s good. Pete’s mouth on his, plush and warm and real. It’s not a fantasy, but it is that place - that place far from here. It lives in the negative space between them, and Ray fucking basks in it, the heaven inside Pete’s mouth.
Even once they pull back. Once they lose Stebbins, and face the crowd, and each other. Once Ray gets shot in the stomach, pain somehow less real than the hot shower earlier. Even once Pete looks at him, wetness from his eyes mingling with the rain. Even once Ray tells him he loves him. Even once he apologizes to his mom, hearing the gun cock next to his head.
All he has to do is close his eyes. And he’s there.