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Mile 8.
Ray is contemplating racism. Well, it’s not like he’s never contemplated it before. It's more like he’s contemplating the boy on the other side of the road, walking in perfect step with him. His left foot is nearly touching the grass where it blends with the dirt, and nobody has spoken a single word to him. The journalist kid already went around asking everybody their names, but not him. It puts Ray at odds with all of them; if you’re going to be fucking annoying and try to talk to everyone, at least be equitable in your approach.
Ray cuts a path towards him, awkwardly walking the hypotenuse of the triangle where they connect at the point. He almost crashes into Collie.
“Hey, man, watch the fuck out.”
Hank calls from behind them, “no, you watch the fuck out, Parker!”
Ray just grunts and joins the mysterious boy at the edge of the path. They walk in perfect synchrony, footsteps on the same rhythm. Ray checks his watch. 3.2 miles per hour.
“Hey, the name’s Ray Garraty.”
The boy smiles and God, it lights up his whole face. “Pete McVries,” he holds out a hand to shake. Ray takes it. Warm, firm. Beside them, that fucking spastic Barkovitch yelps.
“Oh shit, oh shit! I’m not the only crazy one.”
“Hey, shut the fuck up,” Ray bites, the meanest thing he’s said in a long while. “You guys are fucking sick.”
Pete puts a hand on Ray’s bicep. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Collie shove Barkovitch, but then his gaze is entirely filled again by McVries. His eyes crinkle with kindness and a little bit of apology, those perfect white teeth shining in his smile.
“Don’t worry about them,” Ray breathes.
“Nah, you don’t worry about me,” Pete drops his hand, pressing it to his own chest to still his dog tags from their jangling. “You don’t worry a thing about me, Ray.”
Ray grunts at that, still half-wanting to curse all the other boys out for purposefully avoiding someone so kind and level-headed. “It’s their fuckin’ loss, man,” he adjusts his hat.
Pete affixes him with a look he can’t quite figure out yet. “Maybe so, compadre,” he says simply. He laughs a bit, but Ray doesn’t see what’s funny.
Mile 37.
Sunset. Pete and Ray have not once fallen out of step. Ray will change his pace ever so slightly, sometimes, but Pete is always right there with him.
“How the fuck do you do that, man?” Ray mumbles.
Pete laughs. He does that a lot, laugh. He must be the most alive person on the whole Walk, Ray thinks idly. “Do what?”
“You’re always at the same pace as me.”
Pete contemplates for a moment, looking, as everyone is, at the darkening sky. “I like rhythm.”
“Oh yeah? You a musician, McVries?”
“Could be,” Pete says. He might think Ray doesn’t notice his voice softening, but he does. The darkness almost makes him feel like they’re alone.
Ray hums. “So, what? Guitar, piano, saxophone…?”
“Guitar, most definitely. You ever seen a man with a guitar? That’s the most powerful weapon in the world, man.”
Ray actually does laugh at that. “So what, you’re gonna,” he yawns, involuntary, “write a song for them?” He nods towards the soldiers with their carbines. “Get them to let us off this goddamned road?”
His voice raises up on the last two words, carrying throughout the crowd. He hears Hank’s amused cackle behind him.
“Yeah, I bet I could,” Pete smiles wistfully. There is a brief silence, darkness falling down all around them. “You should sleep, Ray.”
“Maybe in a few miles,” Ray says, but he feels it pulling at his cheeks. He stays in step with Pete—he can’t fall behind if he just stays in his rhythm. His companion rubs his back amicably, soothing, as if sleep is something only Ray could ever need. The last thing he hears is McVries laughing loudly.
“Oh, I just thought of something.” His voice is in harmony with the crickets and the slow torturous roll of the tanks. “I’d need a trumpet.”
Mile 63.
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!” Hank shouts in Ray’s ear, snapping his gum. “You slept through a shit ton of gunshots, man. What kind of guy sleeps through gunshots?”
“I dunno,” Ray mumbles. He’s not sure what kind of guy he is anymore. The day is hot and unpleasant, but Ray feels entirely numb which he counts as a short-term positive. Long-term negative, probably, if he gets back home and never feels anything ever again. Though maybe that’d be nice too.
He turns to Pete. No, being numb forever would not be nice. McVries is strolling along, looking fresh as ever. Perfectly in step. “Did you sleep?”
On his other side, Hank frowns. “Okay, man, enough of this shit. C’mon.”
Pete nods slowly, smiling. Easy. Ray growls at Hank. “Seriously, fuck you.”
Art catches up, the sound of boots on dirt almost comforting to Ray at this point. He needs breakfast, or for everyone else to die. No, he doesn’t mean that. He needs breakfast.
“They say children are the best conduits of God. They can see things we can’t.”
Ray rustles around for a snack.
“We should count it as a blessing that, in our distressed state, God has granted us back this privilege.”
“Hell yeah. Googoo gaga,” Hank says.
“What the fuck are you guys talking about,” Ray grumbles. As if he can’t get any more pissed off, Barkovitch whirls around. He lets out a high, whooping laugh, setting his manic eyes on Ray.
“You hear that, man? We’re blessed.”
Suddenly, Pete doubles over laughing. He’s crying with it, letting out big wheezing shouts and wiping his eyes. “Oh my God,” he says, then loses it again.
This makes Ray smile. He can’t help it—it’s infectious. He puts a hand on Pete’s strong shoulder, just in case he slows down with the effort from laughing. “Do you know what these jokers are talking about?”
Pete straightens up, still giggling. “You know what, Ray, I think I might. Whew.”
Barkovitch is still in his own world, swaying and poking Art about God. Ray doesn’t drop his hand from Pete’s shoulder. It feels nice, easy. Part of him worries, though, that he might be siphoning off Pete’s incredible strength for himself with his touch. He still doesn’t drop it though—he’s selfish like that.
“Fucking crazy, man, I tell you,” his eyes sweep the group around him. “Lunatics, all of you!”
Hank’s eyes widen. “Okay, now that’s hilarious.”
Art lets out a long, reverent sigh. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
A cool, sweeping breeze funnels between the two tanks in front of them, and Ray closes his eyes as if to drink it up. Collie, silent at the front of the pack, speaks up, watching Barkovitch skip into the distance muttering about being blessed.
“Yeah, right.”
Mile 98.
“Hank’s right, though,” Ray muses.
“Oh yeah?” Pete sounds amused. “About what?”
It’s not quite sunset. “I slept through a lot of people dying last night, Pete.”
And just like that, Pete’s hand is on his back, strong and comforting. Ray could almost think he planned it, subconsciously. Panic rises in his chest.
“Y’ever think maybe,” he breathes harder than he should. “You’re not who you used to be?”
Pete just looks gentle as ever. “None of us are, compadre.”
Ray wipes away tears with the back of his hand. “Fuck!”
“Hey now, hey now. All you gotta worry about is keeping the pace. Ain’t gotta worry about nothing else.”
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Pete’s thumb moves up and down Ray’s back.
“You got a girl, Garraty?”
Ray bites his lip. “I did. I broke things off, uh, for this.”
“Smart man,” Pete flashes a smile. “Still helps to think about her, though, I bet.”
“Maybe,” Ray says. His breathing hitches again. “I don’t know.”
“Hey now, none of that. Tell me about somethin’, man.”
Ray laughs wetly. “Something?”
“Anything.”
Ray scans Pete for signs of struggle, his head bobbing along the pines. He’s still so close to the edge of the road, that left foot in the grass, always just on the verge of disappearing into the trees. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gotten fucking shot for that. He’s a miracle.
“Alright, um, you ever heard of 1001 Nights?”
“No sir, you’re gonna tell me about it.”
Ray’s heart skips, still too in touch with the reality of their situation. He can’t think about Walking. He focuses his fear onto Pete’s thumb against his back. A fragile motion—now that’s something to really be afraid of. He starts, his voice shaking.
“Basically there’s this king who hates women.”
“What a start, Garraty. This about your girl?”
Ray snickers. “No, man, fuck you. Basically he sleeps with one virgin every night and executes her in the morning.”
From the back, Hank pipes up, voice wavering. “I just changed my wish.”
“You’re a sick freak,” Ray says without missing a beat, but there’s no bite behind it. It’s just talk, now. “Anyway, the main girl is called Scheherazade.”
“What a name,” Art says. “‘Hey, Scheherazade, what’s for dinner? Oh, Scheherazade, I love you.’”
“Go on,” Pete says softly.
“So when it’s her turn to, you know, be with the king, she tells him a story.”
“Smart girl,” Pete says.
Up ahead, Ray sees Collie slow down. His head is slightly turned. Listening. Pete’s hand slides into the crook of his waist, and Ray wants all of them to stop, right now, at the exact same minute and just stand in the middle of the road. It would be instantaneous, he thinks, the change from Walkers to people. And then what might happen?
“But she leaves it on a cliffhanger, right, so the king keeps her around for another night.”
The sky deepens into orange and pink. “Oh damn,” someone says.
“And when she finishes one story she starts another, and another.”
Pete’s hand is still firmly on Ray’s waist, pulling them together. “So he keeps her alive for 1001 nights.”
“Exactly.”
“How does it end?” Collie says, not looking back at them. He only ever looks ahead.
“Uh, it differs, I think, between tellings. But she lives.”
Art cheers. “Scheherazade lives!”
“That’s crazy, man,” Hank mutters. “Crazy.”
Barkovitch stumbles a bit. Ray thought he was sleeping, his head lolling to the side, but he speaks. “1001 miles.”
Ray looks at his feet, disappearing into the blackness of the night.
“Yeah, man,” Hank laughs morosely. “One thousand and one fucking miles.”
The night is anonymous, anonymizing. Ray leans his head against Pete’s shoulder. To sleep. The urge has suddenly overtaken him.
“Look at them,” Pete whispers in his ear. Collie has dropped back to be closer to the group, and Art has picked up the slack with a Bible story. It’s actually… kind of nice. “You did that for them.”
“I didn’t do nothing,” Ray whispers back.
“No, brother, I mean it. You’re a damn good storyteller.”
Ray feels out of control of his body, sleep coming all too easily to him as Pete’s solid mass supports his cheek. Pete just goes on rubbing his side up and down, soothing. Their boots pound the dirt rhythmically, always in step. Always.
Ray manages to get out just a few words before descending into sleep. “What are you… doing to me?”
Pete laughs lightly, a twinkling sound.
Mile 127.
Ray dreams that, in the dark night, Pete is emanating a deep orange glow. It guides them both.
Mile 171.
“Alright,” Ray drawls. It sounds like “allllllright,” the end of the word sort of falling off. “It’s time. What’s your wish, McVries?”
Art is thumbing through his Bible. “Peter, Peter, Peter…”
“Oh, I dunno. Haven’t thought about it much, I guess.”
In the harsh daylight, the two aren’t touching each other. Ray feels dead on his feet. A dead idiot. He scrutinizes Pete. “Well, no way that’s true. You have to have thought about it.”
“Nah, man. I just… whatever I’d wish, I’d want it to change things around here.”
Ray thinks about that. “You know what, McVries?”
“What’s up, Garraty?”
“Tonight you’re gonna fall asleep first.”
A laugh rips out of Pete then, bringing a big smile with it. “Am I now?”
Ray feels embarrassed, the tops of his ears heating up under his sun hat. Why should he be? “Yes! Just, tell me this, alright? Do you fall asleep after I do?”
Pete worries his lip. “Sure thing, Ray.”
“You’re lying to me. Why are you lying to me?”
Someone in the crowd snickers. “Trouble in paradise?”
Ray throws out a “fuck you,” only belatedly rolling his head around to see who might have said it.
Pete steadies him with a hand on his lower back, placating, but he speeds up a little to shake it off. But Pete keeps step. Perfectly. Ray finally sidesteps, and Pete’s hand is left spasming in the air. Open, close.
“Ray, it’s important to me that you sleep.”
Ray laughs bitterly. “Right, because it’s your job to take care of me, right?”
Pete says nothing.
“No, McVries. You sleep tonight.”
He’s walking ahead now, but he can hear Pete’s boots behind him. Still in sync, just a few paces behind.
“Alright, Garraty,” he says quietly.
Ray groans and puts his head in his hands. He’s at the front now, feeling Pete’s and everyone else’s eyes on his back. Everyone except for Collie, who mutters something Ray can barely hear over the hum of machinery.
“Better off without him, I say.”
Ray grinds his boots into the ground, hard. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says, coarse as dirt.
Mile 229.
It’s the middle of the night. Actually, more like the end, because the sky is starting to lighten even though Ray can’t see the sun. The tears from Hank’s death dry crusty on his face, his eyes burning. But Pete is asleep on his shoulder, breathing completely even and calm. He is at ease, and a swell of pride wells up inside of Ray. Like winning an argument, but better.
The desolate rural environment slowly reveals itself as the sun comes up, painting everything in watercolor blues and pinks. Ray thinks of Scheherazade surviving another night. Half-grateful, but always half-thinking about her story for the next time around.
Barkovitch sidles up next to them. Ray slips his hand in Pete’s back pocket, a tether.
“Hey, man,” Barkovitch warbles.
“Hey,” Ray replies with little enthusiasm.
Gary laughs, a high and sickening sound. “You and me, man. We’re blessed.”
“So you keep saying.”
“No, but,” Gary is deathly serious all of a sudden. “We really are, Garraty. Blessed by the Lord.”
Ray scoffs gently, trying not to rouse Pete. “Jesus Christ, Barkovitch. Baker really convert you?”
“No, no,” he tuts. “No, man. I seen you sleeping. I seen you sleeping every night.”
It’s about proper morning now. Ray already misses the calm and quiet, where the grief can roll onto him like waves, not like punches. “Yeah, well, not last night.”
“Not last night,” Barkovitch echoes. “Yeah, yeah…” he buries his face in his hands, digging his fingertips into his eye sockets. Ray finds himself flinching at every sudden movement. He doesn’t want to watch another man die. But he will. He knows he will.
“C’mon now, stop that.”
Barkovitch snaps towards him. “You’re a good person, Ray.” He splays his hand across Ray’s cheek—it’s cold. He traces his thumb underneath the curve of Ray’s lips. “Real good, man. Blessed.”
Pete stirs, lifting his head from Ray’s shoulder and rubbing his eyes. Ray watches Gary’s mouth drop open, eyes widening in sheer wonder.
“Oh–” his breath hitches. “Oh, hello.”
Pete stares at him.
Barkovitch has broken out into a wild grin. “He lives!” he shouts, an onslaught of grumbles emanating from the rudely-awoken Walkers. He walks backwards, eyes fixed on Pete and Ray walking side by side. He’s muttering to himself, manic. Ray doesn’t want to look. “He fucking lives, man, fucking blessed, Goddamn Peter and all the goddamned apostles,” he mumbles. He stops in his tracks.
“Hey, Barkovitch! Come on, come on,” Ray shouts. “Keep it moving, man.”
“Goddamn… fucking… COCKSUCKERS!” Gary screams at the ground, and continues walking.
And then, silence. Ray snaps forward, grief threatening to knock him out. Pete is looking at the ground, but he squeezes Ray’s bicep as they walk.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispers.
Mile 274.
Pete is clutching his dog tags as they walk. The enormity of death is making a home on Ray, like the dirt and dust and grease that have already replaced his skin, hair, fingernails. He stumbles just a bit, tripping over his feet, and Pete’s hand is there. It’s always there, lifting him up.
“C’mon, now. Keep walking, Ray. Just keep going.”
“Mmm,” Ray groans. “Why’re you doing that?” He motions at the tags.
“Just don’t like the sound,” Pete says simply. But he doesn’t smile.
“Tell me something, Pete.”
Now Pete does smile, which seems fucking impossible. “Anything, Ray.”
“Where would you be if you weren’t here?”
Pete even laughs a little, kicking up dirt. “You mean really? Or in my head.”
“If you could be anywhere.”
Pete is silent for a bit. Ray imagines all of his painful thoughts spilling from his head and getting squished into the dirt with every step he takes. For some other Walker to stomp on someday. A whole road of pain, that’s what this is.
“Well, I reckon I’d be with you.”
Ray eyes him. “You’re with me here, stupid.”
“Hey now,” Pete chuckles. “I wasn’t done, and I’m not stupid.”
Things have gotten so sparse. Only five of them left now, each in his own world except for the two of them.
“I’d be with you and we wouldn’t be walking.”
Ray hums.
“We’d be… I don’t know. Eating ribs. Shooting the shit. That sound nice, Garraty?”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.” His voice is almost a whisper. Slowly, gently, Pete’s fingers tangle with the fine hair at the nape of his neck.
Collie casts a look at Stebbins. “Lucky fucking bastard.”
Ray perks up. “Got something to say, Parker?”
“No sir,” Collie punts a rock as far as he can. It hits the side of a tank. “Nothing at all.”
Mile 301.
Ray wakes up in the pitch-darkness without remembering having fallen asleep. Pete is supporting a frankly ridiculous amount of his body weight. Hot shame curls through Ray’s gut as he pulls himself free from Pete’s support. Maybe Barkovitch had a point, about the sleeping. Pete studies him.
“It’s early.”
“Yeah, well.”
Pete sucks in a deep breath of cold morning air. “I gotta tell you something, Ray.”
“Fire away,” Ray rubs the sleep from his eyes. Behind him, he hears Art muttering a prayer under his breath. Ray suspects he does that instead of sleeping. Suspects he’ll be joining his God soon, though who knows. Maybe he’ll win.
“Sometime soon it’s gonna be just us two.”
“Aw, hell, Pete. No. Stop that.”
Ray is grateful for the dark, because tears instantly prick at his eyes. More shame. What a baby.
“No, Ray, you’ve gotta hear me.”
He keeps it under his breath this time, but he can’t stop. “No, no, Pete. Please, let’s not…”
Pete continues, calm and steady as always. “I’m just gonna sit right down, Ray. You gotta trust me on that, okay? I’m just gonna sit down.”
Ray has devolved into sobs now, snotty and incoherent. But Pete won’t let up. He rubs up and down his back, soothing, but he won’t let up.
“It’s gonna be okay, but I gotta hear you say it, Ray. Tell me you understand.”
But he can’t. He could never say that to Pete. He wants to shout as much, but Art comes up beside him, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder before he can speak another word.
“It’s alright, Ray. It’s alright,” he says. Ray’s breath hitches and breaks.
Pete falls silent, taking his hand off Ray’s back.
Mile 327.
Ray feels like he’s going to throw up. The three remaining Walkers trudge under the warmly-lit bridge, and Pete’s hands snap back to Ray’s body. They support his weight, steady his pace. Incomprehensible horror lurks at the bottom of Ray’s stomach, and it threatens to rise up with every step he takes.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he mumbles.
Beside him, Stebbins laughs bitterly. “No, no, Garraty. You’re doing this.”
“Look at me,” Ray snarls. “I’ve been held up this whole time. Nobody’s willing to say it but I don’t deserve this, man. Not when—not like this.”
Step, step, step. Stebbins is looking at Ray intensely, his watery eyes piercing Ray’s soul.
“I guess,” Stebbins says cautiously. “Nobody wins alone.”
“Bullshit,” Ray snaps. “You can. You could.”
Pete speaks up, squeezing Ray’s waist. “C’mon now, Ray. Don’t talk like that.”
Tears have been flowing intermittently since Hank died, and Ray has given up trying to stop them when they come. “Why shouldn’t I? You should win, Pete, carrying me like this. You could have walked twice this length now, if it weren’t for me.” Fresh waves of tears crest as he feels pathetic down to his bones, to the weight Pete’s arms take off his feet.
Pete opens his mouth, but Stebbins speaks first. “Garraty. I’m being serious. It has to be you. Not…” he looks vaguely in Pete’s direction. “Not him.”
Ray imagines the bridge full of cars, full of people going about their lives. Why tanks? Why young men, and why him, sobbing uselessly? He wipes at his eyes and nose. “Stebbins, I gotta ask you something.”
They walk. Stebbins’ limp is becoming more prominent. Wet gravel crunches like broken bones. “Yeah?”
“Why is everybody such a racist fucking asshole to Pete McVries?”
Pete squeezes his shoulder in warning, drawing in a deep breath. Stebbins sighs. “Look. He just can’t win, alright?” He starts to laugh, angry and desperate. “He can’t win! He just can’t, Garraty!”
Softly, at his side, Pete speaks. “He’s right, Ray. He’s right.”
Ray turns his head upwards, but instead of the evening sky he sees the unforgiving ceiling of the bridge, iron beams running forwards ahead of them. Taunting them. Why Walk? Bright LEDs scorch his eyes, no sun to speak of. Why?
Stebbins rubs at his face, suddenly grave. “I’m serious. Things are gonna get real confusing for you once I punch my ticket. You have to listen to me.”
“C’mon, now…” Ray says weakly, his only defense against an onslaught of graphic images in his head. Stebbins getting his head blown off like all the others. The LEDs flicker on the pavement below.
“What is Pete saying to you, Ray?”
The man in question is muttering with his face in his hands. Ray exhales, shaky. “He’s saying he should have left a long time ago.”
Stebbins looks down at the pavement. “Damn right, McVries. You should have. It’s not fucking fair.”
Pete is crying now, his palms dripping with tears. They’re nearing the end of the bridge. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Pete repeats, over and over.
“What’s going on?” Ray feels deaf and blind.
Stebbins steels his face and turns to Ray. “I’m glad it’s you.”
Now Ray really might be sick. “An honor walking with you, Stebbins.” But he can’t look back when Stebbins stops walking, can’t hear when the gunshot goes off, because the Major is shouting and people are crowding at the end of the bridge tunnel. Pete grasps at him desperately, turning his back to the crowd and walking backwards, clawing at Ray’s arms and shoulders.
“He’s right. It wasn’t fair, it’s not fair, I’m sorry.”
Ray has a terrible feeling. The rain is still falling right outside the tunnel. He keeps walking, stumbling into Pete. “Hey, hey, what is this—what are you…”
Under the fake lights, the not-sun, Pete’s dog tag shimmers. Ray’s mouth falls open. There’s no number engraved on it. Just smooth grey metal, bouncing up and down. The blank tag enraptures Ray for half a second, and when he looks up, Pete is gone.
He whirls around, looking for his body on the pavement next to Stebbins. But there’s nobody. In fact, the tanks behind have (miracle, miracle) stopped their roll, appearing just slightly smaller with each step Ray takes.
“PETE!” He screams. “PETE!”
The Major is still shouting, hopping off his tank and crowding Ray. He’s saying “you won, boy! You’re the winner!” But that doesn’t make any sense, because Pete McVries was there just a second ago. Ray falls to his knees, screaming wordlessly now.
“My Lord, the kid’s insane,” the Major mutters under his breath as Ray claws at the ground. He turns to the crowd. “Just a bit of dehydration!”
“Please, Pete, I can’t do this without you, please come back, please,” Ray sobs, legs folded and completely immobile underneath him. The Major squats down next to him.
“Listen, kid, you gotta give us your wish. What’s your wish, Garraty?”
Ray looks up at the Major’s rough face, sees a broken version of himself faintly reflected in his impersonal aviators. He sees the man who he’s wanted to kill since he was 14, grinning at him. The carbine. He could ask for the carbine, but he’d still be all alone. What does it matter, though, when he’d be exacting revenge for all the boys?
But Pete was just there. And then… gone. And when Ray first saw him, he knew that smile. He knew that smile could light up the whole world. It could outshine all the darkness of The Walk. It could guide them both. It’s not fair.
His lips form around the words as if encased in honey. “Peter. Peter McVries. My wish… I need him back.”
He sees an eyebrow shoot up from behind the glasses, and he grits his teeth. That evil bastard needs to do this one thing for him. He springs up, tackling the Major to the ground.
“Peter McVries!” He screams for all the boys who didn’t speak his name. He feels the carbines shoving at his back as he claws at the Major’s face, ripping off his glasses and punching him as hard as he can. “I want him back! You have to! You have to–”
Fireworks explode all around him, red and blue reflected in the Major’s eyes. The sound is deafening, (rockets red glare) and then there’s something falling from the sky. A loose firework, maybe, careening towards the ground. Ray leaves gashes in the Major’s face, hoping the explosion will kill him and the rest of the crowd. (Bombs, bursting.)
At the end of the tunnel, a mass hurtles through the sky and hits the awning with a sickening crunch, falling in a heap in the middle of the crowd, just past the tanks. This makes him look up. There was a flash of something, flailing arms? His body is numb. He dismounts the Major and pushes off the tank to his left for momentum, stiff legs carrying him as fast as he’ll go. The pain doesn’t matter. He’d crawl if he had to.
Pete is crumpled on the ground next to an unconscious woman he must have hit on the way down. Encasing him are two enormous white objects, looking grey and sickeningly alive in the darkness. Ray falls on top of him. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, Pete, what the fuck.”
Pete’s eyes crack open. He blinks slowly, unmoving except for a shiver of the feathers that span his entire body. “Ray…”
Ray dives into him, tucking his head into his chest as if to shield him. The wings give way to make space for him, unbelievably warm and heavy.
“Oh, Ray. Now what the hell’d you do that for?”
Mile 330.
On the third day in the hospital, Ray climbs into Pete’s bed. He does so without comment. Their beds are right next to each other, Pete’s seeming smaller on account of his newly-gigantic frame. Pete doesn’t say anything about it either, sliding over silently to make room for Ray’s weak body. The nurses gossip about them, but Ray doesn’t mind. The flashbacks had gotten too bad for him to be in his own bed. A practical decision. Survival-based.
At present, they’re multitasking. On a clipboard is the millionth psychiatric assessment Ray’s had to fill out. At this point, he’s making pictures with the little bubbles, which isn’t helping his case. Pete has a scrap of paper on the little tray that extends over the bed, writing with beautiful looping cursive.
“Alright, so 200,000 for your Ma leaves…”
Ray silently adds ears to his rabbit drawing before realizing Pete doesn’t know how to subtract. “50,000” he says softly. He can feel Pete’s chest rising against his back, his arm jutting out to add the number to his calculation.
“And what might you use that for?”
“Let’s leave 20,000 for a house of our own.”
Ray feels Pete’s breath hitch, his trapped wings jittering before stilling again. But he doesn’t say anything, just writes down the amount.
“And the rest?”
Ray sets down his hospital-provided pencil—dull, maybe so he doesn’t kill himself–and turns himself inwards to look at Pete. “I don’t know.”
Pete turns back towards the paper, but Ray grabs his attention again.
“Hey. I think I’m ready to hear your story now.”
He furrows his eyebrows. For the first two days, it’d all been too much. They’d slept alternately, ate little, and cried often, the pain of the Walk still burning in their muscles. Ray had barely talked. He was always physically with Pete, but his mind was somewhere else. Somewhere Pete must have been able to hear at night, when Ray woke up the whole floor with his screaming. Now, Pete slowly clasps his hands around Ray’s middle, his mouth positioned just near Ray’s ear.
“Are you sure?”
Ray shivers and shimmies back into Pete’s grasp, picking up his pencil again and beginning to fill in the boxes. (Have you ever had thoughts of killing yourself?) “Yep.”
The bravado in Ray’s voice is just a thin veneer. Pete squeezes lightly, and Ray goes a bit limp in his arms. Just enough to be noticeable.
“We get to choose who we watch over.”
The hospital hums.
“And there’s not a lot of us, either. It’s not like… well,” Pete clears his throat. “Not everyone gets one.”
“Gets one what,” Ray says. It’s not a question—he means to force the truth out.
“A guardian angel.”
Ray’s voice is almost a whisper. “So, the other boys?”
Pete’s silence makes Ray turn his head back to look again. They lock eyes, Pete shaking his head solemnly.
“They just didn’t get picked?” Ray’s voice breaks in the middle. Collie’s singing echoes, as it often does, in his mind.
Pete has no choice but to tell him. “They don’t pick Long Walkers.”
Far tears roll down Ray’s face. They are more conscious than his usual background crying. These are tears straight from Ray’s heart.
“That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
Outside, rain falls softly on the pavement. Pete’s wings draw up and around them, cocooning Ray from the world as he cries.
“But… you picked me,” he sniffles.
Ray feels Pete’s nose in his hair, something clicking right into place just as something else breaks apart a little bit more.
“I picked you, darlin’.”
This elicits a fresh wave of sobs, a mix of gratitude and bitter anger for being alive, and Pete carefully sets their papers on the bedside table. He hums to him softly, trying to drown out the hospital noises. Ray doesn’t remember his mind going fuzzy, drifting off into sleep. But it must happen, because when he opens his eyes to navy-blue darkness, he’s still in Pete’s arms.
With a faint creak and without comment, he goes back to his own bed. Takes out a piece of paper, and begins to write something down.
Mile 332.
Ginnie picks them up in her old AMC Hornet, the brakes squeaking as she thunders to a stop in front of the hospital. After 6 days, the color has returned to Ray’s cheeks, and Pete walks under the rickety hospital awning without crutches or a sling on his arm. They said he’d healed up faster than anyone they’d ever seen. Although none of their other patients had wings.
“Ma,” Ray sidles up to the open passenger side window. “This is Pete.”
The sun is glancing off Pete’s blindingly white appendages, finally unbound by the narrow hospital bed. Ginnie lowers her sunglasses.
Pete has a way of making everyone feel instantly at ease with just a smile. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Ginnie smiles back, shooting a conspiratorial look at Ray that makes him blush.
“You boys hop in the car. I hope there’s enough room for ya back there, Pete.”
“I’ll be just fine, Ms. Garraty.”
“Well, aren’t you an angel.”
Mile 363.
Ray fiddles with the chipping red paint on the balcony that hangs over the screened-in back porch. He wonders if this is what Pete felt like, up wherever he was. He decides to shout down to the man chopping wood in the backyard. But not before just one more second observing the muscles in his biceps. His left hand fidgets with a piece of paper.
“Hey, Pete!”
Pete straightens and looks up at him, smiling and shielding his eyes from the sun with his hands.
“What did it look like? Up there?” Ray points a finger at the sky for emphasis. Faintly, since he’s far away, he can hear Pete laugh. They both look up at the blue sky, scattered with a few clouds today, bordered by the trees that in turn touch their house. As he looks, Ray feels a familiar pang of heartache. He tries to make out faces in the clouds, just like he feeds every bird and squirrel that comes by. Just in case.
When he looks back down, Pete is looking at him. “Everyone looks beautiful from up there,” he calls back.
Ray hums. “You think the guys are up there?”
His throat constricts on “guys.” In another world, that’s just what they are. “The guys,” the ones Ray plays poker with. He knows that’s not even true—in another world, they are strangers. Pete takes a breath before hauling his axe back up.
“Yeah, they’re up there. I’m sure they are,” he says, in his familiar drawling way. It settles the knot in Ray’s throat temporarily, though he knows he’ll still shed a few tears for them before he goes to sleep. Suddenly, he feels a sharp pain in his fingertip.
“Ow! Goddammit!”
He looks down at his splinter, but only for a split-second before he feels a gust of wind on his face. The axe is lying discarded in the grass, Pete’s entire body hoisted in the air by his enormous wings, which are blowing the hair out of Ray’s face.
He breathes.
Pete’s body looks uncomfortable, shoulders drawn tight and legs kicking slightly. “I–wow, I didn’t…” Pete trails off, looking around. “Wow.”
Ray finds he no longer cares at all about his splinter. The long lines of Pete’s body are accentuated by the way his bottom half hangs weightlessly in the air, shirt pulled up just a little to reveal a sliver of stomach. He crumples up the paper in his left hand and shoves it in his pocket.
“Did… I do that?” Ray says dumbly.
“I guess so,” Pete grins. “Still got my angel instincts, I guess.” His brows furrow, then. “You hurt?”
“Just a sliver,” Ray says. He sticks out his hand. Pete, strong wings still holding him aloft, takes it.
“Ah,” he tuts. He takes the pad of Ray’s finger in his mouth and sucks, which nearly makes Ray take a step back towards the screen door. Surely enough, he releases it and holds the sliver of wood between his teeth, then spits it out. “All better.”
Ray gapes at him, then closes his mouth. Pete looks satisfied, wings lowering him gently to the ground where he retrieves the axe.
“I’ll be in for dinner!” He calls, as if nothing happened.
“Alright!” Ray shouts back, way too loud, possibly with a voice crack. He retreats into the air-conditioned cabin, the sweat on his forehead nearly congealed.
He fumbles for the paper, a piece of hospital note sheet with his chickenscratch handwriting.
Up late in the hospital, while Pete slept (finally, finally) he’d made a little list. He’d separated the paper in quarters. The top two boxes had actions. The top left was for Pete’s friendly, guiding actions: he’d written bullet points like “motivated me to continue walking,” and “makes me laugh.” The top right was for the other things, like “touches me,” and “called me darlin’ once.”
The boxes below those two were for the feelings Pete’s actions elicited. Ray had looked at Pete’s sleeping face, at his wings fluttering like a dog’s legs kick when they’re asleep. In the bottom left, he’d written “grateful, happy, opposite of lonely, relaxed.” He’d paused, knowing that the bottom right was the only one he was really unsure about. He’d felt tempted to draw a big question mark, but knew that doing so would defeat the purpose of the chart.
He had decided to write the first words that came to his mind.
The first word on the chart was “butterflies.” He feels giddy when Pete touches him, incredulous that a man of Pete’s caliber would go out of his way to get his hands on him.
However, the next word was “unsure.” Unsure, that is, of Pete’s intentions. Was he duty-bound to satisfy Ray? Was that the only reason he’d touch him? He shivers, again, at that particular thought.
The third and final word was “excited.” Both literally and euphemistically, a double meaning which had made Ray smile when he wrote it. But “unsure” came to strike again as the residual heat of the splinter situation curled in his belly—if Pete did in fact only want to be his friend, how wrong was it to feel “excited” in that way? Must he blame himself? After all, it wasn’t like there was anyone else…
Ray shakes his head and puts the paper on his bedside table to add something else to the top left corner. “Angel instincts.” Then, after a pause, something else in the top right. “Sucked out my splinter.”
He sighs. At one point, all he’d wanted was to not be sad anymore, for his grief to lighten up and give way to normalcy. And now he’s healing a bit each day, just like the hydrangeas his mother planted in front of the house he and Pete live in together. But his new normal felt far from it—with every second he wasn’t reliving his trauma, the strangeness of their new living arrangement worried him more and more.
It wasn’t Pete. He wants, no, needs to live with Pete. It’s his wings brushing the floor as he sleeps on the couch in the living room right underneath the loft, leaving the ground floor bedroom unoccupied. It’s breakfast in bed, a handful of times, but the way Pete leaves him to eat alone in his pajamas. It’s settling into the loft, with its queen-sized bed, hearing Pete’s breathing downstairs and falling asleep with something silent and secret lodged in his chest.
Oh, and it’s this, too. The getting hard thing.
He looks down at himself. When did that happen? Had Pete noticed? It had been more and more frequent as life had blossomed in their new place, Ray blaming it on basic biology. But Pete’s axe-wielding and breakfast-cooking didn’t help. It was rare to be able to find some relief. But now Pete was outside, and would be for maybe half an hour more. Ray sits down on the bed.
He feels like a pervert. Is he supposed to think of Jan? He had tried, a couple times, but it always switched course right before… well, right before the end. He presses a palm to his erection, letting out a soft gasp in the empty house. He tries to focus on the sensation, not the person causing it. His knees spread wider on the edge of the bed.
“Mmm,” he hums in relief. This will be over quickly, he knows, his erection straining his jeans deliciously. He cants his hips up into his own palm as if it is someone else’s. Someone with long, slender fingers and a beautiful voice, who will always protect him. Someone who loves him.
Pressure builds, and he tips his head back with it. His hand flies to his mouth as he crudely ruts against his hand, muffling the sound. Before he knows it, warmth is filling his boxers, somewhat disgusting but also so, so good. He hums and pants on the comedown, traces of “thank you” on his lips although nobody is there to thank but himself.
Well, that’s what he thinks until Pete calls from the kitchen downstairs. “Dinner in 30!”
Ray chokes on a breath. “Oh!” comes his garbled response. “I thought I was making it tonight!”
“Shit,” Pete says. “You’re right. But I’m already here.”
“Okay,” Ray warbles. “I’m gonna… shower.”
“Alright!” Pete replies, and Ray stands on shaky legs. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Mile 363.
The sun sets as Pete puts dinner on the table. Ray can disguise his blush with heat from the shower, thank God, but he can still feel it burning his cheeks. He hadn’t heard Pete come in. So what had Pete heard?
Pete sets down a plate in front of Ray. “Monte Cristo,” he says, smiling.
“What?” Ray splutters.
Pete shoots him an amused look. “Don’t tell me you’re picky, now, Ray.”
“Not picky,” he says, leaning in to smell the delicious food. “Just curious,” he grins. Normal, easy.
“A Monte Cristo is a ham sandwich dipped in raspberry jam,” Pete sits down. “And I made a side salad.”
“Wow, Pete,” Ray breathes. “Sounds amazing.”
Pete’s wings ruffle in response, a visible thrill. Ray digs in to avoid eye contact. The unexpected flavor combination is absolutely delicious. It melts his stomach and his heart, smiling involuntarily while eating. “Thank you,” he says with his mouth full.
“Anytime,” Pete says simply.
Ray is about to open his mouth to comment on the feasibility of transporting the couch about 3 miles up the dirt road when Pete says “so. Angel instincts, huh?”
Ray turns his noise into a laugh. “You gonna hit your head on the ceiling every time I stub my toe?”
Pete’s eyes are shining but he doesn’t laugh in response. Instead, he smiles without his teeth.
Ray swallows heavily. “I mean… yeah. They’re really something.”
“It’s the damndest thing,” Pete flexes his hand in front of his face. “Couldn’t explain it.” He catches Ray’s eyes, intense.
Ray can hear himself chewing his sandwich, uncomfortably loud. “Oh yeah?”
“It’s not my mind. My mind doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in yours.” His voice drops an octave, then. “But my body. My body feels when your body is… upset.”
“Oh,” is all Ray says. He gulps down orange juice, a drink his mother would never let him have with dinner but that Pete takes great joy in keeping constantly available.
“Mhmm,” Pete hums. “When you pricked yourself, it was like adrenaline to every part of me all at once. I didn’t have a choice but to go to you.”
The diminishing light in the dining room makes the glow of the lantern they keep on the table seem brighter in Pete’s dark eyes. Ray can almost imagine a flickering candle glow, the way the shine seems to shift and sparkle. In turn, his wings fade into the background like silent sentinels.
“And then,” Pete nearly whispers.
God, Ray wants to die. He sniffs just to fill the silence with a sound. Coughs. “That couch up the road–”
“All I’m saying, Ray–”
“Pete.”
“–is that I can feel you. And I can help you. No matter what it is.”
“Aw, Jesus, Pete,” Ray stands up, pushing his chair back from the table louder than he intended. Pete’s coy smile drops as he looks up at him with a mildly fearful expression that makes Ray feel queasy (in a Major way.) He grasps at words. “It’s not—like that. Don’t.”
Pete looks down at his food. “Well, I’m sorry, Ray.”
“We’re even,” he blurts out, trying. “You saved me, I saved you. Even. Done.”
Pete appears to be biting down on a word. He speaks slowly and carefully, as if Ray is a scared animal. “I appreciate that, Ray, but I’m just telling you how I feel.”
The word “but” sends spikes of adrenaline through Ray, his stomach flipping and making him nauseous. “Then I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean–”
“Hey, that’s not f–”
“–to, like, obligate you or anything, God knows I–”
“Ray!”
An electric silence crackles through the room.
“Now you sit,” Pete snaps. His voice is sharper, more lethal than Ray has ever heard it.
His entire body sags into his chair, a forceful depression overtaking him when he sees Pete’s downturned mouth. He stares at his little bowl of raspberry jam miserably. How did this happen? How did they get here?
Pete lets out a long sigh. “Will you please go to the store tomorrow for some more of that cheese I like?”
White-hot shame makes Ray’s head feel like cotton. “Yeah,” he says thickly.
“Alright, Pete says, and serves himself some salad.
Mile 378.
Things calm down after that. They are somewhat affectionate roommates; more things are added to the left side of Ray’s chart than the right. Ray works out a system, since Pete still refuses to take the ground floor bedroom, for releasing tension while the shower is running. Maximum stealth.
It had only been one day after their little argument where Pete did not touch him at all—Ray swore he would die before he woke up the next morning. But the day after that, things were mostly back to normal, Pete touching him casually just like (do you fall asleep after I do?) he used to.
Ray had, however, bought three entire blocks of the cheese Pete liked. A sort of indirect apology. Tonight, after finishing a cheese pasta dish that left both of them feeling like beached whales, Ray lays on the couch with a book. He hears the water for the dishes stop running. With delicate socked feet, Pete sits so that Ray’s feet are pressed up against his thigh.
“Thanks for doing the dishes.”
The situation is uncomfortable partially because Ray has not showered in three days. He shifts slightly on the couch. He had meant to get up and attend to his shower-masturbation combo before Pete was done with the dishes, but he’d gotten too engrossed in his book. Now it’s too late.
“Of course,” Pete says with a slight flutter of his wings.
They both take deep breaths.
The words swim in front of Ray, unable to concentrate as he fights the urge to press his feet further into Pete’s soft body. A disgusting shiver wracks his body at the thought of Pete being able to psychically sense his horniness. The thought of Pete feeling obligated to–
“Shh,” Pete hushes. He has his own book, which he is reading unperturbed. 1001 Nights. Ray huffs.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Pete flips a page. “I do not.”
Ray draws his legs up so they are no longer touching Pete, and tries to focus again. He looks at Pete again. “Which one are you on?”
“The one with the fisherman.”
Ray sets his book open on his chest, peering at the high beams on the ceiling. “Read it to me?”
Pete pauses for a moment, reshuffling himself. He begins to read, a bit slowly. Ray loses himself in the sound of someone for whom the written word was a hard-won prize. Pete’s voice is gentle and rich, adding texture to the story Ray could have never imagined.
In it, the fisherman is lecturing the djinn with the story of a physician who was sentenced to death. It makes Ray’s head spin—Pete reciting Scheherazade reciting the fisherman reciting the dying physician. The stories fold in on themselves.
“The physician on his knees, and bound, said to the king,”
Pete says softly.
“‘At least let me put my affairs in order, and leave my books to persons who will make good use of them.’”
In Ray’s periphery, he sees him cast a worried glance.
“Keep going,” Ray says. “S’all good.”
Pete continues, trepidatious.
“‘Sire, take this book, and when my head is cut off, let it be placed in the basin on the covering of this book; as soon as it is there, the blood will cease to flow. Then open the book, and my head will answer your questions. But, sire, I implore your mercy, for I am innocent.’
‘Your prayers are useless, and if it were only to hear your head speak when you are dead, you should die.’”
Pete pauses. “This book is crazy.”
Ray breathes out. “The king takes the book from the physician.”
Pete’s eyes skim the page.
“And gets his head cut off, but then the head lives and tells the king to flip the pages, even though they’re stuck together and he has to lick his finger.”
He stares at the ceiling, where he notices, for the first time, a broken fan.
“Physician,”
Pete reads in response.
“There is no writing.”
“Turn over a few more pages,”
Ray replies, the words coming naturally to him.
“The king went on turning, still putting his finger in his mouth, till the poison in which each page was dipped took effect.”
Pete gasps softly.
“And he fell at the foot of his throne.”
“Tyrant,” Ray recites from memory. “See how cruelty and injustice are punished.”
There is a pause before Pete keeps reading, faint tears welling in Ray’s eyes that have no particular emotion attached to them. The stories are good. Great, even. He’s happy Pete is reading them. But, of course, the fisherman and the djinn go on for a long while, and Ray’s attention fades in favor of focusing on Pete’s voice.
He’s nearly asleep when he hears Pete pant slightly. His ears perk up. He realizes his knees have shifted to the side, leaning against one of Pete’s wings. He feels the muscle and feather moving slightly underneath him.
“Rejoice” Pete clears his throat. “Your—cruel enemy is dead.”
Something low curls in Ray’s stomach. He shifts his knee slightly, dragging it along the curve of the wing. Pete lets out a heavy breath.
“The prince, oh! thanked him—again and again.”
Ray is hard. Fuck.
“Are your wings,” he clears his throat, voice raspy. “Are you sensitive?” He draws his knees away, but the wing extends slightly in response, the longest primary feather grazing Ray’s stomach.
“Yes,” Pete grits out. “A little.”
Ray breathes from his diaphragm, pushing out his stomach so that it touches the tip of the wing. Pete shivers.
“Sorry, Ray. I’ll—I’ll keep reading.”
Ray sits up straighter on the couch, which also has the effect of moving the tip of Pete’s wing down on his body.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“It’s not like that, Ray,” Pete looks at him, halfway between a plea and a glare. The words are too familiar. He had said them, but he hadn’t meant it.
He realizes now, though. It is totally like that.
Ray pushes himself forward, supporting his weight with his hands as he brings his body closer to Pete’s. His legs are now folded up underneath him, the proximity of his cock to the friction of the couch cushion making him (Goddamn fucking cocksuckers) somewhat delirious.
“Pete, I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to… to help me, with anything.”
Pete looks straight ahead, worrying his lip.
“You’re not my angel anymore.”
He snaps to the side, a flash of genuine sadness in his eyes. Ray flounders.
“Uh, I mean…”
“You’re right,” he stares.
“Hey, now, Pete.”
“It’s not my responsibility to protect you anymore,” Pete says morosely. Ray catches half a breath between his lips before Pete whirls around to be face-to-face on the couch. It feels ridiculous—both of them teetering on the edge of the ratty sofa on their knees, faces close. “But I still want to.”
So this is happening.
“I–”
“My body wants to, Ray.” His wings flare. “It knows when you’re hurting.”
“But that’s not fair,” Ray breathes. “How am I supposed to know when you’re hurting?”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.” Pete’s slightly parted lips are not helping Ray’s erection. He feels like he’s in a bizarre game of chicken.
“You can’t keep saving me, Pete.”
“Can’t you let me try?”
“No!” Ray hears himself saying. Quite loud, actually. “No, Pete, I need to feel like you need me just as much as I need you. Even though—even if it couldn’t be like that, before.” (He can’t, can't, can't win.)
“I do need you,” Pete replies immediately. He raises himself on his knees, wings blocking out the light of the lamp and casting a shadow over Ray. “I need you, Ray. I need to hear you when you’re sleeping. I need to make sure you’re fed. I need, need you to–” he stops. His eyes, looking down at Ray, are ravenous in a way that almost makes him tremble. His mouth opens and closes, grasping at words. Almost involuntarily, Ray shifts onto his back, leaning against the arm of the couch. Something about the magnitude of Pete’s form makes his stomach swoop.
Pete is still just looking down at him with a mix of fear and admiration, or he could be reading it all wrong and Pete could be disgusted. Only one way to find out. Ray lifts a trembling leg to brush Pete’s wing with his socked foot. The springs of the shitty couch creak in protest as Pete instantly doubles forward at the waist, forehead brushing the top of Ray’s thigh.
“Oh, God, Ray.” Pete’s arm flexes as he holds himself upright, falling just short of collapsing fully onto Ray.
“Oh God, sorry,” Ray flusters, Pete’s head almost touching the embarrassingly visible tent in his pants. But for some reason, he doesn’t stop. He can’t. And he isn’t really sorry. It’s an insatiable curiosity, a scientist’s search for the truth in the way Pete curls further in on himself.
Ray hears himself talking in a small voice. “So you heard me?”
“Yes,” Pete pants. “I hear you all the time, baby. Makes me crazy.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
Ray moves his hand to the slits his mom had cut in the back of all of Ray’s too-small shirts, custom-fit now for Pete’s appendages. He fingers them open, dancing on the place where the skin over Pete’s scapula interlaces with stark white feathers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t,” Pete grunts. “Want to make you uncomfortable.”
Ray hums, heart racing a million miles per hour. He’s thinking with his dick, mind completely blank except for touch touch touch touch. He scratches lightly with his nails, feathers even softer than he imagined all those times he–
“Wait, Ray, wait.”
Ray stops instantly. He doesn’t move his fingers or his legs, not even to withdraw them, just laying them perfectly still as Pete breathes hard against him. Fuck.
“Did I–”
“No, it’s just–”
“Oh, Pete, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” The words don’t really even register.
“No, Ray.”
Ray wasn’t listening at all. “You can– we can forget this happened, if–”
“Ray.”
There was that voice again, the one from dinner a few weeks ago, sharp as broken glass. Ray shuts up.
Pete lifts himself, face flushed. “I need–”
“Yes,” Ray breathes, because his Pete needing anything is good. Having a need means Ray can do something to fill it.
“I–” Pete looks embarrassed, something Ray has never seen before. Maybe when that pretty nurse pulled the blanket off him sleeping in his underwear with the heart print. But Ray had only heard about that afterward. Otherwise he’d know what Pete looked like with underwear. “I pictured this going differently.”
Pete scooches back on the couch, their bodies now fully separated. Ray can only hold on. The material of the couch is scratchy underneath his hands, which now have nothing to do. “Okay.”
Pete smiles softly and sits on his haunches in front of Ray.
“Raymond Garraty.”
“Aw, jeez.”
“Will you come to bed with me?”
Ray’s entire face feels like a fire hydrant. Red, wet, pressurized. But his stomach feels like an explosion of the most beautifully-colored butterflies in the world.
“Yeah, Pete. I will,” he says breathless.
“Alright,” Pete flashes that dazzling smile, essentially Ray’s reason for being. He stands up, off the couch. “Let’s get to it, boy.”
Ray wants to ooze off the couch like slime. Pete grabs his hand and pulls him up.
“Properly, now.”
Ray follows him up the stairs to the loft, Pete’s wings swaying tantalizingly in time with his hips.
He can feel himself leaking into his boxers.
The muted colors of Pete’s wings and skin match nicely with the quilt on the bed, a cream, pink, and grey number with pastel turquoise flowers arranged using geometric shapes. He kneels on it tentatively, Ray standing against the ledge of the loft picking at the skin by his fingernails. God, Pete is gorgeous.
“I said come to bed, not stand by, Ray.”
“What, I don’t blend in with the wallpaper?”
Pete stares him down with a mix of admonishment and admiration. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want, Ray. I’ll just grab my PJs and–”
“No, no,” Ray surges towards the bed. They sit together like teenagers. “No.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Pete smiles. He leans forward, and suddenly Pete’s scent is all around him, the warm wetness of his lips crashing into Ray’s.
Ray didn’t kiss Jan much. Most attempts ended in mutual embarrassment, even though he loved to peck her on the cheek or the arm. This is entirely different. This time, it feels like Pete is trying to consume him, his mouth working deeper and deeper inside Ray’s. Tasting his spit feels like a dream.
“You’re loud, baby,” Pete says in between kisses. He grabs Ray’s hips and pulls them even closer. Ray can’t hear himself, has no idea what Pete is hearing. He wants to grab Pete and burrow 50 feet down into the blankets. He puts this energy into kissing back with more gusto, Pete’s wings flaring as a counterbalance.
It’s so good. He grabs Pete’s shoulders and his ears slowly tune back into the words Pete is etching on his cheek and chin. “I missed you, damn I missed you.”
This time, Ray does hear himself moan: a throaty, embarrassing noise accompanied by a wave of heat to his stomach. He’s nearly in Pete’s lap now.
“Pete…”
The man in question maneuvers them until Ray is lying on his back in bed, feeling deliciously exposed. The sheer volume of realizations about himself fade into an incoming tide of pleasure that sees self-doubt wash away. Well, all except one. His voice floats across the room as Pete fiddles with the hem of his wife-pleaser.
“Why’d you pick me,” he says, hazy with the feeling.
Pete doesn’t stop touching him, brushing his knuckles against the smattering of hair on Ray’s stomach. “Well, I s’pose it’s selfish.”
“Hm?”
Pete grins to himself, sardonic. “Just wanted to spend time with a beautiful boy.”
“Oh, God,” Ray shivers. Torture. He’d gone through torture for him.
“That’s right, Ray,” Pete says, pushing his shirt up past his shoulders. “I ain’t feel no pain that whole time, except for the pain I felt watching you sleep and thinking about laying you down somewhere like this.”
Pete kneads Ray’s chest with his hands, and Ray keens. His face is flushed from embarrassment, but the feeling of Pete’s long fingers on his nipples is undeniable. He feels like he’s been hard for hours.
“Please,” he says, in lieu of anything else.
“I’ll get you there, darlin’.”
Pete shucks off Ray’s pants, but keeps his boxers on. He can only imagine the giant wet stain on the front, arms covering his eyes. He’s snapped back to reality by the sound of Pete gingerly removing his own clothing, boxers included. His cock, large and swollen, springs up when he takes off his underwear, and Ray feels a kind of attraction he’s not sure he’s ever felt before. It nearly makes him salivate.
Pete lowers himself down onto Ray, rubbing their cocks together in a pantomime of fucking. Strong biceps bracket in Ray’s head, and Pete’s nakedness feels completely self-assured as Ray continues to leak into his boxers.
“Oh, Pete, won’t you–” Ray wiggles his legs apart, body acting before his brain. He doesn’t even really know what he’s asking for.
“In time, baby. I want to have you like this now.”
Ray’s hips cant up to meet Pete’s, his heavy cock brushing against Ray’s own and making his back arch slightly. Pete lowers himself even further so that their faces are almost touching, burying his face in the crook of Ray’s neck.
“I know you can come in your underwear, Ray. I thought about it a lot. I know that’s wrong. But I thought about you straining against those jeans.”
“Oh, God, Pete, fuck.”
Pete rolls his hips down into Ray, his cock still trapped in the thin material of his boxers.
“I thought about your dirty underwear, yeah. That’s how much I care, Ray. Wanted to clean you up nice.”
A shiver wracks through Ray’s entire body as he thinks of the nights he touched himself silently with Pete sleeping right downstairs. Pete probably heard, oh God. Pete had known this whole time. “Other side,” Ray manages, feeling his face redden impossibly more. Pete stills his thrusts for a moment.
“Other side?”
Ray wants to die. “Like, like…” he tentatively hauls one side of his body up. Pete makes a sound like he’s been punched and finishes the movement, grabbing Ray by the hips until he’s face-down on the bed. “Oh God, yes,” Ray babbles.
Pete ruts his cock against Ray’s ass, pressing Ray’s front into the mattress. All Ray can see is Pete’s flexed wrist and forearm, rippling slightly with each forward thrust. Ray spreads his legs, Pete’s bulge pressing against the sensitive spot behind his balls and his cock humping the mattress deliciously. “Oh, oh, oh.”
“So beautiful, big boy. So—fucking—beautiful,” Pete grunts.
Ray wails. Pete’s broad chest is almost at his back now, covering him entirely. He’d never imagined actually—like this—but Pete’s thrusts are so vigorous and pleasurable that he imagines being full, imagines the sound and the feel. Imagines Pete’s balls slapping against his ass–
“Oh, oh, Pete, Pete!” His voice is warning, enough so that Pete stops and lowers himself down to talk in Ray’s ear. On the way down, Ray can smell the sweat emanating from Pete’s unclothed underarm, which makes him sort of dizzy all over again.
“Yes, dear boy? What is it?”
“I don’t–” Ray struggles for words. “I don’t want it to be over.”
Pete reaches down, burying his arm between Ray’s sweaty stomach and the sheets. He grasps at Ray’s cock, mean, which makes him gasp.
“You need a break, sweetness?”
“Noo-ooo,” Ray hiccups, “maybe.”
Pete presses a kiss to Ray’s cheek, releasing the hand on his cock. Ray struggles between relief and loss.
“How about this,” Pete says, matter-of-fact but undeniably husky. “I make you come like this, we do something else, and then I make you come again.”
Little dots appear in Ray’s vision. “Yeah,” he drawls. “Yes, yeah.”
Again.
With that, Pete resumes rutting against Ray’s ass. This time, Ray isn’t afraid to let the pleasure build. Tears prick in his eyes as warmth pools low in his stomach, a bow drawing back. Above him, Pete is huffing. Ray is struck with the knowledge that Pete’s one goal in this moment is to pleasure him. This gorgeous angel of a man is driving his cock against Ray’s clothed ass, just so he can see him make a mess of his boxers. Holy shit.
Ray comes harder than he has in his life. It fills his boxers with a wet noise, Pete’s thrusts slowing to a deep press that holds Ray against the mattress and doesn’t let him go. Pete, sweaty and glorious, whispers in Ray’s ear the whole time.
“Yes, yes, yes, there you go, perfect.”
“Oh fuck, I love you,” Ray says, a sob hitching in his throat with how good it all feels. The pressure is delightful, Pete’s smell is delightful. Pete mouths at the back of Ray’s neck, pressing wet, open kisses to the sweaty, suntanned flesh there.
“I love you, Ray,” he whispers into the skin.
Mile 378.
The “break” consists of them lying in bed facing each other, naked. Ray’s ruined boxers have been discarded, and the sun has fully tucked himself into the arms of the horizon. Ray runs fingers along the side of Pete’s body: from his shoulder, sloping down to his waist, to the middle of his thigh, and then back again. Pete has one hand under Ray’s cheek, his arm probably fully asleep from the position.
Ray can’t help it—his eyes flick to Pete’s semi-soft cock. It’s still big, the tip shiny with precum. Pete smiles.
“I ever tell you I used to get hard on the Walk?”
“Of course not, Pete.”
He looks hazy in the lamplight. “Well I did.”
Ray hums. “Imagine I’d known that before.”
“I have.”
Ray’s left hand continues its path while his right reaches down to trace a line up Pete’s length. He lets out a gush of air.
“Oh, darling.”
“I had bigger things to focus on.”
Pete’s eyebrows furrow slightly in regret. “I know.”
“But now,” Ray muses. He cracks a smile. Loopy. Love has made a fool of him. “Now I don’t have anything else but you.”
Pete’s eyes are wide like he wants to say something else, but Ray’s fingers at his tip steal the words. All he can do is let out a shuddering breath. Ray has never touched anyone’s cock but his own. He likes the newness.
“Fuck,” Pete turns his face into the pillow. Ray explores a well-trimmed sprawl of dense black hair with his fingers. His confidence mounts with every hitch of Pete’s breath.
Ray diverts his continuous path and sets about tracing the edges of Pete’s wing instead, which makes Pete grab him with both arms. “Oh, oh God, Ray. Baby.”
“Does that feel good?” Ray asks redundantly.
Pete shakes his head vigorously. “Yes, it–” the sentence is interrupted by a sharp gasp as Ray grips Pete’s cock in his hand. He dives into the plush feathers greedily. “Oh–oh my!”
Ray grins shyly, though Pete can’t see him. His eyes are screwed up tight. “Can I use my mouth on you?”
That makes Pete’s eyes fly open. “Are you sure?”
Ray eyes the hard cock in his hands. “Yes.”
Pressure begins through Pete’s fingertips, pushing his shoulders down. They arrange themselves so that one of Pete’s thighs is hitched over Ray’s shoulder, Pete on his back and Ray’s hands still grasping at the tips of Pete’s wings. He stills his motion as he raises his head to look at the cock up close.
His proximity to Pete’s center is dizzying. Everything smells like him. He takes the tip in his mouth and sucks. Pete’s fingers are brushing against his own nipples, mouth parted in ecstasy.
“Just like that, baby, oh, Ray.”
Ray takes him deeper, venturing to swirl his tongue and trying to keep his teeth out of the way. Pete’s length and thickness filling his mouth feels divine—his cock hardens again against the mattress. When he tickles his fingers against Pete’s soft feathers, the man arches his back, forcing his cock deeper down Ray’s throat. Ray splutters and pulls off.
“Oh, Lord almighty, sorry sweetheart.”
“S’alright,” Ray eyes his prize hungrily. Now it’s covered in his spit. His.
“My wings– you feel– it’s so good, honey.”
Perhaps involuntarily, Pete squeezes his thighs, drawing Ray in and brushing his nose against his cock. Ray takes it in his mouth again and hums. Pete is whispering something in between his moans.
“Anything– anything…”
Ray pops off again with a slurp and cocks his head.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, well,” Pete pants. “I just wanted—to let you know, Ray, anything you– anything you want to give me is perfectly okay. We don’t have to–”
Ray chuckles and tries taking Pete to the root. He yelps. Ray can almost make it all of the way, turning off his gag reflex the way he does when he brushes his tongue after eating garlic. He grabs Pete’s arm and directs it to his hair.
“Are you sure?”
Ray swirls his tongue enthusiastically. Pete has trouble forming coherent words. He grips Ray’s hair tentatively and draws him up—spit bubbles behind Ray’s lips and globs onto the tip of Pete’s cock. With a bit of pressure, Pete brings Ray down again. His hands fly to grip Pete’s waist, but he keeps his gag reflex under control.
“Fuck, boy, I’m not going to last!” Pete grits out. He moves Ray’s head somewhat gently, but unmistakably, forcing his head onto his cock. His legs splay out wildly as he bobs Ray’s head for his own pleasure. Ray feels drunk. “I’m– gonna–”
Ray is yanked upwards by his hair just in time to feel hot fluid paint his face. Pete’s cock jerks and bobs as he coats Ray’s flushed expression. He sighs deeply, throwing his head back onto the mattress, and Ray rests his head on Pete’s thigh. Pete leaves his fingers tangled in Ray’s hair, petting him softly.
But it’s not long before Pete regains his senses. “I should have asked you,” he mutters, wiping his come off of Ray’s cheeks.
“I would have said yes,” Ray says simply, satisfied.
Pete hums noncommittally. “Let’s get you in the shower, hm?”
Ray wants to remind Pete about the promise he made to make him come a second time, but figures it’s sort of needy and demanding, so he bites his tongue. He needs a shower anyway. He hauls himself off the bed and trudges to the bathroom, pleasantly surprised when Pete follows him. The bathroom is cramped until Pete sits on the countertop, fully naked, wings tucked into his back.
“I hope you don’t mind me watching?”
Watching. Ray shivers. “Not at all.”
Pete cracks a smile, breaking the post-coital tension. “I love you, Ray.”
Ray blooms. “I love you too,” he says, a bit shaky.
“Wish I could join you, but showering is a hassle with these,” he ruffles his feathers. “I take sponge baths now mostly.”
“Damn,” Ray says. “I’ll sponge bath you.”
“I’ll take you up on that sometime, darlin’.” The pet names slide off Pete easy as anything. Ray’s tongue twists and cramps in comparison.
Ray stands in the middle of the bathroom, suddenly feeling a bit awkward about his nakedness. He’s still half-mast, the promise of another orgasm sticky in his mind. The logistics trouble him. If he showers now…
“What’s got you upset?” Pete asks with a furrow of his brow.
“Um.” Ray clears his throat. “It’s just like. If I get clean I’ll wanna–”
Pete smiles softly. “Stay clean?”
“Yes.”
“And I promised you, didn’t I,” Pete’s voice is gentle and low. “I didn’t forget.”
“Oh, I know, I just–”
“No, I understand.” Pete hops off the counter, holding Ray’s elbows gently. “You’re right.”
“We don’t have to–” Ray hears the words come out of his mouth, but he doesn’t mean them. Pete raises his eyebrows.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes,” Ray blushes. “Yes, so…”
Pete considers for a moment. “I have an idea. An in-between idea.”
“An in-between idea,” Ray repeats. Pete kisses him.
The kiss is slow, loving, passionate. Pete kisses him like he wishes he could punctuate every sentence with it. Ray feels like he’s floating.
Probably because Pete has lifted them five inches off the ground.
They land. Ray is smiling like an idiot. “What was that for?”
“You’re just cute.”
“You’re cute,” Ray fires back. “Gosh, that’s corny. Just tell me your idea before I move to Greenland.”
“I’d move to Greenland with you,” Pete says seriously.
“Your idea, McVries.”
Pete slips his voice into a low, sultry tone, re-settling his shoulders. His wings cup Ray’s lower back, a phantom hug. Ray is getting hard again.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
Oh God. “Please, Pete.”
“I’ll show you how to clean up, then I can fuck you against the shower door, then you can clean up again. No mess,” he punctuates this last bit with a nip at Ray’s neck.
Ray nods vigorously, moaning at the contact. He’s shameless, now. Pete has made him shameless.
Mile 378.
Pete talks him through the process in the shower with a hungry stare, lazily stroking his cock from his perch on the counter, looking for all the world like a hawk. Ray’s sensitive skin blooms red under the hot shower water, but Pete’s stare doesn’t help. By the time he’s done and squeaky-clean, his pale, glistening skin is tight and pink all over.
“There you are,” Pete says lowly under the hiss of the shower. Ray switches it off with a nervous hand. Lord have mercy.
Pete is waiting outside the shower with a fluffy towel, drying him off and licking water off the crook where his neck slopes out into his shoulder. Ray has never felt more pampered in his life. He resolves at that moment to get lavender epsom salt next time he’s at the store, for the sponge bath.
“Your body, baby,” Pete mouths against him. “You’re beautiful.”
Lavender epsom salt and roses and Pete’s favorite chocolate cake.
The room is still steamy and lovely as Pete grabs his waist and kisses him deeply. Purposefully. Ray has never particularly liked his love handles, but Pete holds onto them like the most precious part of him. Ray lets himself be kissed.
“Gonna fuck you so good, baby,” Pete pants as he pulls away. “Will you bend over the counter for me, boy?”
Ray is freezing and burning at the same time. Being bent over sends a spike of naughty adrenaline through his body. So wrong. He complies, of course, without protest. It’s a humiliating position, but the way Pete crowds his body in is intoxicating. He feels a finger near his entrance.
“Woah, where the hell did you get lube?”
“Magic angel powers.”
“Seriously?” Ray turns around to look at Pete.
“No. Stocked every cabinet with some. Just in case.”
“You’re insane.”
“Well, your mom actually–”
Ray cringes. “No, no, no, shut up.”
Pete kisses his shoulder. “You still want this?”
“Please,” Ray says. “Get on with it.”
“Bossy,” Pete quips, and presses a ridiculously long, slender finger inside. The pressure burns for a second, but it is somewhat eclipsed by the insane amount of horniness Ray feels at being bent over and fucked by Pete. “I’ll be gentle, baby.”
“Issokay,” Ray whines in response.
The process is slow, almost unbearable. It only gets Ray more worked up, thinking about the eventual slide of Pete’s cock, how rough he might be able to convince Pete to get. The tile of the countertop is cool against his skin. Pleasant. Pete is satisfied by three fingers, working into him at a vigorous pace. It feels unlike anything Ray has ever felt before. Good.
“You ready?” Ray can hear the smile in Pete’s voice.
“Yes, God, please.”
At with that, he feels Pete’s blunt cockhead at his entrance, pushing in. The stretch is fantastic. Ray feels so full, and Pete’s relieved moans send a shiver down Ray’s spine.
“Fuck, yes,” Pete breathes when he’s fully sheathed. “Can I move?”
“One second,” Ray huffs against the counter. Pete’s hands roam: across his chest, his stomach, his shoulders. The burn of the stretch subsides. “Alright.”
Pete pulls out about halfway. “All I wanted,” he ruts back in, gentle but deep, “was to service you like this. Protect you,” another thrust. “In every way.”
Ray lets out a shaky breath. Pete is holding him by the hips.
“Harder,” he says.
“Yes,” Pete replies. He fucks faster, holding the front of Ray’s hips so they don’t bang against the counter ledge. Ray drops his head. It feels so fucking good. Pete holds his body in place to use it vigorously. “You feel so good, big boy. Oh, God.”
“Feelssogood, Pete, you stuff me full,” Ray babbles.
“Anytime, baby, anytime you need, you just come to me, okay?” Pete huffs in between thrusts, the sound of skin against skin now pervading the tight bathroom. “I’ll give you—oh—give you what you need.”
“Yeah? Yeah?” Is all Ray can say. He hears the words melting into just a sound.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Pete repeats in tandem. “Because I love you.”
“I love you too,” Ray cries. Pete makes him believe it, every thrust hitting his, whatever, spot, perfectly. He didn’t know it could be like this. He’s not going to last. “Angel.”
Pete’s fingers tangle with the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling his head up, not too rough. When Ray looks, he sees himself in the mirror, Pete fucking him from behind. Fuck, the mirror. He looks utterly wrecked, face red as a tomato. But Pete. God, Pete looks gorgeous, face contorted in pleasure as he slams his body into Ray’s. His wings are extended and alert, spanning the entire length of the bathroom.
“Are you close?” Pete rasps. “Can I– what do you–”
“Inside, inside, inside,” Ray says immediately. He doesn’t even consciously know, the words just come. He needs to consummate whatever this is. His angel. His guardian angel. He spreads his legs and puts more of his weight on the counter, Pete fucking him fast and hard. He watches. He watches Pete’s mouth drop open.
“I’m not going to last, I’m– ah–” Pete gasps, and Ray feels his hot come filling him up. His wings extend impossibly more, every feather electrified as he comes. It’s the weirdest and hottest thing ever. Ray comes with a shout against the cold tile countertop. Pete’s cock drools into him for a few seconds, the sticky warmth strange, but not unpleasant.
“Oh, fuck, Pete…” Ray wheezes.
“Was that okay?” Pete sounds genuinely concerned. They make eye contact in the mirror, Pete pulling Ray’s body up and inspecting for bruises from the countertop or his fingertips.
“Yes, yes, Pete, that was amazing.” He’s convinced he’d fall over if Pete wasn’t holding him up. Knees weak, and all.
“Good,” Pete murmurs. “You did amazing. I’ll– I’ll take you to bed, next time.”
He’s never heard Pete sound so trepidatious. “Hey. I said it was amazing.” He whirls around to look at his angel. “I… liked it, kinda rough.”
Pete smiles, soft. “Alright. But–”
“I’d love to do it in bed too. Soft,” Ray spins Pete around, goofy. “Slow, romantic.”
He sees Pete crack open, the joyous creature he knows and loves. “Time for you to shower again.”
“Will you hold my hand?”
“In the shower?”
Ray smiles. He knows he’s being ridiculous. Just to see.
“Of course, Ray. I’ll hold your hand in the shower.”
Mile 389.
They wave Ginnie goodbye, and her car headlights cast long shadows on the walls as they recede out of the driveway. Ray puts away the dishes from dinner, and Pete labels all the leftovers. It’s a pretty efficient system. When he’s done, Pete hugs Ray from behind, his embrace comforting after a rare 4 hours without physical affection.
“I love you,” Pete says for the fifteenth time that day.
Ray cranes his neck to peck Pete on the cheek. “I love you too.”
“Do you want to top tonight?”
Ray’s vision whites out. And he doesn’t stand a chance, not really, not when Pete can use his wings to bodily drag him up the stairs. Pete only wants to protect him, needs to know he’s okay and satisfied more than he needs to breathe. And who is Ray to deny him?
“I’ll be up in two seconds,” Ray responds breathlessly.
He can nearly hear Pete’s grin, feel the whoosh of air as his angel takes off, up to the loft, up to their bed. Hanging on the bedpost: two dogtags. One with a number. One as blank as a fresh start.