He doesn't know where he is, or why he's there, but he's met with a sudden brightness that makes him have to squint. His skin is warmed by some unknown light beating down onto wherever it is that he is, and the soft colors of the.-walls? landscape?-around him add to the pleasant, almost motherly warmth around him.
"Ray."
He turns towards the voice, which is rich and deep and somehow full of emotion, and there's a hand placed gently on his shoulder, fingers splayed out against his skinny frame. And Ray turns around and faces the figure behind him, and suddenly he's choking on tears and throwing his arms around the other boy.
"P-Pete...oh...oh god..." There are so many things left unsaid, so many things that he'd been too stupid and naive to want to say, and all he can come up with are stupid, clichéd movie reunions lines. Pete says nothing in response, tangling his fingers in Ray's hair, and it just feels so good to feel him, to literally feel the emotion between them. It's as though a hole in him is patched up and filled in somehow.
"I...Pete...I'm sorry...I was stupid..." Staring up into the other boy's eyes, the influx of tears that were rising in his throat and he buries his face in Pete's chest, tasting the salt of his own tears against his face. Pete whispers something, and although Ray doesn't hear it through the sobs shaking his body, it's enough just to know that something was said.
And then suddenly it all crumbles, the careful patching up of the gaping hole in his chest where his heart should be ripped open again, and Pete crumbles along with everything else, leaving Ray Garraty to open his eyes and feel the stickiness of tears on his face and the sickening warmth of the pillow clutched against his body.
i claim no ownership to the long walk.