A pain had developed in Garraty's chest, and he wasn't so sure it was from walking anymore. It was the pain of hearing how easily McVries switched persona to cover up the fact that he was hurt and desperate, and the pain of seeing Barkovitch's weak, dirt-streaked face as Garraty waspishly asked him if he wanted to touch him too.
That was really what he was carrying with him, what was making walking so much more difficult. With every step, he heard Pete's voice in the back of his mind whispering would you let me jerk you off? and maybe I am queer for you, maybe that's why I saved your ass. And it made him feel sick, it made his organs slosh around and his head swim because of Jimmy Owens and oh god...oh god...
"Pete, why'd you do it?" He looked around for McVries and spotted his shadowy figure in front of him.
"Why'd I do what?"
"Why'd you try to touch me?" His voice quivered and he bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood, because that powerlessness turned the queasy feeling in his gut into a dirty, wrong feeling.
Pete laughed-Pete would laugh, he always laughed when he particularly hated himself, at least that was what Garraty had found-and moved closer to Garraty. "You want to know why, Ray? You really want to know?"
"If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked."
Pete laughed joylessly again. "Well, Ray, see, it's because I'm in love with you."
Garraty just stared, suddenly finding that his hands were shaking and he was sweating. There'd been no stuttering, no blushing, just I'm in love with you. No mixed metaphors or cryptic comments, it was just a blunt confession and somehow that made it worse.
The best reply Garraty could come up with was a gulped "Oh."
"That's all you've got to say? Oh? Maybe I should elaborate. I'm in love with how stupid and naive you are, and how you don't even see what's right in front of your face, and how you're the shittiest liar in the world and the way your hair looks when it's windy and that little half-grin you do when you're trying not to laugh and-"
"P-pete..."
The other boy sighed. "I'm such a fucking sap. I used to read Keats to my girlfriend, you know. I think I told you that. I'd kiss her fingers, too. And here's the stupidest part, I never loved her. I thought I did, but I sure as fuck didn't."
His childhood suddenly flashed before Garraty's eyes, suddenly there was Jimmy Owens and his mother scolding him and telling him that she'd make him walk down the street naked. He hadn't known it at the time, but what she'd really been saying was I will show everyone the way you want your friend to touch you, I will show everyone that you want to be touched by another boy, and you will never be safe again.
Pete looked around, then continued. "See, I sometimes wonder if love really exists. We think it does, sure, I bet you think it does, all those poets and writers think it does, but does it, really?"
Garraty finally found the strength to say the words he'd been trying to get out. "If you...if you really love me, or at least you think you do, are you glad that you joined this thing? Are you willing to die for me?" The sentences felt selfish and wrong in his dry throat.
"You know what, I am glad I joined this thing. Because I'm going to die anyways, so why not now? Love's tiny compared to death. It doesn't mean a thing, you can love somebody as much as you want and they can still be fucking dead."
Garraty felt the hole in his chest expand, and he swallowed hard. "You don't understand, Pete. Love's supposed to be happy. You're supposed to...love being loved, I guess."
"You're precious, Ray. You really are." Back to the cryptic comments that Pete constantly put up as a shield when he either didn't want to admit something or wanted to admit something and didn't quite know how. "But the real question here is, do you feel the same way about me?"
He thought of the way Pete laughed and the way he saved his life again and again and again and just how phenomenally differently Pete treated him compared to the other people in his life. "I...do."
This is wrong, you are sick, you are a sick, sick person, you have Jan, why would you admit to something like this? You love Jan, or like Pete said, you cared about her enough to pretend you did.
Pete smiled that slanted smile that Garraty had so often wanted to slap off of his face. "You do? What, are we getting married? Say, that's a good idea. We could make Stebbins the preacher. I'm sure he'd be game."
Garraty laughed, and a few of the other boys looked up from their walking slumbers. He thought he heard Collie Parker chuckle, but it might have been Stebbins. "Yeah. Right. That'll work."
Pete cleared his throat and mimicked Stebbins' monotonous voice. "I now pronounce you husband and husband. Now please desecrate the sanctity of marriage and have sex."
"You do a pretty good Stebbins impression." The discomfort and overall wrongness of the situation somehow seemed not to matter anymore, because it wasn't just a boy, it was Pete. And he had the right to be in love with Pete, because after all, he'd dropped enough hints and reciprocated, so what was wrong with that?
"He's a fucked up guy, I'm a fucked up guy, we're pretty similar." He grinned and wrapped an arm around Garraty's waist. McVries splayed his fingers out against Garraty's hipbone, sending warmth up his body.
"Pete?"
"What?"
"We're gonna die, right? I mean, we might not, but we're most likely going to die on the road here and get shot and have our brains go all over like Curley's did, right?"
Pete raised his eyebrows. "Correct."
"I've decided that I don't really care." Ironically, the sound of somebody taking a warning broke the almost surreal silence of the night. "If we die here, well, we'll have lived long enough and done enough to count for at least something." And if I die, I won't have to worry about Jan or Jimmy Owens ever again.
"And I'll have died with you."
Garraty snorted. "You're right, you are a sap."
That was when Garraty decided that if love didn't exist and it was all in their heads, then they had some pretty damn good imaginations.
i claim no ownership to the long walk