Chapter Text
Garraty’s sock had bunched in his boot again, sliding down into a knot against his heel. He wanted to stop and fix it. God , he wanted to, but he couldn’t. That was the rule. Keep walking, no matter how much it rubbed him raw. He told himself it was just a sock, just a blister, nothing worth thinking about. But the sting spread anyway, needling up his calf, digging into his head. It felt like everything lately did: small, stupid, unbearable once you realized it wasn’t going away. He clenched his jaw, forced his stride steady, and pretended he wasn’t limping.
Mile twenty-six.
Out of the corner of his eye, he felt McVries approaching, moving with that infuriating ease that marked him golden in a pack of weary boys. Garraty had been counting the miles, watching the pack thin, watching McVries’ practiced form stay unscathed while bodies fell behind them. Everything he saw on the road sitting like stones in his pockets.
They didn’t have anyone like McVries in his hometown. Nobody who carried that light, nobody who moved like him, nobody who made Garraty feel simultaneously invisible and aflame.
“You’re favoring your left,” McVries said finally, voice deceptively casual. “Heel giving you trouble? Or just that guilty conscience catching up?”
Heat climbed Garraty’s collar. He wanted to spit mind your own business, but it lodged instead, heavy. McVries never let up. The worst part was that he wasn’t wrong.
And McVries was always observing him, weighing him, sizing him up. It made Garraty feel like pebble on the endless road. But he didn’t mind, honestly. Company was a luxury.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Garraty muttered, eyes forward, trying to make the road the only thing in focus.
But he knew where his focus was straying.
XXX
By mile twenty-seven, the asphalt had become a furnace, and every step scraped at Garraty’s feet, every nerve screaming exhaustion. McVries’ grin glimmered above it all, untouchable, effortless like the sun had chosen him to wear it.
Every time his shoulder brushed Garraty’s, the world narrowed to that single, incendiary point of contact. Too casual to be anything, he told himself.
“You look like hell,” McVries said, low, teasing, voice pressing against the base of Garraty’s skull. “Sweating in all the wrong places.”
“I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine, though. His legs were screaming, his back ached, and his heart was doing something unfamiliar,pirouetting off his ribs a mile a minute. Hah.
McVries’ golden grin caught the sunlight, unshakable, effortless. The road faded to gray noise. The Walk’s cruelty receded. Garraty found himself drawn into it, letting his eyes linger longer than they should.
McVries was… impossible to ignore, really, just, built different. And he was something to focus on, something that demanded his attention, had it on lock apparently.
McVries’ proximity pressed against him, like space was underfunded. “Fine, huh? You sure about that? Your sock is all bunched up, your left foot is dragging, and you’re sweating like a busted faucet. Classic look for a winner.”
“Stop noticing things,” Garraty hissed, pulling his hat lower, kicking the asphalt like the road could absorb the heat crawling up his neck. He knew a blush when he felt one, even in this muggy weather.
“Noticing things?” McVries echoed, laughter tucked low in his chest. “I’m just talking. Wouldn’t want you to think I don’t care.”
Garraty’s stomach did a weird flip, and he tried to shake it off like a dog shedding water. He didn’t want care. Care was dangerous. Care made you weak. Care made you want things you couldn’t have. The word ignited a gnarly, debilitating, wanting flame in his chest.
“Conversation,” he spat the word tight, teeth pressed together, “like soldiers have while walking to their deaths.”
“Exactly,” McVries said, his grin sharp and bright. “Friendly chatter. Totally normal.” Normal wouldn’t keep his focus more than his girlfriend ever had. “Something better than the road.”
“Something better than the road,” Garraty received, tasting it. Maybe it was.
“Just us, no road.” Garraty’s chest swelled, oddly, unusually, queerly. “Keep looking at me, Maine.”
He said it with sunlight in his hair, with a titled grin, made Garraty’s chest feel too full and too empty at the same time. Maybe he didn’t need to be fine. Maybe he could follow McVries.
Maybe he could let the road blur away.