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Peter had the carbine. He held it in his shaking hands and aimed it at the Major.
"You haven't done anything wrong, son. You haven't done nothing yet." He sounded like he was underwater.
Everything was underwater. Everything seemed fake. Ray was dead. Ray was dead and he had a chance to kill the man responsible for it. Responsible for the death of all his friends. Would it change anything? Would they just replace the Major with another man in dark sunglasses? Would the long walk stop? And if it did, would the world be better? Would all the boys who would have signed up for it starve to death? Kill each other out there in the world? Did it matter? Ray was dead.
Ray was dead, and his body was still laid out on the middle of the street. Road kill. With the people crowding around him like vermin.
Ray was dead, and it didn't matter if things would change.
Hank's last words rang on his ears. "I did it wrong". They all had. He should have stayed down. He should have carried Ray for as long as it took. They could have walked forever. He would walk a million miles more to hear Ray's voice again.
Peter shot the Major.
He closes his eyes and he immediately feels a difference. His body feels well rested for the first time in five days. He feels fresher, cleaner, a blank slate in every sense of the word. And where the wet clothes stuck to his skin in the rain now they seem new again. He keeps his eyes closed, thinks, or perhaps hopes that he's dead. That he'll finally get to rest.
And then he hears him.
"I'm Ray Garraty. You can call me Ray."
And he opens his eyes to blue sky and the sun shining down on his face. And twice as bright as the sun, Ray Garraty sits beside him in hard asphalt as he did that first day. Five days ago. A thousand years ago.
And before he can think it through he's throwing his arms around Ray. But he can't kid himself and a thousand years of thinking it through couldn't hold him back now. The fact that he didn't do it then, when they met for the first time is already a miracle. Maybe he already loved him, a thousand years ago.
"Hey! What's going on man?"
"You're alive! Oh my God, you're alive!"
"I think he's going through a psychotic episode. They're not uncommon before the Walk, you know." Hank's voice sounds behind him and he turns from where he is essentially tackling Ray to see him.
"You're alive! Goddammit, Olson, it's good to see you."
"Yeah, he's definitely off in the head."
"He's queer in the head too." Barkovitch sneers, pointing to where he's still firmly clutching Ray. Ray's face shows all of his confusion plainly, but he hasn't pushed him away yet. Hasn't hugged him back either.
"I didn't miss you one bit, Barkovitch."
"How the fuck do you know my name?" And he looks really, fully freaked out right now. "Miss me from where?"
And then, clear and loud, Harkness voice drifts through the crowd.
"The Major!"
And there they are. The procession of soldiers, of carbines, and on top of it all, the Major. Standing on that jeep, clean and well rested and nearly inhuman in how high above it all he stays. Looking down on them.
He's open his mouth now, is screaming about sack or whatever it is he never shuts up about. He remembers what seemed now like a lifetime ago, must have been hours ago, hasn't even happened yet, Ray yelling at him to be quiet. To just stop talking. He remembers the Major's laugh.
He's standing up now, heart beating on his ears. He's dimly aware that Ray has his hand out, as if to catch him if he falls. He must look like a crazy man now, but the thought makes him laugh. Don't worry baby, I'm sturdy as a rock. He's nearly at the jeep when a soldier puts himself in front of him, but the Major is already looking at him. Those goddamned black lenses aimed at him.
"No! No, I won fair and square, you know I did!"
The soldiers are trying to contain him now, but Peter is working himself up more and more and soon he's almost throwing himself at that fucking jeep. There are tears in his eyes and he just can't stomach the thought of walking for another second.
"I Walked! I won! You can't just make me do it again! It's not fair! It's not fucking fair." He's drawing attention and he can see the boys looking at him in confusion, most of them inching away from the confrontation, but Ray is trying to get closer, screaming for the soldiers to stop. 'He doesn't even know my name'. The thought comes unbidden, a messy emotional thing Pete doesn't wanna think about. He's pushing it away from his head, pushing it all away, when he sees the tell tale sign of a carbine being lifted.
The Major gives him a smile.
"I'm Ray Garraty. You can call me Ray."
That's how it starts.
Pete doesn't get up for the Walk for the next six loops. He doesn't tell anyone his name, doesn't get his dog-tag and gets shot before the Walk even starts properly. The Major always watches him, and he always smiles when the shot goes off. Ray always tries to stop it.
It's on loop eight that he decides to Walk for a while. It's only to keep an eye on the Major, and he still doesn't speak to anyone. He watches Curly get his leg cramp, Barkovitch bait Rank into swinging for him one too many times, he even catches what might be the first cough out of Stebbins' mouth.
The Major is impassive as always, screaming at all of them about how brave they are, telling them to Walk with purpose, telling them anyone who dies didn't want it hard enough. Pete hates him. But he also can't seem to pinpoint anything different from that first Walk. He Walks near the jeep the entire time and he feels the Major's eyes on him the whole time, but with those fucking glasses, it's impossible to tell for sure.
He walks near the jeep the whole time.
He doesn't realize until he hears it.
"First warning, number forty-seven."
Ray falls asleep that first night. They're getting closer and closer to that incline, and without Pete there, Ray might still be asleep for it.
He's scanning for the boys around him, the darkness seemingly getting worse and worse as he just desperately looks for a head of ginger hair or a green sunhat. He needs to find Ray, can't bear the thought of him getting his ticket now. 'He's dreaming about his mom.' He thinks, half coherent. 'It's not fucking fair'.
"Second warning, number forty-seven"
Pete's frantic now, running in between the other boys, incline completely forgotten in his rush to get to Ray. His legs burn with the effort, but he barely feels them. He hears that horrendous laugh now, booming all around them as if coming straight from the sky. Straight from the earth. Maybe the Major's the Devil. Maybe that's how he's granting wishes. He takes your soul and leaves you to Walk.
"Now that, boys, is determination!" The Major booms. His voice almost conceals the third warning, and Pete knows, deep in his stomach that He did it on purpose.
And then he sees him. Standing still while the other boys try to Walk around his figure. His eyes are closed, and Pete registers that he's smiling. A soft, unburdened smile. 'He's dreaming about his mom.' He thinks again.
A carbine goes up next to his head.
Pete screams.
The Major's still laughing.
Here's what Peter McVries knows about the Walk loops. If he dies, he goes back to the beginning. If Ray Garraty dies, he dies too. The second Ray's body touches the pavement, Pete has no strength left to walk. It might seem subjective near the first piece of knowledge, but it might as well be church canon for him. If Ray isn't Walking, Pete's feet don't move an inch.
Everything else is harder to understand. Trying to keep anyone else alive for long is a study of a Rube Goldberg machine of death. If he acts friendly with Barkovitch before the walk starts he can get him to back off of Rank, and the scrawny kid doesn't swing. If he warns Harkness about the incline, he stays alert for longer in the first night and his ankle doesn't twist, but only if Pete says he got the geographical information from Ray. If he hides his cigarettes instead of offering them up, Art's nose bleeds are delayed for another hour.
There are things he can't stop, or at least can't think of a way to stop them. Hank always loses his mind. Stebbins always gets sick. The kid from mile sixty-seven always has diarrhea. Pearson always has an asthma attack in the incline, and he always carries someone down with him. Curly always dies first.
If Ray dies, the Major laughs at him. If Pete dies first, he gives him a smile.
He keeps the information on his brain and he tries again and again. He doesn't stop walking.
"Do you think this is hell?" He asks Collie on loop twenty one.
They're nearing the end now, just the four of them, Art dead for no more than two hours. Soon they'll see Ray's mother. Soon, Collie will get sick of it all, try to grab the carbines and call on them for help. Pete has already decided that he's doing it this time. If might not make a difference, but what difference does that make to him? One way or another he'll be back at the starting line soon, so he might as well get the satisfaction of shooting a couple of the sadistic soldiers.
"I don't really believe in hell." Collie says.
"I didn't either." Pete looks over at Stebbins, nearly dead on his feet, still walking, still looking up at the Major. Still trying to be the rabbit. "Not until I started Walking."
"I guess- if it would look like anything, it would look a lot like this."
It's the thirtieth loop, and Pete is dragging Ray away from his mother, kicking and screaming.
He thought he would be used to it, but he's not. It's the only warning that has remained exactly the same every single time. When Ray sees his mom, he starts going for the sidewalk.
He's crying in his shoulders, going against Pete's steps as he tries to drag Garraty away.
"I can't do it, Pete, I don't think I can do it." He says in between sobs, with a shaking voice that makes him think of long gone confessions of love and the smell of blood. "I did the same thing my dad did, I'm gonna make her see them kill me, I should have stayed in the fucking car!"
"You have to. You have to keep going, because if you drop I drop, you hear me?" Garraty looks up at him. "Do you want me to die, Ray?"
"No!" He answers immediately.
"Then you gotta keep Walking."
There's a second of silence then. Every loop they get this far, Pete tells him the story of the scar. He keeps it vague and bland, something to keep Ray Walking, so simple he doesn't have to think about what happened. Not what really happened.
"You've been Walking for five days, Ray, I've been walking my whole life. My parents, they died in the war. I was just a baby when I was sent to live with my uncle, and he was not a good man. He got violent when he drank and he drank every day of the week that ended with a 'y'."
It's more honest than he's ever been before. He can see him now, smell the alcohol in his breath, in his clothes. Smell the house, foul and rank, but whenever Pete tried to clean it, even the smallest bit, he would call him a sissy for it and beat him with his belt. They shift in each other arms, Ray shouldering some of their weight.
"He drank himself to death, and it's not a good thing to say, Ray, but I was so glad he did. I was so glad he was dead. And it's not like things got any better after he was gone, when I was hopping from couch to couch, when I could find any couches to speak of, or sleeping in the street when I couldn't, but at least he wasn't there anymore. At least when I had no one I knew exactly where I was standing."
Ray is silent next him, Walking with a certainty in his steps that Pete recognizes as rage. Ray's angry for him, angry for the things he's been through. But he doesn't know the half of it.
"And then I got that job. The Plymouth Sleepwear factory. I thought things would be better. Would start looking up. But it smelled like fuel and it burned like an oven and they had us at our feet the whole day, and that wasn't even the worst part. The worst pat is that it was piece work. We got paid for every piece we made above the bare minimum and I wasn't good at meeting the bare minimum. And that meant that no one down the line was able to make piece work and they all hated me. The work was miserable and the company was worse. And I thought, at least I'm not in the street anymore, but a room with six boys crammed in it wasn't better. It was dry enough but they hated me too, and they made that known. No one wants to share a room with a fag."
There. It was out of his mouth now, not as a joke, not as a jab. Just a fact. He knew he was queer and they had known then too, smelled it on him like he was dirty. Like he was sick. In his arms he feels Ray tense, but he doesn't step away from Pete. McVries knows that if he let's his arm go now he'll drop to the ground like a sack of cement. He'll never open his mouth again and he might never start Walking afterwards. But as stiff as he is, Ray keeps his arms around Pete, and he keeps them Walking.
"That's when I met him. There at the factory. He was nice and he was kind and he helped me get the hang of things so I started getting work done. Getting work done meant the boys hated me a little less, even if they didn't like me. Getting work done meant having a life for the first time. He gave me a whole life. And I thought I loved him for that. I thought he was my friend."
The word hangs heavy in between them. There's a pit where his stomach used to be. There's a staggering in his steps and he thinks this is it. That's what vulnerability always got him, isn't it? It only gets him killed. But Ray is holding him and no warning rings for them; He doesn't let them slow down.
"Then rumors started up in the factory floor. That I was sweet on him or that I had gone down on him for the help with the work. And he wouldn't look at me after that. He never even had the guts to say it to my face, he just dropped me like I was nothing. I just wanted him to get the fucking guts to tell me that that was why. So I chased after him. I picked that fight. Right there at the factory floor, as soon as the shift was over. It was my fault. And he grabbed a box cutter, the ones we used for cloth and he—"
"Pete." Ray says, and it's only a whisper but he hears it louder than any of the gunshots.
He finds the strength to look up at Ray's face for the first time since he started talking. Since he decided, after seeing Mrs. Garraty for the thirtieth time that he wanted to tell Ray the truth about what happened. And he realizes that Ray is still crying. Not the heaving desperate sobs of a little boy reaching for his mom, but an angry silent cry, tears streaming down his face and leaving streaks where the dust clings to his skin.
"I want to kill him. I want to reach across time and put my hands around his neck and make him beg for any kind of mercy. I want to deny him that."
Reach across time. What a concept.
"You don't get it, Ray. He grabbed me and he cut me open like I was a failure because I was a failure. Because there's no other version of this story. Because if he hadn't, someone else would. He had every right to right to ruin my life because he was the one who had given it to me."
"That's not true!" Ray says, and his arm tightens around Pete. "You're not a failure. You're this amazing, funny, kind person and I would've been dead from the start if it wasn't for you."
"I'm not kind, Ray. That's the point. It's easy to see the world through rose colored glasses, to talk about how these moments matter, because the big picture doesn't. When all of that happened I realized that it didn't matter. Not to me. That I was never gonna have a life. Not a real life. And if none of the good stuff is real, then why would the bad stuff be? You just watch as the world passes by, and you sit outside of it and eventually you realize that none of it mattered at all."
He looks at Ray, angry, righteous Ray, who feels so much for the world, even when he thinks it doesn't deserve it.
"I make everything into a joke, and I look only at the bright side of things because if I don't, I'll go mad. Maybe I've gone mad that day, at that factory floor. It doesn't really matter does it? Until I met you, it was all just noise. Just a fake, pretty picture to paint while I got ready to die. Until I met you, Walking until I got tired and just sat down sounded like a damn good idea."
In his face, Ray's anger shifts and twists into something different. Away from the world and directed at Pete.
And then the impossible happens. It's gentle and deliberate and so, so achingly slow, but Ray leans in and presses a kiss on his lips. It's soft and it's over in just a second, his lost footing corrected swiftly by Ray's arms, still tight around him. There's no jabbing from the boys around them, no wolf whistles or name calling, and it takes a second for Pete to realize that that's because there are barely any boys around them. It's only them and Collie and Stebbins now, and the other two are much to busy with the ever evolving challenge of not dying.
"Maybe one day you'll understand how much you matter, Pete. Once you've won this thing and you're old and gray, you'll look back and realize you've lived a whole life. A real life, and it might not have been good all the time but it was always, always yours. Maybe you'll remember me for a second there and you'll know how important that life was for me. You were the best part of mine."
And there's so much he wants to say to that. That he was never meant to win this. That he won't grow old or gray, that when they stop Walking, he'll go back to the beginning and do it all again. That having Garraty with him makes it all worth it, even his life.
He doesn't say any of that though.
He just leans in and kisses him again.
He kisses Ray Garraty every single loop after that.
It's around loop forty something, after the worst of the high noon sun has passed on the third day, when he says it.
"You wanna marry me, Garraty?"
He catches the boy before he has time to stumble. He's never asked before, but he feels like he spent a lifetime watching Ray at this point. He knows when he's tired and when he's happy and when carrying Pete will be more helpful to his mind than being carried. By the time loop twenty-six came around, Pete had shaved off half of their warnings.
Ray turns to look at him like he grew a second head, but he never falls behind 3 mph.
They had kissed pretty early on this loop, Pete testing the waters that first night, after Ray asked him if he had a girlfriend. At the early morning of the second day, while most of the boys rested their eyes, Pete had given Ray a kiss.
Right now he must have decided that Pete's going crazy or just saying something for the sake of filling the silence, because he just rolls his eyes and tells him to shut up. It's good natured if a bit awkward, and Ray's smile is outlined by his red cheeks. They're on the back of the line now, still keeping pace.
"What, do I need to get down on one knee to get a real answer?"
"You need to ask a real question to get an answer, Pete, that's usually how it works." He's still trying to laugh the proposal off.
Pete drops down on one knee in the middle of the road with the grace only someone who has been doing this infernal Walk for over half an year could muster.
"Warning, number twenty-three."
Ray's doubling back and dragging him up within a second.
"Are you fucking insane?! You're gonna get a warning over a joke? Are you kidding me right now?"
"It's not a joke." He says and his voice is dead serious. Maybe it won't matter in the long run. Ray will forget all about it when one of them dies and the Walk starts over. But Pete has started to believe again in what he told him a lifetime ago, or two days ago. These moments matter. He pulls his dog tag out of his shirt and holds it out to Ray. "Ray Garraty, will you marry me?"
"I…" And Ray's red as a tomato and Pete's decided he wants to propose to him every time, needs to see him blush as often as possible. His voice is rushed and he keeps looking up at the other boys further down the road. He pushes the dog tags back into his neck. "We're in the middle of something if you haven't noticed."
"Oh I've noticed it alright. We could be dead by this time tomorrow." We're dead already. But dead with him was better than whatever could come after, so he keeps his mouth shut about it. "So, why not get married? I wanna make an honest man out of you, Garraty."
Garraty's face is soft and red when he looks up at Pete again. He looks sad more than anything else. As if he needed to tell a child that Santa Claus isn't real.
"We can't get married, Pete." His voice is a whisper.
"We can do whatever we want, Ray." He looks up at McVries and he knows that he'll do anything, say anything, to see Ray reach that finish line every time. "As long as we don't stop Walking."
"I…" And here it is. Like every other time Pete has said something crazy or nihilistically optimistic, he's won Ray over by sheer force of will. "How would we even do it?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's not like we have wedding bands right now."
"We have our dog tags. We have the wire the rations are wrapped with or the lids of our canteens. We don't need literal rings, Ray, just something of each other."
"And the party? We can't have a wedding without a party. We don't have any food for that kind of thing."
"We don't need anything flashy! We can get everyone to sing, and we'll all dance and that'll be our party."
Ray was smiling now, properly entertained by Pete's antics. His cheeks still flushed, soft eyes and a teasing smile.
"And a wedding night?"
"No! You cannot do this to me right now!" He laughs. "You know if you asked me I'd stop right now. In the middle of the road, anywhere for you."
"I wouldn't ask." Garraty whispers. "I would never ask for that."
And Pete knows that. Remember dropping down on one knee ages ago, being hauled up to keep walking.
"We'll get a wedding night once we finish this. Once we get to wherever we're going." And he means it. Ray has given him hope that he's not just doomed to keep Walking forever. Some hope that there's gotta be something on the other side. He takes Ray's hand in his, slow and discreet. "So? What do you say? You wanna give these folks something to remember?"
"Sure." He sighed, a shy smirk half hidden in his voice. "Why the hell not?"
"Hey!" Pete shouts to the others and picks up the pace, still holding Ray's hand firmly in his. It's soft and his fingers slot perfectly in between Pete's. He wants to hold that hand forever. "We've decided it's time for a wedding!"
"What are you talking about?" Art's exhausted voice responds.
"We're getting married! I've decided that's good for morale."
"Who's getting married?" Collie asks. "Good for whose morale?"
"Me and Ray. And it's good for everyone's morale." He squeezes the hand he's holding. "Mostly ours though."
"Shut up, oh my God!" Ray laughs. He's still beet red.
"How would your fag-wedding be good for our morale?" Barkovitch asks. Rank died around mile eighty without any input from the blonde, which means he's almost bearable in this loop. Not as twitchy at least.
"Because, it would give us something to think about other than the fucking road. Besides, we'd be making history." He turns to Harkness. This is one of the longest times the writer lasted with them. "Anyone ever got married during the Long Walk before?"
"There's no one around to marry. Usually, I mean."
"Why would anyone want to get married right now?" Stebbins asks. His voice is shot to shit, coughing as he has been for the past a hundred miles. "Best case scenario, one of you still dies."
"Everyone dies, man. Eventually. People still get married."
"Three hours, three days or three decades." Ray says. "It still means something."
"This is getting too fruity." Barkovitch says
"That's the point, you fucking idiot." McVries says with a laugh that booms around them. He wasn't kidding about the morale thing. The third day is one of the slowest, the beginning of the end, and most of them end up feeling lost around this time. A lifetime ago he remembers complaining about everyone being buggy in the morning. But it's not that first loop anymore. It's been almost a year, it's been a hundred years, forever ago. This time he has Ray's hand to hold. This time he gets to keep people around for a little longer. "I just met my favorite person, you think I'm letting death stand in the way of that?"
"This might be getting too gay." Ray says, but he's smiling and his hold in Pete's hand has only gotten stronger. He actually brings his other hand up to hold Pete's wrist, draws invisible circles on it with his thumb. He looks slightly better than he did when the conversation started, certainly less pale. "C'mon, how are we gonna do this?"
"Baby, I don't fucking know, I've never been at a wedding before."
It's Ray's turn to laugh, clear and crazed. It's one of the best sounds in the world, even if Pete might be biased. He's a goner. He's a man in love. He's definitely doing this every loop going forward.
"Of course you haven't." And then, quieter, just for the two of them, "And of course you're a pet name kind of guy."
He's bringing Ray's hand close to his face to kiss the back of his fingers, to study the freckles in them, when a miracle happens, and Olson speaks.
"Someone needs to officiate. The officiant says a couple of words, then each of you say your vows and then the officiant declares you married." He looks up at them then, face waxy as it always is around this time of the Walk. How is he talking right now? "And then you kiss, if you wanna get really gay with it."
McVries smiles at Hank. He wonders if the guy's thinking about his own wedding, wonders how long ago that was. That's another one of the loops constants. Hank never brings up Clementine. Pete doesn't either. He wonders what he would do, if he had to Walk without ever meeting Ray. Probably what he had planned to do since the beginning, get tired enough and just sit down. He can't do that anymore. He understands why Hank tried to grab that carbine more and more each day.
"So?" He asks the group at large. "Who wants to do the honors?"
"Oh yeah, officiating your queer love is gonna be the highlight of this fucking Walk." Barkovitch says.
"You wanna be the best man, Gary?" Pete asks.
"I-" Barkovitch gets a bit choked up. "You're serious right now?"
"Yeah, why the hell not? If it will shut you up."
"Yeah! Yeah, that would be cool." He shrugs. "Whatever."
Ray rolls his eyes next to him and he can hear Collie's laugh ringing around them.
"I could do it." Art chips in from behind them. He's been quiet the whole time. "I remember some parts of the wedding service. If that could work."
"Of course it would, Art." Ray says. "It would mean a lot."
"Alright." Art says, and all of a sudden the mood shifts. They're still happy, a rare sight for the third day, but it seems as soon as Baker has declared he'll marry them, it became real. They're having a wedding. They're taking it seriously. "Do you want some time to write the vows?"
"Not really a lot of privacy, man." Ray says, pointing at the camera following them around. "Or a lot of time. We're just gonna have to wing it."
McVries looks up at the camera. Most loops he completely forgets the existence of it. The idea that there's still a world out there running and resetting every time he dies seems ludicrous and the thought that anything besides the Walk could be happening is even crazier, at least until they get to Freeport and see Mrs. Garraty.
"Do you think your mom is watching?" He leans into Ray's ear to ask. It's a whisper, a small reminder of that which they forgot, that they're being watched by more than just the soldiers and the other Walkers. It's a last offering, to give up, to stop it.
"I hope so." Ray says, and he doesn't let go of Pete's hand.
And with that they were set.
"We are gathered here today—" Art begins.
"To Walk!" Harkness interrupts.
"To die." Stebbins whispers.
"To celebrate the love between two people." He continues. "A love that has grown in the steepest of adversities."
"I'll fucking say." Pete whispers at Ray's ear. He can feel the ginger boy's cheek move as he smiles. He loves him more each loop, each second. Each step.
"A love that reminds us why we do the things we do; That reminds us that God, in his infinity wisdom, made us to His image, and just as He loves us, we find the strength to love each other." The quiet has settled over them now, every boy in the line listening to Arthur Baker, officiating a wedding. "Love gives us hope. Hope that we can work to be better for each other. Hope that the world will be better. I don't know if anyone in this road has had more hope than my friend McVries, and I'm certain he deserves it. Deserves this. However long it lasts."
Art's words leave a bittersweet taste in Pete's mouth. Did he deserve this? The infernal repetition of the Walk? The incessant rise and fall of his boots? Did he deserve Ray Garraty? Did he deserve Ray a hundred times?
It's not about deserving. He thinks, focused on the hand he's holding. Focused on the face he's been looking at for over a hundred days. I wished for him. I want him. Simple as that.
Ray's hand squeezes his.
"What?" He asks.
"Your vows, Pete."
"Oh."
There's silence, heavy over the asphalt. They're waiting for him to say something. Probably something funny or teasing, as he's been doing for the whole Walk.
"I love you." He says instead, earnest as he's rarely allowed himself to be. As he's only ever been for Ray Garraty. "I love you more than I thought was possible, in a way I thought people lied about to be able to write songs. I love you harder than the sun shines on us and with more certainty than that there's tar under our feet. There's a lot of things I could never do, Ray, but I can be here for you. It's the easiest thing I've ever done, I think. To look at you and put a foot in front of the other for you. To carry you. I think I was made for it. For you. Like some high above being made us as a matching set. You— You didn't give me a life, but you gave my life purpose. I don't know if I've ever had that before."
The silence gets lighter with every word he speaks. He's been carrying those words for a long time. Since that first try, he realizes. For almost forty seven times, he's Walked four hundred miles carrying those words. It gets heavy.
No warnings ring, no shots are fired. The whole line walks together now, at just the right speed, as if the intertwined hands of Ray Garraty and Peter McVries are carrying them all along.
"You're the only wish I could ever have, Ray."
Pete looks at the other boy's face and sees moisture, collecting in the corners of his eyes. The tears don't fall, not here, at the end of the world, but they exist. Proof of what's real, of what matters. This. Them. Their bodies, moving forward, one way or another. He wishes it could be another, but he's painfully aware that he only gets one wish. He shouldn't be greedy, he picked the best one.
"I love you too, Pete." Ray says, and his other hand reaches up to touch McVries' face. His fingers settling above his scar. His thumb softly resting over his lips. He knows the story behind it, told in whispers during the second night. He kisses Pete softly every time he hears the story. He's angry every time too. "And I wish for so much."
While Pete's words had been booming all around them, Ray's are nearly quiet. A whisper. A confession of grief he didn't know he had in him. They all listen. It's a heavy burden to carry alone, but they seem to finally realize, for this moment at least, that they are not alone.
"I wish I could take you home. I wish you could meet my mom. She would love you too, I'm sure she would. It's such an easy thing to do. I wish I knew what you looked like when you wake up, face still pressed from bed, and I wish I knew what you looked like when you're falling asleep. I wish I knew what you look like when you're thirty, and then forty, and fifty. I bet you'd look just as good. Probably even better, though I can't imagine anyone looking better than you do right now. When it's dark, and I can't seem to have any hope left that this could ever end, I wish we could Walk forever. I wish for you too. A thousand different wishes, but they're all yours."
"I want to give them all for you." Pete says. He promises. "I'll find a way to do it."
"You do."
"That part comes later." Hank jokes next to them. For the first loop ever, he's smiling on the third day. He's still talking. Pete wonders if he got his carrot back. Art, Parker and Harkness laugh with him, and Pete can see Barkovitch take a picture of him and Ray out of the corner of his eye.
It's the end of the world and they're all dead boys walking. He's a queer, and he's getting married and he has friends who are happy about it. It feels impossible. It feels like a wish come true.
It feels like a life.
"Okay, you can't really exchange rings, so what are you gonna give each other?" Collie asks.
And that's when Pete sees it. There are a couple of the boys, boys he never gets close to, boys whose names he can't bring himself to know, not when he knows how they die, who are turning over pockets and opening their packs. Harkness is the one leading them. He probably knows them all, names and states carefully written down on his notebook. They're looking for something. And all of a sudden Harkness is standing side by side with them and he's holding out a ring.
"We could only find one." Harness says. "It's Patrick's graduation ring."
He's number four. His brain supplies and he feels sick. He's Patrick, he corrects himself. He's a whole person with a whole life. He's got a graduation ring, probably that got passed down from generations before since no one who would have enough money for a brand new graduation ring would sign up for the Walk. And he chose to give it to them.
"Thank you." He says looking back at Patrick. The boy has a kind smile on his face. "Why did you—"
"I'm not gonna use it for anything anymore." And then he nods his head at Stebbins. "We're all gonna die at the end of it, right? Might as well get rid of the dead weight."
The boys behind them all start laughing as if a dam had broken. All of a sudden, every boy in the line picks something from their packs and start switching with each other. They look at whatever new item they have as if it's a treasure trove. At mile two hundred something, they all get something new.
Pete looks at Patrick, still close, still smiling. He reaches his hand in his pack and brings out the pack of cigarettes.
"You smoke?" Ray asks, genuine surprise in his face.
"You've kissed me, you can answer that question yourself." And now the line breaks in wolf whistles and light hearted jabs, but there's no name calling. No room for distaste when they all die the same. "I bought them for the walk. Thought I'd start. But I found something better at the starting line."
"This has gone way beyond queer now." Barkovitch says, but he raises the camera up and takes another picture of Ray and Pete. How he's so good at walking backwards with a camera on his face, Pete will never know.
"Here." Stebbins says, and he knocks something into Ray's hand. When Ray opens it, laying on his palm is a simple golden band. "It was my dad's. Only thing he ever gave my mother."
"He gave her you." McVries says. "That seems like a pretty good gift."
Stebbins doesn't look up at them, and he let's himself fall a bit behind, 3.1 mph, perfect like the well oiled machine he is. But Pete can see he's got a small smile on his face.
"Alright! Let's finish this thing!" Art says, smiling with a pep in his step. "Pete McVries, with this ring, do you take Ray Garraty to be your wedded husband, to love and to hold, in sickness and in health?"
"I do." He slides the silver ring onto Ray's finger. Pete brings his hand up to his lips and kisses the knuckle where the ring rests.
"And do you, Ray Garraty, take Pete McVries to be your wedded husband, to love and to hold, in sickness and in health?"
"I do." Ray slides the ring onto Pete's finger and brings his hand up to place a kiss on his open palm.
"Well, with the power invested in me by the Walk, I now pronounce you married."
The Line breaks into celebration. There's whistles and shouts and clapping. Pete looks at Ray and he feels every mile he's walked so far, in every loop, but he doesn't feel tired. 'I'd walk forever for you.' he thought once, ages ago. It's that simple. He would still walk it all for Ray, but he realized he would rather walk with him. A life measured in the miles they walked together sounds to him like the best life possible.
So he leans in and he kisses his husband. He can hear Barkovitch's camera flash and he hears Art and Harkness and Parker and Patrick and Olson and so many more congratulate them. Their teeth are knocking together, as they have for every kiss they've ever given each other. They love at a speed of three miles per hour.
Their peace doesn't last long. Nothing ever does in the Walk, nothing but the tarmac.
The shots start up again in thirty minutes. They lose another seven before the sun sets. Harkness and Patrick are among those.
The night comes, and as it does, Olson goes. His eyes vacant, his tongue hanging from his mouth. He storms the jeeps as he always does. Screams at them that he did it wrong. Screams Art's name until the soldiers finish him.
They lose more of the boys. They keep walking. They make the pact for Clementine. Barkovitch kills himself. He thanks Pete for letting him be his best man before he does it, but he still does it. There's no other way the story could go.
They reach Freeport. Ray's clutching Pete's hand so strongly he feels it's bound to fall off. Ray's shoes give out. He's in socks. They keep walking, and Ray's wedding band carves a mark on Pete's palm. He doesn't care. He holds tighter as he recognizes the streets they're approaching. He prepares for the Sisyphean task of dragging Ray away from his mother.
They round the truck.
"Ray! Ray!" He hears Ginny's voice. He doesn't look up towards her, he's focused on the man next to him. Whatever Ray needs, Pete will be there for him. He won't fall at Freeport. He's never fallen before. "Oh God! Your feet!"
"Hey, mom." Ray says, the sound barely making his way out of his lungs. And then, for the first time ever, something different in Freeport. "This is Pete."
Pete raises his head. He looks at Ray's face, still looking towards his mom. He looks the same as he does every time they reach the town. Tired, desperate and trying to holding himself together for his mother. His hold in Pete's hand gives a bit before squeezing again. A sign. Pete clears his own throat.
"Hello, Mrs. Garraty." He wonders what he looks like to Ginny. He's never been concerned about that before, but Ray had never introduced him to her before either. He doesn't think he looks any particular way. He doesn't think a flying saucer could tear her eyes away from Ray, screaming and sobbing as she is about her baby, but it's Ray's mom. She means the world to him, so this moment matter, perhaps most of all. "It's an honor to meet you, ma'am."
He is waiting for Ray to turn around, to run back to her and tell her he made a mistake, that he should have stayed in their car. But Ray only raises his voice.
"It's okay, mom. It's going to be okay. I love him, mama. I love him so much. We're gonna be okay. I promise we'll be okay. You don't have to worry about me anymore."
There are tears tracking down Ray's face. He can barely gat the words out in between his sobs, but he doesn't turn around. He doesn't turn around once. They are almost out of the street when Ray stops walking. He doesn't turn around, doesn't scream for his mom again. He stops in the middle of the road and gives Pete a kiss. A real, honest to God, standing still kiss.
"We'll be alright. Right?"
"Right. I love you, Ray."
"I love you too, Pete."
He's still crying when they start walking again. He doesn't stop crying until they're an hour out of Freeport.
Collie goes for the Half-track. He dies in his own terms, signing in his own language. They lose Art to the blood that won't stop flowing. He hangs the rosary in Ray's neck and each boy gives him a kiss on the cheek before he goes. He's the best of them. He had officiated their weeding. He was all of their heart, laid bare. And then he was gone. Just like that.
It's only them and Stebbins now. Pete is angry. Pete is grieving. It was good one. He's not ready to say goodbye. Not ready to hear Ray introduce himself to him again. He doesn't wanna ask Stebbins for something real. He's wearing that golden band that perhaps belonged to the Major a lifetime ago, but it's his now. A wedding present. Stebbins already gave him something real.
They're already at the bridge, but the jeep with the Major is nowhere to be seen. He's been suspiciously absent this time, ever since day three. Ever since the wedding.
"He'll be waiting for you two where the crowds are." Stebbins says.
No. Pete thinks. It's too soon. It came too soon.
"What do you mean, us two?" Rays asks, but he knows the answer. Him and Pete look tired, but they can keep going. They have their hands intertwined, they could go on forever.
"You found yourself a carrot, Garraty. All the kings horses and all the king's men, and all of that. Maybe it could have been different. Maybe on a different lifetime. A different walk. But here the rabbit is flesh and blood and I'm starting to get exhausted. Can you see it, Garraty? That place inside yourself? It isn't empty anymore. You fell into it like everyone else, but you brought him with you. You could walk forever now. That's the secret."
"You could come in." Ray says, tired and soft and so good it puts a hole in Pete's chest. "We could carry you. We could finish it together. You're our friend."
"It's getting late now. It's almost time." And Stebbins looks at them and smiles, a real smile. Something real. And Pete didn't even have to ask for it. "You're a good friend, Ray Garraty. I'll see you on the other side, McVries."
And before Pete can ask what he means by the other side, Stebbins let's his legs stop. He stand in the middle of the road, never sits down at the end of it. He asks the soldier to shoot him and he goes down with his head held high. Something real, Pete thinks again. Maybe he had asked for it every time the two of them talked. Maybe that's all talking was. Maybe, Pete thought wonderfully, all of Stebbins was real and Pete was just looking at someone bigger than the sky far too close to see what any of it meant. He would ask Stebbins about it. On the other side.
"It's not fair." Ray whispered in his ear. The same words Curly always screamed at the beginning, echoed here at the end. His head was resting on Pete's shoulder. They were glued together, side by side, from the soles of their feet all the way up. Pete could see the lights of the city up ahead. It's getting closer now. "It's just not fair."
Pete pressed a kiss on his temple. He smelled like sweat and blood and fear. He never knew a version of Ray that didn't.
"It's almost over now, baby."
The sounds of the crowd surrounds them. There's shouting and cheering and the sound of feet on the side walk. They sound wrong. They're the wrong feet. Pete hates them, hates every single person that shows up hoping one of them buys their ticket. Hates the fact that they're walking out of curiosity and a thirst for blood when forty-eight people deserved to still be walking instead.
He sees the Major's jeep approach them. He's giving a speech, something about sack, or about patriotism or how good it is to shoot young men down for fun. Pete can't hear a word of it. All he hears is Ray's voice.
"I love you." He says.
"I love you." Pete repeats.
They been repeating it since the bridge ended. Rule thirteen says you have to conserve oxygen, use your breath only for what matters most. They repeat the words again and again between them.
And then they get to that place. The one where Pete remembers falling down on one knee for Ray. The one Ray should, for all intents and purposes, not remember at all.
There's no signal. No treaty they make, no discussion of what's about to happen. They reach the spot where Ray died, a million years ago. And they both just stop walking.
"Warning. Warning Forty-seven."
"Warning. Warning Twenty-three."
Two soldiers say at the same time.
"I love you."
"I love you."
The crowds are louder now, a mess of smells and sounds and lights. He turns in Ray's arms to hold him the right way. He presses his forehead against his temple.
"Warning. Second warning Forty-seven."
"Warning. Second warning Twenty-three."
Ringing at the same time.
"I love you."
"I love you."
It's quiet, whispered in the bubble of their arms. They have Art's rosary, and Stebbins ring and Patrick's ring. They can carry it. They've been carrying it for a long time.
"Warning. Third warning Forty-seven."
"Warning. Third warning Twenty-three."
The Major might be saying something. It doesn't matter anymore. It's almost over. It's almost here. It just begun.
"I love you."
Two shots ring out.
Pete feels the sun shining down on his skin. He feels the breeze, his well rested muscles sitting down against the tarmac. It's May first. It's a nice day for a walk.
He waits for Ray's voice with his eyes closed. It's taking longer than he remembers. He thumbs the ring on his left hand, absentmindedly.
It shouldn't be there.
He opens his eyes and looks to his left. Ray's crying. He's sobbing like he never sobbed before, like someone has torn a hole right through his heart. Someone has.
"Pete." He calls. There's a silver ring on his left hand.
The boys around them don't understand what is happening. In the parking lot, Mrs. Garraty drives away and in the road, a jeep is fast approaching.
It's a nice day for a walk.
END OF PART I