Chapter Text
1
***
stay with me as we cross the empty skies
***
She begged him not to go.
His mother had clung to him as they sat in the car, the tip of her nose red, her eyes boring right into his as she offered to turn the car on, put it in gear, fling it around and speed away from this place, never to return. You don’t have to, she had said.
He did have to. He told her as much. The last day to back out was yesterday. He tried to hide the shaking in his voice, how much her begging was starting to work. Outside, boys came tumbling out of cars and trucks and busses, hustling over to the check in, dressed in faded jeans washed one-too-many-times and leather work boots, carrying packs of various sizes, some chattering excitedly, some silent, all of them with the same gleam of barely-concealed fear in their eyes.
Inside the car it was just him and his mom, the scent of lily-of-the-valley made acrid with worry.
She’d shaken her head, her blonde hair catching the sunlight and glinting. You don’t understand. You’re-
She hesitated, her breath caught. In that moment all hesitation in Ray died out and was replaced by annoyance. She had been hesitating just like that ever since the night his dad died, like she was on the verge of telling him something deeply important and stopping herself on the brink every time. It was frustrating and it made him feel like there was a wall between them, invisible and semi permeable but still there, thickening every time her breath caught and her face reddened.
You’re special, she’d finished lamely. Ray bit back a scoff, hugged his mom, and got out of the car anyway.
***
It wasn’t that he’d thought no one died on the walk. Of course he knew people died. The broadcast, the one time he’d watched it, started the same every year- the camera panning over a line of young, round, ruddy faces, squinting into the distance. It ended the same every year too- one face, gaunt, wide eyes hollow, staring out past the camera as the Major wrapped his arm around his shoulder and beamed, fireworks exploding behind him, the crowd cheering and waving tiny flags.
(His father had made him watch it. Told him to look at the boy at the end, look into his eyes and tell him what he saw. Ray couldn’t answer. He didn’t see anything.)
He knew, objectively, that people got shot. He knew the carbines the soldiers were wearing slung over their back weren’t for show. But there was a difference between knowing and knowing, and it wasn’t until Curley was getting his second warning called that he knew.
He walked beside him, his arm slung around the young- too young- boy’s shoulder’s, guiding him along. Pete- Pete McVries, a boy so charming, handsome and nice that Ray was still having a hard time figuring out what he was even doing here- had fallen back to walk in step with them, joining in with encouragements, both of them trying to will Curley’s Charley horse away by force.
It wasn’t working. Curley was getting more and more worked up, his face was getting redder and redder. There was a soldier walking in step behind them, the thump thump thump of his boots on the dusty, cracked asphalt blending with theirs, and all the other boys. Only Curley’s thump, drag, thump, drag broke the rhythm.
Tears were starting to run down his face. Finally his knees buckled, then gave, and Curley slumped to the ground. Ray almost stopped with him. There was a firm squeeze on his arm and he turned to see Pete, shaking his head as he pushed Ray onwards. Ray didn’t stop. He turned to watch though.
A hush had fallen over the crowd of Walkers. Everyone was silent, eyes either trained straight ahead or twisting and walking backwards like Ray to see.
Curley got his third warning.
“It’s not fair,” he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut.
A soldier took his position behind him, pressing the end of the carbine against his curly hair.
He was fully crying now. The wind blew. A thick, cloying smell filled the air. A few of the boys at the middle of the pack stumbled, some even paused. Warnings were going up and down the group, blending with the frantic whispers from some of the boys. Some were snarling, growling, snapping their teeth, others were pushing handkerchiefs up against their nose and hurrying away.
“It’s not fair!”
There was a crack, then a bang. Blood and flesh and bone hit the road first with a wet plop, then the rest of Curley slumped forward with a sickening thud.
“Aw, what a waste,” Barkovitch, an awkward asshole with a mop of frizzy blonde hair, called from behind Ray. “And he was an omega, too.”
Before anyone could say anything there was the hiss of feedback, then the Major’s voice boomed out from the Jeep at the front of the pack.
“The Long Walk is a test of strength…determination…and character. Presentation will not get you out of your obligations to this country. If you find this happening to you, all I can say is slick and walk, boys. Omegas get their tickets all the same.”
***
“I thought they didn’t let omegas come on the Walk.” Ray was the first of the Musketeers to speak.
Curley was behind them, somewhere, rotting on the road. They had walked too far to see him but for a while everyone clearly felt him, weighing at the edge of their minds.
McVries piped up too. “Well, it’s alphas, betas, and the undeclared.”
“And people do present in times of extreme stress. If I’m not mistaken, I think the Walk might count for that,” Art Baker, tall, dark, with bright eyes and a shy smile spoke up from next to Pete, strolling easily with a long legged gait.
“This? Stressful? It’s a walk in the park. Literally,” Hank Olson snapped around pops of gum.
“Dude. You know you don’t have to chew and talk, right?” Ray scoffed. Hank flipped him off.
Ray laughed, shifted his hat, and wrapped his hands around the straps of his backpack. He amused himself by trying to guess everyone’s designations as they walked along. No one had said when they first introduced themselves, and it was kind of intrusive to ask, so he still didn’t know for sure.
Baker, lanky, with a quiet self-assuredness was an alpha. So was Parker, with his long hair and sharp tongue- Ray could just see him rolling his eyes at them as he walked just ahead. Olson- short, quippy, with a baseball cap and a bad habit of popping his gum- was probably a beta. Barkovitch was- honestly Ray didn’t care what Barkovitch was, he just wanted him to stop walking so close to them.
Stebbins, a handsome blonde with a sharp face, suspenders and a newsboy cap (of all things) who drifted close to their group on occasion was also definitely an alpha. And then there was Pete. McVries was a few inches shorter than him but far more muscular than his softer frame. His arms were incredible. He had smooth dark skin and short black coils and broody brown eyes under thick eyebrows. His face was all soft lines bisected by a long scar running straight down his cheek. McVries was probably an alpha. Ray tried to ignore the shiver that ran through him at the thought.
Ray shook his head a little. Right. Pete, who had beamed at him when he stuck his hand out for a handshake, who had sidled up next time him and asked, “do you want to walk with me for awhile?”, who laughed at his stupid jokes and nodded along thoughtfully when he talked about how the Walk wasn’t a choice. Who called him stupid little pet names every time they were alone just to watch Ray roll his eyes.
And there was him- undeclared still, even at 20. Well, his paperwork said undeclared, but he himself was unsure- there was that strange week long period after his father died, when he was woozy and nauseous and dizzy, but his mother had gone to a doctor she knew, came back with pills that he took religiously every day, and it had never happened since.
It’s not like designations mattered anyway- most of the previous winners were alphas, that was true, but every few years a beta managed to make it to the end as well. There had even been undeclared winners- three, in fact- but Ray had heard that they never presented after the Walk.
He wondered if that would happen to him. He thought of Curley again.
That would be, if he even made it that far.
***
“And I think… when I get tired enough…I think I’ll just sit down.”
“You’re lying.”
The sun was still high in the sky, but they were passing through a wooded patch. Sunlight fell through the trees into dappled patterns on the road, flickering and shuddering through the leaves in the wind. Ray started to grow a little tired, and a little sore, but he did his best to ignore it- it would only get worse, there was no point in focusing on it now.
Pete shrugged. Ray didn’t like that.
“No, you’re lying.”
“If you say so, babe.”
“What about your wish?”
“I said that because we were talking about it, but honestly, there’s nothing that I want bad enough that I wanna let someone else die for it. I’m gonna go as far as I can go, and when I’m done, that’s it.”
“Really? You don’t want anything? After all this, you don’t at least want the prize?”
McVries shrugged again. “What’ll it be worth? I don’t know if it’s-” he cut himself off, frustrated, then paused, rooting around for the right words. Ray let him be.
After a few moments of silence, McVries spoke again. “You ever seen the walk? Like on TV?”
Garraty nodded.
“Once in real life. Maybe a few times on TV.”
“You ever watch til the end? Seen the winner?”
“Once,” Ray answered, thinking of that sunken face, those blank eyes.
McVries nodded. “You ever see an animal?” Before Ray could let loose a smart ass remark, he quickly followed with, “in a cage, I mean. Like, trapped.”
Ray nodded again. His next-door neighbor growing up had kept animal traps in the backyard, supplementing the little scraps of meat they could afford from the store with wild rabbits and possums. Ray remembers once as a boy half-clambering up their fence and peeking over into the neighbors yard, where a fat, old, gray possum sat in the wire trap. Its big black eyes slid to look at him as he looked at it, and something about it made Ray so nauseous that he let go of the fence, dropped back into his own yard, and ran inside.
“Don’t you think the winners look like that? Like a wild animal in a cage? Trapped? And that’s even if you don’t know that most of them don’t make it more than two, three years after the Walk before they end it themselves.”
“Clearly all the money in the country, rides in a plane, baby elephants…. it isn’t enough. How could it be?”
Pete glanced around them again. “God, sorry. I was being a downer, huh? Anyway, we’re alone now. Just us. What’s your wish?”
Garraty glanced around. The rest of the musketeers were ahead of them, and the next big clump of boys were five feet behind, talking amongst themselves. He tightened his fingers in his backpack straps. He had never told anyone else this. He thought of all the planning, putting in for the Walk, going through the long application process. He thought of what would happen if Pete heard then broke away to tell the Major.
He would be dead immediately, no chance to even try. His mother would be a widow and childless and nothing would change. His dad would have died in vain.
Pete nudged his shoulder with his own, his brown eyes attentive. The scar on his cheek shifted as he curled his lips in a half-smile. Ray barely knew him. He had only met him that morning.
He told him anyway.
And kept telling him, even about his weird week of sickness and the pills his mom made him take. At that McVries’ face went from sadness to surprise. He raised his brows then furrowed them.
“You don't think…” Pete looked around then stepped closer to Ray, til they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. “You don’t think maybe you-“
“…maybe I?” Ray egged on after a few seconds of silence.
“I’m not trying to say anything about your mom,” Pete had his hands up. “Just… do you think… I don't know. Maybe you presented then and whatever it was, your mom did not like it?”
Garraty could hear the implication under Pete’s deliberately vague wording. Maybe you presented as an omega then. Omegas weren’t allowed to enter the Walk. None of the winners have ever been an omega. Maybe there was already a ticket with his name on it and he didn’t know.
“Doesn’t matter at this point, does it?” Ray answered. “I have as much of a chance as anyone at winning. Maybe more. Nobody wants this as bad as I do, Pete. Designation or not, I’m going to make it to the end and the Major isn’t.”
***
Ray squinted at Pete in disbelief. He didn’t know if he was making fun of him or not.
“Really? You’re a songwriter from Georgia and you’ve never heard of that song?”
“Nope. Not everyone had a dissident dad willing to show them the old stuff.” McVries was smiling, so Ray didn’t take it as an insult.
“Oh. Well. It’s about this guy, and he makes this kind of- well I guess it just is a-Faustian bargain, and-”
“A what?”
“A Faustian- it’s like, a deal with the devil. Or, you don't always know it’s the devil. At least they don’t in the stories.” Ray paused, feeling like he was rambling, but Pete nodded at him to continue. He was wearing that weird crooked half-smile of his.
Ray thought on anyone else it would look sarcastic and kind of mean. On McVries, it looked like he knew a joke you didn’t and he was just about to let you in on it. Ray wanted to be in on it.
“So someone comes to you and offers you everything you want, if you make this deal. But there’s stipulations. You get what you want but you lose everything in return.”
“Ah,” McVries said, “like the monkey’s paw.”
Ray stared at him. “You don’t know The Devil Went Down to Georgia but you know The Monkey’s Paw?”
Pete shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a man of mystery.”
Ray stared at him some more. “Right. Well. Yea, it’s like The Monkey’s Paw. You get what you want but you don’t want it. It comes with too much.”
McVries had his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed as he stared straight ahead. He was looking down and past the road, staring far away, the scar on his cheek twitching up and down as he chewed thoughtfully. The side of his face was silhouetted in the setting sunlight, falling dappled across the road, streaming weakly across the sky to the right as the sun slipped down behind the old, dilapidated houses set back from the road with overgrown yards and disappeared.
They walked in silence like that for a minute.
“So the Long Walk is a Faustian bargain. Right?”
“The Major’s kind of the devil, so yea, maybe. But maybe not for everybody. Maybe some people think it was worth it, to get their wish.”
Just as Ray finished speaking the soldiers called out a third warning, then thirty seconds later there were a series of bangs in rapid succession. Then silence.
Pete whistled. “Must be a hell of a wish.”
***
“The mule hates the plow but it likes the carrots. Watch Olson. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s lost his taste for the carrot.”
Stebbins may have seen it but he said it too late to be of use. Ray should’ve seen it the first time Hank took his gum out of his mouth and stared at it. It’s my charm. When this gum goes, I go, Olson had said, and everyone laughed it off and kept working. It wasn’t funny now.
Ray had been reaching in his bag for his pills when Olson turned back. He tried to keep going. They had already lost so many. There were only seven of them left. Forty-three corpses littered the road behind them. Curley. Harkness, with his huge glasses and his notebook and his ankle all twisted and his foot all black and blue. The boy with the radio who stripped himself naked and flung himself onto the median. He should be used to it now. He told himself he was used to it now. Only one of them could finish. Best to leave everyone behind.
But when Art Baker stopped and ran after Hank, Ray couldn’t stop himself. He dropped what he was holding, turned and ran after Art. He gripped Art around the shoulders, holding Hank as he bled out from gut shots, and hauled him to his feet. There was a sweet, warm smell coming from Hank. It smelt like vanilla and spearmint and comfort. It made something twist inside Ray.
“There’s nothing you can do for him. Don't die here too.”
“I can’t leave him. I can’t leave him!” Art was distressed, the first crack in that easy going southern drawl that had been regaling them with tales of Baton Rouge and bickering back and forth with Hank.
Hank was clutching at Art, blood bubbling up from his lips. Ray tried not to look at him. After Curley he realized it was best not to look. Don’t turn around, don’t witness it, eyes straight ahead on the road. They knew there could only be one when they started.
Warnings were called for both Art and Ray, but Ray couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Art. Not like this. They couldn’t lose another Musketeer like this.
“You can’t help him! Come on!” Ray managed to pull Art up and keep him walking, leaving Hank there, on the ground, groaning in pain.
“I did it wrong!”
He kept his arms wrapped around Art as they double timed away, the road ahead lit with the lights from the tanks.
“ART!” Hanks' cries deepened as he died. Screaming, howling like a wounded animal. “I DID IT WRONG! I DID IT ALL WRONG!”
Ray felt something crunch underfoot. He glanced down as they marched ahead- his pills, scattered on the road. Well. Not like he had that much longer anyway. Couldn’t be anything to worry about now.
“I DID IT ALL WRONG!”
They rejoined the group. Pete was giving him a worried look, the crinkles of his face creased in concern. Ray didn’t look at him. He kept his arms around Art, kept him moving.
There was a loud bang behind them, and Hank was silent forever.
“He called my name,” Baker said. “He called my name.”
“I know, I know.” Ray didn’t know what else to say. What could he say?
“No, he- he called my name. I shouldn’t have left him. He called my name!”
“There’s nothing you can do for him now.” Parker spoke up from just ahead of him. “You just gotta keep walking.”
***
Ray was getting hot.
He’d taken off his flannel a while back, tied it to the straps of his backpack, and rolled the sleeves up on his shirt, but he still felt warm.
“You good?” McVries murmured to him. Ray nodded without looking.
They were on the edge of Freeport now. Ray had to abandon his shoes about a mile back when the sole of one boot came clean off. He should’ve bought new boots for the walk, but he thought something he’d broken in would be more comfortable. But would any shoe be good to walk… how long had they walked now? 200 miles? 300? He wasn’t checking his chronometer, just trotting along. One foot in front the other. Eyes on the road.
He didn’t even want to know what his sock feet looked like now.
There were five of them left. Barkovitch had finally lost it earlier this morning. Ray wanted to feel guilty, but all he could feel was a sick sort of relief that they didn’t have to deal with him anymore. Maybe they should’ve been kinder to him, but God, he was such an ass. And would it have made a difference anyway? Ray had learned that the walk was more mental than physical, and just as many people died because their minds gave out, not their bodies.
He couldn’t afford to give out now, so he ignored the heat, the weird itch under his skin, and kept going.
They were passing down Main Road, and it looked like the whole town had come out to see them. People were cheering, waving signs, clapping. Ray didn’t look at any of them. He was trying to see it the way Pete did, to not blame them for living under the same conditions they did, but he couldn’t find it in him. They looked like death warmed over, they were each splattered with blood and soaked with sweat. Their clothes were filthy and everyone’s eyes had started taking on this haunted emptiness, and yet the crowd cheered like they were watching a parade.
Unbidden, his eyes wandered over the sidewalk until they stopped on a familiar shape. Ginnie Garraty, alone on the sidewalk, craning her neck to find him. Suddenly he felt so, so stupid. What had he done? What was he doing? What was the point? He was tired and aching and hot and miserable and he just wanted to go home. He wanted to be back in his tiny bedroom with his posters and his textbooks and old creaking twin bed and radio.
They locked eyes. Ginnie looked ecstatic to see him at first. Then her eyes tracked down him and locked on the mess he knew his feet must be. Her face contorted in horror and she raised a hand to her mouth.
“Oh my God, Ray, your feet…”
He ran before he knew he was running. He was so close to her. Her hands came out, pushing him away from her just as he pushed to get closer to him.
“I’m so sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry, I should have never, I’m so sorry-”
Arms wrapped around his middle and started pulling him away. Ray knew without looking that it was Pete.
“Ray, come on, keep walking, don't let her see, they’re going to kill you, don't let her see-”
McVries managed to pull him back and away from his mother, who was yelling too.
“It’s fine, Ray! It’s fine! Go! Go!” She called. There were tears in her eyes.
She had the same look on her face as when the soldiers had dragged his father out the house and she followed. He says things he doesn’t mean. He didn’t mean it. He says things he doesn’t mean!
“Don’t let her see you like that, baby, don’t,” Pete was still pleading with him, muttering in his ear as he pulled him further and further away from his mom and down the road.
Back in step with the others, who weren’t looking at him or saying anything. Ray was sure he was crying, but he didn’t care.
Everything hurt. His feet had grown numb, luckily. His knees creaked. His thighs were burning. His backpack straps were cutting bruises into his shoulders and chafing across his back. His face was definitely sunburned and itchy. His head hurt. Everything was too bright. Everything smelled so strong. He could smell sweat and blood and piss and underneath the smells of everyone else- woodsmoke and cayenne for Collie, incense and beignets for Art, jasmine and rain for Stebbins. Above and through and around everything was Pete, smelling of tobacco and ginger and something else Ray couldn’t place but made him think of home and safety and everything that shouldn’t exist here on this road.
And above all he was damp with sweat everywhere. The back of his neck, the top of his chest, under his stomach, the center of his back, the creases of his thighs, and pooling in his underwear. As he walked the feeling of dampness there got worse and worse.
Three miles out of Freeport it got nearly unbearable.
“Dude. Is someone slicking?” Collie broke the silence, turning around to survey the group.
“I feel like there’s a nicer way to ask that,” Art gently chided him.
Collie scoffed. “Don’t see why I have to be nice about it. They should know.”
Ray would’ve frozen up if the automatic state of his body hadn’t become a steady march by now. He became acutely aware of the dampness and how oddly slippery it was. It shouldn’t feel good. Everything was pain under a layer of numbness like he was covered in bubble wrap. There was so much blood on the road.
And yet he felt himself harden despite all that. He was rubbing up against his zipper with every step and the usual chafing discomfort was morphing into a tense sort of pleasure. It was distracting.
His mind was wandering. He wondered if he would settle on Jan, or one of the hundreds (had it been that many?) of cheering girls they’d passed, but instead it settled on an image from the first day. The first time Pete had pulled off his jacket to reveal his undershirt, dark gray and stretched tight across his pecs, growing darker at the collar from a bloom of sweat.
“All anyone needs to worry about is controlling themselves,” came Stebbins’ low rumble.
If Stebbins was behind him, then he had already come to the same realization Ray was fighting off. He appreciated the cover but he didn’t have long- there were only five of them left. Eventually it would be clear who it was.
“I don’t think anyone’s thinking about that right now. I don’t think anyone can.” Baker answered.
Ray thought he could.
Ray glanced at McVries, who was still silent, staring straight ahead. He didn’t know what he was looking for but he felt compelled to look anyway. Disgust? Judgement? Arousal? He didn’t know which one he’d prefer.
If McVries hated him maybe it would make it easier. It would soothe the worry that had been growing in him since day 2, since they survived the first night together- what were they going to do at the end? Only one of them could make it and if Ray wanted to do his mission- what was the point- it had to be him. Which meant Pete had to get his ticket.
But that thought filled him with so much fear and sadness that he dodged it every time he came to him. But he couldn’t truly hide from it. He felt it every time McVries brushed shoulders with him, when they played catch, when they wrapped their arms around each other to sleep at night. It was behind every smirk on Pete’s face, every smile that made his scar crinkle, every time the sunlight hit his eyes just right and made them flash golden.
So it would easier, right now, while he was presenting as an omega (you always knew, a little voice in the back his head told him) near the end of the Long Walk while on national television, if Pete hated him for it, because maybe that would make it easier for him to see a soldier press a carbine against Pete’s soft coils and-
McVries chose that moment to make eye contact with him.
Ray had gotten pretty good at reading Pete’s facial expressions in the last four days. He couldn’t read this one. It wasn’t one he’d ever seen on Pete’s face before.
On anyone else, it would’ve looked like fear.
***
we play in dreams as we cross the space and time. just stay with me
***