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He knew that he wouldn't make it out of this alive. He just knew it. In the same way he knew that every time he looked back at another boy getting his ticket, it would result in blood and a bang that rattles through his bones.
So he resolves to make friends. He smiles around the smell of shit and desperation. Makes jokes to fill the silence that grew as the number of boys left dwindled. He holds on tight. Tighter than any one should, knowing that with one misstep, one bodily malfunction, one accident would lead to death.
He clung especially tight to Garraty. Even when he snaps at him. When his lips wrapped around the cruelest words that McVries had no choice but to take.
"Stop acting like you're not just like the rest of them," Garraty spits at him, his words cushioned by angry pants. McVries stares at him through it all. Trys to cling on to the fact that its just the exhaustion talking. Not Garraty. Never Garraty. The boy who he's know a lifetime, even if it was squished into a few days. The one he's saved more times than he could count.
Pete doesn't need anyone else but him.
"Stop pretending like you don't want to see me with a fucking bullet in the back of my head!"
Garraty leaves him then. Somehow finds the strength to storm away from Pete on that godforsaken hill. And Pete lets him. Knows that he has to let Garraty have this. This moment of anger, someone safe to let all his frustrations out on. And for a second, Pete thinks that his time has come. He tries to wrap his head around the impending truth that Garraty may not need him anymore. Pete can't keep his hands off Garraty, hoping that somehow through the shoves and casual touches that Garraty will feel Pete's heart reaching out to his. He hopes that Garraty feels what he feels.
He know that can't be true of course. Knows its just a fever dream, just like winning was. But he savored it, like he savored the taste of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies Garrety shared with him.
But just when McVries starts to tell his brain to slow his steps, he sees Ray's pace falter. The barrel of a gun is kissing his forehead like McVries had wanted to do so many times and suddenly he's right there with Ray. Matching Ray's steps to his, shouldering the other boy's weight like a cross he would bear a thousand times over.
When Ray's frantic apologizes reaches his ears, Pete simply accepts them. Easy as breathing, easy as walking. What else could he do? The Long Walk barely had time for friendships and Pete had already pushed his luck there by claiming the Musketeers. Forgiveness was the only way forward. McVries let the words flow through his ears and slip through his blood to strengthen the bones all the way down to his feet.
And he clung on to Garraty like a lifeline. He saves him because he knows he can't save himself. He drinks in the apology like the expensive whiskey he'd only heard about in stories from his older relatives back home. He doesn't dwell on how many times he's picked Garraty back up. He doesn't let his mind linger on how, for just a second, he had thought that it'd been enough. His smile and his endless chatter. His shoulder brushes, to make sure that Garraty was still right there beside him, putting one foot in front of the other. He doesn't let his heart grow bitter around the truth that McVries was right there with Garraty the whole time. He's experienced the same fucked up shit, and yet. McVries still hadn't lashed out.
McVries forgives Garraty because he needs him more than he needs a warm shower. More than he needs for all this to end, more than he needs the prize money. He'll forgive Garraty a million times over, will be Garraty's rock and punching bag if that's what it takes for him to keep walking with McVries, just a little while longer.
McVries knows he has to die. Between the crowds Stebbins promised and the way Garraty's voice broke when he saw his Ma…McVries knows what the right choice is. He's prepared for it. More than he had been walking into this. His ears had long become accustomed to the ringing that follows a gunshot. He imagines it'll be worse, since he'll be under the barrel of the gun instead of a few paces in front of it. Or maybe his ears wouldn't have time to ring. Maybe the Major will give him the mercy of a clean head shot.
It doesn't matter now though. McVries lets his knees sink into the unforgiving cobblestone. It feels good to rest, despite the pain he'd been forced to ignore hitting him full force. Somehow, that stupid speakerphone breaks through the pain to give him his warnings.
He sees Garraty pacing towards him but he doesn't look away. Why would he? He hasn't looked away from that freckled face since he started this Walk. Not when it started to bear the weight of death and exhaustion. Not when a purple hue started creeping its way into the skin hugging the bottom of his eyes. Not when his face slackened with sleep or when it squeezed tight in an intoxicating mix of frustration and determination.
He feels Garraty try to pull him up. It's the closest they've been it feels like. Despite the way that McVries arm had always found its way across Garraty's shoulders. The way that Garraty had drank in McVries rambles like wine. Accepted his friendship with the ease and confidence he had accepted his invitation to the Walk. Even with the burden of almost certain death that came with it. He feels the tug on his arms, his torso, his heart. But he doesn't want to move. He didn't lie about being tired.
It went a little deeper than the blood that soaked his shoes or the chafing of his jeans on his thighs. He had been walking his whole life. The scars of it say hello to people before the words even find their way into his throat. He doesn't even know what he would do if he won. He didn't have a family waiting for him back home like Garraty. No one to share the prize with. No one to hold him through the nightmares or the aches that are sure to follow him long after he's left the tar road behind. The one person who he'd want to any of that with, the one person who made life worth it–because Pete feels like his life has only just started in these five days–was trying to make it so that he'd die before McVries.
He feels the barrel of the gun nudge his head and if he ignores everything–the pain, the crowds, the light of the fireworks, the glint of the Major's shades in the streetlights–he can almost imagine that its just him and Ray. Trapped in an embrace that neither of them want to leave, the firm pressure on his head a kiss, the memories of the Walk and the sound of warnings a place too far to reach.
But maybe Pete isn't as tired as he claimed to be. Or maybe he would do a lot more for Ray than he thought. More than die. More than walk. More than hold him through the shakes he got after every gunshot. More than drag him when his pace threatened to falter. Maybe he'd live for him too.
He lets Ray pull him up, spurred on by the fact that Ray is on his third warning for this mile. If Pete's committing to walking with Ray, just a little bit more, until his vision starts going dark so he won't see the bullet coming maybe, then he has to get a move on.
Pete feels Ray's presence like a brand on his back. It cuts through the cold of rain and the pain that threatens to overwhelm Pete from the brief reprieve he gave himself seconds prior.
"You convincing, motherfucker," he sighs. It's inevitable really. How willing Pete was to go along with whatever Ray wanted. Even if Pete's death was just as inevitable, he didn't mind indulging Ray a little bit longer. He'd walk with him forever, if only to stay with him a little bit longer.
He laughs into the way Ray squeezes his shoulder. He shakes his head through the exhaustion and waits to feel Ray's presence beside like it has been these past few days. That's how they've been, two planets orbiting each other, a boomerang of touch that was their only anchor as the miles dragged on. He expects to feel Ray again, his body still warm from the memory of his presence. He just knows that he'll be back soon, falling into step with him.
He hears gunshots, and despite the pure exhaustion that has piled on him mile after mile, he's suddenly wide awake. He runs back to Ray, not giving a damn about the numbness in his legs or that ache in his feet. He crashes to the ground, a mockery of the peaceful position he found himself in what seems like a lifetime ago. The steady patience that he's kept on like a shield throughout the Walk shatters. His hands tremble and the tears come as fast as the rain.
His hands don't know where to go, Ray's face which is rapidly losing color or his stomach that's staining his shirt with a red matching the fireworks going off above them. He doesn't know why Ray did this, would leave him here with the Major and the crowd and his mother…fuck his Ma. Pete can't face her after this, doesn't want to face anything without Ray by his side.
He doesn't give a fuck about the bullshit Ray is spouting about how he can't see the light. Pete knows he can't. He knows it because Ray is the only light that Pete had seen this whole walk. Even when the sun was shining down on them like it had a point to prove. Or when they lost Olsen and Art followed soon after, their a bond a mirror to what he and Ray have. Had.
He knows its a lost cause when Ray says he loves him. He knows it because he had seen the way the words had danced on Ray's tongue the way that Pete had wanted to dance with him. He'd seen it in the way Ray had faltered when Pete said he didn't have a girl waiting for him back home. He'd seen it in the glint of something in Ray's eyes when Pete had responded to Barkovitch's insults with taunts of his own. Something closer to jealousy or longing , like he'd take the bullet in the head just for the chance to get on his knees for Pete right there in the middle of road. Despite the whole damn country watching.
Ray hadn't said it then. Pete didn't need him to. But maybe Ray thinks that Pete needs to hear it. Needs it because he needs Ray, but he can't have him anymore. Not when the soldiers tear them away from each other, so that they can deliver the final shot. Pete can't breathe around the grief that hits him. He's the winner but Ray is dead. Ray loves him but he's fucking dead.
Pete realizes then that the light he'd been chasing all his life had all been leading him to Ray. Now that he's gone, there's nothing left. All that shit he said about being better than the system and not letting himself succumb to the endless cycle of violence that the Walk encouraged didn't matter to him.
When the Major drops on the ground, Pete doesn't feel a thing. He had once told Ray that it takes a certain kind of person to become a murderer. But it doesn't feel like Pete is anything anymore, not without Ray. He's not the person Ray loves anymore, not really much of anything, more of a faded copy or a ghost than anything else. A bunch of skin and bone, his muscle all walked away, held together by dust, blood, and a love that turned sour because the man that made that feeling bloom in his chest was a corpse in the middle of the road.
He turns and keeps walking into the night. That's he has now. The sound of his steps and Ray's love in his ears. It's the closest he'll get to hell. There's no other way to describe the Walk but there's no other place he'd rather be. Hell is where he met Ray. Where he made friends and enemies and a lover he didn't even get to hug. He wants it all back. The blisters and the stale water. The rations that stuck to his throat on the way down like the blood of the other boys clung to the road.
He'd walk on forever, losing his mind in the this hell because he didn't know what heaven held. He knows that its supposed to be somewhere where there's no pain. The Long Walk has no place there, he knows that much. But he can't go there. Without the Walk he wouldn't have met Ray. He's worth all the pain this world had to offer. One foot in front of the other. An endless shuffle. But as Pete walks, sometimes between one blink and the next, the sound of his boots on the ground get a bit louder. And when he looks to his right, Ray is there next to him, shining so brightly Pete thinks that he never left. Or if he did, he didn't go so far that Pete couldn't follow him.