Work Text:
When Ray flew out to visit him for a few days, Walt certainly hadn't expected the suggestion that they take a road trip all the way back across the country instead of Ray going home the way he came. He still hasn't figured out exactly what made him agree to it either. Like he hasn't already spent enough of his life cooped up in a vehicle with Ray Person.
But he agreed.
And now they're picking their way across the country in a rented four-door sedan that gets some decent mileage as opposed to the gaudy purple thing that Ray had wanted them to take.
A stop at the store is a necessity for some travel food and some drinks, and Ray picks up an auxiliary cord and a car charger for their iPods so that they have something to listen to and don't have to depend on the local radio stations for good music.
The first thing Ray puts on when they're back in the car is his extensive playlist of country music.
Walt certainly isn't complaining about that. He merges onto the highway and doesn't really care where they're going as long as they're headed west.
They have a map but they don't have a plan, or a schedule.
And neither of them particularly care.
===
Their first stop is in Nashville. They spend a couple of days there.
Walt doesn't really remember most of it.
===
There isn't anything to see for miles. Just desert and some mountains and the road stretching out in front of them. Occasionally a road sign will pop up declaring an exit, or a billboard advertising a trucker stop, but the times that happens are few and far between.
The radio isn't on because they decided to roll the windows down and the sound of the wind drowns out the music. Ray's seat is reclined a little and he has his feet propped up on the door, crossed at the ankles. The fact that there isn't any music doesn't keep him from making his own. He hums and bounces his feet to a tune in his head.
"Put your fucking feet down, dude." Walt glances at Ray. "I can't see the side mirror."
Ray rolls his head on the seat to look at Walt, eyebrows raising over the rims of his sunglasses. "We haven't seen another human being for almost twenty-five miles, Walt. The closest we've come was that funny looking cactus a while back," he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "I don't think you need your mirror."
Walt opens his mouth to say something else, but is cut off by the musical cue that indicates Ray has a text message. He grinds his teeth unconsciously and has to remind himself to stop.
Ray's phone has been going off, seemingly nonstop, since they started this stupid trip.
Walt is pretty sure that if he has to listen to that goddamn noise one more time, he's going to snatch Ray's phone out of his hand and toss it out the window. The sound of Ray's thumbs against the buttons is only slightly less annoying. "I thought this was like, a bonding trip or some shit. Isn't that what you called it?"
"I'm pretty sure I called it 'The Most Epic Road Trip to Ever Happen', but sure," Ray says agreeably. "Bonding trip sounds good too."
"Is your phone going to be surgically attached to your hand the entire way across the country?" Walt asks. He thinks he has a right to know. They're not even halfway there yet.
Ray gives him this look that Walt knows means he has a lot more to say about that than what actually comes out of his mouth. "Is it bothering you?" The tone is even and bland, sort of reminiscent of TV psychologists.
"If I have to listen to that stupid noise one more fucking time, I'm going to pull over, bash your head in with a rock, and then run your phone over five hundred times," Walt says instantly.
The fight Ray is having with himself to not laugh is a visible one. "If it would make you feel better, homes, I can put it on vibrate instead."
Walt feels an absurd rush of relief at the idea. "Please."
Ray does laugh this time and changes the setting on his phone. "How many miles have you been holding that one in?" he asks.
Walt sighs. "Since just outside of Nashville." He slants a glance at Ray. "Who the fuck are you texting all the time anyway?"
Ray is still laughing at him as he just shakes his head. "It doesn't matter, dude."
"She'd better have some really nice tits," he says, but otherwise Walt doesn't pry because Ray moves his feet to rest on the dashboard instead of the edge of the window.
===
Ray demands that they stop and visit at least one really hokey, stupid roadside tourist trap. The one he chooses turns out to be the Seven Seas Souvenir Shop.
Walt has never seen a hokier looking place with all of its colors, and seashells, and sharks. He hasn't quite figured out what the dinosaur statues are doing there, but they're still pretty entertaining.
Ray gets a real kick out of the pirate museum that's tucked inside. He spends some money getting a silver keychain and a dumb magnet for the fridge that Walt knows is actually going to find a comfortable home there.
They're both hungry when they leave the shop so they drive down the road a little ways before they pull into the parking lot of an old fashioned diner. Their waitress seats them in one of the booths and gives them both a laminated menu. She just grins when they both order a sweet tea.
Walt picks at the cracked vinyl of the booth. He glances at the menu and decides almost instantly that he wants a burger and fries. They're able to order their food when their waitress comes back with their drinks. "So what have you been doing lately?"
Ray shrugs his shoulders and leans back in the booth. He sets his phone on the edge of the table. "Nothin', man," he says. "Been thinking about going back to school, though."
"That would probably keep you entertained for a while," Walt says with a bit of a grin.
"Yeah, maybe." Ray returns the grin. "So are you still dating Tracy?"
Walt shakes his head after a minute. "No," he replies. "She dumped me. Fed me that line about how she was trying really hard, but I'd just changed too much, and she couldn't do it anymore."
Ray makes a noise. "And have you?" he asks.
"I don't know, man. I guess," Walt replies. The silence stretches on a while, but Ray's just watching him patiently. That's the thing about Ray - he spews a lot of bullshit, but he knows when to be serious, when to really listen. "We started fighting a lot."
"About what?"
Walt shrugs his shoulders. "Really stupid shit," he says. "She'd get so worked up over shit that, in the long run, didn't even fucking matter."
Their waitress chooses that moment to bring over their food.
Ray reassures her that they don't need anything else, and promptly sends her on her way. He watches Walt push the pickle spear off his plate, onto a napkin instead. "Dude, if you're not going to eat that, I will." Ray drags the pickle across the table with a finger on the corner of the napkin when Walt waves it away. "What kind of shit were you fighting about?"
"She got really pissed off at me one day when we were shopping at Target because her sister's baby was turning one. She wanted my opinion," Walt explains. "And I told her that the kid was only gonna be a year old. What the fuck did it matter if she got the blue blanket with hippos or the green blanket with elephants? He's not going to fucking care. At least he has a blanket. There are plenty of kids out there that would kill to have a blanket regardless of what dumb fucking pattern is on it."
Ray huffs a little laugh and shakes his head. "Come on, homes. You know women are crazy when it comes to babies."
Walt can't help but smile some, and he plays with the flag that came stuck in the top of his burger. "Yeah, I guess." There's a long moment where neither of them say anything, until Ray's phone lights up and buzzes against the surface of the table. "So what about you?" Walt asks him.
"What about me?" Ray picks his phone up to read the text.
Walt jerks his chin at the phone. "You must have somethin' going on since you can't keep your hands off your phone," he says.
Ray scrunches his face, and for a second Walt thinks he's going to sneeze or something, but he just puts the phone down and offers, "It's kind of complicated." He totally changes the subject after that, and Walt doesn't push for the details that Ray clearly doesn't want to share.
===
The hotel that they stop at isn't the shittiest hotel Walt's ever seen in his life, but it's definitely lower on the totem pole. But they don't have many choices if they want to keep their expenses at a relative minimum.
"You jump out and check us in. I'm gonna park this bitch." Ray swings the car around near the front door, and Walt climbs out.
The receptionist looks tired and sort of cranky, and Walt can seriously relate. They'd sat in traffic because of an accident, and that was after they'd driven most of the day. She cheers up considerably when Walt flashes her a big smile and goes out of his way to be kind to her as he asks about available rooms.
Ray's entrance into the lobby is heralded with a loud, "Motherfucker!" when he snags his foot on the upturned corner of the rug and almost lands flat on his face.
Walt waits until Ray sidles up to the counter to say, "It's either we share a bed or we sleep in the car. I don't give a shit if you don't."
Ray flashes him a shit-eating grin. "I don't care, bro," he replies. "But I should give you fair warning that I sort of have a thing for blonds." He waggles his eyebrows lewdly.
The girl behind the counter tries to cover her laugh with a cough, but fails. Badly.
Walt gives a long-suffering sigh and tells her to go ahead and give them the room. He shoots Ray a look when Ray sidesteps closer. "If you try to molest me, I'm going to leave you on the side of the road, Person."
"Promises, promises." Ray waves a hand vaguely.
They're barely through the doorway before Ray starts stripping shamelessly out of all of his clothes, claiming first dibs on the shower.
Walt just shakes his head and decides not to remind Ray that he actually took a shower this morning before they got on the road again. He strips down to his boxers and uses the vanity sink to brush his teeth and then turns to inspect the bed.
The mattress is supposedly a Queen-sized.
Walt seriously doubts the veracity of that statement. He just sighs and shakes his head and starts to collect Ray's trail of clothes off the floor. He starts to fold everything and sets it in a pile on the dresser.
It's as he's folding the jeans that he realizes Ray's phone is still in the pocket.
Walt sends a cautious glance over his shoulder, but he can still hear the water of the shower running, and it's not doing a damned thing to drown out the noise that is Ray Person singing Johnny Cash at the top of his lungs.
The inbox of Ray's phone is full of text messages, all of which are to and from Brad.
That's it.
All of the calls, both dialed and received, are from Brad.
"Shit," Walt mutters. He understands now why he'd gotten such a vague answer from Ray when he'd broached the subject of a girlfriend. Walt stares at the face of Ray's phone for a minute or two and is startled when it lights up and starts vibrating in his hands.
It's an incoming call from Brad. In the ID picture that flashes, Brad is shirtless and laughing, and Walt wonders briefly what was going on when it was taken before he shakes himself out of it.
He safely tucks it back into the pocket of Ray's jeans and sets them on top of the neat pile. He wants to tell Ray in no uncertain terms that he can be trusted - he wouldn't speak a word of it to anyone, wouldn't risk Brad's career like that.
But that would require him admitting to checking Ray's phone in the first place. Walt runs a hand over his hair and climbs onto the bed, between the sheets. The crack about having a thing for blonds certainly makes a lot more sense in the light of this information.
Even when the water stops, Ray's singing doesn't. He keeps singing until he emerges from the bathroom and starts brushing his teeth. Ray's clutching the towel around his hips with one hand and he casts a glance around when he notices that his clothes are no longer on the floor. "Aw, Walt, you picked up after me."
"Fuck off," Walt tells him flatly, and gropes for the remote to the TV.
Ray laughs and digs his phone out of his pocket. He checks it and then tugs his clothes back on and swipes the key card off the dresser. "Gotta make a phone call," he says.
Walt watches him leave and somehow resists the urge he gets to say, "Tell Brad I said hi."
===
It turns out the Tucson Museum of Art has half-price admission from two o'clock in the afternoon until closing time during the summer. The only reason they find out about it is because Ray goes into the gas station to buy some water when they stop to fill up the tank.
He comes back out with the water, waving a flier around.
The museum is only a block or two out of the way, so they swing over after Walt screws the gas cap back on and shuts the door of the tank. It looks a lot like all of the other museums Walt has been to. They don't really have a plan, but Walt picks up a map, and Ray picks the direction, and they just start walking through all of the exhibits.
Ray makes a big deal out of the fact that there aren't any dinosaurs, and Walt reminds him that it's an art museum, not a museum of natural history. Ray still pouts, though.
At some point during their self-guided tour through the museum, Walt looks up and finds that Ray has disappeared. He shrugs it off and moves on to the next room.
Ray will catch up with him eventually.
It takes another room or two, but Ray definitely finds him. Walt winces a little when he hears his name echo off the walls, and he looks up to see where Ray's yelling has originated from. He crosses the room and comes to a stop next to Ray in front of a large black and white piece of art. He tries to ignore the scandalized looks they're getting from some of the other museum patrons.
"What do you think it means?" Ray asks. He tilts his head to the side and squints at the framed artwork.
Walt slants a glance at Ray. "You were dropped on your head as a child, weren't you?"
Ray waves a dismissive hand. "That's entirely beside the point, Walt."
The pair of them stand there for a few more silent minutes before Walt says, "Hey, you know what it reminds me of?" he asks. "Those really huge train sets that people put up in their basements, or the little Christmas villages that are in all of the window displays along Main Street."
"Yeah, it kind of does, doesn't it?" Ray makes a thoughtful noise. "Or like, a huge architectural model."
"Something like that." Walt glances up when he hears a buzzing and isn't surprised to see Ray slide his phone out of his pocket. He watches the way Ray's mouth starts to turn up at the corners as he fires off a response. Walt wonders what Brad has to say this time, but doesn't want to ask.
It's almost startling to see that fond smile now, see the way Ray just lights up every time he gets a text message or a phone call, and know that it's Brad on the other end.
Walt can't help but smile a little himself.
===
"Hey. Hey, Walt."
Walt closes his eyes for the briefest of seconds because Ray says that in the tone that means whatever is going to come out of his mouth next is likely going to stir the desire to inflict physical harm. "What, Ray?"
"Wanna go to Yuma?"
There's a minute or two where Walt just stares at the cracked pavement they're traveling over. "Is there a particular reason you want to go to Yuma, aside from the fact that it was in the name of a 1950's western?"
Ray seems to think about it for a minute before he replies, "Not really, no."
"I didn't think so." Walt turns his head to check the blind spot before he changes lanes. "We've only got a few more hours," he says. "Figured we'd just get there instead of stopping again. That all right with you?"
Ray nods and stretches and puts his socked feet up on the dash. "Yeah, man, that's fine."
It isn't until they're on the Five headed toward Oceanside that Walt even thinks to ask. "Hey, Ray?"
Ray looks up from whatever text message he's sending, probably to Brad. "Huh?"
"Are you still living in that dump that's near the shopping center?" Walt asks.
"Oh. Uh--" Ray runs his hand over his neck - a gesture that lets Walt know he's nervous - "No, not anymore."
Walt waits a minute or two to see if Ray's going to continue that thought, but silence descends. He casts a quick glance at Ray who, for maybe the first time ever, looks mildly uncomfortable. "So where am I going then?" he coaxes. He's pretty sure he already knows the answer. He just wants to see if Ray is finally going to own up to it.
The silence stretches on for another minute. "I, uh, moved in with Brad."
Suspicions confirmed, Walt just nods his head and doesn't say anything. He knows that if Ray wants to talk about it, Ray's going to talk about it, whether Walt asks him to or not.
Eventually Ray makes a noise in the back of his throat. "Look, when I say I moved in with Brad, I mean like, I moved in with Brad."
Walt tries not to smile. "Yeah," he says. "It probably helps Brad, you know. That he has a roommate now to look after shit when he gets deployed."
Ray makes a face. "No, that's not what I meant," he mutters. "I meant that we live together. Intimately. As in, have a lot of sex."
He's not particularly surprised at the directness - that's just Ray. "Oh?" Walt asks. He glances at Ray and actually sees the moment where Ray realizes Walt knew exactly what he meant the first time.
Ray scowls at him. "You're an asshole."
Walt just laughs.
===
When they pull up to the house, Brad is sitting in a lawn chair in the driveway with a beer in hand, watching the sprinkler arc across the lawn.
Walt pulls into the driveway and inches the car up until it's less than a foot away from where Brad's sitting. He has to hand it to Brad. When most people probably would have gotten up, Brad just arches an eyebrow and props a bare foot up on the front bumper.
"Did you boys have a nice time?" Brad asks once they've both extricated themselves from the car.
Walt smiles. "Yeah, actually."
Ray shoots him a look. "You say that like you're fucking surprised, Hasser. I think I'm fucking offended."
The corner of Brad's mouth tips up and he says, "There's more beer in the fridge," before he takes another swig from his own bottle.
"Nice." Ray hefts up his bag and heads into the house through the garage.
"When does your flight leave?" Brad asks Walt.
Walt shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugs his shoulders. "Tomorrow afternoon," he replies.
Brad nods his head and glances across the yard at a loud shout, but it's just the kids down the street playing outside. "Well, you know you're more than welcome to crash on the couch tonight," he says.
The hood of the car is really warm when Walt pulls himself up to sit on it, but he doesn't mind. "The couch?" he asks automatically. It isn't until he says it that he realizes Brad likely has no idea that he knows.
One of Brad's eyebrows arches again. "I only have two bedrooms, Hasser," he points out.
Walt takes a deep breath and decides to just dive in. "Yeah, but it's not like you're actually using your second bedroom. Making me sleep on the couch when you have a perfectly good, unused bed is kind of fucked up, man."
There's a long minute where Brad just stares at him and then the corner of his mouth twitches. "Point."
Ray comes back out of the house and joins Walt on the hood of the car, handing him an open beer. He just flashes a grin when Walt takes it with a thank you. "So you crashin' here tonight, man?"
Walt nods his head and rests the sweating bottle of beer against his leg. "Yeah," he replies. "You even get to sleep in your own bed this time."
"Aw, hear that, Brad?" Ray grins. "We can totally spoon tonight."
Brad stares. "No one wants to spoon with you, Ray," he replies, but Walt finally hears it - that note of affection and fondness that's reserved only for Ray.
"Come on, Brad. I'll even let you be the big spoon this time."
Walt just laughs and lies back on the car. He stares up at the big, blue, California sky and listens to Brad and Ray bitch at each other, and the kids down the street shriek with laughter, and he's suddenly really grateful that Ray whined at him for two straight hours until he managed to convince Walt that the road trip was a good idea.
It really was.