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McVries coughed. His chest hurt. It wasn’t a surprise, now that maybe, just maybe, he might not want to die anymore. Maybe a little part of him hoped that he would survive–no, not just survive, live, actually live through this. But that was just a little part. The rest of him still knew what he deserved. Remember me? I hurt Priscilla. Poor, poor Priscilla... I'm the reason that we have to do this.
McVri es coughed again. He supposed it didn't really matter whether he got sick or not, he was going to die either way. Just not yet. Please God—or whoever's listening—just give me time. "Please, just a little more".
“A little more what?” drawlled Stebbins from behind him.
“Noth—” McVries broke into a violent coughing fit. This was it. This was the end. Now he was going to die, with Garraty up ahead with the others, and only cryptic Stebbins for company.
“Warning. Warning, 61.”
He was going to die, and he couldn't remember what the last things he had said to Garraty was, and for some reason, as he stumbled along–keeled over and gasping for air– that seemed incredibly important. He hoped it had been something smart or witty. Kind at the very least. He half coughed, half puked up a green heap of phlegm spattered with blood. It reminded him of a worm that had crawled out of the muck and died, disgustingly white and very dead. It had stung of acid coming up, and now that it was out, and had landed on his foot, he could see chunks of partially digested raw hamburger, and, strangely–
“Moonflowers.” Stebbins shook his head. “What a happy occasion, I do hope that you invite me to the wedding.”
McVries growled, “Shut up,” and started to speed ahead. Just once he wished that anything that came out of Stebbins' mouth made any sense at all.
“Not so happy then, I see. I suppose unrequited never is.”
McVries slowed down again. “What was that?”
“Oh my.” Stebbins feigned surprise “Is it possible that you are unaware of your predicament? It certainly adds yet another layer of tragedy to the situation.”
“Try speaking English for once, bastard.”
“There's a difference between speaking a language and spelling it out. You're sick.”
“Thanks for the insight.” McVries grimaced and spat something into hand. He held it up to his face. It was another small, white flower covered in bloody mucus.
“Morning glory, moonflowers, ipomoea alba. As I said, you're sick. Hanahaki Disease, caused by unrequited love. Cured by true love’s kiss. Otherwise, your lovesick heart will keep producing flowers until you choke on them and die. Very romantic.”
McVries felt blood rise to cheeks. He shook the flower off his hand. “Stop messing with me. I don't believe in that shit.”
“Love, or magical diseases?”
“Both.”
“Very well then.” Stebbins shrugged and put his hands in pockets.
“Yeah.” But McVries didn't speed up to catch the others. Could it be true? Could magic really exist? He supposed that it didn't really matter, death was coming to him soon enough. But that also meant that he didn't have anything to lose. He wondered who it would be. Couldn't be Priscilla, he decided, brushing his fingertips along his scar. That ship had sailed. He couldn't think of anyone who it could possibly be; the only girls he was close to were his family.
Maybe it's not a girl. Maybe it's a boy. Maybe you're queer. "No," he breathed, but then a face forced itself into his brain, causing an unwelcome tremour to run down his spine. Raymond Garraty. It couldn't be him, but it had to be; there was no one else who it could possibly be. He certainly liked Ray, as a friend. He had had a few indecent thoughts about him, but that had just been his insanity-induced sexual mania taking over. McVries giggled, but it turned into hacking almost immediately.
“Something funny?” Stebbins inquired.
McVries shook his head and waited a moment to catch his breath before answering. “I just don't know who it would be. I'm not close to anyone like that. I think you're just making this up to mess with me.”
“If you really can’t tell who it is, then I can’t help you.”
McVries remembered that he didn't like talking to Stebbins so he muttered: “You weren't much help in the first place.” and started to speed up again. He heard a soft chuckle behind him and sped up even more. Stebbins sure thought that he was so smart, being all vague and thinking he's better than everyone else. He could have been a politician, McVries decided. Maybe he still could.
If you really can't tell who it is then I can't help you. Shit. That sure sounded a lot like Stebbins knew who it was. That was impossible though, McVries didn't even know who it was. Yes you do, coward. It’s him. You know it is. You know. You know. “No I don’t!” McVries tried to scream, but it came out more like a whisper. Because he did. He did. He did. Because it was Garraty. Because he was queer. Because– oh God, it’s Ray . His friend: sweet, naive Ray. Ray who listened when he spoke and laughed when he joked. Ray who took everything seriously, even when no one else did. Ray who had saved him from his own reckless insanity. Ray who was going to die. And if he didn’t, then McVries would. His feelings weren’t going to make the owie go away. Love couldn’t beat death.
As if to prove that last point, McVries felt a tingling in his throat. Not again. His lungs contracted painfully and he gasped for air, but his airway was blocked by something. Flower petals, he thought miserably.
“Warning. Warning, 47.” No. But then Garraty was next to him.
“Pete? Pete, what’s wrong?” McVries couldn’t answer, his lungs were still spasming in his chest. At least I won’t be alone when I die . But then bloody, white flowers spilled out of his mouth and fluttered slowly down to the black road.
“What the fuck? Are those flowers ? What’s wrong with you, Pete?” Garraty was staring at McVries’ mouth. Shit. He was probably drooling. He wiped his mouth, and his hand came back with smears of dark red and a stray moonflower stuck in it. It stared up at him accusingly, and McVries shook his hand frantically to get rid of it, but it held tight, mocking him.
“Stop it! Wait a minute.” Garraty grabbed his bloody hand and carefully peeled the petal off. “What is this?” he asked quietly.
McVries just shook his head. “Shit.”
“Doesn’t look like it. Really, you can tell me.”
Except that he couldn’t. If he was in love with Garraty that would make everything so very much worse than it was already.
A fearful passage of death-marked love . McVries heard a strangled choking, it took him a few seconds to realise that it was laughter. He was giggling. Or crying, maybe. It was all just so messed up. He had wanted to fall in love once. He had wanted it so fucking much . But not now. Not now that he was marching towards death, with his apparent ‘true love’.
Then Garraty slapped him. “Snap out of it!” McVries snapped out of it. His cheeks were wet, though.
“Ray, I–” You what? What can you possibly say, I love you? Best case scenario you kiss and die. Is that what you want? But that was what he wanted. Maybe not right now, he could hold on another day or two before he died, but why not spend his last moments in love? It seemed like his best option. Hold on a minute there, loverboy, we haven’t figured if it even is him. It could be someone else. Or Stebbins could be making it all up.
“Ray? Have you, I mean have you ever thought about being, you know, queer?”
McVries regretted asking immediately. Garraty’s eyes widened and he almost tripped before collecting himself enough to give McVries a reproachful look.
“What the hell, Pete? You think I’m queer?”
“No—I was just thinking…”
“Well, it was just a game. Just a game, Pete!”
McVries realised that Garraty was scared.
“It didn’t mean anything. Just a game.”
“What are you talking about, Ray?” McVries asked softly. He didn’t know what he had triggered in Garraty.
“I was just a kid, Pete.” Garraty’s eyes were pleading. “Jimmy and I– I mean he was my friend and it was his idea that we, for us to– we took off our clothes, Pete. But we were just kids, you know? And we’re not friends anymore.”
“Why not?” McVries didn’t like the look Garraty was giving him, but he needed to know what happened.
“I hit him. Right here.” Garraty’s hand jerked up to his face. “With a gun.”
“You shot him?!”
“No! No, not a real gun, I just hit him. He’s probably got a scar, though. Like yours. Different though. You think I’m queer? Just go ask Jimmy, he knows all about being queer. Just ask him.”
“Ray–”
“Just talk to fucking Jimmy, Pete! I don’t want to hear it!”
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t mean a damn thing.”
And there was his answer. He knew better than to push it this time. He started to speed up, hoping to find someone else to distract him for a minute or two, but then it started again. Of fucking course . The flowers seemed smug, fluttering to the dark ground before disappearing behind him.
“They are flowers.” Garraty moved up beside him. McVries gave him a weary look. Were they going to ignore the last couple minutes? Just move on?
“No.”
“Come on, Pete, you never did tell me. Why’re you spewing flowers everywhere?”
McVries was so done with this. “Why do you think ?” he demanded, as though Garraty knew anything.
“I want to think that you’re pulling my leg, but I don’t know. I guess you’re cursed?”
“Damn right I’m cursed. Magic is real, did you know?”
“No. Kinda hard to feel surprised though. Kinda hard to feel anything right now. So who cursed you?”
“You.”
“Huh?”
“What’s that? No apologies? No kiss to make it better? Stebbins was right, this really is a tragedy. Not that love is ever anything else, at least not in my experience anyway.”
“But, uh... I mean–”
“Wiser words were never spoken.” McVries nodded sagely. He was suddenly very, very tired. Even more than usual. “Look, don’t mess up your head trying to think too hard. I’m just being funny.”
Garraty opened his mouth and closed it again, then nodded.
They walked in silence for a couple of minutes before Garraty spoke.
“So are you really cursed then? Like, with real magic? I shouldn’t believe it, but I can’t think of a real explanation for why you’re hacking up flowers.” He did a little shrugging gesture with his shoulders before shoving his hands in his pockets.
Goddamnit Ray, why are you so cute? McVries shook his head, he wasn’t sure where that thought had come from, but he wanted to discourage any others from coming through the same way.
“Yup, fucking curse is real as rain. Suppose that means that magic is too.”
“It’s right. Not real, right as rain.”
“Whatever, the point is I’m cursed. Any questions from the class?”
“Yes, actually. Why are you cursed? Who cursed you?”
“That hardly matters.”
“Why ask for questions if you won’t answer them?”
“That’s a very good question that I’m not going to answer.”
Garraty huffed. “Fine then, what will you tell me?”
McVries considered; what could he tell Garraty? Anything, really: Garraty was thick enough that– as long as McVries didn’t explicitly say it– he would never guess that McVries was in love with him.
“Not much— not because I don’t want to, but because I don't honestly know. I’m cursed with some magical disease and now I get to puke up flowers until I die.”
“Or?”
“Or what?”
“Well, there’s got to be some kind of cure.”
“I guess. Doesn’t really matter though, I’m dying anyway.”
“Don’t say that. Maybe you’ll win, maybe you’ll outlive us all. You’ll want to know about a cure then.”
“I’m not going to win, Ray, you know that. I’m just going to keep walking until I can’t anymore, then I’ll sit down. Game over.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“You want me to lie?”
“No. I want you to want to live.”
“And what good would that do me? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re on a fucking death march . No happy endings, now or ever. Nothing we do can change that. It’s too late.”
But isn’t a tragically romantic ending better than a happy one? Dying in each other’s arms: thus with a kiss, I die. The perfect fairytale ending.
Garraty didn’t seem to have anything to say to that, so they walked in silence for a while. McVries’ thoughts wandered.
To confess or not to confess, that is the question. Whether it’s nobler to suffer in silence and save myself the pain of rejection, or to take a chance at being briefly happy. Either way, I die. That should end the heartache at least.
Except that there is no ‘either way’, you know how it ends, don’t you? I believe Stebbins’ exact words were ‘unrequited love’. Now that doesn’t sound good, does it?
Well, it didn’t matter; McVries had already made his decision. There was no question, he was not talking to Garraty. If you do, then you’ll be no worse than those two brothers.
Fuck Stebbins for forcing him to figure things out just in time to die.
“Yes,” said a quiet voice beside him.
“What?” McVries looked over at Garraty. There was a strange expression on his face, like he would be scared if he wasn’t so tired.
“Yes,” Garraty repeated. “I’ve thought about being queer.”
McVries' breath hitched in his throat.
“I’m not saying that I am, just that I’ve thought about it. Sorry about going off on you before, I was just scared that you knew . Doesn’t matter what you do or don’t know though, only one of us will make it out of this—and that’s if we’re lucky.”
Well, that certainly complicated things. He’d felt safe knowing that his feelings were one-sided, that there was no point in taking the risk. What risk though, what risk? Risk of rejection? That hardly seemed to matter. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
But if anything does happen between you two, then how are you any better than those two brothers?
Stop saying that. This is different.
Why yes, of course it is. How silly to think otherwise.
You’re mocking me.
I am you.
“Shut up,” McVries muttered.
“What?”
“No, not you. Sorry. I think I’m going insane, or I’m already there. Having conversations with myself.”
“You were telling yourself to shut up?
McVries sighed. “Suppose so.”
“Well, what were you saying that needed shutting up?”
“You sure you want to know?”
“There’s nothing you can say that would change anything. Seeing the dark at the end of the tunnel really sucks the power away from things that might have once made me recoil. Your words won’t faze me.”
McVries thought back to Garraty’s reaction to being asked about being queer but decided not to bring that up. If Garraty wanted the truth, he would get it. Here it goes…
“I’m cursed,” McVries said. Garraty waited a beat before responding:
“Yeah, I know.”
“But what you don’t know is how I acquired this rare and magical gift.” McVries licked his lips. “Now, bear in mind, everything I know about this I learned from an unreliable, tricky bastard who had no reason to tell me anything, let alone the truth. But he said that hammy what’s-it is caused by unrequited love. Apparently, my weak heart can’t take the loneliness anymore so it’s trying to blackmail me into kissing my love. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty sick considering the fact that this is a case of unrequited love.” He let out a humourless chuckle.
“Priscilla,” Garraty said, not quite a question. “There’s no way for you to get to her now, you being in the Walk and all.”
McVries had always known that Garraty was thick, but this was a new low. He had thought that he had made himself clear, but apparently Garraty was willing to squeeze himself into any room that McVries had left for doubt.
“No, not Priscilla.”
“What? Who, then?”
“Take a wild fucking guess,” McVries said bitterly. He watched Garraty’s confused expression, waiting for realization to make itself known.
“... not me.”
“Yes you, idiot. Who else?”
If anything, Garraty looked even more confused now than he had before. McVries decided to give him a moment to sort out his thoughts.
“Why?” he asked finally.
“No idea,” McVries said glumly.
“Gee, thanks a lot.”
“Oh,” McVries started. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I guess it’s ‘cause I feel like you understand me. I’ve never really felt like that before. Properly understood. You seem like you want to know who I am.”
“You make me feel that way, too.”
“Like you want to see me naked?”
“What? No! Why… we weren’t even talking about that,” Garraty stammered.
“Oh, must’ve just been in my head then.”
Garraty blushed.
“Relax, sweetheart, I’m just making fun.” McVries grinned over at him.
“Jeez, Pete,” a voice drawled from their right. “What are you doing to the poor boy? He’s bright red.”
McVries hadn’t noticed Baker coming up beside them. He wondered how much he had heard. “Just confessing my undying love for him.”
Baker laughed. Garraty spluttered something and McVries laughed, too. Only then he felt something tickling his lungs it turned into a cough. Baker pounded him on the back until it settled.
“That doesn’t sound very good,” he commented once McVries was upright again. McVries knew what he really meant was How long?
“It’s nothing but a reminder of how close I am to the end.” And a reminder that Garraty hadn’t confirmed or denied any feelings towards McVries yet.
“Not much closer than the rest of us,” Baker pointed out.
McVries shrugged. “Close enough.”
“Can we not talk about death?” Garraty asked. “Just this time. I want to pretend for a bit.”
“Hard to pretend when it feels like I’ve worn through the soles of my feet. Like I’m just walking on bone at this point,” Baker said.
“I’ll pretend,” McVries offered. “Anyone going to the party this weekend?”
“Party?”
“Doe’s parents are out of town, didn’t you hear?” McVries mocked confusion. “Can’t stand the guy, but I’ve never been one to pass up free alcohol. Surely you know, the whole school’s been talking about it all week.”
“Oh.” Baker nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I have. I didn’t think I would know anyone so I wasn’t planning on going. But if you’re gonna be there, I guess I’ll drop by for a bit.”
“That’d be swell.” McVries grinned. “Garraty?”
“I’ve never been to a proper party before, but I guess I’ll come…” Garraty still seemed a bit cautious.
“Great. Wait, you’ve never been to a party before?”
“Not with alcohol. Or no parents. Mum’s a little overprotective.”
“No worries, I’ll keep you out of too much trouble.” Baker smiled.
“Yes worries, I’ll be getting you right back in.”
They talked about “Doe’s party”, eventually veering off into stories of real parties that McVries and Baker had been to, until they had effectively avoided thinking about death for almost an hour. McVries had not, however, avoided thinking about Garraty. He was very aware of everything he and Garraty still had to say to each other, how limited their time was, and that he couldn’t say any of it in front of Baker. Well, ‘couldn’t’ was a strong word; perhaps ‘would rather not’ would be more accurate.
“What do you think, Pete?” Baker asked.
McVries opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out, and he knew this was it. When he tried to cough something sharp pushed through his lungs, a moonflower vine that had gone hard he supposed. Likely covered with flowers. It must have punctured something vital ( your fucking lung, dummie) , because he felt blood leaking through the hole to form a pool in the bottom of his lung. The droplets tickled on their way down. He tried to cough again, but all that came out was a soft whistle.
“Pete?” There was concern in Baker’s eyes, and, somehow worse, understanding. He knew that this was the end.
McVries still couldn’t breathe, and each step jostled the stick that had impaled him. “Uh,” he said. He had hoped to last a little longer, but ultimately the result was the same: he knew he wouldn’t win. He didn’t want to. He stopped. “B-b…”
“Goodbye, Pete.” Baker seemed to know what he was trying to say. McVries nodded at him then sat down and closed his eyes.
“Wait,” Garraty said.
“Warning. Warning, 61.”
McVries cracked his eyes open to look at Baker and shake his head.
“Ray,” Baker said softly. “There’s nothing you can do this time. You have to let him go.”
“No,” Garraty said. “You don’t understand.” He got down next to McVries. “I know this is the curse, how do I stop it.”
“Too late,” McVries breathed.
“No,” Garraty said again. “It’s not. What’s the cure?”
“There is no cure, Garraty. We have to go,” said Baker.
McVries nodded and let his eyes fall shut again. He used to hope for an afterlife, but now he thought that maybe unconscious nothingness might be fine.
“Warning. Third warning, 61.”
The vine that had pierced his lung had now grown around his heart. He wondered what it would look like.
“Warning. Second warning, 47.”
It began to squeeze.
“Warning. Second warning, 3.”
Then McVries felt dry lips brush his own. Maybe there was an afterlife after all. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw Garraty, face impossibly close to his own. He leaned in again for a deeper kiss this time and he heard a gasp from somewhere off to the right. The moonflower around his heart gave one last tremor before disappearing. He felt the liquid in his lungs run up through the punctured hole and back to where his blood was supposed to be. The hole itself closed and McVries could breathe. He pulled away and gaped at Garraty.
“Was that it?” Garraty asked breathlessly. “Was that the cure?”
McVries smiled and opened his mouth.
He heard a bang, and that was it.