Work Text:
A table in a gas station cafeteria didn't seem as intimate as their private channel. Nor did the smoking spot behind the station. They had to go deep into the roadside field until they finally felt they could say a thing.
And yet, they looked at each other first. We are so similar and so different, both of them thought. They could have met already a hundred times, in motels or at gas stations or at warehouses. And failed to notice.
They cleared their throats and started speaking simultaneously. Then stopped. Then started again. Without the occasional radio static and muffling effect of their poor-quality mics, their voices sounded magically clear, just as sharp as the silence in this field, where the suffocating noise of the highway couldn't reach.
They still smelled of gasoline and emissions and road dust. Why wouldn't they. They were but fish in the rivers of the gigantic roadmap.
They touched. Warm and soft against the calloused palms.
Should they stop now? Ignition on, headlights on, clutch engaged. It's the turn for the gas pedal, either sending on a way free and determined and hungry, or immediately interrupted by the brakes and reverse gear.
The question sounded complicated, but the answer was not. After all, they would never need brakes, because they would never collide head-on. After all, they always travelled alongside.
They tasted like freedom.