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He blamed the coke.
It narrowed the synapses, collapsed the space between thought and action. Which is how he’d no sooner seen the shiny new Harley in the suburban driveway than he was ditching his car on the other side of the strip of woods and prowling through the backyard in broad fucking daylight, certain that at any second he’d hear a bark or a shout but there was nothing, only the throb of a mower a few houses away and the hum of cocaine and adrenaline in his veins.
Rust was ready to hotwire it but the key was already in the ignition – Mr. Weekend Warrior couldn’t even be assed to put it in his pocket - and then he was roaring out of the subdivision, wind in his face, laughing.
Fuck he’d missed this. Fuck it was good. He took corners too sharply, relishing the pull of gravity, the nearness of death on the asphalt with every beat left in his heart. Some cynical part of his brain, the part that was usually so, so tightly in control, watched him with its mouth twisted in distaste. It’s all just chemicals, it thought. Meaningless sensation. Look at you giving into it, wallowing in the muck. But that part wasn’t in charge right now, because this whole plan wouldn’t work if he couldn’t be Crash for a few days. And hell if it didn’t feel good to wallow in the chemicals.
He didn’t think too hard about where he was going until he was almost there. Only an idiot would drive a stolen vehicle straight to own home. But that’s where he seemed to be headed, not that he had a home, and in any case it was less where he was going than whom he was going to, and he didn’t want to think about that either, so he just kept driving. He calculated his angle of approach just in case Marty was outside, positioning the big orange sun at his back and skidding to a stop. It paid off. The only person he ever really wanted to see these days was there, nursing a beer, squinting at him from a lawnchair.
Rust swung easily off the bike and sauntered over, smirking.
Marty stood up and waved his beer at the bike.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?”
“Borrowed it. Wanna come for a ride?”
Score one more point for coke, Rust thought dimly. Synapses too close together. No space to think about what to say.
“... A ride.”
Those blue eyes narrowed tighter. Probably not just because of the sun.
“If you’re dealing with a biker gang, maybe you should spend some time on a bike.” He stepped closer, into Marty’s space. “Unless you’re scared.”
Marty rolled his eyes.
“Where are we going? What do I need?”
“Nothing.”
“Right ... I’ll lock up.”
Rust eyed him up and down as he walked away, because why not, and lit a Camel. The nicotine sparked off the cocaine—just chemicals, electricity shooting around this temporarily electrified meat—and he smiled again as he poked through the trunk bag. There was even a helmet in there. Better and better. He tossed the round shell at Marty as soon as he was in range, then wriggled out of his leather jacket and threw him that too.
“Put those on. Keep you safe.”
“What about you?”
Rust shrugged. Safe had left the building a long time ago.
Marty stopped a step or two back from the bike, jacket in one hand, helmet in the other, still squinting into the sun.
“You, ah, okay to drive this thing?”
“Drove it here,” he non-answered.
It must have been answer enough. Marty buckled the helmet on and shrugged into the leather jacket—too tight across the shoulders, too long in the sleeves, still looked too damn good.
“I’m gonna regret this,” Marty grumbled.
“See, now, that’s just a fundamental lack of imagination. Nothing matters. Nothing to regret.”
Rust settled back on the bike and turned the key. A cruiser hadn’t been his usual style, but the Harley had plenty of room and plenty of kick.
Warmth curled through his stomach as Marty clambered on behind him and snuggled in close.
“Do we need to make the bike a no-talking zone too?”
Rust snorted and gunned the engine.
“Jesus! Warn a guy!” Arms clenched around his stomach, almost too tight, as if Marty needed to hold Rust’s guts in.
They swung out of the driveway. Rust headed west, riding off into the sunset like John fucking Wayne at the end of the movie. Soon, he knew, the coke would wear off and he’d be back to waiting for the end of the movie to hurry up and arrive. For someone lacking the constitution for suicide, riding a motorcycle too fast without a helmet wasn’t a bad way to mash that button. But he was pretty sure this film wasn’t over yet.
“Didn’t you used to ride bulls?” Rust said over his shoulder.
“The skill’s not as transferrable as you might think,” Marty said, breath in Rust’s ear. Rust had let himself think, once or twice, about having his partner’s lips this close. He’d barely have to twist his head.
He watched the road instead. There was time. This night had only just begun.
“Got it. Can’t ride nothing but a bull,” he said, to give his mouth something to do. He caught himself just before adding “Sure explains some things about your marriage,” because there was apparently enough function left in his brain to keep him from fucking up the only thing he had left.
He started off fast, roaring down the highway, wind in his hair. If he fell now, maybe clipped a semi, went over the handlebars, he’d be gone almost before had the chance to realize it. Except it wasn’t just him. He overruled the coke, driving slower and easier than he wanted, gliding along the lane rather than slaloming wildly between the cars and trucks, as the light drained out of the sky and shadows gathered in the Spanish moss.
The first stars came out and Rust steered them down rural routes, big enough to be paved and not crawling with armadillos, small enough that they didn’t have to share the road. Inch by inch, finally, Marty loosened his death grip on Rust’s torso. He didn’t slide away, though. They stayed squeezed together, belly to back. Rust basked in it. Arms wrapped around him. Warm flesh pressing close. Coke singing in his veins and a two-stroke engine throbbing under his pelvis.
Fuck he’d missed this.
He leaned into a curve and felt something he didn’t think had been there before pressing against his left ass cheek. Interesting.
He took the next turn, leaning into it harder, taking the excuse to wriggle a little. Definitely a dick. He settled back further and, for his trouble, won a gasp against his ear. He smiled. It was probably for the bike, not him. The damn things were the greatest ass magnets known to man, whatever your flavor of ass, and Rust had never been picky. Some part of him - the coke, surely the coke - wished it was for him. Wished that even though he was nothing but a temporary and meaningless constellation of atoms, that for just one person in this whole world, he was a special constellation. The one someone sought out in the dark.
Rust pressed his left leg back slightly, provoking another sharp intake of breath. At the next bend in the road, one of the arms around his stomach shifted up slightly. A thumbnail flicked sharply across his nipple. Just once. Fast enough to be passed off as an accident, deliberate enough to encode a message: two can play at that game.
He slowed down more, arched his back a little. When the fields yielded to swamp, he started looking for a spot to pull off. The land around the road sank away all together, leaving them beelining between two halves of a still, starry lake. Rust thanked nothing in particular that it’d been dry lately, as dry as it ever got in these bottomlands, and the water was low. This road probably flooded out a couple times a year.
The water gave way to marsh again on the right, and the headlamp flashed over dirt road lined with black willows. He hadn’t seen a house or a car in miles. Perfect. He eased into the turn, that hard-on still pressing into his ass, cocaine and anticipation still pricking in his veins.
Someone had installed a picnic table about a hundred yards down, in a small patch of lawn. He rolled the bike to a stop and held the brake.
“What’re we doing here?” Marty asked.
“Just stretching our legs. Hop off.”
It was more of a scramble than a hop. Rust dismounted more gracefully and stretched, feeling his shirt ride up over his jeans. He wondered if Marty was looking.
They stood for a moment in the dark. Then, Marty unbuckled the helmet, hung it off a handlebar, and walked a slow lap of the clearing. Rust watched him, still. Marty was orbiting around him, so why did he feel like it was the other way around?
Probably the coke.
At last, Marty settled against the end of the picnic table, leaning back, looking at Rust. The moon was low, but Rust thought he looked unsure. Hopeful.
He closed the distance between them with two long strides, nerved himself up, and took a hold of the lapels of his own leather jacket. He tugged just enough to be an invitation, but not so hard Marty had to move.
“This looks good on you.”
“Yeah? Looks better on you, though.”
He could feel Marty’s breath on his face. It would take nothing to close the distance. Just the slightest shift.
But the space was back, stretching the gap between impulse and action, filling it with thought and doubt, and the sure, terrible knowledge that nothing ever worked, and nothing ever helped, and nothing’s ever worth the cost.
Do it, he thought. Whatever it is, do it. Kiss me. Pull me down on the table. Bend me over the bike. Hit me. Do something I’ll feel.
Marty just stared into his eyes, like a deer in the headlights.
If Rust slid his leg forward, he could find out if Marty was still hard.
He could let go of the lapels of the jacket and grip Marty’s hips, or the back of his neck.
But he couldn’t.
There was too much nothing.
Please, Rust thought, trying to push it through his eyes, at least, since he’d never manage to get it to any muscles. Then, Coward.
Marty looked away.
“Guess we should be getting back?”
Rust dropped the lapels and sprang away immediately.
“Guess so.”
He mounted the bike, not looking back as Marty climbed on behind him. This time, he didn’t snuggle in so tight.
“You, uh, know how to get back?” Marty asked.
“I reckon.”
Someone else might have told Marty about learning to track turns and measure distance, about all those times his father left him by the road and seemed surprised when he found his way home. But for what? Sucking up some skin-deep pity, maybe giving his partner the mistaken idea that he was a person, and not a person-shaped emptiness.
He drove steadily, mechanically, until the bike purred its way back to the driveway. Marty jumped off fast. But when Rust stepped off after him, Marty held out the leather jacket and the helmet.
“Here. Keep you safe,” he muttered.
Rust nodded and put both on, though he hated the feel of helmet straps choking him.
“I’ll see you later?” Marty asked. “You’ll be back?”
Rust nodded again.
Then he pointed his headlamp toward the horizon, hit the highway, and was gone.