Work Text:
The road stretches on forever, blacktop slick with the sweat from the boys’ boots. The air hung heavy, damp, pressing in with the quiet authority of a hand around a throat. Night bled into morning without fanfare, just a slight paling of the horizon, a lessening of shadows. For Parker, every step is another reminder of how badly his body wants to stop. And how badly it isn't allowed to.
He drifts closer to Barkovitch without realizing it. Barkovitch is all elbows and spit and sharp words, but he has a pace Parker could match. Predictable. Relentless. Maybe that's why Parker stuck near him. Maybe it's something else.
"I need to tell you something," Parker mutters, low enough so the boys ahead wouldn’t hear. He didn’t look up. Didn’t dare. His eyes stay on the road, cracked asphalt snaking endlessly forward.
Barkovitch barks a laugh, dry and cruel. "What, you finally figured out I’m the only one worth walking next to? Congratulations. Took you long enough."
"Shut up," Parker says, voice tight. His throat burns with more than thirst.
"You shut up." Barkovitch shot him a sideways glare, then spat into the weeds lining the road. "Don’t whisper at me like you’ve got state secrets. Just say it."
Parker hesitates. The soldiers on the shoulder loom, rifles slung loose but always ready. They're watching. They always are watching. He lowers his voice even more, until it's nearly swallowed by the steady slap of boots around them.
"I’m pregnant."
Barkovitch stumbles. Just half a step, but enough that Stebbins glances back at him. Barkovitch caught himself, scowls at the Stebbins, and quickens his stride until he matches Parker again.
"You’re out of your goddamn mind," Barkovitch hisses. "Too much marching’s boiled your brain."
"I’m not joking." Parker’s jaw works. His voice trembles, but it's steady enough to cut through. "And it’s yours."
For once, Barkovitch didn’t have a snarl ready. He blinks, his face twisting through disbelief, then disgust, then something Parker couldn’t name. Finally, he laughs, but it's a strange laugh. Low. Uneasy. "Of all the rotten luck. Me? Really?"
"You think I wanted this?" Parker snaps. His stomach churns, and not just from hunger. He keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead, on the blurred shoulders of the boys in front. "You think I’m happy about it? You think I want to be carrying your hell spawn?"
Barkovitch let the silence stretch. The shuffle of shoes, the rasp of breathing, the faint, hungry cries of birds overhead filled the space between them. Then he mutters, almost to himself: "Perfect. Just fucking perfect. Sorry about that. We weren't always perfect."
Parker presses a hand against his flat stomach without meaning to. The gesture is fleeting, but Barkovitch notices. He always notices.
"You’re serious." Not a question.
"Yes."
Another pause. The sky is bleeding into pale blue now, and the air felt wetter, heavier, like it might rain. Parker’s legs aches, his back screams, his lips were cracked and split. He wonders if the soldiers noticed him falter, even for half a heartbeat.
"I don’t think I’m going to win this," Parker says finally, so quietly it barely carries to Barkovitch’s ears. "Not like this. I don’t think I’ll make it."
Barkovitch cut his eyes at him, sharp as broken glass. "You don’t get to say that. Not yet."
"You don’t understand..."
"Don’t I?" Barkovitch’s voice drops to something quieter, something Parker had almost never heard from him. Not gentleness, but something near it. "Listen to me. Pregnant people are terrifying. You know why? Because when they want something, they’ll chew through brick walls to get it. You’ve got more fire in you than you think. You're gonna fight harder with a baby in your belly, at least that's what my Memaw use to say."
Parker almost laughs, but the sound came out broken. "That’s your advice? Be scary? Also what the fuck is a Memaw?"
"It’s good advice.” Barkovitch’s smirk returns, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "Scary keeps you alive. Better than rolling over and quitting."
They walk in silence for a while after that. The road hum beneath their feet, endless, merciless. Boys fell behind sometimes, one misstep, one hesitation, and the sharp bark of rifles ended their story. Parker tries not to listen when it happens. Tries not to think about how soon it could be him.
He risks a glance at Barkovitch. The smirk is back in place, but Parker knew him well enough now to see the cracks. Something softer flickers there. Something he wouldn’t admit, maybe couldn’t.
"You’re such an ass," Parker murmurs, his voice carrying no real venom.
"Yeah." Barkovitch spat again, smirk curling wider, armor snapping shut around whatever had slipped through. "But you keep walking next to me."
Parker didn’t argue. He didn’t have to.
The morning grows hotter. The air felt like wet wool pressed against their skin. The road shimmers, stretching and twisting like a mirage. Parker’s legs scream with every step, but he clung to the rhythm: left, right, left. It's the only thing that kept him from unraveling.
They pass a farmhouse where a cluster of people wave and shouted encouragement. Some even threw food, though most of it landed in the ditch or was snatched by the soldiers. Parker didn’t bother raising his head. The smell of frying bacon drifting from the yard was torture.
"You’re pale," Barkovitch says, startling him awake. "Pal-er than usual. That’s saying something."
"I’m fine."
"You’re not fine." Barkovitch’s eyes flick down, just for a second, to Parker’s stomach. "How far?"
Parker swallows hard. "A couple months give or take."
Barkovitch whistles low. “Hell of a souvenir from me."
"Shut up," Parker mutters.
But Barkovitch didn’t. "I mean it. You’ve been hauling that secret around this whole time? And keeping pace? Maybe you’re tougher than me."
"Don’t say things like that," Parker snaps. He hates how his throat tightened at the words, how part of him wants to hear them again.
"Why not? Truth’s truth."
"You don’t care about the truth. You just like getting under people’s skin."
Barkovitch smirks. "Works every time with you."
Parker clenches his jaw, but he didn’t move away. If anything, he edges a little closer. The road had a way of forcing people together. Maybe that's the real cruelty of it: you learn to lean on people you might never see again.
The day drags on. Boys drop one by one. Some stagger, some cursed, some prayed. The rifles bark without hesitation. Parker tries not to think about the baby inside him, and how he's surprised his body hasn't started rejecting the pregnancy from all this walking and stress.
When the sun dips low again, painting the sky bruised orange, Barkovitch spoke up.
"You’re thinking too much. It's not good for crotch goblin, the stress and stuff."
"Kind of hard not to. What else do you expect me to do, knit?"
"Stop. Thinking I'll kill you faster than bullets out here."
Parker shot him a look. "What do you think about, then?"
"Winning," Barkovitch says simply. "And what I’ll do when I win."
"And what’s that exactly Killer?"
Barkovitch’s smirk falters just a hair. "Don’t know yet. Something loud. Something that makes it worth it."
Parker is quiet for a long moment. Then: "I don’t think I want to win."
"That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard."
"I mean it." Parker’s voice is steady. "Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to be the last one standing. I don’t want the prize. I just want…" He trails off.
"What?"
“I just want the baby to live a better life than me and you ever did. And I know it's not possible, because I'm probably gonna miscarry or get a bullet in my head. But that's what I want."
The words hung between them, raw and heavy. Barkovitch’s smirk is gone entirely now. He stares straight ahead, jaw working. Finally, he mutters, "Then keep walking and don't think too hard. That’s the only way."
They argue again in the middle of the night. Parker stumbles, nearly earned a warning. Barkovitch caught his arm, tugs him upright, cursing under his breath.
"Don’t touch me," Parker hisses.
"Fine, fall on your ass and get shot. See if I care."
"You don’t."
"Bullshit I don’t." Barkovitch’s voice cracks sharp, but it's too loud, too raw to be false. He lowers it quickly. "You think I’d waste breath talking to you if I didn’t care?"
Parker stares at him in the dim moonlight. Barkovitch’s face is tight, guarded, but there is something in his eyes, something Parker recognizes because he felt it too.
He didn’t say it. Neither of them did. But they walk shoulder to shoulder, closer than before.
By the third morning, Parker’s legs are jelly. His vision blurs at the edges. Every breath rattles. He presses his hand to his stomach more often now every tinge of pain, he wonders if this is it, if this is how it ends, though everytime he does it, he makes it look like scratching an itch or steadying himself.
"You’re not going to quit," Barkovitch says, almost like a command.
"I don’t know how much longer I can...I don't know how much longer my body will hold out."
"You can." Barkovitch’s eyes burn. "You will. Because you’ve got more reason than anyone else here. You’re carrying life, stubborn life at that. And that makes you the scariest one on this road."
Parker almost laughs, but it came out as a sob. He bit it back, kept walking.
"You’re such an ass, I hate that you fucking did this to me," he whispers.
"Yeah," Barkovitch says. And for once, there is no smirk. Just quiet conviction. "But I’m your ass homo, now keeping walking."
Parker didn’t argue. He didn’t have to. He didn't want to.