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i.
Roman drags Peter, tripping and frantic, to his car, his rough voice slicing through the air and hurling all his wicked hunger to the ruins. It fuels the burn; orange flames crackle and spit up into the dark night sky, striking his face, his hair, his entire existence.
The heat becomes a backdrop and they drive on. He looks towards Peter in the passenger seat as he steers—his mouth’s open, eyes bright and wide, glowing with power, a true wild thing with disheveled hair and dirt smeared skin. Peter’s staring back behind them through the review mirror at the fragments of the Godfrey building they’ve just burned down to the ground and all Roman can think is, I’m the fucking one who made him look like that. The thought makes him feel giddy and smug, something he hasn’t felt in what seems like years.
It's all Roman can do to stare, to drink him in. He laughs as he turns and Peter’s eyes meet his as he moves his hand to grip Peter’s face, his nails dragging through Peter’s long hair as he pulls Peter across the distance of the gearshift to kiss him, devour him, careless of the way the car swerves violently due to his distraction.
“Where to next, asshole?” he murmurs against Peter’s skin, and he swears he can feel the uncertainty radiating off him, but underneath that Roman can feel his enthusiasm bubbling. “Where should we go now?”
Fuckin’ everywhere, Peter says after a moment, let’s go see everything.
So they do.
ii.
It's an overused symbol of rebellion, don’t you think? Two lovers in a car, all worldly possessions tossed across the backseat as they drive with the law hot on their trail. But Roman knows there has never been anyone quite like him nor the boy next to him. They’re going to rule the world soon, he can feel it, can almost taste the destruction they’ll cause.
There's a pile of clothing, edges burnt and bloody, spread casually across the backseat of the car they’re driving. They travel all day and night, stopping only to eat, fuck, and relieve themselves and sometimes—only sometimes—to switch it up and let Peter take a ride in the driver’s seat.
If Peter’s homesick for a home he never truly possessed, he doesn’t admit it. Roman thinks he sees it on his face from time to time but neither of them says anything about it because the past is the past and they both know there’s no turning back now. He doesn't think he’s homesick. There was little to leave behind and he figures everyone is probably better off now, without him, than they ever have been anyway.
iii.
There was no map for this. There was no plan. There was just them.
Roman’s entire life has been lived by plans; it has never mattered if they were his or everyone else's. He once liked plans; they gave him direction and made sure he wasn’t thrown into the middle of things with no clue as to where he was going. But now, now it feels like he’s maybe a little in over his head and he’s fucking relishing in it.
Peter’s life has been the opposite, he’s always been a drifter—and maybe that works for him, maybe it’ll work for Roman too.
It’s exciting, it’s adventure, it’s everything they’ve ever dreamed of and more.
iv.
Sometimes he thinks he might have had a chance to be a good kid, once.
So seemingly whole.
Perfect grades.
Loving sister.
Fancy home.
(with one shitty parent and one dead one)
Except that was never the path for him.
There is so much he could blame: like being cold, tired, and fairly isolated (in his case), and being an outcast, different, and poor (in Peter’s). Or maybe there is nothing and it was just about time and fate.
Peter has long since slipped under Roman’s barricade and lit his fuse, and maybe Roman already knows that he is just a gravestone with no name, a shovel for a casket without a body, but when he’s in Peter’s presence he feels like he can be so much more than that.
Roman is seclusion, loneliness, a blizzard that buries children to their throats, a lake that will freeze over his head if he dares step in. But Peter is warmth, like the heat and comfort of a blazing bonfire in the middle of winter.
v.
They eventually catch up to them in a service station just outside of some distant and rainy city, miles from where they started.
Roman’s reading today's paper and Peter’s taking careful sips of his coffee. Roman stops reading, looking up and over Peter’s shoulder, and that's when he sees them—the swarm of uniforms, plastic shields, and more guns than needed (neither of them were ever really intending to put up a fight anyway).
They're coming in through the doors and Roman always imagined that he would be nervous, but he’s not. He thought he'd freeze and fall, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes Peter’s hand and runs, feeling younger than he has in years. He drags Peter behind a counter and smiles at him, a childish smile, dimples and white teeth.
He revels in the sight of Peter at that moment, finally happy and a little bit dangerous with eyes that glint like razorblades under a streetlight. He tells him quiet, careful, afraid to break this, I’m not going anywhere.
And Peter says it back, finally having someone to mean it to.
As the sirens wail around them and the expected, destined end gets closer, Roman kisses him like he wants to consume him, and Peter kisses him like he's stealing his breath, taking it and keeping it where he will never get it back. Roman doesn’t want it back, anyway, it’s Peter’s for the taking. It’s surrender.