Chapter Text
Summer storms weren’t supposed to catch him by surprise anymore, but this one still did. Rain rattled against the old house hard enough to drown out the crickets, but not the thoughts that’d been chewing at Pete all evening.
He sat propped up against his pillows, as a small bedside lamp cast a warm circle over his bed and the corner of his desk. He’d read about eleven pages of a Raymond Carver paperback, and retained maybe four of them. With a quiet sigh, Pete closed the book and set it on the nightstand next to a glass of water he kept forgetting to drink, and a smooth, grayish-brown pebble he’d kept since he was eight. It was found on a stretch of beach he could genuinely no longer remember the name of. He’d meant to throw it away a dozen times, but sure enough, he kept not throwing it away.
He rubbed his eyes as he felt an ache behind his temples. God, it was nearly two in the morning. He was wearing an old, dark blue sweater that had once belonged to his father; it was far too large for his slight frame, unfortunately, as the cuffs pooled around his wrists and the hem draped halfway down his thighs, but the worn wool was quite comforting. It smelled very faintly of cedar chips, but he’d gotten used to it.
Being back at his parents’ house was supposed to be a relief. For the first few days, it had been, sort of. There were no prefects patrolling the hallways, no sudden brawls in the common room, and luckily no threat of being shoved into a locker before breakfast. It was amazing, he couldn’t deny this. But it was still weird to him, not being so used to it.
The thing about summer was that, generally speaking, it had no structure, and Pete was bad at no structure.
School had form — bells, periods, mealtimes, and more. Summer, though, just sat there, so open and formless, and Pete moved around inside it like a marble in an empty box, occasionally bumping a wall. (In some cases, often.) He’d been home for maybe a week now. And he had done great things, too! He’d read six books… short books, finished four drawings, started nine drawings, abandoned nine drawings… and reorganized his desk twice. He was fine, he was sure of it.
His parents were asleep down the hall. The house was quiet now, just as it was during the day, with his dad at work by seven-thirty, and his mom out by nine for Thursday yoga and other unspecified errands. Pete had been given the run of the place, which, in practice, left Pete alone with his thoughts. Lately, there had been far too many of them.
Of course, Pete wasn’t naïve enough to believe that, now that he was back, they’d suddenly become one of those smiling sitcom families that laughed over dinner and solved their problems before the credits rolled. Whatever had pulled them together all those years ago, whether it had been love, obligation, or, erm, other things, it seemed had never entirely erased the cracks underneath. In fact, those cracks still showed from time to time.
They’d been much quieter lately, he thought. Pete had convinced himself at this point that it was because he’d been away at Bullworth for most of the year. Maybe there was simply less to worry about! Maybe, without another person in the house to shield from every argument, they found fewer reasons to have them in the first place. Or maybe they were just getting older, and too tired to keep fighting over things neither of them could remember starting.
Besides them, he also thought about Jimmy, who seemed to have finally found some semblance of peace, even if it was more of a, erm, chaotic, loud kind of peace. He seemed to be having fun elsewhere with all his new friends. The jocks wanted him, the nerds wanted him, the bullies wanted him, the greasers wanted him, the preppies wanted him… even the townies had a habit of dragging him into whatever disaster they’d cooked up that week.
The downside, if there was one, was that Jimmy suddenly seemed to be everywhere except where Pete expected him. It was still kind of a bummer.
Pete also found himself thinking about his own shiny new title as Head Boy, which was more prestigious on paper than it ever would be in practice. Bullworth students didn’t exactly have a proud tradition of respecting authority, and he had a hard time imagining the average kid stopping in the middle of a hallway fight because The Right Honorable Pete Kowalski asked them to reconsider.
If he actually started enforcing the rules, he’d be branded a snitch before lunch. If he didn’t enforce them, there wasn’t much point in having the badge in the first place. He was fucked. Ted would probably flatten him before October. Or Damon. Or maybe both, if they happened to be in particularly good moods. Jimmy could bail him out of a lot of situations, hopefully, but he doubted even he possessed the diplomatic skills necessary to convince an angry football team not to beat up the Head Boy for doing Head Boy things. It was a bad system. He was doubly fucked.
And then, inevitably, his thoughts drifted somewhere they had been trying very hard not to go.
Gary.
Pete felt his stomach knot before the thought had even finished forming in his head again.
No. He wasn’t doing this tonight.
He’d gotten embarrassingly good at catching himself before his mind wandered too far in that direction. There was a point where memory stopped being memory and started hurting him, for lack of a better word, and he knew exactly where it was. At first, if he let himself think about Gary for more than a few seconds, he’d end up replaying every conversation, every stupid joke, every argument, wondering whether he’d missed something obvious, whether he’d said the wrong thing, or whether there had been one sentence, just one, that might’ve changed how everything turned out.
Sighing, Pete cut the thought off before it could finish. He reached for his headphones, scrolling for something to quiet his mind. He had a habit of listening to music to fall asleep, mostly a couple of indie tracks he’d sooner die than admit to anyone else. It was supposed to calm him down, even if the acoustic melancholy sometimes just made him cry. When that happened, he’d switch to trip-hop, which inevitably had the same effect, or downtempo, which likewise didn’t help. Still, the noise was safer than the quiet.
His hand swept across the nightstand again. Nothing. Huh. Pete frowned into the darkness before remembering he’d probably left his headphones downstairs… or in his school bag… or somewhere else equally unhelpful.
“Great,” he muttered to nobody in particular.
Defeated, he rolled onto his side and pulled the blanket a little higher over his shoulders. Rain crawled lazily down the bedroom window, gathering into uneven streams that bent and distorted the glow of the streetlights outside until the whole neighborhood looked like a watercolor left out in the storm. Pete watched it for a while, not because it was especially fascinating (though it was beautiful…) but because it gave his eyes something to do while he tried convincing the rest of his brain to take the night off. He tried counting his breaths.
One. Two. Three…
Tink.
Pete’s eyes snapped open. He held his breath, listening for a bit. The wind howled slightly, rattling the loose pane of his bedroom window, followed by what probably was the heavy thrum of the storm. He let out his breath, turning back toward the wall. It’s okay, he thought. It was just the weather.
Clack.
Well, that wasn’t the storm. It was the sound of something, likely a small stone, hitting the glass.
Pete’s stomach tightened. He sat up, threw off the blanket and crossed the room barefoot, wincing as the cold floorboards bit into his feet. Reaching the window, he wiped a circle through the condensation with the sleeve of his sweater and leaned closer to the glass.
Apparently, there was someone standing beneath the old oak tree in the front yard. Even through the rain, Pete recognized the posture almost immediately: shoulders slouched, hands buried deep in his pockets, head tipped upward…
For one absurd half-second, Pete wondered whether he’d finally fallen asleep after all. In another day, he would’ve thought this person was the devil. But it was just Gary Smith.
Pete’s jaw dropped. He’d meant what he’d told Gary earlier. Come by sometime, it’ll be cool to hang out, among other things. It was the sort of thing people said… you didn’t usually expect them to take it quite so literally. And even though Gary swore he’d be there, Pete just didn’t think it would actually happen.
He hurried to the window latch and forced it upward. The old wooden frame protested all the way before finally giving way, and a blast of cold air immediately swept into the room, peppering his face and dampening the front of his hair.
“Gary?” Pete hissed into the dark, trying to keep his voice beneath the roar of the storm. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s like two in the morning!”
Gary didn’t look startled, not at all. He simply took one hand out of his pocket and waved at him. “Hey, Petey,” he called up, his voice carrying surprisingly well through the wind. “Put some shoes on. We’re going for a walk.”
“Are you insane?” Pete whispered back, gripping the windowsill. “It’s pouring! You’re going to get a cold. Go home!”
“Don’t have a home to go to tonight, remember?” Gary’s tone was light, almost conversational, but there was a sharp edge underneath it that Pete knew all too well. “Come on, dweeb. Don’t make me stand out here all night. I’ve got something to show you.”
Pete stared down at him. Gary was wearing a slightly translucent, light black windbreaker that was already plastered to his frame, over what was probably? a graphic shirt that Pete couldn’t fully read from this height. (He would find out, later, that it was just a The Jesus and Mary Chain ”Stoned & Dethroned” shirt that Pete had seen him wear once or twice before.) His hair was flattened against his skull, as water dripped steadily from the tip of his nose and his chin. He looked ridiculous, though, and absolutely soaked.
“No,” Pete said, though even as the word left his mouth, he knew he was losing. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Well, suit yourself,” Gary shrugged, turning slightly. “I’ll just start throwing bigger rocks. Your dad’s room is right next to yours, isn’t it? Oh, I wonder if he’d like to see his son’s favorite roommate again…?”
“You wouldn’t,” Pete gasped.
Gary just grinned, and his teeth flashed white in the gloom. He reached down, his fingers sweeping through the wet gravel of the driveway.
“Fine! Fine, stop! Jesus.” Pete hissed, frantically waving his hands. “Just… stay there. Don’t move.”
He pulled the window down, shutting out the worst of the wind, though his heart was now hammering against his ribs. He stood in the center of his room, looking down at his bare feet. Shit. He was being an idiot. He knew he was being an idiot, too, but the alternative was letting Gary cause a scene that would wake his parents, and the thought of trying to explain Gary to his father at two in the morning was infinitely worse than getting wet.
Pete quickly pulled on a pair of dark jeans, leaving his father’s oversized navy sweater on for warmth. He also grabbed his sneakers, holding them in his hand as he crept out of his room. The hallway was pitch black and silent, save for the distant snoring of his father. Pete took agonizingly slow steps, avoiding the floorboards he knew to be creaky, until he reached the kitchen. He slipped his shoes on, grabbed his yellow raincoat from the hook by the back door, and quietly turned the deadbolt.
The moment he stepped outside, the rain hit him like a blow, and the cold water instantly soaked through the thin material of his sneakers as he walked around the side of the house.
Gary was waiting by the driveway, leaning casually against a bicycle. Pete stopped, and stared at it for a moment. It was a somewhat flashy, slightly rusted mountain bike that looked at least three sizes too big for Gary, let alone Pete. It definitely wasn’t his.
“Where’d you get that?” Pete asked, squinting through the downpour.
“Borrowed it,” Gary said, wiping a smear of wet dirt off the crossbar. “Some yard down the street, don’t worry about it.”
“You stole a bike to come here in a thunderstorm…?”
“I’m keeping it warm. Come on, hop on. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“I’m not riding on the back of that, Gary.”
“Suit yourself,” Gary said. “You’re going to be doing a lot of running, because I’m not walking.” But instead of riding off, he gripped the handlebars and started running with the bike, pushing it fast down the dark pavement, as the tires hissed loudly against the asphalt.
“Gary! W-wait—stop!” Pete yelled, immediately jogging after him.
And now, his already wet sneakers were squeaking quite miserably. He caught up just as Gary slowed down, coasting slightly with one foot on a pedal. Gary stopped completely under a flickering streetlamp, looking back at him with a grin. Pete caught his breath, and his face was pinched in a deep, heavy frown. This was pathetic. Without another word, he begrudgingly stepped onto the metal stunt pegs on the rear wheel, gripping Gary’s wet shoulders for balance.
If he wanted to keep Gary from disappearing into the night, ultimately, he had no other choice.
The ride was miserable. The cold rain stung Pete’s eyes, and every time the bike hit a puddle, a spray of dirty water blasted over his shins. Gary, perhaps to save him from any potential embarassment, didn’t take the main roads. He steered them onto the narrow dirt paths cutting behind the houses of the Vale; unfortunately for him, these old bike trails had also turned into muddy channels under the downpour.
The bike fishtailed wildly as they skidded along the edge of the woods, taking a path that wound past the back of the cemetery. The stone markers looked like gray teeth in the dark.
“Where are we going?” Pete yelled over the wind, not really noticing as his hands slipped slightly on the fabric of Gary’s jacket.
“Bullworth!” Gary shouted back.
“The school? But the gates are locked!”
“Not all of them!”
They plunged down a steep slope that eventually brought them out near the beach. The sound of the crashing waves was completely swallowed by the roar of the rain. Gary pedaled hard, pushing them along the sand-slicked path that ran parallel to the shore, and headed toward the bridge connecting the Vale’s commercial district to the school grounds.
They crossed the bridge, which brought them onto the road leading toward the school’s main parking lot. But just before they reached the asphalt of the lot, Gary instead veered right, plunging the bike onto a narrow, overgrown path.
Pete had always known the backwoods behind Bullworth were creepy, but tonight they felt much colder, and the dense canopy of pine trees cut off what little light was left in the sky. As they bounced over thick roots and skidded through even more patches of mud, a sudden knot of dread tightened in Pete’s chest. God. What if Gary was taking him out here to kill him? Or something like that. Pete squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
No, no, no. Bad thoughts. He was being ridiculous. He really, really had to stop doing this to himself.
Very much a fan of this scenic route, Gary steered them through a couple of dark, concrete drainage tunnels before they finally emerged at the base of the hill. He pushed the bike up a steep, slick slope toward a high chain-link fence behind the Observatory.
Gary hopped off the bike, letting it drop carelessly into the wet grass, and approached the fence. With a yank, he pulled back a loose section of the metal mesh, revealing a gap just large enough for a person to squeeze through.
“After you, Head Boy,” Gary said, bowing mockingly.
Pete sighed, and his unbelievably wet clothes were clinging uncomfortably to his skin as he scrambled through the mud and under the wire. Gary followed close behind.
The Bullworth campus was eerie at night, especially during the summer. The grand, brick buildings looked abandoned, like some sort of brutalist-ish monuments to a forgotten civilization. At this time, there seemed to be no prefects around. It’s not like they had much to do at this time of night, either. The only lights Pete could see were the lamps that did little to cut through the shroud of rain.
Gary led the way, keeping low as they darted across the empty football field. The turf was, unsurprisingly, waterlogged, splashing with every step. Pete’s chest heaved as he struggled to keep up, and his wet jeans were clearly weighing him down.
“Ugh, Gary, seriously, what is this?” Pete panted as they reached the concrete stands of the stadium.
But Gary didn’t answer right away. He just looked toward the main school buildings, and his eyes were gleaming with a strange excitement as he slicked his wet hair back from his forehead.
“You remember The Hole?” Gary asked, his breath fogging in the cool night air.
“I mean, yeah, but… why?” Pete asked back, wiping rain from his face. “No, really. Why would anyone be down there in the middle of summer?”
“Exactly. Which means no authority, no prefects, and a lot of bored kids with too much money. Turns out they’re hosting a fight tonight. A big one!”
“Who’s fighting?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Gary smirked, already moving down the dark steps. “Come on. Don’t tell me you’re going to chicken out now.”
Pete hesitated, and he was pretty sure the rain was now soaking through his sweater, but Gary’s energy was hard to resist. It wasn’t like he could just go back to his dorm and pretend none of this happened, too. “Fine. But if we get caught…”
“We won’t.”
They made their way to one of the heavy metal doors leading down into the school basement. Pete had been to the Hole before, of course, but only because Constantinos had a key to the elevator. There was no way Constantinos could be taking them down tonight, but Gary, unsurprisingly, pulled a brass key of his own from his pocket and unlocked the door.
The moment they stepped inside, the storm’s noise vanished, replaced by pitch-black silence.
“Stick close,” Gary whispered.
Before Pete could reply, Gary reached back. His cold, wet fingers wrapped around Pete’s wrist, then slid down to grip his hand. The touch was sudden, but Gary’s grip was firm and steady as he guided Pete through the dark, winding corridors, easily dodging all the low-hanging pipes and concrete columns that Pete definitely would have tripped over otherwise. Pete’s heart did a rather strange, nervous flutter in the dark, but he didn’t pull away.
As they drew closer, they could hear some rumbling voices beginning to echo through the concrete walls. Gary finally let go of his hand as they pushed through another door, walked down another set of stairs, and eventually, emerged into the Hole.
Sure enough, that circular concrete chamber was just as grimy as Pete remembered, but it was surprisingly packed. Dozens of students were crowded around the perimeter of the fighting ring. Ironically, someone (the janitor, he assumed?) had hauled a couple of old commercial laundry dryers down here; they were in the corner, blowing hot air over a group of soaked Preps who were trying to dry off their wet clothes.
Near the entrance, a folding table was stacked high with every sugary drink imaginable. Gary’s eyes lit up. Oh, he certainly enjoyed a Pepsi, and tonight was no exception. He grabbed two cans, tossed a couple of crumpled dollar bills to the kid minding the cooler — he couldn’t recall the kid’s name, unfortunately —, and pressed one of the wet cans into Pete’s hand.
“Here,” Gary said, cracking his own open with a sharp clink. “To keep you from freezing.”
Somewhat uncontented, Pete took a sip, looking around the room. Sure enough, he could see Constantinos standing near the edge of the ring on an upturned crate, furiously scribbling names on a clipboard and shouting out odds as kids shoved crumpled bills into his hands.
Pete nudged Gary. “So, um… who’s actually on the card?”
Gary didn’t answer, instead nodding toward the center of the ring. When Pete looked, standing under the glare of the hanging work lights, were two people he never expected to see squaring off: Derby and Parker.
Okay, maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration on his part. Surely they must’ve fought each other before, at the boxing gym, right? It would be far more pleasant for both. Having them fighting here was unusual, though, especially at this time of night, in such a crowded place. So what was going on…?
Derby had discarded his usual Aquaberry sweater, wearing only a damp white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Parker stood opposite him, his jaw clenched, and his knuckles already red and scraped.
“What?” Pete muttered, nearly choking on his Pepsi. “Why? They’re practically joined at the hip.”
“Family drama, you see,” Constantinos called out from his crate, having overheard them. He didn’t even look up from his clipboard as he pocketed a handful of bills. He would be on a one-way train to Moolahville after all of this was over. “Word is, Parker’s family bought a new estate up in the Vale, right next to the Harringtons’. Derby got drunk at some country club brunch last week and basically trashtalked the new place and his family.”
Pete let out a quiet laugh. This was ridiculous. All of this was. He shouldn’t even be here. “Oh, they’re fighting over property values?”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t judge,” Constantinos shrugged, pocketing more cash. “Honor is at stake.”
Below them, the crowd roared as the two Preps raised their fists.
Generally speaking, the fight itself was a bit different from all the brutal, chaotic brawls Jimmy usually dragged them into. It was more refined, almost theatrical, whatever that really meant, but the anger behind it was real enough. Derby kept an orthodox boxing stance, his jabs quick and precise, while Parker played a heavier, defensive game, absorbing strikes and waiting for an opening. That was all he could really understand.
Pete watched them, but he was only half-focusing. Mostly, he was just wondering what the hell he was doing here. Just a few hours ago, he had been staring at five, six, maybe seven horse-shaped water stains on his ceiling, desperately trying to breathe his way to sleep. And now, for whatever reason, he was in The Hole, with the devil on his side, watching two rich kids taking chunks out of each other.
“Ten bucks on the blonde,” Gary murmured.
“I’m not betting on this, Gary,” Pete sighed, though he found himself leaning against the railing nonetheless.
Despite how stupid it all was (a fact he’d repeated maybe five times now), he had to admit that, maybe, it wasn’t so bad. For the first time in a long while, all the circling thoughts that had kept him awake at night seemed to have stalled out. It was absurd to think of, but perhaps it was a good kind of absurd.
The fight lasted three rounds. Parker managed to land a heavy hook to Derby’s ribs in the second, but Derby’s speed eventually wore him down. By the end, Parker was leaning heavily against the fence, spitting a mouthful of blood, while Derby stood in the center, his white shirt stained with sweat, and his hand raised; he had won. And what a gruesome-ish victory that was.
As the crowd cheered, some exchanged crumpled bills, and eventually the room began to slowly drain as kids slipped back out into the rainy night.
“Well,” Gary said, stretching his arms over his head as the room emptied out. “That was… uh… moderately entertaining. Better than staring at your ceiling, right?”
Pete let out a long, weary breath. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the crushing weight of his insomnia was catching up to him. His legs felt like lead, and his eyes stung. He really needed to sleep.
“Yeah,” Pete admitted softly, a small, tired smile touching his lips. “It was… alright, I guess. My brain feels a lot less heavy now. But I am so tired, Gary. I think I’m going to collapse.”
Gary looked at him for a moment. He was surprisingly quiet as he took in Pete’s pale face and dark under-eye circles. He hadn’t been sleeping well for a while, he’d guessed. Not much of a heavy sleeper apparently… “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get out of this dump.”
And they made the journey back in relative silence. The heavy rain had finally passed, leaving only a steady drizzle that misted over them. Pete rode on the back pegs of the stolen bike again, too exhausted to worry about falling off or keeping his balance. He let his head rest lightly against the space between Gary’s shoulder blades. For all that’s worth, he hoped neither of them would get a cold.
When they finally skidded to a halt in the driveway of Pete’s parents’ house, the sky in the east was just beginning to turn a pale, watery grey.
Pete hopped off the pegs, his legs wobbling slightly as they finally remembered they belonged on solid ground. He looked at Gary, who stayed where he was, one foot on the pedal, absentmindedly spinning the front wheel with the handlebars.
“You should probably head home,” Pete said after a while, rubbing at his arms. “It’s… getting late. Or early, whatever.”
Gary nodded automatically. “Yeah,” he said, staring at the bike instead of Pete. “Yeah, uh, I should.”
And yet neither of them moved.
“So…” Pete muttered.
“So,” Gary echoed.
Another few seconds slipped by. Pete glanced toward the back of his house. To his relief, every light was off, and so his parents would still be asleep for another couple of hours if they were lucky. When he looked back, Gary was still sitting there.
It was painfully obvious that neither of them wanted to be the first to walk away.
“You don’t actually have anywhere to go, do you?”
Gary let out a quiet breath through his nose that almost passed for a laugh, though there wasn’t much humor in it. His gaze drifted toward the dark street instead of Pete.
“My house is…” He rolled one shoulder, searching for a proper word for it. “Erm, complicated, uh, you know. My dad’s either asleep, drunk, or decided I’ve overstayed my welcome again,” he shrugged, trying his best to sound casual, although landing somewhere just short of convincing. “Honestly, I’m not sure which one I’d be interrupting.”
The words hung between them for a while. Pete looked over his shoulder at the house again, then back at Gary, who’d gone back to turning the handlebars from side to side, as though keeping his hands busy meant he wouldn’t have to think about where he was going next.
Pete rubbed the back of his neck. “You know…” He hesitated, already half regretting that he’d opened his mouth. “My parents are, um, gonna be asleep for another couple hours.”
Gary glanced over. “…Okay?”
“A-and I’ve got one of those spare mattresses in the closet.” Pete shrugged, trying, and failing, to sound like this was simply the most practical solution available. Maybe it was, but still. “You could just stay over…? Dry off, get some sleep, head out before they wake up.” He looked at Gary properly for the first time since the conversation had started. “I mean… if you want.”
Gary blinked. “What?”
Pete frowned. “Really. I-I mean, unless you’ve suddenly got somewhere better to be.”
“No,” he admitted. “Can’t say I do.”
Nodding once, Pete seemed relieved enough not to question it. “Just keep your voice down. If my dad catches us sneaking someone into the house before sunrise, we’re both dead.”
As Gary simply stared at him for a moment, it was as if the invitation seemed to catch him more off guard than Pete had expected. Maybe it did; when was the last time Gary even visited his house? Then, little by little, the corner of his mouth curled into a grin. It was familiar enough to recognize, but softer somehow, as though even he didn’t have the energy to commit to the usual performance.
“Petey,” he said as he climbed off the bike, “if you wanted me to spend the night, you could’ve just asked.”
“Oh, shut up.”
They entered the house through the back door, slipping into the kitchen. Pete eased the door shut behind them, turned the lock as gently as he could, then stood perfectly still for a second, listening.
Nothing this time, luckily.
When that was done, he kicked off his soaked sneakers, and motioned for Gary to do the same before leading him quietly down the hallway, and into the bathroom, pulling a clean, dry towel from the linen closet.
“Take a shower,” Pete whispered, shoving the towel into Gary’s hands. “You smell like the Hole, maybe even worse. And put these on.”
He handed him a pair of clean, grey sweatpants and a black shirt with some sort of snowy Japanese print on the front. Gary stared down at the stylized artwork on the fabric. He looked very unamused by this poor choice of clothing, but he was too cold and tired to argue, so he said nothing as he stepped into the bathroom.
“Just shower, man.”
Ten minutes later, Gary emerged from the bathroom, steam curling around his shoulders. Sure, Pete doubted anything short of divine intervention was capable of making him look great, but he was much better now with his hair not so wet anymore, wearing Pete’s clean sweatpants and the very cool band shirt. He carried his wet windbreaker and his shirt in a pile.
Pete had spent those ten minutes making up the guest bed. Calling it a “guest bed” was generous, admittedly; it was the folding mattress his parents kept buried in the back of the closet for younger cousins during holidays, and every year somebody inevitably complained about having to sleep on it. Tonight, though, it looked surprisingly inviting. Pete had covered it with clean sheets, tucked the corners in with more care than he’d ever admit to, and thrown one of the heavy wool blankets over the top.
“There,” he whispered, giving the mattress an awkward little point with his hand. “Home sweet home.”
Gary took in the makeshift bed for a long moment. It wasn't much to look at, but after the night he’d had, it was the closest thing to luxury he’d seen in weeks. His eyes drifted over to Pete, who had already climbed beneath his own blankets.
“So…” Gary said, tilting his head toward the mattress. “Floor.”
Pete followed his gaze. “Well…” He gave an apologetic little shrug. “It’s the only spare bed we’ve got, really. Unless you’d rather I wake my parents up and explain why you’re wandering around the house at this time of night.”
It was funny to think about it, Gary thought. Hi, Mr. Kowalski. So, so sorry about the breaking and entering. Any chance I could borrow your son’s bed? For tonight? The next couple of the nights? The foreseeable future? I promise I will be on our best behavior.
“…fair enough.”
Pete was already sinking into his pillow, and his eyelids looking heavier with every passing second. Maybe all of this was just some strange dream he had, and sleeping would make it go away.
“It’s honestly not that bad,” he mumbled. “My cousins sleep on it whenever they visit.”
Gary looked back down at the mattress. Somehow, that wasn’t especially reassuring.
“You know,” Gary said, unable to resist one last attempt at sounding like himself, “most people invite guests over with considerably, uh, better accommodations than… whatever this is.”
“Well, if you were ‘most guests,’ I’d probably have offered them the couch.”
“Oh, should I be offended?” Gary blinked.
“You should be asleep.”
Gary let out a quiet chuckle. Funny how quickly standards change when someone gives you a place to stay…
He draped his clothes over the back of Pete’s desk chair, making a half-hearted attempt to spread them out instead of leaving them in a soaking heap, then lowered himself onto the mattress. The blanket scratched a little against his arms, and okay, the pillow was flatter than he’d have liked, and but the warmth of the room settled over him almost immediately. This was good enough.
Before long, neither of them felt much like talking anymore. Pete could feel sleep pulling at him with surprising force. And only now did he realize how tightly he’d been wound all night. It was for his brain to decipher this, given the time at night, but what he could agree on was that the endless stream of what ifs that had chased him from home to Bullworth and back again seemed to loosen all at once, and it left behind nothing but an exhaustion so complete it was almost comforting, for the lack of a better word.
“Hey, Pete?”
Gary’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and Pete answered with a sleepy murmur that eventually resolved into something resembling, “Yeah?” (Whether he’d actually opened his eyes, though, was impossible to tell in the darkness.)
“…thanks.”
Pete meant to answer. He really did! In fact, he even searched for the words… you’re welcome, maybe, or don’t mention it. It had to be something reassuring, or something that would’ve made Gary feel a little less imposing. But alas, sleep got there first.
And yet Gary waited another moment anyway, listening to the silence on the off-chance Pete was still putting a sentence together. When none came, he couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he settled a little deeper beneath the blanket.
Figures.
More amused than disappointed, Gary shook his head to himself. Fortunately, there would be plenty of time to tease him about it tomorrow. Tonight, it was enough to know that, for the first time in what felt like forever, neither of them had to pretend everything was fine just to make it through until morning.