Work Text:
New York, 1979
Okay, it had been kinda cute for the first twenty minutes. Maybe. At the very least it had been manageable. However, two hours in and it was slowly becoming unbearable. Maybe if the asshole with the guitar had some sense of pitch, it wouldn’t be a problem, but the guy was almost certainly drunk out of his mind.
Finally, Spot rolled out of bed and stalked down to the hotel’s lounge just down the hall. Asshole was sitting in the corner, morosely plucking out a tune on his guitar. Spot thought that he might recognize the song, but it was hard to tell.
“Hey, asshole! Mind turning the music down? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Asshole looked up and froze.
“Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any worse,” he groaned. “Please tell me you’re a hallucination.”
“I’m hardly-”
Spot paused, his brain finally registering why asshole looked so familiar.
“Racetrack?”
“Heya, Spot. You miss me?”
“Not at all,” Spot lied.
Race dramatically mimed being struck in the heart.
“I’m wounded.”
“You’ll live. As long as you stop trying to play that infernal instrument while I’m trying to sleep.”
“You used to like listening to me play.”
“You used to be good at it.”
Race struck a chord.
“Touché.”
“Seriously, Race, what the hell are you doing playing guitar in a crappy hotel lounge at three in the morning? More importantly, how do I stop you?”
“I’m protesting the fact that I got kicked out of my room,” Race explained.
“Could you actually pay for said room?” Spot asked.
“No, but I promised I would pay tomorrow and they wouldn’t accept my word on it.”
Spot sighed.
“And here I am losing sleep over your gambling debts again. Just like old days.”
“It wasn’t a gambling debt this time,” Race insisted. “My boss is a dick, and he only paid for my room through yesterday, even though my train doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning. I didn’t find this out until today, and the bank is closed.”
“You have a job?”
Spot sounded impressed despite himself.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Race snapped. “Did you think I was gonna spend my entire life hitchhiking across the country?”
Spot shrugged. Somehow, when he imagined Race, he always imagined him in the front seat of Spot’s beat-up old van, his feet propped on the dashboard despite multiple warnings that he’d be left on the side of the road if he didn’t stop doing that.
Spot still wasn’t entirely sure whether picking up a hitchhiker in the early stages of his cross-country road trip the summer after college was the best or worst decision he’d ever made. When Jack had bailed on the trip they’d been planning since freshman year in favor of spending the summer with his boyfriend, Spot had decided to do the trip anyway. Still pissed at Jack when he’d seen someone on the side of the road, he’d pulled over. At some point “I’ll take you as far as Chicago” had turned into “stay as long as you like.”
Of course, nothing could last forever. Race had disappeared without so much as a goodbye shortly after they reached California. One night he was there, the next morning Spot had woken up to find a hundred dollars on the dashboard and Race gone. Spot had assumed he would never see him again.
“Spot, that was the best summer of my life,” Race said, “but it was just a summer. I wasn’t gonna spend my whole life that way.”
“I know. But would it have killed you to say goodbye?”
Race looked away.
“I didn’t know what to say. Besides, I figured you would be mad at me.”
“For what? Why would I be mad at you?”
Race stared at him.
“How much do you remember about the night before I left?”
“You scored large amounts of cheap booze? We both got really drunk? I’m pretty sure I passed out around the time you started talking about your exes.”
For some reason, Race started laughing.
“Are you telling me I’ve spent years worrying about you hating me, and you don’t even remember what I did?”
Spot frowned.
“What did you do?”
Race set the guitar on the floor and crossed the room.
“You really don’t remember?”
“Not a bit.”
Spot shook his head. Race was getting uncomfortably close, and it was starting to remind Spot of the thoughts he liked to pretend he’d never had.
Race was laughing again. Annoyed, Spot smacked him on the shoulder.
“Fine. Keep your secrets. Grab your stuff. You can sleep in my room tonight.”
“Spot. No, I-”
“Grab your shit, asshole. Do you remember what we used to do when it rained and we couldn’t find a hotel? We’re both adults. I think we can handle sharing a bed.”
“I kissed you,” Race blurted out.
“What?”
“That’s what happened. I kissed you. I was drunk, and you were right there and I’d been wanting to for so long and…”
He trailed off.
Spot considered this new information.
“What did I do?”
“You kissed me back and tried to take my shirt off, actually,” Race said. “You were so drunk. I swear, it didn’t go any farther than that. I came to my senses pretty quickly and got you to bed and then I left.”
“Good.”
Race hung his head.
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. I’m really sorry and I’ll-”
Spot grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer.
“It would have been extremely unfortunate if I’d fucked you and forgotten it. Are you still into me?”
Race stared at him as if he was speaking another language. When there was no answer to his question, Spot smashed their lips together. After a moment of shocked stillness, Race reacted enthusiastically, leaning into the kiss and tangling a hand in Spot’s hair. Well, that answered that question.
Spot flipped their positions, slamming Race against the wall, then broke the kiss.
“Now, for the last time. Get your stuff and come back to my room."