Archive of Our Own

The first time it happens, Ray’s crowding his way into a too-small booth at the local Applebees’, his hair still wet from the rain.

It’s one of those dumb house-bonding things that they’d picked up at the start of the semester as an excuse to get away from the house, back before the schoolwork had picked up in earnest. Fridays at seven, instead of ground beef or instant ramen, they’d get as many of the guys in the frat as they could to go and rack up a staggering tab of dollar margs and appetizer platters.

Ray’s late, because he’s got a Micro lecture until four and then rugby practice until six thirty, giving him a tight thirty minutes to shower and walk-jog to the restaurant-- because he’s still not gotten around to buying a bus pass, two months into term. His coach had been in a foul mood tonight, and they’d ended off the night doing sprints until his legs felt like Jell-O.

Between that and the gloomy weather, Ray’s sagging under the combined weight of his backpack and gym bag when he finally makes it to the restaurant twenty minutes late. The hostess gives him a resigned look when he gets a foot in the door-- she’s been unfortunate enough to learn their faces over the past few months, and, without him even needing to ask, nods to the tables at the far, far back corner. Ray ducks his head and skirts past her. He’s in the right place-- he can hear a burst of laughter break out from all the way over here.

The booth is overflowing; Stebbins stretched out long on one side, with Baker practically sitting on his ankle. Across from them, is Olson, and squeezed in beside him are McVries and Parker. They’re huddled around the table, bickering loud enough to carry across the room, even over the noise of the game and the music and every other tired-rowdy group of undergrads in here. From this angle, Ray can just see the edge of McVries’ face, the curve of his scar, tugged taut by his mouth as he leans in to jeer at the others.

Dragging a hand through his damp hair, Ray feels the corners of his mouth lift up in a grin, breaking through the ache in his muscles and the exhaustion of late-October university. It’s actually Olson who spots him first, and he brings a hand up in an exaggerated wave.

“Dickhead!” he crows happily, and Ray fondly rolls his eyes. “Thought you’d ditched us! Get over here.”

“Practice ran late,” Ray tells him as he drops his bags, nudging them under the already-crowded table. There’s a chorus of murmured hellos from the guys. McVries catches his eye, that little half-smile playing on his lips. He’s got a margarita and a Coke in front of him, and Ray knows that if he sits beside him, McVries will let him eat half his fries. Ray shakes his head out, half-hoping his hair hasn’t dried all stupid.

He swats at Olson’s shoulder. “Scoot out.”

Olson makes a face. “What? Why do I gotta scoot? There’s room on the other side.”

“No there’s not,” Stebbins says, like the dirty liar he is. He’s got one leg up on the seat, curled underneath himself and looking, for all intents and purposes, like a man who’s about to go fully cross-legged in the middle of this fine family establishment.

“You know, we could always just pull up another chair,” Baker says, taking a sip of his Shirley Temple. McVries is tilting his head, looking up at Garraty. He’s biting his lip, holding back laughter as Ray swats at Olson’s shoulder.

“Olson could,” Ray says. “I wanna sit in the booth.”

Olson starts sputtering about fairness and lateness and assholes. McVries takes a long sip of his dollar-marg, and doesn’t say anything. He’s doing that thing where he’s secretly smiling with just his eyes, though, which makes Ray want to smile back at him.

“C’mon,” Ray says, plying. “I’ll let you have the last lime White Claw.”

“Hey, those are mine,” Parker protests, and about three people all start talking at once.

“Holy shit,” Stebbins groans, cutting through the noise. He unfurls from the weird curled-up position like a pissy housecat. “Olson, if Garraty doesn’t sit next to his stupid boyfriend, he’s going to whine about it all night. Garraty, stop being an ass. I want to order.”

“You could’ve gotten something before I got here,” Ray says, chastised. He can feel his cheeks going pink as Olson, grumbling good-naturedly, shuffles around the table to take up the vacated space on Stebbins’ other side. McVries pats the now-empty space beside him, and Ray takes a seat. His aching legs sigh in relief.

Stebbins and Parker have already turned back to their conversation, looping Olson in. They’re talking about movies, debating over those artsy foreign films that Parker can’t seem to get enough of. Barker’s discreetly playing Candy Crush under the table. Ray looks over at McVries, who’s looking down at the table, not back at him anymore, and-- he can hear Stebbins’ bored tone echoing in the back of his mind. His stupid boyfriend.

Whatever that means.

McVries pulls him out of his head, pushing his Coke across the table, the condensation leaving a wet smear along the tabletop. “I ordered this for you,” he says, smiling all easy, like there’s nothing to it. “Figured you’d need it after running around all afternoon.”

“Aw,” Ray says, and knocks the back of his knuckles against the bare expanse of McVries’ arm, too gently to really count as a proper punch. “Thanks, man.”

McVries’ got his arms folded on the table, shirtsleeves rolled up to his shoulders, like a total douche-- but it’s McVries, so even when it’s totally douchey, it comes off as sort of cool, sort of intentional. Ray’s sort of jealous of how nice his biceps look pretty much all the time-- he doesn’t even play sports, not like Ray and the other guys do. It’s just genetics and the gym, he always says, and he can still cut like nothing Ray’s ever been able to manage. Lucky bastard.

“How was practice?” McVries asks, and his voice is pitched low, so Ray leans in to hear him better. It makes this conversation feel like a secret, like it’s just for them. “The calendar said it was leg day.”

They’ve got a shared Google calendar-- since being roommates means they’re pretty much always at the same place at the same time-- and Ray’s taken to writing his practice scheduling into the evening slots, nestled between McVries’ rehearsals and their shifts washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom for the rest of the house. He always forgets how attentive McVries is, until McVries is turning it back onto him when he least expects it.

“Do I look that bad?” Ray asks, and McVries gives him an exaggerated once-over.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like a piece of meat scraped off the ground.”

“You’re real sweet,” Ray tells him. “Coach made us run suicides until we dropped. Thought I was going to puke.”

McVries’ nose wrinkles. “Glad I didn’t wait up for you, then.”

“Yeah,” Ray says. “‘Sides, it’s raining and I had the umbrella, so you would’ve been shit outta luck.”

McVries doesn’t come to all of Ray’s practices, because he’s got a whole host of better things to do. But sometimes, he’ll be there, in the second-last row of the bleachers, with his wired earbuds and his sleeveless tank tops and he’ll sprawl out, half-watching them play with a book open in his lap. Ray likes to think he plays best when McVries is there. He likes showing off, especially for his bros.

“Soaking wet and watching the grossest person alive run himself into the ground,” McVries says dryly. “Yeah, fuck that. Next time you invite me, I'll remember this moment.”

“Nobody’s making you come,” Ray reminds him, and McVries jostles him, rolling his eyes.

“That’s not what I said to your mom last night,” Olson interjects loudly, and McVries tips his head back to cackle. Ray groans.

“Are you actually twelve,” he asks dryly, and Olson sticks his tongue out at him.

“Were you at practice before this? Oh, God, please tell me that you showered,” Olson says, cackling. He reaches across the table, swatting at Ray’s still-damp hair. “Is this sweat?”

“Get off,” Ray says, laughing, and the table devolves into squabbling again. And McVries’ arm comes to rest around his shoulder, tugging him against his side through the chaos, as easy as breathing.

It happens again a few weeks later. Ray’s mostly forgotten about it since the first time, because he’s suddenly got three midterms and an essay in the span of a fortnight, and he’s rapidly forgetting how it feels to sleep longer than five hours at a time.

It’s a Tuesday night, and he’s stumbling out of his lecture. It’s Creative Writing, an elective he’s taking with Barkovitch, of all people. Barkovitch, at least, theoretically needs the credit, though he’s still not technically committed to a full English degree. Ray’s just taking it for fun. Admittedly, just about everything feels less fun when it’s after a seven-thirty lecture.

The sun’s setting on the horizon. Barkovitch hops the steps to go get his bike from the rack, leaving Ray to lean against the side of the building and wait. He swipes through his phone. There’s a handful of messages, mostly from the house group chat. Barker’s been trying to hang a TV on the wall without alerting their landlord. From the emojis being spammed, he guesses that it’s going well. His study group has sent a few memes. There’s also a snap from McVries. Their streak is almost three years long at this point-- a fact that Ray’s sort of stupidly proud of.

McVries’ picture is just a sliver of his face, up against the stacks of the library. He’s making this scrunched-up expression, like he’s on the verge of a yawn. It’s cute. Ray sends one back, getting a nice shot of Barkovitch crouching in a really weird-looking squat next to his bike. McVries reacts almost immediately with a laughing emoji. Ray opens their chat.

Shoeless Bastard: r u still on campus?

Major Freaky: Yeah, doing a little review

Shoeless Bastard: come get dinner w me n barkovitch

Major Freaky: I’m still studying for that stats quiz :/

Shoeless Bastard: ill buy 4 u

Shoeless Bastard: nd u can pick the place

Major Freaky: Okay :)

Major Freaky: I’m in the library, I can come find you

Shoeless Bastard: k c u soon

Major Freaky: See you :))

“Barkovitch,” Ray calls, and the guy jumps at the sound of his voice, nearly dropping his bike lock. “You want dinner?”

Barkovitch tilts his head, squinting at Ray. “You paying?” he asks, offering Ray a toothy grin. “I’m not a cheap date.”

“Not for your sorry ass,” Ray shoots back, and Barkovitch laughs.

“Sure,” he says, extricating his bike from the rack with a clatter. “Beats going home. I’ve got, like, three assignments that I haven’t even started.”

“Me too,” Ray says. He scrubs a hand down his face, fighting back a yawn. “The reflection for this class isn’t gonna get done until tomorrow night, I think.”

“I’ll let you copy mine if you change some of the words around,” Barkovitch says, and starts biking towards the bus stop at a wobblingly-slow pace, so Ray can keep up. “What’s a little plagiarism between friends?”

Ray hitches his hands into the straps of his backpack. “I’ve got a few more Red Bulls at home, so you can save the plagiarism for next time.”

Barkovitch sniffs. “Your loss.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually done that shit though,” Ray says, as Barkovitch loops a slow circle around him. “When’s the last time you’ve finished an assignment before the due date?”

“I could run you over right now,” Barkovitch tells him cheerily.

They’re still sniping back and forth at each other when Ray spots McVries from the other side of the quad. He’s got his bookbag slung over one arm, and his trumpet case neatly held in the other, and he catches Ray’s eye a second later. Ray slows, watching McVries pick up his pace, cutting across the grass.

Barkovitch’s front tire knocks into Ray’s calf. “You fall asleep at the wheel, numb-nuts?”

“Wait up, it’s McVries,” Ray says. McVries is backlit by the dying sun, bathed golden and brilliant as he comes over. “I texted him earlier.”

“Should’ve guessed,” Barkovitch says, and comes to a halt, folding in half over the handlebars. Like he’s referencing something, he says; “Garraty-and-McVries. Surprised you guys were able to separate long enough to go to class.”

“Shut up, Barkovitch,” Ray says, and he tells himself he’s not going pink at that.

“Yeah, shut it, Barkovitch,” McVries says as he reaches them. “What’re we telling Barkovitch to shut up for? I didn’t hear.”

“The usual,” Ray says evasively, and Barkovitch rolls his eyes. McVries falls into step at Ray’s side, close enough to knock their elbows together as he adjusts his bag. He eyes McVries’ battered, sticker-covered trumpet case. “How was rehearsal?”

“We’re getting there,” McVries says. “Parker wasn’t lying about having his part memorized already, so I was playing catch-up.”

“For the jazz band?” Barkovitch asks, and McVries nods. “I could’ve told you that-- dude’s been playing in the middle of the night. I’m seriously going to lock him out of the room if I wake up to his solo one more time.”

“It’s sounding good,” McVries laughs. He’s playing first trumpet this year, which is sorta big for a sophomore, from what Ray knows. Parker-- Barkovitch’s roommate-- plays the clarinet, and between them and the rest of the house, they’ve got almost a full band in the making. Ray, meanwhile, can’t carry a tune to save his life. But he’s been to about half of the band rehearsals, just by virtue of being around McVries all of the time. “After the concert, I’m thinking about asking to write a piece for the band.”

Ray hums. He’s one of McVries’ few dedicated followers on SoundCloud, devotedly downloading all of the snippets of music he’s actually willing to publish-- from instrumental fills to thumping beats to soft poetry over piano. “They’d be lucky to get it,” he says, and McVries tips his head, smiling down at the pavement as they walk.

“If you do write something, make sure the clarinet part is dead silent,” Barkovitch says, and they laugh. They jaywalk across the street, Barkovitch lagging a few paces behind them to hitch his bike over the concrete divider. “Where’re we going?”

“I dunno,” Ray says. He bumps McVries’ elbow as they make it to the sidewalk. It’s empty-- most of the students in the area either at the library or a bar, at this time of night. “Where d’you want to go?”

“Don’t ask him, he’s going to say--”

“We could get shawarma,” McVries says, and Barkovitch groans.

“Dude, we’ve gotten shawarma like eight times in a row--”

“What’s your suggestion, Barkovitch? Is it Wendy’s? Because I’m not listening to you if it’s Wendy’s.”

“Oh my God,” Barkovitch says. His bike thumps as he runs off the edge of the curb. “Garraty. Tiebreaker.”

“Shawarma,” Ray says immediately, and McVries whoops, hopping into a little skip that breaks the steady pattern of his walk.

“I knew you were my favourite for a reason,” he says, and spins to flip Barkovitch the bird.

“God, you guys are the worst kind of couple,” Barkovitch says, pulling up on Ray’s other side. “It’s third-wheeling on fuckin’ steroids.”

“Aw, Barkovitch, you know we love you,” Ray says.

“Speak for yourself,” McVries says, and Barkovitch pretends to run him over with his bike. McVries runs ahead, laughing, and Barkovitch chases him down, and they’re seriously going to hit someone at this rate. Ray hangs back, and thinks about how, when Barkovitch had said couple, how McVries’ smile hadn’t wavered, even for a beat.

It's Monday. Ray has an essay for his Social and Political Thought class due in eight hours. He’s got a wonderful, powerful zero words on the page in front of him-- which is a little under the twenty-five hundred word count-- and he can’t bring himself to turn off the TV and focus. His head is aching, half from sleep deprivation and half from the cold he’s been nursing for the past week and a half.

He tears his gaze from the laptop screen to catch Mr. Darcy pulling a constipated-looking face.

“I love this scene,” McVries says, and Ray looks over at him. He’s curled up on the far side of the couch, with his face squished into the armrest, and his feet stretched out to rest in Ray’s lap. Ray’s having to precariously balance his computer on the armrest, but he can’t bring himself to be annoyed by it, not when he’s resting his hand on the curve of McVries’ ankle, overtop of the blanket. He’s trying not to move too much, because McVries might curl back up into a ball, and then Ray would stop feeling the delicate arch of his foot, pressed up against the meat of his thigh.

“Yeah,” Ray says. He’s not really watching, and it’s been, like, a decade since he’d last read the book, but he makes himself stare at the screen instead of staring at McVries’ ankle. It’s raining in the movie. McVries’ bony toes twitch ever so slightly against Ray’s leg, and Ray absently wonders if this is how people develop foot fetishes.

“You good?” McVries whispers.

“Yeah,” Ray says again, and sniffs through his runny nose. He’s not really. He puts his hands back on the keyboard of his laptop, to try to trick himself into actually working. He hits the space bar a few times, then deletes it. “I can’t write this shit.”

“Do you want to turn this off? If it’s distracting you, or whatever.” McVries has the remote in his hand, and his feet in Ray’s lap. He’s the most distracting thing in this room, Ray thinks, but he doesn’t know how to put that statement into words in a way that doesn’t sound a little bit insane.

“Nah,” Ray says instead. He seems to have become reduced to nothing but monosyllabic words. His head hurts, and his stupid nose is running again, and he still can’t find the will to put a few words on the page. The blank document stares back at him accusingly. He digs the knuckles of his right hand into his eye, trying to mash his brain into some semblance of order. “M’gonna do it.”

“What’s the penalty for late submissions?” McVries asks. He’s fiddling with the tassels on the edge of the blanket, winding them around his long, clever fingers.

“Three percent every day,” Ray says. “The prof’s nice.”

“Was this the prof you were up last night for?” McVries asks. “I thought I heard you rustling at like, three-ish.”

“No, that was Poli-Sci,” Ray says. He drags a hand over his chin, feeling the scratch of three-day-old stubble against his palm. He probably looks like a raccoon right now, between the dark circles and the overgrown fur. “She closes the dropbox at seven in the morning, for some reason, and if you’re late, it’s an automatic zero.”

“Damn,” McVries says. “That’s brutal.”

He blinks. “Wait, you heard me last night? I thought I was being quiet. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I’m a light sleeper.” McVries grins loosely at him. “Besides, I think I have a sixth sense for when you’re on the verge of losing it.”

“That sense must be going off all the time,” Ray says, and McVries smiles. Ray looks back at him, because he likes to look at McVries-- and he feels a little silly, even admitting that to himself, into the space of his own brain. He likes the way McVries looks like this, tucked up in the nice, velvety blanket, all the way up to his chin to ward off the November cold. Compared to the way McVries is smiling at him right now, the empty Word document looks even uglier.

“Dude, I’m not gonna get this done tonight,” he says. “I can’t make my brain work.”

“That’s alright,” McVries says. “Email your TA. Or you can just eat the three percent. It’s one grade.”

“I feel like you’re the devil on my shoulder right now,” Ray tells him. He’s already drafting an email. “I shouldn’t listen to you. You’re leading me astray.”

“I don’t need to lead you astray if I’m the devil,” McVries says. “You’re doing that all by yourself, dummy.”

“Mrgh,” Ray says, and McVries falls silent again, head turned back to the movie. Blinking sleepily, Ray manages to sling together a semi-coherent plea for an extension, hits send, and sets his laptop down on the coffee table, still open. He slumps, deflated, against the side of the couch. His head hurts.

“C’mere,” McVries says, and puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s easy, from there, to let himself be tugged down to stretch out at McVries’ side, pressed right up between the shape of his body and the back cushion of the couch. Ray exhales, turning to shove his face up against a throw pillow, too tired to really even protest. “There we go.”

“Thanks,” Ray says, and it comes out muffled against the side of the couch. McVries’ arm is bent oddly beneath the side of his head, elbow jutting out and fingers curled up next to Ray’s ear. It can’t be a comfortable position, but McVries doesn’t complain. Ray breathes out, long and slow, and lets his eyes dip to half-mast. The movie’s still playing on the TV-- there’s a lady in a dress and she’s squinting at Mr. Darcy. Ray doesn’t know where they’re at with the plot.

All he really knows is the way that McVries’ breath comes in steady, even pulls. He can feel them at his side, and, instinctively, his body knows to match the pace. Everything is warm, and he can faintly hear the dialogue from the movie, but not enough that he can make out the words. The sleep debt is catching up on him. McVries’ arm is heavy around his shoulders. He fades out, for a little bit.

“Hey, why’s it so dark in here?”

The door to the hall opens with a clatter, warm light from the hall spilling into the room all at once. Ray jumps at the noise, blinking fuzzily back into the land of the living. He lifts his nose out of the warm crook of McVries’ neck. “Wh’z goin’ on?”

A face peers over the side of the couch, bug-eyed. “Oh. Oh,” Harkness says, blinking from behind his glasses. He’s blushing a little bit. “Sorry, didn’t realize you were-- I thought you guys were out.” He reaches over them to snag a phone charger and a pencil case off the table. “Forgot my shit,” he says. Then, again, “Sorry for interrupting.”

“It’s fine,” Ray says through a jaw-cracking yawn. He feels warm all over, and substantially more human than he did an hour ago. “You want to watch?”

“Close the door on your way out,” McVries says at the same time. He looks more awake than Ray feels right now.

Harkness looks between them for a second. He pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “No, I’m good,” he tells Ray, backing up a few paces. He swings the door most of the way closed. “Sorry again. You guys can go back to--uh. Enjoy your date night!”

“It’s not--” Ray says, but the kid’s already gone. He can hear his footsteps disappearing back down the stairs. He sighs, and slumps back against the armrest. Against McVries. “We didn’t need to chase him off,” he says to McVries.

“He could’ve been quieter,” McVries says. “First time you’ve been properly asleep since reading week.”

“Now he’s gonna tell everybody in the house we were necking it on the couch,” Ray grumbles. “Journalism major, my ass.”

“You’d be so lucky,” McVries says, and he turns up the volume, settling further into the cushion. He pulls Ray down into his gravitational pull, and Ray sinks back down into the warmth.

There’s a truly magnificent carving of a dick and balls on the underside of this table. Ray reaches up and traces it with one hand. He’s flat on his back, head pillowed on his bag. McVries is scribbling on the whiteboard across the room-- Ray’s at an odd angle, where he can only see McVries’ legs, but he can hear the determined squeak-squeak-squeak of his marker.

Ray’s not studying, and for once, it’s totally fine that he’s not studying. His last midterm was yesterday-- and now, instead of catching up on sleep, or eating a vegetable, or vacuuming his room, he’s on the floor of the library’s basement study room, a coffee rapidly cooling in his hand, serving as moral support for Pete as he wades through the last of the prep for his quizzes.

Ray stares at the penis carving. “When you’re done, you should buy me a coffee,” he says, and McVries snorts derisively.

“You’re holding a coffee,” he says. “Buying you more caffeine is a waste of money and an affront to God.”

“Yeah, but you’ll buy me one anyway,” Ray wheedles. “I got out of my warm bed to follow you around on campus,” he says. “It’s a Saturday. That’s fuckin’ crazy.”

“You didn’t have to come,” McVries says, like there’s ever going to be a world where he says wanna come and Ray doesn’t say yes. Ray shuffles up onto his elbows so he can take a sip of his aforementioned coffee without spilling it all down his front, and doesn’t say anything. Pete goes back to his whiteboard.

From there, Ray wastes time by scrolling on his phone and watching McVries. He’s more studious than Ray is, but he also tends to get antsier about it-- hence why he’s holed up in the library on a Saturday, when his quiz isn’t even until Tuesday.

McVries is pacing in a slow circle in front of the whiteboard as he studies. Ray leans back on his elbows and watches him. It doesn’t seem like he’s aware of it, and it’s not super obvious to catch from the outside-- just a subtle shift of his feet, back and forth and back again. Ray swipes through a few messages and pretends that he’s not just staring at McVries over the top of his phone.

“Baker’s on campus,” he says, and McVries hums. “He says that he’s going to swing by and steal your answers to number six on the stats homework.”

“Sure,” McVries says. He steps back until he’s level with Ray’s legs, staring at the densely-packed writing. Ray bends until he can just touch the side of McVries’ ankle with his denim-covered knee. He can’t tell, but he likes to think McVries is leaning back into him.

“You’re going to get a hundred percent,” Ray says, and McVries lets out a soft scoff. “No, really. You’re so smart.”

“Shut up,” McVries says, but he’s smiling. He leans down and ruffles Ray’s hair, then straightens and goes back to the whiteboard. Ray watches.

“Hey,” Baker says, and lets the door swing shut behind him. He dumps his backpack onto one of the unused chairs, and comes to stand over Ray’s supine form. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Hey, Baker,” Ray calls from the floor. Baker lightly kicks the toe of his boot against Ray’s in greeting. “I think better on the ground.”

“He’s not helping at all,” McVries says. He twirls his marker over his pointer finger, the plastic glancing off of his pointy knuckles. “He’s been distracting me.”

“I don’t know if I want to hear about that,” Baker deadpans, and McVries mimes throwing his marker at Baker’s head. Baker lowers down to sit cross-legged next to Ray. Baker’s a real one, Ray thinks, and reaches out for a fist-bump. Baker returns it without looking, opening his laptop and swiping through his meticulously-organized folders. McVries comes to look over his shoulder, dropping down into an easy squat.

Ray flops back on the ground, tuning out the quiet murmur of their voices. McVries is talking about derivatives and pointing at the screen, his voice a low, easy rumble. Baker says something that makes him laugh, and duck his head, shoulders shaking. Ray blinks slowly at the underside of the table. He stares at the dick carving on the cheap wood, and feels half jittered from the coffee and half bone-tired from the semester. He has the brief and insane thought that maybe if he took a math course, he’d do badly enough that McVries would be willing to tutor him through it too.

When he looks up again, McVries is resting his forearm on Baker’s shoulder, leaning on him for balance. For some reason, the sight makes him want to lie down all over again. Baker’s typing on his assignment, and McVries is angled just so, where Ray can’t quite tell what his eyes are doing.

Ray pops his knuckles absent-mindedly, fidgeting with his fingers, with the callouses from where his pen sits on the side of his ring finger. He pulls out his phone and looks at his blank home screen, just to give himself something to do.

It feels like half an eternity before Baker closes his laptop and thanks McVries, slapping a hand on his shoulder. Ray doesn’t say anything as he puts his laptop away. McVries rocks back on his heels, standing in one smooth, easy stretch of his quads-- his grey sweats cling to the bulk of his quads. Ray’s not staring.

“I’m going for a smoke,” Baker says, and stands up, snagging his phone and his jacket from the table. “If you’re done by the time I’m back, we could go for lunch? My treat.”

Baker’s so nice. Ray feels a little bit bad for the mental grimace he’d levied his way when McVries had been leaning on him, so he gives him a big thumbs up.

“You don’t get what locking in means, do you?” McVries jokes. “I haven’t even been here for two hours yet.” Baker pretends to flip him off as he closes the door. He doesn’t actually flip him off, though. He’s not the type.

Ray sits up after the door closes. He drains the rest of his coffee, then tosses the empty cup in the general direction of the bin. It misses. When he looks back over, McVries is staring at him with a funny look on his face. He looks away for the briefest of seconds, boxes in his answer on the whiteboard and caps his marker. Ray looks back down at his lap.

“You alright?” McVries asks.

“Yeah.”

“You got quiet for a bit,” he says, and it’s not an accusation, just gentle, quiet concern. “Had me wondering if you’d fallen asleep.”

“Says something about your skills as a teacher, doesn’t it?” Ray says, and McVries laughs a little. He crosses the room in a few purposeful steps, and leans over the table. He doesn’t squat like he did for Baker, just looms above, so that Ray has to crane his neck to look up at him. “I’m fine,” Ray insists. “I didn’t have much to contribute, ‘s all. There’s a dick on the underside of the table.”

“Classy.”

There’s a moment of quiet, where Ray looks up at McVries. It’s always sort of like this, he thinks. McVries reaches out and runs a hand through Ray’s hair, and it’s tangled and admittedly sort of greasy, and McVries doesn’t complain, just stays there. There are five searing points of contact where his fingertips touch Ray’s scalp.

Ray’s breath hitches in his chest for no good reason at all. “I’m alright.”

“I know,” McVries says, and he doesn’t let go.

The door opens and they both snap to attention. “Alright, lovebirds,” Baker says from the door. “Are you almost ready?”

“Keep your pants on,” Ray says, and stands up, pushing out from McVries’ hold. Lovebirds, he thinks, and doesn’t even try to fool himself into believing that the word doesn’t make him a little giddy. “We’re coming.”

“Yeah,” McVries says, slinging his bag over one shoulder and leaving his math proof up on the board, shining in blue erasable ink. He stoops to snag Ray’s coffee cup from the ground and throws it in a perfect arc to the trash can. Ray holds the door for him, and as he catches up he says to Ray; “Besides, I owe you a coffee.”

“-but what Grabar’s really trying to highlight is just how prevalent moto- motonormativity is in American society,” Ray’s saying, waving a hand. “He’s pointing out like, like how much we all care about having somewhere to park our car, more than we care that everyone’s fed and housed, because our whole society is built around stupid individual car culture.”

“That’s pretty cool,” the girl says. She’s leaning against the back of the couch to the side table, trying to balance her empty Twisted Tea can on top of the teetering stack of empties. “Well, not cool. It’s shitty, about the cars. But it’s a cool thing to write about.”

“Like, I went to the seminar for that class and then for the next week, I swear to God, I started physically twitching every time I walked across B Lot to get to the bus stop,” Ray says. He thinks he might be slurring his words, just a little. “I just-- just hate car culture, man,” he finishes, and she giggles. He doesn’t know if he’s making any sense.

He’s teetering on the far side of tipsy right now, and he thinks she might be too. He thinks she told him her name at the start of all of this-- maybe Jane, or Jan, or something of that sort, but it’s loud in here, and from the way she’s been letting him ramble on at her for way too long, he doesn’t know how much it matters.

“What’s your major, again?” he asks the girl, and she sways forward on the couch, trying to hear him over the pounding music. “I don’t know if you told me.”

“I’m in Civil Eng.,” she says, and giggles again when he winces. “It’s really not as hard as everyone says.”

“You must be smart,” he tells her, and she grins and nods. He likes that-- likes the confidence. She leans in to hear him better, over the thumping bass of the music, and he leans back against the arm of the couch to make room for her. The living room is packed-- midterms are officially done for the house, so they’ve gone all out with the invites.

Ray doesn’t think he knows many of the people he can see-- he certainly hadn’t met most of the people in this room before today. Last he’d seen, McVries and some of the guys were headed out to the back porch for beer pong. Part of him wants to go and check in on them-- but he doesn’t know how to say that to the girl without sounding like a dick. Besides, she’s real pretty, with big, dark eyes and dark, thickly curled hair framing a heart-shaped face. She has round cheeks with star-shaped freckles painted on with makeup. He stares at her face, and tries not to think about a twisting scar, and a lower, meaner laugh.

Ray shakes his head, clearing his thoughts.

“What about you?” she asks, tugging on the end of one of her curls. It bounces back against her cheek. “It was History?”

“Poli-Sci, actually, and minoring in philosophy,” he says, then coughs. “My roommate-- Pete, I don’t know if you’ve met him yet, he’s out back-- he always says I sound pretentious as hell when I say that.”

She giggles. “It’s not that bad,” she says, then, after a beat. “Okay, it’s a little pretentious, but I’ve definitely heard worse.”

“Nice,” Ray says nonsensically, and he’s trying to think of something else to say when the back door opens with a clatter, and a posse of people pour in from the porch. He picks out Olson’s loud laugh, and sees Barkovitch’s lanky frame hanging at the back of the crowd. Ray’s craning his neck, trying to peer through the noise, when a weight drops into his lap. He jerks, beer splashing up over his wrist and soaking into the sleeve of his shirt. The girl yelps, and after a second, starts to laugh.

“Ray,” McVries says, and oh, he’s fucking trashed. He wraps an arm around Ray’s neck, and despite the November chill still clinging to his clothes, his skin is hot where it’s touching Ray’s.

“Hey, buddy,” Ray says, and makes brief eye-contact with the girl over McVries’ shoulder. She’s smiling in a bemused sort of way. He does his best to transmit some sort of apology in a stare, but McVries has always been distracting, and he drags his eyes away from her a second later.

“Try to keep an eye on your man, Garraty,” Barkovitch heckles from the hall. “He was trying to climb the fence.”

“I was willing to let him wander, but Baker wanted you to watch him,” Stebbins adds from right behind Ray. He’s leaning over the back of the couch, nursing one of his terrible kombucha mocktail concoctions and glaring moodily at the packed living room. “Try not to let him break anything. Or climb anything.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray says. He winds his arm around the curve of McVries’ waist, under the loose fabric of his sweater. “I’ll keep him alive. Get outta here.”

Stebbins flips him off, and turns away, but Ray’s not paying attention to him anymore. McVries is squirming in his lap, trying to get comfortable in clumsy, sweeping movements. Ray lifts his beer out of the way as McVries curls up into the couch-- into Ray.

He ducks his head, trying to catch McVries’ eye. He lowers his voice, leaning in until he can smell the tequila on McVries’ breath. “Hey,” he murmurs, and McVries hums, bumping their foreheads together. The contact’s just shy of too-hard, and it makes Ray wince. “Fuck’s wrong with you, huh? What’re you climbing the fence for?”

“Wanted to see the stars,” McVries says, and slowly leans over to rest his head against Ray’s shoulder. He’s moving with the deliberate slowness of someone who is doing their damndest not to throw up, and Ray throws a vague prayer out to the universe in the name of not getting puked on tonight. He doesn’t like his odds.

“Did you?”

“No. ‘S too cloudy. I was gonna find Cass-Cassiopeia.” McVries makes a sluggish grab for his beer. “Lemme have a sip.”

“Nope,” Ray tells him. “I can get you a water, if you let me stand up, but I think you’re done for tonight.”

“Don’t stand up,” McVries says. He doesn’t lift his head off of Ray’s shoulder. There’s quiet for a beat, then, seemingly unprompted, McVries says, with way more clarity than Ray thought him capable of; “That shirt is so fucking tight on you.”

“Um,” Ray replies. He hadn’t really noticed. “I guess?”

“Tight,” McVries emphasizes. He runs his hand up the side of Ray’s arm, all the way up to his shoulder, where he pats himself on the face. “I noticed you when you came in, and…Like, are you bulking right now? Oh my God.”

“Dude, you are so drunk,” Ray says. His ears are burning.

“Your back-- your stomach. I can’t stop staring at you.” McVries says, sing-songy. He lifts his head off of Ray’s shoulder. “I want to eat you alive.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ray mutters. He must look like a tomato right now. “You’re getting some water.”

“No, no, c’mon,” McVries slurs. “I’m not fucking with you-- hey, doesn’t he look good in this shirt?”

He’s talking to the girl, Ray realizes, and then immediately feels a little bit bad. He’d almost forgotten about her, having to juggle whatever the hell McVries is on about right now. Stebbins is still leaning over the back of the couch, and has seemingly gotten her in on a conversation with himself and Barkovitch-- so at the very least, Ray feels a little less bad about abandoning her mid-sentence.

Either way, she’s scooted a bit back on the couch, and is looking at them with a strange expression, with a little furrow between her brows. She doesn’t look, like, weirded out, exactly, but it’s sort of a near thing.

“It’s a nice shirt,” she says, and her tone has shifted from what it was a few minutes ago. Ray has the sinking feeling that he’s not going to get to know her tonight, after all. In retrospect, he doesn’t think his odds were ever that good.

“Don’t let them rope you into this,” Stebbins warns her.

“Shut up, dude,” Ray says, then to her, “This is Pete. My roommate-- I think I mentioned him before. Sorry, he’s clingy when he’s wasted, or else he’d say hello himself.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” she says, and at the very least she’s smiling a little while she says it. McVries has managed to steal Ray’s beer, despite his best efforts, and is taking tiny little sips of it.

“I promise he’s usually more sociable than this,” Ray starts, smiling. “If I can get him to sober up a little, he’ll introduce himself--”

“Listen, I had no idea,” she interjects.

“What?” McVries is rocking around in his lap, and it’s starting to get distracting.

“I thought you were… single,” she says, and her eyes dart back down to McVries for a second, “and straight, honestly.” Barkovitch actually laughs at that, sounding like a god-damn hyena.

“I--” Ray blinks, realizing. She’s obviously misreading the situation, but he’s still tipsy, and his brain isn’t firing on all cylinders, so what he ends up saying is, “I’m not-- like, I guess it’s sort of a bisexual thing? I’m mostly straight.”

She stands up from the couch. He’s really not clutching this one. “Yeah, no, that’s my bad for not getting the vibe,” she says. “You seem cool. I’m going to go get a drink. I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” Ray says. “Yeah, of course. Sorry about-- sorry.”

She’s already gone. Ray sighs. McVries is half-snoring on his shoulder, Stebbins is staring into the depths of his nightmare-fuel drink, and Barkovitch is staring at him with a musing, almost mystified expression.

“Strikeout,” he says, and it doesn’t even sound like proper heckling. “Good thing you weren’t trying to pick up, hm? Mostly straight, ha.”

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” Ray tells him, but McVries is still in his lap, so he couldn’t make good on the threat if he tried.

Ray wakes up to a too-bright light and a mouth that tastes like the inside of his gym shoes. He squints against the sunrise-- and realizes that he’s still on the couch. The house is both significantly quieter and significantly dirtier than before, with empties crowding over the table and party decor littering the floor.

Ray groans and stretches out on the couch. His foot mashes up against something soft. Lifting his head affirms that this hangover isn’t quite as bad as he thinks it is-- the headache’s minor enough-- and he peers over to see McVries, curled up into a little pillbug of a shape at the far end of the sofa. He’s still asleep, his head pillowed on one arm.

In sleep, his expression is slack, all except that tiny little furrow between his brows. His full lips are pursed, like he’s a little frustrated, even unconscious. Ray lets himself stare. The sun plays off of McVries’ skin, glancing off his cheekbone and shining down the pale line of his scar, from the apple of his cheek all the way down to the corner of his mouth.

Ray takes a breath that shudders through his chest, and he stands up. The rest of the house is dead quiet as he picks his way from the living room to the kitchen. He can’t see anything visibly broken, so it might be safe to call the party a success. Maybe. The kitchen is dark, and he doesn’t bother turning on a light. He thinks there might be someone asleep underneath their dining table.

He elects to mind his own business. The coffee maker wakes up without a fuss, to his delight, and he finds an unopened protein bar in the cutlery drawer, which he eats in two big bites as he fills up the pot. According to the oven clock, it’s seven-twenty, but Ray can’t remember if anyone had bothered to fix the time after Daylight Savings, so he might be an hour off. Whatever.

While the machine is groaning and sputtering, Ray gets one of the metal water bottles from the drying rack-- they haven’t been able to find any of their mugs lately. The fridge is empty beyond a few beers and leftovers, so he snatches up one of the half-empty bags of tortilla chips on his way out, coffee in hand.

When Ray gets back to the living room, McVries is awake, though he hasn’t really moved from his original curled-up ball pose. He’s scrolling through his phone, with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. Ray comes to a stop in front of him, and it takes a whole fifteen seconds for him to even look up. From the expression on his face, he’s about as hungover as Ray would have expected.

“You need to puke?” he asks, and McVries thinks for a second, then shakes his head mutely. “That’s good.” Ray sits beside him, wordlessly handing him the coffee. McVries takes a hefty swig, then hands the tumbler back. Ray sips it, tasting Olson’s shitty vanilla creamer and McVries’ spit.

They sit like that for a little minute, trading the coffee back and forth, clumsy hands brushing. Ray puts the tortilla chips between them, and he lets McVries have the whole chips, and resigns himself to munching on the salty crumbs at the bottom of the bag. He scrolls aimlessly through his emails.

It’s soft and warm and comfortable, sitting here like this. Ray thinks, absently, that he could get used to a life in this shape. McVries stays remarkably still at his side. Ray thinks that he’s thinking about something, or that he’s just so god-damn hungover that he can’t muster up any words.

Eventually, when the coffee is mostly drunk and the chips are drying up, McVries finally clears his throat. “You were hitting on that girl last night, right?” His voice is a little hoarse, and beneath that, a little stilted. Sort of weird, in a way that Ray doesn’t quite know how to decipher.

Also, it’s so out of left field that Ray doesn’t say anything at first. “What?” he asks.

“Before, when I was out back,” McVries says, and yeah, he does sound weird. Ray doesn’t think he’s awake enough to understand this conversation. “I didn’t realize-- I was wasted, I wasn’t thinking straight. You were, weren’t you?”

“Um,” Ray says, and for some reason, he feels like he’s in trouble, somehow. “I guess? Like, sure, she was pretty, but--”

“But you liked her,” McVries says, and he sounds almost prickly. He’s not asking, either. He’s just speaking, and he’s curled away from Ray on the couch, facing the window where the sun is starting to rise higher in the sky. “You thought she was hot.”

“Pete, I--” Ray starts, then cuts himself off. He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t really get what you mean, man. Like, if you’re interested, be my guest. I don’t care. I could try to get her number if you want it--”

“I don’t,” McVries says, and his tone makes Ray shut his mouth all at once. The furrow between his brows is more prominent now that he’s awake. Now that he’s annoyed.

Ray doesn’t want McVries to be mad at him. He doesn’t understand why McVries is mad at him-- doesn’t understand what he’s done in the seven hours since McVries was on his lap, breathing against his neck, giggling and drunk and effortlessly capturing all of Ray’s attention like it’s nothing. He doesn’t know, but he’ll apologize for it anyway, if it means that McVries won’t be mad at him anymore. Because beneath that, behind most of everything that he does when he’s around McVries, there’s this aching, constant need for McVries to like him.

“Whatever it is, I--” Ray starts again, and this time, McVries cuts him off. He drags a hand down over his mouth, and lets out an aborted little sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and now Ray’s even more confused. “I shouldn’t-- I overstepped.”

“Dude, I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Ray says, and McVries groans.

“If I hadn’t come in, if they’d have let me stay outside, instead of dragging me to you, would you have taken her upstairs?” he asks, and Ray just wishes he’d look at him, so that Ray might have a shot at trying to piece together whatever’s wrong from his expression. “Would you?”

“I-- Maybe? Probably not?” Ray’s nearing frustration himself-- McVries is annoyingly cryptic, and it’s all made worse by the fact that he’s upset, and he won’t let Ray understand how to make it better. “Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about it? She was pretty and all, but I was drunk, and she was drunk, and I wasn’t looking to hook up, if that’s what you’re saying. I already said I wasn’t all that into her.”

“But she lost interest, as soon as I came in. As soon as everyone started joking that I was your--” McVries bites his lip. Ray inhales. He suddenly thinks that he knows what this conversation is about-- and shamefully, in that same delicate, child-like strain of his mind, he thinks he knows, like a little boy who has just done something terrible, and is waiting to be discovered at the scene of it.

“Pete,” he says, deliberately slow, and McVries cringes at the sound of his voice. “What are you talking about?”

“They make that joke all the time,” McVries says. He won’t look at Ray in the face. “That we’re together. You’ve heard it, I know you have.” He’s staring at Ray with this intense look on his face,and it makes Ray want to get him back, wants to pin him the way he pins Ray every single time he opens his mouth.

“Are you upset that I was flirting with her?” Ray asks him. “Or are you upset that they keep saying I’m your boyfriend?”

“Jesus,” McVries says, and he sounds winded. “You go right for the throat, don’t you?”

“Pete,” Ray says again.

“I’m not-- It’s insane that I would be,” McVries says. He looks a little caught, and frankly, Ray is a little pleased by it. “I’m-- We’re not. I’m not mad that you were flirting with some girl at a fuckin’ party, Ray. I’m not. Even if-- I’m not mad, because there’s nothing to be mad about.” He sets his phone down on the coffee table and crosses his arms over his chest.

Ray’s stomach is dropping, like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff. He doesn’t think he can do this. He knows that he will, because McVries is here, and, and--

“What if there was,” he says, and McVries goes very, very still.

“What?”

“What if you didn’t want me to flirt with her,” Ray says, and slowly, slowly, he puts a hand on McVries’ thigh, where it presses up against his, crushing the empty chip bag between them. He doesn’t think that McVries has ever been this still in all the time Ray’s known him. “What if you wanted me to flirt with you instead?”

And McVries turns to look at him, and their faces are very close, so close that Ray can track the way that Pete’s pupils go wide as they fall on his face, his lips. “Ray,” he murmurs, and Ray’s leaning in to hear him, like that girl leaned into him yesterday, only now it’s closer and hotter and sober-in-the-morning, and--“Don’t do this if you’re not serious.”

“C’mon, Pete” Ray says, and he can literally see the way McVries trembles when he says his name. “You have to know--everybody knows how fucking obsessed with you I am.”

“Ray, Ray,” Pete breathes, and then he doesn’t say anything else, because Ray’s caging him in against the back of the couch and kissing him senseless. Pete’s hands come to cup the sides of his jaw, then flutter down his neck, splaying out over his shoulders. Ray tilts his head, lips parting, and Pete lets out a soft little gasp of a sound that Ray thinks he’ll someday need to have tattooed on his skin.

He’s clutching at Pete’s sweater, rucking it up along his trim waist, and he pushes forward. He can’t help himself, can’t help the way he shifts closer, like it’ll be possible to get even tighter up against Pete’s chest, even further into the circle of his muscled arms.

Ray breaks their kiss with a huff of a laugh, and Pete smiles without thinking. He’s blinking up at Ray, his dark eyes wide. “What?” he asks.

“Just, we’re flipped,” Ray says, and Pete tilts his head, still scrunched up in an adorably confused expression. “From last night. You were on my lap, and now--”

“God,” McVries says, and he’s smiling a little sheepishly. His hands have moved down to Ray’s waist, resting right above the waistband of his jeans, and they’re big enough that they can splay out from his hip bones to half-way up his ribs, cradling all the soft, vulnerable parts in between. “Just crawled all over you, did I?”

“I liked you there,” Ray tells him, sincerely enough that he ought to be shameful. “I liked all of it. Even when I couldn’t explain why.”

“Yeah?” Pete asks. He’s looking at Ray like he’s the moon.

“She thought we were dating,” Ray blurts. “That girl. And-- and the guys, they’re always saying--”

“The guys are all full of shit,” Pete says, and Ray has to laugh, because--

“They were right about this,” he says, and Pete kisses him again, short and sweet. “I liked it,” he says against Pete’s mouth. “When they thought I was yours.”

“Fuck,” Pete says empathetically, and when he kisses Ray again, it’s fiercely, and Ray gives as good as he gets. He gets a hand below Pete’s undershirt, feeling the muscles rippling beneath the warm skin of his back. “I’ll be yours, Ray,” Pete promises into his mouth on an exhale. “I’ll be yours.”

And Ray wants him, wants him in all of the ways he’s denied himself for the past three months, six months, three years of college, since the first day of freshman year, when he’d mustered up the courage to introduce himself to the hot guy who’d been assigned as his roommate. He kisses Pete, bites his lip, tastes the coffee on his tongue instead of the other way around for once.

Pete’s hands come to rest at his hips, and with one sharp pull, one flex of those beautiful arms, he’s pulling Ray all the way into his lap. Ray straddles his waist, knees spread on either side, and they slot together like two jigsaw pieces. Ray sighs into Pete’s mouth, breath hitching in his chest as he kisses him, again and again and again. Pete’s rocking up against him, just barely, and the movement makes Ray want to melt all the way into him.

“So perfect,” Pete breathes, kissing sloppily along Ray’s jaw, soft lips against Ray’s unshaven skin. Pete can’t help the little noise that leaves him at the press of Pete’s teeth to his throat. He wants to hold Pete against him forever, wants to be his, wants the whole house to keep calling them boyfriends, and wants them to be right when they do. “You’re so--”

Behind them, someone clears their throat very loudly, and the two of them spring apart in one moment, then right back into each other in the next, startled into clinging. In the hallway, Parker’s clutching an actual mug, clad in patterned pajamas, and he’s wrinkling his nose at them.

“Can you guys keep it in your pants when you’re on the couch?” he says. “We all sit there.”

“Nah,” Pete says, and Ray can’t help but smile. He’s feeling stupidly giddy, just from the way that Pete’s holding onto him.

“Sorry Parker,” he says, and Parker just rolls his eyes and heads for the kitchen.

“We do have a room upstairs,” he says once Parker’s left for good, and Pete grins all sly, the way he does when they’ve got a joke, just the two of them.

“You’re a dear boy, Ray,” he says, and kisses him one more time for good measure, before they’re up again, stumbling for the stairs.