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“McVries. You awake?”
Pete hadn't been, actually, but at the sharp call his eyes opened, reluctant. Art had fallen into step with them and was holding out his rucksack on one gangly arm. Pete was annoyed for a second, wondering why he didn't see he's fucking busy with Ray, why he didn't ask Olson like he had every other goddamn time, and then his brain kicked into gear enough to remember. A sour sucking wound in his gut opened again.
“Yeah, man,” Pete said, gently, and he took the backpack, watching as Art readjusted, rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms. A waft of hope seeped into the cracks of his exoskeleton. He had thought they had lost Art the second that Hank had left them, but for the moment he looked okay. Not cheerful, not the gentle, friendly boy who had started the walk, but there was more than empty space behind his eyes now, and as Art accepted the rucksack back from Pete, slung it onto his shoulders, Pete clapped him on the back.
“You doing alright?” Art asked, and Pete chuckled, dry.
“Never better, compadre, never better.”
Art hmm-ed, looking unconvinced.
“Your boy okay?”
Pete looked at Ray, sidelong. He was half dragging him, to be sure, but that was fine. Almost normal.
“He's just asleep,” Pete reassured himself. “He's down good, and I'm glad. He needs it.”
Art’s quiet again for a couple of minutes. Pete thinks about closing his eyes, giving back in to sleep.
“He don't look too good, McVries. If I'm being honest with you.”
The words hit like a punch to the fucking chest. Pete almost coughed with the impact. It was the same kind of thing he had shouted down Stebbins for a half-dozen times without blinking, told Barkovitch to fuck off and die over and kept right on whistling. All those two did was talk shit, Barkovitch because he was- had been- medically incapable, seemingly, of being fucking normal, and Stebbins because he was on some sick mind game bullshit that he had probably read about in one of the dozen unofficial Long Walk guides that Pete just knew he had in his basement.
Art, though. Art was a religious man. Art thought lying was a sin, and that meant something to him. And Ray was his friend. Pete could feel his throat, tight and painful, and viciously he banished his tears.
“He started off pale,” Pete said unconvincingly. “It shows up worse.”
Art grimaced at him sympathetically, and Parker, who was apparently awake, turned to walk backwards, opening his mouth as if to say something. He seemed to catch something in Pete's expression, though, because instead he closed it again, shook his head, and turned to face the front.
“You're not trying to win no more, are you,” Art said. It wasn't a question. Pete didn't answer it. “McVries, what happens if he falls and you can't get him up?” Art wasn't asking derisively, as if it happening was a foregone conclusion, like Stebbins had been hissing in his ear a couple hours ago. This time, he sounded curious, inquisitive. Like he was just wondering.
He had lost the battle with his tears. He sniffled a little as he answered, his voice shaky.
“I sit my ass down next to him and I line our heads up.”
“Oh, buddy.”
“Don't try and talk me out of it,” Pete said hotly. “I heard you, back there.” He regretted saying it instantly, the way it made Art’s eyes go glassy, but Art still responded, voice still tender and mild.
“I got up, Pete. I'm still walking. I'm gonna go until I can't no more, for him. But it's different for y’all, ain't it?”
Pete didn't have the words for how different it was until he looked down at Ray's sleeping face, his slack drooling mouth, the way his hair was getting lank and stiff.
“I can't live in a world that killed him, Art. I can't keep going-”
“The Lord giveth and taketh away,” Art said as if to himself, sorrowful. “Plain mean, sometimes, how soon one follows after the other.”
“Fuck,” Pete said. “Fuck, Baker. Four days.”
“Just plain mean. I have some questions, once I go on home. I certainly do.”
Art walked with them as Pete cried, violent and silent, in the way he always did when he needed to get his tears over with in a hurry. After a few moments, he placed one graceful hand on Pete's shoulder blade, just below Ray’s arm. Pete hadn't been in a church in a decade, but it felt like benediction.
“Art,” Pete said once he'd recovered. “If I go first. Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course, musketeer,” Art said solemnly.
“I’m not asking you to sit down next to him if it comes to that,” Pete said. “Just… make sure he makes it to Freeport, huh? I need his mom to see him just one more time.”
“You got some faith in me, McVries,” Art said, almost amused. “You ain't even winded. But I promise.”
“Just takes one little thing,” Pete said.
He was winded, but he wasn't the foot-dropped dead-eyed exhausted of the rest of the pack, certainly. He was weighed down, though, half crushed under the mammoth bulk of his grief- for Curley, for Harkness, for Ray, who certainly wasn't going to die if he had anything to do with it, but who for the rest of his life would be someone who had lived through this fucked up experience.
God, and for Hank.
“Guess we both on our way out,” Art said. “We still gonna be musketeers in our Father's house?”
“I am not seeing heaven,” Pete laughed, certain, but Art scoffed.
“Ain't gotta be a godly man to be a good man, McVries. And my grandma’s gonna be working overtime saying masses for us, don't you worry about it. You won't be in purgatory but a week.”
“You think I'm a good man, Baker?”
“Don't think bad men can love the way you do,” Art said. Pete closed his eyes again. God, his chest hurt. It ached.
“I'm not too tired,” Art said. “If you want to get some good shut eye with your boy.”
Pete only nodded, so tired he had begun drifting the moment his lids closed. “Queer,” he could hear Parker say from somewhere ahead, already so faint, distant, he couldn't muster any upset. What did it matter, anyway, what anyone saw, what they knew. God, he'd be dead in a day.