#or he just doesnt wanna sing so hes just fending them off as they sing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

reesewestonarchive · 5 years

Text

chapter six / rem belongs to @forlornraven / masterpost / mature content

The van idles in the parking lot when Nakoa wakes. Rem’s nowhere to be found, until Nakoa peers out the window of the motel room and sees him setting their bags in the back, a cigarette stuck out of his lips.

Nakoa pulls from the window, stretches his arms above his head.

Waits for Rem to come back, and when he does, he takes one look at Nakoa and says, “You ready?”

“For /what/?” Nakoa’s ready to settle down. Get a job in some bullshit city that won’t ask his age. Rem can…

Well, maybe if he’s happy, he…

“Next leg of the trip.” He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, stubs it out on the bottom of his shoe. “You wanna get dressed?”

Right now, he wants another fucking nap.

“I’ll blow you,” Rem says, with a raise of an eyebrow, and Nakoa snorts. There’s no fucking way Rem wants to get out of here that quickly. “If we go.”

“Yeah fucking right,” Nakoa says.

But Rem steps forward and pulls Nakoa against him by the hem of his t-shirt. Tucking his fingers into the waistband of Nakoa’s pants, he says, “No. Hey.” He tugs at Nakoa’s collar, a smile tugging at his lips. Nakoa thinks about kissing him. He doesn’t. “I’m serious.”

Nakoa looks from Rem’s lips to the van outside. “Where are we going?”

“Oregon, maybe. Why not Canada? Or Mexico. Check out some of their beaches.” Rem grins. Draws Nakoa in for a kiss, and he tastes like coffee and creamer, sweet and smooth.

Like a different guy, but… fuck, Nakoa’s used to this. Rem gets freaked out by something, says a bunch of jackass shit, and Nakoa handles it poorly. It’s not like this thing between them’s easy. Nakoa doesn’t understand it himself, most of the time. Nakoa’s never wanted as much as he wants with Rem, and… that’s terrifying. To imagine the future and want someone by his side.

“What happened?” Nakoa asks, when his eyes are still closed and Rem pulls away, just slightly. “With the blood.”

Rem goes tight under Nakoa’s fingers. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Tough shit. You’re going to.” Nakoa pinches him, under the arm, and Rem yelps, scowls at him.

“Might have some prick on my tail. Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it. “You nearly beat the shit out of my dad when he hit me last year,” Nakoa says, trying to contain his frustration and failing, “but the second I want to make sure you’re okay—”

Rem pulls away. “It’s not the same. Come on, in the car. You can drive.” He flashes a smile, mischievous, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Rem.” Nakoa flattens his voice, steps backwards so Rem’s presence isn’t quite so intoxicating, so he can think through the fog in his head. “I’m serious.”

Rem sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. Can you calm down? I’m not some fucking damsel in distress. I can take care of myself—”

More than he had the other night, Nakoa wants to leave. Let Rem fend for himself, see where that gets him. But then, he imagines Rem lying on the side of the road, or in some dark alley next to a liquor store, and— “Why are you so afraid of this?” he asks, thinks about gesturing between the two of them, really nailing down what he’s talking about.

A dark look passes Rem’s face, before he says, “Because I don’t want you involved.” Nakoa expects him to leave—it looks like it. “You don’t need to get caught up in my bullshit anymore than I should be caught up in yours.” Nakoa wants to tell him that he likes to be, that he likes knowing Rem’s fine, that if he could help, he would. And now that it’s them against the world, two of them on the road alone, each other is all they have. But Rem doesn’t let him, says instead, “We have fun together, right?”

And any hope burns to ash in Nakoa’s chest. He tastes it on his tongue when he says, “Yeah. Fun.”

Bowie plays on the stereo in the car, and Nakoa hears it from miles away. He thinks of what Rem said in the motel room; fun. That’s what it started as; is that all it will ever become for Rem?

Desire breeds warm and heavy in Nakoa’s stomach, sated temporarily by sex, but more often Nakoa just… wants. A longing feeling when he sees Rem singing along to the radio, when Rem moans—a different one when Nakoa touches him than the one he makes when eating pancakes, but neither less arousing than the other.

The goofy grin when he teases Nakoa.

He wants. Maybe the two of them will never own property, will spend their lives on the run from Nakoa’s shithead of a father, from the people Rem hustles for money to survive, but that’s a better end than wasting away in Withervale.

Nakoa should tell him. He should find a way to say the words without scaring Rem off, to say without expectation what he wants.

But then, he wants Rem. Is it not better to have what pieces of himself Rem will offer?

“What are you doing?”

Rem’s voice is scratchy with sleep. His eyes bloodshot from a twelve hour drive, and Nakoa’s knuckles hurt from where he has been pressing against play, pause, record for two hours, listening to the radio.

Fuck. Nakoa rips off his headphones, says, “Nothing. Why?”

Rem raises an eyebrow, says, “Come on. Come to bed.”

Bed tonight is the mattress in the back of the van. Nakoa’s money sits safely in the locked glovebox, but it’s dwindling. They’re close to Oregon, now, Disney just a pipe dream, but Rem keeps pulling off to look at the wildlife. To stop in gift shops. To tug Nakoa around randomly in tourist traps.

Nakoa might revel the attention, if he thought it would lead anywhere.

In Rem’s hand hangs a bottle of whiskey, capped, but when Rem leans down to press a kiss to Nakoa’s lips, he tastes sober. Like toothpaste.

Nakoa chases Rem’s mouth with his own when he pulls away. Rem smirks. His gaze lingers on the tape recorder. “This for me?”

“Fuck off,” Nakoa says. He’d picked up the tape recorder in a pawn shop for a few bucks, one night, and a pack of blank tapes, too. He’s tossed out one shitty mixtape once already, to throw Rem off his tail, to keep him from immediately suspecting. Kind of counterintuitive—the whole point of the mixtape is so Nakoa doesn’t have to say anything—but it calms the anxiety some. That tape had a bunch of Madonna and Bon Jovi, interspersed with just enough of what Rem likes to keep him from telling Nakoa to fuck off and replace the mix with something else.

But it’s hell, finding songs for him. It’s a fucking nightmare. Nakoa has two, right now; a Queen song and a Bowie song, and it feels like the damn thing is never going to be completed. There are a million songs out there, but they’re too cheesy. Too fast, too slow, too cheap, too cliche. Whatever Nakoa’s looking for, he hasn’t found it yet.

Rem’s hand is cold in Nakoa’s, though. There’s a chill to the air, but Rem is warm when he pulls Nakoa against him, brushes his lips against Nakoa’s hair, and laughs as he says, “You need a fucking shower.”

“Rich, coming from you.” Not that Nakoa minds; or not that he can say anything about it. They both need showers, water pressure better than what by-the-hour motels have to offer. Some fucking soap.

Nakoa hums under his breath, already trying to budget out what they’ll need. He can’t.

“What are you humming?” Rem asks. His breath is warm against Nakoa’s ear, his arm a pleasant weight over Nakoa’s waist. It’s been a few days since they’ve fucked. Rem’s been going, too much, switched on too often. Nakoa jerks him off in the van, sometimes, on open stretches of road, sometimes Rem returns the favor, but Nakoa’s getting restless.

That was the beauty of Withervale, Nakoa thinks. The opportunity to do whatever the fuck they wanted, whenever. And it’s not like they couldn’t pick any town they pleased, settle in, but the call of the open road sounds like the call of a siren, to Nakoa; irresistible.

“Sounds like Queen,” Rem says.

“Good ear.”

“Mm.” Rem’s voice is already drifting. Nakoa waits until Rem’s breathing evens out, sneaks back out to where the recorder sits on the old picnic table next to the van.

It’s dawn sooner than Nakoa expects, and there’s a vicious crick in his neck that throbs and burns when he moves his head.

But, after searching through multiple tapes, through radio stations, through mixtapes… Nakoa’s finished.

He clears his throat. Hits stop on the recorder, then hesitates, his finger over the record button again. He could say it, here. Tell Rem everything he wants to say, even though words are meaningless. It’s easy to recognize that, with Rem. The amount of things that just happen, the words that fall from Rem’s mouth.

Nakoa shoves the tape in the stereo of the van, and crawls back onto the mattress. Rem’s breathing is still slow and steady.

He doesn’t move towards Nakoa in his sleep, so Nakoa does it instead. Presses himself against Rem’s side and curls against him. Nakoa breathes him in, stretches his legs, and passes out.

He wakes to Freddie Mercury singing over staticky, broken speakers, quiet, barely audible. Nakoa stretches his arms over his head, yawns, and sits up.

Rem’s behind him, hands in his lap, picking at the last few remnants of his nail polish from his nails. Nakoa makes a mental note to pick some up, if he can find any.

Nakoa watches him, for just a moment, head tilted to the side, before Rem says, “I like this one.”

His heart swells. A grin grows on his face. “Yeah?”

Rem says nothing, though. Just starts the van, puts it into gear, and drives.

Mist surrounds them, casts the road and woods in an eerie, romantic fog, and Nakoa listens as the tracks change from one to the next, discordant in genre but similar in theme.

Rem laughs when The Scorpions play, taps his fingers against the wheel, and Nakoa feels his heart sing along with the lyrics.

When the tape ends, Nakoa takes a deep breath into the silence, his breath loud in the empty space between them. Rem says nothing, seeming content in the quiet. Nakoa wants to fill the silence, somehow, but all the words feel wrong, now. The tape has already said everything he wants to say to Rem, more eloquently, more concise.

But the miles pass, and Rem says nothing. More miles pass—and he says nothing.

Nakoa resigns himself to nothing, disappointment growing in him like a wild beast, untamed and unmanageable. He bites at his fingernail. Lights a cigarette and takes two drags before he puts it back out.

Still, Rem says nothing.

So neither does Nakoa.

#road to nowhere au #my writing #zzz

15 notes · View notes