Chapter Twenty-five

After that first night in Key West, the first time they completely give themselves over to one another, it gets easier.

At least, it's easier to pretend that they really are tourists, just a normal, happy couple on vacation, because that's what it feels like. It's heady and tingly and all-consuming to the point where they practically lose their appetites for anything other than one another - including Reid, whose intense love affair with cheeseburgers has never been eclipsed by anything before - and it doesn't matter if they're riding donkeys in the Grand Canyon or just drinking sweet tea on the back porch of an abandoned, moss-draped mansion in South Carolina. Because everything seems new, shining in a way it never has before.

The rest of October and nearly all of November pass in what feels like a montage from some silly romantic movie. It's as if their lives have been transformed into a string of snapshots of happiness and sadness and worry and confusion and delight, finding something new and unexpected with every mile they put on the Camaro's odometer.

*******

They go to New Orleans and indulge in beignets on Bourbon Street, laughing at the powdered sugar that coats both of their mouths as they stumble into the dark doorway beside the bakery to take their time kissing away every speck.

And Reid's just getting serious about it, pressing his thigh between Nate's legs and earning himself a whispered,  breathy "Reid," when some drunk asshole on the sidewalk wolf-whistles at them.

Reid doesn't bother to look up because Nate's mouth tastes like fucking heaven right now, so he just raises one hand to flip the stranger off while his tongue slides along the side of Nate's.

But apparently the universe is determined to cockblock him.

A bachelorette party staggers down the street and heads straight for them, giggling in their pink feather boas and clutching a rainbow of fruity-looking drinks between their perfectly manicured talons. Reid wouldn't have paid them any attention (because he's clearly got better things to be doing) but the bride-to-be is brave enough to teeter right up to them on her stripper heels and yell a slurred, "Yeah, you go, you fine-ass dude. You get that ass," as she perches her sparkly tiara - featuring a proud, prominent, and bedazzled dick and balls at its apex - atop Reid's head.

Nate pulls back just far enough to glance up at Reid's new crown, his mouth twitching at the corners, before turning to the bachelorette. Reid's not completely sure if he's going to smile or punch this girl, but he's on board with either option.

Of course, Nate does something completely different instead. He winks at the girl, slow and deliberate, before pulling Reid's head back down and fucking bites his bottom lip.

The girls shriek, laughing and making that supersonic "woo" sound only drunken sorority girls seem to have mastered. They fall against each other, fanning themselves, and their hurricanes slosh over the sides of the glasses as they totter on down the street.

"Now," Reid says, his tiara slipping to the side as he pushes forward, slotting his hips against Nate's to grind enthusiastically against the sagging door frame, "Where were we?"

*******

"I think I would like to ride a horse."

It seems like a simple enough request; just a random whim of Nate's because he's never been on one before.

He would have never said a word if he'd known just how annoyingly into it Reid would be.

"Yee-HAW!" Reid hollers as the Camaro's tires squeal, flipping an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road and hauling ass straight toward central Texas. Apparently, there's some working dude ranch there that Bobby told him about once and the mere mention of horseback riding has spontaneously transformed Reid into a cowboy-crazed monster.

As they drive, he babbles on and on about how awesome this is going to be and it's such a badass idea and how Nate is just going to love it. And when they stop for the night, Reid downloads a slew of terrible Clint Eastwood westerns and forces Nate to watch them with him - after the third of which, he's so bored that he's been reduced to begging, his hands moving in careful, emphatic motions.

"Really, Reid, it's fine, it was just a stupid idea. Why don't we just go do something else?"

Reid's only response is to grit his teeth and squint, attempting an Outlaw Josey Wales impression. He fails spectacularly, just looking like a vaguely constipated version of himself when he quotes, "Because I ain't got nothin' better to do."

Nate sighs.

And the horse-themed insanity continues when Reid insists on stopping at Sheplers before they cover the last hundred miles to the ranch. They wander through the store for hours, Reid trying on hats and gloves and boots with ridiculously stacked heels and pointed toes. He finally flings some weird, woven cape-like thing over his head and runs over to where Nate is frowning at a row of belt buckles, each one roughly the size of a dinner plate.

"What d'ya think?" Reid spins, his arms spread out with pride. "Awesome, right?"

Nate just frowns harder. "You're wearing a hideous, scratchy blanket."

Reid's hands fall to his sides, defeated. "Shut up. This looks good on me."

But he pulls the sarape off, disappointed, and tosses it over the head of the nearest display mannequin, kicking its molded plaster toe with his boot for good measure. "Better on me than on this guy's plastic ass, anyway."

Nate stands beside him, tilting his head as he studies the mannequin. "I don't know. He does have quite striking features and well-defined muscle tone."

Reid smirks, hooking his fingers through the hole in the back pocket of Nate's jeans and pulling him in close, murmuring low and filthy in his ear, "I'll show you a well-defined muscle."

They get thrown out of the store ten minutes later, the clerk noticing the two pairs of knocking boots and heavy breathing coming from the dressing room.

But Reid won't be thwarted in his quest for western wear. They get to the ranch that night and he wastes no time in cracking open a couple of cold ones with some ranch hand named Stuart, chatting him up until Reid has conned himself into a borrowed Stetson and chaps for his morning ride.

And Nate only needs one glance at Reid in the rising sun, the light sheen of sweat gleaming on his tanned skin as he sits astride a horse in his new gear, tipping his hat at Nate and winking, before he decides to track down good old Stu and pay whatever it takes to buy the whole outfit off of him.

He climbs onto his own horse and they gallop across the prairie, but all he can think about is his plan for later, when he's going to make Reid leave the chaps on - and nothing else. Nate wants bend him over the bed and maybe even slap his ass, playfully, as he pushes into him, his nails biting into Reid's flesh as he rides him loud and long enough to seriously disturb everyone with the misfortune of staying in the main house with them.

*******

They hunt ghosts in Savannah, taking a tour that drives them around in some ridiculous hearse with the top cut off, and they pretend not to shiver when the tour guide points out their hotel as one of the city's most haunted.

"And here we have the site of a brutal, bloody mass murder. It was committed by a maid who went mad, slaughtering half a dozen people in their sleep before hanging herself in the closet of Room 223." Reid's back straightens, his fingers shaking a bit when he pulls their room key from his pocket and shows Nate the gold-painted 223 on the plastic fob. Nate's eyes narrow and his lips press together; Reid's not sure if that's his worried face or his silently-judging-him-for-being-a-superstitious-moron face.

Either way, the tour guide's next sentence makes them both feel like a dozen spiders are crawling down their spines. "The inn's owners swear that she still roams the halls every night, turning out lights and making the rooms go cold as she hunts for her next victim."

They're still a little thrown when the tour ends forty-five minutes later, but their room seems clean and bright when they get back, Reid making sure to secure the deadbolt and chain behind them.

"Don't worry, Nate, it's just a stupid ghost story. Besides, we've got much bigger problems than some silly, not-even-corporeal dead chick-" Reid starts...except his speech is cut short by a blast of cold air, the bedside lamp going out with a loud pop when he tries to switch it on.

Reid pulls his gun out of habit (although he's got no goddamn clue how he's going to shoot something without a body) and checks every inch of the room while Nate prowls along behind him, his hands curled into tight fists.

But there's nothing else. No weird moaning, no phantoms passing through walls; everything is empty and quiet.

For the moment, at least.

And even though neither Reid nor Nate is entirely sure they even really believe in ghosts, they stay awake all night cuddled together under the blankets, watching comfortingly boring infomercials and jumping at every creak of the old inn.

*******

They drive through the skinny end of Kentucky while the fall foliage is at its peak - a riot of obscene color that leaves them both nearly speechless.

And when Nate does finally say something, he sounds so small even through the digitized app on his phone.

"Doesn't all this beauty make you sad, and sort of frightened?"

Reid raises his eyebrows. "I'm not really worried about being buried alive in a pile of leaves or something, Nate."

"No. I mean - aren't you scared that you'll never see this again? That this is the last autumn for us, and when the leaves have all fallen, we won't be alive to see them come back?" He looks down at his hands, reaching across the smeared screen of his phone to scratch at the skin beside his thumbnail for a second. "It will be like the whole world has died with us."

"Come on, Nate, you can't think like that. We're going to be fine; we'll kick it in the ass like we always do, you'll make it to trial and then-"

"Reid, please." Nate isn't normally expressive - Reid has had to learn to read the small tells of his face, like the slight narrowing of his eyes and the tiny movements at the corners of his mouth - but at this moment he looks completely broken, like he's been cracked open and there's nothing but naked honesty and fear bleeding through the fractured pieces of the facade. "Please just be real with me for a moment."

Reid reaches over and squeezes his hand around Nate's thigh, trying to ground them both. It doesn't work.

"Yeah. Yeah, Nate, I'm scared too."

Nate is silent for a long time. When he speaks again, his fingers fly over the tiny keyboard, his words fierce and angry.

"It's just all so beautiful, and it's finally mine. I don't want to lose it."

The wind gusts, scattering bright yellow leaves across the highway that twist in the air as the Camaro roars by.

*******

They stop in a random small town in Missouri where there's absolutely nothing better to do than catch up on their laundry.

It's on the wrong side of midnight and they're tired from driving, but Reid's down to his last pair of clean socks and the laundromat is cheap. They have it to themselves, probably because it's dingy, in a bad area of town, and only very dimly lit since all the overhead lights have burnt out except one that keeps flickering in the corner.

They haul in their bag of dirty clothes and strip down to their underwear and shoes, tossing everything into one washing machine. And once it's going Nate starts pacing, restless from sitting all day.

Reid just boosts himself up onto the running washer, flicking absently through a three-month-old issue of People that someone left on a chair. His untied boots flop around his ankles as he kicks his feet out to jokingly block Nate's path every time he wanders close.

Well, he does that until he gets bored, which takes about two-and-a-half minutes. Then he finds some story about the royal family to get weirdly invested in and subsequently forgets all about the outside world.

So Nate studies the fliers posted in the window, all the mundane aspects of a normal life becoming ever more fascinating the longer he drifts around the country. Lost dogs, people looking for roommates or to sell their ratty couches, an ad for a masseuse that's clearly just a prostitute that hasn't heard of Craigslist.

Reid turns a page from his perch behind him, the magazine's water-stained paper crinkling, and Nate turns back to study him. The very tip of his tongue is poking through his lips, his broad shoulders hunched as he curls around his silly gossip rag, the waistband of his underwear biting a bit into the soft flesh of his belly.

It's unbelievably fucking adorable, and Nate is suddenly convinced that he's got something much better to be doing with his time.

He strides over, wrapping his hands under Reid's knees and separating them, yanking him forward until he's perched on the washer's edge and has to hook his ankles behind Nate's thighs to stay upright. Reid tosses his magazine and opens his mouth to say something - even he's not sure what - but Nate reaches forward, presses his hand over Reid's lips, and shakes his head. He only lets go when he's sure that Reid understands, and then raises one of Reid's legs to his mouth, forcing Reid to lean back onto his elbows as Nate begins to kiss his way from his knee to the edge of his boxer briefs. He takes his time when he gets there, tracing his tongue up under the hem and teasing at the sensitive inside of Reid's thigh.

And then he drops that leg and raises the other, drawing a small frustrated noise out of Reid. Nate just shakes his head, reaches up to clamp his hand over Reid's mouth again. And then he repeats the process with the other leg until Reid's underwear is rucked up on both sides around his rock-hard and aching dick.

Nate braces his hands on the top of Reid's thighs as he leans forward, taking Reid's waistband in his teeth and pulling. Reid pushes up on his elbows and raises his hips to let Nate slide his underwear down to his knees, his ass barely back down on the cold metal of the washer before Nate's mouth descends suddenly and fiercely onto his dick.

It's so hot and wet and tight and he sucks Reid in time with the thumps of the washing machine beneath them. Reid can feel it vibrating through his whole body, every inch of him tingling, but he holds back all his enthusiastic groans and "God, yes," exclamations because Nate wants him quiet, wants to hear the wet pop of his mouth on Reid and the hum of the washer, wants him desperate and vulnerable and under his control.

Nate's sucking hard, his cheeks caving in as his tongue slides over the sensitive underside of Reid's cock on every stroke, his hot breath blowing over Reid's lower stomach and thighs as he moves. All of it is swirling fast and hot into Reid, drawing his balls up tight and making him chew his lip to keep from crying out.

So it's only a minute later when he's coming, slamming his heel into the front of the washer since he can't shout. And Nate silently swallows him down, only the echo of the machine's door denting and the gasping of their breath bouncing around the empty laundromat.

*******

They drive all day to go to a demolition derby in West Virginia, wincing and laughing as the screech of crushing metal sounds through the stands. They're keeping their distance here, a fellow patron at a bar in Ohio having been a little too keenly interested in the combination of Reid's Ranger tattoo, Nate's neck scar, and their cobbled language of signing, gesturing, and lip-reading. It's making them wary of drawing attention to themselves again.

But having to sit on the riser behind him doesn't stop Nate from watching Reid's eyes glitter in the setting sun when he turns his face to the side, or from studying the lines around his mouth and memorizing the happy ghosts of a thousand smiles. Reid spreads his knees wide and leans back a bit, his fingers grazing the footrail of the bleacher behind him and hooking one unseen finger through Nate's shoelace. They never look directly at each other, but they smile, heated and intimate, as they cheer on their randomly chosen driver.

He loses spectacularly when his engine catches fire and sends him running from the car like some sort of low-budget Talladega Nights re-enactment, his smoking sweatshirt flying as he strips it off, catapulting himself into the front row and dousing himself with a spectators' giant soda. Nate laughs and points, surreptitiously passing Reid the half-empty cup of beer they're sharing.

Reid takes a long sip, imagines he can taste Nate's mouth on the rim.

*******

They drive up the Maine coastline, not stopping until they reach Bar Harbor. Nate waves his arms frantically as they cruise through downtown because (a) he's spotted a movie theater marquee advertising some damn nature film he's been dying to watch and (b) Reid has the supreme misfortune that they're perfectly on time.

Nate doesn't get to see the movie though, not really, because the theater is actually some strange combination of pizza place and living room, the seats just a collection of sagging couches and recliners with whole pies and pitchers of beer served on ancient, rickety TV trays. So as soon as Reid has finished off his four greasy slices of triple sausage and gotten a nice beer buzz working - which happens 34 minutes into the movie and just when the story is really taking off - he pushes Nate back into the couch cushions, tugging his collar to the side so he can kiss the hollow of his collarbone as he stretches out on top of him. And with that kind of distraction Nate has no hope of focusing anyway, so he threads his fingers through Reid's hair and sighs, pulling his mouth up to meet his own.

They make out in the flickering light of the screen like teenagers, giggling and grinding against one another until the house lights come up and they stumble, half-drunk and turned on as all hell, out into the cold night.

The first snow is beginning to fall, fat white flakes that catch in their hair and eyelashes, melting when they land on their flushed cheeks. They lace their fingers together as they make their way back to the car.

*******

They splurge on a hotel room overlooking Niagara Falls and spend half the day just sitting there, hypnotized by the sliding water, the never-ending thunder as it splashes into the bottom, and the cloud of mist that climbs impossibly high. Even long after sundown, after the spotlights turn out and they can't really see the falls anymore, they can't bear to draw the curtains.

So they wake at the first flush of daylight that streams through the windows, Nate sighing contentedly as Reid presses against his back and pushes slowly, lazily into him.

He can hear Reid's breath heavy in his ear, feel his fingers digging into his hip as he drags out until only the tip of him is inside, then pushing so slowly back in, filling him, stretching him, until his whole body is flush against Nate's back. His mouth slides, wet and hot, against the underside of Nate's jaw, moving slowly enough to kiss softly over every inch of  the tender skin.

They move against each other at a sleepy pace, staring out the window to watch the falls, the spray forming a huge cloud that diffuses the daylight into a pale, sparkling gold. And they ride the slow, steady build of pleasure, the wave cresting and washing over them both warm and easy as it melts their bones and leaves them sighing breathlessly in the brilliantly breaking dawn.

*******

They stop for Thai food at some place in Nebraska, which should be their first clue that this is not their brightest idea. The grimy tabletop and gelatinous gray substance on Reid's plate should be their second and third, but they're in the middle of BFE and Reid is too fucking hungry to wait until they find somewhere else.

He violently regrets that decision an hour later when he's projectile vomiting on the side of the road.

It's so bad that he even lets Nate drive, Reid hanging out the passenger's window and begging him to "Go faster, goddammit, I can't--oh, dear Jesus, just let me die."

Nate drives maniacally, with only one hand on the steering wheel, the other hooked into the waist of Reid's jeans to keep him from falling out the window, and pulls into the first rat-trap motel he finds. He doesn't bother turning the car off, just throws it in park and storms into the front office, while Reid hangs dejectedly over the puke-covered passenger's door.

And of all times for it to happen, the clerk is a whiny, bitchy stickler who tries to give Nate some shit about not showing ID even though there's a wad of cash already laying on the counter.

Nate hasn't had to intimidate someone into doing his bidding for a while, but it's not really a skill he'll ever forget. His fist shoots over the counter and twists into the guy's shirt until the collar is cutting into his neck, his face turning a rich purple. Nate finds the color deeply satisfying when he hauls him halfway over the counter and holds him an inch from his face.

"Give. Me. A. Room."

The clerk doesn't understand his one-handed sign language, but the message becomes clear enough as Nate twists his shirt even harder, hearing the fabric begin to tear and making tiny spit bubbles form at the corners of the clerk's mouth.

"NOW."

And Nate's carrying their bags into the room less than a minute later, Reid stumbling in behind him like he's drunk or drugged or half-dead. He feels like some nightmarish combination of all three, and the room's state doesn't exactly help. It's dark and dingy, smelling like stale smoke and piss, which, combined with the food poisoning is more than enough to force Reid to spend the entire night hugging the toilet, sprawled out on the grimy bathroom floor.

"Nate, really, this is horrible. You can just leave me to suffer; go get some sleep or something."

Nate just shakes his head, putting another cool washcloth on the back of his clammy neck. "That's not how this works." Reid only catches fragments of the signs in his peripheral vision, but he knows Nate well enough by now to understand.

It's sweet, and he thinks about making some comment about it (even though he knows Nate would hate it and deny that any form of sweetness is in his nature), but his stomach clenches again, painfully, like it's trying to drag up his kidney or something since he's long since run out of anything to puke other than vital organs. So he sits up, resting his forehead against the toilet seat and trying to focus on Nate's small fingertips tracing tiny circles against his scalp.

"You know, Nate, if your family is going to kill me anyway, I kind of wish they'd just show up right now and end my suffering."

Nate laughs, humorless, and wipes at the corner of Reid's mouth.

"Trust me, it wouldn't be better - they rarely kill anyone easy. And even I know of several dozen ways to make you feel about a thousand times worse than this."

Reid turns and heaves into the bowl so hard that his eyes are watering and he's gasping for breath.

"Not helping, Nate. Really not helping."

*******

They travel for days to stand in the middle of the Hoover Dam, spending an hour staring silently into the abyss.

It leaves them in a strange state, some unfamiliar combination of hopeful and fearful - that the world is so much bigger than they'd ever imagined, so much stranger and more dangerous, while the same thought gives them hope that it's big enough to hide them, to keep them safe and anonymous until the trial -- and, Nate thinks wildly -- maybe even after.

*******

They go to some small-town harvest festival in the heartland, Nate laughing as Reid buys a slice of pie from no less than six different bakers. He settles in astride a hay bale, the pie spread out around him as he groans at the bounty.

"Nate, you gotta try the apple. Dude, this is fucking - mmmmmm..."

"No, wait. I think I like the cherry better. Definitely the cherry. It's all tart and perfect."

"Peaches! Jesus, this is like sweet syrupy perfection."

"The pecan. It's gotta be the pecan. Why did I ever think that fruit could compete with nuts?"

And after he's devoured the majority of all six slices, they wander through the rest of the festival, Reid trying - and failing - to walk off all the dessert.

Nate stops at a knitter's booth, drawn to a soft, gray scarf that he tentatively winds around his neck. The color contrasts against his eyes so perfectly that Reid buys it immediately, without thinking or even asking Nate, and tugs him by the tails of his new scarf toward the cheesy little corn maze at the festival's far corner.

Nate's laughing when they pay the farmer sitting in a folding chair by the entrance and take their maps and little "Help, I'm an idiot who got lost in a fucking acre of corn and can't find my way out," emergency flags. He thinks Reid may actually be serious about this, but they don't go more than a hundred feet beyond the entrance before Reid pulls him off the maze's path, stumbling and crunching through the dying stalks until he's sure they're hidden from view.

Reid's sure his mouth is still sticky and tastes like a strange medley of pie; there's a leaf peeling off an ear of corn that's scratching Nate's face and a broken stalk poking into the left cheek of his ass. But none of that matters when Reid pulls Nate's scarf to drag his face up to him, wasting no time before sliding his hand down the front of Nate's jeans.

He tries to get his hand wrapped around Nate, but the angle is all weird and wrong. So, after what he's sure is the most frustrating minute of both their lives, Reid stomps through the corn, the leaves crunching under his boots as he swears and bats away the silks that catch in his hair, until he's finally maneuvered himself into position. He presses against Nate's back and undoes the fly of his jeans, both of them sighing with satisfaction when Reid finally frees him from his underwear.

"Have you got some sort of strange, vegetable-related fetish that I should know about?" Nate asks, his signs already going sloppy with lust.

Reid props his chin on Nate's shoulder so he can look down, watch Nate's dick grow hard and flushed under Reid's right hand, his left sneaking down to roll Nate's balls.

"I might after today," he answers. Nate sags back against his chest and closes his eyes, feeling nothing but Reid's

skillful hands and the breeze rustling the corn around them.

Reid's grown out of practice, not having had to jack off since he and Nate had finally gotten together, but it's kind of like riding a weirdly erotic bike - not exactly a technique you lose. Besides, it's so much hotter doing it for someone else, feeling Nate shudder and twitch, hearing his breath catching when Reid runs his thumb across the head and catches the drop of come leaking out, using it to slick his hand and move faster.

He keeps his voice low, a growl in Nate's ear, and every word gets Nate that much closer, his breath going ragged as he bucks up into Reid's fist.

"God, you look so good in that scarf. I don't know what it is, but all I want to do is use it to tie you to the bed and drive you crazy. Kiss every inch of your body until you're just completely fucking wrecked and gagging for it, and then I want to suck you like a goddamn Dyson until your toes curl and your eyes roll back, until you're squirming and begging me to stop-"

Nate comes with a soft cry, covering Reid's hand and staining his own sweater, and true to his word Reid doesn't stop pumping Nate until his knees are buckling and his whole body trembles. Reid's hand only slows when Nate reaches down to still his wrist with shaking fingers and turns his face into Reid's shoulder, biting gently into the meat of it, his whole body wrecked in a way that definitely should not be possible in the middle of a cornfield.

It takes him a minute to feel steady enough to lean away from Reid, who's grinning like a proud idiot even though his hand is fucking disgusting, a sticky mess that they use Nate's already-ruined sweater to wipe off.

Nate balls the sweater up and shoves it into Reid's hands, wrapping his scarf tighter against the autumn breeze and demanding that Reid give him his sweatshirt since he's the reason Nate is suddenly underdressed for the weather.

"Worth it, Nate," Reid says as he wrestles to get his arms out of the sleeves. "Abso-fucking-lutely worth it."

Nate tugs the sweatshirt on and smiles to himself, snuggling into the soft cotton and feeling the afterglow tingling through his nerves. He can't help but agree.

*******

But, mostly, what they do is drive.

Nate tests out different positions - holding Reid's free hand and watching the world fly by through the side window, lying with his head in Reid's lap while sleepily blinking up at the underside of his strong, stubbled chin with Reid's hand resting solid and comforting over Nate's heart - but he finds that his favorite is just sitting beside him in the center seat, Reid's shoulders rubbing against his with the smells of their aftershave and motel shampoo surrounding them.

Nate takes his shoes off once, experimentally wriggling his toes before propping his feet on the dashboard to be warmed from the sun. He expects Reid to bitch about it, to shout something about Nate getting toe jam on the glove box or some other overprotective bullshit, but he doesn't. He just smiles over at him for a moment and turns back to the road.

So Nate starts riding that way all the time, his feet steadily tanning while he hugs his knees, scrambling to put his shoes back on when they stop for gas or to pee.

Meanwhile, in the driver's seat, Reid's collar stays popped up against the wind whipping through the windows, those ridiculous cop aviators he likes to wear tinting the world dark. He snacks almost constantly, and always on the shittiest food.

For instance, there's currently a Twizzler bobbing between his lips as he sings - loudly, and off-key - along with Led Zeppelin. And even though Nate doesn't really like licorice or this song, it's become such a familiar and happy occurrence that he can't help but turn his head and bite off the Twizzler's other end. Reid just grins and chews, both of them eating their way up the stupid string of candy in silly Lady and the Tramp style until their mouths meet in the middle, smiling and gummy and tasting of strawberries.

*******

And in between it all, they do the stuff that really matters.

They learn how to read one another's moods by how they brush their teeth in the morning. Reid comes to understand how truly sickened Nate is by any sort of violence and turns the channel when some stupid police procedural they're watching on TV turns bloody. Nate learns that Reid is - understandably - paranoid about knowing where he is at every moment and times bathroom breaks to when Reid can come with him and wait outside the door.

But they really learn one another late at night, after the day's travels and the sex is over, when they're exhausted and tangled up in the same small motel bed with their legs and arms so wrapped around one another that neither one can really tell where one ends and the other begins. Nate sometimes wakes up screaming, some wicked memory from his childhood or former career rearing its hideous head, and Reid has to kiss his neck and run his fingers through his messy hair, wrapping his whole body around Nate's until he can remember that he has left all of that behind. Until he can believe that it's just the two of them now, desperate and in love, and he sucks in greedy lungfuls of Reid's familiar whiskey-and-Old-Spice scent until his heartbeat goes back to normal, until sleep sucks him back under.

It's worse when Reid is the one who wakes, tormented by visions of failure; of Nate bleeding and broken beyond repair before him, the Angelevs laughing at his pain as they slowly tear at that perfect skin and dismember those strong limbs, the life gone from the once-beautiful blue eyes they pry from Nate's slack face, his bone splintering as they strip the muscle from it and feed it all down a dirty garbage disposal while Reid can only scream in horror around the gag in his mouth, praying for death to come swift and easy.

On those nights Nate has to take his time, use every inch of his flesh to reassure Reid that they're still together, still alive, still safe. It doesn't work to clear away the images, not really - he's seen too many crime scene photos from suspected Angelev hits, heard too many details about the family's preferred techniques in Nate's deposition - but it's usually enough that they can fall back into an uneasy sleep. Their fingers subconsciously weave together, that bit of warm skin and hard muscle all the familiarity they can expect in those strange beds, in rooms where they'll never spend enough hours to truly be at ease.

But they do manage to find comfort in each other, small as it may be.

And, eventually, it becomes enough -  these little moments they spend wrapped up together in the quiet dark. It becomes their whole world, and when the road and disconnection from society consumes them, they hold onto this; onto calloused fingers tangled in rough sheets, dark eyelashes fanned over suntanned cheeks, and faces relaxed by the oblivion of sleep.

On the unspoken, nearly impossible dream of success.

Of survival.