Chapter Text
Pete lit the cigarette without much conviction, leaning against the cold wall of the backstage corridor. The night felt more like a farewell ritual than an actual show. He was too tired to even believe in his own performance anymore.
He opened the side door to get some air and almost knocked over the guy coming the opposite way.
“Fuck, sorry,” Pete said, grabbing the other’s arm firmly. “Didn’t see you there.”
The guy’s eyes went wide, clearly more scared than hurt. “N-no, it’s okay. My fault too. I shouldn’t have been so close to the door.”
Pete realized he was still holding the arm, and that the arm was warm, solid, strong under the stretched T-shirt. He let go slowly, with disguised reluctance.
“You okay?” he asked, looking the kid up and down. It was impossible not to look.
“I’m fine,” the guy answered, taking a deep breath. “I just, sorry. I took the wrong corridor.”
Pete raised an eyebrow. “Wrong? This is pretty much the heart of the place. You’d end up backstage anyway.”
The guy gave a shy, almost guilty smile. “I… might’ve wandered off on purpose.”
“Hm.” Pete leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “And why would someone do that?”
The guy hesitated before speaking, as if afraid of sounding stupid. “Because I wanted to see you. Before the show.”
Pete tilted his head a little. “See me like this? Backstage, smoking, almost knocking people over?”
The guy let out a nervous laugh, soft and beautiful. “I didn’t expect it to be exactly like this. But, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to thank you. Or hear your voice up close. Or anything that felt real.”
The sincerity caught Pete off guard. He inhaled slowly, studying the kid better.
He was big, broad, solid. The 98 tour T-shirt stretched across his chest and belly, hugging every strong curve. His cheeks were flushed, his round face showing an almost innocent nervousness. Pete looked away for a second to regain control.
“Can I at least get your name, since you scared me?” Pete asked, half teasing.
“Ray,” he answered immediately. “Ray Garraty. I came from Freeport.”
Pete blinked. “Freeport, Maine?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s damn far.”
“Three buses,” Ray confirmed, adjusting his backpack strap. “And one full night awake to make sure I’d get here on time.”
Pete let out an incredulous laugh. “You came all the way from Freeport, for this?”
Ray ran his tongue over his lips, nervous. “To hear you play ‘Stillwater.’ Live. One more time.”
That name, the song, fell silent between them. Pete looked at the floor, as if the subject was too intimate to handle there.
“That’s a weird choice,” he said, voice low. “I’ve almost forgotten how to play that shit myself.”
Ray shook his head immediately. “No. You say that, but I know you haven’t. You can’t forget what you put your heart into.”
Pete looked up, surprised by his firmness.
Ray went on, voice trembling but determined. “I know it’s just a song to you. Or, maybe, it’s become a burden. But to me it meant everything. Maybe it even saved my life somehow. So I just had to come. Even if it was just to watch you leave, if that’s what it came to.”
Pete stayed quiet for a long time. The corridor seemed to shrink.
“You talk like that to every musician you bump into in a hallway?” he asked, trying to ease the tension.
Ray laughed again, embarrassed. “No. Most of them don’t even look at me. You looked.”
“Hard not to,” Pete said before he could stop himself.
Ray’s eyes widened, as if the phrase had hit him dead center.
“So it’s good?” he asked, very low.
“It’s really good,” Pete answered, voice darkening without meaning to. “Especially the way you’re blushing right now.”
Ray put a hand to his face, as if he could wipe away the embarrassment. “I get like this when I’m nervous. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Pete said, taking half a step closer. “It looks good.”
Ray looked away for a moment, breathing deeply. When he looked back, there was a shy, almost hopeful glint in his brown eyes.
“I just wanted…” Ray hesitated. “I wanted you to know you matter. Even when you seem to have forgotten.”
That one hit too hard. Pete felt his chest warm.
“Damn, Ray,” he murmured. “How do you walk into a corridor and say something like that to me? No warning?”
“Sorry,” Ray repeated, not knowing where to put his hands. “I tell the truth when I’m nervous.”
“Then get nervous more often,” Pete said.
Ray opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked about to say something important, but the words got stuck.
Pete noticed and gave a half-smile, tired but real.
“Breathe, Ray. I don’t bite.”
The kid let out a short, incredulous laugh. “I think if you did bite, I wouldn’t complain.”
Pete raised an eyebrow, surprised by the shy boldness.
“Really? You look like the type who’d blush at a compliment, let alone a bite.”
“I’m blushing now,” Ray said, the honesty betraying him.
Pete let his gaze slide, slow, over Ray’s face, and then, inevitably, over the chest outlined under the tight T-shirt.
“You are.”
Ray took a deep breath, trying to stay in control. “Sorry if I’m being intense. I didn’t mean to bother you. It’s just, seeing you this close after years of listening to your voice, I don’t really know how to act.”
“You’re doing fine,” Pete answered, serious. “Actually, better than most people I know.”
The silence between them grew thicker, hotter. Ray fidgeted with his fingers, nervous.
“I didn’t want to seem like a crazy fan. I just wanted you to know your music really helped me.”
Pete looked away, jaw clenched.
“It’s weird to hear that sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t even help myself,” Pete said, with a honesty he rarely gave. “Then you show up saying one of my songs saved you, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
Ray took a shy step forward, but didn’t touch him.
“Maybe hearing it is exactly what you needed tonight.”
Pete let the air out slowly, as if finally giving in to something he’d been resisting for a long time.
“Maybe it is,” he admitted.
Ray smiled, not the shy one from before, but one with more courage, more presence.
“Then let me do one more thing for you.”
Pete tilted his head slightly. “One more thing? You already crossed half the state for this.”
“That part was for me.” Ray breathed in, steady. “Now I want to ask for something to mark the moment. So I’ll remember this really happened.”
Pete crossed his arms, curious. “And what would that be?”
Ray hesitated for long seconds, biting his lower lip, a gesture that seemed involuntary, almost childish, but dangerous in its sincerity.
“Could you…”
He swallowed hard, blushing all the way to his ears.
“Sign my tits?”
Pete stared at him as if time had stopped.
Ray immediately tried to explain. “Sorry! That sounded so weird, I know, it’s just, I always joked with my friends that if I ever met you I’d ask for that. But now I’m here and you’re here and…”
“Ray.” Pete raised a hand, asking for silence.
His expression wasn’t shock, it was amused surprise mixed with something darker and warmer.
“That’s one of the most absurd and, at the same time, most honest things anyone’s ever asked me.”
Ray stood completely still.
“And it’s a yes,” Pete finished, voice low, rough. “If you really want it.”
Ray’s eyes went huge. “I do.”
Then, realizing how fast he’d answered, “I really do.”
Pete stepped closer, reducing the distance between their bodies to almost nothing. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from Ray, close enough to notice the slight tremor in his breathing.
“Then let me see,” Pete said, almost like a soft command.
Ray slowly lifted the hem of his T-shirt, first revealing the firm, rounded belly, then the full chest, pale, warm skin, lightly sweaty. The cold hallway light made everything more real, more raw, more intimate than any lit dressing room ever could.
Pete paused for a moment, just looking.
Ray asked, voice barely there, “Everything okay?”
Pete answered without hesitation, “It’s perfect.”
Then he reached into his back pocket, pulled out the Sharpie, uncapped it, and brought the tip to Ray’s chest.
But before writing, Pete looked up and met his eyes.
“Ray, you absolutely sure?”
Ray nodded. “I am.”
Pete smiled in a way Ray would never forget.
“Then this one’s just yours.”
Pete pressed the marker tip to the soft skin of Ray’s chest. The kid instantly held his breath, as if any movement could break the moment.
“Relax,” Pete murmured, voice too low for anyone not dangerously close. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Ray let the air out slowly, though he still trembled discreetly, not from fear, but from anticipation.
Pete wrote slowly, with an almost affectionate precision. The big, clean, bold signature took shape over Ray’s left pec, following the natural curve of the flesh. As he wrote, his hand brushed the warm skin, and Ray felt every touch like a silent electric shock.
When he finished the signature, Pete stayed where he was. He could have stepped back. He didn’t.
Ray looked down, then at Pete, confused.
“That’s it?”
“No,” Pete said, even lower. “The important part is still missing.”
Ray blinked, not understanding.
“The important part?”
Pete tilted his head slightly, close enough that Ray could feel warm breath against his collarbone.
“The part that never shows up in any photo,” he explained. “Not on a T-shirt, not in a frame, nowhere.”
Ray swallowed hard, heart racing.
Pete moved the marker a little lower, not enough to be indecent, but enough for Ray to feel a wave of heat run down his spine.
“Can I?” he asked, with unexpected gentleness.
Ray nodded, almost voiceless.
“You can.”
Pete placed his free hand on the side of Ray’s waist, right at the border between belly and ribs, and Ray stiffened for a second before relaxing under the touch. The hand was warm, firm, secure. It was the first time in his life anyone had touched Ray with such clear intent.
Then Pete wrote, with slow, deliberate strokes, a phone number. Digit by digit. Every curve and line pressing against sensitive skin like a secret being deposited straight onto his body.
Ray only realized what it was when Pete pulled back a bit and capped the marker.
“That—” Ray looked down, stunned. “That’s your number?”
“Yeah,” Pete answered, tone unchanged. “The personal one. The one nobody has.”
Ray’s eyes went huge, totally lost between happiness, shock, and the delicious fear of believing it.
“I don’t—why… why would you give me that?”
Pete put the marker back in his pocket, took one more step closer, and this time Ray didn’t back away.
On the contrary, his whole body seemed to lean toward him.
“Because you were honest with me,” Pete answered. “Because you showed up on the exact day I needed to hear something worthwhile.”
Ray tried to speak, but his voice failed.
“And because,” Pete finished, voice thicker, warmer, “I feel like you’re different, like you get me, and I don’t want to miss the chance to dive into that if you want it too.”
Ray’s legs nearly gave out.
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Pete stopped him with a light touch, two fingers under his chin, tilting his face up.
“Hey,” Pete murmured. “You don’t have to answer anything now.”
Ray blinked, confused. “I-I don’t?”
“No.”
Pete leaned in just enough for the tip of his nose to almost brush Ray’s cheek.
“Just go to the front row. I want to see you there. I want to know you’re watching.”
Ray’s chest rose and fell too fast.
Pete took one last step back, and Ray almost followed on instinct.
The musician gave a sideways smile, satisfied with the reaction.
“Go, Ray. Before I change my mind and do something stupid right here.”
Ray swallowed hard. “What kind of stupid?”
Pete blinked slowly.
“The kind I don’t usually do with fans. But you don’t really seem like a fan. You seem…”
“Seem what?” Ray insisted, voice breaking.
Pete opened the inner corridor door, the distant sound of the crowd leaking in.
“Like someone I want to see again.”
Ray stood frozen, as if hit by a shot of tenderness.
Pete smiled, a small but sincere smile, and disappeared into the backstage.
Ray stayed there for long seconds, hand flat over his chest where the ink was still fresh, his whole body vibrating.