we're not on the map but we're on our way

1/3

Ryan looks around at the more expensive, newer cars and sees the kid's point. Jon shrugs off the comment and throws Ryan the keys. Ryan catches them and gets in the car, unlocking the other doors. The boy in the back resumes his place in the back, taking in the plastic bag of food. The boy who was using Jon's car as a tree is already walking away, looking over his shoulder a bit embarrassedly.

It always takes three goes to get the engine going, but it starts up in the end. Ryan drives them to the refuel area and fills up the tank. Before going inside to pay, both Jon and the boy hand him some cash.

The new boy from earlier, who looks just about as young as the one in Jon's car, is in front of Ryan in the queue. He looks incredibly lost as he holds a lollipop in his hand, which apparently is his only purchase. He isn't a tourist there, that is obvious. He is by himself with a messenger bag on his back and a strawberry lollipop in his hand.

The boy notices Ryan as Ryan pays for the gas. He hesitates, then asks, "Where are you guys heading?"

"East," Ryan replies.

"Oh. Are you guys on a road trip?"

"Sort of," Ryan shrugs. It's not a road trip because road trips are for leisure. They are three strangers in a car, that's what they are, and they don't know where they're going.

"Well, um. The thing is," the boy says, and he looks lost and scared and nervous, and Ryan knows what the thing is.

* * *

Brendon says, "I can totally drive if you let me."

Ryan lets his eyes look at the boy through the review mirror. "It's not my car, it's Jon's."

"Can I drive?" Brendon asks, leaning forward and taking hold of the passenger seat, quirking around to look at Jon. The sun is setting, making the yellow rocks around them gloom an ominous blood red.

"We'll see," Jon replies, taking a slug of beer from the half empty bottle.

Brendon turns to the boy in the back and asks, "Have they let you drive?"

The boy shakes his head. The boy, as they have now learned, is called Spencer. No last name, just that, but they are only on first name bases here. Jon never looked for companionship when he hit the road way back when, in some other distant world, in another time. Ryan tagged along, and Jon didn't mind. Now there's Spencer, and there's Brendon, and that means Jon is only paying a quarter of the gas. He is fine with that.

But Brendon is different from the other men in the car. He talks and asks questions, he fills silences no one else will. He asks the boy in the back what his name is, and if he hadn't, Ryan and Jon probably never would have asked themselves. Brendon is trying to find similarities between them, assess the differences, is building bridges over oceans of separation. Brendon is trying to grow roots, take a hold of something.

They don't know if he'll succeed, but the meter in the dashboard keeps adding miles upon miles.

* * *

Jon and Ryan jerk each other off in the motel room. Spencer and Brendon are asleep on the other bed, one of them snoring, but they don't know which one. Jon and Ryan took a twin room for the night, and then smuggled Spencer and Brendon in. It's cheaper than taking a bigger room or two twin rooms. The motel is sleazy, the mattresses lumpy, but it's a roof over their heads. Four guys can't sleep in that car. Jon always slept in it, then Ryan and he did, and it was in the backseat anything sexual first happened between them at a rest stop on the outskirts of San Francisco.

There's no shame in it. In the morning afters, they can always look each other in the eye perfectly well. Ryan wraps his long fingers around Jon's dick, which Jon has pulled out of his jeans for the occasion. Jon breathes heavily, inhales sharply when Ryan flicks his wrist, then presses his fingers in Ryan's shoulder as a silent signal. Ryan keeps stroking him through his orgasm. Ryan wipes his hands on the sheets, and he is hard. Ryan is pretty sure Jon is bi-curious at most, but also knows that he is as queer as they come. Touching another guy like this drives him insane. He unzips himself, pushing his jeans past his hips, and Jon in return begins to stroke him. Ryan whimpers slightly, biting down on his lip because it's good.