Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ray has spent half an hour bent over his desk, trying to crunch the numbers, to make them add up in his favor. But there's no two ways about it. He's fucked for the next term. 

He doesn't have the credit to take out more loans this year, and neither does his mom. To keep his financial aid, he needs to be taking 14 credits worth of classes, but 14 credit hours means he'll have to take less shifts at the grocers, meaning less money, meaning he needs to take less credit hours, meaning he loses his financial aid. 

He groans, slams the laptop (the only frivolity they'd been able to buy with the meager life insurance payout from his father's death) shut and drops his head on the desk. He just wants to graduate. Two more terms, and he's done. Two more terms and he's got the degree and maybe an internship if he plays his cards right and then a real job. A big kid job. The phrasing makes a hollow laugh stick in his throat, but nothing is really funny right now. He's 21, still living with his mom because they can't afford for him to move out, and siting in the same desk chair he's had since middle school. Scratch and sniff stickers are still stuck to the metal legs, sun faded and odorless. 

The only consolation is that he's got the entire month of winter break to figure it out. He's signed up for his classes, and can change registration up until the day before they're due back. Payment won't be due until the second week of the term. So he's got...what, six weeks to make up the difference? Maybe he can eek it out. Find an odd job or two. Or five. But then there's spring term to worry about. And keeping up appearances that he's got the cash to his mom, who will worry and fret and take more shifts at the hospital that she shouldn't have to. 

"Fuck me," He whispers. 

Olson drags him out for coffee. Ray tries to beg off. He can't be playing fast and loose with his bank account right now, but Olson insists. "My treat", he claims, which makes Ray raise an eyebrow, both reaching his hairline when he listens to Olson order a large frap, two muffins, and a hot chocolate for Ray (which he ribs him about). 

At the table, Ray glances warily at the poppy seed muffin Olson shoves at him.

"You poisoning me?" Olson's a nice guy, they wouldn't be friends otherwise. But historically Olson has been just as strapped for cash as Ray or any of them. 

"Shut the fuck up and eat the fuckin' muffin," Olson fires back, crumbs falling from his full mouth. "Or don't, I'll fuckin' eat it if you don't want it-" 

Ray bats away his reaching hand, licking the top of the muffin on instinct, marking a claim, which makes Olson laugh and spray more crumbs. 

"You're fuckin' disgusting, Hank, I ever told you that?"

"Ay, is that any way to talk to the goddamn gentleman bankrolling your breakfast?" 

Ray carefully unwraps the muffin, giving Olson a look. "What's up with that by the way?" He asks carefully. Olson grins, mouth still full. He opens his mouth, but Ray waves a hand. "Fuckin, swallow first, goddamn-"

"That's what I said to your mother-"

"Frap and hot chocolate for Hank?" 

Ray stands. "That barista just saved your damn life, Olson." Olson just cackles. Bastard.


Back at the table, Olson blessedly drinks like a normal goddamn person from his straw. He does pop off with a far too satisfied "Ah!", but Ray must pick his battles.

"So, dear Ray, you want to know why I am so flush with cash?" Hank asks, waggling his brows. The urge to roll his eyes is drowned out by genuine curiosity. As far as he knows, Olson is still just working at the carpet mill. And since the union got busted, the pay has been shit. 

"Yeah, enlighten me."

Olson's shit eating grin returns, and he leans in, voice low and conspiratorial. "I got me a bona fide, genuine, real-as-steel gig as a sugar baby."

Ray chokes on his hot chocolate, hacking as the fluid goes down the wrong pipe. 

"Fuckin' get it together, people are lookin', Ray-" Olson kicks him under the table, and Ray kicks right back as he tries to catch his breath. They scuffle for a second, before he swallows the rest of the cough, cheeks ruddy and eyes watering. He rasps, "A sugar baby? What the fuck?" The idea seems preposterous, but Hank shows no signs of pulling one over on him.

Hank grins proudly. "A sugar baby," he confirms. "It's fuckin' great, Garraty. I still gotta keep my shifts at the mill to really make it by, but I got spendin' money now."

Ray's chest still burns, tight with cough he can't let out for fear of drawing attention again. Olson is still speaking, but Ray's thoughts are clouding everything else.

"How did you even-" He shakes his head. "Where the hell did you find someone to be a sugar baby for?"

Olson shrugs. "Answered an ad in the newspaper."

"The newspaper? What are you, 80?" Ray's eyes go wide. "Is she 80?"

Olson rolls his eyes, steals a bite of Ray's muffin. "No, numb-nuts. It's kinda funny actually, he was a theology major too, went to the same university as us-"

His heart thunders loudly in his chest, and in a stupid, soap-opera like way, he clasps a hand over his heart. "He?" Ray's voice is pitched a little too high. "He? Since when are you fuckin' gay, Olson?"

Olson kicks him under the table again, glares. "Keep your fuckin' voice down you maniac, what has gotten into you today?"

"Gotten into me? I'm not the one with a sugar daddy-"

"And you won't be, with that shit-tastic attitude," Olson huffs, nose in the air. "Here I was, ready to do you a fuckin' favor, gonna get you in touch with one 'a Art's friends, get you some pocket change, but nooo, you gotta get all fuckin hoity toity about it. Goddamn prude, you are."

"One of his friends? I'm not-" Ray lowers his voice. "I'm not gay. You're not gay, for Christ's sake." 

Olson shrugs again, finishes off the last of his muffin. "For $400 a month, I'll be a goddamn orangutan for that money." Ray's muffin is snatched up in seconds, pieces broken off, half of them swallowed before Ray can blink. "'Sides, its not like its really gay. He just likes getting pictures every once in a while. Takes me out to dinner sometimes. Oh, and the museum upstate once. I think the guy is just lonely, honestly." His voice peals off into about as philosophical as Hank gets outside the classroom. 

Ray is still reeling. Olson is not gay, but he's what, taking polaroids for some old man to jerk it to? A nebulous, primal part of Ray's brain pipes up 'yes, Ray, for $400 a month. that's nearly half of this term's tuition. or new tires for your car. or for mom's car. or a new winter coat for mom and someone to come out and look at the heating and fix the thermostat and groceries for long enough that it should get your dick rock fucking hard right fucking now'. 

His voice sounds strange to his own ears. "You said he had a friend?" 

Hank beams, reaches across the table to shake Garraty's shoulder. "Atta fuckin' boy, Ray!" 

Ray doesn't even register Hank stealing the last of his muffin. 

Chapter Text

It was only three days post-coffee shop. One day spent checking his phone for the half-expected 'fucking got your stupid ass' text from Olson, where Hank revealed it was all just a giant prank and he really actually had been just yanking Ray's chain. But instead, what he had gotten on day two was confirmation from Hank that he had spoken to Art, and Art's friend was taking him to dinner. 8:00 PM, this Friday at The Interlude— a place fancy enough that Ray had never heard of it. His idea of fancy was Bosco's downtown, where his mom had taken him when he'd made the Dean's list his first year of college. She still talked about how much of a hoot it was that the place had a little section on the menu listing 'vegetarian' options. He could hear her voice now, the wondering "Isn't that just something, Ray? Labeled and everything." 

The whole gay thing felt somehow distant, like he was looking at it on the other side of aquarium glass. Olson said he only sent Art pictures, went to dinner. What was that in the face of his mothers chapped hands, the near permanent dark circles draping the thin skin under her eyes as she picked up another shift? What were a few pictures in the face of the guilt and shame that gnawed at his spine every time he found her asleep on the couch, one shoe off, not having even made it to bed? It was nothing. It was less than nothing. 

Olson had either been purposefully cryptic with the information he passed on to Ray from Art, or Art hadn't given much in the first place. Ray had no further instruction than the time, address, and dress code ('Dress nice', Olson had texted. 'Like funeral nice, but don't look like you're at a funeral. Smile. Don't slouch.' Ray had told him he sounded like his mother, and they'd fired a couple of smart comments back and forth before Olson had to leave for his shift). And the man's name. 

Peter McVries. 

The name made him shudder, sitting in his parked Chevette. His old, white beater feels like a criminal offense amongst the glittering silvers and midnight blacks of luxury vehicles he's slotted between. He'd arrived early, almost painfully so, he confirms as he checks his watch. 30 minutes before the reservation. 8:30 was certainly late for a dinner reservation, was it not? It felt late. Or maybe he was overthinking things. He was a 22 year old grown adult, not a 15 year old teeny bopper on their first date, expected to be home before curfew. 

However, he didn't feel so much different from a teeny bopper right now, stomach in knots and hands clammy. It had been a long time since Ray felt this violently out of place, and he hadn't even left the parking lot yet. He felt like a goddamn fool, in his black trousers that he'd clumsily ironed himself, the hand-me-down dress shirt feeling too tight around the middle. Olson had told him that his job interview classic of a nice polo and khakis was absolutely not going to fly. So Ray had reached back into the recesses of his mother's closet, where his father's things still hung. Ray had fumbled with his tie in front of the mirror for longer than he'd wanted to admit, having refused to ask his mother for help, knowing it would only lead to questions. The black leather belt he rarely wore had started to chip and fray with lack of care, and Ray had clumsily colored in the cracks with sharpie. 

Olson hadn't intended to be callous when saying 'dress funeral nice', but the phrase curdles in Ray's gut now all the same. The last time he dressed up like this, he was 14. He'd long since outgrown the exact pair of dress pants and button-up he'd worn to the service, but this is almost worse. Playing dress up in his dead father's hand me down finery. Or whatever passed for finery among the working class. He tries to swallow around the tongue-numb sensation of being 14 again, nodding dumbly as people shook his hand, grabbed his shoulder, faces all blurring with identical what-a-shame expressions as they passed him and his mother, until he'd had to excuse himself and hid in the hall closet like a toddler. 

It's not too late to back out, Ray realizes. He could leave right now and technically he would be no worse off than he was before. Maybe a quarter of a tank of gas short, but not even that. He could leave right now. It'd be fine. He could go home, undress, pretend the grief lived inside the clothes instead of inside him, and be free of it until the next time it snuck up on him, like that time he'd heard Unsquare Dance being used in a soap commercial, and had instinctively called out to his dad to come listen, months after his death. 

He's just about made up his mind, hand on the gear shift on the steering column when a rap on the window startles him half to death. 

Ray swore violently, gaze snapping to the concerned eyes of a stout, mustached man in a tailored red vest, holding an umbrella. He shook his head to clear it, rolling down the window. 

"Mister Ray Garraty?" 

Ray coughs. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's me. Sorry, am I parked wrong?" Maybe there was some back parking lot they were going to shunt him to, where he wouldn't be so much of an eyesore. 

The man smiles warmly at him, with more sincerity than Ray had expected. "No, you're quite alright, sir. Mr. McVries had arranged for valet service. It seems you've already found your parking, so we'll just make sure you remain dry for the walk inside."

Ray felt his face flush, having flubbed the use of the valet. He fumbles for his keys to turn the ignition off, forgetting all about his plan to leave in the face of his embarrassment. 

He steps out under the sanctuary of the provided umbrella, unsure what to do with his keys. "Do I give these to you?" It seemed silly now, the car was already parked. 

"If you would like." The large maroon awning of the restaurant loomed ahead, soft, warm lighting romantic even from the outside. "If you do, we could bring the car around at the end of your night, or if you prefer to keep them, a valet could provide you with another escort."

Ray pockets the keys, nodding at the valet. "I uh, I think I'll keep 'em. Thank you." Probably best if he can leave of his own volition, without having to wait for someone to bring him his car. 

The valet smiles warmly again, depositing him at the start of the awning. "Lovely choice. Mr. McVries is just inside."

Right. McVries. He'd almost forgotten why he was here in the first place. He nods distantly, watching as the valet and his umbrella disappear into the rain as another car pulls up. 

Ray hurries toward the entrance, praying that his palms will stop sweating. Would they shake hands? He'd never shaken hands with a date before, but then again, he'd never been on a date with a man before. And this was less of a date and more of a business proposition, wasn't it? Business people shook hands, certainly. He'd shaken hands at the start of every interview he'd been to, and this was enough like an interview he figured that yes, shaking hands was the way to start. 

The inside foyer is beautiful. Rich dark wood surrounds him, and above him, the room is lit by a chandelier that he would guess costs more than his house. It makes his stomach plummet into his shoes, wet and sloshing, and suddenly the anxiety is back a thousand fold. He can't do this. He can't be here. They're going to laugh him and his sharpie-colored belt right out of the building— 

"Ray Garraty?" 

Ray jerks to the sound of the voice, sharp and indelicate.

The man is younger than he expected. Or maybe has just aged well, the way money allows. He's about the same height as Ray, and the only word Ray could come up with was 'decadent'. Rich, dark eyes, rich, dark skin, a well-tailored suit and well groomed hair. Even with a long, jagged scar across his cheek, he looked how Ray imagined those fancy opera theatres felt inside. Like something much bigger than you has allowed you to bear witness. 

It takes him several moments to realize that he hasn't responded, and he can feel his cheeks burn. 

"I— Yes. Yes, that's me. Ray Garraty." He holds out his hand to shake, muscle memory kicking in. Job interview. It's just like a job interview. 

The man clasped his hand with both of his, and Ray's stomach felt like it was hooked up to an electric current. 

"I'm Pete McVries. It's nice to meet you."