As Robin hurried across the crowded campus, he cursed his Statistics teacher who seemed to have forgotten all about time while droning on about statistical models and variance. So now Robin was late for his second tutoring session with Tyler, which meant he wouldn't be able to grab a free table before Tyler arrived.
He dodged between backpack-clad students and cut through lawns on his journey toward the library. As he ran down a set of stone stairs, he almost lost his balance when he took two steps at a time. He didn't fall, but he did knock into a girl carrying a can of soda. Some of the beverage splattered on his shirt and formed colorful islands on the blue fabric.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"Watch where you're going," she snarled.
Robin nodded courteously before continuing on his quest. He didn't want Tyler to have to wait.
As he rounded the last corner a blonde mop of hair could be seen on a bench outside the entrance. A blonde mop of hair that made his heart do somersaults in his chest. But surely, that was just from the running.
"Sorry, I'm late." Robin panted as Tyler gave him an amused look. A lollipop was perched between his lips, as always, and a blue Gatorade bottle rested against his thigh.
Green eyes fell on Robin's stained and sweaty shirt. "You look less... put together than usual," Tyler noted. "You didn't have to sprint across campus for me."
"I didn't want you to have to wait," Robin explained, realizing how dumb it sounded. Of course, Tyler was capable of waiting. But for some reason, Robin was desperate to make a good impression. "Have you been here long?"
Tyler shook his head, making the curls move like soft swirls of custard, and popped out the yellow lollipop between his lips. The candy glistened in the sunlight, moistened by plump lips. The move almost caused Robin to gasp out loud. It did things he couldn't explain to his body and mind. "I just got here anyway," the reason for Robin's flustered state stated. "I just needed to rest a bit before I tackled the library. "
Tyler turned up his palms to reveal red bumps all along the upper ridge. "Blisters are a side effect of using crutches," he explained.
"That looks uncomfortable." Robin wasn't sure what to say. His urges told him to embrace the boy in front of him, but that didn't seem proper.
"I've been through worse..." Tyler's voice held a sharp edge as he looked down at the empty space where his left leg should be.
Longingly, Tyler's gaze traveled toward a few guys who played soccer on the lawn. A sigh and a peek down at his leg told a whole story. Once again, Robin didn't know what to say and once again his urges told him to hold Tyler close. He didn't give in.
Averting his gaze from the ball players, Tyler switched to a look of determination."I think I'm ready to battle the library now! Come on, Robby."
Despite the crutches, Tyler moved at a brisk speed. Robin had to jog beside him to keep up. Once they entered the book-filled building it turned out to also be full of students. Every single table on the main floor appeared to be occupied.
Although, there still seemed to be some tables available on the balcony on the second floor. Robin threw a glance at Ty, whose eyes hesitantly observed the stairs and the masses of people around them. People who would all watch the boy on crutches, with blistered hands and shredded confidence, as he climbed up the narrow staircase.
"We could go to my place," Robin heard himself suggest, without knowing where the words even came from. He couldn't remember thinking them. "It's on the bottom floor."
"We don't have to..." Ty mumbled while flexing his hands, to warm up for the coming challenge. "I can make it up there..." His eyes revealed his hesitation toward the task.
"It's calmer at my place," Robin added, as to explain the suggestion and avoid blaming Ty's disability. "So we can focus on studying."
Ty put his hands back on the crutch handles and nodded. His face wore an expression of gratitude and relief. But his words carried no mark of such emotions.
"Do you have anything to eat at your place?" he asked with a deflecting smile. "I think I need some snacks to be able to focus."
Robin nodded, luckily he had a well-stocked snack cabinet. Des had insisted on going shopping with him, to buy all the stuff his mother never let him eat when he grew up.
"Let's go then!" Tyler decided and turned on a dime, which looked like it was a difficult maneuver on crutches. Although, Ty made it look easy, like a figure-skater twirling on the ice. A graceful dance, performed by a skilled athlete.
Once again, Robin lagged behind as they exited the library. His breath was in his throat and his heart pounded heavily. Both from exhaustion and from the thought of having Tyler enter his home. It felt weird, intimate, and exciting.
After a trek through campus and the hallways of the residence building, Robin unlocked the door to his fortress. Except for Des, no other classmate had ever been let inside before. Not that anyone had asked to be.
"This place is huge," Ty marveled. "How did you get such a sweet room as a sophomore?"
"My mom..." Robin mumbled, not wanting to venture into details of how his mother had called, threatened, and probably also bribed the administrators, until they caved and gave him a big single room in a wing usually reserved for seniors and grad students. "She... can be very convincing."
"At Westerland, I shared a room this size with two other guys!" Tyler was too amazed to bother with Robin's explanation.
"And where... do you live now?" Robin asked, realizing he didn't actually know where Tyler resided, or most other things about him. But he wanted to find out. "On-campus too?"
Tyler's enthusiasm subsided upon the question, instead, he looked down and shook his head. "With my aunt and uncle," he mumbled. "After... what happened, it seemed better for me to stay with family. That's why I transferred here."
This seemed to be a fraught issue for Tyler — to no longer be as independent as he had once been — and Robin kicked himself for even bringing attention to it.
"It must be nice to have family close," Robin said in an attempt to soften the blow. He meant it. He'd often wished for a huge family of aunts, uncles, and cousins, instead of just his mom.
Seemingly still self-conscious, Tyler shrugged and directed his attention elsewhere. "You even have your own bathroom!" he exclaimed and opened the door to investigate. "And it has a bathtub!"
The bathroom lay on one side of the entrance and on the other side was a small kitchenette area with a hot plate, fridge, and small freezer. By the window stood a desk where most of Robin's books were stacked. Against one wall stood a dresser, upon which a TV was perched, and opposite of it stood a single bed.
A bed with SpongeBob sheets on it.
Robin's cheeks burned red upon that realization.
It appeared that Tyler had noticed the square pants-wearing cartoon character as well. "Nice sheets," he noted with a cheeky smile, as he tumbled down on the bed, which was the only place to sit except the desk chair. In a move that seemed habitual, Tyler bundled the crutches together and leaned them against the bedframe.
Having the other boy get cozy on his bed, where Robin slept in just his underwear, felt very inappropriate. It was a good thing that he already blushed, on account of the childish sheets, because the thoughts that ran through his mind weren't proper at all. Thoughts of very different things than SpongeBob.
"I-I," Robin stuttered. "I like SpongeBob." It probably sounded like he was 5-years old.
"So do I," Ty replied. The statement sounded honest rather than mocking. "Now where are those snacks you talked about?"
After having done an inventory of the snack content in the kitchen cupboards, Robin presented a bag of Reese's Pieces to Tyler, who got an excited glint in his eyes at the sight. "I love Reese's!" he exclaimed and snatched the bag out of Robin's hands. "Almost as much as I like SpongeBob..."
Robin put his backpack on the desk and got his laptop and books up before turning to the blonde boy on the bed again. It seemed Ty had eaten approximately a dozen of the peanut butter cups already, judging by the number of wrappers discarded.
"You can change your shirt if you like," Ty informed Robin and nodded toward the stains on his polo shirt. Dark blobs were scattered like an archipelago across the light blue fabric.
The thought of taking his shirt off in front of Ty felt intimidating, but Robin also didn't want to wear a stained shirt for hours while sitting next to the pretty boy. "I will..." he mumbled and bent down to rummage through his shirt drawer, which was at the bottom of his dresser.
Quickly, while still crouched on the floor, he pulled the old shirt over his head. Perhaps too quickly, because the shirt got stuck on one of his ears. The momentum of the interrupted movement made him lose his balance, and with the shirt stuck over his head, he fell to the floor. Very ungracefully, of course.
Spending the whole session in a stained shirt probably would have been less embarrassing.
Robin waited for laughter to come from the bed. But no such sound bellowed.
"Are you alright?" Tyler asked instead, no hint of amusement in his voice. "Do you need help up?"
"I'm... alright," Robin mumbled and twisted himself around into a sitting position. He finally freed himself from the offending shirt, balled it up, and threw it into a corner of the room.
"Shirts can be dangerous," Tyler said with a smile that wasn't mocking, but rather sympathetic. "The hidden dangers of every closet."
The smile was infectious and Robin couldn't help but smile back. "Well, the monster didn't get me this time," he replied and grabbed a clean shirt from the open drawer next to him. "Hopefully this one won't be the end of me either."
Robin stood up and pulled the t-shirt over his head. When he looked up again he met a pair of green eyes and a curious smile.
Had Tyler checked out his bare chest? Another silly thought. Robin had a lot of those these days.
"You did Quiz Bowl in high school?" Tyler asked.
Confused, Robin looked down. "Ultimate Quiz Bowl Tournament Edition XXII" his shirt read. Of course, Tyler must have looked at the print, and not his chest.
"For a while," Robin mumbled in reply, not wanting to dwell on the memories of how his mom had pulled him out of the team.
"I always wanted to do Quiz Bowl, but I was too busy with soccer." Tyler sighed and glanced at his leg. A dark shadow fell over his eyes. "Perhaps Quiz Bowl would have been a better use of my time."
Once again fighting an urge to embrace and hold, Robin sat down on the bed. "Did you save any for me?" he asked, in an attempt to distract from depressing thoughts, and reached for the bag of snacks. He was careful to not sit too close, but also not too far away. Either could seem weird. And he was very keen for Tyler to not find him weird.
Soon the bed was a mess of candy wrappers, textbooks, and notepads. And two bodies that moved closer and closer together.
It happened unconsciously. During the two hours or so they studied, they inched toward each other. Hands grabbed at the same books, heads turned over the same paragraphs, and legs scooted toward the middle of the bed.
Suddenly, there was contact. Their knees touched. Jeans against chinos. Robin felt the same spark as the other day. Tingles spread up from his leg toward his groin, and onward to the rest of his body.
He looked up and met a smile.
A million thoughts sped through his mind. But one thought felt more important than all the others. The question of whether Ty's lips would taste like chocolate and peanut butter if Robin kissed him.
He didn't satisfy his curiosity. He wasn't brave enough. He couldn't risk ruining everything.
Instead, Robin simply returned the smile and looked down at the book again. "I think the answer might be in chapter five," he mumbled.
"I already looked there," Ty grumbled, but there was a tone of mischief in his voice. Almost as if he knew that Robin had just thought of salty-sweet kisses. Perhaps he had thought of the same thing.
The moment was interrupted by the buzz from a phone. To Robin's relief, it wasn't his own.
"Yes, aunt Donna," Tyler answered. "I'm alright. We're about to be done. You can come and pick me up at the Falk building."
The concern in his aunt's voice sounded different than when Robin's mom asked similar questions. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what the difference was, but he knew it didn't sound the same. This voice seemed much less anxiety-inducing.
Ty hung up and turned to Robin. "I should go," he said. "My aunt has started to worry. She worries a lot about me these days..."
He grabbed his crutches and lifted himself from the bed. "Perhaps we could... study here from now on," he mumbled while looking down at the floor. "It's easier to focus here." A surprisingly shy smile was on his lips as he looked up. "And you have tasty snacks."
"Of course," Robin said, because, of course, he wanted Ty there again. He wanted him on his bed. He wanted him to eat his snacks. He wanted their legs to touch. He wanted all of that, and maybe more. "Just come here on Tuesday and we'll study."
One more smile, laugh, and nervous fiddle with blonde curls. Then the door closed behind Tyler.
Robin was left alone on the bed. His hand carefully caressed the spot on his leg that had grazed against another leg.
He spotted the soda-stained shirt, still balled up in a corner of the room, and scooted off the bed. The movement made one of the scattered books fall to the floor.
Robin reached down to pick it up. It was his Psychology textbook. When he flipped the book around, page-side up, his gaze fell on an article on the spread. It was in a chapter they hadn't covered in the course yet. His eyes skimmed the words at first but as he felt a sting of recognition he devoured every word.
A syndrome with a long German name. By proxy. A long list of familiar symptoms.
A bitter taste welled up in his throat and he slammed the book shut. Memories of prodding doctors, endless hospital hallways, and cupboards filled with medicine bottles flushed over him.
His hand reached for the bag of snacks, which Ty had left on the bed. To Robin's surprise, one peanut butter cup remained in the bottom of the bag, and he popped it in his mouth. The sweetness took the bitterness away. For now.