Travis looked down at Charlie, pressed against him in the bus seat, and let out a long sigh. He kept going back through everything that had happened in his mind, trying to pinpoint what had gone wrong, but he had no answers. At first Charlie had just seemed to be getting tireder as they went, but at some point that had turned into distress and Travis had no idea why.
What was he supposed to do? He rubbed Charlie's arm, slow and gentle, but Charlie just made a sound of irritation and curled his body away. Travis stopped.
Things only got worse after they got off the bus. Charlie seemed aware of, and irritated by, every little thing. The sun and the wind and his shoes and everything, until he looked like he might start crying at any moment. He wouldn't look at Travis and only seemed more agitated when Travis tried to talk to him.
Charlie's grandma answered the door, and Travis could see trouble forming before she even opened her mouth. She took in the bags they were holding and shook her head at Charlie. "You didn't buy a bunch of junk, did you?"
Charlie's only response was a fussy sound as he walked past without looking at her. Travis quickly shook his head at her as she opened her mouth to reprimand him. He didn't know what would happen if Charlie was pushed right now, but he didn't want to find out.
She managed to hold her tongue long enough for Charlie to get to his room and shut the door, then turned to Travis. "What's the matter this time?"
"I don't know. He's just... tired, I guess." Travis was feeling pretty tired himself.
Charlie's grandma sighed and rubbed at her temple. "I love that boy, but he's just so difficult. What am I supposed to do about him?"
Travis shrugged. "I don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. I just want to make things better and I can't."
"It's not so easy, is it?" She sounded like she took more satisfaction from that than Travis would have liked, but also maybe less than he had come to expect from her.
"No, I guess not."
"I never know what to do. I never have. Not with him or with his mother, and—" Her voice broke and she took a moment to stop and breathe. "Well, you just let me know if you figure anything out."
Travis didn't get a chance to respond, because at that moment Charlie came back out of his room. He'd changed into his pyjamas and put the hoodie back on over the top.
"Charlie—" Charlie's grandma started, that lecturing tone back her in her voice.
Travis shot her a look, because, really? If she hadn't worked out that scolding him when he was barely holding himself together was a bad idea, there was no hope for her.
She paused, pursed her lips, and changed her approach. "We're having pasta for dinner — yes, the kind you like — but I will put yours in the fridge for tomorrow if you're still at Travis' house."
Charlie ignored her, or perhaps didn't even hear her at all judging from the blank look on his face. He headed for the front door without acknowledging either of them.
Charlie's grandma gestured at Charlie's back and gave Travis a look of exasperation.
"I think sometimes the best we can do is not making things worse. Maybe that's not enough, but maybe that's not our fault. And it's definitely not his fault." Travis shrugged and turned to follow Charlie. "I'm gonna go find out what my best is."
Travis caught up with Charlie outside his flat. Charlie had leant his forehead against the front door and his fingernails were idly scratching at it. As soon as Travis unlocked the door for him, he headed straight for the sofa and bundled himself up in a blanket.
"You okay?" Travis asked as he went to join Charlie on the sofa.
He hadn't really expected a response, and he didn't get one. Charlie had cocooned himself in the red knit blanket, head and all, and was now wriggling around.
Travis sighed and leant his head back. "I don't really know what's going on or what I'm supposed to do here or just like... anything."
Charlie accidentally kicked a foot out of his cocoon then pulled it back and tucked everything in again.
"Sometimes I see you hurting and I think, like... I've been there, I understand that and I know what it's like. But then, things like this, and... I haven't been where you are right now and I don't know what it is or what it's like or what I can do to help. What am I supposed to do?"
Charlie rolled to the edge of the sofa in his cocoon and Travis reached out a hand, thinking he was about to fall, but Charlie turned it into a controlled tumble without assistance. He squirmed on the floor for a moment, then slowly wriggled his cocoon under the coffee table.
"Well, feeling sorry for myself sure as shit isn't gonna be helpful, huh?" Travis asked the lump of his boyfriend, which had finally settled down a bit now that it was in its cave.
But... Charlie was here for some reason. He could have been bundled up in his own bed, but he'd come back out of his room and determinedly marched over to Travis' apartment. He clearly didn't want affection, so... music? Was that it? That had, after all, been what had lured Charlie to him in the first place. Travis went and got his guitar.
Charlie fell still at the sound of the first few notes, and then he stretched out within his cocoon and let out a long sigh. Travis kept going, a quiet, slow improvisation as Charlie began to settle.
Eventually Charlie kicked his legs out of his cocoon, and then his arms, and then he finally shoved the blanket off of his head. His face was red and sweaty. When he finally looked up at Travis, it was with eyes that focussed and saw in a way they hadn't seemed able to earlier.
Travis' fingers stilled on the strings. "Hey."
Charlie didn't say anything, he just crawled out from under the coffee table, climbed back onto the sofa, and cuddled in against Travis side.
"You feeling a bit better?"
"Mmh." Charlie's cheek was resting against Travis' shoulder, and Travis could feel the heat of it even through his shirt.
Travis idly strummed at the strings of his guitar. "What were you so upset about?"
Charlie shrugged. "Nothing."
"It obviously wasn't nothing."
"Mmgh." Charlie wriggled around until his back was to Travis, though he still stayed close.
"All right, sorry. I'm sorry. I'll stop talking if you want. Just, like... if I did something wrong, I want to know." Travis started playing again. At this point, it was the only thing he felt reasonably confident was the right move.
After a few minutes, Charlie rolled back over to face him. "You're fine. My brain is just bad."
"Okay," Travis said carefully. "Just... for no reason? You just suddenly felt bad?"
Charlie shrugged. "Lots of reasons, but they're all just stupid things that shouldn't matter and then everything is too much, and everything more is double too much and. I don't know? I really don't."
"It's all right. I think I sort of get it. You'd just had enough for one day and then things got rough because we couldn't really just suddenly be back home at that point."
Charlie fisted a hand in Travis' shirt. "Yeh. Exactly."
Travis smoothed a hand over Charlie's sweaty hair. "Do you think it would help if in the future we keep a closer eye on how you're feeling and leave a bit sooner, before you start to crash?"
"Yeh."
"Okay, that's a plan. Is there anything else I can do to help you when that happens?"
"Mm. Ask later."
"Ah, yeah, sorry. I can see you're still kinda having a hard time with talking right now."
"Mm. But. Just tired now."
"Um, okay, let's... Oh!" Travis spotted his laptop on the coffee table and reached for it. "I was going to show you Wikipedia, wasn't I?"
Charlie nodded.
Travis opened his laptop up and waited as it went through the arduously slow process of waking up. It was probably nearly half as old as he was by this point and it had never been top of the range. Eventually, though, after threatening to freeze out on him, it complied with his order to open a browser window.
"So, this is Wikipedia," Travis said as he passed the laptop over to Charlie. "Anything you want to know about, you can just type in the search box up here and then press enter."
Charlie nodded again and started very slowly typing something out, having to search the keyboard for each letter he wanted.
Travis ruffled a hand over Charlie's hair. "All right, well, you're all sweaty so you probably need something to drink. You want some lunch as well? Sandwiches?"
Another nod.
"Cool. I'll be back in a minute."
Travis turned on the stereo as he passed it on the way to the kitchen, hesitated in the doorway, then ducked back in to nudge the volume slightly lower. In some ways he felt like he was starting to figure Charlie out, but it still just felt like a collection of disconnected things. He knew some of the what, but he wasn't sure he understood the why of it at all. Or that Charlie did.
Maybe, for just now, that was okay. Maybe all they needed to do today was get through today.
As soon as Travis delivered the food, Charlie downed half a glass of orange juice and then carefully examined the sandwiches until he found one to his liking. Travis had taken a bite out of his own sandwich just in time to choke on it when he saw what Charlie had typed into the Wikipedia search bar.
How do gay people have sex
The most surprising thing was that it actually worked. There was a list of relevant articles in the results, and Charlie moved the mouse agonisingly slowly to click on the first one — Gay Sexual Practices.
"You don't know how, um... Oh." Travis swallowed as the article loaded to reveal far more explicit illustrations than he would have expected from Wikipedia. Well, now Charlie definitely knew how gay people had sex. "Okay."
Charlie took a bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly as he read. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking from his expression. An illustration of two guys rubbing their dicks together off to the side set an odd tone for the otherwise academic article.
"Uh. We don't have to do that." Travis' gaze drifted to the other illustration, which showed two men having anal sex. "Um. Any of that. If you don't want."
"Mm," Charlie said by way of acknowledgement, but Travis still couldn't tell what was going through his head. Would he decide he wasn't attracted to men after all now that he was confronted with something less chaste than kissing?
It only took Charlie a few minutes to read the short article, but it felt much longer. When he finally looked up, Travis found he couldn't bring himself to look at him.
"So," Travis said. "That's... that, I guess."
For a long moment Charlie just looked at Travis, something he didn't do often. When he finally spoke, it was slowly and carefully. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do either, you know."
Travis' head jerked up. "No, I know. I just. You know."
Charlie's face clearly said he did not know. Travis wasn't sure he did either.
"I guess I just thought you might change your mind about stuff when you saw... that." Travis gestured vaguely towards the images.
Charlie took an uncomfortably long moment to look over the images again. "No. I mean, I wasn't sure of the details, but this was basically what I thought."
"Ha. Well, okay, yeah."
Charlie pressed his lips down around a smile. "Like, I definitely knew there were going to be dicks involved. And that they'd be touching and going places."
Travis laughed. "Yeah, okay smartass. I'm paranoid about dumb things, okay."
"I really am sure about this, you know."
"Okay."
"I thought about this before I said anything to you. Like, um." Charlie rubbed at his eyes. He seemed to have perked back up a bit after getting some food in him, but he still looked tired. "Like everything. I didn't just not think about sex or what that would be."
"Yeah, I know. I mean, we've kissed. I can tell you're into it. I guess I just..." Travis' lips twisted together. "You're a lot less experienced than me, and I'm very aware of that. So I worry."
"Yes, but I don't care."
Travis looked at him and raised his eyebrows.
"No, not like—" Charlie grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged at it. "Like. I'm not worried about sex for me at all. Because I have no reason to. But you have had bad things happen to you before because of all this, so. That's the real problem."
"Ah." The thought of Charlie being the one he needed to protect was more comforting, but... "Okay, yeah. I guess I just... like, I want to do stuff, but my brain just — I don't know. I think I just get nervous and then try to find a logical reason why I'm nervous. I wish I'd just get over it, but I guess there's still all this shit I haven't really confronted yet."
"Do you think you're ready to?"
"Yeah. I mean... yeah." Travis licked his lips and looked away. "Just, I guess, maybe not with, you know..."
Charlie was still just looking at him. Charlie did not know, because Charlie was not a mind reader.
Travis raked a hand through his hair. "I guess just for now nothing that's in any way, uh... penetrative."
It took Charlie a moment before he finally slowly nodded, though he still didn't seem quite confident he got it. Travis couldn't blame him. He could have been clearer, but he couldn't bring himself to delve into the topic in any more detail. He didn't want think about what he didn't want to do and why. He didn't want Charlie to think about it.
"But, uh, if you want to do other stuff like kissing or touching, I'd be down with that." Travis managed to keep himself from adding that if Charlie didn't want to that was fine as well, because Charlie knew that and Travis needed to chill.
"Okay," Charlie said, and then he leant up and kissed Travis.
Travis had forgotten how good this was. How confident and eager Charlie was, despite his lack of experience. How soft and just a bit too frail he felt against Travis. When Travis pulled back to breathe Charlie let him go without resistance, but he greeted him with renewed enthusiasm when he leant back in.
Charlie climbed into Travis' lap, pressing against him, and — oh. That was new. Travis almost put a halt to things, but no — this was fine. They were allowed to be aroused. That was actually kind of the point. He grabbed a handful of Charlie's ass and pulled him closer, grinding up against him as Charlie pressed down.
Travis hadn't done anything quite like this before. He'd never had somebody crawl into his lap, never been with someone and felt strong and in control. Never done anything without that little bit of background fear he'd thought was an intrinsic part of sex.
And fuck, Charlie. He was perfect and unafraid as he found a rhythm that worked for him. The friction was a bit too rough and irregular to get Travis very far, but Charlie was flush cheeked and practically trembling.
Charlie was breathing too heavily to kiss any more, his face pressed against Travis' shoulder as they moved against one another. He pressed his forehead against Travis' shoulder and bit down on a mouthful of Travis' shirt as he came.
For a minute or two Charlie just lay still and breathed as Travis slowly ran his hand up and down his back. Travis' dick was still awkwardly at the ready, but Travis kind of just wanted to leave things here with his beautiful boy tired and satisfied.
Eventually Charlie sat up and grimaced as he looked down at his pants. "I can't say I didn't see this problem coming, but by the time I did I was a bit beyond caring."
Travis smiled at him. "Sticky?"
"Mm. Do you mind if I go clean up? I can do something for you when I get back, just..." He wrinkled his nose at his pants.
"Nah, I'm fine. You take your time."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Travis said as a smile took over his face. "I'm great."
Charlie smiled back. "Me too."