Fic: Days of the Week (Matt McGinley/Travis McCoy)
Title: Days of the Week
Pairings: Matt McGinley/Travis McCoy
Rating/Warnings: R; implied underage sex, drug and alcohol use
Word Count: ~6,700
Summary: Matt’s smiles are easy to come by, but it still does something to his guts when Travis gives him cause to break one out.
Note: For bandomrarepair. I knew I forgot to do something last night.
It's Monday morning and Travis has got a masterpiece perfect for the side of that ornery asshole's dollar store on Main and Winchester itching under his fingertips. He sits through Mrs. Marino's math class staring at the blackboard and seeing lines that curve and swirl together into the perfect 'fuck you old man' across fucking ugly, plain, painted brick.
"You busy after school?" he asks Matt while they're waiting in line for Coach Smith to beam them with the softball because he thinks he can throw better than he actually can.
Matt shrugs. "Don't have to be."
"Wanna take a ride to every Home Depot that ain't in the strip mall?"
Matt's grin is quick and wicked, Travis’s is just as fast to respond. "Hell yeah. Just gotta be home by 6."
Travis slings an arm around his shoulder just because he can--the one perk of his last growth spurt, contrasted in acceptability with each new inch between his pants and the floor. "Don't know about that, man. Big plans take commitment that knows no time frame."
Matt's dedicated; Travis appreciates it. He's dedicated to having it all, to making the world work for himself. It's why Travis isn't surprised when Matt diligently speeds his rickety rust bucket into the driveway with a minute to spare, their collected contraband clanging together under the bases of the front seats.
"I'm home," Matt calls when he swings the front door open.
"Kitchen," his mom answers. She’s eating a sandwich over the sink. "New girl quit, I'm working late. It's just you boys for dinner tonight. Oh--hello. Travis, right?" Travis nods.
"Hey, uh," Matt sputters and stalls. "There's this show I wanna go to." That makes Travis raise his eyebrows sky high.
"Better get on with that 'but' I'm sensing. I have to leave in a minute."
"But it's on Thursday night."
Travis was preparing for the firing range, but she doesn't shoot Matt down automatically. Travis respects a woman willing to pretend to listen to reason at least.
"It's not too late, so I'd be home like around 12:30. I'm only asking cuz it's Travis's dad's band. He's a real drummer."
She pops the last spot of crust in her mouth and says, "Baby, I just don't know."
"Please?" Matt asks.
She's cool enough that she gives Travis the sizing-up look. He does his best to look fine and upstanding, but it's damn short notice he's working with.
"Your folks are letting you go?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She gives them both the mom face--suspicious exasperation tugging shut her eyes and genuine affection tugging up her lips. "I'll think about it. And while I'm thinking about it, you better think about how you have to drag yourself to school the next day, and if you so much as blink too long it's never going to happen again."
"Yes, ma'am," Matt answers happily like he's already won.
She sighs and pulls his head down for a peck on the cheek. She's got Matt's same long face and same quick grin. "Your brother will be home in half an hour, please make sure you eat some actual food and not a bag of potato chips for supper."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Matt, I'm thinking about it. I'm not making promises. Travis, it was good seeing you again."
When the door closes behind her Travis’s shoulders fall back into their natural slump. "Man. You asked?"
Matt shrugs. "I only lie about stupid stuff."
It's Tuesday night and Matt’s slow showing up. “You ask your mom if you could come out and play tonight, too?”
Matt takes the ribbing with a smile. “What do you want me to do?”
“Paint by numbers.” Travis throws him a can. “Stay inside the lines.”
“Will I be able to paint happy trees too?”
“Bob Ross’s Jewfro ain’t got nothin’ on the real thing.”
Travis sees Matt’s grin by the flash of moon and residual from the streetlight half a block away. Matt’s smiles are easy to come by, but it still does something to his guts when Travis gives him cause to break one out.
“Think this’ll make that asshole get the point?”
“No,” Travis says without breaking stride. “But it’ll make me feel better.” Travis has always been a realist.
“What time do we leave?” Matt asks.
“When we’re done.” He considers his canvas before adding another line.
“No shit, dude. I meant Thursday, when do we leave?”
“Whoa,” Travis says, letting the can fall useless to his side. “She said yes?”
“I told you I don’t gotta lie about the important stuff.”
“Yeah? Well I only got tonight to finish this up. Get crackin, cracker.” Matt laughs and shakes up his can, then the only noises out of him are aerosol with a hint of humming under breath.
The wall is halfway done and Travis is outlining a fantastic pair of titties when there’s a tug on his arm, pulling an ugly gash through his work. Travis gapes at it bug eyed and baffled when blood doesn’t gush out of the wound for as long as he has before he’s being removed from its sight.
“What the fuck?” Travis sputters and spits. Matt shoves him against the back wall with the speed of sound, covering up Travis’s mouth and lips working in a silent ‘listen.’
Travis does. He hears tires on broken down pavement on a broken down street inching toward his masterpiece. He pries his fingers between Matt’s hand and his face, pulls it away to mouth, ‘Pigs?’
Matt shrugs, wild look behind his calm face--Matt’s come out with him a few times before, but they’ve never been so close to caught. Travis thinks he’s Matt’s walk on the wild side, the idea of cops being after him still foreign in his white bread good son life.
The tires are getting closer and closer, slow as a slug compared to the off-beat time Travis’s heart is thumping. He drops their hands but doesn’t let go of Matt’s, one finger slow dancing in front of his lips before he tugs Matt, leads the way to the other end of the building and peeps around the corner.
He can see the ass end of a white sedan dragging by across the street, gone before he can tell if it’s got pig written all over it. If it is a cop he thinks it’s a rookie, taking his sweet time like they’d be stupid enough to be waiting for him to crawl his way over, or maybe thinking he can be stealthy in his cruiser.
Travis yanks Matt forward, keeping them in the shadows behind the other squat, run down businesses until they’re past another streetlight. He leads them up the alley between the Christian bookstore and the Subway they buy their weed from clinging to the shadows and holding his breath, peeping around the corner.
“Gonna run when I say,” Travis whispers. He judges the coast as clear as it’s going to get, tightens his hand around Matt’s, and takes off.
“Hey! Stop!” someone shouts over the blood pounding in Travis’s ears, but he’s running as fast as his legs’ll let him, forcing Matt to keep pace. He’s still got a can in his other hand. They clear another building and he throws it as hard as he can, stumbles when sideways momentum fucks up his forward push. Matt grabs the back of his shirt to steady him.
They run as fast as they can until the businesses give way to squat old houses, weaving their way through backyards lacking fences until Travis’s lungs are going to explode in a messy, wet stew. He picks a house to duck behind based on a complicated formula of a lack of motion sensor flood lights and the high likelihood that the muscles in his legs are about to bunch up and leave him useless. He pulls Matt close like sharing a shadow would keep him from getting fingered.
They slide down the siding and Matt pants, “Holy fuck,” still quiet enough that Travis can barely hear him over his own breath. He’s grinning, wide and crazy with adrenaline. “Does that happen a lot?”
Travis shrugs. “Not everyone appreciates the beauty in a well-tagged wall.” He says it like it’s casual but the bravado doesn’t really ring true with how completely dead Travis knows he would be if he got caught again.
“That’s so fucking.” His laugh finishes the thought for him, and Travis doesn’t know what the fuck is happening before Matt’s leaning even more in his space and pressing his grin to Travis’s lips.
And Travis completely fucking melts into it, going pliant and easy under Matt’s touch. His blood’s still racing, he can feel the pitter patter of Matt’s heart thundering where his hands suddenly find themselves full of boy--palms curving around solid, shuddering ribcage and fingers wrapped in lank hair--sharing air more than mouth until Matt pulls away, dragging in oxygen like a drowning man. He’s half in Travis’s lap, and Travis gives himself a whole second to think he might like that before he’s panting, “Let’s get you home before you turn into a delinquent pumpkin, white bread.”
Wednesday morning dawns too fucking early. Travis says hello to every inch of daylight that shimmies over the nighttime across his ceiling.
“Rise and shine Sleeping Beauty,” his mom says when she goes past his room on her way out the door for work.
Travis closes his eyes but still can’t feel sleep any closer through the roadblock of his dick at half mast and his brain stalled on the image of flush Irish skin warm under Travis’s fingers.
“Well, shit,” he grouses before he makes himself sit upright. He tries not to think about how completely fucked he is.
He sleeps through first period and most of history without getting caught, but Mrs. Marino has sleep-ray vision and gives him a detention slip for his troubles. In PE he has the satisfaction of seeing Matt just as bleary, but the fucker still manages to wear a smile as easily as his gym shorts. He keeps himself too close in Travis’s space and all Travis can think about as the batting line crawls forward is skin and lips and want like a disease so pervasive it eats at Travis until he’s tapping impatiently and itching for touch, for escape, for abso-fuckin-lutely anything to break the uncertainty. The line shuffles forward again and Travis is slower to move than Matt, his arm brushing up against Travis’s hand and Travis’s fingers twitching to feel, so completely without his brain’s permission that he doesn’t think to do anything about it
What breaks it is Ben Perish cutting in front of Tanya Nguyen and saying to Matt, “Come on, man, you gotta be my running mate. Colleges eat that shit up.” Travis folds his hands up under his armpits and slouches against the gym wall, watching out of the corner of his eye as Matt frowns.
“I’m not gonna be on student counsel,” Matt insists. “Me and Trav are gonna be in a band. I won’t have time for both.”
“There’s a fuck of a lot you don’t have time for anymore, dude.” Ben is huffy and short, because Ben is one of the goody-goody pricks Matt ran with before Travis let him borrow his KRS CD.
Matt grins more for show than humor. “I can’t help it if I’m in high demand.”
Ben rolls his eyes and switches back. It’s Travis’s turn to bat, and he actually manages to send the ball sailing back up in the sky.
Thursday night and Travis is bumping knuckles with Tom who he buys his pills from sometimes and Levon who he drives with to shows in the city and Manda who taught him the art of going down on a woman, and Matt is at his side sticking out like a square peg in a round hole that doesn’t even realize he’s got corners. He thinks about the shit Matt probably does when he’s hanging out with his usual crowd, and orders them beers because he figures Matt’s probably never been to a place that doesn’t give a damn how young they look.
His dad’s band is late to start. Travis spends the wait beside the speaker with Matt tighter against his side than the press of the crowd actually calls for. Thoughts start chasing through Travis’s mind again, high speed and reckless, about all the dark corners he knows this club to have and how it might feel to crowd Matt into every single one of them.
“This is awesome,” he catches Matt saying when the band starts playing. It makes Travis think of the Ben Perishes and atta boys Matt used to roll with. It’s all he can think about when Matt follows him toward backstage after the set, when Matt pushes him into an empty side hallway and presses him up against a wall.
After that, thinking starts getting a little harder.
Friday afternoon and Matt’s waiting next to Travis’s locker, drumming his palms against his thighs. The hallway is empty enough that Travis can hear his keys jingling, stuck between his hand and his leg. It sets Travis on edge like he’s got a case of nerves when it comes to staring down Matt.
He stills when he sees Travis. His eyes zero in on Travis’s arm slung over Lauren Parker’s shoulder. They’re walking so close that Travis’s hand is hanging in front of her chest, close enough to accidentally on purpose cop a feel every half dozen paces.
“Hey,” Matt says, frowning over a look stuffed with some serious confusion. “I thought we were gonna practice tonight?”
“Yeah, man,” Travis says easily. “Just had to take care of some business.”
“Hey, Matt,” Lauren says awkwardly, shaking her braids out of her face to look up at Travis. “I’m gonna see if I can find Tanya for a ride home.”
“I think I saw Tanya take off,” Matt says. “I can drop you off.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s on the way.”
Matt lives in a house with a sad, sagging little roof and two whole bedrooms, but he's got an actual four piece kit in the living room he can play with dampeners whenever he feels like during the day. He shrugs it off with the casual air of a dude who thinks the world of such a feat. The second Travis walks in the smell of Lauren’s Bath and Body Works perfume still clinging to his skin gets replaced with the potpourri Matt’s mom keeps in the doorway.
“What’s up with Lauren?” Matt asks, too casual to actually be casual when he takes his thrown.
Travis shrugs off the weird guilt growing fat and ugly in the pit of his stomach. “Nothin’. You know. Just some fun.”
Matt’s eyebrows twitch together but he doesn’t outright frown. He plays out a beat so fierce the walls rattle with it despite the dampeners.
Friday night and they’re at another club Matt’s never been to, one that’s been serving Travis since his first big growth spurt two years before. There’s enough cheap booze sloshing around in his stomach with enough slightly-less-cheap pills that Travis’s limbs are loose with it, and it’s easy to wrap himself around Matt and stumble them into a hidden corner where Travis got a blow job two weeks ago.
Matt’s staring at him with glassy eyes bright with the neon glow from overhead still seeping into the place. “What are we doing?” he asks over the music.
Travis keeps going until his back is against the wall. Matt follows like he’s pulled by Travis’s own personal center of gravity. “I dunno,” Travis hums against Matt’s cheek, just this edge of rough with peach fuzz. “Can’t we just do this?”
Matt holds still for a second too long, adrenaline starts to ebb Travis’s buzz and ‘Danger! Danger Will Robinson!’ flashes in his head until he’s ready to extricate himself from the situation.
Then Matt’s tongue finds its way into Travis’s mouth, and that’s answer enough for Travis.
Saturday morning and Travis’s mom is busting into his room holding the detention slip he must have left in his pocket.
He steals the phone when she stops with the disappointed guilt tripping long enough to go to the grocery store.
“Hey, man,” he says when Matt picks up. “I got-”
“Hey,” Matt cuts in. “I was gonna call. I got a date with Stacy tonight, I can’t practice.”
“A date?” Travis says, surprised by his surprise.
“Yeah. A date.” There’s something hard in Matt’s voice, or maybe Travis is hearing ghosts where there’s just some dust in the picture. “See ya Monday.”
Sunday afternoon and Travis spends it grounded, staring at a spot on the wall across the table instead of at the papers and books spread out around him. His mom snaps her fingers in front of his face, jilting him back to earth.
“Do your homework, Travis.” The ‘or so help me I will whoop your ass’ is left silent but Travis can still hear it just fine.
He tucks his head down to hide the way he rolls his eyes and writes on the notebook paper in front of him, but fuck that history class bullshit; the words flowing from the ink of his pen have more meaning and rhythm than some shit about old dead white guys no one gives a damn about. Travis’s time is better spent spinning rhymes about his fucking left nut than wasting his words on that.
The beat in his head stays the same but the words start changing, start becoming about flush skin and broad shoulders, palms rough from drumsticks and a mouth clumsy with inexperience.
Travis tears out the page and tears open his damn history book.
It’s Monday morning and Matt’s not as easy with his smile as he was last week. Travis feels like he’s holding his breath the whole time Coach Smith is explaining how inner chi has anything to do with actually hitting the ball.
And then Matt bumps his shoulder and says, “Went by the dollar store on Saturday. He was painting over it.” Travis feels a moment of silence for the masterpiece that’ll never see its grand finish. “His face was all red and shit. It was kinda awesome.” He grins easy, like what happened Thursday and Friday is gonna stay in Thursday and Friday, and that’s just fine by Travis. He doesn’t know what that lump growing in his throat like a tumor is about.
---
It's snowing over Baltimore. Fat, useless globs of it tumble through the air and cling to the sidewalk for all of a nanosecond before melting. Travis is leaning against the side of the venue toasty warm in his thick winter coat. Eric is hunched up under his hoodie looking like a drowned rat, smoking every breath like it's a dare. Travis stubs out his cigarette and shoves his hands in his pockets for maximum rustling noise.
“Fuckin’ asshole,” Eric mutters.
Travis laughs. “Don’t hate the foresight to plan for things that come every year.”
Their set was absolutely on, Travis still has the electricity of it thrumming through his veins, giving life to something warm, something real, holed up inside him that heads into hibernation whenever the road isn't rolling under his wheels and the music isn't blaring through his veins. It's a good night; he doesn’t even want to bitch about ending it alone, happy enough to flow with a night of being lazy and warm.
There's a solid, scrawny body pressed up beside him and Bill says, "What are we smoking?"
"Nothing you're interested in," Travis says.
"I got some," Eric says. "Probably gonna roll it when we hit the road."
"You, my friend," Bill says, "are a man of God."
Eric builds a cross in the air, sluggish from the beer and whatever else he's already started his night with. He's not looking, though; he's focused on something across the parking lot. "He shoots," he observes. Travis is following his eyesight before he can stop himself, and there by the buses is Matt putting the finishing touches on his moves for some dude. "And he scores."
"Eh," Bill says. "Six point five."
"Pfft, eight at least. That's the dude I bought from." Bill 'hm's like he's willing to take that into consideration. They’re quiet for all of a minute before Eric says over the parking lot noise, "Matt's been chasin' a lotta dick lately."
Travis straightens to his full height. "You got a problem with that?"
Eric rolls his eyes and flicks his filter into a puddle of dirty slush slumming it outside the venue. "Of course I do. Who'd wanna fuck a dick when there's all that willing pussy right down the street? Think I'm gonna go see about that. Bus call's at three?"
"Yeah," Bill says. "Carden and the Butcher went to the club on the corner."
Eric takes off with a salute. Matt leads the guy around a bus and disappears from sight.
“Hm,” Bill says, and Travis doesn’t need to peep his face to know his eyes are narrowed and thoughts are racing through that pretty little head that Travis would like better left alone.
“How’s the missus?” Travis asks, and Bill’s expression dissolves into blinding happiness when he says, “Incredible, but I won’t be distracted so easily.”
“Nothin’ to distract you from.”
“I know a lie when I smell one.”
“He who smelt it dealt it.”
“And de Nile’s not just a river in Egypt. Are we gonna keep this up all night? Because I will.”
Travis huffs out a puff of steam. “Not everyone’s gotta be happy in monogamy just cuz you are. Stop looking for something where there’s nothin’ to see.”
“I’m not saying you have to be, but unless Matt did something I haven’t heard about, I’m pretty sure neither of them earned that death glare you have for them.”
“Billiam,” Travis says with the weight of good friendship slinging around Bill’s shoulders and loading his words with all kinds of meaning. “Rubberneck traffic’s gonna wreck that pretty little face a yours.”
Bill smiles sweetly and says, “Fuck you,” but he lets Travis usher him to the Gym Class bus--opposite from the way Matt led his new buddy. Bill fits in Travis’s space like he belongs there, he always did, even when Gabe was introducing Bill as his own scrawny little emo fanboy, even when Bill doesn’t quite melt into it like now. There’s an itch under his fingerprints to cop a feel for nostalgia’s sake, in mourning for the times between girlfriends when Travis and Bill fit together even better than this. But Travis mostly likes Christine, loves the way she looks at Bill like he’s the world and still manages to call him on his bullshit without blinking an eye. They’re good for each other, and she made it clear enough that her tolerance for ‘out of state, out of mind’ ended when she agreed to wear Bill’s ring that Travis has been one to respect it as much as Bill has.
Travis still ushers Bill into the bus like it’s a palace, and Bill’s one to let him. It’s that point in the night when yesterday is kissing tomorrow. He thinks it might be Monday, but it could be any day and Travis wouldn’t know the difference.
Morning is sliding by his tiny bunk window but it’s still too soon for Travis to tell if it’s real morning or tour morning. He stumbles out of the bunks and Disashi is in the front lounge with a guitar and a riff too melodic for Gym Class. Travis hums it as he moves around the four by four kitchen in search of breakfast. He hums it til he’s got it, then he borrows it, twisting it up with the beat in his head. Disashi takes it back, takes it further, and Travis responds with a more complicated rhythm in the key of spoon on the side of the counter ticking off the weak-ass revolutions of the microwave until his oatmeal dings. It falls off when Travis has the bowl in his hands, but gracefully rather than taking a tumble over the side of a cliff. Disashi still has a little ditty under his fingers, different now than the one Travis first woke up to, but this one is more absent-minded.
“Bubbly Toes” plays, tinny and deformed, and Disashi stops altogether to answer his phone. He’s got the blissed-out Bluejay smile on already, no surprise when he answers it “hey, baby.”
Matt stumbles out next, bleary-eyed in his pre-coffee stupor. Travis is closest to the cabinet with instant, he reaches over for it lazily just as Matt sidles over to the counter. It puts him up against Travis’s body, Matt seems to sway into it easily. Travis can feel the sleep warmth still radiating from Matt’s skin, product of the ten million blankets he squirrels away in his bunk. The noise has already changed from the rhythm of the road and Disashi’s melody to the road and the harmony of his blissed-out Bluejay voice, and Matt, warm like honey beside Travis and stale sweat familiar from living on top of each other in the backs of vans and tour buses way back to nights spent partying too hard for both of them to stumble to separate homes.
The bunk door bangs open again and Travis’s arm is falling like it’s pulled by gravity. His hand touches down on the counter in front of Matt, keeping them boxed in close together. The intimacy of it makes Travis’s skin itch. Matt doesn’t even notice, he’s turning to squint at Eric standing two feet away in all his disgruntled glory.
“I think I’m gonna ralph,” Eric announces. Matt sways back like it might happen any second, Travis wraps him up in the arm that was in front of him like he might fall. Eric staggers for the bathroom and Travis lets his skin get its fix for all of a second before he’s letting go, letting the lure of the couch pull him out of the kitchen.
Matt’s frowning this half-aware little crease between his eyebrows and unhappy divots at the corners of his mouth when he puts his mind back to procurement of coffee. Back before they got going and they still sold cassettes out of their trunks, they’d spend all night putting out their words and beats wherever they could then force themselves awake the next morning with weak-ass instant coffee to make it to the real world, Travis to his apprenticeship at the tattoo parlor and the other shit he slung to make their dreams something more, Matt to school and work and the homework he let slide when it came between something and having to give. The coffee Matt still buys is a hold out from that, it’s a habit Travis started to break with the luxury of being able to afford something decent, but Matt never seemed to shake. It was easy for Travis; the second-rate instant sits in his mouth tasting like those old mornings they spent wrapped up in each other and the music they were making, when they had no time for girlfriends but they always had enough time for each other.
But today is different. Today is--Travis squints at the itinerary De Jesus taped under the TV--Tuesday and this tour ends soon, and when it does they’re not going to be stumbling home to Geneva, they’re going to be sauntering to their own apartments like big shots who are actually getting traction under their shoes to wait for the next one. Today is not the day old habits die hard, it’s the day Travis doesn’t go for second best though, not for second best coffee and not for being second best.
It’s Wednesday afternoon with a day off in Nashville and Travis is watching himself go down in flames.
“Rematch,” he declares.
Disashi’s got this Cheshire cat grin, broad and toothy and so damn annoying, stretching its legs out across his face. “Sure,” he agrees, easy as pie and just as sweet. “I got time.” Travis narrows his eyes and takes it as his duty for the good of mankind to teach him a lesson.
The door opens up in a burst of cold air and game killing--“Don’t even try to blame it on that, man,” Disashi declares viciously as Travis’s guy goes down again--and Matt says, “Look what followed me home. Can we keep it?” with an arm he wraps around Bill’s scrawny shoulders.
“Doesn’t look housebroken,” Disashi grins.
“Hey!”
“Wasn’t talkin’ about you, Bill.” He gets the hoodie Matt strips off to his face but he takes it in stride, throwing it back with good grace and shitty aim.
“Fuckin’ epic snowball fight,” Matt says. “Me and Bill kicked Siska and Chislett’s asses.” He’s looking decidedly wet and pretty pleased about it as he putters around with some water and his mug and the last of the instant. Bill falls to the couch next to Travis with boneless grace and ice cold hands Travis smacks away from his side.
“There’s gotta be less than half an inch out there,” he says. “How the hell’d you have a snowball fight?”
“Determination,” Bill says. He tries to claim the pockets on Travis’s hoodie, but Travis is having none of that.
Disashi laughs. “Bill, you gonna stay for a round? I could use an actual challenge.”
“Hey, it’s not Travis’s fault he’s not Halo inclined,” Matt defends before the words can come out of Travis’s mouth. “Some people are just born with their limitations.” He’s leaning with one hip on the counter waiting on the microwave to finish, all bright ink and soft skin and a dark, imperfect bite mark making itself known where his shirt rode up from his hip.
Travis flips him off. “Nice comeback,” Matt grins.
“Your mom.”
“And you’re the one writin’ our songs?” Disashi shakes his head all somber-like.
Bill takes his remote and Travis tries to keep his eyes front and center on the screen, but his attention keeps falling for Matt like a junkie pretending he doesn’t need a fix. He’s got his pants hanging low on his hips and the band of his boxers is dark enough to make the skin between it and his shirt seem paler, make the bite mark even darker. It’s all Travis can see in the corner of his eye.
He’s pressing up against Bill to hear whatever he’s saying but it’s already a lost cause. The party’s on Gym Class that night, sprouting up like a weed when so-and-so came looking for whoever and someone else was searching for whatever, and through a perfectly reasonable confluence of restocked beer fridges, everyone wound up deciding to kick back and stay awhile.
Travis is taking his time. It feels brand new, being able to be part of the festivities nursing shitty frat boy beer instead of finding out who’s got something, who’s good to share. He’s happy with it, draping over Bill’s bony body and feeling the rhythm of his words rumbling along with the bass line. It’s Thursday night and the tour is two days from dead, Travis has hit the peak of hating everyone and missing home, now he’s sliding back into that comfortable place where he loves his life.
Bill’s head turns, greasy hair sliding against Travis’s cheek until his lips are pressing against Travis’s ear and “basically, stop being a pussy” is connecting to Travis’s brain with absolutely no context. Bill smacks him with a kiss that hits his earlobe and sends Travis spinning without an angular motherfucker to anchor on.
Travis is shrugging off the stutter in his orbit when he sees the door to outside looking like a fine idea.
The truck stop they’re parked at looks like it’d be slinking into sleep if it wasn’t for the ruckus from their buses and vans keeping the night minty fresh. No one else is around, just them in the back nine of the parking lot and minivans hugging the spots closest to the johns.
There’s a rhythm hanging in the air over bleed out from the bus that’s calling up to Travis like it’s got his number. Travis’s treads drag on broken pavement in who the hell knows what city, all parking lots look the same. In the spot where concrete gives way to grass, almost-not-quite out of the streetlight’s brightness, there’s Matt sitting on a parking stop. His hands stall on it and he looks over his shoulder, smiling when it’s Travis he sees.
Travis sits beside him, shivering at the cold. “Sup?”
Matt shrugs. Travis’s hands almost want to touch the broad slope of his shoulders. “Not much.”
“Then what the hell are you doin’ out here?”
“Took a leak, got distracted. I’m gonna head back in a second, go on.”
“Nah. Fresh air’s kinda nice.”
“Yeah.” They slip into silence that’s easy as anything. Travis lights one of the cigarettes in his pocket and offers one to Matt. “No thanks,” Matt says. “Hey,” he adds like an afterthought. Travis turns his head to look, and Matt’s got an easy smile on his face that still makes the butterflies in Travis’s gut tumble and twist.
Matt has to lean forward and stretch himself up to be able to kiss Travis, but Matt’s always been able to work it out.
And Travis’s body works like it’s on automatic: his mouth opens and his eyes close and he gets Matt’s skin under his hands on oh-point-two seconds flat. By the time his brain cares to join the party Travis has to huff out, “No thanks,” against Matt’s lips; he doesn’t even realize he said it out loud until Matt is pulling away from him, looking at his like he’s grown a few extra heads.
“Hey,” Matt asks with quiet concern and hands on Travis’s arms like maybe there’s something wrong. “What’s up?”
Travis feels the cold like he hadn’t a minute before, like it’s something picking at his nerves until it’s a fight to not shiver. He’s thrown like a cowboy from a bull with words that completely fucking fail him, like it’s the first time in his life he’s ever been flying solo without his wingman Webster, and all that stumbles out of his mouth is, “I’m tired of being your second best.”
He’s on his feet and back toward the buses but Matt can’t let it go, chases after him. “Don’t lay that on me,” he says; his face is creased with anger like it’s never known anything better. “You’re the one who put it in that box.”
“Yeah? Well now I’m putting a lid on it too. I’m pullin’ out the packing tape and callin’ it a day.”
“You know what pisses me off about you? It’s always your way or no way.”
It stops Travis in his tracks. “You got a better one? I’m all ears.”
“Right now? I don’t really give a fuck.” Matt spins on his heel and heads for the hut of toilets and vending machines like it’s a beacon in the middle of the concrete night. Travis watches him go until he’s an indistinct shape disappearing behind florescent light and sheet glass doors.
Travis gets back on the bus and the brushing of bodies is oppressive. All he wants is to go to fucking bed.
Friday night he sinks in to the show like he’s never going to come out, makes eyes at Matt once when they’re saying their sayonaras to the crowd. His glare’s like icicles stabbing through Travis’s heart and staying solid when his blood tries to boil them up.
He spends the hours they have left saying bye to Bill and his boys with too much tequila until he can’t feel much of anything but the pleasantly numb feeling dragging down his limbs.
Saturday he crawls out of his bunk and has to wait his turn for worshipping the porcelain god behind Eric. Once he can stand without his stomach sloshing, there’s the clean stench of Febreze making its way through the bus like maybe enough of it can erase almost three months of tour.
Something smacks his chest; he catches the paper towels without thinking. “You get bathroom,” Disashi grins, too fucking cheerful for the pounding in Travis’s head.
“Come on,” he pleads. “I did ‘em last time.”
“Last to blow chunks,” he shrugs without sympathy. “We agreed to the rules.”
“We agreed to a whole lotta rules. That’s the only one you remember.” Disashi doesn’t get hung over. Travis might just, in his heart of hearts, hate the lucky bastard.
Disashi tosses him the Lysol next. “Better get started now. Lotta shit to clean after you finish the bathroom.” He turns his back on Travis and goes on attacking the couch like he can ignore Travis’s highly justified outrage over double standard rule following.
Travis mutters, “Fuckin’ piece a--” as he turns around and he comes face-to-face with Matt.
He sees the Lysol in Travis’s hand and cracks a smile; it’s tiny, like a fissure in pavement, but it still does stupid things to Travis’s stomach when he does. He maybe even musters up a half an ounce of sympathy when he asks, “Last one to puke?”
Travis is going to say something smartass, but what comes out of his mouth like it’s jumping out of a plane without a parachute is, “We okay?”
The smile doesn’t disappear entirely, but it does start slouching back into hibernation. “I dunno,” he says like he’s admitting it. “I’ll think about it.” He slides past Travis. It leaves Travis hanging, like the beginning of a conversation waiting to sneak out and attack.
Travis is standing in the parking lot where they’re parting ways with the bus waiting for his ride home, waiting for his return to the apartment he’s got his name on that feels more like a layover than home.
Matt says, “Look, I’ve been thinking about it. I think we could have something good.” His car’s idling with his brother and his two-point-three mutts panting in the back. Sunday is sliding sick as a dog ready to be put down over his shoulder.
“What do you mean?” Travis accuses like it’s a dare, eyes narrowed and triple-dog threat ready to fall out of his lips.
Matt lets him get away with it, he says the words, “I want to try. Us, together. For real.” He stops, like now that he’s said what he’s wanted to say he doesn’t have any words left. Finally he comes up with, “I’m going home. Jersey home, not Geneva. If you wanted to unpack that box, I’ll be there.”
It’s Monday and Travis wakes up asking his ceiling what the hell he’s still doing there.
Monday night and Travis is looking at the stars over Jersey struggling to shine. He’s on Matt’s doorstep with the ambient noise of traffic plus Dexter plus Miss Pete plus the doorbell he’s laying on to drive them batshit crazy.
“What the fuck asshole?” Matt says before the door’s even open.
The dogs jump and claw at Travis’s legs, but Travis just shrugs when he lets go of the bell like he’s feeling casual. “You really think somethin’ between us has a shot?”
Matt crosses his arms in front of himself and leans against the doorframe like the question wasn’t important enough to send Travis’s axis tilting and twisting wild like a roller coaster careening off track. “I said I did, didn’t I? I only lie about stupid shit.”
The dogs give up on Travis and slink back inside in revolt, but Matt’s still standing there like he always is, looking up at Travis with his face so open, like there isn’t a secret breathing between them.
Kissing Matt in his doorway isn’t like coming home, it isn’t like a revelation or anything much different from the million other times Travis has held Matt in his fingers and felt Matt’s arms reeling him in tighter. It doesn’t feel like anything new, except the possibilities and the want Travis is done hiding from.
Pairings: Matt McGinley/Travis McCoy
Rating/Warnings: R; implied underage sex, drug and alcohol use
Word Count: ~6,700
Summary: Matt’s smiles are easy to come by, but it still does something to his guts when Travis gives him cause to break one out.
Note: For bandomrarepair. I knew I forgot to do something last night.
It's Monday morning and Travis has got a masterpiece perfect for the side of that ornery asshole's dollar store on Main and Winchester itching under his fingertips. He sits through Mrs. Marino's math class staring at the blackboard and seeing lines that curve and swirl together into the perfect 'fuck you old man' across fucking ugly, plain, painted brick.
"You busy after school?" he asks Matt while they're waiting in line for Coach Smith to beam them with the softball because he thinks he can throw better than he actually can.
Matt shrugs. "Don't have to be."
"Wanna take a ride to every Home Depot that ain't in the strip mall?"
Matt's grin is quick and wicked, Travis’s is just as fast to respond. "Hell yeah. Just gotta be home by 6."
Travis slings an arm around his shoulder just because he can--the one perk of his last growth spurt, contrasted in acceptability with each new inch between his pants and the floor. "Don't know about that, man. Big plans take commitment that knows no time frame."
Matt's dedicated; Travis appreciates it. He's dedicated to having it all, to making the world work for himself. It's why Travis isn't surprised when Matt diligently speeds his rickety rust bucket into the driveway with a minute to spare, their collected contraband clanging together under the bases of the front seats.
"I'm home," Matt calls when he swings the front door open.
"Kitchen," his mom answers. She’s eating a sandwich over the sink. "New girl quit, I'm working late. It's just you boys for dinner tonight. Oh--hello. Travis, right?" Travis nods.
"Hey, uh," Matt sputters and stalls. "There's this show I wanna go to." That makes Travis raise his eyebrows sky high.
"Better get on with that 'but' I'm sensing. I have to leave in a minute."
"But it's on Thursday night."
Travis was preparing for the firing range, but she doesn't shoot Matt down automatically. Travis respects a woman willing to pretend to listen to reason at least.
"It's not too late, so I'd be home like around 12:30. I'm only asking cuz it's Travis's dad's band. He's a real drummer."
She pops the last spot of crust in her mouth and says, "Baby, I just don't know."
"Please?" Matt asks.
She's cool enough that she gives Travis the sizing-up look. He does his best to look fine and upstanding, but it's damn short notice he's working with.
"Your folks are letting you go?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She gives them both the mom face--suspicious exasperation tugging shut her eyes and genuine affection tugging up her lips. "I'll think about it. And while I'm thinking about it, you better think about how you have to drag yourself to school the next day, and if you so much as blink too long it's never going to happen again."
"Yes, ma'am," Matt answers happily like he's already won.
She sighs and pulls his head down for a peck on the cheek. She's got Matt's same long face and same quick grin. "Your brother will be home in half an hour, please make sure you eat some actual food and not a bag of potato chips for supper."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Matt, I'm thinking about it. I'm not making promises. Travis, it was good seeing you again."
When the door closes behind her Travis’s shoulders fall back into their natural slump. "Man. You asked?"
Matt shrugs. "I only lie about stupid stuff."
It's Tuesday night and Matt’s slow showing up. “You ask your mom if you could come out and play tonight, too?”
Matt takes the ribbing with a smile. “What do you want me to do?”
“Paint by numbers.” Travis throws him a can. “Stay inside the lines.”
“Will I be able to paint happy trees too?”
“Bob Ross’s Jewfro ain’t got nothin’ on the real thing.”
Travis sees Matt’s grin by the flash of moon and residual from the streetlight half a block away. Matt’s smiles are easy to come by, but it still does something to his guts when Travis gives him cause to break one out.
“Think this’ll make that asshole get the point?”
“No,” Travis says without breaking stride. “But it’ll make me feel better.” Travis has always been a realist.
“What time do we leave?” Matt asks.
“When we’re done.” He considers his canvas before adding another line.
“No shit, dude. I meant Thursday, when do we leave?”
“Whoa,” Travis says, letting the can fall useless to his side. “She said yes?”
“I told you I don’t gotta lie about the important stuff.”
“Yeah? Well I only got tonight to finish this up. Get crackin, cracker.” Matt laughs and shakes up his can, then the only noises out of him are aerosol with a hint of humming under breath.
The wall is halfway done and Travis is outlining a fantastic pair of titties when there’s a tug on his arm, pulling an ugly gash through his work. Travis gapes at it bug eyed and baffled when blood doesn’t gush out of the wound for as long as he has before he’s being removed from its sight.
“What the fuck?” Travis sputters and spits. Matt shoves him against the back wall with the speed of sound, covering up Travis’s mouth and lips working in a silent ‘listen.’
Travis does. He hears tires on broken down pavement on a broken down street inching toward his masterpiece. He pries his fingers between Matt’s hand and his face, pulls it away to mouth, ‘Pigs?’
Matt shrugs, wild look behind his calm face--Matt’s come out with him a few times before, but they’ve never been so close to caught. Travis thinks he’s Matt’s walk on the wild side, the idea of cops being after him still foreign in his white bread good son life.
The tires are getting closer and closer, slow as a slug compared to the off-beat time Travis’s heart is thumping. He drops their hands but doesn’t let go of Matt’s, one finger slow dancing in front of his lips before he tugs Matt, leads the way to the other end of the building and peeps around the corner.
He can see the ass end of a white sedan dragging by across the street, gone before he can tell if it’s got pig written all over it. If it is a cop he thinks it’s a rookie, taking his sweet time like they’d be stupid enough to be waiting for him to crawl his way over, or maybe thinking he can be stealthy in his cruiser.
Travis yanks Matt forward, keeping them in the shadows behind the other squat, run down businesses until they’re past another streetlight. He leads them up the alley between the Christian bookstore and the Subway they buy their weed from clinging to the shadows and holding his breath, peeping around the corner.
“Gonna run when I say,” Travis whispers. He judges the coast as clear as it’s going to get, tightens his hand around Matt’s, and takes off.
“Hey! Stop!” someone shouts over the blood pounding in Travis’s ears, but he’s running as fast as his legs’ll let him, forcing Matt to keep pace. He’s still got a can in his other hand. They clear another building and he throws it as hard as he can, stumbles when sideways momentum fucks up his forward push. Matt grabs the back of his shirt to steady him.
They run as fast as they can until the businesses give way to squat old houses, weaving their way through backyards lacking fences until Travis’s lungs are going to explode in a messy, wet stew. He picks a house to duck behind based on a complicated formula of a lack of motion sensor flood lights and the high likelihood that the muscles in his legs are about to bunch up and leave him useless. He pulls Matt close like sharing a shadow would keep him from getting fingered.
They slide down the siding and Matt pants, “Holy fuck,” still quiet enough that Travis can barely hear him over his own breath. He’s grinning, wide and crazy with adrenaline. “Does that happen a lot?”
Travis shrugs. “Not everyone appreciates the beauty in a well-tagged wall.” He says it like it’s casual but the bravado doesn’t really ring true with how completely dead Travis knows he would be if he got caught again.
“That’s so fucking.” His laugh finishes the thought for him, and Travis doesn’t know what the fuck is happening before Matt’s leaning even more in his space and pressing his grin to Travis’s lips.
And Travis completely fucking melts into it, going pliant and easy under Matt’s touch. His blood’s still racing, he can feel the pitter patter of Matt’s heart thundering where his hands suddenly find themselves full of boy--palms curving around solid, shuddering ribcage and fingers wrapped in lank hair--sharing air more than mouth until Matt pulls away, dragging in oxygen like a drowning man. He’s half in Travis’s lap, and Travis gives himself a whole second to think he might like that before he’s panting, “Let’s get you home before you turn into a delinquent pumpkin, white bread.”
Wednesday morning dawns too fucking early. Travis says hello to every inch of daylight that shimmies over the nighttime across his ceiling.
“Rise and shine Sleeping Beauty,” his mom says when she goes past his room on her way out the door for work.
Travis closes his eyes but still can’t feel sleep any closer through the roadblock of his dick at half mast and his brain stalled on the image of flush Irish skin warm under Travis’s fingers.
“Well, shit,” he grouses before he makes himself sit upright. He tries not to think about how completely fucked he is.
He sleeps through first period and most of history without getting caught, but Mrs. Marino has sleep-ray vision and gives him a detention slip for his troubles. In PE he has the satisfaction of seeing Matt just as bleary, but the fucker still manages to wear a smile as easily as his gym shorts. He keeps himself too close in Travis’s space and all Travis can think about as the batting line crawls forward is skin and lips and want like a disease so pervasive it eats at Travis until he’s tapping impatiently and itching for touch, for escape, for abso-fuckin-lutely anything to break the uncertainty. The line shuffles forward again and Travis is slower to move than Matt, his arm brushing up against Travis’s hand and Travis’s fingers twitching to feel, so completely without his brain’s permission that he doesn’t think to do anything about it
What breaks it is Ben Perish cutting in front of Tanya Nguyen and saying to Matt, “Come on, man, you gotta be my running mate. Colleges eat that shit up.” Travis folds his hands up under his armpits and slouches against the gym wall, watching out of the corner of his eye as Matt frowns.
“I’m not gonna be on student counsel,” Matt insists. “Me and Trav are gonna be in a band. I won’t have time for both.”
“There’s a fuck of a lot you don’t have time for anymore, dude.” Ben is huffy and short, because Ben is one of the goody-goody pricks Matt ran with before Travis let him borrow his KRS CD.
Matt grins more for show than humor. “I can’t help it if I’m in high demand.”
Ben rolls his eyes and switches back. It’s Travis’s turn to bat, and he actually manages to send the ball sailing back up in the sky.
Thursday night and Travis is bumping knuckles with Tom who he buys his pills from sometimes and Levon who he drives with to shows in the city and Manda who taught him the art of going down on a woman, and Matt is at his side sticking out like a square peg in a round hole that doesn’t even realize he’s got corners. He thinks about the shit Matt probably does when he’s hanging out with his usual crowd, and orders them beers because he figures Matt’s probably never been to a place that doesn’t give a damn how young they look.
His dad’s band is late to start. Travis spends the wait beside the speaker with Matt tighter against his side than the press of the crowd actually calls for. Thoughts start chasing through Travis’s mind again, high speed and reckless, about all the dark corners he knows this club to have and how it might feel to crowd Matt into every single one of them.
“This is awesome,” he catches Matt saying when the band starts playing. It makes Travis think of the Ben Perishes and atta boys Matt used to roll with. It’s all he can think about when Matt follows him toward backstage after the set, when Matt pushes him into an empty side hallway and presses him up against a wall.
After that, thinking starts getting a little harder.
Friday afternoon and Matt’s waiting next to Travis’s locker, drumming his palms against his thighs. The hallway is empty enough that Travis can hear his keys jingling, stuck between his hand and his leg. It sets Travis on edge like he’s got a case of nerves when it comes to staring down Matt.
He stills when he sees Travis. His eyes zero in on Travis’s arm slung over Lauren Parker’s shoulder. They’re walking so close that Travis’s hand is hanging in front of her chest, close enough to accidentally on purpose cop a feel every half dozen paces.
“Hey,” Matt says, frowning over a look stuffed with some serious confusion. “I thought we were gonna practice tonight?”
“Yeah, man,” Travis says easily. “Just had to take care of some business.”
“Hey, Matt,” Lauren says awkwardly, shaking her braids out of her face to look up at Travis. “I’m gonna see if I can find Tanya for a ride home.”
“I think I saw Tanya take off,” Matt says. “I can drop you off.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s on the way.”
Matt lives in a house with a sad, sagging little roof and two whole bedrooms, but he's got an actual four piece kit in the living room he can play with dampeners whenever he feels like during the day. He shrugs it off with the casual air of a dude who thinks the world of such a feat. The second Travis walks in the smell of Lauren’s Bath and Body Works perfume still clinging to his skin gets replaced with the potpourri Matt’s mom keeps in the doorway.
“What’s up with Lauren?” Matt asks, too casual to actually be casual when he takes his thrown.
Travis shrugs off the weird guilt growing fat and ugly in the pit of his stomach. “Nothin’. You know. Just some fun.”
Matt’s eyebrows twitch together but he doesn’t outright frown. He plays out a beat so fierce the walls rattle with it despite the dampeners.
Friday night and they’re at another club Matt’s never been to, one that’s been serving Travis since his first big growth spurt two years before. There’s enough cheap booze sloshing around in his stomach with enough slightly-less-cheap pills that Travis’s limbs are loose with it, and it’s easy to wrap himself around Matt and stumble them into a hidden corner where Travis got a blow job two weeks ago.
Matt’s staring at him with glassy eyes bright with the neon glow from overhead still seeping into the place. “What are we doing?” he asks over the music.
Travis keeps going until his back is against the wall. Matt follows like he’s pulled by Travis’s own personal center of gravity. “I dunno,” Travis hums against Matt’s cheek, just this edge of rough with peach fuzz. “Can’t we just do this?”
Matt holds still for a second too long, adrenaline starts to ebb Travis’s buzz and ‘Danger! Danger Will Robinson!’ flashes in his head until he’s ready to extricate himself from the situation.
Then Matt’s tongue finds its way into Travis’s mouth, and that’s answer enough for Travis.
Saturday morning and Travis’s mom is busting into his room holding the detention slip he must have left in his pocket.
He steals the phone when she stops with the disappointed guilt tripping long enough to go to the grocery store.
“Hey, man,” he says when Matt picks up. “I got-”
“Hey,” Matt cuts in. “I was gonna call. I got a date with Stacy tonight, I can’t practice.”
“A date?” Travis says, surprised by his surprise.
“Yeah. A date.” There’s something hard in Matt’s voice, or maybe Travis is hearing ghosts where there’s just some dust in the picture. “See ya Monday.”
Sunday afternoon and Travis spends it grounded, staring at a spot on the wall across the table instead of at the papers and books spread out around him. His mom snaps her fingers in front of his face, jilting him back to earth.
“Do your homework, Travis.” The ‘or so help me I will whoop your ass’ is left silent but Travis can still hear it just fine.
He tucks his head down to hide the way he rolls his eyes and writes on the notebook paper in front of him, but fuck that history class bullshit; the words flowing from the ink of his pen have more meaning and rhythm than some shit about old dead white guys no one gives a damn about. Travis’s time is better spent spinning rhymes about his fucking left nut than wasting his words on that.
The beat in his head stays the same but the words start changing, start becoming about flush skin and broad shoulders, palms rough from drumsticks and a mouth clumsy with inexperience.
Travis tears out the page and tears open his damn history book.
It’s Monday morning and Matt’s not as easy with his smile as he was last week. Travis feels like he’s holding his breath the whole time Coach Smith is explaining how inner chi has anything to do with actually hitting the ball.
And then Matt bumps his shoulder and says, “Went by the dollar store on Saturday. He was painting over it.” Travis feels a moment of silence for the masterpiece that’ll never see its grand finish. “His face was all red and shit. It was kinda awesome.” He grins easy, like what happened Thursday and Friday is gonna stay in Thursday and Friday, and that’s just fine by Travis. He doesn’t know what that lump growing in his throat like a tumor is about.
---
It's snowing over Baltimore. Fat, useless globs of it tumble through the air and cling to the sidewalk for all of a nanosecond before melting. Travis is leaning against the side of the venue toasty warm in his thick winter coat. Eric is hunched up under his hoodie looking like a drowned rat, smoking every breath like it's a dare. Travis stubs out his cigarette and shoves his hands in his pockets for maximum rustling noise.
“Fuckin’ asshole,” Eric mutters.
Travis laughs. “Don’t hate the foresight to plan for things that come every year.”
Their set was absolutely on, Travis still has the electricity of it thrumming through his veins, giving life to something warm, something real, holed up inside him that heads into hibernation whenever the road isn't rolling under his wheels and the music isn't blaring through his veins. It's a good night; he doesn’t even want to bitch about ending it alone, happy enough to flow with a night of being lazy and warm.
There's a solid, scrawny body pressed up beside him and Bill says, "What are we smoking?"
"Nothing you're interested in," Travis says.
"I got some," Eric says. "Probably gonna roll it when we hit the road."
"You, my friend," Bill says, "are a man of God."
Eric builds a cross in the air, sluggish from the beer and whatever else he's already started his night with. He's not looking, though; he's focused on something across the parking lot. "He shoots," he observes. Travis is following his eyesight before he can stop himself, and there by the buses is Matt putting the finishing touches on his moves for some dude. "And he scores."
"Eh," Bill says. "Six point five."
"Pfft, eight at least. That's the dude I bought from." Bill 'hm's like he's willing to take that into consideration. They’re quiet for all of a minute before Eric says over the parking lot noise, "Matt's been chasin' a lotta dick lately."
Travis straightens to his full height. "You got a problem with that?"
Eric rolls his eyes and flicks his filter into a puddle of dirty slush slumming it outside the venue. "Of course I do. Who'd wanna fuck a dick when there's all that willing pussy right down the street? Think I'm gonna go see about that. Bus call's at three?"
"Yeah," Bill says. "Carden and the Butcher went to the club on the corner."
Eric takes off with a salute. Matt leads the guy around a bus and disappears from sight.
“Hm,” Bill says, and Travis doesn’t need to peep his face to know his eyes are narrowed and thoughts are racing through that pretty little head that Travis would like better left alone.
“How’s the missus?” Travis asks, and Bill’s expression dissolves into blinding happiness when he says, “Incredible, but I won’t be distracted so easily.”
“Nothin’ to distract you from.”
“I know a lie when I smell one.”
“He who smelt it dealt it.”
“And de Nile’s not just a river in Egypt. Are we gonna keep this up all night? Because I will.”
Travis huffs out a puff of steam. “Not everyone’s gotta be happy in monogamy just cuz you are. Stop looking for something where there’s nothin’ to see.”
“I’m not saying you have to be, but unless Matt did something I haven’t heard about, I’m pretty sure neither of them earned that death glare you have for them.”
“Billiam,” Travis says with the weight of good friendship slinging around Bill’s shoulders and loading his words with all kinds of meaning. “Rubberneck traffic’s gonna wreck that pretty little face a yours.”
Bill smiles sweetly and says, “Fuck you,” but he lets Travis usher him to the Gym Class bus--opposite from the way Matt led his new buddy. Bill fits in Travis’s space like he belongs there, he always did, even when Gabe was introducing Bill as his own scrawny little emo fanboy, even when Bill doesn’t quite melt into it like now. There’s an itch under his fingerprints to cop a feel for nostalgia’s sake, in mourning for the times between girlfriends when Travis and Bill fit together even better than this. But Travis mostly likes Christine, loves the way she looks at Bill like he’s the world and still manages to call him on his bullshit without blinking an eye. They’re good for each other, and she made it clear enough that her tolerance for ‘out of state, out of mind’ ended when she agreed to wear Bill’s ring that Travis has been one to respect it as much as Bill has.
Travis still ushers Bill into the bus like it’s a palace, and Bill’s one to let him. It’s that point in the night when yesterday is kissing tomorrow. He thinks it might be Monday, but it could be any day and Travis wouldn’t know the difference.
Morning is sliding by his tiny bunk window but it’s still too soon for Travis to tell if it’s real morning or tour morning. He stumbles out of the bunks and Disashi is in the front lounge with a guitar and a riff too melodic for Gym Class. Travis hums it as he moves around the four by four kitchen in search of breakfast. He hums it til he’s got it, then he borrows it, twisting it up with the beat in his head. Disashi takes it back, takes it further, and Travis responds with a more complicated rhythm in the key of spoon on the side of the counter ticking off the weak-ass revolutions of the microwave until his oatmeal dings. It falls off when Travis has the bowl in his hands, but gracefully rather than taking a tumble over the side of a cliff. Disashi still has a little ditty under his fingers, different now than the one Travis first woke up to, but this one is more absent-minded.
“Bubbly Toes” plays, tinny and deformed, and Disashi stops altogether to answer his phone. He’s got the blissed-out Bluejay smile on already, no surprise when he answers it “hey, baby.”
Matt stumbles out next, bleary-eyed in his pre-coffee stupor. Travis is closest to the cabinet with instant, he reaches over for it lazily just as Matt sidles over to the counter. It puts him up against Travis’s body, Matt seems to sway into it easily. Travis can feel the sleep warmth still radiating from Matt’s skin, product of the ten million blankets he squirrels away in his bunk. The noise has already changed from the rhythm of the road and Disashi’s melody to the road and the harmony of his blissed-out Bluejay voice, and Matt, warm like honey beside Travis and stale sweat familiar from living on top of each other in the backs of vans and tour buses way back to nights spent partying too hard for both of them to stumble to separate homes.
The bunk door bangs open again and Travis’s arm is falling like it’s pulled by gravity. His hand touches down on the counter in front of Matt, keeping them boxed in close together. The intimacy of it makes Travis’s skin itch. Matt doesn’t even notice, he’s turning to squint at Eric standing two feet away in all his disgruntled glory.
“I think I’m gonna ralph,” Eric announces. Matt sways back like it might happen any second, Travis wraps him up in the arm that was in front of him like he might fall. Eric staggers for the bathroom and Travis lets his skin get its fix for all of a second before he’s letting go, letting the lure of the couch pull him out of the kitchen.
Matt’s frowning this half-aware little crease between his eyebrows and unhappy divots at the corners of his mouth when he puts his mind back to procurement of coffee. Back before they got going and they still sold cassettes out of their trunks, they’d spend all night putting out their words and beats wherever they could then force themselves awake the next morning with weak-ass instant coffee to make it to the real world, Travis to his apprenticeship at the tattoo parlor and the other shit he slung to make their dreams something more, Matt to school and work and the homework he let slide when it came between something and having to give. The coffee Matt still buys is a hold out from that, it’s a habit Travis started to break with the luxury of being able to afford something decent, but Matt never seemed to shake. It was easy for Travis; the second-rate instant sits in his mouth tasting like those old mornings they spent wrapped up in each other and the music they were making, when they had no time for girlfriends but they always had enough time for each other.
But today is different. Today is--Travis squints at the itinerary De Jesus taped under the TV--Tuesday and this tour ends soon, and when it does they’re not going to be stumbling home to Geneva, they’re going to be sauntering to their own apartments like big shots who are actually getting traction under their shoes to wait for the next one. Today is not the day old habits die hard, it’s the day Travis doesn’t go for second best though, not for second best coffee and not for being second best.
It’s Wednesday afternoon with a day off in Nashville and Travis is watching himself go down in flames.
“Rematch,” he declares.
Disashi’s got this Cheshire cat grin, broad and toothy and so damn annoying, stretching its legs out across his face. “Sure,” he agrees, easy as pie and just as sweet. “I got time.” Travis narrows his eyes and takes it as his duty for the good of mankind to teach him a lesson.
The door opens up in a burst of cold air and game killing--“Don’t even try to blame it on that, man,” Disashi declares viciously as Travis’s guy goes down again--and Matt says, “Look what followed me home. Can we keep it?” with an arm he wraps around Bill’s scrawny shoulders.
“Doesn’t look housebroken,” Disashi grins.
“Hey!”
“Wasn’t talkin’ about you, Bill.” He gets the hoodie Matt strips off to his face but he takes it in stride, throwing it back with good grace and shitty aim.
“Fuckin’ epic snowball fight,” Matt says. “Me and Bill kicked Siska and Chislett’s asses.” He’s looking decidedly wet and pretty pleased about it as he putters around with some water and his mug and the last of the instant. Bill falls to the couch next to Travis with boneless grace and ice cold hands Travis smacks away from his side.
“There’s gotta be less than half an inch out there,” he says. “How the hell’d you have a snowball fight?”
“Determination,” Bill says. He tries to claim the pockets on Travis’s hoodie, but Travis is having none of that.
Disashi laughs. “Bill, you gonna stay for a round? I could use an actual challenge.”
“Hey, it’s not Travis’s fault he’s not Halo inclined,” Matt defends before the words can come out of Travis’s mouth. “Some people are just born with their limitations.” He’s leaning with one hip on the counter waiting on the microwave to finish, all bright ink and soft skin and a dark, imperfect bite mark making itself known where his shirt rode up from his hip.
Travis flips him off. “Nice comeback,” Matt grins.
“Your mom.”
“And you’re the one writin’ our songs?” Disashi shakes his head all somber-like.
Bill takes his remote and Travis tries to keep his eyes front and center on the screen, but his attention keeps falling for Matt like a junkie pretending he doesn’t need a fix. He’s got his pants hanging low on his hips and the band of his boxers is dark enough to make the skin between it and his shirt seem paler, make the bite mark even darker. It’s all Travis can see in the corner of his eye.
He’s pressing up against Bill to hear whatever he’s saying but it’s already a lost cause. The party’s on Gym Class that night, sprouting up like a weed when so-and-so came looking for whoever and someone else was searching for whatever, and through a perfectly reasonable confluence of restocked beer fridges, everyone wound up deciding to kick back and stay awhile.
Travis is taking his time. It feels brand new, being able to be part of the festivities nursing shitty frat boy beer instead of finding out who’s got something, who’s good to share. He’s happy with it, draping over Bill’s bony body and feeling the rhythm of his words rumbling along with the bass line. It’s Thursday night and the tour is two days from dead, Travis has hit the peak of hating everyone and missing home, now he’s sliding back into that comfortable place where he loves his life.
Bill’s head turns, greasy hair sliding against Travis’s cheek until his lips are pressing against Travis’s ear and “basically, stop being a pussy” is connecting to Travis’s brain with absolutely no context. Bill smacks him with a kiss that hits his earlobe and sends Travis spinning without an angular motherfucker to anchor on.
Travis is shrugging off the stutter in his orbit when he sees the door to outside looking like a fine idea.
The truck stop they’re parked at looks like it’d be slinking into sleep if it wasn’t for the ruckus from their buses and vans keeping the night minty fresh. No one else is around, just them in the back nine of the parking lot and minivans hugging the spots closest to the johns.
There’s a rhythm hanging in the air over bleed out from the bus that’s calling up to Travis like it’s got his number. Travis’s treads drag on broken pavement in who the hell knows what city, all parking lots look the same. In the spot where concrete gives way to grass, almost-not-quite out of the streetlight’s brightness, there’s Matt sitting on a parking stop. His hands stall on it and he looks over his shoulder, smiling when it’s Travis he sees.
Travis sits beside him, shivering at the cold. “Sup?”
Matt shrugs. Travis’s hands almost want to touch the broad slope of his shoulders. “Not much.”
“Then what the hell are you doin’ out here?”
“Took a leak, got distracted. I’m gonna head back in a second, go on.”
“Nah. Fresh air’s kinda nice.”
“Yeah.” They slip into silence that’s easy as anything. Travis lights one of the cigarettes in his pocket and offers one to Matt. “No thanks,” Matt says. “Hey,” he adds like an afterthought. Travis turns his head to look, and Matt’s got an easy smile on his face that still makes the butterflies in Travis’s gut tumble and twist.
Matt has to lean forward and stretch himself up to be able to kiss Travis, but Matt’s always been able to work it out.
And Travis’s body works like it’s on automatic: his mouth opens and his eyes close and he gets Matt’s skin under his hands on oh-point-two seconds flat. By the time his brain cares to join the party Travis has to huff out, “No thanks,” against Matt’s lips; he doesn’t even realize he said it out loud until Matt is pulling away from him, looking at his like he’s grown a few extra heads.
“Hey,” Matt asks with quiet concern and hands on Travis’s arms like maybe there’s something wrong. “What’s up?”
Travis feels the cold like he hadn’t a minute before, like it’s something picking at his nerves until it’s a fight to not shiver. He’s thrown like a cowboy from a bull with words that completely fucking fail him, like it’s the first time in his life he’s ever been flying solo without his wingman Webster, and all that stumbles out of his mouth is, “I’m tired of being your second best.”
He’s on his feet and back toward the buses but Matt can’t let it go, chases after him. “Don’t lay that on me,” he says; his face is creased with anger like it’s never known anything better. “You’re the one who put it in that box.”
“Yeah? Well now I’m putting a lid on it too. I’m pullin’ out the packing tape and callin’ it a day.”
“You know what pisses me off about you? It’s always your way or no way.”
It stops Travis in his tracks. “You got a better one? I’m all ears.”
“Right now? I don’t really give a fuck.” Matt spins on his heel and heads for the hut of toilets and vending machines like it’s a beacon in the middle of the concrete night. Travis watches him go until he’s an indistinct shape disappearing behind florescent light and sheet glass doors.
Travis gets back on the bus and the brushing of bodies is oppressive. All he wants is to go to fucking bed.
Friday night he sinks in to the show like he’s never going to come out, makes eyes at Matt once when they’re saying their sayonaras to the crowd. His glare’s like icicles stabbing through Travis’s heart and staying solid when his blood tries to boil them up.
He spends the hours they have left saying bye to Bill and his boys with too much tequila until he can’t feel much of anything but the pleasantly numb feeling dragging down his limbs.
Saturday he crawls out of his bunk and has to wait his turn for worshipping the porcelain god behind Eric. Once he can stand without his stomach sloshing, there’s the clean stench of Febreze making its way through the bus like maybe enough of it can erase almost three months of tour.
Something smacks his chest; he catches the paper towels without thinking. “You get bathroom,” Disashi grins, too fucking cheerful for the pounding in Travis’s head.
“Come on,” he pleads. “I did ‘em last time.”
“Last to blow chunks,” he shrugs without sympathy. “We agreed to the rules.”
“We agreed to a whole lotta rules. That’s the only one you remember.” Disashi doesn’t get hung over. Travis might just, in his heart of hearts, hate the lucky bastard.
Disashi tosses him the Lysol next. “Better get started now. Lotta shit to clean after you finish the bathroom.” He turns his back on Travis and goes on attacking the couch like he can ignore Travis’s highly justified outrage over double standard rule following.
Travis mutters, “Fuckin’ piece a--” as he turns around and he comes face-to-face with Matt.
He sees the Lysol in Travis’s hand and cracks a smile; it’s tiny, like a fissure in pavement, but it still does stupid things to Travis’s stomach when he does. He maybe even musters up a half an ounce of sympathy when he asks, “Last one to puke?”
Travis is going to say something smartass, but what comes out of his mouth like it’s jumping out of a plane without a parachute is, “We okay?”
The smile doesn’t disappear entirely, but it does start slouching back into hibernation. “I dunno,” he says like he’s admitting it. “I’ll think about it.” He slides past Travis. It leaves Travis hanging, like the beginning of a conversation waiting to sneak out and attack.
Travis is standing in the parking lot where they’re parting ways with the bus waiting for his ride home, waiting for his return to the apartment he’s got his name on that feels more like a layover than home.
Matt says, “Look, I’ve been thinking about it. I think we could have something good.” His car’s idling with his brother and his two-point-three mutts panting in the back. Sunday is sliding sick as a dog ready to be put down over his shoulder.
“What do you mean?” Travis accuses like it’s a dare, eyes narrowed and triple-dog threat ready to fall out of his lips.
Matt lets him get away with it, he says the words, “I want to try. Us, together. For real.” He stops, like now that he’s said what he’s wanted to say he doesn’t have any words left. Finally he comes up with, “I’m going home. Jersey home, not Geneva. If you wanted to unpack that box, I’ll be there.”
It’s Monday and Travis wakes up asking his ceiling what the hell he’s still doing there.
Monday night and Travis is looking at the stars over Jersey struggling to shine. He’s on Matt’s doorstep with the ambient noise of traffic plus Dexter plus Miss Pete plus the doorbell he’s laying on to drive them batshit crazy.
“What the fuck asshole?” Matt says before the door’s even open.
The dogs jump and claw at Travis’s legs, but Travis just shrugs when he lets go of the bell like he’s feeling casual. “You really think somethin’ between us has a shot?”
Matt crosses his arms in front of himself and leans against the doorframe like the question wasn’t important enough to send Travis’s axis tilting and twisting wild like a roller coaster careening off track. “I said I did, didn’t I? I only lie about stupid shit.”
The dogs give up on Travis and slink back inside in revolt, but Matt’s still standing there like he always is, looking up at Travis with his face so open, like there isn’t a secret breathing between them.
Kissing Matt in his doorway isn’t like coming home, it isn’t like a revelation or anything much different from the million other times Travis has held Matt in his fingers and felt Matt’s arms reeling him in tighter. It doesn’t feel like anything new, except the possibilities and the want Travis is done hiding from.