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It dawns on Travis as the sun rises that it might have sounded like he was breaking things off with Carter on the phone. He spent the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling, wondering if he did the right thing. In the end, he agreed with his decision. It's twofold, really. They can't play safely if Carter won't let them communicate about important shit, and he also can't trust Carter to think clearly with kink if Carter isn't taking care of himself. But he fully intended on still being there for Carter as his boyfriend. As long as it takes. The kink can fucking wait.
What if Carter didn't get that memo? What if he's thinking they're done? What if Travis went and lost himself the only good thing to ever happen to him all because he was tired and frustrated and worded shit wrong?
When Travis rushes through the safehouse in nothing but jeans and a hoodie, avoiding everyone he sees, Maison yells, "Woah, where's the fire?"
Travis just waves a hand above his head as he heads for the door and responds, "I'll be back."
His hands shake as he drives, a mantra of you fucked up, you fucked up, you fucked up swirling in his head. He shaves 20 minutes off his standard drive time to Carter's apartment and skips every 2 steps on the stairwell. Heart in his throat, he pounds on the door and waits.
Come on, come on, come-
The door swings open. His knees go a little weak at the sight before him. Carter is in one of Travis's sweatshirts - one he swore he didn't steal, the adorable little shit - with messy hair, puffy red eyes, and fresh tears on his cheeks. He flinches when he sees it's Travis, his voice hoarse as he explains, "I thought you were the landlord."
"You shouldn't open the door before looking through the peephole," Travis chides.
"Did you just come here to make me feel even worse?” Carter sniffles and looks off to the side, his arms wrapping around his waist. “Because I - I can’t, Trav. Please. Just-”
“I’m still your boyfriend,” Travis blurts, cutting the poor boy off. “And I still love you.”
Carter’s head whips back so he can look at him with wide blue eyes. He sucks in a breath, then immediately falls apart. Travis steps forward and catches him before he can hit the ground, kicking the door shut behind him. He pulls Carter close and wraps a protective arm around him to keep the boy tucked against his chest, reaching out to switch the locks and make sure the security system is still on. Then he lets all outside worries disappear, scoops his boy up, and carries him to the bedroom, Carter clinging to his neck hard enough to draw blood.
“I - I th-thought maybe y-you didn’t wanna be t-together anymore,” the boy sobs, tucking his face between Travis’s collar and jaw. “I thought I w-was too f-fucked up.”
“Oh sweetheart.” Travis sighs, guilt wrapping around his chest. “I don’t want you to ever feel like that. I’m not going anywhere, no matter how fucked up either of us are.”
“Then why won’t you be my sir?” he asks, his sobs thankfully calming.
Travis reaches Carter’s bedroom, climbing right into the boy’s bed and lying on his side so they’re facing each other. Or would be facing each other, if Carter wasn’t still pressing his face against Travis’s throat. Travis doesn’t plan on making him remove it anytime soon. He knows how his boy needs to hide sometimes.
Running a hand up and down Carter’s back, he tries to explain himself. “I can’t play with you if we can’t communicate, sweetheart.”
“But we’ve been communicating.”
“Twice now, you’ve safe worded out of a conversation that makes you uncomfortable. And I’ll never take that word away from you, not fucking ever, but if that’s how you’ll use it, we aren’t communicating enough.”
Carter holds onto him tighter, shuddering. “I don’t want to talk about that stuff, though.”
“I know, sweetheart. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.”
“I hate Dr. Singh.”
Travis smiles to himself. “So do I. But he still helps.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He seems to consider that, going quiet for a while as Travis continues to rub his back and press gentle kisses to his temple. Eventually, he whispers, “Trav?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
He sniffles, burrowing against Travis like he can crawl inside of him if he tries hard enough. “I don’t know how to stop feeling like a hypocrite around the survivors…”
Travis takes a deep breath. “Maybe that’s the perfect place to start with him.”
Chapter Sixteen
Carter feels sick as he takes a seat in Dr. Singh’s office. Travis promised him he’d be right down the hall the whole time, but it somehow makes things worse instead of better. Him being so close is tempting Carter to run from this. To fall into Travis’s arms and forget. But running is the problem, so he keeps his ass firmly in the chair Dr. Singh invited him to sit on and tries not to shake right out of his fucking skin.
