Chapter Text
“Cyrus, wake up.”
“Hmm?”
“Wake up, we’re here.”
“Hmm?” Cyrus said, pushing himself up in his seat and rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?”
“We’re at the Airbnb.”
Cyrus turned to TJ with his brows furrowed, and then looked back through the windshield, looking over small, narrow but clean street while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “But you were supposed to wake me up after an hour?”
“Well,” TJ said, putting a hand on Cyrus’ face and tenderly swiping his thumb over his cheek, “I had a lot to think about, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Very,” TJ grinned, leaning in closer to Cyrus and kissing the corner of his mouth, “let’s have dinner and then go to bed.”
“What time is it?” Cyrus whispered against TJ’s lips, pushing him away only a little so he could look into his eyes.
“Around seven, I think.”
Cyrus bit his bottom lip, “Not enough time for dinner, we have to pick up the key around half eight.”
“So…” TJ said, the sheer intonation of his voice making Cyrus look up, “You mean we have some time to kill?”
Cyrus raised his eyebrows, “I guess so. Want to play Travel Scrabble?”
“No,” TJ frowned, leaning back in his chair to look at Cyrus, “I don’t think there’s anything I’d want to do less than play Travel Scrabble.”
“What could be more fun than Travel Scrabble?”
“God, you drive me nuts,” TJ smiled, cupping Cyrus’ face in both his hands and leaning in to kiss him, “Travel Scrabble. You can’t make that shit up.”
“I’m not making it up,” Cyrus grinned while kissing back, “I brought it. It’s in the glove compartment.”
“I don’t fucking know how to spell.” TJ said, pulling Cyrus closer.
“Don’t know about that,” Cyrus teased, “I think we’ve already reached the quota of ten kisses today.”
TJ flicked him against the cheek, pulling back, “That’s the bare minimum, asshole.”
“Then what’s the maximum?”
“No maximum, dickhead,” TJ said, as he dove back in.
-
“You know what?” TJ put his burger down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “We haven’t had a single salad on this trip.”
“So?”
“We’re getting fat.”
“At least we’re getting fat together,” Cyrus said, taking a bite of his burger, “This is so good, holy shit.”
TJ smiled and fondly looked at Cyrus, who was gorging himself on his burger as if he was being timed. “Slow down, you’re going to choke at this speed.”
The diner they were at was crowded and tiny and smelled like a thousand different types of spices, but TJ loved it. It was so distinctly different, nothing at home even came close. He was grateful Cyrus had picked this diner by scouring TripAdvisor for hours, and hours. If it had been up to TJ, they had probably landed at KFC. Again.
“So, New York City. Is it living up to your expectations?”
“We have been here for like three hours.”
“So?”
“So, I need some more time to evaluate the city, TJ,” Cyrus said, stealing one of TJ’s onion rings.
TJ tried batting his hand away but was just a little too late. Instead he resorted for stealing a couple of Cyrus’ fries as revenge. “You decided you loved Detroit after exactly zero point four seconds.”
“That’s not true,” Cyrus said, “I thought we were going to get shot in Detroit.”
“Fair,” TJ said, taking a bite of his burger. “It’s fucking weird we’re actually here.” He shook his head, taking in his surroundings, “When we started New York seemed like light years away.”
“I know right!” Cyrus said, the bags under his eyes looking less visible because of all the smiling. “I feel light years away from the person I was when we started driving.”
TJ raised his eyebrows, “Really? I feel exactly the same.” He saw Cyrus eyeing his onion rings again and pushed the basket towards him, “I feel a little happier, that’s all.”
“Just a little?”
TJ smiled and took another bite, “I don’t know. It all feels the same, but just a little elevated, you know? Like when you go to see a movie during the day, and you come out and everything is dark?” He looked at Cyrus, who was looking back with a confused look, making his burst out laughing, “Alright, maybe I’m not that good at analogies.”
“Everything feels elevated was nice,” Cyrus laughed, “then it started going South.”
“Oh, you know what I meant,” TJ said, fondly shaking his head. “Everything is the same, just…”
“Better.”
“Yes, better.”
-
“Do you think it’ll be different when we’re home?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” Cyrus looked up at TJ, while at the same time trying to look where he was walking.
TJ shrugged, “This has been like us living in a bubble of only each other for days and days and days. We’ll have another couple days to ourselves when driving back. And then we’ll be home.”
“Yes?”
“We’ll be home, and Andi will be home, and Amber and Buffy and Jonah and Marty will be home and we’ll have to make time for each other. We don’t have entire days just to talk anymore. And then school will start again, and we’ll have even less time to talk.”
Cyrus looked at his feet, “That’s a little pessimistic.”
TJ frowned, “I didn’t mean it to be pessimistic.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Just that we’ll have to consciously make time for each other, you know,” TJ looked down and put his arm around Cyrus’ shoulders, stroking his fingers up and down his arm, “Keep it alive.”
“Keep it alive,” Cyrus mimicked TJ, “as if we weren’t already together all the time before we left.”
“That’s true,” TJ said, tightening his grip on Cyrus’ shoulders, “but everything is different now.”
Cyrus sighed and put his arm around TJ’s middle, gripping TJ’s hand that was hanging off of his shoulders with his and intertwining their fingers. “But you still want to do this, right?”
“What?”
“Us. Being together?”
“Of course!” TJ said, looking offended that Cyrus would even ask, “I’ve been half in love with you since I met you and you think I’d break it off now that I finally have you?” He shook his head, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Cyrus’ head, “Not happening. No way José.”
Cyrus laughed and was about to give TJ a kiss when he saw a man staring at them from across the street. He started walking at a much quicker pace to pass him, dragging TJ along. “Hey, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“What isn’t?”
“PDA in the middle of the streets.”
TJ bit his bottom lip, looking around, “Do you want to let go?”
Cyrus looked up at him, licking his lips and looking at his feet, feeling determination bubble up in his gut. Fuck that man. He wasn’t ashamed. “No.” He locked eyes with TJ and reached up to give TJ a kiss on his jaw. “No, I don’t.”
TJ smiled knowingly and kept on walking, pulling Cyrus along and marvelling at the tall buildings, the smells, the noises coming out of every bar and the feeling of being in a big city.
“What now? Go back to the Airbnb?”
“Are you insane?” Cyrus said, untangling from TJ and taking both his hands, “We’re in the city that never sleeps and you want to go to bed?”
“What did you have in mind?”
Cyrus looked around, biting his bottom lip, when he spotted the familiar golden arches in the distance. “Milkshakes?”
“I don’t like McDonalds.”
“Come on,” Cyrus said, pulling at TJ’s sleeve, “it’s tradition.”
TJ threw his head back and groaned. “I’d like to find someplace else to have a milkshake.”
“Fine,” Cyrus said, taking his phone out of his pocket, “Let me google it.”
-
TJ ducked to avoid hitting his head on the door when he entered the small bar Cyrus had managed to find. The room was lit in a dim red light and most people there were obviously college students, having a drink after a tiring day of school.
TJ smiled at Cyrus and walked up to the bar, sitting on a stool next to a couple of girls drinking margaritas, waiting for his turn to order, as Cyrus had sat down at a small table in the corner of the bar.
“Yes,” he heard, and he looked up to the bartender, who was tapping his fingers on the bar, “what do you want?” He looked TJ up and down, “If it has alcohol in it, I’m going to need to see ID, kid.”
“No, uh,” he said, thrown off his rhythm, “one strawberry and one vanilla milkshake please. No alcohol.”
“Milkshakes?” He smiled and shook his head, “How old are you?”
TJ nervously flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, afraid that he was going to throw him out of the bar, “I turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago.”
“Visiting?”
“Yeah, I’m on a road trip with my…” he looked at Cyrus, who was tapping away on his phone, probably recounting the events of the day to Buffy and Andi, “with my boyfriend.”
The bartender smiled and looked around the bar, his eyes landing on Cyrus. “That him?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll have someone bring the milkshakes out to you, alright?” He said, giving TJ a friendly slap on the shoulder, “That’ll be nine dollars.”
TJ put the money on the bar and put another five in the tip jar, feeling confused, but not uncomfortable. He got off the barstool and walked back over to Cyrus.
“That was weird.”
Cyrus smiled and put his phone in his pocket. “What happened?”
“I think the bartender thinks I’m twelve.”
“You look about twelve.”
“Shut up.” TJ said, grabbing Cyrus’ hand under the table, “God, I can’t believe we’re in New York.”
“It seems so crazy, doesn’t it?” Cyrus said, “I get such a rush out of big cities. When you walk through it and it’s alive, you know?” His eyes sparkled under the red lights of the bar and TJ’s stomach flipped over on itself, “It’s so hard to fathom that there are actual people living behind the windows of all these ginormous buildings. Fucking insane.”
TJ smiled and opened his mouth to answer when a young girl walked over to their table, holding their milkshakes.
“You ordered these?”
“Yes, we did.”
She nodded, put them down on the table and left.
“New York hospitality,” Cyrus said, when his phone dinged. “Have you seen Jonah made an Insta? The fuck?”
TJ opened his phone and grinned, “I love the caption.”
“Very on brand. How does he have so many followers already?”
“Probably because of his YouTube channel,” TJ said, arranging the milkshakes just right to take a pic, “apparently watching Jonah sing Billie Eilish covers twice a week really does it for some people.”
-
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“And here to your left, there is one of our twenty-three residences, guaranteeing at least four years of housing to all entering freshmen…”
“Fuck, he really just ripped that off of the website, huh,” Cyrus whispered into TJ’s ear, “I’ve never been so bored.”
TJ looked at the small crowd that had been following their assigned student around for the last hour and looked back at Cyrus, “Want to bounce?”
“God, yes,” Cyrus said, grabbing TJ’s hand, “we can go back to our own housing instance and chill.”
“An Airbnb isn’t a housing instance, Cyrus,” TJ said, walking away from their tour, lightly swinging their intertwined hands back and forward, “and why would we go there, if we’re in New York now? Live a little!”
“What do you propose we do then?” Cyrus asked, “We’re gonna be in New York full time next year, we have all the time in the world to explore the city.”
“Exactly! Next year we’ll be residents here! People of New York.” TJ said, letting go of Cyrus’ hand to gesticulate and fuck – Cyrus has always liked him best when he’s like this; all sparkling eyes and wild hands and a smile as bright as the billboards behind him flashing Coca Cola advertisements. He looked good, and he looked like he had finally found a place to come alive.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Cyrus raised his eyebrows, making a grab for TJ’s hand back, because he wanted to hold it, damn it, and TJ laughed, throwing an easy arm around Cyrus’ shoulder and kissing him on the corner of his mouth.
“It has to do with everything! I want to be a tourist for the little while I don’t live here. Go to the MET, or to the Empire State Building, or to Lady fucking Liberty, I don’t care. Let’s just explore as much as we can.”
Cyrus laughed, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s do it. Tourist me up, baby.”
-
And as easy as one, two, three, Cyrus and TJ became tourists. They each bought a shitty I-heart-NY shirt. They visited the statue of Liberty, and the MET museum, which “Is a two hour walk, TJ”, so TJ hauled for a cab, as if he had done it all his life.
“New York looks smaller in the movies.” TJ said in the cab, leaning back against his car seat, “it’s like you could walk through it in an hour, an hour and a half, tops.”
“New York is the fourth most populated city in the United States of America, and has a surface area of 302.6 square miles,” Cyrus recited from the back of the paper map that was lying on the kitchen table back at their Airbnb, and TJ shut up.
-
“Amber texted me,” TJ said, taking a quick look at his phone, but soon diverting his attention back to the art in front of them, “I really don’t get this statue. It’s so ugly.”
“It has character.”
“Your mum has character,” TJ said, fondly shaking his head and opening his text conversation with Amber, “this bitch really texted me to say that I have to like her new Instagram picture.” He glared daggers at his phone, as if Amber was going to somehow feel it through the screen.
“Oh, I get why,” Cyrus laughed, showing his phone to TJ, “it’s shade towards us.”
TJ rolled his eyes and handed the phone back, “We’ll get them later. Upload something way cuter.”
“Sure,” Cyrus said, taking his phone out of his pocket, “smile!”
-
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Cyrus took a picture of his ice cream cone, making sure some famous buildings were visible in the back of it. “I’m really on top of the world right now.”
“Cool,” TJ said, putting some of his ice cream on his finger and smearing it on Cyrus’ face, “here you go mister Worldwide.”
“I’m not Pitbull, jerk,” Cyrus tried to look angry but couldn’t muster it, wiping the ice cream off his face with a napkin. He finished the last bit of his, and put the empty cup down on the bench next to him. TJ, who had opted for a cone, was licking a stripe up in an effort to get all of the ice cream that was steadily melting all over his hands.
Cyrus put his head down on TJ’s shoulder, pushing his nose into the shirt he was wearing, deeply inhaling the scent of his fabric softener, deodorant and sweat.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re gonna take a nap here? In the middle of the street? At five in the afternoon?”
Cyrus shrugged and cosied up to him even more, “Yes.”
“Hey,” TJ wiggled his arm around, making Cyrus look up at him. He grabbed Cyrus’ chin with his sticky, ice cream covered hand and pushed their foreheads together, “let’s go to the Airbnb, sleepyhead.”
“Hmm,” Cyrus said, leaning up and briefly pushing their lips together in a chaste kiss, “yeah, let’s go.”
-
-
TJ unlocked the door, putting the key in a bowl on the kitchen table. “Home sweet home.”
“Time for a nap,” Cyrus said, walking into the bedroom. He kicked off his shoes and tried taking off his jeans, while TJ watched him from the door opening.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” Cyrus said, finally getting the pants off and putting on TJ’s sweatpants. He lied down on top of the bedsheets, closing his eyes and making grabby hands at TJ. “Come nap with me.”
TJ rolled his eyes, but nevertheless took off his shoes and changed into more comfortable clothes, and lied down next to Cyrus, intertwining their fingers. “Hey.”
Cyrus opened one eye and closed it again, smiling. “Hi. Come closer.” He reached out and pulled TJ closer to him by the shirt, burying his head in his chest. TJ made sure Cyrus’ head was comfortably lying on his arm before wrapping them around Cyrus and shuffling down a bit to put his head on top of Cyrus’. “Hmm,” Cyrus hummed, “you’re warm.”
“Can’t help that, I’m afraid.”
“It’s nice,” Cyrus said, burying his fingers in TJ’s hair and playing with it, revelling in the feeling. “You’re nice.”
“You’re nice too,” TJ huffed out a small smile, gently pressing his lips to Cyrus’ forehead. “are you gonna sleep?”
“Hmm.”
“Baby? Do I have to set up an alarm?”
Cyrus laughed against TJ’s chest, “Baby. I could get used to that.”
“Well,” TJ said, putting his hand on Cyrus’ face and gently stroked his cheek, “baby, do I have to set up an alarm?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Cyrus yawned, “wake me up in an hour. Maybe two.”
TJ listened to Cyrus’ breathing go deep and steady and looked at his eyelids flutter, holding him in his arms as if he was holding something precious. He carefully untangled himself a bit from Cyrus, took his phone from his pocket and set up an alarm. He opened up Instagram, liking some pictures of his friends and leaving a snarky comment on Amber’s photo.
He put his phone down on the bed, next to Cyrus’ head when it started ringing.
“Hello?”
“TJ? Hi!”
“Oh, Amber,” TJ got up from the bed and walked out of the room, sitting down on the tiny sofa in the kitchen-slash-living room of their Airbnb. “How are you? I miss you.”
“I miss you too!” TJ could hear Andi and Marty bicker in the background, “arrived in New York alright? Where is Cyrus?”
“We were taking a nap when you called, he’s still asleep. We arrived fine, I guess. Played the tourist for a bit today. I bought you a fridge magnet.”
Amber chuckled, “I would appreciate it more if I had a fridge.”
“I’m planning for the future, Ambs,” TJ said, “a fridge magnet for your college housing, when you’re up there in New Jersey.”
“New Jersey and New York aren’t that far apart. We’ll see each other often.” Amber said. TJ could hear her close a door, and assumed that she walked into the bathroom to talk, “so… are you and Cyrus in love? Is it official?”
TJ sighed, blushing, even though Amber couldn’t possibly see, “Yeah, we talked about it last night. He’s so great, I finally get your three hour rants about Andi.”
“They’re not three hours, TJ,” Amber huffed, “so you’re good? Everything’s fine there? Mom wanted me to ask if you needed more money.”
“I’m fine for now, I think. Maybe another fifty in a couple days, when we start going back, so I can pay for some more snacks.”
“I’ll let her know.” She scraped her throat, “I’m gonna go back to the troublemakers, make sure they don’t destroy our house, and I’m gonna let you get back to napping with the boyfriend.” She let a moment of silence pass before she said, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too. We’ll talk soon, alright?”
“Yeah, love you.”
“Love you too.”
TJ walked back into the bedroom and saw that Cyrus had fully rolled over on one side. He climbed back up into bed and put his arm over Cyrus, spooning his back and letting himself drift off to sleep.
-
“Hey.”
TJ blinked, seeing a pair of brown eyes incredibly close to his face, “Hey there.” He sat up straight and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “Sleep well?”
“Yeah, you?”
TJ nodded, leaning down and kissing Cyrus on the forehead. He reached out and brushed some of Cyrus’ hair off his forehead, “Your hair is sticking out. Very cute.” He raised his eyebrows and yawned, “Want to go for dinner?”
Cyrus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up straight against the headboard. “Want to stay in tonight?”
“Why? Don’t want to go for a wild adventure in the city?”
“No,” Cyrus said, taking TJ’s hand and watching their fingers slot together, “I kind of want to be alone with you tonight. Is that okay?”
“If you’re happy and I can keep holding your hand, I’m fine.” He squeezed his hand to illustrate his point.
Cyrus scrunched up his nose, lying his head down on TJ’s shoulder. “You can tell me if I’m making everything about me.”
TJ looked at him, with his big brown eyes and hair tousled and he felt like he might die. “You don’t get it,” He said, stroking Cyrus’ cheek and pulling him in for a soft and lingering kiss, “Everything is about you, somehow.”
Cyrus kisses him on the nose, flopping down on the bed. “Good god,” He threw his phone down on the bed and cuddled up to TJ’s chest. “We have all the time in the world.”