Author's Note: This is a teenager/high school AU with fifteen-year-old Wes and freshly turned seventeen-year-old Travis. Pre-slash or bromance, there is affectionate between the two of them but there is little actual romance if you don't wish to see it as such. Platonic bed sharing. (I am in love with Wesvis teenage AU right now. I can't stop writing for it.) I do so hope you enjoy.

~SASS~

Tiny Taps upon My Window

Travis's foster parents didn't even question it when Wes walked out of his bedroom with him in the mornings for breakfast anymore. They knew he hadn't been there when they went to bed, but had snuck in sometime during the night. Travis had explained it after the first couple of times it had happened. Travis was just happy that they understood. Wes and Travis weren't sleeping together, just sleeping together, finding solace in each other's presence when a night grew too cold or too long. (Travis would never admit to anyone but Wes that he needed those nights together just as much as the younger boy did.)

His last foster home had hated Wes (Travis still didn't know why) so for the eight months he had stayed there, more often than not he slept at Wes's house. Travis knew Wes was terrified that his dad would walk in while Travis was there, and the two of them usually slipped out of there just after sunrise to grab food on the way to school. When Travis moved homes again, his new foster parents actually liked Wes, and though it was farther, it was easier. (And Wes relaxed more when they were away from his own house, anyway.)

They didn't plan it anymore. They would sometimes plan weekends for Wes to stay over, and Travis would stuff him full with all the junk food Wes wasn't allowed to eat at home, and they would stay up late into the night and early morning watching movies or playing video games (and sometimes, because Wes was the world's biggest overachiever, they would also do homework). But most of the time, they didn't plan when one or the other was going to come over. They would just shoot a quick warning text like Wes had sent him just a few minutes ago, "I'm coming over. Okay?"

Wes only asked if it was okay on nights he felt really bad, so Travis had immediately sent an affirmation. This was the part Travis hated, waiting for Wes to show up. It was a forty minute bike ride from Wes's to Travis's, which meant over half an hour of wondering what condition Wes would show up in. Travis had seen Wes on some of his worse nights, after days when the OCD got too out of control and the anxiety took over or evenings that Mr. Mitchell came home from work angry and took it out on Wes – he never hit him, never left a mark, but a verbal beating was just as bad (sometimes even worse for someone like Wes). Travis had held Wes through full body shakes, bundled him in a blanket through chills, rubbed circles into his back when Wes literally worried himself sick, and babbled away when Wes would stare too silently into the distance. It helped Travis in turn, made him feel important, needed, because Wes only came to him, only let down those walls for him. It assuaged his feelings of abandonment knowing that even if everyone else left him, Wes never would.

Travis gathered up a few extra blankets and pillows, as well as some of his favorite comfort junk foods and spent the remainder of forty seven minutes watching the clock, waiting and worrying. Worrying if Wes was okay, what was wrong, worrying that it was taking the fifteen-year-old so long to get there. He was sitting in the silence – his foster family had all gone to bed hours ago – so when two tiny taps sounded at his window, it got his attention immediately. Tap, tap.

Tap, tap. It sounded again as Travis moved towards his window. Tap, tap. Like a tiny heart beating against the window – which, Travis supposed, was actually true; it was his heart tapping quietly at the glass for entrance.

Pushing aside the curtains, Travis was faced with a scene that broke his heart. In the orange glow of the distant halogen streetlight, Wes stood hunched with his head bowed, bundled in an oversized hoodie Travis had given him, drenched, shaking, pale, and looking to all the world like a half-drowned kitten scratching at Travis's sill. Except, the world only ever saw him as a caustic, sarcastic, know-it-all teenager (if only they knew).

It bugged Travis that even after three years of this back and forth, Wes still wouldn't come through Travis's window without permission, even if it was open. Travis had climbed through Wes's window dozens of times with him not even in the room, but Wes always waited to be let in. (Once, Wes waited outside for three hours because Travis had his phone off and didn't get Wes's text message; Travis worked hard to make sure that never happened again.) Travis forewent commenting on it, though, and instead bustled Wes in, a hand on his elbow to help him up.

"God, Wes, you're freezing!" Travis exclaimed, feeling frigid skin beneath damp clothes.

The younger boy stumbled; Travis caught and steadied him until both feet were on the floor. "Didn't real—ly notice it w—was raining 'til—l it stopped halfway h—ere."

"You should have let me come get you. I could have borrowed the car without them knowing it." Travis shut the window and dug out a soft cotton sweatshirt from his dresser drawer. "Here, change into something warm before you freeze to death."

"And have you arrested for grand th—theft auto as well as—s street racing?" Wes quickly stripped off his soggy jacket and undershirt and pulled on the sweatshirt with shaking hands.

Travis busied himself with gathering up Wes's wet clothes, granting the blonde a degree of privacy as he slipped into a pair of Travis's sweatpants. Glancing down, the newly seventeen-year-old noted that Wes was running around in nothing but socks. "Tch, dude, joy-riding at most. Besides, I'm more sneaky than that. Coulda pulled it off, no problem." A blanket was next to appear. Wes wrapped it tightly around his quaking torso while Travis used one corner to dry Wes's damp hair.

"Thanks, by the way. W—wasn't exactly having a good night."

Travis watched Wes chew his bottom lip with downcast eyes, carefully asking, "Wanna talk about it?"

Wes just shook his head. "Nothing really to tell."

"Okay." Travis let it go; the offer was there if Wes changed his mind. "Man, you are the only guy I know who could freeze to death in southern California. This is like the city of the sun."

"Isn't that in Egypt?" It was a quiet attempt at his usual sardonic responses, but Travis still appreciated it.

Travis returned with a mostly genuine smile and a gentle push to Wes's covered shoulder. "You know what I mean."

"I guess I'm just one of a kind," said Wes in a rather self-deprecating tone of voice.

Travis's own tone softened and he used one finger to draw Wes's chin up to look him in the eyes. "Yes, you are. And I wouldn't have you any other way."

Wes's cheeks pinked slightly, adding some warmth and color to otherwise ice pale skin, as a shyly pleased blush spread. He averted his eyes again.

Travis let him, knowing his words had been heard for the time being. He figured a distraction from dark thoughts was in order. "So, salt or sugar?"

"What?" Wes glanced up seeming startled.

"Salt," he held up one bag of pretzel sticks and two big bags of chips in one hand, "or sugar?" he pointed his empty hand at a pile of assorted candies and a package of Oreos.

The younger boy barely even hesitated. "Definitely sugar." He went straight for the cookies and scarfed down three in quick succession. Travis couldn't help but wonder if Wes had even eaten dinner that night or not. He quickly derailed that train of thought (wasn't worth thinking about it then) and popped open a bag of Starbursts, handing Wes a soda when the boy stopped for air.

Wes was still shaking, but it had lessened, and his white-knuckled grip on the fuzzy purple blanket around his shoulders had eased as well. Travis counted it as a small win.

He turned the TV onto the second half of some cheesy action film with the volume down low (another thing he liked about this home, his own room and his own television set) and the two of them settled onto the bed with their snacks. Travis snuggled in close to Wes, backs on pillows propped against headboard, and pulled all the blankets up high.

After a few minutes, Wes's head was rested on Travis's shoulder as he kept munching away at the Oreos, Travis pretending to watch the movie while watching Wes from the corner of his eye. The younger boy was still trembling, just no longer from actual, physical cold, and he was staring at the wall instead of the television. Travis draped his arm around Wes, and pulled him closer for good measure.

It wasn't more than a half hour later that the cookies stopped making their way up to Wes's mouth and the breath ghosting across Travis's thinly covered collarbone grew deeper and evened out. Glancing down, Travis found the young blonde down for the count; the trembling had fully stopped, and the warm body beside him was limp and completely drained of tension. (The only time Wes seemed to fully relax was in sleep, pressed close to something – someone, Wes only ever did this with him – solid and warm.)

Careful not to move too much and jar the sleeping boy, Travis cleared what of the bed he could reach and pulled them both further down into the pillows. The last things he did were to click off the lamp by his bed and place his other arm around Wes. It was good to be needed, felt good to make Wes feel better. And if Wes had to come to anyone, Travis was glad he always came to him. He only hoped he could live up to that trust.