Work Text:
Even if specifically asked, Trey wouldn’t be able to tell you the first time Cater called him by that particular nickname.
Not because it wasn’t important—nothing related to his best friend was anything less than that. He remembered almost every “first” between the two of them. Even something as benign as the day he first saw Cater’s hair down, instead of pulled up in its usual style.
It wasn’t because he didn’t care. If he thought about it—and he frequently tried not to for his sanity—it was partially because it slipped into their vocabulary so naturally. Trey couldn’t think of a time when Cater hadn’t been calling him that.
Obviously it hadn’t started the day they met, but if it had, Trey would’ve reacted the same way.
“Hey, Baby. Can I borrow some socks? Mine are all in the laundry.”
“Sure. They’ll be loose on you, but check the top drawer.”
Baby.
Cater called him Baby. Whenever they were alone—and only when they were alone—it was more common to hear than Trey’s own name.
It fell from Cater’s lips, soft and rosy. Like the spring petals that would get stuck in Trey’s hair as he ran to class.
Trey noticed recently that it was his contact name in Cater’s phone as well. Cater was texting him in class despite being right beside him, and he spied that the screen simply displayed: Baby, embellished with a single club suit emoji.
It should be weird.
They aren’t together. They may know one another better than anyone else at college. Cater may slip into Trey’s room at odd hours of the night, without a word beyond a quiet greeting—and Trey may know it’s because his friend is lonely.
Trey might wear Cater’s aftershave, because the smell is more soothing than anything else when his day inevitably becomes overwhelming.
They might text each other goodnight on the days when they can’t sneak around. Even though they live only one wing apart in the same dormitory.
But still, they’re best friends and nothing more.
Which is exactly why it’s confusing that a name so intimate never feels the least bit overbearing. It should be a shirt that is much too tight, not a warm scarf that hugs his neck just right. Yet it wraps him all the same.
Baby.
Maybe Trey didn’t remember the first time because he’d been distracted. It could have been during freshman year, when they shared a room and ravenously made out daily because proximity allowed. Well, that, and about a dozen other reasons that Trey chose to crush down.
Cater would often try to chat casually about his day, interspersed with deep kisses and teasing licks that made Trey’s skin cook with need and his brain swim in his skull. He wanted to hear about Pop Music Club, but it was hard to focus when Cater listed all the song choices while pinning Trey’s arms over his head. He could see the curve of Cater's Adam’s apple move when he laughed, and Trey needed it in his mouth.
“Baby, are you even hearing me right now? Heehee~ what am I saying? You’re totally brain dead from this.”
“K-keep talking… ‘m listening, I promise.”
It could have been on a groggy morning, when they stayed up until sunrise talking instead of studying, falling asleep together in a heap on the floor. Sometimes, Cater would lay on his chest if it turned cold in the evenings, or, alternatively, if they got on a topic exciting enough to him that he was overcome with an impulse to be inches from Trey’s face. As if it was required that Cater fog Trey’s glasses with his breath to properly explain just how important it all was. Usually, the subject was something about fashion or astrology.
Trey wouldn't dare complain. Back pain was nothing if he could see Cater’s freckles up close and feel his voice vibrating through his torso.
He could still remember the screaming of his bones. The carpets in Heartslabyul weren’t exactly plush, and his body was not on board with his heartsick decision-making. Trey already wasn’t a morning person, and starting the following day with rug burn and a crick in his neck probably inhibited his memory.
“Mnn… rise n’ shine, Baby. We are def gonna be late to breakfast.”
“Uhg… we gotta stop doing this. My ribs feel like they’re bruised.”
“Wow~ I’m usually the drama queen here. Poor thing!”
“Don’t patronize me. Geez… ow…”
“Awww~ I’ll kiss it better if you ask nice.”
“Cater, c’mon.”
“I like when you’re grumpy.”
“Mmnn…”
That name. It always stuck with him more than it should. It kept him company when his hands began shaking again from an unexpected, particularly loud voice startling him in the hall.
It haunted him when he typed out and deleted the words “I love you,” over and over again.
Perhaps it had been a moment like now, when Trey was so hard he could barely breathe, and he could feel so much of Cater’s flesh and bone that he swore he could drown in him. Maybe that’s when Cater said it the first time.
His memory would have betrayed him, if Cater’s chest was flush with Trey’s and he could feel his heart pounding in time with the cock that throbbed as it slid against his own. Just as it did tonight, in the quiet warmth of his bedroom, where the messy scene was lit only by a set of white string lights. Cater gifted them to him to keep his nightmares away. He could feel his friend’s lips on his neck, ticklish and soft, sucking dark, obvious marks into Trey’s porcelain skin—intentionally above the collar line.
He’d begged Cater to be more subtle about that. He never meant it, and Cater knew that.
Their hips dragged together, and Trey blushed at the lingering slickness. He never thought he’d be a person who kept lube around, but Cater changed a lot of things he previously thought himself incapable of. God, Cater’s tongue. It teased at his earlobe and he moaned despite his valiant effort to swallow the sound. His hands found his friend’s waist, squeezing it in a weak attempt to slow the pace. They were naked besides their pajama shirts, and Trey often came too fast for his own tastes—even with clothing offering a buffer. The swollen curve of Cater’s dick was so overwhelmingly nice, and he didn’t want this to be over yet.
“Gettin’ close or something?” Cater murmured, thrusting harder instead of giving in to Trey’s silent plea. “Mnn, wow… don’t think I’ll ever get over how good it is to fuck against you. You’re really cute when you get all pathetic and sweaty, s’ like your body was made for me. How about I angle this way an’ we can—ohh—,” the smaller man shifted just so against him, and whatever Trey planned to say evaporated in his renewed bliss.
“Uhnn—mnn—Cater, s’good—you’re so hot—”
The praise warbled its way out at an octave that would shame him, if Trey could remember how to do anything except drag his hands over thrumming velvet skin. He set his jaw intentionally so he didn’t cum from the delightful humiliation of Cater laughing at his pitched moans.
“Yeah, that’s good, you’re my sweetie aren’t you? Let me have more of this nice, hard cock. You don’t have to think or stress aaaaanymore—just let me play with you,” Cater groaned against Trey’s shoulder, friskiness dissolving into something more possessive.
Cater was awfully affectionate today. It sounded funny to say that in this context, but there were ways to do this less intimately. They didn’t have to have their arms around each other in an amorous, clinging embrace. Cater didn't need to rub his nose against Trey’s cheek between kisses—a gesture that could be interpreted as so scaldingly tender that it threatened to make Trey weep. Trey didn’t have to trace a shaky heart silently on Cater’s back, while Cater shut his eyes with a shivering sigh.
They didn’t have to make love so often when they had sex. But they did anyway. It happened without trying.
“Dammit. You're totally asking for it. Acting cute and so… like this,” Cater cooed with a small gasp. He scolded Trey often when things got this intense. But he never stopped him. If anything, he held on tighter, choosing to bite ruthlessly into his pectoral rather than rolling away. Leaving perfect arches of teeth over his heart, he wished Cater would just eat it out entirely.
They tangled their bodies all the more, humping and grabbing, all reservations forgotten. It felt too incredible for either of them to get caught up in the unsaid hanging between.
Trey kissed Cater’s chin, his cheek, his eyelid. He licked his friend’s pearly canines in a wet, hot swipe while tracing the tip of his toe up his calf. Cater sunk long fingernails into his muscles, holding on for dear life.
“Fuck, Trey,” Cater breathed, “You’re actin’ so slutty.”
“Cater, can you say it?” Trey begged before he could shut himself up. “Can you call me what you do? I really, really want it—”
He could say that to Cater. No hiding behind pretenses of what he should do, or what he should need. With Cater he could want so entirely that he could barely accept it as morally correct. It was animal.
“Call you what I do?” Cater asked, out of breath and emotionally raw. His expression betrayed him; he was torn open and struggling to pull his usual protective layer back into its rightful place.
“Please, I want to hear it—,” Trey choked.
Cater tilted his head, understanding overtaking his features in a blushing, sanguine wave. He leaned in for another kiss, whispering into Trey’s open mouth, “Oh, right… of course I can. How could I forget? Cum with me, won’t you, Baby?”
Leveraging his body up, Cater looked down at Trey through his lashes as he rolled his pelvis—rocking their bodies together with an intensity that overwhelmed Trey nearly instantly.
“Show me,” Cater murmured, barely audible. The glow of the string lights made him look like an angel, beautiful and dangerous.
In a writhing mess underneath him, Trey climaxed with a cry—all before finishing his next thought.
It would’ve been a thought about love, and how, for Cater, maybe this special name was as close as he could get to verbalizing it.
Maybe Trey really was special to him.
His Baby.
At least he let himself think so right now. Cater might forgive him for being a little too scrambled to reel himself in.
“Mnn—Tha’s right lay just like that—good—”
Cater was finishing on his stomach, his hand finding a home on Trey’s cheek. His mouth slack as he maintained eye contact while thrusting through his release. He looked at Trey like he owned him; and Trey knew this was one of those moments that would linger with him for months—if not forever.
They laid in the quiet after cleaning up together, facing each other with their chests pressed close. Trey could call it cuddling—because that’s really what it was. It wasn’t unusual, but it was a heavy feeling. Not heavy like a sinking stone, but weighted—like layers and layers of quilts piled on after playing in fresh snow.
“Hey, Cater?”
“Mnn?”
When did you start calling me…?
No… maybe not. He probably shouldn’t draw more attention to it than he already had. It didn’t matter when. What mattered was that Cater didn’t stop. Not talking about it was probably the better move.
“Did you brush your teeth yet?” Trey asked, choosing a new pathway altogether.
Cater gawked, “Trey. You have got to be messing with me.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“Your tongue was literally in my mouth for the last hour and a half, what do you think!?”
“You always taste clean.”
Cater’s hands curled into fists against his friend as he tittered in mock irritation, “Oh my god! You’re going to drive me insane.”
“Sorry, you don’t have to get up,” Trey chuckled, now backtracking.
“I won’t be, thank you very much! Your boobs are too comfy,” Cater shoved his face into the waiting mounds of muscle as if to punctuate. Trey squirmed.
“D-Don’t call them that…”
“Oh, why not? Are you embarrassed?”
“We have class early. Let’s sleep already.”
“Heehee~ more amo for later, I see.”
Trey groaned, closing his eyes tighter than they needed to be. He always seemed to be the one left flushed and shy after these nights. Why was he so pitiful around Cater? He paused, a curious thought making itself known at the edges of his mind. What would Cater say if…?
Trey rolled over slightly, a gentle smirk curving his lips in the dark as he whispered into Cater’s hair.
“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight, Baby.”
“—!!”
Cater had never sat up so fast, startling Trey enough that he nearly squeaked.
The smaller man looked down at him, glinting eyes wide and mouth ajar. Open, to say something. Anything. To protest, to tell him off, to level any kind of retort that would cram those words right back into Trey’s mouth where they belonged. His narrow hand fastened to Trey’s face on instinct, squishing his cheeks together hard in an effort to wipe that grin off his smug face. Trey could feel that Cater wanted to crush him to bits in the most fond way possible, and he found himself wishing that he would.
Cater squinted, huffing through his nose before a defiant smile of his own fought its way onto his lips.
“God. You’re so… Goodnight, Trey.”
Cater tossed his head with a snort before flopping back down. He stifled a giggle as he did so, one that Trey would dare say sounded bashful.
He snuggled closer, and Trey could only think that, at least now, he would always remember the first time he said it himself.