TNT Short Fics

Tour Mode - Addendum: Edinburgh

He's just walking into his hotel room after dinner with the Cleveland crew when his phone vibrates with an incoming Facetime from Taylor. He drops the keycard on the desk before answering, confused when he sees only a black screen.

"Hello? Tay?"

"Hi," comes her croaky post-show voice from the darkness.

"Baby, what are you doing awake?" he asks, realizing it's past four there. He'd talked to her hours ago after the game and she'd been off for a bath and bed.

"Ugh, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I'm still fucking freezing."

"Did the bath not help?" he questions as he sits down to untie his shoes.

"I didn't get one. There is no bathtub in this entire godforsaken hotel. The fanciest showers ever but not a single tub," she answers dramatically. "A shower sounded fine in theory until I was freezing the minute I got out."

He lets her vent. She's not one to normally complain, but she's been playing in the cold for the last three days and the rain today put her over the edge. It sounds...well, he'll take a playoff game in the snow over three days of soggy cold any day.

He hears a loud sneeze and squints at the phone. "Tay, do you know you're on Facetime?"

"Oh yeah, shit!" she exclaims as he hears rustling. "I forgot I put it down."

Her face comes into view as she picks up the phone and he gets a look at his girlfriend. She's wrapped in the duvet with her hoodie—actually, his hoodie—pulled over her hair. Her face just barely peeks out and he can see her red nose. She looks miserable and absolutely fucking adorable. And it makes him miss her in ways he never would have fathomed before she came into his life.

"Hi there," he murmurs.

"Hi," she responds, looking over his face. "You have a sunburn on your cheeks. I'm so jealous. Tell me how hot it was today so I can live vicariously through you."

Travis huffs out a laugh before adding, "I'm sorry sweetie. You're not getting sick are you?"

"I think just the sniffles, I'll live," she shrugs.

But he can tell her voice is registering lower, scratchier than even a normal 3-show run. The last thing she needs is to get sick.

"Hey, what about some tea?" he suggests. "Warm you up and help your throat?"

"Ohhhhh, Trav. Why didn't I think of that? Hold on," she says, putting down the phone, this time face up. He watches her reach out of her cocoon for the hotel phone and dial. He takes the opportunity to change into an old shirt and strip to his boxer briefs.

She grabs the phone and looks at him once again after ordering. "Were you this cold after the Dolphins game? I don't remember you being this bad. I know I wasn't."

"Long johns, not bodysuits, baby," he counters. "That and we stayed in the bathtub so long we were prunes, remember?"

She sighs, "See! A bath! That was nice."

"We warmed up other ways too," he reminds her with a wink.

She drops her head to the side and smiles at him.

"This is why we need teleporting. I would be so warm if you were here right now," she notes wistfully before shaking her head at her own silliness.

A knock comes at the door and he laughs at her whine at having to get up but she's quick to grab her tea and get back in bed. She props the phone on her knees and he can see the steam from the mug as it curls around her like a halo as she takes a sip. Her eyes light up and she looks at him.

"Oh my god, you are a genius, Travis. It's so warm."

"Good, maybe you'll be able to sleep after," he says as he lays back and props the phone on the pillow beside him.

"You look like your voice memo selfies," she observes.

He laughs, realizing that this is how he always records them.

"Trav, make me a voice memo."

"Right now? I like talking to you like this."

"No, I mean," she pauses to take another sip." "Like, let's talk but tell me things like you do in those."

"Ah," he realizes. "You want me to ramble."

"Yes, I love your rambles."

"Mm, I love yours too. Yesterday's about the horrors of scratchy rayon gloves while performing was especially killer," he jokes.

She looks at him fondly and orders playfully, "Ramble, Trav."

He settles in because he'll never deny her anything. He tells her about dinner and the gossip from the Heights. Some about people she knows and some she doesn't. He jokingly theorizes where they'll put his home run derby trophy from today. "By Grammy number 13 or 14, Tay?" She interrupts, "Neither, we're saving that spot for the ring you get next week."

And as she finishes her tea, he shares how excited he is to get in some time with the team next week. How he's loved the things he's worked on this summer but misses playing ball. She listens intently the whole time before putting down her mug and mirroring how he is, lying on her side.

"Warm now?" he asks.

"Yes, finally," she replies sleepily.

"Back to bed?"

"But I like it here with you," she counters with a drowsy pout.

He reaches up to turn off the light and lays back down, lit only by the phone screen. "So we'll stay here together, okay?"

"K," she murmurs as her eyes slip close.

"Sweet dreams," he says, following her. 

AN: I think I'll probably end up adding little addendums to this story a few times this summer from things that happen in real life.