"Cal," Torin grumbled, pushing his boyfriend away from him. "You can't kiss me when I have the flu."
Cal rolled his eyes. "I have a great immune system and I happen to like kissing you."
His boyfriend gave him a dry look. "You get sick more often than my cousin with an immune disorder. You really can't kiss me right now." Cal grumbled incoherently, but dove in for a kiss. He was feeling affectionate and also horny. Why couldn't Torin just accept his love?
Much to Cal's delight, his boyfriend kissed back but only for a little bit. That was not to his delight.
"Babe, I'm serious. You need to stay healthy for once. I do not feel like dealing with you when you're sick, and now that Ravyn married her soulmate, she's not going to want to take care of you either."
Smirking, he raised an eyebrow at the objecting Torin.
"You say that as if I care."
"Excalibur," Torin groaned, falling further into the couch. "I care. I don't want you getting sick again, and I really don't want to take care of you when you're sick. You're a little brat."
He scoffed. "I am not a brat." Another dry look from Torin.
"Well it doesn't matter. I've probably already gotten your germs anyways, so I don't see why we can't kiss," Cal countered. Torin, with a smirk of his own, picked up his boyfriend's hand and kissed the back of it.
"There. I kissed you and you already kissed me. We're good now."
"That's not what I meant and you know it," Excalibur hissed. The other man shrugged.
"In your words, 'you say that as if I care.'" However, Torin did wrap his arms around his boyfriend, pulling him against his chest. "I'll cuddle you, but no kissing until neither of us are sick."
He couldn't hear exactly what Cal muttered, but Torin didn't have to hear to know it was explicit. Cal rarely swore at his normal speaking volume. Something about being fit for polite company. Cal was many things, and someone without manners was (surprisingly) not one of them.
////
"You didn't even hold my hair back," Cal grumbled, leaning over the vomit filled toilet. Torin scoffed.
"Your hair is short. Anyways, this is all your fault. If you hadn't been so horny then you wouldn't be sick."
Cal flared at him. "Can you get Ravyn over here? I like her more. She's at least nice." Which wasn't true whatsoever. Ravyn had been nice exactly once in her life and that was after the Lev incident with Alice. Cal's cousin was rarely anything close to nice with him, and definitely not when he was sick. She was even more mean when he was ill, usually because she blamed him for not drinking enough water. Which he hadn't because somebody preferred whiskey.
"Ravyn is with Atticus and they are in their honeymoon phase," Torin said. There would be no getting her over her to take care of her idiot cousin.
"Still? It's been a month! They're married. I get it. Now can they move on already?" Cal groaned, falling back against the wall now that he'd emptied the contents of his stomach. Torin chuckled from his spot in doorway of their new apartment's bathroom. After Cal had been disowned, the couple had gotten their own apartment right below Ravyn and Atticus'. Luckily for everyone, nobody had a squeaky bed and the walls weren't too thin.
"Excalibur, babe, they went from best friends to married. They never dated. They're not going to move on from the honeymoon phase anytime soon." Cal swore, somewhat out loud this time. Being sick really did have an effect on him.
"Fine, but at least be nice to me."
"If you wanted someone to be nice to you then you would have asked for Alice to come baby you. Even then, I don't think she'd be so nice because we all know this is your fault." Again, Cal swore. Torin was, sadly, correct. Nobody was going to be nice to him since this was his fault. Except he'd never admit to that.
"Whatever."
Slowly, Cal stood, glancing at Torin expectantly.
"I'm not going to help you stand. I don't care if you just puked your guts out. This is your fault."
"I helped you when you were sick! I held your hair back, even," Cal objected, one hand on the wall and the other on the shower curtain pole.
"And then you later kissed me relentlessly while I was still contagious. I'll help you next time you get sick and it's not your fault."
"There won't be a next time," Cal said, talking about how he was never going to get sick again.
"No, you're right. It'll always be your fault when you get sick because you don't drink enough water," Torin chided.
"Hey! You're not Ravyn; you don't get to judge my water intake."
"No, but I am your boyfriend and I'm concerned about your health."
"If you were really concerned then you'd take care of me more."
"I'm not that concerned."
Cal swore again, at his normal volume this time. "You suck."
"You blow."
"Will you help me back to bed now?" Cal whined after pausing to rinse out his mouth and brush his teeth. There wasn't much point though. He'd be throwing up again in a few hours knowing his immune system.
"Only because I love you." Torin wrapped an arm around Cal's waist and guided him to their bed, helping him back on to his side.
"You're going to stay and cuddle, right?" Cal asked hopefully.
"Some of us have catch up work to do after getting sick, Excalibur. No, I am not going to stay and cuddle. When I'm done I can, but I have work to do." Chuckling, Torin kissed Cal's forehead.
"You have a fever. Get some sleep babe." He left the room, leaving a miserable Cal behind him.
YOU ARE READING
A Coalition Story
Jugendliteratur"Ravyn, I don't even know if I'm into guys," Cal whispered harshly. "Torin isn't a guy, he's a man, and you're into him," the willowy girl insisted, pushing her cousin forward roughly. He groaned, which caught Torin's attention, distracting him from...