LOVE SYNDROME [NAN & MAC] - Short Stories

Chapter 18 - Time

" Do you think his cheating?"

" What! No....not that I know of?" he ended lamely even to his own ears. Few months before and he would have been able to answer confidently of his relationship status but now his own will wavering,  he couldn't speak up.

" Hhmm..." was all Mac managed, deep in thought,  a hand throwing air to his children, the food pallet forgotten in his hand. If they could speak, he would be cursed for seven ages, their hunger gleaming in their eyes, mouth gulping away at whatever feed that may come.

" I mean his away a lot. Courses, training, roadblocks and raids, like never-ending.  He comes home tired at the oddest hours and we don't get to do anything together " he continued his complain, switching his position to sit up straighter as nothing made him comfortable,  his inner turmoil boiling. When he woke up today, he didn't think he would be packing to P'Nan's home but the empty feeling, the loneliness in the apartment with no one to accompany him, made him restless,  the smallest noises he picked up adding on. He has been patient,  he knows he has but just for how long? Never did he envision himself  waiting for someone to come home as much as he did now, hoping to hear those boots at the front door and the familiar clanking sounds of a helmet being put down by the door but truthfully,  it has been more than a month, each trip lasting longer, Frog lonelier each day.

" So, no sex?" and a pillow hit Mac on the shoulder,  the man cowering away candidly.

" Of all things, that you focus on?" the upset man stressed unhappily.

" It's essential to a relationship, right?" Mac argued, his palm finally dipping into pallets, his children gulping away excitedly.

" Says the man who gets laid multiple times a week!" Frog teased right back, eyes catching the annoyed flush rising on his Hia's wife. Both quiet down at that, realizing they were discussing their sex life in Nan's pond.

" Did we just...discuss getting fucked?" asked Mac, eyes going wide in realization before they quickly turned away from each other, both shy because no, they never discussed this before and they weren't friends like that. Mac tied off the food bag, dusting his palm together before setting it aside while Frog dusted invisible lint of freshly washed pillows and duvet set out for Mac. Eyes could not meet, speech would not come, both awkward suddenly,  looking for something to do temporarily.

" Definitely gossip...!" Wei confirmed while scrubbing the same pot at the same place vehemently, peering out of the kitchen corridor, focusing on the weird behavior of the newly arrived Frog and the stay at home Mac.

" Wonder if it's me..." Nan suggested, having arrived a couple of minutes earlier, keeping himself hidden, not like you could hide a giraffe  in a kitchen but he was doing what he could, just to watch the two unlikely people bond. Frog had arrived late morning,  for a short vacation he had said, but Kat hadn't called beforehand nor was the suitcase small for a short one, Nan concluding a fight or a misunderstanding the least, for Frog to come over. He would ask his best friend, if he could contact him, the line busy for the longest hour. He did leave a lousy text eventually, before long limbs joined a pair of bottoms, a hard smack on both shoulders had them flinching away.

" It hurts bastard!" Mac yelled, swatting the offending palm away albeit unsuccessfully,  because it wound around his waist,  pulling him back to a hard chest as Nan settled on the wooden palette while Frog silently rubbed his own shoulder,  smarting in pain. // Hia surely had a hard hand//

" Won't your ass sit quietly?" Nan scolded lightly, at the squirming , tightening his arms further as he encaged Mac in a hug, jostling him side to side like one would  a child, except children laughed, Mac scowled in displeasure,  sitting back with his knees drawn up because a certain octopus liked to trap his limbs with it's own.