not as strong as you think i am (i'm no superman) [dalkenzie]

Chapter 1

As MacKenzie shuffled through his dresser to decide on a shirt, he heard the ringtone sound behind on him on his desk. "Huh?" That was odd, Dalton was more of a texter in the morning, usually of whatever outfit he'd picked that day to be a flirt. MacKenzie draped a shirt on his shoulder and unlocked the phone to answer. "H'lo?"

"MacKenzie, hello dear."

"Oh! Hi, Kiva."

There weren't many parents he knew of that would take well to being called by their first names- his would certainly never be on that list- but Dalton's mom and dad were among the ranks of "cool parents" that such an act felt like second nature. And they were understanding and actually listened on top of being cool, which was a plus.

Some people just got lucky.

"Dalton's staying home from school today, he's wondering if you can pick up his homework for him?"

"Oh." MacKenzie paused in the middle of buttoning his shirt. Funny, he seemed fine yesterday. "Yeah, I can do that. Is...it serious?"

"I think it's just one of those 24-hour bug things, but better safe than sorry." Kiva's voice dropped slightly, making Mack wonder if Dalton was close by. "Nothing's happened in school that would make him stay home on purpose, is there?"

"I...don't think so," he mulled over as he finished dressing. Of course it wasn't a perfect atmosphere at the school, since jerks still loved to make their rude comments in the hallways at anybody they even suspected was "different", but Dalton usually had a smartass comeback on hand and would laugh about it later. At least no one was being physically harassed- or worse.

"Well, that's good," she sighed in relief. "I have to be at the bank by the time school's out, but I'll make sure the door's unlocked for you."

"No problem." MacKenzie hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder with a smile. Even if Dalton wasn't feeling well, seeing each other for a few minutes could hopefully make him a little happier.

***

It was likely just MacKenzie's imagination, but the school day seemed much quieter without one of its most personality-laden pupils around. At lunch he'd sent a quick Be over later. Love you text, but it stayed unanswered.

He's probably just sleeping. No need to panic. At any rate, he still managed to go around to the classes including the ones he didn't share with Dalton to pick up the needed assignments.

As promised, the Rapattoni front door was unlocked when MacKenzie bounded there after school, but the house also seemed eerily quiet. He started for upstairs to see if Dalton was maybe in his room when he heard a soft groan from the living room.

"Hmm?" He peeked around the doorway to see Dalton lying on the couch, hands on his stomach and a blanket draped on his pajama-clad frame. If anything, being sick barely dropped his cuteness by a percentage, but Mack knew when to be a caretaker. "Hi, babe."

Dalton rolled his head to lazily meet his boyfriend's gaze. "Is it four already?"

Grin. Yep, definitely asleep. "Yeah, it's four." He stepped into the living room and set the homework on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"Thanks-" Dalton shut his eyes and winced as he kept holding his stomach.

"Do you want a water or something?" Mack asked and had a fleeting wonder of if Dalton ever had anything done with his appendix.

But the boy shook his head. "Could you rub my hair? That always feels nice."

"Of course." He pulled up a hassock beside the couch and wove fingers into the familiar smooth mess of bleached locks. Dalton still held his stomach but at least his face seemed to relax. "There we go," MacKenzie murmured and leaned to sweetly peck his boyfriend's forehead. Was a little warm...

Dalton whimpered, whether out of illness pain or appreciation for the kiss was hard to tell, and settled further into the couch cushions. "Anything interesting I miss?" he asked listlessly.

MacKenzie chuckled and rubbed his fingers in smooth clockwise patterns. When an interesting person had to ask if anything interesting happened- "Well, uh, Mr. Cook had to break up a fight in the cafeteria between a couple freshman-" Dalton's mouth twitched in a possible smirk at that. "An' we ended up talking in GSA about trying to diversify the non-fiction section in the library, y'know, add some resources."

"Hmm..." Dalton shut his eyes in what MacKenzie liked to think was being lost in thought. He was usually pretty active in GSA, so there was no doubt the next day at school he'd bound right to Mr. Owen's office just spilling over with ideas. His wanting to help people was just one of the many things to love about him.

After a few minutes of hair rubbing, Dalton had been lying still enough to look like he'd fallen back to sleep until he laid a hand on his throat and whimpered again. Uh-oh- Mack drew his hand back and partially stood. "Dalt? Are you gonna throw up?" He could at least get the boy to the kitchen sink; not even the coolest of "cool parents" would be too thrilled about a sick mess on the carpet.

But Dalton rapidly shook his head back and forth. Like the rest of him seemed to be shaking now. That did not look good. "Should I call your mom?"

Apparently the wrong thing to say as Dalton quickly sat up and covered his face- sobbing?

Oh god. Tears. Not that MacKenzie had never seen Dalton cry before, but at least those times he knew what the cause was. This, what the hell was this? He tried staying calm as he sat beside Dalton and gathered the shaking body in his arms.

"Babe, what's wrong? You can tell me, it's okay." Maybe he'd been wrong and something had happened that Dalton wanted to avoid-

Dalton shuddered a breath and rubbed his eyes. "Really fucked up...took too many...y'gotta take me to the hospital, Mack."

MacKenzie felt his stomach clench in a sickening shock. There was only about one interpretation to that, one thing he could never think of Dalton doing and didn't want to say even as he exclaimed, "What do you mean took too many?!"

He didn't answer that directly, but stared with his pale green eyes that in MacKenzie's panicked imagination were getting paler.

"I don't wanna die..."

[[tbc...]]