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Kuroo gives a long, loud groan.
Tsukishima watches him from the doorway of the bathroom. Kuroo is practically hugging the toilet, leaned over it and looking haggard and long-suffering. Tsukishima’s own hangover is raging, making his head pound and his muscles feel heavy and his patience short. He considers Kuroo’s condition in a detached way.
“We went too hard last night,” Kuroo complains. His cheek is resting on the seat of the toilet. It’s unsanitary. But Tsukishima knows how Kuroo is feeling all too well, having had this experience more than once himself in the past, so he doesn’t say anything. “We went entirely too hard.”
“Good party, though,” Tsukishima comments. It’s not really meant to distract Kuroo from his misery or to get a rise out of him, or anything. Just, you know, it had been fun. The party.
Kuroo nods sagely, the seat of the toilet squishing his cheek this way and that as he moves his head. “It was. A remarkably good party.”
“You maybe shouldn’t have done that hit, though,” Tsukishima says.
“It was just a little weed!” Kuroo wails. “I don’t know why it’s affecting me like this.”
Tsukishima plows ahead with his criticism. “You drank a lot, too.”
Kuroo opens one eye and looks up at Tsukishima. “Says you, I kept an eye on how many rounds of shots you did. You’re out of control.”
Tsukishima bristles at the accusation. “You were keeping up!” he says hotly.
“Ah, I was keeping up with the shots. You had a couple of beers, in between. I saw.”
Tsukishima snorts. “Well, I wasn’t crossfaded.”
“Well – ” Kuroo tries to protest, a little louder than he’d probably intended. He winces and shuts his eyes again. “Ah, ouch. My head hurts. I can’t yell at you right now.”
“Don’t yell at me anyway. Regardless of hangover status.”
Kuroo groans again, turns his face to lean properly over the toilet bowl. “Make breakfast,” he says, voice echoing against the porcelain.
“Can you even keep anything down?” Tsukishima asks. Kuroo has been throwing up all morning, and as pale and soaked in sweat as he still is, Tsukishima isn’t seeing signs that it will stop soon.
“Never know until you try,” Kuroo says dryly. “Anyway, I’d rather throw up your toast than keep throwing up nothing but stomach acid. By the way, don’t make the toast as dark as you usually do. I don’t know how you eat it, it’s like charcoal – ahh – ”
Tsukishima shuts his eyes as he hears Kuroo retch, then turns and leaves the bathroom.
Tsukishima sets a pan on the stove with unnecessary force – but his muscles are completely exhausted, and he’s having trouble controlling them as a result. There’s the faint sound of Kuroo spitting to rid his mouth of the remnants of his latest round of vomit, and Tsukishima turns on the burner. He won’t waste bacon if Kuroo is only going to throw it up, but he’ll make scrambled eggs at least.
“Tsukkiiiii…” Kuroo calls from the bathroom. “Make bacon…”
“I’m not wasting bacon on you!”
“So mean…”
Tsukishima ignores him. Tsukishima ponders for a moment, knowing that he should really drink some water. That’s where the hangover is coming from; he hadn’t drank much water last night at all, mostly by virtue of the fact that it’s hard to fit more liquid in your stomach when you’d already had as much to drink as he had. Objectively, Tsukishima knows that dehydration is the root cause of hangovers, but drinking water often falls by the wayside when you’re several rounds of shots deep.
Tsukishima fills a glass of water for himself, and a second for Kuroo. Kuroo’s he leaves on the counter, since Kuroo is otherwise occupied at the moment, but Tsukishima takes small sips of his – safer than drinking it all at once. Tsukishima hasn’t been throwing up this morning, but his stomach doesn’t feel perfectly steady. He thinks about having to shoulder Kuroo aside so he can use the toilet instead, and loathes the idea.
Tsukishima pulls a carton of eggs and a loaf of bread out of the refrigerator. Breakfast he can manage. Neither he nor Kuroo are excellent cooks, but they can both work their way around eggs and toast and pancakes. They subsist mostly on breakfast foods these days. It’s cheaper than takeout and easier than proper meals. Tsukishima cracks several eggs into a bowl and beats them into yellow liquid.
This is Kuroo’s apartment, really. Technically, Tsukishima still lives on campus. It’s just easier to spend the night at Kuroo’s more often than not. Tsukishima is here often enough that it may as well be “theirs.” The eggs sizzle when he pours them into the hot pan. Tsukishima turns down the dial on the toaster – for Kuroo’s toast, anyway. In Tsukishima’s opinion, Kuroo likes his toast so it’s hardly more than warmed bread, especially compared to how dark Tsukishima likes his own. But he complains every time Tsukishima makes the toast too dark, so Tsukishima figures he’ll consider making toast Kuroo’s way his good deed for the day.
Tsukishima can hear water running in the bathroom. The sink. He’s probably washing his face – he needed that. Tsukishima pushes the half-cooked eggs around in the pan. When Kuroo comes out to the kitchen, Tsukishima takes note of the fact that he had been right about Kuroo washing his face earlier. He’s only barely patted it dry, so his face is a little shiny with the water. The color hasn’t returned to his face, his eyelids are heavy with exhaustion, and there’s no sign of his usual smirk to liven up the look in his eyes.
“You look like hell,” Tsukishima comments.
“I feel like it,” Kuroo says wearily. It’s almost sad – pitiful, really – seeing Kuroo like this. Well, it’s only his own fault. Not that that’s a very charitable thought. Tsukishima wouldn’t want anyone telling him that, in his current state, even though it’s equally applicable.
“Water on the counter,” Tsukishima tells him. “Drink it.”
“Ngh.” He sits at the bar and slides the glass of water towards himself. He hangs over it as he nurses it, head sagging low enough to rest his chin on the rim of the glass. Now and then he takes a gulp of water and watches Tsukishima finish up cooking breakfast.
After a few minutes, Tsukishima sets a plate of eggs and toast down in front of Kuroo. They sit next to each other at the kitchen’s bar, eating in relative silence. Kuroo bites into his toast, stacked high with scrambled eggs. Tsukishima has always eaten his eggs separate from his toast, but Kuroo doesn’t take that policy.
“Ah,” he comments. “Nice to have something in my stomach…”
“Yeah, who knows how long it’ll be there, though,” Tsukishima replies.
“Don’t make fun of my pain, Tsukki. One day it’ll be me holding your hair back while you puke your guts out, and you’ll regret this then.”
“You don’t need to hold my hair back. I don’t keep it long, like some hooligans I know.”
“Well, so to speak.”
There’s a zero percent chance of doing anything but sitting on the couch today. Tsukishima’s head pounds and everything feels sluggish, and Kuroo looks tragic in his suffering. The instant Tsukishima sits next to him on the couch, Kuroo leans into him, head resting on Tsukishima’s shoulder. Kuroo’s head moves a little with each breath that Tsukishima takes. Kuroo is warm against him and Tsukishima rubs his hand on Kuroo’s back soothingly.
The moment doesn’t last long, though.
“Ah – shit – sorry – ” Kuroo says, voice a little strangled. He leaps up from the couch and dashes to the bathroom. There’s the sound of the toilet lid banging open, and then the sound of Kuroo vomiting. Tsukishima sighs. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep breakfast down, even if it had been bland and easy on the stomach.
“So much for breakfast,” Kuroo says when he returns. He stands in the kitchen for a moment, as if he’s unsure about whether he’s safe to sit down. After all, he may need to run back to the bathroom again.
“And I worked so hard,” Tsukishima says.
Kuroo frowns. “Don’t flatter yourself. You put some eggs in a pan and some bread in the toaster.”
“I made the toast the way you like, and I didn’t burn the eggs. I demand recognition for my hard work.”
“Yeah, yeah, I recognize it. Anyway, it was way better going down than coming up.”
“That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.”
Kuroo shrugs. He ducks down behind the bar in the kitchen and pulls out a large plastic mixing bowl. He returns to the couch and sets the bowl on the ground at his feet.
“There,” Kuroo says. “No more running all the way to the bathroom.”
“Ew,” Tsukishima says, turning his nose up at the bowl. “So you’re just going to puke in that if you need to? You’re disgusting.”
Kuroo frowns and gives a huff of annoyance. “Better than getting it on the carpet! I’ll rinse it if I throw up, obviously. It’s just a safety precaution.”
“Movie?” Tsukishima suggests.
Kuroo nods gratefully. Tsukishima grabs the remote from the side table next to the couch and turns on the TV. It’s already set to display whatever’s in the DVD player, and Tsukishima doesn’t feel much of a need to get up and change whatever disc is in the thing. He lets the movie play and feels Kuroo sag against him as the opening credits spring to life onscreen.
“Hold me, Tsukki,” Kuroo whines.
“You’re pathetic,” Tsukishima replies. He snakes an arm around Kuroo’s waist. “And sweaty.”
“There’s worse things to be.”
“Are there?”
Kuroo doesn’t reply. His body shudders, but he doesn’t pay any attention to it. He only snuggles closer to Tsukishima, manages to get an arm across Tsukishima’s lap to hold onto his hip.
“You’re shivering,” Tsukishima points out.
“I can’t help it. You throw up your entire breakfast and half your body weight in stomach acid and see how your core body temperature fares.”
Tsukishima doesn’t reply. He lets his hand stroke the curve from Kuroo’s ribcage to his hip bone, trying to comfort him a little. Kuroo may have earned the condition he’s in, but he doesn’t exactly deserve it. They may both feel like shit, but Kuroo is definitely feeling worse. And that makes it Tsukishima’s job to take care of him, as sappy and ridiculous as that sounds.
“You’re sort of a good boyfriend, you know?” Kuroo says. He looks up at Tsukishima from where he’s slouched against him.
“Thanks for the sort of compliment, I guess,” Tsukishima says. Kuroo manages a smile that seems to be taking all his energy. He’s still looking up at Tsukishima, and he glances for a moment at Tsukishima’s lips.
Kuroo leans closer. Tsukishima leans away.
“Don’t kiss me, vomit-mouth,” he says.
“Mean,” Kuroo says. He settles back down, resting his cheek against Tsukishima’s collarbone. “But understandable.”
The movie is one they’ve seen before, one they watched a couple weeks ago when some of Kuroo’s friends came over and left the disc in the DVD player. It’s just enough to distract them a little from their suffering, but Kuroo still seems to be sitting uncomfortably.
“I want to lie down,” Kuroo says after a few minutes. “Hold me.”
Kuroo breaks away from Tsukishima’s clutches and stretches himself out on the couch. For a moment, Tsukishima sits still, letting Kuroo stretch his legs over his lap. “I expect you want me to lie down, too,” he says.
“That would be the idea.”
Tsukishima does so. Honestly, with his head pounding and all his muscles sore, being vertical is less than ideal. Horizontal seems much better. He lies down behind Kuroo, and slips his arms around Kuroo’s waist.
“Better?” he asks.
“Better,” Kuroo replies.
They don’t speak for a moment. They watch the television, hardly registering the movie at all.
“It’s weird,” Kuroo comments after a few beats of their silence. “You being the big spoon.”
“Well, I’m not going to be in front of you,” Tsukishima snaps. “I don’t really feel like getting your puke on me, so you need to be able to get up if you have to.”
“You could just hand me the bowl, though.” Kuroo hears Tsukishima’s snort of derision and shrugs. “Whatever. It’s nice being held by you, anyway.”
“Heartwarming,” Tsukishima says dryly. Secretly, he enjoys being told that. No matter how much Tsukishima protests, no matter how much he swears he’d rather be anywhere else, ultimately he likes being here more than anywhere. Today is a day where Kuroo feels small and just a little helpless in his arms. It’s a small joy, feeling like he’s got more of the power than usual. Not that he completely dislikes Kuroo being a little bigger than him, breadth-wise, or the fact that he’s older, or that Kuroo is usually the big spoon. Tsukishima likes those things, actually. But sometimes it’s nice to be the one to do all those things, even if it’s because your boyfriend is puking his guts out every ten minutes and you yourself have an incredible hangover dragging at every inch of your body.
“I am a master of romance,” Kuroo quips. Even as terrible as he’s feeling, he still finds the energy for teasing. “It’s why you fell in love with me in the first place. And you’re still smitten.”
“It would be a little more romantic if you’d brushed your teeth in the past twenty-four hours,” Tsukishima says. He adjusts himself to tighten his arms around Kuroo’s waist.
“What’s the point in brushing my teeth if I’m just gonna puke again?” Kuroo says, exasperation clear in his voice. “Ah, maybe don’t squeeze so much. You never know…”
Tsukishima loosens his grip, but only slightly. The volume on the movie is low, and neither of them are paying it much attention. Kuroo is still shivering, a little shudder now and then, but more infrequent. Tsukishima presses his nose to Kuroo’s skin at the base of his neck. Kuroo smells like lingering traces of the house party they’d been at last night, like sweat and a slight hint of sourness from the vomiting, like the warm, sweet smell of his sheets and the shirt he’d slept in, like the familiar scent of Kuroo. It’s a weird combination, but Tsukishima figures he’s supposed to take Kuroo as he is, even if that means not forcing him to take a shower before they cuddle. Neither of them have the energy for that, anyway.
“Tetsurou,” Tsukishima mumbles, lips moving soft against the skin just above the fabric of Kuroo’s shirt.
Kuroo turns his head slightly in Tsukishima’s direction, but doesn’t move enough to fully look back at him. “Hmm?”
“Love you,” Tsukishima says.
Tsukishima can’t see the grin on Kuroo’s face, but he knows it’s there. “Love you, too, Kei.”
It’s not long before they both fall asleep, the movie droning in the background and the rise and fall of their chests against each other and sweat pooling between them but going ignored. The bowl remains untouched, which is a miracle in Tsukishima’s mind. Disregarding the circumstances, Tsukishima thinks it’s actually sort of nice, getting to take a nap with your boyfriend on Saturday morning and not having anyplace else to be. Tsukishima’s last thought before he drifts to sleep is how this might be a little better if he could actually kiss Kuroo right now without tasting vomit. But, he supposes, the warmth of Kuroo pressed against the length of his body is enough.