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18/20
Win corners Team in the locker room after swim practice and scrutinizes his face.
“Your eyes are red,” Win says. “Are you sick?”
Team automatically lifts his hand to touch the corner of his eye, but Win stops his wrist and clicks his tongue. With his other hand, he checks Team’s forehead, but Team makes a face at him. He just left the showers—obviously his skin would run hot after that.
“Win, what are you doing?”
Dean’s voice is loud enough to draw the attention of every guy in the locker room including Win, so Team quickly dodges away from Win’s hand and points at him with exasperation.
“He’s being weird,” Team says.
“He’s sick,” Win says.
“I’m not sick!”
“Maybe you are,” Mew says, the traitor. “Your nose is running.”
Team lifts the arm Win isn’t holding to his face, only to have that one captured in Win’s other hand as well.
“Stop being gross,” Win says. “Don’t touch your face.”
“But my nose is running!”
“So get a tissue!”
“I can’t! My hands are wet!”
Mew ducks out of the room for a few seconds and returns with a roll of toilet paper. “Here,” he says, handing it to Win.
While Win holds both of Team’s wrists in one hand—and why Team is letting him do this, he’s not entirely sure—he uses his other hand to spin the toilet paper around until the flap opens up and a sizable length of it detaches and spirals down.
“What are you doing?” Team asks.
Every single person in the locker room is now watching the scene playing out before them, holding absolutely still and grinning at various degrees of curvature.
Finally, Win releases Team’s wrists and rips off the strip of toilet paper. He wads it up into a ball and does the unthinkable and wipes Team’s nose with a smug smirk.
“Hia!”
In the swell of laughter that follows, Dean rolls his eyes and leaves with a wave over his shoulder. A few of the guys call out their goodbyes to him, but Team and Win are still the focus for the rest.
“Hia, stop!”
“If you did it yourself, I wouldn’t have to!”
“I was gonna!”
“Yeah, with your hand.”
“Not my hand, hia, my wrist! The back! I don’t touch anything with that part!”
Win sighs like he’s being forced to endure this and leaves the room to return the toilet paper to whichever stall Mew took it from. When he’s gone, Team walks over to Mew’s open locker and looks at his face in the mirror. His eyes are a little red, and of course he noticed his nose running.
“Maybe you should go back to your dorm and take a nap or something,” Mew says.
“I’ll drive you,” Win says as he reenters the room. He’s back in casual clothes, his black hair band tight around his wrist and his wet hair loose around his face.
It’s difficult to say no to him.
There are some, “Feel better, man!” sentiments from the other guys as they leave. Win doesn’t drape himself over Team the way he usually would, and Team ignores the slight edge of wistfulness summoned from inside himself.
Although Team feels fine and is perfectly capable of driving himself, Win leaves his motorcycle at the school and drives them back to their dorm in Team’s car. He even marches Team directly to the door of Team’s dorm room.
“Drink water and take it easy,” he says as Team unlocks the door. “Don’t come to practice tomorrow if you’re still sick, either.”
Team says, “Yeah, yeah,” and takes a step into his room.
Only for Win to catch him by the waist and turn him around in a move so smooth it sends a shock of miasma through Team’s brain. The smile Win gives him is small and wry, his hand resting with casual pressure on Team’s lower back.
“Get better soon,” Win says. His eyes stay fixed on Team’s for a long moment with unmistakable intent.
Team’s breath stutters, and then Win releases him and heads off toward the stairwell.
Team watches him go, feeling genuinely feverish for the first time all day.
21/23
Win has never skipped a class in his life, but when he wakes up in so much discomfort that he wishes he’d never been born, it doesn’t take more than five minutes for him to decide that today’s the day he’ll break his perfect attendance record.
He’s face-down in his pillow, his head pounding, when his roommate Ronan knocks on the door and calls, “Mate, your boyfriend!“
Multiple thoughts collide at once: is Team calling? Why would Ronan know? Does he have Win’s phone? Why would he have Win’s phone?
He’s still lost in a briar patch of confusion, still face-down in his pillow, still wanting to perish a little, when the locked doorknob rattles and Win hears Team’s uncertain, “Hia?” through the door.
He’s not sure how he manages it given the near-comatose state he’s in, but Win stumbles out of bed and to the door in under three seconds. Sure enough, Team is on the other side of it, wearing the too-large designer sweatshirt Win bought him for his birthday and looking sleepy.
“Hi, hia,” Team says, then frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”
Win blinks at him, struggling to connect anything to anything else. It’s February. There’s no school holiday that he’s aware of. Team should be in Thailand. There’s no reason whatsoever for him to be here in London.
But he is.
Ronan is leaning on the wall holding a bowl of something that is absolutely not breakfast food, his most obnoxious shit-eating grin firmly in place.
Win decides he feels too rotten to process this, so he just hooks an arm around Team and hauls him into his room where Ronan can’t be a nosy dick.
“Hia!”
Win closes the door on Ronan’s laughter and locks it, and that’s all he’s capable of doing before his strength runs low and he has to wrap himself around Team and rest his aching head on Team’s shoulder.
He’s vaguely aware of Team’s sleeve-covered hands resting on his bare back and rubbing up and down.
“Hia, are you sick?”
“Mm.” This means ’yes’.
“You never get sick.”
“Mm.” This means ‘obviously I do’.
He might still perish, but at least now he has his boyfriend here. Maybe they can have sex before he keels over.
He’s not at all expecting what happens next, which is Team leaning down and picking him up. Survival instinct has Win looping his arms around Team’s neck and clinging by the time Team’s actually holding him, but he still gapes for a solid four seconds.
The soft way Team smiles at him seems to clear the pain from Win’s sinuses for one precious moment.
“You were starting to sink to the floor,” Team says.
“Oh.”
Team carries Win to bed, and Win raises his eyebrows as Team sets him down.
“What are you doing here?” Win asks.
Without answering, Team pulls the blanket over Win’s legs and then sits on the bed with his legs crossed. He plays with the cuffs of his sweatshirt, his fingers hidden inside the sleeves, his expression conflicted.
“Team…?”
It’s with visible reluctance that Team says, “I missed you,” and then grimaces. “I used the money my grandparents gave me on my birthday.”
Money they surely assumed he would save, not spend on an international plane ticket to see his boyfriend.
Whatever. Win already has more than enough to take care of both of them.
He rubs his face, but he can’t so much as feign exasperation when there’s joy bursting inside him. He can’t even hide his smile.
His boyfriend is ridiculous.
“I’m coming back for your graduation,” Win says over a yawn. He drops into the soft plush embrace of his pillows. “You couldn’t wait?”
Team continues to sit hunched over, running his finger and thumb along the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve, his eyes fixed on this small distraction for several seconds until he glances sideways at Win.
“No,” he says. Then, more plaintively, like he’s not sure Win understood it the first time, he repeats, “I missed you.“
Win lets his breath out in an amused huff.
In another sign that he’s clearly off his game today, Win also doesn’t expect Team to crawl up the bed and lie down at Win’s side with his head pillowed on Win’s shoulder.
“I don’t think you should get so close,” Win says.
“I don’t care,” Team says. “The guy next to me on the plane was sick too. If one of you is gonna get me sick, I’d rather it be you.”
Win tries to work that out, but he’s pretty sure even with a clear head he’d be confused by that. “That makes zero—”
Team covers Win’s mouth with his overlong sleeve. “Can we just sleep?”
There are several other questions Win wants answers to. Questions like, “When are you going back?” and, “Who, if anyone, did you tell about this trip?” but he’s willing to put off asking them for now. If this rotten feeling follows the usual trajectory, Win’s going to wake up from this nap feeling much worse, and it’s an immeasurable comfort that when he does, Team will be here.
So Win slides down onto his side and curls around Team’s legs, sliding one arm between Team’s thighs and resting his head on Team’s lap. When Team starts stroking his hair, it only takes minutes before Win drops off to sleep.
24/26
At four thirty, Team leaves his last press conference and walks directly into a wall.
He’s been looking a little peaky all day, so that’s the final straw for the people whose job it is to look after him. By five o’clock he’s being formally presented to his doctor for a diagnosis.
“Am I dying?” Team asks.
Everyone around him certainly seems to think he is and have expressed as much in varying degrees of panic over one of the country’s top swimmers falling desperately ill, but right now it’s only Team and his doctor, so they’re free to be facetious.
His doctor gives him a wry look and says, “No more than usual.”
Team grins and sucks back a dribble of snot.
His doctor grimaces and hands him a tissue box.
“Sorry, sorry,” Team says in exaggerated English.
He’s sent home with fairly common medication as a formality, but Team’s only real directions to follow are rest and drink fluids until it passes. Once he’s through the door of the apartment, he leaves the bag on the kitchen counter and takes a swan dive into the messy sheets of the bed. He rolls around for a few minutes, stretching out his sore muscles, before settling on his back.
He takes a selfie and posts it online with six sick emojis as the caption.
Then he sends the same photo to Win in their private Line chat with a, Hiaaaaa I’m dying come home and take care of meeee and four different stamps of cartoons in medical distress.
He falls asleep after that, hugging Win’s pillow to his face.
A soft touch on his cheek wakes him, but Team waits until Win’s fingertips brush deep into his hair and massage his temple to make it known with a groan that he’s conscious again.
“Hey, baby,” Win says.
“What time is it?” Team asks. He catches Win’s wrist without opening his eyes and pulls on Win’s arm. “S’dark. Sleep.“
Win lets Team pull him, but he doesn’t lie down. “It’s only eight,” he says. “You didn’t eat, did you?”
Team thinks about the consequences of telling the truth. He’ll have to get out bed and walk all the way to wherever the food is. He’s probably not sick enough that he can persuade Win to bring him food in bed.
Unfortunately, he deliberates too long, and Win says, “C’mon, up. I’ll make you something light.”
“Nooo,” Team whines.
Win bats his forehead so gently there’s almost no point in doing it at all. “Decide what you want quick or I’m gonna decide for you,” he says.
Team opens his eyes and finds Win kneeling next to the bed, his expression warmer than his tone would suggest. Team tries a pout.
Win raises both eyebrows. “As cute as that is, no to whatever you’re asking for.”
“You’re mean,” Team tells him. “Marriage’s made you mean.”
Win snorts and braces his hand on the side of the bed as he stands. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. ”I’m making soup, and you don’t get any say in what kind it is unless you get to the kitchen before I start putting stuff in it.”
Team makes a weak grab for Win’s suit jacket as he walks away, groaning in protest. The food thing isn’t much of a threat, since Win actually cooks well and they like most of the same things, but he objects to this whole being in separate rooms concept.
He’s aware, if not entirely proud, that he’s needy when he’s sick. So, with great grumbling, Team yanks the comforter off the bed and follows Win to the kitchen wearing it like a cloak.
Win laughs when he sees him. “You giant toddler,” he says, “go put that back.”
“No,” Team says. He puts his chin on Win’s shoulder and closes his eyes, sad that he can’t smell Win’s hair through the clog in his sinuses.
There’s already a pot on the stove and there are packaged vegetables that Team likes laid out on the counter, so Team just puts an arm around Win’s waist to anchor himself and settles in to be a distraction. Win lets him do it while he chops and slices, and Team grins whenever Win can’t help but laugh at the slug slumped on his back.
“Are you, like, actively trying to be annoying?” Win asks.
“No,” Team says. “I’m helping. You’re doing a good job. See? I’m being encouraging.”
Win picks up a head of broccoli and smacks Team on the forehead with it.
Team tries and fails to bite it.
After dinner, Win changes out of his work clothes and showers while Team dozes on the living room sofa with the TV playing junk he’s not watching. At Win’s urging, he took the medication the doctor gave him, but it has yet to kick in. His head is cloudier than it’s been all day, and his eyes water whenever he tries to focus on the moving images on the TV screen.
So he’s a fair sight more miserable when Win crouches down in front of him and presses the back of his hand to Team’s cheek and forehead.
“You’re a little hot. Wanna go to bed?” Win asks.
Team moans, “I’m going to die,” and then, even more plaintively, “don’t let me die like this.“
Win kisses his forehead. “You’re not going to die from this, baby,” he says. “I’ll make you live forever.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing people can do yet,” Team says. He buries his face in his arms and groans. His head is starting to form needles. “My head hurts. I can’t move.”
After a few seconds of consideration, Win pries the comforter open and climbs onto the sofa behind Team, then seals them back up again. He wraps an arm around Team’s stomach and kisses the back of Team’s head. “Want the TV off?“ he asks quietly.
Team nods.
This isn’t a great idea. They’re in a high-rise and all of the curtains are open, but for now, Team is as comfortable and relaxed and content as he possibly can be. He finds Win’s hand and interlocks their fingers with a squeeze.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Mm.”
27/29
Win forces himself to work all week until he loses his voice, and then his father calls him into his office.
“Go home,” he says.
Win tries to object, but none of his eloquence makes much of an impact when the best sound he can produce is a reedy croak.
His father listens to all four of Win’s attempts at speech, his cheek propped on his fist, and then says, “Are you done?”
Win makes a face. He nods.
“Good,” his father says. “I already spoke with your husband.”
Win widens his eyes in a universal expression of how could you?
Team’s been on his back all week, telling him he’s going to collapse if he doesn’t rest, but Win casually brushed him off every single time, determined to make it to the weekend.
It technically is, being Friday afternoon.
But now he can’t just go home and pretend he took the day off of his own volition. His own father had to rat him out to his husband and now Team’s going to be an annoying brat about it forever. Win gives his father another exasperated look.
Do I do this to you? he asks with his eyes.
His father seems to understand, but his smile has more amusement than empathy. “He sounded annoyed,” he adds.
“Dad!” Win rasps.
“Ah, ah. No more talking. Go home. Come back on Monday if you feel better. Let Team take care of you.”
Let him lord this over me more like, Win thinks.
When he gets home, Team isn’t there to greet him, but Trunks and Mistletoe are. They’re sitting shoulder-to-head in the entryway wearing very humanlike expressions of disappointment.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Win tells them at a whisper. He picks up Mistletoe and lets her drape her body over his shoulder as usual while Trunks follows them to the bedroom.
When Team gets home, Win’s in bed on his phone emailing a client in California about some stumbling blocks that have prevented the zoning of their newest resort. He doesn’t normally need much time to write back to native English speakers, but Win’s English follows mainly British conventions—especially after living and studying in London for two years—and he’s had to double-check this client’s terminology more than once this week.
As such, he’s not paying full attention to the background noise of Trunks dashing to greet Team and Team laughing when Trunks jumps into his arms. Mistletoe curls into a smaller ball by Win’s side, an ink splotch with only the white tuft of fur on her neck that inspired her name visible.
As Team’s footsteps approach the bedroom, Win rushes to finish the email and sends it with a quick dash of his thumb.
He looks up to find Team leaning in the bedroom doorway, Trunks cradled in his arms and panting with glee.
Team raises his eyebrows. “How come you’re not resting?” he asks.
Win adopts an air of utter innocence, pointing to his throat and shrugging.
“You’re such a jerk,” Team says without heat. He carries Trunks over to the bed and sits next to Win. He releases Trunks and leans close to kiss Win’s forehead. He immediately smacks Win’s arm and says, “You still have a fever!“
Win frowns and feels his own forehead. Huh. In a hoarse croak, he says, “I thought it went away.”
Team says, “You’d have to rest for it to go away, you dumbass. And stop talking.”
Win sticks his tongue out at him.
Team absorbs that without reacting, then abruptly tackles Win down to the bed, digging into Win’s sides with both hands and making Win bark out a soundless laugh. It’s a dick move, but Win admits he kind of deserves it after being belligerent about this all week.
Their thrashing around thoroughly disturbs Mistletoe’s nap and sends her out of the room at a sprint with Trunks chasing after her thinking it’s a game.
When they settle down, Win makes a face and rubs his aching throat. Team bats at his cheek with a gentle glance of his fingertips and asks, “Will you actually go to go to the doctor now?”
Win finally admits defeat and nods. To earn back some of the sympathy that’s been ebbing away every day he’s ignored his own health, Win nuzzles his face against Team’s chest and makes a pathetic noise deep in his chest.
Team says, “Yeah, yeah,” but he does concede. He strokes his hand into Win’s hair and draws the stands out between his fingers. It’s grown out longer than Win’s father likes, but Win’s already done his bit by dyeing it back to black. He likes when Team plays with it too much to cut it shorter than it is.
After spending a few minutes relaxing in their blanket cocoon, Team kisses the top of Win’s head and says, “Now that your voice is gone, you’re not gonna be able to complain about Mistletoe throwing up on the rug again.”
Win immediately pushes himself up onto one arm to try and look into the living room, but Team laughs and pulls him back down.
“I’m just kidding,” Team says, mischief bright in his eyes.
Win gives him a look and flicks his forehead.
Team catches his hand and closes his teeth on the side of it.
Another scuffle follows, with Team laughing and Win smirking as he quickly gains the upper hand. Team flicks at Win’s fringe, seemingly unbothered by Win pinning him down.
How am I supposed to rest when you’re this cute? Win would say, if he could.
After that, Team doesn’t bring it up anymore. He makes an appointment for Win to visit their doctor the following morning, and he calls Pharm to get the recipe he uses for sore throats. They eat in bed, leave their bowls on the side table, and watch half of a movie on Win’s tablet.
Win changes the sheets while Team showers, and Team cleans and refills the humidifier while Win soaks in a bath to try and clear his sinuses.
By ten, they’re back in bed and Win rests his head on Team’s chest, thoroughly enjoying the neck massage he’s getting.
“I love you,” Team says.
Win nods.
“Not gonna say it back?” Team teases.
Win points at his throat without opening his eyes.
“Huh? I couldn’t hear that. Once more?”
Win slaps Team’s chest, directly over his heart.
“Ow!”
Win grins and follows up with a kiss on the same spot. He feels worse than he did this morning, but he’s a firm believer in the medicinal value of Team’s presence.
He likes to think it’s mutual.