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Mattholomule laid in his bed with his hand on the right side of his forehead, a throbbing headache made it impossible to be able to go to school, and his mom insisted he stay home. “If you get someone sick guess whose fault it will be. That's what I thought.” and so he got a free day off of school. It would have been great if it didn't feel like a knife was piercing his head from the inside out. Occasionally there would be a wave of pain that was just excruciating. He took medicine and rested all day with no relief from his headache.
He picked up his scroll to check the time. 3:30, school ended some minutes ago. He noticed a notification from Gus on his lock screen, he rolled his eyes but still smiled. he opened the text and it read “Hey, u weren't at school today, you okay?” Mattholomule texted back a short “headache.” he closed his scroll and it immediately started buzzing with at least 5 more texts.
He didn’t feel like reading them all but the last one ended with “I’ll be right over” He didn’t like to admit it but he enjoyed it whenever he and Gus got to hang out outside of school, it was nice since he never had a friend who cared enough to want to spend more time with him than was expected from a friend. It was a shame that they wouldn't be able to do all the things they normally would, like play video games or prank call the emperor's coven, all because of his stupid headache.
Matt closed his eyes to block out any extra light that might be intensifying his headache. He napped there for a few minutes, maybe 10 before his mom called him from downstairs “Mijo, your friend is here!” Mattholomule groaned and sat up to go downstairs. He went to reach for the door of his bedroom before it swung open, almost hitting him. “Watch it, dork,” Matt commented. Gus smiled at him and he smiled back despite his comment. “Sorry ‘bout that Matty.” Mattholmule had stopped correcting him on calling him ‘Matty’ a long time ago.
He sat a bag down on the floor and opened it, pulling out a container. “What's that?” Mattolomule asked before plopping back down on his bed, trying to ignore the pain coming from his head. “Didn’t you read the texts I sent?” “Uh…no?” Gus faked a dramatic annoyed eye-roll, “How rude! I brought you cookies!” Matts's eyes lit up for a second “Oh! Thanks-” he didn’t think Gus would do something so sweet for him, but it was Gus, so what did he expect?
He found himself blushing and turned his head away, even if the slightest movement made his head throb. “Now, about that headache…man, I wish I knew some healing spells right about now.” “Don't worry about it…It’ll go away soon enough.” Matholomule laid his head back on his pillow and grabbed a cookie. “These things don’t have any weird Gus magic in them right?” He teased. Gus playfully rolled his eyes. “Yeah I put some sleeping nettles in there,” he said sarcastically.
Mattholomule laughed and took a bite of a cookie, he assumed it was some weird human thing Gus acquired from the human, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “Do you like it? The humans call it ‘Salted Caramel’” Gus gestured with his hand as if ‘salted caramel’ was some great technology-advancing discovery. “Mid.” “Oh.” Mattholomule had almost forgotten about his headache before another wave of pain washed over the right side of his head.
“Ah..crap.” He held his head again. “You okay?” Gus asked with concern. “Yeah.. just the headache again…” Gus looked down with his eyebrows furrowed as if he was thinking about something hard. “Can you sit up real quick?” Gus asked as he got up from his spot on the floor. “What? Why?” he picked his head up and the discomfort grew.
“Just... I want to try something.” Mattholmule sat up and Gus threw the pillow off the bed and sat at the top of the bed. “Now lay back down.” “What?” Mattholomule seemed visibly confused. How has he supposed to lie down if Gus was there? Gus took him by the shoulders and guided him to lean back to where his head was on Gus’s chest. His heart felt like it would explode from the closeness. Gus reached up and played with Mattholomule’s hair with one hand while the other massaged his head.
“Oh my titan,” he thought to himself. This amount of affection from anyone was foreign to Mattholmule. He was screaming inside his head for a minute or two before realizing his headache was quickly fading, he felt himself relax into the comforting touch. His eyes fluttered shut and for the first time since he woke up that morning, he wasn’t tortured by pain. He might have fallen asleep for 5 minutes, maybe 20, but it was interrupted by his bedroom door opening.
He shot up from his dead sleep and quickly turned to see who was at the door. “Woah! Am I interrupting something?” “Oh fuck off steve.” Mattholomule covered his face from embarrassment. “Hey, Gus!” Steve waved, it was obvious he had just come back from some fancy emperor's coven business. “Oh! Uh. Hey Steve.” Gus sounded just as embarrassed. He turned back to Matholomule’
“You know I’m just kidding, mom said you're not feeling too hot, do you need me to pick up some more medicine?” steve went to grab his keys from his pocket. “No, It’s just a headache, I’m fine.” Steve leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. “Does it get worse whenever you move your head?” “yes?” “specifically on one side of your head?” “yeah.” “Just came out of nowhere?” “mhm.” “And how old are you again?” Gus chimed in. “You don't know how old he is?” “Yeah man what the hell?” “Okay, that's the not point.” “I’m 13.” Mattholomule finally answered.
Steve speed walked over to where Mattholomule was sitting on the bed and took his head in his hand, and inspected the top of his head. “Dude, what the hell!” Mattholomule complained. Steve tilted his head a few more times. “Dude… We’re gonna be matching!” Steve smiled after inspecting His brother. “What? What does that even mean?” “Your horn man!” Steve pointed to the horn that protruded out of the side of his forehead.
“WHAT?” Mattholmule exclaimed “No way!” Gus said excitedly. “No one told me I was gonna grow one of those!” Mattholomule's voice had confusion and shock in it, Steve shrugged “No one was sure if you were even gonna get one in the first place, It pops up in the family tree whenever it wants. The only way to get rid of the headache part while it's growing in is that fancy expensive stuff from the healing coven or a massage.” Matt could feel the headache coming back already.
“I bet you’ll look cool like a horn,” Gus stated while sitting in a criss-cross position. “Yeah of course he will, he’ll look more like me!” Steve joked before a timer on his scroll went off. “Aw man, I’ve gotta get back to work…you know what, if you have any questions just text me and I’ll answer them when I have time, alright?” Steve left in a hurry after closing the door behind him. Matholomule let out a sigh and fell back onto Gus, even if the closeness was still a bit awkward for him.
“Man…I don’t want to look more like Steve, he’s ugly,” he said in a sibling-teasing kind of way. Gus laughed at his joke. “I don’t know, I can see it. I think you would look pretty cute.” Mattholomule went red and he could see that Gus did too. “Oh uh…thank you.” Was that the right response? The silence got so loud that the two of them started laughing from the awkwardness. “Your such a dork.” Gus continued to play with the hair of the other. “Nah, I think we are both dorks.”