Miguel's POV

Ugh.

Ugggh…

Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhh…

I wanted to die. Somebody… anybody… please kill me now…

Squinting at myself in the toothpaste-flecked mirror, I looked dead already. Like someone just fished my body out of a storm drain. Pale, pasty, puffy, sweaty. Lines on my face and creases under my eyes like I'd just finished reading Bajo la Misma Estrella. Eyelids gunky. Nose rubbed raw.

Bronchitis sucks major donkey dick.

I flipped the light, shuffling my way back to my mess of a bed, not even bothering to scrape off all the wadded-up tissues and crumpled snack wrappers before collapsing horizontally across the sweaty sheets. I was sore. Everything hurt. My mouth was full of sawdust.

"Miguel," came my older sister's voice at my door. "Mom says it's time for dinner. She wants me to see if you're still alive. And if you want some barbeque."

" Uuuughh! "

"Okay, well… like, is that a yes?"

" Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggghhh! "

"MOM," the voice called downstairs. "Miguel's dead. And he doesn't want barbeque."

I went to pry myself from my bed sheets but couldn't. They were sticky. Through no fault of my own for once.

This is a good place to die, I thought to myself. In a room reeking of swamp dick and murdered time. Ass-up in bed in my boxer shorts, surrounded by wreaths of Twinkie wrappers and wadded mucus rags gleaming like bolls of cotton beneath a scalding Mississippi sun. What an honored and dignified way to go. Who could ask for better?

Just as I was about to die, however, my phone rang.

~Oh yes I love her like PUSSY! MONEY WEED! PUSSY MONEY WEED, PUSSY MONEY WEED! ohyesIloveherlike~

The noise was coming from somewhere in the tangled mess of my blankets. I slapped at the bed sheets like a beached manatee, variously trying to find my phone and destroy it as the throbbing in my temples synced up with the obnoxious Lil Wayne tune.

My knuckles hit something hard and iPhone-y. Gaah! Found it!

I swiped the screen without bothering to check who it was. Only twelve people had my number. Most of them were downstairs. Two more were girls at school who were mad at me. And I'd been expecting the last one to call me all day.

" Uggggggggh. "

There's a long pause on the other end of the line. "Wow. That bad, huh?"

I raked my manatee flipper out, scooping the champagne-colored status symbol up and drawing it into my midsection, whereupon I promptly curled around it. "Hiroooooh …." I moaned pitifully. "I'm dying."

Over the line, Hiro took a bite of something crunchy. "We all are, dude. We all are."

"Yeah, well…" I sniffled. "I'm doing my dying expeditiously. Are you eating? While I'm on my deathbed? You asshole?"

Another loud crunch. "It's an apple," he said. As if that made it better.

"Mmmf…" I coiled tighter around the phone, resting my cheek on my arm. "Bring the apple here. Feed it to me like you're my servant boy and I'm a pretty, pretty princess."

Hiro chuckled. "You want me to come over?"

"You'd probably need a HAZMAT suit and government clearance." I grinned. "But yeah. I want you over here."

There was a pause in the apple-chewing. "... oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm."

"What, uhh…" fingers drumming on a desk. "What would we… do?"

A bleary grin scrawled across my face. I sat up. "You mean, if you came over?"

I could hear him set the apple down. "Yeah."

"Oh, well…" I drummed my fingers in my lap, pretending to ponder it. "We'd probably play some video games. Maybe watch some funny videos. Maybe do some homework."

"Uh-huh?"

"And then..." I collapsed back down on my pillow, grinning at the ceiling. "...once the door was locked and everyone went to sleep… maybe we could put on an old horror movie."

"Uh-huh?"

"And… we could get under the covers… big spoon and little spoon… with the lights off. I would slip my hand up under your shirt… and rub your belly while we watched."

The creaking of a chair. "Hold on." I listened along as Hiro got up, padded across the creaky floorboards in his socks, and click! ― locked the bedroom door.

More padding across floorboards. The sound of an old spring mattress shifting under a cute tush. " Uh-huh? "

"Are you wearing anything?"

Across two miles of satellite space, I heard my boyfriend swallow. "Just… a shirt. And my boxers."

"Where's Tadashi?"

"Downstairs. Getting destroyed by Aunt Cass in Monopoly."

"Take off the shirt. Leave the boxers."

I listened intently as he followed my instructions to a T. I closed my eyes, eagerly imagining what I was hearing. That ugly old brown shirt sliding over Hiro's little paunchy stomach… up his chest… over his inexplicably freckled shoulders… popping free of his floofy dandelion head.

"Lay down," I commanded. "Turn off the lamp. Put me on speaker and close your eyes."

As he did all this, I quickly fished a fresh Kleenex from its box and blew the absolute shit out of my nose. Mucus and dying would not adversely affect my flirting this night.

"Ya done?"

A heavy breath against the receiver. "Yeah."

I nuzzled my cheek against the impossibly smooth screen, wishing it was him. "So… where were we? Oh yeah… so, I'm rubbing your belly, right? And then… as Dracula vs. Frankenstein is playing, I'll gently press my scalding-hot lips to your neck. As my hand slips further up your shirt, I'll hear you make that cute little whimper you make whenever I touch you. Y'know… the one that makes me so, SO horny."

Coincidentally, and not at all just for my benefit, I hear Hiro whimper.

I grinned, hard as a board.

" What else? "

"Nuh-uh," I shook my head, as if he could see me. "Your turn. I gotta get off too, y'know."

There was a pause. Long. Defeated. I could just make out the unmistakable sound of fingers working beneath elastic. It was forever before he said anything.

"I, umm… I stole your shirt."

I blinked. What? "What?"

"I stole your shirt," Hiro repeated, blushing through the phone. "Your, uuh… Type O Negative tee shirt."

I blinked again. "I thought I lost it. Or my mom threw it away."

"Nope. It's here. I keep it under my bed. I'm looking at it right now."

I felt relieved. Then confused. Then it hit me like a sock full of oranges.

"I, uuh," he moaned against my ear. "I…"

"Tell me what you do with my Type O Negative '95 World Tour commemorative shirt."

"I…" he swallowed, licking his dry lips. "I wait until Tadashi's gone to sleep. When I haven't seen you for a couple of days. And I'm… ggn…frustrated."

By this point I am molesting myself with all the verve and audacity of a sailor on shore leave. Just the thought of Hiro alone in his room… or even better, trying to sneak a quickie while his brother slept… using MY shirt…

"I, umm… " he continued, sounding close. "S-sometimes I put it on. Most times, though, I… just…"

Fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap.

"...I just like to… smell you. In my bed. On… on me."

Jesus. "God I want you so fuckin' bad right now."

I heard him swallow. "I want you too."

"Hiro," I pinched my eyes shut. "Please… pretty please… can we stop being virgins before the month is out? I know it's not gentlemanly to ask, but I'm begging you."

"Heh. I'll do you one better. Dashi and Aunt Cass are both gonna be out of town this week."

I sat up. "YEAH?!"

"Yeah. And… you're definitely coming over."

"Can we…" My mouth felt dry. "Can we… do… stuff?"

"Oh yeah."

Alright Miguel. Big swing. "Can we… do… eachother?"

Hiro chuckled. "Duh. I wasn't lying a few days ago when I said I wanted you inside me. I, uhh…" he licked his lips. "I wanna feel you spreading me open. I want to scream your name while you grip my hair and push me down into my pillow. I want you to make me sore."

And BOOM goes the dynamite.

It just hit. Before I could even register what was going on, I was finishing. In my shorts. On my belly. Bedsheets. Dirty Kleenexes. Hair. Basically just a fantail pattern of finishing all over. Muscles locking up. Head thumping back against the pillow. Molars grinding into powder.

"Ggggggf!" came the noise from my phone. I tried to listen, but I was panting too hard.

We rested there for what felt like forever, curled around our respective phones, marinating in our respective fluids.

" God. " Hiro heaved.

"I know, right?"

I hear him palm the sweat from his face.

"Y'know…" I grin at the blackened screen. "I think I'm actually looking forward to seeing you this weekend more than I'm looking forward to my birthday."

I could practically feel Hiro blush through the cold static. "Likewise. But, hey… I gotta go see if Tadashi ever got his railroads back. The top hat was losing to the corgi pretty bad when I left."

"It's a Scottie dog," I smirk tiredly. "And… okay. I guess I'll let you go. For now."

Hiro planted a comically loud kiss to his phone's screen. "Love you, Migs. Get to feeling better, 'kay?"

"I love you too dandelion head."

"Nite."

"G'night."

Of course we continued to stay on the line for another 10 seconds. Because hormones. And lovestruck teenagers.

Finally, when the urge to say 'I love you' again got too bad for me to handle, I pressed the button on the side of my phone, turning the screen on. I found the little red circle with the phone facing downward, like an eyeless frowny face. I poked it, and the line went dead. I went back to being sick as a heat-crazed cow.