TWO MONTHS LATER

Greg felt like screaming; this was no longer cute, or endearing, or any other vaguely positive or even neutral adjectives that he could think of; this was now scary, frustrating and downright infuriating. In front of him was a plate of food on the table, where James was sat down and refusing to eat more than a couple of bites. The rest of the table had been cleared, and everyone else had left long ago. "Eat, James, eat!" Greg vented, "what's wrong with it now? We've been sat here for a full hour, and you only have eaten a quarter of what was served to you. You complained last night that it wasn't my cooking, well I cooked tonight, so what's your excuse this time?"

"No excuse, I'm just not very hungry," James muttered, looking away, "plus its just way too much food. This is a ridiculous sized serving,"

"You had the same sized serving as every other adult in this household. I even let you pick which plate you wanted. So, what's your next excuse? Because I've heard the serving sized one about three times tonight now. God, James, do you need glasses or something?" Greg vented, having to reign in his anger to not pound his fist down on the table.

"I'm leaving," James muttered, going to stand up, when he heard a whoosh sound come down on either side of him, "you were going to hit me with that stick! That's not a weapon, Gregory!" he yelped in surprise, but he sat back down.

"Eat the food. I'm not going to beat you, just keep you sitting there, you need to eat James! Please! I'm sick of this being a fight every single mealtime!" Greg begged.

James took the fork, grabbed a tiny forkful of food, made a show of putting it in his mouth, then dropped the fork to loudly clatter on the plate, "are we done here?"

Greg was tempted, very tempted, to give up at this stage, as he sighed deeply- like he'd given up about this stage at breakfast, and all the meals yesterday, thinking that James eating the food wasn't worth the fight that would come from it. "James, please. You know you need to eat. You're wasting away, seriously. You've lost so much weight over the last few weeks that your clothes are starting to look like clown clothes. Please, just eat!" Greg vented, holding his head in his hand.

"Good then, that means that the diet is working. Plus, I ate a huge lunch at work today," James muttered as he tried to silently stand up and Greg raised the stick again with his head still in his other hand, causing James to sit back down.

"Bullshit you ate at work today. And James, this isn't a diet. You're a doctor! You know that the body needs nutrients to survive, you know what happens when you don't have it," Greg groaned.

"What's going on?" a little voice came into the room, and Greg and James looked over to see Tyson standing in the doorway, dressed in his little pyjamas as he pulled out a chair next to Greg.

"Nothing for you to worry about," Greg smiled and hissed over at James, "eat, goddamn it!"

"I told you no," James hissed at him, "'no means no', right?" he put up air quotes.

"Uncle Jamie, please start eating again. If you don't eat… you could die. I don't want to lose you Uncle Jamie," Tyson looked over at James, his blue eyes filling with tears.

"Greg, you're really scooping low by bringing in a five-year-old to try and guilt trip me," James growled, taking another forkful of food and eating it, "you're willing to traumatise a kid in order to get me to eat?"

"You're the one traumatising him," Greg snarled back, almost inaudibly, and watched as James slowly choked down the rest of the plate. "And hallelujah! We're done!" Greg got up and took the plate back to the sink, "come on Ty, I'll take you back to bed. You," he pointed at James, "don't you move a muscle until I get back,"

"Uncle Greg?" Tyson asked as they headed up the stairs, hand in hand, "why isn't Uncle Jamie eating? What's going to happen to him?"

"He's sick, he doesn't… he's just not very well, Tyson, he doesn't understand why it's hurting us. So, tomorrow I'm going to be taking him to see a doctor and the doctor will make him better," Greg said, reaching Tyson's room, he switched the light on, and walked over and pulled the blankets back, and Tyson climbed in.

"Is he going to die, Uncle Greg?" Tyson whispered as Greg tucked him in.

"No, he's not going to die, Ty. Don't be silly, get some sleep and I'll see you in the morning,"

"My mom died," Tyson added, and Greg sighed and hung his head.

"Yeah, I know. But Jamie isn't going to die, night kiddo,"

"I love you, Uncle Greg," Tyson mumbled, and Greg smiled back.

"Love you too, Ty, I'll see you in the morning," as he crept out of the room, switched off the light and closed the door behind him, walking back downstairs, "come on James!" Greg called out, and Greg heard the chair pull out from the table and James stomp over.

"I'm so sick of you treating me like a child!" James growled.

"Well stop acting like a moody fourteen-year-old girl and then we can talk," Greg muttered.

Lying in bed half an hour later, Greg looked over at James when he couldn't ignore the knowledge that his eyes were boring holes into the back of his head, "what is it?" Greg asked.

"You don't love me anymore," James growled, and Greg rolled his eyes, "no, seriously, it's been nearly a week and a half since we've had sex. What's with that?"

"I'm tired, James. I'm really, really tired," Greg sighed, "I'm exhausted. The kids ran me absolutely ragged today. Charlie screamed for nearly two hours straight because she had a stomach ache, and screamed even louder whenever I put her down; and Ty is just stuck to my side like glue all day; he just wants to play nonstop- which is hard on my leg full stop, but in between carrying around a screaming two year old with gas and diarrhoea who was also vomiting, changing a truckload of dirty diapers today, having a five year old stuck to my hip and him wanting to and not understanding why I can't play physical games with him, especially not with his sister being sick- it's just been a very long day,"

"So that's it? I had a long day at the hospital too. I worked 12 hours today too. And my work doesn't involve just looking after a couple of kids! Welcome to the life of a stay-at-home parent! But their husbands still get sex! I just feel like you don't love me anymore," James snapped.

"Don't be like that," Greg rolled his eyes again, "this is what we both agreed we'd do to help with and hold up our keep. You work and pay some rent and save up the rest, and I look after the kids so that Rob and Josie can work. Goodnight James," Greg turned off the light and rolled over.

"You sound pissed off at me!" James switched the light back on.

Greg let out a shaky sigh, trying to regain his composure; "that's because I am pissed off at you. Maybe I'd have more energy for sex right now if I didn't just spend over an hour sitting at the kitchen table with you begging you to eat!"

"You know I can't help it!" James responded, as he grabbed and pulled on Greg, who tried to wrestle out of his grip, "come on, I just want to be with you, baby," James murmured, getting more and more aggressive in his tone and pulling on Greg harder and harder.

This continued for a few minutes until James had pinned a very mad Greg underneath him, as he tried to subdue him by kissing his neck and pinning his arms down "so this is how it is going to be, is it?" Greg snarled, wriggling underneath James, trying to throw him off; "James, think about what you're doing here. This feels like it's turning out to be a lot less like sex, and a lot more like rape. Just ignore all my trauma that I've been through, and just do what you like… Get off of me!"

"You know that consensual non-consent turns me on," James growled, as he pinned Greg down and laid nearly on top of him, so that Greg could feel James' erection pressing into him as he pulled Greg's arms above his head and held his wrists together with one hand and began pulling down the waistband of his underwear, and Greg just saw absolute red.

"Consensual non-consent turns you on, does it?" Greg snapped, "well let's see about that," as he whipped his wrists out of James' grasp, using one hand to grab his ponytail and pull, and the other shoving him over and down onto his stomach, and James yelped when his crotch and hard cock made contact with the mattress, as Greg then took the dominant position. "Let's see if you like this, hey? See how you like the feeling," Greg snarled, and he yanked on the ponytail again. James gasped, but felt a rush of anticipation rise through him at the thought of Greg fulfilling his fantasy onto him. Greg reached down off the bed and grabbed his belt off the floor and snapped it over James' back repeatedly until the skin was nearly ready to break; before slipping the belt around James' neck like a noose and snapping it upwards with one hand and hitting him across his back and sides with the other over and over, "is this what you fucking like? You stupid whore, not listening to me when I tell you to stop," Greg heard James gasping and his hands clawing at the mattress, desperate for air.

Greg dropped the belt and slammed James' face down as he ripped down James' underwear and used his other hand to try and excite himself. Once Greg was fully erect, he forced his way into James who immediately cried out in pain, "oh, you wanna cry, little baby?" Greg snapped and spat onto James, "shut the fuck up or I'll give you something to really cry about," and thrust himself in harder and faster, "you going to cry?" he sneered down at James, and pulled the belt back, "answer me, boy!" Greg snarled, as he leant forward still pounding into James; "you fucking faggot. You wanna fuck other men, I'll show you how men fuck! How much it can fucking hurt!" and Greg felt himself almost immediately start to go soft as the reality of this entire situation hit him after that moment. He pulled out of James and flopped down away from him, "there, you got your sex," Greg mumbled.

"That was great," James panted with a smile, as he pulled the belt off from around his neck and pulled his underwear up, then looked over to see Greg in his underwear curled up away from James in the foetal position, "Greg? Greg, is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," Greg muttered, "just, just leave me alone, okay?"

"What happened? Everything was going well, and then you just… stopped suddenly..." James said, then took a moment, "did you… acting this out, did that set off flashbacks for you?" to which Greg just nodded and James sighed and leaned back; "Greg, that was all consensual. I enjoyed it, for me it's a fantasy, but for you it's not and it's clearly not good for you to even act it out, so I'm sorry that I suggested it. But you didn't hurt me at all. Do you want a hug, baby?" Greg rolled over and grasped onto James, holding him as tight as he possibly could, knowing logically that it was all consensual and enjoyed, but Greg still felt dirty and disgusting.