Page 9 of Should the Sky Fall

“I couldn’t drive with a migraine.”

“Sure you couldn’t.” Cal throws back whatever remains in the tumbler. “How convenient for you to get a ‘headache’ when you went to visit your sister and her brats.”

Dawson bristles. “Don’t call them that.”

For the first few seconds, the silence is so thick Dawson nearly chokes with it. Everything after that happens in a blur.

Cal stalks forward, slamming the tumbler onto the island as he trudges around it, his gait uncoordinated. The tumbler doesn’t shatter, though it must be a close thing. The sound snaps Dawson into action, forcing his legs to move, to get away. It’s an instinct, a useless one, bound to only make Cal angrier.

He barely makes it two steps before Cal grabs him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him back.

“Say that again,” Cal growls. He presses Dawson against the counter, the edge digging into his lower back.

Dawson grinds his teeth. On a deeper level, he’s made peace with the fact that he won’t be walking away from this unscathed. Since he's already doomed, he might as well grow a backbone for once.

He catches Cal’s gaze. “I don’t want you to call them brats. You’ve never even met them.” In retrospect, Dawson’s grateful. He doesn’t want someone like Cal around his nieces.

Cal’s smile is slow and cruel. “I’ll call them whatever I want. Brats,” he enunciates. “What else could they be, born into your pathetic little family. Fucking spineless, spoiled brats. Just like you.” His fingers wrap around Dawson’s throat and squeeze. “Look at me when I talk to you.”

Dawson opens his eyes. He wasn’t aware he’d closed them.

Cal’s fingers tighten, cutting off Dawson’s airway. His stomach lurches, his head throbbing with renewed vigor.

“I… I don’t feel so good,” he chokes out. “Can I just—”

“Drop the fucking act, will you? No one’s falling for that bullshit.”

His heart threatens to beat out of his chest. “Cal, seriously. I can’t do this now.”

“Oh, you can’t?” he says snidely. “In that case, let me make it swift and clear.”

Cal lets him go, and Dawson can breathe again. His vision swims from the lack of oxygen, and before he can wonder what Cal meant, he’s being spun around and crowded against the island. With one hand on his back, Cal presses him flat onto the island and pins him between it and his body.

The reality doesn’t fully sink in until Cal starts undoing Dawson’s jeans one-handed.

Dawson freezes at first, then starts trashing against the hold. Cal is bigger and stronger than him, but he’s inebriated. Maybe Dawson could—

Rough fingers grip his hair and slam his head against the counter. The impact makes him black out for a few seconds, and when he comes to, he’s dizzy and his jeans are around his thighs.

“Wait. Cal.” He can hear the panic in his voice.

Clearly, so can Cal, because he chuckles darkly. “You paying attention now?”

The sound of a zipper opening sends a fresh wave of panic through Dawson.

“Cal, please, don’t do this.”

This can’t be happening. Cal’s gone off the rails countless times, especially after he’s had a drink, but it’s never come to this. He has never stooped so low.

“Can we… Can we go to the bedroom?” He might not want this, but at least he could pretend. Just a spouse trying to please his husband even though he’s not in the mood himself. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before. People do that all the time. “Please, Cal, not like this.”

The fingers in his hair tighten, jerking his head up.

“You don’t make the rules here, sweetheart,” Cal growls into his ear. Dawson can smell alcohol on his breath. “You follow them. And if you don’t?” He pushes Dawson’s face into the counter, making him cry out as his cheekbone collides with the hard surface.

In a haze, he hears Cal spit into his hand, and, for some reason, that’s the thing that makes all the fight leave him. The thing that drives it home.

This is really happening.