he boys went to their rooms to chill out for a while. Michael opened his email and found a link to the google doc that his dad had set up. Sure enough, there were pages for each boy’s temperature readings. Column headings included “date”, “time”, “temp”, “taken by”, and “route,” which included options for oral, rectal, axillary, ear , and temporal.

Michael remembered not minding it so much when he got it done that way when he was younger, though he remembered his brother protesting when he still got it done that way. And he did have to take a neighbor boy’s temperature before when he was babysitting. He was a little shocked at having to do it, but the parents figured he’d be ok as a doctor’s son. And he kind of enjoyed being trusted to do a grown up thing like that.

He decided they may as well get started with their new project. He went downstairs and got the box of supplies and came back up to his room. He looked everything over and decided to label the cases with their names using a Sharpie.

“C'mon over to my room,” he texted his brother.

A couple of minutes later, Eric appears, AirPods in his ears.

“What’s up?,” Eric asks.

“Temperature time, dude. Let’s get this over with,” Michael says. He’s holding a thermometer and shakes it down. “I’ll do yours first and then you can take mine, ok?”

“We’re really doing it like this? Can’t we just do it the normal way and tell them we did it the other way?,” Eric pleaded.

“Listen, I don’t want to do this either, but Dad and Mom know what they’re talking about, and this isn’t something to mess around with. So just drop your pants, ok?,” Michael said.

Eric sighed and undid his pants, letting them drop to the floor.

“Lay down on my bed, on your tummy,” MIchael said, as he checked the thermometer one more time. Eric plopped down on his brother’s bed, laying his head on the pillow.

“You just need to relax and it shouldn’t hurt at all, ok?,” Michael tried to reassure his brother. Michael guided Eric to spread his legs a little further apart, and then sort of straddled one of his legs so he could easily access everything.

Eric nodded his head. Before he knew it, Michael was tugging down his boxers and spreading his cheeks apart. Michael dipped the thermometer in some Vaseline and then set it against his little brother’s hole. “Here we go….,” Michael said as he slowly pushed the thermometer inside.

Eric let out a little gasp, but managed to relax so the thermometer could slide in easily.

“There. You ok?,” MIchael asked.

“Yeah, um, I guess,” Eric said, as he got used to the feeling of having something inside of him.

“Good...so now we wait,” Michael said, holding the thermometer, after pushing it slightly further. Both boys were quiet as the thermometer registered. They didn’t really know what to say to each other.

“How much longer does that stay in?,” Eric asked, looking back at his brother. He was getting a little restless, but also found that it wasn’t like he remembered when he protested as a young kid. It didn’t hurt, and actually felt kind of nice to him, which he couldn’t really make sense of. And he felt some safety in the care of his big brother.

“Just another minute. Still doing ok?,” Michael responded, gently patting his brother’s smooth bottom.

“Yeah, it just feels kind of funny,” Eric said.

After another minute or two, Michael slowly pulled the thermometer out and wiped it with a tissue. “Here,” he said, offering his brother a tissue to wipe the lube away. Eric took the tissue and wiped the vaseline away as Michael read the thermometer.

“99.8,” he muttered, as he set the thermometer down and then wrote the reading down so he could log it later. Michael then handed his brother the other thermometer and dropped his pants. “My turn.”

Eric looked at the thermometer quizzically as he took it out of the case. While he had pulled his underwear up, he hadn’t bothered to put his pants back on.

“Here, I’ll show you,” Michael said, standing behind his brother and helping him twist the thermometer until the mercury ribbon came into view. “There, can you see where the mercury is?”

“Oh yeah, I see it,” Eric said. “And I shake it like this?,” he asked, as he started shaking down in gentle whipping motions.

“Exactly. Just make sure it’s like a couple of degrees below the arrow for 98.6,” Michael said. “And then you put some vaseline on it, and when you stick it in, go slow and put it in like this far,” he said, showing on the thermometer how far it should go in, about two inches.

“Ok I guess,” Eric said, checking to make sure the thermometer was ready before lubing it up. Michael slipped his boxers off and laid down, spreading his legs apart to make it easier for his brother to see where the thermometer needed to go.

“Here goes nothing,” Eric said, as he spread his brother’s cheeks apart and found the target. He set the thermometer against his brother’s hole and hesitated a second before pushing it up inside.

Michael barely noticed the thermometer going in, and just like back when he was a kid found he didn’t mind the feeling so much. He was a little surprised that he was here with his younger brother doing it, but he managed to shake it off, and relax as they waited. Michael moved his body around a little bit, finding that he liked the feeling as the thermometer shifted inside of him.

Eric sat quietly next to his brother, his legs touching his brother’s as he held the thermometer in place. Like MIchael, he couldn’t really wrap his head around what they were doing to each other, but felt strangely comforted to have this bond during a stressful time. He looked down and noticed that he had leaked a little precum into his underwear. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt something when the thermometer was inside of him. He definitely wasn’t expecting that reaction from himself.

“You’re good at this, bro,” Michael said to his brother, thinking the reassurance would help him.

“Good… I hope it doesn’t hurt or anything,” Eric said.

“Nope, feels ok,” Michael said, stopping short of saying that he kind of liked the sensation. Michael’s phone dinged and he looked at it. It was a message from his girlfriend, Lizzy.

“What r u doing?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“Laying here with Eric holding a rectal thermometer in my butt.”

“LOL. Seriously, what are you doing?”

“I am serious. Parents making us take temps bc of virus thing.”

“No way.”

“Hold on a second,”

Michael hands his phone to his brother. “Take a picture of the thermometer. Lizzy doesn’t believe this is what’s happening right now”

“WHAT? No way you told her about this. You really want a pic of your ass?”

“It’s just for her. Just do it,” Michael said.

Eric shook his head and snapped a pic of the thermometer poking out between Michael’s cheeks, and hands the phone back to Michael.

Michael texts the pic to Lizzy.

“There.”

“OMG. Cute butt tho.”

“Let me call ltr, k?”

“K. I’m bored. Call me.”

“I WILL.”

“I can’t believe you did that. Better hope your friends don’t see your phone,” Eric said.

“Gonna delete it, don’t worry. OK, I think time’s up.”

Eric slowly withdrew the thermometer and wiped it off. He struggled to read it, but found the ribbon. “Let’s see… 99.6,” Eric said. Michael wrote it next to his after he cleaned himself off. Michael put his pants back on, and Eric followed suit. Michael went to his laptop and updated the temperature readings in the google doc, noting time, who took it, and the “rectal” route.

“Not so bad, right?,” Michael said to Eric.

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad like I thought it would be. I guess we better get used to it…,” Eric said as the reality of doing this a few times a day sunk in.

“Go wash those off and give me some space. Gotta call Lizzy back.”

“Later,” Eric said, taking the thermometers and cases away.

Once the door closed Michael called Lizzy.

“Hey, still got something in your butthole,” Lizzy says as she picks up the call.

“Nope, done for now,” Michael said.

“So what’s that about?,” she asked.

“My parents. They’re staying at my grandparents since they’re working at the hospital and don’t want to risk bringing germs home right now. But they’re making us check our temperatures to make sure we don’t have anything. And i’ts more accurate. So that’s what’s up. It’s not that bad,” Michael said.

“Uh huh. So, if your parents are gone can I come over? I’m SO BORED here. And my parents are driving me insane. And I miss you,” Lizzy said.

“I don’t know. I talked to my parents and they didn’t really want people over. Except…never mind,” Michael said.

“Except what?,” she said.

“Well, they said you could come over, but you’d need to stay with us, like quarantine and shit. Not go back and forth to your house.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” she said, perking up.

“But…you’d need to do the temperature thing, too,” he added.

The line was quiet for a second. Lizzy wasn’t sure if he was kidding.

“So that’s the deal,” Michael said.

“I’m cool with it if you are,” she said. “I’ve taken temps that way before and it’s kind of weird, but not so bad. Plus it means I’m not around my parents and your parents are making us get naked in front of each other, then I’m pretty good with that,” she said. “And I want to see the cute butt from the pic you sent me.”

“Wow, cool. I’ll let my parents know. I think they want to talk to your parents first.”

“Let me know when they say it’s ok. I’m going to start packing stuff up,” Lizzy said.

“K. Love you,” Michael said.

“Me, too. Later,” Lizzy said, and hung up.

Lizzy was relieved to be able to go spend time at Michael’s house. She paused and grinned a little to think about the possibilities of playing doctor with Michael and helping to take care of Eric, too.