A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

Paracetamol - poppy (anthony_crowley)

Summary:

Nick catches a bug and stays home from school. Charlie comes over to play nurse (in a PG way).
Notes:

Trigger warnings: illness, vomiting
Work Text:
Nick's phone chimed and flickered to life where it lay on the mattress beside his head, the sudden illumination from the screen causing him to wince and groan. He tentatively opened one eye to chance it - nope, no, head hurt too much to keep his eyes open, couldn't look at that for too long. It pinged a second time, and he tried again, squinting hard this time to keep as much light out as possible.

There were two notifications, both texts, both from his boyfriend.

morning!
where are you? :(

He thumbed helplessly at his phone for a moment, fighting to get to the control panel and turn the brightness all the way down.

God, he felt shit.

And he was fucking freezing.

He had started to feel a bit poorly after rugby practice the night before, and when a shower and tea didn't shake it, he had gotten into bed to fall asleep to The Great British Bake-Off, forgoing homework for the evening, figuring he could do it in the morning before school.

Turns out he hadn't needed to, though. He had woken up to his school alarm, immediately felt as though he was going to vomit, turned it off and gone back to sleep. His mother had appeared in his room twenty minutes later to make sure he was awake - he could vaguely recall talking to her, and that she had taken his temperature; he had heard her phoning the school to say he had a fever and wouldn't be in.

Nick shut his eyes again for a moment, feeling as though he was swaying. He just had to get himself together enough to reply, then maybe he could sleep again.

Home sick he typed laboriously. He followed it with sorry.

The three dots appeared almost immediately, and he winced as the phone went ding ding ding ding ding in rapid succession.

omg!
what's wrong?
are you okay?
i can come over after school!
poor nickyyyyy

Nick stared blearily at the messages for a moment, then closed his eyes, letting his phone drop from his hand. He burrowed down further under the duvet, shivering, and curled in on himself to try and keep warm, dropping off to sleep again.

He woke up around noon. His mother had been back in, evidenced by the glass of flat lemonade and plate of now-stale toast that had been left. He'd also, at some point, been covered by another blanket, which he found helped immensely.

It took Nick several minutes of gearing up to look at his phone again. There were twenty-one messages from Charlie:
okay, so i've told my mum i'm going to come by
she was fine with it, i just can't stay too late
which is so dumb, like ... you're sick
how is she going to put a time limit on care
i miss you
aled says get well soon!
tao doesn't
but he doesn't actually mean it!!
i miss you
hope you're sleeping
and drinking lots of fluids
the boring kind
poor baby
do you want me to bring you anything?
you must be sleeping
GOOD
i'll bring you some things
we can watch a movie or something
unless you don't feel up to it
maybe i should text your mum?
i'm going to text your mum

And one from his mother:
Charlie has messaged me that he wants to come by after school. What would you like me to tell him?

He replied to her with it's fine and dropped his phone again.

Presently, he heard his mother ascending the stairs. She opened the door very gently and peered inside. "Are you awake, darling?" she whispered. God, his room smelled like teenage boy.