Chapter Text
Apparently Alex had fallen asleep, because he was awoken by a buzzing on his chest. Oh. That explains where his phone went. Picking up the device, he blinked at the too bright light before tapping 'answer'.
"Lisa?" Voice still rough from sleeping, Alex cleared his throat, "what's up?"
"Alex!" Lisa sounded annoyed. That was never a good sign. "You were supposed to pick us up from the airport! Cass and I are driving back now, you better have a good explanation." She paused for a moment before continuing. "Cass says she knows Rian's there, and tell him to expect hell from her. How can we go to New York if you can't even pick me up? Seriously, I expected better from–what was that? Is Jack with you?" The noise Lisa had heard, was in fact Jack, who had stirred, reaching out to paw at Alex's arm.
"Yeah, it was. We're all here. Lisa, I'm sorry I forgot to pick you up, but you probably don't want to come back here. You should probably go stay at Rian's with Cass. We're–" cut off by Jack jumping off the bed to dash to the bathroom, Alex got up to follow him, grabbing a bottle of water from the nightstand on the way. He didn't head into the bathroom, instead choosing to finish his call outside the door. "Look, Jack and Zack are sick, which means we're all contagious. It's probably better for everyone if we all quarantine ourselves. Maybe you and Cass could go up to New York together? I know you just got back from a wedding, but you could have a girls weekend?"
Lisa sighed. "Alex... I'm not really happy about this, but if you're already contagious then there's not much point in me whining about it. We can talk later." She hung up, and Alex put the phone in his pocket before heading after Jack.
If anything, Jack looked worse that last night, if that was possible. Despite his tall frame, Jack had managed to curl himself into a tiny ball on the bath mat. His skunk striped hair was stuck to his face with sweat, and his skin was ashen bar the cheeks tinted with the obvious fever. Every few seconds, Jack's body would tremble, a response to the fever.
"Jay?" Kneeling down by his friend, Alex swept the fringe out of Jack's face to feel his forehead, which was burning up. Alex knew he had to something about the fever, but his first priority was getting Jack to get up. Sitting down fully, Alex pulled Jack into his lap, rubbing his back to try and comfort him. "You wanna go back to bed?" Jack shook his head. Pushing himself up off of Alex he leaned over to throw up again, but he just ended up dry heaving as he hadn't had anything to drink in the past few hours, and he hadn't eaten in even longer. When Jack had finished, Alex placed his arms under Jack's armpits to lift (or more acturatly, drag) the guitarist back to bed. Jack provided no help whatsoever, he was a dead weight on Alex's shoulder. Normally, this would be Zack's job, but since he was out of commission, Akex had to do the best he could. Not that Jack would notice anyway. He was so out of it he barely noticed when Alex dropped him back onto the bed.
"Jack, I'll be back in a minute, ok?" Despite Jacks limp body, Alex handed the younger a bottle of water, telling him to drink it as he left the room. As Alex left the room he looked back at Jack, who was laying in the same spot Alex left him in, arm that gripped the water bottle hanging off the bed like it was a burden to hold.
Walking the two doors down to the room where Rian and Zack were, he knocked softly on the doorframe, getting Rian's attention. Zack was still sleeping on top of Rian, effectively pinning the drummer to the bed.
"You okay?" Always the mother hen of the band, Rian was looking out for everyone.
"Yeah, but Jack's not. Do you have the thermometer?" As Rian started to try and get up to help, Alex held his hand up. "I got this, Ri. Just tell me where."
Settling back into the pillows, Rian pointed to the dresser. "Thermometer, Tylenol, and some other stuff. How bad's Jack?"
Alex winced. "Remember Australia?" Rian nodded. "If he doesn't start drinking it's gonna turn into that. I don't even know how he got this bad, Zack doesn't look too bad."
"Jack has been running around like crazy and partying every night. He probably was feeling bad earlier in the week but got worse and ignored it. Zack just got sick and has been resting. Makes sense to me."
"Yeah. I'll try and drug him up and we'll see how he is in a bit. I'll be back." Alex started to head back to Jack before Rian stopped him.
"Do you know why I have 5 missed calls from Cass and 3 from Lisa?"
"Uh... I think we're in the doghouse right now." Rian looked at Alex, confused.
"What? Oh... Shit. I totally forgot."
"Yeah, I wouldn't call her back unless you want to be chewed out."
Rian was too busy staring at his phone to respond, so Alex took that as his cue to leave. When he got to his room, Jack was still the spot Alex left him, bar the bottle of water, which was now half empty. It was actually quite impressive, Jack had improved in the few minutes Alex had been out of the room just because he wasn't curled up on the bathroom floor and constantly heaving, unable to keep anything down.
Not asleep yet, Jack's eyes tracked Alex as he made his way over.
"Whatcha doin?" He asked sleepily, half lidded eyes catching Alex's own. In response, Alex held out the thermometer as he knelt down next to Jacks side of eg bed.
"Nooooo," Jack whined, turning his head into the pillow, "'m not that bad. Go 'way."
"God, you're a bitchy princess when you're sick. Sorry bud, we've got to due this. And you're way overdue for meds."
"I had water," Jack turned his head back to Alex so his words weren't muffled by the pillow, "I feel better."
Alex snorted. "I'm impressed, but you still look like shit. Not to mention you've been puking since last night, and you've had maybe 1 bottle of water total."
After Alex's last statement, Jack was a little more receptive, though still grumbling, he let Alex slip the thermometer into his mouth. When the thermometer beeped, Jack flipped onto his other side, back to Alex.
"102.6. Jeez, how are you coherent? When I left you 2 minutes ago you were a fuckin dead body." Jack said something in response, but he was facing the other way so Alex didn't hear it. Knowing Jack wasn't going to turn back, he grabbed a few things before hopping over Jack to sit on the bed opposite the guitarist. Opening the Tylenol, he shook out 2 pills before handing them to Jack, who shook his head.
"Come on, Jay. Don't be a baby." Tugging on his shoulder, Alex pulled Jack to sit up leaning on Alex's chest, then once again handing him the pills and Gatorade to try and rehydrate him a little more. Knowing he was fighting a loosing battle, Jack downed the pills in one gulp. Before he could even think about protesting, Alex reminded Jack, "drink the whole thing." He got a look for that one, but Jack didn't say anything, instead taking another sip.
"I wanna watch a movie." Since Jack's current symptoms were due to dehydration more so than the actual virus, the little bit of water that had actually managed to stay in Jack's stomach was helping improve his condition. Not feeling like puking was half the battle won.
"Are you going to fall asleep on me?" Alex asked, skeptical. Jack shook his head, so Alex wrestled free of Jack to go turn on the tv and grab the remote. When he got back in bed, Jack latched on to him again. "What do you want to watch? And please don't say home alone."
"Home alone 2?" When his answer was received with a stony glare, he changed his answer, "uh... Dark Knight?" Alex beamed.
"Thank you for being sensible." Having seen the movie many times, Alex owned it, so he just scrolled though his movies to find it, before pressing play, settling in on his side of the bed. Jack was on the other, curled into a little ball with his head barely sticking out from under the covers.
An hour into the movie and while Jack was still awake, Alex had fallen asleep, mouth slightly open, snoring softly. Jack, despite being exhuastrd, couldn't sleep because of the shivers constantly wracking his body. He didn't feel sick to his stomach as much, but the fever hadn't gone down, and he was still miserable. Scooting over, he curled up alongside Alex, who, even while sleeping, sensed his friend's presence, slipped an arm around Jack's back. It was a reminder of the ease between the two, habits formed from years of being together, that it was second nature. Jack was still feeling shitty, but it had progressed to a general achyness rather than feeling like he was constantly going to throw up. Hoping Alex's body heat would help the chills, he tried to focus on the plot of the movie. Even being exhausted, it was still hard to sleep when that's what he'd been doing the majority of the last 24 hours.