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It started out with a cough. George was in the middle of a Jackbox stream with Karl, Quackity, and Dream when he paused in the middle of a sentence to cough and then clear his throat. No-one thought much of it at the time, but the next day George was on a Bad’s stream in the SMP and he started to cough again. But this time it was worse.
Every cough sounded more and more throaty, and after one that sounded like it came all the way from his chest, he finally was able to stop. The Team-Speak call had plunged into silence as they all listened to George hack his lungs out, and when he finally finished there was still silence. Finally, Sapnap broke it.
“Uh hey, dude, are you okay? That didn’t sound very nice.”
George cleared his throat a little. “Yeah, I’m- I’m fine. I think I just might be getting a small cold.”
“Small?!” Bad cut in. “That coughing fit sounded anything BUT small!”
“I’m fine,” George said with an air of finality, and the topic was dropped. Whenever he coughed later in the call, Sapnap and Bad decided to ignore it.
-----
“ACHOO! Ah-ah-ACHOO! ACHOO!” Wilbur had been sneezing for three solid minutes, and it didn’t look like he was stopping anytime soon. Finally, after quite a while of the people in the discord call getting quite concerned listening to him, the sneezes halted.
“Holy FUCK! Wilbur, are you okay man?” Tommy was the first to speak.
“Eh, okay is a-” he paused to sniff, “-relative term.”
“Seriously, Will, that didn’t sound fun,” Phil interjected.
“Ah, it’s alright,” Wilbur stated, taking a few seconds to kill a couple sheep that had been blocking the entrance to their base. “I can deal with a small case of the sniffles.”
-----
As it turns out, it wasn’t just a small case of the sniffles.
-----
It was hard for Technoblade to get any farming done, when Wilbur kept sniffing every two seconds. After his rhythm had been broken for the 49th time, Techno had finally had enough.
“Alright, Wilbur,” he said in the Discord call. “Leave.”
There was silence for a few seconds, and then a small congested voice.
“What?”
“You heard me. Leave,” Technoblade repeated.
Phil, obviously confused about what was going on, tried to interject for a couple seconds, before Techno cut him off.
“You’re obviously not okay. You’ve been constantly sniffing and blowing your nose for the past 2 hours and you sound completely miserable. Leave the game and the call, and go straight to bed. Plus, I like, literally can’t concentrate at all when you’re like this.”
Phil, having figured out that Techno was not trying to boot Wilbur for no reason, made an agreeing noise.
“Yeah Will, you really sound like shit. Take care of yourself.”
“I’m really fine, guys,” came the heavily-congested voice again. “It’s not that bad.”
Techno was silent for a second before he spoke. “You want to try that again without sounding like Spongebob drowning?”
Wilbur let out a long groan.
“Wilbur!” Phil basically shouted into his mic. “Rest!”
With that, he kicked him from the call. A few moments later, the notification in Minecraft chat came through that, “Wilbur Soot has left the game.”
Techno sighed in what might have been relief.
“That boy is one of the most stubborn I’ve ever met,” Phil stated, also with relief.
“Tell me about it,” Techno replied.
-----
George, too, had also been kicked from his call after he wasn’t able to stop coughing and was complaining about a bad headache. Dream and Quackity had quite literally yelled at him to get some rest (the yelling hadn’t helped his headache at all), and when he finally agreed to leave, the entire call also sighed in relief, much like Techno and Philza.
“Where did this cold come from?” Dream questioned. “He was fine when we did that Jackbox stream a few days ago!”
“Actually me and Sapnap were on a call with him the day after and the muffin had a slightly concerning coughing fit, but he said he was fine and we thought nothing more of it.”
“Well obviously he wasn’t fine,” Quackity interjected. “Or that wouldn’t have happened.”
After talking about George for a few more minutes, they decided to drop the subject and get back to building the egg vines. But they were all still concerned.
-----
The next day, almost everyone was on the SMP. They had decided today as a planning day for everyone, so all the next arcs could be created by everyone, and as such, no-one was streaming. Every single person who was or ever would be on the SMP was there, except for two people.
“Where the fuck are Wilbur and Gogy?” Tommy demanded.
“Language,” said Bad quickly.
“I have no idea,” Karl said. “Have any of you talked to either of them recently?”
Everyone thought for a moment.
“Well actually,” Techno spoke up. “Phil and I talked to Wilbur yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Phil confirmed. “He was super congested so we told him to rest. Maybe he’s still sick?”
“Wait…” Dream said slowly. “We talked to George yesterday and he was super sick too. We also told him to rest.”
“Oh yeah we did!” Quackity exclaimed. “It’s weird that they’re both sick at the same time.”
“Maybe there’s some kind of flu strain going around in England?” Sam guessed.
“Uh, excuse me, I live in England, bitch, and I haven’t heard shit about colds except for from my mum when she gets annoying about me having to wear coats when I go outside.”
“That’s because you can get sick from going outside in the snow without a coat, Tommy.”
“Shut the fuck up, Philza Minecraft, I don’t fear the cold, the cold fears me!”
“Well yes Tommy,” Tubbo interjected, “but you might not have heard about it just because you live further away. Don’t Wilbur and George live really close to each other?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Phil said after a few seconds of thought. “I don’t think I’ve heard anything about it from Wilbur.”
“Guys-” Fundy cut off the rambling still coming from Tommy. “-just look at it this way. George is sick. Wilbur is sick. Therefore, they are both probably not planning on coming.”
“He’s right,” added Ranboo. “We should just do what we came here to do, and then we can fill them in later.”
There were general murmurs of agreement.
“Wilbur’s gonna be pissed he missed this,” Tommy murmured under his breath. “He hates it when he’s not prepared for the roleplays.”
-----
“Oh, fUCK!”
“Told you he’d be pissed!” Tommy exclaimed triumphantly.
Phil sighed. “Will, you should still be resting.”
“No, what, why?” Wilbur’s discord bubble flashed as he talked.
“To put it frank, son, you still sound like shit.”
“He’s right, Wilbur,” Techno put in. “You need to sleep more. And that’s coming from me. The king of insomnia and staying up all night to plant potatoes.”
Wilbur laughed, which quickly turned into a coughing fit, the audio cutting in and out.
Phil frowned at his monitor. Wilbur didn’t sound much better, despite having been ‘resting’ for the past few days.
“Will, how much have you actually been resting?”
“What, me? Of course I’ve been resting!”
“William Gold,” Phil said with a hard tone. “How much have you been resting?”
“Oh shit,” Tommy whispered. “The full name.”
Wilbur was quiet for a few seconds, the use of his legal name seeming to shock him out of whatever joking mood he was in.
“As much as I can,” he said finally. “Which isn’t that much.”
Phil groaned. “Will, you have to take care of yourself!”
“I’m trying!” Wilbur said indignantly. “But I can’t rest because I also have to take care of-” He cut himself off.
“What?” Phil asked after Wilbur didn’t continue. “What else are you taking care of?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Phil frowned, unconvinced.
“Are you sure, Will? That didn’t sound like nothing to me, and you know I can always help you with something if it’s getting in the way of you being able to get better.”
“It’s nothing, Phil,” Wilbur said with an air of finality. “And actually I have to go now, I just put some soup on before the call and it sounds like it’s done now. Besides, you said I should ‘rest’, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, but wait, Will-” Phil was cut off by the disconnect sound.
“Was it just me or did Wilbur seem a bit off to you guys?” Tommy was the first to break the silence.
Techno let out a mocking laugh. “A bit?”
“Woah, hey big man, just because you’re older doesn’t mean you can condescend me-”
“Hey guys, he’s probably just tired and grumpy ‘cause he’s sick. We shouldn’t bother him,” Phil cut in to Tommy’s protests.
“Alright,” Techno reluctantly agreed. “If you say so.”
-----
“I’m really worried about George,” Dream stated.
Karl, who had been deep into an intense discussion of the applications of constantly putting Sweater Weather on repeat on a person’s psyche with Sapnap, paused briefly to call Dream a simp, before resuming.
“No really guys,” Dream added. “I haven’t heard anything from him in 3 days.”
“Aw, Dream doesn’t know how to act without Gogyyyyy!” Quackity laughed.
“No, he has a point,” Sapnap said. “You have no idea how much they normally talk outside of streaming. I think they call most nights, so it is a bit weird that he hasn’t, y’know, contacted him.”
“I know this probably sounds stupid, but what if he’s more sick than we thought? Like, the ‘needs to go to a hospital’ kind of sick? And we can’t do anything because we’re all the way in America and maybe-”
“Hey!” Karl cut Dream off. “Stop worrying.” When Dream looked like he was about to protest, Karl continued. “Your worrying won’t help anyone, least of all George. You might live in the US, but you have friends that don’t. Ask Phil, hell, ask honking Tommy to check on him. You worrying about “what-ifs” won’t do anything.”
“That- that’s actually really smart, Karl,” Dream stated incredulously.
“I know.” Karl pretended to do a hairflip. “ I’m just the honkin’ best!”
“Yeah you are!” Sapnap yelled back.
“Okay,” Dream said slowly. “If I contact Phil, he’d probably be able to do it.”
“Hey, wait, I have a question,” Quackity cut in. “Is Wilbur still sick? Because if Phil is already down there to check on Wilbur it might be even easier!”
“Good point,” Karl said. “I know none of us are his closest friends, but have any of you heard from him?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Nada!”
“This whole situation is just weird to me,” Quackity added. “I can’t tell you exactly why it feels off, but the fact that they both got sick at, like, the same time, and I know Tubbo said they just live close so it could just be a regional thing, but I don’t know, something just seems really fucking sus to me!”
“Quackity-”
“Also, I looked it up! According to Google, they live like an hour and a half apart, and I’m not sure if that’s close enough to qualify as a regional flu strain or whatever!”
“Quackity-”
“Does no-one else get the feeling I’m getting? I mean, it’s such a weird-”
“ALEX!”
Everyone fell quiet.
“Quackity, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” Dream stated, more calmly now. “Also, I just messaged Phil. Wilbur’s still sick too, but he talked to Phil the other day.”
“Like, he called Phil?” Karl asked.
“Yeah, apparently he hadn’t been taking complete care of himself and resting because of some reason he wouldn’t say. Phil was planning to check on him anyway, so I just asked him to swing over to George’s while he was in the area.”
“Alright,” Sapnap put in. “See, Dream? Everything’s fine, and if it’s not, Phil can take care of it.”
“Yeah!” Karl said. “He’s like Dr. Phil! He can fix anything.”
-----
“Will?” Phil yelled into Wilbur’s flat. “Will, I just came to see if you were alright. Kristen made some soup to bring, too!”
There was silence.
“Will?” Phil tried again.
There was a low groan from the other room.
“...Wilbur? You alright, mate?”
There was a rustling noise, like that of sheets shifting, before Wilbur slowly shuffled into the room, rubbing his eyes.
Phil just looked at him for a second.
“Holy… Will, you look like you could honestly be dead! Jesus Christ!”
Wilbur’s eyes were sunken into his face, his skin tinged almost yellow. His lips were severely chapped and cracked, even bleeding in places. In short, he looked absolutely miserable.
“Thanks, Phil,” said Wilbur, his voice like sandpaper. Phil audibly winced when he heard it.
“Hey, Will, the soup should probably help with your throat, do you want me to make it for you right now?”
“That would-” Wilbur’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “That would be very nice, thank you Phil.”
He slowly made his way over to one of the stools at the kitchen counter as Phil headed straight for the stove.
“Hey Phil,” Wilbur said after a few seconds of silence. “Why do you have another thermos of soup?”
Phil looked over to the counter, where he had indeed put down a second thermos of soup.
“Oh that one’s for George, Wilbur. He’s sick also, and Dream already messaged me about 50 times making sure I could see if he was okay.”
Wilbur looked confused.
“But Phil,” Wilbur said hesitantly, “why would you need another thermos for George?”
Phil looked at him inquisitively.
“...So he can have his own soup?”
Wilbur frowned.
“But he could just share mine!”
Phil was confused.
“Will, George isn’t here to share it.”
“But he is!”
Phil paused stirring the soup for a second.
“What do you mean he’s here?”
Wilbur looked at Phil, and then gestured to the bedroom he came from.
“He’s in there, asleep.”
Phil completely stepped away from the stove and towards where Wilbur was sitting.
“Will, why is George sleeping in your bedroom?”
Wilbur looked like his brain took him a second to process that question. When his mind had stopped buffering, he seemed to realize what he had said.
“Oh, wait- shit - uhhh, did I say George was here? I meant, uh, I was talking to him on the phone! Yup, totally what I meant.”
Phil looked unamused.
“Wanna try that again?”
Wilbur started rambling, the fever apparently cutting off his mental capacity for speaking coherently, and Phil got increasingly more and more confused.
“Yeah, so calls, and uh, he- I mean me, or I, we wanted to talk about, uh, the beach, and the, um, pretty shells- or were they blue - and the sEAGULLS! Yeah, Phil, the seagulls, and chips-”
“Will?” A soft voice came from the doorway.
Phil’s head snapped towards the voice. George was standing there, wearing an obscenely large Soot College sweatshirt that Phil recognized as one Wilbur had worn on call with him before. The sleeves went over his hands, and the hem went almost to his knees. He didn’t look much better than Wilbur, his nose red and runny and his face flushed.
Phil turned back to face Wilbur, who looked about as alarmed as his lethargic state would allow him to be.
“So, Will.” Wilbur audibly gulped, then flinched at the roughness of his throat. “What was that about George not being here?”
George was completely out of it, his eyes slightly unfocused, but he looked up when he heard his name.
“Why-” his voice came out thick and he coughed. “Why would I not be here?”
Wilbur looked like he was trying to desperately pull his mind together and out of the fog of his sickness.
“Phil, I…” he trailed off as George walked over to him. George sat on the stool next to Wilbur and leaned into his chest, sighing contently. Wilbur wrapped his arms around him and pulled him a little bit closer, George relaxing all the muscles in his body completely.
Phil looked over the two men in front of him, thinking deeply.
“Will,” Phil said in a softer voice. “Is there something going on here between you and George?”
Wilbur looked up at him, and Phil could see the slightest hint of fear behind his eyes.
“It’s alright if there is, mate,” Phil rushed to comfort him. “I won’t judge. And I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”
Wilbur’s shoulders relaxed minutely. He looked down at the now asleep boy resting on his chest and smiled.
Phil could see the love in his gaze.
-----