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It was another boring, tiring and overall brain cell-destroying day at school. Alexander was feeling shitty from the moment he woke up, he felt awfully nauseous and skipped on eating anything that day, for fear of throwing it up everywhere, and nobody needed to see or think about that. He felt extremely dizzy and lightheaded, latching on to any surface close enough when he was about to keel over or pass out, waiting for the feeling to vanish. At first, he had faith he could get through the day without anyone finding out, he just had to stay quiet, walk slow and steady and not overthink or eat anything. He tried to drink heaps of water in hopes it would quell his sickly feeling, but it only bloated him and made him feel worse than before. It was lunch time, and he and his friends John, Hercules and Lafayette were heading to their secret spot in the oval under a large pine tree, where no one could bother them and they could just chill for an hour.
“Alex,” John had spoken up after some time, witnessing him slowly looking like he was about to keel over and die, and could hide his concern no longer. “Are you- are you feeling alright? You look like shit man.” Alexander sat up from his spot against the tree, where he was contemplating every life choice he had made in the past few hours, and wishing he could just throw himself off the top building of the school. “Oh yeah, just tired is all, it was a long night,” the exhausted boy replied softly, not meeting John’s worried gaze, but hearing quiet exchanges between him and the other two boys. John nodded. “Alright,” he said, not believing Alexander at all, but not wanting to argue with him and make him feel worse than he already is clearly feeling. “Just let us know if you need anything, okay?”. The boy in question agreed with a soft hum and fell back to his spot against the tree, piercing blue eyes peering at the sky, but looking more like they were seeing through it, like his gaze was more distant, like he really wasn’t there.
About ten minutes later, Alexander could not take it anymore. His head was wildly spinning and his head was throbbing so badly he was scared it would burst, and he felt so hot, but so cold at the same. He shakily stood up, preparing to go to the sick bay and get home, before something went horribly wrong, and he could faintly hear his friend’s voices, and what they were saying.
“Alexander, are you alright?”
“You don’t look too good man, maybe you should sit down”
“Alex…?”
He tried to turn around, to move, to say something, but his body was working against him. His knees buckled, his throbbing eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the ground, his friend’s were the last things he heard.
“HOLY FUCK”
“ALEXANDER?!?”
“GET A TEACHER NOW, GET HELP!”
John’s POV
Alexander slumped to the ground so quickly, John yelled “ALEXANDER?!?” barely had processed what happened until Hercule’s and Lafayette’s screaming snapped him out of his trance and the brown-haired boy rushed next to his fallen friend, tears in his eyes, shaking him and pleading with him to wake up. Distantly he heard someone running off, hopefully to get someone to help, but his eyes were glued to the frozen form of his best friend, and crush. Lafayette kneeled next to him, placing a gentle hand to Alexander’s face, and begging him to also wake up. His face was now flushed with a fever, red and sweaty, and he was panting louder than ever, although he remained dead to the world. Seemingly hours later, Hercules returned with a teacher and two nurses who rushed to the boy’s aid and John and Lafayette stood back, the latter’s hand comfortingly on the other’s shoulder.
The ambulance was called immediately and the group waited fearfully for them to arrive. Alexander woke up during the wait, and groaned shakily, looking confused and deathly more than ever. “Wha…what h-happened?” he asked, his sky-blue eyes looking around scaredly and his pale, much too thin body trembling with every movement. “Alex, oh thank god! You just need to lay back down, the ambulance is coming, don’t get up. The boy was sitting on the grass, but the nurses gently guided him back down. The poor boy looked feverish and delirious, he probably didn’t even know what was going on.
“Where’s John?” he cried, tears were now openly pouring down his reddened face. “I want J-John! Please…p-please don’t leave me.” The others looked at John in confusion and shock, but the green-eyed boy crawled over to his sick friend and laid his head on his lap, caressing his scalp and his wavy brown hair. “It’s okay, Alex,” he whispered, soothing his crush immediately. “I’ve got you, John’s here, you’re gonna be alright.” Alexander leaned into the touch, and then was about to close his eyes when a nurse yelled out, although not loud enough to scare him.
“Wait! Don’t fall asleep, you’ve possibly hit your head and have a concussion, you have to stay awake.”
John looked concerningly at his friend, and set to keep him awake, he couldn’t risk him getting hurt further, it was his fault anyway. John tried to talk to him, distracting him from sleeping.
“So Alex, us guys were going to have a movie night at my place next weekend, and I know your favourite snack is popcorn so I will buy plenty of bags for that, and that hopefully means Hercules and Lafayette won’t try to get drunk again, that’s next year lads. Now I know you haven’t watched many movies because you spent too much of your lifetime writing, which isn’t a bad thing of course! Well I mean, if we consider that…” he trailed off, at the look on his crush’s face.
He was smiling.
Not an ordinary grin, but a soft smile that reached his eyes, although he probably wasn’t really understanding what he was saying, but John’s tone probably was calming him down.
Loud sirens snapped everyone else fully awake, and the teacher ran to guide the paramedics to the boy, while the boys worriedly watched on.
Clad in dark blue clothing, the paramedics arrived and practically swept Alexander away, and he was screaming for John. John turned to the paramedics, “please let me come, he needs me, please.”
They agreed to let all three of the boys in, as long as they were quiet. The sickly boy clung onto John’s arm, who was standing beside his bed, and John cooed at him, consoling his best friend and crush as much as he could. The other boys watched in awe, adoring the relationship between the two boys.
“I ship it,” Hercules whispered to Lafayette, loudly enough for John to hear, but the boy was busy blushing as Alexander snuggled into his arm and did not hear.
Lafayette grinned. “Me too,” he whispered. “We all do.”