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Will and Nico were sleeping soundly, latched onto each other, when a small cough echoed from the other side of their door. Will groaned, burying his face into his husband, “Nico it’s your turn, I’m tired.”
Nico sighs and rolls his eyes, “fine then.” He shoves Will off of him, and gets up to check the door. Will slams onto the bed with a ‘oof’ and rolls, spreading himself like a starfish.
Nico pads over to the door, fuzzy socks and all, and opens it. Three year old Rue is standing there, holding her stuffed pig, with a red nose and tears down her face.
Nico bends down to pick up his daughter, “sweet-pea, what’s the problem?” He asks, walking over to his bed.
She curls into a ball in Nico’s arms, crying. ”Throat, hurts,” she says, but it sounds more like a chainsmoker than a three-year-old girl.
Nico goes to sit down on his bed, setting his daughter down by his husband. She curls up against Will, seeking out his body heat.
Will pulls his daughter to his chest, subconsciously reading her vitals, “oh my gods, she has a fever Nico!”
“Shit, umm, I’ll get the fever medicine, I’ll be right back.” Nico speed-walks to their bathroom and searches the medicine cabinet, looking for the children’s fever medicine. He’s too focused to hear Will scold him for swearing in front of the kids.
He finally finds a bottle, with only one dose left. That’ll have to do, it’s 4AM and the stores don’t open for another three hours.
He rushes back to the room, where Rue is lying there curled in Will’s arms, she’s shivering even though their bedroom is pretty warm. Nico takes the syringe and sucks up the last of the medicine, tossing the empty bottle in the trash.
“Rue, sweetheart, you’re gonna have to take the medicine, open up?” Nico tries to coax her to take it nicely, maybe she’s too sleepy to even care.
Rue’s eyes widen and she shakes her head, “no! No! No! I don’t want that! It’s yucky!” She wines and buries her face into Will, preventing Nico from accessing her mouth.
Will sits up and picks Rue up too, forcing her to sit on his lap, “Rue you need to take the medicine, it’ll make you feel better, then you can go back to sleep, okay?”
Rue starts flailing her legs and wining, yelling ‘no’ and ‘yucky’ over and over.
Nico sighs, it’s the middle of the night and he just wants to sleep. “Ruella Bianca Solace, stop moving right now and take your medicine or no TV tomorrow.” Nico hates being stern but he’s tired, and the whole house is going to wake up at this point.
Rue seems to get the message and she stops moving, she opens her mouth, still sniffling. Nico feeds her the medicine, her face contorts into disgust as she swallows. “Good job sweetheart,” Will praises, he kisses her head and lays her down, letting her curl up against his chest.
Nico sets the empty syringe on his nightstand and gets into bed with his family. He has a good two and a half hours before the twins wake up for school.
~~~~~~
It’s 6:30 and neither twin is up yet, Nico expects at least one of them to be asleep past their alarms, either Maria was up too late talking to Polly or Micheal was up too late building a house on The Sims, but it’s rare that both of them miss their alarms.
He goes over to Maria’s room first, he instantly knows something is up, shadows are swirling, escaping from under her door. She had just recently discovered that she could move them, but she had yet to gain full control.
The only times they get this out of hand is during a meltdown or a nightmare, both of those not good. Nico quickly enters the room, the shadows barely affecting him.
“Maria?” He calls out.
She is laying in her bed thrashing, shadows swirling and creeping around her in a mini shadow storm. Her eyes are shut, so she must be having a nightmare. Unfortunately Will is still upstairs with Rue, he is much better at this than Nico.
Nico reaches out and pets Maria’s hair. “Maria it’s okay, you’re home, you’re safe,” he repeats, just like Will does during his nightmares.
Maria wakes up with a gasp, then proceeds to go into a coughing fit, her eyes are still watering, Nico doesn’t know if it’s from the nightmare or the coughs that don’t seem to be going away.
“Polly?” Maria croaks out, her throat sounds very raw, just like Rue’s this morning.
Maria tries to sit up, immediately falling back onto her bed. Nico pets her hair, “it’s just me sweetheart, Papa. Polly is at her house.”
Maria’s eyes water, “I want Polly, I need to know if she’s okay, please,” she goes into another coughing fit, with Nico rubbing her back.
“Honey, Polly is okay, I promise,” he reassures, knowing very well that his words don’t matter, she won’t feel better until she sees Polly safe. “You can call her, but you’re sick, and Polly has to go to school today.” He tucks her in and grabs her phone, he hands it to her, “I have to go wake up Micheal, try to get some sleep. Me or Dad will come back and check on you, I love you.” He gets up, pats her head, and leaves the room, keeping the door open a crack just in case she needs something.
Nico goes to Micheal’s room, but Will is already in there. Nico pops his head in and yup, he’s also sick, just great.
He decides to move Rue downstairs to the living room, just in case she needs something. She shifts and wines in his arms while he takes her downstairs, he hushes her and rubs her back, trying to soothe her pain.
He sets her down on the couch, giving her a blanket and ‘Pig’ the you guessed it, stuffed pig. He rubs her light brown curls, which are stuck to her face from sweat, and he sings to her. He hopes that she’ll fall back asleep, sick toddlers are the worst.
As Rue drifts off Nico feels the energy in the house shift. There is only one thing that causes this, someone is using healing powers. Since Maria and Micheal are too sick to even try, he knows exactly who’s using them.
Nico knew Will would try to fix the kids, even though he knows damn well that if you heal people through sickness they won’t develop an immune system.
He storms to Micheal’s room, where Will is currently kneeling down, hunched over Micheal’s bed, and healing him. His hands are glowing and the room feels warm, a gold light pours from the bed, illuminating the room with a soft glow. “William Andrew Solace,” Nico scolded, making Will jump back, his powers immediately shutting down, zipping all the light from the room.
“Tell me right now why you are using your powers to heal our son, when you have said, yourself, that they will not build an immune system if you heal their sickness.” Will looked down at his hands, looking more annoyed that he was caught than ashamed.
“But Nico! Look at him! He’s so sick!” He wined, looking up at Nico, and blinking.
Nico looks away and crosses his arms, “your puppy-dog eyes will not work on me. He needs to heal the mortal way, with time and medicine. Which we are out of by the way. You should go to the store and pick some up, plus Gatorade and applesauce. I would go but I don’t trust this,” he circles Will using his hand, “to not happen.”
Will pouts but he agrees, getting up and leaving Micheal’s room to grab the keys. Nico walks over to Micheal’s bed. He kneels down and wipes Micheal’s hair out of his eyes, “do you need anything sweetheart?” He asks, placing his hand on Micheal’s forehead, feeling it burn under his palm.
Micheal just groans into his pillow, “my head hurts Papa.” He wines, it’s muffled by his face smooshed into the bed.
”Okay, I’ll go get some headache medicine, I’ll be right back.” He kisses Micheal’s head and leaves, getting medicine for Micheal and Maria.
~~~~~~
After Will gets back the day goes by in a blur. With three kids sick there was no time for breaks, one of them constantly yelling or texting for something.
At the end of the day Nico and Will are exhausted. They would’ve loved to pass out in bed together, but Rue demanded that she sleep in their room too. Keeping them up with her coughs and sniffles.
In the morning the kids were feeling better. They still weren’t good enough to go back to school, but they were running around the house, bouncing off of the walls with pent up energy. Their hyperactivity only gets worse when they’re sick.
By the time they go back to school, Nico and Will are burnt out. They lie in bed trying to sleep for the first time in two days.
Will coughs, sniffles and leans over to grab a tissue from his nightstand. Nico groans, burying his face in his husband’s chest, “Will! Not you too!”