#in bed all day

[tombama]

100% Supima

[rickybowensfever]

Dance the Sickness Away (Campus Crud) - Sicktember 2024: Day 3

Welcome to Sicktember 2024, Day 3: Campus/Con Crud!

You can find out more info @sicktember.

About this story: Days after "Dancing for A Cause", a charity event put on by Kylie and her sorority sisters, everyone starts to fall ill and Zach is first.

CW: very brief mention of childhood cancer since that's the cause they were raising money for

NOTE: I love all of my oc's equally but I can't help but have a strong connection to Zach and Kylie. I just *love* them. Short bio: College AU, Zach and Kylie are living with each other during their junior year of college at Lakewood University (All of my college oc’s go here!). Zach went to community college but transferred to Lakewood once he completed his associates degree. . Zach and Kylie started dating senior year of high school. The two have known each other since kindergarten. They're childhood friends to lovers. Now, they live in an off-campus apartment together. If you think they're as cute as I do, I have a couple of other fics with them. See this fic for their origin story & you can also search #zachandkylie on my Tumblr for more fics of them or any of my oc's. about my ocs! Zach Perez loves Spiderman and is a hopeless romantic. He studies computer science. He comes from a single mother, Angela who is an RN and he has an older sister, Emily who is 2-years older than him. She is a pediatrician. Kylie Daniels is a girls-girl, she loves event planning & is the Community Service chair of her sorority. Kylie studies Media & Communications. She is the eldest daughter. She has a younger brother, Blake who is a trans boy. He is a year younger and on the road touring with his band.

(SET DURING MID-OCTOBER 2024) 

Zach felt like he was hit by a truck. 

It had been three days since he pulled an all-nighter for Kylie’s 24-hour dance-a-thon for charity. Kylie had been planning the charity event for months with her sorority sisters. Like many other universities that held these types of events, Dancing for a Cause helped to spread awareness about childhood cancer and raise money for the charity they collectively chose. Plus it was also a great way to bond with other students on campus. For twenty-four-hours, they raised money for every hour that each participant danced. 

Thus, Zach’s sleep schedule was totally off. But now, it felt like it was finally coming back to normal. However, when he woke up that morning, something felt off. Of course, the morning after the dance-a-thon where they both slept for over 7 hours, his body was sore, and his muscles ached; that was normal after dancing for a long period of time. 

But this time felt different. Aside from the body aches, his head pounded, his throat felt like he had swallowed shards of glass, and chills coursed through his body, making it impossible to move from his bed. Plus, he had been coughing all night, sporadically which definitely didn’t help with his throat pain. He slowly patted the mattress to find his phone. He grabbed the cold phone from beside his pillow, lying on the white sheets on the bed. He used his thumb to unlock the phone and spoke for the first time that morning. 

“Siri, can you text Kylie and tell her I’m sick?” he croaked, wincing at the pain in his throat as he spoke. 

Certainly. To Kylie (heart emoji), “I’m sick” Send it? 

In the midst of a coughing fit, Zach croaked out a weak yes as he curled up under a mountain of covers hoping that would ease the chills. 

Sent. 

Moments later, Kylie was hovering over their bed and pulling the blankets off of her boyfriend who groaned in response. She frowned as she got close enough to see his condition. Glassy eyes, pink cheeks, and a pale complexion. 

She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to feel his warm forehead.  “Awe, you poor thing. You were coughing all night. Everyone’s been texting me saying they’re sick too. I asked Krista to send me the symptoms she and Natalie are having too” she said, running a hand through his matted dark brown hair. 

“I feel so sick” he croaked, holding his throat as if that would ease the pain and pulled the comforter up to his chin as his teeth chattered and a train of coughs followed. 

Kylie grimaced as she heard the painful coughs escape his lungs, “You’ve been out for a while. It’s already noon” she told him. Despite being in college, Zach was usually awake before 11am on his good days. Thus, her boyfriend looked at her with pure shock on his face as if she were pranking him. She chuckled and showed him her phone’s lockscreen with an image of them hugging with Zach kissing her on the cheek at a college football game. Her phone’s time read 12:15 PM. 

Zach blinked at her. His energy was on E. She smiled softly as she revealed two pink tablets of pain reliever showing them off in her palm like a hand model. Zach cracked a half smile and slowly picked his body up. Kylie turned toward his night stand and grabbed his reusable water bottle, as she shook it she made a mental note to refill it on her way out.  There was enough to suffice for now. 

“Take these. It’ll help the little fever you’re running and relieve some discomfort for a bit” she said with a smile, passing the water bottle off to him and holding her palm open toward him. Zach slightly nodded and grabbed the two items from her, taking the medicine and chasing them down with the cold water. He winced as he swallowed, the pain in his throat making him clench his fist in pain. 

Kylie pulled out her phone, her face lit up as it dinged. She tapped the phone’s screen and read her newest text message. Zach groaned as every little sound started to bother him and melted back under the covers, pulling them up to his chin. 

She recited the text listing off the symptoms the rest of the group were experiencing: runny/stuffy nose, low-grade fever, chills, cough, headache, sore throat, fatigue. Zach gave a short nod if he was experiencing the same. He happened to check off half of the list. 

Kylie kept her phone in her hand and looked down, swiping until she landed on the DoorDash app. “Alright, I’m going to order some things on DoorDash so we’re prepared. I’m sure to catch  it soon. So I’d rather be safe and quarantine for a few days. Thank goodness for Fall Break,” she said as she tapped the screen, adding things to her cart. 

As Zach dozed off to sleep, Kylie  quietly tip-toed out of the room and closed over the door waiting for the notification that her order had been delivered. 

### 

Zach woke up in a daze to a cold hand gently shaking him. “Hey babe, you’ve been out for a while. Why don’t we get some medicine in you?” she said, holding a bottle of cough medicine in her hand. 

He groaned, attempting to pull himself up with any ounce of energy he had. Kylie set the cough medicine on the nightstand and grabbed the warm pillows her boyfriend had been sleeping on, fluffing them up. She placed the two pillows by the headboard and put a hand around his waist helping him sit up, her cold hand touched against his warm skin. 

Kylie smiled softly at the boy; his hair messy and his cheeks bright pink, lips chapped. Kylie leaned over the nightstand filled with supplies: tissues, digital thermometer, a bottle of red sports drink and a bottle of cough medicine with a small plastic medicine cup beside it. She twisted the lid to the bottle and poured the required dosage of purple liquid into the medicine cup and handed it to her boyfriend. 

Zach took the medicine cup from her hand and drank, wincing at the awful taste. Kylie frowned, holding in a laugh. “I’m not trying to poison you. I swear this will make you feel so much better” she explained. Her boyfriend looked at her giving a glare then a thin-lipped smile to show he was joking. 

With his right hand, he signed “thank you.” His hand near his lips, he moved his hand forward and slightly down toward her direction, giving a thin-lipped smile. 

“You’re welcome” she whispered, grabbing the red sports drink from the table and passing it off to him. “Want to watch a movie or something?” she asked, turning her head toward the flat screen TV on top of the TV stand in their room.  

Zach took a long sip of the drink before responding with a nod. “Sounds good! Be right back” she said, jogging out of the room. Zach was starting to feel slightly better even if it did still feel like complete garbage. He grabbed the TV remote from the night stand on his side, leaning his body slightly to grab it as it sat next to the lamp in the center of the table. He pointed the black remote at the TV and selected Hulu, starting up Freaky Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. 

Kylie quickly returned with a mug of chicken noodle soup, her reusable water bottle, and a pack of saltines. Zach turned to look at her and smiled as he melted into the covers. Kylie set everything on the nightstand next to her side of the bed (on the right) and joined him. 

Zach lay his head on her shoulder as the movie played. 

[drewtoy80]

[callmehaneul]

[jurassicsickfics]

I can't be the only one who loves it when a character is pictured in their bed; I love to imagine them lying there sick. Sniffly or pukey I don't care, it's all cute💝😊

[annabeiie420]

[coffeebooksandmore]

Sundays are made for reading poetry in bed ☁️

IG: coffeeandbookss

[capric0rn]

i literally love sleeping

[zac-yang]

in bed - mapplethorpe

[tombama]

Just Relaxing

[jackmastah]

Selfie?

Lazy selfie ft my cat in the background😽

[iceboundeve]

Soft, slow mornings 🖤

[lajoliepretentieuse]

[hootenannytoots]

manifesting a snack bc I don’t feel like getting out of bed

[annabeiie420]

[breezybe]

Tell me I’m the worst, worst you ever had

Tell me I’m beautiful and stab me in the back