Zayn Sickfic

Fear of doctors - Ziam

Zayn was bent over the toilet. It wasn’t very graceful, it wasn’t pretty at all. He was vomiting, and it burned his throat like hell. He’d locked the bathroom door, hoping to avoid the misery of being sent off to the doctor. It was probably just a stupid stomach flu that happened to come with a sore throat.

Zayn knew that if he went to the doctor, they’d swab his throat and test for strep throat. But that was the WORST. He’d been tested two times as a child, and it was positively awful. The doctor’s hand in your mouth, the gagging, the scrape of the long q-tip against your throat…

He wasn’t going. This wasn’t strep throat, and he was. Not. Going.

Period.

Or, at least, he wasn’t going until Liam decided to burst through the bathroom door, frantically demanding why Zayn had locked himself in the bathroom for a day.

Liam’s voice changed from angry and stressed to worried in a split second. “Oh, Zayn!” Liam said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick, we have to go to the hospital!”

“I don’t want to go to a hospital,” Zayn said hoarsely, barely audible.

Liam fumbled in the closet for the thermometer, shoving it in Zayn’s mouth unceremoniously. He paused until it beeped, and then gasped at the results.

“Thirty nine point five!” Liam exclaimed. “Come on, we’re going.”

Liam tried to scoop Zayn up under the armpits, tugging the boy slowly down the hall to the elevator. “Try to walk a little, please?”

“I don’t need to go to the doctor!” Zayn insisted, his red face and wheezing breaths disagreeing.

“Just get in the lift!”

Zayn slumped against one of the walls, already terrified by the prospect of strep throat. It took ten minutes to get to the hospital, and on the trip between the car and the hospital a petite blonde girl stepped in their way, begging for autographs.

She was obviously oblivious to Zayn’s illness, and Liam uncharacteristically pushed past her into the emergency room.

The desk woman immediately gave Zayn a hospital bracelet, showing them to a doctor’s office. The ER was completely empty, probably because it was nine thirty on a Thursday.

Zayn sweated and occasionally dry-heaved while waiting, picturing the long cotton swab that would be lying on a creepy metal tray.

Sure enough, the doctor strolled in with a tray on which lay the torture instrument. “Zayn Malik, I hear? It looks like Scarlet fever, but I can’t be sure until the test, so please open up!”

Zayn tried to open his mouth, he really did. But survival mechanisms kicked in and stopped him, telling him that the probe would do nothing but bad.

He felt Liam’s hand grasp his own, and he gripped it like a life raft.

“Open your mouth, Zayn,” Liam said, exasperated.

Zayn opened it a tiny bit, and the doctor took that as a blessing and did his best to get the q-tip down his throat, scraping off a sample quickly.

“You’re very brave,” the doctor said, smiling to himself. “Good job.”
The doctor left, and Zayn turned to Liam. “Was he Colin Firth?”

Liam frowned. “No, Zayn.”

Zayn shook his head, closing his eyes tiredly. “It was.”

The doctor came back in a few minutes, carrying a little jar, a few pills, and a popsicle. He handed them all to Liam, who worked on coaxing Zayn to swallow the pills.

“It is indeed Scarlet fever, a more progressed form of streptococcus, strep throat. Apply the ointment to your chest, Scarlet fever causes a rash. Take the pills, they’ll give you more on your way out, those are to treat it. These are to bring down your fever. The popsicle’s just to make your throat feel better.”
Zayn nodded wearily, sucking on the purple ice.

Liam thanked the doctor and helped Zayn back to his feet. He started leading Zayn down the hallway by his hand, still holding it tightly. Zayn tottered slightly, dizzy from the fever.

“Liam,” Zayn said. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Liam said, laughing.

“That probe is terrifying.”

Zayn leaned to kiss Liam- he turned his head so Zayn’s streptococcus-infected mouth would land on his cheek instead. The desk woman gave a bit of a smirk to them on their way out, and Liam later realized it was because the kiss had left an obvious purple kiss on his cheek.