Smiley and Sunshine

44.

Dramatically rolling her whole head around in a circle of annoyance, Hayes then exaggerated taking several large steps to cross the open floor so now she was at Glen's bed. Though, she didn't make a move to wake him up.

Her spidey senses were going off.

Glen should have already been awake by now, an early bird just like her.

She cocked her head to the side as she hesitantly poked Glen where she thought his arm lay. He was the opposite of Francis, completely covered by the comforter so only his face was seen. His blonde hair was scattered all over, some matted to his glistening forehead. His cheeks were flushed and his mouth slightly parted.

"Glennard?" Hayes whispered, unsure.

"Mhmm," Glen hummed unintelligibly. He was somewhat conscious from the sudden intrusion of their sister, but the pull for sleep was hanging on.

"G, you don't look so good," Hayes softly commented, her eyes roaming his sickly face.

Growing up, the two of them got sick very, very infrequently, thank the heavens, but when the rare occasion occurred, the kids got sick.

And it was always both of them, never just one.

But given they shared pretty much everything when living with their grandfather, it wasn't odd, just unfortunate. Made life extra interesting for the couple days until they recovered back to their spunky selves.

Hayes brushed off last night's emesis episode as a fluke from all the stress, but Glen seemed to really not be feeling well.

"What's that?" Austin gently hip-checked Hayes out of the way and squatted down by the bed. He laid his palm on Glen's forehead, then the back of his neck. "You feeling okay, Bud?"

The kid felt extremely warm and sweaty.

"No," Francis groaned from across the bedroom. "Go away. Sleep in peace."

"He wasn't talking to you," Hayes giggled as she glanced at Francis, the zombie, before returning to Glen's poor state.  Her bottom lip jutted out into a pout as she chewed on the top one.

She leaned her head in close next to Austin's, her shoulder pressing against his arm, as she watched his fingers softly rake down Glen's messy hair in a soothing notion. The boy sniffed, his nose completely stuffed up, as he shuffled around in his sheets for a second before settling back down, his eyes not opening once.

Austin's lips were pressed into a thin line as he thought out the next steps.

Glen was most obviously sick, that was clear.

It wasn't that none of them had been sick before either. The tricky part in this deck of cards was Glen nor Hayes had never been sick, since they've returned, in Austin's care. He just had this tiniest of inklings that it wouldn't be as simple as when one of the brothers caught a bug.

"I think you earned yourself a 'get out of school free' card, Smiley," Austin stated, his hand flattening down a piece of the comforter before returning to Glen's head and resuming the scratching motion.

"Me too," Francis mumbled, flopping over so his head was pointed towards the wall now, his hands cuddling the pillow close to his chest. "Good night."

"Francis, get up and get ready for school," Austin barely glanced over his shoulder to check on the teen.

Francis yawned loudly before smacking his lips together, "Stay home and watch baby bro, okay."

"Now, Francis James."

The bedroom was silent except for Glen's mouth breathing and then there was a thunk.

Hayes switched to anxiously chewing on her thumb as she had watched Francis kick the comforter all the way off of him, letting it fall to the floor as he swung his legs off the bed to sit up, very unenthusiastic about all of it.