My One and Only

Sickness

"Perhaps we ate too much. We haven't had food like that in awhile" Nellie mused. It was true that her and Sweeney aren't used to eating such luxurious food and they were in a low class compared to Alex and his family who looked to be filthy rich. "I'm closing my shop, my head feels like it's splitting in two and my throat hurts" Sweeney responded as he rubbed his forehead.

"I'm keeping my shop up".

"No Nellie, you're sick too, it's best you rest" Sweeney argued. "There's no rest for the wicked, darling" she retorted.

"Eleanor, I really think you should rest, you look tired and I don't want you to be burnt out". Nellie let out a defeated sigh, though she smiled to herself that Sweeney was thinking about her health. "Alright, let us have a day off." Sweeney smiled at that.

"I'm going to make some tea, my throat is killing me..." she sat up from bed and grabbed her robe and slipped her feet in her fluffy lavender slippers and walked out of the room to the kitchen.

While walking to the kitchen, she passed by Toby's room where she could hear coughing and sneezing. 'Poor lad has the cold as well' she had a hunch and carried on walking into her parlor that was connected to her shop.

Nellie dug into the cupboard and took out two tea cups and turned on the stove to set the tea kettle on it and waited for it to be hot. Soon she took the kettle out of the stove and poured it onto the two cups and dipped a tea bag into each cup. Once the cups were set, she came back into the room and joined Sweeney, who was already sitting up in bed with his clothes on.

"Brought you some tea as well, love" Nellie responded as she joined him in bed and handed him his tea. They didn't say much to each other due to their throats hurting and were dealing with a headache, but they were enjoying their time together sipping tea in bed as the sun was slowly rising.

"I'm going to go check on the lad, I heard him coughing up a storm earlier" Nellie finally said to Sweeney who only answered with a grunt and sipped his tea.

Nellie slipped out of bed and walked out of the room and head into Toby's room. "It's me, love, are you feelin' alright? I heard ya coughing." She asked sweetly and to her horror, Toby was lying in bed, his eyes droopy and his nose running and constantly needing to cover himself whenever he needed to cough.

"I'm a little under the weather..." Toby replied and he placed his arm around his face where he let out a cough and sniffed his nose. "My throat hurts..." he complained.

Nellie looked at her son with worry, she hoped his sickness wasn't too bad, perhaps he'll feel better if he snuggles in bed with her and Sweeney, speaking of the barber, she honestly doesn't care what he thinks, he can go sleep on the couch if he wants but she wants to make sure Toby is alright and she doesn't want to walk back and forth to check on him.

"Why not you crash in with me and Mr. T, aye?" She asked him though Toby cowered beneath his blanket, "won't Mr. Todd be upset? Plus I'm sick, I don't want you to catch my illness".

"Ah don't worry about 'im lad, we're all sick, I think we'll be alright. S'not like we'll get worse if we give each other our germs" she retorted and Toby hopped out of bed and followed his mother to her room where Sweeney remained where Nellie last saw him and once he saw Toby walk in looking droopy eyed with his nose dripping and coughing, he immediately shot a glare at Nellie for letting him in which Nellie returned by also giving him a glare.

The two joined bed, with Toby mainly sitting at the edge on Nellie's side, not wanting to be near the barber knowing that he despises his presence. "I'll make soup later" Nellie answered once she joined bed with her barber and son.

"How did we all get sick? Is it some kind of flu we got?" Toby asked, he thought it was odd that all three of them got sick despite that they were all well and healthy yesterday.

"I don't know, love, was asking the same thing the moment I woke up feeling me head ache, perhaps we ate something bad" the baker stated, although the last thing they ate was the food at Alex's house, and it was good food, although the roasted chicken had a bit too much salt on it but it was still good, were Alex and his family also sick?

Sweeney let out a few coughs and sipped his tea, he decided to fade out the conversation Toby and Nellie were having and be in his world where he thinks about killing the judge. He knows he should wait but he wants to do it know and get it over with so he and his family can finally be at peace and he can officially be with Nellie. Sometimes thoughts if the judge distract from interacting with her so it's best to get rid of him now or never, although of course he'll have to wait until he gets better, it'd be embarrassing if the judge walks in on him while he's ill; plus the judge won't be near him if he was coughing and sneezing all over the place, although getting the judge sick would be amusing, hoping it would be the plague.

"What about the shop? We need the money?" Toby piped up as he let out a sneeze making Sweeney very uncomfortable and trying to keep far away from the boy as possible. "We're not going to work, we need to rest. Besides, we can't get our customers sick, otherwise the Black Plague will start all over" Nellie retorted with a bit of teasing on the last part.

***

The demonic family were cooped up in one bedroom spreading each other's germs everywhere. They were all coughing and sneezing and complaining about headaches, but Nellie's delicious chicken soup made them feel a little better and the best way they could entertain themselves was talking to each other—Nellie and Toby doing most of the talking while Sweeney tries to ignore them— or they would read books that were placed on the small shelf on the side of Nellie's bedroom wall.

To be honest they were bored of staying in one place, but none of them wanted to get out of bed unless if one of them wanted to use the bathroom or if they were hungry and Nellie will quickly serve some chicken soup and a piece of bread with hot soothing tea.

In a way it was sort of peaceful, despite Sweeney complaining that Nellie and Toby were taking up most of the bed while Sweeney only had a small portion of it, but overall it was peaceful and they would try to entertain themselves with reading books or playing cards that Toby eventually got out of his room, of course Sweeney still accusing Nellie of cheating though she would always defend herself.

Dusk was soon coming and Toby announced he was going to hit the hay and left the bedroom to be in his own, which Sweeney was relieved now he can be alone with Nellie.

It was only a few minutes until the two carried on what they were doing last night, despite their heads aching and their noses dripping. It was a slow day indeed, but hoped they'll be better tomorrow.

***

Hey! Sorry if this was a boring chapter of just the main characters getting sick, but I promise it'll get better later on!
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