One Direction Sickfics

Liam - for Born2Create20

"Sit tight a minute Li, I'm gonna go get Mum."

I nodded and closed my eyes as Dad stood and moved toward the door. I was looking forward to a day in bed, snoozing through the sunlight without having to worry about writing essays or typing away at a computer. I figured all my body needed was some rest to catch up with itself and then I'd be good again, maybe two days. It didn't really matter, I'd finished with basketball now anyway.

"Good morning Sweetheart. . ." Mum whispered softly a couple of minutes later.

 I opened my eyes and gave her a smile, "hey Mum."

She wandered over and observed my hands just as Dad had. "I'll be careful," she promised.

"Maybe you're having another growth spurt," she finally said, letting my hands go.

Dad chuckled, "I hope not, he's already six foot."

I cracked a smile but internally I was beginning to worry just a little. Was that really Mum's best guess? I thought she'd have a better idea of what was going on than that.

"You must've played too hard yesterday." Dad winked, "you'll be okay for school today?"

I swallowed. I couldn't say that this had been going on for over a week because I'd get an earful for playing yesterday, but at the same time they weren't going to let me out of school because I had slightly swollen hands.

"Come out and have some breakfast, and then we'll talk about it. You've been working hard lately, if you'd like a day I don't mind," Mum suggested. I let out a sigh of relief and nodded as I prepared to get out of bed. It was going to be the worst part.

I'd been careful about it all week, hiding away from my parents so they wouldn't see the painful process. It would've been a dead giveaway that something was wrong. It didn't matter all that much anymore.

I gave Dad a hand, feeling the roughness of his skin on mine. He held it gently, not squeezing at all.

To start off I wriggled a bit, just to get a feel of how much everything truly hurt and figure out which joints needed favouring the most. My shoulders and ankles were probably the worst, which was going to make getting around fun. As I slid my feet gingerly over the side of the bed I noticed that they too were beginning to swell around the knuckles.

I winced and squeezed Dad's hand slightly as my back twanged. Mum's arms shot out ut she didn't know where to put them.

I shifted the hand Dad was holding up onto his shoulder and quickly counted to three in my head before manning up and just standing, my knees giving a heart click.

Murmuring a few curse words as tears sprang to my eyes, I held my breath and waited for the worst of the stiffness to pass.

"That was hard to watch Li," Mum muttered, sounding shocked. I wasn't surprised, that was probably the most difficult get up I'd had so far.

"My ankles hurt a lot," I complained, choked up.

Mum and Dad quickly agreed that no chat was needed, they couldn't send me to school as I was anyway. Dad helped me back into bed and Mum brought something to eat up to me. After eating I put the tray to the side and tried my best to go back to sleep and make the best of my day off. Hopefully after a few extra hours I'd feel better.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case and after laying around all day the next morning it was even harder to stand up. All I'd done the day before was watch TV from my bed, the only walking I'd done was to the bathroom when I got desperate. It seemed everything had only stiffened even more since then. My hands felt better, kind of, but not much else.