Zayns POV
I woke up in the middle of the night to some loud wet coughing and rustling. It was nearly 3:00 AM in the morning and I knew that Niall was beside me, so it was probably him coughing up the storm beside me. I opened my eyes and looked around and saw Niall in the very corner of the bed sitting up, coughing harshly into some of the bed sheets and a pillow.
I rubbed his back as the coughing went on and on. However it wouldn't stop. He would take a few seconds in between fits to take a breath, but then he was back to coughing and I could see that it was hurting him. He had tears in his eyes and his body shook with every painful cough.
I reached over and passed Niall the glass of water that was right beside him, however he couldn't even see my gesture because his face was buried in his pillow that his head was supposed to be resting on while he coughed. It was really hard to help him, but once he stopped for a bit I gave him the water and he drank the whole thing down in a very little amount of seconds.
"Hey you alright? You were coughing pretty hard there." I asked, still rubbing his back while he drank the last bit of water that was in the cup. After he drank his cup, I gave him more water from my water bottle that I always kept beside my bed.
"Yeah I guess i'm ok. Just really tired still." Niall said trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. His voice sounded pretty strained and congested and I couldn't help but also wonder why he was so tired. He was sleeping the whole night!
"What's been keeping you up? You've been sleeping the whole night." I said
"I've been coughing the whole night. This was the worst one i've had tonight so it woke you up, but I was barely even sleeping." Niall said. He took a big yawn and I could only feel guilty at the fact that I was fine, but Niall wasn't. It even looked like it hurt for him to yawn because his throat was so sore from coughing.
"Oh I never knew. Why didn't you wake me up? I could have given you an extra pillow or something. It's good to elevate your head when you have a bad cough you know." I suggested.
Niall coughed once more in his elbow which sent him in a small coughing fit again but then he nodded yes to my suggestion of another pillow. I looked over through the room, but didn't see any pillows so I picked up the pillow from under my head and gave it to him.
"Are you sure? I don't want to rob you of your comfort just because of my throat." Niall said.
"I don't want you coughing the whole night. You won't be comfortable enough. Just take my pillow, i'll use clothes or something." I said grabbing my fluffy sweater to show my new pillow to Niall.
"Thanks mate." Niall said, another cough interrupting him in mid-sentence.
"Welcome. Now get some rest and stop talking. You're gonna end up coughing more if you talk." I said patting his shoulder. Niall laid back down and rested his head on a third pillow and slanted it to make himself more comfortable.
I could hear him coughing a couple more time for the next five minutes so I got him some water from the kitchen, but after that everything else was good. At least I was doing a good job at keeping Niall comfortable. I'd be glad to be his personal caretaker for the next few days anyways.
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Liam's POV
It was finally the next morning and I got up from my loud alarm clock. I hated getting up in the mornings, but at least now i'd be able to replenish my energy by waking up the other boys. It was truthfully the best part about the mornings for all of us. I got up first, then Louis, then Harry, then Niall, and we'd all pitch in to do our part for Zayn. It was a natural process and without i'd feel kind of lost.
"Get up!" I yelled banging a pot from the hotel kitchen. Now this was going to be fun. Usually, hotels didn't come with pots or pans, but this hotel seemed to be like mini house more than a hotel. I mean, what hotel had five bedrooms in one suite?!
I grabbed the pot and pan and ran to Louis' room. I knocked on it hard and before I could start banging on the pot with the wooden spoon in my other hand Louis was already opening the door up with a smug face on.
"What's up with you? You're up already?" I asked, surprised by how Louis just suddenly opened the door.
"You realise Niall will probably get a headache from whatever the hell you're doing. He's sick remember?" Louis said, crossing his arms before me like he was the king and I was just some peasant.
I immediately had flashbacks from what Louis said. Niall being tired yesterday, him falling asleep on my leg in our dressing room, the sneezing, the coughing I heard from last night. It was all Niall and I was probably causing him to have a meltdown in his room and poor Zayn had to deal with it all.
I put the pan and spoon in Louis' hand and ran to Niall's room where Zayn was too. I knocked lightly and no one answered. I quietly opened the door guessing that they were still sleeping, and luckily I was totally right. I was glad I didn't wake either of them up, and to my surprise Niall wasn't up from bed yet moaning in discomfort.
I turned around from their room and saw Louis behind me with my pot and spoon in his hands.
"You should probably be more careful the next time Li. Anyways, i'll go wake up Haz, and you go order the breakfast. We won't be able to go down for it today with Niall in this condition." Louis said patting me on the shoulder as he moved and knocked on Harry's room door.
I walked to the kitchen and telephoned room service for some food, and after that I then realised I had to call Paul about Niall. I called Paul and I decided to just tell him that we were gonna order room service to give us food instead of going downstairs, and luckily he said he'd come up and join us all for about five minutes to eat.
A couple minutes later, Harry was fully awoken and so was Zayn and Niall. I was hopefully thinking that Niall would look a bit better after everything that happened yesterday, because he would have gotten a long night of sleep. However that wasn't the case when I talked to both of them in Niall's room.
"He was up coughing for the majority of the night, but I gave him my pillow to elevate his head to stop the cough for the rest of the night." Zayn said looking over at Niall who's face was still planted in his bed sheets. I should have known that it was best to remind myself of that fact, however I'd forgotten that Niall's cough was so bad.
"Poor lad. What about your other symptoms? Or it it only your throat that's being a bother?" I asked, feeling Niall's forehead. He did definitely have a fever, so that was another thing to worry about other than his raw and sore throat.
"My chest hurts and I have a headache." he said sniffling in between. His voice was cracking as he explained his symptoms to me and I could see tears forming in his eyes which wasn't normal. I knew Niall wasn't crying, but when he was sick his eyes always watered really quickly after he sneezed or coughed and now it was affecting him every second.
"Your eyes are also watering mate." I said passing him a tissue to wipe his eyes. He grabbed it and wiped his eyes, and in the process of him wiping his eyes, Paul walked in. He must've thought that Niall was crying, because of how bad Niall looked already, but Paul didn't know that Niall was even sick, so it probably all came as a shock to Paul.
"Oh, Niall what's wrong? You alright?" Paul asked coming to Niall's bed. Harry and Louis stood at the bedroom door watching what went on behind Paul.
"He's a bit sick at the moment, actually that was why we called you here. Though his eyes are just watery at the moment." Zayn said rubbing Niall's back. Of course this came as new news to Paul, so he had to ask questions about what he was hearing.
"What do you mean? Is he alright enough for today?" Paul asked examining Niall's face as he finished wiping the final tears from his eyes. I was about to say that he looked pretty unwell so it would be best for him to stay, but before I could answer for Niall, it was Niall himself who decided to answer for me which I found pretty surprising. I mean, I thought that his throat was hurting him?
"I'm alright for today." he said, clearing his throat in the process. I could see him wince at how dry he sounded, speaking from his throat. It probably hurt a lot.
"Are you sure about this?" Paul asked, furrowing his brows.
"Yeah you don't look too well mate." Zayn said, clutching onto Niall's shoulder. Harry and Louis walked from the door to Niall's bed too so they could give their input on whether Niall should be up.
"You should rest today." Harry said.
"Yeah, just relax your throat for while. You look exhausted." Louis said.
Every else looked at me, and now it was my turn to say whether or not Niall should probably stay or not. I kind of felt bad for Niall in the sense that he was getting bossed around by everyone, but I wanted to be protective of him too. He was like my little brother and if anything happened to him because I didn't take precautions, I knew i'd probably take it the hardest.
"Whatever makes you comfortable, just take it easy. Alright mate?" I said rubbing Niall's thigh to provide him a little bit of comfort. Niall nodded considering all of our opinions, and even though literally everyone but me said he should stay in bed and rest, he still wanted to go for the fans. Hopefully he wouldn't regret this.
"I'll be fine. I don't want to disappoint anyone. I'm not that bad anyways." Niall said crawling his way off his crowded bed to his suitcase full of clothes. His statement was sort of believable, until he reached his suitcase to only begin coughing again.
"Niall?" Harry asked, giving him the stare.
"I'm fine, don't worry." Niall said coughing in between his words. Once Niall found his shirt and pants to change into that he already set up, he walked into the bathroom looking quite unsteady, and shut the door closed to change. Niall usually never had a problem changing in front of us, but he probably just wanted to make sure that if he felt a cough coming on, he could muffle it with one of the towels in the washroom.
"You lads think he'll be ok?" Paul asked, still being skeptical of Niall's decision to come with us.
"We'll never know. All we can do is keep a close eye out." Louis said giving a deep sigh. We all decided to get ready before breakfast since Niall decided to do it first. That way we could start getting to work right after breakfast and today would go by quicker than we thought.
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Authors Note:
So, i'm sorry if this chapter feels short or not really full of action, but I really wanted to give you guys an update today, and I didn't have much time to write a lot more because I had a couple of things to do today. However I can hopefully promise you that the next update will be very soon and within less than two days. I'll try to make it tommorrow, but then again I might have a couple of activities to do. Anyways, thanks so much for the comments and votes! I really appreciate it and I hope you guys enjoyed this <3