Henry's entire family was sick, sicker than they'd ever been in their life. Henry tried calling in sick but Ray still made him come. Said if he wasn't in the hospital then he still needed to make it. Ray didn't know what it was like to be sick, or at least didn't remember it. Being indestructible made it so he wasn't taken down by the common cold.
Charlotte was sick as well and was also forced to work. The only ones who weren't sick, so far, was Ray, Dylan, Jasper, and Schwoz.
Henry entered the Mancave looking like he hadn't slept in three days. He noticed Charlotte on the opposite side of the room, getting told by Ray about a "No sneezing" rule.
"Hey, you sick too?" Henry asked Charlotte.
"No, I'm just collecting a giant pile of dirty tissues." She stated sarcastically.
"That's gross."
Schwoz emerged from the back, holding a plate of cupcakes. "Hey, everybody!" He greeted. "Since it's Saturday morning, look what I brought! Cupcakes!"
Everyone turned their attention to the plate, some interested.
"Hey Henry, can you grab me one?" Jasper asked.
"Yeah, sure." Henry reached for a cupcake but Schwoz dropped the plate and screamed, the cupcakes landing on the floor.
He ran away from Henry and to the door by the monitors, muttering "Everything's fine" before leaving. Everyone stood around the room confused.
"Hey has anyone seen some cupcakes?" Dylan came out of the back, looking around the room.
"They're over there." Jasper pointed to the floor, the cupcakes all ruined and dirty. "Schwoz brought them out."
"No!" Dylan stood over the mess, upset. "I told him those were for Henry!"
"You made me cupcakes?" Henry looked over to his boyfriend with a smile on his face.
"I did... but now you'll have to fight the floor for them. Why are they on the floor?"
"I asked Henry to grab me a cupcake and then Schwoz screamed and threw the plate." Jasper explained.
"Why?"
"I don't know, he's acting kind of..." Henry trailed off and into a fit of coughs.
"Am I gonna have to listen to that all day?" Ray asked, annoyed.
Henry just glared at him. "You know my whole family is sick, too? Jasper, how are you feeling?"
"Great," Jasper answered honestly, "Just getting tired of holding these paints." Jasper had been tasked with holding a paint pallet while Ray was painting a bust of Captain Man.
Schwoz came back from the room he disappeared to wearing a mask, rubber gloves, and holding one of his scanning wands.
"Hello," He sounded a little nervous, "So, did anyone here recently go into my science laboratory?"
"Well, yeah." Charlotte told Schwoz.
"You sent me, Dylan, Charlotte, and Jasper there on Thursday." Henry chimed in.
"To put labels on your beakers." Charlotte explained.
"Okay, well. I think I did a bad thing." Schwoz admitted.
"What did you do?" Dylan asked.
"Well, you know how I've always wanted to be famous? By curing some terrible disease?" Everyone nodded their head. "So, I figured the fasted way to come up with a cure was to create my own terrible disease."
"Hold on, hold on." Henry needed a minute to process Schwoz's words. "Are you saying that you think we have that disease you created?"
"He doesn't know that!" Charlotte spoke before Schwoz could voice his opinion. "I mean, maybe we just have a cold or the flu, or dandruff!"
"Yeah Schwoz, you don't know why they're sick, you're not a doctor." Ray voiced.
"I know what I'm talking about!" Schwoz told everyone. "Look at Henry's pinky fingers!"
"Oh yeah," Henry held up his hands in front of Schwoz, extending both of his pinkies, "Why are they green?" He had noticed the discoloration back at his house but brushed it off.
"It's one of the symptoms of my disease." Schwoz stated.
"Ah!" Charlotte looked down at her own hands. "My pinkies are green too!"
"Quick, let me see!" Schwoz started scanning both Henry and Charlotte with the wand he brought out. "Yep, you both have my disease."
"Ah, great!" Charlotte yelled out.
"Well, what about Jasper and Dylan?" Henry pointed to both of them. "They were with us. They touched your beakers. Do they have your disease?"
"I don't get sick." Dylan told the others. "Haven't since I got my powers. Bacteria and viruses don't like that my cells are coated in metal."
"Then that leaves Jasper."
Schwoz went over to Jasper to scan him for the disease. "Jasper is clean, no disease." He stated in shock.
"Well we have it, why doesn't he?" Charlotte asked Schwoz.
"I don't know why Jasper doesn't have it. He should. My disease is very contagious." Schwoz was very proud of that aspect.
"Well, what do Henry and I do now?"
"Yeah, and what about my family?" Henry asked.
"I can answer that," Ray stepped away from painting, dropping the brush, "Schwoz you better come up with a cure for your stupid disease."
"Okay." Schwoz agreed.
"And until he does, Henry, since you're both contagious, you and Charlotte are gonna have to be quarantined in your house with your family."
"What is quarantined?" Jasper asked.
"It means they all have to stay inside so they don't spread the disease to the normal people of Swellview."
"Well, what about you?" Charlotte was concerned about Ray contracting it.
"Don't worry about me. Old Uncle Ray is indestructible, which means I can't get sick." Immediately after his sentence Ray let out a cough. He looked down at his hand and noticed his pinky was green. He screamed at the sight and looked at the others in the room. They all just gave him an apologetic look.
—
Henry, Charlotte, Ray, Dylan, and Schwoz all made their way to Henry's house. Schwoz was there to pose as someone from the health department and Dylan was there to essentially take care of everyone. Leaving a house full of sick people with a questionable disease alone didn't sound like the greatest idea.
"How's everyone doing?" Schwoz asked once they were all on Henry's front porch.
"How are we doing?" Charlotte yelled.
"Look at our fingers." Henry stated. He, Charlotte, and Ray all held up their hands. Each of them had green pinky and ring fingers on both hands.
The sight caused Schwoz and Dylan to jump a little. "Nothing to worry about." Schwoz tried to say, but it was clear something was very wrong.
"I don't get this!" Ray whined. "I'm indestructible! How's your freakish disease making me sick?"
"I guess I'm just really good at creating freakish diseases."
"You better not be too good," Dylan warned, "cause I swear if I get sick, you're waking up with no toes Schwoz."
"No toes?"
"Zero." Schwoz's eyes went wide at Dylan's implications. Sometimes he was scared of the boy.
"Are you sure we're not gonna die?" Henry interrupted the two.
"Of course!" Schwoz reassured. "Well at least not until all of you fingers and thumbs turn green." Everyone started freaking out, the possibility of death now an impending dread. "Look, you all just go inside so I can get back to working on the cure."
"Wait but what if Henry's parents try to leave the house?" Charlotte asked, genuinely concerned.
"Don't worry, we brought Bork to guard the door." Dylan waved over to someone in the distance who grunted in reply. Everyone waved to Bork and said hello.
Henry opened the door to his house, everyone funneling inside. His family looked like they were getting ready to go somewhere, all of them putting on jackets.
"Hi Henry." His mother greeted the best she could. "Oh my gosh, is Charlotte sick too?"
"Yeah." Charlotte told the woman.
"So is my boss." Henry pointed over to Ray.
"That's right," Ray tried sauntering over to Mrs. Hart, his weird crush on her always present, "But I'm not too sick to notice a pretty lady like—" He started coughing, retreating to one of the couches in the living room to wallow in sickness and sadness.
"Oh!" Mrs. Hart let out a shriek, everyone turning their attention to her, "Look honey, their fingers are turning green too!" Henry and Charlotte held up their hands for Henry's mother to get a better look at.
"That's why I'm taking us all to the doctor." Henry's father stated.
"Uh, you can't!" Charlotte butted in.
"Mom, Dad, Piper, this is uh..." Henry pushed Schwoz forward, forgetting who he was supposed to be.
"My name is Dr. Schwarmalensen." Schwoz introduced.
"Yeah, that. He's from from the uh..." Once again Henry forgot Schwoz's alias and his story.
"The Swellview County Health Department." Charlotte finished.
"That's right," Schwoz told Henry's family, "I'm sorry but you must all be quarantined."
"Quarantined?" Piper clarified.
"Yes. You see little girl," Schwoz bent down so he could be the same height as Piper, "when people get upset tum-tums sometimes they have—"
"Will you quit talking to me like I'm an idiot?" Piper interrupted.
"It just means we have to stay here, in this house, until we're cured." Charlotte told Piper from the opposite side of the room.
"Okay, sorry Dr. Schwankelsen," Piper began, "but I'm not going to the doctor and I don't want to sit in this stupid house all day." Piper started making her way to the front door, fully intending to just leave. Once she opened the front door she was met with Bork standing in her way, arms crossed and grunting at her. Piper closed the door, a bit afraid for her life. "I've decided to stay here."
"Okay, I don't mean any disrespect, but I don't see why we can't see our own doctor?" Mrs. Hart asked Schwoz.
"No!" Schwoz yelled, causing Henry's parents to jump a little. "If you come into contact with the public, you could infect every person in Swellview."
"Yeah Mom, we're contagious," Henry told his mother, "We can't risk infecting other people."
Schwoz left shortly after, leaving everyone at Henry's house with Bork guarding the premise.
"Dylan, sweetie," Mrs. Hart had noticed her son's boyfriend's lack of green fingers like the rest of them, "Normally I love having you here, but you should leave before you get sick."
"I'm fine, Mrs. Hart. I've got a good immune system." Dylan told her, assuring that nothing would happen to him. "Besides, someone's gotta look after you all."
"I just don't want you contracting anything." Henry's mother would blame herself if anything happened to Dylan.
"I won't, trust me."
—
Schwoz needed Jasper for the cure to his disease. Jasper's body wasn't responding to the sickness like the others had, meaning he must have had something the others didn't have.
"Can you explain what you're doing to me?" Jasper asked, strapped down to some board and hooked up to various machines.
"I'm examining you so I can find out why you didn't get sick, and that way I can cure the other peoples." Schwoz explained. "Now, I need to take a tiny bit of your blood so I can examine it." Schwoz pulled out an arm cuff with spikes on it and headed over to Jasper. "This might hurt just a lot."
"What do you mean a lot?" Schwoz didn't answer him, just put the cuff on his arm, spikes sinking into his skin causing him to scream.
"Did you feel it?" Schwoz asked.
"Yeah I felt it!"
"Good." Schwoz headed over to one of the machines he had brought out, typing away at it. "Now, I will take a little bit of your blood." He fired up the machine and Jasper's blood came pouring out of his body, into a tube, and then finally into a receptacle.
By "little bit of blood" Schwoz meant a lot. He took one gallon of Jasper's blood. How he wasn't dead was a miracle, seeing that the human body only had about one and a half gallons of blood in it. Schwoz took some of Jasper's blood and put it into a concoction he had previously mixed up. He told Jasper that if the mixture was flammable, then they had their cure.
Schwoz lit a match and threw it into the beaker, it immediately catching fire.
"So now you can make a cure for Henry and everybody?" Jasper asked.
"Well, with one gallon of your blood," Schwoz started computing some numbers on his tablet, "I can make enough cure for... two peoples."
"But we need to cure six peoples." Jasper pointed out.
"Yeah, I'm gonna need a lot more of your blood."
"But, you already took a whole gallon! I don't think my body has much more blood to give! Why can't you take some of Dylan's blood?"
"Because his blood could kill people with the amount of dangerous metals in it."
"But doesn't all blood have metal?"
"Hey, who's the doctor here?"
"No one!"
"True." Schwoz walked over to a drawer and pulled something out of it. "Here, eat this raw meat." He slapped Jasper in the face with it and went back to making the cures.
—
Henry's house was filled with sick people getting sicker. Everyone was either too hot or too cold. Dylan positioned himself on the living room couch and Henry took it as an invite to crawl into his lap. "It's not like you can get sick." Henry told him. Dylan just rolled his eyes and moved their positions so he was laying down on the couch with Henry laying on top of him.
At some point Henry had fallen asleep, the sickness making his whole body tired. He woke up about an hour later to Dylan still below him. The first thing he noticed were his hands. Henry fell asleep to his pinky and ring fingers being green, but now only his thumb remained unstained.
Dylan immediately called Schwoz in hopes of him having something.
"Go for Schwoz!" Schwoz answered.
"Hey." Dylan responded.
"Hi Dylan! I'm almost ready with the cure. I just need a little more blood from Jasper." Dylan could hear Jasper in the background, protesting.
"Just please hurry, they only have one finger left."
"I'm on it!"
Dylan hung up the phone and looked up to his panicking boyfriend. "It's okay, he said he's almost done." He pulled Henry into a hug and started running his hands through his hair.
"I'm gonna die aren't I?" Henry asked, worried.
"No, you're not. No ones dying."
"Oh god, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die before I could tell you..." Henry lifted his head up so he could get a proper look at Dylan. "I need to tell you."
"Henry, no. You're not going to die." Dylan knew exactly where the conversation was going.
"Listen, in case I die—"
"You're not dying!"
"I need you to know, that I love you." It was so sincere but Henry was also delirious with sickness. "I know we've only been together for some months but you need to know. I'm in love with you."
"Dammit, Henry." This was so not how Dylan pictured their big love confession to be.
The good news was Henry ended up falling back asleep on top of Dylan, cutting their conversation short so Dylan didn't have to respond. It wasn't that Dylan didn't love Henry, but he wanted to make sure Henry remembered him saying those words for the first time, and in Henry's current state his memory was practically shot.
Twenty minutes later Schwoz was knocking on the front door and entering the house. Dylan woke Henry up, pointing over to Schwoz for him to focus on.
"Hello, how is everyone doing?" Schwoz asked. Everyone groaned and coughed in response. "Great! Now look everyone, I brought the cure!" Schwoz held up a rack of test tubes with the cure inside. He was about to set them down but he dropped them instead, the tubes breaking and the liquid spilling onto he floor.
Everyone started groaning and whining, upset that their ticket to breathing easy was destroyed. Schwoz just started laughing, telling the others that he had pranked them, and held up the real cures. They all jumped up and took a tube, drinking the cure like their life depended on it, because it did. Schwoz explained to them that the cure would cause them to shake and twitch before the disease left their body, which ended up happening to everyone at the same time.
They were all cured, their fingers returning back to their normal color.
Piper was the first person to leave, bolting out of the house while her parents chased her because she threatened to take their car. Then Ray and Charlotte left, dragging Schwoz with them to the front porch to "teach him a lesson", whatever that meant.
That left Henry and Dylan, alone in the living room.
"How are you feeling?" Dylan asked.
"Better, much better." Henry responded.
There was a weird air between them. Dylan didn't know if Henry remembered what he said.
"What do you remember?" Dylan tested out.
"Oh you know," Henry broke eye contact and stared at the ground, "everything."
"Everything, everything?"
"Yep."
There was a beat of silence, and then, "You love me?"
"Of course," Henry's head shot up, the two of them staring at one another again. "Of course I love you."
"No I mean, you really love me?"
"Yes," Henry didn't understand why Dylan was so confused. Did he think Henry didn't actually love him? He couldn't have Dylan thinking that. Henry pulled Dylan close to him, wrapping him in his arms so they were inches from one another. "I love you." Henry whispered.
"I love you." Dylan whispered back. It was like they were sharing secrets.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
They shared another secret, this time in the form of a kiss. A kiss filled with love, not that their previous ones didn't have that. This time though, they knew. They both knew.