"I request a GreySkyShipping sick!fic." - yaoiprincess101

And who is Zephyr to deny a direct request from a princess, really? Hm... so the majority of my GreySky stories aren't supposed to be interconnected, but this could be. To which other story/stories is a secret, mostly on account of being too lazy to doublecheck for minor inconsistencies that probably don't exist anyway.

"Nate's sick?" Valerie echoed.

"Yes, very sick. You can't come-"

"I wanna help too!"

Hugh already knew exactly what she was going for – Valerie had this junior doctor kit that she liked to drag around with her, except Hugh thought it contained more plastic torture device replicas than anything. Seriously, where were the thermometers and stethoscopes? He doubted their mother would have let him play with a fake scalpel when he was Valerie's age. On the other hand, Hugh had already determined that parents became less paranoid with age a long time ago.

Or maybe he'd broken them with all the mischief he'd used to get into as a kid.

Like that time when he, Nate, and Rosa were nine, and he'd managed to convince them it was possible to catch a rare butt fungus from sitting on public toilets.

Either way.

Now if he could just manage to get out the front door before Valerie returned – give even the sweetest kid a plastic knife, and they suddenly turned into a bloodthirsty lunatic. Somehow, he doubted that Nate would be in the mood to play along today.

Hugh was halfway through pulling on his shoes and trying to decide whether or not he could sneak out the front door without hearing it from Valerie later, when the sound of returning footsteps interrupted.

And that was before their mother spoke up, "Honey, can you repeat to Hugh what you just told me?"

That pointedly neutral tone of voice she used did nothing to prevent knots from forming in Hugh's stomach. In his precious fifteen years of life, he had come to realize that "neutral" was bad – and that being tattled on by your younger sister was even worse.

"I said that Hugh and Nate are getting married," Valerie cooed, in that obnoxiously naïve way only small children could have. Her mouth contorted into a fishy face, lip smacking smooching noises and all. "'Cause he takes such good care of Nate when he's sick."

Hugh felt like that said a lot about the type of older brother he was, that Valerie could basically ruin his life in front of their mother and he'd still want to be the one crawling inside a hole.

"Seriously, mom?!"

He could only imagine what his face looked like right now. Actually, Hugh decided that he absolutely didn't want to know or even think about that, and went back to fumbling with his shoelaces instead.

"We're not... I'm not..."

Sure, coming out to his parents was on his bucket list for some day. That didn't mean he wanted it to be today.

"You know how kids are. I just can't imagine what would have put that idea in her head in the first place." Recalling that his mother had eerie mindreading powers, Hugh smartly avoided looking directly at her as she spoke.

"Really," he muttered in faux agreement, "how could that have happened?"

In fact, he had a pretty good idea. The kid accidentally oversaw one quick peck on the cheek, and... well, this happened. On the other hand, Hugh recognized that if he protested now, Valerie would probably rat him out to back up her own claims.

Their mother sighed. "At any rate, don't stay too late, okay? Nobody wants you to bring Nate's flu home with you."

"Got it."

Valerie pouted a little as Nate pulled the laces on his shoes taught and hoisted his backpack over his shoulder, but at least their mom was there to hold her back. The tension that had formed in his muscles didn't fully disappear until he was outside and on his way over to Nate's though, the very last of it evaporating as he knocked on the front door to give Nate a warning. Then he let himself in using the spare key, thinking quietly –

It was cold outside, even for autumn.

Given Nate's insistence on wearing that stupid wetsuit until every lake in Unova was frozen over, Hugh thought he had a pretty good idea of how the other boy had gotten sick in the first place.

"Good morning, sunshine," Hugh called out sarcastically, the instant his feet hit the welcoming mat on the other side.

The fact remained that Nate had brought this on himself, after all.

Nate didn't dignify himself with a proper response, groaning loudly back at him instead. "What are you dying already?" Hugh retorted. "Should I have called the morgue instead?"

"Don't bother... When I die... which will be never... I'm turning into a zombie. And then I'm... going after you first..."

He was so sick that he was slurring his words, but...

"If you can still be sarcastic, you must be fine."

Hugh grinned. Maybe he'd gone a little overboard with worrying after all – as Nate was quick to notice. "What's in the bag?"

"Uh. Cold compress, bottled water, a thermos of chicken noodle soup, plastic bags for you to throw up in, washcloth, flashlight – "

"What's the flashlight for?"

"...In case the power goes out?" Hugh chuckled dryly.

It was high afternoon. In retrospect, he'd probably overdone it while packing – and he wasn't even halfway through emptying his bag yet.

"You're worse than my mom," Nate muttered. Although, given his current condition, nothing that had come out of his mouth actually sounded anything like that. (Hugh's on the spot translations were pretty top-notch, if he did say so himself.)

"I'm nothing like your mom," Hugh grumbled back, maybe a little embarrassed.

But maybe his future husband, if Hugh's sister had anything to say about it... It wasn't like he'd objected to the idea.

I wonder if people can tell when I don't edit things, haha-

There are a lot of things I want to write at the moment, but not enough Zephyrs or free time to finish them all in a reasonable amount of time.