Hope you liked Chapter 1, because Chapter 2 is here! Enjoy! c:

-Chapter Two-

"Ch-chikenpokkusu...?" Ryuunosuke hesitantly questioned, his native tongue ever so prominent. He sort of knew what chickenpox was, he just wasn't sure if he heard the other man correctly.

"Indeed!" Sherlock confidently confirmed. "Aside from the distinctive blisters..." he paused, and pointed at Ryuu's still-exposed front. "There is quite a bit of irritation. Don't tell me you've been scratching all this time?" He added, noting the absent-minded scratching motion in Ryuu's dominant hand.

Susato gasped as this was pointed out. "Naruhodou-sama!" she snapped as she grabbed his wrists and held his arms down on either side of him. "You absolutely mustn't scratch!"

"Or what? Am I going to turn into a chicken?!" Ryuu sarcastically asked, trying to break free of Susato's grip.

"No! But it will make the rashes worse!" she explained.

"Huh?" Ryuu stopped struggling in surprise to the answer.

"Yup! It's true." Iris added. "Scratching at the rashes excessively can scar the skin at best; and at worst can result in an infection."

"Treatment then would require a shot at the very least!" The great detective added. It wasn't necessarily true, but he couldn't help but tease!

Whether that statement was true or not didn't matter, Ryuunosuke yelped at 'a shot' anyway, and immediately did everything in his power not to scratch. He definitely did not want a shot! The mere thought of a needle jab was enough to make him shudder. After all, that was the reason behind his iatrophobia.

"Holmesie!" Iris snapped. "It would require medicine at the very least, and you know it! Now how about you make yourself useful here, and go fetch us a few things?" She then wrote something down on a piece of paper before handing to him, and shooing him out of the room, before he could protest to being bossed around by a 10 year old. "Now then, Narudie..." Iris came back over to Ryuu, and placed the other end of her stethoscope at his chest. "...Let's check your heartbeat! Take a deep breath for me, please."

As he did so, he saw the housekeeper come and go with the now-sick bucket, presumably to clean it out. He couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed, even if it couldn't be helped at the time. He also noticed Susato had let go of his wrists (apparently she trusted him enough not to scratch at that point), and was now sitting at the edge of his bed gently rubbing at his aching tummy, which actually helped a little bit.

"Heartbeat is normal." Iris mumbled. "And breathing is so-so." She then put the stethoscope away, and seemed ready to make her diagnosis. "I'd hate to say it, especially when it's an unusual occurrence at your age, but Holmsie was right; you have chickenpox." She stated regrettably.

"I see." Ryunosuke acknowledged, unable to doubt it himself. "I just have one question: How long will I be...sick for?" he asked, hesitant to say 'sick'.

"At the earliest, about a fortnight." Iris answered.

"Oh!" Ryuu was surprised by this. "So, I'll be better soon?"

"That depends on your definition of 'soon'." Susato spoke up.

"H-huh?" Ryuu stuttered.

"A fortnight is equivalent of two weeks." she stoically answered.

There was a brief pause before Ryuunosuke practically bolted out of bed. "T-two weeks?!" he screamed. "I can't take two weeks of leave! I've been waiting for a new case to take on. If I take any leave, one might come alon-" Before Ryuu could finish ranting, he fell into a harsh coughing fit that left him on his hands and knees. The coughing soon turned to gagging, and he found himself heaving once more. 'No! Not again!' he thought, as he kept a hand over his mouth in vain, as it spilled out onto the floor anyway. As he was reduced to coughing again, Susato got him to sit up, so she could clean him and his mess up, and then she helped him back into bed once more.

"Unfortunately, Naruhodou..." Holmes spoke, having seemingly re-spawned from nowhere, when in reality, he just came back from the errand Iris put him on. "...Being sick means having to miss out on the things you really want to do!"

Ryuunosuke pondered a moment. "So if it were you...You wouldn't mind missing a fortnight's worth of detective's work?" he asked, while confidently maintaining eye-contact with the other man, like how he did when he found an important contradiction in court. He knew the other man would not be able to handle it, in that scenario.

"Uh...Well..." Sherlock hesitated. He really wanted to say yes, he would mind, as being a detective was his livelihood, but when he about to say so, a look of pain came over his face. "No, no I would not mind at all!" he forcefully answered.

"If you say so..." Ryuu only pretended to be convinced by the forced answer, seeing how he saw Susato practically twisting Holmes' arm off. He tried to relax, but just as he did, he realized he was no longer distracted by his itchy rashes. "Augh!" he yelped, trying so hard to resist the urge to scratch. "Itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy!"

"Heh heh! I can't tell, are you itchy?" Sherlock sarcastically asked, before noticing Iris glaring at him.

"It isn't nice to tease the ill, Holmsie!" Iris snapped at him for the third time that morning. "Now please tell me you at least got some calamine lotion."

"As a matter of fact..." he ever so confidentially conjured a bottle of the aforementioned lotion. "...I did! Along with everything else you wrote down."

"Alrighty then!" Iris smiled as she took the bottle and opened it. "I'll need Narudie to sit up once more."

Ryuu nodded and sat back up, slowly this time. Before he knew it, his pj shirt was off completely (whether by his own doing, or somebody else's, he didn't recall), and in the process, discovered his arms had begun developing the same rashes.

"Looks like it's already spreading to his arms."

"It's spreading to his back as well."

He heard Iris and Susato speak respectively, as they both applied the cool, calming lotion to his feverish, irritated skin. Yet still, the itching would not subside! He wanted to scratch so badly, and his self-control was wearing thin. Ryuu struggled to get out of the girls' grips. He didn't even care about getting a shot anymore, he just wanted the itching to go away!

"Narudie! Remember what Susie said~!" Iris rang in. "No scratching!"

"But I'm still itchy!" Ryuunosuke whined, louder than he anticipated.

As the others pondered about Ryuu's predicament, a faint 'meow' from nearby prompted an idea from Sherlock. "I think I've got it!" the detective proclaimed, as he left the room and came back with 221B's only non-human resident, Wagahai the cat. The calico greeted the other humans with a 'meow' as if to ask them something, before Sherlock placed him in Ryuu's lap. "Now then, Naruhodou, where are you most itchy?" he asked.

"My back!" Ryuu whined again, not as loudly this time.

"Good!" Susato exclaimed, having caught on to Holmes' idea. "Scratch Wagahai's back!"

As Ryuu did so, the idea proved beneficial to both human and cat! Ryuu no longer felt any itching on his own skin, and Wagahai, like many cats, simply enjoyed the scratching. He even stretched out, so Ryuu would continue.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Iris said, as she excused herself back downstairs. She came up a few minutes later with a cup in one hand, and two small bottles in the other. She set the cup down on the bedside table, and opened the bottles one at a time, each releasing a small pill into her hand. This did not go unnoticed by Ryuunosuke.

"What exactly is that?" he asked, donning his nervous, shifty eyes once more.

"An ibuprofen, and an antihistamine." Iris answered, holding the seemingly suspicious medicine out in front of his face. "I promise it doesn't taste yucky!"

Knowing he was being watched by three sets of eyes (four including Wagahai), Ryuu reluctantly took the pills from Iris' hand and placed them in his mouth. He would have dry swallowed then, had she not held the cup out for him, too. He graciously accepted the cup, and took enough of a sip to swallow the pills. He then gulped down the rest, not realizing how thirsty he was until the liquid touched his lips. Once the cup was empty, Ryuunosuke realized two things: First, he didn't feel nauseous anymore, and second, he felt rather sleepy. He'd find out later that Iris had given him ginger tea, with some chamomile mixed in. Susato helped him back into his pj shirt, and then he layed back down. As he started to doze off, he felt something cool and damp resting itself on his forehead, while his covers were pulled up to his shoulders. Wagahai had also snuggled up to him, probably in the case of more scratching sessions.

'What a morning this turned out to be...' he thought before finally falling asleep.

So that's chapter two! I plan to write a few more chapters for this story. Honest reviews, please! c: