I'm really spoiling you guys with this. Basically, I'm taking a Mental Health Day off school today, so instead of using the time wisely (perhaps by working on a presentation I have due tomorrow in one of my labs), I am using it to write a sickfic. I've never actually had the illness in question, but I vaguely remember my dad having it when I was in elementary school, and I've read multiple fanfics about it. If I get the details wrong, blame WebMD, which is probably going to be my main source of info. Anyway, enjoy!

After Demyx ran off stage in the middle of a song, Zexion and Axel had to finish singing the song, and they knew they botched it because they had only ever heard Demyx sing it, without really bothering to learn the words. When the song finally, mercifully, ended, Zexion leaned into his mike and said, "We'll be taking a short intermission now, and we'll update you guys when we know more." Then he ran off stage right, the same way he had seen Demyx go.

When he found Demyx lying down on the couch in the dressing room, with the other bandmates at his heels, he was surprised to see that Demyx genuinely did not look well. He thought Demyx had felt a bit warm earlier, when he had been helping him apply the black eyeliner currently rimming his bright blue eyes, but he had brushed it off as nothing significant. Well, clearly he was wrong; Demyx had a small bucket on the ground near his head, so it looked like the poor thing had the stomach flu or something. He sat down near Demyx's socked feet and rubbed them gently. When Demyx looked up hazily, he asked, "Why didn't you tell us you felt sick? We could have gotten something to make you feel better, postponed the concert if we had to."

Demyx pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing somewhat as he did so. "I … I didn't want to worry you guys. I thought I could hold it in until after the concert was over. Besides, all these fans came to see us; I couldn't disappoint them. It's one of our last concerts, so I figured it was just the stress of being on the road for so long…" He looked at each band member in turn, before stopping on Zexion. "I'm sorry, you guys."

Axel rolled his eyes. "Dude, if you're sick, you're sick. There's not much you can do to control it." Looking at the others, he asked, "What should we do? Demyx doesn't look like he's in any condition to go back onstage. Should we end the concert early?"

Saïx frowned. "I don't like the idea, but I don't see how we have any choice. Without lead guitar, the songs just sound … incomplete. The fans won't like that at all. And that's not even taking into account the train wreck of you guys singing lead on songs you don't know as well. We're all pretty good singers, but there's only so much we can do when we barely know the words."

Roxas winced. "I make a motion that we all have to know all the words to all the songs we play from now on. Demyx, you're gonna need to start sharing all the lyric sheets, so we'll know the words to all the songs, even the ones we're not singing. All in agreement, say 'aye.'"

After the motion carried unanimously, a P.A. came in with a thermometer and a glass of ginger ale. Handing the ginger ale to Zexion for the moment, he gave the thermometer to Demyx with firm instructions to keep it under his tongue until it beeped. When the instructions were carried out, he took back the thermometer and read out the reading. "Your temperature's at almost 102˚; you should go back to the hotel and try to sleep off whatever this is."

With Zexion's help, Demyx stood, but his attempting to move just led to him getting sick again. As he was being sick, Zexion rubbed his back soothingly. When Demyx was done, Zexion put the back of his hand on his sick boyfriend's forehead and sighed. "You're burning up, sweetheart. We need to get you back home; Saïx, can you tell the audience what's going on? Axel," here he took the keys to the car out of Demyx's pocket, "you can drive us back to the hotel, but I'm gonna need you to help me get Demyx out to the car; he's bigger than I am. Roxas, you'll ride shotgun so I can stay in the back seat with Demyx." As everyone moved to follow his orders, he brushed a kiss against Demyx's forehead and then allowed Axel to pick him up. He then followed out to the car waiting outside while posting a Twitter update explaining the situation to the fans, while Saïx explained the situation to the fans waiting inside the arena. Once all five bandmates (once Saïx had rejoined them) were in the car and buckled up, with poor Demyx lying out in the back and groaning quietly, they drove back to the hotel they were staying in for this leg of the tour.

Once they reached the hotel and had gotten back inside, Axel and Saïx helped Demyx over to his and Zexion's bed and made him sit down on the edge of it. Zexion pulled out the first-aid kit and checked Demyx's temperature again – hadn't changed, which could be either good or bad – then helped Demyx lie down. Brushing the hair back from Demyx's forehead, he asked, "Can you tell me what hurts? I don't know what I can give you until I know exactly what's wrong; if we have to give you a different medication later, we don't want them to interact badly."

Demyx thought for a moment and then muttered, "It's mostly just my stomach. It started out just hurting all over, but now it's mostly just settled in one spot."

Zexion raised an eyebrow; it was a bit early to tell, but it sounded like something he himself had had in middle school. "Can you show me which spot it hurts most? Wait – let's get your shirt off first; it'll be easier to tell if there's any external signs if we can actually see it." Helping Demyx sit up again, which again made him wince in pain, he got Demyx's shirt off and then helped him lie down again.

Zexion looked at the pale, exposed skin for a moment. "Can you straighten out your right leg? Your stomach looks tense on the right side, but I can't tell if it's because your leg is bent or because there's something really wrong."

Demyx tried straightening out his leg, but it was only about halfway down before he winced and said, "I can't get it down any further; it's pulling at something up in my hip, and it hurts…"

Zexion was really starting to get nervous; it really was sounding exactly like – "I'm just going to touch a few places on your stomach, and you tell me when it hurts, okay?" Starting on the upper left side of Demyx's belly button, Zexion worked his way around in a clockwise direction. Directly below the belly button was the first time Demyx made any noises of distress, but when Zexion brushed lightly against the lower right side, Demyx sat up suddenly with a cry of pain. Taking his hand away from the sore spot, Zexion helped Demyx back down, and Demyx curled up even more. Looking worriedly back up at the others, Zexion said, "We need to get him to a hospital. Now. I think … I think it's appendicitis."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip to After the Surgery~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Demyx came to in that hazy kind of way people do when they have no actual memory of being unconscious; he had literally no clue where he was, but he knew he was feeling a lot better than he was the last time he could remember. He blinked a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes before he realized that someone had taken his contacts out; it didn't matter how often he blinked, because he wouldn't be able to clear his vision. He started sitting up slowly; his whole body was sore, but nothing really stood out as more painful than anything else. He saw a blue-topped blob near his bed, holding out something, and reached out to take it; whoever it was – though from what he could tell, it was most likely Zexion – was trying to give him his glasses, which he only ever wore if he couldn't use his contacts for whatever reason, so it would have to be somebody who knew him pretty well, to even know he wore glasses. Putting the glasses on, he blinked a few more times, his vision finally clearing to a point where he could look around.

What he saw almost made him cry as much as the pain from earlier had; all four of his bandmates, including his two cousins and his boyfriend, had been waiting for him to wake up from his surgery! He looked from concerned face to concerned face, happy to see that his band had been so concerned for him. "You guys…" he croaked, his blue eyes filling with tears.

Zexion smiled at Demyx before looking at the others. "It's a good thing the doctors told him he might be a bit … emotional when he woke up, or else I'd be seriously concerned right now." He then turned back to his boyfriend. "Do you remember what happened? You were so out of it earlier, the doctors said you might not remember much, either."

Demyx thought for a moment before replying. "I remember feeling really sick, and then I remember waking up here, but I don't remember anything in between the two. What happened?"

Zexion bit his lip and tapped his free hand against his leg, clearly somewhat agitated. "You … your appendix almost burst because you were too stubborn to tell us you weren't feeling well. We got you to the hospital just in time; they ran a few tests and then rushed you into emergency surgery. You've been out for a few hours now, even though the surgery only took about ninety minutes. Your scar shouldn't be as bad as mine was; they used one of those lasers to do yours, while mine was a traditional one." He moved his shirt up to expose a long, jagged scar on his belly, near his right hip, which prompted Demyx to check out his own under his hospital shift; while it was clearly still new, it did not look either as long or as … red as Zexion's own did. When he put his shift back down, he was engulfed by four other pairs of arms, and he put his own arms around as many of the others as he could. He heard Zexion mutter, "Just … never worry us like that again, please?"

I'm gonna end it here. I hope you guys liked this one!