"Jenny!" Dan yelled, staring in shock at his flatmate's unconscious, shaking, frame. "I think he's dying!"
After waiting a full half hour past the time Phil had agreed to get up and switch with him, Dan had wandered into his friend's room to see if he was awake. It was four-thirty in the morning and Phil lay in his bed, sheets tangled all around him and sweat dripping off his body as he babbled incoherently.
"Alright, I'm coming! I'm coming!" Jenny called back, hurrying into the bedroom. She flicked on the light switch. "What's wrong?"
Phil let out an indistinct moan, still shivering violently.
"I'm not sure but I think he's really ill," Dan replied anxiously. He lay a hand on Phil's forehead, but recoiled instantly. "Oh god! He's fucking hot!" Dan hissed.
Jenny sighed wistfully, "I know, right? Especially when the sweat makes his fringe stick to his face around th-"
"No not like that!" Dan groaned. "His temperature! You could fry an egg on him for fuck's sake! What's wrong with him?"
"Okay, settle down," she said gently. "He's gonna be fine."
"No, he's not 'fine'," Dan replied. He grabbed Jenny's hand and pressed it to Phil's forehead.
"Ahh!" she yelped, yanking her hand back as though she was being burned. "Okay, that is way too hot!"
"I know!" Dan said urgently, "I don't know if I should get the thermometer or just skip to the ambulance!"
"Start with the thermometer," Jenny decided. While Dan ran off to locate it, she carefully pulled all the covers off the delirious Phil and got some cold, wet cloths from the bathroom.
"Got it," Dan said a moment later, hurrying back into the room. He quickly pulled it out of the packaging and stuck the cold metal needle under Phil's tongue. As soon as it beeped, Dan pulled it out to read the display. "That can't be right," he murmured.
Jenny was sitting on the edge of the bed, dabbing a cold cloth to Phil's head, "What's it say?"
"102.1," Dan whispered, horrified.
Jenny rolled her eyes, "You have to set it to Celsius, idiot."
Dan looked her in the eyes. "It is on Celsius."
"That's impossible—you die at like, 42." Jenny snatched the thermometer away and retook Phil's temperature while he coughed pathetically. The second it beeped, she pulled it out and read it out loud. "It's...uh... good lord! 102.1!"
"Yeah, so, ambulance, or should I just empty the contents of the freezer on him?" Dan asked urgently.
"No, no it can't be right," Jenny said shakily. "It-it can't! That's above the boiling point!" She thrust the washcloths into Dan's hands and jumped off the bed so that she could pace from one end of the room to the other. "This can't be a coincidence. It has to be related to the fics... So if that really is his temperature then why isn't he dead?"
"It's sizzling," Dan stated, lifting the now extremely warm cloth from his friend's head. "It's fucking sizzling! Think faster!"
"Well, get some ice then! I'm working on it!" she retorted, still pacing. "Okay, let's think this through..." she muttered. "I mean, illness tragedy fics usually involve a terminal disease like cancer... this is more like the flu but with a ridiculously high fever... so what could be the...Wait! Mel is American!"
"Yeah? So?" Dan asked.
"So she doesn't use metric! 102.1 Fahrenheit is like..." she checked on her phone, "38.9 Celsius."
"Okay... and?"
Jenny laughed, "She didn't convert! Here, watch." She switched the thermometer to Fahrenheit and re-checked Phil's temperature. "See? Still 102.1."
"Okay, I don't get it. Is he dying or not?" Dan demanded.
Jenny sighed, "It's complicated. My best guess is that Melanie was writing a sick fic, but she forgot to convert her units, which gave Phil an impossible temperature. So, he really is 102.1 Celsius - which is something like, 216 degrees Fahrenheit - but he's not dying because she only wrote symptoms compatible with a fever of 102.1 Fahrenheit, which is only like, 38.9 Celsius... get it?"
"No."
A/N: Hello Lovely Reader!
So, at this point in the writing process, I showed the scene to my little sister and received the following review:
"omg... that's the stupidest thing I've ever read."
See kids, when you participate in a creative hobby such as writing, it's very important to accept constructive criticism from others. So, I decided to politely discuss her valid, subjective opinion of my writing in a calm and rational manner:
Me: Shut up! No it's not!
Naomi: Yes it is
Me: No it's not!
Naomi: It really is
Me: Says the girl who included pterodactyls in her continuation of my story!
Naomi: I was being ironic
Me: *scoffs* Sure, Dan... ironic. You know what? You haven't even seen stupid writing yet, kid! Just you wait. I'll write you something so stupid it'll make your eyes bleed!
...etc...
So, eventually we decided to abandon my fabulous idea that Mel's ignorance of the metric system would result in Phil's accidental boil-age, and just parody a normal sick fic instead.
TAKE TWO! ACTION!
"Jenny!" Dan yelled, staring in shock at his flatmate's unconscious, shaking, frame. "I think he's dying!"
After waiting a full half hour past the time Phil had agreed to get up and switch with him, Dan had wandered into his friend's room to see if he was awake. It was four-thirty in the morning and Phil lay in his bed, sheets tangled all around him and sweat dripping off his body as he babbled incoherently.
"Alright, I'm coming! I'm coming!" Jenny called back, hurrying into the bedroom. She flicked on the light switch. "What's wrong?"
Phil let out an indistinct moan, still shivering violently.
"I'm not sure but I think he's really ill," Dan replied anxiously. He lay a hand on Phil's forehead and swept a bit of his fringe out of his face.
"Oh, a sick fic? Is that all?" Jenny asked, looking unimpressed. "He'll be fine," she shrugged.
"He doesn't look fine," Dan stated. He leaned his head in closer to attempt to make out the muffled conversation that Phil was trying to have with him.
"Why didn't you tell me there'd be so many people here?" Phil murmured into Dan's ear.
"What do you mean? It's just us here," Dan replied, worry showing in his voice.
"Huh?" Phil asked, scrunching up his face in confusion. He lifted a shaky finger and pointed around the empty room. "But there's lots of people here! Like... one... two... three... four... uh... what comes next?"
"Five," Jenny supplied calmly.
Phil smiled up at her. "Oh, hi mum..." he mumbled. "I dropped the rabbit... did you see where he went?"
"Don't worry about the rabbit right now, hon," Jenny answered as though she were addressing a small child. "It's bedtime, okay?"
"Oh... okay," Phil answered sadly. Then he pointed at the foot of his bed. "But why is Great Aunt Mildred here? Didn't she die?"
"Just a sec," Dan said. He grabbed Jenny's arm and stepped backwards from the bed. "And this doesn't concern you at all?" Dan demanded in a whisper.
Jenny shrugged. "He's just hallucinating," she whispered back.
"Just hallucinating?"
"Hallucinating never hurt anyone... Okay wait, I take that back. But you really don't have to worry. It's not like he has a headache or something," she chuckled.
"How is a headache worse than hallucinating?" Dan asked while Phil muttered something about a captain's log.
"Oh a headache would definitely mean terminal brain cancer," she explained. "If his stomach hurt, it'd be appendicitis—and the appendix would definitely rupture for dramatic effect. If he got a mosquito bite, it'd be malaria. If his eyes kept twitching, he'd be going blind, and so on. But he's just hallucinating so, you know, no biggie."
"Uh huh," Dan nodded slowly, still gazing at his wild-eyed friend. "So... he's fine?"
"Relatively."
"Then... I can just go back to bed?"
"Oh no, definitely not," Jenny shook her head. "This is classic hurt/comfort. Phil is 'hurt' therefore you get to be 'comfort'." She glanced around the room. "You'll probably want to get him a bin or something for when he inevitably pukes all over you and you tell him you don't mind."
"Oh," Dan stated. "Great."
"Yeah... and if you leave him alone for more than ten minutes, he'll be twice as bad when you come back. That's like, fanfic law."
"Good to know."
"Since it looks like the two of you will be up for a while, I'm just gonna take your sleep-shift, alright?" she asked with a yawn.
Dan sighed defeatedly, "Oh sure—why not?"
"Good luck then," Jenny said nonchalantly as she left the room. "Just call me if you have to do CPR or if he starts seizing, 'kay?"
"Will do," he muttered after her.
Once Jenny had left, he approached his half-conscious friend's bed. Dan carefully untangled the covers, re-tucking Phil in. "You look pathetic, you know that?" he whispered under his breath.
"Dan?" Phil murmured absently.
"Yeah, it's me. Try not to die, okay, Phil?" he whispered into his flatmate's ear. "Because life without you would really suck."
A/N: Hello (again) Lovely Reader!
So here's the thing about sick fics—I really like reading them. I don't know, it's just that they tend to be so cute and fluffy and innocent and... *sighs contentedly*
But the other thing is that nine times out of ten, I think that they're completely unrealistic. Now, this could be just because I happen to be profoundly bad at comforting sick people, but I just can't imagine any of the situations actually playing out in real life.
For instance, this is how I reacted a few weeks ago when my sister woke up in the middle of the night because she accidentally ate peanuts in something and was having an allergic reaction:
Naomi: *coughs* Mom? *coughs* Mom? *wheezes* Mom!
Me: *groans* Mom's asleep—what do you need?
Naomi: *wheeze* Mom
Me: Can you not?
Naomi: *coughs* Mom
Me: *groans* *climbs down off from bunk bed* Are you like, not breathing or something?
Naomi: *sputters* Mom *claws at own face (which is breaking out into hives)* Mom
Me: *sighs* Hang on… *goes to get mom* *returns*
Mom: Oh okay… I'll go find the Benadryl. Bethany, can you keep her occupied? Make her sit up and hold onto her hands or something so that she doesn't hurt herself. *runs off to get the meds*
Me: Uh... sure. *holds Naomi's hands* Okay, calm down. Try not to think about it. You'll be fine.
Naomi: *coughs* Do you know any poems? *wheezes*
Me: What is this, The Fault in Our Stars?
Naomi: *pathetic whimper* Please?
Me: Uh... okay... *thinks back to the only poem I know: a 108 line, 18 stanza Lewis Carroll poem that I memorized in third grade*
Me: The sun was shining on the sea/Shining with all his might/He did his very best to make/The billows smooth and bright/And this was odd, because it was/The middle of the night...
Naomi: *coughs* *groans* That one?!
~Three minutes later~
Me: *very dramatically reciting now* ...'The time has come,' the Walrus said/'To talk of many things/Of shoes and ships and sealing wax/Of cabbages- and kings/And why the sea is boiling hot/And whether pigs have wings'...
Mom: *returns with the meds* Got it
Me & Naomi: Oh thank god
...So yeah, that's what a realistic illness response looks like in my family :p
Let me know in the reviews if you have ideas for any other scenes/situations to be parodied within this fictional universe and I'll see what I can do.
Complementary (and surprisingly applicable) Shakespearean review, anyone?
"A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you bring me?" (Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part II. Act II, scene IV. 1600).
Best wishes!
~Bethany
Where it would have gone: In the fourteen days between them meeting Jenny and going to VidCon (Between chapters 25-26)
What I tried to parody: Sick fics and fics in which the author forgets to convert to the metric system.
Why I cut it out: Honestly, I just didn't write it in time. The second attempt I thought was half-way decent, but the first one was... weird.