Chapter Text
The sky above Palmetto State university was dark, the silence of the campus interrupted only by the occasional jogger.
The Palmetto Foxes were bustling around as they prepared to leave for morning practice. As usual, Nicky Hemmick, starting backliner, was frantically running around getting his things together. (This time he was searching for a matching sock.) He sent a scowl at Kevin Day, who was completely ready and already heading downstairs.
The goalie, Andrew Minyard, was perched on a table top leisurely smoking out the window. Neil Josten, stepped out of the bathroon after finishing his morning shower, playfully flicking water onto the blond.
Somehow, Nicky was out the door first while Andrew and Neil followed at a leisurely pace, but when they got down to the car he was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, where's Nicky?” Neil asked Matt, who was helping Dan and Renee stuff their duffles in the trunk.
“My place. He went to check on Aaron.”
“Why?” Kevin demands.
“Beats me, just said he wasn’t feeling up to practice.” Matt shrugged as he got into his truck, “Need us to wait for y’all?”
When the others declined he drove off. Just as Kevin and Neil were getting antsy, Andrew’s phone pinged.
Go without me -Nicky
He tossed the keys at Neil before heading back up to the dorms. Matt and Aaron’s door was cracked open.
The room was dark when he entered, Nicky’s duffle laying on the floor inside, his voice barely audible as he spoke. Nicky himself was knelt on the floor next to Aaron's bed.
His brother was curled away from their cousin, face pressed into the pillow, tension rendering the curve of his back stiff as a board. Hands white knuckled where they clutched at the blanket. His brows were pinched together, unresponsive to Nicky's questions apart from a small shudder when the older boys hand ran through his hair.
“Hey, get the thermometer from our bathroom?”
Andrew would never admit that he was kind of impressed when Nicky didn't startle at his appearance. He hands him the reader and settles down by Aaron's feet, "Stomach?"
Nicky hums, his hand petting the tension out of the blond, "Aaron? Honey, come on. Is Andrew right? Is it your stomach?"
"Hurts." The blond croaks, muffled by the pillow, arms tightening around himself.
“Okay, hun, let's see what we can do. Open up?”
The boy in question cracks his eyes open to reveal hazy, bloodshot orbs, swallowing hard when he sees the reader.
“I know, but you definetly have a fever. Try to keep it in just for a little?”
At Nicky’s pleading tone, Aaron pries his trembling lips apart. His stomach flips when the cold glass touches his tongue but he forces it down with a grimace. The nausea swells anyway, muscles coiling tighter and tighter as seconds tick by. He desperately turns into Nicky’s hand when it comes back up to caress his cheek, trying to focus on the warmth that spreads out from the touch.
Nicky startled when Aaron snapped his eyes open and lurched upwards. He hurried to grab the reader, wincing when the bulb knocks into Aaron's teeth, then turning to let Aaron heave into the trash can Andrew had placed there moments ago.
“Fuck, a 102.2, Andrew, stay here, I’m gonna go call Abby.”
The goalie shuffles up the bed just as his twin finishes throwing up and shoves a bottle of water at the other. He moves to the bathroom afterwards to wash out the bucket, bringing it back into the dorm before taking his seat from before. The goalie frowns when the bottle drops out of Aaron's weak grip.
“Alright,” Nicky says when he returns, “Abby’s on the phone, you wanna talk to her Aari?”
The blond shakes his head, still hunched over the bucket while he tried to catch his breath. Nicky relays her questions over to him, checking him over according to her instructions. He checks the lymph nodes where Abby directs him, coaxing his cousin to try to answer her questions. By the end of the call he feels more prepared. The team nurse concluded that it was probably the stomach flu that was going around her clinic when Aaron was shadowing her.
Aaron confirms her diagnosis by coughing up the rest of his dinner into the trash can after a sip of water just as the call ends. Nicky’s nose wrinkles but he still rubs circles into his cousin’s back.
“Do you want to go to the store or should I?” he asks, tugging a limp Aaron back onto the bed, tossing away the heavy duvet for a thinner blanket.
“Neil and Kevin have the car.”
“I’ll go then, you should probably avoid straining your knee after yesterday.”
Nicky had a point, Andrew had stumbled going after a wayward exy ball at practice and while it wasn’t sprained it still ached when he overworked it. “Do you feel up to sitting with him?”
Unlike the foxes, Nicky had experience with the twins learning to be around each other. It was a delicate balance between Andrew’s touch aversion on his bad days and Aaron’s need for contact on his. A ring toss between triggering Andrew into remembering horrifying situations where he was forced into touch, or sending Aaron careening into memories of being trapped into a mausoleum of a house, fever sick or being in pain for days before someone noticed. One shackled to others, while the other was abandoned. But, thankfully, as time went on they managed to make it work more often than not.
Andrew moves to sit up against the headboard, letting Nicky shuffle his Aaron's torso into his lap, gesturing at Andrew to decide where he wanted to keep his hands. After placing a wet towel over Aaron's forhead, and another over his sternum, Nicky gathered his things and was on his way to the store.
"Uh uh." Andrew tsked, gently smacking his brother's hand away when he tried to pull off the cool clothes.
The goalie spent the time scrolling through his phone, occasionally playing a cat video out loud. He freezes up when he feels wetness on his thigh, looking down just as Aaron presses further into him with a pained sound.
"Sorry." Aaron immediately answers, pushing himself up and off his brother.
Andrew frowned at the grayish tinge on his copies face. He snagged his brother's collar, tugging the other back towards him, “Problem?”
"Need Aspirin."
His hand moves to tug on strand of his twins hair. Pain Andrew understood, but- "Shouldn't you wait to take Abby's prescription before ingesting other medications, doc?"
The blond sighs, disappointed but conceeding to his brothers point. Andrew is sort of at a loss for what to do after denying the request, so he settles for the basics, “Have some water.”
“Don’t wanna throw it up.”
Andrew, clairvoyant extraordinaire, had seen this coming, “Take 4 sips and I’ll let you lean on my shoulder.”
When his twin looks up at him with questioning red eyes, he holds the water bottle up in response. Keeping his word, he pulls his doppelganger (who is burning up, Christ) up to his chest afterwards, making sure to keep his face angled towards the bucket.
Aaron, predictably, melts into him. “How long?”
“I’ll tell you when.”
Eventually he gets bored of laying there; his hands need something to fidget with. Tentatively, he raises one to Aaron’s shirt, smoothing down wrinkles or plucking at the fabric. Aaron doesn’t address the movement, only tucking his head further into Andrew’s shoulder, sighing contentedly at the warmth that blooms whenever a hand trails down his back.
The momentary peace is broken when he feels his stomach start to protest. With a small groan, he swallows back the saliva pooling in his mouth, selfishly pressing further into his brother before he’d be forced to push away.
Andrews' holding him over the bucket minutes later. “That’s not good.” He states as Aaron heaves out the meager liquid he had managed to swallow.
That was the third time in less than an hour, and the goalie doubted the next few were going to be much better. Still, they had to keep trying to get fluids in him, dehydration wasn’t going to help anyone.
But after the second time the water came back up Aaron wasn’t taking any more chances.
“Drink.”
“No ‘drew, please no more.”
Fuck, where was Nicky? Aaron was starting to sound more distraught than stubborn, and Andrew wasn't known for his prowess at calming people down.
‘Thankfully, fever-addled Aaron had few inhibitions about taking comfort from people,’ Andrew thought as he was dragged down onto his curled up twin.