Lullaby Chapter 6

[eiahmon]

Title: Lullaby
Pairing: none
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Pure crack, fluff, and weirdness in spades.
Summary: Atsushi wakes up one morning to find that he has somehow undergone a drastic change, and he is NOT happy about it. For that matter, neither are his bandmates.
A/N: Internet problems are a drag.

6.
March 5th & 6th
Days 5 & 6

Atsushi whimpered as he woke up. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, wondering what had woken him. He looked around, feeling a bit disoriented because he wasn't in his own room. He wondered where he was and felt a prickle of fear - had that thing gotten a hold of him? - before he spotted Ani asleep in bed a few feet away. They had evidently moved him into the drummer's room. He hadn't had a nap earlier in the day, so he had tired quickly and fallen asleep in front of the TV well before his normal bedtime, and he guessed that they had moved him afterward.

He laid down and nestled down into the comfort of the mattress, intending to go back to sleep, feeling safe with his friend/ brother in the room with him, but instead a of warmth and softness, he found...

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up with a yelp. What the...? Oh he hadn't... He groaned and raked his hands through his sweaty hair, wondering for a brief moment why he was sweating in the chilly air of the room.

"Atsushi?' came Ani's voice, sounding half asleep "Are you alright?"

Atsushi whimpered again as he realized what he had done, and he heard Ani sit up in bed. "Atsushi? What's wrong?"

"Ani, I..." Tears began to pool in his eyes and run down his cheeks, and he looked up at the drummer as he started to cry. "I had an accident." He then looked away in humiliation, unable to believe what had just happened.

"Oh damnit." he heard Ani mutter followed by the sound of the older man getting out of bed and walking towards him.

"Let's get you cleaned up, Achan." the drummer said gently as he picked him up and carried him out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

Atsushi did not fuss or protest as Ani ran him a quick bath and stripped his wet pajamas off. His only protest came when he was picked up and placed in the tub.

“God Ani, this water’s cold!”

Ani frowned and ran the tips of his fingers through the water. “It’s fine, Atsushi.” He looked at Atsushi and frowned again. “Are you alright, Achan?”

Atsushi belatedly realized that he was shivering and that his teeth were chattering. “I’m freezing.” He shuddered when Ani reached out and felt his cheeks and neck. “Your hands are cold!”

“You have a fever, Achan.”

“Great, that’s all I need.”

Ani sighed and stood up. “Wash up; I’ll be back in a few minutes to get you.”

“Okay.”

The drummer walked out of the room, and Atsushi promptly reached over to the hot water knob and cranked it on full blast. He shivered again and hastily washed himself down, wanting to get out of the still frigid water as quickly as possible. He was out of the tub and drying himself when Ani returned, bearing clean pajamas and a blanket. Atsushi didn’t protest as Ani dressed him, wrapped him in the blanket, and carried him out of the room. He laid his head down on the drummer’s chest and yawned sleepily.

“Go back to sleep, Achan.” Ani said quietly as he laid him down, and Atsushi was a little startled to see that he was in the drummer’s bed instead of his own.

“Ani?”

“Hmmm?”

“Please don’t tell anyone about what happened. Please don’t.”

Ani smiled at him. “Don’t worry; I won’t. Now go to sleep.”

Atsushi yawned and closed his eyes. "Love you, Ani." he mumbled, and he was asleep before the drummer could respond.

*****

"He has to see a doctor."

"And how will we explain this?"

Atsushi whimpered when the voices intruded on his sleep, and he shifted, noticing that he was being cradled in someone's arms instead of lying in bed.

"You're waking him up." said a voice that was much closer to the others and likely belonged to the one that was holding him. A hand gently patted his back, and he whimpered again.

"It's hot." he whined as he squirmed in the arms that held him. The person holding him shifted, and a second later a glass was held to his lips. Atsushi eagerly sipped the water down before he relaxed and laid his head back down.

"Go back to sleep, Achan." the voice, which he belatedly recognized as Hide's, said gently. Atsushi squirmed a bit more, trying to get comfortable, before he hid his face in Hide's shirt and nodded off.

*****

Atsushi slowly woke up, noting how hard it was to do so. His eyelids felt as though they had been weighted down, and his entire body felt so heavy. He was lying sprawled out on his back in the middle of Ani's bed, and he wasn't sure that he could have moved if he tried. He heard soft snoring over to his right and turned his head to see Hisashi sleeping in his bed.

v "Hisashi?" Atsushi winced at the strangled croak that came out of his mouth, and his throat screamed in protest. Hisashi stirred and looked at him.

"Are you alright, Achan?"

"Thirsty."

Hisashi got up an walked over to the nightstand, where a tall glass of water was sitting. Even with his sore, tired eyes, Atsushi could plainly see the drops of condensation on it, and looking at it made him thirstier than before. Hisashi picked it up and sat down on the bed beside him, and Atsushi tried to sit up, but the action made the room spin around him. He would have fallen back to the pillows had Hisashi not snaked an arm around his shoulders and held him up. He shot the guitarist a grateful look before he turned this attention to the water glass. Once the water was drank, Hisashi laid him back down pulled the covers over him.

“Goodnight, Atsushi.”

Atsushi curled up on his side and closed his eyes.

“G’night.” he mumbled as he tumbled back down into sleep.

*****

Nature’s call roused him later. Atsushi tried to ignore it; he really didn’t want to leave his nice warm bed, but his bladder would not be ignored and told him sharply that unless he wanted another accident, he had better get up. With a sigh of resignation, which he instantly regretted as it made his throat hurt, he wiggled out from under the blankets and got up.

He broke out in shivers when his feet touched the floor, and his legs shook when he tried to put his weight on them. That coupled with the room’s decision to go for a sudden spin made him tumble down to the floor. He whimpered, and a second later hands grasped him under his arms and pulled him to his feet.

“Back to bed with you, Achan.” came Yuta’s voice.

“Have to go to the bathroom.”

“Alright.” Atsushi was lifted off his feet then, and Yuta carried him out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He didn’t bother to protest about being carried; he was too tired and miserable, and he was a little glad that he didn’t have to put his feet down on that freezing cold floor.

Yuta carried him into the bathroom and sat him down in front of the toilet, which thankfully, had a rug in front of it. He turned his back, yet kept on hand on Atsushi’s shoulder to steady him while he took care of things. Once that was taken care of, he picked him up and carried him back to bed. Once he was back in bed, Atsushi went to lie back down, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Wait a moment, Achan.”

“What?” he grumbled sleepily. He saw Yuta messing with something, and a second later, a small plastic cup was held out to him. He eyed the dark red contents for a second.

“Do I have to, Yuta?”

“If you want to start feeling better, then yes, you do.”

Atsushi sighed again and shakily reached out and took the cup. He downed the contents in one go, and grimaced at the nasty taste. A glass of water was held out of him then, and he drank it quickly, eager to get the nasty taste out of his mouth.

“Itsuki was right.” he mumbled as he laid down “It really doesn’t taste like cherries.”

Yuta laughed softly as he tucked the blankets around him and brushed his hair back from his forehead. Atsushi only yawned and went back to sleep.

*****

“You need to wake up, Atsushi.”

Atsushi whined as a hand took hold of his shoulder and gently shook him. “Doan wanna.” His protest was duly ignored as his blankets were pulled away, and he was picked up. He groaned and blinked his eyes open to see that it was Ani had that him.

“Why are you waking me up?”

“You need a bath, Achan; you’re fever’s getting higher than I would like, and the medicine we’re giving you is not bringing it down.”

How did they know how high his temperature was? He couldn’t remember having a thermometer stuck in his mouth. If they hadn’t done that, how did they know? That would have required that... Oh... Atsushi felt his face burn as he was carried out of the room, and not from his fever.

Ani carried him into the bathroom, kicked the door shut behind him and sat down on the edge of the tub with Atsushi on his lap and began to undress him. The tub was already half full, and Atsushi could see the steam rising off of the water, but he knew with a certainty that to him, the water would feel freezing cold.

“I don’t want to take a bath, Ani.” he moaned.

“I’m sorry, Achan.” Ani said gently ‘But you need one.”

“No,” Atsushi started to cry as he was sat down in the water, and he immediately broke out into shivers and tried to curl up in a ball.

“I’ll try to make this as quick as possible, Achan.” He then picked up a cup that was sitting on the edge of the tub and began to wet his hair.

“It’s cold, Ani; it’s cold!”

“It’s because you’re so hot, Achan.”

Atsushi sat in the tub, too cold and miserable to feel embarrassed at being bathed, and just cried as Ani quickly scrubbed him down and washed his hair.

"Almost done, Achan." Ani said as he pulled the plug and lifted him out. He wrapped him in a large towel and began to dry him off, while Atsushi just wailed out his misery for anyone to hear. Once he had been dried off, Ani redressed him and wrapped him in a blanket, before he used a blow dryer on his hair and brushed it out as his sobs trailed off into sniffles. Then he carried him back to bed.

Yuta and Hide were changing the sheets on the bed, and Atsushi quickly found himself tucked in and dosed with more medicine.

"Did it help?" Yuta asked his brother.

"A little. He does feel a little cooler now."

"That's good then." Hide added "I was getting worried." The three of them wished him goodnight, and filed out of the room.

"Ani?" Atsushi called, and the drummer stuck his head back in the door.

"What's wrong, Achan?"

Atsushi reached out to him. "Stay in here with me?"

Ani shook his head slightly and walked back into the room and scooped him up, wrapped a blanket around him and settled down into a chair next to the bed. Atsushi nestled down into the embrace and sighed.

"Love you, Ani." he mumbled as he went to sleep.

"Love you too, Atsushi."

A/N: Only one more chappie to go!

Chapter 5 -- Chapter 7
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