Fake You Out - Joshler

Chapter Thirteen

Josh groans, feeling someone's hand on his shoulder, trying to shake him awake. It feels too large to belong to any of the children so he knows that it's Tyler, he reaches around, pulling his hand out from under his head to swat at Tyler, mumbling under his breath as he shoves his face into the pillow.

"Josh, wake up, just for a minute," Tyler says, continuing his assault on Josh's shoulder as he tries to coax him out of sleep. Josh's already awake but he doesn't want to so he fights it for a couple more seconds, listening as Tyler continues to rattle on about how he needs to talk to him for a minute.

He pushes his face into the pillow, just briefly, before he rolls over to look at Tyler. "What?" He asks in a whisper, voice scratchy but quiet, trying to be mindful of Michael and Brendon still sleeping next to him.

Tyler smiles at him and the cheerful attitude so early in the morning has Josh feeling annoyed, he cranes his neck to look at the clock on the bedside table and sees that it's not actually that early, rather late for him to sleeping on a weekday. He turns back to Tyler when he hears him say, "Brendon's staying home from school today. He woke up when the alarm went off this morning and I gave him something for his throat, and he seemed to have a mild fever so I gave him something for that too. He should be good until ten, eleven if you can get him to last that long," Tyler explains. "Call me if you need me or anything happens. All right?"

Josh nods, closing his eyes. "Yeah, all right. We'll be fine. Go to work, tell Gerard to have a good day," Josh says, waving him off. He rolls over, pulling the blankets up to his neck as he burrows down deeper into the bed.

Tyler pats him on the back before Josh hears his footsteps across the carpet, the door closing behind him. He lies in bed, listening to the sounds of Gerard and Tyler, as they get ready to leave for the day. He can hear Gerard's voice wafting throughout the house, loud and cheerful like Tyler's was when he tried to wake him. He continues to listening, trying his hardest to fall back asleep as he hears the two of them leaving the house and the car starting. It takes all of ten minutes for him to realize that he's not going to be able to go back to sleep.

Josh pulls himself out of bed, stretching his limbs when he stands and turns around to fix the blankets on the bed so a cuddling Michael and Brendon will stay warm. He knows it won't be much longer until the two of them are awake for the day, Brendon waking up first and forcing Michael out of his sleep as well, so he makes his way downstairs to try and get a head start on preparing breakfast.

~~~

"Poppy," Brendon says, following Josh around the kitchen miserably. He's dragging his feet as he walks, pouting at the floor, causing himself to bump into the table and walls as he walks. "Poppy, I need a cuddle."

Josh sighs, putting the breakfast dishes in the sink. It wasn't much of a meal, Michael eating as he normally would, happily accepting anything to Josh gives him, too tired to fight over it. Brendon on the other hand had refused everything that Josh had made, stating that his throat was too sore for food. The only thing that Josh could get him to eat was a measly banana, figuring that something is better than nothing until lunch when Josh can convince him to have some soup.

"Michael is in the other room by himself, watching the movie that you demanded I turn on, so can you go and cuddle him until I get this cleaned up?" Josh asks, flipping on the faucet to soak the dishes in warm water. He sticks a cloth under the water, getting it wet and wringing it out so he can wipe off the table and countertops.

"I can't cuddle with Michael, Poppy," Brendon says, following behind Josh as he washes off the table. "I can't get a baby sick."

Josh agrees with that, not wanting to deal with two sick children, but also realizing that it's pointless to bother when they were already cuddling this morning. Besides three small boys in the house it's futile to try and stop the spread of germs when they're already on every surface since Brendon can't seem to keep his hands to himself. By the end of the week he's sure that he'll have to deal with all three of them getting sick, maybe even himself and Tyler too, unless he manages to get lucky.