Chapter Text
Covid sucks. Haechan is well aware of this fact, but he’s never had to directly deal with the infection. So far in these two years, he’s been a wee bit more focused on how adversely it affected his line of work. He hasn’t seen his fans in person in over two years. Sales have decreased. Performing doesn’t quite feel the same. It's almost uncomfortable to perform before an empty audience when they're used to a full house.
But now he’s starting to hate it for an entirely different reason. His nose hasn’t quite stopped dripping in two hours, and his chest rattles with each cough ripped out of a parched throat. He curses whoever gave him the infection as he nearly heaves into cupped hands, head throbbing in rhythm with his thumping heart. He’s been quarantined in his room for two days, ever since his beloved motherfucker of a bandmate, Renjun passed it onto him. He’s more than a little salty that Renjun’s symptoms are practically nil, while Donghyuck suffers. He’s run out of things to do, as his dripping nose makes focusing on anything else difficult. Donghyuck’s pride would never let him admit it to his bandmates, but he finds even a trip to the loo exhausting, leaving him with very limited options. And so Lee Donghyuck, also known as Haechan of NCT, self proclaimed mood maker of the whole of NCT, finds himself in not the best of moods and decides to sleep it off. Now if only his hyperactive but cotton filled brain would get the memo so he can actually catch some rest. But of course, if we were to let our dear protagonist get his well deserved sleep, there wouldn’t be anything for this poor author to write about would there?
Naturally, sleep doesn’t come easily to Donghyuck, no matter how much tossing and turning he does. There are muffled noises coming from outside his room. The rest of 127 are primary contacts so they’re all cooped up in the dorms, but unlike him nobody else seems to be experiencing any covid symptoms. Silently he curses his own shoddy immune system for its plight (nevermind that he was the only one who’d hugged a mildly feverish Renjun a few days back while the rest of them had wisely stayed away). The rest of his 127 bandmates are probably getting some take out delivered and watching some shitty rom-com on Netflix. And being very loud about it. Haechan sighs. So much for peace and quiet. At least they’re enjoying the paid mini vacation unlike him. Lucky them. He can’t fault them too much, because they care, and they’ve been showing it in their own ways.
Doyoung, most noticeably, had been flitting around his room the first couple of days, frantically bringing him supplies and making sure his oxygen saturation wasn’t dropping below the threshold, sending him strongly worded messages berating him for hanging onto an already sick person. Poorly masked worry peeked through though, somewhat ruining the strong front his hyung had been trying to put on (as though the rather gruff get well soon at the end wrapped up with a heart hadn’t).
Taeyong had left some soup outside his door when he’d complained about his sore throat during one of his periodic check-ins with the youngest. Jungwoo had left him a little post-it note stuck on the bowl with a get well soon greeting along with numerous poorly drawn smileys, and Haechan had felt his mood lift a bit at the thoughtful action. The soup had been great too, which wasn’t a surprise considering that Taeyong was a wizard in the kitchen. He’d felt his chest and nose clear up considerably within minutes, giving him an interval to finally sleep without having to worry about both his nostrils being blocked.
Johnny, who is his room mate, and who he had scared to hell and back that one night when Haechan couldn’t breathe well, had been left a little traumatised by the whole experience. Although he was quarantined in a separate room (and experiencing no symptoms thankfully), he checked on him every other hour and panicked if he didn’t get a reply within the hour. Which would be an issue if Haechan slept like a normal human being, but apparently being infected meant the resurgence of his much dreaded insomnia, so he hasn’t missed a single update for Johnny. Which has made Johnny even more concerned but hey, you gain some you lose some. Johnny hyung can suck it, with all due respect.
All the members had made a rotation system to ensure that if he were to experience any difficulty, someone would be up at night to tend to him or, if worst comes to worst, get him to the hospital. And if Hyuck found himself tearing up a little at how good they were to him, he could easily blame that on his fever.
And this is where the evil author finally allows our weary protagonist to get some much needed shut eye.
Hyuck wakes up to taps on his door followed by Johnny’s voice calling out, “Hyuckie? You alright in there?” Donghyuck belatedly realises that he must’ve slept through his hyung’s hourly check-in, and must’ve therefore resulted in a panicked Johnny. A panicked Johnny is never a good sign. While the man is a complete softy (not to mention that he’s more than a little whipped for Donghyuck’s antics), he’s built like a wall and wouldn’t hesitate to rip his bedroom door off its hinges in his haste to see if Donghyuck’s doing alright. And while Hyuck very much appreciates the sentiment, he’d much rather not have an angry landlord on his hands. So pushes himself up with a little (a lot of) difficulty and drags himself to the door, grabbing a mask on the way. Johnny’s more than a little surprised to see him up, and Donghyuck almost wishes he didn’t answer the door himself when he feels the headrush. Through the spots darkening his vision, he catches sight of Johnny’s faces twisting from a concerned frown to alarm before everything goes dark and he’s plunged back into silence.
When he wakes up, he’s being held against a firm chest and a very familiar scent. Johnny hyung of course. Hyuck could identify that chest blindfolded (Johnny hyung certainly was his bisexual awakening). He doesn’t really want to wake up, not with how good the hand carding through his sweaty, damaged hair feels. It’s the first time he’s being hugged close in a while, and he’s missed it so, so much. Yet another aspect he hates about Covid, being someone who is rather touchy in general. Even presently, the faint thudding of his hyung’s heartbeat grounds him, and nearly sends him back to sleep, much easier than he did when he was alone and quarantined.
Hmm. Quarantined. Did his quarantine end? As far as he knows it hasn’t: in fact he quite a few days left. Then why is Johnny here with him, touching him, breathing the same air as him? Haechan springs up startling Johnny. “Hyung, why are you here? You’ll get fucking corona, why you touching me right now? Do you have a death wish?” Johnny, now over the surprise, chuckles, “I’m not you Hyuck, I won’t catch it that easily. And what else do you expect after you fainted on me kiddo? The rest of us had a discussion and decided that I’ll move back to my room since our youngest is a baby and can’t take care of himself”, Donghyuck opens his mouth to protest at that, but Johnny silences him with a look, “it’s already been decided Hyuckie, deal with it” And so Hyuck grumpily lays his head back on Johnny’s (very firm) chest with a huff (he's secretly very relieved that he won't be quite as lonely now). He’s dozing off in two minutes.
He does end up passing on the virus to Johnny who, luckily gets through without any major symptoms. Hyuck though, doesn’t miss a single opportunity to make fun of his hyung’s overconfidence.