Glee!fic, Unscripted: Cough Once For Yes
Cough Once For Yes, a follow-up to Symptoms from the Unscripted universe, because it's the end of a long term and the angst I didn't particularly want to write in the first place is sort of wrecking me right now and I NEED A BREAK oh god. I will reply to comments when feeling, yeah, less *battered* ^^;
Disclaimer: Not mine! Well, apart from the handful of OCs, and we all know no-one reads fic for *those* ;)
Rating: PG-13? There's swearing (I can't not, you know this by now) but it's fairly innocent, all things considered.
Summary: Sweet Jesus I needed the fluff so bad. Kurt is just sort of always there, hovering around Blaine through his odd feverish dreams.
For two days, Blaine feels pretty horrible. He can't sleep for long for coughing, his temperature spikes and spirals all over the place, he always feel too hot and sticky and gross or too cold and sweat-wet and awful. His throat is entirely fucked, every cough hurts like hell, he's surprised when it's not blood he hacks into the two boxes of tissues he goes through, and for about thirty hours he loses his voice entirely.
Kurt is just sort of always there, hovering around Blaine through his odd feverish dreams, or at least he seems to always be there. He phrases things carefully so questions can always be answered with yes or no, a nod or shake - "Are you warm enough? Do you want a drink? Do you want to watch stupid things on Youtube?" - and keeps up a constant stream of soup and Popsicles and Gatorade and cough medicine. Coming up as if from underwater from another strange strange fever-dream (they weren't allowed a baby so they adopted a llama, which wore a small frilly bib tied around its long neck as it picked its way around their apartment bobbing its head as it went) to find Kurt softly humming and folding clean laundry into the drawers, Blaine begins to wonder if Kurt quite likes him like this, helpless and needy and unable to leave Kurt's sight. But then Kurt looks over at him and looks so tired, and Blaine pulls a leaden hand out from under the covers, aims it shakily at him. Kurt takes it, touches his forehead, looks all tense and worried. "Do you feel okay?"
Blaine swallows, swallows again, croaks out, "-eah."
Kurt's hand strokes back over his head. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better?"
He smiles, and the half-laugh that starts feels like it tears something in his throat. "Little bit, yeah."
"Don't talk if it hurts."
"-ove you."
"Do you want another Popsicle?"
Blaine nods, and Kurt strokes his knuckles down his cheek, and heads out for the kitchen again.
*
Blaine wakes with the lamp on, the sky dark outside the window where Kurt's sitting perched on the sill murmuring sea-soft under his breath, "- I cannot heave my heart into my mouth; I love your majesty according to- Blaine?"
Blaine starts sitting up, rubs a sticky eye. "Have you been to rehearsals?"
"No." Kurt shrugs, and lifts the book at him, his mouth tilting. "Though as Sean delights in pointing out to me, Cordelia doesn't get half of Goneril's lines anyway so it's not like it matters if I miss a handful of rehearsals. I'm going to put superglue in his shoes. How're you feeling?"
"Okay. Well, gross. I should shower. What time is it?"
Kurt checks his watch, puts the book on the windowsill. "Nearly ten. Do you need a hand in the shower?"
Blaine shifts his eyebrows, grinning. "Exactly what are you offering me, Mr Anderson?"
"Less than you're angling for while you're still so incredibly germ-ridden, Mr Hummel. Come on. I can change the sheets while you're up at least . . ."
"I wish we had a bath."
"One day." Kurt takes his hands to help him from the bed Blaine's developed a symbiotic relationship with these last few days, the sheets don't quite want to give him up. He finally manages to unpeel himself from them feeling really, really gross. "One day we'll have a bath and a garden and enough room to turn quickly without breaking your nose on something."
"And a dog."
"And a dog."
"And some kids."
"And some kids."
"Maybe a llama?"
"I'm going to assume that's the medicine talking. Come on. Shower."
"You sound really tired."
He does, his voice a little rutted, like his throat's lined with gravel. But Kurt just shrugs one shoulder, turning sideways to slot Blaine through the bathroom doorway ahead of himself without letting go of his sides. "I don't know why you want to be a doctor, looking after people is exhausting."
"You're really good at it."
Kurt smiles. "Maybe we should swap careers."
"I don't think I could pull Cordelia off like you."
Kurt kisses the side of his head, says, "Don't be silly, you can do anything." and then slips the t-shirt over his head, snaps at the waistband of his pyjama pants. "Off. I'll get you a fresh pair."
"Best mom in all the world."
"Well now you're definitely not getting a 'hand' in there, Blaine."
*
Blaine wakes up some time midmorning to the sound of Kurt dressing, tying a scarf around his neck, blinking at himself in the mirror and softly moaning, pressing his palms into his eyes. Blaine shuffles himself to sit, mumbles, "Kurt?"
Kurt's head is up again immediately. "I have to get to rehearsals, I'll drop back in at lunchtime, okay? Do you need anything before I go?"
"No, I'm - I'm okay." He feels it, finally. Exhausted, like his body has finally processed what's happened to it and is just shell-shocked by the scale of it, but yeah, okay. He squints at Kurt in the half-light - he hasn't opened the curtains, he probably hoped not to wake Blaine at all - and says, "You look pale."
"Please tell me you have not only just noticed that."
"I mean-"
"I have to get to rehearsals, Blaine, we only have two weeks left, okay? I'll be back in a few hours, do you need me to bring anything?"
He sounds, looks as far as Blaine can see, harassed and ratty, and Blaine thinks about the last three days Kurt has lost entirely to caring for Blaine like a helpless newborn, and squirms a bit with his guilt. "No. I'm okay."
"I'll see you later. Keep warm, drink lots. I love you!"
His voice rises for the last words and cracks with them, but he's out of the room before Blaine can do more than blink, and the front door of the apartment bangs behind him. Blaine stares at their closed bedroom door in the dark, lifts a hand to his fever-free head and just feels so tired and muzzy and sort of anxious and not entirely sure why.
He feels too tired to shower again even though he'd like to, but standing up is just epically hard; he makes his way through to the living room to eat three bowls of cereal and watch daytime TV (so, so bad-good it's crazy) and then slumps in a corner of the sofa Facebook messaging people at work and Mark, sick at home like Blaine but without a Kurt to make him chicken soup, Blaine feels bad for him. Amita messages I have all your patients as well I hope you're happy and Blaine puts a video of a puppy asleep on a staircase on her wall to try to work out how angry she actually is and hopefully defuse it at the same time (she comments, Is that one of your home movies because the resemblance is just frightening).
Blaine texts Kurt, I hope rehearsals are going well! xxx and then feels sort of lost for anything to do, not doing anything for days on end is really surprisingly boring but he's too tired to feel like doing much. He's just working himself up to getting up and washing his bowl out - oh god how wearying a task it seems - when the sound of someone, someones coming down the corridor outside stops at their front door, and voices murmur from behind the wood.
Blaine just stares at the door, too sleepily dumb to do much else.
"-keys, honey. No, don't touch them, you are infested with this thing, just tell Uncle Sean where they are."
Kurt's voice, sharp-splintered like it's been cracked right down the middle. "You are not putting your hand in my pocket, I don't know where it's been."
"It's been places less germ-riddled than yours right now, sweetheart. Samuel's going to need a decontamination shower after all this."
"I'm fine, I'm not sick, I don't get sick."
"No, no, clearly this is you well, clearly you're just shiny and fabulous right now." A key slots into the lock, clicks and turns. Blaine drowsily watches the door swing open, from the sofa he can't actually see around the corner and through it until there's a sharp high shriek - Kurt - and then Sean marches in swinging Kurt's keys on one finger before dropping them on the coffee table, followed by Samuel holding Kurt up around the chest from behind, Kurt dangling from his arms like a kitten in its mother's mouth just looking bewildered. "Deposit him next to the original carrier," Sean commands, and Samuel walks over carefully, Kurt's ankles swinging weakly at his shins, and sets Kurt back to his feet, gently turns and presses him down onto the sofa beside Blaine, who flicks out a wing of the throw around his shoulders to cover Kurt's back. Kurt drops his head into his hands, moans, rubs his face hard; his skin's too pale but his cheeks are flushed, and those odd cracks in his voice make him sound like he's speaking from warped vinyl instead of his usual smooth digital format.
"Well aren't you just the cutest couple," Sean murmurs.
"I hope you get this, I hope it kills you," Kurt snaps weakly at him, and Blaine touches the backs of his fingers to Kurt's cheek, feels the glow of sick heat there. He would know something was wrong even without all these physical signs, because Kurt unable to think of a properly snarky retort is clearly not Kurt at full capacity.
"I'm sorry," Blaine says, sliding his hand to the back of Kurt's neck to rub there, all sorrow and guilt. "Kurt, I'm sorry."
Kurt presses a hand over his eyes, mumbles, "It's not your fault, it's not . . ."
"He's not even ill, you know." Sean says. "That's what he just kept telling us while we picked him up off the bathroom floor. He is remarkably unhealthy for someone not ill right now, hmm?"
Samuel puts a hand on top of Kurt's head and Kurt lifts his face, blinks up at him. "Rest," Samuel says, softly. Kurt swallows, grimaces, puts a hand around his throat and nods. Once upon a time, Kurt and Samuel's relationship had driven Blaine a little bit Neolithic, crazed with the level of communication they work at, that was supposed to be for Blaine. He sort of understands them more now, though. He and Jean-Paul catch each other's eyes over it and shrug and salute each other with their beer glasses while Kurt and Samuel are wrapped up in each other's attention at the other side of the table, fluent in French and each other. They love each other far too much for sex to come into it, they love each other on a level of purity beyond the bestial nature of mankind generally; Kurt loves Samuel far too much to love him. That is for Blaine, and only for Blaine, and will always be only for Blaine, Blaine who infected him with which something he knows is entirely horrible and now feels really crappy about.
Samuel would never infect him with something this gross, he thinks, a little bit sulky. But mostly because Kurt doesn't usually sleep on a pillow next to Samuel, which is something to be grateful for.
"I think we need a photograph of Mr and Dr Perfect like this," Sean says, tilting his head to admire them in their sick little huddle on the sofa. Kurt's breath sucks in to snarl back but all that comes out is a shuddering-sharp stream of coughing he covers with his hands, while Blaine quickly plucks a tissue to hand to him, and Samuel says, "We should bring medicine."
"In which universe exactly is there a version of me willing to climb all those stairs again?"
"Have-" Kurt swallows, and closes his eyes like it hurts while Blaine rubs his back. "We have the stuff I've been giving him. And obviously, screw you too, Sean."
"Feel better soon, sweetheart. Don't come anywhere near rehearsals until you've stopped exuding infection, this is one of my best roles, I don't want to sound all Donald Duck like you do right now for it."
"You playing a nasty scheming bitch, god, Sean, you are such a good actor."
Blaine rubs his shoulder. "Kurt, every time you bitch back you're seriously hurting your throat more than you're hurting him."
Kurt screws his face up as he croaks out, "I know that, because he is such a nasty scheming bitch."
Samuel says again, "Rest." He looks at Blaine, and Blaine looks back, and rubs Kurt's shoulders, and twitches a smile.
"Relax," he says. "I'm a doctor, almost. I've got this covered."
Samuel smiles, an easy soft smile, and looks across at Sean. "We should leave them to rest."
"We should leave them before this pit of germs gets to us too. Rest up, Kurt. If you come back still sick John will make me bring you home again and you know how much we'll both enjoy that. See you, Dr Perfect. If you become less disgusting before he does, my door is always open and my bed is infection-free."
"I sincerely doubt that, you've slept with most of New York." Kurt snaps back at him, then presses both hands around his throat and groans. Blaine tucks him closer in against his body, rubs his side, says, "Thank you for bringing him back, guys."
"Have a lovely disease!" Sean calls behind himself, and Samuel smiles at them from the doorway, says again, "Rest." and closes the door behind himself.
Kurt's head thunks into Blaine's shoulder. He whines, "Is this what it felt like? Because it's horrible."
Blaine gets both arms around him and rubs his sides, because Kurt's shivering a little like he's cold, fully dressed and enveloped in a throw and Blaine. "I'm sorry, Kurt, I'm so sorry, I didn't want you to get this, I really didn't."
"I said I'd take you in sickness and in health. I just assumed I wouldn't be sick, I don't get sick."
"I'm sorry. It's the Death Star of viruses, the only thing that can defeat it is lots of sleep and the crazy healing powers of your chicken sweetcorn soup. Or maybe Jedi powers but I can't supply those, sorry."
"There's plenty in the fridge still. Soup, not . . ." Kurt swallows again, eyes squeezing tighter for a second, gripping Blaine by the arms. "I'm not hungry."
"You need sleep. And a Popsicle."
"I do need sleep. And maybe some frozen soya yoghurt." Kurt sniffs. "And some medicine which will numb my body entirely so it hurts less."
"Come to bed."
Kurt chokes a soft laugh as Blaine helps him again to his feet, settling the throw around Kurt's shoulders as he huddles his arms around himself, begins walking him for their bedroom. "The stupid thing-" Kurt croaks at him, and swallows again, and Blaine says, "Don't talk if it hurts."
"The stupid thing is, I almost wished for this this week, I thought - I'd rather be sick than you have to be sick, I'd be ill for you if I could -"
Blaine sits him on the edge of their bed, kneels to begin unlacing his boots, quiet for a moment. "In some weird way," he says, slipping a boot free, "that's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
Kurt rubs his face, mumbles into his hands, "That's because you're both still kind of ill and still you and you think insane things are romantic."
"It's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me." Blaine kisses his cheek and begins peeling his jacket off him. "Are you cold?"
"It's like Alaska in here."
"I'll get the hot water bottle. And I'll get in bed with you to warm your hands up."
Kurt's smile turns softer. "You really go above and beyond the call of 'mom' duty, don't you?"
"I'll get you some medicine and a drink. Part of this is me being selfish, you know." Blaine finds Kurt's softest, oldest set of pyjamas in a drawer and unpeels Kurt's arms again, which keep wrapping around himself while he shivers, to pull the sweater off over his head. "I'm still really tired and now it's too late for me to worry about infecting you if we cuddle."
"'m glad I have you," Kurt mumbles, head low while Blaine slips his arms into the sleeves. "Even if you do infect me with horrible pestilence."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kurt."
"I really don't blame you you dinkus." Kurt says, leaning his head onto Blaine's shoulder while Blaine begins on the pyjama shirt's buttons. "I just feel so - and it's two weeks to the performance," he swallows, with the jerk-and-wince movement Blaine's been swallowing with the last few days, "and I keep missing rehearsals and what if I can't even talk and-"
"Kurt, Kurt, hey hey hey, c'mon. Don't stress yourself out. Seriously, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself when you're ill, just-" Blaine presses his hair back off his forehead to kiss him there, then begins on his belt. "-if you want to be onstage and as flawless as you always are in two weeks time, what you need to do right now is just let yourself be sick and let me take care of you, okay?"
Kurt whispers, "I'm just tired."
"Then rest like Samuel told you to. And like I told you to. Doctor's orders."
Quiet and cracked, "Almost-doctor's orders."
Blaine gets him under the covers, fetches medicine and a hot water bottle, grabs a quick shower and changes into a fresh t-shirt and boxers, invigorated enough by Kurt needing him to get that far. Then he climbs back into bed next to him, where Kurt tucks his head in and coughs behind his hand and whines, "Why do I need to cough so much when coughing hurts-?"
"Come here. Come on, let me warm you up." His skin feels too warm anyway, though Blaine still bundles him up close while Kurt huddles there, his breath hot on Blaine's collarbone. "Go to sleep. I'm sorry you feel so bad. Just go to sleep, Kurt."
One of Kurt's arms lays loose over his side, the other curled up at Blaine's chest, fingers catching in his t-shirt. He doesn't say anything else, just lays very warm and heavy and breathes that harsh-edged breath, like it has to slit like a papercut up his throat as it comes. Blaine strokes his back, and hums softly, low gentle music to settle him to sleep.
Kurt's eyelashes brush at the skin under his jaw, and he takes another harsh swallow as preparation to say something. Blaine gets there first, strokes his thumb over his shoulder and whispers, "It's okay. Just go to sleep. I'm right here, everything's okay."
He can feel Kurt thinking about that until all his muscles sag at once, and he just lays slumped against Blaine's side. Blaine strokes his shoulder, and thinks that no, Kurt doesn't get ill, he doesn't remember Kurt ever suffering through Blaine's various undignified snuffling colds and miserable fevers. Kurt sails through life with the untouchable serenity of a swan, composed and elegant and just so slightly smug about it. It's sort of horrible seeing him like this. But Blaine is here, Blaine will look after him. He's so glad they're married. What if Kurt didn't have him, what if Kurt had to feel horrible without Blaine there? He doesn't even want to think about that.
Blaine settles his cheek to Kurt's forehead, murmurs to him, "I'm going to love you for ever and ever, and then after I die I'm going to come back as a sad and obsessed poltergeist, and cuddle you while you sleep."
Kurt croaks, "Gonna have weirdest fever-dreams ever now oh god."
"I'll be Blaine the friendly ghost," Blaine promises him. "I'll invent a theme tune to whistle so you know it's me and not some random poltergeist you don't know. I'll bring you flowers. Disembodied floating bouquets."
Kurt moans into his chest.
Blaine says softly, "And I won't ever, ever let you be alone. You know that, don't you?"
Kurt's fingers curl in his t-shirt. He nods against his side.
Blaine's smile twitches. He runs his fingers back through Kurt's hair, and closes his eyes. They're neither of them at their best, but they're allowed that with each other.
Kurt mumbles, all sharp-edged and raw, "S'til death do us part."
Blaine doesn't even open his eyes. "Screw that, we can do better than that."
Kurt grunts his assent, and Blaine feels the smile against his skin.
Disclaimer: Not mine! Well, apart from the handful of OCs, and we all know no-one reads fic for *those* ;)
Rating: PG-13? There's swearing (I can't not, you know this by now) but it's fairly innocent, all things considered.
Summary: Sweet Jesus I needed the fluff so bad. Kurt is just sort of always there, hovering around Blaine through his odd feverish dreams.
For two days, Blaine feels pretty horrible. He can't sleep for long for coughing, his temperature spikes and spirals all over the place, he always feel too hot and sticky and gross or too cold and sweat-wet and awful. His throat is entirely fucked, every cough hurts like hell, he's surprised when it's not blood he hacks into the two boxes of tissues he goes through, and for about thirty hours he loses his voice entirely.
Kurt is just sort of always there, hovering around Blaine through his odd feverish dreams, or at least he seems to always be there. He phrases things carefully so questions can always be answered with yes or no, a nod or shake - "Are you warm enough? Do you want a drink? Do you want to watch stupid things on Youtube?" - and keeps up a constant stream of soup and Popsicles and Gatorade and cough medicine. Coming up as if from underwater from another strange strange fever-dream (they weren't allowed a baby so they adopted a llama, which wore a small frilly bib tied around its long neck as it picked its way around their apartment bobbing its head as it went) to find Kurt softly humming and folding clean laundry into the drawers, Blaine begins to wonder if Kurt quite likes him like this, helpless and needy and unable to leave Kurt's sight. But then Kurt looks over at him and looks so tired, and Blaine pulls a leaden hand out from under the covers, aims it shakily at him. Kurt takes it, touches his forehead, looks all tense and worried. "Do you feel okay?"
Blaine swallows, swallows again, croaks out, "-eah."
Kurt's hand strokes back over his head. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better?"
He smiles, and the half-laugh that starts feels like it tears something in his throat. "Little bit, yeah."
"Don't talk if it hurts."
"-ove you."
"Do you want another Popsicle?"
Blaine nods, and Kurt strokes his knuckles down his cheek, and heads out for the kitchen again.
*
Blaine wakes with the lamp on, the sky dark outside the window where Kurt's sitting perched on the sill murmuring sea-soft under his breath, "- I cannot heave my heart into my mouth; I love your majesty according to- Blaine?"
Blaine starts sitting up, rubs a sticky eye. "Have you been to rehearsals?"
"No." Kurt shrugs, and lifts the book at him, his mouth tilting. "Though as Sean delights in pointing out to me, Cordelia doesn't get half of Goneril's lines anyway so it's not like it matters if I miss a handful of rehearsals. I'm going to put superglue in his shoes. How're you feeling?"
"Okay. Well, gross. I should shower. What time is it?"
Kurt checks his watch, puts the book on the windowsill. "Nearly ten. Do you need a hand in the shower?"
Blaine shifts his eyebrows, grinning. "Exactly what are you offering me, Mr Anderson?"
"Less than you're angling for while you're still so incredibly germ-ridden, Mr Hummel. Come on. I can change the sheets while you're up at least . . ."
"I wish we had a bath."
"One day." Kurt takes his hands to help him from the bed Blaine's developed a symbiotic relationship with these last few days, the sheets don't quite want to give him up. He finally manages to unpeel himself from them feeling really, really gross. "One day we'll have a bath and a garden and enough room to turn quickly without breaking your nose on something."
"And a dog."
"And a dog."
"And some kids."
"And some kids."
"Maybe a llama?"
"I'm going to assume that's the medicine talking. Come on. Shower."
"You sound really tired."
He does, his voice a little rutted, like his throat's lined with gravel. But Kurt just shrugs one shoulder, turning sideways to slot Blaine through the bathroom doorway ahead of himself without letting go of his sides. "I don't know why you want to be a doctor, looking after people is exhausting."
"You're really good at it."
Kurt smiles. "Maybe we should swap careers."
"I don't think I could pull Cordelia off like you."
Kurt kisses the side of his head, says, "Don't be silly, you can do anything." and then slips the t-shirt over his head, snaps at the waistband of his pyjama pants. "Off. I'll get you a fresh pair."
"Best mom in all the world."
"Well now you're definitely not getting a 'hand' in there, Blaine."
*
Blaine wakes up some time midmorning to the sound of Kurt dressing, tying a scarf around his neck, blinking at himself in the mirror and softly moaning, pressing his palms into his eyes. Blaine shuffles himself to sit, mumbles, "Kurt?"
Kurt's head is up again immediately. "I have to get to rehearsals, I'll drop back in at lunchtime, okay? Do you need anything before I go?"
"No, I'm - I'm okay." He feels it, finally. Exhausted, like his body has finally processed what's happened to it and is just shell-shocked by the scale of it, but yeah, okay. He squints at Kurt in the half-light - he hasn't opened the curtains, he probably hoped not to wake Blaine at all - and says, "You look pale."
"Please tell me you have not only just noticed that."
"I mean-"
"I have to get to rehearsals, Blaine, we only have two weeks left, okay? I'll be back in a few hours, do you need me to bring anything?"
He sounds, looks as far as Blaine can see, harassed and ratty, and Blaine thinks about the last three days Kurt has lost entirely to caring for Blaine like a helpless newborn, and squirms a bit with his guilt. "No. I'm okay."
"I'll see you later. Keep warm, drink lots. I love you!"
His voice rises for the last words and cracks with them, but he's out of the room before Blaine can do more than blink, and the front door of the apartment bangs behind him. Blaine stares at their closed bedroom door in the dark, lifts a hand to his fever-free head and just feels so tired and muzzy and sort of anxious and not entirely sure why.
He feels too tired to shower again even though he'd like to, but standing up is just epically hard; he makes his way through to the living room to eat three bowls of cereal and watch daytime TV (so, so bad-good it's crazy) and then slumps in a corner of the sofa Facebook messaging people at work and Mark, sick at home like Blaine but without a Kurt to make him chicken soup, Blaine feels bad for him. Amita messages I have all your patients as well I hope you're happy and Blaine puts a video of a puppy asleep on a staircase on her wall to try to work out how angry she actually is and hopefully defuse it at the same time (she comments, Is that one of your home movies because the resemblance is just frightening).
Blaine texts Kurt, I hope rehearsals are going well! xxx and then feels sort of lost for anything to do, not doing anything for days on end is really surprisingly boring but he's too tired to feel like doing much. He's just working himself up to getting up and washing his bowl out - oh god how wearying a task it seems - when the sound of someone, someones coming down the corridor outside stops at their front door, and voices murmur from behind the wood.
Blaine just stares at the door, too sleepily dumb to do much else.
"-keys, honey. No, don't touch them, you are infested with this thing, just tell Uncle Sean where they are."
Kurt's voice, sharp-splintered like it's been cracked right down the middle. "You are not putting your hand in my pocket, I don't know where it's been."
"It's been places less germ-riddled than yours right now, sweetheart. Samuel's going to need a decontamination shower after all this."
"I'm fine, I'm not sick, I don't get sick."
"No, no, clearly this is you well, clearly you're just shiny and fabulous right now." A key slots into the lock, clicks and turns. Blaine drowsily watches the door swing open, from the sofa he can't actually see around the corner and through it until there's a sharp high shriek - Kurt - and then Sean marches in swinging Kurt's keys on one finger before dropping them on the coffee table, followed by Samuel holding Kurt up around the chest from behind, Kurt dangling from his arms like a kitten in its mother's mouth just looking bewildered. "Deposit him next to the original carrier," Sean commands, and Samuel walks over carefully, Kurt's ankles swinging weakly at his shins, and sets Kurt back to his feet, gently turns and presses him down onto the sofa beside Blaine, who flicks out a wing of the throw around his shoulders to cover Kurt's back. Kurt drops his head into his hands, moans, rubs his face hard; his skin's too pale but his cheeks are flushed, and those odd cracks in his voice make him sound like he's speaking from warped vinyl instead of his usual smooth digital format.
"Well aren't you just the cutest couple," Sean murmurs.
"I hope you get this, I hope it kills you," Kurt snaps weakly at him, and Blaine touches the backs of his fingers to Kurt's cheek, feels the glow of sick heat there. He would know something was wrong even without all these physical signs, because Kurt unable to think of a properly snarky retort is clearly not Kurt at full capacity.
"I'm sorry," Blaine says, sliding his hand to the back of Kurt's neck to rub there, all sorrow and guilt. "Kurt, I'm sorry."
Kurt presses a hand over his eyes, mumbles, "It's not your fault, it's not . . ."
"He's not even ill, you know." Sean says. "That's what he just kept telling us while we picked him up off the bathroom floor. He is remarkably unhealthy for someone not ill right now, hmm?"
Samuel puts a hand on top of Kurt's head and Kurt lifts his face, blinks up at him. "Rest," Samuel says, softly. Kurt swallows, grimaces, puts a hand around his throat and nods. Once upon a time, Kurt and Samuel's relationship had driven Blaine a little bit Neolithic, crazed with the level of communication they work at, that was supposed to be for Blaine. He sort of understands them more now, though. He and Jean-Paul catch each other's eyes over it and shrug and salute each other with their beer glasses while Kurt and Samuel are wrapped up in each other's attention at the other side of the table, fluent in French and each other. They love each other far too much for sex to come into it, they love each other on a level of purity beyond the bestial nature of mankind generally; Kurt loves Samuel far too much to love him. That is for Blaine, and only for Blaine, and will always be only for Blaine, Blaine who infected him with which something he knows is entirely horrible and now feels really crappy about.
Samuel would never infect him with something this gross, he thinks, a little bit sulky. But mostly because Kurt doesn't usually sleep on a pillow next to Samuel, which is something to be grateful for.
"I think we need a photograph of Mr and Dr Perfect like this," Sean says, tilting his head to admire them in their sick little huddle on the sofa. Kurt's breath sucks in to snarl back but all that comes out is a shuddering-sharp stream of coughing he covers with his hands, while Blaine quickly plucks a tissue to hand to him, and Samuel says, "We should bring medicine."
"In which universe exactly is there a version of me willing to climb all those stairs again?"
"Have-" Kurt swallows, and closes his eyes like it hurts while Blaine rubs his back. "We have the stuff I've been giving him. And obviously, screw you too, Sean."
"Feel better soon, sweetheart. Don't come anywhere near rehearsals until you've stopped exuding infection, this is one of my best roles, I don't want to sound all Donald Duck like you do right now for it."
"You playing a nasty scheming bitch, god, Sean, you are such a good actor."
Blaine rubs his shoulder. "Kurt, every time you bitch back you're seriously hurting your throat more than you're hurting him."
Kurt screws his face up as he croaks out, "I know that, because he is such a nasty scheming bitch."
Samuel says again, "Rest." He looks at Blaine, and Blaine looks back, and rubs Kurt's shoulders, and twitches a smile.
"Relax," he says. "I'm a doctor, almost. I've got this covered."
Samuel smiles, an easy soft smile, and looks across at Sean. "We should leave them to rest."
"We should leave them before this pit of germs gets to us too. Rest up, Kurt. If you come back still sick John will make me bring you home again and you know how much we'll both enjoy that. See you, Dr Perfect. If you become less disgusting before he does, my door is always open and my bed is infection-free."
"I sincerely doubt that, you've slept with most of New York." Kurt snaps back at him, then presses both hands around his throat and groans. Blaine tucks him closer in against his body, rubs his side, says, "Thank you for bringing him back, guys."
"Have a lovely disease!" Sean calls behind himself, and Samuel smiles at them from the doorway, says again, "Rest." and closes the door behind himself.
Kurt's head thunks into Blaine's shoulder. He whines, "Is this what it felt like? Because it's horrible."
Blaine gets both arms around him and rubs his sides, because Kurt's shivering a little like he's cold, fully dressed and enveloped in a throw and Blaine. "I'm sorry, Kurt, I'm so sorry, I didn't want you to get this, I really didn't."
"I said I'd take you in sickness and in health. I just assumed I wouldn't be sick, I don't get sick."
"I'm sorry. It's the Death Star of viruses, the only thing that can defeat it is lots of sleep and the crazy healing powers of your chicken sweetcorn soup. Or maybe Jedi powers but I can't supply those, sorry."
"There's plenty in the fridge still. Soup, not . . ." Kurt swallows again, eyes squeezing tighter for a second, gripping Blaine by the arms. "I'm not hungry."
"You need sleep. And a Popsicle."
"I do need sleep. And maybe some frozen soya yoghurt." Kurt sniffs. "And some medicine which will numb my body entirely so it hurts less."
"Come to bed."
Kurt chokes a soft laugh as Blaine helps him again to his feet, settling the throw around Kurt's shoulders as he huddles his arms around himself, begins walking him for their bedroom. "The stupid thing-" Kurt croaks at him, and swallows again, and Blaine says, "Don't talk if it hurts."
"The stupid thing is, I almost wished for this this week, I thought - I'd rather be sick than you have to be sick, I'd be ill for you if I could -"
Blaine sits him on the edge of their bed, kneels to begin unlacing his boots, quiet for a moment. "In some weird way," he says, slipping a boot free, "that's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
Kurt rubs his face, mumbles into his hands, "That's because you're both still kind of ill and still you and you think insane things are romantic."
"It's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me." Blaine kisses his cheek and begins peeling his jacket off him. "Are you cold?"
"It's like Alaska in here."
"I'll get the hot water bottle. And I'll get in bed with you to warm your hands up."
Kurt's smile turns softer. "You really go above and beyond the call of 'mom' duty, don't you?"
"I'll get you some medicine and a drink. Part of this is me being selfish, you know." Blaine finds Kurt's softest, oldest set of pyjamas in a drawer and unpeels Kurt's arms again, which keep wrapping around himself while he shivers, to pull the sweater off over his head. "I'm still really tired and now it's too late for me to worry about infecting you if we cuddle."
"'m glad I have you," Kurt mumbles, head low while Blaine slips his arms into the sleeves. "Even if you do infect me with horrible pestilence."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kurt."
"I really don't blame you you dinkus." Kurt says, leaning his head onto Blaine's shoulder while Blaine begins on the pyjama shirt's buttons. "I just feel so - and it's two weeks to the performance," he swallows, with the jerk-and-wince movement Blaine's been swallowing with the last few days, "and I keep missing rehearsals and what if I can't even talk and-"
"Kurt, Kurt, hey hey hey, c'mon. Don't stress yourself out. Seriously, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself when you're ill, just-" Blaine presses his hair back off his forehead to kiss him there, then begins on his belt. "-if you want to be onstage and as flawless as you always are in two weeks time, what you need to do right now is just let yourself be sick and let me take care of you, okay?"
Kurt whispers, "I'm just tired."
"Then rest like Samuel told you to. And like I told you to. Doctor's orders."
Quiet and cracked, "Almost-doctor's orders."
Blaine gets him under the covers, fetches medicine and a hot water bottle, grabs a quick shower and changes into a fresh t-shirt and boxers, invigorated enough by Kurt needing him to get that far. Then he climbs back into bed next to him, where Kurt tucks his head in and coughs behind his hand and whines, "Why do I need to cough so much when coughing hurts-?"
"Come here. Come on, let me warm you up." His skin feels too warm anyway, though Blaine still bundles him up close while Kurt huddles there, his breath hot on Blaine's collarbone. "Go to sleep. I'm sorry you feel so bad. Just go to sleep, Kurt."
One of Kurt's arms lays loose over his side, the other curled up at Blaine's chest, fingers catching in his t-shirt. He doesn't say anything else, just lays very warm and heavy and breathes that harsh-edged breath, like it has to slit like a papercut up his throat as it comes. Blaine strokes his back, and hums softly, low gentle music to settle him to sleep.
Kurt's eyelashes brush at the skin under his jaw, and he takes another harsh swallow as preparation to say something. Blaine gets there first, strokes his thumb over his shoulder and whispers, "It's okay. Just go to sleep. I'm right here, everything's okay."
He can feel Kurt thinking about that until all his muscles sag at once, and he just lays slumped against Blaine's side. Blaine strokes his shoulder, and thinks that no, Kurt doesn't get ill, he doesn't remember Kurt ever suffering through Blaine's various undignified snuffling colds and miserable fevers. Kurt sails through life with the untouchable serenity of a swan, composed and elegant and just so slightly smug about it. It's sort of horrible seeing him like this. But Blaine is here, Blaine will look after him. He's so glad they're married. What if Kurt didn't have him, what if Kurt had to feel horrible without Blaine there? He doesn't even want to think about that.
Blaine settles his cheek to Kurt's forehead, murmurs to him, "I'm going to love you for ever and ever, and then after I die I'm going to come back as a sad and obsessed poltergeist, and cuddle you while you sleep."
Kurt croaks, "Gonna have weirdest fever-dreams ever now oh god."
"I'll be Blaine the friendly ghost," Blaine promises him. "I'll invent a theme tune to whistle so you know it's me and not some random poltergeist you don't know. I'll bring you flowers. Disembodied floating bouquets."
Kurt moans into his chest.
Blaine says softly, "And I won't ever, ever let you be alone. You know that, don't you?"
Kurt's fingers curl in his t-shirt. He nods against his side.
Blaine's smile twitches. He runs his fingers back through Kurt's hair, and closes his eyes. They're neither of them at their best, but they're allowed that with each other.
Kurt mumbles, all sharp-edged and raw, "S'til death do us part."
Blaine doesn't even open his eyes. "Screw that, we can do better than that."
Kurt grunts his assent, and Blaine feels the smile against his skin.