I'll Keep You Safe
Title: I'll Keep You Safe
Character: Finn/Santana
Summary: Leave it to Finn to create a kid who's afraid of Band-Aids.
Word Count: 6,600
Disclaimer: Don't own
Leave it to Finn to create a kid who's afraid of Band-Aids.
Seriously.
Band-Aids.
She looks like the worst freaking mother in the world because Nathan screams any time you try to put one on him, so he ends up just bleeding, and people look at her like she's unfit. Yeah, they're judgmental assholes, but god, she'd probably question someone's parenting abilities if she saw a kid with blood running down his leg, too.
So they're outside in the yard and he runs into a tree (so fucking Finn's kid) and she hurries down off the patio. The whole point of her being outside, too, was so that she could watch him, because he's eight and sure, their yard is fenced in, but you never know what could happen out there. In her head it's always worse shit than running into a fucking tree, but whatever. Anyway, there's already an egg on his head and a bit of blood trickling down his temple mixing with the sweat he's worked up, and she knows it's going to be a fight. When she gets him into the kitchen and reaches for the cupboard she keeps an 'emergency' first aid kit (meaning, Rubbermaid container with alcohol, Band-Aids and Advil) Nathan jumps in front of her and leans against it.
"Nathan."
"I'm fine!"
She tilts her head at him and watches him wipe the blood away with the back of his hand, then smear it across his jeans.
Great. Now he looks like a little axe murderer.
"Let me look at it."
"Nope." She sighs and walks towards him anyway, and he just pulls himself up onto a stool at the counter and jerks his head away when she tries to touch him. "Don't! It doesn't hurt!"
"Nathan, I really don't want you dripping blood all over and making my house look like a crime scene."
He just stares at her. Then; "I don't need a Band-Aid. Please."
The terror on his cute little boy face is what makes her cave.
She grabs an old face cloth, though, and presses it against his head. Then he wants to watch 101 Dalmations because he wants a dog so fucking bad it's ridiculous. It's a gorgeous day out and he's practically addicted to their backyard or whatever, and he really only ever wants to sit inside when shit like this happens and he wants to lay low. She really loves that he's an active kid and would rather run around outside than sit on his ass on the couch, but it's kind of nice to just be here with him.
He's sort of cute, too, just chilling on the couch with his hand holding his cloth to his head. And she's tried to get him to change his jeans, but he refused and she's sure it's because he wants to show his dad the blood on his pants. Kids are gross like that.
Finn's been doing yardwork at his mom and Burt's place (an unspoken agreement to keep Burt and his not-exactly-perfect heart away from the heat and hard work) and when he walks in, he looks at her and Nathan, then at the TV. He sighs and puts his hands on his hips because he just knows.
"What'd you do?"
Santana laughs a little when Nathan shrugs. "Tree jumped out at him."
"Dude." Finn walks over and sits on the other side of Nathan, pulls the cloth away. "Want a Band-Aid or something?" he asks, thumb gingerly touching the bump on their kid's head.
Santana rolls her eyes as Nathan squirms and freaks out all over again and says he's fine and doesn't need anything.
Finn tells him the blood on his jeans is gross, and of course Nathan runs to change them then.
"He's so weird. Gets that from you."
Finn gives her a look. "Ever since you ripped that one off his knee..."
"I didn't rip it off."
"He cried for 20 minutes."
Santana turns back to the TV like she actually cares about this cartoon or, you know, hasn't seen it like 20 times in her life. "He was fine. It's a fucking Band-Aid."
"Well now he's scared."
Finn's like, actually pouting about this.
(Also, he minds the heat and it makes him act like a fucking baby, but whatever. She usually just tells him to go shower then get a beer and fucking get over it.)
"No doubt he's your kid," she says absently.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hey Finn?" He's ignoring her, which she hates. Also, he tried to wake her up for sex this morning, and normally she'd be game, but they were up late last night for the same reason, and fuck, she needed to sleep in, you know? So he's probably being bitchy about that, too. "Remember that time you were afraid of the lace..."
"Oh, my god, Santana. I was drunk and it touched my foot because you left it..."
"You left it."
"In my bed," he finishes, eyes narrowed. He just looks ridiculous, and this is why their fights don't last long, really; she laughs at him or he calls her a bitch and apologizes in the same breath and then they just work it out.
"It was a pair of panties and you screamed like you were dying."
"I was drunk."
Finn pinches her thigh just under the hem of her shorts to make her let out a sound eerily similar to the one he made that night like, 10 years ago. (And no, she's not letting him live it down, and brings it up when she wants a laugh at his expense.) Then of course, he gets this smug look on his face because she squealed. Ass.
"He doesn't like Band-Aids because it hurts when you take them off."
"If that's an accusation..."
He kisses her to keep her quiet - she can tell when that's his motivation - and then Nathan is running down the stairs in a pair of khaki shorts and jumping onto the couch. There's a little dried blood in his hair, so Finn brushes it out and then Nathan's asking what's for dinner.
And okay. He's fine, and maybe her wanting him to wear Band-Aids is partly because she just doesn't want to ever see her kid bleeding.
(Yeah, she puts a pair of clean panties under Finn's pillow and laughs her ass off to the point of almost falling out of bed when he flails around and flings them across the bedroom and tells her how not funny she is.)
... ... ...
The kid is obsessed with The Avengers and thinks Captain America is legit the best thing that has ever happened to the world.
In his weirdo kid brain there are still things he thinks could be real, and super heroes fall into that category. Santana blames Sam for that shit, too. He and Tina babysit an awful lot, and she knows he's responsible for like, telling her kid about radioactive spiders and shit.
Seriously. There's talk of radioactive spiders and the kid is fucking afraid of Band-Aids.
He and Finn are playing around with this old car. Well, they're fixing it up or whatever. Finn always wanted to do this with his kid, and like, whatever. If he wants to waste time knocking a wrench around on an old engine, he can go for it. And if he someday gets this old Charger running and looking good, she won't be upset. Anyway, she really thinks he just likes hanging out in the garage with Nathan. She doesn't mind that either, honestly, because it usually means her house is quiet and there's no eight year old being loud or asking for things. She loves her son more than anyone in the world, don't get her wrong, but who couldn't use a break from it every once in a while?
So Finn and Nathan are out there doing whatever, and she's reading the latest Jen Lancaster book on the sofa in the living room, enjoying the quiet. But then there are two sets of footsteps running into the house, and she turns her head just in time to see them rush down the hall and into the bathroom.
She's not all that concerned, because Finn's being pretty calm and Nathan isn't even crying.
"What happened?" she asks, standing in the doorway to the bathroom.
"Just snagged his finger on the edge of the hood. He's okay," Finn answers, running Nathan's hand under the tap. Nathan's standing on the little stool they keep for him in the bathroom and his cheeks are red like they get when he's trying not to cry.
"Let me see."
"No. Daddy said it's okay," Nathan says, moving over a little so he's more in front of Finn, between him and the counter, as if that'll make him invisible or something.
Honestly, she's really bothered by this. Ever since last month when Finn pointed out that she might be the cause of their kid's weird fear of Band-Aids, she's been sort of feeling like shit about it. Obviously it's not something that sits at the forefront of her mind and she always worries about it, but any time it's come up, she wonders if it's really her fault and it's not that Nathan is odd, it's that she created that fear in him by - how dare she - pulling off a Band-Aid that had dirt and grime all around the edges.
Finn knows her pretty damn well at this point (if he didn't after nine years of marriage and eleven together, they'd have bigger problems) and just gives her a little look in the mirror. He reaches up with one hand and opens the medicine cabinet.
"Daddy, no!"
Nathan stomps his little foot, then gets a glare on that he obviously inherited from Santana.
"No, check it out," Finn says, smiling, and pulls down the box of Captain America Band-Aids he found at Walgreen's two weeks ago and showed Santana, all proud and whatever.
Nathan seems ever-so-slightly more interested. "What is that?"
Santana just crosses her arms and watches.
"Band-Aids. But special ones. They're Captain America ones, so, um...I mean, even Captain America needs them sometimes."
The 'bitch please' look Nathan gives Finn is legitimately the most hilarious thing she's ever seen, and she bursts out laughing. Both boys ignore her but she doesn't care.
Nathan says, very matter-of-factly, "Captain America does not need Band-Aids."
"But..."
"No, Daddy," Nathan says, shaking his head like Finn's just the dumbest person ever for even suggesting it.
Santana might snort.
(Okay, sometimes he proves he's her kid, too.)
Finn sighs, turns off the tap and reaches for a tissue to wrap around Nathan's finger. She can see that it's not bleeding that badly anyway. But, hey, a Band-Aid would probably stop it pretty quickly.
Nathan jumps down off his step stool and looks up at Finn just as Santana runs her hand up her husband's back. Really, he's sweet for trying to break their son of this bizarre fear.
"Can I get an invincibility suit?"
Her hand balls Finn's shirt in a fist because their kid is the cutest thing ever.
Finn chuckles and squeezes Nathan's shoulder. "I don't think you're ready for that kind of power yet, buddy."
Nathan rolls his eyes and walks out of the bathroom, saying something about juice, and Santana kisses Finn between his shoulder blades.
"You're cute," she tells him.
He sort of looks over his shoulder at her, this really great smile on his lips.
"I love you, too."
... ... ...
He skins his elbow at a friend's house, and Santana suspects he doesn't want to look like a baby in front of Dylan or something, because he comes home with a square Band-Aid on his elbow. Dylan's mom is a nurse or whatever, so Santana's not really all that worried about the scrape not being clean under the bandage. And Laurie told Santana when she dropped Nathan back off at home that it really wasn't that bad.
She catches him poking at the Band-Aid after dinner, and Finn's watching him, too.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Nothing," he answers quickly, dropping his hand and looking at her, wide-eyed. "It's itchy."
"Don't scratch it."
"But it's itchy."
Finn laughs. "Just don't think about it. It'll stop."
"Maybe if I scratch it, it'll stop," Nathan says, and like, fuck. He's so funny without meaning to be sometimes, and he doesn't really like to be laughed at when that's the case. "Band-Aids itch me."
She rolls her eyes a little, because Christ, now he's just going to have another excuse not to let her put one on him.
"You're fine," she tells him, and then pushes his hand away from his elbow when he tries to scratch it again. "Wanna go for a walk?"
She's sort of asking them both. It gets cooler at night this time of year, and Finn's going back to work in two weeks, and Nathan'll be starting school, too, shortly after that. Summer is her favourite not only because she likes the sun, but because she gets to see more of her boys, too. She's a lawyer, and at first she didn't want to move back to Lima at all, but Finn did. It wasn't a big deal and he would have stayed in Chicago with her if she'd wanted to, but then she did the research and realized there were exactly zero family or personal injury lawyers in Lima. Frankly, having the market cornered seemed like a wise business move, so she set up her practice here and Finn got a job working at the high school. So no, she doesn't work insane hours like she would if she were in the city, and it's kind of nice. She sees her family more than any of the people she went to school with see theirs.
Finn grabs her navy and white striped sweater from the closet and hands it to her without her having to ask. He gets a kiss for that, because shit, he just sort of takes care of her, and it took her a long time to admit it, but that's something she's always wanted from a relationship and never had before him.
Nathan wants to ride his bike, which she's fine with, and she buckles his helmet onto his head to make sure it's on properly (he likes to loosen the straps for reasons unknown to her, even though she's given him shit for it plenty of times).
Finn slips his arm around her waist once they get to the sidewalk. She likes that, too.
"Band-Aids itch him," he says, and then sort of laughs.
"I swear to god, you'd think we were trying to torture him, the way he talks about shit like that."
"He's funny."
"He's hilarious, but he's...I mean, he's like a little daredevil with everything else. The fact that he's afraid of Band-Aids is ridiculous."
Finn laughs again and shouts for Nathan not to get too far ahead.
"I'm just like, dreading when we have to take that off," Finn says, and ugh. He's right and Nathan'll probably scream bloody murder if she even tries.
And it doesn't go down exactly like that, he just plain refuses to let her pull it off. The bandage has been on three days, and it's a fabric one, so the edges are all frayed. It's got dirt caked into it because he's a little boy and staying clean isn't a priority. She tries to get him to just pull it off in the shower, but he won't, and screams, "God, mom, get out!" like her being in the bathroom and him being hidden behind a shower curtain is the worst thing that could ever happen to him.
One corner of the bandage starts peeling off, and Santana notices and reaches for it, thinking she'll just tug at it and it'll fall off.
No such luck.
"What are you doing?" he shouts, jerking his arm away.
She sighs. "I bet if you just pulled it off it wouldn't hurt."
"Yes it would."
"Do it slowly."
"No!"
She rolls her eyes, but doesn't push the issue any further.
Then the thing is halfway off, flapping around, and it's been a week, and the scrape beneath it is scabbed over anyway, and seriously, this is just disgusting. Finn thinks the same thing and tries to talk Nathan into just going for it and pulling it off, but he refuses. She's halfway tempted to just do it when he's sleeping, but then she runs the risk of waking him up and having him be traumatized for life, and no, she doesn't want him to hate her for like, unsanctioned Band-Aid removal.
"That needs to come off," Finn sort of laughs and flicks the bandage with his finger.
Nathan just straight up ignores him.
It takes another three days for the rest of the adhesive to loosen up and the bandage to just fall off on its own. Of course it happens at the breakfast table and Nathan's a little boy who doesn't think about things like, you know, not putting a dirty old bandage on the table when people are trying to eat. She's just finishing up her bagel and trying to get out the door, and Finn's sitting at the table with Nathan while she's checking to make sure she has a file she needs.
"Nathan," Finn scolds. Which he never does, really. Santana looks over and sees the bandage on the table.
"Oh, god. Gross," she says, and gives their son a look.
"It fell."
They all know it didn't just fall onto the table, and his knack for bending the truth stopped being cute right around the time he decided to break an entire carton's worth of eggs on the kitchen floor and said he 'didn't know how it happened'.
"Put it in the garbage," Finn tells him, and Nathan gets up without having to be asked twice.
Santana reaches for his arm and kneels down to get a look at the scrape for, really, the first time, unobstructed. It's practically fucking healed, the bandage was on there so long.
"I'd kiss this better, but there's a big old line of dirt around it from the glue," she tells him.
Nathan just gets this shit-eating grin on his face and looks at her. "Then maybe that's why we shouldn't put Band-Aids on stuff."
She laughs, because he's fucking cute, and kisses his forehead while he chuckles at himself.
... ... ...
If he were any other kid, she'd question whether or not he was faking. A week into the school year, she gets a call at the office telling her Nathan's sick and wants to go home from school. She's meeting with a client this afternoon and Finn's got practice after school, so Santana first calls the sitter, who can't get him, then calls her mom. She lets the school know who'll be picking him up, and then spends the rest of the afternoon worrying about him.
She's a good mom, okay? She'd do anything for him, and the thought of anything being wrong with him makes her stomach churn. When she was pregnant and they were running all those tests to check for defects or whatever, she was a wreck until the results came back and the doctor said everything was perfectly fine. And when he had bronchitis as a baby, she literally cried herself to sleep listening to him cough because there was really nothing she could do to help him feel better. She knows Finn's the same way. God, Nathan got the chickenpox when he was five and Finn took the entire time off work so he could stay home with the kid. And the first tooth Nathan lost, she could have sworn Finn was going to have a nervous breakdown, because "Things shouldn't just like, fall out of your kid! It's not right!"
Anyway, she texts him to let him know what's going on, and he's got a bunch of questions she doesn't have answers to. All she knows is that Nathan's complaining that his stomach's sore and her mom is feeding him ginger ale and crackers as he lies on the couch in the living room at her parents' place.
She leaves work and heads straight over there, and Finn's practice will be done soon and she wants to be home before he is. Nathan's little face is all flushed and he's lying there in his tee shirt and a pair of pajama pants her mom keeps here. There's a blanket over him and he's a little warm to the touch, but not alarmingly so.
"You okay?" she asks, brushing his hair back, and he shakes his head no. "What's wrong?"
"Everything hurts."
Fuck. Her heart is officially broken.
"Want to go home?"
He nods his head and gets up off the sofa, hugs his grandma, and then heads right for the door. Santana thanks her mom, but follows him quickly, because he obviously really just wants to be at home. She can't really blame him. When she's sick, all she wants is her own bed, too.
He falls asleep in the car on the 15 minute drive home.
She's really starting to worry.
She somehow manages to carry him to the house without waking him up (and Finn usually carries him, and this kid is getting heavy), and gets him up the stairs without breaking her back or anything. She takes his shirt off him, because his body's too warm, and tucks him into his bed with the television on at a low volume. He doesn't like feeling alone when he's sick, and she's learned by now that a little bit of noise helps calm his nerves, even if it's just Spongebob in the background.
Finn comes in when she's making soup, and the first thing he asks is where Nathan is and how he's doing.
"I don't know," she answers, after telling him Nathan's in bed. "He's really warm, but he hasn't thrown up or anything. He just said everything hurts."
The look of pure pain that settles onto Finn's face honestly makes her love him a little more. He's so in love with their kid. He walks over and slides his hand over her hip, leans down to kiss her, and says he's going to change and check on Nathan.
When he wakes up in the morning, Nathan's fever has gone down, and he says his stomach's not sore anymore, but Santana keeps him home from school as a precaution. He goes back to her parents' place because she doesn't want to send him to the sitter's if he's really sick, since there's a four month old baby there and she'd hate for him to pass his germs onto an infant, if it can be avoided.
He's fine when she picks him up, and everything seems okay for the next few days, until the weekend.
It's like, two in the morning and she wakes up to her son standing next to her side of the bed crying.
Terrifying, honestly.
"What's wrong?" she asks, and tries to get her heart rate to even out.
And, okay, kicks Finn in the leg to wake him up, too.
"My head hurts."
Finn shakes off the sleep and goes off in search of children's Tylenol, which they realize they're out of, and Santana just gives him a pleading look. Finn glances at Nathan, who's now cuddled up against her side and sort of crying against her shoulder, and says he'll head out to the 24 hour pharmacy and get some.
She gets Nathan to describe the pain, and it's just a headache, but then he says something about seeing spots, and she's freaking out. She's had a migraine before, and they're awful, and she can't imagine feeling that way at his age. She switches off the light in the room and gently rubs her fingers against his scalp, watches as his eyes get heavier. She keeps him awake long enough to take the medicine Finn brings back.
He falls asleep, but she and Finn are up all night, their son between them in their bed.
"I'm freaking out," he tells her, and she just nods. "This is weird, Santana."
He says it like it's a secret, or something he just really doesn't want to admit, and maybe it's that she's really tired and she can't sleep, but tears well in her eyes. This is her child, though, and she can't handle thinking he's really sick.
"You think we should take him to the hospital?" she asks, and Finn lets out this really quick breath, like he doesn't want to admit that it's that serious.
"Let's wait and see how he is in the morning," he says, and Santana nods, because that sounds reasonable.
He's fine in the morning. Seriously. He wakes up symptom free and wants to go outside and play. He eats all his breakfast and gets dressed without having to be asked twice, and the only time he complains at all is when Santana tells him to do his homework for school.
She still thinks all this is really fucking weird.
The nice thing is that Tina is the town's pediatrician and she tells Santana to bring Nathan by Monday morning and she'll take a look and make sure nothing's wrong. It's really fucking reassuring to know that one of your good friends can do things like that. Not only pull strings, but also trust you enough that when you say something's off, something's off.
Basically, he's fine. Tina checks his ears, first, but since he's never had so much as an earache in his life, it's doubtful that anything's wrong there.
Tina can either tell that Santana's not going to accept a diagnosis of "Everything is fine", or she thinks this whole thing's a little weird, too, because she books a bunch of tests they'll have to go to the hospital to do.
Finn and Santana both take days off work to take Nathan, because honestly, he's a little scared and Santana can totally understand that. The only time he's ever been in a hospital, other than when he was too young to remember it, was when Burt had a small heart procedure done and was there for two days. She can't blame him for being a little tense when they put him in this room in the pediatric ward and tell him to drink a bunch of juice because they need him to pee in a cup.
Honestly, hearing Finn and Nathan through the door while this goes down is the fucking funniest thing Santana's ever heard in her life. Finn's got to hold the cup and she knows (she cleans the bathrooms in the house...) that Nathan's aim is for shit.
So, "No! Hold...Hold it straight! Nathan! No. Not on my hand! Oh, god. Oh, god, it's hot. Oh, gross," coming from the other side of the bathroom door nearly makes her cry laughing.
They do this head scan thing, and an ultrasound of his stomach, and x-rays, and while Nathan thinks some of the 'machinery' is cool, he still wants Santana to hold his hand through the whole thing. And as they wait for the next test, he asks Finn if he thinks that this is what Captain America felt like. Random, weird question and Finn makes up some bullshit answer and the two go back and forth talking shit about some super hero.
Then the nurse walks in with a big needle and a tourniquet and says she's just going to take some blood. Nathan's not afraid of needles, but he sure as hell doesn't like them. The fact that he holds both she and Finn's hands while the nurse gets ready to draw the blood says a lot about how he feels about this, actually. Finn distracts him and keeps him talking and looking away from the arm the blood'll be taken out of. Nathan still starts crying when the needle pricks him, though, and he can't really be blamed. It's not like it feels good to have something jabbed into your arm. Finn just talks to him and pushes back his hair and is generally the best dad ever, in Santana's opinion. Fuck, she loves him.
And she doesn't let it show, but she swears she almost passes out as the vial fills with her son's blood. (That stuff should just always stay inside him, okay?)
Nathan's still crying, just sort of whimpering, and the nurse grabs a cotton ball and some medical tape and sticks it to his arm before he's even really noticed what's going on, but then his head snaps down and he looks.
And he fucking freaks out.
"No!" he wails, and literally just starts bawling. The nurse looks shocked, which makes sense, and it takes Santana a second to register why he's losing it. She clues in before he goes, "Don't put the tape on it!"
"Nathan," Finn tries.
"Why would you do that? Why would you put the tape on it?"
There are big, sad tears rolling down his cheeks and it's hard to believe she ever laughed at his fear of Band-Aids when he's so fucking upset.
The nurse just looks at Santana, who offers an apologetic look before turning to Nathan again.
"It's okay, baby," she says, and pushes her fingertips across his cheek to brush the tears away as he cries. "Shh. It's okay. It's just to make you feel better."
"I don't like it," he whimpers.
"I know." God, he's breaking her heart. "I know you don't like it."
The nurse asks, "Do you want me to take it off?"
And all three of the Hudsons in the room shout, "No!" and look at her like she's insane.
Santana gets up onto the bed with him after the nurse has left. And Finn has apologized for them yelling at her and sort of explained Nathan's hatred of bandages. She actually looks really sorry for doing it, even though it's standard procedure after drawing blood. Santana just slips her arms around Nathan and he cuddles up against her and glares at the tape on his arm every once in a while. He's not crying anymore, but he's pissed now.
Tina comes by and tells them they can go, that the results will be back in a couple days, but the head scan and the x-rays and the ultrasound all showed absolutely nothing. She gives Santana explicit instructions not to worry for the next three days while they wait.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Tina asks Nathan, and he glares at her as much as an eight year old can.
And she rips the tape off his arm before anyone knows she's going to do it, and he's so shocked that it looks like he doesn't know what to do.
Santana's worried he's going to hate Tina forever, and Finn's just sitting there looking like an idiot as Tina leaves the room with a smile on her face like she thinks it's hilarious that she just did that.
Nathan looks at his arm and then rubs his fingertips against it harshly and looks at Santana as if to ask, "What are you going to do about this fuckery, Mom?"
"You okay?" she asks him, and his brow furrows like it does when he's a grouchy little asshole.
He just says, "I'm mad at Tina."
"You're not crying, though."
"I'm too mad," he tells her, and she almost wants to laugh. Today has been a roller coaster of emotions and she doesn't know what to do next. "I'm not talking to her ever again."
"Okay," Santana laughs, then watches Finn help him off the bed. Finn's just grinning like he wants to say something, but doesn't want Nathan mad at him, too. "Did it hurt?"
He glares up at her, points to his skin, which is a little red where the tape was, and doesn't say anything.
Fucking cute kid.
Santana leans down to kiss him on the head and Finn slides his hand across the small of her back. She thinks they're both just really relieved that none of these tests have shown anything wrong with their son, and that's why they can laugh about the Band-Aid thing again.
"Hey, remember that time you peed on Daddy's hand?" she asks, and Nathan bursts out laughing, and Finn gets annoyed with her and wipes his hand across her cheek, even though he spent like five minutes washing them with hospital-grade antibacterial soap.
... ... ...
Tina was right and there's nothing wrong with him. She thinks the symptoms could be stress-related, which kind of terrifies Santana because he's a child with a pretty cushy life. What's he going to be like later when shit actually starts getting really tough? Finn just tells her it's all relative and that they'll just keep an eye on Nathan to make sure nothing's too overwhelming.
He also helps Nathan stick a piece of masking tape to Tina's arm 'secretly' the next time they're all together.
It's sort of hilarious that Tina doesn't even pause her conversation with Santana while she tears the tape off her arm.
(Later, she'll tell Santana that it hurt like a bitch but she didn't want to let on. And Nathan will walk around with this fucking cute smug little face on for the rest of the day. Santana doesn't have the heart to tell him his little plan was futile.)
... ... ...
She cuts herself shaving because she's running late for work, and she has plans with Finn after to go shopping for Nathan's birthday while their son goes to a sleepover at a friend's house. And when she steps out of the bathroom with a tissue held against her leg, Finn looks at her like she's lost a limb.
(Which, well, if she'd just sliced herself a little deeper...)
"What'd you do?"
She really wants a snarky comeback, but she's standing here freezing her tits off in just a towel, with her hair still wet. "What do you think? And we're out of Band-Aids in our bathroom."
"Come here," he tells her, looking all worried and like, stupidly sexy and Coach-Eric-Taylor-like in his khakis and polo. So yeah, she walks over. Finn curves his hand around her calf and lifts her leg so her foot's on top of his knee, and he peels the tissue off as her temperature spikes.
"I don't have time for this," she says, trying to sound kind of bitchy. Finn just gives her a sexy as fuck look and raises his brow, which...
"This?" he asks, squeezing her calf gently in his hand. "Or this?" He slides his fingertips of his free hand up the back of her thigh beneath the towel, then laughs when she shoves at his shoulder. "You like seriously sliced your leg open."
"I know. Which is why I need a Band-Aid. And by the way, when you use the last one, buy more," she says, and it makes sense and everything, but she'd even be happy with him telling her so she could buy more.
Anything to minimize the risk of her getting blood on anything.
He kisses the inside of her knee (no, she really doesn't have time for what that makes her want to do) and presses the tissue against her leg again, then lowers her foot to the floor. When he stands, he says, "I'll grab one," and brushes his lips across her cheek.
She pulls on her bra and panties - carefully - and grabs her robe. What the fuck is taking him so long? She hears Nathan's sleepy morning voice, though, and figures Finn got distracted tending to their child. She'll allow it. She steps out of the bedroom, then heads for the kitchen. She sort of loves it when Finn fixes Nathan's breakfast, simply because it means she doesn't have to. He's, surprisingly, more of a morning person than she is. She finds Nathan sitting there with his bowl of Rice Krispies and a glass of orange juice, and Finn grabbing two mugs from the cupboard as the coffee finishes brewing.
"Oh!" Finn says, looking nervous for having forgotten, and then grabs the box of Band-Aids off the table and hands them to her.
Her husband is fucking hilarious.
"Ha ha." She tosses the box back at him and he catches it with his left hand as he sips his coffee. "Get me a real one."
She's not wearing a fucking Captain America Band-Aid when she's got a mediated session at 9:30.
"That's all we have," he tells her, and Nathan just eats his cereal and kind of looks like he wants to tell her she'll be the coolest mom ever if she puts one on.
"I'm not wearing that," she insists, and Finn sort of glances at Nathan, who's watching this back and forth with a little grin on his lips.
Fuck. If she doesn't put on the fucking Band-Aid, she's never going to hear the end of it.
"Gimme the Band-Aid," she sort of growls, and Finn just grins like a smug ass.
"You want the one of him holding his shield? Or the one where he's like, standing there majestically."
"Is there one of Chris Evans shirtless, because..."
Finn just laughs and hands her a random Band-Aid. "Need me to administer first aid?"
"Sure. You might as well do something for me this morning." Nathan laughs at their conversation, like his parents are hilarious.
(No, he really doesn't need to know that she's referring to Finn touching her the way he did and then it being impossible to follow through. It's fine.)
Finn kneels down right there in the middle of the kitchen and tears open the package. Santana looks over at their son, who's just smiling at them, as Finn presses the adhesive against her shin.
"See that?" she asks, and Nathan just looks at her. "That's how you treat a girl. She doesn't need you to take care of her, but you offer anyway."
"Especially if you love her," Finn adds. Nathan spoons more cereal into his mouth. This isn't the first time he's heard this lesson, probably; she and Finn like to tell their son things that'll actually serve him later in life. How to treat women is one they're pretty serious about.
Finn slides his thumb along her skin around the edge of the Band-Aid and winks at her, and she touches his face because he's being sweet.
(And seriously, if her son is going to learn that particular lesson from anyone, his dad could teach the master class.)
She could wear pants, but she wanted to wear her favourite skirt and blazer and she doesn't want to compromise.
As she's rushing out of the house, Nathan says something about how Captain America will help her with her work.
She doubles back to kiss him quickly, the adorable little thing, and leaves the Band-Aid on all day, despite the stares it draws wherever she goes.
Character: Finn/Santana
Summary: Leave it to Finn to create a kid who's afraid of Band-Aids.
Word Count: 6,600
Disclaimer: Don't own
Leave it to Finn to create a kid who's afraid of Band-Aids.
Seriously.
Band-Aids.
She looks like the worst freaking mother in the world because Nathan screams any time you try to put one on him, so he ends up just bleeding, and people look at her like she's unfit. Yeah, they're judgmental assholes, but god, she'd probably question someone's parenting abilities if she saw a kid with blood running down his leg, too.
So they're outside in the yard and he runs into a tree (so fucking Finn's kid) and she hurries down off the patio. The whole point of her being outside, too, was so that she could watch him, because he's eight and sure, their yard is fenced in, but you never know what could happen out there. In her head it's always worse shit than running into a fucking tree, but whatever. Anyway, there's already an egg on his head and a bit of blood trickling down his temple mixing with the sweat he's worked up, and she knows it's going to be a fight. When she gets him into the kitchen and reaches for the cupboard she keeps an 'emergency' first aid kit (meaning, Rubbermaid container with alcohol, Band-Aids and Advil) Nathan jumps in front of her and leans against it.
"Nathan."
"I'm fine!"
She tilts her head at him and watches him wipe the blood away with the back of his hand, then smear it across his jeans.
Great. Now he looks like a little axe murderer.
"Let me look at it."
"Nope." She sighs and walks towards him anyway, and he just pulls himself up onto a stool at the counter and jerks his head away when she tries to touch him. "Don't! It doesn't hurt!"
"Nathan, I really don't want you dripping blood all over and making my house look like a crime scene."
He just stares at her. Then; "I don't need a Band-Aid. Please."
The terror on his cute little boy face is what makes her cave.
She grabs an old face cloth, though, and presses it against his head. Then he wants to watch 101 Dalmations because he wants a dog so fucking bad it's ridiculous. It's a gorgeous day out and he's practically addicted to their backyard or whatever, and he really only ever wants to sit inside when shit like this happens and he wants to lay low. She really loves that he's an active kid and would rather run around outside than sit on his ass on the couch, but it's kind of nice to just be here with him.
He's sort of cute, too, just chilling on the couch with his hand holding his cloth to his head. And she's tried to get him to change his jeans, but he refused and she's sure it's because he wants to show his dad the blood on his pants. Kids are gross like that.
Finn's been doing yardwork at his mom and Burt's place (an unspoken agreement to keep Burt and his not-exactly-perfect heart away from the heat and hard work) and when he walks in, he looks at her and Nathan, then at the TV. He sighs and puts his hands on his hips because he just knows.
"What'd you do?"
Santana laughs a little when Nathan shrugs. "Tree jumped out at him."
"Dude." Finn walks over and sits on the other side of Nathan, pulls the cloth away. "Want a Band-Aid or something?" he asks, thumb gingerly touching the bump on their kid's head.
Santana rolls her eyes as Nathan squirms and freaks out all over again and says he's fine and doesn't need anything.
Finn tells him the blood on his jeans is gross, and of course Nathan runs to change them then.
"He's so weird. Gets that from you."
Finn gives her a look. "Ever since you ripped that one off his knee..."
"I didn't rip it off."
"He cried for 20 minutes."
Santana turns back to the TV like she actually cares about this cartoon or, you know, hasn't seen it like 20 times in her life. "He was fine. It's a fucking Band-Aid."
"Well now he's scared."
Finn's like, actually pouting about this.
(Also, he minds the heat and it makes him act like a fucking baby, but whatever. She usually just tells him to go shower then get a beer and fucking get over it.)
"No doubt he's your kid," she says absently.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hey Finn?" He's ignoring her, which she hates. Also, he tried to wake her up for sex this morning, and normally she'd be game, but they were up late last night for the same reason, and fuck, she needed to sleep in, you know? So he's probably being bitchy about that, too. "Remember that time you were afraid of the lace..."
"Oh, my god, Santana. I was drunk and it touched my foot because you left it..."
"You left it."
"In my bed," he finishes, eyes narrowed. He just looks ridiculous, and this is why their fights don't last long, really; she laughs at him or he calls her a bitch and apologizes in the same breath and then they just work it out.
"It was a pair of panties and you screamed like you were dying."
"I was drunk."
Finn pinches her thigh just under the hem of her shorts to make her let out a sound eerily similar to the one he made that night like, 10 years ago. (And no, she's not letting him live it down, and brings it up when she wants a laugh at his expense.) Then of course, he gets this smug look on his face because she squealed. Ass.
"He doesn't like Band-Aids because it hurts when you take them off."
"If that's an accusation..."
He kisses her to keep her quiet - she can tell when that's his motivation - and then Nathan is running down the stairs in a pair of khaki shorts and jumping onto the couch. There's a little dried blood in his hair, so Finn brushes it out and then Nathan's asking what's for dinner.
And okay. He's fine, and maybe her wanting him to wear Band-Aids is partly because she just doesn't want to ever see her kid bleeding.
(Yeah, she puts a pair of clean panties under Finn's pillow and laughs her ass off to the point of almost falling out of bed when he flails around and flings them across the bedroom and tells her how not funny she is.)
... ... ...
The kid is obsessed with The Avengers and thinks Captain America is legit the best thing that has ever happened to the world.
In his weirdo kid brain there are still things he thinks could be real, and super heroes fall into that category. Santana blames Sam for that shit, too. He and Tina babysit an awful lot, and she knows he's responsible for like, telling her kid about radioactive spiders and shit.
Seriously. There's talk of radioactive spiders and the kid is fucking afraid of Band-Aids.
He and Finn are playing around with this old car. Well, they're fixing it up or whatever. Finn always wanted to do this with his kid, and like, whatever. If he wants to waste time knocking a wrench around on an old engine, he can go for it. And if he someday gets this old Charger running and looking good, she won't be upset. Anyway, she really thinks he just likes hanging out in the garage with Nathan. She doesn't mind that either, honestly, because it usually means her house is quiet and there's no eight year old being loud or asking for things. She loves her son more than anyone in the world, don't get her wrong, but who couldn't use a break from it every once in a while?
So Finn and Nathan are out there doing whatever, and she's reading the latest Jen Lancaster book on the sofa in the living room, enjoying the quiet. But then there are two sets of footsteps running into the house, and she turns her head just in time to see them rush down the hall and into the bathroom.
She's not all that concerned, because Finn's being pretty calm and Nathan isn't even crying.
"What happened?" she asks, standing in the doorway to the bathroom.
"Just snagged his finger on the edge of the hood. He's okay," Finn answers, running Nathan's hand under the tap. Nathan's standing on the little stool they keep for him in the bathroom and his cheeks are red like they get when he's trying not to cry.
"Let me see."
"No. Daddy said it's okay," Nathan says, moving over a little so he's more in front of Finn, between him and the counter, as if that'll make him invisible or something.
Honestly, she's really bothered by this. Ever since last month when Finn pointed out that she might be the cause of their kid's weird fear of Band-Aids, she's been sort of feeling like shit about it. Obviously it's not something that sits at the forefront of her mind and she always worries about it, but any time it's come up, she wonders if it's really her fault and it's not that Nathan is odd, it's that she created that fear in him by - how dare she - pulling off a Band-Aid that had dirt and grime all around the edges.
Finn knows her pretty damn well at this point (if he didn't after nine years of marriage and eleven together, they'd have bigger problems) and just gives her a little look in the mirror. He reaches up with one hand and opens the medicine cabinet.
"Daddy, no!"
Nathan stomps his little foot, then gets a glare on that he obviously inherited from Santana.
"No, check it out," Finn says, smiling, and pulls down the box of Captain America Band-Aids he found at Walgreen's two weeks ago and showed Santana, all proud and whatever.
Nathan seems ever-so-slightly more interested. "What is that?"
Santana just crosses her arms and watches.
"Band-Aids. But special ones. They're Captain America ones, so, um...I mean, even Captain America needs them sometimes."
The 'bitch please' look Nathan gives Finn is legitimately the most hilarious thing she's ever seen, and she bursts out laughing. Both boys ignore her but she doesn't care.
Nathan says, very matter-of-factly, "Captain America does not need Band-Aids."
"But..."
"No, Daddy," Nathan says, shaking his head like Finn's just the dumbest person ever for even suggesting it.
Santana might snort.
(Okay, sometimes he proves he's her kid, too.)
Finn sighs, turns off the tap and reaches for a tissue to wrap around Nathan's finger. She can see that it's not bleeding that badly anyway. But, hey, a Band-Aid would probably stop it pretty quickly.
Nathan jumps down off his step stool and looks up at Finn just as Santana runs her hand up her husband's back. Really, he's sweet for trying to break their son of this bizarre fear.
"Can I get an invincibility suit?"
Her hand balls Finn's shirt in a fist because their kid is the cutest thing ever.
Finn chuckles and squeezes Nathan's shoulder. "I don't think you're ready for that kind of power yet, buddy."
Nathan rolls his eyes and walks out of the bathroom, saying something about juice, and Santana kisses Finn between his shoulder blades.
"You're cute," she tells him.
He sort of looks over his shoulder at her, this really great smile on his lips.
"I love you, too."
... ... ...
He skins his elbow at a friend's house, and Santana suspects he doesn't want to look like a baby in front of Dylan or something, because he comes home with a square Band-Aid on his elbow. Dylan's mom is a nurse or whatever, so Santana's not really all that worried about the scrape not being clean under the bandage. And Laurie told Santana when she dropped Nathan back off at home that it really wasn't that bad.
She catches him poking at the Band-Aid after dinner, and Finn's watching him, too.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Nothing," he answers quickly, dropping his hand and looking at her, wide-eyed. "It's itchy."
"Don't scratch it."
"But it's itchy."
Finn laughs. "Just don't think about it. It'll stop."
"Maybe if I scratch it, it'll stop," Nathan says, and like, fuck. He's so funny without meaning to be sometimes, and he doesn't really like to be laughed at when that's the case. "Band-Aids itch me."
She rolls her eyes a little, because Christ, now he's just going to have another excuse not to let her put one on him.
"You're fine," she tells him, and then pushes his hand away from his elbow when he tries to scratch it again. "Wanna go for a walk?"
She's sort of asking them both. It gets cooler at night this time of year, and Finn's going back to work in two weeks, and Nathan'll be starting school, too, shortly after that. Summer is her favourite not only because she likes the sun, but because she gets to see more of her boys, too. She's a lawyer, and at first she didn't want to move back to Lima at all, but Finn did. It wasn't a big deal and he would have stayed in Chicago with her if she'd wanted to, but then she did the research and realized there were exactly zero family or personal injury lawyers in Lima. Frankly, having the market cornered seemed like a wise business move, so she set up her practice here and Finn got a job working at the high school. So no, she doesn't work insane hours like she would if she were in the city, and it's kind of nice. She sees her family more than any of the people she went to school with see theirs.
Finn grabs her navy and white striped sweater from the closet and hands it to her without her having to ask. He gets a kiss for that, because shit, he just sort of takes care of her, and it took her a long time to admit it, but that's something she's always wanted from a relationship and never had before him.
Nathan wants to ride his bike, which she's fine with, and she buckles his helmet onto his head to make sure it's on properly (he likes to loosen the straps for reasons unknown to her, even though she's given him shit for it plenty of times).
Finn slips his arm around her waist once they get to the sidewalk. She likes that, too.
"Band-Aids itch him," he says, and then sort of laughs.
"I swear to god, you'd think we were trying to torture him, the way he talks about shit like that."
"He's funny."
"He's hilarious, but he's...I mean, he's like a little daredevil with everything else. The fact that he's afraid of Band-Aids is ridiculous."
Finn laughs again and shouts for Nathan not to get too far ahead.
"I'm just like, dreading when we have to take that off," Finn says, and ugh. He's right and Nathan'll probably scream bloody murder if she even tries.
And it doesn't go down exactly like that, he just plain refuses to let her pull it off. The bandage has been on three days, and it's a fabric one, so the edges are all frayed. It's got dirt caked into it because he's a little boy and staying clean isn't a priority. She tries to get him to just pull it off in the shower, but he won't, and screams, "God, mom, get out!" like her being in the bathroom and him being hidden behind a shower curtain is the worst thing that could ever happen to him.
One corner of the bandage starts peeling off, and Santana notices and reaches for it, thinking she'll just tug at it and it'll fall off.
No such luck.
"What are you doing?" he shouts, jerking his arm away.
She sighs. "I bet if you just pulled it off it wouldn't hurt."
"Yes it would."
"Do it slowly."
"No!"
She rolls her eyes, but doesn't push the issue any further.
Then the thing is halfway off, flapping around, and it's been a week, and the scrape beneath it is scabbed over anyway, and seriously, this is just disgusting. Finn thinks the same thing and tries to talk Nathan into just going for it and pulling it off, but he refuses. She's halfway tempted to just do it when he's sleeping, but then she runs the risk of waking him up and having him be traumatized for life, and no, she doesn't want him to hate her for like, unsanctioned Band-Aid removal.
"That needs to come off," Finn sort of laughs and flicks the bandage with his finger.
Nathan just straight up ignores him.
It takes another three days for the rest of the adhesive to loosen up and the bandage to just fall off on its own. Of course it happens at the breakfast table and Nathan's a little boy who doesn't think about things like, you know, not putting a dirty old bandage on the table when people are trying to eat. She's just finishing up her bagel and trying to get out the door, and Finn's sitting at the table with Nathan while she's checking to make sure she has a file she needs.
"Nathan," Finn scolds. Which he never does, really. Santana looks over and sees the bandage on the table.
"Oh, god. Gross," she says, and gives their son a look.
"It fell."
They all know it didn't just fall onto the table, and his knack for bending the truth stopped being cute right around the time he decided to break an entire carton's worth of eggs on the kitchen floor and said he 'didn't know how it happened'.
"Put it in the garbage," Finn tells him, and Nathan gets up without having to be asked twice.
Santana reaches for his arm and kneels down to get a look at the scrape for, really, the first time, unobstructed. It's practically fucking healed, the bandage was on there so long.
"I'd kiss this better, but there's a big old line of dirt around it from the glue," she tells him.
Nathan just gets this shit-eating grin on his face and looks at her. "Then maybe that's why we shouldn't put Band-Aids on stuff."
She laughs, because he's fucking cute, and kisses his forehead while he chuckles at himself.
... ... ...
If he were any other kid, she'd question whether or not he was faking. A week into the school year, she gets a call at the office telling her Nathan's sick and wants to go home from school. She's meeting with a client this afternoon and Finn's got practice after school, so Santana first calls the sitter, who can't get him, then calls her mom. She lets the school know who'll be picking him up, and then spends the rest of the afternoon worrying about him.
She's a good mom, okay? She'd do anything for him, and the thought of anything being wrong with him makes her stomach churn. When she was pregnant and they were running all those tests to check for defects or whatever, she was a wreck until the results came back and the doctor said everything was perfectly fine. And when he had bronchitis as a baby, she literally cried herself to sleep listening to him cough because there was really nothing she could do to help him feel better. She knows Finn's the same way. God, Nathan got the chickenpox when he was five and Finn took the entire time off work so he could stay home with the kid. And the first tooth Nathan lost, she could have sworn Finn was going to have a nervous breakdown, because "Things shouldn't just like, fall out of your kid! It's not right!"
Anyway, she texts him to let him know what's going on, and he's got a bunch of questions she doesn't have answers to. All she knows is that Nathan's complaining that his stomach's sore and her mom is feeding him ginger ale and crackers as he lies on the couch in the living room at her parents' place.
She leaves work and heads straight over there, and Finn's practice will be done soon and she wants to be home before he is. Nathan's little face is all flushed and he's lying there in his tee shirt and a pair of pajama pants her mom keeps here. There's a blanket over him and he's a little warm to the touch, but not alarmingly so.
"You okay?" she asks, brushing his hair back, and he shakes his head no. "What's wrong?"
"Everything hurts."
Fuck. Her heart is officially broken.
"Want to go home?"
He nods his head and gets up off the sofa, hugs his grandma, and then heads right for the door. Santana thanks her mom, but follows him quickly, because he obviously really just wants to be at home. She can't really blame him. When she's sick, all she wants is her own bed, too.
He falls asleep in the car on the 15 minute drive home.
She's really starting to worry.
She somehow manages to carry him to the house without waking him up (and Finn usually carries him, and this kid is getting heavy), and gets him up the stairs without breaking her back or anything. She takes his shirt off him, because his body's too warm, and tucks him into his bed with the television on at a low volume. He doesn't like feeling alone when he's sick, and she's learned by now that a little bit of noise helps calm his nerves, even if it's just Spongebob in the background.
Finn comes in when she's making soup, and the first thing he asks is where Nathan is and how he's doing.
"I don't know," she answers, after telling him Nathan's in bed. "He's really warm, but he hasn't thrown up or anything. He just said everything hurts."
The look of pure pain that settles onto Finn's face honestly makes her love him a little more. He's so in love with their kid. He walks over and slides his hand over her hip, leans down to kiss her, and says he's going to change and check on Nathan.
When he wakes up in the morning, Nathan's fever has gone down, and he says his stomach's not sore anymore, but Santana keeps him home from school as a precaution. He goes back to her parents' place because she doesn't want to send him to the sitter's if he's really sick, since there's a four month old baby there and she'd hate for him to pass his germs onto an infant, if it can be avoided.
He's fine when she picks him up, and everything seems okay for the next few days, until the weekend.
It's like, two in the morning and she wakes up to her son standing next to her side of the bed crying.
Terrifying, honestly.
"What's wrong?" she asks, and tries to get her heart rate to even out.
And, okay, kicks Finn in the leg to wake him up, too.
"My head hurts."
Finn shakes off the sleep and goes off in search of children's Tylenol, which they realize they're out of, and Santana just gives him a pleading look. Finn glances at Nathan, who's now cuddled up against her side and sort of crying against her shoulder, and says he'll head out to the 24 hour pharmacy and get some.
She gets Nathan to describe the pain, and it's just a headache, but then he says something about seeing spots, and she's freaking out. She's had a migraine before, and they're awful, and she can't imagine feeling that way at his age. She switches off the light in the room and gently rubs her fingers against his scalp, watches as his eyes get heavier. She keeps him awake long enough to take the medicine Finn brings back.
He falls asleep, but she and Finn are up all night, their son between them in their bed.
"I'm freaking out," he tells her, and she just nods. "This is weird, Santana."
He says it like it's a secret, or something he just really doesn't want to admit, and maybe it's that she's really tired and she can't sleep, but tears well in her eyes. This is her child, though, and she can't handle thinking he's really sick.
"You think we should take him to the hospital?" she asks, and Finn lets out this really quick breath, like he doesn't want to admit that it's that serious.
"Let's wait and see how he is in the morning," he says, and Santana nods, because that sounds reasonable.
He's fine in the morning. Seriously. He wakes up symptom free and wants to go outside and play. He eats all his breakfast and gets dressed without having to be asked twice, and the only time he complains at all is when Santana tells him to do his homework for school.
She still thinks all this is really fucking weird.
The nice thing is that Tina is the town's pediatrician and she tells Santana to bring Nathan by Monday morning and she'll take a look and make sure nothing's wrong. It's really fucking reassuring to know that one of your good friends can do things like that. Not only pull strings, but also trust you enough that when you say something's off, something's off.
Basically, he's fine. Tina checks his ears, first, but since he's never had so much as an earache in his life, it's doubtful that anything's wrong there.
Tina can either tell that Santana's not going to accept a diagnosis of "Everything is fine", or she thinks this whole thing's a little weird, too, because she books a bunch of tests they'll have to go to the hospital to do.
Finn and Santana both take days off work to take Nathan, because honestly, he's a little scared and Santana can totally understand that. The only time he's ever been in a hospital, other than when he was too young to remember it, was when Burt had a small heart procedure done and was there for two days. She can't blame him for being a little tense when they put him in this room in the pediatric ward and tell him to drink a bunch of juice because they need him to pee in a cup.
Honestly, hearing Finn and Nathan through the door while this goes down is the fucking funniest thing Santana's ever heard in her life. Finn's got to hold the cup and she knows (she cleans the bathrooms in the house...) that Nathan's aim is for shit.
So, "No! Hold...Hold it straight! Nathan! No. Not on my hand! Oh, god. Oh, god, it's hot. Oh, gross," coming from the other side of the bathroom door nearly makes her cry laughing.
They do this head scan thing, and an ultrasound of his stomach, and x-rays, and while Nathan thinks some of the 'machinery' is cool, he still wants Santana to hold his hand through the whole thing. And as they wait for the next test, he asks Finn if he thinks that this is what Captain America felt like. Random, weird question and Finn makes up some bullshit answer and the two go back and forth talking shit about some super hero.
Then the nurse walks in with a big needle and a tourniquet and says she's just going to take some blood. Nathan's not afraid of needles, but he sure as hell doesn't like them. The fact that he holds both she and Finn's hands while the nurse gets ready to draw the blood says a lot about how he feels about this, actually. Finn distracts him and keeps him talking and looking away from the arm the blood'll be taken out of. Nathan still starts crying when the needle pricks him, though, and he can't really be blamed. It's not like it feels good to have something jabbed into your arm. Finn just talks to him and pushes back his hair and is generally the best dad ever, in Santana's opinion. Fuck, she loves him.
And she doesn't let it show, but she swears she almost passes out as the vial fills with her son's blood. (That stuff should just always stay inside him, okay?)
Nathan's still crying, just sort of whimpering, and the nurse grabs a cotton ball and some medical tape and sticks it to his arm before he's even really noticed what's going on, but then his head snaps down and he looks.
And he fucking freaks out.
"No!" he wails, and literally just starts bawling. The nurse looks shocked, which makes sense, and it takes Santana a second to register why he's losing it. She clues in before he goes, "Don't put the tape on it!"
"Nathan," Finn tries.
"Why would you do that? Why would you put the tape on it?"
There are big, sad tears rolling down his cheeks and it's hard to believe she ever laughed at his fear of Band-Aids when he's so fucking upset.
The nurse just looks at Santana, who offers an apologetic look before turning to Nathan again.
"It's okay, baby," she says, and pushes her fingertips across his cheek to brush the tears away as he cries. "Shh. It's okay. It's just to make you feel better."
"I don't like it," he whimpers.
"I know." God, he's breaking her heart. "I know you don't like it."
The nurse asks, "Do you want me to take it off?"
And all three of the Hudsons in the room shout, "No!" and look at her like she's insane.
Santana gets up onto the bed with him after the nurse has left. And Finn has apologized for them yelling at her and sort of explained Nathan's hatred of bandages. She actually looks really sorry for doing it, even though it's standard procedure after drawing blood. Santana just slips her arms around Nathan and he cuddles up against her and glares at the tape on his arm every once in a while. He's not crying anymore, but he's pissed now.
Tina comes by and tells them they can go, that the results will be back in a couple days, but the head scan and the x-rays and the ultrasound all showed absolutely nothing. She gives Santana explicit instructions not to worry for the next three days while they wait.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Tina asks Nathan, and he glares at her as much as an eight year old can.
And she rips the tape off his arm before anyone knows she's going to do it, and he's so shocked that it looks like he doesn't know what to do.
Santana's worried he's going to hate Tina forever, and Finn's just sitting there looking like an idiot as Tina leaves the room with a smile on her face like she thinks it's hilarious that she just did that.
Nathan looks at his arm and then rubs his fingertips against it harshly and looks at Santana as if to ask, "What are you going to do about this fuckery, Mom?"
"You okay?" she asks him, and his brow furrows like it does when he's a grouchy little asshole.
He just says, "I'm mad at Tina."
"You're not crying, though."
"I'm too mad," he tells her, and she almost wants to laugh. Today has been a roller coaster of emotions and she doesn't know what to do next. "I'm not talking to her ever again."
"Okay," Santana laughs, then watches Finn help him off the bed. Finn's just grinning like he wants to say something, but doesn't want Nathan mad at him, too. "Did it hurt?"
He glares up at her, points to his skin, which is a little red where the tape was, and doesn't say anything.
Fucking cute kid.
Santana leans down to kiss him on the head and Finn slides his hand across the small of her back. She thinks they're both just really relieved that none of these tests have shown anything wrong with their son, and that's why they can laugh about the Band-Aid thing again.
"Hey, remember that time you peed on Daddy's hand?" she asks, and Nathan bursts out laughing, and Finn gets annoyed with her and wipes his hand across her cheek, even though he spent like five minutes washing them with hospital-grade antibacterial soap.
... ... ...
Tina was right and there's nothing wrong with him. She thinks the symptoms could be stress-related, which kind of terrifies Santana because he's a child with a pretty cushy life. What's he going to be like later when shit actually starts getting really tough? Finn just tells her it's all relative and that they'll just keep an eye on Nathan to make sure nothing's too overwhelming.
He also helps Nathan stick a piece of masking tape to Tina's arm 'secretly' the next time they're all together.
It's sort of hilarious that Tina doesn't even pause her conversation with Santana while she tears the tape off her arm.
(Later, she'll tell Santana that it hurt like a bitch but she didn't want to let on. And Nathan will walk around with this fucking cute smug little face on for the rest of the day. Santana doesn't have the heart to tell him his little plan was futile.)
... ... ...
She cuts herself shaving because she's running late for work, and she has plans with Finn after to go shopping for Nathan's birthday while their son goes to a sleepover at a friend's house. And when she steps out of the bathroom with a tissue held against her leg, Finn looks at her like she's lost a limb.
(Which, well, if she'd just sliced herself a little deeper...)
"What'd you do?"
She really wants a snarky comeback, but she's standing here freezing her tits off in just a towel, with her hair still wet. "What do you think? And we're out of Band-Aids in our bathroom."
"Come here," he tells her, looking all worried and like, stupidly sexy and Coach-Eric-Taylor-like in his khakis and polo. So yeah, she walks over. Finn curves his hand around her calf and lifts her leg so her foot's on top of his knee, and he peels the tissue off as her temperature spikes.
"I don't have time for this," she says, trying to sound kind of bitchy. Finn just gives her a sexy as fuck look and raises his brow, which...
"This?" he asks, squeezing her calf gently in his hand. "Or this?" He slides his fingertips of his free hand up the back of her thigh beneath the towel, then laughs when she shoves at his shoulder. "You like seriously sliced your leg open."
"I know. Which is why I need a Band-Aid. And by the way, when you use the last one, buy more," she says, and it makes sense and everything, but she'd even be happy with him telling her so she could buy more.
Anything to minimize the risk of her getting blood on anything.
He kisses the inside of her knee (no, she really doesn't have time for what that makes her want to do) and presses the tissue against her leg again, then lowers her foot to the floor. When he stands, he says, "I'll grab one," and brushes his lips across her cheek.
She pulls on her bra and panties - carefully - and grabs her robe. What the fuck is taking him so long? She hears Nathan's sleepy morning voice, though, and figures Finn got distracted tending to their child. She'll allow it. She steps out of the bedroom, then heads for the kitchen. She sort of loves it when Finn fixes Nathan's breakfast, simply because it means she doesn't have to. He's, surprisingly, more of a morning person than she is. She finds Nathan sitting there with his bowl of Rice Krispies and a glass of orange juice, and Finn grabbing two mugs from the cupboard as the coffee finishes brewing.
"Oh!" Finn says, looking nervous for having forgotten, and then grabs the box of Band-Aids off the table and hands them to her.
Her husband is fucking hilarious.
"Ha ha." She tosses the box back at him and he catches it with his left hand as he sips his coffee. "Get me a real one."
She's not wearing a fucking Captain America Band-Aid when she's got a mediated session at 9:30.
"That's all we have," he tells her, and Nathan just eats his cereal and kind of looks like he wants to tell her she'll be the coolest mom ever if she puts one on.
"I'm not wearing that," she insists, and Finn sort of glances at Nathan, who's watching this back and forth with a little grin on his lips.
Fuck. If she doesn't put on the fucking Band-Aid, she's never going to hear the end of it.
"Gimme the Band-Aid," she sort of growls, and Finn just grins like a smug ass.
"You want the one of him holding his shield? Or the one where he's like, standing there majestically."
"Is there one of Chris Evans shirtless, because..."
Finn just laughs and hands her a random Band-Aid. "Need me to administer first aid?"
"Sure. You might as well do something for me this morning." Nathan laughs at their conversation, like his parents are hilarious.
(No, he really doesn't need to know that she's referring to Finn touching her the way he did and then it being impossible to follow through. It's fine.)
Finn kneels down right there in the middle of the kitchen and tears open the package. Santana looks over at their son, who's just smiling at them, as Finn presses the adhesive against her shin.
"See that?" she asks, and Nathan just looks at her. "That's how you treat a girl. She doesn't need you to take care of her, but you offer anyway."
"Especially if you love her," Finn adds. Nathan spoons more cereal into his mouth. This isn't the first time he's heard this lesson, probably; she and Finn like to tell their son things that'll actually serve him later in life. How to treat women is one they're pretty serious about.
Finn slides his thumb along her skin around the edge of the Band-Aid and winks at her, and she touches his face because he's being sweet.
(And seriously, if her son is going to learn that particular lesson from anyone, his dad could teach the master class.)
She could wear pants, but she wanted to wear her favourite skirt and blazer and she doesn't want to compromise.
As she's rushing out of the house, Nathan says something about how Captain America will help her with her work.
She doubles back to kiss him quickly, the adorable little thing, and leaves the Band-Aid on all day, despite the stares it draws wherever she goes.