Strawberry Fields
By: RavenHeart101
Summary: When Blaine gets sick he tends to go all out.
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Prompt: goats and strawberries on a cliff.
When Blaine got sick things in his brain tended to get all muddled up. Suddenly things were more difficult to understand, harder to say or to see. It was harder to stand a lot of the time, and he tended to get migraines that pounded in his head. Wes told him that it was adorable, and maybe even a bit funny, but Kurt had never seen him like that. And Blaine never wanted him to see him like that until it was absolutely necessary.
Right now did not classify as absolutely necessary. No matter how much Kurt pushed him to let him take care of him. "Blaine I'm worried about you, okay?" Kurt's voice snapped over the phone, softening at the small wince that passed through Blaine's lips at the raised tone. "You sound horrible, honey."
"I'll be fine." Blaine coughed into his elbow – one of those wet, painful coughs that shook your whole body. He blushed at Kurt's disbelieving snort. "It's nothing I haven't dealt with before."
"Blaine, the only thing stopping me from booking a flight back home is the price of tickets and Rachel's surprisingly tight grip on my arm. The moment she lets go, I am heading to Ohio."
"No, no, no, no." Blaine ignored the pressure in his chest, standing up from his bed in protest. His vision swam before his eyes and his blood pounded against his skull, his body swaying forward slowly towards the ground. "M'fine." He mumbled as he swayed.
"You don't sound fine." Kurt's voice was a mere echo, his vision growing darker around the edges. Blaine was too busy trying to stay upright to notice when his phone fell from his hand and the door to his bedroom was pushed open. All he noticed were cold, steady hands settling on his arms and lowering him back onto the bed. Whoever it was that was holding him had a comforting, familiar presence and honestly Blaine didn't even know why his mother was who he was hoping it was. His mother hadn't taken care of him when he was sick since he was eight and Cooper had gotten his own car. Vaguely he registered a hand on his sweating brow and his phone being hung up, someone reassuring Kurt that he would be fine. Even though Blaine knew that Kurt would want nothing more than to see for himself and was probably still very close to coming back to Ohio to take car of him. He wasn't sure who Kurt would trust to nurse him back to health besides, maybe, Carole. But it wouldn't make sense for Carole to be there so... Blaine wasn't entirely sure who would be taking care of him.
His eyes fluttered shut, a cold cloth settling on his forehead and stilling his thoughts. A hand brushed back his curls, Blaine pushing at it weakly with a tiny grunt. "If you want them all over your face I'll leave them, squirt. But you'll just look even more like shit."
Blaine's breath stilled for a moment, his back stiffening before relaxing against his sheets. He blinked open his eyes, shutting them almost immediately as the light assaulted his eyes, a pain flaring in his head. "Coo'..." He murmured, coughing into his elbow once more, nice and loud, curling onto his side, his arm plastered over his waist.
"If you're calling me that, you really are sick." Cooper noted absentmindedly, a thermometer falling into Blaine's ear, his hand gentle on his brother's hair, his thumb moving I gentle caresses on his forehead under the cold cloth. "103.2." Cooper whistled. "Damn, Bee... you still don't do things halfway."
And if Blaine was feeling marginally better he would have managed something more than a grunt in response. But, as it was, even that was enough to send him into another coughing fit. Cooper winced, his hand patting Blaine's back in the most unhelpful way possible. The feeling was comforting though, so that was good enough. "I'll go get you some water." And then Blaine was alone and miserable and his fever was starting to effect the way his brain thought of things. Truly, it was a worse experience than him on pain medication or drunk. At least with those he felt good for a day.
Cooper was back quick enough, a glass of water in his hand and it looked so cold and delicious and Blaine wasn't entirely sure he would be able to keep it down but he drank anyway, ignoring the bitter taste that was obviously some sort of pill. He sipped the water almost greedily until Cooper pulled it away, whining at the loss of the cold glass. "You're only going to hurt yourself if you drink all of that in one go." And Cooper was right but Blaine was thirsty and tired and the cold medication he had taken earlier that day were finally starting to kick in and Blaine hated being drugged up almost more than he hated being sick. "Get some sleep, squirt." Cooper said softly, settling onto his bed next to Blaine and rubbing his hand on Blaine's chest much like he used to do whenever Blaine was sick before he moved to Hollywood to pursue his acting career. It was hard to say why such pressure helped Blaine relax but it did, and it was a comfort Kurt had yet to learn of (of course, Kurt had other ways of making Blaine relax).
Blaine's eyes fluttered shut and his breathing evened over, his hand weakly holding onto Cooper's wrist as it rested against his chest.
By the time Blaine woke up Cooper had made it halfway through the third season of Law and Order on Netflix and his foot had fallen asleep underneath his body weight. The stuffed dog that Kurt had stolen from Finn and Rachel last year's Senior Skip Day was tucked under Blaine's arm and it was entirely too adorable to see Blaine sniffle and snuggle into Cooper's side, the dog clutched to his chest. His fever was no worse, but it certainly wasn't any better and, honestly, Cooper was starting to think about bringing him to the hospital soon. Cooper sighed, running his hand over Blaine's curls once more, remembering the last time Blaine had been this sick – back when he was ten years old, home sick with the flu that soon turned into flu-with-appendicitis.
"Feeling any better?" Cooper paused the episode, placing Blaine's phone back onto the bedside table, ignoring how the screen lit up to inform him that Kurt had texted him back, probably in response to the picture Cooper had sent him a few minutes before.
Blaine head shook against his side, the toy dog being pulled tighter into his chest. "Any interesting dreams?" Because Blaine always seemed to have the most bizarre fever dreams.
He glanced down at his little brother, paying close attention to the way his nose wrinkled in protest and his eyes squinted in the light, his curls sticking up in all different directions. "Goats." Blaine croaked out, coughing once more into his elbow, turning his face away from Cooper's side as to avoid coughing on him.
"Mhm." Blaine's eyes struggled to stay open, squinting at his phone when the screen lit up again, this time with a message from Tina – probably asking him where he was and why he wasn't at school.
"Anything else?" Cooper tapped his forehead, gaining back his brother's fragile attention and handing him the cup of water again.
Blaine almost didn't take it and Cooper had to help him sit up but he had faced worse before. "Strawberries." Blaine muttered, taking a small sip of water, wincing at how it scratched at his raw throat.
"Okay." Cooper held back a confused laugh, ruffling Blaine's hair and taking the glass when it was handed to him. He sighed when Blaine slumped onto Cooper's shoulder, his warm forehead pressing into his older brother's neck, the stuffed dog resting in his lap and his hand reaching blindly for his phone. "Blaine." Cooper warned, grabbing the hand and holding it in his own. Blaine could barely form coherent thoughts, let alone text.
"Goat and straw-strawberries on a – on a cliff." Blaine muttered, trying again to reach his phone.
"That's fun, Blaine." Cooper pushed him back into a lying position, getting up from the bed and stretching, slipping Blaine's phone into his pocket. "I'll be right back."
"Gotta tell Kurt." Blaine turned his head into the stuffed dog, coughing a few more times before falling back into sleep.
Cooper sighed, Blaine had one more hour for his fever to break or he was going to the hospital.
As it turns out the fever didn't break and he did end up going to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with an ear infection, laryngitis, and a bought of food poisoning. There was nothing that Cooper could have done to convince Kurt not to fly back home after that, so by the time Blaine was coherent enough to recognize and remember what was going on his hospital room was pretty packed. Cooper was there, and Kurt was there, which in turn meant that Burt and Carole were there, and Tina visited occasionally with Artie, and sometimes, only sometimes, the rest of the club showed up to check on him.
He wasn't there for long but it certainly was long enough. And after a very stern speech from Kurt and the doctor about taking better care of himself he was sent home with the instruction to take plenty of fluids and plenty of medication. Kurt was refusing to go home until he was sure Blaine was better, and Cooper was refusing to leave his side until he was sure too. Blaine, for his part, was soaking up all the time he could get with the two of them.
He settled into Kurt's side, his head falling onto the taller boy's shoulder as Cooper pressed play on the DVD player, his brother falling into the seat next to him, his hand resting on Blaine's knee. Halfway through the movie Blaine was asleep and Cooper was telling Kurt all the stories that came with Blaine being sick, all of them involving him sayings things like goats and strawberries on a cliff. Kurt was laughing, smiling fondly at the boy next to him, and kissed his forehead, resting his cheek against the curly hair, his eyes shinning as Cooper talked about his little brother, a similar look in his. There was just something about that Blaine Anderson that pulled the two of them in every time and refused to let them leave.
Not that either of them were willing to do so, anyway.
A: N - Short and with a pretty crappy ending... For my friend Allie because she prompted it. :)
