... Now that is what I call a response! :D THANK YOU for all the follows, and favourites, OH MY! Thank you, seriously. :')
Oh god, I hate that Blaine is sick, but he's just so cute to write and ugh, Kurt is just so cuddly and loving.. and ugh.. I started writing this when I was sick, and now I wish I was sick again so that Kurt and Blaine could come cuddle me, and help me to breathe through my stuffly' nose, and take care of me, and yeah...
Re-watching way too many episodes of Season 2 while I was sick. Crying over the fact that Glee won't be back until March (I GOT IT WRONG, I THOUGHT IT WAS FEBRUARY, BUT NO cry).
ANYWAYS. Enjoy reading, tell me what you thought. :) Just finished this so I'll come back and edit if there's lotsa mistakes. :) THANKS GUYS.
When Blaine awoke later that morning, he lay still for a few long moments, counting slowly to ten in his mind, before throwing the heavy duvet off of his head with a grunt. The cream bed sheets were twisted, clumped and unwrapped from the mattress beneath him, forming an uncomfortable lump under his back. He pushed himself up by the clammy palms of his hands, curls tangling with his eyelashes and obscuring his vision, and sat.
"Morning, sunshine!" Kurt sang from across the room, twirling around from the thrown-open doors of his wardrobe to give his adorably groggy boyfriend a bright smile. Hair artfully styled and already immaculately dressed, Kurt had been pottering noiselessly about his bedroom for over two hours before Blaine's sleepy eyes had even considered opening. He nimbly tied the copper buttons of his shirt, perfecting his outfit with a flourish, as he watched an array of emotions flitter across Blaine's expression- confusion, exhaustion, love, awe..
And very strangely, discomfort. Kurt's gleaming smile watered down into a slight frown.
What could be the matter..?
Blaine was unsure of why the volume of Kurt's voice caused him to flinch and briefly shut his eyes. It wasn't as if Kurt had been yelling, he'd actually spoken in a tone of voice used in normal conversation. But it'd grated on Blaine's ears. Grimacing, the curly haired boy put it down to waking very suddenly and gingerly tiptoed a hand through his hair.
He took note of how luminously beautiful his boyfriend looked in the morning, breathing a soft, contented sigh after scanning Kurt's face and assuring himself that there was no evidence of Kurt's difficult night. No purple stains beneath his big eyes, which would usually mar him following a nightmare. Instead, the singer's face shone with vibrancy, cheeks dotted with a faint rosy blush as he stood in the soft spotlight cast by the sun. Blaine's heart squeezed at the adoration kindling in his boyfriend's blue eyes, the muscles in his belly squirming a little as he remembered that he and Kurt had the whole weekend..
"Kurt," he began, crimson lips upturning at the corners.
And then he stopped. The smile slipped from his face.
It sounded like he'd swallowed a bucket of baked sand. Or maybe two, or three. He visibly winced as he forced himself to swallow. The skin of his throat felt grievously parched, scorched with flames.
Cupping the base of his neck tentatively, Blaine cast the other boy a bewildered glance, made more intense by a croaking noise from Blaine's throat which was meant to sound like oh god.
Kurt's eyes grew large and baffled, eyebrows arching high onto his forehead. Blaine sounded awful.
"Blaine, are you feeling okay?" he wondered, closing his wardrobe and crossing the room to his bed. He sank into the mattress beside his boyfriend, only noticing now how the colour of Blaine's skin rivalled a stick of chalk, and placed a gentle hand on his thigh.
Blaine Anderson was never one to openly show his emotions, and that included when he was ill. If or when they started hooking him up to a bleeping life support machine, he might consider informing them of the extent of his pain, but until then, he generally kept his feelings to himself.
So when Kurt asked, he nodded his head lightly, though the movement caused him to feel like he'd gulped a cup of nails followed by a litre of salt water. His chest also felt oddly heavy, as if there was a frosty brick lodged between his tired lungs, and the back of his neck throbbed rhythmically with a dull ache.
Kurt's brow crinkled as his mouth twisted into another frown. "You're lying," he said accusingly, touching the backs of his knuckles to Blaine's cheek. His worry deepened as he literally felt the raw heat emanating from the younger boy's skin.
"Tell me the truth, Blaine," he demanded, crooking a questioning eyebrow.
Blaine heaved a sigh, shoulders slumping as he tilted his head into Kurt's light touch. He hated lying to his boyfriend, especially when Kurt looked so genuinely troubled about his wellbeing.
"Well.." he mumbled in a barely coherent voice, his words skewered by the fire in his throat. "Maybe I-"
Regardless of the fact that he had decided to give Kurt an explanation, however diluted, of how he felt, Blaine was cut short. Something painfully itchy flared in the depths of his chest, and, completely engulfed by a natural bodily reaction and not at all a conscious action, a cough ripped its way up his throat. Whipping his face away from Kurt, he barked noisily into his cupped hands, rasping for air when his body allowed it and cringing and wincing as each cough set agonising flames alight in his lungs and throat.
"Whoa." Kurt fumbled to his feet and wrapped an arm around Blaine's back for support, stroking his curls with the other as the smaller boy convulsed. Blaine's fierce coughs alternated between coarse barks, sounding painful to Kurt's own ears as he shared Blaine's flinch, and wet, sludgy splutters which barely hinted to the thick congestion in Blaine's chest.
"-Maybe I don't feel so well," Blaine stammered, more than five minutes after he had started the sentence.
Kurt smoothed the pad of his thumb along Blaine's flushed cheekbone, delighting in how his tense, scrunched up expression calmed almost instantly.
"You think?" he murmured, leaning in to kiss the tip of Blaine's pink nose. The boy's eyelids fluttered closed at the gentle contact, allowing himself to melt into Kurt's comfort.
Kurt's affectionate touch distracted Blaine from the burn in his lungs so well that he had to stifle the urge to pull Kurt down beside him and press his face into his chest, breathe in his boyfriend's familiar soothing smell..
"Are you okay?" Blaine inquired, knitting his fingers through the other's. "Last night.."
"I'm fine!" Kurt chirped, cheeks cracking into an enthusiastic, reassuring grin as he recalled how attentive and gallant Blaine had been the whole night, cradling him tightly and kissing his tears away. "Only because you were here. So thank you."
"Anytime," Blaine responded, quirking a smile. He hoped to say more but the words died on his lips as another round of barking and spluttering gripped his body in a chokehold. This time, once the flaring in his respiratory system quietened for the moment, he flopped back against the too-hot covers of Kurt's bed and groaned.
"Baby," Kurt murmured, scooting closer to caress Blaine's cheek sympathetically. He noted that his temperature had climbed even higher in the last ten minutes, and roughly bit the insides of his cheeks to stop himself from frowning- he didn't want to worry Blaine.
"You're sick. You need to stay in bed today, alright?"
If anything annoyed the curly-headed boy more than being sick, it was that when he was, he was forced to toss and turn in his bed all day long like a prisoner in handcuffs. Therefore Kurt's instruction, though made with the best intentions, elicited another whine from him.
"Mmph," he unintelligibly muttered.
"Hm?" Kurt hummed in a questioning tone of voice. He moulded his free hand to the side of Blaine's face, stroking consoling circles onto his heated skin.
"I love you."
A soft smile lit up Kurt's expression, even if Blaine's proclamation sounded like it was travelling through a thick wall of cotton wool. Lifting their twined hands to his lips, he kissed each of Blaine's fingers before leaning down to press one to his mouth. "I love you too, baby," he breathed against his lips, curling a glossy ringlet around one of his knuckles. Blaine wrapped his hand around Kurt's shoulder and pulled him down beside him. Cold, he snuggled into his boyfriends warm side and Kurt, kissing Blaine's hair tenderly, lay there for a few minutes before climbing to a stand.
Blaine protested, but Kurt pried his sweaty fingers from their loop around his wrist with ease.
"I'm going to go to the pharmacy and get some things," he explained, lacing up his black boots. "I'll be back in half an hour, I promise."
"I'm okay," Blaine answered hurriedly, struggling to sit up.
He didn't want Kurt wasting his time buying medicine for him! Or annoying Kurt by having him take care of him! He was fine. Completely fine.. With maybe just a stuffy noise. But, fine. It'd clear itself up naturally over the course of the afternoon.
"I'm perfectly alright," he blurted, hastily wriggling across the tangled blankets and bed sheets to the edge, where he swung his legs over the mattress. He drew to a rocky stand, grasping the polished pole of the bed frame to support himself.
"See? No need to go to the pharmacy!" he said, incoherently, fighting through a sudden overwhelming wave of dizziness to make out the outline of his tall boyfriend. The walls convulsed around him. "I'm fine!"
"Blaine," Kurt said warningly, propping a hand on his hip. He'd never known his sallow-skinned lover to look so much like snow before, and frankly, it scared him. Ignoring Blaine's rushed complaints and mumbles, Kurt returned to the bed to readjust the bedclothes and then guided his charming patient to lie down once more.
"Half an hour," he promised, brushing his lips to Blaine's hot forehead. The glassy, exhausted eyes of warm hazel slid closed haltingly, as Kurt pressed another kiss to the boy's cheek and finally, with a soft stroke through his hair, Blaine was sleeping.
Kurt closed the bedroom door mindfully, wary of the click it made, and swept downstairs only to bump shoulders with Rachel as he darted into the kitchen.
"Rachel?" he gasped, surprised, as she simultaneously broke into a grin, and chirruped, "Kurt!"
"What're you doing here?"
Kurt regarded his friend with curiosity, cocking a questioning eyebrow. "I live here," he pointed out. "What are you doing here?"
"Finn's making me lunch," she explained with a loved-up smile.
Kurt glanced over her shoulder and, lo and behold, there was his step-brother in the kitchen, bent over the countertop as he piled bread and various other ingredients precariously on top of one another on one of Carole's china plates. If Kurt was being honest, the concoction didn't look at all appealing, but of course he didn't tell Rachel that.
"Anyways," she continued, drawing Kurt's attention back to her. "I meant, what are you doing here? I know that Blaine's upstairs." She wiggled her eyebrows amusedly as Kurt rolled his eyes.
"You both left the party last night, um, very fast.." she finished, smirking. Her eyes sparkled with enough giddy questions that she didn't need to voice them.
Kurt let free a slightly wistful sigh. Oh, how he wished he had something juicy to scandalise Rachel with.. Trust his awful luck that his boyfriend would fall ill on the first entire weekend they'd ever spent together.
"Blaine," he said resignedly, "is sick."
The tickled expression on Rachel's face quickly morphed into concern, and she cast a worried glance towards the staircase. "Is he okay?" she wondered, just as Finn joined them in the doorway, Rachel's scary-looking lunch on the plate balanced in his hand.
"Blaine's sick?" he chimed in, frowning when Kurt gave an affirmative nod. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Actually," Kurt said, retreating away from the couple to retrieve his coat from the cupboard beneath the stairs. "There is!"
Oh god, Kurt worried. So many different things..
Meandering cautiously down the Flu aisle of the local pharmacy, he brushed his fingertips questioningly to the hundreds upon hundred of bottles, syrups, tablets, oils, sprays and boxes meticulously lined up on the shelves like soldiers. His head swam with each new Guaranteed to clear your stuffy nose in an hour! that his eyes feasted upon. He'd never really taken care of a sick person before, discounting the times he'd toed his way into his dad's room to toss a tab of antibiotics at him before running for the hills in fear of germs, or the times he had brought soup to Finn when he was ill.
He truly had no idea what he was looking for.
Decongestants, suppressants, antihistamines..
He surreptitiously opened the lid of a couple of boxes and containers, withdrawing the accompanied leaflet in order to read the purpose of the product. But, he stopped doing this after the fourth time, because his startled gaze was constantly drawn to the final line on each of the Risks, which always read: In rare cases, may cause death, and because every time a shop assistant came within ten metres of him, he panicked and almost dropped the pamphlet.
Eventually, Kurt admitted defeat and trudged morosely to the front desk. He ticked off Blaine's symptoms on his fingers, informing the friendly pharmacist, and she laughed good-naturedly when he blurted that he had no idea what he was doing.
"Follow the instructions and guidelines on the back of the packets, and he'll be as good as new in no time!" she assured him.
Kurt grumpily pondered why the medicine, the collection of four or five bottles, tablets and boxes, needed to cure Blaine's cold were all sold separately, and not as some ethereal elixir in one bottle, as he drove home.
Rachel and Finn had both slipped into Kurt's room during his absence to check on Blaine, but were now seated in the living room, buttoned into coats and waiting for Kurt to arrive so that they could go out.
"He's still asleep, but he was mumbling something about kissing in the rain," Rachel told Kurt when he asked, peeking into his shopping bag and feeling alarmed over the amount of things that he had bought.
This information elicited a huge smile from Kurt, one which showed his milky teeth. Finn and Rachel exchanged glances of relief, both pleased that the deep concern on their friend's face was gone for the moment. Thanking them for their help, Kurt whirled and headed towards the stairs.
"See you later!" Rachel called over her shoulder as she and Finn left, shutting the door quietly behind them.
The sickly heat filling his bedroom to brimming point fanned uncomfortably over Kurt's cheeks as he cracked open the door and shuffled inside. He kicked off his boots by standing roughly on the heel of each, a shorthanded way of removing them that he would never have even considered if his ill boyfriend hadn't been laying in his bed, patiently waiting.
Well, maybe not waiting exactly, given the fact that he was snoring very, very lightly, body lax in a restless slumber.
Deciding to leave Blaine rest for awhile, and crossing his fingers in the hope that the sleep would burn off his oncoming fever, Kurt busied his anxious mind by straightening up the mess in his room. He finished and moved onto the en suite bathroom. Next, he lay out all of Blaine's sugary-smelling medicine on his desk, slumping on the chair backwards with his chin on his arms as he memorised the guidelines, precautions and instructions of each box and bottle so that he'd know when and in which order to give them to his patient.
He was just glossing over the guidelines of a certain packet, grumbling half-heartedly beneath his breath, when he heard a choked sound drift from beneath the mound of blankets on the bed behind him.
"Kurt?" he heard again. He was on his feet and gently peeling the covers from around Blaine's neck not a second later.
Blaine's cheeks were flushed a bright crimson red as he struggled to disentangle his limbs from the sweaty sheets, Kurt's hushed reassurances falling on deaf ears as he panicked, finding himself unable to draw a single breath.
"Can't," he hissed. "Can't, can't. Can't!"
His words were too strangled by his swollen throat, too thick because of the congestion in his nose and chest, and too fast as a result of his frenzy, for Kurt to be able to understand right away.
"Blaine," he murmured, making a conscious effort to keep his voice steady and calm, though his stomach knotted in anxiety. "I don't understand-"
"C-can't!"
Blaine shot up into a sitting position, clutching wildly at the chest of his soaked t-shirt as he rasped.
Suddenly, Kurt understood.
He knelt beside Blaine's hunched, twitching frame on the bed, pressing one firm hand to his boyfriend's sternum, and put the other to Blaine's back, patting and tapping gently until the boy relaxed a little.
"You're okay," he crooned. "Calm down, Blaine, you're fine. You can breathe."
"Kurt," the boy moaned miserably, twisting around to climb into the unsuspecting brunette's lap, knitting his arms around Kurt's neck weakly.
Helping Blaine to settle his knees on either side of his thighs, Kurt began snaking his hand slowly up the length of his spine in a soothing manner before tangling his fingers into Blaine's curls. "Better?" he wondered, leaning in to brush a gentle kiss to Blaine's flaming cheek, wincing in sympathy for his boyfriend as he felt the heat.
In response Blaine whispered a choppy apology for freaking out, nuzzling his face into Kurt's neck with a distressed groan on his lips. He felt a shiver rip through him, but made no comment because he wasn't sure if he was cold or just relieved that there was oxygen in his lungs once again. Although Kurt presumed the former and looped his arms tightly around Blaine's back, pulling him flush to his body as he hummed into his curls.
"Medicine," he announced after a few minutes, breaking the comfortable silence and pulling a grimace from his panting patient. He resettled Blaine in the royal blue sheets, chuckling at his grumpy complaints, and stumbled across the room to his desk where he grabbed the first dark bottle of medication on his list. The label was white and clean, the gloopy mixture flavoured strongly with liquorice.
Blaine blanched the moment Kurt poured a spoonful of the stuff, brows furrowed in concentration.
He hated liquorice.
"I can do it myself," he croaked, reaching for the silvery spoon. "You don't have to give it to me."
Kurt swatted his hand away, grasping Blaine's wrist and putting it back in his lap. "I get to take care of you today," he said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He held a cupped hand beneath the head of the spoon, worried that he'd dribble the sticky liquid onto his bed sheets. "And you're not going to complain about it."
"I don't expect you to," Blaine protested, and it again sounded as if his throat was dreadfully swollen and packed with cotton wool.
"I know," Kurt said, with a warm smile. He squeezed Blaine's leg affectionately. "Now open your mouth."
Four awfully large pills, two spoonfuls of thick medicine and a pale concoction that Blaine had to put on his chest in order to clear his airways later, Kurt was greatly satisfied with his first round of playing doctor. He screwed the lids back onto the bottles, packed away the tabs of tablets and then left the mini pharmacy messily organised on his desk. He plugged in the television, and pressed play on the first DVD he touched.
Blaine splayed his body against the raised pillows of the bed, his back arching with each choking cough. He mumbled his indifference to their film choice, trying to mask his sludgy sniffles, and Kurt laughed. A rich, chocolatey sound, which caused Blaine's head to throb but sent pleasant shivers along his skin.
Once the starting credits of the movie began rolling across the screen, Kurt hopped to his feet.
"You should go to sleep," he said to Blaine, climbing up onto the bed. He wriggled his denim-clad legs beneath the covers and shifted to his boyfriends overheated side, leaning down to caress Blaine's cheek. "It'll help your body to heal quicker."
Blaine curled the side of his face into Kurt's palm, heavy eyes half-mast as he stubbornly fought the exhaustion in his bones. "Not tired," he murmured.
Kurt opened his mouth to respond, but abruptly, he was pushed away from his boyfriend as Blaine sat up straight and coughed gravely into his trembling hands. His shoulders caved inwards, quivering with the force, and tears burned the corners of his eyes.
"Come cuddle with me," Kurt crooned once Blaine regained his breath. He gently hooked his arms around Blaine's chest, lifting him carefully onto his lap before placing him between his legs.
"No." Blaine rebuked the new position, not wanting to transfer his disgusting germs to his flawless Kurt. He pushed meekly against Kurt's hold, struggling to overlook how warm and comforting his embrace already was, even before he'd relaxed into it. "You'll get sick, and I don't want that."
"Shh," Kurt hummed, softly braiding his fingers through Blaine's curls. He massaged his scalp, a small smile ghosting across his lips as he anticipated Blaine's normal reaction to having his hair smoothed. "Shh, baby, you need to go to sleep."
And, oh, Blaine was powerless against this magic. His eyes helplessly drooped at the touch of Kurt's fingertips to his skull, the painful knot of a headache at the top of his head instantly dulling. Though protests and complaints of unintentionally making Kurt ill tumbled incoherently from his lips, he felt his muscles and joints melting gratefully, his back pressing to Kurt's chest as Kurt led Blaine to let his head fall back against his shoulder.
Turning, Kurt brushed his lips tenderly to Blaine's forehead, then his temple, the bridge of his nose and so on, as he had done earlier, continuing to card his fingers through his boyfriend's glossy curls. "Shh, Blaine," he gently breathed, pressing a kiss to Blaine's mouth as he muttered something about Kurt waking up with a cold and possibly dying. "I'm okay," he promised, smiling. "You're okay. So, sleep, baby.."
It took a couple of minutes of soft kisses and soothing fingertips before Blaine eventually drifted off, but sometime halfway through the song that Kurt hummed in his ear, he did. His head curved to the side, flushed cheek laying against Kurt's collarbone as he nuzzled into his boyfriend for precious warmth. He smelled distinctly of menthol, because of the oil on his chest, and the fragrance made Kurt's thoughts hazy.
He reached for the blankets and pulled them up to cover his and Blaine's tangled legs, tugging it all the way up to the curly haired boy's snowy chin. Blaine made a soft sound of contentment, almost a lazy purr, and fisted his clenched hand into the material of Kurt's shirt.
"Goodnight, darling," Kurt whispered, catching Blaine's fist and, twisting his palm, he twined their fingers together. He swept a gentle kiss to his boyfriend's curls, before settling back with the sick boy cradled warmly in his arms.
"I love you," he vowed.
... I have nothing else to say besides ALLLLLLLLL THE LOVELY FEELINGS BLAINE AND KURT GIVE ME.
Lemme know what you thought! Thanks :D x