Lupin fan1: Poor Scarecrow. It must suck to have your other half be sensible.
AN: I have a friend who reacts TERRIBLY to cold medicine. Many hours of amusement have come from watching this.
Jonathan Crane had scarcely finished his paper when the front door cracked open and a nasty cough reached his ears. He was tempted to call out an 'I told you so', but figured it might not be the best plan of action.
"Kitty?"
More coughs reached his ears and he stood up, stretched, and went to see if she needed help.
She was still capable of standing, but she looked awful. Had she looked this awful when she left for work this morning? He didn't think so.
"H-hi, Jonathan." Cough. "That bitch Jolene got me sick."
Her voice was slurred and he grimaced.
"Come on, bed."
"Couch."
Uh, no. That was not going to happen. Sick people needed to shut up and go to bed, not sit on the couch watching bad movies.
"Come on." he said again. "Either you'll cooperate or I'll get physical."
She giggled.
"You never get physical, Jonathan."
Yerg. She must have been feeling sick. Sick or not, she wasn't budging and he wanted her to go to bed.
He picked her up, grateful that she was literally an inch away from being a midget, and carried her to bed. She didn't make it easy, oh no. She rasped at him and squirmed and nearly toppled them over.
"Here! For heaven's sakes, Kitty, there's no reason to act like I'm dragging you to the doctor's office."
"You're a doctor."
"I'm working on it." he reminded her. "How long have you been sick? And don't you dare lie to me, I can tell when you do."
She grinned, just for a moment, before starting to cough. Ugh. That sounded like a chest cough, and that was usually bad.
"Erm…I dunno."
"Kitty…" He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Try to focus. You're not drunk, you're sick. There is a difference."
"Cold medicine." she rasped. Great. Cold medicine always made her high as a kite, no matter how low of a dose she took. Whichever idiot it was that gave her cold medicine was going to be sorry. He considered sending her back to torture them. "Jolene was sorry for coming sick."
Oh. Jolene, was it? He hated Jolene now, with a flaming passion.
"Great." he said. "Just great."
Idiot woman. Some people were allergic to that stuff!
"Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad. Don't move. Just go to sleep or something, I'll wake you for dinner later."
"Dinner's over."
What…right.
"Supper. Sorry."
She shrugged and rolled over.
"I'm tired."
"Good."
"But kinda wired."
"Sleep anyway. Doctor's orders."
"Thought you weren't a doctor yet."
God, he just couldn't win! As he'd thought before, he hated Jolene with a flaming passion.
"Go to sleep, Kitty."
She flipped him off. He rolled his eyes and retreated to see if they had any soup or ramen or…anything.
Hm. They didn't. That could be problematic. She couldn't go to work, and he didn't really want her at school. It could be influenza.
"Damn."
He finally stumbled upon a very old, possibly expired ramen noddle cup. It would do. It didn't look moldy or anything.
Unfortunately, he didn't read the instructions. After two and a half minutes in the microwave, there was a bright blue flame and then…nothing. Oops.
"Jonathan?"
Shit.
"Go back to bed."
"Did you set something on fire?"
"Accidentally, yes. Go back to bed."
She laughed, but it came out sounding like a cackle. All the same, she did go back to bed. Jonathan disposed of the still-smoldering ramen cup and started looking through the cupboards for tea. That would be better than nothing.
They did have tea-of course they had tea, Kitty would commit murder if they ran out of tea-and he managed to make a halfway decent cup of chamomile.
"Thanks, love."
"Mm."
"Don't go away."
"You'll get me sick." he reminded her. "One of us has to work, remember?"
She pouted at him.
"I can work."
"You try and I'll write a doctor's note saying you've got tuberculosis." he threatened. "My handwriting's bad enough to fake it."
"When did you become such a bad boy, Jonathan?"
One of these days he really would have to study the effects of cold medicine on the mental state. This was fascinating. And amusing.
"What kind of cold medicine did she give you?"
"Daytime." she said. "The orange kind."
Dayquil, then. Okay.
"When?"
"Oh…three hours ago or so. I think. Things got fuzzy."
"Pill or liquid?"
"Pill."
Good. It would wear off soon, then, in another few hours.
"Okay. Maybe try a shower and then go back to bed. Okay?"
She looked at him, her expression bored.
"Later."
"No, now."
Had she reverted to a childlike state? God almighty, he was going to have a long chat with Jolene about handing out medicine at random.
"Uh-uh."
He wasn't about to wrestle with her.
"Okay. I am going to run up to the store. You are going to keep your mouth shut, you sound awful."
"M'kay."
"Good. Any preferences?"
She shook her head and rolled over. If he was really lucky, she would go to sleep while he was gone.
Sure enough, when Jonathan got back, Kitty had gone to sleep. Her tea was gone and she'd huddled up under the covers. Good. Maybe when she woke up she'd be a little more lucid.
He closed the bedroom door and went back to his paper to proofread it.