Congestion
"Okay, I made you a batch of my world famous soup to help get this flu out of you," Carly said brightly, coming into Sam's bedroom with a tray in her arms.
"Oh…thanks, Carls," Sam said, pulling on a smile as she tried not to gag on the stench of the soup. "Looks great."
"Have you taken your medicine yet?" Carly asked, looking over at the bottle on Sam's bedside table.
"No, and I'm not gonna," Sam said firmly. "That stuff tastes disgusting!"
"Well then you're never going to get any better!" Carly said, rolling her eyes. "My special soup can only help you so much."
"I'm not putting any of that medicine junk down my throat," Sam said, crossing her arms stubbornly.
"You're acting like a child," Carly said. "You're twenty years old! Just take the dang medicine!"
"No!"
"Sam, you have to!"
"No I don't!"
"Yes you do!"
"What is going on?" Freddie asked, walking into his and Sam's shared bedroom.
"Carly's trying to kill me with medicine," Sam mumbled.
"You mean you haven't taken any medicine yet?" Freddie frowned. "Baby, you have to or you won't get better!"
"That's exactly what I said!" Carly nodded. "Maybe you'll have better luck. She's your girlfriend, after all."
"I'll try my best," Freddie chuckled.
"Feel better, Sam, and take your medicine!" Carly said. "I have to go work on my paper for my anthropology class, but I'll swing by later."
Freddie sat down on the couple's bed next to Sam, kissing her gently. He pressed a hand to her forehead. "You're still really warm. You feeling any better?"
"No," Sam mumbled. "I still feel like butt…The only good part was that I got to skip all my classes today."
"Well you should still be keeping up with your readings and the rest of your work," Freddie said. "Did you email your professors and explain that you're sick?"
"Don't start this lecture again," Sam moaned, grabbing a tissue and blowing her nose in it. "I feel sick enough."
"Then you need to take this stuff," Freddie said, picking up the medicine bottle. "Look, it says here it reduces fever, coughing, chest and sinus congestion and nausea. It's just what you need!"
"But it's so icky!" Sam groaned.
"Tell you what," Freddie said. "If you take this medicine, I'll go replace Carly's soup with my own special soup-from-the-can so you can actually keep it down."
Sam pursed her lips. She was hungry, and as much as she loved her best friend, she knew that soup would probably make her even sicker.
"Fine," Sam finally agreed.
"Thank you, Princess Puckett," Freddie smiled triumphantly, pouring the medicine and handing it to Sam. "Drink up."
Sam glared at him as she drank the medicine, almost gagging as she finished.
"There, now you'll see, you're gonna start to feel a lot better," Freddie assured her.
"Just go get me my soup," Sam snapped.
…..
Later that evening, the couple was still sitting in their bed. Sam was watching T.V. and Freddie was flipping through one of his textbooks.
Sam yawned and turned off the T.V.
"You going to sleep?" Freddie asked.
"Yeah, that medicine really made me drowsy," Sam nodded, giving a few coughs. "I hate being sick."
"I know," Freddie said, closing his book and putting an arm around her, kissing her deeply.
Sam responded at once, but after a few seconds, she pulled away quickly.
"What's wrong?" Freddie frowned.
"Nothing," Sam said. "But we should probably try and take a break from swapping spit…I don't want you to get sick."
"Baby, don't worry about me," Freddie chuckled. "You know I have a great immune system. I grew up in a house full of sterilizers and tick baths; I don't get sick!"
"I dunno, this is supposed to be pretty contagious," Sam said.
"Sam, I'll be fine," Freddie told her. "Besides, I'd rather get some dumb old flu than stay away from you any day."
Sam smiled, her cheeks flushing. "Okay…come here, you nub."
…..
The next morning, Sam woke up feeling just as awful as she did yesterday.
Stupid medicine didn't even do a dang thing, Sam thought miserable, pulling her covers tighter to her body to try and block out the chills that were running through her.
Looks like I at least get another day in bed, Sam thought, wishing the aches in her body would begin to subside even a little.
Suddenly, just as she closed her eyes to try and drift off to sleep, she heard a loud fit of coughing from next to her.
She sat up and frowned, looking down at her boyfriend slowly beginning to stir.
"Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a bus," Freddie moaned, clutching his head.
"You okay?" Sam asked.
"Not really…I feel-I feel-"
"You're sick," Sam said, shaking her head. "Guess your amazing immune system met its match."
"Aw man!" Freddie moaned, falling back on his pillow. "I don't get sick!"
"Well, someone should've told your body that, 'cause trust me, Fredward, you look sick," Sam smirked.
"Thanks," Freddie mumbled. "I can't believe this…I really needed to be in my programming class today! We were going over material for our exam next week!"
"I told you I was gonna get you sick," Sam said. She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry, baby."
"It's not your fault…" Freddie sighed. "You did warn me."
"Yeah, but you're still sick now," Sam pointed out. "And I can't even take care of you like you did for me yesterday because I'm still sick."
"Well, then it looks like we're both just stuck in this bed then," Freddie smiled. "We'll have to take care of each other as best we can."
"Okay," Sam agreed. "I guess I can make it out the kitchen to grab us something for breakfast."
"I'll go grab us some more blankets too," Freddie said. "Because somebody is hogging all of them right now."
"Get used to it, Fredrag," Sam said, pulling herself out of bed.
As she headed into the kitchen, Freddie couldn't help but smile to himself in spite of the sickly feeling that had taken over his body.
He supposed if he was going to have to spend the day sick in bed, having Sam right here with him would be the best way to do it.
