"How's he holding up?"

"Alright. He was up for a while; pretty responsive and alert. Haven't checked his temp again. He fell asleep a few minutes ago and he stopped the shaking. I found some menthol stuff in your bathroom, that seems to help with his breathing. Maybe I'm hallucinating, but it doesn't sound as strained to me."

"No, I agree. I think it's his nose though. Menthol always clears stuff like that up, so breathing through his nose must be easier now." Kurt added.

"Ok, well… I reached the nurse.

Ugh… she can't come. Has a sick kid at home and apparently it doesn't really matter when the on call nurse can't really be on call. She asked me about his symptoms and while she did say his fever is too high and the severity of the symptoms worry her, we shouldn't bring him to a hospital yet. We won't find a doctor to come out on a Sunday night and she thought we should stick it out, make him as comfortable as possible, until she can assess him in the morning."

"But why no hospital? I'm not sure if I can handle the responsibility, to be honest." Wes answered.

"That's what I told her. But apparently there are a lot of things to deal with, if we'd bring him in. Like his parents' consent, which would be tricky since they left for Europe this morning, or informing the dean and apparently she thought, that he wouldn't be too happy about a missing on call nurse.

And for now she said, there still is the possibility it's just a bad cold and his body is just weakened by stress and all that."

David took a big breath and continued:

"So here's what we're going to do. We will try to bring done his fever. That's priority number one for now. She suggested an ice bath if necessary. Also, he needs to drink and maybe he can even keep some soup down. She said light blankets are ok and ibuprofen as needed. And she will check on us every 30 minutes for now. I told her to."

"Ok, that sounds like a plan then. Thanks for taking care of that David.

One of us should go and get ice cubes from the dining hall. And I have a bottle of ibuprofen in my room, we can use that. And what about the soup?"

"You go get that. And bring some other stuff for us to eat and to survive the night with. I'll get the ice and meds and while you're gone, Kurt and I will try to get him into the bathroom."

Kurt just nodded and watched as the others exploded into busyness and left them alone. He carefully slid into a more comfortable position, leaning against the wall and continued to stroke Blaine's chest under the sheet. This was going to be a long and tiring night.

Oh, was he right.

The night did become even more stressful, when they attempted to get Blaine to walk to the bathroom. They got him to sit up and swing his legs over the bed, but standing up was just not going to work. Blaine was coughing and sweating like crazy and apparently his legs didn't agree with their plan of movement.

David looked over to Kurt and pointed to the bathroom with his head and quickly took the dazed Blaine into his arms. Carrying would be, while maybe a little embarrassing for his friend, sooo much faster and easier on the already weakened body.

David took him into the bathroom, where Kurt was getting the tub ready.

They all had been more than relieved to realize that they wouldn't have to bring Blaine into the common bathroom to help him into the tub. No one was keen on having to explain to the others, who would certainly break out into some sort of panic. David was a prefect and usually, prefects got their own single room.

However David had shared a room with Blaine for quite some time now and neither of the boys wanted to change that. The dean couldn't have been happier.

Single rooms were rare and constantly needed for guests to stay in and they had these weird doubles,that still had a bathtub in them. They couldn't be assigned to regular students, since he was sure that he would be confronted with lots and lots of complaints by other students that wanted some nicer amenities as well.

But – assigning a prefect a room like that was feasible. So…. David and Blaine had a bathtub in their bathroom, which couldn't have been better.

David helped Blaine to take of all of his clothes besides his boxers and tried to prepare him for what was to come:

"Ok, Blaine. Are you with me?"

"Mmmh.."

"We're going to help you into the bathtub now, ok? It'll be really cold and you won't like it – but it's really important that you stay as calm as you can."

Kurt was biting his lips nervously. He really didn't want to be here watching this. Blaine was shaking as it was. He could barely keep himself sitting on the floor and they were going to put him through so much more pain in a minute.

"Ok… let's do it then. But only if I get to wear my Dalton hoodie afterwards, the nice and comfy one."

David laughed a little then:

"We'll see how your fever is responding. But if it's going down you can have your sweater. But no blanket – only a sheet."

"Deal."

"Ok, so how are we going to this…I doubt he'll be able to sit up the whole time."

David wasn't sure how to go on with this. TV shows made it look so easy, but this was something entirely different.

"I'll go in with him:" Kurt answered while he was already shedding his clothes onto the floor.

David didn't have a chance to reply when Kurt was already standing in his boxers behind Blaine, ready to help him up and into the tub.

The water was terribly cold and Kurt couldn't believe what he volunteered to do. He didn't say anything though, just slowly sat down and eased the violently shaking Blaine onto his chest once more.

This was definitely not how he had pictured this in long sleepless nights.

Blaine was slippery and shaking, trying hard to keep it together and holding himself up by the edge of the tub.

"Shh, try to relax. Lean back against me. You need to relax, Blaine."

Teeth's chattering was the only answer he got, but the other boy did let go of the tub and relaxed into him as much as he could.

"How are you guys doing?" David asked.

"Peachy. Ice baths are the new spring trend, you know? Does wonders to my complexion."

Blaine snorted at that and looked up to David with glassy eyes:

"What he said." He added with a tiny smirk.

"Well I'm glad you haven't lost you humor. Ms. Moore said that ten minutes would be more than enough for now, so you just have a few minutes left."

Soon enough they had Blaine out of the tub and changed into some sweats. Once they had him settled onto his bed, which David had changed once again, Kurt excused himself and got changed himself.

When he returned into the room David had just taken Blaine's temperature again.

"Did it work?"

"A little. It didn't go down a whole lot, but it's also not getting any worse."

"That's good I guess." Kurt said while coming to sit next to Blaine.

"Kurt… uh… can you..?"

"What Blaine, what do you need?"

"Can you…uh sit…behind me again?"

"Yeah sure." Kurt answered him with a bright smile and slid behind him again.

"Like that? Is that comfortable for you?"

"Mmh… very."

"Ok, buddy… I'm gonna put some more of that menthol stuff on your chest and then I have some meds for you to take."

"Ok."

Kurt was getting worried by Blaine's monosyllabic answers and his drooping eyelids – shouldn't he be more awake after an ice bath?

When David was done with the menthol he said:

"Great. Now I have some pills here and I need you to wash them down with a lot of water ok?"

"No. I'm tired. Need sleep."

"I know. And you can. But you need to do this first. You are dehydrated and your body needs fluids."

"Can't"

Kurt brushed his hand through the messy curls and whispered to Blaine:

"Yes you can. And you will. Drink some water and then you can sleep. I won't leave, but you need to drink."

Blaine only sighed and opened his eyes again, gesturing to David to pass the pills.

Once he was done, he relaxed back onto Kurt and David pulled up the sheet smiling to Kurt and mouthing a thank you.