Sick

Sprawled on her stomach on the couch, a heavy blanket twisted around her torso, though one socked foot stuck out, resting on the armrest, Santana growled under her breath, shoving the blanket further off of her so it slipped down to her waist, but didn't entirely fall off her to the floor. She kicked her sticking-out foot restlessly, not at anything in particular at first, then at the armrest, before flipping herself over somewhat clumsily onto her back, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling with a loud huff. She had laid fierce and unwavering claim to the couch as her own personal property in the past couple of days, which by extension also meant she laid claim to the coffee table, any books or magazines that happened to be resting within reach of it, the TV, and of course, the TV remote. God help anyone (namely, Kurt) who tried to challenge her as to otherwise, because, depending upon their chosen timing, they would get an earful of either Snixx at her loudest volume and sharpest tongue, or else a whining, tearful Santana approximate to her having consumed at least 5 tequila shots.

The abrupt attempt at movement on Santana's part jarred forth a series of deep coughs that seemed to her to start from her diaphragm, badly hurting her already sore, scratchy throat and her somewhat queasy stomach. Sitting up with some difficulty, just barely bothering to cover her mouth with the crook of her elbow, Santana's efforts to swallow back her coughing only increased the intensity of it, and she almost gagged, her back tensing up and a sharp shudder running down her spine. When the fit ended, she let out a long, miserable moan of frustration and threw herself back again onto the couch cushions, head tilted back, some of her hair falling across her eyes and irritating her by a few of its strands entering her mouth as well. Closing her eyes and clearing the hair from her mouth with one hand, Santana called out to the apartment in general her all-too-frequent refrain of the past several days.

"I HATE BEING SICK!"

"We've heard," was Kurt's wry response from the kitchen area, where he was calmly watching her dramatics, heating up a can of soup that was supposed to be her lunch- lunch she had already voiced, more than once, that she had no intention of eating. "The last seventeen times or so you informed us, actually."

"It's not fair!" Santana growled, kicking her foot again, and further detaching the blanket from around herself. Although she was hot now, her skin flushed and slightly sweaty, her muscles aching beneath the blanket, she knew too that as soon as she threw it off entirely, she would begin to shiver from sudden cold. There was no happy medium for her at the moment, or even a bland medium, for that matter, and seeing Kurt standing apart from her in relative comfort temperature-wise was doing nothing to appease her mood.

"We've heard that one too," Kurt reminded her as he removed the soup bowl from the microwave, checking the temperature, and gathered a spoon, saltines, and ginger ale from their separate places in the kitchen, lining them up on a tray to carry in to her. "Not quite as often as the hating being sick part, but it's getting there."

"I hate you too," Santana shot back, glaring, an effect that was not quite as fierce as it was intended to be when it was interrupted immediately after by repeated sniffling and the back of her hand frantically pressed beneath her nose in her effort to stifle a sneeze. She was unsuccessful in doing so, and instead sneezed twice, towards her blanket-covered lap. Sniffling again, swiping beneath her nose with the back of her hand without bothering to reach for the box of tissues approximately two feet from her on the coffee table, Santana gave a still more dramatic moan, doubling over so her face was buried in her knees.

"I'm dyinggggg!"

"Kurt, do you think she really is?" came Rachel's anxious voice from behind the relatively "sterile and germ-free" safety of her curtain, and Santana heard footsteps and the curtain being parted slightly, guessing that Rachel's head was peeking out from behind it as she addressed Kurt. The other girl had taken up semi-permanent residence there around the same time Santana and her sickness had claimed the couch, declaring that it wasn't that she wasn't sympathetic to her, as Santana had repeatedly accused, but rather that with all her rehearsals, she simply couldn't afford to get sick, which would lower her energy and possibly damage her voice. Santana's view of that was that Rachel was trying to torture her as much as possible, by assigning Kurt as sole caretaker. Kurt, who didn't even verbally claim to be "sympathetic," and in fact seemed to be more "exasperated," "logical," or worse, "amused."

"YES!" Santana bellowed back, which triggered another coughing episode that left her hunched miserably towards her knees, whining without words at its conclusion with involuntary tears stinging her eyes. As Kurt set the tray on the coffee table, lightly resting a hand on her back, he called back to Rachel nevertheless, that infuriating amusement still obvious in his tone.

"Of course she's not, Rachel, she's being melodramatic, which shouldn't exactly be a shock after three days of this. She has a cold, possibly a mild case of the flu, but there's no need to write any last rites…although hers might be interesting, if she had any influence on them," he smirked, lightly drumming his fingers on her spine, made prominent through her pajama top in her hunched posture. "Possibly capable of bringing small children to tears of terror."

"I'll write YOUR last rites, Hummel," Santana muttered resentfully into her knees, reaching back blindly to hit out at him, but he easily ducked his head aside, moving his hand to her shoulder and giving it a light push.

"Sit up and eat, Santana, and no, I'm not feeding you, you might be a grouchy, snotty mess, but you're not an invalid on top of it, and last I checked your arms still worked fine."

"You'll see just how fine when I punch you in your huge sparkling lady lips, Hummel," she mumbled, not yet doing as he asked, but even with her face hidden she could still hear Rachel perfectly well through the curtain.

"Kurt, when you touch her and sit near her, you disinfect yourself as soon as you leave the general vicinity of her presence, right? Because if you aren't, and you then go into the kitchen and touch the refrigerator and the microwave, or the cups and utensils, well, then there is very little point in me even attempting to barricade myself into a contained zone of sanitation, because the moment I venture outside of it for meals-"

Santana sat up fast then, her elbow knocking into Kurt's arm as she scooped up the trash can beside her, half full of used tissues and various trash items, and taking a handful of the tissues, she balled them up and tossed them in the direction of Rachel's head, still poking out from behind her curtain. For the first time she grinned as Rachel shrieked, enjoying the horror in the girl's eyes as she immediately retreated again behind the curtain.

"SANTANA! That is digusting, and VERY unsanitary!" she sputtered, and Santana could hear her moving around behind the curtain, no doubt digging in her purse for her hand sanitizer and possibly vitamins. Santana snickered, the noise provoking further coughing that she nevertheless wasn't as irritated by in her amusement.

"Nah, what's unsanitary is my plan to come in your bed and give you a good night kiss today, tongue included," she threatened, snickering again when she heard Rachel's gasp in response.

"You WOULDN'T! Santana, no, please, you KNOW I can't get sick now-"

"Santana, eat," Kurt rolled his eyes, exhaling loudly, but Santana didn't fail to notice the little smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "Your soup is getting cold and I'm not heating it up again. AND I'm not making you anything else."

"I'm not hungry," she protested, her tone sliding back into a whine as he succeeded in distracting her from her momentary enjoyment of her efforts to torment Rachel. Slouching back against the cushions again, she pulled the blanket back around her shoulders, giving a slight shiver; with it absent from her upper body, she had now found herself cold again, as seemed to be the recurring pattern. "I don't want to."

"Eat," Kurt's tone was business, leaving little room for argument, and from behind the curtain Rachel's voice piped up too, back to earnest now as she appeared to have at least somewhat recovered from her earlier indignation.

"Yes, Santana, if you don't provide your body with nourishment and fluids on a regular and consistent basis when you are ill, it can't recuperate and rebuild the antibodies it needs to make you well again. You have to- Santana, was that into a tissue, you know I've told you not to sneeze uncovered, sneezes can travel up to 100 miles per hour and this is a very thin curtain only about twenty-five feet away," her lecture took a sudden detour in focus when Santana sneezed loudly, three times in a row, in the middle of it. "Santana, you better not be throwing tissues at my curtain again!" was her addition twenty seconds later, eighteen seconds too late to stop the Latina from doing exactly that. "That is SO DISGUSTING!"

"I'm not picking it up," was Kurt's only comment in regards to this, coupled with a loud sigh. "Santana, just eat already before I provide Rachel with a mask and gloves so she can safely come in here and dump this soup over your head."

"I'm strongly tempted to do so!" Rachel called back. "It would be a sanitation risk, but very satisfying!"

"Kurt, I don't wanna eat…I'm cold," Santana whined, even as she allowed him to push her back into a fully sitting up position and settled the tray on her lap. "I wanna cuddle…how come you two losers never want to cuddle anyone?"

"Maybe because you preface the request by calling us "losers" and don't bother to blow your nose on a consistent basis?" Kurt raised his eyebrows, nodding towards her dripping nose, and as Santana wiped it, scowling down at the soup but nevertheless picking up her spoon, he added, "I'll get you your girlfriend pillow, but not until you're done eating."

She grumbled a little further but did proceed to eat; she had eaten most of what he had given her when Rachel piped up from behind the curtain again.

"Has anyone picked up those mucus-infected tissues yet? Because I really can't leave this area until they're gone, if I were to accidentally step on one-"

"I swear, Berry, you're getting kissed, right here, right now," Santana threatened, and as she shoved the remnants of her lunch onto the coffee table and struggled to her feet, shoving her blankets onto the floor as she started to stagger towards Rachel's area of the apartment, she was infuriated when she stumbled, her head spinning, and had to put out her arms for balance. When Kurt came up behind her and took hold of her, easily supporting her and deflecting her from fighting him back, she growled under her breath, further irritated to realize she couldn't get away from him. KURT HUMMEL she couldn't fight off…being sick SUCKED!

"Don't embarrass yourself, Lopez, you have a fever," Kurt rolled his eyes as he steered her back towards the couch and pushed her by the shoulders back down onto it. "You'd just end up falling at her feet and be unable to get back up. Go to sleep."

"I hate you," Santana muttered, more to herself than to either of them as she let herself fall back into the couch, begrudgingly accepting and hugging to her the girlfriend pillow that Kurt retrieved and held out to her. Stifling her coughing against its arm, she clutched it to her, her face scrunching up with misery. "I hate you both, you both suck so much."

But when Kurt sat down beside her and looped a loose arm around her, she let him, without any further comments; she even leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. She remained quiet when she felt his fingers lightly brush over her hair, and gradually let herself relax against him, drifting into sleep. She was pretty sure at some point, right before she was fully unconscious, she felt his lips brush her forehead.

When she woke a few hours later, feeling marginally less congested, her throat slightly less pained upon swallowing, Kurt was in the shower, and Rachel, she supposed, was either out of the apartment or still hiding in her own area. But nevertheless, there was set in front of Santana on the coffee table a dose of cold medication, a glass of orange juice, a new Elle magazine, her favorite DVD, and a fresh box of tissues, all neatly arranged around a note written in Rachel's handwriting.

"Santana, hope you feel better soon. Love you. Germless emoticon hug x0 J "

Hugging her girlfriend pillow, Santana's lips curved into a small smile. They did both suck, but she guessed she could put up with them.