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“Stevie, I think this is the end for me,” Eddie lamented.
He was slumped over the couch, knees pulled to his chest, both arms wrapped around the pillow he was clutching.
Steve rolled his eyes, regretting it when it made his head throb even more. “I’ve had this for two days longer than you, Eds, and I’m not dead yet.”
His statement was slightly contradicted by the hacking cough that followed his sentence. Steve paused where he was halfway through heating soup on the stove to lean against the bench and try to get his breath back, his lungs wheezing.
Dustin had gifted them this plague.
The kid had wandered into Family Video while at the tail end of a flu, sitting up on the counter and lingering while Steve sorted the never-ending returns pile and rewound tapes. Despite sneezing into his elbow several times, he’d insisted he was fine and utterly positive he was no longer contagious.
Two days later, Steve had come down with the worst flu he’d ever had, leaving him bedridden for nearly forty-eight hours, only getting up and about when Eddie had started showing symptoms too.
Because one of them had to be functional, and it wasn’t going to be Eddie.
Steve had only seen his boyfriend get sick a couple of times, but he was always the most dramatic person on the planet about it.
This flu sucked, Steve knew.
He’d been dealing with the same fever, the same burning throat, the same aches and chills and exhaustion that Eddie was suffering with; but to hear Eddie describe it, one would think he was on death’s door.
“Steve?” came Eddie’s voice, quiet and croaky. “You ok?”
Steve slumped further against the bench, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain rising behind them again.
He heard the soup bubbling furiously in the pot behind him, heard the liquid spattering out onto the oven and Steve could have cried because he was going to have to clean that up and all he wanted to do was bury his face in his boyfriend’s neck and sleep for a week.
“M’fine,” Steve called out, or tried to, but it came out hoarse and barely audible.
“You sure?”
He should say yes. He should finish heating the soup and bring it over to Eddie, check his temperature again, make sure he was drinking his water, look after him the way he’d looked after Steve the last few days.
He heard Eddie sneeze three times in quick succession.
Steve was fine, it was just a little cold, he’d dealt with so much worse than this before…
But his head was pounding and everything hurt, even his damn fingers were aching for fuck’s sake.
“No,” Steve mumbled eventually, admitting defeat.
He wasn’t even sure Eddie heard him, but a moment later there was a patter of socked feet behind him, and Eddie’s arms were wrapping around his waist from behind.
Eddie pressed his cheek to Steve’s back, and Steve could feel the heat from his skin through his t-shirt.
“Stevie?” Eddie whispered. “What can I do?”
“Go back to the couch,” Steve told him. “Lie down.”
He felt Eddie shake his head against him. “Not without you.” His voice was thick through his clogged nose.
Steve was quiet for a moment, apart from the wheezing of him trying to breathe. “Wanted to make you soup,” he murmured eventually. “But I’m so fucking tired, and now it’s gone everywhere and I gotta clean it up and I just want to go to bed.” Steve was almost whining now, and he squeezed the edge of the bench in embarrassment.
Eddie kissed the back of his neck lazily. “Then let’s go to bed, sweetheart. I’ll turn the oven off, we can deal with the rest later.”
“But it’s a mess, I can’t -” Steve’s voice was rising in panic, his need to have everything spotless a hangover from his parent’s strict nature, from their need for everything to be perfect. There was already a large stack of dirty dishes in the sink, and more on the rack that still hadn’t been put away from days ago…
“Hey,” Eddie interrupted, splaying a hand over Steve’s middle. “It can wait. I promise.”
Steve sighed. Tipped his head forward for a moment, felt a little dizzy with the movement, then turned to face Eddie.
While he’d never see Eddie as anything other than beautiful, right now he looked…well, like shit.
His face was pale, apart from the blotchy red on his feverish cheeks, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His lips were dry and cracked, his nose irritated from constant tissue use, and he was shivering a little under Steve’s hands.
“Sorry, Eds,” Steve said quietly. “Was meant to be looking after you.”
Eddie smiled. “You always do. And right now, you can look after me by warming me up in bed, because I’m fucking freezing.”
“That’s the fever talking,” Steve told him, concerned.
“I know,” Eddie nodded. “And it’s currently boiling all my internal organs and I think I haven’t got long to live, so I’d like to spend my last moments with my boyfriend. In bed.”
Steve rolled his eyes a little, huffing out a small laugh, and took the hand Eddie was offering.
It was several hours later that Robin pushed open their bedroom door, loudly announcing herself, to find the two of them wrapped around each other and blinking awake miserably.
“Robs?” Steve croaked.
Robin slapped a hand over her eyes quickly. “You’re not…naked under there are you?” she squeaked.
“Sadly, no,” Eddie grunted, rolling away from the light pouring through the door.
“And even if we were, it’s our bed, why didn’t you…knock, or something?” Steve grumbled, then coughed.
Robin stood with her hands on her hips in the doorway. “I knocked for ages,” she retorted. “Yelled out and everything, you didn’t answer! I thought maybe you’d…died in here, or something.”
Eddie cracked one eye open. “Death is imminent, I think.”
“Sure smells like it,” Robin crinkled her nose up. “You guys need a shower. And to air this room out. While you do that, I’m going to clean up your kitchen because seriously it looks like something exploded all over your oven.”
Steve groaned at that, and buried his head in the pillow.
“And then,” Robin continued, “I’ll make you something else to eat, I went to Melvald’s on the way here.” At their lack of enthusiasm, Robin stepped further into the room and tugged at the covers. “Seriously guys, I know you’ve got a cold or whatever, but it would do you good to get clean and get something in your stomachs, ok? Also, you have way too many blankets on, you’ll make your fevers worse.”
She pulled harder at the comforter. Eddie grabbed it with both hands, clutching it to his chest and…
“Did you just hiss at me?” Robin quirked an eyebrow.
Eddie mumbled something and dragged an almost-asleep Steve closer to him.
Robin rolled her eyes. “Fine, you get up in your own time. I’ll be in the kitchen slaving away, no need to thank me or anything.”
Footsteps faded as Robin retreated back to the kitchen. Steve snuffled against Eddie’s neck, drifting in a pleasant place between sleep and wakefulness.
“Stevie?” Eddie whispered.
“Hmmm?”
“If we don’t get out of bed I think Robin’s gonna kill us.”
“Hmmm.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Mmm hmm. Robin killing you.”
“Us.”
“She’d never kill me, Eds.”
“What, you think she’d kill me?”
“Mmmm. Maybe.”
Why was Eddie still talking? Steve wanted to sleep, his entire body was heavy and sluggish and it was warm being tucked up against Eddie, his shivering momentarily banished.
“Shall we have a shower?” Eddie tried again.
Steve shook his head against the pillow. “Comfy.”
Eddie slumped back down into the mattress. “Yeah. You’re right.”
Steve was shaken awake by a hand on his ankle an undetermined amount of time later.
“Robs,” he grumbled, trying to pull his leg out of her grasp.
“Come on guys, up you get. I’ve made grilled cheese, but you gotta take a shower and get changed, and then we’re checking temperatures.”
Muttering under his breath, Steve reluctantly sat up, pausing for a moment for his vision to stop swirling.
“Fine, I’m going, I’m going,” Steve croaked out, rolling out of bed and standing on shaky legs. “Eddie,” he said, leaning back over to poke his boyfriend gently in the side.
“Just leave me to die,” Eddie whined into the pillow.
Steve prodded him again, encouraging Eddie to turn his head and open his eyes.
When he did, Steve pouted a little. “I don’t wanna shower on my own.”
It worked.
Eddie blinked a few times, then clambered to his feet with a flail of limbs.
Robin watched with a hint of disgust as Steve wound an arm around Eddie’s waist, supporting him on the way to the bathroom while Eddie gazed at him with a dopey smile.
She stepped forward and began stripping the bed, bundling up sweat-soaked sheets before pushing the window open to let the breeze in.
“Dustin’s sure got a lot to answer for,” she huffed.