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When Montparnasse wakes up Wednesday morning, she's pretty sure she's actually dead. There's no other explanation for the pounding in her head, the way her throat feels like she's coughed up burning coals, and the all-around ache that permeates her bones and joints, making her feel a solid fifty years older.
"Help," she calls out pathetically, not expecting an answer, but Jehan is right there, pushing her hair back from her face with a cool hand. Oh right, she'd forgotten that Jehan spent the night last night. Jehan needed a quiet place to study for midterms, and Montparnasse's seemed perfect, considering she was studying too.
But not anymore. Now Montparnasse is fucking dying.
"What the fuck happened?" She asks weakly, refusing to even open her eyes. Her four-word question sparks a coughing fit though, so Jehan can't answer her until she calms down, practically wheezing by the end of it.
"You were feverish last night, so I made you go to bed early. Good thing too, you caught the bug that's going around." Jehan's voice is sympathetic, and Montparnasse wants to say, 'fuck your sympathy,' but instead she makes a pathetic whuff-ing noise and leans into Jehan's touch.
Jehan pets her head, and Montparnasse again wants to be disagreeable, to say she's not a dog or a cat or fucking furred, but everything hurts and she can't form full sentences so she just whines.
"How come you're not sick?" She asks, but it comes out more like, "H'cmyurrnahsi?"
Luckily Jehan understands her, and she just tuts at Montparnasse. "I tried to make you come get a flu shot with me, but you said, and I quote, 'vaccines are for pussies, I am physically incapable of getting ill.'"
"Bitch," Montparnasse says viciously, but she has all the ferocious potential of a wet kitten right now, and Jehan isn't impressed.
"I'm gonna go put on tea," Jehan gets up, easily dodging Montparnasse's half-hearted attempts to keep her in bed, and Montparnasse doesn't really know what happens next, because she falls asleep.
She wakes up for the second time that morning to a cup of lukewarm tea (so she can't have been out that long) and it's cool enough for her to blindly grab for it and down the whole thing in one go. It's heaven on her ravaged throat and she sighs in relief.
She curls around something warm on her stomach and realizes Jehan must have dug out her heating pad from under the bed. It feels amazing, helping to soothe the body aches that are the worst part of any cold. She can't think of what she'd be doing if Jehan wasn't here (and she definitely only means right now, and not in general, in her life) and she wants to cry. She blames it on her sorry state, because she's not this emotional, not even when it comes to Jehan. Unfortunately, the tightening in her throat just brings on more coughing, and a few tears do fall.
She hears Jehan run back into the room and set down a mug of something steaming (more tea, her mind longingly supplies) and sit down next to her.
When Montparnasse catches her breath, Jehan asks her if how she's feeling.
"I'm not even going to answer that." Montparnasse mutters, and stretches. It feels blissfully good, but she winces as she can hear the bones in her neck and back crack. Jehan winces too; she hates that noise, and she tends to slap Montparnasse on the arm whenever she does it. Jehan feels too sorry for Montparnasse to do that now though, so she bears it.
"Come on, sicky," she says, hauling Montparnasse into a sitting position. "I got supplies."
On the bed, Jehan has laid out several different kinds of medicine, a box of tissues (the really soft kind with soothing lotion in them, ugh, Montparnasse thinks, and reaches for them), and a couple DVDs.
"There's ice cream and pudding in the kitchen too, but right now you can only have popsicles until you're less phlegmy. Joly made me promise." Jehan says seriously, and reaches for the DayQuil. "Open up," she says, dropping the pills into Montparnasse's palm. "There's more tea for you on the bedside table, and I already have a movie lined up."
Montparnasse wishes she could just dry swallow the pills like the badass she thinks she is, but the thought of doing that right now makes her throat tighten reflexively, so she takes the tea gratefully. Beside, those pills are huge. While she's doing that, Jehan grabs the remote and presses play, and the familiar strain of, "I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular to boot," fills her ears and now Montparnasse really does cry.
"I love you," she says adoringly, and Jehan blushes.
"Stop talking, you're sick." Jehan orders, but she opens her arms and Montparnasse goes willingly. Jehan has ordered her not to speak, but everyone knows there's a Bring It On clause which negates it.
Jehan leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Montparnasse's head and whispers, "I love you too, Jenelope."
"Kasey," Montparnasse teases, and Jehan pouts.
"How come we can't even be the main girls? They were totally gay for each other."
"That's not how it works." Montparnasse says, and puts her head in Jehan's lap. She lets out an indecent moan as Jehan scratches lightly at her scalp. "And you know the rules, no talking unless you're quoting the dialogue."
Jehan pulls at Montparnasse's hair lightly. "Excuse me, where did you park your Harley?" She retorts, and sticks her tongue out at Montparnasse, who can't see it.
Montparnasse makes it through the end of the movie before she falls asleep again, because not even the bubonic plague (which she's pretty sure she has) can stop her from watching this movie. When she wakes up, Jehan drags her out of bed.
"Come on, you have to shower, and I'm changing your sheets. You're stewing in your own germs, and worse, I'm stewing in your germs."
It's a testament to how sick Montparnasse is that the thought of a shower doesn't immediately make her want to drag Jehan in with her. She goes willingly, standing under the even pounding of hot water as it works out all the kinks in her muscles. The steam is the best thing she's ever felt, no hyperbole, and she's a prune by the time she gets out.
True to her word, Jehan has changed all the sheets, and there's yet another fresh mug of tea waiting for her.
"I want to kiss you so badly right now," Montparnasse mutters, and Jehan protests, saying she doesn't want to get sick.
"I was talking to the tea," Montparnasse says dismissively, and Jehan blushes and rolls her eyes.
"Come here," Montparnasse says, softer and warmer, and Jehan does. Montparnasse places her palm- clean from the shower, and she hasn't hacked all over it yet- over Jehan's mouth, and kisses where Jehan's lips should be.
Jehan's eyes crinkle at the corners, and Montparnasse wonders if she even needs medicine at all, if just Jehan herself could cure her of all her ailments.
"You're not gonna want to kiss me for much longer," Jehan apologizes, and Montparnasse whines. "I have to go take my last midterm."
"Oh fuck," Montparnasse says dumbly, and she actually feels bad.
"It's fine," Jehan brushes off what she knows Montparnasse is thinking. "It's 19th Century English Poetry, I can do it in my sleep. But you'll have to entertain yourself for the next couple hours. Unless you want me to call Courf to look after you?" Jehan smirks, and Montparnasse frantically assures her she'll be fine.
"Under no circumstances are you to tell Courfeyrac that I'm sick. Now go ace that midterm," She says, and she would push Jehan out the door but she doesn't have the energy, so she just flops back down into bed.
While Jehan is gone, Montparnasse thanks god her only actual test was on Monday, and she forces herself to edit the two essays that are due by the end of the week. They're not going to be great, but she'll pass, and that's about as good as she can do in her state.
She goes through an entire package of pudding cups while she sits on the bed and watches Inglorious Basterds, and when Jehan gets home, carrying containers of hot soup, she frowns.
"You're going to regret that later when you're coughing up all that milk at two am," She scolds, but Montparnasse just grabs at the soup, practically inhaling it.
That's essentially how they pass the rest of the week. Montparnasse emails in her essays and that was Jehan's last midterm, so they spend the next three days marathoning RuPaul's Drag Race and going through Montparnasse's list of comfort films (they make it though Spice World, Clueless, and Grease, but Montparnasse won't watch Dazed and Confused because Jehan won't let her smoke weed while she's still sick, so what's the point?).
By Saturday, Montparnasse is feeling almost human again, and on Sunday Jehan deems her well enough for sex. Mostly though, Montparnasse just wants to kiss Jehan. It's been four days since she has, and she misses the soft comfort of Jehan's lips, the surprisingly demanding pull of her tongue. She's made her home in Jehan, let Jehan see her at her worst (and this past week, surprisingly, does not even begin to cover it), and she really hopes Jehan is in it for the long haul, because for Montparnasse, Jehan is her forever girl, and she's not planning on giving that up.
But then Jehan reads her the poetry she's written about the dead look in Montparnasse's eyes, the bags underneath them that Jehan claims she could literally sleep in, the crimson of her abused nose, and Montparnasse thinks she might have to revise that decision.