Sick Day
Title: Sick Day
Pairings: Santana/Brittany, side Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13 (for a Spanish expletive)
Length: ~4,000
Summary: Brittany is sick so Santana and the boys take over.
Author's Note: *Puppy-verse #18*! Prompted to me by the lovely hezmanagirl! I didn't have anyone check my Spanish so I guarantee that something is wrong. Please tell me nicely?
Preceded by:
Puppy | My Girl(s) | Perfection | Decisions | Baby Love
Baby Love 2 | Slushies: The Next Generation | Little Gold Stars
Change | Baby Just Say Yes | (Not Quite) Nine Months
Double Trouble | Bigger is Better | Miracles | The Beginning
Mother's Day | First Date
Directory | Timeline | Original Character Bios
-October 2030-
Brittany never got sick, Santana seemed to notice. Even when Joshua and Milo would both have something and then she would get it, Brittany never did. Santana was sure that the woman had an immune system of steel; she hadn’t had so much as a sniffle since high school. It was one less thing they had to worry about, Santana decided. That is, until the Friday evening when Brittany coughed. It wasn’t just a normal clearing of the throat cough, it was deep and it sounded like it kind of hurt. It was followed by a deep sniffle and a small groan.
“B, you okay?”
Brittany shrugged. “I guess. My head hurts and my chest feels kind of like someone’s sitting on it and my nose is running.”
Santana arched her eyebrow. “I’m gonna call Quinn.”
“Santana, this had better be good,” Quinn groaned when she answered the phone. “I’ve had a really long day and I was almost asleep.”
“It’s like nine o’clock, Fabray.”
“Shut up. What’s wrong?”
“Runny nose, coughing, headache, chest pressure.”
“Humidifier. Vicks. Tylenol cold. Hot shower. Why couldn’t you Google that? Haven’t the boys had colds before? I thought Rachel bought you a medical dictionary.”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“Which one is sick?”
“B.”
“Huh? B hasn’t been sick since high school.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Good luck with that. I’m going back to sleep. I’ll call tomorrow to check on her.”
“Thanks Q.”
Santana hung up the phone and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Q says you have a cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” the blonde assured her wife.
Santana woke in the middle of the night to the sound of rattling coughs and Brittany blowing her nose coming from their bathroom. She furrowed her eyebrows and quickly made her way to the door and knocked a few times. The response that came was a groan and more coughing.
“Babe, are you okay?”
Brittany shook her head. Santana pulled open their bathroom cabinet drawers and searched around for the blue jar of Vicks and the box of Tylenol multi-symptom she’d gotten last time she’d been sick and Brittany had taken care of her. She finally located what she was looking for and after she got Brittany to take the pills she pulled her up off the edge of the tub and back to bed. She handed the jar off to the blonde and went into their closet to search for their humidifier. The scent of menthol filled the room as Brittany applied the grease to her chest and throat. Santana finally located the humidifier and took it to the bathroom to clean it out and fill it up. She set it at the foot of their bed and got it running before returning to lie next to her wife.
“Don’t worry about a thing, babe,” the Latina whispered. “You’ll be fine.”
Brittany was sleeping soundly the next morning when Santana got up, partially thanks to the medicine. The Latina was thankful it was a Saturday so she didn’t have to mess with getting the boys to school or calling into work so she could take care of her wife. As she made her way to the kitchen Santana remembered her mother always saying no milk when she had a chest cold because of the mucous so she bypassed the idea of Brittany’s usual bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast to look for something else. She spotted a container of oatmeal.
“Mami,” Joshua yawned as he came into the kitchen scratching his stomach underneath his white t-shirt and adjusting his dark blue pajama bottoms. He settled himself on one of the kitchen chairs and settled his chin on his hand. “¿Qué estás haciendo?”
“Preparo el desayuno, mi’jo.”
“¿Por qué? Mama does that."
“Mama está enferma. She's sick.”
“Mama never gets sick.”
“Tell me about it. We’re gonna take care of her today, alright?”
“Mkay,” the seven-year-old yawned again. “Can I have cookies for breakfast?”
“¿Está loco? Has anyone ever let you have cookies for breakfast, mi’jo?”
Joshua giggled. “Nana did once.”
“Well…Nana’s crazy, too. You can have cereal or oatmeal since that’s what I’m fixing for Mama.”
Joshua sighed. “Lucky Charms.”
“Think you can handle getting it yourself?”
“I’m not a baby,” the boy said, jumping off of his chair and climbing up on the pantry shelves to get the cereal.
Santana grabbed a couple bowls from one of the cabinets and started measuring out the oats and water and butter to stick in the microwave and handed the other bowl to Joshua. He grabbed his step stool and settled it against the cabinets and carefully poured the dried cereal out of the box.
“I want some, too,” a small, sleepy voice came from Milo who was rubbing his eyes as he stumbled in the kitchen in his red footie pajamas. Duck was following close behind the young boy and the dog sniffed around the kitchen a few times before sitting next to Joshua, waiting for him to drop something.
Milo tried to hop up on the stool next to his brother, grabbing a fistful of Joshua’s t-shirt to accomplish the feat. Joshua jerked to the side sending the box of Lucky Charms flying through the air.
Santana groaned when the cereal hit the floor. Duck went crazy trying to get up every single piece she could get to.
“Milo!” Joshua whined.
“I wanna help,” the brunette boy said with a pout.
“Clean up the mess!”
“Let Duck do it,” Santana said. “She eats anything, she’ll be fine. Just…try again. And Milo, both feet on the ground or get your own stool.” The Latina grabbed another bowl out of the cabinet and Joshua poured out the bowls of cereal again, Milo watching eagerly. Santana furrowed her eyebrows at the smell of something burning and she turned to the microwave and flung the door open. Smoke poured out of the appliance and Santana tried to fan the air to get it to thin out so she didn’t set off the fire alarm.
“Mami,” Milo said, peering into the microwave at the mess of melted plastic and oatmeal. “You’re not ‘upposed to use that kinda bowl.” The almost five-year-old shook his head slowly, eyebrows raised, scolding his mother with his look. “Now you gotta clean up the mess.”
Santana nodded at the boy and stifled a giggle as she reached for a paper towel.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it, mi’jo. Just shows you that paying attention is important.”
Not thinking (again), she put the towel on the mess and proceeded to try and scrape it out of the microwave.
“¡AY! ¡JODER!” she shrieked, pulling her throbbing hand out. She whimpered at the red skin and immediately went to the sink to run it under cool water. Joshua and Milo’s eyes followed her.
“Mami…” Joshua looked at his mother, eyes full of curiosity. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing you need to ever repeat,” the Latina mumbled when she realized what she’d said. Once the throbbing in her hand subsided she looked back to the mess in the microwave and sighed. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” She looked at her sons and they both nodded and Santana grabbed an oven mitt before she got the paper towels. She scraped the hardening red plastic and oatmeal out of the microwave, making sure to get all of the plastic.
Milo sprinted out of the kitchen and Santana shook her head and grabbed another bowl out of the cabinet, making sure it was microwave safe, and started mixing yet another bowl of oatmeal. Joshua went to the refrigerator and pulled out the gallon jug of milk and hauled it to the counter. Just as Santana put the oatmeal into the microwave and set the timer Milo came hurrying back into the kitchen. The non-slip grips on the bottom of his pajamas had obviously worn off because he skidded and started to fall, the closest thing to him was Joshua. The dark-haired boy scrambled to grab onto his brother who fell off the stool…the jug of milk going with them as they both hit the floor.
Santana blinked a few times and looked down at her sons, now covered in milk, and she groaned.
“Ay dios mio,” she sighed. “You two…”
“I slipped,” Milo said weakly. He looked over at his brother and the blonde boy sighed.
“Come on,” Joshua said, standing and wiping his hands off on his shirt. “We’ll go change.”
Santana could only nod and fixate her eyes on the flood of milk on the kitchen floor. She picked up the now almost empty jug and put it on the countertop before grabbing several dish towels out of their designated drawer and mopping up what Duck hadn’t drank already.
The Latina furrowed her eyebrows at a small piece of paper that had gotten soaked in the mess and picked it up. It was a dinosaur sticker. Santana grinned to herself and shook her head. It had become customary to give Milo a sticker if he cleaned up after himself and Santana figured out that he’d gone to his room to get one for her.
“I love my sons,” she said quietly to herself as she finished mopping up the mess.
She took a deep breath and took the milk-soaked towels to the basement door and tossed them down to deal with later. Joshua emerged from Milo’s bedroom with clean pajamas and went across the hall to the bathroom where Santana looked in and the dark-haired boy was sitting on the countertop kicking his legs.
“He needs a bath,” Santana sighed. “You both do. Just a quick one.” The Latina stepped into the bathroom and got the water running and the boys in the bathtub. She rinsed out Joshua’s hair quickly, it was so fine that it didn’t warrant a scrubbing to get the milk out. Milo, however, had inherited Santana’s thick hair and she sighed and lathered it up with shampoo while Joshua got dried off and dressed and headed back to the kitchen.
“Josh’a said that Mama’s sick.”
“Mmmhmm. We’re going to take care of her though, aren’t we mi’jo?”
Milo nodded. “Mama makes soup when I’m sick.”
“We’ll make soup for lunch. Tilt your head back.”
With Milo cleaned up and re-dressed now in blue footie pajamas, Santana settled him on the couch and instructed him to stay where he was and watch cartoons. Joshua came in with two bowls of cereal and the two boys sat at the coffee table and kept their eyes focused on the TV. Santana went back to the kitchen and re-heated the oatmeal and seasoned it with sugar until she figured Brittany would like it. She poured a glass of orange juice and put the breakfast items on a tray and went back through the living room, down the hall, and into the master suite. She could hear Brittany snoring from the other side of the door.
Santana set the tray on her dresser and went to the bathroom to get another couple of cold pills for her wife. She dropped them on the tray and then went to Brittany’s side of the bed and smiled down at the sleeping blonde. Even with her nose red and chest greasy from the mentholated rub, Brittany was still gorgeous. Santana picked up the plethora of tissues that had managed to not make it into the trashcan and took a few healthy squirts of hand sanitizer from the bottle on Brittany’s nightstand before gently pushing blonde locks out of Brittany’s face.
“Hey B, you want some breakfast?”
“I do not like green eggs and ham,” the blonde mumbled, her eyes remaining closed.
“What about oatmeal?”
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent,” she mumbled again, rolling over and curling up into a ball.
“You really need to lay off the Dr. Seuss books, babe. Come on, get up.”
Santana shook her wife again and Brittany’s eyes fluttered open. She rubbed them and Santana smiled and kissed the blonde’s forehead as she sat up.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Santana whispered. “You want some breakfast?”
Brittany nodded and sniffled. Santana retrieved the tray from her dresser and put it over the blonde’s lap and Brittany smiled appreciatively. The blonde downed the offered medicine before digging into her oatmeal. Santana stayed perched on the edge of the bed, eyebrows raised.
“Well?” the Latina asked, poking her wife’s shoulder. “How is it?”
“I can’t taste it,” Brittany sighed.
“Better than burnt plastic, I guess.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell you later. Finish up your breakfast, I have to go mop the kitchen floor.”
“San, is everything okay?”
“It’s fine babe, just stay in bed and I’ll come get your tray in a little bit.”
Brittany chewed on her lower lip nervously, Santana grinned and pressed another kiss to her wife’s forehead before heading to the basement to get a mop and bucket and then to the kitchen to clean up the remainder of the milk. She wiped down the kitchen cabinets and mopped the floor where the milk had spilled. When she finished, she nodded approvingly and poured out the water bucket and stored her supplies back in the basement. When she got back upstairs, Joshua and Milo were nowhere to be found in the living room. The Latina groaned when she heard voices from the kitchen.
“What are you doing? You just ate! And I just mopped that floor!” Santana sighed.
Joshua had his head in the refrigerator, Milo was clinging onto one of the pantry shelves.
“I wan’ fruit snacks,” Milo said. He grunted and climbed up another shelf to reach for the box.
“Do we have any bananas?”
“Okay, first of all,” Santana went to the pantry and pulled Milo off of the shelf. “No more climbing on the pantry shelves for either of you; you’ll either break them or fall and break yourself. There is a stepladder in here for a reason, mi’jos. Use it, por favor? Second, you ate the last banana yesterday after school. Have an apple or something.”
“I don’t like apples.”
“So have an orange. You need Vitamin C anyways so you don’t get sick from Mama.”
Joshua shrugged and dug through the refrigerator and pulled out an orange. Santana helped him peel it and separate the wedges. She got both boys re-settled in the living room and went back to the master suite. Brittany was curled up on her side of the bed, snoring, with the tray on Santana’s side. The Latina carefully picked up the empty tray to take back to the kitchen, Brittany jerked awake just as she opened the door.
“You need anything, B?”
“I should get up and help.”
“Everything is under control, don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep, alright?”
Brittany nodded and dropped back to her pillow.
The rest of the morning went smoothly, Joshua and Milo stayed perched on the couch for the most part while Santana checked on Brittany every ten minutes and cleaned the house a little so her wife wouldn’t have to worry about it. Quinn called just as Santana was getting a pot out to start chicken noodle soup for lunch and offered to take the boys for the afternoon. The Latina didn’t even bother pulling out her time chart to see if she already owed babysitting time. After quickly feeding them each a bowl of soup and getting them dressed she walked them down the street to the Fabray-Berry house and thanked Quinn profusely for taking them.
“Is she any better?” the blonde asked, after Santana got the boys’ coats off and put into the closet by the door.
“No, and she keeps trying to get out of bed to help me.”
Quinn chuckled.
“Q, are you sure you can handle all four of them? Where the hell is Berry?”
“Rachel’s at the theater, they’ve got to cast a couple new parts. It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“Hi Aunt Santana,” one of the twins rushed in from the living room and to the kitchen, the other one followed with Joshua on her heels and Milo bringing up the rear.
“You just ate, boys! Don’t run them out of food, ¿comprendes?”
“Si, Mami!” Joshua sprinted back through the living room with a banana in his hand.
“I think he thinks he’s an ape,” Santana mumbled. “He’s been going through bananas like there’s no tomorrow. And Milo’s been climbing on everything so watch him or he’ll figure out a way to get on the ceiling.”
“It’ll be fine, S. Go take care of your wife.”
Quinn shuffled Santana out the door and she quickly walked back down the street. When she got in she heard soft humming coming from the kitchen and groaned at the sight of Brittany staring at the microwave.
“B, I told you to stay in bed.”
“I was hungry,” the blonde said, her voice raspy.
“I was going to bring you the soup when I got back. Go back to bed.”
Brittany shook her head and the microwave beeped. The blonde took out her bowl of steaming soup and carried it into the kitchen and settled herself on the couch. Santana followed and put the blonde’s feet in her lap and absentmindedly rubbed them through her socks while Brittany flipped through the TV and settled on repeats of a dance show that was on.
“Duck won’t stop licking the kitchen floor,” Brittany said. She took another spoonful of soup.
“The boys spilled some milk earlier, don’t worry about it. I got it cleaned up.”
“Okay.”
“When was the last time you took any cold medicine, babe?”
Brittany shrugged. “I thought you were only supposed to get colds when it was cold outside.”
“You probably picked it up from one of the snot factories at your classes.”
“That’s mean, S. We have kids, too, you know.”
“Yeah but our boys are perfect, everyone knows that.” Santana grinned.
Brittany giggled and finished off the rest of her soup and switched ends of the couch and rested her head on Santana’s lap. In no time, the blonde was snoring. Santana watched TV for a while before she leaned her head back and was only jarred awake when the front door slammed shut.
“’S goin’ on?” Brittany mumbled when Santana jumped.
Santana’s eyes fluttered open to see Quinn hovering over her with a smirk. She glanced around the blonde to see her two boys fighting over the remote control in front of the TV.
“I told you I’d come get them at five,” Santana mumbled. “Unless one of them burned your house down…”
“It’s six-thirty.”
“Oh. Sorry about that.”
Quinn smiled. “More babysitting time for us. I fed them dinner and brought leftovers for you guys.”
Santana yawned. “Thanks Q. You’re a life saver.”
“No problem. Call me if you need anything.”
Santana nodded and Brittany sat up long enough for the Latina to get off the couch and go re-heat the plates Quinn had put in the kitchen. She dropped a cup of food in Duck’s bowl which summoned the dog to come flying into the kitchen, almost knocking the Latina to the floor. She took the plates to the living room and then retrieved more cold medicine from the bathroom for Brittany. They sat watching whatever cartoon that their sons had finally settled on while they ate the chicken and vegetables that Quinn had sent over.
“Does it taste good?” Brittany asked.
“Not as good as your cooking, babe.” Santana smiled sincerely. Recipes may not have been Brittany’s thing but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cook. Santana suspected that her own mother had a little to do with that since Brittany’s chicken enchiladas tasted almost identical.
Brittany grinned.
The rest of the evening was quiet. Brittany slept on the couch some more. Santana got the boys to drink plenty of orange juice and then got them into bed for the night and finally coaxed Brittany into taking a hot bath by promising that she could have as many rubber ducks in the tub as she wanted. Santana knelt by the tub and lathered up Brittany’s hair while the blonde poked at the plethora of ducks. She squeezed one and the squeaker echoed off the bathroom walls. Santana froze.
“Oh no…”
The Latina scurried up off the floor to make sure the door was shut tight but she slipped on the tile and before she could get to it the door burst open, Duck the culprit, and the dog jumped into the bathtub. Immediately upon discovering it was filled with water, she jumped back out. Brittany screamed, Santana swore, Duck went tearing through the house in an attempt to dry off. Santana chased the sudsy dog, her own hands soapy and slipping off of everything she tried to grab onto to steady herself.
“Duck…Duck, please!”
The dog, sure that Santana was going to continue the water torture, ran from her and into the kitchen. Santana slipped on the trail of water and swore again when she landed flat on her back.
“Oh God…that hurt,” she choked out.
To add insult to injury Duck ran over her owner on the way out of the kitchen, her front paws knocking the wind out of the Latina when she landed on her stomach. Santana grabbed onto her stomach and tried to catch her breath. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and when she opened them Brittany was standing over her wrapped in a towel.
“San…”
“It’s under control,” Santana gasped. “I got it…”
Santana struggled to get up and she ushered Brittany back to their bedroom and pulled out the blonde’s pajamas and went searching for Duck. She found the dog curled up underneath the coffee table, hiding.
"You're going to be the death of me," she grumbled as she reached under the table to grab onto the dog's collar. "Come on. You had half a bath, might as well finished it up."
Duck whined. Santana struggled to lift the dog up and carried her to the bathroom. Brittany watched from the bed.
"San..."
"I got it, babe. Don't worry."
Brittany sighed. "I can help..." The blonde's offer was cut off by a few deep coughs and some wheezing.
"I got it."
Santana hauled Duck into the bathroom and finished the dog's bath with much protest from the furry creature. She got her own shower thanks to the dog shaking out all of the water every ten seconds. Once she dried the dog the Latina let her go run off the excess water while she took her own shower to get the dog smell out. When she got back to the bedroom, Brittany was curled up in a ball and snoring loudly.
"So much for sleep tonight," Santana mumbled.
She kissed Brittany's forehead and left the bedroom to go downstairs and wash the now rancid-smelling towels from that morning. She sat at the desk in her basement office for a while to go over some case files and check her e-mail before she put the towels into the dryer. After she finished up the notes on the case she was working on she came back upstairs and Duck was again "hiding" under the coffee table. The Latina checked on her sons in their bedrooms, both boys were sleeping peacefully. She could still hear Brittany snoring so she grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and settled herself on the couch to try and get a few hours of sleep. As she listened to Brittany's snores and thought of her sons sleeping in their comfortable beds and the fact that she was going to get to do everything again the next day...she smiled. Then, before she drifted off to sleep and after a particularly deep snore from Brittany, Santana made a mental note to stock up on a year's supply of Vitamin C tablets the second she got the chance.
Next: Mondays
Pairings: Santana/Brittany, side Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13 (for a Spanish expletive)
Length: ~4,000
Summary: Brittany is sick so Santana and the boys take over.
Author's Note: *Puppy-verse #18*! Prompted to me by the lovely hezmanagirl! I didn't have anyone check my Spanish so I guarantee that something is wrong. Please tell me nicely?
Preceded by:
Puppy | My Girl(s) | Perfection | Decisions | Baby Love
Baby Love 2 | Slushies: The Next Generation | Little Gold Stars
Change | Baby Just Say Yes | (Not Quite) Nine Months
Double Trouble | Bigger is Better | Miracles | The Beginning
Mother's Day | First Date
Directory | Timeline | Original Character Bios
-October 2030-
Brittany never got sick, Santana seemed to notice. Even when Joshua and Milo would both have something and then she would get it, Brittany never did. Santana was sure that the woman had an immune system of steel; she hadn’t had so much as a sniffle since high school. It was one less thing they had to worry about, Santana decided. That is, until the Friday evening when Brittany coughed. It wasn’t just a normal clearing of the throat cough, it was deep and it sounded like it kind of hurt. It was followed by a deep sniffle and a small groan.
“B, you okay?”
Brittany shrugged. “I guess. My head hurts and my chest feels kind of like someone’s sitting on it and my nose is running.”
Santana arched her eyebrow. “I’m gonna call Quinn.”
“Santana, this had better be good,” Quinn groaned when she answered the phone. “I’ve had a really long day and I was almost asleep.”
“It’s like nine o’clock, Fabray.”
“Shut up. What’s wrong?”
“Runny nose, coughing, headache, chest pressure.”
“Humidifier. Vicks. Tylenol cold. Hot shower. Why couldn’t you Google that? Haven’t the boys had colds before? I thought Rachel bought you a medical dictionary.”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“Which one is sick?”
“B.”
“Huh? B hasn’t been sick since high school.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Good luck with that. I’m going back to sleep. I’ll call tomorrow to check on her.”
“Thanks Q.”
Santana hung up the phone and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Q says you have a cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” the blonde assured her wife.
Santana woke in the middle of the night to the sound of rattling coughs and Brittany blowing her nose coming from their bathroom. She furrowed her eyebrows and quickly made her way to the door and knocked a few times. The response that came was a groan and more coughing.
“Babe, are you okay?”
Brittany shook her head. Santana pulled open their bathroom cabinet drawers and searched around for the blue jar of Vicks and the box of Tylenol multi-symptom she’d gotten last time she’d been sick and Brittany had taken care of her. She finally located what she was looking for and after she got Brittany to take the pills she pulled her up off the edge of the tub and back to bed. She handed the jar off to the blonde and went into their closet to search for their humidifier. The scent of menthol filled the room as Brittany applied the grease to her chest and throat. Santana finally located the humidifier and took it to the bathroom to clean it out and fill it up. She set it at the foot of their bed and got it running before returning to lie next to her wife.
“Don’t worry about a thing, babe,” the Latina whispered. “You’ll be fine.”
Brittany was sleeping soundly the next morning when Santana got up, partially thanks to the medicine. The Latina was thankful it was a Saturday so she didn’t have to mess with getting the boys to school or calling into work so she could take care of her wife. As she made her way to the kitchen Santana remembered her mother always saying no milk when she had a chest cold because of the mucous so she bypassed the idea of Brittany’s usual bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast to look for something else. She spotted a container of oatmeal.
“Mami,” Joshua yawned as he came into the kitchen scratching his stomach underneath his white t-shirt and adjusting his dark blue pajama bottoms. He settled himself on one of the kitchen chairs and settled his chin on his hand. “¿Qué estás haciendo?”
“Preparo el desayuno, mi’jo.”
“¿Por qué? Mama does that."
“Mama está enferma. She's sick.”
“Mama never gets sick.”
“Tell me about it. We’re gonna take care of her today, alright?”
“Mkay,” the seven-year-old yawned again. “Can I have cookies for breakfast?”
“¿Está loco? Has anyone ever let you have cookies for breakfast, mi’jo?”
Joshua giggled. “Nana did once.”
“Well…Nana’s crazy, too. You can have cereal or oatmeal since that’s what I’m fixing for Mama.”
Joshua sighed. “Lucky Charms.”
“Think you can handle getting it yourself?”
“I’m not a baby,” the boy said, jumping off of his chair and climbing up on the pantry shelves to get the cereal.
Santana grabbed a couple bowls from one of the cabinets and started measuring out the oats and water and butter to stick in the microwave and handed the other bowl to Joshua. He grabbed his step stool and settled it against the cabinets and carefully poured the dried cereal out of the box.
“I want some, too,” a small, sleepy voice came from Milo who was rubbing his eyes as he stumbled in the kitchen in his red footie pajamas. Duck was following close behind the young boy and the dog sniffed around the kitchen a few times before sitting next to Joshua, waiting for him to drop something.
Milo tried to hop up on the stool next to his brother, grabbing a fistful of Joshua’s t-shirt to accomplish the feat. Joshua jerked to the side sending the box of Lucky Charms flying through the air.
Santana groaned when the cereal hit the floor. Duck went crazy trying to get up every single piece she could get to.
“Milo!” Joshua whined.
“I wanna help,” the brunette boy said with a pout.
“Clean up the mess!”
“Let Duck do it,” Santana said. “She eats anything, she’ll be fine. Just…try again. And Milo, both feet on the ground or get your own stool.” The Latina grabbed another bowl out of the cabinet and Joshua poured out the bowls of cereal again, Milo watching eagerly. Santana furrowed her eyebrows at the smell of something burning and she turned to the microwave and flung the door open. Smoke poured out of the appliance and Santana tried to fan the air to get it to thin out so she didn’t set off the fire alarm.
“Mami,” Milo said, peering into the microwave at the mess of melted plastic and oatmeal. “You’re not ‘upposed to use that kinda bowl.” The almost five-year-old shook his head slowly, eyebrows raised, scolding his mother with his look. “Now you gotta clean up the mess.”
Santana nodded at the boy and stifled a giggle as she reached for a paper towel.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it, mi’jo. Just shows you that paying attention is important.”
Not thinking (again), she put the towel on the mess and proceeded to try and scrape it out of the microwave.
“¡AY! ¡JODER!” she shrieked, pulling her throbbing hand out. She whimpered at the red skin and immediately went to the sink to run it under cool water. Joshua and Milo’s eyes followed her.
“Mami…” Joshua looked at his mother, eyes full of curiosity. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing you need to ever repeat,” the Latina mumbled when she realized what she’d said. Once the throbbing in her hand subsided she looked back to the mess in the microwave and sighed. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” She looked at her sons and they both nodded and Santana grabbed an oven mitt before she got the paper towels. She scraped the hardening red plastic and oatmeal out of the microwave, making sure to get all of the plastic.
Milo sprinted out of the kitchen and Santana shook her head and grabbed another bowl out of the cabinet, making sure it was microwave safe, and started mixing yet another bowl of oatmeal. Joshua went to the refrigerator and pulled out the gallon jug of milk and hauled it to the counter. Just as Santana put the oatmeal into the microwave and set the timer Milo came hurrying back into the kitchen. The non-slip grips on the bottom of his pajamas had obviously worn off because he skidded and started to fall, the closest thing to him was Joshua. The dark-haired boy scrambled to grab onto his brother who fell off the stool…the jug of milk going with them as they both hit the floor.
Santana blinked a few times and looked down at her sons, now covered in milk, and she groaned.
“Ay dios mio,” she sighed. “You two…”
“I slipped,” Milo said weakly. He looked over at his brother and the blonde boy sighed.
“Come on,” Joshua said, standing and wiping his hands off on his shirt. “We’ll go change.”
Santana could only nod and fixate her eyes on the flood of milk on the kitchen floor. She picked up the now almost empty jug and put it on the countertop before grabbing several dish towels out of their designated drawer and mopping up what Duck hadn’t drank already.
The Latina furrowed her eyebrows at a small piece of paper that had gotten soaked in the mess and picked it up. It was a dinosaur sticker. Santana grinned to herself and shook her head. It had become customary to give Milo a sticker if he cleaned up after himself and Santana figured out that he’d gone to his room to get one for her.
“I love my sons,” she said quietly to herself as she finished mopping up the mess.
She took a deep breath and took the milk-soaked towels to the basement door and tossed them down to deal with later. Joshua emerged from Milo’s bedroom with clean pajamas and went across the hall to the bathroom where Santana looked in and the dark-haired boy was sitting on the countertop kicking his legs.
“He needs a bath,” Santana sighed. “You both do. Just a quick one.” The Latina stepped into the bathroom and got the water running and the boys in the bathtub. She rinsed out Joshua’s hair quickly, it was so fine that it didn’t warrant a scrubbing to get the milk out. Milo, however, had inherited Santana’s thick hair and she sighed and lathered it up with shampoo while Joshua got dried off and dressed and headed back to the kitchen.
“Josh’a said that Mama’s sick.”
“Mmmhmm. We’re going to take care of her though, aren’t we mi’jo?”
Milo nodded. “Mama makes soup when I’m sick.”
“We’ll make soup for lunch. Tilt your head back.”
With Milo cleaned up and re-dressed now in blue footie pajamas, Santana settled him on the couch and instructed him to stay where he was and watch cartoons. Joshua came in with two bowls of cereal and the two boys sat at the coffee table and kept their eyes focused on the TV. Santana went back to the kitchen and re-heated the oatmeal and seasoned it with sugar until she figured Brittany would like it. She poured a glass of orange juice and put the breakfast items on a tray and went back through the living room, down the hall, and into the master suite. She could hear Brittany snoring from the other side of the door.
Santana set the tray on her dresser and went to the bathroom to get another couple of cold pills for her wife. She dropped them on the tray and then went to Brittany’s side of the bed and smiled down at the sleeping blonde. Even with her nose red and chest greasy from the mentholated rub, Brittany was still gorgeous. Santana picked up the plethora of tissues that had managed to not make it into the trashcan and took a few healthy squirts of hand sanitizer from the bottle on Brittany’s nightstand before gently pushing blonde locks out of Brittany’s face.
“Hey B, you want some breakfast?”
“I do not like green eggs and ham,” the blonde mumbled, her eyes remaining closed.
“What about oatmeal?”
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent,” she mumbled again, rolling over and curling up into a ball.
“You really need to lay off the Dr. Seuss books, babe. Come on, get up.”
Santana shook her wife again and Brittany’s eyes fluttered open. She rubbed them and Santana smiled and kissed the blonde’s forehead as she sat up.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Santana whispered. “You want some breakfast?”
Brittany nodded and sniffled. Santana retrieved the tray from her dresser and put it over the blonde’s lap and Brittany smiled appreciatively. The blonde downed the offered medicine before digging into her oatmeal. Santana stayed perched on the edge of the bed, eyebrows raised.
“Well?” the Latina asked, poking her wife’s shoulder. “How is it?”
“I can’t taste it,” Brittany sighed.
“Better than burnt plastic, I guess.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell you later. Finish up your breakfast, I have to go mop the kitchen floor.”
“San, is everything okay?”
“It’s fine babe, just stay in bed and I’ll come get your tray in a little bit.”
Brittany chewed on her lower lip nervously, Santana grinned and pressed another kiss to her wife’s forehead before heading to the basement to get a mop and bucket and then to the kitchen to clean up the remainder of the milk. She wiped down the kitchen cabinets and mopped the floor where the milk had spilled. When she finished, she nodded approvingly and poured out the water bucket and stored her supplies back in the basement. When she got back upstairs, Joshua and Milo were nowhere to be found in the living room. The Latina groaned when she heard voices from the kitchen.
“What are you doing? You just ate! And I just mopped that floor!” Santana sighed.
Joshua had his head in the refrigerator, Milo was clinging onto one of the pantry shelves.
“I wan’ fruit snacks,” Milo said. He grunted and climbed up another shelf to reach for the box.
“Do we have any bananas?”
“Okay, first of all,” Santana went to the pantry and pulled Milo off of the shelf. “No more climbing on the pantry shelves for either of you; you’ll either break them or fall and break yourself. There is a stepladder in here for a reason, mi’jos. Use it, por favor? Second, you ate the last banana yesterday after school. Have an apple or something.”
“I don’t like apples.”
“So have an orange. You need Vitamin C anyways so you don’t get sick from Mama.”
Joshua shrugged and dug through the refrigerator and pulled out an orange. Santana helped him peel it and separate the wedges. She got both boys re-settled in the living room and went back to the master suite. Brittany was curled up on her side of the bed, snoring, with the tray on Santana’s side. The Latina carefully picked up the empty tray to take back to the kitchen, Brittany jerked awake just as she opened the door.
“You need anything, B?”
“I should get up and help.”
“Everything is under control, don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep, alright?”
Brittany nodded and dropped back to her pillow.
The rest of the morning went smoothly, Joshua and Milo stayed perched on the couch for the most part while Santana checked on Brittany every ten minutes and cleaned the house a little so her wife wouldn’t have to worry about it. Quinn called just as Santana was getting a pot out to start chicken noodle soup for lunch and offered to take the boys for the afternoon. The Latina didn’t even bother pulling out her time chart to see if she already owed babysitting time. After quickly feeding them each a bowl of soup and getting them dressed she walked them down the street to the Fabray-Berry house and thanked Quinn profusely for taking them.
“Is she any better?” the blonde asked, after Santana got the boys’ coats off and put into the closet by the door.
“No, and she keeps trying to get out of bed to help me.”
Quinn chuckled.
“Q, are you sure you can handle all four of them? Where the hell is Berry?”
“Rachel’s at the theater, they’ve got to cast a couple new parts. It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“Hi Aunt Santana,” one of the twins rushed in from the living room and to the kitchen, the other one followed with Joshua on her heels and Milo bringing up the rear.
“You just ate, boys! Don’t run them out of food, ¿comprendes?”
“Si, Mami!” Joshua sprinted back through the living room with a banana in his hand.
“I think he thinks he’s an ape,” Santana mumbled. “He’s been going through bananas like there’s no tomorrow. And Milo’s been climbing on everything so watch him or he’ll figure out a way to get on the ceiling.”
“It’ll be fine, S. Go take care of your wife.”
Quinn shuffled Santana out the door and she quickly walked back down the street. When she got in she heard soft humming coming from the kitchen and groaned at the sight of Brittany staring at the microwave.
“B, I told you to stay in bed.”
“I was hungry,” the blonde said, her voice raspy.
“I was going to bring you the soup when I got back. Go back to bed.”
Brittany shook her head and the microwave beeped. The blonde took out her bowl of steaming soup and carried it into the kitchen and settled herself on the couch. Santana followed and put the blonde’s feet in her lap and absentmindedly rubbed them through her socks while Brittany flipped through the TV and settled on repeats of a dance show that was on.
“Duck won’t stop licking the kitchen floor,” Brittany said. She took another spoonful of soup.
“The boys spilled some milk earlier, don’t worry about it. I got it cleaned up.”
“Okay.”
“When was the last time you took any cold medicine, babe?”
Brittany shrugged. “I thought you were only supposed to get colds when it was cold outside.”
“You probably picked it up from one of the snot factories at your classes.”
“That’s mean, S. We have kids, too, you know.”
“Yeah but our boys are perfect, everyone knows that.” Santana grinned.
Brittany giggled and finished off the rest of her soup and switched ends of the couch and rested her head on Santana’s lap. In no time, the blonde was snoring. Santana watched TV for a while before she leaned her head back and was only jarred awake when the front door slammed shut.
“’S goin’ on?” Brittany mumbled when Santana jumped.
Santana’s eyes fluttered open to see Quinn hovering over her with a smirk. She glanced around the blonde to see her two boys fighting over the remote control in front of the TV.
“I told you I’d come get them at five,” Santana mumbled. “Unless one of them burned your house down…”
“It’s six-thirty.”
“Oh. Sorry about that.”
Quinn smiled. “More babysitting time for us. I fed them dinner and brought leftovers for you guys.”
Santana yawned. “Thanks Q. You’re a life saver.”
“No problem. Call me if you need anything.”
Santana nodded and Brittany sat up long enough for the Latina to get off the couch and go re-heat the plates Quinn had put in the kitchen. She dropped a cup of food in Duck’s bowl which summoned the dog to come flying into the kitchen, almost knocking the Latina to the floor. She took the plates to the living room and then retrieved more cold medicine from the bathroom for Brittany. They sat watching whatever cartoon that their sons had finally settled on while they ate the chicken and vegetables that Quinn had sent over.
“Does it taste good?” Brittany asked.
“Not as good as your cooking, babe.” Santana smiled sincerely. Recipes may not have been Brittany’s thing but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cook. Santana suspected that her own mother had a little to do with that since Brittany’s chicken enchiladas tasted almost identical.
Brittany grinned.
The rest of the evening was quiet. Brittany slept on the couch some more. Santana got the boys to drink plenty of orange juice and then got them into bed for the night and finally coaxed Brittany into taking a hot bath by promising that she could have as many rubber ducks in the tub as she wanted. Santana knelt by the tub and lathered up Brittany’s hair while the blonde poked at the plethora of ducks. She squeezed one and the squeaker echoed off the bathroom walls. Santana froze.
“Oh no…”
The Latina scurried up off the floor to make sure the door was shut tight but she slipped on the tile and before she could get to it the door burst open, Duck the culprit, and the dog jumped into the bathtub. Immediately upon discovering it was filled with water, she jumped back out. Brittany screamed, Santana swore, Duck went tearing through the house in an attempt to dry off. Santana chased the sudsy dog, her own hands soapy and slipping off of everything she tried to grab onto to steady herself.
“Duck…Duck, please!”
The dog, sure that Santana was going to continue the water torture, ran from her and into the kitchen. Santana slipped on the trail of water and swore again when she landed flat on her back.
“Oh God…that hurt,” she choked out.
To add insult to injury Duck ran over her owner on the way out of the kitchen, her front paws knocking the wind out of the Latina when she landed on her stomach. Santana grabbed onto her stomach and tried to catch her breath. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and when she opened them Brittany was standing over her wrapped in a towel.
“San…”
“It’s under control,” Santana gasped. “I got it…”
Santana struggled to get up and she ushered Brittany back to their bedroom and pulled out the blonde’s pajamas and went searching for Duck. She found the dog curled up underneath the coffee table, hiding.
"You're going to be the death of me," she grumbled as she reached under the table to grab onto the dog's collar. "Come on. You had half a bath, might as well finished it up."
Duck whined. Santana struggled to lift the dog up and carried her to the bathroom. Brittany watched from the bed.
"San..."
"I got it, babe. Don't worry."
Brittany sighed. "I can help..." The blonde's offer was cut off by a few deep coughs and some wheezing.
"I got it."
Santana hauled Duck into the bathroom and finished the dog's bath with much protest from the furry creature. She got her own shower thanks to the dog shaking out all of the water every ten seconds. Once she dried the dog the Latina let her go run off the excess water while she took her own shower to get the dog smell out. When she got back to the bedroom, Brittany was curled up in a ball and snoring loudly.
"So much for sleep tonight," Santana mumbled.
She kissed Brittany's forehead and left the bedroom to go downstairs and wash the now rancid-smelling towels from that morning. She sat at the desk in her basement office for a while to go over some case files and check her e-mail before she put the towels into the dryer. After she finished up the notes on the case she was working on she came back upstairs and Duck was again "hiding" under the coffee table. The Latina checked on her sons in their bedrooms, both boys were sleeping peacefully. She could still hear Brittany snoring so she grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and settled herself on the couch to try and get a few hours of sleep. As she listened to Brittany's snores and thought of her sons sleeping in their comfortable beds and the fact that she was going to get to do everything again the next day...she smiled. Then, before she drifted off to sleep and after a particularly deep snore from Brittany, Santana made a mental note to stock up on a year's supply of Vitamin C tablets the second she got the chance.
Next: Mondays