The Ereri Project!

Sick

Levi wakes up to the sound of coughing from the other room.

This confused him for two reasons. One, he and Eren were the only people in the apartment. And two, he thought Eren was still be bed beside him. He sits up to find he was wrong on the second count.

Eren's side of the bed was cold so he's obviously been up for a while. Levi stands up drowsily to go find his boyfriend. "Eren?"

The young man in question is bundled up on the couch with a pile of tissues overflowing from the small trashcan beside him. "Go back to bed Levi," he says, his voice nasal from being stuffed up.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, it's just a cold. I didn't want to wake you up so I moved out here."

"Are you sure? You look awful."

"I'm o-" Eren breaks into another coughing fit and Levi raises an eyebrow. "Okay, I could use some cough medicine I guess."

"Hold on," Levi says. "I'm taking your temperature too."

Eren groans. "I told you I'm fine."

Levi searches the bathroom cabinets for the thermometer. "Do you even realize how many blankets you're wearing?" he asks on his way back out.

"Like four?"

Levi rolls his eyes and holds out the end of the thermometer. "Open," he says.

Eren seems annoyed but doesn't argue. When Levi takes it back he rolls his eyes. "Idiot, you are not fine."

"What? What temperature am I?"

"One hundred two."

Eren groans. "I don't feel as bad as that sounds," he grumbles. With more effort that he originally anticipated, Levi picks Eren up. "Levi?"

"You should be sleeping in a real bed, not on the couch."

Levi checks the clock on his way into the bedroom. Six ten in the morning, he'd be getting up for work in about ten minutes anyway so he decides he'll just stay up when he gets Eren settled. He sits beside his boyfriend whose breathing sounds completely awful.

"You'll have to wait for cough medicine," he says, stroking Eren's hair and pushing sweating bangs out of tired eyes. "There's none in the apartment and the drug store probably won't open for another hour or two."

"Okay," Eren says and sniffles. "Can you bring me my box of tissues?"

"Do you need anything else while I'm up?"

"I don't think so," Eren replies and rolls over, trying to get comfortable but mostly just unable to breathe.

"Do you want me to bring in the humidifier to see if it'll help you breathe until I can get you medicine?"

Eren shrugs. "Okay."

Levi brings in the tissues before going back to the bathroom. He picks up the humidifier and as a second thought grabs the bottle of Motrin from the medicine cabinet.

He takes both back to Eren before going back for a glass of water. "This should bring your fever down," Levi says ands hands the Motrin to Eren.

"Thank you," Eren says and watches while Levi sets up the humidifier. "You're like a little mother hen Levi."

"Shut up," Levi replies as he turns on the device. "I'll come back in a little bit to check on you, in the meantime, try and get some sleep okay?"

Eren nods and closes his eyes, falling asleep straight away.

Levi closes the door quietly behind him before going to clean the living room up. He washes his hands and puts on rubber gloves and a bandana over his mouth and nose before going anywhere near the couch.

Armed with a can of disinfectant and a trash bag, he goes to pick up the used tissues and clean any surfaces Eren might have touched with his germs.

It's forty-five minutes later when he's finally satisfied and goes to the kitchen to look for something for both him and Eren to eat. He has a moment where he realizes he has no idea what he should feed a sick person. He turns to google for help.

Eren opens his eyes to see the clock beside the bed reading ten thirty-six in the morning. He's surprised to see Levi peek his head in, checking on him. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?" he asks.

Levi shrugs. "I called in sick."

"But you're not the sick one."

"So?" Levi asks and comes over to the bed carrying a tiny box. "Got you cough medicine."

Eren grimaces when he realizes it's a syrup and not a pill. "That shit tastes so nasty though," he whines.

"It's not like you can taste it anyway, whiny brat."

Eren takes it, pouting the entire time. "Can you make me something to eat now?"

"I already made soup actually."

"You made soup?"

"It's actually just a couple cans of Progresso all dumped into a pot with extra broth and vegetables but, yeah, I did."

"I'm impressed," Eren says, smiling weakly.

"Shut up brat, or I'm not bringing you anything."

Eren quiets up and smiles at Levi. "Please and thank you."

When Levi brings the soup back Eren can barely sit up on his own so Levi has to feed the soup to him.

Eren in vaguely in and out of sleep for the next few hours until it's nearly nine o clock that night. He finds it strange, he has never slept that much in his life.

He mostly just remembers seeing Levi every so often, giving him more medicine, forcing him to drink more water, helping him to the bathroom once or twice.

He's feeling pretty good now at least, not chilly and achy like before. He stretches and looks down to see he's wearing a different shirt than the once he put on earlier.

He doesn't remember getting changed so Levi probably did it for him, speaking of which. Eren gets up and goes toward the living room.

He smiles, unsurprised to find Levi asleep on the couch with Doctor Who reruns playing on the TV. There's a half empty bowl of soup on the table in front of him and the way the remotes positioned in his hand looks like he fell asleep looking for something else to watch.

Eren goes back to their room and pulls a clean blanket from the closet to drape over his exhausted boyfriend.

"Mother hen," he mutters to the sleeping brunette. "You'll work yourself sick."