Flu

(Somewhere around Footprint)

"And so!" Annie crowed, "Now I have you right where I want you!"

"Please doon mess w' me," Ray sniffled.

"You're sick!" she said. "You're never sick! I never get to take care of you! It's always you," and her voice dropped from cheerful to ominous, "forcing fluids….forcefully."

"Annee…" Ray pleaded.

She hopped from the sofa armrest to his shoulder and pat his cheek. "Don't worry, Master, I can do this." He shivered beneath her. "First off, for a guy that can tuck me in until I'm mummified, you suck at Basic Blanket. Lift up your feet."

She ran down his chest and legs, dropping to the carpet and grabbing one corner of his blanket. She dragged that back under his legs and tucked it in between the cushion he sat on and the sofa frame.

Then she circled his form, having him roll left or right to make room for her to tuck stray folds in under his body.

When he was nearly heat-tight, she crawled slowly back up his body to kiss his cheek.

He sighed happily and his shivering lessened.

An alarm sounded in the carrier. "Oh!" Annie turned to jump to the cushion, then to the floor. "I stayed up late last night charting the TV guide for today!"

"What?" he asked. She didn't reply. She was shoving the remote into the proper angle to turn the TV on, then to select the Chicago TV station that was broadcasting to the world.

MST3K came on. "Today, in an obscure corner of television," Annie intoned, "Gamera."

"Oooh," Ray managed. She ran back up to sit by his chin. Heat came off of him like a furnace.

"And after this, the public station is running 'Holy Grail.' That'll take us to dinner. You'll toast some grilled cheese sandwiches, and heat some soup."

"Not tomato," he protested.

"YES, TOMATO!" she boasted, cackling madly. "It's all that's in the house! Mwahahaha!" It was their joke. Ray loved tomato soup and that's all he would make when Annie was under the weather. She hated it. Or, she loved telling him she hated it, anyway. In great detail, including the possible childhood brain damage that led to his liking the stuff.

He drifted in and out of a nap or two during the movie. She paid diligent attention in case he woke and asked 'what did I miss?' He didn't, though, he seemed to be content every time he woke up and found himself in her company.

Ray started to stir himself, intending to reach down for the pitcher of water he'd placed on the floor by the couch. Condensation ran off it onto a towel he'd put down.

"No, no, don't move!" she said.

"Annie, you can't pour me a drink," he pointed out. But he sat still, preserving her efforts to tuck him in.

She disappeared over the edge of the couch and came back with a plastic tube. He could just reach the tip, then sucked up a drink. She held it patiently until he was finished.

"Thanks," he said.

"De nada," she replied, carefully lowering the tubing so it wouldn't drip onto the floor.

Then she was back on his shoulder.

There was a half-hour between the end of MST3K and Holy Grail. She offered a syndicated episode of Three's Company or a Bond movie.

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?"

It turned out to be 'From Russia with Love,' so the answer was yes, it mattered. She turned it off and offered a massage.

He sank down into the blankets as she stripped off her shorts and tee. Ray was sweating heavily at this point and she didn't want to stain anything. He closed his eyes and she started over his third eye. Large, slow circular strokes spread over his forehead and across his temples. She trailed down his eye sockets one at a time and smoothed his cheek bones.

He barely remembered to say thank you before he fell asleep. When he woke, the Black Knight had already lost both arms.

He didn't need anyone to tell him what he'd missed. Annie didn't bother to offer. She did give him another drink or two.

She lost interest, as always, in the doings at Castle Anthrax and wandered around his skull, massaging up and over his ears.

That put him to sleep before the spanking reference….purely by coincidence.

She muted the TV and crawled down by his throat, nestling between his carotid and the blanket. They slept until dinner time.

Ray stood carefully and staggered towards the bathroom for some much needed use of the facilities. Annie ran to the kitchen to preheat the toaster oven.

Glorious Master insisted that it didn't help in any way, but SHE insisted she could definitely feel a difference in the cheese texture without a preheating.

The straightest path was the hardest and she was in a hurry. So she climbed the dining room drapes, swung across to the buffet, then jumped to the pass-through, down onto the counter and a U-shaped dash around the sink and stove.

Ray came out, started heating the soup and assembled the sandwich. Annie made sure he had the proper number of cheese slices, arranged in the proper manner.

He split the sandwich in half and let her pick where her slice came from.

They ate in silence, though from time to time he reached over to stroke her hair.

They watched MacGuyver and the day's truce continued. Ray didn't try to call bullshit on any of the engineering, Annie didn't sigh or gasp or use the word 'dreamy' about any character on the show.

At bedtime, he apologized for having gone an entire sweaty day without a shower, but he didn't think he was brave enough to take one. And then placed her above the drawer she usually slept in.

"Oh, no, Master," she replied, taking a running leap to the bed. He stripped and crawled in under the covers. She climbed onto his throat and hugged.

"What's this?" he asked.

"I know you're afraid you're going to get a fever," she said quickly, "and kick off all the covers and then when you wake up you'll be cold again and shiver so much you'll be paralyzed and I won't be able to tuck you in again because that blanket's the size of Yankee Stadium and-"

"Don't swear," he muttered.

"Yes, Master, sorry, Master, the size of the Marlins' ballpark, so I was going to sleep on your throat because when I do, you never move and you'll be tucked in all night."

"Annie, I'm going to sweat like a pig!"

"Uh huh," she said. "And you'll be better tomorrow and we'll take a long, hot shower, with lots of soapy soap and suds and more hot water and you'll breathe in that steam and you'll be clean and you'll feel good. Okay?"

"I guess I must obey," he said sleepily. One hand covered her as he nestled deeper into his bed.

She stroked his throat as his breathing deepened. She nuzzled his windpipe and slept.



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