Love Language

Acts Of Service

A/N - Little trigger warning for homophobia, it's mentioned and it's not super long but it is there. If that isn't something you want to see, then I would recommend skipping this one! Stay safe and take care of yourself <3

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To be in love

Is to touch with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

'To Be in Love' by Gwendolyn Brooks

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Quinn wasn't a mother. And he certainly wasn't someone who made soup for the sick and took temperatures, he never had been. Not until now.

Now, he found himself in front of a microwave in Matt's insanely big kitchen, hearing the buzz as soup turned in circles and counting the seconds on the tiny screen displaying them. This was not what he was planning for the evening, not at all. But, still, here he was, wrapping a hand towel at the button of a hot bowl and slowly walking up stairs he barely recognized.

And still, he found himself not minding at all.

He pushed the door to Matt's room open and saw him lying with the blanket halfway up his face, eyes tired, watery, red, and full of mucus. He looked disgusting. Still, Quinn sat on the bed next to him and fed him tiny spoonfuls of chicken soup.

"How did this even happen?" Matt said, voice dry and groggy, after lumping down another hot spoonful of soup. He felt his eyes squeeze shut for a second at the feeling.

Quinn hummed, "Maybe someone around you had it."

"Well, I'm glad they're fine. I still feel like shit though," Matt said, grumpy, and he told himself it was justified because he was sick and allowed to be upset about it.

Quinn chuckled, "What? You want them to just take their illness back or something?" The bowl was nearly empty now.

"Yes," Matt gulped down more soup. It didn't taste like much.

"If I gave you my illness, I'd gladly take it back," Quinn said, quietly, as if he talked too loud, the walls would hear him, and then it wouldn't be their little secret anymore.

"You're being too nice. What's wrong with you?"

And Quinn laughed, softly, because the thought of it was so ridiculous; that Matt ever thought he deserved anything other than all the kindness in the world.

"You're sick. I'm supposed to be nice to you," Quinn caught himself just before he said 'idiot', even though he knew it wouldn't do any damage.

"But you're babying me. I don't need to be babied, Quinn," Matt said, whiny, because when has he ever claimed to be anything but a drama queen?

"But you do, though. You big baby," Quinn said, almost whispered.

And Matt, in his deranged and out of it state, said, "Your baby..." and then decided to pass out once more. If this subject ever came up in conversation, he would blame it on the fever.

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Matt woke up to a gut wrenching feeling at the pit of his stomach. The feeling traveled up to his throat and before he could process it, there was vomit in his mouth. He scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom across the hallway. Sickness left his body involuntarily and painfully. His eyes were brimming with tears by the time he was done. He slumped against the cold bathroom wall and shut his eyes, he had never in his life thrown up like this– it was exhausting.