#frankie write

Kurt’s eyes roll hard enough to make him dizzy. “You’re not going to die from the flu.”

“People have died from the flu!” Blaine insists. “Google it! It’s possible!”

“Yes, it’s possible, but it’s rare. You’re healthy as a horse. I don’t think it’s going to happen to you.”

“You don’t know that! I could turn a corner in seconds! Th-there was a woman in Minnesota had the flu - seemed fine. Laid down on her sofa for a nap and never woke up!”

“Wasn’t she in her eighties?” Kurt shoves his keys into his pocket and his wallet into his messenger bag. “And didn’t she have, like, diabetes and a heart condition?”

“Don’t know,” Blaine mutters grumpily. “But why take the chance? Wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to stay with me? To be on the safe side?”

“Blaine! I’m only going to be gone for three hours. Four tops! I don’t think you’re going to die in the next four hours!”

“But it feels like I am!”

“You have your cell phone. If you start seeing a bright light and distant relatives coming to greet you, call me, and I’ll have Mrs. Pancetti from next door come check on you. Shoo them away.”

“Kurt!” Blaine stares at Kurt with pleading, blood-shot eyes, and Kurt stares back - stoic, determined not to be swayed. A stand-off ensues, one Kurt doesn’t have time for. In his head, he tells himself to end this ridiculousness, grab his stuff, and go. His husband is a big boy. He’ll be fine. But the more Blaine stares, the more Kurt begins to feel sorry for him. Blaine doesn’t usually get sick. Aside from catching a mega-cold his senior year of high school (which resulted in the infamous Tina Cohen-Chang Vapo-rape incident) Kurt can’t remember the last time Blaine was truly sick.

And he doesn’t seem all that sick now! But Kurt has had the flu before (of course). It can be deceptively mild in the beginning. If Blaine’s is anything like the flus Kurt gets, he’s going to be miserable. And even though he doesn’t consider himself the nurturing type, there’s something deep inside trying its hardest to convince Kurt to stay home and take care of his husband.

And it’s winning.

Kurt checks the clock on his phone and sighs. He’s cutting things close as is. If he’s going to leave, he’d better do it now or else he might as well not even try. At this rate, he’ll miss his connection, hit hellacious traffic, and spend close to an hour stuck on a crowded subway platform. He scrolls through his itinerary in his head – his one class and the few projects he’s contributing to at Vogue.

Can he really afford to miss a day?

Actually, he can. For the first time in a long time, he can.

“Alright,” he groans, but with the twitch of a smile on his lips. “Give me a minute, let me iron out a few things, and I’ll be back to hang out with you.”

“Yay!” Blaine giggles, fluffing his pillow and snuggling beneath his thick comforter.

“I’m going to go to the bedroom and get changed. Try not to die too loudly.”

“This is going to be great, Kurt!” Blaine calls after him. “You’ll see. I … I know I’m sick, but we can watch trash TV and play video games and …”

“Hold that thought.” Kurt ducks behind the privacy curtain. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Kurt drops his bag and unzips his boots. He shoots Isabelle a text, wincing while he gives her what he feels is a thin excuse, but that’s because he has his father’s work ethic. No missing work unless he’s caught in a fire or bleeding profusely out his head. He doesn’t like bowing out on his responsibilities without giving people twenty-four hours’ notice. But Blaine getting sick? Incapacitated? (That’s what he tells Isabelle has happened to assuage his own guilt.) That cropped up this morning. And it’s an emergency, right? Emergencies don’t tend to give 24 hours’ notice. So if he didn’t have it, how could he give it?

Besides, it’s been a long time since he’s had a dedicated day off with his husband. Their schedules for the past six months have turned them into proverbial ships passing one another in the night. They share the occasional meal, get one date night every two weeks, but they’ve been overwhelmed by mid-year exams and double-shifts at the diner. Maybe Blaine’s flu is a blessing in disguise. Sure Kurt will be playing nursemaid, but Blaine is awfully cute when he’s needy. He’ll cling to Kurt like a baby sloth. They’ll watch TV and cuddle, Blaine’s hot skin pressed against his as he feeds his husband apple sauce and they catch up on life.

He’ll be missing an exciting day at Vogue, but this will be worth it.

“Okay, Blaine!” Kurt strips off the stylish outfit he’d chosen for the day and puts on his pajamas, rushing as he becomes more and more excited. He yanks on his socks, slides his feet into his carpet slippers, and sashays back to the living room. “Let’s play hooky!”

“How’s Lisa doing?” Oliver asks, coming up behind a giggling Felicity standing outside her daughter’s door.

“Better since you let her dads visit for the week,” Felicity whispers, eyes glued on whatever’s going on inside. With the door open only a crack, Oliver can’t completely see in. He rolls to the balls of his feet in an attempt to take a peek before he has to resort to accessing the security system via his phone for a better view. “It’s made her calmer, more focused. Just them being here … she’s a whole different girl.”

“Good,” he says as if evaluating the progress of a new employee. “Well, you and Barry vouched for Len. As long as you two are keeping an extra close eye on him …”

“Barry said no to the tracking device, if that’s what you’re asking, but he swore he’d keep his husband in check.” She looks up at her husband and bats her eyes. “Have a little faith.”

“How is she liking the game?” Oliver asks excitedly. This was his first official attempt to connect with Lisa on her level. Yes, going to Disney was his idea, but that was a decision bred mostly from logic: Lisa was a kid. Kids love Disneyland. Aside from rigorous training and coding drills, there was little for a child to do at The Foundry. They couldn’t keep Lisa on lockdown all summer. Ergo, going to Disney was a practical decision. But he came to the realization (after she’d helped Len break in for the third time), that he was an outsider in her life. A guardian as opposed to a family member.

An acquaintance.

And he didn’t like that.

He wanted a different relationship with her. He had to stop thinking of her as Leonard Snart’s kid and remember that there was a great deal of Felicity inside her, too. He couldn’t exactly see himself being a third father to her.

But maybe he could be her friend.

So, to cross that gorge, he bought her a computer game. One he had loved as a child.

Oregon Trail.

He remembered spending hours on that game, strategizing the best ways to deliver his small, pioneer family to their destination with a limited number of casualties and the largest percentage of supplies intact. He took into consideration the value of animals as opposed to human life, determined who in his party was most expendable, and the best way to counter potential disease. He calculated which routes were least likely to find them besieged, and compensated for time accordingly.

God, he loved that game.

Lisa was an intelligent, logically minded little girl, advanced beyond her years. She would conquer it in a snap with the same gusto Oliver had, he was certain of it.

And then, the two of them would have something aside from Leonard Snart to talk about.

“She’s … not actually … playing it,” Felicity confesses, her heart breaking with each word over the prospect of hurting her husband’s feelings. She knows how much giving Lisa that game meant to him, what a huge step it was.

“Oh?” he says in the tight voice she’d expected.

“Yeah. But, there’s a plus side to her not playing the game.”

“Really? And what’s that?”

“Len! Jesus Christ! We needed three oxen to pull the wagon! Not two! Three! It said so right on the damn screen!”

Felicity snickers. “It’s … uh … helping Barry keep Snart in check.”

“It said it was a recommendation, Barry! A recommendation! If we’d spent the money on the oxen, we wouldn’t have been able to afford enough bullets to protect us on the way to Soda Springs!”

“What do the bullets matter if two oxen can’t pull the wagon!? Do you expect us to get there on foot? Jane’s health is very poor!”

“I do expect us to eat! And maybe, just maybe, not get slaughtered by Indians!”

The computer they’re using makes a noise and, from the little Oliver can see over Felicity’s head, Barry throws his hands in the air.

“Way to go, Len! Are you happy? Now the whole party’s got dysentery!”

“Don’t blame me! Blame Jane! How the hell did she get sick!? We should have left her ass behind at Fort Bridger!”

Felicity clamps a hand over her mouth, trying her hardest not to laugh too loudly, while Oliver, with the slightest smile on his face, shakes his head.

“So, if they’re in there,” he asks, less disappointed than he was a second ago, “where’s Lisa?”

“Fixing that glitch in the tracking system on your new heat seeking arrows.”

“Oh,” he says, pleasantly surprised. Better focused indeed. “Is she done?”

“Just about.”

“Good. Very good.” He puts his hands on Felicity’s shoulders as Len says, “Best three out of five.”

“Fine,” Barry agrees. “Do you think you can keep us from getting dead this time?”

“That depends. Can you keep your trap shut and let me win the damn game!?”

“Well, I guess we’ll leave them to it.” Oliver steers Felicity away from the door, eager to get to the lab and see how Lisa is doing. Commiserating about Oregon Trail would be nice.

But talking shop over heat seeking missiles is a helluva lot better.