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#snzfic
farthertothemoon · 3 days
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After a long itchy day, you bemoan your building springtime allergies to your partner. You tell them you've been sneezing all day and that you're extremely congested. Weirdly enough, you mention that you haven't been sniffly. They respond with an "awwww, I would've liked to hear your sniffles on call ;)." Flustered, you admit that inducing your sneezes would definitely make your poor red nose all wet and sniffly, exactly how they want it.
Upon getting onto a video call with your partner, you pull out a long, thin inducing tool. Embarrassedly, you slowly insert the the tool into your right nostril, already beginning to hitch. Your eyes close, though you can feel your partner's hungry gaze on you- more specifically your red, flaring nostrils with mess beginning to gather around the rims. With one final desperate hitch, you let out the first of many sneezes that you'll be directed to tease out of yourself. By the time you're told you can stop, your upper lip is a mess and your poor nose is even more red and raw, but in the best possible way. Your partner smiles winningly, satisfied with your display of relieving sneezes. They compliment you and coo at you about your "big sneezes" and how they wish they could've been there to help you tease them out.
As a reward, your partner gets their own inducing tool out, locking eyes with you as they nudge it into their nose, almost immediately sneezing hard and messy. Grinning at you, they tease a few more itchy, messy sneezes out of their reddening nose, watching your every reaction between each wet explosion.
As it is, you're quickly distracted from your own itchy nose
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undercover-horn-blog · 4 months
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Caretaking that is casual. Caretaking that's domestic.
You're sick, but it's just a cold. You're exhausted and sleepy, but it's nothing too serious either, so there's no need to worry.
So you're on the couch, sipping tea, trying to read, ending up just lying there, huddled under your blanket, drowsy and halfway to sleep.
Meanwhile, your partner is sitting next to you, also reading. Or playing a video game while you are watching, blinking tiredly but happy to be entertained in this way.
Or it's your friends. They're chatting, talking about their days. Watching a film. All reading. Studying. Playing cards.
And you're just sort of... there. They ignore your sniffling, don't mind when you blow your nose. They don't think you're gross or annoying. Occasionally, somebody might walk by and absent-mindedly pet your head. Squeeze your shoulder. Without even really looking at you.
"You okay?", somebody says, half-amused, when you sneeze forcefully.
"Fine", you mumble, closing your eyes again.
"You want tea?", somebody asks, but it's just an afterthought. They were already on their way to get tea for themselves.
"You warm enough? Want my jumper?", somebody offers. But it's only because they just took it off since they felt too warm.
You're literally just... there. Like a pet. Still part of it even though you can't do much. And you're so happy to simply be around them, feel included. Know you are cared for even though the illness is not that bad. Know you are loved without having to do anything for it.
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hockeynoses · 15 days
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A man wakes up with a terrible cold, and his wife, who happens to have the fetish, is thrilled.
He calls into work while they're fucking doggy style, the gorgeous expanse of her back laid out before him. A soft moan escapes her throat.
“Shhh, sweetheart. I’b on the phode," he says teasingly, waiting for his boss to pick up. The risk of having an audience is a dangerous thrill that pushes them both closer towards the edge.
"Hey, boss. Idt’s mbe." Hopefully his boss takes the dizzy lust in his voice for grogginess instead. A prickling itch builds in his sinuses, and he's unable to cover - one hand busy with the phone and the other wrapped around his wife's hip.
“I don’t… hah… I don’t thigg I-iihh – huh’AEESSSH’UH!”  The thick sneeze explodes in front of him, showering his wife's back with wetness. “I dodn’t thigg I cadn cobme in today.”
“Nng!" His wife stifles a breathy moan as best she can. He leans forward to wrap his wide hand gently over her mouth, feeling her hot breath moist against his palm. The tempo of his thrusts quickens, his hips stuttering with need.
“I thigk I just dneed to stay in bed all d-day. Hih… hih’ZZIISHH’iue!" Another harsh, heavy sneeze sprays over her, settling cool on her skin.
As much fun as this is, he needs to end the call quickly. He can tell she's already so close she can barely stand it -
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snzcold · 4 months
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Someone with a cold so bad that each time they have a sneezing fit, they always end it with a groan. Bonus if they are being taken care of someone, they keep complaining about how they feel so awful and wished the sneezing would stop.
"Hh-Ik'shiew! Hah- HECHOO! Ugh.. Sdfft. Dabbit, I caddot breah- H'IKSHEW! Hdn, Ugh Please.. Bage it stob" Their partner could only look at their poor companion's state and help them wipe the mess on their partner's nose witha tissue. "You sound congested. You should blow" The partner suggested.
"Ugghd, Id's do use. Id would juh- Hahh-H'EKSHOO! Ih-ITCHHEW! Sdffrk, bage by dose idtchier. Ugh" They groaned as they savour what was last of the tissue they kept sneezing on. The day went by with them sneezing and complaining all day with their partner just listening and taking care of them.
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Hard to Shake (M, cold)
Woof, that was too long of a hiatus. I'm back with some Greyson sickfic! In this, Greyson has a one night stand and ends up 'running into' his hookup in a not-so-stellar way. This was a fun write, I'm feeling a little rusty after taking a couple months off writing but I hope you all like it. Please let me know what ya think, good, bad or indifferent! :)
CW: M snz, colds, contagion, coughing, some M/M romance but nothing above PG-13 lol. 5k words (it's a slow burn, shocker, I know)
Hard to Shake
The club was dark, humid, and loud as fuck - just the way he liked it.
“I’ll get us drinks,” Matt said, disappearing into the crowd to push towards the bar without waiting on Greyson’s response. Not that he would have stopped his counterpart; Matt had a boyfriend waiting for him at the end of this black hole of a night. Greyson, alternatively, was on the prowl for a bed, and someone to share it with.
They had begun the night at two pm, just an hour after brunch ended, since the only way to get a proper buzz on a Sunday was to start early as hell. Elijah had closed the restaurant early – “We’ve had ten guests all day. It’s too damn hot for brunch, and I want to go home” – and Mark was currently on a plane home from England after a week spent with family; it was like the universe was begging them to go out.
The restaurant’s reservations had been capped at a tiny number the next two days to prepare for their food writer dinner on Wednesday, and Greyson was so nervous about this career-shaping dinner that he could barely keep himself from lapsing into panic attacks at the slightest provocation; it was Matt who insisted on the bender.
“We haven’t gone on a good one since Mark and I got together,” the sous chef had said after service. “And you need a drink, you're acting like a psycho.”
Greyson, never one to deny himself a good binge drink, had taken the bait and allowed himself to be paraded through the city for the rest of the day. Now, at eleven pm and with Mark back at his and Matt's place safe and sound, Greyson could feel the night coming to a close. Time to round it out with a good old-fashioned one-night-stand.
Without waiting for Matt to return with the drinks, Greyson sashayed onto the dance floor and began grinding on whoever seemed the most into it – he ground on a group of drunk men, twirled between two gorgeous women who laughed giddily through the song, and put his tongue into so many people’s mouths that he lost count. Of course it was fun; it always was. But the hunt for a bed partner had proven, thus far, unsuccessful.
“There you are,” Matt slurred, coming up behind his boss and shoving a whiskey into his hand. “Why do you always run off? I’m about three seconds away from getting you one of those toddler-leash backpacks.”
“Makin’ friends, Matty boy,” Greyson said, chugging his drink and slamming the glass onto the closest table he could find. “Some of us don’t have the luxury of goin’ home to a warm, naked man in our bed.” Greyson elbowed Matt playfully and the younger man rolled his eyes.
“Fair ‘nough,” he said, sipping his drink. “Hey, actually, I saw someone who was exactly your type back near the bar. Talkin’ about food and everything.” Greyson raised his eyebrows, intrigued, and Matt looped his arm into his boss’s and led him back towards the horseshoe-shaped bar. “Let’s see if we can’t get you fucked to sleep.”
Matt pushed the two of them through the crowd, his head on a swivel, until finally he spotted the man he’d been talking about. “There he is,” Matt said, pushing Greyson towards the bar. “Do your thing.”
The sous hadn’t lied; this man was quintessential Greyson’s type. Shorter than his six-foot-three-inches by about half a foot, perfect skin, hair coiffed in a way that just smelled of total pretentious douchebag, and a full blazer and dress pants at the club. Oh yeah, Greyson thought, pulling the elastic out of his sandy curls and shaking them to fall around his shoulders, there’s the rest of my evening.
“Hi,” Greyson said, pushing himself in front of whoever the guy had been talking to before. “Can I buy you a drink?”
***
In his defense, he hadn't known the condition of the man he'd left with until they got to his apartment. The club had been dark; he could barely hear the sound of his own voice, let alone the wheeze of someone else’s. And he’d been really, really drunk.
“Hh-! EISHH-oo! ISHH-oo!” The man – Reed, Greyson had learned his name was – curled into his elbow to sneeze as he pushed open the door to his apartment. “Shit, pardon mbe,” he muttered, clearing his throat and beckoning Greyson in. The chef, blasted as he was, simply ignored Reed’s constant sneezing.
“Now, where were we?” Greyson purred, pawing the back of Reed’s head and pulling it into his own. The two stood in the entry of Reed’s apartment – a truly incredible fifteenth-story one-bedroom in the Upper East Side with its own doorman – making out until Reed had to pull away to catch his breath.
“Shit,” he said again, panting, “sorry. Thought the worst of this fuckin’ cold was behind mbe but – ISHHOO! Snrf. Apparently ndot.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and cringed. “I understand if you don’t want to stay,” he said, giving Greyson an apologetic look.
Greyson remained unfettered. “Reed,” he said, taking a step back towards the other man. “Stop talking. And get in bed.”
Reed’s face colored. He opened his mouth to say something, but Greyson cut him off with another kiss.
“What did I just say?” Greyson asked, taking off his t-shirt and unbuttoning Reed’s expensive-looking button down. “Get in the bed -” - he yanked the shirt off the smaller man and licked him, navel to collar bone, prompting a moan - “- and let me take care of you.”
To his credit, Reed did as he was told. He did as he was told all night long.
***
“Lij, I don’t want to alarm you.”
“Greyson, I don’t want to hear it. Zip it. I’m being so serious right now.”
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Greyson repeated, slamming the rest of the bottle of Pedialyte and holding onto the prep table as if for dear life, “but I think I may be dying. I think I may need you to call me an ambulance.”
Elijah swung his chair around and strode towards the chef. He took the sunglasses Greyson had placed on his face the moment he walked inside the bright kitchen and tossed them across the room. He regarded the chef with an annoyance usually reserved for parents of crying toddlers at Disneyland.
“Your drinking antics, Grey, are what most people would describe as ‘a you problem’. You decide to get unreasonably wasted and then come in to prep one of the biggest dinners of your career? That’s a you problem. I don’t want to hear it. The only thing I want to hear is your knife going into and out of different types of food.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to hear about the incredibly hot guy I hooked up with last night?” Greyson asked, a smile blooming at his lips. Elijah, despite himself, felt his eyebrows raise halfway up his face.
“But you haven’t slept with anyone in months,” he said, annoyed at himself for taking the bait but too curious to stop himself from saying anything. “I thought you were on a self-imposed time-out?”
Greyson shrugged, pushed his hair into a bun at the top of his head, and secured it with an elastic. “I was,” he said. “But - and you’re not going to believe this, but it’s true – I am finally feeling… I dunno. Healed?”
“Healed?” Elijah asked, snorting. “I think you’ve been taking too many hot yoga classes. Like, spiritually healed?”
Greyson tipped his head back and forth, considering. “Kind of,” he said. “Like… ready. Moved on from Collin. Prepared to get back out there for real, not in a self-punishing way.”
Elijah whistled, long and low. “Wow,” he said, patting Greyson’s back. “Well, congrats, man. A little over a year and you’re finally back on your feet. That’s actually quite impressive.”
“Thanks,” Greyson laughed, shoving Elijah playfully. “I was also really drunk and you know nothing stops drunk-Greyson when he decides he’s going to sleep with someone.”
“There it is,” Elijah said, rolling his eyes and laughing. “So… tell me about him. Did you get his name?”
Greyson dead-panned his boss as he pulled knives out of his bag and cracked his neck. “Yes, I got his name, Elijah. That’s what healed people do, they get people’s names before sleeping with them, and I am, as previously stated, healed.”
Elijah flipped the chef off lazily, non-committal. “Well, out with it then,” he said. “What’s his name? Tell me about the night.”
“His name is Reed Parker, and we fucked til the sun came out,” Greyson said simply, laughing at his own gregariousness. He looked up when he realized that Elijah wasn’t laughing – in fact, his face had gone stark-white. “What?”
“Reed Parker?” Elijah asked, pulling out his phone. “You’re sure that’s his name?”
“Umm, according to him at least, yeah,” Greyson said, unwrapping a pan with a cleaned striploin in it. “Why, do you know him?”
“No,” Elijah said, pushing his phone towards Greyson. “But if that’s him, we’re going to know him in two days.”
Greyson looked down at the phone and felt the wave of nausea he’d been holding back all morning wash over him – oh. Oh, no.
Pulled up on Elijah’s phone was an Instagram post from The Foodie Society – a group of well-acclaimed food critics and writers in the city. The group that was hosting a dinner at Elliot’s in two days. The group that would likely be the deciding factor in whether Greyson got nominated for a James Beard award this year.
We are so excited to announce Reed Parker, writer of the extremely popular food blog, ‘Eat Like You Mean It’, as our newest Foodie Society member! Reed has been a prolific writer and food critic in the city for nearly five years, and we are so delighted to have him aboard. Can’t wait to collaborate with you, Reed!
Above the blurb was a photo of – undoubtedly – the man that Greyson had slept with the night before. He looked markedly healthier in the photo, and his hair was a little longer, but there wasn’t any was it wasn’t him. Greyson swallowed hard.
“Oh… shit,” Greyson muttered, lowering himself to the floor. “Oh, no.”
“Maybe he was drunk, too?” Elijah said, the panic clear in his voice. “Maybe he won’t remember?” Elijah kneeled down next to Greyson, trying to console him. “Hey, Grey, it’s alright. Obviously you guys didn’t know who the other one was. It’s not like he’s going to think you slept with him to get the nomination. It was just drunk sex. Right?”
“He gave me an out,” Greyson muttered, shaking his head. He looked up at Elijah, eyes wild. “Maybe he did know, or maybe he figured it out on the walk back to his place, because he gave me a fuckin’ out.”
“What do you mean?” Elijah asked, pulling Greyson back to his feet. The chef stood, but placed his head in his hands and his elbows on the prep table, as if to steady himself.
“He was getting over some sort of sickness, and he said he’d understand if I didn’t want to stay. He basically told me to get out and I just… fuck. I told him I didn’t care, and I stayed the night. Shit. I’m never going to get nominated now. There’s no fucking way.” Greyson rubbed both hands down his face and shook his head in disbelief. “I fucked myself.”
“Greyson,” Elijah said, taking his friend’s chin and lifting it so their eyes met. “You didn’t fuck yourself. Okay? He didn’t know it was you. It was a mistake, and also he’s brand new there, it’s not like he’s THE deciding factor. Just – wait, did you say he was sick?”
Greyson, his chin still in Elijah’s fingers, looked away from his boss with just his eyes. “Uhh… I mean, yeah, kind of, I guess. He had some sort of cold, I think.”
“You purposely slept with someone who was sick three days before this huge dinner?”
“Umm… did I mention I was really drunk?”
Elijah sighed loudly and threw his hands in the air. “Never a dull fuckin’ moment with you, is there?” he mumbled, storming into the office and pillaging through their medicine cabinet. He returned a moment later with Emergen-C and Airborne in his hands. “Take those.”
“Yes, sir,” Greyson muttered, pulling them to his side of the table. “Sorry.”
“I think it’s crazy that out of all the millions of people you probably saw yesterday, the one you just so happened to pick is a food writer who could decide your future fate who also had a fucking cold. There wasn’t a single other person in the city you could sleep with?”
“Apparently not,” Greyson muttered, pouring Emergen-C into his water bottle. Elijah took a deep breath before continuing.
“Let’s just… let’s try to get through the next couple days,” he said, heading back to the office. “I am glad you want to get back out there,” he continued from afar, “just maybe give them a cursory Google before you bang them next time. Okay?”
Greyson, completely deflated, just nodded. He swallowed and thought he could already feel a twinge of a sore throat, which would just figure. His dick had sealed his fate. Fuck.
***
Tuesday, May 12
NEW MESSAGE
Matt
3:53pm
r u almost back??? idk how much longer I can handle them at each others throats.
Mark
3:58pm
On my way back now! Are they at each other’s throats again?? I thought they were over it..
Matt
3:59pm
has elijah ever REALLY been over smthn..? & greyson’s going down fast af so hes pissy.
Mark
4:02pm
It seemed like he was in the downward slide when I left...ugh. ok, I’ll be back in 15!
“We are ndot,” Greyson said from behind his sous chef, “at each other’s throats.”
Matt jumped at the sound of his boss’s voice and quickly clicked his phone screen off. “Don’t read my private texts, Chef, that’s rude.”
Greyson shrugged and pulled a tissue out of the box on the desk next to Matt. “Don’t talk shit about your boss and you don’t have to worry about mbe being ruuhh – huh! Hh...IGTSZHH-ue! Hh-NTSHZH-ue!” Greyson crumpled into the jacket he’d pulled over his chef’s coat to sneeze. His hair fell over his face, blocking the grimace he hid as he sucked in through his nose.
“Bless you, moron,” Elijah called from the dining room. Greyson rolled his eyes so hard he felt it splinter in his head. Matt winced when he saw Greyson shudder with pain, and stood from the desk.
“The prep sheets for tomorrow are all written, Chef, tell me how I can help you,” he said, guiding Greyson into the chair. Greyson allowed himself to be sat down, despite his better judgment.
“I feel pretty good about -”
“You feel pretty good? Is that a joke?” Elijah asked, pushing through the swinging kitchen doors and leaning on the office door frame. Greyson gave his boss the dirtiest look he could muster and turned back to Matt without a word to his boss.
“I feel confident about the first three courses for tomborrow’s dinner, but the steak and dessert I feel like we’re way behind. Plus I have ndo idea how the guys are looking for service tondight, so pick which one of those you’d rather tackle and I’ll – hhuh! Hh...HUHESTZHH-ue! Fuck, snrf.” Greyson grabbed another tissue and blew his nose before finishing. “I’ll do the other onde.”
Matt nodded while Elijah stood wordlessly in the doorway. “I’ll get with the guys and help them with tonight, make sure it goes smooth,” he said. Greyson nodded back and his sous looked away and scurried towards the line. Elijah, in stark contrast, pushed past Greyson and sat at the other end of their shared desk, unwilling to look away from the mess that was the executive chef.
“How ya feeling?” he asked finally. Greyson pulled another tissue out of the box just in time.
“HRTSHH-ue!” he sneezed into the tissue and let a tickling flurry of coughs escape as well. Elijah sighed, looked into the kitchen, and reached past Greyson to shut the door to their office.
“How are you feeling,” he asked again. “Seriously.”
Greyson sighed wheezily and pulled a hand down his face. “Honestly?” he said, looking Elijah in the eye, “like fuckin’ shit.”
Elijah sighed as well. “You seemed okay when you came in this morning,” he said, as though it mattered.
“I felt okay this mborning,” Greyson admitted. “I mean, I felt like it was coming but I definitely didn’t feel this… shitty.” He shrugged. “It just… I don’t kndow. Hit mbe out of nowhere.”
Elijah nodded. “I mean, if you want to leave so you’re good for tomorrow, you know I’ll understand.” Greyson just scoffed.
“I have so mbuch shit to do before tomborrow,” he said, sucking in through his nose and coughing again. “There’s ndo way in hell.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, until Elijah sighed. “Fuck, Greyson. I’m really sorry.” He looked up at his friend, the true pity evident on his face. “I know how important this dinner is to you. It’s still going to be great, okay? If you need to par it down, do it. It’s not like they know what’s on the menu til tomorrow. I’m cutting off reservations tonight so you can go home early, okay? We’re going to make this work.”
Greyson had to set his jaw to keep from tearing up. “It’s mby own damn fault,” he said. “Ndo need to baby mbe – hh...HTSHH-ue! HRTSHH! NTSHH! Huh! Huhhh-ETSZHHH-uee!” Greyson collapsed into his own lap, lapsed into coughs again. Elijah handed him a water bottle, which he took the cap off of while wiping his nose with the other hand.
“Can we go back to you being a dick to mbe?” Greyson asked, his voice rough. “That I can handle.”
Elijah pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. “Sure, Chef. Get your lazy ass up and start prepping,” he joked, pushing Greyson’s arm lightly. “Sitting is for the weak.”
Greyson smirked, an attempt at a laugh that wouldn’t make him cough. “Thanks, Lij,” he said. “Let’s get this stupid fuckigg show on the road.”
***
Course One
Compressed Cantaloupe
tarragon | smoked sea salt | brown butter crumble
Reed sat in the cushy, velvet chair and attempted to make himself comfortable. He hoped beyond hope that this dinner would go as quickly as humanly possible.
After their little rendevouz at the club, of course Reed had looked Greyson up; in this day and age, who wouldn’t look up their previous night’s partner, if only to make sure they weren’t some sort of psycho killer. And after he looked him up, of course he realized that oh. It was that Greyson Abbott. The same one whose food he was about to be poised in front of. The one who he and his fellow writers gathered around this table were tasked with deciding whether or not he was worthy of a Beard nod.
Of course.
Reed shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. The other writers had started talking immediately and, this being his first dinner with them, he was feeling awkward and left out. He really could have used the distraction of talking about their craft, but apparently he would have to earn a word tossed in his direction. This was going to be a long evening.
At least the restaurant is beautiful, Reed thought to himself. He’d never been to Elliot’s before, and now he was kicking himself for it. The wrap-around bar, the view of the park, the chandeliers… everything was gorgeous. He just wished he wasn’t here with these people, under the circumstance that his fling was in the kitchen plating up. That put a bit of a damper on things.
“Good evening,” a husky voice came from the head of the table, and Reed whipped his head to see a gorgeous plate of food placed in front of him, and the absolute god of a man he’d slept with a few days before standing just feet from him. Reed swallowed hard.
“I’mb Greyson,” Greyson said, and Reed immediately clocked the congestion in his voice. So you did give him that cold. Asshole, Reed chided himself. Greyson attempted to clear his throat before continuing.
“If you’ll excuse mby voice, I’mb at the tail end of a cold,” he continued, and Reed felt his face flame. Tail end, he thought. Yeah, sure.
“Our first course is compressed cantaloupe,” Greyson said. “I hope you enjoy. Pardon mbe, I have to get back to screaming at mby cooks.”
The group laughed in earnest as the chef walked away. Reed, too embarrassed to even look at the other writers, just picked up his fork and gathered a bite on it. He stuck it in his mouth and closed his eyes.
Christ, Reed thought, he cooks as well as he fucks.
Course Two
Hamachi
yuzu pearls | grapefruit | coconut crème
“I swear to God, Mbatt, what is goigg on?” Greyson yelled the moment he walked back into the kitchen. “We’re already behind, and none of the hamachi is on the plates yet? Can we please get it the fuck together che – ehh! HhITSZHH-uh! HRITSZHH-ue!”
Greyson yanked his chef’s coat over his nose and mouth and ducked away from the plates. The cooks called, “Bless, Chef,” and Elijah came up behind him with Sudafed – “The good shit, from behind the pharmacist counter,” he’d promised Greyson earlier, when he made an emergency trip to Walgreens for medicine – and popped two into his hand.
“I just took two,” Greyson croaked, sucking in through his nose.
“Well, it sounds like they’ve already worn off,” Elijah countered. Greyson swallowed the pills and coughed. “Is he out there?”
“Of course he’s out there, Lij, did you think he’d cancel because of mbe?” Greyson said, washing his hands and heading towards the pass to place hamachi on plates. “Like you said, hopefully he doesn’t remember.”
“Hard to forget a giant, loud, blonde buffoon who’s sporting the cold you just got over,” Elijah murmured, and Greyson flipped him off. “Just saying,” Elijah said.
“I don’t have timbe to think about him,” Greyson said, swallowing painfully. “I can’t think about anything but this.”
Elijah nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “Let me jump in with the pearls.”
Course Three
Lamb Lollipop
harissa | mint chutney | bbq ‘chip’
“Pretty incredible, right?”
These were the first words uttered to Reed all night, said moments after the third course was placed in front of him and seconds after Greyson disappeared back into the kitchen. Reed could see him dip into an elbow to sneeze before he made it back to the kitchen. He cringed; poor guy. This was all his fault.
“Reed?”
The writer who’d spoken to him waved a hand in front of his face to snap him out of his stupor. Reed pulled his head back to the table and smiled. “Really incredible,” he said. “I mean, this guy has talent.”
“For sure,” the other writer said. “I mean, he’s been hoping for a Beard nod for years.”
“Yeah?” Reed asked, hungry for any bit of lore he could get about Greyson. The other writer dug into his lamb as he nodded.
“About five years,” he said. “The menu is deemed as one of the best in the city, and he changes it every single day. I mean, the guy’s an animal.”
Reed nodded slowly. He could only imagine how hard Greyson had worked, how nervous he was, especially with Reed's stupid ass sitting here to judge him. Especially when Greyson was sick as a dog.
“That he is,” Reed said, and he took another incredible bite.
Course Four
Rutabaga Tart
fennel | feta | cured egg yolk
“Matt can put these on the plates, Chef,” Elijah said, putting a hand on Greyson’s back. “Take a quick break before you have to talk to them again. Drink some water. Blow your nose.”
Greyson shook his head, pushed the flop sweat off his forehead. “This is mby shot. These are mby plates,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “I’mb here until the end.”
Elijah pressed his lips together and flashed Matt a look. The sous chef just raised his eyebrows and gave a little shrug. Once Greyson was like this… well, there was certainly no arguing with him.
“Okay,” Elijah said. “I’ll make you some tea, then.”
“Thank you, Lij,” Greyson managed, before ducking under the pass to sneeze into the collar of his chef’s coat. “God, fuck, I’mb gonna have to throw this thing away after this.”
“More like burn it,” Matt countered, prompting the first laugh from Greyson all evening.
“Burn it is right,” Greyson said. “HHITSZHH-ue!”
Course Five
Striploin
deconstructed bearnaise | white asparagus | duxelle
The fifth course was placed in front of them, and the writers looked up expectantly at Greyson.
“Forgive mbe,” Greyson said, his voice strained to a whisper. “I’ve yelled mbyself out in the kitchen, so mby number-two will introduce your last two courses.”
The writers tutted or laughed and looked over towards the sous chef – everyone except Reed. Reed was staring at Greyson, hoping he could hear his thoughts. I’m sorry you’re sick. I’m sorry I’m here. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
The sous finished the description and the writers began to eat once again. Reed was sure he could hear the younger chef say to Greyson, “Just one more, Chef,” as they walked back to the kitchen.
Reed sighed and took a bite of his steak. He closed his eyes; perfection.
He did not deserve to be here.
Course Six
Matcha Milk Bombe
coffee | pastry crumb
Greyson placed the final pastry onto the final plate and turned away to cough as the servers brought his final plate of food to the critics. He felt like he was attending his own funeral.
“I don’t think I can go out there again, Lij,” Greyson said, shaking his head and crouching down on the ground. “I can’t look at all of themb, I’ve embarrassed myself enough.”
“You haven’t embarrassed yourself at all, Grey,” Elijah promised, pushing Greyson’s sweaty hair out of his face. “But I understand if you’re too exhausted. I’ll go out for the last one, thank them all for being here.”
“Please,” Greyson said. Elijah nodded, stood, and left the kitchen to meet the writers, while Matt nodded towards the office.
“Go,” he said to his boss. “Sit. You did it.”
Greyson shook his head. “Gotta clean mbyself up first,” he said, standing and moving towards the kitchen doors. “I’mb using the damn guest bathroom, fuck those pretentious assholes.”
Matt laughed in earnest. “You’ve earned it for sure, Chef.”
Greyson slipped into the guest bathroom, hoping no one saw him, and locked himself in a stall. Finally, he sat down and let himself go.
“HITSHH-ue!” Greyson sneezed into the open, then quickly grabbed a handful of toilet paper to keep from becoming the restaurant’s biggest biohazard. “HTTSHH! IIITZSCHUE! Huh! Hh…. huh, huhhh… huhhETSZHHH-ue! Huh! HRRRSHHH! Fuuuck mbe.” Greyson blew his nose, beyond exhaustion. He felt like shit. He knew he looked like shit. He’d put out shit food, he’d been in a shit mood… this whole thing was just… shit.
Finally, feeling a little more cleared out, Greyson flushed the toilet paper and unlocked the stall. When he exited, he nearly jumped out of his skin. There, in the doorway, was his fling - Reed.
“Jesus,” Greyson said, placing a hand on his chest. “Give a guy a fuckin’ heart attack.”
Reed shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then let Greyson by to wash his hands. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. Bless you. By the way.”
Greyson huffed out a laugh. “Thangks,” he said, drying his hands. “Sombe cold you’re passing around town. Shouldn’t you be finishing your meal? Or was it so bad you’re here to hock it back up?”
“It was incredible,” Reed said earnestly. “Truly, Greyson. Thank you. I… I’m sorry. For being here, for getting you sick, I – I didn’t know that this place was… um… yours.”
“Mmm, more Elijah’s than mbine,” Greyson mumbled, looking away from Reed’s face. “But, uh… thank you. Glad you enjoyed. Hopefully it's ndot for nothing.”
"I don't think it will be. They all had nothing but good things to say. I'm just the grunt, but I mean...you have my vote. You're... You're incredible," Reed said, the words escaping his mouth before he could even consider what he was saying.
Greyson tried to hide a small smile by looking down. They both stood awkwardly until Greyson cleared his throat. “I, uh… better get back to mby guys,” he said, starting towards the door.
“I had an amazing time the other night,” Reed blurted out suddenly. “I, um… I haven’t stopped thinking about it, actually.”
Greyson smirked, the tension finally broken. “Yeah?” he asked. Reed nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “You’re… you’re hard to shake.”
Greyson took a step closer to Reed, looking him in the eye now. He sniffled, rubbed his nose, and crossed his arms, a smile dancing on his lips. “Who are you, Reed Parker?” he asked. Reed’s face flushed bright red.
“I – I don’t know what you mean. I’m a food writer.”
“Mmm,” Greyson nodded. “Well, Reed the food writer who can’t get mbe out of his mind, at the moment I’m a bit, uh… incapacitated. But,” Greyson pulled a Sharpie out of his coat’s side pocket and grabbed Reed’s hand, “if I’m still rattling around in your brain in a few days… give mbe a call.” Greyson coughed into his shoulder, capped the Sharpie, and gave Reed a little smile.
“I will,” Reed said, biting his cheek. “Thank you. For, um… dinner.”
Greyson paused, thinking, then took a bold step towards Reed, grabbed his chin in his hand, and planted a deep kiss on his lips. “It was my pleasure,” he said, and stepped out of the room.
Reed stood, flushed and breathless, for a moment. The kiss sat, swelling his lips, sweeter than any dessert he’d ever had; he looked at the number on his hand, felt his heart catch in his throat.
Greyson Abbott, he thought, looking towards the bathroom door. Holy shit.
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suddencolds · 25 days
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The Worst Timing | [5/5]
we made it!!! part 5/5 + a mini epilogue (5.6k words) at long last 🥹 (aka the installment in which i remember that h/c has a c in it in addition to the h, haha.) [part 1] is here!
this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!
Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)
The world comes back to him in pieces—first the wooden panels of the ceiling, the sloped wooden beams. The coldness of the room, the slight, monotonous whir of the air circulating through one of the vents overhead.
He’s leaned up against the wall, seated on the floor in the hallway, and Vincent is kneeling beside him, his eyebrows furrowed.
It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He had been about to head back to the courtyard, hadn’t he? He doesn’t have much memory of anything that happened after, but judging by Vincent’s reaction, he thinks he can probably guess.
“Hi,” Yves says, for lack of a better thing to say. 
He watches a complicated set of expressions flicker through Vincent’s face—relief, first, before it turns to something distinctly less neutral.
“You’re awake,” Vincent says. He turns away, for a moment. Yves notes the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his grip—his fingers white around Yves’s sleeve.
“Was I out for long?”
“A couple minutes.”
Yves wants to say something. He should say something. Anything to lighten the tension, anything to get the point across that this is all just an unlucky miscalculation, on his part. It really isn’t something Vincent should have to be worried about. 
“I’m sorry for making you wait,” he starts. Really, what he means is, I’m sorry for making you worry about me. “I promise I’mb fine.”
The look on Vincent’s face, then, is something that Yves hasn’t seen before. 
“Why do you have to—” he starts, frustration rising in his voice. He sighs, his jaw set. “I don’t understand why you—” He drops his hand from Yves’s sleeve, and it’s then when Yves notices the stiffness to his shoulders, the tension in his posture. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out another short, exasperated breath. “You’re not fine.” 
It’s strange, Yves thinks, to see him like this—Vincent, who usually never wears his emotions on his face, looks clearly displeased, now. 
“Hey,” Yves says, softly. He reaches out to take Vincent’s hand. Vincent goes very still with the contact, but he doesn’t say anything. “I—”
Fuck. His body seems to always pick the worst time for unwanted interjections. He wrenches his hand away just in time to smother a sneeze into his sleeve, though it’s forceful enough to leave him slightly lightheaded. 
“Stay here,” Vincent says, getting to his feet. “Lay down if you get dizzy again.”
Yves blinks. “Where are you going?”
“To tell the others that we’re leaving.”
Yves wants to protest. Dinner is already halfway over. It’s not as if the festivities are particularly strenuous. They’ll probably move inside after dinner, where it’s warmer.
But he thinks better of it. Judging by how exhausted he still feels, how much his head aches, it probably wouldn’t be wise to push it. 
“Don’t tell them about this,” he says.
Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“Aimee is going to worry if she finds out,” Yves says, dropping his head to his knees. He doesn’t want to look at Vincent, doesn’t want to know what expression is on his face. “Just—let them have this night. It’s—supposed to be perfect.” I really wanted it to be perfect, he almost adds. There’s a strange tightness to his throat as he says it, a strange heaviness to his chest.
He knows what it means. If, after he’s tried so hard to do his part, their evening still ends up ruined on his own accord, he’s not sure if he could live with himself after.
For a moment, Vincent doesn’t say anything at all.
“Okay,” he says, at last. “Just stay here.”
And then he heads down the hallway. The door at the end of the reception hall swings shut behind him. Yves thinks he should be relieved, but he finds that he doesn’t feel much other than exhausted.
The ride home on the shuttle is silent. Vincent sits next to him, even though all of the other seats are empty. Yves thinks the proximity is probably inadvisable. He opens his mouth to say as much, and then shuts it.
Vincent sits and stares straight ahead, his posture stiff, and doesn’t say anything for the entirety of the ride. It’s strange. Yves is no stranger to silence—Vincent is, after all, a coworker, and Yves has endured more than a few quiet elevator rides and quiet team lunches at the office, but it’s strange because it’s Vincent.
Vincent, who usually takes care to make conversation with him, whenever it’s just the two of them. Vincent, who stayed up through the lull of antihistamines a couple months ago to talk to Yves, until Yves had given him explicit permission to go to sleep.
Yves tries not to think about it. Through the haze of his fever, everything feels unusually bright—the interior of the shuttle, with its leather seats and metal handrails.
The shuttle stops just outside the main entrance to their hotel. Just before he gets to the doors, he stumbles. Vincent’s hand shoots out, instinctively, to steady him.
“Sorry,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. It’s not that he’s dizzy. The roads are just uneven, and it’s dark. “I can walk.”
But Vincent doesn’t let go—not for the entirety of the walk through the cool, air-conditioned lobby, through the hallways to the hotel elevators. Not when the elevator stops at their floor, not when they pass by the grid of wooden doors leading up to their room. 
Before Yves can manage to reach for his keycard, Vincent has already swiped them in, scarily efficient. He slides the card back into his pocket, pushes the door open. 
“Thadks for walking me back,” Yves says. “Sorry you couldn’t stay longer. You mbust’ve been halfway through dinner.”
“I already finished eating,” Vincent says.
“Even dessert?” Yves says. “I think Aimee got everyone creme brulee from one of the local bakeries. I was excited to try it. Maybe Leon can save us some.” he muffles a yawn into his hand. It’s too early to be sleeping, but his pull out bed looks very inviting right now.
“Take the bed,” Vincent says.
Yves blinks at him. “What?”
“The bed’s warmer.”
There’s absolutely no way he’s going to let Vincent take the pull-out bed in his place, Yves thinks blearily. He’s spent the past couple nights muffling sneezes into the covers—if there’s anything he’s certain of, it’s that he really, really doesn’t want Vincent to catch this.
“I dod’t think we should switch,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve been sleeping here ever sidce I started coming down with this. I’mb— hHeh-!” He veers away, raising an elbow to his face. “hh—HHEh’IIDZschH’-iEEW! Ugh, I’mb pretty sure I contaminated it.”
“We can both take the bed, if you’d prefer,” Vincent says. As if it’s that simple.
Yves opens his mouth to protest—is Vincent really okay with sharing a bed with him?—but then he thinks about Vincent finding him in the hallway—the stricken expression on his face, then, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched—and thinks better of himself. 
Instead, he lets Vincent lead him to the bedroom. The bed is neatly made—the covers drawn, the pillows propped up against the headboard.
“Lay down,” Vincent says, pushing lightly down on his shoulders. Yves sits. He peels off his suit jacket, folds it, and sets it aside on the nightstand.
“Hey, I kdow that was sudden,” he says, in reference to earlier. “I’mb sorry you had to witness it. I… probably shouldn’t have pushed it.”
Vincent says nothing, to that.
Yves lays down, shuts his eyes. “You didn’t have to accompady me home, you know.”
Silence. He exhales, burrowing deeper into the covers. “It’s not as bad as it looks, seriously.”
He opens his mouth to say more. He has to say something, he thinks, to convince Vincent that it’s really not that big of a deal. Anything, to assuage that look on Vincent’s face.
But he’s so tired. He can feel the exhaustion now that he’s finally let himself lay down. The bed is traitorously comfortable, with its soft feather pillows and its fluffy layers of blankets, and Vincent was right—it really is warmer.
He feels the press of a hand on his forehead, feels the cold, unyielding pressure. Feels gentle, calloused fingers brush the hair out of his face.
“Sleep,” Vincent says, firmly. 
And Yves—
Yves, already half gone, is powerless, when Vincent says it like that.
When he wakes, it’s just barely bright outside. He takes it in—the first few rays of sunlight, streaking through the curtains. The bed, a little more well-cushioned than the pullout bed he’d spent the past few nights on—higher up and decisively sturdier. He blinks.
Beside him, seated on a chair he recognizes as belonging to the desk at the opposite end of the room, is Vincent.
Vincent, awake. Yves isn’t sure if he’s slept at all. He certainly doesn’t look tired, at first glance, but closer inspection reveals a little more. It’s evident in the way he holds his shoulders, stiff, and perhaps a little tired, as if there’s been tension sitting in them all night. 
He’s reading a book. Whether he bought it at the convenience store downstairs, or on one of the other days when Yves was busy running errands for the wedding and Vincent was elsewhere, or whether it’d been sitting in his suitcase since the start of the vacation, Yves doesn’t know.
“How’s the book?” Yves says.
His throat is dry, he realizes, for the way it makes him cough, afterwards. Vincent’s eyes meet his, unerringly. He shuts the book, sets it down on the bedside table.
“It’s a little boring,” Vincent says. “How’s the fever?”
Before Yves can answer, Vincent leans forward and presses the back of his hand to Yves’s forehead. His touch is unerringly gentle, and Yves allows himself to look. 
Vincent’s eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, and Yves wonders, suddenly, if he’s been this worried for awhile, now. If he’s been this worried ever since he’d walked them both back into the hotel room last night.
“I’m fine,” Yves says. 
It has the opposite effect he intends it to.
Vincent’s expression shutters. “The last time you said that, you passed out in front of me,” he says, withdrawing his hand with a frown. “So forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you.”
Yves sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s a fair point. “I’m usually more reliable whed it comes to these things.”
“What things?”
“Kdowing my limits.”
Vincent says, “I think you knew your limits. I think you just didn’t want to honor them, because you decided the wedding took precedence.”
He’s… frustrated, Yves realizes. Still. He’s sure he can guess why. Their fake relationship does not extend to Vincent having to look after him, to Vincent having to drop everything in the middle of a wedding, of all things, to take him home. To Vincent having to worry about all this—the fever Yves knows he has, now, and the bed he’s currently taking up—on top of everything else. As if being in a foreign country, surrounded by people he knows almost exclusively through Yves, who, for the most part, converse in a language he barely speaks, wasn’t already enough work on its own.
And Yves gets it. He hadn’t wanted this to happen, either. He’d told himself that if this—this pretend relationship, this pretense—is contingent upon both of them playing their part, the least he can do is be self-sufficient outside of it.
But now—because Vincent is here with him, and because they share a hotel room—all of this is now Vincent’s problem, too, by extension.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks.
Vincent smiles at him, a little wryly, as if the answer is evident. 
“You gave up your bed just for me to steal it,” Yves says, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s really comfortable, and all, but I’mb pretty sure they make these kinds of beds for two.”
“Is that a proposition?” Vincent says.
“Maybe.” Yves thinks it through. “Realistically, probably ndot, until I have a chance to shower.” He’s still dressed in his dress shirt and slacks from yesterday, a little embarrassingly—he should probably get changed. “Speaking of which, I should do that soon, so you don’t feel the need to stay up all night reading—” Yves leans forward, squints at the book cover on the nightstand. “—Hemingway? Somehow, I didn’t expect you to be the type.”
“I’m not,” Vincent says. “Victoire lent it to me.”
“Oh,” Yves says, trying to think of when Vincent would’ve had time to ask her for a recommendation. “Yeah. She’s—” He twists aside, ducking into his elbow. “hHEH’IIDzschh-EEW! snf-! She’s quite the literary reader. Is it really that boring?”
“I can see why people think the transparency of his prose is appealing,” Vincent says. “But I’m fifty pages in, and nothing has happened.”
“Isd’t that the sort of thing Hemingway can get away with, since he’s straightforward about it?”
“In a short story, maybe,” Vincent says. Then: “You are trying to make me feel better.”
Ah.
Yves laughs. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”
Vincent just sighs. “I would be exceptionally unobservant not to notice when I’ve seen you do the same thing all this week.”
“What?”
“Telling people that you’re fine,” Vincent says. “And distracting them when they don’t believe you.”
Yves doesn’t think that’s entirely accurate. It’s not like he was trying to be dishonest. It’s just that it was never the most important thing to address.
“Distracting is a bit disingenuous.”
“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, with a frown. “You’re so insistent on putting yourself last, even when you were obviously—” He sighs. There it is—that expression again, the one that makes itself evident through the furrowed eyebrows, the tense set of his jaw—frustration, and maybe something else. “You’re surrounded by people who care about you, so why not just—”
“There are plenty of things more important than how I’mb feeling,” Yves says.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
But of course it is, Yves thinks. A wedding is a once in a lifetime occurrence. An illness is nothing, in the face of that.
“I promised I’d be there,” he says, because when it really comes down to it, it’s true. He had no intention of going back on his word. “I didn’t want to be the one to let them down. Is that so hard to believe?” He reaches up with a hand to massage his temples. His head aches, even though he’s slept for long enough that he feels like it ought to feel a little better, by now. “It’s already bad enough that I had to drag you into this.” 
“You didn’t drag me into this,” Vincent says. “I came on my own volition.”
Yves tries a laugh, but it’s humorless. “I made you leave halfway through the wedding dinner.”
“I’d already finished eating.”
“Ndot to mention, you practically had to carry me upstairs.”
“Because you’re ill.”
“That’s no excuse.” Yves wants to say more, but he finds himself beholden to a tickle in the back of his throat—irritatingly present, until he concedes to it by ducking into his elbow to cough, and cough.
When he looks up, blinking tears out of his vision, Vincent isn’t looking at him.
“You should get some rest,” he says, simply.
Yves can tell—just by the way he says it—that there is no argument to him, anymore. Just like that, Vincent is back to being closed off—poised and perfectly, infuriatingly unreadable, just like he is at work, his face so carefully a mask of indifference, even in the most stressful presentations, the most frustrating disagreements. Yves wants none of it.
 “Hey,” he says. A part of him itches to crack a joke, to change the subject—anything to take away this air of seriousness. A part of him wants to reach out, again—to take Vincent’s hand, entwine their fingers; to reassure him, again, that he’s really fine.
“I’m sorry,” he says, instead. Maybe it’s the fever that loosens his tongue. Maybe it’s just a combination of everything.
He can feel Vincent’s eyes on him, still. Vincent has always held a sort of intensity to him, a quiet sort of perceptiveness. “I’m not sure I follow,” Vincent says.
“This visit was supposed to be fun for you,” he says. “And now you’re here, stuck in the hotel room because of me, even though today was supposed to be for sightseeing.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. What can he say to make it enough? There’s a strange ache in his chest, a strange, crushing pressure. Yves is horrified to find his eyes stinging. He’s held it together for so long, he thinks. Why now? Why, when Vincent is right here?
But a part of him knows, too. Of course traveling to a different country would be more involved than going to a party, or spending an evening at a stranger’s house. But there was a time when he thought this could really just be a fun excursion for the both of them—half a week in his family’s home country, with someone who he thoroughly enjoys spending time with. 
And now, because of this untimely illness—or because of his own short-sightedness in managing it—it isn’t. He didn’t get to stay through dinner, didn’t get to wish Aimee and Genevieve a good rest of their night, like he’d planned to. He has no idea if things went smoothly in his absence. To make matters worse, Vincent is here, having endured a sleepless night, instead of anywhere else.
And really, when he thinks about it, who does have to blame for all of this, except himself?
“I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this,” he says. “So I’m sorry.” He resists the urge to swipe a hand over his eyes—surely, he thinks, that would give him away.
He turns away. It’s convenient, he thinks, that the embarrassing sniffle that follows could be attributed to something else. 
“You’ve been nothing but accommodating to me, this whole visit,” Vincent says. “If anything, I should’ve insisted that you take the bed earlier. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
He says it with such certainty. Yves opens his mouth to protest this—or to apologize, for all the times he must’ve kept Vincent up, including but not limited to last night—but Vincent presses on.
“You spent all of yesterday morning helping everyone get ready, and when I got back, you apologized for not being around—as if the reason why you weren’t around wasn’t that you were so busy making sure everything was fine for everyone else.” Vincent pauses, takes in a slow, measured breath. Yves is surprised to hear that he sounds… distinctly angry, in a way that Yves is not used to hearing.
“And then you showed up to the rehearsal and the wedding, even though you weren’t feeling well. And you still think you have something to apologize for? Are you even hearing yourself?” Yves hears the creak of the chair as he stands, the sound of quiet footsteps. Feels the dip of the bed as Vincent takes a seat at the edge of it. 
“You know, after you left the dinner table, Genevieve was talking about how much she liked your speech? Do you know that yesterday morning, Solaine told me how grateful she was that you helped her with fixing her dress? Do you know that when I got lunch with Leon and Victoire, they told me how much time you spent preparing for everything—the speech, and the wedding, both?”
Oh. Yves hadn’t known any of those things, and he knows Vincent isn’t the kind of person who would lie about this sort of thing.
“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, sounding distinctly pained to say it. “How could you possibly think that you haven’t done enough?”
Yves finds himself taken aback—by the frustration in his voice, by the fact that Vincent has noticed these things in the first place, by the fact that he’s deemed them important enough to take stock of. He makes it sound so simple. 
“I don’t know,” Yves says, at last. He shuts his eyes. “If it was enough.”
“I’m telling you that it was,” Vincent says.
But Yves knows that he could have done more, if the circumstances were different. If he hadn’t been so out of it during the wedding. If he’d taken the necessary precautions to avoid coming down with this in the first place. If he’d been able to stay through dinner, at least; if he hadn’t needed Vincent to accompany him home. 
“You don’t believe me,” Vincent says, with a sigh.
Yves doesn’t say anything, to that.
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Vincent says. There’s the slight rustling of the covers as he shifts, rearranging one of the pillows at the headboard. “But I had fun.”
Yves’s heart twists.
It’s sweet, unexpectedly. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better,” Yves says.
“When have I ever said anything just to make you feel better?” Vincent says, with a short laugh. When Yves chances a look at him, he’s smiling down at himself. “I mean it. Meeting your family has been a lot of fun. It’s not often that I get the chance to be a part of something like this.”
Whether he’s referring to France, or the wedding and the festivities, or being surrounded by Yves’s large extended family, Yves isn’t sure. But if Vincent is trying to cheer him up, it’s working.
“I can see why you like France so much,” he says, turning his gaze out the window, though the view outside is filtered through the semi-translucent curtains. “It’s beautiful.”
“Today was supposed to be the last day for sightseeing,” Yves says, a little regretful. “But you’re stuck here.”
“In a sunny, luxurious hotel room, with a view of the pool and the garden?” Vincent says, with a scoff. “I could think of worse places to be.”
Staying up all night, just to check up on Yves, more accurately. Vincent must be tired, too—yesterday was already tiring enough. And now it’s morning already, and he hasn’t gotten any sleep. 
“Reading Hemingway,” Yves adds.
Vincent looks a little surprised. Then he laughs. “Yes. I guess you’re right. Perhaps it’s an agonizing experience after all.”
The yawn he stifles into his hand, after that isn’t half as subtle as he tries to make it.
Yves feels his eyebrows creep up. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? There’s plenty of room.” He scoots a little closer to the edge of the bed, just to make a point.
Vincent peers down at the space beside him, a little hesitant. “At 10am?”
“It’d be, what, 4am, back in Eastern time?” Yves says. “By Ndew York standards, you’re supposed to already be asleep.”
“That’s not how it works,” Vincent says, but he dutifully moves a little closer to Yves anyways. He’s changed out of yesterday’s wedding attire, more sensibly, but now he’s wearing a knitted cardigan which Yves thinks looks unfairly, terribly good on him. Yves finds himself marveling at the unfairness of it all. How can someone look so good wearing something so casual?
Vincent smells good, up close. When he lays down next to Yves, pulling the covers gingerly over himself—leaving a careful amount of room between them, but still dangerously, intoxicatingly close—Yves feels his breath catch in his throat.
Vincent is right there, less than an arm’s length away from him, closer than he’s ever been, and Yves—Yves is—
“See,” Yves says, as evenly as he can manage to, in his current state, as if his heart isn’t practically beating out of his chest. He swallows. His throat feels dry. “This bed definitely fits two.”
“I suppose it does,” Vincent says. “Now you can tell me if I’m a terrible person to share a bed with.”
“After everything I’ve put you through,” Yves says, “I think I’d honestly feel reassured if you were.”
Vincent smiles, again, as if he finds this humorous. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”
“Positive,” Yves says. “You should sleep. I’ll wake you if I ndeed anything.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.” Vincent shuts his eyes.
It’s not long before his breathing evens out, not long before he goes perfectly still. He must really be tired, Yves thinks, with a pang.
Yves, for some reason, finds that he can’t get to sleep. He stares up at the ceiling for what feels like minutes on end, shuts his eyes, all to no avail. Maybe it’s because he’s already slept far more than his usual share. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Maybe it’s merely Vincent’s unusual presence—the strangeness of having him so close, in an environment so intimate.
But when he allows himself to look, he sees—
Vincent, his eyes shut, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks. From the window, the filtered light gleams unevenly across the crown of dark hair on his head. There’s almost no movement to him at all, aside from the even rise and fall of his shoulders.
And Yves knows what the feeling in his chest is. He’s regrettably, intimately familiar with it.
He just isn’t sure he likes what it means.
Vincent—despite falling asleep so quickly—is up before him. When Yves wakes, next, it’s to a hand to his forehead.
“Hey,” Vincent is saying, softly. “Yves. You have a visitor.”
Yves opens his eyes.
He’s feeling—a little better, remarkably. Still feverish, still a little unsteady, but leagues better as compared to yesterday. When he looks over, he sees—
He doesn’t jolt upright, but it’s a close thing. “Aimee!”
He barely has a chance to ask before she’s crashing into him, encircling him in a tight hug. “Yves!” she exclaims, pulling back from him. “How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, when I heard you left early because you were unwell, I was so worried…”
Yves grimaces, turning away. “Sorry, I had every idtention of staying until the end—”
“You came all the way out with the flu!” she says. “I honestly can’t believe you. The fact that you still took the trouble to attend with a fever—”
“It—” Yves starts, but he finds himself twisting away, lifting an arm to his face. “hhEH-! HEEhD’TTSCHH-iiiEEw! Snf-! It’s fide, snf-! I’mb practically recovered already.”
“I should’ve told you not to push yourself when you told me you were coming down with something,” Aimee says, shaking her head. “And you stayed and gave such a lovely speech, even though you weren’t feeling well? When I was talking to Victoire after, she mentioned that you’ve been sick for days and Genevieve—you should’ve said something.”
“I’ll say somethidg next time,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. “Did the wedding go okay?”
Aimee visibly brightens, at this. “It was more than okay,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “It blew every expectation that I had out of the water.”
Aimee fills him in on everything that happened after he left, last night—dessert, the first dance, the cake-cutting; her favorites out of the photos they’d taken after the ceremony (a shot of Genevieve braiding her hair during the cocktail hour; a shot of them leaning in close, for the dance, tired but smiling; a shot of the cake with its multiple tiers, the frosting strung like banners across it; another where both of them are holding onto the cutting knife together and Genevieve looks like she is trying not to laugh; a shot of the bouquet toss, the flowers suspended in mid-air). She tells him about the conversations she and Genevieve had with others about marriage and their futures and their plans for their honeymoon.
Then she lectures him on how he should worry about his health first, next time. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she’s fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind the next time he tries to pull something like this. She insists that his health is more important than anything. Vincent stands off to the side the entire time, his arms crossed, passively listening in, but when Yves looks over helplessly, mid-lecture, he definitely looks a little smug. 
All in all, she doesn’t seem disappointed in him at all. And, more importantly, she seems happy. Yves finds himself relieved, at this.
Genevieve stops by, too, a little later, to thank him for the advice he’d given her the day before the wedding. She hugs him too, and she leaves him a bag of tea that she promises “is practically a cure to anything—I hope it makes your flight home tomorrow a little more tolerable.” Victoire stops by, with Leon, and Yves resigns himself to more lecturing from the both of them. It’s humbling, a little, to be lectured by his younger sister and his younger brother, though he concedes that perhaps this time, it might be at least partially warranted.
Then Leon opens their hotel fridge to show him the two creme brulees he and Vincent had missed out on, packaged nicely in small paper containers. (“Vincent told me you were interested in these,” he says, and Yves finds himself slightly mortified—but perhaps also a little endeared—that whatever it was that he’d said last night, offhandedly, Vincent had deemed it important enough to text Leon about.)
Later, after Yves showers and gets changed—when he and Vincent eat the creme brulees at the table in the living room, and Vincent tells him that he’s finished the book, perhaps a little masochistically (“it doesn’t get any better,” he says, sounding a little spiteful)—Yves finds himself smiling.
He’s happy, he realizes, despite everything that’s happened. Even with the slight headache, and the lingering congestion, the fever that hasn’t quite gone away entirely. The revelation comes as a surprise to him, at first. But when he thinks about the people he’s surrounded with, he thinks perhaps it isn’t all that surprising.
EPILOGUE
“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Vincent asks.
“Yes,” Yves says. It’s not a lie.
This time, he’s seated right next to the window, and Vincent is in the middle seat. Yves had offered to take the middle seat instead, but Vincent had insisted(“If you wanted to sleep, you could lean against the window,” he’d said, and Yves had accepted only because it would be better to fall asleep against the window than do something embarrassing, like fall asleep on Vincent’s shoulder).
“It’s just the annoyidg residual symptoms, now,” he says. “I—”
God. He always has the worst timing. He veers away, muffling a tightly contained sneeze into his shoulder.
“hHEH-’IIDDZschH-yyEW! Snf-! I’mb — hHhEHh’DjjsSHH-iEW! Ugh, I’m fine. I feel better thad I sound.”
“Bless you,” Vincent says, leaning over to press his hand against Yves’s forehead. “No fever,” he says. “That’s good. But you should take another day off when we get back.”
Yves doesn’t think taking another day off is necessary. “I spedt the entirety of yesterday sleeping,” he says. “I think I’ve rested enough.”
Vincent just raises an eyebrow at him. “Need I remind you that someone very wise told you to take it easy?”
“Since when has Aimee been your spokesperson?”
“She made a lot of good points,” Vincent says, deceptively unassuming. “I think you should consider taking notes.”
Yves looks at him for a moment. “You’re laughing at me.”
This time, Vincent smiles. “Maybe.”
Yves leans back in his seat, reaching up with one hand to massage his temples. The changing cabin pressure is not exactly comfortable—his head still hurts a little, but he’s flown enough times to know that it won’t be as much of a problem once they finish their ascent. 
“Thadks again for coming,” he says, unwrapping one of the small, packaged pillows the airline has left on their seats. 
“You invited me,” Vincent says, blinking. “All I did was show up.”
But that isn’t true at all, Yves thinks. Vincent is the one who spent time learning basic French, who met Yves’s family and who spoke with everyone with genuine interest, who bought Yves medicine and water, all while being careful to not be overbearing. Vincent is the one who left the wedding early to walk Yves back to the hotel, who stayed with him the entire day afterwards.
“That’s such a huge understatement I don’t even kdow where to get started,” Yves says. “Thanks for meetidg my family—they love you, by the way. They’re going to be askidg about you every summer from now on, I just know it.”
He can already picture it—June, this year, after busy season is over, if their fake relationship lasts that long. Another flight where they’re next to each other. Another dozen conversations about how they’d met, about what it’s like dating a coworker, about what their plans for the future are.
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. This was never meant to be a long-term arrangement in the first place. But something about this—about being here with Vincent—just feels so unthinkingly easy.
“It’s no problem,” Vincent says. “The feeling is mutual. I’m glad I got to meet them.”
“Thanks for looking after me, too,” Yves says, with another apologetic smile. “I’mb sure being stuck in a hotel room all day wasn’t how you were planning on spending your last day of vacation.”
“I don’t mind,” Vincent says, sounding strangely like he means it. “I like spending time with you.”
Yves nearly drops the pillow he’s holding. 
When he looks back at Vincent, Vincent looks faintly amused. “Is that so surprising? I think I’d be a terrible fake boyfriend if I didn’t.”
“You make a really good one, as it stands,” Yves tells him, sincerely, and Vincent smiles.
Yves looks out the window—where the city beneath them begins to resolve itself into miniature, where the sky stretches where he can see Vincent reflected faintly back at him, from the glass—and finds that he feels impossibly light.
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lots-of-pockets · 1 year
Text
Everythings gonna be okay
Pairing: Scarlett x you
Words: 2078
Warnings: none that I know of
Summary: You and Scarlett had recently broken up. When you go to her house to pick up the last of your things, you see that she was nowhere to be found. Despite your better judgment, you decide to go and investigate. The sight that greets you all but breaks your heart.
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You let out a near silent curse when you ring the doorbell for the third time and receive no answer. All you wanted to do was grab the rest of your things. You'd taken most of it the day you'd both decided to end things, but there were a few heavier items -such as your desktop computer- that you were unable to take with you due to the sheer size and weight.
Using your key was a last resort, something you didn't want to have to do unless it was absolutely necessary because, as much as it breaks your heart to admit, you weren't her girlfriend anymore. You couldn't just come and go as you please. That privileges was out the window the second you'd broken up.
But apparently you didn't have a choice, because the longer you stand here, the more evident it becomes that she wasn't going to answer the door. Your key slides into the lock with that same familiar ease, and your eyes take in the familiar sight of her entry way as you tentatively push open the door and step inside.
It looked the exact same, except for the light layer of dust lining each and every surface. Weird. Scarlett was, in the most polite way possible, a clean freak. She liked order and often became grumpy when things were even the slightest bit out of place.
You go to blame it on her just being busy, but the sight in the living room immediately halts you in your tracks. There were tissues everywhere, and there was that slight smell in the air of sweat and just overall sickness. You hate the fact that your stomach sinks in concern, because there was only one rational thing that could explain this.
Scarlett was sick, and had obviously been so for quite some time.
You couldn't help but freeze on the bottom of the staircase in a silent debate on whether or not you should go up. The part of you that was still very much in love with her wanted nothing more than to take care of her. But the ugly part of you, the one who was still so hateful over the ugly breakup wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of here.
She'd been the one to distance herself. She'd been the one to not make time for you, and she'd been the one who'd told you to pack your things and get the hell out of her sight. Why should you repay that with kindness? Because you loved her, that's why. And despite the fact she'd broken your heart, the last thing you wanted was to see her suffer.
It wasn't like you. It never had been, and it never would be.
With a defeated sigh, you grasp the hand rail and begin to ascend the long staircase. You make it to the top in no time, and find yourself hesitating for only a short second before making your way down the hall towards the bedroom you'd once called your own.
You stand there like an idiot for what feels like forever before you finally find the courage in you to grasp the handle, and and as you push down, that same smell that had greeted you downstairs, only a little more intensified, was quick to fill your nostrils.
Scrunching up your nose in slight disgust, you enter the room and softly close the door behind you.
The curtains were closed encasing the room in a heavy darkness, but that doesn't stop you from being able to make out Scarlett's small figure laying in the centre of the large bed. You warily make your way over, and the first things you notice were the red tinged nose and quiet snores escaping her slightly parted lips. Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were flushed, signalling she had quite the fever, and you notice her body was trembling almost violently.
Before you could stop yourself, your hand was reaching out and brushing away the sweaty strand hair that had fallen into her face. That action almost immediately rouses her, and you wince slightly as her eyes blearily flicker open.
"Hi," you murmur, tentatively perching yourself on the end of the bed. "You're sick."
Scarlett furrows her eyebrows, almost as though she couldn't quite believe you were here. Her eyes, glassy from the fever induced haze were bloodshot, pupils huge telling you that she hadn't been getting very much sleep.
Her trembling hand reaches out for you, and you only hesitate briefly before taking it, the pad of your thumb instinctively grazing over the almost too warm skin.
Then, without any warning, her eyes fill with tears, her bottom lip trembles, and she was letting out a stifled sob before attempting to sit up. You frown in concern as you scoot yourself a little closer, leaning forward and slipping an arm beneath her body before tugging her to your chest. She lets out wet, gravely sounding cough when her sobs catch in her throat, and you wince at the painful sound as you use your other hand to cup the back of her head.
"It's okay," you murmur into her hair, "you're okay. I'm here. I've got you."
Scarlett let's out a choked sob as she shakes her head, and you let out a soft, defeated sigh as you hold her as close as you could. She smelt less than pleasant, so you knew once of your tasks today would be getting her into the shower.
This was the last thing you'd expected to happen. If you were being completely honest with yourself, you'd expected her to be mad for invading her space. To tell you to go away just as she'd done no more than a week ago. A part of you still expects that to happen, because you knew this whole emotional mess was just her fever talking. She didn't actually want you here, but you couldn't just leave her to cry.
You hold her close for a few silent moments before easing her body back down onto the bed, bringing your hands up to cup her cheeks. "I'm going to get you some medicine, okay?" You gently wipe away the tears with the pads of your thumbs.
Scarlett's trembling hands reach to grasp your wrists, almost as though she was silently pleading to you to not let go.
Her touch sends shivers throughout your whole entire body, and you just about manage to refrain from pulling yourself of her her grasp as you force the corners of your lips into a small smile.
"It's okay," you reassure, "I'll be back."
Thankfully, though she visibly hesitates, Scarlett does let you go, and you try and make your breath of relief as subtle as possible as you make your way through to the bathroom. In here was just as, if not worse than her bedroom, and you make a mental note to give it a thorough clean before you leave as you grab the Tylenol and cough medicine from the cabinet.
When you make your way back through to her bedroom with your arms full, you notice that Scarlett was now sat up against the headboard of her bed. She appears to be staring into space, and your lips quirk up at the corners in slight adoration as you climb in next to her.
"Here," you murmur, pouring the correct dose of cough medicine into the small plastic cup before handing it over. Her trembling hand takes it, and she sniffles wetly as she tilts it back and swallows with only a slight grimace. You ignore the urge you have to praise her as you hand over the Tylenol and water, watching as Scarlett repeats the same steps as before.
This time, however, she must have swallowed wrong, because she begins to cough forcefully into her hands. You watch her, eyebrows furrowed in concern as you reach out to steadily pat her back.
"Take a deep breath, you're okay." You sooth, and Scarlett nods, trying her best to comply despite the fact she seems to be unable to catch her breath. Her chest heaves with each ragged exhale, and her already flushed cheeks taking on an even darker shade of red signalling not enough oxygen was getting into her lungs. You were forced to swallow the tightness in your own throat.
"Scarlett, breath." You instruct as you reach to grab the bottle of the water from the nightstand, your hand still firmly patting her back. Scarlett attempts to let out a hoarse breath, but she does no more than choke further.
By now, panicked tears were streaming down her cheeks, and you could feel your own heart beginning to pound. Hauling her body into your arms, you lay her down on her side and raise her arms above her head. You lay behind her propped up on your elbow, resting your hand against her heaving chest and rubbing firmly.
"You're okay. I'm here. You're okay." You sooth, pressing a tender kiss against the side of her head.
Scarlett let's out another wet cough before somehow managing to catch her breath, and it was only then does let out a soft sob. With tears in your own eyes, you tug her around to face you and pull her against your chest. You hold her as close as you could, your hand grazing soothing circles up and down her back. Your other hand cups the back of her head, fingers combing through her tangled tresses.
"I-I don't.. don't feel w-well." She chokes out as she desperately clutches at your shirt, and you nod as you press your lips against the top of her head.
"I know baby." You murmur, "I know."
She stifles another sob against you at the nickname, and you instinctively tighten your grasp around her. You hadn't meant to say it. It had just slipped out because that was all you ever used to call her. She's your baby. Or well, she was. You feel your throat tighten at the thought, and you swallow heavily to refrain from bursting into tears as you hold Scarlett close.
A comfortable silence soon falls upon you with the exception of her slightly hoarse breathing, and it wasn't long until you feel Scarlett fall limp against you signalling she'd fallen asleep.
*
A few hours later, you find your self sat in the bathroom with your back to the tub. Scarlett was curled up in the water, sniffling softly as the hot water clears her congestion. Not a word had been spoken since earlier, but the silence surrounding you wasn't awkward. It was almost...comforting, which was surprising considering the circumstances.
But the silence doesn't last for long.
"I'm sorry." A quiet murmur.
You turn your head slightly, seeing the bare skin of her back from your peripheral vision, "For what? Getting sick? That's not your fault."
Scarlett sniffles softly, "No, not for that. For...for what happened. A week ago." She explains, her voice trailing off into a soft, trembling murmur.
You let out a soft breath as you twist a loose thread hanging off of your jeans around your finger, "You don't have to apologise. What happened, happened. It's in the past."
Everything was silent again, but the shuddering breath that escapes from Scarlett's lips does not  go amiss. It has you turning to face her, and your heart breaks when you see her crying silently. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her bottom lip was trembling as though she was trying to hold back the onslaught of sobs.
"Scarlett..." you trail off, not knowing what to say.
Her lips quirk up into a sad smile as she wipes off her cheeks, "It's okay." She whispers.
With a soft sigh, you shift to your knees and lean forward to press a kiss to the warm skin of her forehead. As you pull away, you raise a hand to cup her cheek, the pad of your thumb grazing softly over her skin. "We'll talk. When you're better. Okay?"
"Okay." Scarlett murmurs, reaching up to cover your hand with her own.
**
I’m open to a part 2 if you guys want it!
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prohistamine · 3 months
Text
M Allergies, 1.6k words
I'm back with another fic gang. This time featuring two high society exes reuniting at a fancy gala. In proper prohistamine fashion this one features allergies, a character with the fetish, and fun power dynamics.
Be warned! somewhat explicit sexual content and general unforgivable horniness
“Lovely of you to come, truly I’m so glad to see you both.” Lorna shook the minister's hand in hers, firmly and warmly. A handshake practiced a thousand times over. “Ms. Windsor arrived a few minutes ago I believe, I’m sure she’d be delighted to catch up on your party's substantial victories in the recent election.”
As he turned away Lorna selected a flute of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and took a healthy sip. She’d need it to get through the rest of the night. She turned towards the door, ready to resume her assessment of each new guest as they arrived, but when she saw the man who’d just walked through the doors her stomach dropped. His dark hair was shorter than the last time she'd seen him, falling in waves around his face. He looked smug as ever, and when he caught her eye he started walking her way. 
“Colin,” she murmured through gritted teeth, “I didn’t think you’d be caught dead here.”
Colin grinned thinly. “Ah well, you would assume I’d choose to be petty, you always thought the worst of me.” 
She scoffed. “That is a charitable way to describe two years of you repeatedly lowering my expectations.”
“Now Lorna, can’t we put the past behind us? What is it we always said, not to let pleasure interfere with our business?” 
“Stirring up unnecessary rumors will interfere with business. Don’t you think it’s a bit soon for us to be speaking in public? The dust has barely settled, people will talk.” 
“‘Oh the worst fate!” he said in mocking horror, “to be the victim of gossip! Do you think we’ll make it out alive?” 
“Oh of course, because you're so above petty politics. I’m the one who’s obsessed with gossip and you just let it roll off your back.”
“Do you think you could say that again for me? Maybe I can get it on tape.” He smiled and rubbed at his nose absentmindedly. 
“You know what? I’m glad you came. I really missed that familiar little headache you gave me. It's this sort of… gentle throbbing at the base of my skull? I’m just not the same without it.”
“I knew you missed me. I missed the exercise I got from our conversations, we should really make a habit of it.” He rubbed his nose again, with more intention, and was she imagining it, or was the motion accompanied by the faint sound of wetness? 
“Are you just here to flaunt your ability to get yourself out of bed?” Lorna asked, “ Because if so, point proven. This is kind of an important night for me.”  
“Ah well, I’m glad you recognize my presence as the achievement it is, but I do have something to-” he cut himself off with a sniff and a scrubbing at his nostrils, “something to discuss. I have to ahh- hehh-” Lorna recognized the face he was making immediately, the far away look in his eye, the crease between his eyebrows. His buildup was, as always, dramatically long before he snatched his handkerchief out of his pocket and sneezed into it twice “AaaSCHU!  AaaeSTCHU!” As always, there was no attempt to stifle his violent outburst. He looked up at her blearily, “Ah, pardon me.”
There was a faint smirk in his tone. Lorna scowled. Of course this would happen, just what she needed when she was already struggling to maintain her composure. 
“Bless you.” she managed to say, intent on keeping her voice even. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of having a reaction. 
“Thank you I- oh there's- Aaah- ahh- AhGHSHUU! AESHTEW! AEGHEEW! Huhh. There were more.” 
Despite her frustration, the familiar heat was rising in Lorna’s stomach and traveling down between her legs. Composure be damned, she leaned forward and hissed into his ear. 
“Are you doing this on purpose?” 
He chuckled. “Oh that would have been brilliant. I’m not that cruel, I'm afraid, or that creative. It must be the floral decorations. I’m desperately allergic, you see.” 
Oh he was fucking loving this. 
“People will stare you know. You’re embarrassing yourself.” She was looking for any way to take back power in the conversation, and she realized she’d been sloppy the moment she spoke. 
“Embarrassing myself?” he asked smugly, “Oh you’d love that wouldn’t you.” 
“I’m leaving.” 
“C’mon now Lorna, I do have something important to discuss. How about we go out onto the balcony to talk. No worries about prying eyes, and the fresh air will be good for my nose.” 
Lorna cast a glance at the large glass doors leading out to the south balcony. They had fabric drapes in front of them, placed intentionally for anyone desiring a conversation away from the eye of the press. Regardless of the privacy they’d have once they got there, people would be sure to notice the two of them leaving together. The smart decision would be to tell him she wasn’t interested in talking, but she desperately wanted a break from the crowd, and, pathetic as it made her feel, she wasn’t sure she could pass up the chance to continue watching him sneeze. It had been months since she’d had the pleasure, and she was beginning to feel like a woman starved. 
“Fine.” 
“Marvelous.” he said, words slightly muddled with congestion. 
They made their way across the room, no doubt incurring the whispers of several guests.
Once they’d stepped outside and shut the doors behind them, Lorna turned to Colin only to see his face skewed in preparation for another sneeze. 
“Hehh- Hhh- HhhSTCHU! HaAGHSHEW- I ha- hhh hhASHEW! I haahh- hadn’t realized it was …it was-” he held the handkerchief in front of his face expectantly as he struggled through the sentence, head tilted back as he gulped in air to fuel the fit, “ATZSHUU! ASHEWW! R-realized it was so… ahh- AschUUu! so cold out here.” 
A sufficient chill had settled in the air since the sun had set, something Lorna hadn’t even considered. Colin was wearing nothing but a simple suit jacket, and he’d always been incredibly sensitive to changes in temperature. Just going outside in cold weather usually caused him a small fit, and the combination with his fall allergies was having quite the effect. He blew his nose into the folds of his handkerchief and then geared up for more. 
“heeSGHEW! EESGHEW! HESHEWW!! Hehh- haaahh- ahh- ASHEW!” He was bending at the waist now with the force of them, and reached blindly to his left in search of the balcony railing, which he leaned on for support once he found it. 
“Huhh-hhhh-hhoh god- heeehSHUUH! EESHEW! HEERGHSTEW! ESH-ESH-ESHU!!
The fit was punctuated by three violent little sneezes that tripped over each other to be released.
Since the moment he’d first sneezed, Lorna had felt like she was putty in Colin’s hand. His intimate knowledge of just what his allergies did to her gave him a maddening and tantalizing power over her. However, as he desperately wrenched forward with sneeze after sneeze, one hand shakily clasping a handkerchief to his face and the other doing its best to keep him upright, it was hard to see him as holding any kind of powerful position. For the first time that night she felt a twinge of pity for him. The feeling both frustrated her, and, of course, only served to further arouse her. 
His fit finally subsided, and he slumped against the railing, gasping for breath. 
“Sorry,” he managed, too exhausted to sound properly smug. 
“Don’t be,” she couldn’t help but reply, her voice high pitched and obvious. She was so wet that she was worried it might actually start dripping down her legs. They both stood there for a moment in silence. 
“So,” he started, still somewhat breathless, “about the election-”
“Colin-” she interrupted him, “I appreciate the effort to resume our professional relationship, but I don’t think I can listen to you talk about politics after that performance.” She knew she had admitted defeat, but in the face of his sniffling, shivering frame she found she no longer desired to one up him. What she really desired was to fuck him, to ease him open with her fingers and fill him up until he couldnt see. That or be fucked by him, bent over and  begging for it as he held her by the hips with his big hands. 
“I understand,” he said, “another time then. Perhaps then, before we go inside, I could talk to you about something expressly unprofessional.” 
“Have at it Colin,” she said, trying not to sound like she was begging for it. 
“There's something I’d like to show you. I warn you, it’s somewhat inappropriate.” 
She felt her heart flutter in her chest, “I can handle that.”
He took a step toward her and then took her wrist. He guided her hand forward, lowering it beneath his waist and then pressing it between his legs where an erection was straining against the fabric of his dress pants. She moaned audibly at the surprise. 
“Do you see what you’ve done to me?” he murmured into her ear, “this is what happens to me now, every time I sneeze. I can’t help it.”
“Colin,” her voice was strangled. 
“How am I going to explain this to future lovers? You know how I get in the spring, I’ll be hard constantly. What will I say if they notice my cock twitch every time I sneeze? Every time they sneeze?” 
Lorna’s clit was throbbing. Colin gave a liquid sniff, and she moaned again, body shuddering against his. Her hand closed slightly around his cock and he gasped sharply.
“My nose still itches terribly,” he murmured, accentuating the statement with another sniffle, “It would feel heavenly to rub it on something soft.” 
“Please,” she begged him. 
He leaned down slowly, placing a hand firmly on her hip, and dragged his nose across her shoulder, rubbing it in the nape of her neck. She trembled at the feeling of his soft nostrils, shifting as they rubbed against her, leaving her skin slightly wet. 
“Fuck, that feels nice,” he said softly. She could do nothing but whimper in response. 
She let it go on for a moment, their bodies intertwined, her hand on his cock and his nose buried against her. It took everything in her not to pull him into a kiss. Instead she stepped back, and wiped her shoulder with her hand. 
“Thank you,” she said, wrangling her voice back to her well-practiced professionalism, “for that stimulating conversation on politics.” She took a moment to compose herself, taking a long deep breath and then continuing, “I have a gala to host, and you have one to attend. I think it best we continue this conversation later, after the guests have left. Perhaps in my personal chambers. You’d have to be discreet about staying behind of course, we wouldn’t want my guests to suspect we’re doing something illicit.” 
Colin looked taken aback, and then broke into a wide grin, “Of course ma’am.” 
She turned towards the door and then, before opening it, turned back towards him. “This does not mean I forgive you, " she said sternly. 
Colin’s eyes sparkled. “Of course not.”
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poiub55 · 9 days
Text
I was gonna flesh this one out into a proper story but f*ck it, the rest of the proof is left as an exercise to the reader
minors DNI. No age in bio = instant block
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Group of friends. A is relatively new to the group. B has The Kink™ and has told a couple other close friends in the group about it
All piling in a car to go somewhere
Oops, we're one person too many
Oh well it's only a short drive, someone will have to double up
hey B, why don't you sit on A's lap? You're little and they're strong and can hold you tightly
As they get underway, B sitting sidesaddle on A's lap. A quickly becomes very sniffly.
A: Were you lying in the grass earlier, B? Something's really messing with my nose.
B (futilely brushing at their clothes): oh god, I'm so sorry. I didn't think about it...
C (aware of B's kink and watching the predicament unfold with great delight; passing across an unopened pack of tissues): At least wipe A's poor nose for them, B... here.
D (driving): Gonna get bumpy for a few mins, hang on back there
A (tightening their arms around B's waist, eyes drifting shut, breath beginning to hitch): So sorry, B... I... h-have to...
B: (fumbling with tissues, blushing, extremely aware of A's arms around them and strong thighs beneath theirs as the car begins to bump and vibrate)
C: Just hold it back for a few more seconds, A. B's got you.
B: (manages to open the tissues at last, unfolding one and pressing it to A's nose and mouth)
A: (with a small nod of gratitude, immediately begins a prolonged and helpless and apologetic sneezing fit into B's hand, body jerking and arms tightening round B with each sneeze, fingers pressing into the soft skin of B's waist and legs where they're holding them)
Others in car: (blessing A and commenting on their sneezes in astonishment/pity)
C: (watching the whole thing in open-mouthed fascination)
B: (literally cumming in their pants and trying to be quiet about it)
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sunflower-snz · 7 months
Text
I was bored so I thought I’d make some “autumny” prompts because who doesn’t love some of those: 
feel free to use!
🥶 - Chills 
🤒 - Fever 
💞 - Cuddles 
🧥 - “I thought I told you to wear a coat.” 
🔇 - Losing their voice 
🌾 - Late seasonal allergies 
☕ - Making Tea 
🍵 - Making soup 
🎃 - Halloween/Costume 
🛒 - Impromptu Pharmacy Trip 
😷 - “Sharing is not caring!” 
🍁 - Harvest Festival 
💔 - Date night gone wrong 
🦃 - Thanksgiving  
🌟- Stargazing 
🏘️ - Cabin fever (literally) 
🧣 - Wrapping a scarf around the other 
🌧️ - Unexpected Rain 
🧤 - Forgotten Gloves 
🤧 - Endless Sneezing 
📚 - Shared reading
🌑 - Power Outage 
🦉 - Cosy Night In 
🛁 - Long, Hot Baths 
🚗 - Road Trip  
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zensations35 · 20 days
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It's Manual Fucking Labor (Luci/fer)
Been working on this one for a bit. I love the delicious rivalry between Al and Luci, so I toyed with that a bit and made it spicy with some snz. I also am really enjoying the text flair I'm getting to play with for all these characters, so I hope yall are liking that. Ahaha. Enjoy!!
“That one needs to go over here!” Charlie points as she heaves one of the freshly slated planks of wood for the hotel revamp. “Can you cut three more for us, dad?” she smiles sweetly at Lucifer who sits crosslegged in front of a pile of wood.
He nods, dragging the back of his arm across his forehead.  “I, uh, I’ll go head and do that, sure.” 
Her eyes are bright and full, like the sun he never saw. “Dad,” she beams at him, “thank you for this.”
He tilts his head, “For what, Char Char?”
“For helping. For putting in so much effort. For,” she pats one of the planks, “for wanting to do it this way.”
Lucifer’s brows rise. “Th-this way?”
Charlie strides off before he can ask her to elaborate. His eyes flick back to the uncut wood and his lips tip down in a pout. 
“Problem?” A staticky trill sends Lucifer’s hackles up. 
“What?” Lucifer snaps, grabbing one of the slabs of wood, dragging a sharp claw deftly down the middle and cutting it as if it were a razor saw. Small fluffy flakes snow the air around him, making his cheeks fuzz. “Hhhfff…” his brow scrunches and a flush spreads from the circles on his cheeks. “Hieh--HiSFFH!” 
Alastor skips over, peering down in amusement as sawdust skitters all around the fallen angel.
“Hm, quite shoddy,” the Radio Demon observes, tapping his cane against the plank with a squeal of feedback.
Lucifer finishes cutting the planks and coughs, wringing out his hands. “It’s manual labor, Alastor. I doubt you’d understand how to even do it.”
“Ooooh I see.” Alastor leans dolefully on his cane, “bonding with our dear Charlie with handmade projects?”
Lucifer sniffles, scrubbing his face with his whole fist. “Mh-hyep.”
The smugness surges by 60%. “Ohh, are we having trouble??” 
“No! Of hh-c-course n--” Lucifer’s voice starts to pitch higher and higher, “Hig’Sshieu!” 
Alastor lets out a keening laugh.
“Fuck off, Alastor, before I make you,” Lucifer growls.
Alastor tuts at him. “No need to be cranky, your highness.”  He pulls out a red and black handkerchief, but Lucifer waves it off with a cool huff. 
“I don’t need your hanky panky.”
A whistle of radio silence whines in their ears. Lucifer cocks a black eyebrow.
“What? What’d I say?” 
Alastor sighs and tucks the cloth back into his suit pocket. “Not that you’d use it without a nose, anyway.”
“Hey!” Lucifer snaps, fangs glinting. “It’s complicated!” 
“Far be it from me to inquire how your…extremities manifest.”
“You--snf--you--hieh!” 
Alastor cups a hand over his ear, patiently waiting for the rest of the sentence, nothing but sass in his daggerlike smirk. 
“I-I’m gonna--hhg’HGx’SHIeu!” This time, several puffs of flame escape from between his fangs, and Charlie finally realizes something is going on with her dad. 
She hurries over after setting down what she was working on. “Dad, what’s wrong?”
Lucifer palms the spreading flush on his cheek and gives an unconvincing bray of a laugh, “Noh-huh-thing! Nothing at all! Perfectly fine!”
Alastor hums, lifting one of the smaller slabs of wood, his stance casually askew. “Of course he is, Charlie!” he saunters toward Lucifer, ever the helpful little elf. “He was just about to get started on--oh, my, let me just…” the Radio Demon scrapes his hand across the wood, brushing the powder from the last sawing off of it and directly into Lucifer’s fucking face. “There we are! Oh dear…” Alastor feigns concern as small spirals of smoke begin to coil out of Lucifer’s snarled lips. 
That fuck! He did that on phhh-pur-hhh!
His face scrunches, fangs peeking, rimmed by an orange glow as he lets out high pitched whines, “Ieh hiiih! HIP’CHSS’IEψ!” flames mist like aerosol, catching the flakes of wood shavings and motes of dust in its heat, cooking them into flakes of gray ash. The hellfire rejoices but the King sighs. 
He wipes away fresh tears and lets a vague chuckle out. “Ah, Charlie, sweetie, perhaps we could speed up the process? I could just, ah,” he angles his elbows and dances his arms, “Zap a bap!” he does a little finger gun shot. “Yeah?”
“Ah, poor, Charlie,” Alastor clucks his tongue, fingers drumming across her shoulder, “I know how excited you were to do this by hand with your father--what was it you said? A bonding moment?” his voice is anything but altruistic. “But if he can’t handle it, I suppose it would be best to do things the easy way…” his teeth clack caustically.
Lucifer seethes. his teeth warping and curling. “I’m fine,” he decides, fighting back a throatful of air. 
“A-are you sure, dad?”
Lucifer flaps his hand dramatically. “Absotively! Don’t w-Huh! Worry!” 
Charlie doesn’t look one hundred percent convinced but if he says he’s fine, and wants to continue, then they’ll continue. She gives him two more boards to cut and hurries off to work on another section. 
Lucifer turns back to the unfinished planks, his shoulders simmering with translucent fog. Alastor continues to observe in silent amusement.
“Are you going to help at all?” 
“Maybe.”
Rrgh. Lucifer throws himself to a standing position, muttering under his breath. I swear to me, if Charlie didn't like that guy I would…
Well, there’s a lot he would do. Especially if he were…”Hiiet--” 
Fuck me to here!
 He needs to get a handle on the fucking fire. “Hgk…” Lucifer gulps the throatful of heat, his body taut with a shiver. His fingers squeeze the plank he’s holding and… ”Hi-ih-IEH⛧GHSHHIEUψu!” 
Instead of flames, five feathers pop out and flit around the short King, catching the breeze and running off into the wind. A couple of them float near Alastor who looks irritated at them, waving them away with a chop of his hand and a staticky, “How very uncouth…”
Lucifer’s pride flares and his grin grows wicked.
“Weelllll,” he unfurls his six wings, exaggerating them with a flex. “I better get this installed up there.” 
Lucifer quakes his wings and smacks them down, clouding the ground below his knees with dust and shavings. He shoots into the air, spinning away from the source of his allergens as he rubs at his teary eyes and flushed cheeks. 
Fuck Alastor, that prick. He deserves a bit of karma. Would Lucifer really be at fault if he were flying and he just happened to lose a few feathers? If they just by chance were to fall into that jackass’s face??
As Lucifer flies, a few feathers wilt from his wings--by accident of course! And, as predicted by divine oracle, they just happen to float down near the red haired Radio Demon, currently distracted while helping Charlie with something frivolous, Lucifer is certain. 
The feather drifts…soft downy catching the dying light in a soft pink glow. Slow, deliberate. It coils, totally by accident of course, right down beside the Radio Demon, and nudges the left side of his nostril. He blinks, now distracted from his work. His crimson eyes flit up but another brush of the cottony down makes his lids ripple shut.
“Hh-hh!” 
His shoulders spike and he thrusts a hand up to shoo away the feather, “Ss٨ﮩﮩZH! Hgk٨ـﮩﮩ” 
“Alastor!” Charlie spins in surprise when his mic clatters to the ground. 
He gives a feeble attempt to wave her away but she puts an arm around him comfortingly. 
“Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down. You just recovered after all--” 
Lucifer watches with an indignant pout as his daughter comforts the wrong person. He doesn’t miss the not-so-subtle flash of Alastor’s smug grin as he allows Charlie to lead him away, leaving Lucifer to finish the rest of the work by himself.
God fucking dammit.
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autumnsneezes · 3 months
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A little romantic snzario for you...
A & B have had a hard week. They haven't had much chance to see each other, stress has been high, sleep has been low, and they just need a break. So, when Friday rolls around, they're more than happy to order a takeaway and look forward to a night of spending time together.
After eating, though, they realise it's a rare, clear night, and it seems like a wasted opportunity to not go and see the stars. Grinning at each other, they bundle up, grab a heavy duty blanket for the ground, two flasks of hot chocolate, and a large sleeping bag to snuggle into together.
You see, not too far from where they live is a lovely place of natural beauty. There are no artificial lights, and minimal people, but a great, open space to chill out, as well as a forest and a stream not too far away. Perfect for stargazing.
They set up camp, giggling as their sighs of awe turn to vapor instead, and pressing close together. With the sleeping bag and the blanket beneath them, their bodies are nice and toasty. But their faces are obviously exposed, and soon, the chilly air starts to make them both a touch sniffly.
Neither care. The beauty is worth it, their stress is melting away, and they haven't smiled so much in ages.
Eventually though, the sniffles lead to tickly sneezes. Sneezes that build with itchy hitches and are pressed into each other's necks, because although they remembered torches they definitely forgot tissues. Sneezes that are wet enough to need them to rub their cold, pink nose in the dip of their partner's shoulders, sniffling incessantly, as their partner whispers a reverent blessing, and presses gentle, loving kisses to their temple, forehead, cheek, and nose, giggling as they set each other off again...
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undercover-horn-blog · 2 months
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By the way, let me just say as a PhD student that we are totally underutilised in sickfic!
The pressure to perform. Late nights at the office. Forced to give talks while sick. Sick at a conference, trying to network while hiding the worst cold imaginable.
The camaraderie between PhD students working in the same lab! Always being aware when one of us is coming down with something. Bringing each other tea. Helping each other with work. Encouraging each other to take it easy or go home.
Or, you know, my supervisor is lovely, but what about a mean boss? Pep talking the sick person before their meeting with the PI? Or before an internal presentation during a lab meeting?
Forced to carry out experiments while ill because otherwise it will all have been for nothing and there is truly nobody who could take this off your hands because they don't know your work well enough. Forced to write while running a temperature, none of the words make sense, but you need to keep going.
I could go on.
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hockeynoses · 5 months
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“If I’b dnot careful I’b goddaaa – haaah… I’b godda gedt everyeeehh - hih’GGKSSHH’IUE! Ughhh, I’b godda ged everyond sigg.”
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allergyenthusiast · 22 days
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Dreadful Timing (Haz/bin Ho/tel, Al/astor, wip)
No, no, no. Not now.
Ideally, not ever, but especially not now.
Alastor's slated to be on air in five or so minutes, and he's not about to forego his punctuality just because of a tiny, insignificant tickle. It dawns on him, just how ridiculous the situation is; he's an all-powerful, almighty, feared Overlord of Hell who can slaughter denizens in the blink of an eye, but can't fight back against a would-be sneeze. Hell, he can't even sneeze on command. Anything at the snap of his fingers, with this one silly exception...
In theory.
It's a poor idea. Stupid and horrifyingly desperate. But he's alone, and the radio tower is an entirely separate entity; everyone in the hotel knows better than to come knocking between the hours of x and y. He casts a cautious glance at his shadow, chides himself for being afraid of a literal extension of his demonic form, triple checks that he's not broadcasting, and snaps his fingers.
Seconds pass. The itch is no better or worse. Nothing's changed. He's one of the most feared entities this side of Pentagram City, known for his fantastical methods of brutality with the sheer, raw power to do whatever he wants. Ripping souls to pieces? Easy. Shoving creatures into dimensional pockets of eternal suffering? Piece of cake.
Conjuring a microscopic cloud of dust for the purpose of coaxing out just one sneeze? Oh, heavens no, that's asking far too much.
Alastor’s gearing up to take his frustrations out on anything outside with a pulse, but the second he's on his feet he starts to feel it. That slow, smoldering itch in the back of his nose starts crawling forward, and in just the right light, he sees the faint wisps of dust floating carelessly in the air.
Finally.
The clock is still visible through his fluttering lashes, and as the tickle sets in, so does the realization that he's made a mistake. Fortunately, he's actually plenty capable of creating dust particles; they just so happen to be the kind that turns the intensity dial from two to eleven.
(No, he did not miscalculate and ask for too much. He's just that talented when it comes to torture of the nose.)
What would otherwise be a small lapse in judgment sits heavy in his head. The radio demon does not make mistakes, alone or with company. (He's also fairly certain that Vox tunes in now and then, and if Alastor isn't on time with his show, he'll never hear the end of it.)
"Hh-h!"
Hurriedly, he checks his pockets.
"Hihh-hh! Ehh... F-fuhh-fuck."
Alastor resigns himself to a shameful fate of one cloud of dust and exactly zero handkerchiefs. Oh, he shudders to think of what la mère would have to say about his lack of manners. Absolutely trembles at the thought; feels it in the arrhythmic shaking of his shoulders, his ebb and flow of tightness in his chest.
"hh-! Ihh-heh!"
'I'm alone. I'm alone, I'm alone, everything's fine.'
And yet, his instincts win out. Isolated or not, there's an unwavering urge to suppress any sign of weakness, any lack of control, anything that puts him on the same level as all the others. Alastor presses the back of his hand to his nose, rubbing with precise fury as his internal mantra marches on in time with each hitchy gasp and the occasional groan of discomfort.
"Ehh-hh hihh! Hehhdt--! ... Hhhah-!"
His nostrils flare against his fingers, eyelids heavy with urgency, chest rising and falling in these awful, unpredictable, uncontrollable increments. Alastor can't keep his lips from parting further, from falling out of his signature smile. He's not fully dressed without one. He's exposed.
Vulnerable.
'I'm alone. No one else will know. I'm alone, I–!'
“Hheehh-hih! Hihh-heht-!”
'I really need to sneeze.'
It's almost funny to realize that this may be the last truly human thing about himself, the way his hand limply flutters near his face right before he sneezes. Old habits really do die hard. His head lulls back, and immediately snaps forward in a graceless act of release.
"Ehhdht-zzzshiw! HIIH-SHDZZSHU! Oh," he blinks rapidly through the tears of irritation forming at his lash line, "pardon meeee-eehshizzew! Fuck, I--haah!"
Just can't seem to stop--!
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whiskey-tango-matcha · 3 months
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Three (m/m, cold)
And now, for something completely different.
Well, not completely - it's still a cold fic lol. This one is specifically for @ghostlychill who has asked for more Matt and Mark. This is basically the saga of how they ended up together, and it is certainly out of my wheelhouse because it actually has romance lmao. A pre-warning, this is plot heavy (for me) and a little sneeze light. There are a few Greyson cold sneezes, and Matt is sick for the latter half, but it's more of a romance sickfic than a true snz fic. But I hope you like it if you read it; let me know if you all want more Matt and Mark. They were honestly really fun to write, and I banged this monster of a fic out in just a few hours so the muse was musing.
Ok, done rambling. Enjoy :)
CW: Male, M/M (not sexually explicit, just kissing), colds, contagion, coughing, fevers, light mess. 4.3k words under the cut.
Three
Their first kiss was an accident.
Post-brunch. Pre-holidays. “Grab a beer?” Mark had asked as Matt stuffed his dirty chef coat into his backpack. It had become a bit of a ritual for the two of them to grab a drink after a long shift in the past few weeks; usually it was under cover of darkness, but this brunch had been particularly brutal and Matt was craving not just a beverage, but some commiseration. He shrugged, hoisted his backpack onto a shoulder.
“Sure. You’ve got first round.”
One round had quickly turned to two, then three, and before five pm hit they were drunkenly crashing their pint glasses into each other and talking much louder than the half-full pub required to be heard. Matt drained his fifth beer and looked to Mark, smiling sloppily. “One more?” he asked.
Mark pushed his hair out of his face and leaned his head into one hand, taking the other man in. “If it’ll keep you in my line of sight,” he said, emboldened by booze, “I’ll stay here all night long.”
When the bartender finally kicked them out around eight, the two men were so drunk they had to use one another as walking sticks to get down the block.
“We’re way too drunk to be on the street,” Mark laughed, putting a hand over one eye. “I’m seeing, like… quadruple.”
“That’s wild, ‘cause I can’t see at all,” Matt said, looping his arm through Mark’s. The two of them laughed and stumbled until they hit a bench near well-lit central park and flopped down.
“I can’t remember where I live,” Matt admitted, placing his head on Mark’s shoulder. Their arms had stayed looped. Mark gently placed his head atop Matt’s.
“Me either,” he said. “But… can I tell you a secret?”
Matt looked up. Nodded.
“I don’t want to go home,” Mark said, letting a slow smile spread across his face. Matt felt his cheeks flame; he let a beat pass before he smiled back.
“Me either,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Later, they wouldn’t remember who initiated it. All they would remember was when their lips pressed together, everything else melted away.
***
“Oh! Oh, shit, fuck, sorry guys I didn’t -”
“Chef, shit! Oh, fuckin’ hell -”
Greyson slammed the door to the bathroom shut, leaving Matt and Mark to stare at one another, eyes wide as saucers – the silence between them thick as the cigarette smoke that hung in the air outside that little room.
Finally, Mark broke the silence. “Um… do you think he saw anything?”
Matt couldn’t help it; he barked out a laugh. Mark slapped a hand across the other man’s mouth, making him laugh even harder. He really didn’t know what he’d been thinking following Mark in here in the first place.
Much like the stupid party they were hiding from in the bathroom, their second kiss was clearly a mistake.
The New Year’s Eve party had been Elijah’s idea, much to the surprise of literally everyone at the restaurant.
“What?” Elijah had asked when his announcement during pre-shift had been met with a stunned silence. “I thought you all loved parties!”
The servers and cooks eyed one another in a way they all hoped wasn’t completely obvious, until finally Greyson said what everyone was thinking. “Boss, yeah, everyone loves parties… except you.”
Elijah had scoffed at this. “You guys obviously don’t really know me; I love parties.”
Of course, Elijah didn’t love parties and it ended up moving from his roomy condo to Greyson’s tiny Brooklyn apartment at the last minute. Post-service on New Year’s Eve, Matt helped his boss load extra bottles of champagne, vodka, and tequila into the back of the restaurant’s van all while Greyson grumbled about Elijah.
“Fuckin’ Elijah,” Greyson said for about the fiftieth time that evening. “Why the fuck would he even mention a party if he wasn’t a thousand percent sure he wanted to ho – hh-”
Matt glanced up at his boss, who held an arm midair in anticipation. This was the real reason Greyson, who threw parties at his place at least three times a year, was pissed about having to host the work shindig: he was sick.
“Hh-! HhhITSZZH-ue!” Greyson folded over into his elbow, sniffled, and cleared his throat.
“Bless,” Matt offered, placing the rest of the alcohol into the back of the car. “Chef, I’m sure that everyone will understand if you don’t feel up to having twenty people in your apartment. There’re tons of parties right around here, why don’t you just… call it off?”
Greyson, stubborn as ever, just shook his head. “I said I’d do it. They’re already on their way.”
So Matt loaded into the van with Greyson, and Mark got in Elijah’s car with the GM while the rest of the staff hopped on the subway for the party that no one really wanted to be at. Greyson, who’d been able to keep his illness at bay for most of the shift thanks mostly to the Sudafed he kept slamming, started coming down hard the moment they began their drive to Brooklyn.
“Hh...hhITSZZH-ue! Huh-! ETSZH-ue! Fuck mbe,” Greyson muttered, using his sleeve to wipe under his nose with one hand while he drove through the busy Manhattan streets with the other.
“Um… do you want to pull over so I can drive?” Matt asked, a little more pointed than his boss was used to him being. Greyson shot his sous chef a look.
“Ndo,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
Matt was hardly a germaphobe – working in a kitchen bred that out of you pretty quickly – but he couldn’t help but cringe away with every sneeze and cough that came from his boss’s side of the car. He found himself thinking about Mark; they had plans to hang out in just a few days, plans that both of them had been forced to cancel multiple times already, and Matt could just feel Greyson’s germs making themselves at home inside his body. He really didn’t want to cancel on Mark again; he wasn’t exactly sure what they were, what he wanted them to be, or what Mark thought they were, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to fuck it up. Matt was entirely too good at fucking up a good thing.
“HRRSHH-ue!” Clearly, that one snuck up on him, because that time Greyson barely covered his mouth. Matt shrank into the door and considered pulling his shirt over his nose and mouth in a desperate attempt to keep his boss from infecting him. Greyson glanced over at Matt and coughed out a laugh.
“Sorry, kid,” he said, patting Matt’s leg, “but you’re probably already fucked.”
Eventually, they made it to Greyson’s walk-up and after what felt like an eon, they got everything inside. Elijah immediately recruited Mark to help pour champagne for everyone, and Greyson left his sous to go outside and smoke on the patio – Matt had no choice but to just start drinking.
By the time the cooks and servers made it to Greyson’s apartment, Matt was half in the bag. He floated sloppily from group to group, telling jokes and prompting everyone to take shots with him, all while keeping one eye on Mark at all times. Elijah had been keeping his liege busy; Mark was bartending, putting appetizers in the oven, picking up trash… everything except hanging out with Matt. So when he finally got to take a bathroom break, Matt threw back his tequila soda and, emboldened by liquor, followed behind him.
“Hey, it’s occ-” Mark started to say when the bathroom door opened right on his heels – but he was cut off when Matt swung him around, grabbed his face in both hands, stood on his tiptoes, and pressed his lips firmly on the other man’s.
Mark certainly wasn’t pulling away; in fact, the moment their lips touched, Mark grabbed Matt by the hips and lifted him onto Greyson’s tiny vanity to make the kiss easier on both of them. Matt pulled away for just a moment to look at Mark – his black-framed glasses were askew, his hair was wild from Matt’s hands coursing through it, and his face was flushed with lust. Matt was sure he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
“What was that for?” Mark asked, his voice low. Matt’s face cracked into a smile.
“I haven’t gotten to spend any time with you tonight,” he said, pushing Mark’s hair away from his face. “And I’m probably gonna have to cancel our plans on Monday.”
Mark’s brows knit together, confused. “Why?” he asked. “Is this, like, a fare-thee-well, this is the last time this will happen kiss situation?”
Matt laughed, shook his head. “No,” he said, cocking his head towards the door, where the party rumbled outside. “I’m, like, 99% sure Greyson infected me with his disgusting illness on the long-ass drive over here. I wouldn’t force you to hang out with me when I’m inevitably sick.” He shrugged. “So I figured I’d sneak some time with you where I could.”
Matt didn’t wait for Mark’s response about his impending doom; he just leaned in again. This time, Mark parted his lips and slid his tongue in to meet Matt’s. Matt allowed a quiet moan to escape his lips, let his hand feel its way down to Mark’s shirt, and began unbuttoning when the door flew open once more.
“Oh!”
Greyson.
***
“Chef, I am not in the mood today.”
“Oh c’mon, if I can’t poke fun at your drunken antics then what’s even the point of living? You make fun of my drunken antics all the time.”
Matt put down his knife and gave his boss a pointed look. “Yeah, maybe for like a day after they go down, but New Year’s was three days ago. Are you planning on ever letting it go?”
Greyson shrugged as he pushed onions into a deli container and snapped the lid shut. “Probably not. I mean, it’s just too good – caught red handed in my bathroom. Like, it couldn’t have happened more perfectly if I wrote it myself.”
Matt rolled his eyes; while Greyson living for his embarrassment was annoying, it was kind of the last thing on his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about Mark – after the bathroom kiss situation went down, he’d slipped out of the party and hadn’t mentioned anything about it to Matt since. Matt assumed he wanted to put it out of his head. Maybe the kiss – both of the kisses – hadn’t felt to Mark like they did to Matt. Maybe Mark was put off by how drunk Matt had been both times. Maybe he just wasn’t into him.
All Matt knew was, he desperately wanted to talk to Mark – but despite working the same hours in the same tiny restaurant, Mark had managed to avoid him like the plague.
Speaking of which.
“HTSHH-uh! Hh! Hh’ITSHH-uh! ETZSH-ue!” Matt turned away from the food to sneeze into his shoulder, then his hand, then finally his elbow. Greyson stepped over and plucked Matt’s knife out of his hand while the younger man was compromised.
“You’ll take someone’s eye out that way,” he chastised, placing the knife on Matt’s cutting board. The sous rolled his eyes, sucked in through his nose, and trudged to the sink to wash his hands.
“I don’t want to hear it from you, Chef. You’re the fucking plague rat of this restaurant,” Matt murmured, pulling a hand down his face. This was the other issue: Matt and Mark were supposed to hang out tomorrow, but just as he predicted, Matt had been gifted the cold Greyson had on New Year’s. If Mark didn’t want to talk to him when he was healthy and just a few steps away, he certainly wouldn’t be traversing the city tomorrow to hang out with Matt when he was fever-addled and snot-ridden.
“Rude,” Greyson said, continuing his prep. “But not entirely untrue. Sorry you’re sick.”
“Whatever,” Matt grumbled, his bad mood amplified by his pounding head. “Can you just drop the bathroom situation?”
Greyson bit his cheek to keep from smiling. “I can certainly try.”
Matt knew that meant ‘no’, but he’d take what he could get. He picked his knife back up to start chopping broccoli, but almost cut himself when Mark slipped into the back kitchen.
“Chef?” he asked, prompting both Greyson and Matt’s heads to shoot up. Matt’s face flamed when Greyson swiveled his head to meet his sous’ eyes with a cheeky grin – he put his head back down, pretending to focus on his work.
“Yes, Mark, how can I assist you?” Greyson asked, wiping his hands on the towel next to his cutting board. Matt felt Mark shoot a quick glance his way; his cheeks burned with the knowledge.
“Elijah is looking for you. Says he has a question about tonight’s ten-top with the prixe fix?”
Greyson rolled his eyes, but abandoned his prep for the moment. “When doesn’t Elijah have a question about a prixe fix?” he asked to no one in particular. “I’ll go talk to him. Thanks.”
The chef exited the back kitchen, leaving a sniffling Matt and a stuck-in-place Mark in his wake. Matt was the first to break the silence – unwillingly.
“Hh-! NTSHH-uh!” The sous attempted to stifle a sneeze into his palm, but only succeeded in making a mess of himself. His face reddened impossibly deeper, and he was forced to put down his knife and head for the sink.
“Bless you,” Mark said as Matt pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and blew his nose. Matt swallowed painfully, washed his hands again, and nodded.
“Thanks,” he said, clearing his throat.
They lapsed into silence once again, neither one looking at the other. “Um,” Mark said, finally, “are you -”
“I have to get this work done,” Matt interrupted, though he couldn’t explain to even himself why he wouldn’t let Mark ask if he was okay. “Have a good shift, okay?”
Mark blinked, taken aback, but nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and turned to leave the back kitchen without a word. Matt didn’t let himself watch the other man go.
***
It was like watching a train wreck.
“Matt,” Greyson called from his spot at the expo board. “Where are we at on the halibut for 63?”
Mark’s eyes darted behind the line where Matt was doubled over, coughing into the collar of his chef’s coat. The sous chef had started the evening looking very much under the weather and quite a bit worse for the wear, but now, at nine PM he looked like he was ready to keel over right there on the line. Mark bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything.
“Matt!” Greyson called again, and Matt stood, shakily, to place the likely-overcooked halibut onto its plate. He pushed it through the window and gave his boss a pointed look.
“The food has to cook, Chef, you gotta give mbe a minu – uh! ETSZCH-uhh!” Matt collapsed once again into his collar, righted himself quickly, and sucked in through his nose. “A mbinute,” he finished, his voice cracking.
“Halibut doesn’t take twenty minutes to cook, Chef,” Greyson snapped, snatching the plate from the line. “I expect my number-two to be able to keep ticket times under fifty minutes so the fucking restaurant doesn’t shut the fuck down.” Greyson handed three plates to Mark, who took them wordlessly and slunk out of the kitchen.
Mark dropped the food at its respective table, the guilt of not saying anything to Matt slowly eating away at him. He counted the tables left in the restaurant who still needed to eat – definitely more than he was hoping for. He really, really didn’t want to go back to the kitchen.
“Hey, Lij?” Mark said, approaching his boss at the host stand. Elijah was moving reservations from table to table on the iPad, configuring the remainder of the night.
“Hmm?” Elijah murmured, only half paying attention. Mark pursed his lips, weighing whether he should say anything.
Finally, he said, “Do you think you could ask Greyson to kind of… cool it with Matt? I mean, he seems like he’s really sick and Chef is like… totally berating him.”
Elijah raised an eyebrow and looked away from the iPad to meet Mark’s eyes. “You want me to ask Greyson to stop yelling at Matt… now? In the middle of service, when there are tables who have thirty-plus-minute ticket times?” The GM huffed out a laugh. “Man, Greyson told me about the whole bathroom situation, but I figured you guys were just drunk. I didn’t realize you were down so badly for him.”
Mark’s face flushed crimson; Elijah smirked at him, and turned back to the iPad. “Matt’s a big boy, Mark,” he said, not looking the floor manager in the eye. “He can handle Greyson yelling at him.”
“Yeah,” Mark muttered. “Okay.”
Mark trudged back to the kitchen to grab more food, the sound of Greyson’s frustrated voice hitting him before he could even step foot through the swinging doors.
“Order in! Two filets, two tofu, one halibut! Matt, I swear to God I had better see table twenty-six up in the next three seconds, Chef, it’s already at twenty-two minutes.”
“Yes, Chef,” Matt mumbled, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.
“I can’t hear you, Chef,” Greyson yelled back, tweezering herbs onto a dish.
“Yes, Che – ITZSHH-ue! HRETSZH-ue!” Matt ducked down below the line to sneeze, the sound painful and desperate. Mark could hear the crackling cough he was trying to hide all the way from where he was standing; his heart sunk. He wished like hell that he’d had the balls to say something – anything – to the other man this week. He wished he wasn’t such a fucking baby when it came to his feelings, or relationships, or standing up for himself or anyone else. He wished he was anyone but himself.
“Bless – Chef, do you need to switch spots with me?” Greyson asked, his voice finally softening at the sound of Matt’s coughing.
“Ndo, Chef,” Matt managed, standing. “I’mb fine. Twenty-six, up,” he said, slamming the plates onto the pass.
“Great,” Greyson mumbled. He garnished the plates and shoved them into Mark’s hands. “Twenty-six, go,” he said, not looking at the floor manager.
Mark nodded; he took the plates out into the dining room and dropped them; as he did, he made a promise to himself and, silently, to Matt: maybe there was nothing he could do or say during the shift to make Matt feel any better, but he would figure out a way, post-shift, to do something to help him. He would grow some balls, if it killed him.
While Elijah was still busy looking at reservations, Mark slipped into the bathroom and pulled out his phone. He put in a grocery order, to be picked up at ten the next morning. He typed out a text to Matt, scheduled it to send at the same time he would be picking up the groceries so he wouldn’t be able to wimp out and unschedule it. Then he put his phone back in his pocket, opened the door, and went to finish the shift.
***
His phone was ringing.
Matt groaned as he came to; he was covered in sweat, he could barely breathe, and he was stiff as a fucking board from passing out on his couch. Who the fuck was calling him? It was his one day off, could Greyson not leave him alone for one fucking day?
He grabbed the phone off the coffee table, ready to throw it across the room, when he realized the name on the screen wasn’t his boss’s.
Call from: Mark, Work.
Matt’s stomach jumped into his throat. The phone continued to ring while he squinted at the clock in the corner: ten twenty-three AM. Had he and Mark spoken last night? He could barely remember a fucking thing about the previous night, other than being utterly and completely miserable. The two of them definitely hadn’t spoken; he remembered giving Mark the cold should before service started, remembered the pitying look Mark had given him as Greyson screamed the restaurant down, remembered flying out the door the moment Greyson told him to go. They hadn’t spoken, their plans were obviously off, so why the hell was Mark calling him?
The call went to voicemail. Matt coughed into his elbow, a chesty sound that he really didn’t like, especially since he didn’t have health insurance. After a minute or so, another notification popped up: one new voicemail.
Curiosity got the better of him. Matt opened his phone and hit ‘play’.
“Hey, Matt, it’s um… it’s me. I know this is super weird, like I don’t know why I did it at this point weird, but, uh… I’m outside your building. I texted you, but now I’m realizing you’re probably asleep. Uh… I mean, if you get this I’m gonna, like, hang out out here for a bit. I brought soup! I can’t cook, so it’s from a deli, but I figured you might need something to eat, and you probably don’t want to cook since you’re sick. Your place is nice, by the way. Um. Okay. If you get this, cool, if not, I’ll uh… I’ll leave in a little bit. Okay. Bye.”
Matt felt his heart near-explode in his chest. Mark was sitting outside his building, with soup? What was this, a Hallmark movie?
He did it without thinking; he pulled up his text conversation with Mark and typed, hey, im awake. sorry I missed ur call. ill buzz you up :)
Mark was up the stairs in record time. He knocked, and Matt stood from the couch, forgetting until he was vertical that he was still in his work clothes from last night. Gross, he thought, but it was too late to change now – he took a few shaky steps towards the door and opened up.
Matt barely recognized Mark at first; he was only used to his floor-manager getup, button-downs and ties and slacks, his hair gelled back. Today, Mark wore jeans and a jean jacket over a Brighton University hoodie – did he go to college in England? - with black high-top converse. His curly hair was in his face, and he was carrying two full grocery bags. Mark smiled.
“Hey,” he said. “Can I come in?”
“Yea -” Matt attempted, not realizing his voice was completely shot until he tried to use it for the first time that day. His hand flew to his throat and he attempted to clear it, to no avail. “Shit, sorry, apparently I can’t talk,” he whispered.
Mark pursed his lips, obviously concerned. “That’s okay,” he said, stepping through the front door. He placed the bags on Matt’s tiny kitchen table and began pulling out supplies. “I come bearing gifts.”
There was the soup, like he said, but Mark also pulled out dayquil, and sudafed, and cough drops. He pulled out a box of tissues, bags of tea, and cough syrup – quite literally the whole nine yards. “I didn’t know what you had, so I figured I’d grab one of everything,” Mark said, embarrassed.
Matt didn’t know what to say. “Mark, I – hh! hhIGTSZH-uhh! Hh’TSHH-ue!” Matt crumpled into his elbow to sneeze, hard, and lapsed into a fit of coughing. Mark pushed the cold supplies towards him, smiling a bit.
“Bless you,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re so sick.”
Matt took a moment to blow his nose and uncapped the cough syrup. He chugged a bit, righted himself, and shrugged, embarrassed. “Not your fault,” he croaked. “Thank you for bringing all this.”
“It’s the least I could do,” Mark said, not looking into Matt’s eyes. “I’m really sorry for ignoring you the past few days, Matt. I… I mean, I don’t want to scare you off or anything but I haven’t really had, like, a real relationship in a long time. Like, a really long time.” He looked up, caught Matt’s red, watery eyes in his, and gave up the whole truth. “Like… ever.”
Matt nodded slowly, processing. “So… you don’t hate me?” he asked, the fever tossing to the wayside any filter he might have once had. Mark’s face colored; he laughed.
“I don’t hate you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like… I really don’t hate you. I – I mean, I really, really like you, Matt.”
It was Matt’s turn to flush bright red. “Even like this?” he asked, coughing into his fist. Mark smiled.
“Even like that.”
The two of them stood there, smiling twin goofy smiles, for a moment before Matt ducked once again into his elbow.
“Hh – ITSZHH-ue! Guhh.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, not caring how disgusting he looked. “I, umb, I really like you too, Mbark,” he said, coughing again. “Like… probably mbore than is normal or rational.”
This time, it was Matt who was caught off-guard. Before he knew what was happening, Mark had his hands on either side of Matt’s hot face and was tipping Matt’s head up to meet his. This one was different; while the first two kisses felt hungry, dangerous, this one was soft; an invitation. A promise of a future yet to come.
Matt pulled away to catch his breath. “You’ll get sick,” he muttered, eyes closed and hands around Mark’s thin frame. Mark tipped Matt’s head up, pushed his sweaty, dishwater blond hair out of his eyes, and pressed their foreheads together.
“I know,” he said, and pressed his lips against Matt’s once again.
Their third kiss – well. That was the one they would tell everyone at the wedding about.
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