You’re in bed together, they the big spoon to your little spoon. They keep one of their arms tucked beneath your head like a pillow while their other arm is looped around your waist. After a couple of warm, comfortable minutes of stillness and tandem breathing, their breathing is broken up by a series of shallow sniffles and you can feel their body tense a little, then shift restlessly against yours; next thing you know they’re pressing their nose to your shoulder blade, clearly rubbing at a tickle under the guise of nuzzling you. The nudging of their nose tip is soft at first, sending pleasant goosebumps down your arms, but this gentle approach doesn’t seem to be doing the trick and they soon begin to apply more pressure, eventually flattening their nose against your neck and scrubbing back and forth, itching in earnest.
“Hey…whatcha doin back there?”
“It itches, but I don’t want to move my arms”, comes their drowsy, grumbled respons.
“On a scale from 1 to 10, how lazy… Here, let me help.”
You turn around in the snug nest of arms and blankets so that you come face to face with your troubled Big Spoon, snaking your hand up between your entangled bodies and sliding your knuckled forefinger beneath their nostrils. A web of creases forms at the root of their nose as they scrunch it up and sniff, gingerly, their nostrils flickering at your touch.
You carefully rub their septum in small, tight circles, searching in their face for a go-ahead but instead finding a worried frown, narrowed eyes misting over -
“Nnh, yeah, but a little firmer, otherwise you’re gonna make me-ehh…hh!”
You have to hold back a giggle; they do this all the time in old cartoons but does it actually work…? Can’t hurt to test it out. You stop rubbing and instead press down hard on their upper lip with your finger, waiting, intently watching as their expression flutters between surprise, ticklish alarm, and then softens into a look of almost blissful relief. Sigh. Relax. Cuddle-disrupting sneezing fit averted. For now.
They wiggle their nose tentatively, rabbit-like; it’s pink at the tip and nostrils, you notice now; tender-looking, sensitive -
“Still itchy”, they confirm, almost apologetic.
“What’s the matter with this thing?”, you wonder, tapping the side of their nose, caressing a finger down the considerable length of it. “It’s been a while since I dusted… longer than I care to admit. Could that be it? Or is there a cold brewing in there?”
They shrug. Then they sniffle again, blink, worry stealing back across their face.
There’s a sudden, desperate finality to that last gasp and you instantly know there’s no use in trying the same trick again.
You twist yourself back into spooning position and brace yourself for impact.
“Oh well, I guess we’ll find out.”
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