commiserate (m/f, illness)
The other side of the bed was empty when he awoke. He made no sound - swamped with muck and fever, the world like a thick painting of greys and blues. And she wasn’t there on the other side of the bed, where she should’ve been. Curious.
He heaved his sweating, aching form upright, facing the empty unlit bathroom. A streetlight in the window dotted yellow like a bright star. Dull pain swam in his head. A heavy combination of nasal congestion, and perhaps dehydration, and any number of things… Soreness in it all. Breathing, against a course of inflammation and mucus.
He found himself standing some moments later, in the upstairs hallway. In a checkpoint of sorts, head still swimming. He dragged his feet to the stairs, and descended them in slow steps, clinging to the railing.
A lamp was on in the living room.
“*sdrff!*” He stood at the bottom of the stairs, still holding onto the railing. The air was cooler downstairs - somehow making the streaming of his nose more apparent. “*sndrff*…”
There was a tissue box on the coffee table in front of the sofa. And on the sofa, there was a lump of blankets, and from the lump of blankets, came a peculiar sound. Slowly, he shuffled closer.
The blanket pile groaned softly as he reached the sofa. From an opening in the fabric, her face peeked out, half-obscured with a rumpled tissue. Making the same strange muffled sounds as before, her body shuddered beneath the blankets, as she muffled sneeze after wet sneeze into the tissue in her palm.
“-d’eisschhiuh!!-isshhiuh!!-isschh!!- hh’Isschhiuh! -eisschh!!”
He sank down next to her on the sofa, not trusting his face not to burst with pain if he bent over. He pulled the tissue box nearer. His hand found her shoulder on top of the layered blankets as she sat in a dizzy interlude, panting through parted lips. Her head hung, causing her hair to fall into her face. Carefully, he lifted a hand and moved back the unruly strands.
Her face crumpled with a closed-eyed scowl as- “iyY’ISSCHhiuh!” another sneeze came, misting his hand. She lifted the damp tissue to sneeze again, over and over, intense and less smothered than before. “huUd’ISCHHh!! uht’ISSCHH!!-isschh!!-isschhioo!!” Suddenly, he turned away from her and let out a harsh, spraying sneeze, too quick to consider covering.
“hdt’zZZSCHHhioo-!!” He sniffled liquidly, and coughed, blinking teary eyes. She huffed an awful, wheezy shell of her laugh. The “Bless you” sounded worse. The urge was still strong, making his breath snag. She was pressing a tumbleweed of tissues into his hand, which he only had time to lift before a fierce second sneeze burst from him. A desperate exclamation, grazing his raw throat and soaking the layers of tissue. “haAD’TCHIEWWhh!!!” He pulled more to blow his nose, making a noise he could’ve compared to a brass solo in a sad andante.
As he sat quietly, blinking in reset, he felt her head sink onto his shoulder. She drew a thick, liquid sniffle. The warmth that emanated from her was both pleasant and concerning. He let the side of his head rest gently against hers.
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