A compact piece of pure horn at least partially inspired by this post by @sf-libet (if you want to be un-tagged lmk)
She couldn’t help watching his nose. It was so red now, so obviously sensitive, those constantly-leaking nostrils waiting for the slightest excuse. He dabbed it gently- so, so carefully- with a handkerchief, breathing slowly as he tried to eke out another minute of concentration on his correspondence. The right nostril flexed just a little at the touch, but made no trouble. That couldn’t last, surely. The skin around the edge of both nostrils was so raw, so susceptible to irritation from the smallest cause.
As she watched, he turned over a page and sniffed, momentarily absent-minded and unwise. She saw his nose react at once, the oval rims of both nostrils curling up into high arches, triggering a wrinkling of the bridge, a flinch around his eyes. Up came the handkerchief with urgent speed, pressing itself up against the septum in a manoeuvre that had probably seen some success in the early days of this cold. His nostrils twitched a warning.
Unable to delay his breath any longer, he attempted a slow inhale by mouth that audibly warped, his jaw falling slack against its owners will. That poor red nose quivered with over-readiness to sneeze. He covered it at last with the handkerchief, finally understanding that he was past the point of all resistance.
He sneezed, hard and wet and unforgiving. Sneezed again, that red-raw nose stung into further action by the violent unsettling of its fragile equilibrium. He raised his head and tried to breathe, his too-abused nose throbbing now, goading itself towards a cruel cycle of mounting irritation and response. Those shining pink nostrils flared astonishingly wide, and (even over so short a distance) the handkerchief rose just in time.
Unable to break the cycle, he sat hunched over the handkerchief, gasping for breath between each wrenching pair of sneezes. The increasing wetness of his handkerchief couldn’t be doing that raw skin any favours, and indeed as the fit progressed the sneezes became punctuated by involuntary moans. His shoulders heaved and shook with the effort of it all.
When he finally managed to blow his nose, she was certain she heard a badly-suppressed whimper. When his handkerchief had done all that could be done he leaned back in his chair, too weakened in the moment to do more than seek support for his no doubt aching head. His poor sore nose glowed redder than ever in the lamplight.
