💞 Hi, I'm Sniction! This is a snz kink blog. I'm in my thirties. Minors DNI. Please don't reblog my fics to non-kink spaces! 💞
A list that no one asked for but I made anyway so I can keep track of my snz fics in one place (and add to them!) Check individual posts for tags and warnings, babes, so you don’t get squicked. :) (updated Nov 19,2022)
T/HE W/ITCHER:
J/askier snz:
Bedsharing for G/eralt and J/askier, and here for J/askier and Y/ennefer
Y/ennefer finds an ill J/askier in a cage. (They kiss in the second act!)
Season two J/askier gets taken care of here and here
J/askier tries to entertain the W/olves here, gets caught in the rain here, And gets some pine needle tea from Y/en here
G/eralt puts his foot in his mouth in this one about pie
J/asker uses his doublet as a blanket in this one. And uses G/eralt as a handkerchief accidentally!
Jaskier has hayfever.
Jaskier has a cold and a bruised rib here.
Allergy p0rn in an alcove right here.
G/eralt Snz:
G/eralt is ill and won’t let on. J/askier does some acting here. (One fake snz from J/ask)
G/eralt has an allergic reaction. J/askier thinks he’s sick and reacts accordingly in this one.
An herbal remedy makes a sick G/eralt a little sloppy with his sneezing etiquette while J/askier looks after him.
G/eralt and J/askier find themselves in a dusty tight spot in Close Quarters. There is a short, NSFW part TWO to this one.
J/askier gave G/eralt his sneezy cold. (G/eraskier)
G/eralt’s swollen, red nose gets some love from the bard here.
G/eralt gets a lesson on being sick here.
G/eralt finds his safety and falls asleep in the bath.
He encounters a wintry curse here and catches a terrible cold from Jaskier here.
Yennefer “helps” Geralt with his congestion
Modern AU where Geralt has the flu
Y/en Snz:
Y/en is not used to being sick here.
Y/en and J/askier in a dungeon here
Yen has a cold at Kaer Morhen
Y/en drabble here
And finally,
They all snz! (G/eralt, J/askier, Y/ennefer) This one is just a straight up fantasy snz fic where Y/en has the kink and shares J/askier’s cold with all three of them. This is SMUT, unabashed. :D
AND J/askier snuggles ALLLLL the sick W/itchers and everyone just snzes everywhere in If You’re Cold, They’re Cold (now COMPLETE!)
C/ASTLEVANIA:
T/revor and S/ypha take an impromptu rest. T/revor is worse for wear.
T/revor falls into a cold lake here.
T/HE U/MBRELLA A/CADEMY:
D/iego finds a sick and injured K/aus on his doorstep.
T/HE H/OBBIT:
A snippet where sick K/ili and F/ili huddle for warmth.
L/OKI:
L/oki and S/ylvie end up in a field of ragweed here
L/oki catches the flu on a mission. M/obius catches it in part two.
Drabble here
S/HADOW AND B/ONE:
K/az B/rekker hides a cold here. And again here.
Aaaaaand my one lonely P/sych fic lives here
From the M/usketeers (2014), A/ramis snz here and here and here
This one has established Geraskier, whumping both the boys but focusing on Jaskier snz. In a total surprise to me, I think this may end up being part one to a larger fic, so… let me know if you want more?
Special thanks to @w1ngxd @pomegranateperfume and everyone who interacted with this post for encouraging me to share my Witcher fic!
:::
Geralt coughed pitifully into his glove as he pushed open the door to the inn, bringing in a torrent of rain with him. He was absolutely soaked after a longer-than-expected bout with a mud-slinging water hag who’d pulled him into the swamp, followed by a trudge to the inn through the torrential downpour.
The bard stumbling in behind him fared no better. He sniffled as he wrang out his poet sleeves and cursed his impeccable fashion sense as puddles dripped from his cloak. The fire roaring in the inn commons did nothing to ease the chill settling in his bones.
The tavern was quiet. All the sensible people were holed up at home, already asleep. Jaskier yearned to join them. The thought of his own bed propelled his weary feet forward, walking him straight towards the innkeeper behind the bar.
“We’ll be needing a room for the night.”
The innkeep looked suspiciously towards where Geralt was warming himself by the fire.
“For him?” He cocked a skeptical eyebrow.
Jaskier frowned.
“Yes. I thought that was clear from the ‘we’. As in, he and I.”
Jaskier was much too tired for this. He was well versed in this particular song-and-dance, far too used to the anti-Witcher sentiment that had driven him out of more than one inn. They ought to go where they were wanted, or at least give the man a talking to. They had just taken care of his town’s necrophage problem, you know. Jaskier gathered himself to make a fuss, but his attention was pulled away from the innkeep by a wracking coughing from the other side of the room- Geralt, still dredging up the swampwater he’d inhaled.
Tonight, the Witcher didn’t need to hold his bard back from punching the barman, he needed to sleep.
Jaskier sighed, unfastened his purse from his belt, and sat it heavily on the counter. Right now, all he wanted was a room with a fire and a bowl of something warm to eat. And, if his purse permitted, a stiff drink. He couldn’t care less what it would cost, he was going to sleep in a real bed tonight, so help him gods.
The innkeep narrowed his eyes as he quoted the bard a number.
Jaskier of course knew he was being gauged, but the weather wasn’t quite conducive to comparison shopping, and he hadn’t the energy for haggling. He sighed, fishing around his sopping pockets for a few more coins to meet the hefty price. So much for that drink.
“We’ll take it.”
:::
The short walk up to the single room shouldn’t have been so tiring, but each sluggish step pulled him down as if the swamp was still sucking at his boots. Geralt trudged up behind him, just as exhausted.
The door clicked open to a dreary room. Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to be disappointed at the meagre accommodations. He was overjoyed at the prospect of spending a night off the floor of the marshy forest they'd been trekking through for the past week. Even if the fireplace barely had room to stack a single proper log and the table in the corner was wobbly and the bed was overpriced and understuffed and several inches too short for the two of them to fit in comfortably.
Jaskier dropped his pack to the floor with a contented sigh. He rolled his shoulders and reveled in the weight lifted. For all he complained about the forgone luxuries of traveling light, having only one bag made unpacking the few things not stabled with Roach quick work. He immediately began to strip off his traveling clothes, eager to get into bed and chase away the cold.
Geralt eyed the single bed warily.
“Should probably do something about… this.” He gestured down at his muck-covered clothing.
Jaskier looked him up and down, then groaned. Damn Witcher. Why did he have to be right?
As much as he appreciated the forethought (he certainly wouldn’t recommend sharing a bed with a Witcher-sized wet dog), Jaskier dreaded the hour a proper bath would put between him and his bed.
Jaskier was ready to protest, but as he looked over at Geralt, shivering even in the warm inn, nose and cheeks an unhealthy wind-whipped pink, he had to agree a bath would do him some good.
He sighed his resignation.
“Get the fire going, and I’ll send for some water.”
:::
Jaskier bathed as quickly as he could. As pleasant as the warmth was, he longed to get out of the water, wrap himself up in a blanket, and finally be dry for the first time since they decided to cut through that wretched bog. The water was still plenty warm when the bard surrendered it to Geralt.
Geralt eyed the bard warily as he sank into the bath. It wasn’t like Jaskier to rush through his washing. He was usually one to take his sweet time, leaving Geralt to heat another bucket or scrape himself clean in frigid water. Still, the Witcher wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
As Geralt melted into the tub he uttered a sigh that gave way to a heavy cough.
The sound made the bard’s throat ache sympathetically, and he cooed soothingly as he slid into his nightclothes and made his way to his usual vigil by the head of the bath.
The post-hunt bath had become something of a ceremony over the years, and Jaskier was well-versed in his role. That didn’t stop him from looking longingly at the bed as he lathered his hands and got to work.
Wordlessly, Jaskier began their unspoken routine, carting his fingers gently through the Witcher’s hair, slowly massaging his temples as he started the meticulous work of pulling the mud and grime from his scalp. The hot water would wash away the worst of Geralt’s aches, along with whatever manner of viscera he managed to get doused in.
Jaskier kneeled beside the tub, compulsively checking him over for injuries he might’ve managed to miss and slowly detangling his hair. The soothing motion of calloused fingertips cradling his head allowed Geralt to let the tension bleed from his taut muscles, and feeling his hands against a very solid, very much alive Witcher was just what Jaskier needed to ground himself after an adventure gone awry.
Tonight, the aura in the room was fond, but quiet. A late day with too many close calls and a long trudge through a rainy bog was enough to tucker them both out, and there was nothing to discuss that couldn’t be conveyed in their shared language of glances and monosyllabic murmurs.
It would have been perfectly silent if not for Geralt pulling his head away from the bard every few minutes to cough into a fist. Jaskier didn’t like the crackly quality to the fits. He was loath to think what was in that swampwater.
Jaskier’s nose prickled at the thought, reminding him that he’d managed to get knocked into the bog too, though Geralt was the one who’d been pulled under the surface.
The prickle quickly developed into genuine itch, and he barely had time to untangle a hand from the Witcher’s mane before snapping to the side, directing a throaty “Heh-Hurreschchew” into his soap-slick palm.
Geralt winced suddenly, jerking out of Jaskier’s grasp and splashing lukewarm water down the front of his dry nightshirt. Jaskier wiped his hand on the hem. I’d have to be changed again, anyways.
“Geralt?” The worry was heavy in the bard’s voice. Had he missed a wound? Was he pulling too hard on the silvery hair in his hands?
“Wasn’t expecting that.”
That did little to ease the bard’s anxieties. It wasn’t like Geralt to be so skittish. He beheaded a water hag without blinking an eye not three full hours ago. It usually took more than an errant sneeze to get a rise out of him.
“‘S loud.”
Ah. That’s why he was so jumpy tonight.
“Mmm. Head bothering you?”
The Witcher offered an affirmative grunt.
“Why don’t we finish up here and get some food into you, yeah? Then sleep?”
The Witcher was reluctant to leave the soothing water, but it had gone cool by the time his hair was clean. He might as well get out.
:::
Geralt practically melted into the thin broth the inn sent up to the room for a few more of their quickly-dwindling oren. Jaskier looked over him in the weak light.
The Witcher was shoveling spoonfuls of soup into his mouth mechanically, staring blankly forward, eyes glazed over. He was wincing every time the thunder clapped or the fire popped or he swallowed a piece of meat or potato that wasn’t soft enough. In the firelight, the bard could see that his cheeks were flushed with what he desperately hoped wasn’t the beginnings of a fever. He looked about as miserable as Jaskier felt.
Jaskier would love to leave it for the morning. Really, he would. But if something was really wrong, he’d need to see to it tonight.
He sighed heavily.
“Exactly how sick are you?”
The Wolf pulled in a breath to insist he was well enough, but instead found himself bent at the waist, hacking violently into his hand. The force and volume of the fit sent a stab of sharp pain though his head, and he bit back a moan.
That settled that. Jaskier sighed.
“Thought so,” Jaskier tutted sympathetically at his Witcher, pressing a hand to his forehead, trailing it down to his cheek.
“You’re a bit warm, too. Do you have anything you can take? Could I make you some tea?”
Geralt muffled another congested cough into a clenched fist, but shook his head.
“Just sleep.”
“Then maybe it’s time for some rest?” the bard asked, hopeful. “Here- why don’t you finish the rest of this,” he pushed his only half-empty bowl of broth in front of the Wolf “and I will go make up the bed.”
The Witcher frowned at the barely-touched stew, but before he could coax Jaskier into a few more bites, a soft kiss was pressed to his forehead and the bard pushed away from the table.
:::
Ten excruciatingly long minutes later, and Jaskier was finally ready to climb into bed. Geralt had finished his soup and was stoking the fire when Jaskier came up behind him. The bard took him lightly by the hand and led him to the bed, turning down the covers and slipping the amenable Witcher inside.
Geralt had a sleepy, contented grin on his face as he informed the bard that he was a grown man, and a Witcher at that, and he didn’t need to be tucked into bed.
Jaskier just tutted as he got in bed beside him.
“I’m sure you don’t, my love,” he said as he gently combed his fingers through Geralt’s hair. Jaskier’s light touch against the silvery tresses had nearly lulled his Wolf to sleep in when the bard pulled back with a sudden gasp that startled the sleep from the Witcher’s eyes.
He tried to snuff out the sneeze, but quickly failed, grinding his nose into the shoulder of his linen shirt to stifle a feathery “Heh-TSCH, ItSCH! TiISH, ITsch, ItSCH! Heh-”
He gasped in a breath at the end of the unsatisfactory fit. “ngh, sorr-ITchsh. Gods. Sorry.”
The itchy outburst was soft enough that it had Geralt’s brow furrowed in concern instead of pain, but the shallow, ticklish sneezes were far from relieving. Jaskier could already feel the prickly feeling starting up again behind his eyes.
“Are you…?”
“Fine. Fine. snff. Just worn out.”
Geralt rolled on his side, tapping the warmed spot next to him.
“Better get some rest, then.”
Jaskier nodded his silent agreement before nestling into the Witcher’s arms. The bard frowned at the congested rumbling of Geralt’s breathing against his back, the gentle vibration wrenching a ticklish cough loose in the bard’s own chest.
He managed to mostly bite back the fit, but Geralt could feel his shoulders jerking with the effort. The Witcher started to sit up, concerned.
“Jask…”
“Hush, Geralt. It’s you I’m worried about. Your lungs sound positively awful. You need to sleep.”
Geralt’s sigh was unconvinced, but he settled back down.
:::
The Witcher was out like a light. He obviously needed the rest. Jaskier had no such luck. The on-again-off-again itch in his nose had cemented itself as a constant, faint buzzing, and thick congestion was quickly building at the bridge of his nose.
Jaskier pulled the collar of the soaked chemise he hadn’t managed to change over his nose and blew gently, hoping to shift the congestion enough that he could breathe with his mouth closed.
The shift in pressure let him breathe, but the first breath of cold air stoked the buzz into a fierce prickle. The bard clasped his hands over the collar to catch the resulting “HehITschew!”
Geralt groaned beside him and mumbled something sleepily.
“Oh! Sorry. Headache. Right. I’ll- uh- keep it quiet, then.” His statement was punctuated by a liquid sniffle, firmly conveying that his nose did not intend to keep it quiet, then.
Geralt hmmed appreciatively and rolled over.
Most nights, the Witcher relegated himself to a few hours of meditation and dedicated the rest of the break to sharpening swords or keeping watch, but after a day of mudrucking and hag slaying, he deserved a proper sleep. Jaskier was not going to ruin it for him.
So, when the niggling itch that had been softly buzzing behind his eyes worked its way to his sinuses, he tried his hardest to squelch the resulting sneeze into oblivion.
The “Nnhgh-tch” that followed roused the Witcher enough that he sleepily reached across the bed and wrapped his arms around the bard.
At first Jaskier reveled in the slightly-too-warm embrace, but when the tickle in his nose returned, mounting into an irrepressible itch deep in his sinuses, he suddenly realized he couldn’t move enough in his Witcher’s grasp to bring a hand to his face.
Oh gods. This was not going to work.
“Could I maybe have my arms back?” he whispered. There was no answer. Then, a little louder: “Geralt? Darling? Are you awake?”
His answer was a stuffy snore.
The bard sighed and set about extricating himself from the bearhug, but Geralt just growled drowsily and pulled Jaskier closer, ignoring his indignant protests.
“Yes, dear, this is all very nice and all, but I’m…” He cut himself off with a hitching breath as the itch manifested itself. “I’m… heh… I’mgonnasneeze-“ his prediction was immediately confirmed with a wrenching “HehISHschew! Hesch! HurRATCHsch!”.
He tried to pull as far away from the Witcher as possible, but as soon as he could open his eyes, Jaskier was taken aback by the sight curled into the bed beside him. Geralt was panting, calloused hands clapped over his ears, eyes screwed shut. Jaskier’s heart caught in his throat.
“…Geralt?”
He only responded by curling in on himself, wincing further.
“Ooh, dear. See, this is the exact thing I was trying to avoid…” Jaskier tutted in a whisper. “Let’s get you laying back, aye? There we are. Is that better?” Geralt’s tense muscles relaxed minutely as the bard eased him back against the backboard.
Jaskier could feel the warmth coming off him as he pressed Geralt’s shoulders gently into the pillows. He tsked lightly as he pressed a soft kiss to the Witcher’s forehead, frowning at the steady heat.
“I think your fever has gone up a bit, dear. You need to sleep.”
He did need to sleep. And Jaskier knew that he wouldn’t be able to if he was sharing a bed with a sneezy bard. So when Geralt finally relaxed enough that his steady breath faded into congested snoring, Jaskier eased himself up from the warmth of his Witcher’s side, cast a final longing look towards the bed he desperately wanted to curl up in, and pulled on his boots.
:::
He was already far from warm, but the jaunt from the inn door to the relative shelter of the stable left Jaskier freezing cold and soaked to the bone.
The stable boy had long since locked up shop and headed to bed, and Jaskier reveled in the privacy of the dark stalls, taking the opportunity to violently scrub at his nose away from the prying eyes of worried Witchers.
The familiar scent of fresh hay and molasses and leather mingling in the air soothed the mind he was now certain was at least a bit fevered.
The stable was quaint, but thankfully fully enclosed. Not many strangers were looking to dock their horses this far off the trade routes, so it was easy to find the stall where Roach was untacked. Jaskier was relieved to see she hadn’t quite settled in for the night yet. At least he wasn’t disturbing her sleep. It’d been a long day on the Path for her, too.
Roach greeted her visitor with a worried nickering and a gentle nudge to his shoulder.
“I’m alright, girl.”
She snorted her dissent.
Jaskier melted onto the dusty floor and curled up in the corner of the stall, letting his heavy head loll backwards onto the wall.
The puff of thick dust and old hay he kicked up was enough to tip his hypersensitive nose over the edge. At least out here, he didn’t have to muffle the exhausted “huh… hurISHchiew” that ensued.
He wished he’d had the foresight to grab a handkerchief from his pack. As it was, he wiped his running nose on his sodden sleeve.
“Gods kill me now,” he whispered, throat too sore to give the Almighty a proper cursing out. Instead, he settled for pulling a spare threadbare saddle blanket around his shaking form and coughing into the shoulder of his rain-drenched chemise.
Sleep did not come easily to the bard. He was too uncomfortable to settle down. The blanket was itchy and rough and too thin to be of much use. The wall of the stable was harder against his back than the straw-padded floor, but if he laid down flat his nose would clog completely and the cold air would burn the back of his throat and set him coughing. It was too cold, and then halfway through the night it was suddenly too warm. Then it was freezing, more so even than the rain had been earlier.
At least he was soothed by the thought of Geralt getting a solid night’s sleep in the relative warmth of their room. It was that warm thought that finally settled him enough to drift off into a dreamless sleep.
:::
With his bright white hair mussed into a tangled halo, a sheathed sword thrown over his bedclothes, and his cat’s eyes scanning wildly, Geralt looked half madman, half monster. Hardly the sight Jaskier expected to wake up to. With the way the Witcher had practically knocked down the stable door, however, staying asleep was not much of an option.
Jaskier sat up groggily, trying to preserve what little dignity a man who’d slept in a pile of hay could.
“Oh. Hello there. What brings you to these parts?” Jaskier’s voice was scratchy and thick as he feigned nonchalance. Geralt was having none of it.
“Gods Jaskier. What were you thinking? I had to find out where you were from the barkeep! What are you doing out here?”
“Didn’ wanna keep you up. Did you sleep well? Feel better?”
“Did I- Melitele’s fucking tits, Jaskier, did I sleep well?”
Jaskier smiled up at Geralt from his makeshift straw mattress.
“Sound better.”
“You certainly don’t.” He really didn’t. The congestion had settled firmly in his head overnight, dulling his ns and ts, and his throat was roughened. It sounded painful.
“You shouldn’t be out in this. It’s freezing. Come on. Up with you.”
The Witcher pulled his bard to his feet, but the sudden shift left Jaskier reeling. The pressure in his head felt unbearably heavy. He stumbled forward a step before Geralt caught him by the shoulder.
“Jaskier? Are you alright?” His voice was as soft as a Witcher’s could be, the poor attempt at soothing that was usually reserved for calming a spooked Roach. Instead of answering, Jaskier wilted into his grasp, clinging to his side like a drunken limpet. He moved his hand to the back of Jaskier’s neck, frowning at the warmth there. It was damp, too, so either Jaskier had been sweating through this fever for a while, or he’d slept in a soaked shirt. Probably both.
“Come on. March. We need to get you into a proper bed.”
Jaskier made no attempt to assist Geralt, instead pawing at his chest like a child.
The Witcher sighed, but obliged. He gathered up the bard, wrapping him in the saddle blanket and holding him against his chest, and carried him back towards the inn.
Jaskier smiled into his Witcher’s chest. He was still exhausted and damp and feverish, but, curled into Geralt’s arms, he was finally warm.
Insult to Injury - A Week.end at Bern.ie’s fic, part 3/?
We’ve made it to chapter 3, so now I can a) start sprinkling in all my Sad Headcanons™, and b) make Larry cry. Just a little, as a treat. 80s-era And.rew McCa.rthy was an incredibly pretty crier so that was a big factor in my decision.
CW for some description of mess, contagion (all but confirmed at this point), mentions of prescribed opioid use, and mentions of grief (specifically the death of a parent). This fic also spoils the ending of the film Terms of Endearment if that matters to anyone, and is a bit over 5,000 words long.
Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here. Thank you for the smattering of likes and reblogs so far, it means the world to me that some people are enjoying my fic about this most unlikely hyperfixation of mine!
---
Richard got drenched. It almost would have been funny, how wet he was, if he wasn’t so cold, and if his chinos weren’t suctioned to his legs in a most uncomfortable manner, and if his shoes didn’t squeak with every step. He was shivering hard by the time he got back to Larry’s, his nose running and his hair plastered to his forehead. He was glad, for more than one reason, that Larry was still asleep.
He abandoned his sneakers at the door out of respect for Larry’s carpet. After dumping the groceries on the kitchen counter, he struggled out of the blue button-down he had on (also plastered to him and dark with rain) and then stood, still shivering and now shirtless, in the kitchen. This wouldn’t do. He helped himself to a towel from Larry’s linen closet and tried not to cringe at how poorly organised it was. He got his hair somewhat dry, but his clothes were beyond saving. Biting the bullet, he went into Larry’s room.
Larry, bless him, was sleeping like a disheveled angel. He was snoring a little, his mouth slightly open, a Kleenex crushed unconsciously in the palm of his good hand. His cast still sat heavily on a pillow, and he was in more or less the same position Richard had left him in. Not daring to wake him when he finally looked somewhat comfortable, Richard decided to ask for forgiveness later rather than permission now.
He opened Larry’s wardrobe as quietly as possible. It too was organised haphazardly, a blur of loud colours and prints with no obvious sections for different types of garments - in other words, the exact opposite of how Richard kept his own wardrobe. After a few tense moments of rummaging, trying hard not to make a sound or knock anything over, he found some sweatpants. He started to repeat the process, looking for a shirt this time, when the mattress springs groaned softly behind him. Richard froze, held his breath, and waited for Larry to drift back into obliviousness. But after a moment…
“Rich?” His voice, fried from mouth-breathing, was barely audible.
Richard grimaced. “Sorry, Lar,” he said in a loud whisper, realising too late that whispering was pointless if Larry was already awake. “Go back to sleep.”
Larry snuffled and cleared his throat, then squinted at Richard with bleary eyes. “Where’s your shirt?”
Richard grimaced harder, if that was possible. “I went to get a few groceries and got caught in the rain. Mind if I borrow some clothes?”
“‘Course dnot,” Larry replied, his words bleeding into each other, and Richard could tell he was seconds away from falling back to sleep. “Take the…” he paused, yawning. “Take the blue sweatshirt. The Rangers one.” Richard caught a glimpse of a sleepy smile before Larry lay his head back on the pillow, nestling into it. “S’my warmest one…”
Richard couldn’t help smiling too, the warmth of the gesture almost translating some literal warmth back into his frozen extremities. “Thanks, buddy,” he murmured, finding the sweatshirt and bundling it into his arms. On his way out, he paused by Larry’s bedside to straighten the covers over him. “Keep getting some rest, huh? I’ve got it from here.”
Larry’s only response was a raspy little snore, which Richard took as his cue to exit.
—
After getting changed in Larry’s bathroom and relegating his wet clothes to the plastic grocery bag from the bodega, Richard felt marginally better. He was still chilled, and regretted choosing not to have a hot shower to warm up (and to wash off the Aqua Net residue that had no doubt run down his neck after getting his hair soaking wet), but it felt nice to collapse back onto Larry’s couch in cozy borrowed clothes. The royal blue New York Rangers sweatshirt was warm, like Larry had said, and the sweatpants were potentially the same ones Larry had owned since he was nineteen, worn to a state of cottony softness. The downpour continued in earnest, splattering the windows and providing a comforting hum of background noise, which added an extra layer of coziness to the afternoon. Richard would have almost been comfortable enough to doze off if not for the fact that he was still sniffling, a familiar allergic itch lingering in his sinuses and the tender space at the very back of his throat.
He had to get up at one point to answer the phone, catching it on the first ring before it could wake Larry. It ended up being Larry’s mother, who was checking in her own aloof but well-meaning way that her son was alright. She seemed relieved to hear Richard’s voice, and declined his offer to wake Larry and get him on the phone. “I’ll leave him in your capable hands, dear,” was how she put it.
Richard sneezed the second she rang off, startling even himself, and was forced to open the new box of tissues. He carried it back to the couch with him, resigning himself to hold down the fort a bit longer, at least until the storm let up, or more realistically, until Larry didn’t need him.
—
When Larry finally emerged more than an hour later, most of the daylight had faded and if anything the storm had worsened. Spears of lightning came with increasing frequency, colouring the sky purple every few minutes.
“Hey,” Larry croaked, then cleared his throat behind a closed fist. He’d pulled on his favourite flannel bathrobe, the sleeves wide enough to allow his cast through easily. His hair was mussed beyond all reason. Cocking his head weakly towards the window, he said, “I was right about the stormb.”
“Yes, you were. Good job, Nostradamus.” Richard set down the magazine he’d been half-heartedly reading and looked at Larry properly. “How are you feeling?”
Larry looked drowsy, but perhaps a little refreshed by his two hour long nap. If nothing else, the circles around his eyes weren’t quite so dark. “Okay, I guess.” He knuckled at his nose with his good hand and sniffled. “Still gross, but okay.”
Richard nodded encouragingly. “That’s a good start. And your wrist?”
After dropping onto the couch beside Richard, Larry inspected his cast and wiggled his fingers, or at least what was visible of them. “Sore. Not unbearable, though.” Dropping his arm heavily into his lap, Larry looked at Richard as if noticing him for the first time and frowned. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
Larry looked pointedly at the box of tissues that was wedged between Richard’s thigh and the arm of the couch, then back at his face. Richard had a sudden bad feeling that maybe his nose was noticeably pink. “You getting my cold already?”
“Of course not,” Richard replied, dismissing the accusation with a vague wave of his hand. “It’s just fall allergies. And, y’know, getting caught in the rain didn’t help…” Even just admitting that much was a little embarrassing. More embarrassing still was the fact that just talking about it was making his nose want to drip. He sniffled as quietly as possible, determined not to look as pathetic as he felt.
“Jesus, I thought I dreabed that codversatiod,” Larry snickered, pulling a blanket off the back of the couch and dragging it over his legs. “What kind of… heh…” He paused, rubbed hard at his nose, and tried to continue like nothing had happened. “What kind of growd man gets laid out by a liiihhttle rain?”
Richard stared at him, deadpan. “You’re making fun of me, but you’re literally fending off a sneeze as we speak?”
“Ahh…? Am not,” Larry replied, a blatant lie canceled out by the fact that his eyes were struggling to stay open and his head had tipped back on instinct, caught up in the intensity of the tickle. “Hehh…? Hedd’szchhue!” He snapped forward with the effort of the wet, stuffy-headed sneeze, his good wrist shielding the spray. He half-raised his head afterwards, nostrils still twitching, chest still working on a series of breathy inhales, and it didn’t take Richard’s powers of ‘best friend telepathy’ to know that one little sneeze wasn’t enough to clear that itch.
“C’mon, Lar,” he said, a hint of teasing coming into his tone as he deposited the box of tissues between them for when Larry was done. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Larry’s breath scissored. He stared through half-lidded eyes at the wall behind the TV, looking tortured as he waited for his much-abused nose to make a decision. Eventually, another sneeze broke through the barrier - “schhhue!” - though just a small one again. It just seemed to make the tickle worse. Two more itchy, useless sneezes followed - “ettschh! Hettschhh!” - and he was left gasping and hitching for a moment before the rest tumbled out. “Ehhh… HEHH…! HEDZZSCH’UE! HETSCHOOO! Uhh’huh…? Hah…? AHDT’CHIEWWW!!” He’d tried covering with his wrist at first, but the last few just ended up being directed at the floor, as if the itch was so bad he couldn’t bear to let anything come between his nose and the sweet relief of a massive, head-clearing sneezing fit.
“Uh, wow,” Richard remarked lamely when it seemed to be over, torn somewhere between concern and awe. He was pretty sure even the neighbours must have heard that. “Bless you. Are you okay?”
Larry breathed raggedly through his mouth as he caught his breath, his nose streaming too badly to be of any use to him. “Oh by god,” he moaned, blinking so that irritated tears dislodged from his lashes and inched miserably down his cheeks. “B’sorry. I just really… ugh…” he broke off, scrubbing his nose with his closed fist, producing a sickly squelch-squelch noise as he ground his knuckles back and forth. “Really had to sdeeze.”
“Clearly,” Richard replied, plucking three more tissues from the box and handing them over. It took several more handfuls and a lot of inelegant snurfling and honking before Larry was sufficiently cleaned up, the whole process moving slower because of having to do it one-handed. Just watching him was making Richard’s nose tickle as well, if he was being honest, but he crinkled it in defiance of the itch and mercifully felt it dissipate.
“Sorry you had to see that,” Larry sighed, lowering the final handful of sodden tissues to reveal his vibrant pink nose. If nothing else, all the abuse seemed to have shifted the congestion in his head a bit, removing most of the stuffiness from his voice. “And hear it.”
Richard petted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You’re sick, Lar. And in any case, in terms of gross things I’ve seen you do, this doesn’t even crack the top five.” He frowned, feeling the tickle in the very depths of his sinuses return, just as soon as it had left. He scrunched his nose again, willing it away, but this time it had snuck up on him too quickly. He ducked away from Larry, bending towards the crook of his elbow to catch it. “Hkt’schhh!” All in all, it was a pretty inadequate sneeze compared to what Larry had just pulled off.
“God bless,” Larry remarked, and Richard didn’t need to look over to know his eyebrows were raised.
“Thanks,” Richard sighed, swiping a single tissue from the box to wipe quickly at his nose. He grimaced, noticing the splatter he’d made on the sleeve of Larry’s sweatshirt. “Sorry. I’ll wash this before I give it back to you.” When he turned back, Larry was holding open the plastic bag he’d been using for throwing away tissues. Smiling wanly, Richard crushed the Kleenex in his hand and dropped it inside.
“Keep it as long as you want, Rich,” Larry said noncommittally, putting the bag back on the floor by his feet. Almost as an afterthought, he smiled softly and added, “looks better on you anyway. Blue’s your colour.”
Richard felt his cheeks warm, and hoped it wasn’t obvious. “Says the blue-eyed blonde. It should be your colour.”
Larry shrugged. “I don’t like to be pinned down. Fashion’s a playground, y’know?”
That got a huff of laughter out of Richard. “I know. I was just in your closet.” He cleared his throat and stood before he could say anything else stupid. “You want some hot honey and lemon juice? It’s totally unmedicated and unscientific, but…”
“That sounds nice, bud,” Larry cut in, stopping Richard from overexplaining himself - a critical part of the symbiotic relationship they shared. “Thank you,” he added, pulling his legs up and wedging himself snugly into the corner of the couch.
Larry bought the kind of honey that came in a bear-shaped bottle. He kept it next to the instant oatmeal in his pantry for those rare occasions when he woke up with enough time to eat breakfast. Richard grabbed the honey, a cutting board, and a knife, and wound up sneezing again the second he cut into the first lemon. “Heh’tschh! Ugh, Jesus…”
“Bless,” Larry called vaguely. “Make yourself one of those drinks too, huh? Vitamin C’s good for colds.”
“I’m not sick, Lar.” It was just allergies. It had to just be allergies because if Richard was sick then he might have to miss work, and nothing filled him with greater dread than calling in sick.
“Huh… hehHTSCHh’uh!”
Richard sighed, cutting the second lemon in half. “Bless you. Again.” And who would look after Larry if Richard was out of commission? That was the real question.
—
The drinks didn’t take long to prepare, since all it really was was boiling water, lemon juice, and honey. Taking Larry’s advice for once, Richard made enough for both of them. Vitamin C was an essential nutrient after all, even if Richard definitely wasn’t sick.
It wasn’t until he was back on the couch next to Larry, both their hands wrapped around steaming mugs (well, Larry was using his injured hand to awkwardly support the bottom of his mug, while his good one held grimly to the handle), that Richard remembered. “Oh. Your mother rang while you were asleep.”
Larry looked surprised for a second, before a more sceptical and guarded expression took over. “Yeah? What, is she worried about me or something?”
God, Larry could be so obtuse. “That’s about the size of it, yeah. She loves you.” Richard took a sip of his drink, then added, “You should call her back.”
“Richard, you know my mother and I only speak on major holidays and when she wants me to fix her goddamn VCR.”
Larry’s relationship with his mother was strained, to say the least. Things between them had been difficult well before the sudden death of Larry’s father in their junior year of college, and it was almost like any chance of Larry and his mom salvaging their relationship had died along with him. It didn’t help that the two of them were practically the same person - both stubborn to a fault, and prone to getting defensive when challenged.
“At least let her know how you’re doing.” Richard had to pause to sniffle, and hoped that it didn’t detract from the validity of his argument. “It’s not every day your only child winds up in the ER with a broken bone.”
Larry eyed him wearily, a flicker of irritation crossing his features. “Okay. Later.” His tone made it sound a lot more like ‘butt the hell out’, so Richard didn’t say anything more on the matter. He knew that ‘call your mother’ was up there with Larry’s least favourite things to be told, along with ‘I think you’ve had one too many’ and ‘sorry, we stop serving breakfast at ten thirty’.
To prevent himself from making it worse, Richard took another sip of his drink. He was glad he’d made it; the steam was slowly unfurling the congestion in his head, and the honey was soothing the prickling irritation in his throat. He was almost certain it was still just allergies. Casting a sideways glance at Larry, who was also mid-sip, he wondered if a cease-fire was in order. Larry’s own gaze slid sideways, and when they locked eyes Richard opened his mouth to apologise for overstepping, but Larry got in first.
“Tastes good, Rich,” he said simply, indicating his mug with a slight bob of his good wrist. He smiled, a small, tired thing.
Relieved, Richard smiled back.
—
The six o’clock news suggested that the storm would let up in another hour or two, and Richard was already about twelve hours deep into hanging out at Larry’s, so they decided mutually that he would stay a bit longer. If the storm was still raging after dinner, he’d get a cab home to his parents’ brownstone in Forest Hills. With that squared away, they just had to figure out dinner. Even with the grocery run Richard had made earlier, there wasn’t really anything substantial in the apartment, and Larry needed to eat something to cushion his final dose of Vicodin for the day. The decision to order Chinese food - hot, comforting, and with just the right amount of spice to unclog a stuffy nose - was made easily.
“I feel kinda bad making the delivery guy come out here in the rain,” Larry lamented as Richard dug through the junk drawer where Larry kept all his takeout menus. The two-hour nap and his evening Sudafed dose had made him a little more talkative, and had apparently restored his moral compass as well.
“So do I, but it’s this or Cap’n Crunch,” Richard reminded him. He found the menu for their favourite Chinese place and flipped it open. “Soup or no soup?”
“Soup. Definitely soup.” Larry rubbed at his nose again, seemingly lost in thought, then added, “can we get some crab rangoons too? I’ll pay for it.”
“I can get it, Lar. It was my idea, so I should pay.” In the interest of being tactful, he didn’t say ‘you’ll thank me when you get your bill from the hospital’.
Larry looked at him from over the back of the couch, his eyebrows furrowed. “You paid for groceries and you looked after me all weekend. I’m…” He broke off, squinting, then sneezed - “huhHTSCH’ue!!” - wet and sudden, forgetting to use his good arm to cover. He inspected the splattered moisture on his cast with a pinched expression and finished his sentence. “I’b paying. Snlf…"
In the end, neither had the energy to continue the argument, so they went Dutch.
–
“Hey, Terms of Endearment is on.” Richard was flipping through channels with one hand and using chopsticks to dig through a carton of lo mein with the other.
Larry, who had been rendered extra drippy by the spices in his hot and sour soup, made a noise that was equal parts mucus and derision. “That mbovie’s so schbaltzy.”
Three days of nursing Larry back to health (or ‘hanging out’, as Larry preferred to call it) had made Richard pretty good at deciphering his best friend’s congested snark, but this time he was at a loss. “It’s so what?”
“It’s – ugh…” Larry turned away, blew his nose snortily into the couple of pulpy tissues held in his good hand, and tried again. “I said it’s schmaltzy.”
Richard huffed out a laugh. “Well, that’s true. And it always sort of makes me want to run to my mother and apologise.”
Larry raised his eyebrows. “For what, exactly? That woman thinks you can do no wrong.”
That was also true.
They wound up watching the movie anyway, despite both their misgivings, because nothing better was on, and because they both liked having background noise while they ate. It had only just started, and fittingly, they’d tuned in right at the moment that Debra Winger’s character, newly married and inexplicably sick with a cold, was sneezing her way through her wedding night.
“I never got the point of this scene,” Larry said, setting down the empty container his soup had come in. “Like, what’s the point of her being sick? What does it even add to the story?”
“Funny,” Richard replied, smiling wryly. “I was going to ask the same question about your cold.”
Larry rolled his eyes and sniffled.
—
“... And in a few years when I haven't been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you're gonna remember. You'll remember when I bought you that baseball glove when you thought we were too broke, or when I read you those stories, or when I let you goof off instead of mowing the lawn, lots of things like that. You're gonna realise that you love me, and maybe you'll feel badly because you never told me, but don't. I know that you love me.”
“Jesus Christ,” Richard muttered. No matter how many times he saw this movie, it never got any less grim. They’d both ended up getting more into it than they’d planned, even turning off the lights in the apartment for a more cinematic experience. At first they’d talked over it a little - mostly just Larry expressing his hatred for Jeff Daniels’ character every time he was on screen - but by the time the final few scenes were playing out, they’d both fallen still and silent. It was almost over now. They were at the scene where Debra Winger was saying goodbye to her sons from her deathbed, and it was a tough watch. If the older one being surly and spurning his mother’s final words of love wasn’t bad enough, the younger one’s crestfallen, tearstained face was enough to have Richard suddenly choking down a lump in his throat.
“That little kid’s one hell of an actor,” he added hoarsely. Larry didn’t reply, not even to tease Richard for falling victim to the biggest tearjerker film of the decade, and Richard turned to check if he was still awake. He was, and Richard realised in slow-motion horror that his best friend’s face was as tearstained as the younger son’s, the light from the TV reflecting off the silvery tracks down his cheeks. “Oh, shit,” Richard said for lack of a better reaction.
Their eyes met for just a moment before Larry ducked his head, swiping hastily at his face and letting out a strangled noise, half sob and half mortified groan. “S-sorry. Fuck. Just ignore me.”
“Lar,” Richard said gently, trying not to sound too alarmed. He reached across the couch to touch Larry’s arm through the flannel of his bathrobe sleeve. He was very warm - when had that happened? “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it the movie? Your wrist? Both?”
“It’s nothing.” Larry hiccuped and scrubbed at his eyes again, one at a time with his good hand. He couldn’t keep up with demand; the tears kept spilling faster than he could deal with them. “It’s s-stupid.” He exhaled shakily and gave a thick, noisy sniffle. “I thi-ink the V-Vicodin is m-making me all s-sensitive...”
Richard could tell he was making his ‘emotional honesty face’ - an expression he apparently wore anytime Larry was upset, and that Larry apparently hated - but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like he’d never seen Larry cry before, but major emotional scenes between them were still few and far in between, and it wasn’t always easy figuring out the exact right way to respond. Still, the solution seemed obvious enough this time.
“Hey,” he murmured, opening his arms. “C’mere.”
Larry hesitated, his face still miserable, flushed, and slick with tears.
Richard sighed, almost second-guessing himself. “Don’t make it weird. Just let me hold you for a bit.”
That was all it took. Larry scooted closer and slumped into Richard’s arms, nestling his head into the crook of Richard’s neck. Richard wound his arms around him and held tight. It was a sensory-laden experience, what with Larry’s tears soaking into his neck and the low-grade feverish heat coming off his body and the awkward scratchy weight of his cast crushed between them, but Richard held him anyway. “I know,” he said vaguely, soothingly. “I’ve got you.”
Larry gave a helpless sob, followed by another soupy sniffle. Both were painfully loud by virtue of happening right next to Richard’s ear. “M’sorry,” he hiccuped, his face still buried in Richard's shoulder. “Jesus, f-fuck, I’m such a fucking mess…”
Richard squeezed him. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m sorry. You’re having the weekend from hell and then I go and make you watch the saddest movie ever made.” From this angle, it was easy for Richard to rest his head on top of Larry’s. He did just that, pressing his cheek to the crown of his best friend’s head. “Be honest. Was it all the angsty mom stuff?” Hell, the movie was a hard enough watch for Richard, who had a pretty good relationship with his mother. For Larry, some of those scenes must have been like looking in a mirror. And then there was the broader idea of losing a parent at a young age, like Larry had. The more Richard thought about it, the more it felt like the worst possible viewing material he could have picked.
“I dunno. Kind of?” Slowly, Larry seemed to be pulling himself together. He’d stopped trembling at least, but stayed put in the protective circle of Richard’s arms anyway. “I… I thigk I just feel shitty in general.” He sniffled again, the sound hopelessly wet and pathetic. “This is kind of a… mbiscellaneous cry, I guess.”
Richard smiled sadly. “I get it. I’d probably cry too if I broke my wrist and got super sick in the span of three days. Miscellaneously, of course.”
Larry gave a startled, wet laugh, followed by a groan. “Jesus, I’b getting snot all over you…”
“Hey, this is your sweatshirt. And it’s going in the wash anyway, so have at it.”
They stayed curled together for a few minutes longer. Long enough for Larry’s breathing to even out, and for his tears to peter out into hiccups. Finally, he pulled back just enough for Richard to see the brave smile on his blotchy face. “Thagks, Rich.” He sniffled uselessly, his nose terribly pink and drippy. He shot a weak glare at the TV, where the credits had started to roll. “What kind of sigk, twisted person mbakes a mbovie like that?”
“I don’t know, Lar.” Before he had time to realise what he was doing, Richard had brushed the wetness from Larry’s cheeks with a bent index finger. It was definitely too much, too tender, but Larry didn’t flinch or pull away. Neither did Richard, in the end. He kept one arm around Larry’s shoulders and used the other to reach around him for the tissues. “Y’know, I think Kleenex owes you money at this point.”
Larry chuckled, the sound still a little jerky from crying. He used his sleeve for his eyes, but gratefully snatched several tissues from the box to tend his still-streaming nose. “Yeah. Should’ve bought shares,” he agreed before disappearing behind them.
—
The storm wrapped up soon after the movie. It would have made sense for Richard to make a break for it before it started again, especially since it was getting late and he had to be up at a reasonable hour for work the next day. Concern trumped logic though, so he hung around just long enough to make sure that Larry got into bed in one piece. His nighttime Vicodin and Sudafed cocktail had taken enough of the edge off to let him get sleepy, and Richard suspected that the Terms of Endearment-related emotional episode had also tired Larry out. Whatever the reason, Larry practically crawled into bed and didn’t even attempt to tuck himself in, leaving it up to Richard.
“I put the leftover lemon juice in a jug in the fridge, in case you wanted to make another one of those drinks,” Richard explained as he tucked the blankets around Larry, making sure to leave an extra blanket within grabbing distance in case he got cold in the night. He scanned the bedside table. Everything was there - water, cough drops, the rapidly depleting box of tissues. “And I put your meds in the kitchen so you remember to take them with food tomorrow morning.”
“Thagks, Rich.” Even those two words sounded like an effort - rough and exhausted and congested from crying. His eyes were still a little bloodshot from before, but he managed a pale smile. “For everythigg, I mean.”
Richard’s breath caught and he felt a vague tug of anxiety and dread in his chest. It was a feeling he was used to, but one that was probably totally unnecessary for this situation. He couldn’t help it - the thought of leaving Larry like this just hurt. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked softly.
Larry nodded, his hair swishing against his pillow. “Yeah. I’b just godda sleep.” The smile faded slightly from his face, the corners of his mouth twitching downwards with half-awake worry. “Are you? You look wrecked.”
He was wrecked, and, as much as it pained Richard to admit it, definitely coming down with what Larry had. But it was a strangely nice kind of exhaustion - the kind that felt earned and important. As much as it had been a long and tiring weekend tracking Larry’s meds and keeping him out of trouble and waiting for him to wake from his series of naps, Richard realised that there was really nowhere else he would have rather been.
“I’m okay, Lar. Promise. I probably just need some sleep too.”
Larry seemed satisfied enough with that answer, or maybe he was just too tired to talk anymore. “‘Kay. G’night then, handsome.”
Richard smiled at the petname, which was something Larry occasionally used when he was feeling playful, or in this case, too exhausted to think straight. “Night, Lar. Sweet dreams.”
He only made it as far as the bedroom door when -
“Rich?”
Richard froze, one hand on the doorframe. “Hm?”
Larry didn’t sit up - in fact, he looked seconds away from falling asleep - but the expression on his face was serious. “It wasn’t the angsty mom stuff that mbade me… you kdnow…”
It took Richard a second or two to figure out where this was going, before he cottoned on and nodded, listening.
Larry’s gaze slid sideways to his nightstand, and even though the bedroom was dark, there was just enough light from the next room for Richard to see his cheeks go pink. “It was the bit before that. When she’s saying goodbye to her best friend…”
The memory of the scene hit Richard all at once, and he was glad Larry wasn’t looking at him because his eyes felt suddenly, dangerously hot. “‘You’re my touchstone’,” he quoted, his voice soft, only a slight waver betraying him.
Larry sniffed, which could have been from illness or emotion, but the look on his face was peaceful rather than stricken. “Yeah. You’re mine too.”
Richard was saved from having to think of a perfect response by Larry falling asleep about three seconds later. He stayed in the doorway a few moments longer, just looking at his best friend, his favourite person, his touchstone. As he finally headed off towards the subway station, he was sure of two things. First, that he’d be calling Larry the second he got to the office tomorrow to check that he’d made it through the night.
And second, that the next time they watched a movie together, it’d have to be a comedy.
—
Notes: they’re forgettable two-dimensional buddy film protagonists TO YOU. I get them, though.
Yeah, I really built a whole headcanon ecosystem around Larry’s dad being dead based on one throwaway line in the film (“my old man worked hard; all they did was give him more work”). Babygirl, I’ve got WAB headcanons you wouldn’t even care about 😎
This might get one more chapter so that I can subject Richard to a rough day of nursing his burgeoning cold at the office, followed by going to check on Larry, but we’ll see. TBH I think my next port of call is to finish one of my fics where they’re in an established relationship so I can put an end to this mutual pining and just make them kiss already.
Insult to Injury - A Week.end at Bern.ie's fic, part 2/?
I reserve the right to write overly long slow-burn snzfics about obscure besties from an 80s movie who are secretly in love, even if only a small handful of cool people read it. Here’s a second instalment featuring more helpless cold sneezing, pining, and some allergy sneezes for good measure. Did ya’ll know that Gatorade was sold in glass bottles in the 80s? Also, I swear to god I’ve been using em dashes since waaay back, way before they became synonymous with genAI.
CW: descriptions of mess, discussions of prescribed opioid use, contagion (hinted at), and that annoying trope where two best friends are clearly in love but neither has worked it out yet. Around 3,200 words long.
Part 1 is here.
---
Being sick and watching daytime TV had a way of making people feel sicker, but Larry wasn’t up to much else, so he and Richard vegetated in front of a M*A*S*H rerun while they ate their grilled cheeses. It was still early, only around half-past-one, but the overcast September sky cast shadows all over the apartment and made it feel much later. By the first commercial break, their crumb-covered plates were abandoned on the coffee table, and Richard had abandoned propriety and propped his socked feet up there right next to Larry’s. The couch - a pilled, threadbare, but surprisingly comfortable thing - threatened to swallow him whole, and several times he had to stop himself from yawning.
He knew Larry was exhausted too, just from the lack of chatter. He’d curled himself up into the opposite corner of the couch, a pillow laid across his lap to support his injured arm, his legs outstretched and his feet crossed at the ankle next to Richard’s. He’d started shivering not long after his shower, so Richard had helped him struggle into a faded, oversized t-shirt. The overall effect - a slice of his collarbone revealed by the stretched out neckline of the shirt, and his hair air-drying in messy waves - was quite sweet. Over a series of fleeting sideways looks, Richard watched as Larry’s eyelids drooped and his chin dipped inevitably towards his chest.
Equally inevitably, he startled himself awake the moment his chin and chest met, choking on a gasp that was more mucus than air.
“Huh? Wh…” His gaze swiveled around the room cluelessly as if looking for answers, before finally settling on Richard. “Oh. Hey.” He blinked woozily, a little recognition slowly returning to his eyes. “Was I asleep?”
“Only for a minute, I think.” Richard gestured vaguely at his own nose. “You’re leaking a little.”
He regretted pointing it out when Larry, still half-asleep, reflexively brought up his cast-encased wrist to wipe at the thin slick of watery snot that had gathered in his cupid’s bow. “Ow. Fuck’s sake…” he muttered when he once again smacked himself in the sorest part of his nose with the hard plaster. He looked at Richard over the cast and asked, “What tibe is it?” A thick, clogged-sounding sniffle gave him back some control over his consonants. “Please say it’s ‘drugs o’clock’.”
Richard handed him a few tissues from the box sitting between them on the couch, then consulted his notebook for about the fifth time that day. “If by ‘drugs’ you specifically mean ‘Sudafed’, then yes, it’s drugs o’clock.” Technically Larry still had about fifteen minutes before his next dose was due, but even a chronic rule-follower like Richard had to give in sometimes. He was sure it was safe enough. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“Thagk you,” Larry said on a relieved exhale, his voice muffled by the handful of tissues he had pinched to his nose. He followed with a stuffy blow, fumbling with his left hand. “You ever try blowing your ndose with ode hahd?” he asked as Richard slipped back into the kitchen. “It’s… ihh… hiishh’SHMPHH!!” At least he already had the tissues pressed to his nose this time, and managed to somewhat smother the sneeze. After a beleaguered snuffle-snort into the tissues, he finished his sentence. “Fuckid’ imbpossible.”
“And yet necessary,” Richard intoned, returning with the water and a blister sheet of little red Sudafed pills. “I can barely understand you.”
“That’s dot by fault,” Larry replied hotly, dropping the sodden tissues into his lap and holding his good hand out so Richard could drop two pills into his waiting palm. “I wouldn’t be so sdotty if you’d just let bme have a little Dayquil.”
And there it was again. Richard genuinely wasn’t sure if Larry’s head was too full of congestion to remember that they’d already had this conversation, or if he was just trying his luck, but either way it made him sigh, thoroughly exasperated.
“Lar, we’ve been through this. You can’t have any cold-and-flu meds that have acetaminophen in them while you’re on Vicodin. That’s not even a me rule, by the way. It’s basic drug safety.” He’d triple-checked this with the pharmacist the day before when he was picking up supplies, which was how he’d turned up at Larry’s apartment with just plain old Sudafed, an economy-sized bag of strawberry cough drops, and a small tub of VapoRub. But none of the ‘good shit’ Larry had requested. No Dayquil or its nighttime equivalent. No Tylenol. No drowsy antihistamines that might do something about his equal-parts drippy and stuffy nose. Nothing that really provided lasting relief. The acetaminophen in his Vicodin seemed to help a little, but not enough.
Larry threw back the pills with a swig of water, then handed the glass back. “What if I probise dot to have a bad reaction?”
“I am not taking you to the ER twice in one week.”
Larry groaned. “Richard...”
Richard stared right at him, unmoved. “Lawrence. I’m serious.”
Bristling at the use of his real name, Larry tried a different tack. “Okay, well, what if… iihhhf…” He was saved from having to come up with a better offer, ironically, by his nose. After a shuddery intake of breath and some extravagant fluttering of his eyelashes, he twisted violently away from Richard and - “ADTZZSCHIEWW!!” - sneezed, fully unrestrained this time, with only a half-hearted attempt at covering the spray with his shoulder.
“Jesus, bless you,” Richard said, for what might have been the fiftieth time in two days. He pushed the tissues closer. “That was a really compelling argument, but you’re still not allowed to give yourself an overdose while I’m around.” Thinking for a moment, he added, “I don’t want you to poison yourself when I’m not around, either.”
Sighing and tossing a weak glare Richard’s way, Larry grabbed three more tissues and went in for another difficult one-handed blow. “Just wish I could have sobethigg to take the edge off,” he sighed, reaching for the grocery bag Richard had placed next to the couch for throwing away all the used tissues. “This is the crumbiest goddamb cold I’ve ever had.”
“I know,” Richard said, knocking his knee against Larry’s in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Lar. I just think taking the wrong drugs will put the edge right back on, if you know what I mean.”
The lazy wordplay got a small smile out of Larry, which Richard interpreted as meaning ‘I understand completely, and I appreciate you looking out for my health. You’re my best friend and I should trust you more’. Of course, Larry never explicitly said stuff like that, but he bumped his knee back against Richard’s, which was basically the same thing. The tension between them evaporated as the commercial break continued.
“Y’know that NeoCitran commercial where the guy is falling through the sky?” Larry asked vaguely, his head lolling back into the couch.
“No?” Richard resisted the urge to point out that no one watched as much TV as Larry did.
“Really? He’s this business-y guy in a three piece suit and he’s just like…” Larry mimed falling helplessly through the air, arms scrambling for purchase in slow-motion, which looked especially stupid with his cast, more so when he had to break character to rub his nose. Richard sniggered entirely against his will. “Like, his cold symptobs are so bad he feels like he’s falling off the face of the earth?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Richard said.
“Adyway, that’s how I feel.” To drive the point home, Larry finished with an especially pathetic sniffle.
Richard petted his shoulder, then propped his feet back up on the coffee table. “Hang in there, big guy.”
M*A*S*H came back on and their conversation hit a comfortable lull, though a few more sniffles punctuated the quiet. It was a good episode - the one where Hawkeye tried to order an improbable amount of barbecue ribs and have them shipped from Chicago to South Korea. Watching this show with Larry usually turned into a sort of unofficial director’s commentary, since he’d somehow seen every episode and was a font of unasked-for trivia about the actors and directors and whatnot. Richard had complained about this plenty of times (“are you going to talk the entire time?” had to be one of the most-used phrases in his vocabulary), but he sort of missed it today. A quiet Larry was practically always an unhappy Larry, and Richard hated to see him suffer, even if it meant finally being able to watch a whole episode of M*A*S*H uninterrupted.
When Larry didn’t laugh at one of the wittier jokes, Richard glanced sideways and was unsurprised to find his best friend out cold, his mouth slightly open, his head flopped backwards at an awkward, neck-straining angle. It felt almost cruel to wake him when he so clearly needed the sleep, but waking up in a new world of pain was the exact opposite of what Larry needed. The least Richard could do was help him into his own bed, where he might be a little more comfortable. Being as gentle as he could, he reached across the couch and squeezed Larry’s shoulder.
“Lar,” he murmured. He had to say it a second time, a little louder, to get a response. Larry came to, his eyes squinting and confused once again. The circles under them seemed extra dark now, though maybe that was the light. “Hey. You’re dozing off again.”
“Mb’sorry,” Larry groaned, rubbing at his face roughly with his good hand. “It’s the Vicodid. It wipes mbe out.”
Richard realised a beat too late that he was still holding Larry’s shoulder, his thumb now rubbing back and forth in a slow, comforting way. He didn’t want to stop, though. It was a reasonable replacement for what he really wanted to do, which was to pull Larry into his arms and let him fall back to sleep right there. “Don’t be sorry,” he said gently. “But you should get into bed, y’know. You’ll be a lot more comfortable and less likely to mess up your neck.”
Larry didn’t need a lot of convincing, probably because he was still half-asleep. He let Richard help him up and then stumbled into his bedroom, Richard trailing behind carrying the tissues, cough drops, and a fresh glass of water.
His bedroom, like the rest of the apartment, walked the fine line between ‘bachelor pad’ and ‘dorm room belonging to an overgrown college kid’. The bed was unmade - it usually was, though today it looked like Larry had gotten into a fight with his sheets during the night. Given that he’d been fending off a fever, this was entirely possible. After Larry had crawled into bed, Richard helped stack most of the pillows behind his head to help the congestion drain, used the final remaining pillow to slightly elevate his injured arm, and then partially remade the bed around him.
“Thagks, Richie,” Larry murmured as Richard pulled the covers over him, leaving them untucked for ease of movement. “You dod’t have to hang around if you don’t want to, y’know.” His smile was a little sad as he said, “I kdnow I’b dot great company right now.”
“I can head off if you want some space,” Richard offered lightly, perching on the end of the bed. “But it’s either hang out here, or go home and help my dad clean out the garage. I know which one I’d rather do.”
Larry rarely passed up the opportunity to rib Richard about the fact that he still lived with his parents, so it was testament to how sick he was that he didn’t comment. He just smiled drowsily and said, “Stay, then. If you want.” His eyes drifted to the window, where the half-drawn curtain showed the sky, now ominously grey. “Stormb’s coming anyway…”
“I’ll stay,” Richard started to say. “At least until you wake up…” But Larry was already asleep, and didn't reply.
—
Richard lasted all of five minutes in the silence of Larry’s apartment before he got restless and decided to go out. Larry was sure to sleep for at least an hour, and Richard didn’t have permission to alphabetise his VHS collection, so there wasn’t much to do other than keep watching reruns, or invent an errand and go out to complete it. Richard chose the latter. He was halfway out the door when he realised Larry might wake up and wonder where he’d gone. Finding a scrap of paper, he made out a brief note.
Gone to get a few things. Back in 30. Stay in bed!
- R
He left it on Larry’s bedside table next to his water, and found himself watching Larry sleep for just a moment. Even asleep he looked uncomfortable, the space between his nose and upper lip painfully red and damp, his breath coming in ragged little puffs. Poor guy - sick and without the use of his favourite hand. The saying ‘when it rains, it pours’ came to mind. Richard almost wished he could swap places with him, but for now, doing a grocery run was the best he could offer.
As soon as he stepped out onto the street, a few things immediately told him that Larry had been right about an impending storm. First and most obviously, the sky was dark and heavy with clouds, and the air had that unmistakable petrichor smell.
“Uhht’schiuhh!”
And then there was the fact that he sneezed almost as soon as the damp pre-storm breeze brushed his face. Richard was hounded by allergies almost year-round. Spring was the worst, but when fall rolled around the ragweed would take over the job of victimising his immune system. Storms never helped, since the wind stirred up all the pollen and mold and left him sneezy and watery-eyed. He sniffed delicately, dabbed at his nose with the cuff of his jacket, and sent a quick prayer to the allergy gods to spare him this one time. If it got bad, he’d need to take a Benadryl, and it felt mean to indulge in the drowsy, actually effective allergy meds while Larry was stuck with just Sudafed.
He steeled himself against the cool air and threatening wind and walked the couple of blocks to their favourite bodega, a friendly little place that sold everything from fresh hot sandwiches to replacement windshield wiper blades. Together, Larry and Richard had frequented it enough times to get on a first-name basis with some of the staff. Well, sort of.
“Hey, mister Ivy League,” was the greeting Richard received from the lanky Dominican kid stacking the drinks fridge. It was an entirely vibes-based nickname, seeing as Richard had gone to CUNY Baruch (honestly, did he look like he had Ivy League money?), but he’d chosen a long time ago to take it as a compliment.
“Hi, Mateo,” he replied, feeling some of the autumnal chill fade from his body as he stepped into the warmth of the store. “How are you?”
“Bored.” Mateo could have only been around fifteen or sixteen, but seemed to have worked there for years - a perk (or curse, perhaps?) of being the owner’s nephew. He studied Richard with vague interest. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He’s in bed with a cold,” Richard answered, and then added, “and we’re just friends” almost too late. A lot of people assumed they were a couple, funnily enough. At least Mateo’s way of asking was an improvement over the guy at their favourite deli, who would say, ‘Hey Bert. Where’s Ernie?’ any time Richard went in there alone.
Mateo raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘riiiight’ in a detached, teenaged sort of way, then went back to stacking cans of Tab and Coke and Mountain Dew. Richard took that as his cue. He grabbed a basket and headed for the tiny medicines-and-cosmetics section of the store. They had NeoCitran - a few different varieties of it, even - but a quick scan of the active ingredients confirmed what Richard had suspected: acetaminophen again. NeoCitran, along with all of the other ‘good shit’, was off the table. Remembering Larry’s dramatic reenactment of the commercial, Richard almost laughed despite himself, but a tickle stirred in the back of his nose, making his eyebrows knit together, and he wound up ducking into his elbow with another itchy sneeze.
“Ehht’sxchh!” He sniffled again, wetter this time, and wished he’d thought to stuff some tissues in his pocket before leaving Larry’s place. Before he could move from his spot it happened again, his chest hitching on a quick inhale, and then - “iihhtschh!!” - he had to curl back into his sleeve to catch the second one. He felt his cheeks colour afterwards, and mumbled a quiet “excuse me” to no one in particular, sure that Mateo hadn’t even noticed...
… But no such luck. “You don’t have what your buddy has, do you?” the teen asked distrustfully as Richard returned to the centre of the store where the fruits and vegetables were displayed in wooden crates.
“No, mine is just allergies,” he promised, cringing at the nasally edge already creeping into his voice. The only thing worse than getting his ass kicked by his allergies was having it happen in front of other people.
He found the lemons, weighed a few in the palm of his hand to gauge their juiciness, and ended up selecting three. NeoCitran was off the table, but maybe Larry would be happy with regular old unmedicated hot water, lemon juice, and honey in one of his many ‘ironic’ mugs. Richard added a Gatorade (fruit punch, Larry’s favourite) to the basket, and took a diet Pepsi for himself, figuring he needed the caffeine, but coffee at this time in the afternoon would keep him up all night. He went back to the medicinal aisle to grab more Kleenex, and completed his circuit of the store by picking up some Nutter Butters - not medicinal, but Larry liked them so much he’d vowed that if he ever got a dog, he’d name it Nutterbutter. If nothing else, maybe they’d cheer him up.
“Nutter Butters and Gatorade,” Mateo remarked as he rang him up. “You’re a real friend, man.”
“Tell that to Larry,” Richard sighed, parting ways with a twenty. “He’s mad that I won’t let him exceed the safe dose of acetaminophen.”
Mateo gave him a bemused sort of smile that seemed to say ‘your gay little adult problems are of little consequence to me’ and tipped Richard’s change into his palm. “Sure you don’t want to buy an umbrella, too?” he asked, indicating a bucket full of umbrellas of different colours and sizes with a sweep of his hand. Richard turned to look through the glass of the sliding doors and saw the first few raindrops landing, fat as quarters, on the pavement outside.
He grimaced and thought hard about it, then made his decision. “I’ll risk it.”
He regretted his decision fifteen seconds later when he left the store and the rain started falling harder and faster as if it had been waiting for him. He thought of Larry, of watching him sleep and thinking of that stupid, unlucky saying - ‘when it rains, it pours’. Vowing not to tempt fate like that ever again, he set off into the downpour.
–
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I promise the next chapter will be sneezier <3
Insult to Injury - A Week.end at Ber.nie's fic, of all things.
You don’t pick your hyperfixations; they pick you. I rewatched WAB last year (having already seen it years ago because of Homes.tuck) and it took me out at the knees. Now all I care about is ‘best friends to lovers in the workplace’.
All you really need to know is that it’s the 80s, and our main characters are Larry (fair-haired, a loveable slacker, wears loud and colourful clothes) and Richard (dark-haired, taller, responsible, neurotic). Here’s the opening scene, if you’re interested. They both work at an insurance company in Manhattan, and this story is set before the events of the film, thus no mentions of puppeteering a corpse. The set-up here is that Larry has a broken wrist and the worst head cold of his life, and Richard, his long-suffering best friend/work husband, picks up the pieces.
I haven’t posted any snzfics in a long time but am trying to get back into sharing my writing, in theory. Are we still into stuffy talk in the year of our lord 2026, or is it obnoxious? Let me know. Hope you like it!
CW: mess, (prescribed) opioid use, vague mentions of nausea and vomiting but nothing happens. Around 2,500 words.
—
“Okay,” Richard said, his brows knit together in concentration as he tore a long strip of packing tape off the roll. “Hold still.”
Larry, for his part, did as he was told. He kept his right arm steady and held the trash bag in place with his left hand as Richard wound tape around and around until Larry’s cast, which ran from just below his elbow and left only his fingers poking out, was fully covered.
It wasn’t rocket science, but Richard focused on the task with laser-beam intensity to distract himself from the fact that he was standing chest to chest with his half naked best friend. They’d tried to keep it lighthearted - Larry had inevitably made a joke along the lines of “at least buy me dinner first” while Richard was helping him get his t-shirt off - but the fact was that Larry’s bathroom was roughly the size of a broom closet, and this was about as up-close-and-personal as the two of them ever got.
“Very thorough, doc,” Larry drawled, watching Richard inspect his handiwork, checking for holes. “You wanna do another layer just to be sure?”
“Look, laugh if you want, but if water gets into it, you’ll be miserable.” He let go of Larry’s arm, which now vaguely resembled a Christmas ham, vacuum-sealed and shapeless. “And when you’re miserable, I’m always the one you complain to.”
Larry sniffed, in a way that suggested both congestion and mild indignation. “I think I’ve been doing remarkably little complaining, thank you very much. My misery-to-complaint ratio is way off.”
In a sense, Larry was right. He’d complained at first about how his wrist ached and how his cast was heavy and scratchy and how the painkillers the ER doctor had prescribed turned his stomach. By comparison, he hadn’t complained much about the category-five head cold that had settled in a day after breaking his wrist. He didn’t really need to, since his appearance did plenty of the complaining for him. The cold, combined with a few nights of broken sleep, had left Larry pale and listless, with bags under his eyes and a nose so pink it practically glowed. In addition to the usual sickday abuse it had been subjected to - blowing and wiping and whatnot until it was raw and red - Larry kept automatically trying to cover sneezes with his injured hand, sometimes resulting in a double-whammy of jarring his wrist and bumping himself in the nose with his cast. The prescription painkillers, which made him woozy and uncoordinated, were not helping on that front.
As if to remind Richard of just how much he was suffering, Larry suddenly blinked dazedly, nostrils twitching, chest filling. The shirtlessness of it all made the whole thing a little mesmerising to watch.
“Left hand,” Richard reminded him hastily. He moved to step out of the spray zone, but bumped into the closed bathroom door instead.
After an agonising moment of watching Larry’s shoulders hitch up and down with the building urge to sneeze, he finally snapped forward, bringing up his uninjured hand to pinch his nose. The ensuing half-squelched “haedshh’iuhhh!!” echoed off the grimy walls, and Richard caught a brief glimpse of the spray hanging suspended in the air before it dissipated.
“Ugh, great. Ndow I’b disgustigg,” Larry groaned, his hand still cupped over the lower half of his face to hide the mess.
“You were disgusting before the sneeze,” Richard replied drily, reaching for a long section of toilet paper and handing it over. He sighed in sympathy as he watched Larry mop himself up, fumbling with one hand and managing a messy, ineffectual blow. “A shower’ll help. Want me to get the taps for you?”
Larry nodded miserably, his face still half obscured by the handful of now very soggy TP. “Thagks, Rich. You’re a saidt.”
Richard wasn’t sure ‘saint’ was the right word for a person who dropped everything to come help his friend shower, with maybe a bit too much willingness, but he’d take it. He pushed the shower curtain aside and cranked the taps, taking a few moments to check that the water was hot but not scalding. Within seconds the bathroom mirror had a layer of mist.
“You got it from here?” Richard asked, with a brief but meaningful glance at Larry’s boxers. He hoped the answer was yes. There was almost nothing the two of them wouldn’t do for each other, but helping Larry get totally naked felt like a bridge too far.
To his relief, Larry rolled his eyes and said, “I got it, pal. Thagk you.”
Nodding, Richard reached for the doorknob. As an afterthought, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Be careful, okay Lar? If you slip, don’t try to save yourself by grabbing the water this time.”
This time, Larry remembered to use his uninjured hand to flip Richard off.
–
Larry stayed in the shower long enough for Richard to tidy up a bit, which he did quickly and with great care to not disrupt the particular brand of organised chaos that Larry cultivated. Richard knew that Larry had become very attached to the tiny, divey apartment he rented in Astoria, despite its faulty wiring and poor insulation. It was like a cramped, cluttered museum representing every facet of Larry’s life, from the plastic milk crate full of Springsteen and Billy Joel vinyls to the collection of Mets pennants thumbtacked to one wall like a shoal of blue and orange fish.
Richard gave the coffee table a once-over, sweeping used tissues and cough drop wrappers into a spare grocery bag, and straightening the stack of TV Guides and Mad Magazines, though he made sure to leave the latest copy of the latter open to the page where Larry had left it. They’d shared a dorm room for a long stretch of their college days, and Larry’s messiness had driven Richard near-insane at the time. With the gift of hindsight, he felt a little guilty for being so uptight back then. Years of friendship had taught Richard that every little thing Larry hung onto - every strange thrift store find or tacky decoration - was a small but defiant symbol of his hard-won independence.
Richard had moved onto washing the few cups and bowls in the kitchen sink when Larry emerged from the shower, bleary-eyed and flushed, clad in a different pair of boxers with his damp towel slung around his neck.
“You don’t need to clean up, Rich,” he said, slightly less congested, though a stuffy bluntness still hung around his consonants. “Thank you, though.” With an exhausted sigh, he sunk down onto the couch, cradling his still-waterproofed arm. With a sheepish look back at Richard, he added, “Um, can I get a hand with this, actually?”
“Of course.” Richard shucked off the rubber gloves he’d found under the sink, dried his hands, and then dug a pair of scissors out of the cutlery drawer. “Did the shower help at all?” he asked hopefully, lowering himself down beside Larry and motioning for his arm.
“Kind of. Like, I felt better while I was in there.” Larry winced as Richard handled his arm, turning it slightly to find a better vantage point to insert the tip of the scissors. “Ow...”
Richard winced as if he could feel the pain himself. “Sorry.” With painstaking care, he snipped through the trash bag and tape, pulling the plastic aside to reveal the cast underneath. Mercifully, it was bone-dry. “There we go,” Richard said at last as the final snip freed Larry’s arm fully. “And just in time for your next dose of pain meds.”
Larry took his arm back gingerly, inspecting it. “How do you know it’s time? I don’t even remember half an hour ago at the moment.”
A little embarrassed, Richard picked up a spiral bound notebook from the coffee table and opened it to show Larry. A page titled ‘Meds’ and marked with that day’s date showed a list of painkiller and cold-and-flu med doses, each one marked with the time. He felt his cheeks warm a little as he tried to explain. “I figured you’d be too out-of-it to keep track, and it’s just safer if we know exactly what you’ve taken and when, so… um…”
He’d fully expected Larry to tease him, to point out that Richard was so type-A it bordered on OCD, but Larry’s expression was soft, almost stricken, as his eyes scanned over Richard’s neat blocky handwriting. “Oh,” he said simply. The corner of his mouth twitched, and Richard saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed noisily. “That’s actually really nice of you.”
Suddenly hyper-aware of his best friend’s cold-addled emotional state, Richard attempted to lighten the mood. “Having an anal-retentive best friend has to have some benefits, right? Here, let me do that.” Larry had started trying to towel his hair dry - an entirely fruitless task when done one-handed. He gave in immediately, and for a few moments neither of them said anything as Richard scrubbed at Larry’s hair and scalp with the towel. He worked gently, knowing that his best friend was banged up enough already and, if Richard’s hunch was right, probably feeling miserable on a few levels. For all the coattail-riding Larry did at the office, he actually hated asking for help when he really needed it, like now. Anytime he was hurt or sick it became an awkward balancing act between trying to let him save face and wanting to protect him at all costs. The latter was an urge that Richard had no desire to interrogate, but it was there nonetheless.
Larry was still bent forward, his head hidden by the towel, but it was undeniable when he sucked in a sudden, sharp breath.
“Lar?” Richard said gently, bracing for tears, touching a hand lightly to the centre of Larry’s back. To his great relief, a few things happened very quickly at that moment: Larry straightened up so quickly he dislodged Richard’s hand from his back, grabbed the nearest available corner of the towel with his good hand, and collapsed into it with a wrenching sneeze.
“Huhdt’ZZSCHUHHH! Ugh, fuck,” he muttered, scrubbing distractedly at his nose and blinking into the middle distance. Richard knew that look.
“Bless you,” he said, replacing his hand on Larry’s back. He was warm to the touch, and not just in a fresh-out-of-the-shower way. “One more.”
Larry blinked at him, his lashes wet with rheumy tears. “Huh? I dod’t ndeed… heehh… hupht’SHIUHHH!!” The second sneeze seemed to knock the air right out of him and he slumped bonelessly against Richard’s side when it was done, the towel still held to his nose. “Ugh. Snrffk! How do you always know?"
Cracking a smile at last, Richard told him, “It’s always really obvious when you’re not finished. You have the world’s least subtle ‘I’m about to sneeze’ expression.”
Larry snorted, then immediately blew his nose into the towel. “Tibe for mbore Sudafed as well?” he asked afterwards, still rubbing and pawing at his nose through the now very damp fabric.
Richard shook his head. “Sorry, Lar, not for another hour.”
“I’ll be dead by then,” Larry protested, then sniffled, then snapped forward with another sneeze. “HeeiishHHUHH!” He barely got the towel up in time, and groaned into it afterwards before blowing again.
Nudging the box of Kleenex on the coffee table closer as a subtle suggestion, Richard said, “I know, I know, but at least you can take your Vicodin now. The ibuprofen in it might take the edge off your temperature.”
It clearly wasn’t what Larry wanted to hear. So far he hadn’t enjoyed the way the Vicodin made him feel, even if it did make his wrist hurt a lot less. Still, he obediently held his hand out while Richard opened the little orange bottle and tipped one of the pills into his palm. Swallowing it clearly hurt, but he managed not to complain - or maybe he didn’t complain because it hurt. For a moment he just sat watching Richard update the medicine log. Then, balling up the towel-turned-handkerchief in his hands, he stood. “I should eat sobething so I don’t puke that right back up,” he said, walking the handful of steps to his bedroom to toss the towel in his laundry hamper.
Richard watched him go, and was on his feet as soon as the inevitable headspin from standing too quickly saw Larry stumbling, letting out a grumbled curse as his shoulder crashed into the doorframe.
“I’ve got you,” Richard said, putting an arm protectively around Larry and steering him back to the couch. “Food sounds good. Passing out and splitting your head open, not so much.” They made it back to the couch without incident, and Larry seemed grateful to flop back into the couch cushions again, despite his short-lived attempt at taking care of himself. “You want a grilled cheese?” Richard suggested. “Or I could do a grocery run and get stuff for making soup? Or–”
“Grilled cheese would be great, Richie,” Larry cut in, using what looked like the last of his strength to grab the box of tissues of the coffee table and tuck it against his side for easier access. He cleared his throat before continuing. “You need to eat too, okay? I don’t want to blur the line between ‘best buds hanging out’ and ‘you just nursing me back to health’ too much. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, y’know.”
At least he still had the energy to try and call the shots. Richard nodded and agreed. “Okay, sounds fair. Grilled cheese for two with as little mollycoddling as possible, coming right up.”
Larry’s apartment was tiny, so he didn’t even need to raise his voice to call after Richard once he was in the kitchen. “Hey, Rich? Can I have a pickle as well? Please? They’re in the fridge.”
“Sure, Lar,” Richard replied, already having found a frying pan and spatula like he owned the place (and really, with how much time he spent there, he could at least be entitled to keep a spare toothbrush in the bathroom).
It wasn’t Larry’s final request. Richard heard him sniffle again before adding, “and… and could you cut my sandwich in quarters?”
Richard chuckled, digging butter, cheese, and the jar of pickles out of Larry’s magnet-encrusted fridge. “In quarters? Larry, I thought you had a reputation to uphold.”
The strangled whine of deep inner turmoil that came out of Larry actually made Richard laugh out loud. “I mean, yeah, but… buhh…”
Richard waited, glancing over his shoulder to clock Larry’s helpless, tortured, pre-sneeze expression. It only took another second or two before:
“Huht’TZZSCHIUHHH!!!”
It was really something to behold, especially from a few feet back. Particularly distracting was the way Larry’s still-damp hair swished around his face as the sneeze bucked him forward, and the way the muscles in his stomach tensed with the effort, and the way Larry looked at him afterwards with wet, exhausted eyes, extra blue today against the flushed sickly pink of his cheeks.
Fuck. Richard was supposed to be making sandwiches.
“Say no more,” he said, tearing his eyes away at last. “Quarters it is.”
when the stifle they just recovered from could’ve been brushed off as a random sneeze if not for their subsequent sneaky-glance-turned-startled, caught eye contact with the other
There's something that always really hits for me of a sick, sorry someone taking themselves to the couch, or a separate bed, or a recliner, or some other spot for sleeping than their usual because they're worried about keeping another person up or passing this along to them. Being found in some wee hour and asked, "what are you doing out here?" and having to be coaxed back to bed with the assurance that they're worth the risk and any hassle, and deserve to be comfortable and rest if they're going to recover
spoiled noble character traveling without their usual entourage for once sneezes and instinctually sticks out their hand as if to receive something because theyve scarcely ever sneezed before without someone immediately offering them a fresh handkerchief
Someone grabbing a tissue or handkerchief for their sick partner before sneezing into it themself, because now they’re coming down with the same thing their partner has. 🫠
A short little thing based on this prompt that @hitching-hyacinth posted.
I'm kind of in love with these two, so let me know if anyone wants to see more of them, lol.
CW: Mess
Here's a link to what these characters look like.
~
Atticus resisted the urge to sniffle as he knelt at the prince's bedside.
His position was not doing him any favors; gravity working against him, Atticus could feel his nose start to dribble—moisture gathering at the rim of his nostrils.
He didn't dare move a muscle.
Currently, Atticus is tasked with protecting the king's heir, a duty he takes seriously.
Prince Helios was laid up in bed, having fallen victim to a cold—surely the same cold plaguing him—leaving their prince vulnerable.
“HHih-hhzzzsSSHHHihww!”
The man in question sneezed, moaning as he blew his nose into a crisp white handkerchief. Tossing it aside when it was spent, it fluttered to the ground, resting at Atticus' feet as the knight suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
“Uh, I just feel dreadful, Atticus! I'b so stuffed up!!” Helios draped an arm over his eyes as he moaned and groaned as if on his deathbed.
How one man could be so insufferably dramatic? He couldn't understand.
“That’s a shame, your majesty…is there anything I can do?” Atticus said, squashing down his feelings of resentment as the prince lay in his cushy bed, dozens of silken pillows propping him up.
“No, I’m afraid that I’ll just have to simply fade away.” The prince moaned, blowing his nose again.
He cringed, wishing that he could blow his own nose, which had been threatening to drip past his top lip. Instead, he attempted to sniffle subtly, his face screwing up slightly at the liquid shift in his sinuses.
By the god, it tickled.
Atticus tried to smooth his expression back to neutral, as the tickle spiderwebbed across his nasal passages.
Luckily, Prince Helios didn’t seem to notice, and if he did, he didn’t care as the man continued to complain about his condition. He tried to listen, attempting to distract himself from the mounting urge to sneeze, but it was becoming increasingly difficult, and he could feel his attention fading.
“Atticus, are you eved listedigg to be!?” Helios crossed his arms over his chest with a huff, pouting.
Atticus squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain his composure before lifting his head in an attempt to respond to the prince.
He squinted as the light streaming through the window hit him directly in the eyes. The knight could feel his nose scrunch up against his will, as his sinuses prickled uncomfortably.
“HHEH-! HmpPP’kngt!! Hh-! HhD’tsscHHhff!!”
He pinched his nose, managing to stifle the first sneeze, but was only able to muffle the second one against the back of his hand.
Atticus's face heated up as he could feel moisture seep through his glove, not daring to move the hand away, sure his nose was streaming.
The worst part was that his nose still felt as if it were buzzing.
He tried to even out his breathing, but it was hopeless; his lips quivered with hiccuping breaths as tickling torturously swayed, dancing through his nose.
“Hh—hHD! Htt’tzzZSCHHIieww!!”
Atticus felt ashamed watching the spray of his sneeze hang in the air for a brief moment before lazily drifting to the stone floor beneath his feet.
The mess is now dripping past his fingertips with no hope of snuffling it back up now.
Something white fluttered out of the corner of his eye as Atticus gazed upward. The Prince now perched on his knees at the foot of his bed.
Between two fingers, he held a handkerchief as he gazed down at the knight, a mischievous glint in his warm brown eyes.
“Bless you, Sir Nikoladis~”
loud clank of a bowl back onto the counter as someone fails to bring their partner soup because they’re busy crumpling into the kind of sneezing the other has been plagued with for the past several days
There's nothing more tender than one person gently laying a blanket over another person who has fallen asleep at a time and place they didn't mean to - a couch/chair, a kitchen table, a desk - because they've been running themselves into the ground.
the halloween party just ended and a guest with a cold is still waiting on their ride 🍂
(unspecified gender, mess lite)
-
Some trees on the block are more eager to achieve new hues than others. Perhaps they knew there was going to be an audience tonight. Perhaps they had stage fright. For humans on the other hand, that was tradition. The gatherings in stuffy houses. Drinks and knives and pumpkins. Endless hats, masks and accessories.
By the time it’s all done, the sun is long gone. Under the streetlights’ orange glow, the remaining green of the trees are dyed amber and various steeped tea colours, rustling, bowing with the wind. The canopy of the locust tree in the front yard shields your eyes from the moon, perfectly round and as piercing as a stadium light.
“Hey,” you say, coming up to the slumped figure on the porch steps. In their lap is the tissue box from the living room.
They lift their elbow and cough, trying hopelessly to clear their throat. It’s no better than earlier. “Hi,” they squeak.
They look like they could fall asleep right there. You sigh inwardly. The wind picks up a bit, and you wrap an arm around yourself. In the other, you clutch a beige knitted blanket. Just as you open your mouth to speak, a souped up car starts popping off loudly somewhere on the main road.
“Mbusic,” they mutter, if you’ve heard them right. Their head turns and they begin to cough again. It takes some effort to clear their throat, weakly cutting through thick phlegm.
“Just the sound of that exhaust gets you?”
“Fuck off, *sdrff!*”
An earthy breeze turns, tainted with the smells of main road fast food.
“You know,” you begin, taking a casual step nearer. “if you’re dead set on waiting out here, I… figured I’d bring you a costume.”
As you’re unfolding the blanket, they look back at you. Their shoulders descend with an audible sigh that catches on the thickness in their throat. They cough lightly, lifting their forearm.
“A ghost?” Their voice is a rare sound. Thick, and fraying at the same time. “That seebs appropriate.”
“Porch ghost,” you specify. “Ghost of our old porch. Before we redid it.”
They snort-laugh, unintentionally ejecting the stuffiness in their nose. Quickly, they start sniffling, turning away. “Sorry. *sdrfh! koF!* God…” Their hands pull a new pair of tissues and get to work folding them.
“That’s okay,” your eyes avert shyly. “Don’t worry about it.” You wait for their productive blows to end before checking: “You okay?”
“Yeah,” they say, bassy and nasal. “*sngk!* Thagks.” They tug the blanket around their shoulders.
There’s a pause and the rustling of a skittering leaf across the sidewalk. You wonder a little about where their ride must be. In the dim brandy-coloured light, they look a bit like Linus and his blanket waiting faithfully for the Great Pumpkin.
With good nature, you ask. “Your ride coming soon?”
“Ub, yeah.” Their tone lacks confidence. “*sddrfh!* They said…” You peek over and see their brow wrinkling. “The’hheyy said- ESSCHh-!!-hiew- oh gosh, excuse be. *snrk!*” They sniffle hard, and sigh. “Sorry, ode sec.” Their back turns, and- “hihHH, hUHd’ESSCHIUE-!!”
“Bless you.”
“-‘Eshh!!”
“Bless you!” You can’t help but wince.
There’s a pause. Their frame is still frozen. “hAH’ESCHHiew!! ..ah. *snrff!*”
“Bless you, wow,” your hand lifts to gently stroke their back. “You okay?”
“Yup, peachy,” - delivered in a groan. They give in and blow their nose, hard and brief. Slowly, they pivot back around. The streetlights give their teary eyes a movie-like shine, and they’re pretty. Their nose is very flushed, scrunching, contorting with irritation. Somehow their humour soldiers through, surfacing in weak chuckles.
“Sorry, wow… *snrgk!* Umb…” They glance up again, out at the street. “They said there’s… *grmm!* traffic.”
The car, somehow still within earshot, begins to crackle and echo loudly off into the distance.
“Probably cuz of, y’kdow, the codcert,” they add dryly, making you smirk.
You both sit, listening as it fades off like a drinking song. Another wind comes by, making you shiver. You glance sideways at the tired guest. Their eyes are drooping, and they sound pitifully congested. There’s an obvious soreness about their breaths and snuffles. As the cool air bites at your face, you start to speak.
“You, uh… You think I could lure you back inside with some tea? There’s gotta be some around. You got a favourite?”
→ everybody lives/e^rebor restored/consort!b^ilbo!AU
→ the one where dwarven culture believes that sharing is caring and also they originated m/iddle earth!chinkni.
→ snztember tags filled: (4) deliberate inducing, (7) handkerchiefs, (15) five minute fit, (18) observation, (20) tea time, (22) good for what ails you, (23) should have had a warning label, (25) indulgent.
tw: contagion (both intentional and unintentional)
Goodness, what a sorry sight they probably were to behold.
A sentiment that B/ilbo had apparently tempted the powers that be to prove true immediately, as the thought had only just crossed his mind when a particularly loud - almost enthusiastic - chorus of sneezes erupted above the general chatter from several different points in the vast banquet hall, overlapping each other in quick succession.
With Yuletide having just passed, succeeding in leaving many folk worn out with all its many, many festivities, and the biting winter cold snap Erebor continued to suffer, compounded by the natural draughtiness that came with living inside a mountain of stone, a vicious cold was wasting no time in mercilessly tearing its way through the Lonely Mountain’s inhabitants, with seemingly little that could be done to stay its course. For nigh on a week now, wherever you went, in every corner of the mountain from the depths of the mines right up to the upper level battlements, the halls echoed with a constant refrain of coughs, sneezes, snuffles, and the blowing of pitifully red noses left thoroughly afflicted.
Suppose, as Bilbo’s dear old mum would’ve said, it was a problem they could neither go over nor under, but rather just had to power straight through until they hit the other side of it. In terms of the small diplomatic convoy of Rohirrim nobles and tradesmen had been caught in a series of such awful snowstorms on their way home from doing business in the Iron Hills that they’d had little choice but to seek sanctuary in Erebor until the worst of the weather passed, however - that was just simply rotten luck on their own part.
Because evidently no one was safe; not even royalty. Sparing a sympathetic glance down the length of the top table, Bilbo watched Kíli, looking distinctly pale and unsettlingly subdued, sniffle into his bowl of steaming hot rabbit stew. It took naught but a beat for the situation to escalate though, panic quickly etching into the young prince’s features.
“hEH’EHDTZCHssh’ue!” He managed to angle the sudden, wrenching sneeze away from the Rohirrim noble sat to his right (good; hospitable), but, as a result, did so directly towards his own brother, sat next to him shoulder-to-shoulder on his left, in the process. It rang with an audible, foreboding wetness that had Bilbo wincing for the elder Durin prince’s sake.
Fíli flinched. “Kíli,” he groaned, though there was no real vigour in the reprimand. He himself was looking a bit listless as well, if truth be told. Whether it was from resignation to the inevitability of being taken down along with his kin, or if the illness had in fact already started catching a hold of him, at the end of the day, it was well-known that where one brother goes, the other is soon to follow.
Wordlessly, and with seemingly no hard feelings, Fíli passed him the cloth napkin from underneath his own bowl, the younger prince’s own scrunched up in a damp ball in his lap, rendered limp and unusable as of about two courses ago.
“Sorry. It sdnuck up on mbe…” Kíli muttered thickly, the sentiment strikingly genuine, if a little pitiful, as he took it and gave his nose a mournful, much-needed blow. It took Bilbo aback. An actual apology? Now if that wasn’t as clear an indicator as any that he may have been better off in bed, he didn’t know what else would be.
Slightly abashed, he continued. “I mean, you did say earlier that you’d-”
“I know, I know…” Fíli interrupted, through a sigh.
Though he was slightly lost by what exactly they meant by that, Bilbo let the distraction serve as an excuse to allow the conversation he’d been having with the Rohirrim envoy to his left come to a natural, unspoken conclusion. His throat was starting to hurt anyway, in a way no amount of wine was doing anything to quench, despite how frequently he found himself reaching for his goblet.
Maybe he was a fool for hoping it was a result of nattering on too much, or perhaps was simply the power of suggestion, witnessing so many recently who actually were ill. However, though he wasn’t exactly a natural optimist, if it meant entertaining the idea of not succumbing to this horrid bug? He was willing to give it a go.
Either way, the copious amounts of wine he was knocking back trying to stave it off were at the very least helping dull his awareness of it a little.
Thorin, having also seen his nephews’ display, turned to Bilbo and ducked his head a little, lowering his voice so he spoke solely between the two of them. Impossibly broad-shouldered and handsomely decked out in all his regal finery for the occasion, Thorin looked every inch the King Under the Mountain that night. He’d already been encroaching on Bilbo’s space on his right side, but now his arm was a welcome warmth as it pressed closer, more intentional, into his husband’s side.
“For Mahal’s sake,” Thorin growled. “If not for fear of being thought less civilised than my lunatic cousin, I’d put an end to this nonsense and let people get home to their beds.”
Bilbo scoffed. “Do so at your own peril, you'll have an uprising on your hands.”
Thorin gave him a quizzical look. Bilbo nodded out towards the crowd of rowdy citizens who were chatting loudly, if hoarsely, over their bowls and clinking flagons of ale as they ate and drank with glee, handkerchiefs tucked up sleeves and into palms, clearly having a grand old time despite their ailments.
“As if a dwarven court’s going to pass up any opportunity for an impromptu royal banquet. Not least before the first pudding course has been served,” he said, absently rubbing his nose with the side of his thumb.
After a beat of consideration, Thorin appeared to accept the point, before raising an eyebrow. “I suppose. What ironic judgement, though, coming from a Hobbit of all creatures.”
Finally succeeding in worrying away that strange, phantom tingling sensation, Bilbo lowered his hand and picked his spoon back up, scooping another mouthful of the delightfully rich, salty stew, and smirked. “No judgement intended. You wouldn’t catch me so willingly passing up such an opportunity either.”
Thorin gave him one of those low, barely there chuckles he somehow manages without fully giving into a smile, though Bilbo could still see the amusement alight in his features as his eyes flickered down, absently catching Bilbo pick up his goblet yet again. “Not even when a significant number of them likely cannot taste anything?”
“Ah, the willingness of the spirit winning out over the weakness of the flesh. That kind of dedication is to be commended, I say,” Bilbo said with a shrug. “True commitment t-to…to eating as- hh’h… as an-” His breath skipped a beat as the tingling made a sudden reappearance, this time as a proper, all-out tickle. He’d accepted that he had an expressive face at the best of times, much to the Company’s constant amusement, and needing to sneeze - actually quite badly, it seemed - was no exception.
Feeling the burn of Thorin’s now pervasively watchful gaze, Bilbo jammed his hand against the underside of his nose as it twitched relentlessly. Whether that actually did the trick, or some higher power had witnessed his plight and decided to take pity on him at the last moment, the urge abandoned him almost as suddenly as it had come upon him.
Clearing the thickness from his throat, Bilbo tried again, somewhat awkwardly. “…to eating as an art form, is what I was meant to say. Sorry.”
Any hint of amusement that had lingered in Thorin’s face before had disappeared, his voice suddenly serious. “You as well?”
“What? No! No, I’m fine, honestly,” Bilbo rushed to reassure. He leaned in even closer then, lowering his voice and tilting his head up so he spoke nearly directly into Thorin’s ear, “You know how it is with the Rohirrim. Horsehair; likely covered in it. It’s bound to be floating around in the air, don’t you think?”
Bilbo paused, as if he was waiting to see if he’d pulled the right string. However, he followed Thorin’s careful glance down the top table as he took in their guests, quite glaringly changed out of the riding clothes they’d arrived in and into more formal attire for the welcoming banquet held in their honour.
It was clear in the king’s scrutinising gaze that he didn’t believe a word of it. “Aye, horsehair indeed,” he uttered flatly, silently motioning an attendant over from where they were hovering at the edge of the room.
Internally, Bilbo sighed. His husband’s a doer, a fixer, he knew that. He couldn’t sit idly by and let something wrong just be, even if it was largely innocuous or inconsequential. He’s also protective, fiercely so, the world having seen fit to harden him in a way that’s made that an immutable part of who he is and how he shows his care. Bilbo gets it. It didn’t mean, however, that it couldn’t also be just a tad over the bloody top.
He was quite enjoying his dinner, as it happens, coming down with a cold or not. Which, of course, he still was decidedly not.
Bilbo rolled his eyes, grabbing Thorin’s hand and forcing it down before any of the staff could spring into action. His likely perceived impertinentness, even as the King’s Consort, seemed to earn him more than a few slightly astonished sideways glances from their more, say, traditionally minded guests. The attendants just looked at each other, not knowing quite what to do.
“Come on, it wasn’t even an actual sneeze. Truly, I’m fine,” Bilbo insisted, before deciding quickly to redirect him. “Anyway, if you are determined to come to anyone’s rescue, let it be Kíli’s. Poor lad looks like he’s about to fall asleep in his bowl, look…”
After a hard look levelled at him, Thorin gave in and indulged his urging. Sure enough, Kíli sat slumped, quite unbecomingly, in his seat, elbow resting on the table as with fist propping up his cheek, the borrowed handkerchief still bunched in his grasp. He’d turned in place to face Fíli and one of their guests, and appeared to be making some sort of effort to at least pretend to listen in on their conversation, though his heavy eyelids betrayed him.
Thorin looked back to Bilbo then, who imagined he looked rather sprightly now in comparison, before once more calling over an attendant, who this time came running immediately. After a few choice words muttered in Khuzdul, the young Dwarrow hurried away. When the rest of the serving staff approached to clear their plates in anticipation of the next course, someone different came back, dropping a note onto Kíli’s place mat. An odd, but evidently relieved, look passed over his face as he read it, but all the same he rose and took his leave, pausing to bow before his uncle, as is customary, before he made his escape, though his eyes shone with genuine gratitude.
Feeling rather pleased with himself, Bilbo turned his attention to the plate that now sat in front of him, drawn in temptation by the rich aroma of the seared venison, red wine sauce, and wild winter vegetables, when suddenly-
“hh’IHGTx”
He managed to stifle it into near-nothingness, the fact that he’d sneezed at all betrayed by little more than the way he’d twitched forward in his seat, and the most minute squeak of effort that was able to escape him.
They both paused for a beat, and then without even looking at him, Thorin continued working the fork and knife through the meat on his own plate. “Bless you, Ibinê,” he said, voice raised to normal speaking level, deceptively nonchalant, but evidently pointed to Bilbo’s trained ear. When the king spoke, his voice carried weight, and courtiers all around turned to look.
Not quite so pleased with himself anymore, Bilbo simply sniffed and turned his cheek, refusing to deign him with a response.
——-
With so many of the main culprits that were usually responsible for merriment and getting any kind of party started either under the weather or indisposed entirely, and their Rohirrim guests tired from their really rather treacherous journey, the general festivities after the feast were subdued to say the least. Erebor put on a decent showing, though, all things considered; the candle-lit hall filled with lively music as some brave souls took to the dance floor, whilst most others congregated in groups to chat and continue drinking their fill.
Bilbo had ended up drinking enough wine at dinner to render himself sufficiently tipsy, which buoyed him through the first hour or so. But somewhere towards the middle of the tankard of ale he’d been handed as the evening’s entertainment had kicked off, the pleasant fuzziness that’d settled in his head had started giving way (rather prematurely) to a buzzing ache, radiating up into his skull from behind his eyes and down into his sinuses.
The Men of Dorwinion had clearly scrounged up a rather potent strain to put in that last wine shipment.
He couldn’t help but tune out of the conversation he’d been skirting on the edge of, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand as Ori and Dori spoke animatedly half-over his head with an accompanying Horse Lord about something or other - some tall tale from the quest, he presumed.
As if out of nowhere, a large, warm hand closed around his shoulder, breaking him out of the trance-like state he seemed to have fallen into with a jolt. Even so, he couldn’t help but give Thorin a little twitch of a smile, suddenly glad to have him to lean against and take some of his weight. For a couple of minutes Thorin let the conversation naturally ebb and flow around his presence and Bilbo was content to bob with the current, unsure if he was amused or annoyed when the king cut into their friends’ musings with wry, sarcastic corrections of the finer details of their recollections that only came to Bilbo’s own mind a couple of beats behind.
Eventually, in such a way that struck him as being decidedly calculated, Thorin’s concentration strayed from the conversation at hand and he leaned down, his voice tickling Bilbo’s ear as he spoke. “It has been a long day, has it not? I think I shall retire, if you would join me,” he said, voice low but slightly brittle, as if treading carefully, bracing himself pushback.
And who said the King Under the Mountain wasn’t adept at diplomacy?
“Sounds like a good idea,” Bilbo agreed, feeling distinctly heavy-lidded as he offered up the still only half-drunk tankard he’d been nursing. The ease with which he obtained such an outcome seemed to catch Thorin by surprise, his posture loosening quickly along with the serious set of his brow in one singular beat.
Satisfied, he took the offered cup and drained it, before bidding their goodnights and starting to direct them towards the door.
—
When they made their way back to their personal chambers, the fireplaces spanning both the living area and their bedroom had been lit, seemingly well in advance of them getting back. Each was blazing bright and crackling away, piled high with logs and collectively emanated a shroud of warmth over the generous space that was already succeeding in blanketing over the winter chill. On the orate little end table next to the sofa, one of the antiques he’d actually insisted on bringing across from The Shire when he officially made the move, one that’d been in Bag End for as long as he could remember and he couldn’t stand to see pillaged by any of his relatives, sat a gleaming silver tray, a steaming tea pot, and a set of mugs.
“Oh wow…” Bilbo let his fingers drag across it wistfully as he momentarily bypassed it in favour of getting as close to the fireplace as possible as swiftly as possible, though there was an air of knowing in his tone. “What dutiful and perceptive staff we have,” he commented as he warmed his hands, his eyebrow quirking.
“The very best…” Thorin concurred innocently from behind him, over the top of the sound of clinking cups and the clattering of ceramic pottery being clumsily fiddled with. Though he was endeared by his efforts, Bilbo ‘tsk’ed in opposition.
“Oh, just leave that. I’ll get to it i-i’hn a…hhh’IHtssch’uh!...in…in…hhhh-hih… huh’TCHsch’ew! Sdnfff”
The sneezes had come upon him so fast and so forcefully he’d barely managed to gather the awareness to raise the back of his hand to his face in preparation, never mind actually cover them properly, and they left him worryingly sniffly in the aftermath. He suddenly found himself all the more sympathetic to poor Kíli’s plight back at dinner. With heat rising to his cheeks, Bilbo dug around in his coat’s inner pockets until his hand fell upon a handkerchief.
“Bless you…”
Bilbo could hear the furrow in Thorin’s brow before he even came into view beside him.
Gingerly turning round to face him, the handkerchief in his hand felt almost like an inadvertent white flag. Bilbo gratefully received both the hot mug that was offered to him, and the gentling hand where it came to rest in between his shoulder blades. For all the effort he’d put into trying to soothe his throat, it turned out it hadn’t actually helped a jot, what with how raw those sneezes had left it.
Really, all he’d managed to achieve was guaranteeing himself a rotten hangover on top of the rotten- whatever else.
“Sorry, that wine tonight, it was quite strong, don’t you think? I think it’s, um, affecting me somewhat. Wine does that sometimes, I find…” Even Bilbo could admit it was half-hearted, the way he trailed off unconvincing even to his own ears. He took a sip of tea just to shut himself up.
“It does? I’ve never noticed,” Thorin responded coolly, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, like he was studying a specimen under a microscope. “Any particular reason for imbibing so readily tonight?”
Bilbo shrugged, aiming for nonchalant. “We don’t get too many visitors under the mountain this time of year, do we? And that they weren’t too far past Erebor to be able to turn around and seek shelter with us when the bad weather hit is surely cause to toast such good fortune?”
‘Good fortune’ isn’t exactly what Thorin, or likely the Horse Lords themselves, would call what they’d experienced, but he decided to throw his beloved a bone and not point out as such.
“Hm,” he uttered instead, dismissal clear in the noise. “So, just for absolute clarity, it’s the wine then, and not the horsehair, that’s got you out of sorts?”
Bilbo stopped up short. Okay, Thorin was just toying with him now, and his patience for it was wearing thinner by the second. He levelled him with a flat, ardently unimpressed look, sniffed, and without missing a beat, simply answered, “Both.”
Visibly undeterred by his husband’s ire, Thorin just nodded.
“Or, amrâlimê…” he said, his tone softening as it caressed the syllables of the more intimate petname, moving his hand from Bilbo’s back to gently remove the ceremonial circlet from where it’d tangled a little in his honey-blond curls, and set it to rest on the mantle.
It was, per Bilbo’s own insistence, a fairly simple, functional-looking thing, and ended up consisting of just two thin bands of mithril inset with a couple of plain but precious family jewels. If it were solely up to him he’d wear no crown at all, and had been mortified at the thought when first lobbied on the apparent necessity of it in the run-up to their wedding all those years ago now. But having been advised what a grave insult it would’ve looked like to refuse, and realising how much it meant to Thorin and to the people of the kingdom that he did, having a simplistic design and only having to wear it at state ceremonial functions were easy enough compromises to make.
“...you are getting ill. Like half the bloody mountain, at the moment.”
Hearing him state it so plainly, and with the evidence he could tangibly feel mounting in agreement, Bilbo found it difficult to refute, the reflexive rejection sticking in his throat and refusing to budge. “Ugh, I hope not,” he groaned out through an irritable sigh, visibly deflating. “Everyone who does have it looks so bloody miserable with it.”
“I know.” Not looking quite as self-satisfied as Bilbo expected him to for having weasled some form of acceptance out of him, Thorin took his unoccupied hand in his own, rubbing his thumb across Bilbo’s knuckles. “What engagements do you have tomorrow? Whatever can be rescheduled, postpone it, by all means.”
Bilbo rolled his eyes, though the affectionate touch managed to temper any genuine annoyance from his expression. Here we go.
“If it’s anything, which it is not yet, it’s a cold at worst, I’m sure I’ll survive a few meetings,” he argued. “Anyway, with you now having to entertain Horse Lords, I’ve already overheard Balin talking about swapping things about and passing me what were your engagements with some of the guildmasters. And we have the Council of Lords tomorrow afternoon.”
Thorin’s eyes widened with sudden recollection, before wincing apologetically. “The guildmasters can wait if they need to, but I forgot all about council,” he thought about it for a second more, then shrugged. “No one will begrudge your absence if you were to miss this month. I’m sure you will not be the only one to do so.”
“Look, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves, here. For now, I’m alright. Sdnff.”
By the time morning dawned, as much as he loathed to admit it, he felt decidedly less ‘alright’.
It must’ve been a little bit earlier than they needed to rise, as when he reluctantly blinked awake, dragged into consciousness by the beat pounding in his head, Thorin - with his cryptically accurate Dwarven bodyclock - remained fast asleep where he was plastered along the length of Bilbo’s back, his breaths steady and unhurried against the back of his neck. Bilbo was oftentimes thankful for the furnace-like quality his husband’s body possessed, as well as his ability to totally envelop him in it, but never more so than on winter mornings under the mountain such as this one, the air stiff with the chill that had crept into the air with the dying out of the fire during the night. He sniffled against it, only to find sinuses achingly tender, and one side completely blocked.
He realised too late that a wayward strand of Thorin’s hair had strayed too close to his face in all his own shifting about, and it managed to brush his nose in just the right (or, well, wrong) way to immediately set off the need to-.
“hh’hIHGSst’sch….. ehH’TZCHhh’ue!....hh’uhhh?”
Bilbo was just about able to half-stifle the first sneeze, but the second came upon him harsher and more demanding than he could contain. His breath caught in preparation for a third that didn’t end up coming, though he could still feel the lingering itch prodding in a way that didn’t feel fit for budging. It felt like some sort of omen.
He was going to be like this all day, he could already tell.
Settling back from where he’d jerked forward from Thorin’s sleepy grasp, he felt those arms instantly tighten around him, drawing him back in.
“Morning…” Thorin rumbled, still half-asleep, dropping a kiss down into the curve of Bilbo’s neck, and then where he could reach of his cheek.
Bilbo huffed a humourless laugh, unable to bite back his attitude, “Is it?”
Thorin huffed out an irritatingly real one, though it faded fast when Bilbo brought his arm up to catch a fluttering of deep, tickly coughs, rounded off with another desperate sniffle. Goodness, he’d really need to find a handkerchief soon if his nose was going to start running quite this badly.
“Perhaps not, it seems,” Thorin conceded, pulling him closer still, in that way of his that made Bilbo feel like he was trying to fold him up inside himself. It never failed to comfort him, make him feel protected from the world outside these walls and everything in it. “Am I to presume that you’re now ill enough to call yourself so?”
Bilbo heaved out an overly dramatic sigh. “Yes! Alright, fine, I’m… a bit under the weather. Are you happy now?”
Thorin’s brow furrowed in distaste. “That you’re unwell? Never. Only that you finally acknowledge it, so you may actually agree to take some rest.”
If he were back home in the Shire, living out the familiar, well-trodden routines of his previous life - what felt like a separate lifetime entirely at this point - he would’ve done so readily.
Having woken up how he’d done so today, feeling all the annoying discomforts of what felt sure to be a nasty head cold settling in, he would have quite easily taken to his bed for the day with all the tea, books, and blankets he could have want of. Even now, he thought of such a time with maybe a small degree of yearning, even if he knew he’d never trade what he had now for the world.
That wasn’t his life anymore, even if he’d tried, little by little, to bring touches of it here to Erebor with him. He didn’t like doing things by half, and as much as he’d been intimidated by the idea of taking on official ‘Royal Consort’ duties after getting married, he’d jumped in feet first, and he took them very seriously. Maybe, embarrassingly, being on the quest and travelling with the company had also given him a bit of a complex about being ‘soft’ or ‘delicate’ or - ugh - ‘precious’ as well, and now watching the vast majority of the dwarves around him happily power through any such ailments and get on with things didn’t help that.
Bilbo’s vexation simmered down as quickly as it had bubbled up, and he turned around in Thorin’s hold so he could face him in all his mused, still slightly sleep-muddled and very un-regal glory, slipping his fingers up into the the thick dark hair at the nape of his neck. He, consciously or not, tilted his head a little more into Bilbo’s hand like a neglected house cat, his eyes briefly slipping closed with a contented hum.
“Honestly, love, it’s only a cold, don’t be silly,” he tutted lightly, scratching gently at Thorin’s scalp, maybe in some way hoping to convince himself as well as his husband.
A fat lot of good that’d done yesterday.
He scoffed at Thorin’s stark lack of response. Bilbo’s fingers stilled in their soothing attentions, giving his hair a playful little tug instead. “If it was literally anyone else even contemplating the idea of skiving off work because of a case of the sniffles, you’d be banging their head against a wall and telling them to get a grip.”
A vaguely dissatisfied ‘hmph’ rumbled from the back of Thorin’s throat, mainly because he couldn’t deny that it was true. “Well, you’re not anyone else.” Not to me went unsaid, but Bilbo saw it in his gaze when the Dwarf opened his eyes, only after he’d uttered it. It caught him off-guard sometimes just how unbearably sweet Thorin could be, beneath all that dry wit and stern-faced, stoic leadership. What is it they say? Still waters run deep. The sincerity of the sentiment hit Bilbo square in the chest, knocking him off kilter for a second.
Thorin studied his expression as it shifted, his eyes coming to a natural rest upon his mouth. Letting out a breath, he moved in to kiss him, only to be stayed in place by Bilbo’s fingers that were suddenly pressed firmly against his expectant lips.
“hhhH’EH’nkt!” He wasn’t sure whether it was that illusive third sneeze he’d been expecting earlier, or if it constituted a new bout all on its own. Regardless, another one followed quickly behind it. Shaking his head all the while, Bilbo even managed to shoot the dwarf a disbelieving look through the haze of the build-up to it.
“Y-Y’uhhhh… you’ve- you’ve got-... hhhh…. got to be jo’hhhking… hhuH’HNGX’xtch!”
Looking vaguely displeased and maybe a little defiant, which wasn’t an altogether unusual look on him, Thorin kissed the fingers that remained holding him at bay before moving them away, swooping in to steal the proper good morning kiss he was denied. Bilbo stuttered in surprise as Thorin then immediately swung out of bed, and made sure to give him his best disapproving look.
“If you simply insist upon leaving our rooms today, tell me you’ll at least put something warm on?” Thorin bit out in clear resignation, stretching out each of his muscles in turn as he spoke. “Furs. Multiple layers. Something with long sleeves.”
Something Dwarven is what he meant, as opposed to the so-called ‘flimsy Hobbit fare’ he was still so fond of and refused to fully abandon, Bilbo thought wryly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the fretting.
When living under a mountain, however, perhaps doing as the dwarves do generally wasn’t such a terrible idea.
“Oh, and you must stop this strange ‘stopping yourself from sneezing properly’ business. You do yourself no favours, amrâl.”
Bilbo scoffed at yet another point in the list of demands. “Anything else? Other than not respecting you being but inches from my face and just sneezing on you?”
A shadow of sarcastic shock crossed Thorin’s face, though amusement danced in the smirk that pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Did you hear that?” he said to himself, turning to make for the bathroom. “My beloved respects me. That is news. Even so, I would not have you injure yourself on my account.”
In what turned out to be a rather unrelenting day of diplomatic duties, the hours leading up to late afternoon passed as slow as treacle being coaxed from a jar, in an exhaustive string of engagements, meetings, and whatever time he could snag besides to hide in the library with some old medical texts passed down from Ori that needed to be translated from Sindarin to Westron.
In the midst of it all, his cold was most definitely getting worse the more the day drew in, evident as much in the number of kind glances, proffered handkerchiefs, and sympathetic tuts he began to collect, as in any tangible symptom. By elevensies, the other side of his nose had also effectively swollen shut, leaving him so utterly bunged up he could barely concentrate with the pressure, squinting tearily at the endless documents as the words swam about on the pages. Even still, it ran endlessly, and the near constant tending it required ensured it ended up rubbed raw and stained an unsightly shade of red.
Just to add insult to injury as well, he’d had this fluttering, unreachable tickle trapped somewhere in the sheer amount of congestion, and he’d been at its mercy for hours now, trapped in what felt like a continuous cycle of build-ups and eventual false starts that saw fit to drive him mad with want for relief.
In hindsight, if Bilbo had known those sneezes from this morning would be the last he’d actually be afforded at all that day, then he might have swallowed his pride, taken his husband’s advice, and just let them out.
By the time he was taking his place at the Council of Lords, very much not ready for a good couple hours of debate on tax policy, the implications of a bunch of newly proposed infrastructure projects, and other such matters of state that were on the agenda, his head felt like it was filled with murky lake water.
It was his last official engagement of the day, he could suck it up and get through it. At least it was a chance to catch up with the company, if nothing else.
Today in particular, he was immensely glad that he’d set a precedence early on of not joining Thorin at the head of the table for the meetings, as some may have thought him due, ceding his usual left-hand place to Dwalin, a mirror to his brother at the king’s right hand. Bilbo was, ultimately, here at all by virtue of his role in the quest, and as the fourteenth member, he was more than happy to slink down the line on the long table at the centre of the room and slip as inconspicuously as possible into the open seat in between Bofur and Bombur.
He was not particularly surprised when Fíli stood up during the recording of apologies, the seat to his right predictably empty.
“I, Fíli Son of Víli, have beed gived leave to speak and act as proxy in any votes hereafter od behalf of mby brother, Kíli Son of Víli who’s to be mbarked absent and submits official apologies,” he recited monotonously from the piece of paper he held, his voice croaky and threadbare under the strain, before laying it down next to the official minute-taker. He looked about as ready to get this over and done with as Bilbo was.
Before he could resume his seat, he whirled around, releasing a powerful sneeze into the cradle of cupped hands.
Bilbo sighed; he was jealous. He was actually jealous of someone over a sneeze. That’s what he’d been reduced to.
Even so, when he caught Fíli’s eye, they shared a sympathetic look.
—-------------------
Thorin assumed he was going to have to try and either find some sly, underhanded way to coax Bilbo back into bed with clever machinations, or failing that, by force. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The council meeting had been as arduous and drawn out as he presumed it would be, and he would usually have the patience for it had the misery Bilbo was in not been so evident. For all his bluster and insistence that morning about being well able to attend, he seemed significantly worse off for his stubbornness now, face pale and tinged with sickly redness. His voice gave away a head now full to the brim with cold, his main contribution to proceedings ending up amounting to naught much more than orally recording his vote each time one came about, and a steady refrain of sniffles.
If that weren’t enough, it felt like almost every time Thorin’s gaze had fallen upon him, he’d been caught in the trappings of a sneeze that each time, maddeningly, failed to materialise. He felt itchy just watching him. But until the meeting had concluded, with every grievance aired, all agenda items addressed, and the minutes diligently signed off, Thorin had been in no position to do anything about it.
If there was one thing sure to drive Thorin Oakenshield to distraction, it was the feeling of having to sit on one’s hands.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was Bilbo’s ready agreement at the suggestion of returning straight to their rooms and taking dinner there rather than heading to the dining hall with everyone else. The sagging relief, as opposed to stiff-backed indignation, that ran through his body when Thorin brought it up, no clever machinations necessary.
“You don’t have to ask mbe twice.”
By the maker, his Hobbit really must feel wretched, indeed.
“Whoever got you this ill is going in the dungeons, by the way,” Thorin commented off-hand later on as he flipped through the pile of documents in his lap Balin had handed them off to him before they could make their escape earlier. He glowered at the figures as he read over them again for a third time, as if he could intimidate them into making sense to him. He wasn’t sure lounging in the comfort of his bed and basking in the warmth of the flickering fire in the corner of the room, with his husband tucked close to his side, was particularly helping his concentration, but if it was the price to be paid to make sure Bilbo stayed there, so be it.
Even if he didn’t look any better for it, he at least seemed more comfortable.
Having finally recovered from the fit of coughing that’d just overcome him, Bilbo snorted with laughter. “Fat chadce, sdnff. I’d say identifying themb right ndow would be like trying to find a ndeedle in a very sdniffly haystack, so I suppose I’ll let clebency reign this time.”
Thorin let out a contrary ‘hmph’, allowing one of his hands to slip down into Bilbo’s hair. “You’re a fairer and more forgiving ruler than I.”
Bilbo glanced up at him in wry disbelief, then down to where he was holding the papers his advisors had received from the mountain’s finance ministers, headed by Glóin, at the king’s behest, outlining the bare bones of an entire new system of taxation; a fairer, more equitable system. One to replace that of his grandfather, of the old Erebor, which had become somewhat of a lingering hangover from those days when folk were a lot richer than they were now after decades in exile.
“Well, you forgave mbe for the wrongs I did you,” Bilbo challenged. “And Yavanna knows they weren’t insignificant.”
“You forgave me for a lot more than that.” Thorin waited until he’d said it to turn his head from the document pile and meet Bilbo’s eye.
It’d gotten easier over the years, making casual reference to their more troubled days when the mountain was first reclaimed, when he was taken with goldsickness, without letting it hang off them like an albatross around their necks, even if Thorin couldn’t always completely stifle the full strength of his guilt. It always managed to bleed through, manifest itself in some way; a clenched jaw, a flicker in his eyes, some off-hand comment uttered with a brittle edge to his tone.
Bilbo was about to reassure him, or maybe make a joke just to make sure he stayed off that particular mental path, when his posture stiffened, nose twitching before his breath once again snagged in that now all-to-familiar way. He raised a hand, a silent plea in his watery, unfocused gaze, gasped in a dramatic inhale, before-
Huh. Losing it again.
His groan reverberated deep and genuine in his chest as he scrubbed at his nose. Thorin’s own sinuses twinged a little in sympathy at the display.
“Mahal wept, Bilbo. Still?”
Bilbo shook his head in dismay, letting out an aggrieved, long-suffering sigh. He reached under the pillow and pulled out a handkerchief, wincing as the fabric scratched unpleasantly against the much-abused skin around his nose when he snuffled into it. “Tell mbe about it. I mbean, I know I get a bit like this sobetimes whed I’mb ill, but this is something else entirely,” he grumbled, sniffling uselessly, almost as if just to make the point. Like he was drowning in the congestion at this point.
“It’s bloody reledtless. All. Day…”
Thorin’s hand froze where it had begun idly petting Bilbo’s head. “You what?”
Confusion etched itself into Bilbo’s features. “These idferdal ‘almost sneezes’ that never come? I haven’t been able to do anything else since I got dressed this morning.”
Not just since the council meeting, then. Since…
“You’ve not been able to sneeze at all since last I saw you this morning?” Thorin looked aghast, and muttered something under his breath in Khuzdul, something that Bilbo did not need a translation guide to work out was some sort of curse. “No wonder you sound so very dreadful.”
“Oh, well, thadks,” Bilbo uttered dryly. In the same instance, he found himself altogether too swiftly bereft of his personal space heater as Thorin set the papers aside and jumped to his feet. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. “W-Wait… where are you going?”
Thorin went straight for the ornate writing desk situated against the opposite wall of their bedroom chamber, his gaze set in determination as he opened the top drawer and pulled out a clean, unused quill. “You need some help, ghivashel. You cannot go on like this.”
For a couple of beats Bilbo didn’t quite know what he was getting at, but when the penny finally dropped his eyes widened, staring at the feathered end of the quill like he was approaching him with a weapon.
“Ndo. N-Ndo. Absolutely ndot. You cannot be suggesting that you idtend to-” he stammered, shifting away instinctively as Thorin reached the bed. As much as he would love - desperately needs - a few good, clearing sneezes to punch through some of this leaden weight, that didn’t make the idea of sticking something foreign and irritating into his very raw, very sensitive, nose to force them out any less offputting.
“Why not?” Thorin asked, genuinely perplexed. “You’ll be unwell for weeks if you leave that cold to fester in your head any longer without starting to expel some of it.”
He’d said it with such surety and practical nonchalance, it actually cut through the panic and gave Bilbo pause; the idea he seemed to be convinced of, of needing to, essentially ‘sneeze the cold out’ in order to recover quicker.
Huh.
“This is something all Dwarves believe?”
Thorin’s eyebrows furrowed deeper. “Is it something Hobbits do not?”
It was certainly no medical science that he’d ever heard of himself, and to his own hobbitish sensibilities seemed a bit brusque and unrefined. But then again, who was he to dismiss old wives’ tales that’d stood folk in good stead for centuries? At this point he was willing to try anything.
That was the thing about marrying outside your own culture, you see. They never seemed to be done uncovering more and more things to learn about each other over the years, and the best approach Bilbo had found was to remain open-minded, especially when Thorin continued to seemingly just forget that he wasn’t actually a Dwarf himself and didn’t just know these things.
Honestly, the months they could’ve shaved off their courtship if Thorin had had the wit to let him know he was being courted… all those mistaken rituals…
“Alright,” Bilbo conceded in lieu of an answer, nodding towards the quill where it still loomed between his fingers. “Just… go easy, please?”
“Of course,” Thorin assured, nodding his assent before climbing fully back onto the bed and positioning himself atop Bilbo’s thighs, hovering a little to avoid squashing him uncomfortably under the bulk of his weight. He was calm and sure as he grasped Bilbo’s chin in the impressive width of his palm, like this was simply the most routine, normal sort of thing to be up to of an evening, lowering the plume so the fluttering tip hovered just at the scarlet rim of his right nostril.
Bilbo’s heart rate broke into a gallop. Whether it was the threat of the feather or pressure of Thorin’s fingers, more calloused and roughened from hard toil than any king’s hands ought to be, holding his head in place like a firm but loving vice, one that would ensure he was going nowhere when he set to work, Bilbo wasn’t quite sure. Either way, Thorin wielded the feather as deftly as he did a sword and looked just as determined to achieve his goal as when he set out to slay an oncoming orc attack with it.
A sudden wave of warmth flushed through his body, pleasant enough to distract him from the feather teasing around the outside of his nose, before unceremoniously slipping up inside. The second it was inserted, it was game over, the fuse was lit and the prod of every single soft, fluffy bristle sent out a ripple of intense irritation. Bilbo’s mouth dropped open immediately, each stroke choking a gasp out of him. He was wracked with coughs as his eyes welled, then, alongside his nose, positively streamed.
Even still, the sneezes remained out of reach, tingling away even stronger than before before fading away again, buried somewhere in the quagmire of the congestion.
The fact that Thorin had insisted upon the entire spectacle only made it slightly less embarrassing. Every flick of the feather, at every angle and pace he tried, was torture with no pay-off to be found, even after switching sides and trying the left nostril, to no avail. Thorin’s own dissatisfaction grew by the second and made itself known in the deepening furrow of his brow as he silently admitted defeat, removing the feather and sitting back.
With his own patience waning, Bilbo released a heavy gust of an exhale. He indulged in the opportunity to finally wipe his eyes, then rub his nose with the side of his hand. “Ugh,” he groaned petulantly, in a little bit of a huff. “Sdnfff. Mbaybe I just dod’t bloody have ady. Sdeezes, I mbean.”
Sympathy flickered in Thorin’s steely gaze, even as he eyed Bilbo carefully, like a puzzle to be solved. “Nonsense, you’re full of them. We’ll get them.”
Seeming to come to some sort of decision in his own head, he once again leapt to his feet. Thorin discarded the sopping wet, now rather unusable quill on the bedside table, before disappearing into the bathroom, Bilbo’s eyes following him with wan puzzlement. When he returned to bed, he held a little glass vial filled with a pale, non-descript kind of powder Bilbo was sure he’d never seen before.
With the help of context clues, he had a vaguely sinking suspicion of what it may be used for, but couldn’t help stammering out, “W-What is that?”
“Something that will most definitely aid you this time,” Thorin answered, uncorking the vial and tipped a little out onto the side of his hand. “It is a mineral found within our mines, potent when ground up like snuff, and used amongst our people as a… medical remedy of sorts. I did not consider it at first, as I do not know for sure how exactly it will affect one so much smaller than our own kind, but…”
“...desperate times call for desperate measures,” Bilbo finished for him with a sigh, his brief flash of ill temper forgotten as he accepted his fate. At the end of the day, he’d come this far already, he was more stuffed up than ever, and those brief moments before where it felt like he was right on the precipice of a sneeze, of eventual, blessed relief after being stuck in this hellish limbo all day, shone in his memory like precious jewels buried within a wall of coal.
“I’d say so,” Thorin agreed quietly, face alight with a private, intimate kind of half-smile as he eyeballed the amount of powder required. He brushed some cautiously back into the vial and then paused for a second, second-guessing himself. After taking a moment to glance again upon his suffering spouse, he changed his mind and shook a smidge more back out, just for good measure. Bilbo must’ve looked concerned at that, as Thorin reached out to rub a gentling hand up and down his side.
“I cannot say it’ll be pleasant, but it’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”
Bilbo was resolute in setting the trepidation he felt aside, in trusting Thorin’s word. He took a steadying breath and sat up fully, his head swimming a little as he bent forward towards his outstretched hand. Thorin gently pressed his thumb to the side of Bilbo’s nose to close one of his nostrils, the skin damp and hot under his touch, to prompt him on.
With one more look at Thorin’s unwavering expression, Bilbo closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath, before sniffing up the little patch of powder.
The result was near-instantaneous, sharp and abrupt like he’d just been smacked in the face. Nose twitching, his eyes slammed shut and he let out a whimper at the all-encompassing itch, like every molecule of the powder had embedded itself in every corner of his sinuses. After having been able to do nothing else for the majority of the day, this ‘build-up’ came in the form of little more than a couple of raspy, choked-out breaths, before quickly-
“hhIH’EHHDTZ’ssh’ue!”
O-Oh goodness, Bilbo briefly wondered to himself. Harsh, desperately unrestrained, and echoing with the illness that was clogging his head and lungs, the sneeze was of a strength he was entirely unfamiliar with and that had caught him off-guard. He didn’t get a chance to revel in even just the modicum of relief he’d been seeking, however, as he’d barely managed to draw breath before the urge once again swept over him, and he geared up for more.
“There you go,” Thorin murmured his approval from somewhere above him, satisfaction evident in his tone alone. Then, taking advantage of Bilbo’s rather intense pre-occupation at that moment, he took him by the shoulder and carefully guided him backwards so he was once again lying down, propped up comfortably against the vast amount (too many, in Thorin’s view) of plush throw pillows that had adorned their bed. “That’s it now.”
Each sneeze was more pitchy and horrendously cold-laden than the last, even without the desperate strength demonstrated in the first few. They were only getting progressively more drenching though, as the congestion loosened and shifted with the expulsions, each torrent illuminated obscenely by the light of the candle sat on their bedside table.
“hheh’eihdjssz’yue!”
It brought forth a kind of self-consciousness Bilbo couldn’t shake. He didn’t want to think about how disgusting this all was, or how unlikely it was to be helped by the next set of sneezes that were inevitable to come. He really needed a handkerchief now, squinting as he geared up for another oncoming volley. Bilbo wasn’t sure why he hadn’t had it ready before and gosh this cold has him all muddled in the head, and the bloody sneezing means he can barely think straight enough now.
He moved one hand to shield his nose and mouth as the other grappled in the bedding for the discarded cloth he knew he must’ve been left lying somewhere around them. Suddenly though, his hand was pulled away and held in place above his head by a wide, unyielding grip, and no sooner had he found the handkerchief with the other than it had been cruelly stolen from between his fingers.
“hUH'ihtsss'shew! W-whhhh… what- huH’EHdjssshh'ue!.... What’re you doing? u-uhhhh…h’hhH…hehhhH'EIHSSzch'uh!”
He’d tried to turn away as far as possible, but after a bit of dallying the sneezes’ eventual haste meant they ended up sprayed haphazardly somewhere in the miniscule space between them. Thorin seemingly paid it no mind, his gaze unflinchingly tender but permeated with gentle, simmering heat as it lingered on Bilbo’s face. He assessed him silently, watching as he sighed and sunk back further into the pillows, suddenly boneless and sapped of tension as he tried to catch his breath.
When it appeared that that last sneeze had signalled the end of the long, protracted fit, using the pilfered handkerchief he started making a rough go at dabbing away the mess that had accumulated around his nose and the soaking wet bottom half of his face.
“Amrâlimê…” Thorin murmured softly as he swiped, a tone that never failed to strike a chord in Bilbo’s chest, heartened as he was to know it was one that only he was privy to, even if uttered in pity. “Now, that’s bound to have done you some good. Do you feel any better now?”
Finishing up, he handed him the handkerchief back, and Bilbo immediately jumped on the chance to give his nose the good, long blow - several, really - he felt it was owed at this stage, capped off with a stuffy sniffle. “Hodestly?”
In the aftermath of the fit, he was exhausted. Everything ached, like he’d just spent long, punishing hours once again sprinting across the plains of Rhudaur as one only could with a bloodthirsty orc pack on their tail.
His nose burned, like some of the powder had bedded in and the respite from sneezing was probably to be more of a short-term reprieve.
His brain felt like it was too big for his head, making his senses dull and everything seem vaguely muffled, resigning him to the likelihood that he was running a low-grade temperature on top of it all.
All of this from a sore throat and a bloody tickle in his nose last night.
He felt really quite unwell, if truth be told.
But, at the end of it all, his sinuses were a bit clearer, he’d finally been able to get those sneezes out of his system, and Thorin was looking at him expectantly.
He’d been absently stroking Bilbo’s hair away from his face, his touch lingering as it often did on his marriage braid, much shorter than his own but identical in style and form, locked in place with a matching silver clasp engraved with ancient runes.
Bilbo just barely resisted the urge to give himself over to the soothing strokes and let his eyes flicker shut.
“Oh, I feel like death warmbed over, yeah- sdnff” he quipped honestly, the line of his mouth pulling up into a weak, if grimly sincere, smile. He took Thorin’s hand and brought it to his lips. “But better thad I would’ve done without the assistance. So thadk you.”
Thorin’s own posture loosened, slipping his hand from Bilbo’s grasp to cup his cheek, before leaning all the way down to capture his lips with his own instead. Bilbo’s breath stuttered as it caught him off-guard for a second, and when his brain eventually caught up he found himself too tired, the soft but ardent pressure of husband’s kiss entirely too inviting, to do anything but return. He did let out a little squeak when he felt Thorin’s tongue lap a little into his mouth, but he was as gentle as the waves caressing the shore, and Bilbo was lulled into simply rocking with the motion.
Until he ran out of breath and had to pull away, lungs sucking in air with a frantic gasp. Thorin chuckled, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead before settling into bed beside him once more, making sure to tuck the heavy-duty winter blankets up tightly round Bilbo’s shoulders.
“If you w-...were’hhhh’hUH…” The interruption cut through the heady fog of whatever had come over him before, leaving in its path the realisation that the tickle leftover from earlier’s dramatics had swiftly flared back to life. After smothering a sneeze in the hastily-grabbed, now half-saturated handkerchief, he sniffed hard and rolled his eyes affectionately as Thorin blessed him.
“What I was trying to say was, if you wered’t catchidg this from mbe before, you mbost certaidly are ndow, you ridiculous creature.”
Again, master of the neutral, unreadable expression that he was, Thorin didn’t look phased. When he spoke, though, it betrayed that he felt he’d been caught out. “Well, yes, that was rather the idea.”
Bilbo blanched, feeling slightly stupid that his first fleeting thought was how he could take the kiss back for all his carelessness. Thorin’s bloody carelessness as well, apparently. It mattered more somehow that it was a conscious choice and not an ill-considered lapse in judgement. He despaired.
“Why would you do that?”
No sooner had it left his lips that vague recollection came rushing to the forefront of Bilbo’s mind. Some off-hand comment he’d made to Balin a few years ago when a similar spate of winter sickness was doing the rounds, how unbelievable it was that such a vast number of would succumb so quickly, such hardy folk as dwarves were. The explanation being something to the effect of it being a widely believed superstition that if you had a cold, passing it on to someone else may bring about your own recovery faster; that you’re in essence ‘getting rid of it’. So it was far from uncommon for people to voluntarily take them off their loved ones’ hands by whatever means.
The last couple of times either of them had been unwell, it’d been around the same time, so it never came up again the custom had managed to slip his mind.
For Yavanna’s sake - these dwarves and their old wives’ tales.
There was sweetness in the gesture, though, that made it hard to remain annoyed at; a perspective he may have to walk back in a couple of days’ time based solely on how much of a grumpy nightmare Thorin could be as a patient. But that was a worry for another day.
“I would see you better as soon as possible,” Thorin answered with a shrug.
Bilbo let out a brief huff of a laugh. “I’mb sure I could have mbanaged a cold mbyself, oh great King Under the Mbountain, he who has a whole entire kingdom to run and did ndot ndeed to potentially codsign hibself to days spent ill id bed. Do you really thidk it was worth it?”
“For the love I bear you, of course.”
He’d said it like it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world. Bilbo’s mouth fell open to respond, but nothing came out, his heart swelling a little in his chest at how plainly and how easily he stated it, soppy ol’ romantic he is underneath all the gruffness and the burden of leadership.
“Anyway,” Thorin continued, his lips twitching as he cheekily echoed Bilbo’s words and cadence right back at him. “I’m sure I can manage a cold.”
