sickie down with a cold so bad, it stole their voice due to a sore throat. trying to warn their partner of an upcoming sneeze, trying to indicate they need a tissue, but unable to get words out (or maybe partner has banned them from talking to 'rest their voice'). they tap partner's arm, gesture to the tissue box, all the while fighting against the uprising tickle. their oblivious partner is unable to work out what they're asking for, and it's only when they hear a hitch, catch a glimpse of flaring nostrils and the sickie finally resorting to just helplessly pointing at their chapped, red little nose that oh.. oH.. they realise
Sitting on the couch with someone who is so sniffly and congested and who keeps on letting out messy sneezes. Putting a thermometer in their mouth to check their temperature, pulling it out to read 100°. Then taking the thermometer and putting it in their nose, using it to induce messy sneezes all over your face, feeling the spray and strings of snot on your face and hands. When they're done, you have them blow their nose into the thermometer, which you then put in your mouth, pushing all of that snot and phlegm into your mouth, and just waiting for all the germ laden snot to enter your body and replicate, making you so sick and snotty too
It’s now Day five of this absolute monster of a summer cold, and we’ve reached the stage where the mere whisper of a Kleenex against either nostril feels like dragging sandpaper across a sunburn.
I’ve blown through the soft stuff — the Puffs with aloe, the Vicks-infused luxury tissues, the “friendly confines” of civilized nose care. Hankies are out because they’ve all been contaminated by this plague and I do not have the will, strength, or emotional bandwidth to wash them.
So now we enter the emergency phase: soft T-shirts.
thinking about contagion through objects, except take it up a notch...
A has the worst cold they've had in ages, and they spent all morning going through box after box of tissues. once they finally ran out, they had to resort to using a stack of cafeteria napkins. maybe they're heading out somewhere, so they shove the stash into their pocket.
as they work, they repeatedly rub their red, dripping nose onto the stack of napkins. honestly, their nose is running like a tap... it's not long before the napkins are damp in their hands.
every so often, they lift the entire stack up to their face, just inches away from their nose and mouth as they unleash violent, spraying sneeze after sneeze: "hhh-HAHH-hahh-TSCHHiiew! snf... sdf! hh-hHhAH'TSCHHh'mPF!"
after just an hour, the napkin stack is thoroughly drenched, and their hands are entirely covered with cold viruses. they are intent on going through their day as usual, drawing as little attention to themself - and their terrible cold - as possible, but then...
B - a coworker who A think is a little full of themselves - spills something on some important documents. they all but shriek - "does anyone have any napkins?!" they zero in on the stash A is holding and practically snatches it out of A's hands, despite A's protests.
"wait," A says. "you shouldn't use that. it's..."
but B is too worried about cleaning up the mess to care, or to notice that the napkins are already damp - after all, the napkins still do their job, don't they? they wring every last bit of use out of the napkins - wipe away the liquid that's spilled all over their desk, wipe down their pens and their work keyboard, for good measure - while A watches them, a little horrified, before getting out of their seat to retrieve a new fresh, uncontaminated stack.
"there," B says, satisfied with their work, as A returns with a stack of fresh napkins. "much better." they take the proffered napkins from A without a word of thanks, reaching up with a hand to rest a hand on their mouth while they look over their work.
a few days later, a now-recovered A heads into the office, only to be met with a loud, messy - 'hhH-HehhH-HHEH'TDCHHHHIIW!" from a couple desks down, which absolutely tears into a handful of tissues...
Since I am a psychology student, I go to a pharmacology course and I just discovered that I really, really appreciate learning it. Maybe a little too much. I found it disturbing.
Then I remembered the kink.
And figured out I was turned on by fucking pharmacology lessons.
There’s a man who hates getting sick. He wakes up with a tickle in his throat.
Fucking shit. Not again.
He spends the day in a rage, repeatedly swallowing, hoping the tickle will subside.
But it gets scratchier and scratchier. He conjures a list of all the potential culprits. He sees their faces clearly: every cougher, every sniffler, every sneezer who’d had the audacity to cross paths with him in the past 2 days.
He must’ve gotten it from his stupid “friend.” The out-of-town friend who met up with him for coffee the other day.
The friend who’d waited until that rendezvous to mention a little detail: he’d been recovering from a cold. “But don’t worry,” the friend said, his expression crumpling up as a sneeze overtook him. “hih’XsHhiew! *sniff* Oh, sorry. It’s okay. I’m not contagious anymore.”
Not contagious.
The germaphobic man should’ve known. He should’ve run. But no, he chose to be polite. The longer he stayed, the more he let his guard down, allowing the virus to slip inside.
And now here he is, suffering from a post-nasal drip and feeling violated beyond belief.
***
The next day, he realizes the bright side: once the virus has made you its bitch, you’rd too tired to mentally fight back. Instead, the man has turned into a mellowed-out pleasure-seeker. He’s bedridden for most of the day. He trudges through a cycle of tea, video games, and soup. His temper has dissolved, replaced by a haze of fatigue. With his head elevated on a pillow, he drifts in and out of sleep, succumbing to the tide of aches and coughs and sneezes.
