Laila & Tariq - 3 - "Practice/Experiments"
Chapter 1/5
I thought I'd switch things up a little for this next Laila & Tariq story, see what the characters get up to before they all meet up again. It'll also be the first one I've written that includes POVs from Aasif and Sita!
Content: Extremely fast/strong hiccups, pain/discomfort from spicy food.
Aasif walked briskly back from the kitchens, his quarry tucked into his sleeve. No reason to advertise—the servants or guards would only wonder why he was carrying such a thing through the palace, and he really didn’t see why anyone else had to know.
He returned to his bedroom and set his prize on his desk. For a moment, he just eyed it, wondering about the best way to begin. Should he just go for it?
At that moment, his door opened, and Aasif let out a long-suffering sigh. “What do you want, Sita?” he called over his shoulder. It had to be his sister. Any of the palace staff would’ve knocked, and his parents didn’t come to him—they’d send one of the servants to fetch him.
Sita hung back in the doorway, holding up a vase of cut flowers. “I got these from the gardens, thought you might like some,” she explained.
Well, how was Aasif meant to be annoyed with her when she was all thoughtful? It was one of the most aggravating things about his sister. “Yes, thank you,” he said in a resigned tone. “Come on in.”
He stood in front of the desk to block her view, but Sita didn’t seem to be paying much mind anyway. “What are you up to?” she asked, fussing with the (admittedly very pretty) flowers as she walked into the room.
“Oh, you know—plots, schemes, the usual,” Aasif replied.
“Huh?” She looked up at him.
Aasif chuckled. “Nothing, Sita.”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “Right.” As she looked around the room, Sita murmured to herself, “Now where to put you?”
“Maybe over by the—” Aasif started to say, gesturing to his bedside table, but Sita approached the desk instead.
“What about here?” she asked in the same breath as Aasif. Slipping past him, Sita set the vase down and was pulled up short by what she found on the desk.
“That’s a hearth pepper,” she said.
Aasif gave the thing a glance. “Is it?” he mused, as if he’d only just noticed himself.
“Why do you have a hearth pepper in your room?” Sita wondered.
No, she was annoying. Definitely annoying. “It brightens up the atmosphere,” Aasif drawled back.
“Aasif,” Sita said.
Aasif’s sister could be meek and withdrawn in company, but if she felt comfortable enough with you, she could be downright stubborn. With another sigh, Aasif admitted, “I need…practice.”
Sita frowned. “Practice at what? Eating the hottest food that grows in Iqara?” Rolling her eyes, she asked, “Is this a bet? With who, Rashad from the stables?”
“It’s not a bet,” Aasif told her. “It’s…” Between the two of them, it was very rare that Aasif was the tongue-tied one. He wondered if Sita was enjoying the role reversal. “Look,” he finally said, “it’s to help me get ready for seeing Tariq again.”
“But why would Tariq want you to—?” Sita began, and Aasif saw the exact moment she realized what he was doing. Her eyes widened in surprise, and a small laugh escaped her.
Aasif gave a small huff and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Go on, say it.”
“You’re trying to get the hiccups?” Sita asked.
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Aasif retorted. “I always get so embarrassed and cranky when I have them. Tariq’s curse is non-negotiable, so I have to figure out a way to get used to them. And I thought, practice—this is the first thing I could think of that might work.”
As she thought this over, Sita cocked her head. “Wait here,” she told him. “You’d better at least have some milk ready for yourself, or you’ll regret this fast.”
All right, so Aasif couldn’t be annoyed at Sita’s smarts either, not when they saved him from his own impulsivity. “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding. “Good idea.”
Heading for the door, Sita added, “I mean, you might regret the idea anyway. But at least you can prepare yourself for the fallout.”
“Thanks, Sita!” Aasif called after her.
While he waited, Aasif discovered that he was starting to feel apprehensive about the whole thing. Whenever the cooks served dishes made with hearth peppers, it never took more than a few mouthfuls for him to start sweating, and that was when they were blended into a sauce. They were supposed to be even hotter when they were raw, weren’t they?
That was the trouble with Sita’s pragmatism—when she pointed out all the logic, it gave you time to second-guess yourself. If not for her, Aasif would have done it already. Of course, that might’ve meant he’d be curled up on the floor with his mouth on fire, so there were pitfalls on either side.
A few minutes later, Sita returned with a pitcher of milk and a goblet. “You didn’t tell anyone what you needed it for, did you?” Aasif asked.
“Of course not,” Sita replied. “I didn’t think you’d want the servants to know the man you like is cursed, so you’re giving yourself the hiccups to help you cope with it.”
“Not man,” Aasif pointed out.
Sita’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
“I don’t think Tariq’s a man,” Aasif explained. “Not exclusively, anyway.”
“What makes you say that?” Sita asked.
Was Aasif stalling? Hard to say. “Didn’t you hear Laila the last time they were here?” Aasif said. “She used ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘they’ when she was talking about Tariq.” With a playful grin, he just nudged his sister. “Or when Laila talks, are you too busy getting lost in her eyes to hear what she says?”
“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Sita informed him, making a face.
“I happen to be an excellentjudge of my own humor,” Aasif countered.
“Fine—the person you like is cursed then,” Sita said. She sank down so she was eye level with the desk and looked at the hearth pepper. “Are you stalling?”
“I would never!” Aasif exclaimed. Sita raised her eyebrows at him and he realized that, if he talked much longer, he’d wind up backing out. If he wanted to go through with this, it would have to be now.
So, taking a breath, Aasif said, “I’m ready.” As he picked up the pepper by its stem, Sita filled the goblet with milk for him.
Just raising the hearth pepper near his face was enough to make his eyes water. Aasif told himself that that was good—it meant it had a good chance of working.
Okay, now or never.
Somehow reckless and cautious at the same time, Aasif took the smallest bite possible of the hearth pepper. It gave him about half a second of grace before it assaulted his tongue. By the time Aasif managed to swallow, he was already sweating.
“Oh-oh-oh!” he panted, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth.
“Aasif,” Sita prompted. Resting a hand on his shoulder, she held up the goblet.
Aasif seized it with both hands and gulped down a few swallows. “Oh my g-*ulk!*-god!” He downed the rest of the milk and handed the goblet back to Sita. “More, pl-please,” he begged. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he fanned at his tongue.
“Yes, I have it,” Sita assured him.
Another hiccup hit him while she was refilling the goblet, a hard “*huck!*” God, his throat and chest were burning now too. “Hurry!” Aasif insisted, his eyes streaming.
Sita gave him the goblet and watched as he tried to quench the fire he’d just swallowed. “Aren’t you glad I came along?” she asked.
“Shut up,” Aasif replied between gulps of milk. It was helping a little—the heat wasn’t unbearable—but he still felt like, if he breathed too hard, his desk would go up like kindling. “*hup!*”
“At least it worked,” Sita offered, giving Aasif a sympathetic smile as she took the empty goblet from him and refilled it again.
Aasif wasn’t so sure. After four goblets of milk, he was feeling slightly more human again, but in that time, he only counted six hiccups.
“I don’t think I have them,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Sita argued. “You started hiccupping as soon as you swallowed it.”
“It made me hiccup,” Aasif conceded. “But I don’t think it’s given me the hiccups. It’s like th-*hmmk!*-they haven’t fully taken.”
Looking with grim resignation at the hearth pepper, Aasif realized, “I need to try again.”
Sita gave him an incredulous look. “Do you seriously want to put yourself through that a second time?”
“I’m nearly there,” Aasif told her. “At least, I think I am. I bet one mor-*herk!* bite would put me over the edge.”
Sighing, Sita refilled the goblet in readiness. “Have it your way.”
It took a firm resolve to back go for a second round when Aasif’s tongue still felt tender from his first attempt. But he reminded himself of Tariq’s sunshiny face and gorgeous black curls. If Aasif was going to get over his damn embarrassment over getting the hiccups, he’d have to face it head on.
The second bite was, if possible, even smaller than the first, but it packed just as much a wallop. Aasif’s poor beleaguered tongue, mouth, throat, and stomach staggered like wounded troops being told to get ready for the next bout.
Sita was on hand with the goblet, and Aasif doused his mouth with a few swallows before the first “*HUP!*” hit him. Another swallow, a “*HUCK!*--*ulk!*”, then a rat-a-tat of “*hmmp!**ULK!**HUCK!*” kept him from drinking any more.
With a wince, Sita offered, “Well done?”
Aasif nodded weakly through a “*HERK!*--*HUP!**HUP!*”, hiccupping too fast and too hard for much else. He’d never had hiccups this badly before, and he was all but at the mercy of them. Pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, he grimaced at the unforgiving drumbeat of hiccups slamming against his throat and chest, which were still searing from the heat of the pepper. “*HMMK!**HMMP!**hmmp!*--*ULK!**HMMK!*”
“Sit tight,” Sita told Aasif, squeezing his shoulder. She emptied the goblet back into the pitcher and ran to fetch a different one, the water pitcher by his wash basin. Hurriedly, she returned to the desk and refilled the goblet with water.
“Th-*HUP!**HUCK!*-the-*HMMK!*-point i-*HERK!*-is-*HMMP!**ulk!**HUCK!*-to h-*HUCK**HUCK!**HERK!*-hav-*ULK!**HMMK!**HUP!*”
Aasif gave up—he was barely eking out his words anyway, and from Sita’s expression, she was having trouble following him. Fumbling on his desk for paper and ink, he scrawled a hasty note in a hand that jerked from his hiccups.
The whole point is to have them, not cure them
Sita read his note, then looked back up at him. “I know,” she said. “But frankly, I doubt water would cure them right now. I was just thinking that it might slow them down a little, let you catch your breath.”
There she went again—logical. With a “*HMMP!**HERK!*--*HUCK!**HUP!**HUP!*--*hmmk!*”, Aasif nodded, and Sita gave him the goblet.
“Slowly,” she counseled. “See if you can manage a small sip.”
She had a point. Aasif would probably start sputtering and coughing if he tried to drink normally. He wasn’t sure what effect that might have on the hiccups, but he could guess that it wouldn’t be good.
“*ULK!**herk!**HUCK!**HERK!*” A tiny sip, barely enough to wet his tongue. “*HUP!**HMMK!*--*ULK!*” Another sip. “*HUP!**HUP!**HUCK!*” Another.
It took all of that goblet, but Aasif got himself down to the slightest reprieve between hiccups. “*HUCK!*--*ULK!*--*HERK!*--*hmmp!*” Although they were still much harder than his normal cases ever were—faster too—they felt like less of an assault on his body. “*HUP!*-Can-*HMMK!*-I-*HUCK!*-have-*HERK!*-anoth-*HMMP!*-nother?” he asked his sister.
“Yes, of course,” Sita replied reassuringly. She filled the goblet again.
By the time he got through a second goblet of water, Aasif still had a bad case of hiccups, but they weren’t unbearable. A fair amount of the spice had dissipated too, so he wasn’t feeling fresh heat with each hiccup anymore.
“All right-*HMMK!*-I think th-*HUCK!*-that will-*HUP!*--*hmmk!*-do,” Aasif announced. He threw himself into his desk chair in an exhausted-yet-dramatic pose, tipping his head onto the chair back and resting a weary hand on his stomach as it jerked with his hiccups.
“Are you all right now?” Sita asked.
“Some-*HMMP!*-thing like-*HERK!*-that,” Aasif told her. A hard “*HUCK!*” interrupted his groan.
“Look on the bright side,” Sita pointed out. “I know this turned out worse than you bargained for, but the next time you get them from Tariq’s curse, they won’t be nearly as bad as this.”
Aasif sighed. “*HUP!*--*HERK!* I suppo-*ulk!*-pose,” he agreed. “That’s s-*HUCK!*-something.” He glanced at Sita. “I’d pl-*HMMK!*-planned on-*HMMP!*--*huck!*-walking aroun-*HUP!*-the palace-*HERK!*-so I c-*HMMP!*-could prac-*HUCK!*-tice letting-*HUCK!*--*HUP!*-other p-*HMMK!*-people see-*hup!*-me with them, *HMMP!* but there’s-*HERK!*-no way in-*hmmk!*-in hell-*HUCK!*-I’m doin-*ULK!*-that with th-*HMMP!*-these.”
Sita nodded her understanding. “I think you’ve done more than enough ‘practicing’ for today,” she said. Patting his shoulder, she added, “Try to relax if you can. Is there anything else I can bring you?”
With a shake of his head, Aasif replied, “Thanks, Sita-*HUP!*” He rubbed his chest with his knuckles. “I’m ok-*HUCK!*--HERK!*-okay.”
“All right then.” Sita headed for the day. “I’ll leave you be. I hope you don’t have them long!”
“Me-*hup!*-too!” Aasif called after her.
Once he was alone, Aasif got up, walked across the room, and sprawled his hiccupping self onto his bed. This maybe wasn’t one of his more brilliant ideas, although not even Sita could deny that it was clearly effective.
Chapter 2 here
