the perfume of love

It’s embarrassing to admit, seeing as how they’ve only been separated for about 12 hours, but Nancy misses Robin.

Misses her so much, in fact, that she kisses her as soon as she sees her again, a greeting that Robin seems to accept before pulling away quickly, eyes wide with fear.

“Dadcy, wait,” she says, her nose twitching with a stuffy-sounding sniffle. “I’mb godda get you sick.”

I don’t care, Nancy wants to say; the sight of Robin’s streaming nose and flushed, freckled cheeks are enough to send a wave of arousal over her entire body. Instead, she sets down the soup-filled tupperware - the reason she came to Robin’s house in the first place - and presses a delicate kiss to the tip of Robin’s poor red nose.

“You said you’d let me take care of you, right?”

Robin nods, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Yeah. *snrff!*”

Nancy isn’t sure where this sudden boost of confidence is coming from, but knows better than to question it. She tilts her head to the side, pressing a few slow, wet kisses along Robin’s neck and jawline until she lets out a small, pleasured noise that somehow turns Nancy on even more.

“Then let me take care of you,” she murmurs into her skin.

They manage to make it to Robin’s bedroom before reaching for each other’s clothes, pulling their shirts over their heads and discarding their jeans on the floor with giddy smiles. Robin winds up beneath Nancy on the bed, her short hair splayed across the pillow, eyes already filled with ragged desire. God, Nancy’s so in love with her.

“You’re so beautiful,” she says.

Robin rolls her eyes, delicately running her fingers across Nancy’s cheek. “Doe I’mb dot. I’mb disgustig. *snfff!*”

“Shhh,” Nancy chides gently, deciding it’s been too long since they’ve kissed. Robin reciprocates slowly, chapped lips parting just enough to allow Nancy to slip her tongue into her mouth, letting her explore like she always does.

“Dadce -”

“Yeah, baby?”

She tries not to pout when Robin tries to jerk away, but when her eyes settle on the other girl’s face - her eyes and nose pinching up threateningly - she instead finds herself smiling eagerly, a hot pool of desire settling both in her stomach and between her legs.

“I - hehh - I thingk I’mb godda -” She tries to pull away again, but Nancy’s delicate weight sat against her hips is enough to restrain her. “Hhh… Hh’schHHew! H’tchHHH! Hh’tchHHoo!”

The itchy-sounding sneezes coat the air between them with a thick cloud of mist. Robin’s eyes go wide again as she hurriedly scrubs away the tickle in her nose with the heel of her hand.

“Oh mby Gosh, Dadce, I’mb so sorry. That was so gross. Let mbe -”

She attempts to move yet again, but Nancy’s fingers gently curl around her wrist, lowering it from her face so she can get a greedy look at the bright red tint to her nose. She leans down to kiss away the worry lines on Robin’s warm forehead, spreading a few more across her freckled cheeks before dipping down to kiss her lips slowly and affectionately.

“I meant what I said,” Nancy whispers, brushing a piece of Robin’s hair out of her face. “You’re beautiful.”

Robin breaks into a smile - immediately proving Nancy’s point - before leaning forward, smattering a few heavy kisses across Nancy’s lips. Her tongue is a wet heat as it pushes into Nancy’s, who fights the urge to moan with pleasure at the up-close sound of Robin’s mucus shifting in her nose with every inhale, all wet and gurgling into Nancy’s ear.

“You’re really dot lyig?” Robin asks.

“Nobody who’s ever said that about you was lying.”

A few more lust-filled kisses before Robin’s hands are pushing against Nancy’s waist. Nancy recognizes the gesture, obliges by rolling onto her back, allowing Robin to climb on top of her. There’s a mischievous look on her face - one that Nancy’s seen several times - but this time, it’s accompanied by Robin’s glassy eyes and the sound of her soupy sniffles. This can’t be real.

“You cad take care of mbe later. *snrffg!*” She runs her thumb across Nancy’s bottom lip. “For dow, let mbe say thadk you.”

Yeah, no, she’s definitely dreaming. She tries not to gasp as Robin grabs at her breasts, her kisses like tiny sparks of heat as she trails her lips down the length of Nancy’s stomach. Nancy watches her every movement, fervently manifesting another tickle to enter her girlfriend’s nose.

“So pretty,” Robin says between kisses, massaging Nancy’s breasts in her palms. “I’mb so lucky.”

“I’m the lucky one,” she rasps. If only Robin knew the gravity those words truly held in this moment.

Robin continues to press slow, steady kisses across her stomach, wet saliva mixed with what can only be a trail of thin, clear snot left in her wake. She runs the tip of her index finger teasingly along Nancy’s folds over her underwear, smirking at the patch of wetness that began gathering there long before they even started kissing.

“You really did mbiss mbe, huh?”

Nancy giggles, cheeks turning a pale pink. “Shut up.”

Robin slides her underwear off with ease, tossing them haphazardly onto the bed before pushing the pad of her thumb against Nancy’s slick entrance. Nancy fights to catch her breath, especially as the other girl eases two more fingers past her folds, pumping with a steadfast rhythm she knows Nancy likes from months of experience.

Then, by what can only be some type of miracle, her breath starts to hitch. Nancy bites back a grin, watching the way Robin’s nose twitches, one of her hands still half-buried in her cunt.

“Let it out, sweetheart,” she urges. “It’s okay.”

Robin barely manages to nod before bending forward, the rough spray of her sneezes landing against Nancy’s torso. “Hh’schHHew! H’TCHHiew! Hh… Heh’tscHHew! Oh, fuck. *snurrf!*”

Nancy lets out another moan before she can stop herself; however, Robin must assume it’s from the way her fingers are still working her pussy apart, because she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she bends down, the damp underside of her nose brushing against the top of Nancy’s heat. Robin’s fingers have just started to probe her clit before she pulls them out, quickly replacing them with her flattened tongue.

For all intents and purposes, Nancy knows she’s done for. The more she cries out in pleasure, the faster Robin’s tongue works against her clit, a hunger that she’s more than happy to help her satisfy. Robin only pulls away when she has to sneeze again, her breath hot and damp against Nancy’s oozing folds.

“H’SCHHhew! HH’tschHHOO! Hp’TSHhiew!” She doesn’t even hesitate this time, unleashing much more intense sneezes right up against Nancy’s cunt. She tilts her head back just enough for Nancy to see that her nose is now dripping profusely, thick streams of mucus dangling from her nostrils. “Hh’PSCHHew! God, Dadcy, I’mb - H’tsHHHEW! - I dod’t kndow what’s happening - Hh’schhHIEW!”

“Just keep going,” Nancy practically whimpers. She reaches down to brush some hair away from Robin’s tear-filled eyes, sickly and squinting from the beautiful tickle that’s invaded her sinuses. “I - I’m so close, baby.”

Robin obliges quickly, her tongue lapping at Nancy’s entrance once again before she decides to dip her fingers back inside, curling them once she’s knuckle-deep.

It isn’t long before her pretty face pinches up again. “H-Hang od - Hh’TCHHh! Hmp’SCHHHh! *snxxxg!*”

Two more sneezes, impossibly wet and slightly muffled into Nancy’s dripping warmth. The harsh spray she feels from them is immaculate, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Bless you, angel,” she chokes out.

“Thaahhhngk you - Hh’PSCHHh! Hhehhh… Hh’SCHHhh! Hh’TSCHhhh!”

Nancy doesn’t last much longer after that; still, she tries to bask in the feeling that’s seemingly absorbing every single one of her nerves. When the tight coil inside her suddenly snaps, she swears it’s the best orgasm she’s ever had. Robin continues to tend to her all the while, her slick nose leaking onto Nancy’s folds as she diligently laps up whatever juices she can swallow. She only sits up when Nancy’s arms reach for her, seated against Nancy’s hips with one hand still pressed flat against the inside of her thigh.

Nancy blinks out of the haze of her climax, covering Robin’s hand with her own. She’s so blissed out that she doesn’t even notice the way Robin’s smiling down at her, both affectionate and rightfully curious.

“Geez, Dadce, that was - Oh, ew.”

She drags her hand across her upper lip, grimacing at the string of mucus that attaches itself to her fingers. With no tissues in sight, Nancy fetches her panties from the foot of the bed, holding them out to her.

“Just use these, baby,” she insists, trying not to sound like she’s losing her mind at the mere thought of it.

Robin glances shyly between Nancy’s outstretched hand and encouraging face before giving in, cautiously lifting the panties up to her still-quivering nostrils. The sound of thick snot bubbling out her sinuses as she blows her nose is nearly enough to make Nancy force her head back down between her thighs, especially as a large patch of mucus visibly soaks through the fabric.

She scrubs harshly at her nose when she’s finished, balling up Nancy’s underwear and tossing them across the room. “Thangk you. *snf!* That’s mbuch better.”

They share a smile as Robin crawls off of Nancy’s hips, curling up next to her. Nancy pulls her in close, meeting her blue eyes only to find that Robin’s already watching her, head tilted to one side with piqued interest.

“So…” she says. “Are you godda tell mbe what that was all about?”

Her tone isn’t at all teasing - the trace of a smile that’s still on her lips is purely loving in nature. Nancy presses a tiny kiss to the corner of her upturned mouth, shaking her head.

The trouble begins not long after, when Crescher arrives at the lab one day soaking wet, having walked from the station in the kind of weather that laughs in the face of umbrellas. Great waves of wind and icy rain coming from every angle have left the poor thing drenched. Sinta can practically hear their teeth chattering from a room away as they go to get changed into something dry.

(In case of accidental contamination, is the reason they’d give for the stash of spare work clothes if anyone asked, and the other lab techs know them as just anal and paranoid enough to believe it without question.)

When they return they’ve mostly smoothed themself back into standard Crescher-like shape, save for their hair which, to Sinta’s secret delight, is turning curly from the moisture even as it dries, and the persistent chill that has yet to leave them. Due to some of the more delicate materials they work with, the entire building is kept temperature controlled at no higher than sixty-eight degrees. Comfortable, usually. Less so now.

Fifteen minutes into the work day, Dr. Crescher starts sneezing.

“Hh-! h’ESSHh!”

At first this is met with a general murmured blessing from the room, but the number willing to keep this up for the sake of politeness decreases as the frequency and the alchemist’s own obvious irritability increases. This kind of nasal disruption is common enough on a day when Dr. Crescher isn’t damp and chilled, and it soon becomes clear that if they pause to bless them every time, nobody will be getting anything done today. 

“hhESHh! eh? heh-eh-EYYSCHHuh!”

They don’t exactly make themself easy to ignore though, Sinta thinks. At first she’s sure it’s just that lingering chill making them sensitive, but by midday the repeating sound of Crescher’s sneezes and sniffs and tight, frustrated little throat clears have taken on a congested quality that makes her think otherwise. 

By the end of the day, despite having long since dried off and warmed up, Crescher is caught in a loop of perpetual sniffling as they try to keep a gleaming drop of moisture caught on the edge of their nostril from slipping down any further. There is in fact a box of tissues within reach but their look of concentration tells Sinta that they don’t have the spare bandwidth to make use of it until either they’ve completed their current thought or something rips them out of it by force.

“ngh… heh…”

Ah, and here it comes now.

“eHEH-! HDDSHHEHiiuh!”

Sinta winces at the fallout. Seems it was more than a single droplet that they were keeping at bay after all. In a desperate last second grab for the tissues, with eyes already falling closed, Crescher has instead knocked it over the edge of the table and sneezed openly over its surface. 

They blink back into awareness with a look of pure mortification. Their eyes dart away from the scene and lock onto Sinta, who flusters to realize she’s been caught staring. There are a million small comforts she could give them, if she were that kind of person, if they were in that kind of relationship, if they weren’t still very much at work and surrounded by people. Instead she averts her gaze and, without a word, picks up the fallen box and places it back on the table.

She keeps her back to them, giving them some space and privacy in which to clean themself up, but more than half of her attention stays tuned to the notably damp sound of Crescher blowing their nose, the half-muffled, wounded noise that follows, disgust or humiliation or plain exhaustion. She hears as they begin to pack up their things, sounding more rushed than usual. They’ll be in a hurry to get home and into bed, or so Sinta hopes.

Outside, the rain has eased up in severity but still shows no sign of stopping. Surmising that, while still technically on work grounds, this is far enough away that it wouldn’t be a violation of their agreement, Sinta squares her shoulders and races ahead to catch up to Crescher before they leave.

“Cr- Doctor.” Running was a bad idea. Hard not to look desperate when you’re halfway out of breath. How are they so fast anyway? “Would you like a ride home?”

Sinta is hoping that saving them from having to catch the train in this condition will soften them up enough that she can convince them to take tomorrow off. For their sake but also her own. Another day of listening to their sounds of misery without letting some endearment slip may be too much for her to take.

Crescher turns. Predictably their nose is a point of focus, raw and flushed, but there’s also a pinkness around their eyes and high on their cheekbones, the color otherwise drained from their face. They are white knuckling the handle of their umbrella and they look… angry. No, that doesn’t seem right. Frustrated. Today must have taken more out of them than Sinta thought. To be honest, they look almost like they’re about to cry. Sinta has seen Crescher work through sickness before; this isn’t even the worst she’s seen them, but it is possibly the most upset she’s seen them barring an imminent monstrous transformation. No claws erupt from their hands, no jagged spines nor pointed teeth make themselves known. They’re just staring at her with murder in their eyes and a tremble returning to their rigid frame.

“I don’t know, are you sure you want to be seen with me?” they bite out like an accusation.

Sinta frowns. “What are you talking about? Nevermind. I’ll get the car. You shouldn’t be out here like this.”

“Right, because you’re so deeply concerned about me.” They shiver violently. “Whatever you want to tell me you might as well just get it over with. I’m not interested in playing games.”

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, but Crescher is building up a proper head of steam now and hardly seems to hear her.

“Just tell me this first, were you ever really interested in me? Or was it all some sort of joke? Maybe it was the challenge that drew you in. Wanted to see if you could get me to take the bait. Wanted to see if you could get the freak to feel something. Well congratulations!” they spit venomously. “But don’t think I’m just going to sit around sighing, letting you drag me along until you get bored enough or- or- hhhZZHIUH!- or disgusted enough to cut me loose. 

“Do you think I’m an idiot? You don’t get to be in my position by being an idiot, Dr. Sillica. And you don’t get there without becoming the target of some petty contempt either. So set aside the notion that you’re breaking new ground here. This- this won’t even phase me, okay? In a week, I’ll forget you ever existed. I have an amazing career, an amazing life to get back to. And-!” Their voice breaks with a cough. “And you can run along and tell that to whoever else you’ve got in on it too. You can go… go laugh, laugh it up all you want. Doesn’t bother me. Because I don’t need you. I don’t need your attention or- or your pity. I’m completely fine!”

A tremendous crack of thunder rings out, making both parties jump, and like an act of god the wind rips Dr. Crescher’s long-suffering umbrella inside out with such force it all but snaps apart in their hands. Throughout their tirade, Crescher’s face had been growing progressively redder, and the cold-stuffed congestion they’d been intermittently sniffling back when they’d begun has now overcome them, spilling out over their upper lip and mingling with rivelets of rainwater as they pant from the exertion of their fury.

“Cresch…” Sinta starts, trailing off when Crescher flinches back, as if anticipating some sort of retaliation. Definitely feverish, delirious, experiencing some kind of sickness-induced delusion. She could figure out the details later, as well as address some of the more worrying accusations she’d managed to pick out from their senseless ranting. Right now, there is something more important at hand.

“I’m taking you home,” she says decisively, and grabs Dr. Crescher by the rain-damp back of their jacket before they can try to opt out. They could still pull away if they wanted to. They could shove her off. They could go full monstermode, consequences be damned, and disappear into the night. They could wriggle out of their coat and run away until they reached the station or slipped on wet sidewalk or made themself so sick that they… Sinta is trying not to think too hard about those alternate options.

Crescher looks at their broken umbrella, then at Sinta. Then they squeeze their eyes shut and swallow sorely. 

“Okay.”

-----

Sitting at a red light, Sinta cranks the heater a notch higher, as high as she can probably get away with without fogging the windshield beyond visibility. Crescher is sitting in her passenger seat with their bag on their lap and both arms wrapped around it, pressing it hard against their middle. 

“hddssHHIUHHh! -nk. snf.”

Sinta winces. They are definitely sounding worse.

“ihh… hih… snf, snf!”

“Bless. There’s napkins in the glove box.”

Crescher folds in on themself a degree further and sniffles hard, glowering with watery eyes. So they’re back to whatever this is. Wonderful.

Sinta had wanted to wait at least until they were parked to tackle this, but it seems it can’t wait. 

“Do you want to tell me why you’re acting like this?” She tries to keep the anger out of her voice, but really why should she? She is angry. Isn’t she? She is… she is hurt, she realizes. It hurts to have Crescher mad at her and not even know why or what can be done to fix it.

No answer, to either question.

“I can’t figure out if you think I’m a mind reader or if I just blacked out and missed the part where you explained what it is I’ve supposedly done wrong, but this would go a lot smoother if you would talk to me instead of sitting there sulking and acting like a… like a brat!”

This at least gets Crescher to pop their head up and look at her. The light turns. A car behind them honks its impatience and in an impressive show of dexterity, Sinta manages to flip them off through the rear window with one hand while shoving a stack of spare napkins into Crescher’s lap with the other. Out of deference to her skill, or more likely just because they really do need it, Crescher turns aside and blows their nose.

“A brat,” they repeat flatly as they blot at their dripping nostrils. “No one’s called me a brat since I was seven years old.”

Sinta fights with herself not to smile. No, you are angry. You are. Well, concerned really. But also angry. “Shocking. You act like one often enough.”

“I’m older than you, you know. A brat.” They scoff, or maybe they have a uniquely smug-sounding cough. It’s hard to say.

This time Sinta can’t quite keep from smiling. It isn’t what you’d call an ear-to-ear grin. Mostly it’s just a movement of her eyes, a soft shifting of her upper lip. “I like you anyway though.”

Crescher makes a disbelieving sound in their throat, which of course gets them coughing in earnest, pitching forward into the nest of napkins cradled in their hands.

“It’s true. It’s… occam's razor. Tie yourself in knots trying to reason out why I give a damn, and when you’ve eliminated every batshit conclusion you’ve drawn, the simplest one still stands: I like you. I like to be around you. And this isn’t the first time I’ve told you that, so I really don’t see what the big problem is.”

A beat of silence, just the rain and the rhythmic mechanical swish of the windshield wipers. And then, “You don’t always act like it.”

Sinta glances at them as incredulously as she can manage without taking her eyes off the road. “You mean at work? That was your idea. And it’s an idea I agree with. I care too much about my career to sacrifice everything for a new relationship that both of us might be sick of in a month, and I know you do too. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. Don’t you think I’d be an absolute menace to you all day at work if I could? You’d hate it, and then you’d be fired for inappropriate fraternization with a subordinate, and then I’d probably be fired too. Is that really what you want?”

“I don’t need you to be throwing yourself at me, I just need-” They snap their mouth shut with a scowl.

“What? Go on.”

“I don’t need anything,” they amend. “But I- it would be- why isn’t it as hard for you as it is for me?” 

That does throw Sinta for a loop. Sometimes it’s all too easy for her to forget Crescher isn’t used to this- the intensity of a new romance. By what little they’ve let slip, their past relationships seem to have been… lackluster to say the least. To be fair, it’s been a lot for Sinta as well. But she has experience to go on. While Crescher’s experience has been… 

Huh. Suddenly Sinta is wondering if those accusations, that paranoia about being used and mocked and left on a whim, might have a more substantial basis in reality than she thought. The thought feels like a black hole is opening up in her stomach.

“I have more practice,” she explains, pushing away the darkness for a moment. “And it is hard for me. I couldn’t focus at all today.”

“You couldn’t?”

“Nope. I was just running out the clock.” A slight exaggeration, but still. She glances towards the passenger seat. That pesky concern is sneaking back up on her again. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the best at showing what I feel. But did you really think I didn’t notice, didn’t care at all? Is that what you think of me?”

“I don’t know what I think.” Crescher’s head thumps softly against the headrest. Their eyes are glazed, dazed, weary. “I thought- You wouldn’t look at me and when you did it wasn’t exactly because I was being especially attractive. I thought if you weren’t already sick of me by then you would be now. Then I thought maybe you’d always been.” They gnaw at their lower lip with a suspiciously sharp tooth. “And then I started thinking about why you’d even pretend to… maybe there was someone else, maybe even someone else from work or from the academy, and that you would go see them, and talk about me-”

Sinta puts her hand over the trembling claw on the armrest. It’s cold to the touch, even as it recedes back into slender humanoid fingers.

“There isn’t,” she says. “But even if there was, I wouldn’t do that. Even if you were to decide tomorrow you never wanted to see me again, I wouldn’t do that to you. I… care about you. As a colleague, as a friend, as whatever else- that isn’t going to change. You don’t need to trust me implicitly, but you do need to talk to me. Tell me what you want from me. If that means being monogamous, if that means telling people or not- whatever. I just need to know.”

Crescher grips her hand, and this time Sinta is certain that the watery sniffling sounding from the passenger seat isn’t purely from their cold.

-----

They pull up to Crescher’s apartment and Sinta walks them to the door under her umbrella. She isn’t sure what’s going to happen next, far less so than she was when she set out after them outside the lab, but it occurs to her that for better or for worse Crescher has shown a lot of vulnerability today- like, an exhausting amount, so much so that to think about it kind of makes her head spin if she’s being honest- and it would probably be a Good Girlfriend thing to do to at least meet them halfway.

“Can I come in? I want to make sure you’re alright before I go home.”

They hesitate in the doorway. “You don’t need to do anything, I’m ffeh- heh- HEH’SCHHUHh!”

Sinta levels them a look and asks again, “Can I come in?”

Crescher huffs and steps aside. “Please, make yourself at home.”

Oh she will. The moment she’s inside the need to coddle her partner is immediately overridden by her desire to hyper-analyze every detail of their living space. She’s been here before, briefly, when taking them home after a date, but never inside. It would maybe sting a bit if Crescher didn’t project an aura of “I need my space” with every cell of their being. Sinta could very well be the first person to see the place at all, judging by how new much of it still looks.

It should come as no shock to find that Dr. Crescher’s apartment indicates a somewhat spartan lifestyle. The apartment is furnished, in brief, to be a comfortable fit for exactly one person, and only assuming that one person was someone who didn’t spend much time at home to begin with. Sinta is, to her own surprise, relieved to see some areas of distinctly lived-in style clutter: mismatched cushions on a tired looking loveseat, a shelf of books that seem to be ordered according to preference, as indicated by which spines had taken the most wear, and which are still wrapped in plastic, a disorganized pile of both opened and unopened junk mail that never made it to the trash bin. It is all reassuringly normal, if a little depressing here and there.

There is one thing that catches Sinta’s interest above the rest: a vibrant pop of color in the form of the large potted fern sitting by the window.

“Is this real?”

“As opposed to what?” 

“It just looks really well taken care of, is all.”

“It’s not that hard,” Crescher says, as if they aren’t obviously preening at the small praise. “You just mist it with a little water, make sure it gets a little sunlight, check the roots for rot every once in a while- oh, and keep the blinds drawn in the afternoon so it doesn’t get too much sun. And it does need well-draining soil. But other than that… I mean if it were outside you’d need to check it for pests sometimes but obviously that isn’t a concern here. And-”

Sinta takes advantage of Crescher’s distraction to do some more casual snooping, scanning in particular for a comfortable place to get them to lay down. Beelining for a bedroom feels weirdly intimate, despite the fact that Crescher’s seen hers multiple times now. That must have something to do with it. Intimacy in a space that isn’t her own, doesn’t offer her that sense of home turf advantage, is still unnerving to her. 

Crescher derails their own infodumping with a wrenching sneeze. They stagger on the recoil, touching their head and moaning softly. Ok, that’s it.

“I’m taking you to bed.” It’s more blunt, and much more suggestive than she was aiming for, but fine. Bluntness had worked for her before, hadn’t it?

“Whuh?” Crescher flushes in surprise and Sinta immediately backpedals. 

“I said you should be in bed. You’re looking worse.” That last part is true at least.

“No, no, if I lie down now I’ll just end up lying around feeling stuffed up and miserable all night.”

“As opposed to now, when you’re standing around feeling stuffed up and miserable.”

Crescher pouts- there’s really no other word for it- and marches into the adjoining kitchen to sit at the table. 

“Sitting. I stand corrected.” It’s an improvement at least.

“Wait, I meant to get something before I sat down.”

“Water? Tissues? Medicine?” Sinta guesses.

They knead the indent crossing the bridge of their nose where their goggles had been resting and groan. “hhdSHHIUH…! Umb, yeah.” 

They move to get up but Sinta nudges them back down. “Bless you. I’ve got it. Sit.”

Tissues first, because Crescher’s leaking again. She finds a box in the bathroom and helps herself to the medicine cabinet as well, coming away with some store brand cold and flu capsules and a thermometer. She’s reaching for one of the glasses drying by the kitchen sink when she sees… a beaker?

“Have you been taking work home with you?”

“No,” Crescher answers far too quickly. When they see what she’s looking at they relax. “Oh. No, that's actually a glass. Pick it up. It has a handle.”

So it does. “You bought yourself a beaker-shaped glass?” The first explanation seemed more plausible.

“It was a gift!”

Sinta smirks to herself. “It’s cute.”

Crescher grumbles, coughs. “I’ll pass along your approval to my mother. She’s the one who sent me the plant too actually.”

“Hm.” The image of Crescher coming from the type of family who would send them houseplants and novelty tableware doesn’t really mesh with their… everything. She files the thought away for later.

After they’ve drained the water from the beaker-cup twice over, Sinta takes out the thermometer and, without thinking, says, “Open up.” Only to nearly drop the thing when Crescher turns and obeys with such an automatic motion that it… well, frankly it turns her on. Even she can’t say why exactly. Something in their unquestioning obedience, particularly after the way they’d been all evening. 

It’s just the exhaustion, or the fever scrambling their brain, she reasons to herself, and resolutely does not imagine taking advantage of that tired submission in another context.

She should leave it alone. A better person would leave it alone. But when the thermometer beeps, she slips it out of their mouth for them and says lowly, “Good job, doctor.”

They suck in a gasp, quick enough that it almost goes unnoticed. Clearly they think it has, covering up the soft, strangely pleased sound with a cough. “Ah. Ahem. Well, what’s the verdict?”

“One-oh-one. A fever, but just barely. I honestly expected worse.” It’s almost more worrying to know they’ve put themself in this state without the help of a baking brain.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

She ignores the snark and touches their cheek. “How are you feeling now anyway?”

“I. Uhm.” More nervous throat clearing. “I- hih-! hheehSHUHhuh! nng… I’ve beend better.”

“Mhm. It’s supposed to be superstition, that thing about catching cold from going out in the rain. Though I guess it’s also said that in every myth there’s a bit of truth. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a cold come on so fast though.”

“Call me a statistical anomaly,” they drawl. “That and, I may have already been coming down with something before- hhttSHHuh!- all this.”

“And you still came into work. Of course,” she says, half teasing, but only half.

“It wasn’t so bad this morning! Plus, I was prepared. I put a disposable mask, spare tissues, some cough drops, all in my pockets before heading out.” They smile ruefully. “Everything had been pretty much dissolved before I even got there.”

“Why do you take the train to work anyway?”

“Oh, brilliant idea. Sit a walking explosive with the fuse hooked up to their adrenal gland in the driver’s seat of a tiny metal box surrounded by a hundred other metal boxes hurtling down the road at sixty miles per hour. I’m sure nothing bad will come of- OW!”

Sinta had pinched Crescher’s arm, though not nearly as hard as the affronted look they were giving her would suggest.

“I can’t decide what pisses me off more sometimes: the way you talk to me when you’re feeling tetchy, or the way you talk about yourself. But what I was building up to was, why don’t I just drive you? You’re basically on my way and it might prevent situations like this from happening.”

Rubbing their arm, they ask, “Won’t that look suspicious?”

“Carpooling together is well within the normal bounds of platonic coworker behavior, I promise.”

“Then… that would be alright, I guess.” They sniff. “I’m, er, sorry for snapping, and for… everything else. For the way I am sometimes. The things I said- none of it was true, obviously, but I… it’s important to me that you know that. I haven’t been th-thinking clearly. heh… ehheh… ihhHH-! HHESCHH’OOHhh!“

“Bless,” says Sinta, feeling fond despite herself. Crescher often reminds her of a cat- they’ll hiss and claw if you touch them wrong but come back mewling and sweet when they’re ready. “Doubt anyone could with a head as full as yours sounds. Take some medicine, take tomorrow off, and in a couple days we’ll try this whole thing again. Okay?”