all who snzkink enter here

Prowling cemeteries at night wasn't something the seminary prepared him for. But after serving the small community of Cat's Cradle, Reverend Nathaniel Lark knew better than to question the concerns of a worried mother knocking on his door at 11:00 pm. 

He swore it was the trees—Cat's Cradle was a mountain town surrounded by an ancient forest. Tales of ghosts and monsters flourished in the dark, and it wasn't his place to disprove or deny the concerns of his parish. Their belief was real, and that was enough for him. So he peered down every haunted well, climbed up every ominous staircase, and looked under every bed. He hadn't planned on becoming an official boogeyman hunter, but he preferred it over listening to his pompous, bigoted peers back home. He took up the collar to bring comfort to others, and if bringing comfort meant going out into the dark with a crucifix and a jar of garlic in the middle of the night, he was going to do it. 

"Igheh'Hhh—Hihff'Shhiew!!" 

He unfolded a new bundle of tissues, already exhausting a box. The miserable cold that spent its time passing from townsfolk to townsfolk in the winter had finally caught up to him just as spring finally came around. He practically sneezed his way through the last mass. It was a proper head cold, one he hoped would dry up in a week. Thankfully, most of his colds were short-lived. 

"Heeh-hh—ohdearmbe—hehh'IGHHFFF!!!" 

That one bent him in half. His back twinged in pain, and for a moment, he stayed bowed, lower half of his face buried in a handkerchief. The airy sneeze rang out in the graveyard, the only sound of life amongst the dead.

Wincing, he slowly, carefully straightened out again. The grand age of forty-five had done his spine no favors. Or his knees. Or his neck, for that matter. Funny, the things one took for granted. Working backs and knees. Graveyards had a way of making him meditative on his own mortality, as graveyards should. They were places for contemplation. To honor and grieve loved ones. They were places where memories were buried forever.

They were not supposed to be dug up again, least of all by the local priest. But the kindly baker told him she'd seen a vampire take its residence in what should have been her auntie's final resting place, and he wasn't going to argue with her. If a flock of sheep bleated at a wolf in the woods, the shepherd would be foolish not to go and chase it away. 

He still felt foolish placing the jar of garlic on top of the grave. He felt even more foolish when he nearly jumped out of his skin in fright when the caretaker yelled at him. 

"What the hell are you doing?" The old man stood at the stoop of the funeral house, weathered face lit by the glow of his outdated lantern. 

"Oh, hullo!" Rev. Nathaniel Lark smiled awkwardly, trying to make the act of digging up a grave look perfectly normal. "Just uh—snff—checking for…something." 

The caretaker scowled. 

Nathaniel cleared his throat. 

"You haven't uh—seen, any..oh..I don't know—uh—vampires around?" 

The caretaker grumbled a string of colorful expletives and returned to the funeral home, slamming the doors behind him. 

"Have a good evening!" Nathaniel lamely called after him. He always tried his best to end every interaction on a positive note. You never knew when a goodbye would be your last. 

Nathanial was unsure if a jar of processed garlic with "a hint of rosemary" would have the same effect as an actual garland, but he didn't have any time to sew one together, and frankly, he didn't feel well enough to focus on crafting one. He took a small bottle of holy water and gave the top of the grave a generous sprinkle. Though he seriously doubted a vampire had exhumed the body in order to take up residence in its place, He hoped the process was convincing enough ward for the baker to feel comforted by it. 

She was waiting for him in the parking lot, watching from the safety of an old truck. The baker still seemed worried as he approached, eyeing him suspiciously. 

"You think that's enough to keep it away, father?" She asked. 

He coughed lightly into the crook of an elbow, the cold had passed the point of scorching his throat, but the drip of it remained. 

"—I don't see why it wouldn't, Mrs. Keller. From what I'm told, even jars of garlic are enough to keep evil spirits from harassing the dearly departed remains." 

He wasn't told about any of this. But he wasn't lying. Lying was a sin. He was comforting someone, and there was nothing wrong with that. The look of relief on the baker's face was enough to make the harmless pantomime worth it. 

"Thank you so much, Father! You'll get a whole month's worth of fresh bread, I guarantee it." 

"It's the least I can do—Now, is there..any-anythihg—anythingelse-??" 

A sudden tickle fluttered between his eyes, and he quickly pressed a knuckle to the underside of his nose. Guiltily, he begged for the conversation to be over, so he could get back to bed and sneeze out the rest of this cold. 

Mrs. Keller took her time thinking of another investigation while Nathaniel tried to smile through the burn of an approaching sneeze. 

"Mmm…I don't suppose you could check the graves tomorrow, just to make sure?"

"Hhhh!!—"  He held his breath, eyebrows lifted dramatically as he clamped his nose between the tissues. "—HFFFHIEW!!" 

"Oh! Bless you!" Mrs. Keller grinned, suddenly amused, "How funny, me blessing you. Feels a bit strange." 

Nathaniel sighed into the tissues, still muzzy with a second sneeze brewing. He did his best to extricate himself from the ever-gregarious Mrs. Keller, finally leaving the dark graveyard parking lot for a long walk back home. It was a bit of an eerie walk, the kind where you were almost sure someone was following behind. Perhaps the superstitious nature of the town was starting to influence him. 

At least he didn't live far away. For that, he was grateful. He was even more grateful when his landlord remembered to let the plumber in to fix the sink. But it was odd that the plumber showed up so late at night and didn't actually fix the sink. It still leaked when he trudged into the kitchen. He rolled his eyes at the puddles of water on the kitchen floor, snuffling thickly as he tried to mop them up. 

Nathaniel knew he had many flaws, as all humans did. One of them was self-pity, something he tried to dip in only occasionally. But tonight, being sick as a dog and with a busted sink, he let himself wallow in it. Poor Reverend Nathaniel Larkin, crawling on his hands and knees mopping up puddles, nose as leaky as the broken sink. 

Another puddle mopped, another one to go. Nathaniel's mouth slowly swung open as yet another sneeze tickled him. He would have had it too, if he hadn't wiped away a splatter of blood. 

He bolted upright, eyes following the trail of blood to the couch. A man lounged there, leg crossed. He looked perfectly cordial despite the front of his shirt being covered in blood. He grinned crookedly up at Nathaniel. Teeth razor sharp, eyes glowing in the dark. 

"Heads up. You might need a new landlord." The man said. 

Nathaniel didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. Only feel pure terror. 

"He was kind of a boring guy. Talked too much, no real flavor to him." The man's eyes flashed. 

"Worst of all, I'm still hungry." 

Before Nathaniel could even think, the creature pounced on him. 

His head slammed against the floorboards as he felt the fangs sink into his neck. Nathaniel yelled for help, flailed, and shoved at the monster on top of him. Strong hands (or were they claws?) held him fast, all he could do was scream.

But there was no pain. That was the odd thing. After the agony of the bite, there was nothing. He felt the blood and the cold skin of the creature's lips against his throat, but he didn't feel pain. His mind fogged over, and his vision went blurry, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was being fed on by a damn vampire, it was almost…good. 

Really good. 

In the cloud of sensation, Nathaniel felt a sudden inhale against the divot of his neck, where throat met chest. Then another sip of air, and a distinct sound of a sniffly nose. He thought for a moment he was sniffling, the cold chasing him to his death. But he felt the fangs unhook from his flesh, and he looked up to see that the vampire was rubbing at his nose against the heel of his hand. Panting, his glowing eyes hooded as it sucked in another gasp of air, nostrils fluttering open—

"What—heh—the-h-hell—HH—" The vampire's voice wavered as his lips curled up in a snarl. But he no longer looked ferocious. He looked confused, almost soft…

Sneezy.

"Ah—Ahh—HAHk'SHHH!!" 

It exploded out of him, spluttering messily between sharp teeth. Body cringing forward, eyes closing despite his best efforts…

It was just enough time. Nathaniel used the moment to shove the vampire off of him and reached into his back pocket for the crucifix. The world swam before his eyes as he lurched forward with it, pressing the holy object to the vampire's back. He heard the creature cry out in pain, saw the smoke, the fire, and then nothing.

Reverend Nathaniel Larkin swooned, and his world went black. 

———————-

It'd been a month since he got a crucifix to the back. 

He sat at the empty bar, nursing a full glass of beer. Just for looks, of course. Human drink could never satisfy as much. It might as well have been air. He wasn't there for the drinks, he was there for the music. Soft guitars strummed effortlessly from the modest stage, and a handful of true devotees sat and enjoyed the gentle ballads. Every Saturday he'd go to sit and listen, music was the last true thing that made him feel alive. 

The fucking scar itched. He thumbed at his back uselessly. What did it look like? Did it leave a mark?  There was no way he could know. 

"You gotta leave." 

The bartender gave him a final warning. Nice guy. Knew about the whole vampire thing. Knew enough to let him in and leave him be, at least. Nodding, he slid off the barstool and skulked into the dark. One of the things they didn't tell you when you became a child of darkness was that you should always honor a few spaces. You couldn't run your whole immortal life. He had quite a few spots across the globe by this point, places he could rely on for shelter, at least briefly. Some were permanent, some less so. 

For now, his less-permanent shelter was a trailer, the final home of his last meal. It was ratty, but it was dark, and it had a couch. And a tv. He could hardly complain about that. Flopping on the sofa, he kicked up his boots on the coffee table, and reached for the remote. He was almost at peace.

Almost.  

He hissed, and pinched at the bridge of his nose as a sneeze sparked to life. He'd felt one coming on all damn night, a tickle that flowed and ebbed seemingly at random. He never thought he'd be bothered with sneezing again. He hadn't done it for hundreds of years. Up until the encounter with that priest, he'd almost forgotten what it felt like. At first, he thought it was a fluke, perhaps drinking the blood of a clergyman ignited an allergy he was unaware of. Whatever it was, he hadn't indulged in it since. 

Until tonight. He woke up with his nose buzzing, and he'd almost been excited to try for one again. Almost. But every time he seemed to work up to one, it went away, leaving him stuffy and frustrated. Twice during the concert he nearly got an AH in, but the fucking Choo would die away. At one point, his ridiculous gasping made someone's head turn, drawing unwanted attention. He flushed with embarrassment, just thinking about it. He didn't know he could still blush either. 

"Oh-come on.." He sniffed at the cold air, twiddling his wide nose against the palm of his hand. His breath snagged, and he felt a swell of anticipation in him as his chest rose, and rose, and rose—

"Ah—hh-hh—AHHH!!" 

He tilted his head back, as if the sneeze was a thing to be caught in the air with his teeth, a thing just right out of reach. 

Curiously, he could hear someone else hitching, too. Someone unseen in the dark. Someone close by, who didn't want to be seen, was struggling not to be heard. 

"—AHt'CHHHHSH!!!" He launched forward with it, exaggerated. The sneeze scraped through his sinuses in a wonderfully relieving way, like a rake of nails down his itchy nose. He licked his lips, indulging in the strange little reflex he thought he had left behind ages ago. 

"Hhh-INDG'T!!" 

Someone else sneezed. Or rather, tried not to sneeze. 

Someone else was in the dark with him. Unusual, not to see someone in the dark. Humans were easy to spot, animals too. The only thing that could hide from a vampire was another vampire. 

He bolted from the couch and flicked on the light. Standing in the corner, with a finger hovering uselessly under his nose, was the priest from a month ago. Tall as ever, but this time without the silly white collar they all wore. In its place was a red scar wrapping around his neck, a permanent ring burned into his skin. 

The priest grabbed him. Lifted him up by the jacket collar and shoved him into the wall. He'd been weak as a human. He wasn't weak anymore. 

"Turn me back! TURN ME BACK NOW!" The priest spat. His nose ran, and his pupils glowed bright. "YOU DAMNED ME!" 

"What the fuck are you blabbing about? I can't turn you back! What the hell do you think this is??" He struggled to pull the priest's hands (or were they claws?) off of him. 

"You gave me this dark gift. I never wanted it. You…you ruined my life." 

"I..I think you need to be a bit educated on this one." He grinned, trying to placate the newly turned spawn. "I was gonna drain you. Right? You'd be dead if I did. But you're not. You're a spawn now. Fresh as a daisy. And I'm your sire." 

The priest sniffled. A dribble of mess trickled down his lip. 

"You're… like my father now?" 

"NO! Fuck no. Disgusting." He wrinkled his nose at the idea. "No, I'm like…your friend. You have my power now, and my thoughts. And I have yours. If I die, you die." 

The priest's grip loosened, and he released him. 

"Look, let's try this over. Hello there! My name's Quintus." He held out his hand for a shake. "You can call me Quint. What's yours?" 

The ex-priest, now-vampire, glowered at him. He wiped his runny nose with a cluster of tissues. 

"Nathaniel." 

"Nice to meet you, Nate. Now, let's not tear each other's heads off tonight. Let's just talk. Can we talk?" 

Nathaniel nodded. He understandably wasn't happy about it, but he was willing to hear Quintus out. 

And he did hear him out. For an hour, they sat and talked. Quintus shared his own fractured knowledge of vampirism and how to live the life, and Nathaniel quietly moped and took it in. No doubt it would be years for him to really adjust, but Quintus wasn't about to let a spawn go on in the world, sad and clueless. He wasn't responsible for spawns, but he felt responsible for this one at least. There was something inherently sad and puppyish about the man that compelled him to charity. Besides, it didn't seem like he was willing to just leave Quintus alone. Whatever situation they found themselves in, they'd have to work it out together, since killing each other was not an option. For now. 

"Excuse—mbe..hih-Igh—" Nathaniel reached into his pocket for another nest of tissues, eyebrows rising. "Th-this stupid cold—been'd taking forever to—hhhh" 

Quintus felt the tickle crawl up and down Nathaniel's sinuses. It made his own nostrils pulse and his own breath wobble. Dread realization hit as his lips curled away from his fanged teeth in an itchy snarl. 

"Ah-AHH'GHSHHOOH!!" 

"HF'Fhieww!!" 

They both sneezed in tandem. Quintus first. Nathaniel second. They both sniffled and looked at each other, surprised. 

It was the first time in a long time Quintus felt real dread. 

"You were sick when I bit you?" 

"I was, yes. Horrible little cold-snff-snff-" Nathaniel dabbed at his runny nose. "I just don't understand. I thought I'd be over it by now. Sickness doesn't linger with me." 

"As a human no." Quintus's glared. "But whatever you are when you are turned, you remain."

"…Are you suggesting I will have this cold…forever?" 

"I don't..know. Maybe, maybe it'll last for a year, or a hundred years. Or it'll go away tomorrow..I don't know. What I do know is— I think we're sharing more than power. If you sneeze, I'll sneeze." 

Nathaniel sniffed, looking sulky. He pinched his nose between a clean fold of tissues and gave it a loud blow. Quintus wrinkled his own nose at the sound, he could feel his sinuses shift from Nathaniel's exertion. 

"Well. Snff—looks like someone will have the sniffles for a while then. Should have thought about that before you feasted on my neck."  Nathaniel lowered the tissues, his septum a red, raw streak. Twitching his nose back and forth, his chest began to huff up and down, and a small, sarcastic smile spread over his parting lips as his nostrils ticked open. "Speakig-of..get ready..I think'g—this is gunna be a big—one…" 

Quintus couldn't help it. Despite hundred's of years' worth of power, of sheer focus on survival, he couldn't stop the tickle crawling up and down his nose as Nathaniel's face crumbled. He pinched at his widening nostrils, trying to stop them from flaring. 

"Don't! Hh-Come'd on-Nate-don't—Don't s'deeze—I—ah-" 

"-S-Sorry—Hhhh—" 

In a last, pathetic effort, Quintos slapped a hand over his mouth. He could feel his sharp teeth parting open, desperate, helpless. 

Oh fuck. Helplessness. That was something he hadn't felt in a long time…

"AH—AH—" 

It terrified him. 

"AH-AHKTCHH!!" 

There was a time, long ago, when he knew how to stifle a sneeze. To properly bottle it up. Some murky part of his past where he was hiding, the last time he felt fear. He couldn't remember how to do it now. The sneeze sprayed wetly against his hand, his ears popping with the painful explosion. 

"Hieh'FFHshh!!" Nathaniel smiled wryly as he blew at his nose and folded the tissue neatly on his lap.  "Snff-Snfff. Gesundheit, Quint." 

Quintus groaned and slowly lowered his hand and wiped the drool on his pants. That stuck-up, whiny, no-good, asshole Nathaniel was doing this on purpose. To think he almost pitied the guy! He wanted to punish him!

 If they couldn't kill each other, they'd have to resort to annoying each other. For all eternity. And beyond. It was a fate worse than death. 

Prowling cemeteries at night wasn't something the seminary prepared him for. But after serving the small community of Cat's Cradle, Reverend Nathaniel Lark knew better than to question the concerns of a worried mother knocking on his door at 11:00 pm. 

He swore it was the trees—Cat's Cradle was a mountain town surrounded by an ancient forest. Tales of ghosts and monsters flourished in the dark, and it wasn't his place to disprove or deny the concerns of his parish. Their belief was real, and that was enough for him. So he peered down every haunted well, climbed up every ominous staircase, and looked under every bed. He hadn't planned on becoming an official boogeyman hunter, but he preferred it over listening to his pompous, bigoted peers back home. He took up the collar to bring comfort to others, and if bringing comfort meant going out into the dark with a crucifix and a jar of garlic in the middle of the night, he was going to do it. 

"Igheh'Hhh—Hihff'Shhiew!!" 

He unfolded a new bundle of tissues, already exhausting a box. The miserable cold that spent its time passing from townsfolk to townsfolk in the winter had finally caught up to him just as spring finally came around. He practically sneezed his way through the last mass. It was a proper head cold, one he hoped would dry up in a week. Thankfully, most of his colds were short-lived. 

"Heeh-hh—ohdearmbe—hehh'IGHHFFF!!!" 

That one bent him in half. His back twinged in pain, and for a moment, he stayed bowed, lower half of his face buried in a handkerchief. The airy sneeze rang out in the graveyard, the only sound of life amongst the dead.

Wincing, he slowly, carefully straightened out again. The grand age of forty-five had done his spine no favors. Or his knees. Or his neck, for that matter. Funny, the things one took for granted. Working backs and knees. Graveyards had a way of making him meditative on his own mortality, as graveyards should. They were places for contemplation. To honor and grieve loved ones. They were places where memories were buried forever.

They were not supposed to be dug up again, least of all by the local priest. But the kindly baker told him she'd seen a vampire take its residence in what should have been her auntie's final resting place, and he wasn't going to argue with her. If a flock of sheep bleated at a wolf in the woods, the shepherd would be foolish not to go and chase it away. 

He still felt foolish placing the jar of garlic on top of the grave. He felt even more foolish when he nearly jumped out of his skin in fright when the caretaker yelled at him. 

"What the hell are you doing?" The old man stood at the stoop of the funeral house, weathered face lit by the glow of his outdated lantern. 

"Oh, hullo!" Rev. Nathaniel Lark smiled awkwardly, trying to make the act of digging up a grave look perfectly normal. "Just uh—snff—checking for…something." 

The caretaker scowled. 

Nathaniel cleared his throat. 

"You haven't uh—seen, any..oh..I don't know—uh—vampires around?" 

The caretaker grumbled a string of colorful expletives and returned to the funeral home, slamming the doors behind him. 

"Have a good evening!" Nathaniel lamely called after him. He always tried his best to end every interaction on a positive note. You never knew when a goodbye would be your last. 

Nathanial was unsure if a jar of processed garlic with "a hint of rosemary" would have the same effect as an actual garland, but he didn't have any time to sew one together, and frankly, he didn't feel well enough to focus on crafting one. He took a small bottle of holy water and gave the top of the grave a generous sprinkle. Though he seriously doubted a vampire had exhumed the body in order to take up residence in its place, He hoped the process was convincing enough ward for the baker to feel comforted by it. 

She was waiting for him in the parking lot, watching from the safety of an old truck. The baker still seemed worried as he approached, eyeing him suspiciously. 

"You think that's enough to keep it away, father?" She asked. 

He coughed lightly into the crook of an elbow, the cold had passed the point of scorching his throat, but the drip of it remained. 

"—I don't see why it wouldn't, Mrs. Keller. From what I'm told, even jars of garlic are enough to keep evil spirits from harassing the dearly departed remains." 

He wasn't told about any of this. But he wasn't lying. Lying was a sin. He was comforting someone, and there was nothing wrong with that. The look of relief on the baker's face was enough to make the harmless pantomime worth it. 

"Thank you so much, Father! You'll get a whole month's worth of fresh bread, I guarantee it." 

"It's the least I can do—Now, is there..any-anythihg—anythingelse-??" 

A sudden tickle fluttered between his eyes, and he quickly pressed a knuckle to the underside of his nose. Guiltily, he begged for the conversation to be over, so he could get back to bed and sneeze out the rest of this cold. 

Mrs. Keller took her time thinking of another investigation while Nathaniel tried to smile through the burn of an approaching sneeze. 

"Mmm…I don't suppose you could check the graves tomorrow, just to make sure?"

"Hhhh!!—"  He held his breath, eyebrows lifted dramatically as he clamped his nose between the tissues. "—HFFFHIEW!!" 

"Oh! Bless you!" Mrs. Keller grinned, suddenly amused, "How funny, me blessing you. Feels a bit strange." 

Nathaniel sighed into the tissues, still muzzy with a second sneeze brewing. He did his best to extricate himself from the ever-gregarious Mrs. Keller, finally leaving the dark graveyard parking lot for a long walk back home. It was a bit of an eerie walk, the kind where you were almost sure someone was following behind. Perhaps the superstitious nature of the town was starting to influence him. 

At least he didn't live far away. For that, he was grateful. He was even more grateful when his landlord remembered to let the plumber in to fix the sink. But it was odd that the plumber showed up so late at night and didn't actually fix the sink. It still leaked when he trudged into the kitchen. He rolled his eyes at the puddles of water on the kitchen floor, snuffling thickly as he tried to mop them up. 

Nathaniel knew he had many flaws, as all humans did. One of them was self-pity, something he tried to dip in only occasionally. But tonight, being sick as a dog and with a busted sink, he let himself wallow in it. Poor Reverend Nathaniel Larkin, crawling on his hands and knees mopping up puddles, nose as leaky as the broken sink. 

Another puddle mopped, another one to go. Nathaniel's mouth slowly swung open as yet another sneeze tickled him. He would have had it too, if he hadn't wiped away a splatter of blood. 

He bolted upright, eyes following the trail of blood to the couch. A man lounged there, leg crossed. He looked perfectly cordial despite the front of his shirt being covered in blood. He grinned crookedly up at Nathaniel. Teeth razor sharp, eyes glowing in the dark. 

"Heads up. You might need a new landlord." The man said. 

Nathaniel didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. Only feel pure terror. 

"He was kind of a boring guy. Talked too much, no real flavor to him." The man's eyes flashed. 

"Worst of all, I'm still hungry." 

Before Nathaniel could even think, the creature pounced on him. 

His head slammed against the floorboards as he felt the fangs sink into his neck. Nathaniel yelled for help, flailed, and shoved at the monster on top of him. Strong hands (or were they claws?) held him fast, all he could do was scream.

But there was no pain. That was the odd thing. After the agony of the bite, there was nothing. He felt the blood and the cold skin of the creature's lips against his throat, but he didn't feel pain. His mind fogged over, and his vision went blurry, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was being fed on by a damn vampire, it was almost…good. 

Really good. 

In the cloud of sensation, Nathaniel felt a sudden inhale against the divot of his neck, where throat met chest. Then another sip of air, and a distinct sound of a sniffly nose. He thought for a moment he was sniffling, the cold chasing him to his death. But he felt the fangs unhook from his flesh, and he looked up to see that the vampire was rubbing at his nose against the heel of his hand. Panting, his glowing eyes hooded as it sucked in another gasp of air, nostrils fluttering open—

"What—heh—the-h-hell—HH—" The vampire's voice wavered as his lips curled up in a snarl. But he no longer looked ferocious. He looked confused, almost soft…

Sneezy.

"Ah—Ahh—HAHk'SHHH!!" 

It exploded out of him, spluttering messily between sharp teeth. Body cringing forward, eyes closing despite his best efforts…

It was just enough time. Nathaniel used the moment to shove the vampire off of him and reached into his back pocket for the crucifix. The world swam before his eyes as he lurched forward with it, pressing the holy object to the vampire's back. He heard the creature cry out in pain, saw the smoke, the fire, and then nothing.

Reverend Nathaniel Larkin swooned, and his world went black. 

———————-

It'd been a month since he got a crucifix to the back. 

He sat at the empty bar, nursing a full glass of beer. Just for looks, of course. Human drink could never satisfy as much. It might as well have been air. He wasn't there for the drinks, he was there for the music. Soft guitars strummed effortlessly from the modest stage, and a handful of true devotees sat and enjoyed the gentle ballads. Every Saturday he'd go to sit and listen, music was the last true thing that made him feel alive. 

The fucking scar itched. He thumbed at his back uselessly. What did it look like? Did it leave a mark?  There was no way he could know. 

"You gotta leave." 

The bartender gave him a final warning. Nice guy. Knew about the whole vampire thing. Knew enough to let him in and leave him be, at least. Nodding, he slid off the barstool and skulked into the dark. One of the things they didn't tell you when you became a child of darkness was that you should always honor a few spaces. You couldn't run your whole immortal life. He had quite a few spots across the globe by this point, places he could rely on for shelter, at least briefly. Some were permanent, some less so. 

For now, his less-permanent shelter was a trailer, the final home of his last meal. It was ratty, but it was dark, and it had a couch. And a tv. He could hardly complain about that. Flopping on the sofa, he kicked up his boots on the coffee table, and reached for the remote. He was almost at peace.

Almost.  

He hissed, and pinched at the bridge of his nose as a sneeze sparked to life. He'd felt one coming on all damn night, a tickle that flowed and ebbed seemingly at random. He never thought he'd be bothered with sneezing again. He hadn't done it for hundreds of years. Up until the encounter with that priest, he'd almost forgotten what it felt like. At first, he thought it was a fluke, perhaps drinking the blood of a clergyman ignited an allergy he was unaware of. Whatever it was, he hadn't indulged in it since. 

Until tonight. He woke up with his nose buzzing, and he'd almost been excited to try for one again. Almost. But every time he seemed to work up to one, it went away, leaving him stuffy and frustrated. Twice during the concert he nearly got an AH in, but the fucking Choo would die away. At one point, his ridiculous gasping made someone's head turn, drawing unwanted attention. He flushed with embarrassment, just thinking about it. He didn't know he could still blush either. 

"Oh-come on.." He sniffed at the cold air, twiddling his wide nose against the palm of his hand. His breath snagged, and he felt a swell of anticipation in him as his chest rose, and rose, and rose—

"Ah—hh-hh—AHHH!!" 

He tilted his head back, as if the sneeze was a thing to be caught in the air with his teeth, a thing just right out of reach. 

Curiously, he could hear someone else hitching, too. Someone unseen in the dark. Someone close by, who didn't want to be seen, was struggling not to be heard. 

"—AHt'CHHHHSH!!!" He launched forward with it, exaggerated. The sneeze scraped through his sinuses in a wonderfully relieving way, like a rake of nails down his itchy nose. He licked his lips, indulging in the strange little reflex he thought he had left behind ages ago. 

"Hhh-INDG'T!!" 

Someone else sneezed. Or rather, tried not to sneeze. 

Someone else was in the dark with him. Unusual, not to see someone in the dark. Humans were easy to spot, animals too. The only thing that could hide from a vampire was another vampire. 

He bolted from the couch and flicked on the light. Standing in the corner, with a finger hovering uselessly under his nose, was the priest from a month ago. Tall as ever, but this time without the silly white collar they all wore. In its place was a red scar wrapping around his neck, a permanent ring burned into his skin. 

The priest grabbed him. Lifted him up by the jacket collar and shoved him into the wall. He'd been weak as a human. He wasn't weak anymore. 

"Turn me back! TURN ME BACK NOW!" The priest spat. His nose ran, and his pupils glowed bright. "YOU DAMNED ME!" 

"What the fuck are you blabbing about? I can't turn you back! What the hell do you think this is??" He struggled to pull the priest's hands (or were they claws?) off of him. 

"You gave me this dark gift. I never wanted it. You…you ruined my life." 

"I..I think you need to be a bit educated on this one." He grinned, trying to placate the newly turned spawn. "I was gonna drain you. Right? You'd be dead if I did. But you're not. You're a spawn now. Fresh as a daisy. And I'm your sire." 

The priest sniffled. A dribble of mess trickled down his lip. 

"You're… like my father now?" 

"NO! Fuck no. Disgusting." He wrinkled his nose at the idea. "No, I'm like…your friend. You have my power now, and my thoughts. And I have yours. If I die, you die." 

The priest's grip loosened, and he released him. 

"Look, let's try this over. Hello there! My name's Quintus." He held out his hand for a shake. "You can call me Quint. What's yours?" 

The ex-priest, now-vampire, glowered at him. He wiped his runny nose with a cluster of tissues. 

"Nathaniel." 

"Nice to meet you, Nate. Now, let's not tear each other's heads off tonight. Let's just talk. Can we talk?" 

Nathaniel nodded. He understandably wasn't happy about it, but he was willing to hear Quintus out. 

And he did hear him out. For an hour, they sat and talked. Quintus shared his own fractured knowledge of vampirism and how to live the life, and Nathaniel quietly moped and took it in. No doubt it would be years for him to really adjust, but Quintus wasn't about to let a spawn go on in the world, sad and clueless. He wasn't responsible for spawns, but he felt responsible for this one at least. There was something inherently sad and puppyish about the man that compelled him to charity. Besides, it didn't seem like he was willing to just leave Quintus alone. Whatever situation they found themselves in, they'd have to work it out together, since killing each other was not an option. For now. 

"Excuse—mbe..hih-Igh—" Nathaniel reached into his pocket for another nest of tissues, eyebrows rising. "Th-this stupid cold—been'd taking forever to—hhhh" 

Quintus felt the tickle crawl up and down Nathaniel's sinuses. It made his own nostrils pulse and his own breath wobble. Dread realization hit as his lips curled away from his fanged teeth in an itchy snarl. 

"Ah-AHH'GHSHHOOH!!" 

"HF'Fhieww!!" 

They both sneezed in tandem. Quintus first. Nathaniel second. They both sniffled and looked at each other, surprised. 

It was the first time in a long time Quintus felt real dread. 

"You were sick when I bit you?" 

"I was, yes. Horrible little cold-snff-snff-" Nathaniel dabbed at his runny nose. "I just don't understand. I thought I'd be over it by now. Sickness doesn't linger with me." 

"As a human no." Quintus's glared. "But whatever you are when you are turned, you remain."

"…Are you suggesting I will have this cold…forever?" 

"I don't..know. Maybe, maybe it'll last for a year, or a hundred years. Or it'll go away tomorrow..I don't know. What I do know is— I think we're sharing more than power. If you sneeze, I'll sneeze." 

Nathaniel sniffed, looking sulky. He pinched his nose between a clean fold of tissues and gave it a loud blow. Quintus wrinkled his own nose at the sound, he could feel his sinuses shift from Nathaniel's exertion. 

"Well. Snff—looks like someone will have the sniffles for a while then. Should have thought about that before you feasted on my neck."  Nathaniel lowered the tissues, his septum a red, raw streak. Twitching his nose back and forth, his chest began to huff up and down, and a small, sarcastic smile spread over his parting lips as his nostrils ticked open. "Speakig-of..get ready..I think'g—this is gunna be a big—one…" 

Quintus couldn't help it. Despite hundred's of years' worth of power, of sheer focus on survival, he couldn't stop the tickle crawling up and down his nose as Nathaniel's face crumbled. He pinched at his widening nostrils, trying to stop them from flaring. 

"Don't! Hh-Come'd on-Nate-don't—Don't s'deeze—I—ah-" 

"-S-Sorry—Hhhh—" 

In a last, pathetic effort, Quintos slapped a hand over his mouth. He could feel his sharp teeth parting open, desperate, helpless. 

Oh fuck. Helplessness. That was something he hadn't felt in a long time…

"AH—AH—" 

It terrified him. 

"AH-AHKTCHH!!" 

There was a time, long ago, when he knew how to stifle a sneeze. To properly bottle it up. Some murky part of his past where he was hiding, the last time he felt fear. He couldn't remember how to do it now. The sneeze sprayed wetly against his hand, his ears popping with the painful explosion. 

"Hieh'FFHshh!!" Nathaniel smiled wryly as he blew at his nose and folded the tissue neatly on his lap.  "Snff-Snfff. Gesundheit, Quint." 

Quintus groaned and slowly lowered his hand and wiped the drool on his pants. That stuck-up, whiny, no-good, asshole Nathaniel was doing this on purpose. To think he almost pitied the guy! He wanted to punish him!

 If they couldn't kill each other, they'd have to resort to annoying each other. For all eternity. And beyond. It was a fate worse than death. 

this is basically a rewrite of the events in E9 following quifrey’s run-in with the brimmed-cap only if like. That happened but then i made everything else up like he Fell Ill and then what if he cried like a baby!  :////// references to episode(/manga) events, doomed orufrey but they love each other so baddddd, implied lore stuff but no explicit references to their whole.. Deal (i’m not myself fully up to date on the manga myself but heh.. Reddit spoilers ://///)  Note : thank you wha for allowing me to suspend reality for the briefest of moments as i haven’t really written anything like this in quite some time, thank you everyone for the wonderful wha content, ive been lurking.. and come bearing an offering of my own! then back into hiding mwahaha

======================

It’s minutes, maybe hours, before Qifrey is able to lift himself from the grass that glitters around him, shrouded in moonlight and covered in a fine dusting of dew. When he sits up he’s still spluttering, soaked to the bone and coughing out the breath and the water caught in the back of his throat. It’s minutes, maybe hours, before he summons the wherewithal to retract the wall of stone he conjured to close off the tower from the rest of the atelier. It’s minutes, maybe hours, before he’s able to drag himself to his quarters, quietly dripping all the way in stupefied refusal to resolve the mess with the matter of a spell or contraption. And it’s certainly minutes, maybe hours, before he’s stripped off his robes - tight, damp fabric scraping his skin as it comes off, stiffened hard and chilled by the residual moisture. 

His movements all feel delayed by half-seconds, as if he’s still immobilized, lifted up and twisted over by the Brimcap’s oppressive current. Intermittent aftershocks run through his body, down to the very tips of his fingers. There’s no fire lit, there’s no candle burning at his bedside table; the atelier is warmed from the embers burning out in the central hearth, but it hardly reaches his chambers. Qifrey makes no effort to remedy this and doesn’t need to work very hard to convince himself he deserves it. He frets about putting on an - uncharacteristic - loose set of linen sleep clothes - Olly’s- holding his breath most of the while, jaw hard set to ward off the whimpers that threaten to dissolve him and his entire precarious balancing act. 

He goes through all of these motions as if he were performing individual acts of contrition, as if suffering the ordeal without magical intervention could somehow absolve him of his prior actions, of all he’s putting at risk. The guilt is heavier than all of the damp and it constricts his chest, it’s so tight - Olruggio could lift the water drop by drop with his rainflinger rings, make everything warm, his bed, his robes, his hands - he couldn’t even get the words out to ask. Qifrey shuts his eyes and clenches his teeth so hard he feels grit to stop the lump from bubbling up but it comes out anyways, a choked-out, dampened little sob. Qifrey knows that, were he to knock on Olly’s door, were he to ask the other man for help, it would shatter him instantly. His lies would spill out onto the floor like a vase knocked clean over before Olruggio even had the chance to root them out. No secret of his would be safe, and well. That’s enough to keep Qifrey confined to his own quarters for the evening.   

Qifrey is unsure of the hour, he only knows it’s late. Time, certainly, that one ought to be tucked into bed, were the circumstances leveled in the direction of his apprentices. It seems that they’ve taken to his penchant of working into the hours of the next day’s morning. Were his vision not swimming, his extremities not numbed static with residual electricity, he might take a seat at his table and light a candle to pore over his books, take notes from this evening’s encounter with the Brimcap. There’s so much he still doesn’t know, so much he has to lose. But Qifrey feels like a corpse; a form with little function, a flame flickering out, a branch withering and dying. 

He edges slowly to the bed and crawls onto it, but he doesn’t lie down, not all the way, doesn’t go underneath the blankets. His head is pounding with an unbelievable pressure and his sinuses feel waterlogged and full. Damn the water, damn the brimcaps, damn the cold, damn everything. His body resists a fully reclined posture so he half sits instead, propped against two pillows. 

Qifrey recalls being wrenched in half as a flood flashes into form around him, recalls inhaling a mouthful of water on an accidental mid-breath. He coughs, an unconscious response to reliving the memory of it, resulting in a damp sniffle into the wrist he brings to his nose. The sniffle turns into an itch that starts to burn, and Qifrey presses his wrist hard against his septum to fight off a sneeze that is most certainly inevitable. His head shakes like an animal out of the water, his own wet hair shedding droplets with the expulsion as he leans forward into the tight cover of one frilled cuff, sneezing with something like abandon, or something like bone-deep exhaustion.  

“hhiH’IHH’D’jshh..hhh!”

The damp spot on the cuff clings to his wrist from the wetness it’s inflicted with, but Qifrey hardly notices this. As he reaches to set his spectacles on the bedside table, he is overtaken by the feeling that his sinus cavities are filling up with water again, choking and breathless like he’ll never make it above the surface for air. It’s some while yet before he is able to fall asleep, staring at the vaulted ceiling above him, grasping at smoke. 

===========================

Qifrey wakes with a violent start to midday sunlight streaming through his bedroom window and a vicious pounding in his head. He is lifting a ginger hand to his temple when he hears a soft knock beckoning at the door - likely not the first, likely the cause of his waking.

It’s disorienting, waking against one’s own accord, and he feels sluggish, like his bones and bedclothes are weighted with the same damp from the night before. 

A prickle flares across his sinuses as he rasps a quiet, come in, to whoever waits behind the door. One of the girls he suspects, worrying after him. They’d be right to be concerned, or confused at best, if Qifrey’s gauge of how much of the day has been lost is correct. 

He hurries to right himself, palming his bedside table wildly for his glasses at the same time that he’s swinging his legs out of bed to plant his feet firmly on the ground. As the door creaks open gently, several things seem to shift in his head at once - a wave of dizziness screws his eyes shut and a wall of congestion seems to break. Thumb and forefinger flash up to pinch the bridge of his nose where he’s just placed his spectacles, a gesture made in hopes of abating the pressure that is concentrating there, but seems to be more useful in catching the sneeze that follows with little warning. 

“hh! hHnGXDshhhh!”

“Ahh… Bless, Qifrey. I suppose that explains it.” 

Qifrey jolts around in shock, the sudden movement flip-flopping his headful of congestion like tea sloshing out of a cup. What’s that supposed to mean? Olruggio was (unfairly, he thinks) the last resident of the atelier that he’d expected to see standing in his doorway. 

He feels a swell of guilt rising in his chest again- always so thoughtful, Olly. Qifrey prepares to offer an excuse but is struck with yet another dratted tickle- he feels his chest expand and his cheeks burn as he swivels back around into steepled hands and sneezes as tightly as possible, fighting yet again against the damp that he can’t seem to shake. It seems cruel almost, to the both of them, that Olruggio is the one bearing witness to his plight. He’s hardly had the chance to wake up (and if he knows his friend, Olly likely hasn’t either). 

“...hhHRR-Xxsht!”

“Bless..” Olruggio’s blessing is clipped by another sneeze from Qifrey. Whatever he came to say must wait a minute more. 

“iH!hhHGGShtt! h.hIH’KgnXXt!”

Qifrey hears a shuffling, the quiet clatter of something being placed at his bedside table, footsteps sweeping around the side of the bed. 

“Bless, Qifrey…” Olruggio’s voice sounds closer this time, seemingly softening in polar tandem with the increasing desperation of each sneeze; a counterbalancing spell. 

Another sneeze. Qifrey feels the bed dip beside him, Olly’s warm hand finding its way in between his shoulder blades. Reason demands he flinch away from the touch of the other man, but his will is as solid as the inside of a carapace yam, and he finds himself instinctively sinking beneath the weight and the warmth of the connection. His head throbs. Olruggio - gingerly, cautiously, begins to rub small circles into Qifrey’s loose undershirt, working slowly at the knot that lies beneath it. Qifrey feels him palm at the linen and pinch the material between his fingers, tracking Olruggio’s eyes to the corner of the room where his robes and undergarments are draped over the chairs, his workbench. 

“Are y’alright, Qifrey? You feel a bit warm.” he asks quietly, though already well aware of the answer. “It’s quarter-past one. Not like you to sleep so late.” As he whispers, he moves closer to the nape of Qifrey’s neck, a gesture as affectionate as it is concerned of the fevered heat radiating off him. 

This seems to startle Qifrey back to his grim reality and he jerks away like a hunted creature of prey; Olruggio retracts his hand like he’s been burned. Qifrey drops the hands he’s still holding to his face, attempting to stand at the same time as he makes to clear his throat and wipe his palms- damp - where is his dratted handkerchief? - against the legs of his pants. He sways with the effort of it all and steadies himself against the post of his bed before Olruggio can take the chance to offer him help. His cheeks haven’t stopped burning and he feels a strange sense of shame soak up all of his self-loathing and pool hot in the bottom of his belly - he’s not even properly dressed - 

“Oh dear, Olly, forgive me,” Qifrey exclaims breathlessly. “It seems I’ve overslept!” He forces out a chuckle and manages a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, but Olruggio finds nothing amusing. 

Qifrey proceeds to sneeze once more, in a timely manner, bringing one free fist up to cover his mouth, balance shifting. 

“h.hIH’GGNXshht!”

“Yes, Qifrey, it seems.” His tone is deadpan, but Qifrey knows him well enough to hear the endearment that shores up his words. Olruggio fights against an eye roll and settles into a deep sigh instead, standing from Qifrey’s wrinkled, unturned bedcovers and taking one step to close the gap between himself and the man hanging onto his bedpost for dear life. 

And Qifrey feels cornered- by virtue of all his miserable guilt rather than any wrongdoing of Olruggio - Olly, so wonderful and kind. Every movement that brings the dark-haired man closer alights Qifrey’s urge to run, to hide, to lie, to say it’s all okay and he doesn’t need any help and he can manage all by himself, thank you. But foolishly, he lets Olly approach with his hand outstretched; he stands, rigid, as the hand slides under his snow white fringe. Qifrey sags forward almost instantaneously, and Olruggio catches him with his free hand, guiding it around his shoulders and pulling him tight into his chest, hand still pressed to his forehead. 

“Some fever you’ve managed,” Olruggio whispers. 

“Are the girls quite alright? I wasn’t able to prepare anything for breakfast before going to sleep, I’m worri-” He’s fretting listlessly into the space between them, hair still mussed against the taller man’s chest - Olruggio quickly cuts him off. Qifrey’s voice sounds hoarse, hollow to his own ears as it breaks over his last words. There’s a lump, rising hotly in the back of his throat and he winces as he swallows against it. 

“Ahhh, they’re quite alright, Qifrey. They were up before me makin’ breakfast. Something Agott said about you bein’ outta bed late last night..?” 

Qifrey is glad that he is not looking Olruggio in his eyes as he says this. He wants so badly to relinquish the weight. The guilt is a hot snake curling and twisting through his abdomen and he writhes against it. The vase is spinning on its axis, bumped by a careless elbow, tipping…. But he cannot, he cannot. He’s making everyone worry, the girls, Olly - they’re all so kind, so thoughtful, so eager to give of every bit of themselves... He takes a breath to try to steady his breathing, to reign in the tears threatening once again to fall, but he manages to set off a fresh bout of coughing instead. 

“There, now.. She asked me to bring this up to you,” Olruggio gestures, having resumed rubbing circles into his back to ward off the coughing fit. Qifrey lifts his head in the direction of his bedside table, where Olly points to a wooden tray that boasts a steaming bowl of something brothy, creamy. Qifrey doesn’t.. normally take meals in his chambers.. 

“I thought’cha might enjoy the tea,” he grins shyly, the edges of his lips crooking up into a smile. A thin ribbon of vapor wafts from the cooling cup of erbe tea that sits alongside the soup, and Qifrey can’t contain the sob that suddenly wrangles its way out of him. 

Olruggio pulls him back into his chest, wrapping both arms around him, then guides him back by the shoulders to look him in the eyes. Olruggio’s are laden with tenderness, a tad bit wet from the vulnerability of their current situation, and Qifrey feels another hard knot winding his stomach round. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and tries to stem the flowing tears. The vase spins one final time, then it falls to the floor and shatters. 

“I’m so sorry, Olly,” Qifrey croaks out, amidst a quiet, shaking sob. 

Olruggio would have no reason to think - no reason at all- that the whimpered apology is anything other than fevered overkill - for sleeping in, for failing to prepare the morning’s breakfast? Who should be sorry for that, when they’re ill, no less?

“Oh, Qifrey…” Olruggio’s voice is stilted, worried. Full. He brushes his thumb gently against Qifrey’s cheek, warm and wet. “What’ve you got to be sorry for?” 

If only he knew- another wrenching sob breaks its way through his clenched teeth. Qifrey can’t catch his breath, he’s below the surface again, his head is full of water, his secrets will be the ruin him and of everything he loves. His head is still pounding, swimming; the current flashes bright and hot through his sinuses, and he’s bent forward with a grating sneeze.

“hh!..hHND’XTshhiew!” Qifrey makes a noble effort to turn his head to shield Olruggio from the brunt of the release, but Olruggio’s still-outstretched arm renders the action a mixed success. The next one follows close, but not so close that Qifrey hasn’t already managed to turn himself round again; this one is - to his fright and horror and abject embarrassment- instead directed, wetly, uncovered into the space between himself and his oldest friend. 

“hHD’JSHhhiew- hh! Oh my - I beg your pardon, Olly! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean t- hNN’XTshhuh!”

His stomach is twisting again, he feels the color leaving his face - oh, dear heavens, is he still crying? There is a substantial part of Qifrey that longs for Olruggio to goad him like he would on a normal day, to tease him for not using a handkerchief, for his decided lack of decorum, to keep the distance and to keep it light and keep it far, lest….

But Olruggio doesn’t do this. In fact, his voice is so riddled with affection and worry that Qifrey’s tongue takes on an acrid taste. He’s so gentle - The lump has settled itself at the back of his throat, going nowhere, only clenching harder with each act of care and kindness and emphasized blessing proffered by his companion. The guilt is a hot snake curling and twisting… 

“Bless.. Don’t you fret. Come, Qifrey. You’re ill.. Why don’t you lay back down? I’ll keep watch on the girls for the rest of the evening. They’ve already started their independent studies for the afternoon..."

Olruggio guides him gently to the bed, still steering him by his shoulders. "It's a bit chilly in here, Qifrey, no wonder you’ve taken cold! You haven't got a fire going? I can start one for you...”

Qifrey wants to resist, remain upright, but his body moves in opposite accordance to his mind, and he finds himself plied gently back into bed, back under the bedcovers. He feels a little drunk: hot-cheeked, restless, dizzied. He sneezes openly, harshly, over the opposite side of the bed. 

“hHN’DJSHhiew..! hh- I - .. I’m terribly sorry, Olly.. I - iH-HH’NGgshhiew! .. I don’t quite know what’s gotten into me..” his tears have begun to dry up, but his voice is nothing but a thin, rattled whisper, thick with congestion.

“Bless, Qifrey.. It’ll be alright, jus’ need to bring the fever down. Be back in a jiff.” Olruggio is definitive - an actionable tone replaces the worried pitch in his voice. He vacates Qifrey’s bedside and slips out of the room quickly and quietly. As the door eases closed behind him, Qifrey deflates with a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding- the last dregs of his sobbing, an anticlimactic finale of sorts. The other man will be quick; he won’t want to lose all the ground he’s gained. 

Pathetic. Feverish? Since when? He’s never been closer to answers, never had more at stake. Hardly a time for rest, and yet he can’t seem to find the strength to set himself back into motion. Is he rendered so weak so easily? Has the malaise of perpetual anxiety finally caught up to him? Not that he was in any sense expecting it to be, but the search will hardly be a swift one if these are the setbacks he’s bound to face. 

Olruggio is back, slipping through the doorway before Qifrey can draw any sort of definitive conclusions.

“Alrighty, now.. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Olruggio rearranges the bedside table, sliding the tray over slightly to make room for a small basin of water. Taking a place again on the edge of the mattress, he wordlessly slides a handkerchief into Qifrey’s hands (that he makes quick and immediate and productive use of) Qifrey isn’t quite prone- half sitting as he did the night before, and he follows the movements of Olruggio’s hands as they dip a dry rag into the basin, wringing it out until it no longer drips.

Though he’s afforded plenty of forewarning, Qifrey gasps as Olruggio wipes his forehead with the cooled cloth, so overwhelmed by the feeling of relief that it’s startling. He wonders how high his temperature really is. Olruggio blanches, on edge, as Qifrey grabs his wrist, halting his ministrations before they can begin in earnest - 

“No- that’s.. quite alright, Olly..” Qifrey’s voice breaks immediately, urgently - “I- I think I'll be okay.” - before petering into a hushed murmur. He’s forced to look away, diverting his eyes from the scalding intensity of Olruggio’s eye contact. The pain cascading from his optical nerves to the base of his neck is nauseating, excruciating- it's hard not to retch. He's getting too comfortable -

"Please, I-" his voice gives out almost completely, he's so weak, so foolish, so selfish. "I can manage on my own."

Qifrey watches the disbelief, confusion, and hurt play out over Olruggio's face as he stands abruptly, unceremoniously clearing his throat as he uncrowds Qifrey's bedside table. He opens his mouth as if to protest, but evidently thinks better of it, instead turning on his heel and striding to the door. Olruggio pauses in the threshold and turns back to Qifrey, gaze downturned, avoiding his eyes.

“Try’t eat a little somethin’… Y’need to keep your strength up.” Gruff, somber, sickly sweet.

Yes, Olly..

The door shuts softly, and he’s gone. And again, Qifrey doesn't have to work very hard to convince himself that he deserves this. Olruggio left the tray on his bedside table, but it only sickens Qifrey to think of eating it, the care it was prepared with.

“Looks like bad weather at the lighthouse.”

Ruby, polishing glasses behind the bar, rolled her eyes as a fisherman, dripping wet from the rain outside, approached her Aunt Hortense with this grim warning. Two weeks working at the Dropped Anchor, banished to the tiny fishing town of White Water for “unbecoming behaviour” with the attractive son of a prominent cleric in the city, had done little to curb her impatience, or tendency towards sarcasm.

“It’s bad weather everywhere. Look outside!”

The fisherman looked to Ruby with disbelief, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“Aye… But it’s bad weather at the lighthouse.”

Aunt Hortense gave a disapproving tut, looking up from polishing the bar and meeting the fisherman’s eyes.

“Ignore Ruth. She…”

“Ruby!”

“Ignore Ruth. She doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and won’t be staying. Does it look bad? Poor Mister Seaver, out there all alone…”

Ruby snorted.

“Does he expect a social life, living in a lighthouse?”

Her elders ignored her completely, with the fisherman going on in grim tones.

“We’ll see how bad soon enough. His supply run day, isn’t it? And if he’s got what half the town’s had…”

Aunt Hortense’s brow creased with worry.

“If he’s got what half the town’s had, he’ll be sneezing up a storm. I’ll see that there’s something on the stove in case he wants to stop by for a meal, and we’ll just have to hope he has matters under control.”

As Aunt Hortense retreated to the kitchen, Ruby turned to the fisherman with interest, no longer even pretending to polish the glass in her hands, instead leaning in for a chat.

“So, what’s the big deal about this Seaver? Someone important? How come I never see him around town, if that’s the case?”

The fisherman shook his head disapprovingly.

“He’s a wizard, is our Mister Seaver. A weather wizard, and a good one, too! So mind you show him proper respect, and leave him be, he likes his space.”

Ruby rolled her eyes, turning back to her glasses and making a half-hearted effort at polishing one.

“Who ever heard of wizards these days? I thought they all live off in towers somewhere, all high and mighty and above it all. And if he’s so good with weather, can’t he warm things up a little? It’s been miserable for days!”

The fisherman opened his mouth, no doubt to chastise her, only to be cut off by a gust of bitter wind as the door opened, and a stranger entered. A tall figure, clad in an oilskin coat dripping with rainwater, his face largely obscured by a blue woolen scarf, and his hair wild and damp from the weather. Ruby caught a glimpse of hazel eyes over his scarf, looking watery from the chill wind.

A terrier trotted in ahead of the stranger. A scrappy-looking little creature, with one ragged ear, and a tail held proudly in the air like a banner. He looked up at the stranger, all attentiveness, and Ruby heard a soft, hoarse voice from behind the scarf.

“Go and sit, Neptune.”

The terrier, Neptune, plainly familiar with the place, trotted over to an isolated table in the corner, while his master approached the bar, hanging back a little as if unsure if the fisherman sitting there was being attended to first. The fisherman nodded respectfully and gestured for him to approach, and shot Ruby a warning glance, as if silently urging her to show respect as well. Evidently this was Mister Seaver, the local wizard.

Never one to blindly bow to those deemed respectable, Ruby had a quip ready along with an empty glass, when the stranger stepped forward, carefully unwinding his scarf. Ruby’s cheeky remark died in her throat.

The term ‘wizard’ had conjured up a mental image of an old man with long white hair and an equally long white beard, with flowing robes and perhaps a pointed hat. A somewhat ridiculous creature from a storybook. Instead, the man revealed as the scarf peeled away was strong-jawed with a hint of stubble, his age hard to determine. Handsome, in a weathered and weary sort of way. Jaw-length brown hair peppered with grey, gentle, intelligent eyes, and a prominent nose, the bridge of which was a touch irregular, as if broken sometime in the past.

Said nose was absolutely ravaged with a seemingly brutal cold. Rubbed red and raw, decidedly damp about the nostrils, it sounded dreadfully congested as the wizard wrinkled it and gave a marshy snuffle.

Ruby felt her cheeks flush. Something about a handsome man with a cold always made something inside of her squirm. It was no coincidence that the cleric’s son who had been her undoing had constantly been catching the sniffles. She broke into a catlike grin, leaning forward on the bar a little, displaying herself to best advantage.

“You must be Mister Seaver. I’ve heard all about you.”

The wizard only briefly met her eyes, and then lowered his gaze. Not to where Ruby wanted it, annoyingly, but rather looking at a corner of the bar, as if embarrassed to look her in the eye. He sniffled again, his nostrils arching with the effort of it, and he rubbed a knuckle beneath his leaking nose.

“I am. Crawford Seaver. At your service. You… erm… You’re new…”

He turned away slightly to cough into his fist, and Ruby took the opportunity to tug the neckline of her blouse a little further down. The fisherman, watching her disapprovingly, tutted and shook his head.

“I am indeed. Ruby. A pleasure to meet you. What can I do for you? You look as if you need warming up…”

Her attempt at a sultry manner was ruined by Aunt Hortense returning and taking her shoulder, pulling her back and directing her towards the kitchen, scowling all the while.

“If you’re not going to make yourself useful out here, you can go back there and start washing dishes. Now, Mister Seaver. You look wretched, I imagine you’ll want something warm in your belly. We’ve a mutton stew, if that suits?”

The wizard, Crawford, nodded, fishing a frayed old bandana from his pocket and roughly pinching at his nose. For a moment, his eyes took on a distinctly absent look, and his breath caught. Ruby, lingering in the kitchen door, watched unashamedly, and tried not to feel too disappointed when the vaguely sneezy expression faded, and Crawford breathed a sigh of relief.

As did the fisherman, who, Ruby noted, had been watching Crawford nervously.

Odd.

Crawford spoke up again, his quiet voice muddled with congestion.

“Thank you, Mrs. Platt. And if I might have some tea? My throat…”

“Sounds like you’ve gargled gravel, and no doubt you could use some steam to clear you up. Go and sit down, the girl and I will take care of it. Ruth, kettle. Now!”

Ruby shot a sulky look at her aunt, and, before retreating into the kitchen, looked back over her shoulder at the ailing wizard. As she watched, he took his bandana again and mopped at his streaming nose, before rubbing it none too gently. His breath caught, his eyelids fluttering. For a moment, Ruby noted both Aunt Hortense and the fisherman tensing up, the fisherman edging away a little. Both only relaxed when Crawford let out the breath as a soft moan, rubbing his nose once more.

Aunt Hortense spoke up.

“You have those sneezes under control?”

Crawford’s cheeks coloured a touch, and he nodded, avoiding her eyes. Stranger and stranger, Ruby mused, before retreating into the kitchen as Aunt Hortense turned and glared. Grumbling under her breath, she set about filling the kettle and hanging it over the fire, while Aunt Hortense came to fill a bowl with steaming mutton stew, and slicing bread to go with it.

“Why’s everyone so nervous of him sneezing? It’s just a cold, and we’ve had half the town hacking and spluttering all over the bar these last couple of weeks. No more risk of catching it from him than any of them.”

Aunt Hortense shot her an irritable scowl, placing the bowl and bread on a tray and passing it to her.

“Don’t you go meddling in our Mister Seaver’s business. It’s none of your concern. Now, take that out, and then leave him be. The poor man’s ill, he doesn’t need any of your nonsense!”

“Oh, I don’t know. He looks rather miserable. A little nonsense might cheer him up!”

“Ruth, I swear to whatever god happens to be listening, if you keep talking back…”

“Alright, alright, I’m going!”

Tray balanced on one hand, Ruby made her way back out to the bar, spotting Crawford now seated at the corner table, his dripping oilskin removed to reveal the same sort of cable-knit woolen jumper the local fishermen wore. He rested his head on one hand, and with the other, kept his bandana pressed to his nose, alternately pinching and rubbing. Evidently the swollen appendage was troubling him immensely.

The little dog, Neptune, sat obediently at his feet, and alerted him to Ruby’s arrival with a sudden “Wuff!”. Crawford sat up a little straighter, and lowered his bandana, avoiding her eyes once more. Up close, she could hear him giving soft little sniffles with every other breath. Offering her most charming smile, Ruby set down his food, and lingered, holding onto the tray.

“That ought to put some colour back in your cheeks.”

“Thank you. Very much appreciated.”

Crawford hesitated, seemingly unsure whether to begin eating in her company. No doubt unused to the charms of city girls, Ruby mused, toying flirtatiously with her braid. She offered a teasing smile.

“Everyone says you’re a wizard. You don’t look like one.”

Crawford blinked up at her. There was a hint of feverish haze to his eyes that melted something inside of her, and when he replied, soft and hesitant, his voice was so heavy with congestion, he struggled to make himself understood.

“Erm… Then I must resort to the old cliché, Miss Ruby, regarding appearances being deceptive.”

“I suppose they must be. Your appearance says you should be in bed. Yet here you are, up and about!”

Crawford flushed a little deeper, and looked down at his bowl as if it might hold the answer to escaping this conversation. Unwilling to let him get away just yet, Ruby grinned, leaning her hip on the table.

“So, if you’re really a weather wizard, can you conjure us up a ray of sunshine? Gods know we could use it around here!”

Crawford continued to stare down into his food, stirring it idly and addressing the bowl.

“That would be inadvisable for a number of reasons. Natural conditions shouldn’t be… Hehhh… Shouldn’t be tampered with. Too much… Huhhh…. Uhh… Sndfff!... potential for… for unforeseen… consequences… I’m so sorry, I beg your pardon, I…”

Shaking his head as if he might somehow deny the inevitable, Crawford lurched forward into his much-abused bandana, though, having struggled to talk his way through the build-up to his sneeze, he buried his nose in the damp folds too late, failing to entirely cover an impressive plume of spray.

“HhhhHHRUFFFSSSHOO!”

It was as if someone had suddenly pulled out a weapon. The various tavern patrons, who had been shooting Crawford the occasional worried glance, suddenly pulled abruptly away. One or two leapt to their feet. One dived under his table.

Silence hung in the air for a moment, broken only by Crawford’s unsteady breathing and pitifully damp snuffling. At length, cheeks and ears flushed red, looking as if he wished to disappear, Crawford emerged from behind his bandana at last, and chanced a brief look around the tavern, raising a hand apologetically.

“… Sorry… Under control…”

The patrons returned to their drinks, though wary glances continued to be sent in Crawford’s direction.

Ruby, mouth dry, face warm, struggled to find her words. Gods, the man sneezed like a thunderstorm. Loud, and wet. She swallowed hard, and struggled not to giggle as she spoke.

“Well, I’ll bless you, even if no one else here has manners. It’s alright. No need to be shy. Sneeze as much as you like.”

Crawford shrank into himself a little more, and dabbed at his long-suffering nose.

“I’d very much prefer not to. Apologies. I… You ought to keep your distance.”

Almost as if he meant to chase her off, Crawford buried his nose in his bandana once more, and, thin chest expanding with a slightly wheezy inhale, let loose with a blow that rivaled a foghorn, giving his nostrils a vigorous rub afterwards. Three times, he repeated this process, and at last tucked his bandana away once more, drooping over the table, somehow still looking heavy with congestion.

Far from being deterred, Ruby clucked her tongue sympathetically, and tried not to squirm. If ever a man needed to be held…

“Oh, you needn’t worry about me. I never catch anything. Except when I decide to chase something.”

Once again, her flirtation fell on deaf ears. Crawford merely shrank in on himself further, and shivered. Ruby fought back a sigh.

“Alright. I’ll leave you to eat, and get that tea ready for you.”

As she passed the bar, the fisherman, now being poured a glass of ale by Aunt Hortense, let out a low chuckle.

“You’re barking up the wrong wizard there, my girl!”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed with annoyance as she stormed back into the kitchen, and poured hot water into the teapot to prepare it for the leaves.

“Honestly, does anyone in this washed-up wreck of a town have taste?”

Waiting for the pot to warm, Ruby went to listen by the door, and struggled not to squirm as she heard another sneeze from Crawford’s table. Once again, it sounded loud, soaking, laden with cold… And was once again it was accompanied by the scraping of chairs and sound of movement as patrons drew away, followed by a hoarse, miserable apology, and assurance that all was under control.

“Honestly, they can sail through a storm but can’t handle a man with the sniffles…”

As Ruby emerged from the kitchen with a large, steaming mug of tea, her attraction to the ailing wizard merged with sympathy. Looking to his table, she saw him shivering hopelessly, having pulled his oilskin back over his narrow shoulders, poking miserably at his food. And, as if to further compound his misery, all those who had been anywhere remotely near his table had relocated to the other side of the tavern.

“Honestly, it’s just a cold…”

Ruby glanced at Aunt Hortense, and found her at a table at the other side of the room, laying down the law regarding a patron’s unpaid tab. Taking her chance, Ruby ducked beneath the bar, seizing a bottle of whiskey and adding a generous shot to the mug of tea. That ought to chase away the chills!

Crawford, feeding Neptune a piece of mutton from his stew, looked up at Ruby with bleary eyes as she approached his table, setting down the mug with a smile.

“There. That’ll have you nice and warmed up in no time.”

Worn and weary and wretchedly full of cold as he looked, this time, Crawford managed a slight, shy smile in return.

“Thank you. Very much appreciated.”

Crawford wrapped his hands around the mug, sighing in relief at the warmth, and raised it to his lips, attempting to inhale some of the steam through his stuffy nose. Failing this, he took a deep sip instead.

His eyes, closed in relief at the warmth, suddenly opened in horror.

“Is… Huhh… Is there… Snff-SNF! Huhhh… HaAHhh… whiskey in this?”

“Just a nip! I thought it might warm you up?”

Crawford gave a flustered snort, setting the mug down and pushing it away, and grabbing urgently for his bandana. His reddened nostrils flared wide, and he shook his head, as if he might somehow refuse the oncoming sneeze, even as his eyelids fluttered closed and his chest and shoulders jerked with violent hitches.

“I… I can’t… Ihh… I’m sorry… I… Ehh… HehEHhh… HhhHRFFFSHHHOO!”

Crawford did his best to smother the explosion in his bandana, but to no avail. It was torn from him, throat-scraping and violent, and already he was gasping in air for another. Neptune gave a sharp yap, and retreated under the table between Crawford’s feet. The patrons at the other side of the table rose to their feet, and Ruby heard one of them cry out.

“Best clear out, here he goes!”

“HhiieeffsssSSHOO!”

The second sneeze left Crawford panting and teary-eyed, bracing himself against the table, coughing weakly, but already drawing in air for a third effort. Several patrons hurried out the door. Others ducked under their tables. Aunt Hortense, spying Ruby, came storming over and seized her by the arm.

“Get away, you silly girl, before…”

“HhhHHRAAASSSSHOO!”

The sound of the sneeze itself was nearly drowned out by a crack of thunder, and a blinding brightness as lightning flashed just outside the window. Wind shrieked through the tavern, blowing an abandoned newspaper about the room. Ruby gave a shriek of alarm, clutching Aunt Hortense as the sudden violent gust tore at her hair.

Crawford, rubbing furiously at his swollen, leaking nose, attempted to stammer out an apology.

“I’m so sorry… The whiskey… I… Iihhhh… AhhHAAaahh… AHHhhHASHOO!”

Aunt Hortense swore, shoving Ruby aside and taking Crawford by the arm, trying to haul him to his feet.

“What whiskey? Who… Alright, time for you to step outside!”

“I… Hhhehhh…”

“Oh, no you don’t! You keep that nose of yours under control!”

Crawford struggled to get to his feet, but, seemingly clumsy from illness, stumbled back into his seat with the sheer force of the next sneeze.

“HhhhHHYAAASSSSHH!”

Aunt Hortense took Crawford by the arm once more, snapping at Ruby as she did so.

“Help me get him out, girl! Before…”

“EhhhHESSSHOO!”

Another violent wind ripped through the tavern, and this time, fat, heavy raindrops began to fall, slowly at first, then thick and fast. Ruby gasped as they splashed against her skin, rapidly cooling her flushed cheeks. Seeing the urgency of the situation now, she took Crawford’s other arm, and between them, the two women helped him to the door, the poor wizard already shuddering with urgent hitches, fueling the next sneeze.

“I… I’m really so… Huh! UhhHuhh… sorry, I… HhHRUFFFFSSSHOO!”

The force of it nearly sent Crawford stumbling, and Ruby put an arm around him to steady him as they stepped out into the street, where wild winds tore at their hair and clothes, and sleet stung their skin. The chill, Ruby noted, made the feverish heat radiating from Crawford all the more pronounced. With her arm around him, she could feel his chest heaving, readying for the next effort. The little dog, Neptune, yapped urgently, getting underfoot in his attempts to herd them onwards.

“HhhHRASSCHOO!”

Ruby felt the spray of that one on her cheek, and the shiver that ran through her wasn’t entirely from the cold.

As Crawford, teary-eyed, nose streaming, looking exhausted, stumbled to a halt as the next sneeze began to overwhelm him, Aunt Hortense took Ruby by the arm and tugged her back, looking grim. Still reeling from all that had unfolded, Ruby watched with wide eyes as Crawford leaned back in readiness, and was flung forward by the force of one final, exhausting sneeze.

“Ehh… Hehh… Huhhh... HhhhHHUUURUSSSSHOOO!”

 One last burst of howling wind swirled outwards from the unfortunate wizard, followed by an eerie silence, broken only by his soft moaning and snuffling, as the pattering rain turned to a thick, heavy fall of snow.

Crawford, shivering as snowflakes settled over his hair and clothes, raised his now all but useless bandana to his nose and gave an exhausted, careful blow, and looked to Aunt Hortense with rheumy eyes, looking thoroughly miserable.

“I… I’m really so terribly sorry. I could have sworn I had it under control, only…”

Aunt Hortense folded her arms across her chest, shooting Ruby a look that promised dire consequences to come.

“Only this one slipped you a shot of whiskey, it seems. That’ll be coming out of your pay, girl! And as for the mess…”

Crawford held up a hand apologetically, wrinkling his nose and snuffling terribly.

“You mustn’t blame her, she didn’t know. And if you’ll let me catch my breath, I can clear all this up…”

“She knows better than to slip people drinks they haven’t asked for! And by the time you’ve collected yourself enough for that, you’ll have sneezed us up a proper storm!”

Unable to argue with that, Crawford visibly slumped, hanging his head, mopping at his nose once more. Aunt Hortense strode briskly back inside the tavern, and returned with Crawford’s scarf, which she briskly wrapped around his neck, before pulling his oilskin coat around him tighter.

“Go home, Mister Seaver. I’ll speak to the grocer and have your supplies sent to the lighthouse.”

“I… You mustn’t go to any trouble…”

“Did it sound like I was asking?”

“… Thank you. Good day, Mrs Platt.”

The wizard and his little dog turned to walk away, Neptune with his tail still carried high, Crawford with his metaphorical tail between his legs, sniffling and coughing all the while. Ruby watched them go, vaguely aware of Aunt Hortense scolding her.

“And you, my girl, can spend the rest of the day with a mop for company!”

Emily placed a gentle hand on Rhonda’s shoulder before stepping around the corner and into the employee bathroom. Once there, she pulled her phone out and texted Elijah back – first, a good morning, and then, a reminder to get a flu shot, something he definitely should have already done, right? They had talked about it at least twice. The restaurant was a cesspool when it came to illness, Emily had come to realize in the six months the two of them had been dating. Close quarters, no one able to take a sick day, and long and late hours basically guaranteed that at least one person was sick at any given time, and this flu season really was shaping up to be… intense. Emily bit her lip as she typed; Elijah was a smart guy, with self preservation, she reasoned with herself. Certainly he’d already done it.

Pressing send on the message, she stepped back out into the hallway and grabbed the clipboard again, cracking her neck on the way to the waiting room. Only two hours into the shift, and she was already on her fourth clipboard. It was going to be a long day.

***

good morning <3. hey, random, and I know we talked about it a few weeks ago, but make sure u get ur flu shot if you havent already, its a srsly rough season this year xx

For the tenth time in two minutes, Elijah reread the text from Emily with his heart in his throat. Fuck, he knew he’d been forgetting to do something this past week – now, he remembered what it was. They had talked about flu shots when Emily got hers, courtesy of her work, last month; Elijah had promised he’d get his in the next few weeks, despite how busy the restaurant was. He did not.

Elijah slipped his phone back in his pocket, making a mental note to find the time today or tomorrow to get the shot. It would take less than thirty minutes, he reasoned with himself. Even he had thirty minutes to spare during the day. Thinking better of it, he pulled the phone back out, sitting back in his seat and perusing the closest pharmacy’s website for open flu shot slot times. There was one tomorrow afternoon, three pm – perfect. Before service, after manager meeting, and the pharmacy was barely a five minute walk away. Why hadn’t he done this earlier? Elijah pressed the time he wanted and began filling out his information, when he heard the back kitchen doors open and slam shut.

He heard Greyson before he saw him.

“HTTSHHH-uhh! Hhh… hh -! HRRTXXCH-ue!” The two massive sneezes were followed by a round of coughing, deep and chesty, the type of cough that you hear from the person next to you on the bus and start to hold your breath. Elijah’s head whipped up from his phone, mid-typing. No, he thought to himself, standing to walk toward the sound of Greyson’s suffering, please no.

“That had better not be you, Greyson,” he said, heading towards the back kitchen, phone long forgotten. Elijah thought back to Monday, when Greyson had texted him asking about the place that sold great miso soup near Elliot’s.

It’s called koi fish, Elijah had texted back. Why?

Because Reed was sick. He had the flu, they’d gone to urgent care to confirm, and he was completely miserable and refusing to eat anything. A pit had formed in Elijah’s stomach even then; Greyson, god love him, was absolutely unable to escape anyone near him getting sick without also succumbing. At this point, it was nearly a joke, a bit in the restaurant: if you have a cold, just go breathe near Chef for a minute. He’ll absorb it from you in a matter of moments, and you’ll start to feel better immediately. A rhinovirus succubus.

Please wash your hands while you’re taking care of him, Elijah had texted his friend. Sequester yourself if you have to. We have such a busy week.

Greyson had agreed, said he was being careful. He’d gotten a flu shot! He’d done everything right! He was a chef, he had to update his ServSafe card every five years to prove he knew how to keep his food from making people sick. If anyone knew how to keep from getting sick, surely it was him. And during Tuesday service, he was fine. Elijah thought, stupidly, that maybe they’d made it over the hump, so to speak.

But then yesterday – Wednesday – came around, and he’d been a little off during service. His consonants had been a little muted, his voice a little thin… but surely he was fine. Right? Surely he could make it through one illness his boyfriend had without catching it. Certainly he could.

When Elijah turned the corner into the prep kitchen, his heart, once lodged in his throat, immediately fell to the pit of his stomach. “Jesus Christ,” he said, taking the chef in.

Greyson looked miserable. His coat was zipped up to his neck, the hood slung over his head doing nothing to conceal his red, watering eyes and chapped nose. Clearly he could barely breathe; his mouth hung open, and when the coughs finally settled he was left wheezing into his sleeve, his breath just a catch away from the coughing fit beginning anew. “Hey, boss,” he managed, pulling his sleeve under his running nose. “How goes it?”

“Dude,” Elijah said, crossing his arms from the entrance of the back kitchen. “What did I tell you about sequestering yourself from Reed? Did it look like he was having so much fun on his death bed you needed to join him?”

Shrugging, Greyson turned on the water at the sink and thoroughly washed his hands before turning back to Elijah. “I got mby flu shot,” he wheezed, attempting to clear his throat. “I figured I’d be finde.”

Elijah closed his eyes, gathering himself before responding. “It’s not a magic spell, Grey. If you’re making out with your flu-ridden boyfriend, you’re going to get sick even if you had the shot. Everyone knows that.”

“Huh. Weird. They didn’t teach us that in culindary school. It’s almbost like it’s fuckigg food college. Ndot all of us went to three years of mbed school, Doctor Elijah. Ndot all of us are fuckigg a ndurse. Hh -!” Again, Greyson turned into his coat sleeve bracing himself on the sink with his free hand to keep from falling over. “HRTTTSCHH-ue! Huhh – HUHHTSCHCH-ueee!”

“Christ,” Elijah said, cringing. “Bless you. That sounds fucking painful.”

“It – hh -! Hh… hnng. Snrf. It is,” Greyson said, trying to sniff back some of the congestion and instead coughing hard enough that Elijah felt his chest contract in sympathy. He dipped out of the back kitchen, grabbed a water bottle from the beverage fridge in the server station, and brought it back to Greyson, who drank gratefully until the fit abated. The chef took a slow, deep breath, testing the waters of his lungs, and let it back out. He nodded at Elijah, as if to say good for now.

“I’m not a doctor, dickhead,” Elijah said when Greyson regained control. “They literally tell you that when you get the flu shot, don’t they?” Greyson raised an eyebrow.

“Whend’s the last timbe you got a flu shot?” he asked, rubbing his chest with a closed fist. Elijah flushed red and, realizing how close he was to Greyson, took a big step back.

“It’s been a while,” he admitted.

“Clearly,” Greyson said, moving out of the back kitchen and heading towards the office. Reluctantly, Elijah followed him – whether he wanted to sit next to the chef, breathe his germs in, or not, he did have to finish the schedule and the only place to do it was the office. They sat heavily in their chairs, Greyson’s rheumy eyes meeting his boss’s. “And also, I wasnd’t mbaking out with Reed, I was takigg care of himb. Tryigg to be a good boyfriend or whatever.”

“Mmm,” Elijah nodded. “You know you can be a good boyfriend without laying on top of him, yeah? You can take care of him without being attached at the hip.”

Greyson scoffed, coughed, and put his head on his hand, elbow resting on the desk. “Mbaybe you and Embily can take care of each other through a plastic bubble, but that’s ndot how Reed and I fly,” he said, eyes drooping towards closed. Elijah went to answer, but was cut off by a hastily-covered – “HTTSZZCHH-uee! HhhRRTSCHHH-uhhh!”

Watching the droplets rush from the chef’s mouth into the air surrounding them in the office, Elijah remembered the disclosure agreement on the bottom of the form he filled out for the flu shot he was clearly going to desperately need. Any persons with cold or flu-like symptoms will not be permitted to receive the flu shot. Shit. He needed to get out of Greyson’s metaphorical splash zone, and quickly.

“Bless you,” he said again, while Greyson pulled a single tissue – then, thinking better, a whole handful – out of the box. “Grey, you are not well enough to be here. You need to go home, when does Matt get in?”

Greyson cringed as well blew his nose. “Yeah, that’s the thigg,” he said, pressing his fingers into his face where his sinuses resided. “Mbatt’s sigck too. I, uh, mbay have recruited himb to help mbe with Reed while Mbark is away.”

Groaning, Elijah sat back in his chair and pulled a hand warily down his face. Fuck. “So he isn’t coming in, then?” he asked, prompting a laugh from Greyson.

“Ndo, he’s combing in. I can’t do this ndight by mbyself, ndot like this. I figured the two of us incapacitated equals about onde of us healthy.”

Great, Elijah thought, giving Greyson an incredulous look. Surrounded by sick people all night. “You’re going to get your whole staff sick,” he warned his friend. Greyson shrugged.

“Is what it is,” he said, pulling another handful of tissues from the box. “Juuhh – just - HNTSZZCHH-uee!” he collapsed forward into the tissues and let out a little moan of frustration, before blowing his nose and tossing them aside. “Just have to tell themb ndot to get too close,” he croaked, coughing into his fist.

“Yeah,” Elijah said, looking down at the confirmation email from the pharmacy. “I’m sure that’ll work perfectly.”

***

Post-shift, and finally back at her Brooklyn fifth floor walk-up, Emily poured herself a glass of wine and sat heavily on the couch. What a day, she thought, downing half the glass in one large gulp.

The twelve-hour shifts she’d agreed to back in July were starting to wear on her. Sure, she only had to work four a week, and eight of those hours were guaranteed overtime, but christ those four days never got any shorter. Not getting back to her apartment until ten p.m. when she left for the day at seven a.m. had her feeling like Elijah and all the other restaurant workers – a creature of the night, relegated to only seeing the outside when it was dark. Less person, more vampire.

Speaking of Elijah, she thought, pulling her phone out and frowning at the screen. Her boyfriend hadn’t texted her since this afternoon, and even that text seemed hasty and distracted. She’d asked how his day was going, and he sent back the emoji that looked like it was gritting its teeth, followed by two words: Had better. To that, she sent a simple ? and had been left on read.

Now, with the restaurant closing in the next half hour, surely Elijah had some time to talk. Without thinking, she clicked on her boyfriend’s contact photo – a very Elijah-coded shot of him mid sip of a cocktail with a hand help up to the camera – and hit the call button.

Almost immediately, Emily was sent to voicemail. Confused, she pulled the phone away from her face and studied it, eyebrows furrowed. Again, she clicked the all button.

Again, voicemail.

This time, though, a text from Elijah popped up.

Elijah

10:21PM

Hey babe, sorry, we’re still finishing up service and Grey had to go so I’m cleaning on the line. Are you okay?

Emily cocked her head to the side at this message. Cleaning on the line? Where the hell did Greyson have to go that meant Elijah had to get on-line? She clicked the text box to reply.

Emily

10:22PM

yes, all good. what happened to greyson?

A few minutes passed before Elijah finally texted back.

Elijah

10:31PM

I sent him home. He and Matt have the flu.

A sigh escaped Emily’s lips as she read her boyfriend’s message. Of course the chefs had the flu. She put her wine glass on the coffee table and typed out another text.

Emily

10:34PM

oof, the worst im sorry. good thing u got the flu shot, right?

Another five full minutes went by without an answer. Finally, as Emily got up to pour herself another glass, a text pinged through. She looked down at the phone – Elijah had ‘liked’ her message, but didn’t send anything back. Emily pressed her lips together and put the phone down. Self-preservation, she thought to herself for the second time that day. He does have it… right?

***

T-minus six hours until the flu shot appointment.

Elijah let himself in through the back door of the restaurant and immediately pulled a hand down his face, still exhausted from the night before. He may as well have not even left; by the time the line was clean and the paperwork was done, it was nearly three in the morning. The seven a.m. wakeup call to come back in had come in the blink of an eye.

Slowly, Elijah made his way to the office at the front of the kitchen, typing out a text to Greyson as he did.

Elijah

8:55AM

Are you alive?

The evening previous, to call Greyson alive would have been more than a stretch. The chef had made it through about half of service, coughing and sneezing and wiping away fever sweat, but by the time eight o’clock rolled around, he was swaying on his feet. Dishes were leaving the kitchen ungarnished, temps unchecked, and seat numbers given to food runners forgone. Elijah knew if they wanted to keep their Michelin star, he needed to send his friend home. Greyson was entirely too sick to put up a fight; he’d yanked his apron off, donned his coat, and left the building without even saying goodbye to the cooks.

In Elijah’s hand, the phone buzzed.

Greyson

9:01AM

barely lol. fevers down tho, so ill be in later. like noon.

Relief washed over Elijah as he read; Greyson was able to text, he was up at nine a.m., he was joking around. Most likely, the worst was behind him.

Elijah

9:02AM

Matt?

Once Greyson was gone, Matt tried to step up to the plate and take over expo, but the poor kid was down just as bad as Greyson, and Elijah had to send him home about thirty minutes after the executive chef. Whatever Reed had passed along to the chefs was fucking lethal.

Greyson

9:05AM

mmm havent heard from him yet. probably not coming in tho. like I wouldnt bet on it

Elijah sighed; well, one was better than none, he supposed.

He stood from the desk and turned to the kitchen, moving slowly to turn on the lights and the gas and to crank up the heat. Outside, snow had begun to fall, and for once he was grateful; maybe it would be a slow evening. Maybe they could all get out and get to bed before three in the morning. Elijah’s bones ached with the desire to crawl up in his bed, Emily’s warm frame wrapped in his arms, nothing to do but listen to the snow outside and… and…

“Hhh…” Elijah’s breath caught, and he pressed his tongue hard against the back of his teeth to quell the itch in his sinuses. No, he thought, pinching his nose hard between his thumb and pointer finger. Not now.

It would have been a lie to say that Elijah felt… completely put together. Try as he might, he was just unable to ignore his body in the way that Greyson and Matt always seemed to; he was hyper-aware of it, in fact, tuned in to even the smallest twinge of difference. He’d felt it yesterday, just the tiniest bit off; he knew the second he swallowed and it went down a little weird. Oh, he thought to himself as he watched Greyson and Matt cough themselves dizzy. It’s so over.

Then, despite the late night, Elijah had gone home and tossed and turned in his bed from four until six in the morning, unable to breathe out of one nostril or the other, sitting up every few minutes to guzzle water, his throat dry and sticky despite the wild amount of liquid he was ingesting. As he lay pre-feverish in his bed, he thought of Emily. He thought of the busy-as-fuck week they’d had. He thought of Greyson.

Greyson was sick. And Matt was sick. And Elijah was getting a flu shot today, and Emily had warned him about the flu not just yesterday, but multiple times since fall had turned to winter, and he could not be sick. So when his alarm went off at seven, Elijah took the hottest shower he could handle and looked himself in the mirror. “You are fine,” he said to his reflection. “You are not sick.”

Manifesting had always been one of his strong suits, after all. Had he not manifested this life he made for himself? Manifested the restaurant and its accolades? Manifested his nice apartment, his happy life? Sure, some would say that he worked his ass off for it, had scrimped and saved and worked two or even three jobs at a time when he was young, learned how to wire and plumb and interior design when he finally saved enough to buy the restaurant so that he wouldn’t have to pay someone to do everything for him. Some would certainly argue that he even had to work to be happy, to feel deserving of all that he had, but who were they to say those things? It was all manifestation, baby. One hundred perce -

“HXTSH-uhhh! NTSHH-ieuu! Hh - ! HhIGTXTZCH-uee!” Elijah attempted to stifle the sneezes into the back of his wrist, an effort that left him groaning at the pain behind his eyeballs. Can’t manifest health, he thought, then quickly pushed the thought away. Yes, he could manifest health. Of course he could. Mind over matter.

Elijah sniffed experimentally, testing to see how congested he really was. The sniffle barely moved any of the sludge beginning to build in his sinuses, and in fact only managed to make the constant buzz at the back of his nose and throat burn stronger. Again, he pinched his nose shut, this time managing to fully stifle two, three – four – shit – five sneezes in rapid succession, leaving him panting and stuffed up to the gills in the wake of the fit. Who the hell was he holding them in for, it’s not like anyone else was here. But Elijah knew, he was doing it to prove a point to himself – that he was well, that he was fine, that this afternoon he would be allowed by the pharmacy to get the flu shot. Manifesting. That was the reason. He checked his watch, and sighed.

Five hours, twenty-five minutes until the appointment.

***

Emily was sure this week was never going to end.

Eight hours into her fourth twelve-hour shift in a row, and she was the kind of tired you feel in the depths of your bones. The waiting room never got less full. The people never got kinder. At every new patient, every new throat she had to swab and temperature she had to take, she could feel herself untethering more and more. It was barely December – was this going to be the way it was all winter? She shuddered at the thought. Maybe she needed to take a mid-winter vacation.

Also, why the fuck wasn’t Elijah texting her back?

For the third time that hour, Emily checked her phone. No text from Elijah. She checked his location – still at the restaurant. It was two p.m., for god’s sake, it’s not like they were in service. What the hell was he doing?

The thought that she had often, the one she got whenever things seemed to be going well in a relationship, slipped into the back of her mind. Maybe he’s just done. Emily bit her cheek at the thought; much as she wished she could count it out, call it nonsense… it would honestly make sense. Elijah was chronically single, as Greyson put it when they all went out back at the beginning of her and Elijah’s flirtation.

“I mean, same,” Emily had said, smiling. Greyson had put his drink down on the bar top, turned away from the seat Elijah had just left to go use the bathroom, and looked at Emily, his face set into a serious look.

“No, like… look, Emily, Elijah does really like you. And like, I’ve known him for almost ten years and he’s never liked anyone, so that’s huge. But when I say he’s chronically single, I mean he doesn’t know how to be in a relationship. At all. He’s quite literally married to that restaurant. He’s there over a hundred hours a week.” He’d picked the drink back up, swallowed the remainder of it, and shrugged at her. “Just… I mean, just don’t be surprised if he picks it. When he picks it. He picks it over everything. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

That had stuck with her, much as she didn’t want it to. Emily wasn’t the type of person who needed constant validation, truly; she was independent, she loved her space, and she knew Elijah was the same. It was something she enjoyed about their relationship, the fact that they didn’t have to be in constant contact or see each other more than once a week. It worked for them. But she couldn’t deny, six months into the relationship, that Greyson was right: Elijah did pick the restaurant over everything. Dates were often canceled, sometimes at the very last minute, and holidays and birthdays were a moot point. Elliot’s came first, always. And that was okay with her, really, she understood. Elliot’s was Elijah’s lifeblood, what he’d always dreamed of. She was proud that he was so passionate.

She just wished, sometimes, that he could be… more human about their relationship. Like now. When he was refusing to text back. She looked down at their text thread again – three texts from her, sent hours apart, two this morning and one an hour ago on her lunch break. No response. Fucker, she thought, annoyed. Again, the thought: maybe he’s just done. Emily sighed, clicked her phone off, and put it back in her pocket, heading towards the front for another patient clipboard.

Maybe. But she really, really hoped not.

***

“Elijah.”

“Sshh. I dond’t wandt to hear it.”

“Lij, c’mbon mban, you kndow they’re ndot going to let you -”

“Greysond. Shut the fuck up. Can you watch the servers for an hour while I’mb gone?”

“I mbean -”

“Can you?”

Greyson gave Elijah a withering, pitiful look. “Obviously I can,” he said, coughing into his elbow. “But you’re quite literally about to be turned away at the door,” he finished, voice croaky and waterlogged. Elijah placed an overly warm hand onto his own throat to keep from dissolving into his own coughing fit. He shook his head.

“I wond’t,” he said, “because I’mb ndot sick.”

The day had been… humbling, to say the least. Elijah had tried his best all morning to heed off the oncoming illness; downing tea and ignoring the constant itch in his sinuses, sucking on endless lozenges and then finally, after a couple hours of insisting to himself that he did not need it, giving in and shooting back double the recommended dose of dayquil. By the time Greyson trudged in at noon, Elijah could feel the mask slipping more and more with each passing minute.

“Oh, ndo,” Greyson said when he walked into the office and found Elijah doubled over into his elbow, coughing up a lung. “You sound like fuckigg shit.”

Painfully, Elijah rolled his eyes at his friend. “Pot, kettle,” he said, yanking a tissue out of the nearly depleted box just in time to – “HRRTSHHH-uhh!”

Greyson grimaced while Elijah blew his nose uselessly. “Bless you,” Greyson said. In return, Elijah flipped him off. “Sorry.”

Annoyed, Elijah tossed the tissue into the trash can by their chairs and squirted hand sanitizer onto his hands. “How are you feeligg?” he asked, ignoring Greyson’s blessing.

“Bad. But probably better thand you.”

Elijah deadpanned his friend, pushed up his glasses, and sat back in his chair, an attempt to look blasé. “I feel finde,” he said, trying to clear the congestion from his voice. “I amb fine.”

A soupy-sounding laugh escaped Greyson’s lips, followed by a crunching, painful cough that lasted entirely too long for Elijah’s liking. Despite his aching limbs, the GM pushed himself to a stand and went to the server station to make Greyson a tea, sickly sweet with honey, the only way the chef would drink it. By the time he returned to the office, Greyson had managed to collect himself.

“Thangks,” he said, taking a sip. “Where’s yours?”

Without meaning to, Elijah’s eyes panned over to the two empty coffee cups by his computer monitor. Greyson smiled and hummed to keep from laughing, to save his fucked-up lungs. “You sound like you have fuckigg pneumonia,” Elijah said, an attempt to change the subject. Shrugging, Greyson sipped his tea.

“Ndah,” he said, rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand. “Reed sounded the sambe the first few days; I’mb okay. Pneumonia feels way worse thand this.” If he wasn’t worried about collapsing into his own coughing fit, Elijah would have laughed.Only Greyson would have that reference point.

“You’re sickly. Like a Victoriand child. Has andyone ever told you that?”

Greyson raised an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said, a smile dancing on his lips. “I thingk that’s fairly well-established. I also thingk,” he said, reaching over to press the back of his hand to Elijah’s forehead, “that you’re deflecting.”

Elijah tried to pull away quickly, but his reflexes were slowed by the ache in his joints. “I’mb getting a flu shot at three, and they wond’t give it to you if you have...symptoms,” he said swatting at his friend’s hand, a poor attempt to ward off the accusation of illness. “I cand’t be sick.”

“Uhh,” Greyson said, pressing his lips together. “I mbean, I thingk your body doesn’t really give a fugck about what your plans for a flu shot were. Clearly,” he said, motioning to the GM as if he was flu-incarnate. “Also, didn’t Embily tell you to get a flu shot, like, two mbonths ago? Why are you just ndow going?”

A flush burned across Elijah’s face. “I mbay have forgotten. Like. Every time she said it.”

Greyson bit his cheek, a laugh catching in his throat. “You’re a bad boyfriend,” he joked, kicking Elijah.

“I’mb workigg on ihh – hh…” Elijah’s hand flew up to his nose, once again pinching it to keep the sneeze at bay. Not just to prove that he wasn’t ill – though that reason still stood – but because they were just exhausting. Grating and throat-scraping and seemingly endless. Before the chef had arrived, he found himself doubled over, sneezing so hard that his vision began to dance at the corners of his eyes. Passing out was not in the cards today.

“Good luck with that,” Greyson said, turning away from his boss to turn his computer on. Then, as he watched Elijah struggle out of the corner of his eye – “Lij, just let yourself -”

“HRTSCHHH-uee! GTSXXCHH-uhh! HhhhITSZCHHH-ieuuu! ITSZCHH-ieuuu! ITSZCHH-uhhh! Huh -! HuhhhETSZCHH-uee!” Again, Elijah found himself doubled over into his lap, the sneezes painfully and uncharacteristically unrestrained. Panting, he grabbed the last three tissues from the box and wiped himself up, afraid blowing would set him off again. He coughed into the handful of tissues, swallowing compulsively to try and make the fit stop quicker.

“Wow,” Greyson said. “There is ndo way in hell they’re goigg to let you get that flu shot.”

The next few hours had gone as terribly as Elijah could’ve imagined they would; he felt like fucking dog water, a descriptor the servers loved to use that felt so apt he couldn’t help but pick it up. Sludgey, tepid, nasty. The fever he’d felt warming the back of his neck at the beginning of the day now felt like it was boiling his brain, turning it into soup. The cough felt constant, and he suddenly understood why Greyson was spending so much time rubbing his chest – it hurt, hurt like a gorilla was sat between his neck and stomach. And then, there was the – the…

“IGTSZCHH-uee! HhhRRTSCCHH-ieuu! Huh -! Huhh…! HuhhhETSZCHH-ieuu!”

“Bless you, Elijah.” Matt, who they thought wasn’t going to make it in, had come around two, and pointedly blessed his boss literally every time he sneezed. Greyson, who had given up on getting Elijah to admit to having the flu, had stopped an hour in and gone to the back kitchen to prep. Matt wasn’t giving up nearly as easily.

“Boss, you ndeed to take some more medicinde,” Matt said placing the dayquil that he and Greyson had just taken doses of on the desk beside Elijah. The GM shook his head.

“’m okay,” he said around the congestion in his throat. “Thangks.”

Matt sighed stuffily and shook his head. “I’ll leave it there just in case,” he said, turning to go back to prepping the line.

The cherry on top of this shitty day, though, was Emily texting him.

Emily

8:41AM

morning <3 hope you have a good day

Emily

10:12AM

are greyson & matt coming in today? fingers crossed it isnt too busy tonight!

Emily

1:20PM

this place is a fucking madhouse. think im getting misophonia from hearing so much coughing lmao

Emily

2:48PM

hellooo? earth to elijahhh

He wanted to text back, truly, but every time he opened their text thread he felt that familiar sense of dread; he’d promised her he’d get a flu shot, promised he’d stay healthy. And, of course, he’d managed to somehow fuck it up. There was little more he wanted than to text her, I’m down so fucking bad can you please come to my house tonight? To say, I feel like I’m dying and all I want is to be in bed with you. But he didn’t; he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to her.

And now it was nearly three, and Greyson was stood in front of him telling him he was going to be turned away from the pharmacy. Which of course he was right, of course he was sick, but for Emily and for his own stupid pride, he just could not admit it.

“I’m ndot sick,” he said to Greyson again, donning his coat and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “So please, watch the servers. I’ll be back whend I’mb done at the pharmacy. Okay?”

Greyson just shook his head, obviously too tired and annoyed to continue to fight his friend. “Whatever, Elijah,” he said. “Good fuckin’ luck, bro.”

***

Thirty more minutes, Emily thought to herself. You can do anything for thirty minutes.

It had been just about the longest day of her life; she had to get off these twelves, they were quite literally sucking the life out of her. The stream of patients refused to let up, and all she wanted was a hot shower and a fat cocktail. And maybe Elijah to text her back, but at this point even that was neither here nor there.

“Em,” Rhonda called to her as she put yet another finished patient clipboard at the front desk. Emily grimaced at the sound of her name. Please, please don’t need anything from me.

“What’s up?” she said, trying to sound bright and happy, not like she was ready to lob someone’s head off. She walked towards Rhonda, who was holding yet another fucking clipboard.

“Room three was asking if you’re around,” she said, handing over the clipboard. Emily couldn’t help herself; she groaned aloud.

“Can Paul just tell them I left? Please? I only have thirty minutes left, Rhon. I’m so done.”

Rhonda shrugged. “Paul already said that you’re here, doll. Sorry. Just tell the guy you’re about to be off, let him know you’ll put the night lead on him if he’s so worried.” She held the clipboard out a little more forcefully, prompting Emily to, begrudgingly, take it.

“Fine,” she said, tucking the clipboard under her arm. “But if it’s that weirdo from last week who kept pretending to have a broken leg to see me, I’m calling the cops.”

Rhonda laughed. “Show ’em how it’s done,” she said. “I’ll take your name off the board for the rest of the shift.”

“You’re my hero,” Emily said.

Without looking at the clipboard – she could hear the coughing from the hallway, at this point she could diagnose the flu in her sleep – Emily knocked on the door of room three. She adjusted her mask, squirted some hand sanitizer on, and pushed through the heavy door.

“Good afternoon, Mr. -” she glanced down at the clipboard then, and stopped in her tracks. At the top of the patient intake form: Elijah Morrison. Emily’s head shot up from the clipboard and – oh.

There, on the paper-lined bench, sat her obviously very ill boyfriend. Beneath his glasses, Elijah’s eyes were lined with bags, his cheeks and nose scarlet from fever and constant rubbing, respectively. As she walked toward him, he removed the elbow he was coughing into and attempted a smile.

“Hey, Doc,” he said, his voice low and scratchy with illness. “I, uh… I thingk I mbight have the flu.”

A wave of deja vu passed over her, and Emily couldn’t help but to smile as she pulled down her mask. “Hmm, do you think?” she asked, placing a cool hand on Elijah’s hot forehead. “Jesus, baby. You’re burning up. What the hell are you doing here?”

Elijah managed a little laugh without coughing. “Grey wouldn’t let mbe combe back to work, said I’mb gonna scare off mby own customers. And I wanted to see you.” Ever the charmer, even when he’s on death’s door, Emily thought, shaking her head. “Is this how you talk to all your patiendts, by the way?” Elijah asked, grinning goofily – oof, that had to be a high fever for him to be making that face. “Kinda undhinged,” he said, tugging playfully at the braid she had hastily done this morning. Emily rolled her eyes, gave Elijah a little push.

“Yeah, that’s how most patients describe my bedside manner. ‘Kinda unhinged’,” she said, making Elijah laugh and then cough again, grating and painful. She stepped briefly into the hall to grab a cup of water for him, catching Rhonda’s eye as she did. Rhonda raised an eyebrow, pulled down her mask. I thought you were passing him off? She mouthed.

Emily sighed, shrugged. “It’s Elijah,” she said. Rhonda eyes grew to saucers. She shooed Emily back towards the room with her hand.

“I’ll mark the room as unavailable until you leave,” she said. Emily smiled. Truly the best, she thought as she walked back in and handed Elijah the cup. He drained it, finally catching his breath.

“Thangk you,” he said, grabbing her hand. “I’mb sorry.” Emily pressed her eyebrows together, confused.

“Why are you sorry?” she asked, taking his temperature and using the light on the otoscope to look into his ears and throat. Temp was high – 103.2 – but no ear infection, and it didn’t look like strep, so she put her tools down. “I can see why Greyson wouldn’t let you back, jesus,” she joked, hopping up on the bed to sit beside her boyfriend. “No need to apologize – I figured you’d probably end up sick, since Greyson is. You two are on top of each other like ninety percent of the time.”

Elijah shrugged, rubbing his nose and eyes – was he about to cry? Distraught, Emily started to say something, to take it back, when Elijah wrenched to the side, away from her.

“HHRDDTSCHH-ieuuu! RRTSCHH-uee! HTSZZZCHH-ieuu! Hh… hhITSZCCCH-uhhh!” Elijah folded in on himself over and over, the paroxysms so intense that they nearly moved the bed beneath them. Finally, Elijah sniffled, out of breath, and Emily jumped down to hand him a box of tissues.

“Thangk you,” Elijah said, stuffily. Emily nodded.

“Bless you,” she said as he blew his nose. “That sounded… painful.” Elijah laughed as he wiped his nose.

“That’s exactly what I said to Grey yesterday,” he croaked. Emily smiled.

“And?”

“And they are. Paindful. He said as mbuch.” Elijah shrugged. “He didn’t lie.”

“Mmm,” Emily hummed, placing the earbuds of her stethoscope in her ears and listening to Elijah’s crackling lungs. “You need to rest, by the way,” she said, taking the buds out and slinging the stethoscope around her neck to hold with both hands. “Your lungs sound rough. That could easily develop into walking pneumonia.”

“I also said that to Greysond,” Elijah laughed. Emily smiled again, a little sadly.

“It sounds like both of you need a day off,” she said, pointedly. A nod, a shrug from Elijah.

“Probably,” he said. There was a beat, then, a moment of silence before Emily couldn’t help herself.

“So, I assume you didn’t get a flu shot, like I told you to?” she asked, trying to play it off as light and playful, despite her worry. If Elijah didn’t get a flu shot, this was about to be a rough week for him. She made a mental note to ask when his symptoms started, to see if she could get him on Tamiflu. Elijah cringed.

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s why I was apologizing. I, uh, actually wendt to go get onde this afterndoon. But… they turned mbe away.” He smiled goofily again, shrugging. “Said you cand’t have a fever and get it.”

Emily pressed her lips together. “I could’ve told you that,” she said, sitting next to him again. “If you just asked.” Elijah nodded, turned to look at her.

“I’mb sorry,” he said. “I didn’t wandt you to worry. Or thingk I don’t listen to you. It just slipped mby mbind. But I should’ve just done it. I’mb sorry.”

Placing her hands on either side of Elijah’s hot face, Emily gently massaged his sinuses, nodded before he closed his eyes in relief. “Do you remember the first time we met?” she asked. One of Elijah’s eyes opened, just a bit.

“How could I forget,” he said. “I thingk it was ind this very roomb.”

“It was room nine. But close enough.”

Elijah smiled, hummed. “Dond’t mbake mbe laugh,” he said, closing his eye again. “Hurts.”

“Sorry,” Emily said, continuing to massage. “Do you know what I said to Rhonda, after you left that first time I saw you?”

“Mmmb?”

“‘That’s the hottest sick man I’ve ever met. I’d hate to see him well. It would be too much for my heart to handle’.”

This time, both of Elijah’s eyes popped open. “Yeah?” he asked. Emily nodded. “Well, Grey was basically mbarrying us the whole rest of the day. Called mbe ‘Mbister Doctor Embily’.” Emily’s face flushed – what happened to ‘he’s married to the restaurant’? – and Elijah chuckled. “That whole saga was so embarrassing,” he said, leaning his face onto Emily’s hand. He looked at her earnestly, then. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Emily’s heart thumped in her chest, butterflies swimming in the pit of her stomach. Maybe he’s just done, she’d thought earlier, but that wasn’t true. This man, this passionate and stubborn man… he couldn’t be just done. She wasn’t sure how she’d thought he could. “Lij?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I want to kiss you.”

Elijah looked into her eyes, his bloodshot and watery. His nose was running, just a little, his glasses askew from leaning on her hand. She’d spent all day annoyed at sick people, going from room to room to room wishing them all away, but somehow Elijah – sick Elijah, contagious and fluish Elijah – erased all of them, the whole day’s worth. Sick or well, she could look into his eyes all day long. “You’ll get sick,” he croaked out, sniffling. She nodded, brought his face close.

“I could use a day off,” she said, bringing his face close and pressing her lips to his, the kiss too warm and too wet and somehow perfect, the perfect kiss for the moment. He kissed back, hungrily, until he had to pull away to breathe.

“Thangk you,” he said. “And sorry. For giving you the flu.”

Emily pushed Elijah’s sweaty hair out of his face. “It’s okay,” she said. “It won’t be too bad. After all – I got my flu shot.”