snz & ocs

Even as an immature frat boy, he’s always been very self-aware of how he comes across as a customer, especially when he was hanging around people who weren’t quite as considerate. When a group of his college friends would come into a place, be loud and obnoxious and leave a mess, Buck always made sure to apologize profusely for them and leave a generous tip.

This particular waitress, however, is testing his patience.

It’s not that she isn’t nice. In fact, she’s too nice, in Buck’s opinion. She’s been flirting with Eddie right in front of Buck’s face, completely oblivious to the fact that Buck and Eddie are on a date.

At first, Buck tried to convince himself it was all in his head. She was overly friendly to the both of them from the jump, and Buck figured it was just her way of earning extra tips. But then she’d called Eddie hon, and laughed a little too loudly at some corny joke Eddie had made about appetizers, and finally, terribly, when she’d brought their drinks, she’d touched Eddie’s arm. That was the point that Buck started seeing red. Now, he’s practically vibrating with rage every time she walks by their table.

It’s not like Eddie’s flirting back, Buck tries to reassure himself. He’s seemingly remained completely oblivious, all eyes on Buck. Buck feels drunk on both Eddie’s attention and the shot of DayQuil he’d downed earlier. He might be coming down with a bit of a cold, but he wasn’t about to let that ruin their date night. Little did he know that someone else was intent on doing that for them.

The waitress comes back, all toothy smiles and Southern charm. “Y’all leave room for dessert?”

“No, I think we’ve had enough,” Buck says shortly, leveling her with the iciest glare he can muster.

Eddie laughs awkwardly, shooting Buck a glare of his own. “We’ll take the check, please.”

The waitress nods, unphased by Buck’s chilliness, still grinning warmly at Eddie. “Sure thing, babe.”

Babe. Hon was bad enough, but babe? Oh, if Buck was a cartoon character, he’s positive he’d have steam coming out of his ears.

“Buck,” Eddie chastises as soon as she walks away. “What gives, man? Why are you being such a dick to the waitress?”

Buck prickles with annoyance at Eddie calling him man, something he normally wouldn’t mind. Why is he getting called man while the waitress gets to call Eddie babe. It’s not fair. He’s the boyfriend. “Oh sure, take her side,” he says petulantly.

“Buck,” Eddie groans, clearly growing impatient.

“Don’t act like I haven’t noticed you two flirting all night!” Buck accuses, which he knows isn’t fair. Eddie has been nothing but cordial and appropriate all night. Buck is being crazy and he knows it, so sue him.

“I’m flirting with the waitress? You know that’s ridiculous.”

Buck pouts. “Well she’s definitely been flirting with you!”

“You’re being paranoid. She’s just a little…friendly. You heard the accent, it’s a cultural thing.”

Oh, Buck had heard the accent, alright. The waitress had been quick to bond with Eddie about the fact that they were both from Texas. Just another thing they have in common that Buck could never relate to because he’s from stupid Pennsylvania. They can run off to Texas and get married, for all Buck cares.

The thing is, it kind of pisses him off that the waitress doesn’t realize they’re on a date. It might piss him off even more than the flirting with Eddie does. Because while Eddie has been nothing but civil to the waitress, he hasn’t exactly been all over Buck either. Sure, they’re in public, and sure, the relationship is still in those early stages where they don’t know where they stand on PDA yet, and sure, their ankles have been linked underneath the table this whole time, but it’s not enough. Buck can’t help but want to be touching every part of Eddie all the time. The more the waitress smiles at Eddie, the more Buck wants to shove his tongue down Eddie’s throat in front of her. Which probably isn’t such a good idea if he’s catching a cold. Buck swipes at the underside of his nose to keep it from running, then coughs discreetly into his fist.

Eddie frowns. “You keep doing that. Are you getting sick?” Something seems to click into place, and Eddie says, “That’s why you’re all grumpy.”

“I’m not grumpy. And I’m not getting sick. Shut up.”

Eddie softens, still impossibly sweet in the face of Buck’s obstinance. “Buck, you could’ve told me.”

“I’m fine,” Buck grumbles, then quietly says, “But you don’t have to kiss me tonight if you don’t want to.”

“I always want to kiss you,” Eddie says, strikingly honest in a way that makes Buck feel like a terrible person for acting like such a brat.

The waitress, of course, chooses that exact moment to interrupt them, because why wouldn’t she? She’s made it her personal mission to ruin Buck’s night, after all.

“Here’s the check. You have a nice night,” she says, looking directly at Eddie, and it doesn’t escape Buck’s notice that she says you instead of y’all. In case there was any doubt as to who she was wishing a nice night.

Buck sniffles to keep his nose from running, and it does nothing but exacerbate the itch deep in his sinuses. He sniffles again, trying to clear it, and that just makes it worse.

The waitress slides Eddie a napkin with what Buck presumes is her phone number on it and winks at him, and that, he decides, is the last straw.

His nose happens to agree.

Buck’s breath hitches, and in a lucid moment of defiance before he’s lost to the tickle, he snatches up the napkin with the phone number on it, and presses it to his nose.

“Hah-ah–AH’SHUUU!” he practically shouts, soaking the napkin with a wet, productive sneeze, and he’ll be lucky if he stops at just the one. His other hand blindly fumbles for the napkin dispenser, and Eddie hurriedly presses a handful into his outstretched fingers as another sneeze overtakes him. “EH’SHIIEW!” He presses the bundle of additional napkins to his nose, blowing heartily before exploding with a third sneeze. “AHR’GZZHUU!”

“Oh my,” the waitress says, eyes widening as Buck gives another forceful, frustrated blow. “Bless you. Coming down with a cold?”

Buck sniffs, and glares at her over the napkins. “I don’t think your perfume agrees with my nose.” A blatant lie. It’s not like Buck could even smell her perfume if she was wearing any, with how stuffed up he is.

Eddie looks somewhere between mortified and amused. Probably leaning closer to amused. He scooches closer to Buck and makes a show of draping his arm around Buck’s shoulder. “Oh, babe,” he coos. “We need to get you home and in bed.” He looks at the waitress and very pointedly says, “You’ll have to excuse my boyfriend. He’s not feeling well.”

“Oh!” the waitress exclaims, glancing between Buck and Eddie, suddenly understanding. “Oh,” she repeats, her face turning beet-red, to Buck’s satisfaction. She mutters an apology and scurries off.

“Hihh …” Lupe doesn’t take her eyes off her laptop screen, even as they grow misty and the muscles in her eyelids twitch with the urge to close. With a sharp sniffle, she presses a tissue to the underside of her nose and continues proofreading her article that’s due this afternoon. The black text swims on the white background like hundreds of misshapen tadpoles in a fluorescent  pool. Even if she could read it, it’s debatable whether or not she’d be able to parse if it’s well written given the muck clogging the cogs of her brain.

She should be used to this by now — the itchy, drippy nose and sluggishness that falls over her for a week or so every summer — but somehow, the whole ordeal still manages to catch her off guard each year.

Her nostrils flare.

“hpt’tchhieew!” She shivers through the sneeze, dipping down toward her chest and catching it in the tissue. Still, it’s not enough to blunt the sharp squeak of it, or to stop the spotty chorus of “bless you”s from down the line of cubicles.

She bites down on her lip for several seconds to keep her breath from shuddering again, then calls out a raspy, “Thank you.”

A watery sniffle takes care of the tickly, runny feeling in her nose, as well as the dampness threatening to ooze out onto her upper lip. With a swipe of the tissue against her septum, she fixes her gaze back on her laptop screen and waits for the cycle to repeat.

It happens like this every summer — as soon as the heat crescendos high enough to crackle on the sidewalks, she’s hit with the drippiest, itchiest, noisiest head cold, the kind that announces itself with a constant runny nose and a scratchy voice she can’t clear no matter how many cough drops she consumes and, worst of all, those damned sneezes that always seem to catch the attention of everyone around her. 

It goes against the whole logic of cold and flu season, and the fact that she simply has fewer opportunities to catch something during the warm months (fewer school board meetings to write about in the summer means fewer people to be around, which should mean fewer viruses to be exposed to). And it’s not even like she isn’t careful — by mid-May, she’s taking copious amounts of vitamin C and echinacea and scrubbing her hands in hot water every time she hears even the idea of a sneeze from another room. 

And yet.

Really, the whole thing seems biologically wired into her body’s calendar, like it’s been predetermined by God or the universe or just bad luck that no matter how careful she is, sometime between late June and early July, an absolutely hellish cold is going to drop in for approximately five to seven days and render her unable to last five minutes away from a box of tissues.

She makes it to the second-to-last paragraph before her nose starts to tingle again.

“Hih!” She clamps the tissue — or tissues; the first has multiplied into a whole bouquet at this point — against her face, eyes stinging hot with tears. Warm moisture gathers along her septum (gross), and she gives a tentative sniffle.

Which backfires terrifically.

“Hktch’IEW! Hih — htch’IEW! ishh’IEEW!” The shield of both hands and too many tissues does little to keep the sneezes from bursting sharply through the newsroom, though it does, at least, manage to contain the hot rush of mess coating her nostrils and tingling along her nerves with each breath.

Small mercies or whatever.

“Bless you.” This time, it’s just Penn who says it. She pokes her head up over the cubicle wall that separates their desks. A sympathetic frown tugs at her lips. “Allergies?”

“I wish.” Lupe sniffles with a soupy sound and ducks down a little, tissues still firmly clamped over her nose. “Don’t look at mbe … I’b a mbess.”

“Noted. I’m looking at Tim’s empty desk.”

Lupe breathes a stuffy laugh, then abandons what’s left of her dignity and blows her nose. Even without Penn watching, her face flushes hot at the soggy, undeniably sick sound her own face produces.

When she resurfaces from the tissues, she lets out a hoarse sigh. “It’s just a cold. Just a … very noisy one.”

Penn quirks an eyebrow. “You should hear me, if you think that’s loud.”

“I have.” Lupe plucks a fresh tissue from the dwindling box she dug out of the supply closet this morning and rubs it beneath her septum. She glances back at her laptop screen, where the unfinished article flickers at her. “I’m loud. You’re … what’s it called. A, uh … an outlier. A statistical anomaly. We can’t compare the two.”

Penn snorts. “Okay, rude.”

“I’m just teasing.”

“I sort of figured.”

“I know, I just … my brain feels like an actual swamp and nothing’s coming out right.” Lupe sniffles and rubs the spot between her eyebrows. Around six years her junior, Penn’s easy to tease without getting bothered; she latched on to Lupe when she started earlier this year, sort of like a lost puppy peeing on the foot of the first friendly stranger it finds. It was vaguely annoying at first, though somehow through all her endless chattiness and questions about newsroom rules and Portland and things to do around here and a dozen other things, she’s managed to cement herself as something akin to a little sister.

Not that Lupe would tell her that.

Lupe sniffles again and blinks heavy eyes at her laptop. “Can you look at my article on the new middle school? It’s written, I just need to make sure it’s remotely coherent.”

Penn’s eyebrows furrow as Lupe wipes her nose again. “That seems doubtful.”

A shiver winds through Lupe’s breath. She pinches her nose so tight a headache starts to pulse behind her eyes. “Hey, I’ll have you know I worked through the flu before. And the stomach flu. And pneumonia, one time.”

“By choice, or because …?”

Lena’s name hangs unspoken between them. It’s like a curse on the newsroom — an oppressive force everyone constantly senses, even if no one says it out loud. 

Lupe nods. “Yeah, that.”

Penn sighs. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but …”

“Yeah. Save your surprise for if — hih! — if we ever get — h-hang on …” Lupe spins her chair halfway around (it’s only polite to shield Penn as much as humanly possible from this monster of a cold) and braces her elbow on the armrest. She blinks narrowed eyes up at the fluorescent lights above, then jerks toward her lap with a sharp, “ngkt’shIEEW!”

“Bless you.”

“Hih … gkt’shiEEW! hgkt’SHIEW!” Again, hot dampness floods against her fingers. With her free hand, she fishes blindly toward the desk for another tissue.

The box gets nudged up against her palm. “Don’t you think you should go home?” Penn asks as Lupe rips out another handful of tissues. “I mean, you could do all this remotely, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Lupe gathers the fresh tissues against her nose along with the soiled one and blows. With a heavy sniffle, she swipes at her nostrils where the skin is starting to sting, then turns back to face Penn. “I could, I just think I would fall asleep if I weren’t here.”

“How unreasonable of you.”

“Yeah, well.” Lupe shudders with a raspy cough and swipes at her nose again. “But seriously, can I send you this article? I’m mostly done for the weekend, other than this.”

“Yeah, of course. You don’t have to ask.” Penn taps her fingers on the top of the cubicle wall. “Can I get you tea first, at least? And maybe more tissues?”

A smile tugs at the corner of Lupe’s mouth. It’s the sort of smile that pops out when someone says something she doesn’t know how to respond to, like on those rare occasions when a source she’s just met gushes over her work or when someone actually seems excited to talk to her. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I know, I just … figured it might help.”

Lupe muffles another cough against her wrist, her breath bursting hot against her skin. She shivers a little. “I guess if you want, but just — don’t go out of your way or anything.”

Penn shrugs. “I’ll make some for both of us.”

As Penn heads toward the break room, Lupe rests an elbow on her desk and slumps into her tissues. For just a second, she lets her eyes close against the over-brightness of her laptop and traces a squiggly line on the surface of her desk with her fingertip.

It’s not like she’s not used to being taken care of — Toby and Charlotte are just about the fussiest human beings she’s ever met, and it’s been two years and some change of them sticking on her like velcro. It’s just that … in a way, she’s still not totally used to it. Two years is just a blip compared to everything before — to all the partners and friends and family members who were content to ignore the way she ran herself into the ground, or worse, who couldn’t stand to watch and left her behind to deal with it alone.

So to have someone with no real obligation to you offer to bring you tea — someone you’ve spent the past six months listening to as they’ve anxiously rambled about every topic under the sun, and talked down from several near-breakdowns over your idiot boss, and teased endlessly simply because they take it with a smile …

Well. It’s just sort of unexpectedly sweet.

When Penn returns with the tea, Lupe smiles up at her. “You’re an angel.”

“Am not.” Penn sets the pink ceramic mug beside Lupe, then moves toward her own cubicle. “I’m just trying to get rid of you as fast as I can.”

“Oh, that’s so ndice of you.” Lupe rubs the bridge of her nose; that vague, heavy feeling that always means impending congestion pulses in her sinuses, even when she tries to sniffle it back. She slips her fingers around the mug and holds it close to her chest. Goose bumps bud along her skin.

Penn’s chair squeaks as she settles into it. “Seriously, though … you should be home sleeping.”

Lupe waves her away through the wall. “Hush, you. The ndews doesn’t care if I have a cold.”

“Yeah, well.” Penn’s fingers patter over her keyboard. “Send me your article, and then I’m chasing you out of here, okay?”

Lupe rasps a laugh over her tea. “Whatever you say.”

**

“Aw, honey.” Charlotte bends forward to brush the palm of her hand across Lupe’s forehead. “Why didn’t you tell us you were sick?”

“Didn’t I?” Lupe sniffles and tenses against a shiver. That’s the worst part about these stupid summer colds — no matter what she does, she can never get comfortable; even in sweatpants and a soft bralette, lying on the couch under the slowly churning ceiling fan, she’s somehow both overheated and chilled, goose bumps and tiny drops of sweat freckling her brown skin.

“You definitely didn’t.” Toby flops on the couch beside her. They pass her an unwrapped popsicle — orange creamsicle, the cheap, one-hundred-percent artificial kind that turns your tongue the color of Cheetos. “Although you did snore last night, so I guess we should have figured it out.”

Charlotte flips her hand over and presses the back against Lupe’s forehead. Her blond hair droops against her shoulder as she tips her head back and forth, lips slightly pursed. “No, she snores when her allergies are bad, so that’s not really a reliable tell.”

Lupe sucks the end of the popsicle and rolls her eyes. “Okay, let’s ndot talk about my snori’g … I’ve already embarrassed mbyself to death at work, we don’t ndeed to add insult to injury.” She scrubs the back of her free hand against her nose and sniffles. Or tries to, anyway — it’s like trying to suck air through a coffee stirrer embedded in mud.

Which is only slightly better than the endless dripping she endured all day at work.

“I think your snoring is very cute, but fine.” Toby rubs a hand up and down her arm. “Do you want a blanket? You’re all goose bumpy.”

“Mbaybe?” She sniffles again, then has to turn into her shoulder to cough. There’s a barky catch to it that ignites a dull ache at the center of her chest and makes Toby and Charlotte both frown.

“Does soup sound good?” Charlotte asks. “I know it’s hot, but it might feel good on your throat.”

Lupe grimaces. “I’m too sweaty to think about soup right ndow.”

“I figured.” Charlotte strokes Lupe’s hair, her fingers tangling in the soft curls before coming loose. “Did you take your temperature?”

Lupe rubs her hand against her nose again. A quiet hitch wavers in her breath, though she manages to sniffle the tickle back. “It was only ninety-nine point eight when I got home.”

“That’s not bad.” Charlotte glances at the empty coffee table in front of the couch. “Did you take anything?”

“Yeah, basically everything. snnrk! Dayquil and Sudafed and Mucinex and — hih!” Lupe passes the popsicle back to Toby and scrabbles for a tissue from the box wedged in the corner of the couch. Her lungs stutter a little, turning her breath jagged as her eyes squeeze shut and nose wrinkles. She flaps a hand in front of her face (trying to hold back at this point has become, unfortunately, completely pointless), then slams the tissue over her nose. “Hih’ischIEW! Hih — hih’ihhtschiew! Ht’schiieww! hih’itschieww!” 

The sneezes shudder through her whole body and pulse in her sinuses; they’ve at least become a little less violently squeaky since this afternoon, though now they’re heavy with congestion, snagging on the inflamed passages in her face and bringing the hot press of tears to the backs of her eyes.

“Bless you, baby.” Toby presses a kiss to her shoulder as she tries unsuccessfully to blow her nose. “You’re so stuffy.”

“I’b disgusti’g.” She folds the tissue and swipes the clean side under her nose, her nostrils flaring at the way the paper scrapes her skin. “Mby head feels like a fishbowl or … snrrk! Guh. I don’t kndow. Somethi’g swampy and gross.”

Charlotte brushes Lupe’s hair back from her face. “You just sound like you have a cold, Lu. It happens.” She plants a kiss on her forehead, then straightens, her touch still lingering on Lupe’s cheek. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m going to go see what I can make instead of soup.”

Lupe nuzzles her face up against Charlotte’s hand. She drags in a heavy sniffle. “Thangk you.”

Charlotte ruffles her hair, then pads toward the kitchen. 

“Come here, sneezy.” Toby snuggles in closer, slotting their round hip right up against Lupe’s and nestling their body against her torso. They hold the popsicle up toward her lips. “How’d you manage to get home early?”

Lupe cranes her neck to suck on the popsicle. It’s oversweet and icy, a salve on the angry flesh of her throat. She licks her lips. “I didn’t have mbuch work left. Plus I got Penn to — snrrk! — to help mbe finish up an article.”

“Did Lena say anything?” Toby strokes their hand over Lupe’s stomach, their large, deep brown palm blanketing her skin in gentle warmth. A shiver trickles through her as she presses into their touch. “I’m surprised she didn’t, like, schedule a bunch of extra meetings or something when you showed up sick.”

Lupe coughs on a laugh. “Ndo, she was tied up with some project about city council elections. I don’t thingk she even ndoticed mbe.”

“Fuck her.” As Lupe’s breath shudders again, Toby plants another kiss on her forehead. “She’s so useless.”

Lupe nods, though her wrist is already halfway to her face, her breath unsteady and eyes narrowing. With her head tipped back a little, she inhales with an embarrassingly desperate gaspy sound, then bobs down into her forearm. “Hih’ngktshIEEW! ihht’sCHIEEW! hptsch’IEEW! snrrrk … oh mby god. Hih … hpt’schIEEWihh!”

“Bless you!” Toby squeezes Lupe’s upper arm as she reaches for more tissues. “She really didn’t notice all the sneezing?”

“Ndo.” Lupe coughs into the handful of tissues, then blows her nose. A pulse of hot, dull pain throbs through her face, and she lets out a couple more stuffy coughs before flopping back against the couch. “I thingk everyone else in the room did, but … ndot Lena.”

“Of course not.” Toby catches a drip off the popsicle with their tongue, then holds it up for Lupe. “Do you want more? It’s melting.”

Lupe wrinkles her nose. “Mbaybe a little? I’m ndot really hungry.” She muffles another cough against her arm, this one riding out with that obnoxious barky sound. “You’re goi’g to get sick if you eat that.”

“I doubt it.” Toby’s tongue sweeps along the circumference of the popsicle, catching any stray drips of orange. They bite into its end with a soft crunch. “You’re the only one who ever gets a cold in the summer.”

“I kndow.” Lupe rubs her knuckle back and forth against her septum, nudging at that ever-present itch lurking in the swollen recesses of her sinuses. “It’s so pathetic.”

“No, it’s just … a weird quirk.” Toby licks the length of the popsicle, then holds it out toward Lupe. “Seriously, have a little bit more. Your voice sounds all froggy.”

Lupe sucks on the end of the popsicle, grimacing at the way it immediately sends a shiver down her spine. She tucks her knees up and hugs her arms around her stomach. “Can you turn the fan down? snrrk! I can’t get comfortable.”

Toby nods and pushes themself up off the couch. They bite another chunk off the popsicle as they reach for the fan pull, the air sending a gentle quiver through the tightly coiled curls above their fade. “You’re not working over the weekend, right?”

“I have some emails I ndeed to send, but that’s it.” Lupe scrunches her nose against another sniffle; despite the wall of congestion or inflammation or some combination of the two, the edges of her nostrils are starting to get that vaguely drippy feeling again. She snags another tissue and dabs it against her chapped skin. “I should probably, like … look at the agenda for next week’s school board meeti’g, or work on brainstormi’g ideas for Sunday stories — Lena’s been harpi’g on about that a lot, but — snrrk! — mby brain feels like goo, so …”

“Yeah, you’re staying in bed. Or, the couch, too, I guess, but still.” Toby plops back beside her. They sit criss-cross, the fat and muscles of their thighs straining against their denim shorts. “I’m working tomorrow, but Charlotte will babysit you until I’m home, and then we can both hold you down and force you to rest.”

Lupe rolls her eyes and wrinkles her nose again with another sharp sniffle. “Ha, ha.” She tents the tissue over her nose, then blows with a sound that would make an elephant blush and earns a laugh from Toby.

“Stop,” she groans as heat prickles across her whole body, sharp and a little stingy in her overwrought nerves. “I’b so gross.”

“No, you’re very cute.” Toby sucks the last bit of popsicle into their mouth, then sets the stick on the coffee table and curls in closer to her. They tuck their arms and legs around her like an octopus, squeezing her tight up against their body, then nuzzle a kiss to her cheek. “You’re like … all soft and sleepy and pink, and it’s adorable.”

Lupe rasps out a laugh. “Oh? This is what’s sexy to you?”

“Hey, I said adorable.” Toby reaches up to pinch her left nipple through her bra. When she squeaks, their laugh gusts warm against her neck. “But I mean, to be fair, you’re always sexy.”

“And you’re silly, being so close to mbe right ndow.” Lupe drags in a heavy sniffle and rubs her wrist against her septum again, cringing at the faint dampness that meets her skin. “You’re basically asking to get coughed or sndeezed or snotted on.”

“I think I can handle it.” Toby brushes their fingers through her hair, then lets their hand settle at the small of her back. “I just want to get you comfy.”

Tucked in like this, their skin is warm through their t-shirt against her bare stomach and arms. She shivers in closer, arching her back a little, coaxing every bit of that warmth toward her body. For maybe the first time since she got home — the first time all day, really — she lets her eyes close and shoulders relax. “You’re so cozy.”

“I’m all sweaty and gross from work.”

Lupe slumps more heavily against Toby’s chest. “Well, good thing I can’t breathe through mby ndose.”

“Mmhmm.” Toby’s lips whisper over Lupe’s hairline, planting little kisses across her skin and sending a fizzy shiver through her shoulders. “D’you want to go to sleep?”

Lupe hums a noncommittal sound into Toby’s shirt. Her breath gives a feathery hitch. “Mb-mbaybe? I should … hih!” She cups a hand over her mouth but doesn’t move or open her eyes, exhaustion gluing her muscles in place. “I should probably — probably —  hkt’schhiew! hih’etchhiew! hihh’tchIEEWihhh! — ugh, oh god. snrrk.”

“Bless you.”

Lupe groans.

Footsteps pad across the floor, quiet and weirdly echoey as congestion seeps into her ears. 

“Hey — oh.” Charlotte’s voice drops to a whisper as her footsteps creep closer. “Is she asleep?”

“I’b awake for ndow.” Lupe sniffles and starts to pull her hand back from her face, though the distinctly damp sensation on her nostrils jolts her palm back into place. She grimaces. “I ndeed a tissue or mbaybe twenty.”

There’s the soft shffft of one, then two, then three tissues being pulled from the box. Toby tucks them into her hand. “There you go, baby.”

With a hoarse cough that shivers through her shoulders, she sits up a little and clutches the tissues over her nose. Through bleary eyes, she blinks at Charlotte. In spite of the haze of fatigue, a smile pulls at the corner of her mouth — on a little tray, there’s a spread of toast and honey, some kind of tea steaming in a delicate glass mug, and a bottle of lemon Gatorade.

“What — snrrrk!” She breathes a huffy sigh, then ducks to the side to blow her nose. Toby has the courtesy not to laugh this time, despite the desperately congested sound that comes from behind the tissues.

Another cough stings her throat and chest as she emerges from the tissues and looks back up at Charlotte. It leaves her voice raw and small. “Sorry, just — that’s an interesti’g combination.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d feel up for, so I just … grabbed a little of everything.” Charlotte sets the tray on the coffee table and kneels in front of the couch. She grabs the bottle of Gatorade and twists the cap off. “I can get you something else, if you think of anything you’d rather have.”

“Ndo, this is … this is nice, mi amor.” Lupe reaches forward to squeeze her shoulder, then lets herself press a kiss to the top of Charlotte’s head. She takes the Gatorade and scrunches her nose at it. “I mbean, it’s objectively gross, but I think it’s exactly what I ndeed.”

Charlotte laughs. “Yeah, well … maybe if you just pretend it’s lemonade and not Gatorade? I don’t know.” She tugs the waistband of Lupe’s sweatpants and tips her head up to kiss Lupe’s stomach, her lips warm and sweet on her skin. “I just want to make sure you stay hydrated … you always get so sweaty with your summer colds.”

“Ugh, don’t rembind mbe.” Lupe curls back against Toby’s side, going lax as Toby wraps their arms around her again. She catches a jagged cough against her fist, then reaches back toward Charlotte. “D’you want to come up? There’s room, if you don’t mbind all the … general grossness.”

Charlotte obliges without a word, crawling up onto the couch and sandwiching Lupe between her and Toby. The long stretch of her bare legs gets tucked over Lupe’s sweatpants, further trapping her here.

Not that she minds.

Charlotte’s fingers trail through her hair, her touch light and gentle. “Are you comfy?”

“Uh-huh.” Lupe takes a sip of her Gatorade, then lets her head fall back, nestled right in between Charlotte and Toby. It’s a familiar space, a space that always smells sweet with all the things that remind her of home — Toby’s sweat and the ever-present tang of coffee; Charlotte’s floral perfume; the sharp scent from the Altoids she carries in her briefcase and the vaguely musty odor of newspapers.

Right now, though, the only thing that can get through her congestion is the artificial, overly sweet scent of lemon. But there’s a comfort to that, too, just like with the tea Penn brought her. There’s a thoughtfulness behind it, and the tea and toast, and the popsicle. They were all brought out specifically for her, with her wants and preferences and quirks in mind. And as simple as it is, it’s a little lovely, to be shown care in such an uncomplicated gesture.

She snuggles in closer to Charlotte and Toby. “Wake mbe up if you’re goi’g to mbove,” she mumbles, already halfway gone beyond the haze of sleep.

The average city block in the US ranges from 250 to 1250 feet, usually falling on the shorter end of the spectrum. Grid-based city blocks are typically around 330 feet– not too long, not too short. A perfect Goldilocks of a block, if you think about it. 

Pittsburgh blocks, on the other hand, are whatever the fuck they want to be. Dennis had done a fair amount of research about Pittsburgh when he first moved to the city. He needed to know the public transit systems, the walking time from shelter to ED, the easiest routes, and safest areas for squatting. So, naturally, he’d learned about the lack of a standard grid system. He vaguely recounts a report about the abnormally challenging, hilly topography of the city– too many inclines, rivers, and unnatural terrains for there to be much organization in the street’s layouts. It’s called a colliding grid, he thinks, or something along those lines. 

To the ongoing list, he adds:

8. Colliding grid blocks 

Because of course the two blocks between the bus stop and the ED have to be the longest blocks imaginable, much closer to the 1250 feet range than the blessedly short 250. The slight uphill gradient doesn’t help, nor does the uneven sidewalk with more cracks and bumps than flat surface. 

Equally as unhelpful is his nose's inability to stop running. He has to stop every twenty or so paces to wipe at the appendage, refusing to blow it and forgo his last functioning tissue unless it proves to be absolutely necessary. 

Sneaker-clad feet drag against the pavement, their ache increasing with every break he has to take. Dennis has grown rather fond of his shoes, even with Trinity’s teasing that he shares the same style as her deceased grandmother. ‘They support my arches’ had been Dennis’s defense in buying them, stylish or not (definitely not). Afterall, he’s on his feet all day at work, he might as well make an effort to accommodate his body. 

Despite these efforts to make his body more comfortable, he can feel it staging a full fledged protest to being upright. Every time his foot meets the ground, the force of the concrete reverberates up through his leg, pinching at every joint it meets. Then, his legs propel him forwards with a stilt-like, uncoordinated gate, only for his other foot to hit the ground. And so on and so forth. 

Upon making it to the ED, Dennis plants himself on a bench just outside the ambulance bay. He knows he should buck up and go inside. People have it worse off than he does; he’s not bleeding, not broken, not needing medical attention. He’s just… cursed. 

The bench’s metal feels cool against his skin and he presses both of his palms to it, ignoring whatever germs are clinging to its surface. A brief reprieve from the heat works its way from his hands up his forearms, leaving a spattering of goosebumps that disappear after a few seconds. He shivers, and they reappear, intermixing with the light freckles speckled over his upper arms. For a second, he stills, and then another shiver sparks through his spine, his body caught in a dance between hot and cold. 

Dennis internally groans, wishing he’d thought to put a long sleeve beneath his scrub top as his overstimulated system settles on another shiver and a sudden chill. He knows he needs to stop sulking outside, to pull himself together and clock in, but the idea of spending all day on his feet is enough to keep him seated. Just one more minute, he reasons. What’s the harm in taking one more minute for himself? 

A distant ringing of sirens echoes through Dennis’s mind as it draws nearer– is the ringing from the sirens? The sound isn’t quite right, not the typical chorus of ambulance blaring, but something louder, harsher. It ricochets from one ear to the other before bouncing back, working its way through Dennis’s brain in piercing jolts. 

“Whitaker?” 

Dennis’s eyes open, adjusting to the sight of a man standing in front of him. He hadn’t realized his eyes had closed; they must have slipped shut of their own volition. After a painfully slow second, Dennis recognizes the figure that addressed him, mentally scolding himself for not having done so sooner. 

“Dr. Abbot– whadt are you doing here?” 

“Massive MVC. Six incoming patients with severe injury, countless others still on scene.” Jack answers, recounting the medical details that had slipped from Dennis’s mind. “All hands on deck.”

Right. There was a reason for Dennis having dragged himself out of bed and to the ED. Work. He’s working. And yet his mind lingers for a second too long on the number six, the mention dredging up thoughts about the man from the bus and his evident curse.

Jack’s eyes flick over Dennis’s form, scanning him head to toe. The older man’s lips curve into a slight frown as he catalogues the obvious signs of illness afflicting the other doctor; Dennis remains oblivious to the expression. He’s too busy willing himself to stand, silently egging on his legs to do the things they’re supposed to do– such as taking more than one step without stumbling and functioning non-mechanically. 

    9. Legs

When Dennis finally does stand, he chances a quick glance at Jack– the timid, hesitant kind of glance that he reserves for the twice-his-age-attendings that he finds particularly attractive– and, to his surprise, is met with Jack’s unfaltering gaze. An embarrassed flush blooms over Dennis’s cheeks, mixing with the previous fever pink tint and making him look even more overheated than he previously had. 

“So… shall we?” He gestures towards the ambulance bay doors, silently cursing himself for saying ‘shall we’ to his attending; he hasn’t even entered the ED yet and he’s already proven himself socially incompetent. 

“We shall.” Jack juts his chin towards the doors, a small movement, but one that Dennis reads clearly enough as a prompt for him to enter first. 

The chaos of the ED hits Dennis all at once, sending a surge of adrenaline through his body the second he steps inside. As always, there’s a chorus of medical equipment beeping, blaring, and ringing, but that’s just the undercurrent to the swell of shouting. Everyone is working over one another, weaving around gurneys with clusters of doctors and nurses working to the MVC patients– at least, those who have already arrived. 

Across the room, Dennis catches a glimpse of Trinity performing CPR on a seemingly unresponsive patient, but he doesn’t have the time to give her a second thought. Jack’s hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing firm before he disappears into the mess of medical professionals. 

Dennis joins the frey too, his body’s autopilot winning over his brain’s fever muddled antics. He jumps onto a case with McKay– a 25 year old male, responsive at the scene, car shrapnel penetrating the chest, broken ribs from the crash’s impact, lung sliding on the left. The patient crashes twenty minutes into treatment; Dennis reclaims his title as the ED’s resident LUCAS machine. 

Robby swoops into the patients room just as they get the patient back, his pulse thready but present. “Who’s this?” He asks, already slipping a pair of gloves over his hands as he approaches the patient’s bedside. His eyes flick from the patient’s vitals, over their chest and abdomen, to McKay, and then to Dennis. It’s only when his gaze reaches the younger doctor that he falters– not from the protruding foreign body in the patient’s chest, nor the blood soaked sheets, but rather the sight of Whitaker sweat soaked and swaying beside the patient’s bed. 

“Marcus Haynes. 25,” McKay rattles off the patient’s known demographics before diving into his physical traumas, symptoms, and treatment. Robby’s hands work their way over the patient’s torso, carrying out an exam as if by instinct as he listens. 

“Good. Page surgery again.” Robby peels off his gloves with a snap. “Tell them it’s urgent. This patient can’t afford to wait for their hour-long stroll down the stairwell.”

The sharp sound of the gloves breaks through Dennis’s reverie. He had been standing idly by, barely cognizant of McKay’s words in the wake of exerting himself to perform CPR. Beads of sweat slip down the center of his back, pooling above the waistband of his scrub pants and slowly seeping into the fabric. Sweat collects on his face too, threatening to form full drops and roll over his flushed cheeks; he swipes absentmindedly at his forehead before they can reach that point. 

“Whitaker. You alright?” 

Dennis looks towards Robby, nodding belatedly. “Yeah.” Another nod. “Yes, I’m good.” 

The attending pauses, eyebrows raised as he watches Dennis wipe his forehead again. “Alright. You’re with me then. Another rig is four minutes out.”

Dennis nods once more, trying to ignore the evergrowing sinking sensation in his stomach. Whatever spurt of adrenaline had carried him through the first patient has left him high and dry– or, rather, feverish and sweat soaked. He follows Robby towards the ambulance bay, weaving through the crowd with much less coordination than necessary. He bumps into at least three people on the way, nearly trips over his own feet, and lets his hip collide with a passing gurney. If he was in a contest for socially and professionally inadequate doctors, he’d win by a long shot, he’s sure of it. 

By some miracle, he manages to make it to the ambulance bay without completely humiliating himself. He didn’t faceplant in front of the nurses station, at the very least. Plus, the air is cooler outside, fresher, less suffocatingly sterile. As the automatic doors slip shut behind him and Robby, they leave a pleasant quietness in their wake. Sure, the sounds of ambulance sirens are ebbing closer with every passing second, bringing with them the promise of more chaos, but at least there’s a pleasant breeze, right?

“So, called in on your day off, huh?” Robby’s tone is conversational, but his eyes narrow as they take in Dennis’s appearance. 

“Yeah, I guess so– er, well, I know so. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, obviously.” 

     10. Making conversation with my boss while feverish cursed

Robby’s eyes soften slightly, a fondness easing his evident concern; he’s always enjoyed how easily Dennis blushes. 

“Hopefully you’re not here for too long. Except I can’t make any promises, these–”

“kzXCHh!” 

The sneeze takes the two doctors equally by surprise– Robby at having been interrupted and Dennis at having absolutely no warning for the expulsion. He raises a hand to his face, catching the second, “isXSch’ew!” against his wrist. 

“shifts tend to––,” Robby resumes, continuing his sentence in the brief gap before another “h’txCh–itSch!” double gets muffled by Dennis’s sleeve. 

“–drag on much longer when our systems get bogged down,” this time, Robby pauses his speech rather than being interrupted, allowing just enough time for Dennis to hitch twice and sneeze another fittish triple, “hih’hhH–ksxch’sch’tzch!”

“But for all we know,” Robby stretches his arms above his head, though his eyes remain trained on Dennis, “we might both make it home in time for dinner.”

Dennis buries his nose in his elbow, once again wishing he’d worn an undershirt beneath his scrubs as he feels a bead of moisture press to his skin. He waits, the tickle dancing just beyond his reach, enough to make his breath hitch and eyes water, but not enough to heighten the sensation into anything more than irritation. 

Dennis teeters on the edge, remaining tucked in the same position as he waits. He can feel Robby’s gaze on him and it makes his cheeks flush a darker shade of pink. 

Finally, his breath snags in something more than just a breathless gasp, spurring a light cough and then a half-stifled, “h’gtch!” He hadn’t intended on stifling, but the sneeze gets caught behind the wall of congestion solidifying in his nose. The following sneeze makes more of an effort to escape, but it still gets stuck behind his teeth, failing into a breathy, soft end: “ig’ksst!”  

Unsatisfied with the unexpelled half-sneezes, he shakes his head lightly– a bad idea in retrospect, it does nothing more than make him dizzy. Then, his head bobs forwards with a final vocal, “ik’tSSHh-ue!” that leaves the crook of his elbow dusted with a light spray. 

Dennis gives an involuntary sniffle afterwards, the pent up congestion now threatening to run over his lip like some post-fit humiliation ritual. 

    11. Sneezing in front of my boss

“You done?” Robby’s voice falls somewhere between amused, endeared, and concerned– not upset though, miraculously. Dennis nods and emerges from his elbow, remembering the crumpled excuse of a tissue he has shoved in his pocket from this morning and fumbling to retrieve it. “Bless you.”

     12. Being blessed by my boss

“Thangk you.”

The tissue does a poor job at cleaning him up. Already crumpled from inhabiting his pocket, its structural integrity isn’t nearly as strong as he needs it to be. He resorts to half sniffling, half wiping his nose with his body turned away from Robby as the sirens draw nearer. 

Robby watches, mentally toeing between the ideas of pointing out Dennis’s illness or giving him the benefit of the doubt– although it’s becoming evident to him that the younger doctor doesn’t know when to call it quits. “So,” he begins, but he’s interrupted. He’d underestimated how close the ambulance was to the bay; he’s been at the pitt long enough to be able to identify when a rig is going to pull up to the second, but he’s been uncharacteristically distracted. 

The sirens’ sound grows tenfold as they approach at haphazard speeds, spinning around Dennis’s head as he stares loosely in the direction of the ambulance. He shoves his sodden tissue unceremoniously back into his pocket and finds a pair of gloves held just before his eyeline. With a quick nod of thanks to Robby– a disjointed, slow jerk of his head– he accepts them and starts fumbling to pull them over his clammy hands. 

“What’ve we got?” Robby snaps into action, meeting the paramedics at the rig’s back door and immediately beginning his examination of the patient. Dennis tries to keep up, rushing to follow Robby’s lead and nearly bumping straight into his back in the process. Smooth, Dennis, he mentally chides. 

“50 year old female. She was an unrestrained passenger in the vehicle when–” 

Dennis prays that his adrenaline will take the reins again, silently willing his body to listen, to move, to attend to his surroundings, and to practice medicine– easy, right? 

“Dana, we need a room!” Robby calls across the ED once they make it past the entrance, his hands already carrying out a partial exam. 

“Trauma Two’s open!” Dana bellows back. As always, she’s working in the center of the chaos, acting as the pillar that keeps the whole damn place upright. 

“Alright. Whitaker, you’re with me,” Robby casts a quick glance around, “McKay! Javadi” 

The resident and student doctor join them in the trauma room at record speed, immediately getting the patient’s run-down, which, admittedly, was helpful for Dennis to hear again. A portable ultrasound is shoved into his hand, his other clutching loosely at a bottle of gel– when had he grabbed that?– “Dennis!” Javadi whispers, giving his elbow a slight nudge and snapping him out of his reverie. 

“Right– uh. Checking for lung sliding,” he spurs into action, his medical knowledge still miraculously intact despite his growing fever. “No lung sliding on the left,” he reports as the other doctors attend to Robby’s instructions, “the right’s clear too. Checking the abdomen next.” 

Robby steps back, allowing Dennis to take his place by the patient’s abdomen and position himself for the ultrasound. The room swirls around him for just a moment, its white walls blurring into a bright haze that forces Dennis to blink a few times to right his vision. One of Robby’s hands settles on his shoulder, squeezing gently. 

As distracting as Robby’s touch can be, it brings Dennis back to his body for a moment, back to the fact that he’s actively treating a patient. “Uh– the gel’s a bit cold, sorry,” he announces to the (unconscious) patient out of habit as he begins the ultrasound. McKay and Javadi exchange a look of concern. 

Dennis glides the ultrasound wand across the patient’s stomach, eyes straining to focus on the screen, “there’s free fluid in the belly.” That gets Robby’s attention immediately. He peers at the screen, reaching over to adjust Dennis’s hand ever so slightly before nodding. 

“Yep. It looks like a splenic injury. Javadi, what are our next steps?”

Dennis stares downwards, watching as Robby’s hand once again steers his own to get a different angle. He shouldn’t need help with an ultrasound, but his hand melts under Robby’s, suddenly incapable of moving without guidance. A tingling sensation pools in the tips of his fingers, and Dennis is unable to decipher if it’s from the fact that Robby’s hand is dwarfing his or if it's from the dizziness tugging at his consciousness. 

Another nudge to his elbow– harder this time– makes Dennis jerk his head upright. All three of the doctors have their eyes trained on him, so he sputters out a quiet, “sorry!” 

Before anyone can acknowledge Dennis’s behavior, Mohan opens the door in a rush, “Robby! We need you in Trauma One!” and with that, the attending is gone and McKay takes the lead. 

Luckily, she knows to delegate most of the tasks to Javadi, giving Dennis simpler instructions and double checking his work. Within thirty minutes, the patient is stable and awaiting surgery, and he’s off the case. 

Within the same thirty minute period, however, his symptoms start hitting him over the head like bricks one after the other: dizziness, headache (which makes the dizziness worse), congestion (which makes the headache worse), and body aches (which make the whole damn day worse). 

    13. Worsening symptoms of my cold curse

As Dennis finally steps out of Trauma Two, he’s met with a resurgence of the pitt’s chaos. More rigs have arrived since he’d last been in the bay, bringing with them emergent patients, some of whom were overflowing into the main halls. 

His eyes flick from patient to patient, his brain lagging as he tries to deduce who to help first. The decision is made for him when Abbot spots him standing idly by, “Whitaker!”

Dennis crosses the sea of gurneys, nurses, and doctors to where Abbot is treating a tearful patient. 

“She has an anterior shoulder dislocation. You’re going to help me reduce it,” Abbot instructs, eyes narrowing as he meets Dennis’s gaze, “got it?”

Dennis nods, looking over the patient's dislocation before recounting, “there’s skin tenting, most likely due to a bone fracture, so… traction-counteraction is needed. Then we can treat the break after.”

Abbot gives Dennis a onceover before bracing himself by the patient’s head and getting into position. “You’re going to provide counteraction. Make sure you’ve got a sturdy stance.” 

He tsks at Dennis, tilting his head to the side and gesturing with a nod of his head for Dennis to shift. “Spread your legs wider. Your feet shouldn’t be aligned with your hips.” 

Dennis adjusts, earning a nod of approval as he tries desperately not to think about the way Jack’s voice had sounded when he instructed him to spread his legs; fever or not, his attraction to his attending persists. 

The reduction itself goes relatively smoothly all things considered, but it seems to zap Dennis’s remaining energy. Sweat is still dripping down his back and pooling in his scrubs, and he’s certain that the pitt has never been hotter. He swipes his wrist across his forehead, collecting an embarrassing amount of sweat and wiping it against his scrubs– thank God they’re dark. He doesn’t need everyone to know just how incapable his body is at regulating its temperature right now. 

To make things worse, Dennis’s sinuses prickle angrily as he inhales, enough to make his eyes water. The sensation takes root in the left side of his nose, worsening with the next inhale, which stutters halfway through and falls into a fluttering exhale. Still standing by the patient’s bedside next to Dr Abbot, Dennis stalls; his feet plant themselves stubbornly in place, refusing to move until the itch is attended to. Two soft hitches build on one another and Dennis presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. 

He can feel his brows knitting together, eyes slipping shut just as the third and fourth hitches make it past his lips. The final hitch is determined, filling his chest with its inhale. Nose buried in his elbow, Dennis shudders with a congested stifle, “n’kGXt!” 

His head bobs down hard and quick, the action unplanting his feet and causing him to stumble towards Jack a few steps. The attending’s hands land on Dennis’s sides, bracing him with a surprised, “Jesus, kid.”

Dennis leans into the touch, his body overwhelmed by– “hn’gxXt!”– the itch that’s now searing through his sinuses, having traveled from just the left side to what feels like his entire nose– “ih’ngXCch!” 

By instinct, Dennis tries to stifle, but his attempts just worsen his body’s need to expel the cold from its system, resulting in a quick gasp and then a cluster of sneezes that tumble out over one another, “ig’ksSst! ngXch-ksch!iih’ksSCHh! kK’tTsSCHhy’w!”

The fit leaves Dennis panting, dizzy, and with his nose running into the crevice of his elbow. He keeps his head bowed and hidden, but an embarrassed blush reddens his ears and neck. 

“Bl–” Jack begins, but Dennis cuts him off with a belated, “t’sSXch’ehw!” to which an older man raises an eyebrow. Abbot hesitates for a second, letting any final sneezes make themselves known before attempting to bless the younger doctor again. 

“Bless. You trying to set a record or something?” 

“No, I’m— sorry. I’m nodt—,” Whitaker begins, words falling from his mouth without any real coherence. The itch lingers in the back of his throat, each word egging it on until, “hnGjXch! S-hihh’iSZSHh!—sorry!” 

A liquid sniffle follows Dennis’s apology, and he shoves his free hand into his pocket in a vain hope that it would contain a tissue. No such luck. He sniffles a second time, then a third, his nose still tucked into the crook of his elbow. Luckily, the sniffles are lost to the chaos of the ED, stamped out by sounds of medical machinery and a chorus of voices. 

Dennis pointedly avoids Jack’s gaze, his eyes skirting around for the nearest exit from the overcrowded room. He can feel the attending’s hands over his scrubs, bracing him with a sturdiness that he desperately needs. 

The nurses station is crowded as ever, as is the rest of the pitt. An overflow of patient beds lines the hallways, blocking the exit nearest to Dennis. Fine, that’s fine. He just has to cross by South 15, pass the breakroom, and take a few minutes in the stairwell by the family room. 

“Sorry,” Dennis offers again, his brain churning out the same useless apology as it works through the molasses clouding his judgement. 

“Whitaker.” Jack’s hold on Dennis’s waist continues, his grip growing firmer as the student doctor takes a step forward. 

Dennis’s fever-addled brain miscalculates. Lifting just a few inches off the ground, his foot collides clumsily with Abbot’s sneaker, missing the ground entirely and instead landing on the toe of his prosthetic. 

Fumbling to find his footing, Dennis feels the room spin as he tries to lift his leg again; the limb shifts off of Jack’s foot, landing on solid ground by some miracle. 

The heat that’s been sitting dormant beneath Dennis’s skin now sears to the forefront of his mind, blurring his vision. His body practically wilts: legs shaking, posture slumping, and head swimming. 

Oh. Shit. 

He just barely registers, “Alright kid, stay with me. You’re alright.” 

Dennis tries to nod, to get his tongue to do anything more than sit like a rock in his mouth. He wants to agree– yes, I am alright– but all he manages is another whispered apology as he slumps further towards Abbot. 

“Fuck!” Jack hooks his arms beneath Dennis’s, keeping the younger— surprisingly buff— doctor upright. He barks, “Robby!!” as he casts a glance over his shoulder, catching his fellow attending in his line of sight. 

that's all for now ~ any and all comments/tags are appreciated :) thank you for reading!