#bob d

Life for the Dylan’s had slowed down tremendously after Bob’s motorcycle accident in ‘66. He’d finally gotten the break he’d desperately needed and craved. He’d gotten out of the rat race and he didn’t want back in. Sara had been pregnant with their first child before they got married, but gave birth soon after. Bob was a father as of January 1966. He and Sara popped one out every year after that until 1969. With four kids of his own and another from Sara’s previous marriage—a sweet nine year-old named Maria—Bob decided it was time for him to become a real family man.

Despite what everyone believed, Bob was a great dad. Everyone who knew him personally could see how devoted he was to his family. He’d matured a lot, become a much different person. He was still the same Bob, but he had some wisdom now that only came with becoming a husband and a father.

Boy, did he love having kids. He and Sara were great at parenting together, he discovered. They were happy. With what was then a great marriage, he and Sara couldn’t ask for anything else.

While having kids was rewarding and filled their hearts with love until they spilled over, it was exhausting. They had a pretty decent schedule of taking turns when the kids woke up in the night, who made meals when, whose turn it was to change diapers, but it was still a lot of work.

The kids had more reason to be attached to their mom more than Bob due to some still breastfeeding and the comfort only a mother could provide, but he did his best. As much as he helped, though, he had to admit that Sara carried much more of the burden.

She’d become completely drained over the past few weeks and Bob kept urging her to go on a small vacation, take a trip and just relax. It took a lot of conversations for him to finally convince her. It wasn’t that he wanted her out of the house, he just hated seeing how worn down she was. A short break was exactly what she needed. She made plans to go and visit her brother for a week, and Bob could see how excited she was underneath her concern about leaving the kids for so long. She had yet to spend any time away from their kids and it was proving to be a little difficult to get her foot out the door. Bob wasn’t worried. He’d been alone with the kids for a few days before and he figured that this couldn’t be much harder.

The week before Sara was set to leave, she started to get cold feet. She kept making up reasons as to why she should stay and be with the kids. Bob talked her out of it each time, but it got harder and harder as the day came closer.

Three days before Sara planned to visit her brother, one of their children woke up in the middle of the night screaming their head off due to a fever. Once they calmed him down and got past the immediate worry about their child’s health, Bob cursed under his breath. Sara was bound to argue with him about staying.

He was right in thinking so. As soon as they returned to their bedroom after getting their son back to sleep, Sara turned to Bob with wide eyes.

“I shouldn’t leave.”

Bob sighed. “It’s just a fever, he’ll be-“

Shaking her head, Sara cut him off, “But what if it’s not? If he’s got the flu he’ll get worse and he’ll need me and I’m certain that all the kids will catch it and then you’ll catch it and then you’ll be all alone and-“

“Hey, baby, take a deep breath. Everything’s gonna be just fine. We’ll play it by ear. We’ll keep him in his room and be real careful with the others and we’ll see where he’s at in a few days, okay?”

Silence hung in the air and Bob could tell that Sara still felt uneasy.

He pulled her close and held her head in his hands. “Does that sound alright?”

Sara nodded and they laid back down.

Not five minutes later, Sara sat up again.

“You’re gonna get sick and you won’t have me here to help you and take care of you and watch the kids and it’s gonna be so draining for you and you won’t be able to keep up with them and take care of yourself at the same time and I just think it would be better if I stayed.” The way her words came out without a single breath between any of them showed Bob how worried she was.

He sat back against the bed frame. “I won’t get sick, I-“

“Yes, you will. Someone with a cold could just look in your direction and you’d catch it. You come down with everything the kids bring home.” Sara’s voice became increasingly distressed with each word she spoke. “And you don’t just come down with whatever they have either, it always hits you ten times worse. What if you’re by yourself with them and that happens?”

“Hey, I sound fine, don’t I?” Bob put his nose to Sara’s ear and took a deep, clear breath through it to prove his good health. “Wow, did you hear that? Exactly, no you didn’t, cause there ain't nothin’ to hear. I’m alright and I’ll be alright.”

It made Sara laugh and he could feel her ease up a little.

“I’ll be alright,” Bob said, for his own sake as much as hers.

“Okay, I’ll go. But if he gets worse or if you get sick, I’m staying.”

Bob smiled. “I can work with that.”

—

It was their oldest child together, Jesse, that had gotten sick. Bob was almost glad it was him who got sick instead of the younger ones, as he knew that Sara would've been frightened if their one year-old had been the one to get a fever. He was sure that they would’ve ended up in an emergency room had that happened.

Jesse was old enough where a fever like this wasn’t too concerning. Sara was still worried, but Bob reminded her of the last time they took one of the kids to the doctor and how they were told that kids get higher fevers than adults do, so they shouldn’t be too worried. However, it was at that same appointment that the doctor saw the state Bob was in and took his temperature too, told him and Sara that his fever was something they should be a bit more concerned about. Bob didn’t bring that part up.

All Jesse seemed to be was a bit sick. Typical respiratory issues that came with a cold, maybe a little more severe. Sara relaxed a little and agreed to leave as planned.

They did a good job of keeping the other kids away from Jesse and when the day came for Sara to go, they all seemed completely fine.

“Say bye to mommy!” Bob took Jakob, their youngest, and held him up to give Sara a kiss.

After saying goodbye to her children multiple times, she laid her hand on the cool metal of the doorknob.

She looked back with her body halfway out the door. “You sure you’ll be alright without me?”

“Oh, honey, we’ll be just fine.”

“And you’re feeling alright?”

Bob nodded. Sure, he was a little tired and he’d woken up with his usual morning congestion, but that had mostly cleared away by now (lunchtime). Mostly. “Perfectly fine.” He took Jakob’s tiny hands and made him wave bye to his mother.

Bob was happy to see it make her laugh as she closed the door behind her.

That first night went smoothly. Sara called a few hours later once she arrived at her destination and Bob got all the kids on the phone to talk to her. He let Maria take the receiver after a few minutes so he could start focusing on dinner. It wasn’t the first time that Bob had been alone to cook and watch the kids, so it wasn’t a big deal. Jesse was still a little subdued from being sick so that was another problem Bob didn’t have to worry so much about.

The kids ate spaghetti with marinara sauce while Bob fed Jakob his disgusting—if you asked Bob—baby food. He figured he’d have time to eat and clean the dishes once he got the kids bathed and in bed so he left everything on the table while he rounded up the kids. He had Maria keep an eye on Jakob as he bathed the others first, then she showered while Bob washed Jakob up.

He'd put them all to bed enough on his own for them to be okay without their mom there to say goodnight. Once they were tucked in with their doors were closed, Bob made his way back to the kitchen. He decided washed the dishes first, before eating, as he hadn’t quite grown his appetite back after their afternoon snack. However, even when all the dishes were in the drying rack, Bob still wasn’t hungry. Huh. That was a little odd. Sure, Bob’s appetite waxed and waned sometimes, but he had gotten a lot better at eating three full meals a day since he’d weaned off almost all of the drugs he had been taking just a few short years ago. He figured it was fine, he must’ve just eaten too much at lunch and then still had a snack on top of that.

The leftover spaghetti went in the fridge and Bob smiled to himself as he looked at the clean kitchen. He was doing alright. He knew he would.

He took a quick shower before retreating to bed, hoping for as much sleep as a father of five kids could get.

—

When Jakob started screaming in the middle of the night, as he usually did, needing to be fed, Bob found himself taking longer than usual to wake up enough to make his way to his son's room. He didn’t notice how he had to clear his throat several times as he sat with Jakob and his bottle.

After changing him, Bob slinked back off to the master bedroom. He had only been in bed for a few minutes when he heard a knock on his door. It creaked open ever so slightly and a small head poked in.

“Which one of you monsters is that?” Bob asked sleepily.

The sound of tiny footsteps speeding across his floor warned him of the weight that soon landed on his chest as one of his kids vaulted onto the bed. Still, it punched a cough out of him when the breath was stolen from his chest.

“Sorry, daddy.”

It was Jesse.

“It’s alright, munchkin. What’s goin’ on? Why’re you out of bed so late?”

Jesse didn’t even attempt to explain what was wrong, just started crying. He was eventually able to utter the word “mommy,” mixed in with some other incomprehensible murmurs. Ah, okay.

“Mommy’s gonna be home soon. Before you know it she’ll be back here, okay?” Bob cradled his son in his arms and rocked him back and forth.

It didn’t help as immediately as Bob had hoped it would. He sat there with Jesse for a few minutes, whispering words of comfort to his biggest little boy. Jesse asked where his mommy was and Bob was just about to answer when his nose started to itch.

“Uhm, snf, mommy’s with-ahem, mommy’s with Uncle J, you remehhHhmber him?”

Before Jesse could confirm or deny, Bob pulled his son close to his chest with one arm and used the other to cover two sneezes.

Jesse blessed him and Bob thanked him before repeating his question about Uncle J. Jesse didn’t remember him, and it made him a little nervous that his mommy was with some strange man he didn’t know.

Fifteen minutes and another pair of sneezes later, Jesse was finally asleep. Bob picked him up bridal style and carried him back to his bed.

A heavy sigh fell from Bob’s lips as he walked back to his room. He could finally sleep again.

Or so he thought.

He had to rise again less than an hour later to change Jakob’s diaper, then again shortly after that to rock and spin and dance around with him to try and get him to go back to sleep. If Jakob was crying too loudly for too long he’d wake up the others, and Bob was too tired to deal with four more overtired children.

When the sun rose and light streamed in through his poorly-closed curtains, Bob cracked his eyes open. They felt dry. He swore as he sat up and realized that his throat was dry too. The one thing that wasn’t dry was his nose, which was already running.

No, no, no! He’d hoped so badly that he wouldn’t get sick. Maybe he wasn’t! Maybe the air was just dry or the room was just stuffy. He’d have to wait and see. It wasn’t wise to jump to conclusions, after all.

The proof only seemed to sink in further as Bob got up and coughed his way over to the bedroom door.

He had a little bit of time before everyone would start to wake up, so he started working on breakfast. He made pancakes and sneezed upon pouring the flour into the mixing bowl, aimed it toward the floor.

Jakob started crying just as Bob turned the stovetop off. He fetched his youngest son, rounded up the others, and got everyone into the kitchen. Juice and pancakes and syrup were dealt out to each of them and kept their mouths occupied for a while. Bob had a few bites of a pancake but couldn’t force himself to get down much more than that.

A tickle sprung up in the back of Bob's throat as he was about to cut up the rest of his pancakes and dish them out to the kids. He was still hoping he wasn't getting sick, but he decided to just toss the rest of his pancakes instead of risking accidentally feeding them his germs.

Of course, then Maria became upset that Jesse had gotten bigger pancakes than she did even though she was much bigger than him and therefore required more food. She couldn't believe that her father was trashing perfectly good--as far as she knew--pancakes! Why would he do such a thing?

"Mom would've given me the rest!" Maria crossed her arms.

"Well, Mom's not here. Your pancakes are just as big as Jesse's."

Maria scoffed, "No, they're not. I want more!"

Her voice became shrill toward the tail end of her sentence and the sound rung in Bob's ears. Since when did his head hurt?

While Bob was busy trying to figure out if he had a headache or not, Maria lunged for Jesse's plate and stabbed a few pieces of pancake with her fork. Jesse started bawling immediately.

Well, now there was no doubt Bob had a headache.

"Hey! Cut that out, Maria!" Upon raising his voice, Bob realized how shitty he already sounded. His words caught in the back of his throat and made him cough badly enough to turn away from the table.

Instead of cutting it out, Maria started bickering with Jesse. Samuel and Anna were getting into it too, babbling at one another, and the ruckus was getting Jakob all fussy. They were all shouting across the table, calling one another names, tears building in their eyes as the frustration grew.

“I’ll make more pancakes!”

The room fell silent, save for Jakob’s crying. That wasn’t his fault, though. He didn’t understand words yet.

“Can I have the first one?” Maria piped up.

Normally, Bob would’ve said yes. However, he was a little touchy this morning and it annoyed him greatly that Maria had deliberately ignored him and continued instigating. She was the oldest, she was supposed to be the most reasonable. “No, Maria, actually, you’re getting the last one.”

Maria opened her mouth to debate but Bob didn’t give her the time of day.

“IF you behave, snf, then maybe I’ll let you get dessert first tonight. If not, you’ll be last again, sister. Got it?”

Again, Maria started to protest.

“Got it?”

Finally, Maria nodded.

Bob sighed as he stood to make more pancakes. Almost immediately after grabbing the bowl he’d used for the batter earlier, he felt an overwhelming need to sneeze. Not wanting to do that right on the food, he turned around and sneezed twice into steepled hands. He groaned and began to pull his head up before his breath hitched again. Goddamnit. Another came out and Bob winced at his hands after he recovered. At least he could just wash them.

And wash them he did. Very thoroughly.

Mixing the dry ingredients made his nose itch again but he was able to hold it off. All it did was make him sniffle and cough more, and he aimed those against his shoulder while leaning as far away from the mixing bowl as possible.

The kids had been appeased by the promise of more pancakes and were now chatting happily amongst themselves. Most of it was gibberish and nonsense, but Bob was used to that by now. It even made him smile as he listened to their ridiculous ramblings and ideas. He tried to make the pancakes quickly so that Maria wasn’t waiting too long. He’d begun to feel bad about snapping at her.

Like most parents, Bob really didn't like having to yell at his kids. Sure, he'd feel like he needed to in the moment, but seeing the sad looks on their faces just tore his heart open and threw it in the garbage. He was still trying to understand the fact that kids don't know shit about their emotions or how to handle them. As an adult--God, he really was twenty-nine now, wasn't he--he knew at least a little bit about his emotions and how to handle them, so the most he could do in these types of situations was react as best as he could. Some days, like today, he just didn't have it in him.

With the new plate of pancakes on the table, the kids were happy again. Bob sat with them and tried to wake himself up. It had been a long night without Sara there to take turns with him when each kid got him up, needing something. He was lost in his mind when he heard Anna begging for syrup. She was reaching her grubby little hands out for it but it was just far enough away that her fingers couldn’t wrap around the bottle--that, and it was much too big for her to grab on her own anyway.

Bob picked it up and unscrewed the cap. He was leaning over Anna and her plate when an unbearable tickle flared through his nose without any warning. He twisted as far away from Anna as he could, syrup bottle still facing down, and crushed three quick sneezes against his arm.

A heavy shriek turned his attention back to the table. When he looked down he saw Anna’s plate absolutely drenched in syrup. God fucking damnit. He must’ve lost control of the bottle or squeezed it or something while he was sneezing. As some people wouldn’t, Anna didn’t like her pancakes drowning in syrup. Tears started streaming from her eyes and Bob didn’t know what to do. He’d just run out of pancake batter and he really really did not want to make more.

It was well past the point of being able to dab some of the syrup off the pancakes—they were entirely soggy by now. Anna was sobbing, even though she hadn’t finished the pancakes Bob had given her in the first place and it was very likely she wasn’t going to eat more anyway. Still, her siblings had more pancakes and now she didn’t. It wasn’t fair!

“What can I do for you, sweetheart?” Bob asked.

Anna shook her head and kept bawling. She was crying too hard to get any words out. All Bob could think to do was pick her up and hold her in his arms. She clung to his neck until the others were finished eating and Bob had to put her down. He’d almost had to put her back in her chair when he swallowed wrong and started coughing, but she grabbed onto him harder and Bob resorted to holding his elbow around his mouth as tightly as he could.

The dishes were sticky and dirty and covered in syrup. Bob didn’t have the time to scrub them all now. He filled up the sink with warm water to let the plates and utensils soak off some of the sugary substance.

Now he had to change Jakob’s diaper, Sam’s, too. Anna was almost fully potty-trained. They had an incident every once in a while, but man, Bob was glad not to have to change three kids’ diapers multiple times a day.

He enlisted Maria’s help to watch the other kids while he cleaned his younger sons up. She was still a little pissed at him after breakfast but she did what she was told.

She lended a helping hand all day and Bob couldn’t have been more grateful for it. He felt a little better as the day went on, getting distracted while he played with his kids and kept them entertained. The sniffles weren’t as prominent or heavy as when he had woken up, but his throat was slowing getting scratchier and scratchier. Laughing and yelling with his kids was only making it worse.

Nap time crept up on them and Bob couldn’t wait to take advantage of it. He was starting to get worn out again—having expended a lot of energy while running around.

Maria didn’t take naps at this point, so Bob told her to just do whatever she wanted for an hour. Each kid was put to bed and Bob went and slumped back into his own.

Some undetermined amount of time later, much longer than one hour, Bob was woken up by what felt like a thousand tiny fists attacking him. He opened his eyes to see all of his kids on his bed. Maria had gotten Jakob up and was cradling him in her arms while the others jumped up and down and up and down, pushing Bob around to rouse him.

“Alright, alright, I’m up, snnf.”

No matter how many times Bob learned this lesson, it never stuck: naps when you’re not feeling great usually just make you more tired, and you wake up and your symptoms are even worse.

The congestion had definitely set in by now and Bob could tell by how dry his throat was that he’d been snoring and sleeping with his mouth open. Great. He was lying to himself, trying to firmly and naively believe that maybe he was just experiencing allergies or something. He got those from time to time. Less so in the late fall, like it was, but still. Crazier things had happened.

“Daddy, let’s play hopscotch!” Maria suggested.

Bob glanced out his window. It looked like it was gonna rain. He explained this to Maria, who jutted out her bottom lip, blatantly showcasing her disappointment. If he hadn’t been so harsh with her this morning, Bob might’ve said no. However, he felt like he’d let her down and he didn’t want to make her feel even worse without her mom here. He sighed and looked out the window again. They probably had a bit of time.

Raincoats were grabbed just in case it started pouring, except Bob didn’t have his. He’d forgotten it while trying to get all of his kids’ shoes on. The task of finding the chalk fell to Maria. When Bob came outside with the rest of the kids he found that she’d already drawn up the squares.

It was chilly outside—at least that’s how it felt to Bob. The kids seemed fine, or maybe they just didn’t notice. They could run around in the snow for hours without getting cold. Bob could’ve sworn they were invincible.

He kept Jakob pressed close to him, thankful for the extra bit of body heat he provided. The only problem with that was having to carefully stifle his sneezes and muffle his coughs so he didn’t disturb his baby too much.

The Dylans were outside for maybe ten minutes before rain started to fall. The kids shrieked and ran inside, left their raincoats on the ground. Bob rolled his eyes. He couldn’t leave them outside like this. As he went around the driveway collecting them, the rain started coming down harder. Once he had them all rounded up he made his way back inside. Fucking of course Maria had to draw the hopscotch squares at the end of the fucking driveway. By the time he got inside, Bob was soaked. He’d tried to keep Jakob from getting wet and mostly succeeded—letting the rain hit himself instead.

The air was cool when Bob stepped into his house and it made him shiver. He had to dry off. He tossed the wet raincoats into the mud room, told himself he’d deal with them later. After changing Jakob’s clothes, he could finally change his own. His shirt was clinging to his skin and it felt disgusting to take off. The heavy jeans he wore were a whole other story. Remembering that he had clothes in the dryer, Bob picked out his warmest ones and tugged them on before returning to the living room where the kids were.

For the first time that day, Bob grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew his nose. It was more productive than he had been expecting, and that was not a good sign.

One of his kids made an exaggerated sound of disgust and it was enough to make him laugh, which was enough to make him cough.

“Are you okay, daddy?” Jesse asked.

Bob nodded before scooping Jesse up and tossing him onto the couch. “Daddy’s just fine.”

—

Daddy was not just fine. His symptoms were bothering him more and more as the day went on, and having to deal with five kids was exhausting. When dinner rolled around, Bob had forgotten that he was charged with taking care of it. Wanting to put in as little effort as possible, Bob made them sandwiches and chips. It was a good move, he thought, as there was also very little cleanup involved.

He couldn’t seem to find a combination of lunch meat and cheese and other assorted toppings that really called to him. His kids mostly ate ham and american cheese but he wasn’t feeling it. He spent most of dinner switching back and forth between feeding Jakob, sneezing and blowing his nose, and nibbling on his turkey and swiss cheese sandwich.

Bathing all of the kids and getting them ready for bed seemed like even more work than usual, but Bob got it done. They wanted to watch TV before bed, as Bob had made dinner pretty early, so he put some cartoons on and waited for them to get sleepy.

Despite having napped earlier, Bob was getting drowsy quickly. He had finally resigned to the fact that he was sick and moved the tissue box next to him on the couch. He tried to get his kids to keep some distance from him but without their mom there to cuddle up to he was their only option. The best he could do was try to contain his symptoms into some tissues and touch as few things as possible.

Maria seemed to notice more than the others just how poorly her dad was feeling, and even offered to carry Jakob to bed. Her words were music to his ears. With Maria bringing his youngest to his room, Bob could get the others to bed first before rocking him to sleep.

They all went down surprisingly easy. It was a massive relief when Bob was in his own bed by 9pm. Showering seemed like too much effort, even though he was probably dirty from playing with the kids and his hair getting rained on earlier. He didn’t even change the clothes he was wearing.

--

It felt like Bob had only just closed his eyes when they flew open again. Jakob was crying. Bob almost stayed in bed. He and Sara had learned that sometimes you just have to let your baby cry. You can’t be with them every single second. However, with Sara gone Bob was a little paranoid that Jakob would cry and if he ignored it then something would go really wrong.

With a heavy sigh, Bob pulled himself out of bed. His body was aching more than usual. It wasn’t odd for him to run around with his kids like he’d done the day before, but the soreness that came with it tonight just warned Bob that he was getting worse.

After the second time he had to get up and get Jakob settled, he gave up and pulled the crib into his bedroom. It was too much to get up every two hours and walk all the way to Jakob’s room and back. Of course, the crib was heavy and moving it just contributed to his exhaustion.

On top of having to wake up to deal with the kids, a cough was starting to take house in Bob’s lungs. It became much harder for him to fall back asleep once he got Jakob down, and he had to muffle his coughs to the best of his ability so as not to wake him again.

As it had been with his nap yesterday, Bob was awoken this morning by his children attacking him. He sat up and dove into his elbow to cover a heavy cough. His children sat back and kept their hands to themselves.

“Let’s—“ Bob was shocked at the hoarse voice that came out of his mouth. He cleared his throat twice before trying again. “Let’s get some breakfast, alright?” That was much better.

The kids took off for the kitchen and Bob looked at his alarm clock. Jesus Christ, it was nine in the morning. Bob couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in that late. He got up slowly and removed Jakob from his crib. The way his eyes blue eyes lit up at seeing his father gave Bob such a rush of endorphins that he forgot how shitty he was feeling—just for a second.

He met the kids downstairs after he had changed Jakob. They were getting antsy, starving and scrounging around the kitchen looking for scraps. Bob cut up some fruit and fed them cereal. The pancake ordeal yesterday had left him severely unmotivated when it came to cooking something so early in the morning.

Unlike the previous morning, Bob finished his breakfast. He was hoping it would give him the energy he needed to get through the day.

It helped for a little while, but as time passed, Bob could feel a fever creeping up on him.

He barely made it to lunch. Bob resorted to looking in the freezer for whatever low-effort meal he could make. Chicken nuggets and french fries it was. The oven was set to 350° and Bob slumped into the couch while he waited for the oven to preheat. His kids were darting around the room playing tag or something similar. It was hard to keep his eyes open, he was so exhausted from getting up what felt like nonstop for the past three nights.

If it weren’t for Anna complaining that she was starving, Bob wouldn’t have remembered that he had turned the oven on. He ran to the kitchen and put the food in the oven. Not trusting himself to remember when to take the food out, Bob set a timer and sat back on the couch.

Now the kids had adapted the rules to their game: you couldn’t touch the floor. What had been a bit of peaceful respite for Bob became his own game of trying to avoid limbs and bodies flying across his lap every few seconds.

Just as he went to pull a tissue from the box next to him to sneeze into, Jesse’s foot landed on it, effectively flattening and tearing the box and scaring Bob’s sneezes away. He was getting annoyed. Usually, he liked playing this kind of game with his kids. Today, however it was getting to be too much. He tried to fix the tissue box but resorted to taking the stack of tissues out of the box and setting it on the coffee table.

The vague tickling sensation was stuck in the back of his nose and it was torturing him. He blew his nose, hoping it would maybe pull the tickle forward. It didn’t. So Bob was stuck sniffling and staring up at the ceiling lights every once in a while.

Just as the tickle seemed to resurface just enough to push him over the edge, the kitchen timer started blaring, startling the itch once more.

“Fuck,” Bob whispered a little too loudly.

Maria knew enough by the age of 9 to know that fuck was a word that was NOT to be said. Her jaw dropped, but Bob couldn’t find the energy to tell her that he could say it but she couldn’t. All she’d do was argue and that was not what Bob was looking for.

Thankfully, the chicken nuggets and fries were perfectly cooked. Well, they weren't burned to a crisp, and that was good enough for Bob. He put them in the correct proportions for each child and also himself.

This time he pulled his seat and Jakob’s height chair a few feet away from the table. With how much worse he was feeling, Bob knew it was getting more and more likely that he’d spread whatever it was that Jesse had given him. Initially it had seemed like a cold, but considering how shivery and achy Bob now was, and how fast it was hitting him, it seemed to be leaning more toward the flu. He’d be supremely fucked if the kids caught it now; he was already struggling taking care of both himself and them while they were all healthy.

This became even more apparent as the tickle in Bob’s nose finally reared its ugly head. It had Bob making a desperate grab for some napkins and standing in the corner of the kitchen while he sneezed for five minutes straight. He could’ve sworn it was an hour. Once he was done he tried to clear himself out as best as he could before cleaning his hands and returning to Jakob’s height chair.

Bob sighed heavily as he fed Jakob a spoonful of mushy peas. Maybe Sara had been right. Maybe she should’ve stayed.

No, no. No. She deserved a break. It had become too much, the effort wearing her down to an exhausted little thing. He didn’t need to call and ask her to come home. He’d be alright. He had to be.

—

Bob tried his hardest to keep up with his kids as they ran around in the backyard, but it only took a few minutes for him to feel like he absolutely needed to sit down right now. He had Maria hold Jakob and sit on their porch, a safe enough distance away from him.

As it approached late afternoon, the temperature was dropping and Bob was beyond desperate to get inside and warm up. The cold, dry air was harsh on his throat and he was coughing so much he worried his voice would quit on him. The cool weather was contributing to his runny nose and he hadn’t thought to bring any tissues outside. Luckily, he found one crumpled in his pocket, which was enough to contain a few sneezes, but not much more.

When the time came where he couldn’t go five seconds without sniffling or coughing or struggling to contain a sneeze (or three or four) against his sleeve, Bob made the executive decision to move the party inside.

The kids whined and shouted their protests, but Bob really couldn't have given less of a shit.

He asked Maria to watch the others for five minutes tops, please, while he took a quick shower.

The hot water cascading down his already warm body felt better than an orgasm. Bob made a poor choice that he’d been known to make in the past: turned the water to a scalding temperature to combat the chills that were plaguing him. Unfortunately, the chills were brought on by the fever that was now being exacerbated by the increasing temperature of the water. It was a vicious cycle. When Bob stepped out of the shower he felt delirious, his mind spinning in circles as he shuffled through his drawers and picked out some sweats.

When he returned to the kids they asked him to play tag with them. Several voices overlapped one another at too high a volume or too high a pitch or, even worse, both. With a stuffy cough, Bob said no. They tried with all the fight they had in them to change his mind, but nothing would've worked at this point.

"We're gonna watch a movie." Bob barely made it through the sentence before breaking into another coughing fit.

The rate at which he was getting sicker was almost alarming. It didn't seem to be slowing down at all, in fact, Bob could've sworn it was speeding up. He was now certain that it was indeed the flu that Jesse had given him.

A fight was had over which movie they were going to watch. Bob let them bicker and shout at one another, too tired and uncertain of his vocal power to intervene, until one of them proposed something they all agreed on. He let Maria take care of it--what a sweet angel she was being, much better than the day before.

She flicked off the lights and Bob immediately felt his eyelids drooping. How had they become so heavy all of a sudden? He could barely keep 'em halfway open.

Bob tried shifting the position he was sitting in, rubbing his eyes, occupying himself with a glass of water, but nothing was helping him stay awake. His coughs and sneezes were pitifully lacking in strength. The coughs that had previously been full-bodied and wrenching Bob's body forward were now spilling out of his mouth quicker and lighter, with much less force behind them. They weren't even enough to keep his eyes open and his brain on.

After twelve minutes of whatever movie the kids had put on--Bob still didn't know--he fell asleep. The children didn't even notice, too engrossed in the movie to see their poor, sick dad passed out behind them.

Once he started snoring, that's when the kids realized that Bob was asleep. Anna waddled over to wake him up, but Maria stopped her before she could get to him.

"Let Daddy sleep, okay?"

Anna simply nodded. She didn't really know what was going on anyway.

--

Maria didn't mind watching her siblings. She'd helped both parents out before when the other wasn't home, and she knew that her dad always needed more support than her mom. The past few days she could see that he really needed her, and it was something she could do to occupy her time as she missed her mother.

Once the movie was over, Maria started another.

The film had been playing for about a half hour when the phone rang. Bob still hadn't woken up yet. Maria thought he had a few times when particularly nasty-sounding coughs came from his side of the room, but whenever she looked over he was still out cold. She made her way over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

Her small voice shocked Sara, who was on the other line.

“Hi, sweetie! How are you doing? I miss you like crazy!”

Maria told her that she was good, cited the many activities they’d been doing. Sara was getting impatient as her daughter continued to explain every detail of their time playing hopscotch. She wanted to speak to Bob.

“Honey, where’s Daddy? Can I speak to Daddy, please?”

A roaring snore coming from Bob’s direction told Maria that he was in no state to be on the phone. “Daddy’s sleepin’ ‘cause he’s sick.”

Panic rose from Sara’s stomach to the back of her throat. “Where’s Jakob?”

“Jesse’s holdin’ him on the couch. Daddy’s just been sleepin' for the movie. I like holding Jakob when we watch movies, he’s so cuddly!”

Sara was about to ask Maria to wake her father when the girl decided she needed to get back to the movie—she was missing her favorite part.

“I gotta go, Mom. I love you! Bye-bye!”

Before Sara could get a word out, the dial tone rang too loudly in her ears. God fucking damnit, Bob. She knew this would happen. It had been so clear in her mind she could see it days ago. She bet the same image she’d pictured before she left was what she’d see now if she was there.

Fuck! Why hadn’t Bob called her? He’d promised her that he’d call if anything was going wrong!

She dragged her hands across her face before sitting down and working through her options.

Back at the Dylan house, Bob coughed himself awake. He sounded terrible, somehow even worse than before. The slight temperature he’d suspected he had in the morning had developed into a full-blown, raging fever. His kids were all yelling at him, telling him to quiet down, he was ruining the movie!

Once Bob was certain he had enough energy to do so, he stood up and made his way to the kitchen. It was much later than when they’d usually eat dinner, but Bob was thankful that it meant he could go to bed soon.

Tonight for dinner it was going to have to be leftovers. All Bob felt up to doing was taking out the several tupperware containers that littered the fridge, laid them out on the counter, and tried not to touch them too much.

He called the kids in, told them to pause the movie so they could eat. Each child pointed at what they wanted and he plated it up for them. They’d fuss and groan whenever Bob twisted his body away from the counter to sneeze, complaining that he was gonna get their food all germy. They all took what seemed like forever to pick what they wanted to eat and Bob didn’t want to get his hands dirty before he was done giving them their food, so he was left sniffling for several minutes until the last kid was done.

Immediately after putting Samuel’s plate on the table, Bob made a mad dash for the paper towels. He just barely made it in time to catch a horrible group of sneezes, then followed it up with a nose blow. He rolled his eyes when he realized he was gonna have to do it again. Three tries, it took.

Bob didn’t eat anything for dinner. He sat at the counter instead of at the kitchen table and watched his kids chow down, Maria even feeding Jakob for him. None of the food looked remotely appetizing. Bob knew he should eat something so he could take medicine, but he was also debating doing that. What if he took it and then slept through the entire night? What if his kids needed him and he slept too heavily to hear them?

A very non-linear argument about it was going back and forth in Bob’s brain. He didn’t even notice when all the kids had gotten up and returned to the movie.

The problem with eating leftovers was that there were then forty-five different fucking tupperware containers that Bob had to clean. He dumped every dirty dish, fork, knife, cup, container, everything into the sink and watched the water flow over it all.

After a few minutes, he was able to start making a dent in the cleanup. Just as he was getting into a groove, the phone rang. Bob groaned, rinsed his hands, and cleared his throat several times before answering the call.

“Hello?” Bob winced, as his voice still sounded rough and raw.

Sara’s voice on the other end of the line made him nervous. “Bobby?”

Bob held the receiver away from his mouth and coughed as quietly as he could to get the rest of the gunk out of his lungs. “Yeah, hi, honey. How’s your brother doin’?”

The little glimmer of hope Sara had left faded away. Bob sounded awful. As much as he had tried to clear his voice, it was still much deeper and huskier and heavy with congestion.

"Sara? Y'okay, snf?"

Sara had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from replying with, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that question?" Instead, she said, "Yeah, it's good. He's good. It's been good."

"Relaxing?"

Well...it had been. Ever since she'd found out that Bob was sick a few hours earlier, Sara couldn't help but worry. She didn't like the thought of him feeling so poorly and having to keep all the kids in line, but it really freaked her out that he might get too sick and be down for the count in the event of an emergency.

"Yes. Oh, yes, it has been," she said anyway.

Bob asked her a few more questions and was obviously trying to manipulate the conversation so that she was doing most of the talking.

Since Sara couldn't see him, Bob was able to simply bury his face in his elbow and sneeze and cough as quietly as he could while she spoke. Unfortunately, each sneeze left him more congested and each cough stole a little bit more of his voice away.

Eventually it came to the point where Sara couldn't ignore it anymore.

"Are you feeling alright? You don't sound too good." She eased in, gave him the opportunity to tell her he was sick.

The other line was silent for a little too long. Sara was starting to convince herself that Bob was taking his time coming up with a lie.

"Bobby, you've got to be honest with me. You promised me before I left that-"

The response she got wasn't the one she was looking for. A sharp, staggering breath cut off her flow of words and she listened closer, heard the sound of a poorly muffled sneeze, and then another, and then another, and then, Jesus Christ, another. Bob couldn't even hide the many sniffles it required to recover.

"Oh, honey." Sara's heart broke, and the worst part was that Bob could hear it. "Do you need me to come home?"

"No, snnf-snf, no, I-I'm alright. It's fine, it's really--ahhem--really, it's--I've just...I'm really only a little sick, alright? Just a little bit."

That was a massive lie. Bob had had to drag a chair over to the phone and sit while he spoke, for fear of dropping mid-conversation. He was sweating buckets now, burning through the clothes he had layered on to combat the biting cold he felt earlier.

It didn't take a doctor to figure out that he was lying, either. Sara knew him well enough to catch on to these things pretty quickly, but really even a stranger he met on the street could put the pieces together. She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, let him prove he wasn’t too sick for her to come home, but as the conversation went on and he was rambling and losing control over his symptoms, Sara's stomach was turning more and more.

He said something that she couldn’t quite follow and she decided she couldn’t just sit and listen. She had to come home.

Bob was still talking about something cute that had happened with the kids when Sara took control of the conversation. “Honey, I think I’m going to look for a train home tomorrow.”

It was Bob’s heart’s turn to break.

He tried his best to protest but couldn’t get a word out with how hard he was coughing. Sara sat in uncomfortable silence as she listened to her husband struggle for breath.

Once he finally finished, the words he tried to push out barely even cracked a whisper. “Stay if you’re having a nice time. I’m a big boy, Sara. I’ll be—ahhhem—ugh, snf, I’ll be alright. Just gotta get some rest n’ I’ll be good as new.”

A frustrated sigh fell from Sara’s lips and she didn’t even try to hide it. She was sure Bob’s head was so full of congestion he probably couldn’t even hear it. Bob wasn’t going to hang up the phone until Sara agreed to stay, and she knew he’d torture himself if she told him she was coming home and then hung up the phone.

So, she did something that she really didn’t like to do: she lied to him.

“Okay, I believe you. But let me know if you get worse and I’ll come running, alright?”

“Alright.”

The relief that flooded his voice sank Sara's heart. She absolutely despised being dishonest with the father of her children, but this was an instance in which she could justify making an exception.

They chatted on the phone for a few more minutes until Sara couldn’t bear to listen to how god-awful he sounded any longer. All it was doing was stressing her out about how the night with the kids would go. The sooner she hung up the sooner she could go to sleep and catch a train the next morning.

Bob was glad she ended the call. His throat felt like sandpaper and he hadn’t been sure how long he could’ve kept talking. By the time their conversation was over, he had barely any voice left. That didn't bode well for being alone in a house full of kids.

Oh, shit. The kids.

Some movie was still playing when Bob walked back to the living room. The kids were curled up into one another, watching the screen intently. Bob didn’t know how much longer was left in the movie but he was scared he’d fall asleep again if he sank down on the couch for even just a minute. Instead, he paced back and forth behind the sofa, trying to keep his legs moving and his eyes open.

The movie finally ended and Bob put all the kids to sleep. He was glad he’d brought Jakob’s crib into his and Sara’s room the night before, but he had Maria watch him in her own room while he showered. A tiny bit of alone time was necessary for Bob to keep his sanity.

This time he took longer than five minutes. The steam of the scalding hot shower he was taking helped him get out some of the congestion, and it felt heavenly. Even the harsh fit of sneezes it pulled out of him didn’t feel as badly as they had earlier.

As the hot water alleviated some of his symptoms, Bob was craving more pleasure. He and his wife had been fucking like rabbits—hence the four kids in four years—and he was dying without her there. Before he knew it, his right hand was wrapped around his cock. He moaned lightly at his own touch.

He stroked faster and faster until the pace was just right, shifting so his hand and what was in it weren’t directly under the stream of water. His precum then served as a fantastic lubricant. It worked, but he couldn't say he didn't miss the feeling of Sara spitting on her hand and caressing his dick with her slender fingers. He moaned even harder and didn’t mind when it made him cough. A few minutes later, he even noticed a wave of pleasure when he sneezed while fucking himself. He’d sneezed during sex before, sometimes on purpose—he thought of the Beatles with a smile—and he knew how good it could feel. In the back of his mind, he wished it would happen again.

It only happened once more before Bob was coming all over his hand and his shower floor. He shuddered from the release and leaned against the cool tile wall, letting the water hit him.

The rest of the shower was brief. Bob cleaned himself off and tried to cough up as much congestion as he could before he got out.

The air outside the shower felt even colder than it had earlier. Bob was shivering until his body and hair were completely dry (a while).

He took Jakob back from Maria and apologized for taking so long. She couldn’t be annoyed if she wanted to. Her dad had practically stumbled through the doorway, sniffling and coughing into his elbow. Poor daddy, she thought.

“I got him,” Bob said.

Maria was hesitant to hand her brother over. Her dad was so yucky right now she couldn’t even believe it. She considered calling her mom when she realized she didn’t have the phone number she was looking for. Maybe her dad had scrawled it down somewhere. She decided to look after he went to bed.

Bob stalked back off to his room with Jakob in his arms. He felt awful about it, but he barely took any time to rock him before placing him down in his crib.

He crawled into bed, falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

Maria waited a few minutes before creeping off to the kitchen. She found a paper with a phone number scribbled on it in her dad’s handwriting. It was hard to make out, but she did it. She held the receiver close, waiting for someone to pick up.

“Hello?” The man who answered was clearly not her mother.

“Um,” she swallowed, “Is my mom there?”

The man sounded sleepy. “Maria? Is this Maria?”

“Yes.”

“Give me one moment, Maria.”

So, Maria waited. She sat as patiently as she could, tapping her feet and trying not to yawn.

“Maria, honey, is everything alright?”

The worry in her mom’s voice made Maria feel guilty for calling.

“When are you coming home?”

Sara let herself breathe. She thanked God that there hadn't been an emergency.

“I’ll be home soon, baby.” She hoped there was a train she could catch tomorrow.

“Daddy’s sick.”

Figuring she could get more information from her daughter than she could from her husband, Sara prodded a little. “How sick is Daddy?”

Maria shrugged, forgetting her mom couldn’t see her. “He looks gross.”

“Does he have a fever?”

“I don’t know.”

Sara took a chance. “Do you think you could take a thermometer to him?”

“Uhhh…I don’t know where it is.”

Sara quickly gave Maria specific directions as to where she could find a thermometer and some medicine.

“Honey, I need you to do me a really big favor, okay?”

Maria listened carefully. Her mom asked if she could watch over Jakob tonight, if she could sleep in Jakob’s room. Maria told her mother that Daddy took Jakob’s crib into their room, and Sara almost lost it. She had half a mind to make her brother drive her home through the night. She then asked Maria if she could then stay in hers and Daddy’s room. Maria guessed that was fine.

Sara instructed Maria to call her back as soon as she was done taking Daddy’s temperature.

Alright, Maria thought. She had a mission to complete.

After finding the thermometer, Maria tiptoed over to the master bedroom and snuck inside. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to wake her father up to take his temperature or not.

“Daddy?”

Bob groaned, still asleep.

“Daddy?” She shook his shoulder this time.

All Bob did was let out an awful cough.

One more time, Maria decided. “Daddy!”

Finally, Bob woke up. He looked so disoriented that even his nine year-old could tell something was really wrong.

“Open up.”

Bob thought he was dreaming. He opened his mouth and Maria slid the thermometer in. They waited in silence, Bob half falling asleep. Maria took the thermometer and read the number, trying her best to remember it. She left the thermometer on the nightstand and made her way back to the phone. Bob drifted off before she shut the door.

At nine years old, Maria had no idea what was a fever and what wasn’t. However, when she read the number to her mom, she could tell it wasn’t good. Her next steps were to bring some water and a cool washcloth back to her father.

When she laid the wet rag on his forehead, he sat up and gasped sharply. Maria told him he was okay and eased him back to sleep.

Between her dad’s coughing and snoring and her brother’s crying, she didn’t catch a wink of sleep.

—

Sara woke up at four in the morning in order to get to the train station as early as possible. The first train was 5:55am, so she was left tapping her feet impatiently on the hard floor while she waited.

The train ride couldn’t have been longer. Sara watched the minutes tick by on the large clock mounted on one of the walls of the car she was in.

When the train pulled up to her station, she flung herself off and raced outside to grab a taxi.

Time was passing slower than ever, Sara was certain. The cab pulled up in front of her house and Sara tossed enough cash to double the fare. She didn’t care to wait for the total.

She didn’t even wait for the driver to get out and help her with her bags, just ran straight to the door. Her hands were shaking as she turned the key in the lock.

“Bobby!” She called. God, where was he?

She heard coughing coming from the kitchen.

Sara entered the room and felt her heart stop when she laid eyes on her husband.

“Oh, Bobby.”

He was sat, shirtless for some reason, on the other side of the room with his face planted in some tissues. The look he gave Sara upon realizing she’d come home early made her insides twist.

When he tried to ask her why she came home, nothing came out. Sara sat next to him and stroked his hair. He was radiating a lot of body heat.

The clang of a knife hitting the kitchen table grabbed Sara's attention. The kids were eating breakfast and there was an unusual silence. She wondered why, but figured she could get to the bottom of that later. It was time to get Bob in bed.

It took a moment to convince him, but Sara finally got her arm around Bob's waist and led him to their bedroom. She gasped in shock as she saw the state of the room. Blankets were strewn all over, Jakob’s crib was pulled haphazardly into the middle of the floor, clothes were littering every surface, cough drop wrappers and empty glasses of water covered the nightstand.

As badly as Sara felt that her husband was so sick, the sight managed to anger her. He was alone with their kids like this? She had told him that he needed to call her if he got sick. He had promised he would. The mess in front of her told her all she needed to know about just how sick Bob had been.

She tried to be patient and empathetic as she tucked him in bed. They could talk about this later, when he was more lucid and could actually defend himself. His fever was messing with his emotions, too. Not good for an argument. His eyes filled with tears as Sara massaged his sinuses.

He tried to apologize but only a squeak came from his throat before he was coughing again.

“It’s okay, Bobby, you were just trying to take care of the kids. They’re okay.”

Bob wasn’t so sure that was the entire truth. This morning he woke up obviously still feeling like shit. His kids, again, woke him up by jumping on his bed. He tried to get them to stop but they just wouldn’t, no matter how much he begged.

It became too much and all of a sudden Bob was shouting at them. He barely realized it had happened until it was over and he was hacking into his elbow, his kids shrinking away from him.

The looks on his kids’ faces told him that he had taken things way too far. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. His voice was torn to shreds. Fucking great.

Maria quietly led the kids out of the room and Bob sat with his head in his hands, trying not to cry. How could he have done that?

He spent a few minutes in bed trying to collect himself before he went to make breakfast. He wasn’t even sure if he could at this point.

Turned out, he didn’t have to. Maria took care of it for him. They had cereal again and Bob felt overwhelming relief when Maria smiled at him and told him to sit down. She pointed to a chair she'd set up by the counter. It felt weird being in charge of her father like that.

It was a late breakfast, as it had been the past few days. At one point, Bob felt so warm he stripped himself of his shirt, grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and held it to his head. They warmed up faster than he’d have liked them to and he tossed the bag in the trash.

Not much more time passed before Sara came barreling into the kitchen. Bob couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw her. Guilt flooded his entire body. He’d ruined everything, hadn’t he? On top of Sara returning early, his kids were so put off by him yelling at them that morning that they didn’t even jump up to greet their mother.

Next thing he knew, Bob was being thrown in bed. No matter how hard he tried to get a word out, nothing worked. He’d obliterated his voice and he wasn’t sure when it would come back. He was starting to feel like it might never return.

Sara was nicer to him than she needed to be. He knew she was upset with him for not asking her to come home earlier, but she had to understand that he just wanted her to be happy, to have a bit of time where she didn’t have to worry.

She handed him a notepad and a pen. “Tell me how you’ve been feeling.”

Bob scribbled something down before handing it to Sara.

She read out loud, “Sniffly. Then throat hurt. So much sneezing. Fever? Fever. Chills. Head hurt. Tired. More sneezing. Bad cough. Fever.” A deep sigh before she spoke some words of her own. “You should’ve called me.”

Bob looked away from her, ashamed. He knew that if he hadn’t done so he would’ve started to cry. Sara put a hand on his cheek and he cried anyway.

“You’re okay, Bobby. I’m here now. I’ve got you.”

He just barely managed to get out, “Kids.”

“Shhh.” Sara stroked his hair. “Don’t worry. Just get some sleep, okay?”

Bob nodded, though he looked like he was still fighting to stay awake.

After a few minutes of Sara running her fingers through his hair, Bob finally passed out.

What was she going to do with him? It was sweet, really, what he’d been trying to do, but Sara couldn’t help but be a little frustrated. Bob had gotten a lot better over the years at starting to think about other people's needs, not just his own. She knew that he wasn't trying to think only of himself, but she felt like Bob couldn't have been thinking too much about the children's wellbeing if he stayed around them like this for so long.

Once Bob had been sleeping for about fifteen minutes, Sara returned to the kids. She talked to Maria first, with Jakob scooped up in her arms. Her daughter corroborated the basic information her husband had just provided on the scratch paper.

"Thank you for calling me, sweetie," Sara said. She hugged her daughter close, truly beyond grateful that she reached out.

"You're welcome!"

Sara felt like a nurse making her rounds as she checked on her other children. Jesse was feeling 100% better now, and the rest of the kids seemed to be in good health. She was praying that it would stay that way.

After about two hours of lounging about with the kids, Sara was startled by a knocking sound. She looked up to see Bob leaning up against the door frame that led into their living room. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a clump of tissues in his hand.

"Can we talk?" At least he had a bit of his voice back.

Sara nodded. She handed Jakob off to Maria and walked with Bob back to their bedroom. She ushered him back into bed, but this time Bob made her crawl in with him.

He took a shuddery breath. "I should've called you-"

Immediately, he started getting emotional. Sara frowned, having hoped Bob could sleep off some of his fever. That didn't seem to be the case.

"Hey, are you sure you want to talk now?" Sara asked. "You still don't seem like you're feelin' too good."

Bob sniffled thickly and Sara handed him a tissue. He accepted it but just held it in his hand. "I wanted you to have a good time."

"I know, sweetheart, I know."

"I was trying-" Bob's voice cut out and he coughed loudly, though he tried to confine it within his tissues.

"Hey, look at me."

Sara tilted Bob's head up by his chin so he was looking her in the eyes.

"I'll tell you what, we're gonna talk about this later. I'm not upset with you, okay?" Bob glanced back down at the ground. "Okay?"

"Okay."

Bob wiggled his chin out of Sara's grip so he could sneeze away from her. Sara was about to bless him when it happened again. She knew better at this point, waiting until he looked her in the eyes again to know his fit was over. She pet his curls.

"Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Instead of speaking, Bob looked up at her with pleading eyes. Sara knew exactly what he meant:

Hold me?

The hands of John Lennon and Paul McCartney had not been empty for some time now. Pills, tabs, cigarettes, joints, and glasses filled to the brim were carefully held between delicate fingers, lifted to greedy mouths every so often, replaced when they were getting low. This was also the case with America’s Bob Dylan, who had arrived at the Speakeasy Club about an hour ago. Directly in front of him was a large table with every sort of drink and drug one could imagine--only the best for celebrity. 

He was stood with a small group of people from his usual entourage: Bobby Neuwirth, Albert Grossman, some guys from the Band--though at this time they were still known as the Hawks--and a few women who had felt bold enough to approach him. Although the girls had previously been rubbing more than just elbows with Bob, they were beginning to take small, sure steps backward, inching away from the star. Why? Well, a short time after they’d initiated a conversation with him, Bob started sneezing. A lot. He hadn’t detected their subtle and slow movement, of course, couldn’t even try to pay attention to the girls considering how blitzed he was and how much his nose was bothering him.

Something was certainly in the air tonight, Bob thought to himself several times. That something happened to be the perfume of the woman to Bob’s left, and she had recently reapplied (generously), misting him in the process. He was blissfully unaware of this, and honestly didn’t really care to find out what was getting to him. 

He might’ve been a little disgruntled with the situation if he had a show to put on that night, but with no commitments and a bit of an exciting history with sneezing, he was actually enjoying it quite a bit. The drugs and alcohol in his system had already been triggering his pleasure system, but the reminder of the experiences he’d had with John and Paul, as well as those with that one chick, was driving him mad. And it was obvious.

One might say Bob’s dreams came true as John and Paul stepped inside, spotted Bob, and strode up to him and his gang. 

“Hey, what’s--Hey! It’s th’Beatles! Well, it--some of ‘em. Where’s--hey, fellas--snf, where’s, uh, where’s Georgie n’ good ol’, good ol’ Ringo? Where’re they at, huh?” Bob rubbed at his nose as he spoke--well, slurred. 

“Cheers, Dylan,” John said, “Haven’t seen those two for ages now. Could be in a ditch and we’d never be the wiser.” Bob laughed loudly and started to utter something before John spoke louder. “What are we having tonight? Gone the full Monty, have you?”

Bob gestured vaguely toward the overcrowded table with the hand holding his drink. The dark liquid sloshed over the edges and soaked Bob’s fingers. He didn’t seem to notice. “Fuckin’...I d’know, we got...just...look it, we’ve got fuckin’ everything, man. Take, snnf, whatever, anything you want, both of you. I don’t know whose shit this is, but you can just help yourself to whatever you--whatever you fancy, hahaha.”

The club was dark but it didn’t take a lot of light to see that something was up with Bob. Paul had clocked it right away, his eyes and ears being so well-trained for this sort of thing. John caught on as Bob sniffled and pawed at his nose for the third time since they’d approached him just under a minute ago. 

A sudden surge in the tickle plaguing Bob’s nose quickly reminded him just why his cock had started throbbing nearly thirty minutes ago. He glanced at John and Paul with a devilish smile and let the itch consume him. 

They’d done this dance before and Bob had picked up on a few things. Just from their short and experimental affair, Bob learned quite a bit about what made the other two lean harder into his touch, desperate for more, made them quiver and moan and just hope he’d do it again. Something that put both of them on edge was the level of ridiculousness that Bob’s buildups could reach, and he thought he might have some fun with that tonight. 

Bob let his jaw hang open as he scrunched his eyebrows and wriggled his nostrils. 

John, naturally, was a tease at first. “Itch you just can’t scratch, Bobby?” 

At this point, Bob could certainly have still gotten a word or two out if he wanted, but gasping wildly and pretending he couldn’t speak if he tried was infinitely more entertaining. He nodded his head and cracked an eyelid to see the mesmerized faces focusing in on him. John and Paul were entranced, couldn’t take their eyes off the guy. It almost distracted Bob too much--he nearly lost the tickle entirely. All he had to do to get it back, though, was glance up at one of the lights and a trio of sneezes came barreling out of him. He nearly lost his footing. 

Wow. This was shaping up to be a much more promising night than either John or Paul had expected. 

“Ugh, sorry, snrf, ‘ve been sneehh! Sneezing, snf, my fuckin’ ass off in this joint.”

And it was only getting better. John and Paul could only stare. 

“What? No bless you or nothin’? I’d settle for a gesundheit, even.” Bob gave them a playful, knowing grin. 

The Beatles both managed to stutter out a “bless ya,” John’s--undoubtedly and unsurprisingly--more confident than Paul’s. 

Bob wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve before wincing at the rough material. There were several severely crumpled and severely soaked napkins littering the corner of the table in front of them. It looked like Bob had used every last one. 

“So, Bobby, how was your sho-”

Paul hadn’t gotten half his question out before Bob shoved a finger in his face, practically forced him to shut up. 

“Hhhang-oh! Hihh! Hang on-” 

Both John and Paul were on the edge of their seats. They stared on as Bob’s head continued to tip back, a fraction of an inch with every broken breath he swept in. His hand hovered by his chin, preparing to clamp it down whenever the time came. He hoped that John and Paul couldn’t tell that he was trying to drag this out as much as he could. Holding back was hard when he was as inebriated and sensitive as he was--not to mention the cloud of perfume that still hung in the air. 

Finally, the sneeze came out, a little wisp of a thing, and Bob was mildly disappointed when no more came following behind. He usually got at least two out, oftentimes more.

“Ugh, just one? You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding. Snnf-snnrf, ahem, ugh, shit. Man, snf, that was terrible--terribly, God, I mean just, awfully downright unsatisfying. I need--that can’t be it. C’mon.”  It seemed toward the end as if he was talking to his nose itself. He scrunched it up and down, trying to reignite the tickle. 

Considering his talk about craving satisfaction, Paul was surprised when two more sneezes came half a minute later and Bob suppressed them into near-complete silence. He seemed to do that sometimes. Paul was never able to pick up a pattern on it. He couldn’t understand why Bob would choose to silence his sneezes at random times. The only reason Paul did it was to prevent as many people from seeing it as possible and save himself some embarrassment. It could be the worst feeling in the world sometimes and do absolutely nothing to help alleviate the burning sensation in your nostrils, but Bob seemed to do it whenever he felt like it. He lifted his head like it weighed a hundred pounds and let out a sigh of contentment. 

“That better?” John dared to ask. 

Bob gave him a wink. “Loads.”

Paul could’ve died on the spot.

He was then forced to be social as Bob engaged them in conversation, sniffling and sneezing his way through his words. They caught up a bit, talked about touring and new music and of course their usual bit of whose motherland was superior. Bob couldn’t help but talk about baseball games when he was drunk, John had noticed. Paul was having a hard time keeping up with whatever topic was at hand, too busy watching Bob teeter totter and try not to lose his balance whenever a tickle took his whole body by force. 

It was more intoxicating than any of the drugs Paul had consumed that night--watching Bob rush to sloppily cover the hasty sneezes that tore through his body despite not carrying much power. Bob was usually high on something whenever Paul was around him, but seeing him this blitzed with this bad of a tickle in his nose was the kind of treat Paul thought he could only imagine. 

He didn’t know how much time he had passed just standing there, but he did know that Bob was on his fourth sneezing fit since they’d arrived. It appeared as if he’d have a long, rapid fit every so often, then sneeze every minute or so for awhile before they started coming out on top of each other again. Paul didn’t know which he preferred: the teasing buildups with sneezes coming in groups of three or four, or the rapid fits where Bob couldn’t even get a breath in. It didn’t matter, he got to witness both anyway. 

Someone mentioned how late it was getting and the three men nearly gasped. Not a single one of them had a solid perception of time. John could’ve sworn it was only around half eleven, not one in the morning. 

“God, have I been here that long? Snf, hey, when did, what time did you guys get here? I think it was...you were...hey, Albert! When’d these dirty bastards get here?” Albert responded but Bob was too busy sneezing to hear it. They’d been here for roughly a half hour, according to Albert. By the time Bob picked his head up, he’d already forgotten he’d asked his manager a question. Kept going like he never did. “I’ve been sneezin’ since I got here, man, and I got here at--it was--well, it was a while ago that I got here, I’ll tell you that! You cats haven’t been ‘round to see it, but shit, man, hahaha, I wish you had. Woulda made it more exciting. More...I would...then I wouldn’t’a minded so much, y’know?” he ranted. “And you know what else?”

Paul stopped listening as Bob continued to babble about something else. All he could think about was the last sneeze, well, three, he’d heard. 

One of the girls standing next to Albert Grossman turned and joined the conversation after a couple of minutes, stopped directly by Bob’s side. Immediately upon her arrival, Paul could see Bob’s entire body stiffen and his drink-free hand fly up to rest just underneath his nose. It was then that Paul happened to look down and see the bold outline of Bob’s cock through his slacks. When he looked back up his eyes met Bob’s, who had clearly noticed Paul giving him a once-over. As Bob flashed him a wicked grin, Paul felt all of his blood drain from his brain down into his cock. 

Seeing Paul so flustered gave Bob a lot of confidence. He was well aware that what he was doing was working, but the physical confirmation of getting Paul McCartney hot and bothered made it all the better. Bob dropped a gentle hand on Paul’s shoulder and leaned in real close to his ear. 

Before saying anything, he sniffled as thickly as he could, feeling Paul shiver underneath his breath. “How’d’you like it?” His words muddled by congestion and alcohol.

“Like what?” Paul cocked his head. He knew Bob was referencing this little situation, but it seemed like he was talking about something more specific. Paul couldn’t connect the dots. 

Voice airy and unstable, Bob whispered, “This.” 

Paul’s blood ran cold and time seemed to slow to a halt. He knew what was coming and tried his best to brace himself, but with how intoxicated and aroused he was, he didn’t know how well he could control his reaction—if at all.

Sure enough, Bob did exactly what Paul thought he would, which was lean down between the two of them and sneeze several times into a loose hand, stifling some, letting out others. Paul could barely keep up, focusing entirely on not letting out the whimper that sat impatiently behind closed lips. He hardly even noticed when Bob stood straight again. 

“Oh, man, snnnrf. I didn’t, uh, I didn’t get you there, did I? Huh, Paul?” Bob was hardly keeping himself from giggling at this point, hiding it as best as he could behind his drink. 

Even the ripest tomato couldn’t have compared to the fiery red that swarmed Paul’s cheeks. He thanked God that the lighting was dim. 

A weak, “No,” was all Paul could manage. He couldn’t tell what he wanted to explode more—his brain or his dick. It was torture.

John, however, was loving this. He’d already been looking forward to going home with Paul since the night began, and with the almost-certain promise of Bob coming home with them, he could hardly contain himself. To be honest, John wouldn’t have minded if they left right then and there. 

Unfortunately for him, Bob seemed to be having some fun here. He didn’t even look bothered when Albert thrusted a stack of napkins in his hands and practically ordered him to blow his fuckin’ nose already. Bob, very delicately, selected two napkins and layered them on top of one another before placing the rest on the table, where they promptly fell onto the ground. 

“Oops!” Bob laughed. He would’ve tipped over when he bent down to pick them up if it hadn’t been for Albert placing a stable hand on his back. Bob became fake-angry but couldn’t help himself from giggling. “Oh...oh, Albert! I-what’s all that, huh? You think--you think I can’t stand up on my own? I could do a fuckin’...a goddamn backflip right now if I so pleased. Okay, Albert? Y’know, I-I-ohhHh, shit.”

Albert kept his hand on Bob’s back, anchoring him in place as he pressed the napkins to his face and sneezed four times. It was a good thing Albert had done so, as Bob was still swaying dangerously even with his manager’s tight grip on him.

“Salute!” John put on his best Italian accent, though no one seemed to appreciate it as much as he’d have liked.

“Oh, bless you, you poor thing.” The girl whose perfume was the culprit of the entire situation--unbeknownst to everyone including her--seemed to be getting over her slight disgust with Bob’s reaction as she consumed more and more alcohol. 

She took a step closer and brushed a tuft of Bob’s hair behind his ear. He removed the napkins from his face to thank her, but her perfume-coated wrist came too close to his nose for him to be able to push a single syllable past his lips. 

Bob darted away from the girl’s touch--therefore toward John--and sneezed again, and again, and once more for good measure. He’d gotten the napkins up in the nick of time and kept them to his face as he blew his nose, eyes locked with John through each exhale.

“Something’s really gettin’ to you, huh?” The girl tousled Bob’s curls. His breath was still hitching as he nodded, like he could keep going for hours. 

It certainly seemed that way for the next few minutes, the girl not leaving his side and him sneezing more and more the closer she got to him. John and Paul couldn’t take their eyes off of him. John had been making sly comments about it here and there just to get Paul worked up, but as the girl took a few steps away and Bob was given some time to breathe--and therefore talk--he started to say some things that had even John glancing around to see if anyone had heard. 

Bob was in the middle of telling some strange tale, which he could hardly get through between the sneezing and how sidetracked the alcohol was making him, and Paul was so piss-drunk that the words seemed to just float through his head without being even remotely processed. He was staring, no, ogling at Bob’s nose. Paul watched intently as he wriggled the thing up and down and side to side to shake the tickle out, scrunched it up when he sniffled, reached up every few seconds to rub at it or cover a sneeze, apply pressure with a finger against the underside of his nostrils, bump into it clumsily with a closed fist he used to catch a loose cough. 

A few words of Bob’s did capture Paul’s attention away from his beak-like wonder, though. 

First, Bob sneezed a handful of times and then let out a flat-out moan disguised as a sigh. Paul’s eyes weren’t the only things to perk up upon hearing it. He saw Bob sniffle and rub at his eyes. 

“Ugh. John, Johnny, John, y’know, if I’d’a been goin’ at it like this, snf, when me n’ you n’ Paulie were together that time, that one time, you know what I’m talking about, at Paul’s place, the…what’s it called? Cav…caviar…? No, uh, hahaha, that can’t be right, uh…oh! Hah! Cavendish! Yeah, there, snnf, I mean, if this’d’a happen’d there you’d’a both just about jizzed your pants in a second fl-” 

“BOBBY!” John came to the rescue, clapped his hand over Bob’s mouth with much more force than was necessary. He could feel Bob giggling behind his fingers. “I’d say you need another drink, yeah? A ciggy, maybe?” 

Bob was still laughing, breathing out against John’s hand. John didn’t trust him not to make any further comments so he elected not to remove it from Bob’s loose lips.

What John didn’t know was that at some point Bob’s laughter had bled into hitching breaths. Of course, Bob could’ve vocalized this. He could’ve told John that he was about to sneeze so John should take his hand away, but what fun would that be? Not nearly as much fun as what he could do instead.

So, Bob pulled in a sharp breath and stifled not one, not two, not three, but four quick sneezes against John’s palm. It happened so fast that John didn’t have time to register what was going on until it was well over. His brain had turned off and his cock had turned on, and he couldn’t have told you when the switches had been flipped if he tried. Jesus Christ. Bob was playing a bold and dangerous game, making moves like a fucking professional. He kept it going, rubbed his damp nostrils against John’s now-moist palm. John didn’t jerk his hand away until Bob was finished. 

When John looked up, the shock and disbelief on Paul’s face was priceless. He could also sense some slight anger, jealousy. John understood. It had been fucking magic. Bob really knew what he was doing. 

“As I was saying-” He tried, but John shut him up quick. 

“Another drink, Dylan?”

Bob caught on and smirked at the Smart Beatle. 

“Sure, man. Yeah. What a--what a phenomenal idea. Where’s--what--hey, do you want anything? Paul?” 

“We’re set, thanks.” John didn’t let Paul open his mouth, for fear that the liquid courage coursing through Paul’s veins would be enough for him to go off on Bob for being a fucking imbecile. 

Once Bob had stepped away for a second, John turned to face Paul. He could tell that Paul’s face was even redder than before. The look in his eyes was harder to read, though. John could see humiliation, embarrassment, arousal and anger rather clearly, but he thought he might see a hint of...hm...what was it? Exhilaration. Paul thought his heart must’ve been beating faster than it ever had before, and he’d run from thousands of screaming fans, and ducked and dove his way through a foreign airport for fear of getting shot. 

“Y’okay?” John used as quiet of a voice as he could, brought Paul back down to Earth. 

All Paul offered in return was a coy nod. John saw him reach down and adjust his trousers. 

When Bob returned with a rheumy expression, his right arm was linked with Ms. Perfume, and the other was holding a glass with a partially used napkin pressed against the side, and a cigarette dangling between his fingers. He’d clearly had another drink and maybe even some of the joint Bobby Neuwirth was holding. 

It was loud in there, but it wasn’t loud enough to completely cover up the sound of Bob’s sniffling, which was just coming more and more frequently the more time he spent around this chick. He was scrunching his nose up and twitching his lip, hoping for a little relief, when he had an idea. He locked eyes with John and then Paul before turning to face the girl.

“Hey, wouldja jus’ rub my nose for me real quick? My hands are all, they’ve, I’m holdin’ so much shit-hiiHh! Ahem, snf, and I can’t, uh, I can’t do it by myself,” Bob asked the chick, trying to make it appear as if he felt bad about asking her to do such a thing.

Lucky for Bob, he looked just pitiful enough for the chick to give in. She said yes and he stuck out his snout so John and Paul had a clear view. Paul’s mouth slid open, and John would’ve teased him for it if he could’ve come up with any words himself. 

It almost seemed like she’d done it before, the way this chick was working her fingers around Bob’s nose. He wasn’t even trying to purposely tease the boys when he let out a hearty moan--it had slipped out of him completely involuntarily. Her ministrations were effective at squashing the tickle, sure, but the perfume lingering on her soft skin was enough to aggravate it again. The second she stopped, it simply flared right back up. 

Paul was becoming curious as to what could be affecting Bob so. The pollen count wasn’t high at this time of year, and it certainly wasn’t dusty in the well-kept building. After some careful observation, he noticed that Bob would sneeze more whenever that one bird moved closer to him. Paul stepped up to her side and was immediately assaulted by her wretched perfume. It was so strong it sparked a tickle in the back of Paul’s nose. Before giving in, Paul checked to make sure both Bob and John’s eyes weren’t on him. When the coast was clear, Paul turned to the side and stifled a pair of sneezes between his fingers. He let out a low growl as he felt his erection grow. He didn’t know how Bob was doing it so shamelessly.

It was obvious that the harmonicist had no clue what was triggering this kind of reaction from him, and Paul was in no mood to point it out to him. The girl would probably hear and she’d likely step away from him, and that was not what Paul wanted. So he just stood and continued to take it all in.

“Hey, John! Hey, c’mere. I wanna talk--just c’mere so I can, so we can talk!” Bob beckoned John over with a nod of his head. John took a deep breath, wondering just what the hell Bob was up to now. 

When Bob started simply chatting with him, John felt he might’ve been wrong to assume that Bob had an ulterior motive in calling him over. They talked for a minute or two, Bob knuckling his nose so hard his fingers were turning white. He wasn’t sneezing, though. His breath would catch very briefly but he managed to hold himself together. 

“Hey, hehehe, hey, John.” 

A deep sigh from John. “Yes, Bobby?”

Instead of uttering a single word, Bob tilted his head back and let his breath hitch wildly. John couldn’t take it. He took a step forward but Bob took his free hand and grabbed a fistful of John’s jacket, holding him in place before he could escape. John’s jaw tightened in tandem with Bob’s grip. He couldn’t look at the American right now, for fear of combusting. It was too early in the night and too in public for that. 

It must’ve gone on for half a minute, Bob’s breath stuttering and flip-flopping. He’d pull in a miserable breath just to deflate a second later. When Bob’s hand squeezed John’s arm just a little too tight, John knew it was time. He was trying his best to keep his gaze on the floor, unsure of how much more of this he could endure. However, halfway through the first utterly and completely desperate and satisfying sneeze, John had to look up. 

Thankfully, three more followed. 

Bob sniffled probably six times, if John had to guess, before speaking again, voice hushed. “Did you, uh," he paused to snicker, “did you like that, John? Was that good for you?”

John pulled Bob by the neckline, brought him close so his ear was up to John’s lips. “You’re being very naughty.”

“Who, me?” Bob gasped, put one of his dainty hands to his chest. “Well, I wouldn’t ever even--I’d never even dream of it! Gee, is that what you really think of me?”

And just like that, he was in control of the situation again. He shrugged out of John’s hold on him and tried not to laugh, but as usual was unsuccessful. If this was a competition, Bob was in the lead by a mile, and he was well aware of it. 

Another few minutes and several sneezes later, Bob was looking around for something. He’d looked at the tissue in his hand and frowned, having realized it was way past usable. 

“Hey, John, snf, Paul? Either a’ you cats got a-a hankie, or somethin’?” 

Bob’s hand was pressed to his nose in a poor attempt to keep it from running. One more set of sneezes and he’d be done for. 

He was telling the truth, but John and Paul’s first impression was that he was only trying to string them along further. Both did have handkerchiefs, yes, but if they fed into this shit who knew what other tricks Bob would pull out of his sleeve? 

They shook their heads. 

Bob chuckled nervously, held his hand even tighter to his face. “C’mon, guys, snnf, I ain’t, y’know, I ain’t kiddin’ this time. Please, I mean, c’mon, I-I know both of you’ve got at least one, man, I can see ‘em in your fuckin’ pockets!”

They still weren’t buying it. Bob inched closer to them and hushed his voice real low. 

“Hey, for real, I-I really need one of those. Snnrf, I used all the, I think I used every goddamn, snf, napkin this place’s got. I gotta sneeze, too, I mean, I can feel it comin’, really, it’s, snnf--please.”

Despite the thinning and wavering of Bob’s voice, John and Paul remained stationary. They both expected him to pull some shit like grabbing their hands and using them to cover as they reached out with a hankie. No fuckin’ way was that gonna happen. 

Except that wasn’t at all what Bob was playing at. He wasn’t playing at anything--for once in his life. He just really needed a fucking handkerchief; or anything to mop his nose with, actually.

The growing sense of urgency in his eyes as his breath started to hitch proved to John and Paul that--oops! They might’ve fucked up just a tad. 

Bob pitched forward with a group of the most intense sneezes that John and Paul had ever heard come out of him, and he didn’t remove his hand from his face once he was done. 

The girl still attached to his side tried to speak up, but his drunken babbling and borderline aggressive grabby-hand gesture made toward the general area John and Paul were standing in made her realize that not a single soul was paying her any attention.

The panicked expression on the visible half of Bob’s face convinced Paul to give in. He plucked his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and placed it in Bob’s hand, who then carefully maneuvered it around his nose to clean himself up. With how stuffed up he’d become, blowing his nose twice into the handkerchief barely made a dent in the brick wall of congestion sitting in his sinuses.

Still, he moaned deeply at the slight bit of relief it brought. He was getting visibly uncomfortable with sneezing for so long without getting any action. A condition of being encouraged to sneeze during sex was becoming horribly turned on when sneezing around those who’d been involved. With the prolonged fit he’d been experiencing, Bob was growing impatient. He was messing with his slacks entirely too often at this point, and the act was only working John and Paul up even further.

“I think I gotta peel out soon,” Bob said. “Snnf-snrf, I-I can’t handle it, I don’t think I can last much longer. I don’t know how long I can handle this…this…whatever’s goin’ on, I mean…this is…mmph.”

His pouty expression worried John, made him think Bob wouldn’t want to go back to Paul’s. They had to get him out of there, give him a break before they could rev up his engine again.

Before John could suggest they head out together, Bob spoke up again.

“Hey, I need’ta go puke some a’ this alcohol out, man, it ain’t sittin’ right. I’ll be back in a, in a jiffy, okay? Won’t take me long, I’ll be back quick.”

John and Paul didn’t even have the time to offer to accompany him before Bob disappeared. They could only hope he’d find his way back to them.

To his credit, he did—after about thirty minutes. They could spot him across the room a few minutes after exiting the bathroom, but he’d run into someone he knew and stopped to chat. John would’ve stolen him back so they could leave sooner, but it was evident that while Bob was away from his group his sneezing was starting to lessen. Good. This was good for the time being.

When Bob returned, he sounded a great deal more sober, but still awfully congested. Without sneezing as much to clear out some of the gunk it had only set in place. He sounded like he had a sinus infection.

Okay, now John’s top priority was getting Bob out before he felt too shitty to continue with them later.

It took a few minutes of Bob’s drug-induced rambling to be able to get a word in, but John finally asked Bob if he needed to go home. He didn’t mention in front of everyone that home was actually Paul’s place.

A coquettish smile filled Bob’s cheeks. 

If there's one thing Bob won't do in 1965, it's miss a chance to get entirely too wasted, and as some losers might say, “ruin the party.” Rain or shine, you could count on Bob being there, drunk off his ass and high out of his mind. Every party he goes to, it's like every single person there wants Bob Dylan to try their drink, take a hit of their joint, rail a line with them, pop one of their pills, try one of their hand-rolled ciggys. Fuckin' everything. It's like heaven.

The only times Bob's ever missed a party have been when he's sick. He doesn't miss every party when he's sick, but Joan sure tries her darnedest to keep him laid up in bed.

They're in London and Bob's heard word that the Beatles are gonna be at a party a few nights from now. He's got a break between shows and the best way he can think of spending his time is at a shindig with the four Liverpudlian bastards themselves.

They all adore Joan, too. Bob knows they'll all have a great time together. He's antsy from the second he finds out about the event. He tells Joan not to make any plans with anyone else that night, or the next morning for that matter.

It's all he can talk about--how great it'll be to "see the guys." Joan knows he really just can't wait for an excuse to get as fucked up as he possibly can, but she lets him take about how much he misses those sons of bitches instead.

The night before the party, Bob blows his nose a couple of times before he goes to sleep. This isn't terribly unusual. Bob gets a stuffy nose from time to time when he's switching environments so often, and hotel air conditioning units bother him sometimes. He doesn't think much of it, but he does get annoyed at how many tries it takes to clear himself out. Joan rubs his back through it and asks if he’s feeling alright. Sure he is, there’s just something about this hotel that’s stuffin’ him up. He doesn’t mention that he was sneezing much more than usual yesterday. Coughing a bit, too. Can’t really blame that on the hotel.

The next morning he wakes up before her and goddamn, is he glad he does. Not only is he much more stuffed up than he was last night, but his throat aches too. The way his breath catches in his throat and bends him over with a wet cough tells him for certain that he's getting sick.

Joan stirs and Bob makes a break for the shower, hoping he can wash away some of the griminess and feel a little better, hold off whatever he's coming down with for as long as he can.

The shower opens his sinuses and soothes his throat a little. Joan's awake by the time he gets out, and she's playfully upset that Bob went ahead and showered without her. God, she’s always got such a high libido in the morning.

Bob tells her he can arrange something for them to do after Joan takes her own shower, flashes her a smirk. Joan can't hop under the water fast enough.

She doesn't rush, though. Joan likes to be clean. She washes her skin carefully, and with an abundance of soap. The shampoo and conditioner she uses leave her hair silky and soft, and smelling beautifully. Sometimes Bob likes to let the scent flood his nasal passages.

He waits patiently on the bed as Joan cleans herself up, blowing his nose profusely whenever he's sure she's got her head under the water, stuffing the tissues at the bottom of the trash can. He looks in a mirror and sees that his nose is already red and a little raw. Thankfully, there's a little bottle of lotion on Joan's nightstand. He carefully rubs a tiny bit around his nostrils, though the scent of it makes him sneeze twice. Joan blesses him from the bathroom. She’s out of the shower now.

The sneezes bring some congestion forward and he’s blowing his nose again when Joan walks in. She doesn’t comment on it. It’s still nothing unusual.

Once he’s finished and discarded the tissues, Joan waits for him to lie back down so she can crawl on top of him. She sinks against his soft skin and allows him to pull her close.

They pretend for only a few moments that that's all they're gonna do--sit tight and hold one another. It's always silly to act like neither of them knows what's coming. Joan makes the first move, as she usually does, and things escalate quickly.

Bob’s a sloppy kisser but Joan doesn’t mind. He knows what he’s doing. His kisses are just as sweet and calculated upstairs as they are down. Joan can’t hang on long. After he’s gotten her to finish, she thinks about how he always takes care of her first. It’s almost like he’s addicted to it, like watching her come at his handiwork is the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Joan understands it.

He doesn’t wait for her to get on her knees—there’s no time for that. He needs to be inside her. Now. It takes Joan by surprise but she can’t say she minds. It’s always magical when he gets into such a mood. Today’s no different.

Bob is tired after they’re done. Usually he gets a burst of energy after he and Joan have sex, but today the physical activity just exhausts him. At least it seems to help relieve his runny nose a bit. Someone told him once that sex is the best way to clear congestion, and shit, he believes it.

They head down to eat some breakfast, well, Joan eats breakfast and Bob sips at a cup of tea. She tries to get him to eat a little something but he refuses. Says he’s not hungry. It’s true, he’s not, but he’s never hungry anymore and Joan always tries her best to force something down his throat. He’s very clearly not in the mood for it today, grumbling and groaning whenever Joan pushes too hard.

After breakfast, Joan suggests they go walk around town. It’s cold out and Bob knows that his nose will be running like a faucet from the cool air, but he doesn’t really have a better alternative to propose. It is a bit out of character for him when he bundles up appropriately for the weather. He picks his thickest scarf and wraps it around his neck, hoping he can just bury his nose in it if he has to.

They set out and Bob immediately regrets saying yes. It’s bitter cold on top of him usually being freezing anyway. He avoids speaking, too. Normally when he’s not stressed about performing, he gets in an overly-chatty mood. It’s not that he’s got nothing to say today, it’s that he’s worried his voice is starting to get heavy with congestion. There’s no way he’s letting Joan keep him from this party, and if that means shutting the fuck up for once, hell, he’ll give it a try.

When they wander into shops along the streets, Bob drifts away from Joan. Keeping his distance helps him hide his worsening symptoms. He doesn’t hesitate to blow his nose in front of her once or twice, though. With how chilly it is outside Joan knows he’s bound to be sniffling a little. He saves the more productive blows for when he’s alone.

All of the walking they’re doing tires him out quickly. He makes a lame excuse for them to return to the hotel and then promptly falls asleep.

Okay, this is weird.

Joan is shocked at how easily Bob’s fallen asleep. Normally it takes him almost an hour to finally drift off, his brain fighting against his body as hard as it can. She raises an eyebrow when he starts snoring, too. Sure, Bob snores from time to time but it’s never deep like this unless he’s not feeling well. Then again, it could just be due to the weather. And the air conditioning unit. And God knows whatever else (he's sensitive). Joan lets it slide.

—

Bob wakes up dazed and confused, and feeling much worse. He looks up and sees two things: first, a clock that shows him he’s been out cold for four hours; second, Joan, who looks like she’s been watching him like a hawk since he passed out. He sits up and tries not to sniffle too much as the congestion shifts in his sinuses.

“Good nap?” Joan asks.

“Yeah.”

He’d nod but his head hurts.

“You still tired?”

Unbelievably so.

“No.”

“You feeling alright?”

Not at all.

“Yes.”

Well.

Joan sits next to Bob and lets him put his head on her shoulder. “You slept for a long time.”

“Busy week.” He shrugs.

Yeah, okay. That is true, but it’s unlike Bob to get so tired that he’d fall asleep in the middle of the day, at least when they’re on the road. The first few weeks following a tour, Bob’s always in recovery mode. He still sleeps less than the average person, but it’s a big increase for him. Tour’s not over yet and Joan knows him too well to believe he’d give in to his exhaustion before his commitment was through.

He yawns. Joan pretends it doesn’t happen.

It’s when a small fit of sneezes takes him over a few minutes later that she feels the need to pester him again.

“You’ve been a little sneezy today, huh?” She tousled his hair, tries to make her tone as least accusatory as possible.

Bob has to sniffle a few times before he answers. “I told you, yesterday, the, snf, the goddamn—ahhem, the air conditioning unit’s fuckin’ me up.”

“I know they make you stuffy but would it make you sneeze too?”

She’s got him there. Time to tack on another excuse. “Must got dust or some shit in it too, I d’know. Probably old as all hell.”

That is definitely not the case. It looks rather new, actually. Clean, too.

“Are you sure you’re-”

“Yes, I’m fuckin’ sure, Joan. God, would you quit that?”

He sits up to scold her and it gives Joan the opportunity to slide off the bed. She reaches for her bag and Bob’s heart drops a little.

“Hey, don’t go. I-I didn't mean that.”

Joan slips her shoes on. “I’m just gonna get some air. Surprised you didn’t think of it, what with how much the air conditioning’s bothering you.” Bob doesn’t know what to say. He thinks maybe there isn't anything he could say. “I’ll be back shortly.”

As the door shuts behind Joan, Bob can’t tell if he’s glad or not that she’s gone. He doesn’t like how she pesters him, but he misses being able to curl up to her and steal her warmth.

--

Joan doesn't return for a long time. Not until about twenty minutes before they said they'd leave for the party. Bob's a little drunk at this point and he doesn't even know what other substances he's consumed. There's always some pile of pills on his coffee table and he usually scoops up a few and tosses them back without bothering to identify what they are.

They're getting the job done tonight, though. Bob has no complaints. Well, not in terms of the drugs he's taking. He has a hell of a lot else to complain about. The drugs have alleviated his headache a bit, but they can't do much to treat the other symptoms of his now burgeoning head cold.

He doesn't know how it's happening so quickly. This morning he felt like he'd had no more than a mild cold, but now midway through the evening he feels like he could collapse.

Still, Bob's fought through much worse than this. He's had to perform in front of thousands of people with colds, flus, fevers, food poisoning, migraines, probably a few near-overdoses. He's fine.

It's just annoying and he's tired. He'd had to call Albert specifically for some uppers after Joan left because he was certain that if he fell asleep again he'd be out for the night.

He's in a weird state, physically and mentally, when Joan comes back. She takes one look at him and sighs.

"You--ahem-ahhem, you're back!"

Jesus fucking Christ, here we go, Joan thinks.

"You ready to go?"

She skips the, you don't look too good. How are you feeling? Are you sure you're not getting sick? It would just be a waste of both of their time at this point.

Bob's very clearly still trying to hide the fact that he's sick. It's almost laughable how poorly he's doing at it, especially now that he's rather intoxicated. His coughs are ripping their way through his body and leaving him with a little bit less of his voice each time they pour out. His sneezes are getting harder to contain and increasing his congestion with each paroxysm. His movements are stiff, Joan can see he's achey without him having to mention it.

"Yeah," Bob says. He looks like he has something else to say but a sneeze beats him to it, and another tags along for good measure.

"Bless you."

Bob's voice has already got an edge to it. "I'm fine."

"Congratulations. I didn't ask."

Ugh. Bob can tell that Joan's pissed now, as if her storming out earlier wasn't a good enough indication.

"Y'know..." Bob looks up as she starts speaking again. "There are a few movies I saw we could watch tonight. If you're still tired."

The, "if you're too sick to go to the party," is implied.

"We made a commitment to be somewhere.” Bob takes her suggestion as more of an order, and he doesn't receive orders kindly.

He's not too off-base. Joan's strategy is usually to bully him into staying home. It's not gonna work tonight, though. Bob's going to this party if it's gonna kill him.

Joan sighs, "You're right. Let me freshen up and then we'll go."

Thank God.

They both ignore the obvious sounds of Bob's symptoms. She doesn't bless him. She doesn't comment on how many times he blows his nose.

She also won't kiss him--though that's for more than one reason.

"Are you ready yet?" Bob's getting impatient.

Another part of Joan's strategy is to take as much time as she can, tire him out so he'll be tuckered out not too long into their outing. It's not working. All the delays are doing is getting Bob more and more antsy.

When they're finally in the car, the driver almost immediately asks Bob how he's feeling, 'cause it, "sounds like you're nursing a hell of a bad cold." Bob just growls and blames it on allergies.

It's the same way at the party. Every person that greets him at the party asks if he's sick or offers him a tissue or something. He's starting to get real fed up, but he won't let up his denial. He's not sick, he swears, and to hell with those who don't believe him!

It's George, in fact, who breaks him.

The tough guy routine always has to be put on in front of John, but as usual John sees right through the cracks. Bob's too noticeably sick for John not to comment on it, but Bob tries to play it cool. He dodges and deflects the questions slung at him by John and Paul. Ringo mostly stands there and watches, commenting occasionally but talking more to those he knows better.

George immediately winces upon seeing Bob's appearance. It's past the disheveled "I-don't-care-how-I-look" look that Bob wears so proudly. George knows how Bob is, though, and he knows enough not to tell Bob that he's sick. Bob knows that he's sick. No one needs to tell him that, but they have been the entire night. It's been getting under Bob's skin and that is entirely obvious to anyone who lays eyes on him.

Instead of hounding him, George just asks him questions about his life, what’s been going on lately. He catches Joan glancing over at Bob every so often as she chats with Ringo.

When Bob runs out of available space on his own handkerchief, George pulls one from his pocket and offers it.

"A bit under the weather, are you?" George treads carefully.

Bob shrugs his shoulders. Accepts the hankie. Takes another shot of vodka before using it.

He’s terribly wasted now. His voice is practically unintelligible between his slurring and his congestion.

Joan joins them in conversation and puts a hand on Bob’s cheek before frowning. He’s warm now, too. She doesn’t worry about him snapping at her for checking him for fever. George will call him out if he talks to her like that.

Fortunately, he stays quiet. Joan can tell he’s feeling his cold much more now than he was earlier, and he’ll certainly be feeling it, as well as a tough hangover, tomorrow morning.

He fades quickly after that, into a pitiful, sniveling, bio-hazardous mess. He makes some unkind comments to Joan as she tries to urge him to go home, but George has an idea.

“This party’s quite shit,” he remarks.

Bob raises an eyebrow. “You think so?”

George nods. “I think I’ll leave soon and get to bed, if I’m honest.”

Oh? Well…John, Paul, and Ringo are still here. Truthfully, though, Bob cares more if George leaves.

The seed has been planted.

Once Bob gets it in his mind that he might be okay with leaving, he can’t think about much else. He’s already taken advantage of all the free substances he can get his hands on, and he is feeling pretty lousy. He’d used George’s handkerchief up a few minutes ago and had to resort to sniffling. Joan’s looking at him with more concern in her eyes than usual, and Bob thinks maybe it’s time for bed.

When he catches wind that the rest of the Beatles are heading out, Bob knows for sure that the party is over. It was worth it, he thinks. They’ve spent a good few hours in each other’s company. Bob is satisfied enough.

He and Joan get in a car that takes them back to the hotel. During the ride, Bob curls up and puts his head on her lap. If it had taken a few more minutes to get there, he would’ve fallen asleep.

But it doesn’t, so he stays awake. The car pulls to a stop in front of the hotel and Bob has to take entirely too much energy to drag himself off his seat and out the door. He trudges up the front steps with Joan’s hand on his back, coughing all the way.

He flops onto the bed as soon as he gets through the door, shoes still on.

“Joan?” His voice is pitiful.

“Mm?”

“Can you cmere?”

Joan smiles softly. She knows he’s given in. To reward him, she sits down and pulls him into her lap.

“You okay?” She asks.

It’s time, Bob decides.

“I don’t feel that—too good, snnrf.” He rubs his nose in an attempt to ward off a sneeze. It doesn’t work. “I think I’m…I might be coming down with something.”

Oh, Bobby.

Strung out. That’s what he was. Bob was melted down to the bare minimum of what he had left of himself. The European tour had been moving at such a fast pace that all the amphetamines he could take were barely allowing him to keep up. With it all catching up to him the night of his last show, he passed out and nearly drowned in a hotel bathtub. Robbie Robertson and Albert Grossman had thrown him into the water after they returned from the show, left for a moment--as the Beatles were waiting to meet with him--and came back to find Bob completely submerged and completely unconscious. 

After giving his all onstage most nights and staying up until dawn to party on the others, Bob had no energy left. It was said by those around him that even when sitting up he looked dead to the world. By the time the tour was on its last leg, he had given everything he had and more. 

Once his tour commitments had ended, a friend of Bob’s decided to let him stay at his flat for a few days while he was away. It was nice to be somewhere that was home-y, rather than the impersonal and unwelcoming hotel rooms he’d been passing his days and nights in. He missed his house, his family. Being away for so long was making him antsy, and he began to regret his decision to stay another week. He wished he was back home with Sara, or at least that she was here. It would’ve been a lot easier to relax and take the stress of touring off his back if he’d had his loved ones around. Instead of truly relaxing, Bob became borderline comatose. 

He slept for two and a half days after arriving at the flat and it still wasn’t enough. His body was rebelling against him, not used to this much rest. It rebelled even further by allowing itself to be brought down by a nasty case of the flu. Bob had barely noticed as it first came on, naturally being a little sniffly and sore-throated due to his smoking and snorting habits. It was only when he started getting chills and aches that he realized something was wrong. 

At first he thought he might be going through withdrawal, but he was still taking the same drugs he’d been taking for the past few weeks so that couldn’t have been it. When a vicious cough and a bad case of the sneezes took him over, Bob came to the conclusion that he was sick. It somehow managed to knocked him on his ass even harder than his concurrent ailments. 

All of a sudden it felt like Bob was filled to the brim with not only homesickness, but now congestion and phlegm. He rummaged through his friend’s kitchen cabinets and cupboards to find anything even remotely resembling a tissue box, looking in all the wrong places. After finally locating one, Bob retreated to the bedroom and laid there, wallowing in his own misery. 

Located underneath the bathroom sink was a bottle of Arrestin, a tin of Cinnamon and Quinine capsules and a tub of Vick’s Vaporub, but Bob was too out of it to look for medicine. The thought of finding and taking some didn’t even cross his mind. 

Without anything to ease his suffering except for the amphetamines and opioids, Bob only felt worse and worse. On top of all that, he felt alone. Most of the people that had been on tour with him had flown back to the States, and he wasn’t comfortable enough to ask for help from those who remained. The more he thought about the fact that everyone else was home the more he wished he had gone back with them. His wife and newly-born son were thousands of miles away and so were all of his friends. They all had people they loved surrounding them, whereas Bob was on his own. 

In this strange city that Bob had only been around a few times, he felt like he had no one. Nothing was familiar, either. The food was different, the sports were different, the money was different, TV wasn’t on all night like it was in the States, cars drove on the wrong side of the road for some reason Bob still didn’t understand, and they talked differently--not just their accents but the words they used, too. Being so out of it in a place that felt so foreign made Bob feel even sicker. 

He hadn’t had the strength or willpower to make food since he’d arrived at the flat--only serving to weaken him further--and he’d barely been able to hoist himself out of bed to get water. When he’d had a slight bit of energy one morning, he went to the kitchen and filled up five glasses of water that he took back to the bedroom so he wouldn’t have to get up for a while. 

Eventually Bob ran out of water and energy and he couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t know exactly how much time had passed, but he knew that he was supposed to return home in about a week, give or take a few days. He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for some undetermined amount of time, and whenever he was awake he’d just sneeze and cough and cry until he fell back into a fitful sleep. After having been at his friend’s flat for four miserable days and being disgustingly sick for two, Bob figured he should probably do something about it. 

He called the only person whose phone number he thought he had a decent shot at remembering. 

“Hey, hey Johnny, is this John? Is it--have you still got the same number? John Lennon? It’s Dylan, man. It’s Bob.” 

“Yes, I can tell it’s you, Bobby. You’ve managed to dial the correct number, somehow, in your state,” John said. “What’ve you rung for?”

Bob swallowed and coughed away from the receiver. “I’m not feelin’ too hot, John. I dunno what’s...somethin’s goin’ on, that’s for sure. I-well, I don’t...it’s somethin’. Somethin’s not right, for sure.”

To John, who had no idea how sick Bob was, it sounded like he was damn near overdosing. John had been in a predicament in the car with Bob only a few days prior, in which Bob was crashing horribly from the elixir of drugs in his system. John ended up having to take care of him, rubbing his back as he threw up in a flower pot in the hotel lobby, carrying him up the stairs to his room, undressing and bathing him, and hoisting him into bed. John wouldn’t even be surprised if Bob didn’t remember that he’d been with the Smart Beatle that day. 

Even though John deeply admired Bob, he wasn’t sure if he was in the mood to deal with such a situation again, especially so soon after the last catastrophe. It had been hard and John had been scared, and he wasn’t sure if he could get anyone to come with him to take care of the lad. Paul was out of town and he’d been the only person John thought Bob might be comfortable enough having around. 

“What’ve you taken, then?” 

“Oh, just the...just the normal stuff, John. Nothin’ too--nothin’ crazy, y’know? I’m--it’s not--that’s not the problem, man. It’s not,” Bob was fumbling over his words even more than usual. 

He certainly was talking like he was high out of his mind, but if Bob knew anything about anything, it would be music and drugs. He’d know if he was getting close to overdosing, so John believed him when he said that wasn’t the problem. It also would’ve taken a mountain of drugs to take Dylan down at this point, John thought. He hadn’t known it was possible to ingest so many illicit substances and usually still be at least semi-functional until he met Bob. 

John was doing his best to be patient. “Well, what’s troubling you?”

A horrible pair of sneezes muffled away from the receiver started to clue John in. 

“I’m, uh, snnrf, I’m sick. I think I’m real sick, man. Th’flu or somethin’. It’s gettin’ me all nervous n’ shit, and-and no one’s here, I don’t know no one, and I don’t...this isn’t where I live! I don’t know where I am! Nothin’s...there’s nothin’ that’s the same! Everything’s different! I dunno what to do, and I just, I want to be home, John. I just want to go home!” Bob was starting to tear up and it was clear in his voice. John tried not to sigh too loudly, upset him even more. Was there really no one else he could’ve called? “I don’t like it here and they don’t like me neither. You’re the only one I know, John. I need your help, please, could you, would you help me? I just, I just need a little help, ‘s all. Just a bit.”

John looked at the clock next to him. It was nearing dinnertime and he would be correct to guess that Bob hadn’t eaten in a while. Maybe he could grab some take-away and stop by, check on Bob for a bit, then head back home. It shouldn’t be too burdensome, he thought. 

“You need me there?” John thought it best to check, just in case. 

The heavy weight of concern dropped into John’s stomach as he heard Bob whimper, voice cracking, “Yeah, snnf, could you please come?”

Gentle sobbing from the other end of the line made John soften up a bit. “Hey there, Bobby, take a deep breath. Don’t want to get yourself in a tizzy, now, do you?” He didn’t wait for Bob to answer. “I’ll--here, give me your address and telephone number and I’ll be there shortly, alright?”

It took a few tries for Bob to get the address and phone number right. Eventually, he forced himself out of bed and found them scrawled on a notepad he’d brought with him. Even then he had a hard time reading his own handwriting and relaying the information to John.

The more time the Beatle spent on the phone with Bob, the more worried he became. Bob seemed to have a fever--and a high one at that. John figured he had time to pick up some soup and some baguette on his way to the poor rockstar, not wanting to waste a second more than he had to.

A car took him to some restaurant, where John tapped his foot against the tile floor, waiting anxiously for the food, then to the flat Bob was staying in. John considered telling the driver to keep the car waiting, but he wasn’t certain how long he’d be. He could always ring for another, he supposed. Thinking back to how Bob had sounded on the phone, John let the car go. 

John’s fists made contact with the door to the flat several times before anything happened. He was about to give up, drop the paper bag on the floor, and go home when the door was pulled slowly inward.

As hard as he tried, John couldn’t stop his jaw from falling agape when he saw Bob. Sure, he’d seen Bob look like shit before, but never like this. He’d seen him drooling, covered in his own vomit, pupils dilated or constricted beyond belief, but this was a whole new level. Bob’s fever-glazed eyes laid upon him, but it was like he was seeing right through John, gaze empty and thoughtless. He had lost all color in his skin--not that he had much to begin with--leaving him white as a sheet. The most jarring part about that was the paleness of his lips, cracked and dry. He reminded John a little bit of a ghost. The only bit of color he had on him was the furious red surrounding his nostrils, which were glistening in the dim light of the apartment hallway. The American was swaying as he stood, clinging to the door frame so he didn’t have to use any more energy than he had to in order to keep himself on his feet. His curls, normally voluminous and bouncy, were flat and stuck to his face with sweat. To say he looked like he had been hit by a bus would be an understatement.

“Hey, John,” Bob croaked. 

Christ, he sounded even shittier in person than over the phone; or maybe he’d simply continued his steep decline into poor health in the time it had taken John to get there.

“I’ve brought you something to eat,” John said. 

Bob held up a shaky finger and turned away from John to sneeze heavily into a tissue, then blow his nose. 

“You look terrible,” John noted, “sound it, too.”

John knew the situation was dire when Bob didn’t even fire back with a vaguely sarcastic comment. 

“I dunno what’s goin’ on, man, I-” his voice cracked, leading to a cough, and he seemed to give up hope in completing the rest of his thought. 

Despite only being a few months John’s junior, Bob now looked years younger. He looked completely helpless, like he utterly and desperately needed someone to care for him. John guided him with a gentle hand over to the couch to lie down, then unpacked the food he brought. After laying it out on the small coffee table, John began to worry that Bob wasn’t lucid enough to consume anything. 

He asked, “You hungry, Bobby?”

A quick shake of Bob’s curls put John’s head in his hands. 

“Think you can stomach some soup? Bread, maybe?” 

Bob sat up and eased himself into the couch cushions. “I dunno, man.” He was barely able to bring his elbow up to cover a cough. “Prob’ly, snnrf. Don’t think ‘m the throwin’-up kind’a sick.” 

That was good enough for John. And also a relief. He beckoned Bob forward and held the spoon out to him. Bob was about to take it when he turned abruptly away from John. 

“Bobby?”

“Juhhhst--hihh! Just ha-hang on a sec,” Bob said, struggling through hitching breaths. The build-up seemed to torture him, drawing him closer and farther away from the sweet release he so craved. 

It wasn’t until this moment that John thought of Paul and how he’d be foaming at the mouth over Bob right now. Sure, he’d be worried too, but it would make him all the better a nurse. It wasn’t just sneezing that Paul was into, no, it was the whole shebang. After a cough and a sniffle, Paul wouldn’t leave John’s side until he was completely recovered. John imagined it would be the same for Bob, too. But Paul wasn’t there, so he’d just have to fill him in on it later, maybe give him a ring in a few hours to spill the gory details. 

John’s attention landed back on Bob as his nose finally gave him some relief. He let out a double and then a quick triple into his elbow, groaning and wiping his face against his sleeve once he was done. 

“À tes souhaits!” John said in a horrible French accent, hoping to raise Bob’s spirits. Ever the language connoisseur, John felt he was. “Now, bon appetit.”

Bob grunted and picked up the spoon. His hand shook as he brought it to his mouth, almost spilling the small amount of soup he’d ladled. It seemed to bring him some comfort, make him realize how starved he’d been. Only, he was straining himself greatly by leaning over to reach the bowl on the table. 

“Here.” John picked up the container and held it in his hands close enough for Bob to access it. They were both sat cross-legged directly in front of one another, maybe half a foot of space between them.

“Thank you.” 

It took a while for Bob to make a dent in the soup. The slight kick to it loosened up his sinuses, helped him rid himself of some of the congestion that had been clogging his brain. The sniffling and nose-blowing triggered a small sneezing fit from the frail man. Instead of taking it in and trying to capture as many details as he could to bring back to Paul, John just watched with pity in his eyes before relocating Bob back to bed.

Bob certainly hadn’t been exaggerating on the phone earlier when he had mentioned how sick he was. John cursed himself for not taking his temperature before feeding him the soup. Now he’d have to wait at least thirty minutes before he could get an accurate reading—what he’d heard Mimi mutter whenever he was ill growing up. Maybe he could get Bob to sleep for a bit while he passed some time by assessing the situation. Just from a glance around the room, John could see how bad things were. Tissues were littering one side of the bed, several empty water glasses crowded the bedside table, the comforter and blankets were strewn everywhere as if Bob couldn’t decide whether he wanted them or not, and sweat soaked the fitted sheet. 

For the briefest of moments, John contemplated tossing Bob in the shower to help him freshen up, but then realized that he’d have to deal with a naked, delirious Bob, and he’d already done that too many times (once) in his life. The best he could offer was placing towels over the damp parts of the bed so it was less uncomfortable. 

From the way that Bob fell into bed and curled up underneath the blankets, John didn’t think he would’ve cared if the towels were there or not. Oh, well. Bob could wash them later when he was feeling better. That wasn’t John’s job. 

Just as he was about to tell Bob to settle in so he could get to searching for supplies, Bob spoke up, “Can y’c’mere?” 

“What’s that, Bobby?”

Bob swallowed hard. “C’mere? Please.” He was just barely holding it together.

Zero part of John felt inclined to say no. Sure, Bob could be a lot to handle when he was unwell and it could be aggravating, but John had never seen him sick like this before. Dope-sick Bob was an entirely different beast than Bob with the flu. He was subdued, sure, but not to the point where he was completely incapable of doing anything for himself. It seemed to almost frustrate him when he fell short of completing a small task, like reaching the soup bowl. It was heartbreaking, but much easier to deal with. 

That last experience that John had with Bob seemed to have painted a negative image of him in John’s mind. On top of that, he’d become annoyed when he and the rest of the Beatles had gone out to Bob’s hotel to meet him after the last show, only to wait for an hour and then be told Bob was too drugged out of his mind to see anyone. Ridiculous prick, John had thought. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed Bob’s company, how sweet and devilishly charming he could be. He was neither of those right now, nearly delirious and covered in sweat and dripping at the nose, but his docile state reminded John how much he liked him. Now all he wanted was to be there for the scraggly man. 

“Sure. Give us a mo’,” John said. 

He drifted into the bathroom and quickly located a thermometer in one of the drawers. He’d look for medicine later, after he’d checked Bob for fever. 

When he returned to bed, Bob was silent—save for his thick sniffling—and had tears streaming down his cheeks. John carefully placed the thermometer on the nightstand before diving under the covers and throwing an arm around Bob’s shoulder. 

John whispered, “There, there. You’re alright.”

It was like hearing those words broke a dam inside of Bob’s mind, a pained sob seeping out of him. He bundled himself up in the blankets and leaned in as close to John as he could. 

“I want to go home,” Bob cried. 

Bob didn’t need to tell John how hard the tour had been on him. John had seen pictures of Bob in the newspaper before he had started the tour, and it had been almost unsettling seeing how much it had stripped him of when they’d met up the week before. He knew what the tour life was like and he knew that Bob was living it to the extreme. Hell, John would be homesick on tour with three of his best mates around, and he knew that Bob didn’t have that kind of relationship with a single person. John couldn’t imagine how hard it would be on top of all that to then stay behind somewhere unfamiliar when everyone else had gone. And again, he had to factor in all of the drugs Bob was taking. He had heard from someone that Bob wouldn’t sleep for days, tossing back pills like candy just to keep himself upright. John didn’t know how he’d survived. Well, if you could even call it that.

“I know you do, love.” John pulled Bob even closer. “I’m here.”

It seemed like the intimate touch was somewhat foreign to Bob. John knew that Bob had a wife but she hadn’t been on tour for some time now, and John suspected Bob didn’t take true comfort from others very well. He was surprised Bob was taking it so well from him since they didn’t know one another entirely too well. John rubbed Bob’s shoulder, only realizing how tensed up the man had been when he felt his body slowly unclench. Christ, was the poor sod going through it. 

John kept Bob’s small figure against his chest, massaging the harmonicist’s back as he sneezed a few times and told him it was okay, that he needn’t bother moving. God, John couldn’t believe Paul was missing this. 

“’M sorry, John,” Bob rasped. 

John spoke softly, “Bless ya, dearie.”

This warm, caring side of John was throwing Bob off a little. He’d only ever really seen John with his hard, protective, deflective shell that he wore. Bob had known for a while that it was almost entirely a put-on, as he’d been doing the same thing for the past few years. It was easier to pretend like you didn’t give a shit, to make jokes and be unserious in serious situations than to be vulnerable. The media would pick them apart like vultures if they let up even for a second, and it was hard to tell if anyone around them was going to squawk to the reporters, expose them. Their walls had to be up and they had to be strong unless they were around those that they could really trust. It meant a lot to both of the men that the other was letting down those walls. Their bond was stronger than either of them had thought. 

The more Bob’s fever-addled mind thought about it, the more sense it made that John would be sweet and worried for those around him. He’d seen it with Paul when Paul had that horrible allergy attack at the flat Bob had been staying at. His mind wandered to Lucky. He wished he had a little companion like Lucky to keep him company. John was enough though, Bob thought. More than enough.

“You taken any medicine?” John asked. 

“Huh?”

John repeated himself. 

“W’d’y’mean?” It was clear what Bob had been trying to say, but John couldn’t help but be amused by how it came out. The poor man was so tired. 

John tried again, “You know, medicine. For the cough, congestion, fever.”

“Fever?”

Oh, Christ. 

“Yeah, a pesky one, you have. You taken any medicine for it?”

“I don’t...” Bob tried to think but his mind was so clouded that it was criminally difficult to string together something even relatively coherent. He coughed and tried his best to aim it away from John. “No, I-I, no, there’s none.”

That didn’t sound right. If they were at Bob’s, maybe, but this person that John had never met before seemed well-equipped. There had to be something somewhere. It took no more than three minutes to find the supplies in the bathroom. He let out a breath and tried to be patient. If Bob really couldn’t have found these, he was in for some trouble. 

Scooping it all up in his arms, along with another tissue box he’d found, John brought everything back to Bob. 

“Open up,” John said. 

Bob split his lips but not his eyelids and expected some vile-tasting liquid, but instead was met with the cold, hard glass of a thermometer. He twitched his nostrils and rubbed at them as he waited for the mercury to settle. 

“’M g’nna sneeze, John,” Bob murmured. He was sat with his finger applying enough pressure against his nose to keep the tickle from spilling over, but not too much that he was preventing himself from breathing. It was already hard, the congestion blocking most of his airways, but he knew he should try to keep his mouth closed as much as he could while the thermometer was in his mouth. 

“Just a bit longer, Dylan. Almost there.” 

The itch wouldn’t wait. Bob aimed a few wispy sneezes against his elbow, using his other hand to keep the thermometer from flying out of his mouth. John had to clench his fists and look away. Dylan was pushing his—Paul’s buttons and he didn’t even know it. That’s right, Paul’s buttons. John was only getting heated up because he knew how much it got to Paul. Nothing about the act itself was turning him on, no way.

While John was fighting a hard-on, Bob felt his eyes burning as they threatened to fill with tears. It upset him greatly--the idea of fucking with the thermometer’s reading. He knew John didn’t have to be there helping him eat, rubbing his back, comforting him, taking his temperature, none of that stuff. It scared him to think John’d leave him all alone if he became too difficult to handle--it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been abandoned in a state like this--and he really needed someone right now. 

Bob apologized and it made John sad to think that he felt like he had to. John looked down at the thermometer, squinting to read it properly. 

“Thirty nine point two degrees, fuck.”

“Thirty-nine d’grees? The fuck? Wha-how? That-that’s-”

John sighed, “Degrees celsius, Bobby. No fahrenshite here, we’re across the pond, remember?”

That was the wrong thing to say, considering how Bob wanted nothing more than to be back home. John’s face dropped as Bob’s bottom lip started quivering again. Shit. 

John did his best to remedy the situation, reminding Bob that he’d be home soon and that he’d be in John’s gentle, loving care until then. Of course, John didn’t know if that was true, if he could stay with Bob until he departed, but he was certain that Bob wouldn’t remember the empty promise tomorrow, maybe not even within the next few minutes. 

His reassuring words had the desired effect and Bob’s breathing steadied, though not before a violent coughing fit pressed him into John’s chest. Bob could barely keep his eyes open after that, but it seemed like he was afraid to go to sleep. Maybe he’d had a nightmare about being away from his home and his family, John wondered. He’d certainly been there before, having woken up in a cold sweat while on tour from a nightmare that something had happened to Jules or Cyn, or even Paul who was usually asleep next to him. 

“Why don’t you get some rest?” John suggested. When Bob hesitated to answer, John added, “I’ve got you.”

It didn’t take long after that for Bob to doze off. Heavy snoring would’ve normally bothered John, but it was almost endearing coming from the thin man in his arms. He was beyond glad that Bob was able to sleep, knowing that it was what he needed more than anything. John could feed him some medicine once he woke again. 

He held Bob tight and stroked his cheek when he whimpered or tossed or turned, keeping an eye on the clock and hoping that maybe Bob would just sleep through the rest of the night. 

That was, unfortunately, not the case. Bob coughed himself awake just under an hour after he’d fallen asleep. John rubbed his back and waited for the fit to ease up, but it didn’t seem like it was going to naturally.

Wild distress flashed through Bob’s eyes as John separated himself from him and left the room, and relief flooded them when John returned with some water. Bob was still coughing by then, mouth now covered by tissues instead of his elbow. He was able to hold it off for a moment to get some water down, which helped tremendously. 

A couple of desperate sneezes broke their way through the coughs and John tried not to let his insides heat up. Bob needed him. 

The coughing finally gave Bob a break and he collapsed against the headboard, pillows swallowing him. He sneezed against them, unable to get his arms up. This time he didn’t have the wherewithal to say sorry. He was dripping with sweat, John noticed. The blankets needed to come off. 

Bob whined in protest but couldn’t make an effort to stop John from stripping them from the bed. He was shivering now and John felt a monstrous amount of guilt fill his stomach, but he knew that things were bound to get much worse if he didn’t at least try to lower Bob’s temperature. 

Aha! The medicine. That was sure to help with that sort of thing. John looked through the bottles he’d picked up to see what would help the most. He fed the correct doses--and maybe a little extra--to Bob, leaving him coughing and sputtering. Little water remained for him to wash it all down.

Next came the Vick’s. John ordered Bob to lie down on his back and take his shirt off. 

For the second time that night, John’s jaw dropped. When Bob removed his turtleneck he was practically skin and bones. God, John really needed to get the bread he’d bought into the sick man. That could wait until later, though. Right now, John’s top priority was getting Bob as much relief from his symptoms as he could. Bob winced at the chill the cool gel brought to his chest, but eased into it as John rubbed it in. He felt around blindly for a tissue but couldn’t get to one before sneezing. This time around four harsh sneezes shot out of him, pushing his head into his elbow and rocking his body forward, head nearly colliding with John’s. 

“Bless you,” John said. 

Bob didn’t apologize or thank him. He barely seemed to notice that John was there until his hand made contact with his chest again. 

Once doped up on cough syrup and lathered in Vaporub, John let Bob fall back asleep. It was nearly a miracle that he was able to do so without John cuddling him, and John was happy to take that victory. He picked up the tissues from the bed and tossed them before washing his hands and returning to the kitchen. He found the bread from earlier and looked in the fridge to see if there was anything more substantial he could pair it with. Yoghurt, maybe? It would be easy on Bob’s throat. He didn’t see anything that he knew how to make a meal out of--the odds hadn’t been high, as John knew how to make very few meals. There was some soup left, but John didn’t know if Bob would be willing to eat the same thing so soon. 

Yoghurt it was. 

John sliced the bread into manageable chunks so that Bob wouldn’t choke, grabbed a spoon, and brought everything back to him. John watched him sleep for a little while. Bob looked like he’d been asleep for days and like he needed to sleep for several more. Never in his life had John seen someone look so tired while they were already sleeping. He wiped away at the small pools of moisture that collected at the bottom of Bob’s nostrils and dabbed the sweat away from his forehead, careful not to wake him. A few times, Bob’s nose would twitch and John would hold a tissue to his septum to try and suppress the tickle, keep it from pulling Bob from his rest. He wondered if this was something Paul would do, or already had done for him when he was sick. Suddenly he wanted to know about all of Paul’s caretaking tips.

When Bob awoke some short amount of time later, coughing, John eased him into a sitting position. 

“Here, take some bread,” John said, pushing a bit toward Bob. 

Having just escaped the clutches of sleep, Bob was terribly confused. He took a few pieces of bread and nibbled on them, pausing every so often to cough or sneeze—mostly sneeze at this point. Once he got those down, John managed to get Bob to eat some yoghurt, too.

“I need to blow my nose,” Bob spoke his first words since John had taken his temperature. It had been good for him, a bit of rest for his vocal cords. His voice was still destroyed from the coughing, but John could tell that keeping Bob’s mouth shut as much as possible was the way to go. 

He placed a tissue box in Bob’s lap and stroked his shoulder as he cleared himself out. 

“God fuckin’ damnit, this shit is...can’t believe I’m sick...stupidest shit I’ve ever...” Bob mumbled to himself as he mopped his nose up. 

“How’re you feeling?” 

Bob looked up as if he’d only just noticed that John was there. “Oh. I’m, ahem, I’m not doin’ so great, John, I--oh-” His breathing staggered and John put a fresh tissue in his hands just in time for Bob to catch a volley of sneezes. With each one, Bob kept appearing as if he thought he was finished, only for another to tear its way out of him. 

“Just being dramatic now, aren’t you?” John teased. 

For the first time that night, he got a slight laugh out of Bob. It eased the pit of worry in John’s chest just ever so slightly. 

“Y’know, some people just say bless you, man.”

There he was. There was the Bobby that John knew. 

After taking his temperature again and realizing they still had a long way to go, John tried not to let it knock his confidence. Bob was okay, and he’d get better. 

The rest of the night was spent cuddling, falling asleep, being awoken by Bob’s symptoms, feeding Bob medicine, taking his temperature, and starting all over again. His fever spiked once more during the night and John almost didn’t know what to do. The two had finally gotten to sleep for a bit when John woke up feeling like he was being smothered in heat. In reality, Bob’s furnace of a body was just curled up neatly on top of him, shivering. John slipped the thermometer between Bob’s lips and cursed as the mercury rose. His temperature was higher than when John had first gotten there. John did his best not to panic and freak Bob out even more, worried that working him up would lead to a situation he couldn’t handle on his own. He’d had to bring in a cold compress and several glasses of water for Bob to chug, forcing them down so fast he worried they’d come back up, but eventually they were both able to settle down and get back to sleep—John much later than Bob, too nervous to take his eyes off him.

Not too early in the morning when John awoke for the day, he knew that Bob wouldn’t be getting up for a while. The clock on the bedside table told him that they’d been sleeping for a few hours now—the most rest Bob had gotten all night. Careful not to wake him, John slipped out of bed and gathered his few belongings. In order to feel comfortable leaving him alone, John checked Bob’s temperature one last time. It had broken earlier in the night—John having checked while Bob was asleep—but he wanted to make sure it stayed that way. 37.3 degrees. That was loads better. 

John placed a soft kiss on Bob’s forehead and tousled his hair before letting himself out of the flat. A deep breath that he hadn’t been aware he was holding in made its way out as he closed the door behind himself. It had been a long night. 

He had just made it out of the building when he realized that he hadn’t called for a car. Not knowing how long the walk was, John walked until he was able to hail a cab. 

The driver, upon realizing that he had John Lennon in his car, started asking him all sorts of questions. John tried not to be too ill-tempered. It wasn’t the man’s fault he was so exhausted. 

Thankfully, the ride wasn’t too long. John paid the man and tipped him generously. He rubbed at his half-lidded eyes as he opened his front door, his bed calling him and him not daring to say no.

---

Many hours passed before John opened his eyes again. It was early afternoon yet John had to force himself out of bed. He took some coffee and toast to his kitchen table and munched while reading the paper he’d lazily picked up on his way inside. A section that criticized Bob’s evolution into rock music made John scoff, roll his eyes. It reminded him though, that he should probably check on the man. 

First, he thought, he should call Paul and debrief him on his night. He guaranteed it was more exciting than anything Paul could’ve been up to. John waited and listened to the dial tone for what felt like too long. He put the receiver down and tried again. Whatever. It was only Paul’s loss, anyway. John had been there, he knew what happened. Oh, shit. Bob. 

A notepad with the phone number John had taken down was sitting on the counter. He picked it up and brought it back over to the phone, dialing Bob’s temporary number. 

When Bob didn’t pick up the first time ‘round, John called again. The fuck was up with everyone, not picking up their phones today? When Bob didn’t pick up this time, John started fiddling with the cord absentmindedly. He called again. 

“Hello?” A terribly hoarse voice came from the other end. 

John let out a sigh of relief. “Bobby?” 

“Wha-who’s this? How’d you get this number?” 

That was interesting.

“It’s John. I’ve called to check on you, see how you’re feeling.”

Bob had no idea what was going on. “What? John? Lennon? What’re you...how’d’you know I’m sick? How-how did you get this number?”

Shit, Bob’s fever must’ve fucked him up more than John had realized. The question now was how to break the news to him. Should John tell Bob he’d called him in anguish the night before, begged him to come take care of him? Would he be embarrassed?

“John? You there?”

“Sure, yeah. D’you remember last night?” John asked, testing the waters. 

“No, man. I’ve been-” He cut himself off to sneeze a few times. They overlapped each other, so rapid John couldn’t tell how many there were. “Ugh, fuck, sorry. Snnf-snf, you can hear it, I’ve been sick as all hell. Got the fuckin’ plague or somethin’, I dunno. Someone on tour had the flu I think, can’t remember who now, someone told me, I remember someone told me there was a person who had the flu. Shoulda kept my distance, ha ha. Thought I couldn’t get any...I couldn’t feel any shittier than I already did, but whew, shit, I was wrong. Past few days I’ve been in bed. I mean, I--what day even is it? I don’t even know how long it’s been. Can’t remember how long it’s been since I slept, like, actually slept, y’know?” 

John knew that Bob could've, and would’ve, gone on forever if he didn’t cut in. That’s how he knew Bob was feeling better. He’d been so quiet when John was with him, it was nearly making John uncomfortable. Usually Bob would run his mouth ‘till it went dry. As annoying as it could be, John was glad to hear him ramble on. 

“You’re feeling better, then?” 

“Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, better, sure. Still feel like shit, though. Hey, how’d you know I’m sick? I never...you didn’t tell me,” Bob inquired. 

Well, there it was. “You rang me last night, asked me to come over,” John said. 

“I--what? No, I--really?” 

“Truly.”

Bob coughed. “But you didn’t, right? You didn’t come over?”

“Oh, I did.” 

“Well, that certainly is news to me. God, really? You were here? I don’t remember any of that, man.” Bob sounded bewildered.

John shrugged, forgetting Bob couldn’t see him. “Sedatives and fever don’t pair well together, you know.”

Bob laughed. “You’re tellin’ me! Gee, John, I’m sorry. Did I--I hope I wasn’t a real bother or nothin’ like that.”

Thinking it would definitely embarrass him, John lied, “No, nothing too bad.”

“Alright, that’s--hiiHh! G-good-” A trio of sneezes forced their way out and a brutal bout of coughing followed in suit. John was about to bless Bob when he heard him blow his nose. “Ugh, God, snf.” He coughed again, briefly. “This is torture.” 

“You taken your temperature today?” 

“There a thermometer here?” 

John sighed. Bob sure was something. He hesitated to ask, but let curiosity and desire take over. “I left it somewhere. You up for some company?”

---

Bob looked much better when he greeted John at the door. Still sick, yes, but nothing like the fevered mess he’d been yesterday. He did sound worse but it didn’t surprise John at all, given much he’d been coughing. What did give him a bit of a shock was how much Bob was sneezing. John thought Bob’d been excitingly sneezy the day before, but today he’d already lost track of how many times he’d sneezed just ten minutes after arriving. 

After a particularly rough batch, Bob brought it up, “Sorry ‘bout that, snnf. I’ve been sneezing ever since we hhh-huhhng-ihHh! Hung up-” He rattled off three more. 

“No need to apologize, really.” 

Bob had no idea just how much truth there was behind that statement. 

They lounged about, John telling Bob bits and pieces--carefully chosen and maybe a little falsified--about what had happened last night and Bob listening the best he could through sneezes and unproductive nose-blows. They were sat much farther apart on the couch than they had been some hours earlier. Bob had practically been attached to John the whole time he was there, and John noticed that he kind of missed it. 

As a few hours passed, John could tell that Bob was getting tired, and perhaps sicker, again due to how close he’d scooted toward John. Not to mention the subtle warmth that was radiating off of his skin. 

“I feel disgusting,” Bob said. “Like, not just sick, y’know, I feel gross. Just...ugh!”

“You’ve been laying in a puddle of your own sweat for days, Bobby, ‘course you feel disgusting.”

Bob decided he was going to take a shower. John didn’t think much of it. To be quite honest, he thought Bob needed to take a shower. So, he sat there and watched TV while Bob got clean. Sucked in by some science-fiction program, John didn’t register how long Bob had been gone. 

When Bob came nearly stumbling out of the bathroom in his towel, John darted to his side. His body was burning. 

“The fuck did you do, Dylan?” John peeked inside the bathroom to see the mirrors clouded with condensation. “You fucking muppet,” he grumbled.

“I was cold,” Bob murmured. 

John was pissed. “Didn’t have to make the water as hot as you bloody well could! Christ, c’mere.”

Bob started going on about how the showers must be different in England, ‘cause he didn’t really know how to work this one and it wasn’t his fault that he’d made it so hot but it felt so good that he didn’t really want to figure it out, and he prob’ly shoulda thought about his fever but he thought his mind was so scrambled from his fever that it kept him from thinking about his fever. He could’ve kept talking for God knows how long, but John threw him into the bedroom and told him to shut up and get dressed. When Bob turned back around, fully clothed, he had tears in his eyes. John felt bad for scolding him, but maybe if Bob didn’t want to be scolded he shouldn’t have been so soft in the head. 

His depressed mood only worsened when he remembered that he wanted to go home. John found himself once again holding Bob in his arms as he cried, telling him he’d be okay. 

It took a lot less time than yesterday for Bob to regain full possession of his faculties, but John wouldn't have minded if it hadn’t. He was starting to understand why Paul loved caretaking so much. He’d taken care of Paul before, but Paul never really let himself be truly sick around John. There was always some embarrassment and shame that kept him from letting himself go and fully giving in to his symptoms. Bob on the other hand had zero problem with that. Paul would’ve lost his mind. 

John spent the night again, and fortunately it went much smoother this time. Bob slept through most of the night, waking up once to have a coughing fit and once to have a sneezing fit. He was grateful to have company—aka someone to hand him tissues and kiss his bony shoulder—throughout both. 

John arrived at home mid-morning the next day to find Paul at his place. It took him by surprise for a moment before he could remember Paul’s promise to come by as soon as he was back in town.

“I thought you’d be here when I arrived,” Paul said as John slipped his shoes off.

“Hadn’t planned on being out, honest.”

Paul shifted awkwardly. “Where were you?”

“With Dylan. He’s been poorly the past few days, asked me to look after him. I tried to ring you, tell you all about it, but you wouldn’t answer,” John explained.

“I-well-I,” Paul stuttered. “I was busy!”

John nodded, walked over to the stovetop and picked up the kettle. “I’m certain you were. Shame we didn’t hear from you. Real sick, he’s been.”

God, shit. Paul really hadn’t known that John had called. If only he’d been around to pick up the fucking phone.

Scratching the back of his head, Paul asked, “What was he...is he alright?”

John shrugged. “Much better now, I’d say. Had a nasty fever.”

“’S that all?”

With his back turned to Paul, John let a smile crack his cheeks. Paul was predictable as ever.

“Hm?” 

Paul let out a low growl of a sigh. John was toying with him and he knew it. “Any...any other symptoms?” It had been hard to get out. 

“Oh, sure, sure, yeah. Loads, yeah.” John nodded. 

Jesus fucking Christ, Paul thought, what more did the bastard want? 

“Care to share?” 

A devilish grin lit up John’s face. Bingo. “Y’know, terrible flu, really. So congested I wouldn’t’ve recognized his voice over the phone if it weren’t for his, uh, verbosity, let’s call it. Backed up his throat, too. Only just a shred of his voice left once I got there. Sounded just awful, poor thing. He was right needy, too. Wouldn’t let go of me, not even when he sneezed. Fits of ‘em, too.” John paused and watched Paul’s face light up, half with excitement and half with light jealousy. “Anyway, he clung to me all night, yeah. Had to take his temperature, he was well over thirty-nine a few times. He nearly coughed his fuckin’ lungs out his mouth, too. Kept him up most of the night. He was sneezing like a mad man last night, I mean, God, seemed like he could’ve gone on forever. Only stopped when he went to sleep, really. It was a much easier night, he slept through most of it. Still asleep when I left him to come here.”

Paul was silent. He was almost…angry. Why had John gotten to be the one to take care of Bob when he was so ill? Why couldn’t Paul have been home and gotten a call from him, asking him to come over and hold his hand and give him tissues? It wasn’t John’s fault, but John had gotten to see it and Paul hadn’t, and that was unfair. John could sense this.

To ease some of the tension, he said, “He was a mess, you know. So tired he could barely, uh, cover anything. It’s only a matter of time before I’m in his position.”

That got Paul’s blood flowing. “Really? You feeling alright?”

John thought it would be a little corny to force a cough and a sniffle right then, but he did it anyway. Paul’s eyebrows jumped and John had to keep himself from snickering. He was so easy. “I think so, yeah. Tired. Couldn’t really sleep I was so worried about Dylan. I’m sure that’ll do me in.”

It wasn’t a lie. John knew that with what little sleep he’d gotten and how close he’d been to Bob that he was likely to fall hard and fast. Who would it hurt if he played it up a little to get Paul hard?

“Was he really that ill? You had to do all that?” Paul asked, starting to think this was all too good to be true.

“Y’know, we can ring him in a bit. See if he’s feeling any better,” John suggested. 

Bob's got a cold. It's not a bad one, surprisingly. He's got the sniffles and a bit of a cough and he's sneezing every few minutes, but he's mostly alright. This is good and bad for him, as he doesn't enjoy feeling shitty, but boy he does enjoy being taken care of. Especially by Joan.

He's been milking his symptoms for the past few days, as he usually does. Joan knows this, but she lets him get away with it anyway.

It's when one of Joan's guy friends from home--emphasis on the fact that it's a guy--is in the town they're playing in that night that Bob starts to get on her nerves. Of course, Joan invites the guy back to the hotel with them after the show. Bob had scoffed when she told him that she'd offered him free tickets. That didn't go well, just made Bob cough and made Joan roll her eyes.

When Bob enters his own hotel room and sees that fucker, he nearly loses his mind. "Jim," she'd called him. Or something like that. Bob can't really remember, and he kind of wants to call the guy the wrong name on purpose. Shit, he might be able to get away with it too, blame it on his slight fever and the exhaustion from playing a show.

Joan suggests Bob shower off so he'll feel better and he immediately declines. Sure, it probably would make him feel better, but he doesn't want to leave this guy alone with her. Bob doesn't trust him.

Why is Jim getting all her attention, anyway? Bob's the one who's sick. He's the one who needs someone to smother him with love and affection. This cocksucker's perfectly fucking fine!

"Bobby, come chat with Jim and I!" Joan grins, beckoning Bob over.

He coughs dramatically and gestures to his throat. "Shouldn't strain my voice. Tell John I say thanks for comin' to the show."

Joan's eyes grow darker. "You can tell Jim yourself."

Hm. Maybe that wasn't as good of a move as Bob had thought it would be. Joan's completely ignoring him now, no matter how loudly he sniffles or coughs or blows his nose, or how many times he sneezes in a row.

Other people in the room are asking him if he's okay, how he's feeling, what's bothering him the most, what can they do to help him? It's not them he wants to hear from. He knows that all those bastards do is stand around all day waiting for him to ask 'em for something, and it's not because they love him or really care about him. No, it's because he's Bob Dylan.

But Joan...Joan really cares about him. She likes to hold him and fuss over him because she loves him, not because she thinks it'll give her cool points in his book, or he'll write a song about her or he'll promote her or some shit. She wants him to feel better, and she does that by giving him all the love he can soak up.

Bob's missing it right now. A lot. He's needy when he's sick, he knows that. Usually Joan doesn't mind, even when tons of other people are crowding the room. Something about her not paying attention to him and instead paying attention to this Jim fella is really rubbing Bob the wrong way.

He lets out a pitiful cluster of sneezes--only half-trying to sound like shit--and reaches a shaky hand into the tissue box by his side. He curses loudly when his hand hits the bottom of the box.

It's a little thing, but it's endlessly frustrating for Bob.

Things get even more frustrating as he starts gearing up for another round of sneezes. All he's got now is his sleeve, and he just hopes it'll be enough. He stifles the few sneezes that come out and they make him cough. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Joan looking at him, but the second he starts turning his head in her direction, she swivels hers back around to face Jim again.

"Bless you, Bobby," Albert says.

Bob rolls his eyes even though he knows he shouldn't. "I need a tissue, Albert."

Albert hesitates for a moment as he surveys the room, not finding any tissues. "Uhhh, I don't know if we...um..."

"You don't know if we what, Albert?"

The daggers in Bob's eyes are enough to make Albert's blood run cold. He knows a tantrum is coming and he regrets ever speaking up. Bob's face is still pressed against his wrist and it makes him a little less frightening. He’s never really scary anyway, but Albert has learned not to be surprised at the amount of fury that could be packed in that little body.

Albert can’t avoid the question any longer. "I don't know if we have any more tissues, Bobby."

And there it is. The straw that breaks the camel's back. Bob is livid. He starts ranting and raving about how everybody knows he's sick and that the one goddamn thing they should have around here is tissues. He doesn't care that he's throwing a fit in front of Joan's friend. He doesn't care that she's gonna get pissed at him for acting like this. He doesn't care about anything right now, except for getting a fucking tissue.

He's about to go off again when of all people, Jim speaks up, "Hey Bob, I've got a hankie if you'd like it."

Bob freezes. He's treated this guy like a total jackass and he's still offering Bob his handkerchief?

"Huh?"

Jim takes a step forward and pulls his handkerchief from his pocket. "Here. Sounds like you need it more than I do."

Bob reaches out a wary hand and accepts the cloth. He doesn't know what to say. He almost doesn't say anything, and then he sees Joan giving him the most intense death glare he's ever seen in his life. "Thank you, Jim."

Calling him by the right name is the least Bob can do. He blows his nose forcefully, every set of eyes in the room glued to him, every mind wondering what he'll do next. It's an interesting feeling, knowing everyone in the room is waiting anxiously for your next move. Bob likes to take advantage of it sometimes. He doesn't have the energy to do so right now, though. He finishes blowing his nose and puts the hankie on the table.

"Albert, snnrf, call for someone to bring some more tissues.” Bob looks up to see Joan's expression, still full of exasperation. "Please." That's better. Her scowl lessens.

It takes a few minutes for the tissues to get there, and Bob's quiet until then. It's like his nose is waiting for them to arrive in order to go berserk. The moment he rips out a tissue, he dissolves into a prolonged fit of sneezing.

He can vaguely hear what's going on in the background. Jim asks Joan if Bob's okay. Joan says Bob will be fine. Jim asks if she's sure. Joan doesn't say anything, Bob assumes she nods.

They continue talking about whatever they were talking about before, and it irks Bob a little. He's over here struggling and they're talking about what? Fond old memories together? The nostalgia that came with seeing one another again? The happiness it brought one another to reconnect with an old friend? God, Bob thinks, give me a fuckin' break.

When his sneezing slows back down to the pace it had been going at earlier, Bob's exhausted. He's glad he's sitting down because he knows if he'd been standing during that fit he would've been struggling to keep his feet planted. A rough cough bends him halfway over anyway.

It sounds so bad that Bob sits up to see Jim with an uneasy expression. Jim checks his watch and announces that he hadn't realized how late it had gotten, that it's time for him to leave

Bob could just jump with joy right now.

"Are you sure?" Joan asks.

Bob could fuckin' kill her.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Gotta get home to my girlfriend and her kid."

Oh. Oh...shit. Maybe if Bob had been listening he would've heard one of the first questions Joan had asked Jim: "How's your girlfriend doing? Debbie, right?"

Bob almost laughs at how ridiculous the situation is. Joan does not look like she could laugh at all.

"Thanks for comin' out, man." Bob genuinely tries to use his voice, but not much comes out. "Good to have you here."

Joan rolls her eyes so hard she's surprised when they don't fall out of her head.

Jim hasn't seemed to have registered any of Bob's dick-ish behavior. "No, thank you, Bob! It's my pleasure, really. I hope you get to feelin' better. Joan here's a great nurse. I'm sure she'll have you fixed up in no time."

At the thought of Joan possibly playing the same role for Jim as she did for Bob, he has to try not to let his jaw clench. He just has to be nice for a few more minutes.

Somehow, he succeeds. He really does try to chat with Jim but his voice is kind of crapping out on him, and that's when Jim takes the cue to head out.

They say their final goodbyes and Joan wraps Jim in a big hug that lasts what Bob thinks is just a little too long, but he lets it slide.

The second the door shuts behind Jim, Joan swirls around to look at Bob.

"Y'know, ahhem, I could really use a, snnf, a hug right about now," he tries. He still has a tiny bit of hope left that she'll come scoop him up in her arms and all will be forgiven.

"You're a prick, Bobby."

It melts away.

"C'mon, let's get you medicated and ready for bed."

Ever since she’d gotten close with Bob a few months ago, Joan has always felt a motherly instinct toward him. He’s the cutest thing she’s ever laid eyes on, she’s sure. Everything about him is so interesting. It’s like he never does anything the way she or anyone would expect him to. Sometimes she thinks he does that on purpose, just to shake things up. Keep people on their toes.

The first time she sees Bob do most things, she’s carefully observant. He cuts his food weird, he interacts with different people in interesting ways, he changes his voice to whatever he feels whenever he feels like it, he ties his shoes in a way Joan’s never seen before. Every time she thinks she knows most things about him, he continues to surprise her.

They’ve been spending more time together the past two or three weeks and it’s nice. It’s clear they both quite like each other. They just seem to understand what the other’s trying to do with their music. Recently they’ve started getting together and playing their guitars just the two of them. They sit as close to one another as they can and keeps their gazes locked as they strum and sing.

Today, Bob’s been a little quiet. Joan catches him rubbing at his nose a couple of times. That’s not too weird. With a nose like Bob’s, it’s bound to require a good amount of attention.

After a few minutes, Bob takes both of his hands off his guitar and has them held halfway up his chest. He squints his eyes and seems frozen that way for a few seconds.

“You alright, honey?”

He doesn’t answer her.

Joan gets the memo as Bob takes in a sharp breath and ducks into his hands. “HihhisCh-ih’tsch! Hh’ikshiew!”

Oh. My. God.

Joan can’t even think for a moment, she’s too busy processing the cutest thing she’s ever seen or heard in her entire life.

Bob takes a moment and sniffles with his hands still cupped to his face before removing them. He rubs at his recovering nose with his fist.

“Was that…”

“Hm? Snrf.”

The look on Bob’s face is still a little dazed and confused as he recovers from the sneezes. It’s silly to Joan, how he’s still sniffling and blinking his eyes. The sneezes were so small and had such little power behind them, yet it’s taking him a while to bounce back.

“Did you just sneeze?”

At first she thinks it’s just part of a persona he’s putting on, but when he looks up and she sees him sniffling and rubbing his nose desperately she almost laughs. No kidding.

Bob nods. Gives a hearty sniffle. Clears his throat.

Joan’s heart melts at the sight of him. He really is adorable. She gets lost in thought and forgets to respond.

“Sorry?”

A laugh falls from Joan’s lips before she can think about it. She covers her smile with a loose hand.

“Oh, Bobby, no. It was—it surprised me, that’s all.”

Bob raises one eyebrow. “Surprised you? Snf.”

“Well…” She tries not to laugh again. “Surprised isn’t the right word, I just…I wasn’t expecting that.”

It’s obvious that Bob still isn’t following.

Joan cups his cheek with her hand. She feels him shudder at how cool her skin is. “I didn’t expect you to have such cute sneezes.”

Bob tries to hide a blush. “Yeah, well, good thing you don’t hate ‘em, ‘cause I think—hihh! Ahem, I think I ain’t done just y-hiEhh-yet!”