cellarfulofnose

[cellarfulofnose]

call on me

5.2k words. 1960. Dear sir or madam, will you read my book?

It made sense that John would be here, now. In some backward way. He never showed up to school when class was in session, so it might as well be after hours that he decided to set foot in the classroom. The star pupil out of place here was Stuart, and he seemed to know it. He didn’t outright complain, but he plodded along unnecessarily far behind John, and shushed him when he made a joke. He was nervous. John could understand. They’d never broken in anywhere before. John usually preferred to do his light-fingering when the sun shone, during normal business hours. Alone. Shopkeepers were idiots, so there was rarely any real danger. But this was a slightly higher caliber mission. For a real breaking and entering job, he needed a lookout. He needed an accomplice—if one went down, they both went down.

Besides, Stuart knew how to pick locks, and John didn’t.

Stuart's hands glowed like bone in the moonlight. Delicate. Meant for the piano, John thought. Not the bass. “Come on,” John hissed, briefly hot with jealousy.

Stuart played the locking mechanism like a virtuoso and sprung it in a minute. The shadow of John flitted inside and made for the teacher’s desk. Wouldn’t it be just his luck if this one were locked, too? But no, the saints were smiling on him tonight. (Bloody voyeurs, John sneered to himself. Perverts for watching him and for the nature of this little extraction.) Stacks of paper formed a skyline in miniature across the desk. Stepping into the sliver of moonlight, John put on his glasses and began rifling through in search of his handwriting. It shouldn’t be hard to find; he’d handed in fuck all else. 

Stuart whispered to him urgently. John turned to ice for a moment, listening with arrested breath, but it was only a bid to hurry up. John set his stack aside with an exasperated sigh and moved to the next one. It wasn’t here. His fingers walked through page after page. Essays. Reports. Cyn Powell’s perfect, tidy little hand. Sweat tickled his brow. What if…?

There it was. Even with a bat’s eyes, John felt his vision lock to the middle of the page; the peppering of punctuation, the carefully deployed words, his shibboleth. Relief knocked a sigh from his chest. “I’ve got it.”

“Get a move on, then.”

John checked the pages before it and after it. Nothing had slipped between the cracks. He was saved from embarrassment and ridicule for another day. He folded his prize in double halves and shoved it in his jacket pocket. This time, he made sure it was safely zipped.

For this particular war chest, John was doubly thankful. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want anyone to read it (more to the point, he didn’t want the professor to read it, mistaking it for an essay). He needed the story tonight, the thrill and release it would provide him. It was a far cry from his magnum opus, just a six-pager about a model with an acute sensitivity to perfume. But Stuart was champing for it too, unzipping before they’d shut the door to the Terrace.

John flipped the pages over, scanning the lines for where the story began. One page, back, next page, back.

No.

“Put your glasses on,” Stuart said in a rush, reaching into his shorts. But that wasn’t why John had frozen.

“There’s a page missing,” said John.

Stuart wobbled to his feet, nearly pitching over as he tried to hike up his pants. He snatched the page and turned it over. And the next. He even put his own glasses on. It only brought their reality into sharper focus.

He’d lost the middle page. It was out there somewhere, double-sided, at large. Where anyone could read it.

◇◇◇

Whoever decided to bring art into university, John thought, should be lined up against a wall and given no cigarette. He hadn’t much choice but to attend class today. If the middle page had indeed fallen into the wrong hands, he needed to be there for damage control. It wouldn’t take much more than waving his fist under the poor idiot’s nose to get it back—unless it was a girl who’d got hold of it. John shuddered. He’d almost prefer a professor.

Class was dismissed without incident. John couldn’t stand it. He spared a glance at the bin on his way out, thought about kicking it over and rifling through every crumpled page. Instead, he joined Stu on the commons to have a smoke for lunch.

“I’m going round the twist,” John muttered as he shook out the match. “What’re the odds some…some—”

He trailed off. Stuart was looking pointedly behind him.

Paul approached, cow-eyed and long-limbed as a new fawn. His Inny blazer was missing its badge. He was playing hooky, and not very well. John whipped his glasses off as casually as could be and ignored Stuart scoffing faintly through his nose.

“All right, John?” Paul didn’t give John time to respond, nor Stuart time to react to not being addressed. “Rationing them, or what?”

Stuart put a cigarette in John’s fingers. He lit it for Paul.

“Cheers.” Paul inhaled deeply and swallowed a cough before continuing in a slightly pinched voice. “Written anything lately?”

John sighed out loud. Any other day, he would have indulged the boy, even invited him for a bite at the canteen. But today his patience was wearing thin. “Had other shit on me mind, if you’ll believe it.”

“Not saying there’s more to life than music, are you?” Stuart needled, and John felt himself smile.

Paul gave a hasty laugh. “Yeah, or short…you know, fiction.”

The hairs on the back of John’s neck stood straight on end. More than anything, he wanted to share a frantic glance with Stuart, wanted Stuart to tell him he was crazy, that there was no way this cherub-faced brat had the dirt on them. He wet his lips, swallowed without meaning to. “Literary Society’s got a youth chapter now?” he sneered.

“Well I, I was just curious.” At Paul’s slight stammer, John glowed with victory. Paul knew he’d be daft to challenge them. But a fit of courage or stupidity drove him on. “I found this page, see…”

John’s eyes darted to Paul’s hands, busy with nerves—empty. He carried no bookbag.

“Thought I recognized your writing. Your handwriting.”

It was a clever amendment. Held neither of them liable. Paul wasn’t admitting he’d read it, merely glanced at the letters. And there was no accusation that it matched John’s prose. Only his hand. John had to remind himself of these things. He wasn’t defending himself against an accusation. There was nothing to defend.

“What was it about?” 

John’s stomach flipped. Stuart had called Paul’s bluff. Masterful. Even if the alleged story existed, he hadn’t written it, so his curiosity would appear genuine. 

“I, well I. Didn’t give it a good read.” Paul shook his head emphatically and shrugged. 

“That boring, was it? Must have been mine,” John said. Double bluff. He didn’t know why Paul had suddenly lost his gall, but he pressed down on the weak spot.

“I mean, it didn’t make sense.”

John’s breakfast threatened to make a second appearance.

“It ended in the middle of a sentence.”

“Did you read it, or didn’t you?” John snapped.

“Only there wasn’t a period at the end of the page…”

John could tolerate this stupid dance no longer. “What was the girl’s name?”

Paul tilted his head. “What,” he said with perfect candor, “you mean Susan?”

John felt even Stuart’s body tense. It was over. “Yeah,” he said. “So?” A challenge.

A beat of silence as Paul processed John’s confession. At the moment of realization, he spat out, “I’ll—give it back.”

“At’s a good lad.” Pressing down, pressing down. John held out his hand.

“Well, I don’t have it. It’s at me house.”

John stood up. “Bit late for Geography, aren’t you?”

Paul blinked coolly. “We can do an exchange.”

“I’ll say we fucking can.”

Stuart murmured, “John.”

“Come to mine. Bring the rest of the story.” Though they were nearly face to face now, John couldn’t decipher Paul’s expression. “And you’ll get the page back.”

John laughed, not for the first time out of fear. “Yeah, fuck off.” He sat beside Stu once more and took a heavy pull to get a light on his cigarette.

Behind them, a pair of girls called out Paul’s name. Sculpture students, apparently no strangers to Liverpool’s own Tom Sawyer. Paul waved brightly and excused himself with a nod. “Milords,” he said with a Yorkshire affect. Then he was gone.

“Git,” hissed Stu.

John elbowed him in the gut.

◇◇◇

John stooped low enough to scrabble a handful of stones from the ground. That McCartney prat. Just who did he think he was? It was blackmail—no, hostage-taking. He lobbed a stone hard and seethed in frustration when it didn’t bounce off anything. John pitched the lot, and they skittered satisfyingly off his target. Good. He bent down and scavenged another fistful.

And Stuart, the coward. First he’d suggested Swiss neutrality. Non-aggression. Paul would tire of the chase in a week, he assured John, and all this would blow over. Berk. John threw a pebble, then another. They ping-pinged off the wooden windowsill. 

Then came the most ridiculous suggestion of all. Stuart had said they should oblige the boy. They, plural, march over to Paul’s waving their white sketchbook-paper flags and break bread. It horrified and disgusted John in equal parts. Unconditional surrender! Trust Stu to strike that kind of bargain when it was John’s neck on the line.

A pair of pebbles struck the glass pane. A moment later, the window flew open.

“The hell are you—” Paul swiftly dodged the final stone, which had left John’s hand too late to retract. “‘Ey! Watch it.” Judging by the volume of his protests, and the music emanating from the room behind him, Paul’s father wasn’t home.

John held up a sheet of paper in each hand.

Paul craned his neck out the window, peering down with an open-mouthed squint that showed off his front teeth. When the realization struck, his eyes popped open. “Come on up, then,” he said, with a modicum of dignity.

John felt his jaw tremble with the effort of keeping his breathing soft after galloping up the stairs to Paul’s second-story room. Neither of them spoke. Paul reached for the page in John’s left hand, but John yanked it away.

“Get nothing for nothing.”

“Right.” Paul flipped the latch on a chest that sat at the foot of his bed. He pulled out a pillow and reached inside the sleeve. John heard the crinkle of paper.

“Fuck’s sake,” he snickered. “No one’s gonna nick it off you.”

“And what is it you’re doing, then?” With a wry grin, Paul extracted his prize from the pillowcase. He even gave it a little wave. John’s heart skipped a beat to see it.

“I’m taking back what’s mine.” He didn’t snap, but the tone of his voice made his intentions clear. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“I’m only teasing.” Paul stretched out his hand without further provocation. John made to grab the paper.

“Can I at least read it?” asked Paul.

Caged-animal fear blazed in John. He wanted to snatch the page and rip it, and knock Paul down while he was in the neighborhood. It wasn’t just shame. Paul simply wasn’t equipped to appreciate it. Why should he cast pearls before swine? These stories weren’t like music. Paul couldn’t be a whiz at them too.

Sweat soaked John, threatening a shiver. He’d been silent too long. Paul would think he had something to hide. 

He shrugged. “Be quick about it, yeah? I’ve got a date.” To show his nonchalance, John spread himself across Paul’s bed and began unlacing his boots.

Paul gathered up the pages like sweets and sat in his desk chair. As he glanced from line to line, trying to determine their order, he asked, “Does she know?”

John freed his foot, letting his right boot fall with a thud that he hoped would sound contemptuous. “Does my girlfriend know we’ve a date tonight?” He didn’t want to believe Paul was calling him a liar.

“Does she know you…you’re—” Paul gestured with the pages. “That you like this stuff.”

John didn’t allow that to hang in the air for more than half a second. “She knows I like my dick sucked.”

A small laugh escaped Paul, though it sounded more nervous than mirthful. But, as John hoped, he didn’t say anything more. He cleared his throat and bowed his head to read.

John bent over to untie his other boot. As he did so, he slipped his glasses on to monitor Paul’s reaction. His mouth was unreadable, obscured by the rest of his hand as Paul nibbled at his thumb. But John watched his round eyes meander to and fro, down the line and back again like a typewriter—and awfully fast. John set his jaw against the urge to tell Paul to slow down and savor it. Any idea how fast you were going back there, mate? John nudged his glasses back into place and pretended to adjust his laces. 

Paul flipped over the first page. A while later, his chair creaked. John could hear Paul’s breath softly huff-huffing around his hand, and he didn’t like that. He shook off his left boot and lounged backward. The mattress groaned and whined beneath him as the springs bounced.

Paul didn’t so much as blink. He gnawed at his thumb for another page, then pressed his cupped hand to his mouth. His pillowy cheeks rose above his fingers as a smile spread.

Oh, that was just rich, John thought. Trying not to laugh. He’d give Paul something to laugh about. He’d wipe that little smile clean. He’d…

It started in Paul’s ears, then his ivory face. He was turning a hot, flustered pink: blushing. Deeply. His hand wasn’t big enough to hide it.

John felt very strange then. He tried to remember the first time he’d read—one of those—that he hadn’t written. He didn’t think he ever had.

Paul’s chair creaked again. His leather pants gave a dry squeak as his legs shifted. He picked up the third page.

John itched everywhere. The record playing on the shelf had run out minutes ago. It crackled and scratched as he wished he could. He found his hand fussing with his own mouth now, a mirror on a delay.

“Jesus.”

Paul let out a breath and turned his eyes heavenward, as if in disbelief. He’d dropped his hand for only a moment, and before he could replace it, John saw his tight, crooked smile. He looked mystified.

“Well?” John blurted when he couldn’t wait a second more.

By way of an answer, Paul laughed, almost sighed. He made a show of tugging the collar of his t-shirt off his chest, fluttering cool air down his body. “Not bad, this.”

John was a boy at the circus. He forgot to be suave. “You like it?”

“I mean it’s, um.” Paul rose and crossed the room…and locked the door. “Dunno how you do it, really.” 

He must have seen John’s eyebrows go funny at the sound of the latch, because he quickly added, “Mike, you know, he’d only bother us.”

Men at work, that’s us, thought John.

“But it was good, yeah.” Seemingly unsatisfied with the desk chair and unwilling to move John’s legs off the foot of his bed, Paul stayed standing, leaning his weight on one wooden bedpost.

“It was shit.” It felt good to say it, to be rid of the miasma in his head, to season the conversation a bit.

“No it wasn’t.” Paul’s voice pitched up with sincerity. Then, “Could’ve used a different point of view, maybe.”

John was too intrigued to be cross. “Go on.”

Paul shrugged. “Well, she’s a model, ’n’t she? Everyone makes allowances for her. Suppose she was a model’s assistant. She gets all close up with ‘em. Five, ten women a day, ten different perfumes. She’s got to run errands. Disappear when the camera’s running. Pressure’s on.” He lifted his eyebrows once.

John sat forward, shoeless, speechless.

“She’d worry her job was on the line.” Paul stuffed his hands in his pockets and paced a few aimless steps, his eyes glued to the floor. “Oh, but they love her too much. The girls. Couldn’t live without her. Sometimes they…” The edge of a laugh crept into his voice, “...can’t help but kiss ‘er…even as she’s—”

“Wait, wait, shut up.” John scooped up the first page. “Start over.” His head swiveled in search of a pen.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter,” Paul stammered. Something drew his attention back to the chest where his treasure hid. “You ever record any of these?” he asked as he rummaged through its contents.

John snorted derisively.

“Have it your own way. I’m just sayin’. Like a dirty magazine for your ears, isn’t it?” Paul recovered a small tape recorder and a flimsy set of earphones.

“Yeah, my own fuckin’ voice. Gone all funny just hearin’ myself talk,” John said, with a little shimmy to garnish his camp affectation.

“Well, you could…” Paul seemed unsure of where to go next. He held the tape player as if he’d forgotten it.

John felt the fishhook pierce his cheek. He raised his chin. “What’s that, then?”

“Well, but you know, if that’s how you feel…” Paul lowered the equipment to place it back in the chest.

“Hey!”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“Aw, fuck off. Gi’s a listen, come on…”

“No, it’s no good, you’ll only laugh…”

“I won’t. I won’t.” John found himself on the ground beside the chest, as if to intercept the tape player before Paul could replace it. He laced his fingers together, a penitent at prayer. “Oh, go on.”

Paul tsked, pretending to think about it, so John added, “Please.”

“You won’t laugh.” Even as he said it, Paul positioned the orange foam over John’s ears.

John shook his head, then stopped when the earphones threatened to rattle loose. “Honest.” He crossed himself for good measure and loudly kissed his thumb.

Paul hit play.

If he’d an ounce of brains in his head, John would have known exactly what to expect. But he felt blind and helpless listening to the fuzzy ripping sound of the tape, waiting for something that sounded like anything. No dialogue, no music. He met Paul’s eye, as if for guidance. Paul pursed his lips and looked away.

The unmistakable sound of heaving breath sliced through the static. John straightened, pressing the earphones tighter to his head. The voice on the tape gasped and sighed, and—John actually jumped at the sound of it. A sneeze! A girl’s, so fairylike, so angelic it could have been the tinkling of little glass bells.

“God bless you, my dear,” purred a chocolatey, upper class male voice.

“God,” said John, feeling like Echo before Narcissus, but it wasn’t over. The girl sneezed a second time; higher pitched, if that was possible, a lovely delicate squeak.

“Gesundheit,” growled the man, and the tape ran out.

John whipped the earphones off his head. “How the fuck d’you get a girl to do that?”

At first Paul looked bewildered, then plain insulted. “That was me.”

“What was?” It took John moments to process the suggestion. “You fucking never.”

Paul shrugged. “Can’t exactly pay me rent on it, but—”

“You’re lying.” John’s auditory memory began to warp as he sifted through the ripples of sound.

Paul scoffed. “Yeah, course I am,” he said in somewhat of a huff, and took his tape recorder back. Before John could protest, it was locked in the oaken chest.

“Come on. Who was it, Dot?” 

A genuine laugh spilled out of Paul. All right, so she wasn’t privy to his little hobby. That left…

“Iris?” John didn’t want to believe it any more than he wanted to consider the alternative.

“Haven’t I shown you how I get out of class when I want to slag off?” Paul sat at the head of his bed, now that it was vacant again.

John settled for the foot. “Always figured it involved a few hours under the Geography master’s desk.”

In reply, Paul put up his hand. His owlish eyes suddenly looked bright, inquisitive.

“You, boy, what is it?” John barked, calling on his young pupil.

“I don’t feel very well at all, sir.” Paul’s transformation was instant and total. His voice grated in a way that made John’s own throat sting, and his diction was stopped-up as if speaking against a wall of gunk. His hooded eyes and parted lips suggested sinuses almost too swollen to allow the passage of air. One could nearly see the halo of pink around his nostrils.

Goodness, gracious. “The bloody hell do you expect me to do about it, eh?” John snapped, his jaw set like the Bulldog himself. “Nurse you back to health?”

“Please, sir,” Paul wavered, looking as though he might cry. “May I be…” It wasn’t a sob that cut his sentence off at the kneecaps, but a shivering sneeze, caught against the back of his wrist. “Ex-excused…?” he gasped, then ducked down to sneeze again. It was a wretched, dragging sound that seemed to take the life right out of Paul. He shuddered and snuffled and gave a weak cough. 

John had almost no reason to imagine he was watching a performance. He’d startled slightly at the first sneeze—and he wasn’t being generous in calling it that, in suddenness and heart-rending texture it’d been as real as they come—forgetting, for a moment, that he wasn’t seeing Paul at his most vulnerable. He’d never actually heard Paul sneeze before now. Supposed he still hadn’t. But these false ones suited him uncanny well. Emotional, modestly strong, hopelessly endearing. It felt the most natural thing in the world to bless the boy. John felt his lips press together to do it.

Then at once Paul straightened. Once he’d wiped a drop of spittle from his mouth, he appeared totally unscathed. The sharpness had returned to his face, the alertness to his eyes. Of course, it hadn’t gone anywhere. He grinned.

That did it. John awoke from his stupor. In his Churchill-teacher voice, he snarled, “Certainly not,” and pantomimed slapping Paul across the face. Paul, obligingly, flung his head back with a yelp. “And next time you cry wolf you’ll get worse, is that clear, boy?”

Paul cowered, laughing behind the arm that shielded his face from future blows. “I’ve only had to do it once. I don’t think it’d work again, not on the same one.”

“But he really bought it?”

Paul shook his head dismissively. “He was a bit thick.”

“Fuckin’ hell, you had me with the girl ones. How’d you do that?”

Paul let out a sputtering laugh, glancing over at John as if to gauge whether he was joking. “Need a bit of prep…”

“Oh, yeah?” John lunged for Paul’s crotch, his clawed hand promising to tweak Paul into mezzo-soprano range.

“Get off me!”

John found it hard to argue with Paul’s demand, punctuated as it was by a pillow to the face. While John spit feathers, Paul clambered off the bed to the record player and put on a Little Richard disc.

“‘Scuse me for askin’,” John huffed, but Paul waved it away reassuringly.

“Sound carries up here, you know.” The record wailed its high notes, and Paul echoed them with a shake of his hair. “Helps me get in range,” he added bashfully.

“So what do you do?” John perched on the edge of the bed. “Study one girl and—and parrot her? You ever heard Genevieve sneeze?” She was in his year at art college and often found her way into his head when he had time to himself.

Paul nodded. “Ginger girl? She’s like…” Without prelude, he cupped his hands before his face and sneezed. It was like an act of ventriloquism; someone else’s voice came out of him. Gen’s voice, note for note, perfect. He’d even scrunched his eyes shut and let his hair toss a little bit, as if to immerse himself in the character. Perhaps it was a necessary part of his method.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” John had been sorely unprepared. His body reacted to the sound identically to the real thing. His mind still hadn’t caught up.

Paul rolled his eyes a bit, but he couldn’t squash a smile. “You pick up this and that.”

“Iris?” John said, half insensible with curiosity and greed, hardly daring to hope.

“Ooh,” Paul clucked appreciatively, “horrible tease, is Iris.” He fanned the air delicately, appearing to lose control even as John looked on. He pinched his nose and squelched what should have been a sneeze, but finished as more of a strangled chirp.

John’s vision swam slightly. “And if we’re lucky?”

Paul, who never missed a cue, fairly exploded with an un-strangled sneeze that could have been Iris on tape.

John groaned loudly, clutching both hands over his heart as he collapsed on the bed. Run through with Cupid’s arrow. “Oh, she’s a cracker.” He was vaguely conscious of exposing himself by lying prone. His train had long left the station, there was nothing to be done about that. Well—not nothing.

“What about Bardot?” John’s hand had a slight tremor as his palm rubbed over his zipper. “Think her mascara’d run?”

“Probably just from…the itch.” Paul’s voice sounded distant, as though he were part of another ventriloquist act.

“Yeah?” John panted. He undid his belt, pulled down his zip, and cupped himself, feeling his body heat thrum through soft cotton. His lip caught briefly in his teeth.

“Mind?” he asked plainly, raising his head for a moment to look Paul in the eye.

Paul shook his head, well before he seemed to know what he was answering. But he offered no complaint.

Still, John didn’t think he fancied being watched by a wax statue. “Well, don’t just stand there. Bloody creep. In or out.”

Paul was in. As the bed dipped, John slivered one eye open to watch him sit with his back against the wall. The chain-link bracelet on his left hand jangled softly. 

John’s imagination began churning, as did his wrist. “Brigitte,” he lowed, already breathless.

“Brigitte,” Paul breathed.

“You’re blowin’ smoke in her face. Big, fat cigar.”

“She…says stop.”

Paul didn’t sound confident, but John thought it was the most delicious thing he’d ever heard. He felt his heart go double-time, his brow scorch and dampen with sweat. “She…she gets her finger up like this—stop her poor pretty nose from tickling so bad.” With his left hand, John jammed his first finger under his own nose, and he felt the lethal ugliness of it straight away, the bare vulgarity that had him feeling he was nearing the crest. “But it’s no good, ah fuck. She’s cryin’ off her makeup, and she—” 

A single chime of desperate breath: Paul inhaled, his voice high. 

“She…” John wasn’t planning to say it, didn’t know if he had the faculties to shape the word. But it started to materialize without him. At his shoulder, Paul sucked in another Bardot-breath and it immediately caught in his throat, making him cough rapidly.

“My throat, sorry, ‘s murder,” he quickly said, not that John could hear him. John barely had time to yank the hem of his t-shirt up under his chin before he came in hot pulses over his stomach. He gave a rattling groan, not out of ecstasy but from the way the room spun. It’d snuck up on him.

“Sorry,” Paul said, whispered.

John was so exhausted, it was all he could do to remember what house they were in. “...Sneezes,” he finished sleepily, without opening his eyes.

A trembling sigh escaped Paul. John listened to the springs squeak as Paul stiffened on the mattress and found pity in his heart. Could there be nothing private in this house, nothing sacred? One last Oh, a seize of movement, and he too was still, but for his distance-runner panting.

Sleep tried to settle over John’s too-warm face, drooping his eyelids. He straightened up with a deep breath and smoothed down his shirt. “Listen.”

Paul sprang from the bed as if his ass were made of rubber. “Yeah?” he said casually, fastening his pants.

John tried to laugh at the marvel of science before him, the combination of man and squirrel. All that came out was a heavy breath. “Have you got any tape left?”

“Loads. Why?”

John played with his belt buckle. “Just thinking.” His gaze drifted to the window. It was getting dark.

“I’ll call the Mirror.”

John gave another weak scoff. “Come over’ere and say that.”

“Oh, in my own bed, in my own room, you mean?” Paul’s full weight came down on John’s leg as he dropped like a sack of flour onto the mattress. John yowled. He jabbed his fingers into the dip of Paul’s waist in self-defense, then in sheer sick amusement when Paul began to giggle and convulse. Pleas for mercy and bids for escape were thwarted when John got his arm around Paul’s shoulders, holding him fast.

They stopped.

John’s body cried out for rest. The pressure of Paul against the front of him was a draught, warm and strong. It’d been ages since John needed a glass of hot milk to get to sleep. “Have your bed back, then,” he said, and didn’t move.

“I wasn’t kicking you out.” Paul was still—motionless. “We’re having sausages.”

John heard we and thought of McCartney Senior, and that was enough to get him vertical again. He hated parents. His own, other people’s, it didn’t matter. It was John’s deeply held belief that every child would be better off if their parents had never shared a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night. “Yeah,” he said, creaking and groaning like an old man as he climbed over Paul to find his footing on the floor, “but what’s your brother gonna eat?”

Paul laughed. “John, it’s fine—”

“See you down the docks.” John opened the window. Jim wasn’t home, but he wasn’t keen to run into him in the doorway. “And, uh…How the fuck d’you say it in French? A tes vous…a tes souhaits, baby,” he offered, banking that Paul wouldn’t know what it meant. He didn't look back to see whether the translation had gone through.

The walk home was a strange twilight. So Paul was of that ilk. It shouldn’t have surprised John; he and Stuart found each other easily enough, so it couldn’t exactly be some kind of rarity. And as if that weren’t enough, he dabbled in the performing arts too. It almost wasn’t fair. But John wasn’t discouraged. They could make something of this. With his writing, and Paul’s vocal talents—and all right, he conceded, Paul’s editorial advice—they could corner the market. Find some perverts to sell to, even. John wondered what color his Rolls-Royce would be.

Stuart was waiting for him as soon as he opened the door. “Well?”

John brushed past him. “Well, what?”

“Did you get it?”

John stalled, uncomprehending. When realization dawned on him, he fisted both hands into his hair and bellowed, “Fuck!”

Stuart shouted something in response. John was too busy kicking over the wastebasket to hear.

Halfway across town, Paul slipped three pieces of paper into his pillowcase, nestled the pillow into the oaken chest, and closed the lid.

#if you find any historical inaccuracies in this. roll them up and smoke 'em

[cellarfulofnose]

hello fans and lurkers :) brief intro to my upcoming post:

i'm getting back into J/P kink fic, but this time in a slightly different setting than the knowing me, knowing you-niverse. in this one, set during john's residence at art college, john and stuart are in a casual relationship and both have the fetish. things become more complicated when they realize paul does too. not only that, but john writes fetish fic and paul records wavs. they decide to explore that—what could go wrong?

(sorry diehard johngirls: no snz content from him in the first chapter! but the series may continue...)

[cellarfulofnose]

poison headache

The story of Maggie’s Farm comes to life in a series of diary entries from the mid-’60s. Twenty-nothing poet Bob Dylan works on the McCawell farm under the iron fist of Joseph “Pa” McCawell, his pious wife “Ma” Edith, and their harebrained son Willie. Maggie McCawell, the boss’ coarse daughter, seems to have her sights on Bob, but he only has eyes for Joan, a lovely servant girl. 

March 4, 1965

They moved me from the cabin into Danny’s old room. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know till today it’s been sitting empty all this time. It was around Christmastime that he went and got married or ran away or something. I’d marry the first girl who passed by if I thought it’d get me out of here. It’s supposed to be sowing season, but the rain’s so bad the fields are mud. I lost both boots in the north field and walked back in my socks. My only hope is that a boot bush’ll spring up in the summer. With my luck they’ll all be two sizes too big. I guess I better start saving newspaper now.

Danny’s room is nothing fancy. There’s a desk by the window and a big wardrobe. It’s small, but it’s better than six guys in five cots and one hammock, rolling over three people every time you toss and turn. They said Danny packed up and left. The room smells like he might’ve died in it. Or something did, anyway. I haven’t had the guts to open the wardrobe.

We can’t plow without compacting the soil, so I’ve been doing inventory. Started two days ago and I haven’t even finished with the cans. There’s walls of them. Pa McCawell is always going on about the Reds and making the servant girls duck and cover. I guess if there really was an atomic blast we’d be all right, food-wise. I wear a can opener clipped to my belt now. Willie said it makes me look like I’m fixing to kill a man, and if I ever try anything funny he’ll be on me like ugly on an ape. Didn’t make me take it off though. I think it scared him pretty good. I lost my knife in a tree when I first got here, so this is the next best thing.

I hope I'm sick. My throat itches and my nose is running, and now this cough won't go away. It comes in spells, I can't breathe for a couple minutes at a time. I hope it's a good old rollicking case of influenza. Or bronchitis or pneumonia or any of your old standards. You start spitting green around here and you get the day off—if you're lucky. I couldn't have been luckier the last time I had a fever. McCawell didn't want to pay the doctor so they gave me to Joan. I talked about her last week and probably a month before that. The half-Mexican kitchen girl. She’s always singing. You hear everybody say that if she’s got breath to sing, she must not be working hard enough, but she gets her work done just as well as anybody else. When I was laid up, she got my fever down and kept me on mullein tea that knocked all the crap right out of my lungs. It was like having Clara Barton nurse you, she was so good, and her black hair parted in the middle.

Joan’s something else. She’s pretty but I don’t know how to describe it. She looks old fashioned, from another time. I got here maybe a year after she did, and I feel we used to know each other before that. Before time. Like we were twin stars, or two little twin girls in the Levant. I think she knows it. She let me pick her guitar once.

Joan got sick too the last time she was taking care of me. I must’ve given it to her. She stopped singing for days, and when she started again, her voice sounded different. I don’t suppose she ever forgave me. If Pa hands me over to her again, I don’t think she’ll be too happy to nurse me, and I don’t blame her. Well, I hope it’s just a little cold or something that’ll go away in a day or two. No sense in bothering her about it.

March 5, 1965

The rain’s stopped. Willie got into a heated debate with Charlie and a couple field hands over the sowing. We’re so behind on planting, he said they better start to plow, but Charlie said they’d never get the tractor out of the mud if they started before it dried out a little. Willie blew his top and climbed up in the tractor himself. It took him fifteen minutes to figure out how to get it moving and all four mules to haul it out of the mud. You never saw his Ma so mad. I heard her tan his hide when they got back to the house, but she didn’t mention the tractor once. She was yelling at him for swearing like a sea dog in front of Maggie and the servant girls. I’ve heard Maggie say worse on a Sunday in Lent.

Willie’s lucky McCawell weren’t home. He left before dawn to make the stock auction in town, otherwise he would have made a jacket out of that boy. Ma is gonna raise hell to Pa when he gets back. Last time Willie got in hot water, he had to advance Danny two weeks' pay to keep him from running and telling McCawell. I guess Charlie gets the payout now, and he'll distribute it as he sees fit. 

I don't care about money if I can't sleep. I was up half the night last night sneezing. I didn't even get a break from the cough. If this is a cold, it's unlike any I ever had. No aches, chills, nothing. Just this feeling like the air’s heavy with dandelion wisps and they're all trying to take root and bloom in my nose. 

There were a couple hours in the middle of the day where it wasn’t too bad. Don’t ask me how I managed to get out of bed, but once I made it through the cans and started inventorying the boxes, I wasn’t sneezing anymore. Better for Joan, I thought, we’d both get off easy. But then right after supper it started again, just as bad as it ever was. I have to pause in my writing just to catch my breath. The cough is ugly but it’s not deep, just stubborn. No point in trying to get a day off out of it. McCawell would say I sounded fine in the house and that he ought to put me to work after supper too, since it seems to cure what’s ailing me.

There’s more to say but I can’t go on writing. This sneezing is taking it out of me. Not much to be done but to sleep it off, though I don’t know how I’ll get to sleep tonight. I was sleeping standing up today, lock-legged, like a horse, from not catching any the night before. I know where Efren keeps the horse pills, if it comes to that. Last time I took those, they woke me up with cold water. Right now that sounds like a vacation. Joan hasn’t noticed how I'm doing, and Ma won’t bless me.

March 6, 1965

It was Ma who called the doctor. Whatever it is, it got bad enough that I came down with a bloody nose. When I started in to sneeze, it wasn't pretty. I was in the barn at the time, so I came in the house looking for something to clean myself up. She saw me with blood all over my face and shirt and about started crying. I must have been coughing then, you couldn't tell her it wasn't consumption. A couple of girls hung around to calm her down. I thought I'd better leave. 

The blood stopped by the time the doctor got here. He took my temperature and listened to my chest and told me I wasn't sick with anything contagious. That meant back to work, but it also meant that Joan was in the clear.  I know it was ridiculous to imagine she might still end up taking care of me. Anyway, it’s better this way.

Then again, who’s to say the doctor knows what he’s talking about? He said “hayfever” and a couple eavesdroppers and I told him it’s not even haying season, and I don’t have any problem when it is. But his advice was that it must be environmental, so I should try and fix my environment. He said to change my bedding to get rid of the built-up dust, then I should stick my head in a steam bath and see if that helps. He’d been anticipating TB, so he didn’t have anything for me to take. Pa said in that case he wasn’t paying. I left when they started arguing, to go strip the bed in Danny’s room.

It was dusty all right. Set me off again pretty good. I gave up halfway through—I didn’t want my nose to start bleeding again. I got the window partway open, and I was just sitting on the half-empty bed when Maggie came in. She heard I wasn’t feeling good and wanted to come see how I was doing. I took out my harmonica because I didn’t want to talk to her. But between the coughs and sneezes, I had to give it up. It’s not that Maggie isn’t a great girl. She’s got a head full of bouncy red curls and freckles all over her body, and she wears tied-off shirts and denim shorts to prove it. I think it’s her eyes that put me off. They’re so big and round and she lines them black. She looks like an owl. Cute, I guess, but I wouldn’t be alone with her in the same room if I could help it.

Maggie said the room smelled like a swamp. That’s one good thing about all this; I can’t smell anymore, so it doesn’t bother me. She got real friendly when I told her that, saying she knew how to clear my head. Maggie likes to fixate on how all the functions of the body are linked to orgasm. She once told me an orgasm is equivalent to eight sneezes. I don’t know how she figured that, but I’d be a lot happier and a lot looser by now if she’d been telling the truth.

She didn’t try to take my pants off. She seemed to want to do it with them on. I told her if she really wanted to help me she’d boil me a pot of water and get me a towel to trap the steam. Most of the guys wish they could lay Maggie, but they’re terrified of incurring McCawell’s wrath. Some of them she flirts with just to piss her daddy off. He threatened Efren with a 12-gauge and now no one wants to look at her. It’s not McCawell I’m scared of. Something about Maggie tells me she’s not satisfied until she sees the white of bone.

I touched her up till she came, the fastest I’ve ever seen her do it. It seemed easier than trying to talk her out of it. Maggie’s not a bad girl. She’s just stuck here like the rest of us, and sex starved. It can’t be good for a girl her age. Once she calmed down, she said Pa had agreed to pay the doctor but he was taking it out of my check. She promised she’d get him to change his mind. I kept telling her she didn’t have to, but she gave me one of her nice handkerchiefs as collateral, with the little MM stitched on the border. I sneezed fresh blood into it within minutes of her leaving. Pa and Maggie and the doctor were all arguing in the kitchen, so I couldn’t boil water for a steam bath, and the bed was still unmade. I ended up just going to the shed for the horse stuff. Taking half a tablet doesn’t knock me out, and they last longer that way besides.

March 8, 1965

A lot has happened so I’ll try to tell the short version.

Danny’s room is growing mold. It’s more mold than room. I don’t know how it didn’t collapse on me. On Sunday I was picking at the wallpaper and a section of it crumbled away. The wall was black. I thought it was ants. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I ran outside and coughed until I lost my breakfast. It was Sunday, so we couldn’t get the doctor, but he couldn’t have told me anything I didn’t know by then. It was the mold that was making me sick. The dust couldn’t have helped either.

Pa won’t get the room repaired. I wasn’t even the one to tell him about the mold. It must have been Maggie or one of the girls. Still, he wouldn’t swallow it. I found out Maggie volunteered to let me stay in her room until they fix Danny’s. Now whenever Pa looks at me he gets all red with fury and can’t speak. I don’t hold it against her. He’d only take it out of my check, anyways.

Willie jumped out of his skin when he saw me. Somehow the news had warped as it traveled, and he’d heard I was dead. I didn’t have any evidence to the contrary, so I let him be.

The real mess happened after I got a few doses of horse pills down. I went to go sleep in the loft when I ran into Joan. She was stealing some wine and said half was mine if I wouldn’t tell. I’d never say no, but horse stuff and booze are like fire and gasoline. We drank the whole jug. I got sloppy. I remember I wanted to kiss her—I don’t know if I did it. I told her I was in love with her and she started crying, saying Maggie was gonna fire her when she found out. She’s jealous that way. I told her again and again I wouldn’t let that happen. Joan kissed my head, and when I woke up it was dark. I waited until dawn, then I marched into the house and told McCawell I quit. He laughed and kept on eating. Even Maggie didn’t say anything. 

I slept in the loft last night, and I haven’t been back in Danny’s room but for a minute to grab a few things. Already, it feels like it’s getting better. I only sneezed once after I woke up this morning. Mostly no cough either. There’s a weird sort of pounding feeling behind my eyes any time that I do cough. Could be nothing, I never know. I was out in the rain a lot yesterday before I ripped up the wallpaper; maybe that’s got something to do with it.

This is my second night sleeping in the loft. It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow. No one knows when it’ll end. Danny’s room is empty again and it looks like it’ll stay that way, but I found another jug of wine squirreled away up here in the hay. Whatever’s coming, I might not end up weathering it alone.

#title is from pledging my time

[cellarfulofnose]

6 person friend/working group character meme

[cellarfulofnose]

Ashes, Ashes

College professor George AU, 1.6k, late 80s/Cloud 9 era.

It was Sean the T.A. who passed back their papers that morning, a black-haired boy with eyes like a rabbit. Melissa hoped he hadn’t been the one to grade them over winter vacation. He was a sharp kid, but he had notions. Visions. Without prompting, he’d claimed to be a witch, and he had intensely specific interpretations of the class syllabus that often resulted in grading disputes. The issue had made its way to Dr. Harrison’s desk only once, whereupon he dismissed the claim that Sean wasn’t fit for the office of Teaching Assistant and sent everybody home with an A-minus. Whispers of nepotism led Melissa to believe that Dr. Harrison had some sort of working relationship with the boy’s father; or—as she secretly suspected, though without evidence—his mother.

Sean handed back the last paper and took his seat in the front row. The Hair (as the professor was colloquially known, owing both to his name and his yesteryear’s shaggy cut) was conspicuously absent from the podium. Melissa cringed inwardly. If Dr. Harrison didn’t show, lecture responsibilities fell to Sean, in which event she really needn’t have bothered to run for her bus that morning. 

The mood in the lecture hall shifted from boredom to restlessness. People sighed, played with their pencils, murmured to each other. A girl in the front row leaned left to ask something of Sean. They were too far away for Melissa to hear the exchange, but Sean shook his head sharply and gave his quick response. Melissa looked at the clock.

When the door groaned open and Dr. Harrison breezed into the auditorium at last, a ripple of straightening rustled through the rows. Melissa felt her tiredness fade. She was operating on an obscene sleep deficit since New Year’s, but she couldn’t help attending to him. Everything about The Hair was interesting, down to his…well. Today’s ‘do looked shaggier than usual. He rarely shaved, and he certainly hadn’t now. He looked a year older, at least, but it suited him. Melissa tended to roll her eyes at comparisons of men to high-shelf whiskey aged in oak barrels, but if it ain’t broke…

Dr. Harrison chugged from a tall thermos cup. “Good morning.”

The good mornings in response were slightly muted. True, it was the day after New Year’s, and of those who had made it in, half were still hungover. But just as many seemed to be taken aback by Dr. Harrison’s gravelly voice. He spoke with a heavenly smoky rasp normally, and an out-of-town accent, such a gift to the ear that he never had to shout to be heard, even with his soft voice. Today the rasp sounded like nails, and he was speaking through a wall of congestion that distorted the very tune of his words. Plainly, he was sick. It sounded like the flu. Quite possibly the plague.

“Happy new year,” ventured one show-off.

Dr. Harrison cleared his throat, satisfied on the third try. “Happy new year. It might feel like no time has passed at all since we were together last. Or…” he coughed into a wool-jacketed sleeve, “not enough, anyway, those of you still trying to sleep off your champagne. But I can assure you the seasons are changing; case in point, the powers that be have delivered my semi-annual sinus infection.” He snuffled as if for emphasis, which seemed to invite another cough. He swiped at his nose, which was beginning to look pink, and continued. “For the scientifically minded—though if that’s you, I’m not sure what you’re doing in a comparative religion class—don’t worry, I am definitively not contagious.”

As Dr. Harrison dabbed at his nose with a balled-up tissue he’d produced from his sleeve, he cast his eyes around his audience. Melissa felt strangely horrified when they lighted on her. If possible, she didn’t want him to know she was watching. It seemed too private, too intimate. By the most amateur opinion, he should be in bed. She’d never dream of slinking into class in the state he was in, and just forget about teaching. Secondhand embarrassment, and the uneasy sense that they were witnessing something they shouldn’t, had her looking down, chewing her lip to avoid grimacing outright. Even avoiding his gaze felt wrong. She couldn’t stand the idea of him assuming she was just disgusted, selfishly preoccupied about getting sick.

“I can see some of you don’t buy that.” A smile was audible in his voice. Melissa dared not look. “O ye of little faith? Well, good. That’s who I want in my class—skeptics.”

Melissa had to smile. She felt brave enough to look at the red pen that scarred her essay. A sigh of relief—the handwriting was Dr. Harrison’s. Good intro, it said. Fine, but not very constructive. One or two silly grammar mistakes, borne of changing part of the sentence without properly deleting the old syntax. Her stomach ached. This was only the first page. Dr. Harrison recorded grades on the very last page, for reasons having to do with privacy and, as she’d come to learn, his dramatic streak.

“Who can tell me where we…”

Melissa thought she heard him gasp, and she looked up instinctively, just as she would alert to a sudden movement. She couldn’t make sense of what she saw at first, Dr. Harrison tugging on his lapel to pull the right breast of his jacket over his mouth and nose. That is, until he let out a soft sneeze into it, then another slightly less soft.

The lecture hall boiled with a hundred-odd students clamoring Bless you. Melissa couldn’t say it. She thought she might melt from the embarrassment.

“No, hang on, hang on,” Dr. Harrison gurgled. He sniffed and asked, “What do we say in here?”

“...Gesundheit,” came the guilty reply.

“That’s better.” After every phrase, Dr. Harrison blew his nose into a ball of sleeve-tissues. “Non-denominational. German, therefore—efficient.” 

Unable to look at his face, Melissa watched his hands. Even after tucking away his well-used tissues, he went on touching the podium, no hand sanitizer or anything. There was a true act of faith; his behavior did seem to indicate non-transmissibility. She looked again at his handwriting on her paper and wondered what else had touched it.

Dr. Harrison began the lecture, but not two sentences in, he ground to a halt. His gaze was somewhere in the middle distance, under a slight frown, as if he’d forgotten something.

He blinked and said in a level voice, “I’m going to sneeze again.”

A quiet giggle flew around the room. Dr. Harrison only fueled it by continuing. “When, you ask? That’s what I’d like to know too. I’ll…” Melissa thought she heard a catch in his voice, but he went on undaunted. “I’ll make an exception. A little teaching moment. Religious blessings okay. Has anybody got one?”

His hand drifted, scanning for volunteers. One or two hands went up. Dr. Harrison pointed at a girl in the middle. “Get it ready.” As before, the line earned a laugh, but this one was quiet, brief, followed quickly by rapt silence. The Hair was rushing his words, starting to squint. When Melissa saw his nose wrinkle, she looked away. She couldn’t imagine anything so mortifying. 

The silence gnawed. Melissa felt a drop of sweat roll down her side. Then he gave a faint exhale—no one moved—Melissa wished for a meteor.

“ahh-Choo!”

The lecture hall broke out in raucous applause. The girl said something but was drowned out.

Clutching his wad of tissues to his nose, Dr. Harrison motioned for everyone to hush. “What’s that?” He held his free hand to his ear.

“Alhamdulillah,” she repeated, a breathy lilt.

“Beautiful. Thank you.” Dr. Harrison drank deeply from his thermos cup. “But I’ll have to ask you to hold your applause until the very end. I promise you this performance is not over.” 

As he lectured, Melissa sought refuge in her essay. Where she had compared harvest myths to beliefs surrounding death, a big red bracket wrapped its claws around the paragraph. Next to it was written If you enjoy this I have a book for you to read. She tried to imagine him holding office hours in his current circumstances—then tried to quit imagining it.

“And with the cosmic ocean, we often see this—”

Dr. Harrison interrupted himself to sneeze twice, two quick bursts, which made it doubly impossible for Melissa to concentrate on her essay.

“Bless—” a freshman girl started to blurt, before censoring herself with an audible smack of hand over mouth.

Dr. Harrison made a waving gesture, conveying either wait or stop or don’t worry about it, too preoccupied with sneezing again to address her directly. “It’s all right,” he finally got out through a thick bundle of tissues, and blew his nose. “I’ll allow it. There’s great spiritual release in ritual chanting. Anybody got one? Shout ‘em out.”

A cacophony of multilingual blessings rattled the rafters. Dr. Harrison echoed each, pointing as he fielded them and tacking on a Thank you here and there.

“Bless you,” Melissa whispered, lost in the din. Her face felt scorched.

“All right. Business.” Dr. Harrison swallowed and his hand lifted to his throat, clearly unaware he was doing it. His voice was going. To say it would be gone by the end of lecture was a generous estimate. 

He sighed. “How long ‘ve we got left of this class, Sean?”

Sean consulted a pocket watch. “Hour and twenty-one minutes.”

Dr. Harrison turned his eyes heavenward. “Fuck.”

As laughter bubbled around her, Melissa lifted the corner of her paper to peek at the last page of her essay. Just a glimpse. A quick scratch of red writing. 

Her score had three digits. More was written beside it. 

Melissa flipped her paper upside-down on her desk, her heart pounding, and went hunting for a pen of her own. She'd decided to pay attention.

---

(If you're a fan of professor AUs, and George in particular, be sure to check out the Professor Harrison series by thecherrytrees on AO3. It's like a love letter to DILFy George and definitely got me on board with the premise.)

[cellarfulofnose]

not snz but i hear you guys like bob. go here for 8.8k words of dylarrison music sex

[cellarfulofnose]

original post

+my additions (from It's the Best I Can Do)

[cellarfulofnose]

Kore Nani Reading Companion (contains spoilers)

Look at the title of the work. What language is it? In what context is it most famously used, and what animal is associated with it? Why do you think the author chose this title? Does it work as a literal translation, or is the context necessary?

When Yoko greets Paul, she immediately tells him where to find John. What does this tell you about the nature of their interactions up to now? Does Paul seem enthusiastic about the change in their dynamic? Why do you think this might be?

What might John mean when he says Yoko is "not that kind of witch"? Based on her response, how do the other Beatles treat her due to her witchcraft? How does she feel about being placed in this role, and what does she see as her true role as a witch?

Why might the fact that "John's sounded awful healthy lately" have led Paul to believe Yoko could help him with his own problem?

Yoko tells Paul she is just a "conduit" for magic and cannot conjure at will. List three pieces of evidence from the text that some greater external force is the source of Yoko's power.

Based on Paul's reaction to the transformation, how does he feel about his new form? Why might he feel this way?

Do you think the piano was really out of tune? Why else might Paul have made this remark?

What is Yoko's "trick" that she can perform without any magical items? Based on John's reaction, do you think he is aware of this ability of hers? Why do you think she decided to perform the trick when she did?

What are some instances when Paul feels obliged to purr? Do these instances have anything in common? Why might he try not to purr at those times?

Why did Paul ask Yoko to teach him to hunt? What does this imply about his imagined prospects for his future living situation? Are there any other options he might have considered?

Why did Paul run away? How does Yoko know this? Does John know?

How is it that Paul got what he wanted in the end? Do you think his wish was granted in the way he expected?

EXTRA CREDIT: Analyze Paul's behavior around sneezing (his own and John's). Compare to other stories you have read this year. Do you think that this version of Paul has any sexual hang-ups related to sneezing? How does that change the context of his interactions with John and Yoko?

kore nani

Yoko knew he was there when the candle flame flickered. Her beeswax candle always warned her when someone was nearby, fluttering at the barest sigh of change in air pressure. To protect his pride, she waited to turn around until he cleared his throat and rapped on the doorframe.

"Hello, Paul," she said, kindly but not warmly.

Paul raised his eyebrows in greeting. "All right?" He leaned against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets, grinding the toe of one shoe against the ground as if to crush out a cigarette butt.

Yoko turned back to her workbench. "John's back in the house. He should be in the sitting room."

"Well, it's you I was hoping to find."

Yoko set down her sachet of herbs. She spared a glance at the beeswax candle, but it held steady. All right—she'd entertain this. "Oh, yes?"

"Need a potion, you see." Paul's head bounced as he spoke, like he was trying very hard not to mock her. Clearly this was difficult for him. But that didn't excuse his brash manner. How many times had John told him she's not that kind of witch, mate; in front of her, no less? And still she was expected to act as the group's personal apothecary.

"My cauldron's in the shop at the moment," she said, and a few glass vials snickered.

Paul didn't like that. "A spell would do," he said loftily, and sniffed.

"I've told you..."

"Look, I know, I'm sorry it's not very politically—you know, but I just—I just, I really need...help." He rubbed the heel of his hand against his nose and sniffed again, sharply. "And I know you do that sort of thing, so."

Yoko pursed her lips to keep from smiling. This was the closest she would come to seeing him grovel, she knew. "If I knew what you wanted, maybe I could help."

Paul wavered, then shrank slightly, ducking his chin into his shoulder, swiveling a quarter-turn away. After a long moment, he straightened out again, looking ruffled. He sniffled. "John's sounded awful healthy lately." There was a permanent crease in his brow. His moustache didn't do much to hide the way his nose crinkled.

"How do you mean?"

Paul's focus was clearly elsewhere. He blinked several times, covered his mouth. It looked like thoughtfulness...if one didn't know Paul as Yoko did.

He inhaled suddenly, and even the books seemed to hold their breath.

"chh'rrSCHue!"

The beeswax candle blew out in a puff of smoke, then quickly reignited. Skittish thing.

"Blessings," said Yoko, at the same time Paul snuffled, "'Scuse me." Just as well. He didn't like it when she said that.

Paul cleared his throat louder than necessary, just to show he was a man, and sniffed. "Get the picture?" Another barely-restrained tilt of his head.

"Oh," Yoko said. "I see. Yes, I give John something for his hayfever. He asked me to. But it's not magic."

"Science?"

Yoko smiled. "Art."

Paul gnawed at a hangnail, which seemed to keep him from scoffing and rolling his eyes. "Well. Got anything for cat allergies, have you?"

Yoko didn't have time to disguise her surprise. He was giving in, just like that? He'd fought John (and, indirectly, her) on this for months. Since her little spinal cracker, she'd been showing up to sessions and generally spending most of her time in feline form. It relieved some pressure on her back and allowed John to tote her around. Never mind that he positively couldn't keep his hands off her when she was a cat. She hadn't known Paul couldn't do cats—who would have told her? It was a very convenient wedge between them. From the first sneeze and the flat Hello, Yoko that always followed when she and John entered the studio in the morning, it was clear she wasn't winning hearts and minds.

Paul had been absolutely adamant. She goes. John, God save him, had told Paul to shove it and had set up camp with her on the other side of the room. But they couldn't play with an ocean between them, so Paul learned to stiff upper lip it. 

He still complained when he had John's ear, though. She does it on purpose. Leaves hh-h—hair on your—on your clothes. Haven't you noticed? John didn't entertain the notion. Never confronted her about it.

So what had prompted Paul to seek solutions from her?

And what was making her go along with it?

"I can't create whatever I want," she warned. "I'm just a—"

"Conduit, I know. But can you..." Paul looked helpless. "Can you try?"

Yoko wet her lips. "Let me see what I can do.”

Paul audibly softened, and the candle flame danced as he sighed. Yoko reached for the mortar and pestle she’d used for John’s concoction; clean, of course, but perhaps retaining some memory of their last task. She propped open one of her larger tomes. The floorboards creaked as Paul tried to crane over her shoulder for a peek. To him, the pages would’ve appeared unmarked.

As luck would have it, all the ingredients were in stock. She selfishly tried to cling to the names of the herbs and oils as they passed through her, the amounts, but her mind faded as blank and crisp as the pages as soon as she was finished with each dose. No matter—she doubted she’d have to make this twice.

Paul sneezed again, muffled by his sleeve. Yoko eyed the tweezers in her hand and caught the flash of a memory: she needed cat hair, so she’d let her tail materialize for a moment. She smiled discreetly. “Sorry I didn’t warn you. I didn’t know myself.”

“No,” Paul said dismissively. He sniffled, then chuckled softly. “Could say the same, really.”

Yoko giggled. She scraped the poultice from her mortar to dissolve in a steel cup of water. Paul held out his hand, but she drew back. 

“Visualize your desire.”

Paul tensed his jaw, but he obligingly closed his eyes.

“Think about why you want it.”

Paul’s nose twitched, and he swiped at it. “Don’t have to imagine.”

Yoko went on, heedless. “Think about what you would do if you get exactly what you ask.”

Paul swallowed.

“If that’s the path you want…” Yoko placed the cup in his hands. “Take it.”

Paul’s eyes fluttered open. They were starting to look a bit sticky with histamine, but there was something unmistakably sharp about them. He raised his eyebrows high, and the cup likewise. “L’chaim.”

He drank in gulps, then sputtered and halted. His face was warped in utter disgust, his fist plastered over his lips as if he’d lose his lunch otherwise. After a while, he gathered his strength, filling his lungs with a shaky breath through his nose, only to gag pitifully, twice, when he tried to swallow again.

Yoko made a face of concern, though he couldn’t see her. “You’ve got to get the hair down, too. I’m sorry it’s unpleasant.”

Paul nodded in dogged resignation, sucked in a breath, and downed the rest of the brew. A wicked shudder tore through him. The candle popped and sparked.

Apart from that, nothing happened.

Paul made a show of examining his palms and the backs of his hands. “Well,” he said, unimpressed.

“How do you feel?”

He gave an experimental sniff and winced. “Still all…” He gestured to his face and sniffled once more, with feeling.

“Hmm.” Yoko dipped a finger in the residue left on the mortar and smelled it. Dandelion. That was interesting.

“Oh!” The steel cup clattered to the ground.

She whipped around to look at Paul, who was frozen with an expression of horror and utter disbelief. The candle dribbled great gobs of wax. He was feeling something he’d never felt—indeed, never imagined.

Yoko started to ask him what it was like, but he listed sideways and wilted wordlessly to the floor. 

Her stomach gave a funny lurch—there’d been no sound when he hit the ground. He seemed to wither to nothing…

A sleek black cat crawled out of Paul’s clothes, where they lay in a pile on the floor.

Yoko stared without comprehending. Then she let out a shocked laugh. “Oh shit.” 

She turned frantically to the book. It thumped bashfully shut on its stand.

Paul the cat meowed noisily at her. No sooner had the sound rang out than he launched into the air, startled to hear it come from him. He lifted one paw, examined it, and tilted his head back to check the facts in the mirrored ceiling.

Yoko watched his slit pupils blow to black eclipse as he recognized the cat as his own reflection.

The sound that followed could have woken the dead. Like an amateur violinist screeching his bow carelessly over the strings, Paul howled until every black hair stood straight out from his wiry body.

“Now…” Yoko held her hands at arm’s length and took a deep breath. “I know this is not…ideal—”

Paul pounced, shrieking all the way.

Yoko screamed. His claws clung to her, and only his blind rage was keeping him from finding a place to sink in his teeth. She made an attempt to yank him away, but he nipped at her hand. Yoko lost her temper. She snarled into her own cat form and tackled him to the ground. Once they struggled apart, she slapped him on the head.

Paul recoiled in surprise. She slapped him again, and he lunged at her, but this time she was ready. She caught his scruff between her teeth and bit down. Paul rumbled and came to a halt.

Once she was satisfied he wouldn’t strike her again, Yoko released him. “Now, listen,” she growled.

“You’re fucking sick.” Paul trembled with fury. His outer coat stood inches above his skin.

“Paul, it’s not my fault. When you visualized—”

“Me?!” Paul roared. “You’re saying this is my bloody fault?”

Yoko tried to explain. “The magic—”

“Said it wasn’t magic, didn’t you, you devil bitch—”

Yoko faked a swipe at his face and snapped her jaws. Paul ducked away, but his left paw started to rise in defense. He was already listening to his instincts. Impressed, she narrowed her eyes and lowered her paw. “Your nose.”

Paul’s ears perked, then turned backward once more.

“It’s not itching, is it?”

His whiskers twitched as he tasted the air. Confusion crossed his face. Anger lashed his tail. But there was no hint of irritation.

Yoko sat back and curled her tail around her paws. “I’m sorry this was the answer to your wish.”

“I didn’t wish for this.” Paul’s mouth curled in a snarl. “Change me back.”

The candle flame sizzled and spat and burned blue.

Yoko stood firm. “I can’t take back what I give.”

Paul dove at her again. She arched her back, making herself as big as she could, and hissed. Paul yowled spitefully and scampered out the door.

Yoko rushed into the main house—human—and was greeted by the din of Paul caterwauling.

“Can’t understand you, love,” John said casually, hardly looking up from his page of notes.

Paul leapt up on the coffee table just as Yoko walked into John’s line of vision. He startled slightly, looking back and forth between her and the cat. “Thought that was you.”

Paul screeched with all his might.

“He can’t understand you, Paul,” said Yoko, making Paul turn around and hiss.

John snorted. “Why the fuck d’you call it Paul? Gonna do voodoo on him, are you?”

“That’s your Paul, dear.” Yoko folded her arms.

John twisted his lips into a falsely sweet smirk and fluttered his lashes, evidently still convinced this was some sort of joke. “Pretty thing he is, too,” he lilted.

Yoko said nothing.

The smile fell from John’s face. Paul padded anxiously back and forth.

“What did you do, love?” John whispered.

Yoko sat opposite him and recounted the events from beginning to end. Paul squalled loudly from the first word, but when it became clear that she had embellished nothing, omitted nothing, he was content to rumble softly and shake himself a few times.

“Can’t you turn him back?”

Yoko wrung her hands in her lap.

John looked pained. “They won’t tell you how to do that, eh?”

“I’d be seen as ungrateful to ask.” She looked at Paul. “But I am sorry.”

Paul turned round and bounded down, chirruping as he landed on the floor. 

John watched Paul’s tail wander out of sight, then shook his head. “Why would he go to you?”

“Don’t you think it was for you?” Yoko sat next to him. 

“How do you figure that?” John didn’t sound convinced.

“He’s trying to show you he doesn’t want to fight us anymore.”

A slow, stumbling melody rang out from the next room. Yoko and John followed to find Paul perched on the piano bench, tentatively pressing the keys with his front paws. He didn’t hit the mark every time, but it sounded baroque.

John chuckled. “What’ve you got for us, Maestro?”

Paul turned his head and meowed once, then went back to the keys.

Yoko laughed. John looked at her quizzically. “He says, ‘Bloody thing’s out of tune.’”

“Oh, he does, does he?” John strode over and scooped him up under the shoulders. Paul squeaked, certainly not expecting that. He still looked frazzled when John set him gently on the rim, just above the keys.

“Come on, then, bassman,” said John, and started clanging away.

Paul looked at the piano. He looked at John. Slowly, hesitantly, as if dipping them into a pond of unknown depth, Paul reached his paws down and tapped out a few bass notes to complement John’s leading chords.

John laughed wildly. He swayed and sang. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir…”

Paul meowed along, which set John laughing so hard he couldn’t play.

“John, love.”

His head swiveled to look at her.

“I’m going to lie down,” Yoko said.

“Yeah?” John stood from the bench and picked up his guitar. Paul trailed around his ankles curiously. “Yeah, hang on, I’ll be right there.” 

He plopped down on the sofa and motioned to his neck. As he adjusted his guitar, she draped herself over his shoulders and did her best to settle in.

“Here. Sit here.” 

Yoko opened one eye to see Paul climb atop John’s guitar and come to an uneasy rest in the valley curve of the body.

“Are you all right with the noise, love?” Now he was addressing her. 

“Yes, that’s fine,” she said softly. He didn’t have any trouble understanding her in her feline form, and he began to play.

‘Julia’. One of the Rishikesh ones. It sounded elementary to her now, the fingerpicking style, now that he’d graduated to more expressive playing. But its simplicity was its beauty. She closed her eyes.

Paul cooed in astonishment, and John chuckled appreciatively. There wasn’t anything quite like lying on a guitar as it was being played, feeling pulses of sound cross-hatch like pond ripples and strum your very bones. John had something of a rough touch too. She knew Paul could hear the strings bend, hear his hardened skin scrape the coiled metal.

Paul smacked his lips and huffed. Yoko recognized his heavy breaths as trying to override the need to purr. Soon it became too uncomfortable, and he buzzed softly, respectably, like an engine with a muffler.

“Julie—”

John seemed to forget he wasn’t supposed to be singing. Neither of them minded; sleep was already too close at hand to care. But he stopped, and played even softer. Yoko sighed.

…

When she awoke, her small feline body was entwined with Paul’s. John was gone. In his absence they appeared to have snuggled together, forming an all-black yin and yang. Amused, she waited for the change in her heart rate and breathing to rouse him.

Paul opened his eyes not a minute later, yawned and shook his head. He flinched with surprise to find them cuddling, but he extracted himself with feline grace.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking the excitement out of his fur. “Bit drowsy, having a warm coat on all the time.” He attempted a laugh, but his tail was whipping.

“I suppose I’m used to it,” Yoko offered.

Paul mrrrped in acknowledgement, but his mind was somewhere else. She lengthened her spine in a deep stretch and nestled back into a ball. 

Seeing her relax was enough to prod a question out of Paul. “So, when are you gonna teach me to hunt, then?”

Yoko laughed a soft growl. “You won’t need that. Unless you mean foxes, and I can’t ride.”

“Sharpen my claws. Lick myself an’ that?”

“Do you plan to be stuck in this cat’s body the rest of your life, Paul?”

Paul blinked angrily. His ears swiveled, turning this way and then that. “Well, you can’t change me back, can you. It’s not as if I’ve any great choice in the matter.”

“I can’t take its effects back. But I did not give you a potion to trap you.”

John entered from the kitchen just then, having finished tea. Paul didn’t seem to notice, so Yoko went on.

“Remember what you visualized.” She had to choose her words carefully. “The effects will last as long as it takes to deliver what you asked for.”

“Well.” Paul’s ears were straight back. “I’m around you right now, and I can’t say I’m feeling any irritation at all—”

Now John was directly above Paul, and he still hadn’t noticed. Yoko drew from her bag of tricks. This one needed no herbs or talismans to work. She winked twice in John’s direction.

John’s eyes nearly crossed with the sudden gasp he was forced to take.

“...kgNxT’shhyew!” He let out a shuddering sigh.

Paul leapt twice his height into the air. Only his instincts saved him from a fall, and he landed with the mildest thump on the carpet.

“Shit,” John laughed softly, and snorted back into his throat. “Sorry, kid.”

“‘S fine,” Paul said quickly, too wired to remember John couldn’t understand him. He shook his head so hard his ears flapped in the wind. He did it again and panted to keep the purr out of his throat. Partway into kneading the cushions, he seemed to realize John still didn’t know he was forgiven, so he padded around John’s feet and clumsily nudged him with his head.

John took this as an invitation to pick him up.

Paul chattered but didn’t struggle. Not even as John sank into the sofa and placed Paul on his lap.

“What d’you wanna watch?” John asked lazily. He picked up the clicker and switched on the television. Paul gave a few small hums. 

“What’d he say?” John asked Yoko.

“He didn’t say anything.”

No one said anything, in fact, for a long while after that, as Some Like It Hot came through the set. Yoko took her human form to swallow some medication. Paul neither moved nor spoke. 

John began to pet his head. Paul blinked rapidly, but he didn’t shake John off. John scratched the base of an ear, and Paul angled his head into the touch. When John scratched under his chin, his eyes pressed shut. Yoko watched the screen. 

Before a minute had passed, Paul was purring. Loudly. John's trained hand stayed busy. With no effort, he knew where to lavish and where to avoid, how to crook his finger just so. Paul droned on. Yoko could feel his purrs rattle through her chest. 

John started yawning hard, several seconds at a time. He was yawning more often than not, shielding his mouth with a hand, letting his thin frame go stiff and then liquid. All the while he was stroking Paul. When one particularly tiring yawn got ahold of him, he scaled back the petting, just resting a hand in Paul's fur and letting his fingers scratch. 

The purring waned as Paul studied John to see what had changed. His whiskers twitched. He lay his head back down and the low vibrations returned, almost as strong as ever. Paul yawned too, baring all his teeth. John never broke rhythm. 

Paul's ear flicked. One, now the other. He shook his head. John, probably without any conscious thought, picked up on the discomfort and stopped, laying his hand to rest on Paul's back. The movie was over; it was just adverts. 

Paul meowed to no one in particular and rose to his feet on John’s lap. John curiously lifted his hand, and Paul fled in a soft rain of padded footsteps. 

John looked to Yoko for answers. She sighed. 

“He said it's too hot in here.”

…

Clouds gathered outside, making it look like twilight even though sunset was hours off yet. Yoko would have had no luck finding Paul in her human form, but her feline sense of smell led her to the middle of a field out behind the garden. When she got close enough, she could hear him mewing weakly. 

Paul’s ears perked at her arrival. He didn’t get up. “Not big on tears, cats?” he said.

“Unless you have something in your eye.” She lay near him. His tail rustled the grass, but he stayed where he was.

“I know how you feel.”

Paul growled. “No, you fucking don’t.”

“I’m not saying I’ve felt what you feel. I don’t have to. I can read it.” Paul eyed her warily, and she went on. “All your feelings are showing, whether you mean to or not. In your tail, in your ears. Your whiskers.”

With visible effort, Paul grew still.

Yoko began, “When you were with him—”

“Why can’t you just fucking—leave us alone!”

Paul was on his feet and snarling, hackles raised. But he didn’t coil in preparation to spring. He crossed over his body, guarding himself, nursing a wound. He wanted nothing less than he wanted a fight.

“I couldn’t.” Yoko did not stand up. “I can’t.”

Paul’s tail swished in agony. He took a step but couldn’t move himself further. 

“You love him,” Paul said, defeated. “Don’t you.”

“Yes,” Yoko whispered. Cats didn’t cry, but her heart still felt caught in her throat.

Paul lay down in the grass. “And he loves you.”

Yoko settled in next to him and began grooming his head.

After a few strokes of her rough tongue, Paul let out a laugh that was as close to weeping as he’d ever sounded. “Oh, Yoko.”

He loves you too, she said in the language they now shared, however briefly. With her body and her scent. Paul shut his eyes.

He let out a sudden howl.

Before Yoko could react, she found herself sitting on Paul’s lap. He was human. He was fully naked.

Yoko’s keen ears heard something like distant laughter, clear and crystalline, like glass knocking together.

Paul sighed in amazement and relief as he turned over his hands, felt his chest, moved his toes. But his relief lasted only a moment.

“Oh, no,” he muttered, his voice already shaking, his nasal edges rounded off. Yoko scrambled off his lap and changed her form, but it was too late. The time he’d spent inundated with cat hair had caught up to him with a vengeance—the tiny flecks of skin, his and her saliva. And now his only defense was gone.

Paul fought it for longer than Yoko imagined he could’ve, his breath see-sawing dangerously, making her hair stand up. In the end, it was his downfall; as the sneeze built up, it only got bigger…and bigger…and—

“hh’AHSHhoo!! —’AHSshhuh!”

Paul crossed his legs, trying with what was left of his senses to cover his nose and his modesty at the same time. He gasped so sharp and high, he hit a shrill note of girlish surprise. Then he buckled in half and sneezed without stopping. It was tempo-perfect, automatic: frantic gasp, violent sneeze, once more from the top. Yoko lost count. Somewhere around the one-minute mark, he found enough breath to swear hoarsely. The apology took him two or three tries, and Yoko answered by stuffing a silk scarf into his hands. Not as absorbent as cotton, mind, but in that same vein, it didn’t hold dander very well.

Thank you was split across two free breaths, when he could catch them. The sneezing fit seemed to peter off once he’d blown his nose, but that meant Yoko had a clear view of his other symptoms.

His neck and chest and arms were scalded with pink. His face was one big blotch, the tears still coming too hard to keep his eyes open. Poor man, Yoko thought.

At least he got what he wanted.

“It’s good to have you back with us, Paul,” she said aloud when she was confident she’d be heard.

Paul laughed, which made him cough, which made him sneeze. “Jesus Christ,” he gurgled into the scarf.

“Come on,” she said, and heaved a deep breath as she rose to her feet. “I have a few more potions for you.”

“Oh for, for God’s…s-sake—!”

“Blessings. And don’t worry, they’re not to be drunk. Water with bicarb and salt to wash out your sinuses. And eucalyptus oil for your bath.”

Paul struggled to a standing position with both his hands occupied, and made a shooing gesture with the scarf before clamping it to his face. “Walk in front.”

Yoko pursed her lips and didn’t argue. As she passed him, her eyes flicked over his trim waist and soft, pale hips.

Just as John’s would, she was sure, when she walked him back into the house.

#this is entirely for fun thank you for indulging me

[cellarfulofnose]

kore nani

Yoko knew he was there when the candle flame flickered. Her beeswax candle always warned her when someone was nearby, fluttering at the barest sigh of change in air pressure. To protect his pride, she waited to turn around until he cleared his throat and rapped on the doorframe.

"Hello, Paul," she said, kindly but not warmly.

Paul raised his eyebrows in greeting. "All right?" He leaned against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets, grinding the toe of one shoe against the ground as if to crush out a cigarette butt.

Yoko turned back to her workbench. "John's back in the house. He should be in the sitting room."

"Well, it's you I was hoping to find."

Yoko set down her sachet of herbs. She spared a glance at the beeswax candle, but it held steady. All right—she'd entertain this. "Oh, yes?"

"Need a potion, you see." Paul's head bounced as he spoke, like he was trying very hard not to mock her. Clearly this was difficult for him. But that didn't excuse his brash manner. How many times had John told him she's not that kind of witch, mate; in front of her, no less? And still she was expected to act as the group's personal apothecary.

"My cauldron's in the shop at the moment," she said, and a few glass vials snickered.

Paul didn't like that. "A spell would do," he said loftily, and sniffed.

"I've told you..."

"Look, I know, I'm sorry it's not very politically—you know, but I just—I just, I really need...help." He rubbed the heel of his hand against his nose and sniffed again, sharply. "And I know you do that sort of thing, so."

Yoko pursed her lips to keep from smiling. This was the closest she would come to seeing him grovel, she knew. "If I knew what you wanted, maybe I could help."

Paul wavered, then shrank slightly, ducking his chin into his shoulder, swiveling a quarter-turn away. After a long moment, he straightened out again, looking ruffled. He sniffled. "John's sounded awful healthy lately." There was a permanent crease in his brow. His moustache didn't do much to hide the way his nose crinkled.

"How do you mean?"

Paul's focus was clearly elsewhere. He blinked several times, covered his mouth. It looked like thoughtfulness...if one didn't know Paul as Yoko did.

He inhaled suddenly, and even the books seemed to hold their breath.

"chh'rrSCHue!"

The beeswax candle blew out in a puff of smoke, then quickly reignited. Skittish thing.

"Blessings," said Yoko, at the same time Paul snuffled, "'Scuse me." Just as well. He didn't like it when she said that.

Paul cleared his throat louder than necessary, just to show he was a man, and sniffed. "Get the picture?" Another barely-restrained tilt of his head.

"Oh," Yoko said. "I see. Yes, I give John something for his hayfever. He asked me to. But it's not magic."

"Science?"

Yoko smiled. "Art."

Paul gnawed at a hangnail, which seemed to keep him from scoffing and rolling his eyes. "Well. Got anything for cat allergies, have you?"

Yoko didn't have time to disguise her surprise. He was giving in, just like that? He'd fought John (and, indirectly, her) on this for months. Since her little spinal cracker, she'd been showing up to sessions and generally spending most of her time in feline form. It relieved some pressure on her back and allowed John to tote her around. Never mind that he positively couldn't keep his hands off her when she was a cat. She hadn't known Paul couldn't do cats—who would have told her? It was a very convenient wedge between them. From the first sneeze and the flat Hello, Yoko that always followed when she and John entered the studio in the morning, it was clear she wasn't winning hearts and minds.

Paul had been absolutely adamant. She goes. John, God save him, had told Paul to shove it and had set up camp with her on the other side of the room. But they couldn't play with an ocean between them, so Paul learned to stiff upper lip it. 

He still complained when he had John's ear, though. She does it on purpose. Leaves hh-h—hair on your—on your clothes. Haven't you noticed? John didn't entertain the notion. Never confronted her about it.

So what had prompted Paul to seek solutions from her?

And what was making her go along with it?

"I can't create whatever I want," she warned. "I'm just a—"

"Conduit, I know. But can you..." Paul looked helpless. "Can you try?"

Yoko wet her lips. "Let me see what I can do.”

Paul audibly softened, and the candle flame danced as he sighed. Yoko reached for the mortar and pestle she’d used for John’s concoction; clean, of course, but perhaps retaining some memory of their last task. She propped open one of her larger tomes. The floorboards creaked as Paul tried to crane over her shoulder for a peek. To him, the pages would’ve appeared unmarked.

As luck would have it, all the ingredients were in stock. She selfishly tried to cling to the names of the herbs and oils as they passed through her, the amounts, but her mind faded as blank and crisp as the pages as soon as she was finished with each dose. No matter—she doubted she’d have to make this twice.

Paul sneezed again, muffled by his sleeve. Yoko eyed the tweezers in her hand and caught the flash of a memory: she needed cat hair, so she’d let her tail materialize for a moment. She smiled discreetly. “Sorry I didn’t warn you. I didn’t know myself.”

“No,” Paul said dismissively. He sniffled, then chuckled softly. “Could say the same, really.”

Yoko giggled. She scraped the poultice from her mortar to dissolve in a steel cup of water. Paul held out his hand, but she drew back. 

“Visualize your desire.”

Paul tensed his jaw, but he obligingly closed his eyes.

“Think about why you want it.”

Paul’s nose twitched, and he swiped at it. “Don’t have to imagine.”

Yoko went on, heedless. “Think about what you would do if you get exactly what you ask.”

Paul swallowed.

“If that’s the path you want…” Yoko placed the cup in his hands. “Take it.”

Paul’s eyes fluttered open. They were starting to look a bit sticky with histamine, but there was something unmistakably sharp about them. He raised his eyebrows high, and the cup likewise. “L’chaim.”

He drank in gulps, then sputtered and halted. His face was warped in utter disgust, his fist plastered over his lips as if he’d lose his lunch otherwise. After a while, he gathered his strength, filling his lungs with a shaky breath through his nose, only to gag pitifully, twice, when he tried to swallow again.

Yoko made a face of concern, though he couldn’t see her. “You’ve got to get the hair down, too. I’m sorry it’s unpleasant.”

Paul nodded in dogged resignation, sucked in a breath, and downed the rest of the brew. A wicked shudder tore through him. The candle popped and sparked.

Apart from that, nothing happened.

Paul made a show of examining his palms and the backs of his hands. “Well,” he said, unimpressed.

“How do you feel?”

He gave an experimental sniff and winced. “Still all…” He gestured to his face and sniffled once more, with feeling.

“Hmm.” Yoko dipped a finger in the residue left on the mortar and smelled it. Dandelion. That was interesting.

“Oh!” The steel cup clattered to the ground.

She whipped around to look at Paul, who was frozen with an expression of horror and utter disbelief. The candle dribbled great gobs of wax. He was feeling something he’d never felt—indeed, never imagined.

Yoko started to ask him what it was like, but he listed sideways and wilted wordlessly to the floor. 

Her stomach gave a funny lurch—there’d been no sound when he hit the ground. He seemed to wither to nothing…

A sleek black cat crawled out of Paul’s clothes, where they lay in a pile on the floor.

Yoko stared without comprehending. Then she let out a shocked laugh. “Oh shit.” 

She turned frantically to the book. It thumped bashfully shut on its stand.

Paul the cat meowed noisily at her. No sooner had the sound rang out than he launched into the air, startled to hear it come from him. He lifted one paw, examined it, and tilted his head back to check the facts in the mirrored ceiling.

Yoko watched his slit pupils blow to black eclipse as he recognized the cat as his own reflection.

The sound that followed could have woken the dead. Like an amateur violinist screeching his bow carelessly over the strings, Paul howled until every black hair stood straight out from his wiry body.

“Now…” Yoko held her hands at arm’s length and took a deep breath. “I know this is not…ideal—”

Paul pounced, shrieking all the way.

Yoko screamed. His claws clung to her, and only his blind rage was keeping him from finding a place to sink in his teeth. She made an attempt to yank him away, but he nipped at her hand. Yoko lost her temper. She snarled into her own cat form and tackled him to the ground. Once they struggled apart, she slapped him on the head.

Paul recoiled in surprise. She slapped him again, and he lunged at her, but this time she was ready. She caught his scruff between her teeth and bit down. Paul rumbled and came to a halt.

Once she was satisfied he wouldn’t strike her again, Yoko released him. “Now, listen,” she growled.

“You’re fucking sick.” Paul trembled with fury. His outer coat stood inches above his skin.

“Paul, it’s not my fault. When you visualized—”

“Me?!” Paul roared. “You’re saying this is my bloody fault?”

Yoko tried to explain. “The magic—”

“Said it wasn’t magic, didn’t you, you devil bitch—”

Yoko faked a swipe at his face and snapped her jaws. Paul ducked away, but his left paw started to rise in defense. He was already listening to his instincts. Impressed, she narrowed her eyes and lowered her paw. “Your nose.”

Paul’s ears perked, then turned backward once more.

“It’s not itching, is it?”

His whiskers twitched as he tasted the air. Confusion crossed his face. Anger lashed his tail. But there was no hint of irritation.

Yoko sat back and curled her tail around her paws. “I’m sorry this was the answer to your wish.”

“I didn’t wish for this.” Paul’s mouth curled in a snarl. “Change me back.”

The candle flame sizzled and spat and burned blue.

Yoko stood firm. “I can’t take back what I give.”

Paul dove at her again. She arched her back, making herself as big as she could, and hissed. Paul yowled spitefully and scampered out the door.

Yoko rushed into the main house—human—and was greeted by the din of Paul caterwauling.

“Can’t understand you, love,” John said casually, hardly looking up from his page of notes.

Paul leapt up on the coffee table just as Yoko walked into John’s line of vision. He startled slightly, looking back and forth between her and the cat. “Thought that was you.”

Paul screeched with all his might.

“He can’t understand you, Paul,” said Yoko, making Paul turn around and hiss.

John snorted. “Why the fuck d’you call it Paul? Gonna do voodoo on him, are you?”

“That’s your Paul, dear.” Yoko folded her arms.

John twisted his lips into a falsely sweet smirk and fluttered his lashes, evidently still convinced this was some sort of joke. “Pretty thing he is, too,” he lilted.

Yoko said nothing.

The smile fell from John’s face. Paul padded anxiously back and forth.

“What did you do, love?” John whispered.

Yoko sat opposite him and recounted the events from beginning to end. Paul squalled loudly from the first word, but when it became clear that she had embellished nothing, omitted nothing, he was content to rumble softly and shake himself a few times.

“Can’t you turn him back?”

Yoko wrung her hands in her lap.

John looked pained. “They won’t tell you how to do that, eh?”

“I’d be seen as ungrateful to ask.” She looked at Paul. “But I am sorry.”

Paul turned round and bounded down, chirruping as he landed on the floor. 

John watched Paul’s tail wander out of sight, then shook his head. “Why would he go to you?”

“Don’t you think it was for you?” Yoko sat next to him. 

“How do you figure that?” John didn’t sound convinced.

“He’s trying to show you he doesn’t want to fight us anymore.”

A slow, stumbling melody rang out from the next room. Yoko and John followed to find Paul perched on the piano bench, tentatively pressing the keys with his front paws. He didn’t hit the mark every time, but it sounded baroque.

John chuckled. “What’ve you got for us, Maestro?”

Paul turned his head and meowed once, then went back to the keys.

Yoko laughed. John looked at her quizzically. “He says, ‘Bloody thing’s out of tune.’”

“Oh, he does, does he?” John strode over and scooped him up under the shoulders. Paul squeaked, certainly not expecting that. He still looked frazzled when John set him gently on the rim, just above the keys.

“Come on, then, bassman,” said John, and started clanging away.

Paul looked at the piano. He looked at John. Slowly, hesitantly, as if dipping them into a pond of unknown depth, Paul reached his paws down and tapped out a few bass notes to complement John’s leading chords.

John laughed wildly. He swayed and sang. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir…”

Paul meowed along, which set John laughing so hard he couldn’t play.

“John, love.”

His head swiveled to look at her.

“I’m going to lie down,” Yoko said.

“Yeah?” John stood from the bench and picked up his guitar. Paul trailed around his ankles curiously. “Yeah, hang on, I’ll be right there.” 

He plopped down on the sofa and motioned to his neck. As he adjusted his guitar, she draped herself over his shoulders and did her best to settle in.

“Here. Sit here.” 

Yoko opened one eye to see Paul climb atop John’s guitar and come to an uneasy rest in the valley curve of the body.

“Are you all right with the noise, love?” Now he was addressing her. 

“Yes, that’s fine,” she said softly. He didn’t have any trouble understanding her in her feline form, and he began to play.

‘Julia’. One of the Rishikesh ones. It sounded elementary to her now, the fingerpicking style, now that he’d graduated to more expressive playing. But its simplicity was its beauty. She closed her eyes.

Paul cooed in astonishment, and John chuckled appreciatively. There wasn’t anything quite like lying on a guitar as it was being played, feeling pulses of sound cross-hatch like pond ripples and strum your very bones. John had something of a rough touch too. She knew Paul could hear the strings bend, hear his hardened skin scrape the coiled metal.

Paul smacked his lips and huffed. Yoko recognized his heavy breaths as trying to override the need to purr. Soon it became too uncomfortable, and he buzzed softly, respectably, like an engine with a muffler.

“Julie—”

John seemed to forget he wasn’t supposed to be singing. Neither of them minded; sleep was already too close at hand to care. But he stopped, and played even softer. Yoko sighed.

…

When she awoke, her small feline body was entwined with Paul’s. John was gone. In his absence they appeared to have snuggled together, forming an all-black yin and yang. Amused, she waited for the change in her heart rate and breathing to rouse him.

Paul opened his eyes not a minute later, yawned and shook his head. He flinched with surprise to find them cuddling, but he extracted himself with feline grace.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking the excitement out of his fur. “Bit drowsy, having a warm coat on all the time.” He attempted a laugh, but his tail was whipping.

“I suppose I’m used to it,” Yoko offered.

Paul mrrrped in acknowledgement, but his mind was somewhere else. She lengthened her spine in a deep stretch and nestled back into a ball. 

Seeing her relax was enough to prod a question out of Paul. “So, when are you gonna teach me to hunt, then?”

Yoko laughed a soft growl. “You won’t need that. Unless you mean foxes, and I can’t ride.”

“Sharpen my claws. Lick myself an’ that?”

“Do you plan to be stuck in this cat’s body the rest of your life, Paul?”

Paul blinked angrily. His ears swiveled, turning this way and then that. “Well, you can’t change me back, can you. It’s not as if I’ve any great choice in the matter.”

“I can’t take its effects back. But I did not give you a potion to trap you.”

John entered from the kitchen just then, having finished tea. Paul didn’t seem to notice, so Yoko went on.

“Remember what you visualized.” She had to choose her words carefully. “The effects will last as long as it takes to deliver what you asked for.”

“Well.” Paul’s ears were straight back. “I’m around you right now, and I can’t say I’m feeling any irritation at all—”

Now John was directly above Paul, and he still hadn’t noticed. Yoko drew from her bag of tricks. This one needed no herbs or talismans to work. She winked twice in John’s direction.

John’s eyes nearly crossed with the sudden gasp he was forced to take.

“...kgNxT’shhyew!” He let out a shuddering sigh.

Paul leapt twice his height into the air. Only his instincts saved him from a fall, and he landed with the mildest thump on the carpet.

“Shit,” John laughed softly, and snorted back into his throat. “Sorry, kid.”

“‘S fine,” Paul said quickly, too wired to remember John couldn’t understand him. He shook his head so hard his ears flapped in the wind. He did it again and panted to keep the purr out of his throat. Partway into kneading the cushions, he seemed to realize John still didn’t know he was forgiven, so he padded around John’s feet and clumsily nudged him with his head.

John took this as an invitation to pick him up.

Paul chattered but didn’t struggle. Not even as John sank into the sofa and placed Paul on his lap.

“What d’you wanna watch?” John asked lazily. He picked up the clicker and switched on the television. Paul gave a few small hums. 

“What’d he say?” John asked Yoko.

“He didn’t say anything.”

No one said anything, in fact, for a long while after that, as Some Like It Hot came through the set. Yoko took her human form to swallow some medication. Paul neither moved nor spoke. 

John began to pet his head. Paul blinked rapidly, but he didn’t shake John off. John scratched the base of an ear, and Paul angled his head into the touch. When John scratched under his chin, his eyes pressed shut. Yoko watched the screen. 

Before a minute had passed, Paul was purring. Loudly. John's trained hand stayed busy. With no effort, he knew where to lavish and where to avoid, how to crook his finger just so. Paul droned on. Yoko could feel his purrs rattle through her chest. 

John started yawning hard, several seconds at a time. He was yawning more often than not, shielding his mouth with a hand, letting his thin frame go stiff and then liquid. All the while he was stroking Paul. When one particularly tiring yawn got ahold of him, he scaled back the petting, just resting a hand in Paul's fur and letting his fingers scratch. 

The purring waned as Paul studied John to see what had changed. His whiskers twitched. He lay his head back down and the low vibrations returned, almost as strong as ever. Paul yawned too, baring all his teeth. John never broke rhythm. 

Paul's ear flicked. One, now the other. He shook his head. John, probably without any conscious thought, picked up on the discomfort and stopped, laying his hand to rest on Paul's back. The movie was over; it was just adverts. 

Paul meowed to no one in particular and rose to his feet on John’s lap. John curiously lifted his hand, and Paul fled in a soft rain of padded footsteps. 

John looked to Yoko for answers. She sighed. 

“He said it's too hot in here.”

…

Clouds gathered outside, making it look like twilight even though sunset was hours off yet. Yoko would have had no luck finding Paul in her human form, but her feline sense of smell led her to the middle of a field out behind the garden. When she got close enough, she could hear him mewing weakly. 

Paul’s ears perked at her arrival. He didn’t get up. “Not big on tears, cats?” he said.

“Unless you have something in your eye.” She lay near him. His tail rustled the grass, but he stayed where he was.

“I know how you feel.”

Paul growled. “No, you fucking don’t.”

“I’m not saying I’ve felt what you feel. I don’t have to. I can read it.” Paul eyed her warily, and she went on. “All your feelings are showing, whether you mean to or not. In your tail, in your ears. Your whiskers.”

With visible effort, Paul grew still.

Yoko began, “When you were with him—”

“Why can’t you just fucking—leave us alone!”

Paul was on his feet and snarling, hackles raised. But he didn’t coil in preparation to spring. He crossed over his body, guarding himself, nursing a wound. He wanted nothing less than he wanted a fight.

“I couldn’t.” Yoko did not stand up. “I can’t.”

Paul’s tail swished in agony. He took a step but couldn’t move himself further. 

“You love him,” Paul said, defeated. “Don’t you.”

“Yes,” Yoko whispered. Cats didn’t cry, but her heart still felt caught in her throat.

Paul lay down in the grass. “And he loves you.”

Yoko settled in next to him and began grooming his head.

After a few strokes of her rough tongue, Paul let out a laugh that was as close to weeping as he’d ever sounded. “Oh, Yoko.”

He loves you too, she said in the language they now shared, however briefly. With her body and her scent. Paul shut his eyes.

He let out a sudden howl.

Before Yoko could react, she found herself sitting on Paul’s lap. He was human. He was fully naked.

Yoko’s keen ears heard something like distant laughter, clear and crystalline, like glass knocking together.

Paul sighed in amazement and relief as he turned over his hands, felt his chest, moved his toes. But his relief lasted only a moment.

“Oh, no,” he muttered, his voice already shaking, his nasal edges rounded off. Yoko scrambled off his lap and changed her form, but it was too late. The time he’d spent inundated with cat hair had caught up to him with a vengeance—the tiny flecks of skin, his and her saliva. And now his only defense was gone.

Paul fought it for longer than Yoko imagined he could’ve, his breath see-sawing dangerously, making her hair stand up. In the end, it was his downfall; as the sneeze built up, it only got bigger…and bigger…and—

“hh’AHSHhoo!! —’AHSshhuh!”

Paul crossed his legs, trying with what was left of his senses to cover his nose and his modesty at the same time. He gasped so sharp and high, he hit a shrill note of girlish surprise. Then he buckled in half and sneezed without stopping. It was tempo-perfect, automatic: frantic gasp, violent sneeze, once more from the top. Yoko lost count. Somewhere around the one-minute mark, he found enough breath to swear hoarsely. The apology took him two or three tries, and Yoko answered by stuffing a silk scarf into his hands. Not as absorbent as cotton, mind, but in that same vein, it didn’t hold dander very well.

Thank you was split across two free breaths, when he could catch them. The sneezing fit seemed to peter off once he’d blown his nose, but that meant Yoko had a clear view of his other symptoms.

His neck and chest and arms were scalded with pink. His face was one big blotch, the tears still coming too hard to keep his eyes open. Poor man, Yoko thought.

At least he got what he wanted.

“It’s good to have you back with us, Paul,” she said aloud when she was confident she’d be heard.

Paul laughed, which made him cough, which made him sneeze. “Jesus Christ,” he gurgled into the scarf.

“Come on,” she said, and heaved a deep breath as she rose to her feet. “I have a few more potions for you.”

“Oh for, for God’s…s-sake—!”

“Blessings. And don’t worry, they’re not to be drunk. Water with bicarb and salt to wash out your sinuses. And eucalyptus oil for your bath.”

Paul struggled to a standing position with both his hands occupied, and made a shooing gesture with the scarf before clamping it to his face. “Walk in front.”

Yoko pursed her lips and didn’t argue. As she passed him, her eyes flicked over his trim waist and soft, pale hips.

Just as John’s would, she was sure, when she walked him back into the house.

[cellarfulofnose]

tonight i'll be stayin' here with you

@smallsnzplz prompt #4. I once had a girl (or, should I say, she once had me)...

1961

The Bitter End wasn't crowded. Alice came there to get away from the throngs that steamed up the cafés. There was music sometimes. Not all the time. If anyone got up to play, the whole place settled into curious silence for a while, then went back to their books. There weren't any world-shaking acts that got up to play there. As far as she'd ever seen.

These days Alice thought she was about tired of stars. If someone got up to play their guitar and sing in front of everybody, as far as Alice was concerned, it better be to buy a bed for the night. Or a mouthful of soup. That was the only reason she wrote. People came to Greenwich thinking it was Hollywood.

It was Bohemia. They didn't last long.

The boy who'd been sitting near her creaked to his feet and slung a guitar strap over his shoulder. It'd been a while since anybody had been on stage—and it wasn't even a stage, really. Just a milk stool and a microphone. But Alice couldn't stir herself to feel annoyed, not even as he yoked a harmonica brace over his neck. A little music wouldn't go amiss right now. She didn't peer too close, but he looked like a busker. He wouldn't take up too much of her time.

He introduced himself to the room with a voice like a tin can, and she had to look.

Under his too-big newsboy cap, Alice's eyes flew to the first thing she always noticed on a man. His nose. It was like none she'd ever seen. At once rounded and sharp, long and slim with a lovely down-curve. It looked almost too smart on his soft cherub face, and he looked like he knew it. There was a tightness to his light eyes. Bleared and weighed down by that jewel of a nose. And he sang right through it. Rang like hollow wood.

She couldn't look away.

The café glanced at him when he got up, then returned to their books. When he began to sing, some heads turned back in surprise. But now he was a couple songs deep and they were really listening. Alice let her coffee go cold.

He stayed a little longer than he maybe should've. Though he wasn't a regular, Alice thought the boy could tell he had this place's attention in a way they didn't usually give it. Certainly, he had hers. But his set ended, as all sets do, and he ambled back to his seat. Nearer hers than she remembered. His hat, full of coins, jangled like a tambourine as he set it on the table. A heavy sound. He'd done well. A hot shower was in his future tonight.

His hand slipped inside his coat and fumbled for something. Alice didn't allow herself to imagine—when he pulled out a red bandana and cupped it to his nose, a bright leap of shock caught her. He blew his nose earnestly, easing his head side to side for good measure. She was close enough that she heard a small hum in his voice, a sigh of effort, like that soft sound took some serious doing. She didn't even try not to stare.

Too careless. The boy locked onto her gaze as he emerged and blinked self-consciously. He sniffed—his nose twitched. Alice was transfixed. As the red bandana disappeared, the tip of his nose remained pink. His eyes, too, even. He looked half-dead of the flu, poor boy.

Alice was in love with him. She bought him a hot bowl of soup.

---

1966

The boy slipped her grasp—she didn't mind. Others came and went.

Seasons changed. Soon enough, the name Bob Dylan, household around these neighborhoods, met the face from her memory and became one.

And what a face it was. He'd grown into his nose by now, his brow and cheeks and chin so arrowhead-sharp you'd cut your hand to slap him.

Alice wanted to cut her hand. She paid for a show or two, but when they became too expensive, she figured out how to let herself in. She talked her way out of a ticket for trespassing. The crew came to know her by face, if not by name, and that suited her fine. She talked her way in with the girls that seemed at home in his dressing room. What's he like? Then she saw for herself.

They'd always usher her out just as the show ended. One day they must have figured her half-hearted protests weren't worth the trouble. There she stayed—and there he was.

"Who's the chick?" asked Bob.

It was several minutes after he opened the door that he deigned to acknowledge anyone in the room. But Albert was quick.

"She said she knew you."

Bob exhaled smoke as he regarded her. Three soft jets through his mouth and nostrils. "Knew me?" He squinted suspiciously—or maybe he was just nearsighted. But the more he looked at her...

Alice gave him the coy once-over she'd seen the other girls do. Different men, but she had a hard time believing they were that nuanced. She smiled, barely.

"Oh...right." Comprehension dawned on Bob's pale, peaked face. His eyes wandered over her. A smile cracked his lips. He hid it with another pull on his cigarette. "Well, why didn't you say so?" he added, with a glance at Albert.

"You know her?"

"Yeah, oh, yeah." Bob's eyes crinkled with the lie. He didn't recognize her from the Bitter End. No chance. But he knew exactly who she was. Her own mischief reflected back at her in his eyes. She would make an honest man of him.

"Yeah, I know 'er. Yeah, we just, uh." Bob was next to her now. Alice didn't rise from the couch, hardly rose her head to look at him from under her lashes. "Haven't had a lot of time to catch up." Bob seemed to stall for a moment, then stroked her cheek with the side of one finger. Asking.

Alice's eyes fluttered shut. She wasn't acting.

His finger hooked under her chin, and she opened her eyes to look him in the face. He seemed keen enough to take her right there, in front of God and everybody. She almost didn't protest.

Somehow, they got into a car with all their clothes on. The second the door shut, Bob went straight for her breasts. Alice struggled to pull the divider shut, then covered his hands with hers. He muttered 'S your name, anyway? in between kissing the life out of her, and once she caught her breath, she told him. Twice. His short-term memory seemed to be on the fritz.

Perhaps it was contagious. Alice nearly forgot why she was there, until he buried his nose against her neck in the elevator and her chest roared with butterflies. He nuzzled and hummed and she probably could've stayed there for a week, but he felt slightly cold and wet on her skin, and she just had to drag him up for another kiss.

They stumbled backward together, the hall—the door—the bed. She made herself pull away from his mouth, his hands, and went for her purse. Bob was all questions.

"Hey, c'mon," he needled. "What're you...Hey, I ain't gonna give you nothing." Bob pivoted, seeming to think she was hunting for a condom. "What're you looking for?"

Instead of answering, Alice pulled the round tin from an inner pocket and unscrewed the lid. Menthol filled the air. As she lifted out a healthy, thimble-sized deposit and began to arrange it across the metal tray on the nightstand, she felt Bob appear over her shoulder. She pretended not to notice.

"Hey, gimme some of that. What is that?"

A strange order in which to ask those questions, she thought. His misfortune and none of her own. "It's pretty strong," she warned, truthfully.

Bob scoffed.

"You might not like it." Alice continued to shape neat little piles.

"Bullshit." When she didn't react, "Aw, baby, c'mon. I'm hip." His chin rested on her shoulder. A dog begging for leftovers under the kitchen table. "Let me have some of that."

Alice kept her smile small. "Suit yourself."

Bob didn't wait. He vanquished the first pile in one great, rushing snort. "What is this, some kinda..." The next two took a few tries each. Diminishing returns.

"Herbal remedy." Alice blushed.

"Oh, that's–" Bob coughed, sharp, from his throat. Snuff! The tray was clean, save for a few specks. "That's cute." He finished pawing at his nose with a final, sweeping sniff. There was a moment of oceanic calm behind his frosty eyes.

Before, "Ow, fuckin'—shit—" Bob cringed like he'd suffered a jab to the eye. His hand flew to his nose.

"Are you all right?" Alice dared to ask.

"It's so—" Bob lost the end of his sentence to a shuddering cough. Then his lungs started to fill in short gasps. Again he gasped, again, again, again, and Alice felt her stomach drop with each one, felt her heart dive, until the line snapped.

He sneezed over the bed, half-blocked by his arm. It almost sounded offended.

"God b–"

Right away, he wrenched another gasp and buckled with an even stronger sneeze.

Alice jumped. The fingers he'd clamped around his nose did nothing to dampen the sudden, cutting sound. She felt herself blush and heat. "Bless you."

Bob sputtered out an urgent sneeze—managed a surprisingly coherent Thankyou, trembled with the coming gasp—and sneezed so wretchedly he let himself drop onto the bed. He still held his nose between his fingers. To keep from quitting the powder, she could only imagine. He wouldn't want to sneeze it out before it got him high.

"Thin walls," Alice warned, on an impulse.

Bob nodded immediately, even as the obvious need to sneeze began to snatch his breath again. His shoulders shook—Alice expected a sound, and there wasn't one, and her stomach flipped over like she'd missed a step on the stairs. He bought it. He was smothering himself into silence on the off-chance someone would hear him through the walls, assume illicit substances, and whip up a drug bust. God.

He did it again—sneezed next to silently. But it seemed to backfire. Once he started, they just kept coming. He was twitching, shuddering, trying not to breathe in or out for fear of letting one slip, until a shaking gasp broke his hold and he couldn't stop the next sneeze from hissing out through his teeth.

"Oh." Alice felt her ears go red.

Or the next, from rupturing out of him with a kick from his chest, loud and violent.

"Bless you." Waves pounded inside Alice's ears. She touched his back tenderly, and her vision swam. "Darling."

Bob groaned. Alice didn't have time to react before his curly head swung into her shoulder. He leaned limp against her, sniffling and sighing with exhausted relief. She cradled his crown and wove through his hair.

She tried to drop her smirk as he finally surfaced, but her cheeks bloomed to see his face. His eyes were flame blue against weeping red. Even his lips seemed reddened, like after a good strong cry. Or a sound kiss.

The powder had nearly worked its way out. To the untrained eye, it looked as if he'd rubbed dirt just under his nose. Above his lip. Alice thought about lending her handkerchief, but his hand appeared to swipe it away—well, to try. Now it just looked like more dirt.

"Mm." Bob's smile was tight, and his eyes darted slightly. Not ashamed, but slightly shy. He sniffled against the block in his head. "So, uh. When's it start kickin' in?"

Alice couldn't help it. She laughed. She hurried to cover her mouth, but Bob wore a sheepish grin, seeming to suspect a joke at his expense.

"Oh, okay. What?"

"What?" She smoothed her face and played coy. "You didn't get enough that time?"

"Well, shit, I don't know. I was hopin' it'd give me a little pep or something." Bob's eyes were watering again, and he looked slightly disturbed. "Made me..." his breath skipped, "sne—sneeze." He recovered in time, but wavered on the edge long enough for Alice to feel the earth move.

He looked a little disappointed that it hadn't come, even. As he glanced up at her in the midst of rubbing his nose, his expression turned distinctly suspicious. "Lookin' at me like that," he murmured, still unable to keep from smiling despite himself.

"You're teasing me."

"I'm teasing—" Bob shook his head, pushing through his disbelief. If anyone was being teased here, his expression seemed to say, it was him. "You want me to sneeze? That'd do it for you?"

Alice shifted. "You didn't seem to mind it so much yourself."

Bob snickered, then laughed again softly as it dawned on him that she was serious. "No, I guess it didn't feel too bad."

"You loved it," Alice accused.

"Yeah?" He grinned. "Maybe you oughta let me try some more..."

Bob reached for the canister, but Alice drew back, just an inch. Bob looked utterly confounded.

"I would," she quickly explained. "Only—"

"Aw, don't be like that."

"No, I would, really..." Bob had started cupping her cheek, her chin, to plead with her. It didn't make speaking easy. "It's just. Like I said, it's an herbal remedy."

"Yeah?" Bob wasn't convinced.

"For colds." Alice tried her best to look concerned. "What if I get sick?"

"Aw, come on, I'm not gonna get you sick." Bob was brushing her hair behind her ears now.

"Yes—" Alice fairly gasped, " well...I'm afraid I just can't spare it..." Managing to disguise her effort, she reached to replace the canister in her purse.

"Hey. Now, you don't want that." Bob held her wrist. There was no power in his grip, but she froze. "You want me to sneeze some more." He sniffed dangerously, roughly—trying to stir up another one? "I know that. Don't put that away." All this he punctuated by stroking her cheek, letting his overlong nails graze her skin, set her face awash with sparks.

Alice opened her mouth to speak. And swallowed. "Well. Maybe if you're very, very good..."

"Mm, good, baby." He pressed a kiss to her cheek, next to his hand.

"...you can have some more later." She replaced the canister and snapped her purse shut.

This was enough to make Bob draw back. He looked bewildered, but he still couldn't wipe the smile off his face. "I'm teasin' you, huh?"

"Kiss me."

Bob's mouth twitched into a wider smile, every moment looking like he might say something, but he only sniffled and leaned in for a kiss.

Alice sighed. He was a wonder to touch. His kisses were ambitious but sincere, and he gasped through their mouths when he couldn't get a breath in his nose. She let him wrap his small frame around her, even as she grew dizzy from all the blood pooling at her center. When she cupped him through his cords, he whined appreciatively and sank his teeth into her lip. She squeaked.

A minute later, though, Bob detached—as she suspected he might. He looked unsure.

"Something wrong?" she panted.

He pawed at his nose. "Don't ask me that like you don't know." Sniff. "I still got a tickle in my nose. I want to—" He sniffed again, looking distracted.

"Do you?" A question to the statement he'd finished, and the one he hadn't.

Bob's ears seemed to perk up. His eyes were wet but focused. "I've been good to you, mama," he ventured. "Haven't I?" An innocent, almost boyish glint of hope.

Alice smiled. She leaned in close. Bob parted his lips, awaiting her kiss. She was pressed against him.

She inclined her head and stuck out her arm, reaching not for a kiss, but for the box of tissues on the nightstand.

As Alice pulled back, purchase in hand, Bob made a sound like a kettle about to boil over. He was champing at the bit—perhaps literally, she thought as she watched his jaw work.

She threw him a line. "There's another way." She plucked a tissue and tried to make quick work of it, twisting from the corner, through her practiced fingertips. "And this way doesn't sting so bad."

"You're—oh." Bob reached down and winced as he gave himself a slightly painful adjustment. "Yeah, I've seen that."

Alice looked up. "Seen what?"

"The, the tissue thing." Bob performed a twisting gesture, a strikingly perfect pantomime of this particular instrument's use.

Oh?

Alice gnawed her lip and looked back down. "Really? Where?"

Bob laughed. "It was John, he showed me. Beatle John, you know him. John."

Alice's heart leapt into her throat. After '61, when she'd given up on the sickly busker from the Bitter End, there was a period...John Lennon. 1963. He had a statue's face. An emperor's profile. She'd wanted nothing more. That nose. And he liked to play around with...and he'd done it in front of Bob...

"He did it to me." Bob gestured again. This time, there was a flick of devilry in it. He knew he had her listening rapt. "Couple a' times, but I got it now. Here, let me do it." He held out his hand.

"Did he really." Alice's heart had plunged from her throat into her stomach. She was breathing harder now, sweating. She didn't hand over the tissue.

Bob giggled, as if he were just seeing the humor in it. "Yeah. Well, I had this bad cold, he was just helping me to, uh." He laughed. "Kinda makes you think, huh? Kinda makes you wonder." He snorted—laughing had knocked something loose. "What he was really after."

"Um..." Alice was panting. "Come here."

Bob saw her brandish the tissue and obligingly stuck his nose out. Very, very good.

She held him by the jaw. He didn't shave too close; his cheeks prickled her fingers. From this distance, she could pick out a few blemishes against his pale skin. Beautiful, she thought. She stuck the wicked point of the tissue just inside his left nostril. And left it there.

Bob rippled with irritation, his face contorting as he fought the urge to snort it out. He twitched his head side-to-side, chasing the bare minimum friction. "You–you gotta—"

"Did you like it?"

Alice barely knew she was going to ask before the question slipped breathlessly past. "When John..."

"Yeah...yeah, I liked it." Bob's voice was light, floaty. He wore a slight frown, his eyes half-shut. His furrowed brow smoothed when he smiled. "I love to sneeze. Feels too good not to. And this cold—" He made a sound of pain and coughed. Alice had wiggled the tool, just a little bit. Just back and forth.

"Go on."

"Um." Bob shut his eyes tight, causing a few teardrops to roll down his right cheek. "I don't remember...what I was—" Now she twitched it again, and kept going, in small pulses, and he couldn't speak through it. His nostrils flared out. His mouth lazed open.

A sharp gasp of warning. Alice stopped. At the very same time, Bob took hold of her thigh. Her jaw dropped to match his. He wavered, fragile as glass. Her skin was on fire.

When it was clear he wouldn't sneeze, Bob surrendered with a light groan. He shook his head, freeing himself from the tool, and glared at her. It was enough to send a chill down her spine.

"What'd you stop for?" he demanded. And sniffled.

"Thought that'd be enough." Her lie ended in a gasp that was nearly a yelp as he gave her thigh a squeeze and slid his hand higher.

"No, you gotta move it around more, get it all the way up there. I'll show ya. Hey." Bob drew her to him with a hand at her back. "Baby, let me show you." Still stroking her thigh. Her blood burned.

Alice swallowed heavily. "You think it's easy with you distracting me?"

"Mm-mm. Don't know what you're talkin' about, babe." He was so close to her that his breath danced over her neck, cooling then warming her. Then she felt his lips. His nose.

Alice forced herself to pull back, certain she'd shatter if she didn't. Wordlessly, she raised the tissue between them. Bob grinned his victory and stuck his nose out.

The first tiny brush of movement had him coughing and staining his cheeks with tears. She wasn't merely teasing now. He was so profoundly affected that, for a while, he didn't try to utter a word.

In an instant, the pitch of his breathing changed. He stammered something that, if allowed to finish, might have been Oh, shit or Oh, Jesus. Instead, he started to sneeze...only to bottle it up into a quiet tremor. He snatched another quick breath and sneezed openly this time, thin and sharp as a willow switch. His hands had been wandering all around her—there was nothing to cover his mouth except her.

"Bless you." Alice could've melted metal.

Bob mopped at his lips and nose with the cuff of his sleeve. He sniffled—a strong effort, but not much got through—and sighed. "Thank you. Thank you, did I get you?" The timbre of his voice had changed to something dull and froggy.

Alice laughed breathlessly and wiped at her face, the front of her blouse. "I'll live."

Bob didn't react except to lean in like he was going to kiss her. But he ground to a halt partway there, dropped his eyes, cleared his throat.

His hand rose above the tops of her stockings.

"Hello." The breath pushed out of her. Bob didn't slow. He followed her smooth skin under her skirt to the hem of her underwear, traced the lace border. Alice's hips moved without her meaning to. She almost wished he wouldn't touch her—she was a swollen mess, he'd know with one touch how depraved she was—but he did. Dead center. She felt the fabric stick. He tested her with a fingertip, and her small shame was engulfed by want. She burned for him to touch her. He must have felt her heartbeat.

Bob let out a faint breath of surprise. "Weren't kiddin', were you?" His glacier eyes locked on hers for a moment, then fell. He felt along her seam with the pads of two fingers, further in, further down.

Alice gasped. She felt sweat and tears gather in her head, fire in her belly. "Bobby." She'd heard her call him that—Joan. The poor woman must have been used to all this. Able to keep her head at times like these. She wouldn't be whimpering, quivering...not from one lousy touch. Not from a couple of sneezes.

"Yeah?" Bob moved in nearer to her. His lips were at her ear. "You want me t'..." He asked with his hand, fine and careful strokes. Alice squirmed.

"Babe—" Bob's voice came out as a rattle. He cleared his throat as gently as he was able, but this close to Alice's ear, it was a rumble. He sniffed. "Baby, you wanna do it to me again?"

Alice drew silent breaths through her open mouth. If she answered she'd break.

"I know you liked it." His mouth twitched on her cheek—a smile. "I like...seein' how you get. Shit..." He was talking so slowly, rubbing her so carefully, Alice had a moment of panic. She couldn't hold out. She twitched away from his hand.

Bob must have thought her hips had bucked of their own accord. He chased her sidestep and stroked her lovingly. "I want to," he added. And sniffled, light and wet.

"Yes." Alice heaved a heartbreaking sigh. She felt the lights of the world dim, felt her heart race. She held his wrist firmly. Bob stopped, and Alice wanted to cry when he did. Her body hurt with want. She ignored the screaming ache and recovered the tissue, fallen on the bedspread.

His hand retreated from her skirt and came to rest on her knee. She saw his fingers and thumb rub together, probably unconsciously, feeling her traces on them.

"Gonna let me do it?"

Just to spite the smug expression on Bob's face, Alice shook her head no.

Bob rolled his eyes, pretending great offense, but he assumed his ready position all the same.

His haughty expression barely flickered when she began to tease at the right side of his nose. He looked defiant, and only more so when the tickle forced him to cringe and weep. This time, he seemed oddly stiff. His cough was like a clenched fist.

"G'nna—"

He was whispering something.

"...Gonna—gonna s-snee—hz...!"

Consciously or not, Bob tightened his grip on her knee as he neared the tipping point. His brow was tightly knit, eyes closed; he couldn't even see her flounder on the spot.

It took one more refrain for Alice to realize he was chanting Not gonna sneeze. Which, judging by his gulping breaths and the way his nose twitched, didn't sound like the truth.

"Oh, really?" Alice lessened her effort slightly. "How do you figure that?"

Bob spent a long while fighting off a sneeze, his breath coming in great bounding gasps, until at last he let out a shuddering sigh of defeat. "Maybe..." He gathered his strength with a heavy sniff and trudged onward. "Maybe I don't want to." He didn't even sound like he had convinced himself.

Alice must have let her disbelief show on her face, because Bob glared at her through his tears and croaked, "Hey, don't slow down."

She let him have it.

Bob winced, then coughed, then swore. He gave little struggling sounds with each breath—coming faster and faster now. Alice's heart was skipping beats. He looked ready to...well.

His hand suddenly slipped in next to hers; to drive her away, she thought. But he just pressed the very edge of a finger under his nose. He wasn't in her way, but still, she tutted. "Cheat."

Bob huffed, perhaps meant to be a laugh or a snappish reply. It only succeeded in chasing away the sneeze that threatened. He groaned.

Heedless of his cheating finger, Alice moved to stick the tissue in his other nostril. As soon as she slipped free, though, Bob made a sound of protest. He shook his head like a dog drying itself off. "Don' stop," he wheezed.

Interested, Alice held back. "I thought you didn't want to."

"I'm tryin' not to, but it feels..."

Alice cried out to feel his hand between her legs again. Too shocked and too hot to even form his name. With clumsy fingers, he felt for lace and drew her soaked cotton to the side.

"You're so wet."

"Fuck, that's..." Alice slapped a hand over her mouth. He traced her cunt, slick and swelling and aching tightly. Her clit. Just a fingertip, but she saw stars. She panted for breath, making the room spin.

"Yeah. C'mon, baby."

Alice had no wherewithal to protest when Bob took hold of her hand and used it to jab the tissue up his left nostril. They both gasped and whined.

"Sorry, honey..." He was moving her hand too, in frantic little circles. He had his own technique. "Can't wait, I can't stand it—" he coughed, "god—!"

He wasn't touching her as faithfully as he had been, but it didn't matter; Alice was trembling. A whisper of a touch would finish her.

Bob exhaled vocally, heaved a sharp gasp—again and again, he dragged her over jagged ups and downs—then he sneezed! They came crashing out on top of each other, three in the space of one, tossing his hair, shaking the bed. As if he were so desperate to let them free, he couldn't wait for one to end before the next began.

It wasn't the triple-sneeze that did her in. It was how he quaked once he'd let go of it. An audible, hair-raising shudder. It was a filthy fucking sound, and Alice quickly followed it, coming on his hand, barely touched, rocking with need.

"Oh," Bob sighed, groaned. "Look at you, you're so fuckin' pretty. Yeah, hey. Baby, god..."

Alice chased his praises with mewling moans. She couldn't summon speech. When her throat dried out, her breath came in fluttery sighs.

He kept petting her even after she was done coming. Lightly, as if to soothe himself. She swallowed, tried to catch her breath. "Bobby," she said, her head on his shoulder.

"Honey, wait just a minute."

Alice started when Bob's hand disappeared and he shifted away. She lacked the breath to ask him what was wrong, but as the haze cleared, she saw him unroll the tissue and press it to his face. He was sniffling.

"My nose." His hands were prayerful, perfectly elegant, almost delicate when they folded the tissue to his nose. "I gotta—"

He shrank like a violet as he blew with force. The sound was thick, awful. But productive. He grunted in apology and tried again, a few times more, until his breath came clear and a small nest of discarded tissues had gathered on the bed.

"Poor dear." Alice knew it was wrong to say, but she couldn't control her tongue. This elfin wisp of a man had somehow grown into an even bigger charity case than the soft-faced train-hopper she'd watched in the café that time. It was starting to get her hot all over again.

Bob wasn't offended—he positively blossomed. Put his face next to hers and let their bodies line up. He still had goosebumps from the sneezing. Alice could see on his neck; on his wrists where they poked out of his sleeves. "You gonna take care a' me?" he nuzzled, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Alice sweltered. She rubbed over the shape of his cock, still trapped in his slacks, felt him pulse and stir and almost whine. "You've been awfully good for me," she said, not answering.

Bob seemed to be having a hard time keeping his eyes open and his mouth shut. He rolled into her touch, helpless to his own needs. "How...how good?" he managed.

Alice put her lips on his ear. "Very, very good."

"Yeah?" His shaking hand covered hers and made her touch him harder, more deliberately. He was hard as a statue, even just from this, and she could feel his blood beat under his skin and clothes. Beat, she thought, does that make me a poet?

Her answer was a kiss. Bob swore freely into her mouth, but his words survived only as tangled moans.

His lips pulled apart from hers a moment. "Wanna...Can I?"

Alice glowed. "Yeah."

At once, his hands were on his zipper. She heard a little sigh of relief once he freed himself from his restraints. Alice started to lean down to admire him, but he was already clambering behind her to work on her skirt. She pulled her blouse over her head.

Many hands made light work. Alice was down to her underthings when Bob said, "Here, gimme the shit."

He was reaching for her purse.

Alice swiveled her head around to get a look at his face, then back to her purse, before she parsed his meaning. "You want—are you sure?"

"I won't take it all," Bob said quickly, shaking his head. "Swear. Just a little bit." He'd started to breathe a little heavy. Could be something to do with his fist around his cock, giving short, rapid tugs.

Alice sat there burning, looking him over, then dove for the jar. With shaking hands, she carefully wrested the lid and held the contents out to him. She feared a spill...but then, she wasn't desperately afraid.

Bob reached out, then stalled. His hand froze. He looked pained, then he stuck out a finger as if bidding her to wait.

Alice trembled. She knew this face by now.

Sure enough, Bob started to inhale. He wedged the back of his hand across his mouth, convulsed once—and held still.

There was so little sound, Alice couldn't tell if he'd squashed it down or simply quelled it before it could materialize.

Bob dropped his hand and let his breath out. "The smell," he explained softly, grinning with shy surprise.

Already? she wanted to say. Maybe you've been over-served. But what slipped out instead was "Bless you." A soft whine. He wasn't the only one over-sensitized, woefully unprepared.

"Thank you," he purred. His voice was getting away from him again. He wriggled Alice's underwear down around her knees, and she grit her teeth to keep from gasping.

Alice's eyes went wide when she saw the incredible handful he'd procured from the tin. A tower of powder. She screwed the lid back on and practically threw the thing away to balance herself with both hands on the bed.

Bob caught her eye and chuckled. "Hold still," he instructed, and piled the powder on the table-top plane of her ass.

Alice heaved a gasp and swore when his nose crashed into her soft skin. Over his snorting and huffing, she could hear wet sounds in time with the trembling of the bed. He was touching himself again, building to speed.

He brought his hand down in a slap, and she squealed, but he was only brushing her off, carelessly swiping away the specks he couldn't suck up, leaving them to settle in the sheets, in the creases of his hand. Alice bit her tongue and whimpered.

Bob coughed gently, then again with spite. "Fuck." His voice went raw in the middle of it; she could hear his throat try to close against the intrusive spice. He took careful breaths.

"You nice and ready for me?" he rasped.

"Yes—yes. Yes." Alice started to answer, but his hand appeared between her legs to check for himself, and soon that was the only word she knew.

He coughed again. "Jesus, baby, you're so—" A worried gasp and a frantic sneeze cut him off.

Alice lurched. It was so sudden, the spray across her back.

Bob grabbed her waist and sputtered out another sneeze, showering her again. "So w—wet–!" he gasped, his voice sailing above his speaking range as he fought what was coming.

He drew a sharp breath, and then no more, and Alice almost believed he had lost it before the sneeze came, abruptly and violently, painting her back.

Alice leaned into the mattress and moaned. She couldn't even...

"Bless me." Bob's voice was dulled, wrecked by his symptoms, but she could hear his smile in it. "God, Jesus fuck, feels...good..." As his breath started to skip, she felt the head of his cock press against her. Without thinking, she reached down, found his hand, guided him in, and they locked together.

"Oh." Bob moaned, heavy with surprise. He pressed into her all he could, squeezed her hips for more leverage. "You feel..." He might have went on, but he was panting heavily, vocally, exerted by sex and wild from the tickle in his nose. He sneezed once, twice in a row and gave a shaking groan before he started to fuck her in earnest. Alice wailed into the sheets. She though she'd hit her peak before, that he couldn't rile her back up again, but this. She was light-headed, dizzy. Helpless.

Bob drove into her, practically singing with pleasure, and started sneezing again. The sneezes came close together, in soft summer-rain whispers and fine mist. They made his body and his voice shake badly. He sucked air like he was drowning and sneezed like he couldn't breathe. Alice loosened her hips and took it, and took it, and bit the sheets and yowled.

As Bob wound up for another, his movements grew stiff. His hips jerked. His breath tumbled in and out, high and loud until he was whimpering, and still it wouldn't come.

"Ah, god," he sobbed, and came like a wave breaking.

Alice's eyes slammed shut as another orgasm shattered through her and she clenched around him. The room, the world seemed to wink out like a star. They cried out to each other until they lost their breath and fell together. Alice waited, curled around him, for her heartbeat to quiet and her ears to quit ringing.

Before that happened, Bob sat up to catch a short, sharp bark of a sneeze in his steepled hands. He let out a mild groan.

"Bless you." It was only too easy.

Bob sniffled and rubbed his forehead. He didn't lie back down. "Don' think there's any more."

Alice rose next to him and filled his hands with tissues.

He flashed her a sheepish grin of thanks, and she drug her nails up and down his back as he cleared out his nose. He'd kept all his clothes on, just undone his slacks. But when she scratched his arms, a shiver tore through him, and she imagined his hair raising all across his body.

Bob made a noise of distress when he spared a glance at the contents of his tissue. It wasn't blood, Alice assured him, just rusty powder. He blew his nose until nothing more would come, but his head was still stuffed. She told him it'd likely stay that way for a while, a day at most.

"Need a cigarette," was his response.

"It'll mess with your throat," Alice offered, knowing it wouldn't sway him.

"No, no, it'll clear my head. Hey, you got a...?"

Alice lit his cigarette and shook out the match. She marveled at his sharp, flushed face, finer and more handsome in catarrh and tears than most were in health. Her hand wandered up the back of his shirt to scratch between his shoulder blades. Sure enough—goosebumps.

"Do you remember the Bitter End coffeehouse?" she asked.

---

Epilogue

What Alice failed to mention was how, after the congestion had gone, the medicated stuff would linger in his sinuses. How his head would drip like a faucet from the time he woke up. How bad the shifting, the draining, and the dripping would tickle. Sometimes it only drove his eyes to water, but more often, it made him sneeze. Throughout the day, there was no telling when it would come. Mornings were almost a guarantee. Things had settled during the night, and suddenly going vertical always made this interesting. It wasn't unlike the first few days of a cold.

Another small detail that Alice seemed to miss was that her particular interest was dangerously, fatally contagious.

He'd always found pleasure in the release provided by sneezing. The relief. He'd step outside on a sunny day and half-scorch his eyes staring at the bright sky, just for the chance to feel something spark and catch and prickle into an itchy sneeze. Two if he was lucky—and he usually was.

It must have been some form of classical conditioning. Ever since he'd messed around with that girl, all he had to do was sneeze once, and it wasn't relief he would feel, but heart-pounding arousal. Quick as a light. And ever since his tryst, they were coming in bunches.

In the dressing room before a show, Bob threw a hand over his mouth and started to sneeze. The first two came out muffled, like he'd tried to hold them in, but the third burst out of him, throwing his head forward.

He shuddered audibly, sounding as if someone had walked over his grave.

Robbie frowned. "You cold?" he asked after a while.

Bob sniffled. "Hm?"

Robbie echoed the shiver, letting his teeth chatter and his shoulders shake. "What's all that for?"

"What, I can't sneeze?"

"Aw, forget it." Robbie went back to the newspaper, accompanied by the gentle sounds of Bob sniffling and occasionally clearing his throat.

[cellarfulofnose]

hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby

#i hate spelling snzs so you get abstract squiggles #use your imagination #i know this blog was kind of the john and paul show at its inception and rightfully so #and i plan to show them more love #but these two...oh. #dont reblog to non kink blogs #i dont usually have rbs on to begin with. be smart

[cellarfulofnose]

Hi!!!!

Just peeping in to see if you’re working on anything! I looooooove your art + fics ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

If it helps, I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to another post from you! Hope you’re doing well otherwise!

hey girl yeah im writing something with bob

#no more checkups on me. i love to hear that you're a fan of my stuff #thank you #but i operate on the element of surprise and doing my own thing

[cellarfulofnose]

Sara

b/ob and s/ara circa 1970

prompt like 20 or something idk. enjoy

11.2k xoxo

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?

Sara smiled. How was she supposed to do anything else?

#oh fuck yeah

[cellarfulofnose]

happy birthday to knowing me, knowing you

#the fic that started this blog #big thanks to the user who requested the prompt #and everyone who has given support since then #<333

[cellarfulofnose]

yoo hoo! more j/p snz kink antics on ao3 for the first time in nearly a year 👀 the very talented author has chosen to publish on anon too, but be sure to leave kudos and comments so they know we appreciate them <3

#snicker snicker #there are more of us than we think! #personal rec

[cellarfulofnose]

repost & recolor from vanilla main bc why not

sniffly drummer 💍⭐️🥁

#sick? allergic? crying? #you decide

[cellarfulofnose]

Any chance are you having any writing/ideas coming up with our Favorite Minnesotan ?

the next one i write will be the fetish girl origin story. but that wont be for...a while.

#i have 2 jobs and grad school i havent written since august #sorry #thanks for still showing interest #mostly its doodles for me these days #you guys like furry shit? #tolerate?