#but this was really fun to do!! i feel like the way i write snz's gets repetitive so i tried very hard to aviod that

[sneezydarliing]

hello!! i haven’t interacted with your blog much but i just rolled in from the last tigh//nari post you wrote (so good!) and saw you might be looking for requests? i’m still really nervous asking and not sure what i’m doing so no offense taken if you disregard!

anyway, i’d love to read some cy/no content? if you’re along w any ships (cynari, haino, etc) that’s totally cool. maybe like a [plant/flower] allergy situation when he visits the forest?

hope you’re well and thanks for sharing content <3

Thank you so much for the req!! I'm sorry for the wait, I really hope you enjoy!

reqs are open

Pairing: cynari

Words: 1044

CW/TW: sneezing content, mention of mess

Cyno had not anticipated anything special out of this trip to the forest. He was going only to see Tighnari- who had excitedly informed him of a new discovery made deep into the forest watcher’s patrolling area. The look on his friend’s face, combined with the eager swishing of his tail behind him, was more than enough convincing to get the mahamntra to venture into the greenery.

It’s quiet as he pads along the roughly and hastily made trail, leaving him with his own thoughts- excitement to see tighnari again, listen to him ramble on about whatever he had found, a slight apprehension at the possibility of this being dangerous- not that either of them could not hold their own, but tighnari was often so eager to research that he did not stop to think about any possible consequences to himself, and he hated seeing him in pain. Muddled in with these feelings, a slight but sudden itch in the back of his nose. He presses a knuckle against the side of it absentmindedly, just as a pair of ears perking up quickly catches his attention.

“You made it!” Tighnari calls out to him, tredging through ankle-deep tangles of weeds to meet him. There’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and a tangle in his usual well-kept tail. As Cyno nods his greeting, he cannot help but wonder how long he’s been out here. The other seems to be aware of it, occasionally flicking the appendage about in absent-minded frustration.

Tighnari leads him further into the forest, happily rambling on about the things they pass by and what his research has granted so far. Cyno can’t get himself to focus, the itch in his sinus suddenly alight, forcing his breath to hitch just once before calming again. He can almost feel Tighnari’s concerned frown, but he decides to keep quiet about it for now, to Cyno’s gratitude.

Suddenly, he’s stopped. Tighnari moves to the side, looking at Cyno with pride clear in his eyes. He’s meet with the sight of a large, blooming flower, encased in golden vines that seem almost-conscious, twitching at any movement around them. “I haven’t been able to touch it yet, and my elemental attacks have no effect. That’s why I brought you out here, I was hoping maybe electrical- Cyno?” His ramblings cease as he catches sight of him, hands cupped loosely in front of his face, usually serious expression crumpled into one of desperation as he fights off the need uselessly, breath stuttering until he can no longer fight it.

‘hEh-itSH! ‘tShi! hiH-” The third one is lost, leaving him sniffling, trying to rub the irritation out of his sinuses. “Archons, bless you! Are you feeling alright?” Cyno sniffles uselessly again, trying to will some of the congestion out of his voice before he speaks.

“I’m fine. You can romaine calm.” Tighnari groans in response. “You must be, if you’ve got the energy to make jokes. Anyways, can you try to hit ones of the vines with your elemental attack? Be gentle, please, and don’t damage the plant itself.” Cyno nods, saluting in a ‘yes sir’ gesture, as he prepares to follow instructions. He presses the back of his hand to his nose, scrunching up the appendage as he aims carefully. But he was unable to fight against his body and control it at once, sent foreward with another flurry of sneezes the moment he releases the energy, causing it to be sent foreward towards the flower. It’s reaction was instant, sending out a shower of pollen before curling into a ball, vines wound around it tightly. Cyno faintly hears a noise of frustration come from Tighnari, but he can’t focus, paralyzed with the awful tickle that came as the pollen surrounded him. He was in the direct line of fire, and he felt it, nostrils feeling alight as his eyes watered, he couldn’t even fight it, thrown into a desperate fit.

“haH’TSCHhi- KSHhiew! hih- hidT’SHHih! ‘idtSHhiew- sCHih!” They tore at his throat, raw and painful as his body tried desperately to release all of the pollen. He felt almost embarrassed, unable to do anything as Tighnari watched helplessly. “tignarihHh-tSHhi!” Even just his name seemed to break his stupor, the fox-tailed man rushing over and grabbing Cyno’s arm, bringing him somewhere- he could not even keep his eyes open long enough to tell, the lower half of his face buried in an arm he threw up to avoid spraying the other. He felt himself be gently led into a sitting position, half aware of the sun now beaming down on them.

His breath caught, leaving him helpless into a rough fit of coughing that didn’t seem to let him. He felt Tighnari’s hand on his back, rubbing comforting circles as he whispered encouraging phrases until the coughing finally let up. He leaned back against Tighnari, unable to resist the need to catch his breath. His face was wet with tears, nose running onto his upper lip. He roughly cleaned it up with the back of his wrist.

“There you go, you’re okay. Any trouble breathing?” Came the soft voice next to Cyno, reminding him suddenly of his blunder. Tighnari had been so eager to research, and he had messed it up. Guilt shot through him. “Sorry, ‘nari.” He pawed at his nose again while he spoke.

“It’s alright. I can bring somebody else another day.” Tighnari soothed, hands beginning to card through the others' hair. “Right now, we need to get you cleaned up. The pollen on your clothes won’t do you any good.” he stood quickly, reaching out a hand to Cyno, but he was distracted with the need to sneeze once again, raising a shaky hand in warning.

“hIh’tSChih!i’tsCHuh!” He sniffled once more as Tighnari waited patiently, before taking the hand offered to him, letting himself be pulled onto his feet.

“Hey, ‘Nari?” The forest watcher turned back to face him, “What is it?” “I’m very frond of you.” Tighnari huffed, turning back around and beginning to stalk off, stopping only a few paces in front of him. “I love you, too, Cyno.” Mahamatra grinned, catching up to his partner as they began the trek home, punctuated with the occasional sneezes.

#snz stuff #sneeze kink #sneeze #sneeze fic #ali talks #snz #sneeze stuff #gen/shin #im so sorry for what is probably violent mischaracterization!! i only had what very little ive done of the sumeru quests to do #go off of #but this was really fun to do!! i feel like the way i write snz's gets repetitive so i tried very hard to aviod that #i hope the spelling isnt wonky though 😭 #forgive any errors i tried my best to proofread but ive got too much caffiene in my system rn #<- did this to myself b/c i forget to eat #anyways #reqs are still open so feel free to shoot anything else my way! hope you all enjoy #going to jump over to desktop in a minute to put a readmore on here do not fret #ali?? actually posting a fic as planned?? not only that but the fic that he had planned???? unheard of #it probably wont happen again #queing this until the evening because i feel like snzblr is a lot more active then #if anybody thinks differently lmk! I like to try to aviod my stuff getting buried lol

[fuckin-sick-bih]

i hate the days when i desperately want to write but nothing i like comes out of my attempts at writing :( (side note i do make the "just bex talkin" tag so you guys can block it and ignore my rambling in tags if you want my writing but not my bitching lmao)

#just bex talkin #part of the problem is i want to write EVERYTHING and nothing at the same time #like i wanna write that cute convenience store steddie idea + a million more steddie ideas #but i also wanna write hale and jessie #and i know people wanna read some fem snz but i'm really struggling with that #i don't even know how to describe the fears stopping me from writing fem snz atm #it's very social/gender related but it's also me probably making a problem where there isn't one? aka overthinking #would i love to write some fem snz or even introduce my lesbian characters? absolutely! #but i don't feel like it's my place? i don't want to anger/upset the lesbian community cuz what if my portrayal is inaccurate and terrible? #also how dare i (an AFAB very masc leaning individual) assume to know what it's like being a lesbian when i never identified as one? #roll the clip of someone yelling a slur at me when i was 14 just because he *thought* i was a lesbian #bottom line? i don't want to objectify an already very objectified community even tho the realistic chances of me doing so are pretty low #listen i just have a lot of anxiety and i don't wanna piss anyone off or upset anyone by accident #don't get me started on all the fears i have about my writing being TOO angsty when i'm really having fun with it either #seriously there's a super heavy steddie snz snippet i have written that i'd love to post but i'm worried it's waaaay too heavy #especially for tumblr #but that's also just because i'm not good at feeling out where the boundaries are for this kind of thing? idk... IDK! #like am i allowed to write angsty feels + snz? of course i am! but am i allowed to *post* it??? no fuckin idea #like even Golden Blessing has some good angst to it in the beginning (which i did get to writing a bit more of that) #there's some impostor syndrome going on feeling like nothing i'm writing is actually making sense or engaging in any way rn #should i take small prompts and just do tiny little scenes of snz? #i want to WRITE but... most of me trying to write rn is me starting an idea and feeling like none of what im writing makes sense #so i immediately abandon it #and i do not know how to break that feeling/sensation of whatever i'm writing is not *flowing* ergo its shit #maybe i'll just quietly post the angsty steddie to my ao3 and just... leave it to the wolves

[waterfallofspace]

hi!! your d/azai fic was SO GOOD OMGG i kept trying to figure out what was setting him off & i never would’ve guessed M/ORI’S COLOGNE?! brilliant especially since c/huuya bought it for him XD

could i possibly request s/oukoku feat. allergic to dust d/azai (mayhaps with kitten snzs 🥺) and prompts 36, 40, 45, 47, 75? (or whatever you can do 🫶🏻)

Oh my god- hello, thank you!! That's so sweet of you hehehe~~ I'm glad you enjoyed!! And thank you so much for the request, I had so much fun writing this one hehe~ I did try 'stuffy talk' writing for the first time in this, it seemed needed in the context, but I usually try to avoid that, so I hope it doesn't take away from the story too much~ (also I've seen the other two I assume are also from you, and I will be working on those soon too!!) 2.3k words, prompts 36, 40, 45, 47, and 75, story under cut! 36. “Blow your nose, I can’t understand you.”  40. “You’re sneezing everywhere. Clearly, something’s up.”  45. “Your nose is literally twitching.” 47. Hiding sneezes  75. Accidentally inhaling an allergen.  (References to swearing, and mild/playful violence just in case anyone doesn’t like those!)

~~~~~~~

There was always a level of tension between Soukoku, but it had only intensified after Dazai made his escape. Chuuya has never had a ‘forgive and forget’ attitude, not when it comes to him. So when Mori and Fukuzawa decide to team up against a common enemy, Chuuya lets himself believe he’ll only have to cooperate with the detective agency from a distance. 

“Chuuya~! Stop staring off into space. I know I’m the brains of this operation, but you could still attempt to help.” 

Growling in response, Chuuya feels his eyes roll on their own ‘Apparently just as fed up with him as I am-’, thoughts drifting back to the idiot currently attempting to pick a lock. It was his job to get them in the hideout they’d been ordered to investigate. ‘Of course it wouldn’t be from a distance. It could never be that easy, not with this asshole working for them.’ 

Despite the sentiment being entirely in his head, Dazai seems able to hear it, casting a smug smile in Chuuya’s direction. ‘Fucking creepy how he can do that. I know his gift doesn’t let him read minds, but sometimes I wonder…’ 

“We’re not supposed to leave any indication we were here. Blasting down the door wouldn’t exactly be subtle. So this one’s all on you. What, not up for the cha-”

“Got it! Chuuya didn’t really doubt me, did he?”

“Sh- shut up. Let’s just get this over with.”  

Dazai’s posture is infuriatingly calm, a brash contrast to the waves of tension surging through Chuuya’s very being… until they enter the building. Dazai immediately tenses up, fingers flexing at his side as he attempts to feign nonchalance. Normally seeing the mask slip a bit would send shivers of pleasure down Chuuya’s spine, however they were in enemy territory with an assignment to complete. ‘Now is not the time for one of your… things… Dazai. Whatever this is, lock it away.’ 

“You take the papers over there, I’m gonna check for any other rooms, exits, or spaces to hide something. Got it?” 

“My my, quite bossy, aren’t we? You know I love when you get all controlling~.” 

“Ach. Just yell if you find anything useful, alright?”

“Yeahh.” 

On anyone else, it would just be a slip of the tongue. Something not worth noticing, let alone mentioning, but on Dazai? It’s similar to having gunfire rain on you from an unknown source. Chuuya starts to feel hairs on the back of his neck standing up, trained eyes scanning the room for whatever danger might be coming his way. ‘Come on, Dazai. Either sort yourself out, or tell me what’s wrong… This mission needs to go smoothly, if you’re sensing dang-’ 

“hih’ekshh-! hh’gshh-!” 

“You say something?”

“No- hah’kshht-enk’shhiew-! Excuse me, no I didn’t.” 

Chuuya finds his mouth hanging open, Dazai’s nose noticeably pinker than it was a few minutes ago. In the silence, Dazai attempts to busy himself with papers they both know he’s already scanned. ‘Did- did he just…?’

“W- was that a sneeze?” 

“Wow~ great observation skills, Chuuya!” 

Dazai narrowly avoids the kick aimed his way, Chuuya catching his balance with a spin as Dazai smirks at him, letting out a grunt as the next one lands its blow. Taking his turn to smirk now, Chuuya begins his retort. 

“Oh, whatever. Just keep-”

“eh’ntshh-aiyshh’iiee-! N- not done- heH-! eashh’iew-! teshh-en’kshhew-! hh’knshhiie-!” 

“That was pathetic.”

“You know, it’s customary in most places to offer a blessing.” 

“Not here, it ain’t. What’s wrong with you, anyways?”

The question is ignored, Dazai’s eyes snapping back to the papers he’s picked up, mouthing words under his breath too fast for Chuuya to interpret as he breezes through. Electing to ignore the obvious attempts to derail the conversation, Chuuya takes a seat next to the desk, letting his feet rest right on the papers Dazai’s looking through.

“I believe I asked you a question.”

“You only believe you asked? Chuuya must be sli- hehh… slip- slipping- heAh’tezshh-eiiszshh-hh’keshh’iew-!”

“Eh?! For Christ’s sake, just answer the fucking question.”

“‘For Christ’s sake’, that’s quite the western expression, and yet you can’t offer a mere blessing to your… eH’Knshh-tieshhii-! kshh-eishh-hH’knchhiew-! suffering partner?” 

“I’ll ask once more, what’s wrong with you?” 

Dazai’s eyes are still trained on the papers, his face remaining pointedly calm to the untrained eye. Which, Chuuya is not. ‘He’s attempting to relieve the itch without touching his nose. Apparently not as easy as he’d like it to be, judging by the tremor in his hands that he can’t seem to stall.’ 

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t play coy, Dazai. You’re sneezing everywhere. Clearly something’s up.” 

“It’s a perfectly normal action. Everyone sneezes at times, even Chuuya.” 

“Yeah, but not this much. Your nose is literally twitching as we speak.”

“Th- thanks for the re- reminder…. hehH-!”

He manages to pull his collar over his face before the next fit breaks through his quivering nose.

“hNksh-hh’kshhew-! tinshh-enshhiew-! hh’kshh-! heH’tschh’iew-! hahh’kshh’iie-!” 

Chuuya smirks at the way Dazai sniffles with a deep urgency as he attempts to catch his breath. ‘Pathetic is right, those were the tiniest things I’ve ever heard, and they still left him breathless. For someone so tough, he’s really quite frail.’ 

“Yeah, that’s not normal.”

“You really don’t remember? I have a slight… sensitivity to dust.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

His facade long forgotten, Dazai raises a hand to practically scrub his nose raw as he lets a few itchy moans fall out. Chuuya feels a pang in his chest, one that he quickly smothers before it can build into actual sympathy for the idiot.

“You don’t remember- Well I guess it- kshh’iew-!  was a bigger deal for me than you. That time Mori sent us to recover some stolen files from that warehouse that they apparently hadn’t c- clehh… hH’kshh-eishhh’ii-! Cleaned in years?” 

“I do actually, though I seem to remember you ducking away pretty fast after we found them- oh motherfucker, was that because you were holding off an allergy attack?!”

“Yep! Thankfully for that mission I foresaw the possible complication and took some precautions. However, in this case, I wasn’t aware of the… state… this building would be in. hh’kshh’iew-! Nnshh-!” 

Before Chuuya can form a reply, Dazai raises a hand, his face unreadable once more. Chuuya freezes, eyes darting to the hallway behind them as footsteps echo off the walls. ‘Impossible to tell how many there are, it’s too empty in here, the sound is distorted. I’d guess at least five, but it could be more. There’s enough bullets in the drawer I found before to take them out if I can get to-’ His thoughts are interrupted by Dazai’s hand against his arm, nullifying his powers before he can make a move. 

“Remember, we’re not supposed to tip our hand just yet.” 

It’s hushed, but Chuuya hears it perfectly, his focus always irreversibly glued to Dazai when his gift is being subdued. Something Dazai knows full well, and was counting on. He lets his mask slip once more, letting Chuuya read his intentions without a word. ‘We need a plan, and it can’t be violence.’ 

“Fine.” 

‘I noticed a crawlspace when I was surveying the room. It’ll be tight in between the beams, but there’s at least a bit of space vertically. Either way it’s better than getting found. Normally I’d just hide on the ceiling, people so rarely check there, but given Dazai’s here, it's better not to leave him to fend for himself.’

Pressing himself against the floor and sliding through the crack, Chuuya starts to drag Dazai in with him, pausing as the nervous energy radiates off the man.

“Chuuya I don’t thi-” 

“Just shut up and get in, we don’t have time to argue.”

Dazai hesitates once more, tension flooding Chuuya’s body. ‘He’s not one to hesitate. Ever. But we don’t have a choice, it’s this or be caught.’ Finally Dazai lets out a sigh, mask on enough to keep Chuuya calm, but not enough to be comfortable. Chuuya braces himself against the floor with his hands as Dazai climbs into the crack, kneeling over him.

“Well this is cozy~.”

“You better keep your mouth shut. If they find us I will end you.” 

The footsteps continue to descend towards the room, finally stopping as smothered voices begin breaking the silence. Chuuya closes his eyes to try and make out the words better, a trick he regrettably learned from Dazai of all people. When one sense is removed from the equation, it can help the others hone in with greater ease.

“Ch- Chuuya…”

His eyes snap open at the breathy quality of the voice. Dazai has his hands pressed against the floor to keep his balance, and even through the muted light Chuuya can see his unattended nose starting to tremble. Dazai’s attempting to rub it against his shoulder, but the soft cloth just seems to be irritating it further.

“Don’t you dare, Dazai.” 

The panic seeps into the whisper before he can stop it, Dazai reacting with a sharp nod, eyes starting to water. Chuuya can feel Dazai’s body trembling as every scraping breath seems to drag more allergens into his tortured nose.

‘Fucking damn it. Even with those pathetic little things, given the echo in this room, they’re sure to hear us if he breaks into a full attack.’ Just as he’s starting to come up with a plan, Chuuya’s body starts moving on its own, gloved hand pinching Dazai’s nose shut just as the first hitch escapes. 

“heH- Wha-” 

“Not. A. Word.” 

Chuuya can feel Dazai’s nose pulsating under his grasp, a few tears freeing themselves from his eyes as he crushes them shut against the building irritation. But finally, after a few painstakingly long minutes, his breathing returns to normal. Chuuya carefully releases his grasp, hand still hovering in front of Dazai’s face. He rolls his eyes at the theatrics, snarling in an attempt to disguise the warmth flooding his ears. 

“Better?”

Dazai starts to nod, sniffling lightly, before intensely shaking his head, nose flaring with a passion. He gets only enough time to lean into Chuuya’s hand, attempting to stifle the fit that breaks loose. Chuuya almost pulls away, but one of Dazai’s hands comes up to grip his wrist, pulling it closer.

“knGt-! nGT-! ihKDt-! hH’AHngT-!”

“G- gross, what the fuck are you do-” 

Realization dawns across Chuuya’s face, chased away by a guilt fueled blush that settles in his cheeks. ‘When sliding in here, I used my hands on the floor. The dust covered floor. I just practically smothered his nose in his allergen. Fuck- this isn’t good…’ Dazai’s eyes are flooding with itchy tears, only getting a chance to inhale when he’s building up to another stifle.

“kndT-! heH- indT-! hH’EnDt-! Ch- Chuuya… hH’NDT’iew-! heAhh- kNgT-!”

“Hold on-” 

Letting his head peak out, Chuuya attempts to scan the room, focus being torn between searching for possibly enemies and- “hHnDT-!” the constant- “nGT-!” stream of- “ihkNdT-!” itchy stifles- “ehdNXt-!” being aimed at- “heH’KxT-!” his gloved hand. ‘I can’t see anyone, and other than the obvious, I’m not hearing anything to suggest we’re not alone.’ 

“Okay, I think it’s safe no-” 

The half-finished confirmation is all Dazai needs, ducking into his shoulder with a fit that seems to only grow in desperation as each tiny sneeze falls out on top of each other. 

“eh’kShh’iee-inchh-eshhh-kechhew-eh’knshhiiee-!”

Pulling himself out of the crawlspace, Chuuya attempts to brush the dust from his clothes, peeling off his glove with a wince before offering a hand to help (yank) Dazai out too. The normally put together man is currently sneezing too rapidly to even acknowledge the change of scenery. He’s attempting to aim for his shoulder, but Chuuya notices he’s fairly unsuccessful, huffing a few blessings between the outpouring. 

“hH’kshh-ensshheww-nnshh-tiesshhie-!” 

“Bless you.” 

“aishhiew-! heHhH-! kezzshhiee-! Ehh’shhiew-!” 

“And again.” 

“hah’kshh-knnsh-nnshhie-!” 

“Going for a record there, Dazai?” 

A smirk has worked its way onto the incredibly itchy looking face as Dazai’s watery eyes flicker up to meet Chuuya’s, a hint of mischief dancing through the waves.

“M- enshh’iew-! Mea- hh’kshh-! nnSh-! eh’knShii-! Mean, Ch- chushh’iew-! heH’kshh-enschh-tezzshh’iew-! Chuuya.”

“Bless you. Don’t try to talk, you moron. It’s making me dizzy.” 

“heH’inGShh’iew-! ddshh’ii-! nnSHh-! heH’kSHHiew-!”

“Christ Dazai. You gonna live?” 

“You dknow tha- heh’KShhiiew-! nndshh’ii-! Thadt wa-”

The congestion in his voice cuts right through Chuuya’s brain, a grimace forming in response.

“Blow your nose, I can’t understand you for shit like this.” 

“And whadt exacdtly do you wandt me dto use? I have dnothing to blow idt ond-” 

Chuuya sighs heavily, hand reaching into a pocket to pull out the handkerchief he keeps there incase of emergencies. ‘I guess this qualifies, though the idea of Dazai’s fluids on more of my clothing makes me feel a little ill.’

As soon as it's in Chuuya's hand, Dazai lunges for it, having the decency to turn away as he releases a handful of throat scraping blows that have Chuuya wincing again. When he speaks again his voice is still hoarse, congestion seeping through the edges, but at least it’s decipherable. 

“Ahem. Like I was saying, you know that was entirely your fault, right?” 

“It’s not my fault you have such a weak nose.” 

“hH’enkshh-! nndshh’iew-! innShh’ii-! mmShhiew-! I think it heard you.” 

Rolling his eyes, Chuuya throws a punch at Dazai’s arm, a touch of guilt invading his mind when the blow lands easily, Dazai hissing lightly through clenched teeth. ‘Apparently still too out of it to dodge.’ He feels heat drip into his cheeks once more, quickly quelled as Dazai’s mischief soaked eyes meet his own.

“I think you owe me a drink.” 

“Whatever. But you owe me a new handkerchief, and gloves.” 

Dazai brings said handkerchief back up to his nose to crush a few leftover sneezes, a smug smile forming on his face, despite the battered state of his sinuses. 

“hh’mmshh’iew-! eh’mmshhii-! heh’nnSHh-nnshh-heH’keshh’iew-! Deal.” 

No, Chuuya’s not one to ‘forgive and forget’. Things will never be the way they were. But as Dazai silently leans against him to steady himself while they walk out of the building, Chuuya’s hands automatically coming to brace him, he lets himself consider that maybe, just maybe, that’s okay. 

Maybe they can be something else. Something better. 

#waterfallasks #waterfallwrites #ahhhh~ thank you so much for the request!! i love writing these guys #hopefully anyone who sees this enjoys #and thank you so much for reading like always!! #b/sd #snz #snzkink #s/oukoku #c/huuya #d/azai

[slightlyunconventional]

k/az snz hcs part 2 mostly bc i have ideas right now and i don't wanna forget 🤠

- what if his pre-snz face was the same as his "scheming face"

like how it's described in the books as him "head tilted, eyes slightly unfocused"

and then. in/ej and jes/per are like

"scheming face,"

"defini-" "-ahHk'tSHHu!"

ajdhajdbsbdba OK!!!!!!

- sometimes he'll be giving orders or setting out a plan to the crows or whatever and

if it's a bad allergy day or smth bro idk and he finds himself likely definitely about to have a fit then he'd sort of vaguely signal to in/ej for her to take over while he just sort of backs up to deal with it

however in/ej is quieter and probably less scary than k/az so the crows mostly just sit watching k/az anyway cause it's kinda funny even though he's suffering

- when he's sick he craves reassurance but absolutely hates being taken care of

he will 100% brute force his way through it completely alone

- much more subdued when sick

he'll be less hostile and snappy towards people and only does/says what he needs to

- absolutely definitely 100000% always tries to talk through his buildups especially when he's tryna holdback

prime scenario for this is in soc when he goes to ni/na's place (i forget the name does her place even have a name idk) where all the roses and plants n shit are everywhere

sitting down before ni/na, as soon as he begins talking he's met with a faint buzz in his nose which of course he ignores. rookie mistake. he keeps talking to her, setting out his plans, making deals etc etc, and as he does so the buzz slowly begins to flare up, a warning sign that he tries to disregard.

he can feel it getting worse and worse - minor itch turns to a terrible, tickly burn that even he knows will be hard to keep at bay. it's becoming evident now: every other word punctuated by a short intake of breath, gradually getting less and less controlled as he struggles to fight back against his own reflexes.

ni/na for sure has noticed by now, but is finding it much too amusing to say anything about it, so she just observes, feigning interest in what he's trying to say.

he doesn't know why he's still trying to holdback, after all allergies make it so dreadfully difficult to do so. things would've gone so much better if not for ni/na's choice in decor...

his hand now hovers midway between his lap and his face, involuntarily in order to catch what he's so desperately holding off.

finally, after a solid minute or more of merciless hitches, the fire fades down and so does k/az's guard. yet another rookie mistake. the tickle seems to take advantage of this and instantly spikes up again, giving him no time to even attempt at fighting back, and instead throws him forward with a violent, "-uHK'SHHUuh!"

without even a second's time to catch his breath, another stuttering gasp takes over and he's forced to duck back down into his sleeve for- "hDT'SHHh!" and almost immediately afterwards, a softer "huh'iSHh!"

this carries on for a while, and once he's finally done he cautiously lifts his head from his arm, nose and cheeks so red they're almost glowing, eyes glimmering with irritated tears. he averts his still-hazy eyes, sniffling thickly and occasionally rubbing at his nose with a gloved fist.

ni/na snorts. "flowers certainly getting to you, aren't they?" he hates her teasing tone but he doesn't dare speak, not until he's safely out of this place.

after not receiving a reply, ni/na sighs and accepts his request, saying how he should probably be out of here and hope i forget what just happened.

!!!! that was fun to write wait. i wanna write more stuff ok i will write more stuff soon

- when he has fits it's never rapid ones as much as i enjoy that

it's usually fairly drawn out, staggered breaths and gasps in between, and will last anywhere from five to ups of twenty sneezes

- he really tries not to get any rest while he's sick because he knows if he falls asleep he'll be out. cold.

completely knocked out probably couldn't be woken up by an earthquake

and though such sleep would definitely make him feel better, his hatred for the vulnerability of being unconscious for a day or more heavily outweighs this

- sleepy snzs when sick

just soft and drowsy, barely covered, half-stifled sneezes

well LOL that's all i have rn. ok no it's not but it's 4am and i have places to be later so that's all for now

ill definitely write like. a full fic of this man pretty soon i promise

#k talks snz #snz #snz kink #snzblr #si/x of cr/ows

[shelikescolds]

Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @coldsandfluff , this was really fun to think about! Her original post can be found here.

The game is such:

List your top three whump tropes and tag people.

Whoever gets tagged gets to say how they feel about your top three tropes.

After finishing that, they then list their top three tropes, and the tagging cycle goes on!

@coldsandfluff tropes:

1. A Very Important Person who shouldn’t care about someone’s cold, but does. Like a CEO, a doctor, a huge celebrity… Just someone who obviously has way more important things to care about than the sickie’s cold (because the sickie isn’t part of their inner circle, like an employee or an assistant), but turns out to be a very caring person and goes out of their way to make sure the sickie is well taken care of. And if they’re the grumpy type, they do it in a grumpy way and won’t acknowledge it, but you can totally tell they’re a sweetheart underneath it all. Love it.

Thoughts: I usually prefer writing and reading about characters with little to no power imbalance, but you really sold me on this one! I like the idea of someone important being smitten by someone’s personality/deeds and deciding that they need to make sure this beautiful soul is taken care of properly (and maybe catching feelings along the way). And if the sickie gets really happy or emotional because the person taking care of them is someone they admire? Sign me up! I think that’s absolutely adorable.

2. A cold that develops slowly. You get to witness every stages of a cold through the character. The scratchy throat they think is just dehydration. The nagging headache they ignore. The first few sneezes that are probably just from dust or something. As it progresses, the sickie realizes they’re sick, but they can still go about their business without people noticing; they still have about a day where they can hide it, maybe go to the bathroom to blow their noses, down a whole bottle of Dayquil, anything. But there’s always that one perceptive and ultra caring care-taker that puts all the little signs together and forces the sickie to slow down and rest.

Thoughts: I love this trope so much! It’s fine (and has the potential to be great) when a worse illness develops slowly, but colds and flus don’t have very high stakes and I prefer that most of the time. The slow addition of symptoms, the moment of realization and their reaction to it, and especially that perceptive caretaker that notices and jumps into action trying to take care of them (maybe even before the sickie knows themself) are all great.

3. The forehead feel from two people who have just met. I know this one is not for everyone; some people don’t like to be touched, let alone be touched by someone they barely know, but there’s something so endearing to me about two people who are just starting to get to know each other, for example on a first date, and one of them is running a fever but trying to hide it, and the other realizes it, hesitates for a second, then places their hand on the sickie’s forehead without a word. And then of course the delicious “You’re burning up,” or “Thought so,” or “You’re sick, aren’t you?” or “You feel a bit warm, let’s get you home,” or… I could go on forever. There’s just an added warmth for me when the person isn’t super close to the sickie, but cares just as much and is just as concerned as someone who is.

Thoughts: I like this trope a lot, too! Having the caretaker either grow to care for someone so quickly or just be the type to naturally slide into the role regardless of their relationship to the sickie are both wonderful. I usually prefer one of two extremes with this trope: the caretaker is embarrassed or hesitant to check the sickie’s forehead OR the caretaker is so worried or feels so comfortable around new people that they jump wholeheartedly into a caretaking role immediately. 

My current favorite tropes:

1. Confessing love while sick and feverish. A sickie that is completely worn down and emotional finally cracking and allowing themselves to be vulnerable to the person taking care of them. I’m a sucker for when the feelings confessed are romantic, and the caretaker responds to a teary confession with sweet comfort and reassurance that they love them back, or a confused and playful “I thought we've already been dating...??”. BUT I also absolutely adore platonic confessions of love to the caretaker, especially if the caretaker was worried that the sickie didn’t really like them much before but after the sickie recovers they become close friends or have a new mutual respect and care for each other. Bonus points if the sickie and/or caretaker cries during this confession, it adds to that good good vulnerability.

2. A sickie trying to keep the people they care about away from them so they don’t get sick, too. I think I like this trope so much because it shows how much the sickie cares for the caretaker despite them being so weak and vulnerable. They may desperately crave the company, affection, or care because they feel so awful, but their deep care for the caretaker still shines through even while they’re out of it. Trying to temporarily shut them out, lie about how they’re feeling, putting on a brave face as a way to protect the caretaker from contagion or worry. The sickie can put up as much fuss and drag out the façade as long as they want, but this trope is only one of my favorites if the caretaker ends up taking care of the sickie at some point. Maybe they knew the whole time the sickie was lying because they know them so well, the sickie slips up and it all clicks into place for the caretaker, or the caretaker accidently stumbles upon the sickie when their walls are down when they think they’re alone or in the clear. Just!! The moment the sickie realizes that the caretaker is going to stay with them!! Temporary intense fear of contagion? Full-on sobbing, filled with a jumble of love for the caretaker, fear of making them miserable if they get sick too, relief that they don’t need to suffer alone anymore? Confused as they wake up from a fitful nap to be filled with a welcomed warmth seeing the caretaking making food in another room or watching tv with their hand on their leg? *chefs kiss* All of it. It’s the sickie allowing themself to be vulnerable and accept help and love after putting up a fight to protect a person or people they care about. Wonderful. 10/10 every time.

3. Reluctant caretaker and/or sickie. There are lots of different types of reluctant caretakers or sickie characters, but I prefer characters that are reluctant because they’re weary of contagion, unsure of how the other person feels about them or the situation, or are bad at expressing their feelings (like someone that pretends to be grumpy and reluctant but secretly eats it up and eventually starts to show their feelings as they get progressively more tired or out of it). I like that this kind of reluctance has the potential to add a little bit of tension? Drama? Possible small misunderstandings? I like when it leans more light-hearted, but it’s a pretty versatile trope and can absolutely lean more angsty or be added to slow-burn stuff. For me it’s about that allowing themselves to be vUlnEraBle with each other and working through whatever is causing the reluctance. Bumps along the road are great, but if the fic doesn’t end with at least the implication that things are going to be okay for the sickie and caretaker I won’t be into it all.

Okay, so I’m still getting my bearings after being on hiatus for quite a while, so I’m not sure who is currently active or not right now. 😭 I’m going to tag @gay-for-the-snz , @mochi0chi0chi , and @dylan-1117 ​ , feel free to respond if this seems fun to you, but absolutely no pressure!

#tag game #sickfic prompts #whump prompts #shelikescoldswrites

[blu-archer]

Hi!!

So I haven't done an "about me" post before, so since more people are showing some interest I thought I'd post some short thing for you all.

Some things to know:

Ace spec.

00's born. The only reason I remember my age easily at this point.

I am in Uni, dominates my life honestly. But its fun so... I major in Fine art, so you might find alot of alternate universe characters are based around what I'm exposed to and know best!

I also have a lot of anxiety when it comes to talking to people, so if you message me I will probably either try to match your energy or come off accidentally abrupt - either way, please don't take it personally, I am just an awkward bean.🥲

that being said, you're welcome to send me messages if you want<3 [just you know... be prepared for awkward attempts of me trying to appear like a functional adult or potentially ghosting you until I can think of what to say.]

I use writing as a type of fun escape when I have time - if I don't post continuously it's probably because life is just a bit too overbearing at the time or I'm having a block

I also make a lot of typing errors because I can't pick up on them no matter how much I read over something - so I apologize but if you could just over look that, that would be great....🖤😅

In terms of writing:

most of this will be comfort and snz based

I also try and kept it as 'alternative universe' as possible because I find I'm more comfortable writing that

Probably won't do y/n fics purely because that makes me mildly uncomfortable. I understand these writings I do are all fictional anyway, but I physically can't do it. Sorry sorry!

Smut. If I feel like it, I will probably try and write it but it won't be often. It does sometimes make me uncomfortable and also I don't always know what the hell I'm talking about so...🤷‍♀️

Emetophobic. So I probably will avoid mentions of that unless its super vague.

Mess in general I think. Vague unless I really force myself.

If you want to send in any requests, feel free too!

I currently only write for BTS - but I stan a few groups. If I open to writing them, I will update this.

If you do send requests, just please don't expect it to always be out within a couple days - my Uni course is really an 'all consuming' type thing. But I would love to see what you guys might want to see!🖤

Dont be shy if you are interested in me potentially writing for you🖤💜

Also feel free to just speak to me or ask questions in the asks, I'm awkward but I like making potential friends! So if you want to know more about me or share your thoughts please do!

If I think of anything important I'll add to this, but otherwise have a great day/night!

Hopefully I will be posting more for you guys soon!

Stay safe!

#update #hi all! #edited

[leapyearkisses]

For the director's cut: Could you do Nice Work If You Can Get It? (Eliseo/Padgett)

That fic... Changed me. I'll never forget it TBH.

Yes, I'd be happy to! This one was really fun to write, and it was the beginning of two OCs I am very fond of now (and who I am happy to know made an impression on quite a few people!).

(If anyone enjoys this director's cut thing and wants to see one for another of my stories, ask away. I had a lot of fun!)

Commentary in bold below the cut! NSFW, mess, deliberately sneezing on people, m/m

This story started from a prompt about one character hiring someone to get them sick. An intriguing idea!! But it was one I actually struggled with finding a groove for when I started out. I actually started a few different scenarios with different character dynamics before I figured this one out. I have a 2600-word WIP of a different version of this in my "unfinished" folder.

"All right... close your eyes." Eliseo swallowed and did so, blocking out his bedroom, the red-gold sunset light pouring in from the windows, and Padgett, who was straddling his hips. He could still hear, quite easily, the other man's labored breathing and feel the heat of his thighs... and his crotch. Eliseo was under no illusion that he was in an incredibly compromising position at the moment. He hadn't thought much about the.. particulars when he'd first decided to strike this deal. "Are we really doing this?" he asked, voice weak.

I can't really write fetish porn without including actual porn lol, so from the beginning it was sexy even without the snz. In this version, the POV character is Eliseo, who is the "naive" character in a way. I pretty much write pairs where one character has the fetish and their partner does not but is indulgent. The one with the fetish is usually embarrassed about it or somehow naively realizing they like this weird-ass thing. Padgett laughed, voice tumbled and edging on hoarse. "Hey now. Not getting cold feet are we, my lord?" His exhale ghosted over Eliseo's forehead and his tousled black hair touched Eliseo's cheek.

Padgett is the confident character, and he brought the humor to this scenario! Eliseo cleared his throat. "No..." He could imagine the other man's smug look. They'd known each other long enough now that the image rose unbidden to his mind's eye. Padgett's eyes always glittered like opals when he was scheming something. Padgett surprised him with a tender touch on the shoulder, and he almost opened his eyes again. "The safe word is 'pumpernickel,'" he said, managing not to chuckle. "We can stop whenever you want... Hhk-" He fought off a gasp. "Decide hh quickly, though." Eliseo shivered. "I'm okay. Let's do it." He didn't want to admit it, but Padgett's reassurance did put him at ease, even if this had been his idea. He relaxed and tried to lose himself in the late afternoon heat. "Yehh-s, my lord." Padgett leaned forward and took a shaky breath. It stuttered and caught on invisible hooks, sounding at once to be full of potential and then gone again, like a ghost at the window. Eliseo could feel his body tightening again with anticipation, especially when Padgett gasped and leaned back. "Hh-... hah--

"A ghost in the window" eehhh this is kind of overworked. I like to write descriptively even when it isn't necessary. "Huh-ktschht!" A warm rush of air burst in Eliseo's face, almost immediately followed by a watery spray over his forehead, closed eyes, and nose. His instant reaction was to curl back, or try to, and he had his hands braced on Padgett's chest before he could think about it.

I had never written anything quite this scandalous as it were. There hadn't been a lot of snzfic I had read where there was direct, purposeful contagion like this or quite so much mess description directly on the skin, the face even. So I was sweating while writing this lol. "Hey now," said Padgett, delayed by a sniffle. His tone was light. "Easy. You specified this in the contract, remember?" He rested his hands lightly on Eliseo's wrists. "How are you feeling about it?"

CONSENT IS THE SEXIEST THING. We get this instinctual edge of revulsion from Eliseo because he has not acknowledged to himself that he likes snz yet and also he has never allowed anyone to do this to him before because why would anyone do this? Eliseo found he was holding his breath, but- Well, that would defeat the purpose of this exercise. He cautiously let it go and then opened his eyes. Padgett was gazing down at him, looking neither smug nor concerned, just curious. "I- this was on instinct," Eliseo murmured. After a beat, he lowered his hands, and Padgett let him go easily. "Yes, I imagine so. It's natural." Padgett smiled then, and then his expression crinkled. "Wh- hh- want to do it again? Hkt-- hhh..." Eliseo forced himself to surrender again to his pillows. "Yes." Again, he closed his eyes. Padgett shifted forward on his lap and oh- but then he was sneezing one more. "Huh- hktsschit!" Again, the spray. This time it dusted over Eliseo's nose and mouth. He fought to keep from thinning his lips and... took a deeper breath. Padgett hadn't moved, was still fighting with his own lungs, reeling in another insistent sneeze like a stubborn trout. "Huh- hh... hh hh huh-" He made an annoyed sound. "Hah-- hah-krttschtts!" Eliseo felt droplets of saliva decorate his cheekbone. Padgett sniffled thickly.

I think artists often point out how funny it is that when they're drawing they mimic the face of the character. I do this with sneeze sounds (IF I'M ALONE). I tend to like softer sounds for my characters, so a lot of sibilance creeps in. "...Bless you," Eliseo murmured. He was feeling hot. Maybe it was Padgett on top of him. The man was running a fever. "You are... doing the job admirably." That earned him a laugh. Padgett shifted his weight to his heels, which did interesting things to his cock's relation to Eliseo's own. "Thanks, I guess? I never would have thought anyone would be hiring for this, much less you." "Circumstances are dire," Eliseo intoned without a hint of irony.

Eliseo is a card. I love him. Of the two of them he is much more my preferred "type." He is similar to my mage character Llewellyn but less fussy. "Mmhm." Padgett sniffled again. "You must really hate weddings. Couldn't you have just gone on a hunt or something this weekend instead?" Eliseo sighed. "No. My sister would do anything to ruin my plans if I tried to avoid the party any normal way. But luckily, she's terrified of germs. I think a miserable head cold will be the ticket." Like hell he wanted to sit through another of his sister's weddings. Every time it was some new, world-changing drama. He wasn't even sure whether the groom this time was noble born. No doubt the reception gossip would be scathing. What absolute drivel.

There's a little "my lord" up there before, but this is kind of where the setting is characterized - Eliseo is a noble and this is a time and place where nobility matters. However, it's also anachronistic, because germ theory is a thing. They're kind of in a pseudo Regency/Victorian world where I just write whatever feels like the most fun. "Lucky also that you have me around, hm?" Padgett's next chuckle turned into a bit of a cough. Eliseo patted his knee awkwardly. "I- well, yes. Very. But believe me when I say that I would not wish for you to be so stricken if I had the power to stop it."

People with shitty immune systems are my jam. Even if it's really unlikely, I love it. Sometimes especially if it's unlikely. Like mister high elf Llewellyn, or if they're a god or angel or something. Or in a world where if you had that bad of an immune system you probably would have died of diphtheria or pneumonia by now. "Of course, my lord." Padgett rubbed his nose. And though his breath hitched a few times in the following moments, he stayed where he was. Eliseo blinked. "Are we...?" Done? He didn't really think the exposure had been long enough. "I am ready." Padgett blushed a little. Blushed? "Sorry," he said. "I can kind of feel that, uh, the uh, next ones are going to be kind of... wet. I could blow my nose." His voice trailed off, wavering again. His nostrils twitched, and Eliseo did see within the promise of moisture. Perhaps it was the taboo of it, but Eliseo was alerted instantly to a sudden thickening of his cock. It pressed at his trousers with some gusto as Padgett sniffled again. Eliseo swallowed. "No. No, this is good. This will... help."

After consent, MESS is the sexiest thing. That's just how it goes. I don't make the rules. Padgett gave him a considering look, at least as well as he could between soft gasps and squinting against the itch in his nose. "If you're sure, my lord." "Just- call me Eli, like you used to," said Eliseo, stumbling over the words. He wasn't sure where they had come from, but now they were bare between them. Still, perhaps a bit of affection wasn't so odd compared to what they were already doing. Eliseo closed his eyes on Padgett's startled look.

I wasn't sure where this came from either. But suddenly they were in love and I was cool with it. Eli btw is pronounced like the name (Ee-lye) but Eliseo is pronounced Ell-ee-zay-oh in my mind. It's of Latin origin and means "God is my salvation" according to that authority Babynames.com lol. Padgett means "attendant" so that was chosen partially because he's Eliseo's employee but also because Padgett is just a SUPER English-sounding name. I really enjoy looking up name meanings and representing different traditions in my characters. I tried to give Eliseo's family members Latin names, too, although they're not mentioned here. "Eli," Padgett said, and he sounded like he'd just come home from a long war to find the hearth kept warm for him. "I will." He leaned forward again, bracing himself. "Now, I'm going to- to hih-- to snhhsneeze, hah-- haktschtsch! Hrh- Hnkgstschhiu! More spray this time, more wetness, and Eliseo gasped himself when he felt a thick drip against his chin. Padgett hadn't moved. When Eliseo tentatively looked up, he saw his friend caught in a limbo of urgency. His green eyes were shut, eyelashes fluttering. His nostrils, gently pink now, flared. A clear trail hung from one of them, quivering as Padgett panted. He looked wild and fever bright and teetering on a precipice. Eliseo ignored what it might mean that Padgett's desperate expression, his wet nose - even the mess - suddenly went to his cock. He was hard, looking up at a portrait of a sneeze.

Sometimes you just have to stop writing for a second and drink some cold water or something. Carefully, he placed a hand on Padgett's thigh. "It's okay," he said, words coming of their own accord. "I've got you." Padgett's fingers tightened fitfully in the sheet as he shifted his weight again. He was making soft, irritated noises. His nostrils flared and Eliseo saw another drip lying in wait on the cusp.

Fingers tightening fitfully in a sheet is a thing I love to describe. If you binge-read everything I've written, you will find that I write snz and sex in a very particular way over and over. Because that's what I like! And I'm super glad readers like it as well! But I can basically only find the motivation to write what I enjoy (when I write at all... .__.), which is why I only write m/m or nb characters and such. When the urge became too much, it was like watching a wave finally crash down. Padgett's breath caught; he tensed and leaned back. Eliseo hurriedly closed his eyes again, and none too soon. "Hhhhrektschuckh!" He felt the mess streak his face, fly to spatter his mouth and nose and chin. Padgett moaned and then gasped again, chest swelling with air.

SCANDALOUS "Hah- Huhrttschuh! Hshtt! Hah- hsshtt!" Again, he teetered, teasing the air with shivering gasps. Then, he abruptly folded with a crush of vowels and congestion. "Hggtschiucht!" A baptism, pondered Eliseo's brain as it detached from reality momentarily. Pinned as he was to the bed by Padgett's sex, he couldn't move when he felt himself coming just as abruptly as the sneeze. Somehow the slick wash had become a mounting sense of urgency in each of his muscles, racing from his fingertips and toes to his abdomen, where, quite unbidden, his cock had tugged all that energy into a gut-wrenching orgasm that sent the shockwaves back out with renewed vigor. Padgett whined, and Eliseo took him firmly by the shoulders and drew him in for a messy, off-putting, contagious, blindingly good kiss. "Wow," said Padgett, when they finally broke for air.

Wow, lol. I have a great imagination. I wish I could make myself write more often. "Don't ask me why," Eliseo muttered, but he refused to be made a fool of by embarrassment. "C- come here." He shifted to sit up further and put his hands on Padgett's hips. "I want-" He wanted. "This. Yes?" Before he could stop himself, he swept his tongue over Padgett's mouth, under his nose, to rest at the edge of a nostril. He tasted salt. It was not entirely pleasant, but whatever pilot was captaining his body right now didn't care. He could still feel his cock pulsing against his trousers.

Also the first time I wrote anything like this, but Eliseo was like go big or go home, so. Padgett moaned. "It feels... odd. But, my lord, you can do what you- I mean, Eli." He was breathless for different reasons now. Eliseo laved the tender skin above Padgett's lips, then licked up his septum. When Padgett shivered, Eliseo kissed him again. Slowly, he cleaned away the mess from Padgett's face. When he was finished, neither of them knew what to say. Eliseo was hard again.

Huahaha Eliseo can have an unrealistic refractory period. I don't really give a shit how accurate this stuff is when it would get in the way of the enjoyment. Not to the point where people are just going in without lube or something crazy like that, but being willing and able to go again is just sexy, so that's fine. Finally, Padgett laughed shyly. "I think you'll be catching your cold, Eli." Eliseo blushed and shrugged. "I should hope so. I am-" He bit his lip. "I'm not ready to stop. Will you stay the night? I'll look after you." Padgett kissed him, tenderly drawing them together. "I would like that, very much."

And then they DEFINITELY banged. I hadn't conceptualized their specific history together at this point, but Eliseo and Padgett were FWB while younger, so the "surprise" at meeting again like this in a sexy fashion is more like "Oh, are we doing this now, as adults with drastically different social standing?" and less "Hey, are you into me??"

I got more than one request to write the direct sequel to this, but I dunno. I usually prefer one character in the pair to be the one who is sneezing, and writing Eliseo sick isn't as fun. Partially because I'm much, MUCH more interested in the shy/embarrassed/"voyeur" dynamic, so someone who gets off on their own sneezes really does nothing for me. I do have a WIP of Eliseo sick that is a direct sequel to Carriage Shenanigans, but I have no idea if it will ever get finished.

Thanks so much for the request for this very fun exercise!

#lyk writes #snz #eliseo jorvald #padgett foxborough #elipadge #director's cut commentary exercise

[snifflyjoonie]

I Told You So

In which “I told you so” smells suspiciously like daffodils. 

fever (with a bit of snz)-centric featuring Jimin as the sickie and a distant Yoongi (plus a take-no-bullshit Namjoon) as the caretakers.

Word Count: 2664

FlowerShop!AU Part 3

Part 2 | Part 4

a/n: Surprise again? 💀 I have no excuses for this besides the fact that these two live in my brain permanently. I know no one requested this but just bare with me here, lol. I have a lot of fun building their little narrative and I hope you guys enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy writing them. I changed this story to present tense whereas the last two were past, so I hope that doesn’t mess up the flow of these too much. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into it!

-

There weren’t many things Park Jimin regretted in his life. In fact, he was a firm believer in the phrase ‘everything happens for a reason’. Every choice you ever made influenced your day to day and in turn, your life in the long run. Taking risks was what made life exciting and worthwhile. Besides — if he had chosen to not take risks he knew for a fact his life would have been drastically different to what it was today. For example, choosing to take an apprenticeship at a floral shop was a risk. Not going to University was a risk. Opening his own shop at twenty-four was a risk. Risks paid off. Hard work paid off. Jimin was a prime example of this. Every little micro-decision he had ever made led him to this point in his life, and he knew for a fact he wouldn’t change any of it.

Especially the part where he visited Min Yoongi — even if that meant catching his cold.

*

“You look like shit.”

Jimin lets out a long sigh that borders on a tired laugh as his glassy eyes settle on Namjoon. He was sure the other was right, but he really didn’t want to hear it.

“That’s nice of you to point out.” He mumbles as he brings the back of his wrist up to scrub at his nose. “Thanks.”

“I do what I can.” Shrugs the other, but there is a smirk on his face that hints he’s trying to be playful. Jimin is very much not in the mood. “Maybe you should call it for the day and just head home.” He adds, voice softening.

The florist sighs again and lets his chin rest into his palm. The skin of his cheek feels flushed against his fingers and it makes him frown. He really does feel like shit, there’s no way around it. It had only been three days since he had showed up at Yoongi’s, but he had definitely caught the man’s cold. He was never very good at hiding things like this, especially from people like Namjoon.

“Mm, it’s only 3pm.” He replies after a moment as he sprawls his arms across his front counter and lets his head fall onto the cool wood. “I still have 2 hours before close.”

“Jimin, you’re the owner.” Namjoon chuckles as Jimin lets out a low groan. “You can close early. You should think about closing up tomorrow, too. Give yourself a day.”

Jimin raises his head and gives it a small shake, disapproving of Namjoon’s suggestion. He just wasn’t the type to stop working, especially because of something as trivial as a cold. 

His business was small, but he stayed busy as the owner and sole employee. He couldn’t afford to close the shop for a few hours, let alone for a full day to recover. He didn’t think he had really ever taken a sick day since opening up a year prior.

“Can’t.” He manages back, pushing himself upright once more. “I have deliveries to make tomorrow. They have to get done.”

Namjoon nods sympathetically and rests his elbows onto the countertop, folding his hands together in front of himself. Jimin can tell from his expression that he’s working out what to say next.

“Tell you what,” He eventually starts, locking eyes with Jimin. “I have nothing going on tomorrow. Let me make your deliveries.”

Jimin’s eyes widen at the other’s suggestion and his response catches in his throat, sending him into a sputtering cough. He grips the counter with one hand for support and does his best to turn away from Namjoon, bending deep into his elbow to try to keep his coughing contained. 

“No, no you — youdon’t —” He’s coughing too hard to get his sentence out and instead just shakes his head. Namjoon frowns and makes his way around the counter in a second, delivering a few firm but tender pats to Jimin’s back until the coughs begin to cease. Jimin is grateful, but a bit embarrassed. He clears his throat harshly and brings a hand up to rest against the center of his chest. He had just choked on spit, but there’s no way Namjoon would believe him.

“You don’t have to, uh—” He clears his throat a second time. “—do that, Joon. I’m positive I’ll be able to just sleep this off, and—”

Jimin is abruptly cut off when Namjoon’s palm makes contact with the flushed skin of his cheek. His hand is a welcoming cool sensation against his overtly warm skin and it takes every ounce of self control Jimin can muster to not melt into the touch.

Namjoon tuts in disapproval at what he feels, removing his hand from Jimin to instead adjust the beanie on his head.

“Feels like you have a fever.” He says it as if Jimin doesn’t already know. “You gotta go home, Jimin. Fill me in on what I need to do for tomorrow and then get outta here. I’m not taking no for an answer.” 

Namjoon has always been like this. He had a commanding presence, even back in highschool, and it was hard to say no to him once he made his mind up on something. His personality fit well with his job as a bartender as he always knew when to put his foot down when things seemed to be getting out of hand. He was a good friend to have, and Jimin valued the bond they shared, but Namjoon simply wasn’t someone you won arguments against. Jimin knew there was nothing he could say to convince Namjoon to just let it go.

Defeated, Jimin quietly opens a drawer and pulls out one of his notebooks and a pen. It takes him a second, but he writes out detailed instructions on what to expect and things that have to get done. Namjoon watches intently, reading over Jimin’s shoulder as he goes. Finally, after a moment, Jimin rips the paper from the notebook and hands it over, along with a second smaller notebook that simply says ‘deliveries’ on its cover in bold, black lettering.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Jimin asks, a hint of nervousness present in his voice. No one had ever done any of his shop’s deliveries before besides himself. If it were anyone but Namjoon, Jimin didn’t think he would budge as easily. 

“Course not.” Namjoon reaffirms with a dimpled smile, happy to have convinced — or more realistically, forced — Jimin to take a break. “I got it, Jimin. Everything will be fine, I promise you. You can thank me later when you’re feeling better.” He adds the last part jokingly, and gives Jimin a bit of a shove. It manages to make the florist crack a smile, and for a split second, Jimin allows a feeling of relief to wash over him. 

He wouldn’t admit it to Namjoon, but the deliveries had been weighing heavily on his mind. His fever was making it hard to focus and left him feeling like his head was full of television static. He had no idea how he was going to pull off an entire day’s worth of deliveries without messing something up along the way. Namjoon putting his foot down was truly a blessing in disguise. 

“I should give Yoongi an earful for getting you sick like this.”

Namjoon’s words pull Jimin back to earth and when he turns to look at him, the man is smiling. “That bastard.” It’s a joke, that much Jimin can tell, but it still makes him blush anyway. 

Visiting Yoongi had been a whirlwind. Whatever apprehension Yoongi may’ve initially felt upon Jimin’s impromptu arrival vanished as soon as they had started eating. They fell into the warmth of each other’s company effortlessly, and the “short visit” quickly became anything but. Still, Jimin made sure not to overstay his welcome — Yoongi needed rest. He tidied up their mess before leaving, ignoring Yoongi’s objections about doing so along the way, and headed for the door. Yoongi walked with him, and after a brief moment of goodbyes, the blonde leaned in to press a quick kiss to Jimin’s lips. Upon pulling away, Jimin could tell Yoongi was just as surprised by his actions as he was. It had been spontaneous, unexpected, and strangely…felt so right. They both laughed — nervous and giddy like school children — before Jimin finally made his way out after a second round of goodbyes. 

If Jimin was unsure whether he would catch Yoongi’s cold before, then he certainly wasn’t afterwards. The kiss was the final nail in the coffin, and sure enough, it only took a few days for Jimin to wind up in the exact same boat. 

“...Have you still not heard from him?” Namjoon asks. Jimin realizes his silence must have been a dead giveaway. He shakes his head.

“Mm, no. Not since I went over.” 

He’s not sure why, but Namjoon’s comment smarts a little. Jimin almost wishes he had kept the evening to himself, but he had been excited, and spilled the details to Namjoon the following day. Now, with a lack of communication from Yoongi’s end, Jimin was left feeling a little sheepish about his own over-eagerness.

“Want me to shoot him a message?”

“Absolutely not.” Jimin whips his head in the other’s direction and responds so quickly that his voice cracks. “Namjoon, do not.”

Namjoon shrugs, raising his hands up in defeat.

“I was mostly kidding.” He snickers. “Mostly. Anyway Jimin, come on. Let’s get you home.”

*

Jimin would never admit it to Namjoon, but taking the day off had definitely been the right move. His symptoms had only worsened as the night went on, and by the next morning, his fever had increased enough to leave him feeling slightly delirious. It took as much energy to get himself out of bed for coffee that morning as it did to plan flora for an entire wedding. Or at least it felt that way. Maybe he was being dramatic. He blames the fever.

After throwing on his favourite fuzzy robe, Jimin plops himself onto his couch, mug of coffee in one hand and a box of tissues in the other. He lets out a sigh, but even that sounds congested, and it makes his soft palette sting. 

Sniffling thickly, the florist pulls out his phone to check for any texts from Namjoon. At least that’s what he tells himself. It is partially true — he is a little nervous about his friend’s first time making deliveries — but he mostly was hoping for a text from Yoongi, to which there were none. He frowns and sets his phone down, realizing quickly that there’s no use making himself feel worse. He tries to push the kiss far out of his foggy mind, and instead chooses to flick on his television in an attempt to drown out his own yearnings with a bad daytime soap opera.  

The television makes his head pound, but he doesn’t turn it off. It keeps his mind from wandering to other things, and he drums his fingers against his coffee mug in time with the program’s theme song. He watches for a few minutes, grateful for the distraction, when the steam from his coffee begins to loosen the congestion in his nose just enough. Scrunching his nose up in discomfort as the feeling builds, Jimin is quick to set down his mug in favour of a tissue that he yanks from the box.

“uH’TSHh’iuew!” He pitches down roughly into it, rises back up, and then snaps down again with a second. “IISHhh’hiuu!” 

The feeling of his robe jostling against his sensetive skin makes him cringe, and an uncomfortable shiver shoots down his spine as he attempts to blow the itch from his nose.

He’s just about to turn his attention back to the television when his doorbell rings. The shrill sound makes his head throb so harshly that he whimpers, and before he can get a grip of the situation, it rings again. 

“Coming!” He calls out in the hopes that whoever’s outside hears him enough to not ring the bell again. Hearing how awful his own voice sounds makes him wince, the heavy huskiness being so far from his usual airy, sing-song like tone.

He hurries to the door, tightening his robe around himself before pulling it open. Standing there is a man he doesn’t recognize, and in his hands rests a large, beautiful bouquet of bright yellow daffodils.

“Park Jimin?”

Jimin nearly jumps at the sound of his name before he nods in confirmation, completely dumfounded.

“Delivery.” 

He nods again, mouth agape, and accepts the bouquet graciously. 

“This came with it, too.” Instructs the man as he passes over a yellow envelope before tipping his hat and turning to leave. 

Jimin pushes his door closed with his hip and leans his weight against it, staring bright eyed at the arrangement clutched in his hands. Despite his stuffy nose, the smell of the bouquet is strong, and it makes him smile as his mind fills with thoughts of his shop. 

After allowing himself a moment of admiration, Jimin quickly scurries into his kitchen and grabs a vase. He’s eager to have his hands free so he can read the corresponding letter and get to the bottom of the mysterious delivery. 

With the flowers now appropriately situated in the middle of his kitchen table, Jimin plops himself down with a sniffle and tears into the envelope. He pulls out a card that’s garnished with yellow flowers and big, cursive lettering that reads ‘Get Well Soon’ across the front. He can’t help but smile as his mind wanders to Namjoon — the only one who knew he was sick — and how sweet of a gesture this was.

He opens the card expecting his friend’s messy handwriting and is instead met with a folded piece of drawing paper and note written in bright blue ink. His heart skips a beat. 

It was from Yoongi.

Jimin,

Sorry you haven’t heard from me sooner. I'm really struggling to shake this cold — I want to be healthy first before I ask you out on a date, haha.

 But anyway, a little birdie told me that you’re not feeling very well. (That same little birdie was very willing to give me your address. Two can play at this game, you know.)

I can't stop myself from feeling partially responsible for the state you’re in. I guess that’s what you get for showing up at a plague victim’s apartment, though, yeah? I mean, I don’t want to say I told you so, but…

I told you so.

-Yoongi

p.s. — I would’ve dropped these off myself, but...didn’t think aggravating my allergies on top of this god awful cold would’ve been my best idea. Sorry for supporting your competition but for some reason my favourite flower shop was closed. What else was I supposed to do? Get well soon. xx

 Jimin reads the note a second time, and then a third, before bringing it tightly to his chest. His mind races, and everything feels almost like a fever dream. He nearly thinks he should pinch himself. Instead however, he sets the note down and begins to unfold the drawing paper. Inside is a beautifully coloured drawing of sunflowers. Jimin instantly recognizes it as the same drawing he had seen half-finished in Yoongi’s sketchbook a few days prior. He can hardly contain the smile that overtakes his face as he squeezes the drawing to his chest in a similar way to the note.

Min Yoongi was full of surprises, this much was now obvious, and Jimin can’t stop himself from feeling silly for having been so worried. 

With his head swimming and heart racing, the florist makes his way back into his living room and scoops up his phone.

Yoongi, he types with a playful smile, why didn’t you just text me?

#making these moodboard is so fun to do as their story progresses #like now that y'all know yoongi has tattoos i get to include fun tattoo edits! #i really hope you guys like this au because I definitely think I'm going to continue it as time goes on #i have a lot of fun laying their story out #who knows maybe i'll even include some backstory from when joon and yoongi bartended together? #anyway i'm getting ahead of myself #i hope you like this one!!! #mine #bts sickfic #bts au #sick!jimin #yoonmin #bts whump #oops i meant moodboards not moodboard but there's no way in hell i'm deleting all of these takes to fix it don't hate me #ps daffodils stand for new beginnings so enjoy that tidbit of information if you've managed to read all of these tags lol #tags not takes i hate it here lol #bts snzfic #bts snz

[sfblah]

Not so much a rant as a ramble, but here we go.

I’m mixed white and Asian (Korean specifically), and I’m not totally sure how to actually describe this feeling, but a lot of the time I feel like I’m basically “just” a white guy. For probably more than two thirds of my life, I basically only had white friends, teachers, acquaintances and so on, to the point where I was basically the closest thing to a token minority in my social circle. Outside of a few instances of people assuming I spoke Chinese or something, it never really felt like it though. I really only speak English, I’ve only ever visited Korea once, and I feel like I’ve had basically no exposure to the culture outside of the food.

I know I’ve lived a very privileged life, and I haven’t experienced systemic racism the way many people clearly have. I don’t know how much of this is just my anxiety talking, but even now I kind of worry that I’m saying this less to make a point and more just to go “waah don’t forget about meee,” and honestly I don’t even know what the truth is there myself. Heck, I stopped writing this right here for like 10 minutes and considered just deleting it and not saying anything, but to hell with it, let’s go.

More under the cut, likely CW for racism. I apologize in advance if any of the content or my attitude about it are offensive. I tend to get kind of blasé about this stuff as it applies to me, that’s just kinda how I’ve always handled it. I wouldn’t want to get jokey with anyone else’s experiences.

Probably the biggest thing I’ve picked up on as I’ve become more conscious of these things is that Asian characters in fetish stories and such are pretty much the same as Asian characters in American media as a whole: they practically don’t exist unless they’re being either stereotyped or fetishized. There are of course some counter examples that are always nice to see, but I’m sure everyone has at least unconsciously noticed that there are hardly any Asian characters in popular media who aren’t martial artists, doctors, or frail submissive uwu tradwives.

No guesses which of those is most common in snz fiction. I will say I wonder if things are different in the realms of fanfiction, and stories that focus more on male sneezing. But in that oh so special realm of straight men writing women for their own pleasure, Asian characters basically don’t exist unless somebody’s got mad yellow fever. Again I’m sure there are positive counter examples, or at least I hope there are, and I’m not throwing shade on any specific people. Except one, we’ll get to that.

I can only speak to my own experiences and I know one person can’t just tell you what is or isn’t okay when it comes to fetishization and representation. Well, it’s a lot easier to say what isn’t okay, I think you get what I mean. But at least to me, if you find physical features commonly associated with Asian ethnicities attractive, I think that’s totally fine. Be more eloquent about it than I am right now, but describe your characters’ monolid eyes and flat noses, more power to you. I know something I’ve struggled with is worrying that a baseline of describing what a character looks like will come across as fetishizing them, but there are perfectly fine ways to just be tactful about it. If those things that make you go doki doki are literally the only traits said character has, then maybe it’s time to take a step back and think about it, but hey, that’s an opportunity to learn.

Also I do need to own up myself, I’ve basically only written like three Asian characters ever, and yeah, pretty much every other character I’ve penned has been white. Even with characters I’ve created whose appearances and ethnicities are unspecified, if I’m being fully honest, they’re probably white in the theater of my mind, and I know that’s something I need to work on.

And now to close things out, some fun. You want your bad rep? I got your bad rep. I’m still not gonna name names, but let’s just say this guy is an honorless p’takh, and nine times out of ten he’s the one I’m referring to when I complain about the forum not properly hiding posts by people you’ve blocked.

Anyway, years ago I’d set up a little roleplay forum, separate from blue, but all you needed to do was follow the link and sign up. I can’t remember what the url is, it’s been a long time, but it’s probably still out there somewhere. I was doing an RP with this guy and a few other people, and our characters were trying to survive an alien invasion. (For anyone who knows me, this is probably the least surprising snz RP premise I could have come up with lmao.) Our characters had just gotten out of the city where we started, and our plan was to hide out in the woods.

This guy’s character was a young Japanese girl, and he didn’t join the RP until right around this point. Pretty much every single post he made was about how his character was so “traditional” and mysterious, and without any meaningful interaction with anyone else in the group, he had her split off from the group to go bathe in a river, assume all of our characters would be confused by her strange foreign ways and even outright hate her because of it, and then just straight up run away from the group and essentially quit the RP entirely.

At the time I didn’t really get what had even happened, and I just wrote it off as a weird RP experience. But a few years after that, I posted a story with one of those three Asian characters I’ve actually written. This guy sent me a PM not long after, told me how much he liked that character in particular, and asked if he could write his own story with her. I’m already not in the business of giving out my OCs for other people to write so I likely would have said no anyway, but this moment was what got me to connect the dots between there, that RP, and the greater context of what was happening.

Moral of the story is, I obviously can’t give anyone carte blanche to do whatever they want, but I think I can safely say that if you want to write Asian characters and are worried about coming across like you’re fetishizing them, as long as your heart is in the right place and you don’t do any of that stuff I just said, I’m willing to go on a little faith.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I know I probably still have big redditor energy even after all these years, but please do let me know if anything I’ve said is horribly offensive or just plain wrong. I mostly meant to just talk about my own experiences, but this is definitely something I know I still need to learn more about, and I wouldn’t want to be combative toward anyone trying to help in that.

#shut up blah #whew #I still kinda feel like I shouldn't even post this but whatever #if I shouldn't have then please just tell my stupid ass

[sickiebabytae]

hi baby i hope you're feeling okay. how about a drabble of yoongi puking because of stress? but maybe not like the good old yoongi pukes in the studio because his songs aren't working out but more like the poor guy is stressed because of the holidays or something ):

Sickie: Yoongi

Caretaker: Jungkook

Word count: 903

Description: Yoongi really wants to bake cookies for his family, what with the holidays coming up. Too many problems get in the way, however, and he's left with a horrible stomach ache, crying in bed because he's too weak to get up. But Jungkook knows how to save the day. Well... kind of.

TW: includes mentions of emeto (and a lil bit of snz)

--

Yoongi knows baking isn't his forte. Hell, one of the only things he can do in terms of cuisine is steak and ramen. Still, though, he wants to make an effort this year, Christmas only right around the corner.

Unfortunately, he seems to have left all the preparation to the last minute; how is he supposed to realize that Christmas Eve is today? 

He scrambles to the kitchen, swearing under his breath as he quickly fumbles through all his cupboards and cabinets to find trays and measuring equipment.

Jungkook, his boyfriend, frantically skids to a stop in front of the kitchen door, hair a mess and sleepy doe eyes wide. "Yoongi, wha- what are you doing? It's five am."

"Cookies." Yoongi answers simply, running to their pantry to get ingredients.

Jungkook sighs and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. "Yoongi, come on, can't you do this later?" He whines.

"No. This will take forever," Yoongi explains. "I have to leave in a couple hours."

Jungkook frowns. "Okay, well, I'll go do some work until then." He shuffles off.

The next three hours is spent in chaos, at least for Yoongi. He hasn't stopped running around his kitchen, or swearing. It's just that nothing seems to be going right, and his family is counting on him to bring the cookies. To show that he actually is committed to their family reunions. But now the one chance of him proving to his family that he does indeed enjoy being around them every Christmas is failing. Miserably. "Fuck this…" Yoongi mutters under his breath, gripping at his hair slightly. 

It doesn't help, either, that he's starting to get a killer stomach ache, making his abdomen clench and churn with nerves. He sighs, deciding to quickly go take a nap to sleep it off.

This plan also fails miserably, nausea making his gut twist every few seconds. Yoongi grunts in pain and grimaces, curled up on himself with arms wrapped around his abdomen. He sobs - a very un-Yoongi thing to do - and grabs the trashcan that he'd expertly placed next to his bed for such a situation.

He swallows convulsively and stares at the plastic, whimpering after a few moments; another very un-Yoongi thing to do. He wants Jungkook.

As if his prayers are answered, Yoongi's boyfriend peeks his head into the room, frowning when he sees how pale and shaky Yoongi is. "Baby?" He asks worriedly.

Yoongi whimpers again, unable to answer before he's retching into the trashcan, a torrent of puke landing at the bottom and splattering against the plastic.

Jungkook gasps and coos, rushing over. "Oh, kitten… you poor thing, what happened?" 

Yoongi shakes his head and sobs, tears spilling down his cheeks. "T-Tummy hurts…" He mumbles.

The younger sighs and pulls his boyfriend into a loving back hug. "Yoonie, I'm sorry. You must've stressed yourself out too much." He reasons, rubbing the older's stomach tenderly.

Yoongi whines a little, bringing up a few more mouthfuls. He leans against Jungkook, utterly exhausted.

Jungkook sighs. "Stay here, okay? Just rest for a while. I'll go see if I can make the cookies."

"You sure?"

Jungkook smiles. "I'm sure." He gets up and shuffles off, leaving Yoongi to try and sleep.

Yoongi is woken about half an hour later to a strange sound coming from the kitchen. At first he brushes it off, thinking he's imagining things. But then he hears it again… and again. 

He sits upright in confusion. What could that be? He knows it has to be Jungkook, because there's no one else in the house. Then it hits him: his boyfriend is sneezing. But… why?

His questions are immediately answered the moment Jungkook awkwardly shuffles into the bedroom, hiding something behind his back. He's absolutely covered in flour.

Yoongi raises a brow. "Let me guess: you somehow made a mess everywhere and that's why you were sneezing your brains out two seconds ago?"

Jungkook blushes and giggles sheepishly. "Maybe?" He sighs and sits down next to Yoongi.

"Look, point is, neither of us can bake for shit. But! Look what I happened to find in the pantry!" He reveals what he had been hiding behind his back: a store bought box of cookies. He offers a big, hopeful smile along with it, his expression screaming for Yoongi to not be mad.

Yoongi is silent for a moment, then bursts into hysterical laughter. He pecks Jungkook's floury cheek and shakes his head. "You're ridiculous, and I love you for it."

Jungkook breathes out a sigh of relief and chuckles. "Okay, good, because we need to leave. Are you feeling better?"

Yoongi nods. "Much. Come on."

--

A/N: so this kinda got a bit out of hand, but its okay lol. this might seem a bit rushed and bad, but this is only a drabble. I have much better writing (hopefully) in store, so don't worry! also thank you to the anon who requested, this was so fun to write and I found your idea adorable 🥺🥺 

#woah two fics in one day?? #wow #im impressed at myself #*pat on the back* #emeto #sick!yoongi #caring!jungkook #snz

[whoareurl]

The Choir - Part 6

soooo i know i’ve been gone for like what? a year? sorry omg i have precisely no excuse but uni has been wild. i just kinda suddenly was possessed with a desperate need to write about these boys. there isn’t a lot snz wise going on but a lot of pining and y’know. i’m having fun. since it’s been A YEAR, if u wanna refresh their story so far u can find them in order here! but also if you don’t care anymore because IT’S BEEN A YEAR that’s totally cool too!

-

Thomas lied to Mr Malone about his first class. He didn’t know what made him do it but the words were spilling out of him before they’d had a chance to be stupid-checked by his brain.

“I don’t have class until this afternoon if you’d like some company?”

The moment he said it, he experienced an overwhelming urge to hurl himself out the window of Mr Malone’s first floor flat. Even if it wouldn’t kill him, the sheer drama of the moment might distract both of them from the most embarrassing thing Thomas has ever said in his entire life. He had resigned himself to the necessity of transferring to a university on the other side of the country by the time Mr Malone smiled at him.

“I wouldn’t want to keep you,” he said, and Thomas’s heart hammered as it sank deep into the pit of his stomach. Any lower, and it might just fall out his butt. “But being sick can be terribly lonely.”

Thomas held his breath. Was...was his cute, sexy, and vulnerable choirmaster asking him to stay with him while he suffered through a miserable cold and hold him through his shivers and mop his fevered brow and-

Okay, he was getting a bit ahead of himself. But his heart still catapulted up into his throat and he was suddenly worried it was going to pop out of his mouth rather than his butt. Or maybe it was actually thudding out of his chest like in cartoons. (He risked a quick glance down and was relieved to discover that this was decidedly not the case.)

“Besides,” Mr Malone went on, wiping his poor red nose with what was by now a very tired tissue. “Ellie seems to think you’re part of the couch now. Wouldn’t do to harm her concept of object permanence at such a delicate age.”

God, Thomas thought. He’s so fucking weird. He’s perfect.

Since Mr Malone refused to let him get up lest he disturb Ellie’s catnap, the nurse/patient scenario which had been growing arms and legs in Thomas’s mind quickly began to fade as he watched Mr Malone stand up again with a groan of exhaustion and shuffle into the kitchen to brew a fresh pot of tea. Thomas didn’t think anybody actually owned teapots outside of his grandfather and old ladies who exchanged gossip in the church hall on Sunday afternoons. He heard a flurry of rough, almost violent sneezes from the kitchen but all he could see was the blurred outline of Mr Malone’s shadow in the soft light shifting noncommittally with each desperate spasm.

Trying quite desperately to ignore the sudden heat between his legs as an image of Mr Malone falling asleep with his head on Thomas’s shoulder blossomed unbidden in his mind, Thomas quickly focused his attention on the variety of instruments cluttering up the living room. He noticed a violin case tucked away down the side of an armchair and wondered just how many instruments Mr Malone could actually play. He pictured his long, slender fingers pressing confidently against the taut strings, the body of the instruments nestled expertly beneath his chin. He saw his teacher’s strong grip on the bow, the fluid sway of his body as he moved with the feel of the music, intensity of his body’s music growing to a climax along with the music until-

“Thomas?”

Thomas snapped back to reality with an unpleasant crash and found Mr Malone sitting on the couch next to him, one hand resting gently on his thigh and an expression of deep concern on his face. The tone of his voice suggested that he’d been trying to get Thomas’s attention for some time and the thought of what his face might have betrayed of his daydreaming sent a shiver down his spine.

“Are you alright?” Mr Malone asked, voice quiet and hoarse. “You’re not feeling ill, are you?”

“No!” Thomas protested quickly, wincing when Ellie grumbled. “No, I’m fine. Just...away with the fairies.”

Mr Malone was squinting at him, apparently unconvinced. “Maybe it isn’t a good idea for you to stay. I really don’t want to give you this.”

“No! It’s okay, really,” Thomas said desperately, trying to claw his way towards an excuse. He didn’t want to leave. He’d just moments ago been granted this insight into Mr Malone’s private life and he didn’t feel ready to give it up yet.

Mr Malone hummed thoughtfully and reached forward to press a cold hand against Thomas’s forehead. More than anything, Thomas willed himself to stop bloody blushing or else Mr Malone was going to think-

“You look a bit flushed. And you’re warm,” Mr Malone said and the corners of his eyes were creased in concern.

Thomas wanted to reach over and smooth out the lines of worry on the choirmaster’s face, to reassure him that he was fine, that he didn’t need to go home, that he wasn’t catching Mr Malone’s cold. He cursed his stupid body’s inability to think about this man without instantly turning his face a ridiculous shade of scarlet.

Mr Malone sighed and Thomas knew what he was going to say before the words were out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry. It was selfish of me to ask you to stay. I’d hate to get you sick,” he said quietly, patting Thomas’s upper arm before pulling away and shifting so he was as far from Thomas as he could be while still sitting on the couch.

“It’s really f-”

“No.” Mr Malone interrupted gently. “I’d like you to go home and rest. I’ll be perfectly alright on my own.”

Thomas sighed. “What about Ellie?” He asked, defeated. He knew this was a lost cause.

Silently, Mr Malone reached over and nudged Ellie’s behind firmly, earning a disgruntled meow as she hopped down onto the ground and sauntered off down the hall with her tail swishing carelessly through the air.

“Thank you for the lift, Thomas,” Mr Malone said as they both stood. Mr Malone placed a hand on the small of Thomas’s back as he guided him to the door. “I really do appreciate it. And I’ll see what I can do about getting you into an advanced piano class.”

“Oh, you don’t, you don’t have to do that,” Thomas said, flustered.

“It’s no trouble,” Mr Malone said, sounding raspier with every word. Thomas felt his own throat ache in sympathy. “And don’t worry. If they won’t bend the rules, I’m happy to teach you myself.”

And, without even giving Thomas a chance to respond, Mr Malone told him to have a safe trip back and closed the door, leaving his poor, smitten student gaping like a goldfish at the chipped green paint. Feeling somewhat numb, Thomas robotically made his way outside and climbed into his car.

Mr Malone was...happy to teach him...himself? Did that mean...did that mean there was likely to be more of these one-on-one moments in that tiny office, Mr Malone adjusting his wrists just so?

Thomas let his forehead smack down on his steering wheel. This man was going to be the death of him.

#choir shenanigans #aceocs #acefic #ace ocs #hi sorry i disappeared for a literal year #i hope yall still like me omg

[redlavendertea]

Rhinoceros Inc.

Have you ever wanted to get out of a work or school obligation, but didn’t have a genuine excuse? Have you ever wanted to get revenge on someone who did you wrong - but not too much revenge? We here at Rhinoceros Inc. have the perfect solution: a cold. Yes, that’s right - with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can purchase your very own cold, to infect yourself, or another person of your choosing.

We offer mild, medium, and severe packages, with customizable symptoms and duration. Click here to place your order!

Chrysanthemum Wu, Cold Psychic, has a really annoying roommate named Giselle who won’t stop throwing herself elaborate birthday parties in their tiny apartment. In a fit of annoyance, she orders up some revenge from Rhinoceros Inc., a mysterious online retailer that promises to give a cold to a chosen target. To her surprise, it actually works - but who or what is Rhinoceros Inc.? Could Chrysanthemum have finally found other people with cold-based powers? Author’s Note: A long time ago, I saw a post that mentioned the possibility of buying colds on the Internet. I thought that idea was amazing and decided to run with it…and apply it to my OCs. There’s definitely a lot of snz here, but it’s also fairly plot heavy.

This is part one - part two will come if and when I feel like it, which depends both on my schedule and how interested people are in part one. It’s about 5k.

ko-fi | commissions

~`~`~. For the past week, Chrysanthemum’s apartment has been exploding with people.

Her roommate Giselle had a birthday this week, and according to Giselle, birthdays are to be celebrated for at least a solid week. One day, she had her six siblings and thirteen cousins over to drink Midori sours and watch Project Runway, the next she had twenty high school friends over for a dance party, and the day after that it was her college buddies watching American Horror Story and smoking weed. When Chrysanthemum decides she’s had enough of this shit, Giselle’s adult kickball league is watching videos of their previous games and screaming at them. They are planning on having a pillow fight soon. Chrysanthemum has been invited to participate, but given that it’s 2 AM and she has an opening shift at the tutoring center tomorrow, she isn’t into it. What she wants is for Giselle and her friends to shut up and go home. There’s another party scheduled for tomorrow - this one involving a croquet course that Giselle is planning to set up in the living room. Likely, the parties won’t end until two or three days from now. Giselle never once asked if Chrysanthemum was cool with this, and she’d completely ignored her suggestions that perhaps some of these parties take place outside of their tiny apartment. “It’s cold out!” she’d complained, crossing her arms and pouting. “I don’t want to be dragging a bunch of people around in the middle of the night when it’s less than ten degrees outside - we’ll get sick!” Chrysanthemum had wished that they would - or at least, that Giselle would. That would put a halt to the never-ending parties pretty quick, and even if it didn’t, it would at least feel good to see her be inconvenienced in some way after all the noise and distraction she’d forced Chrysanthemum to endure. Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening any time soon. In fact, Giselle would not be getting any illness until late September, a full five months from now. Chrysanthemum herself was going to be catching two colds between now and then, and a third one when she’ll Giselle’s cold thanks entirely to the latter’s failure to clean up her dirty tissues, so that pisses her off too. She can’t sleep while listening to the thwacks of pillows and the shrieks of Giselle’s friends, so she ends up laying in bed scrolling aimlessly on her phone. A strange link catches her eye, and she clicks on it - Colds For Sale. It’s probably something about winter clothing, but the word ‘cold’ gets her attention. When you're a psychic who predicts when other people are going to get sick, you can’t help having that word on your radar. Have you ever wanted to get out of a work or school obligation, but didn’t have a genuine excuse? Have you ever wanted to get revenge on someone who did you wrong - but not too much revenge? We here at Rhinoceros Inc. have the perfect solution: a cold. Yes, that’s right - with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can purchase your very own cold, to infect yourself, or another person of your choosing.

We offer mild, medium, and severe packages, with customizable symptoms and duration. Click here to place your order!

Chrysanthemum blinks. She had to have misread that. You can’t buy colds online…can you? She clicks the link. There’s a list of cold symptoms with boxes that you can tick off next to each one, a box that asks for how long you want the cold to last, a box for the intended victim’s name, a box for the date the cold should start, an option for an immediate or gradual start, and a box asking for any extra information. Hovering over the mild, medium, and severe options reveals that the mild package creates superficial symptoms that don’t leave you feeling too bad - perfect, it claims, for getting out of obligations. The medium package creates a genuine feeling of unwellness and requires rest to get over, while the severe package will knock you out completely, and should only be used with the utmost caution. Beneath all that is a disclaimer stating that the colds are not contagious, and that the company cannot be held responsible for the stunning range of consequences and complications that could arise. It also includes an advisory not to use this on children, the elderly, or those with health issues. Beneath that are payment options.

This seems like…a real thing. What the actual fuck. Against her better judgement, she finds herself checking off the boxes next to sneezing, congestion, runny nose, blocked ears, sore throat, coughing, and fever. She considers choosing the severe package, but opts against it - she doesn’t hate Giselle that much, and she doesn’t want to end up killing her by mistake. Medium it is, with eight days worth of symptoms, for Giselle Leblanc, starting tomorrow morning with all symptoms beginning as soon as possible. In the “additional information” box she writes: make it the worst kind of medium possible. This is harsh, but if there's any chance of any of the upcoming parties not happening, she’s taking it. She takes her credit card out of her phone wallet, pays, and gets a cheerful confirmation that her order has been processed, and her product will be activated this morning at 6 AM. There is a high possibility that she’s just been scammed out of $29.99 - after all, if it was going to work she’d be able to predict it, right? If nothing else, the spite she felt while making the order makes her feel better about the shouting coming from the living room. ~`~`~

The next morning around 7:30 AM, Chrysanthemum wanders into the kitchen, and sees Giselle sitting at the kitchen table by herself. The friends who didn’t bail last night are still asleep on the couch or on the living room floor, but Giselle is wide awake, clutching a tissue and sniffling.

Her late-night purchase couldn’t have possibly worked, could it?

Giselle’s breath hitches for nearly five full seconds before she sneezes - “hhph-phchuu!” into the waiting tissue. “Bless you,” says Chrysanthemum, too embarrassed to look Giselle in the eye. She starts brewing coffee and pops a slice of bread into the toaster. Giselle mumbles a congested thank you, then blows her nose so hard it squeaks. “You sound…not great.” Chrysanthemum tries her best to look deeply absorbed in the process of spreading nutella onto on her toast and slicing up strawberries to go on top. “I thidk I have a cold. Snff. I was fide yesterday, but I woke up around 6 super stuffy. Snff. This is such bad timing too - I’b having my coworkers over for croquet add finger sandwiches today, but I’m so not up for doing the prep work—hhnngh-shiew!” She pulls another tissue from the box beside her and blows. “Do you thidk you’d be able to help mbe out?” “Don’t think so, no - I have work in the morning and I’m meeting up with Marti afterward.”

“Oh, come on Chrys, it’s for a party! Snff. Cad’t you take the day off and help me?” Giselle bats her eyelashes, then dissolves into a coughing fit that leaves her rubbing her throat and grimacing. It’s likely exaggerated for sympathy points, but she does genuinely look pitiful. Chrysanthemum almost gives in - after all, it’s entirely her fault that Giselle is sick - but then shakes the notion from her head when she realizes how genuinely absurd the request is. Take an entire day off of work to set up a croquet set for a party that she doesn’t even want Giselle to throw? Hell no! She refuses again, earning herself a protruding lower lip and crossed arms. “Well, if you cad’t call off of work, cad’t you at least skip meeting Marti and come help mbe afterward? Everyone’s coming at around four, so we’ll still have a good four hours — hyahhhSHIHH! Eckh’sh!” She snuffles into another issue and massages the bridge of her increasingly pink nose. “I feel awful - don’t you care about helping me?” “If you’re that sick, shouldn’t you do a raincheck on the party anyway? You won’t have much fun, and you’ll get all your coworkers sick.”

This is technically not true, but like hell is Chrysanthemum going to tell Giselle that she bought her cold from Rhinoceros Inc. “You dod’t understand, I’ve beed hyping up the party at work for the past month! I’b dressing up like Alice from Alice In Wonderland! My boss is supposed to be the red queen. Snff. Also, Cody’s going to be there! I can’t…pass up…snff…chadce to…spend time with…HGHHSHIEW!”

Giselle flops face first onto the table and groans, while Chrysanthemum takes a bite of her toast and pats her on the head. “I don’t think that Cody is going to like you more if you sneeze all over the place and give him your cold,” she says. “I guess you’re right. Snff. I’b just so disappointed. I put so mbuch effort into making sure that everything would be perfect for my birthday and ndow it’s ruined.” Tears well up in her eyes. Chrysanthemum doesn’t feel sorry for her, but for a brief moment she feels like she probably should. That feeling completely disappears when Giselle leans over and sneezes all over Chrysanthemum, spraying her with mucus and spit. Giselle apologizes, but chases it with these words as she’s dabbing her nose: “I guess if you end up catching mby cold you kind of deserve it, since you refused to help mbe.”

“Um, okay, I guess I should start looking for a new roommate if that’s how you’re gonna be…” This is said more out of obligation than genuine feeling - while she’s irritated with Giselle for doing something so gross, she hardly has the right to complain when she engineered the whole situation. “I’m going to change into something not covered in snot, then finish getting ready for work,” Chrysanthemum says. Which I have to go to so I can pay my half of the rent on our apartment. You just sit here and blow your nose or whatever.”

~`~`~

Work is a mixed blessing. Chrysanthemum knew she would be able to leave early because she’d predicted that her last student of the day, a college junior who had been pulling all-nighters to finish a 20-page research paper, would be out with a cold. She had not predicted that one of her other students, a sophomore who had been trying to get her number for the past six weeks, would have no idea how to put together a basic five-paragraph essay, and would end up crying in her arms about how stupid he was…and then asking for her number again when she pat him on the shoulder and said something vaguely reassuring.

Dealing with other humans has completely drained her, but hanging out with Marti doesn't count as dealing with other humans. She has to tell somebody about Rhinoceros Inc. - Marti is the only person she knows who won’t judge her. She probably won't believe her - she used to be skeptical as fuck about Chrysanthemum’s powers until she proved them - but she’ll at least listen and try to offer something resembling a solution.

They meet up at Argo Tea and get lattes and cookies, then scout out a seat with outlets so that they’’ll be able to charge their phones. Marti is wearing a lime green bomber jacket covered in black lightning bolts, motorcycle boots, and a mini skirt. Her green lipstick smears off onto the chocolate when she takes her first bite of cookie.

“You look cute,” says Chrysanthemum. “Coming from someplace important?” “Tazhane,” sighs Marti, as if that’s a place, not a person. “We had a date. I wanted to make sure I looked good.” “I’m sorry to interrupt your date.”

“She had class, so it’s no interruption - and anyway you know I can always make time for my girl.” She flashes a smiles, then wipes the crumbs from her mouth. “So what’s up? You just need to vent about the never-ending birthday or is there something else going on? Did you manage to talk to Stella?”

“I did not manage to talk to Stella.” Great, that’s another thing she has to be upset about. Why, exactly, would that sweetheart want to spend time with some asshole who spends $29.99 to make her roommate miserable? “It’s about the never-ending birthday. I think I might have put a stop to it, but it’s kind of…insane. And magical. You probably aren’t going to believe me, but just hear me out, okay? I’ll buy your next latte.” “You don’t have to bribe me to listen to your weirdo shit, but if you want to buy me a latte out of friendship, I’ll take it.” Marti leans over, hands curled under her chin. “Is it the psychic thing? Did you predict I’m gonna catch another cold?” “It’s…cold-related, but it’s not a prediction. Not a new one anyhow - I already told you you’re going to get one around mid-June.” “Right, right, that’s why I decided not to go to that Cake concert. See, I’m actually taking you seriously now - see what a good friend I am? You should buy me two lattes.”

Chrysanthemum pushes Marti on the shoulder, then says, “I’m being serious, Mar. Have you ever heard of Rhinoceros Inc.?” "I have not. I guess since you said this has something to do with colds it’s rhino as in nose, not rhino as in a friendly horned jungle buddy?” “I’m pretty sure rhinos don’t live in the jungle. Anyway it’s a website where you can buy colds and give them to people. I bought one for Giselle because her birthday extravaganza was driving me up the wall, and it actually worked. Like she woke up this morning sneezing all over the place.” Marti nearly spits out her drink, then starts coughing lightly. “Um…nani the fuck, Chrys? You purchased a cold? Do you mean you like…bought viruses off the Internet? Because I’m pretty sure that’s extremely illegal and you could go to jail if someone found out.” “No, they didn’t send me anything - the site doesn’t explain how it happens. I just paid $29.99 and it happened magically. I was pretty sure it was a scam, but it was super late and I was tired and pissed off so I decided to do it anyway. Here, look at the site.” She pulls it up on her phone, which she hands over to Marti. Marti scrolls through the site, brows furrowed. “This sounds like some really detailed bullshit,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “But you believe it?” “It’s not any weirder than me being able to predict people catching colds. If I exist, why couldn’t this? Maybe there's someone out there who can psychically give people colds.” “If there is, you want to meet them, right?” “Of course I do! I’ve always wanted to meet somebody else like me. Having powers nobody else believes or understands is one of the most isolating things in the world.” Chrysanthemum tries to keep the hurt out of her voice, but it doesn’t work. Marti sighs. “Okay fine. Look, I’ve felt bad about not believing you in the past, so I’ll help you out - but you’re buying my next five lattes. The first thing we have to do is prove it. Giselle could have easily gone on your laptop while you were sleeping and saw what you tried to do, then faked a cold to try and mess with you. I think we should order colds for ourselves. That’s the only way to know for certain if this is real or if it’s a hoax.” “I don’t exactly have another $29.99 to spare, let alone twice that…” “Whatever, we’ll just put it on my credit card and you’ll pay me back later. We have to get to the bottom of this, don’t we? Anyway I’d say we should each pick different symptoms, that way we can see whether we both get the symptoms we choose. I’m going to have to pick medium because it’s not going to be distinguishable from my allergies otherwise - you can pick mild if you want, though.” “No, it’s only fair that I suffer with you.” “That’s my girl!” Marti leans over and rubs Chrysanthemum’s shoulder, wrinkling her pale pink sweatshirt. “Alright, I’ll take sore throat and cough - I’m already kind of sniffly from the pollen count, so I don’t want to mix up the results. You can take all the nasal stuff. Let’s choose delivery within one hour with one day of symptoms, sound good? That way we can get back to my place and be sick in peace.” The two of them place their orders, then start packing up their things and heading to Marti's apartment.

~`~`~ The two of them lay in Marti’s loft bed, Marti wearing her Sword Art Online t-shirt and her black pajama pants, Chrysanthemum wearing Marti’s Sailor Moon t-shirt and Marti’s pink pajama pants, her hair in Sailor Moon buns because if she’s going to be sick she may as well be cute. On the bed beside them is a fresh box of tissues and a bag of cough drops, just in case. It is deeply bizarre not to know whether or not a cold is coming. Chrysanthemum has been able to predict every illness she’s experienced since childhood, and every illness Marti has had since they first met in high school. Whatever these people are doing defies her ability to predict it. They stare at the timer on Marti’s phone, which is counting down from the moment they placed their orders.

Ten seconds left. They count down each of them, hearts pounding in their chests. When they reach zero, it seems at first like nothing will happen. Chrysanthemum feels fine, and Marti says that she feels fine too. Maybe the whole thing was a coincidence - Giselle just happened to come down with a cold. Or maybe Giselle had seen the order and was putting on a show, and Chrysanthemum was going to catch hell for it later. Just as she’s about to write it off completely, a wild itch zigzags through her sinuses. Her breath hitches, her eyes slam shut and then she bolts upright in an explosive “heshhooo!”

She plucks a tissue from the box and blows her nose. After taking a few experimental sniffs, she realizes that her nose is now quite congested. One nostril is completely blocked, and the other is flooded with mucus. She blows her nose again, dislodging some of the snot. After a few moments of snuffling and sniffling, her nose starts itching again, and she lets out an itchy quartet of sneezes. Once her own explosions have stopped thundering in her ears, she notices that Marti is coughing into the crook of her elbow. It sounds phlegmy, crackly, and painful. “I thidk it worked,” says Chrysanthemum, sniffing into a fresh tissue. Still coughing, Marti offers a thumbs up. “So…what ndow? HyeshhhIEW!!” That sneeze gets muffled by the crook of her elbow. “Should we try add get id contact with the company? I’b sure they won't be willidg to explain how they do it, but maybe they’ll be a little mbore willdg to answer questions if they know I’m a cold psychic.” “Are you sure you want to just put that out there?” rasps Marti, unwrapping a cough drop and popping it into her mouth. “What if they’re some kind of shady government organization who will kidnap you as soon as they find out? Actually, what if it’s some kind of sting to capture people engaging in bio-terrorism and we’re going to jail because we bought the product? Shit, I really should have thought this through.” “Come on, this isn’t ad anime. Snff. It’ll be fide. Snff. Oh my god I’b so stuffy.”

Though she says this, Chrysanthemum’s heart still pounds as she pulls up the Contact Us link on her phone. She grabs Marti’s and and presses her cheek against her shoulder. “There’s a chat option. Snff. That’s probably a good idea. Snff.” They’re informed that a Rhinoceros Inc. representative will be with them shortly. After a few minutes - most of which Chrysanthemum spends blowing increasingly thick gunk out of her nose - someone named Hannah connects.

Kingston: Hi, this is Kingston. :) How can I help you today? “Pick a fake name!” hisses Marti. “Kingston’s probably a fake name too.” “They already have my name and yours because we’ve placed orders with the…ehhh….ehht-CHIEW! Ugh. Snff. If we were going to be anonymous we should have tried to do it sooner. Snff.”

Chrysanthemum: Hi! I’m a recent customer and I’m blown away by your product. It’s truly incredible. I was wondering if you could answer some questions about how it works? Kingston: I’m not authorized to answer questions about our process, but I can refer you to someone who is. May I ask what your question is so that I can get you to the right person? Chrysanthemum: I just want to know how it works. I can predict when people are going to catch colds, so if there’s anyone out there who can do something in the same ballpark, I want to know about it. Kingston: Just one moment please. Kingston has disconnected from the chat. Hannah has connected to the chat. Hannah: Hi, this is Hannah. I’m authorized to answer questions about our process. Before we proceed any further, I’d like to inform you that our conversation encrypted, and that you will not be able to save the information shared here. Chrysanthemum is pretty sure that she can bypass any encryption by taking a screenshot, but she isn’t going to say anything. Actually, for all she knows about technology an attempt would just set her phone on fire. She keeps reading after scratching her tingling, itching nose. Kingston informed me that you can predict when other people are going to catch colds - were you able to determine whether or not our product would work before using it?   Chrysanthemum: No, I couldn’t. This is the first time I’ve ever been unsure about anything cold related, so it was a strange experience. Hannah: I see. What would you like to know? “Shit, what should I ask? Snff. Cad I just come out add ask how they do it?” She grabs a fresh tissue and dabs at her nose. After Marti finishes dealing with a coughing fit that sounds harsh enough to blast a hole through her ribcage, she tells Chrysanthemum to get on with it already. Chrysanthemum: I want to know how you’re able to give people colds. I’ve waited my whole life to meet other people who were anything like me, so if there’s anything that you can tell me, please do. Hannah: We will tell you - if you sign a nondisclosure agreement. I’ll forward it to you momentarily. Please initial in the marked boxes and send it back to me. It takes Chrysanthemum longer than it should to handle the signing, because her nose is so itchy and drippy and swollen that it’s difficult to focus on anything else. She snuffles into a handful of wet tissues, then unleashes a volley of sneezes into a fresh one. “Goddabbit,” she mumbles through her unshakable congestion. “We shouldn’t have bought bediums. Snff. I’b afraid of what the severe versiod is like—hyekkCHIEW! ASHIHH! EH’SHuHH! Ugh!! Okay, I have it signed. Snff.” Hannah: Alright. Here’s the information you requested. We have a small staff of employees who are able to remotely generate cold symptoms in a person, as long as they have their name. The exact mechanism of this ability is unknown - only that it appears to be an inborn psychic ability. Our founder provides rigorous training for employees to ensure consistency and quality of service. Chrysanthemum: Are you able to do this? Hannah: Yes - most of our employees can. Chrysanthemum: How did you find out that you had this power? Hannah: As a little girl, I got angry with my younger brother for pulling my hair, and I wished for him to catch a terrible cold, and he did. I assumed it was a coincidence, but I kept wishing colds on people who annoyed me and getting the same result. Hannah: You said that you have cold prediction abilities - how did you discover this ability? “Damn, this bitch is petty,” rasps Marti. “Then again she’s not the one spending $29.99 for the same effect, so.” “I’b the queen of pettiness. Snff.” Chrysanthemum: I’ve always known. It took a long time to realize that other people couldn’t predict when they were going to catch a cold, and even more time to get anyone to believe me - but I've always known. It’s useful to an extent, but it’s also really hard. I don’t just learn about people’s colds, I learn about all the circumstances surrounding them. So I have all these little windows into the lives of people I barely know. Sometimes I learn some really sad things and I want to help but I can’t. Also, sometimes I find out that someone is going to get really messed up because of the cold they’re going to catch, and I know exactly to help them avoid it….but I can’t, because they’re not going to believe me. “Awww…” Marti reaches over and squeezes Chrysanthemum’s shoulder. “You need to tell me stuff like this, okay? I’m your best friend. I know I’m not always cool about it but all you gotta do is yell at me and I’ll get it right eventually.” Chrysanthemum nods, and returns Marti’s shoulder squeeze.

Hannah: I sympathize. I don’t have your predictive abilities, but being able to make people sick on command is hard. You feel guilty, especially when there are consequences that you can’t predict. I’ve landed people in the hospital before without meaning to. Working Rhinoceros Inc. has been a great way to get my powers under control and use them constructively. Chrysanthemum: Is this business really constructive? Don’t most people use it for revenge or getting out of things?

Hannah: Yes - but that’s not the only reason. People have used it to stop others from making terrible life choices, for enhancing their sex life…all kinds of reasons, really.” “HEHKCHH! Snff.” Chrysanthemum nearly drops the tablet with the force of her sneeze. Hard to ibagide this kind of thidg enhancing anyone’s sex life. Snff.” “You’d be surprised Chrys, people like all kinds of wack shit.” Marti grimaces, rubs a throat that’s probably painfully raw inside. Chrysanthemum: Yeah….sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your business - I just spent like $90 on it so I have no right to talk. Look, would it be possible for me to come by sometime? I don’t know where you guys are located but I’m fascinated by this. I want to meet you all in person. Maybe there’s even something I could do to help out.

Hannah: Yes - but you’ll have to pay for travel expenses yourself. We’re located in Brooklyn, NY, would you be able to travel there? Chrysanthemum: Yeah, I live in Bensonhurst. Just give me an address and I’ll be there. “Oh mby god Marti - I’m actually going to meet these people! Snff. You have to come with me. I’m too scared to do this myself.” Chrysanthemum clings to her friends’ arm. “Please please please you’re my best friend you have to help me.” “Mmm…okay. But maybe we should get Giovanni and Augustin to come with us?” Her voice peters out, and she gulps down half a bottle of water to get it back. “We should probably take some intimidating white dudes with us in case things get hairy.” “Augustin is the least intimidating white dude I’ve ever met —wait hang on…” Her sinuses spark with itchiness, and she sneezes into her Sailor Moon t-shirt — “HiiehCHIEH! Ugh, I’b glad we only have these symptoms for adother day, this sucks. Snff.” “Chrys, focus up - we need Augustin. He might look like a flimsy little homo but when he pulls out his professor act he’s terrifying! Who do you think is going to talk to the cops and get us out of trouble if it comes to that? Not my Mexican ass and not your Chinese ass that’s for damn sure.” “There aren't going to be cops, Marti. Snff.” “You do not know that. I’m not taking any chances. We’re inviting them.” Marti trails off into a fit of hacking coughs, then reaches for another cough drop.

“Okay, fide. I'll text them once we hash out the details.” She sighs, pressing her face into Marti’s shoulder. “I’b just so happy to have finally found other people who are like me.”

“Yeah yeah you big sap, I know. Let’s get this all worked out, okay? And then lets order in some ramen or something - I need soup or my throat is going on strike. You’re staying here tonight, right?” After heaving another sneeze into a rapidly grabbed handful of tissues, Chrysanthemum says that she is.

#cold psychic #natto fics #sickfic #sneezefic #intentional contagion

[blu-archer]

Go Home

Right... So, I’m obviously new here. I’ve been posting my work previously on AO3 [Usernames: Blu_Magic or Indigo_Archer] and someone told me that I should think about posting them here as well.. So I am here. Just reposting what I have so far and hopefully whoever sees this enjoys it.

Main Pairing: Jimin/Yoongi 

Alternate universe - Hybrids are a thing and magic is real.

Warnings: ??? I really don’t think there is any... like maybe... slight mentions of self esteem issues, if you squint? If that’s a warning?

This is snz based, I haven’t ventured into writing anything else really.

Enjoy it! Hopefully there’s no errors... *Awkward peace signs*

*****

“You look wonderful today.” Taehyung greeted sarcastically as he swirled through the entrance of the staff room, making a beeline for his best friend huddled in the corner away from the other members of staff.

The cat hybrid ignored the comment, letting his chin droop into the palm of his hand. Jimin didn’t need to make himself feel any worse than what he already felt like. He had woken up with a piercing headache and the few off hand sneezes from the day before that he had chalked up to allergies, had definitely not been allergies. Honestly, he wouldn’t have even gone in to work that morning if it hadn’t been for the fact that exam season was rapidly arriving, and he couldn’t just leave his students in the dark. His class was practical based, so leaving it to a substitute was out of the question.

So, there he sat, perched pathetically in his thickest sweater with a face mask and tea while the other staff hovered around in their faculties, discussing how far in the syllabus they were. 

He felt awful at not being more of a help towards that particular conversation, but after an unfortunate occurrence earlier involving scolding coffee, a folder of fresh math assignments and an older woman jam packed full of spite and aggression that had left him in a puddle of tears; he had considered it best that he stuck to the shadows. If something important came up then Hoseok would come find him.

Taehyung gave him a pitying smile before helping himself to a seat beside his friend.

Despite not being a teacher at the academy, the witch got away with a lot. Jimin had been amazed to see how quickly Tae had been accepted on the campus just by speaking with staff – starting with the security guards and working his way all the way up to the principal. He seemed to just flash a boxy smile, and everyone just felt compelled to let him do what he wanted. It was almost as if he had them under a spell, which Jimin would believe if only he didn’t know just how much Taehyung unfortunately sucked at using magic. Jimin wasn’t even amazed at how easily his friend had appeared at his work – in a staff only section – without him knowing. It had become almost second nature to just see Taehyung wherever Jimin was.

Jimin was almost envious of how easily everything seemed to come to Tae – almost. He knew the man too well to be blind to the troubles in the witches life. It was very much the same as how Taehyung knew Jimin.

Which was exactly why he had arrived with whatever spiced potion he thought would help the poor calico hybrid, along with a large familiar grey scarf that filled Jimin with both a sense of ease and longing. Jimin coughed into his fist as Tae wrapped the scarf around him, the younger man smiled knowingly as Jimin huddled into it to try and breathe in his boyfriend’s faded minty scent.

“How many classes do you have left?” Taehyung asked, leaning over so that he could pour the potion into the tea which Jimin clutched close to his chest – choosing to remain oblivious to the dread-filled eyes of the poor sniffling hybrid. He had faith in this potion, unlike the others that he’d tried to recreate away from the supervision of Yoongi and Namjoon, he was almost certain that this one would serve as a source of healing. Like 90% certain…. Maybe 85%.  “Namjoon told me that Yoongi should be back from that business trip this afternoon, apparently it went well so he’s finishing early.”

Jimin nodded, his lips twisting into a soft smile at the thought of the older man’s return. Yoongi had been gone for almost three months. The only thing that was keeping Jimin sane was the old articles of clothing that the Warlocks scent clung too, and the video calls that they had worked in every second or third day. Maybe it was his feline genes kicking in, but Jimin really despised the distance. He would much prefer being able to touch and cuddle up to his boyfriend while the elder would pet him or tell him about his day or.. well anything. Anything with Yoongi was better than not being with him.

“I have my last class in half an hour.” Jimin breathed heavily.

His nose had become completely useless after the first two hours of being awake and had yet to show improvement. He tried not to think about the mess of a person he had been throughout the day. Even his students, as hard working and determined to do their best as they were – had encouraged him to sit on the side lines and not join them in the dance session like he usually would.

“Shouldn’t you be with Namjoon? I thought that mentoring those two meant that you are supposed to be with at least one of them during working hours.”

“Don’t be a grouch.” Tae pouted playfully, tossing an arm over Jimin’s shoulders, and carefully reaching up to scratch behind the calico’s ears. “Namjoon had to guest lecture an extra class at the university, so he let me go. Why don’t we head back to my place when you’re done? Jungkook and Hoseok won’t mind. Jungkook has actually missed seeing you, I don’t think he knows as many other hybrids as he claims. If you want to go now I can ask Hobi to cover your class?”

Jimin pursed his lips, gingerly swirling his tea that had taken on an odd vermillion shade. He really did want to leave, but the other two contemporary instructors either had left already or had a conflicting schedule. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he wished that he hadn’t even left his bed. He could have slept the whole day and then maybe he would have felt better by the time Yoongi got back.

 “Hoseok teaches a different style, Tae.” Jimin murmured, leaning into the witches soft scratches with a sigh. “And he has his own classes to go through.”

“His class ends in twenty minutes. Exam preparations have actually opened up his schedule at the school a bit. He gets home earlier with the disadvantage of being buried in paperwork. Honestly, I don’t know why either of you think that teaching is fun, the homework is no joke.”

Jimin chuckled only to break off into a hoarse cough that left him wincing. He felt Tae’s hand move from his fluffy ears to his back, calmly rubbing circles into the knitted material of his clothes.

“I’m going to ask him to take your class. It can’t be that difficult, maybe the fact that he has a different technique and specialty will help your students find their own self-expression or whatever you guys call it.” Taehyung said, deciding to not give Jimin a choice as he whipped out his phone to fire off a message to his older boyfriend. “Have you taken anything today?”

“Pain killers and cough drops.” Jimin mumbled, already feeling the witches gaze pierce through him with annoyed concern. “I couldn’t take anything else. It makes me too drowsy and I will not let this cold stoop me to a level of taking catnaps during class.”

Taehyung hummed. His hand that wasn’t rubbing against Jimin was pushing the tea concoction closer to his face – pulling the face mask to sit below his chin. If he was worried about the pink hues that Jimin new stained his nose and cheeks, Taehyung didn’t mention it.

“Drink this and when we get to my place then we can put some proper medicine in you. We bought a whole bunch of stuff a couple weeks back when Jungkook had his bi-annual ‘exam session flu’ as he calls it, so we have everything you need.”

Jimin sipped the tea with a nod, accepting his fate before immediately regretting it as he choked on the liquid. A few other staff members shot him some sharp looks that he couldn’t fault – if he was them he would want to avoid anyone sick as much as possible as well, especially at such an important time of the year. But he had no control over this. What had once been a moderately decent cup of tea was now a thick, syrupy fluid that tasted oddly like melting rubber and pears.

Jimin pushed the cup into Taehyung so that he could smother his coughing into his hands, failing to stifle how thick and grating it sounded. His face was a blaze and he wrapped his tail around his waist while he panted, far too short of breath.

Tae frowned and took his own sip of the drink, moving quickly to spit it back out into the cup. “Damn it, I thought I had it this time.”

“Stop - trying to kill me.” Jimin whined, only half amused as he fixed his mask back over his face.

Feeling like enough time had been wasted, Taehyung pulled the hybrid to his feet.

“Let’s just go find Hobi, it will be quicker than him checking his messages.” His face still contorted in a mixture of disgust and disappoint as he led Jimin along to where Hoseok held his classes.

They disposed of the drink as soon as they could and avoided as many people as possible. Jimin preferred to try limit the amount of people he came into contact with, more out of fear of embarrassing himself more than he had already, so they had taken the chillier outdoors route to the dance studios. Tae didn’t listen to any of the weak excuses that Jimin had presented and kept mumbling on about all the nice relaxing things they could do as soon as they got back to the apartment. Jimin wasn’t strong enough to fight the promises of warm store-bought hot chocolate [that had no special additions from Tae], soup and the prospect of animations with cuddles.

Hoseok’s class was technically still in session when Tae pulled Jimin into the studio room. Thankfully the senior dancers seemed to be doing their own cool off routines and Hoseok was hovering off to the side on his phone when he saw them.

“Hey, I just saw your message now.” Hoseok bounded over to greet Tae with a chaste kiss. His face morphed into one of disgust when he had impulsively licked his lips. “What is that taste?”

Tae waved his hand with a deep sigh. “I almost poisoned Minnie again. Sorry to just come in, I really wanted to see if you could take his class. He hasn’t taken any medication, so I want to get him home.”

“Of course.” Hoseok pulled Jimin into a tight hug that had the hybrid sinking into his embrace. “Ah, Min. I can’t believe Taetae tried to poison you again. How have you survived so long?”

He could vaguely hear some of the students commenting on it and Hoseok merely lifted Jimin into his arms, letting the smaller man link his legs around his waist before leading Tae out into the hallway. Jimin pushed his head closer into the elders neck, hovering over where the scent gland should have been.

Out of their weird friend group Hoseok was the only one that was human, the rest being a mix of hybrids or witches and warlocks, but Jimin had always found that besides Yoongi and Jungkook – Hoseok had the most calming scent and embrace. In fact, there were many times when Jimin preferred Hoseok to Jungkook. The bunny hybrid was often a bit too active and always smelled of all the different people he had befriended in his uni classes.

“I thought it was weird that I didn’t see you at the meeting this morning.” Hoseok murmured gently, letting Jimin rub his nose into his shoulder and the crook of his neck. He smiled at his boyfriend as Tae reached to pet Jimin’s hair tenderly. “You should have told me sooner, Kookie could have come and fetched you. He only had a morning class today.”

Jimin tightened his hold for a second before pushing away. Hoseok set him down, swiftly running a hand over the hybrids forehead and then through his hair. He didn’t have a fever at least. Jimin could have easily stayed in Hoseok’s arms but he knew the elder must be tired. It wasn’t fair to fall asleep on him or make him use up his strength.

“When is the class?”

“It’s at three.” Jimin answered, shying away with regret. There wasn’t much of a time gap for Hoseok to take a break, but the other dancer didn’t seem to mind.

“Cool, its seniors right? They should all be working on their own routines and such, shouldn’t be too difficult to give some pointers. I’ve watched you enough to know what to talk about.”

“Are you sure? I’m sure I can push through. You must be tired.” Jimin pouted and Taehyung chuckled, pulling him back into a hug.

“Hobi won’t mind. He’s secretly always wanted your class, they’re more behaved. Plus, you don’t know when Yoongi will arrive. It would be easier to fetch you from our place.”

“Yoongi is coming home today?” Hoseok grinned brightly, not denying the fact of wanting to steal Jimin’s class. “Go Jimin. Go cuddle my precious little bunny and rest up for your man. I’m sure you must both be excited.”  

It hadn’t even sunk in for Jimin that he would be seeing his boyfriend again – almost two weeks earlier than they had originally planned. A small piece of the heaviness that had made a home in his chest seemed to dissipate at the thought of going to sleep beside his own personal warlock. Jimin hadn’t even truly acknowledged how much he had missed the elder, preferring to bury himself in his work and spending more time watching old anime that he had forgotten about.

He may have still had a pounding headache, and his chest, throat and sinuses were definitely going to give him troubles for days with how much his symptoms had progressed in such a small amount of time, but at least the momentary gap in is life will be filled again.

“I just want to wake up next to him again.” Jimin admitted, his voice dipping low enough for his voice to crack.

He cleared his throat and gave a tight chuckle, looking away from his friends sympathetic eyes. Neither of them had really had to experience being away from each other, it helped that there was three of them in their relationship. Perhaps that’s why Jimin hadn’t spent as much time with them recently as he usually did. The atmosphere of bonds and love may have been something that he was subconsciously avoiding.  

“You will, Minnie.” Tae murmured softly, his fingers finding their way back to Jimin’s tri-coloured ears. “Let’s get you some medicine first. Don’t want this to linger like it usually does.”

Hoseok gave Jimin a tight hug before he pressed a goodbye kiss to Tae’s cheek – avoiding having to taste the contaminated tea still on the witches lips. Taehyung had to tug Jimin away at first, the hybrid was determined to make sure that Hoseok truly was okay and equipped to handle his class, but eventually the pair had gotten Jimin to leave the building.

**

It hadn’t taken him long to get settled in the Jeon-Jung-Kim apartment.

Either Tae or Hobi must have texted in advance because Jungkook had met them at the door with his largest, warmest hoodie and a tall mug of hot chocolate ready to take control of the situation. While Taehyung had finished off the soup that Jungkook had started and gathered medication, Jungkook had set Jimin down in their small lounge which he had transformed into some sort of fluffy wonderland and managed to pull the huge hoodie over the smaller man’s head.

After sipping at least half of the hot chocolate Jimin had sunk right into the soft blankets and pillows with a deep purring sigh, allowing himself to just doze lazily while the other two prepared for their afternoon in a rushed silence.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when Jungkook shook him lightly from the slumber he had slipped into and gestured for him to sit up in order to place the steaming bowl of vegetable soup in his lap.  Jimin had pawed at his eyes and nose lethargically before leaning against the younger hybrid. Whatever sleep he had gotten hadn’t exactly helped. His head felt heavier than before and there was an irritating itch that had embedded itself in his sinuses.

One of Jungkook’s floppy black ears kept brushing against Jimin’s cheek while he ate, despite being comforted with the contact Jimin could tell that between that and the steam from the soup, he wasn’t going to be able to sniffle back the itch for long. After suffering through a few bites of food and numerous amounts of nose swipes, Jungkook moved to find a film in his room. Jimin took the opportunity to try relieving himself of some of the problems that were becoming somewhat problematic.

“Tae-ah” Jimin ran a sleeved wrist under his nose as he set down the soup bowl on the small portion of floor visible beneath all of the blankets that Jungkook had dragged out. “Can y-you get some ti-hih-tissues.”

Taehyung didn’t reply, although a box of tissues levitated over to Jimin from the kitchen, dropping almost directly into his soup. Jimin scrambled to try catch it with his breath hitching teasingly as he did. It was infuriating to be crumbling into a mess, especially with company. He knew that his friends didn’t care about how disgusting he may currently be, but Jimin despised that he wasn’t able to be in control of his symptoms. He pressed his wrist to his nose hard, trying to stave off the inevitable at least until he got the tissue box open. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work like that.

Jimin’s breath stuttered off into a harsh, wet sneeze – which was quickly followed by two, three, four more. It left him coughing into his fist, sitting miserably and too tired and embarrassed to move his hands from his face. He could only cringe at the mess on his hands and upper lip.

“Bless you.” Tae called, only for it to be the trigger of the next flurry of sneezes being torn from Jimin’s throat.

“That sounds awful.” Jungkook winced sympathetically as he returned with what Jimin assumed was Finding Nemo – always the first to start in an animation marathon.

Jimin wanted to curl up in a ball and hide, his face burned even though the other two seemed to just move on with life. The bunny called out to Taehyung to organise the movie while he shot Jimin a soft smile and tore open the box the elder had been struggling with. He pulled out a few tissues and handed them to Jimin, looking away to make a spot more comfortable for himself while Jimin tried to clean himself up.

Tae appeared from the kitchen, a dark robe adorned him as he dropped some water and pills beside Jimin then moved to put the movie in. He sent a tired look back at Jungkook when he saw the title but didn’t argue at the choice. The robe made Jimin nervous about what exactly Taehyung was getting up to and whether Jimin was going to have another potion poisoning him soon, but he didn’t have the energy to put in any complaints.

“Are you going to eat some more?” Jungkook asked, pressing against Jimin’s side. “You barely got halfway.”

  “I – Hih’eitiishhew, eheHISHiew… Argh.” Jimin reached to trade his tissues for new ones, sniffling and gradually losing any pride and dignity he had left. He shook his head and pressed the tissues to his nose, letting the old ones fall to his lap. “‘Not hungry. Just tired.”

“Okay…” Neither Jungkook nor Taehyung were too happy about the food being taken back to the kitchen but they weren’t going to force the cat hybrid to eat anything when he didn’t feel well, not after the last time Namjoon and Jin had done that and had resulted in Jimin throwing up on Hobi. Which of course had caused an unfortunate cycle that no one wanted to ever remember. “Come here and lay with me then.”

Jimin finished blowing his nose, not entirely satisfied with how it was left feeling itchy and raw, then he swallowed the pills without hesitation. He climbed into Jungkook’s side, purring instantly as the bunny preened and scented him until he was numb – being doused in calming pheromones and affection. Taehyung lay behind him after cleaning up and pressing play on the movie, running his one hand through Jimin’s hair and casually stroking the end of the hybrid’s flicking tail with the other. Jimin wasn’t able to focus on the film at all, slipping in and out of a dazed state while the other pair murmured to each other. There were a few moments when they all had to shift for Jimin to collect tissues or when he broke out into rough fits of coughing that usually ended with him snuggled into Jungkook’s neck, but most of the time they had spent bundled comfortably keeping movement to a minimum in case any of them fell asleep.

Jimin couldn’t recall the exact moment he had fallen asleep, but he did remember waking up briefly when Taehyung had left the cuddle pit to join someone else in the house. Vaguely he made out that Hoseok had probably arrived home, if the credits running along the screen were anything to go by then the dancer had probably just finished with Jimin’s class. Jungkook was snoring deeply beside him with his arms pinning Jimin to his chest, so Jimin couldn’t push himself upright like his weary and sick muddled mind had originally planned. When he heard Hoseok speak again he made a noise in his throat, wanting to gain attention to ask about his students but only resulted in coughing into Jungkook’s shoulder. Almost immediately fingers danced through his hair, scratching pleasurably at his ears before resting on his cheek with a sharp tsk.  

“Go back to sleep, Minnie. Just for a little longer, ‘kay?”

There was something so soothing about how the human had reacted to him that Jimin didn’t fight Hoseok’s smooth words, couldn’t fight them as his eyes were lulled closed, letting himself be petted back into darkness.  

**

Jimin blinked himself awake. It was colder. His brows furrowed in confusion at how dark the room had gotten. The places where Tae and Kook had lain were vacant. Padding the empty spaces Jimin could tell they had been gone a while.

His chest ached at the thought of them leaving him, but he pushed the thought aside- biting down on his lip to divert whatever pained him to be physical and more manageable. He could hear faint laughter from deeper into the apartment, the clinking of cutlery and plates. It must have been late already.

Jimin coughed tightly into his arm before rolling over to where Jungkook had been. He felt warm and tight, and he ached in a way that made him seem hollow but at least his headache had disappeared. He breathed as deeply as he could in an attempt to grasp at Jungkook’s soft floral scent, failing to smell anything more than a slight wisp of what should have been there. Being sick was so annoying.

Jimin was used to being reliant on scent, relishing in how different scents made him emote different feelings. Now he was left to just experience a bland, empty world.

He sat up, suddenly hating the soft fabric of blankets under his fingertips. He ripped off Jungkook’s hoodie, almost doing the same to the scarf Taehyung had brought him earlier , the paused. Instead, he brought it up to cover the bottom half his face. It wasn’t as soft as everything else since it was worn with age, but it brought him a sense of ease. A sense of home.

Hoseok’s loud, contagious laughter sounded through the apartment again and Jimin couldn’t keep himself from standing and wondering to where it was coming from. He moved passed the kitchen and down into the hallway, the guest rooms and study were empty, but a light shown dimly towards the end of the passage. As he got closer to the master bedroom he could hear a number of familiar voices speaking over each other excitedly. Namjoon and Jin must have arrived while he was asleep. His stomach twisted a bit at his previous thoughts that his friends had just left him for nothing. Of course, if they had other company they should be with them and not babysitting him.

He was indecisive to join at first before deciding that the only reason they weren’t with him was probably because he was asleep , so he moved to push open the door when he froze, hovering in the hallway just outside the door. Jimin pressed the scarf to his nose then pulled away and tried to sniff at the air. It was difficult but he could make out the sharp earthy mint that lingered.

His throat grew tight and his blood pulsed in his ears at the prospect of what waited for him in that room. He took a step back, running his hands through his sleep tussled hair. He no doubt looked awful - he knew that he did. No one looks attractive after spending their day gradually feeling more and more like a walking plague ad. Not to mention he probably smelled. No, he definitely smelled, he had danced with 5 different classes that morning and didn’t take his usual immediate shower when arriving home, because he hadn’t arrived at home. He couldn’t walk in like this, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to step away again. Now that he had had that taste and awareness of the fresh mint aroma he couldn’t stop it from amplifying despite not being able to smell anything else.

Jimin took a shaky breath, leaning his back against the wall opposite the door. The heat had bubbled up inside of him and a jittery smile danced on his lips. From inside the room he could hear Jungkook mumbling something, only catching his own name and the words ‘awake’ and ‘next dose’.

“I’ll get it.”

Jimin held his breath at the sound of the familiar deep dialect. Then that heat from before turned cold. He couldn’t be seen like this, what was he thinking? He at least had to wash up. He wasn’t ready. He had to –

“Jimin?”

Jimin looked up only to feel his stomach flip nervously at the deep brown eyes that brightened at the sight of him.

Yoongi.

He looked just like he had when he had left those months ago. His dark hair swept forward into his face and his fair skin shining with that unearthly glow of magic. Perhaps he looked a bit sharper, a bit more real. Jimin couldn’t stop staring at him, even when his heart beat rapidly against his chest and his cheeks flamed. He hadn’t even realised he was shaking until Yoongi reached out for him, bracing the hybrid with firm hands. Jimin croaked out a gasp and sunk into Yoongi’s arms – his previous concerns dissipated as Yoongi embraced him and pressed his lips to Jimin’s temple. Soft praises were whispered against Jimin’s skin that made him dig his nails into Yoongi’s chest – his nails subconsciously transforming to claws to gain a better grip.

How was this real? How was Yoongi even real? What had Jimin done in his life to deserve someone like the warlock that held him tight, as if he was just as scared to let Jimin go as Jimin was to step away from him. Jimin clung harder.

The world was suddenly too loud – deafening. His breath kept catching in his throat and he was sure that he had started coughing, but he couldn’t quite recall. All of his actions were blurring together.

“Shhh don’t cry, love.” Yoongi stroked Jimin’s neck tenderly. Earning another whine out of the hybrid. “Please don’t cry.”

Was he crying? Jimin rubbed his face against Yoongi’s neck, pulling away momentarily to see that – yes, he was in fact crying. For what, he was unsure, but no matter how much he sniffled and bit at his lips it didn’t seem like he was going to stop soon.

“Is everything okay?” Hoseok peeked around the door that Yoongi had half closed in his rush to leave the room. The dancer’s eyes widened at Jimin’s sobs, every so often broken by a grating cough. Hobi wouldn’t be surprised if Jimin woke up the next day without a voice.

“He – he feels a bit warm.” Yoongi answered rationally, but a voice crack betrayed his emotions.

The warlock felt close to tears himself.

“I’ll go fetch you some water.”

Neither of them argued, and Yoongi didn’t even glance up at the now silent room. He knew that their friends were probably watching with concern, but he didn’t want them near Jimin right now. Just him. Only him.

Yoongi had underestimated how difficult it was going to be when he had agreed to take the job in the UK. He had missed Jimin with every fibre of his being and struggled to communicate with him through electronic devices. He usually hated relying on the manmade crafts, but his magic was being used in his task and had left him practically depleted after each day. Even now he could tell how weak his job had made him. He’d surely be drained for a few days still – perhaps even a week. Yet nothing made him feel more powerless than having his beautiful, charming, strong calico hybrid brought to fevered tears in his arms. It made him regret ever choosing to leave, no matter how much his client had needed him – he and Jimin needed each other more.

“Shh love.” He felt Jimin lean into him completely and Yoongi took his weight, using the wall as support to gradually sink them both to the floor. He hugged the smaller man close with one arm and used his free hand to wipe at the tears staining the hybrids cheeks. “You must be feeling awful, Minmin.”

Jimin shook his head and burrowed deeper into Yoongi’s neck, mumbling something inaudible.

“What was that?”

Jimin pulled away, his breath hitching as he tried to control his tears. “ ‘missed you.” He ran his sweater-covered wrist under his nose which had been running, much to Jimin’s disgust and horror. “ ‘missed you so much, and now you’re here and I’m gross and … you’re perfect.”  

Yoongi pressed a kiss just below each of Jimin’s eyes, then his jaw and then finally – despite the noise of protest from his boyfriend – to the hybrids lips. He kisses were salty, but Yoongi didn’t care. Jimin’s tears had almost rolled to a stop, but it pained him to imagine that Jimin’s tears were partially due to insecurities. Yoongi had thought that they had moved past this in their relationship already, but he should never have been so quick to dismiss it.

“You will never be gross, okay? I am nowhere near perfect compared to you, and being here with you - no matter what state of health you’re in, makes me so happy, Min. I cannot even begin to describe what these months with not being near you have felt like and I would rather I lose my limbs than have to go through that again.” Yoongi pushed the dark sweaty locks of Jimin’s hair back from his face as he did a once over of his face. Taking in the swollen eyes and bright red nose, then moving to those familiar plush lips that looked puffier than usual – no doubt Jimin had been biting them. “I don’t want you to ever think that I wouldn’t be elated to see you every second of every day, okay?”

Jimin nodded. A small smile breaking out on his face. Yoongi took that as a sign to run his hands down to the hybrids sides and immediately the smile widened into a hoarse laughter as Jimin tried to wiggle away from Yoongi’s reach. He only stopped when a small bout a coughing broke the giggles, thankfully not as harsh as before but still worrying to Yoongi.

“Hey.” They both looked up to see Hoseok standing with a clear glass of water, smiling at them as he gave it to Jimin. “Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt. Do you two want to stay the night? I can set up the guest bedroom if you want?”

It was Yoongi who shook his head first, although Jimin wasn’t far behind him. “I think it would be best if we head home. I want to make sure Jimin is comfortable. Thank you though and thank you for giving us some time.”

Hoseok grinned knowingly, somehow always being the wisest out of the lot. “I’ll get Jungkook or Jin to pack you guys up some food to take with you, since it’s getting late.”

He didn’t wait for a reply merely turning to push open the bedroom door fully, revealing Namjoon and Jin sitting on the bed laughing lightly at the pair huddled on the floor close to the entrance. Jungkook had an arm over Taehyung’s shoulders while the witch had tears staining his cheeks with blood shot eyes.    

“Tae why are you crying?” Hoseok questioned with startled amusement.

The witch sniffed and rubbed at his face with an embarrassed chuckle, glancing around at where Yoongi and Jimin watched him from with wide, somewhat bemused eyes.

“It’s nothing. I got caught up in it, is all.” He explained sheepishly, earning a full round of amused chuckles.

“He started almost as soon as you left.” Jungkook added, directing his gaze to Hobi.

Hoseok sighed. He placed his hands on his hips and shook his head, although he supposed there was something sympathetically charming about it. “I’m dating literally toddlers.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes at his apprentice, although he couldn’t blame him. He had come close to crying as well. Yoongi moved to adjust Jimin onto his lap, relishing in the deep purr that came from Jimin even before Yoongi pressed his hand to the base of the hybrids tail. Usually he didn’t pet Jimin’s tail in public, since it generally always led to something more, but he knew the younger loved when he did it, so he was making an exception.

“Let’s go home.” Yoongi murmured, wiping at the others’ cheeks before deciding to just leave his hand cupping Jimin’s warm face. “I am one hundred percent okay with closing my practice to spend the rest of this week with you, get you better.”

“I have school.” Jimin replied with a pout. Whether it was due to having to go to work or the fact that Yoongi was implying that he wouldn’t be going to work, he wasn’t sure.

“You have a cold.” Yoongi corrected. “And it will only get worse if you don’t take the time off now. Plus, we can catch up. Its deserved.”

Jimin didn’t have it in him to fight it, not after how tired his crying had made him and especially since all he wanted was to spend time with Yoongi.

“I’ll get someone to stand in for you.” Hoseok promised. Not wanted to give Jimin a chance to even deny Yoongi.

It appeared a plan was being formed, but Jimin zoned out of the moving of bodies and their soft voices, only choosing to focus on Yoongi’s scent, his breathing, his warmth, his touch. It was intoxicating.

Jimin barely even recalled being lifted up and carried outside to the car, having a thick blanket from Jungkook’s monstrosity being wrapped around him to protect him from the icy weather. He definitely wasn’t conscious when Yoongi drove them back to their shared cottage along the coastal edge, or when he was carried inside and surrounded by all of his favourite soft and scented pieces of clothing and blankets. Despite not being completely aware, Jimin’s dreams were swamped with the aroma of mint and the gentle strokes of a large, warm hand from the base of his tail all the way up to his twitching cat ears, easing any fatigue or pains that he may have had.

All in all, it was a pretty magnificent end to a very long and exhausting day, and Jimin couldn’t have been happier.

#bts sickfic #hybrid jimin #warlock yoongi #mild angst #like very mild #snz #dancer teacher jimin #dance teacher hoseok #tae #happy ending #colds #fever #alternate universe #fanfiction #kpop

[blu-archer]

Warmth

Hi... So, It’s 00:44. I should be editing photo’s for the day a head but I did this instead. I really shouldn’t have but... it happened... (If there’s grammatical errors... this is why.. forgive me.)

Because procrastination has just kind of merged itself as a part of my very soul and essence as a human being at this point. 

This is just a short thing to be honest, and its technically a ‘sick/snz’ thing, but really it felt really short and comes across as more as a comfort, small filler type thing... but it was fun to write sooooo anyway..

enjoy I guess

Caretaker: ???Jimin/Jin?? I don’t really know 

Sickie: Yoongi

word count: 2568.

.

.

“Huh’ishh… snf… Huh’ihishew… huh’igxnsh!”

“You sneeze one more time and I’m sending you home.” Jin said warningly from his seat at the front desk.

Yoongi rolled his eyes, merely sniffling until he could get the chance to blow his nose. He didn’t remember the stores shelves being this dusty, but perhaps Namjoon just hadn’t had time to clean up while Yoongi had been away. He’ll have to do a deep clean once his magic has rested enough to manage it.

“I’m serious Yoon.”

“Jin. You don’t work here.” Yoongi replied dryly, not sparing the elder a glance. “and I own this business. You can’t send me home for sneezing.”

“You own half this business.” Jin corrected, clicking away at the latch on his pen as he stared through the gaps in the shelves at where Yoongi rubbed at his nose before putting up more jarred charms. “and I am married to the owner of the other half, which means I am also the owner of the other half.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“It does. You wouldn’t know because you haven’t married Jimin yet. What’s mine is Joon’s and what’s Joon’s is mine.” Jin grinned teasingly.

Yoongi knew that he was mostly joking, just twisting things to get his way, but it was still somewhat relevant in some areas. Namjin was a typical ‘we’ couple the second after Jin had gotten Namjoon to love him more than his plants, which honestly hadn’t been that difficult.  

“Does that mean that Namjoon can go treat kids at the school, like you. You’re the nurse right.. does that mean Namjoon has the same qualifications?” Yoongi asked, his words laced with building congestion.

“Don’t make jokes like that. Joon would never be able to manage working with children, no matter how much he loves them.” Jin shook his head. “Poor baby would be so terrified of hurting them or something, probably wouldn’t be able to put up with half the rascals I have to deal with. Teenagers are the worst, and when it comes to creating excuses to get out of class... don’t get me started.”

 Yoongi joined him by the desk, having finished most of the restocking of the shelves. It was technically supposed to be Jin’s day off from work – which usually meant that Namjoon would call in for the day off as well, but they had had a last minute call pleading for someone to come charm and heal sections of a park that had been set a light a few days prior, and well… Namjoon wasn’t going to decline that. He had even taken Taehyung with him. Hopefully nothing gets set on fire again.

But that meant that Jin had welcomed himself to lurking around the store, “helping” Yoongi with the daily routine and customers. Helping had turned into pestering very quickly.

“This is proof that it’s not true then.” Yoongi shrugged, reaching for a serviette that had come with the lunch Jin had ordered in to blow his nose.

He pointedly chose to ignore the exasperated look that flashed across Seokjin’s face.

“How’s Jimin?” Jin’s tone wasn’t as curious as the question posed. “Still sick?”

Yoongi refused to meet the witches gaze as he cleared his throat and reached for his iced coffee. It was more like watered down coffee now, but he required any form of caffeine that he could get.

“He’s still a little sick, but he’s going back to work tomorrow.” Yoongi pursed his lips as he thought back to when Jimin had told him the day before.

The hybrid had put a real fight when Yoongi had suggested to take another few days to rest. One would have thought he had told Jimin to quit or something. He understood his boyfriends need and passion to do his job, but from what Hoseok had mentioned to him, it was precisely the fact that Jimin worked too hard that got him into the mess he had been in any way. He just wanted to make sure that his boyfriend was taking enough time to recuperate.

“You don’t think that maybe… he shared?”

“What?”

“Yoongi..” Jin sighed. “Your nose is red. You’ve been coughing and sniffling all morning. You also haven’t taken off Jimin’s hoodie – which you usually do before opening because you don’t like mixing potions and other peoples’ scents over his, and don’t even try to tell me that your voice hasn’t been cracking since you entered that door.”

Yoongi looked away, taking another sip of his drink. “Could be allergies. ‘s dusty…”

Jin didn’t even have to say anything. His deadpan expression and tightly drawn lips told Yoongi enough about what the elder thought of that suggestion.

Maybe he was getting sick. After all, he and Jimin hadn’t exactly worked hard to prevent any contagion – especially after Yoongi had convinced the younger to let him be more helpful in all matters of care. It would actually make a lot of sense, but he couldn’t bring himself to want to acknowledge it. Jimin would feel so bad if he knew that he’d gotten the warlock sick, especially if it happened right before he had agreed to return from sick leave.

“I can’t go home. Jimin will feel guilty.”

“That is stupid reasoning.” Jin pulled a disapproving face. He looked at his friend, then shook his head. “I’m being serious Yoongi. You should rest now before it gets worst. We can close the shop for the day, Namjoon can continue tomorrow like he has been and Jimin would feel better knowing that you didn’t try hide this from him. You know that he will see you not telling him as some sort of annoying guilt thing. Don’t make a small thing big. He’ll probably be so happy to do whatever you young couples do now days again.”

Yoongi grimaced but didn’t waste the energy on commenting on Jin’s overly wistful words. Rather he put his mind to the customer that had just warily entered the store. He wasn’t going home. He had made up his mind and nothing Jin could say would change it.

**

“Kit’en?” Yoongi snuffled wetly.

Groaning and clearing his throat as he locked the front door behind him. He was about to call again when a deep, congested sneeze ripped through his throat – much louder and harsher than he liked. He really shouldn’t have stayed the full working day. He should have accepted Namjoon’s offer to have him just continue working the store for today and onwards, but if Yoongi was anything – it was stubborn. Of course he regretted it now though.

He walked into the kitchen and swallowed some of the medicine Jimin had been taking before he went to find the hybrid, who had remained silent. It was a bit odd that he hadn’t replied when Yoongi called, but it wasn’t rare enough for him to be overly concerned. Just curious…

It was when he couldn’t find Jimin in any of the rooms that his worry began to rise.

He called out again as he quickly paced through their cottage, being met by nothing but silence. He even tried to call but following the muffled ringing of Jimin’s phone lead him to their rumpled, vacant bed. In a final moment of panic, he called forth his magic, letting the icy chill of it flood throughout his body until a blast of wind shot off of him with staggering force. Usually he wouldn’t use his magic so raw, much rather preferring to have a physical object to make the effects easier to deal with, a skill that had been adapted centuries before from witches to fit a warlocks needs without the risk of magic drainage, but he didn’t stop for a moment to think. The magic had left him so abruptly that he had to lay a steadying hand on the wall while he breathed icy white breaths for the brief moment until the surged wave returned to him with just as much impact as it had left him with, causing him to break out coughing for air while the room tilted and swayed beneath his feet before returning to its previous temperature and stability.

Jimin was outside… in Yoongi’s studio?

That couldn’t be right. Jimin didn’t really go to the studio unless Yoongi was there. In fact, he was sure Jimin had told him that he didn’t like the studio space at all – something about there being too many scents.

Why would he be there now?

 He took a second to catch his breath before he went on his search. His nose had just started to run, and no amount of sniffling was going to help him. His head pounded against the cold, but he ignored it as best as he could.

None of it mattered.

What mattered was that it was cold. His studio specifically was always cold to a degree, and Jimin was uncharacteristically in there.

 “Love?” Yoongi called as loud as he could as soon as he passed the entrance, his voice cracking over the single word.

“ ‘oongi?”

Yoongi came to an abrupt halt just outside of the tiny, makeshift library that he stored all of his spell books in to see the familiar form of his boyfriend curled up on the oval windowsill with a blanket and pillow tucked around him as the dying sunlight painted his skin.

His hair was a mess and he swiped at his mouth and eyes languidly as a yawn broke widely across his face.

“Hey.” Jimin greeted with a warm lazy smile. “Good day?”

“It could have been better.” Yoongi answered honestly, moving into the small space so that he could wrap his arms around Jimin. The hybrid jumped at the icy feel of his skin. “I thought you didn’t like my studio.”

“It grew on me. Was the only thing that strongly smelt like you for a while, so it became more comfortable for me…Why are you so cold, what happened?”

Yoongi shrugged, his cheeks warming has he realised his actions may have been a bit impatient. There were other spells that he could have used, weaker ones that relied on words and physical additives rather than actual core magic, which would have left him with more energy and just overall less affected. He’d been unnecessarily rash.

He sunk his face into the hybrids chest, somewhat admitting defeat while forcing the younger to be pushed up tightly against the window as he was embraced. He felt fingers run through his hair and an ill-timed cough shook his entire frame. Jimin froze and Yoongi caved with two soft words. “I’m … sick.”

“Oh, baby…”

He felt Jimin card his fingers through his hair again, harder this time, letting his nails scrape lightly against the Warlock’s sculp as he held him close. Yoongi took as deep a breath as he dared. He couldn’t smell the usual spicy aroma that hung around the younger, but he melted into the bundle of warmth that was Jimin, succumbing rather easily to the uncomfortably angled yet intimate embrace.

“I’m so sorry I got you sick… we should have been more careful.”

“I’m fine.” Yoongi said, his voice muffled before he pushed away from Jimin so that he wasn’t bent in an awkward standing/leaning position any longer. “I was more worried about you, but you look better.”

“I feel better, mostly. There are still moments when I feel bad, but it’s a big.. improvement…” Jimin yawned, pulling his blanket up to smother it, then chuckled as Yoongi broke into a mirroring action, sniffling and resting lazily against his bookshelf afterwards.  “We should probably head inside now. Get something in you before we go to bed.”

Jimin gradually got to his feet, stumbling a bit as he stretched before opening his blanket to properly engulf Yoongi in its warmth with him. Jimin could feel a bundle of heaviness, completely unrelated to his cold, settle in his chest as he listened to Yoongi sniffle thickly on their way back into the house – making a quick dash when they had to cross yard with the cooling breeze. The warlock had a lot to catch up on in terms of his work and this was quite obviously going to set him back a bit further.

Not that he seemed to mind.

Jimin seemed to be more stressed than his boyfriend about the matter. To compensate for resulting in getting Yoongi sick he had tried to collect a bunch of blankets and soft materials that he had scattered around the house during the day, working to make a more comfortable setting for Yoongi in their room once he had gotten the warlock to lie down there. He had successfully gathered water and at least three of the fluffiest blankets they owned before Yoongi had him trapped beneath him against the mattress.

The warlock had distracted him from his coddling after sneezing openly to the side with enough force that Jimin had reached out to steady his seated figure with concern, only to be tugged onto the bed and rolled on top of with the accompaniment of all of the blankets he’d piled on the elder moments before. He had wanted to complain, that he needed to make food for them or to get them the medicine, even if Yoongi had mentioned that he’d already taken something – or at the very least more tissues, because they’d definitely be needed those. Yet Yoongi had merely rested his cheek against Jimin’s shoulder, sniffling into the base of the hybrids neck while he wrapped his arms tightly around the dancers frame.

“Yoon… you need food…”

“ ‘need you.” Yoongi whispered lowly, yawning into Jimin’s chest. “I missed you today… just… just stay. Please.”

Jimin snuggled down, embracing the warlock as entirely as he could. Their limbs becoming a mesh between the blankets. If this was the comfort that his boyfriend needed, then who was he to protest?

Even as Yoongi drifted off to sleep, the ice that had filled his veins from earlier thawed with the warmth that bled through him by the mere presence of the Calico cat. The dying sunlight still blared down on them, but neither of them could bring themselves to care. If anything, it helped in making the pair sleepier. Jimin rubbed his nose through Yoongi hair and down over his cheek, pressing soft lips to the elders temple, then his cheek, then nose.

Yoongi squirmed and let out an amused groan, pushing Jimin away before pulling him close once more. He’d never get used to the effect that Jimin had on him. How a simple gesture made him feel as if he could wield all the magic in the world. He’d tried to explain the empowering feeling before, but he had never been able to put it into words.

“I’m sorry.” Jimin whispered, pressing a final kiss to Yoongi’s head. Although his tone had dipped into the same seriousness from before. Then in an even softer voice, he added. “Love you, Yoongi… ”

Yoongi was already half asleep, his body giving in after the events of his day, but the tender words pushed him further. He slipped into a dark content sleep, filled with that familiar warmth and spicy scent that he had grown to depend on.

He’d let out a soft sigh, barely catching Jimin’s final words of ‘rest well’ before he was completely submerged into his dreams.

#bts sickfic #sick yoongi #snz #colds #magic #hybrids #magic is real #warlock yoongi #hybrid jimin #witch jin #witch namjoon #vague namjin #comfort #cuddles #i thought this was cute #rushed but done #its too early in the morning #procrastination is a bitch #bts fanfic #alternate universe

[snifflyjoonie]

Sick Day

In which Jungkook catches his co-worker Jimin’s cold from hell and learns that Kim Taehyung never takes no for an answer.

snz-centric with Jungkook as the sickie and Taehyung as the caretaker. 

Word count: 3508

This is an AU that takes place in this established universe. 

a/n: WOW I take forever sometimes I’m sooooorry! That being said, the patience is so immensely appreciated. I’m such a sucker for AUs, so I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also, I decided to make a little moodboard for this fic just for fun! If you guys like the concept, I might make more for future fics. Anyway, enough rambling! Thanks again for waiting so long for this, and I really hope you enjoy reading!~

-

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” 

Jungkook gave a tight-lipped smile despite Jimin’s inability to see. The older boy’s voice was thick and croaky and Jungkook couldn’t help but feel for him as he switched his phone from his left ear to his right.

“Of course not.” He assured, his voice low.

Admittedly, he was a little irritated he wouldn’t be spending his day off how he had hoped — namely playing too much Overwatch for his own good — but Jimin never called in sick. In fact, Jungkook had been working with him the past few days trying to urge him to do just that. Now it finally seemed like he had decided to take the younger man’s advice.

“Okay...if you’re sure.” Jimin sniffled. Jungkook winced at how the noise gurgled in his ear. “Thanks, Gguk.”

“No worries!” He chimed. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Yeah.” Another sniffle. “Me too.”

Jungkook clicked off his phone with a heavy sigh and collapsed back onto his mattress. He loved his job, he really did, but there was just something about going in on his scheduled days off that left a sour taste in his mouth. Not that he blamed Jimin for that, of course. People got sick sometimes. Even people like Jimin who always tried to pretend everything was fine until they were so unbelievably stuffed up they could hardly breathe — let alone serve people food. Jungkook cringed at the thought. 

He rolled himself over with another groan and glanced at his alarm clock. It was already half past eight meaning if he really planned to get up at 4am to open then he desperately had to get ready for bed. He wished Jimin had called him earlier, but deep down he knew the older boy had probably put it off in the hopes he would start to feel better. His heart went out to him, but he still made a mental note to hassle him the next time he saw him.

With another small huff Jungkook pulled himself from his bed and trudged his way to the dorm’s bathroom to start getting ready for the night. If he took a shower now then he'd get to sleep in just that much longer in the morning, and to Jungkook, that extra time was priceless. No matter how many open shifts he worked he swore he’d never get used to the shrill sound of his alarm pulling him back to consciousness while the rest of the world soundly slept. 4am was too early for anybody. Jimin was lucky he liked him.

*

The next morning, when the dreaded sound of his alarm pulled him from his dreams, Jungkook truly thought it was the worst sound he had ever heard in his life. For some reason, it just sounded worse this particular morning — more shrill, more irritating, more horrible. Each buzz and chime made his head pound in protest, and he couldn’t reach over fast enough to get it turned off. 

With a half-asleep groan Jungkook pushed himself into a sitting position and cleared his throat into a closed fist. He lazily reached for his cellphone and squinted down at the bright screen, still not quite awake enough to comprehend anything he was seeing as he scrolled aimlessly through his social media. He vaguely registered a dull ache lingering behind his eyes and sniffled quietly against the back of his free hand.

He really needed to get moving or he was going to be late.

Throwing his legs over the edge of his bed, Jungkook trudged his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth and throw on his uniform. He was a little slow-moving, but he simply chalked it up to staying up too late. He felt another twinge of annoyance about Jimin’s last minute phone call, but ultimately brushed it off. He wasn’t going to let himself dwell on it. Jimin really did look like death the last time he saw him and it was honestly a good thing he had decided to call in before someone else ended up in the same boat as him.

Jungkook coughed lightly. None of that really mattered now, anyway. He needed to pick up the pace. 

He made a grab for his keys before rushing to tie his shoes. He debated hunting for his bus pass but ultimately decided against it after double checking the time. He wasn’t too far from the café to begin with and if he really hustled, he figured he might even have enough time to heat up a breakfast wrap before the first customers started trickling in.

Throwing a light jean jacket on to combat the chilly spring air, Jungkook stumbled his way out of his dorm room and down the steps onto the street. He hurried himself along with purpose and did his best to ignore the way his sinuses stung with each inhale of fresh morning air. He was feeling strangely groggy, more so than usual, and brought the back of his hand up to scrub absentmindedly at his nose. At least he’d soon be able to make himself a cup of coffee. That thought alone kept him going.

Rounding the last corner to the café Jungkook quickly fumbled around in his pocket for his keys. He pulled them out swiftly, ready to unlock the front door when the sudden urge to sneeze caught him by surprise. He sucked in a desperate breath and snapped down hard into his elbow, dropping his keys in the process as two rapid sneezes toppled their way out of him.

He groaned in annoyance and bent down to retrieve his keys, rubbing his nose aggressively into his sleeve as he did so. He always sneezed when he got to work — so much so that it became a running joke between him and his coworkers — but he hadn’t even stepped inside yet, so how could the smells be affecting him?

Jungkook shook his head and fiddled his key into the lock with a thick sniffle. He pressed his shoulder into the door and shoved hard, tumbling his way into the dark café. He did his best to hold his breath as he scurried into the back room, determined to not let the strong smells get to him. Of course, the moment he let himself inhale, the various smells quickly overwhelmed his sensitive nose and he pitched into himself with another pair of uncharacteristically messy sneezes.

“EESH’hiuu!’ huh’ESSHhiUu!!”

Jungkook rose back up with a groan as he flipped on the café lights. He pressed his nose into one of his sleeves briefly before wiggling himself out of his coat and throwing it onto a nearby hook. He sniffled hard, annoyed by how runny his nose was becoming as he headed back towards the front counter to start preparing for the inevitable morning rush. He allowed himself a few moments to whip up a cappuccino and toss a breakfast wrap into their warming oven. 

Now that he wasn’t rushing to get to work, he was becoming increasingly more aware of how run down he was feeling. Granted, he was always a bit tired and groggy at the start of any opening shifts, but today just felt worse. He sniffled again and sighed at the sound it made. He just hoped that he’d begin to feel a bit more lively when customers started arriving.

*

The clock had yet to strike 7am before a line had already formed from the front counter to the door. Normally, Jungkook could handle these types of situations, and even liked them to a certain extent. He fed off of the adrenaline it gave him and enjoyed the rush he’d get as he made drink after drink. Today however, any type of adrenaline he’d normally get was instead replaced with anxiety as he occasionally messed up orders and ran behind. 

He was in the middle of making his 12th latté of the morning when the overhead bell of the front door jingled, signaling to Jungkook that yet another customer was making their way inside. Too busy to look up, he tried to ignore the way his hands trembled as he did his best to pour steamed milk into some type of design for the incredibly patient customer. He sniffled thickly as he did so, feeling sweat accumulate behind his bangs. He was nearly finished — only had one more delicate pour to complete — when his breath began to falter. Without much warning, Jungkook scrambled to set the milk and latté down, spilling half of the drink’s contents in the process before he shoved himself backward and fell into his shoulder with a harsh, sudden sneeze.

“hHuh’EEKSHhh!—godi’msosorry…” His apology came out on his shuddering exhale as he hurriedly cupped a hand around his face and stared in horror at the drink he’d ruined. He was about to stutter out some sort of offer of compensation when a familiar deep voice caught his attention.

“Yikes, not on your game today huh, Gguk?” Taehyung chuckled lowly as he bustled his way behind the counter. All Jungkook could offer back was a dumb stare and a thick sniffle — he had forgotten that Taehyung usually worked mornings with Jimin. 

Jungkook felt himself relax a little as Taehyung hastily slipped out of his coat and began to tie his apron tightly around his waist. He shot the disappointed customer a warm, boxy smile and immediately fell into his barista role with minimum effort.

“Sorry about that, ma’am.” He apologized as he mopped up the spilled drink with a towel, “I’ll get started on a new one for you right away.” He turned his attention to Jungkook briefly and gestured with his chin towards their espresso machine. “Gguk, would you mind pulling some shots for me, please?”

Jungkook nodded a bit dumbly again and scurried his way towards the machine with a sharp sniffle and a rub of his nose. 

Now that Taehyung was here, the older boy was quick to take control over the stressful situation and Jungkook was just as quick to let him. They fell into a rhythm together easily, and before too long had nearly emptied out the café — much to Jungkook’s relief.

“I didn’t realize you were working today.” Jungkook murmured with a tiny sniffle as he topped off one final drink with a dollop of whipped cream.

“I could say the same about you.” Taehyung retorted a bit coyly as he popped a plastic lid onto a travel cup. “Though with how awful Jimin looked the last time I saw him then I guess I’m not too surprised.”

Jungkook hummed in response, but the sound was audibly nasally and rounded. Taehyung raised an eyebrow.

“Coffee beans still bothering you?” He asked as he set down a finished drink. “You’ve been here, what...two and a half hours? Three? Usually you’re good to go by now.”

Jungkook hummed again, this time with more uncertainty, and followed it up with a sniffle.

“I’m...not sure what my deal is.” He forced a tight smile at a customer approaching the counter to retrieve their drink before continuing. “My nose is just…”

Taehyung waited patiently for the adjective that was sure to follow. Stuffy? Itchy? Sensitive? When he heard none, he stole a glance at Jungkook expectedly, but what he saw made his face instantly soften.

“Hh! hA’KSHhhiuu!” Jungkook bent at the waist and caught his sneeze into cupped hands. He groaned almost immediately afterwards, but the sound was muffled by his palms.

“Sneezy?” Taehyung offered with a scoff before reaching out to place a hand briefly onto Jungkook’s back as a sign of acknowledgement. “You alright there, Bun?” He couldn’t help but ask as Jungkook snuffled against the back of his hand. 

Bun was a nickname Jimin and Taehyung had branded upon him during his training days. As time went on, the nickname was used less and less (instead getting replaced by more ridiculous things like ‘Hulk Hogan’ and ‘The Muffin Man’) and only really came out on special occasions. Taehyung felt like now was one of those times. Bun was an easy way to set the tone, and he knew the younger knew this.

“Because…” Taehyung continued as he folded his arms across his chest. “I’m starting to wonder if Jimin gave you more than just his opening shift. You worked with him all week, yeah?”

“I…yeah.” Jungkook sighed as the realization dawned on him. It was riddled with the sound of defeat.  “Shit. Goddamn it, Jimin.”

Taehyung snorted out a laugh and passed a napkin to Jungkook who very graciously accepted it. Taehyung watched him shake it open before bringing it up to his nose and blowing. He turned his body away from Taehyung slightly, but it didn’t do much to stop the productive sound from reaching both of their ears.

“I’m gonna call you an Uber.” 

“Wait— you’re what?”

“I’m sending you home.” Taehyung’s tone left no room for argument as he retrieved his phone from his pocket. “What’s your address? You live in the dorms, right? The ones nearby?”

“I— well, yeah, but—” Jungkook shook his head in protest. “You don’t need to— gosh. I don’t want to leave you alone for your shift, it’s going to get busy again, and—”

“Gguk, who trained you?” Taehyung cut in, eyes still glued to his phone as he typed in the café’s address.

“...Jimin?”

“Yeah, and who do you think trained him?” Taehyung chuckled and re-pocketed his phone. “Your ride’s on the way. I’ll be fine, you need to go home. Can’t have all three of us sick, can we?”

Jungkook knew he was right and he hated it. 

“I could’ve just walked…” He grumbled. He was slightly embarrassed and he didn’t know why. “How much do I owe you for the Uber?”

“Owe me?” Taehyung laughed. “You owe me one clean bill of health. How about that?” He reached out to poke Jungkook’s shoulder but the other swatted his hand away sheepishly. “Oh, come on, Bun. Don’t be like that.”

Jungkook frowned deeply and brought the knuckle of his thumb up to swipe against the underside of his nose. It was wet to the touch and made him grimace. Taehyung was quick to pass him another napkin.

Jungkook had every intention to thank him — not just for the new napkin but for everything he’d done since the moment he walked in — but the chime of the door stole away his opportunity. Snapping his mouth closed and shoving the napkin into his pocket, Jungkook made to step towards the register but Taehyung stuck an arm out to stop him.

“I’ll take it from here.”

“But—”

“You’re sick, Gguk.” There wasn’t much room for argument. “Did you bring a coat?”

Jungkook nodded slightly, and Taehyung almost missed it. Jungkook was refusing to make eye contact.

“Alright, go grab it — your ride shouldn't be long. Get some rest for me, okay?” He smiled and added a quick, whispered, “Feel better soon.” As the cafe’s new customer approached the counter. 

Jungkook hesitated for only a moment as Taehyung happily began taking the order. He wanted to object again, to tell Taehyung to let him stay, but he knew deep down that the decision had been made, and there would be no way Taehyung would accept any other outcome aside from him going back home. With another sigh of defeat, Jungkook started to undo his apron and headed towards the back to retrieve his things.

He really owed Taehyung. He owed Taehyung big time.

*

“hA’PSSH’iew!—Shit.” Jungkook rocked to the side with a sneeze that made him fumble the controller held tightly in his hands. It wasn’t that drastic of a movement, but it was enough, and he watched in horror as his character on screen died dramatically. It wasn’t the first time this had happened (in fact, it had been happening all afternoon) but that still didn’t stop Jungkook from throwing his head back and groaning. 

Sniffling sharply, Jungkook set his controller down beside himself and made a grab for the tissue box he had stationed in front of him. This had been a recurring cycle ever since he’d gotten home, and the used tissues littering the floor around him reflected that. 

He blew his nose harshly, doing his best to empty it out completely before throwing the used tissue down with the rest of the pile (that he kept telling himself he’d deal with later). He was about to pick back up his controller and continue his cycle of sneezing and dying when a sudden knock at his door nearly made him jump out of his skin. He wasn’t expecting anybody, and for a split second wondered if he had maybe just been hearing things, when a second, softer knock sounded through his small dorm.

Jungkook stood up hesitantly and tightened the blanket he had wrapped around himself as he shuffled his way over to the door. He reached for the knob a little cautiously, and opened the door just a crack.

There, with a warm, welcoming smile on his face and a plastic bag held tightly in one hand was none other than Kim Taehyung. Jungkook had to fight every urge in his body to not slam the door closed out of sheer embarrassment.

“Hey, Bun.” Taehyung’s voice was just as warm as his smile, maybe even more so, as Jungkook felt his cheeks begin to flush red. “I thought I’d drop off some soup. It’s just from the café, but…” He shrugged. “My shift was over and I figured it was better than nothing. Are you feeling any better?”

Jungkook opened and closed his mouth, trying to find the right words. Instead, he ended up blurting out “HowdoyouknowwhereIlive?” Which most definitely wasn’t the right thing to say, but he was too far gone to stop himself. To his surprise, Taehyung threw back his head and laughed.

“You told me earlier, remember? When I asked?” 

Oh. Jungkook thought. That’s right. He felt his blush deepen.

“I just texted Jimin to grab your room number. He feels awful, by the way.”

Jungkook winced. “You told him?”

“Sure did.” The older boy hummed back, shoving his free hand into his jacket pocket. “He asked why I was dropping by, so I told him. Was I not supposed to?”

“Oh, no!” Jungkook quickly shook his head. “No, it’s fine! I’m just...sure he feels bad.”

“Well, you know him. If he does, he’ll get over it.”

Jungkook nodded and the two fell silent for a moment before Taehyung lifted the bag of soup containers slightly into view.

“Anyway, can I come in? I can reheat this for you.”

Jungkook’s mind immediately went to his mountain of used tissues and he dropped his head with an embarrassed sniffle.

“My dorm’s a mess.” 

“So’s mine. All part of the college experience.” He was smirking now, and Jungkook wished his blanket could turn him invisible. “If that’s your only reason to tell me no then I gotta say — that’s pretty weak.”

As he had slowly learned throughout the course of the day, when Kim Taehyung had made up his mind about something, there was no use arguing. Defeated, Jungkook stepped aside and let him in, desperately trying to push back down the increasingly nervous feeling that was starting to creep up his throat. 

Taehyung reached out to ruffle the bit of hair that stuck out from beneath Jungkook’s blanket as he stepped inside. He immediately made his way into the kitchen like it wasn’t his first time over while Jungkook waddled along at his heels. He pulled himself out a seat and plopped down as Taehyung began to rummage around his cupboards for a pot.

“You didn’t have to do this.” He ended up murmuring as Taehyung emerged from a cupboard triumphantly, pot in hand.

“I know.” Responded the other as he popped open the containers of soup. There was a pause like he intended to say more, but instead he just began to dump the contents of the containers into the pot.

“Well, I...thank you.” Jungkook uttered after a moment, bringing up a corner of his blanket to scrub into the side of his nose. “I appreciate it, Taehyung. Really.”

The older boy looked over his shoulder and smiled, and Jungkook was surprised to find a blush sitting high on his cheekbones.

“Hey,” His deep voice was smooth and sweet like melted chocolate. “Don’t mention it, Gguk. Now—” He gestured with his chin towards the television in Jungkook’s living room where his game’s loading screen continued to play on an infinite loop. “Why don’t you pick out a movie? I could stay to watch with you once the soup’s done? Only if you want to, of course.”

Jungkook smiled. He couldn’t help it. Maybe taking a sick day wasn’t so bad, after all — especially if he got to spend it with someone like Kim Taehyung.

“That sounds great, Tae. Action or comedy?”

#bts sickfic #sick!jungkook #mine #bts au #i'm a little nervous about this one so i hope it was worth the wait #bts snzfic #bts snz

[leapyearkisses]

For the director’s cut: Orbs Are Bad News, please? Part 2 (or both, if you’re willing!) It’s one of my favorites 💗

One of my favorites, too! Thanks for the ask! :D I'll do both parts, with Part 2 to follow this a bit later.

Director's cut comments in bold below the cut! MESS, m/m, holding a handkerchief, etc.

This story came from a prompt on a writing meme about a character losing the use of their hands while having to deal with snz. I can't remember at the moment if the prompt was D&D-flavored or if I just picked that setting myself because I was really into playing the game at the time (still am!). Also I'm incredibly sleep-deprived, so I hope these comments don't ramble overmuch.

"Okay, we don't know what we're dealing with here, so let's be careful." Gerrit pushed open the heavy wooden door and lifted his torch to illuminate the room inside. The firelight played over several tables covered in intriguing objects and glinted teasingly off of more than one hint of gold. Gerrit himself spotted a stolid wooden chest in the corner and his heart rate quickened.

When I was a kid, my mom gave me the Dragonlance books and I fell in love with them, although it was a long time before I was able to play D&D myself. I attribute my love of the very traditional fantasy realm to these books and my enduring love of sickly mages to Raistlin (Soulforge was like an EXPERIENCE for me). Gerrit has his origins in Tanis Half-Elven - he's a good guy, kind of a normal/default fighter build. "Jackpot," breathed Remembrance, the party's resident ne'er-do-well. She rubbed her hands together, sharp nails clicking. Gerrit was sure she was assigning price tags to the lot of it, except for whatever she hid in her bags for herself, of course. "I know a guy in the capitol who'll pay through the nose for that pervy little statue there." "That is a religious object," chastised Cordes with a haughty tsk. "It's used in rituals of worship for the goddess Fortuna." "Oh, I'm sure he'll be worshipping," cackled Remembrance, and she slipped past Gerrit into the vault. "Few hundred gold and he'll be rubbing out a grand ol' prayer." Her pointed tail waved with greedy delight. "Hey! The proper course of action would be to bring it back to a temple!" Cordes went after her, pushing Gerrit aside.

Remembrance and Cordes are here to be the beta couple and provide background color. Their development was based on a few factors: A) a D&D party should have ~4 people with different abilities (fighter, sorcerer, cleric, rogue), B) a priest and a devil is never not a fun/ny dynamic, C) I'm not into F snz but I feel bad that most of my OCs are not women, and D) given that Gerrit is a "default" archetype, there needed to be differing characters to contrast his personality with (or he would seem to have none). Also I like dirty jokes, so Remembrance can be my humorous id for this purpose lol The half-elf grumbled but wasn't surprised. "At least TRY not to touch anything cursed," he called. He'd been the one to organize this little band, but although he was the one who reported to their patron, he had precious little influence over what they did. They were happy to point to him when some upstart had a problem with the party, though. Ingrates. He turned to the last member of the group. "What about you, Llewellyn? I thought I saw some books on the far table." "Lead the way," replied the sorcerer, and his usually mellifluous voice sounded strained. Purple shadowed the hollows under his faintly luminous silver eyes, and he had his nose tucked into his handkerchief again. Gerrit hadn't spent much time around full elves, but he'd always believed they couldn't get sick, at least not like a human or dwarf. Llewellyn had been dragging since Saints' Day, though, and seemed to have come down with a flu. His skin, where visible under his fitted robes, was wan.

Fuck up that slender, haughty elf man is an endlessly running subroutine in my head. "Sure," said Gerrit, and he stepped into the room, holding the door out so that Llewellyn could join him. "You, uh, you don't look like you're feeling any better." "Oh," said the sorcerer, "I'm not. I ran out of tonics." He entered the vault and walked over to one of the tables, investigating a strangely shaped glass bowl. "But as we were already down here, I'm not sure what you want me to say. There's no inn at which I might rest my weary bones." "Cordes could make you an herbal remedy," Gerrit grumped. He went over to the chest he'd seen earlier and smashed the lock off with the pommel of his dagger. He didn't need any fancy lockpicking tools like Remembrance's. And hitting something felt good when his companions were all intent to be annoying, acerbic, or both. "I suppose," Llewellyn replied, sounding uncertain as his voice wavered. Gerrit tried to ignore the way his ears heated at that. That was the tone that overtook the elf when he was preparing to sneeze. It wasn't any of Gerrit's concern. His occasional roll in the hay (literal and figurative) with Llewellyn did not make it easier or more appropriate to acknowledge his odd attractions, especially since they were currently ransacking a dungeon with a priest and a psychopath. He focused his attention on searching the chest, and he was rewarded with a heavy coin purse, a stack of calfskin-bound journals, and a ruby the size of a robin's egg. He whistled.

Gerrit and Llewellyn are the dynamic opposite of Eliseo and Padgett. Gerrit is the less-privileged, more personable, "low class" character and Llewellyn is the high-born, fussier, sarcastic noble; however, in this story Gerrit is the voyeur character with the fetish and the POV window while Llewellyn is tortured for everyone's amusement. Narratively it's more fun and easier for me to describe the non-fetish-having character because I also like the power of the narrator to be that voyeuristic eye. Llewellyn gasped. "Hah- hahttsch-ow!"

I made myself laugh while writing this hahah "'Ow'?" Cordes appeared from behind a bookshelf, one arm wrapped tightly around a thick rug, the other reaching for his pack of salves. "What is it? Cut? Burn?" When Gerrit looked, their sorcerer was rubbing his nose with his left hand. "Bruise," Llewellyn said. He lifted his right hand, in which he held a blue crystal orb that was knotted inside a thin lattice of gold chain. "I got my hand caught." He'd apparently run the thing into his nose when trying to cover his sneeze. Llewellyn's thin face was already dusted pink from the embarrassment. Gerrit couldn't help but laugh. "Very graceful," he chuckled. "I will thank you for keeping it to yourself," Llewellyn replied, and that was elvish dialect for "fuck you." Gerrit laughed again.

Embarrassment is a huge part of my enjoyment of this kink because of the ensuing power dynamics. The victim is thrown into disequilibrium by something (snz) that is inherently seen as socially inappropriate, disgusting, or at least uncomfortable. Almost always their reaction is outsized to what it would probably be outside of a fet context (most people can sneeze in public without feeling shame - which is the typical mode, lol. It's a normal bodily function). However, then the other character, motivated by their BF's anxiety and potential humiliation is prompted to caretake and comfort them, "approve" of the "shameful" act, and deepen the intimacy of the couple. They can also enjoy the embarrassment and the act voyeuristically while feeling their own discomfort about watching, then deal with either having to divulge the kink or be found out by their partner later (because consent is the sexiest thing, really). But I love my characters and I'm not into hardcore stuff so much, so there are almost never any consequences of the "humiliation" - the characters do not get caught out, they do not get shamed by society, they do not actually lose face or have to explain their sexual preferences to anyone who should not know them.

Now you know way too much about my psychology but also the basic formula for any kink story I have written or will write in my entire life. Yay! Cordes had leaned over to see the orb better in the firelight. He was the only one among them whose vision was hindered by the dim light. "What kind of artifact is this?" he asked. "It doesn't resemble anything I've studied."

Lol humans don't have darkvision. "I'm not sure." Llewellyn held it up to the torch. The orb lit up like a lamp, but otherwise nothing happened. "Whatever this chain is, though, it's very prone to tangling." He tried to shake it off his wrist and failed. This was a task for both hands, and he set to freeing himself. And kept trying. And trying. Gerrit frowned. "What are you doing? Cordes, would you get that off of him?" "Sure." The priest reached out to help, but Llewellyn suddenly backed away out of reach. "Uh... I'm not trying to steal it, elf." "Oh, I would let you take it," Llewellyn said, scowling. "But I have a feeling we would be in for some trouble if you touch it now." He held up both hands. His palms were wrapped around the crystal and bound with the ball in that thin gold chain. "I am... I'm stuck."

---

"STUCK," hooted Remembrance again. She was crouched at the entrance to the dungeon - a root-cellar-like set of doors they'd found in a small bandit settlement - and hauling out a heavy pack stuffed with loot. In the daylight, she looked menacing and out of place, her horns, dusky maroon skin tone, and black eyes setting her apart from this land's primarily human residents. "And you even said not to touch any curses!"

Jump cuts are funny! I love this kind of thing, honestly. It's some of my favorite humor - that and dramatic irony, which is also often depicted in visual media with a funny jump cut. "I recall you said so as well," said Cordes, who looked exactly like a run-of-the-mill human resident except for the star-like scar on his left temple. He reached down and grabbed Gerrit's hand, steadying the half-elf as he climbed out of the hole. Llewellyn was hanging uncomfortably on Gerrit's back, arms looped around the other man's neck. They'd tried to find a more dignified way to get him out of the dungeon, but he couldn't manage the ladder well enough without the use of his hands. "The artifact didn't react to my detection spell," sniffed Llewellyn disdainfully, and Gerrit was quick to set him down before that sniffing could become another sneeze. He didn't want to blush in front of the others.

Blushing is very appealing to me, so everyone blushes all of the time. "There must be someone in Veigh who can help you," Gerrit said. "We'll just swing by on our way to the capitol." The city was three days out of their way, but they couldn't have Llewellyn stuck this way for the two week trip back to their patron. With his hands bound, he couldn't cast any spells that required him to gesture, and that was almost all of them. He'd effectively rendered himself completely useless in combat. Veigh had a chapter of the Mages Guild in residence, though, and if no one there could help, they might at least be able to send Llewellyn on ahead via a transportation spell.

Let's go on a short tangent about names. Usually I name my characters using Babynames.com or similar sites and I pick based on the look, sound, and meaning of the names. For this little group, things were slightly more haphazard. Llewellyn is a Welsh name meaning "leader." I just happen to like this name already, but it also has a visual beauty and difficulty to pronounce on sight that lent it well to an elf character without me having to look up specifically elven names. When I make elf characters in D&D, I tend to give them a nickname or alias that is easy to remember and pronounce so that the name isn't a hindrance while playing the game.

Gerrit's name was picked based on sound. It is similar to the Welsh name Gareth ("spear ruler"), which is on purpose, but it was altered to make it a bit more fantastical/removed. It's appropriate for a fighter in meaning but also suits his more familiar/pedestrian half-elven experience vs. that of a noble elf.

Cordes was given a short name because he is a no-nonsense human, but I chose it to resemble that of conquistador Hernan Cortes because of the "holy invasion" and "treasure hunter" associations. Remembrance is named using the PHB's suggestion that tieflings often pick "ideal" names for themselves, and she has a complicated past (like most tieflings). "I will hope there is." Llewellyn looked pale and worn, though his fine features still exuded the otherworldly beauty of the high elves. His hair was a silky black, although mostly covered by his hood, and the contrast made his silver eyes look even more curious. He fumbled for a minute at his waist before scowling heavily. "I can't get into any of my bags, of course..." "What do you need?" asked Gerrit. Remembrance had started off through the trees, humming, her bulging pack swaying with her sinuous movements. Gerrit really didn't want to let her get too far ahead, not least because she was scary good at concealing herself in the foliage and might slip the party completely. However, Cordes was with her, and Llewellyn couldn't exactly fend for himself right now. "My handkerchief..." The elf's voice had gone wavery again, and Gerrit watched as his nostrils flared. Fuck.

Oho! Here is the plot and the kink conceit. Gerrit hurriedly patted his pockets until he produced his own handkerchief, or what he bothered with when necessary. It was a large square of flannel, rough around the edges. It wasn't embroidered or monogrammed like Llewellyn's, but he figured by now the flannel was a hell of a lot cleaner, and it was soft for an irritated nose. "Here, take mine."

Characters' belongings are also a good way to contrast their situations and personalities. I don't consider handkerchiefs particularly vital to my enjoyment of this kink, but they are a useful visual and I like to describe things. Small details like this are how you can worldbuild without having to do too much extra research. Llewellyn held out his hands plus the orb for it, breath hitching, but no matter how Gerrit tried to drape the cloth, it kept slipping off of the artifact. He supposed he could try to tie it around the-

This is just so funny to me XD Llewellyn made a desperate sound and tipped his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. His breath was coming in soft pants now. And he was raising the orb reflexively. Gerrit couldn't let him whack himself in the face again, so he did the only other thing he could think of. With one hand he reached out and took Llewellyn by the shoulder. With the other, he lifted the handkerchief and pressed it over the elf's nose. His fingers settled firmly on either side of Llewellyn's nostrils, and none too soon. After another half-hitch, Llewellyn ducked forward again with a quiet but insistent sneeze. "Happtsch!

One of the most pleasing sneeze sounds, tbh. Gerrit was sure he was beet red. “Bless you,” he mumbled. Through the cloth, Llewelyn’s nose felt hot, and any gentle pressure resulted in a bit of a squish. “Let me just…” "Whh- wait-" Llewellyn leaned into the handkerchief. "I'm nh- I'm not done hhH-" His eyes slipped shut and he gasped again. Gerrit swallowed and tried to ignore the tenting of his breeches. "R-roger that." He could feel Llewellyn's nostrils twitching against his fingers. "Hh...Haah- Hapttschuh! Snrk... Aptschiu!" His body rocked, and he took a half-step forward. Gerrit could hear the thick sound of congestion in the elf's nose as he tried to stave off another sneeze.

The desperation, talking through the sneezing, and congestion are all vital parts of this scenario. Unavoidable embarrassment + disgust factor + need for caretaking/mitigation. "Blow your nose," he said. "It will help." Llewellyn hesitated, but in the end, he had to comply. There was nowhere for the mucus to go except out. He started to blow with a gurgle.

I used to be really against mess, but the taboo/disgust part of the brain turns off psychologically a LOT during arousal and now I really do not find snz interesting without it. Snz without mess isn't embarrassing enough or visually exciting. Gerrit moved the hand from his shoulder to start rubbing Llewellyn's back. The handkerchief and his fingers were rapidly growing damp, but he really didn't mind. "There you go." He held the handkerchief to Llewellyn's nose until the elf moved back on his own. His nose was red and tender looking, and his cheeks were flushed rosy. He didn't seem to want to meet Gerrit's eyes. Gerrit didn't mention it. He didn't really want to look at Llewellyn either right now. It had been a while since the elf had looked so very fuckable.

Potentially due to my propensity to write fanfic about established ships, all of my OCs apparently have a history or mutual attraction out of the gate. On one hand, it's difficult just mechanically to write a scenario about a romantic or sexual encounter without there being chemistry and an excuse for them to already want to rub bits (obviously), especially in short stories, but I also cannot stand the thin veneer of situational causality that underlies porn (to borrow from Cards Against Humanity). If I can't care about my characters' lives outside of the one random fetish scenario, I can't care enough to write about them at all. He put the handkerchief in an easily-accessible outside pocket of his vest. "Ready to go?" Llewellyn coughed lightly. "Yes." "Excellent." Gerrit gestured for Llewellyn to precede him, and the two of them headed out through the trees, following the sounds of Cordes negotiating the underbrush and swearing about it. --- Travel proved easy enough once they made it to the road. They were fortunate not to meet anyone else along the way. The party could handle a group of bandits without their sorcerer, but they had their treasure to worry about, and Remembrance always drew stares, and sometimes aggression, even from normal travelers. Gerrit thought her skills more than made up for the extra negative attention they drew. And anyway, Remembrance was crazy but she wasn't evil. She did better out on the road than in town, but that was probably true of all of them. Llewellyn kept up with her pace, but it was clearly a struggle. He was usually fairly quiet, but he didn't speak at all as they walked, focusing on breathing and not devolving into coughing or more sneezing. There were a few times when Gerrit hastily reached into his pocket, at the ready, but Llewellyn fought back the itch with admirable determination. He kept his nose from running by sniffling heavily, which sounded somewhere between awful and revolting. Cordes commented on it multiple times with disgust, but nothing could be done. Llewellyn held his tongue, and Gerrit was reluctant in this case to offer the handkerchief without being asked.

Cordes is here providing the societal reaction and voice of reason lol, but there still aren't any consequences or shaming from them. I just imagine how fricking uncomfortable it would be if people acknowledged this porn scenario happening in-world and so that is never part of the story development. They found a place to camp about half an hour outside the small village of Tewks. Remembrance cleared out some brush to make a flat area for the bedrolls and then promptly decided she'd rather sleep in a tree with everything she owned. She found a good, solid oak a few yards from the camp and ensconced herself in the crux of its branches. She had a good view of the road in either direction and volunteered to take the second watch in the middle of the night, which was her favorite time. Gerrit agreed to take the first watch as Cordes started to set up his tent. The priest refused to sleep on the ground and always took an extra fifteen minutes to erect a curious one-person canvas canopy. It wasn't even large enough to sit up inside, but whatever. The priest never asked anyone else to haul it along, so Gerrit wouldn't complain.

Remembrance and Cordes are thus handwaved away from the sexual center of the plot and they will neither see nor hear anything they aren't invited to. These arrangements left him and Llewellyn alone together on one side of the fire, and he supposed that was preferable during the orb situation anyway. Llewellyn couldn't handle his own bedroll, help with the fire, or unpack any of their supplies. Gerrit realized he would probably have to help the elf eat, too. And... Well, when he noticed Llewellyn fidgeting uncomfortably, Gerrit took him out into a thicker copse to see to his other needs. They didn't talk about it... Llewellyn could hardly undo his own buttons, though, and it wasn't the first time Gerrit had taken over.

I am very into watersports, so it creeps in, although I don't think there's a friendly community out there for that like there is for snz, so I haven't developed any kind of presence for it. It appeals to me for pretty much all of the same reasons as described above. Maybe someday I will start writing those kinds of stories on this account as well, but I don't know if they would find an audience, so maybe not. By the time the fire was hot enough to cook over, Llewellyn had tucked himself up to sit on a tree stump, exuding an aura of furious self-reproach. Cordes took some jerky into his tiny tent with him - for some reason. Gerrit made up two bowls of pottage and sat himself on the ground at the roots of the stump. He put one bowl on the ground for himself and then held up the other. "Hungry?" "Not particularly," Llewellyn replied, voice blunted with congestion. He coughed. "But you're going to make me eat something, aren't you." "I'd prefer you do it willingly." Gerrit tapped the spoon on the side of the bowl. "Come on. It's hot. You'll feel better." Llewellyn growled in a manner more suited to orcs than elves. "I feel like an invalid." Gerrit sighed. "Well, if it makes you feel better, we can pretend you lost your arms in an owlbear attack very tragically." He could feel Llewellyn's fiery glare on him and smiled a little. "Look, we've all done stupid things while adventuring. I'm sure you remember when I tripped and knocked myself out on that knight's shield during the tournament." "I remember," replied the elf, begrudgingly. "Besides, you're sick on top of the whole orb thing. Maybe your detection spell wasn't sensitive enough. Maybe the thing's not even cursed! Maybe it's supposed to do this, and we just don't know why." "I have a hard time believing that. What possible purpose could this serve?"

Porn! Gerrit shrugged. "Don't ask me. Dad says my mother was a druid, but I haven't got a magical bone in my body." He tilted his head. "We could always try smashing it?" Llewellyn's rejection was forceful. "Do you want to explode?!" Gerrit chuckled. "Not really." Llewellyn sighed. Gerrit held out a spoonful of pottage. Feeding both Llewellyn and himself was a bit difficult, but Gerrit did well enough when he could alternate. It would be better if he could use both hands equally like Cordes, but he couldn't, and so he didn't. He just thought about it wistfully as he worked. Llewellyn ended up eating most of his bowl, then went back to sitting quietly and sniffling. Gerrit finished the rest and put the utensils aside to deal with later. And... Even though Llewellyn hadn't asked, he drew out his handkerchief again.

More caretaking, more intimacy. Gerrit is a kind and loving person even though he's a fighter by trade. "Hey," he began, trying not to sound awkward. "You wanna blow your nose?" No one else was paying attention and Llewellyn didn't need to inhale any more of that crap. The elf gave him a shitty side-eye. "Come on," said Gerrit. "Don't be like this." He patted the ground in front of him encouragingly as if Llewellyn was a recalcitrant cat. "I'm fine," said Llewellyn, and then betrayed himself with a quick breath. "Hah--" "Come on," Gerrit repeated, "before you make a mess."

He is also pretty comfortable talking about a lot of things that people with the fetish have generally admitted difficulty acknowledging. This is because even though he's the one with the fetish in this, he is also the "Padgett" character and practical and not caught up in the anxiety prison. Llewellyn came down off the stump to sit in front of him, legs tucked underneath, and rested the orb on Gerrit's thigh to balance himself. His eyes were pinched with reluctance, but Gerrit could see that the elf's nostrils were already damp. "Hah- hh- hurry," Llewellyn gasped.

People should sit in each other's laps. It's good. Again, Gerrit reached out with the handkerchief, enfolding his companion's nose. He could feel Llewellyn's breath fluttering against his hand through the fabric and hear quite clearly how it kept catching on congestion. "Hah-hngk- Hahgkttscht!" Llewellyn ducked forward with the force of it and Gerrit steadied him with a hand on his hip. "Ngkttsch! Hnggktxch!!"

The sneezes now involve nasal consonants because of congestion. Sometimes people tend to have a certain way their sneezes always sound, and I try to maintain that, but these details are important to show a change in the severity of the cold (and evidence of sniffling for hours). Gerrit bit his lip sharply to keep from saying anything, but his body was singing with arousal. Llewellyn hiccupped a short gasp and Gerrit pulled the handkerchief away to present a clean corner. The current spot had become soaked and silvery. "Bless," he managed after a moment, and he carefully readjusted the cloth. "Are you going to sneeze again?"

Hiccupping is also sexy and cute. Also I spelled that wrong in the original, gdi... Llewellyn nodded, eyes teary with the effort of the first bunch. Gerrit wasn't surprised; the elf had been holding back since they left the dungeon. He couldn't imagine it had been comfortable, but Llewellyn had his pride. He never would let Gerrit give him love bites either. Annnd Gerrit was going to have to stop thinking about that. "Haptsch!" Easier said than done. Really. But Llewellyn's comfort came first.

Voyeur with a heart of gold. "Hahkptsch!" The sorcerer groaned softly. "Hah- hh- Hgnaptscxhx!" Gerrit did his best to assist Llewellyn through the fit. He kept the handkerchief secure, moving it when necessary to keep it dry enough. He steadied the elf when the sneezes bent his body or when he felt faint from lack of breath. He even massaged Llewellyn's nose for him when he was trying to blow it and the congestion was stubbornly refusing to move. By the time he felt finished enough to lean back, Llewellyn was flushed and light-headed, swaying where he sat. Gerrit was sweating and needed a towel. "........Thanks," murmured Llewellyn, eventually.

Sometimes kink authors tend to just write out like twenty sneezes in a row and I hate that, honestly. (No shade - I don't even have an example in mind because I don't read a lot of stories anymore and everyone has their preferences.) I just think that the kink should support the storyline and not the other way around. The story should be enjoyable and sexy but have a narrative structure and coherent rising and falling action. Even if a fit is a sexy scenario (it is), trying to make your eyeballs power through a repetitive series of nonsense syllables is counterproductive and takes the reader out of the story and into the realm of annoyance, which disrupts arousal as well. "Yeah," said Gerrit. "Sure." He swallowed. "Let's wash up." He helped Llewellyn to his feet and they went a little way to a creek (generously; it was little more than a ditch through the woods). Gerrit gently washed Llewellyn's face, careful of his tender eyes and nose, and sent him back to camp to lay down for the night. He lingered at the water's edge to wash the handkerchief and, well, to take other matters in hand.

If ya know what I mean. Llewellyn was completely out when he returned, and Gerrit was grateful. He smoothed the elf's bangs back and then settled beside the fire to take watch. The woods in the dark were full of the sounds of insects and small animals moving in the undergrowth. And Llewellyn snoring and sniffling in his sleep. Safe sounds. Gerrit rested his chin on his hand and looked toward the road. Damn orb. It was going to be a long way to Veigh.

And this was getting long, so this is where I cut it to make part 2, which I will also commentate in a bit (hopefully after a nap =___=). Thanks!

#lyk writes #snz #llewellyn mistwalker #gerrit truestride #gerwellyn #director's cut commentary exercise