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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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a different kind of warmth

Izzy's in need of some comfort; Jamie's in need of some allergy meds. 2.2 k, m/f, explicit/18+ Read it below or on AO3.

Hindsight 'verse series link on AO3 is here. Tumblr links: Intro to Izzy & Jamie (18+); tiny Christmas fic (sfw); fall festival fic (WIP, sfw).

She's just trying to work up the will to switch out her no-longer-hot water bottle for the heating pad that's fallen down beside the bed when she hears the door open downstairs. Jamie had texted a photo of him lying on the floor with a mass of reddish fur on top of him with the caption I'll be home as soon as I can followed by three more photos of Jupiter enthusiastically licking his face. In two of them, Jamie's laughing; in the last, he's somehow managed to catch himself mid-sneeze. Or maybe the surprising part is that he's not sneezing in the rest of the photos, given how things usually go when the two of them are together.

And even once they aren't anymore. His forceful h'TCHH, het'SCHHuh! is muffled by the distance, but a third HEH-tchuu! is clearer as he comes up the stairs. He stops outside their bedroom door, head tipped back, trying to decide if there's going to be a fourth, and then he sniffs and shakes his head and comes inside.

"How's everything at Matty and Nico's?" Izzy asks, trying not to sound as pathetic as she feels.

"Good!" He sits down on the edge of the bed and rubs at his nose almost violently, scrunching it up in a way that apparently just makes things worse. "Took Jupiter for a walk, refilled her and Luna's food and water, got a text from Matty that they're on their way home and should be back by ei… ght…" He raises a hand halfway to his face as if he's about to rub at his nose some more but then sneezes instead, a strong eht-CHHH! that he just manages to turn his head for. He sniffs, and sniffs again. "I swear Luna was judging me from up on top of her cat tree."

"I mean, cuddling with your one and only known cause of uncontrollable sneezing does seem like a pretty questionable decision, I'm with Luna on that."

"Have you seen her?" Mock-offended on Jupiter's behalf. "She's perfect."

She laughs, and immediately grimaces. "She is. Ow."

He scooches closer on the bed so he can rub her lower back. "The cramps are still bad?"

"Yeah." She sighs. "I know it'll be so much better tomorrow—" day one is always by far the worst— "but that doesn't make today suck any less."

"I'm sorry." He leans down to kiss her forehead, and then has to sniff madly when bending down proves to be a bad idea.

"Did you take any allergy meds?" Someday it will occur to him to take them before rolling around on the floor with a friendly furball, but clearly today was not that day.

"Oh! No, not yet." He sniffs some more, and then, once his nose has apparently calmed down for the moment, asks, "How about you, can I get you painkillers?"

"Already took some, just waiting for them to kick in." She shifts around uncomfortably, and he rubs her back again. "Would you mind handing me the heating pad? It fell on the floor."

"You got it." And then, when Izzy extricates the fleece-covered hot water bottle from the sheets so that she can replace it with the heating pad, "Do you want me to refill this, too?"

"That sounds nice." A careful inhale, then exhale, hands pressed low against her belly because the pressure sometimes helps. "Just make myself into a sandwich of heat."

"ihhh… TSCHhhoo!" Leaning away from her, over the side of the bed, and then back to ask, in close, "Can I be part of that warming you up plan?"

"Always." She lifts her chin and he obliging closes the distance between them so she can kiss him. "And bless you again. Times a thousand, at this point, I'm guessing."

He sits back up and grins. "Maybe like eighty-five." ||

She lets herself drift while he's downstairs, trying to breathe through the pain, willing the painkillers to kick in. Within a few minutes Jamie's back with the newly-hot water bottle and a well-worn but clean bandana that he keeps swiping across his nose like that's going to solve anything. She'd heard him blowing his nose, though, and he's sniffling less, so at least he's gotten a moment of reprieve.

He hums quietly when he gets into bed and wraps his arms around her. "Nice and warm. Sorry it's not fixing everything, though."

She exhales into his embrace. "Better now. I'm glad you're home." A kiss, and another, and she rests her forehead against his chest, curled around the hot water bottle while he holds the heating pad to her back.

It helps— the heat, but mostly the painkillers finally kicking in— and pretty soon it feels like she can take a full breath without being in stabbing pain, and then with only a persistent ache. The relief uncovers some of the desire that's been waiting underneath all day. It's a particularly insistent itch. Only briefly satisfied, then flaring again a few hours later.

"I was trying some other things," she says, breaking the silence. "To help." Letting her hips roll a little bit as she shifts around. "But they weren't as good without you here."

"Oh?" He back to sniffling now. His fingers trace the curve of her hip.

"Yeah," she murmurs against him. She's never figured out the evolutionary advantage of wanting so badly at such a counterintuitive time, but it's consistently true and really does help, so hey, the mysterious hormones can do what they want, she supposes.

"How do you…" His eyelids flutter, and he sniffs, and sniffs again, but it's futile. "How do you w… w… ah… TSCHOO!" He gets the bandana up almost but not quite in time, the spray landing on her hands where they're resting on the water bottle. He leaves the bandana there, hitching through another set of ih… hih… hhhh…. before snapping forward for a firmly muffled MMPHch! "What sounds good?"

She kisses his forehead when he ducks his head to blow his nose. "Bless you, love. And… just you. If that's okay."

"Sounds perfect."

"Had some help earlier," she says, and he hums and goes up on an elbow so he can reach into the nightstand drawer. "Yeah," when he comes up with the blue vibrator she's been favoring lately. "It was good." Her words pressed against his lips, punctuated by kisses. "You're better."

He slips a hand down between them and Izzy rolls her hips again, the stretch of it satisfying now that the meds have taken the edge off.

"Do you want to keep the heating pad?"

She shakes her head. "No, not for now." The cord will just be in the way.

"Okay."

She shifts onto her back, and then, when that's not comfortable, over onto her other side, so that Jamie is pressed up against her. She presses back and he responds, and kisses her neck where her ponytail leaves it exposed. His fingers find her again, moving first over her pj pants and then slipping under the waistband to explore over the fabric of her old, worn-out underwear, and then, when the sound that escapes her lips is a clear indication of yes, under that waistband as well. The heel of his palm meets the hot water bottle and she pulls it up to her chest, letting a different sort of warmth take its place as his fingers find her clit, moving slow, and then a little faster, and then slow again, and she exhales shakily and follows the movement with her hips.

He reaches lower, out of habit, but find the stem of her menstrual cup instead, and laughs. "One of these months you'd think… I'd… HEH-tschiew! Remember." He sniffs.

"Muscle memory," she replies, a little breathless.

He hums in agreement and rolls away to grab the lube from the bedside drawer. When he doesn't immediate roll back she turns onto her back to investigate and finds him frozen, breath hitching, the open bottle in one hand and some of its contents already held carefully on the fingers of his other hand; wetness gathered at the tip of his nose; some sort of mess inevitable no matter what action he takes.

"Oh—" she says, and grabs the now slightly-damp handkerchief from between their pillows just in time to catch an audibly wet hhhxxtchuu! in its folds.

"Oh god," he mutters, and she manages to trade him the bandana for the bottle so he can blow his nose while she flips the lid closed.

"Okay?"

"Fuck." He shakes his head. "Sorry. Bad timing."

She just shrugs, unconcerned. "I've got you."

"Always." He sets his bandana down and pulls in close again, nuzzling against her neck as she rolls back onto her side. "Okay. Take two."

Fingers back between fabric and skin again— it's going to be a bit of a sticky mess later but right now she just really does not want to move— and the heat builds again. Circles, and pressure, and her matching them both, and Jamie hard against her back…

Time stretches out as she floats, breathing carefully and then eventually fast and hard, eyes closed, sweat gathering, a little bit of a smile. Jamie sneezes against her shoulder, a quick h'TCHH!, and she murmurs a "bless you" but he's not done, jerking against her with another ih'xxght!

"Bless you, bless you." She blinks her eyes open with a long inhale. "Okay?"

Jamie rubs his nose in the shoulder of his own shirt and nods, and picks up where he left off. She's getting close, breath starting to lose its rhythm, when a sudden TSCHHH'uh! sprays her neck. "Fuck, sorry, got yo-our… hih… your hair tickling my… no… se… IXTCHOO!"

She's too far gone to say anything coherent, so she just nods, the ache a desperate, wanting thing, and he picks up the rhythm again, his fingers are moving slick and fast. She's pressing her hand on top of his, more, more, and then her breath catches and her hips buck and she's crying out, arched against him, and nothing else matters in the world for a while.

He's kissing her gently when she comes back to herself. "Good?" he murmurs against her temple.

"So good," she breathes. She couldn't move if she tried. Everything is tingling and warm, the pain replaced with the best sort of ache.

He smiles against her and then pulls back a bit to blow his nose. "You can sleep if you want, I'm good." He sets down the now-soaking bandana and slips a hand under his own waistband, and then back out, starting in on himself with slow strokes that she knows won't take long to quicken and crest.

"Think I'll watch," she says, gathering up her energy to turn onto her side. His head is tipped back again, nose quivering, waiting for a sneeze that's clearly stuck. "Need some help?" She's sure the brush of a finger would have been enough, but she'd rolled over onto her blue vibrator and something (she's going to blame hormones) had put a slightly absurd idea in her head. He pulls another hitching breath and groans in frustration, hand still moving on his cock, and she flicks the button to turn the vibrator on low. Jamie squints his eyes open at the sound, peering through allergic tears, and manages a short laugh but also gives a go ahead gesture, presumably borne of sheer desperation. She touches it to the end of his nose, which just makes him gasp more, and then to the bridge, which apparently is the key.

"heh-IH-TSCHOO! CHSCHUH! k'TCHHH!" A gasp, and a moan, the convulsions apparently have only intensified his own grip. "h'cht, t'CHt, hihhh… TCHIIU! Oh, god, that felt good!" He's getting close, the urgency so hot that Izzy's almost ready to go for round two herself. She presses in close, ignoring the mess, and kisses him deep, a hand on his hip and moving closer, and he gasps one last time and shudders through the finish, Izzy's hand warm on his.

"Holy fuck," he says, once he can, as Izzy hands him tissues to blow his nose and clean himself up. "That was intense."

"It certainly was. Bless you times another thousand, by the way." When he starts sniffling again, she frowns. "You did actually take the allergy meds, right?"

His eyes go wide. "I, uh." He sniffs again. "Might have forgot."

All she can do is laugh. "Okay, well, I'm gonna say that now is the time. And is that the shirt you were wearing earlier? Oh my god, Jamie, it's like you're walking around with a layer of Jupiter still attached!"

"She is very important to me. I must keep her with me at all times." He manages to stay in character for all of three seconds before he breaks with a grin.

"You should shower, babe." She pulls the hot water bottle back to her, and Jamie reaches over her to press the heating pad to her back as well.

"You want to join, or stay here?"

"I'm not up for showering, but after, we could move to the couch? Find something to watch?"

He kisses her deep and stands to strip off his shirt. "Sounds perfect."

#i'm bringing this back because i'm re-reading old stuff in preparation to actually write new stuff(!!)#so in case you missed it or want to read it again here you go

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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Someone needing to remove a layer of clothing to lie down with their feverish partner so that they don’t overheat.

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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rapid-fire sneezes that come too quickly to breathe between, so the sneezes just get shorter, weaker and more high-pitched until the lungs are completely emptied, forcing the person to draw a deep, desperate gasp to compensate for the lack of air before they can finally end the fit with one last, punishing sneeze:

“eishh!-ishh!-ish!-’sh! …hehHH! -EEISSHHuh!”

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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Pressing play on more and more wavs simultaneously like adding flowers to a bouquet

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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...til you make it

Hello! Jude and Arthur have returned!!

Thank you SO much to everyone who liked or reblogged the first iteration of this series, holy shit (if you haven't read it, it can be found here!). I'm incredibly flattered that so many people are even interested in these dudes from my brain, and I'm looking forward to continuing to share their adventures with you all.

I have many many people to thank (it seriously takes a village, and I am very lucky to have a lot of wonderful people in my corner!) but will do so at the end.

No content warnings except for the consequences of the potential accidental contagion mentioned in the previous part. Let's get this show on the road! It's opening night, y'all!! (6k words)

The cold spread like wildfire amongst the cast and crew, as these things tended to do when stressed and sleep-deprived professionals were forced into close proximity for long hours, day after day. Jude still felt a nagging seed of guilt about the whole thing, even when Julia apologized to him multiple times for being the one to get him sick in the first place.

“All great stage managers try to make sure their leads are at less than 100% when we’re about to open,” she said wryly as they both sipped tea in the green room. It was Thursday. They were doing a full dress rehearsal this morning, once the sound crew fixed an issue with one of the mics that had been plaguing them on and off all week.

Jude was about to brush off her concerns, to reassure her that it was bound to happen anyway, when a specific word snagged belatedly in his awareness. “Leads?”

Julia grimaced and angled a cough away from Jude before taking another sip of her tea. “Have you not heard Arthur this morning? He sounds like shit.”

Fuck. Even though he’d known it was coming, Jude still felt dread settling into his stomach like a ball of lead. Julia was saying something else, something about another reporter coming this afternoon, but Jude couldn’t hear her over the dull ringing beginning in his ears.

“I’m gonna — I’ll be back,” he said dazedly, and set his tea on a nearby table before leaving Julia mid-conversation and making a beeline for exactly where he knew Arthur would be hiding out.

Sure enough, when he poked his head out the stage door, there was Arthur, facing away and out towards the alley. But as Jude opened his mouth to say something, Arthur raised a bent arm and sneezed into his elbow. “hkk’tsshieu!”

Bless you, Jude was going to say, but then the door shut behind him with a dull thud, and Arthur spun, something like panic sharp in his eyes for a flash of a second before he pulled it together with a sniffle and a smile. “Oh, hey.”

“Goddammit,” Jude said flatly, guilt beginning to claw its way up his throat. “Fuck.”

“It’s fine,” Arthur said immediately, taking a step towards Jude with his hands raised reassuringly. “I’m not feeling too bad.”

“Not yet, anyway.” Jude leaned back against the wall. He was so, so tired, his head hurt, and he’d woken up an hour before his alarm went off to a congested sneezing fit that still had his sinuses feeling sore and swollen. “God. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s just how it goes,” Arthur said. “During The Sound of Music I got so sick that my understudy had to take over the last week of shows.”

There had been some nasty comments about that from critics, insinuations (and sometimes direct statements) that the understudy should have been cast as von Trapp in the first place, that giving Arthur lead billing had been more of an attempt to utilize his star power than based on any merit. It seemed like Arthur was remembering this too, as the corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I have plenty of tissues,” Jude said. It was an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, because Arthur had been the one pressing them into Jude’s hands over the last couple of days, making sure that someone was waiting in the wings with lozenges and tissues and more tea whenever Jude came offstage. Whether or not it worked, Arthur seemed to appreciate the effort, and his tense little smile twitched into something more heartfelt.

“Right.” His hand settled briefly on Jude’s upper arm, and Jude thought he felt Arthur run his thumb along the outside of his arm before he withdrew and held the stage door open. “Let’s get going, then.”

Jude led the way back to the green room, and then it was time to head to makeup and get mic’d up. Taylor clucked her tongue at him as he sank into the chair.

“You’re looking rough, kiddo,” she said frankly, and Jude grimaced.

“Sorry, Taylor.” He caught a ragged cough against the back of his wrist. “No promises on keeping my makeup on today.”

“Tomorrow’s when it really counts,” she said, tapping her nails thoughtfully against her arm. Their eyes met in the mirror, and Jude looked away. “I can have someone backstage to touch you up when you’re not on, if we really need to.”

“Sure. Thanks.” He rubbed at his nose with the heel of his hand and gave a rough sniffle, then sheepishly glanced up at Taylor, who rolled her eyes fondly.

“You’re going to drive me crazy,” she said, but she plunked a box of Kleenex down on the counter in front of Jude. “Here. You look like you’re gonna need these.”

–

Jude did, in fact, need the tissues - in makeup, in sound check, while he was getting into costume. The cold medicine he’d taken this morning seemed to have done little but make him dry-mouthed and faintly dizzy, and he knew the constant sniffling and throat-clearing that he was having to give into to keep his voice even remotely comprehensible were unavoidably getting picked up by his mic.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had to go to the sound crew before a show and admit with some reluctance that he had a cold, but it never got less mortifying. At least he knew they were keeping a close eye on when he left the stage so he could cough and blow his nose safely in the privacy of the wings.

“Hey, here.”

It was Matthew, Julia’s assistant stage manager, waiting just off-stage with a thermos and a packet of travel tissues. Jude accepted the tea and managed to keep from wincing as he sipped at it gingerly.

“How badly am I sucking out there?” He asked flatly. Matthew looked a little startled, but he quickly recovered and shook his head.

“No, no, it’s going fine. Honestly.”

Jude made a face and took another sip, then glanced reflexively across the stage into the shadows of the wings on the other side. There was Arthur, prepping for his first entrance. But as Jude watched, he stopped, then lifted his arm and sneezed forcefully into the crook of it.

Matthew followed his gaze and made a face. “It’ll be fine,” he said again, though at this point Jude wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince. “Just three shows this weekend and then you all can rest and recover.”

Sure. Three shows. Six hours (give or take) of intense public scrutiny, in which every sniffle could be a black mark against him, against Arthur, against Charlotte. Jude just sighed and took the tissues from Matthew then stepped away to blow his nose. He was too exhausted and headachey to go down that rabbit hole.

But while his sinus pressure and congestion and runny nose and cough and sneezing were all unpleasant and sapping his strength, it was his sore throat that was truly threatening the weekend. He’d only been in two scenes so far and already his voice was growing threadbare. But all he could do about that was keep drinking tea.

God, he was so tired of tea.

But he took another sip and returned the thermos to Matthew. “Th–” His voice broke, then rasped out into a whisper, and he turned away from Matthew to cough. It made his chest ache and his throat burn, but he forced a smile when he saw the worry creeping into the assistant stage manager’s expression. “Hkm. Thanks, sorry. I’m gonna go, uh – check on something.”

Honestly he just needed two minutes where no one was looking at him with pity, or concern, or the disappointment that he knew they were all beginning to feel. He needed two minutes where he wasn’t hyperaware of every time Arthur cleared his throat (because that was his fault), where he could very briefly wallow in his own shitty luck and timing and just feel bad for himself. But, unfortunately –

“Hey, Jude? Can I fuck with your mic for a second?”

– he didn’t have two minutes to himself, not now and not until this opening weekend was over. So he obediently moved to the side so the stagehand could adjust his mic and mic pack. Arthur was on stage now in Luc’s first scene of the show, but the set was blocking Jude’s view from this angle. Arthur still sounded good, thankfully - his voice was maybe a smidge lower than usual, but no one who hadn’t spent the last several weeks listening to the man speak would be able to pick up on it.

Probably because he’s actually sleeping, the little thoughtful voice in the back of Jude’s head that always sounded like his sister pointed out.

It’s not like I’m not trying to, Jude argued back, as he would have if Eden had been here in person.

He was saving her a pair of seats for the third weekend the show was running – the first weekend both she and her husband Rick could find a sitter and get away from the kids. She had been to New York several times since he’d moved up here, once or twice for Christmas and then once on his birthday, but it was always a monumental effort.

She’d given up on asking him if he was ever going to come back to Georgia to visit. And he didn’t know if she’d told their parents that he’d landed this role, that he’d finally made something of himself.

But…he wasn’t going to ask.

And – ah, fuck, he had to sneeze. He pulled away from the sound tech who was trying to reapply his mic tape and took a hasty step back, giving himself just enough space and time to sneeze into his cupped hands. “hihhZZCHiuh! htdZHHisshuh!”

A scattering of blessings rippled through the cast and crew clustered around stage left, and Jude murmured a quick apology before retrieving some tissues from a nearby box (they were everywhere backstage now) and cleaning himself up, then blew his nose.

“Hand sanitizer,” he heard Julia say sternly, and he obeyed, then slunk back to finish getting his microphone adjusted.

He could see one of Taylor’s makeup girls eyeing him (and, likely, his pink nose), but by then his cue was coming up, and he was able to duck away from the controlled chaos of backstage and take a breath in the wings before slipping into Brayden and the current of the show unfolding before him.

It was his first scene of the show with Arthur - with Luc - and it was an easy, light-hearted one that would hopefully get a couple of laughs from the audience. And even though his throat hurt and he kept sniffling and his sinus headache was beginning to make his vision swim, Jude found himself truly smiling for the first time today.

It was so simple up here, with Arthur. The stage had been Jude’s escape from reality for as long as he could remember. Because here, under the lights, in this false reality that everyone agreed to inhabit for a finite period of time, the answers to everything were clear. His words were scripted, his movements were laid out far in advance, and he knew what emotional beats he needed to hit.

And with all that annoying minutiae pre-dictated and out of the way, Jude was free to just feel, and to bring the audience along with him on the journey.

And acting across from Arthur felt as easy as breathing. He had proved himself to be an incredible listener over and over again throughout the rehearsal process, and once they’d left the practice rooms he and Jude were more in sync than Jude had ever been with an acting partner.

“Hold, please.”

It was Charlotte on mic from the audience, her voice amplified over the background noise of rain piped in from the sound booth. Jude and Arthur stopped, and Arthur shielded his eyes against the stage lights to peer out into the house while Jude turned from him and coughed into his shoulder.

“Jude,” Arthur said softly, and Jude looked up with watering eyes to see Charlotte waving them over.

They obeyed, and Arthur lowered himself to the edge of the stage, but Jude remained standing, partially because he had to sneeze. His current costume had no good pockets for tissues, so he leaned away from Arthur to try and muffle the sneeze into the back of his forearm. “hddZZISHHoo!”

“Bless you,” Arthur offered, but Jude shook his head faintly, keeping his arm raised as his breath began to climb into the buildup for a second, more forceful sneeze that made him rock back a step. “iHDDzschuh!”

“And again,” Arthur said, as Charlotte’s voice also blessed him. Jude sniffled, making a mental note to apologize to costuming as he blinked up at Charlotte, who was making her way to the base of the stage.

“Sorry,” he said as soon as she was within comfortable speaking distance. He didn’t want to yell this across the house (not that he could at this point anyway, with his throat in the state that it was). “I know my lines are dragging a bit, I’ll try to pick up the pace.”

“No, you’re fine.” She turned off the wireless mic and set it beside Arthur, then leaned her elbows against the stage. There was something a little too neutral in her expression, a little too guarded, and Jude flexed his fingers in a nervous tic.

She can’t fire me the day before we open, can she?

“Jude, I’m gonna need you to sit out the rest of dress rehearsal.”

A heaviness began to hollow out Jude’s chest, but some part of him had the wherewithal to nod in return.

“May I ask why?” That sounded like him, strained and hoarse, but it also sounded like it was coming from across the theater. On his right, Arthur looked up.

“We need to save your voice for the rest of the weekend. Oliver can mark the rest of today’s run, but you won’t have anything left if you don’t rest, especially if you try to do the end of the first act.”

Charlotte’s eyes were very brown, Jude noticed distantly. He wondered if she’d wear her contacts for the opening this weekend or the new pair of glasses she’d gotten on Tuesday.

“...Jude?”

He blinked. Arthur was hovering at his elbow - when had he gotten up? - and Charlotte’s brows were furrowed in concern. Something like a shiver ran down Jude’s spine, and he gave his head a little shake to try and ground himself back in the present.

“Y-Yeah, sorry.” He swallowed. His throat felt like nails. He grasped the hem of his shirt with numb fingertips. “I get it.”

“Right.” Charlotte swapped a loaded glance with Arthur, but before Jude could decipher it, Arthur nodded, then put his hand on Jude’s elbow.

“Give me like five minutes and we can pick the scene back up.”

“Okay.” Charlotte’s gaze swung back to Jude, now sharp and evaluating. “Take a break, okay? Sit down. Drink some tea. Do some yoga, I don’t know.”

He was supposed to smile in response to that. He tried, but the way Arthur’s hand tightened on his arm made him suspect he hadn’t been successful. Charlotte and Arthur had another quick, silent shared exchange, and then Arthur gently steered Jude back towards the wings.

He could hear Charlotte calling for Julia, who would presumably seek out Oliver, Jude’s understudy, but then Arthur let them into the back hallway and all the sounds of the theater faded behind them with the closing of the door.

It was much quieter back here. The fluorescents overhead buzzed as Jude followed Arthur along the familiar tiles, who had released Jude’s arm but was still sticking close. The peace and his easy silence were a balm on Jude’s tightly-strung nerves, and with each step he felt his mind beginning to return to his body, settling back into his aching rib cage and his tingling fingertips. Now that he no longer felt like he was floating half a foot above himself, he was getting unpleasant reminders of how truly awful he felt, like dozens of ‘check engine’ lights were suddenly flickering on all across his body.

Thankfully the green room was empty too, though that wouldn’t be the case for long. Arthur retrieved a thermos from a nearby shelf and passed it to Jude.

“Here, mine should still be warm.”

“Your – Arthur, this is your tea.” Jude blinked stupidly down at the mug in his hand.

“I’ll get more at intermission. It’s fine,” he insisted, when Jude tried to hand it back to him. “My throat isn’t really bothering me right now.”

“But –” Jude’s brain was still moving too slowly for this, and he let Arthur nudge him towards a chair. But he kept the thermos, and Arthur’s hand landed lightly on top of his head for a moment in what could almost be called an affectionate hair-ruffle.

“Take it easy for a bit. Let Oliver do the heavy lifting for once,” he teased, which did actually make Jude smile.

“Don’t kiss him, you’ll get him sick,” Jude said, startling a laugh from Arthur, whose fingertips grazed Jude’s scalp as he withdrew.

“Fine. I promise that you’re the only person I’ll kiss.”

–

Jude made it about ten minutes lounging in the green room listening to the audio from the stage being played over the monitors before he couldn’t take it anymore.

Backstage left wasn’t quite as busy as backstage right, but Julia still glared at Jude as he pulled a stool out of the way into a corner.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” she hissed, wiggling one ear of her headset free and covering her mic with one hand. Jude held up Arthur’s borrowed tea with one hand and shrugged, then gestured to his stool, trying to convey that yes, I am resting, just back here.

He was treated to a very dramatic eye roll from Julia, who murmured something under her breath as she went back to her binder, but she had too many other things to keep track of to add Jude to the list, so he was allowed to stay.

Jude tilted his head back against the wall and settled in to watch. Oliver was a kind and expressive actor, and he’d been on the scene for far longer than Jude had. That first day of rehearsals had been intimidating for a thousand reasons (meeting the Arthur Dalton chief among them), but the one that stuck out the most in Jude’s memory was shaking Oliver’s hand and meeting the eyes of the man who he’d beaten out for this role.

Oliver and Arthur had even worked on a small blackbox show together, years ago, though Arthur had admitted privately to Jude that they hadn’t spent much time getting to know each other. But they had some natural chemistry, and it was an odd but fascinating experience watching what Jude had come to consider his story being played out through the words of another.

The first kiss between Luc and Brayden was coming up, and Jude found the knot in his stomach twisting tighter and tighter as Oliver/Brayden flirted his way around the stage. Brayden was the pursuer, the braver of the two, which had been quite the exercise in imagination for Jude, who hadn’t kissed a man until two years ago and still felt like three kids in a trench coat whenever he tried to flirt or pick someone up at a bar (which he hadn’t done in almost eight months, not since things with Malachi had ended). But Oliver looked entirely comfortable up there, and watching Arthur smile shyly and peer up through his eyelashes at him felt like someone was slowly driving a knife into his ribs.

Jude wrapped his arms around his chest to forestall the ache and sniffled. It’s just acting, he found himself thinking, then paused in confusion to examine that thought. Of course it was just acting. That was why they were all here, that was what they were getting paid to do. Why would it be anything else?

But then Oliver/Brayden went in for the kiss, and Jude found himself clenching his fists as he leaned forward on his stool, but Arthur’s body language had changed, sliding from Luc’s quiet anxiety to his normal composed self, and as he took a step back, Jude heard a soft chuckle from Arthur and a murmured reply along the lines of “don’t want to get you sick too.” Oliver laughed in response, and then they moved on with the scene.

Jude hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he exhaled with a sigh. And it must have been audible over the ambient noise of backstage, because he caught a brief, curious glance from Julia before she returned to her headset.

His hands were shaking, he noticed as he took a steadying sip of Arthur’s tea and let the intermingled tastes of elderberry and honey sit on his tongue. What was going on? It had to just be empathy from watching the scene secondhand. But it was a happy, warm-and-fuzzy scene, and the emotions weighing heavy in Jude’s stomach were along a vein that made him want to simultaneously punch something and cry.

Maybe he should go back to the green room after all. He was starting to get a sinus headache again, which was making everything a little bit foggy and tilted-feeling, and his nose was running enough that he was having to sniffle every few seconds, which he knew was likely distracting to the people working backstage.

He had to sneeze again too, but the nearest tissue box was over at Julia’s station, and he knew that getting up and going over there would draw her attention, so instead he pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and attempted to stifle. “NNGTchh! h’ITSHHuh!”

Although the stifle made it quieter, the noise was still clearly a sneeze, and Matthew and another stagehand blessed him as they moved by with a set piece. Jude mumbled his thanks and emerged with a sniffle that was much louder and wetter than he would have preferred. And unfortunately it seemed to correspond with a break in the headset chatter Julia was tuning in to, because she looked over at him again, then frowned and covered her mic again.

“You seriously look like shit,” she whispered sharply. “Go lie down or something.”

Jude wanted to argue with her, but an ill-timed breath caught jaggedly in his chest, and he found himself quickly locked into a hoarse and congested coughing fit that, even half-muffled in his arm, dragged on long enough that people were starting to stare. Even worse, Julia’s scorn was melting into something that looked a lot like pity, which was far more than Jude could handle at the moment, so he grabbed his tea and fled.

He stopped in the hallway outside the dressing room to finish coughing, then stayed leaning against the wall to try and catch his breath. His joints were beginning to ache, which usually meant he was feverish – a clear sign that he had pushed himself too hard with this cold. Maybe…maybe he could just lie down on the couch in the green room for a bit, just until Charlotte let him get back on stage.

And of course that was the moment that Arthur came down the hallway, half-shrugged out of his jacket as he prepared for his next costume change. He paused when he saw Jude, a smile already twitching at his lips.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting,” he observed.

“Yeah. Working on it.” Jude pushed away from the wall, then immediately replaced his hand as the world pitched around him. Arthur’s smile faded, and he took a step forward, his hands already raised in preparation - perhaps to catch Jude if he passed out? It was a funny image, Jude swooning into the arms of his co-star, and Jude choked on an involuntary laugh.

“Are you okay?” Arthur glanced back down the hallway, as if looking to see if anyone else was around to help. Jude managed something that felt like a nod.

“Just…need a minute.”

“Here, come on.” Arthur had one hand on his arm now, with the other supporting his mid-back. Jude couldn’t help but lean into the other man a bit as they made their way down the hallway. His brief bout of dizziness had passed, but he was still exhausted, and Arthur’s arms were steady and comforting.

“You feel like you’re running a fever,” Arthur said as he helped Jude onto the worn green room sofa. Jude leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He felt the cushions shift as Arthur sat down beside him. “Are you sure this is just a cold?”

“Yeah. Happens,” Jude said, and took a deep breath and admitted, “I…haven’t been sleeping a whole lot.”

“No wonder you feel so bad, then.” What felt like the back of Arthur’s hand brushed his forehead, and Jude shivered a little at the contact. “When was the last time you took something?”

“This morning, maybe?”

“Or eaten?”

Jude didn’t have an answer for that one. He peeled one eye open to see Arthur frowning thoughtfully. “You don’t have to hover, Arthur.”

Arthur had the gall to look slightly offended. “I’m not hovering,” he protested. “I’m just making sure my friend doesn’t pass out in the hallway and give himself head trauma.”

Friend. Jude felt an embarrassing flutter stir in his stomach, and he masked it by turning away from Arthur with a conveniently-timed sneeze. “ihhZHHdhshu!”

“Bless you. Look.” Arthur frowned. “I’ve got to get back for the rest of the first act, but please, please promise me you’re going to take a nap or something.” He glanced down the hallway, then lowered his voice and leaned in close. “Oliver is great and all, but I can’t do this without you, Jude.”

Oh. Shit. Jude dropped his gaze to his lap, briefly overcome by a swell of emotion. “I’m sorry.”

What else could he say? It wasn’t his fault he’d caught a cold, but it was his fault that he’d been neglecting his health since. Driving himself into the ground wasn’t any way to get through this, particularly when so many other people were depending on him.

Arthur gently bumped their shoulders together. “Hang in there. I’ll come check on you during intermission, okay?”

It was embarrassing, having Arthur monitoring his health so closely. The other man even went so far as to scrounge up a blanket and leave it with Jude on the couch before returning to rehearsal. It made Jude feel small and helpless and so, so guilty, but another part of him - the part that immediately felt at ease when he tucked himself under the blanket and curled up against the armrest of the couch - couldn’t help but warm in response.

Arthur’s caretaking was a little excessive, yes, but when was the last time anyone had cared enough about him to check on him? To bring him tea and meds and a blanket, to make sure he was resting enough? Eden had done her best when they were growing up, when Jude’s stress had manifested in constant colds and fevers and migraines, but the overwhelming message he’d received for years had been that he just had to push through, that being sick or vulnerable was just a burden and an inconvenience on those around him, that he was weak for succumbing. Even Malachi, who had been kind and accommodating at the beginning of their relationship, had chafed at Jude’s seeming inability to care for himself enough to prevent these crashes and burns. He was still musing on this when he fell into a surprisingly deep sleep, his body taking the rare opportunity for rest and snatching it up immediately.

When he woke, there was another person at the other end of the couch. Jude rubbed blearily at his eyes and pushed himself up to sitting. It was Julia, her headset around her neck as she poked at something on her phone.

“What time is it?” Jude rasped. Where was his phone?

She didn’t look up. “Four, I think?”

Jude hid a yawn behind his hand. “Where is everyone?” It was strangely quiet in the green room. There was no audio coming through the monitors, and if Julia was back here, that must have meant they were taking a break, but there was no one else in sight.

“Charlotte called it like twenty minutes ago.” Julia put her phone aside and stretched her arms overhead. She looked worn out, with several-day-old shadows smudged beneath her eyes, and Jude was reminded that she too had been fighting a cold all week. “Most everyone’s gone home.”

“But – you said it’s like four?” Jude rubbed at his eyes again. There was his phone, wedged between his hip and the back of the couch. He swiped his finger across the screen to confirm the time. 4:03pm, no new messages. “I thought we weren’t getting done until six.”

“She wanted to give everyone a break. Said we’re as ready as we’re going to be.” Julia got up from the couch and coughed once into her fist. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead back here.”

If it was four, Jude had slept for almost three hours. No wonder he felt so much more clear-headed. He sniffled and reached for a tissue on the coffee table to blow his nose. He was still congested and knew he’d have to sneeze sooner or later, but his headache had all but disappeared, and the achiness had subsided. “Thanks. For staying.”

Julia shrugged. “Arthur’s still here too. He’s in the dressing room.” She pocketed her phone and glanced back at Jude. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’re going to kick some ass.”

“Yeah.” Jude smiled. “Have a good night, Julia.”

It took him some time to emerge from his nest on the couch (and to sneeze a few times, because, sure, that was still going on) and finger-comb his hair back into some semblance of order, but then his obvious next stop was the dressing room. He heard the unmistakable sound of Arthur’s sneeze before he pushed open the door, and he grimaced as he let himself in.

“Hey,” Jude said to announce his presence, seeing as he and Arthur seemed to be the only two left in the building at this point. Arthur was sitting in his spot at the mirrors with his back to Jude, but Jude could see in the reflection that the other man had a tissue clasped in both hands and had it hovering halfway lifted, a distant look of expectation on his face. He glanced back at the sound of Jude’s voice, and he managed the beginnings of a smile before his expression crumpled and he brought the tissue quickly up. “hk’EISSHoo!”

“Bless you,” Jude said, but he could tell by the faint distraction still lingering in Arthur’s eyes that the infernal tickle that this cold brought with it was not quite done with him. But Arthur sniffled to collect himself and turned in his chair to greet Jude.

“You sure slept for a while. How’s the cold?”

Poor Arthur. His voice too was beginning to get hoarse and congested, and Jude’s throat ached in sympathy. But he nodded. “Better. I think I just needed to sleep.”

“Good, I’m glad. Hopefully you can get some sleep tonight too.” Arthur gave another sniffle, his nose twitching distinctly, and wiped at his nose with the tissue still in hand. “Are you heading out?”

“I think so. You?”

“Yeah. Gotta run a couple of errands, but then I’m in for the night. htt’ISHHiuh!” The sneeze appeared to have snuck up on him, and Arthur had only just gotten the tissue up in time to catch it.

Jude blessed him again, but Arthur kept the tissue held to his nose for a moment, breathing unevenly, before squeezing his eyes shut and pitching forward yet again. “IIESHieu! Oh, excuse me. Snff. I think I’m done for now.”

“I’ll walk you to the train?” Jude offered, repositioning his bag on his shoulder. “You can catch me up on how the second half of dress went.”

Arthur smiled, and there was that odd flicker across his eyes again – something like fondness, something warm and familiar that made Jude’s stomach swoop in response. “Sure. Let me gather my things.”

–

Jude did manage to sleep another couple of hours that night, and then spent the morning of opening night taking it easy on his couch with a blanket and a mug of green tea and honey. He exchanged a couple of texts with Eden and Arthur (both of whom were checking on his health, and the latter of whom was dodging questions about his own), but most of the day was his own. It was nice to zone out and mindlessly watch Youtube videos, and his body seemed to be thanking him for the break from the relentless pace of the last ten days by giving him a breather from the worst of his cold symptoms.

By the time he packed his things and made his way to the theater, the promising magic of opening night and an audience was making his limbs feel fizzy with excitement. He dashed up the stairwell to the dressing room, greeting cast and crew with a breathless smile, then grinned even wider when he found Arthur setting his own bag down at the spot adjacent to Jude’s.

“Happy opening night,” Jude greeted him. Arthur looked faintly surprised by Jude’s enthusiasm, but he returned the smile as Jude settled into the chair beside him.

“Same to you. You sound a lot better.”

“Feeling better. DayQuil is a godsend.” Jude shot him a shrewd sideways glance. “How are you feeling?”

“Doing okay,” Arthur replied, but his smile grew a little forced, and Jude took note of the irritated pink glow of the other man’s nostrils with a flicker of concern. “Ready to get this show on the road.”

The ensuing rush of makeup and costuming took up most of their time between call and places, and Jude didn’t have another chance to catch Arthur one-on-one until they found each other in the quiet of the wings. The murmur of the audience from the other side of the curtains was making Jude’s heart race in a pleasant rush, and he bounced on the balls of his feet with anticipation.

Arthur exhaled a quiet laugh. “I haven’t seen you this excited in a long time.”

Jude flashed him a quick smile, unable to control his surge of energy. “And you’re not?”

“No, I am.” Arthur coughed quietly into his fist, then straightened again. “It makes me more calm than anything though, right up until I’m about to step out on stage. Then it feels real.”

Jude knew what he meant. The electric thrill of counting down until your entrance, the simmering surety and new confidence that swept over him like a wave when the lights warmed his skin for the first time. It felt like waking up after a long slumber, like coming alive. It was more intoxicating than any drug. And it was with that heat in his blood making him reckless that he reached over and took Arthur’s hand, twining their fingers together without thought.

“You’re going to be great,” he said, suddenly serious. Arthur’s eyes widened slightly, his gaze darting down to their linked hands, then back up to Jude’s face and, Jude noticed with a shot of surprise, falling briefly to his lips. And maybe it was Brayden that possessed Jude in the moment, with the show only minutes from starting and his consciousness lurking so close to the surface, but Jude leaned in and pressed his lips to Arthur’s.

He knew what kissing Arthur (Luc?) felt like. They had done it dozens of times over the last few weeks. And this time wasn’t much different, other than the adrenaline leaping through Jude’s veins and making him feel more sharp and awake.

Arthur was the first to break away, but he kept one palm on Jude’s chest as he angled his head away to cough, then turned back with a sniffle and a small, tender smile.

“So will you,” he said softly, and squeezed Jude’s hand once more before pulling away and melting back into the quiet activity of backstage.

Jude’s subconscious was nudging at him, trying to tell him something important about the interaction that had just occurred, but the stage lights had come up and the pre-show message was playing over the growing hush of the audience, and he had to force everything else in his mind aside to make room for Brayden.

Because it was finally showtime, and he was here to show them all what he could do.

---

Welcome to the end of the fic! Thank you for joining me on this wild ride.

The first person I need to thank is @boxofbeezle, who actually inspired this whole dang universe when we came up with "what if two actors shared a cold back and forth during a show" and then my brain took that idea and absolutely ran away with it. @ithadtobesneezing was incredibly helpful in my early stages of brainstorming and asked some amazing questions that really helped me flesh out Jude and Arthur and their dynamic. I also owe thanks to my forever beta reader @snzfluff for putting up with me asking theater questions since I've been out of the game for a while, and to @themiseryandcompany for her additional help with that side of things! @undersixskies has also gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to last-minute beta reads, cheer sessions, and brainstorming events. And finally, @icarusrex, who leaves the absolutely most thoughtful and kind and insightful tags and honestly just makes me excited all over again to keep writing with these guys.

There we go! Thanks again to every one of you for reading. Till next time! <3

#love it!

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

Text

Show & Tell (M, cold)

Mark & Matt are back! In this, Matt has an awful cold and they have a busy night. That's pretty much it lol, there's a good amount of ~drama~ because who doesn't love drama? This takes place a couple months after 'Three', when Matt and Mark are dating but haven't told Greyson or Elijah and I'll be honest I've spent a lot of time on it and don't know if I even like it lmao. I hope you guys do, though!! It might suck, who knows!! Also, there's no sick character POV - it switches between Mark and Greyson's POV.

Ok, onward. Let me know how you guys feel about it lol.

CW: Male snz, cold, contagion mention, coughing, fever.

Show & Tell

“It’s not that I don’t want them to know. You know that.”

Mark gave his boyfriend a sidelong look; did he know that? He wasn’t so sure. “Matt,” he said, treading carefully, “it’s been three months. They’re going to figure it out sooner or later.”

Matt sighed, clearly trying to choose his words carefully. “I know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just… I mean, Greyson can be… I don’t know… touchy, I guess, about like, relationship stuff. Especially since the whole… Collin thing. And also, he can just be an asshole about dating within the kitchen. You remember when he caught us kissing.”

“Yeah, but I mean that’s just what you guys do, right? Poke fun at each other? And the Collin thing… That was, like, a year ago, Matt. He’s a grown man.”

There was a pause, then, and Mark knew he’d gone too far. Greyson and Matt’s relationship was way more than boss and employee; Greyson had taken a chance on Matt when no one else would. He’d given him opportunities that Matt couldn’t have dreamed of as a kid, and Matt was always quick to point that out when Mark grumbled about Greyson’s anger, or when he called Matt in on his day off, or the way he made fun of Matt making doe-eyes at Mark. Greyson has been there for me since the moment I met him, he always said. You have to take the good with the bad.

More often than not, Mark found himself rolling his eyes at this statement, or muttering Whatever, babe, under his breath, but he also didn’t want to push his new beau away. If Greyson was a weird non-participatory third in their burgeoning relationship… so be it. He’d put up with it, for Matt.

“Hey, I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean that; I know, you’re right, he’s been through it.” Mark pulled Matt in for a hug, making the other man soften. “I’m just saying,” Mark said, pulling away, “that if he doesn’t already know, he’s going to have to find out eventually. Right?”

Matt shrugged, then begrudgingly nodded. “You’re right, you’re right, just… I don’t know, give me a week. Let me take him out and actually tell him so it’s not just, like, a big joke that he parades through the kitchen. Okay?”

Mark smiled. “Okay. Yes, that works. Thank you, baby.” He swept Matt’s bangs off his face, allowed a frown to settle over his own. “You feel really warm. By the way.”

Without missing a beat, Matt pulled away and ducked into the sleeve of his hoodie. “Hh-! Hh’ITSZH-ue!”

“Bless you.”

“I’m okay,” Matt said in response. “Like I said before, I think it’s just allergies.”

“...Fever-inducing allergies?”

“Honey,” Matt said, pulling a hand down his face, “please drop it. We have like two hundred on the books tonight, it’s not like I could call out or anything.”

“So you feel badly enough to call out?” Mark asked, crossing his arms. Matt sighed, loudly enough for Mark to hear the congestion in his chest rattle.

“No,” Matt said. “I don’t.”

“Mmm.”

“Can we go back to arguing about me telling Greyson and Elijah we’re dating? I’d prefer that over getting the third degree about what is, at most, a cold,” Matt said, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. Mark raised an eyebrow.

“So now it’s a cold. Moments ago, you said it was allergies. What’s it going to be by the time you get to work? Bubonic plague?”

“I was thinking something a little more modern. Maybe scarlet fever. Hh- hh’ISHHH-uhh!” Matt crumpled to the side once again, and Mark sighed.

“Hilarious,” he said, deadpan. “You should take some dayquil, or something.”

“I’m okay, honey, really,” Matt said, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you this evening, okay?”

Mark hesitated; what would a good boyfriend do here? He assumed a good boyfriend would scoop Matt into his arms and place him in bed. A good boyfriend would call in for Matt – hell, call in for both of them so he could take care of his boyfriend – and tell Greyson and Elijah to figure it out, restaurant-be-damned. He’d spoon-feed Matt soup and they’d watch Criminal Minds and talk about who on the show was the most objectively fuckable and they’d fall asleep early and in the morning, Matt would be good as new.

But a good boyfriend would also tell their bosses they were dating; a good boyfriend wouldn’t put the onus on Matt to tell Greyson before Mark told Elijah because Greyson was an objectively harder person to tell. A good boyfriend wouldn’t give Matt shit for being nervous because him telling Greyson was akin to Mark telling his own father he was gay and fuck, Matt didn’t even have a father to tell, you asshole, you inconsiderate piece of shit.

He wasn’t a good boyfriend, that much he knew. So instead of manning up in any way whatsoever, Mark nodded and kissed Matt on his hot forehead. “See you tonight,” he said, and continued to kick himself as Matt trudged out the front door.

***

“They’ll tell us when they’re ready.”

Greyson rolled his eyes so hard that they felt like they might pop out of his head. “Oh c’mon, Lij, that’s such a cop-out,” he said, snapping inventory papers onto a clipboard and clicking a pen open and shut many more times than was necessary. “It’s been, what? Like almost four months since the whole making-out-in-my-bathroom incident? And it’s not like they’re good at hiding it, I think Matt slaps Mark’s ass fifty times a day.”

“Is that really new, though? You slap Matt’s ass fifty times a day,” Elijah said, glancing up from his own, much-better-organized inventory clipboard. “I thought ass-slapping was just par for the course in this kitchen. You’ve created a culture of ass-slapping.”

“That’s within the kitchen boundary, Lij,” Greyson said, his index finger and thumb pressed together and punctuating each word of this statement. “Mark is outside the kitchen boundary. The rules are different.”

Elijah snorted out a laugh. “My mistake,” he said, flipping the first page on his clipboard and examining the second. “I figured that culture extended to the whole restaurant.”

“Damn right your mistake,” Greyson muttered. He glanced back down at his papers, then tossed the clipboard on the desk and snatched Elijah’s out of his hand to toss as well.

“Dude,” Elijah said, “I was using that.”

“Do you think Matt’s scared to tell me?” Greyson asked, ignoring Elijah’s annoyance. “It’s not like I’d care. I mean, the whole thing makes sense, they spend seventy hours a week here together. It’s not like it’s easy to find someone to date outside this place, and trust me, it’s not like he’s missing out on anything in the regular world. Shit, if you were down, I’d start dating you.”

“I’d rather eat a jean jacket than date you,” Elijah said, leaning on an elbow on the desk. “And that’s not even because you don’t have my preferred equipment, it’s because of who you are. Fundamentally. As a person.”

“I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t just tell me,” Greyson said, ignoring Elijah’s statement outright. “Matt’s my dude. He’s my muse. He’s like if I had a kid, but didn’t have to do the gross horrible raising him part. He knows he can tell me anything.”

Elijah sighed, a heavy and resigned sound, and took the bait. “Grey,” he said, “yes, he knows he can tell you anything, but he also knows he’s going to get so much shit from you when he does tell you. I’m sure he’s just trying to spare himself the three weeks of jokes about the two of them dating. Maybe, if you could be serious for five fuckin’ minutes, you could approach him and ask him, hey, are you and Mark dating?” Elijah shrugged, both hands held in front of him as though to say just an idea.

Greyson scoffed, annoyed. “You’re one to talk. It’s not like Mark has told you.”

“Yeah, but Mark and I are coworkers. We don’t have some weird father/son codependent relationship like you two. Plus, Mark is only a talker when he drinks and he hasn’t had more than a glass of wine in front of me since they got together, so he knows I know he’s avoiding the conversation.” Elijah gave Greyson a pointed look then. “I’m sure he’s waiting for Matt to tell you. Dad.”

The chef rolled his eyes again and pushed himself to a standing position. “Fine,” he said. “I’m going to talk to him about it today. And I’ll be serious.”

“Great,” Elijah said, picking his clipboard back up. “I’m happy for both of you.”

Greyson placed a hand on Elijah’s shoulder as he walked out of the office and towards the prep kitchen, a gesture to thank him for the pep talk, and Elijah nodded in understanding. It wasn’t the fact that Matt had a not-so-well-kept secret that Greyson found troubling; it was the fact that he felt like he wasn’t able to tell his boss that hurt Greyson’s feelings. The chef got set up in the prep kitchen, pulled out his chef’s knife, and began sharpening it on his steel. He really thought he’d put it in Matt’s head that he could tell him anything. Apparently he’d been wrong.

As if summoned, Matt picked that exact moment to blow through the back kitchen doors – he was wearing a sweatshirt, despite the fact that it was unseasonably warm, and his hood was up. Greyson drew his eyebrows together, confused.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Greyson called from his prep station. Matt swung around, obviously not expecting to see his boss the moment he walked in, and his face immediately crumpled.

“Hh- hhNGTSHZ-ue!” Matt attempted to stifle a sneeze into his elbow, which backfired immediately. “ITSZZHH-ue! Hh’ITZCHH-ue! HRRSHH-ue!”

Greyson blinked, surprised, as his sous gave into the paroxysm. “Wow,” he said when Matt finally stood upright, clearing his throat. “Bless.”

Matt nodded, swallowed, winced. “Yeah. Thangks,” he said, his voice low and congested. He walked towards the prep station – slunk may have been the more appropriate word – and hoisted his knife bag onto the counter. The next few moves seemed robotic, as though the sous chef were on autopilot; push hoodie off head. Roll up sleeves. Unzip bag. Make eye contact with boss. “What ndeeds to get prepped first?”

Up close, Matt looked like an even bigger pile of hot garbage than he sounded; he was pale – sallow, Greyson thought to himself, then vocab word of the day -, his eyes red-rimmed and laden with bags. His breathing seemed painful, labored, and uneven, and before Greyson could say anything, Matt turned back to his rolled-up sleeve to cough. “Dude,” Greyson said, taking a step back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Matt muttered, getting himself together. He walked to the sink and washed his hands, then turned back to Greyson. “Better?”

“That wasn’t what I meant by ‘dude’,” Greyson said, taking a step towards his sous and slapping a hand on his forehead. “That was ‘dude’ as in ‘dude, you look like fucking shit’.”

Matt wiggled out from under Greyson’s hand, annoyed. “I’mb fine, Chef,” he said. “Tell mbe what needs to get done.”

Greyson rubbed his face and gathered his hair on top of his head, buying time. Obviously, the conversation about him and Mark was off the table for the moment, but were they not allowed to talk about Matt’s very obvious illness, either? “Did you take anything?” Greyson asked, ignoring his sous�� question with one of his own.

“I was running late. Also, I don’t ndeed anythi- ITTTSZZHH-ue! HRSHHH-uh!” Matt folded himself in half to avoid sneezing in Greyson’s face, and collapsed into a coughing fit from the force of them. Greyson pressed his lips together.

“Where’d you pick this shit up?” Greyson asked, patting Matt’s back as the younger man tried to compose himself. “You haven’t been out on the prowl with me in months, so I take no blame.”

It was an attempt – a very obvious one – to get Matt to admit he was at least seeing someone, but either Matt wasn’t taking the bait or he didn’t hear him over his own misery. He cleared his throat and stood to his full height. “Can we please just start cooking? I ndeed a distraction.”

Greyson pressed his lips together; somehow, they’d had a whole conversation without really saying anything, a whole back-and-forth with not one question answered. “Okay,” Greyson said, stepping to the side to let Matt get situated at the prep table. “I’m going to grab some shit from the walk-in. You get set up.”

Matt nodded, obviously grateful, and started setting up his things while Greyson turned towards the walk-in.

Well, he thought to himself, sarcastically. That was productive.

***

“Alright, everyone, so we have 245 on the books toni -”

“HhuhhhITSZHHH-ue! Huh-! HhhRRSHH-oo!”

The servers’ heads popped up from their notes in unison and turned towards the closed kitchen doors, ten yards away. Mark cringed; Elijah raised his eyebrows towards Greyson, and the Executive Chef sighed and stood. “I’m gonna go check and make sure he didn’t burst a blood vessel,” he joked, prompting a collective giggle from the servers. Mark felt his heart sink deep into the pit of his stomach.

At his apartment this morning, Matt had clearly been coming down with something. Since he’d arrived at work, it was clear that whatever it was had settled in nicely; Mark had only been at work for two hours, but in those he’d heard Matt sneeze more than he had the entirety of their relationship.

“Jesus,” Mark had said when he first saw Matt, doubled over behind the prep table. “That really went from zero to a hundred. I just saw you, like, four hours ago.”

Matt had attempted to clear his throat before addressing his boyfriend: “Yeah, I guess,” he said, pushing the sleeves of his hoodie down to his wrists and shivering. Mark wanted desperately to tell him to go lay down in a booth or something – better yet, to tell him to go home and go to bed – but he knew he couldn’t do either.

“Can I get you some tea?” he asked instead, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from feeling Matt’s face for fever. Matt shook his head.

“’M fine,” he managed, picking his knife back up and wiping his hands on the front of his apron. “’S just a stupid cold.”

That had been about as far as their conversation had gone; Mark had been whisked away by Elijah to help set the floor up, and Matt had been forced to put his head back down and continue prepping. Normally, Matt would’ve been in pre-shift with the rest of the team, but Greyson had explained when everyone sat down that he was attempting to gain his second wind in the office and wouldn’t be joining.

“Anyway,” Mark continued, addressing the servers while Greyson stood to check on Matt, “like I said: 245 on the books. We do have a few VIPs…”

The servers jotted down what they needed to, and Mark finished his speech on autopilot. Elijah said something about uniforms being cleaned and pressed, and Greyson came back to join them all after a minute or two spent in the kitchen. When pre-shift ended, Greyson stopped Mark from walking away with the rest of the front of house.

“Mark,” Greyson said as the servers went to eat family meal, “hold back a second.”

Mark could feel himself immediately break into a cold sweat; Greyson never wanted to talk to him after pre-shift. Had he fucked up somehow? He knew they were too busy – overbooked, really – but Elijah had approved it. Said they needed the extra covers, since they’d be closed for a week next month. Maybe Elijah hadn’t told Greyson he’d approved the overbooking? Maybe -

“Hey, I just – I wanted to talk to you about Matt,” Greyson said when the servers had all exited to the kitchen. Mark swallowed, his throat dry. Oh.

“What about him?” Mark asked, his heart beating in his temples. Greyson huffed out a little laugh.

“You guys are dating,” he said – not a question. A statement. Mark’s face flamed.

“Did he – have you guys talked?” he asked, feeling his throat close. Greyson shook his head, a smile blooming on his face.

“Nope,” he said, palming Mark’s shoulder. “But now we don’t need to. Elijah!” he called into the kitchen, and Mark felt himself fly into action. He stumbled in front of Greyson before the chef could walk through the kitchen doors.

“Chef,” he said, holding his arms out so Greyson couldn’t get by, “you can’t tell Matt that you know. Seriously, he’ll kill me, he – I mean, he wanted to tell you himself, he said he was going to, like, sit you down and tell you and -”

“Sit me down? He’s not breaking up with me to be with you, I’m so fuckin’ confused why you guys haven’t just told us, it’s not like it’s a big deal -”

“It’s a big deal to him,” Mark said, cutting Greyson off. “It’s a big deal to Matt. I think – fuck, I don’t know, Chef, I think it’s like… you’re his person he gets to tell. You know? And he’s not feeling well and we kind of argued about it this morning and… please,” Mark said, biting his cheek to keep from crying. “Please, Chef. Just… he’ll tell you. Just wait for him to tell you.”

Greyson closed his eyes and sighed. “Fine. Okay. I’ll wait till the end of the week,” he said, moving Mark’s arm to get into the kitchen. “But if he hasn’t said anything by then, I’m saying something.”

Mark just nodded, and let Greyson by. You fucking moron, he chided himself. You absolute asshole. You gave it away, Matt is going to be so fucking disappointed, you’re such a dick, you can’t even let him have this one fucking thing. You just have to fuck everything up somehow. What the fuck is wrong with you?

What the FUCK is wrong with you?

***

Greyson would have been hard-pressed to think of a more difficult service than this one was turning out to be.

It had started fine; the flow of the evening was laid out well, the first turn went off basically without a hitch. Matt was on middle, and had loaded up on every medicine the office pharmacy had to offer, so while he was a little… high, honestly, he was at least in good spirits and able to do his job.

“We doing okay back there, everyone?” Greyson asked, peeking past the board filled with tickets to acknowledge his cooks, and Matt.

“Yes, Chef,” they answered – all except Matt, who hooted as though Greyson was a singer asking his audience how everyone was feeling out there. Greyson bit his cheek to keep from laughing.

“Only two hundred covers to go!” Greyson shouted as the printer spat out yet another ticket. “Order in, two salmon, three pork.”

About sixty covers in, things began to turn; the servers began to slow down, sending their food in as fire-alls instead of coursed out. The bar became backed up, so Mark was taking bartop guest’s orders and ringing them all in at once, sending a huge wave of tickets in at once – annoying, sure, but something they could handle. But then, tickets stopped coming in altogether – first, for five minutes. Then seven. Then ten.

“Elijah!” Greyson called into the dining room, not caring if the guests heard. The GM ran in at the sound of his name. “The fuck is going on, dude? We have ZERO tickets on the board.”

Elijah winced. “Yeah,” he said, “everyone is camping. We have like thirty people waiting to sit.” Greyson blinked.

“You’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not.”

“So you’re telling me, at least thirty people are going to sit down all at once. And order all at once.”

Elijah nodded, solemn. “I wish I wasn’t, but yes, Chef, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Of course, by the time the first set of guests got up and the second set sat down, they had a new problem: Matt.

It was seven o’clock; Matt had taken his last dose of medicine at four, and sitting around waiting on tickets to come rolling in again had stopped the flow of adrenaline. His misery seemed to have caught up with him completely just as the tickets started printing again.

“Order in,” Greyson called for the tenth time in three minutes, “a scallop, three filets, and a venison no dairy.”

“Heard, Che – HTSHH-uh!” Matt wrenched to the side to sneeze into the sleeve of his chef’s coat, an angry, grating sound that made the cooks wince. He coughed painfully into his shoulder, obviously trying to hold back. Greyson bit his cheek.

“Bless, Chef,” he called over the line, pulling yet another stream of tickets. “Christ… ok, guys, I’m going to read all these but let’s just focus on what I just called for now, these people… I mean, they’re going to have to wait.”

“Yes, Chef,” the cooks called – all except Matt. Instead of the goofy whoops from earlier in the evening, Matt responded by ducking beneath the line.

“HRRSHH! Huh-! Hh’ITZZHH-uh! NGTSHZZH-ue! Hh… hhhuh-ITZSHH-ue!” Matt covered his head with his arms, careful not to spray them, and sneezed into his lap until he sounded hoarse. Greyson could hear him attempt to sniffle, to no avail. He stood, shakily, and cleared his throat. “Heard, Chef,” he whispered, his voice hanging on by a thread.

Greyson pressed his lips together, feeling the temperature of his blood raising. God, this fucking kid – he should’ve stayed home, what good was it doing anyone having him here, sneezing himself hoarse, coughing til he was dizzy, probably infecting all the cooks and most likely over or under cooking all the fish. Greyson wanted to snap, Pull it together, but held back.

“Bless, Chef,” he called again, pointedly. Matt just nodded, dazed.

“Go ahead and call the ndext tickets, Chef,” Matt croaked. Greyson sighed, looked up, and yanked the tickets off the printer.

“Order in,” he said again, and again, and again.

***

The dining room was a fucking disaster.

Mark’s head felt like it was screwed on backwards; he could feel himself failing, and with every misstep he hated himself more. Can’t you put the tickets in right? Tracy asked you to help take the order for 32, have you gotten over there? This bar is filled with drinks, the hell are you doing?

If the dining room wasn’t bad enough, in the kitchen Greyson was clearly about to be sent straight over the edge.

“I need runners!” he called from expo, loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear. Mark cringed, dropped what he was doing, and ran into the kitchen. The printer wouldn’t stop; the window was filled with plates, and the servers were tripping over themselves to get the food onto trays and out into the dining room.

“Mark! Take these, table 24,” Greyson said, pressing three scorching-hot plates into the floor manager’s hands. “And come right back, this fucking food is going to go bad in about three seconds. Order in!”

Mark took the food, dropped it, assessed the red marks on his hands and wrists and headed back to the kitchen. All of this would’ve been par for the course for a Saturday night, really, if not for -

“HTTSHH! HRRRSHH-uh! Hh’NGTTSZHH-ue!”

Matt.

The whole staff could tell he was fading fast. It was eight-thirty, and since about seven he hadn’t managed to go more than a couple minutes without collapsing into a fit of sneezes or coughs. His voice was completely gone at this point, and Mark could tell – even from ten feet away – that he had a pretty significant fever. All of this seemed to just further enrage Greyson.

“Chef,” Greyson called behind the line. “Get your third wind, I’m fucking dying up here I need this food out now! Order in, three salmon, two filets!”

“Yes, Chef,” Matt called, his voice so mangled Mark wasn’t sure how he’d even managed to get the words out. God, this was bad. This was so fucking bad.

***

There was no way they were going to get through all these tickets. There was just no fucking way.

It all felt like a nightmare at this point; Greyson was up to his elbows in tickets that just kept flowing. The food was dying in the windows, servers were grabbing shit that wasn’t theirs and fucking up what little flow they had going. Elijah was pouring free wine because ticket times were over forty minutes. And Matt was completely and totally stick-a-fork-in-him done.

At nine-fifteen, with twenty tickets on the board, Greyson looked up to ask his sous if table 55 was going to be up anytime soon; only to see Matt, caught in pre-sneeze torture with a knife in his right hand, moments away from splitting his left hand open.

“Matt!” Greyson screamed, and the sous chef snapped out of his daze and dropped the knife onto the cutting board. He gasped at the realization that he’d been millimeters away from maiming himself.

Enough is enough, Greyson thought to himself. “Mark!” he called into the dining room, not caring who could hear him. “Come and get your biohazard boyfriend and take him fucking home!”

The kitchen went completely silent. Matt blinked, clearly trying to unpack what he’d just heard, before wrenching to the side. “HHHITSZZHH-ue!”

Mark and Elijah burst into the kitchen then; tickets lined the board. Food lined the window. Matt was crouched down behind the line, and Greyson’s eyes were wild.

“Take him home,” Greyson said, making eye contact with Mark. “Or to urgent care. Or maybe straight to the cemetery. I don’t care where he goes, but he needs to get off my line.”

Mark nodded, and stepped behind the line to gather Matt, who slumped into his boyfriend’s arms. Greyson watched Mark hold Matt close, felt his chest contract when he heard his sous chef whisper, “Baby, I don’t feel good,” into his boyfriend’s chest.

“Go,” Greyson insisted. Mark helped Matt off the line, lead him into the office and pulled his hoodie over his chef’s coat, and walked him towards the back exit. Thank you, Mark mouthed to Greyson, who just nodded in response.

Once they were through the back doors, Elijah stepped forward. “Get back there and help them,” he said. “I’ll do expo. We’ll get through it.”

“We always do,” Greyson muttered, and pushed past his cooks to get to the middle of the line. “Alright: let’s land this fuckin’ bitch of a night in the harbor.”

***

The quiet calm of Matt’s apartment was in such direct opposition to the prior evening at work that Mark felt he might actually have whiplash.

The floor manager checked his phone for the tenth time since he’d woken up twenty minutes before. Elijah, via text, had filled him in about what happened after he and Matt left; it had been a shit show, but they’d gotten it done. There had been worse nights, Elijah said, though Mark couldn’t remember one. His boss let him know that he’d closed the restaurant for the day, to give everyone a well-deserved break. Thank God.

Greyson had texted both Mark and Matt apologizing for outing their relationship, and told Matt he could take as much time off as he needed – not that Matt had seen it yet. The sous chef had passed out the second his head hit the pillow the night previous, and he hadn’t stirred in over twelve hours.

Mark had responded to Greyson; it’s all good, Chef, though he wasn’t sure he really believed himself. He was glad that Greyson had told Mark to step up, to get Matt out and take care of him. But Matt… fuck, he was going to be upset when he woke up.

Speaking of which.

“Has anyone ever told you you text really loud?” Matt croaked quietly over Mark’s shoulder. Mark slammed his phone onto the bed and rolled over to face his boyfriend.

“No, I don’t think I’ve gotten that one before,” Mark said, caressing Matt’s face. Matt smiled, a little sadly. “How’re you feeling?”

“Mmm. Like hot fuckigg garbage,” Matt whispered, closing his eyes. “Tired. Shitty. Fuckigg embarrassed.”

Mark pressed his lips together; he wasn’t sure what to say. He settled on: “Can I make you some tea?”

Matt huffed out a little laugh that turned into a nasty-sounding cough. “In a mbinute,” he said, “I just wandt to lay with you for now.”

So they did. A silence fell over the two of them – Mark stroking Matt’s hot face, Matt with his eyes closed. After a few minutes, Matt opened his red, rheumy eyes. “So, he kndows.”

Mark felt his heart sink. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess he does.”

Silence surrounded them again. “I guess I should’ve kndown,” Matt said.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said. Matt smiled a little.

“You were right,” he teased. “You’re always right.”

“I’m rarely right,” Mark corrected. “But I think we made it pretty obvious.”

“Mmm,” Matt hummed again. A beat went by where neither of them said anything, until Matt’s body took over. “HHRSSHH-uhhh!” he sneezed, exhausted, into his hand and wiped it on the comforter. Mark couldn’t help but laugh.

“Bless you,” he said. Matt smiled, eyes closed.

“You’re gonna get so sigck,” he muttered, on the edge of sleep again already.

“Yeah,” Mark said, pressing a soft kiss onto his boyfriend’s lips. “That sounds accurate.”

Matt opened his eyes, slowly. “You kndow I love you. Right?”

A firework lodged itself into Mark’s aorta, blew his heart right to bits. “Really?” he asked, the wrong answer, but his first reaction all the same. Matt laughed in earnest.

“Really,” he said, closing his eyes again.

“I love you, Matt. God, I love you,” Mark said, kissing Matt’s lips again. “I’m sorry about last night. I love you. Thank you. I love you.”

Matt opened one eye this time, touched Mark’s face, and closed it again. “Thangk you,” he murmured. “’M gonna go back to sleep ndow. If that’s cool with you.”

“Go to sleep, baby,” Mark said, his heart so full he was sure it would burst. “I love you.”

And even though Matt was already snoring by the time he had said it again, he couldn’t seem to stop muttering it in time with his boyfriend’s snores. I love you. I love you. I love you.

#I am currently sick in bed and this is exactly what I needed 💙💚#love them as always

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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From someone who wanted remain anonymous:

Thank you!! It took me a while to figure out what to write but here you go! Also on AO3.

"Aaghhh! Goddamn it." A low growl.

Nico leans over the side of the couch, trying to see down the hallway. "What? Are you okay?"

"Fine." Matty reappears. "Shut my finger in the door."

"Shit." Nico frowns. "Do you want some ice?"

Matty does his best to rub his nose with his shoulder while he's holding one hand with the other. "No. I dunno." He grimaces. "I think it's fine."

"Let me see." He gets back a vague protesting sound. "Come on, we don't have to leave yet, we have time."

Matty sighs and sits down heavily on the couch beside him. Nico gently takes his hand: It's hot and already a little swollen, going to bruise for sure. Nico kisses him on the shoulder and stands up. "I'll get the ice pack. You stay here."

Matty's already slumped against the back of the couch when he comes back, eyes nearly closed. They're so shadowed they look almost bruised. Had he looked that bad before?

"Babe." Stopping next to the coffee table to look him over.

Matty grumbles unintelligibly and reaches for the ice pack. Nico hands it over and then sits back down beside him on the couch.

"You look exhausted." He puts gentle pressure on Matty's shoulder until he leans back against him with a groan.

"Fucked up my hand," Matty says defensively, but he turns into the touch without opening his eyes until he's lying on Nico's chest.

Nico hums in agreement, sliding closer to horizontal, and pulls the blanket from the back of the couch over them both. He's quiet for a minute, rubbing Matty's back through the blanket, feeling his body heat seep through his own clothes. "You're really warm." He brushes Matty's hair out of the way and presses a hand to his forehead. Yeah. Fever-warm for sure.

Matty shakes his head against him, but his back is already rising with an intake of breath. hhh… h'Dtt! "Nnngt, shit…" Through gritted teeth. Apparently not even pain was enough to stop the muscle memory of stifling with his left hand. hhhh… He shifts to cradle his left hand against his chest and pinch his nose with his right hand. h'NGT!'hhh…

Nico makes a sympathetic noise and reaches over to grab the box of tissues that lives on the coffee table. Matty blow his nose forcefully and then drops his head back to Nico's chest.

"I don't think we're going to make it to the movie tonight," Nico says gently, and pulls out his phone to text Charlie and Sophia to let them know.

"We can," Matty says, but it's weak, and he pulls the blanket tighter around them, shivering when he gets the ice pack back on his fingers, tucked against Nico's chest under the fabric.

"Nah." A few more taps and swipes gets him the controls for the living room lights. It's an indulgence, but one he's always grateful for. "We can go next weekend. Or just wait until it comes out on streaming." He pulls down the virtual dimmer switch and the lights go low, and he feels Matty's exhale in his whole body, and closes his eyes.

Prompts for any of my OCs welcome! If you want to remain anonymous like this prompter, just let me know. :-)

#this showed up in my notes sooo here it is again!#I have been thinking about writing new stuff but it hasn't happened yet so please enjoy old stuff in the meantime.#the 'prompts are open' bit is slightly out of date but who knows - maybe your prompt will be the one to break the current no-fic streak!

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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One of the best feelings: when people have a public sneeze and a private sneeze, and you finally get to hear the private sneeze and know you've made it into the circle of trust.

Like when you finally get to hear that chronic stifler just let a sneeze out uncovered because it is just you and them at home alone. Or bc they are tired/weak/weary, and they know they can let their guard down around you.

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anditvanisheslikemist · 7 months ago

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fake it

Have you ever wanted to read a snzfic series about two queer actors who slowly fall in love with each other over the course of performing as lovers in a play? What about co-stars who can't help but swap a cold between each other in the week leading up to opening night because they're kissing both on-stage and off? Are you a fan of one half of a couple being allergic to the cat that lives at the other's place?

Well do I have the fic(s) for you!!

We go now live to Jude, a young and anxious gay actor (early 30s) from the south who moved to New York several years ago to pursue his dreams of both freedom and stardom. Jude gets cast in a queer love story alongside Arthur (mid-40s), a celebrated veteran of the stage who is making his return to acting in dramas after a disastrous venture into musical theatre.

Jude has always struggled with drawing the line between his own emotions and those of the characters he plays. So if he's starting to get warm fuzzy feelings for Arthur, that's just his character bleeding over...right? But if that's the case, why does Arthur seem to be experiencing the same?

This fic takes place in the stressful week leading up to the opening night of their show, where Jude realizes several days out that he's catching a cold and Arthur is probably going to get it too. I have a bunch of other scenes planned for both before and after this one in the timeline of things, but this one grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go, so here we are!

No major warnings except for a mention of potential (accidental) contagion.

Hope you enjoy!

“Are you doing all right?”

Jude blinked and looked up, dazed. “Hmm?”

Taylor smiled down at him from her position by the make-up counter, a tube of foundation in her hand. “You look a little run down.”

“Oh. Well, it is tech week,” Jude replied with a polite smile. The show opened in four days, and while today was mostly going to be the second half of a cue-to-cue they’d started yesterday, both the actors and the crew had been spending more time than not at the theater over the last ten days. When Jude had been able to finally go home, he’d been too tense and anxious to sleep more than a handful of hours, snatched here and there between stress dreams about forgetting his lines or tripping on stage or his parents showing up at the stage door. And he knew he wasn’t the only one - he’d heard the lighting crew snapping at each other over coffee this morning, and Julia had lost her voice in the beginnings of a predictable tech week cold that she was trying very, very hard to keep contained to her station.

But his own throat had begun to grow dry and scratchy yesterday afternoon, and no amount of tea or lukewarm coffee he’d downed in the green room had touched the ominous prickle. It was just overuse, he had tried to convince himself as he stealthily added more honey to his third cardboard cup of tea in as many hours. It didn’t mean he was getting sick. But this morning he’d woken with a dull feeling of pressure behind his cheekbones and the persistent need to sniffle, which more likely than not spelled doom.

God, what horrific timing. But he should have expected nothing less – going all the way back to high school, Jude had always been prone to catching something or another in the hectic lead-up to opening night. The stress and the lack of sleep were a match made in heaven, no matter how much he washed his hands or tried to drink water. And whether or not it was Julia’s specific cold that he’d picked up didn’t matter in the end (though he had gotten lunch with her over the weekend) – what did matter was that he load up on enough zinc and vitamin C and tea with honey to get him through the show’s opening weekend, and then he’d have several days to sleep and recover in preparation for the rest of the run.

He tried to close his eyes and relax as Taylor stroked the foundation across his cheekbones in easy, practiced swipes. But the pressure was making his tender sinuses begin to ache ticklishly, and he dug his nails into the woven fabric of the make-up chair as a distraction.

“I heard that Sydney Coda is supposed to be here this afternoon,” he heard Taylor say. She loved to chat absently at him as she prepped him for the day, and they usually fell into an easy routine of casual call-and-response that didn’t require a lot of brainpower from either of them, but today her words sent a spike of adrenaline through him. He opened his eyes.

“She – she is?”

“Yeah. She’s doing some interviews for an article, I think it’s about Charlotte? Or it could be about Arthur, you know how they’re all swarming for news on what he’s up to these days.”

Jude did. Thankfully his own anonymity had been keeping him mostly out of the spotlight, but his poor director and co-star had been getting inquiries left, right, and center as the show’s opening drew near. Charlotte was an up-and-coming name on the scene, a spunky young ingénue who had made a splash with both her work and her connections, and even reporters outside the niche theater scene had taken note that Arthur Dalton was making his return to the stage after his widely-panned performance in The Sound of Music last spring.

There was a lot riding on this show, Jude had known that from the start. Charlotte was taking a chance on Arthur, on the fact that passion for his craft still fueled his actions, and also on Jude, a relatively-untested new equity member who had no name recognition. The pressure had dogged his footsteps in the early days of rehearsals, but somewhere along the line, his anxiety had melted into Brayden’s warmth and enthusiasm, and he’d allowed himself to fall into the careful choreography of his budding relationship with Luc.

But now the opening was upon them, and Jude was catching a cold, and everything they’d all worked for these last few months was so close to just spiraling down the drain.

His hands were beginning to shake, and he released his grip on the chair’s seat to press his palms against the tops of his thighs. Taylor was still talking, saying something about the last time Sydney Coda had paid this much attention to a show before the previews had even gone up, and he gave a noncommittal hum in response, then let his eyes slide shut again.

He hadn’t decided yet what he was going to tell Arthur. It would be easy to put a hold on the kiss scenes for a few days, to cut down on the risk of Jude spreading his germs to Arthur and putting both of the show’s leads out of commission. And that was absolutely his plan. But they’d already spent the last few days in close proximity, sharing drinks and staying up late talking at Arthur’s after Sunday’s first day of tech, and Arthur had even surprised them both and kissed him goodbye at the stage door two nights ago. If Jude was sick, Arthur wasn’t going to be far behind.

But it had taken Jude the better part of the last few months to begin to tackle the nagging feeling that if things went tits-up here, if the show fell apart and Arthur got more bad reviews and Charlotte never worked in this town again – well, it was Jude’s fault, right? It was the fault of the little gay kid from Georgia who’d been told time and time again his whole life that he was too sensitive for any of this.

And Arthur had picked up on this complex, had scented it like a hound on a rabbit. From their very first rehearsal, from the moment he shook Jude’s hand and Jude found himself caught up in the well of the other man’s blue, blue eyes, Jude had known that Arthur had seen him.

It was a mesmerizing, terrifying feeling, especially since Jude had spent his whole life running from being seen. But the slow, introspective work of this show, of diving into Brayden and his genuine love of life, of his love for Luc and the healing the two of them were doing together…it was bleeding over, it was seeping into Jude’s skin and coloring his view of the world.

But this…this tickle in his throat, this sniffle, this tired ache in his joints. This nudge that could bring down the whole tower. He knew on some level that getting sick, especially during the stress of tech week, was not a moral failing. And if he and Arthur both got colds, well, the show would still go on. Arthur was a consummate professional, and Jude…well, Jude would do what he could.

Taylor flicked the makeup brush over his nose, and he was jolted from his thoughts as a sneeze burst from him, caught in a cupped hand that he’d somehow managed to get up in time. “hdzZSHhieu!”

“Oh, sorry, hon, I’d forgotten you were ticklish there,” Taylor clicked her tongue, then passed Jude a tissue from the box on the counter. His nose was starting to run, he noticed with a sense of sinking dread.

“Sorry,” he forced a laugh as he swiped the tissue beneath his nose. “I’ll hold my breath this time.”

Taylor resumed her position at his side, and Jude tilted his head back obligingly, half-lidding his eyes against the glare of the mirror lights. Taylor had a feather-light touch with the makeup brush, which had made him sneeze once or twice before on days when his allergies were already acting up. If he hadn’t already suspected he was getting sick, the intensity of the itch that swept up into his sinuses as the soft brush bristles ghosted along the underside of his nose was enough to confirm – he jerked away from Taylor again and sneezed off the other side of the chair, half-covering with a hastily-raised wrist. “ihhZHHdhshu! h’ITSHH-ue!”

“Bless you, again,” Taylor said, but she was starting to frown, particularly as he blew his nose quietly in an attempt to dislodge the irritation that was lingering on the rims of his nostrils. “I know it tickles, but you’re going to have to hold it back or something, else you’re going to sneeze off all your makeup.”

Jude sniffled and peered at himself in the mirror. His eyes were a little overbright with the beginnings of irritated tears, but his nose wasn’t too flushed yet. Hopefully Taylor would assume this was just a more dramatic reaction than usual to the flick of her brush, because he knew she was a gossip, and the last thing he needed was word getting to Arthur and Charlotte that he was sick, at least before he could tell them himself.

Okay. Hold it back. He’d never been great at that, but he gave one more good sniffle and leaned back again. Think of other things, he told himself as Taylor began to reapply the ticklish powder, the bristles of her brush dancing perilously close to his already-twitching nostrils. Think of Arthur, of the cup of his warm hand on your jaw, of Luc as he captures your lips in his and nips a little bit, because he knows that’s the way that Brayden likes it.

Jude was deep in the sense memory when the makeup brush hit his trigger zone, and his breath began to hitch forebodingly, but between the distracting thoughts and the grit of his nails into the cushion of the makeup chair, he managed to forestall the sensation and remain, panting, until Taylor tapped him twice on the shoulder with lacquered nails.

“All right, now don’t go sneezing any more, I’ve got other peoples’ makeup to do,” she said, then gave him a teasing wink. “Can you send Oliver in? He should be out in the hallway.”

Jude was happy for the chance to make his escape. He paused in the stairwell, one hand braced on the brick, eyes still faintly watering, and wrinkled his nose against the itch that was still teasing him. He could hear footsteps echoing down the staircase, but his eyes were already beginning to slide shut, and he shoved the side of his hand beneath his nose to half-stifle the sneeze. “htdZHHisshuh!”

“Bless you!”

Was it possible for his heart to sink and lift at the same time? Regardless, there was a strange fluttering in his chest when Jude opened his eyes again to see Arthur half a flight above him, eyes creased in a fond smile. He was in gray blazer and gray slacks, which was far nicer than Jude had managed for tech week.

“Thanks,” Jude said automatically, sniffling. He wished he’d grabbed some more tissues from makeup. “Hey, ah, can I talk to you?”

Concern flared in Arthur’s gaze, but he nodded immediately, even reaching to touch Jude on the arm as Jude ascended the stairs to his level. “Do you want to go outside?”

“Honestly the dressing room should probably be okay.” Jude sniffled and rubbed at his nose with the side of his wrist. His sinuses were still prickling uncomfortably, and he knew he’d have to sneeze again soon. Taylor would be mad when she had to touch-up his makeup in an hour or so. Arthur nodded again, and his hand drifted to Jude’s lower back, where it hovered without touching as they finished climbing the stairs, then took a left on the second floor and slipped into the third door on the right.

The dressing room was empty, and Jude caught a quick look at his own reflection. He was starting to look peaky, sure, even beneath Taylor’s expertly-applied work, with hollow eyes and a pink-tinged nose. He turned his back on the wall of mirrors and leaned back against the counter.

“I think I’m getting a cold,” he said to Arthur, cutting straight to the chase. He could hear the congestion beginning to dull his syllables, now that he said the incriminating words aloud.

Surprisingly, the worry lines around Arthur’s eyes softened, and he let out a short laugh. “That’s it?” He said, relief coloring his tone.

Jude frowned. “I mean…it’s not great.”

“No, no, it’s not, but –” Arthur laughed again and shook his head. “God, I thought you were going to say something awful.”

Like what? Jude turned his face to muffle a cough into his shoulder. “I always get sick during tech week. Every goddamn show.”

“I mean, it happens.” Arthur pulled up a stool and straddled it. “How are you feeling?”

Jude sniffled and made a face. “Honestly?”

“Preferably.”

“Like shit. Starting to, anyway.” He dragged his hand down his face, which was a mistake, because he quickly found himself flinching forward into a dizzying sneeze. “hihhZZCHiuh!”

“Bless you.”

“Ugh, fugck.” Jude sniffled, keeping his hand cupped over his nose as reality swam back into place around him. Arthur had found a tissue box somewhere and set it beside Jude’s hip. Jude took a few and turned away to blow his nose.

“Have you taken anything?” He heard Arthur ask. Jude sniffled again, a thick and unrelieving sound, and shook his head.

“Didn’t have anythi’g at home, have’dt had a chance to go out.”

“Right. I’ll see if I can grab someone from props or costuming and get them to make a Walgreens run. You’re not going to be the only one needing it,” Arthur added after Jude began to protest. “Especially with Julia sick too.”

“Taylor said Sydney Coda’s coming this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that too.” Arthur didn’t look immediately concerned, but Jude knew him well enough at this point to see the slight tension around the corners of his mouth. “We’ll get you good and drugged up before you have to talk to her.”

“She won’t want to talk to me.”

Arthur tilted his head. “She might. At least to try and get the dirt on me, anyway.”

Jude choked on a laugh, then began to cough in earnest. “Right,” he rasped once he could breathe again. “Like I have anything to tell her.”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said lightly. “I’m sure you could come up with something.” But he too was smiling. There was a fond glint in his eyes that Jude had become familiar with over the last few weeks of rehearsal - he mostly associated it with the way that Luc stared at Brayden, but it had also popped up the other night when Arthur had pulled him into the shadows of the alley behind the stage door and kissed him soundly. It was confusing and made Jude feel a little short of breath.

Or maybe that was just the sneeze that was building. He pulled another handful of tissues from the box. “hih’dzZISHHue! iHDDzschuh!”

“And again.” Arthur was starting to frown. “Promise me you’ll take it easy today? Save your voice.”

“I’m more worried about you than I am me,” Jude admitted. “You know you’re probably going to get this too, right?”

“And if I do, I do. But let’s not worry about that now.” Arthur laid his hand on Jude’s knee - a familiar, comforting gesture that Jude knew by now was a sign of earnestness. “Listen, I think we’re getting started in like ten minutes. I’ll grab you some tea and meet you in the green room, and we’ll see if someone can pick you up some cough drops or cold meds.”

Something tightened in Jude’s chest, and he squinted down at his own lap in embarrassment as the telltale heat of tears began to prick at his eyes. He would not cry about this - he’d cried in front of Arthur way too many times as it was. “Thanks, Arthur.”

“Of course.” Arthur gave his knee a gentle squeeze, then got up from his stool with the scrape of metal on tile. “I’ll see you in a few.”

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