Not Working

[Natto]

This is my holiday gift to my Secret Santa, VoOs! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and that my offering suits your tastes. It's about a guy named Travis trying to deal with being at his boyfriend Charlie's apartment despite being allergic to everything in his apartment.

~`~`~

Not Working

by Natto

for VoOs

~`~`~

Travis finally found a guy worth going out with. Most of the guys he knows are straight, or if they're not straight they have boyfriends or they're not interested in boyfriends. If they're not straight and they don't have boyfriends and they're interested in boyfriends, then Travis isn't interested in them. Charlie is interesting. He has a Youtube channel where he films himself talking about his favorite people from history and the adventures he wants to go on with them, and he always has rainbow cookie ice cream in his freezer and disorganized magnetic poetry on its door. They haven't had sex yet, but they've kissed and the kissing is nice. Charlie knows to nibble Travis' lower lip without being asked, and he makes this adorable little scrunched smile when Travis kisses him on the cheek. Charlie knits hats with Pikachu ears. Maybe he's sort of a hipster, and maybe he's sort of ridiculous, but Travis likes him, a lot.

Unfortunately, liking Charlie doesn't stop Travis from being allergic to everything about him. He doesn't know what the extent of this will be at first. He knows that Charlie has cats and Travis is allergic to cats, and he knows that Charlie has dogs and Travis is allergic to dogs. He knows that Charlie doesn't clean his apartment very often and Travis is allergic to dust. He knows that Charlie keeps plants in the house and Travis is allergic to every plant in creation. He knows that Charlie's coat and Charlie's blankets are loaded with down and Travis is allergic to down. Somehow, none of these things register with Travis as being a problem. Their first dates take place during the winter, and the one time they do end at someone's place, it's Travis', not Charlie's. Charlie lint-rolls his clothes and wears a different coat. It's not a problem until Charlie asks Travis to come over.

Travis says yes without thinking. He doesn't ask Charlie to lock up the pets, or to clean his house in any significant way. Charlie says that he will, but Travis does not impress upon him that this is important. He does not particularly like to think of himself as sensitive or requiring special accommodations. Travis says yes because he's a college kid still living with his mother, while Charlie, one year older than him, is a graduate student with his own apartment. There's no space in Travis' twin sized bed for the two of them, and even there were, Travis' parents are not the world's most progressive people. They wouldn't be happy about their oldest son bringing home a Charlie whose proper name wasn't Charlotte. So far, all of their dates have taken place outdoors, and Travis wants some alone time with his new boyfriend.

On Saturday night, after singing karaoke and eating takoyaki at Karaoke Duet for three hours, Travis and Charlie take the F train to Charlie's apartment in Forest Hills. “After you,” says Charlie, bowing dramatically as he holds open the door. Travis' nose is already running from the wisps of cat hair in the hallway, but he sniffles and tries to ignore it. He pats the package of tissues in his pants pocket, knowing he'll need them soon. He hangs up his gray pea coat on Charlie's antler-shaped coat rack, and heads into the living room, Charlie at his heels. “I tried to get things clean for you, but I had to go to work, and they've been shedding since then. I hope it won't be too much of a problem. Let me know if you're uncomfortable.” Charlie stoops down to caress one of his cats, a long-haired calico named Maisy. “Hello my baby,” he coos, rubbing her fuzzy chin with his long thumb. “How's my sweet kitty today? Did you destroy my couch and leave hairballs in my shoes again? I'll bet you did!”

“I don't understand why you keep them if they're so destructive,” says Travis. He knows that Charlie's exaggerating, and he feels silly about his comment as soon as he says it, but Charlie just smirks.

“The destructive force of these cats combined would surely kill me, so I don't want to make enemies of any of them.” Travis laughs, then rubs his increasingly itchy nose. The calico rubs herself against his pant leg. Her purring sounds like a motorcycle flinging itself through the streets, and her fur is detaching itself at an alarming rate. Travis' nose is dripping steadily now, and he's finding himself having to sniffle constantly to keep it contained. He takes a tissue out of the pocket of his jeans, and blows his nose. Once finished, he's confronted with a slight stuffiness in his sinuses, which he knows will soon get worse.

“So what's the plan for dinner?” Travis asks, rubbing at his prickly, itchy nose. “You said you were going to cook lasagna?”

“Yes, lasagna puttanesca. I thought I should make one of my mother's signature dishes—you'll have to eat a few plates of it when you meet her. I know you don't like olives, but I'll make them so small you'll hardly notice them. You'll love it, I promise.” Charlie takes his laptop out of his bedroom, and transports it into the kitchen. “I'm going to listen to music while I cook...is there anything you're in the mood to hear?” Travis wants to ask if Charlie has anything by System of a Down, but another cat is making his appearance. This cat is jet black, with a small white spot on his chin. He's the size of a watermelon, and his eyes are shaped like fingernail clippings. His meow is deep, and his interest in Travis' lap is great. As soon as he sits down at the kitchen table, this cat leaps onto his lap and begins shoving his massive fuzzy head against Travis' chin.

This is too much for Travis' nose to handle. He immediately explodes into a fit of three sneezes, and when Charlie asks if he's okay, he can only respond by sneezing more. Travis pushes the cat off his lap, and fumbles for a tissue, still sneezing in rapid fits of three. After blowing his nose, he finds himself more congested than he was before—he can still breathe through his nose, but the breaths don't come easily. Charlie asks again if he's okay, and he tells him, “yes, I'm fine. It's just my...m-my...HYEHCHHIEW! HIIICHRR! ASHOO! My allergies. It's no big deal. Anyway if you...heh-CHOO! CHOO! ASHOO! Sorry. If you have anything by System of a Down, I'd love to hear them. But not anything where Daron Malakian is singing, I've always found his voice a bit grating.”

“Yeah...he's talented, but his voice just isn't to my tastes. I prefer Serj Tankian. Anyway--” He opens up iTunes and puts on Lie Lie Lie, then wanders over to the refrigerator to gather ingredients. The two cats haven't left the room, and their hair is dancing in the air like pixie dust. Travis' nose is getting stuffier every time he blows it, and he's having to blow it over and over again to deal with its dripping. By the time Charlie begins to orchestrate the lasagna, Travis is too stuffed up to breathe through his nose. He doesn't say anything to Charlie about it. He doesn't want him to feel guilty about his pets and his plants, and he doesn't want him to feel like they can't spend time together in Charlie's home. He resolves to stop blowing his nose for a while—the constant noise of it is worrying Charlie.

This means endless sniffling, which is difficult to do with his nose so congested. Another cat wanders in, followed closely by a border collie. The collie's name is Curtis, and it's Charlie's favorite out of all his pets. The instant he hears the click of his nails against the linoleum, Charlie turns away from the counter, kneels on the floor, and begins to pet him and kiss him and ask him to give him his paw. Travis' eyes are stinging and watering, and his nose itches so badly it's like someone emptied pop rocks into it. He sneezes again, then apologizes. “This is disgusting,” he mutters, rubbing furiously at his still-itching nose. “I probably shouldn't be around the food if I'm going to keep sneezing. I can go in the living room if you want.”

“Bad idea,” says Charlie, furrowing his brow. He sighs, and adjusts his glasses. “I didn't do much cleaning anywhere besides the kitchen. I thought we'd spend most of our time there, since you said you didn't think you could stay the night. You're already sneezing like crazy, I don't want to send you to sit on my animal hair coated couch and make it worse. All my knitting is on the table, too, and it really needs to be lint-rolled.” He picks up the recent feline arrival, a Siamese cat named Lime, and puts her in the hallway. He does this to the other animals, too, and soon the kitchen is pet-free. The room is still coated in hair, and so are Travis' clothes. He tells himself he won't sneeze anymore, and tells Charlie he appreciates his moving the cats. “It's no big deal. I just hope you're not too uncomfortable. Do you need more tissues or something?”

“I'm...f-fine...” he mutters, breath staggering in the thrall of another sneeze. “I'll...a-ask you...if I...HEHHH-CHOO! EHHCHH! CHOO! If I need anything. Don't worry about it, okay? I came here to spend time with you, not whine about my allergies.” He sniffles, and rubs his nose with his index finger. He screwed up this time, but he's not going to sneeze again. It's totally unsanitary to do it in the kitchen, and he's making Charlie worry about him, and calling attention to his lack of control. His nose is itching again, but he pinches it closed and manages to stifle the next fit. “Hnnn-nxxxt! Hxxxt! Nnnn!” Of course, doing that makes his nose even itchier. Another sneeze begins to bloom in his sinuses, and his head is throbbing with the effort to keep it in. His lips part, and he finds his breath involuntarily hitching. Lime wanders back into the kitchen and walks across his shoes, which makes it worse. He covers his nose with both hands and presses it down as hard as he can. Charlie, who isn't looking at him, asks if he can pass him the salt that's on the top of the refrigerator. Travis tries to do this, but taking his hands off his nose results in a harsh sneezing fit that snaps his body in two. “ASHOO! HYEHCHHIEW! HIPSHOO! HECHOO!HECHOO!HECHHOO!CHOO!Hiih...hiiCHIIEW!HICHOO! Oh my god...” At the end of it, he's clutching the red kitchen chair and gasping for breath. His chest hurts from the rage of the sneezes. He wishes he could do it without so much drama and noise, and he wishes that he were any less itchy or congested afterward. The roof of his mouth is tingling fiercely, too. “J-just a se...hichoo! CHOO! HICHOO! Second. Sorry.” He takes down the salt and hands it to where he thinks Charlie is standing—his sight is blurred by allergic tears—and digs out another tissue.

“Thanks,” says Charlie. At this utterance Travis notices how clogged his ears are; he has to strain to hear what Charlie is saying. He sneezes three more times, and blows his nose. The effort of blowing makes his ears ache, and it doesn't do anything to relieve the congestion that's lodged in his nose like a brick. He's reaching the point where he's too stuffed up to even sniffle. Three more sneezes, too rapid and sudden for him to stifle. Three more, which do absolutely nothing to budge his congestion. Three more. Three more. Three more. Charlie is hovering over him and asking if he's sure he's alright. “We can call it a night if you want, or we can go out. I'm sorry about this...I knew you had allergies, but I didn't know they were this bad. You should have told me.”

“They're not usually this...hip-SHIEW! SHOO! HehHH-CHOO!” A long, snorting sniffle, and a vain attempt to blow his nose. The pockets of his striped sweater are rapidly filling with used tissues, and he mentally chastises himself for giving in and blowing his nose despite promising himself that he wouldn't. “Not this bad. And they're not that bad right now, I'm just sneezing a lot, and my nose is clogged.” This is a blatant lie—they're horrible, and Travis isn't sure he can be in a relationship with someone whose home sets him off this badly.

“Yeah, you sound really stuffed up. I haven't heard you pronounce a single M or N correctly since you got here. Can you breathe through your nose at all?” Travis shakes his head, then gives a small cough. Fuck, that's not good. Sometimes, his reactions restrict themselves to nose-related issues, but sometimes they bloom into a bad cough, rashes, and restricted breathing. It's not as severe the asthma attacks he used to have as a child, but it's still not pleasant, and the rashes are disgusting. Charlie says, “you sound like I did last year when I had my Cold From Hell TM. I was so sick I thought I had the flu or something, but I went to the doctor and she said it was just a really terrible cold. I was literally bedridden for two weeks over a cold. It sucked so hard. I hate to think you're feeling like that right now.”

“No, I feel fine,” Travis insists. “This isn't like that. I don't feel sick, my nose is just exploding a lot.” This isn't exactly true. While he isn't feverish or anything, his chest, throat, and head are all aching from the constant sneezing, and he's quickly becoming exhausted. He doesn't feel like he's fighting a virus, but he can't honestly say that he doesn't feel shitty. Still, Travis doesn't plan to be honest. “Let's talk about something else,” he says. He's irritated that the subject keeps shifting to his stupid nose. “Tell me about your newest knitting project. You said you're going to start knitting other Pokemon hats besides the Pikachu ones, right? Which ones do you think you're going to do?”

Charlie answers as he puts the last sheet of pasta onto the stack of uncooked lasagna. “I'm basing it on what my customers want. I've been asked for Charizard, Snorlax, and Jigglypuff as commissions, so I'm making those, and if it works out I'll start selling them regularly. I'm thinking about adding Clefairy to my repertoire, because--” Travis cuts him off with a fit of nine sneezes. His sweater and his pants are covered in fur now, so even if the animals are leaving him alone, he's still badly affected. He wants to tell Charlie that he likes the idea and that he thinks he should add Chikorita to the list, but the words come out garbled by yet another sneeze. He's forced to blow his nose, but doing so does absolutely nothing, and it makes an annoying loud noise that echoes throughout the kitchen. After putting the lasagna in the oven, Charlie says, “dude, you're not enjoying yourself at all. Seriously, you can leave if you want to. I'll come by your school tomorrow and bring you some lasagna.”

“I j-just...wanted us to be able to...hup-SHOO! SHOO! AHHHCHIEEWW!” The last sneeze makes his neck hurt with the force of it. He rubs his nose and wonders if he can put off blowing it again. The wetness of his constant, involuntary sniffling tells him this isn't a good idea, so he pulls out another tissue. The skin on his nose is beginning to feel rather sore and tender now. “Spend the night together...hhnnn...HICHIEW! SHOO! Huuhh...CHOO! We've never done that before, and we can't do it at my house. I'm not letting my stupid allergies get in the way of that.”

“I know that. I want that too. How could I not? You're hot as hell, and I'm a typical horny bastard. Of course I want you to spend the night so we can fuck. I also want to play video games with you and eat lasagna and ice cream. But it's not going to work if you're miserable.” Charlie sighs, and leans against the oven. “The lasagna's already in the oven, so how about this—while it's cooking, I'll lock up the pets and try to do some serious cleaning. You can go for a walk, buy some Benedryl, and I'll call you when I'm done, okay? How does that sound?”

Travis doesn't want to agree to this. He mutters irritably that he spent his last twenty on a Metro Card. Charlie digs a wallet out of his cargo pants, and takes out a wrinkled pile of bills. “I'll pay,” he says, handing Travis twenty dollars. “It's my apartment's fault that you need it. “Buy some sprinkles while you're at it...chocolate Mr. Sprinkles if you can find them...I haven't seen them anywhere except West Side Market in Manhattan, but try your very best!” Charlie punches the air in front of him. “The ice cream will be lonely without it.” Travis laughs. Charlie has a line-up of empty clown-shaped Mr. Sprinkles containers lined up on the winder sill near the kitchen table, and some of them are spilling onto the table itself. If Travis buys another container, he'll probably keep that one, too. Laughing makes his throat hurt, makes his sinuses itch. He sneezes six more times, and realizes that there's no way they'll be able to enjoy each other's company if he keeps this up. After blowing his stuffy nose again, he wraps his arms around Charlie's skinny shoulders, and leans in for a brief kiss. He's thinking about how their relationship is probably doomed because of Charlie's messiness and his slew of pets, but he's also thinking about how much he likes kissing him and how he likes the feel of his curly hair.

Travis detaches himself. He says, “I'll probably end up in the Barnes & Noble once I'm done with Operation Mr. Sprinkles. Call me when you're ready. I'll still probably sneeze my head off when I get back, but maybe I'll be able to squeeze out a few sentences or two in between fit...s...HIPCHOO! CHOO! HESHIEW! Ugh.” He managed to turn away from Charlie before his nose exploded, thankfully. He doesn't face him again. Instead, he heads to the hallway and shrugs back into his coat. “I'll see you later,” he says, and heads out the door.

When Travis leaves the building, he's surrounded by cold, clean air that's free of allergens. He's still drippy and congested, but he no longer feels the constant, burning need to sneeze. He walks for a few blocks feeling much better than he had inside the room, and by the time he gets to the pharmacy he feels like he doesn't even need the Benedryl. He's going to take it, of course, because the instant he gets back to Charlie's house that's going to change. When he leaves the pharmacy in search of the grocery store, he finds himself walking behind a woman with a large, furry husky waddling next to her. His recent allergy attack leaves him more vulnerable, so he immediately begins to sneeze. He crosses the street, hands over his mouth and nose, and finds himself walking past a man wearing far too much cologne. Still sneezing, he kneels down and blows his nose furiously into a wadded up tissue. When the fit stops, Travis starts to laugh. There's no way he'll ever get away from his allergies, Charlie or no Charlie. As long as Travis has Benedryl and tissues, their relationship will be just fine.

[Dusty15]

This is beyond adorable! Lovely, sweet, and well-written! VoOs is a lucky one! Thanks so much for sharing

[Akahana]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww~ It's JUST SO CUTE!!! *spazzes intently*

[VividBubbles!]

Adorable! You should continue this and give Charlie back his Cold From Hell! Pleeeaaaasssse!!!??? *bats eyelashes cutely*

BYE!

[obsessed]

Your writing is wonderful!

[VoOs]

Ohoho, trust me, this suited my tastes just fine. Such delicious misery, and such a sweet story. <3

Severely allergic gay men... I couldn't have asked for a better holiday gift. *purrrrr*

Thank you so, so much, Natto! Hope you had a great Christmas!

[Natto]

@ Dusty15 - Thank you so much. Happy to share--it's just so lovely to have a place to put this stuff...people would think it was ridiculous in almost any other venue.

@ Akahana - Thanks! *spazzes with you in happiness that people like my story!*

@ Bubbles! - Thanks, I'm so happy you liked it. I'll take your idea into consideration--I included that detail because I'm a total cold whore, heheh.

@ obsessed - Thank you very much! I've been writing for a long time and take it rather seriously, so that's really nice to hear!

@ VoOs - Great, I'm glad you liked it. I was a bit worried that you might percieve it as "caretaking" which you said you didn't like...but I don't really like caretaking either, so I figured using my own standards for what is and isn't caretaking would work. And yeah, the last original story I wrote as M/F, so I decided to try something different. (And I like slash/yaoi, so...) Anyway I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for the comment. I had a lovely Christmas and New Year--currently digesting my New Year dinner), and I hope you did too!