Awkward (female)

[Chanel_no5]

**Note**

Okay. This is mostly inspired by my real life crush (who really is this type of person), and triggered by @AnonyMouse 's OC Eleanor. ^^ (sorry if I over-tag you, Mouse, I'm not trying to be clingy, but I want to give credit where credit's due.  )

***

Even when teaching at a rather prestigious school, you are sometimes forced to share office with other professors. Because obviously, advertising the education is more important than making sure those teaching the subjects have optimal working conditions, but I digress. In my personal experience, it’s usually more fruitful to share office with professors in other fields than your own – it cuts down possible rivalry to a minimum while personal horizons are widened, and all those things – but that requires having certain basic social skills.

Doctor Ginevra Angelone, while being an expert in the field of social anthropology, was one of those people who possesses little to no actual social skills. She was apparently a miracle worker when lecturing, but as soon as she was in the position where she stood on equal grounds knowledge-wise, you got the feeling that whatever you said passed right by her without being taken into consideration. I have seen lack of emotional approach many times in superiorly intelligent people; like all clichés, the ‘absent-minded professor’ stems from an actual thing, but unlike them, she didn’t seem to navigate by pure logic either. Nor was she rude, at least not in a way that you could call her out on.

She was a mystery, shortly put. I couldn’t imagine this woman ever relaxed, nor did she ever seem tense. Sometimes I amused myself with mental images of how she’d act after a couple of glasses of wine, but the reality was that she would probably still be in complete control after that as well. Truth be told, I had given up on her altogether and regarded her more like another office item, one carved into a real-life version of a Dan Brown-character, rather than an actual human being, and I doubted if she ever noticed my very existence.

Then came the week after Thanksgiving, when she was late to work. That was something unheard of; as far as I knew, she never even left the office except for when to hold lectures. At eight thirty, one of her students came to an appointment and I had to tell him she hadn’t shown up. He was as confused as I was. At nine, I was actually worried. At nine fifteen, the door opened and she walked straight in, passing behind my chair on her way to her desk by the window. I didn’t want her to know how relieved I was to see her.

“Morning. You missed a student appointment at eight thirty,” I said casually, expecting either nothing or an absent ‘mhm’ in response. I was certainly not expecting the response I got.

“Hah-djIEESSCHHH!”

Okay, let me just add that these offices are small! And while neither of us were big women, there simply wasn’t enough room for both of us, sufficient space between us, and the spray from the violent, uncovered sneeze erupting from her. A light cloud of wetness rained down on my arm and the side of my neck, and I jumped just as much from being hit by this sudden shower as from the sound.

“Holy fuck“ – I specialise in theoretical physics, not linguistics, so cut me some slack in the ‘proper language’ department, okay? – “bless you!”

I turned around, capturing a glance of her frozen in a visibly painful build-up. Her head tilted back a little, her elegantly arched nostrils wrinkled and as inflamed and red as sunset skies, eyes closed with tears trickling out from under long dark lashes, eyebrows knitted together. Her full lips parted and pulled back in a grimace as her breath hitched and hitched but never reached the point of no return. She was a picture of perfect agony and it lasted for several seconds. It seemed longer than that to me, and I bet it seemed like an eternity to her, but eventually she jerked forward with a loud, wet and harsh

“Hah-OW-tSSSHHHHuuuh!”

I blinked.

“I don’t even have to ask if that one hurt,” I said jokingly, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with this sudden breach of control from the most controlled woman I had ever encountered. “Wow. Are you alright?”

I expected her to dismiss me the way she always did, but she sniffled and shook her head.

“I think I might have caught a cold,” she said in a scratchy, thick voice.

Really, you think?

“No wonder. I think half the faculty and two thirds of the students are down with something.”

And I will soon too, at least if you’re still contagious.

“Yes. I’m sorry about…” she made a gesture in my general direction, “that.”

“Sneezing on me, you mean?”

I couldn’t help it. Just the idea of this woman losing the battle against viruses was absurd and yet very much a reality that I would be very amused by from now on. Her cheeks warmed up, turning a pinkish hue – another first. I didn’t even care I would probably feel the first signs of a sore throat and tickly nose within a couple of days. You sign up for it when you work with people, that’s just the way it is. But to see Doctor Angelone blush, that was worth some discomfort.

“Yes… that,” she said, rubbing her nose with the back of one hand. I could hear the trapped liquid move inside her nose when she did.

I sighed.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t, but thank you for saying so,” she said, her tone surprisingly friendly, and then she sank down into her chair with a wet, drawn-out sniffle ending in a quiet moan.

Someone was definitely not the superwoman she had painted herself out to be.

How awkward.

I mean, how awkward for her.

 

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by Chanel_no5
editing. Duh.

[elizachoo]

Oh, my. This is beautiful.

That's a very apt ending, which makes me wonder if you mean this as a one-shot, but if not, I'd certainly be very ready to keep reading. 

And if so, I'll just hold on to this little part for a while: 

4 hours ago, Chanel_no5 said:

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t, but thank you for saying so,” she said, her tone surprisingly friendly, and then she sank down into her chair with a wet, drawn-out sniffle ending in a quiet moan.

Someone was definitely not the superwoman she had painted herself out to be.

How awkward.

I mean, how awkward for her.

 

[Chanel_no5]

6 hours ago, elizachoo said:

Oh, my. This is beautiful.

That's a very apt ending, which makes me wonder if you mean this as a one-shot, but if not, I'd certainly be very ready to keep reading. 

Aww, thank you!  

I don't know. Generally, unless I state right away that it will be continued, it won't. I'm more of a oneshot wonder than a multi-chapter story-writer. But with this fic I don't know, I guess it depends if another bout of inspiration strikes, but as of now, I have nothing planned. 

[camillapapen]

I love this! It sits very well as a one-shot, but I also think it definitely would merit longer exploration - it's a great set up. I'd love to read more

[htkid1]

I love this, the torturous build-up, the uncontrollable sprayed sneeze, the brilliant sneeze spellings - all wonderful!

 

[Geneticist]

Aaaah this was fantastic! You write incredibly well, and if you decide to continue it I'll keep my eye out for more posts. Love the whole unexpected vulnerability theme.

[Likesn]

Add me to the list of people begging for a continuation of this story. I know this is a long shot, but this just screams "contagion" to me

[SexyGodlikeHair]

Awesome, of course!!! Seriously cool though, I quite like these characters