Crossing feathers (Secret Santa for facet)

[gryffin]

This is your waaaaay overdue Secret Santa, @facet! Sorry for taking so long; I hope you like it at least!

 

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The bedroom was bathed in a pale, gold-like glow. The pillows, the duvet, the mattress, everything was softness. Stillness, too: the only sound was Aidan’s own slow, sleepy breath; not a noise from outside, as if it had been snowing. He blinked and thought he could hear his eyelids click before the ceiling swam back into view. 

He knew his boyfriend wasn’t lying by his side. The mattress was even, cool. Perhaps he’d gone downstairs to the baker’s, to get croissants? This is what should happen on Sunday mornings. He closed his eyes again and smiled, his imagination tingling with the warm aroma of pastry. 

Slowly, contentedly, he sat up. He didn’t look at the alarm; Sundays aren’t made for time to matter. Hands on his knees, he breathed deeply, as if seeking that flavour in the air. Yes, Fabian must be out; his own breath was the only sound. He—

ffffffffffffooomph

It turns out that a large but very soft goose-down pillow thrown by a boyfriend to another at the appropriate angle and velocity sounds more or less like this when travelling toward, and making contact with, its target.

Before Aidan could quite catch his breath, the room was inundated by Fabian’s hearty laugh.

‘This. Was. Brilliant. Also, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t possibly resist.’ He paused to wipe a tear from his eye. ‘You looked so beautiful and innocent and… the perfect target…’

‘Oh it’s pillow-fight Sunday today, isn’t it?’ Aidan teased back, reaching for a missile.

‘You were just sitting there… you didn’t even look this side or that… I was standing here all along and you’d no idea…’ his boyfriend went on, his voice still breaking with laughter every few seconds, until his beautiful face was impacted by a well-directed pillow.

‘Sneaky, sneaky Fabian. I’ll teach you a lesson…!’

And so it began: a good ten minutes of furious, hysterical pillow-fighting, first fooomphing goofily from one side of the bedroom to the other, then closer, closer, faster, until the two men were almost entwined, their energetic bodies separate just enough to keep thumping two unfortunate pillows at each other, drowning the whole flat in laughter. There must be something in Sunday mornings that turns grown men into children.  

Then Fabian’s pillowcase, alas, gave way. No rip was heard; simply, the next instant the two combatants found themselves showered with the softest, whitest goose-down that wafted in the air around them. 

Hilarity multiplied. The poor pillow was cast up and down and up and down until it exhaled its last piece of plumage into the whirlwind. Fabian, now weaponless, was catching handfuls of feathers and throwing them up in the air like an overexcited six-year-old, laughing to breaking point while trying to dodge Aidan’s continuing strikes.

‘I won! I won! No point throwing feathers everywhere, I won!’

‘No you didn’t, I destroyed my pillow first, *I* won!’

– and so forth, while the ex pillow’s contents flew merrily all around them. 

Sensing a moment of hesitation on the older man’s part, Aidan lunged and pinned him to the bed. ‘Do you give up?’, he purred with a naughty smile. 

No. Instead of answering, Fabian’s face scrunched up, his nostrils flaring, his eyebrows arching pitiably over his narrowing eyes. 

‘Are you…?’

Yes. 

‘AHHH… AAAAHHHHHCHOOOOOOOOO!!’

Fabian turned aside in an attempt not to blast the sneeze right into his poor boyfriend’s face, but the mist did land on Aidan’s bare arm. His torso convulsed again – don’t his abs look lovely when they scrunch like that? – as he fought and then let loose another of his powerful sneezes.

‘AAHHH… uh-AAAHHHH… AAAATTTCHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!’

‘EW. Yuck! You sprayed me!’

‘It’s not mah… AHHHH… HAAAAASSSHHHHOOOOOOO!!’

Fabian’s sneezes were quite something, as his boyfriend knew well. They didn’t really gross him out; he wouldn’t have been his boyfriend of four years if they had. Allergy season after allergy season, he’d grown to appreciate those nasal outburst as just another facet of his quirky, lovable other half. But was he allergic to feathers too? This was news.

Aidan pivoted off him just when his beautiful chest heaved with a fourth desperate buildup.

‘AHHH… AAAAH… HATTCHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! HHHHHH… TTTTCCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!’

He felt a tinge of worry at his boyfriend’s predicament, but he couldn’t help being amused all the same. It was Fabian who started it after all! Served him right… in the cutest of ways. Aidan swung round to hold his boyfriend from behind as he geared up for more sneezing. False start, sneeze; false start, false start, sneeze; it was always like that…

Fabian’s back and neck arched back against Aidan’s soft grip, his man-bun brushing against his boyfriend’s forehead before snapping forward in the irrepressible blast: ‘HAAAAAACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!’

Every sneeze sent more and more feathers flying into the air like a soft, downy snowfall. Aidan leant forward and kissed the back of the other man’s neck, slipping his hands softly along his sides onto his abdomen. With his arms and chest he felt the tension, the release, the tension again of another sneeze building inside Fabian’s capacious sinuses and taking over his whole musculature – ‘HHH-HAHHH… AAHHHTTCHHHHHHHHHHOOO!!’

Another gentle rub of his boyfriend’s abs, another kiss on his exposed nape. ‘Bless you’, he proffered. ‘Are you ok honey? Well ok you’re obviously not, but you know what I mean…’

Fabian turned his head back to face him. He was struggling to speak in the throes of the umpteenth sneeze; he pointed to his nose and stammered plaintively, ‘It’s in me noseEHHHH… AHHHH… stuck… AHHHHHHCHOOOOOOOOOO!! A feather got stuUUHHH… ATTTTCHHHHOOOOOOOO!! up my nose… HAAAHH… AAAATTCHHOOOOOOOO!!’

That was it. Not an allergy to feathers, just… feathers. 

‘Keep going and you’ll sneeze it out sooner or later, baby’, Aidan replied. As if in response, Fabian inhaled deeply, his broad back expanding as though to give maximum power to the impending explosion. Aidan held him tight, curling his face against the back of his shoulder. ‘AAAAAHHH… H-H-HHAHHH… A-AHHHH…!’ An awkward pause followed instead of the expected sneeze. ‘HEHHHH…!’ Another sharp intake of breath fizzled out into nothing just when on the brink of release.

Again, again, and then again. The sneeze would build up, yank poor Fabian to the near certainty of fulfilment, and then disappear, leaving him with a silly face and utter frustration in his eyes.

‘It’s stuck… AAAHHH… H-HEH! Now I can’t even sneeze any more… H-HEH-HEH-HEH…!’

He sniffled and snorted and exhaled from his nose in however many ways he could, but obviously to no avail. ‘Honey could you pass me a tissue?’ he implored. ‘This thing is HAAAHHH…! bothering me so much!’

‘Forgive me’, Aidan answered with an ominous grin. He had other plans. His fingers landed on a longer, pointed feather. He twirled between his finger and his thumb in front of the other man’s perplexed eyes before they fluttered momentarily close in another failed inception of a sneeze. ‘Let’s try natural methods first, shan’t we?’

He shifted so as to face his sneeze-addled boyfriend (‘HEH! HHHAH…!’) and inserted the tip of the feather into his broad nostril, slowly, gently. Fabian’s grimace turned into another fruitless buildup, then another. Aidan pushed inward. ‘HHHAHHH… it’s coming… AHHHHH… AHHHH…’ As his lungs filled with air once more, Fabian swatted the younger man’s hand away from his face and turned the other way just in time:

‘AAAAAAATTTTTCHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!’

Fabian’s torso lunged sideways and he sneezed the mightiest sneeze Aidan had ever witnessed. The bed shook. The older man remained still for an instant, hands still cupped over his nose and mouth. He blinked once, twice, to clear his watery eyes. He hesitantly lowered his hands and cracked a broad smile.

‘Here it is, the little –––!’

In between his fingers was a small, cream-white, innocent-looking feather. To think that so tiny a thing could elicit so much sneezing from such a big (and handsome) man! But it was over now at last.

‘Bless you, my love.’ Aidan leant toward him and pressed his lips to his boyfriend’s. After a minute of voluptuous kissing he stood up and reached for the tissue box. ‘Here, now you can.’

Fabian obediently buried his face into a handful of tissues and blew his nose with gusto. He emerged with a satisfied look, then knelt forward to give his boyfriend another slow, warm kiss.

‘I love you too’, Aidan whispered with a smile.

‘I love you too’, Fabian replied. ‘So shall I go and get croissants?’

Edited January 20, 2019 by gryffin

[GroundIntoDust]

I love this! The false starts and buildups are so great, and I love that it ended with inducing!

[drippinq]

Such a nice story, I love the peaceful descriptions in the beginning. Really sets the stage for the boyfriend's first tickly betrayal. And of course I'm always down for an inducing twist, especially with feathers (a favorite of mine!). Great story all around

[gryffin]

Thank you both! I’m glad you liked it!

[facet]

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Edited November 1, 2019 by facet
Removed by user.

[gryffin]

7 hours ago, facet said:

I also like that I asked for boyfriend fluff and you took it both metaphorically and literally! Fluff and softness everywhere!!

Ha! I really hadn’t thought about that! 

Glad you’ve enjoyed it!