So Much For Silent Nights (female, cold, F/F)

[Chanel_no5]

 ***Note***

Look, I’m so late I almost could have saved it for next Christmas, but oh well. Since the fic became so long and the shower smut was such a small part of it, I decided to cut that out and post the "safe" version on this board and keep the full fic in the Adult board. So there. I've been trying to write this fic for so long now that I have zero concept of if it's even readable, but I hope it is. Anyway, here goes: 

Very belated Christmas fic, based off the prompts

🌡️ Feverish + 🥶 Chills + 🚿 Shared Shower + 🎄 Christmas Eve

 

***

 

It was Christmas Eve. The tree was up, a fire was crackling in the fireplace, snow whirled in the wind outside, gifts were wrapped and put under the tree… but neither Linda nor Savannah were exactly filled with Christmas cheer. What they were filled with, were colds. Or perhaps that should be singular, since it was the same cold that they shared.

“This is shaping up to be a wonderful Christmas,” Linda muttered as she put one cup of hot steaming tea down on the couch table in front of her wife.

“AaaISSSHHHoo! Huhhh…aaESSSHHH! Hah-ERSSCHEW!”

Savannah was bundled up in a plaid flannel PJs and wrapped in a blanket, and she was sneezing forcefully into several Kleenexes at once, only too aware that just one wasn’t enough for the heavy, juicy outbursts that the cold forced out of her.

It was Savannah who had dragged this miserable illness home from work a couple of days earlier. Before meeting Savannah, Linda had just assumed that surgeons did surgery, and maybe some paperwork surrounding the surgery, but didn’t have much patient contact. Savannah had explained that surgeons do plenty of consultations with patients, as well as aftercare, and while she didn’t say the next part out loud, she didn’t have to. Linda knew that she probably had a lovely bedside manner too, which meant that she would take her time with her patients even when they were not in surgery. And she was absolutely the kind of doctor who would also take her time to answer any questions and offer explanations and comfort to family members as well, which meant she was probably statistically more likely to drag home more colds than Linda.

“Huh? What did you say? I was sneezing, I didn’t hear you,” Savannah said and shuddered as she dabbed the soggy tissues against her chapped, sore nostrils.

“I said this is shaping up to be a wonderful Christmas,” Linda replied and sat down next to her, clutching her own tea mug in both hands.

“Sorry,” Savannah said, and she looked it.

“It’s not your fault, baby,” Linda said. “But it’s really just our luck, isn’t it?”

Savannah made a suffering grimace that wordlessly conveyed the sentiment ‘oh God I’m drowning in snot’ and blew her nose harshly before answering.

“I don’t know, we usually stay healthy over Christmas and then catch something by New Year’s,” she said and started coughing instead, shivering in her pile of blankets and warm PJs.

“Oh good, so if we’re sick now, you think maybe this will be the New Year we toast in champagne and not NyQuil?”

Savannah laughed until the laugh turned into a rattling, chesty cough, then she sneezed, coughed again, and took several deep breaths.

“Please don’t make me laugh, honey, it feels like I have an entire cold season’s worth of mucus in my chest.”

“Huhh-AASSCCHHew! Ugh, and I have it on my hands,” Linda groaned, staring down at her palms which she had used to cover.

“Bless you… tissues are your friends, you know.”

“Not when my nose feels like it’s been rubbed raw already, they’re not,” Linda replied, but when Savannah took two clean tissues from the box, which was two-thirds empty already and was the second box they’d opened today, and handed them to her wife, Linda accepted them. She wiped her hands, then reluctantly dabbed at her nose.

“Listen to this,” she said, entertained by her own misery in spite of it all, “when I sniffle, it kind of sounds like a whistle.”

She proceeded to demonstrate.

“You sound more like a scared mouse, in my opinion,” Savannah said after a few moments of contemplative silence, and pulled her blankets even tighter around her shivering body. “God, I’m so cold!”

“Come on,” Linda said.

“What?”

“Shower. Hot shower.”

Too tired to feel like getting up from her comfortable-ish blanket nest to walk all the way to the upstairs bathroom, Savannah groaned, and the groan morphed into a raspy cough. Linda waited for it to subside, sneezing twice herself in the meantime.

“Then we have to go upstairs…”

“Nah, we can just put the kitchen tap on and flood the first floor,” Linda said without blinking, and Savannah wheezed, trying not to laugh or cough but ending up doing both anyway. “Of course we have to walk upstairs, but it’ll be worth it. Hot water for the chills and steam for the congestion.”

“… that does sound nice… aaGDSCHHuh! Ugh…”

“Nice enough to brave Mount Staircase with me?”

Savannah gave her a half-smile. Linda would most likely crash sooner or later too, unable to keep up her easy-going façade through the miserable cold that Savannah had given her. But Savannah loved her immensely for trying to keep that smile on her face. It was for Savannah’s sake, and she knew that. The way she had been fussing over Savannah the past few days had been a bit embarrassing – Savannah still wasn’t someone who liked to show weakness, even in front of Linda – but it had also been wonderful. She had felt so loved. Not that she didn’t always feel loved by Linda, but she felt… nurtured. Maybe that was the word. She was the one who nurtured, she was the doctor, the caretaker, the protector. That was who she was. That was a role that had either been placed upon her or that she had willingly taken her whole life, and she was good at it. She wasn’t as good at being on the other side. She wasn’t sure who she was when she wasn’t the fixer and helper. Linda didn’t care; she loved her anyway.

Savannah supposed that trust was why giving up control to Linda was appealing sometimes. Even if Linda still usually had to wrestle her for it, metaphorically speaking.

“Hello, did you fall asleep and forgot to close your eyes?” Linda asked.

“No,” Savannah replied with a hint of sarcasm in her drenched voice, “just g-gathering strength… heh… ehh-yISSCHHhew! Ugh… for the long and arduous journey.”

She was still shivering despite the layers of warm clothes and blankets, and she really did have to steel herself to get out of her blanket nest, but eventually she did, following her sniffling wife upstairs.

***

Afterwards, they fell asleep, and though deep asleep throughout the night, it certainly was no silent night. Coughing, sniffling, and snoring disturbed the Christmas stillness all through to the morning hours of Christmas Day.

***

The next morning Savannah woke up, feeling decidedly better. Maybe Christmas wouldn’t be so bad after all. She rolled over and nuzzled the back of Linda’s neck.

“Morning honey,” she whispered. “Merry Christmas…”

“Doh,” Linda groaned thickly into her pillow. Her voice was at least a full octave lower than yesterday and completely waterlogged. “There’s dothig berry about today. I feel like sobethig the reideer shat out bid-flight. A big fat splat. UuhhAERRGSSCHhhugh! Oh by throat…” The last sentence was spoken through a rough, wheezy cough.

Savannah bit her cheeks hard trying not to laugh. She felt terrible about Linda being so much worse today, but oh, the drama, the show this woman could put on when she was sick. Savannah was aware of the concept ‘man flu’, but in their household, it was more known as ‘Lin flu’.

“Bless you, honey. I think you’re hitting the peak of it today,” Savannah said in an apologetic tone. “Impeccable timing, honey. Should I bring things upstairs and we can open the presents in bed?”

“Kill be dow, that’s the dicest Christbas presedt you could give be… Huh-uhhaarscchhuh! Huhh-errscchhooo!”

“I think we’re starting with some tea and meds,” Savannah said, leaned over Linda and kissed a fever-hot cheek. “Stay right there.”

“I couldn’t bove if ad earthquake hit,” Linda declared dramatically and sneezed into her pillow again.

“Oh I think you’d move very fast if that happened,” Savannah said, smiling. “You have a cold, Lin, you can still move your limbs.”

Linda grumbled.

“You wered’t exactly ruddig a barathod the day before yesterday yourself,” she groused. It took Savannah several seconds to decipher her congested, hoarse grumbling; you weren’t exactly running a marathon the day before yesterday yourself.

“Yeah, okay, fair enough,” she said, running her fingers through Linda’s short black hair. “I’ll make some tea.”

Linda sneezed messily into the blanket, groaned, and then wiped her nose on the blanket too.

“Eww, Lin,” Savannah chuckled. Little by little, the chuckle turned into a chesty cough, shaking her whole body and not stopping until she was red in the face, with tears welling up in her eyes and mess leaking out of her nose. “I’ll get you some tissues too. I’ll probably need some myself.”

“Ugh,” Linda groaned and launched into a thick coughing fit of her own.

Savannah winced at the intensity; that was not Linda exaggerating for dramatic effect, that was a genuine symptom. She put a hand on Linda’s shuddering back, gently rubbing it to offer some comfort.

“Sorry I got you sick. I mean that. I feel really bad; not just because I love you and I don’t want to hurt you… but I’m a doctor, I’m supposed to make people better, not make them sick.”

Linda’s coughing fit tapered off and she rolled over to face her wife. She even managed a smile.

“It’s dot your fault. Colds are everywhere this tibe of year. I’ll get over it. I just deed to be drabatic about it first.”

“Dramatic, huh?” Savannah grinned and gave her cheek a gentle pat. “Well, mission accomplished.”

“You thigk so?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Savannah gave her a kiss, unfazed by the fact that Linda was a drippy mess. She wasn’t looking much better herself, of that, she was sure.

Linda suddenly pulled away.

“I’b gohhddahhh sdeeze agaihhhhHEH-ERGSSCHHHOO! UhhhESSCHHUH!

She sneezed so violently she choked on her own sneezes and launched into an even more violent coughing fit.

“Oh my God,” Savannah said, “bless you. If we put theatrics aside, how are you feeling?”

“I’b dot dead yet. As far as I kdow, corpses don’t sdeeze,” Linda groaned.

“Well, proof that you’re still among the living is good enough, I’ll take it,” Savannah joked and caressed Linda’s sweaty forehead again. “I’ll get the thermometer as well.”

She left the bedroom and closed the door behind her… then doubled over with a harsh coughing fit that shook her whole body. She straightened up, putting a hand to her chest, shaking her head. This cold clearly wasn’t going to let her off the hook anytime soon, even if Linda was sicker than she was right now.

But she was well enough to reciprocate the care and comfort that Linda had given her the past week, and that was precisely what she planned on doing. Returning all the tender loving care.

And then some.

 

 

Edited January 11 by Chanel_no5

[TartanSneezer]

I’ve been a long time reader of the forum but only recently registered. I’ve loved reading your stories for years, and this one is no different! 

[Bgrace27]

So good as always!! Love them together and their love.

[Chanel_no5]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:23 PM, TartanSneezer said:

I’ve been a long time reader of the forum but only recently registered. I’ve loved reading your stories for years, and this one is no different! 

Thank you so much! And welcome to the forum... or, welcome to posting, maybe I should say.  

16 hours ago, Bgrace27 said:

So good as always!! Love them together and their love.

Thank you! I hope it was worth the long, looooooooong wait...   

 

[dw124]

It’s definitely not too late to post a Christmas fic! This was wonderful, and I love the two of them together.

[PollenFiend]

Ooo study material!  haha...  Thanks for sharing, Chanel.  It's lovely.  I don't know if it's true or not, but the depiction and spelling of the sneezes do indeed feel more... cold-like.  As in, nasally, guttural, and just different from allergy sneezes.  Definitely something I can try to consider for future fics too.

 

Thanks again.