#translation prob mostly self explanatory but ji haan is a polite yes

[mongooseblues]

Quick ficlet featuring a twenty-five year old Cal and a canonical cold during his thanksgiving break while he’s staying with a childhood friend and his family. (Auntie here is used as a respectful term not a literal one)

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It takes about fifteen seconds of being in the house again, for him to realize there’s no hope of sneaking back to the guest bedroom to pretend he never left it. Despite how carefully and quietly he managed to open and close the front door, despite the fact that Barkya must be asleep somewhere because for once she’s not barking at him, Cal is about to call attention to his ill-advised late night stroll in the least subtle way he possibly can, and he can smother his mouth with the lapel of his coat all he likes, it’s still not going to be enough to stop him from—

“BUHSHHhoo! Huh’UHSSHHhoo!”

Becoming an abrupt disruption cutting sharply through the quiet.

And Barkya, who can only hear out of one ear these days, remembers her home security duties even from as far away as she must be according to the barking—and judging from the jingling of bangles, Naveen’s mother Sangita isn’t far behind—he is after all making a complete ruckus in the entryway.

He’s also not done, and in fact just about to collapse into his waiting elbow to vocally wrestle through a violently breathy trio.

“HRUSHH! HrrRRUHHu! ...HIRRUSSszhuu!”

Sometimes when he’s sneezing really harshly like this Cal finds himself unconsciously bringing a hand to his chest as he does. He has to acknowledge how much sense it makes that anyone ever thought a person’s soul could leave their body when they sneeze—it certainly feels like his just did.

Something about the sudden difference in temperature has his nose streaming even harder than it was outside, as well as effusively tingling with that warm, fuzzy sensation that suggests he perhaps still hasn’t quite finished this little fit, and two-fifths of the Dasgupta household round the corner just in time to watch Cal’s valiant attempt to tend to his nose with the tatters of an already very used tissue.

“Caliph?!? Tum kidhar? You were outside?”

“Ji haan,” he admits sheepishly, “I was—snff!—on the phone with a friend and it was a special occasion for him so I wanted to talk to him about it.”

“Outside in the cold this late at night when you’re sick, beta? It’s below freezing,” she says, her voice carrying as she goes to retrieve the tissue box from the other room and brings it to him.

He currently possesses only partial control of his facial expressions, plucking a tissue from the box she’s just given him and hitching through a ‘Dhanyavaad’ that gets airier and airier as his lungs inflate around it.

Finally he crushes a thoroughly unsatisfying “mMMFSHH!’hu…” into a handful of tissue, following which Barkya barks one last time for good measure before wandering elsewhere.

Sangita however is not as easily put off.

“And look at you now Caliph, you’re shaking. Going out there in this condition… did you forget you have a fever? You’re talking to a friend? Tell him next time call back.”

All Cal can do is continuously wobble his head to express his respect and agreement, reduced to this physical gesture because he’s finding it challenging to verbally convey his contrition, overwhelmed as he is by the niggling need to incessantly sneeze. A battle he can feel himself losing once again, the temptation of it, teasing at his breath the way it is, too great to resist.

“Sorry, Auntie, it rhheal—real-h-hee…heeYIHHHShue! Mm, snff! It really wasn’t—snf!—very smart of me, snffffh!”

He knows scientifically, technically, that being outside for all of twenty minutes did not actively make him sicker, just temporarily more symptomatic, though really what’s the difference as far as Sangita’s concerned when he’s standing here shivering and sniffling, the textbook example of catching one’s death. He does sort of feel sicker than he did when he left the house, or at least he feels his symptoms more acutely.

Even sniffling is starting to tickle, and while he would really love to blow his nose and it might assist in his efforts to stop sneezing, it feels inappropriate to do so during a lecture—even one as gentle as this—so he’s forced to just repeatedly rub tissues against irritated, ever-moistening nostrils. “I think I juh-h?…Um, snf! I think I juhhust learnedmylesson—”

His throat suffers through a crashing “ehhhhESHHHyeuu!” with an especially nasal, vocal last syllable that inspires a sound of sympathy from Sangita.

“Ohh beta… bechara…”

“Excuse me,” he sniffles, dabbing at resulting watery eyes and feeling exceptionally pitiful now that she’s taken pity on him.

She puts a hand on her hip, sighs at length, and inclines her head towards the kitchen. “Alright, come come, we’ll make chai.”