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Anne Boleyn had always been a fussy eater.
In her first life, her parents had scolded her harshly for her pickiness, to the point where she figured out ways to hide it. Luckily, the life she’d had, multiple meal options usually presented themselves to be chosen from at banquets and for regular meals, she was usually able to request foods that she was able to eat. It was also relatively easy, at least for daily meals, to functionally ban foods she didn’t like from being served to her.
Well, she said she didn’t like them. It was easier than explaining that the taste of onions made her tongue feel like it was burning. Or that the texture of cooked cabbage made her physically gag the second she tried to chew it.
In her second life, Anne had discovered that her feelings toward certain foods were part of her ADHD and that they had a name; food aversions. And in the time since she’d come back to life, she had discovered a veritable list of said food aversions that she’d managed to avoid, or just hadn’t had access to in her first life. Golden syrup, which for some reason Kitty loved on pancakes, was one. It was too thick, too sticky and tasted so... wrong. Another had been buttercream icing, which gave her an itchy, tingly feeling in the very back of her throat.
The worst, however, bar none, had been gingerbread. The smell made her nose burn. The taste was far too strong, to the point where even a tiny amount would overwhelm the taste of anything it was with (example, perfectly good ice cream, which Anne had decided was one of the best foods ever invented) and wouldn’t leave her mouth for hours (or on one really bad occasion, days ) after she’d eaten it, no matter how many times she scrubbed her teeth. And if she managed to swallow it...Anne swore her stomach thought it was trying to digest pure fire. Of all the foods Anne didn’t like, gingerbread was cemented at the top of the list.
When she and the other Queens had first been acclimatising to their new lives, Anne and Cathy had both ended up being diagnosed with things that hadn’t been understood in their time: Cathy with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Anne with ADHD. As soon as they’d gotten their respective diagnoses, the other Queens had tried to understand as much as they could and tried to make things as easy for the two of them as possible.
Catalina had actually been the one to suggest that Anne put the ‘B’ onto her chokers so that she had something subtle to fidget with during shows and Kitty had excitedly suggested getting the ‘K’ for her own so that it looked like a costume choice. Kitty had also been more than happy to help her find various fidget toys (Anne’s favourite was still the dark green Tangle that had been placed on her desk one morning with a little pink Post-It.) Anna was almost always up for going on runs with Anne to help her clear her head, or play Just Dance with her when she needed to do something.
Catalina also tended to help Cathy, who could not read the tone of someone’s voice or their body language to save her life and frequently needed someone to read over her latest writings to check that the tone being conveyed was the one she actually wanted. (Anne had tried to help a few times, but her understanding of social cues was just as bad as Cathy’s.)
And anytime a new special interest or hyper fixation reared its head for either of them, Jane was the first to look into it so that they could discuss it with her, or to gently remind Cathy that she needed to stop writing now and Anne that the new game she was obsessed with would still be there when she woke up.
The problem was that, for all the Queens tried to help, there were still some things that none of them could fully get their heads around. And in Anne’s case, no one understood why she couldn’t just...eat what was in front of her. Cathy’s aversions never really seemed to come up, thanks in part to her inhuman sleep schedule and her ability to cook without setting the kitchen on fire. She rarely ate with everyone and so was free to make whatever she wanted, whereas Anne (who needed a schedule in order to remember to eat at all and was something of a walking disaster in the kitchen) ended up being questioned about it a lot more.
“Oh come on Kit!”
“Annie, it was an accident and it’s only a little bit! If it bothers you that much, just eat around it!” (Anne tried very hard not to look at Jane when she threw away almost a full pancake after the spilt syrup soaked into it.)
“Anne, I don’t care if you can eat raw vegetables safely now, cabbage should be cooked when served with meat!” (Anna had been adamant about that. Anne ended up pushing it around her plate until it looked like it had been eaten.)
“Anne love, we’re in a restaurant. I thought you liked meat feast pizza? Why are you picking at the toppings? Just send it back and order something else.” (Catalina was right, she did like meat feast pizza. If anything, it was her favourite. That’s why she was meticulously picking off the onions that this restaurant had decided made a good bonus topping.)
Cathy had offered, multiple times, to explain to everyone why “no, it is not as simple as just ignore it, chew it fast and swallow it” but Anne had told her not to. She was content to leave it be. It was easier than trying to explain it. Cathy was the only one who’d ever understood and, frankly, she didn’t want to be a bother about it.
Somewhat inevitably, this problem of the other Queens not entirely getting the food situation eventually came to a head (no pun intended.)
It had been a long, long day for Anne. She’d bought a new choker, but the clasp was weird and kept rubbing up against her scar in an uncomfortable way and she was too stubborn to take it off. She’d misplaced the dark green Tangle, her earphones had bothered her when she tried to listen to music, Anna’s new perfume was just a bit stronger than she’d had been expecting when she’d gone for a hug and it had nearly put her into an instant overload and everything had just felt too loud and too bright all day. So, when she walked into the kitchen and saw Jane and Anna standing eating cupcakes, she’d instantly perked up.
“Hey, there you are!” Greeted Anna, the volume causing Anne to flinch slightly even as she smiled, “Bess did some baking and wanted us all to try these.”
“She experimenting with recipes again?” Asked Anne with a smile, as she looked into the old chocolate tin that was storing the cakes. Anna laughed a little beside her, Bessie had started taking baking so seriously recently it had become a bit of a joke. As soon as Anne looked in the tin though, the smile slipped from her face.
Buttercream icing. Damnit.
“What’s wrong love?” Asked Jane, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“They’ve got buttercream on them.”
“Yes? Bessie said she’s been practising making it. It’s part of why she wants our opinions.”
“But I don’t like buttercream.”
Jane let out a small sigh and wrapped an arm around Anne’s shoulder (which Anne tried very hard not to squirm at.) “Anne, it’s one cupcake. You love cupcakes!” Jane’s tone wasn’t angry or judgemental, not as far as Anne could tell at least, but she did sound a little frustrated. Or maybe it was disappointed? Anne couldn’t fully tell but she didn’t like it. “Scraping the icing off is a bit of a waste and Bessie did make them just for us. Just try it? One bite and if you really don’t like it, then we’ll tell Bessie to stick with royal icing next time, yeah?”
With a little bit of hesitation and more dread than food should ever be able to cause, Anne reached into the tin and grabbed the smallest looking cake, letting herself feel just the tiniest bit happier at the smiles Jane and Anna gave her for agreeing. It’s one cake and it’ll make them happy. You can do this.
Maybe it was the fact that she was already oversensitive that day. Maybe it was because she wasn’t expecting it. Maybe it was a combination of the two, or maybe it was for no reason other than luck hated her. But the second Anne bit into the cake and started chewing, she knew she’d royally screwed up.
Her throat got the itchy, tingling feeling. The sugar in the icing hadn’t fully dissolved and was causing a weird, grainy texture. But somehow, the icing wasn’t the biggest problem.
The cake had pieces of something with a biscuit texture, like bits of cookie were baked into it. The taste hit her instantly. Gingerbread.
She had just enough time for her brain to go ‘you fucked up’ before the lights somehow got brighter and the feeling of Jane’s arm on her shoulders changed from uncomfortable to searing pain and her neck started itching where her choker sat and her mouth burned. Her mind raced, desperately trying to filter everything around her, but Anne was barely able to focus on the loudest thought; SPIT. IT. OUT. NOW. She dropped the cake and ran to the downstairs bathroom, barely avoiding throwing up as she spat the remnants out of her mouth, before reaching for the mouthwash with a shaky hand.
It barely passed her lips before she involuntarily spat that out too, the minty taste way too strong for her to handle. She could feel her breathing getting away from her, could hear the blood rushing in her ears as she started hyperventilating, her entire body screaming at her that everything was wrong.
She crumpled to the floor, eyes screwed shut. One hand grabbed her choker and ripped it off, throwing it across the bathroom, before returning to her neck to scratch at the spot where the clasp had been. The other hand reached up and started tugging on a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eye.
“Anne! Anne, sweetheart, it’s alright, you’re okay.” She could hear Jane’s voice in front of her, but she was too close, too loud. “You’re okay, focus on me love. Can you open your eyes for me?”
Anne wanted to yell at her to shut up. She wanted to cry and beg Jane to get Cathy. But she couldn’t do either. Her mind could barely pull full thoughts together, let alone a coherent sentence, and even simple things like ‘no’ and ‘Cathy’ seemed to hit an invisible wall when travelling from her brain to her mouth. Instead, both of her hands moved to her ears and she made a small whining noise that just about broke Jane’s heart.
“What happened?!”
“IS SHE OKAY?!”
Anne let out another whine and curled her knees up to her chest as she heard Catalina and Kitty get to the door, Kitty’s panicked yell sounding even worse to her overworking brain. She pressed her hands to her ears harder and tried to block out the feeling of too-hot tears falling down her face, all the while that horrible taste wouldn’t dissipate.
A few moments later, she felt something lightly grab her sleeve and move one hand away from her ear. She whined again and tried to pull away but stopped when she felt something cold and plastic be gently pushed into her grip. She squeezed down on it and it moved in a familiar way. A relieved sob escaped her as she moved her other hand to start breaking the Tangle and wrap it around her wrist. Her eyes were still closed, but no one was talking anymore.
She felt someone move to sit right next to her, gently guiding her head to rest on a shoulder, and Anne couldn’t help but let out another sob as the smell of coffee and paper and Cathy hit her.
“The lights are off.” Cathy’s voice was low, only just louder than a whisper, though that was plenty loud enough for Anne, “I’m gonna put my hand just over your eyes, okay? I won’t touch your face, promise.” Anne just about managed to nod, as one of her hands let go of her Tangle to grip the sleeve of Cathy’s hoodie. “Okay, your eyes are covered, do you think you could look at me?”
It took a few seconds, but Anne managed to get her eyes open to look at Cathy. True to her word, the bathroom light was off and her girlfriend had placed her hand over Anne’s face in just the right way to block any light from the hall, without physically touching Anne. The second Queen tilted her head slightly so she could look at Cathy’s face (not her eyes though, they both hated eye contact, especially when overstimulated) and was met with a small smile. “Hey, pretty girl.” Said Cathy, her voice as low as it had been before. Anne’s hand moved from Cathy’s sleeve up to her chest, trying to focus on the feeling of her girlfriend’s heartbeat against her palm. The sixth Queen pressed a light kiss into Anne’s hair and held her as her senses slowly started to dull again.
“Verbal?” She asked quietly after a while. Anne thought for a minute, breath still shaky and the lingering taste of gingerbread still very much present, before managing to speak.
“Cathy…” It came out more like a whimper than anything else, but it was a word at least. Cathy smiled at her again before slowly moving her hand from where it had been blocking Anne’s vision. Jane was sitting near them, pretty much exactly between Anne and the door, a worried look on her face. Catalina was kneeling behind her with both hands on Jane’s shoulders. Anna was leaning against the door, one arm wrapped around a very anxious looking Kitty. Anne went completely slack against Cathy, a long sigh leaving her as she finally felt most of her senses return to normal.
It took both Anna and Cathy to help Anne get to the sofa in the living room. Kitty ran upstairs to grab Anne’s favourite blanket (dark green and fuzzy as hell), along with all of pillows and duvets. Cathy left her side for a few minutes to help Jane make all of them drinks, regular hot chocolate for the five of them and white hot chocolate for Anne (the taste was less intense), during which time Catalina happily took her place as Anne’s source of cuddles. Anna made sure to dim all of the lights in the room and put the TV on at the highest volume Anne could comfortably stand. Once Kitty had built a blanket and pillow nest for them, the six Queens all curled up and drank their drinks in near silence. Eventually, Anne spoke properly.
“I can still taste it.” The other five immediately looked at her. Her voice was a little cracked, croaky and quieter than normal. Cathy put her mug down and brushed a few strands of hair out of Anne’s eyes. “Still taste what babe?”
“The gingerbread.” Anne looked over at Jane, who was leaning into Catalina, then to Anna, who was curled up on the floor with Kitty, “You guys didn’t tell me.” Anne placed her half-drunk hot chocolate on the table and wrapped her arms around her knees, “Everything felt wrong today already, and then I thought I’d be able to handle the icing, but it was all grainy and my throat got all tingly and then the bloody gingerbread-!” She let out a frustrated noise as she felt her words starting to lose themselves again, instead leaning back into Cathy’s embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She mumbled, looking between Jane and Anna, both of whom had incredibly guilty looks on their faces.
“I honestly forgot you didn’t like it.” Said Anna, running a hand through her hair with a frustrated sigh, “Dumb mistake I know, but it just totally slipped my mind. I’m so sorry Liebling .” Anne gave her a small smile and nodded, before looking at Jane, whose head was in her hands.
“I didn’t realise.” She said quietly. Catalina gently pulled her hands away from her face, then pulled Jane into her lap as they all realised she was crying.
“You didn’t realise there was gingerbread in it?” Asked Catalina, “ Querida that’s fine-”
“No, I knew it was there. And I knew Anne didn’t like it. And I knew that if I told you, you never would have eaten it.” Her voice cracked on the last part as she wiped her eyes halfheartedly, then looked at Anne, “I...I thought you were just being picky. O-or that it was just you’d had bad gingerbread before and maybe you’d like it if it was homemade. And Bessie was so proud of herself for getting the timings right so she could bake the cookie into the cake! Anne, I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t realise how bad it was for you!”
Anne shrugged, “It’s okay, really I-”
“No Anne, it’s not okay.” Interrupted Cathy, her arms tightening a little around her girlfriend, “Because this is not the first time one of you has upset Anne with something like this.” She sighed and sat up a little straighter, still holding Anne close to her, but now she could look at all the others. “I know that you guys genuinely do try and make things as easy for us as possible and both of us are so, so lucky to have mates like you guys that actively help us out. But sensory issues aren’t something either of us can control, or suppress or ignore. Anne says she doesn’t like certain things because it’s easier than explaining exactly how sensory hell feels.” She felt Anne squeeze her hand next to her as she went on.
“Just because we had to do certain things in our first lives, it does not mean that we have to do that in this lifetime. We don’t have to do, say or wear anything we don’t want to anymore. I can publish whatever I want under my name, I can read whatever books I want to and I can then ramble about those books for as long as I want. Catalina can go to Mass without an escort and paint whatever she wants without being judged. Jane can go out wherever she likes and can say what she thinks, Anna can buy and wear any clothes she wants and look stunning as all hell, Kitty can tell anyone she doesn’t like to get lost and have all of us to back her up, And Anne can eat whatever the hell she likes and doesn’t have to eat things that might cause this to happen again.”
The others all stayed quiet, knowing that once Cathy started talking like that, you shut up and listened. Anne gave her a tired smile and kissed her cheek once she’d finished talking.
“Yeah, what she said.” She added with a little smirk, drawing quiet chuckles from their friends. Kitty stood and made her way over to sit by Anne, waiting for her to nod before she folded herself into Anne’s side, relaxing a little as the older girl started playing with her hair.
“I’ll start double-checking that I’m not getting anything you don’t like on the snack run.” She said quietly, voice slightly muffled from where her face met the crook of Anne’s neck. She lifted her head slightly to look at her cousin, “I’m guessing that’s why you never eat the cereal bars and stuff I bring to the show?” Anne winced a little at being caught out.
“Raisins. You always get ones with raisins.” Kitty chuckled a little and snuggled back into Anne.
“Only because they’re healthier! I don’t like them that much either. I’ll bring the marshmallow and rice crispy ones next show, yeah?” Anne laughed at that and nodded. The others smiled at the two of them as Anne moved so that Kitty’s head was in her lap, the former starting to loosely braid the latter’s hair. Catalina was the next to speak.
“If you want, you could help us make dinner sometimes?” At the five collective looks of horror she received, Catalina quickly put her hands up in surrender, “Not unsupervised!” She said jokingly, “I mean, you could help whoever’s on cooking duty with food prep before it cooks. Then if there’s something you don’t like in it, you can either tell us and we take it out, or we can make yours separate. If I’m making paella and you don’t want peppers in it, I can serve yours before I add the peppers for everyone else. Things like that.” Anne thought for a second before giving Catalina a grateful smile.
“Uh, if Anne gets an out...I’d rather not have peppers either.” Cathy said shyly, “Texture’s weird.” She muttered, which caused Anne to nod in agreement. Anna cleared her throat and pulled a guilty-looking face. “If there’s an option, I’d also rather not have peppers. Never really been a fan of them in either lifetime.”
Catalina laughed at the three of them, “Anyone else want to confess to a dislike of peppers?” Jane hesitantly raised a hand, drawing another laugh from Catalina, “Alright, I’ll stop adding them, but you get the point.”
Jane reached over and offered a hand to Anne, smiling when Anne took it.
“I really am sorry Anne. I swear I’ll pay more attention to this sort of thing now.” Anne squeezed her hand lightly, before tugging it for Jane to move closer. The six of them shuffled about a little more before they formed a cuddle pile. Kitty claimed the remote and started up a nature documentary that she and Anne liked listening to after nightmares and before long, all of them were starting to doze off. When the others had fallen asleep, Jane carefully reached for her phone and fired off a quick text before snuggling down in her spot between her cousins and Catalina;
Cakes were really good Bessie! But if you do any more baking for us, please don’t add gingerbread or buttercream. Anne can’t eat them xx