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He blinks tiredly at the clock on the wall, huddled deeply into his sweater as if it's a lifeline. There's a handful of tissues clutched tightly in his fist, breathing through chapped, parted lips around the wet congestion that's walled up any attempt at breathing normally. He doesn't even bother with trying to sniffle--it's more than useless, it's gross.
Parent teacher conferences are never a fun thing, nor one he looks forward to at all. And, more than that, he knows that Warren dreads them, too. She's usually doing well enough in classes--she's never been an A student, but she makes mostly Bs, and she's putting in as much effort as she can. It's mostly the behavioral issues they have to talk about--and good heavens, he doesn't want to have that discussion today.
"huH-! UDZZHh'ue! eIDZZHhieww! ...guh. sdF! Excuse mbe." He shudders into the tissues with a ragged pair of sneezes, deeply congested and so miserably wet. The woman sitting next to him leans slightly further away from him, crossing her legs to the other side to buy a bit more room between the two of them.
And he doesn't blame her, certainly! It's definitely gross, and he is definitely and obviously contagious, but he also doesn't have a choice but to be there. He can't reschedule it, nor can he help having caught cold just before this, so now he's stuck here with everyone else in the terrible little cafeteria seats at the table.
He blows his nose, as softly as possible, into the tissues that are absolutely destroyed. He's going to sneeze again, he knows it, and there's no chance to avoid it. The dread of it curdles in his stomach. He knows that it's only going to grow more wet and messy as the day drags on.
Delicately, he swipes at chapped nostrils to try and avoid irritating his skin any further, but it stings at the contact.
The second hand is ticking by slowly, and his time is already nearly at hand for their conference, but the line of people ahead of him is telling him that they're definitely not actually next. Warren's given up sitting next to him, busying herself with sitting against the wall and sipping from the water fountain and slumping down against the floor in anguish.
He can feel the sheen of moisture along the underside of his nose, trickling despite every possible effort of himself to keep it at bay. He wrinkles his nose, and then wipes at it again just to be safe.
Someone does him a favor--one of the moms he's seen on the PTA?--and drops a box of tissues onto the table in front of him. He mouths a silent "thank you" in response, hands clasped as if for prayer, and then tears several out of the box.
He's midway through blowing his nose again when the doors to the gymnasium open. "Mr. Marsh?"
He freezes like a deer in headlights, hands still folded over the tissues pressed to a leaking nose. He's too far into it to really stop, but continuing it after he's been called on feels illegal. He swallows his pride to finish the process as cleanly as he can, folds them into oblivion to swipe at his nose again, and stands with an awkward throat clear. "Bug?"
Warren drags herself off the tiles with the drama only a young teen can embody, her cane jingling noisily as they make their way into the gym to sit at one of the dozens of tables crammed into it.
Her homeroom teacher, a pleasant older lady who he's been enjoying very deeply this year, slides a little packet of tissues across the table to him in advance of their meeting. "Thank you for coming in--I know we've been a little behind, but Trish agreed to swap time slots with you to let you get out of here a little sooner."
"Oh! Well, that was really nice of her." He's pretty sure that he should be offended, because they're doing this to get him out of here sooner, but he can't find it in himself to have any kind of embarrassment or offense to it. He wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep off some NyQuil, but he's gotta get through this first. "How've you been, Ms. Douglas?"
"Ohh, it's hard to complain. It's nice to see all the parents, especially the ones I don't get to see too often." She shuffles a stack of paperwork in front of her, stopping to pull one from the stack and set it on the tabletop in front of them both. "So! Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
"hDT-!" He gasps for it, before crumpling into the soggy tissues with a handful of painful, squelching stifles that do little but to make the congestion significantly worse. He sighs heavily in the aftermath of them, the terrible, wet stuffiness making it achey behind his eyes. Ohhh, what he wouldn't give for a hot shower and some eucalyptus oil right now...
"Uhmb," he swipes at his nose with a wince, "excuse mbe." His cheeks burn pink at the sound of his voice, croaking and stuffy and so bluntly rounded out as to mar his consonants. He clears his throat harshly, coughs into his sleeve, and tries again. "I've caught a little something, I don't mean to--you'll have to forgive me for this."
"It's no trouble--it's that time of year, isn't it?"
That, and that's simply the kind of man he is. She doesn't seem to really know him yet, and that's some kind of comfort to him in this moment that he'd have to deal with pity, or any of its sisters in different disguises. "It is."
"So, her grades are looking pretty good--her lowest is in family health, but she's still got plenty of time to bring that one up before the end of the year. She's turning in all her homework, doing her projects, doing fairly well on her tests; we don't have much that I'm concerned about on any front for her and what she's doing."
"That's great!" He pauses, briefly, and blows his nose with a deeply wet sound that he really doesn't like or want to happen, but he may well drown in his own fluids if he doesn't do something to solve this quickly. "She's been putting in the effort and really hitting the books at home, and I'm glad to see that she's really doing well."
Warren groans, embarrassed, and leans away from him and his praise. "Okay! Let's move on!"
"Alright, alright. What does she need to work on?"
"Well, there've been some...behavioral issues we've discussed in the past. She's made a lot of improvements in them, and I think we all can agree that things are going better since she's started meeting with the counselor once a week, so I think we'll definitely want to be continuing with that."
"Right, of course. We've been thinking about starting into some personal counseling outside of school, also, because she's been having a better time with everything in general right now."
"So, what we'll wanna do next..." A fluttering, feathery itch is in the back of his nose again, and he tries to wrinkle it against the feeling to no avail. "...and there's a couple forms we're gonna have you both sign for updating her learning plan..." Sweet Jesus, this cold is quite annoying. He finds it pulling his focus while she's talking, impinging on every attempt to keep himself in line with the conversation.
He's going to focus. He must. He will simply force the thought from his mind and give his undivided attention to Ms. Douglas and the individual learning plan, and he's going to survive this stupid conference, and then they're going to go get ice cream, as a treat for both of them getting through this, and then he's going to take the longest, hottest shower he can, and--
"Mr. Marsh?"
He realizes, with more than a bit of embarrassment, that he was focusing so hard on being tuned into the conversation that he entirely tuned it out. "Uh--I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that last part. Can you repeat it for me?"
"I said that I needed you to sign off on whether or not you approve this plan and the goals for this next semester."
"Right! Right. Let me just..." Admittedly, he's skimming it more than he probably should. Accommodations, coping strategies, academic goals...
"hH-!" He barely has time to shove the paper back towards her, halfway raising an elbow towards his face in an attempt to try and contain things, but he's nowhere near quick enough. "hdDZZHhieww! uUZZHh'ue!" Two in, he finally regains his senses enough to finish raising his arm to muffle the rest of the fit.
"Bless--"
"hH'DDJzzhue! 'DZZHh'ue! 'dDZZHHhyue! Hh...huH-! huUZZHhyue! Hh-! hH-!?" He gasps for a seventh, but the itch fades just enough to leave him unsatisfied. "Excuse me." They both wince when he snuffles, and he immediately follows it up by snatching the pack of tissues and standing. "I'll be right back."
He walks out of the gym so fast he realizes, halfway to the bathroom, that he left his phone behind him, so he can't even text anybody about how pitiful he is and how they should be proud of him for being so very brave right now. With all the grace of an ungainly fawn, he practically kicks the stall door open, the strike of leather on stainless steel echoing in the otherwise empty space while he wedges himself into the stall.
When he removes his arm from his face, his shirt sweater gleams in the faint light, sodden with cold. He awkwardly wipes at it with a handful of toilet paper, and grimaces when it turns to something between mush and sawdust. He understands why they use the worst quality toilet paper known to man (he cannot imagine what the bill must look like, especially given the general lack of funding in the first place) but it puts him in a bind.
He stretches onto his toes and peers over the top of the door before he retrieves a handful of paper towels to finish the job. They certainly hold up better, but they're brutal on chafed nostrils when he blows his nose, equally vicious as it is viscous. He mutters a "Holy Moses" and then crosses himself reflexively.
Maybe he'll get lucky and he'll lay down and die, lanky limbs curled up like a dead spider right here in the men's room. The idea of laying on a high school men's room floor keeps him from carrying out this thought, instead returning his attention to cleaning the remainder of the mess from his sleeve--or, at least as much of it as he can.
He definitely isn't satisfied with it, but he doesn't have any other choice but to return to the gymnasium and the conference he's abandoned. " 'scuse me, ma'am."
"We were afraid you weren't coming back." Warren curls her arms in towards her body, raising her feet off the floor a bit. "Dead spider."
Maybe he should stop threatening to curl up like a dead spider so often. "No, not this time."
"...right. We, ah, still need you to sign off."
He pinches at the tip of his nose, half out of habit and half to chase away the rest of the itch that's still hanging around, somewhere between nonchalantly and ominously. "Right. Bug, does that sound good to you?"
"Yeah."
Verbose. Sometimes he wishes she was this quiet at home. "Then consider it signed. Have you got a pen?"
"I do." Neither of them want him to hold this pen and then return it to her; even if his hands are still a little clammy from washing up, that does nothing for the fact that he just touched his nose, or the fact that even him just sitting here feels like a promise that every other parent who sits in this chair is going to be in the same state as him.
Nevertheless, she hands it to him, and he dutifully hands it back after scribbling his signature on the highlighted line. He thinks, briefly, back to the first time Corben had really commented on his handwriting to someone else. Some little joke after he'd spent an age embroidering his name into his jacket collar because it kept getting grabbed by a coworker off the rack. 'How sweet. He left hieroglyphics in my coat.' He smiles.
"Is that it?"
"That's it. You two are free to go." He stands to leave, and she catches him by the elbow with a gentle touch. "Mr. Marsh? Feel better."
It's a honey warm feeling in his chest, that crinkle to her eyes and the concern in her voice. "I'll do my best."
The trek to the car is relatively uneventful, the sound of other parents and their progeny fading into the background and disappearing entirely once the doors shut. In its place, there's only the sound of the million charms on her cane and the tapping--and his incessant sniffling.
"So that went well, huh?"
"I guess." She slumps into the backseat, resting her cheek in her palm and leaning towards the window. "Are we still getting ice cream?"
"Of course, it's the conference tradition." He wrinkles his nose, scrunching it side to side to try and scratch a little at the itch, a motion that he knows is silly and probably unflattering enough he's glad she can't see it. "Have you already picked your flavor yet?"
"No, I've gotta weigh my options."
"Ahh, wise. I'll probably just get the same thing I always do." Truthfully, he isn't hungry at all, and the idea of eating something cold sounds unpleasant at best. He'll probably get a baby scoop, and just stick it in the freezer when they get home for later. The hot shower he's promised himself when they make it back to the house sounds beyond heavenly.
He's just about to put it in reverse when his phone dings, beckoning his attention just long enough. A message from Cerine.
Cerine: conferences good? get me something
He shoots back a quick message assuring her that they went well, and the promise to pick out something as a little treat for her. He tactfully doesn't mention that he's currently dying of the plague in the high school parking lot, because he knows in his heart and soul that if she knows he's feeling like garbage she's going to try to do something for him, and as much as he appreciates her kindness--and he truly does! From the bottom of his heart!--he really doesn't think he can handle anyone trying to fuss over him, or stopping him from taking a shower and going instantly to bed.
"Is that Auntie?"
"Yeah, it's Auntie. She wants an ice cream too, you're in charge of picking what she gets or I'm gonna forget and then we'll have to explain to her why we're coming back empty handed."
"I can do that. Did she say what she wants?"
"She wants 'something'."
"So no?"
"So no."
He cranks the heat up, just as the first flakes of snow hit the windshield. With any luck, they'll keep power tonight, at least long enough for grooming and charging his phone a little. For now, the best he can do is hope this cold doesn't settle into cement in his sinuses. Tires crunch over weathered cement that's become closer to gravel, headlights illuminating the night ahead.