Cold

Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast or its characters.

Author's Note: This is set in the universe set up in my novel-length story "Kissed By a Rose," though you don't have to have read that to understand this. It's another in my series of same-universe post-curse 'snapshots' that also include "Face the Mirror," "The Christmas Rose," and "Daughter of the Beast."

It started with a sneeze.

Of course Lumière knew what a sneeze was. He'd sneezed as a candelabra occasionally over the last ten years when something tickled his long wax nose. Somehow he'd been human enough for that reflex to have been retained. He'd given up trying to puzzle out exactly how the enchantment had worked in terms of the servants retaining some human traits while trapped largely as objects. So had every member of the household eventually, though in those first few years Cogsworth had been lucky clock faces didn't get nosebleeds.

They'd accepted their new forms. Eventually, even became accustomed to them. Lumière had even wondered with increasing discomfort as the years crawled by that he was forgetting what it was like to be human. The feeling of a heart pounding inside a protective ribcage seemed like a dream he had to struggle to remember.

Ten years was a long time.

But the spell had been broken. Their human bodies had been restored. After the initial ecstasy of being flesh and blood again, the servants began rediscovering the smaller joys and pains of humanity as well.

Lumière particularly enjoyed there being more of Babette to caress. There was also no danger of burning her with his candles—no, hands.

He sneezed again. It was the third time in fifteen minutes. He couldn't understand it. He wasn't anywhere dusty. The castle was no longer dark and neglected now that a fully capable human staff was back at their jobs, equipped with full human heights and arm reaches. Cogsworth would allow no dust under his beady eye if he could help it. It seemed to be his way of trying to drive away the last legacies of the spell by keeping the castle as spick-and-span as possible.

The other servants hoped he'd unwind and relax his standards a bit the more time went by. Particularly Lumière, who out of everyone probably dealt with Cogsworth the most.

Another sneeze. Lumiere sighed. He leaned gently against a doorframe and realized with a start that there was a mild pressure in his head. Leaning against something actually did help. A throb seemed to originate somewhere under his cheeks and extend, inexplicably, to the rest of his skull until even his brain felt mildly tender.

Physical pain had been one of those human things he had not particularly welcomed back into his life with open arms. Metal couldn't get cut and bleed. Wax didn't notice if it bumped against something. Human flesh knew pain all too well.

This was a different kind of pain, however. It wasn't sharp, and Lumière could ignore it if he really set his mind to it.

"Lumière, I—oh, there you are." Cogsworth had entered the room, which happened to be one of the smaller dining rooms. Lumière realized belatedly he was supposed to be preparing it for dinner that evening. He shook his head a little, trying to clear it.

Cogsworth frowned at the sight of his counterpart standing in the doorway. "Lumière! What on earth are you doing?"

"Nothing," Lumiere said quickly. Unfortunately for him, he sneezed again just as the Master came in a few seconds behind Cogsworth.

"Bless you. Ah, well, there's work to be done; dinner's in an hour. We can't have you just standing around," said Cogsworth, moving towards the table.

The Master was a little sharper-eyed. "Lumière, is something wrong?"

"I…" suddenly Lumière seemed to be having trouble concentrating. "Sacre bleu, Master, I don't know." He gripped the back of a chair. Two more helpless sneezes forced their way out of him.

Immediately, Prince Alexander had his servant's elbow and was leading him to a small couch out in the hallway. Lumière sank onto it gratefully, noticing Cogsworth hovering in the background as usual.

"Lumière, look at me."

They had all learned to obey when the Master used that tone, no matter what. It was a reflex they had developed before the curse, reinforced while the Master was a Beast. Even now, with a voice issuing from a man's chest and throat, and having developed consideration for his servants thanks in part to his wife Belle, Alexander could be quite commanding when he wished.

"You're white as a sheet," the prince remarked. "How long have you been sneezing?"

"Ah…" Lumière thought back. "Perhaps an hour. Maybe two."

"What else? Pain in your head? Your throat?" Lumiere nodded. He hadn't paid much mind to his throat, but now he noticed it hurt whenever he swallowed.

"What's wrong with me?" Lumière whispered. He felt so strange. Heavy, tired, when normally he was full of sparkle and energy. "I don't understand. This was so sudden…"

"Uh, Lumière…" the prince hesitated. His expression was that of someone who isn't sure whether to laugh or be deadly serious. "I think you're sick."

"Sick?" Lumière and Cogsworth both echoed incredulously.

"Sick," Alexander repeated. "A cold, maybe, though Belle will probably know for sure."

"A cold?" Cogsworth repeated, as if the idea were novel.

"I was sick a few times, even during the curse. Don't you remember the cold I had four years ago? And Belle was sick not too long after she first arrived. She had a fever and had to stay in bed for a few days."

They all looked at each other as they thought this over. The Beast, though an animal, had been flesh and blood. He'd had the ability to become ill. The servants, being objects, had not. So used to the curse, they hadn't even thought about being susceptible to illness once they'd regained human form.

"I…I remember," Lumière finally managed. "I remember being sick as a human. I'd forgotten it felt this way. Of course you are right, Master. How silly we've been."

"Oh my. What do we do?" asked Cogsworth, sounding nervous.

"He needs rest," Alexander said. "Beyond that, Mrs. Potts and Belle will know."

"I shall fetch Mrs. Potts at once!" exclaimed Cogsworth. He left as fast as his legs could carry him.

Alexander and Lumière looked at each other.

"Sick," Lumière repeated. "A cold. Mon Dieu, Master. How could I have forgotten?"

Alexander sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "We've all forgotten so many little things about being human. Ordinary things, that ordinary humans would never even think about."

Lumière managed a weak smile. "I had noticed you've stopped tripping on the stairs quite so often."

"I still hate shoes," grumbled the prince. "I understand the need to wear them, but they're just not as flexible as my bare paws were. Not that I wish them back again," he said with a shudder, glanced at his booted feet.

"I understand perfectly, Master." Normally Lumière would have said more but his throat hurt too much to contemplate it. He sneezed again and rested his head against the wall.

The prince kept him silent company until Cogsworth returned with Mrs. Potts in tow. Mrs. Potts took one look at Lumière, nodded, and put a hand to his forehead. Lumière vaguely remembered his own mother doing something similar when he was ill as a child.

"A little feverish, dear, but not too bad," the matronly older woman said. "Cogsworth says you're sneezing?"

"A headache and sore throat too, Mrs. Potts," added Alexander helpfully.

"Yes, you're going to have a bad cold," said Mrs. Potts. "But I don't think it's the flu. That would be much worse. Off to bed with you. I'll bring you up some soup and a nice, hot cup of tea from the kitchen as soon as I can. You haven't been near the baby, have you?"

Lumière shook his head. "Not in a day or two, I think."

"Good. With some luck we can keep the poor love from catching it. I can't speak for the rest of us. A cold like this can spread quickly through the staff, if I remember."

At that moment, Cogsworth sneezed.

-0-0-0-

Within a few days at least a third of the household had Lumière's cold. Mrs. Potts managed to stay well, which was fortunate, as it was she who knew best how to look after everyone. Of the royal family, Belle also got sick, though she had a mild version. She just sniffled through a day or two and did not get the headache, sore throat and low but incapacitating fever that most of the others had to suffer through. Alexander and their six-month-old baby daughter Guinevere remained healthy. The pair of them disappeared—accompanied by Chip, who also somehow managed to avoid sniffling—for hours out into the gardens both to stay out of the way and keep from getting sick. The three of them came back every day at lunch and dinner covered in dirt, to the exasperation of Belle and Mrs. Potts. They had so much to do taking care of the rest of the staff and making certain the minimal amount of work got done that they couldn't do more than sigh and send the three wayward garden explorers off to wash.

Due to having the dubious honor of being the first to fall ill, Lumière was also one of the first to recover. He made his way to Cogsworth's room the day after Mrs. Potts had deemed him fit to leave his bed. His muscles felt like overcooked noodles, but he was steady enough to wobble down the hall. It felt good to get out of his own room.

"Hello, mon ami," he said, putting his head around the door. "How are you feeling?"

A groan was his response.

"May I come in?"

There was a long silence. At last, Cogsworth's voice grumbled, "If you must."

Taking this as affirmative, Lumière entered. As one of the most senior servants, Cogsworth had a fairly spacious room that was set up for a small amount of casual entertaining should its occupant so desire. Lumière sat down in one of the chairs in the small sitting area near the large fireplace. The figure in the bed across the room groaned again.

"An unexpected downside to humanity, no?" Lumière commented cheerfully. "This business of being sick."

"If you're just going to make obvious statements, Lumière, you can go away and leave me to my misery in peace," growled Cogsworth.

"I, too, had forgotten that even something so small as a bad cold has the power to make you wish you were dead," Lumière said, trying to make peace.

There was another long silence. Cogsworth finally turned over in bed so that Lumière could see his face. There were a few beads of sweat on his heavy face from the fever, and he looked smaller, and older, without his wig. "How could we have forgotten, Lumière?" he asked hoarsely. "You'd think feeling this miserable would be easy to remember even after ten years."

"You'll survive, Cogsworth. I did." Lumière contemplated the fire thoughtfully for awhile. Both he and Cogsworth occasionally sniffled, but the silence was oddly comfortable. Finally, Lumière said, half to himself, "Yet I wouldn't trade the misery of the past few days for another ten years under the curse."

"In that, old friend, we are in complete agreement," Cogsworth replied. Even through the thickness of his voice produced by the cold Lumière could hear he meant it with all his heart.

"For once," the maître'd ribbed companionably. Cogsworth snorted. Or it might have been another sneeze. It was difficult to tell. They didn't speak again, but neither felt much inclination to continue the conversation. Everything that needed to be said had already been spoken.

Author's Note: I hope that ending wasn't too cheesy for you but it seemed like the perfect spot to stop. This came about, as many of my random one-shots do, on an image that floated down to me out of the blue a few days ago, namely of Alexander trying not to laugh as he tells Lumière he has a cold. Something about the idea of the first time the servants got sick after the curse struck me because this mundane and miserable thing we take for granted in our lives would be a milestone of a sort for the castle. It's sort of a cause for them to quietly revel in the absolute human normalcy of a simple head cold.

Also, colds are awful. I don't know about all of you, but I'm one of those people who when I get even a minor cold, it really knocks me off my feet. I think everyone can relate to that feeling of lying in bed, knowing you're eventually going to get better and a cold really isn't a big deal but still secretly wishing God would strike you dead rather than let you suffer any longer.

To everyone who has ever had a cold. Particularly those of you who are currently sick and reading this right now.

SamoaPhoenix9

PS—If I get any reviews telling me Disney named the prince Adam, I refer you to the movie itself. If you can find in the movie proof that the Beast/Prince's name is Adam, I will retroactively go back and change the name in all of my fics that I've written in the Disney Beauty and the Beast universe. Not merchandise or in the parks, it must be in the movie footage itself, from the opening chord to the final word of the end credits. The challenge is open to all of you. However, I know that most people who send those reviews don't read author's notes so I resign myself to at least getting a few reviews starting with the time-honored phrase "I don't know if you know this, but…"