Chapter Text
It was four fifty-seven AM when King’s eyes abruptly snapped open, as she had been jarred awake by a familiar noise that filled her with a frantic sense of dread.
“Marron?!”
She sprang into a sitting position and felt around next to her; it took a moment but her hand finally found the pudgy feline, who was sitting just inches away with his muscles tensed, making a distinct hacking sound.
“Marron, NO!”
In one swift motion, the bartender snatched the cat in her arms, jumped out of bed, ran the short distance to the bathroom, and tossed her pet several feet away without even turning on the light. He landed on his paws with a heavy thud (she really needed to put him on a diet… again …) before hacking twice more; a sickening noise followed by a wet plop told King that his hairball had come up. Not enthused by the prospect of turning the light on at all, she sighed as she flipped the switch and laid eyes on the disgusting mass her furry friend had just produced.
“Pourquoi est-il si grand?!”
With another sigh, King hurriedly cleaned up the mess, then washed her hands, patted Marron’s head as an apology for literally throwing him, and returned to the comfort of her bed. She settled against the pillows and tried — for several minutes — to get comfortable but made a face as she bunched her pillow up under her head.
She was wide awake.
Slowly, she sat up and ran her hands through her disheveled hair, a little annoyed but not entirely surprised that she couldn’t fall back asleep. Reluctantly, she grabbed her phone from the side table and made her way to the living room while stretching, then took a deep breath… and stopped dead as she realized that not only were her nasal passages completely clear, but, for the first time in days, she could fully smell her plug-in air freshener.
King inhaled deeply, almost shocked that she could even perceive the fresh scent in the first place. Quickly, she resumed her trek to the open living area but instead of moving to her sofa to turn on some mindless newscast, she made a beeline to the dining table, where an unused COVID test sat in its box. With somewhat shaky hands, she picked it up, then turned on the light in the kitchen, bathing the dark apartment in soft, yellow light. Strangely nervous, she went through the motions of swabbing her nose, combining the sample with the fluid, and then dropping the clear mixture onto the little plastic tester, all the while trying not to think of how much she would cry if the test came back positive.
“Okay,” King muttered while setting a fifteen-minute timer on her phone. She placed the gadget on the table and then stared at the test, where the control line had just started to appear in the little window. She swallowed hard and watched for just a moment before deciding that she needed some kind of distraction, as hovering over the damn thing for the next fourteen minutes and change had the potential to truly drive her insane. With that in mind, she forced herself into the living room, where she turned on some music and reclined on the sofa, willing herself to stay put and focus on the melodies coming from the speakers instead of what she would do if there was still a second line. With a soft groan, the bartender shut her eyes, folded her hands over her stomach, and did her best not to think about the timer.
King found herself dozing off, as the song playing (Radiohead’s acoustic version of Creep ) was very relaxing…
Suddenly, a different song was playing and the chime on King’s phone was going off. Startled, she jumped off the sofa, stretched, and then hastily made her way to the table to turn off the alert and check the result, which was…
Negative.
It was negative?!
The Frenchwoman inspected the little piece of plastic from every angle and even used her phone’s flashlight to illuminate the small control window, looking for any trace of the positive line. The window was clear, though, which she almost couldn’t process.
NEGATIVE!!
Quickly, King turned and grabbed another test kit from the nearby counter, tore it open, and, once again, went through the motions of getting a sample. Another fifteen minutes passed, with the second test coming back negative as well.
“Oh my God,” she breathed as the corners of her mouth turned upward. Unable to contain her excitement, she grabbed Marron, who was lying in front of the kitchen doorway, and lifted him into the air.
“Marron! C’est négatif! Je ne suis plus malade!”
With that, she kissed the perplexed feline on the forehead, put him down, plucked her phone from the table, and called Mary, the early hour be damned, as this was a momentous occasion.
“Bb, what’s the matter? What time is —”
“Breakfast!” King interrupted.
“...what?” Mary asked over the sound of fabric rustling, her voice groggy. “What are you —?”
“Do you want to get breakfast?!”
“When you’re better, yeah, but… wait. Wait! Bb, are you —?!”
“It’s negative! I tested negative,” King squealed, unable to hide her excitement.
“Oh my God, that’s great,” Mary replied, her tone easily matching the bartender’s. She paused, and then:
“...but did you really have to call me this early?”
“YES,” King yelled while dashing to her bathroom, where she turned on the shower.
The detective snickered.
“You better be glad that I love you, Céc; otherwise I’d end you for waking me up like this on my day off. What time you wanna go?”
“I’ll pick you up in half an hour! Loveyoubye!”
King ended the call without waiting for Mary to respond, stripped her clothes off, and enthusiastically got in the shower, where she took a moment to bask in the glory of finally being COVID-free. She washed up (being able to fully smell her body wash and hair products again was amazing!) and, for the first time in over a week, picked out clothes suitable for going outside.
Leaving her apartment to see her best friend in person was going to be glorious, though she realized she didn’t really have much to talk about… except the crazy things she had seen online throughout the week. She thought back to Cupcake’s almost bizarrely amicable band interviews, bad fanfiction, hamster breeding, and the dozens of fancam edits she had stumbled across and realized that, maybe, she did have some interesting topics to discuss after all.
Armed with internet trauma and TikTok, King grinned as she gathered her necessities, bid the cat farewell, and finally stepped out of her apartment.