Practice Makes Perfect (RPF- James McAvoy)

[Dusty15]

Purple and I wrote this ages ago, inspired by a quote from James McAvoy in which he insinuated that he taught himself to sneeze on cue for his role in "The Last Station". We figured he'd need to practice actually sneezing in order to learn to do it at will. So here's a little fic about a practice session with his wife

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The tools of torture were all laid out on the top of James' dresser: a Q-Tip, a pinch of black pepper, one of Anne-Marie's large makeup brushes, and a tissue with a corner twisted into a point. Squinting at his reflection in the mirror, he surveyed his lumpy nose covered in a spray of freckles with two distinctly larger ones Anne-Marie had affectionately nicknamed 'kissing spots' (good places for planting double kisses!)

He'd been cast in a film about the final years of Tolstoy and in discussions with his director, Michael, James had the idea of implementing a nervous tell-tale tic, much like the tradition of Russian drama (with Chekhov's squeaky shoes, etc). The man on which his part was based already had a supposed tic, apparently, and it caused him to sneeze every time he felt uncomfortable or nervous. Michael had wholeheartedly embraced the idea for the film, so now James was faced with the dilemma of having to sneeze on cue for an entire film shoot.

Most actors would simply fake the sound, but because of the frequency and importance of his character's tic, James wanted to go for as much realism as possible. He figured that if the body could be trained to cry on cue, it could learn to sneeze on cue as well. And so, here he was, faced with as many ways as he could possibly imagine to induce sneezes until he could make his mind do the work on its own.

Contemplating the options before him, he reached for the small packet of black pepper he'd nicked from a take-out restaurant, figuring that if pepper seemed to be the movie cliche that there had to be some truth in it. Tearing off the corner of the paper packet, he emptied a small pile of black and white powder into his palm. With a steady hand, he raised it to his nose and plugged a nostril with one finger, inhaling through the other.

The instantaneous effect wasn't exactly sneezing. A sharp burning shot through his nose and down into his throat as the spicy pepper drained out into his sinuses. Tears leaked from the edge of his eyes as he squeezed them shut and clenched his fists against the painful sensations.

"Ahhh fuck!" he growled as he began to cough. Going red in the face and around his ears, he began to cough in earnest, tears blurring his vision. Stumbling, he turned towards the bathroom. This was not a good start...

Upon hearing James’ exclamation from the other room, Anne-Marie’s first instinct was to chuckle; figuring he had knocked something over, gotten a paper cut, misplaced his phone...the possibilities were endless when it came to the many reasons why James could be swearing.

This time, however, when the outburst was immediately followed by the sound of James beginning to cough, something told her to put down the papers she’d been sorting through in the kitchen and check on him instead.

“James? Are you alright, love?”

Frowning with a bit of concern when she didn’t get a reply (only more coughing), Anne-Marie followed the sound into the bathroom, her level of worrying increasing with each step.

“...James?”

Cupping his hands under the faucet, James gathered a handful of water and slurped a mouthful before splashing the rest on his face. Scrubbing at his nose, he continued to sputter a little as he turned to see Anne-Marie in the doorway looking confused.

"Pepper," he choked between coughs. "Stupid."

With a final vigorous rub under his nose he managed to stop his coughing and wiped his eyes.

"Sorry," he explained with more coherency. "The film...The Last Station? I thought I'd do some experimenting with sneezing work. I can safely say that black pepper is a terrible, terrible idea."

“Oh god,” Anne-Marie sighs, placing her hand on her chest. “You scared me -- I thought you were choking or something...”

With a glance at her husband’s face, she smiled, and slid the box of tissues on the counter towards him.

“Here,” she laughed, more relaxed than she had been moments earlier. “I think I can safely agree that whatever you were trying to do with it was indeed a really terrible idea."

She'd certainly seen James do some some silly (and borderline outrageous) things for the sake of a role before but this, she thought, taking in the situation with a frown of amusement, might very well be the silliest.

"You were doing what?"

He plucked a tissue from the box and pressed it to his nose for a moment before he answered her.

"I'm trying to learn how to sneeze," he explained, fully aware of how strange the statement sounded, but Anne-Marie always understood his compulsion to seek truth in his work, and how was sneezing truthfully any different? "Remember how I explained how I learned to cry on cue in drama school? Lots of practice, right? Well...I'm attempting to sneeze on cue now. Should work the same, right?"

He gave her a very goofy grin that never failed to win her over. The crinkling around her eyes betrayed her rather stern expression as she questioned him about his activities.

"I tried black pepper, thinking it's the old stalwart. Not so much."

“Lots of practice,” she echoed thoughtfully. “...I would think so. I mean, essentially they’re both the same in that your body’s naturally reacting to something.”

She tilted her head a bit as she thought about it. If he could somehow recreate the sensation of needing to sneeze in the same way he could to induce tears...Well, honestly it made sense - enough sense that there couldn’t be no harm in him trying. Although...

“You might want to try something that isn’t going to destroy your sinuses right off,” she suggested with a smile. “I think pepper might be one of those ‘tricks that only work on the telly’ sort of things, anyhow.”

"Do you mean to say that what I see on the telly isn't real?!" James asked in mock outrage.

He dropped his dampened tissue in the nearby waste bin and circled his arms around Anne-Marie.

"Does that mean we're not actually married, then?!" he continued, grinning. "Because I saw a re-run once of this show and I could swear I saw the two of us getting married on telly..."

With a laugh, he ducked his head to press his lips to her neck, running kisses upwards.

"What *kiss* do you *kiss* suggest I try *kiss* instead of pepper?"

"Don't be cheeky," Anne-Marie admonished, reaching up and behind to cradle James' head in her arms. She shivered with delight in response to his kisses and slowly, turned around to face him.

"I have no idea what you could try," she admitted, using her thumb to wipe away a lingering tear from the corner of his eye. "It's not something I've ever really had to think about."

She paused to press a kiss on the tip of his nose and giggled, tapping those kissable freckles with her finger. "Not that usually takes much to get you sniffling."

"Being perpetually sniffly and sneezing on cue are entirely different things, thank you very much," he replied teasingly, wrinkling his nose in a twitchy circle after she kissed it.

She was right; he was certainly used to having a sniffly nose. Plagued since childhood with dry and sensitive nostrils, he was constantly rubbing, poking, pinching, and wriggling his nose, to the point that he cringed seeing himself in interviews and noticing the frequency of the tic. But an itchy, sniffly nose didn't translate to being a sneezy one. Sure, around certain allergens or when sick with a cold he could sneeze a great volume, but he wasn't very sneezy in day-to-day life.

"I have a few tools of torture," he said, inclining his head towards his dresser. "Care to be my assistant then? Keep me out of more trouble?"

Anne-Marie followed his gaze to glance at the so-called 'tools of torture' laid out on their dresser, and raised an eyebrow.

"It would be my pleasure," she replied with mock poshness, before dissolving into a smile. "If it's what you need to do for the sake of a role, of course you know you have my full support."

She picked up the tissue box and held it out pointedly. "I have a feeling you're going to need these as well."

"If we're lucky," James replied, taking the box and setting it on the foot of the bed. "Forgive me, but I stole one of your brushes. I'll buy you a new one next time I'm at Boots if we ruin it."

He held up the soft-bristled makeup brush which still held some remnants of Anne-Marie's ivory-toned powder.

"Can we start gentle?" he asked, pressing the brush into her hand with a cheeky grin. "After the pepper I'm feeling less brave all of a sudden."

He sat on the bed, crossing his legs underneath himself and patting the spot opposite.

"Ready?"

"I should be asking you that," Anne-Marie laughed, settling next to him on the bed and crossing her legs. "I'm not sure how to go about doing this," she admitted, stroking the tip of the brush with her thumb. "You're going to have to tell me what to do," she continued, poking the tip of his nose with the brush.

His nose wrinkled instantly in reaction to the brush poke, but he didn't feel like he needed to sneeze at all.

"Just sorta tickle it, I think?" he said, wriggling his nose with a small twitch before presenting it to her again. "Like back and forth underneath...like they do with feathers in cartoons, right?"

He'd thought about poking a small hole in his pillow to get a feather for the experiment, but he'd spent almost £80 on that pillow and he wasn't about to ruin it. If there was one thing he was willing to spend ridiculous money on, it was bedding. Forget cars and clothes!

"Okay, he instructed Anne-Marie. "Nice, slow strokes."

"Alright..."

Gently, Anne-Marie did as he suggested, tracing down and along the outline of his nostrils with the feathery end of the brush. Resting her free hand on his shoulder, she drew closer to him and focused on the light, repetitive strokes, biting her lip softly in concentration.

"Let me know what I need to do differently," she murmured, glancing up to his meet his gaze. "Or if you need breathing room."

James' eyes squinted as she tickled with the brush, but he felt no urge to sneeze.

"Just feels annoyingly tickly," he said, puffing out his lower lip and blowing a stream of air upwards to ruffle the brush's bristles. "Perhaps we ought to try something else."

With two slim fingers he pinched at his nose and gave it a good rub, massaging the bulbous tip in his hand.

"Maybe the tissue?" he suggested. "Found this on Google. You just roll the corner and sort of tickle the inside of the nostril."

"Ooh, that sounds like it could work," Anne-Marie replied, wrinkling her nose at the ticklish thought. Setting the brush aside, she reached for a tissue and began rolling it between her fingers and into a point. "Since you're the expert then," she teased as she held it up, "How does this look?"

"I'd say perfect but I'm a bit scared," he said with a smile. "Go for it."

He leaned forward and let her put the tissue into his right nostril. His eyes began to water instantly and he resisted the urge to pinch his nose.

"Ahhh-" he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. "This might work...it's really annoying."

The thin paper tissue swirled gently in his nose and he could feel Anne-Marie's eyes watching him.

"God, it must be," Anne-Marie replied, blinking rapidly. "It's making my eyes water just watching you!"

Slowly; carefully; she inserted the tissue the slightest bit further into his nostril and changed the direction in which she was twisting. Removing her hand from his shoulder, she placed it over the hand he was fighting to keep away from his nose and gave it a squeeze.

"Don't focus on making the tickle go away," she murmured, watching him carefully. "That's the complete opposite of what you want to do."

Rotating his palm upwards, he squeezed her hand back (but not too tightly...he'd always loved how delicate her hands were).

"Christ, that tickles!" he moaned. He couldn't help but sniffle wetly as his nose began to run.

"It's not a sneezing tickle though..." he continued as she kept twisting the tissue. "It's more...unpleasant?"

He coughed slightly and wrinkled his nose again, trying to concentrate on embracing the uncomfortable sensation. His nose was now running pretty heavily and the tissue was losing its effectiveness more more wet it became.

Finally he drew his head back and gently guided Anne-Marie's hand away from his face.

"It's not working anymore," he said, now wriggling his nose freely and looking a bit like a twitchy bunny. "Too snotty. Ugh, sorry."

"It's alright," Anne-Marie laughed, watching his facial expressions. Setting the (now useless) tissue on the bed alongside the makeup brush, she smiled back at him. "I can't imagine it feels anything other than unpleasant. I suppose that's the whole point."

Knowing better than to suggest that perhaps this idea of his wasn't going to work, she passed him the box of tissues and nodded towards to the dresser. "Want to try something else, or are you good for now?"

"Get the Q-Tip," he said, taking a tissue and giving his nose a light blow. It definitely felt irritated and maybe the last instrument of torture would do the trick. "Might as well give it my all now that we've started, though if the tissue didn't work then I doubt this will. I might just have to resort to mimicry instead of the real thing if I can't get this to work."

He balled up the used tissue in his fist and tossed a wide shot towards the rubbish bin, missing by a margin.

"Then again, we could take a holiday up to a horse farm. I'd probably be hospitalized by the end of it but I'm certain to get sneezing experience."

If there was one thing that made him sneeze guaranteed, it was horses. To say he was allergic was an understatement...he was desperately allergic to the point of violent sneezing fits (that could eventually escalate to wheezing, etc if he wasn't careful).

"I will sooner call Michael and tell him to re-write the bloody script than have you go to Freightliners Farm for the sake of this role," Anne-Marie replied, without missing a beat. "So, fuck that," she continued, breaking into a grin and retrieving the Q-Tip from the dresser.

She knew her husband well enough to truly understand that when he set his mind to something (especially when that something was for the sake of a role) there was absolutely no going back on it.

“Even if takes all day,” she laughed, “We are bloody well going to make you sneeze.”

"I appreciate the concern for my sinuses," James replied, grinning back at her. "If I can avoid going within a kilometer of a stable I'd like to."

She settled on the bed across from him, armed with the Q-Tip.

"I admire your dedication too," he said, again presenting his nose for further experimentation.

The Q-Tip was just as irritating as the tissue and his sniffling began once more. Biting his lip, he concentrated on the sensation, willing his nose to just give in already, but after a few moments he was getting exasperated with the whole exercise.

"I don't think this going to fuckin' work," he groaned.

"Think positively," Anne-Marie teased. "And stop moving. Tilt your head back a wee bit more."

As he complied, she shifted closer to him on the bed. Watching his face carefully for a reaction, she gently pressed the Q-Tip up and against the inner walls of his nasal cavity -- rotating it the tiniest of circles.

"Anything?," she asked in a hushed tone.

"Ahh!" he moaned, eyes squinting. "Maybe....ahh fuck...that tickles so much!"

He drew his head back involuntarily, shying away from the irritation, but the Q-Tip scraped lightly on the inside of his nasal cavity and in an instant he knew what was coming.

"It's working...it's ahh.....EH'GSGHT!"

A sneeze practically tore out of him with a throaty, loud growl, misting Anne-Marie's hand and forcing his head back down over the still-present Q-Tip, sending his nose into a swelling, irritated mess.

He gripped her hand gently and pulled it away from his face as he stared down at the bedspread, eyes glazed in a strange look of anticipation and dread.

"Oh my god...." he said hoarsely. "I really have to sn....sneeze...ehh-TSGHT! Hehh...tsh'nghtt!"

With a peal of laughter, Anne-Marie pulled away to give James some space. The first sneeze had been so sudden that she had jumped, but she had seen the following two coming in time to move away.

"I'm not sure if I should be impressed or disgusted right now," she admitted, wiping her hand on his jeans. "You're lucky I love you. Bless you."

"Yeesh, thanks," he said, finally surfacing from the small fit and sniffling thickly. His nose was shiny with moisture underneath and he hurriedly grabbed a tissue to wipe it.

"You should be impressed," he said with a cheeky grin. "That was impressive!"

He picked up the Q-Tip with a look of triumph.

"The winner!" he announced in a mock sportscaster voice. "Together they will conquer Valentin whats-his-face! Can he repeat his victory?"

With a steady hand, he put the Q-Tip back into his nose and winked at Anne-Marie as he gave it a little twirl.

The effect was instant.

Urhh-TSGHOO!

"Yessss!"

He pumped his fist in the air with mock glee and sniffled.

"Alright, alright, I'm very impressed," Anne-Marie giggled, clapping her hands together. "But mostly amused. Is this the kind of thing I have to get used to if I'm going to 'work' with you again. Typical McAvoy antics in the form of copious amounts of sneezing?"

After all, The Last Station was to be the first project they would be working on together since those early years of Shameless.

"Now, how do you plan to go from sneezing by Q-Tip to sneezing on cue?," she questioned teasingly. "Keep a stock of them on set at all times?"

"I plan on being off-QTip by the time we're on set," James declared. "You know, like being off book? I'll know all my lines and all my sneezes. So yes, get used to hearing this nose going nuts until I can sneeze on cue. I apologize in advance."

He leaned in and let his nose bump hers for a second before giving her a kiss.

"I'm so glad I'll get some time on set with you. It'll be fun to not have to spend much time apart for awhile. I miss you so much when I'm pulling those twelve hour days or you're in rehearsals."

"It will be a nice change not to miss you all the time," Anne-Marie agreed, tracing her finger along his jawline and finishing with another poke to his nose. "...Off-QTip," she repeated, fighting a smile. "God, I love you and your ridiculous ideas."

Snorting a laugh, he grinned at her as she poked his nose. It still was quite sensitive and he scrunched up his face as a final sneeze built up.

Ehh...gsh'ngxttt!

Stifling the end of the explosion, he pinched his nose and tugged it between his fingertips.

"Excuse me? Ridiculous idea?" he said when the sneezy feeling was past. "It's genius, thankyouverymuch! Look, we're even getting the infamous aftersneeze sneeze!"

Wiping his hands on the bedspread, he then leaned in and circled his arms around her.

"Alright, I'm going to get some practice in. I'll let you get back to your lists or whatever you were doing in the kitchen. Pardon any loud nasal events you're witness to."

"Bless you," Anne-Marie laughed. "Again. And thank you for the warning this time. I'll know not to come running unless I think you're really in trouble. Just...don't do anything silly, and let me know if you need..."

She trailed off with a slight frown and pulled away from his embrace.

It could have been a mere fluke (or perhaps a testament to their empathetic relationship), but either way the following reaction could not be stopped.

...Hnk'NGHshuue!

With a small gasp of surprise, Anne-Marie glanced up from beneath her steepled hands and laughed.

"Oh, god, it’s contagious," she joked, pressing the inside of her wrist to her nose and sniffling softly. "Excuse me!"

"Oh no!" James cried in mock horror. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"

He joined her laughter until they were both flopped on the bed alongside each other, giggling.

Rolling over, he nuzzled his nose against hers, bulbous and crooked against soft and curved.

"I should practice but maybe we can just stay here a bit?" he murmured. "A bit more fun and comfortable than tickling my own nose."

"Fine with me," Anne-Marie replied, a smile on her lips as she pressed them against James'. "And just so you know...you owe me a new makeup brush."

[sassy674]

That's right, that's FOUR jaws dropping! Thank you so much for posting this. If I picked out my favorite parts, I'd basically be quoting the whole thing--this is perfect. Aside from the fantastic McAvoy sneezing, I really loved how you captured his relationship with his wife--they're the sweetest couple ever and this SO could have happened in real life!!! *goes off to die*

[cally]

I......um......... errrrr.........yeah. I'll come back when I have some words that might make sense.

[AngelEyes]

Too cute!

[Shark-hunter]

OMG!! so cute!! I love James Mcavoy to death! Thank you! this is wonderful

[Purple]

Ahhh I shall always love this one!

Thank you all for the lovely feedback as well. Who knows, it might just encourage us to write more!

_{^{And yes that bit at the end was entirely necessary}}

[Wildwood]

This is delicious. Thank you my friend