Another mob!au side story. This takes place in the same universe as Kings, Queens, and the Pawns In Between and Luxury. This story may contain mild spoilers for Kings, Queens, and the Pawns In Between.

Addison Jacobs lays in a curled up ball between two chairs in the employee break room. She's pretty sure she still has twenty minutes before she needs to be up to be cheery, peppy, friendly Addy, instead of the Addy that went to bed a little congested and woke up feeling like she had a love affair with death and was suffering the consequences.

The back door opens and she feels the heat of sunlight burning against her face. Addison groans, tucking her face into the chair.

From a few feet away, she hears her manager and close friend, Eliza, ask, "Um, what's wrong with her?"

Her coworker and other close friend, Wyatt, answers with, "She's sick, but if you ask her–"

"I'm fine," Addison grumbles.

She sits up, her head wavering with a wave of lightheadedness and nausea that she barely managed to ignore. But still, she puts on her best game face. "Just a little tired." She scrubs a hand over her face to cover up a sniffle.

"You are definitely sick," Eliza says.

"I've been trying to tell her to go home!"

"I'm fine," Addison reiterates.

Wyatt throws his hands up, frustrated. "You look like crap!" Addison simply rolls her eyes; they've been going back and forth like this since she got there, but she didn't plan on admitting she was too sick to be at work.

Eliza grumbles loudly and Addison looks over, watching her angrily typing on her phone.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm getting Willa to come in early. And letting Zed know you refuse to go home and get better."

"What!"

"You won't listen to us!"

"Zed is not my keeper, and I'm fine!" Addison argues. "I'll just bus tables all day if I have to, but you can't make me go home."

"Addison –"

She growls, actually, physically growls, startling both Eliza and Wyatt. "I feel fine. Trust me, okay?" She starts for the door to the main dining room, intent on working through her opening procedures (or lying down in one of the booths while Eliza and Wyatt aren't looking), but stops and turns back to them with one final thought. "And don't. Tell. Zed."

In Addison's defense, the diner was slow, and Eliza was strict in her duties for today: bussing tables, and only bussing tables. If Addison even so dated as to cough near a patron, she was done.

But Addison wasn't that sick. Sure, the king she stood the more her head would pound, and the tightness in her chest continued to get worse. But she chugged a bottle of DayQuil this morning, and even sat down in one of the empty booths while the diner was slow to calm her racing heart.

Which brings her to now: being shaken away by her boyfriend, Zed Necrodopolis. Seabrook's most infamous character, heir to the Necrodopolis family fortune and the mob throne. And the one person Addison didn't want finding out about her little 'lapse' in health.

"C'mon, Addy, get up," Zed grumbles, tugging on her arm and pulling her up into a seated position.

"I was just…resting my eyes," she rasps.

"Mhm, sure you were."

Addison just rubs the sleep from her already aching eyes. She has no idea how long she was out for, but she really needs to get back to work. Unfortunately, Zed sits down next to her, boxing her into the booth.

"Zed, I'm working," she whines.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "You were knocked out a second ago." She rolls her eyes in response. "And, no offense, baby, but you look like crap."

"I thought you loved me no matter how I look?" She tries to sound flirty and teasing, but with her sore throat it just sounds pathetic.

Still, Zed chuckles. He nudged her shoulder playfully, despite her grumpiness. "I'm just worried about you. Eliza says you're refusing to take the day off."

"I told her not to tell you," she mumbles.

"Well technically, Willa told me." Zed leans over, showing her his phone with his texts to Willa, starting with a picture of her, passed out in the booth.

"Oh…"

"Yeah." He repockets his phone. "Do you wanna tell me what's going on? Why you don't wanna go home?"

Addison frowns. Instead of answering, she leans into his side, hiding away from the world. Zed reached over with his other hand to stroke her hair. "Come on, babe, let me take you home. You can rest up and get back to work as soon as you feel better."

"I can't," she mumbles.

He turns his head, and although she can't see him she can picture his face: his big, brown, caring eyes, staring into her soul, prodding her to open up to him.

She sighs and lifts her head. "It's the twenty-ninth," she says quietly. "And…I'm still short."

His expression shifts, a deep frown filling his gestures. "Addy…"

"I can pay my own rent, Zed."

"But at the expense of your health?" he counters. She clamps up and he continues, "Number one, you spend more time at my place than your own home. And you know you can always ask me for help, no matter how big or small the ask."

"But…"

He cuts her off, knowing what she's going to say before she can say it. "Addy, you know I don't think that. And I don't care what other people think. I know you love me, and I love you. And I'm always around to help you. Even if it's as simple as reminding your stubborn self that you should not be working customer service when you're this sick. I mean, people will complain."

Addison giggles, which quickly turns into a fit of congested coughs. Zed pays her back until she claims her breathing down enough to return to her normal, sickly labored breathing.

Okay, maybe she should go home.

"Come on," Zed says as he slides out of the booth, "I'll take you home. Make you my mom's famous chicken noodle soup."

"You mean the soup we have here."

Zed holds out a hand which she graciously takes, letting him pull her up to her feet.

"Well I make it better 'cause I'm a Necrodopolis. We add a little extra love." He even kisses her temple, then walks her to the break room in the diner.

Addison slides into a chair at the break room table, the same table she'd been laying at that morning when Eliza first found her, and put her head down while Zed went into Eliza's office. She didn't know what he planned on telling her, and frankly, she didn't care. With every passing second, her head grew heavier and heavier.

She vaguely remembers Zed coming back out and taking her outside to his waiting car, but everything after that ends up as a blur.