(no subject)

[symphony-muted.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Bridget and David (Maybe Patrick if David calls him)
WHAT: Pregnancy hormones leading to fights and such!
WHEN: Thursday afternoon, after her chirpy post
WHERE: Their apartment
WARNINGS: Just language



Bridget had been in a great mood that morning and she had basically danced around the house watering the plants and singing to the cats who mostly made airplane ears and stalked out of the room immediately. Her pregnancy was definitely showing now, but she had a wonderful husband and a great place to live. She had a part-time job now so money wasn't as tight. And for the first time in a long time, she felt like part of a family.

And then David commented to her that she was going to get bigger in the coming months. He called her fat. Publicly! And he ignored the fact that she had subtly posted that she wanted action on her own journal. He was so selfish! He only thought of his own happiness!

Leaving her laptop behind, Bridget stomped into the kitchen, intending to fix a snack. If her husband thought she was fat she might as well eat tonnes of Nutella toast. Only there was no Nutella in the cupboard. She slammed it shut and yelled, "THERE'S NOTHING TO EAT!"

David looked up from his knitting, concerned. "Did you want me to fix you something?" he called back, getting up to poke his head around the door. "It'd be no trouble, dear." He gave her a smile, but he was a little concerned. She'd started getting moodier lately, and pointing it out didn't seem to help. He just tried to be as helpful as possible.

Bridget turned to face him and she raised her eyebrows at him. "Why, so I can get fatter?" she asked him, as if she hadn't just been looking for a snack. She just knew she was upset and it was all his fault.

David missed that as a glaring warning sign and just looked confused. "No, because you're hungry, aren't you?" he said, sailing right past the "Warning: No Exit" signs.

Bridget crossed her arms then, glaring daggers towards him. "You do think I'm fat!" Bridget stomped past him but halted on her way back to the bedroom. "Is that why you don't want to sleep with me?!"

"What? I never said that," David said, utterly perplexed now, "or that! When did I say either of those things?" He blinked at Bridget in confusion, suddenly realising he was in quicksand and sinking.

Bridget ran her finger through her hair and she groaned loudly. "You did say it! You told me I was going to get even bigger which means you already think I'm fat! And I basically wrote that I wanted to fuck and you offered me tea!" Her voice grew louder and a little more wild with each word.

"Wait... I didn't mean..." David went pale, beginning to fear for his grip on this situation. "No, when did you say... you- you like tea!"

"I don't want goddamn tea!" She hissed back at him. "All I want to do is have sex right now because my body is going crazy because of these babies you put in me! And you're too Saintly to ever fucking notice!"

"Um," he replied, eyes darting around for some clue on how to proceed from here, and winced slightly at the swearing. "I'm sorry?"

He was sorry? He was sorry?! That wasn't good enough. "I shouldn't have to beg you to sleep with me!" she continued, even though she had never had to beg him ever in the history of their relationship. "And you're always so awkward about it. It's just sex!"

David pulled a face at that. "I know..." he wavered, blushing slightly. "I just want to make you happy..."

"Oh augh!" Bridget hissed at him, sounding disgusted. "Don't make me out to be the bad guy! I'm carrying your children!" Bridget held her hands up and then she turned on her heels towards the door. "Fuck this." Grabbing her purse and toeing into some shoes as she went, she left him behind, slamming the door.

She stayed out for quite a long time, non-contactable as she had left her cell phone on her desk.

David had to sit down for a while, completely perplexed about what the heck had just happened. She was mad at him? For not realising she wanted sex. He didn't quite understand, but he sort of thought she might want some space so he didn't go after her.

He waited about for a while, doing some knitting. Then when he made 3 mistakes and it took him a few rows to notice and he had to unpick most of it, he put the wool aside and instead made some tea. Still she didn't come back. He tried calling her, just to check where she'd gone, and her desk buzzed. He frowned. What if she'd fallen down outside? What if she came back when he was out checking? He sat there for ten minutes deliberating, then dashed down the stairs and went around the block, sprinting back the last part and up the stairs, just in case he'd missed her. He hadn't.

Well, in case she came back, he began to make a light dinner, some leek and potato soup with bread. He laid the table but she wasn't back yet and he wasn't hungry, so it went cold in both their bowls. He checked his watch for the thousandth time, and picked up his phone to decide who to call for help.

Bridget walked. She walked and walked and eventually she had to sit down because her back hurt and her ankles felt huge. Some people who passed her, the ones who bothered to look, gave her sympathetic expressions and she scowled at them.

Time wasn't making her feel better and the sky was growing dark. Her stomach growled, reminding her she was eating for three now and eventually she figured she should return home. It was getting chilly too and she didn't want to catch cold when she couldn't take medication for it.

Bridget hailed a cab and she returned home after being out for hours. She walked in the door as David picked up his phone, and she closed it a little loudly, just so he would notice she was there.

"Where have you been!?" David demanded, a little louder than he'd meant to. He put down his phone and stood up, arms folded. Now that she was back and clearly safe, he felt annoyed that she'd made him worry like that. "You can't just go out without your phone like that!"

Bridget, who had been stewing in her own anger for hours with no one to take it out on immediately stepped back from him. "I can take care of myself, Dewi! I'm not a child!"

"I don't care! You can't just leave and not tell me where you're going!" David replied. "What if something had happened to you? You could be anywhere and I wouldn't be able to get there to help you! You couldn't call an ambulance! And it's not like you didn't know I don't like talking about s- intercourse when you married me!"

Bridget was so shocked that David was actually speaking back to her in anger, that she didn't even yell back. And he was worried about her and even though she felt annoyed that he would assume she needed his help, she couldn't yell. Instead she said calmly, "I lived alone for nearly three decades so I'm not used to worrying about it."

And then she realised how ridiculous that sounded next to David's centuries alone. "Oh god," she said, covering her mouth.

David clenched his jaw. "Yeah well, fifteen-hundred years of celibacy was easier than this!" he snapped back, then frowned and looked at the floor and slowly unfolded his arms and held them by his sides. he wasn't quite sure what to do with the weird anger he felt, and it wasn't like he was really angry with Bridget at all. He just realised how fleeting everything was, and didn't want things to move so damn quickly.

Bridget's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. He was yelling at her! And as if she hadn't just been screaming at him quite a lot earlier, she burst into tears with the shock of it.

"Darling, no, hey now, I didn't mean it." David immediately went to her and pulled her into a hug, tucking her in against his shoulder and rubbing her back. "I love you, you know I do. I wouldn't change this for a hundred lives." He sighed. "I'm sorry I said that."

Bridget wrapped her arms around him then, burying her face into his neck. "I'm sorry," she whispered. All her anger had seeped away and now she was just sad and scared and incredibly remorseful. "I didn't mean what I said. I'm just so...I feel so out of control. Please don't leave me? Don't go be a monk again?"

"Of course not. I promised, remember? For better or for worse, in sickness and in health? I won't ever leave you." David hugged her tightly, then kissed her tenderly. "You just have to be a bit patient with me. I can be a bit slow to catch up."

"No! Argh." Bridget grumbled a little, but this time it wasn't at him, it was at her. She sniffled and leaned back, wiping at her eyes. "I'm so sorry I yelled. You're wonderful to me. So wonderful. Sometimes...too wonderful? Sometimes I don't want some tea, I want someone to bitch to who doesn't just calmly say 'God has a plan'. I know you've been here for centuries so you can say things like that, but I have only been alive for a few decades. I can't see God's plan and sometimes when I'm pissed off, I don't want to!

"And look...I love that you bring me tea and put my feet up and bring me hot water bottles. But sometimes I just want you to get naked and distract me that way. Sometimes I don't feel like watching the History channel and sipping English Breakfast. We're going to have two babies soon! I want to enjoy being a newlywed while I can! And- And you don't have to treat me like some fragile, breakable doll or something. I'm not fragile! I can hold my own. Sometimes it's okay to push me up against the wall and kiss the fuck out of me to get me to shut up when I'm like I was earlier! I swear to you, I will like it more than you making me beans on toast and trying to pretend like everything is some 50s version of perfection!"

After realising she had just ranted for rather a long time, Bridget took a long breath and then she gave him an apologetic look. "Heh."

"Oh." David nodded, tried to understand. He supposed it must be difficult for mortals to be able to see the bigger picture. He'd just learned not to sweat the small things, and that had kind of been his motto since he was old enough to form his own ideas. He really did love Bridget though. He wanted to be who she needed him to be.

"Sometimes I wonder if sending me to you was His biggest test for me in a long time. I am just not sure which part is the test." He sighed, rubbing his hand across his face. "I do think about you like that. I do. I dream about you. I just don't always know how to act on it. I feel so selfish in my happiness."

She was exhausted from yelling and walking, so she moved past him to sit on the sofa. Then she sighed and said, "I...I'm not a test, David. I'm your wife. Loving me isn't selfish, it's what you're supposed to do. I know your faith is important to you, of course I do. I have to be important too. Maybe instead of feeling selfish that you're happy you could...I don't know, focus on how I feel. And please don't think I am saying you don't treat me well because you do. I'm just trying to help.

"And maybe," she continued, "you could tell me what you wanted to do to me? Sexually. If you're feeling it, say it. The more you say it, the easier it will be. And I won't feel so incredibly unlovable."

David sighed and stayed standing, worrying at his sleeve. "You are important to me." Had he been too selfish? Was he not considering her needs? He was just so wrapped up in the feeling of happiness that he hadn't been considering that Bridget wasn't just there so he could have her to feel good about.

He sat down next to her and took her hand between both of his. "I don't mean that you aren't something more that that. I'm just so used to thinking in these terms that I... Being a human is not like I thought I remembered. I find it so hard to articulate. With practice... maybe... You are so amazing and I do want you... perhaps we can work out a hand signal?"

With David's suggestion that they work out a hand signal for David to show Bridget he wanted her, she leaned forward into his shoulder so he didn't have to see her laughing. Still, her body and shoulder shook with it and she found it too difficult to keep the laughs silent. They tumbled out of her, breaking the tension at least for a moment. It was a relief to laugh, even if it sounded like half-relief, half-disbelief.

"Oh you precious man," she finally said when she could breathe. She didn't want him to think she was making fun of him so when she finally raised her head, she kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry I made you worry about me, Dewi. I didn't even consider it. I will be more thoughtful next time."

"No no, you have every right to ask what you need of me. How can I be happy if I'm neglecting you? I should trust you to be able to do your own thing." David was absolutely in earnest, however. He didn't mind Bridget laughing, rather, he preferred it to shouting, but he wanted her to know he was sincere. "You aren't unlovable, at all. I don't want you thinking that for a moment."

"And I don't want you thinking you're neglecting me. It's just something we have to work though. And...honestly I think I got so angry because being pregnant makes people crazy. It makes the small things seem like big things. Though I do feel ugly and fat. That's not because of you, it's because I'm getting huge and I'm not used to it."

Bridget took his hand into hers and she kissed it. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you." Then she smiled somewhat whimsically. "How often do you dream about me? And what do I do in the dreams. No hand signals, I want you to tell me."

David went all blustery, trying to find the right words to say. "Um. Um. Well, often. Not always... sexual, but, sometimes. Like, you were in the glasshouse, and..." He trailed off, almost trying to turtle his head down into his neck. "Definitely not ugly, certainly not fat."

"In the glasshouse? On the roof?" she asked, trying to be completely breezy about it to contrast his blustery explanation. "That could be arranged, you know.