It took Alaster a couple of days to decide to give the book a try. Part of him wanted to ignore it just because Roger was the person who had given it to him. He was terribly embarrassed by the spell he'd had in Walmart, and mortified that Roger had seen it and bought him a book on pregnancy as a result. It was a sort of “father's guide to pregnancy,” with a picture on the cover of a man and woman grinning maniacally down at what Alaster supposed was the woman's enlarged middle, though it was not in the frame.
Perhaps he never would have read it, but the truth was that it was boring in the apartment and he needed something different to do. Also, he did have questions and he wasn't very good at Google, so the book did seem like a good place to go for answers. He skimmed the Table of Contents first, balking at the chapter about finances and the final chapter, which was about preparing for the “next pregnancy.” Alaster was quite certain that he did not want there to be a next pregnancy. This first one was quite enough.
He decided to start from the beginning, feeling a little overwhelmed by the scope of the book. He didn't read very often. Were you supposed to read the odd little prefaces at the beginning or was it customary to skip over them? He read them, just in case they were important. They made up about about two pages of text, and mainly reassured him of the validity of his feelings and told him what an important part of the pregnancy he was. He felt like this probably wasn't true, Blue was a lot tougher than he was and could handle herself. Mostly, Alaster caused her more bother.
Then he took a break to perk more coffee. There was a plate of brownies on the counter, which Blue had made. Alaster wanted to eat one but he'd noticed he was putting on a bit of weight. He left the brownies undisturbed and took his fresh mug of coffee with him back to the couch and the book.
This was how his sister found him several hours later when she came by to check on him. He was pouring over the book when she came in, his brow creased, and he barely looked up to acknowledge her presence.
“Ana,” he greeted, using his old nickname for her. He'd never been able to quite shake the habit. Plus, he was the only person she allowed to use any form of her old name and this secretly pleased him. Despite everything they'd gone through, they were close. He knew that she always had his back, would do her best to help him even if he didn't deserve it.
“Good afternoon, Alaster,” Fae piped cheerfully as she put a bag on the kitchen table. “I brought you some lunch. Oh, are those brownies?”
Reluctantly, Alaster rose from the couch, his book in hand, and made his way over to the table to inspect what Fae had brought for lunch. He peeked into the reusable shopping back and his nose wrinkled when he discovered that the contents came from the local health food store.
“Please tell me it isn't tofu.”
“Relax, I got you chicken salad,” said Fae, tutting in disapproval at his complaint. “You were just saying the other day that you don't want to eat fast food anymore because you're trying to watch your figure.”
Alaster's cheeks turned red. “I did not bloody well say I was trying to watch my figure. I said I was watching my weight.”
His sister looked over at him as though she could not fathom what the difference might be. Then she seemed to decide it didn't matter and busied herself with looking in the refrigerator for something to drink. At least she hadn't brought any sort of gross herbal tea with her, Alaster thought to himself, as he fished this chicken salad sandwich out of the bag.
Upon closer inspection, he had to admit that it did look like good chicken salad. He put the book down on the table and pulled out a chair.
“What are you reading?” Fae asked, handing him a glass of the lemonade she'd found in the fridge. She tilted her head to the side as she read the title. A smile spread across her face. “Where did you get this?”
“Roger got it for me,” Alaster muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling a bit embarrassed that she'd seen it. “I was just... skimming.”
“I think it's wonderful that you're reading it.” She pressed his arm, smile still in place. “Blue will be thrilled when she finds out.”
If Alaster was being honest, he was kind of hoping that reading the book would help improve his girlfriend's current opinion of him. She hadn't flat out told him that she was disappointed in him, but he could tell that she was. Hell, he didn't blame her. If he was being honest, he was disappointed in himself. Blue was always telling him that the got in his own way, that he'd get more done if he'd just put his mind to it, and he'd never taken her seriously. He'd always just assumed that he was a fuck up and nothing he did could change that.
Maybe that was true and he was hopeless, but he was at the end of his rope here and he had to try something. He couldn't run the risk of Blue realizing that he couldn't get his shit together and leaving him, especially not now that they had a kid – or were about to have a kid – that she'd take with her when she left.
“How is Blue doing?” Fae asked. “Has she been eating well? Is she cutting back on the coffee?”
Alaster glanced at her, arching an eyebrow. “How the bloody hell should I know? She does what she wants. I doubt she's cut back on coffee, though, she can't function without it.”
His sister tutted in disapproval. “You need to talk to her about that! It's not good for the baby. You have to help her take care of herself. What if something happens?”
“What? What could happen?” Alaster sat up a little straighter.
“Well, you know, you just have to be careful. Babies can get sick before they're born. Like, for instance, expecting mothers should never eat raw eggs.”
“Isn't that a thing for everyone? You get food poisoning or something.”
“Salmonella,” corrected Fae. “So, the baby might get salmonella if the mother eats raw egg products while she's pregnant.”
It had never occurred to Alaster that unborn children could get sick just like everyone else. The thought was, frankly, horrifying and his anxiety was soon having a field day with it.
“What if...” He paused, cracked his knuckles, and tried to not feel like an idiot for asking what he was about to ask. “What if something happens to the baby and it, say, uh, dies, what could happen to Blue?”
Fae seemed to realize that she'd introduced a topic that was likely to cause him a great deal of stress, because she walked over and lightly squeezed his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
“Don't worry about it too much, Blue is very healthy and I doubt anything will go wrong,” she tried to reassure him.
“No, see, I need to know if she's going to be alright.” Now that he was thinking about it, Alaster couldn't just stop worrying about it. His anxiety didn't allow for that. “Maybe keeping it was a bad idea, if she could get sick or hurt, it's not worth it.”
“Sweetie, there's always a risk but Blue knows that.” Fae patted his head and sat down at the table. She peered at him, her dark eyes full of concern. “There's no need for you to panic about it. I'm sorry I brought it up, honestly, and your book there is probably going to give you better information than I can. When is Blue's next doctor's appointment? You should go with her, it will help.”
“I don't know.” Alaster stared at her, feeling like an idiot after all, because he didn't have a clue what Fae was talking about but he guessed it did make sense that Blue needed to see a doctor about the pregnancy. They just hadn't talked about it and so Alaster hadn't thought about it.
He was so woefully unprepared for this. Blue probably hadn't bothered to tell him when she was going to the doctor. Maybe she'd gone already and hadn't thought he'd care to know, much less that he'd want to go with her. That was his fault. He'd spent a lot of time over the years convincing other people that he wasn't sentimental or that he didn't care about things, and Blue was less inclined to believe his posturing than most but even she didn't often push him to do things that might make him uncomfortable.
She still treated him like he was damaged, after all these years, and maybe it was true. Maybe he could blame some of his problems on Mummy and Daddy not loving him enough, but mostly, he made problems for himself. He was old enough now to look back on things he'd done in his life and see what a giant asshole he'd been. That didn't mean he was any better at communicating his newfound wisdom to others. He remained rather emotionally inarticulate and he knew it.
“Relax,” instructed Fae. “Don't stress about this. Focus on your breathing, just let it all go. You are going to be fine.”
Alaster hated it when people told him to focus on his breathing, even though he knew that it was a good way of coping when he started to panic. He just hated that his panic was so visible that other people felt like they had to help him avoid a meltdown. And it was always rich, coming from people who didn't deal with it every day. Fae had her own set of struggles but she was not an anxious, neurotic mess like he was.
“I'm already fucking up,” he lamented. “I don't know when her doctor's appointment is. Or, maybe she's had one already and I missed it. In which case, I don't know when the next doctor's appointment is. I'm supposed to know this, aren't I? I'm supposed to be supporting her.”
That was the real problem anyway. He was supposed to be supporting Blue, she was the one who was pregnant, but he didn't even know how to do that because throughout their relationship, she'd always been the one supporting him. She'd been the buffer between him and the rest of the world. Hell, she was probably the only reason he was still alive, and he knew it.
His sister reached out and put her hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles across his shoulder blades. He didn't deserve Fae's affection, never had deserved it, but she always gave it to him anyway.
“I know you've probably got ideas in your head about what's expected of you as a man in this situation,” she said. “But you and Blue will figure things out between the two of you, and you will learn to help her where she needs you. You don't have to be the perfect boyfriend. Blue loves you for who you are, warts and all.”
“Maybe she shouldn't,” Alaster muttered. “I've caused her nothing but trouble for years.”
“She loves you. Trust me, she's happy with you.” Fae gave him a sad smile. “Maybe she worries that you don't take proper care of yourself but she doesn't want to change you. To her, you are the most important person in her life and she wouldn't have it any other way, I promise you.”
The book on fatherhood sat innocently on the table near Alaster's hand and he focused on it, trying to relax as Fae had told him to do. He knew, of course, that Blue loved him. He'd long ago come to the conclusion that was the only reason she could have for staying with him so long. But that didn't mean that she wouldn't be better off without him to worry about all of the time.
Besides, Fae only knew this about Blue because the two of them talked about him all the time and he hated that worse than he hated being told to focus on his breathing. They treated him like he was all of five years old and he knew that neither of them actually believed that he was ready to be a parent. If nothing else, they could at least be honest with him.
“I am a worthless piece of shit and if she was smart she'd have figured that out by now,” he sneered, not because he thought Blue wasn't smart, but because he was in a habit of saying rude, horrible things about other people when he felt insecure. Or bored. Or any time, really.
To say that Fae was unimpressed with this would have been an understatement. She drew back her hand and looked at him the way she always looked at him when he'd done something to disappoint her, which was frequent enough but nowhere near as common as it had been five years ago.
“So what are you going to do to make things better?” she challenged him. “You said it yourself that you feel like you're the problem. There was a time when I would have just agreed with you and never fussed at you for it. I would have just assumed you couldn't do better, but you and I both know that's not true. You can fix things if you try.”
Hunching his shoulders, he looked away from her, ashamed of himself. “And how do I do that, exactly?”
Fae tapped the cover of the book on fatherhood. “Well, I think you can start by reading this book.”
–
The next morning, when Blue woke up to the beeping of her alarm, she found herself alone in bed. This was a highly unusual occurrence, as Alaster was not generally an early riser, and when it did happen, it usually meant that he hadn't come to bed at all and had fallen asleep on the couch. She was certain, however, that he'd gone to bed with her the night before. She sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and turned off the alarm. Then she rose and shuffled out of the bedroom, still dressed in the sweatpants and tank-top that she usually slept in.
Light assaulted her eyes when she left the bedroom. Alaster had the lights on in the entirety of the rest of the house and she found him at the kitchen table, which was covered with the edible contents of their kitchen cabinets. He was reading the back of a box of crackers with intent.
“Al, honey,” she grumbled as she walked over to him. “What in the ever loving world are you doing?”
Alaster glanced up at her for just a moment before returning his attention to the box of crackers. “I'm checking all of our food for caffeine content.”
“What?” Blue frowned, confused. “Are we outta coffee?”
“It's not for me,” her boyfriend snapped. “You can't eat anything that has caffeine in it.”
“I don't think crackers have caffeine in them,” said Blue, putting her hands on her hips.
“You never know, the book says they put it in food now,” Alaster replied. However, he seemed to have come to the conclusion that the crackers were clean, so he set them aside and reached for a box of uncooked pasta.
Of course, Blue had already started monitoring her caffeine intake. It wasn't easy, because she relied on the stuff nearly as much as Alaster did, and she'd been crankier as a result, but she'd reduced the amount she consumed by a large margin. At present, she was having one cup in the morning and one cup in the evening, and drinking decaf when the urge for a cup of coffee hit her any other time.
“You gonna put all this back when you're done?” she wanted to know, because he'd made a big mess and she didn't feel like cleaning it up before she went to work. She wasn't in a great mood this morning either, and she was feeling a bit nauseous. Thus far, she had escaped morning sickness, but she thought it was catching up with her now.
His response was a “hmm” that she assumed meant “yes,” but didn't look back up from what he was doing. She sighed and decided to leave him to it while she showered and got ready for work.
The book he'd mentioned, the one he'd been reading when she came home yesterday evening, was lying on the coffee table and she glanced at it. Roger had told her about purchasing it for Alaster through text messages. Al's little spell in Walmart had freaked their roommate out pretty bad. He'd been nervous to leave Alaster at home in the apartment alone afterward, but Blue had assured him that Al would be alright.
Still, she was surprised that Alaster was reading the book. He didn't read, usually. He preferred television. She'd always found this odd about him, because he was an exceedingly intelligent person, despite not being a reader, even though he didn't think that he was.
Maybe he didn't read because he'd convinced himself that he wasn't a reader. Well, it didn't much matter anyway. Blue enjoyed reading but that didn't mean that Alaster had to share her passion. They were very different from one another.
Her stomach churned and cramped and she had to clap a hand over her mouth for fear of being sick on the floor. Alaster didn't seem to notice so she made a dash for the bathroom, where she proceeded to vomit into the toilet. There was very little to actually vomit up, so it ended up being mostly dry heaving that produced small amounts of stomach acid and made her stomach cramp further.
This was the start, she reckoned. Better late than never, the saying went, but Blue could have done without morning sickness overall. Why did nature see fit to make pregnancy so uncomfortable?
She wasn't sure how long she remained crouched over the toilet bowl, but it must have been a while. Presently, she heard the bathroom door creak open and she looked up to see Alaster peering in at her.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, scowling. He had eyes, couldn't he see for himself that she was sick?
“Oh. Is it...” He trailed off and waved his hands around, seeming to indicate his own abdomen. “You know, is it because of the kid?”
Blue rolled her eyes, and then was sick again and had to return her attention to the toilet.
“That sounds terrible. Can I get you, um, can I get you anything?”
“No,” Blue muttered between heaves. “Thanks anyway.”
“Oh. Alright then.” He backed out of the bathroom and closed the door, which didn't surprise Blue at all. He didn't handle sick people very well. Poor thing had a weak stomach. She smirked, imagining how grossed out he probably was by all of this.
The door abruptly opened again and he stepped back inside. She looked at him questioningly and he looked uncomfortable, as though he wasn't sure why he'd come back or what he was supposed to do now that he'd done so.
He looked around, spotted the step stool they both used to reach the highest shelf in the medicine cabinet, and dragged it over beside her before sitting down on it.
“I think I should be here,” he said, much to her surprise. “For solidarity.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, “is watching me puke gonna make you puke?”
Alaster looked a bit green even as he considered her question. “No, I don't think so. At least, I'm bloody well going to try and avoid it. You're the one who's pregnant, I think I can tolerate listening to you make those awful retching noises. God, you sound awful though, like you're dying. I can hear you from the kitchen, so it's not like I'm going to avoid hearing it if I'm not in the room with you.”
“Serves you right,” she said. “This is all your fault.”
“How do you figure? I was led to believe that you were taking care of the not having children bit.”
She groaned, both because he was right and because the nausea had yet to pass.
“Fuck, yeah, I know,” she moaned, clinging to the toilet and hoping for respite soon. “I just forgot to take the pill here and there. Not, like, days in a row but being inconsistent with it is a bad idea. Work had me distracted. I knew better though. I'm sorry Al, I've gotten us both in a big mess.”
To her surprise, his expression softened and he reached out to catch a loose strand of her hair and smooth it back from her face.
“Don't apologize. I said I wanted to keep it, didn't I?” He looked more determined than she'd ever seen him while sober. Normally, it took a few beers to get him to be this open with her. “Don't ever apologize to me for having my kid. If anything, I should be apologizing to you.”
His fingers brushed her cheek and she sighed, leaning into the touch. It was strange, being comforted by him. It was usually the other way around. Not that she minded taking care of him.
“Nah, Al,” she murmured. “You don't need to apologize to me. Not for nothing. We're good together, ain't we?”
“Yes,” he agreed, stroking her cheek. “Better than good, I think. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without you.”
Blue had a pretty good idea of what he'd do without her. There was no way she was ever going to test that theory, either. No matter what, she knew that if he wasn't in her life, she'd spend the rest of it wishing that he was. Beyond that, nothing really mattered.
“Feeling better?” he asked when her heaving seemed to have subsided.
“Mm hmm,” she replied. She was worn out now and she wished she didn't have to go to work so she could stay home and cuddle with him. He seemed to be in a cuddly mood and that wasn't common, so it was a shame she couldn't take advantage of it. “I gotta take a shower and go to work.”
“You could call in sick,” he suggested. “I mean, it's not like you're not sick.”
With a sigh, she pushed herself back up on her feet and flushed the toilet. “It's gonna be like this for a while, can't exactly call in every time I get morning sickness. I can cope. It shouldn't bother me much more today.”
Alaster rose from the stool but seemed reluctant to leave the bathroom. His face was pinched with unhappiness.
“If I had a job, you could quit yours,” he said. He avoided meeting her gaze as he said this. “You shouldn't have to keep working when you're sick and I'm perfectly healthy. I know you think I can't handle it but I could find something, I could make it bloody work if I really tried.”
She wondered if she was right to insist that he didn't need a job. It wasn't that she wanted to foster dependency in him, not at all, but they'd been through this before and it never went well. He always started jobs focused and determined, but when a downswing hit him, it always fell apart. The bar tending job had been a real disaster that had nearly sent him spiraling back into alcoholism. She supposed to was evidence of how much he'd matured that he'd managed to dig himself back out of that one with a little help from her.
The fact of the matter was that Alaster was not “perfectly healthy,” because he suffered from mental illness and it was not “all in his head” like most people seemed to believe. It was a very real and physical malady that he lived with every day. Blue watched him struggle with it, she knew that at times it nearly overwhelmed him. Still, Alaster wanted to believe it was something that he could change if he just decided to do so. Maybe that made him feel like he had some control over it.
“Look, it's just a little nausea in the mornings,” she told him, fishing in the medicine cabinet for the bottle of mouthwash kept there. Being sick had left an awful taste in her mouth. “I can handle it, you don't need to worry about it. If you wanna help me, babe, just focus on taking care of yourself. Maybe keep the apartment clean, that would be nice. I can handle the rest of it.”
Alaster's expression darkened and his came up to cross over his chest, a sure sign that he was feeling vulnerable. Instead of saying anything else and risking his good mood, Blue took a swig of mouthwash and started swishing it around in her mouth, trying to clean out the remnants of stomach acid that lingered on her tongue and teeth.
“So I should let you handle it because you think that I can't handle it,” said Alaster, his tone accusatory. “Isn't that right?”
Blue shrugged and pointed to her mouth, indicating that she couldn't speak because of the mouthwash.
“You treat me like a child,” he said, for the millionth time in their relationship. “I'm a grown man, I should be able to provide for my pregnant girlfriend.”
Spitting out the mouthwash, Blue said, “you do provide for me, darling. Every evening, I come home from work and you're here waiting for me. Plus, you're great in bed. I'm happy with the way things are.”
Her boyfriend scoffed, as though he didn't believe her for a minute. “Yes, so happy that you want me to talk to a bloody shrink so I can get my head on straight before there's a baby to take care of.”
“Al, I want you to talk to somebody because I want you to feel better,” Blue tried to explain as she took out her toothbrush and squirted some toothpaste onto it. “Yeah, I think it would be better for you to start doing that before the baby gets here. That's because when the baby is born, I'm gonna need you to take care of her most of the time. I'll still have to work, so you gotta pick up the slack for me. It's an important job, and I'm trusting you with it. You get me?”
He looked small, pressing himself back against the bathroom wall as though he wanted to melt into it and disappear. She hated being responsible for that look. It made her feel like a villain when all she wanted to do was make him better.
She stuck her toothbrush in her mouth and tried not to feel like the bad guy.
“I'm trying,” he said, and he sounded frustrated. “I'm trying to do the right thing, to be better for the kid, but it's hard.”
“Mm hmm,” she said through a mouthful of toothbrush. She hoped the look on her face conveyed that she believed him. Whatever else he was, he wasn't a liar. If he said he was trying then he was, no matter if it seemed like it or not.
“I don't want to see a shrink,” he continued. “I'm not crazy. You know that, right? I'm not crazy, I'm sane and I don't need my head examined.”
Blue spat out toothpaste and said, “You're not crazy. Doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to a professional. You could try it, for me. If you give it a real shot and it doesn't work, I won't bother you about it anymore. I just want you to be okay, Al. That's all. Everyone needs a little help sometimes.”
“I don't see how it would help!” Alaster snapped. She could see his reflection in the bathroom mirror and he was scowling down at the linoleum. “How is talking about it going to help? They'll want to talk about Aster and all of it. I lived it, I don't want to relive it. It's in the past, it's gone, digging it all back up isn't going to help anyone.”
“What if I tried it too?” she asked. “Or I could try it first and then tell you what it's like. Would that make you feel better?”
If the look on his face was anything to go by, it seemed that Alaster did not think this would make him feel better. He'd been stubbornly against seeing a psychiatrist since they'd been together. Even when his sister told him about her positive experiences with it, he'd still refused to try it. Apparently, it wasn't any more likely now just because they were having a baby.
That wasn't entirely fair of her and she knew it. Alaster was very nervous about having someone else in his head. He didn't want to be that vulnerable around someone he didn't even know. She knew this but she couldn't help but think that he'd be better off if he talked to someone about his anxiety, at least.
“There's anxiety medication,” she said, and Alaster's scowl became more pronounced. Before she could say another word, he stormed out of the bathroom.
Well, it wasn't like it was the first time he'd ever stormed out on her and it wouldn't be the last. Blue finished up brushing her teeth and set about taking a shower.
Sometime later, after she'd dressed and braided her hair, she headed back into the kitchen for her first cup of coffee for the day. Her carefully allotted cup of coffee, one of only two she could have in a day. But Alaster was standing near the coffeepot when she walked in and he moved so that he was standing in front of it when she walked towards it.
“You can't have caffeine,” he said, glaring at her like she'd committed a grave crime.
“I can have some coffee,” she insisted. “Al, come on, enough. I gotta go to work, I need coffee.”
“You don't get to lecture me about seeing a shrink when you won't even cut out caffeine for the sake of our child,” Alaster declared, turning up his nose. “The book says there's no benefits at all to drinking caffeine while pregnant and you should cut it out entirely.”
“The benefits of me drinking coffee while pregnant are that I might not strangle the life outta you. Step away from the coffee pot.”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest and refused to move.
“How would you feel if I did this to you?” Blue demanded. “Don't you know it's cruel to deny another person their morning coffee?”
When he remained unmoved at this, she sighed and threw up her hands. “Alright, no coffee for me, fine. But I want you to know you're being silly.”
Of course, she wasn't in a good mood at all now. She turned her attention to the fridge, although she still felt a little sick and wasn't keen on eating anything if it meant she was just going to vomit again. She knew she needed to eat anyway, and she also knew that breakfast was one of only two meals Alaster ate on any given day.
When she took out the carton of eggs, Alaster intercepted her on her way to the stove and took it from her.
“I can make breakfast,” he said.
This caused Blue to raise one eyebrow at him skeptically. “You? Cook?”
“Well, it's not going to be a bloody masterpiece,” he grumbled. “But I can cook, you know. A little. I can fry eggs.”
She raised her hands in surrender and backed away. “Alright, be my guest. It's a nice change.”
It was probably the smell of smoke that got Roger out of bed a little while later. Blue had, at that point, thrown a dishtowel over the smoke alarm in the kitchen to keep Alaster's cooking from setting it off. Roger wandered into the kitchen, seeming disoriented. He squinted at the sight of Alaster in front of the stove, frying eggs.
“Have I stumbled into an alternate dimension or is Alaster cooking?” he asked, wrinkling his nose as he inhaled the smoke rising from the skillet. Alaster had thus far burned every egg to a crisp, and broken the yolks besides. There was an unappetizing plate of them set out on the table.
Blue was picking at her own plate, where she'd covered her overdone breakfast in salt and pepper, though the seasoning did not seem to help them.
“I don't know what's gotten into him,” she told Roger. “I'm just going along with it in case he's sleepwalking or something. They say you shouldn't wake them up if that happens, you know?”
Alaster sent her a dirty look as he finished up the last two eggs, which had probably been finished for several minutes now, in all actuality. Putting the skillet on a back eye, he turned off the eye he'd been using and took a seat at the table, shoveling some of the eggs onto his own plate.
“Wow, this looks...” Roger trailed off and forced a smile. “Thanks, Al, really.”
The tall man served himself two of the eggs, then stared at them for a long moment before getting up to fetch the bottle of ketchup out of the fridge.
Alaster's lips curled in disgust as he watched Roger squirt ketchup on his eggs. He started purposefully eating his own eggs, chewing and swallowing in quick succession to get it over with.
It was all too much. Blue started to chuckle under her breath and soon it had grown to outright laughter. She put a hand over her mouth as she laughed, trying and failing to contain it.
“Stop that!” Alaster insisted, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “It's not funny!”
“Oh, Al, sweetie.” She reached a hand out to him, grasping his arm. She couldn't stop giggling. “I'm so sorry, it's just that you're a really bad cook. You don't need to do this for me, you know? It's very sweet of you to try, though, it really is.”
He looked so disappointed, Blue couldn't help but lean over and kiss him. She'd always been a sucker for that moody scowl of his. On anyone else, she would have found it unattractive, but he was different. He had always been different.
“I have to go to work,” she said, rising from the table. She leaned down and gave him another kiss, this one on the cheek. “I'll see you this evening, darling. Be good, alright?”
Looking over at her roommate, she added, “See you later, Rog.”
“Later,” Roger agreed, between mouthfuls of ketchup-covered egg.
Alaster followed her to the door, rather resembling a lost puppy. Blue kissed him again, just for good measure.
“I know you're trying,” she told him, making sure to keep her voice down so Roger wouldn't overhear. “Forget about the psychiatrist thing, alright? Everything is going to be fine and you're doing great.”
“Don't coddle me,” he said. “Breakfast was a disaster.”
She laughed again because she couldn't help herself, and she reached out to ruffle his hair.
“When are you gonna get it through your pretty little head that I love you the way you are?” she asked him.
The ghost of a smile crossed his face and he shrugged. “Love you too,” he mumbled, barely audible.
It was more than good enough for her. With a final, lingering gaze into his too blue eyes, she drew away.
TBC
Perhaps he never would have read it, but the truth was that it was boring in the apartment and he needed something different to do. Also, he did have questions and he wasn't very good at Google, so the book did seem like a good place to go for answers. He skimmed the Table of Contents first, balking at the chapter about finances and the final chapter, which was about preparing for the “next pregnancy.” Alaster was quite certain that he did not want there to be a next pregnancy. This first one was quite enough.
He decided to start from the beginning, feeling a little overwhelmed by the scope of the book. He didn't read very often. Were you supposed to read the odd little prefaces at the beginning or was it customary to skip over them? He read them, just in case they were important. They made up about about two pages of text, and mainly reassured him of the validity of his feelings and told him what an important part of the pregnancy he was. He felt like this probably wasn't true, Blue was a lot tougher than he was and could handle herself. Mostly, Alaster caused her more bother.
Then he took a break to perk more coffee. There was a plate of brownies on the counter, which Blue had made. Alaster wanted to eat one but he'd noticed he was putting on a bit of weight. He left the brownies undisturbed and took his fresh mug of coffee with him back to the couch and the book.
This was how his sister found him several hours later when she came by to check on him. He was pouring over the book when she came in, his brow creased, and he barely looked up to acknowledge her presence.
“Ana,” he greeted, using his old nickname for her. He'd never been able to quite shake the habit. Plus, he was the only person she allowed to use any form of her old name and this secretly pleased him. Despite everything they'd gone through, they were close. He knew that she always had his back, would do her best to help him even if he didn't deserve it.
“Good afternoon, Alaster,” Fae piped cheerfully as she put a bag on the kitchen table. “I brought you some lunch. Oh, are those brownies?”
Reluctantly, Alaster rose from the couch, his book in hand, and made his way over to the table to inspect what Fae had brought for lunch. He peeked into the reusable shopping back and his nose wrinkled when he discovered that the contents came from the local health food store.
“Please tell me it isn't tofu.”
“Relax, I got you chicken salad,” said Fae, tutting in disapproval at his complaint. “You were just saying the other day that you don't want to eat fast food anymore because you're trying to watch your figure.”
Alaster's cheeks turned red. “I did not bloody well say I was trying to watch my figure. I said I was watching my weight.”
His sister looked over at him as though she could not fathom what the difference might be. Then she seemed to decide it didn't matter and busied herself with looking in the refrigerator for something to drink. At least she hadn't brought any sort of gross herbal tea with her, Alaster thought to himself, as he fished this chicken salad sandwich out of the bag.
Upon closer inspection, he had to admit that it did look like good chicken salad. He put the book down on the table and pulled out a chair.
“What are you reading?” Fae asked, handing him a glass of the lemonade she'd found in the fridge. She tilted her head to the side as she read the title. A smile spread across her face. “Where did you get this?”
“Roger got it for me,” Alaster muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling a bit embarrassed that she'd seen it. “I was just... skimming.”
“I think it's wonderful that you're reading it.” She pressed his arm, smile still in place. “Blue will be thrilled when she finds out.”
If Alaster was being honest, he was kind of hoping that reading the book would help improve his girlfriend's current opinion of him. She hadn't flat out told him that she was disappointed in him, but he could tell that she was. Hell, he didn't blame her. If he was being honest, he was disappointed in himself. Blue was always telling him that the got in his own way, that he'd get more done if he'd just put his mind to it, and he'd never taken her seriously. He'd always just assumed that he was a fuck up and nothing he did could change that.
Maybe that was true and he was hopeless, but he was at the end of his rope here and he had to try something. He couldn't run the risk of Blue realizing that he couldn't get his shit together and leaving him, especially not now that they had a kid – or were about to have a kid – that she'd take with her when she left.
“How is Blue doing?” Fae asked. “Has she been eating well? Is she cutting back on the coffee?”
Alaster glanced at her, arching an eyebrow. “How the bloody hell should I know? She does what she wants. I doubt she's cut back on coffee, though, she can't function without it.”
His sister tutted in disapproval. “You need to talk to her about that! It's not good for the baby. You have to help her take care of herself. What if something happens?”
“What? What could happen?” Alaster sat up a little straighter.
“Well, you know, you just have to be careful. Babies can get sick before they're born. Like, for instance, expecting mothers should never eat raw eggs.”
“Isn't that a thing for everyone? You get food poisoning or something.”
“Salmonella,” corrected Fae. “So, the baby might get salmonella if the mother eats raw egg products while she's pregnant.”
It had never occurred to Alaster that unborn children could get sick just like everyone else. The thought was, frankly, horrifying and his anxiety was soon having a field day with it.
“What if...” He paused, cracked his knuckles, and tried to not feel like an idiot for asking what he was about to ask. “What if something happens to the baby and it, say, uh, dies, what could happen to Blue?”
Fae seemed to realize that she'd introduced a topic that was likely to cause him a great deal of stress, because she walked over and lightly squeezed his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
“Don't worry about it too much, Blue is very healthy and I doubt anything will go wrong,” she tried to reassure him.
“No, see, I need to know if she's going to be alright.” Now that he was thinking about it, Alaster couldn't just stop worrying about it. His anxiety didn't allow for that. “Maybe keeping it was a bad idea, if she could get sick or hurt, it's not worth it.”
“Sweetie, there's always a risk but Blue knows that.” Fae patted his head and sat down at the table. She peered at him, her dark eyes full of concern. “There's no need for you to panic about it. I'm sorry I brought it up, honestly, and your book there is probably going to give you better information than I can. When is Blue's next doctor's appointment? You should go with her, it will help.”
“I don't know.” Alaster stared at her, feeling like an idiot after all, because he didn't have a clue what Fae was talking about but he guessed it did make sense that Blue needed to see a doctor about the pregnancy. They just hadn't talked about it and so Alaster hadn't thought about it.
He was so woefully unprepared for this. Blue probably hadn't bothered to tell him when she was going to the doctor. Maybe she'd gone already and hadn't thought he'd care to know, much less that he'd want to go with her. That was his fault. He'd spent a lot of time over the years convincing other people that he wasn't sentimental or that he didn't care about things, and Blue was less inclined to believe his posturing than most but even she didn't often push him to do things that might make him uncomfortable.
She still treated him like he was damaged, after all these years, and maybe it was true. Maybe he could blame some of his problems on Mummy and Daddy not loving him enough, but mostly, he made problems for himself. He was old enough now to look back on things he'd done in his life and see what a giant asshole he'd been. That didn't mean he was any better at communicating his newfound wisdom to others. He remained rather emotionally inarticulate and he knew it.
“Relax,” instructed Fae. “Don't stress about this. Focus on your breathing, just let it all go. You are going to be fine.”
Alaster hated it when people told him to focus on his breathing, even though he knew that it was a good way of coping when he started to panic. He just hated that his panic was so visible that other people felt like they had to help him avoid a meltdown. And it was always rich, coming from people who didn't deal with it every day. Fae had her own set of struggles but she was not an anxious, neurotic mess like he was.
“I'm already fucking up,” he lamented. “I don't know when her doctor's appointment is. Or, maybe she's had one already and I missed it. In which case, I don't know when the next doctor's appointment is. I'm supposed to know this, aren't I? I'm supposed to be supporting her.”
That was the real problem anyway. He was supposed to be supporting Blue, she was the one who was pregnant, but he didn't even know how to do that because throughout their relationship, she'd always been the one supporting him. She'd been the buffer between him and the rest of the world. Hell, she was probably the only reason he was still alive, and he knew it.
His sister reached out and put her hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles across his shoulder blades. He didn't deserve Fae's affection, never had deserved it, but she always gave it to him anyway.
“I know you've probably got ideas in your head about what's expected of you as a man in this situation,” she said. “But you and Blue will figure things out between the two of you, and you will learn to help her where she needs you. You don't have to be the perfect boyfriend. Blue loves you for who you are, warts and all.”
“Maybe she shouldn't,” Alaster muttered. “I've caused her nothing but trouble for years.”
“She loves you. Trust me, she's happy with you.” Fae gave him a sad smile. “Maybe she worries that you don't take proper care of yourself but she doesn't want to change you. To her, you are the most important person in her life and she wouldn't have it any other way, I promise you.”
The book on fatherhood sat innocently on the table near Alaster's hand and he focused on it, trying to relax as Fae had told him to do. He knew, of course, that Blue loved him. He'd long ago come to the conclusion that was the only reason she could have for staying with him so long. But that didn't mean that she wouldn't be better off without him to worry about all of the time.
Besides, Fae only knew this about Blue because the two of them talked about him all the time and he hated that worse than he hated being told to focus on his breathing. They treated him like he was all of five years old and he knew that neither of them actually believed that he was ready to be a parent. If nothing else, they could at least be honest with him.
“I am a worthless piece of shit and if she was smart she'd have figured that out by now,” he sneered, not because he thought Blue wasn't smart, but because he was in a habit of saying rude, horrible things about other people when he felt insecure. Or bored. Or any time, really.
To say that Fae was unimpressed with this would have been an understatement. She drew back her hand and looked at him the way she always looked at him when he'd done something to disappoint her, which was frequent enough but nowhere near as common as it had been five years ago.
“So what are you going to do to make things better?” she challenged him. “You said it yourself that you feel like you're the problem. There was a time when I would have just agreed with you and never fussed at you for it. I would have just assumed you couldn't do better, but you and I both know that's not true. You can fix things if you try.”
Hunching his shoulders, he looked away from her, ashamed of himself. “And how do I do that, exactly?”
Fae tapped the cover of the book on fatherhood. “Well, I think you can start by reading this book.”
–
The next morning, when Blue woke up to the beeping of her alarm, she found herself alone in bed. This was a highly unusual occurrence, as Alaster was not generally an early riser, and when it did happen, it usually meant that he hadn't come to bed at all and had fallen asleep on the couch. She was certain, however, that he'd gone to bed with her the night before. She sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and turned off the alarm. Then she rose and shuffled out of the bedroom, still dressed in the sweatpants and tank-top that she usually slept in.
Light assaulted her eyes when she left the bedroom. Alaster had the lights on in the entirety of the rest of the house and she found him at the kitchen table, which was covered with the edible contents of their kitchen cabinets. He was reading the back of a box of crackers with intent.
“Al, honey,” she grumbled as she walked over to him. “What in the ever loving world are you doing?”
Alaster glanced up at her for just a moment before returning his attention to the box of crackers. “I'm checking all of our food for caffeine content.”
“What?” Blue frowned, confused. “Are we outta coffee?”
“It's not for me,” her boyfriend snapped. “You can't eat anything that has caffeine in it.”
“I don't think crackers have caffeine in them,” said Blue, putting her hands on her hips.
“You never know, the book says they put it in food now,” Alaster replied. However, he seemed to have come to the conclusion that the crackers were clean, so he set them aside and reached for a box of uncooked pasta.
Of course, Blue had already started monitoring her caffeine intake. It wasn't easy, because she relied on the stuff nearly as much as Alaster did, and she'd been crankier as a result, but she'd reduced the amount she consumed by a large margin. At present, she was having one cup in the morning and one cup in the evening, and drinking decaf when the urge for a cup of coffee hit her any other time.
“You gonna put all this back when you're done?” she wanted to know, because he'd made a big mess and she didn't feel like cleaning it up before she went to work. She wasn't in a great mood this morning either, and she was feeling a bit nauseous. Thus far, she had escaped morning sickness, but she thought it was catching up with her now.
His response was a “hmm” that she assumed meant “yes,” but didn't look back up from what he was doing. She sighed and decided to leave him to it while she showered and got ready for work.
The book he'd mentioned, the one he'd been reading when she came home yesterday evening, was lying on the coffee table and she glanced at it. Roger had told her about purchasing it for Alaster through text messages. Al's little spell in Walmart had freaked their roommate out pretty bad. He'd been nervous to leave Alaster at home in the apartment alone afterward, but Blue had assured him that Al would be alright.
Still, she was surprised that Alaster was reading the book. He didn't read, usually. He preferred television. She'd always found this odd about him, because he was an exceedingly intelligent person, despite not being a reader, even though he didn't think that he was.
Maybe he didn't read because he'd convinced himself that he wasn't a reader. Well, it didn't much matter anyway. Blue enjoyed reading but that didn't mean that Alaster had to share her passion. They were very different from one another.
Her stomach churned and cramped and she had to clap a hand over her mouth for fear of being sick on the floor. Alaster didn't seem to notice so she made a dash for the bathroom, where she proceeded to vomit into the toilet. There was very little to actually vomit up, so it ended up being mostly dry heaving that produced small amounts of stomach acid and made her stomach cramp further.
This was the start, she reckoned. Better late than never, the saying went, but Blue could have done without morning sickness overall. Why did nature see fit to make pregnancy so uncomfortable?
She wasn't sure how long she remained crouched over the toilet bowl, but it must have been a while. Presently, she heard the bathroom door creak open and she looked up to see Alaster peering in at her.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, scowling. He had eyes, couldn't he see for himself that she was sick?
“Oh. Is it...” He trailed off and waved his hands around, seeming to indicate his own abdomen. “You know, is it because of the kid?”
Blue rolled her eyes, and then was sick again and had to return her attention to the toilet.
“That sounds terrible. Can I get you, um, can I get you anything?”
“No,” Blue muttered between heaves. “Thanks anyway.”
“Oh. Alright then.” He backed out of the bathroom and closed the door, which didn't surprise Blue at all. He didn't handle sick people very well. Poor thing had a weak stomach. She smirked, imagining how grossed out he probably was by all of this.
The door abruptly opened again and he stepped back inside. She looked at him questioningly and he looked uncomfortable, as though he wasn't sure why he'd come back or what he was supposed to do now that he'd done so.
He looked around, spotted the step stool they both used to reach the highest shelf in the medicine cabinet, and dragged it over beside her before sitting down on it.
“I think I should be here,” he said, much to her surprise. “For solidarity.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, “is watching me puke gonna make you puke?”
Alaster looked a bit green even as he considered her question. “No, I don't think so. At least, I'm bloody well going to try and avoid it. You're the one who's pregnant, I think I can tolerate listening to you make those awful retching noises. God, you sound awful though, like you're dying. I can hear you from the kitchen, so it's not like I'm going to avoid hearing it if I'm not in the room with you.”
“Serves you right,” she said. “This is all your fault.”
“How do you figure? I was led to believe that you were taking care of the not having children bit.”
She groaned, both because he was right and because the nausea had yet to pass.
“Fuck, yeah, I know,” she moaned, clinging to the toilet and hoping for respite soon. “I just forgot to take the pill here and there. Not, like, days in a row but being inconsistent with it is a bad idea. Work had me distracted. I knew better though. I'm sorry Al, I've gotten us both in a big mess.”
To her surprise, his expression softened and he reached out to catch a loose strand of her hair and smooth it back from her face.
“Don't apologize. I said I wanted to keep it, didn't I?” He looked more determined than she'd ever seen him while sober. Normally, it took a few beers to get him to be this open with her. “Don't ever apologize to me for having my kid. If anything, I should be apologizing to you.”
His fingers brushed her cheek and she sighed, leaning into the touch. It was strange, being comforted by him. It was usually the other way around. Not that she minded taking care of him.
“Nah, Al,” she murmured. “You don't need to apologize to me. Not for nothing. We're good together, ain't we?”
“Yes,” he agreed, stroking her cheek. “Better than good, I think. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without you.”
Blue had a pretty good idea of what he'd do without her. There was no way she was ever going to test that theory, either. No matter what, she knew that if he wasn't in her life, she'd spend the rest of it wishing that he was. Beyond that, nothing really mattered.
“Feeling better?” he asked when her heaving seemed to have subsided.
“Mm hmm,” she replied. She was worn out now and she wished she didn't have to go to work so she could stay home and cuddle with him. He seemed to be in a cuddly mood and that wasn't common, so it was a shame she couldn't take advantage of it. “I gotta take a shower and go to work.”
“You could call in sick,” he suggested. “I mean, it's not like you're not sick.”
With a sigh, she pushed herself back up on her feet and flushed the toilet. “It's gonna be like this for a while, can't exactly call in every time I get morning sickness. I can cope. It shouldn't bother me much more today.”
Alaster rose from the stool but seemed reluctant to leave the bathroom. His face was pinched with unhappiness.
“If I had a job, you could quit yours,” he said. He avoided meeting her gaze as he said this. “You shouldn't have to keep working when you're sick and I'm perfectly healthy. I know you think I can't handle it but I could find something, I could make it bloody work if I really tried.”
She wondered if she was right to insist that he didn't need a job. It wasn't that she wanted to foster dependency in him, not at all, but they'd been through this before and it never went well. He always started jobs focused and determined, but when a downswing hit him, it always fell apart. The bar tending job had been a real disaster that had nearly sent him spiraling back into alcoholism. She supposed to was evidence of how much he'd matured that he'd managed to dig himself back out of that one with a little help from her.
The fact of the matter was that Alaster was not “perfectly healthy,” because he suffered from mental illness and it was not “all in his head” like most people seemed to believe. It was a very real and physical malady that he lived with every day. Blue watched him struggle with it, she knew that at times it nearly overwhelmed him. Still, Alaster wanted to believe it was something that he could change if he just decided to do so. Maybe that made him feel like he had some control over it.
“Look, it's just a little nausea in the mornings,” she told him, fishing in the medicine cabinet for the bottle of mouthwash kept there. Being sick had left an awful taste in her mouth. “I can handle it, you don't need to worry about it. If you wanna help me, babe, just focus on taking care of yourself. Maybe keep the apartment clean, that would be nice. I can handle the rest of it.”
Alaster's expression darkened and his came up to cross over his chest, a sure sign that he was feeling vulnerable. Instead of saying anything else and risking his good mood, Blue took a swig of mouthwash and started swishing it around in her mouth, trying to clean out the remnants of stomach acid that lingered on her tongue and teeth.
“So I should let you handle it because you think that I can't handle it,” said Alaster, his tone accusatory. “Isn't that right?”
Blue shrugged and pointed to her mouth, indicating that she couldn't speak because of the mouthwash.
“You treat me like a child,” he said, for the millionth time in their relationship. “I'm a grown man, I should be able to provide for my pregnant girlfriend.”
Spitting out the mouthwash, Blue said, “you do provide for me, darling. Every evening, I come home from work and you're here waiting for me. Plus, you're great in bed. I'm happy with the way things are.”
Her boyfriend scoffed, as though he didn't believe her for a minute. “Yes, so happy that you want me to talk to a bloody shrink so I can get my head on straight before there's a baby to take care of.”
“Al, I want you to talk to somebody because I want you to feel better,” Blue tried to explain as she took out her toothbrush and squirted some toothpaste onto it. “Yeah, I think it would be better for you to start doing that before the baby gets here. That's because when the baby is born, I'm gonna need you to take care of her most of the time. I'll still have to work, so you gotta pick up the slack for me. It's an important job, and I'm trusting you with it. You get me?”
He looked small, pressing himself back against the bathroom wall as though he wanted to melt into it and disappear. She hated being responsible for that look. It made her feel like a villain when all she wanted to do was make him better.
She stuck her toothbrush in her mouth and tried not to feel like the bad guy.
“I'm trying,” he said, and he sounded frustrated. “I'm trying to do the right thing, to be better for the kid, but it's hard.”
“Mm hmm,” she said through a mouthful of toothbrush. She hoped the look on her face conveyed that she believed him. Whatever else he was, he wasn't a liar. If he said he was trying then he was, no matter if it seemed like it or not.
“I don't want to see a shrink,” he continued. “I'm not crazy. You know that, right? I'm not crazy, I'm sane and I don't need my head examined.”
Blue spat out toothpaste and said, “You're not crazy. Doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to a professional. You could try it, for me. If you give it a real shot and it doesn't work, I won't bother you about it anymore. I just want you to be okay, Al. That's all. Everyone needs a little help sometimes.”
“I don't see how it would help!” Alaster snapped. She could see his reflection in the bathroom mirror and he was scowling down at the linoleum. “How is talking about it going to help? They'll want to talk about Aster and all of it. I lived it, I don't want to relive it. It's in the past, it's gone, digging it all back up isn't going to help anyone.”
“What if I tried it too?” she asked. “Or I could try it first and then tell you what it's like. Would that make you feel better?”
If the look on his face was anything to go by, it seemed that Alaster did not think this would make him feel better. He'd been stubbornly against seeing a psychiatrist since they'd been together. Even when his sister told him about her positive experiences with it, he'd still refused to try it. Apparently, it wasn't any more likely now just because they were having a baby.
That wasn't entirely fair of her and she knew it. Alaster was very nervous about having someone else in his head. He didn't want to be that vulnerable around someone he didn't even know. She knew this but she couldn't help but think that he'd be better off if he talked to someone about his anxiety, at least.
“There's anxiety medication,” she said, and Alaster's scowl became more pronounced. Before she could say another word, he stormed out of the bathroom.
Well, it wasn't like it was the first time he'd ever stormed out on her and it wouldn't be the last. Blue finished up brushing her teeth and set about taking a shower.
Sometime later, after she'd dressed and braided her hair, she headed back into the kitchen for her first cup of coffee for the day. Her carefully allotted cup of coffee, one of only two she could have in a day. But Alaster was standing near the coffeepot when she walked in and he moved so that he was standing in front of it when she walked towards it.
“You can't have caffeine,” he said, glaring at her like she'd committed a grave crime.
“I can have some coffee,” she insisted. “Al, come on, enough. I gotta go to work, I need coffee.”
“You don't get to lecture me about seeing a shrink when you won't even cut out caffeine for the sake of our child,” Alaster declared, turning up his nose. “The book says there's no benefits at all to drinking caffeine while pregnant and you should cut it out entirely.”
“The benefits of me drinking coffee while pregnant are that I might not strangle the life outta you. Step away from the coffee pot.”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest and refused to move.
“How would you feel if I did this to you?” Blue demanded. “Don't you know it's cruel to deny another person their morning coffee?”
When he remained unmoved at this, she sighed and threw up her hands. “Alright, no coffee for me, fine. But I want you to know you're being silly.”
Of course, she wasn't in a good mood at all now. She turned her attention to the fridge, although she still felt a little sick and wasn't keen on eating anything if it meant she was just going to vomit again. She knew she needed to eat anyway, and she also knew that breakfast was one of only two meals Alaster ate on any given day.
When she took out the carton of eggs, Alaster intercepted her on her way to the stove and took it from her.
“I can make breakfast,” he said.
This caused Blue to raise one eyebrow at him skeptically. “You? Cook?”
“Well, it's not going to be a bloody masterpiece,” he grumbled. “But I can cook, you know. A little. I can fry eggs.”
She raised her hands in surrender and backed away. “Alright, be my guest. It's a nice change.”
It was probably the smell of smoke that got Roger out of bed a little while later. Blue had, at that point, thrown a dishtowel over the smoke alarm in the kitchen to keep Alaster's cooking from setting it off. Roger wandered into the kitchen, seeming disoriented. He squinted at the sight of Alaster in front of the stove, frying eggs.
“Have I stumbled into an alternate dimension or is Alaster cooking?” he asked, wrinkling his nose as he inhaled the smoke rising from the skillet. Alaster had thus far burned every egg to a crisp, and broken the yolks besides. There was an unappetizing plate of them set out on the table.
Blue was picking at her own plate, where she'd covered her overdone breakfast in salt and pepper, though the seasoning did not seem to help them.
“I don't know what's gotten into him,” she told Roger. “I'm just going along with it in case he's sleepwalking or something. They say you shouldn't wake them up if that happens, you know?”
Alaster sent her a dirty look as he finished up the last two eggs, which had probably been finished for several minutes now, in all actuality. Putting the skillet on a back eye, he turned off the eye he'd been using and took a seat at the table, shoveling some of the eggs onto his own plate.
“Wow, this looks...” Roger trailed off and forced a smile. “Thanks, Al, really.”
The tall man served himself two of the eggs, then stared at them for a long moment before getting up to fetch the bottle of ketchup out of the fridge.
Alaster's lips curled in disgust as he watched Roger squirt ketchup on his eggs. He started purposefully eating his own eggs, chewing and swallowing in quick succession to get it over with.
It was all too much. Blue started to chuckle under her breath and soon it had grown to outright laughter. She put a hand over her mouth as she laughed, trying and failing to contain it.
“Stop that!” Alaster insisted, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “It's not funny!”
“Oh, Al, sweetie.” She reached a hand out to him, grasping his arm. She couldn't stop giggling. “I'm so sorry, it's just that you're a really bad cook. You don't need to do this for me, you know? It's very sweet of you to try, though, it really is.”
He looked so disappointed, Blue couldn't help but lean over and kiss him. She'd always been a sucker for that moody scowl of his. On anyone else, she would have found it unattractive, but he was different. He had always been different.
“I have to go to work,” she said, rising from the table. She leaned down and gave him another kiss, this one on the cheek. “I'll see you this evening, darling. Be good, alright?”
Looking over at her roommate, she added, “See you later, Rog.”
“Later,” Roger agreed, between mouthfuls of ketchup-covered egg.
Alaster followed her to the door, rather resembling a lost puppy. Blue kissed him again, just for good measure.
“I know you're trying,” she told him, making sure to keep her voice down so Roger wouldn't overhear. “Forget about the psychiatrist thing, alright? Everything is going to be fine and you're doing great.”
“Don't coddle me,” he said. “Breakfast was a disaster.”
She laughed again because she couldn't help herself, and she reached out to ruffle his hair.
“When are you gonna get it through your pretty little head that I love you the way you are?” she asked him.
The ghost of a smile crossed his face and he shrugged. “Love you too,” he mumbled, barely audible.
It was more than good enough for her. With a final, lingering gaze into his too blue eyes, she drew away.
TBC
No comments:
Post a Comment