(no subject)
Bred in the Bone
Bob/Lyn-Z, Gerard/Lyn-Z
PG, 1019 words
~
Bob is just settling on his couch with a beer and his laptop when a message window pops up, only seconds after he fired up WoW.
It's Panagonia the level 70 Blood Elf saying, You've been quiet. :)
Bob gave up ages ago trying to convince Lindsey not to use smileys while gaming. One day she's gonna get her ass kicked and Bob would like to be there for that; he'd love to meet the idiot who takes her on.
He settles into the cushions, takes a sip of beer, then sets it down against his thigh to type, Well, you know.
Even Lindsey's avatar looks annoyed. That's not an answer, Bryar.
Married to Gerard for a year and she already sounds like him. Maybe she always did. Bob tries not to think about Gerard too much for now; he's supposed to call him at some point anyway. He tries again: Sorry. I'm okay, just haven't been feeling very talkative lately.
There's a beat of nothing, then: Because you're a regular chatterbox usually.
Whoever said messaging didn't convey tone was full of shit. Take three: How are you? How's the baby?
Great and great. I'm eating anything that's not nailed down, in between bouts of violent nausea. It's awesome.
Bob smiles at his screen. There's a little flutter in his chest but he ignores it as much as he can and makes himself ask: How's Gerard? He stands a better chance getting an honest answer from her than he does from the horse's mouth. Gerard's nothing if not a pro at masking how he really feels. He even dupes Mikey, once in a while.
She's quiet for a while. So long that Bob considers closing the messaging window and starting to play. He's moving the cursor over to the x at the top of the box when the whole thing moves, scrolling up with her reply.
He's good. For real. I wish you two would just talk, you know?
They will. They will. It's not like they've actively been avoiding each other's emails all month, only that's exactly what Bob's been doing. He's been avoiding his whole inbox, in fact. There are probably forty increasingly annoyed emails from Frank in there.
We will. I'm just not sure he's as okay with this as he says he is. Takes a lot of Bob's fucking nerves to type that out, but it's the crux of the problem so he supposes it needs to be said.
There's another pause but Bob waits patiently through it, draining half his beer. He feels a little guilty hitting the booze before lunch, considering, but it's been a few years since time of day has actually mattered, for anything.
Switch to email, Panagonia the level 70 Blood Elf finally says in what Bob can only imagine is a regal monotone, tainted with a touch of Lindsey's expressive drawl.
He nods, stupidly, feeling a little warm under his hoodie. By the time he closes WoW and fires up Gmail, sitting atop the expected slew of Frank spam and a couple messages from his mother is an email from Lindsey titled, "Don't be an idiot."
Idiotic is not exactly what Bob has been feeling these past few months. His own word for it is far less charitable.
She is, more or less predictably, brutally succinct: He's fine with it. He was fine with sharing to start with, that was part of the deal. And that deal went both ways. I'm sure he wishes the kid was his, and it is, in a way that it'll always be his more than yours (sorry). And I think he knows this. He's my husband, I'm gonna spend the rest of our lives making sure he does. I have to. I want to.
(sorry)
Never has a word--a fucking aside--packed such a wallop. Bob tries to breathe through the hurt in his chest, tries to type despite the numbness in his fingertips.
I know. It's fine. Chatterbox indeed. He almost sends it that way, but stops to add: I'm fine with it too, I promise. I just need to get used to the idea. And to know you're doing okay. The both of you.
He doesn't mean Gerard. He's been finding it hard to be specific in his pronouns; that's gonna take a while, too.
Then he has to get up, walk the shakiness off, smoke it out. He grabs his phone and his pack of cigarettes and opens the patio doors to step out onto his balcony, a 5x7 slab of pavement suspended four stories above the sidewalk. Bob is thinking of getting a flowerbox for it. Or an ashtray.
He lights a cigarette and flips his phone open. Pulls Lindsey's number up and texts, switch to txt?
He's halfway through his smoke when his Sidekick vibrates in his palm. moron i was writing you a novel in email.
Bob smiles ruefully around the filter. sry?
There's barely any time between his reply and hers, like she'd already been typing it. just talk to him, k? thats all he wants. thats all i want. and were fine. the both of us. :)
There's that smile again, like an arrow through the heart. Bob stares at the pixellated words. He lights another cigarette, smokes it, then lights another one, holding it loosely between two fingers as he rests both elbows on the balcony railing. His wrists ache but they're doing better, even without the braces. It'll get better with time, his doctor said. Bob's gotta believe it, because hope isn't something he can afford to lose.
Eventually he texts back, okay.
Then he feels like a jerk and sends another one that says, love u.
He closes his phone before she can send a reply and goes back inside to pour himself a bowl of cereal and use the land line to call Gerard. He should probably email Frank back, too, before the idiot comes over to kick his door down.