(no subject)
honey_wheeler gave me a whole lot of Friday Night Lights prompts. I was rewarding myself for achieving goals by writing pieces of them. This cannot end well. General spoilers, no particular episode. If I've offended canon, please remember that I missed a lot of the early episodes, and fill me in!
Five fights Coach and Mrs. Coach didn't have and/or five times they made up:
Five fights Coach and Mrs. Coach didn't have and/or five times they made up:
- "Look, baby--"
"'Baby'?"
"What?" He stops pacing. "What?"
"You just called me 'baby,'" she says. "You never call me 'baby.'"
"Well, I do now," he says. "Can we get back to talking about this?"
"Not if you're going to be throwing endearments around." She smoothes her hand over the chopping block, wiping up crumbs. "I can't concentrate on how mad you are if you're calling me 'baby.'"
"What's so funny about that word?" he says, and she grins at him. She takes the handful of crumbs and drops them in the garbage, then dusts off her hands.
"It just seems like a funny word to call someone when you're mad."
"It is not," he says.
"You can't even say it without smiling," she says. "Baby, baby. See?"
"You can too," he says. "Baby. I did it."
"I don't think you did."
"I did!" But she's grinning at him, and there's no way he can say it without smiling now. "I'm still mad," he says, and walks around to kiss her.
"Mm hm," she says. "Sure you are, baby."
- "And we're never getting out of debt!" She puts her head down on the desk and sobs. He thinks about putting his fingers in his ears, or leaving the house; he can’t stand it when she cries.
"I-"
"Leave me alone," she says, and sobs again. "Go away." She's howling like a little kid now, against her folded arms.
He walks out of the bedroom, into the tiny hallway, and stops. He rests his forehead against the wall for a moment, trying to think, and then turns and keeps walking, into the kitchen. Food, he thinks. Food usually helps.
But they don’t have cookies, and pasta would take too long to make, and the cereal is the kind she buys when they don't have the kind she really likes. She's still sobbing, he can hear her, and in desperation he yanks the strainer out of the cabinet and grabs a wooden spoon. He stops for a second by the doorway, indecisive, and finally takes the apron off the hook by the stove and puts it on.
She's winding down a little, when he comes back in, but she's hiccupping, and her face is still against the desk.
"You are my sunshine," he sings, and puts the strainer on his head. She doesn't pick her head up, but she looks over. "My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey." He attempts to pirouette, which doesn't go as well as he would like, and waves the spoon. "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. So don't take my sunshine away."
She snorts, but she still doesn't pick her head up.
"I'm a little teapot-"
"Oh my god," she says, "just stop." She sits up. "This is your answer to us not having any money?"
"Yes?"
She stares at him some more. He sighs and sits down on the bed. "What else am I supposed to do? Sell a kidney?" She doesn't respond. "I know we're in debt. And we may be in debt for a while-"
"Forever!"
"For a while, but you have to trust that we're going to get through this." She mumbles something, and he smacks her arm with his spoon. "We're going to be fine."
Her smile is watery, but it's there, and she's wiping under her eyes. "Says the man with a strainer on his head."
"I kind of like it, actually," he says, and raps it with the spoon again.
"You make it look good," she says. In debt or not, he's getting lucky tonight.
- She hears the door slam, harder than usual, and she gives one last tug to the tablecloth and goes out into the hall to investigate. "Honey?"
"Hi," he says, shortly, and drops his stuff on the couch.
"What happened today?"
"Nothing. I really don’t want to talk about it."
"Were your boys bad?"
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"Okay," she says, stung. She watches as he bangs around, setting up tapes. She's not sure what she ought to say.
"Honey, I'd appreciate it if you didn't hover right now."
"Hover?"
"I've got a lot on my mind, and I could use some alone time."
"Well, I'm going to make dinner, and I'd like some help with that-"
"Could you just-"
"Pardon me if I want to know what's wrong-"
"Stop being a bitch!"
She takes a step back, shocked, and he drops his face into his hands and groans.
"Okay," she says, and grabs her keys off of the counter, "Okay, I am going to give you some space."
"Tami-"
She slams the door shut, harder than he did when he came in, and she can hear him cursing through the door. She walks to the park. She cries a little bit, when she gets there and sits down. It's not fair, she worked and cleaned the house and was going to make dinner, and he's just as bad as any other man, calling her names just because he's had a bad goddamn day. Jerk. She mops at her face with the bottom of her sweater. Asshole.
Her face is hot and blotchy, and she's still pissed, so she walks over to the movie theater. She buys a large popcorn with extra butter, because Eric doesn't like the movie butter, and a giant Sprite, because he always gets her to share a Diet Coke with him, and she sits in the front row on the aisle, because he likes to sit directly in the middle of the theater. It's the best movie experience she's had in a while.
Midway through the movie, she turns to whisper something to him about Mary Stuart Masterson's hair, and realizes he's not there.
The Sprite is too sweet. She throws half of it away.
When she gets home, he's still on the sofa. He's got the worst hangdog look she's ever seen on him. He holds out his arms and says, "I am so sorry." She walks over, and he presses his face against her stomach. She puts her hand on the back of his neck, above his collar. "I thought you might not come back," he says.
"Oh, honey," she says. "You're not getting off that easy."
He laughs, a little, and pulls her into his lap.
- "Eric-"
"Don't."
"Stop sulking."
"I'm not sulking." He sighs and leans back in the chair, massaging his neck. "I'm fine."
"I'm sorry I threw the lamp."
"I'm over it."
"Giving birth is very painful," she tries again, and he fixes her with a glare.
"Leave it alone."
They sit in silence for a second. "I'm sorry I told you I'd never sleep with you again."
"Tami," he says, and covers his face. "I understand." She nods and looks down at her baby. At Julie. Eric sighs and takes one of her hands. "I was more angry about the thing you said about the goat," he admits, and they smile at each other. He kisses the top of her hand. "I think she was worth it, though, so I'm going to let you off the hook."
"She's a pretty good-looking baby," she says.
"She's the prettiest baby in the whole damn world," he says. His eyes are suspiciously wet, but she lets it slide.
- Eric comes out of the house with two glasses of lemonade, keeping the screen door from banging with his elbow. Tami looks back over her shoulder at him and smiles. "Come sit with me," she says. He wants to sit and have her lean against him, but he has to do this now. Maybe, when she says yes, they can sit and talk. He puts down the lemonade and steps down. "Eric?" she says, confused. He goes to one knee, and then has to dig the box out of his pocket, wrenching his finger a little bit. "Eric," she says, and he can't read her tone. Her face doesn't give him any clues when he looks at her. He wishes he had the courage to do this at lunchtime, when it was light out. His palms are sweating.
"Uh, Tami," he says, "Will you marry me?" She's silent, and he fumbles open the box, cursing in his head at how stupid he looks. He was feeling pretty good about this, before, but she's just sitting there. "I got you a ring. I had to size it from your other one, but I'm pretty sure it'll fit." She still isn't talking, and he's not sure what else he can say. His knee is starting to hurt. "Tami?"
"Give me a second," she says, in a strange voice.
"Okay," he says, and then they wait for three goddamn minutes. She isn't even moving. "Can you consider a little faster? You're killing me here."
"This is a little sudden," she says, and stands up.
"Sudden?" He struggles to his feet, his knee twinging. "We've been going together for years."
"But I didn't know you were thinking about marriage!" she says, and it sounds like she's about to cry.
"Why wouldn't I be? You thought we were just going to keep dating?"
"We're comfortable like this, I thought-"
"Jesus!"
"Oh," she says, and now she's pissed, "so I get no say in this whole marriage proposal thing?"
"No! Yes! What do you think you're getting right now?" he says, and she snorts and puts her hands on her hips. He shuts the ring box and puts it in his pocket. "I thought women wanted to get married. I thought you'd want to do this."
"So, what, because all women want to get married you think I will? You can't just assume what I want, Eric," she says. "How would that work if we got married, you assuming what I wanted all the time?" He wants to kick something.
"Are you trying to make me crazy?" he says instead. He puts his hands on top of his head and looks at his shoes. "You make me so crazy."
"Why are you asking me to marry you, then?"
He's silent for a second, then lets out his breath. "I don't want you making anyone crazy but me." Her eyes soften a little, and she ducks her head to hide her smile. "I mean it. You are the most bull-headed, argumentative woman I've ever met, and I love you. I want to be fighting with you in the nursing home," and she finally looks back up at him.
"All right," she says.
"What?"
"All right, I'll marry you."
"Damn straight you will," he says. It sinks in then, and he shouts "yeah! Yeah!", grabs her around the waist and twirls her in circle.
"Put me down," she says, but she's laughing.