x heart x fingers [5/5]
I like a girl that can take control
Funny, cute and kissable
Stephen slugs her hard and goes, “You were supposed to say yes, dumbass.”
“But what if-”
“You were supposed to say yes,” he hisses. He prowls across the living room and adds, “Goddammit, if you weren’t pregnant I would make you go after him right now.”
“But Stephen, what if he-” she starts. Her back hurts, she’s moody and hormonal and she just wants a hug. He’s supposed to be on her side here, okay, he’s not supposed to be yelling at her because she didn’t want to say yes right away and seem too needy or something. “I can’t even stand up without help, jerkbag, how am I supposed to go after him?”
He grins at her and says, “I guess that leaves you with one choice.”
“… If by one choice you mean sitting here and contemplating my life, then yes.”
It’s 9:01 p.m. and she’s acutely aware of that fact. Stephen drops her phone in her lap and goes, “That’s not what I was aiming for at all.” A second too late, she realizes that he already had the number dialed. Because he is the worst friend ever. Even worse than Bdales. Yeah, she went there. “I am not calling into his stupid show. You can’t make me.” But it’s already ringing. “This is the worst idea,” she growls at him.
Please let the line be busy, she thinks. Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up…
“Jess,” he says softly. “Uh, hey. You’re… calling me. On live internet radio.”
She says, “Yeah. I guess I’m doing that.” And she can hear her own voice echo, then there’s just dead air. “I’m not mad, okay. I just… I’m sorry.”
“Well, if you’re not mad then what are we doing?” he asks. It feels like she’s holding her breath. This is so stupid. It’s stupid that she’s doing this on live fucking radio, for one thing, it’s stupid that she’s eight and a half months pregnant, it’s stupid that her best friend has to trick her into talking to him.
“Um. I’m being really stupid and I, I shouldn’t have said maybe, alright?” Her hands are kind of shaking in her lap. Shit. She’s really doing this. It’s hard to say, at this point, whether the flip-flopping in her stomach is the baby moving around, tap-dancing or whatever babies do, or if it’s just because she is an idiot.
Gunz goes, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying,” and Stephen glares at her.
So she says, “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
And he’s like, “Ballinnnnnnnnnn,” and she laughs.
“I’m hanging up now, Gunz. But um. I’ll come over later, or something?” She lies on the couch trying to convince Stephen to rub her aching feet until the show’s almost over. He refuses on the grounds that feet are nasty, which is an acceptable reason. Then it’s like quarter to twelve, so she says, “Help me up, jackass.”
“You don’t expect me to drive you over there, do you? It’s, like, midnight.” Stephen looks scandalized by the lateness of the hour, like they’ve never been at shows or parties that run until two, three, four in the morning. But yeah, she kind of does expect that from him.
She sighs and says, “I just started dating the former douchebag who got me pregnant. I think the least you can do is drive me over to see him.”
Stephen’s like, “Yeah, okay. You can be his problem for once.”
Because she’s dating Mike Gunzelman and she doesn’t feel repulsed by the thought. It’s half past midnight when they get there; Stephen walks her to the door and smirks at her and she punches him. “I hate you sometimes,” she says solemnly.
“You’re welcome.” He puts on his little bitchface, looks Gunz up and down, and says, “I would tell you not to get her pregnant, but you’ve already accomplished that, so.”
“If you two are quite finished glaring at each other,” Jess sighs, “I’m eight and a half months pregnant and I’d really like to sit down now.” Gunz just grins like an idiot and takes her hand, both of them ignoring his roommates and their drunken assholery.
Instead of making some douche comment he asks her, “Living room or my room?” She looks at their sagging couch skeptically. “Yeah, okay, my room. Should really just… invest in a new couch, or something. Christ.” He’s acting all nervous. Ordinarily, it would be funny, but tonight… it’s not. His bedroom still looks the same as she remembers it - he’s got, like, a million band posters up and a huge, crazy whiteboard with writing all over it that she can’t decipher - and at this point, the bed seems so goddamn inviting.
Not even in a sexual way. It’s just… she’s pregnant, and she’s tired, and even though she maybe would be okay with certain things happening, it’s not likely to. Her feet hurt. Her back hurts. She’s so fucking pregnant. “Can we just, like, sleep? I’m really tired and the baby’s been kicking all day and my everything hurts.”
“Yeah, whatever you want to do.”
“I want this kid to come out already,” she whines. Gunz sort of laughs and rubs her shoulder affectionately.
He sighs and says, “Come on, let’s go to bed.” And he doesn’t even bitch about it when she has to try, like, forty-seven different positions before she finds something comfortable, and she doesn’t mind when he lies down next to her.
Through the static, you were the only one
You were my SOS when I had the weakest love
Jess wakes up in the middle of the night with the baby kicking her in the spleen. “Ow,” she whines, forgetting that she’s got company.
“You okay?” he mumbles, groping around under the covers for her hand.
“I’m just pregnant,” she yawns. “He’s kicking me again.”
He rolls over, bringing half the blankets with him, and looks at her in the dim darkness. “Let me just - okay,” he says, clearly still half-asleep. He leans over hesitantly, like, okay. They’re both so fucking awkward. Sleepy, though. It’s been a long time since she’s slept straight through a night so it has to be, like, maybe four in the morning.
“Go back to sleep,” she tells him. “It’s early.”
“Okay.” He pushes closer to her in bed. She can’t, though. She’s too pregnant. She can’t even do hugging anymore; her stupid belly gets in the way of everything. And now stupid Gunz wants to cuddle or something, only it’s not going to work.
“I’m not moving,” she yawns, trying not to stretch too much lest she move out of her comfortable sleeping position. “If you want to cuddle, you make it work.” It’s just, it’s like painfully endearing how hard he tries, so in the end she does move, just enough to sleep with her head on his shoulder - which is more comfortable anyway.
She doesn’t end up getting much sleep - baby doing fucking aerobics, fucking Jazzercise in her stomach - but in the morning she gets made breakfast and then he sends a bunch of emails and shit and they do gross, domestic-y things like watch fuckin’ Youtube videos together.
Then he kisses her, and it’s okay, but it’s not great.
Mostly it’s just being acutely uncomfortable all the time since she closely resembles a beached whale at this point in the baby’s development. She has nightmares all the time about it, like, the baby clawing its way out of her with its demon fingernails and it being a nightmare creature. She tells him as much; he laughs and strokes her belly affectionately.
“Stop laughing,” she complains. “It’s not funny. What if it, like, claws its way out and it’s all bloody and gross and mangled?”
Gunz just looks at her, amused. “Then we’ll blame Bdales and everything will be fine.”
“You’re an asshole.” He catches her fist midway and rather than trying to punch him for it, she rolls her eyes and lets him hold her hand.
One more shot and I’m quitting forever
Cross my heart, cross my fingers
The day before the baby is born, Jess tells him, “We’re never doing this again, by the way.”
And he says, “By this you mean having another baby, right? ‘Cause the other thing… uh.”
She rolls her eyes. “I think you’re probably going to have to earn that privilege. I meant... One baby is kind of enough.”
“Well… good. Because, like, the sex part wasn’t half bad.”
Jess punches him in the shoulder and says, “I am sensational in bed, thank you.”
He blushes. “It’s not like I’ve been with that many other people. Or… um… yeah.” Scratches the back of his neck. Oh. Oh. “I love you?” he offers hesitantly. Jess doesn’t quite know what to say to that. She steals one of his hoodies when Stephen picks her up for her last doctor’s appointment with no real plan to return it.
Once she’s got her seatbelt done up she goes, “It’s too weird, Stephen. What the hell am I doing? He’s never even slept with anyone else. Oh my god.”
No response.
“Dude, seriously. I keep thinking about it and it’s just…”
Stephen turns the radio down and tells her, “Just admit you’re in love with him already, dickweed. Nobody cares that you’re dating Gunz. Well, except you. I’d imagine you care a great deal.” And maybe she is, a little bit. She’s getting there.
But she’s also having Braxton-Hicks contractions, which suck. And then they’re not Braxton-Hicks anymore; she remembers, vaguely, Gunz says something about her being a true baller for not wanting anything for the pain and then she screams for an epidural. Which is nice. He doesn’t even complain about not being able to feel his fingers.
She doesn’t think she can actually handle it. “I’m going to kill someone,” she moans. No one ever told her contractions would hurt like a goddamn bitch. “No, I’m going to kill everyone.”
“No, you’re gonna keep pushing that baby out so the doctors can give you some more drugs and you can go to sleep.” He squeezes her hand and talks to her about stupid shit, and that makes it a little easier. He asks a couple of times if she wants Stephen to come in, but she doesn’t - this is their mess and she’s pretty sure she’ll end up punching Stephen for making some smart-ass remark.
Time is apparently kind of a subjective thing during labor; a million years later, the baby finally comes and finally starts yelling. It’s a baby, of course it’s pissed off that it just got dragged out of its comfy womb and got confronted with the real world.
“Gunz,” she says weakly. “Our baby’s head is lumpy. Fix it.”
He makes a dumb face and goes, “It’s going to be fine.”
“How can you say that? What if we screw this whole thing up, what if we break up, what if-” The words falter and fall straight out of her mouth, though, when she actually gets to see the baby instead of a big mess of placenta and gross and blood. The next thing she says is, “How the fuck did we manage to make an actual baby?”
“Dunno,” he says. “Want me to go get Stephen now?”
“Not yet. But when you do, tell him - tell him - never mind. I think I’m delirious from all the drugs.”
He grins at her like an insane person. “Jess, stop talking. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to go.”
“I love you,” she tells him. “Go get Stephen now.” And she’s still in an unfamiliar bed, but it’s fine except for the baby won’t shut up and then after that Stephen won’t shut up.
I’m not just drunk
I really think I’m in love with you