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 Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 9:33 pm
((OOC: Backdated to a few days after 'And So We Come Full Circle' and 'Medical Anomaly'.))
The sling that braced her left arm to her chest to limit mobility was quickly becoming a nuisance to the young woman as she stood in her kitchen staring at the bag of potting soil that lay stored in a corner out of the way. Mind, she really shouldn’t be lifting anything more than a book with the stab wound still healing and needing tending to each day. But, after days of laying in a hospital and another at home, Gwen was pretty damn sure she was going to go insane if she spent another day in bed. Pain or no pain. Sure she had been given pain killers but she was hesitant on taking them and only intended to take them when she absolutely had to. So far she’d taken two doses and she knew she was coming to the end of their effectiveness from the last dose but it meant she was able to move around fairly coherently. So, she had decided that it would be a good day to sew some of the seeds she had picked up. Hence her need for the potting soil that was, for all purposes, beyond her abilities to get.
“Isaiah?” She called from the kitchen as she busied herself grabbing the small peat pots she had gotten. “Can you help me?” Awkwardly she pulled them apart, using her fingers to squeeze the inner most one free and placing it on the table before doing the same to the rest. Eventually she managed to line up all 12 of the little, pliable pots and moved on to the seed packets that she had fished from a plastic bag.
There weren’t too many of the packets. Just basics of tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and cucumbers. There was one packet that had a picture of small purple-blue flowers that she had decided to indulge herself with. The apartment could use a little color and the little flowers would do well outside and even thrive enough to live inside for awhile if she wanted. With the packets in hand though she stood there and stared at them before sighing. This sling is going to be the bane of my existence.
”I agree, but I won't pay more than five hundred for it. You simply can't validate something so unprecedented. Besides, if it turns out to be a hoax, I won't be taken for quite so much money. And if it is real, and he sells it to someone else, then good on them. Personally I think it's better suited to the Smithsonian than a pawn shop but that's out- oh, hold on.” Isaiah braced his hand over the speaker as he called from the spare bedroom, which became a makeshift rendition of an office since his arrival. “One second.”
A few quick reminders led to the end of that phone call, and he received another from an unknown number in short succession but sent the caller to voicemail. Afterward he paced toward the kitchen, where he caught sight of the damaged redhead fussing with some of the strange bending pots he saw at Home Depot and the like. “What are you getting into?”
Gwen's dress was indication enough that she intended to play in dirt. Isaiah had no want of it himself - as a young adult, he acquired quite the disdain for bug-laden environments - and Isaiah himself certainly did not look the part of gardener. While he sported short sleeves and jeans for the spring air, his shirt looked far too fancy with its series of metal eyelets and string, and his jeans were of the dirty wash skinny kind that threatened to strangle his scepter and jewels if he so much as considered crouching.
She can't be planning to do that much with these seeds, though. I don't think the top floor tenant has much claim to the garden. Or any; I'm pretty certain garden access and use only comes with condominiums. Well, there's always those window boxes. And all the vacuuming you have to do after. It required very little perception to guess what she needed here, too; the only missing ingredient for proper planting was the dirt. “I'm going to guess there's some dirt bags waiting for me in the car?” Hands slipped into pockets to stifle his fidgeting; since his brush with morphine, Isaiah maintained a consistent level of physical agitation that he wasn't comfortable exposing in front of others.
Gwen was very comfortably dressed. Her choice of clothing was a bit limited considering she needed to make sure nothing would rub on the stitches. So she had opted for black yoga pants which she was able to roll the band down on and an oversized green zip-up hoodie with an abstract pattern plastered on the front. Far from glamorous but nothing she much cared about getting dirty.
Gwen spun to face Isaiah as he walked into the kitchen voicing his question. “I can't put these off anymore or they won't have time to mature. And, since I've nothing else to do, I thought I'd get it done now.” She smiled coyly. “The soil is actually right over there in the corner tucked away. “ She pointed to the corner next to the door that led to the balcony. It would have been easy to miss the small bag of miracle grow if one wasn’t looking for it. “If you could put it on the table here for me and open it?”
She glanced at the 8 small peat pots lined up and mentally tried to place where each plant would go when it was time to transplant. They should all do well in large pots and between the front entrance and the balcony there should be plenty of room. She just might need to pick up another pot or two now that she thought of it.
“Would you like to help? Planting can be very soothing. “ She looked at him curiously. Isaiah had never particularly shown an interest in plants or gardening past fresh cut flowers. “Plus doing this one handed may be a bit tricky. “ Gwen confessed. “I don't mind getting dirty but I probably shouldn't get overly so.”
Isaiah cringed at the thought of sticking his bare hands into dirt. “I think I’ll pass. Worms s**t in that, you know.” Isaiah shot her a knowing look before departing toward the balcony slider, which he opened with ease. Gwen’s injured arm likely meant that even mundane tasks became difficult; she’d likely require help with far more than potting until she could rebound. He set the thought aside as he stepped out onto the deck to receive greeting from the warming spring weather.
The bag was where she mentioned, slumped like a drunkard against a favored bar. Isaiah frowned upon looking it over; it sported a handful of tear holes, as was common in any bag of dirt. Carefully he grabbed it at the most solid edges and hoisted it upward, carrying the bag with his arms fully outstretched. Sometimes the holes threatened to leak, at which point he started walking backwards. The endeavor ultimately led him to back his a** into the glass sliding door, but otherwise he made it inside without incident. The counter wasn’t far, so he retired the bag to its surface as fast as he could. Hands were shaken out in an emphatic statement of his disgust.
“Maybe you can just… Use something like a mug to scoop the dirt out. I can knife the bag open, but… Planting’s not my bag.” Isaiah claimed a seat at the breakfast bar, where both elbows met the counter. He folded fingers and pressed palms together before extending his thumbs to meet his lower lip. Afterward he watched her at work, hoping she maintained the common sense to keep her injured arm out of nature’s litterbox.
Which reminded him - he really needed to pick up Tastykake.
“While you’re at it, can I ask you something?”
Gwen couldn’t help the small grin at Isaiah’s comment about worms. Welp, I guess I won’t be getting too much help from him in the gardening department She didn’t mind though. It had always been her hobby at home and neither her dad nor brother ever really helped her with things unless she specifically asked, and even then it was never because they really wanted to be involved. So Isaiah’s lack of interest in digging around in the dirt didn’t bother her.
Though, as she watched him carry the bag in she had to keep herself from outwardly chuckling. She managed to hide her amusement at his obvious attempts to remain clean which, by turning her back to him and futzing with the pots. She only turned around when she heard him brushing off his hands and was under control of herself. She impressed to see he had done a fair job of keeping himself clean though.
“Oh, I have a little spade here that I can use to shovel out the dirt.” She grabbed the small tool. “I just get the feeling that there will be quite a bit of potting mix on the counter by the time I am finished.” Which, was a fair statement since she wouldn’t have her other hand to help guide the dirt safely into the peat pots. A little dirt never hurt anyone. she mused with a grin as she glanced at Isaiah. “But yea, if you could open up up for me that would be perfect. It shouldn’t take too long to do this.”
She turned and, using her fingers she snatched up two of the small pots while keeping a hold of the spade between her thumb and index fingers. She moved over to the counter and placed the pots down, dropping the spade beside them before returning to nab the rest of the pots from the table as Isaiah watched her from his perch.
“Of course.” She responded, glancing up from the bag and her workings as she awkwardly shoveled dirt from the bag into the first of the small pots. One handed meant she was trying to not tip over the peat containers as she filled them while also attempting to keep most of the dirt from going onto the counter and into the pot instead. She wasn’t doing terribly bad, but it was obvious that cleaning was going to be required once she finished.
”Oh, right,” he muttered as he looked toward the sack of Miracle Grow. “I get to open the dirt bag.” Already he felt the presence of dirt under his nails. Glancing at them revealed long, immaculate free edges, pink nail beds and a thick half moon of eponychium behind the lunula. His nails looked perfect currently… Unless he touched the dirt. Luckily he wouldn’t need to, he reasoned, as he kept a pocket knife for miscellaneous purposes such as opening mail or checking merchandise that called for such handling.
Still, that dirt was getting awfully close to him.
Leaning over the counter, Isaiah pinched the corner of the bag between thumb and forefinger. After slipping the knife from his pack pocket, he pulled the blade using his thumbnail, and sawed through the top strip of sack quickly enough. With the yellow and green plastic now waving freely in his hand, he simply opened his grip and let it fall to the countertop. A brief examination produced a couple fine granules of dirt on his finger pads, but it stood little chance against the careful cleaning of a pocket knife.
Isaiah resumed his earlier pose and tried to consciously will away the need to wash his hands immediately. “I figure now’s the best time to start this conversation, since we haven’t had much time to ourselves that didn’t demand hospital visits or the like. Usually when I ask people out, I like to have a discussion of boundaries and preferences so no one is left guessing how to treat the other person. It can be stressful to not know if you’re sating your partner’s needs, or leaving something out, or if something else is going unsaid. So, if you’re up for the discussion, what are your wants and needs out of a relationship?”
Placing the spade down in the bag of dirt and gently brushing her hand off on her pants, Gwen leaned with her butt against the counter as she face Isaiah.”I’ve never had a conversation like this before.” She confessed.. When she was in high school her few relationships were quite innocent and non-expectant and her last one...well, that one had a lot that went wrong. Maybe if she had a conversation like this maybe things wouldn’t have turned out the way they had? Not likely. Gwen thought with bitterness.
“Well first and foremost, and this isn’t saying I don’t think you will be, but what I truly need from you is respect. Normally I wouldn’t say anything of the sort since relationships should be built on mutual respect for each other, but my past has taught me that it doesn’t always turn out that way.
“I want us to be open with each other. I can’t promise that I am not going to get mad at you for things but I want to know what pleases you, what doesn’t, and what you want from me as we get to know each other more.” She smiled. “I am willing to try new things if need be, but I do have boundaries that may be difficult to get over.”
And speaking of boundaries, Gwen wasn’t sure how Isaiah would respond to this next request. Unconsciously she bit her lower lip as she debated how to broach the subject. There wasn’t really a tactful way to go about it. Especially since she knew Isaiah had a wide variety of tastes when it came to those he was interested in. The best she could do was just be straight about it. “I know you tend to uh...get around, but what I think I need is monogamy. I want you to be happy, but knowing that you are sleeping with others...I don’t know if I can deal with that.” Revealing her emotional scars was never an easy thing for Gwen. Sure, she could talk about what happened when she was comfortable enough but to practically present how the actions of her ex had affected her was difficult.
”I picked it up from someone else,” he explained with a shrug. While that relationship was brief, he found the skills learned within it useful enough to contribute to other relationships. He and Sid held the same discussion when they got more serious, and he intended to continue that trend. Perhaps Gwen wanted to keep relationships casual, given her past experiences, but Isaiah disliked making assumptions about what she may want from another. Was she more interested in casual sex and the occasional going out, or did she prefer ‘I love you’s spoken over a glass of wine near the fireplace? Did she want something altogether different?
Isaiah, hands steepled, nodded to her initial statement. “Right; this isn’t make-assumptions-about-each-other time, it’s about stating our needs. I need respect, I need quietude after i get home from work, I need a b*****b, you get the idea.
“Respect is a good start.” He imagined she required more than just that, but for someone who never had the conversation before, elaborating further on needs was difficult. His own response to his first ask demanded several minutes of thought and only resulted in mediocrity. “Aside from respect, I need lightheartedness in another person, open-mindedness, and patience sometimes. I don’t do well with people who are too serious or jealous. I also sometimes need space.” So maybe he hadn’t gotten much better since the first discussion held. Such conversations happened so seldom that he garnered next to no practice for future ones. He doubted that would matter terribly here; Gwen was straightforward with most of her answer, except…
Isaiah’s eyes grew half-lidded in a suspicious bristle. He remained utterly still, elbows frozen against the countertop, as he swallowed down the anger that demanded a quick quip. She asked for exclusivity, a trait he never explored before. “Is it because I’m an AIDS risk?” He asked, in a tone harsher than he meant to use. “Because I can tell you that I’ve vetted nearly every partner I’ve had, except for the ones in my early years, and I know for a fact that I’m clean.And I’ve been pretty damn good about keeping it in my pants until I got a yea or nay on that outcome.”
Outburst aside, Isaiah breathed a sigh. Hazel eyes fell to the long fingernails that he scoured moments ago, and the process began anew. “This might come as kind of a shock, but I’ve never been in an exclusive, monogamous relationship. To be honest with you, I always thought they were kind of… Fabled?” He glanced back toward her momentarily, catching a glimpse of aqua. “Like they popped up in stories and TV dramas often enough, and of course everyone knew what they were, but they’re no different than unicorns - everyone covets them, but they’re not real. I didn’t think monogamy was a realistic expectation.
“That being said, I can try it, but… You’ll have to be patient, and try to understand if I make a mistake.” Sleeping with a single person for months on end sounded no different from eating the same bowl of cereal every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He couldn’t understand how anyone would go years in such a position, nor how it appealed to anyone else. Guilt and dread already set in, much like the dubious mix of feelings that swelled upon agreeing to a dubious crash diet. He wasn’t certain how this would turn out for either of them.
But if the pair were responsible about it, then no one should wind up hurt too badly.
As his needs were rattled off with efficiency Gwen noted the specificity compared to what she had stated. Also, that what he was asking of her was well within her to handle. Nothing was outrageous and in fact were things she herself would want. Minus the blow job, but she could certainly think of other things to replace that specific requirement while taking care of other physical needs they both had.
“What? No.” Gwen responded to his accusatory question. She was a bit surprised that that was the first thing that he had thought of when she mentioned an exclusive relationship. If anything she had expected some sort of retaliation or attempt at negotiating that specific term. “That hadn’t even crossed my mind to tell you the truth.” She confessed. “At this point it wouldn’t particularly matter to me anyway.” With a grin she shrugged. “Clean or not it’s a little late for me to be worried about that, but no. That really isn’t the reason I brought this up.”
Gwen fidgeted a bit as she realized that getting around this hurdle was going to require her to delve into emotional scars she wasn’t exactly sure she was ready to reveal. But, if she was asking this of him, something that he obviously did not believe in she could at least could explain herself. Funny how she had assumed that after 5 years she wouldn’t be as affected by her ex, but it still hurt. It hurt like an old wound that never quite healed right and continues to bother you throughout the years.
Heaving a sigh, Gwen ran her hand through her hair nervously letting the red locks slip between her fingers. “I don’t know what I may have been like if we had met when I was younger. I may have wanted a monogamous relationship thing or be more willing to explore other avenues.” With a slight shrug she continued on. “Matthew was my first real love. I gave him everything I had to give and he took it without a second glance. He did enough to keep me second guessing myself. Anytime I would start to think that I needed to break off our relationship he would do something that was just exactly what I needed to continue to stay with him.
“It was a vicious cycle and throughout all of it, no matter what I did for him or...let him do to me it was never enough.” Swallowing hard, Gwen paused a moment and closed her eyes. She was dead determined not to break down. If there was one thing that her ex didn’t deserve anymore was her tears. “He cheated on me.” She stated simply, opening her eyes again to look at Isaiah. “He apparently had other girls he had been seeing through a large portion of our relationship and I had no idea. After I found out I felt inadequate. Like I had wasted so much of myself giving him everything I had to give, like it or not, to find out that I was never quite good enough. That what I had to offer only worked for him when his other girls weren’t around.
“In a way you could say my request is because I am broken. Possibly stuck on that fictional dream because I thought I had it, but really it was nothing more than an illusion, a farce. Maybe, in the end, it’s not really what I want or need but right now, it’s where I stand.” She offered Isaiah a slight smile in an attempt to lift the mood.
“I know asking you to only lay with me and no one else is going to be difficult. I am not expecting you to be a saint in any sort of the manner. Old habits are hard to break. I can’t sit here and tell you that if I see you looking at another man or woman that I won’t get slightly jealous, but I can tell you I’ll do my best to curb it.”With a laugh she shook her head. “And I just feel like I preached to you.”
Pushing away from the counter, Gwen walked over to lean against the breakfast counter opposite of Isaiah, making sure to not put pressure on her healing abdomen. A playful grin crept across her face. “Back to our needs and wants. I can accommodate your list so far, but if you sir are expecting blowjobs on a regular basis I think I’ll be needing attention in return. Just bare in mind that my experience up until meeting you has never really been...enjoyable, but I am willing to explore my horizons on that front.”
Isaiah remained silent through the brunt of Gwen’s explanations and sequestered his opinion. After a time, he compared what Gwen asked for against her reasoning and found those explanations wanting. Why would she ask for a monogamous relationship when she was in one before and it ended badly? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try an open relationship with a communicative partner to avoid the sensation of being cheated on? Would Gwen even listen if he brought up such points? As he considered it, there was little reason to voice these counterpoints as he agreed to attempt monogamy regardless.
He wondered if, by agreeing to such so soon, he already set her up for another episode of cheating. Keeping himself to one partner may fly for a month or two, but could it last longer than that? Isaiah doubted it. Perhaps if he could consider it a mere lifestyle choice, he might retain such antics, but polyamory counted as a piece of himself.
But how much respect was he showing her by keeping such statements to himself? He kept fingers laced tightly, the bone white bleaching through the skin, and spoke in a manageable neutral tone. “Let me clarify a few things, because I think you misunderstand that lifestyle. Having an open relationship or multiple partners isn’t a habit - it’s not like patting your pockets as you walk out the door to make sure you have your keys every morning. It’s not like smoking or drinking, either - it’s been shamed enough as a vice, as a progenitor of STIs, and as a cultural stigma. It’s a lifestyle choice for some people, and it’s part of my identity. Asking me to stop sleeping around is like asking you to stop being a girl. It’s just as much a part of your identity.
“I say this because, if you’re asking me to do this, you need to know the cost. It is asking a lot. If I’m supposed to stay with one person alone, that person needs to be incredibly open-minded about the antics they’ll be up to in the bedroom. Not to mention patient about public outings - there’s been more than a few occasions where I spot someone I fancy and comment about it, whether seriously or not. I understand your frustrations about it, given where you’re coming from, and I apologize that you had to go through something like that. What Matthew did to you was incredibly shitty, ignorant, and disrespectful. It did a lot of damage, too. I don’t mean to downplay any of this, but the only person who’s going to advocate for my side of things here is me.”
After a quick search of pockets, Isaiah produced a vape and held it to lips. A sharp breath in, and his muscles relaxed somewhat. The tension behind his eyes eased. His breath came at slower intervals. Another drag, and the tightness in his chest abated. “How about we talk about it on a week to week basis. I’ll check in with you, let you know if I’m having a bad time of it, and if we need to make changes, we’ll reconsider it then. How does that sound?”
Gwen listened carefully to what Isaiah had to say about open relationships and how it was an integral part of him. It was an odd thing to think about. She’d obviously never experienced it herself and had never been around anyone who had attempted such a relationship before. Sure, she had friends who slept around a lot, but none of them were seeing someone in particular at the time. They were just enjoying themselves and their one night stands.
The more Isaiah explained himself though the more Gwen began to realize that this request of hers was going to be quite the challenge. Sure, she had known he liked to get around, but she certainly hadn’t realized the extent it went to being who he was. Was this fair of her to ask this of him? Was this, in a way, asking him to change a part of himself to be with her? God, that was such a hard thing to consider.
Shifting her weight so that her right leg was now taking the brunt of her weight, Gwen used her one good arm to lean on the counter top. “I think my problem is I don’t understand how you can be considered in a relationship if you are sleeping with other people? Maybe I am old fashioned or just not seeing the broader picture. I’ve always assumed that people, when they are truly interested in someone, would want to solely be with them when it comes to sex.”
She stood there and looked into hazel eyes. There was a want to understand the life choice of having an open relationship but at the same time, she was terribly nervous and uncomfortable about it. Still, as she stood there and watched as he pulled a vape from his pocket and took a few drags, it was obvious that he was not comfortable with the idea of being monogamous. The tension in his muscles was obvious as the vape helped loosen some of the tightness and let his shoulders drop just enough for her to see. “Look, I want us to work. I really do.” She smiled. “I understand this won’t be easy and really, I am extremely appreciative that you’re willing to try. I will try my best to not get upset at any comments you make and I certainly will give you my damn all, as little as I feel it is compared to what you can do, in bed.”
“I agree checking in each week is a good idea but if things really aren’t going well for you, tell me right away. I want you to be happy too and if we need to reevaluate things then we will.” Standing up, Gwen walked around the counter to stand behind Isaiah. There, she gently leaned against the chair he had positioned himself in as she wrapped her one arm around his chest. It was slightly awkward on her part considering she was forced to pin her other arm against his back, but she didn’t much care as she rested her head on his shoulder burying her face into his neck. By this point she’d managed to find a few points on her now boyfriend, that brought about fun and interesting reactions from him. The neck, being one of them, was so terribly convenient that Gwen took delight in teasing him with a mere kiss along the jugular. Tempted though she was to nibble, Gwen wasn’t sure if the conversation needed to go on. Plus, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep up with him with the condition she was still in.
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Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 9:34 pm
”That sounds like a Victorian overgeneralization,” he commented, eyeing her. “Not everyone is wired the same way, and all these love songs floating about stating ‘I only want to be with you’ are contributing to the problem. That’s like saying that I didn’t actually love Sidney, even though I asked her to marry me.” Sighing, Isaiah pressed two fingers to his cheekbone. “Sure, maybe there are people out there that only have interest in sleeping with the one person and never have problems with that. I’m not one of those people.” But what point was there in explaining it if Gwen demonstrated such a clear misunderstanding?
This was a mistake. Taking another drag, he sighed the tobacco scent through his nose. His gaze wandered about the room; the sun shone through the slatted blinds and illuminated the countertops, the peat pots spoke of a warm glow with pinpricks of pooling sunlight, her hair spoke of luminous copper and smoldering red, and the room itself housed a brilliance that felt overpowering for hazel eyes. I don’t belong here, with her. We’re two people who are far too different to work. Maybe we could pull it off as friends, but…
I said I would try.
When she touched him, his first urge was to stand. He disliked touch in his agitated state, with nerves working themselves toward hyperbole, but he forced himself still. Rigid as he was, still, the vape offered little ease. Instead he leaned forward and framed his forehead with the heel of his hand. Time stood still then, in the too-bright room with the too-warm, too-perfect roommate-turned-girlfriend, and he started to realize in such a lurid state of affairs that he missed the self-destructive life he led. The drugs, the degenerates, the decadence - those were his origins, and such a shift toward something wholesome and perfect felt both unearned and mismatched. He was still himself, but the life he led now was for someone else.
Gwen deserved the perfect boyfriend, she really did. But to say that he could count as that was to unbecome himself and to wrong her. But what was the best solution out of all of this? He had to try, if only to buy more time for the proper answer. But, if he remained for too long in this role, would he still be Isaiah Zähne? Even Isaiah Varney? The thought of losing himself amongst all of this unnerved him most of all.
“Sorry,” he said at last. “Didn’t mean to distract from all the potting.” I hadn’t even thought about Sid and his feelings towards her. It was still an odd notion, even when presented to her in such a blatant way. She began wondering if it was a game of sorts? This need that he had to be with multiple partners was just so foreign, so...not what she had been raised to expect and want out of life when it came to finding a boyfriend. But, as Isaiah pulled away from her with his head in his hands, it was apparent that this was going to be hard. Oh so incredibly hard to deal with for him and Gwen didn’t know what to do about it.
She was insecure in so many ways and the idea of opening herself up to multiple partners was just so terrifying she was certain it would break her. Yet, here Isaiah sat willing to sacrifice something that he was very adamant about. Was this right? Should she be the one making the sacrifice? Maybe there was a different way to go about this but Gwen had no idea and truly did not have the will to state that they might be able to come up with a solution that would work for both of them. Try as she might, where she was right now with her mental state with intimacy, she knew she couldn’t offer anything else. He’s willing to try though.
Feeling the tension in his body and his obvious want for her to leave him be considering his posture, Gwen unwrapped her arm from him and awkwardly used his shoulder to push herself away from him. His lean forward had meant she was slightly off kilter considering she had been doing her best to protect her abdomen from the back of the chair. The healing wound was beginning it’s painful throb once again so aggravating it anymore was not on her agenda. “It’s not a big deal.” She responded, looking at the back of his head with a worried frown.
She tentatively walked back over to her pots, her interest in the planting gone for the time being as she gave Isaiah multiple side looks. Still, she went about pouring dirt into the small containers, letting them both have time with their own thoughts.
In her distracted state, Gwen was being less careful with what she was doing. In one of her attempts to fill a pot that kept threatening to tip every time she plopped some dirt into it she decided to brace it against her body. Unfortunately this set her up for a messy, dirty accident when the pot managed to tumble from the counter when the some of the dirt missed it. In a knee jerk reaction Gwen attempted to catch the falling pot . This resulted in three things happening: 1) Gwen jerked her bad arm in the sling with the reaction to reach out and grasp the pot 2) she dropped the spade from her hand causing the tool to clatter on the counter before it followed the peat pot in a tumble and 3) Gwen ended up covered in dirt from the pot, hissing as the spade jabbed her stitches before just barely missing her toes, and managing to save nothing as the dirt covered the floor and the spade clattered loudly.. “********!” She cursed both in pain and frustration.
“This was probably a bad idea.” She said softly as she looked at the mess that was on the floor and all over her while she winced slightly. For a time, Isaiah sat in silence, aware of Gwen’s leaving and the slowly abating heat from his body. The smell of tobacco vapor lingered in the air as a half-reminder of comfort. Isaiah closed his eyes momentarily and urged himself to return to a meditative state, to set aside all emotions in the moment in favor of grounding himself. He knew that, ultimately, this momentary miscommunication between them was a small fleck in either of their lifetimes, and even their time together may end up just as long with little overall damage. And if it came to be that he hurt Gwen, it was ultimately on her to recover appropriately.
Yet before he reached the point of meditation, the ensuing din of spilling dirt and spade wrenched him back to reality. He looked up at the first curse, and found Gwen covered in dirt and doubled over in pain. Asking if she was alright seemed an exercise in mockery at this point.
He did, however, stand and approach to look for signs of blood or other injury. “Did you damage your stitches? Stab yourself?” A war ensued between shying away from the dirt and trying to express care for a potentially injured girlfriend. “Uh, here, take that dress off and I’ll carry you to the bathroom.” It sounded like the best idea, unless Gwen had a better one. The dirt acted as salt to a vampire, so Isaiah found difficulties in progressing further into the kitchen. Gwen heard Isaiah’s question but took a moment or two to more to breath through the pain. Not only had she smacked her stitches she had aggravated her shoulder too. One was more troubling than the other though and unfortunately Gwen couldn’t really tell if she’d done any damage to her healing abdomen with dirt all down the front of her dress. “No, I am not cut but...I don’t know if I did anything.” She slowly let out a breath of air after one last deep intake.
“I can walk.” She said carefully before tentatively standing up a bit straighter and navigating around the mess at her feet while using the counters and then the breakfast bar to support herself as she made her way to Isaiah. By this point she had no choice but to let go of any support to make her way to the bathroom. Well...support from the counter anyway. With a look at ISaiah, Gwen reached out to take hold of his arm to use as her support. There wasn’t a need to put much weight against him as it was to just keep her balanced and from needing to stand up completely straight.
“I can’t believe I just did that.” The remark was hot. Gwen was frustrated at herself that she had made such a mess and her inability to deal with it on her own. Not to mention, she was probably going to need assistance with assessing if she had done any damage. It wasn’t like she could double herself in half to give herself a thorough look over. “I am such a clutz.” Heaving a sigh she shook her head.
With Isaiah’s aid she made it to the bathroom without further injury to herself (because lord knew she probably would have tripped and fell with the luck she was having). “Can you help me get this off.” She indicated the dress with a nod to her head. “I am not going be able to pull this up and over my head right now.” The knee length dress was not the easiest thing to get on one handed, but getting it off was going to be near impossible at that moment without stretching and pulling both her aching shoulder and midsection. Plus, she wasn’t sure what sort of state her stitches were in or if the bandage was still secure over them. It felt like it might still be secure but for all she knew it was already half pulled off or was now doing its job of soaking up blood God I hope I didn’t make this worse on myself all because I was bored.As Isaiah walked her to the bathroom, arm carefully supporting some of her weight he asked himself how he would check for internal bleeding. He wondered how to rectify torn stitches without a hospital visit, and how one might tell if someone tore a rotator cuff by feel. How were dislocated shoulders replaced to their rightful position? What amount of butterfly enclosures might secure an open wound long enough to get someone to the hospital?
The slow walk gave his mind ample time to ruminate on these questions, and exacerbated his previously high anxiety. Upon reaching the bathroom and looking her over, he tried to remind himself that if she was able to stand and wasn’t bleeding through her dress by now, then there was little chance of an abdominal rupture. Her arm still looked properly positioned in its sling, so the chances of a dislocation were minimal, but what if he simply didn’t know the signs? What if Gwen was bleeding internally? How did one check for that? How was he to know unless it became too late?
Isaiah came back to himself at her question, and he acquiesced slowly. “... Right, yes.” Slipping a dress off was a long-practiced tradition for him, so he parted the zipper easily and brushed the straps off her shoulders. Hair clung to them in a vibrant struggle, threatening to tangle the pull tab of the zipper, but he managed to part the dress from shoulders with little extra damage. Pulling the arm hole around the sling, however, proved a much more difficult affair. Unfortunately, he needed to jostle her injured arm somewhat to pull the dress entirely off of her. Once it lay in a pool on the ground, he was able to better assess any mangling she’d done without hindrance.
It was strange for him to look over Gwen’s body in any way that wasn’t lewd or artistic, but he managed it well enough. A couple spots of blood showed on the bandage covering her stitches. Her arm looked reddened, as did the presumed site where the trowel struck her. Otherwise she looked like her battered self without much difference. Isaiah frowned slightly. “Can I take this off?” He asked, as he touched her sides where her bandage was secured. Unlike Isaiah, Gwen’s mind did not automatically leap to the worst possible situation. Sure, the damage she had done during her mad scramble to grab a damn peat pot could have pulled things internally. With how recent the injury was, even with her accelerated healing, it wasn’t a far leap at all to imagine she may have reopened knitting tissue within her abdominal wall or managed to dislocate her shoulder again. But, Gwen was more focused on the initial pain she was in, breathing her way through it, and getting to the bathroom. Her mind didn’t have much room for any other contemplations. Not that she wanted it to find time for excessive worry.
As Isaiah undid the buttons of her dress Gwen shifted her body the best she could to relieve herself of the fabric. The tug at her hair went almost unnoticed as the nature of maintaining such long locks meant a high pain tolerance to tugs. She did hold her breath though as her injured shoulder was jostled to finally free the dress from her shoulders, allowing it to pull on the ground around her feet. It was vaguely odd to be standing in front of Isaiah in her undergarments and not have intentions to rid her boyfriend of his own garments, but such was the circumstances she had found herself in.
She glanced down at her bandage and noted the few spots and inwardly cursed herself again. The ******** was I thinking? I should have just stayed in bed another day or two. Her doctors had warned her not to move around too much but, of course, she had gone against their better judgement and pushed herself out of sheer boredom. It was a lesson learned, certainly. Hopefully I won’t ever need to worry about dealing with this again though.
With the gentle touch on her side, Gwen glanced at Isaiah’s face, noting the frown and nodded. “Yea. It probably should be changed now anyway.” When they had come home from the hospital, Gwen had been given supplies to care for the healing wound which had been carefully stored in the medicine cabinet. She hadn’t bothered to change it yet since the doctors had mentioned it would only need tending to if it got dirty. OTherwise she was to take it off and assess the stitches in 3 days time. Well, I managed a day and a half. She thought ruefully.
“The stuff is in the medicine cabinet. There should be gauze pads, another wrap and I think a disinfectant. I, can’t remember exactly everything they gave me.” She admitted with a wince. When they had discharged her she had still been dealing with the effects of the morphine despite the weaning from the medication. Her entire stay was an odd jumble of memories. Isaiah darted for the medicine cabinet shortly after she said the words. Hands trembled in their usual nerves at the sight of blood and injury as he pulled the gauze pads, the alcohol wipes, the antiseptic gel and gauze wrapping. He wasn’t certain he could pack quite as well as the doctors or nurses that assembled her bandage, but letting it sit as-is seemed unacceptable. As a second thought, Isaiah pulled the small set of scissors kept within. The current bandage fell away with a few quick snips, which revealed the gratefully minor damage. Blood pearled up and threatened to trickle down her midriff, but nothing worse remained evident.
“I’m just going to tell you this now,” Isaiah began as shaken hands fumbled and worked at the gauze packaging. “I’m not great with blood. Or, well, any sort of terrible thing happening to bodies. Good thing I’m not a nurse, right?” With a sigh, he applied the antiseptic gel to the gauze, wiped the area free of blood using the alcohol wipe, and pressed the gauze to the slight tear as soon as he was able. “If you could hold this.” The next part, for as much as he could figure in his state of panic and nausea, involved the use of both hands.
With a breath, he started rolling out some of the gauze in hand. “When I was in third grade,” Isaiah started, his hands stretching the gauze wrapping over her sides, “my dad told me a story about the tooth fairy. And it was terrible, and my mom smacked him for it after and in hindsight it’s pretty funny but at the time it gave me nightmares and I’m rambling. But, he said the tooth fairy was a serial killer that takes people’s teeth after he kills them. And, I don’t know if you remember the news from around then, but that’s actually true. But he told me that unless I started getting rid of some of my teeth, the tooth fairy killer was gonna come and murder my parents.” Slowly he wrapped the gauze about Gwen’s midriff, careful to avoid too much or too little pressure. Soon he grew into a rhythm of it and he occasionally hesitated when pulling the roll around the front of Gwen, as if taking the time to catch her scent.
“So after that, I started wiggling the loose teeth. Then I started pulling on them with a rag while I was sitting there watching TV. Eventually one came out, and it hurt, but once I saw all the blood on the rag I just passed out. Then my parents were the ones with nightmares. So that’s how I found out. My dad was being an a*****e and then, oh no, looks like little Izzy can’t handle blood.” Finally he finished the wrap, and carefully tucked the loose end within the lowest layers. “I hope that holds.” The nervous shake in his hands and the way he seemed to rush about in an almost fumbling matter as he gathered the items from the medicine cabinet caused Gwen to smile slightly as he turned his attention to her mid drift. It was somewhat odd to her that he was squeamish around wounds. He had seemed like the level headed kinds who would take control of such a situation and deal with matters with practiced ease. It was endearing to see him push through his nervousness to help tend to her when it was her own damn fault she needed a bandage change. So, as the old bandage was removed and she was instructed to hold on the new gauze she did so without remark, hiding her small smile from him whenever he looked in her direction. Thankfully he seemed more focused on treating her than studying her facial expressions.
“Well, now I know where you’ve gotten some of your humor from.” She remarked casually as he wound the bandage around her abdomen. “That’s a horrible story to tell a child though. True or not.. I am not at all surprised you remember that in such detail.”
With each pass of the bandage around her, Gwen caught herself leaning back into Isaiah as he wrapped his arms around her, pausing just ever so slightly with his movements. It was comforting, and Gwen closed her eyes as he continued his ministrations and storytelling. “Well that’s certainly a rough way to find out you’re squeamish with blood. I highly doubt that the pain from pulling out the tooth helped either. I remember how painful that could be and got to the paint I wouldn’t tell anyone I had a loose tooth so I could just let it fall out on it’s own.” As she felt slender fingers slip between her skin and the bandage as Isaiah tucked the end in, Gwen opened her eyes, turning her head to the side to look at him as she leaned back against him more. “I have to say though, little Izzy did quite well tonight though.” She gave him a teasing smile before turning around to face him, wrapping her arm around his waist, her hips angling into his own as she looked up at him.
“Look, I know you’re not necessarily happy or comfortable about trying to be monogamous. I may not understand the idea of having multiple partners, mostly because it’s something I’ve never thought of before as anything but someone cheating on their significant other. What I can understand though is that this isn’t going to be easy and…” She paused. The words she wanted to say were a big jumbled mess in her brain and she was having a hard time sorting them out as she looked into hazel eyes. “I am not looking for a perfect relationship. If there’s one thing I’ve learned now is that there’s no such thing as ‘perfect’. Not like those fairytales I grew up on at least of the princess finding her prince charming. What I want to find is what is perfect for us.
“If this turns out to just not work for you and makes you utterly miserable then we can sit back down and reevaluate things. Make changes and...explore other options.” Furrowing her brows she licked her lips as she searched his face. Trying to gauge his reaction to her words. “I want you to be happy, content and enjoying us as a couple.””If you knew my dad, you wouldn’t be surprised.” He frowned, then. “He even called recently. It’s strange.”
His gaze returned to her after being transfixed at a point far beyond reality. “Teeth are always such a pain in the a**, aren’t they?” Clucking his tongue, he stared down at her in mock admonishment. “And so are you. People only call me Isaiah or Ice, and for good reason. The only thing worse than Izzy is when my stepsister used to call me Izard.” With arms surrounding her, Isaiah reached downward and casually seized two handfuls of posterior. “But, I could be an actual pain in the a**,” he finished, giving a liberal squeeze.
She looped back to their earlier conversation, to which Isaiah was surprised. As a point of anxiety, he didn’t expect her to return to it. “You might understand it later, or you might have to try it to get it, or you might never get it. Even if it doesn’t work out, we don’t have to hate each other over it. But that’s… I have a habit of going through worst case scenarios whenever possible.” Drawing in a breath, he loosed it through his nose slowly. While incomparable to smoking, it helped with some latent anxiety over confronting this apparent issue. “The main part is that my mind is trying to tell me that I’m giving it up forever, which is a little ridiculous to think about so soon. Neither one of us can predict the future like that.”
Finally his hands slid up to meet at the small of her back, where he laced fingers as if against his own stomach. “It’s good to explore though. For both of us to explore. Monogamy is as much an exploration for me. Just, don’t expect to be all fireside cuddles and fancy dinners. Clubbing, on the other hand…” He grinned down at her wolfishly.
~fin~
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