Chapter Text
For the past few hours, Whizzer’s limbs had felt like lead. Each time he tried to lift an arm, it came crashing back down into the sheets. The warmth that had soothed his gut hours prior was overrun by the return of that throbbing pressure in his pelvis. It felt like something was trying to crawl out of him, bruising and trampling all his insides. The lights from outside the apartment were sliding across his vision, giving him glimpses of Marvin’s face beside him amidst his misery.
Marvin looked near peaceful with a slack face like this. Sleep has stilled his thoughts, and all that remains is the unpresumptuous zeal of weighted blankets and lavender. Whizzer remembers the early days with Marvin, the ones spent in his house with Trina. He remembers the contempt that Trina spent on the dishes rather than on his psyche.
“I honestly think he wakes up early just to see you,” she giggled. Her fingers were deftly working a towel into a plate, though her eyes had long since wandered. Whizzer chuckled, pulling a smile as he took the plate from her. He slid it onto the stack in the cabinet. Trina pulled another from the sink, and her chattering continued. “I mean, he used to not wake up until after I got Jason to school. Now, he’s jumping out of bed to beat me out the door.”
Whizzer’s smile thinned. Hm.
Unlike Whizzer, who slept around, Marvin slept period. One might have considered it a gentler way of coping with their queerness. It might’ve been an easier pill to swallow, a prettier picture to paint, but both burned into the same ash. Argument? Take a nap. Stressed? In bed before seven. Avoiding someone? Swallow a few melatonin. Whizzer was glad he could finally look at this sight with fondness instead of a scoff. His lips tug apart, dry and sticky with sleep. The scratchiness in his voice makes this debacle even more humiliating. His fingers fumble at the edges of the blanket, grasping and dropping it over and over.
“Marv,” he comes to call. “Marv, please…” Please at least still be a light sleeper.
The boulder beside Whizzer moves, shifting until it returns to the form of his dear boyfriend. Marvin’s slower to wake up than he is to make a move in chess, each of his eyes taking the time to open on their own schedule. Whizzer whines, shoving a hand into Marvin’s chest.
Marvin squirms away from the hand, yawning, “Jason, what do you-”
“It’s not Jason, it’s me. Now, come on.”
Finally, Marvin’s misty eyes come into clarity. They blink a few times, regaining their life. He grumbles, “Love, what’s going on?” and Whizzer frowns. Whizzer kicks his legs a few times, as if it could ward off his pains. Marvin is making this harder than it needs to be; he should just know.
Whizzer holds his breath, admitting, “My stomach hurts again.”
The tension in Marvin leaves just as soon as it came. He sighs, offering, “Are you hungry?”
His fingers tighten around Marvin’s shirt and tug on the fabric. “No, it’s not that. It’s really bad. Just-” He blinks until his vision comes back into focus. “Just do something for it.”
“Like what?”
“Get me something! I know we have Ibuprofen.” Marvin was already taking too long for this. Whizzer rolls onto his side and puts both hands onto the mattress. He pushes himself up until Marvin counteracts, pushing his body back into the blankets. Ew, why were they damp like that? How hot was it in here?
Whizzer’s poker face collapses, if Marvin’s reaction is anything to go off. The younger man begins peeling the blankets back, and the cool air descends like wind from an angel’s wings. The sensation is a hug’s opposite, but just as good emotionally. Hugs are encompassing, hot, and pressing, but this was light and airy, tinged with a chill that lifted Whizzer’s perspiration. For a moment, it’s pure bliss to be lifted from that swampy prison.
“Oh,” Marvin blurts, “that’s why,”
Whizzer’s heart skips a beat. “What’s why?”
“You’re, uhm… you’re…” Marvin’s ears flush pink. He begins to tug their throw blanket away, balling it up in his arms. “Can you not feel it?”
The stupidity of that question makes Whizzer’s lip curl. “Obviously not.”
His hips shoot up with another bolt of pain. It sears his insides and forces a cry from his throat. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. What if he was dying or something? His appendix could’ve burst, or there might be a tear in his stomach. Oh, it’s too soon for all of this. Far too soon-
“Whiz, you need to go to the bathroom,” Marvin opines. He discards his blanket and opens his hand to his boyfriend. “Can you walk?”
Whizzer squeaks, wincing, “Not really.” His muscles go slack again. They twist in a way that tames some of the pain, subduing its severity.
Marvin bites his cheek. After a moment, he coos, “That’s okay. I’ll take you.”
His fingers interlock with Whizzer’s, anchoring them around each other. He then pulls, gradually bringing Whizzer back up to him. He pauses after every little whimper that the man makes, but Whizzer mumbles Marvin’s worries away.
“Is that alright?” he would ask, and Whizzer would grumble, “It’s fine; I just need to stand up.”
Whizzer’s toes eventually slip onto the carpet. It’s thin and wiry- Marvin complains about that a lot. Marvin’s always wanted a plush, red carpet to line the floor with. Usually, Whizzer didn’t care about the complaints; he owned the place, but now he’s thinking about how much nicer Marvin’s choice would feel right about now.
Whizzer wraps one arm around Whizzer and the other around his middle, beginning his trudge across the room. Marvin enquires, “I thought you didn’t have any tampons?”
Whizzer sneers. “No, I don’t. I don’t get my period anymore, Marv.”
Marvin continues, prodding with, “Are you sure?”
Whizzer snaps, hissing, “I am eighteen years sure. Why are you so obsessed with the idea that I could be on my period?”
“I am not obsessed!” Marvin squeaks. “You just- your pants…” They cross over into the bathroom, signaled by the cool tile curling up Whizzer’s feet. Marvin reaches for the light switch.
Whizzer groans, pressing his thumb and pointer fingers into his eyes. How could getting Ibuprofen be such a pain in the ass? “Here, here.” Marvin’s hands guide Whizzer to the toilet. He sets Whizzer down on it, trembling from a combination of the weight and the epinephrine that was congealing his thoughts. He sighs, patting Whizzer down. “Take your pants off. I’ll get a washcloth.”
“Why do I need a-”
Whizzer catches sight of himself. His jaw goes stiff. No wonder Marvin’s been prodding about Whizzer’s cycle. He wasn’t being ignorant; Whizzer really was… He swallows that thought down with a side of his emotions. “Oh.”
Marvin’s already sifting through their bathroom cabinet. He hums, “Have you not been using your gel?”
Whizzer shakes his head before resting it in his hand. “I’ve been taking a lot more recently, actually. I-” He chokes up. “I don’t know why it did that.”
“Well, it’s okay, right? There’s nothing abnormal aside from its appearance?”
Whizzer wipes his nose. “Yeah, I guess. Just hurts like Hell.”
“Maybe it’s worse because your body isn’t used to it anymore.” Marvin bites his lip. The quietness in this room is crawling over Whizzer’s skin as he pulls his pants down. He’s never been naked without someone tugging at his lip or grabbing at his ass. Marvin’s seeing his body, and there’s no heat between them. It feels as cold and desolate as the bathroom tile. Even more so as Marvin approaches with a warm cloth. Marvin waves the towel to and fro, humming, “Do you want me to or…?” He trails off, gesturing back to the apex of calamity.
No, Whizzer was not in need of assisted care, not if he could make a move without his abdomen wailing in protest. Was he really letting these cramps get the best of him? He mumbles for Ibuprofen again.
Marvin’s eyes shoot wide. “Oh, right! Of course. I’m sorry.” He leaves the wash cloth in Whizzer’s lap and retraces his steps back to the cabinet. He brushes over many bottles, most empty or expired. “You don’t have any Midol?” he gawks.
Whizzer whines again. “I didn’t say anything about Midol.”
“Right, right.” Marvin’s Adam’s Apple bobs. “I should make a trip to the store and get you some and some tampons-”
Whizzer sputters, “Please don’t go anywhere. Just get the damn Ibuprofen.”
Marvin’s face shifts a pale shade lighter. He moves the weight around on his foot as if it were his worry in this moment. One moment, just one moment of rest, and he knows all of his emotions are going to run in and catch up to him. It’s just a period; a person will go through nearly five hundred of them in their life, but Trina never gave birth to a girl. Marvin’s never studied the art of womanhood. There was Whizzer, true, but Whizzer was just as detached from femininity as he was. What comforted someone with a prolonged, hormonal wound? Did they really cry and eat chocolate in sweats like they did in TV shows? Would it be improper to phone Trina? Was Marvin being a dunce?
When Marvin starts thinking, he’s picking up the pill bottle. When his thoughts subside, he’s watching Whizzer swallow two tablets. He mimics the motion. “So, do you…?”
Whizzer slumps against the porcelain. He concedes with, “Please. Just until it kicks in.” He watches Marvin’s hesitant hand come to grab the dripping towel. It wasn’t wrung out, so the water is dripping and diluting the red into streams of pink. Marvin begins to push the cloth around, carving out a path through the blood in between Whizzer’s legs.
“So,” Marvin’s eyes flit between the crime scene and Whizzer’s face, “have they always been this bad?” Whizzer blinks. His eyelids feel heavy, and so does his head.
This was all just one major disruption to the life he’s worked for. An irreputable step back. Was he going to start getting his period regularly again? Would he lose his stubble? How about his muscle? Were his hips already opening back up? His heart is thumping to a cadence he hasn’t felt since he booked that ticket to New York in ‘63. It’s the cadence that makes his stomach clench and his chest flutter, the one that cautioned him to keep his lips tight and words sharp.
“I…” Whizzer can see the blood, Marvin, the wash cloth, the mirror, and the window behind it all. “Yeah, I guess they have, honestly.” He can feel the chill of the toilet, the warmth of Marvin’s hands, the sting of the wash cloth, and the cramping in his uterus. “I used to call out sick in school a lot for it.”
“I thought your family was strict?”
He can hear Marvin talking, the window rattling, and traffic outside. “I hid in the gym a lot.” Marvin snickers. “Hey!” Whizzer’s agitation manifests itself in him trying to rise from his seat. He bats Marvin’s hand away, huffing. He can smell copper alongside Marvin’s B.O.
Marvin, as if taming a horse, pats Whizzer’s flank. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking with how you work out a lot and all…”
Whizzer relaxes once more, and the cloth dips in a bit further, brushing up against Whizzer’s outer folds; he takes a sharp inhale. “Honestly, the cramps don’t compare to the emotional shit storm of it all.” Lastly, he can taste only his own spit. Gross.
Marvin’s head perks up. “Oh, yeah. You get sad on your period, right? Or was it agitated?”
Whizzer’s face screws up. He keeps shimmying around the cloth. It’s getting kind of cold. “It’s more than agitated . It’s like a self-loathing; I couldn’t ever look at myself in the mirror or in the shower. I really hated gym class, actually-” Whizzer’s throat tightens. He only makes a soft wheeze. Why was the 5-4-3-2-1 technique not working? Why was it so damn hard to breathe?
“Hey, hey!” Marvin drops the cloth. He stands up and wraps his arms around Whizzer’s trembling figure. Whizzer reacts with compounded fervor, burying his face into the safety of Marvin’s chest. There, all he can feel is the thump of a steady heartbeat and the pillowiness of undefined muscle. It battles with his uterus for attention, mingling the comfort and agony into a hot cesspool of confusion. Marvin’s hands return to Whizzer’s hair, nestling his fingertips amidst the rows of curls. He begins to press lightly, whispering, “I’m sorry for saying all of that. It’s stupid. I’m going to focus on you right now, not then.”
Whizzer sniffles. No matter how he nuzzles into this shirt, he can’t get close enough to his lover. Tears begin to dampen the fabric, leaving it sticky between each other. “It just isn’t fair,” he moans.
“I know, I know it’s not. Just wait for the Ibuprofen to work.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
Internally, Marvin’s already made it out the door and secured their rotary phone. He’d like to be dialing up Charlotte more than he would massaging Whizzer’s scalp, but removing himself from Whizzer feels far too precarious of a choice at this moment. Ibuprofen had worked well enough for Trina back in the day, so Whizzer couldn’t be much different. He waits for a beat to pass, tapping along Whizzer’s scalp before he gets the gall to ask, “What do you want to do about the bleeding?” Whizzer’s lips remained sealed and tight, letting loose only a slight whimper. Marvin grimaces. “Would toilet paper work?”
Whizzer croaks in response, “I suppose.”
“Alright, let’s do that for now. We’ll reconvene in the morning, alright? I’ll call my boss.”
“You don’t need to-”
“No, I don’t, but I’m going to.”
After that, it’s a matter of tearing a few squares of toilet paper off the roll, which Whizzer does himself. Whizzer lines the inside of his folds with it, creating a padding that curates only mild irritation; it’s bulky, and he knows his labia will be drier than Hell when he takes it out in a few hours, but it’s more reassuring than Marvin leaving for a half hour to get something better. As he does so, Marvin throws a few of the empty cabinet bottles into the trash. He looks up at Whizzer, now sporting a more relaxed grin. “Good?” he asks.
“Almost,” Whizzer grimaces as he comes to his feet. Marvin balls up Whizzer’s pajama pants, holding the stained parts away from himself at an awkward length.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he offers.
Whizzer shifts back and forth a few times, straightening out his shirt. Maintaining model-like looks became a thousand times harder without a consistent hormonal cycle; he could already sense the acne he’d find in the morning. He rolls the options around in his head for a moment. He eventually declares, “Just leave the window open and let me stay on your side of the bed for the night.”
To that, a bit of the stress on Marvin’s face relieves. He hums, “I think I can manage that.”
On the way out, Whizzer says au revoir to his pants. They’re tossed into the laundry room for tomorrow’s toil. He stomps his way down the hall and right into the bedroom, where he falls into Marvin’s spot before the man even has a chance to protest. Marvin watches the giant collapse, left standing at the bedside. The other side was soaked by blood, so was he supposed to…
Whizzer tugs on Marvin’s hand, and Marvin goes tumbling down. He lands face-first into Whizzer’s pecs and squeals like a child dragged into rough-housing. He then picks himself back up, resettling himself against Whizzer’s side instead. He presses his face into Whizzer’s shoulder and takes a deep inhale. Maybe the smell he inhaled wasn’t perfect, but it was human. Something about that planted a smile back on Marvin’s face. He whispers, “You’re so handsome,”
Whizzer groans in response, already having closed his eyes. “Who are you talking to?”
“You.”
“Haha.”
“I mean it. You are.”
Whizzer squirms again, hiking a leg over Marvin. He hides himself in his partner’s hair so Marvin can’t see him mutter, “I love you.”