The Cycle

Author's Note: Written as a gift for twin, and inspired by a daydream and a roleplay conversation a few months back. By a few months, I really mean this was back around February, written…I actually can't remember when this was written. Sometime in summer, Twin and I believe. I recently pulled it up and forced Twinsie to beta it (…for a second time. :P) and she did because she loves me. :D THIS IS FOR TWIN ALL OVER AGAIN. :P

Disclaimer: How lovely to be a woman my ass. And I don't own Next to Normal. …or Bye Bye Birdie, for that manner…

Henry couldn't understand it. Whenever he tried to be nice and help his girlfriend with things, she'd shrug it off and pull a feminist move saying that she was perfectly able to get 'insert item here'. There was only one thing that she would let him buy for her, and it was the most awkward thing any male could be caught in the drugstore with. But really, what could get more awkward for a nineteen year old male than being in the tampon aisle?

"Nat, there's like fifteen different kinds here. Which one did you want again?" Henry called Natalie on the phone.

"It's the one in a blue box, size regular," Natalie replied on her phone while lying on her couch.

"But there are, like, three different blue boxes. Which one am I supposed to get?" He jumped when a woman asked him to move aside so she could get some sanitary products. This aisle made him uncomfortable as hell, and he just wanted her to explicitly state what he should buy so he could leave.

"The same one as last time," she curtly responded. The monthly bitch was especially unforgiving to her today, and she was running low on important things. She couldn't be bothered with answering redundant questions right now; it's not her fault she had a uterus.

"Okay, and that was…"

"Just get the one in the blue box, okay?"

"Fine. I'll be at your house in fifteen minutes." Less than a minute after he hung up, Natalie called him again.

"Hey Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you get some Midol, too?"

"Is that legal?"

"It's in the same aisle, and it's like Tylenol. But different. Yes, it's legal."

"Okay," he sighed. "Anything else before I hang up?"

"Uh, Hershey's Kisses. The original kind. I'll share when you get here."

"Alright, see you."

"Thanks!" Once she hung up, Henry swore at his phone. If he bought the wrong kind of tampon, she'd be pissed. If he asked about what to get, she'd be pissed. There was only one logical and manly way to determine which box to buy at this point: eeney meeney miney mo. Closing his eyes, he recited the child like chant and prayed to God that he would buy the right kind and have a happy girlfriend. Once he decided on the designated box, he quickly sprinted into an aisle that wouldn't make him uncomfortable enough to vomit. Of course, when he noticed he was surrounded by talking Hallmark cards and he had forgotten the Midol, he didn't feel any more comfortable.

He returned to the dreaded aisle eight to look for the medicine. There wasn't any medicine in this aisle; Natalie was just being an ass to make him suffer. He had to locate it, though, or Natalie would hold onto this grudge for months. Unfortunately, the only source of help nearby came in the form of a teenage boy whose eyes were fixated on him the entire time. Why were the employees at CVS so unfriendly looking?

"Excuse me?" he asked the young man with a CVS official polo covering his hunched shoulders.

"Wh-wh-what?" the employee stuttered.

"I need to find something."

"Uh, what, sir?" he asked as his voice cracked.

"It's…I need to find the Midol." Henry really didn't think this geeky employee working for a huge chain of overpriced goods should be chortling at his plight.

"Alright, sir," he squawked, "it's this way." They returned to the dreaded aisle, and Henry waited for him to locate the medicine. The employee, who wore a nametag saying 'Connor', took off his glasses to wipe the grime off the lenses and continued to closely scour the aisle. Henry noticed that Connor's eyes were fixated on the condom section, and he knew that Midol was not part of planned parenting.

"Yeah. That's not Midol. Can you just find it?"

"Oh yeah, sir," he squeaked. "It's up here." He pointed to the boxes of pills that were right above the boxes of tampons he chose from. Sighing, Henry looked at the two types of Midol. There was extra strength, and it claimed to even help control moodiness. If Henry bought that, though, would Natalie take that as a sign and be super offended? If he didn't buy that, would she continue her premenstrual bitch spree? In the middle of his deep reasoning, his phone rang. It was Natalie.

"I'm almost done, okay?" he stressed.

"Okay. But I feel like Reese's Cups instead of Hershey Kisses now. Just felt like I should let you know."

"You so owe me for this."

"Yeah, I probably do. Or this could be an act of attrition for prom."

"It's not my fault you fell! And didn't I make that up to you weeks ago?"

"You tried to dip me! I told you I don't dance. Just saying. Making a plate of apology cookies, then eating half of them, doesn't count."

"Fine. Reese's Cups, Midol, tampons. I'll see you in-"

"Do you mind getting pads, too? I just went through my cabinet and I'm out of those."

"You're really pushing the whole 'attrition' thing."

"Overnights that come in the dark green box. Thanks!" Exhaling, Henry snapped his phone shut and secretly hoped the force would crack the inside of his phone and render it useless. If Natalie called again, he might be tempted to throw his phone at the feminine product display. Then, with luck, his phone would actually be rendered useless and she couldn't call him until he got a new phone. Ideally, his new phone would arrive when she wasn't a crazed estrogen-high maniac, so he could avoid PMS Natalie for another 28 days. In the middle of his master plan, his phone rang.

"Listen, okay? I'm doing my best so just stop calling- Oh hi Mom."

"Henry, is everything okay?" Mrs. Carter asked him.

"Yeah. Just picking some things up for Nat. I'll be back by seven."

"I don't like how you're always picking up stuff for her, Henry."

"I don't always pick up stuff for her."

"I'm just saying, you could do a lot better. You know, my friend Mary's daughter is your age and-"

"Yeah, bye." Henry quickly hung up because if being a nineteen year old male in a tampon aisle was bad enough, a nineteen year old male on the phone with his mother in the tampon aisle was just so much worse. Tired, he knew he had to make this quick. He grabbed the first dark green box that said 'overnight' he saw, then left the aisle. At this point, if Natalie called saying that she would die if she didn't have something, she should drag herself to the store to buy it. Then, he stopped by the candy aisle, got a jumbo pack of Reese's Cups and went up to the cashier to pay and get the hell out of this store. As the cashier rang up his awkward items, Henry realized he never grabbed a box of Midol. "Fuck."

"You forgot the Midol?" the cashier asked.

"How'd you know?" Henry asked, leaning in close so other CVS patrons wouldn't hear what he had forgotten.

"You have tampons, pads, and candy. It's like the gift basket for the menstruating girlfriend. All that's missing is the medicine so they'll stop being bitchy."

"Yeah…could you hold this for me? I need to get…yeah." The cashier nodded and he went back to the damned aisle. There it was: the Midol extra strength and the regular Midol. When the 'will she be offended if I buy extra strength' debate resurrected in his mind, he basically said to hell with it and grabbed both. Connor was still there, looking at the birth control he would probably never use unless he picked up an inebriated girl outside a bar. He would pity him, but Connor wasn't the one holding two different types of premenstrual medication. Once Henry returned to the cash register with the medicine, the cashier rang up both boxes, then punched in numbers on the keypad.

"Listen, I don't mean to be a creep, but I've seen you in here a lot. Like, in a cycle. It just hit me now that your visits to this shithole coincide with a woman's menstrual cycle, which means either you're a really really nice older brother, you are trying to get on a female friend's good side, or you have a girlfriend who treats you like shit when the monthly monster is unleashed," the cashier rambled.

"Uh, the last one."

"Ah. Just so you know," the fast talking cashier turned the newly printed receipt around and pointed at the final total, "I took off the price of that other box of Midol. My girlfriend can be an absolute bitch around her period, so I feel your pain, man. Hopefully this will ease the pain of having to deliver this to a hormonal battleground and listen to her rant on how because we don't have uteruses, we can't understand them."

"It does, actually. Thanks," Henry grinned and then took the bag. Just as he stepped away from the counter, the bag fell apart and the women's products spewed across the floor.

"I'd offer to help you with that…but that'd just be awkward, man. I helped you out before, so I don't feel too bad but I'm not picking tampons off the floor for you." The cashier held out a new plastic bag for Henry to dump his purchased items into.

"Yeah, I don't blame you," Henry rolled his eyes, picking everything up.

"Good luck!" the cashier called out as Henry left.

"Thanks!" Traveling in his beat up old car, he drove the ten minutes to the Goodman household. He was greeted by Natalie waiting out on the porch looking miffed.

"Well, finally! I've been needing this for a while!" she laughed. Henry felt this information was classified under 'TMI'. "Thank you so, so, so, so much."

"Yeah, no problem," Henry shrugged as she looked through the bag.

"Hey Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't buy pads; you bought Depends."

"Fuck, really?"

"Yeah. Do I really look like an old lady who has bladder control issues to you?"

"No, I must've gotten the boxes confused or something. I'm sorry."

"I'm not letting you off the hook for this for a long time, Mr. Carter."

"Anything I can do to make it up to you, Ms. Goodman?"

"Well, you could always go back to CVS..."