Sometimes, Stein regretted his choice to become a surgeon. Being at the beck and call of the hospital was often as annoying as one would assume, but he'd gone through too much schooling and far too many migraines to go back upon his decision and become a coroner, instead.
Corpses didn't complain. And they also came with the added bonus of being pre-dead, so there was no chance of killing them! That would have been an uncomplicated job. But regardless of everything, he really did like being a doctor. Especially after a successful surgery, though it took him a good 5 hours and he'd had to scrub his hands raw afterward. Still, he had to wait to go home, something he was going to do the second the nurses went ahead and finished up with the patient and he got the go ahead. In the meantime, he'd decided to sneak out to the fire escape for a quick smoke.
He was, above all else, a man who had an acute appreciation for irony.
Yawning, he all but commanded the phone he used for the hospital calls to ring and tell him he had the go-ahead to make his way back home to his rather pregnant wife, where he could kick her body pillow off the bed with no small amount of resentment toward the stupid thing, and finally get some damn sleep.
He thought the insomnia would get better after college, but no such luck. For a brief moment, he considered, as he'd done very often recently, the University's offer of becoming a professor. A decent schedule could very well be what he needed.
When his phone rang, it wasn't the plain, factory-set ringtone of the hospital phone, but instead, the personalized ring of "Walking on Sunshine" that indicated he had a text from Marie.
That was weird, she was usually out cold that time of night.
He reached into his pocket, bringing out the Motorola RAZR and flipping the thing open, expecting for her to have sent him some sort of message about whether he was okay or not, or for him to pick something up on his way home. Her cravings had gotten downright ridiculous in the past few weeks, and he was dreading having to stop by the only 24/7 market to pick up whatever disgusting concoction she was in the mood for.
He didn't either of those messages, however. What he got instead forced him to inhale a little too deeply on his cigarette and he exhaled the smoke out through his nose while he stared down at the picture she had sent him, with the familiar background of their shared bathroom, the lights dimmed just enough to make her look as though her skin was glowing gold.
Pregnancy was doing Marie GREAT, if he does say so himself.
She was far from unattractive when he first met her through Spirit, having already earned herself both the nickname of "Pulverizer" from how many people had a crush on her as well as being called Marie "More-Curves-Than-a-Racetrack" Mjolnir, but with her rounding out due to expecting a child, their child, there was something about her that was was even more appealing.
Beyond which, he was slightly impressed with the technical details of the photograph: he was wondering how she managed to get a picture that showed so much without someone else holding the phone. She certainly had a more advanced model than he did, and the quality on the photograph was rather nice. She often told him that he was the only person in existence who still had a flip phone, but he never saw the need in an upgrade.
Though, now he was seeing the appeal. A larger screen would be favorable, in such a situation. It wasn't every day Marie sent him a picture of her so bare.
He took in the swell of her breasts, hair pushed behind her so nothing was being obstructed, the curve of hips into thicker thighs than before, the puff of her belly, and then up to her face, where the smile was just enough of a smirk to indicate that she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Before he even knew it, he had finished his cigarette and he immediately tapped out another one using just one hand, since he was holding his phone. He lit it, years of practice making it easy to just dangle it in his mouth while he contemplated whether making her nude photograph his wallpaper was in poor taste or not. His eyebrows went up when his phone chirped again, and the picture was pushed up and somewhat out of sight for the next text she sent.
"Are you gonna come home soon? Or should I take care of myself? ;)"
Well. He flipped his phone closed after sending a quick message, already whirling around and flicking his cigarette down to the concrete so he could stomp it out.
"Give me ten minutes."
The nurses were just going to have to deal with it.
He was going the hell home.
If you think I'm ashamed of myself, you are Wrong! Written as a request off on Tumblr, as most things recently have been!