Born this Way
Brendan is ill. Steven buys pizza. Happy Stendan, pizza and, of course, Lady Gaga. Enjoy.
It was a loud knocking at the door that awoke me from my restless slumber; each tap of knuckles against the wood was an insult to my throbbing temples. I lifted my head from the pillow, leaning my weight on my elbows and sighed. If that was Steven forgetting his keys again, he would have to wait.
I grabbed the pillow from beneath me and covered my ears, begging the assault on the door to stop. Steven would have to climb through the window if he wanted to get back in. I bet he did it on purpose. He'd made no end of his mockery of my illness this morning.
"Awww, does Bwendan have man flu?" he'd endlessly questioned. To which I had replied a rather blunt, "piss off," and had thrown the pillow, with whatever measly strength I had, at his head. He'd left the house laughing his pretty little arse off, and slammed the door. I could still hear his guffaws from the end of the path and I realised that, something I regret to admit, he'd even made me smile too.
"Thank god," I groaned into the pillow when the knocking at the door finally ceased. Amidst the migraine that pooled in my brain, and the sleep that fogged up my senses, I could hear muffled voices exchanging small-talk at the threshold, the quiet closing rattle of the frame, and Steven's footsteps wandering down the hallway towards me.
The slow squeaking of rusting hinges pierced my ears, before Steven's soft whispers came from behind.
"Bren?" he spoke softly.
I grunted in response and pulled the pillow halfway off my face to inspect the sight of him. He'd pushed the door fully open and stood with a pizza box in hand and a smile plastered on his face.
"Sorry about this morning, acting like a twat. Though you were just after some attention," he walks quietly to me and perches himself next to me on the bed, placing the pizza down on his knee. He deposits two paracetamol on the bedside cabinet and opens the bottle of water that had remained mostly full throughout the night.
"I brought this to you last night for help with you being sick, you know. You were supposed to drink it."
"Mmm," I moaned into the pillow.
"Is that you telling me to shut up?" he chuckled under his breath. "Well, I don't think you're any sicker now than you were last night. I don't think it would be possible. I very nearly thanked god that the kids were at Amy's. You're like a lion when you're sick you know," he laughed again, that infectious donkey laugh of his, and pushed the bottle of water and pills towards me.
"You can have summat to eat as well. Must be starving. Know I am. Move," he shoved me with the palm of his hand, nudging me to move to the other side of the bed.
"Go away," I muttered as he slid into the bed next to me, picking up the pillow I'd had my face buried into, and inspected it.
"You're so attractive when you drool in your sleep, you. Really, having a hard time keeping me hands off you." He pulled the clean pillow from the other side of the bed where I now lay from beneath my head without warning, and I winced as my head hit the flatter pillow beneath. He beckoned for me to raise my head and placed the slobbered-on pillow beneath me.
"I love you Bren and all, but I ain't lying on that. No way."
"Whatever happened to 'in sickness and in health?"
"We're not married, it dun't count."
I lay my head back down, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, inwardly cursing him. We lay there, side by side, in silence for a while, Steven flicking through the channels on the TV and sighing wistfully, realising, after the third time he's passed BBC 1, that nothing was on.
"There inn't nowt on," he commented blankly, leaving one of those shitty music channels on, the one with Steven's music. Whatever happened to the classics?
With my headache subsiding, I turned over on the bed and lifted myself up so my back was resting on the headboard.
"Why do you even bother listening to this shit?"
"Why don't you just shurrup and eat pizza."
Steven dragged the pizza box closer to us and rested it on both our legs. As soon as he began to open the box, I instinctively drew away, a groaning "uugh" escaping my lips, my stomach churning at the mere thought of eating.
After spending nearly three hours early this morning retching over the toilet bowl, and crawling back to bed with Steven's help, my stomach and I had decided it was best to stay away from solids altogether. Initially, I had attempted to sleep on the bathroom floor. Steven had refused to pass me a blanket, claiming that I wasn't a teenager anymore and it wouldn't do my back any good. He got more and more like a nagging wife every day that passed us by.
"Don't be a baby, it was just a bit of a stomach bug. Our Leah were sick for three days in a row last week, remember? How brave were she, ay? Swear to god, she's got bigger balls than you have. Now just bloody eat summat, will you?" He wrapped his fingers around my chin and dragged my face back to look at him. He had a pizza slice positioned in his hand and waved it in front of my face.
"It is your favourite after all," he smiled enticingly and pushed the pizza closer towards me. "Open your mouth. That's it, now bite it."
"I'm not a fucking child, Steven," I scalded playfully, in-between chews. It was good pizza, after all. No wave of overwhelming sickness, which was a plus. Maybe it was just a 24 hour thing.
"See! It's nice. Bloody hell. The way you've avoided food today, you'd think this house were infected." He took a hearty bite of the slice himself and chewed, happy with himself that he'd gotten me to eat something. He chewed carelessly and I watched him swallow. I was definitely feeling better.
"It is looking a bit grubby," I smiled at him. "When was the last time you cleaned up?"
He nudged my rib with his elbow carefully, looking at me with mock anger.
"Would help if you did some bloody work 'round here. Feels like all I ever do round here is clean. I'm your boyfriend, not your maid, you know."
It had taken me a while to get used to that, "boyfriend". The initial shock of having it said to me; of having Steven introduce me as his "boyfriend". It was both terrifying and electrifying in equal measures. The word was no less a promise than that of a husband, because whether Steven and I were partners, lovers, husbands or boyfriends, it was never going to be just a one night thing. It was a promise far bigger than what the surface of the word offered.
The corners of my mouth lifted into a slight smile. For now, the word "boyfriend", I'd learned to embrace it.
"Yes, well, I'm ill. So I can't do the housework," I mockingly coughed for added measure and Steven's laugh erupted once again. He placed his hand on my forehead, testing for a temperature, and let his fingertips roam down to trace the blush of my cheek.
"At least you've got a bit's colour in you now. Gotta admit, you were looking a bit peaky this morning. You still feel bad?"
"Not completely and utterly shit," I replied.
"Just shit," he concluded. "Come here," he lowered himself on the bed to a sort of lying position and opened his arm to the side, offering my head a place against his heart.
Resting my head against the faint beating of his heart, I felt his fingertips dancing in my ruffled mess of hair, tracing down to the nape of my neck, drawing circles on my shoulder blade, and drifting back north; a soothing cycle that calmed any sickness I had felt all day. Here, with him, it was my own personal heaven. Times like this, I wondered why I had ever let him go.
Steven was perfect. All laughter and smiles; bronze skin and long, black lashes that shadowed his sparkling eyes in arousal; gangly, and strangely sturdy, limbs that intertwined perfectly with my own in the dead of night; and he was mine. All mine.
"It's nice, innit, this?" he questioned. I raised my head to stare up at him, and sighed happily in agreement.
The faint tones of some shitty Ke$ha song ruined the moment, but Steven seemed content, humming along.
"Give me the remote," I demanded, going to grab it from the side cabinet. In my dreary state, my reaction times slowed and Steven wafted it above our heads.
"You want it? Come get it."
"I'm warning you boy," I taunted. Steven giggled in that ridiculous, flirty, schoolgirl way and pushed me off him. I landed on my back and narrowed my eyes at him, as he ran towards the door way.
"Try me," he whispered seductively and exited the room swiftly, running down the corridor into the living room.
"You little bitch, come back here with me remote!" I shouted back, raising off of the bed and stomping after him.
By time I'd reached the living room, he was standing in what I could only describe as an "I'm ready for whatever direction you move in" stance, on the sofa; knees bent and feet planted firmly at shoulder length apart.
"Give it to me," I warned again, hand open in front of me. I beckoned him forwards with my index finger, eliciting another giggle from him.
"Make me."
"I'm not playing with you, Steven."
"Aww, are you too old? Does your back hurt?" he mocked.
"My back's fine. I've got a pain in my arse though," I huffed as I wandered round to his side of the sofa.
"And where might that be, ay? That pain of yours?" he smiled playfully and turned to face me.
I reached out and grabbed his ankle, pulling him down to the sofa, "Here." He giggled vivaciously as I landed on top of him, tearing the remote from his grasp and kissing his neck at the same time.
"Stop it!" he batted his hands at my shoulders and I reached my free hand down to his side to tickle the soft spot below his ribcage, which had him squirming. "Stop it, please… Bren!" he breathlessly begged.
"Make me," I kissed down his jaw line again until he kicked me in my shin.
"Dick," I uttered into his mouth.
"Gerrof me then!"
I lifted my head from the pulse of his neck and stared down into his eyes, the playful sea of blue peering through lowered eyelids. A soft pout played on his plush lips as he glared back at me. Soon enough, I rolled off of him and planted my arse on the floor, tucking my knees up to my chin.
"Make me some tea, wench," I grinned. He wacked me childishly around the back of my head, and then kissed my temple, hand stroking the hair that fell down into my face.
"Be back in a minute."
I threw the remote to the bedroom TV on to the sofa, took the living room remote from the coffee table, and began to flick through the channels. When I reached a Cheryl Cole station, Steven screamed out from the kitchen and begged for me to keep it on. I swiftly swapped channels.
"I've only just got over me first headache!" I shouted back at him. A clattering filled the room as a teaspoon, which Steven had launched at me from the kitchen, landed on the coffee table.
"Arsehole," I heard him mutter beneath his breath, brightening the endless smile on my face.
A familiar tune drifted through the air, and I heard Steven snigger as he brought the tea through to the living room, sitting closely beside me, a humming deep in his throat.
"Don't."
"Don't what?" he asked, feigning innocence, and began to him. "You know you want to…" he enticed.
"Want to what?"
"Come on, this is your favourite song, this!" he smiled, still humming along.
"Steven, I don't know what you're talking abo…"
"Sing with me!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"You love this song!"
"No I don't."
"You do!"
"I don…"
"I'm beautiful in my way… Come on Bren!"
"Oh dear God," I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and covered my face.
"Cuz God makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track…"
Fuck it.
"Baby, I was born this way," I muttered, placing the cushion down back on the sofa.
We erupted into song and chorus together, lively laughter and tone-deaf voices filtering into one head-aching mash-up. Steven stood up and offered me his hand, dragging me up to meet him. He jumped on to the sofa, shaking his arse closer to my face, and I smiled at him admiringly.
When the song on the TV had begun to filter to a drawn-out, gradual end, Steven landed with an umf on his arse on the sofa, and I followed him seconds later. His happiness spread like wild-fire around the room, illuminating everything in the dimness. It seemed like sunshine reflected on the yellow curtains, and the pattered flowers on the furniture had once again bloomed.
"That were brill," he grinned from ear-to-ear.
I nodded tiredly and threaded my fingers with his, pulling him softly against my chest, our thudding hearts and aching limbs joining as one moulded being. He melted into me, wrapping his free arm around my neck, lifting his legs to rest over my thighs.
"Should sign up for the X-Factor, you."
"Could go all the way, Steven."
"I don't doubt it." He smiled again, into my chest.
"Steven?" I questioned in my state of fatigue and side-splitting pain of laughter. I raised the pillow that lay beside me above the level of my shoulders.
"Hmm?" He raised his head to glance at me from beneath drooping eyelids.
The cushion launched forwards from my hand and collided with the weary expression on his face. I untangled myself from him and grinned, moving slowly towards the hallway. He looked back at me, disdain etched into his features.
"You're dead," he began to threaten, but I was already bolting hastily back to the bedroom. He jumped on my back, tackling me to the floor. I turned over onto my back and he straddled my hips, our lips joining in an exchange of heated passion, needing, and what I can only explain as pure happiness.
"I love you," he whispered against my lips, my breath carrying the sincerity of his words to my heart.
"I love you too," I replied, earnestly. The silent "with all my heart" lingering in the air. "Always."
Thank you for reading.