Title: Push The Button
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just have fun with them
Summary: He knows, he can't win this argument. He never stood a chance.
A/N: This is just a bit of fluff, nothing much, just fluff. Of the fluffy kind. I blame my mother. She says all of November will be full of snow. - Many, snowfree, thanks go to ShadowSamurai83 for the beta! Thank you, dear!
Enjoy!
Push The Button
He realizes he can't win the argument before it has even properly begun. No matter what point he will present, she will counter it and she will win. Not because she has the better arguments, but because she'll stop to consciously listen, forcing her own way.
It sounds very much as if they have reversed their roles, him being calm and sensible and she throwing a temper tantrum for tantrum's sake, but it is not so. She is incredibly stubborn, sometimes even blindly driven to do the things she does. Not one iota different from him.
They both retreat before the argument can ensue in full, she to the living room, where she sits sulkily on the sofa, he to the kitchen to prepare mugs of tea. For her as a peace offering, for him as a way to calm down. That's complete role reversal, even gender reversal, but it is necessary for the moment.
The time apart will give her the chance to contemplate his point of view and him the opportunity to gain perspective on what is actually happening.
The bare facts are she's recuperating, the doctors having only just released her from bed rest, and the weather is not fit for a person in her condition. It's nothing to her wilfulness, her greed to participate in life again. She wants fresh air, she wants to work...she wants.
Like a child.
It's wholly inconsiderate and age-inappropriate. It's also dangerous and annoying.
She doesn't behave like the mature, sensible woman she usually is. She doesn't think, she just acts.
He won't let her.
That's where the argument started, the one he knows he won't win.
Pulling the mugs out of the cupboard and setting up the kettle are automatic acts which Boyd doesn't have to think about. He even makes a blind grab for Grace's favourite tea. He doesn't need to think about where anything is; the last days have given him ample chance to explore her kitchen.
It's almost painfully domestic, the current situation, though he never thought he'd be the caretaker in the scenario.
It's their first winter together, though they aren't 'together' in that sense of the word yet. There are many explanations for the why that is, but they probably couldn't put it into words. He needs to come to terms with the past and himself, so does she.
The trajectory of their relationship is unerringly pointing towards long-term couple-status, a thing for the keeps, but Boyd wants to make sure that Grace never doubts the sincerity of his commitment to her, or the emotion behind it. He can see it in her eyes at times, when they have one of their more barbed 'discussions', but even more so when they interact with people outside their small intimate circle. Whether Grace is aware of it or not, she can't stop herself from second-guessing, her behaviour tinted with just as much self-destruction as his.
She wants to believe, but she can't. Not yet.
Which is why these last months and the current time sees them as daily companions not afraid of intimate touches, but not as lovers. This - so far platonic - romance is strangely exciting, even to Boyd. It builds up an anticipation that he is sure won't be a disappointment. When the time is right, he thinks he might do something completely mental and actually be romantic for a change.
Or, which is much more likely, they will argue and out of the passion of the moment will rip each other's clothes off.
Grace can play him like one of those modern game consoles her grandsons love. She knows each and every button and she's not afraid to push them where he's concerned. She has him at a true disadvantage there, but she is, thankfully, just as much an egalitarian person as he is and does not - constantly - play her advantage.
He thinks that the rest of the world would be shocked by Grace's amount of power over him, though nobody would dare to voice it. On the other hand, would anybody really believe that the tiny woman has so much influence over the big, strong man that she can manipulate him into doing her bidding without a thought?
What makes it even more worrying is the fact that most of the time she doesn't do it consciously. There's something about her that gentles him, calms him, gives him patience. Sometimes he thinks it is her deceptively frail body, which would also help explain why he - Peter Boyd - is actually in her kitchen making tea while she sits in the living room and sulks.
Grace is almost as bad as he is when it comes to taking care of herself. But this winter is going according to all forecasts. It's just the beginning of December, not even her birthday yet, but they've had weeks of cold and snow. Naturally, the entire kingdom seems to have ground to a halt because of the weather.
Grace had been quietly mocking their fellow countrymen, not so secretly amused when she found him shovelling the snow from his drive, but the days and weeks of frost have taken their toll on her. She denied it to the high heavens when she began to look pale and piqued, when the coughs turned from merely annoying into downright 'throwing your lungs up'-status, but then came the day when she stood him up for a lunch date and he found her collapsed and burning up with fever in the very room he's standing now.
He didn't hesitate a second, the last conscious deed before he clamped up and called an ambulance. It still makes him smile grimly when he remembers the doctor berating her about her carelessness - though in remission, she's still a cancer patient, and though over six months ago, she still had surgery on her head. The last thing she needed was a serious encounter with pneumonia.
She'd taken that in with surprising grumpiness, deteriorating from bad patient to downright bitchiness within days. It didn't change upon her release, because she was still confined to her bed. Alone.
It brought out a harshness in her personality that she usually so successfully masks nobody could imagine her having it, but there's steel to her character and a penchant for self-destruction. She is, after all, willing to accept him as her life partner once they get there.
He's all but moved in since then, only leaves to grab a change of clothes and go shopping and as much as he detests the domesticity, he's relieved every time he steps through the front door and hears her grumbling from upstairs.
For all that it's worth, Boyd has become thoroughly and completely put under the thumb of Grace Foley.
"Do you think the tea will improve if you heat and re-heat the water several times?" She leans casually against the counter top next to him, giving him a smile. It's loaded with meaning, but of the teasing and amused kind. She's caught him in a weak moment and her mile-wide impish side will milk it for all it is worth.
He smiles back, knowing that this is a duel he can't win either. His reaction is more to uphold their behaviour pattern than real competitiveness. "With the hippie crap you're drinking, it might improve."
Grace doesn't rise to the occasion, she doesn't need to. A raised eyebrow is enough of an answer.
"Are we going?"
He groans theatrically and shakes his head.
Still, Grace smiles, though it has turned into something deeper, more meaningful than before. "I promise to first drink my hippie crap tea and swallow all the damn antibiotics and then bundle up like Nanook."
He doesn't say anything, just gives her a long look.
Her response is a full-fledged 'love me, because I'm cute'-expression and a needling, "Please, Peter."
It strikes Boyd once again that she knows him only too well, for the childlike hopefulness in her eyes tugs at his heartstrings. He can't resist when she gives him that look, even less when she - rare as it is - uses his given name. It will prove interesting to hear to what she reverts once they take the final step and end up together in her bed. And he does have ideas for the use of that brass bed.
Of course, he doesn't mention the thought, already in the unenviable position to have to concede defeat in their argument he could not win.
"Only to the corner of the street, the full works of winter clothes, and no snowball throwing," he sternly masks his concession. "We go back as soon as I think you might be cold! And I won't carry you! And," he adds even more sternly, "afterwards you'll do everything I say to warm you up again!"
"Yes, sir!" Grace almost salutes, though it looks like she can barely hold in her laughter. She's almost out of the kitchen on her way upstairs to get dressed, without having drunk her tea, of course, when she stops and turns. "Does this warming up include a bath?"
Her eyes glint with almost unholy glee, making Boyd reply with a very careful and drawn out, "Yes."
She pauses for a moment to allow the idea of a bath to settle fully before their inner eyes. Her eyes are big and searching, but with the imp still very present.
"Will you join me?"
Boyd has always considered himself a man of the world, but for a moment he is struck dumb by the idea and then the images that begin to wildly tumble in his mind. He swallows to deal with his suddenly dry throat. Then he shakes his head.
Finally, he opts to do what he has done for close to twelve years now. He yells. "Grace!"
Her answer, muffled by the distance and walls, sounds suspiciously like laughter and Boyd realizes that this is a situation where he simply can't win.
Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.