drunk + talking = no
Characters: Dominic and Meg Setting: Tool shed
As soon as the other two had retreated, Dominic turned his attention back on Meg. "Really? You're going to throw that in, now, that I happened to have had a sex life before I met you. Again." he said, crossing his arms. "All of this, on the heels of 'oh my god, I'm sorry don't hate me'?" He threw his hands up in the air. "How do you make these connections in your head sometimes? Where does that make sense?"
“Do you think anything makes sense in my head right now Dom?” she shot back, wobbling slightly on her feet as she spoke. “You seemed worried about me and Kyle, I’m telling you you don’t have to be. I might be a screw up in every other fucking sense but I don’t sleep with other people. I never have, I never will.”
When she wobbled, he reached out to brace his hand against her side, to steady her. Yeah, she'd been drinking. "I think when you come trainwrecking at someone you ought to stick to an argument stance. Are you pissed at me, or are you worried I hate you for some insane reason?" he snapped. "And I'm not jealous of that guy, it's just a bullshit double standard you have. Tell me you wouldn't have jumped on some chick's back and gone for the eyes if you caught me walking hand in hand with her."
“Both maybe? I wasn’t pissed before not really,” she said, letting him steady her without protest. “I mean maybe a little but that’s not at you, thats more at me I think.” She frowned a little, trying to get her thoughts straight but then he carried on about the jealousy thing and she pulled away, almost stumbling backwards in the process. “Yeah I probably would have because the whole freaking world knows you could do better than me but I am never gonna meet someone better than you.”
Dominic rolled his eyes then abruptly scooped her up off of her feet, carrying her towards the tool shed. He kicked the door open, brought her in, kicked the door shut, then deposited her on the worktop. He flicked on the light, and stood in front of her, hands resting on either side of her hips. "I. married. you."
Normally Meg didn’t mind being carried around like that but with her equilibrium already out of whack, when he picked her up she went incredibly dizzy and began fighting to get back down. Ineffectually of course given that they made it to the tool shed in one piece but she didn’t make it easy for him either and when he finally did put her down, her stomach lurched alarmingly. “Like being married ever stops people from sleeping with someone else,” she murmured, eyes squeezing closed as the room spun around her.
Dragging both of his hands through his hair, Dominic could scarcely believe what was going on. "Are we seriously having a conversation where I'm in the fucking hot seat for imaginary cheating with women who aren't even here?" he had to ask. "Last time I checked you're the one wandering around holding hands with people! So jesus, Megan, what the fuck? How is this all about you again?"
“I don’t think you cheated on me!” she shouted, forcing her eyes back open to look at him even if she really wished she hadn’t straight afterwards as the world tipped sideways. “I’m saying I wouldn’t be surprised if you did!” She took a deep breath trying to calm the nausea rising in her gut and the next time she spoke her voice was closer to its usual voice. “I ruined everything and you deserve someone better than that. Someone better than me.”
He stared. He stopped everything, stilling entirely, and stared. "So, now you've gone ahead and tried to abandoned me, and for some reason, I'm the asshole in your head. Awesome." Not much left him so robbed of speech, but that sure did.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying...” Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes and a dim part of noticed with amazement that she still had enough water in her body to cry given the amount of it she’d been doing over the past twenty four hours. This was why she didn’t try and explain the thoughts in her head, it always came out wrong and things wound up more of a state than they were before. The fact he’d brought up the abandonment thing again only made her feel worse and she made to slide off the worktop to try and reach out to him but her limbs just wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m the fuck-up here Dom, not you and please stop saying that I was trying to abandon you.”
"Cheating on the person you love is an asshole thing to do. So, yeah, actually. If you 'wouldn't be surprised', then you think I'd do something like that. You think I'm that guy." Dominic said, voice a little too quiet for it to be anything but bad. He walked closer, a frown heavy on his features. "So, it is what you're saying. And for the 'fuck-up' here you're doing an awful lot of yelling at me. And how is this back about you again, with your fucking...you know I love you. I chose you to be with, for the rest of my life, however long that happened to be. And you keep turning everything around so it's all about you, like I'm not above question. And it's unfair and it's bullshit." he said, voice too calm. "And why should I stop saying that you were trying to abandon me? You did. Twice. You were going to check right the fuck out, to kill your own pain, and leave me in a world without you in it. You were going to leave me to mourn you. We were supposed to be in this together, I left my entire life for you. And I loved every minute of it. I was willing to get taken down with you. And in the actual end? You were going to cut out early and leave me to ride on alone to the end. Explain to me how that isn't abandoning me."
Meg had never been scared of Dom, even after everything she’d seen him do fear had never once entered her perception of him but there was something in his voice then and the way he was looking at her that made her feel a way she hadn’t done since being in a trailer back in Alabama. “You think I don’t know that?” she said, voice thick with tears. “I was there when it happened, watched you get shot for the second time in as many months and I thought they’d killed you! There was so much blood and all I wanted was for them to kill me too because I can’t be in a world that doesn’t have you in it. Then I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed and found out we’d both survived and I don’t know what I thought would happen but I tried to keep going, hoped that I’d get to see you again but even at the trial they kept us apart.” She took a shuddering breath. “Then we got sentenced and something just snapped and I couldn’t, I didn’t...I’m not strong like you and I wasn’t thinking straight, I couldn’t think straight.”
He got to her, and leaned his back against the worktop next to her, staring across the room at nothing. "Let's say I accept that." he said. "I'm not saying I do, or can right now, but let's say I do." he continued. "Am I supposed to just swallow down all of my own pain, so you can feel better?" he asked, voice still quiet. "Because that's what it feels like from here. Like you're going to yell at me, and bitch, and throw all of your issues into the air, and I have to drop everything to deal with them, and ignore what I'm going through, which you really haven't even attempted to help me with. Then you throw in my face that I can't even 'be around you', which is bullshit, because we sleep in the same bed, I just went for a damn walk, and I need to be able to breathe. Which apparently I'm going to get shit for, as well as the idea that I'd cheat on you, ever, at all, with anyone, for any reason. Which just...jesus fucking christ, that hurts, because I've been nothing but faithful to you. Last time you had a bout of paranoia on that score I married you on the spot. I can't really do more than that to prove I'm yours."
He might have been making the most reasonable argument in the world but she was battling against a hurricane of emotions so intertwined she couldn't begin to understand them, let alone process what he was trying to say to her. Add to that the alcohol which was making it hard to concentrate, she really didn't have a hope. "Dom, I...I," she said, trying to swallow down the massive lump that had formed in her throat. "I wanna do right by you so bad, fix this, be whatever you need me to be. I just...I can't think straightright now. The drinking was a really stupid idea."
He was quiet for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay." he said, able to accept that. He looked at her again, then sighed, and turned towards her, putting his arms around her waist. "Want me to carry you back?" he asked. "You should lie down. Or I can just help you, or whatever." he added, not sure what she would want, but he was definitely thinking she wasn't up for this right now and he was starting to think he wasn't either. The words 'I wanna do right by you' did a little something to ease the sting of everything, weirdly enough. Obviously it didn't fix things, it didn't make anything all better, but it did do something.
As tempting as it was to say yes, to have him sweep her up in his arms and carry her back to bed, Meg didn’t trust herself not to throw up if he did so she shook her head. “Carrying would be bad right now,” she said quietly though having his hands at her waist was more comforting than Dominic probably realised. “Help would be good though.” She pushed her hands against the edge of the worktop to slide forward and the moment her feet hit the ground, her legs gave out from beneath her, it was only the fact that he had hold of her that stopped her winding up on the floor. Yes, help was definitely a good idea.
He definitely made sure she didn't hit the ground, having half expected that when she started to move. Dominic steadied her, getting her more upright, keeping an arm around her. "Good thing it's not that far, huh?" he asked rhetorically. "Next time, don't drink so much, okay? You're tiny. And right now you seem like you're fifty percent alcohol." Slowly, he started to direct her towards the door.
“It really wasn’t that much,” she protested weakly, half leaning on him as they headed to the door. “Two...three glasses tops.” She drunk more than that in the past and not been as affected as she was at that moment but then she was also skinnier than she was then, hadn’t eaten much that day and hadn’t access to alcohol in over six months so really it wasn’t that surprising. “I just wanted to stop thinking for a bit...it didn’t work.”
"So what you're telling me is you are fifty percent alcohol right now." he said, teasing ever so lightly. He was still upset. Still absolutely torn up about everything, but she'd called time out. So, it was time out. She was drunk, unsteady, a total mess, and needed to get back to the room and lie down. He could arrange that. "And yeah, I can tell." he added, not unkindly.
Meg hadn’t forgotten anything either but the alcohol was finally doing what she’d wanted it to in the first place, making everything that was raging in her head quiet down, smothered by a warm haze. “You can always tell,” she said, exhaustion creeping into her voice. “It’s like you can see straight into my head.” She went to tap her forehead and missed by a significant margin.
"No gesturing around your eyes when you're this drunk." he told her, getting them closer little by little to the room. "And I know you well. Wish I could see straight into your head. It would probably make things easier. But for right now, all I know is you've had too much to drink, you need to lie down, and I'll bring you some water that I expect you to drink when you're conscious enough to, okay?"
“‘kay.” Really the room wasn’t that far away but it seemed to take an age to get there and she was seriously reconsidering her stance on not being carried, figuring that throwing up might be a small price to pay for crossing the never ending courtyard faster. Thankfully though they made it there without incident and she smiled up at Dominic with the beatific smile of someone well and truly drunk. “My hero.”
He smiled lightly at her. He went to the bed and pulled the covers down. "Get sleep, baby." he told her. "I'm going to go clear my head. I'll bring you back water before I go too far." he promised. "Then, we'll talk later. Just...I know things are hard right now, but I'm still yours."
Meg did as she was told, tugging off her bourbon soaked sweater before collapsing onto the bed. “Talk later, got it,” she murmured, reaching up for his hand to squeeze it. “Love you Dom.”
"I love you too, baby." he said quietly. He gave her hand a squeeze back. Then he started out again. He'd go, get water for her like he promised. Then hopefully he really could clear his head.