Sea, Swallow Me - metamour/meta-poly
The late setting summer sun has left but the monsoon continues.
For almost a year now you've lived in a two-story apartment building, featuring cheap rent and a fancy name that promised the good life, but never delivered...
until you found them.
Not less than thirty minutes ago Eddie called you from the receptionist phone at the garage he worked at to say he's worried about Robin being home alone and that all this rain made her sick.
"The rain doesn't make you sick-" you rectify, looking through your kitchen cabinets to stock up for a home delivery. "-she most likely caught it from someone at work. Wasn't Steve getting over something? Probably got it from him."
Her ailment fortunately fell on your day off from work when her roommate, and your boyfriend, had a full shift.
"Hellooooo, nurse." Your patient greets you at the door, her ready-to-be-tended-on attire of a forest green jumper and black shorts that show off all the scars on her knees from childhood playtime scuffs. Her socks went up her shin and they were mismatched.
One striped, one with a Halloween Snoopy on the ankle.
"Oh, my poor Robbie." You give your girlfriend a slight pout, hearing how horrible she sounded.
All this pouring misery leaked through the front door and through a red freckled nose, irritated from all the rubbing of Kleenex and her sleeve when you weren't looking.
The whole day was spent tending on your sick girl, bringing over medicine from your bathroom cabinet, chicken soup with star shaped noodles, and brewing countless cups of tea. Peppermint teas, chamomile teas, ginger teas, lemongrass teas, and hibiscus teas. You arrived with ammunition full from your own personal collection.
"Santé" she nodded, lifting up the tiny plastic cup full of sticky purple goo to throw it back as she sat on the counter. Standing between her legs you made sure she took all the dose, tipping it with a finger to make sure she took all of it.
Sweet kisses to her forehead to check her temperature and even sweeter cuddles, the day ended as it started: with Robin in your arms
You don't know how she managed to still fall asleep with ease, having napped away the entire day of gloomy gray. Yet here she lays, her bouncy bob in all directions, cheek squished against the plush of your chest.
Your chipped nail polish fingers push back her fringe, humming softly along the song on the portable record player your girl kept on her hip level shelf. The bright red milk crate on the floor contained the Runaways, Eurythmics, B-52's...
Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, and Beatles. Tonight you took the honors of picking tunes.
The Moon and the Melodies.
Robin was long asleep. Instantly.
Rumbly, nasally, snotty snores filled the sounds of the room as the lifted off the record, the side needing to be flipped to listen to the rest of Elizabeth Fraser's dreamy pop.... gibberish, as Eddie always says.
And speak of the devil, he's finally home.
In your half-wake state, you close your eyes and listen closely to picture your boy's squeaky boots as he enters the apartment.
"Gah- shit," he hissed.
The young man was most likely squatting down to inspect the broken door seal from the sounds of his long chain hitting the tiled floor as he squats. Gotta fix that tomorrow, he thinks to himself letting out a chestful sigh and a groan as he pushes on his knees to stand back up.
Two thudding sounds are his boots being tossed aside. His leather jacket is tossed on the couch instead of the coat rack and you can hear his flat heavy sock covered footsteps grow closer... then to walk right on past the bedroom you and Robin were in.
He was tired from his long day at work, needing a moment to register that you were still here from this afternoon and you and Robin were cuddling.
Without him.
You sense him in the doorway, trying not to bite your inner cheek or giggle from the image of Eddie popping his head in like a curious weasel.
He comes in, Robin's floor much more tidy than his, and he stops, taking note of the round black vinyl.
The album that you always picked from the girl's collection for leisurely listening.
You hear spinning and careful dropping of the needle hitting the grooves, adding more ambience to the rain with the song so ethereal that you could weave its sonogram onto silk.
It takes seven footsteps to get to the bed against the wall in the corner from the record player.
1, 2, 3, 4-
The bed shifts, Eddie skipping those last three with a pounce to seek your warmth as he crawls to join in.
With your eyes closed, you slightly roll your body forward, inviting him assume the big spoon position as you still hold Robin close to your chest.
"You asleep, pumpkin?" You feel his cold bulbous nose press against the shell of your ear as he goes to kiss your pulse.
The two of you converse in whispers and rumbly hush. Eddie snuggles up, 'Yes." You want to sarcastically answer, but you're too tired for games.
"Mm." You groan instead. The simple answer is making Eddie tighten the arm over your stomach and slither his hand under your head to have you lay on his black sweater covered bicep.
Though your body was tired, your brain did not submit to slumber.
Robin falls asleep instantly, no trouble at all. It was a blessing to her mother when she was
was a blessing to her mother when she was growing up.
You and Eddie on the other hand, couldn't fall asleep on a whim. Night Owls with bodies that only managed less than five hours of sleep a night.
"How was work, Dimples?" The rasp in your voice coos, the only words you've spoken in person to Eddie today, leaving home before you came over.
His eyes close as your voice fills his ears, burying his namesake in your hair.
"Mm." He mimics your groan from earlier, translating to, way too long.
Eddie pulls in a deep inhale of the warmth from laying on the pillow, coating his lungs with the scent of only you.
"How's Birdie feelin'?"
Eddie feels bad he couldn't get the day off and help around the apartment. He saw the dishes that were in the sink, mugs, spoons, and pots from soup, folded rags near the sink that were used as a cold compress on a paint flecked rosy forehead.
You feel the expansion in his chest on your back, trying to match your slow and steady.
"Better." You mumbled sweetly with a crack on your lips to form a smile Eddie couldn't see, relieved Robin's fever broke this afternoon and was now back to her regular temperature as you rested your chin on her apple shampoo smelling crown.
An amused thought from Eddie pushes through your hair from his nose down your neck, he was laughing at the stuffed sinus snores coming from his roommate.
"Do you think counting sheep together will help us fall asleep?" He whispers into your ear as you slightly adjust yourself between their two engulfing bodies, trapping you in their hold like they did when you first moved into the coral pink stucco dingbats after getting out of a rather unpleasant long term relationship.
"What are you, five?" You let out a breathy chuckle, eyes starting to close while taking up the suggestion.
"What? You never did it as a kid?"
"Does it actually work?"
"Wanna try it out? I'll start...
1..."
"2..."
"3..”
The two of you went back and forth,
”4…”
”…5”
”6…”
”…7”
”…..”
You were asleep.
"Lucky number seven it is then," Eddie smirks, the last to fall asleep, as he dozed off to the sounds of both your breathing over the sounds of gossamer guitars and drum machines.
Robin's elbow bent arms are tucked in with fists against the softness of her under-chin.
You have one hand buried in ombré blonde, the other reaching back for chestnut curls.
The three of you would soon have pins and needles running through your veins but for now, you let the sea of their clinging love swallow you whole.