Allergies, Arguments, And Affection (Big Love)

[Chanel_no5]

***Note***

@Sanguine Cheerful Worrier provided me with this awesome idea (thank you!!) and at first I planned to write it as a drabble, but it got way longer than drabble length.  

Basic summary: Set a couple of years before the show begins. It’s Margene’s wedding ceremony, Barb’s allergies are acting up, and Nicki thinks Barb is exaggerating to get attention.

***

Barb tried her hardest to hold back the sneezes threatening to ruin the moment, slowly massaging her nose with her thumb and index finger in an attempt to appease the teasing, stinging, relentless, allergic fire inside. It was the blooming trees that was the main culprit of her misery, but it was certainly not made better by the strong scent of flowers in here. She mentally kicked herself for being so optimistic about the flower arrangements. ‘No, it’s fine, I’m not allergic to chrysanthemums, go ahead with those’ – well, it turned out she couldn’t handle the added irritation those provided on top of her actual allergies.  

She wished they’d hurry up with the ceremony. The last thing she wanted was to have an allergy attack and make a scene. It would hurt Margene’s feelings to have her own wedding ceremony interrupted… but it was Nicki’s wrath she really didn’t feel like waking. Nicki was already convinced that Barb would do anything to steal the spotlight from the other wives, and this would be a perfect example in Nicki’s mind. She wasn’t scared of the second wife, but Nicki’s sulking could go on for days and make everyone glum and irritable. Not quite the honeymoon mood you were looking for.

Oh, but it itched so bad, if she could just sneeze once…

… but no. She wouldn’t be able to sneeze a single time and then stop. If she got started, she would keep sneezing until her nose was either rid of the tickle or too exhausted to go on. She pinched her nose a little bit harder and held her breath for a moment as a particularly agonising prickle nearly coaxed a sneeze out of her in spite of her resistance.

No Barbie, don’t you dare, she thought. As always when she scolded herself, that inner voice sounded just like her big sister, and it usually worked. Barb had never quite been brave enough to defy Cindy.

That is, Barb wasn’t, but her nose certainly was. Before she could take actions – but honestly, what could she have done? – a hurried gasp snuck past her carefully regulated breathing and that dreaded first sneeze tore out of her, constricted, quick, and almost aggressive. She caught it in her hand, feeling the spray against her palm, and moaned inwardly.

Margene didn’t seem to have noticed, her entire focus was on Bill, and she was beaming. Nicki, on the other hand, had turned towards Barb with a scowl on her face, as if daring Barb to do it again.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice.

“NkkTThhh! ihkKKTThh! NkttSH! NktSSHkk!”

She drew a deep, quivering breath and instantly sneezed again, almost on inhale – in fact almost choking on it.

“HhhgtSSHKhah!”

At this point, Nicki’s glare was murderous, the guests had started to give her awkward looks – they were all aware of her allergies, but so was Barb and that didn’t make the situation less awkward – and even the bride and groom had lost their focus.

With a massive effort, she swallowed the next two sneezes and fought back the ones in line. It would be a brief and shaky truce, but the ceremony was almost over, she should be able to hold them back for that amount of time. She waved a hand in Bill’s direction to let him know she was okay, they didn’t have to worry about her. But the magic of the moment had been broken, and reality rushed in to fill its place. Bill and Margene had both started to look at her instead of at each other, and that was exactly what she had tried so hard to avoid.

Her nose was dripping and she wondered if she could discreetly get up and get some tissues without making things even worse. Nicki demonstratively looked the other way, there was no help to get from there. The message was clear – it’s your mess, you deal with it. She hadn’t expected assistance, of course. She knew just how annoyed Nicki was with her allergies, certain that she, if not faked them, then at least overplayed them to gain attention from Bill. She didn’t. She really couldn’t have, they were that bad.

She pressed her sleeve against her nose, deciding that would have to do for the next couple of minutes.

The moment the ceremony was over, Barb got up and fled to the bathroom, trying to be allergic as subtly as possible even though she knew it wasn’t going to work out very well. Her eyes streamed and itched, her nose was filled with allergic hellfire, and she sneezed one breathless, violent sneeze right after another, desperate to get the attack over and done with but there seemed to be no end in sight.

There was a knock on the door.

“Barb? Honey, are you okay?”

It was Bill, and he sounded worried. Why not? They had been married for almost twenty years, he knew this wasn’t faked or a call for attention.

“I’b fide, Bill,” she managed. “J-justTSSHHEW! Just sdeezy… yIISSSHHoo! AaIISSHH! AaESSHHHoo!”

“Do you need anything?”

“I’ll be… heehh.. okay, really,” she said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, which was hard when her breath hitched constantly and her voice was saturated with congestion. “HaISSHH! Ahh…hahiIESSSHHHuh!”

The only thing she could do right now was to get through the sneezing fit, whether it took five minutes or fifteen. Her nose would be sore and tingly afterwards as well, but at least she wouldn’t be caught up in a storm of sneezes. Bill knew to give her the time she needed, so he went back to the others, leaving her at the mercy of her allergies.

Barb sniffled miserably. As the fit started to taper off, giving way to thoughts not directly related to the torturous itch, she was getting more concerned about the inevitable fight with Nicki. If she only had been able to hold back the attack for a while longer…

Darn these allergies. No, that wasn’t enough. Damn these allergies.

That wasn’t enough either.

Fuck these allergies. Yeah, that was strong enough.

It wasn’t like she was going to say it out loud anyway.

***

A few hours later, after the guests had started to drop off and they were fixing up in the kitchen, Nicki couldn’t be civil any longer.

”I am so fed up with everything being about you, Barb!” she exploded. “Every last thing is about you! It’s clear to everyone that you’d rather be an only wife, but that is not the reality in this family!”

“I am well aware,” Barb muttered, her words muffled by the handful of tissues she pressed against her face. Her nose was still irritated and stuffy, and she couldn’t wait for this day to be over so she could take a shower and go to bed. Ignoring Nicki’s glare of disapproval, she blew her nose hard before continuing to speak. “Whatever you may think, I’m not being allergic on purpose.”

“I didn’t say you were, but it’s very convenient to have a nice little allergy attack, getting everybody’s attention when you’re not supposed to be centre stage for a day, isn’t it?”

Barb merely rolled her eyes in response. Nice little allergy attack, huh?

“I hope you’re proud of yourself for ruining Margene’s wedding day!” Nicki said, and that was more than Barb was willing to let slide.

Margene had entered the kitchen without either of them noticing. Now she looked from one to the other, not sure what to say or do. It was true she had felt more than a little unimportant when Bill rushed off to check on Barb, but at the same time she knew it wasn’t something Barb could control.

“It’s not ruined,” she said with a brave (but slightly wavering) smile.

The first and the second wife only offered the third wife a brief glance before going back to their argument.

“I resent that,” Barb said, staring Nicki straight in the eyes and raising a finger in the air. “I resent that you would accuse me of deliberately doing anything like that!”

“Don’t you point your finger at me! It’s not all about you, there’s three of us now. This is Margene’s day!”

“It’s okay, really,” Margene said feebly.

“Stay out of this Margie,” Nicki snapped without taking her eyes off Barb.   

“No,” Barb said. “No, I’d like to hear what she has to say.” She turned to Margene. “Well?”

Margene’s eyes flickered as tears welled up in them. She felt helpless. She loved this family and really wanted to be part of it, for better and for worse, but she wasn’t sure she could deal with this kind of worse.

“It wasn’t ruined before, but it is now,” she choked out and turned and fled. Barb sighed deeply and crossed her arms.

“Good job, Nicki.” The sarcasm was laid on so thickly it nearly dripped off the words.

“Suddenly everything is my fault, it must be nice to always have a scapegoat, right? Boss Lady?”

Barb shook her head and went after Margene, sneezing a wet, exhausted triple aimed towards the floor without breaking her stride.

She didn’t have to turn around and look to know Nicki was smirking. She enjoyed a good drama.

***

Margene was in the backyard, sitting in one of the chairs.

“Sweetie,” Barb said, but didn’t get further before she had to sneeze again. “Ugh, I’m so, so sorry.”

Margene looked back at her with tears running down her cheeks.  

“You can’t help it.”

“No, I can’t. I’m still sorry though. Nicki was partly right; it wasn’t on purpose but I did steal focus from you.”

“It’s not that, it’s… why can’t we get along? What if this doesn’t work out? I have nowhere to go if I have to leave you guys. I don’t even have a place to stay,” Margene said and kicked at one of the children’s toys, but missed.

“Honey, you’re part of the family. You’ll always have somewhere to go. I promise you that,” Barb said and sat down in the chair next to her.

“It’s just that… I’ve never been married and I didn’t really think I’d be marrying three people at once.” She bit her lip. “What if I’m terrible at it? What if I get all jealous and…”

Barb put a soothing hand on her arm.

“Truth be told, yes. You will be jealous at times. We all are. Including Bill, I think. And yes, we’ll have fights like this one, and maybe even worse. But we’ll get through it. You were brought into this family for a reason and that reason is what’s going to hold us together.”

Margene took a deep breath to compose herself, wiped her tears and nodded.

“Thank you, Barb. I love you.”

She gave the older wife an impulsive hug.

At that moment, Bill stepped out into the backyard.

“Hey, there you are! I wondered where you’d gone, Margene,” he said. The two wives exchanged a quick glance, quietly agreeing not to tell him, and then Margene got up and walked towards him.

“Have you been crying?” he asked as he put an arm around her shoulders.

“No. Uh-uh, it’s… allergies.”

Bill shot Barb an enquiring glance over Margene’s shoulder. The first wife gave him a neutral smile and shrugged innocently. Bill knew that gesture. It meant he wouldn’t be informed on why Margene lied to his face. Not by Barb, and probably not by Nicki either. When push came to shove, his wives stuck together, stonewalling him with no second thought. It could be terribly annoying.

***

“Are you going to come inside or sit there until you’ve inhaled all the pollen in Utah?” Nicki asked harshly. “Fresh air is not doing you any good, you know.”

Barb smiled. That was compassion of the unique Nicki brand. They were so different, but their differences could also be their strengths. She walked back inside and Nicki closed the door firmly behind them. To keep the pollen out. And she had removed all the flowers.

Barb’s smile got even bigger.

“I do love you Nicki. No matter how much you grate on my nerves.”

Nicki’s lips curved upwards in a faint, slightly surprised return smile.

“Me? You’re the one grating on my nerves. But I do love you too.” She paused. “And I guess I could learn to love Margie as well. A little bit.”

Barb raised her eyebrows.

“You already do.”

Nicki gave her a gentle push.

“Shut up. Go take another dose of those useless allergy pills and take a shower. I’ll finish up in the kitchen.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just go, before I change my mind,” Nicki grunted, but the rough demeanour was largely undone by the quick, gentle kiss she placed on the other woman’s cheek, and the much softer tone she used when adding; “I’ve got this, Barb.”

“I know you do. Thank you, Nicki.”

 

The end

 

Okay, can I just take a moment to say how much fun I had writing their argument, in particular, because Nicki and Barb are always so totally oblivious to the double standards they both have and this was such an amusing way to use that!!  

[Shay]

I don't know this fandom at all, but you always write such wonderful allergic torture that I had to read it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

[Chanel_no5]

On ‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎18 at 10:41 PM, Sanguine Cheerful Worrier said:

This was fabulous! Barb having practically no control with respect to the allergies was excellent. 

Thank you so much!  Haha, aww, but I think she kept them in control for quite some time after all... at least if you consider the amount of effort it took.  And I totally agree... hooray for useless allergy pills. ^^ Thank you again for the idea(s)!

 

On ‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎19 at 6:15 AM, Shayla said:

I don't know this fandom at all, but you always write such wonderful allergic torture that I had to read it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Aww, thank you so much!  

I definitely recommend it! It's way better than it deserves to be.  

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Chanel_no5

[Shay]

Ah it's an HBO thing. I guess that explains why I've never heard of it since I don't get premium channels like that. Maybe I'll check it out if I'm ever looking for something new to watch.

[Chanel_no5]

Ah, I see. I've been watching it online.  Well, if you look for something to watch some time in the future, I warmly recommend it.