Chapter Text
She thinks now, as she stares at their laundry pile, that she didn’t really think this through.
Not that she has any regrets. Yor remembers telling her husband how glad she was, and still is, to have married someone like him. In her heart she still believes no one would have accepted her the way Loid has.
But – she takes a deep breath – they really didn’t think this marriage through.
It goes without saying that it all happened fast. Too fast. Maybe it had been the running – the flow of adrenaline she finds herself getting excited for, with uncommon familiarity. Yor only gets to experience that same rush when she does either a perfectly executed kill or she chugs through copious amounts of wine.
She hasn’t come to terms with it in her head but something about Loid… excites her.
Then she feels it. She breathes through it in slow, calculated measures. Her hands are shaking against the knob as she tries to recall Loid’s instructions – is it clockwise? Is it counterclockwise? – to get out of her own head.
Oh dear.
Oh God.
Oh my God, I’m really married!
“Mama, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetie!”
Her breathing must have been that loud if Anya heard her from the living room.
Once, she dared to ask Sharon if she remembered how it was during the earliest days of her marriage.
“Oh, it was fun,” she grinned. “And exciting.” Her tone had been suggestive, punched with a wiggle of her perfectly curated brows.
For a second, she had that rare, wistful look on her face, but it had gone quickly as it had come. “Everything changes when you have a kid…”
“Seriously! You sure got something in you to marry yourself to a man with a baggage…”
Yes, a secret job, she thought to herself as she responded with an unsure smile. And being a mother to Anya had not felt like a baggage at all – she wanted to say – but the conversation was over.
Getting herself married was supposed to make her look normal. On the outside, it seems to have done the trick. But inside their home, it was anything but – especially because she and Loid had done everything backwards.
They raise a kid, they take care of a dog, they split the household chores - all out of mutual agreement and respect. What’s love got to do with it?
She doesn’t hate the idea, really. Being in love with Loid – or loving Loid as a real husband, like a real wife should – is a thought far from being among the worst things that she could get herself into. It is just simply… foreign.
Yor hums to herself and gets to her work.
She has spent quite some time with her musings that she resolved not to get distracted again.
Except that she has.
This time, she tries her very, very best not to dissolve in air or combust in flames as she holds Loid’s underpants in her hands. Black. And… big. She wants to drop it back to the pile. But there seems to be a higher being possessing her at that exact moment that is making her hold on to it for dear life.
Oh God.
Oh GOD.
Oh my God, I’m really married!
Keep it together, Yor!
As with many things in their marriage, starting off with getting married, apparently getting a washing machine is also one thing they really didn’t think through.
“It’s practical.”
“Of course,” she had said. It will save time and money, and since she will most likely be doing the laundry, her intimates are also safe from curious eyes.
It’s a different story with Loid’s underthings. Maybe it’s not Yor and her intimates that needs the protecting. Maybe it’s her that has those curious eyes.
Keep it together, Yor!
She loosens her grip and gently places it back in the pile, understanding why on common terms those things are called delicates. Mainly out of fear that she might tear it apart with her strength in her bare hands. How will she even explain that to Loid?
No, no, no!
She diverts her eyes with unwavering resolve from the… the… that, except she sees that it’s not the only one. By the time she has reached the last of it, she pats herself in the back in her head for managing to at least stop the shaking of her hands.
Did he put this by mistake? But then he’s way too busy… wait, how does he even wash them back then?
I’ve never seen a real one this close before. Of course, because I’ve never lived with a man before too…
“Mama, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetie!”
Oh God, Anya, she scolds herself and snaps herself out of dangerous mental territory. She thanks all the gods in her head that Anya cannot read minds.
If I look at it long enough, maybe I’ll get more used to the feeling of it…
Yor Briar Forger, what are you thinking?!
Breathe in, breathe out. Yor tries her damnedest to start on the laundry. If she does, she might be able to finish the bare minimum of their laundry today. The first time is always the hardest, that’s what they usually say after all. How naïve of her to think her biggest problem would be turning on the knobs.
And she’s been getting through it fine, back to the groove now with those… things… Loid’s underpants, she tells herself with all her mustered courage, put aside for now. They have been very distracting, because really, if she sits down with herself to sort out her thoughts, she will come to the conclusion that her husband is very, very distracting!
On what is slowly becoming a series of embarrassing events for Yor, this time, she picks up one of his white shirts. She switches to ‘forgiveness rather than permission’ mode, without thinking, and outright takes a sniff before she can even stop herself and realize what she’s doing –
Oh God, I’m really married!!!
“Mama, are you okay?”
“Mm fshine…swheethy…”
A flood of embarrassment flushes through her whole being, and her face turns to a deep shade of red. Her curiosity got the better of her. Oh dear. I can’t possibly face Loid now. For the nth time that morning, she does another ‘breathe in, breathe out’. And somehow, every second of it gives her the grounding back to reality that she needs at that moment – more effective, and more addicting and comforting than the last.
Wait…?
“Why are you hiding your face with Papa’s shirt?”
“Aa… aah!”
Yor fumbles at first and straightens herself. Her hands dig right into the pile without reserve but also without looking. “I’m just doing laundry, Anya.”
“Loondry?”
“Laundry, darling,” she corrects her daughter with a smile. “To keep all of our clothes clean.” Yor taps the machine with a soft pat.
“Can Bond join the loondry?”
“No!” Yor doesn’t even want to think about it.
“Okie. I’m going to pee.”
“Be careful.” When she sees all the laundry no longer in the pile and right where they were supposed to be half an hour ago, she sighs in relief.
“Mama!”
“Yes, darling?”
“Does Papa’s shirt smell funny?”
So her daughter has seen it all. Yor can only pray she doesn’t tell her off to Loid. Now, how to answer that question without losing what remains of her dignity…
“No, it’s not.” Then she mutters what has been on her mind since, as an afterthought, for herself more than Anya’s.
“It smells nice.”
It is a rather weird thought to have, but Loid’s scent was unsurprising. Faint, strong, warm. His scent can lull her to a sense of security. Rather easy to get lost herself into if she allows, but somehow familiar like the way back home.
Anya comes out of the bathroom, hands up in the air for her to dry. She relents to her request with gladness.
“You got that weird look on your face.”
“What look?”
“Like Sonia when she looks at Richard from Berlint in Love.”
Yor shakes her head. “Go back to your cartoons, sweetie.”
As always, Anya has an overactive imagination.
The next weekend, Loid offers to do laundry.
Yor denies his request. She offers that he’s tired, more than usual, and Loid gives no arguments. She adds that she must learn too.
Loid fails to understand what she means, but also refrains from further questioning it. Yor sees the usual things in the pile – his underpants, his personally (to her) offensive white shirts – but she asks no questions herself. She simply accepts them. After all, she must learn more about these things.
Once, his shirt had smelled of gunpowder.
She doesn’t question that either. She can only hope that the concussive therapy he had to perform went alright.