Work Text:
Bob checks on Tina one last time to make sure she's asleep, which she is, based on the soft snoring coming from her tiny bed. He shuts her door as quietly as possible and leans up against it, struggling to keep himself upright. Today, as most days, has been exhausting, and although Tina is a fairly easy kid, dealing with any two year old takes a lot out of you.
He's starting to drift off where he stands when he hears the sound of cabinets being opened and closed in the kitchen. Huh, he thinks blearily. I thought Linda went to bed already.
He follows the sound to find his heavily pregnant wife stretching across the counters to open a cabinet, look at the insides for several seconds, and then close it with a muttered curse. She moves on to the next one, where she removes a can of tomato sauce before closing it again.
This is a ritual they've repeated several times a week for the past seven months, and all through her first pregnancy - Linda will get some wild, random craving, and mope around the kitchen looking for something to fulfill it. When she inevitably can't find whatever she's seeking, Bob will ask what she's in the mood for, then go out and buy it. Rinse and repeat.
"I thought you went to bed."
Linda whips around, can of tomato sauce in hand, poised like she's ready to throw it. "Gah! Don't scare me like that, Bobby."
"I'm... sorry. Didn't think I was being all that quiet."
Linda ignores him and continues rifling through cabinets.
"What are you craving tonight, Lin?" he asks, and when he doesn't get a response, hazards his best guess based on context clues. "...Spaghetti? I can make some."
She still doesn't respond, instead moving to put the can of tomato sauce back in the cabinet. She shuts it with more force than necessary.
Bob frowns, standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway, and scratches at his forearm "Did... did I do something wrong?"
Linda sighs, pulls out a chair from the table and sits down. "No, Bobby. It's not you."
Bob takes a seat across from her. "Just tell me what you want, Lin, and I can go get it for you. It's no big deal."
Linda pouts and looks away. Bob feels a sense of cold dread fall over him - it's never been this much effort to get an answer out of her. He's seen Linda scarf down a bowl of kalamata olives drenched in whipped cream and mustard, and it only made him love her more. If there's something she's afraid to ask him for, it must be something uniquely terrible.
Several uncomfortable seconds pass. She still doesn't manage to look in his eyes as she mumbles, "Pizza."
"Pizza," Bob repeats, a little confused. "Yeah. Sure. What kind? I can go to the store right now and get a frozen one."
"I don't want frozen pizza."
"Oh...kay." Bob thinks he knows where Linda's hesitation is coming from now. "Where do you want -"
"I want Jimmy Pesto's," she blurts, cutting him off. Bob blinks and opens his mouth to speak, but she's not done. "I'm sorry, I know you two have your little business rivalry thing, but it's all I can think about. The watery sauce, and that greasy, fake cheese, and always too much oregano..." She hides her face in her hands, and her voice comes out muffled through her fingers. "It's not my fault, Bobby, it's the baby.
The kitchen gets uncomfortably quiet. Bob tries to break the tension with a joke. "Wow, you're really going to throw our unborn child under the bus like that?"
Linda parts her fingers to glare at him.
"Sorry. That wasn't funny." He stands from the table and pats his pockets, making sure his wallet is in there. This isn't going to be pleasant or easy, but over the years he's known Linda, the list of things he wouldn't do for her - for his family - has shrunk dramatically every day. Buying a pizza from Jimmy Pesto is nothing compared to the felonies he would commit for her. "What do... uh, what do you want on your pizza?" he asks, failing to keep his voice from breaking at the thought of handing his hard-won cash over to that smug, fake Italian.
She looks up through her fingers again, eyebrows pushed together in an expression of guilt. "You don't have to do it, Bob. We have tortillas somewhere, and... and American cheese. I'll just make my own pizza."
He reaches across the table, putting a hand on Linda's shoulder. "I love you, Lin. More than... almost anything." When he blinks, he sees Tina asleep in her toddler-sized bed. "And I really don't want to sit here and watch my pregnant wife eat a tortilla and Kraft singles pizza. Just thinking about it is making me... kind of sad. And mildly nauseous." He lets go of her shoulder and stands up a little straighter. "If our baby wants Jimmy Pesto's shitty, overpriced pizza, that's exactly what they'll get."
When she lifts her head to look up at him, her eyes are bloodshot and slightly wet, her dark circles so pronounced they appear almost purple. Her hair is an oily mess, her chin and forehead spotted with angry, red acne. She is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life.
"Are you sure?" she asks softly.
"I am one hundred percent sure." He moves behind her to rub her shoulders, hears her sigh and feels her muscles relax under his hands. "What do you want on your pizza?"
"Just cheese." She leans her head back against his chest. "And some breadsticks. Please."
He kisses the top of her head. "Of course."
"Well, well, well," Jimmy sneers across the counter when Bob walks through the door. "If it isn't everyone's favorite starving burger artist."
Bob chokes down the bile that rises in his throat at the sound of his voice. "Hi, Jimmy."
"What brings you in here today?" Bob expects him to follow this up with another petty insult based on his tone, but he doesn't - it seems to be a genuine question. Maybe that's just how he always talks, Bob thinks.
"I just wanted to. Uh." Bob swallows - both literally, physically, and his pride - "Order a pizza. Please."
Jimmy's expression cycles rapidly from shock to disbelief to arrogant pride. "I thought you hated my pizza," he says, like he's caught him in a lie. "I thought you, and I quote, 'Would rather walk around with dingleberries all day than wipe your ass with it'."
"I did say that," Bob admits, "and I do hate it. This is for Linda." He digs out his wallet and rifles through it. He lowers his voice slightly. "And, just a little neighborly advice, Jimmy, but maybe you don't want to talk about dingleberries so loud during peak business hours."
Jimmy rolls his eyes. "Of course you would think this is peak business hours, Bob. This is not peak hours. Peak hours is standing room only in here."
"Sounds... kind of like a fire code violation."
"Neh neh neh nehnehneh," Jimmy retorts. He also moves his hand like a puppet, which is hard to argue with.
Bob sighs. "Listen, can I just get a cheese pizza and a thing of breadsticks? Then I'll be out of here and we'll both be a lot happier."
"Alright, fine." Jimmy shouts the order into the kitchen and punches a few buttons on the register. "Man, she's really got you whipped, huh, Bob? If my wife wanted one of your crappy burgers, she'd have to go get it herself."
Bob's brow furrows. "Even if she was seven months pregnant and it was the only thing she wanted to eat?"
Jimmy blinks, like the answer is obvious. "I mean, yeah."
"Wow." Bob hands over the cash to pay for his order. "That's... that's just... sad."
"Sad? What's sad? That I still have some dignity, and you don't?" Jimmy drops his change - a few crumpled bills and some pennies - onto the counter.
"It's sad that you seem to hate me more than you love your wife."
Jimmy's face falls. His lips and tongue are moving, but he's unable to form a rebuttal.
"You... you shut up," he finally manages, leaning across the counter to jab a finger into Bob's chest. "Who the hell do you think you are you to come in here and tell me I don't love my wife enough?" His face is unusually rosy, his skin glistening, and his forehead vein is particularly pronounced.
Bob backpedals. "I - I didn't say that."
"You were implying it," Jimmy says through gritted teeth.
"Look, Jimmy, if I implied anything, it was an accident, and I'm sorry. Can I just get my pizza and get out of here?"
Jimmy huffs and whips around to shout at one of his employees, who couldn't possibly be older than seventeen. "Is the cheese pizza ready yet?"
"Uh... about ten more minutes," replies the mousy looking kid, sweating as she pulls another pie out of the oven.
When he turns back to Bob, his expression is one of barely contained rage. It's different than his usual antagonistic demeanor - maybe it's the fact that he isn't performing, leaning into the anger like he usually does, but clearly trying to control it, that unsettles him.
"I think you need to leave," Jimmy says, voice calm and even.
Bob frowns. "But I already paid, Jimmy. I just want my food, then I'll leave. I don't want to be in here, either, believe it or not."
"Just..." he exhales dramatically. "Just wait on the sidewalk, I'll have someone bring it out to you."
More than annoyance at being kicked out, Bob feels relief that he won't have to interact with Jimmy any more. Shoving his change into his pocket, he steps back from the counter. "Fine."
It takes a little more than ten minutes, and Bob nearly falls asleep leaning against the brick exterior, but eventually that girl from the kitchen opens the door and hands him two boxes. He thanks her and heads back across the street, too tired and out of it to look both ways.
Linda is asleep at the kitchen table when he makes it back up the steps to their apartment. Bob sets the pizza down gently in front of her on the table. It takes about ten seconds for the smell to reach her nose and he sees it twitch, followed shortly by her eyes opening.
"Aww, Bobby..." She sounds like she might cry when she sees the cardboard box emblazoned with Jimmy Pesto's stupid fake name.
"Sorry it took so long. They were busy."
Linda reaches blindly for Bob, hand finding his hairy forearm and digging in like someone is going to come try to pry her off of him. He hears her sniffle, and she releases her talon grip on his arm to pull his torso in closer. She presses her face into the front of his unwashed t-shirt, and he grimaces, fighting the urge to push her away as he instead runs a hand through her coarse, oily dark hair. They're both gross enough right now that it cancels out, he figures.
She blows her nose into the fabric, and Bob frowns, but says nothing.
"You didn't have to do this," Linda mumbles into his belly.
"Too late. I did it already."
Linda makes an unpleased sound into his shirt.
"I'm gonna get us some plates," he says, stepping backward and forcing Linda to peel her face off the front of his clothes. She takes her glasses off and rubs at her eyes. Bob smiles at the indents left on her cheeks from falling asleep on them. He sets a plate in front of Linda, and another across the table for himself.
Her face lights up when he joins her at the table. "You're eating this, too?"
"Well, it was... kind of a lot of money, so. Yeah."
Linda opens the box and piles three steaming slices of greasy, overseasoned pizza onto her plate, then a handful of breadsticks, and she starts digging in. Bob hesitantly places a single slice on his own plate, and they enjoy their overpriced dinner together in luxurious silence.