Work Text:
June 2024
The pain comes on like falling asleep: slowly, then all at once. Spreading through her lower belly like fog rolling down a hillside, invisible, inevitable, haunting.
Yaz knows what it means. And she knows she’s due hers, she just— why does it have to be now? Why, on their perfect summer vacation, does this have to happen? Sammy and Brooklynn are having such a good time, and she can’t ruin it. They don’t deserve that.
So she slaps on a smile, and politely excuses herself to the bathroom.
Five minutes later, the pain is stronger, burning through her abdomen, pressing into her hips and worming through her lower back. She braces herself, head in her hands, elbows on her thighs, and bites her lip raw in trying not to scream.
This is horrible. Plain horrible. Her vacation plans ruined, all because of her period. She hugs an arm around her abdomen, taking deep lungfuls of air, and a single tear squeezes out of her eyes, where it splashes onto her thigh.
And a single thought slips through the web of pain. Sammy and Brooklynn.
They’d be able to help her. They could get her chocolate, or the painkillers she fucking forgot to put in her day bag. They could keep her company in this miserable pit of—
“Yaz? Darlin’ are you in here?”
Speak of the devil, Yaz thinks bitterly.
“Yaaaaaaz?” Another voice joins. Brooklynn. They both came. (Yaz doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Of course they came, that’s just what they do.)
“Hey guys,” Yaz tries to say. All that comes out is a pained sound between a squeak and a groan.
“Yaz?” Brooklynn calls again. “Are you in here? My foot’s under the door.”
Brooklynn’s hideous orange croc peeks under the door, and Yaz pushes out a “yeah.”
“Can you open the door?” Sammy calls.
Her silence says everything.
“Are you wearing underwear?” Brooklynn asks. “If you are, I’ll climb over the top.”
“Don’t... do that.” Yaz winces at the extra effort of speaking. The pain is almost blinding, and it shuts down everything else. Her senses are almost overwhelmed.
Yet somehow, she hears Sammy start to sing.
“Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong?”
Brooklynn continues, “You’re enchained by your own sorrow.”
“In your eyes, there is no hope for tomorrow.” They sing that in unison, harmonising beautifully, shaving a stone off the mountain of pain coiling in Yaz’s body.
Though she can’t see them, it gives her just enough strength to get up, bracing herself against the wall, and unlocks the door where she immediately collapses into Sammy’s arms.
“Aww,” Sammy croons, lifting Yaz into a bridal carry. “Let’s get you up to our hotel room.”
And somehow, amidst all the pain, Yaz feels her heart sink. Because Sammy and Brooklynn don’t deserve to waste a second of their precious holiday they were looking forward to sitting in a hotel room because Yaz is in too much pain to do anything.
Despite it, Sammy is nothing but loving as she settles Yaz on their bed, and kisses her belly before excusing herself to help Brooklynn bring their bags up to their room. Yaz lies there, groaning in pain, no longer caring how much noise she makes, and waits until Sammy and Brooklynn burst through the door, a whirlwind of beach bags and towels and their ridiculous flamingo inflatable ring Brooklynn bought on a whim. Their bare feet pad loudly on the stone floor as they set their bags down with a soft thud.
“Hey, baby,” comes the soft voice of Sammy. Her face bends into her vision, halo’ed by the sun streaming through their balcony, and Yaz thinks how she looks like an angel. “How’s my chickpea doing?”
“Mm— shit.”
“Ohh, what’s the matter?” Sammy asks, her eyebrows sloped with concern, as she brushed Yaz’s hair off her sweaty neck.
“Period.”
“Do you need painkillers?”
“Oh— I’ve got some in my bag!” Brooklynn exclaims, hurrying across the living area to get them. “I know Tylenol doesn’t do it for your periods, so I packed ibuprofen as well.”
“Thank you,” Yaz murmurs, but it doesn’t do justice to the gratitude pounding at her heart. She tries to smile up at Brooklynn as she enters her vision with the foil packet, but it feels more like a grimace on Yaz’s lips, and Brooklynn frowns and kisses her forehead.
“You taste like suncream,” she says with a soft laugh.
Sammy bends down, pressing her lips where Brooklynn left them, and continuing to pepper her face with kisses. A giggle slips unbidden through Yaz’s lips, and Sammy whispers, “I know you’re ticklish.”
“Tell no one,” Yaz says through pain-gritted teeth, but her grimace is turning into a sort-of smile.
Cats only show their bellies to people they really trust. Yaz has always been skittish. But lying here, her abdomen at the mercy of Sammy’s gentle hand rubbing up and down, she thinks of that again, and realises how much she trusts them both without even realising.
“Hey, my girls!” Brooklyn chirps twenty minutes later, opening the door with her foot. “I got you something to drink.”
“Brooklynn, is that alcohol?”
Brooklynn gasps dramatically, pretending to look offended. “Sammy Gutierrez, do you even know me?” She turns to Yaz and shoots her a wink. “Course it’s alcohol.”
Yaz’s head rolls to the side, noticing Brooklynn’s beach cover-up is suspiciously bulging, and slurs, “Did you steal food?”
“I lawfully took some chocolate mousse from the canteen. Figured you wouldn’t be up to eating anything solid, and I know chocolate helps on your period.”
“You’re so thoughtful,” Yaz says, her words melting into one long, tired breath.
“But isn’t the chocolate mousse the bowls in your hand?” Sammy says. “What’s everything else?”
“Our lunch.” Brooklynn bounces onto the bed, sitting cross legged. A slice of pizza falls out of her cover-up, and Brooklynn snatches it up and takes a large bite, tilting her neck back. “Don’t worry, I wrapped the rest in tissues, I was just... rushing.”
“Brooklynn, I swear to God if you were chased out of the canteen by angry staff, I will— I’ll be very cross with you,” Sammy scolds, going adorably flustered.
“Guess we’ll never know.”
Sammy helps sit Yaz as upright as she can stomach, literally spoon feeding her little mouthfuls of chocolate mousse as Brooklynn eats pizza and talks her ear off. She laughs, then Sammy laughs, and Yaz almost manages to laugh, too. The painkillers knock more stones off the mountain, the room is pleasantly cool — and slowly, surely, Yaz feels less awful. With her girls here, she’ll be fine.