Neanderthal and Wench Ficlet

Title: The Compromise
Characters: Neanderthal/Wench
Series: Neanderthal and Wench

I stared at where he was pointing in horror. “But, but, we don’t do standing in a corner!” In the thousand or so years we’ve been married we hadn’t included standing in a corner in our discipline relationship. We tried it a time or two, but my brain is wired weird. Standing too close to something and the varying lighting of the walls in a corner sent me straight into a migraine.

“What?” Neanderthal’s growling brought me back to the situation at hand. He let out a short bark. “Yes, I see the chair! We don’t do SITTING in a corner!”

I let out a very lady-like yelp when his big paw swiped my poor delicate bum. I decided to change the tone of my voice. He seemed to be in a mood.

Neanderthal gave an informative growl.

In my new sweet tone, I replied, “Yes. I do see the chair is in front of the window. Except. Well. Um.” I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him he lost his ever-loving mind! But I still had his paw print on my right butt-cheek and didn’t want a matching one on my left. “Why is the chair in front of the window. And why do you want me to sit there?”

He proceeded to snarl out an explanation. I heard most of it as my eyes stayed glued to the chair. His guttural reasoning went something like this:

The chair was a good compromise. As it faced the window, there were no worries of the veins in my brain constricting causing me great pain. But it was a place I could sit and collect myself when I was in a meltdown.

Meltdown?! Did the Neanderthal just accuse me of having a meltdown? I don’t have meltdowns! I might, maybe, take things a little too seriously. And I might, maybe, complain…er…TALK out those things. I bet he was just tired of me! After being together so long, I finally got on his nerves and he just didn’t want to deal with me! And I told him so!

“You just don’t want to deal with me!”

His short grunt sent me into a tizzy.

“Yep?! Did you just say, Yep?”

He gnarled and snarled.

Ok. Yeah. I get that sometimes, maybe, once in a great while, I may not listen to his voice of reason when I’m melting-, when I’m TALKING things out.

He growled and rumbled.

Yeah. Ok. Sitting on the chair, looking out the window, might, just maybe, help with our grounding technique. The view would make it easier to see five things, concentrate on four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things to smell, and one thing to taste. But how was it a compromise?

“How is this a compromise?”

Neanderthal thundered out a laugh. Between the loud guffaws, I heard him. I could look at the birds, trees, and flowers and calm down. And he wouldn’t strangle me.

Huh. Yeah. I guess it is a good compromise.

I didn’t want to admit it was a good compromise, Neanderthal can be unbearable when he’s right, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

“It could be a good compromise,” I conceded.

He pointed again to the chair.

I decided to give the compromise a trial run and sat down. The day had been rough and I might had been on the edge of losing my temper. Yeah, we can talk about things after a few minutes of looking out the window.

Neanderthal’s heavy breathing faded into the background as a goldfinch swooped down and landed on my apricot tree.

End

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