Ficlets.

[danachan.livejournal.com]

These were all written for hyel in the drabbletag at femslash100.

Taking Care
Rosie/Estella/Diamond, PG, 250 words

'I suppose they wouldn't be much without us,' Estella says, too proud of herself by far and it shows in her grin. Then her mouth is on Rose's, and the kiss is wet and deep. 'Well, that is, there are times when they need the looking after, still.'

'My Pippin, for example,' Diamond says, smiling, and her voice is fond enough. 'Out there, mucking about in the slushy cold with the little ones, and then he'll come back inside and want for a good hot cup of tea, and him having known all along what the cold would do to his bones. And I love him, and I couldn't do without him.' Her hands are small and warm, and Rose startles at the heat of them. But Estella catches that gasp with her own mouth, draws it in deep.

'But we all need looking after, too, in ways they wouldn't think. For all there are things that only we and we alone could even understand, there are things beyond that, things that are shut off and keep us in the dark, that aren't for us to know.'

Rose can think, but hardly – not with Diamond's mouth wet where it touches her, her hands sly and smooth, and Estella talking as she is, about things that matter more than they should. And she does think, listen – and Rose left feeling caught up in it, the heat of their embrace. She'll not cry out though she could, knotted tightly in their love.



Less Than Sound
Marigold/Pervinca, PG, 200 words

Marigold snorts and laughs then rubs the tears from her eyes. 'Well, if that weren't the most sound of ideas. If I were less kind, ad we've no fear of that, as you know,' a hasty addition, as habits to die hard. 'I might say it quite dumb.' Pervinca, hay stuck in her curls and freckles down her nose, looks at Marigold, eyes shining.

'Maybe not,' Pervinca says, hand on the cloth that covers Marigold's thigh. Marigold's breath catches, and Pervinca grins at her, moving close and pushing at the cloth, palming across good warm flesh. Marigold thinks, in a distant fashion, how she'll never get back to her cleaning, not now. 'But maybe. It did seem to work out best in the end.'

'Oh, but we've not made the end,' Marigold says, busies her mouth with Pervinca's for a long moment, then draws back, the hot taste of raspberry tart on her tongue. 'Still, only a Took would race through Hobbiton without a stitch of clothing covering her back or front.'

They laugh and comment on other Tookish habits, a number of them less than sensible. When the end comes, Pervinca's not the only one who's left wearing skin.



Strong As
Rosie/Marigold, PG, 250 words

'Well, I'm back,' she says, and Rosie catches Marigold in her arms.

'Oh, my Mari,' Rosie says, kissing Marigold and then kissing her again. 'I'd missed you, and here you are, walking in and like a dream.'

'It does all seem like a dream,' Marigold says, in a sensible fashion. 'And speaking of dreams, I had the most awful one, just this... oh.' She wraps her arms about Rosie, at long last, weeps against her shoulder. Rosie, tongue thick in her mouth and thoughts thick in her head, holds her and rubs her back, would like to comfort her, but knows that Marigold would not want her to act so contrite.

'He's gone,' Marigold whispers, mouth damp and eyes damp as well. The babe she'd carried, and almost to full term. Rosie has spent a good amount of time, this last month, sitting at her Marigold's bedside. And Tom didn't understand, not as he might have, though Sam knew his Rosie knew perfectly well. Rosie knew that Marigold needed more than her sitting there quietly. Leaving had seemed the right thing. And here Marigold is, faded yes but still real and in her arms, having followed her at last.

'You're beautiful and you're strong and you're as lovely as sunlight, my Mari. You can't go on blaming yourself for what wasn't meant to be.' She pushes at Marigold's dark curls, kisses Marigold's too-pale cheek. 'Not when it's no fault of your own.'

A faint smile. Marigold doesn't say a thing.


A Gift Given (But Turned Away)
Lobelia/Primula, PG, 250 words

If she had known what a difference a kiss could have made, she might have kissed Lobelia sometime before. But as it is, by the time she saw what indifference had done, they were both much older and Lobelia, who had been kind enough in youth (though never as kind as she could be), had turned as sweet as a muddy bog – that is, as foul as could be. Primula would sometimes think, she might have done it all differently: she might have smiled instead, she hadn't any need to frown. She might have accepted Lobelia's present, might have kissed her in return. Might have taken what was offered, that kiss and that friendship, might have known that she was holding onto a very fragile thing. No, not might have, but would have, and Lobelia would have been the greatest of her friends.

But time is cruel like that, knowing what you might have done and thinking how it all might have changed. And really, it does seem a strange enough thing, to think, looking with wide eyes at the moon overhead, feeling the water pulling at her hair.

But she has thought of her husband, already, has thought of her son. She has come to the end of all things, and for all she knows she cannot change – when life is over and death has come – a kiss she might have given and the friend she might have gained through it hardly seems like the most trivial of things.