![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerproblem193Title: Sunshine
Fandom: Original
Relationship: Two girls in love
Prompt: 23.17 Daily Rituals
Rating: T
Warnings: None.
Summary: To build a home, you have to keep repeating your love.
There usually wasn't much to sweep up, since both Ash and I were happy to stay homebodies all day. When we remembered to keep our shoes by the door, I only had to clean away flour and sugar and the occasional fallen hair.
I tipped most of the dirt pan into the compost. The parts that were us, I saved. I twined a strand of her hair around the curtain ring and watched it shine gold in the sunlight. Dawn was breaking over my shoulders, the light pressing against my bare skin with a physical weight.
It was easy and it wasn’t, to make a home yours. To protect it, to bring the threshold to bear. I yawned at the window, scrubbing at my eyes, only half-watching the hair flare into a stripe of brilliance in the curtains.
“Lou,” Ash said thoughtfully over dinner the next day, “d’you think it’d be homier here if I-”
“Yes,” I said, because encouraging her bad ideas was my favourite thing. “Do it.”
“A thousand cactuses?” she said innocently. “You’re on board for the mortgage then?”
I leant across the table to grab her hands in mine. Only a few of our knuckles got pasta sauce on them, which was close enough to a success. “Anything. Cover me in spikes. Carpet the place in one-bloom flowers.”
Ash’s fingers tightened against mine. “Right,” she said. She swallowed. “I’ll. Get one. See how it goes. Or maybe sage?”
I kissed our hands, smelling the pepper and tomato of the sauce she always complained was too bland. “If you think so. Maybe basil, too, while you’re at it. Get the whole front window going with spices.”
“Right,” Ash said again. She sounded a little more sure this time. “If you’re trying to make a statement about flavour palettes, I’m missing it, just so you know.”
“Oh, I know.” I let her hands go so she could start complaining about the spaghetti. I grinned at her. “To be fair, I don’t know either.”
“Wonderful. We’re going to poison ourselves off fancy leaves and it’ll be your fault.”
I pointed my fork at her, a few specks of tomato scattering across the floorboards in golden sparks. “Our fault,” I promised.
Fandom: Original
Relationship: Two girls in love
Prompt: 23.17 Daily Rituals
Rating: T
Warnings: None.
Summary: To build a home, you have to keep repeating your love.
There usually wasn't much to sweep up, since both Ash and I were happy to stay homebodies all day. When we remembered to keep our shoes by the door, I only had to clean away flour and sugar and the occasional fallen hair.
I tipped most of the dirt pan into the compost. The parts that were us, I saved. I twined a strand of her hair around the curtain ring and watched it shine gold in the sunlight. Dawn was breaking over my shoulders, the light pressing against my bare skin with a physical weight.
It was easy and it wasn’t, to make a home yours. To protect it, to bring the threshold to bear. I yawned at the window, scrubbing at my eyes, only half-watching the hair flare into a stripe of brilliance in the curtains.
###
“Lou,” Ash said thoughtfully over dinner the next day, “d’you think it’d be homier here if I-”
“Yes,” I said, because encouraging her bad ideas was my favourite thing. “Do it.”
“A thousand cactuses?” she said innocently. “You’re on board for the mortgage then?”
I leant across the table to grab her hands in mine. Only a few of our knuckles got pasta sauce on them, which was close enough to a success. “Anything. Cover me in spikes. Carpet the place in one-bloom flowers.”
Ash’s fingers tightened against mine. “Right,” she said. She swallowed. “I’ll. Get one. See how it goes. Or maybe sage?”
I kissed our hands, smelling the pepper and tomato of the sauce she always complained was too bland. “If you think so. Maybe basil, too, while you’re at it. Get the whole front window going with spices.”
“Right,” Ash said again. She sounded a little more sure this time. “If you’re trying to make a statement about flavour palettes, I’m missing it, just so you know.”
“Oh, I know.” I let her hands go so she could start complaining about the spaghetti. I grinned at her. “To be fair, I don’t know either.”
“Wonderful. We’re going to poison ourselves off fancy leaves and it’ll be your fault.”
I pointed my fork at her, a few specks of tomato scattering across the floorboards in golden sparks. “Our fault,” I promised.
###
Ash spent a weekend tracking mud through the house, working it into the edges of carpets and leaving shining home-gold tracks from the front door to the back. The sky rained on her like it was trying to make a point and I left her hot cider to counter it. She would work herself to the bone sometimes, and it was better to let her. I loved her, but I understood her more than anything else.
When it was done, when the slender oaks shadowed our windows and whispered lullabies at night, Ash slept through till it stopped raining. I teased her and I sat on her under a pile of blankets and pretended it was an accident and made a nuisance of myself so she knew I was still there.
When she surfaced from our bed, eventually, it was only so she could drag me into it.
Some days I had to spend the morning catching up on our dishes. This time they'd been piling up for long enough that even I’d noticed it was time to stop neglecting them. Easier to make a morning out of it than to keep seeing the pile staring at me, really. I stood at the sink and scrubbed and rinsed and washed and soaked warmth into my hands.
I could see Ash trying to stare down a blade of grass on the overgrown lawn outside, her hands cupped around it, her forehead wrinkled as our dresses. She might have known I was watching, but it didn’t change the way she stuck her tongue out to lick the grass or the face she made after, sneezing.
I kissed my thumb and pressed a smudge over her face into the window. Ash, redolent in the warm sun and cool earth, rolled over to contemplate a flower instead.
I had Ash pressed against the counter, a change of pace seemed delighted by. She was laughing at how I’d tried to seduce her, not unkindly. “I could eat you up,” she repeated, making to nip at my jaw and catching hair instead. “Oh, how delicious I’m sure we are.”
“Hush.” I tried to make good on my threat, pressing my lips to the thread of pulse under her jaw. Her skin tasted like soap, and I had to laugh and try to scrub my tongue against the collar of her shirt, dust and cotton overwhelming the sour false-mint. Her hands carded through my hair, attempting to find the ends of it and pull it out of the way. “You make it look easy, alright?”
“Easy? You?” Ash purred, and I really did bite her this time, careful to keep my tongue away from her skin. “Oh, don’t give me that. You handed it to me.”
“Hand?” I said. “Oh. Of course.”
There wasn’t much talk after that. The counter was kind enough not to give either of us a splinter, though by all rights we deserved a few. Later, in the buttery sunset, I wound a strand of my hair around the head of our bed. Ash complained at the movement, but settled once I’d curled back into her, our hair a tangled mess of brown and gold across the pillow.
The threshold settled on a Thursday with Ash’s boots cast lopsided across mine. I fell off the sofa with it, the sudden weight of home and contentment and happiness and the lustre of love nearly too much to bear. Ash swept me up and around in a circle, pressing a kiss to me temple and then to the pine of our doorframe. “We did it,” she told me, like she thought it couldn’t possibly be true.
I kissed her like a thousand words, her mouth hot against mine. We swayed on our threshold, holding each other, for a long time. The light filtered to gold, bright enough that even with my eyes closed I could see us glowing.
When it was done, when the slender oaks shadowed our windows and whispered lullabies at night, Ash slept through till it stopped raining. I teased her and I sat on her under a pile of blankets and pretended it was an accident and made a nuisance of myself so she knew I was still there.
When she surfaced from our bed, eventually, it was only so she could drag me into it.
###
Some days I had to spend the morning catching up on our dishes. This time they'd been piling up for long enough that even I’d noticed it was time to stop neglecting them. Easier to make a morning out of it than to keep seeing the pile staring at me, really. I stood at the sink and scrubbed and rinsed and washed and soaked warmth into my hands.
I could see Ash trying to stare down a blade of grass on the overgrown lawn outside, her hands cupped around it, her forehead wrinkled as our dresses. She might have known I was watching, but it didn’t change the way she stuck her tongue out to lick the grass or the face she made after, sneezing.
I kissed my thumb and pressed a smudge over her face into the window. Ash, redolent in the warm sun and cool earth, rolled over to contemplate a flower instead.
###
I had Ash pressed against the counter, a change of pace seemed delighted by. She was laughing at how I’d tried to seduce her, not unkindly. “I could eat you up,” she repeated, making to nip at my jaw and catching hair instead. “Oh, how delicious I’m sure we are.”
“Hush.” I tried to make good on my threat, pressing my lips to the thread of pulse under her jaw. Her skin tasted like soap, and I had to laugh and try to scrub my tongue against the collar of her shirt, dust and cotton overwhelming the sour false-mint. Her hands carded through my hair, attempting to find the ends of it and pull it out of the way. “You make it look easy, alright?”
“Easy? You?” Ash purred, and I really did bite her this time, careful to keep my tongue away from her skin. “Oh, don’t give me that. You handed it to me.”
“Hand?” I said. “Oh. Of course.”
There wasn’t much talk after that. The counter was kind enough not to give either of us a splinter, though by all rights we deserved a few. Later, in the buttery sunset, I wound a strand of my hair around the head of our bed. Ash complained at the movement, but settled once I’d curled back into her, our hair a tangled mess of brown and gold across the pillow.
###
The threshold settled on a Thursday with Ash’s boots cast lopsided across mine. I fell off the sofa with it, the sudden weight of home and contentment and happiness and the lustre of love nearly too much to bear. Ash swept me up and around in a circle, pressing a kiss to me temple and then to the pine of our doorframe. “We did it,” she told me, like she thought it couldn’t possibly be true.
I kissed her like a thousand words, her mouth hot against mine. We swayed on our threshold, holding each other, for a long time. The light filtered to gold, bright enough that even with my eyes closed I could see us glowing.
