Wicked fic: To Not Forget (Liir/Trism)
Mar. 31st, 2010 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: To Not Forget
Fandom: Wicked
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,897
Characters/Pairings: Liir/Trism, Glinda
Author's notes: Yuletide fic written for Danii. betaed by oliveoyl.
Summary: Liir and Trism are raising a little girl. They're doing a pretty good job of it too. That doesn't stop Glinda from offering a helping hand...
It wasn’t that they lived in a pig sty or even a Pig sty. Dirty clothes weren’t scattered everywhere, they just tended to migrate to the bedroom, tragically never making it to the hamper. And if you wanted a clean dish, what was stopping you from washing one? Periodically, Trism and Liir hoped to find the other in a charitable mood and inquired after the mob of chores pressing in on them. It inevitably turned into an argument which, since neither of them were much good at arguing, brought about such nonsensical statements as “I flew on a broomstick!” and “I can talk to dragons!” If not for the making up afterward, and the ridiculous smiley, swooning fits of affection that kept them on their heels (or their backs) for days on end, they would probably let the dirty dishes aspire to the ceiling.
So it was that one morning, Trism found Liir straightening up their cottage and wondered what he’d said to promote such neatness. If he could just figure out that and how to get Liir to change Mag’s diaper without having a dozen long-suffering glances attach to him like lampreys, they would have one of those cloyingly perfect relationships that seemed exclusive to the middle class. Still, with events out of the ordinary, Trism automatically went to check on Mag, pausing only to say “I really hope you haven’t obtained a sudden phobia for germs.”
“Please, Trism, you know I’m not superstitious.” He picked up his broomstick, gave it a look when it bucked indignantly, and began to sweep.
“Then have you, say, taken a blow upon your head?” Shifting Mag to his other arm, Trism pretended to look for one in Liir’s hair before kissing an imaginary bump there. “I only ask so I know where to hit you the next time the place needs a woman’s touch.”
“Good, I was wondering how to put this,” Liir aimed the broom at Trism. “Say nothing like that when she gets here.”
“Who?”
The door flew open. Sunlight entered, and was further carried in by costume jewelry: tiara, pearls, a diamond bracelet, and a surprisingly non-tacky ruby garter belt. The dress was subdued, which meant it included less than half of the electromagnetic spectrum. “Did I hear someone say Glinda the Good Witch?”
“No, but I was just about to,” Liir replied honestly.
Glinda smiled beatifically, as all-purpose an expression as the Gale Force’s scowl, and took in the cottage. It had belonged to a family of genteel Goats before the Emperor came to power, and their smell lingered like the color of chipping paint, but roughhewn wooden furniture and a full larder had been contributed by the boys. Mag laid in a cradle that showed every sign of having been actually constructed instead of found in a ditch somewhere. At the sight of the toddler’s green skin, Glinda took a step toward the crib, then stopped, her cheeks vibrating like her smile was trying to contain another expression. Then she clapped her hands together, webbing her fingers ferociously. “How rustic!” She pirouetted to Liir. “We’ve met before.”
It was said so pleasantly, like a compliment, that Liir wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “We have, ma’am. A few times, actually.”
“The cloister.”
“Yes.”
“The Emerald City.”
“Yes!”
“Lord Limlon’s ball.”
“I’ve never… no.”
“Too bad you missed it, they served a delectable spice wine.”
Exasperated, Liir gave Trism a look that begged for sympathy, but he’d stepped over to close the door behind Glinda, whose grand entrance precluded such things. As Trism did so, he looked outside, then idly looked out all the windows. Over the years he’d cultivated several strains of paranoia, and he didn’t intend to let any of them go to waste. Fortunately, Glinda had disembarked at the nearby village that Liir and Trism visited only often enough to not be considered hermits, then walked the rest of the way. It was only a brisk walk, but Liir would still be vaguely suspicious until Glinda mentioned a jogging craze that had swept the Emerald City.
Resigning himself to Trism’s retreat, Liir took Glinda’s hand and said “It’s very good to see you, Lady Glinda. I hope your trip wasn’t too rough.”
Glinda batted her eyelashes, already a step sweeter, like the attention was sugar stirred into tea. “Not terribly. There was some awful business with lightning strikes and a very philosophical fellow who set himself on fire to make a point, but all I think he proved was that you can never really tell how much it will hurt to be covered in flames. But none of that happened to me, so I can hardly complain.” She glanced at Trism. “But I need to take a breath, what’s your tale, strapping young man?”
Liir avoided a fit of despair by booting all discarded foodstuffs under a dresser. Glinda had never been the second mother he’d imagined his life’s story had needed, but it’d turned out that mothers were overrated, so he didn’t hold it against her.
“Tea, anyone?” he offered before Trism could make one of his vulgar jokes. Liir hated when he did that, eyebrows bobbing like overfed caterpillars. It reminded him of Shell.
.
They sat at the table, Liir pouring the tea, Trism holding Mag and amicably grappling with her. She loved to be held, but always poked and prodded at the face of whoever held her, like she didn’t want them to forget she was there. Glinda took Candle’s seat, which Liir had despaired of having filled until Mag grew up. He felt suspiciously little at finally having a full house.
Glinda took care of any conversational slack, filling the silence like water into a basin. She eagerly asked after what had happened after ‘the business with that awful Commander Cherrypit’ and Liir was sorry to disappoint her. It was all very coarse and masculine. Trism had spotted Liir in a Munchkinlander village, holding an infant swathed in old clothes so much that you could barely tell he was holding his child and not a load of laundry, and Trism had said hello. Liir had said hello back, then Trism had corrected him on how to hold the baby, which was shockingly green.
They remained hateful of the Emperor with the bitterness that could only spring from politics or family; in Liir’s case, both. But no one had been kind enough to offer more hope of redemption. There’d been no mortally wounded Animals with secret plans to pass on, no fair maidens being menaced by the Gale Force in their general vicinity, no Wicked Witches to be slain on any point of the compass. At that moment, Liir missed Elphaba fiercely, mother or no, and at that moment, he was surprised by Glinda squeezing his hand under the table.
“Ow! Fuck-a-doo!” Trism exclaimed, spilling his tea. He looked at Liir and Glinda, the latter of whom was holding her ears. “Mag got a nose hair.”
The toddler babbled something quite seriously.
“I could hold her,” Glinda suggested, and Liir felt Trism tense.
“No, I’ve got her,” Trism said, less friendly than before.
Glinda stirred some more sugar into her tea. “So, Liir, how’s the search for your brother coming?”
“Sister, mum.”
“I’m glad you got that sorted. It should make things simpler. Elphaba had a sister, you know. She took such good care of her.”
“Not at the end,” Trism noted, perhaps not forgiving Glinda’s earlier imposition. “Didn’t even go to her funeral. All she cared about was those shoes.”
“Yes, well…” Glinda folded her hands neatly. “We all had misplaced priorities toward the end.”
Mag picked then to cry, and Trism disgruntledly handed her off to Liir, who walked her around the cottage like he was following the steps of some antiquated dance. Glinda watched closely. Trism watched her. He tapped at the table.
“So, how have you been keeping busy?” he asked.
“Well, there’s this diet I’ve been trying, it consists of mostly lentils-“ Glinda looked to the side. Mag was staring at her from where the baby’s head rested on Liir’s shoulder. “Elphaba used to look at people that way. Like they were puzzles too complicated to ever be solved.”
It took her a while to come up with something else to say, while Mag was looking around at the three of them.
***
Trism got better at tolerating Glinda, or at least at hiding the irritation anyone would feel at a force of nature like her uprooting their routine. It helped that Glinda knew a spell to clean the dishes, letting them all enjoy dinner on clean plates. Then Trism excused himself to water the vegetables and Liir watched him go, bouncing Mag on his knee as she scrambled for his hands, bending his fingers playfully. Glinda sat opposite him, idly spinning her wand in her hand.
“Would you like to hold her?” Liir asked, confident Trism was out of earshot.
“No. I shouldn’t.”
Liir smiled at her. He really didn’t want to hurt her feelings with what he had to ask. “Then why did you come here?”
Glinda crossed over to him, opening her arms. Liir gave over Mag to her. She hugged the baby tightly to her chest, giggling when Mag smudged her make-up with damp hands.
Liir watched them for a moment. Then he said “Glinda, why’d you come here?”
“Elphaba didn’t have people who loved her, not unconditionally. Maybe this is her grandchild… maybe not. I don’t think Elphaba would care, so long as I made sure that she… had people. The way Elphaba didn’t have me.”
“At the end,” Liir added.
“When it mattered,” Glinda corrected. “I just felt I owed her…”
“You don’t owe her a thing. You were her friend. At least, I never heard her angry with you.”
“Was she angry much?” Glinda asked in a small voice.
Liir shrugged. “There was a lot to be angry over.”
“There still is.” Glinda handed Mag back to Liir. “I’ll be going now. Keep taking good care of her. Tell her you love her, every now and then. Just so she doesn’t forget.”
***
Something made Liir stand at the window while Glinda was going. He watched her bright silks and brighter jewelry as they disappeared down the road, swallowed up by the world. Then he kept watching, wondering if she would come back, until Trism tapped him on the shoulder and said they should get to bed. They only had one. It had saved them a bundle.
They laid down in their customary way, Trism on his side, Liir on his back, spelling out a letter in whatever alphabet it was. After a moment of staring at the ceiling, not knowing if there were Birds or birds or stillborn tornados above, Liir said “Thanks for staying.”
Trism made a harmless gesture, not opening his eyes. “It isn’t as if I have better places to be.”
“Then I suppose I should thank you for thinking this is the best place you could be.”
Trism husked a laugh, glanced over at the cradle to see Mag sleeping soundly, then pulled the sheets aside to get to Liir. The other man was already anticipating the coarseness of his stubble, the warmth of his lips, the dexterity of his fingers.
He wouldn’t forget it anytime soon.
Fandom: Wicked
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,897
Characters/Pairings: Liir/Trism, Glinda
Author's notes: Yuletide fic written for Danii. betaed by oliveoyl.
Summary: Liir and Trism are raising a little girl. They're doing a pretty good job of it too. That doesn't stop Glinda from offering a helping hand...
It wasn’t that they lived in a pig sty or even a Pig sty. Dirty clothes weren’t scattered everywhere, they just tended to migrate to the bedroom, tragically never making it to the hamper. And if you wanted a clean dish, what was stopping you from washing one? Periodically, Trism and Liir hoped to find the other in a charitable mood and inquired after the mob of chores pressing in on them. It inevitably turned into an argument which, since neither of them were much good at arguing, brought about such nonsensical statements as “I flew on a broomstick!” and “I can talk to dragons!” If not for the making up afterward, and the ridiculous smiley, swooning fits of affection that kept them on their heels (or their backs) for days on end, they would probably let the dirty dishes aspire to the ceiling.
So it was that one morning, Trism found Liir straightening up their cottage and wondered what he’d said to promote such neatness. If he could just figure out that and how to get Liir to change Mag’s diaper without having a dozen long-suffering glances attach to him like lampreys, they would have one of those cloyingly perfect relationships that seemed exclusive to the middle class. Still, with events out of the ordinary, Trism automatically went to check on Mag, pausing only to say “I really hope you haven’t obtained a sudden phobia for germs.”
“Please, Trism, you know I’m not superstitious.” He picked up his broomstick, gave it a look when it bucked indignantly, and began to sweep.
“Then have you, say, taken a blow upon your head?” Shifting Mag to his other arm, Trism pretended to look for one in Liir’s hair before kissing an imaginary bump there. “I only ask so I know where to hit you the next time the place needs a woman’s touch.”
“Good, I was wondering how to put this,” Liir aimed the broom at Trism. “Say nothing like that when she gets here.”
“Who?”
The door flew open. Sunlight entered, and was further carried in by costume jewelry: tiara, pearls, a diamond bracelet, and a surprisingly non-tacky ruby garter belt. The dress was subdued, which meant it included less than half of the electromagnetic spectrum. “Did I hear someone say Glinda the Good Witch?”
“No, but I was just about to,” Liir replied honestly.
Glinda smiled beatifically, as all-purpose an expression as the Gale Force’s scowl, and took in the cottage. It had belonged to a family of genteel Goats before the Emperor came to power, and their smell lingered like the color of chipping paint, but roughhewn wooden furniture and a full larder had been contributed by the boys. Mag laid in a cradle that showed every sign of having been actually constructed instead of found in a ditch somewhere. At the sight of the toddler’s green skin, Glinda took a step toward the crib, then stopped, her cheeks vibrating like her smile was trying to contain another expression. Then she clapped her hands together, webbing her fingers ferociously. “How rustic!” She pirouetted to Liir. “We’ve met before.”
It was said so pleasantly, like a compliment, that Liir wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “We have, ma’am. A few times, actually.”
“The cloister.”
“Yes.”
“The Emerald City.”
“Yes!”
“Lord Limlon’s ball.”
“I’ve never… no.”
“Too bad you missed it, they served a delectable spice wine.”
Exasperated, Liir gave Trism a look that begged for sympathy, but he’d stepped over to close the door behind Glinda, whose grand entrance precluded such things. As Trism did so, he looked outside, then idly looked out all the windows. Over the years he’d cultivated several strains of paranoia, and he didn’t intend to let any of them go to waste. Fortunately, Glinda had disembarked at the nearby village that Liir and Trism visited only often enough to not be considered hermits, then walked the rest of the way. It was only a brisk walk, but Liir would still be vaguely suspicious until Glinda mentioned a jogging craze that had swept the Emerald City.
Resigning himself to Trism’s retreat, Liir took Glinda’s hand and said “It’s very good to see you, Lady Glinda. I hope your trip wasn’t too rough.”
Glinda batted her eyelashes, already a step sweeter, like the attention was sugar stirred into tea. “Not terribly. There was some awful business with lightning strikes and a very philosophical fellow who set himself on fire to make a point, but all I think he proved was that you can never really tell how much it will hurt to be covered in flames. But none of that happened to me, so I can hardly complain.” She glanced at Trism. “But I need to take a breath, what’s your tale, strapping young man?”
Liir avoided a fit of despair by booting all discarded foodstuffs under a dresser. Glinda had never been the second mother he’d imagined his life’s story had needed, but it’d turned out that mothers were overrated, so he didn’t hold it against her.
“Tea, anyone?” he offered before Trism could make one of his vulgar jokes. Liir hated when he did that, eyebrows bobbing like overfed caterpillars. It reminded him of Shell.
.
They sat at the table, Liir pouring the tea, Trism holding Mag and amicably grappling with her. She loved to be held, but always poked and prodded at the face of whoever held her, like she didn’t want them to forget she was there. Glinda took Candle’s seat, which Liir had despaired of having filled until Mag grew up. He felt suspiciously little at finally having a full house.
Glinda took care of any conversational slack, filling the silence like water into a basin. She eagerly asked after what had happened after ‘the business with that awful Commander Cherrypit’ and Liir was sorry to disappoint her. It was all very coarse and masculine. Trism had spotted Liir in a Munchkinlander village, holding an infant swathed in old clothes so much that you could barely tell he was holding his child and not a load of laundry, and Trism had said hello. Liir had said hello back, then Trism had corrected him on how to hold the baby, which was shockingly green.
They remained hateful of the Emperor with the bitterness that could only spring from politics or family; in Liir’s case, both. But no one had been kind enough to offer more hope of redemption. There’d been no mortally wounded Animals with secret plans to pass on, no fair maidens being menaced by the Gale Force in their general vicinity, no Wicked Witches to be slain on any point of the compass. At that moment, Liir missed Elphaba fiercely, mother or no, and at that moment, he was surprised by Glinda squeezing his hand under the table.
“Ow! Fuck-a-doo!” Trism exclaimed, spilling his tea. He looked at Liir and Glinda, the latter of whom was holding her ears. “Mag got a nose hair.”
The toddler babbled something quite seriously.
“I could hold her,” Glinda suggested, and Liir felt Trism tense.
“No, I’ve got her,” Trism said, less friendly than before.
Glinda stirred some more sugar into her tea. “So, Liir, how’s the search for your brother coming?”
“Sister, mum.”
“I’m glad you got that sorted. It should make things simpler. Elphaba had a sister, you know. She took such good care of her.”
“Not at the end,” Trism noted, perhaps not forgiving Glinda’s earlier imposition. “Didn’t even go to her funeral. All she cared about was those shoes.”
“Yes, well…” Glinda folded her hands neatly. “We all had misplaced priorities toward the end.”
Mag picked then to cry, and Trism disgruntledly handed her off to Liir, who walked her around the cottage like he was following the steps of some antiquated dance. Glinda watched closely. Trism watched her. He tapped at the table.
“So, how have you been keeping busy?” he asked.
“Well, there’s this diet I’ve been trying, it consists of mostly lentils-“ Glinda looked to the side. Mag was staring at her from where the baby’s head rested on Liir’s shoulder. “Elphaba used to look at people that way. Like they were puzzles too complicated to ever be solved.”
It took her a while to come up with something else to say, while Mag was looking around at the three of them.
***
Trism got better at tolerating Glinda, or at least at hiding the irritation anyone would feel at a force of nature like her uprooting their routine. It helped that Glinda knew a spell to clean the dishes, letting them all enjoy dinner on clean plates. Then Trism excused himself to water the vegetables and Liir watched him go, bouncing Mag on his knee as she scrambled for his hands, bending his fingers playfully. Glinda sat opposite him, idly spinning her wand in her hand.
“Would you like to hold her?” Liir asked, confident Trism was out of earshot.
“No. I shouldn’t.”
Liir smiled at her. He really didn’t want to hurt her feelings with what he had to ask. “Then why did you come here?”
Glinda crossed over to him, opening her arms. Liir gave over Mag to her. She hugged the baby tightly to her chest, giggling when Mag smudged her make-up with damp hands.
Liir watched them for a moment. Then he said “Glinda, why’d you come here?”
“Elphaba didn’t have people who loved her, not unconditionally. Maybe this is her grandchild… maybe not. I don’t think Elphaba would care, so long as I made sure that she… had people. The way Elphaba didn’t have me.”
“At the end,” Liir added.
“When it mattered,” Glinda corrected. “I just felt I owed her…”
“You don’t owe her a thing. You were her friend. At least, I never heard her angry with you.”
“Was she angry much?” Glinda asked in a small voice.
Liir shrugged. “There was a lot to be angry over.”
“There still is.” Glinda handed Mag back to Liir. “I’ll be going now. Keep taking good care of her. Tell her you love her, every now and then. Just so she doesn’t forget.”
***
Something made Liir stand at the window while Glinda was going. He watched her bright silks and brighter jewelry as they disappeared down the road, swallowed up by the world. Then he kept watching, wondering if she would come back, until Trism tapped him on the shoulder and said they should get to bed. They only had one. It had saved them a bundle.
They laid down in their customary way, Trism on his side, Liir on his back, spelling out a letter in whatever alphabet it was. After a moment of staring at the ceiling, not knowing if there were Birds or birds or stillborn tornados above, Liir said “Thanks for staying.”
Trism made a harmless gesture, not opening his eyes. “It isn’t as if I have better places to be.”
“Then I suppose I should thank you for thinking this is the best place you could be.”
Trism husked a laugh, glanced over at the cradle to see Mag sleeping soundly, then pulled the sheets aside to get to Liir. The other man was already anticipating the coarseness of his stubble, the warmth of his lips, the dexterity of his fingers.
He wouldn’t forget it anytime soon.
