You could have your choice of men
But I could never love again
He's the only one for me, Jolene
A warm palm rested against Dorcas's thigh over her robes, distracting her from pushing her fork into the tabletop.
"Dorcas? You alright?"
She exhaled the breath she'd been holding far too long. Her eyes, painfully dry from not blinking, snapped from where they were staring to look at him with a pained smile. "Yes, Fab, I just...I was thinking about our OWLs tomorrow."
Fabian smiled softly, and she knew he didn't believe her, but he leaned over to kiss her quickly, before turning back to his plate. Once his gaze was zeroed in on dinner once more, her traitorous eyes moved back to where they'd been the past several minutes, her own food untouched except for a few missing bites.
Blonde curls bounced as Marlene laughed at something Sirius said, all of those lads hanging on every word she said whenever she opened her mouth. Dorcas knew she shouldn't be jealous. She had Fabian. They'd been an item for over a year now, and before the summer between fourth and fifth year, Alice had taken one of her hands in both of her own to earnestly tell her that if they made it through the summer, well...it could be lasting.
There it was again. The flash of blue when Marlene flicked her head towards their end of the Gryffindor table, lingering just long enough to let Dorcas catch her in the act.
If Marlene sunk her hooks into Fabian, there was no chance that she, plain and studious Dorcas Meadowes, could compete. Marlene was one of the best players on the Quidditch team, her ease with the beater's bat only matched by Sirius's. The way they moved in tandem on and off the pitch mimicked how Fabian acted with his brother Gideon, two halves of a whole. She could have any boy she wanted, so why did she want Dorcas's?
"I'm full," she announced to Fabian while scrambling to her feet. "I'm headed up, are you coming?"
Fabian's hand stilled where it was scooping another helping of mashed potatoes onto his plate, looking at her like a deer in headlights. "I'm going to stay for a bit, catch you later?"
"Yeah, okay, that's fine." Her eyes blurred from confused tears as Fabian went back to eating his dinner, turning to speak to Gideon on his other side, either choosing to ignore her struggle or truly ignorant to the pain on her face. Dorcas smudged at her eyes furiously with the corner of her sleeves once she'd left the Great Hall, taking the stairs two at a time up to the tower, cursing her tendency to let Fabian rule her emotions.
She counted wrong, and her right foot fell sharply into the trick step on the fourth floor, her bum landing solidly on the step above it as she twisted with surprise. Her wand slipped out of her sleeve pocket and rolled several tantalizing inches away from her reaching fingertips.
"Bugger!" Dorcas cried, her voice muffled by gritted teeth, her hand slapping noisily to the cold stone step in frustration.
"Meadowes!"
Dorcas groaned. Would her good luck never end? "Oh, for Merlin's sake..."
Marlene arrived in a flurry of blonde waves, her side parted bangs floating above the eyes that Dorcas had observed only minutes before watching her end of the dinner table. A wave of hurt welled up inside of her before Marlene used muscles strengthened by Quidditch to yank her out of the trick stair, where she was caught all the way up to her hip.
Four hands worked to dust off her robes, well-cared for hands mingling with nails bitten to the quick. Her own rough swipes were contrasted by the gentle smoothing motions of the taller, prettier, popular-
"Marlene," Dorcas said, halting her own rapid train of thought, grabbing Marlene's hands away to hold them between their chests.
Without any motion to pull away, rather, with warm fingers holding steadily, Marlene smiled at Dorcas and asked, "Yes?"
Taking a deep breath to still her quivering lower lip, Dorcas gathered all of her Gryffindor courage to say, "Please don't take him just because you can. I...I can't compete with you, Marlene."
Dorcas braced herself for the smile to drop and a scathing remark to pierce her heart and confirm all of her fears, that Marlene would not back down on her flirtations towards Fabian and would steal the man she was thinking she could start to love. Instead, laugh lines deepened around blue eyes and rosy lips, a new crease appearing at the end of Marlene's nose. A different sort of clenching twisted Dorcas's stomach as she witnessed the little changes in the other girl's face up close, her eyes tracking each dimple and line of expertly-placed makeup, cataloguing each movement.
"You think I've been staring at Prewett? No, Meadowes. I've been staring at you."
"Me?" Dorcas gasped. "But you've been...looking..."
Marlene was patient as Dorcas looked away, flipping through memories of the past months of missed glances, close bumps in the dorms and hallways, and all misinterpreted.
"But you're with Sirius?" she said, still looking away to attempt to gather her thoughts, so she missed the way Marlene's eyes sparked as she burst with laughter.
"Oh, Merlin, no, Sirius is with Lupin! I thought that was the worst kept secret in this school, the way they hang all over each other in the halls."
"I'm with Fabian!"
Marlene's glow faded some as she rubbed a few calming circles against the back of Dorcas's hands. "Yes, I know. And I won't do anything to damage that. I promise."
Their hands parted then, and Dorcas found she missed the warmth immediately, with a stronger force of emptiness than what she felt with Fabian. Marlene backed away, picking up the bag she'd dropped to help Dorcas out of the trick step, little broomsticks and Quaffles lovingly stitched all over the canvas material. She watched Marlene walk towards the tower, shaking herself out of her trance when Marlene looked back to smile sadly at her, Dorcas picked up her forgotten wand, and aimlessly wandered the castle to contemplate just what this revelation meant to her, replaying the way blue brightened to near silver in Marlene's eyes when she laughed.
[a/n] October 3rd, 2016 - The final pair for the femslash on tumblr, Dorlene. I heard the Pentatonix cover of Jolene with Dolly Parton and couldn't stop thinking about it while writing this story. This is a couple days late, admittedly.