Love Songs
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Summary: Various and sundry drabbles and short stories featuring the boys and girls appearing in Magical Melodies. Love Songs, Magical Melodies, har-har. Yup, that's my idea of a joke. Chapter 1: Business Partners. Bob/Gwen.
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A warm summer afternoon, and two children stretched out in the grass.
A little girl, bright golden hair cropped as closely to her head as her mother will let her, and garbed in shorts and one of Daddy's old shirts.
A stocky little boy with a fuzz of dark curls over his head, eyes and face gentle despite dwarfing most children his age.
Gwen and Bob, seven years old.
"Hey, Bob?"
A rustle as the boy glances at her and then back up at the clouds.
"Yeah?"
"What do you want to do when you grow up?"
"I don't know yet. Gramps wants me to be a blacksmith like him, but I get tummyache in my head if I stay by the furnaces too long."
"So don't be a blacksmith, dummy."
"I like horses," Bob announces meditatively.
"So come run a ranch with me," Gwen shrugs. "That's not what I meant, anyway. What do you want to do when you grow up?"
Bob blinks big dark confused eyes, and she huffs.
"I mean, do you want to travel, or get married and have twenty kids, or live in a tree house, or what?"
"I like it best at home, and I'm not good at climbing trees," Bob admits, "but I wanna get married someday."
"Really?" Gwen says indifferently, and she's only turning kinda pink 'cause it's so warm out.
Bob turns over, props himself up on his elbow, and gives her a beaming smile.
"Yeah. You don't mind if my wife and all my kids lives on our ranch with us, do you?"
"Only if they help with the horses," Gwen says sternly.
Bob grins.
"Don't worry. I'll only marry her if she likes horses and cooking and has pretty hair."
She returns his grin.
"Sounds like I'll like your wife."
In the back of her mind, she's busily devising a plan to scare away all the girls with pretty hair who like cooking and horses.
In the back of his mind, Bob is thinking that Gwen has awfully pretty hair, and bakes really good cookies.
But these are thoughts for another day.
After all, they're only seven.
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A warm summer evening, and two barely-grown-ups stretched out in the grass, heedless of the evening dew.
A young woman, bright golden hair dragged ruthlessly into a high ponytail, with her own ideas on the concept of fashion.
A tall, broad-shouldered young man with a wealth of dark curls over his head, eyes and face gentle as his disposition towards everyone but those who would threaten danger or misery to his loved ones.
Gwen and Bob, twenty-two years old.
"Hey, Gwen?"
A rustle of cloth on grass as the girl shifts onto her side to look at him.
"Yeah?"
"You got any particular plans for next year?"
A minute shrug.
"I don't know. I'll work at Uncle Doug's for a while, probably go back home, see if Mom and Dad can talk me back into school."
"I think I might start a ranch."
A guffaw.
"Seriously?"
He frowns.
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"
A snort.
"You're going to run a ranch by yourself?"
A hesitant silence.
"Well, I kind of thought I might look for a business partner."
"What about that wife you wanted? You know, likes horses and cooking and has pretty hair?"
"Nah. My taste's a lot more specific now."
"Okay," she shrugs, briefly cursing all those drinks at the Moonlight Café for making her face feel flushed, then flops back to the grass and stares idly up at the clouds barely visible against the night sky.
"Hey, Gwen?"
"Yeah?"
"You still think you might get married someday?"
A long silence, and then a faint rustle as she shrugs.
"Yeah, maybe."
A longer silence, filled only by his nearly audible attempt to summon up courage.
"How about next season?"
By the time the meaning of this question has completely penetrated her brain, he's already started tickling her nose lightly with a tuft of blue. She sits bolt upright and snatches it away.
"Forget it!"
To the end of his days, Bob will swear that he felt his heart plummet right through the ground, and right now he wishes that it would take him with it. He shoots her a smile that more resembles a grimace of pain.
"Oh…uh, okay. Sorry, I'll just…"
With a slightly shaking hand, he moves to retrieve the feather, and completely misses her grin as she yanks it away and holds it up above her head.
"Autumn's our busiest season; if we get married and start that ranch before summer ends, I can get out of it this year!"
Her cheeks are bright red in the moonlight, and he's dimly afraid that he's laughing like an idiot as he moves to kiss her.
"Man, you'll go to any lengths to get out of a little work, won't you, Gwen?"
The thunk of fist against muscle, and more laughter, quickly growing breathless as she half crawls and half leaps into his arms.
And nearby, a flurry of movement as a bedroom curtain is dropped back into place, and a girl with long chestnut brown ringlets and an abundance of frills gloats over a bet well won.
