Kiss
A/N: This is based on a prompt from Tumblr in which the prompt is to write a 300 word drabble on a prompt involving a kiss. itssoinevitable requested "Exhausted Parent Kiss" so this is for her. The drabble is exactly 300 words.
If there was one thing she hated, it was an atmosphere and he'd done his part to create it. Parents and their children clash, it is the natural order of things she reasoned. But as she readied for bed, her husband patiently awaiting her, she thought on all their children; all of them borrowed, but their children nonetheless.
Like all families, some children were easier than others like the sweet, gentle lad who'd fallen for the young kitchen maid. Others more difficult like the rebellious daughter who had fallen into shame and ruin. She'd tried to warn her off the dashing officer who'd wooed her with velvet lies and refused to claim their child.
There was the daughter who truly captured her heart. The delicate, fair girl she watched grow to womanhood; kind, devoted, and strong. How her heart has broken more times than she could count over things that if she could reverse time and take them back, she would.
Then there was the son. Tall, handsome and regal, confident. The perfect successor to his father. So bitter of spirit and angry, he was sharp thorn in his father's flesh. At odds again, the son challenging at every turn, an exchange of harsh words. The son's tongue striking like lightening, the father's voice booming like thunder causing all present to scatter from their presence. All but her. She was left to soothe their wounds, to nurse both her man and her son.
She slipped into bed next to her husband to find him fast asleep, exhausted from his battle today. She sighed, thinking of the children that they've shared together, the battles they've fought, won and lost, and the exhaustion etched across his face. She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. A salve to heal his wounds.
