Title: The Gods of Love
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #11 Disgust
Word Count: 619 words
Rating: PG
Summary: A world-weary Tracy reflects on young love, in all its disgusting glory.
Author's Notes: Real life has made our girl a little cynical about love.
They're so adorable. Like little kittens, or puppies frolicking.
Tracy hates kittens, and puppies are rarely call for bell-ringing joy on her part.
Tracy wants to be evil, like Cruella da Ville, so people will keep their kitten and puppy tendencies safely away from her.
Tracy likes being evil, because it keeps her apart, it keeps her insulated from the kittens and the puppies of the world, the softish, playful types who want to coo and bill and frolick in disgusting displays of public affection.
Tracy sits in the airport, her bags packed again, watching this young couple nestling across the way. They are sweet and beautiful, a couple fit to adorn a Hallmark card, or a poster warning against VD.
Tracy feels old next to them, hideous and decrepit and worn by age and care. She wants to throw something at them, at their youth and innocence and beauty.
These two young gods of love…
She is dewey-eyed, thin like they make them this decade, with long hair the color of honey. Her flowered shirt shows her mid-drift, concave at the belly, low-slung jeans framing hips that are slender and tanned, a bright-eyed Aphrodite with hippie tendencies.
He is hard, muscled and toned, his skin much darker than hers, his hair and eyes the color of coal. His arms surround her, protective, possessive, as they play at love and sex and pushing the envelope of how far he can go. His face is perfectly formed, in that beautiful Meditteranean way that she used to be so fond of in her youth, his mouth full and sensuous.
Tracy is watching them through the thin haze of arrogance that comes with age and experience, and she fights the urge to invite them into her lair, where she can regale them with a few truths about life and love.
She is not feeling the desire she once would have had, for a boy like that of her own, for a hard-bodied Adonis to protect her as this one protects his Aphrodite. She doesn't long for soft, heavy lips to press against her skin, or hungry hands to push the envelope of what is proper and acceptable.
She is not feeling the urge to be in love she felt in her youth.
Tracy is no longer about love. Love is no longer about Tracy, and both agree it's better that way. Tracy is a mother, yes, but she is not filled with mother-love. She is a wife…was a wife…but there is no domestic urge in her.
The gods of love have declared war on Tracy Quartermaine, and she is fully prepared to level a campaign that will stun the ages.
Tracy Quartermaine is no longer a creature of love.
Tracy Quartermaine is no longer a victim of love.
Tracy Quartermaine, she thinks to herself as the young couple kiss, sweet and hopeful, in the waiting room at Heathrow International Airport…
Tracy Quartermaine, she thinks as the pain of failure bites into her, lobbies against her defences…
Tracy Quartermaine will never fall in love again.
"Mummy?" A boy's voice tears her gaze away from the couple, and Ned is there at her side. He is getting so tall, with just enough of a British accent that she will miss it when it fades. Boarding school will take care of most of that, and summers in New York the rest. "Isn't Daddy coming with us?"
Tracy Quartermaine Ashton takes a deep breath, her heart breaking again. "No, Ned. Your father is staying in England." And before he can ask why, yet again, the announcer comes on the loudspeaker.
The flight for New York is now boarding at Gate 17.
It's time to go home.
The End
Written for the 100situations Challenge.