#stop painting morty as an innocent angel no one in this show is a good person ok

[shachaai]

[Ficlet] Meow

Short bit of single mothers human AU, nyo fruk at the very start of checking each other out, for Halloween. If it’s not clear, Marianne = f!France, Elaine = f!England, Madeline = f!Canada, and Abigail = f!America.

   There are not many things Marianne Bonnefoy will not do for the sake of her daughter. So if her Madeline - sweet, dear, charming little Madeline - wishes to attend a Halloween party/sleepover being thrown by one of her friends, Marianne will make sure she is finished work early that day so she can take Madeline to the party.

Even if the mother of the girl who invited Madeline is one of the few parents of the children in Madeline’s class - or possibly the whole school - that Marianne would happily throttle with a smile.

Abigail Kirkland, bright, bubbly and one month older than Madeline, is a loud but extraordinarily friendly six years old who Marianne thinks of with great fondness, because Abigail had taken one long look at a nervous Madeline on Madeline’s first day in her new school and instantly declared herself to be Madeline’s best friend. And had stuck to her oath. She had stayed by Madeline ever since: Madeline speaks, shy but happy, of how they help each other out in class, play together at playtimes, and swap treats and stories and fraying friendship bracelets made of ribbons and thread.

Elaine Kirkland, Abigail Kirkland’s single mother, is a lithe mid-twenty-something sent straight from hell in a pencil skirt to make Marianne’s life a hell whenever the both of them show up to the same PTA meetings. How Kirkland birthed or otherwise gained a child as amicable as Abigail when she herself is such a sharp-tongued wilful creature is a mystery known only to God, because Marianne has found herself at loggerheads with the woman on multiple spectacular occasions, the last of which had seen them both forbidden by the school’s headteacher from ever again running or otherwise contributing to the cake stall at the school’s summer or winter fairs.

(Words had been said that should not have been said in the presence of under-10s. Two plates had been damaged, and a Victoria sponge had hit the wall. A blouse had certainly been torn, and the rumour-mill still cannot agree on whether there had been hairpulling.

Kirkland still insists the problem had been Marianne’s attitude, as though attitude sent projectiles flying down the length of the school hall with a harpy’s shriek.

Marianne still blames, firstly, Kirkland’s rock cakes, which had been hard, grey and definitely more rock than cake, and secondly, Kirkland’s inability to realise her contributions to the stall counted as lethal weapons - both when thrown and when imbibed.)

Many others - however grudgingly - sing Elaine Kirkland’s praises, and Marianne just does not get it. Kirkland can be brusque with others - never the girls; Marianne would whisk Madeline away if she thought for one second that Kirkland had so much as dared to dream of hurting Madeline’s feelings in some ways those times Abigail had had her friend stay for dinner at her house after school -, but the only person she seems to reserve her most particular ire for is Marianne. Something about Marianne seems to get on Kirkland’s nerves, and, well, everything about Kirkland - from her blunt words and smug expression down to her poisonous cooking, wilful stubbornness and terribly ugly shoes - gets on Marianne’s.

But Abigail is Madeline’s dearest friend, and Madeline does not have many friends, so if that means Marianne must occasionally tolerate Abigail’s awful, awful mother, Marianne will gracefully grit her teeth and do so.

For Madeline.

Marianne is a wonderful mother, even if she must say so herself.

That still doesn’t stop the first words coming out of her mouth when Elaine Kirkland opens up her front door in all black and cat ears from being:

“Oh, ma chérie, did you get tired of being a demon the other 364 days of the year?”

Madeline, an angel too precious for this terrible world and currently looking too adorable for her mother’s heart in her yellow-and-black-striped leotard and matching tulle skirt, doesn’t get it. Still holding Marianne’s hand, she tilts her head back to look at her mother, making both the gauze wings on her back and the sparkly antennae on her headband bounce and flutter. “But, maman, Miss Kirkland doesn’t wear costumes?”

Miss Kirkland, whose once-pleasant smile has frozen on her face in the familiar rigor mortis it suffers whenever it chances across Marianne, does the honourable thing - for once - and ignores Marianne’s comment. Perhaps it got lost in the wall of noise coming from the house: pop music and happy children’s shrieks.“Madeline, what a pretty costume! I love your skirt.”

Madeline, who really does not get as many compliments as she deserves despite her mother’s best efforts, beams. “I’m a bee!”

“So I see,” says Kirkland, and smiles a great deal more genuinely down at the girl between them, making the black whiskers painted on her cheeks shift with her smile.

Marianne would be able to forgive the woman many things if only she smiled that way more, preferably at Madeline - and also preferably, Marianne is slowly realising, whilst wearing the very shimmery, very sheer gauzy black top she currently has on, which all the world can just see through enough to see Elaine Kirkland’s surprisingly sexy black lace bra beneath.

Elaine Kirkland is a pretty lithe mid-twenty-something from hell (how old is she? Surely she’s younger than Marianne), and looks very, very good in black. (Such a shame about everything else about her.) She makes an interesting cat, and is certainly feline enough to pass the look off: her eyes are very green in the night when she smiles - a lot more sharply - at Marianne. “And I see your maman came as a hag?”

“Uh,” says Madeline, confused, and misses entirely the way her mother is glaring over her darling head at her best friend’s mother. That had been an exceedingly cheap shot; Marianne is disgusted for all of their sakes. “Maman?”

Marianne doesn’t get the chance to comment. Elaine had already pushed the door wider, letting out even more noise from the party within, and yelled over her shoulder: “Abigail, Madeline is here!”

There is the immediate thunder of many young feet from inside the house.

“Why don’t you come in?” Elaine gestures at both Madeline and Marianne, though she speaks to the girl first. “Abby will show you where to put your overnight bag, dear,” which Marianne is content to pass into her bewildered daughter’s hands from where she’d been carrying it on her shoulder for their walk to the house, Abigail appearing in a blur of Wonder Woman red, blue and gold with at least three other girls behind her and immediately hauling Madeline away with a cheerful hi, Ms. Bonnefoy! “Some of the other parents have stopped for a little while to have a drink and chat, and we can discuss what time it would be best for you to pick up Madeline tomorrow.”

“I drove here,” says Marianne flatly, in reply to the drink. With no innocent ears around to hear her, she need not be so polite any more.

Elaine rolls her eyes, and steps back further. (Rather than a cat, she should have dressed as a witch.) The hallway behind her is festooned in cotton-wool cobwebs and strings of electric pumpkin lights. “It’s a children’s party, Bonnefoy. We have soft drinks. Or tea, coffee, if you’re worried about sugar.”

Marianne caves a little, if only for the excuse to peer around the house of the woman in front of her a little more. Before, she had always picked up Madeline at the door. “...Then coffee, please, if you have it.”

She follows Kirkland in, and after the other woman to the kitchen when Kirkland shuts the front door - and regrets it abruptly, every step of the way.

Along with the sheer shirt and gorgeous bra, Elaine Kirkland is wearing a tail pinned to her beautifully fitted trousers, and, with every step she takes, it sways, drawing the eye - Marianne’s eyes - inexorably to Elaine Kirkland’s beguilingly long legs and the faint curve of her arse.

Marianne has gladly dated men and women with legs and arse less beguiling. That one such combination should try and seduce her whilst Marianne is surrounded by plastic bats, spiders, skeletons and neon orange things, on a body belonging to such a pain in the metaphorical arse, is an affront to Marianne’s good sensibilities.

Some things should be inexcusable.

“You are a menace to decent society,” Marianne mutters, not meaning to be overhead - but is, because of course she is due to the universe suddenly deciding to hate her, Elaine turning to look back over her shoulder before Marianne has lifted her horrified eyes from where they are still firmly fixed on her cat hostess’ swaying tail.

“...Excuse me?” Kirkland has gone abruptly, terribly, quite fetchingly pink. In the face at least, Marianne cannot see any pink on her chest yet under the sheer black shirt.

Marianne is saved from wishing she had showed up that Halloween as the Invisible Woman by the reappearance of her daughter, still being happily hauled around by Abigail. Both girls screech to a stop so Madeline can seize her mother in a hug about the thighs, Madeline’s cheeks already red and eyes bright with excitement, headband lopsided on her head.

“Maman, there’s a piñata!”

Marianne loves her daughter so very, very much. And in that moment, for aiding her in providing a distraction from the repercussions from Marianne’s roving gaze, Abigail too.

“Vraiment?” Marianne crouches down a little to return Madeline’s hug, smiling over the girl’s shoulder at Abigail since her daughter’s friend seems just as excited. “What shape is it?”

Perhaps it is cruel to use the excited chatter of children to stop Elaine Kirkland and her watchful green eyes from probing Marianne any further, but Marianne does so anyway until her hostess takes the hint and leaves for the kitchen without her. Besides, Marianne is actually interested in what the girls have to say, happy about whatever it is making her Madeline so happy.

And if it means Marianne can leave a message with Abigail about what time she plans to pick Madeline up again the next day rather than having to talk again to the cat-demon- witch that is Abigail’s mother? All the better.

(There are not many things Marianne Bonnefoy will not do for the sake of her daughter. Some things, however, she definitely does not mind delaying for as long as possible.)