Dragons
Disclaimer – I own nothing but a large amount of debt and a severe lack of talent
Premise – Season 4 Episode 8 from Naomi's POV, Naomily with guest appearances.
Rating – M
Warnings – Hey it's set in the Skins universe so adult themes and bad language from the start. If you're offended by these then don't read.
Authors Introduction– OK this is a silly little fic that I found inside of me when I read the amazing recap of Episode 8 by Heather Hogan on , if you haven't read then you really should, Especially Episode 8's. Thanks to Heather for the recaps and for inspiring this in me. I too know all about dragons.
Chapter One - Insomnia
I can't sleep; it's not that I'm not tired, I am. I'm sick and tired and that's the problem, sick and tired of this whole fucking situation, sick and tired of being treated like shit, sick and tired of being used as a verbal fucking punch bag.
Sick and tired of being me!
I look bleary eyed at the screen of my phone; the digits burn back the blue light hurting my eyes, 3:05AM. Fuck, FUCK, FUCK!
I know I deserve everything that's been happening over the last three months, the pain, the anger, the misery. It's all my fault, I know it. I'm a fuck up, a "fucking disaster" as Kieran had put it to me as he followed me naked from my mother's house those few months ago…yeah him and me both.
Perhaps that's why I liked him, perhaps that's why I found it easy to talk to him. Perhaps that's just it; I can't talk to him, or her.
My mother and her latest beau are off travelling the world; probably fucking on every beach in India as she'd wanted to before I came along. Naomi Campbell, mum and dad's little fucking mistake, a bundle of fucking joy destined to fuck up their plans, ruin their lives and everyone else's.
So now she'd met someone and I was old enough to look after myself she went on her dream holiday leaving me here alone. I can't blame them, I wanted them to be happy, as happy as I thought I was going to be; before that fucking open day and the rollercoaster ride that followed.
Tears begin to fall from my eyes and are quickly wiped away; the barriers I'd spent so much time watching crumble around me are slowly building themselves back. I don't cry, I'm Naomi fucking Campbell and I don't cry.
Except, of course, I do…I do now.
I cry all the fucking time, when I'm sober anyway, when the realisation of my situation isn't clouded in a haze of drugs and alcohol, and sometimes even then.
Christ do I feel alone, so fucking alone.
***
I look down at the phone in my hand for what feels like the thousandth time, it's now 4:15AM. It feels like I've been lying here for a lot longer, I guess that's what happens when you get locked in your thoughts, and I've got a lot to think about.
I read in an article once of a theory that people have dragons inside them. Sharp clawed fire breathing dragons that live within them. Dragons who tear up and consume their souls. I think that whoever wrote that was a fucking genius, they summed up in a paragraph everything I had known but not understood. In that brief moment of clarity, that eureka moment if you will, I realised that I have dragons too. Perhaps more dragons eating away at me than most other people, perhaps not, I don't really know, but I do know I've got a lot of these dragons fighting within me.
My life has been filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. Some of those lows have been really fucking low and that's where the dragons were born, in a pit of despair, darkness and loneliness.
That's been the story of my life, me Naomi Campbell versus the rest of the fucking world, always alone, always lonely, always scared.
***
4:55AM, still no sign of sleep. I might as well keep hunting down my dragons, you know? Check to see how they are; make sure they're OK and sleeping well. Unlike me.
Do you know the interesting thing about not being able to sleep? It's that you have the silence of the night to lose yourself in your thoughts. You can indulge yourself in every self-destructive mental urge you have, bathe in your misery; in fact it's practically compulsory. So here I am, five o'clock in the morning thinking about these dragons and trying to understand how I got to where I am, how I fucked everything up…and more importantly why.
So here we go, in for a penny in for a pound, let's say hello to 'Fear of Being Alone' the dragon that gnaws at my soul telling that I'm alone, I deserve to be alone and that it will always be thus.
He moved in after I found out about my father, the "shitty little prick" as my mother happily calls him. I'd not known life to be any different but one day mum sat me down and explained what had happened. I think I was five, five or six anyway. I remember the day clearly, it was a warm spring morning and we were in a park somewhere sitting on the grass and watching the families play. Mum had been looking at me as I watched the groups of people playing, the kids shrieking in pleasure as they played together; mum and dad looking on happily. I didn't feel the need to join in with them. I never had, not that I wouldn't if I'd been asked, I was a playful, friendly kid back then, once upon a time.
"Naomi, I want to tell you something" she had said apropos of nothing.
Obviously I didn't know what was coming if I'd have known I'd probably have run off and played with the others as fast as I could. But I sat there and listened as she told me that I had a father.
Yes, of course I'd always known I did have one. But I'd always pictured him as the absent hero, battling injustice or some such shit in a far flung corner of the world. That's why I'd never met him, why he'd never come home, he was busy being a hero. But one day I knew he'd come home, having defeated his enemies and righted all wrongs; and he would pick me up and introduce himself, tell me how much he missed me and that he loved me and wouldn't be leaving again.
That was my dream.
Well let's swiftly burst that juvenile fucking bubble! What I now I heard was that he'd rejected me before I was born and run off. Just fucking run off and left me alone.
Welcome to reality.
To say I was devastated would be an understatement. Can you imagine that, as a five year old, being told that your dad didn't want you, didn't want to know you? Well at that point my world fell apart. I know I still had my mum, but to be honest we'd never been that close. I'd spent as much time with her friends and the other assorted hangers on that congregated around that I practically was raised by a community. To some people that might be nice, lots of people around you. But all I wanted was my mothers love and I never seemed to get it, not one hundred percent of the time anyway, there was always some cause to protest or someone else to help that was more important than me.
I know it's selfish to think like that but hey, I was a kid, Life is supposed to be simple when you're young; there's you and your mum and that's the way it should be. Just not for me. So with this new level of parental rejection heaped onto my shoulders I felt even more alone, my mum didn't want me and now my dream dad didn't either. I hit the lowest point of my life to date, my first dragon was born and a wall was built. Time to push people away, if you don't let anyone in, then you can't ever be left alone. You can't miss people you don't know so to keep my new pet dragon quiet I never ever allowed anyone close.
I put a sign up outside my wall. Welcome to Castle Campbell, now FUCK OFF!
***
5:30AM and I'm still fucking awake, fucks sake get a grip. I can't get out of this morbid thought pattern and though it's killing me; I can't stop thinking about things from my past.
Looking back I don't think my mum ever really realised what had happened to me, never realised the impact of her words that day. But the result was that I became more insular and withdrawn as time went on; my vow not to let people in was resolute. I stopped playing with the other kids and I spent more time with my mum, with her protesting, her causes and her activism. She was the one person that I wanted to be close to, the one person I would allow through my wall. She was my mum and I loved her.
Ironically as I grew older I developed an interest in her activities, but that was definitely a side effect. I was still lonely and all I wanted to know. No, needed to know, was that she loved me. If I had to be involved in everything she did to get that love then that's what I would do.
Mum hadn't changed much though, she still left me to go on retreats, or marches or protests; once she left me on a fucking commune for a month with total strangers whilst she fucked off to who knows where, doing who knows what. I never fucking knew. I just knew she'd gone and I was alone again. My first wall had crumbled and needed rebuilding and it really hurt.
From that pain was born my second dragon, the fear of committing to someone only to have it thrown in your face. The fear of loving someone; knowing that it always, always hurts you when they leave. The knowledge that it doesn't matter what you do, or how hard you work at a relationship, they will always leave and rip your heart out every time they go.
One more dragon, one more wall.
So here I am, enter the dragon part two. 'Fear of Commitment' meet 'Fear of Being Alone,' no fighting and play nicely, make yourselves at home.
In the darkness of our bedroom a lone tear falls again from my eye to be lost in my pillow. We'd got closer my mum and I over the years, but the pain of those early rejections were still carved into my heart and she was gone again, just when I needed her most.
***
I look at my phone again, 6:30AM, well at least Cook isn't shagging that Effy look-alike in the next room waking me up like he did yesterday. Fuck knows how that whore Mandy slept through two rounds of that. He woke me during round one and I was downstairs. "Grab my balls" … fucking hell.
At least it's quiet, well, quiet apart from the breathing of the girl lying next to me. I've sat in bed and just listened to her breathe for hours in the time we spent together since the Love Ball. I've took great pleasure in just listening, the soft breaths, the light snores and the quiet mutterings that she makes when she's dreaming. I've spent endless hours lying here just loving those sounds. Loving what they meant, that the girl of my dreams, literally in my case, was laying next to me, loving me.
Tonight though, those sounds did nothing for me. No, that wasn't true; tonight they churned my stomach and made me sick to the core.
Emily and Mandy.
The very thought caused my blood to boil. I'm no innocent I know; I screwed Sofia behind Emily's back, a stupid meaningless one night stand. A disaster born of a new dragon I discovered in myself as I talked to her on that day. 'Fear of Being Alone' and 'Fear of Commitment' had brought me one of their friends, 'Fear of Failure,' and this dragon was a ferocious one.
I had plans you see, I had big goals and big dreams, always have done. I was going to change the world one cause at a time. Somewhere along the way I had truly become my mother's daughter, a political activist with a desire to make a difference. I was at the chav filled shithole that was Roundview College with one aim in my mind, get my A-Levels and get into a good University so I could get my degree in Political Science and get out into the world and start changing it for the better. That was my plan.
Then in came Emily, crashing into my world like a flaming comet, glowing red and beautiful and trashing my carefully crafted plan. Shattering all of my dreams with thoughts of travelling during a gap year - Mexico and Goa and possibly South America. They sounded lovely, but they weren't part of the plan, they weren't part of my plan.
But I can't resist her, never really have been able to, certainly not since that night, the night she looked into my eyes and we walked out of that ball hand in hand. I can't resist those deep brown eyes and the passion and enthusiasm that she brought to our conversations about our future. OUR future, me and her. Deep inside my dragon was gnawing away at me but I smiled and laughed and talked about it, never knowing how to explain that I had a dream and that whilst I dearly wanted her to be a part of that dream I wasn't at all sure about giving up University and going travelling for a year.
I wasn't sure I could take the dream I'd held onto for so many years, the one I could control, and put it on hold for the dream of a life with Emily, the one I couldn't control at all and that would probably break me.
So I smiled and lied and sneaked away one day to visit Goldsmiths for an open day. A small part of me hoped that I'd hate it, hate it so much that I'd turn my back on my plan and head off into that glowing sunset with Emily. The sad truth is I loved it, loved the Uni, loved the courses and loved the people. It was like a dream come true. Then Sofia tapped me on the shoulder and the nightmare began.
I thought about that day, endlessly playing it back in my head. I've tried justifying it to myself, I've tried recriminating myself for it; nothing really works, nothing can take away the pain. I know why I did it and I know no-one will ever understand, because no-one knows my dragons. They can't understand what it's like to have them gnawing and tearing at you, telling you that you're failing your dreams, that you'll always be a failure and that nothing will ever change. To listen to them scream at you that you'll end up alone and lonely with all your dreams shattered behind you, worthless and broken. No-one knows how hard it is to fight those dragons, and the things you'll do to make sure they don't win.
***
It's getting lighter outside and I'm stirred from my thoughts by Emily crying out in her sleep and turning over. She's facing away from me and muttering in her sleep. I roll onto my side and prop myself up on my elbow and just look at her.
God, I love looking at her. I always have, for far longer that she knows.
She really is beautiful when she sleeps, her red hair falls onto the pillow like a waterfall of colour; her skin is pale and smooth, like the finest Italian marble and even under the covers I can see the perfect shape of her shoulders and spine. They're possibly my favourite parts of her, the parts I love to wake up to and just have to kiss, starting our mornings by trailing butterfly kisses down her back until she wakes and rolls over to hug me.
Except this time my memories are invaded by thoughts of others, how many people had kissed that alabaster skin, how many others had watched her sleep and kissed her awake?
I knew about JJ, of course. Frankly that moment in the café when Katie had told me about Emily and JJ was when I gained my fourth dragon, the green eyed one, the vicious bitch called 'Jealousy.' She brought along my fifth dragon, 'Fear of Rejection', 'Jealousy's' twin and the best friend of 'Fear of Being Alone'.
Five dragons and five high walls, Castle Campbell was now complete, impregnable. The question was now what?
In that moment, as Katie smirked her evil little grin and left the café, I truly understood how much it hurt to lose someone you loved. Whether you admitted it or not. My dragons were screaming at me and it took a cocktail of one part rebellion and two parts bravery to quieten them down.
At the Love Ball the cocktail was started with a splash of my typical rebellious nature, ignoring Katie's implied threats and turning up to face them all. No-one fucks with the Ice-Queen!
But then we added a dash of Emily's bravery. Her bravery in standing up to her twin, in standing up for herself and for us and declaring her love for me in front of everyone in that room. But hardest of all was me raising my hand and calling her over so we could leave, hand in hand, as a couple. The final shot of bravery in the mix, all poured from me and I don't know if she'll ever know how much of me it took. To put my fears, my doubts and my dragons behind me and to be seen, seen with her. I think I'm still wearing the scars of that little dragon fight.
I'd come to terms with what she had done with JJ. In the days afterwards as we tentatively re-built trust and began our relationship proper, I'd listened and forgiven. I never forgot, but I understood, at least I think I understood.
I forgave her, because that's what you do when you love someone; I forgave her despite what my dragons were shouting at my soul. I forgave and never mentioned it again. It would have been oh, so simply to throw JJ back at her when she began her campaign of hatred against me. It would have been exactly the sort of thing that the old Naomi Campbell would have done in a heartbeat. At first, I had run it through my head ready and waiting for the next accusation where I could throw it back at her,
"Yeah I fucked Sophia, just like YOU fucked JJ."
But I never did it, couldn't do it, because I'd changed. Emily had changed me, I had forgiven and I meant it. Even thinking about doing it made me ashamed and miserable. Dragging it out to score points wasn't what I did anymore, not to her anyway, not to my Emily.
To be honest, clutching at the thin straw that was Emily and JJ was the one thing that had kept me going over the months of hell. That if I'd been able to forgive Emily for her thing with JJ, surely she'd be able to find it in her heart eventually to forgive me.
Then yesterday afternoon happened and my world was rocked on its foundations. "Naomi" the whore had said getting my full attention before running her hand over my breast. "If you don't want her then I do," then she kissed me.
She. Fucking. Kissed. Me!
And then I snapped.
I'm not really a violent person, I'm snappy and bitchy and I make a lot of threats, but I've never really held much truck with hitting people as a solution to a problem. This time however was different. Not only did I finally admit to myself that she wasn't straight but she'd touched me, violated me and then she'd told me she'd been seeing Emily and she wanted her.
She deserved everything she got, and a hell of a lot more, she's fucking lucky I didn't do a Cook. I couldn't believe it, in our house, in our fucking bed. Me and Sophia just happened, an embarrassing one night stand. This was fucking planned, this was a fucking romance.
I can't tell you exactly what I felt after Mandy fled our house, pain, betrayal, regret, embarrassment, rage, anger? Oh yeah, I definitely had anger. Not just at Emily though, but fuck was I angry at her. Most of all though my anger was directed at me. I knew what was happening, I knew something was going on, had done for weeks, since JJ's faux pas and Emily's quick exit with him. Politics fucking homework for fucks sake, she really doesn't think much of me. But I'd buried it then, hoping, praying I was wrong, denying the truth. Doing what I do best and running from my dragons.
I knew from Emily's answers to my questions this morning that something wasn't quite right. I know I've been pissed and stoned a lot recently, but I'm not fucking stupid. My dragons were screaming and roaring inside me and I tried to push them down. I tried once again to lock them away, lock them up in a cage made of alcohol and drugs; the same way I'd been doing for weeks. But now they were loose, rampaging through my head and every fear, every doubt and every question I'd ever had was flooding through my brain. Overloading me to the point where I wanted to scream.
So that's how I came to be here, stone cold sober, lying wide awake having had no sleep staring at the back of my snoring girlfriend.
I just lay there and thought about it all and eventually I made my decision. I accepted the inevitable, let my dragons run free and succumbed to their roars. I lay there biting my lip to hold back the tears and continued to stare at the sleeping Emily. This time my whole world had shifted, this time I stared at the back of my ex-girlfriend. It was time to save myself. I couldn't bear to lose Emily, but I could shove her away, tell her to leave me, save myself any more pain.
You see it's not rejection if you act first.
***
I don't know what time it is, and I don't really care. I'm just lying here now waiting for Emily to wake up. It's light outside and the faint sunlight is tracing patterns on the bedroom walls. Emily was sober when she went to bed, it shouldn't be long now; she always wakes when the room gets bright, always has. Almost on cue I hear the change in her breathing that tells me she's nearly awake, she fidgets gently on the bed, her right leg twitching involuntarily.
Damn that's cute.
I hastily shelve up the wall that had just crumbled, retreat into the safety of Castle Campbell. I pushed a thought of her and Mandy in this bed into the forefront of my mind and pushed away any softening that I felt. This was going to be hard enough without the weakening of my resolve.
Suddenly awake she rolls over to face me, our eyes meeting in that moment. I think that this is the first time in three months that she's actually looked at me when we've been in bed together, the first time she's faced me.
"I love you"
Well fuck me if that wasn't the last thing I expected to hear. "I love you," fucking hell what do I do now? The walls I'd hastily re-erected shook under the words and they damn near failed, but then Mandy's face came flashing past my eyes and my resolve strengthened.
"Don't lie."
I said it as simply as I could, no anger, no hatred, "Don't lie" a simple plain fact. She just looked at me, her silence saying a thousand words. I got up from the bed and pulled on a t-shirt then stood and headed for the door. It wasn't enough, my dragons needed more. I paused by the door.
"My mum's coming home next week, maybe you should go".
With that parting shot I ran. Not literally, to all intents and purposes I calmly walked downstairs and put the stereo on. But we probably both knew I was running from what I'd said. I certainly did.
My dragons were screaming in triumph, my heart was breaking all over again; it was time to rebuild their cage, time to dissolve once again in booze and drugs.
A/N - OK so this is my first fiction here and indeed in this genre so be nice, and if you can't be nice please be fair. I'm only doing this for fun and to replay those that have written things here that kept me going through the dark times of S4. I have the rest of the story written if anyone is interested in seeing this through.