A/n: Um, yeah. So writer's block and a need for a distraction made me ask Twitter for fic ideas. Lizardwriter requested Keffy so...you can sort of blame this one on her. Un-beta'd as always. All mistakes are mine. Yadda yadda yadda. Enjoy hot girls kissing.
Disclaimer: Nope.
Katie Fitch was five years old and life sucked. Their Mum had brought them to the playground so they could run around and make friends. But now Mum was sitting on a bench talking to all the other grown-ups and all the other kids had gotten over the twin thing and started playing again and Katie was left standing alone.
She pushed herself lightly back and forth on the swings, using just enough pressure to move without actually making her feet leave the ground. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for that girl. That stupid girl with the stupid blonde hair and the stupid blue eyes who had grabbed her Emily away. Now Emzy and that girl were playing in the sandbox together and they were laughing and the blonde girl kept playing with Emily's hair and Emily looked happy and…
Stupid blonde girl. Stupid Emily. Stupid swings.
The metal next to her creaked and suddenly there was a body next to her where before it had just been empty swing.
"Hello."
Katie looked over. The girl next to her was little. Well, okay, not little the way Katie and Emily were where they weren't very big (Mum called them pocket-sized) because this other girl was taller than her but little in the way where it looked like a small push could send her flying. She had curly brown hair and big blue eyes just like the stupid blonde girl.
"Hi," Katie said grumpily. She scowled and pushed herself higher.
"Her name is Naomi."
Katie's scowl morphed into confusion. "What?"
"The girl," the other girl said simply, shrugging a little as she pushed herself higher to match Katie's swing. "The one playing with your sister. Her name is Naomi. I'm Effy."
Katie scoffed. "What kind of name is Effy?"
"Mine." Effy smiled at her a little when their swings fell in sync and swung her feet back to push herself faster. "It feels like flying, doesn't it?"
Katie huffed with the effort to keep swinging in time with Effy. It felt sort of like the other girl wanted to see how high she could get Katie to go. And Katie was stubborn like that. "What does?"
"Swinging. Making friends. Jumping." With that last word Effy's swing hit the peak and she unhooked her arms and let her body slide off.
Not to be outdone, Katie quickly followed suit. For a few seconds she was suspended midair and she had enough time to think about how right Effy was about swinging before gravity took over again. Effy hit the ground just a little before her and they both rolled in the soft grass. Their bodies stopped rolling at the same time and Effy giggled – once. Katie looked over and met blue eyes shining with amusement and she started giggling too, for no other reason than Effy seemed to find something funny.
And as they giggled she thought for the second time that Effy was right. Making friends. It felt like flying.
.
Fucking Naomi. Fucking Emily. Fucking stupid party. Fucking…everything. Just fucking everything.
Katie stared at the spot where Emily had been standing just a moment ago screaming at her. Well, technically they'd been screaming at each other. She knew now that she had probably overreacted.
It had been Effy's fucking idea to go to this party in the first place. But then her friend had buggered off with some guy she'd been talking to all night and Katie had wandered around to see where Naomi and Emily had disappeared to and…
Something dark had clawed its way to the surface when she'd gone out into the garden and seen them. It wasn't like they were doing anything too scandalous (Naomi didn't have her up against a tree or something) and she'd had her suspicions about the two of them for a while now, but something about seeing them sitting so close on the bench next to the rose bushes, laughing and smiling away, made an icy fist clench around her heart. And then when Naomi leaned over and kissed Emily the icy fist punched its way out of her chest.
So like she'd said, pulling a swearing Naomi away by the back of her jacket and screaming at her was probably an overreaction. Probably. Katie knew she'd done something bad when a strange look had crossed Naomi's face and the blonde girl had bolted without another word; she'd felt another weird feeling then. Guilt. It had eaten away at her stomach and made her lash out at Emily (who looked ready for a fight anyway). And so they had screamed at each other in the garden.
And now that Emily was gone – home or chasing after Naomi, Katie didn't know - she was left alone with her thoughts and that was worse. Because now she had to think over the words she had been screaming at her sister: Emily was a girl and Naomi was a girl and liking other girls like that just wasn't…right.
That was a little bit the reason for the knot in her stomach, but it was more than that. Seeing them together like that had sent her mind into a tailspin. Because Emily and Naomi were best friends, and Emily and Katie were identical, and if Emily liked girls like that then –
"She'll forgive you, you know."
Katie jumped and spun around. Effy was lounging in the doorway that led to the kitchen. Katie had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts she hadn't even noticed when the door had opened, spilling light and noise out into the formerly dark garden.
"Of course she will she's my sister," Katie said sharply. She crossed her arms in an effort to pull herself together, but all that did was make her feel her rapidly beating heart more keenly than before. She sat down on the recently-vacated bench instead to get something more solid underneath her.
"I wasn't talking about Emily," Effy said with her infamous little all-knowing smirk. Katie's stomach flipped. "I meant Naomi."
"And I should care if Naomi forgives me because?"
"She's your friend."
"She was my friend."
Effy sat down on the bench next to her. The right side of Katie's body got warmer. "She still is your friend," Effy said with certainty. She lit up and offered to Katie, knowing that the redhead would make a disgusted face and shake her head (which she did). "You're not really mad at her."
"Yes I am!" Katie snapped vehemently.
"No you're not," Effy countered calmly. "Come on, Katie, we've known about those two forever."
The gentle cajoling in Effy's voice, the casual thrown-together use of the 'we', the conspiratorial little shoulder-bump that accompanied Effy's words, it all loosened that tight knot in Katie's stomach. She smiled a little.
"They have been kind of obvious," she relented. She caught Effy's eyes and they both started grinning. Her sister and Naomi had been anything but subtle the last couple of years, especially since all of them had started to hit puberty.
Very, very abruptly an image crossed her mind. Emily and Naomi had been sitting where they were now. Laughing on this bench, talking on this bench, flirting on this bench probably (because they couldn't seem to be able to help themselves), kissing on this bench.
Katie's stomach did a whole circus act. She shoved herself upright.
"Anyway, enough of this emotional shit," she said. "Isn't there a party going on somewhere?"
.
The air rolling in off the water was cold. Like, colder than it probably should have been. Or maybe that was solid feeling of ice that had overtaken Katie's body from the moment she'd punched that girl in the bachelorette party.
It had been weird – everything in the day had piled on top of each other inside Katie's heart. The doctor's visit, their dad losing the gym, even seeing Effy cuddled up with Freddie had (for some strange and not-acknowledgeable reason) added to the lead weight feeling Katie had been carrying around in her stomach all day.
The sound of someone coming outside. The click of heels. The way the side of her body warmed when the person took a seat next to her on the dock. By this point Katie didn't even have to look to her left to know who had joined her in her time of moping. It suddenly struck her as funny. Every time she was alone, Effy managed to find her.
Effy let the silence sit between them for a bit as she lit up and took a few drags. The cigarette was offered and, as usual, declined.
"Something is bothering you," the brunette said finally.
Katie shrugged. "I was shoved into your boyfriend's crotch," she snapped. "It was embarrassing." She squirmed a little when Effy turned her head and pinned her with that stupid, you're-not-telling-me-everything look she had. "Seriously."
"Liar," Effy accused, but thankfully she looked away.
"I don't know who I am anymore," Katie blurted out as soon as Effy's eyes left her. She hated when that happened – the sudden word-vomit that Effy could coax out of her without really trying. "I thought I knew who I was. What I wanted. But now I'm starting to think that I don't."
Effy looked back at her, this time without the demigod look. It was the friend look instead; her eyes were lighter, warmer, more caring. Katie found herself wondering if Freddie ever got to see Effy's eyes look like that.
"I thought you were Katie fucking Fitch?" Effy asked, the corner of her mouth turned up in an amused little smile. Inviting Katie to share the joke.
Katie snorted. "Yeah, well I am that," she acquiesced. "I just…I wanted the perfect life, you know? Perfect house, perfect job, perfect husband, perfect kids. The whole nine yards."
"What's changed?"
"Me." Katie averted her eyes away from Effy's carefully sympathetic face and concentrated solely on the water rushing underneath the dock instead, like if she stared at it long enough the river would actually surge up and swallow her whole. "I went to the doctor today. I can't have kids."
Suddenly another hand was covering her own. Katie looked at Effy's hand and the way it fit over hers. She flipped her hand until her palm was facing upwards and linked their fingers together, squeezing tightly. Effy squeezed back and some warmth started to settle over the ice in her heart.
"You're still you Katie," Effy said in that tone of voice that brooked no argument. Katie knew that tone. It said very clearly: the words coming out of my mouth are true. There's no point in arguing with them. "You just have all this other stuff now, too. But you'll adjust and adapt. I know you will. Because you're Katie, and that's what you do."
Katie sniffled. "You really think that?" she hated how small her voice was. It sounded like a small child asking for its favorite toy.
Effy squeezed her hand harder. "Of course I do, because it's true. And maybe soon you'll realize that you don't have to want things just because other people think you should want them. Although I'll never understand your aversion to smoking."
The problem was Katie already knew what she wanted. And she knew how impossibly out of reach it was. So instead of answering her best friend she just rolled her eyes and said:
"Uh, cancer?"
.
Anthea's eyes lit up when Katie knocked twice and entered the Stonem house without waiting for an answer.
"Oh thank God," the older woman stubbed out her cigarette and rose to engulf Katie in a slightly smoky hug. "Ever since they brought the news of, you know," she lowered her voice and Katie winced in anticipation, "Freddie. She hasn't come out. It's been two days."
Katie knew. Two days in which Effy didn't pick up her phone, or answer her door, or her texts, or even her fucking emails. She'd practically worn a rut into the carpet of Naomi's living room waiting for Anthea's call to say it was all clear to come over. And when the older Stonem woman finally had called Katie was surprised she didn't leave a cartoon smoke-outline behind in her haste to leave the house.
She took the stairs two at a time and didn't even bother knocking on Effy's door.
Effy was sitting cross-legged on her bed, Pato held loosely on her lap, quietly watching out the window. She didn't blink when Katie came in or when she sat down on her bed beside her.
"I'm not going to be stupid and ask how you're feeling," Katie began. "But you always seem to know what to say to make me feel better. Tell me what I have to say to you to do the same?"
"I broke up with him."
Katie blinked. She hadn't even expected Effy to answer, let alone a confession. Effy was always the one to coax you into spilling your guts without ever saying a word about her own. It was a trait Katie had gotten used to over the years.
"You broke up with him?" she repeated stupidly, and almost immediately felt like kicking herself.
Effy nodded without taking her eyes off the window. "I mean besides what happened at the pub. Everyone thinks we got back together when he took me back to Mum and the clinic after…everything that happened with Cook that night," Effy winced and Katie winced along with her. She hated knowing that Cook – James Cook of all people – had helped Effy more than she had that night. "But we didn't."
She finally turned her head and Katie was surprised to see tears in those blue eyes. Crying was not something Effy usually did on principle. But this was Effy Stonem laying her heart bare. So maybe crying was mandatory.
"I told him he was sweet and handsome and wonderful, and in any other world he was exactly what I would have wanted. But not this world."
Katie swallowed around the lump in her throat. She hated to see Effy looking so broken. "How'd he take it?" she asked quietly.
"About as well as you'd expect," Effy shrugged and tried to act nonchalant, but a tear escaped the corner of her eye. Katie's hand twitched as she stopped herself from wiping it away. "And then he said that in a weird way he understood. That he knew what it was like to want something that is simultaneously right there and forever out of your reach. He was stable and a comfortable place to fall back on. Now what do I do?"
"Oh, Eff," Katie smiled sadly and brushed a bit of hair out of Effy's face. "You're Elizabeth fucking Stonem. What in the world could possibly be out of your reach?"
Effy shrugged. She had a look in her eyes Katie had never seen before when she answered. Her eyes flicked away from Katie and stared hard a spot just over her shoulder. "Lots of things. Complete mental health, apparently. A good relationship with my Dad again. You. University."
A weird sensation overcame Katie, then. It felt like someone had kicked her hard in the stomach, then reached inside and twisted her heart around before putting it back in upside down.
"Repeat that?" she squeaked out.
Effy shuffled backwards a few inches. "University," she repeated stubbornly.
"Before that."
"A good relationship with my Dad."
Katie's glare narrowed. "Eff…" she said warningly.
Effy closed her eyes like if she wasn't actually looking at Katie when she answered then maybe the world wouldn't be real. "You," she said obediently.
Katie's nerves lit on fire. Her heart kickstarted to a hundred miles per hour and stayed there. It was so loud she was sure Effy could hear it in the space between them. "You have me," she said carefully. "I'm your best friend."
The small, sad smile on Effy's face when she answered almost killed her.
"No, I don't have you. Not the way I want."
A million thoughts raced through Katie's mind so quickly it made her a little light-headed.
Effy was her best friend. So? Naomi is Emily's best friend. Katie had had boyfriends before, lots of them. Exactly. Lots. And how long did they stay around for? Effy was in love with Freddie. Now you're not even listening. She just said she wasn't. She just called him a comfortable place to land. She didn't like Effy like that. No, you don't. You love her like that.
She didn't even have time to process the fact that she had just lost an argument with herself before she was moving. Because the little voice in her head was right: this had been building for years inside of her. How much happier she was when Effy was around, her irrational dislike of both James Cook and Freddie McClair all through college (the Freddie hate had lessened when she saw how much Effy genuinely cared for the boy, but Cook had taken Effy and run away and she'd never forgive him for that), her jealousy of Emily and Naomi (that she now realized wasn't about Naomi taking Emily away from her but their relationship as a whole), the disjointed feeling she had in her chest whenever she kissed one of her boyfriends. All of it suddenly made sense in one swift lightning strike.
So she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Effy's. There was a moment of complete stillness where Katie allowed herself the triumphant thought that she had managed to surprise the all-seeing Effy Stonem before Effy's lips started moving against hers and something in her heart clicked into place and she kind of stopped thinking altogether.
She used to laugh whenever people described kissing as seeing fireworks. Even with the most skilled people she'd snogged all she'd ever seen was a weak burst of light, maybe. But in the two seconds it took for Effy Stonem to bring her hand up behind Katie's neck and start kissing her back, Katie didn't just see fireworks. She saw a whole fucking carnival celebration. Roman candles lit up behind her eyelids.
Katie pressed Effy back down against the bed as carefully as she possibly could. Effy's hands moved from Katie's neck to clutch at her back like Katie was the only stable thing in a raging storm. The kiss remained slow and gentle, only getting deeper when Katie ran her tongue along Effy's bottom lip. Effy's mouth fell open automatically and Katie wasn't completely sure who released the moan that reverberated between them. She broke the kiss with a gasp and hovered millimeters above Effy's lips.
For a moment Effy looked scared that she was going to bolt, but Katie just smiled her own version of the infamous Stonem smirk.
"You do have me, actually," she said.
Effy smiled – her real smile – and pulled her down for another kiss.
A/n: Does it say something that I can't even write Keffy without at least mentioning Naomily? I think this is what those in the mental health field would call an obsession. Anyway, review and tell me how you think I did with KFF and the Beautiful Bomb?
Cheers. ~FS