Title: Blink
Summary: Effy and J.J. help each other. The two most important people in their lives are gone, and only they know what it's like. Effy/J.J. friendship, set after series 4.
Rating: M
Notes: Review and let me know that you're reading. Thank you.
Blink.
Blink.
Someone was sitting next to me on the swings. Kids were screaming past the both of us. I saw blurry from holding my eyes open so long. After a while it quit burning.
Especially hard blink.
My phone rings and I glance at it. Mum again. I turn it off and put it in my pocket. I see the blades of grass on the outside of the park. A chilly breeze blows sideways and gets my hair in my eyes. Beside me, she shivers, and I pull off my jacket and put it on her.
I notice that the sun's suddenly gone down and I blink rapidly and look around. Everyone's gone and it's freezing and eerily quiet. My eyes go down to my hand laying on my lap, and I stare at it blankly, waiting for something to change.
A smaller hand takes mine but it doesn't faze me. She's standing in front of me for a long time but I don't have the will to look up at her, my head feels too heavy to lift that far.
"Jonah," she says tonelessly, getting my attention but nothing else.
My legs respond automatically, and I'm on my feet before I realize it. I look around in confusion, and my confused eyes meet her blank ones. I can tell that she understands why I'm confused because she keeps her eyes on mine rather deliberately I think. She squeezes my hand, but her expression says nothing, and her eyes are dim. There's a small twitch once, near her chin, and my eyes are intense when I look at her own that show no emotion. I squeeze her hand back and turn stiffly in the direction of downtown.
We pass a couple of places that are familiar hangouts of the three amigos, and my jaw gets ridged as I try not to remember that the places are familiar. My eyes look straight ahead, and they're narrowed as I walk and try to ignore and hold her hand. I feel like I should be cold, but my stiff muscles are finding it easy to ignore at the moment. My stupid fucking curly hair is getting in my fucking way and I just want to cut the shitting stuff off. My legs turn me roughly without me much noticing. When I see what I'm facing, I stop and stare and then glare at nothing. I look at Eff and her eyes only seem questioning to me because she's staring at me, waiting for an explanation for stopping her. I let a breath out quickly and look her straight in the eye and nod my head toward the hair place we've stopped in front of.
I get my hair cut short like normal boys have it, but it looks weird on me because it looks normal. I look normal now. I look like I'm not a mental basket with bouts of rage.
We're back to her empty house and the place is dark as usual besides one small light in the kitchen that's enough to see by in the dark, mostly.
I take my jacket off of her and place it on one of the chairs in the kitchen. I pour a small glass of mango juice for each of us and get two pieces of bread. I pull out a chair for her and get the food and drink and put it on the table. She sits down slowly and chews her bread and drinks juice. I do the same, somewhat rejuvenated by the food and drink. I wait for her to finish and then rinse out our glasses.
I stand by the sink waiting for her to make a move to do something. She doesn't move, so I take her hand in mine and she looks at me, face less blank than earlier, but that means that she's hurting, and that hurts me that she's hurting. I crook a smile that I don't feel and nod toward the stairs. She gets up and holds uncomfortably tight onto my hand. I see her shoulder jerk as we're going up the stairs and I pull on her hand roughly trying to get her to the bathroom quicker. I haul her through the door and slam the switch on blindly. She's shaking all over now and I'm being as quick as I can to get everything off, socks, shirts and pants. I've got bits of hair on me from my haircut and it gets in my mouth disgustingly but I try to ignore it until I can get everything but my underwear and hers off. I turn away from her to turn the water on, and when I turn around to help her into the shower, she's taken her bra off and has her arms crossed over her chest and is shaking worse than ever.
"Effy," I say commandingly, and her eyes jump to mine and they're hurting.
I hold my arms out to help her in and she freezes, staring at me blankly. I sigh because we've taken too long and now she won't move.
"Effy," I say again and give her a small shake.
I walk to the shower and pull the curtain open halfway and walk her over to the edge of the shower. She gets in, shaking like she's shivering, and I hold her hand as she gets in. I get in too and adjust the water temperature. I put shampoo on my hands and rub it into her hair awkwardly. Her hair is longer than mine, and I don't know how to cover it all with shampoo. She rinses it out and I wash myself and try to ignore that I'm hard because I can't help that, and Eff knows that and doesn't get offended or grossed out because I'm J—Jonah. Because I'm Jonah.
She turns around and her face is scrunched up and her lips are trembling and she's crying with her arms crossed. I don't even realize what she's doing before her arms are around my waist and she's crying on me with her breasts pressed up against my chest, and suddenly the fact that we're in the shower mostly naked gets to me and I try to push her away so that she won't scream at me for being a disgusting perv while she's crying. But, she grabs my arms hard enough to leave bruises.
"It's all right, Jonah!" she yells instead, the familiar tone of annoyance in her voice that I can always hear when people are talking to me. That's what makes me believe her. I know that she means it if she's annoyed with me.
I look around the shower hopelessly, wondering what I should do. I settle for patting her back and petting her wet hair a little bit. My chin drops down to rest on her head gently, and I feel useless as she cries.
I dry us off and we walk to her room to get clothes, anything piled on the floor that isn't disgustingly over-worn. I grab something for her and something for me from my pile and help her get it on. We put on soft pants and t-shirts that are comfortable for sleeping in.
When we're done, she goes to the bed and lays down. I look at the bed and stay where I am. I twitch nervously as I stand there staring at it. Effy is looking at me expectantly, and my eyes go from her to the bed she's laying on. Finally, silently, I go over to the bed and climb in. I lay flat on my back and stare at the ceiling.
"I don't want to sleep," I say truthfully, knowing that I'll wake up and she'll still be sleeping.
She takes my hand and lays her head on my chest to go to sleep. I lay there for an hour before I can't hold my eyelids open anymore, and I fall asleep unwillingly.