A/N: YES THIS AUTHORS NOTE WARRANTS ALL CAPS BECAUSE SKINS IS COMING BACK SOON TO BLOW ALL OTHER SHOWS OUT OF YOUR TV SCREEN. And Emily and Naomi are OTP, people. I don't care if it's one word, feedback is a beautiful thing.
Three forty-two
So if you dare to second guess,
You can rest assured,
That all my love is for you.
- Green Day, last night on earth.
It's the type of argument you can only have when it's your first love, you're both beyond drunk that your body is starting to sober itself and it's three in the morning.
Emily likes to think that she's fairly decent with this relationship stuff, she thinks. She tries not to talk or be arrogant about it, but she's had time to reflect over summer and College starts in two days, but out of everyone in their group, she's the least fucked up. That's truly, what she thinks, not in a holier-than-thou way, but she just is. She's in a relationship with the girl she's completely consumed by, who may just be the most impenetrable person she's ever known at that and she's managed not to fuck over any of her friends so far. She did JJ the biggest favour a girl can do for a boy, after all.
On the family front though, it could be a lot better. Her mum's pretending Emily's the innocent, traditional straight girl she's always wanted her girls to be, and Katie is her mother's daughter, whether she likes to admit it or not. She's tired, so completely exhausted by her mum's ignorance. She doesn't need her to understand, just needs her to respect it, even when she doesn't understand. Love without direction, without reason, because she's her mum.
So it's lead to spending most of her minutes with Naomi (as if they needed an excuse) and despite all the mornings waking up entangled, kissing lips, shoulders and everything else and the group not being surprised at all that they are the couple, there's still a part of Emily that's seven years old, who still believes in happily ever after. Naomi's happy with her in every other aspect, but it's that part that worries her. Its strange being in a committed relationship for one thing, thoughts of forever just frighten her.
A tiger doesn't change its stripes. Emily's the braver one, she knows that and every so often, Naomi runs. She loves that Emily is chasing after her though, in the same way she always has.
"What happens this time next year, then?" Emily muses casually, post-sex snuggling. They spent the night with the three musketeers, Thomas and Panda probably on some sickening romantic date, not that they're in any position to judge right now. She gets her when she can at this, because this is when Naomi comes anything close to vulnerable. Naomi could restrain herself on most things, but she wasn't going to say no to Emily Fitch in her bed.
"You know I can't predict that, Ems." She mumbles with a smile of content.
"I liked you better when you were all-seeing." Emily smirks, a little throwback to their first night when Naomi let the walls down completely. She'd expected Naomi to constantly be like that; a Russian doll. But she takes pride in that maybe she's the only one for whom Naomi will shed all the barriers for.
Maybe not them all, but she gets closer every day.
"You're the privileged one, Ems." Naomi told her on a call from Bristol to France. They'd overcome distance before. It was verging on torture, no it actually was torture, and Emily is scared. They're supposed to be more than a stick of dynamite with a match lighted next to it.
"Emily," Naomi begins, propping herself on her shoulders, all serious, "I love you. And I don't care that I sound like a fucking Celine Dion song, but you know I don't have all the answers. I just love you, okay?" She gives her that warm smile that so rarely appears. Emily doesn't tell her about because she might stop doing it, and she doesn't want to lose a piece of her. Ever.
"I know. I love you too. I'm just –
"Worrying." Naomi fills in the banks, like she always is.
Naomi doesn't express herself through words, she just doesn't. For someone who's so good at the essay subjects like English and Politics, words don't really sink in with her. So instead she tries to reprimand the worry the only way she knows how. The tiredness fizzles away, another rush flows through her when the blonde's lips crash into the red head's.
"Naomi, don't," she kisses her back anyway, it's not like she's ever been able to say no to her favourite blond ice-queen, but then her resolves splits and she pulls back. "You can't kiss this one better." She knows she should shut up and shag her senseless, and on any other night she would, but she's been thinking about this a lot and it needs resolved sometime. She doesn't want to force Naomi into a corner – she knows if she tried Naomi would just run again.
"I don't know what it is you want, Emily," she says sternly, "A years time? I don't know. Pandora will probably be in a mental institution, Effy will be in rehab along with Freddie and Cook and JJ will take a gap year to tour the world or some shit. I don't know where we'll be. I'll take the normal student at Uni route, thank you very much. And considering you're probably the smartest person at this dump, you'll probably be Oxbridge bound. Me? Don't have a clue."
Emily can't help but smile in response to the Oxbridge mention. She's always known she's smart, just never considered herself that intelligent. She had the grades at GCSE and AS level so far, but she hadn't decided.
So maybe, she thinks, she shouldn't really be irking Naomi about not having decided either.
"You forgot Katie." Emily laughs lightly.
"Oh Christ, she'll probably moving to LA in an attempt to be on The Hills or something." Naomi rolls her eyes.
But she decides to let the issue run its course anyway. Make-up sex is always the best kind.
"Well, Christ, sorry," she replies crabbily, rolling out of bed and beginning to get dressed.
"Emily, what the fuck are you doing?" The blonde's eyebrows knit together, and it's adorable, but Emily stays angry anyway, just to see if Naomi will drag her back to bed again.
(She already knows she will.)
"Leaving. I just don't want to argue over anything. Not tonight, okay? I'll call you, yeah?" She says, kissing her on the cheek.
"You'll phone me? Shut up, it's three forty two." She frowns at the prospect of waking up alone.
Emily's seen many of the looks. The what-the-fuck look, the Jesus-you-are-a-freak-look, the classic Campbell eye roll and she's been one of the few to see what it's like when Naomi's eyes are wide and soft and glazed. But now, as she puts on her top, she's giving her the glare of death or something.
"You are pissed." Emily observes.
"Only because you're worrying over nothing." Naomi replies sourly.
"It's not nothing, Naomi. It's you and me." Emily sits on the edge of the bed, slightly worried. She should have stopped this a while ago, and she's remembered that she shouldn't really play with a person's emotions, especially when they're as volatile as Naomi's.
"Not for tonight it's not," she shoots back, pulling the duvet over herself childishly, "Morning," the muffled correction comes out, "whatever."
"Fine." Maybe she's being just as childish, but Emily walks out the door and it slams that Gina comes out of her bedroom.
"Oh," Emily starts, "I'm sorry."
Naomi's mum – the picture of her, rubs her eyes with raised eyebrows. She looks like one of those wise adults that preach to you without being annoyingly preachy.
"I could hear the argument." She replies with a yawn. "Look, Emily, it's like three o'clock – go back in there and make up, yeah?"
"It was pretty...um, bad." It's all she can come up with.
Gina just smiles and tells her to come down for a cup of tea. And because things are so beyond comprehension at this point, Emily joins her.
She sips her tea whilst Gina whips out the obligatory embarrassing childhood photos of her daughter. They giggle softly, and Emily's just glad to know that this 'cliché' has been a good mum to Naomi.
"I don't know what you've done," she begins when they've stopped conversing, "but ever since my daughter has been with you, she's been more open. She's always needed that, Naomi. So guarded. And she has her reasons, I suppose, but she's actually been happy with you. So if you and her ever do end, just make sure it's not over something petty. Absence makes the heart grow fonder," she adds, cringing at her own words, "and make sure you stay a part of each other's lives. She's always going to need someone to bring the barriers down."
They make their way up the stairs when they meet Naomi halfway up the staircase. Naomi tells her mum to do a disappearing act and Emily just smiles at her girlfriend.
She isn't met with a smile back.
Instead, Naomi just bites her lips, suppressing the smile and kinks her eyebrow and Emily is left with the door in her face again.
"What the hell, Naomi?" She let this go too far. This was supposed to be a play fight, something they should have let go. But the argument wasn't over yet, apparently. "I just talked to your mum, didn't ask for your hand in marriage or anything." She jests, and she swears she heard a giggle from the other side.
It's a ten minute wait before she slides down against the door, sighing.
"Aren't you going to fight, Fitch?"
Emily wonders if it's always going to be like this.
(She hopes she never has to stop fighting.)
"Being all-seeing," she begins, "You are right about this. We don't have to worry about University now, I get it. But I worry anyway, because I don't just love you. I'm in love with you. In a ridiculous way, like I think about us in the future tense, too." Her voice is cracked. Maybe Emily has layers too, and maybe Naomi has to strip them away too. Rarely does something go in one direction. Their relationship is no exception.
The door creaks open and Naomi takes her hand. Emily needs more than a temporary solution and she doesn't want to be treated as a mere escape for moments. They're so much more than that, and they know it.
"I don't want you to feel like you can't dump stuff on me, because you can. I want that. I don't want to just ignore what matters to you." It's the closest thing Naomi's ever done to some relationship-altering speech since the cat-flap confession, as Emily now mocks her with. Emily strokes some of that platinum hair behind her ear and Naomi's cheeks are coloured pink. "But I can't say we'll be together next year. It's not going to be that simple, Emily. What I do know, is that we have now. And now, we're in love and the world is leaving us alone. No matter what happens, you're not getting out now."
It sounds better than anything else she could have said.
"And I can," Naomi murmurs, "kiss it better."
"I know," Emily concedes, running her fingers up and down her back.
"I'm sorry." Naomi whispers and she means it. It still shocks Emily slightly to hear it from her, but in the best way. A way that makes her heart race, just as fast as when it did at Pandora's birthday party all that time ago.
There's no need for and exchange of I-love-you. Lips, gasps, hands and touches say so much more than I need you now or I'm yours.
They don't know where they got the energy from, but they refrain from trying to analyse or explain. They just lose themselves in heat and sighs and sweat. They're literally panting by the end.
"You can walk home now, if you want." Naomi smiles wickedly and Emily just bumps her shoulders against the girl's beside her.
Emily doesn't say it, she doesn't need to. She just slings an arm over her and the way she looks at Naomi right now lets her know with perfect clarity, that they'll be alright.
"Say it." Naomi demands softly.
I love you won't cut it, not for this moment.
"I'm glad that it's me that melted the ice. That's all." She smiles softly.
Naomi's eye connect with Emily's and the air crackles between them. "Only you."