Title: Find You
Chapter: 1/1
Author: jdc15
Rating: M/NC-17
Word Count: About 1.6k
Summary: "She walks away from them, or maybe Emily walks away from her. Either way, she knows it's the end."
Notes: Spoilers for 3x08.
/
It's never been like this, not with Cook, or even Freddie. She thinks Freddie is the closest she's come but with him, it still doesn't feel like this does.
The first time, Emily's not even doing anything particularly mind-boggling; she's just pressing fingers between Effy's legs. Over her underwear, for fuck's sake.
But something's already building in her belly, threatening to wash away the fortress in her mind, the one so firmly cemented that it's covered in moss and surrounded with cannons, and she thought couldn't ever be dismantled.
/
The second time is really the first time, because they were fucked up for the first time, so it doesn't count. She isn't sure why that's a rule all of a sudden; usually it only counts if she's fucked up, else she'd be a fucking virgin.
It's different with Emily than it is with the others. She doesn't feel used like she does with Cook, or smothered with affection like with Freddie. It's not too hard or too easy, but just simple enough that she can lose herself for once and just be there. She isn't in love with Emily but she thinks maybe she could be, one day, if she doesn't fuck it up too badly.
Emily presses her gently to the mattress, but her hands are firm as they skirt over her body, cup her breasts and trace her collarbone.
"Do you like that?" she asks, biting her lip, and Effy nods. Emily does it again and her eyes flutter closed, finally, letting herself feel without staring into nothing.
When Emily's inside her it feels like she's warming her, anchoring her to the bed so she can't float away and forget what's happening. She feels useless, like she doesn't know what to do now that she has to feel things properly, and her hands stroke over Emily's back because she doesn't have anywhere else to put them. Emily doesn't seem to mind as she swipes her thumb over Effy's clit, over and over as her two fingers rub inside of her, and Effy comes with her lips on Emily's neck and her eyes still shut tight.
She feels differently from how she usually does when it's over. Maybe because it isn't yet, not when Emily's still lying on top of her and grinding onto her thigh, so she trails a hand down to touch her in kind.
Emily isn't loud like Cook, or silent like Freddie. She's quiet but Effy can tell from the moans that escape that she's doing a good job, and that feeling wakes her up even more than Emily's hands did. She feels alive, for just one time in her life, and kisses Emily, hard.
Maybe she is in love with her. Maybe she has been, ever since that first time they met when Katie was horrible to Emily and Effy said she was being used as a doormat, and Emily looked at her like she was some sort of savior.
She doesn't feel like drinking when it's finally over. Instead, she lies still with Emily, not speaking, just holding on to the newness as long as she can before it's gone. She knows that it will be gone, sooner rather than later, but the hand in her hair and lips on her forehead numb the fear, and for the first time it's in a better way than the drugs do.
/
She isn't sure why she walked away. Because of Freddie, or Katie, or the stupid howling, or maybe the way they all just didn't seem to care, but at the same time, they each have something worth caring about. She can't remember a time when she felt that way.
A thought comes then, unbidden, echoing round her head and saying that maybe that might change, now, and her eyes fall unintentionally onto Emily. Maybe that's why she walked away.
She's always loved the forest. The creatures there don't want anything from her; they do nothing more than notice her and skirt around her prone form in their hunt for forage. She lies still, studying some sort of squirrel as it rummages through the fallen leaves, and a small bird that lands not five feet away and hops forward and back, sizing her up with a beady eye on a tilting head.
She sometimes wishes she were part of the forest, where being happy, content, wasn't so fucking complicated.
She doesn't realize she's crying until she sits up and the tears fall into her lap, leaving tiny spots of wet on her white shirt.
/
It's out of habit that she brings the mushrooms, though she isn't sure if it's the drug habit or the risking-her-life-habit that prompts her to pluck them from the ground and take them to the others.
/
"People can't always be perfect, because that's not real, is it?"
She can't respond, can't make herself think of anything but the boys and how they never stay, or maybe the way her heart twisted with something terrifyingly similar to jealousy when she watched Emily touch Naomi.
"It's not real 'cause things change, don't they?"
"Yeah." Her eyes fall on Freddie, kneeling with Katie beside the dying fire. She looks away. "They do."
She tells Panda to talk to her but when the girl insists that nothing is wrong, Effy feels like she's snipped her last lifeline, its glowing string retracting and coiling slowly away. She twists her hands together and pulls out the mushrooms.
/
Maybe it's fucked up, how much she relies on getting fucked up. It's an everyday thing now, whether it's MDMA, or spliff, or alcohol. Usually alcohol. She'll start in on a new bottle and before she realizes where the time's gone she's put away an entire handle and she's on the bathroom floor, running her fingers over the tiny patterns in the off-white tile.
The mushrooms are different. She hasn't had them in ages, and she guesses that's why they seem to have sparked something inside of her, burning paths through her limbs and wrapping a fiery fist around her heart. Her eyes seem to have converted to magnets, so attracted to Emily that it physically hurts to stop herself from looking, so she looks. She watches as the girl spins and spins, throws her hair around, laughs uncontrollably, grabs Naomi and pulls her close.
Or perhaps she guessed wrong and they're poisonous, and the feeling overtaking her is just death. If it is, and this is what dying feels like, she wonders why she was ever afraid of it.
/
Panda finds her again later, snuggles close, but even her warm presence doesn't slow what is quickly becoming a bad trip. Not the usual kind, but the kind in which she holds Freddie's hand when she wishes it was someone else's, and the kind where she falls asleep with Emily's face plastered to the inside of her eyelids.
The same face is there when she wakes, except it isn't. It's Katie, saying horrible things that are only horrible because they're so true. Desperate whore.
She doesn't cry.
/
She peeks into the tent where Emily is lying with Naomi, JJ passed out beside them.
"I'm not a desperate fucking whore," she says.
"No," Emily says, curiously, but at the same time so assuredly that Effy believes it as she leaves again.
She knows Emily doesn't love her, but at least she doesn't think as little of her as the others do.
/
She's still high so she stares at Cook's gaping mouth, as it transforms from laughter to something aimed at her, something about who she wants. Freddie stares at her and she stares right back and holds Panda's hand, but then even Panda drops her hand for Thomas' and she's alone enough to open her own mouth.
When she falls heavily to the ground she realizes she's still tripping, and Cook's blathering about fucking girls and Panda and Thomas' relationship splintering right before her is enough to make the trip turn bad as quickly as that man had pulled the trigger on his rifle.
She mistakes Katie for Emily and almost hugs her, almost kisses her when Katie's hands cup her face. She does hug her but then Katie takes her angrily to the ground and when she wakes up she's holding a rock and there's blood on Katie's head.
She knows it's sick that the first thought that finds her is that now Emily will think she's a psycho.
/
She asks Freddie to make her feel something, but he fucks her instead. She wishes he'd just hit her.
/
Freddie's shirt says "liberation" and she finds that really fucking ironic. She trails behind while they search for Katie, and spends the drive back fighting the impulse to catch Emily's eye in the rear view.
Her mother's trembling hands don't even help. She feels like there's a millimeter of air cushioning her body, repelling anything that touches her, creating just enough of a barrier for the warmth of another person to be diluted to the point where there's no point seeking it.
Emily's touch is the only thing trapped under the barrier instead of outside of it. She thinks that's what created it, in the first place.
When she argues with Freddie she knows the words falling from her mouth aren't for him. They're for Emily, standing behind her with a look of such disappointment on her face that Effy wants to die, more than she usually does, which she hadn't thought possible until now.
She could've died, Emily tells her, and it feels like the words are being carved into her brain, because she knows they'll remain there forever, describing every day until she ceases to exist.
She walks away from them, or maybe Emily walks away from her. Either way, she knows it's the end.
/
It's you and me, babe. It's always gonna be you and me.
She resigns herself to that, and lights another cigarette. At least she has someone.