A/N - I don't know why this happened, but I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: Skins does not belong to me.
Threesomes don't work.
Cook reads that in one of his mum's old magazines. He brings it to the shed, and he and Freddie laugh about it for a while. Cook says he could prove them wrong – whoever them are. Freddie tells him he'd have to find a girl willing to shag him first, let alone two. JJ blurts out the exact statistics of that ever happening – which he'd been calculating in his head – and the three of them get into a play fight.
Cook forgets all about it.
(())
Years after, they meet a beautiful girl with bright, blue eyes framed by her ridiculously dark make up. She smiles at them, all mysterious and shit, and they both fall a little bit in love with her.
Cook gets to her first, which bothers Freddie, even though he pretends it doesn't. They don't talk about it. They have a nasty habit of leaving it until it's too late.
Cook feels the cracks in his friendship. He doesn't want to lose his friend, but he has too much pride to stop. He's on a downward spiral, always has been. Freddie's never going to let himself get dragged down with him, so Cook thinks maybe he'll take the beautiful girl instead.
It's a shame they can't share her. Cook considers it once. He wouldn't mind it so much, not with Freds.
(())
Effy chooses Freddie. It hurts, even if he saw it coming from the day they all met.
He doesn't feel jealous. He never truly did. It's just – he's getting left behind. He's on a downward spiral, and nobody's coming with him.
"You've got me," Freddie tells him on his father's boat. It makes him feel possessive.
I don't have you, he thinks. She does.
He wants them both, but he doesn't want to share them with each other. It's selfish, but Cook never pretended he wasn't.
He doesn't tell Freds about any of this, because it wouldn't make any difference, and they have a nasty habit of only talking when it's too late anyway.
(())
Effy disappears for the summer, which is a relief more than anything else. This way it's just him and Freddie, the way it's always meant to be. They work their way through every girl in Bristol, and privately miss the one girl who is not in Bristol.
Cook likes Effy better when she's not around. It makes him love her a little bit more. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that other bullshit. He wonders if Freddie feels the same way.
(())
There's one night, when they're both completely smashed of their trolleys, that Freddie brings home a pretty, blonde, pair of legs, and Cook manages to piss of her friend, so it only ends up being the three of them in Freddie's room.
Legs and Freddie are eating each others faces in that sloppy way that drunks do, and Cook's fine with leaving them alone to their business and going off to harass Karen a bit, except when he tries to leave them to it, Legs holds him there.
Her hand is warm, in contrast with the rest of him that's gone suddenly chilly. She has sharp nails, digging into his leg. The paint on them is black, and chipped, the way Effy used to do her nails. Noticing this makes Cook freeze up.
He thinks about Effy a lot, but he doesn't think about Effy-and-Freddie for the sake of his own heart. She chose Freddie, she's going to choose him again when she comes back, Cook will be alone again. It's inevitable.
The fearful tumbling in his stomach kind of ruins the thought of fucking a pretty girl and his best friend. Not to mention that he can't fuck his best friend. That's just – he's not that self-destructive.
He peels Legs' hand away and stands up. "You kids 'ave fun," He says. Is ignored.
He heads for Karen's room, which is empty, and takes up residence in her bed.
He thinks of Effy the way he always does on his nights alone. He listens to Legs and Freddie go at it in the next room. His cock is hard, and he has Freddie in his ears and Effy in his head, and for a brief moment he wishes he was away from it all.
The next morning, Karen punches him in the ear when she sees the mess he made of her sheets, and Freddie grins triumphantly at him over a bowl of Shreddies.
(())
While he's locked away, he thinks of Effy and Freddie as one person. It's probably unhealthy considering Effy is not his best friend, and Freddie is not … well, Effy.
He can't help it. Wherever they are, they're probably together. The thought of one is always followed by the other. It's just more convenient when they're one entity. It shouldn't be, but life is a lot of things that it shouldn't be.
(())
He breaks out and is met with shitstorm. Honestly, five minutes without him and look where they all are. Fuckin' idiots, all of them.
Effy goes away again, only this time it's not as relieving because he knows she's not okay. And Freddie's not okay either. Cook used to think maybe they'd be okay without him there to drag them down. Now he thinks maybe it was never just him. They're all sinking.
(())
Cook stays in the shed for a while. Freddie brings him food and clothes, but never words. Which makes the old game of Scrabble Cook finds in the shed, very useful for their time together. He's not very good at Scrabble. Mostly he manages to get the word tits several games in a row.
"Miss tits, then?" Freddie asks.
"Not a lot of them in prison," Cook informs him.
"Plenty of cock, though," Freddie says with a smirk that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Cook grins at him anyway. "Nah, mate. Yours is the only on for me."
Whether or not Freddie believes this is a mystery, but his smile turns genuine, which is all Cook wanted in the first place. He thinks maybe they can work without Effy. But they can't. Freddie's still too empty.
(())
Cook wonders if James and Elizabeth can survive without Freddie. By the end of the night, he has his answer, but in the moment he thinks maybe they could.
It's not as appealing a thought as it would have been a year ago.
Effy snakes her arms around his neck while they dance. It doesn't feel quite as right when they're not running from something. And isn't that just so like them? To feel empty when it's only two in their fucked up tango.
She really is just like him.
Truth is, they're both far too co-dependent on one boy, and they love to share that with each other.
It makes sense to them. Who doesn't want to be loved? Who wouldn't want it from two people? Cook knows he does. Effy sure as hell did. Freddie probably doesn't even realise what's going on, but that's fine. If he knew he probably wouldn't let the two of them keep this up for so long.
The problem is Cook will always need Freddie, and Effy will always be the one thing that takes him away. Cook will always love Effy, and Freddie will always be the one she chooses.
The problem, the real problem, is threesomes don't work.
(())
There's a moment of hope that comes after Freddie yells "She broke my heart!"
Cook sees the opportunity to make this work. Maybe he can fix it. Maybe he can talk some sense into Freddie. Maybe the three of them can stop fucking each other over long enough to accept the fact that they're all a little bit in love with each other. Maybe then it could work.
And what has he left to lose anyway? Effy's unconscious on the couch and Freddie has a bag packed and ready to leave. It can only get better from here. Maybe. If he manages to get Freddie's head out of his arse.
The point is, if he's gonna spiral downwards there's no one he wants with him more than these two.
(())
Freddie dies.
Effy breaks.
Cook runs.
(())
Years after, he meets the same beautiful girl with bright, blue eyes, not framed by any make up this time.
They should talk, but he has a nasty habit of leaving that until it's too late. Besides, it's always too late with them these days.
He fucks her because it's what they know best. He has Effy in his ears and Freddie in his head, and in his heart they both sit, spiraling downwards alongside him.