Title: My Clown, Let Me Love You
Characters: Effy, Freddie, various Series 3 characters, and one Series 1 character.
Ship(s): Effy/Aforementioned Series 1 character. One-sided Freddie/Effy and Cook/Effy. Mentions of Pandora/Thomas and Naomi/Emily.
Spoilers: Through Episode 4, "Pandora."
Summary: She wants to throw a party, so she throws a party.
Disclaimer: Well, I'm not Jesus, so I don't own anything. :P
Author's Notes: As I was writing this, I had no idea where it was going, and I honestly have no idea if it's any good or not. Also, it's been a while since I've watched Series 2, so forgive me if there are any glaring anachronisms. :)
She knows it's stupid to throw a party the night her parents are due back from their ridiculous, useless "couples counseling retreat," but she doesn't care. She wants to throw a party, so she throws a party. She knows her friends – well, mostly Cook – will fuck up her house. She wants them to. Maybe her parents will actually punish her this time. Maybe they'll break their precious porcelain doll.
She takes a drag on her cigarette and blows the smoke into her father's pillow; she puts it out on her mother's. The tan pillowcase glows for a moment and fades quickly. She smirks, then kisses the cigarette burn, her bright lipstick enveloping the small, dark hole. Her smirk fades with the short-lived embers.
Nothing's the same anymore.
She slinks out of her parent's bedroom and walks down the stairs and through the chaos. She doesn't know half the people here, but every one of them is doing their part, breaking heirlooms and pissing on paintings. They yell, they scream, they whisper, they sing – she's the only silent one, and she only watches. Everyone is too drunk to be self-conscious, too stupid to be sane. It really is pure chaos. The thought makes her smile, darkly and briefly.
"Are you happy?" someone shouts beside her. She turns – it's Freddie, drunk and high and infatuated and who knows what else.
"No," she answers simply.
"Then why are you fucking smiling?" he asks, and he laughs bitterly. "You're fucking backwards, Effy. Never smile when you're happy, never fuck who you love." He laughs again, sadly, and mutters to himself, "Fucking backwards."
She looks at him for a moment and then kisses his cheek. "I know," she says against his skin, almost apologetically, and then she walks away. She sees Cook looking at her, scoping her out, grinning at her – her eyes darken, telling him to fuck off without actually telling him to fuck off. He winks at her nonetheless, and she walks right past him and gives JJ the longest, deepest kiss of his life. When she's finished, she licks her lips and says loud enough for Cook to hear, "You've got a lovely tongue, JJ. You should use it more often." He looks truly dumbstruck. She hears Cook cackling behind her, and she can just imagine Freddie's face, so once again, she walks away.
She sees a girl vomit into her father's shoes. She hears someone smash the television. As she passes the kitchen, she hears Katie shouting at Emily, and then she stops briefly when she hears Emily yell back. "Good for you," she murmurs. She turns the corner and sees Naomi leaning up against the wall, her face paler than ever, listening to every exchanged accusation coming from the kitchen. She keeps walking; she hardly ever knows how to talk to Naomi, and now is not the time to figure it out.
Back at the stairs, she finds Pandora slumped across the bottom three steps. She gently takes the beer bottle out of Pandora's limp hand, takes a swig, and gives it back. As she climbs the stairs, she deftly steps around her lovely, pathetic friend, feeling a sort of perverse motherly pride as Pandora snorts in her sleep. Somehow, she managed to hold her liquor tonight – maybe because Thomas wasn't here to protect her. Big night, she thinks. Sad night, Pandora's drunken snores seem to add. She ignores them.
Quite suddenly, she reaches the top of the stairs and stops. She has three choices: her room, Tony's room, or the bathroom. Despite the blaring bass from the stereo downstairs, a faint moan and a tinny giggle resonate from the bathroom, just loud enough for her to hear, and the sound of a muffled crash comes from the direction of her room. Tony's room it is, then.
She opens the door, enters, shuts it, and locks it quickly. Tony's room is more still than quiet, and it's far from silent. The bass pounding through the floor makes her feel like she's in her mum's womb, listening to the steady heartbeat of an unsteady woman. She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the door, her hand still on the doorknob. More than ever, she wants Tony back. He'd fix everything just to keep her happy. She wishes she could fix it herself, but these days, she can't do anything but fucking observe.
Then, out of nowhere, a low, nervous voice says, "Hey, Effy."
Shocked, she opens her eyes, turns around slowly, and just stares, wide-eyed. She doesn't say anything – can't, really – so he continues, trying to explain himself, "I was, er, hoping to see Tony, but I guess… he's not here, is he?" He laughs, awkward as ever.
After a moment, Effy swallows and says automatically, "No, he doesn't come back till the holidays."
"Oh. Right." Another loud crash comes from downstairs, and an even louder cheer follows it. "New friends?" he offers, smiling.
She smiles without smiling. "Some of them." She walks over to the bed and sits down next to him. He's slouching, almost like he used to, but not quite. It's a slight difference, but it's more telling than his dirty clothes and greasy hair. When he slouched before, he just looked pathetic; now, he looks defeated. So, instead of asking, she states, matter-of-factly and with the smallest hint of pity, "You didn't find her."
He looks at his feet, his smile lingering bitterly. "No. Didn't expect to, though. It's a big city, New York."
She leans over and rests her head on his shoulder. "Bummer."
"It was a long shot, though, wasn't it?" he murmurs. His voice reverberates through his shoulder, making her skull buzz pleasantly. "We just kept missing each other. She'd go one way, and I'd go the exact opposite way to get her back." He sighs. "No point in trying anymore."
She bites the inside of her lip, unsure of what to say. He moves his arm, and she lifts her head quickly and watches as he takes off his signature beanie. The sight of it brings back a memory, a recent one. "This won't make you feel any better," she begins slowly, "but one of my friends incinerated your old locker."
He whips his head around to look at her, eyes wide. "Why the fuck would somebody incinerate my locker?" he whimpers, genuinely hurt. "It took me ages to give that metal bastard a decent personality!"
She rolls her eyes. "He did it so I'd fuck him."
"Oh." He looks away, then looks back at her, sideways. "Did you?"
"Yep." Then, bitterly, "Couple times."
"Sounds like he's a bit of a cock."
She laughs. "He is, a bit." Smiling, she looks him up and down and brushes some stray hair out of her eyes. He's smiling the only smile he has – the caring, loving, genuine one. Without thinking, she whispers, "I really missed you, Sid."
His smile widens, and he wraps his long arms around her, holds her close, and kisses her head. Her heart doesn't stop like she always thought it was supposed to – instead, it just gets louder. "You know, Eff, I missed you, too," he says softly, as if he didn't realize it before now.
The next morning, he wakes up, and the first thing he sees is Effy's eyes. For half a millisecond, he's confused – then he remembers, and he thinks, OH MY GOD I FUCKED EFFY, and he imaginesall the different ways that Tony is going to castrate him, because Tony will castrate him more than once, he's positive about that – but before he can jump out of TONY'S BED OH MY GOD I FUCKED EFFY ON TONY'S BED, Effy grins and says mischievously, "You drool."
Those two words stop his panic mid-stride, and he grins back at her. "Do I? Never really noticed before." He lifts his head a little, touches the damp pillow, and gives her a suspicious look. "You sure that wasn't you?"
"Shut up, wanker," she retorts. She stops grinning and starts smiling.