I had every intention of posting this before leaving for my cousins wedding. And it just did not happen. Apologies. If you read Chivalry is Dead you know it's been a long month for me. Just know even if I don't update as often as either of us would like, I'm always scribbling down ideas and bits of my stories, its always on my mind even when it should absolutely not be (like right now for instance, as I am jotting this down at work).
Reviewers: fookyeahskins, R3dN0te, lemontray, Lovecraft, LoveNAOMILY, phantomfundraiser, Deyanira-chan, cumbia86, .lif, and skinsfan15 – I really can't stress enough how much it means when you all take the time to review. Appreciate it to bits. Thank you. I feel like this is my 'little story that could' and just keeps slowly chugging along – still get pleasantly surprised when it gets a review.
Please do let me know what you think. And as always, thanks for reading.
I don't own Skins or anything of the sort.
Chapter XX: I struggle for the words and then give up
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"Oh hey, remember that time you were a pansy and didn't kiss the girl?"
Naomi rolled her eyes, "Alex, I already told you – "
"Next time kiss her! Just kiss the girl dammit. God you're useless."
"She was drunk and she has a girlfriend. And we didn't even hug. Remember? And I was just being nice."
"God, nice. Naomi Campbell – the nice guy – is going on your grave. Right next to – the girl who never got any cos she was too fucking nice."
"Oi!"
"Well, someone has to say it." Alex defended. "Can you PLEASE be like your name sake just for once. SHE at least goes after what she wants."
"For the last time that cunting model Naomi Campbell is not my name sake."
"Oh…but don't do that whole phone throwing thing she does…though it would be amusing to see you actually get that mad." Alex continued on ignoring Naomi's protests. "But yeah don't do that…because then we wouldn't be able to talk…and you'd never get to hear all my sage advice…and I'd be bored."
"I'm hanging up, oh wise one."
"Fine. But I'm calling back later to tell you all about my night out in London – thanks for asking by the way – oh best friend who is too obsessed with a certain redheaded girl to ask about my night o – "
Naomi hung up.
"So what did you do last night?" Panda asked from her desk. She had come in part way through Naomi's phone conversation with Alex. Both girls sat in front of their respective desks on their respective sides of the room ignoring their respective coursework.
"Not much," Naomi shrugged. "Watched some repeats."
"By yourself?" Panda asked. Naomi's brow furrowed until she followed the bouncy girls eye line, spying the two mugs on her desk.
"Emily came by for a bit," Naomi shrugged.
"You hungout with Emily last night?" Panda asked curiously.
Naomi nodded.
"And…" Panda prompted.
"…and what?" Naomi asked, why did people keep asking her that? "And nothing, we just hung out for a bit."
"Bonkers," Panda grinned, "Well, I'll be sure to bugger off to Thommo's again tonight incase you want to hangout again."
"Oi!" Naomi said, "Like that's the reason you're going there again tonight."
Panda just beamed. That was the beauty of Panda; she'd acknowledge something and then let it go just as tactfully. Say what you would about her dancing, Panda had her social graces.
"You missed out last night," Sophia said walking into the room.
"Oh, I don't think she'll be too gutted about it," Panda smirked. Naomi glared at the grinning fool that was her roommate. She took back her thoughts on Panda's social graces.
"Oh," Sophia said as she noticed Panda, looking over to that side of the room. Panda did live more in Thomas and JJ's room than her own these days. "Hi Panda. And wait what? Why not?" she asked turning back to Naomi. "What'd you do last night? You said you weren't going out."
"I didn't," Naomi said honestly. "I just hung out in my room." It wasn't a lie.
The brunette accepted her answer, "Want to get breakfast?" she asked.
"Sure," Naomi shrugged. She couldn't think of a reason why not. Besides, they were acting normal. An act of fiend normalcy. Its what they used to do, so if they do it still, surely it will still be as it was before, right? Normal. "Panda, you coming?" Naomi added as she closed her laptop.
"Course," Panda bounced from her chair. Naomi didn't ask her because she was looking to not spend time alone with Sophia, she asked because that's what they did; freshman ate together, the floor foster family with family meals. Freshman moved in packs. The lone wolf dies while the pack survives and all that jazz.
Naomi watched the heat swirl off of her coffee, encouraging it to reach a more friendly temperature as she blew on it. It always amazed her, the difference between one hour of sleep verses one cup of coffee. The coffee never tasted as fine nor went as far. If the first thing freshman learned to do was travel in packs, the second was to regret all the naps they fought as children.
Naomi had slept like shit last night, wide as wide awake can be after Emily had gone. She just laid in her bed starting at the shadows her popcorn ceiling threw around in the dark. Her mind had been on overdrive, more than making up for her body's lack of movement. She currently cursed her childhood self and all the naps she had squandered.
After one extra breath of cooling air, like that extra candle on a cake for luck, she took a sip. She drank her coffee black. That was important. In her mind if you liked coffee, drink coffee – anything else was just an imitation – flavoured milk.
"What is that?" Naomi asked, Sophia's murky cuppa earning a disdainful look.
"Tea," Sophia said, giving the stupid question a stupid answer.
"Tea, and?"
"Milk and three sugars,"
Naomi scrunched her face.
"I don't understand why people just don't drink the damn stuff straight,"
"Because otherwise it would taste this shite."
Naomi guffawed.
"Mum says I can't have caffeine," Panda offered to the discussion.
"Can't imagine why Panda," Naomi smirked. Naomi was a fidgeter, always playing something between her fingers or biting her lip – Panda on the other hand was a mover. She wouldn't doubt the girl even bounced in her sleep, Tigger reincarnated.
"Can't even have NiteQuil," Panda began.
"Um Panda, you know there is no caffeine in that right? Does the opposite really."
"Has the same effect on me," Panda shrugged.
"That stuff knocks me out," Naomi said.
"Really?" Panda asked curiously, "So it really does work for some people? It makes me flippin' hyper."
"Panda," Naomi smiled, "I don't think I ever want to witness what you consider hyper."
Naomi tried to imagine Panda hyper…if her usual state was considered the median. She imagined Panda would be like the super hyper squirrel in Over the Hedge, given caffeine the squirrel was so hyped up, moved so fast, the rest of the world was slow motion. She thought that was probably an accurate assumption.
Panda smiled a milky smile through a mouthful of cereal. Yeah, Naomi thought, that seemed about right.
...
..
Head down and blurry eyes half open Naomi walked along with the flow of students, like cars sticking to their proper sides of the road, all headed toward their first class of Monday morning. Whoever invented Monday mornings was an arsehole.
"Music!" Will stated pointing his fingers at her as Naomi crossed his path. She stepped back as he stepped forward, moving to the side, alleviating their temporary traffic jam.
"Yes?" Naomi laughed with an eyebrow.
"We're long overdue for a music swap."
"That we are," she smiled, you couldn't not smile at a puppy. Even on a Monday morning, it was a fact. "What'd you have in mind?" There was a flash of red and Emily walked past, Naomi shot her a side smile, blue eyes following her trail.
"Music, movie, beer? Thursday? It'll be grand."
"Works for me," Naomi shrugged looking at the boy in front of her briefly before focusing back in time to catch Emily return the pleasantry.
"Brilliant," he beamed as brown eyes flickered from the blonde over to the lad she was talking to and back again, "Well better be off," he gave her a little salute and with a twirl merged back into the trudge of students. Naomi laughed. She didn't mind the prospect of getting off of the floor and away from Sophia for an evening. The good music and beer didn't hurt either.
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Naomi sat down next to Emily on the cold cement step. Fifteen minutes into mathematics, last class of the day, and their Professor was a no show. After a bit of grumbling Emily stood up and asked if Naomi had wanted to join her for some fresh air. Fresh air was apparently a cigarette. Currently the redhead pulled a pack out of her pocket. She held it out toward Naomi. The blonde scrunched her face shaking her head in decline.
"Don't smoke," Naomi said simply as she watched Emily take one between her lips and tuck the pack back into her pocket.
"Shit," Emily mumbled, cigarette hanging from her mouth, "I've forgotten my lighter." She rifled through her pockets, patting herself down as a passerby would to show a beggar they had no change.
Naomi reached into her pocket and pulled out a lighter, holding it out in front of the redhead. She flicked it on, the wind promptly doing its job to put it out. Suave. Naomi tried again, this time Emily bringing her hand over Naomi's to create a shield. Naomi felt her heart rate increase as she was aware of every millimeter of contact her and Emily's hands had. Emily looked up holding the blondes gaze a moment before sliding her hand away, leaning back with the glowing tip of a victorious cigarette.
Emily took a grateful drag. The smoke slowly trailing away toward the muted sky; the kind of sky that whispered the promise of snow. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you Naomi?" Emily mused as Naomi flitted the lighter between her idle fingers.
"So you keep saying?" Naomi furrowed her brow, continuing the mindless choreography between lighter and hand, "But I don't see how."
"You don't smoke. Yet have a lighter on you?"
"Usually do."
Emily threw an eyebrow at her. "Like I said, full of surprises."
"Just like fire is all," Naomi shrugged, "And as you've found, usually comes in hand."
Emily shook her head slightly, giving her the kind of look that started little fires in the pit of Naomi's stomach.
"You're an interesting one Naomi Campbell, you really are."
An older man with enough facial hair to make up for where it lacked on the top of his head gave the two girls a curt nod as he walked passed them up the stairs. Emily took a last pull before flicking the but to the ground. They both stood, Emily grinding the life out of her cigarette with her black converse. Apparently, class was still on, and they were now late.
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..
"It's weird without Andy here," Effy said from her spot next to Naomi. They were currently laying sprawled out on the mats in "the cave" of the climbing wall. It had become sort of a stupid tradition. At some point each time they were there one followed by the other would start from around the mouth of the cave, take the bend at a run and leap foolishly onto the awaiting mats. It was all the stupider when other people were actually inside already. But usually no one was, as was the case today. Now they laid out on the musty, dusty mattresses in usual fashion, chatting about anything and nothing.
"What? Yeah." Naomi replied, inspecting the large red handhold on the low ceiling overhead with sudden interest. "Still, I can't believe his parents didn't let him back."
"His grades were shit."
Truth be told Naomi was secretly glad he wasn't back, as awful as that was. The lad was super nice. He was a super senior, and apparently his grades were also super, unfortunately for him it was the super awful kind. But as nice of a lad as he was, Naomi felt a bit like she'd cheated some awful fate, no longer being held to that promised impending date.
..
Naomi had showered and changed into her most comfortable sweats upon returning from the climbing wall with Effy. A pair of grey sweatpants, rolled twice around the hips and a worn yellow hoodie where she wore the cuffs like fingerless gloves; her thumbs having slowly eroded the hem like the rivers did canyons. While she wasn't usually a night shower person, her hair if at all wet seemed to have ragers in her sleep, standing up in every direction but presentable the next morning, she couldn't get the feeling of the dust off from climbing so she had eventually given in. She plopped down into her desk chair deciding on some email checking and paper browsing to end her night.
The universal sound indicating she had a message dinged. She looked up from the open page on her desk, ears perked like Pavlov's dog.
Emily: Can I ask you something?
Naomi stared at the screen, her heart rate increasing. Why did that question always make her nervous?
Naomi: shoot.
Emily: why do you like me? I mean,
what made you like me?
Yep, that is why that question made her nervous, because it was always followed up with something like that.
Naomi clicked a name on her sidebar.
Naomi: HELP
Emily asked me this "Emily: why do you like me? I mean what made you like me?"
Alex: HAHA ooooo. What'd you say?
Naomi: Haven't yet. HELP!
Alex: Her fit bod and bangin hair?
Naomi: ….not helpful.
Alex: but accurate.
Naomi: shut up.
Alex: Okay, okay. Umm I duno mate.
Emily: You don't have to answer. I was
just curious.
Naomi: No, no it's fine, I'm just not sure
how to word it.
Emily: okay…
Naomi: I duno, I can't really describe it, there was just, there is just something about you. You intrigue me. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yeah. It does.
..
"Why did you call me?"
"Because someone was ignoring my IM's."
"You were unhelpful."
"Oh right, so what'd you actually say?" Alex asked, "Please tell me it was what I suggested."
Naomi rolled her eyes, "Don't be ridiculous."
"So what'd you say."
"I duno, that she intrigued me, and I couldn't really put it in words properly? I don't know, I can't talk around her. Not successfully at least. And besides, she was asking about feelings and you know I don –"
"Don't do feelings," Alex sighed, "I know. Jesus."
"Shut up."
"Whatever, ignoring your obvious issues," Alex stated, "She doesn't seem much better than you. Actually that's not true, I think she just pretends harder than you do that she doesn't do feelings, but actually is a lot more open about them."
"What you just said makes absolutely no sense." Naomi said through a frown. "And besides, how would you even know that?"
"We talk sometimes," Alex said casually. The pen Naomi had been twirling between her fingers stilled.
"What!" Naomi sputtered. "You what?"
"We talk…sometimes," she reiterated.
"And you never thought to mention this because…"
"We don't talk about you all the time, jeez. Ego much. We just talk sometimes." She said it like a shrug.
"Like what? And don't think I didn't hear the implication that you do sometimes talk about me? What does she say?" Naomi couldn't help herself.
"That's private."
"Alex!"
"It is!" Alex defended, "I don't go around telling her all you do and say."
"You're my best mate," Naomi said hollowly, not quite feeling so keen on that fact at the moment.
"And I tell you things that are important or useful," Alex said calmly. "She doesn't have a lot of people at school she can talk about things with, so sometimes we talk."
"Yeah well, don't."
Alex pffted her. "I will not. Besides, mostly it's her who messages me. Don't want to be rude."
"Alex – "
"Well besides when I'm extremely bored and you're being less than entertaining or god forbid social."
"Alex – "
"What you'd prefer the next time she messages me to be like 'oh I'm sorry we can't be friends. Naomi forbade it."
"Did you just say forbade?"
"Game of Thrones is really good," Alex gushed, "And that chick from Imagine You & Me is in it. Not Piper, but the other one."
"Who? What?" Naomi let out an exaggerated breath. "Whatever fine. Talk to her for all I care."
"Good!" Alex said cheerily, Naomi could tell she was smirking, an obnoxious victorious smirk. "I don't know what I do for Spanish class otherwise."
"What?"
"She helps me with my Spanish homework. Girls a pro, let me tell you."
Naomi was trying to get her dumbfounded mind to catch up. Alex and Emily talked…regularly. They talked about other things than just her. Emily helped Alex with her Spanish homework. She sat down. She didn't know why she kept trying to fight the fact. Her life was actually ridiculous.
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..
She walked into Will's room and stopped.
"Blondie!" Cook bellowed. "I'm sorry if I'd of known you were comin' I'd 'ave stripped already."
She rolled her eyes and gave him a two-finger salute.
"Cook is your roommate?" she asked.
"Yeah, you know each other?" Will said from his desk.
"Do we," Cook smirked.
"Not as well as he'd like, but yes unfortunately."
"Aw me heart," Cook fiend clutching at his chest.
Naomi ignored him.
"So what are you two young, good lookin' folks gona do all alone this fine evening?" he quirked an eyebrow devilishly.
"Music," Will says as he rummages through his desk draw for his external hard drive.
"Gona make some music," Cook waggled his eyebrows, "nice."
"No, no," Naomi corrected as she nicked Cook's desk chair and dragged it over by Wills desk. "He means were literally going to talk about music."
Cook's face fell. He shook his head in disapproval. Naomi didn't know why but she was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge that she never wanted Cook and Alex to meet. It was a terrifying thought, both being the type of people that feed off of others energies, they would just infinitely wind each other up. They would probably take over the world. Or at the very least terrorize the female population in surrounds areas while ceaselessly annoying her. Yeah, she hoped their paths never crossed.
Cook "left them to it" and skived off with a last waggle of his eyebrows.
A few hours and beers later they were well into their libraries and had moved from iTunes to YouTube.
"Have you seen this performance?" Will gushed, "It's ace. Damn Americans don't know how good they have it. What I would have done to go to that show."
He clicked on the YouTube link. The band kick up arguably there best known song as the distinct guitar picking of "The General" emanated from the tiny speakers.
"You know they are going back on tour right?" Naomi asked as she watched the video span across the sea of 110,000 people that had shut down Storrow Drive, all to be a part of "The Last Dispatch." While Dispatch was a favourite of hers, it was literally Wills favourite band.
"Fuck off."
"I'm serious," she said, taking another sip of her beer.
"If you're taking the piss…"
"I'm not, look it up," she laughed, "I'm surprised I'm the one telling you an not the other way round to be honest."
He went to the band's homepage. And she was sure by the look on his ecstatic face that if they had not been sitting she would be taken up in another spinning hug.
Cook burst through the door unannounced.
"Oh, sorry, sorry," he began before stopping and seeing he hadn't in fact interrupted anything. His face once again fell as the two people he'd left hours before were sat unmoved in their respective chairs. "You were actually serious about the talking about music thing?" he said with a slight disdain, swiping Will's beer and taking a swig. "I thought you were just talkin' in euphemisms."
Naomi laughed. She was impressed he even knew the word.
He joined them for watching Boondock Saints, which was the last thing on there to do list, as it was apparently a crime that she had never seen it. The poster of which was hanging over Will's bed, next to a Guinness poster and a Hurling poster.
Later she walked up the stairs to her dorm. He refused her refusal of him walking her back. After the movie Will and Cook walked her back to her dorm, her shook her head as the two interchanged singing out of tune and quoting the brothers prayer as if they were assassins themselves. She was tipsy and smiling.
Will was the kind of kid you sat in a tree fort with and planned adventures, and it wasn't just a tree fort, it was a ship, and it wasn't just a ship, it was a pirate ship, a pirate ship in space. And you believed him. You believed him because it was fantastic and he was enthusiastic, and why wouldn't you want that to be true? So you traveled through space and saw new worlds and stole alien treasures and ran out of the street when a car drove down it.
This was simple; this was light she thought as she closed the door to her room. Sophia was tiring and heavy. Emily was terrifying, thrilling, but terrifying. She was also not an option she rationalized. Will she liked. She could like Will. She told herself she liked Will. It was a thought she rallied herself behind, like a politician did a cause.
..
..
Emily: What are you doing?
Popped up on her screen. Naomi stared at it for a moment, her mind playing catch up to what her eyes had just read – who and what.
Naomi: Um, being boring waiting for Alex to get back to me and not actually watching the repeats on my telly.
Naomi sent back, unsure of why she felt the need to unnecessarily ramble. It seemed a trend around Emily, that or no words forming. Was it too much to ask for some middle ground? She couldn't even get some un-useful 'words of wisdom' from Alex who had gone idle since Naomi telling her about Will.
Naomi: And yourself?
She added after a moment.
Emily: Distract me?
Emily messaged back, not answering the question herself.
Emily: Can you just distract me please. For a bit.
She stared at the screen for a beat.
Naomi: Yeah, course
She thought to herself for a moment, her fingers hovering over the keys like a pianist's would, flexing and twitching in that breath before the first note.
Naomi: How? You can come round if you want. Panda's at Thomas's.
The longer the minutes stretched unanswered the more Naomi felt like she had said the wrong thing, regretted the offer. Why did she have to assume Emily would want to hangout? That was once and the other she was drunk.
Emily: Sorry
Her screen binged a message.
Emily: Mandy just called me again…we're fighting. But I don't want to talk to her right now. Or think about it. It's the same old shite. Can you just distract me please? And I don't want you to have to deal with this otherwise I'd come over. But can you just distract me please?
Naomi: Okay…what'd you want me to talk about then?
Emily: Anything
If it had been anyone else Naomi was sure she would have said something like you need to be a bit more specific than that or equally cheeky. But it wasn't anyone else, so she didn't. Instead she stared at the non-helpful answer. She was bad at this.
And then she talked about anything, a bit about everything; the paper, her night out with the fab four and the floor mattress, stories of her mother and her general hippy-ness. She made mental notes when she got amused responses. She made her best attempts to quell her brazen, anxious mind when Emily wouldn't say anything for prolonged gaps in time – she figured she was talking with, fighting with, Mandy in those moments. It did nothing to ease her nerves.
Emily: We broke up
Emily eventually messaged. Naomi just started.
Naomi: Are you alright?
Emily: I don't know. I don't think so.
There was a pause. What on earth could she say to that? Sorry? She wasn't, though she didn't like the idea of Emily not being alright. But she also got a jolt of fear, flashing back to the time she found out Emily was gay, and all her stupid pinings had palpable possibility. She felt that again, and again it was terrifying.
Emily: I think I'm just going to go to bed
Naomi: Okay
Naomi hesitated.
Naomi: I'm here if you need anything, yeah?
Emily: Thanks.
She signed off.
Naomi heard a door open and saw Emily walk by toothbrush in hand. She sat still for a moment hearing the bathroom door down the hall close.
Not knowing where the thought came from Naomi opened a desk draw, pulling out the bag of shite chocolate Alex had sent her from America. Hershey's Chocolate Hugs. She grabbed one from the bag and stuck a bit of tape to the bottom of it, like you would the bottom of a bow. She looked to her left down the hall to make sure Emily wasn't on her way back. Quickly she went right, taking the chocolate hug she stuck it to Emily's door before scurrying back to her own room, closing the door. She hadn't fully thought this plan through but she knew she definitely didn't want Emily to see her doing it. That would be awkward. She just wanted her to get the hug.
She heard Emily's door once again close.
Eventually Naomi opened her door and headed to the bathroom herself. On her way back she peered a bit further down the hall, a small smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. Emily had taken it. The hug was gone.