Chapter 12 - Marionettes
A few weeks later, Spencer Hastings was making her way back home from a job she had recently confessed to hating. She had just gotten into Holbrook, and the sun had already dipped low, kissing the horizon while it bled all over the lilac sky. The radio was on a sports station, and the muffled commentary of a football game was providing the background music to her distracted thoughts when her phone started ringing. It was automatically received and connected to the car's bluetooth system, and the commentator was cut mid-speech, the sound of whistles and applause being replaced by a smooth, familiar baritone.
"Spenceeeerr", Toby drawled into the phone. Spencer rolled her eyes at this. It was something Toby did every time he called, making sure to draw out the syllables in her name in this ridiculous way. "I miss youuuu."
"I'm almost home", Spencer replied, turning the car down the main road of Holbrook. She passed the Protestant Church by the town square which was reportedly about a hundred and sixty years old, and the twisted spire that was some sort of the symbol for their town, although what exactly it symbolized, nobody knew.
"Please tell me you're not on our street yet", Toby's mechanical voice filled the car, almost making it seem like he was right next to her.
"Wait. Usually you keep the word 'not' out of the sentence. Why are you so anxious for me to not come home? Are you trying to hide something?", Spencer laughed, maneuvering through another turn on a road that led straight to her street from the town center. She was about ten minutes away from home, and she wasn't really hurrying. It wasn't as if home was going anywhere. It wasn't as if she didn't see Toby every single day, without fail.
"No! I just...we're out of eggs and I need you to go get me some. I was thinking you could pick some up for me. Oh and some fennel and thyme too. Oh, and tomatoes. You know what, I'll text you the grocery list." Toby sounded a little distracted. Usually he did the shopping as Spencer hated waiting at the usually long lines at the shopping counters. But Spencer was trying extra hard to be a great fiancee, and since the store wasn't exactly out of her way, she thought she'd might as well get the job done..
"Fine, I'll get it. You owe me big time, Mr. Cavanaugh", she replied with a mock-dramatic sigh.
"I promise I'll make it up to you." Toby's voice brimmed with hidden meanings and possibilities, his feeble attempt at being irresistible. Spencer rolled her eyes again, fighting the urge to gag, glad that phones didn't simultaneously transmit her facial expressions. It wasn't as if she didn't want Toby in the same way he wanted her. She loved him. She did. Really. She had a ring on her finger to prove it (a constant reminder of how tied she was, how wrong she was not to crazily love the man who crazily loved her).
"I'm getting off the phone now, Romeo. See ya." No sign of affection ever showed in her goodbyes, and she preferred to keep in that way.
Spencer changed the destination address on her GPS to the closest Fresh Fields (which was about 0.8 miles away) and followed the electronic voice that told her where to go.
At that exact time, Emily Fields was strolling past the doors of the supermarket, lethargically pushing a shopping cart. The weeks had merged into one blurry jumble, each day more monotonous than the last, and she had jumped at the chance of getting out of the house that had been closing in around her like a prison.
She knew she was being a little too harsh in her comparisons, but she couldn't really help herself. After spending nights and early mornings under starry skies next to those familiar angular shoulders, the mundane comfort of a shared bed and a pillow had really lost its charm. Emily knew that she shouldn't be thinking these thoughts, feeling these emotions, but her brain was unshackled in these little moments; these moments when she was away from Arianna's scrutiny, her doubt and incessant gestures of appeasement. They had called sort of a truce between them. Things were still a little awkward, a little broken and cracked around the edges. But a phone call from Dani had managed to put things into perspective for Emily. Danielle had apparently been calling to check up on Emily, wondering if and when she could visit. It had seemed as if Arianna hadn't told her that the news had been broken, that the cat was out of the bag, so Emily had indulged in a few moments of vicious pleasure, and had slammed the phone without even a word of greeting.
Obviously, Danielle had called back, and had kept calling until Emily had been forced to answer the call, anything to stop the shrill bleating of their landline. The words she had said had soothed and calmed and provided a balm for Emily's bruised feelings, that was for sure. She'd just confirmed everything Arianna had confessed, but embellished her side of the story with an even deeper insight into the degree of Arianna's refusal and their shared past. The more Emily had listened, the more she had understood. And the easier it had been for her to finally agree to forgive her girlfriend. And the harder it had become for her to keep the truth about her own moment of weakness to herself.
The fact that her partner in crime, the agent-provocateur herself, Spencer Hastings, lived practically next door to her was something that one could only describe as a cruel (but exhilarating) twist of fate. Emily had already resolved to herself that she would keep out of the brunette's way and had therefore ignored all of Spencer's texts and calls, which had steadily dwindled and stopped one day. Some small part of Emily had been disappointed that Spencer had given up so easily, but the rest of her was relieved. It was hard enough resisting the urge to reply to Spencer's eloquent text messages (full of proper grammar and punctuation, eerily mirroring Arianna's) or her short, yet pleading voice-mails that she kept listening to on repeat. It was even worse when they actually met in person. It didn't happen too often, because Emily had made it her mission to never pause anywhere unless it was absolutely important, to never go out for a jog or a walk without Arianna, to stay at the pool till late, training the swim team like a dictator (something which took a lot of effort). But life wasn't exactly scripted, and over the past few weeks, she had come across Spencer two or three times, mostly while taking out the garbage or picking up newspapers in the morning. (She almost felt like a fugitive in her own house, cooped up during weekends.)
Those brief looks they had exchanged had somehow felt more real to Emily than anything else, more tangible that all the useless clutter that her life consisted of. Something about those vivid umber eyes stuck with her for the rest of the day, impossible to forget. They had seemed to electrify her for the long, achingly drawn moments they had rested on her, and she could swear that the aftershocks of Spencer's gazes seemed to make her tremble even hours after their occurrence.
The only plus point was that Arianna was giving her the space she needed. Arianna was, in fact, going out of her way to make sure every whim of Emily's was satisfied (although she didn't really have that many). It was something very uncharacteristic, as Emily had always pegged her girlfriend as someone who couldn't help but get wrapped up in herself way too often to pay attention to anyone else, even Emily. But she was taking this welcome change gratefully, as it meant Arianna had stopped questioning her every move, had stopped suspecting her illogical urge to stay home every weekend, work late hours and avoid going out on the street at all times.
The result was that Emily had grown tired of staring at the same four walls that had begun as her hiding place and ended up being more like a cage. Without Arianna lurking around and looking at her with those broken, hopeful eyes, Emily could breathe more easily, could feel that familiar weight of guilt stirring from her chest and lifting slightly. It was good to move around and hear the disjointed cacophony of human sounds surrounding her, and her mind flitted from one overheard conversation to the next, her ears grasping at the disappearing tails of words as they turned around the corners of the aisles.
She had almost forgotten that she was here armed with an excuse—she had charged herself with replenishing their diminishing food supply. Her inability (or more accurately, her reluctance) to go out had resulted in an almost empty fridge. She had a mental list of what she needed but she found she was in the entirely wrong section—the frozen foods one. Shaking her head and chiding herself for her absent-mindedness, Emily pushed the shopping trolley down the aisle, her feet automatically heading for the the vegetable section. However, she didn't make it far before she saw something that made her feel like she needed a good few hours of defrosting herself. The woman who had been dominating her thoughts was standing at the end of the aisle, contemplating a large tub of ice cream, squinting to read the fine print near the bottom.
Emily's first reaction was to unfreeze herself, turn around quietly and take the longer path to the vegetable section. She slowly started backing away, not able to tear her eyes away from Spencer, who seemed quite oblivious to Emily's presence. Big mistake. She knocked into a store employee holding a crate of milk cartons, sending several ones flying to the floor. So much for staging a quick escape. She mumbled her apologies, blushing furiously as she helped the hapless teenager gather the strewn cartons, and sighed when she watched him walk away. She looked once more at the spot Spencer had been in, and let out a sharp exhalation of surprise. Spencer was nowhere in sight.
"Miss me?"
Emily jumped, whirling around too quickly, feeling completely disorientated once she stopped.
Spencer was standing behind her, with a ghost of her trademark smirk perched on her thin lips. "I thought so."
Emily opened her mouth to speak, but then found herself lost for words. Her mind was still spinning from moving too fast (and from suddenly finding herself too close to Spencer). She was sure if it hadn't been for the cold air slowly drifting from the food shelves, she would have found herself in a semi-molten state.
The silence somehow pushed them closer, so close that Emily could see Spencer's irregular breaths condensing in the coolness that surrounded them.
"I...eh. You shop?"
Way to go, Fields.
But it had been the first thought to jump into her head. Spencer wasn't someone she'd seen as the grocery shopping kind. She'd figured it was more or less Toby's duty. Sure, she could see Spencer paying the bills and filing them in huge, dated folders and entering them in some sort of cash-flow account to make sure she knew every single detail about her expenses, but she really hadn't ever visualized coming across Spencer doing something so...mundane.
"Eloquence, thy name is Fields." Spencer's tone was light and friendly, but her eyes refused to let go of that fiery intensity that was burning a hole into Emily's clumsy defenses. "I was just picking up some stuff", she waved the list on the illuminated screen of her Blackberry in front of Emily. "But I'll have to admit that usually, I don't shop. At least for groceries. Toby does that."
Aha. So she had been right about that one.
They were exchanging pleasantries like they hadn't been shutting each other out for weeks now, like they didn't have all of this impossibly complicated history—a history that was now seeping into their present, the now.
"Oh." Emily clenched and unclenched her hands around the handle of the trolley, unable to meet the gaze that was currently searing into her. There was that feeling again, that feeling that she associated only with Spencer. That feeling that the world had suddenly melted away and someone had stupidly placed Emily on a stage of some sort, available for Spencer's eternal and quite acute contemplation. It made her feel like she was standing too close to a blazing fire, as if she'd been singled out in a room, as if suddenly the world was looking up at her with unconcealed adulation.
It was enough to make a girl lose her head.
It felt like Spencer was expecting something more, and when Emily finally, after a long wait, looked up to meet tawny eyes, she felt that shift in the air again. The same shift that had shaken her world before Spencer had given her that mini-speech near that lake all those days ago, before that pure, divine kiss.
"Emily."
A single word. Her name. But the way Spencer breathed it out, so naturally, like she said it every day, every hour, every second, made goosebumps rise on Emily's arms. It felt like Spencer was trying to condense all the meanings in the world into that single word, as if given a choice between all the impressive words at her disposal, she would always choose this one to convey that one thing that was joining them right now.
However, a kid laughed somewhere from another aisle and the spell was broken. Emily was finally free from Spencer's pull, her gravity, her terrible magician's eyes.
"I have to go. I haven't even gotten most of the things I was supposed to get", Emily mumbled, throwing her weight at the trolley and trying to run away before things got messier, before the guilt ate away at her. She didn't know why she was feeling what she was feeling, and how Spencer managed to find all the right words, and all the right silences and looks that made her soul shiver. She shouldn't be thinking about her ex-best friend like that, she shouldn't be thinking about anyone like that, but she couldn't be blamed, especially when Spencer was just standing there, looking really aloof and as ice-cold in her grey peacoat as the frozen items behind her.
"Stop. Emily. Look at me." A single push, no, shove, from the former athlete was enough to send the almost-empty shopping cart waltzing down the aisle. Those clinical, pale hands moved to tanned wrists, and held tight enough to leave marks. "Emily. Look at me!" Spencer's tone was soft, a hushed whisper, but it held so much force that Emily mutely obeyed, suddenly nothing more than an inanimate puppet. Spencer was her master puppeteer, the one who breathed life into her, with her magic touches, her calculating pressure on Emily's thrumming pulse-point.
God, it was too much.
It was too much for both of them, Emily noted with a twist of pleasure in her chest. She looked into Spencer's eyes, a quite easy task, given how close their heights were, and felt the ground slowly disappear under her feet in that wonderful way that it used to when she'd just dived before a swim.
"Do you know how much I've missed you? I bet you don't." Spencer was still speaking in those soft whispers, as if someone might overhear them.
Someone actually might. The thought, however, did not manage to inspire the amount of dread in Emily that it would've under normal circumstances. She kept still (or at least, tried to) under Spencer's unyeilding hold on her hands, kept quiet and let the brunette speak because Spencer's words were having a delicious effect on her.
"Here you are, ignoring me as I speak, and I'm just trying to—", Spencer paused, tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips, before continuing, "—trying to...apologize. For what happened."
Emily moved, no longer an inanimate wooden doll, spurred to action by her puppeteer. She frowned and twisted away from Spencer's touch, till her back met the cold metal of the shelves lining the aisle. Was Spencer talking about the kiss? Their grand mistake?
"We'll forget it ever happened." Emily's reaction was quick, her tone clipped, her words curt and direct, so unlike her. She was trying to be who she was not, and everything about her except her words gave her away. Her eyes were pleading at Spencer silently, pleading at her not to come closer, daring her to take a step forward, wishing, craving for the kind of closeness they had developed, nurtured, allowed to blossom.
"Define it." Spencer was unnecessarily trailing her hand over the edge of the shelf near Emily's head, feeling the frozen metal, the plastic against her sensitive fingertips, her knuckles almost grazing the base of Emily's neck.
"You know what I'm talking about, Spencer." Emily fought against the urge to inch closer towards Spencer's distracted hand movements, and lost the bloody battle. A sharp intake of breath later, Spencer's hand was making a show of tracing absently over the underside of the shelf, while in reality, her thumb was bumping up against burnished bronze skin half hidden by raven curls. It sure wasn't helping to clear up the thought process of any of the girls, but at that moment, neither of them minded.
Spencer's eyes did a quick scan of the aisle. All clear. She smiled, knowing that she was winning, and loving every single victorious moment of it. She leaned forward, making Emily press further back against the shelf, hearing the rustle of plastic-packaged foodstuff behind her. "No, I don't. What are you talking about, Emily?" Spencer was enjoying watching Emily squirm a little too much.
"Stop. Stop doing that." Emily wasn't even speaking anymore. Her words were more like little tortured, high-pitched breaths that sounded really low at the same time. "Please", she added for good measure, biting her lip when she felt Spencer's knuckles accidentally brush up against the shell of her ear.
"What do you want to forget, Em?", Spencer tauntingly whispered, feeling reckless. It wasn't even night (yet) and they weren't far from Holbrook. In fact, the sun had barely set, and they were in the middle of a supermarket, and gratefully, in one of the aisles that wasn't frequented very much. Spencer silently thanked whatever scientific research had deemed preservative-laced frozen foods unhealthy. It was surely keeping the people of Holbrook away.
"You." Emily returned Spencer's gaze with defiance written all over her face, a last, desperate attempt at being strong. For some reason, it served to fuel Spencer's sudden insanity, it made something inside her burst free and she found herself slipping even closer to Emily, locks of midnight black caressing the side of her cheek. Her nose picked up the faint, lingering scent of juniper that Emily was cloaked in, probably from the shampoo she had used, and the subtle tones of cinnamon that brought back vivid memories of their first kiss.
"Do you really?", Spencer whispered, tripping over her own feet on purpose and placing her other hand on Emily's shoulder for support, her lips now dangling next to Emily's half-hidden ear. "Because I can't forget. I don't want to forget."
Emily gasped, stiffening visibly at Spencer's bold words, words that made all the blood in her body rush to her head. She felt dizzy and confused. What was Spencer saying? Did this mean...?
"You love riddles." There was a trace of bitterness in Emily's voice, but it trembled under the weight of Spencer's proximity, and made her sound like she was paying a compliment. "You love confusing me, don't you?"
"I could say the same." Suddenly, all the playful mischief was gone from Spencer's voice. It had dropped an octave and was nothing more than a scratchy, throaty sound insanely close to Emily's ear. "You are like one of those equations I can't balance. You.."
Emily's breath hitched despite her frantic efforts to control herself, in spite of the faint calls of her conscience. She could not believe the conversation they were having, much less where they were having it. Anyone could walk right up to them and then what? What would they think? That they were just two friends whispering secrets to each other? Perhaps. Maybe they could hide under the subterfuge of friendship. For now. Because, scarily, she found herself not caring if she was found anyways. Even if it was by Arianna. Or poor, sweet Toby.
"I..?", Emily willed Spencer to go on, suddenly breathless with anticipation. She wanted to know where the brunette's thoughts led. She wanted to know how she would phrase it. She wanted to know if what she wanted was what Spencer wanted too. (Something so wrong and so messed up and so inexplicably exquisite.)
"You are driving me insane, Em. And the more you ignore me, the worse it gets." Now the forefinger and the middle finger joined the thumb in their conquest of sensitive skin, tracing the outline of Emily's earlobe with feather-touches, barely-there touches, brief touches that could be passed off as a figment of Emily's imagination. Her other hand increased the pressure on Emily's shoulder for an ephemeral moment, then seemingly slipped from its support. It traced a slow, deliberate path down her arm, leaving evidence of its passage in the form of goosebumps. It felt like tendrils of fire licking at her, contrasting with the burning cold at the small of her back. "Oh and just so we're clear...I wasn't apologizing for kissing you."
There. It was out now. There was no going back.
The worst thing was, Spencer didn't even sound apologetic. Or ashamed of it. She had stated it like she was merely repeating a well-known fact. A widely accepted axiom.
"Stop."
Spencer's fingers stilled, and Emily instinctively leaned further into her burning touch, then shrank back, ashamed of her inability to hide her desperation. Just when she thought Spencer was going to walk away, those little fire-touches started again, now creeping down her neck, whispering against her hair, disappearing to a hidden spot near the nape of her neck.
"Make me." There was a challenge in Spencer's eyes, and an unmistakable excitement in her voice. Emily was being bathed in the Hastings look, the look that said : I have seen you and I shall conquer you. Emily didn't know if she could continue her half-hearted attempts at refusal, if she could keep denying what she herself wanted so bad.
"You're making things so complicated, Spence."
The nickname slipped out before she could stop herself, and they were back again in that comfortable niche they had created for themselves, where somehow, every bad thing that happened between them seemed to pale in front of the enormity of the sensations they created in each other.
"They were never simple to begin with, Emily", Spencer countered, her lips still swaying dangerously close to Emily's ear. She breathed in deeply, allowing herself to indulge in the pure intoxication that was Emily Fields.
"Maybe we are better when we're far away from each other."
Spencer let out a dry laugh, rolling her eyes even though she knew Emily couldn't see the disbelief written all over her face.
"Then why are we here?"
Good question. They were at a stalemate. Emily couldn't push Spencer away, couldn't back away from her touch (she was caught between a metaphorical rock disguised as Spencer and a hard place). And Spencer was refusing to listen to any kind of logic whatsoever.
"Because we're supposed to be shopping."
The statement came too late, and sounded too hollow. And almost comical. What was shopping? Who even cared about eggs or tomatoes? Worlds were coming to hasty ends because of the unbelievable tension between them, and Spencer couldn't believe Emily was seriously using that excuse.
"Supposed to be. But we're not. Emily—"
"Spencer!"
"—you have got to stop jumping every time I say your name", Spencer murmured, pulling away a little so that Emily could see the smirk twisting those razor-sharp lips.
"I'm not jumping!", Emily denied vehemently, colour flooding to her cheeks. "I, you, eh, you're too close. I really appreciate my personal space."
Spencer's lips quirked up with even more amusement, and she quietly removed her hands from the back of Emily's neck, and from her waist. "Seems like I really appreciate your personal space too."
Emily had to smile a little bit at that, and the effect it had on Spencer was worth watching. It seemed that the subtle glint in Spencer's eyes grew with the upward curl of Emily's lips, until they seemed to be holding glittering diamonds. It made Emily smile even more, made her want to break into a little jig, but she controlled herself, checked her pleasure, did not let it reach its peak.
She had to be the grown up one since Spencer had decided being a child was way more fun.
(It wasn't fair, this role-reversal.)
"I really...really have to go. Arianna's waiting at home for me."
Completely the wrong choice of words. She watched the elation on Spencer's face deflate faster than a pricked balloon, watched the diamonds grow smaller till they disappeared entirely into eyes the colour of charred wood. She sensed, before she saw, the shift in the atmosphere around them, the sudden expansion in the column of artificially cold air between them, felt the unbearable distance increase almost tangibly.
"Of course. Arianna." Somehow, Spencer managed to condense all the bitterness of her black coffee hued eyes in that one name; that one shadow of a doubt that lingered between them. The smile had wilted and faded on her lips, and that seemingly permanent crease on her brow that had been erased momentarily made a prominent comeback. "I don't even know how you forgave her."
"Spencer." Emily's voice was a warning, and already, the world was coming back into focus. She could feel the biting cold of the shelves pressing against her back, the chill seeping through the flimsy fabric of her tank-top that looked glaringly casual in front of Spencer's designer suit. "You don't...know her."
"I don't want to", Spencer hissed through gritted teeth, now all fire again, in a different way. Again, she was leaning in, too close, her face closing in on Emily's. "But I know you. And I know that you shouldn't have gone back to her."
Emily winced, and felt herself cleaved into two because of the contrasting feelings inside her. Part of her (a shockingly minuscule part), wanted to defend her girlfriend, wanted to clear Arianna's name, wanted to clear Spencer's doubts. But the other, devious, horrid part of her strangled her reason and silenced her tongue. She didn't want to agree with Spencer's words, but she found herself nodding without her consent, her actions controlled by invisible strings.
"I did something just as horrible to her."
That put the fire out in Spencer's eyes. Her rage was wiped clear, and she stared at Emily with her mouth slightly parted, her eyes wide and surprised. Perhaps what she had done, what she'd been trying to do again had just dawned on her, and she looked as if she'd been sleepwalking and someone had suddenly woken her up.
"Oh."
"No, Spence—", Emily began, trying to undo the damage already done.
"Alright, no. I get it." Spencer started backing away, her expression closed off, her eyes resembling opaque stones. Unreadable, unapproachable. Flooded with guilt and something else, something more potent and destructive.
"Spencer!"
"What?"
Emily sighed, grabbing Spencer's hand in her desperation to make the brunette stay. She had no idea why she was so afraid of Spencer leaving, when she'd been wishing for exactly this. Spencer jumped up when tan fingers curled around her skinny, delicate wrists, looking as if she'd just been electrocuted. They were falling again, and there was icy plastic against Emily's back again (the fabric there was almost wet now from condensed air), and Spencer was too close, the tips of their noses grazing against each other, breathing each other's breath.
"What's worse is that I'm not sorry too."
The uncharacteristic revelation from Emily made Spencer's rock-eyes, frozen-coffee eyes melt into pools of chocolate, made her entire being melt until she was boneless in Emily's gentle grip. She knew it would've cost Emily a lot to admit this, that for some reason, Emily was having an even harder time accepting this than she was, although she didn't know what this was. She didn't know if she liked girls or wanted to like girls or even noticed them in that way which was totally different from admitting that a girl was attractive and hot and that you really wished that you had curves like that. It was wishing you could see the curves that clothes merely hinted at (something that she did a lot around Emily), it was not wanting to be like a girl, but wanting the girl instead.
All Spencer knew that she noticed, hell, she noticed only how amazingly perfect everything about Emily was and she had no idea when she'd come to that conclusion but it was something that she believed in even more than she believed in evolution and the Big Bang Theory and that was saying something.
"Then can we please be unapologetic together?", Spencer appealed quietly, silent fire now, slow-burning in Emily's presence. Her cockiness was slowly returning, and Emily's eyes had dug their hooks inside her chest, pulling her closer to the point of no-return.
"I don't think I can do that." Emily looked away, breaking the silent promises that their eyes had been making to each other, breaking their contact, breaking the bonds they had been forming and strengthening. "I wouldn't want you to...Not for me. This doesn't make any sense." All said in a single breath, as if she was rushing to get the words out before they disappeared somewhere within her illogical mind.
"I guess not everything has to make sense." Spencer's fingers moved to Emily's chin, fingertips dancing on the edge of her exquisite jawline before turning her head so that they were conversing in the language of looks once again. She saw hidden messages glittering under coal-black eyes and wanted to decipher them, needed to know what they meant.
"I can't believe you are saying that." There was a smile in Emily's voice, although her lips were a little too late to follow. It was almost as if she was too afraid to give herself even a small evidence of happiness and god, Spencer wanted to change that. She vowed to change that, even if changing that took everything she had.
"I'm full of surprises." Again, the tip of Spencer's tongue darted out to wet her lips, and something about that simple motion made Emily go weak in the knees, made her lean heavily against the shelves to support her weight. Spencer's body moved with hers, not missing the chance to decrease the distance between them, as if they were part of a chained system.
"Oh, trust me, I know that now", Emily countered (when she had finally regained her voice), her hands tightening around Spencer's wrists, her mouth curving into a small smirk. She noticed the small, almost imperceptible change in Spencer's breathing, the slight widening of her eyes, new creases around her mouth that had nothing to do with the tension that had the Hastings trademark. She also felt the thrill through her veins, a side-effect of the power she had stumbled upon. The power to make Spencer Hastings blush.
"You just can't use my own tricks on me, you know", Spencer murmured, trying to regain the power, not willing to give up the throne, the magic strings, the control bar. Just to drive her point home (and perhaps for other, vaguer reasons), she pulled out of the shackles of Emily's grip and made her fingertips dance across bare shoulders, felt strong swimmer muscles flex involuntarily under her lingering touch. Her eyes moved to rest on Emily's lips, which were slightly parted, those irresistible doors leading to a forbidden destination. She was feeling hypnotized again, like she had under that starry sky, and she realized something. She wasn't the one in control at all. It was all Emily, all the time. Emily was the one with the real power, the power that mattered. The power to make her want to do things, make her lose her head, make the most logical and sensible girl in the world want to break all the rules.
It terrified her. The fact that sweet, pure, little Em made Spencer want to do bad, unnameable deeds to her and the fact that she did so without realizing what she was doing was something that was really difficult for her to comprehend.
But it didn't matter, really. 'Cause comprehending things was really the least of her priorities right now.
The thing that topped her list at this moment in time was the journey her hands were making across Emily's collarbones, frantic touches, covert touches, nobody-will-ever-notice-if-they-walk-past touches. Her eyes scanned the fall and rise of her chest, her fingertips rested fleetingly on the flutter of her heartbeat, and oh why did Emily have to wear such dangerously low necklines that made Spencer feel like a really bad (read:perverted) person because she just couldn't stop staring?
"Who says I'm using your tricks?", Emily asked, sounding breathless and staring at Spencer with shining eyes that seemed to beckon her even closer.
"Because you don't have any of yours."
"That's so—not—true", Emily retorted, punctuating her pauses with small inclinations of her head, until her forehead was resting against Spencer's and it seemed as though if they breathed, they would end up kissing. She had that coy smile on her lips, the one that Spencer loved and hated because it made everything inside her feel like liquid fire. It made her want to kiss and hug the life out of Emily at the same time and she realized that this was even scarier. She could deal with being attracted to her best friend (or at least, try to). But she didn't know how she was going to handle it if it started being...something even more dangerous.
The kiss was so tantalizingly close and it was obvious that it was coming and the mere thought sent tingles down Emily's spine and she squirmed with anticipation, needing Spencer to make that first move, that slight movement that would make them connect in the way that made the world shatter and disappear like a flimsily built illusion.
That's when the first few notes of Vivaldi's Summer broke into their painfully still moment, in the form of Spencer's ringtone (the one that she had specially set to signal calls from Toby). They both jumped apart, broken out of their daze. Emily's hip connected with the edge of a shelf and a sharp pain threatened to bring tears to her eyes. She scrunched up her eyes and counted slowly to ten, waiting for the immediate shock of the pain to wear off, before she straightened up. Through slightly blurry eyes, she saw Spencer a few feet away, talking into her Blackberry in hushed tones, wearing a frown that went well with her outfit. Seeing her there, separated by distance, obviously talking to Toby, brought back to Emily why she was actually here. And what she had actually ended up doing.
This was exactly why she had imposed a house arrest on herself. This was why she had stopped any kind of social life she might have started in this small town. Because no matter where she went, Spencer somehow caught up with her, and they ended up...well, like this.
Spencer had been focusing on the ground but now her eyes raised upwards, catching hers. They silently besought her to stay, to wait, focusing their intensity on her like beige spotlights; her lips were merely going through the motions, muttering words that Emily couldn't catch, didn't want to catch. Before Spencer could realize what was happening, Emily had turned and fled, not even stopping to get her shopping cart.
When Spencer finally got off the phone (after assuring Toby that no, she hadn't been kidnapped, and that yes, she was indeed doing the shopping), all that was left of Emily was the faint sillage of juniper and cinnamon that still hung in the air where she had stood, mixing freely with the cold vapors coming off the chilled shelves. Spencer shivered, and turned the opposite way, heading for the exit without getting the things that Toby had asked her to get.
All that remained of their chance encounter was an unfortunate tub of Phish Food that was lying on its side by the ice-cream section of the frozen-food aisle, obviously knocked down by someone in a hurry—its contents spilling over and forming a rapidly melting pool of chocolate and marshmallow.
A/N: So? Good or bad? Obviously, I don't like easy love stories. ;) Please feel free to leave your comments/criticisms.
prentiss-be-mine: Yum, coffee and angst! Best combo. I like Emily's strength too, it's so different from Spencer's! It's like an Emily kind of strength, if you know what I mean? Haha. And I did check out your story and I love it!
Shayforever: Hahaha, I love your point of view. Yes, Emily should just shut up and let Spencer make love to her, but it ain't that easy, is it? xD Sorry about the lack of kissing, I shall make up for it later! (; Thanks.
go-sullivan: Yay! Glad you think so! Yup, they're gonna have to work for it.
spinoza-off: Thank you, thank you! It's really nice when you point out what you like 'cause then I know what I'm doing right and what not, etc.
I do hate making them be cruel to each other but it's like the story writes itself and I'm just...idk. xD It's just, I don't know, given how different Spencer and Emily are, I think they do and should find it difficult to understand each other's thought process, but they also somehow just...get each other, because they know each other that well.
I do feel horrid for poor Toby coz I just like him so much! But you can't make omelettes without breaking a few eggs, as they say. Arianna too, could now be put in that category. Anybody being cheated on really doesn't deserve it, but hey, what can you do? I think you're probably the only one who feels sorry for Arianna. xD And I'm glad, coz I really didn't want her to be an antagonist as such.
tharuka: Thank you so much, you're too kind! :) I'm glad I met your expectations and I really do hope I continue to do that!
LaughLoveLiveXx: Angst is my favourite, so. I'm glad the kiss and the after-effects was believable. I didn't want the kiss to be to fluffy or just merely romantic; it had to contain all of the confusion that I'm sure that Spencer and Emily would feel, because not only is this totally uncharted territory, but it is also something so forbidden. They're not only afraid of losing their significant others, but also everything with each other, by messing up their old friendship by making new bonds.
Toby's just awesome, but he might not be so forgiving in the future! xD
LittleLiarLovesEmily: I'm sorry it saddens you! :( Don't worry, this is a totally Spemily-centric fic, so you will get your fix of the couple. :) Thank you!
x-sugarfree-x: Ooh, you may be onto something there! (; Spencer's always been a good liar, so it sure helps!
Guest: I guess Ari is the girl everyone loves to hate! xD Toby and Ari are like complete opposites, so yeah, lucky Spencer!
Guest: Thank you so much! :)