[ fic ] your body broke your fall ; emily/katie, skins
Written for the prompt "Spitting into your own reflection gazing back / Inside your porcelain fists your palms begin to crack" from waxandstrings at the Incest Comment Ficathon.
your body broke your fall » skins. emily/katie. pg-13. 1,583 words.
Katie just wants to fix this, honestly, before Emily fucks everything up. warnings: homophobia, ~incest but it's mostly just focused on the sisterly relationship tbh. I don't own these characters.
She makes sure to dig her fingernails into Emily’s wrist as she drags her through the crowd.
Emily is yelling, shouting at her, but the pounding bass reverberates in Katie’s head too much for her to hear any of the words, and she’s focused on not spilling her drink. The electric blue liquid is sloshing around in a clear plastic cup, and she lifts it high as she shoves past teenagers dancing and jumping around.
The bass picks up tempo, and she thinks people are screaming louder, but it’s all swirled up in her head anyway; she’s trying not to slip in these stupid heels when she reaches the bathroom door - green paint peeling off and a stick figure that marks it as girls’ - and stumbles inside with a sharp tug on her sister’s arm.
“-Katie, stop!”
The blaring music is only a distant buzz now, and Emily’s shouting finally becomes audible. She’s trying to yank her wrist away as Katie whirls around.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she shouts right back
Emily isn’t even looking at her, still trying to pull away.
“Let go of me!” she insists, and Katie does, stepping back and lifting her hands high as if she never touched her. She snorts, and moves away to set her drink down on the wet counter, curling her fingers around the edge and staring in the mirror. There’s a crack near the bottom, and sweeping circles of residue from the cleaner on the glass.
“What’s this about?” Emily hasn’t moved. Katie can see her in the mirror too, staring angrily.
“You,” she spits, a second too late. “I saw you.” She’s staring at Emily’s reflection, and her right hand is curled so tight her fingers slip off the counter, acrylic nails scratching on the laminate.
-she was by the window, staring outside, she couldn’t look away, Emily was leaning over that girl, red hair fanned down in front of her face, and she kissed her-
Katie swallows. “I saw you dancing,” she says instead.
There’s a wrinkle forming between Emily’s eyebrows, and she laughs suddenly, laughs it off, but she’s folding her arms over her chest as she does.
“Since when do you have a problem with me dancing? We’re all just having fun, yeah?” She’s trying so hard to sound confused, her voice light, but Katie stares at her throat, how it contracts, and how Emily’s eyes in the mirror don’t quite meet Katie’s eyes in the mirror.
Katie whirls around, takes what’s supposed to be a decisive step forward, but her heel skids on the slippery tile and she almost slips instead, has to grab her sister’s arm. Emily flinches, but doesn’t step back.
“Why’re you dancing with her?” Katie says it slowly, not that it does anything to control the vibrations of anger in her voice. Emily does yank her arm away then, but she doesn’t say anything, only presses her lips tightly together, and it reminds Katie of how she used to look when she was little whenever she was about to cry.
So she shoves her.
She shoves, and Emily stumbles back, and it’s just like they were little again, just like when they were kids and Katie didn’t get her way. She pushes; Emily acquiesces.
“You’re gonna fuck everything up,” she hisses, “is that what you’re trying to do, fuck everything up?”
“I’m not doing anything!” Emily sounds near-hysterical all of the sudden, and she tries to shove Katie back, shoves out at her shoulder, and Katie almost slips again but she grabs Emily’s wrist instead, pushes her back into the wall and crowds closer into her space, breathing heavy and furious.
“Stay away from her,” she spits, and it’s a command. “Don’t fuck everything up,” she insists, and this time it’s a plea.
-she was laughing, stumbling through the crowd, yelling the snatches of lyrics she knew along with the band, there was a fit guy who had his hands on her waist, he was pulling her close, grinding against her, and then there was Emily, a few feet away, her hands on that girl’s waist, their heads bent close, it was like the backyard again, she couldn’t look away, it was too wrong, it was like seeing herself-
“Katie-” Emily starts to say, but Katie doesn’t wait to hear more, only shoves her again, smacking her hand into Emily’s shoulder, her thumb dragging into the skin.
“Don’t,” she says again, and she’s wrinkling her nose now. She leans in, and for a second she thinks she’s going to bash foreheads, but then she’s biting at Emily’s lip instead, and Emily goes frigid as she presses her mouth to hers, hard, demanding. Katie squirms closer, exhales angrily, just a slip of breath, as Emily makes a little gasp. Their foreheads do touch then, and Katie angles her head up; their chins slide against each other, and she bites at Emily’s lip again, pulls at it until she can force her tongue just past into her sister’s mouth.
She feels fingers digging into her side, and they push upwards, catching on her shirt and dragging it up inches, and Katie pulls back, for a moment she’s just panting into Emily’s mouth, and then she’s shoved firmly, and she staggers back, grabbing a stall door before she can fall back on her ass.
“What are you on?” Emily demands - she’s got one hand at her mouth and her eyes are so, so wide. She looks scared, and Katie just stares at her, still holding onto the stall door and shaking just a little bit.
Emily peels away from the wall slowly, and then she’s rushing forward, her hands on Katie’s arms, only concern in her eyes, she’s staring at Katie, searching her face, trying to figure out, but Katie just shakes her off, turns her back and stalks to the sink.
They are silent.
“Did you take something?” Emily finally asks again, her voice quiet. “Is that what’s going on?”
Katie stares at her sister in the mirror, gnaws at her own lip and remembers the feel of Emily’s lip under her teeth instead. She’s not sure if she wants to be sick or do it again.
“Fuck off, Em.” She sighs it, then grabs her drink and takes a long gulp. She can barely taste the alcohol.
“What?”
Katie downs most of what remains of her drink, quick as she can. “Fuck off, alright!” she insists again, turning to toss her plastic cup at the trash bin in the corner. She misses, and the drink spills out, a tiny, electric blue puddle on the floor.
“Katie, maybe you should go home.” Emily sounds worried.
“Yeah, well maybe you should too,” she snaps back. “Before you do anything really stupid.”
Emily flinches, but she doesn’t seem angry anymore, far too subdued. Her mouth is red, like her lips are slightly swollen, and she presses them together again, but Katie’s the one that feels like crying, because she just doesn’t understand when any of this happened, when Emily got so fucked up right under her nose, and why she can’t fix it. Fix her.
“Okay,” is all Emily says. She approaches Katie slow and careful, and finally reaches out for her hand, winds their fingers together. “Let’s just go home, yeah?”
Katie bites her lip and nods.
Emily wraps an arm around her shoulder then, and just pulls her in close - her hair tickles Katie’s neck and her mouth, but Katie just breathes deep, feels like she’s little again, like she can forget about Emily dancing with that girl, like Emily never kissed that girl.
It’s not true.
Emily pulls away, but they’re still holding hands when they slip out of the bathroom, and Emily doesn’t mention anyone, there’s no ‘let me just tell Naomi I’m leaving’, and Katie is profoundly grateful - she’s pretty sure if she caught sight of that stupid, platinum hair she would slap the other girl right now.
They make their way out of the club, and this time Emily is the one leading her through the crowd, glancing back over her shoulder every few seconds like to make sure Katie’s still really there, make sure she’s okay. Katie wants to laugh.
When they get outside, Emily calls for a taxi, and they manage to sit down on the curb without falling over - Katie kicks off her shoes and pulls them into her lap, tugging her skirt down. Emily is shivering, and she leans her head on Katie’s shoulder.
“You’re gonna fuck everything up,” Katie says again after a minute, quietly; she doesn’t even feel angry right now, just wistful. She thinks she misses something they haven’t even lost yet.
Emily’s shaking, and Katie assumes it’s just from the cold until her head slips against her shoulder, and she looks down to see tears running down Emily’s cheeks. The sight makes her throat go all tight, and she thinks that if they were still little kids she would smack whoever made her twin cry. She would at least say something.
She says nothing.
Emily’s mascara is smudged under her eyes, running in tracks down her cheeks, and she looks a proper mess, but there’s a flash of bright lights, appeared from around the corner, and Katie lifts her head and looks away.
“Taxi’s here,” she announces, still not looking at her sister as she grabs her shoes and gets to her feet.
She lets go of Emily’s hand.