Fic: And To Wonder 1/2
Title: And To Wonder 1/2
Characters: Katie, Emily/Naomi, Effy(?)
Rating: T for swearing and etc.
Word Count: Approx. 4400
Summary: Post S4, The authorities found Freddie’s body over six month ago, and Katie still can’t get out of her funk. Emily and Naomi are together, but it’s obvious that things aren’t perfect, and the majority of the gang has left town for their own reason. (Katie, Emily/Naomi, Wait is that - Effy!?)
A/N: This is a bit of a companion piece to my other my other fic, To Withdraw. Still Katie-centric - cause I love my girl!! I may or may not write another one to continue this as a series. We’ll see.
Disclaimer: This is Fan-fiction. Please look it up. If you’re too lazy - it just means that I borrowed the characters off SKINS (a TV show I have no affiliation to, and have written my own story based on the show.)
This is dedicated to all those Generation 2 lovers - especially those that are a little disappointed with how Generation 3 is unfolding. Uh, yeah… enough said.
..
She remembers the day they found the body. The news of it had shaken the small city of Bristol. Society and the media always notice when someone young dies especially if it’s tragically, and Freddie’s death was tragic. It was unbelievable and surreal. Everyone in the gang reacted differently but all the same as they all realized the fragility of their own mortality.
For the most part the majority of the group learned from it, except for Cook and Effy, who took it harder then the others and unfortunately went off the deep end. The two spent many nights and days missing from the group, as they went off going AWOL and self destructing until there was nothing left to do but to disappear. Cook was the first to go when only a month later after investigations, it was suspected that he had something to do with Dr. Foster’s murder. With Cook gone Effy vanished as well, and so did her mother. There were rumors circulating that she went to go seek medical help in Cardiff, or she just went to go see someone. It isn’t quite clear, especially since no one can remember the source of the information. It wasn’t long before Thomas and Panda (who were back together) bid Bristol farewell as they went off to attend Harvard, living the American dream, and JJ had moved to London to go to a prestigious university. The only ones that remained in Bristol were the twins, and Naomi.
Emily and Naomi were actually only a month away from travelling to Goa when Freddie’s body was discovered. After much fighting with their travel insurance agents, the girls were able to post-pone their trip for a couple months while they waited for the dust to settle. They eventually went to Goa, and have recently returned to England about a month ago. When they came back, Katie noticed a change. The girls were the same but different. She couldn’t understand why, and with little knowledge of what happened in Goa besides pictures and blogging on the Internet, Katie decided to not butt her nose in their business just yet. It wasn’t as if they didn’t get along, because they did (mostly.) There was just a noticeably different tone to their relationship, and she wondered if it was a hint, or a premonition that something was going to happen to the girls later. She knew eventually that she would get involved somehow. Especially now that she lives with them.
After graduation and right before Freddie’s death was confirmed, Katie moved in with her sister and her girlfriend into their tiny flat. She was done living with her mother who still remained to be a callous bigot over Emily’s life choices, and she figured that it was about time she moved out anyway.
The three of them mostly got along. She did grow to like Naomi after all, but like in every similar situation - when you’re living with a couple, you’ll never win against them in anything. You were also always the third wheel and the odd one out. Katie didn’t care though. That’s how things were; that’s how they continued to be, and Katie became just too apathetic about everything to give a shit.
About a week ago, Katie had went to a group interview for an internship at a fashion design institute where she lost the position to some better than her twat. She surprised herself when she didn’t flip out and wreak havoc all over Bristol. During the ride home on the bus afterwards, with headphones in her ears as she gazed out the window looking at nothing in particular - Katie realized she just didn’t care anymore.
Life since Freddie died has been different, and continues to be as she goes through the motions, still stuck in a funk that she can’t seem to get out of. Like Freddie’s death revealed to her the meaning of life. (At least to her.) That we are born to live and die… And that was it. No one could escape this fate. Everyone was doomed to the same ending but never in the same way. Everyone was going to get his or her own individual finale - and since it was death there will never be a happy ending. The epiphany (even though it really wasn’t one since everyone knows they are going to die after being told so by their parents, or someone alike in an early childhood memory) just felt too final, and yet unsettling at the same time. It frustrated her then, and continues to frustrate her now, leaving her most days feeling jaded. Some days when it became too much for her to analyze, Katie forces herself to stop thinking about it altogether - but that can only work for so long. She could only keep her brain focused on other things for an extended amount of time before she found her thoughts leading back to the topic again. Which was funny really because this was what life’s all about, right? Distracting ourselves until it’s over…
..
She glances at the clock, as she sits in the lunchroom alone. It is only ten passed seven in the evening and she is about two hours away from being done work. This is what her life consisted of these days. Waiting, and working. The door to the staff room opens as a coworker walks in. He doesn’t bother sharing eye contact with her as he heads to his locker, rifles through the storage compartment very quickly before leaving Katie alone in the room again. He’s some new boy that works as a cashier up front.
Yes, after failing to get the job of her dreams, Katie Fucking Fitch landed herself a glorious new clerking job at a local organic and natural whole foods store. Very glamorous. Very exciting.
The door bursts open as her boss, Frank, a large man with a hideous comb-over checks in with her. He’s nice, but a bit annoying, “You still on break?”
“Yeah I’ve got about five minutes left.”
He nods with a gentle smile and leaves.
Katie sighs, as she checks her nails and continues to wait. Her once beautifully manicured nails were now chipped, and cracked. About a year ago, she would’ve died if she was caught with such hideous nails, but nowadays it just didn’t seem to be important anymore. Her break ends, and with forced enthusiasm she heads back to finish the last run of her shift.
The one good thing about working at the store is that since she works with a bunch of hippies, everyone is pretty mellow to say the least. There was always plenty of room to slack off. In fact everyone does; from the staff to even some of the management. Work still somehow gets done, but it’s like no one’s really serious or hardcore about working. There is just such a relaxed vibe throughout the company and it’s certainly something that Katie digs. The less stress in her life the better considering there seems to be nothing for her to look forward to these days.
She grabs a stepladder and puts it in the bottom shelf of a cart. She then places a carton of gourmet soy sauces on the top shelf and heads to the floor. When she gets to her destination aisle, an old lady stands in the way.
With a deep breath, Katie puts her customer service face on before politely asking the lady if she would like some help looking for product. The old woman turns around and sneers at Katie before walking away. The downside to working at the hippy store was that with the hippies came the weirdos that shopped there.
She rolls her eyes, as she grabs the stepladder off her cart. She climbs up, bringing the basket of the dark liquid sauces with her. As she begins to stock the shelf, she hears a fizzing sound. Suddenly soy sauce is spraying everywhere, as Katie looks down at her basket in time to watch a bottle explode!
A married couple stands about four feet away as Katie yelps in surprise, “Jesus Christ!” The smell of tamari fills her nostrils, as Katie sets the basket back down on the cart. Her thigh is soaked, leaving her feeling very icky. (If it weren’t for the uniform apron, she might’ve lost it had her top had been ruined by the sticky situation.) She looks up to see the couple stare at her briefly before pushing away to another aisle.
Great, what a lovely way to finish off the evening. Really.
..
It’s dark out as Katie walks home from work. She normally wouldn’t be caught dead walking home this late at night, because she may be tempting sexual predators to come and jump her but she didn’t really feel like taking the bus when she still reeked of soy sauce. (She’s pretty sure her smell is repelling all her sexual predators right now, anyway.)
It isn’t far of a walk Katie realizes, when she sees that the house is only a few blocks away. It’s a very tiny old house that’s kind of falling apart in a vintage sort of way. They lived in this tiny bungalow, with two bedrooms, a full bath, kitchen and living room (where Katie often sleeps since her room is pretty much a closet.) As she gets close she makes out a figure sitting on the darkly lit front steps. She sees that it’s Naomi who’s decided to smoke a spliff. She joins the blonde, sitting next to her. Naomi offers her a drag. Katie purses her lips, as she considers it for a moment, before waving her hand to say no.
Shrugging, Naomi asks her, “How was work?”
“Meh. You?”
Naomi smiles, as she says that it was the same for her. Though the blonde enjoyed working at the campus library it was still a job and it can be pretty dull. She pauses, as she makes a face, “Is that you I’m smelling?”
The shorter girl tugs on her pea coat, as if tightening it around body would help suppress the smell better as she snorts: “Yeah. A fucking bottle of soy sauce sprayed all over me today.”
The taller girl laughs, and asks Katie to recount her sorry tale. When Naomi gets confused over how a bottle simply exploded, Katie tries to explain to the half stoned blonde how there was some sort of compression from the fermentation that sometimes causes things like tamari to explode from the pressure. She’s not sure if the blonde actually gets it, but is happy when the older girl accepts her theory (her boss’s theory, actually) as they giggle over the incident. When their laughter fades out, they sit in silence as Naomi continues to smoke the remainder of her weed.
It sometimes surprised the twin at how she and Naomi have come such a long way. There was a time when they both despised each other. Then time passed, things changed, and the girls found themselves tolerating each other for Emily’s sake. Now, here they are as proper mates. Friends that sit together in comfortable silence - and it really is comfortable, Katie thinks.
“This must be the weakest shit I’ve ever had.” Naomi drones, staring down at the offending joint.
“Maybe you should consider quitting?”
“Yeah I think I will. It’s pretty replusive.” The taller girl drops the joint, and crushes it with the heel of her shoe.
“I mean in general. Maybe slow it down or something.”
Naomi stares at her as if she’s grown a second head. It’s not like Katie has suddenly found Jesus and has turned her back on drugs and drinking, that she’s suggesting Naomi to do the same. She used to enjoy getting high, or wasted out of her mind, but now she just didn’t see the point of it anymore - and it stopped being appealing. She’s about to explain herself when the sound of a car driving catches both their attention. The girls straighten up as they soon watch a police car drive by in haste. Katie turns to observe the blonde and watches her reach up to wipe at her mouth with the back of her hand. The twin gives her a knowing look to which Naomi smirks back sarcastically. She squints at Katie, as if a sudden thought pops into her mind before pursing her lips, “Something up?”
Katie’s brow furrows, “No. Why? Have I given you a reason to think that?”
She watches the blonde consider a reply before dropping it completely. Instead, she runs her hand through her blonde locks and suggests that they both should head inside for a light snack.
..
About twenty minutes later the girls sit in the tiny living room, squished together on the loveseat flipping from one late night channel to another. Naomi actually isn’t even really watching as she has her nose buried in a textbook.
The front door swings open as Emily enters, having come back from work. Katie watches her sister slip out of her coat, and toss her bag aside, immediately bee lining for Naomi. The redhead (who really needs to give her locks a good dye job again, since the red has completely faded) kisses her girlfriend lightly on the forehead. Naomi looks up and greets her with a slow peck on the lips before Emily heads to the kitchen.
From the kitchen, Emily yells asking the girls if they want anything.
Katie replies for the both of them, “No thanks we just ate.”
Her sister frowns but the moment washes over completely as she directs her focus back to making toast, “So I ran into a girl at the spa tonight.” (Unlike Katie who works with a bunch of hippies, Emily managed to get a job as a receptionist at a highly recognized beauty parlor - and of course Katie was not one to hold back her jealousy. So, being the dear that she is Emily tried to get her a job there, but management insisted that it was in their policy to not hire family members.) Naomi nods, saying a quick ‘Mmhmm.’
Katie watches like a fly on the wall, pretending to be paying attention to the telly, when in fact she’s listening carefully to their conversation. She can feel Emily trying to push Naomi into talking further about this girl, but the blonde continues to act oblivious - which Katie honestly believes is legit. She knows Naomi enough these days to be able to tell if the blonde was putting up an act or hiding something, and right now she is being real.
Emily clears her throat loudly before saying timidly, “She said her name was Sarah. Do you know her?” Being passive-aggressive was extremely common for the younger twin these days.
When Naomi doesn’t respond right away, Katie nudges her. She looks up and stares at the older twin, who gestures to the kitchen. Naomi lets out a heavy breath before answering, “To be honest Ems I don’t remember ever meeting a girl named Sarah. I don’t know maybe I ran into her at school and just forgot all about it. Uni is huge and I always meet new people all the time but that doesn’t mean I remember every single one of them.”
It’s obvious that Emily isn’t satisfied with Naomi’s explanation as she just stares blankly at Naomi. Her toast pops up interrupting the silence, but Emily doesn’t move.
Katie clears her throat, and points it out, “Um Ems, your toast is ready.”
Emily wakes out of her trance, and the subject is dropped. She butters her toast and finishes her snack in the kitchen.
She hates to think that this tension is about trust. Did something awful really happen in Goa - Katie sighs not wanting to finish her train of thought, because really they just got over the Sophia thing. She hears footsteps and sees her sister walk over to Naomi, to lean down and whisper in her ear.
Naomi stops reading as she listens. She takes a moment to ponder, looking over at Katie once, before whispering something back into Emily’s ear. They share a look before they head to their bedroom.
The door shuts gently behind them and moments later she hears them talking quietly from the bedroom. She exhales deeply, realizing that she’d been holding her breath. Well at least their voices aren’t being raised, so that might be a good thing, she thinks. She decides then it’s time to talk to Emily, once they’re alone together, and finally ask her what the fuck is up.
Unexpectedly, quiet music begins to play from their room - Katie rolls her eyes for she knows what that means. She falls back onto the couch, grossed out over the fact that she knows that they’re having sex right now. Probably some form of make up sex cause the music is sappy and lame.
Her ears unfortunately perk up as she hears a soft feminine whimper loud enough for her to yell out in panic, “Turn it up you bitches. I can hear you!”
The sound of their laughter pisses her off, before the girls comply and the music is turned up. She grabs for the remote and turns up the telly, flipping through channels and hoping to find some program on that has a loud soundtrack or something. It works, thankfully (she hopes to god that the neighbors aren’t being kept up - the combined noise of the TV and stereo is pretty loud.)
Maybe there was nothing going on, Katie thinks. Not that she was an expert, because she clearly wasn’t, but she figures that relationships aren’t perfect, so maybe she was misreading the girls after all. Honestly, would they really be shagging right now, sounding all loved up and happy after a serious fight or talk? Or maybe she was just making excuses for them because she was too hopeful that things were just fine.
All this relationship and sex thoughts begin to annoy Katie, causing her to think of the lack of both in her life. The plus sides to being single and having no sex are: 1) there was no drama, and 2) random sex with strangers was all right but it could never beat relationship sex. Fucking someone you’re with was always better because you already knew each other’s bodies, how they work and what buttons to press. Random sex could be exciting but it was usually sloppy (which can be a little hot, she admits), but Katie almost always found that she could never get off. She groans as the thought of her being on this dry spell for months is depressing her. She’s also left thinking about how they’re still doing it in there, and fuck does it make her resent them a bit. She closes her eyes, and tries to think of unsexy thoughts hoping it will help, but usually Naomi is the first thing that comes to mind when she thinks of the word unsexy, and right now thinking of the blonde forces her to unfortunately visualize the lovely twat banging her sister. She shudders, opening her eyes immediately as she realizes nothing is going to work right now unless she gets out.
She gets up and heads to her room where she changes into a pair of new jeans. She heads back out into the living room and turns the TV off. On her way out, she nicks a lighter and a fag from a pack Naomi left on the coffee table.
With a lit fag dangling between her lips, she walks for quite some time with no real direction or destination. Again, typically she wouldn’t be this risqué walking alone this late at night, but like everything else these days she doesn’t care. Besides, she thinks as she looks down at her wardrobe, it’s not like she is wearing anything to bait predators. She is only wearing a fresh new pair of non-soy sauce jeans, and a mustard plaid button up over a white vest top (which she admits is a bit gay, but all the hippies at the store pretty much dressed this way.) Her outfit nevertheless does have a hint of her Katie flare as she is still accessorized with large loopy earrings, rows of platinum bangles along her wrists, and of course her beloved 3” stilettoes. She still felt like Katie, but maybe a little bit conservative and relaxed. Maybe this is what Emily feels like - comfortable and unwounded - Katie thinks, snorting when she figures that she’s dressed more like her twin these days.
She continues walking until she realizes that she’s slowly approaching the pier where she and Effy reconciled. Her ears perk up as she hears some loud music being played really loudly. She walks closer and realizes that there’s an outdoor event that is taking place at the wharf. As she gets nearer she sees throngs of people and then remembers that last week Emily had mentioned something about some sort of music affair was taking place tonight at the dock. She also remembered the word free being mentioned, which explains why there’s tons of dodgy looking people everywhere amongst the flashy lights and the smell of weed.
She hasn’t been to a party in ages let alone been out of the house much. Katie can’t remember the last time she got intoxicated or high. Has it been a month? Or months even? She debates for a moment on leaving but then her intuition tells her to stay. Besides what was she going to do anyway if she left? Go back home? The other two were probably still fucking.
A female voice calls out to her, interrupting her thoughts.
“Hey Emily is that you?”
Really - Emily? She reaches up instinctively touching her obviously dark burgundy hair, as she turns around to face the girl the voice belonged too.
For starters, the girl had a full head of bright pink hair, and a lip ring. She’s also obviously on something as her bloodshot brown eyes bore into hers. The girl looks at her quizzically probably debating whether or not she really is Emily, with dyed hair or something, Katie thinks. (Since graduation, both twins often forgot to tell people that they meet individually that they have an identical twin. It was just something that never came up sometimes or they didn’t bother bringing up - unless it really needed to be said.)
“Oh,” the girl says less baffled, as if a light bulb had gone off in her head. Katie realizes the girl didn’t properly introduce herself. It makes sense because the girl obviously thinks Katie knows her, as Emily. “You dyed your hair. It looks good. I didn’t think I’d see you here.”
“Yeah,” Katie says, surprising herself when she decides to go along with the girl. This could be amusing, Katie thinks. All she had to do was limit the amount of words that she says in order to hide the lisps and she could easily fool this girl. She decides to name the drunk girl, Pinkie and wishes she could give herself a pat on her back because judging by the way the girl presented herself - Pinkie definitely suites her.
“Well come on then, let’s go.”
She puts a grin on her face, tosses the fag aside and follows the girl over to the dock.
There must have been close to over a thousand people here, maybe even more she thinks, as she lays her eyes on the swarms of people in the crowd. They surround a stage that is right smack in the middle of the port, and close to the water. It’s a weird mix, Katie thinks as she examines the many different types of folks dressed in all sorts of fashion, and from different age groups. She’s sure that some of them are most likely underage, but judging by the minimal amount of security it appears that anyone could just join the party. It’s definitely an alternative crowd (surely Emily’s kind of people, and sort of like the hippies from work.) It’s different she thinks, and decides to explore her sister’s world.
It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she could really pull off pretending to be Emily if she wanted to. Clearly no one else here seems to know her besides Pinkie, who apparently isn’t even close friends with her sister anyway, judging by the minimal amount of conversation they’ve had so far. It’s kind of nice, to not know anyone. Like there’s no pressure at all to be anything, and instead she could just be. So she was pretending to be her gay twin sister - who fucking cares? It clearly wasn’t going to affect anyone tonight, because no one here seems to really know her twin anyhow.
Out of the corner of her eye she thinks she sees a flash of familiar long brown hair, and intense blues eyes. Her throat goes dry as she quickly turns to see if it’s really her, but when she looks over the girl in question slips away deeper into the crowd.
Suddenly a body collides into her. She falls over but then feels a pair of soft, tiny feminine hands grasps at her shirt tightly, pulling her back up. Finding her balance she stands back up, inadvertently sliding into her captor’s arms. She hears a male voice next to them burst out in laughter. Katie turns her head to get a good look at the pillocks that rudely rammed into her, when she finds herself staring at a petite raven-haired girl with electric green eyes. She’s surprised that such a tiny feminine being was able to catch her from falling. The girl stares back, their eyes locking as Katie realizes she knows this girl.
Part Two