No Blinding Lights or Tunnels to Gates of White
Title: No Blinding Lights or Tunnels to Gates of White
Pairing: Mini/Franky, Mini/Nick
Rating: R
Summary: Mini’s not a romantic.
Fear is the heart of love
- I Will Follow You into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie
The first time she kisses a girl, it’s downstairs at Thomson McPhearson house party. She’s twelve years old and this brunette with dark blue streaks is crying on her shoulder about how she fancies this blonde who’s so taken with another girl and won’t give her the time of day.
Girls are fucking fucked up.
She doesn’t even know Thomson McPhearson. She’s looking around the room with absolute disdain, it’s a pigsty and they’re just a bunch of running hooligans with splashing alcohol and shedding clothes here and there. She’s proper slushed out, though, having finished four beers on her own, she’d just slumped down onto the floor and allowed this girl to fall beside her. The music is thumping and the ground vibrates with everyone’s running and jumping. Mini’s half-heartedly stroking the girl’s hair when she spots a tall blonde leaning against the doorframe, also just looking about the party with familiar disapproval. She catches her eye. Smiles a ‘What can you do’ smile.
The blonde blinks and shoves off the doorframe, taking a whiskey bottle and heads outside.
Well.
Guess we can’t all be friendly.
A redhead pushes past her, almost frantically running out the door. Maybe in pursuit of the blonde. She doesn’t know. But the girl on her shoulder starts crying even harder. “It’s just not fair,” she’s bawling.
“It’s alright,” Mini tries, patting her head again, “You’ll find someone.”
Then -
She doesn’t know how, but the girls’ on her lips, kissing her sloppily and running her wet hands through her hair, grabbing at her neck and pulling her on her. She falls on top of her, kissing her back, kissing because why the fuck not. Everyone’s drunk. She dips her head down and lays some kisses on the girl’s neck, so cold and soft. So soft. It’s so odd, she pulls away almost immediately, only to be grabbed again by the girl’s hungry hands and lips.
“GIRLS SNOGGING!!”
She’s off the girl in a second, ready to fight, ready to puff up her chest and walk out with a ‘so fucking what?’ but as she’s rubbing her lips, the stampede is running outside. They’ve probably missed Mini and her little friend, slumped over on the floor, looking more like they’re throwing up. The rush of the crowd continues as the people start jamming at the patio door, yelling and hooting, blocking the view.
‘GIRLS SNOGGING LIKE MAD”
“-RE’S GIRLS SNOGGING OUTSIDE-!!”
“-THE PORCH OUTSIDE, GIRLS SNOGGIN!”
“-lly, have you see my sister? WH-excuse you, goth, get out of my way, don’t you know who I am? Kelly, have you seen my sister?”
The girl pushes Mini off her in the frenzy of the crowd. Mini runs a finger over her lips. Sweet. So sweet and warm. So odd.
“No one even noticed us,” the girl’s saying, gripping her knees and pulling them to her chest. “No one ever notices me,” she says to herself quietly.
---
The first time she saw Nick, she made him hers with a wink.
He was running out of practice, patting teammates on the back, with his left sock running down, his right still pulled up, shaking sweat from his thick dark hair, the grin of a champion, a winner, brimming on his lips.
They connected eyes, for a moment just like the movies, and she knew he was her soul mate.
So she winked at him: A casual flick of her right eye and a slight turn of her lip that grew inwards as his impossibly large grin grew wider.
---
And
Nick is actually like the best fucking boyfriend ever, alright? He waits for her after her class and walks her to her next one, and when it’s their first, and second, and third month, he brings her a dozen red roses, with wine and chocolate. And he clears his plate from the table, and calls her mum Mrs. McGuinness, and opens doors and pulls out chairs, and sends her wake-up texts. She's fucking lucky. She knows it. She’s fucking lucky.
She’s really fucking lucky.
---
Mini’s not a romantic, you know. Not anymore.
Maybe she never was.
Well, it’s fucking hard to be one when you have Shelley McGuinness as a mother, alright?
Between getting fit to find a man and staying fit to keep him, there’s rarely any time for romance. Relationships are hard, and fucked up to begin with. No one is perfect. Perfection takes time. Practice. Dedication. You don’t get a good body without working, without sweat, without giving up sweets, without going some nights hungry. You don’t get a real man like Nick without working for him.
People are flawed, and selfish. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just a lovesick fool. Everyone wants what they want. Mini certainly does. So why would anyone else be different, no one’s as different, as ‘special’ as they think they are, as they present themselves to be.
except maybe
---
When she first met Franky Fitz-fucking-gerald, it’s the first day of school and she’s on her way to mathematics with Nick on her arm, when a random hideous scooter nearly knocks her off her feet and some girl-man in what can only be described as a garbage disposal rejected get-up comes flying out.
“Has the circus come to town or what?”
People laugh, because she can be funny sometimes.
Franky kept walking. Like. She’d heard everyone’s laughter, but she just...kept walking.
“Come on Mins,” Nick nibbles her ear and tightens his hold on her waist.
“Yeah,” she responds, turning head back to him and he leads the way.
---
It’s all just coming so easy, you know? For Frankster. She just rolls into town and suddenly Grace is always texting her, and Liv just gives her this lazy grin that she never gives Mini. And it’s like this fucking...this fucking freak of nature is just taking. Taking and taking and taking from Mini. Everything she cares about, everyone she’s fought for. Slipping.
So you can’t be a fucking romantic. You can’t go soft. Not when things like this, these important things, are falling to shite.
And Franky can fucking sew. And she can be helpful.
And listen.
And be sweet.
and
---
And
Nick’s everything he shouldn’t be. All of a sudden.
And well. It’s a good thing Mini’s not a romantic.
It’s all just
fucked
you know?
It’s all proper fucked, this ‘love’ deal. It’s flighty and soft but in the end it’s all a bit charade. Romance, it’s something you build, something you create from these magazines, and love just something you do.
Nick doesn’t ‘do’ love.
It’s a good thing Mini doesn’t either.
Not anymore.
---
“What’s it like?” Grace asks Mini when they’re in the common room waiting for Liv (five minutes late, a-fucking-gain.)
“What’s what like?”
“You know,” Grace says, raising an eyebrow and a shy smile playing across her lips. “Being with a boy.”
Mini’s stomach churns. She glances out the doorway to see if Liv’s on her way. She is. Thank god. “It’s nothing special, Gracie,” she says.
He didn’t say anything, but neither did she. Nothing to say, really. He pushed in and out and she ignored the burning, and tried as best as she could to ignore the sting, and hoped as he got more and more excited that he couldn’t hear her teeth clicking.
“Mini?”
“What?”
“I said maybe it’s special with the right boy.” Grace picks at her shoelaces timidly.
Liv walks in with a grin and Mini feels her eyes grow hot. “Nick and I had a great first time, Gracie.”
“That’s not what I meant, Mini!” She turns around to face Grace, who sees something in her eyes that causes her to shift back in her seat. “Mini-”
“And even if it wasn’t the best we’d ever had, because believe me we’ve had great, at least he wasn’t a pointy nosed wannabe punk lame-o rocker like your boyfriend.”
“MINI,” Liv yells.
“Fuck this,” Mini says, grabbing her purse and leaving them both there.
---
Rich probably doesn’t cheat on Grace, though.
Mini probably should’ve tried harder.
---
Mini’s in a short pink dress that’s getting colder as the night goes on. She doesn’t feel like dancing. She heads outside and pats a cobblestone seat down and sits tentatively on it, lighting a roll just as Franky busts out. They share a friendly smile and Franky attempts to climb up the ladder of the adjacent building but gives up after a few tries and decides to sit down beside her.
“Can I get a puff?” she asks, and Mini hands it back to her.
“Thanks,” Franky says, and their fingers touch, and it’s like the tiniest bit of electricity.
“Things didn’t work out with Matty, then?” Mini asks.
Franky exhales a slow, easy flow of smoke and Mini smiles at it. She’s really quite smooth, Franky. Or she’s turned out to be. A real fucking badass. “No,” Franky blinks with a cringe, rubbing at her chin and taking another puff. “Doesn’t matter,” she says with a hard sniff, “I’m fucked up as it is without him anyway.”
“You’re not fucked up. You’re proper lovely.” She didn’t mean to say it, but it comes out, and as Franky turns to her slowly, Mini realizes maybe she’s wanted to say it for a while. So she takes a breath and smiles. “You are,” she says again.
---
Mini’s not a romantic. She’s not.
Because people
They’re fucking unreliable.
Nick is shacking on his pounds, having quit the team ages ago. She’d kill herself if she ever got that fat. Sometimes she sees him just sitting, eating an entire lunch, and knowing, just knowing that he won’t even try to burn it off, just knowing that he clearly hasn’t counted those calories (12,590 thank you very much), just knowing that he’s well shot of what anyone thinks, is enough to make her skip lunch.
And Rich shaved off his entire fucking watermelon of bed hair now doing pirouettes with Gracie, it’s as though she just doesn’t care that she’s got this clunking, leather sporting, pretentious goth hanging around 24/7.
And Liv’s started to look for romance, for a steady thing. And none of it makes sense. Nothing makes sense anymore. Romance is dead. Romance, and all these fucking...feelings. They come and go.
---
She and Grace make up, mainly because Grace calls her one night.
“I love him, Mini,” she says in a tiny voice, and Mini feels something on her lips.
“I’m glad you do, Gracie,” she says.
“I mean I really really love him.”
“I know.”
---
They go to a party, and Mini hangs back at the bar, watching the bodies move, almost in slow motion, gliding and grooving to the hard thumping beat. Orange and green and purple, red, blue neon lights flash overhead, she takes a scotch on the rocks and drinks it in hard sips.
Franky’s dancing it up with some randoms when she spots her still at the bar. And with a wave and a low, “Be right back, yeah?” she hops over to her, grabbing her hand and pulling her close. “Come dance with me.”
Mini forces a smile. “I don’t feel like it.”
“Oh I see,” Framly replies, suddenly grinning with glee as a club favourite plays, she throws her hands in the air and dances like a complete idiot. “I know this song,” she says to Mini with a laugh.
And Mini can’t help but smile wider as she watches her dance, so carelessly, like no one’s watching. But Mini is. How does she do that. Dance like no one’s watching?
“What do you do, Mini?”
She tightens her jaw. “I watch. I organize. The decor of this place could be better if I had been a part of the committee.”
And Franky arches an eyebrow and laughs. “Well put that aside tonight,” she says with a mischievous grin and takes the girl’s hands. Gentler this time. “Come on,” she says, in a surprisingly soft voice, and she pulls Mini off from her position.
And they glide onto the dance floor with this ease Franky seems to have about her. Temperature heightens as she exits the bar and enters the huge crowd of dancing teenagers, sweat and alcohol filling her nose, a still soft and firm hand in hers, they weave in and out of dancing couples and raving boys, until they stop at an empty space. Franky takes both her hands in hers and smiles at her, so warmly, and Mini can’t help but feel...
“Don’t think about it, just do what feels alright,” Franky says, as she begins dancing again, a strange ease and grace to her movements.
And Mini can’t help but say ‘okay’. Feel okay.
Franky smiles at Mini’s body. “That’s it,” she says, “Loosen up.”
---
She fucks Franky Fitzgerald.
Not the other way around.
Get that clear.
She fucks Franky.
She takes her home and it’s supposed to be a routine sleepover but Franky’s lying in bed and Mini’s slipping on a top in front of the mirror and she hears the brunette turn over in bed.
“Why do you do that?” she asks.
Mini takes a tie out of her hair and runs her fingers through it. “Do what?”
“Suck in your stomach like that.”
She stills her actions and turns her head to her, then suddenly turns back, running her hands over her taut stomach and back up to her shoulder blades. She feels her fingers shaking. Why are they shaking? “I don’t,” she says.
“Yes you do.”
And she feels naked. She feels stripped and bare and scrutinized and she wants to throw up.
Franky sits up in bed and pushes the covers off her. “You don’t need to, you know?”
And she’s flustered. Or hot. She doesn’t know, but suddenly the room is spinning so she turns off the lights (that’s better) and climbs into bed, inching away from Franky’s warm body. “Whatever,” she says.
-
Sometime later, she doesn’t know when, but sometime later she feels Franky’s hand on her stomach, slowly, coming finger by finger from her back all the way around to her stomach, and she’s pressing and sliding on her stomach.
“You’re really beautiful, Mins,” Franky murmurs, “You always have been.”
She feels Franky slide a bit closer.
“Please don’t change. You don’t have to.”
Her hand moves up, and down, and up, and down Mini’s stomach, and pulls just a bit, so softly, and Mini rolls onto her back, and her head rolls over and their lips come together so slowly, languidly, like a gentle boat in a lonely ocean.
Franky moves like Nick; hard. She props up on her hands and legs like a push up and shifts her leg over Mini’s, and with a cool one hand motion her top is off, and her lips are back on Mini’s. She takes her fingertips and runs them up and down on Franky’s back, so small, so small but
“You’re so soft,” Mini murmurs with an odd fascination, moving her fingers around and running them tentatively on her stomach.
“Yeah,” Franky says with a crooked smile, and Mini lifts her eyes to meet her amused ones. “That’s because I’m a girl.”
And Mini’s hands open wider, splaying her entire hand on her waist, she pulls herself up and kisses Franky again, this time both their mouths are open, and Franky moans and Mini feels it rush down her stomach. “Yeah,” she breathes, as Franky’s hand travels down Mini’s bottoms and feels her. “Yeah, you are.”
“Is that okay?” Franky asks, and Mini opens her eyes to meet hers, so small, and her voice even smaller. And for a minute it’s as though Franky’s become that kid again, that awkward huddle of a person who crashed a cart on her first day of school, uncertain and lost. She glides her fingers down, slipping in and around a wet, wet Mini, circling her clit and pushing harder against her.
“Yeah Franks,” Mini sighs, taking her head in her hands and pulling her in for a warm kiss, “Yeah it’s alright,” she gasps as Franky glides another finger into her, tugging slightly at her waist, her other finger still shaking against her clit. “Wh...why’re you so good at this?” Mini gasps as Franky takes her hip and moves it, showing Mini how a side-to-side then arch up feels fan-fucking-tastic.
“Don’t worry about it,” Franky grins a bashful but bold one, and kisses her again, harder. “You’re really wet, Mins,” she grins against her lips.
“Shut up,” Mini gasps, and Franky picks up a rhythm, for fuck’s sake the girl learns fast, and Mini places a hand behind her head against the headboard as they move together, Franky’s fingers and hands and lips, and Mini’s waist and legs and back bucking and melting and sliding into each other. “Shut up shut up shut up,” she mumbles as she arches her neck back and Franky’s right there tasting the heat, her heartbeat, her moans through her neck. “F-franky...” she’s shuddering when Franky pushes into her exceptionally harder but just right fucking there.
“It’s okay,” Franky whispers, and it sounds like she’s just as uncertain. They kiss again, tongues sliding hard against each other and Mini feels the walls chipping away, first wallpaper then brick then drywall then paint then concrete and the ceiling starts peeling away and the ground is shaking, all silently. Everything disintegrates and she can only see Franky, only hear her sounds, her panting, feel her hands everywhere they should be, and she comes with a high pitched, shivering, “Oh!” that Franky shushes with her lips, so she just grabs the girl’s jaw and pulls her closer into her, almost swallowing her whole. Maybe she needs that.
---
So again
Just to make sure you got that right.
She
Fucked
Franky
Not the other way around.
---
It’s just a thing that happens a bit more, but it isn’t love. She can’t possibly love a girl.
And even if she could, love doesn’t exist. No one is capable of it.
---
“Where did you disappear off to after the party?” Liv asks her at lunch on Monday, shoveling a fry into her mouth, and Mini shifts away from her.
“Nowhere,” Mini says. “I went home.”
“You’ve been avoiding my texts,” Liv says icily, turning her attention to her lunch.
Grace clears her throat louder than everyone knows she needs to. “Oh look it’s Franky!”
Franky Fitz-fucking-gerald come again now at their lunch table with her chocolate milk and ham sandwich, slicing a seat down beside Grace.
“Hi,” she says, and casually strikes up a conversation with Liv about geography.
Mini ventures her eyes upwards and catches hers, glinting and bright, just as they were the other day. As though nothing happened. As though they were all just four friends sitting together eating. Friends. She pushes her tray forward and packs her bags.
“Are you done already?” Grace asks gingerly, nervously eyeing Mini’s unfinished plate.
“I’m not hungry,” Mini says, already turning away.
Franky manages to grab her wrist and Mini pulls out of it.
---
One night they’re all high off shrooms or some shit Farmboy brought to a party, and they’re dancing at a club when Franky starts getting mauled by these three frat boys. And she’s about to head over to shut the party down when Franky starts getting into it, she starts dancing into them, too. She closes her smoke-screen eyes and dances against up, lets another push against her back, and runs her hands through another’s hair, gyrates and pushes against all of them, as they’re hooting and high-fiving and Mini’s fucking enraged.
---
Grace finds her outside, sitting and smoking her second cig, downing a beer in the other hand.
“Mini?” Grace asks, “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, Gracie, I’m having a good time.”
“No you’re not,” Grace says.
“Don’t do this, Grace,” Mini replies.
Rich stumbles out with Farmboy laughing and he lifts an arm around Grace’s shoulder. “You ready to head back, gorgeous?” he asks, and Mini stops herself from gagging at the sound of it.
“Just a minute,” Grace says to them and they started strutting down the street. Grace turns to her. “Please listen to me, Mini,” she says slowly, looking over her friend. “I know what’s going on. I know you won’t tell me, because you’re silly. But you’re also lovely, Mini. And I love you just as you are. You can be a right bitch, but that’s okay. I know you still love me at the end of the day. I know your heart is filled with love. And...and well...I hope you find someone to love too, Mini.” She turns away from Mini for a moment and smiles one of the saddest smiles she’s seen Grace ever put on. “I know you don’t like him.”
Mini feels all the guilt of the world on her shoulders and she cringes into her own body. She places a hand on Grace’s arm. “No, Gracie...”
She shakes her head and smiles a bright. “But...I love him. He’s really wonderful, Mini, and I think we’re perfect together. And when it comes to love, I don’t think it matters. Whether you’re a metal head or someone of the same sex, it doesn’t matter.”
Mini’s eyes shoot up. Grace smiles another timid smile.
“Love is love, Mini, and appearances fade. So shoot for love, Mins.” She puts her hand on her knee and gets up, runs after Rich.
Mini can’t breathe.
-
That’s how Franky finds her, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes later. Still in the same position, even hyperventilating. She comes crashing out the front door in these horrid boots, a long skirt, tucked in blue shirt and white tie. She cradles two beers in one hand, one slightly emptier than the other.
“Mini,” she says with a toothy grin.
She can’t fake one. “Having another great night are we?”
Franky frowns. “It’s less shit than others.”
Mini gets up, now, suddenly re-fueled with the energy Grace has sucked out. “Well make sure you get home alright, Franks.” She’s about to leave as she’s patting herself down when Franky approaches her, setting her beers down.
“Mini are you angry with me?”
“No,” Mini says calmly, so surprisingly calmly she’s glad she did. It feels good, and it sounded perfect, and judging by Franky’s face it looks like it had just the right effect.
“You are, aren’t you?” Franky says quietly, lowering her eyes, and suddenly Mini feels smaller, too. She puts her hand on Franky’s shoulder.
“Franky...”
“I’m sorry I’ve been acting like it didn’t happen,” Franky starts saying, staring at the ground, and Mini can hear the same uncertain girl back on the first day, so nervous public speaking, so passionate and so unique but so uncomfortable in every way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for us to-I wasn’t planning on-I didn’t think you would want me to. I didn’t want -I’m sorry. I’m such a headfuck.” She closes her eyes and pushes her hands to her head and Mini’s hands are on hers right away.
“No you’re not,” she says immediately, “No, Franky, you’re not.”
She shifts out of her hold and Mini sees this small tear, so tiny, right under her left eye. “Stop doing that!” she nearly yells, and Mini even looks around to see if anyone on the street is looking. “Telling me I’m lovely,” Franky sniffs, rubbing at her nose, “I’m not lovely. I’m not pretty. I’m not anything you can think of, I’m not normal. I’m just a stupid, broken-down thing. Like a car crash.”
And Mini’s got her head in her hands immediately with a fierce energy and a shaking head. “No you’re not,” she says, nearly shaking some sense into the girl’s head. “You are beautiful, Franks. You are. And I’m always fucking right, alright?” They’re shaking against each other, Franky lost, Mini frightened.
“I can’t do this,” Franky whispers, turning her head away, and Mini kisses her cheek. “I can’t do this with you,” she says. “I need to be normal.”
Mini ignores the crashing pitfalls in her chest, because it’s all that she’s ever felt. But this time, she knows it’s different. So she shakes her head, instead. “How can this be anything but normal?” she asks.
“Mini...”
She takes Franky’s chin in hers and brings it back to align their lips together. “I want this,” she says softly, closing her eyes, “I really fucking want this.”
There’s a tense moment before Franky’s eyes open slowly, and Mini’s just losing herself in amber. “I can’t fix you, Mini,” Franky says softly, bringing a hand up to Mini’s arm and pulling it off her. “And you can’t fix me, either.”
Mini shakes her head quickly, and the crushing feeling comes at her again, but she pushes it down, pushes it down down down not now not now for fuck’s sake. “You’re not broken,” she says.
And Franky smiles, with all the genuine thanks in the world and the grin of a seasoned, damaged recluse, she takes herself out of Mini’s grip and trips up backwards away, into the smoke. “Go home, Mini,” she says, before grabbing her beers and mumbling an apology with her eyes.
---
Mini’s not a romantic.
It’s a good thing, too.
Otherwise that would’ve hurt.
That would’ve hurt like a fucking bitch.
--