effie yaxley (euphemia) wrote in cultureic, @ 2016-07-05 22:21:00 |
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“C’mon,” Effie had said, linking arms with Elsie to lead her away from the festivities to a beach that glowed almost white under the nearly full moon. She couldn’t really explain why she’d wanted Elsie to herself, only that she did. So she’d stolen a bottle of champagne and then she’d stolen Elsie. They’d been chatting for a bit, passing the bottle back and forth between them. Effie had her toes buried in the still sun-warm sand and her palms buried in it, too, to prop her up on the beach. Now, they were in the middle of a lull in their conversation that might’ve felt more comfortable if Effie’s skin wasn’t buzzing. She couldn’t put her thumb on why she felt so desperate for Elsie’s attention and, though she could literally turn to Elsie and find her friend looking back, Effie found herself wanting more. “What if,” Effie asked, the corners of her mouth twitching mischievously because she was going to say something specifically to shock Elsie, “I dared you to go skinny dipping?” Elsie tried not to choke on the champagne as she lowered the bottle from her lips and held it out to Effie. With a hard swallow, she shook her head. Then with a laugh that sounded slightly hollow from nerves, she said, “What if we stayed here and finished this bottle while we’re warm and dry and fully clothed?” Weight shifted to one hand and the bottle in the other, Effie took a swig of champagne, studying Elsie appraisingly around the bottle. “But what if I double dared you to go skinny dipping?” she asked as she passed the bottle back to Elsie. She sat up straighter, brushing the sand on her palms away on her thighs. “I’ll go, too.” Resting the bottle on top of her knee, Elsie laughed again as though this were just another of the flustering jokes her best friend often told. She’d learned a long time ago there was no reason to be flustered over those, but lately they’d been flustering her anyway. The thought of either of them being naked in the other’s presence made her cheeks burn. “You know, we have swimsuits with us if you want to go swimming,” Elsie tried for a teasing smile before she hid it behind another swig from the bottle. “Maybe it’s the being naked part I’m after,” Effie said, managing a teasing smile of her own as she reached for the bottle. “Not the swimming.” She realized, with a jolt of clarity that made the space between her eyebrows crease, that she wasn’t really joking. She took a long swallow from the bottle and shrugged. “Whatever you want, though.” Elsie’s eyes followed the bottle before she turned them on the ocean and gave the empty beach a long moment of consideration. “There’s no one out here,” she said, ducking her head and letting her hair fall forward to hide the flush in her cheeks. “I won’t stop you if you want to.” “Hmm, okay,” Effie said, passing the bottle back to Elsie. Shifting onto her knees, she wriggled out of her dress and balled it up to toss it at Elsie’s lap with a flourish. On her knees still, she sat back on her legs and feet and watched Elsie for a long moment, trying to decide what to do next. Her hands went to the tie of her bikini top, but she didn’t undo it just yet. Instead, she added, both expectant and tentative, “Now you?” Distracted by the hands at the top of her bikini, Elsie had to shake her head just slightly to snap herself out of it. But as long as she’d fancied Effie, who often made remarks that made her blush, Elsie had never felt quite so exposed. If she played along, she was almost certain she’d be in for disappointment. But if she refused, she’d never know. So she sat back and tugged off her dress, discarding it in the sand. She was second-guessing her choice in bikini when she glanced at Effie. “Your turn.” The next morning, Effie opened her eyes to a different bed on a different island with a warm body next to hers that was only different because of the night before. She glanced over at a still sleeping Elsie, mouthed an ‘Oh’, and promptly started to inch out of bed so she could find a glass of water and hopefully her sanity. Panic wasn’t really an emotion that knew how to register itself across Effie’s face, so she didn’t look it, but she was definitely panicking. Effie’s weight shifting across the mattress was just enough to stir Elsie. She cracked open one eye in time to see her friend stand up and realized immediately that neither of them was wearing clothes. The events of the previous night came rushing back to her and suddenly she was wide awake, wishing she could remember where she’d left her dress or that the bag she’d packed wasn’t all the way across the room. Her cheeks were burning red as she tugged the covers up to her neck and cleared her throat. Her quiet “Morning” sounded as uncertain as she felt. When Effie wheeled around to face Elsie and found her covering herself, Effie started to panic a little harder. “Good morning,” she said, though, the words pitched higher than she’d meant them to. She promptly abandoned her quest for water and started to search for their dresses. Elsie’s dress was first, which was promptly tossed at her friend, and then she was tugging her own over her head, her eyes averted. “We should order breakfast,” Effie said when her eyes fell on the menu. Which was lucky because she wasn’t sure she could do this on an empty stomach. “Okay, yeah,” Elsie said as she pulled her dress on and tried to ignore the heavy feeling settling in her chest. This was what she’d been afraid of — that things would be weird. That she’d be weird. She tried to think of something else to say but despite being wide awake, sleep was taking its time leaving the part of her brain in charge of speech. “Breakfast sounds good.” “Good,” Effie echoed. She felt off-balance and she definitely wanted to kiss Elsie again (and again and again), but it felt like they’d already beaten their respective retreats. Her eyes slid over Elsie, the night before flashing vividly across her mind’s eye, but then her gaze slid away, back to the menu, which she hastily scooped up. “I’m starving.” “Me too.” Elsie shoved the blankets off her legs and got out of bed, trying to act normal as she moved in closer to glance at the menu in Effie’s hands. It wasn’t as close as she wanted, but the potential that she’d be rejected now that they were there in the cold, sober light of day kept her from coming any closer. Still, she’d meant to look at the menu but couldn’t keep her eyes off Effie’s face, trying to read how she felt from the line of her mouth. “We’ll need coffee, too.” “And dessert,” Effie said with a nod, feeling a bit more like herself now that they were talking about food. She glanced at Elsie, who definitely wasn’t close enough, and added, “Shall we get a bit of everything?” “Why not?” Elsie attempted a grin, though her nerves likely shone through. “We may as well get to say we’ve tried everything.” But just as quickly as she’d said it, she realized what she could’ve meant and her cheeks turned red again. She looked back at the menu, hoping Effie wouldn’t notice. Elsie’s potentially cheeky comment had Effie pressing her lips together to suppress a smile. But her friend’s embarrassment put her back on firmer ground so she shifted her weight from one foot to the other until she’d edged in closer to Elsie, their elbows bumping as she turned the menu over to read the back. “I suppose we will be able to say we’ve tried everything,” she said, off-hand, her eyes darting to Elsie’s face. Elsie swallowed before she lifted her gaze to Effie, but when she saw Effie looking back at her, she averted her gaze with a laugh that sounded thin to her own ears. “Are we going to have time for all that before the portkey leaves?” “I’d imagine so. We’ve until noon,” Effie said, a tiny furrow appearing between her brows. She didn’t navigate other people’s nerves well, especially when she didn’t want them to be nervous around her. She turned the menu back over, angling her elbow away from Elsie’s this time. “We can always bring it back with us. So I’ll go ahead and ring for it?” But Effie didn’t wait for Elsie to answer, moving away to reach for the phone and sounding a lot more confident as she told the front desk how she wanted their eggs. The thing about hooking up with a best friend was you still wanted the person to like you when it was all said and done. If not, then what was it worth? It had been several days of uncertainty, of treading lightly when Effie was present. They'd avoided glances at work, had barely hexted since they'd got back to England and the delicate nature of the situation was beginning to impress upon Elsie that maybe she'd been right to keep it a secret. Maybe she should've never let Effie kiss her. She could brace herself for the inevitability of never kissing Effie again. But she couldn't go without her best friend. So she hexted her. One of them had to pretend things were normal. But within a half hour, everything had changed. She had a date. She hadn't ruined it. And she could barely keep the smile off her face. Elsie wasn’t sure what to expect when she apparated to Effie’s flat, but she was armed with a bottle of firewhiskey and a carton of ice cream. She knew her friend was upset — that she needed a distraction or a shoulder to cry on or something. So Elsie swallowed her feelings about Marcus and Antonin and the fact that Effie had cancelled their date and was probably sad about Benjy, the wanker who’d treated her like shit for years. She could figure all of that out later. Right now, her bestie needed her. “Effie?” She walked through the living room, poking her head into Effie’s bedroom before she heard sounds coming from the kitchen. When she got there, she watched Effie at work for a moment before clearing her throat. With a weak smile, she said, “Hey, Eff.” And holding up her offerings in each hand. “Brought some reserves.” “Hey,” Effie said upon turning around to take in Elsie and her offerings. Her chest clenched, but she was committed to feeling nothing about anything that had happened. The complicated situation couldn’t complicate her life if she didn’t let it. She gave Elsie a tight, fleeting smile and then wiped her hands off on her apron so she could reach for the firewhiskey without getting flour all over the bottle. To the bottle, which she was intently studying so she didn’t have to look at Elsie for a moment, Effie said, “This looks like a good one.” And then, to Elsie, “Are you okay?” The beginnings of a pointless anecdote about how she’d acquired the firewhiskey didn’t have a chance to leave Elsie’s mouth before Effie’s question had her closing it. She took a deep breath. Meeting Effie’s gaze, she tried not to think about Marcus but it was a wasted effort. She bit her lip before she finally said, “I’m really going to miss him.” “Me too,” Effie said hollowly, glancing at the bottle again. She reached out and drew her hand along Elsie’s arm, catching at Elsie’s fingers with a sympathetic look, but then she turned on her heel and flitted back to the dough on the counter, setting aside the firewhiskey so she could get back to work. Her next words came quickly, like she was trying to distract from the chink in her armor. “I was just punching out the air. There’s cupcakes there if you want one. And I baked biscuits this morning. They’re savory, though. Rosemary.” “These look brilliant. Smells good, too,” Elsie said, letting her hand fall back to her side and walking further into the kitchen to take in the spread of baked goods on her counter. When she looked back at Effie, her brows were creased with concern she’d hoped wouldn’t be obvious. But she was much less practiced at appearing unfazed. “You’ve been busy.” Effie ignored Elsie’s creased brows and nodded at a tray of caramels. “I wasn’t feeling well,” she explained, “and then I felt fine so I thought Belinda could use something to nibble on and Sebastian’s parents probably aren’t thinking about how important sweets are and then…I probably got carried away.” She met Elsie’s eyes with another brief smile. Elsie returned her smile and moved to put the ice cream in the freezer. When she turned around, she took in the kitchen from a new angle and pressed her lips together. “So, if you’re not done getting carried away,” she said, her eyes sweeping over the flour and dough on the counter. “Put me to work, then? We can bake twice as much with two of us.” When Effie smiled again, it was grateful and it lingered. She ducked out of her apron and then looped the neck of it over Elsie’s head. She left the ties to her and went back to her dough, shaping it absently into loaves as she glanced at her open cookery book. ”How do you feel about brownies? Have they been done enough?” “How is that even a question?” Elsie grinned, mostly to herself as she finished with the strings. “Everyone loves brownies.” The further she got from Tuesday, the more off-kilter Effie felt. She didn’t realize it, but she was in a holding pattern, waiting for the three people who were suddenly gone from her life to somehow reassert themselves. Marcus needed to pop up and claim he’d only been faking his death again. Antonin needed say something that was only weird because she’d had a crush on him when she’d been younger. And Benjy. Benjy hadn’t been hers in years and she wasn’t supposed to care about him and it was stupid to even bother. But Effie was waiting for Benjy to tell her he’d told her so. She knew what she’d say if he did. She would say she’d never doubted him. She’d just wanted him to be careful or to shut up depending on how charitable she was feeling. Mostly Effie was staring at her computer screen, frowning and getting no work done. She glanced away from the computer to sigh and caught Elsie’s eye. Effie quickly rearranged her features into something blander and less nakedly miserable, but she knew that wasn’t going to fool her best friend. Elsie had been watching Effie on and off all morning, knowing that she must’ve been feeling much worse than she’d ever let on. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen her best friend pretend things were fine when they were anything but, but this may have been the worst. Still, she hadn’t wanted to press and she certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about her being upset about Benjy. So she’d tried just to be there for her instead. That would only go so far and she knew it. But when Effie caught her staring, she fixed her face into what she hoped was a sympathetic smile and then let her attention back to the work she should’ve been doing instead. Elsie’s sympathetic smile briefly rankled Effie, but she shook it off with a slight jerk of her head and reached for her stack of sticky notes. She wrote a quick note — “Stop staring at me.” with a smiley face added at the very end to show she wasn’t being entirely serious — and levitated the note over to stick itself to Elsie’s forehead. The note prompted Elsie to jump a bit in her seat but once she read it, she cast a more genuine grin in Effie’s direction. Then leaning over the note, she penned a quick response — “Stop being so nice to stare at.” before levitating it back to her. She went back to work, or at least back to pretending to work, too apprehensive about how her compliment would be received to watch her read it. Effie hadn’t forgotten everything that’d happened before Tuesday night. She hadn’t forgotten wanting to take Elsie out, wanting to kiss her, wanting everything. And she still wanted all of that. But for some reason, she couldn’t. She stared down at the note for a long moment, the corners of her mouth quirking almost imperceptibly. “Can we get a coffee for lunch?” she wrote back, though, and levitated it over to Elsie. Elsie glanced down at the note and even though she still wasn’t certain about where they stood after everything that had happened in the last week, she was at least reassured Effie wasn’t repulsed by the implication. She lifted her gaze to meet her friend’s and nodded at her. If she couldn’t have a date — or a kiss — coffee was at least something. “I have to go,” Effie had said as the music at Pip and Clara’s reception went from slow to jaunty. She didn’t bring Elsie with her this time, didn’t even give her the chance to follow. She just stepped away and apparated to her doorstep as something unavoidable built behind her ribcage. Her lungs, her heart, her entire body seized, drawing itself tight around this feeling that felt like maybe she was hyperventilating. The door of her flat proved to be a challenge. Effie jabbed at the keyhole and either her key wouldn’t fit or the hole kept moving on her just to fuck with her. But she was tired and frustrated and hyperventilating and her inability to get inside was making the air she was trying to suck in that much more ineffective. It wasn’t until her forehead met the solid wood of her door and a quiet sob passed her lips that Effie realized she wasn’t really hyperventilating. Her friend’s sudden departure caught Elsie off guard and for a moment, she stood dumbfounded as the music continued to play around her. It wasn’t until one half of a dancing couple bumped her shoulder that she decided she was going after her and started making hasty rounds, saying goodbye to the people she thought might notice she’d gone. She was at her Effie’s door within minutes of her exit but when she saw her still standing there, her forehead pressed to the wood, her worry and urgency dissipated. Taking a step toward her, she placed a hand on her arm. “Hey, Eff.” Effie swallowed hard around the lump in her throat and hastily swiped at her watering eyes before pulling away from the door to face Elsie. “I’m fine,” she said thickly, attempting to school her features into something neutral. But then her face fell and she quickly buried it in her hands, dropping her keys in her haste to hide. The feelings she’d been denying all week and the tears she’d refused to cry were finally forcing their way to the surface and she was helpless against it. The keys forgotten, Elsie stepped in closer and wound her arms around Effie’s shoulders to pull her in. “You don't have to be fine,” she said softly. Effie buried her face, hands and all, in Elsie’s shoulder, her own shoulders shaking as she finally let herself cry. She tried to say something, like that she was still fine or that she’d just had a lot to drink and not enough to eat, but all that came out were incomprehensible sounds. One thing Elsie had known about Effie for years was that she rarely showed exactly how she was feeling. They'd spent the past week not talking about Antonin or Marcus or Benjy. They hadn't even talked about their date. So the tears caught her off guard but Elsie had been far more out of her element before and had still managed. She could do this. “Don’t try to talk. It's all right,” she said in just above a whisper, a hand moving to rub slow circles on Effie's back. “Just let it out.” So Effie let it out and didn’t bother trying to say anything else. She tugged her hands from where they were wedged between Elsie’s shoulder and her own face so she could wrap her arms around her friend and cry in the hallway outside her flat. It had been a lot when she’d told Jonah it was too much, but the empty spaces they’d left behind were genuinely too much and it had finally sunk in. Eventually Effie’s breathing evened out and her shoulders stopped shaking. Her tears slowed to a trickle and her embrace was less desperate. She finally shifted so her face wasn’t buried anymore and hooked her chin over Elsie’s shoulder. She didn’t feel better. How could she after everything? But she didn’t feel as tightly wound. As Effie seemed to calm down, Elsie took her own deep breath and hoped the tight feeling in her chest and sting behind her eyes would abate on their own. There was a shudder to her breath as she let it out again. “Do you want to go inside?” “Yes,” Effie said thickly, pulling away to swipe at her eyes. She bent over to grab her keys and passed them off to Elsie with a sniff. The corners of Elsie’s mouth pulled up in a weak grin for a fleeting moment before she took the keys and opened the door. “Come on, then.” She stepped aside to let Effie go ahead of her, a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’ll make you a cuppa.” Elsie had been preparing for weeks to watch the Real Housewitches summer special and when the night had finally come, it was almost perfect — almost free of the reminder that one of her friends was dead. She’d never be able to raise her eyebrows while he bragged about himself or whine until he gave her something. She’d never be able to argue with him for the sake of arguing or work with him for the sake of the cause. She wouldn’t get to send anymore severed fingers with him. There was a Marcus-shaped hole in her life. But she still had the Real Housewitches. And she still had Effie, who she’d roped into watching the special with her. Given that Effie had cancelled their date nearly two weeks earlier and hadn’t rescheduled, Elsie wasn’t really sure to what extent she did have her. But she was sure it was to some extent at least. Whatever that meant, it didn’t stop her from wondering if she’d ever get to kiss her again. She wasn’t thinking about that when the witches on the telly started bickering over which swimsuit they were going to wear to their first cook out of the year. She hadn’t even thought of it when Effie left the room and came back, taking a seat close enough that their shoulders were touching. Or when she’d smiled at her after making a joke about one of the housewitch’s taste in cauldrons. No, Elsie wasn’t thinking about it at all. “These women are my heroes,” Effie said after a group of witches gossipped about one of the other witch’s terrible boob job behind her back. She thought about saying something like ‘without the fake tits, of course’, but slanted a quick look in Elsie’s direction and decided against it. She definitely thought about kissing Elsie, too, but where she wasn’t quite emotionally constipated anymore, she felt romantically constipated instead. With a smile aimed at Elsie, she added, “I want to be just like them when I grow up.” “You’ve already grown up,” Elsie said, returning her smile and trying not to let her eyes linger on Effie’s lips too obviously as they moved. “And you’re brilliant as is but I suppose it’s never too late to learn how to cause an entire room full of grown women to have a total meltdown.” “You don’t think I can already manage that?” Effie asked, her smile going teasing. “Oh, of course you can,” Elsie said, trying not to cringe when she heard a hint of being flustered in her voice. “This’ll just give you more ideas.” Effie laughed and almost reassured Elsie she was teasing, it didn’t matter. But the television caught her attention again. “Oh Merlin, she was listening the whole time,” she said with another laugh, delighted. “She’s going to burn all their houses down.” “That’s what they get,” Elsie said with a laugh, glad to have something else to talk about than Effie’s ability to cause meltdowns. “That’s the best thing about it. They’re all so awful you’re never sure what they’ll do next.” “My heroes,” Effie said, putting on a look of faux adoration. But her eyes slid back to Elsie after a moment. The thing about paying attention now was Effie noticed when she flustered Elsie, even the hints of it. She was just uncertain about it. For the most part. “What about you? Can I make you have a meltdown?” “I’d never put it past you.” Elsie laughed and bumped her shoulder against Effie’s to distract from the warmth she felt rising to her cheeks. “I mean, I’m sure you could.” She glanced down at her chest and laughed again. “It clearly wouldn’t be over fake tits.” Effie glanced down at Elsie’s chest, too, before lifting her eyes back to her friend’s face. “No, I think we both know better than to get fake tits.” “No, I meant —” Elsie cut herself off with another laugh and directed her gaze back to the tv. “Nevermind. You’re making me miss this.” Effie considered letting it drop, but Elsie seemed on the verge of something, if not a meltdown, so she decided not to in the end. “Tell me,” she said, reaching out to give Elsie a poke in the side. “Okay, I meant no one would ever suspect mine of being fake,” Elsie said with a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m sure you’d find something else, though. You’re clever.” “I am, I am,” Effie agreed, modestly, while she mentally hemmed and hawed over saying something positive about the size of Elsie’s chest. She felt uncomfortably on the verge of blurting out something like ‘Your tits are great!’ Which, while true, wasn’t as smooth as she’d have liked. Finally, she said, “And you say that like you think that’s a bad thing. Your tits not seeming fake, I mean.” “No, no, I mean. It’s not that,” Elsie hastened to correct herself, her cheeks turning redder as the more she spoke. She was getting a bit desperate for a subject change. “They’re fine. They’re just not going to be the cause for any meltdowns.” “I wouldn’t say that,” Effie said, a barely suppressed smile on her lips as she glanced at Elsie’s chest again. She quickly directed her attention back to the television. “But I can drop it if you want me to.” As much as Elsie loved her and as much as she fancied her — and had for years — she hated being uncertain. There weren’t many other areas of her life she questioned her judgment or worried about saying the wrong thing. Even maintaining a cover didn’t make her as nervous as navigating her feelings for her best friend. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to drop it. But she wasn’t sure what to say either. “Hey, Eff?” Confusion briefly filtered across Effie’s features, but she shifted her gaze back to Elsie. “Yes, Winks?” Elsie held her gaze for a moment, wrestling with a dozen likely scenarios before shoving her doubt aside. She took a deep breath and tried to tap into whatever courage she had. And then she leaned forward to catch Effie’s lips in a fleeting kiss. When Elsie pulled back, Effie was smiling. “You’re making me miss this,” she echoed softly from before, reaching out to tuck a strand of Elsie’s hair behind her ear. But before Elsie could interpret her words as anything but teasing, she leaned in and pressed a much less fleeting kiss to her lips. For the moment, Elsie was glad she didn’t have to think of anything to say. Lifting a hand to brush across Effie’s cheek, the sounds of the housewitches’ squabbling barely registered to her. This was worth missing the special for. |