skins - naomi/emily - breathe
title: breathe, for the queerly awesome comment ficathon here: http://lesaut.livejournal.com/291869.html
pairing: naomi/emily, skins
rating: M. maybe? for language? possibly? i own nothing?
-------------------------
Naomi wipes the sweat from her hands onto her shorts and grips the handle bars again.
Her helmet is pushing her bangs in her eyes, which doesn't matter in the least because the man her mother insists on referring to as "Uncle Steve" has the bike pointed exactly in the direction of the sun and she cant see worth a crap anyway. Steve is blathering away about momentum and balance as she starts to pedal despite his being mid peptalk.
"Don't forget to breathe!" her mother yells from the sidewalk, as if she's farther than a couple of car lengths away from them.
Rolling her eyes at her mother, Naomi continues to pedal. She knows the only reason she's still on two wheels instead of two butt cheeks is because of the man running along beside her holding onto her seat, but yesterday he'd tried to tell her what time to go to bed so she was just about ready for him to move to Amsterdam or go to prison or find his long lost high school sweetheart or whatever excuse he was going to leave the pair with when he left. He seemed like the type that would feel the need to have an excuse.
She hears him yelling encouragement and stiffens when she notices how far away he sounds. She wobbles while turning in a giant arc so she is facing away from the sun and towards Gina and her traitorous "uncle" Steve, stood on the sidewalk with his grubby, lying hands on her mother's shoulders instead of holding the bike up like he promised.
She's thinking of the meanest words she can yell, the words that will get her in the most trouble (her mother is rubbish with punishment) when she notices Gina's face all glowy and pink with pride, and six year old Naomi decides she probably could have figured this out without Steve's help anyway.
-------------------------
"Vote for me, and I'll make it my business.. to get to know each and every wanker in this hellhole. Jesus. What are you even doing?" Naomi mumbles, dropping her gaze from the mirror, refusing to make eye contact with her own reflection.
Can't look yourself in the eye, fucking fantastic, how could the masses possibly resist voting for you.
Gina watches Naomi shake her head, muttering to herself, and adds to the dialogue, "Just don't forget to breathe, you'll be fine, now come help me move the compost."
-------------------------
Naomi wakes before her, and watches as sleepy eyes turn happy, and as happy eyes turn hesitant.
She offers the petite redhead a baggie t-shirt and a pair of old pajama pants before leading her down to the kitchen for breakfast. Halfway down the stairs she stops, hearing clanging in the kitchen, knows that her mother is awake and strategically placed. She wipes the sweat off her hand and onto her pants before grabbing one of Emily's and leading her the rest of the way to the kitchen.
Just her luck fucking Keiran is sat at the table in his boxers, paper in hand, reading her fucking section. Ignores him when he startles at their arrival in her kitchen.
Ignores Gina's "Sorry Sweetie, didn't think you girls would be up this early. Care for a cuppa? Emily?"
"Mom, and fucking Keiran, Emily and I are together. Like together together. You're going to be seeing a lot of her because her mother fucking hates me, so I need you both on your best behaviour so you don't frighten her off. Actually, you two should probably spend more time at his place. And no Mother, I don't want to discuss adoption versus turkey baster, or what happens to homosexuals in the middle east, although we can talk about that one later. And I know you're fucking ecstatic that I've chosen an 'alternative lifestyle' but I didn't fucking choose it, this is the way it had to happen. And I'd appreciate it if you could both just shut up and let us have breakfast like normal people, not like normal teenagers usually have their politics teachers over for biscuits, but we're hungry, and I'm not going to fucking hide her in my room, am I?"
"Did she take a breath at all during that?" Kiernan asks in an overly loud whisper, directed at the oldest blonde in the room.
"Darling how many times have I told you to remember to fucking breathe? I swear to fuck if you pass out during some national, televised event later in your life all I'm going to say is 'That's Naomi Campbell?! Who names their child Naomi fucking Campbell besides Naomi Campbell's parents, that's what I want to know'. Oh, and Emily, would you care for some tea?"
-------------------------
Naomi watches Emily fiddle with her bracelets, sitting on the edge of the bed, their bed, looking uncomfortably around the room.
She notices the pink patch of skin on the redhead's neck; the spot she'd been devouring before Katie had started throwing Cheesits, hollering obscenities at them as well as the directions home from Freddie's shed, in case they'd forgotten the way.
She notices Emily notice her own bags packed and stacked at the foot of the bed, watches as her breath catches with the memory. Her eyebrows are furrowing, trying to work something out, but Naomi focuses on her hands instead, the hand that had held Emily's the entire walk back to this cursed house of pain that was currently raining on their parade.
"So, did we both totally hope this wouldn't be awkward as fuck, or was that just me?" she asks with self disdain, hoping to get at least an obligatory chuckle out of the shorter girl.
"Are some of my bags missing?" Emily asks distractedly, still visibly counting the bags of her belongings left on the floor. "I mean, did I end up shoving my camera bag in one of the packs, because I'm pretty sure I left it on top.." Emily's voice stops as Naomi's hand stops hers.
"Your camera is under the bed. And the bag with the purple flowers is under the towels on the bathroom shelf. And I threw an armful of your shoes under the sink in the kitchen.. I just thought that maybe you wouldn't just stand still and quiet and listen to me apologize, and even if you did you probably wouldn't just accept a couple of simple words after so much silence, so I thought just in case.. I'm sorry, I know that if you wanted to leave you should be allowed to just leave, I deserve it, I know that, but I couldn't stand the thought of you leaving without knowing. You know? You had to know that you were everything. Everything I wanted, everything I feared. And just because I couldn't find the words for so long doesn't mean I didn't mean them. So I figured I'd make sure there was time, while you were searching for your stuff, I didn't care how mad you were as long as you heard me."
"Fucking breathe, please", Emily says after stopping her with a kiss. "I'm here, yeah? No need to hyperventilate convincing me to be here. I'm fucking here. Nowhere else for me to be, really."
"I need you here."
"Well, you better not have gotten bleach on my shoes, half of those were Katie's. And she wont forgive, no matter how dramatic the entrance."
"Even if I'm wearing a cape?"
"A floral cape might distract her, but you're risking an awful lot."
Naomi takes a breath and decides that, regardless, the gains far outweighed the potential consequences this time.