Fic: Four Years On
Four Years On
Author: em_sh
Artist(s): sherbetdrop
Link To Art: Here!
Word count: 12,496
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some bad language
Disclaimer: Not my characters
Summary: After Cook confronts Foster, he runs from the scene of the crime, ending up in London. He makes an annual pilgrimage to the shed for Freddie's birthday. On the fourth anniversary of that night, Naomi, Emily, Katie, Thomas, Pandora and JJ unexpectedly turn up and we learn what happened to them all in the direct aftermath of Freddie's death, how they coped (or didn't) and what else has happened in the four years since Cook's seen them.
Notes: Oh man, finally posting! Massive thank you to crackfoxx for putting up with all my ridiculous angsting over this, and her encouragement throughout. Also to canon90 for reassuring me that it does actually make some semblance of sense and to triptohere for ensuring Freddie didn't end up wedded to a baseball bat. Finally, thanks very much to sherbetdrop for making art, which I am super excited to see cannot wait to listen to!
---
It’s dark out.
The rain makes a heavy pitter-patter against the pavement. Cook takes one final drag of his cigarette before letting it fall to the ground. He crouches down and has a quick look around, under the pretence of tying his laces. Once he’s satisfied he has the all clear he straightens up and - with one final glance over his shoulder - clambers over the wall.
He lands with a dull thud and winces as the shockwaves shoot up through his knees. He doesn’t move though, preferring to wait a minute more to make sure no one has spotted him in the shadows. Once he’s sure he’s gone unnoticed, he lets out his breath and looks about.
The garden hasn’t changed much - if at all. Not that Cook would really be able to tell if it had - most of the time he’d spent in here he was off his face on some substance or another - but what he really means by not changed is that the shed is still there, still standing in all its glory.
He grins at the sight of it. It’s a bit like coming home. It is, practically.
It’s the same, almost, as he remembers it on the inside as well. Almost.
The paint is flecking off in some parts - the bits that Karen had insisted had to be painted white for her dance studio - and the porno magazines lying around are beginning to fade and turn yellow, curling up at the edges. And the layer of dust, well yeah, he remembers that, but he doesn’t remember it being so thick. It’s getting old now, he realises. He’s getting old now.
He shakes his head, trying to remove as much rainwater as possible, and then has to push his hair back out of his eyes. It’s getting long at the front. He’ll need to take a pair of scissors to it again.
He sighs, slouching down on the settee and reaching in his jacket pocket for the tin box. Like old times, he thinks, as his fingers deftly move to roll the joint. He does two, and once he’s happy with them, places the smaller one on the pile of magazines next to the couch. (He might be coming over all soft nowadays, but he still knows the value of weed.)
The joint sits, unsmoked, next to three others.
“Happy birthday mate,” he says.
Freddie would have been twenty-three this year. Twenty fucking three. Cook shakes his head and places his own roll-up between his lips.
He’s got the lighter about a centimetre away, all ready to go, when he freezes. There’s rustling.
Cook’s completely still.
There are whispers.
He gets up quickly, searching for an escape route and curses Leo for staying true to form and always keeping the back door blocked with boxes full of crap.
The whispers get closer, and Cook’s heart rate speeds up further.
The couch.
He dives behind it, and holds his breath again, willing his heart to beat slower. He’s still pulling his feet in as the door opens.
“Did you just hear something?” It’s a woman speaking.
“No. No one’s gonna be here for at least half an hour. And you know what Katie’s like, she’ll be more like an hour probably.”
Cook frowns. Another woman, but it’s coincidence surely.
“So what? We’re just sitting here until everyone else turns up?”
“Well, no, I did have something else in mind.”
There’s some movement and a bit of quiet, muffled laughter, and fucking hell, Cook actually can’t believe it. Two women who know a Katie, and who are here, in Freddie’s shed, and not just on any day, but this day?
Cook’s wary of taking risks these days, what with everything that’s happened, but he’s got good instincts - they’re well tuned now - and he trusts them. So when they tell him to break cover, to laugh at this situation, he does.
There’s a shout of “Jesus fuck!” and another, shriller, “Who is that?”
Cook pulls himself up slowly - bit stiff, now - and smiles. “Alright Blondie? Emilio?”
He watches as the shock washes over them.
They’ve changed, not so much that they’re unrecognisable, but enough to notice what with the four years in-between. Naomi’s kept the long hair - it’s nice, he always liked it better that way - and she’s still the best looking girl to ever turn him down, even with her mouth gaping like that. Emily’s much the same as she was as well, maybe toned her hair down a bit, or maybe it’s just that he remembers it being brighter.
It’s Emily who finds her voice first. “Fuck…Cook?”
He smiles, laughs a bit even. He ain’t gone by that name in a long time. It’s nice to come back to it; it’s a proper homecoming now. “Yeah, that’s me babe. The very same.”
“Fuck,” Emily breathes again. “God, what the fuck? What are…I mean, why…what happened to you?”
There are lots of answers to that, but Cook suspects she’s talking quite specifically about what happened to his face. “Difference of opinion.” He shrugs. “It’s sorted now.”
Emily looks at the joint he’s still playing with, twirling around his fingers, and then her gaze shifts towards the stack of porn beside the couch. “Oh. Oh. You? We always…we thought Karen.”
Cook shrugs, and even though he doesn’t want to look at his personal monument to Freddie, he finds that tearing his eyes away is difficult. He turns his back on it, looks toward Naomi instead, who still hasn’t spoken. “What’s the matter, eh? You not happy to see me?”
She raises her eyes from the ground to meet his gaze and it makes him want to take a step away, such is the intensity of it, but he’s already got his back pressed up against the wall.
“You never even called.”
He scratches at the back of his neck. “You know me, babe, crap with phone numbers.” It’s not strictly true though, because he remembers some. Like Freddie’s, which he learnt before he even knew his own.
Naomi shakes her head slowly. “You could have been…we didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well I’m not, am I?” Cook replies, harsher than he intends it, and takes a second to calm himself again. “It’s fine, innit. I’m fine.”
Naomi runs an eye over him critically. “Where have you been?”
It’s an honest question, and he wishes he could give it an honest answer, but he can’t. “Here and there, you know. I’m a wanted man.” He attempts a cheeky smile, one of the ones he used in the past, in times gone by.
“Is this all just a joke to you?” Emily snaps. “You fucked off for four years and you still think this is some big laugh?”
Cook bows his head and tenses all the muscles in his body. It’s not a fucking joke. None of this is. How could it be?
“Emily,” Naomi says quietly, placing a hand on Emily’s arm. “Ems, it’s ok.”
It’s part of why he’s always loved Naomi. She doesn’t force it. She fucking gets it, she knows that he just can’t talk about all that shit.
Not while he’s still living it.
---
It was dull.
Everything was dull. The aching in his fist, from where he’d managed to get the first couple of punches in. The moonlight, which filtered through the curtain. The sound of the bat, every time it made contact with his ribs. The sirens, at first, they too sounded dull and far away.
They got louder though, more urgent, and the blows that had been raining down on him, stopped.
It might have taken him a while to stand up, he wasn’t sure, but the sirens were anything but dull by the time he was on his feet. He remembers being surprised at the amount of blood smeared across the floor. He thought that he must have got the bastard more times than he remembered. That was, until he looked down and saw the sticky patch of blood seeping its way through his - Freddie’s - t-shirt. His face as well, that felt wet and warm, but moving his left arm upwards proved difficult (and he didn’t really want to know anyway) so he ignored it, and tried to figure out how he was going to climb back out the window with only one arm before the coppers managed to get in.
Adrenaline, Cook’s since learnt, is a powerful thing.
(Anger is as well.)
He could have lain right down on the grass when he eventually reached it, just given up completely, but there was one very small part of his brain working overtime telling him to get rid of his shoes because they were coated in blood and to get the fuck out of there. Breathing was sore, bending down wasn’t an option, and so he kicked them off, before staggering out to the street.
He had a rough idea of where he was, but only one idea of where to go. The key, he knew, was to keep moving. Stopping would have been fatal.
---
Christina dropped a pint glass when she saw him, just slipped right out of her hand and smashed on the floor. He tried a smile, but his muscles were too tired, even for that.
“Jesus Christ James,” was all she could manage. Of course, she could see the damage much worse than he felt it. These things always look worse than they are.
Cook leaned against the wall in a futile attempt to try and take some of the weight off. He jerked his head at Christina. “Need to see Keith.”
She took a few beats to respond, had to shake her head sharply to snap herself out of it. “He’s round the back. You manage?”
He gritted his teeth, ignored the pain it caused, and nodded, but it didn’t convince Christina. She called Bill - an old guy with gray hair who Cook placed as one of the regulars - to help him.
Bill threw Cook’s right arm over his shoulder, and tried to support Cook by wrapping an arm round his middle. The pain that shot through his chest made him hiss, and he felt his knees start to give way.
“Fucking hell son,” Bill muttered.
Cook took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Yeah, just, like, careful, you know?”
It was slow progress, stumbling the hundred or so meters to the back office. Bill held on too tight really, and every step consisted of a jerk that squeezed the air from his lungs. Cook focused, focused hard, really fucking hard, on Freddie, and the knowledge that Freddie needed him to stay strong right at that moment.
He was wheezing by the time he was manoeuvred into a half-sitting, half-lying position on the couch, the one that Keith insisted was important to have in his office just in case any ‘untraditional business’ needed handling.
Keith towered over him, his eyes working hard to try to take everything in. “Bill, go call Louie. Tell him if wants to keep his balls attached then he’ll be here in the next ten minutes.” He waited until Bill had left before saying anything further. “Fuck. What’ve you done Cookie?”
Cook licked at his dried lips. They tasted of copper, and that horrible metallic taste helped him to remember. “Freddie’s dead. Some bastard killed him. Beat him,” he took a rasping breath, “fucking, beat him to death.”
“Right. Shitting Christ,” Keith rubbed at his forehead. “And you sorted it did you?”
Cook made to shrug, but couldn’t do it properly, the pain was just too much to cope with.
“What’s the damage then? You don’t look so good kiddo.”
Cook moved his arm away from his chest, just a little, but enough so Keith could see the blood stained top. “My hand’s fucked as well.”
Keith took a minute to formulate a plan. Cook felt his eyes beginning to get heavier with every second that passed.
“Stay tonight, you’ll be ok here for one night. And Louie’s coming round just now - he owes me a favour. He’ll patch you up. Not great, but enough for now. I know a guy, Joe, in London. You’ll go tomorrow night. Tell him Keith sent you and he’ll see you good.”
Cook nodded his head weakly.
“You hold on in there Cookie, Louie’s on his way.”
---
Keith had been true to his word.
Louie had given him something for the pain and wrapped his wrist up with a makeshift splint. He reckoned that Cook had at least two broken ribs and a fractured eye socket as well, and told him that there wasn’t much he could do about it, just to keep taking the pills he’d been given. Makeshift job at best, he’d called it, but it would do for now. He’d offered a final bit of advice - “You start pissing blood, kid, then you get to a hospital. Fast, you hear?” - before he left, with only a brief nod to Keith.
Cook slept for most of the next day. Keith didn’t wake him until the sun was going down, so as to feed him before the car came.
“Steak pie, chips and beans. Dog in the Pond special,” he announced with a flourish.
Cook tried to smile like he knew he should. But it wasn’t so easy when it made his lip split again, and he tasted bitter copper and he remembered why it was there.
Keith waited while he ate, watched as Cook shovelled food in his mouth like that could be his last square meal for years, and in reality, it wasn’t far off. Once he was done, Keith placed the empty tray on his desk. “Anything you need, you speak to Joe. I’ll see he knows who you are. Family, Cookie. Understand? You’re family.”
Cook nodded.
“Keep these, just in case,” he said, passing over a baggie with about ten pills in it. They weren’t for Cook, he knew that. They were for selling. Couple of hundred quid there if he was lucky. Eighty if he wasn’t.
Cook took a deep breath and slipped them in his pocket. “Cheers Keith, really appreciate it, you know?”
“No worries kid,” he said, with a pat to Cook’s good arm. “Always had a soft spot for you, you know. And your daft mates. Proper odd lot.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we were.”
---
Cook hurdles over the back of the sofa, and settles back into it. It’s not the most comfortable anymore, the material is wearing away and the springs dig into his back. Still, he’d dealt with much worse, and he’s not going to start getting fussy now. He reaches for his lighter again and sparks up uninterrupted this time. It isn’t until he’s let the first drag wash over him that he realises both Naomi and Emily haven’t moved at all.
“Spliff?” He offers it to them, in an attempt to make this a little less awkward and a little more like old times.
They glance at each other before shaking their heads no.
“Suit yourselves,” he shrugs, and puts the joint back between his lips. “You ain’t even gonna sit down then?”
“Yeah. Yeah, course,” Emily answers, pulling Naomi over by the hand.
They continue their sponsored silence once they’re next to him, and it’s weird. They used to talk all the time, Naomi especially - never used to be able to shut her up - and now, nothing. He gets it. He fucked off and they’re still pissed.
“You enjoy your trip?”
Naomi scrunches her eyebrows. “What?”
“Yeah, you know, you two were going someplace. With beaches and that.”
“Goa? We -”
“Yeah,” Naomi interrupts, squeezing Emily’s knee. “Yeah, it was great.”
Cook smiles at the mere thought of a beach. “Nice one. I reckon I’ll do that one day. Just away, you know? Have a proper good time.”
Naomi smiles at him, but keeps her lips pressed together. “You should.”
---
Emily was beautiful, and that hadn’t changed. But she was more beautiful when she smiled. And when she smiled because of something Naomi had done, well shit. Naomi had missed that.
They all fell asleep in the shed that night. Naomi didn’t think she’d be able to. She hadn’t wanted to close her eyes only to realise that it was all a dream and she had woken back up to the nightmare of the last year.
It had been difficult to fight it though, what with the way Emily’s back was pressed tightly against her, and the way Emily ran her fingers lazily over Naomi’s arms, arms which had wrapped themselves around her waist of their own accord almost, as if they were always meant to be there.
She hadn’t felt that content in a long time, and so sleep found her easily.
---
The morning brought stiff necks, grumbling stomachs and no Cook.
“He was definitely here before we went to sleep.”
“Was he?”
“He said he was going for a pee and a cigarette.”
“Did anyone see him come back?”
“He can’t have just gone. He’s got nowhere else to go.”
“He’s fine,” Naomi said. “He’s big enough to look after himself.”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “He probably got a call from that girl, you know, Arsey.” She looked at Emily. “Can we go home now?”
---
They didn’t think about Cook for most of the rest of the day, because Naomi knew she was right - Cook was a big boy - but besides that, she had Emily naked and smiling in her bed and thinking hadn’t really been on the agenda.
Still, she would never forget that phone call.
It came late in the afternoon. They hadn’t done anything with their day other than sleep sporadically and fuck, rediscovering everything that had almost been forgotten. All the frustrations, all the shit they’d gone through, was being laid to rest, and so when Emily’s phone rang while Naomi was working kisses along, across and over her collarbone, she had practically growled at Emily to leave it.
Emily had laughed. “I love you,” she said, while she stretched one hand for her mobile and tangled the other in Naomi’s hair.
It was a game, she’d turned it into a game, and Naomi had never been one to back down. A well-placed hand here and a well-placed lick there would have Emily off the phone in seconds.
Except, as Naomi lowered her lips to the spot behind Emily’s ear - the spot that she knew from experience was the way to win this game - Emily’s whole body tensed and her phone tumbled from her hand.
“Emily?”
Emily shook her head silently, and when Naomi drew back she saw the tears that had pooled in her eyes.
“Em? Ems, what is it?” Naomi felt the - by then familiar - tightening in her chest and knew that this had just been too good to last. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Emily. I love you. Just, please Emily. Please.”
Emily shook her head again and wiped at her eyes. “No. They,” she took a shaky breath before she continued. “They found a body. Katie said. They think. Freddie. They think it’s Freddie.” She started to cry in earnest then, and Naomi could have done nothing but to hug her tightly.
“It’s ok,” she soothed. “It’s ok.” She rocked them both until the heaving slowed.
---
It became clear that they couldn’t leave for Goa straight away.
Effy was in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, and Pandora was as well, but they couldn’t do it alone. So a year became eleven months and that would have to be enough.
---
“Aren’t you worried?”
“What?”
“About Cook?”
“No.”
Emily frowned. “But don’t you think it’s strange that he’s gone? It’s been over a week Naoms, nearly two, and no one has heard anything. He didn’t even show for the funeral. I mean -”
“Emily, can we not talk about this?”
---
Pandora and Thomas left together for Harvard.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So eleven months became nine, and that would have to be enough.
---
“Don’t you think we should look for him?”
“Why?”
“Because something’s wrong.”
“The police are already looking. What can we do that they can’t?”
“Yeah but -”
“Emily,” Naomi snapped. “Sometimes people don’t want to be found.” She got up to boil the kettle, just to feel busy.
---
Emily got a job - Thomas’s old job - in the sweet place. Naomi had laughed when she found out, used any excuse to call Emily Sweetness and Candy and Sugar and all variations thereof, and then laughed even harder whenever Emily scowled.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So nine months became six, and it would have to be enough.
---
“Pandora and Thomas are coming back for Christmas. And JJ’s going to be here.”
“So?”
“We should do something. Together.”
“Should we?”
“For Freddie, I mean.” The and Cook goes unsaid.
“Oh. Yeah, ok.”
---
Pandora and Thomas left again, after New Years. JJ's gone a few days later.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So six months became four, and it would have to be enough.
---
“He’s made the paper again.”
“Why?”
“It’s a year since he broke out.”
“Is it?”
“You know it is. ”
Naomi shrugged.
“They’ve no new leads.”
“They think London.”
Emily scoffed. “That narrows it down.”
---
Naomi was offered a placement with the local MP. It was simply too good to turn down and Emily agreed, insisted even, that she take it.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So four months became one, and it would have to be enough.
---
“I miss him. I miss both of them.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I thought it’d get easier, you know? That it wouldn’t hurt as much. But it’s not true, is it?”
Naomi shook her head. “No. It’s not true.”
---
There was only a week to go until Tony came back for good - he just had to finish his finals - and they’d stayed for this long, it wouldn’t hurt to see it through now.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So one month became a promise of sometime in the future, and that would have to be enough.
---
They left Bristol, a year after they had intended, to live together in London. It was a shitty one bedroom that cost a fortune, but it was their shitty one bedroom.
It was crazy, in a city of nearly eight million people, to think that she had a chance of seeing him, especially when they don’t know if he was really in London, or if he was still breathing, even. And of course she didn’t, she was never going to just bump into him on the street, but it never stopped her from hoping she might.
In reality though, it was all rather uneventful, and as such, a total contrast to their college years.
In the end Naomi graduated with a first in Politics and Sociology, while Emily got a 2:1 in Psychology.
Naomi looked at rings by way of celebration.
---
Cook finishes his joint in silence, flicks the filter to the other side of the room and then watches as it bounces off the wall and falls on the ground next to a few others. He’s nervous. More nervous than he’ll let on to them, of course, but that’s unmistakably what this feeling is. Nerves from seeing them again. At maybe even seeing all of them again.
Seeing her again.
Even the thought makes his throat go dry, so he pushes it back down again, locks it up out of sight.
He stretches his legs out in front of him and lets out a sigh. It’s not often he smokes dope anymore. Not that he can’t get his hands on it, but drugs is money, and if he has a lot of drugs, he doesn’t have a lot of money. Don’t take a genius to work that one out.
He closes his eyes to the shed. Thinks about the first time he’d been in there, and him and JJ thought it’d been the coolest fucking place on earth. It was a poxy little box, still was in fact, but back then to them, it was freedom. Suddenly his ears prick up and he’s shaken from his memory - there’s some more movement going on outside - and it could be a cat, a fox maybe, but it might not be, and he gets up off the couch sharpish.
Naomi looks at him as if he’s crazy, and yeah, maybe he is now. “JJ’s coming. It’s JJ.”
“Yeah? Right. Nice one.” Cook feels himself ease off a bit, but it only lasts for a second, because then he hears voices. Two. “JJ started talking to himself, has he?” he hisses at Naomi.
Naomi and Emily look at each other, panicked.
“Shit. Shit,” Emily mutters.
Cook’s already making his way to crouch behind the sofa again when Emily tells him to hide and she’ll go check it out. He keeps his breathing slow and steady, keeps his muscles tensed and keeps his ears open.
Emily comes back a minute later, throwing the door open with a big sigh. “Panic over, it was -”
“Cookie!” The shout comes, and before he’s managed to get back on his feet properly, something with blonde hair is attacking him, nearly toppling him over so he’s back on his arse.
“Panda and Thomas,” Emily finishes.
It takes a full minute to pry Pandora’s arms from round his neck, and she talks the whole time.
“Missed you so much Cook, so much has happened! Like the cat! My mum got a cat, and she let me give it a name, so I said Tom like from Tom and Jerry, you know? But also cause I have a Thomo to look after me, and now she has one too, see?” She stops for a second to look at him. “What happened to your face Cookie? Does it hurt?”
“Nah, babe. Fine now you’re here.” He winks, and then remembers that Thomas is here as well, and he’s a bit touchy about Cook doing stuff like that. He stretches a hand out. “Alright mate?”
Thomas takes it. “Yes Cook. And you?”
“Yeah man, you know how it goes. Anyways,” he turns back to Pandora, and slings an arm round her shoulders. “You were telling me all about what I’d missed out on.”
“Yeah, I was. Well,” she starts.
Naomi clears her throat.
“Um. That’s it really. The cat. Yup, that’s what happened.” Pandora nods her head furiously.
Cook looks from Naomi to Emily to Thomas and then back to Pandora.
It’s not right. This isn’t right.
Part 2
Author: em_sh
Artist(s): sherbetdrop
Link To Art: Here!
Word count: 12,496
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some bad language
Disclaimer: Not my characters
Summary: After Cook confronts Foster, he runs from the scene of the crime, ending up in London. He makes an annual pilgrimage to the shed for Freddie's birthday. On the fourth anniversary of that night, Naomi, Emily, Katie, Thomas, Pandora and JJ unexpectedly turn up and we learn what happened to them all in the direct aftermath of Freddie's death, how they coped (or didn't) and what else has happened in the four years since Cook's seen them.
Notes: Oh man, finally posting! Massive thank you to crackfoxx for putting up with all my ridiculous angsting over this, and her encouragement throughout. Also to canon90 for reassuring me that it does actually make some semblance of sense and to triptohere for ensuring Freddie didn't end up wedded to a baseball bat. Finally, thanks very much to sherbetdrop for making art, which I am super excited to see cannot wait to listen to!
---
It’s dark out.
The rain makes a heavy pitter-patter against the pavement. Cook takes one final drag of his cigarette before letting it fall to the ground. He crouches down and has a quick look around, under the pretence of tying his laces. Once he’s satisfied he has the all clear he straightens up and - with one final glance over his shoulder - clambers over the wall.
He lands with a dull thud and winces as the shockwaves shoot up through his knees. He doesn’t move though, preferring to wait a minute more to make sure no one has spotted him in the shadows. Once he’s sure he’s gone unnoticed, he lets out his breath and looks about.
The garden hasn’t changed much - if at all. Not that Cook would really be able to tell if it had - most of the time he’d spent in here he was off his face on some substance or another - but what he really means by not changed is that the shed is still there, still standing in all its glory.
He grins at the sight of it. It’s a bit like coming home. It is, practically.
It’s the same, almost, as he remembers it on the inside as well. Almost.
The paint is flecking off in some parts - the bits that Karen had insisted had to be painted white for her dance studio - and the porno magazines lying around are beginning to fade and turn yellow, curling up at the edges. And the layer of dust, well yeah, he remembers that, but he doesn’t remember it being so thick. It’s getting old now, he realises. He’s getting old now.
He shakes his head, trying to remove as much rainwater as possible, and then has to push his hair back out of his eyes. It’s getting long at the front. He’ll need to take a pair of scissors to it again.
He sighs, slouching down on the settee and reaching in his jacket pocket for the tin box. Like old times, he thinks, as his fingers deftly move to roll the joint. He does two, and once he’s happy with them, places the smaller one on the pile of magazines next to the couch. (He might be coming over all soft nowadays, but he still knows the value of weed.)
The joint sits, unsmoked, next to three others.
“Happy birthday mate,” he says.
Freddie would have been twenty-three this year. Twenty fucking three. Cook shakes his head and places his own roll-up between his lips.
He’s got the lighter about a centimetre away, all ready to go, when he freezes. There’s rustling.
Cook’s completely still.
There are whispers.
He gets up quickly, searching for an escape route and curses Leo for staying true to form and always keeping the back door blocked with boxes full of crap.
The whispers get closer, and Cook’s heart rate speeds up further.
The couch.
He dives behind it, and holds his breath again, willing his heart to beat slower. He’s still pulling his feet in as the door opens.
“Did you just hear something?” It’s a woman speaking.
“No. No one’s gonna be here for at least half an hour. And you know what Katie’s like, she’ll be more like an hour probably.”
Cook frowns. Another woman, but it’s coincidence surely.
“So what? We’re just sitting here until everyone else turns up?”
“Well, no, I did have something else in mind.”
There’s some movement and a bit of quiet, muffled laughter, and fucking hell, Cook actually can’t believe it. Two women who know a Katie, and who are here, in Freddie’s shed, and not just on any day, but this day?
Cook’s wary of taking risks these days, what with everything that’s happened, but he’s got good instincts - they’re well tuned now - and he trusts them. So when they tell him to break cover, to laugh at this situation, he does.
There’s a shout of “Jesus fuck!” and another, shriller, “Who is that?”
Cook pulls himself up slowly - bit stiff, now - and smiles. “Alright Blondie? Emilio?”
He watches as the shock washes over them.
They’ve changed, not so much that they’re unrecognisable, but enough to notice what with the four years in-between. Naomi’s kept the long hair - it’s nice, he always liked it better that way - and she’s still the best looking girl to ever turn him down, even with her mouth gaping like that. Emily’s much the same as she was as well, maybe toned her hair down a bit, or maybe it’s just that he remembers it being brighter.
It’s Emily who finds her voice first. “Fuck…Cook?”
He smiles, laughs a bit even. He ain’t gone by that name in a long time. It’s nice to come back to it; it’s a proper homecoming now. “Yeah, that’s me babe. The very same.”
“Fuck,” Emily breathes again. “God, what the fuck? What are…I mean, why…what happened to you?”
There are lots of answers to that, but Cook suspects she’s talking quite specifically about what happened to his face. “Difference of opinion.” He shrugs. “It’s sorted now.”
Emily looks at the joint he’s still playing with, twirling around his fingers, and then her gaze shifts towards the stack of porn beside the couch. “Oh. Oh. You? We always…we thought Karen.”
Cook shrugs, and even though he doesn’t want to look at his personal monument to Freddie, he finds that tearing his eyes away is difficult. He turns his back on it, looks toward Naomi instead, who still hasn’t spoken. “What’s the matter, eh? You not happy to see me?”
She raises her eyes from the ground to meet his gaze and it makes him want to take a step away, such is the intensity of it, but he’s already got his back pressed up against the wall.
“You never even called.”
He scratches at the back of his neck. “You know me, babe, crap with phone numbers.” It’s not strictly true though, because he remembers some. Like Freddie’s, which he learnt before he even knew his own.
Naomi shakes her head slowly. “You could have been…we didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well I’m not, am I?” Cook replies, harsher than he intends it, and takes a second to calm himself again. “It’s fine, innit. I’m fine.”
Naomi runs an eye over him critically. “Where have you been?”
It’s an honest question, and he wishes he could give it an honest answer, but he can’t. “Here and there, you know. I’m a wanted man.” He attempts a cheeky smile, one of the ones he used in the past, in times gone by.
“Is this all just a joke to you?” Emily snaps. “You fucked off for four years and you still think this is some big laugh?”
Cook bows his head and tenses all the muscles in his body. It’s not a fucking joke. None of this is. How could it be?
“Emily,” Naomi says quietly, placing a hand on Emily’s arm. “Ems, it’s ok.”
It’s part of why he’s always loved Naomi. She doesn’t force it. She fucking gets it, she knows that he just can’t talk about all that shit.
Not while he’s still living it.
---
It was dull.
Everything was dull. The aching in his fist, from where he’d managed to get the first couple of punches in. The moonlight, which filtered through the curtain. The sound of the bat, every time it made contact with his ribs. The sirens, at first, they too sounded dull and far away.
They got louder though, more urgent, and the blows that had been raining down on him, stopped.
It might have taken him a while to stand up, he wasn’t sure, but the sirens were anything but dull by the time he was on his feet. He remembers being surprised at the amount of blood smeared across the floor. He thought that he must have got the bastard more times than he remembered. That was, until he looked down and saw the sticky patch of blood seeping its way through his - Freddie’s - t-shirt. His face as well, that felt wet and warm, but moving his left arm upwards proved difficult (and he didn’t really want to know anyway) so he ignored it, and tried to figure out how he was going to climb back out the window with only one arm before the coppers managed to get in.
Adrenaline, Cook’s since learnt, is a powerful thing.
(Anger is as well.)
He could have lain right down on the grass when he eventually reached it, just given up completely, but there was one very small part of his brain working overtime telling him to get rid of his shoes because they were coated in blood and to get the fuck out of there. Breathing was sore, bending down wasn’t an option, and so he kicked them off, before staggering out to the street.
He had a rough idea of where he was, but only one idea of where to go. The key, he knew, was to keep moving. Stopping would have been fatal.
---
Christina dropped a pint glass when she saw him, just slipped right out of her hand and smashed on the floor. He tried a smile, but his muscles were too tired, even for that.
“Jesus Christ James,” was all she could manage. Of course, she could see the damage much worse than he felt it. These things always look worse than they are.
Cook leaned against the wall in a futile attempt to try and take some of the weight off. He jerked his head at Christina. “Need to see Keith.”
She took a few beats to respond, had to shake her head sharply to snap herself out of it. “He’s round the back. You manage?”
He gritted his teeth, ignored the pain it caused, and nodded, but it didn’t convince Christina. She called Bill - an old guy with gray hair who Cook placed as one of the regulars - to help him.
Bill threw Cook’s right arm over his shoulder, and tried to support Cook by wrapping an arm round his middle. The pain that shot through his chest made him hiss, and he felt his knees start to give way.
“Fucking hell son,” Bill muttered.
Cook took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Yeah, just, like, careful, you know?”
It was slow progress, stumbling the hundred or so meters to the back office. Bill held on too tight really, and every step consisted of a jerk that squeezed the air from his lungs. Cook focused, focused hard, really fucking hard, on Freddie, and the knowledge that Freddie needed him to stay strong right at that moment.
He was wheezing by the time he was manoeuvred into a half-sitting, half-lying position on the couch, the one that Keith insisted was important to have in his office just in case any ‘untraditional business’ needed handling.
Keith towered over him, his eyes working hard to try to take everything in. “Bill, go call Louie. Tell him if wants to keep his balls attached then he’ll be here in the next ten minutes.” He waited until Bill had left before saying anything further. “Fuck. What’ve you done Cookie?”
Cook licked at his dried lips. They tasted of copper, and that horrible metallic taste helped him to remember. “Freddie’s dead. Some bastard killed him. Beat him,” he took a rasping breath, “fucking, beat him to death.”
“Right. Shitting Christ,” Keith rubbed at his forehead. “And you sorted it did you?”
Cook made to shrug, but couldn’t do it properly, the pain was just too much to cope with.
“What’s the damage then? You don’t look so good kiddo.”
Cook moved his arm away from his chest, just a little, but enough so Keith could see the blood stained top. “My hand’s fucked as well.”
Keith took a minute to formulate a plan. Cook felt his eyes beginning to get heavier with every second that passed.
“Stay tonight, you’ll be ok here for one night. And Louie’s coming round just now - he owes me a favour. He’ll patch you up. Not great, but enough for now. I know a guy, Joe, in London. You’ll go tomorrow night. Tell him Keith sent you and he’ll see you good.”
Cook nodded his head weakly.
“You hold on in there Cookie, Louie’s on his way.”
---
Keith had been true to his word.
Louie had given him something for the pain and wrapped his wrist up with a makeshift splint. He reckoned that Cook had at least two broken ribs and a fractured eye socket as well, and told him that there wasn’t much he could do about it, just to keep taking the pills he’d been given. Makeshift job at best, he’d called it, but it would do for now. He’d offered a final bit of advice - “You start pissing blood, kid, then you get to a hospital. Fast, you hear?” - before he left, with only a brief nod to Keith.
Cook slept for most of the next day. Keith didn’t wake him until the sun was going down, so as to feed him before the car came.
“Steak pie, chips and beans. Dog in the Pond special,” he announced with a flourish.
Cook tried to smile like he knew he should. But it wasn’t so easy when it made his lip split again, and he tasted bitter copper and he remembered why it was there.
Keith waited while he ate, watched as Cook shovelled food in his mouth like that could be his last square meal for years, and in reality, it wasn’t far off. Once he was done, Keith placed the empty tray on his desk. “Anything you need, you speak to Joe. I’ll see he knows who you are. Family, Cookie. Understand? You’re family.”
Cook nodded.
“Keep these, just in case,” he said, passing over a baggie with about ten pills in it. They weren’t for Cook, he knew that. They were for selling. Couple of hundred quid there if he was lucky. Eighty if he wasn’t.
Cook took a deep breath and slipped them in his pocket. “Cheers Keith, really appreciate it, you know?”
“No worries kid,” he said, with a pat to Cook’s good arm. “Always had a soft spot for you, you know. And your daft mates. Proper odd lot.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we were.”
---
Cook hurdles over the back of the sofa, and settles back into it. It’s not the most comfortable anymore, the material is wearing away and the springs dig into his back. Still, he’d dealt with much worse, and he’s not going to start getting fussy now. He reaches for his lighter again and sparks up uninterrupted this time. It isn’t until he’s let the first drag wash over him that he realises both Naomi and Emily haven’t moved at all.
“Spliff?” He offers it to them, in an attempt to make this a little less awkward and a little more like old times.
They glance at each other before shaking their heads no.
“Suit yourselves,” he shrugs, and puts the joint back between his lips. “You ain’t even gonna sit down then?”
“Yeah. Yeah, course,” Emily answers, pulling Naomi over by the hand.
They continue their sponsored silence once they’re next to him, and it’s weird. They used to talk all the time, Naomi especially - never used to be able to shut her up - and now, nothing. He gets it. He fucked off and they’re still pissed.
“You enjoy your trip?”
Naomi scrunches her eyebrows. “What?”
“Yeah, you know, you two were going someplace. With beaches and that.”
“Goa? We -”
“Yeah,” Naomi interrupts, squeezing Emily’s knee. “Yeah, it was great.”
Cook smiles at the mere thought of a beach. “Nice one. I reckon I’ll do that one day. Just away, you know? Have a proper good time.”
Naomi smiles at him, but keeps her lips pressed together. “You should.”
---
Emily was beautiful, and that hadn’t changed. But she was more beautiful when she smiled. And when she smiled because of something Naomi had done, well shit. Naomi had missed that.
They all fell asleep in the shed that night. Naomi didn’t think she’d be able to. She hadn’t wanted to close her eyes only to realise that it was all a dream and she had woken back up to the nightmare of the last year.
It had been difficult to fight it though, what with the way Emily’s back was pressed tightly against her, and the way Emily ran her fingers lazily over Naomi’s arms, arms which had wrapped themselves around her waist of their own accord almost, as if they were always meant to be there.
She hadn’t felt that content in a long time, and so sleep found her easily.
---
The morning brought stiff necks, grumbling stomachs and no Cook.
“He was definitely here before we went to sleep.”
“Was he?”
“He said he was going for a pee and a cigarette.”
“Did anyone see him come back?”
“He can’t have just gone. He’s got nowhere else to go.”
“He’s fine,” Naomi said. “He’s big enough to look after himself.”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “He probably got a call from that girl, you know, Arsey.” She looked at Emily. “Can we go home now?”
---
They didn’t think about Cook for most of the rest of the day, because Naomi knew she was right - Cook was a big boy - but besides that, she had Emily naked and smiling in her bed and thinking hadn’t really been on the agenda.
Still, she would never forget that phone call.
It came late in the afternoon. They hadn’t done anything with their day other than sleep sporadically and fuck, rediscovering everything that had almost been forgotten. All the frustrations, all the shit they’d gone through, was being laid to rest, and so when Emily’s phone rang while Naomi was working kisses along, across and over her collarbone, she had practically growled at Emily to leave it.
Emily had laughed. “I love you,” she said, while she stretched one hand for her mobile and tangled the other in Naomi’s hair.
It was a game, she’d turned it into a game, and Naomi had never been one to back down. A well-placed hand here and a well-placed lick there would have Emily off the phone in seconds.
Except, as Naomi lowered her lips to the spot behind Emily’s ear - the spot that she knew from experience was the way to win this game - Emily’s whole body tensed and her phone tumbled from her hand.
“Emily?”
Emily shook her head silently, and when Naomi drew back she saw the tears that had pooled in her eyes.
“Em? Ems, what is it?” Naomi felt the - by then familiar - tightening in her chest and knew that this had just been too good to last. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Emily. I love you. Just, please Emily. Please.”
Emily shook her head again and wiped at her eyes. “No. They,” she took a shaky breath before she continued. “They found a body. Katie said. They think. Freddie. They think it’s Freddie.” She started to cry in earnest then, and Naomi could have done nothing but to hug her tightly.
“It’s ok,” she soothed. “It’s ok.” She rocked them both until the heaving slowed.
---
It became clear that they couldn’t leave for Goa straight away.
Effy was in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, and Pandora was as well, but they couldn’t do it alone. So a year became eleven months and that would have to be enough.
---
“Aren’t you worried?”
“What?”
“About Cook?”
“No.”
Emily frowned. “But don’t you think it’s strange that he’s gone? It’s been over a week Naoms, nearly two, and no one has heard anything. He didn’t even show for the funeral. I mean -”
“Emily, can we not talk about this?”
---
Pandora and Thomas left together for Harvard.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So eleven months became nine, and that would have to be enough.
---
“Don’t you think we should look for him?”
“Why?”
“Because something’s wrong.”
“The police are already looking. What can we do that they can’t?”
“Yeah but -”
“Emily,” Naomi snapped. “Sometimes people don’t want to be found.” She got up to boil the kettle, just to feel busy.
---
Emily got a job - Thomas’s old job - in the sweet place. Naomi had laughed when she found out, used any excuse to call Emily Sweetness and Candy and Sugar and all variations thereof, and then laughed even harder whenever Emily scowled.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So nine months became six, and it would have to be enough.
---
“Pandora and Thomas are coming back for Christmas. And JJ’s going to be here.”
“So?”
“We should do something. Together.”
“Should we?”
“For Freddie, I mean.” The and Cook goes unsaid.
“Oh. Yeah, ok.”
---
Pandora and Thomas left again, after New Years. JJ's gone a few days later.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So six months became four, and it would have to be enough.
---
“He’s made the paper again.”
“Why?”
“It’s a year since he broke out.”
“Is it?”
“You know it is. ”
Naomi shrugged.
“They’ve no new leads.”
“They think London.”
Emily scoffed. “That narrows it down.”
---
Naomi was offered a placement with the local MP. It was simply too good to turn down and Emily agreed, insisted even, that she take it.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So four months became one, and it would have to be enough.
---
“I miss him. I miss both of them.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I thought it’d get easier, you know? That it wouldn’t hurt as much. But it’s not true, is it?”
Naomi shook her head. “No. It’s not true.”
---
There was only a week to go until Tony came back for good - he just had to finish his finals - and they’d stayed for this long, it wouldn’t hurt to see it through now.
Effy was still in a bad way. Katie was trying her best, but she couldn’t do it alone. So one month became a promise of sometime in the future, and that would have to be enough.
---
They left Bristol, a year after they had intended, to live together in London. It was a shitty one bedroom that cost a fortune, but it was their shitty one bedroom.
It was crazy, in a city of nearly eight million people, to think that she had a chance of seeing him, especially when they don’t know if he was really in London, or if he was still breathing, even. And of course she didn’t, she was never going to just bump into him on the street, but it never stopped her from hoping she might.
In reality though, it was all rather uneventful, and as such, a total contrast to their college years.
In the end Naomi graduated with a first in Politics and Sociology, while Emily got a 2:1 in Psychology.
Naomi looked at rings by way of celebration.
---
Cook finishes his joint in silence, flicks the filter to the other side of the room and then watches as it bounces off the wall and falls on the ground next to a few others. He’s nervous. More nervous than he’ll let on to them, of course, but that’s unmistakably what this feeling is. Nerves from seeing them again. At maybe even seeing all of them again.
Seeing her again.
Even the thought makes his throat go dry, so he pushes it back down again, locks it up out of sight.
He stretches his legs out in front of him and lets out a sigh. It’s not often he smokes dope anymore. Not that he can’t get his hands on it, but drugs is money, and if he has a lot of drugs, he doesn’t have a lot of money. Don’t take a genius to work that one out.
He closes his eyes to the shed. Thinks about the first time he’d been in there, and him and JJ thought it’d been the coolest fucking place on earth. It was a poxy little box, still was in fact, but back then to them, it was freedom. Suddenly his ears prick up and he’s shaken from his memory - there’s some more movement going on outside - and it could be a cat, a fox maybe, but it might not be, and he gets up off the couch sharpish.
Naomi looks at him as if he’s crazy, and yeah, maybe he is now. “JJ’s coming. It’s JJ.”
“Yeah? Right. Nice one.” Cook feels himself ease off a bit, but it only lasts for a second, because then he hears voices. Two. “JJ started talking to himself, has he?” he hisses at Naomi.
Naomi and Emily look at each other, panicked.
“Shit. Shit,” Emily mutters.
Cook’s already making his way to crouch behind the sofa again when Emily tells him to hide and she’ll go check it out. He keeps his breathing slow and steady, keeps his muscles tensed and keeps his ears open.
Emily comes back a minute later, throwing the door open with a big sigh. “Panic over, it was -”
“Cookie!” The shout comes, and before he’s managed to get back on his feet properly, something with blonde hair is attacking him, nearly toppling him over so he’s back on his arse.
“Panda and Thomas,” Emily finishes.
It takes a full minute to pry Pandora’s arms from round his neck, and she talks the whole time.
“Missed you so much Cook, so much has happened! Like the cat! My mum got a cat, and she let me give it a name, so I said Tom like from Tom and Jerry, you know? But also cause I have a Thomo to look after me, and now she has one too, see?” She stops for a second to look at him. “What happened to your face Cookie? Does it hurt?”
“Nah, babe. Fine now you’re here.” He winks, and then remembers that Thomas is here as well, and he’s a bit touchy about Cook doing stuff like that. He stretches a hand out. “Alright mate?”
Thomas takes it. “Yes Cook. And you?”
“Yeah man, you know how it goes. Anyways,” he turns back to Pandora, and slings an arm round her shoulders. “You were telling me all about what I’d missed out on.”
“Yeah, I was. Well,” she starts.
Naomi clears her throat.
“Um. That’s it really. The cat. Yup, that’s what happened.” Pandora nods her head furiously.
Cook looks from Naomi to Emily to Thomas and then back to Pandora.
It’s not right. This isn’t right.
Part 2