Fic: ... And the Battle Began (Chapter Eight, Part One)
Title: ... And the Battle Begun
Chapter: A Mouth Full of Hollow Threats
Pairing: Naomi/Katie, Naomi/Emily
Word count: 11,500
Rating: NC-17
A/N: Thanks as usual to the lovely twistomatic for betaing and support and for not getting cross all the other times I totally forgot to credit her - thanks darling!! And thanks to all of YOU who are making writing this story worth it ♥
Hey you with all of your secrets // The story has just begun // We see right through your scare tactics // And your feeble attempts at diversion
She almost doesn't want to have a shower. Doing so would remove what's left of Emily's touch from her skin, Emily's scent from all over her, and it means that she'll be clean again. Even if only physically.
But Naomi knows she has to - she's not supposed to have anything of Emily's let alone the image in her mind of Emily naked, twisting and bucking onto her hand.
(The shower won't take that away, she knows. She doesn't want to admit that she's glad about that.)
So she runs the water until it's hot, stripping out of her clothes for the second time that day (though she had a little help in the first instance) and stepping underneath it. Before she picks up the soap, though, she holds her hand to her face one last time and smells Emily there, remembers how it's probably all over her face too.
It just can't be there, though. It's not right.
Naomi wonders, as she puts her head under the sputtering stream of water, if Emily's at home doing the same thing right now.
Washing Naomi away, washing it all away until the only thing that's left is a memory she's got no right to possess.
****
It was a hard call to make on the way home but Naomi knew that if she didn't respond to Katie at some point then there'd be another argument she just didn't have the energy for.
So, Naomi phoned her and she was still at the pub, sounding as smashed as Naomi knew she would be. It was irritating, still, that Katie had found it so easy to shrug off Naomi's miserable defeat at the college election and run away to celebrate with her friends and it provided Naomi with an anger she needed to cling onto. The guilt was just around the corner, poking her in the ribs and going, Hey, you massive cheating cuntbag - I'll give you five more minutes of pretending that what Katie did was worse before I punch you full on in the stomach.
And, like, it wasn't actually because of Katie being a twat that Naomi... did what she did with Emily, and she knows that, so being pissed off with Katie is a separate matter. Even without Emily Naomi knew that she'd still be on this path with Katie that wasn't really going anywhere. Fucking Katie knew it already, and had known all along, and was probably at the pub right fucking now scouting for her next boyfriend. The thing that came after Naomi. The one that would be better.
So she kept the call brief; told Katie that she wouldn't be joining them at the pub, thanks, and that she'd talk to her later.
She tried not to close her eyes tightly together as she heard Katie's obvious disappointment but Naomi just couldn't stand it - hurting her. And if this was how she felt when she told Katie she wouldn't be joining her at the fucking Fishpond Tavern, for fuck's sake, then how would she feel when she told Katie about Emily?
It was too much for then, so Naomi said goodbye before she could say any more, grateful that Katie hadn't ended the call with an I love you because Naomi knew that the lie she's been telling for a while now wouldn't have been able to escape her lips this time.
(It's the first time she's really thought about it that way, thinking of it as a lie that she loves Katie. Because it's not, quite. It's just not the same as...)
She could put it to the side, then. But Naomi knew that it wouldn't be possible for long, even if she and Emily had sort of agreed not to say anything to Katie.
Naomi believes in fair; she just wishes that it wasn't her fucking responsibility to be the one to make this fair on all of them - herself included.
****
After her shower, she looks at her face in the mirror. Stripped of make-up she feels like she looks old, far beyond her 17 years, like she belongs on a shelf back at the library in a section where nobody ever really went and the books were left to fester and yellow, having used their time unwisely. Like they should never have even existed.
She doesn't like the way her face just won't smile - not that it has any reason to - so she stops looking at it. It hasn't got any fucking answers anyway, but it's fixed in such a harsh scowl that she knows she's going to give herself away if she's not careful. Her mum always knows too much and, actually, for a change, Naomi would sort of like to sit with her for a bit. But she can't when she doesn't want to talk about it.
Not with her. Not with anyone, really.
So she changes into fresh clothes, trying hard not to look around her room at all the traces of Katie that are there. But they really are fucking everywhere, from pop socks to knickers, to little notes and a photo that's stuck to her mirror from a day when they'd sat out on the green at college and Katie had taken it on her phone and surprised Naomi with it as a print out the next day.
It was a nicer Katie, that one. One who wasn't running around like she was the poorest person on Earth and Effy sweated gold or when she wasn't completely destroying Naomi's ideals in one breath. And Naomi considers turning the photo around, not having to look at her cheeky, impish grin, and remembering why she was pissed off with her in the first place but she can't bring herself to do it.
Because - and if she thinks about it too long Naomi knows she'll cry - Katie's not a monster. She's not a horrible person. She's just different than Naomi. It's just now it seems like those differences are what are going to break them instead of endearing them to each other.
It's all fucked, then, because Naomi's crying and sinking to the floor in front of her head, still dressed in her towel and nothing else, and she knows that they're beyond breaking - they're already broken.
****
There's no way of Naomi judging how long she's been there, except now her hair's dry and she's shivering a little, and she reckons she wouldn't have even moved if her mum hadn't come in with a cup of tea.
"Come in," Naomi sniffs after hearing the knock, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, grateful that she'd washed her make-up off before she'd started with the waterworks, and hopes that her mum can't tell.
"Oh, sweetheart," Gina says as she pushes the door open just enough for her to squeeze in and then shuts it behind her.
"What?" Naomi snits, pulling her towel a little more tightly around her.
"Darling, for one... just, have this. You look freezing," Gina says softly, passing Naomi the hot tea and then kneeling in front of her as she takes it. "And, secondly - we can all hear you crying down the hall. Sort of like a cat being strangled. So, unless I've raised you badly enough to be tormenting nearby pets and you've stuffed next door's Trixie under your bed then your throat must be a bit bloody raw by now."
Naomi wants to tell her to fuck right off or to at least deny it, but her mum's looking at her so fondly, and Naomi just doesn't deserve her sympathy, that it sets off another bout of tears.
She feels the cup being taken out of her hands again as her mum says, "Oh, love - come here," as Naomi's pulled into an awkward embrace at the foot of her bed. "Christ, you didn't even cry this much when your father left. Have you broken up with Katie?"
Naomi manages a sniffly, "No," against her mum's now soggy shoulder and straightens up again, fighting with the towel to retain at least a tiny bit of her dignity. "No, we haven't... not yet. But then... I don't fucking know."
"Ah yes," Gina says, straightening out next to her and stretching her legs out so that Naomi can see the tiny toe ring she's always worn. And it's funny, she thinks, how some things can stay the same after so many years but others change so quickly you don't even realise it until it's too late.
"So, in limbo a bit then?" her mum asks and Naomi shrugs.
"Sort of, I suppose. I don't really know what to tell you, Mum." She takes a sip of her tea, enjoying having someone nearby who might not agree with her actions but won't judge her for them. It's almost enough for Naomi to want to tell her what's happened, but not quite.
"Did I ever tell you about the man I loved before your father?" Gina asks and Naomi winces because these stories are always a little more descriptive than she'd like, but she shakes her head anyway and waits for her mum to continue. "No, I didn't think so. He was gorgeous, you know? And I thought, Christ, what's he doing with a funny looking bugger like me? but he was. And for a while it was lovely.
"But it wasn't until we got to know each other - we even lived together for a bit - that we figured out how incompatible we were. You know, after all the months of fucking every five minutes had gotten a bit boring and we were just... together. And it wasn't right.
"He let me go first, and, while I knew it wasn't ever meant to work out, I bloody cried my face off for two weeks. Ridiculous really. His cock was tiny as well - hardly worth it."
"Christ," Naomi splutters out through a laugh. "Very superficial of you, Mum. Nothing like a good cock story to cheer me up."
"Or a bad one," Gina winks and Naomi smiles into her tea. "But, darling, the point is - just because we love someone it doesn't mean that it's right to be with them. Not always."
"Right," Naomi says, sombre again.
They sit like that for a bit, until Naomi's tea's gone cold, and her mum's kissing her on the forehead and ungracefully manoeuvring herself up from the floor.
"I'm making Shepherd's Pie without out the products of shepherds, so it's more of a vegetable farmer's pie, but there'll be some in the kitchen if you want any."
"Thanks Mum," Naomi says through a tight smile, which her mum returns before she's gone again.
Puffing out a deep breath, Naomi readies herself for bed, pulling on a t-shirt for the first time in ages and flopping down on her pillow, her mum's words ringing around in her head.
Just because you love them, Naomi thinks. So, if Katie loves her - which she says she does - then it doesn't mean it's the best thing for them.
And - and it's fucking hard to think it but she knows she might as well get on with it - if Emily loves her then that might not be right either.
It's a word she hadn't been planning on using, not ever really, and she's got no fucking clue how there are now two people who come to mind when she thinks it.
****
She's totally unprepared when, the next day, Katie turns up at her house with a big bunch of flowers saying, "Look, I'm fairly sure they're organic but I'm so hungover I think I might die, so can they just be okay please?"
"Um, okay," Naomi responds warily, holding onto the door frame. "Are you... going to give them to me...?"
"Oh, shit, yes - here." Katie pushes the bouquet into Naomi's chest so hard that she has to take a step back to steady herself. "They're, like, to say sorry. It's been pointed out to me that I've been a fucking idiot lately. Even if you have been too."
"Right. So, this is an apology?"
"Well, of course it is," Katie rolls her eyes and it looks like it really fucking hurts her to do it because she's suddenly gripping her head and looking a bit pale. And Naomi can't not go to her, then, when it looks like she's about to fall on her arse. Or her face.
"Fuck's sake," she mutters, reaching out to pull Katie into the house with the one arm that isn't currently getting soaked by cut off flower-roots. "Come on."
"Thanks, babes," Katie says quietly, clinging onto Naomi's waist like she'll definitely go over if she doesn't.
And it's all a bit fucking weird, because Naomi just wasn't ready. But she's got to be, now, because Katie's here. And she's got two options: maintain her previous attitude towards Katie and make her work for her sympathy, or behave how she wants to and cry at Katie's feet and tell her just how fucking sorry she is and she doesn't know what to do and could Katie please forgive her even though she's not sure she wants to be forgiven?
Option two's giving her a headache to rival Katie's just by thinking about it and it's just not her decision to make alone. Two of them made this mess and Emily's not some random that Naomi fucked because she was pissed off with her girlfriend. Emily's so much to both of them and Naomi can't wreck the relationship between these sisters without at least one sister's permission.
So, option one makes the most sense. And it's not pussying out, Naomi knows that it's not, because even though she told her herself there were two options in this she knows that, really, right now there's only one.
"Shall I put the kettle on?" Naomi asks as she leads them to the kitchen, running the water first into a tall glass in lieu of a vase and trimming the ends of the stems a little more.
"Oh God, no thanks. Just water please," Katie mutters as Naomi hears her pull out a chair really slowly and sit down.
"Fuck, you must really be broken. Here you go." Naomi passes a very shaky-handed Katie a glass of water that she sips at delicately, like she doesn't trust Naomi not to have poisoned it. "So, am I to assume that in your drunken haze you've realised that you've been a bit of a twat lately, then?"
"Ugh, please don't." Katie puts her head in her hands and Naomi's got the sudden impulse to go and sit next to Katie, just so they're close, but she doesn't and stays firm with her arms folded, leaning back against the kitchen counter. "And, I already said - someone pointed it out to me."
"Oh? And who was this? Friendly bartender? Someone blind and deaf who doesn't know me but still picked up on it?"
"Naomi, come on. I'm trying, okay? And, for your information, it was Emily."
Naomi starts, suddenly alert. "What? You've seen Emily?"
Katie lifts her head from her hands and raises an eyebrow. "Of course I have - we share a fucking bedroom."
"Right, of course," Naomi says, trying to relax again but her heart's beating a little faster and she's panicked. Luckily Katie's too busy focussing on her hangover to notice, so she carries on, none the wiser, giving Naomi enough time to recover as she listens.
"And, like, I managed to wake her up trying to be quiet when I got in last night and I remember - and sorry about this, babes - whinging about you and how you wouldn't come to the pub, and she just fucking went off on one, saying how maybe if I'd considered how you were feeling about stuff then you wouldn't have not wanted to come, or whatever. And I was a bit of a dick back to her but when I woke up and I couldn't really see anything and I just laid there like a fucking dying dog all I could think about was you."
Katie looks right at her then, and Naomi feels it all the way through. She swallows but says nothing, waits for Katie to finish.
"Babes," she says, pushing back from her chair and standing slowly, walking around until she's in front of Naomi and reaching out a hand. "I'm really fucking sorry. I, like... I didn't fucking get it, what it's like to work for something important, you know? And then I thought for a second about losing you and, Christ, if you losing that election is anything near how I felt when I thought that then I get it."
Naomi sighs, looks at Katie's hand, stretched out between them like a dove with an olive branch, and Naomi can't help but take it, feeling Katie's sweaty palm against her own cold one and it makes her resolve slowly start to dissipate.
"Katie, it's not just about the election though. You get that, right?"
Katie nods, and it's a sad one, a heavy-headed one that says, I know, but can we just not right now? and that's something Naomi understands.
"Okay, well... shall we go and sit down? I'm a bit knackered after yesterday and I think you might pass out soon and I'd rather you did it somewhere that you couldn't hit your head on the way down, yeah?"
"Yeah, okay," Katie smiles, and Naomi tries one back. It doesn't feel natural. But she'll try for a bit. She owes it to both of them.
****
Half an hour later, when they're on the couch with Katie's head on Naomi's shoulder, watching some crappy afternoon show on from the 1970s when the pictures weren't as clear and the clothes were altogether too brown, Katie sighs and snuggles in a little closer.
"So, howcome you're so knackered, then? You didn't say what you were doing after the election - was it all just a bit exhausting?"
Naomi stops, wonders what Emily's said, and decides it's best to avoid mentioning her altogether.
"I just... I came home. Well I went for a walk, just to clear my head, y'know? And then I came home."
"Oh? Ems said she saw you."
"... did she?" Naomi tenses again, eyes still on the TV, pretending that she's not about to have another bout of major panicking.
"Yeah, she said that, like, you looked a bit gutted and that, that she bumped into you at the library."
"Right, yeah. I forgot."
Katie laughs, leans up to kiss Naomi on the cheek.
"Fucking hell, babes. Your memory's worse than mine. Honestly."
"Hmm," Naomi murmurs, waiting for the thumping in her chest to die down.
She's got her arms around Katie, just like always, but she's thinking about Emily. Just like always.
Only this time, she knows that the conversation they need to have next is about how to conceal a lie they're telling together. It's the biggest one yet.
Too big to tell, too big not to.
****
She can't sleep.
She's been trying for what feels like ages, and Katie's been conked out for almost as long, drifting off pretty soon after they decided to go to bed. It was a relief to Naomi, really, because any other day Katie would have wanted to fuck and Naomi knew that she just couldn't.
And she couldn't have said no, either. She doesn't know how she would have been able to without starting that conversation, the one that neither of them are ready for, so at least Katie's unwittingly saved them both from it.
Katie had laid with her head on Naomi's chest for a while as Naomi had stayed stiff. She's a mass of conflictions and contradictions, lying there with her girlfriend, thinking about the other girl.
The other girl, she thinks and shakes her head at herself.
It's all just doing her head in, so she decides to nip out for a smoke, extricating herself from a Katie who's lot of dead weight, currently, and shows no signs of waking as she rolls over onto her side and Naomi pulls a t-shirt on, grabbing her fags and phone on the way.
****
The weather's still mild, even for this late at night, but Naomi stretches her top over her knees as she sits anyway.
She almost does it without thinking, and tries to pick a good excuse to do it but comes up with nothing, and just settles with a text that says:
Hey. You still awake? Nx
It's only 11.30, so it's not entirely unsociable timing, but Naomi lights a fag while keeping an eye on her phone, counting in her head for the next thirty seconds before the answer comes back that, yes, she is still up.
Naomi puffs out a long stream of white smoke that she follows with her eyes until it disappears into the air, and scrolls down her contacts until she finds Emily's name.
She's still unsure of what she actually wants to say when she presses call and waits for Emily to pick up and she considers hanging up just before she does.
"Hi," Emily says quietly, and Naomi smiles ridiculously at just hearing her voice.
"Hi," she manages back and takes another puff as Emily giggles. "What?"
"Nothing, just... What's up?"
"Nothing. Well, not nothing, actually," and then the smile's gone.
"Yeah. I know what you mean."
There's a silence that Naomi wants to fill with something serious, or she at least feels like she should, but today's been pretty fucking serious already so, she decides, fuck it.
"So, what are you doing?"
Emily laughs and then there's a shuffling of covers and Naomi's stomach does a little flip.
"Nothing. Just reading. I can't sleep, actually. I've been... thinking. You know. About you."
"Oh yeah?" Naomi says through a mouthful of smoke. "What about me?"
"Naomi!" Emily half-whispers, half-squeals, and Naomi grins, pretending that she's allowed to smile today.
"What, Ems? Reasonable question, I think. You know how incredibly vain I am."
"Yeah, course," Emily starts. "You're just like..."
Naomi sighs, and so does Emily, and then there's another shift and Naomi closes her eyes and thinks about how it must be warm where Emily is, but Emily's turned serious and it reminds Naomi of who's in her own bed, tucked up nice and warm, waiting for her even as she sleeps.
"Is she there, then?" Emily asks quietly, and Naomi wishes that she could tell her no. But lying to one of them is hard enough, and she's finding it harder to do it to Emily now.
"Yeah, she's in bed. I'm in the garden."
"Right." Emily pauses and Naomi can almost see her as she closes her eyes, an image of Emily biting her lip and worry causing her brow to knit together. "Fuck, Naoms. What are we doing? This is just bollocks, isn't it?"
"A bit," Naomi grimaces, flicking the last of the ash from her fag before scraping it against the concrete until there's no more fire left in it. "Look, Ems. Should we... do you want to come round and talk? We should... talk. I think."
There's another sigh on the end of the line, and Naomi wonders if that's what they're going to be doing for the rest of forever, just sighing at each other down the end of a phone, wishing that everything was different.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I've not got lessons until after lunch tomorrow - are you free?"
"I can be. I think I should be. I mean, I will be. I'll... text you once she's gone?" Naomi purses her lips and puts her head in her free hand, hating herself for even having to say that.
"Okay, well. I'll see you then, then."
"Yeah. Night, Emily."
"Night, Naomi."
Emily hangs up first and Naomi stares at her phone until the screen goes blank and she's got nothing else to do but smoke another cigarette.
They'll sort it out, she knows they will. And then they can figure out just how they're going to do this.
****
When she gets back into bed she feels like a cunt for doing it but she snuggles up behind Katie, letting the warmth surround her until she forgets that she'd even been out in the cold at all.
She breathes Katie in for a moment, even though she feels like she has no right to do so, and whispers, "I'm so sorry, Katie," into her hair like some sort of hypnosis tape. Like if she says it enough times Katie will be hypnotised into believing her.
Because she really is sorry. Sorry that she ignored that fact that this had been coming for ages, sorry that she's had to do it this way and sorry, most of all she's sorry, that she still doesn't know what the fuck to do about it.
****
She's a fucking state the next morning where Katie's a little more chipper and, unfortunately, a lot more frisky.
"Hey babes," she says, sleepily running a hand over Naomi's stomach. "I fucking needed that sleep. Thank you." She kisses Naomi on the cheek, and then down over her jawbone and onto her neck.
Naomi closes her eyes for a moment and almost gives into it, but she can't, not when things aren't sorted yet. If she wants to do this with Katie it has to be right. And it can't be right now.
"Kay, babes, listen. You need to go to college. You're gonna be late."
"Don't care," Katie says, reaching up to squeeze Naomi's tit and pushing her cunt against Naomi's leg. "Really don't care."
"Well, hon. I do," Naomi says, wriggling out of Katie's grip and flipping them over so that she's on top and she's pinning Katie's arms above her head. "I'm not going to be the reason you fail your A Levels, okay? So fuck off to college, let me do some work here, and I will see you later."
"Yeah?" Katie says with a grin, bucking up slightly so that their cunts bump together and Naomi closes her eyes momentarily. "Promise?"
And then Katie's kissing her and Naomi's mind goes blank, forgetting for a moment that she's not being fair and letting herself be kissed. But then Emily's face flashes into her mind and she has to pull away quickly before she gets too carried away.
"Ugh, fine," Katie grumbles, flopping back onto her pillow. "But you can make it up to me, okay?"
"Right," Naomi says quietly as she rolls onto her side, watching as Katie slides out of bed and gathers her things.
"Mind if I grab a shower? I'm still well achy from my hangover. Remind me never to go drinking without you again, yeah?" she says with a shake of her head, and Naomi can't help but laugh at her.
Katie smiles and leans back over the bed for a quick kiss. "There you are," she says against Naomi's lips. "I knew that smile was in there somewhere."
Her throat clenches tightly as Katie kisses her again, briefly, and then winks as she makes her way to the bathroom, clothes pressed against her front, saying, "Oh hi, Gina," on her way.
Naomi's wrapped the duvet around her when her mum pokes her head through the door offering a huge grin and a thumbs up before disappearing again and Naomi groans as she flops back down onto her bed.
It's a big mess, now. And Katie's already noticed that Naomi's not being herself completely and she's being so fucking nice again, now that she's had a telling off from her sister.
It makes up her mind, then. She'll fix things once Emily comes over.
She'll put a stop to this before it goes any further. They can't hurt Katie. They just can't.
****
There's a mantra going around in her head for the next hour or so until Emily arrives, and it's making her ache with remembering to think it every few seconds.
Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen.
If she believes it hard enough, Naomi reckons, then it'll be true. They're just going to talk. And Naomi's going to tell Emily that it was wrong, what they did. And it can never happen again.
Because Naomi's with Katie. And, she might not be in love with her but she does love her. And so does Emily.
So by the time the front door goes, Naomi's steeled herself. Emily will understand - of course she will - and they'll sort this right out and then Naomi can go about making amends properly. Or at least figure out whether or not she and Katie have reached the end of the line naturally.
It's a good plan, albeit not a great one, so when Gina shouts up, "Naomi, Emily's here - I'll send her up," and Naomi shouts back, "Okay," she feels ready. She can do this. She can totally do this.
She's sitting on her bed when there's a light tap on her door, and then Emily's walking through it and closing it behind her.
And it's not like she's come in wearing a fucking corset and stockings, or a short skirt that just hints at thighs, or anything that would normally send someone into a lust-induced haze but as she stands there, all Emily-like, in her purple tights, with her fringe almost in her eyes and her yellow bag draped over her shoulder, Naomi's plan goes out the window.
"Hi," Emily says with a smile, and then it drops as Naomi stands.
"Hi," Naomi returns and they're silent for a moment before they laugh awkwardly.
Then Emily shakes her head and looks at her feet, all the while leaving Naomi standing there not knowing what to do with her hands, or the rest of her, really.
"It's raining now." Emily nods towards the window and Naomi follows her gaze, watching as the first few drops hit the window and stay there, like a protective shield gradually forming around them. It makes things blurry, the rain. Like trying to see through half-asleep eyes.
"Yeah," is all Naomi responds with, catching Emily's eye as she turns around.
She's not sure who moves first, but in a second they've met in the middle of the room, hands finding faces, bodies pressing together, lips moving quickly against each other.
Emily sinks into it, and Naomi sinks right along with her, gripping onto the back of Emily's neck as she keeps them close, whimpering into Emily's mouth as Emily's hands grip tightly onto her shoulder blades.
They're both breathless by the time they pull away and Emily's whispering, "Fuck," against Naomi's lips. "Not exactly talking, is it?"
Naomi shakes her head and bites her lip, knowing that anything she could ever have said ever just became irrelevant. And it's horrible, actually, this feeling that's creeping through her, this one that makes her powerless to stop herself whenever Emily's around. And it's breaking her, slowly, from the outside in.
"Ems," she says quietly, leaning forward until her mouth is next to Emily's ear. "Ems, I'm sorry, I tried not to but I - "
"Fuck," Emily says again, and then she's pulling Naomi back around to face her and it's a hard and heavy kiss, this one, and then it's Naomi's turn to be surprised, stumbling a little as Emily pushes her backwards, shrugging out of her cardigan as she goes and flinging it to the floor as Naomi pulls her own t-shirt over her head.
Emily's got a taste for this now, it seems, and Naomi's fucking relieved to not be in charge. It seems to her, as Emily's unzipping her skirt, that all Emily ever needed was permission and now, despite her best intentions, Naomi's given it to her.
There's a small part of her that wishes she could take it away, that she could remember what her life was like before she gave into this... this thing with Emily. She wishes that her chest would stop constricting whenever Emily's around her, that her palms would stop sweating and her lungs would remember how to work properly.
It's a bit fucking scary, actually. So she lets Emily distract her with her body, losing herself to the wanting as Emily takes off her bra, reaching forward as soon as it's off and wrapping her lips around a nipple.
It's the easier of two feelings to understand, and it shuts her fucking head up for a while. Just so she can focus on Emily's skin.
****
They're down to their knickers, having scooched up the bed, when Emily, hovering over Naomi, freezes.
"What?" Naomi asks, blinking as she regains control of her own mind. "What is it?"
"You..." Emily starts and then shakes her head.
"Ems." Naomi takes her hand from where it's pressed against Naomi's breast and holds it. "What?"
"Christ, I can't believe I'm about to ask this but... last night, did you two...?"
"Oh," Naomi says, and almost smiles until she factors in the last person in her bed and it all feels horribly sordid. "No, no we didn't."
Emily sighs and then groans and then rolls off of Naomi so they're lying side by side, suddenly with so much distance between them.
"Jesus, this is all so wrong isn't it?" Emily says, bringing her hands to cover her face.
Naomi wants to disagree, tell Emily that everything's fine, but she just can't. Nothing's fine. Especially not now that Emily's not touching her and there's a fire in Naomi's belly that doesn't seem to want to be put out.
So she rolls onto her side and takes Emily's hands away from her face until Emily's peering out from under her eyelids like she's afraid of what she'll find there.
A cheater, Naomi thinks. A cheater and a liar.
"Emily, I'm not going to say that this isn't a fucking awful situation that we're in but... when I'm with you it doesn't feel wrong."
"And when you're with Katie?" Emily asks, sadness in her eyes where there was only recently something else. Something that Naomi wanted to see. And now she can't look at Emily because she doesn't know what to say.
There's no way to explain it in a way that makes sense. Like Katie still feels right in so many ways but now (and it's the thing she's wanted to avoid doing) there's someone to compare it to. And that's what's making it confusing.
Emily takes her silence the wrong way and sighs, turning onto her side away from Naomi.
"Fuck's sake," Naomi mutters and considers getting up but then thinks better of it and curls up behind Emily, waiting a few seconds before Emily relaxes and reaches around to hold Naomi's hand over her stomach.
They've never really done this before, laid like this. And Naomi like the way it feels with their skin touching almost everywhere and Emily's hair tickling her nose. She could lie this way forever, she reckons - just her and Emily, breathing in time with each other, feet stroking across smooth legs, fingers absently playing with fingers, and it's the sort of thought she shouldn't be having so she pushes it away, tries to focus.
"Emily, this isn't about Katie, you know," Naomi mutters into Emily's neck, hoping that Emily understands.
"How can it not be, Naoms? She's your gir - "
"I know, Ems. I know exactly who she is," Naomi interrupts, tensing. "Sorry, but that's not what I'm talking about. Fucking hell," Naomi rolls her eyes and rolls onto her back.
Emily follows her, and leans over, staring at Naomi for a second before she runs her fingers across Naomi's eyebrows, one by one, smoothing them out, and then Naomi closes her eyes as Emily traces down her cheeks and onto her lips where Naomi kisses them slowly.
"Do you want me to go?" Emily asks quietly.
Naomi almost says yes, stops this before they go any further, but they've already started now. And, besides, it wouldn't be the first time.
"No," Naomi whispers, leaning up to capture Emily's lips. "No."
****
Nothing gets decided. Nothing, other than the fact that they still shouldn't tell Katie and that Emily needs to figure out a way to be a little quieter when she comes.
Emily raises her eyebrows at this, almost smiling, and says, "By saying that, Naomi, you mean to suggest that this... that you want to do this again?"
"No," Naomi clears her throat, aiming for levity. "I just mean that in general. If you're anything like that at home you're going to give James even more information than he needs."
"Oh fucking hell, that's disgusting!" Emily laughs, and throws a pillow at Naomi from across the other side of the bed. "What's wrong with you?"
"I'm not the one with the perverted brother," Naomi shrugs and then throws the pillow back, which Emily catches and then runs around the bed to smack Naomi with it anyway.
Naomi fights with her a little, laughing in a way that she knows she shouldn't be able to, and wrestles the pillow away until they're both breathless and flushed.
Emily kisses her then and it catches Naomi off-guard so that it takes her a moment to respond.
When Emily pulls away she's shaking her head and looking at her feet.
"Shit, I can't just do that, can I?"
"You can," Naomi says, and registers the surprise on Emily's face when she leans towards her. "You can, for now."
****
It's a bollocks resolution. It's not even nearly a resolution anyway, and Naomi can't figure out why the fuck Emily's still being nice to her.
She's not fighting this, not telling Naomi to break up with Katie, not pushing Naomi to do anything she knows she should do, and she can't figure out why.
Anyone else would, she thinks as she sits down in front of her laptop, opening up a blank Word document and then reaching for one of her English text books. Katie definitely would, she decides and then smirks, remembering a time when Katie forced her to make a decision about what cheese to put in an omelette and how it had seemed so easy to Katie with her shouting, Just pick what you fucking like best, okay?
But then that was Katie. Or that is Katie, Naomi reminds herself and puffs out a big breath as she stares at the expanse of white on her screen.
She remembers something, then. Something on Friends from, like, years ago but she'd seen it on a repeat on E4 recently and it was fresh in her memory.
A list, she thinks. Pros and cons. Katie and Emily.
It's a wank idea, really. But it might help her clear her brain, so she gets to work, taking a full hour to get it all out of her.
The results aren't surprising. She knows what she's got to do, so she shakes her head at herself before she deletes everything from the page just to be safe and then closes without saving.
It was pretty close, really, so Naomi had had to go back through and mark in bold the points which she felt were most important.
There was one that stood out, seemingly bolder than the rest, and it's the one that Naomi focused on as she chewed on a fingernail. It's the one thing she keeps coming back to.
She can't live like this, hiding things, keeping secrets. Making lists about the girls that she loves and waiting for an answer to come to her out of thin air. She already knows what the right thing to do is.
Now all she needs to do is tell them both.
Part Two