(Untitled)

[grabmyballs]

This is fucked up and make no mistake, but Cook's not gonna be the one complaining. There's worse things in life than waking up to find out your mad little island home has been transformed into a carnival. The rides aren't shit either, which goes a long way to ensuring that Cook spends the majority of the morning shouting and laughing his voice

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[behindtheskin]

Effy hasn't eaten all day. It's not a protest. It's not meant in an effort to curb a gnawing at her stomach, or further the shadow in either cheek. As far as life goes, these past several days have been fine, nothing out of the ordinary, a greater peace and lack of distraction than Effy's experienced in a long time. Tony is... well, Tony is still hurting, Effy knows that much, but it isn't a complete confusion that envelops him anymore so much as a shadow cast over the corners of his mind. He'll follow them, he'll cast light until everything suddenly becomes clear, and it's Effy responsibility to believe in that. But believing in Tony Stonem is something which comes easily to most people, and perhaps Effy most of all. She's there when he needs, but when he doesn't, these days it feels like the ice is firm enough under her feet for her to wander.

And today, she hasn't eaten, caught instead in the rides, in the feeling of wind whipping through her hair, of a thrill piercing through skin that has otherwise thickened with time. Her hair is windswept, her eyes bright as they peer around at the noise, the movement, and somehow, as always happens, they catch Cook's gaze right as he turns, the point of his finger like the smallest of pressures on her chest, rooting her to the spot.

"Mmm," she hums, lips barely upturned in amusement as she steps forward regardless, arms crossed loosely over her chest, head tilted almost playfully- more so, at least, than she's done in months. "Sure you didn't eat it already?"

[grabmyballs]

There's something so perfect in this moment that Cook almost doesn't want to continue. He wants to savor that smile on her lips. It's the faintest expression, the barest definition of a smile, and somehow that makes it all the more precious. Not put on or overwhelmed or dry. Just what it is. A moment of Cook and Effy.

His arm drops by degrees as he closes the distance between them with a casual strut. His index finger crooks and slides under her chin, light against the soft skin there. And Cook grins down at her, eyes warm with pure, genuine love.

"None of your cheek," he says, tapping her chin as he pulls his hand back. "Naughty girls don't get presents."

[behindtheskin]

Her eyes fall closed as his finger comes to rest under her chin, expression nothing more than pleased as she tilts her head along with the movement, catching a greater amount of sun on her skin. Warm. It reminds her of months ago, and in that instant, she's never felt so aged, raw, weathered. Things like this are hard to remember while caught in spirals of emotion, when hidden in the sweeping shadows of a cave, but she remembers today how things were, yet knows not to pine too much.

It will never be so simple again, but what they have now is enviable in its own right.

"Don't know what world you're living in," she replies, eyes sparkling with mischief when she opens them again to settle her gaze on Cook. "Have to be a bit selfish, don't we?" Her gaze skirts over the reach of his hand, eyebrow arching, playing at interest.

[grabmyballs]

There's times -- every day, it feels like sometimes -- where he wants to grab her and take her away. Steal her like he did once before and set out into the middle of nowhere with no plan but escape. Just the two of them, feeding off of and feeding each other. Selfish in a perfect, untouchable way. If the world is comprised of only the two of them, who could they hurt? Who could hurt them?

But the thought only ever lasts for a moment and shatters under the weight of reality. He can't even pretend that Freddie doesn't need him, can't fantasize about two days of Cook and Effy without his stomach twisting at the thought of Freddie alone. It works both ways too and makes him feel sick enough to drive him mad.

"No, naughty girls get something else," he says, mind falling back to the conversation and farther down, into the gutter as a devious smile pulls over his mouth. Cook shakes off his introspection and summons up a bit of pomp and ceremony as he reaches behind him to grab the stuffed toy.

He holds it before him with a broad smile. "Now tell me you fucking love me."

[behindtheskin]

Shards of memory seem to pierce at once from all around. Days where everything else existed in some indistinct cloud and haze, where thoughts wove into emotions that dissipated under the afternoon sun. She glances up and catches the color of his eyes, so familiar, the first thing that she saw in those days when they ran away, practically to the edge of the earth, it seemed, where there was fuck all to see but each other. Her hands reach out, careful, transferring the weight of the toy to her own arms, cradling it protectively. If she doesn't look, then she won't spot the details, the differences, and none of it will matter. The side of a thumb crushes against the synthetic fur, and when she glances up (sooner than she thinks, but still after an eternity) his smile's changed somewhat, the way it always did with every look and glance. Cook never was one to stay in the same place for long.

Before he can move away this time, she rushes forward, a flurry of hair tangled in the air and arms grabbing around him fast, a hush of breath falling by his ear and Patto pressed between them, muffling the beat of her heart.

"I love you," she says, face buried against the side of his neck. "I fucking love you, Cook."

Maybe it shouldn't matter, but that's always when it does.

[grabmyballs]

Cook wraps his arms around her, holds her tight against him, and for the moment he feels whole. More than that. Good. She's always been this precious thing to him, even in the beginning when gentleness and care had little to do with the two of them. They exploded like fireworks from the second they met, and he's always been awed by her, wanted to hold her, to keep her, to guard that spark (selfishly, jealously). Holding that kind of thing to you makes you feel truly invincible.

He smudges a kiss into her hair, breathing in the sun-warmed, clean scent of her. "I love you, too, kid," he says. "So fucking much." He stands there and holds her, smoothing her hair with his hand, until she's good and ready to pull away and not a second before.

[behindtheskin]

She lets herself hold onto him a little longer, her grip tightening, for all that her arms seem too heavy of a weight for her to bear. She smiles against his neck; her brow furrows. Everything dichotomous, unsettling, but she does her best to hammer all of it into the grain, folding and pounding, folding and pounding, until she's alright again. These days are easier than they were before, and she can still recognize the blessing in that. No tears brim in her eyes as she breathes, the air on her lip evening out as well.

"If there's something wrong," she wonders, not yet ready to let go, though her fingers feel weak now as they dig into fabric. "Should I tell you? Or is it better to just forget? I know I can't tell Freds. He couldn't take it."

[grabmyballs]

Cook hesitates, but maybe not for the reason Effy would supply. He's scared, yes, scared shitless of what he sees in her eyes sometimes. But it's many things that make him feel that, not the least of which being the crystal fucking clear fact that there's so little he can do to help. She's lost sometimes and Cook has never been able to find his way out of the woods on his own. How is he supposed to help her?

But he can't risk her slipping out of his grasp, even if it means fucking things up while he holds her. "You tell me," he says, as calm as Cook ever manages to be. "You tell me everything, alright? You know me. I can take anything, come back fighting."

It's always a fight, he thinks. Always.

[behindtheskin]

"Doesn't mean you should take everything," Effy says darkly, though she shakes her head quickly after. It isn't a lack of gratitude or sentiment that has her thoughts crawling along these lines, ones so common that there might as well be trails left in their wake. Pressure widening the cracks. Cook's stronger than all of them, she thinks, strong in a way that she's only tasted once in her life, and in a way that she may never fully remember again. But that doesn't mean that all the shit should come to him. That doesn't make him any more deserving of a burden than anyone else. Her arms squeeze around him tighter, for an instant, before they loosen again, Effy's nose pressed against the hollow of his cheek.

"I've been seeing things," she says quietly. "Been seeing myself in places. But not really myself, I'm different- better. And I don't know why. One tells me things'll get better, and the other one, the other one says I'm just a reflection, not real." The longer she thinks about it, the more she wonders if the same holds true for all of them.

A world like this one never quite feels real.

[grabmyballs]

He wants to say something to that, tell her that he'll take everything she can give him, everything Freddie gives him, and fuck the rest. Tell her that he doesn't give a fuck if it breaks him as long as he can hold them together. That's what love is. It's holding on even as you break. And it's something no one's ever done for him but that he will do, needs to do for them.

But he doesn't want to trample over her words, startle her away from whatever revelation she's about to make, so he keeps his peace and just holds on tight.

He frowns at what she's telling him though, unable to make any more sense of it than she has. "Places like where, Eff? Like-- Like where?" Lakes and mirrors, he thinks. The corner of her eye. If it's hallucinations she's seeing, those would be the places for them, he thinks.

[behindtheskin]

"Everywhere," she replies at once, the tone of her voice strained as she pulls away, until she can wrap both arms firmly around the giraffe in her arms, pressing her lips to the top of its head. Searching for the type of comfort that only children can ever find, without a need for validation, without a need for evidence, just a touch of warmth to keep them going through the evening, to hint at company. "I see them in the forest, next to the waterfall, they get right up in front of my face, and I'm so... fucking tired of it."

Her eyes close, wishing for silence, for a brief moment in which she can be alone, only her own thoughts to echo against the walls. But that's a wish that'll never be granted her, she suspects.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I've tried- I'm... taking a class, I thought it could help me figure it out."

[grabmyballs]

If she's been getting high, palming pills from who only knows where, Cook wouldn't be worried. You see all kinds of weird shit when you're tripping. The easy answer to that is to stop taking the pills, and even when mental, Effy's not that stupid. If it's freaking her out this badly, she would have stopped, were drugs the answer.

She pulls away and he can't hold on, won't trap her like that no matter how much he wants to now. Instead, Cook combs his fingers through her hair, tucking the smooth strands behind her ears as he thinks and worries. "You tell 'em to fuck off? Tell 'em we don't want anything to do with them?"

[behindtheskin]

"I tried, but... I don't know," Effy breathes, frustrated, not sure that she can find the right words to explain it. Every single detail, so clear that they might as well be separate people. Shadows, where she never knew they'd fall. A fleck of black in the iris. The way her hair would look, draped over her shoulders, no lighter than the darkest black. "One of them tries to fucking help me, like she knows everything, how to put me back together. And then the other tells me that I'm wrong, I've done everything wrong, and I can't-"

Her fingers shake for a moment before they reach for his hands, grasping with a firm hold. "But they're different, too. Black hair. Fit. Sometimes it's an American accent, sometimes it's Irish."

[grabmyballs]

His hand tightens reflexively around her fingers, his natural response to tell her he's not letting go, not again. But he has to catch himself to keep from laughing, the sound getting caught in the back of his throat, like a disbelieving cough, as his eyes widen. It couldn't be that simple, could it? Oh, but it could. Thank fucking Jesus.

"Eff," he says, still with that lingering tone of surprise. But he kicks it out of his voice entirely, turns his words soft and understanding. "They're real. They're people. They just look like you. They just happen to have your face. I've met that American bitch. She's not you, Effy. Not even a ghost of you. Not in a million fucking years."

[behindtheskin]

His words don't register in the first few seconds. The tone is wrong, soft and light, like a weight's just been fucking ripped off of his shoulders, and for that brief time, it's all Effy feels. The brush of a friend, retreating. Her hand tightens, a twitch of movement, before she stares at every detail, the shine of his eyes or the brief curve of his lips, and reality finally sinks in with a realization that leaves her winded in its wake. All this fear for nothing. All of this silence, pointless. And for all that she tries to fight towards a smile, her hand slips out from Cook's first, curling into a fist that feels so tiny, ineffectual as it beats against his chest.

"You wanker," she exclaims first, forehead dropping so she doesn't have to look anymore, at the laughter transferred from his eyes to her own, though buried under the weight of relief. "You wanker, Cook, why didn't you tell me that there was some bitch running around with my fucking face- why didn't anyone fucking tell me?"

It isn't long before her cheek brushes against the side of his neck, and her arms reach to wrap around his shoulders, a heavy breath in lieu of tears as she holds fast to him as an anchor.

[grabmyballs]

He knows her too well. He knows her too fucking well, even with all the shit she's got going on in her head right now, to hear the words without the tone. He knows what it feels like to be angry at yourself too, and everyone, for the universe conspiring against you. He's lived it every day. There's frustration there, hurt, but those are pieces of a bigger picture.

His arms wrap around her waist and he holds her close, his hand running up and down the same two inches of her spine. "Because she doesn't fucking matter, Eff. I stopped thinking 'bout that bitch the second she walked away." And that's truth, for a lot of reasons. "You're all that matters." His voice softens. "You're all I think about."