Fic: Friends and Foe, Part 2 (GH, Emily)
Title: Friends and Foe
Author: empressearwig
Rating: G
Spoilers: Set Fall 2007. Events don’t correspond exactly.
Author's Notes: This was not my idea. I blame lapiccolina entirely. Thanks to sugarpromises for the encouragement, and to normative_jean for the technical assistance. This story was a bit of an experiment, to see if I could understand and write characters that I’m not particularly fond of. I think it turned out fairly well.
Summary: A circle of friends bound together through adversity; four souls who desperately need things their own families can’t give them.
And the little love I had
For all my friends and foe
And the little lines we've drawn between us all have
Taken hold
~ The Frames, Friends and Foe
Emily, Part 2: The World at Bay
Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
~ Dixie Chicks, Easy Silence
When one of your best friends falls in love with your brother, and your other best friend is left alone, it’s hard to know how to react. It’s hard to figure out how to support everyone without it seeming like you’re choosing sides. So you tell your brother to go after the woman he loves, and encourage Elizabeth to leave Lucky, and hope that when the dust settles Lucky will forgive you and realize you were only trying to minimize his pain.
You won’t blame him if he doesn’t see it that way, though. You don’t always see it that way yourself.
* * * * *
Life as an intern, surrogate mother, and girlfriend is busier and more complicated than you ever imagined it would be. You barely have enough time to eat, sleep, and tuck Spencer in at night most days, which doesn’t leave you the time to check up on Lucky, though you remind yourself daily that you need to. He’s been there to hold your hand through all your major life crises, and you know you need to be there for him.
But then Nikolas starts having mood swings, outbursts, and violent episodes, and suddenly your time is even tighter. You’re terrified to leave him, and yet you’re terrified to be in the home you share, and you’re scared to leave the boy you’ve grown to love as your own son alone with his father. In the past, this is when you’d always call on Lucky, but this time you think it’s up to you to be the strong one, to be the one to shoulder everyone’s problems.
It’s harder than you ever thought it would be.
* * * * *
When Alexis comes to stay at Wyndemere with her girls, you find yourself a little freer. She loves Nikolas and Spencer as much as you do, and with her in the house, you don’t feel so obligated to spend all your free time waiting for something horrible to happen.
One night you find yourself completely without responsibility due to an unexpected scheduling error at the hospital. You can’t bring yourself to head back to whatever potential disaster awaits you at home, so you swing by your favorite pizza place, picking up your childhood favorite of Canadian bacon and pineapple, and the video store for the movies you and Lucky would watch on lazy Sunday afternoons when you first moved to Port Charles. You think it’s time you start making up for what you privately think of as betrayal to your oldest friend.
You only hope it’s not too late.
* * * * *
As you stand on the steps of what you’ve always considered your second home waiting for Lucky to answer the door, you wonder what you’ll say when he answers. Should you apologize for not being there lately? Should you pretend that you haven’t spent time helping Elizabeth leave him, while not being there to hold his hand? You haven’t yet decided when the door opens and the haggard, tired face of your best friend appears before you.
Immediately you know that whatever platitudes you were about to spout don’t matter, and you start a string of inane chatter, taking Lucky along for the ride. You hand him the pizza and movies and head back to the kitchen you actually know better than your own for plates, napkins, and drinks, all the while filling Lucky in on the cheerier parts of your existence. You tell him about all the new words Spencer has learned, and how you got to observe a practically once-in-a-lifetime surgery with Patrick Drake. You know he isn’t really listening, but when you step back into the living room, he’s propped open the pizza box on the coffee table and has queued up one of the movies.
When you slip onto the couch next to him and hand him a soda, you see a shadow of a real smile on his face, and you know it’s a start.
* * * * *
You and Lucky settle into a routine of weekly movie nights. It’s time you really should be spending at home with Nikolas and Spencer, and you feel guilty for not being there, but you need the diversion. For exactly two hours, you can relax and smile and spend time with your best friend, pretending that both of your lives haven’t gone horribly wrong somewhere. He never asks why Nikolas doesn’t come with you, and you don’t tell him.
You sometimes wonder what you’d say if he did.
* * * * *
When the fall television season starts, and you realize that Lucky hasn’t been introduced to the wonder that is The Office, you immediately set out to rectify the oversight. You lend him your copies of the DVDs, insisting that your weekly movie night will now be devoted to catching up on old episodes.
You find yourselves laughing at Jim’s pranks, covering your eyes in horror at Michael’s latest antics, and arguing about who is more to blame for the predicament in which Jim and Pam find themselves. Since you’ve been the long suffering one with a crush that you’re certain is obvious to the entire world, you argue for Jim, saying that it’s impossible for anyone to be as oblivious as Pam seems. Fighting about a fictional relationship seems so silly considering you’re facing a boyfriend that may or may not be losing his mind, and Lucky’s facing the loss of his wife and children. But for the hours you spend watching, it’s like nothing else matters. And really, isn’t that the point?
When you leave one night, you hug him good night as usual, and you’re suddenly surprised to feel his lips on your cheek. It’s not as though you haven’t kissed each other countless times in over ten years of friendship, but you don’t remember it ever feeling quite like that before.
Riding the launch back to your prince, you run your fingers along your cheek where he kissed you, and wonder why you can still feel his lips burning your skin.
* * * * *
You arrive for your normal movie night, and you think you see a look of surprise cross Lucky’s face when he answers the door. But it’s gone in an instant, and you’re immediately ushered inside, where you find the DVDs already in the player and the blanket you’ve taken to using already laid out across the back of the couch.
As you watch Jim and Pam communicate without speaking, while Dwight loses his mind over drugs and urine, you find yourself slipping your head onto his shoulder and your hand into his. You tell yourself that this is just normal friend behavior, and truly it is. You and Lucky have done this a million times before, even though it feels like, by twining your fingers with his, something has shifted. But it’s a comfort you hadn’t known you were seeking, and as you watch Jim finally confess his feelings for Pam as Lucky is beside you, solid as a rock, you wonder if maybe Lucky wasn’t right: maybe it’s easy to be a Pam and not even realize it.
As the episode ends, and the DVD player shuts its self off, you hold onto Lucky’s hand in the dark, and wonder if you haven’t betrayed someone else entirely.
Author: empressearwig
Rating: G
Spoilers: Set Fall 2007. Events don’t correspond exactly.
Author's Notes: This was not my idea. I blame lapiccolina entirely. Thanks to sugarpromises for the encouragement, and to normative_jean for the technical assistance. This story was a bit of an experiment, to see if I could understand and write characters that I’m not particularly fond of. I think it turned out fairly well.
Summary: A circle of friends bound together through adversity; four souls who desperately need things their own families can’t give them.
And the little love I had
For all my friends and foe
And the little lines we've drawn between us all have
Taken hold
~ The Frames, Friends and Foe
Emily, Part 2: The World at Bay
Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
~ Dixie Chicks, Easy Silence
When one of your best friends falls in love with your brother, and your other best friend is left alone, it’s hard to know how to react. It’s hard to figure out how to support everyone without it seeming like you’re choosing sides. So you tell your brother to go after the woman he loves, and encourage Elizabeth to leave Lucky, and hope that when the dust settles Lucky will forgive you and realize you were only trying to minimize his pain.
You won’t blame him if he doesn’t see it that way, though. You don’t always see it that way yourself.
* * * * *
Life as an intern, surrogate mother, and girlfriend is busier and more complicated than you ever imagined it would be. You barely have enough time to eat, sleep, and tuck Spencer in at night most days, which doesn’t leave you the time to check up on Lucky, though you remind yourself daily that you need to. He’s been there to hold your hand through all your major life crises, and you know you need to be there for him.
But then Nikolas starts having mood swings, outbursts, and violent episodes, and suddenly your time is even tighter. You’re terrified to leave him, and yet you’re terrified to be in the home you share, and you’re scared to leave the boy you’ve grown to love as your own son alone with his father. In the past, this is when you’d always call on Lucky, but this time you think it’s up to you to be the strong one, to be the one to shoulder everyone’s problems.
It’s harder than you ever thought it would be.
* * * * *
When Alexis comes to stay at Wyndemere with her girls, you find yourself a little freer. She loves Nikolas and Spencer as much as you do, and with her in the house, you don’t feel so obligated to spend all your free time waiting for something horrible to happen.
One night you find yourself completely without responsibility due to an unexpected scheduling error at the hospital. You can’t bring yourself to head back to whatever potential disaster awaits you at home, so you swing by your favorite pizza place, picking up your childhood favorite of Canadian bacon and pineapple, and the video store for the movies you and Lucky would watch on lazy Sunday afternoons when you first moved to Port Charles. You think it’s time you start making up for what you privately think of as betrayal to your oldest friend.
You only hope it’s not too late.
* * * * *
As you stand on the steps of what you’ve always considered your second home waiting for Lucky to answer the door, you wonder what you’ll say when he answers. Should you apologize for not being there lately? Should you pretend that you haven’t spent time helping Elizabeth leave him, while not being there to hold his hand? You haven’t yet decided when the door opens and the haggard, tired face of your best friend appears before you.
Immediately you know that whatever platitudes you were about to spout don’t matter, and you start a string of inane chatter, taking Lucky along for the ride. You hand him the pizza and movies and head back to the kitchen you actually know better than your own for plates, napkins, and drinks, all the while filling Lucky in on the cheerier parts of your existence. You tell him about all the new words Spencer has learned, and how you got to observe a practically once-in-a-lifetime surgery with Patrick Drake. You know he isn’t really listening, but when you step back into the living room, he’s propped open the pizza box on the coffee table and has queued up one of the movies.
When you slip onto the couch next to him and hand him a soda, you see a shadow of a real smile on his face, and you know it’s a start.
* * * * *
You and Lucky settle into a routine of weekly movie nights. It’s time you really should be spending at home with Nikolas and Spencer, and you feel guilty for not being there, but you need the diversion. For exactly two hours, you can relax and smile and spend time with your best friend, pretending that both of your lives haven’t gone horribly wrong somewhere. He never asks why Nikolas doesn’t come with you, and you don’t tell him.
You sometimes wonder what you’d say if he did.
* * * * *
When the fall television season starts, and you realize that Lucky hasn’t been introduced to the wonder that is The Office, you immediately set out to rectify the oversight. You lend him your copies of the DVDs, insisting that your weekly movie night will now be devoted to catching up on old episodes.
You find yourselves laughing at Jim’s pranks, covering your eyes in horror at Michael’s latest antics, and arguing about who is more to blame for the predicament in which Jim and Pam find themselves. Since you’ve been the long suffering one with a crush that you’re certain is obvious to the entire world, you argue for Jim, saying that it’s impossible for anyone to be as oblivious as Pam seems. Fighting about a fictional relationship seems so silly considering you’re facing a boyfriend that may or may not be losing his mind, and Lucky’s facing the loss of his wife and children. But for the hours you spend watching, it’s like nothing else matters. And really, isn’t that the point?
When you leave one night, you hug him good night as usual, and you’re suddenly surprised to feel his lips on your cheek. It’s not as though you haven’t kissed each other countless times in over ten years of friendship, but you don’t remember it ever feeling quite like that before.
Riding the launch back to your prince, you run your fingers along your cheek where he kissed you, and wonder why you can still feel his lips burning your skin.
* * * * *
You arrive for your normal movie night, and you think you see a look of surprise cross Lucky’s face when he answers the door. But it’s gone in an instant, and you’re immediately ushered inside, where you find the DVDs already in the player and the blanket you’ve taken to using already laid out across the back of the couch.
As you watch Jim and Pam communicate without speaking, while Dwight loses his mind over drugs and urine, you find yourself slipping your head onto his shoulder and your hand into his. You tell yourself that this is just normal friend behavior, and truly it is. You and Lucky have done this a million times before, even though it feels like, by twining your fingers with his, something has shifted. But it’s a comfort you hadn’t known you were seeking, and as you watch Jim finally confess his feelings for Pam as Lucky is beside you, solid as a rock, you wonder if maybe Lucky wasn’t right: maybe it’s easy to be a Pam and not even realize it.
As the episode ends, and the DVD player shuts its self off, you hold onto Lucky’s hand in the dark, and wonder if you haven’t betrayed someone else entirely.