Work Text:
And words are futile devices
You’ve never been good at expressing yourself, for the entirety of your life it seems as if everything you’ve ever felt has gotten lost in translation once it passes through your lips.
So you say nothing. It’s an undesirable trait that you wished you’d grown out of in adolescence. It seems that the older you become the uglier it becomes.
You drown your angst and shame in bottles of liquor, suffocate yourself with smoke, shield your longing for intimacy behind a mask of promiscuity. And it works. Until you meet Geri.
You envy how freely Geri is able to express herself, the way she wears her heart on her sleeve, you wish you could do that too. But you’ve been burned so many times it’s become a habit to keep your emotions close to to the chest. They’re yours and yours alone, nobody else’s.
But sometimes though, you wish you could break down that fourth wall and show her just a fraction of the vulnerability she so freely shows to you.
***
And I would say I love you, but saying it out loud is hard, so I won’t say it at all...
In your double bed in Maidenhead, you’re softer. There’s something about lying naked with Geri draped around your body, her pale skin bathed in moonlight that makes your heart constrict. And you want to tell her everything.
Tell her how much you missed her when you’d spent the weekend in Leeds with your family. How those two days had dragged on like weeks because she wasn’t around. You want to tell her that you barely slept because you felt bereft without the warmth of her body pressed up against yours. But you don’t.
You push yourself between her thighs instead and capture her mouth with yours, pressing your fingers deep inside of her and welcoming the butterflies that gather in your stomach when she squeezes her eyes shut and whimpers your name.
Your chest swells with pride as she comes around your fingers and you take a sick satisfaction in knowing that nobody has ever fucked her like you can; that nobody else has ever made her feel that way.
You think about telling her that you feel the same way, that it’s never like this with other people. You kiss her instead, hoping that she can feel the desperation in your kiss. When you pull away and look into Geri’s eyes they’re hooded and shining with love. It excites you, it frightens you. You want to tell her, but somehow you think she already knows.
****
I remember wanting. And I remember being at once afraid and ashamed that I wanted. I felt like yearning was specific to me, and the guilt that it brought was mine alone.
She deserves so much more than what you’ve been giving her, but you’ve always been self destructive, always pushing happiness away because it’s easier to live in your mess. Your unwillingness to be honest with her has been breaking you both down, making things difficult between you.
She’s grown tired of you climbing into her bed in the early hours of the morning after spending the night with a stranger. She locks her bedroom door now.
She’s put up her own walls. You know it’s only fair, that it’s simply the consequences of your own actions, but you can’t help the feeling of abandonment that washes over you. Your sadness quickly turns to rage, the one emotion you’ve always worn well. You start bringing men (and sometimes women) back to the house just to get a rise out of her.
You want her to be angry, red hot with jealousy, to scream and cry at you and tell you that you belong to her. But you don’t, do you? You made sure of that. Emma plays peacemaker between the both of you because Victoria and Mel C won’t tell you and Geri things as delicately as she will. She understands both you and Geri in an instinctive way that Victoria and Mel C never have.
One night, you come home completely plastered after trying and failing to find a stranger to spend the night with. You drag yourself up the stairs and instinctively pass the bedroom you share with Mel C and shuffle towards Geri’s door. You reach for the knob but stop when you hear a deep voice behind the door. You stand there in shock, listening to the sound of her creaky double bed squeaking and the soft moans that you believed only you could draw from her pretty little mouth.
Sadness becomes rage and you find yourself kicking and banging on the shitty door screaming her name. The creaking stops only for a moment and you hear “-it’s fine she’s just drunk”. You feel as if you’ve been doused with cold water and tears well up in your eyes as you gasp for breath. Emma rushes out of the bedroom she shares with Victoria and she sighs sympathetically as she watches you slide down the wall with your knees pressed against your chest.
She kneels down in front of you and wraps you tightly in her arms. You hiccup into her neck trying to catch your breath as the onslaught of tears blur your vision. “It’ll be okay.” she murmurs into your neck.
Emma helps you up from your place on the floor and guides you into her bedroom. You strip down to your underwear and climb into bed, burying your face in Emma’s baby pink pillowcase.
Emma settles in behind you and holds you, pressing soft kisses to your cheek and smoothing back your curls from your face. “Why didn’t you just tell her Mel?” She whispers, squeezing you tightly. You don’t have the strength to reply.
I burned so long and so quiet, you must have wondered if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do.