everyone_takes | (no subject)

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effy

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"We can do this," Kate says, standing at the kitchen counter, ingredients spread out around her in a haphazard manner. There's too much stuff here, she thinks, she can't remember Marshall ever using this much stuff just to bake, but she's got all the ingredients the recipe calls for.

Of course, she's really not the type to bake, normally, but lately she feels like she wants to do things that she normally doesn't do. No matter what, she feels shitty. Marshall's still gone. There are people around her, people who love her and who are trying, but she doesn't know how to feel better. What she wants, more than anything, is to just sleep for a week, but if she does that, she doesn't know who's going to take care of the two of them.

"Right?" she asks, looking at Effy. She's coaxed her into the kitchen today with the promise of brownies, although now that she's here, she isn't sure they're going to be any good. This is really Marshall's area of expertise and she's pretty sure she's going to butcher them. But maybe that's why she's doing it, just to remind her of all the things he did for her, all the things she can't do herself.

Because she can't. She's really lost without him and she doesn't know how to say it or how to ask for help, because she's never needed help before. She's always had Marshall and he's always had her. It's how they've gotten through life. Now she's alone.

"So there's butter and flour and, uh... baking soda? Or baking powder? Fuck, I can't remember." And she'd consult the book, but her hands are already covered in crap. She really has no idea how he managed to do this so well and always stay clean. Probably why he always wore those super gay aprons.

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The last time Effy baked brownies, Panda got mad with her. Not for the brownies themselves, not exactly. That was Katie's idea anyway, drugs sprinkled into the mix like sugar, meant to perk up a birthday party that wasn't exactly taking off the ground. Not one to argue, not one to put up resistance, Effy took from the party what she could, the chance to fuck off and enjoy herself, the warmth that spread through her body and the music that sifted out of the air, seemingly out of nowhere. But it was Panda's birthday, and all she wanted was a normal birthday, a sleepover with handmade pajamas and a game of Twister. She cried in the bathroom, yelled at Effy, and only one question stood out in the brunette's mind at the time.

With everything at home, parents caught in the middle of a messy divorce, a smile permanently ironed on her face for her brother's sake, everything doubled back to one question: when would Effy ever get some time for herself? When did she get to be her?

It's not an answer that she has even now, momentarily staring down at the brownies, remembering the anger which flashed in Panda's eyes when she looked Effy's way. Remembering the knot in her heart that never quite came undone upon seeing Cook kiss her, kiss Panda Pops, like Effy was invisible.

Slowly, the details are coming together. Her hair is bound in careful braids, hanging over either shoulder. An apron has made its way around her small waist, tied in a crooked bow by the small of her back. And she remembers, of all things, the recipe Panda's mom used for those brownies, knows that it's baking powder Kate needs now. With immaculately clean hands, Effy silently measures out the powder, teaspoon held out over the mix as she glances Kate's way, waiting for the okay.

"Do it," Kate says with a bit of a smile, glad that Effy's able to remember what comes next -- and that she's participating -- because she's really shit at this whole thing. "Can you add the cocoa and the salt, too, and mix it? I'll melt the butter and..." She's given up now and is flipping back to the recipe with her dirty hands. "Melt the butter, stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla. Vanilla beans will work, right?"

She's crushed them up, but she has no idea if they'll do the same thing that liquid vanilla is supposed to do. People here bake all the time, though, so she figures it'll have to work.

"Clearly not very good at this," she says with a huff of a laugh, though she's not really amused. Suddenly, she feels really stupid, like there's no reason to be doing any of this. She's been trying so hard not to think about Marshall being gone, trying so hard to take care of Effy, but she's shit at both these things. Here they are, making brownies and she really doesn't have any idea why. Because somewhere down the line, she learned from Alice, of all people, that keeping busy is the best way to deal with the shitty things that are thrown at someone.

Reaching thin fingers out for the bowl, Effy idly sifts the materials, staring down at the way the sugar struggles to stay clear and bright against the darker brown. To Kate's question, Effy offers a slight shrug, glancing over at the vanilla beans with some amount of skepticism. Not that it matters to her, of course. Effy doesn't know if she'll even manage to swallow down the brownies, or if they'll stick in her throat, or if they'll leave her nauseated enough to need bracing against the wall. Her movement comes to a stop as she remembers the splatter of yellow against the white of her shoes.

Ignoring it, she continues mixing again. Sometimes, it isn't enough to have a reason to try— Effy has plenty, after all, friends who've been helping to look after her, friends like Kate who've now lost in turn. Were Effy to be fair, she'd have more reasons to shape now than ever. But it isn't something she's capable of forcing.

She shuffles towards the sink, filling two glasses of water for them.

"If these turn out gross, I'm gonna force them on Jeff," Kate decides, looking down at the ingredients she's mixing together. None of it looks exactly right, but she really isn't doing this to get a perfect end result. In fact, at this point, she's pretty sure they're not going to be edible at all.

"Thanks," she says when Effy fills the glasses with water. "Is this... is this totally stupid? I mean, I'm not a baker and I'm pretty sure that's obvious by now. I don't even know what I'm doing."

The point was to give each of them something to go, but with each thing that Kate fucks up, all she feels is more ridiculous. Like she's wasting their time trying to force something that can't be forced.

Eyes wide and watchful, Effy shakes her head shortly after Kate's question, arms crossing tightly over her chest as she presses the small of her back against the counter. It'd be almost impossible to miss the amount of care that Kate's put into this; with each passing day, Effy's opened her eyes a fraction more to everything that transpires around her, and it seems these days that Kate has more on her mind, the silence shared between them in the evening tense until broken with the attempts to string idle thoughts together.

Baking, to anyone else, may hardly take a thought at all, but in this, both of them are aiming for an escape.

Staring back down into her bowl, Effy's neck cranes as she tilts her head to the side, a finger dipping down to drag through the mix.

Does your mum bake?

"Marshall bakes," she says, which is probably a pretty telling answer. It's not the only reason she's chosen to do this, but it's certainly not completely unrelated either. If there's anything Kate doesn't like being, it's totally transparent, which is what she feels like right now. Not that Effy hasn't always been able to see right through her, it's part of why they're so close, she thinks, because no one besides her family has been able to just see all the parts of her like that. There's always something hidden from everyone, but not Effy.

"I don't know, it was like, his thing. I mean, one of his things. There was all the film stuff, too, but he was always in the kitchen," she explains, still trying to mix things together and make sure they don't turn out flat or burnt or whatever happens to brownies. "But he was always so good at this stuff, you know? Like, he'd make cupcakes or muffins to celebrate stuff. Sometimes it wasn't even anything important, but you could probably much always count on Marshall to have something."

She nods her understanding, her part of the mix done and sifted and waiting in a bowl while Effy goes about finding a pan, as well as whatever materials she may need to grease it. Marshall is the baker in that family; Effy can't help think that it's good that they have one of those, if nothing else. The Stonems were never big on baking, or in fact any sort of activity that might have brought all four of them together. They would have dinner together, sometimes, back before Tony's accident, and back before her mum started needing an escape away from the tension at home. But dinner was an obligation. An anchor.

Not really something to help pass the time enjoyably or meaningfully.

She nods, though, because Tony was the same way. Had his things, any number of activities that he excelled at. Effy has none of them.

There's a cupboard in the kitchen where she used to store spliff, figured that the kitchen was an easy place to score a light if she ran out otherwise. Curiously, she peeks in it again; it's still there in dried leaves, each one curling into itself. Effy presses her lips tightly together at the sight.

At her place at the stove, Kate figures the butter and stuff is done melting and she carries it over to the dry ingredients Effy has mixed together and pours one into the other. She's fairly sure the recipe said to whisk it, but all she has in a spoon and so she does her best mixing, holding the bowl in the crook of her elbow and heading over to where Effy is standing at the cupboard. If it all turns into a big, hard mess, she's going to be disappointed, but she almost doesn't want to admit that even to herself. It's a bit embarrassing, but more than that, she doesn't really know what to make of it.

She can't do anything, after all. With it or about it or anything. There's nothing to be done for the two of them except hanging out together and hanging on, she figures.

"Anything exciting?" she asks, leaning against the counter beside Effy, still mixing the batter in the bowl. It's a little lumpy, but otherwise it looks alright. And it smells good, which Kate figures has to be a good sign.

At the question, Effy reaches inside and nudges the bag of pot until it falls onto the counter, a few leaves falling free of the burlap bag. Whether or not she wants to use the leaves, Effy doesn't know— hardly feels qualified to make any decisions at all these days, let alone something like this. It's easier to do nothing. To leave the drugs behind fully, and with them, whatever amount of blame they might carry for driving her to this point, feeling as though she's constantly splintering down the middle. Instead, she reaches out for the bowl in Kate's hands, taking a detour over to the sink to wash her hands.

It's always been easier to use her hands. Perhaps Pandora's mother wouldn't approve, but of all the people Effy feels indebted to, Pandora's mother might be at the very bottom of the list.

Neglectful like the rest of them.

"Oh." That's all Kate says at first, because while she sees it and wants to smoke it all right now, she knows that Effy hasn't touched drugs in a long time, that she burned all the stuff she had on the beach. All of it except this, apparently, and she wonders if it belongs to Effy at all or if it's someone else's stash. And if it's Effy's, she wonders if there's anymore, any other little hiding places all over the island where she has something like this.

"You want me to get rid of it?" she asks, because as much as she thinks she could use a joint right now, she isn't about to ask Effy to do something like that. Kate can be a shitty person sometimes, she knows this, and she doesn't deny it, but there's a line somewhere. One that she's not willing to cross and wherever else it goes, it's right here. If she doesn't want anything to do with drugs anymore, Kate sure as hell isn't going to force her or even tempt her with it.

"I can find someone to take it," she says. "Or like, dump it down the toilet."

There are words that form easily on her tongue today. That's one of the things about speaking; it's infectious, it's easy, it's quick. Learning how to speak is one of the most intoxicating things that Effy's ever experienced, made all the more so thanks to the years upon years during which she fought against it. She knows what she'd say, were she able, that Kate should take it. The spliff was never the biggest problem, not really. It was running away from life, sure, but it wasn't the same as the pills, or the alcohol. It didn't make her see things, it simply laid upon the world a shadow which muted everything underneath.

There's probably little danger to be found in that.

But as always, Effy finds herself second-guessing. The power of a word or two can't be overstated. And the more she thinks about it, the more she knows, everything would be okay, everything, had she never spoken at all.

Tony would have fixed himself up anyway. Tony would have... taken longer to get on the phone, Tony wouldn't have chosen that day to call Chelle, Tony wouldn't have— and then Effy wouldn't have— and Freddie would still be alive.

So Effy shrugs, because she can't be the one to make the choices anymore. That's too much.

There's a bit of a hesitation while Kate tries to figure out what to do with it. Effy isn't going to tell her, but she doesn't know if keeping it is the right decision or if she really should just flush it. Either way, whatever she decides, she'll have to take it now and so she reaches out and takes the bag, tucking it into the pocket of her shorts. She'll figure out what to do with it later. It doesn't matter right now, not if she gets it out of sight, anyway.

Out of sight, out of mind. That's sort of how Kate's worked her entire life.

"I greased the pan," she says, turning back toward it on the counter. "If you want to put the brownies in there, then we can bake them and I'll cross my fingers that they're edible."

The silence on Kate's end is telling. It doesn't last terribly long, Kate always able to pick herself up faster than Effy feels that she's ever been capable of, but it's a stilted pause that leaves Effy wondering what else she should be doing. Something, surely, and she glances down at the brownie batter, then towards the pan, trying to figure out what she might have done back in the day.

Back when a single smile was able to disarm just about anyone in sight.

That smile doesn't work its way onto her lips so easily, but other actions come easier. Briefly, Effy skims two fingers into the batter, licking her middle finger off to check, then holding out the index for Kate with a raised brow.

Kate lifts her eyebrows back, but she's smiling a little as she does, then leans forward to taste the offered batter. It's not terrible, which is good, and she doesn't seem like she's about to choke on it and neither does Effy, which are also good signs. She has no idea why she's so invested in these stupid brownies, so insistent that they be made right, but she is. If they end up completely fucked up, she's going to be disappointed and not even completely understand why.

"I think they'll be okay," she says, shoulders rising in a brief shrug. "I mean, it tastes... like I think brownies are supposed to taste. Oh, shit," she adds, turning toward the oven. "I didn't preheat it. I don't even know how hot it's supposed to be. These are all things Marshall would just know to do."

Effy pauses then, unsure exactly what temperature to use. She's used a few key temperatures before, she remembers, but can't seem to figure out in the moment which of those were for dessert baking and which were for pizza, or if it's okay to exchange the one with the other. Staring at the dials gives her no immediate answer; nothing pops out as right or wrong. Tilting her head, Effy reaches to the back of the oven and switches on the light, tugging open the oven door and planting herself on the ground next to it.

Rubbing her hand against her jaw, Effy tilts her head in the direction of the oven.

Fuck it, she's tempted to say. What's the worst that can happen with brownies? Maybe just a bit fucking burnt, and that's fine. Hardly anything at all.

Kate laughs, although she isn't exactly sure why, mostly because Effy seems as confused as she is about what temperature to set the oven at. It makes it seem like it's not such a big deal -- which it isn't, really, she's just being weirdly sensitive about the stupidest things lately -- and she leans against the counter for a second, trying to remember.

"Maybe three-fifty?" she guesses, figuring if it's wrong, they can just bake it for longer or for less time or whatever it takes to make sure they're not a mess. "I think it said something like that. Three-fifty for half an hour and if they're rock hard burned pucks then I'll just give them to Danny and Jeff and pretend it's a super nice present and if they tell me they're gross, they'll be hurting my feelings," she says, grinning. The both of them would probably eat the brownies just to avoid upsetting her, she thinks, which probably means she shouldn't give them to them.

It's not much, but she smiles, the expression feeling so unfamiliar that her cheeks immediately ache with the effort. It may take less muscles to smile than it does to frown, but it takes even less to even that expression out to nothing at all. Her cheeks prickle with the movement, and Effy blinks her eyes a couple of times, as though trying to see if the world looks different for that brief, tentative step forward she's taken.

No doubt it'll be taken from her at some point again, a voice warns.

But... there was nothing else to do for it.

Just smile, because with everything else that changes around her, it seems like Kate hasn't really at all.

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