Archive of Our Own

There were two reasons why Saffron didn't tell her family she was a lesbian, and neither of them had anything to do with how they might react. It perfectly obvious to her that Rose wouldn't care; Indigo would worry for her; Eve would say, "Darling Saffy," and then drift off to paint rainbows; Caddy would say, "Darling Saffy," and try to remember of any of her less ghastly ex-boyfriends had eligible sisters, and Bill would hide his dismay by saying something deeply inappropriate about how some girls couldn't find a man to measure up to their fathers.

No, that wasn't why she kept it a secret. Firstly, although it made her feel small and ashamed to admit it, she didn't want to go back to being Saffy who wasn't like the others. All the rest of them were so very, very straight: Caddy was incapable of not loving Michael, and Rose still refused to let years or miles get in the way of adoring Tom.

And Indigo, of course, had Sarah.

Right there was the second reason. If she told them all, sooner or later somebody would say, "Oh, why didn't you ask Sarah out first, Saffy?" or "Does Sarah realise she had a better option, Indy?" and Sarah would laugh and Indigo would smile quietly and Saffy...

Saffy wouldn't be able to say anything at all.

She and Indigo, far more than Caddy or Rose, had always been expected to share their toys. Although she loved her brother, in a fiercely relentless way that Indigo didn't dare complain about, Saffy had never been very good at sharing. "It's mine!" she would shout. "I saw it first!"

She'd also understood, at almost the same age, that there were some things you just had to let other people keep, or winning would make you feel worse than losing. And so she had a little lonely space under her ribs that was somehow Sarah shaped, and which no one could ever know about.

The first time she almost let the secret out was just before they went to university, when Sarah announced, "They've given me half a ground floor flat with its own bathroom, which I suppose means I get some good out of these silly legs, or I'd be stuck in some horrible little attic room like all the other Freshers."

"Like me," Saffron pointed out, helping herself to salad. She still found it extraordinary that in Sarah's house lettuce appeared on the table in nice bowls rather than still in plastic packets.

"Oh, you're going to be sharing my flat," Sarah said casually. "Didn't I tell you?"

The idea of it made Saffy blanch in horror. At least now she could go home and hide if the stupid, hateful jealousy got too much, even if it did mean having to put up with David stammering at her or Rose's mad friends. To be caught in the same two rooms, all the time, and have to pretend that she wasn't looking, was unthinkable.

"Unless you don't want to share," Sarah said sharply, and for the next few minutes they teetered on the edge of an argument.

Sarah's mother rescued Saffy, by recruiting her to help with the washing up. As Saffy crashed things into the dishwasher, sorting knives from forks with grim intensity, Mrs Warbeck said, "It's a lot of responsibility."

"It's not that," Saffy jerked out, horrified. "It's not that at all. I don't mind that."

Sarah's mother was studying her, with that particular look she had, where her briskness completely failed to hide the kindness underneath. "No, I can see that."

Saffy turned back to the dishwasher, feeling her cheeks go hot. Suddenly, she remembered that Mrs Warbeck was a teacher, and in an all-girls school at that, and had probably seen this a hundred times before. Before anyone could do something as awful as put it into words, Saffy said, "I'm just being stupid. I'd love to share, really."

"Good," Mrs Warbeck said. "I'm glad she'll have someone sensible looking out for her." Then, more briskly, "You'll never fit all that in there, Saffron. Leave it, and come and have some dessert."

#

They went off to uni in cavalcade, waved off from every window of the Casson house ("No, Rose, darling," Caddy said firmly. "I think Buttercup would much, much rather wave from a downstairs window. In fact, I'm positive he's inherited Indigo's fear of heights.") Sarah's belongings filled two cars; Saffy had one bag.

"Is that really all you're taking?" Sarah asked in disbelief.

"It's all I need," Saffy said. "Besides, I saw the room Caddy had, and you'll never get this much stuff in."

"You can look after the rest," Sarah said blithely.

Sarah's dad, who was making the most of the drive despite the fact they were only making for Durham and not his preferred choices of Glasgow or even Aberdeen ("Nothing to slow you down up there. I know for a fact that they only put speed cameras at the bottom of the mountains."), remarked, "Good thing Saffy's packed light, then. At least someone in this car has common sense."

"I," Sarah said, "have uncommon sense, which I should think was so much better. Stop laughing, Saff."

#

Uni turned out to be wonderful, with no time whatsoever to be homesick. Within a week, they had settled in, joined thirty societies between them (Saffy had walked past the LGBT Society at the Freshers' Fair without turning her head, but from the corner of her eyes she'd formed a vague impression of rainbow banners and good cheer which had made that space under her ribs twinge), learned how to work the dodgy tap in the shower, rearranged Sarah's belongings between the two rooms three times and attended their first lectures.

Despite managing to scheme their way into the same flat in the same college at the same university, Sarah had not managed to convince Saffy to take the same subjects. So when Sarah made her way to her first tour of the labs, Saffy took herself off for an introduction to European History and to find the library, and came home dazed with knowledge.

"So many books," she said, flopping back onto the pile of beanbags beside Sarah's bed. "Shelves and shelves and shelves of them."

"If I made a death ray," Sarah replied, in exactly the same tone. "Do you think they'd give me a Ferrari to stop me blowing up the world?"

Then they caught each other's eyes and descended into giggles.

#

After that, it was even easier than being at home, for the most part. There were new friends, and so many interesting ideas, and visits home to a house that was suddenly so full of people again that half the time Saffy stayed at Sarah's. When Buttercup learned to say "Wose," and "Duh-go," long before he mastered, "Saff," it stung a bit, but having a quiet place to go back to once term started made up for a lot.

There were not so great times, the ones that involved getting lost in Italian tenses (Saffy), equations that never seemed to end (Sarah), pretty waitresses in low cut tops who kept bending over your table when you were trying to have a sensible conversation with your oblivious best friend (Saffy), and boyfriends with a weakness for Icelandic blondes (Sarah).

"Hearts of stone," Saffy advised and then added disloyally, "He probably can't help it. It's genetic."

Sarah smacked her with a pillow (they were propped up side by side on Sarah's bed, because it was the only easy way to share the obligatory tub of ice cream and bottle of wine), and then said, with a watery snicker. "Poor Casson men. So misunderstood."

"Darling Indigo," Saffy said, in her best Eve impression, and they both laughed.

Later, with the last remains of the ice cream still propped on her belly, Sarah said thoughtfully, "I probably will forgive him. In time. Once I've made him squirm and grovel long enough."

"I wouldn't," Saffy said fiercely.

Sarah sighed and patted vaguely at Saffy's knee, probably because it was the easiest bit to reach after most of a bottle of red wine. "That's because you take these things far too seriously."

"I do not!"

"Saffy," Sarah said sternly, and then stopped.

"What?" Saffy demanded, and moved the second bottle of wine a little further away.

"Saffy," Sarah explained, kindly and drunkenly, "Rose and Caddy are not normal. Relationships are supposed to be fun and easy and free of constant heartbreak. You just don't have any healthy role models."

Saffy propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at her, flushed and beautiful and completely sozzled, and said, because most of the second bottle had been hers, "You don't know anything."

"I know lots of things," Sarah retorted. "I know that the earth goes round the sun, and you can't plan a land route to Canada without ignoring the Bering Sea and-" She hesitated, a grimace creasing her face. "And I know I'm about to be sick."

And the evening, and the conversation, ended there.

#

The summer after that was one of the most brilliant Saffy could remember. The first half of it was spent working in Bill's ridiculous shop, the two of them competing to see who could create the best cocoa patterns in the top of foaming coffees.

"I call it unfair," Sarah said. "You obviously have artistic talent in your blood, but I shall be satisfied with the knowledge that mine have a certain abstract flair."

"I do not have anything of the sort in my blood," Saffy protested, serving them up to a perfectly lovely elderly couple who had appeared on a coach trip and decided they couldn't possibly walk another step.

Bill swept by at that moment, pausing to comment, "How clever, Saffy darling! Very appealing, I'm sure, though not exactly Art."

Sarah had to roll behind the counter to hide her laughter, and Saffy, to cover for her, remarked, "That's exactly what Rose said."

Bill swept away again, mollified, and the elderly lady let out a little wistful sigh and asked, "Who is that handsome man?"

"He's married," Saffy said.

In the same moment, Sarah sat up enough to say, "He's gay."

"How progressive," the little old lady said happily and ordered another coffee.

The second half of the summer was spent on the Trans-Siberian Express.

On first hearing this idea, Sarah's mother had said, and kept saying, "No."

It wasn't a word Sarah was used to hearing, and the resulting row had lasted for weeks, and only ended with Sarah's mother saying grudgingly, "Well, at least you'll have Saffy with you to be sensible."

"Which I call terrible cheek," Sarah said at work the next day. "Fancy labelling you sensible."

"I don't mind."

"Well, you should. You don't have to let Mum boss you around, you know."

Saffy shrugged. "I like your parents."

"Well, you're welcome to share, as long as I can borrow yours sometimes. They're so much more glamorous and exciting."

"Of course," Saffy said, and that little sad Sarah-shaped space under her ribs hurt a little more.

The actual trip went by in a rush of colour and excitement and occasional extreme discomfort that Saffy could never quite explain it when she got home, not without suddenly transforming into one of those boring people gap-year people she'd always despised.

They nearly lost Sarah's wheelchair in Ulan Bator, having not managed to get it unstrapped from the luggage rack before the bus drew off. As the train strained its way across the Gobi desert, they pressed shoulder to shoulder against the window, dazzled by the view. They drank too much cheap vodka and ate whatever the restaurant car served them, competing to see who had the strongest stomach. Sarah enjoyed a whirlwind flirtation with Giorgio, who had melting eyes, was from Siena, and spoke terrible English.

"Saffy can translate."

"No, I can't," Saffy said and spent the next few hours with Giorgio's older sister Daniela, who had equally melting eyes and was quite happy to help Saffy with her Italian (and then sneak her into their cabin, help her out of her clothes, and demonstrate to Saffy that there were some very, very good things about being a lesbian).

"I shan't bother with him tomorrow," Sarah said callously, when Saffy finally staggered back to their compartment, weak-legged and quivering. "He was pretty, but I don't think he was very bright."

"Dim as a daffodil," Saffy said vaguely and spent the rest of the night blinking at the ceiling while Sarah snored in the bottom bunk. She was secretly a little relieved when Giorgio and Daniela left the train at Irkutsk the next day. Giorgio blew kisses at Sarah as the train drew out, making her laugh, and Daniela shot Saffy a dimpled, wicked smile and waved impishly.

(And there was just one awful morning, when Sarah woke up wheezing so badly she couldn't move, and Saffy had to scramble in with her and prop her up and rub some feeling back into her legs and chest and wonder, in sheer panic, what the Russian for hospital was. But it didn't last, and soon Sarah was back to normal, insisting on swaying her way to her seat with Saffy's arm around her waist to give extra balance.

They agreed, without needing to talk about it, that they wouldn't talk about that little incident when they got home).

#

Then, in the autumn, back in boring old England, it all seemed to be a little bit flat and dull. The autumn term dragged by in a mild and soggy way, full of colds and essays and funny, badly spelled emails from Rose.

At Christmas Sarah and Indigo's on-and-off relationship surged back to on, and Saffy had to pretend to be delighted, and feel horrible about the fact that she wasn't. She dealt with the horribleness by subjecting herself to visiting David in his attic and having stormy conversations about music, which left him breathless, terrified and confused, at least until she could finally escape
back to uni.

And there, within three days of the start of term, in her Italian conversation class, she met Riya.

Riya was beautiful, in a smooth, demure way that only fooled people until they started to talk to her. Her hair was straight and black and fell so sleekly to her hips that Saffy, who battled her curls every day, couldn't help wanting to stroke it. She was small and neat, with a tip-turned nose and small lips which she alternatively chewed or slathered with lip balm, drawing Saffy's eyes to their sheen. She wore saris or jeans, choosing her costume, she later confessed, according to what she thought would disconcert authority figures the most. Her voice was all London, except for an underlying South Asian lilt. She had no time for history or literature, but had her whole future planned out in neat little boxes: learn as many languages as she could; get a First, and her Masters; work for the UN in as many interesting places as she could manage; graciously allow her parents to find her a rich husband; get fat and have babies.

"I can't imagine you getting fat," Saffy said stupidly. They were lingering over coffee in a little café near the department, and Saffy was desperately trying not to stare at Riya's breasts. Saffy had spent a lot of time this term trying not to think about Riya's breasts, which were high and round and looked like they might fit perfectly into the curve of Saffy's palms.

"I can't imagine me having babies," Riya said cheerfully, "but it keeps my parents quiet. All my brothers and sisters are breeding machines, which you would think would keep them happy, but no. Yes, I will have babies one day, I had to promise. No, being educated will not stop me getting a husband, what century are you living in? That was my oldest brother, and the only reason I didn't let him have it for that was 'cause I know his wife is shagging his best mate. Now, getting fat, that I can't avoid. My sisters, my cousins, they're all like this." She held out her hands to show an exaggerated girth. "It's in our genes."

"Better than art and infidelity," Saffy said, and told her about Bill, which made Riya hoot with laughter.

It was getting dark before they finally left the cafe and headed back through the narrow, ancient streets. They lingered a little longer on the corner where their paths divided, still talking, until Riya had to go.

She patted Saffy on the arm, and leaned in, her breath warm against Saffy's cheek. "You're all right, aren't you? You ought to be Indian."

This, Saffy learned over the next few weeks, was Riya's highest praise, applied alike to music ("That Adele, she ought to be Indian."), good professors ("Y'know Dr Ronchi only looks Italian, yeah?") and food ("This is an Indian recipe, I'm telling you.")

"Cannoli are Italian," Saffy insisted, as sternly as she could.

"Yeah, but they were invented in India," Riya insisted, sucking cream off the ends of her fingers with a happy purr. "I'm telling you."

"Prove it," Saffy managed, a little breathlessly. "Find me one source. Without editing wikipedia."

"You're no fun," Riya complained and sat back in her seat. "Mmm, tasty. So, the cute girl in the wheelchair – she your girlfriend?"

"No!" Saffy yelped, catching her breath for an entirely different reason.

"Why not?"

"She's my best friend," said Saffy, who had rehearsed this answer in her head a thousand times. "She's dating my brother and she's straight." Then, rather belatedly, she remembered to add, "And so am I."

"Right," Riya said, stretching out the vowel.

"I am," Saffy insisted, and could hear how unconvincing she sounded.

Riya patted her hand fondly. "Course you are. For the record, I'm not, whatever my parents think. Want another coffee?"

About three weeks after that, Indigo came to visit, and Saffron removed herself from the flat for the sake of her sanity. She wandered around for a while, window-shopping with such immense disdain for everything she saw that she eventually started annoying herself.

She called Riya instead, and found herself shifting from foot to foot in front of Riya's door five minutes later, trying not to think about what was going on back in their flat.

Riya pulled the door open before she could knock, with an imperative, "Stop standing there! Be decisive!"

Saffy followed her in and immediately started to relax. Riya's room wasn't quite as stuffed full of neglected belongings as Sarah's, but it was still full to bursting and bright with colour. The overhead light wasn't on, but she had lamps plugged in three different places, filling the room with soft light. There was music playing, but she must have turned it down when Saffy knocked, because she could barely make out more than the beat.

"That essay!" Riya said, picking up the conversation from where they'd stopped after coffee that afternoon. "I can't make anything of it."

"Want me to take a look?" Saffy asked, relaxing even more. Being with Riya was easy in a way that it never quite was with Sarah any more. With Riya she didn't always have to be monitoring her own reactions.

The evening passed easily, with essay discussion turning into lounging in front of Riya's tiny little telly, which only picked up three channels and one of those was crackly. When Riya picked up the remote and turned it off, Saffy sighed and tried to gather the enthusiasm to go home.

Instead, Riya turned to her and said, "So, I need to ask you something."

"Yeah?" Saffy said, watching the way the reflected light shone in Riya's hair, casting a sheen of red and gold over the black.

"Are you interested in getting into my knickers or not? You've been sending pretty mixed signals for weeks, y'know."

Saffy sat bolt upright, too startled to speak.

Riya smiled, demure and wicked at the same time. "'Cause I wouldn't say no, and I did put on my prettiest knickers, seeing as I'm an optimist."

Not much later, Saffy discovered that they were indeed very pretty, all fine lace and little green silk bows which contrasted wonderfully with Riya's soft smooth skin. The matching bra was very nice too, barely holding in Riya's curves, and once she got it off, Riya's breasts were lovelier still, round and heavy, with dark nipples straining forward as she slid her hand up Saffy's bare thigh. They did indeed fit perfectly in Saffy's hands, and the nearest nipple was just right for her mouth. As Riya hummed approval, Saffy slid her hand under those pretty knickers and tried to remember everything that Daniela had shown her.

Much, much later, Riya murmured warmly in her ear, "Saffron is an Indian spice, you know."

#

When she got back to their flat the next morning, Indigo had disappeared in search of breakfast and Sarah was waiting, her eyes narrowed.

"Where did you go?" she demanded.

"Stayed with a friend from my Italian class," Saffy said, avoiding her eyes. "You didn't need a third wheel."

"We mostly just talked," Sarah said, still scowling at her.

"No details!" Saffron yelped. "I remember his stinky nappies."

Sarah grimaced. "Too much! Good friend, was it?"

"Yeah," Saffron said with a shrug. She had never mentioned Riya to Sarah and never intended to. It wasn't until she turned round that she realised that Sarah was staring at her neck, where Saffron could feel the faintest reminder of Riya's mouth still lingering. She shrugged her hair forward and said hurriedly, "Are we out of milk yet?"

#

She continued to keep Riya a secret, even though it made her feel a little mean. She could tell that Sarah knew that something was out of place, by the forced air of confidence and the slight uncertainty with which she started each conversation.

Being with Riya was both like and unlike every relationship she'd ever had before. They did all the things that couples did: laughing over coffee and cakes, trips to the cinema where Riya ruthlessly deconstructed every film they saw, long walks by the river. The sex was different, though. Kisses at the end of the evening suddenly felt like a promise rather than an obligation. Saffy had never been this hungry for sex before, and she and Riya spent as many evenings in as they did out, exploring each other with growing confidence.

She still couldn't find a way to tell Sarah, though. She wasn't ready for that sharp mind to start rethinking their friendship and draw the inevitable conclusions. And because she couldn't tell Sarah, she couldn't tell anyone else.

To make it worse, Indigo kept appearing on Friday nights.

"I don't know why you bothered going to a different uni," Saffy told him crossly.

"I liked the course," Indigo said mildly. He'd brought his guitar this time, and his hands were wandering idly across the strings. He gave Saffy a look she recognised, the old one he'd always used when he knew one of his sisters was lying. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me!" Saffy snapped and stomped out again.

#

The next day, everything started to come apart. It started when Sarah and Indigo joined forces to stop her sneaking out, by the simple method of barricading the door of the flat with Sarah's wheelchair.

"Indigo," Sarah said, with the slow patience of someone talking to a small child, "needs to tell you something."

"I'm trying to give you some privacy," Saffy said defensively. They didn't know how hard this was.

"We don't need it," Indigo said apologetically. "Not really."

"Why not?" Saffy demanded.

So Indigo told her.

"No," Saffy said, once she'd taken in enough to understand. "No, no, no, you're not. You can't be!"

It's not fair,, a little voice inside her was wailing. This was mine first!

"Don't you mind?" she blurted out to Sarah.

Infuriatingly, Sarah didn't seem to. "I've known for months. Rose and Caddy know. It's just you being awkward."

"Well, I do mind," Saffy snapped, which she knew was monumentally unfair even as she said it.

She left them both stunned and shocked in her wake as she finally shoved her way out of the flat.

She ran to Riya, and was shaking by the time she got there. She tried to explain, but furious burning tears got into the mix somehow and what came out was, "I saw her first," and, "He can't have both," and, "I'm not supposed to be angry with them."

Riya ran her hands through Saffy's hair, and pressed soothing kisses to the side of her head, and listened. Finally, when Saffy's breath had stopped hitching, she said, "So, let me check I've got all this. Your brother's gay?"

"Yes," Saffy snuffled into the crook of her neck.

"The same brother who's been sleeping with your best mate, who you're secretly in love with. Worse than Eastenders, your life."

"I'm sorry," Saffy said, knowing that there should be more than that.

Riya's hands were still stroking her back, very gently. After a while, she said, her voice sad, "I reckon there's two things you need to do. First off, you need to apologise to your brother."

Saffy nodded, not looking up, but Riya caught her chin and lifted her face.

"And then, Saffron," she said, "you need to come out."

And then she kissed Saffy, so tenderly and delicately that it was obviously a goodbye.

#

Saffron managed exactly half of Riya's suggestions, apologising to Indigo more thoroughly and awkwardly than she ever had before. She didn't explain her reaction though; couldn't find the courage to say, I just broke up with my girlfriend.

What she did manage to say was, "So, are you seeing someone? Is it Tom?"

"No!" Indigo exclaimed in horror and then added, fairly enough, "Rose would kill me."

"But you did fancy him," Sarah said cheerfully. "Admit it."

"I was twelve!"

"Ah," Sarah said sagely. "All those early adolescent urges."

Indigo threw a cushion at her, which meant Saffron didn't have to.

Later, though, when he'd finally gone home, she said awkwardly to Sarah, "So, do you think that's why he was so bad at, y'know?"

"Being faithful?" Sarah replied cheerfully. "No, I think that was just his innate Billishness. Poor old boys of the world, with all four of you out there breaking their hearts."

Three, Saffron thought privately.Still only three.

#

At Easter, Indigo brought home Luke, who played rugby and blushed a lot. After that, much to Sarah's amusement, came Jordan (blond, played the saxophone), Benjy (sparkly nail varnish), Liam (monobrow and big hands), and Callum and Ollie (both at once).

"Bill's face," Sarah managed that evening, hugging a pillow to her chest as she cried laughter. "I've never seen anyone try so hard to prove he was open-minded."

 

"He told Mummy he blames himself," Saffy shared, from the other bed. Somehow it had become normal for her to stay at Sarah's, rather than squeeze onto a spare bit of floor at home. "It was the lack of a suitable male role model during our childhood, you know."

A few moments later, Sarah's mother called indulgently up the stairs to ask what all the shrieking was about.

Indigo disappeared off to America for the summer, where his vague postcards, combined with Tom's and Frances' far more informative emails, informed that all about Tyler (basketball player), Grant (from the Bible Belt, apparently self-loathing) and Justin (theatrical).

"It could be worse," Sarah pointed out kindly when Rose expressed her disgust ("Worse than Daddy at his most horrible!"). "At least he's not chasing after Tom."

"Yet," Saffy added darkly and let Rose pursue her all over the garden with the hose in revenge.

The summer ended, once Indigo was home, with Aidan, who was, "Even worse than Caddy's most rock-bottom boyfriends, really, Indigo!"

"Oh," Caddy murmured reflectively. "None of mine were quite that awful, darlings. Just misunderstood."

"Awful," Saffy said firmly. Aidan was wandering aimlessly around the garden, which she thought was quite an achievement, given how tight his jeans were. He was staring vaguely at the windows and seemed to be talking to himself. "What do you see in him?"

Indigo, who was buried in a book while the rest of them were sunbathing, looked up and said thoughtfully, "He's not a bad dancer, and he seemed much funnier in the club."

"How drunk were you?" Saffy demanded, as Aidan stopped beside Sarah and then, after a moment of intense cogitation, asked her a question.

"He's not good with strangers," Indigo offered, rather feebly, as Sarah wheeled her way back to them, skirting abandoned rabbit hutches with the ease of long practice.

"Is that the best you can do?" Saffy asked, watching Sarah move. "At least tell me that he's good in bed."

"Saffron!"

But Indigo grinned at her and said, "Not bad, actually."

Then Sarah stopped in front of them with a flourish, her smirk pure evil. "Do you want to know what he asked me?"

"For a threesome?" Saffy suggested, as sweetly as she could.

"Actually," Sarah said, her voice hitching with amusement, "he wanted to know if Bill was completely straight."

And that was the end of Awful Aidan.

Later that evening, just as they were dropping off to sleep, Sarah said, "Saff?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you ever think it's a shame that you and Indigo..."

"That me and Indigo what?"

"Nothing," Sarah said. "Forget I spoke. Brain maggots, clearly. You shouldn't come to close in case they infect you too."

#

It was easier being friends with Sarah now she didn't have to feel guilty all the time. She still wasn't going to spill her secrets, but she could laugh more freely. She could let her hand fall on Sarah's arm or shoulder, lean their heads together over a text or email, not have to flinch when Sarah wandered through the flat half-dressed.

She saw Riya once, laughing over coffee with a statuesque redhead. Saffy waved, and Sarah said, turning her head to stare, "Is that the girl from your Italian class? I know her girlfriend."

You knew her last girlfriend too, Saffy thought and wasn't surprised when her phone beeped a moment later.

Riya's text read, Told her yet?

Working on it, Saffy sent back.

Woman up, spice girl!!!

"What are you laughing at?" Sarah demanded, looking away from a window display full of glittery shoes. "Do you think Rose would like these for Christmas?"

#

At the end of that term, once all their essays and assignments were in, and next term's horrors only a shadow on the horizon, they went out dancing. They had a routine by now, where Sarah forced her way to the bar during the fast numbers and left Saffy watching their drinks in the slow ones to drape herself over some obliging bloke (there was never any shortage of obliging blokes, which Saffy understood completely).

So they danced, with tinsel and bits of plastic holly hanging in straggling loops off the low ceiling and the music pounding around them. Saffy loved this, letting herself just feel the crowd bounce around her, bodies pressing close with no one to know which type she wanted.

They always ended the evening with both of them on the floor, rounding up spare friends for Sarah to hang onto if it was a fast dance, everyone laughing together. Tonight, though, the last dance was slow, but Sarah didn't grab the nearest hopeful bloke.

She danced with Saffy instead, her laughter brighter than the music, and around them the whole group split up and reformed, half of them whistling encouragement while the rest coupled off seemingly at random.

"Let's start a trend," Sarah shouted into her ear, as the lights rolled over them, red and green and gold, and Saffy just held on, feeling the warm weight of Sarah's body against hers, fitting as if they were meant to be, and let herself, just for a few moments, imagine it was all real.

Then the lights were coming up, and they were trying to get home, both a little too drunk to steer the wheelchair properly. They were giddy with laughter by the time they made it in, Saffy's cheeks and ribs aching with it as she struggled to shake off her shoes before her feet exploded.

She had to help Sarah as well, kneeling down to unbuckle her shoes as Sarah waved her feet in the air hopefully.

"What did your last slave die of?" Saffy asked sternly, catching Sarah's foot in her hand. It felt very fragile, warm and sweaty and narrow, and she didn't want to let go.

"Old age, of course," Sarah retorted, lolling back on the chair. Her red dress had rucked up slightly, exposing her thigh, and it was slipping off her shoulder, so Saffy could see the curve of her breast, close and tempting and real.

She froze there for a long moment, caught between the burning desire to just reach out and touch and the knowledge that she mustn't, she absolutely mustn't.

"Hello, Earth to Saffron. Can I have my foot back?"

"Yeah, sorry," Saffy blurted and surged to her feet, backing into her own little room, trying not to see Sarah's hurt, bewildered face.

#

The next morning, once they'd finished gulping paracetamol and moaning, Sarah said hesitantly, "You haven't been out with anyone for ages."

"I don't have to go out with anyone," Saffy said, huddling deeper into her pile of bean bags. "I'm too busy, and I've got you."

"Hmm," Sarah said, and Saffy closed her eyes and winced.

As a diversion, she said, "You can hardly talk."

"Maybe I'm busy too. And, really, who needs a man when they've got a perfectly good best friend to amuse them?"

Saffy wasn't sure what to say to that so she offered, hating herself, "If you want to bring someone back, just let me know and I'll make myself scarce."

"As if I would," Sarah protested indignantly.

"I'm just saying that you could. If you wanted."

"I don't want."

"Well, maybe you should want." Saffron didn't feel that it was fair to make her go through all this heroic self-restraint if Sarah wasn't even going to look for a lovely bloke to spend the rest of her life with.

"Saffron," Sarah said, with exaggerated patience. "I am not going to be bringing random one-night stands back to our flat."

Well, that was a mixed comfort. "Just the significant ones, then?"

Sarah let out a long-suffering sigh. "Firstly, you obviously have a very unrealistic idea of my love life. Secondly, you're an idiot. Go back to bed, Saff."

Saffron did, feeling very unappreciated.

#

At Christmas, Indigo appeared with Scott, who everyone agreed was lovely and who, according to Rose, had been around since October ("Three times longer than his previous record. Kiran and Molly made a spreadsheet."). Scott played the bass guitar and so got on with David, in a sort of musical mumbling which made sense to no one else. He admired Rose's art, and mentioned diffidently that one of his sisters was a glassblower and he could probably arrange a tour of her workshop. He was good at babysitting, having numerous nieces and nephews varying from Rose's size to two weeks old. He thought sheds were an entirely reasonable place to paint, being so much closer to the outdoor world, and seemed entirely unfazed by the Casson mayhem, admitting under Saffy's close questioning that his parents were teachers in a very large boarding school and he'd grown up with three hundred other boys, which made anything else seem peaceful in comparison.

"Don't you mind everyone trying to steal him?" Saffy demanded of Indigo, in a rare quiet moment.

Indigo shrugged. "He doesn't mind. Why should I?"

"I would," Saffy pointed out, but at that moment Scott somehow untangled himself from what looked like half Rose's class and wandered with deceptive vagueness back to Indigo's side before anyone noticed he was gone. He wrapped his arm around Indigo's waist and kissed him lightly before saying, "Your sister's bonkers."

"Which one?" Indigo inquired, grinning at Saffy.

"All of them," Scott said happily. "It's brilliant."

Even Bill liked him, to the extent that he started making speeches during Christmas lunch, his cheeks a little flushed from mulled wine. When he explained, beaming at Indigo, that sometimes it was hard for a young man to compete with a still sexually magnetic father figure, Sarah had to duck behind Saffy and hide her face behind a holly-printed napkin.

"You realise you're the only serious girlfriend Indigo ever had," Saffy whispered to her and then had to fake a coughing fit of her own at the expression on Sarah's face.

"Of course, statistically speaking," Bill was continuing, "it was inevitable that one of you should be–"

And, somehow, because it was Christmas and because everyone around the table was either mortified or hysterical, or maybe just because Sarah had once saved the last dance for her, there was nothing to stop Saffy from saying, "Two of us."

"And, as a father, I like to think– what was that, Saffy?"

"Two of us," Saffy said and she'd ended up on her feet somehow. She could see Eve's eyes widening and, to her relief, Michael giving her a surreptitious thumbs up, which gave her courage to just keep going. "Two of us are gay, and it's got nothing to do with what kind of father figure you are."

Then she stood there, in the silence, and only stayed upright because Sarah's hand was suddenly squeezing her knee below the table.

"Well, finally," said Indigo, and turned to the rest of the table. "Does anyone else want the last roast potato?"

"Me!" Rose said. "Cut it in half."

Saffron sat down slowly, taking a shaky breath as everyone started talking, a little too loudly. Only Bill still looked shell-shocked.

"You didn't think they'd be upset, did you?" Sarah asked, her hand still on Saffy's knee.

"No, I mean, maybe." A little sense of indignation was beginning to burn in her chest. "More than this."

"Saffron," Sarah said, a little too kindly. "Everyone guessed." And she leaned in and kissed Saffy's cheek lightly.

Not long after that Rose excused herself from the table early, so it wasn't really a surprise to find every bit of mistletoe in the house fastened on the hall ceiling, where they couldn't possibly avoid it.

"But," Saffy said, clinging in the doorway as Michael twirled a giggling Caddy across the hall. "You're straight."

"I don't really think there's any such thing," Sarah said. Her purple party hat was slipping down over her nose, so she adjusted it and added thoughtfully, "Do you think I could possibly be Cassonsexual? It would explain a lot."

"You're not taking this seriously," Saffron said crossly.

"I should hope not. Ugh, serious. How dreary. Now help me up, will you? The mistletoe's getting cold."

"I don't think mistletoe minds being cold," Saffron said, but seized Sarah's hands anyway, tugging her out into the hall. "Especially not plastic mistletoe off the market."

And then Sarah kissed her, so she had to shut up. She didn't mind at all, because everything was finally perfect, with Sarah's mouth openly warmly beneath hers, tasting of mince pies and promises.

#

Later that night, curled around each other in Sarah's most comfortable bed, Saffy lifted her head from Sarah's bare shoulder and said, "I am actually in love with you."

"I know that, stupid," Sarah grumbled. "You don't need to wake me up to tell me." Then, after a moment where her hand cupped gently around the back of Saffy's neck while Saffy fretted, she added, very casually, "It goes both ways, y'know."

"Good," Saffy said and buried her face against the curve of Sarah's neck in relief.

"And I was thinking if you're going to sleep in my bed, there's space for more of my stuff on your side of the flat."

Saffy just smiled and put her arm around Sarah's waist, and eventually Sarah stopped talking and pulled her closer, and for the first time in years, Saffy fell asleep without any secrets to worry about at all.