Chapter Text
“Hey, Luce,” George called, tramping up her stairs. He’d just finished his shower, and Lockwood had practically thrown him out for taking a minute longer than normal. Served him right for backing them into a pond.
“Hold on,” Lucy replied, and George hesitated at the top of her stairs, low wall obscuring his view of the room. “Okay, come up.”
“You mentioned you were out of antibiotic cream,” George said, waving the tube he and Lockwood kept downstairs.
“Would you mind helping me out? The scrapes are on my back, and I did well enough in the shower, but…” She gestured towards her side, fingers already lifting the hem of her shirt. George shrugged in affirmation and approached. He sat down heavily on her bed just to watch her bounce. It made her smile, and he smiled back.
“I would have sent up Lockwood if I knew you needed to take your shirt off,” George taunted, and she scoffed, rolling her eyes.
“Does this look off to you?” She rucked it up, exposing the curve of her spine and the bottom of her ribs.
“I suppose technically, no, but the tension, Lucy! It’s a missed opportunity if you ask me,” George said. He squeezed a dollop of ointment onto his clean fingers, and he dabbed it in odd constellations around her scrapes. His mother did this for him a couple times, before he officially moved into Fittes and got access to their all night nurse. She peppered the antibiotic cream all around his injury and then spread it out, getting a more even layer that way. George gave Lucy the same treatment.
“Whatever’s going on between Lockwood and me…” Lucy hedged, and George swallowed thickly. Everyone could see what was happening between her and Lockwood. She glanced at him over her shoulder and continued, “You know you’re there too, right?”
He snorted and tugged her shirt back down. “Yes, I’m very aware when I have to watch him look pointedly to the left of your arse.”
“No!” She turned around and reached out to knock him in the shoulder. “You know that’s not what I mean. You should know.”
Lucy’s face went all soft, like how she looked at Lockwood soft, and she reached up to absently rub where her shoulder joined her neck. He’d watched her do that all week, and on the job tonight, she’d switched out her rapier to her non-dominant arm a few too many times.
“Speaking of tension,” George said, and he poked at her neck and shoulder. “Jesus, I was only joking.”
He smoothed his fingers over her tense shoulder, pinching to get a feel for how hard her muscles had gotten. He found a knot almost instantly, and his brow furrowed as he prodded at it.
“Fuck off,” she said with no real feeling behind it. “I carry all my frustration in my shoulders. You carry yours in your jaw; don’t think I don’t notice you grinding your teeth when you’re researching.”
“Your frustration, huh? Maybe I really should call Lockwood up,” George snickered.
“Get out of my room, you bastard,” she sniped back, and George could help how he leaned in, grinning. He always leaned in when she put on her irritated airs, just daring her to get truly angry with him. He wasn’t quite sure why.
“I wouldn’t be a good friend if I left you in this state. C’mon, turn around, and I’ll see if I can work any of these knots out,” George said. He reached up to fiddle with his glasses while she eyed him with suspicion.
“George Karim, psychical agent, researcher extraordinaire, and masseuse,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.
“I also do balloon animals.”
A surprised giggle burst out of her lips, and her face lit up. As she turned around, folding her legs underneath her, she said, “You do not! Like a clown at a kid’s birthday? I’m never sure what animal they end up being. Tell me you do them, Georgie. Make me one.”
“I can’t,” George said. He steeled himself, imagining her body like an anatomy chart with the skin peeled away. “You made fun of the balloon animals.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t mean to make fun of the balloon animals. Please. I want a giraffe,” Lucy said. George felt along her shoulders and neck for the worst spots. It was all the worst spots, so he decided to start at the neck. He pushed his thumbs into the muscle on either side of her cervical spine, steading his fingers at the curve of her jaw.
“It’s too late. Once offended, the balloon animals don’t easily reconcile,” George said. As he kneaded out the strain in her neck, she traded out her words for these little noises. They might have been driving George a bit insane.
A huff out of her nose when he thumbed a particularly sore spot.
A groan, stopped at her teeth, when he felt a knot give and shift.
Then an honest to god moan when he moved down to her shoulders.
“George, you know that tension I have with Lockwood?” Lucy asked. George shifted how he was sitting to put less pressure on the tension in his pants.
“Mhmm,” he hummed, pretending to be all-in focused on his task.
“I dunno, seems like we’ve got a little of that going on here,” she said. George pinched tight over the meat of her shoulder, and she gave another moan, louder than the first, more practiced. George rolled his eyes, but sweat had started to gather at his nape.
Two could play at this game.
“I guess I did just walk myself into a stag film,” George admitted, leaning forward so his next words brushed past her ear. “Is there… anything else I can do for you?”
Lucy barked a laugh, sudden and unladylike, and George loved it when he could catch her off guard like that. She rolled her shoulders, snuggling back into his embrace in a way that had him stifling his guffaw in his throat.
“George,” she said, tossing her hair uselessly over her shoulder. “Oh, George. That feels fantastic.”
George mashed his lips together, tiny puffs out of his nose betraying his amusement. He dropped his voice, nuzzling above her ear. “You can say it. You like my hands on you.”
Lucy choked on a laugh and shoved her fist into her mouth. George was grinning, a bright, wide thing, and her shoulders were shaking underneath his fingers.
“Take me now!” She cried, turning in his grip and launched herself at him. It wasn’t overcome with lust so much as it might have been a rugby tackle with a name and everything. Something like The Bruiser or The Half-Smother.
They weren’t so far onto the bed that a move like that didn’t have consequences; George tumbled backwards, his arse slipping off the edge. It felt almost cartoonish with how quick they shot straight down. George thumped right onto his bones. He didn’t usually get bruises outside of cases, but nothing was usual with Lucy around. She was clutching his shoulders for dear life, her bottom half still sprawled on the bed, and she was laughing, freely and gloriously into his ear.
“And to think I was going to make you a giraffe,” George said wryly.
…
George’s plaid shirt came careening towards her face, and she ducked with all the precision of a highly trained psychical specialist. She balled up her tights that she shimmied off on her way up the stairs and hurled them at his face. They caught him in the shoulder.
“I told you we should have left an hour ago!” Lucy fumed, but there at the edges was a soft sparkle, a brightness behind her eyes.
George felt the same electricity, as he shucked his drenched shirt and sent it back at her.
“I was in the middle of something,” George said. “You don’t rush genius.”
His shirt clapped her right in the face—she might have been distracted by the new skin she was seeing. She scrubbed it off with an indignant shout, and they were in an old western standstill. She thought maybe there should be a whistle trilling somewhere in the background.
She couldn’t leave the shirt unanswered.
Lucy made a decision and started to shimmy out of her skirt. George’s eyes pulsed like someone had tapped on the back of them. A decision cracked around in his skull, and only time would tell if it was a good one. He charged, rushing up the stairs, and she gave a shriek in response. Lucy stumbled, the skirt twisting around her knees, as she moved at half speed up to the second landing. George caught up to the first just as she hooked her foot in her sopping skirt.
“You rush genius if you don’t have a bloody umbrella!” Lucy squawked. She launched the skirt at him with a well-aimed kick, and it hit him in the stomach, wrapping around his torso before sloughing off to the floor. She scrambled the rest of the way up to the next landing.
“C’mon, Luce,” George said, and his eyes burned where they traced up her legs. “Never hurt you to get a little wet.”
The chill from being drenched had evaporated, and Lucy wouldn’t have been surprised if steam was coming off her hair.
“You’re a dick,” Lucy answered eloquently. George shoved his trousers down his legs with a grin, his underwear sliding dangerously low on his hips, and Lucy hurried to get off her last major piece of clothing—her shirt.
It got tangled in the necklace Lockwood had given her, and she was completely blind when George’s cargo shorts snapped across her shins. She yelped, the button a hard dot against her calf, before she was able to wrestle off her shirt without breaking a priceless family heirloom. She spun it around her fist to create a ball of sopping blue fury, and she chucked it right at his wet, naked chest.
He caught it.
“Oh, fuck,” Lucy spat, and she dove to the side as her own shirt came careening back at her.
He was laughing and so was she. The kind of laughter that filled and warmed the air; the kind that made the old house feel something closer to a home.
“Surrender!” George teased, and Lucy desperately wanted to know what that looked like. What it would mean to surrender to George Karim.
“A tactical retreat,” she said, taking a step back for each stair he threateningly climbed. “—is not a surrender.”
George curved one eyebrow up, fingers skimming the tight waistband of his boxers like a cowboy sliding towards his holster. Lucy let out a squeak and rocketed towards the door below her attic stairs. His laughter chased her down the hall, her bare feet slapping against the hardwoods. Her heart was pounding when she slammed her door shut, leaning back against it like a horror movie heroine who thought she was safe. There was a beat where her pulse thrummed in her fingers, and his amusement echoed in her ears.
The loud sound of something wet hitting the door made her shriek, and George found that very funny, his cackles bouncing down the hall.
Lucy thought about taking a peek, just to see what article of clothing he’d decided to spook her with. She was pretty sure she knew, though. She was also pretty sure the confirmation wasn’t the only thing she wanted to peek at.
…
Lucy was not enjoying yoga.
She’d thought accepting George’s offer would mean she had more time to oogle his arse, particularly in those tiny shorts he exercised in, but actually it wasn’t all that easy to make eyes at her friend when her face was flat to the floor.
“And sweep forward,” George instructed calmly. “Arch your back, look at the ceiling. Get a nice stretch.”
Lucy inwardly huffed, but she did as she was told. Without the entertainment of being lecherous, Lucy was also incredibly bored. She knew George liked his yoga in peace and quiet, but she couldn’t help herself. She cast about for a topic he couldn’t refuse. She landed on—
“Has Lockwood been… a little much, lately?” She said, probing for George’s opinion. She wouldn’t call it unbiased because George had just as wandering eyes as she did, but sometimes she worried she was inflating her Lockwood interactions in her mind.
“This is the best saffron rice anyone has ever had, Georgie. Why don’t you just marry me already?” George said, imitating Lockwood’s cocky lilt.
It was much harder for her to erase her northern accent, but she gave it a shot, saying, “Luce, tell me that’s the Source in your hand. I’ll kiss you right on the mouth.”
“He gets like this sometimes,” George sighed. “He hasn’t in a while, but there was a time before you came when I was being courted by Rotwell. I strung them along to see if they’d give me access to some of their artifacts, but Lockwood was all huffy about it. Started calling me his housewife and kissing my forehead before he went out.”
“He’s such a prick,” Lucy said. She absolutely wasn’t wondering what it would take for Lockwood to start kissing her forehead. Maybe Kat would be up for a disinformation campaign, trying to recruit her for Fittes again.
“He’s got something in his head about us. It’ll pass,” George said, and he transitioned smoothly into the next pose. Lucy tried to follow, but she was much less graceful. She took a second to prod at her knees. They were going to be tender after this.
“Next time he does it, maybe I’ll call his bullshit,” Lucy said, and she chuckled. “Take me to the courthouse, you coward!”
“God, what I wouldn’t give to watch him malfunction after you just plant one on him,” George joked, but now they were both thinking about Lucy kissing Lockwood.
“He might explode.”
“You know he altered his living will, so we keep Portland Row if he dies,” George said, and he moved to the next complicated pretzel positioning. “You could pull a full coup with one little peck is all I’m saying.”
“I’d rather chain him up and keep him in secure storage,” Lucy said, and she gave up on trying to imitate George’s flexibility. She watched him properly this time, noting the rising blush on his face.
Well, of course now they were both thinking about Lockwood in chains.
Maybe yoga wasn’t so boring after all.
…
She fell down the fucking stairs, okay?
“Not a word to Lockwood,” Lucy hissed, as she wrestled off her torn tights.
“Yeah, but it’s me who needs to improve their footwork,” George snickered.
“You do!”
…
Lucy was going to yell at him, and George didn’t want to examine why that made him so giddy. He’d picked another fight with her that afternoon, the kind that let her wield the sharp edge of all that rage she carried around. He wanted Skull for another experiment, and she was firmly against it. He accused her of being anti-science, and she wouldn’t concede what he did was science.
So he waited until she was asleep, and he crept up to her room.
He knew why the thought of her, bright and loud, made his knees all wobbly. It was the same reason why he wanted to wake her with heavy steps against her staircase, wanted to see her blink awake and soften, wanted her to sleepily mumble that he shouldn’t just stand there. Instead, he snuck in, the very definition of a thief in the night, and he stole Skull for himself.
He wasn’t going to do anything. She hadn’t given him permission, so his mad scientist tendencies would have to be tamed. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be hysterical for her to think he did something.
Theirs was a complex relationship.
…
George would never say something as pretentious as this had always been coming. There were no sappy metaphors or romantic couplets, not like he was going to wield once Lucy and Lockwood finally got their shit together.
The reality of it was—she kissed him.
The early afternoon light was streaming through the kitchen windows. Lockwood had already been through, evidenced by the neatly cut triangles of toast Lucy was munching on. She never took the time to cut them for herself. She was doodling on the Thinking Cloth, a comic book version of the chain maneuver he and Lockwood had completed last night. George came in, planning to get some breakfast after their late night. As he passed Lucy, he nonchalantly set a yellow balloon twisted into the shape of a giraffe at her elbow.
There were many mangled balloons in his room, but this one came out just perfect enough.
She didn’t notice it at first, and George had time to wash a bundle of grapes. He popped a couple into his mouth, as he filled the kettle with water. Then he heard her soft gasp. The hollow noise of her gingerly picking it up.
“George,” she said, and he turned to her with the beginnings of a smile.
She didn’t say anything else. She just got out of her chair, approached, and kissed him.
He could admit it had thrown him off guard. Most of the kisses in his life he’d thoroughly seen coming, and he was able to adequately dodge the attack. This, though, clicked in his head as her hands cupped either side of his face, and he found himself entirely unwilling to take evasive action. His lips were still against hers for a full three seconds before he managed to fully reboot.
Then they were properly kissing.
Then she let out a breathy little noise, pushing him back against the kitchen counter.
Then he was lifting her onto the kitchen table in a move that felt more like something Lockwood would do.
She was drawing him between her thighs. He was pressing his hands underneath her shirt. She was mouthing down his neck, teasing her fingers at his waistband. He was helping her shimmy out of her sleep shorts. She was groaning, beautifully, desperately in his ear, as he carefully pushed inside her.
He would have time to be scandalized later. That she’d so bewitched him as to have him take her in the middle of the kitchen. That he could still hear the steam patterns from the training room, meaning that Lockwood was one spiral staircase away. That he hadn’t even kept it together long enough to engage in any gentlemanly foreplay. Just then, though, he was occupied with the pleasure sparking over his nerves, her grasping hands coercing him higher, higher.
The basement door banged open.
They froze, George buried about as deep as he could get inside her.
Lockwood appeared in his usual overly formal attire, rapier in hand and consternated furrow to his brow. His gaze was worlds away, and as he crossed from the basement to the hall door, he stabbed out with his rapier, executing a complex set of moves. His shoulder seized on the last flick, and he grimaced, faltering. He muttered something unintelligible and put a hand to his recently injured shoulder, rolling it out like that was going to help. He exited the kitchen, having not looked up once.
“Oh my god,” George whispered, and Lucy muffled a laugh into his neck. When she laughed, it did enticing things to her core muscles, and he groaned softly into her hair at the sensation.
“Do you think he’ll take anything for his shoulder?” Lucy asked quietly. George breathed in the faint scent of her shampoo, and as much as he wanted to continue their earlier activities, Lockwood was incredibly stubborn about self care.
“We better make sure,” George said. He extracted himself with an undignified whine, but at least Lucy echoed him on it. She didn’t let him escape quite yet, drawing him back in for a kiss.
“As soon as Lockwood is squared away,” Lucy said like a promise.
“Your room?” George tugged his trousers back up, finding her sleep shorts underneath a dining chair.
“Let’s do yours, yeah?” She said with a grin that always spelled trouble. “And let’s be loud.”
George held back a snort, as they followed Lockwood out of the kitchen. “Why don’t you just invite him to watch?”
“Maybe I will,” she replied haughtily, and George rubbed his fingers together, his tongue running over his lower lip.
“Hey, Lockwood!” George called, eyes never leaving Lucy’s. She was goading him; she was daring him, and George was taking the bait.
“What?” Lockwood said, and they heard a banging from the vicinity of the bathroom.
“Come here! Lucy has something she wants to ask you,” George said with a smirk. He dodged the punch aimed for his shoulder and feigned forward, pressing close. He realized then why he always got in her face. He followed the instinct and leaned in, stealing a spiteful kiss. She bit his lip in retaliation, but he found that it served much more as an attraction than a deterrent.
“Aha!” Lockwood came tromping down the stairs, accusatory finger raised like this was a bad detective movie. “I knew you two were together!”
George couldn’t take it anymore.
His seams burst, spilling laughter all over the old carpet. He doubled over, tears forming in his eyes at Lockwood’s triumphant expression.
“What do you mean you knew?” Lucy asked, stomping over to Lockwood with her arms tight over her chest. George had to go down to one knee or risk falling over.
“I just—well, you haven’t been subtle,” Lockwood said. His eyes darted to the side, and he took a step away from Lucy, making another wave of laughter choke George.
“Time to… god, it’s time to confess, Lucy,” George managed to say between cackles. “We were married in June when the lavender was blooming in the garden. Kipps officiated, and Holly was the flower girl.”
“You’re no bloody help,” Lucy muttered, and George reached out to snag her hand. He pulled her, as reluctant as she was, over to him and rose to meet her with a kiss. She was still angry with him, the irritated tilt to her mouth proof enough of that, but she seemed interested enough in snogging him to let it slide.
He watched Lockwood over her ear, confirming a scientific theory. Lockwood looked like someone had printed his name wrong in the paper. When he caught George’s clinical gaze, his eyes jumped down, then away up the stairs. He turned his foot as if preparing to flee, and George lunged forward on one leg. It threw Lucy off balance to the side, but George managed to snatch Lockwood’s tie before he could bolt. George had never been the strongest, physically, of the trio, but everyone was off kilter enough that when he dragged Lockwood towards them, they all crashed together in a stumbling singularity.
Lockwood’s hands landed on her hips to steady himself and then they jumped away once he ceased tottering.
“Lucy didn’t get to ask you her question,” George said, his voice gone purposefully dark. He tugged Lockwood’s tie when the other boy tried to unstick himself from Lucy’s backside, bringing him staggering into her again.
“George,” Lucy whined, putting her forehead against his shoulder.
“How long do you think we’ve been fooling around?” George asked. He watched the pink curve of Lockwood’s mouth flounder open.
“Months,” Lockwood finally said, and he deflated completely. He stopped struggling, his body content to curl over Lucy’s. “I heard you the night of the pond job.”
“The pond job…” Lucy reared, and Lockwood had to flinch back or brain her with his chin. “Are you serious? You like my hands on you—you heard that?”
George was laughing again, body jostling softly against Lucy’s front as she fought to twist enough to glare at Lockwood.
“Yeah,” Lockwood admitted sheepishly. “I wasn’t being creepy or anything. I was bringing tea, and then I didn’t.”
“You manage to overhear that, but you didn’t notice I was fucking Lucy on the kitchen table just now?” George said. Lucy huffed and tried to slip out of their gangly thicket, but George reached around to grab Lockwood’s trousers. One hand wound around his tie, one pulling his hips forward, and Lucy trapped in between.
“You—what?” Lockwood squawked, blinking vigorously. George started walking them forward, feet shuffling over the carpet, until he had Lockwood backed into the bannister. Lucy was finally getting on board, running a hand over George’s arse and reaching back to grab the other side of Lockwood’s trousers.
“When you came up from rapier practice, I had her on the table,” George said, leaning forward over Lucy’s shoulder. Lockwood’s gaze darted down to his lips. “You just know she’s still wet.”
“Fuck, Georgie,” Lucy breathed, and her hand on Lockwood travelled inward, somewhere George couldn’t quite see past her curves. Lockwood gave a punched out groan, so George could guess where she’d ended up.
“That was the first time I’d even attempted to fuck her, and you came up right in the middle,” George said with a faux sigh.
“I—I’m sorry?” Lockwood tilted his head to the perfect angle for George to kiss him. He didn’t, not yet.
“Do you want to be there from the beginning this time?” Lucy asked, and George pressed a smile into her hair. It took some finagling, but she’d gotten around to the important question.
“Well, Lockwood?” George rolled his hips forward, tipping them into each other like dominoes.
“Yeah,” Lockwood said, and he swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I want that.”
George yanked on his tie, crashing their lips together over Lucy’s shoulder. It wasn’t the quiet, sunny thing that had existed for a brief moment in the kitchen. It was something fierce and dirty and way too long in the making.
“We have to take care of your bloody shoulder first,” George said against Lockwood’s lips, and Lucy barked out a laugh. George let go of Lockwood’s trousers to give her a smack on the arse. “I think Nurse Carlyle would be happy to assist.”
“That’s Doctor Carlyle, you prick,” Lucy hissed. George laughed as he untangled their limbs. As soon as he took a step back, Lucy flipped over, pinning Lockwood against the bannister again and snogging him quite possibly to hell and back.
Lockwood caught George’s eye, as he snuck a hand over Lucy’s arse. George pumped his eyebrows, and Lockwood squeezed, earning a groan from Lucy.
When they broke apart, breathing heavily, Lockwood said, “Dr. Carlyle, I think you and Nurse Karim will need to do a full inspection. I’m feeling ever so out of sorts.”
“I diagnose you with being a sap,” George said, and he met Lockwood halfway, lacing their fingers together.
“I’m afraid that’s terminal,” Lucy quipped. Lockwood tugged on George’s arm until they were locked, hip to hip, and he pressed a kiss to Lucy’s forehead.
He said, “What a way to go.”
George was looking forward to it.
