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my heart leapt from me

Summary:

He rolls his eyes and pushes her hand back towards her and she has her mouth open to berate him when he moves, steps close enough that she can feel his every breath and wraps his hands, gently, around hers. “Here,” he says.
He guides her hands, digs the knife just barely into the apple’s skin and spins the apple, slowly, teases the skin off in one long strand. They’re green apples because he’d said they’re the best for baking, and the color seems to bleed brightness into the moment. Lucy’s heart is racing so fast and loud she can’t hear herself think.

or: george and lucy in the kitchen

Notes:

hello i have been working on this in tiny increments for weeks because thinking about george baking a pie literally would not leave me alone
i don’t think there’s any warnings but as always lmk if i should tag anything!!
title from unknown/nth by hozier

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Lucy isn’t exactly sure how she got here.

She knows George had knocked on her door, peering up over the stairs when she called for him to enter. She knows he’d asked her, haltingly, if she wanted to help him with something. She knows she’d said yes.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise, really, to find herself in the kitchen.

George is across the room at the counter, measuring out flour. Lucy is sitting at the far end of the table with an apple in her hand.

“Peel, then chop,” George had demonstrated, spinning the knife around the outside of the apple so its skin came off in one long piece. He chopped it efficiently, too, into even pieces about the size of his thumb, then handed Lucy the knife and the next apple from the pile and left her to herself.

She tries to slide the blade under the apple’s skin and ends up cutting deep into it. Her next attempt is too light and she nicks herself, hard enough to hurt but not to break the skin.

“Shit,” she whispers, dropping the knife to the table with a clatter.

George laughs at her.

“Having trouble?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder. His hands are dusted with flour. She glares and picks up the knife, marches over to stand next to him.

“Help,” she says— demands, really, holding the knife out to him. She knows her glare is more of a pout, now, knows the teasing glint in George’s eye is about it. She doesn’t care.

He rolls his eyes and pushes her hand back towards her and she has her mouth open to berate him when he moves, steps close enough that she can feel his every breath and wraps his hands, gently, around hers. “Here,” he says.

He guides her hands, digs the knife just barely into the apple’s skin and spins the apple, slowly, teases the skin off in one long strand. They’re green apples because he’d said they’re the best for baking, and the color seems to bleed brightness into the moment. Lucy’s heart is racing so fast and loud she can’t hear herself think.

When the apple is bare, George catches her eye and winks before flinging the skin over his shoulder.

“George!” Lucy laughs, cranes her head to see where it’s gone.

He shrugs. “There’s a superstition about it. What letter does it look like?”

“An L,” Lucy says, pointing, but he’s not looking. Instead he’s watching her, eyes as soft as she’s ever seen them, nose crinkling up when he smiles. “What’s the superstition?”

“Nothing,” George says, and he’s lying, obviously, but she doesn’t mind. For appearance’s sake, she sticks a hand into the bucket of flour and tosses it at him, covering his arms and his face and his black t-shirt in it. She laughs when he squawks, darts back to her seat, to the apples.

He bustles around, pulls out butter and salt and ice, and eventually he’s rolling dough into a perfect circle and Lucy’s out of apples to peel, nothing left but a bowl of evenly sliced chunks.

“Can I help?” she asks.

George hums, once, and shakes his head. There’s still flour in his hair, at the corner of his eye. “Just sit,” he says. “I’ll need you to pour in a minute.”

She pulls herself up onto the counter, out of his way but close enough to watch him work. His hands are light on the rolling pin, even lighter as they dance across the dough to check its thickness, and there’s a striking confidence in his movements that speaks to how often he’s done this. It’s enthralling.

“Now,” he reaches for her, manages to snag the edge of her sleeve even with his eyes and one hand still on the dough. “Bring me the tin.”

Lucy slides it into the space next to him, holds it still when he curls the crust up over the rolling pin and drapes it into place. He presses the edges down with quick, sure fingers, and Lucy bites back a smile.

“Apples,” he says.

George hovers, one hand on her shoulder, while she pours the apple chunks into the tin. His brow is furrowed in his concentration. Lucy watches him long enough that she nearly spills, a single piece of apple falling away from the others and landing in George’s waiting hand.

“Careful,” he says, softly, a tease of a smile twisting his lips. He raises the apple and she thinks he’ll toss it in with the rest of them, maybe toss it instead into the sink or the bin. She doesn’t expect him to eat it, pressing his fingers to his own lips in its wake, smiling all the while. Watching her for just a second too long to be casual.

Lucy swallows.

She wants to kiss him, she realizes, as he turns away to grab the cinnamon. She wants to taste the sweetness of the apple on his lips, his tongue, his teeth. She wants to sink her hands into his hair and his clothes and his skin, to pull them back only when they’re covered in flour and smelling of him. Of home.

She wants to kiss him.

George finishes the pie and slips it into the oven. She’s no help, hovering right in his way the whole time, but he doesn’t say anything, just squeezes past her and taps her, one-two lightning fast, on the hip.

Lucy moves, then, and sits back down at the table. She thinks her knees might be shaking.

The kitchen is warm and she knows, really, it’s because the oven has been on for nearly an hour but George is also smiling, his hair a mess, and he’s leaning back against the counter with his hands on his hips and she wants— she wants to—

She drops her head into her hands. George laughs at her, soft and almost musical, and she hears his footsteps cross the room before he drops into the chair beside her.

“Now we wait,” he says, apologetic. “This is the boring part.”

It isn’t, really, even though they sit mostly in silence. Lucy doodles on the Thinking Cloth, jots down a few letters by Lockwood’s half-finished game of hangman. George pulls a pile of books onto the table and reads, curling further and further over the table until his nose almost brushes the yellowing pages. Lucy realizes, abruptly, that she’s sketching him.

Her drawing doesn’t do him justice, because it’s all but impossible to accurately capture the fall of his hair, the glint in his eyes, the way he bites his bottom lip just so when he’s concentrating. She slides an empty plate over the drawing and drops her pencil, lets her gaze linger on George. Takes him in.

The light is coming in through the window and turning him to pure gold. He’s beautiful, she notes, for probably the millionth time since she moved in. There’s still flour on his face. She still wants to kiss him.

The timer rings. George leaps to his feet and checks the pie, wrinkles his nose against the steam that pours from the oven and reaches one hand behind his back.

“Mit,” he says, absently, and she hands it to him.

They let the pie sit for a few extra minutes to cool. Lucy pulls a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and George sets three places at the table.

“Is Lockwood on his way?”

George glances at the clock. “Not yet, probably. He said he’d be back before dinner.”

Lucy hums, once, and leans over the stove to smell the pie. When she straightens back up, George is watching her, smiling. She turns to face him fully and leans against the counter, the edge of it digging into her back.

“What?” she asks, defensive. Daring. Her heart is pounding and the air is full of cinnamon and George is smiling, smiling, smiling and stepping closer.

“Nothing,” he says. He stops when their toes are nearly touching, when Lucy could sway forward and collapse into him. His eyes don’t leave hers, and she can hear his breath hitch.

“George,” she says— whispers— breathes, near-silent, terrified of ripping the moment open. Terrified of sending him running.

He nods. “Lucy.”

He tastes like cinnamon, when she kisses him. Sweet and familiar and warm, like the way he kisses back, the way his hands come up to curl loosely at her waist. She wraps her arms over his shoulders and pushes herself closer, closer, closer.

George whispers something against her lips, and she can’t understand the words of it but she hears it, deep in her chest and her bones and her heart. “Yeah,” she agrees. He hums into her mouth.

His hair is tangled around her fingers and his glasses are pressing into her cheek, hard enough almost to hurt. She can feel her heartbeat and his, racing, in sync. She thinks, if he’d let her, she could stay here forever.

George pulls back, eventually. He moves back only a fraction and she whines, just a bit, quietly. He laughs. She feels the breath of it across her lips. 

“Lucy,” he says again and his voice is almost broken in its quiet, in its sincerity. His eyes, when she looks, are open and warm and full of—

“Love,” he says, like it’s her name. Like she’s everything.

“George,” she answers, call and response.

He kisses her again, once, sweetly. She feels it when he smiles, when he sighs something soft and content like he’s never been happier. Like he’s home, finally. She can’t help but agree.

When Lockwood gets home, George’s chair is so close to hers that their legs press together. He pauses, briefly, in the doorway and gives them a look, confused and almost hopeful, and Lucy smiles back, beckons him close enough that she can pull him down by the tie and kiss him. It feels like a revelation, when he kisses back.

George kisses him, too, rises from his chair to do so and pushes Lockwood all the way back until he’s crowded against the counter, like Lucy had been earlier. She laughs at the dazed look on Lockwood’s face when George pulls away and starts plating slices of pie for each of them.

The kitchen is warm, and smells of cinnamon and old books and something intrinsic to Portland Row that Lucy can’t quite name. She isn’t exactly sure how she got here—leaning across the table to kiss the pie from Lockwood’s lips, George’s hand rubbing gently along the line of her back—but she isn’t surprised, really.

She’s just home.

Notes:

thank u for reading! i am occasionally on tumblr @notjupiter if that’s your thing :)