AN: Well, I've returned. Remember that High School!AU I said I was gonna do? Well, this isn't it. I started writing this on a napkin at church camp, and somehow it evolved into this great, big, honkin' mess. But I hope you enjoy it!
Lucy makes him think in free verse poetry, and, to be honest, it's absolutely ridiculous. Now, Lockwood may be pretty skilled in manipulation through language, but he does not write poetry, let alone think it. At all.
So it's strange when he's standing in the well room at Combe Carey Hall, arms holding Lucy back and the line "To perish with this lion-hearted girl/Would not be bad at all" flits through his mind. Why? Because it's a little bit of an intrusive thought. See, when he says, "No, Lucy, that's not the way it's going to be," he's saying it mostly to her, but in part to himself. They are not going to die down there, absolutely not. He will not allow it.
It all works out in the end, actually, because they don't die and the terrible memories of the Visitors soon erase those poetic and invasive phrases afterwards. So, two awful notions were laid to rest that night.
But, you see, some things just don't stay dead for long.
Two-and-a-half weeks later, the phrase "she's a study of black and blues in the morning/Each bruise a medal of honor" hits Lockwood like a salt-bomb. He's sitting in the kitchen with George when Lucy enters, disgruntled and recovering from a case concerning a Clattering Bones the previous night. All he can do is stare at her when the words strike. Wariness paints itself across her face when his eyes don't leave her collarbones and upper arms, the most bruised places on her body. She points it out, that he's staring at her. Lockwood's face actually has the audacity to turn bright red. And while George guffaws at his discomfort into his breakfast, he decides to never think of this moment – and those damn words especially – again.
But, of course, the words continue to rush into Lockwood's mind, especially in the most inconvenient of times. For example, when he's trying to focus during a job, or when they're researching for an upcoming case, or when they're interviewing with a client. Each time, he tries to ignore and suppress those thoughts, but he can't; they drift like Shades in the back of his mind, crying out to be laid to rest by being written down. But he refuses.
There comes a time, however, when they're having a row in the hallway over a poorly executed and ended case one night, that the first lines he'll ever record comes to him. Lucy's scowling at him when he thinks "I've walked through monuments of fear/Without so much as a whimper/But the scariest place I know/Is the blaze of her fury." The words are just so beautiful; Lockwood decides then that he can't let them fade with time. So he holds the phrase hostage while scowling and scolding right back.
She's in bed and so is George when he takes a spiral descent to the basement. He records the words in the margins of a newspaper clipping, writing the words with haste and finishing with a flourish. He sets the pen down and sighs.
Lockwood stares at the words for a bit, and they seem to stare right back, which is quite unnerving, really. It's like they have some sort of... power. Do they? Because it appears that the more and more he finds himself thinking in poetry, the more and more he finds himself seeing her in a different light. And, if he's completely honest with himself, it's worrisome. There's a great benefit in not getting attached to the people around him; most of them end up dead or fired. And out of those two options, it seems more likely that Luce'll end up dead rather than fired.
He stares at the words a little bit longer, but it's becoming harder and harder to hold their gaze. Eventually, they win this strange staring contest. Lockwood lets out a quiet noise of irritation before folding up the clipping and stowing it away in the top left-hand drawer on his desk, underneath all of the pens.
The words flow unbidden from him, now that he doesn't try to stop them, but they're the most delicate and frightening things, really; the more and more he thinks these fragments of poems, the more and more he begins to fall for Lucy. He starts to notice the little things about her too. Just little abstract things, like the way she ever-so-slightly raises her chin before a fight, or how her hair is stick-straight except for a few rebellious curly strands near her temples, or how she's not very fond of being touched. Lockwood begins to fall for those little quirks and habits of hers and wonders if she notices things about him as well. Is she starting to see him like this as well?
Well, as fate would have it, he doesn't have to wonder this for very long. Lucy's pen runs out of ink toward the end of November on a quiet morning at her desk, just as she's about to shade in a sketch of hers. So she takes a few steps over to his desk and rifles through the pens in search of a replacement. She finds a nice black pen that meets her standards and also something else.
There's a piece of lined paper that has writing on it sticking out from underneath the tray. Lucy removes it and reads what is written there in familiar slanted handwriting: "to the strong/fear cripples/to the rebellious/fear oppresses/even to the greatest of us/fear breaks/but not my Lion-Hearted Girl/who is not its slave/but its master/so dauntless is she/it its looming shadow/and never does she flinch/never is she broken/and always will I admire her/and stand by her side."
The seriousness of the words is what piques her interest and so does the handwriting. It's obvious that Lockwood wrote it, but who is this about? Is it about her?There's a possibility that it is and a possibility that it isn't. Either way, her curious nature will gnaw like an underfed wolf until she discovers the truth.
Lucy pockets the paper and ascends the spiral staircase. In the library is where she finds him, Lockwood, draped over an armchair, gossip magazine held in his long fingers. At the sound of her arrival, he looks up, smiling brightly; however, that smile falters a bit when he sees what's in her hand. Lockwood inquires of her what it is that she's holding, and she begins to read it aloud.
She raises her gaze from the paper, only to see his face as a blank slate. Her stomach drops. Is Lockwood upset that she's found this and is now reading it aloud? God, it's so hard to tell when not an ounce of emotion is displayed on his face.
Lockwood doesn't speak for a few moments. That's a tense silence that is broken by Lucy apologizing fervently. She moves to hand him the paper when he rises from his seat and places a hand on her shoulder. The touch is so tender that it shocks her for a moment. She had expected him to be angry, but he's looking down at her and smiling lightly.
Lucy is filled with relief when he tells her that she's glad she found it on her own, that he doesn't have to muster up the courage to give her the poem himself. Then, Lockwood smiles, and her face breaks out into a grin without her consent.
It's so damn obvious, then, of how Lucy feels. No words are necessary, just a smile and a nervous laugh. That's all Lockwood needs to piece it together.
About a month later, it's Christmas Eve, and the three of them have returned home from George's parents'. George bids them both good night. They're standing at the bottom of the stairs together when Lucy tells him to stay right there; she has something for him.
There's a rectangular gift wrapped in ostentatious green paper gripped in Lucy's hands when she returns from her room. She gives Lockwood the box, saying she's too impatient to see him open this tomorrow morning, so she wants to see his reaction now.
Lucy could not have asked for a better reaction; after tearing off the paper and opening the box, Lockwood throws his head back and just laughs and laughs and laughs. It's a book titled "Poetry for Dummies" and he tells her it's one of the cleverest gifts he's ever received.
She's in the middle of telling him that there's an inscription on the inside when he grabs Lucy by the waist, kissing her with still-smiling lips. Her reaction is not immediate, but when she does react, nothing comes to his mind. He's rendered wordless by the joy in her kiss and the tugging of her fingers in his hair. It's a good thing, he decides later, that he didn't think of anything.
Occasionally, there are moments so beautiful that attempting to describe them with words would do them no justice. When he's kissing Lucy at the foot of the stairs on Christmas Eve, he figures it's one of those moments.
AN: Someday, I'm just gonna keel over from all these Locklyle emotions. (It has been decided. Locklyle is the ship name for Lucy/Lockwood; Cublyle is Lucy/George; and Cubbwood is the name for Lockwood/George. But if you wanna go OT3, the ship name could be Cublylewood? I don't know.)
Anyway, I hoped you liked it! And if you didn't, that's okay. Either way, please drop me a review so I may know what to fix and/or keep doing.
May Jonathan Stroud and the SS Locklyle forever reign.