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As the cab pulled up to 35 Portland Row, Lucy and George practically tumbled out, barely having the energy to drag themselves to the door. They’d been promised this would be an easy job. What it was was grueling. Not particularly dangerous. Just exhausting. Loads of type ones, none of them strong enough to do much, but all of them as quick and hard to pin down as cats in need of baths.
“Welcome home. Have a good day at work?” Lockwood said with that smile of his -- also very like a cat -- and Lucy was ready to snap at him for it when she saw the state he was in.
Smudges of flour on his clothes, his sling, his cheeks, and somehow even his hair.
George snorted. “Never mind us. What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh!” His hand went to dust himself off, but only managed to rub it in more. “I’d thought I would try and make something. To have ready for when you got home? I needed something to do while I was sat here and you were out there.”
Lucy hadn’t noticed before, but the house did smell wonderful. Something sweet and buttery.
“I thought shortbread would be easy, but with only one hand. Well,” he said with a shrug, flapping the hand held down with the sling as if to demonstrate.
“Will you be wanting some help washing up?” Lucy asked. It seemed only fair to offer. Since he’d made them something.
Under the smudges of flour, Lockwood flushed an unexpected red. She could hear him shuffling his feet under the table, and he straightened up in the chair where he had been sprawled like some 19th century rake.
“Oh, I’m sure I can. I. Don’t worry, I can manage on my own.”
“She meant the kitchen, Lockwood.”
Well of course she meant the kitchen. How else could he have taken -- oh. Oh. Suddenly, it was Lucy’s turn to blush, her face and neck feeling scalding hot at the thought. And as the heat crept farther out and down, she heard a noise from George. She’d hoped he hadn’t noticed, but obviously he had. Her only consolation was that Lockwood was staring pointedly at the thinking cloth, refusing to look up as he got redder still. She saw his lips move, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Sorry? I didn’t catch that,” George said, all weariness gone from his face. In its place, a lopsided smile as he watched his housemate squirm.
“I said I could actually use some help. With my hair at least.”
George sank into a chair at the table and surveyed the shambles Lockwood had made of his kitchen, tutting quietly to himself. And then he locked eyes with Lucy.
“I’ll have enough to do just taking care of this mess.”
And she couldn’t exactly argue with that. As much of a mess as Lockwood was, he was somehow still the cleanest thing in the room. She wouldn’t have minded taking care of it, but this was George’s little kingdom, and no matter how thorough she was, he would still wind up coming in after her and doing it all again. So logically-
“Yeah, alright,” she said with a sigh, bracing herself. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
---
She pulled a low-backed chair out of a corner of the attic and into her shower, busying herself with logistics to avoid thinking too much about what she’d agreed to do. She’d taken off at a run up the stairs without stopping to see Lockwood’s face, not stopping until she’d made it to her room, though now she was regretting that.
Her shower made more sense, with its handheld shower head, but it also meant her bed was right there.
“Luce?” Lockwood poked his head in the doorway. “How do you want to do this?”
She turned and saw him, looking more than a little pathetic, his expression completely unreadable. No backing out now.
“I uh. I think it’s best if you take off your shirt? So you don’t get it wet.”
“Just my shirt?”
She knew how she wanted to answer that. And she knew she could not, under any circumstances, answer it the way she wanted to. Not without risking much more than she was willing to risk.
“Yeah, that should be fine. I’ll have you sit here,” she said, patting the chair, “and tip your head back so I can wash your hair. I thought about having you at the sink, but that’s-”
She trailed off, watching him fumble with his shirt buttons, struggling to slip them out of their buttonholes one-handed. She swallowed, wishing this were happening in another context. Wishing she could say what she was about to say in a way that felt sexy. Or that she was more confident she could pull off sexy. Something.
“Can I help?”
Lockwood froze, meeting her eyes, his fingers still on the second button.
“Yeah, alright.”
He stepped closer, shrinking the distance between them to give her easy access, and she could feel the warmth radiating off of him. She reached up, unreasonably pleased at how steady her hands were in that moment. And one by one, she slipped each button from its hole, trying not to read too much into how his breath grew a little shakier each time. After the last one, he ducked his head and gingerly removed the sling before shrugging off the shirt. Both fell to her floor, and finally she was brave enough to look up.
In his expression, she saw so much gentleness, but also something else. A spark of quiet, reckless hope, maybe. But when he spoke, it sounded like he was trying not to spook her.
“If you’re not comfortable with this, I can manage on my own. I promise.”
“No, no, it’s alright!” she said, too bright, too loud. “You’ve patched me up enough times -- it’s only fair I try and return the favor with this!”
He smiled at that, his eyes lighting up the way they did when he really meant it. She felt some of the tension leave her body at that, comforted that he didn’t secretly hate what was happening. He was a very good actor, but not with her. Not good enough to fake that.
“Are you planning to turn on the water at some point?” And just like that, his smile had turned teasing, his eyebrow raised and his posture relaxed.
She rolled her eyes and grumbled as she shooed him into the chair, waiting for him to sit before she took the shower head in hand and, pointing it away from him, turned it on and started fiddling with the knobs to get it warm. This part, at least, felt familiar. She and Norrie had done this more than once during Norrie’s stint as a blonde. Washing out the bleach and the dye was easiest if you had someone helping, checking that the water really had run clear and that you’d gotten all of it out, rather than risking getting some on the bed linens provided by Jacobs and having your pay docked to replace them.
She ran her fingers through his hair, easing his head back and supporting it so he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck later.
“Close your eyes. I’m not doing this with you staring at me the whole time.”
He grinned before obeying, closing his eyes and relaxing at the feeling of her fingers on his scalp. And when she turned the shower head to wet his hair, his lips parted with a tiny exhale as he melted.
“I hope my shampoo’s alright. I didn’t think to grab yours,” she said, trying her best to focus on the task at hand and not the stray droplets of water slipping along his shoulders or the micro-expressions flitting across his face at her touch.
“I think I’ll survive,” he said, his voice sounding strange. Drowsy, almost.
It occurred to her that he probably hadn’t had anyone do this for him since he was little. The way he pressed against her hand, seeking more touch-
I’ve got good touch, her own words floated back into her mind at the worst possible moment, and she was desperately glad she’d told him to close his eyes.
“One moment, I need my hand back to open the bottle.”
She cut the water off so she could use both hands to massage the shampoo in, getting rid of every trace of flour. But more than that, she could tell the effect this was having on Lockwood. He looked calmer, more content, than she could ever remember seeing him. Had it really been so long since anyone had offered him a bit of care and comfort? She felt her heart break a little, but more than that, she wanted to be able to do this for him more. To find ways to look after him until it helped heal at least some of the wounds he carried with him. And maybe some of hers too. She wanted to lean down and press her lips to his, to have him pull her down to kiss her back. She wanted them to hold each other so close that where one stopped and the other started became completely irrelevant and impossible to determine. She wanted-
“Luce? Everything alright?”
“Oh! Yeah, sorry.”
At some point, lost in her thoughts, her fingers had stopped. She hoped it hadn’t been too long, but it wasn’t the first time she’d drifted off while fixated on his mouth. In the early days, it was even odds whether she was thinking of kissing or slapping it, but still. She turned the water back on, trying to distract herself by focusing on getting every last bubble out of his hair.
“What were you thinking about?”
She almost didn’t hear him over the water.
“Nothing, really. Just drifted for a moment.”
“Mmm.”
“Mmm?”
Lockwood paused, his eyes still closed but his eyebrows drawn together and the corners of his mouth tilted downward, as if he were debating whether or not to say something. Lucy was about to drop it, not wanting to press, when finally he spoke up.
“I was just. Hm,” he stopped halfway through his thought, and she noticed his hands fidgeting in that way they did when he was about to barrel on into a dangerous situation. “When I first thought you were offering to help me wash myself, the way I reacted -- it wasn’t because I was worried you meant that.”
Lucy’s heart was in her throat, hope clawing its way up along with it. She drew in a breath before turning off the water and letting the showerhead fall.
“If you weren’t worried, what were you?”
“...optimistic?”
“You were optimistic.”
A pause, and then, “Yes.”
“That I was offering to wash you.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was so carefully level as she asked, “What, exactly, were you optimistic might happen?”
At that, Lockwood opened his eyes and looked up at her. Bright red cheeks, wide eyes, her mouth just barely open as she tried to regulate her breathing. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she tried. The only sound in the room was the quiet dripping of water from his hair to the shower floor, and the two of them breathing in sync, neither sure when that happened.
And then, barely more than a whisper, “This?”
Even better than she’d imagined it, he reached up with his good arm, tangling his fingers in the hair at the back of her head and pulling, gentle enough that she could easily have resisted if she didn’t want this, until she was close enough for him to lean up and press his lips against her own. Warm and soft and tasting of shortbread dough he must have stolen a taste of before putting them in the oven, he felt like home.
And then it was over, and he drew back to meet her eyes again, this time with a hope so fragile and brittle she couldn’t help but ache when she saw it.
“Was that. Is this. Are we alright?”
She couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up, and before he could misinterpret it as anything other than joy, she swooped back down to kiss him again, and again, and again.