Work Text:
The first thing you learn when you buy a gun is to not look down the barrel. It leads to nothing but pain. A stray shot to the face. If you look down the barrel of a gun, BAM, you’re dead. Officer Lockstock should know this, he’s a cop and a pretty good one at that. But here he is, staring down Officer Barrel, heart rattling in his chest like a fugitive on the run.
Lockstock stops in his tracks as he comes to the realization that he’s looking too hard. Barrel just cracked a joke as dry as everything else was since the drought started. Through the malicious chortling and snide comments that had carried the conversation, Lockstock feels light. Like someone’s putting a hand right under his stomach and is now lifting it upwards. A raspberry-red warmth creeps up his neck, up to his cheeks and ears and pours warmth into his chest. He gets a rush, one that a man shouldn’t get just seeing his good ol’ platonic work buddy. This is when Lockstock comes to the stomach turning realization that he has fallen into the trap that some weaker minds called infatuation. Shit.
It’s not that Barrel is particularly gorgeous. Crumpled nose, crinkled eyes, and frumpy hair that always looked a bit bogged down by the weight of his duties. He isn’t particularly sharp either, loyal and quick as hell, but by no means a genius. He’s just some… guy. He was so run of the mill. Yet there is something to the imperfection that adds a layer of charm.
This won’t end well. It never did for Lockstock. As an all-seeing narrator, he knows how and why each escapade will end. That didn’t stop the hurt. That didn’t stop the hurt of his first girlfriend leaving him for his cooler, hotter, and honestly kinder Jackson Slate. She deserved Jackson, Lockstock didn’t deserve her. It still stung. What’s right and just sometimes hurt, that was in his job description. But it hurt. It did it stop the hurt from realizing he was incredibly attracted to said Jackson Slate, an individual that was so nauseatingly not a girl. It didn’t ease the hurt of his most recent girlfriend, Caroline, dying of Typhoid during the height of the stink years. The ache of all aforementioned instances, even the last, have lost most of the excruciating sting. However, there’s still an ache that gnaws at his bones before he’s overcome. He tries to ignore it most days. Closing himself off into the cream colored walls of his cardboard box sized apartment, he never cries.
He decides to have some fun. To let himself entertain this silly crush. He decides to, in all of his narrator powers, to choose to not see ahead this time. To let this one chapter of the story of his life stay unspoiled. Anyway, he doesn’t need to be omniscient to know that two cops - two men - in love won’t end in flowers and peaches. Not in a time or place like this. Not now.
So here Lockstock is: Spending his days sneaking glances. Spending his restless and infrequent nights dreaming of domesticity. He doesn't know why he’s doing this. Letting simple touches linger and holding onto every spoken word was pointless. He could just ask the universe what would become of this, of them. He could end the constant wonder of requited love with no effort if he just evoked his power. And yet, he remains blinded by his stupid urge to pretend.
“Officer Lockstock. Officer Lockstock. Officer Lockstock! OFFICER LOCKSTOCK!!” Little Sally tries in vain to catch the cop’s attention. The cloud around Lockstock’s head bursts unceremoniously as Little Sally waives her hand over Lockstock’s face.
“Hm? Apologies Little Sally, I was just… thinking.”
“S’ok. Whatcha thinking about?” Barrel. Barrel’s eyes, Barrel’s smile, Barrel’s lips, the way it would feel to kiss him silly. He can’t say any of that, of course he can’t. Instead he just says,
“Oh, work things.”
“Work things? Like what?” Little Sally replies, always with the inquisitions.
“Work things,” he simply repeated. He’s so fucked.
His utility belt rattles. It’s been doing that lately. Sometimes things fall out of it. Sometimes they would drop to the ground altogether. Slapdash and poorly made, it’s not like Cladwell’s pretty eager to spend his blood-soaked cash on good materials for his employees. It’s not like Lockstock would complain either. For someone who does… the work he does, he finds courage short when it comes to his red-suited boss. Sometimes he worries that something important will fall out of his belt, something life ruining and important. He worries that someone will find it. That his whole life will fall apart with his tattered belt, leaving some vicious passerby to collect the scraps and make a stained-glass window out of his secrets for all the world to see. He holds onto his utility belt with both hands and takes a breath.
It rattles again. This time something falls out, his truncheon. It falls to the asphalt with a clamoring thud before he can even think to try to catch it midair. Embarrassment fills his whole body, leaving him feeling vaguely paralyzed. He doesn’t know why things like this get to him. He… does what he does for work. Yet, sometimes, something little happens that makes him tense up completely and feel like sobbing. He stands there, completely flushed by the simple mistake. Stupid. That’s what he is. Stupid. That’s what his father called him. That’s what his father called him when he failed that algebra test in the 8th grade. That’s what his father called him when he couldn’t make the basketball team because he got too scared to move. That’s what his father called him when he barged into his room to find him kissing some boy he doesn’t even remember the name of. That’s what he called him. That’s what he was. What he is. Breaking his spiral is Barrel, picking up his fallen truncheon.
“You dropped this,” he says, mouth scrunching to the side, causing the mole under his lower lip to sort of curve. He looks at his lips, then at his eyes, then back at his lips.
“Thank you, Mr. Barrel,” he says, a facade of sternness cracking into something more fond, “Thank you very much.”
And it goes on like this. The two of them exchange little gestures that mean nothing. They mean nothing. Lockstock lays on his bedroom floor, picking at the pilly beige carpeting that hugs the tile. His apartment is small but good. It works just as well as it should. All UGC employees receive a place to live. Lockstock got one of the better ones. It has a kitchen with a little stove and a breadbox. It has a living room with a gray sofa and scratchy upholstery. It has a bedroom. Seeing as it was built after the stink years, the bathroom is nothing more than a tiny closet with a drain in the floor so Lockstock can pour a drizzle of water over himself before bed. The apparent came with the promise of water, a luxury not many can afford. He’s lucky, but more than that he’s persistent.
Still laying on the floor, Lockstock hears a knock. None of his coworkers come by here, and he lives alone, a perk of his status. Apprehensive, he peers through the peephole. Sometimes angry people come down here. It’s been getting worse lately. There have been riots. Lockstock would never have guessed Joe Strong’s boy could pull any off. Yet the boy born to the Stink Years in a cabin held together by pure desperation has risen to a revolution straight out of Les Miserables. A smile appears on Lockstocks cheeks as he realizes that it’s not a face of anger, but of his coworker buddy love of his life best friend and crush. He slides the lock to the side, opening the door. He feels giddy, but subdues his voice and says, “Good evening Mr. Barrel. Say, what brings you to my home?”
“I was just lonely I suppose. We’re friends, after all,” Barrel replies, seemingly reading his eyes for approval on the “friend” part. Lockstock becomes flustered at the eye contact, his nose and ears becoming hot and stingy with blush. He gets so caught up in the moment he almost forgets to validate Barrel in his seeking of friendship. Trying and failing to remain even, Lockstock clears his throat, nods, and replies,
“Why yes of course! We are friends after all. Come on in.” Walking to the sofa, Barrel lazily slings an arm around Lockstock’s lower back, as if to guide him to his own furniture like he was a blind man in a stranger's house. Lockstock reciprocates the gesture, leaning into the touch. No one says a word, yet the unspoken and confused excitement in the air is so thick that they might as well be screaming at the top of the UGC building.
They chat on the sofa for a while. Lockstock, despite his constant monologuing, stays more reserved. Meanwhile Barrel was animated as always, laughing as he spoke with the zeal Lockstock lost in his early twenties, using a plethora of hand gestures to emphasize every last word. The guise of cold professionalism dropped, a treat for the two of them to share. Somehow, they migrated to Lockstocks bedroom, the two men opting to sit on Lockstock’s dowdy carpet.
“Yeah, nothing against McQueen but he’s been kinda a bitch lately. I mean, you are higher up than him Theo-“ Barrel catches himself midway through the sentence, “sorry, Mr. Lockstock.” Lockstock’s whole body went into lockdown as he registered the use of his own first name. Theodore. The name his mother kissed onto his forehead when he was a mere infant. Barrel said his name like it was a precious gem that had to be said gently. He said it with a tenderness. Right then, Lockstock decides that the future can go fuck itself.
“Can I do something kind of stupid,” asks Lockstock, looking softly at Barrel, yet with a sort of intensity. Barrel freezes.
“If this is about the name thing sir I’m so sorry it was unprofessional and-“ before Barrel can finish his sentence, Lockstock clarifies.
“Can I kiss you, Isaac Barrel?”
Lockstock reckons they should have been doing this from day one. Barrel’s skin is rough, stubble and some acne dusting his face and down to his neck. Barrel’s lips are warm, and he sort of giggles when he kisses. It’s so endearing that Lockstock can’t help but deepen the kiss slightly. At this, Barrel gasps a bit. Lockstock, thinking he’s gone too far, almost pulls back. But when he can feel Barrel’s mouth morph into a smile against his own, he can’t help but smile back. Smiling into a kiss. He’s missed this.
Barrel tastes like apricots. A taste that Lockstock had almost forgotten. Agriculture took a hit during the Stink years. Apricots. Lockstock’s mom would cut them up for him after long days of elementary school. In a way, Barrel is home, that soft place to land. Lockstock knows he probably tastes of Patron, Pall Malls, the gunk under his fingernails and self depreciation - all those nasty habits he can’t break. Kissing Barrel might become a new one.
Kissing Barrel is lovely because Barrel kisses like everything else he does, brash, animated, and a little clumsy. He kisses with hunger and with a sort of recklessness. He kisses like they’re the only people on earth. He kisses like he’s trying to suck some venom out of a pit in Lockstock’s stomach. Lockstock kisses like a monologue, sharp and calculated with a rhythm. However, kissing Barrel makes him fumble his lines and ad-lib in jokes that he thinks of on the fly. Kissing Barrel is new and kissing Barrel is scary and kissing Barrel is amazing.
Barrel clumsily disentangles his hands from Lockstock’s hair without breaking the kiss, instead choosing to rest one on Lockstock’s neck and one on his lower back. Lockstock bristles at the motion, removing his hands from Barrels cheeks and choosing to wrap them around the middle of his back. Then, Barrel pulls away. Lockstock’s whole face buzzes with a lack for words and his lips feel cold without the embrace of his coworker/best friend/crush/maybe boyfriend. Barrel looks absolutely frazzled, red cheeks and redder lips that are slightly swollen. They sit on Lockstock’s carpet in the same slow dance-esque position they had kissed in. Heavily breathing, they sit and soak in each other’s faces, trying to absorb every last drop.
At that moment, Lockstock decides he’s done not knowing. He wills himself to see their future. He wills himself to see but he can’t. Where an omniscient vision usually would come was nothing. It was just here. Maybe that’s for the best. If he could see, he wouldn’t like it. He would see the two of them tramping through the sewers. He would see Barrel confessing his love. He would see himself panic and give an anticlimactic answer. He would see himself running away. He would see the blood-drained look on his own face as he heard the love of his life scream for the last time. He would see flowers on a grave. But he doesn’t see anything at the moment. In ignorant bliss, he rests his forehead against Barrel’s and laughs. Barrel laughs back before kissing him again. And here, Lockstock is happy.