Work Text:
“Hi honeys, I’m home!”
Lockwood snickers to himself as he toes off his shoes, picturing George coming out of the kitchen in his flowery apron, glaring, kitchen knife in hand. Or Lucy, leaning against the doorway with one mean little eyebrow raised.
Except no one yells at him to fuck off from another room. It’s quiet, actually.
“Darlings?” He hangs his coat up, makes for the stairs. “Sweetums?”
Maybe they went out. Without him. Without leaving a note. Or–wait.
It's not silent. There's music coming from somewhere.
“Honeypies?”
He pads around the corner, following the sound of shrieking guitars, breath catching a little in his throat.
He hasn't heard music in the house in…George doesn't listen to anything, at all, ever, the bloody maniac. Says it’s “distracting.” Lockwood used to blare music in his room to annoy him, upside down and half slipping off the bunkbed doing air guitar so George would look up from his books and glare at him, come over and whack Lockwood with a pillow until he stopped being a nuisance.
No one’s played music in the house but him since…sneaking down to the kitchen to filch biscuits from the tin. Midnight. Record player crooning. Mum and Dad elbow to elbow, passing dishes to each other. Him washing, her drying. Mum nudging him, trying to get him to dance with her, the quiet blur of their voices lost to time. Dad swinging her around, dipping her, making her laugh. She had the funniest laugh, like a goose honking.
They must've just swayed like that for minutes, just holding each other. Six year old Lockwood lost patience waiting, with them blocking the path to victory (aka the biscuit tin) being disgusting and in love. He remembers getting caught. Puffing himself up and lying, with all the confidence of a child, that he'd come down to check on his parents, and that it was far too late for them to still be up.
“For that performance,” Mum grinned, “I’ll let you take one biscuit.” She’d waved it under his nose, teasing, waited for him to lunge, and then ate it in one bite.
He’d stomped off, ignoring Mum half laughing as she apologized, Dad calling after him to come back and dance with them.
George could probably invent a time machine so he could go back in time and throttle his younger self. George is brilliant.
It's not his parents in the kitchen, obviously. He’s not a child anymore, pretending he’ll turn a corner and they’ll just be there, like nothing’s changed. It’s better, cause they’re not a fairytale, they're real. They’re his.
“--possibly the worst dance moves I’ve ever seen in my life,” George is saying, wondering.
“Oh, fuck off, George!’ Lucy calls. “Come live a little!”
Her whole body moves with the force of her headbanging, hair flying every which way. She looks absolutely ridiculous.
He stops in the half shadow of the hallway just to watch, leaning against the doorway, heart dancing a drunken tango in his chest.
“I’m not even sure this qualifies as dancing?” Georges’ got his arms crossed, tea tucked to his chest, a tiny smile playing round the edges of his mouth. “You look like one of those balloon things outside car shops.”
Lockwood can see in his eyes he’s thinking the same thing—he hasn’t seen Lucy smile this big maybe ever, that he’s remembering the girl who stomped into their home in blazing, righteous fury, hollow eyed, biscuit war prize in hand. Their girl.
“You’re just saying that cause you can’t beat my moves!”
George scoffs. “Oh, please. A toddler could beat your moves.”
“Oh yeah?” Lust raises her brows, grinning, wiggling a beckoning hand at him. “Prove it.”
“Don’t need to,” George says loftily. “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough for the both of us.” He’s stalling.
“You’re such a cunt,” Lucy sighs, coming over to tug at his arms. “Come on. Show me how it’s done, I know you want to.”
“Alright, then, prepare to be trounced soundly and completely,” George slides his glasses up his nose, haughty, and in one smooth motion slides across the floor in his socks, overbalances, knocks into the cabinets and rattles the dishes. Lockwood winces.
Lucy cackles, claps a hand over her mouth. “You alright?”
“Fine,” George mutters. He shakes himself off like a cat pretending no ones seen it do something stupid. Lockwood emphasizes. Its so easy to fall into wanting to impress Lucy Carlyle, who’s impressed by nothing short of the spectacular.
George whips around and strikes a pose. “Kitchen just cant handle my moves.”
Lucy whoops, and George sock-slides across the floor to her, takes her hand and leads her in a dramatic tango around the room.
They take turns twirling each other, which George declares is “equality,” eyes twinkling. Hes smiling, an actual, tiny smile, lopsided on his face, to match Lucys grin, a shock of white in the blur of their bodies.
Lockwood stares, heart swollen in his throat. He feels sort of like a ghost, but the good kind he imagined his parents would be, a sort of warmth lingering behind, watching over, so fond and proud it hurts a little. Like his heart might beat its way out of his ribcage, to them. Lucy, whos told them in fits and starts, on dark, sleepless nights, about the first girl she loved, who skates carefully around the mention of her Mother. Lucy, who they couldve lost before she even made it to them. George, brilliant, prickly, idiotic George convinced he was a spare part, invisible, unwanted, when they need him more than anything.
Yes, Lockwood knows that darkness that could have swallowed them both as well as he knows his own hands, knows that it makes moments like this all the more sweeter.
They come to a slow stop, almost swaying in each others arms, and George dips Lucy in a motion so careful Lockwood's throat constricts.
“Why Mr. Karim, I do declare you an excellent dance partner,” Lucy says in a breathless, absolutely terrible southern accent.
Lockwood snorts, grinning.
George jumps, and as his eyes fly over to Lockwood, he loses his grip and tumbles in a pile of limbs to the floor, taking a shouting Lucy with him.
Ah. That’s probably his fault. Even now, George spooks like a horse whenever Lockwood walks in on them holding hands, even when Lockwoods said a thousand times he loves it. Well. Best to lean into it. Youve got to be blunt with George, to beat how ridiculous hes being into his head.
“My god,” Lockwood says in a detectives rough drawl, mock scandalized, “this is like coming home and finding someone in bed with my wife!”
Lucy honest to god giggles. Her hairs haloed around her head, tangled, sweaty, to her cheek, her cheeks pink and freckled.
Lockwood mimes taking cupids arrow to the chest, staggers and goes to his knees, flopping into their little pile and wrapping them in a clumsy hug. He ignores Georges squawked protests, and Lucys complaints about how Lockwood’s all skin and bones and sharp elbows.
“You’re ridiculous,” George scoffs, “and thats sexist, you know, the wife thing.”
Good. If George can mock him, hes doing alright.
Lockwood catches Lucys eye, joke on the tip of his tongue, and sees her get it, her eyes sharpen, brighten. Fuck, but he feels incandescent with it, their light refelected, refracted trifold, bright as song. He could fly, if he wanted, probably.
“Never said which one of you was the wife,” Lockwood grins at George, winks.
George makes a face like he sucked on a lemon.
Lucy pillows her head on Lockwoods chest, body shaking with laughter. “Youve got the little aprons and everything, George.”
“Thats it,” George declares, “Im divorcing you both.”