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snicket-files · 11 months ago

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love this and just want to be able to find it again later

5 Times George Missed Lucy + 1 Time He Admitted It

a/n: this was co-written by the phenomenal @ikeasupremacy i quite literally had the time of my life writing this with you, and i think we broke our own hearts quite a few times during the process. we really, really hope you enjoy it <3

warnings: big sad (i beg, listen), language, spoilers for the end of the hollow boy words: 5k+ taglist: @neewtmas @waitingforthesunrise @wellgoslowly @irisesforyoureyes @aayeroace @flashbackwhenyoumetme @ettadear @ella23116 @mirrorballdickinson @magicandmaybe

5. More Chores

The basement was too cold, but George persevered with the chores. If he turned the thermostat up, Lockwood would probably have him beheaded, meaning he had no choice but to grin and bear it.

It was meant to be early spring for heaven’s sake, but he was stuck in the depths of the Earth to do the cleaning, while Anthony Bloody Lockwood was off frolicking in the sun with Holly to Satchel’s and Arif’s and God knows where else! Probably buying doughnuts or something! The favouritism at Portland Row was blatant that day.

He carefully laid Lockwood and Co.’s dozens of chains out across the hardwood floor, with some oil and a rag sitting on his desk, ready for Lucy. While she oiled them, he’d polish the rapiers and make sure they had enough salt bombs and lavender bundles. Not the worst job by far, but he would’ve definitely preferred to be outside or better yet, in the air-conditioned, cherry-blossom windowed Archives.

Heaving a sigh, he stepped over the thick iron links and trudged to the bottom of the stairs that led up, up, up into the kitchen.

“Luce!” he called. “Need you to come oil the- ”

Oh.

How stupid. Within a moment, his shoulders had sagged as he remembered; Lucy was gone. He suddenly became very aware of how alone he was in the house, the gentle hum of peaceful silence suddenly the disconcerting emptiness of a black hole.

Lucy had been gone for at least a week now, so how could he forget? He’d cleaned everything once without her already! She had been careful not to disturb anyone when she left, but George was a notoriously light sleeper. He had wordlessly sat in his room the morning she crept out, knowing she was gone for good as soon as he heard the third step creak. He heard everything, but he didn’t move an inch. He just listened as she crept out of the house that morning. Even though he didn’t do anything about it, he knew just as well as anyone that she was gone. And she wasn’t coming back.

A self-pitying laugh tore through his lips, resounding in his solitude, a moment meant for him alone. She had left them. Her absence was impossible not to notice, filling him with something distinctly empty. Hollow. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. A bittersweet nostalgia for something that hadn’t really left. Call it cheesy, but she’d started actually accepting him for who he was, and then she left.

She left.

For a moment longer, he lingered there, staring up at the spiralling stairs with a half-glare. Daylight glared back at him, causing him to squint and furrow his brows in frustration while the sun tried its best to burn his eyes right out of the sockets.

As he stared into the sun for whatever self-inflicted reason, a single quiet thought made him soften his gaze in defeat. He had nobody to be angry at but himself.

Turning with a dejected sigh, he rested his gaze upon the rapiers and the chains.

Once more, he’d have to do them both.

4. Food Gone Cold

Silence. Terrible, uncomfortable silence.

George stared down at the food that he’d spent the better part of an hour making, and a pit formed his stomach. There was Lockwood with his meal, Holly with hers, food left over, and an empty plate. Just sat there. Waiting. It haunted the dinner table more than any Source ever could.

When would he stop doing this? Lately, every single meal he cooked ended up with four portions, even though there were only three of them there. He could already see the concealed remorse on Holly’s face as she thought about stuffing yet another spare portion in the fridge in hopes that someone would eat it later. Usually, no one did.

The thought of it apparently made Lockwood “sick to his stomach” and, well, George couldn’t say he was nauseous, but he had definitely lost his appetite when he saw the leftover food in the pan, regardless of whatever it was that he’d made.

Worse still, he should’ve realised the moment that he’d set it down that it was wrong. After Lucy had left, they’d begrudgingly swapped the thinking cloth out for a new one, folding it up carefully and placing it on top of the fridge, scribbling back on George’s stray research from the last, any pending tasks from the last one, and new doodles had taken residence everywhere: George insulting Lockwood; Lockwood’s loopy handwriting forming a shopping list or writing reminders for everyone. Hell, even Holly had started adding to it, normally with little smiley faces or cartoony flowers, but it was something at least.

Then there was Lucy’s spot.

No one dared sit in her seat. It felt like an action that they would be scolded for, by either Lockwood or some incorporeal voice that was haunting them, like a strange shared conscience between the three of them. Maybe it would even be Lucy’s voice, scolding them like she did when, every day for a week or two, Lockwood would sit in her place just to annoy her. She would jokingly tell him off every time, and force him off of the seat in a light-hearted push-and-shove. A sweet memory came to mind of Lockwood falling off the chair, and they had all doubled over laughing until their ribs pulled and their cheeks ached, the kind where anything sets you off again. A sweet memory indeed.

And, so, there was a portion of the thinking cloth that was entirely blank. Not even George’s messy and rushed research passed the invisible line that marked Lucy’s section. Maybe a mark of respect, of not wanting to let her go, of fruitless ambition and silent mourning.

Even the biscuits. The biscuit rotation was all messed up. With Lucy around, they would know who had last taken a biscuit on their little mental rotation, a fine-tuned seventh sense (after being a Sensitive, naturally), but every time George reached for a custard cream, he mentally hesitated as a ghost of Lucy’s voice went to whisper in his ear, “Have I had my biscuit yet, George?”

He wanted to say something; he was desperate to end this stifling, choking silence that plagued them all like a hand to his throat, a gag in his mouth. What could he even say? Jokes often ended up turning sour nowadays. Holly had the (albeit little) decency to give George a polite laugh at the predicament, but on the other hand, Lockwood would simply sit and stare at the empty plate as if he could summon Lucy back to her plate if he just thought about her hard enough.

George had already tried that. It didn’t work.

3. Patience Lost

Lockwood was like a cat, George observed. When he had a goal, he was a machine; a well-oiled, slit-eyed, prowling machine. He waited for his prey, and he attacked just as gracefully. He was always waiting, watching for his next move, the next opportunity, with careful focus, and George could see why Lucy liked him. It was a skill neither he or Lucy possessed, yet one they both admired. All the same, he thought Lucy was bonkers for it.

When Lockwood had no purpose, he was a cat stretched out in the sun, ambling with no real purpose and slinking around in his suit and tie, waiting for the next thing to do. George generally found this habit of his incredibly pointless anyway, but with Lucy gone it was just worse. For the last year, Lockwood had the goal of thinking about Lucy.

If she were here, Lockwood would be moving. He’d be yelling at her from the foot of the stairs to turn her music down before marching up and doing it himself. He’d be prancing around, animatedly talking about the latest gossip from his magazine and how it was so important that they knew what colour of dress Penelope Fittes wore to a meeting with Steve Rotwell. Green meant it was about new gear, purple about the future of their agencies, blah, blah, blah. George had no mind for it.

But now? Lockwood slouched in his armchair in the library, flicking through a magazine, entirely devoid of emotion. His freakish poker-face had come out strongly as his eyes darted from line to line, occasionally lifting a finger to flip the page he was on. A cold mug of hot chocolate sat abandoned by his side that George had, yet again, accidentally made out of pure muscle memory.

Lucy always drank a hot chocolate with him.

George was now completely out of his book. His eyes remained on the pages, reading the sentences over and over again, but they weren't what was running through his head. What would Lucy be doing right now if she were here with them? No, he couldn’t let himself linger on that thought. He tried to bring his attention back to his book.

“However, what must be considered is that the wedding band itself might ngo fda bfgn tj Sorgfn. Teh womha wsa llysmengia attached nto go teh ewfifng band bug hre hgusadn. Hre source, sj tja ragen sons folsa ojn, wfg npt wutg hwt bones, bgk tkh husbnfks. This wfd a frveol...”

She’d have complained that the fire was dying down and added a log to it, her frame sinking into the seat near Lockwood yet again to continue her new crochet project of the week, as the calming click-clack of the plastic needles against each other melded wonderfully with the crackling of the (now revived) fireplace. A song would be stuck in her head, and she’d quietly hum along to it, none the wiser that George and Lockwood could both hear her.

“However, what must be considered is that the wedding band itself might not have been the Source. Teh womha wsa llysmengia attached nto go teh ewfifng band bug hre hgusadn. Hre source, sj tja ragen sons folsa ojn, wfg not with her bones, bgk tkh husbnfks. This wfd a frveol...”

She would have called them all boring for just sitting there, and gotten out the chess board to entertain herself. She was always freakishly good at that, George recalled with a slight smile. There were quite a few times where Lockwood had gotten so frustrated at her that he resigned and stormed off into his bedroom, leaving George to get absolutely throttled by Lucy every time. Every. Single. Time.

“However, what must be considered is that the wedding band itself might not have been the Source. The woman was sentimentally attached to not the wedding band, but her husband. Her source, as the agents soon found out, was not with her bones, but the husband’s. This was a revolutionary discovery for many reasons, one being the realisation…”

George gave up on the book, gently closing the hardback cover with a soft thump.

At the time, nothing could’ve annoyed him more, but George was bored of winning chess games now. Lockwood was somehow even worse than he was (and that was saying something), meaning the games lasted forever. Neither of them had the patience to sit for hours going back and forth. Lucy did.

That was the refreshing thing about games with her. It wasn’t relevant if the game lasted fifteen minutes or two hours, just sitting there with her gave the game an entirely more interesting feel. Especially when she swore under her breath after a bad move. George was a sore loser, and a gloating winner, but Lucy always took her losses humbly and her wins even more so.

Unless she was playing Holly. When Lucy won against Holly, it was as if the Heavens had shone a spotlight onto her face with how proud her smile was.

Lockwood missed that smile, and in some (pretty fucking irritating) way, George thought he did too.

It didn’t matter now. He’d have to deal with Lockwood’s doubled pawns and forgotten rooks, which was much less preferable. They would have to bear the silence of nobody humming as they crocheted, painfully watching a chess board gather dust, and having to live in the house that was no longer a home.

2. Ducks in the Wash

George could hear Lockwood rattling around in the basement incessantly, and he could only sigh. This all over again?

Surely there were no more socks missing - every single wash, Lockwood checked, and every single time he came back empty handed. It wasn’t like the washing machine was going to gobble them up. (And there was definitely no need to lift up the whole washing machine.) However, Lockwood always folded the washing better than George. That was the one reconciliation about the whole thing, thank goodness. Once George heard the telltale thump of the washing machine being on solid ground again, he assumed Lockwood was folding the clothes. Feeling less worried that Lockwood was going to break the washing machine this time around, he unpaused the telly and kept watching Pointless, or whatever crappy gameshow he had chosen to put on that day.

It wasn’t long before Lockwood came trudging up the basement stairs and through to the living room, a pile of neatly folded clothes in his arms. But it wasn’t the neatness of it (usually they were folded haphazardly until Holly came along and fixed it up) that had George pausing the telly once more. It was the bright blue thing on top.

“Lucy’s,” Lockwood said, not even trying to conceal the miserable look on his face. “She left a sock.”

George wondered if Lucy had noticed that it was missing. Unlikely. She had so many pairs of socks, all the same shade of tell-tale royal blue, she could probably provide a few dozen to each family on Portland Row and the next few streets over and still have enough for the next two wash cycles. Besides, it was such a small thing that she’d never notice. She’d never. Never. She wouldn’t have. It’s just a sock. She’d probably lost another one and she had perfect pairs again.

But, an irrational part of George couldn’t help but blurt out, “Are you going to call her?”

There wasn’t really any need to call her. She’d survive without one bright blue sock, even if there were cute little silicone ducks on the sole of this one to keep her from slipping. But George found himself wanting to hear her voice through the phone, strangely enough. The way she said “Hello?” in her Northerner accent on the phone, her little inquisitive chirp, even though she usually knew who it was, always used to make him laugh, and he was sure it would now.

It was clear Lockwood wanted to call, what with the twitch of his fingers, and the way he longingly stared at the ducky sock. It was easy to read him after a while of knowing him, and as he observed Lockwood, he saw a strange, stone-like look on his face. He knew that expression. The barrage of emotion he was holding behind a facade of stoic presence. The way he didn’t blink while he looked at the piece of fabric in his hand, not once. His eyebrows furrowed so slightly it could even be mistaken for natural.

George knew that expression. He saw it in the mirror every day.

“No.”, Lockwood muttered breathlessly.

He placed the washing down, balanced precariously on the back of the sofa, threatening to tip over. George had bigger things on his mind than the laundry, observing it as it teetered in the balance, but his mind was in a different place as he watched the washing basket lean forward.

He simply remained on the sofa, entirely sunken in his armchair, feeling as frozen as a marble-cut statue, and staring at the sock in Lockwood’s hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, as if it held some piece of Lucy that was finally attainable now that they had found it - something that could connect the three of them once again. For a moment, he wished that you could have Sources for a real person.

It’s just a sock, George told himself. There was nothing outright special about it and there never would be.

So what was their deal?

What had them reeling over a sock of all things? Was it because they could both easily imagine Lucy’s laughter as she tried to skid over the kitchen floor, only for her socks to keep her from sliding? Those stupid ducks on the bottom of her socks? Was it because of all things to have been left by Lucy accidentally, this was it? This was the last thing they had of her in the house? A literal sock?

Then again, it wasn't unwelcome. It simply brought with it a reminder of the gaping hole in their household, and dragging behind it the ugly emotions of guilt, and the hurt of a betrayal.

“I’ll wait to give it back to her,” Lockwood murmured in the same tone.

But they both knew the time would never come. Lucy wasn’t coming back, no matter how tightly Lockwood held onto the sock now, knuckles turning white. No amount of socks stolen by the washing machine would bring her knocking on the front door, or bursting through and demanding them back. The sock would simply sit, gathering dust and harbouring feelings that had no need to be felt.

But George still agreed, holding onto whatever tiny shred of hope he still had that she would come back. George knew as well as anyone else that it was fruitless, but even he didn’t have the heart to extinguish the hope that their paths would cross again.

It felt like something was destroying him though. He had gotten to a point where it was getting unbearable, the pain of all the reminders of her everywhere, it gnawed at him and ate away at his focus, at his time, at his brain, at his happiness. He should’ve put into words, and he knew that inside him, but that would destroy all the work he had put into coping with it; for both Lockwood and Holly. Lucy was an unnamed ticking bomb, ready to cause an explosion at 35 Portland Row anytime soon, and George was reaching his limit of how many more reminders of Lucy he could take.

The washing fell over. Once upon a time, Lucy and him would have laughed together over the thought of watching Lockwood fold it all again. They would’ve giggled until their cheeks were on fire, their ribs felt tangled in knots, shrouded by the ecstasy of simple delights.

“Lockwood? The washing’s just fallen over.” George called, entirely monotone.

1. Someone Familiar

The early spring air clung to George as he stepped through the front door, shopping bags in hand. Really, London had no excuse to still be so cold, but, alas, he still shivered as he kicked the door shut and placed the bags down. The warmth of the hallway was incredible, and he could’ve just stood there forever, feeling his skin grow warm. It was only when he eventually tugged off his jacket that he heard the laughter.

He peeked into the living room, where Lockwood sat in his armchair, and Holly on the sofa beside someone else whose hand she held and squeezed. The sight filled George with warmth. Holly’s last relationship… Well, it had ended badly, and she was a wreck for a little while, so to see her happy now felt like something, finally, was going right. George was genuinely happy for Holly, and for everyone. They really needed something to go right, all of them did.

He hadn’t realised the ache in his chest until his eyes lifted to the girl whose hand she held.

How did he not notice? The bobbed brown hair, the wooly jumper and denim skirt, it was…

“Oh, George!” Lockwood said, grinning as he set his mug of tea down. “You’re back! Hope you don’t mind, Holly brought her girlfriend over for a bit.”

George tried to move, but he found himself stuck in place, simply staring at the back of her head. Surely he was dreaming. None of this was real. It couldn’t be her. No, he was still sleeping soundly in his bed and his alarm hadn’t gone off yet. It was a lie. This couldn’t be real. A dream. A nightmare.

But- But, still, however he hated to admit it, there was hope in him. She had come home. She was back. She was here. She had finally come back to them after all these horrible months and he would never let Luc-

“Lucy” turned and flashed a grin at George, and he felt a little pang of nausea in his throat. This girl, she wasn’t Lucy. He’d mistaken her just because of an outfit and a haircut. How stupid of him. As he scanned her up and down, within a matter of seconds he had noticed the pristine white trainers she wore rather than plasm-covered, chunky black boots, her jumper was purple instead of blue. Her eyebrows were prominent, pointing upwards and giving the face an inherently sharp aura about it, combined with long features that he could never even imagine on Lucy’s round face.

He saw it all clear as day, all of it. The freckles Lucy lacked and the blue eyes she didn’t have, the mascara-caked lashes and the pointed chin.

“You’re George?” she asked in a high-pitched tone that Lucy would’ve definitely later made fun of. “Hol’s told me all about you.”

Lucy would make fun of the nickname too.

He felt insanely stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he should’ve realised sooner - she had been introduced as Holly’s girlfriend for Heaven’s sake! There was a higher chance of Lockwood and Kipps dating than there was Lucy and Holly. But, he would’ve preferred Lucy over whoever this was. He didn’t hold anything against this (probably lovely) girl, who just coincidentally managed to look uncannily like Lucy from the behind, but George couldn’t help but bite back a sob.

The bittersweet lemon-curd hope now tasted rotten and acidic in his mouth. The taste of his idiocy coated his tongue and twisted his insides, and he hated every moment of it. He hated that for a moment he’d believed it to be her, that he had been ready to smile and accept her back without a word’s notice. He hated himself for having hope, and he hated Lucy for leaving, and he was entirely ready to be sick to his stomach.

He was impressed he managed a nod in her general direction, before abandoning the shopping bags on the floor and storming upstairs. Up, up, up, until he found himself in the doorway of the attic bedroom. The door was forced open, and he stared inside the stripped down room, the same way she’d left it, with her Blu-tack stains still on the walls and a leftover Polaroid of the three of them to the right of the bed. He couldn’t help but stare at the photo, as a tonne of weight settled on his shoulders as he stood unsettlingly alone in the attic bedroom. The weight of Lucy’s memory, perhaps. Because that’s what had made him feel so terrible these last few months, wasn’t it? It was never just throwing away the food, or being bored with a chess game, or seeing a sock with ducks on it, or any of it. Everywhere he looked, he saw Lucy, but he didn’t have her at his side, bickering with him and making her little remarks, lifting his spirit a percentile at a time, and dropping him down to ground level after he finally felt valued and appreciated by someone, after he found a friend who made him laugh until he couldn’t anymore, even though he absolutely hated her sometimes.

He had never hated Lucy Carlyle more than that moment.

He flung his clothes off the vanity chair, mad that he’d even had the gall to put them in this room, and sat on the bed, trying to arrange his thoughts.

It was like cutting himself open to admit that he missed Lucy. This girl he’d detested for months; this girl he’d slowly learned to appreciate, and even cherish. He looked for her in every room of this house - the little crocheted coasters she had made, her abandoned mugs in the cupboard with awful sayings on them, the honey jar in the kitchen that only she had used for her tea.

Hell, even whenever he took out his favourite mug, because she had accidentally chipped it her first week there, and George had sworn he would never talk to her again after that, decreeing it on the Thinking Cloth with so many swears that he lost count.

Every moment of regret, of sadness, of longing he had felt since her leaving seemed to add up and show itself proudly to him now, sending him into a rabbit hole of falling into emotional turmoil. The solitude of the basement every month, the quiet of the evenings without the click clack of a crochet needle, the way his socks were never mixed up with hers anymore, the way nobody stopped him from researching until 5 in the morning-

Fuck.

George sprinted to the little bathroom and unloaded the contents of his stomach into the toilet. When his quaking body had finished purging the contents of his (again) too-large breakfast, he crumpled onto the floor beside the bowl. The sour taste of bile was heavy on his tongue, and it slicked along the sides of his throat.

He looked up at the abandoned room around him. Just the sight of its sorry state was enough to tempt him back into throwing his face over the toilet bowl once more, but he resisted. He leaned his head against the cool tile behind him, trying to hold back the tears in his eyes, the mucus in his throat mixing awfully with the vile taste in his mouth.

Lockwood had come upstairs at this point, the door being thrust open as he rushed to George’s side. His expression was pained, as he looked at George with concern in his eyes, but a resigned light to them as well.

“You’re okay,” was all he said.

0. Confession

Moonlight streamed through the attic window, splitting across the clothes-covered floor in beams of silver. It was a peaceful kind of light - the sort that would have Lucy standing by any window in the house, staring longingly up at the sky. She always spoke about how she missed the stars, stars that glittered for her back home but were now hidden by the dozens of ghostlamps scattered across the city, and the haze of pollution in the city.

As George sat on the edge of her bed alongside Lockwood, he wondered if Lucy was looking up at the moon now, too.

Oh, the horrible feeling of knowing they shared a sky but not a roof.

Lockwood heaved a sigh, playing with the polaroid in his hand. He’d plucked it off the wall not long ago and had taken to staring at it, occasionally brushing his thumb gently over where Lucy was. Maybe he thought it was like a genie’s lamp, that if he rubbed it three times some otherworldly being would come and grant their wish of bringing her home.

No genie appeared, no wishes were granted, and Lucy didn’t return.

George remembered the day that photo had been taken. Lucy had taken the last jam doughnut, the one he had wanted, and they had argued the entirety of breakfast. Holly had trotted into the kitchen, polaroid camera in hand, grinning about how she’d found it in a charity shop and had to buy it. She wanted her first photo with it to be of her friends, the agents of Lockwood and Co., but no matter how much she and Lockwood tried, George and Lucy wouldn’t stop arguing. So there was Lockwood, smiling, albeit awkwardly, between George, who looked like he was about to implode with anger - anger he now saw as an overreaction, even if she was a thief - and Lucy, whose cheeks were flushed pink, as she waved the half-eaten doughnut in the air. The camera caught the moment some of the jam in the middle had dribbled out onto her brand new jumper.

“I thought it was her, too, at first, you know,” Lockwood said after what felt like years of silence. “Holly’s girlfriend. I thought it was Lucy as well.”

With a shrug, George said, “Doesn’t matter now.”

“You miss her, and that’s okay.”

“I do not miss her.”

But it was a lie. That’s all George had been doing since she left, wasn’t it? Lying to himself and to everyone else that he didn’t miss her.

He had hated Lucy for so long. From when she had first joined the company and the few months that followed. Then after she left them, giving some bullshit excuse and a secret escape. But he had never allowed himself to miss her, not really. He had only burdened himself with the memory of her, looking for her in anything he could find but not allowing himself to grieve the girl who hadn’t even died.

His fingers hurt from clutching the duvet cover so hard. “Maybe I miss her a little.”

Lockwood’s laugh was breathy, filled with tears he wouldn’t dare shed. “You can give up with the pride, George. She’s not here to make fun of you.”

“But you are.”

The words resonated between them both, and for a moment George truly realised how alone they were. Yes, Holly was there daily, mourning Lucy’s resignation in her own detached way, but George and Lockwood… Lucy had been everything to Lockwood, and somewhat less than that for George. They were a trio. George couldn’t even remember the agency before Lucy, so now it felt like a machine missing a cog - it didn’t function properly, and wouldn’t until it was put back into place.

“I’d never make fun of you for this.” Lockwood’s smile was nowhere to be found. Not in the corners of his lips or the dark of his eyes. It was as if it had been torn from him the minute Lucy stepped out the door for the last time. “I miss her, too.”

Of course Lockwood did. Missing Lucy was second nature to him. Any time she’d gone off on a case by herself he had missed her. Hell, he probably missed her when she went to bed a few floors above him. But this was unfamiliar territory for George. He wasn’t used to missing people. Not his parents who still lived in London, who occasionally visited and checked in on how things were going. Not his siblings, who were also still nearby muscling on with their careers. He’d never experienced loss like Lockwood and Lucy had.

Was that why it felt like he had been hit by a ten-tonne brick? He hated this feeling more than he’d ever hated anything.

“She’s not coming back,” George said, blinking away the sting in his eyes. “We’ll cope. We have to.”

But, staring at the room she once lived in, straining to try and feel any remnant of her presence, he wished that the genie would finally appear.

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