finchwoodacademy | IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Sirius was supposed to be bright, mid-February. That had been Lucy's excuse for going outside after midnight to try and look at the stars, other than a fragile, unspoken wish that Dustin might hold her against his chest as they spoke if she shivered prettily in front of him.

But it'd been very cold, and despite her best attempts Lucy had been unable to keep growing exhaustion out of her face. Their starlight tableau was lovely but short-lived, as these nighttime hours alone together tend to be.

Now Lucy and Dustin are wandering back to the safety of a familiar couch on the Coins floor. The journey has been quiet, apart from Lucy's occasional low whispering, and relatively touchless, apart from when she lets her fingers brush his as if it's an accident. (It isn't and it never is.)

But when a voice punctures the heavy silence, Lucy startles, and reaches reflexively for Dustin's hand. Someone has come into view in the distance, wandering along and singing to themselves. If she were alone she'd walk past as if daring a hello, but she's not, and that's supposed to be a secret.

Edited (mm words i guess) 2019-02-10 20:32 (UTC)

Dustin visibly jumps.

They've fallen into a sort of routine here, these nights — no two exactly the same and yet, some things always present. It comes by virtue of the hour: soft murmuring and little touches and the artificial isolation of two young people, entirely in their own world. For Dustin, it almost feels like they've been enveloped by an opaque bubble, within which there's no one but them and dead poets and stars; these meetings are still novel, but he's gotten used to this.

But now, a noise. Singing, actually. The bubble pops, and so, he jumps.

Dustin catches Lucy's hand as she reaches out to him and, just as instinctively, cuts a hard right, pulling them both through the first open doorway he sees and (hopefully) safely out of sight.

Edited 2019-02-10 23:17 (UTC)

It's the laundry room: clean of scent, soulless and shiny of surfaces. The ceiling light is dim, flickers with a tiny fizz. Was someone just here?

No matter. No one is here now.

Lucy backs her way in, laughing a breathy, sneaky little laugh as if this were somehow on purpose. She pulls Dustin along by the hand until she collides with one of the machines, then releases him to draw herself up on top of it. Her feet dangle against the side in their beat-up boots, thighs cold against the edge. Fishnets are, apparently, just not a sensible choice for the bleak midwinter, and a giant sweater barely makes up for them. But it's like her to care for herself in half measures.

"Oh dear," Lucy intones drily. She leans back on her hands, gazing upward with a smirking mouth. "I think we're alone now."

Dustin, still standing, braces his forearms on Lucy's thighs and lets his head drop in laughter. It spills out of him like carbonation from a can of Coke — which is unusual for him, really, but... well, these were unusual times. Oh, what were they doing?

"I could stand to do some laundry" he replies.

Edited (you know the way you do a laughter) 2019-02-11 22:41 (UTC)

Dustin is almost contagious, with that bubbling laugh. Lucy's never heard it before. She presses her lips together, exhaling her amusement, and in a moment of impulsive affection leans down to roughly kiss the top of his head.

"The last time I was in here," she whispers, pulling back again, "I made someone scream."

Her fingertips skitter, spider-like, along the tops of Dustin's forearms, then retreat, tapping like miniature claws against the lid of the machine. "Blake thought I was a shadow."

Edited (as one does) 2019-02-11 22:44 (UTC)

"It's understandable," Dustin says, and his tone is so even that, unless you knew him well, it'd be impossible to know he was teasing. Lucy was scary in ways unrelated to her darks.

"Although, you're a little small for a Shadow."

"I could still fuck you up," Lucy promises sweetly, despite this being absolutely untrue. She knows because her spine tingles at the way Dustin can tease things he doesn't really mean with such believable solemnity. Simple words, simple affect. It's artful. She almost isn't sure he isn't serious.

She tries it on for size, leveling out a solemn flat-line of an expression, but in the aftermath of their laughter her darkness crumbles into itself. Lucy smiles instead, all teeth, which doesn't live for long either.

"But I think I'll spare you," she muses, appraising Dustin with slow, rapt eyes. "For now."

Edited (minus literally one word because i'm Like That) 2019-02-12 04:27 (UTC)

Lucy's teeth flash in the dim light of the laundry room. Dustin stares at her mouth.

"Oh," he murmurs. "I doubt that very much."

Then, he swallows. Blinks a little. Dustin usually swims without goggles —one of many minor acts of pointless masochism— and when he steps out of the pool in the morning, he makes nearly the same expression; readjusting to the funny sting of air after an hour or so of being immersed in poison.

There's a whole row of driers here and Dustin hops up on the one next to Lucy, so that he's sitting next to her, but looking at the wall. "Maybe I'll sleep in tomorrow."

Edited 2019-02-12 22:41 (UTC)

Dustin moves away, and Lucy stares into the dark space where he stood. She can still feel his touch against the skin of her thighs, where the night air pricks them with cold.

Nevertheless, she refuses to turn and look at him now that he's next to her. Such an act would be in violation of unspoken rules: ones she could break if she wanted, which makes them half-agreeable to follow. It's a balance.

"You know what I'll say," Lucy murmurs, picking at fishnet gaps with singular focus. Her fingernails are chipped, a little too long. "You should do whatever you want."

Edited (mm changes) 2019-02-12 23:22 (UTC)

He does know, but the idea is so fundamentally ludicrous to Dustin that she may as well have told him to fly to the moon for dinner. Still looking ahead, he smiles, shakes his head. It's almost rueful. "That's dangerous," he replies.

Which is silly. They're teen soldiers, fighting in a war against shadow-creatures that straddle realms. This moment is profoundly mundane in comparison: the low-level hum of overhead lighting and the occasional clink of a quarter, left in someone's pants when the wash cycle began. There's a chip in the paint on the door. Oh, isn't being 18 terrible?

"I'm afraid my impulses aren't to be trusted."

Lucy understands better than she'd like to admit, but Dustin is Dustin, and that makes it easy to pretend she doesn't. So she laughs at him: a grim bell of mirth over the pulse of something warmer, more accepting. Not unkind. A private sound.

"Oh no," she teases, and, self-indulgent to ruin, allows herself a glance in his direction. He's smiling to himself like a sad icon, which makes her mouth curl and her hands itch to pinch or caress. She slides them under her legs instead.

"Perhaps they loom larger unacknowledged," Lucy adds, a sage devil. "I dare you to speak one out loud, into the shadows. Right now. The first thing that comes to mind."

Dustin takes a deep breath and holds it, then exhales through his nose without saying anything. He leans backwards on his hands, one braced on the top of his own machine, the other crossing over to Lucy's, and lets his head flop back.

His deltoid brushes her shoulder. His foot kicks gently into hers. If you look directly at a light for long enough, you'll start to see spots.

Lucy kicks back, somewhat less softly. She slides her hand out to be touched by Dustin's if he wants, condemning in a whisper: "No fun."

But he is.

And because he's the one to initiate contact, she can really look at him now. Lucy turns her head to face him fully, leaning in a little to confess into his ear.

"I wouldn't have done it either. Like asking for trouble aloud, when you're supposed to just go looking for it."

Edited (i ... swear i am done changing this line ) 2019-02-14 05:32 (UTC)

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy

Dustin & Lucy