IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

[heliocentrist]

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

HOW THIS WORKS

• This takes place after the most recent exploration, after curfew.


• Anyone can post scenes here even if I made it for Neal and Atticus!


• Love you!

» Scenes: Just some scenes. Any scenes!

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Dustin & Lucy

[lucillefer]

"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."

Dustin & Lucy

[highercalling]

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."

Dustin & Lucy

[lucillefer]

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."

Dustin & Lucy

[highercalling]

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."

Dustin & Lucy

[lucillefer]

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 & Lucy

[highercalling]

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.

Dustin & Lucy

[lucillefer]

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."