#and it's not deck the halls | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 7 months

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it's steddiemas!! i am so excited for these prompts!!! i'm sure i'm not going to make something for each day, but there are a good few that i'm excited about; my plan is to make all the ones i do write be one story, but we'll see how that goes 😅

@steddiemas Day 1 - Deck the Halls

pairing: steddie | word count: 1,793 | rated: G

Eddie wakes up too early on November 1st. But hey, when nature calls, you answer.

He takes care of business and is turning back to the guest room he’d crashed in last night when a movement catches his eye.

Someone is awake already, and is weaving a string of artificial greenery along the bottom of the rail where the second floor is open into the living room.

Eddie takes another step forward and sees Steve's face peeking up over the floor, perfectly and completely content. The seemingly always furrowed brow he has is gone, his eyes are soft, and his lips set into a just barely there smile as he hums quietly to himself.

“Steve?” He immediately regrets interrupting Steve’s peace, as he startles at the sound of Eddie’s voice.

He looks up at Eddie briefly, then immediately relaxes back into his task. “Oh, you’re awake! Listen, I love you man,” Eddie’s stomach swoops at the words. “But I'm kinda in a groove right now, so once a couple of the others are up I’ll start making breakfast, ‘kay?”

Eddie nods in agreement despite Steve already looking away back to the garland in his hands. He really wants to ask why in the actual hell he’s hanging Christmas decorations the literal day after Halloween, but what comes out is “How are you not dying right now?”

Steve’s hands pause, and he blinks up at Eddie in confusion so he continues, “You had just as much to drink as I did last night…?”

Understanding floods the other man’s face. “Oh! I have a splitting headache right now.” Steve says, getting back to the task at hand and weaving the end of a string of lights through a gap between the banisters.

“Yet you’re awake. And putting up Christmas decorations.”

“Yes.”

The crease re-appears between Steve's brows, though not nearly as deep as usual.

“Cool. Cool. Follow up question: why are you putting up Christmas decorations?? It’s only the day after Halloween!”

Steve stiffens at that, his brow furrowed fully now.

‘Shit, take it back asshole!’ Eddie chides himself.

“Exactly. It’s time for Christmas.” Steve sniffs, pausing before he continues in a soft voice, “I like Christmas..”

He doesn’t look back up at Eddie, and is now shoving the garland and lights through each gap in the railing, rather than slowly guiding them through.

Eddie watches him for a couple moments then says, “Alright big guy, what can I do to help?”

Steve is immediately relieved, looking back up at Eddie with a big smile (and no crease between his brows, thank you very much), “Wanna put the decorations on the mantle?”

“Sure thing Stevie,” Eddie smiles back at him, turning on his heel to trot down the steps and hang a left into the living room.

He freezes, taking in everything around him he couldn’t see from his spot in the hall upstairs.

There’s red and green tubs, boxes stacked upon boxes, loose strings of cranberries and shedded artificial pine needles absolutely everywhere.

There’s also a complete lack of any Halloween decorations left in the giant room.

So, in the last however long Steve's been awake, he has: cleaned up from their party the night before, put away all the spooky decorations, pulled out a department store’s worth of Christmas decor, and is currently hanging garlands from atop a—holy shit!

“Steve! Why the fuck are you up so high??”

Steve twists back at Eddie's outburst, looking confused as all hell. “What do you mean, ‘Why?’? You just saw me upstairs, how else am I supposed to hang this?” he says, shaking his arm full of un-placed pine and the ladder in the process.

“You could’ve put them in from upstairs! On stable ground!” Eddie stresses, scrambling between and over boxes of holiday cheer to get to the other end of the room.

“I’m fine Eddie, I’ve been on a ladder before.” Steve snorts, going back to his lights.

“Steve, sweetheart, you cannot be up that high on a ladder without someone holding onto the bottom!” Eddie says, finally getting over to him and grabbing onto it with both hands, leaning his weight onto it. “What if you fell? No one was awake! What if no one heard you!”

“Please.” Eddie could hear the eye roll in Steve’s voice, “I was perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, well, Wayne would kill me if I let you commit an OSHA violation.”

“What’s an OSHA?”

“Nevermind, keep working Stevie.”

He continues to work steadily, weaving and pruning the fake greenery to his liking and bunching up the end to stuff between two posts when he decides to come down.

He comes down the ladder and makes to move it when Eddie stops him.

“Oh no you don’t, you’re not going back up there.” he states, quickly letting the ladder fall together back from its extended length.

“I’m not done!”

“Didn’t say you were.” he says, leaning the ladder against the wall instead, out of the way, “You’re just going to do this from up there instead.”

For a moment, it looks like Steve is going to argue, but he gives up before he even starts, huffing petulantly and grumbling up the stairs. “And they call me ‘Mom’.”

“Thanks, Stevie!” Eddie calls after him.

“Yeah, yeah.."

Eddie snorts a quiet laugh, but goes back to his original task. He starts examining the boxes strewn out in front of him, the one labeled ‘GARLAND’ is already open, another boasts the title ‘LIGHTS’, another just says ‘KITCHEN’; after three huge tubs labeled ‘TREE’, he finds a smaller cardboard box with ‘MANTLE’ scrawled onto the side with marker.

You can’t say Steve isn’t organized.

He pulls open the top and starts to pull out the decorations. Everything in this box is colored in the few same shades of red, muted green, a handful more in bright silver. From the bottom, he pulls out a much shorter string of garland than the one Steve’s still fluffing to perfection upstairs, this one wound with a thick red, white, and green plaid ribbon.

“What?” Steve calls down after Eddie starts to laugh.

“More plaid, Steven?” Eddie grins, turning to show the garland in his hands.

This time, Steve snorts out a laugh, “Shut up, man.”

Eddie digs a little farther and comes back out with a small plastic box of thumbtacks and gets to work on the mantle. Using the ribbon to pin the length to the wood above the fireplace, he sets it in place along the edge, glancing up to fluff the fake branches out how Steve’s got the ones upstairs.

He gets into his own groove in no time, going back and forth from box to fireplace and placing the various baubles and tchotchkes how he thinks they should be. The clunky and gaudy seeming holiday themed frames at the bottom of the box throw him off for a moment, but soon there are years of awkward pictures of the shitheads leaning along the mantle.

A little red frame holds one of Max and El laughing brightly in just as brightly colored make-up and clothes, a framed polaroid of Robin and Steve in their Scoops uniforms, one of Will dressed up for Halloween; The pictures all must only be a few years old, Steve didn’t really get to know the kids until ‘84, but this little Dustin in the frame with the 3D train on it, and this one with a very disgruntled-looking Mike with his hair slicked flat in an over-the-top tree frame go right in the front.

“Nancy gave me that one of Mike, if you can believe it. He’s gonna hate that it’s up here.” Steve says from behind him now, a smile in his voice “Claudia gave me this one of Henderson. It’s actually from before their Snow Ball back in Middle school, I did his hair.”

Oh fuck, that’s adorable. Eddie’s heart squeezes in his chest. “You never told me that,” he says, accepting the last frame from Steve. A bright blue one with a Teddy Bear in each of the bottom two corners. This one has a JC Penney professional-looking shot of Erica and Lucas in matching holiday sweaters. Definitely a Mrs. Sinclair specialty.

“Erica gave me that one last Christmas, after everything happened at Starcourt.” he smiles, “They’re gonna hate that they’re all up like this.”

“Good.” Eddie grins, turning to face the other man, “What’s next, Stevie?”

They spend the next couple hours decorating; Steve tackles the tree next, working on it while he directs Eddie what to put up next, and making sure to call him back for any more ladder use at Eddie’s insistence.

At one point, Robin shuffles out from the first floor guest room she shared with Nancy, but she takes one look around and shuffles back down the hall.

Sooner than he thought, Eddie finds himself standing in the middle of a Sears catalog. The tree is huge, a fake one to fit the Harringtons’ high ceilings, covered in multicolored lights, red, green, and silver baubles, stringy silver tinsel, a sparkling star on top.

The stair railings are lit up along both the top and bottom, the kitchen towels and utensils swapped out for holiday themed ones, even the front doormat is switched out for a Christmas themed one.

Steve is wandering around the place, vacuuming up stray glitter and pine needles, poking and prodding things until he’s satisfied, and Eddie is packing up anything unused and carting the tubs and boxes back to the garage.

After his last trip, Eddie swings back through the door to the living room under the steps at the same time Steve is coming back through the other way, both his arms filled with the last of the unused lights.

They collide, of course, and Eddie bends forward on instinct to catch any falling strings

“OOf–shit sorry, Stevie, I–” he glances up at Steve’s face for just a moment, but looks back up immediately, standing straight and keeping his eyes trained on something past Steve’s face, taped haphazardly to the underside of the doorframe.

“It’s okay, Eds, you oka–what’s wrong—?” Steve looks up as well.

Mistletoe.

“Mistletoe? How’d that–? Eddie, I didn’t– You–we don’t have to—”

Eddie’s lips find themselves brushing against the warm, soft skin of Steve’s cheek before the younger man can collect his thoughts.

He lingers there for a moment, pulling back with the lights in his arms instead. “I’ve got these, sweetheart, wanna get started on breakfast?”

Steve looks completely floored, his face flushed red and mouth agape; Eddie gives him a quick wink, then turns back toward the garage just before his own face starts to burn hot. “Holy shit,” he whispers to himself, smiling wide, “Jesus H. Christ.”

it was 100% robin that taped up the mistletoe in case you were wondering lmao

i looked up to make sure OSHA was around in '86 and it was established in 1970, enacted in 1971. if you assume wayne is a union man like i do, he would've definitely known all about proper OSHA compliance

also, i looked up old pictures of 80s era christmas trees and when abouts fake trees came into popularity (which was in the 80s :o) ) to get the descriptions right, and you just know the harringtons would've been on top of all the trends (though i think steve would prefer stringy strips of tinsel over long garlands of the stuff).

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bella-rose29 · 6 months

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Deck the Halls (and not your partner) - part 5

Christmas Eve part 2

Word count: 4.1k

Warnings: swearing, family members are mean (are we seeing a pattern?), can you tell that I love lebkuchen from the number of times it got mentioned, they kiss again but for like 2 seconds, then they kiss again later for longer than 2 seconds 👀, reader's grandpa isn't supportive of her job (but it's ok because lockwood saves the day), a pigeon was harmed in the making of this chapter (but it lives!), drinking (alcohol), lockwood talks about his family and the Christmases he spent without them, reader comforts him, there is so much communication but somehow so much miscommunication at the same time??? and I'm annoyed at myself for doing this (but it's necessary), this part does not have a happy ending at all (I'm sorry)

series master list

"Well," Lockwood started, looking around at everyone gathered. "I suppose it started in March."

He paused for a moment, trying to figure out where to go from there. "We were on a job, just the two of us, in Kensington. A couple wanted their house clearing out before they properly moved in, and called us. Everything was going perfectly fine, and then we realised that our clients hadn't told us everything about the property, and we were dealing with three Limbless in an enclosed space." Y/n remembered that job well. It was one of the few cases that she'd actually gone on with just Lockwood, and they had been arguing for most of it about the best way to get rid of a Limbless.

Their argument had attracted the other two that were out in the garden.

"Y/n was brilliant, of course, using her Talent to locate the Sources of the three of them while I covered her, but I got held up in the corridor by some Type Ones that had appeared and she was left on her own. I only just got there in time to throw a salt bomb at the Limbless behind her and give her the extra second that she needed to wrap up the Source, but I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life. I really thought I was too late and that I'd lost her." His voice sounded thick with emotion, and when Y/n met his eyes they were watery. She tried not to frown, since it was strange for her to see him so affected like this. Lockwood cleared his throat, and looked back at the crowd. "Then of course I realised that I couldn't live without her and I asked her on a date. She said no, despite my attempts at baking her favourite cake and all the flowers." He cracked a smile, and people around the room laughed.

"Well you did look rather pathetic, Ant. I sort of wanted to watch you suffer a bit more." That much was true at least, since any time she got to watch him squirm was entertaining to her.

"Well you certainly got your share of that, darling," he huffed, and Y/n bit back a snort at the frustrated look on his face. "I had to ask her about six times after that first one before she finally said yes. We've been dating since the middle of April."

"It was eight, but who's counting?" Something about his story didn't sit right with her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was how close it was to what had actually happened on the job, or maybe it was the dread of all the questions she'd get about her job once people started mingling, wanting to know if she had a backup plan in case this line of work failed, or if she realised how dangerous it was.

Maybe it was the way that Lockwood had looked at her when he was talking about losing her.

~~~

"What are your intentions with Y/n?"

"Don't be stupid," John said, whacking his brother Sam on the arm.

"No, but really, what are your intent- oof!" Sam had been tackled to the floor by John, and Lockwood did his best not to flinch.

He'd been dragged into the library a few minutes ago by Y/n's brothers, and although he was the smallest, Tom was currently the most frightening as he stared Lockwood down from across the room, despite the two eldest brothers currently scrapping on the floor.

"Did... did you want me to answer that, or...?"

"I mean, it would be nice to know," Will piped up, eating straight from a packet of lebkuchen in the armchair opposite. Lockwood didn't think he'd ever seen the man without some sort of food nearby. He sat forward in his chair slightly, trying to come up with a good enough answer that would mean he could go back to the party. John and Sam stopped punching each other to hear his answer.

"I'm mostly just happy that she even gave me a chance, if I'm being honest." That much was true, but Y/n's brothers didn't need to know that he was talking about her acceptance of a position at his company and not the mythical relationship that the two of them had been in for eight months. "I know that I'm incredibly lucky to have her, and I can promise you that I won't do anything to screw that up."

Sam and John seemed happy enough with his answer, and Lockwood started breathing a little more easily. Tom was still staring at him, and Lockwood could have sworn that the boy hadn't blinked the entire time. Will snorted, shaking the bag around to get the last crumbs of lebkuchen out. "Yeah, sure. What's the real answer? No more of that crap, because it's obvious you rehearsed that to make us happy." When Lockwood didn't say anything for a moment Will prodded him again. "Go on."

He clenched his jaw, wondering how he could say anything nice about Y/n when she hadn't said anything nice about him for nearly three years, and looked out the window. A memory flashed up, and despite it having only been that morning, he was surprised at how quickly he'd forgotten the interaction.

Since when had she memorised how he took his tea?

He didn't think that Y/n had ever made him tea before, always making it a deliberate point to make a pot for everyone but him, and yet that morning while they sat in bed she had done it perfectly as though it were second nature. Then his mind drifted back to the night before, and he felt his face warm up at the memory of the mistletoe. He cleared his throat.

"I guess..." Lockwood sighed through his nose and clenched his jaw again. It was starting to ache. "I guess that's true, what I said before-"

"You guess?" Will interjected. Lockwood hadn't thought that he would be under this much scrutiny, but he was starting to sweat uncomfortably. He'd rather be dealing with Barnes right now than be sat here.

"It is true," he amended, making wary eye contact with the man. The packet of lebkuchen was neglected in Will's hand, hanging limply as he sat forward to question his younger sister's boyfriend. "She's incredible - the most incredible girl I've ever met - and I truly am aware of how lucky I am that she chose me. I'm not exactly... easy... to be around sometimes because of my agency, but she deals with me perfectly. She deals with me more than she should, to be honest." He frowned, thinking again about how he needed to figure out how to apologise to her. Nothing he had said was a lie; in fact, he didn't think he'd said anything more true about Y/n the entire time that he had known her. She was incredible, since her Touch was so powerful and unlike anything that he had ever seen before. And he did count himself lucky that she, despite his horrible words, still decided to work for him. And she did deal with him, more than anybody should, and she did it by being just as much of an arse to him as he was to her.

Maybe they were good together after all.

A thud on the window made everyone turn to look at what had made the noise, and Tom finally broke eye contact with Lockwood.

"Pigeon," Sam said, having been closest to the window. "I think it might be- oh no, it's just got up and flown off. Don't tell Mum though, she'll have a fit if she sees the mark it left."

"Alright, I think we're done here. You're free to go, Lover Boy," Will said, waving his hand vaguely at Lockwood and scrunching up the empty lebkuchen packet. Lockwood got up to leave, but upon opening the door a body fell face first into his chest with a small 'oof!'

"... Darling?" Lockwood asked, confusion lacing his voice. The figure looked up and offered a smile.

"Oh, hi! I was just... wondering where you were, Anthony." He tried to not let it show how much it affected him to hear his first name in her mouth, but the slight intake of breath that he took probably gave him away. It didn't help that Y/n was in that dress, since she looked so stunning that he couldn't focus on anything but her.

"You're so obsessed with each other," Lockwood heard Will mutter from behind him, and he realised with a start that they had just been staring at each other and blocking the doorway, penning the others in the library. When they went to move, however, Sam stopped them.

"Mistletoe! You can't break tradition!"

"Ugh, again? Did Mum plant an entire fucking garden of it?" Y/n said, peering up at the sprig that hung over their heads. "They're not gonna let us leave without doing it."

"Alright. Let's get it over with then," he whispered into her mouth, and he couldn't help but feel the exact opposite when she pressed her lips to his.

~~~

"So," Y/n's grandfather Richard started, and internally she groaned. He had used the tone of voice that meant he was about to start asking about work, and she was dreading this conversation. "Being an agent. Are you still sure it's what you want to do with your life, Y/n?"

"Yes, Gramps. I'm sure. I have been doing it for years now."

"But there are so many other things you could be doing! Jobs that you could actually be good at!"

That stung a little, and Y/n sat back slightly in her chair. She loved her Gramps, and most of the time he was one of her favourite family members, but he'd been alive before the Problem had started and didn't understand that things had changed since he was a kid. He believed in her in most other ways, just not when it came to her life as an agent, which was one of the only things she was truly passionate about (other passions included drinking tea and hating Lockwood).

"I don't mean to intrude," a voice piped up, and once again Y/n found herself wondering how the hell Lockwood managed to always turn up at the right time. "But Y/n is one of the best agents in the country, sir. Her Talent is so incredibly unique and that's what makes her so brilliant at her job." He perched on the arm of the chair that she was sat on, and she frowned when she felt the urge to rest her head against his thigh.

"Well how can you possibly know that!"

"Gramps, this is my boyfriend, Anthony? You met him briefly last night?"

"Oh, is it? Right, well I suppose you would know then! Tell me, is she too much of a pain sometimes?!"

Lockwood hesitated slightly, glancing down at where Y/n sat in the chair and frowning a little at her Gramps' question. "If anything I'm the pain. I don't know why she keeps me around to be honest." He sounded so sincere about it that for a moment she forgot that he had ever said anything horrible about her. The rest of their conversation faded into background noise as she remembered what she'd overheard earlier.

It was probably breaking all sorts of moral laws to eavesdrop on her brothers' interrogation of Lockwood, but then again she'd made her boss her fake boyfriend to fool her entire family, so she figured that she was well past being entirely moral about things. And besides, she hadn't been intending on listening in at first, she'd just been walking back from using the loo and happened to hear them. She couldn't get Lockwood's words out of her head, and she'd been replaying them over and over since.

"She's incredible - the most incredible girl I've ever met - and I truly am aware of how lucky I am that she chose me."

What the hell did that mean? Was it a lie that he'd made up to make them happy? But then she'd also heard Will prodding for the truth and his exclamation that whatever Lockwood had said before (which she hadn't heard) was obviously fake, so did he just come up with a better lie?

Tonight, she thought. Tonight I'll talk to him.

~~~

When the last guests had stumbled out of the front door, singing loudly and bumping into each other because they had had too much to drink, everybody left in the house let out a sigh of relief.

Y/n mumbled a tired 'good night' to everyone as she pulled herself upstairs, and Lockwood followed after her. He'd been helping her father tidy up a little before turning out the lights, to save some of the food that needed refrigerating and chucking other things in the bin. She had been worried when her dad first started talking to Lockwood, but then she'd heard her father laughing and had decided that they would be perfectly fine together.

Now she collapsed face first onto the bed, not yet worrying about the chill in the room.

"I can see why you were dreading that," Lockwood said, his voice sounding too loud. She'd had to down a few drinks that afternoon to deal with the sheer number of questions and comments from family members and friends, and now her head was aching slightly.

"Can you get me some water?" she asked, but since her face was still buried in the duvet it came out muffled. Lockwood's footsteps shuffled around for a while, and then went silent, and Y/n huffed in annoyance. Of course he'd just get himself ready for bed and not worry about her, that was so typical of him. She pushed herself upright, wincing when the room wobbled a little and the pain increased in her head, then frowned when Lockwood reappeared, something in his hand.

"Here. I couldn't find any painkillers though, so I'll just go and fill that up when you're done so you can try and sober up before bed."

Oh. Maybe he wasn't being so typical after all.

"Thanks," she muttered, taking the glass from him and eyeing it warily.

"It's not poisoned, darling. If I was going to kill you I wouldn't do it in a way that might mean you could come back to haunt me."

"Charming."

He sat down on the bed next to her with a sigh, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. "You know," he said, not looking at her. "This hasn't been... the worst Christmas I've ever had."

"No? You're spending it with me." He gave her a wry smile, finally bringing his gaze up to meet hers.

"Yeah, that's not really that bad."

Oh.

"Really?"

He hummed in answer, nodding slightly, then got up and walked over to the fireplace. They sat in silence while Y/n finished off her water and Lockwood got the fire going, and once she headed over to sit next to where he was crouching she realised how cold she had been before. He sat back, leaning on the chair behind him. Y/n was hunched over her knees, empty glass dangling in her grip. She could have done the same as Lockwood with the armchair behind her, and god knew her head needed something to rest against because despite the water dulling the ache it was still pressing against her temples, but she didn't think she could see Lockwood's face at that moment.

"The first Christmas after Jess passed was the worst."

Her head snapped to look at him where he sat to her left, but he was staring into the fire, eyes transfixed on the flames but looking at something far away. She didn't say anything, instead just letting him go ahead in his own time.

"The ones after my parents died were hard, sure, but at least I had Jess around and we knew what the other was going through. Then she was gone too, and I was nine years old in a big house that was suddenly empty of the family I had spent my life being loved by."

She knew that his family were dead since the absence of any of them was shockingly present in 35 Portland Row, but he had never told her anything. She'd had to learn it all from Lucy, George, and Holly.

"That first one was horrible. I don't think I stopped crying for longer than an hour the entire time, and I couldn't sleep because I kept replaying it over in my head. I could have helped," he whispered, and Y/n could see that his eyes were glistening in the light of the fire. "I could have saved her, if only I hadn't-" he cut himself off, his voice growing too strangled to continue. Quickly she placed her hand on his arm, turning her body to face him.

"Hey, hey," she said quietly, drawing him into her arms. Her glass had been abandoned on the floor, her hands now holding Lockwood's body in her lap instead. His head was resting on her chest while his arm wrapped around her stomach, the other supporting his weight, and Y/n told herself that she was only allowing this to happen because she hadn't yet sobered up.

She wasn't sure how long they were there for, her leaning back at an awkward angle to allow room for Lockwood to lie on top of her and curl into her side while he sniffled, but after a while she found that she didn't mind stroking her fingers through his hair (which was surprisingly soft) or having his weight on her (it was like having a weighted blanket).

"Thank you," he muttered after a while, sitting up and wiping at his face. He paused in his movements when he realised that their faces were much closer together than was normal for two people that didn't like each other. The memory of that morning when she had smoothed out his collar and he had been about to say something came back, and when his gaze flicked between her eyes and her lips she drew in a breath.

"Anthony?"

And then he was surging forward, kissing her with the same passion that he had hated her with while she reached up to grab his shirt, not caring that she was wrinkling the fabric that she herself had smoothed out that very morning. How could she think of anything but him when the two of them had finally crashed together like a tsunami hitting cities?

How could she think of anything but him when he pulled her on top of him?

And how could she think of anything but him when he sighed her name into her mouth and it sounded sweeter than the tea he drank?

And then she was thinking about him entirely, and remembering everything that had happened since they met, and suddenly kissing him was a terrible idea.

"She's not good enough for the company."

She pushed away from him with a start when those words blared in her mind like warning alarms, the memory of what she had overheard in the library around four months after starting to work for Lockwood and Co. She hadn't heard anything before, but the disdain in Lockwood's voice told her it was about her. She had run upstairs to make sure she didn't hear any more of what he thought about her.

"Y/n?" he asked now, voice hoarse from crying and kissing, and his expression was desperate as he watched her press her hand to her lips and take shaky breaths. "Y/n? What is it? Wh-"

"Don't," she snapped, standing up and trying to forget the feeling of his hands on her body. "Don't... just don't, Lockwood." He was getting up too, scrambling after her and reaching out to stop her from slipping away.

"I don't understand-"

"Don't understand what?! We can't- we hate each other, Lockwood!" The venom in her voice made him stumble back a few steps. "You never wanted me at your company and you made sure that I knew that!"

"I-"

"I heard you telling the others that I wasn't ever going to be good enough for you, and then a few hours later after a job you're telling me that my Talent is incredible?! What am I supposed to think?! And then you spend the next however many years being a complete dick to me and complaining about me, so I do the same because clearly being nice didn't work, and now you're here at my fucking family Christmas event pretending to be my boyfriend and kissing me when you don't need to-"

"Of course I need to! I know I was horrible to you-"

"An understatement," she scoffed, crossing her arms.

"-but I'm trying to figure out how to apologise to you because I know that I've fucked up and I need to fix it!"

"So you kissed me?!"

"No! Yes! That wasn't an apology!" He rubbed his hand over his face, clearly frustrated with how it was going. "It was a mistake- no, Y/n, I didn't mean it like that!"

"A mistake?" she whispered, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. "Kissing me was a mistake?"

"No," he said, tone filled with desperation. "No, Y/n, I just meant that I shouldn't have done it before apologising to you because then it would seem like... I don't know! Like I was doing it just to try and trick you into accepting my apology or something!"

"Were you? Doing it to trick me? Because right now I can't tell what the truth is, Lockwood!"

"It wasn't a trick. It was never a trick, and I'm an idiot-"

"Yes, you are."

"Would you just listen to me?!" he shouted, anger seeping in to his body, and Y/n took a step back at the look in his eyes.

"What, like how you listen to me?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Yesterday, on the platform, when I was talking about my family being a lot and how it was hard for me and I'm actually related to most of them, and I couldn't imagine how hard it would be for someone to be introduced to all of that in one go. You just assumed that I meant it would be hard for you because your family is dead, and then when I tried to explain you cut me off and gave me the cold shoulder because you didn't fucking listen, Lockwood. What I meant was it would be a lot for anyone, no matter their own experience. Hell, even George has said that he would rather be blocked from the Archives for life than ever meet my family, and he's got almost as many relatives as me!"

Lockwood didn't say anything for a minute, instead just standing still and staring at her while the fire in his eyes died down, and Y/n shook her head. "This?" She gestured between the two of them. "This will never work. We will never work. Because you never wanted me and no matter how much I want you to like me in the same way that you like the others, you never will. And I will never be good enough for you." That was one more person to add to the list of people that she needed to meet unnecessarily high expectations for in order to be even noticed. She wiped at the tears that had slipped down her face while she was talking, the salt making her cheeks itch.

"You're right," Lockwood finally said. "I won't ever like you in the same way as the others." He stopped there, looking down at the floor. When he went to speak again, however, he lifted his head to an empty room, and the bathroom door shutting him out.

Y/n ignored his attempts to talk to her through the door, shoving the duvet and blankets that she had quickly grabbed into the bathtub and plugging her headphones into her walkman so that she didn't have to hear the rest of his cruel words and excuses.

She had craved something different with him, and it had fucking destroyed her.

And now she had to wake up on Christmas Day and pretend that she was hopelessly in love with the fake boyfriend who had just broken her heart.

part 6

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#lockwood and co #lockwood & co #anthony lockwood #anthony lockwood x reader #anthony lockwood x you #lockwood x reader #deck the halls (and not your partner)#enemies to lovers #fake dating #christmas

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