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more-a-then-i · 9 months ago

Text

Oh God that was wonderfully sweet and domestic.

paper rings

Anthony Lockwood x fem!reader

Word count: 10.2k words

Warnings: mild spoilers for the later books (this is set after TEG and they're all 18+), a LOT of mildly explicit innuendoes and sexual references, swearing

this is my Valentine's Day surprise that I've been talking about, so happy Valentine's Day to you all! <3

based on the Taylor Swift song of the same name

Anthony Lockwood masterlist

It was nearly 2 in the morning, and Y/n L/n was exhausted.

She had been on a case for the last seven hours and everything hurt and ached - including places in her body she didn't even know she had - and she just wanted her bed and an incredibly large cup of tea.

So why was she having to babysit three other agents who really should have been old enough to look after themselves?

Two of them seemed to be high on flare fumes, giggling about absolutely nothing and making weird sounds every few seconds. The third was smiling fondly at his friends and coworkers, but wasn't doing anything to stop them from getting closer and closer to the edge of their sanity.

Y/n sighed for the millionth time in the last ten minutes, and the third agent (the one who wasn't as insane as the other two - she'd nicknamed him Beanpole) looked over from where he was leaning back against the DEPRAC van with his arms crossed. Somehow he looked effortlessly cool and relaxed, despite the plasma stains and dirt covering his entire body.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“I'm fine, just want to go home and stop looking after three other agents.”

“Ah, that’s fair. Wait, 'looking after’?”

“Yeah, Barnes told me to keep an eye on you three 'cause you were in trouble or something.”

“Oh, we're not in trouble,” he grinned, and although she rolled her eyes she couldn't deny the way her heart skipped a beat at his smile. “Barnes just likes being dramatic. We didn't do anything.” Somehow she didn't believe him, but the sheer amount of charm that was pouring out of him was making her disregard any concerns she had about how truthful he was being.

“So what is it that you aren't in trouble for then?” His grin only grew wider, and Y/n found herself smiling back.

“Minor property damage. But in our defence our client didn't warn us about the malignant smoke that she'd seen creeping out of the basement or even the intense waves of nausea she felt when walking past her under stairs cupboard. So we really can't take any of the blame for completely decimating her bannisters and front hall. Plus, we're insured.”

“No you're not,” Barnes interrupted, joining the conversation and holding a manilla folder. “You didn't have your DEPRAC standardised iron chains, Lockwood. Not according to this report.” That made Beanpole (Lockwood? Although that didn't sound much like a name) stand up, uncrossing his arms as a frown decorated his pretty face.

“What? But we did, I made sure after Mrs Hope's house.” Y/n didn't know what had happened at Mrs Hope's house, but from the way Barnes was frowning even more than usual and somehow looking even more unimpressed with Beanpole she figured she didn't want to know. “You can go in and check if you like, they're still in the hall.”

“Fine. L/n, you go in and check.”

“What?”

“Just check the chains are there, then come back. They managed to at least get rid of the ghosts.”

“Alright,” she grumbled, hoisting her belt up a little and trudging off in the direction of the building Barnes had pointed her to. She shouldn't even be here, since she was meant to have been at home around half an hour ago, but now she was making her way into some random woman's house to carry out a job that any random DEPRAC officer could have done (if what Barnes had said about the other agents removing the Visitors was true). She pushed open the door, glad for her gloves at the chill in the air, and scoffed when she immediately laid eyes on the thick iron chains that had been kicked to the side in the fight. Y/n picked them up, huffing under the added weight, and was about to turn and leave when her eyes caught on the state of the front hall. “What the actual fuck…” she whispered, then shook her head and closed the door behind her, choosing to ignore the mess inside.

“Well?” Barnes demanded when she'd made her way back. She dropped the chains at his feet.

“Yep. I don't know why I had to do that though, anyone could have looked.” She was being irritable, she knew, but she thought she was perfectly justified in feeling that way.

“Alright.” Barnes looked unhappy about the whole situation too, but that wasn't Y/n's fault. “Then just sign these papers and you three can go.” Beanpole was smiling smugly, and he nodded and took the papers that Barnes handed him.

“Thank you, Inspector. Luce, George, here.” They were both still laughing at something only they knew about, clutching their sides as they took the sheets of paper that Beanpole handed them.

“Can I go home too?” Y/n asked Barnes while the others signed the forms.

“Yeah. Maybe catch a ride with these three, they're your way.”

“Fine.”

A few minutes later the four of them were piled into a taxi and heading off down the road in the direction of Marylebone.

“So,” Beanpole started. The moon was shining bright on his face through the taxi window, making him look like a Visitor himself when combined with his already pale skin and the dark shadows under his eyes. He still looked effortlessly gorgeous though, and Y/n found herself wondering if he was single. “You're an agent then. Solo?”

“Oh, yeah. Never liked working for the big companies. They never really cared about the people, you know? Shit,” her eyes widened as she realised what she'd said. “Are you a company?”

“Yes, but don't worry. We have a grand total of four people at our agency. Sometimes five or six if we get extra help from others.”

“That's... very small. Is the fourth your supervisor?”

“No, our secretary actually. Holly doesn't much like being in the field anymore though, but that works out alright for us. She still gets paid a good amount.”

“So if you don't have a supervisor…”

“I'm the agency head,” he smiled, but now instead of appearing chipper and light, he looked tired and weighed down by the responsibility of running a company and looking after his coworkers. “Anthony Lockwood, Lockwood and Co.”

“Y/n L/n, formerly of Fittes.” They shook hands awkwardly in the limited space they had in the back of the taxi.

“And you left because they don't care about the people?”

“That's right. I always wanted to connect more, but I guess that's because of my Touch. Fittes were much more businesslike about it all, just going in and getting the job done and not caring about anything other than having another successful case under their belt. It just didn't sit right with me.”

“Well if you ever feel like working for a company again, you could always come and work with us,” Anthony Lockwood said. “I'm sure we could do with someone like you helping us out. Besides, we do care about the people; it's pretty much the only thing going for us other than our skill in the field.”

“First stop?” the driver called out, slowing the vehicle.

“Oh, that's me,” Y/n stated, grabbing the door handle and getting out. “Thanks for letting me ride with you.” She moved to the boot of the taxi to take her kit bag and rapier, and was surprised when Anthony Lockwood followed her, helping her to balance all the bags inside and making sure that nothing fell out. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem. And I mean it, if you ever feel like joining us on a case then just come and find us.”

“That's... that's actually nice of you, thank you.” He nodded with a smile, then clambered back into the taxi (which looked difficult with how long and thin his limbs were). She stood on the pavement for a few moments, waiting for the taxi to start moving again and waving at the three agents left in the cab as they drove off down the road.

As soon as she was inside her shared house, door firmly shut and locked and kettle boiling on the stove, she pulled up the chair at her desk and switched on her computer, typing in her password and logging in. Ten minutes later she had a mug of tea brewing on her desk while she furiously tapped at the keyboard for any information on Lockwood and Co, and was pleasantly surprised by what she found. There wasn't much, since she couldn't access a lot of the full reports of cases, but there was a decent number of newspaper articles that had been uploaded for her to read. One detailed the £60,000 fine that the company had been given for setting fire to a certain Mrs Hope's home a few years prior, and from the blurry black and white photo the blaze looked like it hadn't left much behind.

Further research provided an address for their agency at 35 Portland Row, not far away from where she currently lived. One or two articles were about the parade incident from the Black Winter and Lockwood and Co's success in protecting the people present, but other than that there wasn't much more.

She sat back in her chair, sipping the last of her tea. Bedtime for now, but when she finally woke up she'd head to the nearest corner store and pick up some food. The fridge had been nearly empty when she'd looked earlier, and she knew that Portland Row was on the way back.

She wanted to say thank you again (and totally not spy on their house), and everybody loved a doughnut.

~~~

Y/n had knocked on the door roughly two minutes ago, and nobody had answered.

She knew that they were all at home, because she could hear them arguing about who was going to answer the door, but nobody had done it yet.

Knocking once more while balancing the box of doughnuts in her other hand she sighed, waited another thirty seconds, and just as she turned to leave she heard the locks click behind her. The door swung open to reveal Anthony Lockwood, once more dressed in a suit (a lot cleaner than the one he'd been wearing in the early hours of that morning), and a wide smile on his face.

“It's you! Miss L/n, was it?”

“Uh, yeah. Just Y/n is fine though. Um, I just wanted to say thanks again for the lift last night, and for being nice and shit when you didn't have to be, and I bought some doughnuts if you guys wanted them.” She tried to surreptitiously peer around him to take a look at his front hall, but the interior was quite dark and cluttered and it was difficult to pretend to not be inspecting somebody's home when they were stood in front of you.

“Oh, you really didn't have to, Y/n.” He took the box out of her hands anyway. “Did you want to come in?”

“No, thank you. I should get back. I've got a lot of paperwork to get through and I think one of my housemates is cleaning today and wanted everyone's help, so…” she trailed off, rocking slightly on her heels while Anthony Lockwood watched her.

“Right, well, thanks for stopping by! And for the doughnuts, that was very generous of you.”

She shrugged. “I've had taxi rides with people I was actually working with and they were complete arseholes to me, so I really appreciated you not being like that when you didn't even know me.”

“Anytime.” He paused for a moment, then frowned at her. “How did you find us? I know I said that you could always drop by but I don't remember actually telling you where we live. There's not a problem with it, by the way, just curious.”

“Oh, I looked it up. Figured you meant to tell me and never got round to it. Besides, I needed to go shopping anyway and I live nearby, so it wasn't too difficult for me.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Well it was lovely seeing you again, Y/n. I look forward to our next meeting.” His smile was infectious, and she still had a grin on her face at the thought of him when she went to bed that night.

~~~

For the next few months, both Y/n and Lockwood and Co were busy with their own cases, but regularly passed each other in the street. Anthony Lockwood had taken to sending her a wink or flirty quite early on, and because Y/n believed it impossible that someone like him was single and therefore able to chase after someone like her, she ignored him. Every now and then she would indulge him, of course, flirting back to see how he would react (he was always pleasantly surprised and kept their little game going for as long as he could before he was needed), but for the most part she would walk right past him.

It wasn't entirely her fault, since many of the times they bumped into each other she was on a time schedule, and didn't have the extra minute or so to flirt with the pretty boy.

The last time had been different, though.

~~~

“Hello again, darling,” a voice said from her left, and Y/n smiled when she recognised it right away as Lockwood's. They knew each other better now, from the few times that they had been able to talk for longer and ask how the other was doing, and when he had found out that she was calling him Anthony Lockwood in her head he gave her a look of barely contained amusement and told her she could pick one.

Anthony had felt too personal, since everyone else that spoke to him seemed to call him Lockwood, and she didn't think they knew each other that well for her to use his first name.

“Come here often?” he asked, appearing in her field of view and leaning on the table she was sat at in the small night café.

“Only when I know that you're going to be here,” Y/n responded, and delighted in the faint pink tinge that came onto his cheeks.

“May I?” He gestured to the chair opposite her, and she nodded.

“Not with your friends tonight?”

“No, they're probably at home already, lucky bastards. My case ran on a bit longer than I expected, and I couldn't wait for a cup of tea. Plus, when I saw you in here I couldn't not come and see you.”

They sat there for a while, making their way through two cups of tea each before deciding to leave, and Lockwood offered to take the taxi home with her.

When they were nearly back to Y/n's house, he spoke up.

“I'll pay, if you like. I'll be paying for this stretch of the journey anyway so it doesn't make much of a difference to me.”

“Oh, Lockwood, I can pay you for my part at least, it's not a big deal to me.”

“Nonsense.” He seemed to hesitate for a moment, just as they drove around the corner onto her street. “Or… you could come back to Portland Row with me?” Their flirting had never gone as far as properly inviting the other back to their place (although there had always been the comments of 'why don't we finish this somewhere else?' or 'wanna come home with me and prove it?'), and it took Y/n a moment to realise that he was being serious.

“I mean... if you're sure? I don't want to impose or anything.”

“No, you won't be imposing, darling. George and Lucy will be asleep, I'm sure. I think there's half a bottle of wine that needs finishing off if you wanted to share? No pressure though.”

“That sounds great, actually.”

“So are you two both going to Portland Row then?” the driver called, and Lockwood nodded.

“Yes please.” He turned back to Y/n, worry starting to creep into his expression. “You did agree, right?”

“Yes, Lockwood, I did. I think I need something that's not tea to be honest.”

“You can stay the night, too. If you need to. I'll sleep on the sofa and you can have my bed.”

“I'm not kicking you out of your own bed, Lockwood. How big is it?”

“Darling, I'm scandalised that you would ask me that question. You know that size doesn't mat-” He was cut off by Y/n smacking him in the chest, and he chuckled when she glared at him.

“The bed, Lockwood, how big is the bed? If I wanted to know the size of your dick I'd ask you to strip.” She ignored the weird look that the driver cast them in his rear view mirror and focused on Lockwood's answer instead.

“Steady, darling. We're not back yet.” He yelped when she whacked him again, and caught her wrists and held them so that she couldn't attack him anymore. “It's a double.”

“Well then we can both fit, can't we?”

“Asking me to strip, getting me into bed with you? If I didn't know any better, darling, I'd say that you were trying to seduce me,” he smirked, leaning in close.

“Oh, Lockwood. I think we both know I did that a long time ago, don't we.” They were dangerously close to kissing, their lips only a couple of centimetres away from each other while their noses brushed with every jolt in the road, and then the taxi was slowing and pulling up to the curb outside 35 Portland Row.

“Alright you two, out. And use protection please, you're too young to be havin' kids.” Y/n flushed and opened the door, moving around to the boot to take out her kit bag and rapier, and when Lockwood followed a moment later after paying the driver his face was red too.

~~~

“Here,” Lockwood said, handing over a tea mug filled with wine.

“Thanks. You're sure the others won't mind us drinking this?”

“They've had plenty of time to drink it, and I own the house and therefore the kitchen and the contents of the fridge are mine too, so I say it's fair game.” His smile was slightly blinding, but Y/n had learned to see past the glare and look at his eyes instead, finding the pure joy behind the façade he put up for the world to see.

They didn't know each other that well, when everything was considered, but Y/n did call him her friend when describing their relationship, and she did feel that if asked, Lockwood would say the same.

Around thirty minutes later Y/n was nearly doubled over with laughter at some stupid thing that Lockwood had said (the wine had gone straight to her head and she had no recollection of what exactly he had said), clutching her sides as they sat in the cluttered library with the bottle of wine between them.

“You, Anthony Lockwood, are ridiculous!”

“I am! In fact, have I shown you my hat collection?”

“Is that some sort of weird euphemism? Or are you genuinely more deranged than I thought you were?”

“Not a euphemism, love,” he grinned, and Y/n in her wine-addled state thought about how he was starting to look like the deranged young man she'd just accused him of being.

“So... you actually have a hat collection? Why?” Lockwood shrugged.

“It's good for disguises when I need to do a little bit of extra research for a case. I can do accents too!”

“No offence, Lockwood, but I've heard some of your accents, and I'm very surprised that you haven't been hunted down and killed yet.”

“Believe me, people have tried!” Somehow he didn't look concerned about that, still smiling just as widely as before, and Y/n thought he looked rather nice like that.

~~~

When she woke up in the morning, Y/n realised she had never taken the painkillers Lockwood had left on the bedside table for her to use.

“Shit,” she whispered, grabbing the packet and the glass of water and swallowing the pills the best she could in an attempt to stave off the headache that had formed. After finishing off the wine, Lockwood had managed to find some more alcohol hidden away in a cupboard in the library ("It's my personal stash, so don't worry about feeling guilty about drinking this") and they had stayed up until it was nearly sunrise talking about everything and nothing. She was regretting not drinking the water before sleeping, and when she flopped back onto the bed and under the covers she realised that there was someone else in the bed with her.

Lockwood looked peaceful asleep.

While she didn't mind waking up next to him in the morning (the view was actually rather nice), not being able to remember what had happened the night before was a little disturbing, especially since she was in her underwear and, as far as she could tell, Lockwood wasn't wearing any clothes.

The bedsheets had been partially kicked off in the night, most likely because the heating was apparently on full from the very warm temperature of the room, and the duvet had bunched up around Lockwood's waist. She didn't want to wake him by trying to find out if anything had happened last night, since he probably never slept with the sheer size of the shadows under his eyes, so instead she carefully got out of bed and picked up her clothes.

Finding all of her things was difficult, since they'd been flung all around the room in what she hoped was drunkenness and not desperation, but after nearly ten minutes she was dressed and reaching for the door handle. She didn't make it that far though, because before she could leave the sounds of somebody waking up started coming from the bed, and Lockwood was asking her where she was going.

“Oh, I just... I just figured you wouldn't want me to stick around-”

“Why would you think that?” He was rubbing his eyes and sitting up, and she had to force her gaze away from where the sheets were dangerously close to revealing whether or not they had slept together.

“I don't know.” There was silence for a minute or so while Lockwood tried to wake up enough to work out what was going on, and Y/n stood by the door feeling very awkward. “Did we... did anything happen? Last night?”

“Don't think so. I feel like I would remember that, darling,” he winked, and she felt her face heat up.

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“You don't seem convinced.”

“No, I am,” she said, very unconvincingly. There was another silence while she hesitated. “Are you naked?” she blurted out, immediately covering her face with her hands to block out Lockwood's shocked reaction. His laughter didn't help, only serving to make her feel more embarrassed than she already was, and she stayed safely behind her hands while she waited for it all to be over.

“No, darling, I'm not naked. But if you wanted me to be then I'm sure we could figure something out.” She could hear the amusement in his voice and groaned in frustration, knowing that he wouldn't ever let her live this moment down.

“I'm good, thanks.” She didn't really mean it, but it was nice to have a friend like Lockwood, and she figured that having sex with him probably wouldn't help to keep that friendship at all.

“Alright. Well if you don't want to see me in my pants then keep your hands there, I'm getting out of bed.” For the most part she obeyed, but she would be lying if she said that she didn't peek through her fingers briefly while he was getting dressed.

~~~

Luckily the other members of Lockwood and Co were not at home when Y/n left that morning, having said no to Lockwood's offer of breakfast (she would pick up something from Arif's, even if it was out of her way a little), and within half an hour she was back in her own house with a very large cup of tea and a plate of food in her favourite armchair in the living room.

When one of her housemates asked her where she had been all night, a suggestive tone to her question, Y/n simply shrugged, and replied “What's it to you?”

~~~

One week later she was running for her life.

It wasn't that this sort of thing didn't happen often, since her job required a lot of running a lot of the time, but normally she wasn't this exhausted from it. She wasn't even working on a case, either. Y/n had just been walking home from her actual case for that night when she'd accidentally taken a wrong turn in her fatigued state and had come face to face with a bunch of Type Twos.

At least she had her rapier and a few flares and salt bombs left, and her boots were solid enough that despite how much running she had already done that night, she couldn't feel the ground beneath her feet when normally her soles would be protesting in pain.

“Fuck's sake,” she grumbled, heading for the nearest iron fence she could find. Unfortunately she still had to cross a road that was surprisingly busy at this time of night (or morning? she wasn't sure where the line between the two was drawn) and then vault over the fence into the park, which was probably also infested with Visitors. Going against every action movie she had ever seen she looked back (which was precisely what she shouted at the characters for), then immediately stumbled since she couldn't see where she was going. Her brief pause in her flight allowed the Visitors to catch up a little, and within a few seconds she was seeing her life flash before her eyes and throwing up her rapier in a last ditch attempt to not die.

Then something else was flashing before her eyes, and the ghosts were being driven off.

Y/n realised with a start that the flash had been Lockwood and his stupid grin, dressed in his stupid long coat that was stupidly attractive on him, waving his rapier around in stupidly perfect motions.

“Did you miss me, darling?” She didn't even have time to respond, already ducking to not be hit by the bicycle a Poltergeist had sent flying their way, and Lockwood pushed her to the ground to dodge the railing that followed. They landed with a thump, and Y/n winced when her back hit the concrete of the pavement and then again a very brief moment later when Lockwood landed on her.

“I did, Lockwood. I really did miss you.” She hoped that he could see how sincere she was, and he looked as though he was about to say something. Unfortunately he was cut off when a badly-aimed salt bomb exploded right above their heads, and a small “Sorry!” was called out from somewhere nearby.

“Not to worry, George!” Lockwood yelled back as he got off the floor. He offered out a hand and Y/n let him pull her up, holding her breath when he pulled with more force than was needed and she fell into his chest. “Woah,” he said, voice quiet. “You alright?” His free hand had come up to steady her by the arm, and now he was gently stroking up and down. She wondered if he knew he was doing it.

“Yeah. Can we maybe run away from the death bikes?”

“I think that would be a good idea. You going home?” Y/n shook her head.

“One of my housemates has their partner over, and I'd really rather not be there. I was gonna put up with it but if you're offering your bed again I won't say no,” she teased. Lockwood's face went pink, but not from the cold or the running.

“I'm always offering my bed, darling, you should know that by now.” His smile was as blinding as the flash he had appeared in, and then he was tugging her hand and leading her away from the ghosts (which wouldn't be able to follow after a while, since she'd already run quite far from their Sources), and instead heading for 35 Portland Row.

When they made it inside (Lucy was already in bed, but Lockwood and George had been coming back from a case like Y/n), George bade the two of them goodnight, then tiredly climbed the stairs, leaving Lockwood and Y/n in the front hall. It was dimly lit, only the lamp on the hall cupboard providing any reprise from the darkness, and the yellow glow of it made Lockwood look ethereal.

He had dust and dirt all over him, staining his usually perfect white shirt and tie, and his hair was a mess from the slight wind outside, but he still wore his confidence and his charm like a second skin, and he had never looked more like Anthony Lockwood in all the time Y/n had known him.

“What were you even doing out there?” he asked.

“I was coming back from a job, took a wrong turn somewhere, and came face to face with those fuckers. I'm just really glad that you were there in time because I probably would've ended up in hospital otherwise. Or a furnace.”

“I'm glad I was there too,” Lockwood said, stepping forward. He made to move his hand, as though he might reach out and touch hers, but then his fist was clenching at his side again, fingers flexing every few seconds. “I thought you would be alright, really. Then I saw you trip - why the hell did you look back? You always get annoyed when they do that in movies. I was scared, Y/n, that you might not get back up again.” She could tell that he meant it too, from the way he was looking at her. It was almost too much, his gaze, since it was heavy with so much emotion that they hadn't even properly addressed between them, and that was probably why he kissed her.

She both had and hadn't been expecting it.

It made sense when she thought about it, because beneath all the teasing and flirting there was attraction and a real desire, and she had always figured that being with someone was easier if you knew and trusted them. But she had never thought that either of them would act on it, since both of them seemed happy to let the friendship cover up the truth because at least that meant they weren't without the other. Bringing the truth to light could ruin that, and then they might not see each other at all.

Now, though, she wondered why they hadn't kissed before.

It had been brief, a few seconds at most, but it was enough to make her realise that they had been incredibly stupid in not doing it earlier. She had had such a long night - they both had - and when he pressed his lips to hers for the second time she knew that despite the fatigue and near death experiences involving bicycles, they would be alright. Her hands had moved without her fully knowing, and when they pulled away after the second kiss she realised that they were in his hair and clutching his coat that he hadn't taken off yet. His were nestled around her waist, holding her close to him while he searched her eyes for any sign to stop.

The third kiss was the longest yet, and it took them a long time to move from the front hall to his bedroom.

~~~

Y/n had always been a fan of anything that shone, and had been called a magpie by nearly everyone that knew her.

It didn't matter if it was expensive or not, if it was shiny, then she would have it. Growing up she hadn't been used to expense, and finding trinkets on the street was her speciality, but every now and then someone would buy her something a little less on the cheap side, and she would be overjoyed.

Then of course there were the things she bought herself.

The Fittes Ball that she was on her way to had invited agents of all kinds (a rarity for solo agents who usually went forgotten), and her outfit was one of the most expensive things that she had bought yet (other than her shared house). It was worth it, though, for the look on Lockwood's face when he first saw her.

“You look incredible, Y/n/n!” Lucy gushed, immediately wrapping her new friend in a hug. George and Holly agreed, and while their fussing was nice it was Lockwood's opinion she really wanted. They hadn't spoken after the night they spent together two weeks ago, and now he had an unreadable expression on his face while he looked at her. It was ridiculous, really, how nervous she was to know what he was thinking, since she had never usually cared about what any man thought of her.

“Thank you, I love your dress, Luce! And George, are you actually in a suit? No, no, no, you look very nice! Holly, you look incredible as always,” she said, returning the compliments her friends had given her. Her gaze kept darting back to Lockwood though, and after the others had moved away to talk to someone else, he cleared his throat.

“Y/n.”

“Lockwood.” He took a step towards her.

“You know I told you you could call me Anthony.” He had, not long after he'd taken her to his bed.

“Oh, right. I didn't know if that was just... for then.” She was struggling to look at him now, so she missed the way his expression softened.

“It's for whenever, darling.”

“Okay,” she said, and the small smile he gave her made her heart beat a little faster in her chest.

“You look stunning, darling. Truly.”

“So do you, Anthony,” she replied, and this time she took a step forward to close the distance. A frown came onto her face, and when he asked her why she paused for a moment before answering. “What are we? Because we haven't spoken since... since that night, and now we're acting like we did before and I'm just quite confused.”

Instead of responding with words, he dug into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a folded paper, handing it to her a second later. She tried not to focus too much on his hands (the memories of two weeks ago were coming back to the front of her mind now) and took it with confusion, starting to unfold it.

“Oh, I'll be back in a minute, George is calling me over.” He flashed her one of his winning smiles and was off, moving in what she assumed was the direction of George. She finally unfolded the paper and was surprised to see that it was mostly blank, just one question and two little points below it. A pen had been folded into it, and she bit back a smile when she'd read the words.

Would you go on a date with me? Please circle one answer

yes

He was ridiculous, she had decided, but then again she couldn't deny how ridiculously cute it was that he'd written out this mini questionnaire and put it in his pocket, despite not knowing whether she would actually be here or not to take it from him. Why he'd left immediately she didn't know, but maybe he was just too nervous to find out her reaction right away. She clicked the pen and circled 'yes' the best she could with no hard surface to lean on, and winced when the paper punctured. He knew where to find her, but she wrote her address anyway and the house phone number, and refolded the paper. Looking around she couldn't immediately see him, but then she caught a flash of a smile that could only have belonged to one Mr Anthony Lockwood, and she made for where he stood. He blushed slightly when he caught sight of her, then his cheeks burned brighter when she tucked the piece of paper and the pen in the pocket just inside his jacket (standing much closer to him than she needed to), and walked away without a word.

~~~

Two hours later they had snuck into the Fittes building's public library, giggling about something stupid one of the stuck-up snobs who was far too old to still be alive had said while they sipped the fancy champagne that was being served.

“Do you think they get many kids in here? Like, actual kids who would need entertaining?” she asked, making Anthony look round from where he'd been perusing the shelves.

“I doubt it. Why?”

“They've got origami. Look,” she pointed, putting her champagne flute down on a sideboard and picking up a sheet. “I used to be able to make loads of things, but I reckon if I tried making a rabbit or something now it'd look like someone folded a bit of paper a bunch of times and then sat on it.”

“I used to make those snowflakes where you fold it into quarters and cut bits out. Got quite good in the end; I could make chains of them eventually.”

“Of course you're good at making paper snowflakes,” she muttered, no hint of malice behind it. “You're good at everything, I swear.”

“Oh, that's not true.”

“Really? Name one thing that you can't do.” He paused, and she could practically see the cogs turning in his head. “See? You can't do it!”

“Well, I don't think that was very fair, actually, because you didn't give me long enough to actually think about it!” She moved to sit down, picking out various colours of paper squares before settling on one she liked. Anthony sat down next to her, his thigh close enough to hers that she could feel his body heat through his suit. He chose his own square of paper, immediately starting to fold it in different ways.

“What are you gonna make?” she asked him, not looking up from where she was attempting to make an origami butterfly.

“That's a secret.”

“Alright then,” she snorted, “be mysterious. Is that because you're bad at origami and you're trying to hide it by making me guess?”

“Sure, that's what's happening.”

They sat in comfortable silence while they worked, and when Y/n crossed her legs she made contact with Anthony's knee and drew in a breath. She refocused and looked at the paper in her hands, frowning when she realised that she had no idea how to make a butterfly out of it anymore, and sat back with a huff.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just bored, I suppose. What are you making?” He had folded his piece of paper into a thin strip, and now he was pulling the ends together, somehow making them link.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing to her right hand. She didn't answer for a moment, too busy watching the way his fingers moved. “Y/n?”

“Oh, right.” She let him take her left hand in his, holding her breath for the millionth time around him both at the tenderness of it all and at the way his hands were so cold compared to her warm ones. He lifted the origami up and slid it onto her fourth finger, tightening it by pushing the ends together further.

“You can take it off, if you want.”

She wasn't sure she was breathing. “Are you proposing?”

“What? No, if I was proposing you'd know about it, darling. I just… I don’t know.” He looked nervous, and although he hadn’t let go of her hand, she could see that he was fidgeting.

“I love it, Anthony. Thank you.” He smiled then, small and as under as the way he was holding her hand, and she couldn’t help but ask what she’d been wondering for the last two hours.

“Did you read my response?” Somehow he softened even more, and his grip tightened ever so slightly before he nodded.

“Yes, I did.” Had he moved closer? She thought the distance between them was no longer as frustratingly large as it had been, but he was still too far away.

“Well?”

“Are you free on Saturday? There’s a great place for lunch I’ve been dying to show you for a while now.” He was definitely closer, and she could make out the small scar on his lip in perfect detail.

“Midday work for you?”

“Absolutely.” He was still holding her hand when he kissed her gently, like he thought she might leave at any moment, and when he pulled back after a couple of seconds she dragged him right back to her lips, shifting somehow even closer to him on the seat. The gift he had made that now sat on her finger felt as heavy as a gold one, filled with the promise of what could be and happy endings, and she found herself thinking that if the two of them did ever marry, she would be happy to do so with a paper ring.

They were sat there kissing for a while, not stopping until someone shouted outside the door in drunken laughter, making Anthony and Y/n jump back in surprise. Then they were laughing too, like they were teenagers sneaking off (which, she supposed, they almost were, if you ignored the fact they were legally adults now), and he pressed one last quick kiss to her mouth before he stood up. “We should head out. I’m sure the others will be wondering where we are.” Y/n stood up too, still holding his hand, and moved to straighten his tie. She had pulled on it when they were kissing, and now it was all crooked around his neck.

“I think they probably know that we’re together, though. I doubt that they’re too worried about us.” She finished fiddling with his tie and draped her arms around his neck, and flushed when he wrapped his own arms around her waist and pulled her tight against his body. They stayed that way for a while, just trading small kisses and swaying gently back and forth.

“I’m glad,” Anthony said suddenly, breaking the silence. “That we… you know.”

“Nearly died and then slept together?”

“That’s one way of putting it. I just - I’m glad.”

“I’m glad too, Anthony.” Normally accidents like having sex with her friends was something she hated, but given it was Anthony Lockwood that it had happened with, she was happy to make an exception.

~~~

That night, while Anthony finally managed to sleep next to her, Y/n stayed awake. The glow of the ghost lamp outside had woken her a few minutes ago while she had been surfacing, and now she couldn’t get back to sleep. Her dress hung on the back of his desk chair, and various parts of his suit were slung around the room in piles from where they had thrown them earlier in their haste to be as close as possible to each other.

The ring now sat on Anthony’s bedside table, and although it wasn’t light enough in the room for her to make out its shape, she still knew exactly where it was. Before the two of them got too caught up in each other she had slipped it off, saying that she didn’t want it damaged (as it likely would have been), and when she placed it to the side her eyes had caught on the photo in the frame.

“Is that us?” she had asked, grabbing the frame with both hands.

“Oh… yes. Sorry, it was just a really nice photo and we don’t get to see each other that much, and-”

“Anthony,” she interrupted, warmth flooding her face at her next words. “I’ve got cut-outs from papers that wrote about you framed, so this is perfectly okay.”

She flushed again just thinking about it, and how softly he had smiled at her, and then how softly he had kissed her afterwards. She had been dreaming about him, about both of them, and what would have happened if they had stayed in the library at Fittes for a little longer (a lot of hushed moans and whispered words, and his hair completely dishevelled).

He was the one that she wanted, she was sure of it. There had been others, but none of them had featured in her thoughts about the future like Anthony Lockwood did.

~~~

Months later, when the seasons had gone from wonderfully warm and sunny (or as sunny as England could get) to cold and biting air, Anthony and Y/n were on a case together.

She had officially become a member of the agency not too long after they started dating, and while Lucy and George had originally been worried about the logistics of living space, they quickly realised that their new hire would be sharing a bed with their boss. Y/n had settled in quickly, getting used to how her friends lived within a few weeks, and the company had settled into a nice rhythm.

“A hotel? That’s a pretty big location, shouldn’t we have Lucy and George with us?” she asked as the taxi pulled up to their destination.

“It seems to be contained to one area, from reports, and since they had a couple of actual children give statements I’m going to trust them. Just the outdoor space around the back, apparently someone - a worker, it says here - died while manning a barbecue near the large pool.”

“How do you die manning a barbecue?”

“He fell face-first into the coals, this says,” Anthony replied, waving the paper report around. They clambered out the taxi, thanking and paying the driver, and once the kit had been collected out the boot and the driver was heading back down the road, they were alone.

“Well that’s an awful way to go. Type One? Or manifesting as something stronger?”

“Everything points to Type Two, but that’s nothing we can’t handle.”

~~~

He was right, as he so often was, but unfortunately the way in which they handled the Type Two ghost of the Barbecue Man meant they ended up jumping in a pool.

The Source had apparently been one of the tiles on the ledge, where the Barbecue Man had tripped after falling face first into the coals and cracked his skull open on the edge of the pool. A delightful scene, Y/n was sure, but they hadn’t figured out what the Source was until much later. While she had been scouring the barbecue for any sign of a trigger for the Visitor, Anthony had been drawing it closer to the pool. He seemed to be having a wonderful time taunting the poor dead man, and she couldn’t help but curse him out a little under her breath. “There’s nothing here!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Anthony, I’m pretty sure!” She was just about to tell him off for questioning her when he stepped back on his right foot and made the Visitor shriek an ungodly noise. “Wait! Draw it away from where you currently are!” She wasn’t sure if he’d actually been paying attention to her words since he didn’t give any indication that he had heard her, but a moment later he started moving away, the ghost following him, and she was able to dive for the tile. The second her hands came into contact with it she felt the pain and torment that Barbecue Man had been in in the brief minutes before his death, and at the same time that she managed to dislodge the tile (it had been knocked lose, most likely from his head after he hit it) and wrap it in a silver net, Anthony jumped in the pool. When he surfaced, hair plastered to his forehead and coat and suit completely soaked, he shouted at her to jump in too, leaving the Source on dry land. She just stared at him, but then a rush of cold air hit her and she didn’t think twice. Anthony was waving his arms around, making the water move about enough to fend off the second ghost that had appeared.

Unfortunately that meant that when Y/n attempted to come up for air, she got a face-full of water.

“Anthony!”

“Whoops. Sorry, darling. Here,” he said, offering out his hand. She took it gladly, still spluttering slightly, and they hauled themselves to the opposite side of the swimming pool. The water was freezing, but it was better than being ghost-touched, and besides, Anthony hadn’t let go of her hand yet.

~~~

Her hands were turning a little blue from the temperature of the pool.

It reminded her of when they had been redecorating one of the rooms in Portland Row about two months ago. George had complained that the room was lacking something, and all inhabitants (and Kipps, although Anthony didn’t pay him much attention) agreed that they needed to update it. They had painted it blue, not too dissimilar to the colour of Y/n’s fingers in the present day, and while it had been a wonderful day it had also been the day of her and Anthony’s first fight.

She couldn’t even remember what it had been about now, something stupid and fuelled by external factors such as job stress and fatigue, but Y/n had slept in Lucy’s bed that night.

It had been a while before either girl went to sleep, instead spending the hours attempting to stop Y/n’s crying and watching the old tapes of movies and television shows from before the Problem that Lucy had stashed away on her bookcase. When the morning had come, Lucy had offered to go downstairs and sort out breakfast for them both, so that Y/n wouldn’t have to run into Lockwood, but Y/n had shaken her head, saying that the two of them needed to figure something out.

The moment she had set foot in the kitchen, seeing the back of Anthony’s white dress shirt while he stood at the counter making teas (he had made one for her too, in her favourite mug), she had started tearing up again. He’d heard her sniffling and whipped his head around to see her hovering just inside the doorway, and immediately he had crumbled and rushed over to her, wrapping her in his arms and mumbling “I’m sorry” into her hair.

Now, back from their case with Barbecue Man, they were sat in the library, Anthony pushing a cup of freshly made tea into her hands in an attempt to get them back to their normal colour. “Feeling any better?” he asked, sitting down in the chair next to hers and picking up his magazine.

“Yeah, a bit. I can actually feel things again now, so that’s good.”

“Good. Well, I’ll keep you under surveillance for a while, just until I know you’re better.” She snorted, lifting the mug to her mouth.

“Thanks, Doc. Much appreciated.” His responding smile was enough to warm her up entirely.

~~~

A few hours later she woke up feeling disorientated, most likely because she never remembered falling asleep in the first place. Anthony was still in his chair on her left, but he had fallen asleep too, magazine splayed across his chest. Y/n stretched, yawned, and checked her watch, then started at the time. It was nearly half six in the morning, and they had come back from their case at around midnight. She wasn’t sure how long Anthony had stayed awake watching over her, but she knew that the moment he did finally regain consciousness she would be sending him straight up to bed for another few hours of sleep.

She heard somebody moving around in the kitchen and went to investigate, finding George in an oversized t-shirt and no trousers putting the kettle on to boil. “Morning,” she said, shuffling further into the room and stuffing some bread into the toaster.

“Ah, morning. Lockwood still asleep?”

“Yep. He’s in the library. Did you need him for something?”

“Oh, not really. I woke up at about four and was shockingly hungry, and when I came down he was sat reading his magazine. I was just wondering how long it would be before he was up again.” It made sense for her boyfriend to have stayed awake until he literally passed out from exhaustion, given how little Anthony normally slept anyway, and she frowned when she heard the stairs creak. A few moments later Anthony Lockwood himself appeared in the kitchen, bleary-eyed and smiling like there wasn’t a thing wrong with him only getting about two and a half hours of sleep. “I need the toilet,” George suddenly said. “If you could move out the doorway, Lockwood, that would be great. Thanks. The kettle should be boiled soon, if you two wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all, George,” Anthony replied, already taking mugs out of the cupboard. “Who’s toast is this? I think it’s burning.”

“Oh, shit, that’s mine! Fuck that’s hot!”

“Not hotter than me though, right?”

“Shut up, Anthony. My fingers are burning.” He reached over and took her hand in his, not caring for the piece of blackened toast that sat on her plate on the counter, and pressed a gentle kiss to each fingertip. She had flashbacks to the last time her hands had been near his mouth in a far less family-friendly setting, and tried to stop her knees from giving out.

“Better?”

“Um… I guess. Yeah.” If anything she was worse, since now her whole body was on fire at how sweet that one gesture was. He hadn’t even thought about it, since there was less than a second between her saying her hand hurt and him kissing the first fingertip, and that had her knees weakening all over again. She took a step towards him, threading her burning fingers with his and placing the other one on his chest to grab at his collar and pull him in for a kiss. He’d had a long night, she was sure of it, and the more-prominent-than-usual bags under his eyes were giving her a solid argument. The kiss was short and sweet, and when she pulled back he followed her for a moment before realising that it was over. He pouted, his eyes practically begging for her to kiss him again, and she let out a small laugh before obliging. That kiss was sweet too, but lasted a little longer, and the third one would have gone on for longer still had George not come back from the toilet and pretended to gag.

~~~

“Anthony?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about just… leaving for a bit? Not completely, I don’t think I could stay away from London forever, but just running off on holiday for a while. Getting a break from the ghost hunting and constant threat of death.”

“That’s… really? You want to ask that now? Darling, my mind is not in the right place for an actual conversation right now.” His hand trailed over her bare side and his eyes were looking at everything but her face, proving that he really wasn’t in the right mental place for a conversation like this, but she tried again anyway.

“Okay, but do you?” He sighed, reluctantly dragging his gaze up to meet hers.

“I suppose I’ve never really thought about it before.” He paused, shifting his weight to get comfortable. His legs knocked against hers and his hand hadn’t stopped tracing the skin of her body, and he had never taken off the ring he always wore. It had been a pleasant chill against her earlier when she thought she was going to combust from his touch. “I think because of the company I wouldn’t take a break. And I’d have a lot of guilt about leaving when there are people who might be in danger and I could have helped them.”

“But if you could drive away, would you? None of the guilt, or people getting hurt. Just… going off on your own for a bit.”

“I don’t know about alone. I think I would want you with me, darling.” He punctuated his statement by lowering his voice and pulling her closer by her hips, flush against his body, and although she was tired she couldn’t help but feel warm again.

“I’d be happy to drive away with you, Ant. Anywhere you go, I’m going too.”

“You mean it?” he breathed, eyes looking almost golden in the glow of his bedside lamp. He looked desperate for her answer, like he needed to know that she would truly always be with him because he couldn’t stand being left alone again.

“Of course I mean it, Ant. I want it all with you; everything. The complications and fights and of course all the good things too. The horrible Mondays where we get clients who don’t realise that what we do is a full-time job and we don’t really get weekends, the times we do get days off, and we can just be… together.” She ran her fingertips over his arms, marvelling at the hidden muscles she felt. Given how skinny and beanpole-like he appeared, the first time she had realised how toned he was she had been pleasantly surprised. It made sense, she supposed, since he was incredibly proficient with a rapier and had been from a young age, and being that good meant he had to at least be somewhat physically fit and capable (he was very physically capable in other ways, too, something else she had learned early on). She didn’t think she would ever get over how much she loved his arms, or his hands, or how they looked when he rolled his dress shirt sleeves up and folded his arms against his chest, and from the look he was giving her right now he apparently knew that she felt that way.

“You alright, darling?” Good lord, had his voice gone even lower? His eyes had gone from being a honey-golden to a dark syrupy brown, and if what she could feel against her lower half was any indication she could tell that his mind was back to being somewhere other than their conversation. She sounded out of breath when she spoke.

“I’m alright. Do me a favour?”

“Anything.”

“Wrap me in your arms?”

“Absolutely.”

She definitely shouldn’t have this much of an obsession with his arms, but the moment his arms tightened around her torso and her thigh, bringing her on top of him fully while he sat up with her in his lap and kissed her deeply, she couldn’t find it in her to care.

~~~

On their one-year anniversary, Y/n woke up early.

She didn’t want to, but the moon was shining brightly through the bedroom window, and there was a gap in the curtains that let the light through. It was landing on the books that had been stacked up on the bedside table, titles just about visible and all of them ones that she had read before. The moonlight was also resting on Anthony’s face while he slept, and he looked like he had in the taxi on that night when they had first met, ethereal and effortlessly gorgeous (but not quite so tired and weighed down by responsibility), and she found herself falling in love with him all over again.

It was probably all forms of creepy to just lie and watch him breathe while she tried to go back to sleep, but there was something oddly soothing about it: the rise and fall of his chest and the peaceful expression on his face. It was rare she got to see him so relaxed, the only other times were when he had a day off and was sat in the library with a cup of tea, Y/n sat nearby, or when they had spent time exploring each others’ bodies, hands roaming over skin and through hair while they made love.

The paper ring that he had made her just over a year ago, not long before they started officially dating, was sat on the bedside table next to the stack of books. He’d made her new ones at random points throughout their time together, but the original one that he’d folded from that piece of paper in the Fittes public library had remained in pride of place in her jewellery dish in their now shared bedroom at 35 Portland Row.

Looking at it now she was absolutely certain that he was the one that she wanted, taking him in marriage with a paper ring, putting their pictures in frames to decorate their home, and he was the one she wanted in all of her daydreams.

Anthony Lockwood was her future, and her future was looking wonderfully bright.

lockwood tag list: @anathemaloren, @anthonylockwoodandco111, @augustisintheair, @avdiobliss (hopefully you get this notification, ik it's been weird recently), @briar-rose23, @curseofhecate, @dangelnleif, @el-de-phi, @ell0ra-br3kk3r, @informedimagining (hopefully this works for you too my lovely), @karensirkobabes, @locknco, @mischivana, @mitskiswift99, @mrsklockwood, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @novelizt, @ran23sblog, @superpositvecloudshipper, @t2sh0, @taygrls, @tournesol77, @no-morning-glories, @whenselenefallsinlove, @wordsarelife, @zoom1374, @light-23, @ahead-fullofdreams

and then I'm tagging @neewtmas, @oblivious-idiot, @bobbys-not-that-small, @maraschinomerry, @uku-lelevillain, and @lewkwoodnco because I've been promising you this for a while and you just didn't know it :D

if there is anybody who wants to be added to my lockwood tag list, then please go here! I am aware that it has been a while, but from now on I will be checking this post every time I write a new fic to see who is there, so head on over to give a comment or a like and I'll pop you on for next time! <3

#lockwood and co #lockwood & co #anthony lockwood #anthony lockwood x reader #bella rose

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