the bones of our past - Lockwood x Lucy

First Blood

Lucy hated herself for it.

But at this moment she hated the green shimmer poking out beneath her backpack's material even more. Anger at herself fuelling her veins, she stomped over and finally lifted the latch of the skull's jar.

"What do you want?!" she screamed at it, not caring if she was too loud.

A cackle came back, a ghastly, mean one, and Lucy was about to shut the latch again when the skull finally spoke up. "No, wait, don't do that! I was laughing with you, not at you! I thought we could catch up, old pals as we are! Come on, talk to me, Lucy!"

"We're not pals," she said through gritted teeth, placing the jar on her bed and gathering the things she needed to get herself ready. "We don't need to catch up."

"Oh, that's too bad. I really wanted to congratulate you on driving Lockwood away like that! You're right, you don't need him! In fact, I think you should leave him to the ghosts the next chance you get!"

"I will certainly not do that!" Lucy halted in her efforts to violently brush her hair. "Why are you talking to me again, anyway? Calmed down from your temper tantrum at Bickerstaff's?"

"You mean when I nearly got my soul sucked into a torturous void and had to watch my master be destroyed?" he asked calmly. "No, I will never be over that!" he screamed. "But alas, your immense efforts in trying to get yourself killed last night convinced me that without me, you will die due to sheer dumbness sooner rather than later. Not a problem for me, personally, but you are the only person that can hear me. It gets rather lonely sometimes, you know."

"Oh, I'm about to make it a lot lonelier-"

"Jesus, woman, hold on for a second! I just said I would help you figure out whatever is wrong with this place. And something is wrong here, that much I can tell you."

"What, seriously? Goodness, sound the bells! Thank you so much for your input! I would've never thought of that," she called out with heavy sarcasm. "And you did not say you would help me. You said you had no problem seeing me dead."

"Semantics, Lucy, semantics. Your hair looks atrocious, by the way. No amount of brushing is going to salvage that ."

She tousled her hair a few times. "What do you mean? Looks fine to me."

"That's because you're not seeing the back. Really greasy. Not even Lockwood would want to touch you in that state, I'll tell you that- Hey, don't throw your brush at me! Where are you going? Don't leave me here!"

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Downstairs with George and Mary, Lockwood was a mess. Only internally, of course. No, externally, he was smiling brightly, making polite conversation with Mrs Draper while trying to find something on the so-called 'breakfast buffet' that seemed edible.

"I hope you've all slept well," Lockwood said as he joined Mary and George at their table.

George shot him a look. "Not better than you, I'd assume."

Lockwood thought he heard Mary giggle, but he decided not to stoop to their level. "Yes, I slept very well too, thank you. Even though the beds are rather uncomfortable."

"Are they, now?" George was barely succeeding in stifling his laugh now, and Mary wasn't doing much better as they shared pointed looks.

Lockwood's face fell, and annoyed, he let his butter knife drop back onto his plate. "I don't know what you two are implying, but nothing happened between Lucy and myself. I was only making sure that she was alright after having been ghost-touched."