Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lucy Carlyle did not expect the college fencing club to have a single other member. She also never would have guessed who that member was.

Anthony Lockwood was the kind of guy everyone in her year knew. He was the guy that a friend of a friend had gone to a party with and seen some crazy stuff. He was the guy that someone’s mom’s cousin once dated. He was as popular as one can get without being on the college football team, and of course he wasn’t on that team, because he was also the stereotypical exchange student. Even if he wasn’t a Brit, he wouldn’t play football. The only exercise Lucy had ever heard of him partaking in was the crazy orgy on the McMann dorm’s second floor. The one everyone had heard of and no one could remember.

Oh, and fencing, apparently.

She didn’t think they’d ever actually properly talked- she’d seen him across the quad, talking to some bouncy bubbly big-boobed girl on their way to the campus cafe, but she’d never talked to them. Nonetheless, she recognized him immediately.

Last year, when she and her roommate Norrie first got to school, he was the one checking the freshman into the dorms. Norrie was gay, but Lucy still remembered her whispering “Now, that’s a guy I would fuck…”. Lucy remembered blushing as Anthony’s hand brushed across hers as he handed paperwork over. Lucy remembered his smirk at that blush, and his crisp accent as he wished her luck for the school year. She remembered the crush on him that she’d harbored for a full year, just to be completely ignored.

After thinking all of these many things over, eyes on his lithe body as he practiced the same jabs over and over, she finally walked in, helmet under her arm and bag of kit sat on her opposite shoulder.

“Hey.” Cool, cool… play it cool. You’re a grown woman, or goddamn close to one. “Is it just us for the fencing club?”

Lockwood jumped as she spoke, so focused on his drills that he hadn’t heard her come in. He whips around so fast that his rapier almost takes off Lucy's head, and it’s only due to much practice that Lucy jumps away from a trip to the ER.

“Christ… you scared me.”

Oh, wonderful. His accent was just as posh and pretty as Lucy remembered. Maybe she could give up the sport, and go back to avoiding him.

“Lucy, you fence?”

Anthony relaxed as he spoke, a lazy grin spreading across his face.

“Anthony, you know my name?”

With the banter, Lucy began to relax as well. “Is anyone else coming?”

“Lockwood.” Anthony… sorry, Lockwood, was quick to interrupt. “Call me Lockwood. And of course I know your name, Lucy Carlyle.”

“Do you know the answer to my question, too? Or should I repeat it for you?”

Lots of people Lucy had met had called her rude. She, personally, found herself funny, but even in the moment she knew her quips were leaning towards mean. That didn’t stop her, though. It’s funny how bitter she could be over unrequited love, even when it was her own fault she’d never done anything about it.

“Sorry, it must have slipped my mind.” Lockwood rocked back on his heels. “You’re lucky my rapier didn’t slip along with it.”

“I could have dodged.” That wasn’t mean, was it? Just blunt. Direct. You would almost think I was the English one with how dry I want this conversation to be. Maybe I should ask about the weather, while I’m at it. “Is it just us for fencing club?”

“Us… so you’re joining? You sure you have what it takes?”

“Again, that’s not an answer. But I’m pretty sure a piece of half-cooked spaghetti could win against you, so there must be at least one other person here.”

“Just us, darling.” Fuck, did he have to say darling like that? “I was practicing all on my own last year, but I promise I could beat some limp pasta if I really put my mind to it.”

“You sure?”

Lucy was deeply glad she’d never had a conversation with Lockwood last year. She was over him, absolutely over him, and she felt like her face was beet red from mild banter. She turned away to pull on her gear and warm up, and after she’d done some warning drills, Lockwood turned to her and smiled genuinely.

“I’m not sure. It really has been a long time since I’ve sparred. Would you be up for it?”

“Sure.” Oh wait, shit, what did I just agree to?

The words slipped out before Lucy could tear her eyes from the sweat that had built up on his forehead during his earlier practice. She wasn’t sure what deodorant he used, but it kept out the stench and let out all the porn potential. Old spice, axe body spray, and every boy in her dorm building could learn a lesson.

The spar began as normal. Lucy tried to concentrate, but it was like Lockwood was trying harder to show off then to play. She got him in the first round almost immediately, the point of her rapier hitting him squarely in his chest as he posed mid block like some fashionista.

“I really think that the spaghetti could win.”

“No…” Lockwood dramatically flopped backwards to lean on the wall. The practice was in a small mirrored room, probably meant for ballet, but had repurposed, with a water fountain and fencing mats across the floor. “I’m just a bit rusty, is all.”

“It’s not like I played last year, either…”

“I was going to ask, why didn’t you? The club existed last year, I put posters up and everything.”

I had too big of a schoolgirl obsession to do anything in my freetime but jack off to your latest instagram selfie… “Sorry, Mr. Legally Old Enough To Drink, but some of us had a difficult freshman adjustment to college. Maybe it was different back in your day?”

Lockwood laughed.

“No, not at all. I forget that you aren’t my age sometimes.”

“Really?”

Lucy had every little detail about his life memorized.

“Yeah. Funny, now that I think about it- I checked you into the freshman dorms last year, and I remember that just fine.”

“You remember that, too?”

“Yeah. It’s not everyday a girl announces to the entire line of new students that she’d shag me.”

“I remember it as a whisper, but whatever helps your ego works.”

“Your face definitely wasn’t whispering with how red it got the second I read your name off the list.”

“Is that meant to be a pickup line?”

Lockwood had the good humor to sigh and furrow his eyebrows.

“Yeah. That one was pretty shit.”

“Up for another round? You win, and I won’t make fun of you for all the embarrassing crap I’ve had to put up with.”

“Another round?” Lockwood smirked. It was clear that the dirty joke was playing out in his head, and for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t even intentional this time. “Anytime.”

They went through the paces again. En guarde, allez, FIGHT… same thing. Lockwood at least had a few good parrys, but not many. Not enough for Lucy to take a single step backwards as she forced him across the mat.

“Thought you said you were just a little rusty?”

Lockwood huffed, out of breath and out of practice. He was almost at the end of the mat, and his back was practically against the mirrored wall of the narrow room.

“It’s hard to focus when a pretty girl is focusing all her attention on me…”

Lockwood tripped as he reached the end of the mat, and Lucy rushed forward, dropping her rapier, trying to catch him before he hit the glass. She didn’t succeed- just pinned him to the wall, partially collapsed onto him. She blushed, deeply, at the situation she was in. It felt like the pose you only see in clickbait spicy advertisements. That’s when she felt it.

At about her lower hip, a pressure was pushing into her skin. At first she thought it was the hilt of Lockwood’s rapier, but then her mind flashed to how they had each dropped their weapons as they fell. That only left one real possibility for what that sensation could be.

“Seems like focusing isn’t the only thing I’m making hard right now…”

Chapter Text

“Seems like focusing isn’t the only thing I’m making hard right now…”

What the hell was that? What was he meant to do with that? Lockwood had heard what she said, and felt her hand move closer to his fully erect bitch-ass snitch of a dick, and bolted.

Just a “Sorry, I should go!” before he dashed out of the room, grabbing his rapier, and his kitbag, and his jumper off the floor and fully sprinting all the way to his dorm.

He had heard laughter behind him, and a sassy “Same time next week, then?”, but he hadn’t responded.

Fuck.

The one girl he actually liked, the freshman who he’d had an eye for since the second they met, and he ran away the second she showed any interest. They’d never even had a full scene in whatever angsty romance novel this was before he supremely fucked up any chances they had together. Now, whenever he jacked off, he’d be thinking of her sweaty from fencing and giving him some shitty line out of a Netflix teen dramedy.

Lockwood was an idiot, and now he’d lost his chance with Lucy Carlyle in the same day as he lost 2 matches of the only sport he’d ever been good at.

That wasn’t fully his fault, though. He could firmly blame getting pushed against a walk on the person who pushed him against a wall, and when it came to sparring, Lucy was GOOD.

Even without a year of practice, Lucy had him struggling to keep up, and he prided himself on his fencing. Did she have to be so fucking perfect?

By the time Lockwood’s closest friend George got back to the dorm that they shared with the other English exchange student, some class-A prick in his final year named Quill Kipps, Lockwood had dragged himself out of his curled up ball on his bed in order to sit hunched over in his desk chair.

Immediately upon entering the room, whatever joke George was about to make stopped up in the other boys throat as he practically ran to Lockwood.

“Christ, Lockwood, what’ve you done this time?”

Lockwood was relatively close to crying, but that wouldn’t be very manly of him. “What did I do?”, he wailed dramatically. “What did Lucy do!”

George sat down next to him, rolling over in his desk chair, and awkwardly patted Lockwood on the back. “What did Lucy do?”

“She showed up at fencing practice! And she kept flirting with me, or maybe it was taunting, but I think it was flirting because she pushed me against a wall, and then she made a joke about me being hard, and I was hard, and I ran away, and…”

“And you’re hyperventilating? Alone in our dorm?”

“… Yeah.”

“And you’ve ruined your shot with the “love of your life”, as you like to call her whenever you go on a tirade about the way she walks in the mess hall?”

“… Yeah.”

“Lockwood, you do realize that she was flirting with you in the first place? Is that not a good sign?”

“I guess it is, but I-”

“Ran away like a pussy? Yes, you did, but maybe you have still a chance with the specific pussy you’re after. Did she say anything when you left?”

“She laughed-“”

“-Never a good sign-“”

“- And I think she said something like “See ya next week?” or “Same time next week?” or “What a loser!” but I’m not really sure.”

George smiled at that. It was worrying.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because she’s clearly not that offended if she’s able to make a joke at you? I’d consider that a date.”

Lockwood practically squealed at that.

“YOU WOULD?”

“That’s the exact thing Flo would say if I did that to her, and I’m pretty sure Flo and I are still together.”

They sat there for a minute, in the comfortable silence that only comes when two people have known each other for so long that they don’t feel the need to talk.

“I was planning to ask, before I saw you spiraling, if you wanted to try the food at the new chippy just off campus.”

“An American chippy?” Lockwood scoffed. “That sounds like shit.”

“Exactly. It’ll be fun.”

“Whatever you say, George.” Lockwood mussed up the other boy's hair, and George wrinkled his nose to push his glasses back into place. “Sounds like a date.”

-/-/-

When they got to the place George had picked out, Lockwood’s expectations were instantly met. Just it existing was enough for him to know he and George would have to stop at Taco Bell to get something edible after picking over whatever crap the idiots running the place were calling food.

“George? The sign says ‘Fried Chicken’, not ‘Fish and Chips’, or anything else of that sort.”

The front of the store did, in fact, look like a rip-off KFC. If Lockwood had seen it alone, he would have walked away, even as a broke college student who frequently got too drunk and wandered the streets at 2am searching for food.

“It’s not my fault the storefront doesn’t say the same thing as their page on Google Maps does,” George replied, even the restaurant critic on that crappy GPS site.

As they walked in, Lockwood had the good sense to stop making fun of the establishment, and he even felt better about going once he saw the menu. He might despise those god awful mushy peas that northerners seemed to worship, but they at least brought back a taste of home. A bad taste, but a nostalgic one, reminiscent of the time he barfed green-tinted goop into the back of his sister’s car after trying the mushy peas for the first time.

That bittersweet feeling lasted only as long as it took him to glance at the face of the cashier, whose pasted customer-service-smile couldn’t hide her look of shock.

“Isn’t that Lucy?” George asked him, frowning slightly with a tilt of his head.

Holy fuck. It was Lucy.

“George, I swear to the heavens above, this is the last time I trust you and your faulty restaurant research.” Something was bubbling up in Lockwood’s chest as he whisper-hissed the words to his friend.

Chapter Text

Lucy wouldn’t say that she loved her job, but it wasn’t the worst job that she’d ever worked. That award definitely went to her mother’s laundromat, the hellscape of a store she had finally escaped by moving across the country on financial aid to attend college here.

That being said, the hole-in-the-wall restaurant was far from Michelin star quality. The sign advertised fried chicken, but all they sold were greasy fish and chips, onion rings, and dubious salads. She, personally, never eat there. On top of all that, her coworkers were all no-shows. Her longtime friend Norrie worked in the kitchen, she held down the cashier, they collaborated on clean up, and all of the tips went to some asshole named Quill who hadn’t shown up for a single shift that Lucy had seen.

It was generally the kind of rip-off-UK cuisine that repels actual English customers, and maybe that’s why Lucy was so shocked to see Anthony Lockwood waltz into the place with a disdainful sneer and his commonly spotted best friend by his side. The fact that she had fully planned to avoid the man definitely added to her confusion, as well.

Still, all the events of the afternoon aside, she had a job to do. Maybe her shitty attempts at flirting- the ones that had literally sent him running for the door- would give her a good tip. That, or they would make the boy leave, and let her and Norrie enjoy the silence of the empty shop.

She pasted on her best polite grin as Lockwood continued to walk up to the register. Maybe, if she pretended not to recognize him, he would do the same.

“Hello! What can I get you two today?”

Perfect. The inflection in her voice showed mild recognition, but any trace of soul was gone. She was the spitting image of a minimum wage worker.

“Lucy?”

Such a spitting image that it seemed to have confused the tall boy in front of her. It was hard to tell if he was staring at her boobs, which pressed uncomfortably against the too-small uniform, or her name tag, which had been given to her by a past worker and read “Katherine”, not “Lucy”.

“Lockwood?”

She feigned recognition. She was like a cat, landing on her feet, playing it cool, pretending not to recognize him… was that bitchy, or alluring? She had been going for alluring, but it’s hard to be sexy when wearing a bright orange apron with embroidered blue fish.

“I thought you said that I’d see you next week,” Lockwood quipped, a mock bemused look on his face. “Not this evening.”

Lucy smiled a genuine smile at that. Maybe Lockwood secretly had intense social anxiety, and didn’t just absolutely hate her! “It’s funny, I had just assumed you wouldn’t want to taste the disgusting fish and chips on this side of the pond.”

“I don’t, particularly, but my friend here does.” Lockwood pushed George forward, and the shorter boy stumbled towards the counter. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting George Karim?”

“I have not, but I’ve heard good things.”

George and Lockwood shared a bemused look at that, and Lucy quickly spoke again. “My friend Norrie- Norrie White- was in a lecture with you last year? You and her spent some nights on this project for the world mythology course, as well.”

George smiled at that. “I remember Norrie! She knew even more about the family dynamics and shifting power bases between the different Nile kingdoms than I did-”

Lockwood frowned as George began to ramble, and interrupted him. “Sorry, Luce, he can be a bit boring.”

“Don’t worry about it! Me and Norrie room together, so I get these kinds of rants all the time.” She grinned conspiratorially. “If I’m being honest, I know too much about these subjects myself, at this point. She works in the kitchen here, actually.”

There was a pause in the conversation as Lockwood’s eyes turned to the menu.

“Take your time figuring out what to order.”

Lockwood turned his face back down at her, and smirked. “Yeah. I have a lot to figure out.”

What. the fuck. did that mean? Was that supposed to read as flirty?

“Oh,” She responded politely. “Maybe I can talk it through with you. What seems to be the matter?”

Wow. Lucy didn’t realize she’d be THIS bad at flirting. To be fair, it had been 3 years since she’d dated anyone. The shitty chippy also wasn’t exactly a sensual environment, but for christ’s sake! She sounded like a couples therapist, not a girl very interested in coupling up and having aggressive intercourse next to the deep frier after closing shop.

George, still standing next to Lockwood, was looking between the two of them with concern on his face. “I’ll leave you two to it, then.”

For a second, Lucy was glad he would stop third-wheeling. Then, a concern grew that she’d spoken those last dirty thoughts out loud. By the time she had squashed those down, a fear of being alone with Lockwood had risen. Generally, with all of those emotions, it made sense way she had made eye contact with Lockwood for about a minute. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Lockwood couldn’t read her mind, and the boy was nervously biting his lip in front of her.

“Listen, I…”

Lucy began speaking only to immediately be cut off by Lockwood, and again they lapsed into silence. “Sorry,” she continued, “You go.”

“No, ladies first.”

“I insist, Anthony.”

The discomfort that flitted across Lockwood’s face when she used his full name thrilled Lucy, just a little bit. She’d definitely remember that, when she had manifested enough social skills to finally hook up with him.

“Fine. I’m sorry for running off earlier, I…” For a boy known for his poker face, he didn’t seem to have one as he scrambled for an excuse. “I had somewhere to be.”

“I’m sure you did.” Forgive Lucy for not believing that she simply hadn’t scared him off. “I’m sorry, too. I know I come off a little strong sometimes, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.”

At least the boy knew when to stop lying. “Yeah, okay, you did, but it was my fault.”

Well, this conversation was so much fun. Lucy could spend all night talking around Lockwood’s dick. She could spend all night with her mouth around it, too, but that was pretty unlikely.

“No, I put you in that position- I get it. No hard feelings.” Lucy snorted. “I don’t suddenly think you’re in love with me because you popped a hard-on.”

Except she kinda hoped he was in love with her. Except she would love to be in that exact position again. Oh, fuck. She was screwed, and not in the way she wanted to be.

Chapter Text

“No, I put you in that position- I get it. No hard feelings.”

Yeah, Lucy certainly HAD put him in a position. He had liked it a little too much, too, and now here they were.

“I don’t suddenly think you’re in love with me because you popped a hard-on.”

“If I was in love with you, Lucy, it wouldn’t be sudden.” Oh, shit, so he was doing this. It was confession time. Thanks, mouth, great job telling brain what you were planning to do there.

“Sorry, what?”

Well, he had started. Might as well word-vomit now that he had started letter-gagging. “Lucy, I’ve liked you at least a little bit since that first day I checked you in. And since then, there have been all these little moments- I’ll see you in the hallways, and you’ll tip your head back to laugh, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ll see until my next glimpse of you.”

Lockwood paused to make sure Lucy wasn’t about to call the police, and noticed the blush that had settled on her cheeks.

“Every girl I’ve dated has some little thing that reminds me of you. The hair, usually- I love your hair- but, genuinely, I’ve been trying to find a body double of you, because I’m too scared to even get close to you.” Oh, so… that wasn’t sexy to say out loud. That was gross and weird. Good going. “Anyways, I’m not about to get on one knee or anything, but Lucy, I really like you.”

Lucy was fidgeting with her hair, and the way she twisted it around her finger- god, something that small shouldn’t do so many things to Lockwood’s stomach. Or, to, y’know, what was below his stomach.

“Lockwood, I-”

“I’m sorry, I sound like such a creep-”

Self-consciously, Lockwood began running a finger through his hair.

“Lockwood-”

“Luce-”

“Lockwood, shut up.”

The command echoed around the deserted shop for only a second before Lucy leaned across the counter, pulling Lockwood forward by the front of his shirt in one smooth motion. Their teeth clipped each other uncomfortably as they kissed, and one of Lucy’s canines cut into Lockwood’s tongue. He tasted the blood, and, curiouser and curiouser. He never thought he’d be into that, but according to a certain friend hiding in his pants, he was.

“Shit, Lockwood, are you ok?” Lucy pulled back the second the touch of iron from his tiny wound hit her taste buds . “That was a terrible first kiss, I’m so sorry. Are you-”

“I’m fine, Luce. That was perf-”

“That was not perfect, don’t lie to me.”

From the seat he had taken by the front of the restaurant, George stood up. “It was perfect for me, Locky. You finally did it! Was it everything you dreamed and more?”

“George, I swear to god, if you don’t leave right now, you won’t like what happens.”

“I’m going, I’m going…”

Lucy laughed at the exchange. “Lockwood, maybe you should go with him.”

Oh. Maybe he had let his dick run ahead of his head. The head that was on his neck. Lockwood’s face fell, and as Lucy saw it, she quickly started to speak again.

“No, I- Lockwood, I like you too! But I’m at work right now, and while I would love to dramatically kiss you again, can we wait for my shift to end? Maybe go on an actual date?”

“Oh,” Lockwood said dumbly. This whole evening had been a bit more of a whirlwind than he could take. “Yeah, that would be nice. I’m sorry, I forgot you were at work.”

That flirty smirk from the fencing room had finally spread over Lucy's face fully. “I forgot, too. Here,” She pulled out a pen and quickly scribbled something onto a napkin, shoving it into his hand. “Text me?”

“Yeah.”

They stayed where they were for a second more before Lockwood managed to break away from the magnetic pull holding him to Lucy.

“Yeah, I will. Have a good night, Lucy.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Lockwood walked back to the dorm alone. George had genuinely left the restaurant after saying he would- a huge surprise!- and had managed to hightail it to their rooms fast enough to snag the shower before Lockwood even had the chance.

Lockwood had been hard since the kiss. The panic attack earlier hard slowed his roll a little bit, but if he was being honest, his mind had been cooking up scenarios since fencing practice. Since Lucy had pressed him against that wall, looked him in the eyes, and just, well, held him there. Let him press his length against her leg for an inappropriately long amount of time.

And now they had kissed! Fuck, everything about her… her soft voice seemed to boom when it gave orders. ‘Lockwood, shut up’- since when had those three words been enough to make him want to go commando, pulling off his pants and squeezing until the thought of them left his mind? Since a certain Lucy Carlyle had said them, he supposed. Since they became the precursor to the only kiss in his life that mattered enough to remember.

The reasonable thing to want to do after that situation was to talk it out with a friend, he supposed, but he had other reasons for nearly jumping for joy the second George walked back into the room, leaving the shower empty.

“Sorry.” The word tore out roughly from his throat. He shoved past George, shutting the bathroom door and locking it. The second that was done, the shower was running, and he was practically tearing his own clothes off his body.

The water was cold against his bare skin, but he deserved to be a little uncomfortable. Lockwood wasn’t that religious, but he was certain the amount of precum leaking from his tip after thought alone would be considered sinful. The cold water was punishment for that.

It was slowly that he ran his thumb along the length of his dick. He always started out slow- his ever revolving door of hookups was probably worse than just jacking off, but he relied on them anyway. Left to his own devices, he was liable to let himself stay at half-mast for weeks at a time. Instead of being his own release, he would relish the feeling that he was pent-up enough to cum from the smallest touch.

Eventually he would always give in, but it had become a game to him. How long could he last? He could recover quickly, too- if he held off for a week, he could gain 7 nights of orgasms with his hands alone pretty quickly. Oh, the joys of youth.

In his dreams, Lucy would be into this, too. Just thinking her name had him speeding up his hand subconsciously, imagining her rubbing at the tiny folds of his tip until he was tongue-tied and gasping- and then stopping, moving to pinch at his nipples and give him a soft kiss.

The thought of that alone had a sad stream of white blasting the shower wall, and THAT had Lockwood gaining some kind of sanity back. He sighed, his breathing steadying. Yep. Sinful, for sure.