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i.
They’ve just finished a job in some dingy unnamed country town outside of some dingy unnamed Manchester suburb. They are being housed at the only inn for fifty miles, which, as far as Quill can tell, is internally consistent, since he can’t imagine more than 8 people simultaneously going to visit the town, even if it were free of the haunting they’ve been tasked to expel.
They’ve stayed in shitty quarters before (hell, they’ve stayed in haunted houses before) but the particular flaw in this one is that the limited space combined with renovations mean there only are two rooms available at present, and only one with two beds. Before Quill can blink, Lockwood has smoothly declared that he and Lucy will take the room with two twin beds, while, he adds with his signature winning smile, “Kipps and George can spread out on the queen.” (Holly and her roommate are visiting an aunt in Spain, which is maybe part of the reason that Lockwood has asked Kipps along.)
Protests erupt – George exclaiming that he and Kipps already had to share at Aickmere Castle last year, Kipps, more to the point, telling Lockwood to kiss his ass. But Anthony John Lockwood is nothing if not a leader, and somehow his unflappable confidence (or egotism, depending on who you ask) is enough to get what he wants nine times out of ten, and unfortunately this isn’t in the 10% of exceptions. (Lucy is, of course, no help, immediately jumping at the idea of sharing a room with Lockwood, but turning a peculiar beet color and loudly declaring the idea ridiculous when Kipps suggests she and Lockwood share the queen.)
So, well after midnight, when they traipse back to the inn, jittery and on edge and full of adrenaline at the latest near-death near death experience, Quill is bumping elbows at a cramped bathroom sink with George Karim as they brush their teeth. It must be hard to scowl around a toothbrush, but George manages. For his part, Quill delivers a stunningly disdainful dental flossing.
Somberly, as if men facing a firing squad, they change into pajamas. Quill discovers with horror that he’s forgotten a sleep shirt, and, short of wearing his ectoplasm-ridden turtleneck to bed, will have to settle for just pajama pants. He pales at George’s get-up.
“Forgot your pants, Karim?” he says thickly, looking everywhere except for George’s knobbly knees. “Guess I should be glad you remembered underwear today.”
George slams his glasses onto the bedside table with a little more force than necessary. “Wish you’d brought a shirt – the streetlight reflecting off your stomach is blinding. And, no, I didn’t forget pants, I just didn’t assume I’d have to share a bed with the world’s champion toenail grower.”
The bed is even worse than the bathroom – purportedly a queen, Quill doubts it quite reaches a full, and the mattress is ancient enough that there is a dent in the middle it’s impossible to avoid rolling into. They lay in silence, facing away from each other, but after the fifth kick to the calf, Quill snaps and flips over.
“Would you stop fucking fidgeting?”
“Oh excuuuuuse me, I’m just trying to get comfortable on my six inches of mattress –”
“Like you know what six inches is.” Quill flips back to his left side, pulling the blanket toward himself.
“What the fuck does that mean – give me back the blanket.” George yanks the blanket toward himself.
“You know what it means.” Kipps yanks it back.
“Means you don’t think I need pants.” Yank.
Quill feels his face grow hot. “Don’t be such a pervert, Karim.” Yank.
“I’m not the one ogling Lockwood’s skinny jeans.” The bed behind Quill shifts with George rolling over, trying valiantly to get comfortable on a mattress lumpier than a gravel driveway. Yank.
“I don’t ogle anyone and that’s totally irrelevant.” Yank.
“Which is it, don’t or irrelevant?” Yank.
“You’re just proving how immature you are.” Yank.
“Sounds like you’re not not ogling Lockwood’s –” Yank.
With a sound resembling nothing so much as a snarl, Quill turns to face George. “Shut up. I’m not ogling Tony.” Yank.
“Liar, liar, pants on –”
But before George can reveal anything about Quill’s pajama pants (dark green, festooned with cartoon hedgehogs), or even take his turn to pull the blanket back, Quill has pushed his mouth against George’s, a desperate and tired and haunted attempt to get him to just shut the hell up. For a moment, he doesn’t realize what he’s done, then his brain kicks into gear and he jolts, about to pull away, but now George is pushing forward, just as taunting and ornery as in their blanket tug-of-war. Quill is suddenly aware, horribly aware, of his bare chest against George’s ratty t-shirt, of George’s thigh bumping between his own, George’s hand pressed, through wadded-up blanket, against his hip.
His body, traitorous, moves forward – he can’t quite shake the vicious need for a warm body after a night (a lifetime) of hunting ghosts, and so, against his better judgment, Quill Kipps keeps kissing George Karim in England’s most uncomfortable bed, in a shabby inn past Manchester, in the dim light of the ghost lamp on the street.
George lets out an impatient huff and Quill’s lips part, his hand coming up to put a thumb to George’s jaw. The way their tongues meet is clumsy, but Quill feels a tingle run through him just the same. He’s furious with himself at how easily he is laid low, unable to conjure up any memories about George’s untidiness and rudeness and the time he left a dangerously cursed butter knife in Quill’s jacket pocket, instead only able to focus on his big, brown eyes and earnest mouth and the way he stutters against Quill when their hips move against each other.
They continue to kiss, sloppy, breath mingling, pressed together with a proximity unimaginable mere moments ago. The thin layers of cloth separating them seem suddenly to be providing nothing at all, each rise and dip of George’s body evident against Quill’s. Blood rushes to Quill’s ears as he feels George’s cock half-hard against his thigh through the soft cotton of George’s boxers and Quill’s pajama pants. A grunt escapes Quill, and he reaches to twine his fingers through George’s thick, black hair.
George’s hand lets go of the blanket and runs down Quill’s side, skating over his hip and tracing along the waist of his pants, coming to rest in the soft patch of hair underneath his bellybutton. His fingers curl delicately around the elastic of Quill’s pajama pants, and the soft touch, the surge of sensation to his groin, the anticipation is too much. With a jerk, Quill pulls away, breathing irregular.
For a moment, they stare at each other through the dark, neither willing to speak, then George finally says, “Pants on fire,” and rolls to put his back to Quill, taking the blanket with him.
Quill numbly turns away, too, reeling so that he doesn’t even try to pull the blanket back. He resists the urge to go to the bathroom and finish, knowing it would be obvious what he was doing. Exposed to the night and almost too afraid to move, Quill screws his eyes shut and lays perfectly still until distant sleep reluctantly claims him.
ii.
The haunting itself isn’t anything so remarkable – George is able to immediately identify the suspects as one Vivienne Austerlitz, some Austrian countess caught in a murder-suicide with her lover, Earl Harold Fitzwilliam Eichenwood, the other likely culprit.
“A typical story. Harold’s parents didn’t approve of this knock-off Hapsburg, they swore to be together forever, you get the gist,” George tells them in the cab on the way over. “Most dangerous part is that there’s maybe two ghosts, and who knows how they get along after being trapped together in a rotting mansion for 150 years?”
Holly pulls a face. “Seems a bit dramatic. Couldn’t they have eloped or something?”
“Ah, Holly,” Lockwood smiles. He’s lounging in a way that shouldn’t be possible while wearing a seatbelt. “Once again showing you’re the most normal among us.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
“Technically,” Kipps butts in, “I can’t even see ghosts, which makes me the most normal.”
George snorts. “Yeah, but technically you’re also an adult hanging out with a bunch of teens and your left ear is lots lower than your right ear.”
The conversation for the rest of the ride devolves into a thorough combing of everyone’s quirks, with Kipps finding himself the main target. (Did he really wear that many turtlenecks? And his leather jacket was cool, thank you very much.) He heroically endeavors to swing it around to target Lucy (“she has more leather jackets than I do!”), Lockwood (“chicken legs, with painted-on pants”), and George in turn (“that amount of crack should come with a ‘mind the gap’ sign”), which was somewhat successful, until he says something about Holly’s habit of tsking at individual crumbs, when he turns into the punching bag again.
Still, it passes the time for the rest of the trip to Eichenwood Manor, and Quill finds he’s still in relatively good spirits when they arrive.
Set up is standard-issue, complete with a hand-wringing host clearly torn between micromanaging and getting as far away from the premises as possible while the sun is still up. Lockwood and Holly reassure him there is nothing to worry about, while Lucy sets about attuning to the building and Quill and George start mapping temperature readings. With some smugness, Quill is pleased to note even George couldn’t complain about his methodology – despite Fittes’ overarching problems, their agent training was thorough, and he was the best of the best.
They settle back in the kitchen after finishing, where Lucy puts the kettle on and Holly produces a tin of whole-wheat zucchini muffins, which turn out to be surprisingly tolerable (“the secret ingredient is applesauce!”). Lucy doodles, Lockwood pulls out a tabloid and occasionally reports on some break-up or category five fashion moment, Holly folds and refolds and arranges and rearranges all their equipment until it’s just so, packing up a satchel’s worth of equipment small enough to fit in a wallet, it seems. Quill toys with his goggles for a while, adjusting the settings, before finally rising to go through his rapier forms. He catches George rolling his eyes over the pages of an X-Men comic, but he doesn’t seem to look away either, bespectacled dark eyes following his movements under an unreadably crinkled brow, which puts a funny squeeze in Quill’s throat. He finally gets antsy enough to announce, apropos of nothing, “Well, I’ll go do the first rounds.”
Lockwood waves him off and Holly offers him an extra salt vial before he gamely sets off to the rest of the house, goggles strapped over his face. The house is lovely in design, expansive and open and ornate, but in serious disrepair, with peeling wallpaper, cobwebbed chandeliers, and scuffed flooring. Apparently the previous owner had been a descendant of a cousin of Harold’s, who, in his advanced age and overabundance of manses, had neglected to keep the place in shape. Now, with only the faintest memories of sunshine slinking through the cracked windows, the house radiates a melancholy neglect more than any malevolent energy.
The cellar is no cooler than before, and the foyer, dining room, and great hall have no noticeable change. However, when Quill steps into the study, he finds the temperature just a notch brisker. He smoothly unsheathes his rapier and flicks his flashlight to the corners of the room. After a moment of waiting, he walks the perimeter of the room, and, though the most startling thing is stepping in a heap of mouse droppings, he can begins to feel a creeping sense of dread. Hair standing up on his arms, Quill idly peruses the bookshelves for a moment before going to leave. He’s almost to the door when a chittering behind him causes him to jump and whirl around. It’s just a mouse running over the desk.
He closes his eyes and exhales slowly, steadying himself. Just a mouse. Calmed, he opens his eyes to see a young man standing in the middle of the room.
He’s handsome, sporting a strong jaw and thick, light hair. His shirt, not all the way buttoned, and breeches date him as historical, and Quill dimly recognizes his picture from the portfolio George put together for them, but more than anything he is overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness, cutting him to the core. “Harold,” Quill hears himself whisper, more than he willingly says aloud.
The man, Harold, smiles and extends his hand. “Stay with me.” His eyes shine. “Stay with me.”
Quill raises his own hand. “I… can’t.”
Harold frowns and examines him. His hair flickers to brown and then he smiles again. “Stay with me.” His smile is light, the only light in the dark room, the only warmth in the cold.
“I can’t.” Quill’s voice is feeble. “They’re waiting for me.” It is a pitiful excuse.
Harold takes a step forward. His eyes brighten behind glasses (were those there before?). “Stay with me,” he implores. The loneliness is suffocating, the connection between them the only lifeline.
Quill is dimly aware of someone shouting his name, but it is very far away. “Maybe just a moment…” He steps forward.
Harold smiles. His hair is black. “Stay with me.”
Quill cannot understand why he shouldn’t stay with this charming man. “I’ll stay,” he agrees and takes another step forward, reaching out to the handsome man, when something crashes into him. It knocks the wind out of him and pushes him to the doorframe so his head hits the wood. Stars explode behind his eyes, and through them he can see Harold frown.
“No, I’ll stay --” he continues, panicked, when he’s cut off, interrupted by George Karim pressing his mouth to his.
Any warmth the ghost had was a pale imitation of the live, breathing boy pushed against him, ungainly and focused and clutching at the front of his jacket. The kiss is somehow furious, pleading, and Quill falls into it, wrapping his arms around George, as much using him as an anchor as kissing him back.
A scream cuts through the room behind them and they break the kiss to see Harold rising in the air. His face blinks rapidly between his own and a grinning skull. “STAY WITH ME,” he howls and dives toward them. Quill scrambles at his belt for salt and George tries to get his rapier up, but before the ghost gets close, Holly barrels past them, rapier painting complex warding patterns in the air. The ghost screeches and lurches back, back, back to the desk, where he reaches into the drawer and vanishes.
Quill breathes for the first time in what feels like minutes. He’s still stuck between the doorjamb and George, whom he should push away, but presents a reassuring solidness that he can’t bring himself to part with yet. For his part, George’s hand, the one not holding his rapier, is still holding onto Quill’s jacket.
Holly eyes them and Quill feels the weight of her consideration. Finally, she simply says, “We should go notify the others,” and brushes past them to head back to the kitchen.
Quill looks at George, ignoring the sudden, fleeting, outlandish urge to kiss him again. “Thanks.”
George pulls back and adjusts his glasses. “Don’t mention it.”
“I won’t.”
---
With the location of the ghost revealed, it’s easy work to find the Source – a marriage certificate for Harold and Vivienne, previously unknown to either family. They lock it in a silver box and Lockwood cheerily tells the owner the next morning that the Visitor is gone and he might want to check with an inheritance lawyer about ownership of the estate, and then they’re on their way back to Portland Row. George avoids Quill’s eyes the whole ride home.
iii.
It’s been a long time – a long time – since Quill has been on a date, and he finds that he’s only so-so at it. The Rotwell secretary he’s with is an old work acquaintance of Holly’s, and it’s nice to talk to someone his own age, someone handsome who isn’t wrapped up in the chaos that Lockwood & Co seems to summon at will. All the same, he can’t help but feel clunky and awkward, and for as many successful conversations he starts, he’s tried as many that falter, leaving them to nurse their drinks in momentary silence at the bar before both jumping in with some new topic, hopefully one that will stick, then tripping over a conga line of “oh, no, you go”s on the way there. Will is much better at conversing than Quill is, which is something of a relief and something of an embarrassment.
Finally, after some socially agreed-upon time, Will stands and smiles. “This has been nice,” he says with about as much enthusiasm as one might have when remarking on a brick wall. “Call you later.” Quill moves in for a handshake right as his date tries to give him a goodbye hug, and they laugh a little too jovially about it, and then Will is gone.
Quill, to his credit, waits until the door shuts behind him before groaning and turning to the bartender. “Later meaning never.” The bartender gives him a sympathetic look. “Yeah, I’ll take another.”
Thusly, Quill Kipps is standing outside a pub around midnight, somewhat sauced and completely failing to flag down a nightcab. After half an hour of waiting, he finally gives up. Portland Row isn’t far from here, and he has a key – he can sleep it off on the couch and leave in the morning before anyone even notices he was there.
And so it happens that Quill Kipps is washing his face in the Portland Row bathroom at 1am when the door bangs open behind him, and a bleary, pajama-clad George Karim lurches in brandishing a knife at him.
“What the hell, Karim?” Quill sputters, dripping water onto the floor as he whirls about.
George is just as surprised. “What the hell to you, Kipps! Fuck are you doing here?”
Quill snatches the hand towel off the bar to mop at his face. “Couldn’t catch a cab home after my date and I didn’t fancy sleeping on the street. What’s the deal, you just stab anyone who uses the bathroom after hours?”
“Holly’s home and Lucy and Lockwood are on a job, said they wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning, so I wasn’t exactly expecting company.”
Quill snorts. “So I guess they’re putting kissing tenderly under the moonlight on company hours now?” He rummages in a drawer. “Are there any spare toothbrushes?”
“Thought you were a burglar.” George doesn’t put down his knife. “In the left cabinet on the bottom, maybe.” He eyes Quill’s pistachio-colored button-up and the blazer slung over the towel rod and waits a beat until Quill has ripped open a new toothbrush and started brushing. “So your date tanked?”
Quill whirls around for the second time in as many minutes and says defensively around a mouthful of foam, “Says who?”
“Well, I’d think you would be at his place and not breaking and entering if you had any charm to you.” George leans against the door and shrugs with his knife.
Quill spits into the sink. “Put that thing down before you take your eye out. And I’ll have you know Will and I had a lovely time, we just weren’t a great fit.”
George laughs. “It’s not a job interview, Kipps. You know, there’s more to life than work.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Karim. You only sleep because the library isn’t open 24 hours.” Quill rinses, gargles, and spits. “You’d know if you dated someone besides your own hand.”
“I like my hand plenty, thanks.” George finally obligingly drops the knife in the laundry basket and casually crosses his arms. “It was our eighth anniversary last week.”
“Eighth? Christ, were you jacking it in utero?” Quill sweeps his hair this way and that, the lens of too many beers lending his reflection a dramatic flair. “Sorry I have loftier ambitions than smooching newspaper archives.”
“At least I don’t risk breaking a hip during alone time.” George gives an ugly grin. “Well, I’m just glad to see you’re back playing the field after being hung up on Lockwood for years.”
Quill stops moving and glares coldly at George in the mirror. “You’re one to talk.”
The grin slides off of George’s face like mud and Quill is perversely pleased to see he’s touched a nerve. “Keep going on dates, Kipps. With the size of that ego, there’s not guy in London who’ll fit into a diner booth with you.”
Quill turns to face George, takes a step forward, trying to be as menacing as possible to someone an inch taller than he is. “What do you care who I date?”
A muscle in George’s jaw works and Quill expects he’s working up an insult, so he’s caught off-guard when instead George surges forward to grab him by the tie and kiss him. Quill doesn’t move for a moment, and George pulls back to look at him for a long moment, eyes gleaming with something hurt and horrible and mean. “Your shirt is ugly,” he finally says.
Quill grabs the back of his neck with both hands and kisses him fiercely, too drunk to think of a clever response to a decidedly not clever (but also not wrong) insult. Any sign of sleepiness fades as George angrily kisses him back, pushing him against the wall, one hand still on Quill’s tie, the other dropping to his hip. For a moment, not much more happens, but then Quill, tipsy and impatient and frustrated at the universe, rolls his hips forward and George gives a small whimper. His fingers scramble to loosen Kipps’ tie and he drops his head to the spot where Quill’s neck meets his shoulder, scraping the skin with his teeth. Quill’s hips buck forward again at the bite, and he’s never quite felt so much smaller than George, his mind crowded with the other’s proximity and heat and the way his head is buried into his shoulder and the thin, thin layer of George’s pajama pants through which his cock is now all too pronounced.
George’s hands start to fumble with the buttons of Quill’s shirt, awkwardly bending to try and kiss Quill’s chest but keep their hips pressed together. Quill gasps as his lips pass over his nipple and yanks him back up by his stupid ratty pajama shirt to kiss him again, tongue meeting George’s own. George’s fingers finish undoing Quill’s shirt and push it aside, hands roaming artlessly across his bare torso. Quill thinks dimly that he’s drunk, he’s so drunk, he’s pathetic and horny and hasn’t gotten any in months so he’s willing to settle, but then George unbuttons and unzips his jeans, breaking the kiss to watch Quill’s face for a reaction when he, surprisingly hesitantly, strokes at Quill’s length through the cotton of his boxers, and Quill could drown in his eyes and die happy.
Satisfied that Quill isn’t pulling away, George resumes kissing him, thumb sliding along Quill’s cock, and Quill’s hips jerk forward at the contact, desperate for more. His own hands slide into George’s pants to grip his bare ass (George sleeps without underwear, and this knowledge will haunt Quill for the rest of his life) before moving around, following the angle of his hips to rest at the base of his cock.
George gives a muffled gasp of surprise and his head drops to Quill’s shoulder when Quill’s fingers curl around his cock, already half-hard, and stroke along its length. Quill’s intention is to be gentle, but George bites at his shoulder, asking for more with the thrust of his hips, and, let’s face it, Quill has had one too many beers to be both delicate and effective. That George’s hand finds its way into his boxers and mimicks his own only adds urgency, and soon he has one hand teasing George’s balls and the other running along the length of his cock.
He isn’t surprised to learn that George whines between kisses, fighting to kiss and bite at Quill’s neck and pump his cock when he’s clearly losing control, and Quill feels a smug sense of superiority when his movements stop and he tenses for a moment, then comes, half onto Quill’s hand and arm and half onto the floor. He leans his head back against the wall, cock aching in George’s loose grip, but feeling the victor all the same. George’s breath shudders across his chest as he tries to collect himself, placing a faltering kiss or two along Quill’s collarbone.
Finally, he lifts his head to gaze into Quill’s eyes and Quill is flooded with a surge of desire, seeing George undone, eyes too bright and mouth parted, breath uneven.
“Quill,” George starts softly, grip tightening around his cock, and Quill knows he cannot, under any circumstances, listen to what George has to say next, because he’ll say yes, he’ll say yes to anything that George Karim asks him, starry-eyed and spent with his starship pajama pants around his knees and his hand in Quill’s pants and his bitemarks all along Quill’s neck and shoulder.
“Good night, Karim,” he says choppily, then grabs his blazer and rushes out. George blinks owlishly at him, but doesn’t follow as he careens down the stairs. Quill rips his tie off fully and falls onto the couch, but he can’t fall asleep until he’s jerked himself off into a napkin from the coffee table, George’s whines echoing in his ears.
(The next morning, Holly finds him still sleeping on the couch when she comes in early to do a spot of filing. “Looks like someone’s date went well,” she grins, eyeing Quill’s marked up neck, and Quill doesn’t know how to respond. He wears turtlenecks for a week.)
iv.
It’s the first job in a while that someone’s been badly injured, and Quill has forgotten that particular flavor of nausea that had lain dormant in him for so long. Lucy is rushed to the hospital and Lockwood at her side, face whiter than any ghost, while George, Quill, and Holly are left to traipse back home with their hearts in their throats. The ghost’s mottled hand swiping through Lucy’s neck replays over and over in Quill’s mind as he sits down wordlessly on the couch. George stares blankly at the vase of plastic flowers on the table, while Holly frets over a teapot for a few minutes, sniffling, before announcing in a wavering voice that she was going to go home to her own bed, but to please call her if there was any news. It’s a sign of how troubled George is that he doesn’t finish the tea and get out the cookies.
“The doctors said she’d be alright,” Quill offers finally. “That Holly was quick enough with the adrenaline to save her life.”
George sinks to the floor and leans against the couch. “Yeah.”
Seeing that George isn’t going to sit on the couch, Quill kicks his shoes off and lies down, hands folded over his stomach. “Might have a sore throat for a week.”
“Yeah.”
“Tony’s with her, he’ll let us know as soon as they know more.”
George is quiet for a while, and Quill has almost drifted off when George asks quietly, “Do you ever think about Ned Shaw?”
Quill’s throat clenches, his heart feels like it’s in a vise, and he isn’t lying when he responds, “Every day.”
George gives a humorless chuckle. “Guess the shrinks at Fittes didn’t do that good a job, huh.”
“It’s about efficiency. They don’t need you good, they just need you good enough to put you back out on the field as soon as possible.” Quill stares at the ceiling. “There’s still a Problem to be fought, comrade death or not.” Distant, long-dead screams fill his ears.
“And you wonder why I left,” George muses. He picks at his right thumbnail, then laughs, and this time there is an undertone of real amusement. “That and the cafeteria food. Tasted like wet pencil shavings.”
“The meat?”
“All of it.”
Quill shrugs. “And here I thought you left because of Instructor Roy’s lectures.”
“God, don’t remind me.” George buries his face in his hands. “Fifty percent of it outdated by decades, and the other fifty never right in the first place.”
“Shocked he didn’t appreciate you correcting him every single class period, then,” Quill says wryly. “Given that you knew everything.”
“And yet he didn’t like me cutting class either.” George manages a grin. “Didn’t know what I could be learning in a library he wasn’t giving in lecture. Prick had never opened a book.”
“To be fair, rumor has it you weren’t opening many books in the library, either.” Quill is delighted that George has jogged this previously buried memory. “Unless you and Dane McDonald were both studying.”
George’s head turns around so quickly Quill expects he got whiplash. “Who told you that?”
Quill laughs. “Kat Godwin doesn’t just listen to Visitors.”
George groans and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Of course. Never got anywhere, mind you, he didn’t actually want to be seen associating with a loser like me.”
“You dodged a bullet. You know he’s on the line for embezzlement?”
George’s head shoots up and his face lights up with glee. “You’re kidding.”
Quill shakes his head, a small smile forming at George’s delight. “From DEPRAC. Had an office job there a couple of years. Not anymore.”
“Well, that’s just,” George grins widely. “It shouldn’t make me this happy, but, hey, when times are hard, you find joy where you can.”
“Yeah.” Quill unconsciously stretches his hand out and runs it through George’s hair. George stills, then leans his head back against Quill’s side, tension oozing out of him. “Just that times are supposed to be getting less hard, and some nights it. It doesn’t feel like it.”
George is quiet for a time, mulling over Quill’s words. “Statistically, you’re wrong,” he finally says, with a yawn. “And I would know. It is getting better.” He’s silent for a moment before adding, “You just hope we don’t die before it’s fixed.”
Quill continues to gently rake his hand through George’s hair, now more aware of the motion, but taking comfort from the contact. Tonight isn’t a night to be alone. “Don’t worry, I’ll die first.”
“Ugh. That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, I mean…” Quill thinks about what he means as he stares at the ceiling. “I mean, I’ll fight for you. Fight for everyone.”
“Mmm.” Quill can’t tell if it’s a hum of acquiescence or relaxation from having his hair stroked. “You’d make a shitty supervisor.”
“I was a shitty supervisor. That’s why I’m here.”
George sighs. “Well, at least we’re together, thanks to Fittes’ shittiness. Lockwood and Lucy, Holly.” He pauses. “You and me.”
Quill feels his chest swell, like a balloon that might burst, and swallows at the feeling. He hates that a simple pause before the last two words can make his stomach try to invert itself. “I’d be happier if you got a belt.”
George opens his mouth to retort, but before he can say anything the phone rings. Quicker than quick, Quill lurches up to grab it from the end table. “Hello?” George cranes his head forward, trying to hear the other end and Quill doesn’t have the heart to bat him away.
“Yeah, Tony? How’s – oh, thank God. Yeah. Yeah, we’re all home fine. Yeah. Good. Good, thanks. Good night. See you tomorrow.” He hangs up.
“And?” George asks impatiently.
Quill rolls back onto his back. “She’ll be just fine. A little hoarse for a few days, then right as rain.”
George gives a long exhale of relief. “Thank God. We knew, but.” He leans back against the couch and closes his eyes, then cracks a smile. “Maybe with a hoarse throat I won’t have to listen to her scream Lockwood’s name in the attic so much when they. You know”
“Gross,” Quill groans. “Gross. They’re disgusting. Have you ever seen two people moon over each other so horrifically?”
“It’s put me off my breakfast a few times, I’ll tell you that.”
“Impossible.”
“You’re right. Only the most terrifying sights can do that. Like Type II’s and that hideous puce sweater you have. The one with the argyle.”
“Oh, sod off.” Quill swats at him, but there’s no bite to it, not when they’re both so relieved to hear Lucy will be okay. “How do you look in a mirror, then?”
“Good one, really good one, Kipps.” George rolls his eyes. “I have three older brothers. Mirror jokes are nothing to me.”
“Mmf,” Quill grunts. With the news that Lucy didn’t suffer any lasting damage, all the adrenaline is seeping from his system and he feels he could almost doze off right there, feet jammed into the throw blanket and George’s warm, curly head leaned against his side. “I thought it was pretty good.”
“Oh, like you thought the sweater was good?”
Quill gives an exaggerated sigh. “Listen, if you’re just going to just sit and bully me for my brave fashion choices, I’ll just head up to bed.”
“Do it, then.”
“Fine.” Quill props himself up on his elbow and, without thinking, leans down to gently kiss George. He doesn’t realize what he’s done until he pulls back, but then George knocks his forehead against his, half-lidded eyes staring back at him completely defenseless, and Quill can’t bring himself to summon any shame, not after the hellish evening they’ve had. He lets their heads rest against each other for a moment before getting up from the couch. “Good night, George.”
“Good night, Quill.” George’s face is inscrutable as he watches Quill go, though he calls out as Quill passes through into the hall, “And if you’re using Lucy’s bed, I’d change the sheets!”
v.
After Lucy’s near-miss, Lockwood has insisted that they all beef up their rapier skills, and there’s no dissent, even from George, who among them is the least interested in such activities. He has them assigned in pairs the first week while Lucy rests: he and Holly, Quill and George.
“Scared, Tony?” smirks Quill when Lockwood gives them the assignments.
Lockwood smiles his typical unconcerned smile. “I’d rather face you than Holly any day. Besides, George has learned or ignored everything I’ve taught him. You have a go.”
So have a go he does. George isn’t a terrible swordsman – he’d been a Fittes agent after all, but he often has ideas cleverer than he can execute or seems to simply lose interest, getting distracted by the siren song of lunch or Visitor specifics or who knows what. He hates the rote forms that Quill has him doing (“repetition is the sign of weak mind,” he snarls as he performs the same two slashes against the training dummy again and again and again). Quill, on the other hand, relishes the opportunity to show off a bit and practice his swordsmanship without the threat of ghost-touch hanging over him.
“Oh, now you’re just being annoying,” George pants when on a sunny Friday morning Quill performs an unnecessary flourish that sends George’s rapier flying to stick point-first in the training dummy. They’ve been down in the basement for just over an hour, and they’re flagging, both sporting a thin sheen of sweat and both devolving to their baser natures – George grumpy and Quill preening.
Quill smirks and hands it back to him. “Stop carrying the weight in your wrist, use your whole arm. It’s not a pencil.”
“Didn’t know you could write – damn it.” George’s rapier soars through the air again when Quill performs the same move.
“Fool me once,” says Quill in a sing-song voice.
George lunges at him again, sword in hand. “Try it again.”
Quill does the exact same thing, to the exact same effect. “Fool me twice – oof.” The air whooshes out of him as George full-body tackles him to the ground. Quill manages to avoid hitting anything to severely, but he is, without a doubt, pinned to the basement floor by George Karim.
George looks down at him, eyes flashing with triumph behind his glasses. “I win.”
For a moment, their faces are a little too close, and Quill finds himself staring and George is staring back. The slant of the sun through the tiny cellar windows suspends them like dust particles.
Then Quill twists out from under George so that he loses his balance and flops to the floor with an “oof!” A momentary scuffle and Quill springs up.
“Good effort,” he pants, then places the tip of his rapier to the George’s neck. “Won’t work on ghosts, though. Get up and let’s go through your forms again.”
George groans and flings his limbs out in exhaustion, batting Quill’s rapier away. “Forms again? Boring and useless.”
Quill shucks his zip-up, then toes at George with his sneakered foot. “We’ll see how well you keep them up if I’m attacking you. Come on.”
Despite his muttering, George obliges. He goes through the practiced moves with Quill nettling him, often thwacking at his sword to jar him out of the flow, occasionally pricking him as a distraction. It’s a testament to Quill’s swordsmanship that the jabs land but don’t draw blood, and they certainly have the intended effect of annoying George further. However, it turns out a pissed off George is a handier swordsman than a relaxed George, and he keeps pace with Quill’s needling, at least until Quill raps him across the knuckles of his swordhand.
George swears and drops his rapier. “What crawled up your ass today?” He jams his smarting knuckles into his mouth.
“Oh, it can’t be that bad.” Despite his words, Quill quickly sheathes his rapier and moves toward George. “Let me see.”
George’s eyes squint with momentary suspicion, but he sticks his hand out to Quill. Quill takes his hand with a gentleness that surprises even him. After a quick inspection, he says, “Well, nothing’s broken. Just a bruise.” He pauses and clears his throat before adding awkwardly, “Sorry. Didn’t think you’d be fast enough to block.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” George sighs.
Quill rolls his eyes. “Maybe you’ll just whine the ghosts to death for not flattering you.” In his jest, he barely registers that he’s brought George’s hand to his lips for the barest of kisses. George stares at him with an odd expression on his face while Quill’s brain catches up with what he’s done – when it does, he feels his face flush and drops George’s hand like a hot potato. “We’re done for today.”
George surprises him by stepping closer rather than away. “Good,” he says shortly, then leans his head down, battered and bruised and sweaty, to kiss Quill fully on the mouth.
Quill finds himself rationalizing as he leans into the kiss – he’s tired from training, he feels guilty, there’s been something weird in the air ever since George barreled him to the floor – everything, anything, whatever’s necessary to kiss the inexplicable, grouchy boy in front of him.
If George has any such qualms about motivation, he doesn’t show it, pushing Quill back into the work bench with his boldness, kisses heavy on Quill’s lips, his jaw, his neck. His hands are clenched in Quill’s tank top, but he doesn’t move them, just hangs onto Quill like he’s afraid he’ll run.
Quill pushes his hands into George’s hair, angling his head so that he catches his mouth again, lips parting to push his tongue into George’s mouth, and distantly he thinks that this is so horrifically teenaged, secretly French kissing in the basement in their gym clothes, but then George rolls his hips against Quill’s and somehow it doesn’t bother him so much anymore. He moves his hips against George’s, and a soft exclamation escapes George that sends a spike of something hot and luminous to settle below Quill’s bellybutton. The shape of George’s hardening cock is evident through his secondhand gym shorts, and Quill’s hands are pulling up George’s ancient t-shirt to run his hands across his stomach, his back, to hold him close as they move their hips against each other.
The kisses have devolved to panting, their foreheads pressed against each other, and Quill is losing patience with the limited friction of their grinding when George hikes up Quill’s tank top and starts pulling down his joggers and boxers. Quill gives a sigh of relief that ends abruptly when George drops to his knees.
“George,” he tries to say, but it comes out as a croak, and George seems to pay him no mind anyway, exposing Quill’s cock to the air for a moment before laying a trail of kisses from the tip down, burying his face at the base in a thatch of embarrassingly ginger hair. Quill grips the workbench behind him and wants to tell him to stop, that he doesn’t need fodder for whatever fleeting dreams occupy the space between wakefulness and sleep that George already haunts, but he can’t quite bring himself to say anything, not when George’s tongue slides along the length and Quill’s knees buckle. The anticipation stretches in his gut and his hips buck forward against his own volition, and he can feel George’s lips curve into a smile before opening and taking him in.
A hoarse moan escapes Quill and he has to cover his mouth with his hand, sure that the entire universe can hear him. George’s head draws back and forward, lips sliding against the shaft of Quill’s cock, and Quill’s head snaps forward with a grunt, one hand still white-knuckling the workbench behind him, clutching it for dear life while his legs try to give out. George Karim apparently sucks dick with the same focus and industry he usually reserves for library research and scones, and this revelation is something Quill knows he won’t be able to forget, not the way he makes little hums that make Quill’s insides squirms, not the way that he sometimes doesn’t quite get the angle right and Quill’s cock bumps against his molars or the back of his throat, not the way he glances up at Quill with soft, liquid eyes.
Soon George’s hand joins the movement of his mouth and it’s not long before Quill is stammering, “George, I’m going to –“ but, if anything, George doubles down. Quill comes a moment later, head turned and biting his own knuckles to stop the humiliatingly wanton moan that threatens to rip out of him, body stiffening and then relaxing as the feeling ebbs.
Silence stretches between them as they catch their breath, George’s forehead resting against Quill’s hip. His breathing is uneven and he places a stray kiss or two on Quill’s upper thigh before wiping his mouth and standing up. Quill instinctively leans forward to catch him in a kiss, but George turns to grab his towel. Before Quill realizes what’s happening, he’s halfway up the stairs. The slam of the door cuts off Quill’s faint “George, wait” and he’s left alone with the training dummies, two rapiers he has to clean and put away, his pants around his ankles, and a horrible desire to corner George in any closet they pass by that lasts for weeks.
+1.
It’s a bitch of a case – George keeps using the phrase “resonant frequency” as if anyone else knows what he means – where there are three hauntings somehow amplifying one another and they keep running into walls when they look for the history of the murders. Holly claims it has something to do with Thomas Rotwell’s death, from some document she’d accidentally seen long, long ago when working there, but they can find neither hide nor hair of any specifics about his passing, or indeed about the last decade of his life.
That is, until Quill sallies into the kitchen at five a.m. with a bag of cardamom morning buns and a manila folder tucked under his arm. He gives a jaunty whistle and flicks on the light, then jumps about a foot into the air when a shambling form crawls from under the table.
“Oh, calm down, stop squealing.” A bleary George swats at him and gets up with a groan. “S’just me.”
Quill glowers at him. “I wasn’t squealing. Maybe I was scared because I saw the scariest monster of all: a yawning cavern trying to escape your pants out the back.”
“Why are you so obsessed with my ass, Quill Kipps?” George asks flatly and fixes him with a stare.
Quill swallows and doesn’t respond as a thousand images crowd his mind’s eye at once: George undressed, George bent over his desk, George around Quill’s fingers, George straddling –
Quill coughs politely. “Cardamom bun? They’re fresh.” George immediately forgets his question, nabs a pastry, and turns to start assembling tea, so Quill continues, “Why were you under the table?”
“I needed a change of scenery,” George responds over the clang of dishware. “Sometimes the potential energy of sitting in a chair messes with your head.”
“Been here all night?”
“Just about. Got back from a Type I in Chelsea and couldn’t sleep more than a few hours, so I got up to see if the Thinking Cloth had any insights.” Quill sees a Fibonnaci spiral of frowny faces drawn at George’s usual seat. “It didn’t.”
Next to the Fibonnaci spiral are loopy squiggles that Quill struggles to make out for a moment, since they’re upside down, but then he realizes they’re a bunch of cursive letters in a boyish hand. AJL, LC, HM, GK, QK, QK, QK – George was clearly struggling with the Q. “How was the kitchen floor, then?”
“Very unhelpful, and disturbingly clean.” George sits at the table and slouches over it, elbow on the table and head resting in his hand. “Holly’s roommate has some DEPRAC certification coming up, so she’s been stress cleaning all week.” He doodles something on the cloth absently before looking back up. “Wait, what are you doing here so early?”
“Ah.” Quill resists the urge to be grandiose, but he can’t help but let a little smugness creep into his voice. “This is why.” He dramatically slaps the manila folder, emblazoned with “DEPRAC RECORDS,” “CLASSIFIED,” and “DO NOT REMOVE FROM ARCHIVE,” on the table in front of George.
George’s eyes light up at the sight of the folder, and he lets out a cackle of glee when he begins reading the contents. “Thomas Rotwell’s manservant’s journal? Kipps, this is fantastic, this is just what we need. How did you get this?”
“Well,” Quill has let all pretenses of modesty drop, “let’s just say there’s still plenty of retired Fittes agents at DEPRAC that owe me a favor or two.” He gets up to take the whistling kettle off the heat. “You save enough asses as a teen, then when you’re an adult, they have to let you into the archive and look the other way when you leave.” He fills the teapot with water, then comes to look at the files over George’s shoulder. “Think you’ll especially like the notes on Thomas’s health and experiments starting in the back third.”
George is scanning the pages with a speed previously unknown to man. “Absolutely phenomenal, Kipps, I could kiss you.”
“Then do it,” Kipps says. He thinks he meant it as a joke, but the way it comes out is so falsely nonchalant that George turns to him with an owlish blink.
Quill backpedals furiously. “Totally joking –”
“No, you’re not,” interrupts George. He squints thoughtfully at Quill. “You’re just a chicken.”
“Chicken?” He leans in. A distant part of Quill’s brain is yelling that he’s an idiot and a sucker. “Fine then.” And he kisses George Karim once more, who tastes like pastry sugar and cardamom and recalcitrance, and when George kisses him back softly, he knows he’s down bad for the most bullheaded idiot genius in this and any neighboring worlds.
When their lips part, George doesn’t look away, but instead says quietly, “Wish you’d stop doing that.”
“Won’t.” Quill laughs ruefully. “Can’t, I don’t think.”
“Huh.” A pleased smile creeps across George’s face. “Bad luck, that.”
“Terrible.” The angle that Quill is hunched over in is horribly uncomfortable for his neck and shoulders, but he can’t bring himself to care. They kiss again, and then again, caught in the dim glow of the waking sun and the incandescent kitchen light, cardamom buns and stolen journal forgotten.
“Tea’ll be oversteeped,” says George finally.
“Sod the tea,” Quill mutters.
“Yeah, but –” George kisses him, long and slow, then smiles guiltily “—I really want to get to reading this.”
Quill is aghast. “I risk my career and certifications to steal for your agency, come in at the crack of dawn with baked goods and said stolen information, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Not to make assumptions, but…” George's smile turns sly. “It’s pretty obvious that cardamom buns and stolen archives are targeted to one of us in particular.”
“Don’t get cocky, Karim,” Quill retorts, jabbing at a bit of the Thinking Cloth still visible under the spread of papers. “Or the only ‘QK’ you’ll be getting is the stupid little cursive ones you were practicing on the table.”
George grins, unfazed. “Doubt it.” And he’s right, and he knows it, and Quill knows it, and everyone in the world must know it, so he clearly can’t help himself but to add, “I’ll bet you’d love if I practiced doing QK on the table.”
Quill is a good four years George’s senior, but at that moment he does his best impression of a blushing, stammering teen, which he tries to hide by kissing George again. It doesn’t work, but it doesn’t matter.
It’s another few minutes before George crinkles the papers on the table impatiently, and Quill can’t help but laugh at the utter George-ness of it. “I’ll get the tea, then.”
That is how they pass the morning, tea and buns and Quill stealing kisses between page turns, even sometimes successfully distracting George for half-minutes, and when Holly gets in and Lucy and Lockwood stumble down the stairs, they don’t say anything about how close their chairs are pulled up together, and neither Quill nor George address it (George is too excited about some artefact Tom Rotwell hid in his garden), and Quill is tired but strangely content, surrounded by his friends and touching knees with George Karim under the table. He feels an idiot for it taking so many years to dawn on him, but he realizes: this is how it is supposed to be.