Locke and key gabe x reader

Tried to link the fic from ao3 but it didn’t work so I’m just going to paste the rest of it beneath the cut. Written for one of @alphabetchallenge‘s weekly prompts, “linger”. Go check it out! And thanks to @frye7 for the beta.

From the moment the jar shatters, Gabe knows something is wrong. “Hey, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” He crouches beside her to pick up the shards of glass. Kinsey’s hands shake beside his. And when he rests a hand on her back, half to brace himself and half to comfort her, she sways unsteadily in her haste to pull away from him.

“No it’s okay, I got it,” she says breathlessly.

“You got it?” he repeats, dubious. She doesn’t meet his eyes as she stands up.

“Yeah. I guess I’m still a little off.”

Gabe resists the urge to narrow his eyes in suspicion. He casts his mind around for something to talk about. “So, um…is Duncan doing any better? You never texted me.”

She stiffens. “Oh, there’s nothing new to report.” The words sound stilted, like they’ve been practiced: cured wood hollow on the inside. He starts to nod and offer some words of support, but she continues, unobservant, determined. “I only saw him for a second before I left this morning, but…he didn’t seem to be in great shape.”

She bites her lip, that tell that means she’s lying, the one she thinks he hasn’t figured out yet. The hair on the back of Gabe’s neck rises. Something isn’t right here. “Maybe it’s just going to take some time,” he murmurs, trying to make it into nothing. There’s a whisper in the back of his head that urges him to push harder, to lure the truth out, but he ignores it. He’s gotten better at ignoring it, since Kinsey.

When he reaches out to touch her arm, she draws back. It’s a small movement, and if he hadn’t spent the last six months watching her, he wouldn’t have noticed. Now, he just shifts back. As he moves, the tension in her shoulders loosens. Gabe doesn’t think she’s even aware of it.

“So what are you doing today?” Kinsey retreats to the opposite side of the tent, thinking she’s being subtle. “Did you volunteer to work a booth?”

“Nah, I actually thought I would just come and keep you company.” In the mirror, he watches her shoulders heave. Turns around to face her before she can catch him staring. “That okay?”

Kinsey blinks slowly, mouth falling open before she catches herself. She looks like she’s thinking about it, like she has her mind made up, and then she shrugs in carefully affected agreement. Gabe’s been through that before, has traced the steps of the dance she’s learning in front of him, stumbles and all. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.” She tries to smile, but it falls flat. Gabe doesn’t call her on it.

“Thanks.” His eyes flick over a book of available patterns that’s resting on a nearby table. Maybe doing something normal, something mundane, will calm her down. “Is there an age limit on the face painting?”

Kinsey says nothing, eyes and smile full of nerves as she shakes her head. It’s a jerky movement. Gabe represses the frown that nearly shows on his face. “I don’t know how I feel about these butterflies though. I kinda want something that’ll make me look hard, you know? Maybe like a neck tat or something?” This is where she usually laughs, her hair fluttering over her shoulder. But here she stays silent, nearly perfectly still.

He lowers himself into the chair in front of her. He’s below her now; she should feel more comfortable. Except Kinsey’s still not meeting his eyes, her gaze stuck on something across the room. “I think I can make that happen,” she says, and she sounds almost normal. Almost.

The images on the page glisten and blur, an overwhelming whirl of color. He can’t focus; his mind is racing. Gabe picks the first one he sees. “How ‘bout this little lobster claw in honor of my boy Nephropida?” He says it with a grin stuck behind his teeth, but when his hand reaches out to mime a claw, Kinsey jumps. And again, her hands are shaking.

She jerks away from him, her breath a cloud in the air. Gabe doesn’t let his smile falter, but inside his thoughts are churning furiously. She’s afraid of him; seriously, instinctively afraid of him. She won’t put her back to him. She lied about Duncan being better.

She lied about Duncan being better.

Oh. Shit.

Gabe barely remembers to breathe, his body doing the work for him while his mind tumbles over itself. She knows. If she knows, the rest of the family knows. Bode, Tyler, Duncan. Probably Erin too.

And just when he was getting used to being around them too.

Kinsey’s still shaking as she lowers her knees to the cold ground and grips the tattoo in one hand. Gabe forces his gaze not to catch on the motion. “This’ll only hurt a little.”

Oh, he doubts that. He’s already being torn apart by it, and judging by the cracks in her composure, so is Kinsey. But something inside him wants to cling to this one last piece of pretend. So he grins and says “I’ll be brave.”

It earns him a chuckle, but he knows it isn’t real. The distance between them aches, even if the ignorance was only ever one-sided. Sometimes, if he tried hard enough, he could convince himself they were different people, in a different time and place. But those times passed long ago, if they ever existed, and those places have long been darkened and abandoned. So he relishes the feeling of her fingers on his neck and tries not to think about the fact that, sooner rather than later, this will all be in the past.

As Kinsey works on the temporary tattoo, she gradually relaxes. Her hands stop shaking and her breath evens out, but Gabe doesn’t allow himself to hope that she’s been reassured. The human body, he’s learned, can only exist in a state of anxiety for so long before it’s forced to crash. It was inevitable that she would calm down; he doesn’t take it as a personal victory.

“So how’s it look?” he asks as she rises from her position by his side.

“It’s some of my best work yet.” Kinsey sounds steadier now. She’s stopped jumping at shadows, at least. Not that Gabe exactly blames her.

“Yeah?” He laughs. “Thanks for taking the time to do it.”

She blinks, shrugs. “I mean…it’s sorta my job.” It’s said with a bit of a chuckle, embarrassed, just an edge of discomfort.

Gabe drums his fingers on the arm of the chair, tilting his head back to look at her. He catches her eye, just for a moment, before she looks away. “I don’t—don’t want it to be just a job. Do you know what I mean?”

Kinsey swallows, hard. She looks like her mind is racing, like she can’t quite wrap her head around what she’s hearing. Which is probably true, if she’s thinking that he has some devious angle he’s trying to work. “I…yeah, I know what you mean.”

A beat. Gabe turns his head to face the cold and give her a moment to herself. He hears Kinsey shuffle some art supplies around; the movement doesn’t quite cover up the sound of her shaky breath. “Did you and Scot ever get your thing figured out?”

“What?” Her response sounds a little tight, surprised.

He turns back to her, projecting comforting nonchalance. “You and Scot. You didn’t tell me how all that panned out.”

“Oh. Um, no. We’re good. It was just a misunderstanding, you know?” She’s trying to look at him, like nothing is wrong, but she can’t quite manage it. Something happened there, too, but he doesn’t push it. It’s not the time now, not with Eden roaming the festival, angry and itching for violence. And with everything ending soon, it’ll be good for her to have someone. Even if it’s not him.

So he smiles, affecting complacent innocence with the practiced ease of someone who’s had to do so for months. It only turns his stomach a little to think of why. “That’s good! Do you think he’ll be able to help with Duncan?”

He feels like he has to know, has to make sure someone will be there for her, has to reassure himself that it’s okay for him to tell her everything, to allow this to splinter apart.

“Duncan?” The question’s caught her off-guard. “Yeah. Or, well, it’s more of a family thing so probably not? But. I know he would.”

So Scot knows. Good. Gabe always thought it was a bit dangerous for the siblings to keep any information closed off among the three of them. It cuts off possible allies. Of course, he used to have a starkly different reason for holding that position, but he doesn’t let himself think about that. Much.

Instead, another smile. “Good.” And then, because it would be strange if he didn’t at least offer: “I can help too, if you need.”

Immediately, Kinsey shuts down. Any goodwill he may have accrued quickly drains away, running dry right in front of his eyes. “Right. Thanks. It’s really more of a family thing, though.”

He runs through options in his head, flipping through two or three or half a dozen responses, then stands up. In the moment, she might take it as a threat, as another lie, but later, maybe…later she might see it for what it is. He takes a step towards her, then two, stopping before her body gets too tense with fear she doesn’t yet know how to conceal. “Kins, I know that this isn’t easy. Okay, I know that it’s not my place to say so, but…I’m always going to be here for you. No matter what happens. I just want you to know that.” He forces his eyes to meet hers, too much truth slipping through, more than is safe.

Something flickers across her face, shock and confusion and, maybe, a twitch of unexpected reassurance. “Thanks.”

A family walks toward their tent, exclaiming excitedly about face painting. Kinsey turns to them, relief at the interruption obvious in the set of her shoulders. “I gotta get to work. See you later?”

He should go. She’s clearly stressed out by him being here. But he can’t bring himself to put that distance between them when there will soon be such a gulf between them. And with Eden roaming out there…it’s safer for her if he stays, really. If only she knew that. “Why don’t I stick around? Help you out.”

She bites her lip again. “Sure, that’d be great.”

“Cool, thanks,” Gabe says, smile as welcoming and non-threatening as he can make it.

She turns from him, focusing on the two siblings in front of her, a pleasant expression already fixed firmly and convincingly on her face. She’s quite a skilled liar, all in all. He almost admires her for it, though he’ll never be able to tell her so.

Kinsey is painting whiskers on a little girl’s face, and Gabe stands to the side, hands in his pockets. He knows he should leave. He doesn’t want to. “Hey, do you wanna…hang out? Y’know, when this is all done?” This isn’t the right place to tell her, but maybe later, when they’re alone…maybe they can be honest with each other. Maybe she’ll listen to him.

“Uh…let me check in at home.” The evasion doesn’t quite have the smooth deflection that it should. The thought drifts by unbidden: she’s lucky he’s on her side. He doesn’t really want to imagine how he might’ve reacted to this deception a year ago.

As Kinsey turns back to the kid, Gabe’s phone dings. It’s Eden, and she’s figured out that Kinsey was lying. Because Duncan is here. At the festival. This night is just getting better and better.

He tries not to choke on his own sarcasm.

He can’t leave Eden alone, not when she’s just found this out. She’s going to do something drastic, something stupid, something that will ruin everything he’s worked so hard for. “Kinsey?” he asks, soft.

“Yeah?” she responds, half turning to him.

“I have to go.”

She doesn’t really look at him. “Okay.”

He ignores the burning in his chest. “Kinsey,” he tries again.

This time she looks up. She freezes when she sees the expression on his face, pained and regretful. He leans close, shifts just enough to embrace her. After a moment, she reciprocates. He settles his mouth against her ear and speaks in a low whisper. “Eden knows. Get Tyler and Bode and everyone and get out. Duncan’s here. She’s going to go after him. I’m going to try to cut her off.”

Kinsey pulls back, a gasp pushing from her lungs as she retreats. Her eyes are wide, breath shallow. If he had time, Gabe would talk her down from the panic attack she’s nearing. But he doesn’t.

He grips her by the shoulders, tight. “Do you understand?”

She shakes her head, just barely. She looks more uncertain than she ever has before. “I—”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and he watches as realization finally begins to settle across her face.

“No,” she says, quiet. A whimper that dies in the air.

“I am. I’m sorry. For what I’ve done. If I could take it back…” he meets her eyes and is surprised to find tears in them. Even more so when he reaches up to wipe them away and she doesn’t rear back. She doesn’t lean in, but it’s more than he thought he’d get. More than he deserves.

He closes his eyes for half a second. It’s all the time he has left. “Remember what I said. Find your brothers and your friends. Get them out. Do whatever you have to.”

He doesn’t have any time left. And still, and still, he stays. He looks into her eyes one last time. “I love you.”

A single tear rolls down her cheek. Kinsey lifts a hand, not towards her own face but towards his. He starts as her fingers brush beneath his eye. He didn’t realize he was crying. “I have to go,” he murmurs again.

Neither of them move. And then, and then, Gabe’s phone buzzes. He knows without looking that it’s Eden. They’ve run out of chances. Always, always with them. Out of time, always.

Kinsey releases him. She shuffles one foot away, then two, then three. She’s still looking at him. There’s a tear almost frozen on her lashes. “I have to go,” she parrots. Coming from her the words are torn, ripped in half. He wonders if he sounded the same way.

He nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. Gabe takes one step, and then another, and then another, until he’s out of the tent and standing in the snow. He shivers. Kinsey, still under the tent, raises a hand in a half-wave. Gabe can’t bring himself to reciprocate. But as he turns to face the weather, to face Eden, the warmth of Kinsey’s fingers still lingers on his cheek.

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