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Who is phone
Starting to like tweening now so have Nickel </3
[edit:fixed the loop a little]
I love this sm im crying screaming punching the air rn
something holy
lucy gray baird x female reader
3k words, fluff, mild angst
Lucy Gray Baird is the sweetest girl you know.
You’ve known her for a while, now, but you’ve known of her for even longer. You’ve only ever lived in District Twelve, a Seam girl born and bred, but you remember more vividly than anything that colourful day the Covey were rounded up and forced to settle in your home. Even then, you felt a draw to them. Sure, everyone was intrigued by them, even more so once they stepped into the spotlight and made a name for themselves. You knew you weren’t special, you were one of many in a crowd of admirers, but that didn’t stop you from wanting to know them. You wanted to know the dark-haired girl your age, who you’d occasionally glimpse through a crowd or across a plaza. This hunger, barely sated by scraps of fleeting encounters across the span of years, would only grow with age.
Twelve is the district furthest from the Capitol, and it’s the most neglected, to be blunt — it still has the lowest Peacekeeper to population ratio in the entirety of Panem. A blessing in disguise, you consider it, but it often renders the Seam a relatively lawless place. When the Covey arrived, the best part of a decade ago, it was even worse. The Covey kids were never forced to attend Capitol-mandated schooling in the way that the rest of the Seam kids were because they weren’t really Twelve. They didn’t really didn’t bother anyone, for the most part, and so long as that remained the case there were more important rules to be enforced elsewhere.
For the first few years of their inhabiting a crumbling little red-brick cottage at the edge of the Seam, overlooking the woods, the Covey were like daylight ghosts around town. They wove flowers into each other’s braids every morning, wore long billowy clothes even in the coldest winter snow and communicated more through melody, or strange noises, than they did words. (For a good few years of your childhood, you’d stumble down to their ends of town once a week to offer clumsy good-wish bundles of flowers and herbs, and even ribbons when you could get your hands on them. You’d be met with wide smiles or hummed tunes or, towards the end of this practice, even a beamed thank you, sweetness from Lucy Gray herself, but nothing more, and so eventually you stopped.)
At night, though, they were ghosts no longer; they’d come alive, lighting up the whole Hob with foot-stomping tavern thrashers. As you grew older, more capable, and still more captivated by them, you found yourself more and more often in attendance. That’s how you ended up meeting her; a fight broke out in the pit one night. You were close to the stage as could be, how you were whenever you got the chance, and in a whirlwind of movement and noise you found yourself caught up in the conflict. A pitcher of ale ended up being emptied onto you and you yelped as the lukewarm amber seeped into your dress, whilst its former owner cursed the loss of his drink and angrily swung the empty pitcher at the head of the whoever knocked him into you. The music halted as chaos ensued, and you scrambled to escape.
“Alright, y’all, that’s enough,” said a forceful voice from the stage, a voice you’d recognise anywhere. “You want to fight, you can go outside t’do it, I hear there’s a hell of an audience in uniform out there too.”
Billy Taupe, by this point the size of a man with the broad shoulders to show for it, set down his accordion and leapt down from the stage, forcefully breaking up the conflict, with the lean Tam Amber quick to follow. You were practically swept up onto the stage, and in an effort to de-escalate Lucy Gray reached out her hands to lift you up and into safety. She was stronger than she looked, and you marvelled at the moment, surely gaping like a fool.
“Learn to behave, folks,” she playfully chastised the crowd as Billy Taupe and Tam Amber wrestled two men out the door. You stood stiff as a board beside her, still dripping head to toe. “I’m’na give you ten, and when I get back y’all better have sorted yourselves, alright?” She jabbed a finger playfully at no one in particular before wrapping an arm around your shoulders and guiding you backstage, Maude Ivory and Barb Azure hot on your heels.
“Are you alright, sweetheart?” she asked you the moment you were out the crowd’s earshot, “we been watching that whole thing —”
“— they nasty out there tonight,” chimed in Maude Ivory.
“— sure we got an old dress o’ Lucy Gray’s milling around somewhere, get you outta that thing,” Barb Azure offered kindly.
“— come here, into the light, poor thing, are you hurt? Let me see it,” Lucy Gray fretted. Seeing your features properly for the first time under the flickering of the oil fixture on the wall, she paused. “I know you.”
“I been here before,” you offered, finally summoning the courage to speak.
“No,” Lucy Gray mused, “you… you done used to bring us flowers, didn’t you?”
You froze, flushing. “Guess I did. Didn’t think you’d remember.”
“Aw hey now, I’d never forget a pretty thing like you,” she scolded you. Your cheeks burned with colour the same shade as her lips. “Why’d you ever stop? We used t’love your visits.”
“She ain’t kidding,” added Barb Azure, eyes twinkling, “Lu would doll up real early on Sundays and wait around for you.”
“Oh, shut it, you big grass,” Lucy Gray muttered, dark eyes never leaving your face. Your breath caught in your throat. “Look, we ain’t sending you back out there. How’s about we’ll find you somethin’ to change into and you’ll sit pretty with us, alright, sweet thing? What’s your name, baby?”
After that night, she kept finding reasons to be near you. Despite the draw you felt to the Covey you were scared stiff of bothering them. You’d rather die than cause them any trouble. But you and Lucy Gray, and then the whole Covey, fell into a close friendship so quickly you couldn’t help but wonder if that feeling was mutual. For a while they would tentatively invite you to picnics at the lake or bonfires in their back garden, but once they found out you could play the pan flute you were as good as one of them.
Lucy Gray began to consume your every waking thought. Lucy Gray, Lucy Gray, Lucy Gray. It’s been the same old for a good few years now. You spend every moment you can with her, whether that’s taming snakes or catching butterflies or whispering to each other late at night. She’s hardened like brandy and fiery inside, and you preen hopelessly under the light she casts on you. Lucy Gray Baird is what makes the world go round.
Yeah, she’s the sweetest girl you know. And, unbeknownst to you, she’s sweeter than ever on you.
The Covey are a superstitious people. There’s nothing they’ll heed more attentively than the whisper of fate. Lucy Gray doesn’t remember much from her childhood pre-Twelve, but she remembers when her momma would try to teach her how to see future in the way that the earth breathed. She knows to pay heed to the shape that the tea leaves at the bottom of her mug take, and where the first drop of rain falls. Everything, everything, including her heart, pushes her to you. She’s sure of it. It’s something bigger than her that connects the two of you, something cosmic, something holy. She’ll count bluebells on her walk to you — she loves me, she loves me not — and take note of the birds in the sky. She spells out love confessions to you in the chords of her guitar. She whispers poems into your morning tea before she brings it to you, careful hands cradling a mug full of love.
She knows it’s the string of fate that’s drawn her in to you. Why, why else would her family end up in Twelve?
Barb Azure teases her endlessly for the affections she harbours, and Lucy Gray will swat away her cousin with flaming cheeks and hiss half-baked threats but she’ll never deny it. There’s no denying it. There’s no denying the love she has for you, more certain than anything. She knows she loves you like she knows that the sun smiles in the sky. She’ll do anything to be around you.
“What’re you gonna do about it?” Barb Azure asks her casually one warm summer’s evening. The two are side by side in the little stone kitchen of the Covey cottage, occasionally brushing elbows as they chop vegetables in unison. It’s a comforting touch, domestic, homely. Golden-pink sun streams in through the mottled windows, and Lucy Gray basks in it like a snake. The back door is pinned open so that the children, and the strange shaggy dog Clerk Carmine’s brought home, and Maude Ivory’s goat can all trot in and out as they please. In the distance, she can see you all playing, wrestling, giggling freely, hear CC’s shrieking melodious laughter. Lucy Gray’s so at peace in this moment that she forgets she’s been asked a question.
Barb Azure’s bare foot nudges her shin gently. “Lu. What’ll you do? ‘Bout her?”
She shrugs. “Same thing I’ve always done. Keep on loving her, and take what I can get.” She seems perfectly at peace with it, and Barb Azure sighs.
“You’ll get a whole lot more if you tell her how you feel,” she chastises.
“Why, and ruin a perfectly good thing?” Lucy Gray retorts, elusive, half-mirthful, a twinkle in her eye but a weight to her words. “No, I don’t think I will, Barb Azure.”
“Aw, hold your tongue now,” Barb Azure grumbles, “cause it’ll be this old dog who’s wipin’ your tears when the belle finds someone else.” She nudges Lucy Gray good-naturedly before moving over to the stove, but Lucy Gray stays frozen, blood running cold. She hasn’t even thought of that, but it’s true, you could find someone else. Who, she wonders? What kind of person would you go for? You’ve been one of the Covey for years, you eat here and sleep here and make music with them and the rest of it, and you don’t really talk to anyone else. Would you go for one of the boys? Tam Amber, or Billy Taupe? The thought of anyone else all up on you like that makes her shiver. She can live with never being able to have you, she’s done it this far, but she’s not sure she’d handle it if someone else could.
The thought weighs heavy on her mind, and she’s quiet for the rest of the night.
It’s only a handful of days after that you’re out gathering berries with some of the others. Lucy Gray comes with for a while, but she’s not really there, she’s not herself, and after finding a few wild apricots she feebly murmurs about going home to pit them. You watch with concern but she’s gone before you can say otherwise, walking off with her head lowered, and you decide to respect her wish to be alone.
You try to ignore the loss of her at your side as you laugh and joke with the others. You never feel content when you’re not with her, though — she’s the only one who can soothe your temples and still your thoughts.
“You okay, Y/N? You been starin’ at that bush for the better part o’ four minutes,” grins Tam Amber.
“Nay, she’s just mopin’. Gets all moony when she’s away from her Lu,” CC butts in, before tossing a blackberry into the air and catching it in his mouth.
“My Lu?” you ask, caught off guard.
“Well, yeah. So much pinin’ you could build your own forest.”
“I ain’t— I don’t pine for no one,” you tell him shakily.
He just shrugs. “Coulda fooled me. You been lookin at Lucy Gray like she hung the stars in the sky since day one.”
You frown, mulling his words over. Is that true? You love Lucy Gray, more than anything, but it’s never really occurred to you that your love for her could be like that. Sure, she’s the prettiest girl you’ve ever met, you’d do anything for her. She’s so kind, so gentle and sweet, but she’s so quick and so fiery. She has a fierce wit to her that’ll send you rolling and reeling in equal measures. She’s always, always on your mind. Sure, your mind goes straight to her when you hear a love song, but— oh no.
“I think you broke her,” Billy Taupe observes.
“I’m, uhm,” you feel your palms grow clammy as you’re overwhelmed with the need for a moment to yourself, “I’ll head back home, and— and start sorting through this,” you look down at your half-filled basket and begin to hurry away. No one stops you, but you feel eyes on you long after you’ve rounded the corner.
You’re a mess. Your hands are shaking, your eyes blurry, your mind spinning as you grapple with this newfound information. You’re in love with Lucy Gray. It’s so obvious that the kids have clocked it before you. God, you’re so stupid. Of course friends don’t love each other like this. You don’t feel this way about Barb Azure or Tam Amber. This could ruin everything, if you ever let it escape you. No, you determine resolutely, you are not going to ruin the only family you’ve ever had. Having Lucy Gray in your life at all is something so impossibly holy that you refuse point blank to risk ever losing it. You will not lose the Covey. You’ll take this to the grave.
Your feet have carried you home before you know it, and you stumble into the kitchen, panting. There are tears streaming down your face, you realise, and you shakily wipe them away only for more to appear.
“Y/N?” says a soft voice at the door, one you love more than anything, and you look up to see the girl you’re agonising about. Annoyingly, you want nothing more than to crawl into her arms. “Hey, baby, you okay?”
“M’fine,” you murmur, hastily brushing away more tears, but she’s stepping towards you with outstretched arms, and then you’re in them and you’re safe.
“Shhh, sh sh sh,” she soothes you, guiding you into the room you share with her, running her fingers through your hair. “What is it, sweet girl, what’s bothering you?”
“It really is stupid,” you tell her thickly. “CC said something, I guess it freaked me out, ‘n got to me a bit.”
Lucy Gray lets out a surprised little laugh and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “And why’re you givin’ a shit about what he’s got to say, huh? Clerk Carmine’s a twelve year old boy. Can’t get more insensitive than that.”
You nod tearfully, gratefully accepting the comfort of her pressing her forehead to yours and toying with your fingers.
“What’s he said to get you all wound up, baby?” she asks you. You hesitate, reddening, and look away.
“Really was stupid,” you mumble.
“You can tell me,” she promises, eyes dark and soft. You bite your lip.
“Just… that I treat you different to the others, I guess,” you admit, words flowing like butter. She could get anything out of you. Lucy Gray stiffens a little in surprise. “Or like, I love you different.”
“Yeah? How’d you mean?” Her words are soft, gentle, and you feel no less soothed than before. Cautiously, you continue.
“He… said I’m pinin’ for you,” you confess, mere minutes after swearing to yourself those words would never reach her ears.
“And are you?”
You stop up short at the bluntness of her question. Her gaze is unreadable, and you inwardly curse her poker face. “I— uhm, what?”
“Are you pinin’ for me?” Lucy Gray repeats.
“I…” You lamely gape like a fish. “I mean, I guess, I don’t know.”
“If I kissed you, d’you think that’d be something you could enjoy?” she asks you. Her tone’s shifted into something different now, and you can’t quite identify it but it has liquid heat pooling in your stomach. Your breath is caught in your throat, you’re scared to make a sound and break this moment, and so you nod wordlessly.
Her hands meet at the nape of your neck and toy with the hairs there as she slowly brings her lips to yours.
Lucy Gray Baird is soft when she kisses you, gentle. She kind of cradles you, her touch delicate, the way she is with her snakes or that fawn she nursed once — as though you might startle at any moment. You don’t know whether to close your eyes and savor the moment or keep them open and commit her to memory forever. You’re utterly beside yourself.
The kiss doesn’t last too long, she keeps it short and sweet, pecking your lips one final time before resting her forehead against yours contentedly.
“You okay, baby?” she asks after a moment, feeling you shaking against her. She leans back to get a better read on you and her brow furrows at your distress. “Sweet girl, I— did I overstep? Oh god, I’m so sorry, I —”
“No,” you manage to choke out. “No, it’s good, I just— this is a lot— I think I’ve loved you forever.”
Lucy Gray melts at that, pulling you in close and letting you rest your head against her chest, soothing her fingers through your hair. “Shhh, sh, it’s okay. Let it out, baby. You know, I always felt like there’s a reason the Covey was brought to Twelve,” she tells you. “I’m so sure it’s always fate, you know? And my momma was too. I always wondered what it was, I’d feel whispers of things at the edges of towns, I spent so long lookin’ for signs I’d never find. And then you brought one to me, you brought me flowers and ribbons and handfuls of love… and then I wasn’t looking for signs anymore. I was seein’ em everywhere I went, and you was bringin’ em to me every Sunday. And it was the holiest thing I ever felt.”
“You’re everything,” you manage, breathless. “I’m not— I’m no bard like you, Lu— you’re everything.”
“I love you,” she tells you, the intensity of her dark gaze setting you alight, “I love you sure as there’s stars in the sky.”
You lie in Lucy Gray’s arms long into the night, and she holds you, whispering to you how much she loves you. When morning comes, you know the stars will still be there, even if they can’t be found. And you know that when she rolls out of bed later than usual on Sunday, her day of rest, and you bring her flowers and ribbons held together with love, she’ll beam brighter than anything and you’ll have a sky full of stars in your arms.