𝑊𝐴𝑁𝑇 𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑆 (locke and key gabe)

25 rewritten

I wasn't going to release this until next week, buttt I've been convinced so enjoy!!

Avery knew she would regret it. She knew that with the same surety that she knew her own name. But she also knew that she couldn't go on a moment longer she was.
Killing Gabe had killed a part of her too; a part that she desperately wanted back.

She knew where her siblings were storing the Keys that they had found, and Avery knew that they would soon regret their blind trust in her. She already felt sick knowing that she was about to betray them.

The Demon Key was tucked away in Kinsey's music box, tucked away beneath the array of bracelets in the bottom compartment. Avery rummaged through friendship bracelets they had shared in their youth, the strain of the sins she was yet to commit weighing heavily on her. She slipped the Key into her pocket alongside the others she had gathered, her eyes still streaming tears. Her siblings were still at school, her mom and Duncan were working. Avery had ran from there the second she had left Gabe's dorm, knowing exactly how she could right her wrongs. As she raced down the stairs, she could feel her anticipation building, Gabe would be back. She would bring him back. The weight of the Echo Key was heaviest in her pocket, burdened with the guilt she would soon feel. Grief can make people do terrible things, but guilt can do far worse, a lesson she would learn in time.

The Well house was eerily silent. Ever since they had moved to Matheson, it had been a place Avery had never wanted to step foot in, but as she turned the Echo Key in its lock, all she could think of was how desperately she needed to enter it. So when the door swung backwards, her tear stained face cracked into the traces of a smile. The place had an atmosphere to it, like the shift in a room once a key had been turned, only that feeling was permanent, and it was no longer magical or joyful, it was wicked. The air smelt of malice and old cigarettes, a smell all too familiar to the day she had first met Gabe in the sea caves. She almost smiled at the memory,

Avery peered in the well, an endless black hole preparing to swallow her up. She couldn't see the end. She was unsure there was one.

"Hello?" She called, her voice reverberating off the damp stone walls. She nervously fiddled with the Echo Key, unsure that her foolish plan could ever work. Gabe wasn't even a real person, but she prayed that somehow, by some miracle, he could be brought back to her, "I don't- I don't even know if this is possible but, I want to be able to see Gabe again,"

Nothing happened, and yet she could feel the anticipation building in the stale air around her, as though she just needed to set the magic in motion, like there was some miraculous trigger for it.

"I fucked up, Gabe," she started, unsure of what else to say, "I, uhm- I love you too, though. I'm sorry that I had to kill you to realise that. But killing you... I think it killed a part of me too." She was rambling a little, tears starting to fall faster and then all of a sudden she had so much to say and so few words for it. The Demon Key seemed to pulsate in her pocket, a message of repentance. "I'm here now, choosing you. Backed into no corners, forced into no deals. I'm doing this because I love you. I know the consequences, I know what you're going to do once you leave this Well house. I'm yet to decide if I can live with that, but I already know that I can't live without you."

Her fingers grasped the Key without her minds consent, and all of a sudden the stifling air was now his breath against her neck.

She held the Demon Key out to him, an offering, a plea for forgiveness.
Suddenly the key in her hand was now in his, and free hand, gripping the sides of the well, had been pushed to support the rest of her body, now backed against the stone. The Key turned in the lock. Half way, then completely. She closed her eyes. She didn't breathe to move, she didn't dare to fight it, all she could do was lean into him as their bodies pressed ever closer together. Everything happened to fast for her to process what he was doing, she'd missed him far too much, everything about him. His presence was addictive, his fingers trailing along her stomach, the smell of his cologne, all of him. He was there, as real as she had hoped, and the joy of seeing him melted away the pain of her very self being reprogrammed. She no longer cared what happened to her, if she become a slave to his every desire, truth be told she already was. His touch rendered her weaker than she ever thought possible.

It didn't hurt like she imagined it would.
There was pain, yes, but it was eased by the feeling of his body against hers. It wasn't the kind of soul-destroying incapacitating burning sensation her mind had envisioned it to be. It felt more like a growth spurt so fast her body struggled to keep up with it. She felt herself changing, as though something beneath her skin had shifted and was stretching her body to accommodate it.

And then for a moment she felt nothing.

Once her eyes opened once more, that nothingness dissolved into ecstasy. Her vision was clear, and she saw colours brighter than when the Key had been half turned. The world was mesmerising, and she could hear every sound for miles, able to hone in on one and chose her focus. She could hear every beat of his heart and every breath in his lungs as clear as day. She revelled in her heightened senses, in all of the things she could feel once more, until she realised that amongst them was Gabe's anger.

It seemed to ripple from him in waves that touched deeper than her skin, and she didn't have to look at him to know how betrayed he felt. Avery stiffened at the thought, her mind racing at a thousand miles an hour. She was unsure what to tell him, if it was even possible that she could say anything to fix what she had done.

"It's not you that I'm angry at." He was doing it again. Reading her in that way that only he could. She spun to face him, her body still trapped between his own and the well. Gabe still took her breath away. She knew that it wasn't just love, there was something like fear curdled in the mixture. She felt the tension thicken between them as her eyes locked with his. He had already been an Echo when she had met him, and Avery was terrified that somehow doing this would change him. But there he was, the same Gabe she recognised every inch of, as she searched his eyes, her heart knew it was him. He was there. He was alive.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let him go but still she didn't dare to move.
"Then who are you angry at?" She asked slowly, eyes wide and brimming with curious intent. His fingers traced the outline of her waist, hitching against the seam of her shirt, as though debating running his hands beneath it.

"Kinsey," He told her, running his free hand through his hair. It hung in a loose side part framing his face, the way that she always liked it. "For making you choose," His lips were inches from her ear now, and at their closeness a shooting sensation ran down her spine. "and I was angry at you too, at first. But if it wasn't for her trying to take you from me, you never would have truly been mine." His fingers traced her back where that Keyhole had been. She was his now, that was all that mattered.

Avery heard a car approaching. With all the things she could now hear, she wasn't sure how far it was, but moments later when Tyler's truck pulled onto the driveway, a jolt of panic hit her. "Shit," Avery murmured, the reality of what she had just done flooding back to her, "Shit, Gabe, I need to go."

He wouldn't be able to leave the Well house without the Anywhere Key. Avery was relived at the thought. And yet part of her wanted to be able to go back to Javi's with him, to finish all the things that they started. A half smirk spread across his face as he watched her turn to leave. "So you're leaving me trapped here, huh?"

Avery grinned. Regret was creeping in now, but having him here was more important to her, being able to see him again. It was worth whatever price she had to pay. "You know I always preferred to be the one in control,"