Work Text:
Everything about the mission felt off to Lup. Deep within the forest sat an old farmhouse, its wooden windows shuttered and its paint peeling from its sides in long, flaking strips. No animals scurried nearby, no birdsong welcomed the sunset. It felt wrong, even more foreboding than the missions that bought her, Barry, and Kravitz as close to mortal peril as they could get. The discomfort settled upon her shoulders like a second cloak made of webs and crawling with live spiders.
She couldn’t wait until the job was done.
She stood at the ready by the open door, and though he was too quiet to hear, Lup knew Kravitz was scouting the bottom floor with a carefully trained eye. Necromancers were as crafty as they were paranoid, and they had already dispelled a few traps just to get to the front door. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement. Her grip tightened on her scythe as she turned. Barry’s face, as pinched with worry as it was, calmed her just a touch and she managed a half smile. His own scythe- with denim wrapped around the goddamn handle, of course- was ready in his hands.
“I checked out the back yard,” he said, his gruff voice barely a breath on the wind. “There’s a cellar door with a whole bunch of wards on it.”
Lup quirked an eyebrow. There was no use in scouting the house if its inhabitants were hiding elsewhere. Although there was a chance that it was a diversion…
She bit her lip and spared a glance back towards the front door. Kravitz was a big boy, he could handle himself in there; Lup herself was a force to be reckoned with, even more so with Barry by her side. If this was a real lead, they could have this wrapped up before nightfall. Lup nodded and gestured for Barry to lead the way. He too looked through the front door but began walking without a word.
Their footsteps on the dry grass were unnervingly loud in the silence. Lup’s eyes darted around as they rounded the house. The cellar door practically thrummed with magic. Despite her nervousness, she gave Barry her best lopsided everything’s fine smile, cracked her knuckles, and began unweaving the wards and curses. Barry began getting rid of the smaller, less complicated ones while Lup took on the more difficult ones. Part of her wanted to blast it all away but knew there was a chance that would do nothing but backfire.
After a minute there was a distinct crow’s call, Kravitz’s signal. Barry stood quickly and Lup jerked her head, still focused on the magic shields. Only a few more spells before she could barge in and arrest some death criminals.
Barry’s footsteps receded quickly, and Lup focused on the few lesser wards he missed. All at once it all seemed to unravel until it was clear. The cellar door was nothing but a door, and whoever was on the other side was about to receive an unpleasant surprise.
She heard two sets of footsteps on their way, and Lup stood to her full height, her red hood obscuring her features and her scythe gleaming in the dying sunlight. She waited only long enough to see that Kravitz and Barry were on their way to throw the cellar doors open and drop inside.
At once, she was surrounded by inky blackness. She blinked but still she remained blind. She looked up to find that the doors had closed above her. Her heart began pounding but she took a deep breath of the dusty, dank air. With as much calmness as she could muster, she began feeling her way around with her scythe.
The moment she moved it, it hit a wall with a dull thud that reverberated down the handle and up her arm. A shaking hand reached out, and before her arm was fully extended she was touching a cold stone wall. She took a panicked step backwards and found her back pressed against another wall. Reaching again, she found the solid wood of the cellar door, unyielding and immovable above her.
Walls pressed against her in the darkness and she could hear her heart in her ribcage, the panicked fluttering of a caged bird. It was all she could hear- the silence pressed against her eardrums just as hard as the walls seemed to press against her skin. Distantly she was aware that she was gasping, that the room was running out of air and she would suffocate in this tiny room, suffocate or be crushed by its contracting walls.
All at once there was noise and light. She reached for it blindly and strong hands grasped her own. The fading sunlight was overwhelming, as was the half-shouted reassurances from Barry and the gentle worrying from Kravitz as Lup all but fell into Barry’s arms.
“I don’t know what that was,” she said shakily.
“Are you hurt?” Barry said tersely.
“I think- I’m fine, babe.”
“What happened? You fell and the doors closed and then nothing.” His eyes were huge behind his thick-rimmed glasses. His hands on her face were warm and gentle and she allowed herself to be held for another moment.
“It sucked,” she said simply. “It was like… being in a coffin or something,” she said. She very carefully avoided comparing the sensation to being trapped in an entirely different, equally tiny place. Even so, Barry knew. He held her close and she closed her eyes.
“I’ve got ‘em cornered,” Kravitz called from the cellar in his fake work accent. Lup couldn’t help but crack a smile. Her hands were shaking less and her breathing was even. She planted a kiss on Barry’s cheek and pulled away, straightening her robes and fixing her hair as she did so.
“Let’s go ruin their fucking day,” she said with a grin she hoped was bright and strong.
Barry, still obviously concerned, nodded and pulled his (stupid- but thankfully black- denim) hood over his head. They would have to talk more later, and Lup couldn’t say she was looking forward to it, but for now they had a job to do.