Chapter Text
“It’s a bad idea. Even Fittes is taking Friday off.”
“It’ll be perfectly fine. There’s no actual research indicating Friday the thirteenth is in any way genuinely unlucky.” Lockwood had made the mistake of making his pitch at breakfast before any of them were properly awake, so he was doing his best to give off an air of debonair confidence while still in his pajamas, and the effect just wasn’t the same. “Tell me I’m wrong, George.”
George sighed. “Technically, you’re right.” He sounded aggrieved around his toast. “It’s largely superstition.”
“ But, ” Lucy put in, “no one ever works on Friday the thirteenth. Ever. Doesn’t that seem…” she searched for the right word, “ominous to you?”
“We hunt ghosts, ominous is…kind of in the job description.” George poured himself more tea, oblivious to the betrayed look Lucy shot him.
“Come on, Luce.” Lockwood took another roll. “It doesn’t sound like it’ll be a hard job, and–not to pull rank, but we could use the cash. The whole–” He gestured to his shoulder, still freshly out of a sling, “healing business doesn’t pay very well. Our last commission and the jobs you two have been taking got us this far, but–I’m sure George can cook some really delicious things out of just rice, but at some point we’re going to need to restock our kits as well, and I don’t fancy catching scurvy because we can’t afford fruit.”
George grimaced in unhappy agreement, and Lucy sighed.
“...What’s the job?” The resignation in her tone didn’t dim Lockwood’s resulting grin.
“Old house, new residents. They’ve been having disturbances in the basement.”
“What kind of disturbances?”
“Nothing major. Bad feelings, cold spots. Might just be a type one hanging about. And they sent over blueprints and some basic information related to the history of the house that they got when they moved in, so we won’t even be too pinched for research time.” The last bit was directed at George. His grin got smaller and softened a little when he looked back at Lucy. “Honestly, Luce, I’m not trying to drag us into anything crazy my first case back. But the client needs it done before the weekend and is willing to pay extra for it to be done tonight. Besides, if we get it done before midnight, it won’t even be the thirteenth yet.”
It…was a solid argument. Lucy knew how antsy Lockwood had been getting, cooped up while he finished healing from the bone glass case. George had been healing as well, in his own, prickly way, but that was more mental than physical. It would be good for the three of them to get out and tackle a case together again. She just didn’t like the timing of it. But if Lockwood was right, and the job was as easy as it sounded, they very well might have an early night anyway. It could be a good test case for Lockwood’s injured arm, too. He’d been doing rapier exercises in the basement, but he’d been making an effort not to overdo it, only doing a little at a time, and wasn’t taking them at full speed yet.
“Fine.” She finally said. “But if it turns into a shitshow, you’re on dish duty for a week.”
“Done.” Lockwood offered his hand, and they shook on it.
“Don’t worry Lucy, if you lose he’ll only make you do seventy percent of the dishes.” George put in, and Lucy matched Lockwood’s grin with a laugh.
“That’s how many I do anyway.”
“Hey, I do laundry as well, I’m not completely useless.”
“Yes, you’re very good at ironing shirts.” George teased, and Lockwood lobbed a grape at him.
“If that’s how you treat fruit, no wonder you’re on the verge of catching scurvy. You’re supposed to eat it, Lockwood.”
Lucy rolled her eyes as the two of them bickered, but it was nice that they weren’t tiptoeing around each other anymore. Not least because George was terrible at tiptoeing around anyone. They’d found equilibrium fairly quickly after the bone glass case, but it had felt fragile, like the cracked pane in the kitchen window. Lockwood had been exhausted, and in need of more help than he was comfortable with, and all three of them had felt guilty for what had happened to each other. It had made for a strange sort of tension, and Lucy had expected it to snap at some point. Instead it had just deflated slowly, like a balloon with a slow leak. George’s sharp edges hadn’t really softened, but Lucy had worked out how to tell his friendly barbs from his unfriendly ones now, and it was impossible to mistake his bickering with Lockwood for anything but fond.
She’d been relieved, in an odd, guilty sort of way, that George had been the one to take charge of helping Lockwood most with his injured shoulder. It had given the two of them a chance to iron out the wrinkles that had formed in their friendship, and in a lot of ways it had just made sense. George’s room was closer, he’d known Lockwood longer, and honestly Lucy was glad she was able to have a little space to sort out her own feelings about Lockwood without also having to help him get his shirt on in the mornings. Besides, it’s not like she’d been excluded from the group. She and George had gone on a number of small jobs together, just the two of them, and when Lockwood inevitably fell asleep at the kitchen table waiting up for them (despite them telling him to just go to bed ), the two of them had helped him up the stairs together. He insisted he didn’t need help, but he was also unsteady on his feet when he got tired while he was healing, so they didn’t really give him a choice.
Anyway, Lucy had gotten her own time with Lockwood. Sure, he was a complete prick and drove her a bit crazy, but he also listened to her. There was a world of difference, she found, between a prick that thought he knew what was best and ignored other peoples’ input, and–whatever Lockwood was. A prick who apologized when shown his mistakes and meant it and actually tried hard to do better. She could live with that kind of prick, she found. Besides, she liked Lockwood. He was a smug bastard with a self-destructive streak a mile wide and a penchant for self-aggrandizing, but he also put most of his considerable time, energy, and intellect into trying to do right by her and George. It was strange, how comforting she found that. No, he wasn’t ok. None of them were ok, she knew that. She wasn’t ok, Lockwood wasn’t ok, and George wasn’t ok. And as furious as it made her to realize it, Jacobs hadn’t been ok either. She couldn’t write off everyone who was damaged, just because Jacobs had been. And she wasn’t about to cut herself off from the only people since Norrie who had shown her that she was important to them. She wouldn’t lose them too. Not even to stubbornness.
So when she and Lockwood had been alone in the library, when he’d still been spending most of his days asleep, and he’d offered to read to her, she’d said yes, even though she didn’t recognize the book he had. They’d talked before, about how Lucy hadn’t managed much schooling outside of her work for Jacobs–how Lockwood had, had been expected to, because of who his family was. So when he’d started in on something by Shakespeare, Lucy had expected a dreary lesson. What she had not expected was for Lockwood to use funny voices for nearly every character. If he’d been well enough, she was fairly sure he would have been jumping around the room to act out the scenes all on his own, but as it was he somehow ended up half-propped on her lap, doing a terrible French accent to deliver Duke Frederick’s lines in As You Like It, when George came home with groceries and joined them. And when Lockwood had gotten too tired to continue, George picked up where he’d left off. He didn’t have the same theatricality as Lockwood, but he did a passable imitation of the voices Lockwood had been using, and managed to get to a good stopping spot before pausing and putting in a scrap of paper as a bookmark.
“Guess you’re stuck.” He told Lucy, looking amused. Lockwood had fallen fully asleep by now, his head pillowed on her lap and turned slightly towards her stomach, brows a bit furrowed. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of riding the catafalque up after the bone glass case, except that they were home, and they were safe. When Lucy had been small, her neighbors had owned a cat, and had paid her to watch it a few times. Once it had fallen asleep on her lap, and she’d felt stuck just like this, unwilling to move and disturb anything that seemed so relaxed.
Moving quietly, George had gotten up and fetched a blanket, tucking it gingerly around Lockwood, then offered Lucy a smile.
“Tea?” He asked, and when she nodded, went to get some. She and George read in the library for several more hours before George went off to make dinner, and Lockwood finally woke up, looking entirely disoriented, when the smell of cooking reached the library. He’d clearly been somewhat embarrassed to have fallen asleep on Lucy’s lap, but that didn’t stop him the next time. Or the next. They made it through the rest of As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and, on George’s request, Hamlet. Lockwood clearly liked the comedies more, but Lucy found Hamlet surprisingly moving. They were in between books at the moment, trying to decide which to start next. George had been making an impassioned plea for Don Quixote next, but Lockwood wanted to start Much Ado About Nothing. Lucy had suggested Romeo and Juliet, which was the Shakespeare play she’d heard people mention most often, but Lockwood was hesitant about that one for some reason. Either way, they’d agreed to start on Friday.
It was an appointment Lucy did not intend to miss.