Chapter Text
In retrospect, it might have been too soon to get back in a car. But he was that desperate to get out of the house.
George and Lucy had made him spend several days in bed- and then, begrudgingly, on the couch in the library. In all fairness to them, he had been truly sick, and from his hazy memories of the first day or so, he guessed he’d given them a bad scare. And his stomach had been unpredictably upset, and every time his fever broke it would spike up again a few hours later. But he hadn’t thrown up in two days, and his temperature had been normal for a full twenty-four hours, and George’s mother had been asking them repeatedly if they could please come over.
The thirty minute drive was starting to take its toll, though. Lockwood shifted his weight, trying to breathe through the unpleasant pull-and-churn in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t think he was going to throw up, but it wasn’t completely out of the question either.
Lucy reached over and took his hand, her fingers strong and cool against his. “Almost there,” she said. “Feeling a little carsick?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he lied, but he adjusted his grip so their fingers were interlaced. Lucy rubbed her thumb idly along the back of his hand as she gazed out the window.
The cab pulled up to the curb outside of the Karim house; it was smaller than Portland Row but cozy, the front door painted a cheery yellow and flanked with pots of fat red geraniums. They made bright spots of color in the gray drizzling day.
George got out of the cab first and turned to offer a hand to Lockwood. He let go of Lucy reluctantly and stumbled out. “I apologize in advance for my mother,” George said. “You know how she is. And she’s been awfully worried about you. She’s going to fuss.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t mind,” Lockwood said. “I think-” He straightened up and his knees buckled.
Lucy pressed her hand to his lower back. “Don’t rush,” she warned.
“Oh, you’re just being bossy,” he said.
“Big talk from a boy who looks like a newborn deer trying to walk for the first time,” Lucy retorted.
He wanted to argue, but she wasn’t wrong. The constant vomiting and the inability to eat properly for almost a week had worked in tandem to leave him weak and wobbly. He’d lost weight too; the cuffs of his gray hoodie were loose around his wrists and his joggers didn’t fit right around his hips. Hopefully he could build himself back up quickly. There wasn’t weight on his frame he could afford to lose, and he needed to be up to his full strength if he was going to take on cases in a few days.
The front door opened before they even made it up the walk. “Georgie!” Andrew called. “You’re late!”
George rolled his eyes. “Can’t help traffic,” he called back, sticking his hands in his pockets and ducking his head as he ran through the rain to get up to the door. Lockwood tried to walk faster but he couldn’t get his legs to cooperate. Lucy kept her arm around his waist and he let himself lean into her a little as she kept them at a steady pace.
Andrew held the door open for them. “You got here just in time, it’s about to rain hard out there,” he said. At twenty-seven, he was closest in age to George out of all of his siblings, but he was still ten years older; the family resemblance between them was immediately noticeable. “Mum will probably want you three to stay the night.”
“Yes, well, we’ll see,” George said as he shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his shoes.
“Hey, Lucy, hey, Anthony,” Andrew said. He looked him up and down. “George said you’d been ill.”
“I’m feeling much better,” Lockwood said, hoping he at least sounded convincing even if he didn’t look it.
“You don’t look it,” Andrew said. “Just wait till Mum sees you, mate.”
“Come on, Andrew, don’t scare him off,” George said.
“Is that my baby?” Anjuli called from the kitchen. “Are the children here?”
“We’re not children, Mum, we’re highly trained agents,” George called back. Andrew snorted. “Oh, come off it, Andy, we can’t all be engineers.”
Anjuli walked out of the kitchen, beaming. “There you are!” she said. She kissed George on the cheek. “My sweet boy. You’re awfully late.”
“Sorry, Mum, traffic was bad,” George said.
Anjuli had already moved on. “Lucy, darling, I’m glad you’re here,” she said, squeezing her arm. “You look lovely.”
Lucy flushed pink. She was wearing her softest jumper, the light blue one with the fair isle pattern, and her hair was damp and wavy from the light rain outside. Anjuli was right, she was lovely. “Um…thanks,” she said. “Thank you for having us over.”
“Oh, any time, darling,” she said. Anjuli turned to Lockwood and took him by the shoulders. “Anthony, you poor thing, you look exhausted.”
“I’m doing a lot better,” he said. “Thank you so much for stopping by while I was ill, I appreciate it.”
“Of course,” she said, scrutinizing his face. “You poor sweet boy. George, take him into the living room so he can lie down.”
“No, I’m okay, I can-“ he tried to protest.
“Take Lucy too, get them settled and then come help me with dinner,” Anjuli said, ignoring him. “Henry is coming over in an hour and Jane will be here after work, we have a lot of people to feed tonight.”
“Is Jane bringing Molly Ringwald?” George asked.
“This one is named Louisa and we like her, we want Jane to keep this one, so be nice,” Anjuli said.
“What’s a Molly Ringwald?” Lucy asked.
George shook his head. “We need to fix your pop culture knowledge. Come on.”
He herded them into the living room, and Lockwood found himself getting nudged onto the sofa. He had half a mind to argue, but it was incredibly comfortable and his muscles were aching. It also helped that Lucy propped up the pillows behind him and draped a quilt over his legs before perching on the arm of the couch behind his shoulders.
George fiddled with the television. “My sister has two main personality traits,” he said absently. “She’s obsessed with 80s films, and she can’t keep a girlfriend longer than a few weeks. She’s gone through so many that none of us bother learning their names.”
“Except for Mum,” Andrew added, leaning against the doorway.
“Except for Mum,” George amended. “So me, Anthony, and Henry took to calling them all Molly Ringwald, after her favorite actress.”
“Helps that Jane has a thing for redheads,” Andrew said.
“I’m still not quite following,” Lucy said.
The opening scenes of the movie flickered on the screen. “You’ll see, it’ll make sense,” George said. He sat down on the floor in front of the couch. “We’re starting with the Breakfast Club.”
“Really? I would have started with Pretty in Pink,” Andrew said.
George opened his mouth to argue. “Georgie, come help me!” Anjuli called from the kitchen.
“Mum, we’re watching a movie!” George hollered. Anjuli said something in Farsi; he answered back and Andrew snickered as they argued.
“Andrew, you too!” Anjuli called. George grinned at Andrew triumphantly.
“I’ll be back, I’m sure she won’t keep me long,” George said as he got up from the floor. “I can talk my way out of this.”
“Not fair, it’s only because you’re the baby of the family,” Andrew said as he followed George down the hall to the kitchen.
Lockwood leaned back against the pillows. Lucy was close enough that he could almost lean against her hip, but he wished she was closer. “Do they always bicker like that?” she said.
“Oh, yeah, but it’s only because they’re fond of each other,” Lockwood said. Lucy had only been to the Karims’ house once or twice, he’d been over dozens of times since George had become the second member of Lockwood and Co. After the initial shock of “Georgie’s new employer is younger than him” wore off, they’d all but adopted him. “One of these days you’ll have to be here when Henry brings his wife and kids along, then it’ll be really crazy. But it’s fun.”
Lucy laughed. “I can’t imagine you being around little kids,” she said.
He craned his neck to look at her. “I’m great with kids,” he objected. “Why, do you have so much more experience than me?”
She shrugged. “Well, I’ve got nine nieces and nephews,” she said. She paused. “No, there’s at least eleven at this point, Jenny was expecting twins when I left.”
“That many?” he said, surprised.
The corner of Lucy’s mouth tugged up in a ghost of a smile. “I’m the baby of my family too,” she said. “Six older sisters.”
She’d mentioned sisters before, but never that many. “That’s…that’s a lot,” he said.
“More than my parents ever wanted, that’s for sure,” Lucy said. “Mum didn’t have time for me, Da died when I was five…my sisters took turns raising me but they didn’t really want to do it either.”
Lockwood tilted his head back to look at her. She gazed at the television, her expression calm and unreadable. She didn’t seem particularly bothered. “Are any of your sisters as talented as you?” he asked.
“Two of them were sensitive enough to work night watch for a bit, but other than that, no,” Lucy said. “I got all of it, I suppose. It was the first time my mum ever seemed pleased to have me around, when I was thirteen and signed me up to work for Jacobs. There were only two of my sisters left in the house at that point, just Mary and Sarah, so between that and my paychecks her life got drastically easier.” She sighed. “I haven’t heard from my family at all since I left, but…I haven’t tried to contact them either. Guess it’s to be expected.”
They fell silent. Lockwood gazed idly around the room, the movie unable to hold his attention. Rain was beginning to tap against the windows and he could hear the distant chatter of George talking with his mother and brother in Farsi. The room was warm and cozy, the furniture comfortably lived-in and the decor clearly selected with care. There were framed photos of the Karim family everywhere- George’s parents on their wedding day, university graduation portraits of all three of his siblings, snapshots from holiday trips and Christmases. There was even a photo of three teenagers in matching tee shirts, all of them dark haired and dark eyed and beaming brightly as they clustered around a scrunchy-faced newborn held in the tallest boy’s arms.
There was a similar photo, Lockwood knew, buried in a drawer in his house. A beaming little girl in a lavender dress with barrettes holding back her long dark hair, happily clutching a small bundle wrapped in a light green blanket embroidered with violets.
Somewhere, in some other universe, he was the baby of his family too.
“I haven’t been able to talk Mum into setting me free yet, but she did send me with this,” George said, interrupting his maudlin train of thought as he balanced two large mugs in his hands. He paused, squinting at the contents, and then handed one to Lockwood. “That’s the one for you.”
Lucy took the other mug. “What is it?” she asked curiously.
“Chai nabat,” George said. “Chai with rock candy. Mum always makes it when someone’s under the weather. She says yours” nodding to Lockwood “ought to help settle your stomach.”
“I’m not sick,” Lucy objected.
“Yes, well, Mum worries,” George said. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “How’re you liking the movie so far, Luce?”
“Bit confusing, honestly,” she said. “I don’t remember school being like this at all.”
“Oh, yeah, so what’s happening is-“
“George!”
He sighed. “Coming, Mum,” he called. “I’ll explain later, I guess.”
Lockwood took a careful sip of his tea. It was warm and sweet and spicy, and even though his stomach was far from settled, it didn’t make him feel instantly nauseous like most things did lately.
“How are you feeling?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, fine,” he lied.
Lucy brushed his hair back and touched his forehead. “You’re a little warm,” she said. She pressed her cool palm to his cheek. “Do you think your fever’s spiking again?”
He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “I don’t know,” he said, too caught off guard to keep lying. “I don’t feel nearly as bad as I was, but…I don’t think I feel well either.”
Lucy stroked his cheek absently, her fingertips soft. “Hm,” she said. “Let me go ask George if I can get you some paracetamol. When’s the last time we gave you some, a couple of hours ago?” He nodded. She set her mug down on an end table and slid down from the arm of the couch. “I’ll be right back.”
He bit back a sigh. He didn’t want to admit it, but the past few days he’d become downright clingy when it came to Lucy. Embarrassing, really, but when he was in the worst of his fever haze all he wanted was someone close to him, and he kept hoping it would be her. And to her credit, she almost never left his side. Granted, he couldn’t remember exactly what had gone on, especially in the first day or so- it was a blur of throwing up and waking up to fever chills and a headache that made his vision go spotty- but he kept catching vague memories of Lucy stroking his hair or holding his hand or rubbing his back. He even vaguely remembered lying in her arms while they both slept, although that could potentially be a dream. He’d had some truly bizarre fever dreams.
Lucy padded into the room with the pill bottle and a glass of water. “Here, take these,” she said. He obeyed, and even made himself drink the whole glass even though he didn’t feel particularly thirsty. “I hope that helps.”
“Me too,” he said.
The doorbell rang, cheerful and insistent, and George darted down the hall. “I’ve got it,” he shouted, sliding in his socks. “Oh. It’s just you two.”
“Jesus, Georgie, way to make a girl feel welcome.”
“Sorry, I mean…oh wow, my two favorite siblings, I’m delighted to see you.”
“I heard that!” Andrew shouted from the kitchen.
The two oldest Karim siblings walked into the living room. Both in their early thirties, Henry looked like a glimpse into George’s future, down to a similar pair of glasses perched on his nose, while Jane looked like a younger version of their mother, her dark curls piled into a messy bun at the crown of her head. “Hey, you two,” Henry said. “Anthony, are you feeling any better? Mum said you’d been ill.”
“I’m fine now, thanks,” Lockwood said politely.
Jane’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, are you watching The Breakfast Club?” she said.
“Yeah, Lucy’s never seen it,” George said. “Speaking of which, where’s Molly Ringwald?”
Jane winced. “Oh, right…yeah, I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she said. “But I met this really pretty girl on the train home last night-“
Henry shook his head, grinning. “Oh, Janie,” he sighed in mock disappointment.
“What? We can’t all marry our first girlfriend.”
“Clara was my second girlfriend.”
George plunked down on the other end of the couch. “You see why I had to move out of this house?” he said. “They squabble more than we do. And they don’t even live here, they just come over all the time.”
Andrew stuck his head into the room. “Mum sent me to tell you that she can hear you and she’s miffed you haven’t come to say hello,” he said. “Also, Georgie, she says you can’t go watch the movie with your friends yet, you need to help with the potatoes.”
George rolled his eyes. “I have to cook at home, I have to cook when I’m here…when will my suffering cease?” he said.
Lucy laughed a little as they all trooped out of the room, their voices still carrying down the hall. “I like them,” she said.
“And they like you,” Lockwood said. “You would know if they didn’t.” He bit back a yawn. “Andrew has yet to invite a girl over that the family likes, it’s honestly pretty funny to watch.”
He yawned again. Lucy took his nearly empty mug out of his hand. “Are you tired?” she asked softly. “You can take a nap if you want.”
“No, no, I’ve taken more naps this week than I’ve taken in my whole life,” he protested.
Lucy smiled at him. “Trust me, you need it,” she said. She sat down on the floor in front of the couch and leaned back. “No one will judge you if you fall asleep.”
Despite himself, he was pretty tired, but it was Lucy who fell asleep first in a matter of minutes, her head tilted back close to his. He wished he’d asked her to lie down next to him. She was close, but he wanted her closer.
He was nearly asleep, hovering at the very edge, when George snuck quietly into the room. The television volume dropped a little bit, and George draped another blanket over him before picking up their empty mugs and sneaking back out.
He wasn’t fully asleep though, and he could still hear the quiet conversation from the kitchen. “They’re both asleep,” George said.
“Oh good, they both look exhausted,” Henry said.
“We’ve both been taking care of him, but Lucy’s been glued to him the whole time,” George said.
“He looks horrible,” Jane said. “Poor thing. He’s thin as a rail. I mean, he’s always skinny, but he looks like he’s lost weight.”
“He could barely walk inside the house,” Andrew said. “Lucy had to hold him up.”
“It’s been really bad,” George said. “Lucy and I almost took him to A&E a couple of times.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You haven’t seen him in a hospital,” George said. “There’s deathglows everywhere, he…he gets overwhelmed and then kind of shuts down.” There was a long pause. Lockwood strained to listen, no longer feeling tired. “Lucy says…he gets panic attacks. I didn’t…I didn’t know. He had a really bad one and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help him.”
His voice cracked a little. Lockwood stared up at the ceiling. “Oh, Georgie,” Jane said softly.
“He couldn’t breathe, I thought he was going to die,” George said. “Thank god for Lucy. She always seems to know what to do when it comes to him.”
“Well, that’s because they’re in love, they just haven’t figured it out yet,” Henry said.
“Obviously,” George said.
His heart thudded in his chest. That was…that was unexpected. He said it so casually. Was it that obvious that he might have a little crush on Lucy?
Was it actually reciprocated and he had yet to notice?
He glanced over at Lucy. She was fast asleep, her lips softly parted and her ridiculously thick lashes fanned out on her cheeks. His stomach flipflopped, for once not unpleasantly.
“You awake?”
Lockwood jumped. He hadn’t heard George come in, he’d been too busy staring at Lucy. “Yeah, I just…just woke up,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Listen, George, I…thank you for…for everything. I know I’ve put a huge strain on you-“
“Don’t worry about it,” George said. “You would have done the same thing for me or Luce.” He grinned. “Honestly, it’s Lucy you ought to be thanking. You owe her big time after you puked on her.”
His mouth dropped open. “I didn’t,” he said.
“Uh-huh, three separate times,” George said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Once after you passed out the first time on the case, once during the cab ride home, and once when we’d finally gotten you to sleep.”
“Oh my god,” Lockwood said. “And she still wants to be around me?”
“I couldn’t pry her away,” George said. “Listen, Mum needs us to run a couple of errands before my dad gets home from work, so we’ll be back in a bit. You need anything?”
“No, I’m all right, I think,” he said. “But…really, three times?”
“Yeah, really,” George said. He set the remote down on the end table. “You can watch whatever you want, we’ll be back in half an hour or so. Wish me luck while I spend quality time with my siblings.”
Lockwood laughed a little at that. The house was considerably quieter once the Karim siblings left in a flurry of half-hushed conversation. He almost felt sleepy again, but he couldn’t quite drift off.
Even under the blanket he felt cold; he shifted around trying to get comfortable without waking Lucy. But she inhaled deeply and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Did I fall asleep?” she said sleepily.
“Yeah,” he said. “But you probably needed it.”
She twisted around and rested her arms on the edge of the couch, biting back a yawn. “Probably,” she said. “No one in our house has been getting enough sleep lately.”
“That’s my fault,” he said. “I, uh…I’ve been informed I might have thrown up on you.”
She scrunched up her face in a teasing smile. “Mm-hm,” she said. “You owe me for that, I believe.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something to make it up to you,” he said.
She rested her chin on her arms and smiled as she gazed up at him from under her lashes. The warm lamplight in the shadowed room made her watercolor hazel eyes look greener than usual. “I’m just glad you’re better,” she said softly.
Lucy was so close to him now, he could bump his nose against hers if he wanted to. Or kiss her. He shivered.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“A little, I suppose.”
There was another blanket draped over an armchair, but Lucy didn’t reach for it. “Scooch over,” she said, nudging at his hip. He stared at her. “Come on, babes, work with me here.”
The nickname made the back of his neck heat up and he sat up clumsily, his head spinning as the horizon tilted. Lucy climbed up onto the couch with him, and they shifted around until he was lying between her legs with his head on her shoulder. “Better?” she asked as she draped the blanket around them both.
Her sweater was soft under his cheek and he could feel the steady thump of her heartbeat. “Yes,” he said. “You, uh…I could have just gotten another blanket.”
“I was cold too,” she said, unrepentant.
She smelled like lavender and salt and soap and he wanted to stay that close to her forever. “So…babes, huh?” he said
Her cheeks pinked. “You call me Luce, George is Georgie,” she said. “You need a nickname.”
“Technically, Lockwood is my nickname.”
“No one ever calls you Anthony except for adults,” she said, and he could hear the mirth in her voice. “I can’t call you Tony, only Kipps calls you that and you get so mad.”
“I don’t get mad,” he said.
“Yes, you do,” she teased, and she started idly playing with his hair. “Let’s see…you’ve already stated you’re not fond of Big A. What’s left?” She paused. “Anth? AJ?”
No one had ever called him that before and it sounded sweetly drawling in her northern accent. “I haven’t thought of that one,” he said. He could feel her laughing a little. “Do I really need a nickname?”
“I suppose not,” she said. She kept running her fingers through his hair. “You look so tired, you’re not going to get better if you don’t catch up on your sleep.”
“I’ve been trying to catch up on my sleep since I was six years old,” he said dryly.
“Oh, see? All the more reason,” Lucy teased. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when dinner’s ready.”
He wasn’t that tired, he thought, but she was soft and warm and her hand was so gentle on his hair. His eyes drifted shut as he listened to the rain. But she still fell asleep first, her fingers still tangled in his hair, and it didn’t take long for him to doze off too, his body relaxing against hers as she held him in her arms.