Chapter Text
Lucy awoke to screaming.
Not from the living, luckily. Given the dim blue of the light filtering through her attic window, Lucy had to guess it was too early for any of her housemates to be up and about and shrieking at the top of their lungs. That was where the good news ended.
With a heavy sigh, she rolled over to glare at the source of the screams. Skull, in his usual position perched on the sill, was a mess of swirling plasm and incoherent rambling. Lucy had never seen him this way, so her annoyance quickly morphed into concern.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, pushing herself up on her elbows. “This better be an emergency, I only just managed to fall asleep, you twat.”
The Skull stopped swirling for a moment, but his shining, green ectoplasm didn’t form into any of his usual faces. It remained a tangled mess, the crumbling remains of his Source just visible through the gaps.
“ Lucy? ” He asked, half-whisper, half-scream. “ Lucy, is that you? ”
“Who else would it be?” Lucy threw off her covers and crawled closer to his jar. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were no cracks, no leaks, no obvious signs of distress. Was something happening on the Other Side?
“I can’t move, Luce, ” Skull said. “ I think- I think I’m paralyzed. ”
Luce? Skull called her plenty of things—wench, tubby, maidservant, she-bitch, Idiot Supreme—but never Luce . That name was reserved for her human friends, the ones who were all asleep downstairs while she dealt with the histrionics of a dead boy.
“You can’t be paralyzed,” she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “You haven’t got a body, stupid.”
“ What are you talking about?! ” Skull cried. “Lucy, please, wake George and call an ambulance.”
“An ambulance…?” Before Lucy could ask if he’d finally lost it, another scream pierced the air.
This one, unfortunately, was from someone very much alive.
Lucy snatched up her rapier from the floor and bolted down the stairs, taking them two at a time. One of the boys was in trouble, and that took precedence over Skull’s nonsense.
George was just emerging from his room as she stumbled to the landing. Based on the confusion on his face, he wasn’t the one who screamed. That only left-
“Lockwood!” Lucy called out, and they raced in tandem to his door. “Lockwood, we’re coming in!”
On her cue, George yanked the door open and Lucy raced forward, rapier raised. She paused as Lockwood turned to her, visibly unharmed, with no Visitors around, grinning widely and wickedly. Lucy lowered her sword, but held onto it tightly. Something was wrong with him, even if he wasn’t screaming anymore.
“What’s wrong?” George asked, following behind Lucy. “Who died?”
“I’m alive,” Lockwood whispered, looking down at his hands. He flexed them, then kicked out one of his legs, shaking it about. It would have been a funny sight if Lucy wasn’t so terrified. “I’m alive !”
“Congrats, mate,” George said, rubbing sleep from his face. “Can I go…?”
“I’m ALIVE! ” Lockwood jumped in the air, whipping his arms around like a madman. Lucy took a step back and exchanged a concerned glance with George. “Oh, this is grand! I’m free as a bird! The world is my oyster!” He spun around in place until his movements grew unstable and he stumbled off to the side.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Lucy asked. She’d frankly never seen Lockwood so happy ; it was unsettling.
Lockwood turned his sights back on her and laughed. “Oh, Lucy !” He exclaimed, arms spread wide. “Finally, you and I can properly paint this town red .”
Without warning, he took her face in his hands and planted his lips on hers. Lucy pushed him back, face growing hot and heart thundering in her chest. She finally had an understanding of what was happening, but that didn’t stop her from slapping Lockwood across the face.
Well…not Lockwood per se.
“Skull,” she hissed, voice low. “Tell me how you switched bodies with Lockwood. Now .”
Lockwood—no, Skull—grinned at her. George simply gaped.
“Honestly, Lucy, I didn’t do anything,” Skull said, lounging in Lockwood’s usual spot at the kitchen table. He had a large spread in front of him—donuts, biscuits, toast and jam, fried eggs, burnt bacon—and was shoveling food into his mouth like a man possessed. Lucy and George barely even touched their tea, disgusted by the sight. Lockwood, finally calmed down, swirled pitifully in the silverglass jar that was now his home.
“How is this even possible?” George asked for the millionth time, cleaning his glasses on his shirt. “The implications of this! That human bodies are no more than living Sources…this could be a medical breakthrough! A psychical breakthrough! This could change everything we know about the universe-”
“George, I need you to shut up for a minute,” Lucy said, rubbing at her temples. “Lockwood’s in the skull. Skull is in Lockwood. No one has any idea when or why this happened. And if we tell anyone- ” She looked pointedly at George. “-they’ll know we have a stolen Type 3 and arrest us at best. ” The idea of what Penelope Fittes might do hung clearly in the air between them.
“We’ll need to tell Holly,” George said. “And Kipps might be able to help, despite being Kipps.”
“Sure, let Kipps help,” Skull said around a mouthful of jelly donut. Most of the jelly fell out the back end, splattering across the Thinking Cloth. “He’ll definitely slow you down, which will give me more time for my plans.”
“No,” Lucy said. “No plans. You are not to leave this house.”
“I’m not sure you can stop me,” Skull taunted, tossing the rest of his donut over his shoulder. George’s eyes bugged at the sight. “I’m bigger, stronger, faster-”
But not smarter. With the element of surprise, Lucy managed to tackle him to the ground in a few seconds. In that time George had pulled their trusty roll of duck tape from its usual drawer and they managed to bind Skull’s arms and legs before he could do more than throw an elbow. It caught Lucy in the eye; he earned several pieces of tape over his mouth as punishment.
“Anyway,” she said after they ensured he was properly incapacitated. “We’ll have to cancel our upcoming cases. With Lockwood out of commission-”
“No,” Lockwood said. “We need the money, Luce. With Kipps’ and Holly’s help, I’m sure you won’t even miss me.”
Lucy frowned. “Are you sure?” She asked. “It feels a bit weird for Lockwood & Co. to do a job without Lockwood .”
Though he couldn’t hear Lockwood’s part of the conversation, George seemed to get the gist of it. “We’ll have to go by ‘And Company’ from now on. Not quite as catchy.”
“Speaking of, we have a client coming by this morning,” Lucy said. “We should probably start cleaning up the sitting room.”
George nodded and stood. “What should we do about…?” He gestured over the Skull, who was writhing on the ground like an oversized worm. Lucy grimaced.
“Leave him for now. Serves him right for kissing me,” she spat.
Skull tried to say something, but it came out as a muffled, “ Moomowmoomiemih.”
“Alright.” George grabbed Lockwood’s jar off the table. “Better keep him with us, just in case.”
“Good thinking,” Lucy said.
They parted ways to get dressed for the day. The sun was fully risen now, and it wasn’t long until Holly would arrive. Lucy paused in the hall on her way to the sitting room to ring Kipps, who was none too happy to be woken at that hour. He still agreed to come by ASAP—though the words he used were much ruder—and Lucy hung up to join George in cleaning up the detritus of their last company party.
(It had been two nights prior and mainly consisted of Kipps and Lockwood arguing over a board game and Holly and Lucy drawing a luxurious mustache on George after he’d fallen asleep in the armchair. All-in–all, one of their more raucous nights in.)
Lockwood swirled miserably in his jar as Lucy and George worked. The front door opened and closed, and Holly called out a cheerful greeting. Lucy returned it, then turned to George.
“You don’t think the client will be suspicious if Lockwood isn’t here?” She asked, the thought just occurring to her.
“Can’t imagine they would be,” George said with a shrug. “I mean, any more suspicious than they ever are of a handful of agents with no supervisor.”
“Well, with Kipps here, maybe they won’t question it.”
“As long as he doesn’t open his stupid mouth.”
“I suppose.”
“Good morning,” Holly said, giving them a sweet smile as she entered the room. “I don’t want to overstep- I mean, what you do when I’m not here isn’t any of my concern, but…is there a reason Lockwood is tied up in the kitchen?”
Not for the first time that morning, Lucy and George sighed.