Chapter Text
Lucy was sitting in the living room reading when George clobbered through the front door, arms filled with stuffed bags and a sour expression on his face. Lucy glanced up and stared at her roommate. “What on earth have you got all that for?”
“It’s the Christmas stock,” George grumbled, putting down some of the bags. Lucy noted all the salt bombs, flares, iron shillings, basically everything they needed to do way more jobs than she ever thought they could schedule.
“Christmas stock? November’s only just started!”
“Yeah,” George sighed, as he fell into an armchair across from Lucy. “Lockwood tends to go a tad mad before the holidays. November is when the Christmas shopping starts so he always insists on trying to get ahead of it.” Lucy stared blankly at George and he groaned, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Every year people start buying ghost fighting equipment as gifts. It’s honestly a little infuriating, but I suppose it makes the talentless feel safer regardless. Point is, supplies tend to run low quickly around the holidays-”
“Making our jobs near impossible to do.” Lucy finished.
“Basically.” George paused, smirked, and then continued. “Well, unless we disregard DEPRAC regulations and go in without the required equipment to keep our insurance valid.”
“My god George! How many times do I have to apologize!” Lucy snapped, standing up from her seat and throwing her book down on the table in a huff. George burst into laughter and Lucy shook her head, trying to stop the corners of her mouth from turning upwards.
“Little help Luce,” Lockwood called and Lucy slipped into the hallway to find him with just as many bags as George.
“Course,” She replied as she rushed over to help Lockwood put down all his shopping. “But seriously Lockwood, how many cases do you expect us to have in the coming months.”
“Not a clue, but Christmas is a busy month, plenty of idiots unknowingly gifting sources. Some people at least have half a brain and they hire us to check over their items before giving them to their grans' and whatnot.”
“Plus, the holidays often stir up tons of emotions, and those emotions awaken spirits, and then, people are desperately rushing to get their houses made safe before the family comes to town.” George gets up from his seat as he talks and starts sorting through some of the bags while Lockwood supervises.
“Last year there was enough overflow to get us some good work and now that we’ve got more of a reputation to our name, I suspect we’ll be getting even more calls.” Lockwood grinned as George mumbled something under his breath about their reputation being less than desirable.
“Still, this is a lot of stuff.”
“I’ve been saving for this haul. And I’d rather us be overstocked than under, especially if we won’t be able to buy the supplies we need come December.” Lockwood’s words dug at Lucy’s inside. Last year Lucy was still up north and still under her mother and Jacobs’ control. She shivered at the thought. Jacobs certainly hadn’t stocked up. He said some rubbish thing about us relying on our equipment too much, only now was Lucy realizing he was just being cheap.
“Earth to Lucy.” George waved his hand near her face and Lucy shook her head.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I was just thinking. Did you say something?”
“Not me,” George jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and Lockwood took that as a cue to ask his unheard question again.
“I was just saying, before I go booking up our schedule, when might you be heading up north to see your family.” Lockwood didn’t mean anything by asking, but Lucy’s heart still jumped into her throat. She swallowed hard as the idea of it all hit her. She hadn’t even considered going home. The boys understood that her last employment ended badly, but she had yet to tell them about her home life, how her mother treated her, and about how the town looked at her since the Wythburn Mill incident.
“I’m not sure yet,” Lucy gulped again. Lockwood seemed to notice how tense she’d become and Lucy rolled her shoulders. She didn’t want them to know, not yet. “I actually might not… if that’s alright?” That got George’s attention and he glanced over his shoulder and up at Lockwood from where he knelt by the bags.
“Any reason?” George asked, now turning to look at her.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, Luce,” Lockwood added, his tone gentle yet firm. All Lucy could do was nod. “And you are welcome to stay over the holidays if you’d like, but you’re not obligated to.”
“Thanks, I’ll let you know.” Lucy nodded, almost to herself before quickly going into the living room, grabbing her book and heading up to the attic. Lockwood stared after her, only looking away when George started to complain.
“How come she doesn’t have to help organize all this?”
“You can leave a bag or two for her to sort later, but for now, just leave her be.” George gave in and simply picked up the supplies to carry them down to the basement for storage. He knew Lockwood had a point, but he didn’t want to end up doing all the work alone while Lucy read in her room and Lockwood pondered her peculiarness. Still, George didn’t complain anymore, and Lockwood followed him downstairs.