Chapter Text
George Casper Karim was no fool, okay?
He knew exactly what had been going on at 35 Portland Row these past few months. Lockwood and Lucy probably thought they were being so subtle. Well, George was a much lighter sleeper than he let on. (He valued his sleep and it made them think twice about waking him up for trivial matters that weren’t actual emergencies.) He could hear them having quiet conversations on the landing outside his door. He could hear them moving about up and down the stairs to and from the attic enough times to have to stop counting.
George had always been aware of Lockwood’s somewhat strained (read: incredibly unhealthy and borderline concerning) relationship with sleep. He’d picked up on it less than two weeks after moving in, when he heard the pacing inside the room across the hall — Lockwood’s room. At first, he wasn’t sure how to bring it up… but then it stopped, so George assumed it had got a little better.
It hadn’t; he’d moved to the library in an attempt to make less noise.
He was grateful for his own ability to sleep through the night, but that wasn’t always the case. Everyone has an off night every once in a while, right? It was usually after a near-miss in a case, when Lockwood had damn near given him a heart attack by doing something he definitely should have considered as Plan G rather than Plan A. But it hit a little harder on those nights, because he wasn’t as used to it.
Sometimes, George wondered how Lockwood managed to cope. How he managed to come downstairs in the morning with the same smile on his face even though he’d probably got less than three hours of sleep in the space of a week. Maybe he was ever-so-slightly in awe of Lockwood’s ability to look so put-together. Not that he’d ever tell him that, of course. There was no way in hell he was going to enable this stupid façade of ‘fine’.
And then Lucy walked through their front door.
She changed him.
At first it was unnerving, that this new girl had managed to do in a few months what George had been trying for over a year. She got Lockwood to think things through more, to resist the impulse to throw himself headlong into situations and actually wait until they had all the information. George was a little put-out at that, if he was being honest. What had she tried that he didn’t? He got over it though, eventually, because it was for the better.
Because it made Lockwood better.
He could see it in the way his eye bags were less pronounced in the mornings after he’d spent the night talking to Lucy. They weren’t gone yet — that would be wishful thinking — but they weren’t as dark as they used to be, and that made him seem a little more alive.
With Lucy, it was harder to get a read on her. George hadn’t known her as long, but he could tell she struggled with things, and that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing them yet. He didn’t blame her, but he did have to fight his urge to do some background research on her when she first arrived. (Especially after she purposefully omitted the fact that she didn’t have her Grade Four yet.) Still, he didn’t have to fight that hard… He respected her privacy, because he just respected her in general.
She didn’t take shit from anyone, and he got that impression clear as day from her job interview. Maybe he had got the wrong side of her at first, but George had never been happier to have Lockwood ignore his advice because if they’d fired Lucy he wasn’t sure if he’d still be alive. If everything had happened with the Bone Glass and Bickerstaff and she hadn’t been there? Lockwood and Co would probably have just ceased to exist.
Then she opened up to him about her previous employment, and as soon as George realised she hadn’t actually told Lockwood those things yet, he felt weirdly protective of her. Even more so after she didn’t shut him down about his theories on the Problem, which made her the only person other than Lockwood to actually make a point of listening to his research-driven rambles.
But once George knew what had happened, even if it wasn’t the specifics, he slowly picked up on the signs that she’d been trying to hide. The bags under her eyes weren’t as bad as Lockwood’s, but they weren’t looking all that healthy either. Sometimes she got that faraway look in her eye, like she wanted to be somewhere else. Eventually she caved and admitted that she didn’t want to be anywhere else, she just wished she could introduce “her boys” (something about the way she said that made him want to hug her, and he very rarely got that urge about anyone) to someone that would be there if they could. He didn’t push her on the subject, but if he found her sitting at the kitchen table lost in thought after two in the morning, George would always top up her tea and offer her another biscuit.
They’d met more than once like that, but it was probably nowhere near as often as she’d encountered Lockwood in the same situation.
He picked up on it immediately the first time his friends slept together. Okay, definitely the wrong choice of words, because he knew they definitely didn’t do that. (Thin walls, a characteristic of Portland Row that he found out about when Lockwood spent four months in a depressing music phase last year. There’s something incredibly eerie about being able to hear the vocalists through the shared wall more easily than under the door.) It was probably only a matter of time until they did do something along those lines, but George was surprised to find that he wasn’t worried. At first he was a little concerned once he picked up on the longing looks and general touchy-feeliness, but then Lucy came to rescue him from Joplin and said all those nice things about him, and he realised that even though they’d been a little wrapped up in not acknowledging the whole ‘will they, won’t they?’ vibe they had going on, they still dropped everything to be there for him when it mattered.
It was a lot of things that made him feel like he was appreciated, but Lucy’s speech definitely summed it up for him. And he wanted what was best for her and Lockwood. He wanted them to be happy and not insufferably pining all the damn time. Social cues had never been his forte, but even he picked up on what was going on between them before they did, and that was saying something.
Seriously, a large flashing sign would’ve been more subtle than the heart eyes George was subjected to any time he was in the same room as them.
Anyway, George had picked up on it the morning after they’d shared a bed. (Marginally better, but there had to be a more comfortable way of phrasing out there somewhere.) For one, Lockwood had slid into the kitchen the next morning.
Slid.
Across the floor.
In his socks.
He’d leaned against the counter like it wasn’t the most out-of-character thing for him to be able to string a full sentence together first thing in the morning, and asked brightly: “Those extra blankets treating you alright, Georgie?”
He’d fought the urge to reply with, “That depends. Is Lucy treating you alright, Lockwood?” just to see his reaction. Miraculously, George managed to exhibit self-restraint with that comment. Mostly because he wanted to see where this would go next, and he liked the fact that Lockwood seemed like he had a little bit more of a reason to wake up in the mornings.
The difference in Lucy was just as noticeable. At first, it was subtle, but then one morning she came downstairs in a very un-Lucy-like way — he had figured out very quickly that she wasn’t a morning person — and ruffled his hair before she sat down for breakfast. “Morning, George. Do you want to go to the archives today?”
She ruffled his hair.
It was strange, and the slightly less weathered versions of their personalities took a bit of getting used to, but his friends were happy, and they were well on their way to being healthy too, which he never would’ve expected to happen so fast.
All in all, it was a very promising development.
(Even if they hadn’t got their shit together yet and actually got together. There was only so much progress George could hope for in one go.)
Tonight, it wasn’t so much that George couldn’t sleep… It was more down to the fact that he’d been thumbing through papers again related to their most recent case, slowly losing his grip on time. When he sat down at his desk, it was barely eleven o’clock. Now, his clock read 03:27, and he wasn’t sure where the time had gone.
One thing he was sure of, however, was that twenty-seven minutes past three in the morning was now deemed ‘biscuit o’clock’.
Because it was twenty-seven past three AM, and he really fancied a biscuit.
The light was on in the kitchen, which was unusual. It had to be Lucy’s doing — Lockwood was anal enough about bills as it was, he probably wouldn’t have left it on himself. Still, it suited George just fine, because it meant he didn’t need to stumble around in the dark blindly reaching for the switch. He almost didn’t notice the small plate that was already sat out on the table.
He suspected it would’ve still been there in the morning, since he was usually the first one up anyway. (Someone had to make sure these idiots fed themselves before they went out when they were preoccupied with a case.) George took his glasses off for a second and rubbed them against his t-shirt so he could read the thinking cloth’s writing better next to the plate of biscuits.
Order restored! We wanted to make sure you weren’t skipped :) - L & L
It was in Lucy’s handwriting, he noticed with a smile. There were two biscuits on the plate, and he helped himself to the first one. As he did so, a light caught the corner of his eye from the living room. He hadn’t noticed that the door was open, but now that he turned his attention to it he realised it was open a crack, just enough to let some of the light out.
He supposed he ought to check and make sure they were alright…
George didn’t move.
They did have each other…
Fine. He gave up and dusted the crumbs from his biscuit off his oversized t-shirt, before treading as lightly as possible across the hall to ease open the living room door.
It became immediately clear that they didn’t need any help.
Lockwood’s eyes were closed, his mouth slack in a state of relaxation that he only let himself show when he was asleep. His head was turned to one side slightly, just enough to make room for Lucy to fit perfectly under his chin. She was asleep as well, wedged between Lockwood and the back of the sofa so she wouldn’t fall off, her arms wrapped around him as an extra ‘precaution’, probably. Lockwood had one arm around her, the other hanging off the sofa with a glass of water held lightly in his grip. It was a miracle it hadn’t slipped between his fingers and spilled all over the carpet already.
Well, it was water, so it wouldn’t be that much of a problem… But George didn’t want to have to clean it up all the same, so he took a few light steps closer and eased the glass from Lockwood’s hand gently. Oblivious, Lockwood smiled in his sleep and used his now-free hand to pull Lucy closer to him, humming in contentment. She smiled a little too, from what George could see of it. Her hair was covering most of her face, but he could see the smallest of smiles as she turned her head a little and nestled closer to Lockwood.
God, they were insufferable.
George smiled to himself as he slowly backed away from them and pulled the door too behind himself. He didn’t want to shut it completely, just in case the click woke them up. He wouldn’t be surprised if they slept through an earthquake in this state though, even if Britain didn’t get very many of those. Well, very many noticeable ones anyway.
He retreated to the kitchen and picked up the plate with the remaining biscuit on, taking it back up to his room with him.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe order had finally been restored.