Lockwood and Co. One Shots

My sunshine - George Pt1

requested by @phoebekarim

angst/sad/happy ending

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Joining Lockwood and Co. was one of the best and worst decisions of my life. I hadn't fit in at any other agency and my family didn't like that I wanted to end ghosts for a living. They believed that we should be the ones befriending them with our gifts and not harming them. They were, after all, people.

I had joined Lockwood after I tried to take a case as a rogue agent. Lockwood heard my screams and ran in with his friend George who threw a salt bomb at the visitor, saving me.

They took me to 35 Portland Row and told me to stay as long as I needed, also offering me a job.

I liked living with them. It was mostly quiet except for when we were working on particularly hard cases. The only real thing bothering me was George Karim.

Don't get me wrong, George was absolutely perfect, well, kind of. He was loud and was constantly cleaning or being the housewife Lockwood didn't know he needed.

My problem with George was different. I just absolutely hated how he made my heart swell with happiness. It was like I didn't know how to breathe until he walked in the room. He had his stupidly pretty hair and his gorgeously ugly eyes and his adorable glasses.

But worst of all, was that I knew he hated me. He always complained about the messes I would make or how long it would take for me to shower. George bashed my cooking skills after I burnt his toast and ruined his tea.

George never yelled at Lockwood when he did the exact same thing. So it led me to believe that he hated me all the while I was desperately in love with him.

It only got worse the day I met Kipps.

I do remember every single thing that happened that day.

George, Lockwood and I were going to investigate a simple shifter at an abandoned store near the edge of London.

Unknown to us, the lady that hired us also hired a group of Fittes' agents, probably because she thought we were going to fail.

But no, we contained the source and I had heard the creaky door open. Thinking it was a poltergeist, I took out my rapier and did a 180, only to be met with the face of a stunned Fittes agent, Quill Kipps.

His team stood behind him, taking in the scene of my rapier stained with ectoplasm and the source safely contained in my other hand.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"Kipps, finest team leader in London," He smiled.

"Y/n, who're you talking to?" Lockwood came out from the store's stockroom.

"Hello Tony. I see you finally got rid of Karim and replaced him with someone clearly more level minded," Kipps smirked cruelly at Lockwood.

"I'm still here," George exited the stockroom with a nasty scowl on his face.

"Leave George alone you absolute leprechaun. I could care less if you were a team leader, you're clearly a waste of our time. Now move out of our way," I kept my rapier held high, with just enough space between Kipps and the blade.

"Ooh, Tony you hired a feisty one," Kipps laughed. His team let out dry chuckles, clearly done with this whole situation.

"How about I let out this ghost and see just how much of a team leader you are. He was a real nasty one. Robbery victim in the early 90s," I raised the glass box containing the source, a simple wooden bird carving found in the victim's pocket in the basement of the store.

"Are you bloody mad?" Kipps looked horrified. "You're trying to kill us."

"Yes, I very much am. Now please leave, before you end up like him."

I pointed to the corner where the remains of Billy Venice lay in a source container, a young shop owner who saved his family after a robbery gone wrong, according to George.

Kipps all but ran out the door, his team confused and scared but following behind him nonetheless.

I turned around. "Jeez, Lockwood, how many pricks do you know?" I asked him.

"Enough to want to get out of here," Lockwood looked grim.

We packed up and left, returning to 35 Portland Row in the early hours of the morning.

I didn't complain when Lockwood began to yell, cursing out Kipps and his awful luck.

I ran to take a shower before George could even walk in the door. Then I went to the library to finish my research. I liked to know a bit about the visitors. But the case we just finished, Billy Venice seemed to confuse me.

His body wasn't found even though it lay in a secret panel in the basement wall. The bird carving was made, George suspected, by Billy's wife, Enid after their wedding in 1985.

The only odd thing about this case was that no one noticed Billy's body rotting in the wall. The shop he ran with his wife had living quarters above it. Enid and their son, Tommy, lived there another two years before leaving the building abandoned when they felt a strange presence.

Another strange thing about this case was that Enid claimed to have witnessed the robber in the house and heard the gunshot. She said she also saw an old pickup truck speeding away. But she never called the police until the next morning. And there weren't any tire skids on the road outside.

Their son, who was only five at the time, was asleep and in a police statement he said he woke up to Enid crying and sirens outside. Tommy didn't understand why anything was happening but said he was brave and wanted to help.

I also had newspaper clippings from the event. March 2nd, 1991. There was a picture of the inside of the shop where the weapon and some blood was found. Police found multiple fingerprints at the scene but the crime was committed in a store so of course they were going to find something out of the ordinary.

Another newspaper picture showed Enid and Tommy on the outside of the shop near a police car. I took out my magnifying glass to look closely at the faces of each person in the picture.

There were two police officers and a DEPRAC agent consoling and questioning them. One officer I recognized was now retired, running a lavender shop with his wife a few blocks from here.

Even though the picture was black and white, Enid Venice clearly had a red face from crying and puffy eyes.

I shifted on the couch, turning so my legs hung off the side. I was tired but that didn't stop me from facing the sunlight to get a better look at the picture.

The one thing that stood out clear as day to me was the bird carving that hung on her neck. The same exact one we found in Billy's pocket this morning.