you know what I blame tumblr for this.

it's inspired by ezool. you can find the prompt/drabble thing here that I thought needed a bit of a thing. so here it is: post/70178170895.

I also combined this headcanon thing I had found on tumblr as well, which you can find here: post/167985907958/professor-layton-teacoffee-headcanons

also, if you know me, I always have Potty's words in bold and Placid's in italics.

have fun!

Lucy trudged on to the Mystery Room with bags under her eyes and coffee breath. It was a bad idea to have chosen to stay up rewatching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but Netflix had brought it back to her attention. Nonetheless, she still had work and she was a fool for believing she could do the all-nighters like she had done when she was a teenager. Caffeine, however, did nothing for her today as she opened the door.

"Good grief, Lucy, are you alright?" The Prof is sitting on his desk chair, tapping on his chin with his favorite soft lead pencil. Coffee was brewed, so she knew immediately it was her Placid. However, she could see a cup of black tea as well, but partially finished so Potty had been awake as well. Yet, judging by his demeanor, it was Placid nonetheless. "You look though you haven't touched a bed in years."

"Just stayed up watching the telly. Nothing too much. Do we have another case today?" She asked, removing her scarf and putting it on a rack. Lucy walked over to the Prof, who seemed to have difficulties with a word.

"No, we don't, but when we do, I'll let you know." Placid murmured. At the sound of this, Lucy looked relieved, plopped onto the couch in the Mystery Room and closed her eyes. The Prof looked up and tried to sneak a glance. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like, Prof? I'm sleepin' today." She muttered, tipping her hat down further so her eyes couldn't be seen.

"On the job?" He asked with a smirk. Lucy scoffed, her eyes still closed, but now she was turned away from the Prof.

"Says the one who is doing crossword puzzles on the side as well. You can wake me up when there's a case." Potty grumbled some sort of complaint as he continued back to the puzzle and Lucy smiled as she fell into her dreamy expanse.

It became lunchtime before the Prof could even compute. He had been stuck on a nine letter word for the longest period of time and nothing had seemed to come to him. Sometimes he would glance to Lucy, watching her chest come up and down, the soft snores that would come from her throat and the shifts and turns she would make. It made him smile, knowing that she felt safe enough to sleep here.

"Idiot. Of course she'd feel safe enough to sleep here. Also, you really had to drink coffee in the morning, didn't you?"

"We've had this discussion already. You can have the first half of the morning, but I'll take the second."

"Still, it's my bloody mouth too." Potty looked down to the newspaper puzzle and threw it onto the desk. "You know I hate puzzles."

"I got this far. But I still don't understand this nine letter word to... make something bad better. Another form of another word."

"What have you tried so far?"

"Improve, enhance, benefit, boost...they are all not nine letter words."

"What about Lucy Baker? That's nine letters."

"Are you admitting something?"

Potty scoffed, "No. I'm saying that it's nine letters."

Potty took control, scribbling Lucy Baker onto the paper Placid had been using for scrap to determine what the nine letter word had been. He glanced over to Lucy, whose hat had fallen over and mouth slightly agape. Before he knew it, his hand had begun drawing the beginnings of a face.

"The hell are we doing?"

"We're drawing." Each stroke was another bit of hair, facial bit, or a little detail that an amateur artist may not pick up on in under fifty glances at a reference. Each portion that slowly became more and more obvious that it was Lucy that he was drawing.

"You're missing the slight drool on her lip." Potty pointed out and Placid quickly fixed such an offending mistake. A few more strokes, a bit more shading, he ended up with a beauty he could never have seen himself with.

"Perfection."

"Yes...quite so." Potty scoffed slightly. "You really have the accelerate our breathing because of this? It's a mere drawing."

Placid laughed slightly as he wrote the word perfection next to the drawing. "Hate to tell you this, but I'm not doing anything."

"You-,"

"You do have a heart and the capacity to feel. Share it we may, I am already used to feeling such things with control. You, however, seem to not."

"Rubbish." Potty prepared to say another word when his stomach growled. "Lovely, just lovely." He glanced Lucy another time, seeing that her sleeping condition had not changed, but she had begun shivering. Placid took hold of things and emptied the pockets in his lab coat. Newspapers, receipts, a pair of scissors, and other notes fell out.

"Forgot those were there." Potty laughed, "I used them as a joke once to Justin. You should have seen the look on his face. If I could do it again, I would."

"I have your memories, if you do recall."

"Right." Hunger struck again. "Let's get lunch."

"And Lucy?"

"Scribble her a note. We can buy her lunch as well."

"Right." Placid grabbed onto the pencil and wrote a quick response onto a sticky-note, almost even adding a small heart but deciding against it.

"Really, 'my dear Lucy?' There are many more creative ways to address her, you do know that, right?"

"Leave me alone." He stood and walked on over to Lucy, who was still shivering. Pausing for a brief moment, he continued watching her sleep and smiled. It was a bit strange, but he couldn't help it. Putting the lab coat over her, he noted she took the coat like a warm blanket and snuggled into it. He placed the note onto the coffee table and walked off to let her continue her sleep.

It took Lucy a moment to realize she wasn't in her home, but rather in the Mystery Room. Recalling she had a job and wasn't on her day off, Lucy sat up and the lab coat fell to her lap. Taking hold of it, she put to to her nose and sniffed it. The Prof's aftershave, plus a mixture of tea and coffee- it was a strange, yet welcome combination of scents. Took her more moments to realize that she had been sniffing it too long and her cheeks flushed with red. Putting it on, she grabbed the note on the coffee table that drew her eye and read it.

"My Dear Lucy,

It's about lunchtime as I am writing this to you, so at this point, I'm sure you're hungry. You seemed peaceful enough to the point where waking you would be a sin. I'll be out for a bit in the sandwich shop in the corner. I take it that your favorite will be alright for you? Never mind, I shouldn't bother with this question, you won't be able to tell me a response. I shall see you in a bit. - Prof, 12:15."

Glancing at the time, he had only left for a few minutes. She was glad he acknowledged her little nickname and got up, walking over to the desk. The coat was already dragging on the floor with every step she took. He really was tall. She picked up the newspaper with loads of erasure shavings on it and a nearly white potion of the crossword.

"Heh, you don't really take from your father, now do you?" Lucy chuckled, putting it down. She was about to go make herself a cuppa in the other room when a drawing caught her eye. Words were scribbled everywhere, but the middle part was what caught her eye. Her name, in capital letters was right next to a drawing of herself in her sleeping state. Her arm was raised above her head, pushing her hat back as the other was right next to her. She was impressed with his shading and details, all the way down to the point with her drool and tussled hair. Looking around the words he was attempting, she realized that all of them were words that meant perfection in some degree. Her cheeks flushed even further than it already was, had it even been possible.

She felt embarrassed, seeing her flaws drawn in such detail that it was scarring, but also incredibly...flattered at how he found her to be the definition of perfection. Sitting down on the Prof's desk chair, she now wanted to know what the hell the word was.

The Prof barely even had a chance to get into the door when Lucy shouted. "I GOT IT! MELIORATE!" He almost even dropped the food he had in his hands. Looking up to Lucy, he saw her scribbling the word into the crossword that he had been working on all day. It took him a second to even realize she was wearing his lab coat, hair disheveled and eyes sparkling bright. There was something even more captivating than before in her. Maybe it was the way she looked in the lab coat, maybe the way she looked partially insane, or maybe the fact that she was just...perfect. She meliorated his life in such a way that nobody could compare.

"Lucy?" She didn't even realize he was there, as her eyes flickered up in surprise.

"I got it, Prof! It's meliorate! Ameliorate is another way to say it, but it's when someone or something makes something better. I got it!"

"Oh. How did you-," Lucy tapped on the thesaurus right next to her.

"This bad boy helped me out." Placid walked over to the desk and laughed. He switched tones as he placed the bag of sandwiches on the desk.

"I should have thought of that." Potty muttered, brow furrowing, "I see you have my coat."

"Aye... Did ya want it back, Prof?"

"It's quite alright, Lucy. If anything, you look lovely in it. Just some glasses and I'd say you'd look like a qualified scientist." Placid said, taking out his order and opening it. Lucy's eyes lit up as she walked over to her bag and pulled out a pair of reading ones. She put it on and twirled around, examining herself in the mirror she hung up awhile back. Each moment, she always seemed to capture the essence of innocence, but he bloody well knew she could still end him in a fight.

"Hmm, what'd ya know? I do look like one. Now if I had a clipboard and a more stern expression, then maybe I'd look even more like one." Lucy looked back to the Prof and walked on over, grabbing the other sandwich from the bag. "I'll be honest, I thought you'd forgotten my order."

"It's number nine, Lucy, it's a bit hard to forget." Placid responded. He took a bite of his sandwich and she did the same. Taking off the glasses, she gave him a peck on the cheek, causing him to turn a lovely shade of red. "What was that for...?" Judging by her own reaction, Lucy herself didn't even know what it was for either. It was just something she slid into like it was nothing.

"For the sandwich." She paused, "And for the drawing. Is that how you really see me?" The Prof seemed to have difficulties in saying something, like the cogs in his head were working to find the best thing to say.

"Lucy, I'll always see you like that." Placid concluded, then Potty added, "See you as perfection, he means." She smiled towards him and bit more into the sandwich. Everything was alright in the world and Lucy or the Prof couldn't ask for anything more.