Professor, Professor

Breaking Point

do you ever feel like your imagination gets the best of you and you just can't help it?

this has to be, beyond a doubt, the most OOC I've ever made the Prof, bordering on probably a whole new character entirely. however, I can't deny that this is also something possible. an emotional breakdown of the Prof after Forbodium. this also is the least lucifendi-ish out there, it can be seen (or rather, better seen) as two friends, one seeking clarity through the other. but hey, up to you to decide.

I wrote this on a lack of sleep. there may be errors, among other things. I ignore the possible time frame of the Mystery Room for the sake of technology!

mentioning now mental instability and blood. not crazy descriptive but if you're sensitive to that...yeah.

---

The Prof doesn't come to work one day.

No note, no phone call, no text, nothing.

Lucy is level headed, she's always been ever since she was a wee little bairn. Emotions get the best of her sometimes, her temptation to jump to conclusions comes easy when he doesn't show up. However, she knows better and isn't going to run amok in search for him, for her optimism kept her in check, kept her feeling that he was probably okay. He probably needed more time to recuperate. 

It was, after all, a week after Forbodium. Anyone, and she means anyone, would be emotionally distraught after such a tolling experience to the emotions and psyche no matter how much cases might interest you or how much you're called for duty. Half of you finds out that you truly are a lie, the other half livid that he's even bested by something so cheap that it's almost an insult to learn what you were bested by. It's even worse when you realize your fellow co-worker, someone you had worked with as buddies for probably as long as you've been in your position is the one who had done it to you.

So no, Lucy isn't freaking out just because the Prof doesn't come to work for one day. She instead busies herself with preparing the Reconstruction Machine for when the Prof is indeed ready to come back to work. A case that would intrigue him, she was sure. Murder by drowning in some seedy hotel many miles away from the Yard. Three suspects, two of which Lucy is sure that probably didn't do it, but nothing is ever concrete. To start without her mentor, however, felt wrong. It would be a betrayal that she knew wouldn't be, but it would feel off when the room lacked his voice carrying through it.

It wouldn't be right, she concludes. 

---

He doesn't come the following day and Lucy starts to get concerned. 

The Mystery Room is exactly the same as she had left it, which in turn meant exactly how he had left it since the last time she had seen him. She tries waiting a bit, but it doesn't help. Her concern marginally gets higher the longer she is waiting for his arrival, which slips past fashionably late and downright late altogether. She tries his mobile first, calling him a handful of times, which unfortunately all lead to voicemail. She tries a text, something she's only ever done when she tells him that she was going to be late for work for some reason.

prof, I'm worried. are you alright? 
where are you?

She waits approximately a minute before she texts some more. It's soothing, at least, to feel like she's doing something.

you don't have ta work through this alone.
I know you're going through a lot but
I'm here. the whole Yard is, I bet.

by 'eck Prof, you're scaring me. like a lot.

I know I'm mitherin' you, 
but I promise I'll leave
you alone just tell me 
if you're okay, you berk.

She realizes that she just called her mentor a downright idiot, so she quickly types up an apology, worrying her lip to the point of breaking skin.