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Entry tags:	flora, layton, luke, professor layton

St. Valton's Thing Day

<sub>Title: St. Valton's Thing Day
Rating: PG/12 - cursing befitting of English schoolboys
Fandom: Professor Layton (General spoilers about the end of 'Curious Village')
Characters/Pairings: Luke, Flora, Layton, Luke+Flora
Word Count: 2,300
Summary: As a part of one of their etiquette lessons, Layton teaches Luke and Flora about a national holiday. Because those are relevant when you're a gentleman or a fair lady. Especially this one.



A/N: Because seriously, I've not written any (non-Anonymous) fanfiction this long in...forever. Consider this one working off the rust. Seasonal fanfics that are out of season are my forte, y'know :B</sub>


-

It was February 13th, and conveniently enough the date was a Saturday. Saturdays were the days where all three of them would congregate in the office at the college.

Saturdays were the days of ‘etiquette lessons’.

They had initially been a two-man ordeal; that is, Luke had come on a Friday, looking incredibly glum, and Layton had taught him manners and tea-making and use of cutlery.

“This is bloody pointless,” Luke had groused on the first day. He immediately straightened up and put his hands over his mouth, as if he could stuff the curse back where it had come from. “Sorry.”

“Good manners are a valuable and useful tool,” Layton had said. “I can guarantee you’ll make much more use of this than studying critical analysis of Dickens-“

“I like Dickens-”

“I dare say,” Layton allowed, smiling. “But people in our society aren’t going to let you discuss him if you make liberal use of the word ‘bloody’, are they, my boy?”

Luke glowered, and then hung his head. “I said I was sorry, Professor.”

As time had progressed, Luke had gotten better. As much as he complained about the futility of the lessons, every Friday he would knock on the door, regular as clockwork. They settled into a neat little routine of conversational practices, levels of formality, appropriate dress.



And then St. Mystere happened.



It was Luke who brought up the issue when they were on the way back from the town. By this point, Flora had curled up on the back seat and fallen asleep; they could hear the soft, even sounds of her breathing. A curiously relaxing sound, considering what they’d just been through.

“Professor?”

Luke was looking out of the window, feigning disinterest.

“Are we still going to have etiquette lessons, now that you’ll be taking care of Flora?”

Layton’s analytical mind was well-suited to more than puzzles. The subtext of Luke’s question rang out clear as day: Are you still going to bother with me?

He focused his eyes on the road ahead. “There’ll be lessons. Of course, Flora will have to take part too.”

Luke’s shoulders stiffened. Layton noticed the almost imperceptible flicker of his eyes towards the back seat and then back again. Then a nod.

“Alright,” he said. His voice was blasé and non-committal, and Layton loved him for it.



So the lessons had begun with Flora inclusive. They had tended to be more of the same, although he’d quickly discovered that both of his charges were on very different learning curves.

Flora, having been raised in a house of refinery, picked up her cutlery with finesse and needed no assistance whatsoever with her dressing and her manners. Luke had taken to pouting most unattractively when he had to repeat the same vocal exercise ten times that she had mastered in two, and once he’d left the room in a temper after Layton had attempted to teach them to dance.

That was a lesson best reserved until they were a little older, he supposed.

However, Flora had her own shortcomings. She’d lived a sheltered existence separate from the rest of the country, let alone the world. She’d had to be taught about Christmas and St George’s Day – and that was after she’d mastered the concept of a national holiday. She’d never taken part in formal lessons, and had to be guided through the basics of maths, science and English.
Luke had been to school and already knew these things.

One thing which Luke was not familiar with arose on the lesson of Saturday the 13th of February.


“Tomorrow,” Layton began when they were all seated in the office, “is the day of St. Valentine.”

Flora worried at the hem of her dress. Luke took a sip of his tea and raised one of his eyebrows in an expression that suddenly turned him into the world’s most precocious pre-adolescent.

“Who?”

Layton crossed the room to one of the bookshelves, and leafed through a number of volumes before resting on one page. “Two martyrs or Geoffrey Chaucer, depending on what you believe. In recent years it’s become a popular holiday for...”

He paused. Flora was still fidgeting with her dress; Luke was playing with the Klotski puzzle he’d left out on the table.

“Lovers,” he finished.

The silence in the room shattered. Firstly with a short, violent ripping sound; Flora’s fingers had tensed upon the material, and she’d managed to rip her skirt. Next came the clatter when Luke lost his grip on the puzzle-block.

“Professor!” Luke squeaked, at the same time that Flora mumbled something unintelligible – her cheeks had flushed bright pink.

With the uttering of one simple word, they’d managed to reflect their society in a way that Layton couldn’t ever hope to teach them; utter dismay and revulsion at the mention of romance.

“It’s a very tame tradition,” he said. They blinked at him warily. “It’s getting popular to send cards to the object of your affection.”

The suspicious audience seated at his table didn’t look much comforted. In fact, both of them looked across the table to each other, appeared to acknowledge that they were of opposite sex, and then moved their chairs a little further apart.

Sigh. He hadn’t predicted this when he’d taken Flora in.

“I just needed you to know,” he said, “in case you got any letters tomorrow. Shall we move on?”

“Wait a minute, Professor.” Luke put his hand up before he spoke, Layton noticed with a touch of pride. “Will Flora have to get me a-”

His sentence was drowned by a number of spluttering noises coming from Flora’s seat. Her cheeks had become a very violent shade of strawberry. “Professor, can you tell Luke not to be so presumptuous?”

“Well, I was going to get you one,” Luke mumbled pointedly. Then he added, with a touch of petulance, “I won’t bother now.”

“Well, good!” She rose from her chair, her hands clasped tightly together at her waist. “It sounds like a...Like a very silly holiday to me, anyway. I probably won’t get any letters.”

And with that, she turned on her heel and marched out. Her eyes were shining and her lips were pressed tightly together – Layton wasn’t particularly experienced with such things, but it seemed as though she were on the verge of tears. How extraordinary.

“I thought she just said it was good that I wasn’t getting her a card,” Luke said after a moment of guilty silence. “Professor, why do girls say things that don’t add up?”

Saying things that don’t add up... A very apt observation, to be sure, but-

“Speaking of girls, that reminds me of a puzzle,” he offered.

It was a chance to stave off an awkward Flora-less lesson, and Luke recognised it. His eyes lit up. “Let’s ‘ave a go then.”

“Have.”

“Sorry, Professor.”



-



When he and Luke returned home, they found the door locked. Luke waited outside while Layton checked Flora’s room – she was asleep, her hair loose and fanned out across the pillow. The handle of a paper bag was clutched in between her still-gloved fingers.

He looked at her for a moment, and then gently tugged the bag’s handle away from her. Even in her sleep she clasped at it; the slightest of frowns crossed her face.

“I’m not going to look in it,” he whispered.

She lay still again, and he was able to tuck her in properly.

Layton returned to the main hallway to find that Luke had already gone to bed. Opening his bedroom door revealed that he was still half-awake, albeit tangled in a muddle of bedsheets with his hat still on.

He stayed quiet while Layton tucked him into bed – awkwardly, because they were still far from father and son – and then mumbled, “Flora hates me, doesn’t she.”

“Nonsense, my boy.”

Layton gave the boy a clumsy pat on the head (or more accurately, the cap) and looked towards the bedside cabinet. “Should I leave the lamp on?”

“Yes please.” Luke’s eyes were still visible from the other side of the room; dark little things, like a kitten’s. “Professor?”

He stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Do you get cards on Valentine’s Day?” The covers were drawn up tight next to his mouth, so the words were muffled.

Layton swallowed past a lump of some strange emotion that had appeared in his throat. “Sometimes.”

“Who are they from? Women like...”

The sentence trailed off in the air, and Layton knew that Luke was visualising the exact same archetype as he was. Some sort of amalgamation of Beatrice from the inn in St. Mystere, or Martha with the card puzzles; a woman over forty with a rain hat and a love of a man with an over-endowed...intellect.
He snorted despite himself, and suddenly both of them were laughing.

“Yes,” he managed to cough out. “Yes, mostly.”

“Poor Professor,” Luke said gravely, and that was enough to set them both off again.



~~~



Layton woke up a few minutes later than usual the next morning. It was a Sunday, and a national holiday besides – what better excuse was there to sleep in for longer?
At least until he remembered that he had two young mouths to feed with toast and butter and whatever else was left in the kitchen.

There was nothing else for it, when you had children in the house. He pulled himself out of the comforting sleep-haze and started to dress himself.
...And yet, he could swear he heard light footsteps along the corridor. This was strange. Flora got up an hour or so later than he himself did; and Luke was utterly useless on a Sunday, preferring to spend most of it in bed and completely unconscious.

The footsteps carried on, right past his own door and up the hallway – Layton cocked his head to one side to better hear – and stopped. Luke’s room. There was a momentary hush, then quicker footsteps rushing back down the hallway, towards the kitchen. A-ha.

Layton strolled out of his own room and into the kitchen, feigning complete ignorance when he saw Flora at the oven – or, at least until he realised that she was attempting to cook. At that point he gently took over the cooking, seeing as he was very attached to his third kitchen in as many Flora-related disasters.

“Good morning, Professor,” she smiled. A little too cheerily; her cheeks were crimson again. “It’s...lovely weather today! A lovely Saint...Saint Valton...thing. Day.”

“Of course.” He smiled back. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Flora.”

“I still don’t think that anyone will get me anything.” She’d sat at the table now, her fingers toying with the end of her ponytail. “It’s a lonely holiday, isn’t it?”

Layton supposed it was, actually. He was reminded of the hypothetical woman in the rain hat, and quickly busied himself making toast to distract himself from laughing.

“I...” Flora looked shamefaced for a moment, then handed out an envelope. “I made you a card, Professor.”

It had a colony of rabbits on the front, although Flora had made the drawn additions of large glasses and a shawl to one, a cap and a satchel to another, and a top hat and blazer to the third. Inside was Flora’s neat cursive – ‘This holiday is silly, but have a nice one anyway Professor. And thank you. – Flora’

Luke had crept in while Layton was reading, and had helped himself to orange juice. “O’rite, Professor?”

“Your diction is terrible,” Layton reprimanded over the top of the card. He rested it gently on the windowsill and handed Flora the plate of toast. “That was beautiful, Flora.”

“The mail just came,” Luke announced, though in actuality the postman was off-duty today. He produced two envelopes, grinning. “I didn’t get anything.”

Flora took hers – her cheeks looked as though they were going to catch fire – and it quickly disappeared under the table, out of sight. Layton didn’t bother. If Luke had written him a Valentine’s card, he was going to open it in public, and if it proved unsuitable...

He opened the envelope and four playing cards, an ace of each suit, dropped out. His face blanched. “Luke-“

Luke put his hands up in mock-surrender. Layton noticed that tiny flicker of the eyes again – towards Flora, to see if she was watching, and then back. They’d also moved their chairs a fraction closer together.
If Layton didn’t currently feel like a man facing the unknown, he would have found this almost adorable.

He took out the card. It had a very crudely drawn version of himself on the front, as well as Martha in...a bridal gown? Layton closed his eyes and groaned.

“You are a terrible boy. That poor woman.”

“You are, Luke,” Flora said, but even she was laughing behind her hands now. Excellent.

He opened the card. What was obviously Luke’s handwriting – large, boyish print, a world away from Flora’s – glared back at him. He swallowed, and started to read aloud.

“‘DEAR HERSCHEL LAYTON IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I LAST PLAYED CARDS WITH YOU.’” Run-on sentences too. Lovely. Evidently they neglected to teach grammar at Luke’s secondary school, let alone common human decency. “’I THINK WE SHOULD PLAY CARDS ALL NIGHT LONG ONE NIGHT IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. THEY SAY THAT ELIZABETH THE FIRST PLAYED CARDS ALL NIGHT WITH THE EARL OF LEICESTER. I HOPE YOU CATCH MY MEANING. I LOVE YOU AND WANT TO MARRY YOU. MARTHA.’”

He sighed and put the card down, leaving his view of two completely hysterical adolescents clear. He was tempted to remind Luke that it was ungentlemanly to laugh at one’s own practical jokes, but decided against it.

“Your mind is in the gutter,” he told Luke instead, and settled himself behind a newspaper. “And Elizabeth the first died chaste. Not that any self-respecting gentleman should care, of course.”

That only made them laugh harder.

---

ahnjehleehn drew this amazing picture of the last part of the fanfic. She is pretty freakin' awesome!