Disclaimer: I own neither the Professor Layton games nor the Layton Brothers game.

Calling the Cavalry

Alfendi Layton scowled down at the notes about his toughest case yet. Three tries he'd had at cracking it, and three times he'd missed the mark entirely.

His pathetic "placid" self had given up long ago – turned his feeble back and crawled into denial. But he refused to be so easily beaten. He could take the desperate measures his other self wouldn't.

He dialed the phone, and called for reinforcements.

"I need advice on convincing a woman to fall in love with me."

There was a long pause – too long! – before Luke Triton said, "Who is this?"

"Who do you think it is? Has your brain started to rot from disuse? Maybe I should carve your skull open so we can see the proof!"

"Oh. Hi, Al." Luke still didn't sound quite up to speed. "Why are you calling me at four in the morning?"

"So you weren't even listening!" Al said. "I need your advice."

"Advice about – about a girl, you said?" Luke stifled a yawn. "Now?"

"It's vital."

"Yes, but – hang on." Luke suddenly – finally – sounded more awake. "You haven't actually got a girl in there, have you? Not, uh, not tied up or anything?"

"Of course not!" Al rolled his eyes. "If I could convince Lucy to let me tie her up, what would I need you for?"

"That's not – no, never mind." Luke sighed. "Fine, advice about girls. Have you tried flowers?"

"Of course! What kind of fool do you take me for? Flowers were the first thing I tried."

"Didn't she didn't like them?" Luke asked. "Maybe if you tried again with a nicer arrangement –"

"Nicer? Nicer? I personally recreated the arrangement used in the Poisoned Pollen murder, down to the last petal – and you say it should be nicer?"

Hours he'd had to spend getting all three dozen roses positioned just right, and his weaker side had only made things worse by his constant attempts to take over and trash the whole thing. He'd even done it in shades of pink to match Lucy's cap instead of the original red, and he'd left the case file open for her so that she'd could spot the differences.

"You gave her murder flowers?"

"I didn't include the poison," Al said.

Which hadn't stopped Lucy from running the flowers down to the labs. The industriousness she'd turned on the case file after that would have been gratifying, if she hadn't also missed that the case had been closed eight years ago.

"Good. Killing girls doesn't usually make them like you."

Al glared at the phone. "If I ever killed Lucy, I'd take out the entire world along with her."

"Well, don't tell her that," Luke said. "Maybe flowers aren't your strong point. What about chocolate?"

"I tried that as well!"

"You did?" Luke paused. "They weren't – you didn't give her, say, the exact replicas of candy someone used to poison his wife or anything, right?"

"Don't be ridiculous – I spotted that mistake. No, using a crime of poison was far too impersonal."

"I'm glad you –"

"These chocolates were the same types that provided a crucial piece of evidence in a case of strangling!"

"Of course they were."

"Two bodies pressed close, the feeling of blood and breath under your hands – I was sure this was a more romantic option!" Al clutched at his hair.

"Al – all right, look, Al, strangling is not romantic –"

"Not when she doesn't even keep them!" Al said. "Not when she sends them to the evidence storage room because she thought they'd been misplaced!"

"Not at any time," Luke said. "Come on, Al, it's not like you've never done this before. Why don't you just – just do whatever it was that worked with Hilda?"

"What, you think I should shout at her? Barrage her with insults until she kisses me?"

"Well – no –"

"Because I already tried that! I called her names, I challenged her intellect, I even threatened to remove her tongue – and nothing! She just said I was pottier than usual and went on with her work!"

"She wasn't scared?"

Al stopped. He had to close his eyes, take a breath before he could say, "She's never scared of me."

Luke probably didn't realize how skeptical he sounded. "She's not? Even after the murder flowers?"

"No. At first, yes, but – not anymore."

Not since the castle, when Lucy had fought for him and for the truth.

"Oh." Something had changed in Luke's voice. "I – I think I see." He hesitated, then said, "Look, Al, if that's how it is, then you probably don't need any of that other stuff."

Al narrowed his eyes. "You've stopped making sense."

"I mean, you don't need to mess around with replicating evidence or clever messages or anything like that," Luke said. "Just ask if you can take her out on a date."

"You can't possibly expect me to make such a prosaic approach!"

"It's not prosaic, it's reliable," Luke countered. "She can't chuck that in an evidence bin."

Which made an aggravating amount of sense. Al glared down at the phone, then slammed the receiver down in a shattering crash.

Just ask, Luke had said – an elegantly simple solution for such a complex problem.

Al checked the clock. Less than four hours until Lucy arrived. Four hours, and then he'd see what Luke's advice was worth.