Work Text:
“...Sholmes. Sholmes. Herlock .”
Sholmes pushes his goggles onto his forehead and tips the chair back dangerously to grin at Mikotoba. “Just in time, my good friend! Now I know you insist you have no knowledge of the mechanical, but it’s simply another type of body and I need a fresh pair of eyes on…” The rest of his senses catch up with his tongue. “What have I done?”
Mikotoba is watching him with that unamused expression, more worried than delighted, and there’s that obnoxious furrow between his brows that Sholmes always wants to swat away. He smells of the hospital—chlorine and a hint of death—masked slightly by the cups of steaming tea he’s holding. Green tea, which Sholmes has started buying whenever he sees it because, for reasons he can’t entirely understand, Mikotoba won’t buy it even though he obviously prefers it.
Mikotoba sighs. “It’s what you haven’t done. When was the last time you ate?”
Sholmes blinks. “What time is it?”
“After six.”
“And when did you leave?”
Mikotoba holds out a cup. “I told you I was making tea when I came in—I take it you didn’t hear me.”
Sholmes takes the cup, heat seeping into hands he didn’t know were cold. “I’ve told you before, my dear fellow, you should make more noise when you enter a room.”
“Any louder and we would get noise complaints.” He raises his eyebrows. “ More noise complaints.”
“When musical inspiration strikes is out of my control. Next time… shake me violently.”
“And get a punch between the eyes? I think not.” Mikotoba eyes the cluttered desk; gears and springs overflowing from a box Sholmes pulled out hours ago for reasons he can’t remember. “Come help with dinner. You’ll never eat if you go back to work now.”
Sholmes glares at the contraption in front of him. “It’s nearly there.”
“Where is there?”
He shrugs. “I’ll know when I get there, won’t I?”
Mikotoba shakes his head. “Finish your tea, and then you’ll cut the vegetables.”
Sholmes pouts. “Maybe I won’t finish my tea then.”
Mikotoba gives him that disappointed look. Sholmes finishes the tea, and he cuts carrots as Mikotoba tells him about work. Sholmes stays to listen, even when he has a minor epiphany, and in return, Mikotoba helps him implement it. After they’ve both eaten dinner.
“Two hundred milliliters of hydrogen peroxide…” Sholmes murmurs absently, carefully measuring it out. “Which should—”
Iris starts crying, and Sholmes nearly knocks over all his beakers and measuring cups.
He gets up carefully—it’s hard enough to clean up chemicals without the risk of a crawling, curious infant putting random things in her mouth—and turns to the crib he’s moved to the main room while he works.
“Awake, my dear?” he asks Iris, who screams back. “It’s time for lunch, isn’t it?” Sholmes glances at the clock on the mantle as he scoops Iris up in his arms. She fusses and wiggles for a moment before settling down.
It is late. It’s harder to keep track of time with Mikotoba gone. The best alarm clock Sholmes has is Iris. Her schedule may not be the most standard for adults, but Sholmes is certainly not standard, and he’ll take eating in the middle of the night over not eating at all.
Things had been… occasionally dire before Mikotoba, and now Iris, came along.
He talks through his project—or what he’s got so far, at least—to Iris as he makes her a bottle and puts on the kettle for himself. He likes to imagine that she follows along when he talks through his current projects—that somewhere in her little brain, it’s building up to something beautiful.
But he also can’t stand the quiet and would be talking to himself if she wasn’t here.
Iris enjoys her bottle while Sholmes nearly burns his tongue on his tea. Black, because he can’t bring himself to make green tea on his own, and he has a terrible habit of burning the leaves.
He stares ahead mindlessly as he talks, finding holes in his own logic and attempting to repair them with anything of substance, but only watching connections fray further. His attention is snapped when Iris starts making grabby hands at the teacup and cooing.
“You can have some when you’re older,” Sholmes says, moving his cup away from Iris. “It doesn’t have the nutrients you need. Although,” he muses, “I’m not entirely certain it would be bad for you either.”
He makes a note to look it up—he can at least pretend to be a good father by not using his daughter as a science experiment. It’s the least he can do.
Sholmes mutters to himself as he flips through one scientific article after another. The results conflict, and something in his brain isn’t clicking. He needs to run his own tests, maybe. He’s never been satisfied with the scientific method until peer review—more specifically, his own review—and that is becoming more true now than ever. A gray cloud of frustration fills his head with a vengeance.
Someone clears their throat, and Sholmes jerks back. Impulse refined over years and years of interruptions from his two housemates, a way to avoid ruining his project in progress when startled. This time, he avoids an inkwell.
He straightens and turns to Susato, who’s watching him with wide eyes. She blinks away the stars.
“Mr. Sholmes!” She holds out a cup of tea and bows her head. “I made tea for Mr. Naruhodo and myself, and you a cup as well. Iris went out earlier and asked us to make sure you ate, but I hadn’t heard from you today so—” She cuts herself off and jerks the cup toward him, barely avoiding splashing tea over the side.
“Ah, yes. Did she tell you to just grab my shoulder and shake me?” He smiles to himself. Iris loves to interrupt him with new blends to test, and he loves to try them.
Susato, however, blanches. “I would never!”
Sholmes has to work to keep his expression neutral as emotion builds, a warmth and familiarity filling his chest. No matter how many times he told Mikotoba to just shake him, grab him, or yell at him, Mikotoba never would. Susato is her own person in every right, and Sholmes has only watched her grow up in letters, but sometimes she’s so much like her father it almost overwhelms him.
Sholmes takes the cup of tea, his senses coming alive as the warm porcelain touches his skin. “Green tea?” he asks, that wave of emotion cresting and coloring his voice.
Susato’s eyes go wide again. “D-do you not like green tea?” She fiddles with her sleeves. “I heard that English people prefer black, but the pot I made was green because Mr. Naruhodo and I—but if you’d like I can make you one of Iris’ blends instead!”
Sholmes takes a long sip of the tea. It’s not too hot, earthy and nutty and so familiar it brings him back an entire decade.
“I love green tea,” he promises Susato, smiling gently. “It reminds me of home.”
She blinks in surprise. “Home,” she echoes. “I feel the same.”
“Thank you, Miss Susato.” Sholmes raises his cup to her. “I’m sure Iris will appreciate this.”
Susato flushes. “Of course! Anytime.”
“All these years and you haven’t changed.”
Sholmes glances up from the pieces he’s holding in place for Iris to see Mikotoba standing in the doorway. The look on his face is the same amused fondness that Sholmes remembers, but now there are wrinkles and a mustache accompanying it.
“I have no idea what you mean, my dear,” Sholmes says, the familiarity of this moment sinking into his bones and mixing with the new as Iris tuts and reaches for a wrench. “I seem to remember changing clothes several times.”
“ Daddy ,” Iris groans. “I’m sure Runo would be able to help instead of you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mikotoba says, “since you both need to eat.”
Sholmes and Iris exchange a glance.
“Just a few more minutes—” Iris starts, and Sholmes shakes his head.
“The mind works best when…?”
She sighs. “When you give it the energy it needs to work.” She looks down at their project. “It’s nearly there!”
Sholmes sees Mikotoba hiding a smile out of the corner of his eye. His old friend could be laughing at him, but more than anything, it feels like using a stereoscope: the two eras of Sholmes’ life have melted into one image, one that he can reach out and touch but only for a short time.
It’s bittersweet, like one of Iris’ chocolate confections.
“Imagine how easy it’ll be with fresh eyes,” Sholmes tells her, reaching over to tug one of her curls. “The tea will go cold if we don’t go now, and I know how you feel about reheated tea.”
Iris scrunches up her nose, just as she does whenever Sholmes brings her tea that went cold because she was too busy working. Or he was too busy working. Or both.
“Alright,” she says with a dramatic sigh, putting down her tools. “I suppose I can take a break.”
Sholmes stands up and starts the green tea. The leaves don’t burn this time. He knows better now.