Work Text:
“Okay- no. What in the world are you drinking?” Moriarty kneaded his temples, looking utterly exhausted. Casey tilted her head sideways, widening her eyes, the perfect picture of innocence if you ignored the shit-eating smirk she had.
“What do you mean, Professor?” She makes sure to drag out the word just a touch too long, delighting in the tiny blush and awkward cough it earns her. “It’s just something to get me through the day!” To emphasize her point, she shakes her drink, resolutely ignoring the acidic green color, the bubbles that still haven’t settled, and the way it hisses when she moves it too hard.
“It’s- that thing is going to give you six heart attacks, five strokes, and worse… diabetes.” Casey raises an eyebrow at the disgust behind the word diabetes, feeling rather like she’s out of the loop, which almost never happens. Perhaps it’s an inside joke? But the professor had basically no friends other than her… She’ll figure it out later.
“I know you can’t be talking! You roast the beans in your coffee for, like, days.”
A deep sniff, and oh no, she’s gotten him started on another one of his rants, hasn’t she? (She tucks away the thought that it had been completely intentional.)
“Excuse you, I thought the World’s Greatest Detective could actually bother to study her statistics. The second cracking sound that indicates a dark roast happens around 465 Fahrenheit, which only takes about 12 minutes. Any further risks burning the beans and can even start a fire,” Moriarty rants. Despite her eyes glazing over slightly, Casey does mentally note down the information. It might be helpful in a case! “And I simply prefer the richer, more bitter taste of a dark brew. It’s certainly far more refined than that utter monstrosity. What did you even put in it?”
Casey squints for a second, trying to remember. Every second she stays silent, the professor’s face drops further, until she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t mind if someone just chucked him out of the window. What did she end up putting in there again?
“Uh… Definitely an energy drink. Maybe five. Also, hot chocolate powder. Oh, I think there were some candies on the counter that I sweeped in. And some coffee I got from that nice woman in the coffee shop.”
“Detective, you’re the only one who would call her nice. Her brews are combinations of ingredients that only those possessed by demons could even think of,” the professor sighs. “I can tell that’s not all. Her brews are… stable enough to avoid the hissing, if you have a specific definition of stable. The other ingredients sound like health hazards, but they still wouldn’t provoke that reaction.”
“We-ell, I may have also added some of that potion the graduates in the chemistry department were working on…” She tactfully avoids mentioning that it wasn’t just one. Or three. She should really be more concerned by the sheer amount of glass bottles they pulled out of various lab coats when she poked her head in and asked for something to keep herself awake.
“Those are completely untested! In fact, I believe one of the students had put literal acid into those just the other day.” Casey waits a few moments as he begins a fierce mutter-storm on the properties of acid and their reaction to pure water mana, but it doesn’t seem to have any hope of fading. From experience, if she leaves him like this, he will end up standing up in the next thirty seconds and running various experiments (possibly on her), and she’d rather like to continue their conversation instead. As such, she only has one option: piss him off further.
“Eh. It’ll wake me up.” She adds a carefully-calculated shrug, tossing the bottle up slightly and catching it.
“It will kill you.” Moriarty gives up on kneading his temples and drops his entire head into his hands. “You know what?” He suddenly perks back up, narrowing his eyes at her. Casey takes a step back — not out of fear! Just… a healthy dose of caution. The last time she saw that manic look, she had accidentally drowned one of his experiments, and she had been banned from his office for an entire week. He had made her actually socialize with other people in a way that extended beyond smiling prettily or bothering him. Arguably one of the worst weeks of her life.
“How about we switch? I think I can handle poison better than you can.”
Casey blinks, and tries to process what she’s just heard. She must have gotten water in her ears earlier, because she can’t possibly have heard that right. Moriarty, the stoic professor, drinking what was closer to a chemistry experiment than any valid beverage? Her, a mild disaster on the best of days, drinking the expensive coffee brewed to utter perfection?
“I’m not as bitter as you yet, Professor! You can’t expect me to drink that without spitting it out!” Casey protests, casting a glare at the coffee.
“Ignoring your lack of culture, you don’t have to drink this one. I’ll make you a lighter brew, with milk and sugar for your delicate tongue.”
Casey sticks out said tongue at him, and considers just saying no. But… she highly doubts his coffee would be anything but delicious, especially if he was saying the truth about milk and sugar. And it would be extremely funny to see his expression when he drank the straight caffeine she was holding.
“You’ve got yourself a deal then! No throwing any of this away!” Casey considers shaking the bottle again, but she’s a tiny bit worried it’ll explode. She settles for jazz hands with her free hand, holding up the bottle like some kind of neon green trophy.
“Mm.” A short hum of assent, before Moriarty stands up and marches over to the countertop tucked into the corner of his office. Quickly putting down her drink on his desk, Casey follows along, inserting herself probably too close into his personal space.
The professor ignores her with ease that speaks of practice — which, not undeserved but rude — as he slips out an unassuming brown jar from the cabinet.
“That’s not the one you normally use,” Casey notes.
“You cannot possibly be saying you want to drink the same coffee I do, Detective. My blend is meant to be appreciated, and you don’t even take coffee without sixteen sugars and enough milk to turn it white.” Moriarty scoffs quite loudly, an action that brings a scowl to Casey’s face. He wasn’t completely wrong, but he’s being unnecessarily rude about it. Very hurtful, she’s definitely not committing the condescending expression to memory so she can pore over it later.
“So does that mean you’re brewing me a cheap version?” Casey questions, crossing her arms. Maybe her drink was flat out toxic, but she’s not going to settle for cheap coffee!
“No, I don’t own any instant coffees. I imagine I can’t say the same for you, but I do still have a reputation to keep.” His lips quirk up slightly at the end, and Casey can’t help but laugh, slightly surprised by the easy admission. “I’m simply picking a lighter blend that will be complemented by milk instead of being diluted.”
“So you know you have a reputation! And here I was thinking I’d have to inform you half the students are terrified of you and the other half think you might be a god…” Casey knew the man was more aware of his image than he let on, but she hadn’t expected him to say it out loud.
“…Well, you can still consider me informed. I was completely unaware that I had gained those two reactions. I thought it would have stopped at ‘slightly pretentious professor’.” His voice sounds rather doubtful of her, but Casey’s certain she’s right. She’s heard plenty on her journeys through Ordo University’s halls, more than enough to know that among the students, Professor Moriarty was likely one of the most respected professors. It’s deserved, his teaching really is quite good. After his various lectures, even Casey could understand the basic principles of logarithmic functions, and her math education stopped as soon as she could calculate base magic circuits.
“Let’s review your vocabulary there: pretentious is only a valid word to use when the importance shown is more than what’s actually possessed,” Casey huffs. “In this case, it’s wholly inappropriate.”
“...Detective.” The professor begins slowly, pauses, and continues. Casey thinks to herself, sullen, that this is the first time she’s heard glee in his voice. “Did you- did you just say that I’m important?”
“I said absolutely nothing!” Knowing that won’t be enough to deter him, Casey scrambles frantically for an excuse to use. “You’re just trying to distract me so you won't have to hold up the deal! Hurry up and make my coffee already.”
She should really have invested more time into controlling her own body language instead of learning everyone else’s, because it is far too difficult to keep her face from flushing bright red. Maybe he’s right; maybe she really does now consider him one of the most important people in her life. But that’s something she’ll keep to herself, thank you very much. No need to let him know about it.
“Yes, yes, you’ve uncovered my dastardly plot,” he snarks back, but he seems to let it go. Casey inches back to her original position, peering over his shoulder as he pours in milk and sugar. She hums slightly in appreciation. The perfect amount. He gently pushes the mug over to her, and she leans down to take a sip.
“Huh. I can see why you like this coffee, it is quite good,” she admits. She takes another sip. Reluctantly standing back up, she carefully sets the cup back down before she can down the entire thing. “Now, your turn!”
She had expected some protests. Honestly, with how good her coffee is, she probably would have let Moriarty get away with throwing her drink out. However, to her surprise, he simply sighs and turns back to his desk with no further complaints. Walking over, he holds up the drink to the window, peering at it with the help of the sunlight.
“At least it’s stopped fizzing,” Moriarty mutters. “I still maintain that this is a horrible idea, but I suppose I have already agreed to it.”
Oddly enough, Casey is now the hesitant one. “You know, I wasn’t really planning on drinking that. You’re right about the students dumping random substances in there… Like acid. And poison. Maybe you should not drink it?”
Moriarty raises an eyebrow at her. “Weren’t you the one who brought it in here? Surely it can’t be that bad?”
Yes, Casey had brought it in here, but she just wanted to see his expression of disgust when faced with the drink. She hadn’t been planning on drinking it, or, to be honest, even opening the cap. Maybe if the color was blue. She most certainly hadn’t planned for the professor to propose the deal he had, and for him to actually be contemplating drinking it. Still sipping on her own drink, she contemplates his words again.
Wait, what if he’s messing with her? Surely he’s not actually going to drink it, and is just teasing her. Yes, that’s definitely something he’d do, and she refuses to fall for it!
“If you die, it’s not on me!” That’ll show him, she’s definitely not concerned about his health at all.
She expects for him to put the cup down, to sigh and say he’s not going to drink it. She expects for him to backtrack, and accept what she said earlier, how it might honestly be lethal.
She doesn’t know how she forgot that he’s been consistently defying her expectations today.
For a second, there is silence. And then, there’s a sudden hiss of air, and she whips her head around to find him setting down the lid of the cup.
“Cheers.”
He’s actually drinking it?! Casey yelps, eyes wide open as she watches the train wreck that is sure to occur within the next few minutes. Moriarty tilts his head back, swallowing a third of the drink in a single gulp, and Casey gulps right along with him.
“…Well? How was it?” Casey only dares to ask after half a minute has passed, and she’s reasonably sure he’s not going to collapse and die from either the drink itself or a heart attack caused by the caffeine. Still might happen, considering how blank Moriarty looks. He’s always been stoic, but now it’s like he’s a smooth white wall, completely expressionless and unreadable.
“I,” he starts, then pauses again. He tilts his head, almost as if contemplating something, and Casey leans forwards involuntarily.
“What? Is it that bad? Is your throat dying? …Are you okay?”
The professor looks straight at Casey, eyes still terrifyingly blank. And then, to her horror, he fucking downs the rest like it’s some sort of life-saving medicine. Casey practically throws herself back, choking. Not quite far enough to miss the almost mournful way he looks at the cup though. Yep, something in there definitely messed with the math professor’s head. Probably the sheer amount of caffeine.
“What is wrong with you? Did you just- What-”
“You should consider becoming a bartender. You seem to have some talent for it.” Casey is graced with a serene smile that would have made her day at any other time. Now, it only concerns her further. “Did you make any specific requests to the barista or the students? I may have to replicate this another day.”
“Professor. Professor, no.” She’s never letting this man near energy drinks again, Lumensis be damned. Casey’s pretty sure Moriarty has reached some hitherto unknown level of serendipity. “How are you not dead?”
“Ah, the drink is simply very reminiscent of something I used to drink a couple years back. I had forgotten what it tasted like.”
“Reminiscent? Reminiscent?” Casey sighs, and decides to stop questioning it. Shaking her head at this new knowledge, she chuckles slightly. “And I thought you were born drinking fine aged wine and expensive coffee. I suppose you survived on caffeine at one point too, then.”
“Don’t forget the pure spite, dear detective. Don’t forget the spite.” Moriarty’s lips quirk up slightly, as he slips the lid of the cup back on. “Nevertheless, I do believe I have to return to work soon. Thank you for the drink, and I do hope you’ve learned to appreciate proper coffee.”
Oh- right. Casey had almost forgotten about the cup in her own hands. Lifting it up, she downs the last of it, smacking her lips. It’s gotten a bit cold, but the taste is still quite nice.
“Yeah, I’ll admit your coffee is good when you actually add milk and sugar. You’ll have to make me more some other day!” Today had been a lot more entertaining than she expected, and frankly, Casey is still reeling from the professor just. Downing the health hazard she brought into the room. The cup is returned to her, and she shakes it slightly, just to make sure it’s empty and she hadn’t hallucinated the last fifteen minutes.
“You’ll have to come over for that, then.” Moriarty offers her a tiny smile, and she beams back at the invitation.
“I will, soon! Promise!” And with that, Casey leaves with an empty cup, new information, and a wide smile still hanging off of her face. Perhaps she’ll need to find some new drinks to bring, when she comes again. What had the students named their developing product? Celsius? Something to ask them about, next time.
Next time — that’s a promise she’s not breaking.