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Dedicating one's life to a skill brings with it some level of permanence, even when opportunities for practice grow slim. That's why Louis still cooks every meal for himself despite being more pressed for time and energy than he's ever been, swept up in the demands of MI6 and the increasing trust the division is being granted, day by day by day.
It would have been easy to fall out of the habit. Money is no more of an object than it has been since the Moriarty estate burned down the first time. But Louis can't exist without sentimentality—he only started learning to cook because William would have eaten anything presented to him, and he wanted his brother to have only the best. Then Albert found his way in the small place in Louis's heart he reserved his trust for, with his particularities Louis strove to accommodate for.
Louis had thought to ask Mycroft, once, if Albert might be allowed to have some manner of homemade meal brought to him. Mycroft had been merciful but somewhat cruel in the honesty of his response—he'd told Louis in no uncertain terms that Albert himself had wholeheartedly rejected the idea.
So now there are no brothers left to feed, and Louis remains in the kitchen for his own sake.
Often he shares meals with the rest of MI6, schedules permitting. There's a sort of quiet and unspoken connection that's been budding between them—the sort of bond that could have only come about in the absence of William and Albert, around whom every single one of them had structured their lives. With them, meals are almost never a somber affair, thanks at the very least to the liveliness of Herder and Bond that tends to inspire everyone else in the direction of chatter and laughter.
Today is no such vivacious occasion, though. Today there is only himself, and a meal too large for him. He always cooks more than he needs, just in case—what he doesn't eat can be given to one of his colleagues, or to someone in need of it. But it would be an absolute shame, if William were to come back and not have something waiting for him.
When his thoughts turn in that direction, there's a polite but firm knock at the door.
For a brief moment Louis is very suddenly flooded with the thought that the person on the other side of the wall may indeed be William, as though thinking of his brother had been enough to summon him from wherever in the world he is. Today is, after all, exactly one year since he left.
But it's realistically an arbitrary number. Time is only quantifiable in the experiences that fill it, and William deserves more peace than can be learned in only a year. Louis certainly hasn't had enough time to settle into himself—why, then, would William be back so soon?
The person knocking is too firm, even besides.
Fanciful impulsive thoughts aside, Louis has a fairly good idea of who must be here to see him, which is why he takes a quick last look at the pot in which his soup is simmering before making his way through the decently-sized space afforded to him in the Universal Exports building to answer the man he thinks is waiting.
He's pleased to see that his expectations were correct, when the door swings open to reveal a face that, hardly a few months ago, would have been a very strange presence at the entrance to his living space.
"Director Holmes," Louis greets, with the sort of halfhearted polite smile he reserves for people who don't need to be faced with the 'charming' and 'agreeable' M. "I wasn't aware you'd be by. Has something come up?"
Mycroft Holmes is decidedly not the sort of employer who pays heed to the division between Louis's personal time and his occupation, though given the nature of Louis's work he'd never expected anything less. The luxury of guaranteed rest is afforded to those people who haven't given themselves wholeheartedly to the government in the way both he and Louis now have; in other words, it's hardly the first time Mycroft has stopped by his living quarters unannounced.
"Not as such," Mycroft responds. "I'll admit I did wish to speak with you about matters that were related, but it's nothing urgent. I don't intend to drag you away from your cooking. Tomato soup, is it?"
It is, but it wouldn't have taken someone like Mycroft Holmes to guess that even despite the fact that Louis, ever-tidy in regards to his cooking space, has already cleared away all that was left over. The smell is enough to disperse itself throughout the space.
"Nonsense," Louis says. "I'm not sure how much you know about cooking, Mr. Holmes, but it has to boil for a short while yet anyway before I'd even begin with preparing the bread. Please, come in."
It's still a very strange thing to be the one who handles these interactions, though there's no one else who possibly could. Thankfully, Mycroft is quick to accept the invitation he offers as he steps back to allow entrance, stepping swiftly in the room and quickly closing the door behind him. The swiftness of his movements used to startle Louis, but he understands the director somewhat better now than he did when they'd first properly met, close to a year ago.
Mycroft was, after all, someone even his brothers had made a point to be wary of. To Louis, the two of them represented the pinnacle of achievement—the mere thought of someone who surpassed both of them in both intelligence and hypothetical political power was, admittedly, an intimidating one. There had been both stiffness and reservation upon their first several conversations.
Now, of course, he understands that the man is human in the same way that William is human; he may seem to the outside observer as someone who operates in a different world entirely, but he is still burdened by both bias and general pervasive feelings. Mycroft may be more annoyed by both of those things than William is, but Louis has seen the signs in him just as easily as he had begun to see them in his brother, shortly before the fall.
His hand trembles, for instance, in conversation about either Sherlock or William. He detests noise, at least in excess, and dislikes having to be around people for more time than he can spend—such that sometimes, entirely unnecessarily, he will find work to be done until every last employee has retired to their private business so he may leave work unobstructed.
That last factor conflicts in a very appealing way with the position Louis finds himself in now, playing host to a man who would rather do anything than have to speak to most people.
"Have a seat, if you like," he offers, though Mycroft had started to take one of the empty chairs at his small dining table before the words had made their way out. "It'll be another half-hour before I need occupy myself again."
Mirroring his guest, Louis sits across the table.
"You've been performing well," Mycroft says. "Better than my expectations. MI6 has become remarkably efficient in the short amount of time you've been leading it."
"I appreciate your acknowledgement," Louis replies, head dipping into a shallow nod in a meaningless habit of disguising the sincerity that begins to pick at his smile. "I see no reason to commit myself halfway to work as important as ours. It's been a difficult adjustment, but I wouldn't have made any other choice."
(Mycroft's face, for a brief moment, displays an expression Louis has only seen a few times before. The first had been when he'd accompanied his brothers to meet with Mycroft and explain the plan—there, Mycroft had been before him with what Louis read at the time as intrigue. The next time he'd seen it had been their first meeting after Louis had agreed to take on the mantle of 'M', and he'd misidentified it then as well.
The third time he'd seen that expression had been only as recent as several weeks ago, when in the confines of Mycroft's office Louis had confessed openly to the selfish part of his participation in MI6. He'd admitted with unabashed honesty how freeing it felt, despite the restrictions placed upon him, to be able to act on his own accord and do good of his own initiative.
Only that time had he been able to categorize the emotion as something akin to awe—or, more accurately, the realization from a man who knows everything that there are still things that can surprise him.)
"You continue to surprise me with your motivation," Mycroft pauses only briefly, "Mr. Moriarty."
"Louis is fine," comes the unexpected response, though Louis has no wish to take it back. "You're sitting at my dining table, after all, and by your own admission you aren't here on business."
Those sorts of words are things Albert would have wielded like a knife, manipulating the situation into what he wanted it to be in a way that was as ruthless and precise as the way he tended to his living space. Not a word or an item out of place. Louis has learned much from him, but he's making no attempts to manipulate Mycroft now—only, tentatively, to prod at him.
"Louis, then," he agrees, and sounds very much like someone to whom this sort of insistence is not often given or accepted. "I can't seem to stop being granted new perspective, lately, whether by your brothers—"
Louis's eyes flick down to Mycroft's hand, which twitches only slightly.
"—or by you." Mycroft finishes by sounding like he's making a sort of concession, then moves on from the thought entirely; "Feel free to return the favor, then. When we're not on business, of course."
"Of course," Louis echoes, "I'm plenty well-versed in professionalism."
Louis recognizes something like mirth in the man across from him, but he doesn't act on whatever feelings Louis's response have inspired; instead, the conversation lapses into silence. This, too, Louis recognizes as a startlingly human trait. Mycroft is the sort of man who's never paid much mind to what a casual conversation ought to look like, embroiled as he's made himself in his duties and averse as he is to the prospect of having friends.
Obligingly, Louis handles the task of conversational initiative, unorthodox as it is to be the one engaging his surprise visitor. If Mycroft didn't want some manner of conversation, he wouldn't still be here.
"I can't take all of the credit for knowing how to handle myself, though," Louis admits. "It was my brothers who first offered you new perspective, was it not? Likewise, it's through my brothers I even know the first thing about politeness and propriety, as high society defines it."
There is, again, a twitch of Mycroft's hand—more pronounced this time than the last.
"You have a tendency to undersell your own abilities, I've noticed," he says—possibly in an attempt to distract from his own lack of composure, though that's only speculation on Louis's part. It could very well be an unrelated but jarring comment.
"My brothers are very capable people, Mycroft," says Louis, as though to test the reliability of Mycroft's offer to speak casually in kind. When he doesn't respond adversely, Louis continues, "It's difficult to grow alongside people who seem to know everything if you have even the slightest deficit in comparison."
At this addition, Mycroft's brow visibly takes on tension, and Louis feels like he's properly hit at the nerve he'd been hesitantly reaching for.
It has been, after all, exactly a year since the fall.
Louis doesn't trouble him with direct prying—instead, he bears the burden of emotional conversations he doesn't particularly want to have, because he thinks that Mycroft is the sort of person who will never have them at all if no-one takes the initiative to start them with him.
"I don't bear them any ill-will for that," he carries on, smiling softly. "They were smarter than me because I made myself smaller, and their actions were in response to the position I began to fill in their lives. I was resentful for a time, but I understand that they cared about me more than anything. Rather than feeling betrayed that they ignored my wishes, I recognize that they were capable of being wrong about a great many things, including their thoughts about me."
Then comes the most visible break in Mycroft's demeanor—a sharp exhale of breath through the nose.
"I do appreciate your attempt at consolation," he says, "but I'm sure my brother died resenting me."
It's like this that the pieces behind Mycroft's visit click into place fully and properly; Louis is someone who, at least on paper, is both readily available and capable of understanding the loss of a sibling.
"I don't believe they're dead," Louis admits quietly. "It's strange to me to speak in such certainties. Unless you've forgotten that no bodies were found, which I very much doubt you have."
"It's more likely for any bodies to have been washed away in the chaos. The searching didn't start for several days after the fact, despite my best efforts," Mycroft counters. "If my brother were alive I'd know it. I've used every channel and directed every resource I can manage, and he's nowhere to be found. Not here, and not abroad."
His tone has shifted dramatically in the past several seconds, such that Louis has to maintain a conscious effort not to balk at the difference. It's aggressive, but the sort of aggressive that's directed inwardly rather than out him, like failure to find any trace of his brother is his fault and his fault alone. He speaks with the certainty of a man who thinks he knows everything—Louis, odd as it feels to do so, feels just a bit of pity for him.
Mycroft is indeed smarter and more capable than anyone else Louis has ever met, but his capabilities leave him entirely bereft of hope in the face of probability.
"My brother," Louis counters, "is especially good at covering his tracks. Maybe yours has taken some inspiration from him. But I don't wish to argue with you over such a sensitive topic; I understand that my opinion isn't largely shared. You're hardly the only person who believes I'm only deluding myself."
"I apologize," says Mycroft. "I hadn't meant to dash your hopes. I just know what I know."
Louis smiles, angling for reassuring but hitting bittersweet instead. "I'm not so flexible as to have my opinion changed by another person telling me otherwise. Even you."
It's a rather combative thing to say, but Mycroft doesn't carry with him the arrogance of someone who thinks himself better than everyone around him; instead, he looks at Louis with the quiet resignation of having engaged in a fruitless discussion, as though he can see straight through Louis's skin to the heart behind his steadfast belief.
"No," he concedes, "you're not. Still—I don't make a habit of saying things like that out loud."
"It's a perfectly reasonable response. You've lost someone you cared about very much; even though I don't believe them to be dead, it's still a great pain to me. Did you know I'd never gone more than three days without seeing William, before the final stage of our plan?"
"I'd surmised something similar."
Louis chuckles. "I push forward every day because I know he wanted nothing more than for me to live as I pleased. But it hurts me when I cook food and the person for whom I learned to cook is somewhere I can't reach. I make a double portion even when I'm only cooking for my own sake because I can't stand the idea that my brother might show up at my door and I wouldn't be able to feed him. Grief doesn't escape me because of what I believe."
Mycroft glances over to the kitchen, in which the tomato soup continues to boil, then back at Louis.
"You're far more suited to this work than Albert was, you know."
"Pardon?" Louis blinks twice, in rapid succession. "How do you mean?"
"Never mind. I was just making an observation," Mycroft shakes his head in dismissal. "Grief is a very funny thing, I suppose. When our parents died, I didn't feel even half as impacted by it as I do now. I didn't act out of turn as I am now."
I'm sure you weren't as lonely, then, Louis thinks. But what he says aloud is very different; "You loved him very much, then. I'm certain my brothers would have been similarly beside themselves if something had befallen me. It's why they kept me away from the worst parts of their lives."
"I did love him," Mycroft says. "I do. More than you could ever imagine."
Louis isn't the master of deduction that his brothers, or Sherlock, or Mycroft are, but it doesn't take a mathematician to add two and two together. To Mycroft, Sherlock must be some kind of uncertainty—from that perspective, he must have died without knowing how much Mycroft loved him.
"… Have you eaten yet, Mycroft?" Louis asks, a tentative change of subject and an even more tentative gesture.
Mycroft pauses for a long while, like he's weighing his options. Then he answers with the strange rigidity of someone who doesn't often accept these sorts of offers, "No. I haven't."
"You're welcome, then, to take dinner with me." There's a smile Louis manages to muster again, as real as he'll allow himself to show.
It's certainly not going to fix the emptiness inside of him whenever he cooks a meal for someone who isn't William to have a meal with Mycroft Holmes. But the two of them are both grieving for different things, and Louis holds claim to the notion that half of the offer is not for his own selfish benefit—if Mycroft is willing to be in his company, then what sort of host would Louis be to not offer solace to their shared suffering?
"Yes," Mycroft agrees, like the word tastes strange on his tongue. "I'd like that."
Louis can feel his own eyes wrinkle at the corners. "Today and anytime you like, then. I'll undoubtedly have enough to share."
He has a feeling that Mycroft will be back.