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Barok van Zieks was beginning to feel a headache.
The city of London, despite the cold brisk air and typical foggy and gray outside, the burdened big clouds and sharp wind that blew off the paperboy’s daily news, which were now sliding across the moist ground, was bustling with masses of top hats that moved in unison through the busy urban streets, colourless dresses moving about in the commotion, busy talking and murmuring amongst themselves as a bird chirped in here and there.
The strong gust behind van Zieks howled, pulling on his cloak he had draped all over him, trying to blend in with his surroundings and the crowd, though from what he could tell, it didn’t work. All the people bustling about merrily, looking at the sites that were progressively being built, were avoiding him like the plague, standing thirteen feet away – as usual.
“It’s going to rain”, the man said simply, loud enough so his hare-brained friend could hear over the clucking and thumping of his instruments and heavy, rash steps. Since the blond didn’t seem to want to stop moving about, Lord van Zieks continued, closing his eyes tightly, “Heavily. Would it not be better to stop working, just for a day? I will not have my servants bring blankets and medicine if you catch a cold another time.”
“I still have antibodies from last week”, his cauliflower-headed friend yelled from up the machine he was building from the World’s Fair that was about to convene in a few days, hammering in a particularly rusty screw with a monkey wrench, blinking multiple times as he realized the thing wasn’t budging at all, “And you don’t get colds from being cold, you know”, he stopped for a while, shaking his head wildly, “Last time a gentleman spit onto my glasses.”
“A fine gentleman that was”, Barok deadpanned, arms crossed over his chest.
“Yes, well, not everyone believes in teleportation. But I tell you, van Zieks, this”, he placed the pencil stuck in his hair into the device, “baby”, he stepped over to the control panel, “will”, he pulled on a lever, “work!” and the fifty feet circle around the machine was suddenly left powerless. Barok kept frowning in the exact same position as before as the scientist bolted about to reset the mechanism, “A-At some point.”
Albert Harebrayne. Never one to stop working – regardless of the quality and result.
“I… must have put in a faulty wire, or something… Of course, yes, there is no way I would have miscalculated the voltage output. Wait, wait – it was the power of the current that was voltage divided by resistance, right? Or was it resistance divided by power of the current? No, no, it must be the former, can’t be anything else. It makes no sense not to divide by resistance. I always forget that everything the world consists of always has the shortest path in mind…” Barok turned his head around at the gibberish, considering to just leave the man to his antics and move on towards his manor, but upon turning his head to the left, he froze and looked back to the ground, praying not to have been spotted and feeling heat in his upper back, “Was it a resistor I had forgotten? Or is there really a faulty wire… Well, I’ve got six days to dissect all of this and Mein Gott ich hab’ keine Zeit!”, he slammed his palm against his forehead, realigning his glasses, “And… for all that energy rushing to the ground is such a waste!” he shook his head, bony fingers finding solace in pulling at the wool on his head, “Ah… That won’t do any good… van Zieks?”, he called, but the man in question just clenched his teeth.
“Was it something I said? Wait, don’t tell me…” Albert suddenly looked hurt, “It really is resistance divided by current… Wait, no, that doesn’t make sense!”
“Refrain from speaking so loudly, man”, the Reaper said, standing as still as possible.
“What is…?” the scientist looked around to spot what had caused his friend to retreat into his immovable shell, seeing a thin wooden windmill, the world’s largest cup of tea, a man using a stepladder to climb up to the rim of the cup, a hot air balloon ready to take off, a bubble machine – wait, that man looked kind of familiar… “Barok, isn’t that…?”
“So you’ve spotted him too”, Barok announced, unmoving, “the hero of the children’s book stories for the vulgar classes… Don’t look for too long”, the prosecutor chided as Albert leaned his whole body against the fence to take a better look at him, “It’s as if he can feel people’s eyes on him.”
“There’s no way he can do that. Just look – he’s busy trying to reach the rim of the cup with his hand!” Albert’s brows furrowed, “He seems to be a tad too short, though. Oh. He’s started bouncing. That’s never a good idea.”
Barok made the mistake of looking his way, being weirdly intrigued, yet still worried by the idea of Herlock Sholmes pulling down a twelve-feet long stepladder with him as he was swiftly falling to the ground, waving his hands about frantically. Just as he did, Sholmes’ green stare got directed right at him, like a bloodhound meeting the owner of a track he had been following.
“Rats”, van Zieks huffed under his breath, “Albert, my friend. Go back to your apartment and stop working for at least for the rest of the day, God be damned, you’ll get a stroke from overworking yourself one of these days. I have to take off; he’s been following me around since of late.”
“You know the Great Detective?!” the scientist yelled in recognition, running over to the other end of the small metal fence that stopped the man from crashing down in his shuffle, looking at the leaving aristocrat who swiftly put on his top hat and was already on the move, walking with a strut even though he was apparently in a rush, “Van Zieks, come on!”
But Barok was already too focused on leaving and was too scared of looking back to answer his friend’s curiosity. In his hurry, he had bumped into a gentleman to whom he slowly apologized (the gentleman was too frightened to even close his gaping mouth, let alone answer), and had lost his hat to the wind in the process, but that didn’t stop him from trying to escape the Great Detective’s inevitable prying into personal affairs – their own, at that. He couldn’t have figured out already, could he? The man was nothing like in the stories, always brash and overbearing, even the simplest of deduction faulty and showy, and would have incriminated his cat of writing that darned, half-drunk letter before turning to the prosecutor, he was absolutely sure of it. He meandered through the crowds, ignored looking into the confused (and terrified) faces of the people he passed by so as to not lose his calm, and would have considered looking back briefly to see whether he had lost the man, if someone suddenly hadn’t tapped a finger against his upper arm, and the prosecutor swiftly turned around to see his assailant – Herlock Sholmes, smiling dumbly at him. Van Zieks recoiled.
There was nothing particularly unusual about the man today. His long square face was as pale as usual, albeit a little red from running (Barok deduced by the way his shoulders were raising in rapid breathing), his half-closed eyes as tired and astute as he remembered them to be, light blonde hair tousled and fluffy, he was dressed in his detective attire, bright bronze and tightly buttoned, knees wet from the trial of climbing on top of that giant cup, Barok figured, lips red, in a pout. Still, something was off.
“How long does it take for you to realize you’re being followed, my boy? I’ve been right behind you thirty seconds now, and I was starting to feel lonely, you know!” Herlock explained with hands spread open, bringing an index to his forehead, “And here I was, having regained my confidence of the power of my presence, with the lot of you having stared me down like that.”
“I looked at you for a mere moment” van Zieks growled once he regained his composure.
“Really, Lord van Zieks”, the detective continued, completely disregarding him, “I thought you had trained that nose of yours. But it is still as dull as a butter knife, it seems”, the detective remarked, pressing his deerstalker to his head so he wouldn’t lose it as he doubled over to laugh, “Seriously now”, he calmed, “If I had been a real assailant, you would have been in serious trouble. Do take care, fellow”, he patted him on the shoulder twice. Van Zieks noted how he had to step on his tiptoes to do that.
“I always have a dagger with me, just in case”, van Zieks defended, finally crossing his arms over his chest. It took him a while to put his guard up again, “Now to ask what your person had thought running all the way from the Western part of the Fair up to the Eastern. If attracting attention was the intended purpose, then revel in the fact that half the fair is now staring daggers at you.”
Not only were they staring daggers at the both of them, but the masses had also formed a steady 14-feet empty circle around them as they were passing. That was one foot more than their usual distance from the prosecutor, so he took a while to readjust to this predicament. Herlock looked around lazily, seemingly unbothered.
“I would have called for you, but where would the fun in that one be?” Sholmes said with a smile, looking up into the Reaper’s glassy eyes, “Other than that, you seemed incredulously set on leaving as fast as you could. Incriminatingly, I would go as far as to say.”
“I have a carriage to catch”, the prosecutor deadpanned.
“Oh, it’s always the carriage, isn’t it?” van Zieks didn’t expect the detective to believe him, but then, he felt the man’s hand on his upper back, and he would have recoiled if Sholmes didn’t speak up about it immediately, “Walk the walk, my dear Reapy. You wouldn’t want the masses to conjure up stories in their brains now, with the both of us on display like this, would you?”
“What… kind of stories?” the prosecutor asked, his sight momentarily dropping to the gray, wet floor they walked on. Herlock didn’t answer. Van Zieks did not miss how the masses still kept the circle of distance as they walked on.
“You know, I don’t mind a good distance from my personal space, but these folks are really coordinated”, Sholmes commented, and Barok didn’t miss that small smug smile the detective showed, knowing he had told a joke that even someone such as Barok would understand. Not that it was particularly funny. He really was one to talk.
“I’m not retracting my question, Mr. Sholmes.”
Herlock’s gaze was at the floor, however, as he was measuring something on it with a scrutinizing glare. Upon further inspection, van Zieks realized it was, in fact, their shoes the man was looking at, transfixed by the pattern of their footsteps.
“Shh”, the blond gestured him to be silent by putting an index against his plump, smirking lips, red and chapped from the cold, to draw van Zieks’ attention to them, “Hold the thought.”
After a minute of ‘hum… yes’s and ‘ah, I see’s, the detective looked at him triumphantly, raising his index finger, “Twelve!”
“Twelve… what?”
“Your shoesize! Twelve!” Sholmes said, putting a pipe into his mouth and holding his head up high as if he had just shared a vital piece of evidence that would turn his case around. Barok stared at him in disbelief, then just shook his head gingerly.
“This… is why you chose to rush after me?”
“Don’t be silly, dear”, he stated immediately, turning his head Barok’s way, “It was only a deduction I made by counting the small squares of marble and comparing it with my own foot. Originally I had only thought of the natural phenomenon of synchronized walking, since your right leg matched my right’s position, and your left step matched mine. I’ve always thought it extraordinary, how people tend to unconsciously interact with each other on such a deep level… but I always wanted boots like yours too, so I… guess my sight kind of strayed”, he explained with a chuckle, his eyes shooting towards his before raising his head again proudly, “No, no. I wanted to ask whether you had tasted the tea residing in that dreadfully large cup. I haven’t got a clue as to what it could taste like and my curiosity is killing me!”
“I don’t see this as my problem”, van Zieks deadpanned, relaxing enough to actually put his arms to his sides for once, letting his teal cloak fall free.
“I couldn’t quite reach the top”, Sholmes confessed, looking rather disappointed, “Lacked a good centimetre or two. And mind you, I haven’t even had my first cup yet.”
It was more like ten centimetres, really. But van Zieks didn’t want to elaborate.
“Would you have me climb that stepladder, then?” van Zieks huffed.
“It would be a nice gesture, yes”, Herlock immediately responded, looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes. Unlike his little roommate, however, he lacked the necessary adorability for van Zieks to even consider entertaining his idea. The detective seemed to have caught on pretty quickly, as he lowered his head in disappointment. That man was a mystery to the prosecutor – always appearing out of nowhere and disappearing in a flash, eyes always shrewd and watching yet failing at the simplest of deductions; not to mention the mood swings rivalling a teenager’s. Barok sighed.
“Whatever the type of tea in it is, Mr. Sholmes”, he watched the detective slowly look up, “it is now soiled by the rain that’s been coming and going for the past three days”, he shook his head, “I’m surprised the cup isn’t overflowing as of yet.”
Sholmes looked at him for a while, as if trying to search for something on his face. Barok suddenly felt hyperaware as the detective’s smile vanished, the man focusing his attention solely on the prosecutor.
“Tea is tea, dear fellow”, Sholmes finally shrugged, “I’d taste it nonetheless. I’m not afraid of euglenas.”
“You’re – ” honestly, van Zieks didn’t know what he had expected. He flinched at the statement, to which the detective burst into loud laughter, slapping his knee which was still wet from the same cup he was so obsessed with. As if the slap had triggered it, a thick shower suddenly fell from the dense colourless skies, covering the grounds with small white specks of water, and causing Herlock to pose.
“As if on cue, init?” he grabbed for the taller man’s gloved hand that tensed under his grip. Van Zieks looked around in panic, but everybody else had been preoccupied with reopening those dull, black umbrellas, and the detective was already sprinting away to the side of the road, pulling the larger man after him. Van Zieks lowered his head on the off chance of someone spotting the scary Grim Reaper of the Old Bailey being dragged around by the Great Detective himself like some sort of doll, but looking at Sholmes’ darting eyes just as he had prepared to bark at him gave away that he, too, saw the possibility. Eventually, the detective led them to a small playhouse that was standing in the middle of a muddy children’s park embedded into the World’s Fair and practically shoved the prosecutor in, before waddling in himself.
Van Zieks looked at the detective right beside him, who suddenly seemed bashful. He must have miscalculated the size of the playhouse – both were crouching, and Sholmes’ restless shoulder kept bumping into his upper arm as the man kept looking out of the wooden structure, making sure no one was looking at them. Sholmes chuckled.
“Well now”, that was all he said, looking back at the prosecutor, before his sight fell to the wet floor, “This… ought to keep us from soaking, at least.”
The great detective’s lips pursed, and he said nothing for some time. Van Zieks would have filled the air with some chatter were it not for the fact that his heart hammered against his chest, and skipped a beat every time the man would sneak a glance at him, as if checking whether Barok was still there.
Ever since that horrid evening when Ryuunosuke Naruhodou had called for his help in the middle of the street right in front of the Old Bailey, when two of the four full bags of knickknacks the defence attorney claimed were all extremely important had caught a hole in them, and Herlock Sholmes laughed out loud after seeing the good old Reaper carrying two sets of teapots, a warm blanket, cooking oil and a birdhouse in his hands, and invited him to stay for a drink for an hour or two, which extended to seven, long past Naruhodou had fallen asleep in the attic, with Herlock chatting away and tracing his calloused fingers over his shoulder whenever he wanted the Reaper to look back at him, ever since then Barok’s chest couldn’t stop itself from feeling alight any time those teal green eyes would look at him.
It was reminiscent of the last hour of that little outing, when Barok spoke up to share a story of his for once, and found the detective’s undeniable attention on him, pupils getting larger at little intricate details he purposefully emphasized. There was a glint in the detective’s eye, when Barok had met them, but he dropped the look to the ground too soon for Barok to pick anything up.
It was not as… private as it had been then, but he couldn’t deny the fleeting flights of fancy he had felt for the man on more than one occasion. And it only got worse at the chance of observing Herlock from up close.
“My back is soaked already”, van Zieks said, realizing he must had spaced out. Barok noted that somewhere along his outing, the sky became dark outside, although the Fair was making the park as bright as day still. Sholmes had already been looking at the outside again, and tensed when he heard the prosecutor speak. He turned around to look at him, smiling lazily.
“Hum. Yes. It’s raining outside, if you hadn’t noticed, dear.”
“I haven’t. Pray forgive the discourtesy.”
The detective showed a small smile.
“While you were out, I deduced another important point. Would you like to hear?” there was a glint in his eye, before looking down at his boots. The prosecutor didn’t grace him with a response, mind too busy thinking of his sight that dropped to the floor, so Sholmes took it as an invitation, “If you look to the ground closely, you can see a lot of sand in it. So, the ground”, he flicked his hat as he announced, “is actually sand.”
Barok, again, didn’t grace him with a response. Rather, he cupped his face into his hands and took a deep breath as Sholmes watched him in amusement. Herlock scooted closer to continue, “Jokes aside, I had another reason for coming here today. A reliable source of mine – don’t ask, don’t ask – has told me you frequent a friend that is building a teleporter or something of that sort here, at the World Fair. As it would be rather inconvenient and unbecoming of me to just… appear inside of your mansion – let us not entertain the possibility that I could do that, were I to wish for it – I chose to try my luck”, he took of his hat, placing it into his lap as his fingers passed through his now fuzzy hair, doubtlessly from the humidity outside, “I’ve been doing so for the past three days now.”
Barok furrowed his brows.
“Why?”
“I wanted to chat, is all”, the man slurred, leaning against the wet wood and looking ahead.
“You could have issued an invite. I rarely turn down guests of your calibre”, van Zieks responded silently, looking worriedly at his interlocutor. Herlock quickly shook his head, lips pursed.
“Dear Mr. Sholmes. I find you a spectacle to behold”, the man’s chapped lips spoke, and Barok suddenly felt as if he was set ablaze, heat rushing to every corner of his face, “I have often times found myself reading of you when I felt amiss. Truthfully, I believe your essence could never be captured perfectly as it is, though. I find the words leaving your lips mesmerizing, your laugh contagious, though I do not show it, and your eyes gates to a completely new realm, unexplored and hallowed. Pray forgive the bluntness, but I am in awe of you, and I enjoy every moment that I spent next to your side, rare as it is. If I were a braver man, I would have told you so in person, but my greatest wish, when we are together like this, is to hold your hand, when it touches mine.”
Barok was sure his heart would give in then and there, and he was already clutching his chest to look for strong pain, but all he really felt was lightness. Herlock’s sharp eye look at him from the side.
“Do you perhaps recognize these words?” he asked silently.
“I can’t tell”, a blunt lie. He knew them, alright, being the author of them.
“I found those curious words laid bare at my desk five days ago, not written, but collaged. Someone had cut out the old newspapers and magazines from under my work desk from where I cut out victims of cases and glued individual words and letters onto a clean sheet of paper. I would have dropped it into the shredder thinking it was blackmail or a death threat, with how ominous it looked as everything was either black or gray”, Barok wanted to smack himself, “but Iris came squealing to me saying it was a love letter. A love letter, Barok!” Herlock laughed out, smiling widely, “Me, the lonely Herlock Sholmes!”
Sholmes was silent for a while. Barok regarded his content expression, the small crease next to his eye.
“I have read it so many times, I had learned the contents of it by heart in time. Which is why I could so expertly recite it to you now. Wasn’t it just expertly?” Sholmes looked to the other man who tightly closed his eyes and frowned.
“Peachy.”
Sholmes gave off a content huff.
“If I remember correctly, it was the day after Mr. Naruhodou took his shopping spree to an extreme”, the man mused, putting an index finger against his forehead as he closed his eyes in deep thought, a crease appearing above his brows, “You were with us, that night. Helped the man carry the goods from the Bailey to 221B”, he looked at him, “I fell asleep prematurely that night, cosy by the fireplace, listening to the piece you had put into the gramophone. Mr. Naruhodou had been asleep quite fast, and I found him in the exact same position the next morning, so he hadn’t moved a bit. You, however…” the blond’s eyes travelled over van Zieks’ coloured face, the man’s light eyes opening to see the detective at work, “had not yet left at the moment I fell asleep.”
He shook his head, snapping his fingers.
“Oh, no, no, dear. You must have stayed for quite a while. There were three records put to the side that night, out of their supposed position. You had the fourth one – a Chopin, at that – put into the gramophone before you stopped switching up the plates. No one else could have done that”, Sholmes smiled at Barok’s raise of brows, “You put in extra firewood as well. I was freezing the next day since we ran out, so it wasn’t hard to spot the difference. And on top of that, the bottle of wine we shared was emptied, as opposed to when we had last drunk it. Mostly you, I mean with that. Now, my memory could be hazy. But Barok, dear… Could it be that…”
Prosecutor van Zieks steadied himself. He had buried himself in already, might as well bite now, too.
“You saw Wagahai scratch out the letters, and wanted for her to finish her letter before you went off on your merry way, yes?”
There was a long pause before van Zieks decided to react, clenching his hand into a fist, his eyes narrowing.
“What?!”
“Now, now, why are you so upset?” Herlock asked in bewilderment, “Clearly you have noticed the letter, did you not?”
“What do you mean – noticed it?”
“Well, a cat couldn’t have possibly put in more firewood to warm itself, and put a record into the gramophone to inspire itself, could it?”
“But it could write a love letter?! To you, of all people?!”
“I know there were a few disputes between the feline and I, but you have to bury the hatchet at some point”, Herlock said, lowering his brows at the suddenly angered prosecutor, “I’ve read Mr. Natsume’s story, you know. A cat knows the English language, just refuses to lower itself onto the position of speaking it.”
“You… can’t be serious. This has to be a jest!”
“But it’s true”, he turned his body towards him to explain, “Look, who else could have cut out the words so messily? It was like they didn’t use scissors at all! Like they used claws, a key, or…”
“Or a dagger”, van Zieks deadpanned, watching the man’s bemused expression contort, his lips parting and eyes widening, before he suddenly burst into loud laughter, writhing in his stomach pain, “And here I was afraid to have to turn her down, the poor thing!” he yelled between the laughs, his cold fingers suddenly finding themselves against Barok’s hot cheeks – before the man pushed his figure down to slam his lips against Barok’s, the prosecutors eyes getting wide in the process before a sudden feeling of calm washed over him, his arms naturally sneaking around the smaller man to slow his greedy lips.
Van Zieks couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, the relief of being liked back – and not being replaced by some Japanese bloke’s cat – easing his worries for just a little while, and the detective broke off to laugh at the situation, Barok’s fingers already sneaking back into the happy detective’s, when the lamp outside of their little wooden haven suddenly gave out, and they found themselves in complete darkness. Upon looking out, he could see that the illustrious park had disappeared, and all that was left was eternal darkness. Van Zieks would have thought it all being a dream, but the detective spoke up then, reminding him that yes, he did just make out with the Great Detective in a children’s playground in the busy Foggy Town.
“What…?” Sholmes asked, looking around before grabbing for a strange small device in his pocket to light up the area they were in somewhat, “What just happened?”
“The lights. A short circuit.”
“Short circuit”, Herlock repeated, the remaining hand in Barok’s clasping it tighter before his thumb came to stroke the prosecutor’s knuckles, “Someone forgot to double check the resistors, then.”
“It’s Albert.”
“Who’s Albert?” the detective asked, tilting his head. Barok noted the dark blush that graced the Great Detective’s cheeks and made a mental note of it as van Zieks shuffled towards the exit, looking into the distance and squinting his eyes at the merciless rain, his fingers still intertwined with Sholmes’.
“The man I’m about to teleport into the clink.”
The streets of London, drenched in water, always gave off a sense of melancholy, bare and bitter. The people walking around the Fair had mostly disappeared, leaving behind a deserted place of bizarre machinery shrouded by the dark and fog. Van Zieks swore he saw the gentlest of smiles on Herlock’s face from his peripheral sight, but it could have been a trick of the light from the detective’s torch. Nonetheless, he felt… hopeful.
“Dinner at nine, tomorrow?” Sholmes asked upon parting from the man, realigning his coat and hat as they trudged through the risen water, “Iris will be asleep.”
“I’ll bring the wine”, the prosecutor said, draping his cloak over a grateful looking Herlock.
“Bring tea, rather. I’m starved for it.”
“I’m not climbing up that ladder, Mr. Sholmes.”
“Herlock is just enough. And I’m deeply disappointed.”
“My stance hasn’t changed. Herlock.”
“Candlelight? A serenade, for my secret admirer, then?”
“I suffer chronic headaches – I wouldn’t do well on a concert of the Great Detective.”
“What a nice way of saying I sound cheap.”
“If you wish to interpret it that way.”
“...Way to ruin the mood.”
“As long as the dinner stands.”
Sholmes was silent for a while, before bursting into a loud laugh, and Barok felt a smile tugging on the edges of his lips. He cursed the night he had left him that bland love letter – he was sure he would never hear the end of it – but wanted to bless the fond glint in Herlock’s eyes, if his reputation wasn’t that of a reaper, when he finally didn’t look away upon being caught. Barok risked a brush of their fingers; Herlock smiled toothily.