Fic for graycardinal: to cradle the world in his hands
Title: to cradle the world in his hands
Recipient: graycardinal
Author: k_e_p
Characters/Pairings: Tennyson and the Irregulars
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Ableism
Summary: He does not feel limited. A Tennyson origin story.
Tennyson’s earliest memory is of his mama’s hands. He remembers them arcing and curving, creating shapes. He remembers thinking, that’s me when her hands twisted in a particular way. He remembers feeling warm, because his mama named him with her hands, and it was beautiful, and perfect, and him.
******
When Tennyson is born, his legs are shriveled, pathetic things, and his vocal cords are underdeveloped. There are technologies, the doctors tell his parents, that could make him whole, but they come with certain risks. One of those risks is death.
Mum and Mama tell the doctors, tersely but politely, that their boy is perfectly whole as he is, and instead investigate assistive technologies for him. It’s the 22nd century, and most assistive technologies are considered archaic and at times barbaric- why assist when you can fix?- but there are still those who believe that there are things doctors should not “fix.”
Mama talks to him with her hands, a common language between them- he cannot speak, and she cannot hear, but they never run out of things to say to each other. British Sign Language is a dying language, with fewer than two thousand speakers in New London, only about thirty-five thousand speakers worldwide. It is Mama’s only language, and he is proud to know it, proud to use it.
Mum builds him a hover chair, programming it with a keyboard that will say certain words and phrases when he splays his fingers across it. She explains apologetically, her voice shaky and nervous, that she can program only so many things into it, that she can’t give him every word, but he can go to school now, be with other kids and be understood. His vocabulary will be limited, but she hopes he never will be.
Tennyson’s first language is BSL, given to him by his mama, understood only by a shrinking, but proud, Deaf community and the people closest to them. His second language is a system of words and phrases, given to him by his mum, a linguist who taught herself mechanical engineering in order to expand her son’s world.
He does not feel limited.
Alone, sometimes.
But never limited.
******
School is difficult.
Not because he has any trouble with the material itself- frankly, he’s bored by it most of the time. He doesn’t enjoy school, he doesn’t enjoy keeping pace with the rest of the class and being told what he should find interesting and what to skim over. He’d like it more, he thinks, if he could explore topics he likes- computers and engineering and coding. But while all those things are touched upon, they aren’t the focus.
It’s also frustrating because his hover chair has only so many words. He and Mum sit down every night and try to predict which words he might need to add to his vocabulary in order to get through class the next day. Often they’re right. But sometimes his teachers surprise him, and they refuse to learn sign language.
“He needs to consider a vocal implant,” his Year Two teacher, Ms. Applewhite, tells his mothers gently. “If you want him to succeed, he needs language.”
“He has language,” Mama signs angrily. “You refuse to learn it.”
Mum translates, and adds, “We have talked to Tennyson about the possibility of an implant. We’ve also talked to him about the risks. It’s his decision, and he doesn’t want it.”
“It’s not safe,” he taps out.
“Tennyson,” Ms. Applewhite says, looking directly at him for the first time in the conversation. “Your entire world is limited right now to what words you can predict you might need each day. And yes, sometimes you’re right. But the days when you’re wrong? Are agonizing for you.”
She’s right, but Tennyson just scowls. “Learn sign language,” he insists, but his voice is robotic and can’t really communicate his tone.
“I have tried,” Ms. Applewhite, “because you’re right, we’ve failed you on that front. But if I learn sign language, how does that help you next year, when you have a new teacher? Or when you talk to clerks and librarians and doctors? You can’t ask everyone in the world to learn sign language because you refuse a standard implant.”
The rest of the meeting doesn’t go well, and Tennyson goes to his room as soon as he gets home. His mother and mama try to stop him, but he waves them away. He doesn’t want to be with them right now. He needs to think.
He doesn’t want the implant everyone tells him he needs. There are too many risks. Infection, disfiguration, death- and that’s even if it works. The implant, he’s read, only works in fifty percent of the cases, and no one knows why some fail and some don’t.
He wants more, though. He wants more than he has.
******
“Do you think I could reprogram my keyboard to create a series of sounds that could be combined to form new words in English?” Tennyson asks his friends on an online forum. Most of them are like him, disabled and refusing medical “fixes.” They don’t call their forum a support group, but Tennyson is pretty sure that’s what they are.
“I don’t see why not,” says Techie2100.
“It would be really hard,” advises def&bld1001.
“I’ll help you,” says L3tm3ou7.
******
He has a test run at school. Ms. Applewhite asks him a question, and he doesn’t have all the words programmed in English to answer, so carefully, going slowly, he types out as much of the answer as he can and then, for the few words he can’t, he carefully puts together a series of keys that, after a long pitch plays, say what he wants them to say. He can only do it for a few words right now, and it takes a while for the word to generate, but he and L3tm3ou7 are working on it. Mum and Mama are helping him with the programming, too.
Ms. Applewhite stares at him. “Tennyson, see me after class, please.”
After the other kids leave, Tennyson goes up to her desk and waits for her to finish marking something in her book. She writes something down, then folds her hands on her desk. “Tennyson, what was that noise you made today? That wasn’t like your normal work.”
“I’m working on a new program. It will create English words out of chords on my keyboard,” he says. He’s prepared most of his programmed words for the day around this potential conversation.
Ms. Applewhite purses her lips. “Tennyson. I thought we talked about this.”
“It’s going to be English,” he says. “It’s going to take time. But English. You wanted English.”
She sighs and rubs her forehead. “I’m trying to help you, Tennyson. You’re going to fall behind in your classes if you can’t say what you need to say right away. The world out there- it’s competitive. Do you think people will want to wait for chords?”
Tennyson scowls and raises his hands, switching to BSL. “I can talk right away. You still won’t listen to me.”
“Sign language doesn’t count,” she says, even while he’s still signing. She comes around the desk and crouches in front of him, stilling his hands. “Tennyson. Honey. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into by refusing to get the implant. It’s going to be very hard for you. Your life is going to be an endless struggle. You’re going to feel very alone most of the time. Are you really ready for that? Are you really ready to make that decision when you’re only seven years old?”
Her eyes are very blue, and she looks so sad for him. He looks down where her hands are covering his.
This isn’t going to stop, he realizes. This isn’t going to change. There is always going to be a teacher covering his hands.
He shakes her hands free and reaches out to his keyboard. “No,” he taps out. “No.”
******
“I want the implant,” Tennyson tells his parents.
Mama looks sad, and Mum looks resigned, but they agree that it might be a good idea.
It doesn’t take long to get him scheduled for it, and next thing he knows, he’s in the hospital, going through the prep. He’s seven years old, and he doesn’t want this, but he can’t think of any other way. As much as he doesn’t want the implant, he also doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life limited to a vocabulary that he tries to predict each day.
He has the surgery.
It doesn’t work.
******
He stops paying attention in classes. He still has the preset words in his hover chair, and he guesses he could go back to that, but it feels so small. He was offered the world, and it was taken away, and he’s so angry.
Doctors, teachers, strangers on the street, they spent seven years telling him he could be fixed if he would just take the implant. That he could say whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, if he would just take the implant.
Instead he has no words and a scar that looks like a monster’s mouth across his neck. The other kids stare at him. He has to explain in his limited, pre-programmed language why he has a scar, why it’s so big, why he still can’t speak. He wastes precious words every day on the same thing. He doesn’t want to explain. He doesn’t want to talk to any of them.
They did this to him.
He ties a bandana around his face, hiding his broken mouth and his terrible scar. He doesn’t talk to anyone but his parents. He stares blankly at teachers when they ask him questions. He glares at the other students when they come near him. He won’t even put his hands on his keyboard.
He gets home from school and waves to Mama before heading to his room. He was offered the world, and medical science failed to deliver. And he doesn’t want to go back to the hover chair’s words. His hover chair’s vocabulary is too limited. It just can’t hold the wealth of words the world possesses.
He needs more.
******
“What about what we were working on before?” L3tm3ou7 asks.
“I don’t want it,” Tennyson replies, knowing that L3tm3ou7 can’t see how angry he is at the question. Everyone else on the forum has been giving him space, but L3tm3ou7 hasn’t left him alone. She’s refused, repeatedly, saying he doesn’t need to be alone.
He’ll never tell her, but he’s grateful.
“I was doing that for them. So they could understand me. I don’t want them to understand me now. I tried so hard, and this is where it left me,” he explains after a minute. He wants to explain to her, if no one else.
“So change it,” she says. “Make it something else.”
“Like what?”
“Make it for you.”
******
He spends a lot of time in the library, reading about different languages. He doesn’t get very far with French, German, Italian, or most of the other languages in Europe. He lingers over Russian for a little while, intrigued by the written form. If he really wanted to make his teachers angry- which is not something he’s discarding out of hand- he could add something like written Russian to his keyboard programming. He sets a few books aside before returning to the shelves.
He’s more fascinated by the tonal languages. He spends a lot of time lingering on Mandarin and Thai and Diné Bizaad. Different tones make words mean different things. He watches documentaries on tonal languages, and asks Mum for any journal articles she has on any tonal languages. Mum is surprised by his sudden interest in her work, but she pulls out the articles and gives them to him.
He gets to work tinkering on his chair.
******
It takes almost a year, but Tennyson designs his own language, a series of tones which, when combined, form words and sentences and paragraphs. It’s sophisticated and nuanced, and gives him endless variations. He no longer has to program words in advance. He no longer has to figure out which words to do away with and which words to keep. He can have all the words he wants now.
No one understands it but him, and he knows his new teacher, Mr. Craig, despairs of his refusal to speak in anything else, but Tennyson remains firm. This is what he wants. This is what he needs.
If they will only speak in English and refuse to learn sign language, then he won’t speak in anything but the language of his design.
******
“They want to put you into a Student Accommodation and Inclusion class,” Mama signs to him during breakfast before he begins Year Five. SAI classes are what the schools call the classes for the kids who can’t keep up in regular classes. People make fun of kids in those classes.
“Let them,” he signs back.
Mama glances at Mum, and Mum sighs, rubbing her eyes. “Tennyson… you know we support you in this. And we know how angry you are that the implant didn’t work. But maybe it’s time to go back to programming the hover chair with words.”
“No,” he says, this time using his own language. Mum has learned it over the past year, though she still struggles with it from time to time. It is Mum’s fifth language. Tennyson sometimes wonders how much the brain can hold.
His parents still look worried. “I know what I want,” he types quickly. “I want to be understood. But I want to be understood on my own terms. Not theirs.” Then he signs it, so Mama can know what he’s saying. He regrets not including a visual component to his language, so Mama can learn it too, but they have sign language. It’s their main language at home anyway. It’s always been enough for them.
Mama nods, understanding instantly, but Mum still looks troubled. “I just worry that you won’t be able to make friends, or find a job, or do anything other than exist in your own little world. Your world is beautiful, Tennyson… but it’s so little.”
His world isn’t little at all- computers have given him what a vocal language couldn’t, and he has plenty of friends online- but he doesn’t expect his parents to understand that. They just know he doesn’t have play groups like his cousins, and his birthday party is always just family. He sees Mama give Mum a look, but Mum is looking at him, not her.
“I am happy,” he types.
It isn’t quite true, but his parents go back to their food.
******
SAI classes are… weird. Tennyson genuinely doesn’t understand why most of them are in his class. Most of the kids seem to do their work just fine. When Tennyson looks around the room, he sees a bunch of kids who are smart enough, but just don’t fit quite the way they’re expected to. It isn’t fair, and it makes him angry.
Their teacher, Mrs. Wiggins, seems to understand that there isn’t a legitimate reason for most of them to be in the class other than social expectations that they’ve failed to meet. She teaches a little differently than his other teachers, but only because she’s working to teach in a way that makes sense to the kids who learn in different ways. She sets aside special time to work with Tennyson every day, using flash cards to give him words and then listening carefully to his set of tones that describe each word. She’s trying to learn his language. And she already knows some sign language.
“I’ve had a few Deaf students over the years,” she says when he registers his surprise. “You pick up on things.”
One morning he gets to school early, having stayed up all night talking to a friend online. The classroom is empty except for Mrs. Wiggins and a boy, a few years older than him, who looks just enough like Mrs. Wiggins to probably be the son she mentions from time to time. He’s in secondary school. Tennyson thinks he plays football, from what he’s overheard Mrs. Wiggins tell some of the other teachers.
“Oh, good morning, Tennyson,” Mrs. Wiggins says brightly. “You’re here early.”
“I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d see if I can do anything to help,” he says, his hands moving over his keyboard with ease. He sees her son’s eyes widen.
Mrs. Wiggins pauses. “Can you say the last part again, please?”
Tennyson never minds repeating himself for Mrs. Wiggins. She’s trying, and that’s all he’s ever wanted. “Can I help you?” he asks again, and then signs it so she has a better frame of reference.
“Thank you. And no, I don’t think I have anything to do. Maybe keep an eye on my delinquent son while I run and get some things for today?” she asks, winking at her son.
Tennyson laughs, and types out his agreement. Mrs. Wiggins leaves, her son watching her go and then turning his eyes on him.
“I’m Wiggins,” he says.
“You’re Walter,” Tennyson corrects. He’s heard Mrs. Wiggins say his name before.
“I don’t know what you said,” Wiggins says honestly. “Don’t you speak? Mom said that some of her kids don’t talk, or talk funny, or don’t talk English.”
“I speak my own language. My voice doesn’t work, so I made my own voice.”
Wiggin’s look is blank. Tennyson smiles to himself, his mouth safely hidden behind his bandana. Sometimes he enjoys doing this to people. Doing things like this soothes him a little bit. It’s petty- Mama told him so, even as she admitted to doing much the same thing- but sometimes he needs petty to get through the day.
“Okay, I heard two sounds that sorta sounded alike… so they were probably the same thing,” Wiggins says, to Tennyson’s surprise. “Your name is Tennyson, right?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says.
“See, now, I know your name is Tennyson, so that must have been the word for yes, right?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says again, and Wiggins beams at him.
“I can figure this out. You are in Mr. Jenkins’ class.”
“No,” he says.
“So that’s the word for no. Okay.”
It goes on like this for almost ten minutes, with Wiggins asking easily verified questions (what color are your eyes? what color is your hair? what do you drink from the sink? where do you borrow books? where do kids go during the day?) and while Tennyson considers, sometimes, giving him an unexpected answer just to prove that it isn’t that easy… he doesn’t. Because he wants it to be that easy, and Wiggins is one of the first people to try and learn his language just because it’s there and ready to be understood.
“That’s cool, man. I like it,” Wiggins says as his mom comes back into the room. “You’ll have to teach me some more. But we gotta figure out a better way. I can’t just keep asking questions like that- it’ll take me forever to learn.”
“I’ll work on it,” he promises.
Wiggins says good-bye to his mom, and leaves. Tennyson spends the rest of the day thinking about how to make his language easier to learn.
******
“How are you going to make it easier to learn?” L3tm3ou7 asks him while they’re playing in an online arcade. Tennyson ignores the chat message for a moment, focusing on catching the ring for the bonus fifty points.
Once he gets it, he looks back at the chat window. He considers for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he types. “Mrs. Wiggins uses flash cards to build her vocabulary, but I think that might not work.”
“It would take too long,” L3tm3ou7 agrees.
“I don’t know how to teach someone else,” he says, clicking into the next arcade game as he types. “I built the language, but my mum and Mrs. Wiggins both used flash cards or pointing at things to figure out what I was saying.”
L3tm3ou7 doesn’t say anything for a while, and Tennyson focuses on picking out their next video game. He’s getting a little tired of the puzzle games. They’re too easy. He picks out a racing game instead. He hasn’t played many racing games. It might at least be interesting.
“Have you thought about making a computer program? You’re good at that,” L3tm3ou7 says.
He pauses. He hadn’t considered that. “How do you make a language program?” he asks.
“I don’t know, I’ve never made one. Maybe look at what is offered in other languages, mimic their designs?”
He’s never actually created a computer program. He’s played around with coding, and he’s taken a look behind the screen at a few of his favourite games, but he’s never built anything from scratch. It’s probably different from coding his hover chair. It would probably be difficult. It would probably take a lot of time.
He looks at the racing game he’s pulled up. It’s already boring him.
“That’s a great idea,” he says.
******
“Can you give this to Walter?” he asks Mrs. Wiggins, handing her a disc. He’s spent the past two weeks building the program, and he thinks it’s ready.
Mrs. Wiggins raises her eyebrows. “Of course, Tennyson. Can I tell him what it is?”
“It’s a language program,” he tells her, and then carefully spells it out for her. She follows his hands, and nods.
“Sure. What language?”
Tennyson blushes and is thankful that his bandana will cover most of it. “Mine.”
“Yours?” Mrs. Wiggins asked, sounding shocked. “You built a computer program to help Walter learn your language?”
He nods, not sure what to say.
“And he asked for it?” Mrs. Wiggins says. Tennyson nods again, not sure what she wants him to say. “Well. That’s- well. Yes, Tennyson, I will give it to him. Absolutely.”
The next time he sees Wiggins, he asks Tennyson about his week. When Tennyson tells him, Wiggins nods and asks follow up questions. It’s a stuttering, halting conversation, and Tennyson sticks with basic vocabulary, but Wiggins is able to talk to him.
Wiggins understands.
******
Tennyson meets Deidre by accident.
Wiggins likes to scam tourists out of money, and Tennyson finds that he enjoys it too, so they spend their weekends hanging out and picking out the most likely target. He doubts Wiggins’ mom would be happy- it turns out she wasn’t kidding when she called Wiggins a delinquent, he’s been brought in by New Scotland Yard twice for exactly what they’re doing now, and has often escaped being suspended only by charming his teachers- but Tennyson finds that it’s a new way to redirect some of his frustration at people and the world. Now that he and Wiggins are friends, a lot of his frustration is gone, but it creeps up on him sometimes. Conning helps.
Conning helps unless someone tries to steal from him.
Tennyson is pretty observant, he thinks, so it isn’t hard for him to realize that there is a small hand sneaking its way into his hover chair, aiming for the wallet he keeps hidden. He shrieks, a sound that doesn’t come from his throat, but comes from smashing down on the keyboard as hard as he can. He knows it’s a terrible, painful sound. His mother has screamed on multiple occasions when he’s done it- and it works, not just halting the thief but also drawing Wiggins’ attention.
“What the-?” the thief- a girl- yells.
“Get away from my chair!” he yells back at her.
“What?” the thief girl yells again, this time sounding more confused than startled.
“Hey, whoa, what’s happening?” Wiggins asks, jogging over. “Tennyson, man, stop yelling.”
“You call that yelling?” the girl shouts. “Sounds like cats in heat to me!”
Tennyson starts typing out some choice words while Wiggins laughs. “No, that’s just how he talks. You startled him, so he yelled at you.”
“She tried to steal my money!” Tennyson says, trying to get Wiggins to focus. He likes Wiggins a lot, but he’s way too nice to random people. Especially, apparently, people who try to steal from him.
The girl glances at him, then looks at Wiggins. “What’d he say?”
“Ask him,” Wiggins says, raising an eyebrow.
Now Tennyson and the girl both glare at Wiggins. “I’m not talking to her,” Tennyson says. “She tried to steal from me.”
“I’m not going to talk to him! He yells at me!”
“You two have way more in common you’d think,” Wiggins says, both eyebrows going up this time. “Tennyson, you have to admit that she did a good job trying to lift from you- not many people can get the jump on you. Yo, girl- what’s your name?”
“Deidre,” the girl says sullenly.
“Deidre, you shouldn’t be stealing from people like us. You need some work on spotting fellow thieves.”
“We’re not thieves,” Tennyson says.
“I’m not a thief,” Deidre says.
“We’re entrepreneurs,” Tennyson adds.
“I’m an entrepreneur,” says Deidre.
“You have skills, Deidre,” Wiggins says. “We could use someone like you. Want to hang out sometime?”
“No,” Tennyson says immediately. They don’t need her. He and Wiggins work just fine together. And unlike her, they aren’t thieves. Convincing tourists that they need special tour guides, or that it costs a few credits just to hail a cab, that isn’t stealing. That’s taking advantage of natural stupidity. Deidre isn’t an entrepreneur, no matter what she says. She’s just a thief.
“I’m guessing the bleep-bloop guy said no, right?” Deidre asks.
“She’s just a thief. We don’t need thieves. We’re good, just the two of us.”
“And now he’s saying that you don’t need me, right?” Deidre asks. “Well, he’s right. You don’t need me. And I don’t need you.”
She tosses her head, a haughty little gesture that makes Tennyson laugh, despite himself. Deidre can’t be much older than him, but she has his disdain for the world down pat. He thought he was the only one their age who acted like that.
Wiggins shakes his head. “Tennyson, c’mon. She has potential.”
He scowls, but knows Wiggins is right. Plenty of people have attempted to steal from Tennyson before. He looks like an easy mark. Nobody gets as far as Deidre did. Reluctantly, and knowing he might regret it, he types out, “Fine.”
Wiggins looks over at Deidre. “How’d you like to learn from the best?”
Deidre snorts. “You’re saying you’re the best? How’d you like to learn from the best?”
Wiggins laughs again, and Tennyson rolls his eyes. This is going to be interesting.
******
Deidre takes a lot longer than Wiggins to learn his language, but she does learn it. Unlike Wiggins, she doesn’t sit down with flash cards or with his computer program. Instead, she learns as she goes.
“He just swore, right? You just swore, right?” Deidre asks, after one failed scam.
“See, I know what that means. That means that you’re wrong, Wiggins,” Deidre says over fries one day.
“Oh, Tennyson, don’t even try it. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says while they’re walking down the street.
She makes Tennyson laugh, and she agrees with him more often than either of them agree with Wiggins. She’s smart and cunning, and she’s fast to pick up on things. She comes up with half of their schemes, and helps perfect the other half.
She’s a good partner. But then one day Deidre turns to him while they’re out and says, “Want to go to the arcade?”
He laughs, because apparently she doesn’t know just how good he is. “Sure,” he says. Wiggins rolls his eyes.
“I’ll see you two later.”
He lets Deidre pick the first game when they get to the arcade. She chooses a shoot-em-up game, one that Tennyson hasn’t actually beaten yet. He’s played it, and he’s good at it, but he hasn’t beaten it yet. He thinks this might be a good opportunity.
Until Deidre beats him.
She smirks at him, blowing imaginary smoke away from the barrel of her arcade gun. “And that’s how it’s done, Tennyson,” she says.
“How did you do that?” he demands.
“See, I just pointed it at the screen and-” He keysmashes at her, and she giggles. “This is my favourite game. I play here all the time.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” he admits.
“I’ve seen you, though. You like the nerdy games. I don’t play those. I prefer the holocade, anyway.” She puts the arcade gun back and runs a hand through her hair, still giggling. “What now?”
Tennyson grins. “My turn to pick a game, I think.” Her eyes widen and then her face crumples.
He picks one of his “nerdy” games and thoroughly trounces her. She laughs the entire time, even when he beats his previous high score and trash talks her through the whole game.
And just like that, Tennyson has two friends.
******
“You seem happier,” L3tm3ou7 types into their chat window.
Tennyson considers for a moment. “Sometimes,” he types back. “I have some friends. School is better.”
“Still in the SAI classes?”
“Yes. I like them. I like my teachers, and the other kids.”
“That sounds like you’re happy, then.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe.”
******
Tennyson is the only one of them who has actually read the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, so he’s the only one who fully understands what it means that the world’s greatest detective is back.
Tennyson stares at the man in awe when he tells them who he is, and wants to hit Wiggins for picking Sherlock Holmes to con. He loves the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They’re some of his favourite books. He grew up with the stories, he watches the holovids, and it still makes him sad that the museum is closed.
But now he has Sherlock Holmes standing in front of him, asking them to help him out. Tennyson wants to hug Wiggins for picking Sherlock Holmes to con out of money- it means that the great detective wants them to help him.
Only Wiggins goes down to the subway with him, which nearly makes Tennyson sick with envy. “Why does he get to go and we don’t?” he asks Deidre, watching their backs as they go down the stairs.
“They don’t need all three of us,” Deidre points out.
Tennyson frowns. “Next time, we all go.”
******
A few weeks after they meet Sherlock Holmes for the first time, Wiggins calls him. “Hey, Holmes wants us to meet him at 221B Baker Street.”
Tennyson sits up, staring at Wiggins face on his videophone. “At the museum?”
Wiggins frowns. “I guess, man, I don’t know. You know I don’t care about all that detective junk you’re into.”
He laughs. “He wants us to work for him, and you say you aren’t into detective stuff?”
“Shut up. Anyway, get over there. He’s waiting for us. I’ll let Deidre know.”
Tennyson gets into his hover chair, carefully maneuvering himself off his bed. He ties his bandana around his face and puts an away message up on his chat window. He goes downstairs, let his mothers know where he’s going, and zooms out the door. His heart is pounding with excitement. He’s spent the past few weeks rereading the stories, trying to memorize as much as he could about the detective.
He’s the first one to arrive at 221B, and he stares at the building for a minute, taking it all in. The museum has been closed for years, since well before he was born. He and Wiggins once tried to break in, but they’d been caught by some Yardies.
Almost caught, anyway. He and Wiggins can run much faster than any donut-munching Yardie.
He opens the door and zooms up the stairs. Part of him wants to wait for Mrs. Hudson to take him up to Mr. Holmes, but he knows that’s impossible. Not everyone was kept preserved in honey, after all. Only Mr. Holmes.
He knocks on the door and waits. A few moments later, a compudroid with an elastomask opens the door. Tennyson blinks. He looks like the holovids of Watson.
“Ah, young Master Tennyson,” the compudroid says, waving him in. “Please come in. Mr. Holmes is waiting for you.”
Tennyson can’t take his eyes off the ‘droid as he enters the room.
“You must be Tennyson. I see you have met Watson,” comes a voice from behind the ‘droid. And there he is. Sherlock Holmes. He’s standing by the window, watching the hovercrafts go by. Tennyson swallows hard, and moves himself closer so he isn’t blocking the door.
“Mr. Holmes. It’s an honour to meet you,” he types carefully.
Mr. Holmes turns around, frowning. “What was that? Watson, what did he say?”
Tennyson flushes. “It’s my language,” he explains, knowing he’s explaining nothing. “I-”
“Does he speak English?” Holmes asks, interrupting him. Tennyson feels his heart sinking.
“Holmes, I believe Tennyson is speaking a language of his own devising. I’m afraid I haven’t heard it before, and so I cannot translate it.” Watson smiles at Tennyson politely. “Perhaps it would be best if we wait for your friends to arrive. They are familiar with your language, correct?”
“Yes, I-”
Mr. Holmes waves a hand dismissively at him. “Very well. Have him wait over there.”
Tennyson stares at Holmes, and wonders if maybe he knows BSL. Mama didn’t teach him much about the history of the language, and he doesn’t know if Mr. Holmes would know it. He takes his hands off the keyboard and signs quickly, “Mr. Holmes, I’m a huge admirer of your work, and-”
Mr. Holmes squints at him, watching his hands with interest, and for a moment, hope flares in Tennyson’s heart and he stops signing. But then Mr. Holmes says, “His friends would understand that as well, I presume?”
Tennyson drops his hands back down to his keyboard.
Watson looks at him, clear concern in his eyes. “Holmes, perhaps-”
“Not now, Watson. Tell the boy to just stay over there until Wiggins and the girl arrive.”
Tennyson stares down at his keyboard. He’s been speaking signing since he was one. He’s been speaking his own language since he was eight. He’s used to people not understanding what he’s saying, and he’s used to people ignoring him. It’s normal to him. It shouldn’t hurt this much.
He just thought that Sherlock Holmes would be different.
He purses his lips, and lifts his chin. If this is who Mr. Holmes is, then maybe he doesn’t want to work with Mr. Holmes. “Fine. I don’t need this. Goodbye,” he types out.
He shoves past Watson and out the door that he left open, ignoring Mr. Holmes saying, “Why is he leaving? Watson? Stop him!”
Tennyson sees Deidre and Wiggins as he flies out the door. He hears Wiggins shout something, but he keeps going.
******
“Mr. Holmes called me the other day,” Deidre says, swinging her legs back and forth as she sits on the bench. They’re at the boxing gym with Wiggins, watching as he practices with his trainer. Nobody has mentioned his storming out of Mr. Holmes apartment a few days ago. He was hoping they wouldn’t mention it. He doesn’t take his eyes off Wiggins, watching his form.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Did you know he didn’t even know my name?” Deidre asks. “I read him the riot act, up and down. I’ve never seen a grown man so flustered.”
Tennyson makes a noncommittal sound. “Wiggins, keep your right up!” he shouts.
Deidre looks at him, narrowing his eyes. “Are you going to forgive him? Because Wiggins says we’re not taking any work from him until you’re cool with him.”
“Why should I forgive him?” Tennyson asks. “He treated me like I was nothing.”
“So did I,” Deidre says bluntly. “And now you’re my best friend.”
He starts to reply, but then stops. “I am?”
She blushes. “Yeah. But if you think about it, I tried to steal from you, I called you bleep-bloop, and I talked to Wiggins, not you. But we’re mates now. Mr. Holmes just woke up from a deep freeze- I had just walked down the block. Why can you forgive me, but not him?”
“I don’t have to forgive everyone,” Tennyson says quietly.
Deidre bites her lip, and then takes his hand. “No, I guess not.”
******
He’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when he hears his bedroom door open. He looks up. Mama is standing in the door, smiling softly. “Hello, dear,” she signs, her hands gentle.
“Hi,” he signs back.
Mama walks into the room and sits down on the edge of the bed, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He has his mama’s blonde hair, but his mum’s eyes. “You know, the past year has been really good for you. You’ve had friends, school has been going well… you’ve been happy.” Tennyson nods. “But these past few weeks… what happened, Tennyson?”
He sighs and rubs his face with his hands before lifting them. “Did someone ever disappoint you with how they acted towards you?”
“All the time,” Mama says calmly.
“But not just anyone, Mama. Someone that you really wanted to like you. Someone that you really respected. And then they said something that hurt your feelings.”
Mama bites her lips. “Did I ever tell you the story of how your mum and I met?”
“No,” he says, curious. He sits up on his elbows.
“Well,” Mama signs, “I met your mum in my senior year of college. She was a graduate student, and she’d already published three papers. I’d read them, and thought the world of her work. I thought it was brilliant, earthshattering, groundbreaking. It had such huge implications for BSL. So I took a class that I knew she was teaching. And after class, I went up to her to introduce myself, and the very first thing she did was ask why I hadn’t bothered to have my hearing corrected yet.”
Tennyson sits all the way up, stunned. “My mum?” he asks.
“Your mum,” Mama confirms. “I was mortified. I cried all the way back to my dorm. I am proud of being Deaf, and I always have been. But in that moment, I was never more ashamed.”
He reaches over and lays his hand on Mama’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Mama smiles. “But, the next class, your mum came up to me and apologized. She was so caught up in her world, and what she thought was right, that she never stopped to think that maybe I was happy with who I was. She saw my face after what she said and took the rest of the week to do some reading, and she apologized. She asked if I would help her learn BSL, and I agreed. She was the first person who ever asked me to help them with BSL. A few years later, we were married. We went from a horrible, terrible start to being together forever.”
“So you think I should forgive him,” Tennyson says.
Mama shakes her head. “No, Tennyson. I accepted your mum’s apology, but that was me and her. Your situation is different. It always will be. I’m just sad because you’re sad. And I’m sad for whoever hurt you like this. Because they’re missing out on knowing you.”
Mama kisses him on the forehead and leaves Tennyson alone.
******
“What do you think?” he asks.
It takes a little bit for L3tm3ou7 to reply, but her answer is short and to the point. “You should do it. What do you have to lose? And if it doesn’t work, you still have me ha ha ha.”
She adds the laugh, but Tennyson knows she isn’t joking. It makes him smile.
******
Watson answers the door again.
“I want to speak with Mr. Holmes,” he says. Then he holds up a holochip, offering it to Watson.
“I’ll assume you are here for Holmes, and that this is for me,” Watson says, taking the holochip from him. He opens his processing area and inserts the holochip into an open port. Tennyson waits a moment.
“Can you understand me now?” he types out.
Watson’s face brightens. “I understand you perfectly now, Tennyson! Did you put together this ‘chip?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says shyly.
“That’s remarkably advanced, young man. You should be very proud of yourself.”
“Watson, who is that?” Mr. Holmes yells from another room. A second later he walks in, neatly dressed. He frowns. “Tennyson. Hello.” He looks uncomfortable.
Tennyson feels more uncomfortable than Holmes looks. He looks down at the disc on his console, and then holds it up. “This is for you,” he says. “If you want to even try.”
He tosses it onto a table, turns, and leaves, not bothering to wait for Watson to translate.
******
It doesn’t take long. A week later, he gets a videocall from Mr. Holmes. Tennyson doesn’t answer, letting him go to message. He has homework that he needs to finish anyway, and he and Deidre are planning to meet up for an arcade match later.
He plays the message while getting ready to leave, his homework left unfinished on his desk.
“Tennyson. Hello. This is Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Holmes says in his message. He’s looking off to the side of the screen, and his hands are fidgeting. He’s very much unlike the suave, standoffish man he first met. “I have been working on the language program you gave me. It is a very complex language, fascinating. Much like the young man who invented it, I would imagine. I would like a second chance, if you would be willing to give me one.”
There’s a moment of dead air at the end of the message while Mr. Holmes clearly is trying to figure out how to turn off the videophone. Tennyson watches his fumbling, mouth twitching.
******
“We should take some jobs from Mr. Holmes,” Tennyson tells Wiggins over pizza.
Wiggins raises an eyebrow. “You sure? If he’s not cool with you, he’s not cool with us.”
Tennyson considers his green peppers. He thinks about Deidre sitting next to him at the boxing gym, telling him he’s her best friend. Of L3tm3ou7 telling him to take a chance and reassuring him she’d be there for him. And Wiggins, eating pizza with him and refusing to take jobs from Mr. Holmes, even though Tennyson knows Wiggins is excited about the idea of working for him.
It doesn’t matter if Mr. Holmes comes through for Tennyson.
He’s not alone anymore.
“I think we’ll be okay,” he tells Wiggins.
******
They get a job five days later. Tennyson thinks that Wiggins was checking in with Mr. Holmes every day, looking for work. For all that Wiggins is a juvenile delinquent, Tennyson suspects there’s more than a little frustrated detective in there.
Somehow he ends up being the first one at 221B again. Watson lets him in with a cheerful smile before disappearing into one of the rooms, leaving him alone. Tennyson sits still for all of half a second before he can’t help himself anymore. He’s wanted to visit the museum since he was four, and even though it’s changed now, there are still things of interest.
He’s picking up the synth-violin when he hears footsteps behind him.
“This isn’t the Stradivarius,” Tennyson says tentatively. He’s careful to speak slowly. He doesn’t expect fluency.
“No,” Mr. Holmes says, stepping around to where Tennyson can see him. “Lestrade informs me that my Stradivarius was stolen from the museum in the late 1900s. I am attempting to learn that… instrument… instead.”
He laughs a little. He doesn’t know anyone who enjoys the synth-violin. “Do you like it?” he asks.
“It’s certainly an experience,” Mr. Holmes says dryly.
“Did the museum have any of your things from before?” Tennyson asks, and he can’t quite keep the eagerness out of his voice.
Mr. Holmes must hear it, because he raises an eyebrow. “Are you a fan of Dr. Watson’s writings, Tennyson?”
He flushes. “I read them a lot when I was young.” He doesn’t bother to mention the time he’s spent recently rereading them.
“I see,” Mr. Holmes says. He clears his throat. “Then my behavior was especially hurtful, I imagine.” Tennyson doesn’t reply, and Mr. Holmes takes a deep breath. “Yes, there are a few things from my original tenure at Baker Street. Would you like to see them?”
Mr. Holmes takes him around 221B, pointing out a jackknife that belonged to him, and the Persian slipper. When Tennyson asks him questions, Mr. Holmes occasionally needs him to repeat things, or say things in a different way, and he struggles sometimes, but he’s clearly trying.
“You should show him your notes on ciphers,” Watson calls from a different room. He walks in, carrying a tray with biscuits and tea. “I think he would enjoy those.”
By the time Deidre and Wiggins arrive, Tennyson has become engrossed in Mr. Holmes’ cryptography notes, careful not to let crumbs fall on the pages.
“I was quite good at cryptography, back- before. I fancied myself excellent at languages as well,” Mr. Holmes says. “If you would like, you may borrow those. They’re terribly out of date, but they may have some historical interest.”
Tennyson brightens. “I can borrow these?”
Wiggins snorts. “Nerd,” he says, crossing the room to stand next to Tennyson, Deidre following him. He blinks in surprise when they fold their arms in unison, glaring at Mr. Holmes.
“Yo, Holmes, did you apologize?” Wiggins asks.
“Yeah,” Deidre says. “Because we’re not cool until Tennyson is cool.”
Tennyson puts his hands on his keyboard, but before he can tell them that they can stop being the most embarrassing friends ever, Mr. Holmes puts his hand up.
“You are right, of course. Tennyson, I am deeply sorry for the way I behaved the other day. It is no excuse, but I was acting on false ideas and beliefs that I thought to be true. I’ve done a great deal of reading since then, and I know how wrong I was. Please accept my apology.”
Tennyson knows he’s been apologizing for the past half hour, in his own way. He’s working on learning Tennyson’s language, and he showed Tennyson around the museum, and he’s loaning him his notes on codes and ciphers. Those are a silent apology, and it means a lot.
But it’s good to have the words. He doesn’t realize, until something uncoils in his gut, that he needed the words, too.
“I accept,” he says.
“Good,” Deidre says firmly. “Now, what’s this case? We’re dying to work for you, especially Tennyson. You’re his hero.”
Tennyson buries his face in his hands.
******
“You look happy, sweetie,” Mama says as he’s headed out the door to go trail a suspect for Mr. Holmes.
Tennyson pauses, surprised. They’ve been working for Mr. Holmes for close to a month now, and they’ve been able to help on five cases already. It’s been exciting, and so much better than the books made it seem.
He feels important. He feels significant. He feels valued.
And he has his friends. The look of pride on Mr. Holmes’ face doesn’t compare to the feeling Tennyson gets working with his friends. It wouldn’t be the same without Deidre and Wiggins by his side, and L3tm3ou7 waiting to hear about his adventures when he gets home.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “I am.”
Then he heads out the door. He has bad guys to chase, and his friends are waiting for him.
Recipient: graycardinal
Author: k_e_p
Characters/Pairings: Tennyson and the Irregulars
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Ableism
Summary: He does not feel limited. A Tennyson origin story.
Tennyson’s earliest memory is of his mama’s hands. He remembers them arcing and curving, creating shapes. He remembers thinking, that’s me when her hands twisted in a particular way. He remembers feeling warm, because his mama named him with her hands, and it was beautiful, and perfect, and him.
******
When Tennyson is born, his legs are shriveled, pathetic things, and his vocal cords are underdeveloped. There are technologies, the doctors tell his parents, that could make him whole, but they come with certain risks. One of those risks is death.
Mum and Mama tell the doctors, tersely but politely, that their boy is perfectly whole as he is, and instead investigate assistive technologies for him. It’s the 22nd century, and most assistive technologies are considered archaic and at times barbaric- why assist when you can fix?- but there are still those who believe that there are things doctors should not “fix.”
Mama talks to him with her hands, a common language between them- he cannot speak, and she cannot hear, but they never run out of things to say to each other. British Sign Language is a dying language, with fewer than two thousand speakers in New London, only about thirty-five thousand speakers worldwide. It is Mama’s only language, and he is proud to know it, proud to use it.
Mum builds him a hover chair, programming it with a keyboard that will say certain words and phrases when he splays his fingers across it. She explains apologetically, her voice shaky and nervous, that she can program only so many things into it, that she can’t give him every word, but he can go to school now, be with other kids and be understood. His vocabulary will be limited, but she hopes he never will be.
Tennyson’s first language is BSL, given to him by his mama, understood only by a shrinking, but proud, Deaf community and the people closest to them. His second language is a system of words and phrases, given to him by his mum, a linguist who taught herself mechanical engineering in order to expand her son’s world.
He does not feel limited.
Alone, sometimes.
But never limited.
******
School is difficult.
Not because he has any trouble with the material itself- frankly, he’s bored by it most of the time. He doesn’t enjoy school, he doesn’t enjoy keeping pace with the rest of the class and being told what he should find interesting and what to skim over. He’d like it more, he thinks, if he could explore topics he likes- computers and engineering and coding. But while all those things are touched upon, they aren’t the focus.
It’s also frustrating because his hover chair has only so many words. He and Mum sit down every night and try to predict which words he might need to add to his vocabulary in order to get through class the next day. Often they’re right. But sometimes his teachers surprise him, and they refuse to learn sign language.
“He needs to consider a vocal implant,” his Year Two teacher, Ms. Applewhite, tells his mothers gently. “If you want him to succeed, he needs language.”
“He has language,” Mama signs angrily. “You refuse to learn it.”
Mum translates, and adds, “We have talked to Tennyson about the possibility of an implant. We’ve also talked to him about the risks. It’s his decision, and he doesn’t want it.”
“It’s not safe,” he taps out.
“Tennyson,” Ms. Applewhite says, looking directly at him for the first time in the conversation. “Your entire world is limited right now to what words you can predict you might need each day. And yes, sometimes you’re right. But the days when you’re wrong? Are agonizing for you.”
She’s right, but Tennyson just scowls. “Learn sign language,” he insists, but his voice is robotic and can’t really communicate his tone.
“I have tried,” Ms. Applewhite, “because you’re right, we’ve failed you on that front. But if I learn sign language, how does that help you next year, when you have a new teacher? Or when you talk to clerks and librarians and doctors? You can’t ask everyone in the world to learn sign language because you refuse a standard implant.”
The rest of the meeting doesn’t go well, and Tennyson goes to his room as soon as he gets home. His mother and mama try to stop him, but he waves them away. He doesn’t want to be with them right now. He needs to think.
He doesn’t want the implant everyone tells him he needs. There are too many risks. Infection, disfiguration, death- and that’s even if it works. The implant, he’s read, only works in fifty percent of the cases, and no one knows why some fail and some don’t.
He wants more, though. He wants more than he has.
******
“Do you think I could reprogram my keyboard to create a series of sounds that could be combined to form new words in English?” Tennyson asks his friends on an online forum. Most of them are like him, disabled and refusing medical “fixes.” They don’t call their forum a support group, but Tennyson is pretty sure that’s what they are.
“I don’t see why not,” says Techie2100.
“It would be really hard,” advises def&bld1001.
“I’ll help you,” says L3tm3ou7.
******
He has a test run at school. Ms. Applewhite asks him a question, and he doesn’t have all the words programmed in English to answer, so carefully, going slowly, he types out as much of the answer as he can and then, for the few words he can’t, he carefully puts together a series of keys that, after a long pitch plays, say what he wants them to say. He can only do it for a few words right now, and it takes a while for the word to generate, but he and L3tm3ou7 are working on it. Mum and Mama are helping him with the programming, too.
Ms. Applewhite stares at him. “Tennyson, see me after class, please.”
After the other kids leave, Tennyson goes up to her desk and waits for her to finish marking something in her book. She writes something down, then folds her hands on her desk. “Tennyson, what was that noise you made today? That wasn’t like your normal work.”
“I’m working on a new program. It will create English words out of chords on my keyboard,” he says. He’s prepared most of his programmed words for the day around this potential conversation.
Ms. Applewhite purses her lips. “Tennyson. I thought we talked about this.”
“It’s going to be English,” he says. “It’s going to take time. But English. You wanted English.”
She sighs and rubs her forehead. “I’m trying to help you, Tennyson. You’re going to fall behind in your classes if you can’t say what you need to say right away. The world out there- it’s competitive. Do you think people will want to wait for chords?”
Tennyson scowls and raises his hands, switching to BSL. “I can talk right away. You still won’t listen to me.”
“Sign language doesn’t count,” she says, even while he’s still signing. She comes around the desk and crouches in front of him, stilling his hands. “Tennyson. Honey. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into by refusing to get the implant. It’s going to be very hard for you. Your life is going to be an endless struggle. You’re going to feel very alone most of the time. Are you really ready for that? Are you really ready to make that decision when you’re only seven years old?”
Her eyes are very blue, and she looks so sad for him. He looks down where her hands are covering his.
This isn’t going to stop, he realizes. This isn’t going to change. There is always going to be a teacher covering his hands.
He shakes her hands free and reaches out to his keyboard. “No,” he taps out. “No.”
******
“I want the implant,” Tennyson tells his parents.
Mama looks sad, and Mum looks resigned, but they agree that it might be a good idea.
It doesn’t take long to get him scheduled for it, and next thing he knows, he’s in the hospital, going through the prep. He’s seven years old, and he doesn’t want this, but he can’t think of any other way. As much as he doesn’t want the implant, he also doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life limited to a vocabulary that he tries to predict each day.
He has the surgery.
It doesn’t work.
******
He stops paying attention in classes. He still has the preset words in his hover chair, and he guesses he could go back to that, but it feels so small. He was offered the world, and it was taken away, and he’s so angry.
Doctors, teachers, strangers on the street, they spent seven years telling him he could be fixed if he would just take the implant. That he could say whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, if he would just take the implant.
Instead he has no words and a scar that looks like a monster’s mouth across his neck. The other kids stare at him. He has to explain in his limited, pre-programmed language why he has a scar, why it’s so big, why he still can’t speak. He wastes precious words every day on the same thing. He doesn’t want to explain. He doesn’t want to talk to any of them.
They did this to him.
He ties a bandana around his face, hiding his broken mouth and his terrible scar. He doesn’t talk to anyone but his parents. He stares blankly at teachers when they ask him questions. He glares at the other students when they come near him. He won’t even put his hands on his keyboard.
He gets home from school and waves to Mama before heading to his room. He was offered the world, and medical science failed to deliver. And he doesn’t want to go back to the hover chair’s words. His hover chair’s vocabulary is too limited. It just can’t hold the wealth of words the world possesses.
He needs more.
******
“What about what we were working on before?” L3tm3ou7 asks.
“I don’t want it,” Tennyson replies, knowing that L3tm3ou7 can’t see how angry he is at the question. Everyone else on the forum has been giving him space, but L3tm3ou7 hasn’t left him alone. She’s refused, repeatedly, saying he doesn’t need to be alone.
He’ll never tell her, but he’s grateful.
“I was doing that for them. So they could understand me. I don’t want them to understand me now. I tried so hard, and this is where it left me,” he explains after a minute. He wants to explain to her, if no one else.
“So change it,” she says. “Make it something else.”
“Like what?”
“Make it for you.”
******
He spends a lot of time in the library, reading about different languages. He doesn’t get very far with French, German, Italian, or most of the other languages in Europe. He lingers over Russian for a little while, intrigued by the written form. If he really wanted to make his teachers angry- which is not something he’s discarding out of hand- he could add something like written Russian to his keyboard programming. He sets a few books aside before returning to the shelves.
He’s more fascinated by the tonal languages. He spends a lot of time lingering on Mandarin and Thai and Diné Bizaad. Different tones make words mean different things. He watches documentaries on tonal languages, and asks Mum for any journal articles she has on any tonal languages. Mum is surprised by his sudden interest in her work, but she pulls out the articles and gives them to him.
He gets to work tinkering on his chair.
******
It takes almost a year, but Tennyson designs his own language, a series of tones which, when combined, form words and sentences and paragraphs. It’s sophisticated and nuanced, and gives him endless variations. He no longer has to program words in advance. He no longer has to figure out which words to do away with and which words to keep. He can have all the words he wants now.
No one understands it but him, and he knows his new teacher, Mr. Craig, despairs of his refusal to speak in anything else, but Tennyson remains firm. This is what he wants. This is what he needs.
If they will only speak in English and refuse to learn sign language, then he won’t speak in anything but the language of his design.
******
“They want to put you into a Student Accommodation and Inclusion class,” Mama signs to him during breakfast before he begins Year Five. SAI classes are what the schools call the classes for the kids who can’t keep up in regular classes. People make fun of kids in those classes.
“Let them,” he signs back.
Mama glances at Mum, and Mum sighs, rubbing her eyes. “Tennyson… you know we support you in this. And we know how angry you are that the implant didn’t work. But maybe it’s time to go back to programming the hover chair with words.”
“No,” he says, this time using his own language. Mum has learned it over the past year, though she still struggles with it from time to time. It is Mum’s fifth language. Tennyson sometimes wonders how much the brain can hold.
His parents still look worried. “I know what I want,” he types quickly. “I want to be understood. But I want to be understood on my own terms. Not theirs.” Then he signs it, so Mama can know what he’s saying. He regrets not including a visual component to his language, so Mama can learn it too, but they have sign language. It’s their main language at home anyway. It’s always been enough for them.
Mama nods, understanding instantly, but Mum still looks troubled. “I just worry that you won’t be able to make friends, or find a job, or do anything other than exist in your own little world. Your world is beautiful, Tennyson… but it’s so little.”
His world isn’t little at all- computers have given him what a vocal language couldn’t, and he has plenty of friends online- but he doesn’t expect his parents to understand that. They just know he doesn’t have play groups like his cousins, and his birthday party is always just family. He sees Mama give Mum a look, but Mum is looking at him, not her.
“I am happy,” he types.
It isn’t quite true, but his parents go back to their food.
******
SAI classes are… weird. Tennyson genuinely doesn’t understand why most of them are in his class. Most of the kids seem to do their work just fine. When Tennyson looks around the room, he sees a bunch of kids who are smart enough, but just don’t fit quite the way they’re expected to. It isn’t fair, and it makes him angry.
Their teacher, Mrs. Wiggins, seems to understand that there isn’t a legitimate reason for most of them to be in the class other than social expectations that they’ve failed to meet. She teaches a little differently than his other teachers, but only because she’s working to teach in a way that makes sense to the kids who learn in different ways. She sets aside special time to work with Tennyson every day, using flash cards to give him words and then listening carefully to his set of tones that describe each word. She’s trying to learn his language. And she already knows some sign language.
“I’ve had a few Deaf students over the years,” she says when he registers his surprise. “You pick up on things.”
One morning he gets to school early, having stayed up all night talking to a friend online. The classroom is empty except for Mrs. Wiggins and a boy, a few years older than him, who looks just enough like Mrs. Wiggins to probably be the son she mentions from time to time. He’s in secondary school. Tennyson thinks he plays football, from what he’s overheard Mrs. Wiggins tell some of the other teachers.
“Oh, good morning, Tennyson,” Mrs. Wiggins says brightly. “You’re here early.”
“I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d see if I can do anything to help,” he says, his hands moving over his keyboard with ease. He sees her son’s eyes widen.
Mrs. Wiggins pauses. “Can you say the last part again, please?”
Tennyson never minds repeating himself for Mrs. Wiggins. She’s trying, and that’s all he’s ever wanted. “Can I help you?” he asks again, and then signs it so she has a better frame of reference.
“Thank you. And no, I don’t think I have anything to do. Maybe keep an eye on my delinquent son while I run and get some things for today?” she asks, winking at her son.
Tennyson laughs, and types out his agreement. Mrs. Wiggins leaves, her son watching her go and then turning his eyes on him.
“I’m Wiggins,” he says.
“You’re Walter,” Tennyson corrects. He’s heard Mrs. Wiggins say his name before.
“I don’t know what you said,” Wiggins says honestly. “Don’t you speak? Mom said that some of her kids don’t talk, or talk funny, or don’t talk English.”
“I speak my own language. My voice doesn’t work, so I made my own voice.”
Wiggin’s look is blank. Tennyson smiles to himself, his mouth safely hidden behind his bandana. Sometimes he enjoys doing this to people. Doing things like this soothes him a little bit. It’s petty- Mama told him so, even as she admitted to doing much the same thing- but sometimes he needs petty to get through the day.
“Okay, I heard two sounds that sorta sounded alike… so they were probably the same thing,” Wiggins says, to Tennyson’s surprise. “Your name is Tennyson, right?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says.
“See, now, I know your name is Tennyson, so that must have been the word for yes, right?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says again, and Wiggins beams at him.
“I can figure this out. You are in Mr. Jenkins’ class.”
“No,” he says.
“So that’s the word for no. Okay.”
It goes on like this for almost ten minutes, with Wiggins asking easily verified questions (what color are your eyes? what color is your hair? what do you drink from the sink? where do you borrow books? where do kids go during the day?) and while Tennyson considers, sometimes, giving him an unexpected answer just to prove that it isn’t that easy… he doesn’t. Because he wants it to be that easy, and Wiggins is one of the first people to try and learn his language just because it’s there and ready to be understood.
“That’s cool, man. I like it,” Wiggins says as his mom comes back into the room. “You’ll have to teach me some more. But we gotta figure out a better way. I can’t just keep asking questions like that- it’ll take me forever to learn.”
“I’ll work on it,” he promises.
Wiggins says good-bye to his mom, and leaves. Tennyson spends the rest of the day thinking about how to make his language easier to learn.
******
“How are you going to make it easier to learn?” L3tm3ou7 asks him while they’re playing in an online arcade. Tennyson ignores the chat message for a moment, focusing on catching the ring for the bonus fifty points.
Once he gets it, he looks back at the chat window. He considers for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he types. “Mrs. Wiggins uses flash cards to build her vocabulary, but I think that might not work.”
“It would take too long,” L3tm3ou7 agrees.
“I don’t know how to teach someone else,” he says, clicking into the next arcade game as he types. “I built the language, but my mum and Mrs. Wiggins both used flash cards or pointing at things to figure out what I was saying.”
L3tm3ou7 doesn’t say anything for a while, and Tennyson focuses on picking out their next video game. He’s getting a little tired of the puzzle games. They’re too easy. He picks out a racing game instead. He hasn’t played many racing games. It might at least be interesting.
“Have you thought about making a computer program? You’re good at that,” L3tm3ou7 says.
He pauses. He hadn’t considered that. “How do you make a language program?” he asks.
“I don’t know, I’ve never made one. Maybe look at what is offered in other languages, mimic their designs?”
He’s never actually created a computer program. He’s played around with coding, and he’s taken a look behind the screen at a few of his favourite games, but he’s never built anything from scratch. It’s probably different from coding his hover chair. It would probably be difficult. It would probably take a lot of time.
He looks at the racing game he’s pulled up. It’s already boring him.
“That’s a great idea,” he says.
******
“Can you give this to Walter?” he asks Mrs. Wiggins, handing her a disc. He’s spent the past two weeks building the program, and he thinks it’s ready.
Mrs. Wiggins raises her eyebrows. “Of course, Tennyson. Can I tell him what it is?”
“It’s a language program,” he tells her, and then carefully spells it out for her. She follows his hands, and nods.
“Sure. What language?”
Tennyson blushes and is thankful that his bandana will cover most of it. “Mine.”
“Yours?” Mrs. Wiggins asked, sounding shocked. “You built a computer program to help Walter learn your language?”
He nods, not sure what to say.
“And he asked for it?” Mrs. Wiggins says. Tennyson nods again, not sure what she wants him to say. “Well. That’s- well. Yes, Tennyson, I will give it to him. Absolutely.”
The next time he sees Wiggins, he asks Tennyson about his week. When Tennyson tells him, Wiggins nods and asks follow up questions. It’s a stuttering, halting conversation, and Tennyson sticks with basic vocabulary, but Wiggins is able to talk to him.
Wiggins understands.
******
Tennyson meets Deidre by accident.
Wiggins likes to scam tourists out of money, and Tennyson finds that he enjoys it too, so they spend their weekends hanging out and picking out the most likely target. He doubts Wiggins’ mom would be happy- it turns out she wasn’t kidding when she called Wiggins a delinquent, he’s been brought in by New Scotland Yard twice for exactly what they’re doing now, and has often escaped being suspended only by charming his teachers- but Tennyson finds that it’s a new way to redirect some of his frustration at people and the world. Now that he and Wiggins are friends, a lot of his frustration is gone, but it creeps up on him sometimes. Conning helps.
Conning helps unless someone tries to steal from him.
Tennyson is pretty observant, he thinks, so it isn’t hard for him to realize that there is a small hand sneaking its way into his hover chair, aiming for the wallet he keeps hidden. He shrieks, a sound that doesn’t come from his throat, but comes from smashing down on the keyboard as hard as he can. He knows it’s a terrible, painful sound. His mother has screamed on multiple occasions when he’s done it- and it works, not just halting the thief but also drawing Wiggins’ attention.
“What the-?” the thief- a girl- yells.
“Get away from my chair!” he yells back at her.
“What?” the thief girl yells again, this time sounding more confused than startled.
“Hey, whoa, what’s happening?” Wiggins asks, jogging over. “Tennyson, man, stop yelling.”
“You call that yelling?” the girl shouts. “Sounds like cats in heat to me!”
Tennyson starts typing out some choice words while Wiggins laughs. “No, that’s just how he talks. You startled him, so he yelled at you.”
“She tried to steal my money!” Tennyson says, trying to get Wiggins to focus. He likes Wiggins a lot, but he’s way too nice to random people. Especially, apparently, people who try to steal from him.
The girl glances at him, then looks at Wiggins. “What’d he say?”
“Ask him,” Wiggins says, raising an eyebrow.
Now Tennyson and the girl both glare at Wiggins. “I’m not talking to her,” Tennyson says. “She tried to steal from me.”
“I’m not going to talk to him! He yells at me!”
“You two have way more in common you’d think,” Wiggins says, both eyebrows going up this time. “Tennyson, you have to admit that she did a good job trying to lift from you- not many people can get the jump on you. Yo, girl- what’s your name?”
“Deidre,” the girl says sullenly.
“Deidre, you shouldn’t be stealing from people like us. You need some work on spotting fellow thieves.”
“We’re not thieves,” Tennyson says.
“I’m not a thief,” Deidre says.
“We’re entrepreneurs,” Tennyson adds.
“I’m an entrepreneur,” says Deidre.
“You have skills, Deidre,” Wiggins says. “We could use someone like you. Want to hang out sometime?”
“No,” Tennyson says immediately. They don’t need her. He and Wiggins work just fine together. And unlike her, they aren’t thieves. Convincing tourists that they need special tour guides, or that it costs a few credits just to hail a cab, that isn’t stealing. That’s taking advantage of natural stupidity. Deidre isn’t an entrepreneur, no matter what she says. She’s just a thief.
“I’m guessing the bleep-bloop guy said no, right?” Deidre asks.
“She’s just a thief. We don’t need thieves. We’re good, just the two of us.”
“And now he’s saying that you don’t need me, right?” Deidre asks. “Well, he’s right. You don’t need me. And I don’t need you.”
She tosses her head, a haughty little gesture that makes Tennyson laugh, despite himself. Deidre can’t be much older than him, but she has his disdain for the world down pat. He thought he was the only one their age who acted like that.
Wiggins shakes his head. “Tennyson, c’mon. She has potential.”
He scowls, but knows Wiggins is right. Plenty of people have attempted to steal from Tennyson before. He looks like an easy mark. Nobody gets as far as Deidre did. Reluctantly, and knowing he might regret it, he types out, “Fine.”
Wiggins looks over at Deidre. “How’d you like to learn from the best?”
Deidre snorts. “You’re saying you’re the best? How’d you like to learn from the best?”
Wiggins laughs again, and Tennyson rolls his eyes. This is going to be interesting.
******
Deidre takes a lot longer than Wiggins to learn his language, but she does learn it. Unlike Wiggins, she doesn’t sit down with flash cards or with his computer program. Instead, she learns as she goes.
“He just swore, right? You just swore, right?” Deidre asks, after one failed scam.
“See, I know what that means. That means that you’re wrong, Wiggins,” Deidre says over fries one day.
“Oh, Tennyson, don’t even try it. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says while they’re walking down the street.
She makes Tennyson laugh, and she agrees with him more often than either of them agree with Wiggins. She’s smart and cunning, and she’s fast to pick up on things. She comes up with half of their schemes, and helps perfect the other half.
She’s a good partner. But then one day Deidre turns to him while they’re out and says, “Want to go to the arcade?”
He laughs, because apparently she doesn’t know just how good he is. “Sure,” he says. Wiggins rolls his eyes.
“I’ll see you two later.”
He lets Deidre pick the first game when they get to the arcade. She chooses a shoot-em-up game, one that Tennyson hasn’t actually beaten yet. He’s played it, and he’s good at it, but he hasn’t beaten it yet. He thinks this might be a good opportunity.
Until Deidre beats him.
She smirks at him, blowing imaginary smoke away from the barrel of her arcade gun. “And that’s how it’s done, Tennyson,” she says.
“How did you do that?” he demands.
“See, I just pointed it at the screen and-” He keysmashes at her, and she giggles. “This is my favourite game. I play here all the time.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” he admits.
“I’ve seen you, though. You like the nerdy games. I don’t play those. I prefer the holocade, anyway.” She puts the arcade gun back and runs a hand through her hair, still giggling. “What now?”
Tennyson grins. “My turn to pick a game, I think.” Her eyes widen and then her face crumples.
He picks one of his “nerdy” games and thoroughly trounces her. She laughs the entire time, even when he beats his previous high score and trash talks her through the whole game.
And just like that, Tennyson has two friends.
******
“You seem happier,” L3tm3ou7 types into their chat window.
Tennyson considers for a moment. “Sometimes,” he types back. “I have some friends. School is better.”
“Still in the SAI classes?”
“Yes. I like them. I like my teachers, and the other kids.”
“That sounds like you’re happy, then.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe.”
******
Tennyson is the only one of them who has actually read the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, so he’s the only one who fully understands what it means that the world’s greatest detective is back.
Tennyson stares at the man in awe when he tells them who he is, and wants to hit Wiggins for picking Sherlock Holmes to con. He loves the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They’re some of his favourite books. He grew up with the stories, he watches the holovids, and it still makes him sad that the museum is closed.
But now he has Sherlock Holmes standing in front of him, asking them to help him out. Tennyson wants to hug Wiggins for picking Sherlock Holmes to con out of money- it means that the great detective wants them to help him.
Only Wiggins goes down to the subway with him, which nearly makes Tennyson sick with envy. “Why does he get to go and we don’t?” he asks Deidre, watching their backs as they go down the stairs.
“They don’t need all three of us,” Deidre points out.
Tennyson frowns. “Next time, we all go.”
******
A few weeks after they meet Sherlock Holmes for the first time, Wiggins calls him. “Hey, Holmes wants us to meet him at 221B Baker Street.”
Tennyson sits up, staring at Wiggins face on his videophone. “At the museum?”
Wiggins frowns. “I guess, man, I don’t know. You know I don’t care about all that detective junk you’re into.”
He laughs. “He wants us to work for him, and you say you aren’t into detective stuff?”
“Shut up. Anyway, get over there. He’s waiting for us. I’ll let Deidre know.”
Tennyson gets into his hover chair, carefully maneuvering himself off his bed. He ties his bandana around his face and puts an away message up on his chat window. He goes downstairs, let his mothers know where he’s going, and zooms out the door. His heart is pounding with excitement. He’s spent the past few weeks rereading the stories, trying to memorize as much as he could about the detective.
He’s the first one to arrive at 221B, and he stares at the building for a minute, taking it all in. The museum has been closed for years, since well before he was born. He and Wiggins once tried to break in, but they’d been caught by some Yardies.
Almost caught, anyway. He and Wiggins can run much faster than any donut-munching Yardie.
He opens the door and zooms up the stairs. Part of him wants to wait for Mrs. Hudson to take him up to Mr. Holmes, but he knows that’s impossible. Not everyone was kept preserved in honey, after all. Only Mr. Holmes.
He knocks on the door and waits. A few moments later, a compudroid with an elastomask opens the door. Tennyson blinks. He looks like the holovids of Watson.
“Ah, young Master Tennyson,” the compudroid says, waving him in. “Please come in. Mr. Holmes is waiting for you.”
Tennyson can’t take his eyes off the ‘droid as he enters the room.
“You must be Tennyson. I see you have met Watson,” comes a voice from behind the ‘droid. And there he is. Sherlock Holmes. He’s standing by the window, watching the hovercrafts go by. Tennyson swallows hard, and moves himself closer so he isn’t blocking the door.
“Mr. Holmes. It’s an honour to meet you,” he types carefully.
Mr. Holmes turns around, frowning. “What was that? Watson, what did he say?”
Tennyson flushes. “It’s my language,” he explains, knowing he’s explaining nothing. “I-”
“Does he speak English?” Holmes asks, interrupting him. Tennyson feels his heart sinking.
“Holmes, I believe Tennyson is speaking a language of his own devising. I’m afraid I haven’t heard it before, and so I cannot translate it.” Watson smiles at Tennyson politely. “Perhaps it would be best if we wait for your friends to arrive. They are familiar with your language, correct?”
“Yes, I-”
Mr. Holmes waves a hand dismissively at him. “Very well. Have him wait over there.”
Tennyson stares at Holmes, and wonders if maybe he knows BSL. Mama didn’t teach him much about the history of the language, and he doesn’t know if Mr. Holmes would know it. He takes his hands off the keyboard and signs quickly, “Mr. Holmes, I’m a huge admirer of your work, and-”
Mr. Holmes squints at him, watching his hands with interest, and for a moment, hope flares in Tennyson’s heart and he stops signing. But then Mr. Holmes says, “His friends would understand that as well, I presume?”
Tennyson drops his hands back down to his keyboard.
Watson looks at him, clear concern in his eyes. “Holmes, perhaps-”
“Not now, Watson. Tell the boy to just stay over there until Wiggins and the girl arrive.”
Tennyson stares down at his keyboard. He’s been speaking signing since he was one. He’s been speaking his own language since he was eight. He’s used to people not understanding what he’s saying, and he’s used to people ignoring him. It’s normal to him. It shouldn’t hurt this much.
He just thought that Sherlock Holmes would be different.
He purses his lips, and lifts his chin. If this is who Mr. Holmes is, then maybe he doesn’t want to work with Mr. Holmes. “Fine. I don’t need this. Goodbye,” he types out.
He shoves past Watson and out the door that he left open, ignoring Mr. Holmes saying, “Why is he leaving? Watson? Stop him!”
Tennyson sees Deidre and Wiggins as he flies out the door. He hears Wiggins shout something, but he keeps going.
******
“Mr. Holmes called me the other day,” Deidre says, swinging her legs back and forth as she sits on the bench. They’re at the boxing gym with Wiggins, watching as he practices with his trainer. Nobody has mentioned his storming out of Mr. Holmes apartment a few days ago. He was hoping they wouldn’t mention it. He doesn’t take his eyes off Wiggins, watching his form.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Did you know he didn’t even know my name?” Deidre asks. “I read him the riot act, up and down. I’ve never seen a grown man so flustered.”
Tennyson makes a noncommittal sound. “Wiggins, keep your right up!” he shouts.
Deidre looks at him, narrowing his eyes. “Are you going to forgive him? Because Wiggins says we’re not taking any work from him until you’re cool with him.”
“Why should I forgive him?” Tennyson asks. “He treated me like I was nothing.”
“So did I,” Deidre says bluntly. “And now you’re my best friend.”
He starts to reply, but then stops. “I am?”
She blushes. “Yeah. But if you think about it, I tried to steal from you, I called you bleep-bloop, and I talked to Wiggins, not you. But we’re mates now. Mr. Holmes just woke up from a deep freeze- I had just walked down the block. Why can you forgive me, but not him?”
“I don’t have to forgive everyone,” Tennyson says quietly.
Deidre bites her lip, and then takes his hand. “No, I guess not.”
******
He’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when he hears his bedroom door open. He looks up. Mama is standing in the door, smiling softly. “Hello, dear,” she signs, her hands gentle.
“Hi,” he signs back.
Mama walks into the room and sits down on the edge of the bed, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He has his mama’s blonde hair, but his mum’s eyes. “You know, the past year has been really good for you. You’ve had friends, school has been going well… you’ve been happy.” Tennyson nods. “But these past few weeks… what happened, Tennyson?”
He sighs and rubs his face with his hands before lifting them. “Did someone ever disappoint you with how they acted towards you?”
“All the time,” Mama says calmly.
“But not just anyone, Mama. Someone that you really wanted to like you. Someone that you really respected. And then they said something that hurt your feelings.”
Mama bites her lips. “Did I ever tell you the story of how your mum and I met?”
“No,” he says, curious. He sits up on his elbows.
“Well,” Mama signs, “I met your mum in my senior year of college. She was a graduate student, and she’d already published three papers. I’d read them, and thought the world of her work. I thought it was brilliant, earthshattering, groundbreaking. It had such huge implications for BSL. So I took a class that I knew she was teaching. And after class, I went up to her to introduce myself, and the very first thing she did was ask why I hadn’t bothered to have my hearing corrected yet.”
Tennyson sits all the way up, stunned. “My mum?” he asks.
“Your mum,” Mama confirms. “I was mortified. I cried all the way back to my dorm. I am proud of being Deaf, and I always have been. But in that moment, I was never more ashamed.”
He reaches over and lays his hand on Mama’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Mama smiles. “But, the next class, your mum came up to me and apologized. She was so caught up in her world, and what she thought was right, that she never stopped to think that maybe I was happy with who I was. She saw my face after what she said and took the rest of the week to do some reading, and she apologized. She asked if I would help her learn BSL, and I agreed. She was the first person who ever asked me to help them with BSL. A few years later, we were married. We went from a horrible, terrible start to being together forever.”
“So you think I should forgive him,” Tennyson says.
Mama shakes her head. “No, Tennyson. I accepted your mum’s apology, but that was me and her. Your situation is different. It always will be. I’m just sad because you’re sad. And I’m sad for whoever hurt you like this. Because they’re missing out on knowing you.”
Mama kisses him on the forehead and leaves Tennyson alone.
******
“What do you think?” he asks.
It takes a little bit for L3tm3ou7 to reply, but her answer is short and to the point. “You should do it. What do you have to lose? And if it doesn’t work, you still have me ha ha ha.”
She adds the laugh, but Tennyson knows she isn’t joking. It makes him smile.
******
Watson answers the door again.
“I want to speak with Mr. Holmes,” he says. Then he holds up a holochip, offering it to Watson.
“I’ll assume you are here for Holmes, and that this is for me,” Watson says, taking the holochip from him. He opens his processing area and inserts the holochip into an open port. Tennyson waits a moment.
“Can you understand me now?” he types out.
Watson’s face brightens. “I understand you perfectly now, Tennyson! Did you put together this ‘chip?”
“Yes,” Tennyson says shyly.
“That’s remarkably advanced, young man. You should be very proud of yourself.”
“Watson, who is that?” Mr. Holmes yells from another room. A second later he walks in, neatly dressed. He frowns. “Tennyson. Hello.” He looks uncomfortable.
Tennyson feels more uncomfortable than Holmes looks. He looks down at the disc on his console, and then holds it up. “This is for you,” he says. “If you want to even try.”
He tosses it onto a table, turns, and leaves, not bothering to wait for Watson to translate.
******
It doesn’t take long. A week later, he gets a videocall from Mr. Holmes. Tennyson doesn’t answer, letting him go to message. He has homework that he needs to finish anyway, and he and Deidre are planning to meet up for an arcade match later.
He plays the message while getting ready to leave, his homework left unfinished on his desk.
“Tennyson. Hello. This is Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Holmes says in his message. He’s looking off to the side of the screen, and his hands are fidgeting. He’s very much unlike the suave, standoffish man he first met. “I have been working on the language program you gave me. It is a very complex language, fascinating. Much like the young man who invented it, I would imagine. I would like a second chance, if you would be willing to give me one.”
There’s a moment of dead air at the end of the message while Mr. Holmes clearly is trying to figure out how to turn off the videophone. Tennyson watches his fumbling, mouth twitching.
******
“We should take some jobs from Mr. Holmes,” Tennyson tells Wiggins over pizza.
Wiggins raises an eyebrow. “You sure? If he’s not cool with you, he’s not cool with us.”
Tennyson considers his green peppers. He thinks about Deidre sitting next to him at the boxing gym, telling him he’s her best friend. Of L3tm3ou7 telling him to take a chance and reassuring him she’d be there for him. And Wiggins, eating pizza with him and refusing to take jobs from Mr. Holmes, even though Tennyson knows Wiggins is excited about the idea of working for him.
It doesn’t matter if Mr. Holmes comes through for Tennyson.
He’s not alone anymore.
“I think we’ll be okay,” he tells Wiggins.
******
They get a job five days later. Tennyson thinks that Wiggins was checking in with Mr. Holmes every day, looking for work. For all that Wiggins is a juvenile delinquent, Tennyson suspects there’s more than a little frustrated detective in there.
Somehow he ends up being the first one at 221B again. Watson lets him in with a cheerful smile before disappearing into one of the rooms, leaving him alone. Tennyson sits still for all of half a second before he can’t help himself anymore. He’s wanted to visit the museum since he was four, and even though it’s changed now, there are still things of interest.
He’s picking up the synth-violin when he hears footsteps behind him.
“This isn’t the Stradivarius,” Tennyson says tentatively. He’s careful to speak slowly. He doesn’t expect fluency.
“No,” Mr. Holmes says, stepping around to where Tennyson can see him. “Lestrade informs me that my Stradivarius was stolen from the museum in the late 1900s. I am attempting to learn that… instrument… instead.”
He laughs a little. He doesn’t know anyone who enjoys the synth-violin. “Do you like it?” he asks.
“It’s certainly an experience,” Mr. Holmes says dryly.
“Did the museum have any of your things from before?” Tennyson asks, and he can’t quite keep the eagerness out of his voice.
Mr. Holmes must hear it, because he raises an eyebrow. “Are you a fan of Dr. Watson’s writings, Tennyson?”
He flushes. “I read them a lot when I was young.” He doesn’t bother to mention the time he’s spent recently rereading them.
“I see,” Mr. Holmes says. He clears his throat. “Then my behavior was especially hurtful, I imagine.” Tennyson doesn’t reply, and Mr. Holmes takes a deep breath. “Yes, there are a few things from my original tenure at Baker Street. Would you like to see them?”
Mr. Holmes takes him around 221B, pointing out a jackknife that belonged to him, and the Persian slipper. When Tennyson asks him questions, Mr. Holmes occasionally needs him to repeat things, or say things in a different way, and he struggles sometimes, but he’s clearly trying.
“You should show him your notes on ciphers,” Watson calls from a different room. He walks in, carrying a tray with biscuits and tea. “I think he would enjoy those.”
By the time Deidre and Wiggins arrive, Tennyson has become engrossed in Mr. Holmes’ cryptography notes, careful not to let crumbs fall on the pages.
“I was quite good at cryptography, back- before. I fancied myself excellent at languages as well,” Mr. Holmes says. “If you would like, you may borrow those. They’re terribly out of date, but they may have some historical interest.”
Tennyson brightens. “I can borrow these?”
Wiggins snorts. “Nerd,” he says, crossing the room to stand next to Tennyson, Deidre following him. He blinks in surprise when they fold their arms in unison, glaring at Mr. Holmes.
“Yo, Holmes, did you apologize?” Wiggins asks.
“Yeah,” Deidre says. “Because we’re not cool until Tennyson is cool.”
Tennyson puts his hands on his keyboard, but before he can tell them that they can stop being the most embarrassing friends ever, Mr. Holmes puts his hand up.
“You are right, of course. Tennyson, I am deeply sorry for the way I behaved the other day. It is no excuse, but I was acting on false ideas and beliefs that I thought to be true. I’ve done a great deal of reading since then, and I know how wrong I was. Please accept my apology.”
Tennyson knows he’s been apologizing for the past half hour, in his own way. He’s working on learning Tennyson’s language, and he showed Tennyson around the museum, and he’s loaning him his notes on codes and ciphers. Those are a silent apology, and it means a lot.
But it’s good to have the words. He doesn’t realize, until something uncoils in his gut, that he needed the words, too.
“I accept,” he says.
“Good,” Deidre says firmly. “Now, what’s this case? We’re dying to work for you, especially Tennyson. You’re his hero.”
Tennyson buries his face in his hands.
******
“You look happy, sweetie,” Mama says as he’s headed out the door to go trail a suspect for Mr. Holmes.
Tennyson pauses, surprised. They’ve been working for Mr. Holmes for close to a month now, and they’ve been able to help on five cases already. It’s been exciting, and so much better than the books made it seem.
He feels important. He feels significant. He feels valued.
And he has his friends. The look of pride on Mr. Holmes’ face doesn’t compare to the feeling Tennyson gets working with his friends. It wouldn’t be the same without Deidre and Wiggins by his side, and L3tm3ou7 waiting to hear about his adventures when he gets home.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “I am.”
Then he heads out the door. He has bad guys to chase, and his friends are waiting for him.