@deductionking - Continued from ask.
Under normal circumstances, Holmes wasn't the kind of person Barok would willingly associate himself with. Sure, the man waa brilliant and got the job done better than most detectives the prosecutor knew, but he was also rather fickle, immature and prone to get lost in his own world of strange machineries Barok had little interest or understanding for, all traits which tested Barok's patience to its limits.
Unfortunately for Barok, 'normal circumstances' didn't include: one, Holmes being his new assigned detective after Gregson's death; two, Holmes helping to prove Barok's innocence and expose the man who had been, at least partially, responsible for the demise of his beloved brother years ago as the criminal he was; and three, the fact that Holmes had pretty much raised Barok's niece and was still her current caretaker...
...though, given Holmes' attitude, Barok often wondered how much Iris had to raise herself and her be Holmes' caretaker herself. Still, the little girl clearly respected and adored her adoptive father. Barok had first found himself spending more time at the Holmes-Watson household on Iris' insistence. The prosecutor never considered himself the type to bond with children, but Iris was a brilliant, precocious little girl whi had easily wormed her way into Barok's cold black heart. She reminded him so much of his late brother it made Barok's heart ache at times.
Back on the situation at hand, after almost half an hour spent trying to get the detective's attention (a personal record in his opinion, usually it'd take ten to fifteen minutes to lose it), Barok had simply resorted to hitting the desk he had been hunched over for a good part of the day, hard enough the wooden forniture nearly toppled over, bringing down whatever experiment the detective was working on.
"Get your head out of your own little world, Holmes" Barok hissed, his eyebrow twitching in annoyance at the nickname Holmes had bestowed upon him and wouldn't stop using no matter what Barok said or did "This place has been empty for hours, you were supposed to be back home hours ago. Iris thought something had happened to you!"
Barok had learned rather quickly that being associated with Sherlock Holmes in any way meant having to serve as the detective's pseudo-nanny. Barok had not signed up for it, but if it meant taking some worries off of his beloved niece's shoulders, Barok would do it. Anything could be said about the dreaded Grim Reaper, but not that he didn't care about his family.
