"Heyy, Dirk, what if you're an otter?" Todd asked one day.

"An otter!?" Dirk replied incredulously, "I am most certainly not a small, fury, water mammal. What on earth gave you that impression?"

"Well, I remembered you saying you're a leaf, in the stream of creation."

"Yes… I am."

"But leaves float alone individually, sometimes getting stuck temporarily with other leaves but eventually separating."

"That's why the analogy works so well, Todd."

"Yeah, but you're not floating alone now Dirk, you have me, and you have Farah. You're like an otter in the stream of creation, they float along, holding hands so they don't get separated in their sleep," Todd explained.

"Oh! A metaphorical otter!" exclaimed Dirk, "Well, I guess when you look that way, I kind of am an otter. But I don't get to hold hands in my sleep…" he trailed off.

"Would you like to?" Todd asked gingerly.

"Oh! Yes! Totally! If I had a person to fall asleep with I would definitely like to hold hands, and cuddle and," Dirk stopped in his tracks, which struck Todd as odd, as Dirk would usually continue rambling for many more minutes, "But I don't have a person."

"Would you like to?" Todd asked again.

"I think so, someone warm. They'd have to be warm, I am not warm, and they'd have to not mind when we went on cases… Or he could join the agency! Four seems like a good number for detectives, but then, it's not prime…," Dirk's rambling had diminished into a small discussion with himself on the optimum number of people for a detective agency.

"I'm warm," Todd whispered, volume on par with Dirk.

Dirk stopped, "you're…?" he questioned.

"Warm."

"Oh, why is that important? Are you unwell? Do you have a fever?" Dirk strode over quickly, pressing a hand to Todd's head, "You don't feel considerably warmer than the average human."

"Never mind," Todd sighed, heading to the kitchen for a coffee.

"Then why mention it? Todd!" Dirk shouted his name louder, over the kettle, then called, "Todd, why mention being warm?"

"It doesn't matter. Would you like tea?"

"Earl Grey please!"

Dirk was pondering to himself, trying to work out the relevance of Todd's temperature to the conversation… Do we need a thermodynamic equilibrium of heat for detectives? No, that's silly. But the comment has to be connected. Everything's connected. What came before…? Otters! No, otters aren't warm, they're wet… they hold hands and float in their sleep… hold hands in his sleep… has to be someone warm… Solved it!

"Oh!" Dirk ejaculated, "I got it!"

"What?"

"I solved it!"

"Solved what? We're not on a case…" Todd finished the tea and coffee, turning to hand Dirk his cup. It said World's Best Detective on it, but they'd added holistic with ceramic pen, and somewhere along the line someone had crossed out best and added only, meaning Dirk was currently holding a cup reading World's Only Holistic Detective. He was only holding it a second before he placed it on the sideboard.

"I solved the warm," Dirk responded.

Todd remained silent, sipping his coffee.

"And yes, I would like to," he added with a smile, well more of a grin really.

Todd set down his cup and grabbed Dirk's hand.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Warm."

"Well obviously, I've just been holding coffee," Todd laughed.

"Not coffee warm, a different warm," Dirk tried to explain.

"Aah, so what do we do now? Warm our hands more on hot drinks?" Todd suggested.

"We could…" Dirk smiled, "Or I could warm my hands on something else?"

"That sounds more interesting," Todd conceded. Which is why when Farah checked into the office, she found the two sprawled out on the sofa, each with hands inside of the others shirt. She silently snapped a photo and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

"Finally," she mumbled to herself.