Phrase: Bitter Pill to Swallow
Definition: something that is difficult to understand or accept
-

It had been 3 months since the public suicide of Sherlock's equally eccentric roommate, Jim Moriarty, and despite minimal change in behavior he was sent (yet again) to the inane and inept clutches of the resident college therapist. So Sherlock waited, hoping to finally get the idea that he could be mentally sound (at least by his own standards) through the therapist's thick skull.

His suit rumpled with each movement as he sat in the too-small waiting chair, feeling like a primary school child again (or so he assumed the sensation to be similar, he'd purposefully forgotten most of the experience), his outstretched legs crossed at his ankles in front of him.

He waited several minutes past his appointment time, beginning to become impatient. He was a punctual person by principal and easily became ill-tempered when kept waiting for too long.

He was about to stand up and leave when a young man stepped out, about Sherlock's own age, and was walking with a cane. Sherlock watched his face for a few moments as the man walked towards him, Sherlock's eyes taking notice to all of the finer details usually unnoticed by most.

The sandy blond hair in a stage of growing out from a close shave, and the clear and focused eyes, the way his brow furrowed naturally as though he had no idea he looked as though he was scowling at the passing chairs, the way his jaw tightened and untightened in nervousness, the way the beads of sweat seemed to gleam on his skin in a mix of exertion and nervousness, the way he blinked at the fluorescent lights as if they hurt, the tan lines on his wrists, the callouses visible in his free hand as it straightened his sweater.

"Sherlock Holmes, your turn." the therapist smiled falsely, writing something on her clipboard.

Sherlock stood at his name being called, but stopped in front of the man. Sherlock found slight amusement in the fact that he was least a head taller than him.

"Excuse me," he muttered, trying to walk around Sherlock.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock asked, looking down to meet his eyes.

"What?" The man asked in a defensive tone, wondering if he had heard incorrectly.

"I said, 'Afghanistan or Iraq?'" Sherlock repeated, the therapist tapping her foot softly in irritation in Sherlock's peripheral vision. Sherlock pointedly ignored her.

"Afghanistan." The shorter man answered, as though he was he was so shocked at the question that he'd suddenly forgotten.

"Alright." Sherlock affirmed, walking towards the therapist's office.

The man glanced over at Sherlock and smiled, shaking his head in disbelief before making his way out of the building.

Once Sherlock strode in the therapist's office, the woman was already sitting in her chair, looking as unpleasant (towards Sherlock, at least) as ever. He sat in a nearby arm chair and waited for her speel to begin. After a few moments of him waiting, she cleared her throat again.

"How are we this week?" She asked, her clinical voice and smile practiced and precise.

"I absolutely hate it when you say that," Sherlock told her.

"When I ask how you're doing? It's only polite-"

"No." He puts up his hand as he says it, stopping her. "That time you said it the proper way, 'How are you doing?'. When you ask how 'we' are doing, it is condescending and you are talking down to me, it is unappreciated."

A small smile crossed her face, "John just said that earlier, almost in the same words."

Sherlock did not catch the boy's name who left before him, but assumed that due to the earliness of his own appointment he was likely the only person to precede him. He tried to hide his smile as he remembered the look of shock and wonder the man had when he'd asked where he toured. He liked surprising others and setting them off-balance.

"Really?" Sherlock asked, "Glad to know I'm not the only one who refuses to be spoken to like a child."

The therapist had to use every fiber of her being to suppress the eyeroll that threatened to overtake her, "Back to the session, Sherlock. How are you doing this week?"

"As always, I'm fine, but it seems that my RA is breathing down my neck about not getting a replacement roommate."

"Your RA... why do you think he wants you to have a roommate again so badly? And so soon?"

"Lestrade doesn't like the fact that since Moriarty's side is empty now, I use his half of the room for experiments."

"Why do you think he is against your experiments?" She asked.

"He does not appreciate the importance of my experiments, he says 'constantly checking to see if I am still breathing' and 'making sure I am not going to kill all the dorm residents with my experiments' interrupts his criminology studies."

"Give me an example of one of your experiments." The therapist smiled, glad that this was the first time he'd said more than ten words to her. She hoped that that meant her report would be approved this time and he would be out of her hair.

"Testing chemical compounds on plants, using poisons as well as compounds of my own creation to see their effect. Despite it being for my thesis, they refuse to give me lab rats to use."

Sherlock's words had fallen on the therapist sharply, for she shot a concerned look his way. "You'd be killing living creatures by the group."

"Creatures raised to die during experiments," Sherlock corrected, eyes bored and roaming to the analog clock on the wall behind her, "has my time ended yet?"

"I'm concerned that your fascination with death is stemmed from the loss of your roommate-" the woman was cut off by Sherlock's laugh.

"I am collecting data, nothing more. Do you always get offended by death so easily? Besides, I had this idea since my first semester here. I was told my thesis should be new and exciting, with accurate data, and my department says because of the nature of my experiments I am not allowed to test on the rats. The behavioral psychology students are allowed to shock rats to their hearts' content, but a biochemistry student has to work on plants because it is inhumane. The double-standards of the human race never cease to amaze me."

"I don't understand-" the therapist started, a knock resounding on the door before it opened a moment later. After a few seconds of hellos and 'how-do-you-do's the student in the doorway left and the therapist gave Sherlock a look that dripped with finality. "I see we're going nowhere with these sessions. I may end up reassigning you if I can find someone, if not, then just consider the door open if you ever do need the talking. How does that sound?"

Sherlock was surprised, he hadn't expected her to give up so easily, but he appreciated it, he was wasting valuable experimentation time. He gave her a quick, forced smile and a nod before taking his leave and bumping into a man he remembered only as Volunteer Librarian No. 3, greeting him and forcing his way through idle chit-chat before making an excuse to leave back towards his dorm building. He opened the door to his room with his key, ignored Greg yelling at him about the fire hazards undoubtedly within Sherlock's room, and locked the door behind him once he'd entered.

Making his way to the desk sitting on the back wall of the room, he opened the top drawer to reveal a pill bottle rolling to the front of the otherwise empty compartment, hitting the front panel with a quiet thunk. He took the bottle into his hand, rolled it in his palm a few times before returning it to the drawer and slamming the drawer shut.

Sherlock looked to the empty bed where his roommate once slept, the mattress thrown out after the incident, and the piece of plywood holding his poisoned plants in place on the metal frame. He retrieved his notebook and favorite pen before sitting in front of the dozen-plus potted plants as he recorded his observations.

He was brought out of his dazed scribbling by a knock on the door, when he opened it, there stood the boy he'd seen earlier that day- John. He did not have the chance to ask why John was there before he spoke up.

"You're Sherlock, right?"

"Yes." Sherlock answered, glancing at John's cane once before meeting his eyes again.

"Mike Stamford," John paused, wondering if he had the wrong room judging by the confusion at Mike's name.

After a moment, he remembered aforementioned Volunteer Librarian No. 3 wearing a lanyard with his student ID. Ah, that would be Mike Stamford, Sherlock thought to himself.

John took the look of sudden focus back to him as a cue to continue, "Mike said I could find you here. He said the RA's giving you grief about not having a roommate... and I happen to need a room, so I figured we could help each other out since aren't many more rooms empty on campus. If that's alright with you, of course."

"I play violin at odd hours of the night, I have an extensive experiment project I'm working on which should go unbothered, and I have fits of... exuberant activity." The word exuberant coming off as a safer version of a more unappealing word to a stranger. "Is that a problem for you?" Sherlock asked, surprising himself that he was so open to the idea of sharing his room, as well as surprised at John's forwardness. However, after sparing a second thought to the sound of Greg lecturing him again about getting a roommate, he was no longer unsure in the idea.

"That's no bother to me." John answered, shrugging, "Are you good at violin?"

"I am very well-versed in classical pieces, but most who find out I play violin try to make me play things that are hardly even considered music." Sherlock answered, clearing off the desk to make room for his potted plant palette.

John, sensing the humor in what Sherlock had said, chuffed out a laugh, "How many people have asked you to play a song by One Direction?"

"Too damn many," Sherlock uttered darkly, earning another laugh from John. In surprise, he turned to John, his confusion betrayed on his face. "What is so funny?"

"Nothing," he said between laughs, "are you always this-"

"Cold?" Sherlock uttered as a reflex, expression souring, having heard it dozens of times before.

"Honest." John answered, shifting his weight to his right leg slightly. "It's... refreshing."

"Hm... we'll see." Sherlock said more to himself than to John, his stiffened posture loosening. "When will your things be here?"

John slung his backpack from his shoulder onto the floor, "This is almost all I have, but don't let the size of the bag fool you. I fit quite a bit in there."

"Will the dresser on your side be enough?" Sherlock asked. "You also have half of the closet too."

"Plenty, the only thing I really need to hang up is my military uniform. It's arriving by the end of the week." John's cheery tone wavered at the mention of his uniform, but returned as he spoke again. "I'm going to talk to the RA, let him know I will room with you, do you want me to get you anything while I'm out?"

"No, but make sure to ask Lestrade to use his air mattress in here until you can get a new one. If he offers for you to take Anderson's instead, don't take it, just come back and I'll work something out."

"What's wrong with Anderson's?"

"What is wrong with Anderson could fill a book, and the first words would be: See first page for a list in alphabetical order."

"Okay," John responded, hiding a chuff of amusement. He was not used to someone going so far in explaining their own words, or being so unapologetically coarse towards others in a way that was oddly tinged with familiarity. "I'll be back soon."

Once John had left the room, Sherlock moved the plants to the desk and plugged the spare surge protector back in on what was now John's side of the room. He gave John's bag a long look, still analyzing it from across the room. The short hairs on it- blond, likely John's own hairs, the single patch haphazardly sewn on that seemed to be a logo for a band or character that Sherlock did not recognize, the fading on most of the bag signalling its age, and finally the straps that seem to have been repaired by hand several times.

When John returned, no air mattress trailing behind him, "He said he lent his to Anderson and is waiting for it back."

"Don't bother," Sherlock tutted, "he's never getting it back if Anderson has it. You can sleep in my bed, I'll stay up and work on my thesis."

"Don't you have class tomorrow?"

"Yes, but the longest I've comfortably gone without sleep during a school week is 3 full days without microsleep, I'll be fine for one night. I have an extra pair of sheets and comforter if you want to change the sheets before you sleep in it." Noticing John loading his clothes into the dresser, he decided to ask what had really been bugging him. "Are you studying to be a medical doctor or a psychiatrist?"

"What?" John asked, the same way he had earlier that day.

"Based on my observations, I can tell it's one or the other, but seeing as you have both types of textbooks it is harder to tell."

"I'm not sure yet. Went overseas to pay for college, so I could have the option to decide at all."

Sherlock had no way to respond, so he simply gave a hum of approval and took his laptop to the armchair sitting at the foot of his bed. He sat down and opened up the document again, staring at the blinking cursor on the fifth page. After a few moments of staring at the line, John spoke again, leaning against the desk as his eyes roamed the various level of decayed chives plants.

"You know, Sherlock, you are very observant for a guy with a half-dead plant collection."

"It's my experiment," Sherlock closed his laptop and set it on the small end table beside him, looking at John as he spoke, glad to have a momentary distraction. "I'm testing the rate of decay in relation to certain poisons, I also have a few concoctions of my own creation in there to see if I can create a new, more effective poison. The experiment was supposed to be used with rats but they denied my request so I'm stuck with using plants."

"First, wow-" John grinned, then his smile softened to a neutral expression. "Second, why won't they let you use rats?"

"They say it's cruel to use the rats for death experiments," Sherlock admitted.

"Aren't they raised to be expendable?" John asked, genuinely curious, not catching the odd look in Sherlock's eyes at the word expendable. "Why would they care?"

"That is the question, isn't it? Maybe because it's me who's asking," Sherlock replied bitterly. "That or the fact that their death is an inevitably, as well as a goal, unsettles them."

"It sounds like an extremely useful experiment to me," John admitted. "The findings could help improve antidotes to poison or at least have better comparative observations."

"Exactly," Sherlock trailed off, unused to being agreed with so readily. "Did you have classes today?"

John shook his head, unpacking his bag of rolls of shirts, socks, underwear, sweaters, and pants (among other things). Sherlock watched as John unpacked, silently counting the amount John had of each item to pass the time. When John had paused to sneeze, Sherlock glanced down forlornly at his laptop before picking it up again and pulling up his blog, an ongoing observation log of his experiment. Reading over comments and rolling his eyes enough times to give him a minor headache, he glanced up to see John sitting on his boxspring cross-legged with his own laptop in his lap, fingers poised over the keys and unmoving.

"I begin classes tomorrow morning," John finally answered, a short exhale escaping through his nose. "Had basic training in the forces but right now I'm majoring in medicine with a minor in psychology but I'm still not sure yet about my path."

"Your path?" Sherlock asked, dumbfounded at his choice of words.

"Yes," John nodded, his red desktop background reflecting in the eyes not meeting Sherlock's. "My father was a doctor, my sister used to be one, and my mother was a psychologist."

"So this is about who you take after, then." He uttered thoughtlessly.

"No," John hissed, closing his eyes for a moment to regain his composure. "I respect both professions immensely, it's about whether or not I will do what I always said I would."

"Ah," Sherlock sighed, looking up to see John staring at him with his brows furrowed in a mix of irritation and concentration.

"What you're studying for now, did you always want to do that?"

"No," Sherlock replied coolly, "When I was a child I wanted to grow up to be a pirate."

A dead silence fell upon them, silent as the grave, until uproarious laughter erupted from John's chest in barking laughter. Sherlock found himself giggling quietly to himself, finding John's laughter infectious.

When John's laughter died down and he caught his breath, he closed his laptop and put it under his bed, "I'm glad you're my roommate, Sherlock."

Sherlock's mind short-circuited, leaving him utterly speechless, yet was able to change the subject instead. "I'll get the sheets and comforter for you."

Sherlock reached with the tips of his fingers into the tall closet, bringing the fingers of his left hand under the fabrics closer and closer until the piles fell into his arms.

John watched with interest, "How tall are you?"

"A bit over six feet tall- I haven't been measured since my high school physical, why?" Sherlock answered.

"That shelf seems a lot taller when you stand by it. I'm only about five-and-a-half feet tall, so I guess it's your stature. It felt like you towered over me earlier." John paused, taking the sheets and comforter from his arms. "I have an idea; I'm going to put the comforter in the fitted sheet. I did it a few times when I didn't have access to a futon back when I stayed at friends' houses. It should be comfortable if I do it right."

Sherlock tried to not visibly express his relief. Despite offering his own bed, he'd done it out of politeness- something he did not practice often- and was not completely comfortable with the idea of sharing his room yet, let alone his own bed.

"Hey, Sherlock?" John asked, back turned to Sherlock as he set up the comforter in the fitted sheet. "What happened to Jim?"

"Jim?" The name made him visibly stiffen.

"Your old roommate, I guess, his name is carved really small over here on the wall."

"He killed himself," Sherlock answered, eyes glued again to the blinking line of his thesis on his laptop. "Jumped off the Reichenbach auditorium."

"Oh," John said in a shriveled voice, "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Sherlock answered quickly, then clarified. "We weren't close."

"Wasn't he your friend?" John asked, laying down on the makeshift mattress, staring at the ceiling.

"I don't have friends." Sherlock answered.

"If you say so," John whispered, flicking the light off from his side. "Goodnight, Sherlock."

"And to you, John," Sherlock whispered, surprising himself.

The voice of Jim Moriarty scratched at the base of Sherlock's skull in what began as a quiet and jeering murmur seemed louder as the darkness of John's side of the room was filled with his quiet breaths of sleep. The only light in the room was the light of Sherlock's laptop screen shining on his face, yet if Sherlock didn't know it was just his imagination- it would sound like Jim was sitting on what used to be his bed, talking to Sherlock in the one-sided manner he always did.

"Let's play a game, Sherlock," Moriarty taunted, hand behind his back. "Who will win, I wonder... The wannabe detective or the boy with the gun?"

A.N.

Was originally going to be a oneshot but I got stuck after about 3k words and restarted from scratch (the old version is still saved in case I wanna finish it later)- thus, this version came about. It'd roughly be about 7 chapters including this one, I've got a plot vaguely planned. Should I continue it? Yes or no?

More importantly, tell me what you think!