"John the file." Mycroft said staring at the ceiling. He was lounged out on the sofa, his arm hang over the side, swinging like a pendulum, gravity being the only force present in the motion.
"Another migraine?" John asked with a sigh. Mycroft gave no response, just a blank stare at the ceiling.
Three months had passed since Belarus and Mycroft had taken a dive. He was constantly getting tension headaches and migraines from work. John would walk in to find him in a sedentary state, filter feeding through the air. He had lost a stone's weight and John actually thought he looked better.
John's life had taken a turn for the better and he found himself often surprised at how happy he was.
Sherlock had returned to school and was doing remarkable in his studies. The head-mistress had even commented on the vast improvement. John had taken over the bi-monthly meetings with the special education needs coordinator and after the first week they decided a change in school wouldn't be practical or warranted.
They ran all sorts of tests on the boy, which Sherlock found frustrating. He'd come home in a foul mood after being poked and prodded and asked the same questions over and over. However he kept his emotions in check and only sulked on the sofa for hours on end instead of throwing glassware everywhere.
Sherlock, for the most part, didn't misbehave in front of Jim. He kept his outbursts to a minimum, or rather a Sherlockian minimum.
"Is it necessary to shout at the microwave? It's an inanimate object, Sherlock." John asked one day after Sherlock started yelling from his chair because the microwave was beeping. "You know, you could just get up and open the microwave before the beeper goes off?"
"God! Why must it make that infernal beeping?"
"To alert you that it's done cooking."
"I know it's done cooking! It doesn't need to remind me every twenty seconds that it's done!"
"Apparently it does! You haven't taken out the bloody food; you've just been sitting there, shouting at it every time it beeps. For Christ's sake Sherlock, it's been thirty minutes!"
John wasn't surprised that when Sherlock's test results had come in, the packet was about as thick as a textbook. Sherlock was busy dismantling the microwave when John had received the parcel. He dropped what he was doing and demanded he see the results.
"No Sherlock… your SENCO said you musn't see the results. You'll get caught up in diagnoses and… something about… you living up to those expectations." John said clutching on to the parcel.
"If I were to receive test results that said I was to die of cancer in four months would I live up to those expectations?"
"No… because you're a bloody prat and you'd go through any means to prove them wrong." Sherlock raised his eyebrows. John had just proven his point. "Fine! But… just don't get all… arse sore bout what it says."
"I really bothers you."
"What?"
"What people say."
"Yes." John said stroking the parcel with his thumb, not wanting to open it and see it for himself.
"About me. I don't understand, why would it upset you?"
John shrugged. "I just don't want people treating you different because of what a piece of paper says." John sighed. "They don't treat you too good now."
"Well." Sherlock corrected and held out his hand. "Have a seat, we'll read it together."
"Sherlock." John whined giving Sherlock the parcel. "I don't want to know."
"You're just as interested as I am." Sherlock grinned. "Oh they probably diagnosed me with everything in the book! Look at this John! You could kill a newborn with the sheer weight of it." Sherlock said lifting it up and down.
"Sherlock… remind me never to let you around small children."
When Sherlock opened the report he looked at it in surprise. The packet was so thick it had an index.
"Ah, the usual… ADHD, OCD, Autism spectrum disorder… ODD?" Sherlock questioned.
"Oppositional defiant disorder."
"What are the manifestations?"
"Means you're a little shit." John said shortly. Sherlock chuckled low and grinned reading over the report.
"Conduct disorder…" Sherlock said flipping to the section. "Defiant and 'slash' or impulsive behaviour including drug use and criminal activity." Sherlock looked at it in shock. "I've never done anything criminal."
"Yeah well breaking into a house and stealing money isn't criminal… nah… not at all."
"I've never been caught doing anything criminal." Sherlock shrugged. "Ooh antisocial personality disorder, that sounds like fun!" Sherlock smirked. "These are really redundant after a while. Hm… didn't know they considered narcissism a personality disorder. Histrionic as well… They didn't call me bipolar… hm wonder why." Sherlock said furrowing his eyebrows. "Borderline… borderline personality disorder…" Sherlock hummed as he flipped to the description. "Sherlock Holmes displays chronic long-term patterns of emotional instability in his feelings about himself and others." Sherlock shrugged. "Well… you were right John. I don't know if I can live up to all these high expectations."
John let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his temples as Sherlock finished with the book of his emotional and behavioral disorders. It was filled with useful information about treatments and what to expect.
It hadn't been as bad as he anticipated. Sherlock enjoyed having so many labels. Most of them, if not all, described Sherlock perfectly. They weren't, however, the reason Sherlock required additional support in school. Mycroft had seen to it that Sherlock's other diagnoses stayed secrete.
It was about the only thing Mycroft was adamant about when it came to Sherlock. The SENCO and Mycroft butted heads on the topic.
"Sherlock should be aware of his disability, so that we can seek to improve it." She had said with conviction.
"He knows he's a little psychopath, he doesn't need to think he's mentally retarded as well." Mycroft had stood up and was trying to intimidate the woman at the meeting. In the end, she was forced into keeping Sherlock's learning disorder from him.
John wasn't sure where he stood on the issue. Sherlock seemed oblivious to having dyslexia. John didn't think it impeded his learning capabilities. John was however taken aback by Sherlock's IQ score.
"How does a kid like Sherlock score so low on an IQ test?" John asked Mycroft one day at lunch. "One-hundred and ten? That's!"
"Average John." Mycroft said plainly.
"Mine is like one-fifteen. How could I be more intelligent than Sherlock?" John threw his hands into the air.
"I wonder why he chose one-hundred and ten." Mycroft hummed.
"Chose?"
"Last time he scored a sixty-nine, for… comedic reasons of course."
"He's been tested before?"
"Do you believe Sherlock could have passed under the radar for this long?"
"Um… yeah… because he's Sherlock."
"Father had him tested at age nine, mummy destroyed the results, and he was tested again at age thirteen. I'm certain you know what happened to those results as well."
John was thoroughly sickened by how Sherlock's mother allowed Sherlock to suffer through school for so long. Mycroft said it was because the more he suffered, the more he'd want to come home. She never wanted Sherlock to go away to boarding school. She was constantly trying to bring him back, using whatever means necessary.
Sherlock for once was prospering in school, academically. Socially he clung on to Jim and it led to severe ostracism from his peers.
Jim was able to remain at the school under the false pretences that he resided with his fictional mother that had signed her name on the adoption papers. Jim was receiving his fair share of abuse at school for having the adopted surname of Moran.
Boys loved to pick on anything they could get their grubby hands on and an adopted son of a famous criminal like Moran was prime for pecking. Along with the slant rhyme of Moran with Moron, Jim was a major target for bullying.
Jim was completely immune to it. He showed no emotion to his tormentors. Unfortunately the whole 'ignore them and they'll go away' attitude didn't work for Jim and Sherlock. If anything it outraged the bullies more. Why couldn't they illicit a response? They had to try harder and harder until they pushed it too far and got caught by a teacher or member of the faculty.
John was getting tired of all the parentally forced apologetic phone-calls and the parents showing up at his door with their kids, making them apologise to Jim.
The entire faculty adored Jim and took pity on the poor boy. Jim had that effect on adults; he could bend them to his will with a sorrowful look or a sad statement. Poor poor Jim, everyone is picking on him because his daddy's in prison. He's such a sweet little lad, how could anyone be mean to such a lamb?
John was getting used to having Jim around. He no longer creeped him out immensely. He only freaked John out moderately. John only experienced cold shots up his spine occasionally opposed to his blood running cold whenever he felt Jim's presence.
Mycroft was less trusting. He refused to meet Jim. He didn't want to look into the boy's cold eyes, knowing he was once Moran's slave.
John had come into the office that day to pick up a file to deliver to Sherlock that was meant for his eyes only.
John was in a good mood even with Mycroft in a fugue state. He'd received perfect marks on all his exams, his lab write-ups were regarded as exemplary, and he finally patched things up with Mike and started going out on Fridays for drinks at the Globe.
He loved how Mike just picked up their friendship like they hadn't been silently avoiding each other for weeks. He was a great friend although his entourage was made up of people John could care less about.
He did attend one event with the whole crew; it was some kind of reunion. Dimmock was there but not entirely 'there'. It was at his parent's house and everyone was closely monitored by Dimmock's mum who was constantly popping in unexpectedly.
Anderson and Sally were there, but not as a couple, they had broken up six or seven times since John had last seen them. Molly had brought Kitty along, as well as Sarah Sawyer who was looking at going into the same program as Mike and John next year.
She had clung on to John the entire time, though it was common knowledge John was gay. It was beyond him why girls behaved so strangely around him. They opened up to him, told him their entire life stories. They hung all over him and made him uncomfortable.
It was as if he was suddenly attractive now that he was a homosexual. Girls immediately believed he was a sweet and sensitive individual and deserving of their trust.
John didn't think he acted gay. He wasn't flamboyant or sparkly. Then again, most of the gay men he met didn't act gay either. Save Joe Wiggins and his ten thousand dildos. John wasn't sure being overly effeminate was all that attractive.
John fancied more masculine features. He wanted to combine the strength of Greg, with the rich textures of Mycroft, mashed up with Sherlock's…
Sherlocky-ness.
For now, he'd settle with Mycroft's richness.
John walked past Mycroft who had lolled his head to one side, facing the back of the sofa.
"I was talking with Mike the other day." John said casually. "He and I were in pharmacology and talking about analgesics and things." Mycroft closed his eyes.
"John, I'm not experiencing headaches as a withdrawal symptom." Mycroft said with a shallow sigh. "The stress of work is agonizing."
John shrugged. "It was only a thought." John said picking up the folder off Mycroft's desk. "Is this all?" John asked holding up the file.
"Yes." Mycroft said with an airy tone.
"All right. Be seeing you then." John walked by the sofa once more. He knelt down and lifted Mycroft's arm up and on to his chest to let it rest. Mycroft held John's hand lightly.
"It's been days." Mycroft said running his thumb over John's knuckles.
"Days?" John asked with a furrowed brow.
"Days since we've touched." Mycroft sighed looking over John's hand. "Don't you still love me?"
John felt a pang of panic. Every time Mycroft mentioned the word 'love', the fact that John had said it himself, made him feel sick to his stomach.
John's life was going so smoothly and things were finally looking up but he had a constant nagging guilt about what he had done to Mycroft. It was as if John had transferred all his anxiety and depression to Mycroft through some magic words and had broken down his walls with a simple act of passion.
Simple… yet it has gone and complicated everything.