Note: I was just told Mycroft and Sherlock's are seven years apart, not eight and a half like I've been doing. Whoops. I'm going to stick with these ages though. It's the age difference between me and my littlest brother, so it's easier for me to do the math.

"So what's he up to?" Mycroft asked, taking his coat off and handing it to Mrs. Lawrence, the housekeeper. She clucked her tongue and cast a nervous glance up the stairs.

"You know your brother. He's just being...different." Mycroft smirked as she continued. "Go up and say hello, though, I'm sure he'll be glad to see you."

I doubt it. Mycroft grumbled to himself, but trudged up the stairs anyway. He was visiting to tell his parents about the new job he'd gotten in the Ministry of Defense. Only twenty-four, and everything was going according to plan. That is, except for having to interact with his brother. He straightened his blazer and cleared his throat. No matter. He could be mature about this. Mum and Dad would be home soon, he'd only have to talk to Sherlock for a few minutes.
He knocked on his brother's door. There was no answer. He knocked again, more forcefully. This time he heard a sigh of annoyance. Knowing this was as close to an invitation in as he'd get, Mycroft swung the door open.
Sherlock was lying on his bed, his hands clasped in prayer, pressed against his lips. His school uniform was disheveled. Mycroft clucked disapprovingly at his shirt untucked and his tie tossed on the floor.
"What do you wanth Mycroft?" The lisp had gotten so much better, it was all but gone. His mother had put Sherlock through at least four speech therapies, but it had never been completely fixed. Sometimes Mycroft wondered if he still talked like that just for attention.
"Well hello to you too, darling brother." He made to sit down on Sherlock's desk chair, but suddenly Sherlock sat up in bed and shrieked.
"Don't toucth that!" He lunged forward and yanked the chair away so suddenly that Mycroft jumped. He stared at his little brother frantically examining every angle of the chair, mumbling to himself.
"What the hell was that?" He said incredulously. Sherlock barely glanced up.
"I rigged my chair to explode at a weight of more than ten kilogramth." He said. Mycroft backed away in alarm.
"Why on Earth would you do that?"
Sherlock smacked the leg of the chair, then observed it for a moment.
"I wasth bored."
Satisfied, he leapt back to his bed and resumed his praying mantis position. Mycroft stood awkwardly in the center of the room, careful not to touch anything. After a couple seconds of silence he cleared his throat.
"So...how's school?"
"Dreadful." Sherlock muttered, his eyes closed. Mycroft frowned.
"Why dreadful?"
"The usual things. Teachers geth mad when I correct them, the imbeciles on the football team carved the word FREAK into my locker-"
"They did WHAT?"
"-and it's justh so boring. God, My, it's where intellectual thoughts go to /die/." Heaving a dramatic sigh, he turned over to face the wall, still think-praying. Mycroft eyed him nervously.
"Well...haven't you got any friends?"
"I don't have friendth and I never will. I don't want any. "
"A girlfriend then."
"No!"
"A boyfriend?"
"Did Mummy send you in to spy on me?"
"You're sixteen, Sher. It's a perfectly reasonable question."
Sherlock sat up in bed, his eyes angry.
"I told you not to call me that!"
Mycroft threw his hands up in exasperation.
"If you're going to be a nit, I'm leaving." He walked out the door and slammed it.
There was a loud bang, and then smoke started to pour out from under the door. Mycroft swore as he held his tie over his mouth.
"Dammit Sherlock!"
"It's you're faulth! You triggered it!" He yelled furiously back through the door, hacking. Mycroft swung it open again, fanning the smoke in every direction. He stood almost nose to nose with his lanky little brother.
"It's my fault? It wouldn't even be rigged if you hadn't... you're such a FREAK!" He yelled.
Sherlock's eyes faltered for just a moment. The sharp, cunning silver light went out, leaving the tiniest traces of hurt. Mycroft felt his stomach drop.
Then Sherlock's face hardened again.
"Piss off, brother dearest." He said coldly, and slammed the door shut.
He leaned his back against the door and slid down to the floor. He gripped chunks of his curly hair in his fists, letting the smoke blanket him as he let out a sigh of frustration. This world, which he found so dull and ordinary, found him...strange. Weird. Even to his family, Sherlock Holmes was a freak.
Not that he cared.
He stood up suddenly, striding across his room and picking up an old broom that leaned against his bed. With one swift motion, he whacked his desk chair.
The boom was so loud it shook the stairs as Mycroft walked down them, making him stumble. Mrs. Lawrence looked as the chandelier above shimmied and shook her head.
Sherlock stared at the clouds and clouds of black smoke and melted fragments of plastic that flew at him. A small fire had started where the chair had been standing.
Sherlock felt a grin twitch on his lips as the fire alarms started blaring. He was weird, fine. He was going to be proud of it. He would shove his weirdness so aggressively in all those boring, idiotic people's faces that...
Maybe he'd forget how much it hurt.
So Sherlock started to push people.