20th July 2005 to 9th September 2005
Sherlock's POV
The next several weeks seem to drag on and fly by.

The rest of his brother's vacation goes rather smoothly. They spend the time they are together either sitting in peaceful silence - and boy does that feel odd - or discussing things calmly. When he's not with his brother, he's with John, Jim, or Jasper. Sometimes it's the four of them. That can be interesting to say the least. He gets to know more about his brother, and slowly his brother gets to know him.

It's not easy. Sometimes they have to walk away from each other because otherwise they start lashing out. Other times they walk away to process recently revealed information. He's not left alone during the processing. Jim or Jasper generally appear either in his room or at the door, although the one time he found Jim sitting in the tree outside his room toying with a phone.

Twice he considers doing something foolish. Both times he is sidetracked before he has a chance to do anything.

After Mycroft's vacation ends, he spends more time with John, going on several walkabouts, each time managing to stay out longer than the last. He loves spending time with the doctor. For some reason the blonde never puts pressure on him, encourages him to go back to studying and the even finds the unusual lessons that the two agents give him interesting. He was quite sure that John would disapprove, and yet so far, he hasn't.

He doesn't talk during those weeks, at least not aloud. He's still using sign language and writing. He does laugh more. Each time it startles him because he's still not used to it. Still, he finds himself enjoying himself. He's happy that he has something to laugh about. It almost seems like another life, the events that brought him into John's care as a doctor.

Now that's a topic that leaves him confused.

The more time he spends with John, the more he wants something more than just a doctor-patient relationship. Only, he's pretty sure that the blonde doesn't think of him that way. He has no idea how to change that. Several times he considers asking Jim, but he always shies away from that, it's not a good idea to ask a psychopath for relationship advice. Maybe he should ask Jasper. Pike probably could give him advice. The question is: would it be good advice?

The questions about his relationship with John have driven him closer to the edge a few times too. Each time the agents have stopped him. How they know, he doesn't know. Neither tells him how they know, neither says anything about the topic he doesn't know how to ask about. It's something that frustrates him. Maybe he should write John a letter? Letters seemed to work between him and his brother, maybe it would work with his friend. At the same time, he's terrified that if he does write that letter, if he does broach the subject, he loses his first real friend.

The other thing that nearly sends him closer to the edge is when his parents visit. His mum tries pushing him to talk, and it just spikes his nerves until he is ready to bolt. He's surprised when Jim appears at his side, dark eyes seeming to be full of fire as the psychopath at snapped at her to shut up. He's never seen his mother go quiet faster. Following that, his minder and maybe friend, because he's not exactly sure what he is to Jim, tells him to get changed into something comfortable. They end up in a rather nice flat in a different part of the city. There are a few others there, but no one says anything to him.

The rest of the evening is spent in the flat, a rather large man offers him a controller and he somehow finds himself in front of a TV playing some racing game. He can't remember ever playing a game like this before. Still, he picks it up fast and finds himself sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, legs crossed as he stares at the TV in concentration while a large man lounges beside him, looking almost bored at first. That is, until he figures it out, then he has the large man's attention.

Someone, a scrawny bloke who appears to be nervous of Jim, provides soda and snacks to them from a fully stocked kitchen.

That pulls him out of the game long enough to study the people here and his surroundings. This flat belongs to the psychopath but isn't the psychopaths. That's rather interesting. Who are these people in regards to Jim? They seem to prefer to keep a wide space around the agent, none getting within touching distance. The one they look to for questions and answers is the big man next to him, but he's pretty certain that the big man works for the Wildcard. That's also interesting. It makes him wonder how long this arrangement has been in use.

The feeling of the controller vibrating draws his attention back to the game, giving a small shake of his head, he returns to playing.

That's only the first time that they do that, he finds himself at a different flat two weeks after that, this time Jasper is there, along with two other men he quickly realizes are spies, actually, he does a double take, they're Double-O's, so they are at the top of the field for spies, and the most deadly sort. The shorter blonde agent starts talking out loud only to get a sharp elbow from Jasper. It causes an amused smirk from the taller blonde, the one with burn scars from some sort of fire or explosion.

Introductions are brief, but he discovers their names are James and Alec. James is the one who opened his mouth to speak. Alec is the one with light scarring on his face.

After that, the five of them have dinner. Apparently James can cook, and while they aren't having any sort of official meal, the combination is wonderful. He wonders if the pair plans on introducing John to these two, and wonders how that conversation would go.

He's not surprised when the Double-O's use sign language, he is surprised when Alec asks if he wants to learn Russian Sign Language. Of course he accepts and sets to learning as much as possible in as short of time frame as possible. Thankfully, seems to be fine with that, and makes it into a game which Jasper joins in on, although Jim does not.

After dinner they go back to his brother's flat, and he showers before sprawling in bed to think about the past weeks, life has definitely been a lot different. Maybe soon they will start letting him have more time on his own, without a keeper nearby. He'd like that, he's fairly sure he's finally past the part where he is in the most danger, at least that's his hope. Things have been setting him off less and less, that has to be a positive sign.

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There is probably 7 to 10 chapters left on this story, there will be other stories in this verse, although I probably won't start posting them until I have them done, just because posting between writing is getting depressing as reviews have lessened and it keeps making me feel like no one is reading it. At least if I get it typed first, I wont have to worry about that keeping me from writing it or killing my muse.