"I saw my brother tonight." Sherlock admitted, his eyebrows creasing as he stared at their shared reflection in the mirror. From Sherlock's angle it looked as if Musgrave held him in a headlock, the boy's arm made wider by the sleeve of the heavy jacket held tightly across his neck.
"Mycroft? In a memory or in passing?" Musgrave wondered.
"A memory. He hasn't been here in two years, or at least we haven't been able to coordinate in that time frame. But tonight...tonight was different." Sherlock sat up, finally sick of appearing to be strangled. He sat close to Musgrave, pressing his chest against his arm while trying to recount what he had witnessed in his latest hallucination. "He was going somewhere...dare I call it a date."
"How can you know it was a date? I never thought he was the dating type." Musgrave chuckled, obviously taken aback by the idea of the elder Holmes engaged in any romantic activity.
"He was walking around the room, posing to himself. He wore his cologne. I could smell it." Sherlock admitted anxiously. Reginald chuckled, though he allowed Sherlock to continue.
"And he was practicing his speech in the mirror." Sherlock finished anxiously.
"A speech?" Musgrave wondered. "I never practiced speeches with you."
"Yes well...that's not the point. I'm stalling, you see, because I don't want to stomach the idea." Sherlock grumbled, hiding his face a bit deeper into Musgrave's shoulder as he encouraged himself to process.
"What, oh come on. Your brother was allowed to date." Reginald complained, patting Sherlock on the back as he recognized the growing distress. His fingers messaged along the bones that protruded from the skin, made even more jagged by Sherlock's hunched position.
"That's not just it. He said...well he was practicing his speech. And he mentioned Victor." Sherlock admitted at last. He raised his head, watching for Reginald's reaction. He wanted to see just how believable the claim was, though he was not surprised to see the boy on the verge of laughing and crying. Reginald's face contorted, for a moment his lips were upturned, then pursed. His eyes were wide, then squinted. It was the same sages of grief that Sherlock had to go through in order to ultimately understand the situation at hand.
"You think your brother dated Victor?" Reginald whispered, dropping his voice just in case the bodyguard happened to be sitting with his ear against the wall. It would be unprecedented but certainly not surprising.
"I don't know what I think. In fact I'd rather think anything else." Sherlock admitted. Musgrave sat back, running his hand across Sherlock's spine as he processed the information. At last he shrugged, as if his ultimate decision was one of indifference.
"I'm sure it's nothing to think too much upon. Your brother was a nice young man, and Victor was...is, an attractive fellow. I'd say being locked in a laboratory all day would make anyone a little bit, well for lack of a better word, excitable." Musgrave muttered.
"Oh stop, stop, don't even..." Sherlock pushed Musgrave away, though he laughed as he did. "Don't even make me think about that!"
"I'm just saying!" Reginald defended, raising his hands in surrender as he fell backwards across Sherlock's bedspread. "I'm saying they were two consenting teenagers, alike in sexuality. Anything might've happened."
"You disgust me." Sherlock muttered, chuckling as he reclined to meet Reginald where he lay, pressing a kiss to his lips before flopping parallel upon the blankets. Reginald collected the small frame against his chest, hugging tightly as if he could bring Sherlock back to life within his arms.
"You could always ask Victor." Reginald suggested.
"I'd rather get more bone marrow extracted." Sherlock grumbled. "It would be less painful."
"Yes, I suppose so. But you'll never know when you need to blackmail him." Reginald pointed out, to which Sherlock nodded in agreement. It was an awkward motion; he was more pushing his forehead into Musgrave's sleeve than agreeing to anything substantial.
"I don't need to blackmail him. Like it or not he's on my side. It's his father I have to worry about. His father and Doctor Moriarty." Sherlock admitted. Musgrave sighed heavily, his jaw setting as he pondered those most evil creatures.
"Whatever happened to that other Doctor, the one you liked?" he wondered. Sherlock didn't respond immediately, instead he closed his eyes, remembering the shadow of friendship that might have emerged within his brief encounters with John Watson.
"Gone." He admitted at last, his heart stinging to recite such a word. "Gone and never came back."
"That's a shame." Musgrave muttered. Musgrave said it best; he said it as any rational onlooker might. Though it wasn't just a shame, no it was much more than that. It was a tragedy. A betrayal, if you might go so deep. John Watson's disappearance had sparked not only a deep distrust in even the best of men, though it made Sherlock wonder if the agency had found out about their secret sharing. John Watson vanished not two days after the flash drive was passed into his possession, leading Sherlock to wonder if he had escaped with the valuable information or if he had been abducted by the very people he claimed to work for. Did he deem this work too valuable that not even the government could know? Or was he thrown down a well somewhere, his head twisted and his flash drive rooted deep into Doctor Moriarty's computer? It was a question that Sherlock didn't like to consider, as both avenues led to disaster. The former dampening Doctor Watson's good character, and the latter proving that even a detailed blueprint could not lead their scientists to the discoveries and ultimate freedom of their most precious lab rat. 

 Sherlock used to be woken by his mother, in fact it had grown into a habit to listen for her knock as a make shift alarm clock. By now the task had been passed onto Victor, for Mrs. Holmes wasn't going to be doing a lot of knocking nor walking in the last couple of weeks of her life. This morning Victor's knock came loud and aggressive, as if he had already tried it in milder forms a couple of times before. Sherlock had become a heavy sleeper, a newfound habit that he accredited to his hard work throughout the day. Nothing drained you quite as much as getting tossed between scientists for the after school special.

"Sherlock, are you awake?" Victor yelled, his heavy fist coming down upon the door frame once more for good measure.
"Yes." Sherlock growled, not particularly in the mood for visitors. He was unbearably hot, as Musgrave had neglected to take off his varsity jacket and therefore was heating the blankets to a stifling temperature of near boiling. Sherlock's hair was clammy upon his forehead, his glasses having fallen off in the night and the room spiraling into some strange wooden representation of the house he had first fallen asleep in.
"I made breakfast." Victor called again, as if that would be any incentive for getting out of bed any quicker. Sherlock was surprised he hadn't realized Victor was at the stove before the wake up call, as usually the scent of burnt eggs filtered through the house's heating system and rendered his bedroom uninhabitable.
"Congratulations." Sherlock responded weakly.
"Mr. Musgrave is welcome to stay as well." Victor added, to which Sherlock gave a great groan of disapproval and slammed his head back into the pillow he knew was waiting. Of course he couldn't see the pillow, as far as his eyes could determine he was currently floating in the corner of an abandoned, half constructed frame of a house.
"I'd be happy to!" Musgrave shouted, to which Sherlock started flailing his hands in the general direction of the voice, trying to retaliate against the obscene comment. Of course there was nothing he could do to defend himself, and evidentially Reginald was valuing politeness over any sort of privacy. Victor's footsteps trailed away, as if he had gotten all he needed out of the short and irritating conversation.
"Don't be nice to him; he's making fun of you." Sherlock protested. Musgrave hummed in confusion, settling his chin upon Sherlock's arm.
"I don't think so." he assured. "I think Victor is nice, even if he scares the living daylights out of me."
"My grandmother used that term. Be more vulgar." Sherlock insisted, to which Musgrave merely chuckled.
"Can you help me find my glasses? I'm in a wooden frame right now, without a ceiling." Sherlock pawed around in the blankets; hitting Reginald multiple times (only half on purpose) before finally the other boy spotted the glasses on the carpet beneath the bed. Musgrave scrambled overtop of his companion to snatch them, making Sherlock groan in protest as he caught an elbow to the stomach. At last the two managed to get Sherlock's eyes covered, at least long enough for him to blink away the sleep in his eyes and stare at the ceiling that he had grown familiar to seeing. The other world had been quite frozen, though he was still drenched in sweat accumulated by an evening of sleep. Before long both boys had stumbled downstairs, passing through a small accumulation of nurses who were camped out on the living room couches as makeshift live in care. The agency wasn't very thorough when tending to the Holmes's every need; in fact they were hardly ever invited. They thought of charity merely as an extension of their good nature, though slowly Sherlock's childhood home was degrading into a camp for government spies, a fortress rather than a house. It was crawling with snitches, wired with cameras and microphones; it even had an armed guard at every door to ensure no one was entering without permission. It was these guards that gave Musgrave such trouble when he wanted to scramble in through Sherlock's window; they simply had no regard for teenage romance. Victor was at the stove, though he must have been practicing his skills. It smelled good for the first time in all of these months, more like sizzling onions than burning egg shells. He was wearing his usual attire, a solid black suit with his hair slicked back in his most professional attire. Coiled around his ear was a small earpiece and headset, the sort the secret service agents wore, and around his neck and waist were tied the white drawstrings of one of Mrs. Holmes's aprons. In the frying pan there seemed to be some sort of scrambled breakfast, a mix of onions and peppers lost between layers of eggs that were just about on the verge of being discarded.
"Cut the heat, Victor." Musgrave suggested, wandering over to the stove and sticking his long nose across the counter to investigate. "If it's too hot they'll just burn, the outside will get brown and the inside will still be watery."
"The worst of both worlds." Sherlock grumbled, falling into his chair without offering a word of thanks to his new chef. "And what we've been living with for a year."
"I do my best." Victor defended. "And for that comment alone, I'll let Musgrave get this batch first."
"Fine, I'll just have cereal. I don't want your rancid breakfast anyway." Sherlock sighed, scooting his chair back as loudly as he could so as to irritate Victor's sensitive hearing.
"Don't be rude, Sherlock." Musgrave debated, coming around with his breakfast on a wide white plate and tapping Sherlock playfully on the head with the back of his fork. Sherlock whined in protest, grabbing at his skull as if Musgrave had shot him before falling back into his chair in defeat. He was too tired to get the cereal from the other side of the room, and besides, the milk was probably spoiled anyway. As Victor cracked the next couple of eggs Sherlock took to studying him, watching the way his back arched across the stove, the way his knees bent slightly inwards as he hunched over the bowl he now whisked with a fork. The yolks broke, the eggs combined, and into the pan they went. Sizzling covered the silence for some time, long enough for Sherlock to collect his thoughts and realize just why he was staring so intensely at a man he had known for far too long already. He was looking with a different perspective this morning, now having gained information that was supposed to be buried some eight years ago. He was staring at Victor and wondering just what had gone on between him and Mycroft Holmes in the years before the latter's unfortunate death. Had there been intimacy? Was that really a date Mycroft had been preparing for? How much had Victor changed since those days, was he always so stern and muscular? Or had he mourned in the worst way, shifting his attitude and appearance in an attempt to take on the world from a different angle? Oh worst of all...worst of all observations. How much of Victor Trevor had Mycroft gotten to see? Gotten to touch? Sherlock ran his hands through his crackling bangs, shuttering with the thought that he had accidentally forced into his mind. And when such a foul thing erupted into the front of his brain, well it took quite a lot to push it back.
"Don't I get any onions?" Sherlock complained, looking down upon his plate and seeing nothing but relatively golden scrambled eggs.
"Take what you get or the next plate will be in your face." Victor warned, hitting Sherlock upside the head as his patience began to wear thin. Sherlock clenched his jaw, though upon glancing towards Musgrave and seeing those grey eyes wearing the most intense of all warnings he finally backed off. Sherlock decided that this was better than anything he'd have made for himself, and so finally he tucked his chair back into the table and wiggled the toes of his slippers upon the floor.
"Thank you Victor." Sherlock managed, choking on the words more than he'd ever have choked on the warm, stinking eggs. He heard the man chuckle, though his comments were eventually drowned out by the sizzling of another batch of eggs in the pan. In the absence of a real mother Victor had taken over the role for the entirety of the house. There were a lot of people to feed and no one else dedicated to the task, as such the man would stand at the stove for nearly an hour trying to scramble enough eggs to feed the security guards, the nurses, and the patient herself in the top floor of the house. By the time Sherlock and Musgrave had finished their breakfast Victor had just returned from delivering the nurses their food, now revealing his apron of choice to be speckled in flowers and a large mural of a bike with a wicker basket. For some strange reason it suited him. Sherlock opened his mouth to comment, though Reginald brought his foot down hard under the table, consequently squishing Sherlock's toes and denying him any of his first responses.
"You cooked an excellent breakfast, Victor. You're really getting better." Musgrave commented, dropping his fork onto his empty plate and offering Victor a large and enthusiastic smile. Victor returned it just as graciously, going back to the stove so as to continue his morning labors.
"Sherlock why can't you be more like Reginald?" Victor complained. "So well mannered, so polite."
"I used to be both of those things." Sherlock defended.
"Not true." Musgrave and Victor said in unison, to which Sherlock merely snarled and sunk lower into his chair in defeat.
"Perhaps not. But sometimes...sometimes, I intend to be." Sherlock offered in a last ditch attempt. Victor merely chuckled, stirring the eggs and pretending not to hear such a ridiculous claim.
"Whatever you say." He muttered at last. "You two get your school stuff. Musgrave I can drive you, if you want."
"My backpack's at home." The boy complained.
"We can go get it." Victor assured. Musgrave laughed a bit nervously, stepping up to drop his plate into the sink and get the water running.
"I'm not sure my parents would appreciate that. They think I've been sneaking out of the house to visit my girlfriend." He chuckled.
"Well...well if Sherlock puts his hair down he'll pass as that just fine." Victor assured, his voice straining to continue the conversation as casual morning chatter. It had struck a nerve within him, Sherlock watched as the man's shoulders tensed.
"I might as well strangle you both! Since when did you both gang up on me?" Sherlock complained.
"As soon as we found out it was so much fun." Musgrave chuckled, washing his plate in the soapy water before drying his hands on his pants and giving a huff of effort. "I should go, I guess. I'll sneak back into my house one way or another."
"I'm not ashamed of going over there." Sherlock admitted at last, getting to his feet as if his declaration would be more dramatic from a standing position. "I'll show my face."
"You with nothing to lose." Reginald reminded him. "But dare I remind you that my living situation is on the line? As is my college education."
"Are they so against it?" Victor muttered nervously, his eyes squinting into very threatening slits. He seemed to be taking this personally, which was a perfectly telling clue in this great mystery. Reginald gave a little smile, a depressed smile at that. It was enough to halt the conversation, enough to drain all the enthusiasm from Victor's face and all of the sympathy into Sherlock's heart. He wanted to take the poor boy in his arms and take on the world with him, though it was the simple problem of his gender that made that all so difficult.
"It's stupid." Sherlock declared, and with that he waved his farewell to Musgrave and sauntered his way up to his bedroom in defeat.  

"Look up." the voice commanded. Sherlock obeyed. The room brightened. "Look down." it said again. Sherlock obeyed. The room darkened. It was the usual drills, those which came once a week after they had made the 'finishing touches' upon their contact lens machine. It was growing a little bit more stable, that is it hadn't shocked Sherlock in at least the past month, though it was perhaps trading safety for efficiency. The machine's peak performance had depicted very rough outlines of the warehouse he was seeing, though in order to get those outlines they nearly had to fuse the boy's corneas to their accursed contraption. It was a nightmare trying to get free, a literal nightmare, as they were wondering if they had caused any permanent damage to the eyeballs. In fact they were wondering if it was possible to remove him from the machine without removing his eyes with it! No, that idea had been scrapped just as soon as they safely unattached him. In fact the day after was his first ever vacation day, the first day the agency realized he might have needed a break from the torment. Today's contraption was only detecting light, the usual baseline that would at least continue their funding for the project. Evidentially the scientists were being tasked with progressing in their research without sacrificing the sight of their only subject, and when hitting such a roadblock they seemed to find it difficult to proceed. Sherlock never saw the reason for this ground breaking machine as it currently stood, light from the past was no more interesting to look at than light from the present. He wasn't changing the world with his ability; he was merely making scientists happy for about three seconds before they delved into what they could do to safely make their contraption better. Victor was sitting idly by, reading a magazine as he tried to hide the reading glasses he had perched on the edge of his nose. His vision was slipping much too quickly, Sherlock didn't know his exact age he could guess that he wasn't yet dangerously close to thirty. He had always imagined Victor was his brother's age, making him around twenty five at the time when his eyes started struggling with fine print.
"How long before it'll work?" Sherlock wondered as the scientists eased the lenses from his eyes, wrapping their long attached wires around their wrists to make sure no one tripped during the process.
"Just a few more changes ought to do it." the woman assured, giving him a radiant smile before tucking the contacts back into their sanitary container. A few more changes, that was the answer he had been getting for the past two years. A few more changes in what? Methodology? Machinery? Employees? The answer was intentionally vague, for Sherlock could never confront them on their inabilities if he was never able to cite a specific promise.
"That should be all for today. From us at least." The scientists assured. Sherlock nodded, knowing that this was merely the warm up routine. The rest of the days were filled with countless other activities, all of which usually involved white coats racing around him with pins and needles. It was always a despicable way to spend a school night. Victor led him from one office to the other, letting Sherlock follow along like a lost puppy in his wake. Throughout the years spent he had never bothered familiarizing himself with the layout of the building; he never had any care to distinguish one plain white hallway from the next. Victor was a constant guide, for Sherlock could only find the bathroom by himself. Today they were going back to visit doctor Moriarty, perhaps for his monthly debriefing. Every month the two of them talked over progress, or lack thereof, and what was happening on either side of the coin. Sherlock told the Doctor about the scientists and their tests, and the Doctor usually told him about the weather or the lunches he was preparing. It was never a mutually beneficial conversation, and the fact that Moriarty had set it up to be a debriefing only made his lack of information rather degrading. Sherlock knew they were hiding things, he knew that man got a new development every minute, though every month he chose to wave his hands around and play dumb. Sherlock was already preparing himself to fake interest in quinoa when they were met with an unexpected face, a man lingering outside of Moriarty's office door with a rather displeased look upon his face. Victor stiffened, Sherlock could almost hear as his muscles constricted into their most confrontational stance.
"Father." Victor managed, a single word that seemed to prepare him for the rest of the small talk he may have to endure.