I stumbled out of bed, eyes still closed. I didn't dare open them- I knew that as soon as my pupils met light, they would start the deductions.
People call it a gift. They say I'm "special," that people would die to have the talents I have. To me, it isn't a talent. It's a curse. It's brought bullies upon me, taken away some of the greatest things and people in my life- all it has ever caused is pain and hatred- nothing good.
I attempted to walk with my eyes still closed, but my reflexes got the best of me as I stubbed my toe on the end of my bed and they snapped open. Immediately, words clouded my vision as I looked down at my foot.
Not broken. Bedpost made of oak, refinished twice. Antique. Carpet is cream shag, 12 years old. Worn down in a line that shows a routine exit from the room, beginning at the left side of the bed. Routine began 3 years ago. Shoe size 10.5.
I shut my eyes again, falling back onto my bed as a sharp pain shot through my head. It always hurt first thing in the morning, when this thing was awake despite my mind itself still being groggy. It felt like my brain was fighting a war every time I tried to get out of bed, and no matter what, I was losing.
My name is Sherlock Holmes. At the time of this tale, I was 17 years old- though I'll admit that I'm quite a bit older now. Since birth (or, at least, I assume that's when it all started), I've had this... Thing. Some call it a talent; some think I'm possessed by the devil himself. Still others think the whole thing is a load of bullshit that I make up so it seems like I have some competent qualities. Some days I wish that was true. And when I was just 17? Every day was one of those days.
I got up with a heavy breath and began the walk to my wardrobe, trying to ignore the words that popped up in my line of sight, as my eyes were open. I quickly pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans and a purple long-sleeved tee, blinking long and hard as often as I could.
Fluffing my dark hair a bit as I hurried down the stairs, I heard voices from the kitchen- my mother and father, surely, there to ask unnecessary questions about my plans for the day (I, of course, had nothing planned but the unavoidable- school).
I was correct (of course) in these assumptions. My mother greeted me with a tight hug, which I felt inclined to return, as always. Raising children is a difficult job, especially when one of them was my prissy older brother, Mycroft.
I was reminded of his presence as he coughed from the kitchen table behind us. "Sherlock, shouldn't you be off catching a bus or something?"
We were almost out of sugar, I found, as I added it to my tea. 2 3/4 cups left in the bag. "Mycroft, shouldn't you be applying for some sort of job... or something?"
At 24, seven years older than me, Mycroft was out of university, but still living at home. He hadn't landed a job, and wouldn't dare look at any of the open positions that weren't an extremely important part of the English government. He was a picky boy, and grew up to be an even pickier man.
As much as I hated him to be right, I heard the rumble of the distant bus outside our house in the suburbs. Slamming my tea on the counter, I quickly slipped on my Converse and grabbed my backpack, stopping only to give my mother a quick kiss on the cheek.
The bus was just pulling up when I reached the stop. Thomas Phillips, the only other kid at the stop already stood by the road. He spat at my feet, and I frowned, crinkling my nose at him. Late night. Maybe 3, 4 hours of sleep. Based on the bed head, slept with a pillow over his head. Possibly a bad habit, as he's looked like that for the past week. More likely the fact that his parents are arguing late into the night, forcing him to use a pillow just to drown out the noise.
"Good morning to you too, Tom. How are your parents?"
He rolled his eyes, scowling as he got onto the bus, which had just pulled up next to us with the squeak of an old break. Tom climbed on first, proving his terrible mood, and I patiently followed. I sat in my usual seat in the middle of the bus, and, like every day before it, no one bothered to sit next to me.
Rather than being greeted by any sort of person, I was met with a collection of spitballs as soon as I stepped off the bus. A group of boys I'd never even spoken to laughed at me from a few feet away. I ran a hand through my curls and found that more than a few of the spitballs had tangled themselves in the dark strands.
I picked up my pace, adjusting the strap of my backpack and hurrying to the nearest bathroom. A short blond boy was walking out the door. I shoved past him, but still heard the whip of his head as he turned back to look at me, probably annoyed. He must have been new; anyone else would be accustomed to my terrible behavior, and would probably have some remark or insult on hand anytime they saw me.
I had picked out the majority of the spitballs by the time the bell rang through the school. Classes went as classes do for me- slowly, pointlessly. Though I was in the highest-level science class I could enroll in, the experiments were child's play.
Lunch came quickly, which I dreaded. The cafeteria was a battlefield, and the armies were never equal. It was as though the entire school had a mutual agreement to loathe me entirely. The moment I had my food in my hands, I was off in the direction of the library bathroom; no one ever went in there, and I could eat in peace.
Being so used to an empty bathroom, I was already seated and eating when I noticed that I wasn't alone. The short blonde from that morning leaned against on of the sink. His tray was balanced on the paper towel dispenser.
He looked at me with disdain. "You're the guy who pushed me this morning."
The words began to pop up in my field of vision. Shoved this morning- not by me, by someone who did it on purpose. Bullied? New. No one could wear anything like that here without being noticed. Leg injured, based on posture like that. Probably a break that didn't heal correctly, possibly from a car wreck. Not recent. Stressed. My eyes floated over to his tray. Picking at his food- anxious. About a new school, about lunch, about... Something else. But what?
I stood up and found myself to be a good six inches taller than him. "What are you doing here?"
He gestured towards his food. "Eating. Obviously."
"I mean here, at this school. You're obviously new."
He stuck his tongue into the side of his mouth. "What makes you think that?"
There was no way that I was about to tell this guy that the only reason I knew he was new was because he didn't bully me straight into the dust. "Your clothes are wrinkled in a way that suggests you've been pushed around all day. I've certainly never seen you before. And," I looked around, raising my eyebrows; "you're eating your lunch in the library bathroom. People hardly come in here to piss; I'm the only one who's ever even considered coming in here to eat. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."
"How did you know I was pushed around? Wrinkles? That's ridiculous."
"Your shirt's a button-up, ironed perfectly, probably done last night. You're rather good with an iron, I dare say, but either you missed a giant spot directly on the front of your chest, or you fell- or you were pushed. Those crinkles in the fabric weren't there this morning and your shirt is free of dirt, so I can only assume that someone shoved you."
He raised his eyebrows. "Anything else you'd like to tell me about myself?"
I let my eyes run over him one more time, finding the things I had missed. Of course, there wasn't much. "You came here about a week ago, down from Hampshire. You're anxious about the new school, as you haven't had more than a few bites of your food, and you've been stressing over this very day for weeks- probably for good reason. When you were eight or nine, you were in a car wreck. Possibly fatal to one of your family members, as you show signs of slight PTSD: you can't seem to stop tapping your fingers, the bags under your eyes show that you haven't gotten a good amount of sleep in years, and you have frown lines that are already beginning to develop at the age of, what, sixteen? Seventeen? That leg never healed properly, by the way. That's why you limp slightly, and might feel a bit of pain every once in a while, especially during intense movement of that limb. You should really see a doctor about that, you know."
He was silent for a good ten seconds. "Are you done?"
I nodded, and sat down against the wall, beginning to eat my lunch.
He let out an empty, one-syllable laugh. "Is that why you're in here?"
I looked up from my food, but kept my eyes away from him, staring instead at one of the stalls. "I don't know what you mean."
"Are you trying to tell me that you can tell me my life story, practically diagnose me with PTSD as well as an improperly healed leg, but you don't know what I mean by that?"
I was silent.
He kneeled on the ground across from me, and spoke quietly. "You eat over in this small corner of the school, all alone, because everyone hates you for doing that... Thing?"
"I don't do it on purpose," I mumbled.
He did the one-syllable laugh again. "So you don't even have to try. Incredible."
I met his eyes, face burning. "It's not incredible, it's a pain in the ass."
In one swift movement, he stood up and chuckled. "You know what's a pain in the ass? You're a pain in the ass."
The boy left with a smile on his face, but mine held a steady frown. The end-of-lunch bell rang soon after he'd gone, and I hurriedly got back to class, dumping his abandoned food as well as mine into the bathroom trash.
Thoughts of the boy plagued me through the rest of my classes.
Upon seeing me as soon as I returned home, Mycroft knew something was up. He sat at the same place in the kitchen as he had that morning, sipping pretentiously what must have been his sixth or seventh cup of caffeinated tea, judging by the size of his pupils. He smirked as I opened the freezer to check on my latest experiment.
"So, who is she? Or -as I wouldn't eliminate as a possibility for you- he?"
The fingers had, as I hypothesized, whitened and become frail when used to stir dissimilar forms of bleach. As I inspected the differences between the four of them, I shot a response back at my conceited older brother. "Mycroft, haven't you got some work to attend to?" I glared up at him, raising one eyebrow knowingly. "Oh, no, of course. You haven't."
He gave a small "hmm" and returned to his work, as I did to mine. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how he'd known I'd met someone. More words appeared in my vision now, reviewing both how I had walked into the room and how the bleach had affected the fingers.
The words multiplied to an almost blinding rate. It was as though someone had torn all of the words from a dictionary and was throwing them individually into my line of sight, resulting in a massive headache. I quickly wrapped the fingers back in their foil and shoved them into the freezer, stumbling up into my room.
Mycroft laughed from downstairs. "I knew it was a boy!"