It hadn't been because of Molly, why he didn't return back to the dorm. Quite the contrary- it was entirely his own doing, and he found himself quite forgetting his problems with Molly as he wandered out into the night.

It was one of those nights, where girls didn't walk around by themselves, for fear of the hooded figures Sherlock sometimes saw hunched on the corner. Lurking. There was something ephemeral about them, as if they didn't really exist; but then he'd caught the eye of one once, glinting in the dark. It was too sharp, too gritty, too real to forget.

Tonight, though, he didn't see any of them. He would never admit it, but he tended to quicken his pace around the corner, avoiding looking at the painfully short cigarette stubs and star-like shards of glass littering the gutter. The boughs of the trees played an eerie percussion to the tempo of his footsteps as he followed the path with an acute sense of urgency, but no sense of direction.

It was only when the hours started waxing instead of waning, that it began to drizzle again, and the streetlamps went out with a barely audible ping. Plunged into darkness, surrounded by nothing but wet pavements and the wailing of the wind in the branches about his head, alone.

Sherlock didn't turn back. He walked. Head to the ground, hands thrust deep into his pockets, wet hair sticking to his clammy forehead. He still persisted even when the rain got heavy, and raindrops began bouncing off the tarmac. It sounded like the ground was applauding him- a standing ovation, no doubt- alas, he could not appreciate its emotionless and inanimate appreciation, instead having to quicken his pace, as cold rainwater started seeping into his socks. He kept his face down. Partially against the downpour, but more so, in that he didn't want to be seen.

He could have chosen to have gone to sit outside John's room. His feet had taken him past there no fewer than three times previously that evening; and he would have loved to have gone to the music rooms to play a solo. De Falla's "Spanish Dance", perhaps: a melody he would have done great justice in his current mood of high drama, as it tumbled elegantly from the taught strings of his beloved Stradivarius. He could have also wandered the corridors of whichever building took his fancy, wallowing in his own melancholy thoughts in deathly silence. And yet, in a break with normality, he did none of these things, turning his back on the university, his violin and John Watson. The strict confines of the university walls suffocating, and instead, as if in parenthesis, he opted to make his shadowy way into town, ducking into an all night café in the suburbs. It was a favourite of his, not least for the interesting types of people it attracted, being frequented by the homeless, lost and desperate.

The light was harsh. It snapped him out of whatever he was thinking about (he couldn't remember) and pulled him back down into his jumper, heavy with water.

He hadn't realised he had been breathing so hard.

Skeletal fingers spread what was hopefully sufficient change on the counter, as he smiled painfully; "Tea, please."

The girl behind the counter- sallow-faced underneath her heavy make-up, gave him a friendly smile, and he averted his eyes as she slid twenty pence back across the counter, and muttered something about taking a pew.

All eyes followed him to a seat away from the window: one in the corner, where he could see the whites of everyone's eyes- the two staff, the old man in the khaki coat, and the Bulgarian sitting with a dishevelled Jack Russell curled up at his feet, which, once deeming Sherlock uninteresting, went back to watching the sheets of rain in the beam of amber light coming from the forlorn streetlamp next to the delicatessen.

Sherlock did his best to wipe the rainwater from his face and hair. He could see his reflection in the window- his cheeks were flushed from the sudden warmth, and his hair was awry from the wind and rubbing; yet, despite the life in his demeanour (crossing his legs as he accepted the tea from the waitress), his eyes were scarily dull and blank. Perhaps it was the lack of drugs playing tricks on his mind, or his heavy mood, but it was almost as if the soul had been sucked from his very being. With a bendy straw, or more menacing implement.

Then again, it could have been that he was staring at his own reflection in a café window, outside which a storm was raging against the deserted pavements and dark buildings.

The tea was good. Strong, with a generous dash of the milk of human kindness- like John, Sherlock reflected, dipping his finger in to create ripples on the rich colours of the liquid.

He must have fallen asleep before he finished the mug, because he awoke what felt like fifteen minutes later, his cheek damp against the table, the mug cold in his right hand, and the first hints of pink staining the sky above the charcoal horizon of the city.

No, he wasn't sulking with Molly. He was exasperated, yes, but for him, it was neither here nor there if he caught sleep on a table, though it wasn't because of her or her refusal to see through his plan. Even in the stark morning, his plan was still brilliant.

No one seemed to notice him waking up, giving his shoulders a flex and yawning away the mysteries of sleep. Then again, there weren't any customers left. Just a lonely cashier, leaning wearily over a gaudy prize crossword behind the till, who merely blinked when he got to his feet unsteadily.

Outside, it was that moment of damp calm, the part of the morning where people were still pressing the snooze button, with the odd commuter wandering towards the train station, clasping mugs of coffee against the brisk cold as if the cups themselves contained the elixir of life. They looked lost, Sherlock mused. Not in that they didn't have direction: it was quite clear that the train station was indeed their intended destination, thanks to the particular brand of elite urgency stricken across the creases of their faces- but they looked as if they thought themselves to be meaningless. It had been a good while ago, but Mycroft had once asked him if he thought people would think more of themselves if they noticed the things Sherlock noticed; the individual quirks about a person that detailed their every minute movement across the great expanse of life. An amalgamation of seemingly meaningless scratches, freckles, idiosyncrasies, and micro-expressions. At the time, Sherlock had said no, based on the fact that it did not exhilirate him to deduce and factorise his mother, father, or Mycroft; or even himself, when he could still view his entire body when stood close to the full-length mirror.

Watching one particularly plain man striding down the road, and thinking of John, he had to wonder if he'd been wrong, all those years ago.

Sherlock walked quickly back up to the university, keeping to the shadows and appearing, as he was so fond of doing, as a faceless person, those passing him not acknowledging his existence with even a glance. These kinds of tactics was the reason very few people knew Sherlock at the university, except those in his classes, where it seemed, turning up fleetingly to hand in miraculous essays (now and again, with questionable relevance) would gain an individual a lot of attention, some unwanted.

It also helped not to be noticable, when he slipped into the back of John's lectures, and watched him take furiously meticulous notes.

As Sherlock approached the university, he began to feel weariness catching its merry way up with him. It started with a general droopiness of his limbs, and heavy lids; but eventually his mind tumbled into its own sleep-deprived frenzy, and he found himself rubbing his forehead, not really paying attention as he wandered through the front gates and to the left.

How could Molly think that leaving his... desires, to fester, would be in any way auspicious? It would just lead to more drugs. Different drugs. They said LSD was like having your subconscious splattered across a windowless, doorless room in Technicolour: and while he had no want to get addicted to anything, he needed an outlet for his frustrations. Had he not had been too proud, he would have asked Mycroft. But, he remembered, he would have to give him a healthy dose of vintage port first, without him noticing that Sherlock was trying to intoxicate him, which he invariably did. Or else, he would get the same special-brand Mycroft jargon as always.

"Do what I did, Sherlock." Sherlock recited to himself, "Stick to the beaten path, do not pass go, get a first degree in something obscure and land yourself a cushy if not close-fitting job doing something (not even Sherlock knew what) in the government, and live your life at ten tried-and-tested and non-refundable locations. With taxis and red velvet cake in the midst of it all. Life becoming a desolate haze of offices, tea-trolleys, and chastising Sherlock.

He cocked a smile, exhausted.

The door at the bottom of the stairs had, quite thankfully, been left unlocked. Not that he ever expected the dull Humanties students to ever have the common sense to lock it on the way in from their pretentious morning jogs, but the caretaker was a particularly cunning fellow with keen, beady eyes. Sherlock was prepared to overlook his one discrepancy from the norm, since it turned, as ever, in his favour.

Sherlock paused momentarily, considering having one last cigarette before returning to sulk, just as the icing on the cake (as Molly disapproved of anything that was not zen. What else could one expect from an aspiring pathologist?), but concluded quickly that there was still potential to carry out his plan.

The stairs were littered with wrappers and bottles, a crude contrast agianst the grandeur of the gates he'd just passed through. Granted, it didn't smell unpleasant, but it was hardly homely.

Speaking of homely, Sherlock thought, as he opened the door to his and Molly's room, and proverbially gawped (in reality, he was the picture of impassivity). For there, in the centre of the carpet, as if he'd been waiting for him to return, was his older brother.

Mycroft.

"Isn't your desk missing you already?" Sherlock remarked scathingly, not even trying to hide his annoyance at finding him there. It was cheap: the consequence of a late night and being taken by surprise. Mycroft looked disgusted by the state of the place, trying hard not to let his eyes wander to the scattered papers, open books and laptop leads. He'd probably seen the scuff on the carpet where Sherlock wedged his box of syringes and handy teaspoon under the sofa too. Besides sometimes Molly, Mycroft was the only person Sherlock could not fool. Ever.

"Always a pleasure to take time out to see my little brother," Mycroft matched his tone of voice silkily and effortlessly as Sherlock shut the door. Molly didn't seem to be in, he noticed, glancing into the kitchen as he edged towards Mycroft.

Mycroft now seemed to be drinking in his entire being. No doubt, he was deducing Sherlock's every minute movement in the previous two days- that was how long it had been since Sherlock had showered, after all.

Two could play at that game, Sherlock smirked. He scanned the elder Holmes from top to toe: even more expensive suit than last time Sherlock had seen him, judging by the stitching; shoes pristine, as he'd not taken to cutting across the lawn like Sherlock; and his watch, poking out from under the immaculate cuff, an hour out. Naturally: it was bait. His gaze wandered back up the elder Holmes' arm, along his- no, wait.

"Molly doesn't know you're here," Sherlock's eyes glinted. As expected, Mycroft smiled; a twisted cross between a contented cherub and a calculating Lucifer.

"Explain."

"For a man who moves as little as you do, the creases on your right sleeve seem a little out-of-place. Indeed, because while you may have the key to this place, you don't know the lock's foreign, and the key turns the other way. So you tried to force the door open with your elbow, before trying the key again. Molly would have got the door for you, had she have known. Also, her phone's not on the coffee table, and she leaves it here when she's only popping out, in case I need it. Incidentally, don't think I fell for that watch trick."

Mycroft looked at him blankly, for an obscure three seconds, before raising an eyebrow, an unconscious smirk spreading like hot butter across his lips.

"Very good, Sherlock. Though, actually, I returned from Paris an hour ago. Bit of a bust up regarding the Spanish Ambassador's suitcase, I'm afraid; though I daresay you've not seen the news."

"Why are you here?" Sherlock demanded.

"Certainly not to see my gracious younger brother." Mycroft took a seat, crossing his legs effeminately. Though he didn't know it, Sherlock would hallucinate the expression on his older brother's face on all four walls of his bedroom, and his ceiling, later that day.

"Golly, Mycroft, never knew you burnt such a flame for Molly," the teenager scoffed in return, but quickly found himself shutting up, when he was regarded with a stern gaze; one he was familiar with, one that was engrained into his childhood like a knife in a hunk of bloodied meat.

"A little bird told me that you want to capture the heart of the esteemed rugby player," Mycroft's nose shrivelled as he extracted a slim, sleek file from his briefcase and perused it with an air of distaste, before continuing, "...John H Watson."

"Heart?" The word tasted foreign, and so Sherlock spat it at the older man. "I don't need you to help me observe Watson. Experiments are experiments, for the scientists, not the crooks."

Mycroft's nose glistened with beads of sweat, but he remained admirably still, leaning slightly forward over the file and sneering without letting any emotion reach his eyes.

"You're an angry boy, Sherlock, with... problems," his eyes scanned the room for proof, "So I am a champion for anything... or anyone, for that matter, with even the slightest of chances of changing you, Sherlock Scott Holmes."

"Since when does a social experiment have any potential to change anyone?" Sherlock yelled, leaping to his feet and stepping over the top of the chair and into the kitchen, where Mycroft's eyes followed him as he began to prepare some form of nutrition, involving bread, cheese and Molly's jalapeños.

"Since you want to reshape both your identity and gender for the sake of some pubescent Lothario."

"Lothario?" Mycroft was trying to rile him, and despite his efforts, Sherlock couldn't help but feel a twinge of something- annoyance, hurt?- as he dragged Sainsbury's Basics margarine over the surface of each slice of bread.

"My my, Sherlock. Yes..." Sherlock heard the flicking of paper, and looked back into the lounge to see Mycroft grinning nefariously at the second page of the file. "Says here..."

Sherlock wasted no time in throwing the bread back onto the counter and storming into the lounge, bristling with anger as he confronted his brother's reserved smirk. He was gripping the file tightly.

Sherlock didn't have time for this. He was dying for a hit. It wasn't a craving, but he could feel his veins screaming for release as he balled his fists into the sides of his legs.

"Give it to me."

Mycroft took no notice of the fact that Sherlock looked as if he were about to pull a knife on him. Calmly, and without so much as a glance downwards, he closed the file, and blinked, licking his lips. Sherlock's mind raced: was he nervous? Hungry- no, obviously dehydrated thanks to the long flight, and the almost negligible white residue in the corner of his lips. He wasn't sure how he could use that against his brother, other than keep him still for long enough to drive him mad, which would be at least another few hours, and therefore not quite worth it on Sherlock's part.

"You may have the file, and I will supply you with the... equipment, as I might put it, for your ridiculous little isocial experiment/i," he had to force the words through his teeth, "On the condition that you attend your lectures- and," he said quickly, as he saw Sherlock's eyes flash, "That you confide your relations with this John Watson to Molly, who has the power to step in if she thinks you are becoming a threat to... Well, yourself. Or this pet of yours, who I can't say is much skin of my nose, but then, he's managed to catch the attention of my little brother, so..." A smile was barely touching the corner of his lips. "Do we have a deal, Sherlock?" he drawled.

Sherlock couldn't quite believe his luck. He was trying to think his way around it, trying to figure out ways in which Mycroft could manipulate this to his advantage; and other than the fact that Sherlock would genuinely have to attend his dull lectures, he really couldn't see anything standing in his way. No intricate plan, no tingling web of cause and effect, no happy "coincidences".

The corner of Sherlock's lip turned upwards, and he crossed his arms defiantly.

"Deal."