3"Are you always this stupid? No, it's not magic, my mind is not magic, IQ scores can't be improved by the gift. Like they even matter anyway. No, my mind is completely my own work. It's called the science of deduction, not the magic." The boy with the sharp cheekbones and the pale skin rolled his eyes heavenwards, having refused eye contact with the interviewer.
From where he was slouched, in front of the television screen, John Watson was staring at the visage of one Sherlock Holmes.
"What? No, it's deduction, not induction! Where are you getting all this from? Who's that speaking in your ear? They're an idiot, whoever they are!" Impassioned and agitated, Sherlock started gesturing violently. "Induction leaves room for all the wrong answers and now you're going to say what about mathematical induction" and then his voice went high and mocking, an octave above where he had spoken so far, "because you've got someone just going through bloody Wikipedia, haven't you? No, no, mathematical induction is based on deductive reasoning and how do you think I would possibly not know the difference?"
The interviewer, a woman called Jennifer Wilson who had pretty blonde hair and shining jewelry and alarmingly pink clothing smiled at Sherlock, leaned forward a little. "Not everyone's a genius before they even discover their magic," she said in what she probably thought was a placating tone, though John was willing to bet, based on the boy's responses, that Sherlock found her voice positively aggravating. "How have you been adjusting to that?"
"The work is still everything," Sherlock said. "You know what it is I do, don't you? They send you in with that much of a script, anyway. I solve crimes, not fight monsters or whatever it is you expect of me."
"You could be a hero," Jennifer Wilson said, and Sherlock covered his face with his hands for a moment before meeting her gaze to answer.
"You know you're smarter than this, don't you?" he asked rhetorically. "Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one."
With that the screen fizzed out and the focus shifted to another interview. John yawned, stretched his arms out widely and glanced at the clock – the channel, with all its switches of perspective and story, made time seem like it was going a lot faster than it was, and John could stay there comfortably for another hour and still wake up in plenty of time for the screening. This knowledge in mind, he redirected his attention to the television.
This time, it was the smiling, earnest face of Jim Moriarty, professional Magical Boy from the age of six.
"I really do wish Carl were here to see it all," he was saying in his high, lilting voice, accent charming as ever, because even at sixteen, he hasn't outgrown the persona, and where John had been impressed by the sheer bloody honesty that had been Sherlock Holmes, he is put off by the display of saccharine that is Jim.
"It was truly a tragedy to see him go," the interviewer was saying, a man in a sober suit.
"It was," Jim said, lowering his head soberly. "I wonder every day why it was him and not another one of us." Because Carl Powers had been a classmate, had had an Incident of his own, and John Watson had heard about it in the time Before and not even thought to expect anything like that himself.
The thought was making his shoulder ache, and so he switched off the television and went to prepare for bed.
A/N: I'm quite enjoying this. :)
~Mademise Morte, January 15, 2013.