The Problem of Categorisation

Title: The Problem of Categorisation

Characters: Teenage!Mycroft and Child!Sherlock ( & Mother Holmes)

Summary: Mycroft wants to prove their Mother that Sherlock is not exceptional after all.

Notes: Inspired by this video my psychology-studying flatmate showed me of a child engaged in a developmental psychology experiment. Everything is Sherlock in my head.

Sherlock is three. 

Well, actually, he is three years and hundred-eight days old but no one seems to pay attention to that little fact. In fact, no one seems to call him anything else than ‘wee boy’, ‘my baby’ and ‘darling’ (the last one he does not respond to at all, finding it a strange word). He is small, all right, his dark hair getting in his eyes all the time, curling in a way that amazes all who know him (mostly because his mother’s hair is blonde and flat and his father is bold and it is simply strange to see the three of them). He is exceptionally bright for his age, the doctors say, and should be encouraged in his mental growth. Sherlock’s mother takes that advice to heart and gives him puzzles and riddles to solve and beams every time he gets them right. Sherlock’s brother is not so jubilant about that.

Mycroft is thriteen.

To be precise, he is exactly thirteen years old and it is his birthday. As it goes in the Holmes family, he gets a brand new umbrella, an over-the-top expensive cake and a pile of books he will read in the next few weeks. But his real present, oh, he is determined to get that one himself.

“Mother,” Mycroft says after tea and cake “did you know that children under the age of four are unable to properly categorise objects? I read an article about that in the Psychology And Minors book I got for Christmas. Interesting reading that one.”

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