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"And so I'll be applying in the fall-"
"That's debatable."
Mycroft stares incredulously over at his little brother, eyebrows and lips crinkling into an aggravated frown. He holds his gaze for a pointed half-minute, then slowly turns back to his friend and resumes speaking.
"As I was saying, I'll be applying in the fall. It's one of the best schools in the country-"
"Debatable!" Sherlock spouts with a gleeful grin, ducking beneath the coffee table to avoid Mycroft's glare. The older Holmes heaves a sigh and smiles tightly at his friend. "Don't mind him; he's just discovered the dictionary. Shall we go to my room?"
Dark curls poke out from beneath the table, small head tilted at the softly-chuckling blond haired girl sitting in the armchair. Sherlock crawls from beneath the furniture and whips around to face Mycroft, hands on his hips. "Mother might debate that!"
Mycroft smiles venomously at his brother. "Then why don't you go to your room?"
Sherlock draws up to his full (lack of) height, chin in the air. "I'm supervising."
Mycroft rises, placing a hand on one tiny shoulder. "Why don't you go look up a new word? Obnoxious. I think you'll find that it describes you perfectly."
Sherlock's eyes widen and he smiles, nodding before scurrying off to the library room. Mycroft settles down and finishes his conversation in peace.
Once Mycroft has bid his friend farewell he wanders into the library in search of the very application papers he'd been speaking of. He's rifling through a folder when he hears a soft sniffling from behind a shelf. He shuts the folder and quietly rounds the corner, where he finds a head of bird's-nest hair resting on the open pages of the dictionary, tiny whimpers drifting through the air as Sherlock soaks the pages with salt water.
Sherlock lifts his head, eyes puffy and streaming, and Mycroft catches the row of "o" words running down the page, his mouth forming the shape of the vowel in realization.
"It says that obnoxious is 'extremely unpleasant.' Am I always obnoxious, My?" He snivels, thin voice wobbling, and Mycroft rubs a hand over his eyes before sliding the dictionary from his lap and setting it aside. He reaches out and draws his little brother into his chest.
"Not all the time. Just sometimes. But don't worry; I've been told I'm an egotistical prat at times. You can look that up later."
Sherlock's fingers curl into Mycroft's collar and he stares up at him, blinking hard. "You're not still upset?"
"No." Mycroft smiles, genuinely this time, and pats the top of Sherlock's head. Sherlock's lips tremble slightly.
"I thought you didn't like me anymore."
"Don't be preposterous. I love you, Sherlock." Sherlock's lips quirked up at the rarely-spoken words.
"That's debatable," he says, hiding his smile against Mycroft's shoulder.
"No," Mycroft murmurs, smiling softly. "It's not."