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Sherlock usually didn’t pay any attention to grown-ups. They talked to him like he was a baby, and he most certainly was not a baby. He was an entire three and three-quarter years old. His mummy said he would always be her baby, but that was silly. One day he’d be a grown-up, too, and he wouldn’t be anything like a baby then.
Mycroft never treated Sherlock like that, though. He was very old—almost eleven—and he would tell Sherlock things that were only for grown-ups. Most of the time, he wouldn’t even explain them. But Sherlock knew that meant Mycroft thought he was smart, so he was okay with it. When Mycroft didn’t explain things to him, he asked John.
John was five years old and lived two houses down from Sherlock. Five years old was old enough to know about almost everything. Only Mycroft was smarter than him. Sherlock was very glad to know the two smartest boys in the neighborhood because it meant he would be doubly smart. But John was not just the second smartest boy around.
He was also Sherlock’s only friend.
Their mummies had met one day at the park and decided that they should be friends. Sherlock hadn’t liked that his mummy had picked out a friend for him, but he allowed her to take him to visit the Watsons, anyway. He didn’t even yell or scream on the way or when they arrived. She really should have been more thankful for that.
Either way, when they’d gotten there, a blond boy the same height as Sherlock ran over to him and handed him a red toy car.
“My name’s John,” he said. “This is my fire engine.”
Sherlock didn’t tell the boy that he already knew all of that. But, instead, he nodded and took the toy, and a moment later, John grabbed his hand and led him over to his toy chest.
They played cars and trains that day. Sherlock thought puzzles were much more fun than pushing wheeled things around a track and making strange noises, but John didn’t have any puzzles that weren’t missing any pieces. Also, Sherlock thought John was nice. He didn’t think any of the children in his class were nice, but John was, because he let Sherlock keep the fire engine and even gave him half of his toast. He also had a very fuzzy green jumper that Sherlock liked to pet, but then his mummy told him not to, so he stopped. John didn’t mind him petting the jumper, though, so Sherlock thought John was triply nice, and he sneaked a pet or two when his mummy wasn’t looking.
John’s mummy didn’t give them apple juice during snack time, not even when Sherlock asked nicely, so he of course threw a tantrum and his mummy took him home. But, honestly, what sort of mummy doesn’t give boys apple juice?
Sherlock’s mummy explained afterward that the Watsons didn’t have any apple juice to give Sherlock. He didn’t understand why, not even when his mummy said it was a grown-up thing. She was always saying that, so Sherlock asked Mycroft. He just stared at Sherlock and said the Watsons were poor, but Sherlock didn’t understand that, either. He asked Mycroft what poor meant, and Mycroft said they didn’t have much money.
Sherlock knew he could fix that.
When his father wasn’t paying attention. Sherlock slipped his billfold out of his pocket and grabbed a few notes. The next day, when he went to visit John, he gave the money to him, but John just frowned and wouldn’t take it, not even when Sherlock whined. Sherlock eventually started crying, and then his mummy caught him with three hundred pounds in his hand and gave him a good scolding, even after he’d told her why he took it in the first place.
The day after, John thanked Sherlock for the thought but said stealing from his father was Not Good. Sherlock knew Not Good was in capital letters because John was very serious. But he wasn’t mean serious like the grown-ups were; he was nice serious, because John was nice. Sherlock promised he wouldn’t do it again, and he meant it. Sort of.
They played blocks after their talk. John pretended to be a monster and tore down the buildings Sherlock had built. Eventually, they both became monsters and destroyed their little city. Sherlock made a fuss when his mummy picked him up, and John waved at him until Sherlock couldn’t see him down the street anymore.
Sherlock went to John’s house almost every day after that.
This day was no different. Sherlock’s mummy had made him put on a coat because it was very cold, and she told him to only walk to John’s house, not anywhere else. (Which Sherlock thought was silly. Why would he want to go anywhere else?)
When Sherlock got to John’s house, John was waiting outside on the doorstep. His arms rested on his knees, and he held his head in his hands. He looked sad. Sherlock didn’t like it when John was sad. It made him sad, too. He sat down next to John, mimicking his sitting position.
“We’re moving,” John said.
Sherlock looked around. “No,” he said finally. “We’re sitting.”
“I mean me,” John said. “Me, and Mummy, and Harry.”
“What about your father?” Sherlock asked.
“Dad is joining the Army,” John said. “He’s moving, too, but somewhere else.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said.
“We’re going to Manchester,” John said.
“On holiday?” Sometimes Sherlock’s family took him on holiday to France. He didn’t like leaving home very much, and he was always sure to let everyone know that. But some people did, so maybe John’s family liked going on holiday.
John sighed. “No. To live.”
This was Very Not Good. It deserved a whole other level from Not Good, because John leaving was more than Not Good. Sherlock did not know where Manchester was, but it wasn’t London, and that meant John wouldn’t be living two houses down anymore, and that also meant that his mummy wouldn’t let him walk all on his own to visit.
“You can’t,” Sherlock said after he had thought through everything. “You have to stay here.”
“I want to,” John said. “But I can’t. Mummy says we have to go.”
Sherlock didn’t say anything, but he secretly decided that he didn’t like John’s mummy.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” John added. “Today’s my last day here.”
“But,” Sherlock said. That’s all he could think of to say. “But.”
“Sherlock,” John said, “I wanted to give you something before I leave.”
Sherlock blinked and put his thumb in his mouth.
John pulled something out of a box that was sitting behind him on the doorstep. “Here,” he said, handing it to Sherlock. “You can have it.”
Sherlock immediately grabbed it without looking at what it was, but the moment his hand touched it, he realized.
It was John’s jumper from their first play date.
He popped his thumb out of his mouth and held the jumper close to his chest. “It’s fuzzy,” he said.
“I know,” John said, smiling a bit, but still looking a little sad. “See if it fits.”
Sherlock tried to tug it on over his coat, but John laughed when he couldn’t get it over his head. He huffed and gave John a look, and John carefully helped him take off the coat and get the jumper on over his shirt. The sleeves were a bit too short, but it fit perfectly otherwise. Sherlock wrapped his arms around himself, and then around John.
It was strange. Sherlock had only ever hugged grown-ups before, and only because his mummy or father made him. He didn’t like people being that close to him. But John he wanted to keep close, because John was nice. John was his friend, his only friend, and John was leaving, and—
Sherlock wasn’t aware that he was crying until his mummy pulled him off John. She picked him up and put him on her shoulder and walked away from the Watson house. Sherlock couldn’t see much with all the blurriness in his eyes, but he did see John. He was standing on the doorstep, watching Sherlock’s mummy take him away.
And he was crying, too.
______________________________
Sherlock decided that, since he couldn’t have John, he didn’t want any other friends. He stopped playing with other children at the park, and when he started school a week later, he refused to interact with anyone but the teacher (and he only did that because he had to).
On his first day of school, Sherlock wore John’s jumper. He’d worn it every single day since John had given it to him, and he would have even worn it when he slept if his mummy hadn’t scolded him. She tried to get it off him to wash it every chance she got, but Sherlock wouldn’t let her. He didn’t understand why it had to be washed. If she washed it, John’s smell wouldn’t be on it anymore, and then what was the point?
When his class was released, Mycroft came to pick him up. Sherlock didn’t mind, because that meant that his parents weren’t going to be home, so he could wear his green jumper for a little while longer. But when Mycroft reached for his hand before they crossed the street, he gave Sherlock a weird face.
“You stink,” he said. “Take that gross jumper off.”
“No!” Sherlock huffed, pulling his hand away from Mycroft.
“Mummy will take it off for you, if you don’t.” He snatched Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock dug his heels in, and Mycroft was forced to drag him across the zebra crossing. The moment they were on the other side, Sherlock wrenched free of his grip and stayed as far away from him as possible without getting yelled at.
Oddly enough, his mummy did make him take off the jumper when they got home. And before Sherlock could do a thing about it, she had it up over his head and put it in the wash! Sherlock wasn’t just about to sit around about that, so he screamed and cried and stomped his foot until she gave it back to him. It was even softer than before, but it didn’t smell like John anymore. So, he screamed a bit more until Mycroft gave him an ice lolly. It was cherry, and cherry was Sherlock’s favorite flavor, so he allowed the interruption only because of that.
Still, Sherlock put it back on, and he didn’t even take it off before bed, just to make his mummy mad. It worked.
Eventually, his mummy made a rule that he could only wear the jumper once a week. What a silly rule! Sherlock certainly wasn’t going to follow that one, so he stuffed the jumper into his rucksack on the days he wasn’t supposed to wear it, and when he arrived at school, he ran into the toilets and pulled it on over whatever he was wearing. Sometimes it made him very hot and sweaty, but he didn’t care. Then, after the bell rang, he ran back into the toilets to take it off before Mycroft saw. Sometimes Sherlock liked Mycroft, but he liked tattling on Sherlock to their mummy, and those were the times he didn’t like Mycroft so much.
His plan was so clever, so smart, that no one found out for a month. Until his teacher called his mummy, asking why she didn’t ever wash his clothes, and why Mycroft had fresh clothes every day and Sherlock didn’t. His mummy then looked in Sherlock’s rucksack and found the jumper. She gave Sherlock another scolding and washed it again, and then she said The Worst Thing Ever: Sherlock couldn’t wear the jumper anymore because there were holes in it! Holes! Sherlock snatched the jumper from her hands, because he knew she had to be fibbing.
But there were holes in the armpits and on the bottom edge of the jumper. He looked up at his mummy, then at his jumper, and then back up at his mummy. No! The jumper was supposed to be perfect, always, because it was John’s jumper, and now Sherlock had let him down because he’d gotten holes in John’s jumper, and what would John say when he saw him again? Sherlock’s lips quivered, and he burst into tears. He didn’t stop when Mycroft gave him an ice lolly, or when his mummy tried to give him biscuits and milk, or when his father offered him a puppy. He wanted John’s jumper, and he wanted to wear it every day for the rest of forever.
Sherlock was still crying when it was time for bed, and his mummy and father and Mycroft were tired of listening to him, so he was allowed to sleep with the jumper. So he did. He pulled it over his pillow and whispered things to it when he was supposed to be asleep, things that John would have wanted to hear. He told the jumper about his day at school, and what he thought of his family, and how much he missed John. But mostly the last one, because he missed John a lot.
The next morning, he shoved the jumper into his rucksack again. He wasn’t going to wear it this time, though. The minute he walked in the school doors, he pulled it out and cuddled it close to his chest.
Sherlock learned that jumpers had lots of uses, especially if they’re as soft as John’s. They made good blankets at nap time, and good pillows when class got boring. He could stick it over his head whenever someone tried to talk to him that he didn’t want to see, and when he collected insect specimens during play time, he could use the jumper to hold them.
Eventually, though, his mummy noticed that it was getting very dirty, and she said Sherlock could carry it around as long as she could wash it. Sherlock thought that was so silly, so he said no, he would carry it around without her washing it. But then she said he couldn’t sleep with it if she didn’t wash it, and Sherlock had to sleep with it, because otherwise he wouldn’t have his pillow John to talk to and cuddle with at night. So he agreed, but he still yelled and cried during the two hours it was in the wash.
When Sherlock was five, one of the arms of the sweater tore off at the seam. It was during play time at school, and he’d been tying up the sleeves to carry his new beetles to the inspection area (the sandbox). He stared at the loose sleeve for a moment, then let out a scream so loud that all the other children on the playground stopped to watch him. His teacher called his mummy, and by then he still hadn’t stopped, so his mummy had to take him home. She offered to sew the sleeve back on, but Sherlock refused. He didn’t want it sewn back on; he just wanted the sleeve not to have fallen off in the first place! But his mummy took it from him, anyway, and sewed the arm back on, and although Sherlock screamed, he figured it was actually okay, because it meant his pillow John wouldn’t be armless.
A year later, the other sleeve ripped from the seam. Sherlock’s mummy sewed that one back on, too, but it was slightly shorter than the other sleeve. Sherlock didn’t cry that time, though. He only had fuzzy memories of John, and carrying the jumper around now was more habit and utility than anything else. He didn’t make his pillow John at night anymore; instead, he whispered his secrets to his new puppy.
When Sherlock was seven, his mummy decided he was too old for the jumper and put it away for later. Sherlock didn’t yell or scream or cry; he just started carrying a different jumper around. The new one didn’t have holes, and the sleeves were the same length. If he was being honest, the new one worked much better than his old green one, and he didn’t even really understand why he’d kept it for so long.
As he grew older, Sherlock started having dreams of a blond boy who became a blond teenager, and then a blond adult. His eyes were blue as the sky and shined like stars, and his smile was a perfect curve that lit up his entire face. He spoke only in kind words and touched only with soft hands, but the moment Sherlock woke up, he could never recall his face.
On Sherlock’s eighth birthday, he stopped carrying jumpers around altogether, but the blond boy still came to him in his dreams.
______________________________
As soon as Stamford walked into the lab with someone behind him, Sherlock knew why they had come. It didn’t take a genius to sort it out; he’d mentioned needing a flatmate earlier, and Mike wouldn’t have been back if he didn’t have something to tell Sherlock.
So, Sherlock braced himself for whatever idiot Stamford had brought in for him, but as he looked up from his pipette, he froze—just for a second. He’d thought he recognized the man, but that couldn’t be. He’d have remembered a face like that:
The man spoke: “Well, bit different from my day.” Doctor. Cane. Tanned below the wrists. Soldier’s bearing. It didn’t take much for Sherlock to connect the dots. But he knew this man, he had to, so where did he know him from?
Stamford laughed. “You’ve no idea.” Sherlock’s eyes drifted to Mike, then back to the man in front of him, and then to his work. He sat back down, his mind whirring on all gears.
“Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.”
“Er, here. Use mine.”
Sherlock looked up. The man was offering him a mobile—a young person’s phone; he didn’t purchase it for himself—so Sherlock took it.
“Afghanistan or Iraq?”
The man blinked. “Sorry?”
Sherlock didn’t look up from his text. “Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?”
He looked over at Stamford, who was just smiling at him, then turned back to Sherlock. “Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know—?”
Sherlock glanced up, spotted Molly entering the lab, and took his saving chance. “Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you.” He traded the man’s phone for the coffee. “What happened to the lipstick?”
Molly smiled, albeit a bit awkwardly. “It wasn’t working for me.”
“Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth’s too small now.” Sherlock turned and headed back to his chair, taking a sip and grimacing at the taste. Ugh. Did no one know how to make a proper cup of coffee anymore?
“Okay.” Molly scuttled out the door.
“How do you feel about the violin?” Sherlock asked.
The man watched Molly leave, then glanced at Stamford again before realizing Sherlock was speaking to him. “Sorry, what?”
Sherlock bit back a grin as he typed on the laptop in front of him. “I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end.” He looked up at the man. “Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.” He flashed a false smile at the man, who turned to look at Stamford.
“You told him about me?”
“Not a word,” Mike said with a grin.
He turned back to Sherlock. “Then who said anything about flatmates?”
Sherlock picked up his coat—he needed to do something with his hands—and slipped it on as he spoke, rambling on while he sized up the man in front of him. There had to be a reason he seemed familiar. “I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t that difficult a leap.”
“How did you know about Afghanistan?” the man asked.
Sherlock wrapped his scarf around his neck and checked his own mobile. “Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.” He walked toward the man. “We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry—gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket and walked past the man, his heart pounding in his chest.
He knew who the man was.
“Is that it?” he asked.
Sherlock turned back around. “Is that what?”
“We’ve only just met and we’re gonna look at a flat?”
“Problem?”
The man smiled in disbelief, looking over at Stamford for help, but Mike just grinned back. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting. I don’t even know your name.”
Sherlock took a deep breath. This was it. He opened the door to the lab and exhaled.
“I know you’re an Army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a sister who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to her for help because you don’t approve of her—possibly because she’s an alcoholic; more likely because she recently walked out on her wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic—quite correctly, I’m afraid. That’s enough to be going on, don’t you think, John Watson?”
The man’s head immediately snapped up. “How did you—“
Sherlock smiled from behind the door. “The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street.” He winked at John, who was staring at him in utter shock, then turned to Mike. “Afternoon.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Sherlock stopped in the corridor, closing his eyes. He couldn't believe it. He’d found his John again, and he wasn’t a jumper pulled over a pillow, or a man in his dreams.
He was John Watson, in the flesh, and he was as wonderful as the day Sherlock had first met him.