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Sherlock had always known he was different.
Well, maybe that was a lie. He was sure that there must’ve been a time, very long ago, before schools and adults (who weren’t mummy and daddy, of course) and boring, ordinary people. A time in which Mycroft and Mummy were his most obvious frames of reference. A time when he might’ve assumed that Daddy was the outlier, not he and Mummy and Big Brother.
It wasn’t worth contemplating now, though. Not really. If such a time had existed, he had undoubtedly deleted it, and while he didn’t really delete anything - only moved it to a big, bin-shaped space in his mind palace that yelled “Here lies the discarded!” - it would’ve been too much trouble and an undeniable waste of his time, time that could be spent on experiments, to go looking for it now.
And even if he had been under such a misinformed illusion, it hardly mattered now when all evidence pointed towards the fact that Sherlock was, in fact, very different.
It was okay, though. He didn’t mind being different.
(He did.)
He didn’t want to be like the other children at school, so stupid and boring and ever-so painfully ordinary . He didn’t care that they didn’t like him. Not really.
(He craved the acceptance and connection that came with fitting in. With caring for others and being cared for in turn. He might not have wanted to be normal - rejected the idea, even - but he did want that. More than he had ever wanted anything.)
Caring was not an advantage.
That was what Mycroft always said.
Sherlock didn’t like Mycroft. He was fat and stupid and mean, and Sherlock remembered a time when he’d coveted his approval, but that was long gone now. Sherlock was once under the impression his brother loved him, but he knew now that was wrong. Mycroft made sure about that when, upon leaving two years early for university at the age of sixteen, he abandoned Sherlock to run away to Cambridge after Daddy died.
As if a degree was more important than his little brother.
It was fine. Sherlock didn’t miss Mycroft.
He didn’t miss Mycroft at all.
(He did.)
Anyway, he had more interesting important matters on his hands than his fat older brother. Namely, the murder of Carl Powers.
Because Carl had been murdered, Sherlock knew. No matter what the papers or the police said, it was obvious. Why else had his shoes been stolen than to be a trophy for his murderer?
No one else seemed to see it that way.
For Sherlock, it was obvious. He could see the murderous intention in the water, as it were. He did not just observe, he deduced . It was a shame no one else agreed, a fact he’d been rather rudely awakened to upon being told by a gruff-sounding older man (mid-fifties, alcoholic, hates his wife, wishes he’d never had children) over the phone - in the first and only time he attempted to call the police force - that it was just a tragic accident.
He learnt an important lesson that day.
Everyone could look, but few people ever really saw.
And so, Sherlock took it upon himself to prove everyone else wrong - because they were wrong, he knew it. He just knew it.
In the months after Carl Powers' death, Sherlock could say for certain that he had come to know the boy better than anyone, even Carl himself.
He’d started with Powers’ school files. They were supposedly classified, but anyone with more than three brain cells knew classified was just code for interesting.
More slowly than he’d liked but surely, Sherlock had learnt everything there was to know about little Carl Powers. He was eleven which, at the time, had been two years more than Sherlock but now was only one.
According to his school files he’d been a popular-
(a bully)
- athletic-
(stupid, brutish)
- happy boy.
He had been in year seven at Cookstown High School in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and had gone with his entire year group of ninety-seven on a trip to a swimming pool in London, where he’d had a seizure and ultimately drowned as his body lost the ability to control when and what it breathed in and his lungs filled with water.
A tragic accident, the incident had been ruled by the authorities and the journals and the tabloids.
Sherlock disagreed.
First of all, Carl Powers had no history of grand mal seizures or spontaneous paralysis.
Second, while he did not die immediately in the pool, he was completely unresponsive and then declared dead within an hour of being removed from it. Had he had a seizure and drowned, the fact that much of the water in his lungs was expelled and he still had a pulse, weak as it was, when the paramedics arrived on the scene at 11:26, just seventeen minutes after the incident, should’ve meant he lived.
Or, at least, was stabilised for some time, even if the brain damage from somewhat extended oxygen deprivation eventually killed him.
However, that was not the case. Why? Because Carl Powers did not just die , he was murdered .
Not just murdered, poisoned.
It had taken Sherlock well over a month to figure out what with, but all of his research-
(And some stolen medical documents he had retrieved after he just-so-happened to have a “medical emergency” right next to the hospital where Powers’ body had been brought to. Don’t ask how Sherlock managed that. While worth it, it was very embarrassing and Mycroft still teases him - on the odd occasion he’s home - about it to this day.)
- had eventually led him to the only conclusion that made sense.
Clostridium Botulinum.
It fit all the criteria - loss of limb function, the fact Carl had been noted to be somewhat fatigued and out of breath before he’d even stepped foot in the pool, the way his face had looked puffy and bloated upon being pulled from the water. When it came to disguising homicide, it could’ve been the perfect crime.
At first, the discovery had been gutting. Had Sherlock been searching all this time for an impossible answer? Was the death of Carl Powers really a homicide or just the product of a tin of baked beans gone bad?
But, behold, the third and final piece of evidence.
The shoes.
Carl Powers was the owner of a pair of immaculately looked-after 1985 Air Jordan’s that had been (according to Sherlock’s sources - that being the local Cookstown newspaper) given to him by his father after the man had returned from an extended business stay in the States.
And yet, the shoes were nowhere to be found. Powers’ mother was quoted as having called the shoes his “most prized possession” and that “even though they must’ve been a size too small, he never complained - they still looked brand-new before we sent him off to London” and so it was “such a shame they couldn’t find them. My boy deserved to wear his favourite things when we sent him off, he did.”
So, where, exactly, were the elusive shoes?
That was the question, was it not?
How does a boy who keeps a two-year-old pair of shoes in mint condition despite wearing them all day, every day just lose them?
The answer?
He doesn’t.
No, someone - someone who knew Carl, who knew just how precious those shoes were to him - had taken them, had spirited them away.
Sherlock was convinced that, if he found the person who stole the shoes, he would also find Carl Powers’ murderer.
It was exhilarating, the chase.
Of course, the only trouble with that was there were one-hundred-and-four people there that day who knew Carl. Ninety-seven students, three teachers, four parents.
Safe to say, that did not particularly narrow down Sherlock’s search. Of course the murderer had been someone at the pool, that had been evident from the beginning. What he really wanted to know was who and how they’d managed to make Carl Powers ingest Clostridium Botulinum.
Which was how he found himself at the pool, eight months to the day of Powers’ death.
He’d have liked to be here during the light of day, but Mummy and Daddy would never have let him go if they knew, and it was very difficult to conduct any proper experimentation or deduction when you were lost in a throng of practically-unclothed, ordinary people.
He started with the changing room first, since after successfully breaking into the pool it was the first place he’d entered. Besides, he wanted to do this properly, which required a certain level of chronology.
There was nowhere to eat at the pool - no cafe or vending machine to be seen, and Carl had died nearly an hour before lunch and more than four after breakfast. It took Sherlock a whole sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds to figure out how the suspect had poisoned Powers, since it quite obviously wasn’t ingested.
There were only three types of botulism: food-borne (highly improbable - considering the speed of the reaction, a high level of the bacteria must’ve been introduced within the past few hours, a time in which it is unlikely Powers ate); infant (impossible - Powers was obviously not an infant); and wound.
Wound botulism seemed the most likely, but nowhere had it been mentioned that Powers had any significant new or healing lacerations, and without a significant amount of the toxin, wound botulism could not account for the speed of reaction considering symptoms for it took up to ten days to appear, as compared to several hours for its ingested counterpart.
It seemed, for a moment, a dead end, but then Sherlock remembered one crucial detail.
Powers had eczema.
Rather severe eczema - so much so, in fact, that its appearance around his joints had been specifically noted in his autopsy report. Something of that severity would clearly require medication, and how was most eczema treated? Topical creams - applied often.
After testing the lockers only to find them, unsurprisingly, easy to lock and unlock with a bobby pin or two, Sherlock came to his conclusion.
Someone must have slipped a large amount of Clostridium Botulinum into Powers’ eczema medication, causing symptoms of wound botulism and eventually leading to the boy’s death.
It was genius.
(For the first time in his living memory, Sherlock did not feel quite so alone in the world.)
Vindicated by his deductions, Sherlock continued to the pool and that was where everything went wrong.
Within seconds of entering, someone had pounced on him, forcing him onto his front, lifting his head up by the roots of his hair and balancing a sharp knife on the soft, delicate skin of his throat as they settled themselves on his back.
(Sex of attacker: unknown. Age suggested by weight: somewhere between ten and thirteen. Poor, judging by the lacklustre quality of the knife from what Sherlock could make out in the darkness. Well-prepared, suggested by the sharpness that caused warm blood to bead at Sherlock’s neck with very little pressure.)
Sherlock did not struggle. He didn’t want to risk splitting the fragile flesh of his throat any further.
For a moment, just a single, infinitely short instant in time, he considered letting his head fall, letting himself surrender to the cool metal and the pool of red that would form around him and stain the chlorinated waters after the fact. For just a moment, he let himself imagine the poetic nature of such a fate, of falling to the only person he’d ever met close to his age who could outsmart him, who could beat him in this game of life and death.
And then he took the thought and smothered it, letting it die.
Suddenly, there was warm breath at his ear, “You need to stop looking.”
The voice was decidedly that of an Irish, young male - that of (as Sherlock realised quickly) the perpetrator of Carl Powers’ murder.
Despite himself, Sherlock couldn’t help his own excitement. Just under a quarter of the students (because this was certainly not an adult) in Powers’ year were male - only twenty-two males, all of which Sherlock knew by name and face after months of research.
The reflection in the water still present on the cool tile from the daytime crowds showed little, but what it did show helped narrow Sherlock’s pool of suspects immensely.
The boy, who had settled his legs on either side of Sherlock’s back, had something of a small build for his age (which would’ve been twelve to thirteen, the same age Carl Powers would be if he was alive) and was dark-haired. Only four people fit that description.
William McGregor, Charlie Carriway, Corey Hixx, James Moriarty.
Inwardly, Sherlock chided himself for failing to check the academic records of all of the students - only someone as intelligent (perhaps more, though he wouldn’t admit that) could have not only murdered Carl Powers, but also accurately deduced when Sherlock would come to explore the scene.
If the suspect really was as intelligent as Sherlock thought he was - which seemed highly likely - there was no way he would let him bleed out on the floor. No, he would-
(try to connect, and failing that, try to win . And winning was no fun when you were already halfway there and the board was rigged in your favour.)
He just wouldn’t.
And so Sherlock did what any sane person would do.
He called his bluff.
“Or what?”
The knife pressed ever-so-slightly firmer at his throat, making Sherlock take in a quick, shallow breath in spite of his unbothered facade.
“Or I’ll watch your blood spill across the floor. Obviously.”
“Will you?” Sherlock forced out between little gasps for breath, careful not to expand his trachea and force his fragile flesh and blood and sinew any closer to the blade’s edge than absolutely necessary.
Unexpectedly (which was just such a treat - nothing ever seemed to really surprise Sherlock anymore. Not really), the boy let out a quick laugh, “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve not decided yet. I’m very changeable, but you aren’t leaving me with any other choice, William , it was funny to watch you from afar to begin with but now you’re getting in my way. ”
The older boy’s diatribe taught Sherlock three things: one, that he was erratic and volatile and that Sherlock truly didn’t doubt that he’d yet to decide whether or not he’d let him live; two, that the boy was obviously not William McGregor by the venom he put into the name; and three, that before Sherlock had ever found him, he had found Sherlock first. He knew Sherlock as much as Sherlock knew Carl Powers - moreso, even, judging by the fact he seemed to be able to tell just how much Sherlock hated his birth name and then use it to his advantage.
(And that he was enjoying this. Just from the boy’s elevated rate of breathing, the weight of him on Sherlock’s back, the well-hidden glee that radiated in his tone - Sherlock could see the elation in everything.
Just as much as he could feel the very same elation reflected in himself; the very same air-shattering realisation of finding someone like you, someone who was you, was almost too much to bear.
Finally, Sherlock had found someone worthy)
“Thank you,” Sherlock replied.
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” the boy sang.
Sherlock couldn’t help the almost-grin that pulled at the corners of his mouth, “Yes, you did.”
All of a sudden, the knife was lifted from his throat and he was flipped (and he had known he was small for his age - all Holmeses were until they shot up upon hitting puberty) onto his back with an ease that seemed almost practised - the product of months to years of physical training in the attempt to overcome the limitations of a small build.
Before Sherlock had time to think about trying to run or even wrestle the knife away, it was skidding across the floor and falling with a small plop into the pool and his hands were held still about his head.
“Okay, maybe I did,” said James Moriarty - perhaps the most unassuming person in the class photo Sherlock had studied as part of his research, what with his large brown eyes that, even now, looked almost innocent.
He didn’t look like a murderer, but then again Sherlock knew better than anyone that looks were deceiving.
“Hello, James.” Now, the grin on Sherlock’s face was much more than almost . In fact, he imagined it was almost unsettlingly wide - nothing like the normal smiles he’d painstakingly practised in an attempt to fit in with the other children at school.
That was okay though. He didn’t need to try and fit in with the psychopath who’d murdered an eleven-year-old boy.
(Because, deep down, he knew he already did.)
“I prefer Jim, William,” t he leer on Moriarty’s face seemed quite deranged at best, stretching from one side of his face to the other like the Cheshire cat and his disarmingly brown eyes were wide and violent.
“I prefer Sherlock, Jim .”
Jim laughed gleefully.
“Why did you do it?” He needed to know . Sherlock told himself it was for nothing more than research - the pursuit of knowledge so to speak.
(He needed to understand the only person who might be able to understand him in return. He craved what the ordinary people found so easily but had seemed so out of reach for him. Until now.
Until Jim.)
"Not how?" Jim grinned, as if he knew exactly what Sherlock had discovered.
"Why ask questions I already know the answer to?" Sherlock asked, almost inexplicably breathless.
Jim giggled, "Ahh, very clever, aren't you? What did you think? Did you like it?"
The words left him before he had time to really consider them, "It was brilliant," realising what he had said, and how it had likely come across, Sherlock spoke quickly again before Jim had chance to respond, "What I really want to know is why."
Jim’s grip on Sherlock’s wrists grew tighter and he seemed all at once incredulous and utterly unsurprised, “Boooorrrriiiinnnggg. Isn’t it obvious? Because he laughed at me. Because he thought he was sooo much better because he could swim even though he was stupider than a brain-damaged hamster. Because it. Was. Fun.”
“So you killed him? Carl Powers is dead now because of you, Jim. What you did was wrong.” Sherlock couldn’t deny that he’d similarly felt the urge to commit homicide once in a while, when life was especially boring and people especially mean, but he’d never once actually considered going through with it.
(Liar.)
“Don’t be boring , Sherl. It doesn’t suit you.” Jim snarled, "We both know you couldn't care less about Carl. If anything, you're as glad he's dead as I am. How else would you have been able to solve it?"
Sherlock chose not to deduce the warmth that had crept up his neck at the nickname, as biting as the voice saying it had been and as uninspired as it was.
He’d consider deleting the memory of his reaction later.
Unfortunately, his hesitation in responding didn't go unnoticed.
"See? See? I'm right, I'm right and you just need to admit-"
“I’m not-”
“SHUT UP!” Moriarty screeched, and for the first time in the encounter Sherlock felt the trickle of fear down his spine, “Shut up, shut up, shut up! You forget, I know you. All this time, I’ve been watching you, I see you. You don’t care about the ordinary people, you don’t, stop lying.”
“I do care-”
“No you don’t! ”
“And so what? So what if I don’t? At least I don’t go around murdering them, I’m not you!”
(Liarliarliar.)
Disconcertingly, as if he was in on a joke that Sherlock was not, Moriarty begin to laugh - cackle, even. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You are me. And, when you’re ready to admit it-”
Moriarty climbed off of Sherlock who, despite the new lack of physical bondage, felt physically chained to the spot, only moving to reach out to Moriarty, as if to stop him leaving before he caught himself and pulled his hand back.
Unfortunately, his swift retreat did not stop Moriarty from seeing the aborted motion, and the older boy’s shoulders shook with mirth.
“- I’ll be in touch.” With one last look over his shoulder, Moriarty exited the swimming pool where he’d once murdered Carl Powers, leaving Sherlock alone on the damp tile.
All in one night, he’d been physically threatened, solved the case of his (admittedly short) life, and been told by the psychotic murderer responsible that he’d be in touch. He felt irrevocably unbalanced.
And the worst part?
He couldn’t wait to talk to James Moriarty again.
He couldn’t wait.