Work Text:
He had managed to escape Nanny. She was a lazy old bat, anyway, so he didn’t mind that it was probably going to earn him going to bed without supper — besides, Sherlock knew he could always sneak into Mycroft’s room and steal his cakes.
He was walking down the park now, close to the bushes, clutching his still-too-long blue scarf tightly. As he heard some noised coming from behind the bushes where he stood, Sherlock stopped. He tried to take a look at what was happening and saw that boy. The boy from the year before, who had been nice to him and had given him his scarf and candy canes. He was a bit taller now, not too much, although that could be the distance. And he was with a girl, who was smaller than him, but looked older. She had the same blonde hair and same nose. Sister, then, Sherlock deduced. Mycroft would be proud.
She rolled her eyes at the boy — John, his name was John, Sherlock still remembered — who was giggling as he built a snowman. It was a horrible attempt at a snowman, granted, but he seemed to be having fun while doing it. His sister was clearly being the supervisor for the day, but John didn’t look like he was going to let an annoying older sister “rain on his parade”, as people usually said. Sherlock felt himself smiling at the sight of his saviour having fun by himself. His sister was holding a carrot in one hand, and had the other on her hip. John was jumping around the torso of the snowman, patting it gently, trying to smooth out the snow. Sherlock sat to get a better view, still hiding himself from the siblings, and held his knees to his chest, propping his chin on top of his knees. He sighed, still smiling, and giggling (!) occasionally, whenever John made a funny noise or yelped in surprise as some of the snow fell into his mouth or onto his hair. At one point, John and his sister started to engage in a minor snowball fight, and the snowman seemed forgotten. But, as caring as John was — and Sherlock held onto the thought that, even though most people were horrible, John was nice and caring — he soon remembered his project and continued with what he was doing, and now the snowman looked a lot better.
John stood on his tiptoes and pressed a few pebbles on the top of the snowman, making two eyes and a mouth. He then said something to the girl, as she continued to roll her eyes and sigh, and she handed him the carrot, which he cleverly used to make the nose. It looked like a decent snowman — nothing as good as the ones they had at the Holmes estate, but, then again, those were made by professionals Mummy hired to decorate the garden for the holidays.
The sister then made an apparently bad remark, because John seemed sad. He nodded and patted the snowman’s belly. Sherlock watched as John and his sister walked away, the young boy looking sullen at the sudden abandonment of his creature. His sister seemed happy enough, and Sherlock hated her for making John sad.
Sherlock watched as they walked away, and then, when they were out of sight, he stood up and walked towards the snowman, which looked better from up close. He looked up at the snowman — what would be his name? John, perhaps? Sherlock called him John — and smiled.
‘Hi, John,’ he said, in a whisper, even though there was no-one else around to hear. ‘Do you want to play?’ But John just stood there. Of course, it was an inanimate object. But the child bit — the smallest bit — of his brain that still believed in things like magic was disappointed when nothing happened. ‘The Nanny will come look for me soon, when she realised I’m not there. I don’t like her, John…’ Sherlock kept saying, because talking to an object that had even the smallest essence of John was still better than being alone. And Sherlock was so alone, all the time. ‘Are you cold, John? I’ll let you borrow my scarf…’ Sherlock stood on his tiptoes and wrapped his scarf — once John’s — around the snowman’s neck. He sat down, leaning against John and held his knees again.
‘Mycroft left for university this year, John…’ Sherlock said. ‘So when he came back for Christmas, Mummy only cared about him. I don’t know if I like him anymore. He missed my violin recital.’ Sherlock held more tightly to his knees. ‘He ignored me when I told him that I had learned the entire periodic table! Ignored me, John! You wouldn’t ignore me… Do you want to hear it?’
Sherlock twisted his neck, and imagined that snowman-John was nodding happily at him. “Yes, Sherlock, tell me! I don’t know the periodic table!”. Sherlock smiled and started.
‘Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon…’ and he went on and on. By the time he finished, Sherlock was out of breath, but happy. He imagined that John clapped and said he was brilliant. He wanted someone to say he was brilliant. Then he smile faded as quickly as it had arrived, as his reality came back, crushing him under its weight. ‘I wish you were really my friend, John… Merry Christmas…’
It was at least an hour later when the Nanny came looking for him. She yelled and yelled, saying that he was a naughty boy and had to stop running off and scaring people like that. Sherlock grabbed his blue scarf back — it was damp — and left as the Nanny dragged him away. He took one last look at John and closed his eyes really tight, wishing so bad that his Christmas wish became reality and that John really became his friend.