Author's Note: For those who may be new, this is the third in a series of fics I'm writing set in an AU where John and Sherlock meet as children, not necessarily before the show (this fic will make sense even if you haven't read "Inception" or "Marooned"). I started writing this one as an excuse to introduce Molly into the gang and see how she would appear in this new setting. I also shamelessly stuffed in as many references to the show as I possibly could - see if you can spot them all! 8D As usual, I don't think I did a very good job of characterizing Sherlock; I can never make him nasty enough! But I had an inordinate amount of fun writing this all the same.
John Watson looked up from his homework to see Molly Hooper approaching. Because of the torrential rain that had been coming down all morning, recess was taking place in the gym. Most of the year four boys were in the middle playing ball, but John and Lestrade had climbed to the topmost bleacher to finish up homework they were behind on.
"Hi," Molly said rather nervously when she approached them, her warm brown eyes meeting John's for a moment and then darting away, dancing across the heads of boys and girls beneath them. "What are you up to?"
"Just finishing up our long division," John said, writing down the answer for the final problem.
"Not my long division!" Lestrade wailed, running his hands over his face and looking hopelessly over his homework spread out around him.
Studiously looking away from them, Molly asked in a would-be casual voice, "Sherlock's not with you today?"
John watched her nervously twisting her hair around her finger and made a deduction he thought Sherlock would be proud of. Molly, who was in the year below John and Lestrade, hung around sometimes during recess. She was shy and made awkward jokes from time to time, but she was nice – in fact, she was one of the very few people who would speak to any of them when they were around Sherlock. John had never put two and two together before, but now a suspicion crept into his mind.
"Molly, what are you doing here?"
Molly jumped about a foot, and they all turned around to see Sherlock stretching his gangly legs to climb up the bleachers two at a time, coming to a stop next to her. Turning bright red, Molly stammered, "Oh, I-I was just..."
Having realized the true reason Molly often sought them out, John did his best to deflect attention from her to lessen her embarrassment. "Where were you, Sherlock? We've been waiting ten minutes already."
Sherlock drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. "I," he said proudly, "have been invited to a slumber party."
John managed not to laugh at how pleased Sherlock looked with himself, but Lestrade had less tact. "A slumber party?" he asked disbelievingly. "Isn't that for girls?"
Frowning down his nose, Sherlock spat out, "I was told I could bring a friend, so I'm bringing John. I like him better than you, anyway. I like him best of all." As if to underscore his intentions, he grabbed John's hand and yanked on it, as though he was going to drag him all the way to the party right now.
John rolled his eyes, but couldn't deny that a tiny sliver of pleasure slid into his stomach and warmed it. Sherlock was so much smarter than him, and was always doing such interesting things. It was nice to think he was that important to his friend. But as John looked away from Sherlock's irritated face, he noticed the look of dismay on Molly's. Best of all... Uh-oh.
"Erm...I'm sure there are other people you like better," John said awkwardly. "Like...your family?"
Sherlock snorted. "Not likely. My father's never home, and Mycroft is a spoiled brat."
And you're not? John bit back that comeback and instead said, "What about your mum? Surely you must like her best of all."
Sherlock dropped John's hand and turned away. "My mother is dead."
No one knew what to say, so they were silent until the bell rang.
It was only as they lugged their bags up the path to the ample suburban home that John thought to ask, "Who invited you to this party, anyway?"
"Donovan."
John stopped short, and Sherlock continued a few paces before noticing and turning around. John opened his mouth to wonder if they shouldn't be careful, in case Donovan was intending to get them back for what they'd done to her boyfriend. But Sherlock was almost at the door, and he was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, his eyes wide and innocent and eager. John forced himself to remember the reputation Sherlock had garnered for himself, and realized that he may never have been invited to a party of any sort before. Did he really want to dash Sherlock's hopes and make him suspicious every subsequent time someone invited him over?
So he said nothing, and let Sherlock ring the bell.
The door burst open with a burst of music, light, and chatter, and the boys found themselves dragged in by several giggling girls and led to the front room. John realized they might have made a mistake after all when he looked around and saw that the room was populated with girls only – the crowd of girls who tended to flock around the school with Donovan because she was pretty or something – and no parents were in sight. Apparently, they'd gone out for the evening and let their daughter entertain her own guests.
"Well, look who it is." Donovan herself sauntered towards them, her dark curls bouncing as she tossed her head and smiled. Was that a sinister, sarcastic smile, or was she just trying to be nice? "The guest of honor himself."
She grabbed one arm, one of her friends grabbed the other, and they pushed a rather befuddled Sherlock into an armchair without even letting him take off his coat first. Donovan shot over her shoulder, "Oh, give the boyfriend some food. That's all they care about anyway."
John felt heat rushing to his face. "I'm not his boy-"
But another group of giggling girls shoved him into another armchair and stuffed a pink paper plate into his hands piled high with snacks. He sank lower into the chair and started nibbling on a biscuit, remembering what his mother had told him about being polite even when others ignored him.
"What are you doing?!"
Sherlock's howl of outrage brought John back to the present, and he caught a brief glimpse of his friend in the middle of a crowd of girls. If he hadn't been so shocked, he would have burst out laughing. Two girls were tying ribbons in his long, curly hair, two more were applying makeup to his face, and Donovan was holding him still while several of her friends set about painting his nails...pink.
"Help, John! They're torturing me!"
John stood, aware that he should be protesting but so stunned by this unexpected turn of events that he couldn't find any words and just stood there gaping like an idiot. Donovan, however, knew exactly what to say. "You were the one who agreed to come to the party, Holmes. Didn't you know this is what friends do at slumber parties?"
Well, no, it wasn't – at least, none of the parties he'd been to had involved forcing a girly makeover on anyone. John set down his plate of food and spoke up. "Hey, er, I don't think this is-"
But just then the crowd of girls exploded as Sherlock surged to his feet. Bottles of makeup and nail polish spilled everywhere and girls fell backwards as Sherlock angrily broke through. At first, John wasn't sure what was going on, but then he saw Sherlock looming over the startled girls – rouge sloppily smudged over his sharp cheekbones, his nails glistening hot pink, bright ribbons trailing ridiculously around his face...and clutching his long blue scarf to his chest. It looked as though one of the girls had tried to pull it off to get a better angle at the lower part of his hair, and this had been one step too far for some reason.
"Don't touch me," he snapped. "John, we're leaving."
John grabbed their bags and scurried after Sherlock, who stomped out the front door before anyone could stop him. Chancing a glance over his shoulder as he left the front room, he caught the sneer playing around Donovan's mouth and heard her mutter into the stunned silence, "Freak."
While they waited on the curb for Sherlock's car to arrive, John pulled the ribbons out of Sherlock's hair. Sherlock didn't seem to notice, simply gazing blankly at the pool of light illuminating the front door opposite. He hadn't put his scarf back on, but clutched it in two tight fists as though daring someone else to try to take it from him.
When all the ribbons lay in a forlorn pile about their feet, John carefully said, "Sherlock."
"What?"
John hesitated, wanting to ask about the scarf but not daring to. "Had you ever been invited to someone's house before?"
"No," Sherlock said shortly. The unspoken words hung in the air: And I never will again.
"Give me your phone for a minute."
Sherlock finally turned to look at him, brow furrowing over this apparent non sequitur. "Why?"
"Because you're spending the night at my house."
Thankfully, Harry was sequestered in her room, supposedly studying but probably just listening to music and texting her secret girlfriend. Mrs. Watson was able to take Sherlock right up to the bathroom and help him wash off the makeup. John was proud of her for not laughing when she'd first laid eyes on Sherlock in his dolled-up state; her lips had trembled and her eyes twinkled, but she took the matter into hand seriously.
"I'm afraid Harry's the only one in the house with nail polish remover," Mrs. Watson said apologetically, leading the boys down to the kitchen. "And we wouldn't want any awkward questions. But here – the kettle's just boiled, and I baked scones this afternoon. They're cold, but they'll do."
John sat across from Sherlock at the kitchen table, nervously watching Sherlock take in his new surroundings. He was acutely aware of the differences between his neighborhood and Donovan's, and knew that Sherlock came from a very well-to-do family. The only reason John went to the same school as they did was its proximity to his house.
But Sherlock was watching Mrs. Watson bustling around the kitchen, laying out a late tea for them, with a small smile. He slowly relaxed his grip on his scarf, which he had refused to take off even when Mrs. Watson was washing his face. Soon enough, he was devouring his tea and scones at his usual breakneck speed and chattering away about horticulture and pollination and photosynthesis like Mrs. Watson was an old friend, simply because she had mentioned her troubles with the flower garden.
John kept quiet and watched the two warming up to each other with satisfaction. He wondered what Sherlock's mother had been like – whether she was anything like Mrs. Watson, whether he had missed this kind of warmth and care since her death. Maybe this was just what he needed. As John sipped his tea, he began silently brainstorming reasons he could come up with to bring Sherlock home more often.
Once they had finished their tea, they changed into their pajamas and unrolled their sleeping bags in John's room. They easily ignored Mrs. Watson's admonishment to not stay up too late, bickering in a good-natured way about the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted to John's ceiling. As smart as he was, apparently Sherlock had never learnt that the Earth went round the Sun, nor that stars were really other suns whose light traveled billions of miles to reach them. He was convinced stars were enormous light bulbs fastened to the sky that stretched thousands of miles above them like a dome.
Somehow, their sleepy conversation moved on to fireflies and fairies, and whether male fairies had to wear pink tutus as well. Sherlock jumped up and did an impression of Fairy Anderson, fluttering around and brandishing his pink nails until he and John collapsed into a heap on their sleeping bags, giggling helplessly.
Mrs. Watson paused on her way past the closed door of John's room and smiled fondly at the sound of their boyish giggles. Sherlock Holmes might be just what John needed. Ever since his father had died, John had been so alone, cutting himself off intentionally from all his friends. It was wonderful to hear him laugh again.
Molly walked slowly down the aisles of the school library, looking for promising books on her paper about frogs. Just as she was pulling down The Encyclopedia of Amphibians, someone hissed her name and she jumped, dropping the book with a clatter. She hastily scooped it up again, whirling around to come face-to-face with the last person she wanted to see her in such a clumsy moment: Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock glanced around to make sure no one else was nearby, then stepped closer. Molly's heart raced and her face felt hot as his intense grey eyes bored into hers.
"If I...If I showed you...something...you wouldn't laugh at me, would you? You'd help me out, wouldn't you?"
She wasn't sure what he was asking, but she didn't care. "What do you need?"
"You."
Her heart skipped a beat. He stepped forward, taking his hands out of the pockets of his coat and holding them in front of her face. To her astonishment, the nails were sloppily painted hot pink. She raised her eyes to his face, to his eyes wide with desperation.
"Help me! I think I'm going to die!"