I own nothing

Venice beach California, 1976

He couldn't believe it! They'd really done it, they'd really fucking done it! His mom and step dad had actually fucking traded him! Sean stood staring at the piece of shit drug dealer Mickey as his strung out mom explained that he would be going with Mickey that was the brilliant plan her drug soaked brain had devised to pay off her debt to the putrid man who stunk of sweat and some kind of decay that he really didn't care to identify. Sean's moment of shock ended the second mickey reached one huge sweaty hand out for him.

"Two seconds to act or you're a prisoner forever" Sean told himself, then with impressive speed even for an 11 year old, he lashed out with one skinny leg and connected with mickeys crotch. Sean heard the piece of shit hit the ground, but didn't hang around to see. With the cries of his mother following him to 'get back there and help his family' Sean ran into the dingy bathroom and swiftly locked the door, the lock was garbage it wouldn't stop even his skinny mom for long, but it was long enough for Sean to scramble out the window and shimmy down the fire escape. Less than two minutes after dropping mickey, Sean was speeding down the road on his skateboard with no idea where he was going?

He had no one and no money and no idea what he should – of even could do?

Unconsciously he went to the zephyr shop where the people he looked up to and trusted were, he wasn't close with them – he was a lot younger than the youngest member – but they knew his name, and wouldn't call the cops, that was the best Sean could hope for at the moment.

He kicked his board into his hands and went in the door, sure enough about six of them were there just hanging around with nothing else to do.

"Hey Sherlock! What's got you all sketched out bro?" Wentzle asked curiously

"I gotta get out of town, like fucking now!" Sean said with a panicked note in his voice, this got the attention of the only person in the room who wasn't stoned yet from the joint making the rounds, jay.

"What's going on Sherlock?" jay asked, his interest piqued by the always cool as ice kid looking around like any second his number was up.

"She fucking sold me! My own damn mom paid off her debt to mickey and daffy with me!" he growled, torn between anger and pain at what she'd done to him.

"Shit" jay breathed, the two men Sean spoke of were well known in their neighborhood, partly because of the ludicrous nicknames they'd chosen to go by, and partly because of the sheer evil they were all too comfortable with.

Jay knew what lay in store for the little skate rat kid if those two got ahold of him, and as long as Sherlock stayed in dog town they would find him – that was not a debatable point. Sherlock was right, he needed to get out of town as soon as possible, and keep moving until he was far enough away that it wouldn't be worth it for mickey and daffy to follow him. But no one at the shop had a car, and most of them wouldn't get involved with a situation like this, but jay felt for the kid, he wasn't really what you'd call 'nice', but he was good on a board for a kid, and he was smart as fuck, which was how he'd earned the nick name 'Sherlock' well and because his last name was Holmes.

After running through all the options he could think of, jay spoke to the wild eyed kid.

"I think I can get you to Hermosa, from there you'll be on your own but it's a start" he told him with a shrug that said it was the best option available to him.

Sean stared at jay "well?! What the fuck are you waiting for?! Let's go!" he shouted.

Jay laughed his wild man laugh, and jumped up to lead Sherlock out of the back of the shop, there was a VW bus there with its side door open and surf boards strapped to the top.

"get in Sherlock, there going surfing in Hermosa, they won't give a shit that you're hitching a ride so long as you don't hang around once they get there. I don't know what you're going to do once you get there, but that's the best I can do" jay told him with a shrug, knowing that any fate Sherlock encountered there would be better than what the drug dealers would use him for.

Sherlock gave jay a nod that he understood, and climbed into the van while jay told the guys in the front that he'd be riding to Hermosa with them, but used the nickname only the Z boys used for the kid, that way if mickey and daffy ever asked around about 'Sean Holmes' they wouldn't have anything to tell them.

While they drove to Hermosa Sean sat silently in the back thinking. He didn't have any money; he didn't have anything with him but a skateboard, as options went he was screwed. But he'd die on the streets before he went back to the fate he knew he'd have in Venice if the dealers found him, he'd heard about what they did and he was well aware that he wasn't the first kid they'd taken in trade from junkie parents. He refused to suffer their same fate.

There must be some sort of help out there for kids in his situation, he thought hopefully.

But over the next few years Sherlock lost that hope.

After a few weeks in Hermosa he got spooked by something someone said at a party house he'd found to crash at, he wasn't positive they'd been talking about the men that considered him property, but why take a chance? Sherlock hid in the back of a car that he'd heard was heading north. He ended up in San Francisco and spent his first winter as a street kid there, he also learned that you can't trust adults there after a worker at the shelter tried to wheedle information about him out of Sherlock to contact his parents and send him home. Sherlock took off from that 'well meaning' place so fast the worker was left staring at the place he'd been.

After that he refused to stay at shelters unless he absolutely had to. He did make some friends though, kids a few years older than him that showed him how to live on the streets without starving or being exploited, they were strange looking kids with funny colored hair and ragged clothes. He learned how to get by, how to spot fake people that couldn't be trusted, how to make his way on his own terms.

He learned the art of breaking into empty houses for a place to sleep, and doing odd jobs for food, and he learned to trust his instincts about people. He got by, even if it wasn't much of a life he was in charge of it. But he grew cold and hard from living that way, lock - as he was generally known – didn't trust a single person. But he never forgot what had almost happened to him back in Venice and developed a habit of looking out for the younger kids he ran across. The flip side of that though was that he had more than once, seriously injured older kids that bullied or tried to take advantage of them, until all that an in that circle knew to steer clear of him.

Lock would fight at the least provocation, the anger in him boiled to the surface so fast it surprised anyone who witnessed it, and at 15 he was scary to those that had seen some terrible things and he didn't care. Every once in a great while, lock wondered about what would become of his life? There weren't many options for a kid in his situation, his choices were crime drugs or prostitution and none of those sounded too appealing to him. But he quickly banished those sorts of thoughts from his head whenever they appeared, each day was a standalone, the day before forgotten and the next day not given a thought, that was the only way to live – to survive.

Then something totally unexpected happened to lock – he made a friend.

A fellow street kid who went by the name pebbles (like the cartoon character) she was sweet and funny, and helped lock learn a lot of tricks to get by. She was a few years older than him, about 17 from what she said once, and for the first time since he was much younger – lock gave a damn about another person. He should have known, he should have kept his guard up, he should have known better than to give a shit about someone!

Just when he cared about her, just when he thought she would be there, pebbles bailed on him! After everything she said to him about sticking together and not letting the world get the better of you, she fucking OD'd on him! What little speck of humanity left in lock faded away when he found pebbles cold and unresponsive, wrapped in her blanket in the corner of the abandoned church they and the others they knew had been staying in.

He'd stood up without a word, grabbed his backpack and his skateboard, and walked out of the church and straight to the bus station.

"What's the next bus?" he asked the ticket window.

"There's a 10:30 to los Angeles, and a 12:45 to Berkeley" the bored clerk told him, consulting the timetable.

There was no way in hell lock was going back to the southern part of the state, so Berkeley it was. Lock searched through the pockets of his battered and patched leather jacket (which he'd found on the floor of a punk show he'd gone to a year before) and just barely managed to pay the fair.

The ticket clerk narrowed his eyes at lock as if he'd just realized something about the stony faced teen with the safety pin through his lip?

"You old enough to travel by yourself kid?" he asked lock suspiciously

Lock glared back at the man with a palpable air of menace "do you actually give a damn? Just give me the ticket bro and mind your own business" lock snapped

"Hey kid, word to the wise – watch your damn mouth to people that can call the cops" he threatened

Lock leaned closer to the man who he pegged to be somewhere in his 30's, he scanned over the guy with a quick sweep of his eyes, "word to the wise pal – don't fuck with me if you want your car drivable and your boss not to find out about what you do on your breaks?" lock hissed threateningly, and tapped the telltale burn marks on the guys finger nails which told lock he frequently used them to hold a roach. "You get what I'm saying…Alex?" lock asked reading the man's name tag.

"you little basterd!" Alex growled in a low voice that wouldn't carry to the other passengers, but the panic in his eyes told lock that he'd won.

"Give me the damn ticket Alex and you'll never see me again" lock purred dangerously

Without another word the bus station worker handed over the ticket to the unsettlingly scary 14 year old and let out a sigh of relief when he watched to kid board a bus out of town, it would be a long time before he power tripped on a lower class kid again.

Lock went to the back of the bus where he could be alone, he tried his best to push all the thoughts about pebbles out of his mind, a tiny voice was telling him he shouldn't hate her for dying, but the part of him that couldn't cope with losing the first person he'd cared at all about in years shouted that tiny voice down. Junkies had ruined his life and he wouldn't spare a moment of pity for them even in death!

Berkeley wasn't anything special as far as he could see, every city he'd been too over the last three years had its nice parts and its bad parts and as always lock made his way quickly to the part of town where he'd attack the least notice. In no time at all he'd found the usual group of street kids mainly made up of runaways just like him, and took his place on the periphery of their group. He was pegged as useful right away, but they found out just how jaded and dangerous he was the moment one of them thought they could take advantage of him because of his age – they never tried twice.

The closest to happy Sherlock got was when they went to one of the all ages shows around town, he got to take out some of his considerable aggression in the pit and for once blend in with the crowd, the only other thing that came close was when he rode his skateboard on the empty streets and could for a few moments forget the nightmare that was his existence.

There was no telling what would have become of him if not for two things that irrevocably changed Sherlock's life, the first was meeting two innocent kids fresh to the life he was so used to, he saw right away what easy marks for the darker side of the city they were and decided to look out for them until they learned how to take care of themselves, the second was agreeing to go with them to the youth shelter they had heard about and wanted to check out.

That's where he met the person who would change his life.

A/N so that's the start of it, hope you like it, I'll probably revert to a more normal (for me) narrative this was just how I could figure to set up this story, as usual any suggestions will be considered, let me know what you think, or not, whatever.