Notes: Apologies to all (especially The Beatles and Dr. Seuss). This is filled with Americanisms and set in an American-style kindergarten as it's all I know. Written for a prompt at the Sherlock Kink Meme.
Sherlock wasn't sure what to make of the room he had just stepped into. Most of it was utter chaos, items thrown across the floor in no sensible pattern. Dinosaurs looked to be attacking planes piloted by hand-sewn dolls while lopsided castles and houses were half-built out of blocks. On the other side of the room, four children were dressed up in outfits from a chest and looked to be playing some sort of hospital game. The rest of the children were outside practically rolling in the playground sand and chasing each other around.
Having finally taken the whole room in, Sherlock turned to Mycroft with a frown. "I don't like it. I want to go to class with you."
Mycroft smiled and patted Sherlock's curly head. "Mummy says we must have you socialize with children your age. I will be back at three o'clock." Mycroft said no more and left the room, shutting the door tightly behind him.
Sherlock glared at the closed door. He hoped he would only have to waste one day in this place and then he could make Mummy let him stay home with his books. Glancing outside, Sherlock made his way to a corner that held a stack of books and seemed to be mostly untouched. Although simple, he thought the books might guarantee that the other children leave him alone.
Just as he was settling in, all the children outside came scrambling in to the classroom, most not even bothering to brush sand off before sitting on carpet squares in the middle of the room. Sherlock watched them from behind his book as they interacted. They all had their own groups of friends; the dress-up children sat together while the ones who were dirtiest - they must have played outside together - did as well.
As he was watching, he noticed an empty carpet square. For him, then. He returned the book to its proper place and went to join the rest of the class just as two women - the teachers - came in from outside.
The older woman clapped her hands. "Good morning!" Most of the class cheerily repeated the greeting. "Now, I don't know if you all noticed, but we have a new student today!"
Sherlock frowned as everyone began to look at him and wave. He wished Mycroft had taken him to his upper level class instead. He was sure no one there would care about a new student.
"Well, sweetie," the teacher smiled, "do you want to introduce yourself? Your name, favorite color, anything! Then we can go around the room and have everyone do the same!"
"Sherlock. Brown. Everyone's names are on the cubbyholes and everyone's favorite color is on the chart behind you." The teacher looked a little bemused while the rest of the class stared. "Is that all?"
The other teacher stepped in. "Yes, thank you, Sherlock." She smiled and clapped to get the class' attention. "I know you're all excited to meet and play with Sherlock! Just remember, 11:15 is board time so be ready to put everything away when it's almost that time, okay?" The children barely bothered to respond as they scrambled away to play with the toys scattered about the room.
Sherlock made his way back to the book corner after the other children had stopped running around the room and began to play. No one had gone back to the corner, so Sherlock thought he was going to be left alone for the rest of the day.
However, no sooner did he settle down with a book when a blond child - in a jumper that seemed a size too large, a hand-me-down - came over and sat next to him. The other child smiled at Sherlock as he continued to read his book and attempted to ignore the other. "That was cool how you saw all those things. You've only been here today!"
Sherlock glared at his book. He wanted to be left alone, was that so difficult. "It's called being observant." He glanced at the other boy and saw he looked confused. "It means you see things and pay attention. Like your hands, you were playing on the monkey bars earlier."
The other boy stared at Sherlock with wide eyes and then looked down at his hands, trying to see what Sherlock saw. "Really? No, you musta seen me!"
Huffing in annoyance, Sherlock put his book down and took a hold of one of the boy's hands. "See, most of your hand is red because you were holding on to something tightly. But here," he pointed to where one of the fingers met the palm, "it's less red because you were holding on to something like this." Sherlock curled the fingers up as they would be if they were holding on to a bar. "And so it must've been monkey bars." Sherlock let go of the hand and sat back, waiting to see what the other boy would say.
The boy curled his hands a few times before looking up at Sherlock. "That was really cool!"
Sherlock blinked in surprise. "Yeah?" Whenever he did it to the adults at Mummy's tea parties, they always got angry or annoyed.
"Yeah!" The boy grinned. "I'm John. What're you reading?" John moved closer to Sherlock to get a better look at his book.
"Uh...One Fish, Two Fish." Sherlock showed the book to John. He still wasn't sure what to make of John but John was looking at him with a smile so he figured nothing bad would happen if he shared the book.
John moved a little closer to Sherlock and raised his hand to grab the book, but paused. "I like this book. Can I read with you?"
"That's...fine." John grinned and used his hand to hold open one side of the book, leaving Sherlock to hold the other.
They sat together, John in charge of turning pages as he read slower than Sherlock and quietly read the book aloud to himself. Sherlock stopped reading about half way through and sneaked glances at John instead. At one point, a boy and girl came over and asked if John wanted to play Dinosaurs and Airplanes with them but John just shook his head and said he was reading and they left him alone.
The rest of the day continued in the same fashion, with John reading with Sherlock when they were inside and then John sitting and talking with Sherlock during recess. Sherlock didn't understand why he didn't go play with his other friends on the monkey bars or the slide. In fact, he was so absorbed with trying to figure out John that he didn't notice when the day ended and Mycroft came to pick him up.
Sherlock walked away with his hand in Mycroft's after waving bye to John who shouted he would Sherlock tomorrow. Mycroft looked down at his brother with a satisfied smile. It all worked out in the end.
But as soon as they left the school grounds, Sherlock tugged on Mycroft's hand and looked up at him with his questioning face. He told Mycroft all about John and what had happened that day. At the end of his story, he asked, "Why did he do all that?"
While Sherlock may be a genius, he was still a child. Mycroft ruffled his curls and said, "Because he wants to be your friend and play with you."
"Oh." Sherlock's face changed to one of intense concentration on whatever he was thinking of. Mycroft wouldn't push him - if Sherlock wanted to let him know, he would have no trouble in voicing his thoughts.
Later that evening after relating his day to Mummy, Sherlock told her he wanted to return to the class the next day.
"John said he would see me tomorrow and if I'm not there, how will he see me?" Mummy smiled at Sherlock's perfectly logical explanation and kissed his forehead, promising that yes, he could go back tomorrow. Sherlock nodded and left for his room, already thinking of tomorrow.
Sherlock and Mycroft arrived early the next day. Sherlock didn't bother to say goodbye to his brother and instead set off searching the room and playground for John. Fortunately John was waiting for him right outside the classroom and smiled brightly when he saw Sherlock walk out.
"You came back!" John grinned.
Sherlock took a deep breath before telling John, "You're my friend now."
"Okay!"
"That means you have to play with me," Sherlock warned.
John giggled. "Of course!"
And that was that. Sherlock latched on to John for the rest of the day and always made sure he was next to him. When John attempted to leave and play elsewhere without first telling Sherlock, Sherlock's expression changed to one of confusion but then John grabbed Sherlock's hand and pulled him along.
"Come on, let's go over here!" And Sherlock followed, holding tightly to John's hand. After that, John would always make sure to grab Sherlock's hand when he decided to move elsewhere.
The week passed in this manner. Then Sherlock's tutor returned from vacation and it was time for him to resume learning. It wasn't until Friday was almost over that Sherlock realized this meant he wouldn't see John again.
Once he realized this, he acted on his first instinct to hug John. John didn't realize the problem and just smiled and hugged Sherlock back. It wasn't until Sherlock wouldn't let go that John noticed anything was wrong.
"Sherlock?" John frowned, slurring the 'sh-' a bit. "What's wrong?"
"I - " Sherlock trailed off when he saw Mycroft over John's shoulder, waiting outside the door. He flushed in embarrassment and his thoughts came out in a garbled mess. "I'llmissyouJohnbye." He let go of John and quickly walked over to Mycroft, head down to give himself a little time to compose himself and more importantly keep him from looking back at John.
He reached the door, blush under control, and looked up at Mycroft who was glancing between Sherlock and presumably John. Sherlock wasn't sure what that face meant and wanted it to stop. "I'm ready to go home now."
Mycroft smiled and turned to leave, but not without one last look at John and then at the other parents arriving.
The meaning of Mycroft's glances did not become apparent to Sherlock until Sunday when he was summoned out of his room and to the entryway. Standing just inside the doorway was Mummy, Mycroft, and a woman Sherlock had never seen before. He only took her in for a moment before focusing in on the boy holding the woman's hand.
"John!" The name was out of Sherlock's mouth before he could stop it, but he didn't mind when it caused John to turn and grin at him. John let go of the woman's - his mother - hand and scrambled towards Sherlock. Sherlock returned the grin with a small one of his own before grabbing John's hand, this time taking the lead and pulling John towards his bedroom.
Conversation followed, 'I apologize for the unusual way my son contacted you' and 'It's nothing; John's been talking about Sherlock all week', but Sherlock comprehended none of it, too focused on the warmth coming from the hand in his own.