Eleven-year old John Watson stood warily in the imposing schoolyard. The first day of high school had been looming ever closer, and now it was upon him, like a cat trapping a mouse between its claws. Through the crowds of kids, he recognised, with a squirm of pleasure, Greg Lestrade, a boy who he had not seen for eight years. Greg was slimmer and more cold-looking than he had been in his youth, though John noted that he'd still retained the semi-neat haircut. Glancing away from Greg, he saw another familiar face, though not a pleasant one. A lumpy, sallow-skinned boy, by the name of Jack Anderson was lounging on a bench, not looking the slightest bit nervous. Beside him stood Sally Donovan, whose figure was enhanced by the shockingly short skirt she had chosen to wear.

"John Watson…."

It was him!

Sherlock Holmes had appeared beside him. Pale as ever, dressed in a sweeping trench coat and blue-grey scarf, Sherlock was leaning against thin air with a kind of casual arrogance. He had acquired a tall, willowy figure and long, graceful fingers that were presently running through his dark curls.

"Sherlock!" John shrieked in delight, enveloping his old friend in a crushing hug. In return, the boy slapped him around the face.

"What the bloody hell was that for?"

"You left me…" Sherlock replied, hurt edging his velvety tones.

"I never wanted…..It was my parents! They took me out of nursery after they heard about what happened! If you should be slapping anyone, it's James Moriarty-"

"Don't say that name in front of me…" Sherlock growled, his fists clenched.

"Sorry….Anyway, have you seen Greg?"

"I have now…." Sherlock remarked, as Lestrade himself wandered over.

"Hello….." Greg said, with noticeably strained politeness. The two boys stared hard at each other, before Lestrade broke away from Sherlock's icy gaze.

"Greg! It's so good to see you! Want to hang around with us today?"

"Thanks, John….but I've got other friends…." At that moment, Anderson and Donovan came to stand beside him, as if summoned.

"Oh, Good Lord. Don't tell me they're here too…" Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Hello, Freak…." Anderson scowled. John thought he had good reason to behave antagonistically towards Sherlock. The last time John had seen the two boys together, it had resulted in Jack acquiring a spectacular nosebleed.

"Piss off, Anderson…" Sherlock replied lazily. "What's this nonsense, Greg?" he looked sharply at Lestrade, who shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Well….after what happened…..My mum said I shouldn't talk to you anymore….."

"Okay….so it's then perfectly logical to then associate yourself with perhaps the most infuriatingly dull people on the planet….That's really clever, Greg." He replied, his baritone voice thick with sarcasm. "So, I suppose this how it's going to be now….My team against yours…." He gave a mocking laugh. "Well, on your own head be it!" Sherlock stalked off in the direction of the school's entrance. John raced after him.

The main hall was large and packed with nervous-looking new arrivals. Sherlock spotted a girl whose neatly pressed shirt and suspicious glances immediately gave away the fact that her father was a lawyer. A boy's scruffy trainers taught him that he regularly went jogging in the woods.

A ferrety man with watery blue eyes and thick glasses called them children to attention and started explaining about form groups, lunchtime, and the usual drivel. Throughout the lecture, Sherlock hissed his deductions about this rat-like idiot to John, who chuckled at his friend's bluntness.

The teachers were now handing out timetables and assigning the newcomers to form groups. John looked down at his schedule and saw he had double Physics first. Sherlock shot a sidelong glance at him, giving a small smile.

"Double Physics?"

"Yep…"

The two of them, along with about twenty others assembled outside the science block. Sherlock noticed several girls giving him strange looks.

"Why are they staring at me?"

John grinned "Can't you tell? They fancy you, Sherlock!"

"That's ridiculous! They don't even know me!"

They would have continued their exchange, were it not for the teacher appearing at that precise moment. He was tall, with rather red ears and dark hair spiked up with gel.

"Smoker…." Sherlock hissed to John, who raised his eyebrows. They all followed the stranger into the lab, John sitting down next to Sherlock on a wooden stool. The teacher had now written his name on the board, declaring himself to be Mr Jeeve.

"Hello, everyone!" Mr Jeeve had a strange, slightly nasal voice. "I'll be teaching you Physics…Before we get on with the lesson, I'll need to learn your names. You!" he pointed at Greg Lestrade.

"Greg Lestrade…" he sounded a little nervous.

Mr Jeeve nodded, and then continued to prompt the rest of the class.

"Jack Anderson.."

"Sally Donovan"

"John Watson.."

He stopped when he got to Sherlock.

"You must be Sherlock Holmes...I've been told to be careful with you…"

"Well, If I were you, sir, I'd be careful with whoever gives you your information…" he flashed a smile, causing the girls he had seen earlier to giggle.

Mr Jeeve glared at the boy sitting in front of him, but said nothing. "Right, on with the lesson…Today, we'll be learning about the Solar System."

Sherlock yawned very audibly, prompting those annoying girls to laugh again. Mr Jeeve scowled at him, then proceeded to set them a hideously dull essay, entitled 'Discuss your own opinion on the various theories on the composition of our Solar System'

Twenty minutes later, John looked up from his essay to see Sherlock lounging on his stool, sneaking furtive glances at his various classmates. John realized that Sherlock had written a grand total of two sentences:

The Solar System is too dull for me to pay any attention to. People who come up with astrological theories are idiots.

Mr Jeeve came over to collect their essays. He tutted very loudly, then declared to the class "It seems some of us think they are complacent enough to not pay any respect to their elders and betters…"

Sherlock waved his hand in the air "Elders, maybe…but, I'm not sure about betters…"

"Shut up!" John hissed, kicking his friend under the table.

Mr Jeeve was growing angrier by the minute. How was it that this eleven-year old could publicly slander him? Although….It was his first day, so the lenient man inside him told himself to let the boy off. He dismissed the class brusquely, glowering at Sherlock as he left the lab.

John consulted his timetable "Apparently, we've got a break, then double Chemistry…"

Sherlock's eyes lit up "Break? That means tea!"

A couple of minutes later, they were sat down in the cafeteria, a scalding paper cup of tea in their hands. Sherlock drank deeply, passing a rich sigh of satisfaction as he swallowed. At that moment, a girl Sherlock remembered from the Physics lesson approached them.

"Hi! I'm Martina Summerby! I found that lesson fascinating, didn't you?" She was looking directly at Sherlock, her eyelashes fluttering incessantly.

"No…" Sherlock replied coldly. "Would you please go away…Your eyes do not need to be constantly cleansed, so I suggest you stop flickering your eyelashes, otherwise, they'll run out of moisture….Goodbye!"

Martina gave him an injured look, then flounced off, presumably to join her 'girlfriends'. Sherlock saw John looking at him in despair.

"That was a bit rude!"

"So?"

"So? Sherlock, you know she fancies you! You can't just insult any girl who comes within three feet of you…"

"Why not?"

John gave an exasperated sigh "It's common knowledge, Sherlock! God, I'd forgotten how clueless you always were about this sort of thing…"

"Sherlock ignored him "So…Why do you think they find me so desirable?"

John looked at him awkwardly for a moment. "Your hair…...Your eyes…..Your smile….and those damn cheekbones-" he broke off suddenly, realizing he had said far too much.

Sherlock looked indifferent to what he'd just heard, merely raising his eyebrows. John was still an outstanding crimson colour.

The bell gave a shrill, piercing tone, signalling for everyone to move to their next lessons. Sherlock swept from the cafeteria, followed by John and (to Sherlock's distaste) Martina Summerby and several assorted hangers-on.

"Don't they have lives?" Sherlock exclaimed incredulously, once they lost the girls down a narrow corridor. John gave an amused smile at this comment, and happily listened to Sherlock's voiced revulsion of the female sex, which continued until they were lined up outside the Chemistry lab.

"Hello, children!" A French-accented voice called over the persistent chatter. "I am Doctor Clemenceau…" he marched inside, as if leading an army battalion. The class looked wary for a few moments, and then followed him inside.

It was as if the room had been designed for the explicit purpose of Sherlock's experiments: Lethal liquids dripped into beakers from adjoining pipes, Bunsen burners lit the room with ghostly orange flames, and the room was lined with rack upon rack of test tubes. Sherlock's face broke into the widest grin John had ever seen.

"This is going to be fun."

"Okay, everyone! Now, have you heard of the periodic table of e-" he stopped, seeing Sherlock's hand waving in the air. "Yes, Mr Holmes…."

Sherlock took a deep breath " Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Flourine…"

Doctor Clemenceau didn't bother to stop the boy as he continued on a seemingly endless tirade.

Roughly a minute later, Sherlock finished with a resounding "Ununoctium!", prompting the class to erupt in a spontaneous applause. John gave him a friendly slap on the back.

"Okay…Now, we're going to have a practical session." Sherlock beamed again, hardly able to believe his luck. "I want you to divide into pairs. The person you're with now will be your lab partner for the entire year, so choose wisely…"

At once, there was a scraping of stools as everyone stood up. Sherlock was immediately surrounded by kids begging him to be lab partners. The boy elbowed the clamouring tweens aside, until he found John, took him by the wrist and dragged him over to a bench without a word. The rejected children all scowled in his direction.

"Now everyone has their partners, I'd like one of you to come up and collect a Bunsen Burner, test tubes, tongs, and samples of the various chemical compounds on the bench in front of me"

John watched as Sherlock went up towards the bench with utmost confidence, as if he'd been doing this his whole life (which, John reminded himself, he probably had). Several moments later, he reappeared at their bench, his arms laden with mysterious jars and bottles. He placed them all down on the counter, turned the gas tap on and waited.

"So…Which one shall we test first?" John asked

"Well…I have to admit, I am particularly partial to arsenic….You see, naturally occurring arsenic has a fascinating trigonal crystal structure and it can form a distorted octahedral complex…"

John let out a dull "Guh?" of confusion. In reply, Sherlock measured out some arsenic powder into a test tube and held it over the flame. Loud "ooooh"s of astonishment sounded from around the room, as the flame flickered bright blue.

"Hmmmm…" Sherlock wondered aloud. "I wonder what'd happen if…." He poured a couple of different powders into the test tube with the arsenic.

"Umm, Sherlock?" John tapped his friend on the shoulder.

"What?"

"The test tube…" John pointed a shaking finger at the tube, which had been set alight.

"It's fine, It's-"

BANG!

The test tube exploded, showering both boys with shards of glass.

"Well, that was interesting…." Sherlock remarked, picking glass out of his hair.

Luckily, none of the glass had actually got stuck in either boy's skin, so after a quick check over by Doctor Clemenceau, he pronounced them free to leave.

"Won't your mum be angry?" John asked as they headed towards the cafeteria for lunch.

"No, no. She'll be fine with it. It's Mycroft I'm worried about…"

"Mycroft? Why?"

"The fool's taken it upon himself to educate me in the behaviour of a respectable British citizen." Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Why is he so uptight about it?"

"Now he's studying politics at uni, he thinks he's already part of the government. "he gave a derisive laugh "And, MPs don't have any wayward brothers to sort out." He grinned at John, who chuckled obediently.

They had now entered the cafeteria, a seething mass of noise, which John doubted even Sherlock could make any sense of. On one table, a furious food fight was being conducted.

"Déjà vu" John muttered to Sherlock, as an apple flew through the air. Laughing, Sherlock caught it and tossed it in the exact same arc he had done so long ago.

Both boys grabbed a tray, and John saw Sherlock disappear through the crowd, his coattails flapping behind him. Sighing, John loaded his tray with food and peered over the hordes of kids. All of a sudden, John heard a baritone bellow of "ANDERSON!"

"Oh, God…" John heaved another sigh, and headed towards the source of the commotion. There was a small crowd of kids stood watching what could only have been described as a cage match. The barrel-chested form of Jack Anderson was cowering pathetically on the floor. Sherlock stood over him, pinning Anderson's left arm to the floor with his right foot. The witnessing children stared aghast at the enigmatic figure that had conquered the toughest kid in school.

"No! Stop! He's the bully! He's a FREAK!" Anderson pleaded with the crowd.

"Shut up!" Sherlock replied coldly, moving his foot to Anderson's exposed chest and stepping down hard. Anderson let out a strangled squeal.

"Stop, Sherlock! You're hurting him!" John burst through the crowd and grabbed his friend's forearm.

"Get off, John!"

"No, Sherlock!" John bellowed, dragging him away from Anderson, who had now stood up and was making offensive gestures at Sherlock and bellowing "Freak!" at the top of his lungs. Several kids took up his chant, and soon "Freak!" was echoing around the room. John felt a heavy blow to his right temple, sending him sprawling onto the canteen floor. Blearily, he turned to see Sherlock storming from the room.

Anderson let out a sardonic laugh, and grinned towards several of his newfound cronies.

"Did you see his face? That conceited, psychotic, abnormal little-"

SMACK!

Anderson swore violently as several of his teeth were knocked out.

"Are you bloody mental?" Anderson screamed at John-but the boy was no longer in front of him. He had charged out of the cafeteria and was presently charging down a deserted corridor, screaming his friend's name.

"SHERLOCK!" he hollered, sprinting out of a door, which led out into the grounds. Expansive tarmac paths spidered out in front of him, punctuated with clusters of red brick buildings. Somewhere far away, he heard the distant sound of music. John stood still for a moment, his entire consciousness focused on the elusive melody. Just then, a violent chord split the serene air, then, like a hound after blood, John tore down one of the routes, until he found himself in front of the music block. Cautiously pushing open the wooden doors, John stepped into the long narrow corridor. It was swelteringly hot, and, as he pushed open another door, he found his palms sticky with sweat. Another note sounded just as John closed the door. He pivoted round and dashed off in the other direction. Once he reached the end of the passageway, he shoved yet another door open. Sherlock silently acknowledged his friend's sudden appearance with a scowl, then resumed playing the violin he was balancing on his arm. John noted that the melody was very dark and aggressive, matching the stormy looks Sherlock kept throwing him. John didn't know how to express how he was feeling in words, so he settled for gently resting his hand on Sherlock's forearm. His friend stopped playing at once; stiffening as if he'd just had an electric shock. He looked up at John with moist grey eyes.

"John…."

"What? What's the matter?"

"Nothing…." Sherlock smiled. It was not a thing of mischief or mockery, but a smile of genuine tenderness. He had put the violin down on a table.

"Why did you fight Anderson earlier?"

"He called you a…a….."

"Go on, say it"

"He called you a nutter…"

"Is that all?" John barely suppressed a laugh. "I've been called much worse, Sherlock, honestly!"

"I know…" he smiled again. "But….I just couldn't bear hearing him talking about you like that…"

"You really care that much?" John raised his eyebrows.

"Yes…Yes I do…" he replied softly, reaching to stroke John's smooth cheek with his long fingers.

"Sherlock….Sherlock, what're you doing?"

"Shut up, John" his voice was a whisper. "I'm experimenting."

He leaned forward, moving his hands down, so that they gently caressed John's waist. John's nerves were sending tingling sensations throughout his body. He supressed a thrilled shiver as Sherlock pulled him close to his body, his lips travelling down, until they met John's own. They touched passionately, and John felt no objection to the soft, yet firm pressure on his own mouth. The two broke apart, looking at each other with intense adoration. Then, John's feelings of compassion for his friend overcame him, and, with a surge of adrenaline, he kissed Sherlock back.