January 6, 1989. As we step through the park, trying to avoid the piles of dirty snow, we see, a few metres away, a boy, small, curly haired, shivering on a solitary swing hung from an aspen. He is alone, and cold, and it is clear he wants very much not to be sniveling into his coat sleeve. However, judging by the red eyes, and the scrap of a child's blanket, long since forsaken, peeking out his collar, it also becomes clear that he has been at it for awhile.
No matter. Mistress wants him home, and what Mistress wants, Mistress gets. The child doesn't fight the hand placed on his shoulder, directing him back in the direction of the house, only wraps his arms around his torso, burrows into his coat. Perhaps he misses the other young master- not so young anymore, and off to university to better himself, the way a Holmes should.
This one is so easily hurt, emotions too raw to stand against the harsh words of his mother, the playground bullies. Already, he has come home damp after school, the product of tears and malicious snow baths, asking the staff what 'queer', 'retarded', 'freak' mean. The staff are not permitted to reply, and the dictionary doesn't sugarcoat the answers to his questions.
Coat and trousers stripped away, the child is sent upstairs, to his room- but instead of drawing a bath, he simply burrows into his bed, beneath several eiderdown duvets and a pile of pillows and stuffed creatures. Only then does he permit himself to say what his brother is not here to.
"Happy Birthday, Sherlock."
A/N: Title from "Swing, Swing" by All-American Rejects.
strikeI always feel super depressed and let down on my birthdays, so I wrote this./strike
/div