Even Sociopaths Need Blankets

Prologue

When she was just 8 years old, Olivia Knight couldn't have known that she was hanging around with a soon-to-be sociopath and a borderline psychopath, and it figures that she wouldn't even know it when she met the very same men 20 years down the line. When she was first friends with the two of them, they were just nearly innocent little kids.

~21 Years Ago~

"But, Sherly! I thought you wanted to be a pirate!" A little girl threw her tiny arms into the air and brought them back down, crossing them as she threw a playfully sharp look towards the boy in front of her.

The boy looked up at her, his blue eyes flashing with curiosity as he shook his head. "Not anymore, Liv! I'm gonna be a detective!" He told her, looking back down at the toy car in his hands as he drove it along the ground in front of him, making soft sound effects in time with whatever he was imagining.

The girl, Liv, shook her head before sitting on her hands and knees in front of him. "Why'doo you want to be a de-tect-tive?" She pronounced the word slowly, trying to get it out correctly so that she wouldn't be scolded by him. Sherly had a tendency to correct her when she said something wrong.

"Because they solve crimes!" He cried, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. He glanced at her temporarily before going back to his car. "They get to see… Dead bodies and severed heads and stuff!" His voice rose an octave as he began to get excited. "Wouldn't it be fascinating?!" He turned to her now, waiting for an answer to his question.

She looked wary for a second before becoming confused. "Severed heads?" She frowned. "What's a severed head?" She cocked her own head to the side quite a bit as she tried to understand her strange friend.

Sherly just shook his head before getting up and almost skipping over to his bag by the shelves and taking a book from it, setting it in front of them as he began to flick through it, showing her pictures of cut up men and women and experiments and all kinds of gory images.

Liv didn't have much reaction except for surprise and slight awe. "What's that?!" She'd cry, quickly followed by a curt, "Oh," When Sherly explained what it was that they were looking at.

This pattern went on for quite some time before one of the teachers at the school came over to see what the two children were so enthralled by.

"What's got you two so riveted?" She asked, using that stupid voice that adults used to talk to children. Sherly scoffed in response. He was an 11 year old boy; he didn't need the baby voice anymore, and as far as he was concerned, neither did Liv.

Sherly didn't understand what was so wrong about being fascinated by crimes; murders and homicides... Truthfully, he still found nothing wrong with the idea to this day, but he was about to discover that it wasn't something he should necessarily be so open about.

It was less than an hour later when the appalled cry came from a women who rushed through the doors of the office and straight towards her son. "Sherlock Holmes!" At the woman's heels was Sherly's older brother, who Sherly scowled upon seeing. "What have you been showing the other students!?" She cried, taking the terrible book from her son's hands and flicking through it.

Olivia was left sitting in the office as her friend was dragged out, being scolded the whole way, yet a blank expression still sitting softly on his face as he glanced back at Liv and smiled slightly, an action returned by the girl who sat in wait for someone to pick her up.

It took quite some time before a woman finally came, muttering apologies to the principal of the school and assuring the man that Olivia would not be returning. It was soon after that they arrived at the bleak building that Olivia called home, filled with the identical rooms that were aligned almost like prison cells. It wasn't like the place was surrounded by wrought iron gates or anything, and the caretakers weren't even nasty, but the whole building just had that kind of feeling.

After being informed that a family was coming to see her, Olivia went to her room to pack her things, only to be interrupted during her stuffing clothes into a bag by her other friend, Jimmy. She wasn't surprised that he had turned up. Even though the boys and girls weren't supposed to go into each other's rooms, he had always liked to stir up trouble, and sat on her bed with a little grin.

"A family came for you, then?" He asked, already knowing the answer. The kids only ever packed up if a family had come to adopt them, so it wasn't that hard to figure out.

Olivia just nodded as she packed the last of her things away, including a small note from Sherly that he had given to her a few days back, passed to her quickly as they sat at their desks during school.

'There was a murder on the news, did you see it? – SH'

That was all the note said. At the time, the eight year old girl had merely frowned at her companion, not even knowing what a murder was at her young age. That was, of course, until Sherly had been so kind as to let her in on the morbid knowledge.

Jimmy hopped down from the bed and grinned at Olivia as she slung her bag over her shoulder as best she could. The bag was quite heavy. "I'll miss having you around." Jimmy told her. "You were the only one who let me sneak into the room without telling." He said, the grin becoming stronger. "See you 'round, Livvy."

With that, the two of them both left the room and went their separate ways, Olivia to meet her new family and Jimmy to his room, where Olivia suspected he no doubt made up ways to 'murder' people. She was enjoying using the new words Sherly had taught her, and took whatever chance she got. She did regret it when she got Jimmy into trouble as he was suspected of plotting to kill people, the suspicion starting when Olivia used the word 'murder' in the same sentence as Jimmy, but the 12 year old weaselled his way out of it as he did all punishments.

~Now~

Considering Olivia had never been very tightly knit with either of the children, just friends with them on separate terms, 21 years later having no memory of either of them was completely plausible. In fact, neither of the two boys remembered either, other things occupying their minds. They didn't need to concern themselves with childhood memories that were no use to them.

There was one person who remembered Liv and Sherly, though, and it wouldn't take long before those memories would surface for the man and he would find himself in a front row seat watching all that would play out when they saw each other again - and having his own small part to play.