A/N: A series of drabbles, chess AU. They will probably be related and vaguely chronological. Feedback is appreciated!
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1. e4 e5
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Sherlock is seven when he learns to play chess.
He is following a particularly distinctive set of boot prints (all the way from Dorset Street; the thief is tall, smokes and limps) when he finds himself in a park with the knowledge that the trail has gone muddied and cold. In a fit of pique, he decides not to walk home.
He takes in his surroundings with an irritated glance - too many people, too many dogs and too few criminals. It'll be a few hours at least until Mycroft arrives to take him home, and after a quick glance at the security cameras, he settles himself down in the most concentrated visual field. This places him on a cool stone seat, directly next to a matching table occupied by two men. One of them glances up, offers a brief smile, and returns his gaze to a chessboard.
Late-twenties, Sherlock thinks automatically. Married, wants children but has none.
The other is almost six feet tall and roughly the same age, but - Sherlock glances under table - no unusual footwear on either of them. A pity. If he was going to spend the next three hours loitering in the presence of two old men, he'd rather one of them be his criminal. He contemplates heading off into the fray of individuals and dogs for all of twenty seconds, but decides a petty thief is not worth his discomfort.
He watches the game, instead.
He spends fourteen minutes forming hypotheses on how the pieces move, but only because his source of data is slow in coming. It takes another nine minutes to satisfy his need for verification, then another five to adapt when the man makes two moves at once (impossible, of course, so obviously this special occurrence is not two moves but one played in special circumstance; it is likely that my knowledge of other such special moves is incomplete; furthermore it is not even certain that this is not a variant of chess whereby other rules are followed, and this lack of data is utterly appalling).
He has never cared for chess until now. It is more fascinating and more frustrating than he expected, and this surprises him.
He observes for three more games and fifty-two minutes. Already, there is a pattern building up in his head, made up of black and white wood pieces whose names he doesn't even know, but whose potential he understands. He also knows that despite having played for years, these men with their calloused hands have glimpsed less of the pattern than he has.
It makes him feel wonderful, until black pushes a one-of-eight piece up, and for an incomprehensible reason white captures it on the square behind. He is angry, then, because he can't get the pattern right if he doesn't know all the rules.
"Shouldn't that be illegal?" he asks, trying to sound inquisitive, but it comes out more like a challenge.
The men start at the sound. They glance at each other, and the friendly one explains, "It's called an en passant. It only works immediately after moving a pawn two squares forward. Then the opponent can capture that pawn with his own pawn, as if it had moved only one square forward."
What a ridiculous rule, Sherlock thinks, but there is a pattern of thought in his head glowing with his new-found knowledge. A pawn.
"Only pawns?"
"Yeah."
"What's this called, then?" he says, carelessly plucking the pieces off the board and clearing a space to demonstrate the move that he saw an hour ago, when the first impossible move was made.
The move, as it turns out, is castling, and in a similar manner he learns the names of the pieces - kingqueenrookbishopknightpawn, each name with its place in the pattern. He learns of promotion and of check and mate. He learns the man's name, Lestrade, and somehow this fits the pattern as well.
"Would you like to play?" Lestrade says kindly.
Sherlock's fingers curl around his pieces.
When Mycroft comes to take him home, Sherlock's thoughts are a glorious hum of victory; a triumph told in algebraic notation, black and white.