A/N: I'm just breaking all my rules lately, aren't I? First an AU, second no!smut, now a school story? Well aren't we just expanding our horizons, aren't we? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, it starts at kindergarten and goes until graduation, possibly further. Enjoy.
In this story, Sherlock and John are the same age, there's no two year age gap. (Watson is two years older than Holmes in canon.)
Lovingly dedicated to my best friend of 14 years, James.
We met in kindergarten, loathed each other until we bonded over a substitute late in our Primary years.
Your family took me in when I had no where else to go, you don't comfort me when I'm sad but instead show me pictures of funny cats. We went to Europe together, we went house-hunting in London, we planned the layout for our castle, and even went pet shopping.
All there's left is prom; our final adventure. In less then a month we'll be separated further than we've ever been before, and buddy, I'm going to miss you.
Keep the castle warm for me, and I'll buy sweaters for the anteaters. xx

Inseparable

"Hello boys and girls, welcome to school! We're going to have lots of fun together, aren't we?"
The teacher was answered with a chorus of silence from the twenty five year old kids, all sitting cross-legged in a semi circle around the small plastic blue chair the teacher was eagerly perched on. Most of the children were too busy picking fluff from the carpet, or crossing the straps of their Velcro shoes, and some were even stretched right out on the navy blue carpet, bellies exposed and limbs sprawled out.

"I have to pee." Came the small voice from the left side of the room. It came from a boy with unruly black curls and a face that looked malnourished. He didn't wear velcro, but instead lace-ups with thin elastic laces for easy tying. Regardless, the fact that he had laces in his shoes made him far more revered than any of the other children, decked out in their Sunday best for the first day of school. Despite all that, he was sitting alone, sure they were in a semi-circle, but there was a noticeable gap between him and the children on either side of him.

"Can you wait until recess?" The teacher, , said, she was middle aged, her hair peppered with white streaks which confirmed her general age area.
"Well I could, but by that time, I'd pee on the floor." He said, not in a sarcastic tone, but in a matter-of-fact statement. His voice wasn't whiny and higher pitched like most of the other kids that age, but instead sounded like a child who had been through the whole rigmarole of Primary school before.

John Watson, age five, was sitting at the end of the semi-circle, he had been zoned out pretty much all day, thinking about his kitten at home, his Mum, and his sister Harriet, who was somewhere else in the school. He thought the curly haired kid was a snob, pretending to be smart to be the teacher's favourite. It irritated him until he got distracted by his Velcro shoes again.

John Watson had been in Kindergarten for less than a month, and he sat alone at the round blue tables set up in the classroom. He played with the blocks by himself, and at recess, he sat on the top of the monkey bars overlooking the rest of the playground; alone.
He didn't make friends too easily, since his mother was very over protective about having other children over at the house or allowing John to be at other people's house where she couldn't watch over him.
Pulling his knee's to his chest, he felt miserable. None of the other children wanted to play with him, or do crafts with him, and he figured he was far too shy for his own good. Well that was all going to change, he was going to force someone to be his friend if it hurt him.

At the other end of the playground, sitting on a teeter totter without a partner; Sherlock Holmes pondered why no one wanted to play with him.
He wasn't consciously aware of it, but he found every excuse to question the meaning behind the songs the teacher sang, and criticise the spelling and grammar of all the other children. The other kids didn't find it helpful; they found it annoying, but Sherlock didn't know.
Standing up from the teeter totter, he vowed to find one kid that would be his friend.

"Can anyone tell me what day of the week it is? En Français!" clapped her hands, as the students sat in their semi circle on the carpet, either not paying attention, or trying to figure out what day of the week it was in English. As per usual, Sherlock was the first one to raise his hand. The teacher had grown to love the eager boy; being the first one she called on, she encouraged his enthusiasm. It only sparked the nickname 'Teacher's Pet' behind his back.

"Yes Sherlock?" She asked, thankful she didn't have to stand there awkwardly in front of the silence of children.
"Lundi!" He shouted, a smile plastering itself onto his narrow face. John, who was sitting beside him, had grown tired of him being such a show off, so he whispered callously into his palm.
"Teacher's pet."
Without missing a beat, Sherlock raised his hand high in the air, swinging it slightly to attract the teacher's attention even more.

"Yes, Sherlock?" looked his way again, hoping he didn't just have to pee or go get something from his backpack.
"John hit me." He said, rubbing his shoulder, twisting his face in false pain and whining even louder than before.
"WHAT? No I didn't!" John shrieked defensively, putting his hands in the air in surrender. Sherlock chose that moment to start the crocodile tears.

"He did! When you turned around, he punched me in the arm and it hurts!" That got the attention of everyone in the room; and the attention turned to John. Whispers and glares struck hard, leaving the blonde confused and in complete shock. He didn't know what to say, but he was innocent!
"I didn't! I really didn't touch him!" John panicked, he was looking at everyone, his face going a dark red from embarrassment and anger. Sherlock only whined louder.

"John, I don't know what to say. Go to the office until I come get you at the end of the day. We're going to have a nice little chat. Sherlock, you go too, get an icepack if you need one and come straight back." shook her head, shooing the boys out of the room.
"And John, I'm very disappointed in you." Was all she said, making John feel even worse, since he knew he didn't do anything. If she even suspected he was innocent; he couldn't tell, all he heard was shame and the backstabbing pain of pseudo betrayal.

"I didn't hit you, Sherlock, and you know it. You lied to the teacher." John huffed, walking down the small corridor beside the trouble maker. Sherlock shrugged, instantly ceasing his false pain and grinning like a mad man, his shoulders softly vibrating from the stifled giggles that threatened to escape his mouth.
"You called me names and gave me a reason to be sent out." Sherlock raised his hand to his forehead, sweeping away his black curly bangs that through his mock tantrum had decided to stick to his cheeks. John felt angry with him, he wanted to punch him for real now. For some reason, he didn't. Whether it was the moral conflict, or that he knew he'd get in even more trouble, John kept his hands to himself.

"What can I do you kids for?" The secretary was a very friendly woman who treated the kids nicely without treating them like the children they really were. Her motto had always been to treat kids like adults and they would ACT older. To some extent it worked, but even if ONE kid acted older due to being treated better; it was worth it.

"I'm here to get an ice pack, HE'S here because he's in trouble." Sherlock wandered up to the front desk, he couldn't even see over it; it was so big. Throwing his hands up onto the counter, he lifted himself up so he could peer over the desktop at the woman.
"Can I get an ice pack?" He asked, a little firmer this time. John rolled his eyes and sat in the chair, sticking his tongue out in a juvenile manner behind Sherlock's back.
"I'm going to tell the teacher you did that, John." Sherlock smiled before leaving the office, leaving John sitting in the chair by himself to wait what seemed like eternity for the teacher to come in to chastise him.

This little dance of theirs went on for months, Sherlock would smack John in the shoulder and start crying so Mrs. Krause would get the blonde boy sent to the office to wait. His parents had been called many times to have discussions with the teacher, but nothing seemed to work. John kept claiming to be innocent, and his parents, knowing how he acted at home and having dealt with similar things between him and Harriet; knew at least part of what he was saying was true.

The teacher, however, wasn't quite as certain as they were. To her, Sherlock was a model student. Intellectually ahead of all the other kids, he was a smart, brilliant boy. The only thing holding him back was his lack of social progress between him and his classmates. For a group of five year old kids, they were very cliquish and exclusive. They rarely ever included the brilliant young kid in group projects or even in partnerships. To her, John just went further in his ostracising of Sherlock by actually being a bully, which was frowned upon and on more than one occasion had earned him severe discipline by the Principal himself.

One day near the end of the school year, John found himself sitting in what was dubbed 'his corner' playing with the wooden blocks all by himself. Sherlock was observing him from above the pages of a large book which he was pretending to read on the floor a few metres away from John, watching contently until a much larger kid, probably of North American Aboriginal decent; shoved John forward into the tower he was constructing, making some of the blocks drive painfully into his shoulder.

"Move!" The other kid, whom Sherlock vaguely remembered him being called 'Niko' at some point; hadn't even waited for John to regain his composure after the initial shove, kicking some of the blocks away, others towards him. The sudden violence stunned Sherlock, what was even more appalling was that the teacher seemed absent in the classroom, not able to see what was going on.

Sherlock decided at that time to take initiative. John started to cry, after being kicked with the solid wood blocks several times, he scrunched up into a ball defensively; like a hedgehog protects itself from a predator. Muffled sobs of 'stop' being drowned out by the other kid's snorts of sadistic laughter.
"He said STOP!" Sherlock projected himself from the chair as he practically flew towards the child, pinning him to the floor, landing true punches to his arms and upper body, avoiding the head where the bruises would have been more visible to the public. After hearing the frightened cries of all the other children, Sherlock stopped. Everyone else had congregated over to the other side of the classroom, shrieking at the tops of their lungs.

The strangled cries of the boy pinned beneath him sinking into Sherlock's head, as he got up, dusting off the knee's of his jeans, turning around to extend a hand to John.
"Are you okay?" He asked with far more maturity than a child his age. John moved his fingers away from his eyes, looking up at the person who had bullied him for the past eight and a half months. He didn't take Sherlock's hand, but he got up, brushing himself off and beginning to pick up the blocks himself to put them away. He whispered a small 'thank you' to Sherlock, who stood there looking at the quivering child laying on the floor.

"Don't touch him again, got that?" Sherlock hissed, dropping to help John with the blocks.

"Sherlock, what do you have to say to Niko?" The Principal asked. The small office was crowded with , Sherlock, John, their parents, Niko and his parents. John and Sherlock being the centre of attention. They had already affirmed by other student witnesses that John was the one who was owed an apology, although Niko refused to give one until his was received.
"I'm not sorry. He kicked John without reason. I was standing up to a bully." Sherlock shrugged. His parents didn't know whether to beam or publicly chastise their son. They chose the former, since that was one of the key rules to life in their opinion. Stand up for what you believe in. Although punching the daylights out of a child wasn't the ethical way, it was certainly a valid reason. Unfortunately, the teachers nor Niko's parents did not condone that way of thinking.

"What do you propose we do about that? You know that that's not a good way to behave, right?" The Principal saw the glares from Sherlock's parents, they kept their mouth's shut, but they certainly weren't going to let Sherlock apologise for not causing any permanent damage.
"I know not to hit people for no reason, but I had a reason, a GOOD reason, and I wasn't going to be a witness since John was getting hurt." Sherlock stayed calm, sitting beside John in the overly large chair. John had a couple of small bruises on his shins and a nick on his hand, but overall he came away unscathed. Niko, however, had several large black and blue marks on his arms and a small scrap on his collarbone when Sherlock's fist managed to miss.

"It still didn't warrant physical violence, Sherlock. Is there any way that you could have used your words? How do we prevent this from happening again?" The teacher interjected, not wanting to be here any longer, they had all been standing here for the better have of an hour, not gaining any progress with the stubborn kids.
"I yelled at him to stop, so did John. He didn't listen. If he wasn't a bully, I wouldn't have hit him. It won't happen again if people don't hurt John for no reason ever again. They stop being mean to him, and I won't defend him." Sherlock sat up straighter, his mother reaching over to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, beaming proudly.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Principal shook his head, looking at Niko sternly.
"Please apologise to John for being rude. After that, we can all go home."
With that, Sherlock turned to John, grinning like a madman. John smiled back. After being treated horribly by Sherlock all year, the tables had suddenly turned upon themselves in some sort of new revelation.

"Sorry John." Niko muttered, and all the parents let out a sigh of relief, itching to go home.
"Thank you." John whispered to Sherlock, before jumping off the chair to leave. He had mixed feelings for the boy, were they still enemies, or had he finally found a friend?

After the weekend, John and Sherlock were sitting on the carpet together in their small classroom, talking about the pets they had, and other mundane things. All the while, John kept thinking about how he had finally found the friend he waiting for on top of the monkey bars for all these months. He was going to ask Sherlock to birthday parties, sleep overs, and he thought about all the cool things he was going to show Sherlock if he was allowed over. Sherlock had been telling John about a dead mouse he found in his backyard, and if John could come over one day, he's show it to him.
John beamed with joy at his new friend, and Sherlock smiled right back.

By the end of the day, John was sitting in that all too familiar chair in the office, and Sherlock was getting another addition to his ice pack collection.

A/N: Sorry for the long introduction, I'm really passionate about the inspiration for this story. It won't happen again. EVERYTHING in this story is based on 100% true things that happened to my friend James and I in school. We met this exact same way, and all the stories are things that have happened to us. Some slightly exaggerated to sound a bit more dramatic, but the basic story is the same. The roles sometimes switch to fit the character better, but in this one, John is taking the role of myself and Sherlock is based on James.
Hope this is enjoyable.
Rating WILL increase in later chapters.