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Sherlock shuffled along the corridor, scuffing his heels as he ambled up the worn path, the horrible green-and-blue-flecked carpet slightly duller in a narrow strip where hundreds of dirty shoes had tread it down before him. He’d taken as long as he could in the toilet, the boys’ pass swinging from his wrist by a black ribbon, and he lifted his arm aloft, swirling it in tight circles so the small laminated card orbited to chop the air in front of him. With a sigh, he slipped his other hand into his pocket, slowing as much as he dared as he lifted his eyes to once again examine the corridor.
He hadn’t thought it could get much worse than last year, giant cartoon animals holding anatomically incorrect hearts as they beamed down at you from every imaginable surface, but, somehow, they had managed to sink even lower, as well as apparently discovering the merits of glitter, and now the walls and lockers were plastered with enormous cutouts of cupids and hearts, banners of sparkling letters proclaiming “Happy Valentine’s Day!” stretched across the wall every few meters, as if you might forget between the toilet and your locker.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, snatching the pass out of the air as he passed one of the younger years’ classrooms, quickening his steps past the window to look less idle if the teacher happened to be looking.
A shrill squeal pierced through the door, and he started, snapping his head to the sound in time to see a young girl with bright blond curls race past, a broad smile on her face as she turned over her shoulder to make sure the dark-haired boy on her heels didn’t get too far behind.
Sherlock glowered through the window, but there was no one there to pay any heed, so he simply huffed, shaking his head as he continued down the hall. He’d tried to get his mother to come pick him up early to save him from the mandatory torture that was class Valentine’s Day parties, but she hadn’t seemed to fully grasp the severity of the situation, and had only smiled at him, tapping him lightly on the head and assuring him he’d have fun once it started. When that was supposed to happen, he wasn’t sure, but the party had started nearly an hour ago, and he had yet to experience anything he’d even consider calling fun.
Personally, Sherlock didn’t see the point of it. It was a meaningless holiday, a pink and sparkly monstrosity of capitalism that required the purchase of sweets no one ever actually got around to eating, and, even at 7, he was already far too old for it. He didn’t like the horrible heart-shaped chocolates and chalky conversation hearts the teachers always passed around, nor the tedious process they were always put through of constructing their “Valentine Mailbox”, a piece of cardstock folded and stapled together before being decorated and taped to the front of their desk. There was never anything in his anyway, not apart from the baby-animals-themed valentine from the teacher with some horrible sentiment of “You’re purr-fect” or “Terrier-ific!”, and he always threw that away with his undecorated mailbox the second they were permitted to leave, getting out ahead of his classmates as they struggled with their bursting parcels.
But, alas, his personal happiness was not on his mother’s list of priorities for the day, so he was doomed to suffer through. And he certainly was suffering.
Pushing open the door, he winced as he was once again accosted with the high-pitched delight of his classmates, his supposed peers flitting this way and that across the room as they rushed to their friends, swapping cards and giggling with meaningful glances.
“Don’t you want to get a box?” his mother had asked him last week when they’d passed by the valentine display in Sainsbury’s. “You can give one out to everyone in your class. Might even make some new friends.”
“I don’t want friends,” Sherlock had replied, pulling at the cart to move her along, but his mother had held firm.
“You need friends, Sherlock,” she’d advised, bending down to smile softly at him. “Everyone does.”
“I have you,” he had countered, and his mother had startled a moment, blinking at him before a slight dewiness overtook her expression.
“Yes, you do,” she had said, resting a hand on his shoulder as she knelt in front of him, “but you need friends your own age.”
“I don’t like any of the other kids.”
“None of them?” his mother had pressed, and Sherlock had folded his arms, stubbornly shaking his head. She had simply sighed then, pushing the cart past the festive table and on toward the cereal, where she had let Sherlock pick out all his favorites, as if knowing without him saying that it wasn’t really his dislike that was preventing any friendships.
Sherlock shuffled along the exterior of the room, taking the long route to the teacher’s desk, where he hung the bathroom pass on the appropriate hook before turning away, trying to slip by unnoticed.
“Oh, Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson beckoned, and he winced, his face flattening to impassive as he looked to her.
Sherlock liked the teacher well enough, he supposed—much more than he had the previous one, at any rate—but she was always so chipper, a bright smile perpetually plastered across her face. Still, she didn’t nag him to “participate” like the previous teacher had—a young woman with brilliant blond hair and eyelashes that all clumped together—so he had yet to lodge a complaint. Not that the office staff ever took them seriously anyway.
“You should go check your mailbox,” she said, leaning down as she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “I’m pretty sure someone dropped a special surprise in there for you.” She winked at him, and then grinned, her eyes sparkling as they poked through her wispy fringe, but Sherlock only lifted a brow.
“Fantastic,” he tonelessly replied, and Mrs. Hudson tilted her head at him, a silent plea for humor. He sighed as loud as his small lungs could manage, and a corner of the woman’s rose-painted lips twitched as he turned away, weaving his way toward his desk in the back.
He had insisted upon the spot by the window, and, when he tilted his desk just right, he could see the flower beds in the school courtyard, watching the bees flit from blossom to blossom as Mrs. Hudson prattled on about spelling tests he had yet to study for or have any difficulty with. There had been talk of moving him up a year, conversations he had glued himself to the air vents to hear while his parents talked in his father’s study below his room, but, in the end, they had decided against it, not wanting to give Sherlock’s classmates yet another reason to see him as different. He was already quite young for this year as it was, most of the other children already 8, but Sherlock hardly thought that mattered; he was never going to fit in regardless.
As he drew up in front of his mailbox, he turned over his shoulder, fixing Mrs. Hudson with a pointed glare, but she only smiled at him, flicking her fingers in a small gesture of encouragement. With a roll of his eyes, he reached inside, mind spinning with puppy puns as his fingers brushed- What?
He frowned, stepping closer as he peered down into the narrow confines of the makeshift envelope.
Two? He had…two?
One was from Mrs. Hudson, of course—a small rectangle of shiny paper with the image of a white puppy holding a heart in its mouth, the words “Life would be ‘ruff’ without you” written in black script along the bottom—but the other…
The other was handmade, red construction paper cut out in the shape of a lopsided heart, and, on one side, his name stared up at him, written in thick black marker strokes.
Fingers trembling faintly, he turned it over, finding the opposite side to be much more elaborate.
Gold and silver glitter glue was everywhere, zigging and zagging in haphazard strokes around a smaller white heart pasted in the center, a short message written in pencil across the limited clean canvas, and Sherlock must have read it three times before he could believe it was really there at all.
I like your fast talking and shiny hair.
- John
Sherlock’s mouth moved soundlessly over the word, the boy’s name foreign on his tongue, though he knew exactly to whom it belonged.
John Watson was new that year, his mother moving into London after a divorce from John’s father, something Sherlock only knew via the air vent in the corridor over the sitting room where his mother gathered with some of the other parents on the music committee. He never faked an injury in PE, was always the first to put his hand up when they were working on science, and was the only student the class rabbit—a small brown spawn of Satan named Cinnamon—would allow to hold her, everyone else getting a truly vicious barrage of kicks to the abdomen for their trouble. His hair sparkled in the sun like straw spun to gold, his irises constantly shifting between glacier ice and just-broken dawn depending on how interesting you were being, and Sherlock had said no more than 20 words to him since the school year had started, most of them wispy and stuttering.
One of the boys in the year above him had tripped him during break near the beginning of the year, he and his friends drifting away in a chorus of laughter as Sherlock peeled himself up off the concrete, and then there was a pair of trainers in his vision—red with dirty white laces, the frayed tips splaying out sloppily against the cold grey stone.
“Are you okay?” John had asked, tilting his head with a frown as Sherlock looked up at him, and, though Sherlock would never say he skittered back, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“I- Fine,” he had muttered, clearing his throat as his voice threatened to creak. “I-I’m fine.” He’d stood up on his own, brushing the knees of his trousers before adjusting the hem of his green t-shirt, but John had only continued to frown, his eyes fixing on Sherlock’s elbow.
“You’re bleeding,” he’d said simply, gesturing to the limb, and Sherlock had twisted his arm in front of him, examining the wound.
It had only been a scrape, hardly something worth more than soap and warm water, and he’d opened his mouth to say as much when he’d noticed John rummaging around in the pocket of his jeans.
“Aha!” he’d proclaimed after a moment, lifting a narrow white strip in the air between them. “I knew I had one left!”
“Had what?” Sherlock had asked, John answering by demonstration as he peeled back the protective sleeve of the plaster, crumpling the white wrappings and shoving them back in his pocket.
Wordlessly, he beckoned with a crook of his fingers, looking between Sherlock’s face and his injured arm, and Sherlock tentatively followed the instruction, stretching his elbow out toward John’s waiting hand. John’s fingers brushed just below the injury, his hold more suggestion that restriction, but Sherlock couldn’t have moved regardless, his mind working furiously to remember the last time someone other than family had touched him without inflicting harm.
“You have to bend it,” John had advised, smiling gently up through his lashes. “Otherwise it’ll fall off.”
Sherlock had simply blinked at him a moment, and then complied, watching dumbly as John meticulously lined up the plaster, pressing it softly against his skin before sealing it with a firm sweep of his thumb.
“There,” he’d said, lifting his chin as he beamed, and Sherlock suddenly got very interested in his handiwork to avoid meeting his eyes.
“Why are there ‘S’s all over it?” he had asked, and John grinned.
“It’s the Superman symbol,” he’d attempted to explain, nodding down at the injury. “The only thing that can hurt him is kryptonite, so I figure his plasters have gotta be the best.” He smiled, bright and bold and genuine, and Sherlock’s tongue was paralyzed, unable to muster a response as John shuffled a step back. “Well, er, I’ll…see ya in class,” he’d muttered, and, though all Sherlock had managed was a nod, John’s answering smile was brilliant as he flicked a hand and darted off to join a group of other children at the swings.
That had been their only interaction beyond the obligatory polite smiles when you accidentally made eye contact, and Sherlock had more or less put it out of his mind, although there was probably some emphasis on the ‘less’. At least his throat didn’t close up every time he looked at the boy anymore, something that had had him going through three bottles of water a day in the first couple weeks. Still, he hadn’t thought it really meant anything, had made his peace with the fact that any kinship he felt with John Watson was purely in his head, a flight of fanciful self-delusion that had him hallucinating a potential friend. But now…
The hair on the back of his neck lifted with awareness, and he turned, catching all-too-familiar blue eyes fixed on him from across the room as his mouth went dry, fingers shaking in sudden embarrassment around the valentine still clutched in them.
For whatever reason, however, John also appeared embarrassed, blinking as Sherlock’s eyes met his, and his lips snapped shut, a festive hue darkening the apples of his cheeks. His eyes—sharp cerulean at the moment as the overhead lights caught on them—dropped down to the carpet a moment as he twisted his leg, grinding the toe of his trainer into the carpet before lifting his chin again, a tentative smile twitching at the corners of his lips.
Sherlock stared at him, half-convinced he was in a dream, but the thundering of his heart was real enough, and, very slowly, afraid any sudden movements might scare the moment away, he smiled faintly back.
John looked oddly startled a moment, expression stuttering, and then the most brilliant grin Sherlock had ever seen outside of staged reality television spread across his face, made all the brighter by the bright rose patches framing it at the corners. He then turned away, mouth moving as he responded to something the blond girl in front of him must have been saying, but Sherlock let his gaze linger a few extra seconds before moving back to the card in his hand.
Perhaps out of habit, perhaps on instinct, he glanced up at Mrs. Hudson out of the corner of his eye as he twisted to tuck his valentine back into the envelope, but, though he was certain she had been looking at him, she no longer was, her face dropped toward her lap as she dabbed a tissue beneath her lower lash line.
A swallow bobbed down her throat as she lifted her chin, clearing her throat before rising to her feet and searching out over the classroom. “Alright, everyone!” she called to order, and the din quickly faded. “Time to pack up! And don’t forget to take your envelopes, or I’ll eat all your sweets!” she teased, and there was a ripple of giggling around the room. “I have bags up here if any of you need them,” she added, waving a hand down at a large tote full of Tesco bags, and it was something like mayhem after that, everyone rushing and fumbling around one another as they gathered their things, eager to get home and dig into their haul.
Sherlock gingerly untapped his envelope from his desk, holding the paper evenly in front of him, careful not to bend it as he moved toward the door. He noticed John approach Mrs. Hudson’s desk, his own bulging envelope in hand as he requested a bag, and Sherlock was just cresting over the beginning of a downward spiral of panic when John glanced over his shoulder, eyes searching out his.
He smiled, just a quirk of the visible side of his mouth, and then lifted his hand in a stilted wave, his lips forming a silent “Bye” as his arm fell back to his side, fingers twisting at the side seam of his jeans.
Sherlock’s grip tightened on the envelope, his smile a little bolder this time as he nodded, echoing the soundless sentiment with his own lips before moving ahead through the door. All through packing up, his smile held, growing to something of a grin in spite of his best efforts to subdue it, because what did it matter how many other people gave John valentines? John liked his hair, had said goodbye to him, had given him a Superman plaster, and, though he still didn’t know what a kryptonite was, he knew no one else had gotten one.
Afraid to even put the envelope in his backpack lest a pencil somehow puncture his uneaten yogurt and smear strawberry banana all over John’s jagged handwriting, he clutched it in front of him, pressing it against his chest as he raced out the doors, grateful that the rain was at least holding off long enough for him to make it to where his mother’s car waited in the long line of parents.
“You’re in a hurry today,” she remarked as he tugged open the backdoor, front seat measurements apparently absolutes no matter how advanced you were intellectually. “Was the party that bad?”
“No,” Sherlock hastily replied, shaking his head as he buckled his seatbelt, and, when he looked back up, his mother had turned around, gaping at him from between the headrests.
“It- What?” she stammered, blinking perplexedly, and then her eyes caught on the white envelope now cradled in his lap. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing back at him, and he grinned, legs bouncing with excitement as he gently pulled the construction paper heart free.
“I got a valentine!” he exclaimed, stretching it out toward her, but quickly frowned, withdrawing it as she made to pinch the paper between her fingers. “Are your hands clean?” he asked, his mother’s mouth dropping open. “Because sometimes, when you put lotion on, you make everything slimy.”
His mother’s lips closed, a smile twitching at them as her eyes sparkled with restrained mirth. “My hands are clean,” she assured, lifting her palms up in demonstration, and Sherlock leaned forward, scrutinizing them with narrowed eyes a moment before cautiously handing over the card. She smiled at him as she took it, turning the heart over in her hands to read the message, and then stilled, expression stretching with growing wonderment as her eyes scanned over the words again and again.
Sherlock swallowed, hands twisting in his lap with growing unease, and he finally huffed out a breath, snapping his arm out toward her. “You’re gonna bend it,” he snipped, and his mother startled, blinking at him.
“What? Oh, right,” she murmured, rattling her head, a swallow bobbing down her throat as she handed Sherlock back his valentine. “It’s-It’s a very nice card,” she said, her tone strangely solemn as her smile turned dewy. “This John sounds very sweet.”
“I guess,” Sherlock muttered, shrugging as he slumped down into the seat, curling his knees up in front of him as a shield as he held the card aloft over his thighs, eyes following the curves of the letters again and again.
His mother chuckled, the blurry image of her head shaking where he could see it through his lashes, and then she turned back to the front, turning on the engine and checking behind her before pulling out into traffic.
When Sherlock got home, he showed everyone, ostensibly at his mother’s insistence, but he probably would’ve done so either way.
His father’s face had done something strange for a moment, an alarmed sort of curiosity passing across his features, but then his mother had cleared her throat, and he had quickly smiled, looking up at her with a small nod before handing Sherlock back the prized paper possession.
Mycroft had scoffed, muttering something about shiny hair under his breath until their mother had nudged him sharply in the side, at which point he had sighed and begrudgingly grated out that the glitter was a “delightfully quaint addition”.
Sherlock, for his part, didn’t care what any of them thought, and paced around his room for twenty minutes as he considered the best place to put it—somewhere to keep it safe, but not so safe it was forgotten. He settled on placing it in a box, an old shoebox he had been storing his yet-to-be-used petri dishes in, and putting it in a drawer of his desk, away from the cold of the window and the ravages of light.
Which is where John will find it after they graduate, unpacking the box labelled “bedroom” when they move into 221B Baker Street. He’ll insist it fell out when he was putting it up on a shelf in their closet, but Sherlock will know better, and stubbornly suggest he might need to move into the downstairs bedroom after all if his privacy is going to continue to be invaded.
John, of course, will only laugh, and, equally predictably, will get the valentine framed, placing it on the fireplace mantel with an adorable amount of pomp and circumstance Sherlock will never admit to considering as such.
He will then pretend to be embarrassed as John tells the story at the housewarming party, adamantly refusing to confirm he was blushing or that he asked Mary Morstan to switch with him that following Monday so he could have the desk next to Sherlock’s, staunchly maintaining that it was she who proposed the change in order to see the whiteboard more clearly.
For all her supposed vision impairments, however, Mary never did need glasses, but Sherlock won’t mention that, smiling softly as he leans against the doorframe of the kitchen and watches John’s lips move.
His hair will still glitter gold in the waning summer light, his eyes still dance like the frothy crests of waves, and, according to him, Sherlock will still talk too fast and have obnoxiously shiny hair, but some things will be different, and, when John’s eyes find his through the gathering of family and friends, a corner of his mouth lifting in that signature smirk, Sherlock will have no trouble grinning back.