"Hi! My name is John. What's yours?"

"Sherlock. What do you want?"

"To play. What do you want to do?"

"Nothing. Go away."

"Fine! I bet you're boring anyway!" And with that, John storms off. His shoes light up with every step. Sherlock thinks they're probably the coolest shoes ever.

John ends up playing with Mike and Andy. Sally joins them. They're waving sticks around they're talking about something, some movie. It is agreed that Mike is Harry, Sally is Hermione and Andy is Ron. John pouts when they say he can be Ginny. Mike offers to let him be Draco, but John doesn't want to be him, either, and the game continues. Soon John comes to sit next to Sherlock again.

"They're not done playing," Sherlock points out. It seems obvious to him, but lots of people don't understand things that seem obvious to him.

"Doesn't matter," John says as he draws a circle in the dirt with his stick. "I'm done playing with them." He adds two dots and a curved line to the circle. Now it's a sad face.

"Why?"

"Because they picked a stupid game. I don't want to be stupid Draco, Draco is mean." John adds frowning eyebrows to his sad face.

"So? Lots of people are mean."

"Not me. I don't want to be mean like Draco."

Sherlock isn't sure who Draco is exactly, but he doesn't believe John. Lots of people say they don't want to be mean, but then they are anyway. Sherlock knows that it's one of those things people just say even if it's not really true, like when someone asks you how you are and you're supposed to say 'good,' even if you feel sad or grumpy. That's dumb, Sherlock thinks. Someday, when he's big, he'll say exactly what he's thinking, and his mummy won't be there to tell him off for it, and everyone else will be so impressed by how smart he is that they won't care that he's not polite.

John adds some horns and a curly moustache to his frowny face. "Sherlock is a long name."

"Yes." Sherlock knows his name is long. He's not stupid.

"It's long to say. Do you have a nickname?"

"What's a nickname?" Contrary to popular opinion, Sherlock doesn't hate not knowing things. He hates not being able to know things, like when adults tell him that he'll understand when he's older instead of answering his questions.

John is still drawing in the dirt. He doesn't look up. "It's a name that people call you instead of your real name. In my old school there were three different Johns in my class – Hardy, Davis and Watson. So instead of John people called me Doc, because I want to be a doctor when I grow up."

"Did you like being called Doc?"

"Of course! It was fun!"

Sherlock thinks about this until John puts the stick down and looks up at him. "So? Do you have a nickname, or not?"

"I have lots," Sherlock says. He didn't know they were nicknames. Were they supposed to be fun? They didn't seem fun. Sherlock didn't like any of his nicknames.

"Like what?"

"Loser, freak, weirdo, psycho…" Sherlock trails off because John is staring at him now, with his eyes huge and wide and his mouth hanging open. Sherlock giggles. "Grand-mama would ask you if you're trying to catch flies."

John closes his mouth. Sherlock can hear his teeth snap together. "Sherlock, those aren't nicknames!"

"What? Why not?"

"Because nicknames are supposed to be nice! Those are all mean! What are some nice things people call you?"

"People don't call me nice things." Sherlock didn't understand why John was upset. He decided that John must not know how things worked here. "People don't play with me, either, or sit near me, or talk to me if they don't have to. They all play together and I have to be alone."

"Why?" John still looks very sad. Sherlock had hoped that explaining would make him feel better, but it wasn't working.

"Freak!" Andy yells as he runs up to Sherlock and kicks a cloud of dust and rocks into his face. Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut just in time. "Come play with us again John, you can be Ron now if you want. But you don't have to sit here with Sherlock."

Sherlock sits back against the wall. He'll miss John, he decides.

"I want to sit with Sherlock."

Sherlock actually jumps, and cracks his head against the wall. Andy looks as though a bomb had gone off. He wrinkles his nose as though John said something disgusting. "Why would you want to sit with him? You're fun."

"Sherlock's fun."

"No, he's not. He's crazy. He calls everyone else stupid even though he's not any smarter, he doesn't even know what Doctor Who is, probably."

Sherlock picks up John's stick and starts to draw his own frowny face. "It's a television show," he mutters. Andy grabs the stick out of his hands. It has a small branch sticking out that cuts his index finger.

"That's John's, freak! Come on, John."

"No."

John's response stops Andy cold. John stands up. "You're Draco, not me! I'm not going to be mean like you! Draco's stupid!"

Andy looks shocked for a second (and confused, but Sherlock knows that Andy always looks a bit confused), until John lifts up his foot and slams it down on top of Andy's trainer. The lights on John's shoe flash again. They keep flashing as Andy runs lopsidedly back to Mike and Sally. Sherlock decides that they're definitely the best shoes ever.

John sits down next to him again. He smiles. Sherlock only gives him an odd look before turning to wipe the blood running down his finger onto his pants. He thinks that he really should try to explain to John about what he's done; if he lumps himself in with Sherlock now the other kids will never want to play with him. But Sherlock kind of likes talking to someone who doesn't call him names, and John is fun. Even if he is a little bit weird.

"Sherlock! What happened to your finger?"

"Stick cut it."

"You should get a plaster. Do you know where the nurse's office is?"

"Of course I do." Sherlock stands up.

"Okay! You can show me where it is then, I don't know the way yet." John stands too.

Sherlock stops. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Then why are you coming?"

Now John gives an odd look to Sherlock. "Um, because we're friends?" He giggles a little. "You're weird. Let's go get a plaster from the nurse."

That's the first time anyone's ever called Sherlock weird and made it sound like a compliment.

Sherlock's parents are very important.

This doesn't matter, because they're also liars.

Mummy hugged him this morning (she smelled like tea and lavender shampoo and comfort); Papa promised that they would be there when Sherlock got back. He's not expecting either of them, and he's right. He can tell before he even gets in the house. Only Papa's car is gone, but there's a scuff on the driveway, long and thin and dark, with sharp edges on both sides, the kind only a thin heel can make. That means Mummy left with him, wearing high-heeled shoes. Dressed up, then, so gone for dinner. Sherlock brightens a bit at that. Gone for dinner means Mycroft will be home, so no horrible babysitter.

Mycroft is fifteen, a full eight years older, and he is also very important, but not in the same way their parents are, not in the sense that he has expensive clothing to wear and other important people, more important than Sherlock, to talk to. Mycroft is important because he's the one who knows, who actually listens to Sherlock talk, and who likes him. (His parents love him, of course, he knows that, but he's not convinced that they truly like him – they are always shooing him about, chasing him out of rooms as they step into them. They say it's because they have important things to talk about. Sherlock believes them, mostly.) It is therefore Mycroft who must be told the news, the very good, very exciting, completely amazing news.

Sherlock has a new friend.

Mycroft will be so surprised. The best kind of surprised. The kind of surprised that people are on Christmas or their birthday or when they win the lottery.

"Mycroft!" Sherlock shouts as he tears through the house. He's a little proud of how he can make his voice echo through the whole house, up the stairs and through the halls and into every room. He knows Mycroft heard him, but there's no answer.

He stops. Mycroft always wants to talk to him, that's why Mycroft is so important. He listens.

There! A thump as a door closes, a click as it latches, another click as it locks. Mycroft is in his bedroom. The only doors that have locks are Mycroft's and his parents' (the guest rooms were poorly planned, and Sherlock isn't even allowed a latch on his door ever since he hid a beehive under his bed), and his parents' bedroom has double doors. It doesn't make sense, though. If Mycroft were changing he would have just told that to Sherlock. Mycroft always talks to Sherlock.

Sherlock swallows, takes a shaky breath, walks to his room and unbends a wire hanger. He then tiptoes back to Mycroft's door, puts the end of the hanger into the small hole in the door handle, pushes and jiggles until he hears the lock pop open. He peeks through the door.

Mycroft is already walking towards the door. His face is pink, the whole face, his cheeks and chin and nose and forehead and ears. Even his eyelids are pink, when he blinks. There's another boy sitting on his bed, flipping through one of Mycroft's books.

"Sherlock! What do you want?"

Sherlock freezes. Mycroft's never snapped at him before. He stands up a little straighter. "To tell you about school. You'll never believe what happened, Croft–"

The boy sitting on the bed barks out a short laugh at the nickname. Mycroft goes even redder. He turns around.

"Sorry, Gregory, this is my brother Sherlock. Sherlock, go outside or something."

"I've already told you to call me Greg," says the boy. "And let the kid stay, its fine."

Sherlock is shocked. Mycroft doesn't shoo him like that, Mycroft is his brother, Mycroft always listens, always knows. He needs to know this. Sherlock tries again.

"No, Mycroft, listen, there was this boy at school–"

"Who was mean to you, or called you a name, or hit you, I know!" Mycroft almost shouts. "It can wait, Sherlock! Tell me after supper!" And he nicks Sherlock's coat hanger, slams the door, and locks it again.

Sherlock goes back to his room. He's not crying, he's not, it's just that his vision's all blurry and his eyes are too hot and something is getting the pillow all wet. He knows that one day Mycroft will apologize for this, and Sherlock decides that he will never, ever forgive him.

To be continued ^_^