A/N: Couldn't wait any longer. Here's my newest story. I'm really excited about it, I worked really hard on it and have been writing/rewriting it for a long time. So I hope you all enjoy.

Warnings will be put up each chapter. It's starting as a T rating, but it will be raised. This chapter doesn't have any sort of warning for anything. This one's nice and simple.

Hope you enjoy. Please review!

September 1928

When James Watson told his son he'd need a tutor if he wanted to maintain his GPA for college, John silently prayed it'd be one of those girls his sister hangs around with. Fast girls with short skirts and red lipstick: John's kind of woman. Preferably, though, not one of those girls his sister hangs around with; he'd rather have one of the dolls who'd date the male rather than female Watson.

When James informed his son that his tutor would be that Holmes boy, John did not like that one bit. Sherlock Holmes has a reputation, and that reputation isn't that he is a kid who does cool things like takes out a lot of girls or is a star athlete; his reputation is that he has too much mouth and not enough thought to stop it from moving before he gets his head shoved in a toilet or his jacket gets dirtied with dumpster garbage.

Sherlock wears bow-ties under plain sweaters with clean pressed trousers. John can't be bothered to look for clean clothes if he's got his field chores before school and football practice after. John's lucky if he finds a shirt without a hole in the armpit.

Sherlock doesn't wear canvas high-tops like John, shoes that come in various colors like red or navy blue; Sherlock wears black leather Oxfords that are never dusty despite the dirt everywhere around town.

Sherlock's hair is always perfectly in place, whereas John's blond mop is disheveled without product. Sherlock's wavy black hair sticks to his forehead, and the boys at school tease him that he's got a bob like those city flappers. It doesn't make Sherlock want to cut it in any other style, though.

Above all of that, their personalities are very different.

Sherlock is always quick to answer, quick to show off what he knows, and quick to call whoever gets the answer wrong an idiot (no wonder he gets thrown in dumpsters). But John is as slow as the rest of the class, always taking his time to make sure he's right before he answers.

Sherlock Holmes isn't the kind of kid John hangs around with, and he certainly doesn't want that to change.

But John had no choice but to agree. Whatever Dad says, John does.

Dad says John needs a tutor? John lets it be Sherlock Holmes.

Dad says John needs a scholarship to play ball in college? John agrees that USC would be a fine school to fulfill his football career.

"You hear about Mama's Boys all the time," his sister Harry teases over and over. "You never hear about Daddy's Boy."

"Shut up," John grumbles, grabbing a dirty t-shirt from the laundry so he doesn't have to dirty a clean one to do his chores out in the field before dinner.

Harry pinches his arm. "Go water the plants, just like Daddy tells you to."

John shoves her away. "Don't you have a bottle of wine to slam before dinner?"

"I have to be on my best behavior," Harry says. "One of Dad's business partners is joining."

"Why does that matter to you?" John asks.

"That daddy's got a breezer and ain't too bad to look at either," Harry tells her little brother.

John rolls his eyes. He's familiar with his share of city lingo, that breezers are those neat-o cars without a top, but daddy coming out of his sister's mouth so suggestively sounds like a sin. "You're a gold diggin' deb, you know that?"

Harry shrugs. "I like my money more than I like…anyone."

"Anyone?" John asks, lifting an eyebrow. His sister's rare use of gender pronouns is getting to be too much not to ask about. Not that he judges. After spending last summer in the city with her…how can he?

"Anyone," she repeats with a sly grin. "Have fun in the field."

"Have fun staying sober for dinner," John says, then leaves the house before she can pinch him for the comment.

The next day, Sherlock glares out the window the entire way to the Watson house. He really doesn't want to do this, but his father made it very clear that the father of this kid is going to make them very rich, even more rich than they already are, and that Sherlock really has no choice. He tells Sherlock that they're doin' this as a favor to James, but James might throw him a few bucks here and there for his trouble.

"Isn't this kid some jock?" Sherlock argues. "Do you know what jocks do to guys like me?"

"They wouldn't keep doin' what they do if you'd just fight back, son!"

Sherlock frowns and stares out the window again.

He hates the jocks. They're not nice, they stink, they're stupid, and did he mention that they're not nice? They're so rude. They shove him into lockers, they punch his books out of his hands, and don't even get him started on his relationship with the dumpster.

They're not even attractive. It'd be different if the jocks' excuse to act the way they do is because they're pretty, like the mean cheerleaders, but the football players are even worse to look at than they are to talk to.

Except the quarterback. The quarterback…he's the handsome exception.

"Who am I tutoring again?" Sherlock asks before they arrive at their destination.

"That Watson boy. The quarterback."

Sherlock blushes and swallows hard.

Oh, crap.