Chapter Text
There he was again, the black-haired boy.
John had seen him around the school, but he didn't know much about him. He knew that they were both seven—he had his class across the hall from the strange boy, but he had never spoken a word.
He just sat alone on his swing during recess, swinging by himself while the other swings on the swing set remained empty. John had barely been able to find out the other boy's name from the other kids.
But one day, John's curiosity finally got the better of him. His best friend was out sick and his other friends were playing his least favourite game, so he decide to tell them he'd see them later.
He walked over the blacktop towards the lonely boy, and as he was noticed, he saw the black-haired boy stop swinging, dragging his feet on the ground until his swing didn't swing anymore. The boy looked at him, surprised, with big blue eyes.
"Hi," John said, sitting down on the empty swing next to the boy. "You're Sherlock Holmes, aren't you? I asked my friends and they asked their friends in Mrs. Willow's class and they said your name was Sherlock."
The boy blinked in surprise, as though he hadn't expected another kid to take enough interest in him to find out his name. He looked down at the wood chips. "And you're John Watson."
John laughed. "How did you know my name? I never see you talking to anyone."
Sherlock looked farther away until all John could see was the back of his curly-haired head. "I listen. One of the recess monitors was yelling at you for jumping off of the slide from up too high."
"Right! I remember that time—that was real fun!"
Finally, Sherlock turned back to face John. "You don't think it's weird?"
"What's weird?" John asked, blinking.
"That I knew your name from one random occurrence that happened across the playground."
John frowned. "But I knew your name from asking my friends and their friends."
"But that's different!" Finally, Sherlock showed some emotion in his words, blue eyes worried. "You have friends—I don't! I have my one seat in the lunch room that I always sit at and nobody else sits around me and I have my swing that I swing on alone and pretend I'm flying because everybody thinks that what I can do is weird and that I'm weird." Sherlock's hands, circled around the plastic coating of the swing chains, shook slightly.
"So you've never had a friend?" John was shocked. He had lots of friends and nobody had ever called him weird.
"I only have a brother. And he doesn't really count since he's always so aloof 'cause he's older." Sherlock sniffed, shaking his head and sending his curls bouncing.
John felt really bad for the dark-haired boy. He didn't seem weird, but here he was sitting alone on a swing. No, that wasn't right. John was sitting next to him. "I'll be your friend."
"Huh?" The other boy stared at him, pale eyes wide.
"I'll be your friend, Sherlock. Other people are silly if they don't want to play with you."
"Really?"
John nodded and a conspiratorial grin suddenly came onto his face. "Of course! And you know what would be cool?"
"What?" Sherlock was excited. He finally had someone to call a friend! And he didn't even think he was weird!
"Let's go jump off the slide—we can do it when the monitors aren't looking. I'll show you how!"
Sherlock paled. "Isn't that dangerous?"
"Come on, it'll be okay!"
And they went off towards the big red slide. John landed kind of badly and Sherlock landed on top of John but they had fun and that was all that mattered. And the monitors didn't even see, which was certainly a good thing. The last thing John needed was to get his new friend in trouble.