"Go away, don't talk to me." young Sherlock Holmes yelled in annoyance, a red bandana tied over his curly hair and an eyepatch over his right eye.
"How do you play pirate when you want us all to go away?" The kid who had 'disturbed' him asked.
"I play by myself." Sherlock deadpanned, "And Redbeard," he added then crouched down and ruffled the fur of his dog.
"Aye, I'm gonna make you walk the plank, Redbeard." He said then laughed.
"He's weird." The kid whispered to his friend, gesturing at Sherlock.
"Let's go." His friend pulled him away.
Sherlock pretended not to notice their leave until they were far enough and he produced a grin.
He looked over to the playground full of hyperactive kids, then back to the sandbox (or pirate ship as he had called) he had claimed his territory over.
"It's just you and me, Redbeard. Just the way I like it."
Sherlock was just drawing a flag in the sand with a stick when a shadow fell upon him.
He looked up in pure annoyance.
A boy with ash brown hair stared back at him, a friendly smile on his face. He looked to be about the same age or maybe a year younger than Sherlock, though he was evidently much shorter.
Sherlock hadn't seen him before, he must have just moved into town.
"What do you want?" He said, trying to sound hostile, but it didn't seem to affect the cheerful boy before him.
"Can I play in the sandbox too?" He asked politely.
"221 B is mine!"
"What?"
"This is my pirate ship! It's called 221B Baker Ship."
The boy tried to stifle a laugh.
"I have soldiers to be part of your crew." He held out his hands which were full of tiny green soldier figures.
"I don't need soldiers." Sherlock huffed just as Redbeard trotted forward to nuzzle against the boy's leg.
"Your dog likes me." The boy laughed.
"Redbeard! You have betrayed your captain!" Sherlock yelled dramatically, before subtly moving in and making space. If Redbeard liked him, maybe he wasn't so bad to play with.
The boy seemed to get the hint and moved to get into the sandbox. That was when Sherlock noticed he was walking with a small limp on his right leg. He took note of that for the moment.
"Hi, I'm John." The boy introduced happily. Sherlock just nodded.
"Aren't you gonna tell me your name?"
"Why would you want to know?" Sherlock replied.
"So that we can be friends." John answered innocently.
"You wanna be my friend?" Sherlock asked warily.
"Why not?"
"I'm...Sherlock." He was surprised John hadn't found him weird and unsociable like the other kids did, and even wanted to be his friend. John is different, Sherlock thought.
"Cool name!" John replied.
"You know how you can make your name cooler?"
"How?" John answered enthusiastically.
"Spell it as J-A-W-N." Sherlock said with a smirk.
John recited after him, seemingly considering.
"Yeah! I like it!"
They started playing, drawing pathways and sea routes in the sand. Sherlock had even begun to like the idea of having soldiers on his pirate quest.
But of course, Sherlock being Sherlock, he had to exhibit his skill in deduction at one point or another.
"So John, you have an older brother. He gave you these toy soldiers and helped you write your name on the bottom of each of them. Your father is fighting a war in Afghanistan and hasn't been back for 2 years and 4 months. Your last name is Watson."
John was stunned into silence.
"How do you know that?" He asked, mouth agape in astonishment.
"That's simple. The handwriting on your soldiers is messy so it is that of a boy and he must be older than you to be able to write. Also one of them has the name 'Harry' which confirms you indeed have a brother. You play with soldiers because you want to be like your father and just now you mentioned the word Kabul when we were playing, which is the capital of Afghanistan which I deduced you must have overheard from your father talking to your mother on the phone. The Afghan war started exactly 2 years and 4 months ago and your father must have been deployed since then. And last but not least, you haven't removed your name tag from school which states your name is John H. Watson."
The words flowed from Sherlock's mouth like an unending and fluent waterfall.
"You're amazing!"
"Thank you." Sherlock replied, satisfied that he had impressed his new friend.
"Except the part about a brother. I have a sister whose name is Harriet but we call her Harry." John corrected sheepishly.
"Argh, I knew there was something amiss."
"Either way, you're really cool and clever and-"
John was cut off by an older kid running up to them.
"Sherlock we need your help."
"Can't you see that John and I are in the middle of important business, Lestrade?" Sherlock scolded.
A brown-haired boy behind Lestrade rolled his eyes at that.
"What is it?" Sherlock snapped, seeing Lestrade and his friend wouldn't leave them alone.
"A girl has gone missing. All we found is a drawing." Lestrade explained, then fished out a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it for Sherlock and John to see.
The entire drawing was done in pink crayon, but they couldn't quite make out what exactly was drawn, just large splotches and curly lines. At the bottom of the page was a word: Rache.
"Maybe she was trying to say the word 'revenge', but in German, you know." Lestrade's friend suggested.
"Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole street. And stop trying to show off that you know German either." Sherlock replied, while still focused on studying the drawing. Anderson huffed and crossed his arms.
"I think she was trying to write the name 'Rachel' but didn't get to finish." Sherlock voiced his thoughts. "And since the whole drawing was done in pink, there must be a pink crayon somewhere." He added.
"We didn't find any crayon where we found this drawing." Lestrade said.
Silence ensued.
"Shut up." Sherlock suddenly told Lestrade.
"I didn't say anything." Lestrade countered.
"You were thinking. It's annoying."
Meanwhile, all John did was stand there quietly. His young mind didn't quite understand what exactly was happening.
"C'mon let's go look for that crayon." Sherlock ordered before running off with Lestrade and Anderson, leaving John behind. He didn't follow because his mother had told him not to wander too far away in the new neighbourhood.
As John stood there waiting for Sherlock to get back, a girl who looked very engrossed in a picture book approached him and told him to follow. John, out of curiosity, followed and he was led to a boy who looked to be quite a few years older than him, with a hand leaning on a black umbrella.
"Who are you?"
"I'm...you could say I am Sherlock's arch enemy." The boy replied a little sinisterly.
John gasped, he didn't think kids their age would actually have arch enemies.
"Here's the deal, you help me spy on Sherlock, and I'll buy you those Famous Amos cookies you've always wanted." John contemplated, he had always wanted those cookies whenever he walked past the shop and the aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafted by and made him drool. Mother always told him they were too expensive and hence he was denied the treat. Just thinking of those cookies made his mouth water but... John knew that betraying his friend was wrong.
"No, I won't do it." He said firmly.
The boy gave a sigh before walking away.
A while later, Sherlock returned just as John was getting extremely bored and starting to kick the sand out of the box.
"John, we found the crayon. Now let's head over there for some hotdogs at the snack cart." Sherlock said while holding out the pink crayon for John to see. John obediently followed after Sherlock to the snack cart by the road. Unbeknownst to him, Sherlock was actually on the look out for the kidnapper.
While enjoying their hotdogs, Sherlock suddenly shouted and pointed to a boy rollerblading by.
"That's him! He has a pink mark on his sleeve that must have come from the crayon!"
Sherlock immediately threw the hotdog onto the ground and gave chase.
He looked back once to see John still standing there.
"C'mon John!"
And that was when John started to run, limping along at first but then somewhere along the chase he was running fast as if his right leg wasn't injured at all.
They weaved through bushes and hedges in the park (Sherlock knew all the shortcuts and even predicted the boy's route) before Sherlock finally caught the boy by the arm.
The boy looked at them in shock and horror.
"It's not him!" Sherlock yelled in frustration and let go of the boy after finding out that the pink stain was caused by strawberry ice-cream, seeing the boy had pink stains at the corners of his mouth too.
Just then, John spotted a puppy wandering around the bottom of a nearby tree.
"Look Sherlock, there's a small puppy there." As if something clicked in his head, Sherlock held out a hand indicating silence.
"Rache...Rachel...RACHEL!!!" He shouted in the direction of the puppy. They observed its ears perking up before it ran towards them.
"Yes! You must be the missing girl's dog! Now lead us to her!" Sherlock bent down and allowed the puppy to sniff the crayon.
They were about to set off when they heard John's name being called from afar. It was his sister calling him to come home.
"You better be going." Sherlock said, a tinge of longing in his voice. He was just beginning to enjoy his new friend's company. John nodded sadly and ran back to the playground.
Rachel led Sherlock down the pathway and away from the park. They were approaching a lamp post when Sherlock noticed a boy standing next to it and looking in their direction.
He was wearing glasses and a checkered scally cap.
"Sherlock Holmes." The boy greeted.
Sherlock looked warily at him before the boy beckoned him to follow.
After a minute's walk, they arrived at an abandoned elementary school, where the boy showed Sherlock where the missing girl was held captive.
"Why do you do this?" Sherlock questioned.
"Oh you know, just for fun." The boy gave a nonchalant shrug.
Sherlock have him a glare before running inside and going to the girl's rescue.
"What's your name?"
"Jennifer Wilson."
Sherlock observed her briefly and noticed she was clad in entirely pink, from her blouse to her skirt to her sandals.
The kidnapper boy then emerged from the door and pointed to two inverted cups on the ground.
"I told her to guess which cup contained the cockroach, and if she guessed wrongly, she would have to eat it." He smiled evilly, "You are most welcome to take on the challenge too."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the boy.
"Who are you?"
"Jeff Hope. And by the way, a fan of yours contacted me and offered to sponsor each challenge I issue. I get lunch money and have fun watching you kids suffer too."
Sherlock looked very closely at the two cups, his eyes darting from one to another in absolute concentration.
Meanwhile, John was standing by the window on a stool sulking. And while he was thrilled to find that his leg had healed, he had wanted to follow Sherlock and help him rescue the girl, because that's what brave soldiers did.
He was just scanning the lawn before him lazily when he saw the puppy, Rachel, run up to the gate.
He glanced behind him and saw that his mother and sister were nowhere in sight. And so he quietly slipped out of the house.
"Can you bring me to Sherlock?" John asked Rachel. She yapped in response and started to run.
John was brought to an abandoned elementary school where he saw Sherlock, a boy and a girl through a broken window.
It looked as though the boy was threatening his friend, and who he assumed to be the missing girl. John was angry, he hated bullies.
And so he removed one shoe and aimed for the boy's head before hurling it as hard as he could right through the window at his target.
It hit the boy spot-on and he fell to the ground.
Sherlock immediately snapped his head towards the window but John managed to duck and hide in time.
After making sure Sherlock and the girl had safely escaped, he hobbled back home with only one shoe and wondered how he was going to explain to his mother about it.
The next day, John met Sherlock at the playground again. He was talking to Lestrade about how he had solved the case.
"So did you guess correctly which cup contained the cockroach?" Lestrade asked curiously.
"Nope. Just when I was about to, someone threw a shoe and hit Jeff Hope on the head. Jennifer and I escaped right after so I never did find out."
Lestrade nodded in consideration.
"Speaking of whom, I have been thinking about the person who threw the shoe, he must have been quite short, as I observed the angle of his trajectory and also he has small feet as deduced from his shoe size and..."
All the while John shifted uncomfortably on the spot, digging the tip of his (different pair of) shoes into the sand and wringing his fingers together.
Sherlock suddenly stopped in his deductions, his mouth slightly agape.
"Ignore everything I just said." He plainly stated and quickly changed the topic to something - a name, that Jeff Hope had mentioned.
"Moriarty." He said, leaving it open for interpretation.
The discussion was left at that and everyone went back to their respective play spots.
Sherlock and John were just drawing in the sand with sticks when a boy came up to them.
John gasped.
"That's the boy who told me to spy on you in exchange for cookies, Sherlock!" John pointed accusingly at him.
Sherlock sighed and gave the boy an accusatory glare.
"Mycroft."
"You know him?" John asked, surprised.
"He's my brother." Sherlock deadpanned.
"Yes, and the reason why I bribed you to spy on him is because I was concerned about the stupid things he would do." Mycroft said in his defense, then turned to the girl behind him, "Let's go, Anthea, and just cross our fingers that my baby brother won't do anything stupid."
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