Of all the things Sherlock wished to grow up as, he had never considered this to be his future. He’d always wished to be a pirate, something Mycroft would never let him live down. The lifestyle fascinated him; steering a huge ship, responsible for so many lives, armed with the ability to take so many lives away, stealing from others, rocking back and forth in a wooden structure with so many variables, all too easily able to crash and burn, or collapse and drown. There would always be adventure. Nothing was ever the same from one day to another with the flux of the sea surrounding him from all sides.
This was an irrational dream, of course. His parents had sent him to a physiatrist when he turned eight and was still serious about his career choice. This, of course, did nothing but scar him and make him shy away from sharing anything, knowing there was no pleasing his family. He had notebook upon notebook of stories and drawings, ideas and fantasies that he had. He doodled inside them in the middle of class; the blank white sheets of paper were his wide open seas, and his pens were his shipmates. He was the captain, and with a flick of his wrist, anything he said would be true.
Closing himself from the outside world was nothing short of tedious. Parents, peers, teachers, and therapists all tried to push themselves into the world he’d created for himself in an attempt to get a glance at the mind of the young genius he was known to be. Sometimes, he did show them his world. He had all the maps of his world laid out in his mind, and everything fit into place just perfectly for him. When he explained everything in vivid detail to those who gained his trust, though, all he received in return were confused gazes and awkward glances.
His third grade teacher Ms. Kelly had possibly the most diligent of all attempts to figure him out. She was patient, in her mid-forties, with twenty-year-old daughter who had moved to Wales and cut off all communication with her, one ex-husband and one late husband, and three cats. She listened to Sherlock’s words when he spoke, and at one point he stayed inside the classroom every day when all the other children were swinging on the playground or eating lunch. She found his stories thrilling, and she frowned, smiled, and gasped at all the right times. After one story, where Sherlock heroically defeats the sea monster threatening the prince that had been lost at sea, she giggled. He furrowed his eyebrows at this. That story had been very personal to him, because he had admitted to having a crush on another boy in his class, when he knew that most boys his age were beginning to have crushes on girls.
She quickly apologized, and said she hadn’t meant it in a mean way. She was just thinking that his mind was a sort of palace. He was the leader, and he knew all the right steps to the palace. It was his choice whether or not he told others how to get into the palace (she added that she was honored that he had showed her the way) and he controlled everything that happened inside the palace. He told her that he preferred his mind to be a pirate ship that only he knew how to sail. He could make anyone, at any time, walk the plank. She looked at him with a concerned expression, one that nearly broke his heart, because every single adult gave him that look when he let them see too much.
From then on, he played outside on the playground and said nothing more about his fantasy land. He played by himself because no one would speak to him. He was constantly teased by a boy a few years above him named Jim. He didn’t care that he was teased and laughed at, he only cared when he was hurt, and he was often hurt by his peers. His teacher was always concerned when she saw a new bump or bruise on him. She called his parents in once, and they all had what Mummy called a ‘serious talk’ after school. Sherlock was sent out of the room, told to play on the playground with Mycroft, who had tagged along for no reason Sherlock could figure out other than to pester him. Mycroft didn’t say much, though, and they did not play on the playground. They both listened closely with their ears pressed against the door. They didn’t hear much, only Daddy yelling over and over “we do not hurt our sons!” like some angry chant, the more he said it the more likely she was to believe it. After Daddy had settled down, his teacher and Mummy did the rest of the talking. Their voices were hushed as they were, and through the door, the boys had no chance of hearing them, but he could only guess that his teacher had told them everything by the increase in his therapy sessions and the intensity of the pity in which he was gazed down on.
