"To thine own self be true." - Polonius, Hamlet.
"The conflict between the needs to belong to a group and the need to be seen as unique and individual is the dominant struggle of adolescence." - Jeanna, Elium.
This was a Creative Writing piece that I had to do for English on the subject of Belonging. We were told to pick two quotes and base our story on them. Of course, I saw the perfect opportunity to write Sherlock fic, even though it could also fit Spock. It's kind of funny... I'm not all that impressed with Sherlock in general recently, but it's all I can write fics about.
Anyway, this is basically a look back on Sherlock's time in highschool. It's relatively short and not all that in depth, because there are so many things that must have happened to our favourite little genius and i don't think that I'm the person to be writing about them.
Enjoy.
There was a group of eleven people, all laughing, all happy. Sherlock regarded them with disdain. 'What small thing is amusing their tiny minds,' he wondered. All of them were so stupid, so ignorant of the world around them, yet some part of him desperately wanted to stand among them, one of the group. He shook that (very small) part of himself and reminded himself of what he was to them.
Freak. Weird. Geek.
That's what he was to them, an aberration. He could feel himself getting angrier and worked to calm himself. They didn't deserve such a strong emotional response from him. They didn't deserve anything but unhappiness and discontent for the rest of their days.
He'd tried for years to gain the acceptance of his peers, even going so far as to dumb himself down, pretending he never knew the answers in class and acting as ig he couldn't tell everything about a person with a single glance. Though his classmates stopped bullying him, Sherlock found that it was almost physically painful to act that way. Being smart, being observant, it was who he was. Acting any other way is illogical... he looked on that part of his life with contempt.
So he'd gone back to the way he was, sometimes he told someone something about themselves that they didn't like and they'd beat him until he'd taken it back. Afterwards, he lay crumpled on the ground, unable to move, telling himself to be strong and not to cry. His father used to tell him that to be vulnerable was like dropping unarmed over the enemy line of a long forgotten war.
In fifth grade, Sherlock made a pact with himself. To never show weakness, to never cry. Well, today was his graduation day, the day he'd finally be free from the small minded idiocy of his fellow graduating class. Today he celebrated eight years without weakness. Eight years of being exactly who he was meant to be.
"Places everyone! The ceremony will be starting momentarily!"
"Oi, who took my cap? Sebastian, I swear to God if it was you again-"
"Is everyone still on for dinner later? I can take three in my car..."
"Dammit Kevin, get off my gown!"
It was chaos, teens in purple graduation gowns ran around frantically, doing last minute make-up checks and complaining that "purple so does not suit my skin tone, I'm olive for chrissake!". Everyone was also checking that their parents were indeed in their seats as they had promised.
At the edge of the chaos sat Sherlock, he pressed graduation gown sat across his shoulders smoothly. This was the beginning of the end, and it was an end that he greeted with figuratively open arms.
A life without insult, surrounded by people who understood. That was his dream of university, the dream that would begin as soon as this nightmare ended... A dream that was interrupted by a careless elbow to the side of his face.
He sighed, collected the tattered remains of his false dignity and found his place in the line, conscious of the undoubtedly large bruise beginning to form on his cheel.
Sherlock was jostled again as the graduates behind him refused to acknowledge that the space was already taken. With a steadying breath, he faced forward and began the slow procession to the rest of his life.
For anyone with question about the naitivity directed towards his idea of university, well, Sherlock is actually surprisingly naive. Even though he's this mega genius, he doesn't really understand human behaviour and the idea that people at university may actually act like the children he'd been surrounded by in high school, because university is this adult thing that he'd been waiting for his entire life.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little creative writing piece.