Notes: Thanks to Writing Keeper for the beta, and to J. Puddles for the Brit-pick. This story contains inappropriate teacher/student relationships, infidelity, and lots of smut. Sherlock is 16 years old in this story, which may not be legal in some countries. The rating of this story will slowly go up to M. This story also deals with implied child abuse/neglect, but none of it happens on scene. I will try to add tags to the beginning of each chapter as I post.
I was all smiles when I signed on that dotted line.
After these thousands of miles, I don't know what in life is mine and what's taken from me.
There's so much I could say, but I don't know where to start…
I took the bullet and I never thought twice…
There's nowhere left to go when it's over,
I took the bullet, I took the heat, I took the fall.
I guess I was foolish to believe after all.
The Burn – Framing Hanley
John Watson never thought he would end up hating his life at 35.
He never thought that he would end up discharged from the Army with a bullet wound in his shoulder and nerve damage in his arm that has effectively ended his career as a surgeon. He never thought he would have a psychosomatic limp in his leg that forces him to walk with a cane, night terrors that effectively make him look a decade older than he really is, and a most inconvenient case of PTSD. He never thought he would be married to a woman who can't even look him in the eye anymore, after only ten years of marriage.
He never thought that he would end up a disabled war veteran with a medical degree, teaching advanced biology at a fucking secondary school.
To be fair, though, he never thought he would have to leave his life in London behind because his wife is a serial adulterer, either.
That is why he is here in this mediocre town, after all; where he is too far away from London for the steady, fast-pace lifestyle he is used to but close enough for weekend visits. A fresh start—that is what he had asked Mary for. A new life for them. If they moved away from her job, her so-called "friends", and all of the men she slept with on a regular basis, John had promised her that their lives would be better. He would be better.
He had promised her.
And, by some miracle, she had agreed. He constantly wonders what eventually made her change her mind. She might have finally messed around with the wrong man and had an angry wife chasing after her; she might have given a man the wrong impression and he had expected her to leave her husband and start a serious relationship with him. John doesn't know, and, frankly, he doesn't care. All he knows is that now he's stuck in this God-forsaken town with a woman who can barely stand to be around him.
He sighs as he turns off his car and opens the door, stepping out into the dreary morning. The gravel of the car park is wet and slick from the early morning rain; his cane hits the ground first to make sure it is solidly in place before he leans his weight on it and begins walking. Somewhere behind him, he hears a shout and turns to find Mike Stamford coming towards him, waving a hand eagerly and smiling too widely for such an ungodly hour on a Monday morning.
Mike is just about the only good thing in this situation. He and John have been friends since they were at university and have kept in touch over the years. When he told Mike about the situation with Mary and how he thought a move might fix things, Mike had been quick to offer up information about an available position at the school that he currently worked at. With John's medical degree and credentials he already had his foot in the door, though he did have to side-step some potentially awkward questions about why he would take a job in such a different field from what his degree was in. He didn't think that telling the head teacher of the secondary school that his marriage was falling apart during his job interview was proper job-related conversation, or that he thinks a new town where she doesn't know anybody will prevent it from crumbling completely.
It isn't really any of their business, anyway.
"Excited about your first day?" Mike asks when he catches up with John, throwing an arm around the blond man and making John wobble as he tries not to put too much weight on his right leg.
John just smiles at him politely and makes a vague sound in the back of his throat. He doesn't really know how to answer Mike's question, so he doesn't say anything. Is he supposed to be excited to be here, at the bottom of what has essentially become the rubbish pile of his life? He keeps quiet, though, because he is grateful to Mike for helping him out. If Mike hadn't made the offer, John would probably still be stuck in London, getting cheated on by his wife and keeping a small number of odd hours of work because all of the clinics around him were completely staffed and not looking to hire anyone full-time. A hospital wouldn't touch him once they had one look at his history and medical discharge from the Army; cases of long-term PTSD aren't exactly what they want in a doctor who is supposed to be keen enough to make life and death decisions in an instant.
"I know it's nothing like you're used to," Mike tells him, clamping his hand down around John's shoulder in a reassuring manner before letting the smaller man go, "but this is a nice, quiet town and I think you'll actually enjoy working with the kids."
"Yeah," John agrees half-heartedly. "You're probably right."
They walk across the car park in silence for a little while, and the only sound between them is the steady thumping of John's cane against the wet ground before Mike clears his throat suddenly.
"There is something that you should know about your schedule, though," he says to John, looking away from his friend sheepishly.
John frowns in confusion, thinking about the time blocks and years he has. They gave him everything from year tens all the way up to sixth formers, and each class's lesson plan was made accordingly. It had been trying for someone with no prior teaching experience, but he had enjoyed the challenge, happy to finally have something to occupy his mind since being discharged. "Am I going to have to rework my lesson plans?" he asks, somewhat apprehensively. It had taken him a while to finally get down all of the material he wanted to teach and he doesn't think he'll be able to change anything on such short notice.
Mike shakes his head, still not looking John in the eye. "No, nothing like that," he reassures. "It's just that, one of your students, he…" Mike trails off, and John's frown grows. He is sure to be adding to the deep lines that already mar his face, but he hasn't really been able to help it these past few months.
"What is it, Mike? Spit it out, already, you're making me nervous!"
Beside him Mike huffs out a small laugh. "It's nothing serious, really. It's just, there's this kid that goes to school here—his name is Holmes—and he's, well…he's something else."
"What, like—"
"Gifted," Mike cuts him off. "Brilliant, but completely and utterly strange. He, ah, doesn't exactly have a lot of friends, and he's even managed to make a few of the teachers—well, a great number of the teachers, actually—despise him."
This shocks John; the fact that there are teachers in this school who can be said to despise a child is unsettling. "And I guess you're telling me this because I have him on my timetable?"
"Yeah, I checked for you before you came. I had figured you would, since you're teaching advanced courses to the upper sixth formers." Mike trails off for a moment but then gives John a big, forced smile that John thinks is meant to make him feel better. It doesn't. "It's no big deal. I just wanted to warn you because he…likes to cause trouble. Intelligent as hell and sharp as a tack but there's this thing that he does…well, you'll see. Just don't let him rattle you, no matter what he says."
So, John begins his first day of school nervous as hell about coming face to face with a child. As each class passes by without incident and he finally looks down at the timetable for his last lesson of the day and sees that Holmes is on the list, he steels himself. He was a soldier, for God's sake; an Army doctor. He has been to war, been shot. He can certainly handle anything a teenager can throw at him.
Besides, he thinks as his next class begins to shuffle in and John stands at the front of the room, nervously shifting his cane from hand to hand, how troublesome could this kid possibly be?
Very troublesome, as it turns out.
John makes it to the end of the class without incident, and thinks that Mike must have just been taking the piss—trying to make him nervous about his first day teaching. He is able to spot the Holmes boy right away, not even needing to take attendance to know which student he is. As soon as the student walks in, he takes a seat as far away from all of the other kids as possible and huddles into himself. Even if it weren't for the anti-social behavior, John can tell just from looking at the thin brunet boy that there is something that sets him apart from the rest of his peers, something different about him. And when the teen looks up from his desk with startling-coloured eyes, John can see that there is a definite sharpness that isn't common for teenagers his age, a sort of knowing gleam that seems to penetrate John's defenses.
The man can easily understand why teachers are put-off by him.
But despite all of the trepidation that John has been experiencing during the day, the teenager in question stays quiet throughout John's class, undisruptive. A part of John had taken Mike's warning to mean that Holmes was going to be some sort of trouble-maker who would try to disrupt his class any chance he could get, but John never once has to tell the student to behave or quiet down; Sherlock Holmes sits in the back of his classroom and for all intents and purposes is completely invisible.
Halfway through the lesson there is a knock on John's classroom door and the head teacher, Ms. Thompson, opens it cautiously, peeking in to see if she is interrupting anything. John silently waves her in as he continues his lecture. When he gets to a stopping point, he lets the class read from their texts as he limps across the room to meet Ms. Thompson by his desk. She had been the one to interview him for the position, and he finds that she is friendly and easy to talk to. When he reaches his desk, she smiles warmly at him and asks in a hushed whisper, so that she doesn't disturb his students, "How is your first day going?"
He thinks it odd that she has waited until the end of the day to stop by and ask him this, when he could have been having problems beforehand, but he pushes that thought aside. "Yeah, good, great," he whispers back, a little awkwardly. The students themselves have been undisruptive and well-behaved, but he just doesn't know if this field of work is something that he can stay interested in for long. He has never wanted to live his life behind a desk.
"Good," Ms. Thompson says, reaching out a small hand to rub tentatively down John's arm in a friendly manner. "I'm so glad that you're enjoying teaching here."
He doesn't know what to say to that, so instead he asks, "Do you happen to know any good restaurants in town? Thinking about taking my wife out this weekend."
Ms. Thompson's cherry-red smile droops slightly at that, but she tells him, "Oh, yeah, loads." She launches into a list of her favorite restaurants, which John quickly drowns out as his eyes roam over his class, making sure they are all reading. When he gets to the Holmes boy, he sees that the brunet is staring back at him, a steady look that unnerves John. He turns his attention back to Ms. Thompson quickly.
"Well, I just came by to make sure everything was okay, Dr. Watson," the head teacher is saying. "If you need anything, just let us know." She gives him one more bright, charming smile and drops her voice just a tad lower. "You know I'd be happy to help you with any problem you have. You don't have to worry about asking."
"Yeah, ta," John says, walking her over to the front of his classroom so that he can open the door for her. His cane makes a loud thudding noise in the silence of the room as it hits the ground in a steady rhythm, but he has long since gotten used to the sound that follows him everywhere he goes.
Ms. Thompson leaves and John continues on with his lesson.
By the end of the class, John is laughing at himself for being taken in by Mike's little prank and he finds himself relaxing for the first time that day. As all of the students file out of the room, John lets out a sigh of relief, proud that he has survived his first day of teaching relatively unscathed. He turns towards the tables, intent on straightening the room up when he suddenly stops short, brought to a halt by the single solitary figure that is left behind in his classroom.
Sherlock Holmes most definitely has what John can only describe as a piercing gaze. His blue-green stare is intense and off-putting, especially when he isn't blinking. John has to remind himself that Holmes is only a child, and there is no reason to be unnerved by him.
"Was there…something you needed, Sherlock?" John asks uneasily, despite all of his best efforts to appear unaffected by the strange boy.
"Did they warn you about me?" the student asks him quite suddenly, the question seemingly coming out of nowhere. The young teen's voice is deep and settled already, for someone who looks so young.
"What?" John says, because he is taken aback by the brunet's straightforwardness.
If Holmes notices John's confusion, he doesn't comment on it. "You're new but you're good friends with Stamford," the younger male states, as if he is explaining something obvious to the man. "It makes sense that he would warn you about all of the hazards of the job. And you were watching me during the entire lesson, as if you were afraid I was going to jump up and bite you in the arse."
"No, I wasn't," John says quickly, alarmed at the allegation. He has been warned about school policies on harassment and proper classroom etiquette with students. He was told that lawsuits are made out of lesser things than what this young man seems to be accusing him of. "No one has said anything about you to me," he assures in his most authoritative voice.
It doesn't seem to be convincing enough.
"How very professional of you," Sherlock says, and it sounds as if it is meant to be an insult. He stands from his table, hitching his book bag over one shoulder and moving determinedly towards John, looking almost predatory in his intent. He stops in front of the teacher and John notices that they are very nearly the same height. "Your sense of honor is quite admirable, but I'm afraid it's not going to get you very far in life."
John gives the boy a stunned look, astounded that anyone could be so rude to someone they don't even know, someone who is supposed to be respected in this particular setting. He is beginning to see why this kid rubs the other teachers the wrong way. "Now just wait a damn second!" he shouts, forgetting himself for a moment and frowning deeply at the student, angry. "You can't talk to me like that, I'm your teacher! And you don't know a thing about me so—"
"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Holmes cuts him off rudely with a roll of his eyes, sounding almost bored.
John is shocked by the question coming from the boy's mouth. It feels like being punched in the stomach. "Sorry, what?"
"Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?" Holmes urges, and it sounds as if he is growing impatient.
John is so stunned that he doesn't even notice he is answering. "Afghanistan," he chokes out and then seems to remember himself. "Sorry, how did you know…?"
"Please," Holmes scoffs and then launches into an explanation that makes John's head spin.
"Your haircut and the way you hold yourself clearly says military, as does the fact that your face and hands are tanned but there's no tan above your wrists or below your neck." The boy points to John's hands and then up to the man's neck, his finger impersonally close to the teacher's body. "It shows that you've been abroad recently, outside in the sun a lot, although not sunbathing. But the head teacher called you Dr. Watson, so Army doctor, then. Obvious. You've been recently invalided home from Afghanistan and your therapist back in London thinks that your limp is psychosomatic—quite correctly, I'm afraid."
John thinks he may end up having a heart attack, the pounding in his chest is so fast. "Psychoso—?"
"Yes," Holmes cuts him off, not even bothering to let him finish the word, the answer is so apparent. "It's really bad when you walk but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic; wounded in action, then."
Christ, John thinks to himself, an uneasy, nauseous feeling descending quickly on him. Who the fuck is this kid?
But the boy isn't nearly done.
"And let's not forget the nightmares," Holmes continues, unaware that John is on the verge of having an anxiety attack from having his whole life—his deepest, darkest secrets—spread out in the middle of a poorly lit classroom by a rail-thin teenager who looks like a strong breeze could blow him over.
"How could you possibly—?" John argues, and he is proud of himself because at least he has the strength to sound angry and affronted, even if it obviously isn't enough to deter the brunet.
"You look tired, Mr. Watson," Holmes explains, cutting John off once again. It's getting kind of old, that. "But not from just one or two nights spent up worrying about your new job or moving to a new city. Weeks of not getting an adequate amount of sleep, possibly months." He gives his teacher a knowing stare that seems to hold a hint of pity in it, underneath all of the arrogance. "You've been to war and you were wounded in action, of course you have nightmares."
John opens his mouth to say something else but the Holmes boy seems intent on never letting him get a single statement in his own defence out. This time he doesn't even wait for John to speak before he is cutting the man off once more.
"Then there's the move and the career change to try to salvage your failing marriage."
"The what?" The kid is talking so fast that John's brain can barely keep up.
"You are obviously new in town—you were asking about good restaurants—and this is clearly your first teaching job. You have that look about you that new teachers have at the end of their first day, wondering if it is always going to be this awful," he explains without being prompted. John feels like he can't breathe. "Let me assure you right now—it is. It doesn't get any better than this, sorry. All of the students are absolute idiots; you're just going to have to get used to it."
John doesn't even try to speak anymore—he knows it would be pointless to even muster the energy anyways. So he settles instead for gaping at the boy. At least he manages to keep his mouth closed.
"Your wedding ring is old," Holmes says, looking down at John's hand where it is resting on one of the shoddy tables at the front of the classroom. The man quickly moves it, hiding it behind his back, but it seems that the teen has already gleaned what he needs from it because Holmes doesn't even slow down. "Ten years, give or take some, but it is also filthy. It's not even shiny anymore. You haven't cleaned it in so long that it's become dull. That tells the story of your marital status right there."
The boy gives him a quick once over and John feels distinctly uncomfortable all of a sudden, as if Holmes is rifling through John's clothes while the man is still wearing them. "Violated" is the word that comes to John's mind. He can feel that piercing gaze take in all of him in one sweep from head to toe—his blond hair, greying at the edges and disheveled from a long day of work, his powder blue button down, still crisp and without a single visible crease despite his tiring day. The sharp eyes then slide across John's dark olive cardigan and down his khaki trousers to his brown oxfords, lingering along the way on his aluminium cane.
"You're a military man who takes pride in the way he looks and always strives to be clean cut. So why would you let something you wear which other people can see be that uncared for? You're unhappy," Holmes answers his own question, not even pausing. "Now, it could be that it is you who is the one who cheats, but that's unlikely. The head teacher is a very well-endowed, attractive woman and you never once let your eyes drop any lower than her face, even though she was clearly flirting with you." He frowns at John, as if he is judging the man and finds him lacking. "It shows that you still have some sort of commitment to your wife. Besides, I would assume that being stuck with a disabled veteran who has lost any future prospects in a prestigious medical career and can't even sleep through the night isn't exactly the life that your wife saw for herself when she married you. So, chances are good that it is she who is cheating on you. Yet despite this, you're still with her, so it's not a stretch to assume that you have moved away from home in an effort to salvage the relationship." The boy gives him another sharp, penetrating look before adding, "No wonder you're friends with Stamford; you two have so much in common, what with the cheating wives and all."
John is stunned speechless. Absolutely speechless. His mind is buzzing with a million thoughts—a hundred different emotions—and he wants to say something imposing, something that will let the kid know that none of what he has just said is true and that John would appreciate it greatly if the teen never spoke to him that way again, thank you very much.
But he opens his mouth and all that comes out is a pointless, "You said I had a therapist." He sounds dazed and dumbfounded even to his own ears.
"You've got a psychosomatic limp and a wife who commits serial adultery, of course you have a therapist," Holmes asserts flippantly, as if none of what has just transpired between them is a big deal. "I would say that I know enough about you to form a fairly accurate opinion, don't you think?"
John is taken aback by the gall of this boy. Never in his life has he ever been flayed open so keenly, dissected so accurately. It's remarkable and painful and true. Every single piece of it.
"That," John says, licking his lips and squaring his shoulders, "was amazing."
Holmes takes a breath as if he is about to say something, but then he seems to hear what John has just said. His sharp mouth snaps shut with an audible click of his teeth and he stares at his teacher suspiciously for a long moment, not speaking. And then, hesitantly, he asks, "Do you think so?"
"Of course it was," John says with a small nod of his head. It may have been astoundingly rude and completely unnecessary and uncalled for, but that doesn't take away from the brilliance of what the teenager standing before him has just done. "It was extraordinary—quite extraordinary."
This time it is Sherlock's turn to stare at John in incredulity. "That's not what people normally say," he declares skeptically. Then he turns on his heel and walks straight out of the classroom door before John can say anything else, leaving the man wondering what the bloody hell just happened.
Dinner at home is a quiet, uncomfortable affair. It usually is, lately, when he and Mary still eat together at all. Sometimes one or the other doesn't have the fortitude for it and they make some excuse to not dine with one another. But now, being in a new town with no friends and nothing else to occupy them, John knows they will be spending a lot of silent, awkward dinners together.
"How was your first day?" John asks his wife from across the table. It might as well be a chasm between them.
Mary looks up at him for a moment, as if surprised by John asking that question. The fading sunlight streaming in through the window behind her catches in her short, bright blonde hair and John remembers that there used to be a time when he would have thought she looked beautiful just then. He might have even leaned across the table and kissed her, just because he could. But those days are long gone between them and so John just goes back to looking down at his dinner.
"It was fine," Mary says, somewhat haltingly, as if unsure of how she should respond. "Dr. Patel was right; I got along really well with all of the staff at this new clinic, and they use the same database as the one in London, so I didn't need a lot of training."
"Good. That's good."
Silence descends upon them once more and John can't stand it any longer so he speaks again.
"My day went well, too. I think this move was a good choice, Mary. I really feel like—"
A scoff from Mary interrupts him. She follows it up with a derisive, "Oh, John, come off it."
"What?" John asks, not understanding.
"We're going to be just as miserable here as we were in London," Mary explains, a frown marring her thin face. "I hate this place. I didn't want to move here. Just because we had a good first day of work doesn't mean that everything is going to be magically sorted."
"You agreed to this move, Mary—" John stresses, voice rising, because he doesn't feel like taking the blame for forcing Mary to do something that they had both made the decision to do.
"Because you didn't give me any other choice!" Mary interrupts him again, pitching her voice above his. "You won't grant me a divorce, what else was I supposed to do?"
John stares hard at her, trying to keep his temper in check. He ends up having to close his eyes when he speaks to her, so that he doesn't have to look at her for a moment. "You told me you would give us one more chance," he reminds her, voice soft and slow. The anger bubbles up inside of him, threatening to choke him with its toxicity, but he has had much practice at arguing with Mary and he is able to rein it in. "That's what you said, so that's why we moved."
Mary's lips press into a thin line, as if there is something that she wants to say but she is holding it back. She does that a lot when they argue, John notices. "Yeah, well, it turns out that I can't stand you now just as much as I couldn't stand you before we left London," she tells him in a steady voice. They are biting words that are meant to cut deep, but they hardly have any effect anymore. She's said and done so much worse to him in the past. He simply stares at her, not rising to the bait.
It seems she is yearning for a row, though, because when he doesn't respond to her the way she wants, she continues to prod him.
"You bore me, John," she tells him, looking him directly in the eye, and she sounds as if she is talking about the weather. He can't be sure but he thinks he even sees the tiniest lift of the corner of her lips. Not for the first time in the past few years, he thinks that he doesn't know who this person sitting across from him is. She used to be so warm, so loving; now she is cold and detached, a stranger. "Everything about you bores the life right out of me. At least in London there was a spot of excitement. In this place, we just have each other."
"It used to be enough," John says, instead of rising to her bait. His voice is steady and sure but his heart is so tired and worn. He doesn't let her see that, though. He takes a calming breath, swallowing down everything that he wants to tell her, and doesn't say anything else. He wants a drink in the worst way, a few fingers of scotch or a double whisky—anything to numb the hurt and anger—but he pushes that aside, too. He has purposefully kept the bottle of bourbon tucked deep inside of the kitchen cabinet, pushed to the very back corner, half empty now even though he had purchased it only a short time ago. If they are trying to start over, then John figures that he can try to be better, as well.
"A long time ago. When you were a different person," Mary explains. "But now…" she pauses for a moment and John can hear everything that she doesn't say. 'But now you are nothing. But now you're just defective. Broken. But now you are useless. The limp, the Army, the career. You're one disappointment after another after another.'
She doesn't have to say it because he knows it, deep down, where it wears at him and eats away at his pride, his self-esteem, his will. She doesn't have to say it, but even if she did, John wouldn't argue with her because she is right, she is right about all of it, and he doesn't have the strength to fight her anymore.
It still hurts, though, and he works hard not to let her see that, not to let her see how deeply she cuts him with her words. He pauses for a moment and takes another breath, and when he exhales all that is left is the anger, white-hot and burning deep within him.
"I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment to you, Mary," he says, standing from the table and clenching his fists tightly, one hand gripping the handle of his cane until his knuckles are white. He would never hit her, but their personal possessions have never been so lucky. "Really, I am. But I'm not ready to give up on this marriage, even if you are." He turns on his heel and marches—as well as he can with his blasted limp—out of the dining room. His back and shoulders are tensed and straight, and his posture and emotions are military through and through.