"No one ever listens, this wallpaper glistens
Don't let them see what goes down in the kitchen.
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces.
Everyone thinks that we're perfect
Please don't let them look through the curtains." - Dollhouse, Melanie Martinez
John smiles tightly at his mom as she checks over the outfit he is wearing for the first day of school. Her eyes are bloodshot and her breath smells like alcohol. John barely manages to hold back a grimace as she pats his head, he shouldn't really expect her to be sober. Somehow, though, deep down inside, John had hoped that she would at least try on the first day. She nods her approval of his outfit as she wanders off, presumably to find the sibling of the beer she had just consumed.
John sighs, double checking his reflection in the small mirror by the front door before squaring his shoulders and pushing the door open, stepping out and squinting into the bright morning light.
John Watson's jumpers hide a map scars and bruises. Thin raised lines litter the inside of his right wrist from the small knife under his bed, hand and fist shaped bruises are scattered in an ugly constellation of blue-blacks and greens across his torso from his near constant beatings. His mates, if you could call them that, constantly make fun of him for his fashion sense, or lack thereof. John doesn't care though- to him, the jumpers are his armor against the world,; he thinks it's a bit ridiculous that he thinks this way about them. He figures someday he will give them up, but not now.
The first time John talks to Sherlock is actually 3 months after they had first met in English. "Hey, Sherlock, can I borrow a pencil? I forgot mine at home." His smile seems slightly forced as Sherlock stares at him for a few moments, indescribable eyes flickering over his face and cataloging his features. Shrugging, Sherlock holds the pencil out in his elegant hands. "I need it back when you're done." he drawls in his baritone. "Don't chew on the ends."
John's smile loses its edge and Sherlock is suddenly treated to a sunny smile few ever see. "No problem, mate. Thanks for the pencil."
John Watson is a mystery, Sherlock decides. He has been studying John discreetly since the first day of school because he doesn't make any sense.Sherlock knows that his home environment is atrocious, with a drunkard for a mother and a father that doesn't know when to stay his hand. John, however much he struggles at home, (Sherlock pretends not to notice this in the line of his shoulders or his gait or the evenly spaced lines he saw on John's wrist the day John stopped him from falling on his arse after Anderson had tripped him) always arrives to school on time, with all of his homework done, and dressed neatly.
Sherlock prides himself on his lack of sentiment. But John Watson is a paradox and Sherlock Holmes, self-proclaimed sociopath, wants to solve (save) him.
After what both boys collectively refer to as "the pencil incident" (not that either knows that they refer to it the same way in their minds) John is seen less with kids from his rugby team, and more often with a certain genius. He praises Sherlock and Sherlock preens, while simultaneously unraveling John's secrets in his mind. He has not, for the first time he can remember, disclosed John's full past when deducing him out aloud. He threw in a couple of disparaging remarks about John's sister to make it seem that he had not developed a conscience (how preposterous) and John had said "amazing!" anyway. Looking at Sherlock like he couldn't quite believe that Sherlock hadn't figured out every little detail of his home life and blurted it out. (While John was smart, Sherlock decides, he is still people and cannot be expected to be a genius and pick up on things which seemed obvious to Sherlock.)
Soon they were inseparable. One was never seen without the other, Sherlock's thin hands making wild gesticulations while John listened to his friend ranting about the stupidity of the general public with a smile on his face.
John was approached many times about his choice in friends. When they got less than friendly, Sherlock would often turn up out of thin air, defending John. Everyone was shocked when this happened, and the student body (and most of the teachers, including the headmaster) started speculating about who this boy was, the boy who had worked his way into the heart of the coldest, most obnoxious student in the school.
John was getting close to his tipping point, he could feel it in his chest, growing tighter, ready to snap like a rubber band.. He was coming home to his drunk mother cowering in the corner as his father loomed over her, hand outstretched, disdain on his face as if he was doing nothing more important than swatting a fly. His contempt oozing over the words and dripping out of the spaces in between the words as molasses would. "You filthy bitch. Don't you dare talk to me like that. You are nothing without me. Nothing. Our daughter is disappointment enough; a whore that lies with women. I can't have a woman that talks back to me now, can I?" Every time this happens John feels powerless to do anything. Standing, his knees locked as he struggles under the decision to save the woman who raised him and the man he fears most in the world.
He had been subjected to the same treatment as his mother had, a young boy of twelve, shaking in that same corner, blood streaking down his face from the cut on his brow and pooling in a vermillion puddle under his eye and dripping off of his chin.. His sister stands defiantly in front of him, chin lifted high and eyes narrowed in challenge at her father. That had cost her more than John has cared to admit, and he wishes he could have had as the guts she did that day. Now, he's left standing with an impossible decision. Be defiant or remain victim to his father's actions.
He wonders if there really is a bright light at the end of the dark tunnel, or if it's just something he's been told to follow.