A/N: Hello all! So basically, this is another episode of Harriet Writing Incoherent Toosh In The Small Hours in which I present to you a story where as mentioned in the dodgy summary is about teacher!lock. I'm not worthy of a beta so all mistakes are as a direct result of my inability to form words and link sentences in the English language - or any other, for that matter. Also, in case anyone else asides from my British friends choose to read this, I have some notes at the bottom explaining stuff like the English schooling system and stuff. Anything else? Oh yeah, TW for naughty language if that sort of thing offends you. Et finalement, ENJOY :D
Disclaimer: Basically - I don't even know which characters or whatever'll feature in this story, but all the one's who you may recognise from Sherlock belong to the great ACD and (in this particular incarnation), Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Any other's are of my own creation (God help us). And there's a mention of Animal Farm and about half a line from the first chapter which of course belongs to George Orwell.
"Good morning, my name is Mr. Holmes. I will be teaching you English literature this year in which I endeavour to get you all to engage your insipid little minds enough to scrape a GCSE in this subject." Holmes rattled off whilst scrawling what appeared to be his name and the date on the whiteboard. "Pretty much all of you will pass to some degree – even you there at the back in the cap slouching over the desk in an attempt to look 'cool'" Holmes sneered, "– even you with your limited intelligence could pass with a little bit of elbow grease on my part." His look of contempt melded in to a superior grin. "Goes to show the standard of education in this country and its expectation of its students, really..."
A few students around the room giggled nervously. The boy Holmes had chosen to target was notorious as a thick-sculled brute known to making the lives of those who looked at him the wrong way a living nightmare, and here was this pale and slightly gangly man doling out haughty insults as if he owned the place. Benedict – our aforementioned thick-sculled brute who rather prefers to go by the name 'Ben' – despite his lack of smarts had picked up on Holmes' insults and more importantly his fellow pupils' mocking which happened to be more than enough to set him over the edge.
Ben stood up abruptly, slamming both fists on the desk. "Look – I don't know who the fuck you think you are, mate, but I don't really take tea to rich bastards like you talking like that to me.", he spat, eyes glinting as he made his way towards the arrogant teacher. "You're new here, so you don't know, but I could fucking kill you if I wanted to, and there is nothing a little shit like you could-"
"Oh God, do shut up." Holmes cut in, his rich baritone dripping with irritation and contempt. "I can sense the collective IQ of the room plummeting as a direct result of the rubbish you're spewing. Benedict Timothy Carlton Rivers – nice name, by the way – you walk around as if you've had a really tough life and this massive chip on your shoulder, when in fact your father, Timothy Rivers, is the CEO of a major company and earns a rather tasty six-figure salary after the marginal percentage of tax he pays and without mention of the out of proportion bonuses he no doubts earns each year. To the average person, you may appear to be someone who's gone through all kinds of struggle, but really you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and all this brutishness is nothing more than a façade you built to fit in to a place daddy only sent you to in order for you to build some 'character'." Holmes bared his teeth animatedly; he was rather beginning to enjoy this. "In fact, you're no way near as tough as you make out to be – quite the contrary, actually. You surround yourselves with a bunch of thugs who you bribe in to winning all your wars for you, building yourself up as some kind of hardened gang leader, when in reality, you'd get beaten to a pulp had anyone confronted you directly." Standing up from the edge of the desk where he was perched, Holmes slowly walked towards the boy not unlike a predator stalking its prey. The room was silent but for his heels clacking on the floor. "But, you know, the worst thing about you, Benedict, is that you actually could be relatively smart for your average person, and yet you elect to act in such a manner; which by definition makes you an idiot." By the time he had finished his sentence with a harsh '-t', the man was squared up to the boy; bodies only inches apart before lowering his voice to an ominous whisper "Now return to your seat and try not to speak for the remainder of the lesson, or leave."
Ben blinked, dumbfounded for what seemed like an eternity in the eerily quiet room before mumbling something angrily beneath his breath along the lines of 'fucking stalker' and storming out of the room. Holmes closed his eyes and rested steepled fingers lightly on his chin as if in deep thought until he heard the door click shut after which his eyes – which were for all intensive purposes, a bluish grey with a hint of green – flashed open.
"So this term I am apparently obliged to hand you all a copy of Animal Farm to read and I'm supposed to get you to discuss and write answers to question on a whole host of truly fascinating topics such as 'How are the pigs able to manipulate the lesser animals' and 'How does this book relate to the Russian revolution'." He sighed, lazily raking a hand through his dark curls. "I believe I mentioned that education was not in its finest hour at the moment." He by some grace neglected to add that it was a direct result of his brother prioritising the cleaning up and masking of a number of sleazy politicians' and dignitaries sordid affairs and stupendously idiotic mistakes without attracting the public's attention.
Picking up the pile of books on his desk, he meandered through the room throwing copies on to the tables in front of students who sat in suitably stunned silence before making his way back to the front of the room.
"Okay, so we have about 25 minutes left, and after having to deal with one buffoon, I don't think I'd able to tolerate any more stupidity and therefore would not like to engage with you all, so I think I'll read you the first 2 chapters, and then we'll call it a day. He then opened the book to the first page and began to read. "Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night."
The class were transfixed. The usual crowd of gossiping girls and guffawing louts were sat quietly and watched Holmes as he read. In spite of seeming either rather strongly against things or utterly disinterested, it was clear that English was one of Holmes' few passions; the one subject out of many that sparked an interest in a man who appeared to be dissatisfied with most things. When he read, Holmes displayed a new-found humility by reading the words with what could only be described as reverence: his speech slowed to a speed far easier to understand as his lips almost tentatively formed around each new word and his voice moulded around the text with forever changing dynamics and an undulating intonation with the eloquence and grace of an actor delivering his lines at the Globe. Even his long pianist fingers were delicate in touch as they grazed across the page to turn it over. Just as he read the last line of the second chapter, the bell rang to signify the end of the lesson and Holmes jolted his head up as if to snap out of his reverie and launched back in to his usual cutting tones.
"Thankfully, this lesson hasn't been too much of a pain, and with the exception of our dear friend Benedict who is currently moping around the outskirts of the school field, none of you have said or done anything to irk me bar from staring at me with gormless, empty-headed little faces as if you have nothing to fill the space between your ears. Take your copies of the book with you and for homework; attempt to think of a few why this book was written as an allegory – we'll share them next lesson and I'll try not to slit my wrists in despair. Class dismissed."
After a minute or two of scraping chairs and the low buzz of the students talking quietly amongst themselves, the class had slowly filtered out of the room and Holmes walked up to the slightly ajar window and took a seat; unaware that he was being watched. Reaching in to his pocket, he took out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and placed one absentmindedly between his lips and lit it with a silver-gilt lighter he had stolen from Mycroft. He sharply sucked on the filter through pursed lips which made his sharp cheekbones seem to jut out more; desperate for the nicotine to enter his bloodstream and slow down his manic thoughts. It'd been weeks since he'd last had a cigarette as smoking had become something of an inconvenience, but as the smoke filled his lungs, Holmes realised how much he had missed the sensation. He tilted his head back with his eyelids closed to reveal the pale expanse of his neck as he exhaled with his lips slightly parted, sending a trail of smoke in to the air. He was about to take another drag when the sound of a muffled cough sent his head whipping round to see who was there, shocked to see it was a student. He was in his previous class and somewhat different to the other students. Rather than gawping at him blankly, this boy had eyed Holmes with a calculating stare which he could practically hear throughout the lesson. His eyes had dark circles beneath them – late night or trouble sleeping night before? No, his eyes were too sunken and the circles too pronounced for it to have been just one night: insomnia. Slicked back hair and neat uniform implies a caring for appearance and a possibly more well off background. But the trousers had clearly been re-hemmed twice and the blazer was a shade lighter than those of the other students – blazer was bought from the second hand uniform shop and the trousers had been owned for a considerable amount of time. Not quite so well off, then. The speck of ketchup on the corner of his mouth suggests a cooked breakfast, perhaps eaten in a ru-
"Mr. Holmes, I'm terribly sorry to disturb you,"
"... and recently moved from Dublin." Holmes thought. "Interesting."
"But I just wanted to congratulate you on realising what all the ordinary people were just too blind and dense to see."
Holmes frowned slightly as he considered the cigarette that he held between his index and middle finger, "realising what?"
"Tut tut, Mr. Holmes. You went overboard with your displays of your apparent superior intellect, yet here you are questioning the obvious like one of them. I'm talking about Ben. You noticed that he was just a bullshitting little wanker who pretended to be something more dangerous – something a little sexier than just a whiny little daddy's boy." The boy slowly licked his lips and stared with wild eyes directly in to Holmes' scrutinising ones "I'm glad you're at least a little more attentive than the rest of them, Mr. Holmes." His voice lowered as he added with a smirk, "Heck – you might even be something special."
For once, Holmes was somewhat lost for words.
"My name," the boy sang liltingly as he "is Jim. Jim Moriarty."
The door swung open and Holmes watched the boy as he waltzed out of the room.
A/N: Okay, y'all. That was chapter one. I hope anyone who may read it enjoyed it, I don't know if you'd like to review it maybe, just a suggestion *extremely weighty hinting*. I said I was going to explain some shit in the earlier A/N so here's some stuff. Firstly, Jim and his class are 14-15 and would be middle school seniors, I believe? They're embarking on their first year of study their GCSEs (which are exams students in the UK take when they're 16, but sometimes a bit earlier). I myself haven't actually started GCSEs yet, so I'm hoping I've been able to emulate the sort of lesson well *crosses fingers*, although I already know they don't study Animal Farm at GCSE - I only picked it because I studied it this year ^^;