Before you begin: thank you all for the wonderful reviews. You sure know how to make a man blush.
And FYI: all the characters are based on the BBC's characters, physically, except for John's brother, Harry, who is (in sticking with the books) a man, and Irene, who I've probably gone a bit my own way with. I hope you like it all the same though, and I'm sorry for the sheer amount of canon that I am raping as this thing progresses further and further...
But, again, thank you for reading and reviewing. If I could give you all a hug, I would.
Love, ddggrule xx
Chapter 2.
John couldn't remember the last time he'd sat and just talked with someone for hours on end. It was nearly midnight, and he and Sherlock literally hadn't moved from the room, caught up in getting to know each other.
While John had been careful not to approach the subject directly, it was clear from how Sherlock talked about his family, mainly his father, that there was no love lost there. While the famous Doctor Holmes was an idol to many, his son all but resented him.
"He can't understand why I don't wish to go into the family business, why I don't enjoy going to party after party, why I don't enjoying drowning myself in expensive clothes and trinkets," Sherlock had said, a mixture of anger and sadness in his eyes. "I read all his friends' and employers' and employees' intentions like that," he continued, snapping is fingers, "and tell him that most of them want nothing more than his company or business, simply because it looks good to be associated with him. But he can't see that. He can't see how selfish they all are."
"That's business for you," John added matter-of-factly.
Sherlock nodded. "He resents me for being so accusatory, and I'm convinced it's because he knows I'm right. He would just never admit it. I mean, how could his disappointment of a son know anything about his world?" he added bitterly.
John smiled at him weakly.
They'd talked about many other things, from people and things to do at Mycroft (none of which Sherlock seemed to take that much interest in, apart from the academy's Laboratory Society - "Students can use them for whatever purpose they like?" he'd asked, with almost too much interest), as well as the classes they both took (they both shared Maths, were even in the same class, but whereas John was also taking Physics, Biology and Fitness, Sherlock was taking Criminology, Psychology and Chemistry).
"You're in the same class for Chemistry as Irene," John had noted, looking at his roommate's timetable. "You two will definitely get on," he added with an almost cheeky grin.
"Oh?" Sherlock queried, bemused. "She won't avoid me completely for fear of damaging her oh-so pristine reputation in the academy?"
This was one of those aspects of Sherlock that John found so interesting: the guy was evidently used to taking a backseat, being in the corner, not involving himself with other people. John had wondered to himself if Sherlock had any friends, and it saddened him that he knew the answer was almost definitely none.
"Are you always so self-deprecating?" John asked.
"It's not deprecation when you know it to be true," Sherlock responded with a straight face.
It made sense to John then, why he and Sherlock had talked for so long, and why Sherlock had been so open with his more personal matters. Sure, there's always that chemistry and ease of communication when you meet someone you click with, but John knew: Sherlock had never had this ease of contact with anyone. John realised in that moment that he was probably the first person Sherlock had ever shared any of this stuff with.
"I wouldn't be friends with someone who was like that, Sherlock," he responded. "I'll introduce you two. She knows I don't make friends with just anyone, so if she sees me with you - "
"Wait," Sherlock stopped John, staring at him, his eyes alight with something John couldn't quite put his finger on. "Friends? As in...you. And me?"
John smiled at him. "Yes, you. I'm sorry if it's a bit...forward, but I'd like to think I've made a good friend in you today, Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock didn't break his stare, and John could see the smile that tugged at his lips. "Uhm...likewise," the taller guy responded at length, and John rested his hand on the other man's shoulder and smiled, before standing up.
"Right, now: sleep." he stated, still smiling. "First day's over, and tomorrow everything really begins."
He grabbed a towel and walked out of the room, heading down the corridor to the communal showers, leaving Sherlock sat on his bed.
After John had left, Sherlock changed into his pyjamas and got into bed, laying there and thinking. He wasn't expecting to meet someone like John here. Hell, he'd almost given up on the idea that he'd ever meet someone who could actually stand the sight of him. It felt...nice, and Sherlock was convinced he felt something begin to swell in his heart, an organ he thought he'd long since abandoned.
He hadn't noticed John coming back in the room and getting into his bed, but he heard a "Goodnight" come from across the room.
"Goodnight John," Sherlock said quietly back, before curling up and falling to sleep, a small smile across his face.
Are you all awake yet, dear readers of mine?
Now that you've all had a good little chin-wag, it's time for Academy life to really begin. After all, the second day of school means the first day of lessons. Be sure to listen and learn; I couldn't live with writing a blog for the uneducated.
But what I can live with is knowing I'll be seeing you all turned out in your best for the annual Mycroft Initiation Ball next week. Have you all been shopping? Picked your designer?
Do the boys know what a corsage is yet?
I look forward to papping you all while you're there. And did a little bird told me that Mycroft's own namesake may be making an appearance? A man I'm sure you're all thrilled to meet, because let's face it: if I am, so are you.
xoxo Gossip Girl
Students at Mycroft didn't have alarms. They had Gossip Girl.
John had missed being woken up over summer by the sound of his phone, and the early morning snippet of information all the students got from their friendly internet stalker. He glanced at the text and groaned, annoyed by the idea of playing dress-up for yet another one of the academy's parties. He was convinced he spent more time buying suits attending "soirées" at Mycroft than he actually did learning.
Almost as soon as he glanced over and noticed Sherlock wasn't in his bed, the man himself walked through the door, towel around his waist, back from a shower. John eyed his exposed chest, surprised that Sherlock wasn't as skinny as he'd thought he would be - while his muscles were no way near as pronounced as his own, and Sherlock was far leaner than John, there was still some definition and tone to his roommate's body.
Sherlock sat down on his bed and picked up his little black book John had found the other evening.
"It's a book of thoughts and observations," Sherlock said whilst flicking through the pages, "before you ask. Random nothings."
John sat up in his bed and wiped the sleep out of his eyes. "Good morning to you too."
Sherlock looked up at him, and they exchanged a smile before John yawned. "How long have you been up?" John asked.
"I always wake up at 6am," Sherlock replied, looking back down at his book.
John blinked. "What, everyday? You don't lie-in or anything?"
Sherlock gave him that Braindead Look again. "Yes John, everyday. Hence the 'always'. Is it such an awful idea to you?"
"Well, yes, kind of," John replied, scratching his head. "If it weren't for the Gossip Girl texts, I don't think I'd wake up. I like sleep, what can I say," he added with an innocent shrug.
"It's a distraction, a big fat flaw in our evolution," Sherlock added bitterly.
"But it's a necessary one, I'm afraid," John replied, "like eating and breathing."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Breathing is boring, and so is eating, because this," he said, pointing a finger to his head, "this is all that matters. The rest is just...transport."
John threw off his covers with a sigh, and flung open the curtains, letting the morning light pour into the room. It was in that moment Sherlock realised the other man slept in boxer shorts, and nothing else; bathed in sunlight, his contoured torso was on full display, as well as his muscled, rugby player legs.
"Well, at least it's a nice day out," John remarked, looking over at Sherlock with a smile, and Sherlock, who thought his heart had just skipped a beat, snapped out of staring at the other man's form in appreciation, his face feeling unusually hot. Looking down at himself to hide his embarrassment, he noticed how inferior his body was to John's, and it made him ever so slightly...envious.
"I'm gonna go grab a shower and let you get changed," John said, retrieving a towel from his wardrobe, slinging it over his shoulder and heading out the door. "See you at breakfast?"
Sherlock nodded sheepishly and watched John leave. It's definitely a good thing the dorms were unisex, Sherlock thought to himself, as the sight of half-naked John strolling down the corridors would send most women into a frenzy...
It seemed to everyone, except John Watson, that Sherlock Holmes was nothing short of weird. As Mycroft's newest student walked across the courtyard to the school's canteen, passers-by shot him strange looks that he'd become more than accustomed to over the years. Because of his father and the nature of gossip in this academy, they all knew who he was, and, again, because of his father, they all thought he was a bit of a "freak".
He'd be lying to himself if he said it didn't bother him, but he'd rather be the way he was than like all the other people on the planet. They always seemed so stunned when he could figure them all out so quickly, whether it was what they were thinking or what they'd been doing the night before, but to Sherlock it was impossible not to notice; they were all so similar, all a product of the same society and social constraints, and so patterns were evident in all their behaviours, patterns that he could see and they could not. All of them shared something intrinsic, because they all went through the world sharing the same beliefs and social expectations of each other. There was no diversity, not really, not when you looked past the exterior (and, even then, comparisons were still not so hard to draw), and so predicting them and seeing right through them... Sherlock found it effortless.
He walked through the doors of the canteen, and a room of such people presented themselves to him.
Almost every head in the room turned to look at him, and those that didn't were quickly made to by their friend's nudging. Sherlock ignored it, walking straight ahead to join the queue for food. He'd already scouted out an unoccupied space in the corner of the expansive room, quiet and out of the way, and a perfect place to observe everyone else as they went about eating their breakfasts.
And there were a lot of people to observe: the canteen was an enormous space, with long polished wooden tables in columns up and down it, twelve in total, each just under two hundred foot long - the academy did have roughly two thousand students, after all, all glancing over at him.
He pulled up to the food bar, where smartly dressed dinner ladies plated up food for the students as they passed through, everything from a full English to a more continental breakfast to simply cereal.
"What can I get ya, m'love?" a rather petite, stout woman asked him from behind the counter (who was from Bristol, thought Sherlock, judging by the accent).
"Three slices of toast and a pot of strawberry jam, please," Sherlock replied with a smile.
The dinner lady gave him a confused look. "You sure that's all you want love? We have sausages and croissants and..."
"Yes, I know what you have on offer," Sherlock cut her off, putting his hand up; he'd already catalogued everything laid out before him. "Just toast and jam, please, thank you."
The woman raised her eyebrows. "Whatever floats yer boat sweet'eart."
He took his plate of food and strolled over to the empty corner, sitting down and taking the first bite into his food, when John strolled through the doors with an incredibly beautiful woman by his side.
"Irene Adler," Sherlock said aloud to himself.
He watched as they got their food, smiling and laughing at each other. John made some remark about her, which caused her to smack him on the arm and protest, a cheeky smile on her face. John was laughing back at her, threatening to empty a nearby bottle of ketchup all over her frankly immaculate black hair, making her squeal uncontrollably, arms flailing to ward John off. Sherlock couldn't help but suppress a smile at the two of them together.
If the man sat halfway across the room from Sherlock had thought his frequent glances his way had gone unnoticed by him, he'd be wrong. He had short-cut dark hair and a set of brilliant white teeth, which he seemed to often show off with a handsome smile. But his charming appearance was offset by his eyes, which said something else about him entirely: they literally gleamed with something dark, something malicious.
"Irene Adler," came John's voice as he strolled towards Sherlock with a grin, "I'd like to introduce you to Sherlock Holmes."
Irene walked over and took a seat down to the right of Sherlock, and his sense of smell was almost drowned in her heavenly aroma. Her jet hair was tied up and back, curled and left to cascade down her back, while a bit of curled fringe framed her face. Her skin was alabaster, her lips scarlet red, and her eyes were the most brilliant deep blue. Her cheekbones were high, and her face was something you'd expect to only find in high fashion photography. She was, in a word, luminous, but Sherlock could tell that not only did this woman know it, she used it to her advantage. Her beauty was her weapon.
"Nice to meet you, Sherlock Holmes," she said to him, her voice soft and inviting, and her body language nothing short of flirtatious; her eyebrows danced gracefully, yet suggestively, and her lips curled into a wicked grin.
"Charmed," Sherlock responded simply with a quick smile, before looking over at John who'd sat down to his left.
John smiled fondly at him, grabbing a fork before digging into his breakfast: a full English. A breakfast fit for a rugby player, Sherlock thought.
Irene caught the exchange of smiles between the two of them, and something stung her then: John had only met this Sherlock guy less than 24 hours ago, and yet the way they seemed to be around each other was almost unnaturally comfortable. She could've sworn they'd been friends for longer.
"So, Sherlock," she began, taking a bite out of her apple, the only piece of food on her plate, "is it true you didn't know the Earth revolves around the sun?"
Sherlock groaned, and John looked at him in surprise. "Wait, what? Sherlock, is this true?"
"Oh come on John," Irene cut in, "did you not read what Gossip Girl wrote in her first few messages of the term? The stuff about Sherlock not knowing his 'place in the universe'?"
John nodded, but still hadn't put two and two together.
Irene rolled her eyes. "At a benefit the great Dr. Holmes held a few weeks ago, Sherlock here was made to give a speech, and it came to light that he had no concept of the solar system, or most of space really."
Sherlock put his head in his hands, frustrated. "What does that matter?"
John looked concerned. "Wait, Sherlock, really? But it's, like, primary school knowledge..!"
Sherlock shot him a dark look. "That may be, but why is it important? Why should I dedicate it to memory? It's useless to me. This," he said, tapping his head, "this I make sure to only fill with information that is useful to me, and that isn't."
He took a rather vicious bite from his toast, and Irene smiled at his almost childlike tantrum. John continued to look flabbergasted, before the muscles in his face relaxed. "I guess," he said, "in the grand scheme of things, we don't really need to know that. Maybe."
Irene looked at him, surprised, as did Sherlock.
"But John," Irene protested, "are...are you defending him? Someone you've just met? Taking his word like it's law?"
John thought to himself for a moment, wondering why Irene was being so forceful. "No, I'm just appreciating another point of view," he said to her slowly. "If Sherlock has no need to know about the solar system, I say fine. Let him not."
It was pathetic and stupid, Irene knew it, but for the briefest of moments she was furious at John, and she didn't know why. He was backing up this random stranger, this random freak, who he'd only just met. Normally, him and her were always on the same page, letting new people know that they were the dynamic duo, unbreakable, thinking as one, together. Yet here he was, taking sides with this skinny weirdo over her, his best friend of more years than she cared to remember.
She tried to calm herself down, compose herself mentally before speaking. She shouldn't be so put out by this, she knew it. John's made a new friend, and she should be happy for him, and (to be fair to Sherlock) he was actually quite cute, and she chastised herself for mentally calling him a freak when she hardly knew the guy. It was just...so ridiculous!
"Irene?" John asked her, worry etched in his face. "You ok in there?"
She glanced back over him, closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them, and smiled. "Yes, yes I'm fine. I'm sorry John, and Sherlock," she looked over at him, "I'm sorry also."
Sherlock smiled back at her, and realised she was being genuine.
"It's just...John, do you realise how weird this is?" she asked him. "You two already give off this vibe with each other, like you're made for each other."
John and Sherlock looked at each other, eyebrows raised, before looking back at Irene. "We do?" they said, however unintentionally, in unison.
Irene laughed. "Oh my god! See what I mean? Same wavelength or what?"
Sherlock smiled, and John felt something flutter in his stomach at the sight of it. "Is that so strange?" John asked her, suddenly a bit uneasy.
Irene shrugged. "Well, think about it," she began, "how long have you two known each other?"
Sherlock and John looked at each other, thinking, before Sherlock replied, "Well, we met at 4.30pm last night, and it's 8.30am now, so sixteen hours exactly."
Irene gave them both a look that said "See what I mean?", and there was a moment of silence.
"I dunno, some people just click like that," John then replied, almost a little too defensively, and both Irene and Sherlock picked up on it. Irene chose to ignore it, though Sherlock couldn't help but wonder to himself about something he couldn't quite decide at that moment in time.
Irene shrugged again, and took another bite out of her apple. "Whatever," she said through a carefree smile, before two thousand phones sounded into life.
Oh, how I've missed a Mycroft breakfast!
All those aromas flooding out of that building, it's enough to make you wonder: how can people stomach this dieting business?
But, oh dearie me, what do I see here? Is that our talented John Watson and our beautiful Irene Adler sat at a table with the newbie? I think it is.
And it seems the rather dashing James Moriarty is taking more than a vested interest in them all...or is it just the new fellow?
Either way you lot, watch out: we all know about Moriarty's tricks.
Have I stirred enough for you, dear readers?
Bon appetit!
xoxo Gossip Girl
Sherlock looked up from the text to see that both Irene and John's faces had shot over the room in the same direction, both staring at the dark haired stranger with the menacing eyes he'd noticed earlier.
"That must be Moriarty then, I take it?" he asked the two of them, and they looked back at him.
"Yeah," Irene replied with a snarl, "that's Moriarty, and a right piece of work he is too."
John rolled his eyes. "You're just pissed off at him because he's the only bloke in this whole academy that doesn't worship the ground you walk on."
Irene gave him a dangerous look. "John!"
Sherlock smiled; the thought of someone actually rejecting Irene amused him greatly, as the man would have to be either brilliant or stupid. That, and Irene would probably be genuinely offended by the idea.
"It's not that," she retorted, pausing for a moment with a disgusted look on her face. "Well, maybe it is a bit..."
John and Sherlock both exchanged a smile.
"But," she began again, "it's something else as well. There's just something about him that isn't...right."
Sherlock looked back over at Moriarty, and, as luck would have it, he was looking straight back at him. They held the stare for a moment, Sherlock's face blank and concentrating, Moriarty's holding a slightly twisted grin. He looked at Sherlock like he was prey, and Sherlock felt the urge to shudder slightly.
"He's fascinating," Sherlock all but whispered to himself, but Moriarty seemed to hear it, and his face lit up as he grinned like a cheshire cat.
Sherlock felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned back to see John looking at him intently. "Sherlock?"
He blinked. "S-Sorry John, lost in thought there, sorry..."
John grinned, patting him on the shoulder. "It's alright, I know the feeling."
"Just be careful, Sherlock," Irene said. "If Gossip Girl's right and Moriarty's got his eye on you, then you're in for some trouble."
Sherlock smiled. "You needn't worry about that. You can't be me and not be a little used to some...abuse in schools."
John was glad Sherlock was looking over at Irene in that moment, because if he'd actually seen Sherlock's face as he'd delivered those words, he knew he'd have the strangest urge to give the man a hug.
"Moriarty doesn't do abuse like your average school bully, Sherlock," Irene replied. "He's clever, and never gets caught, even though we all know, somewhere inside of us, that it's always him."
Sherlock clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Excellent," he said with a beaming smile, "an intelligent foe. At least I won't be bored."
John couldn't help but grinning, resisting the urge to say "Typical Sherlock" out loud, before then wondering how on earth he could possibly know that was typical of Sherlock having only just met him.
Irene smiled before standing up. "Well, just stay out of trouble. I'm off to my first class. I'll catch you both on the steps at lunch?"
John nodded at Irene. "Of course, I'll see you there. Except," he added with the point of a finger, "I'll be buying lunch today, understood?"
"If there's fish in it," Irene replied, pointing her own finger back at John, "I swear to god, Watson, you're a dead man."
John smiled at her, and she smiled back, before turning and walking off.
Sherlock watched her leave, turning back at the door to blow him a kiss, which made him grin sheepishly. He heard John get up beside him, and looked up at him.
"Well, you'll be getting no kiss from me," John said with a grin, "but I'll see you on the steps at lunch. You know your way round this place, yes?"
Sherlock smiled back up at him. "If I don't, I'm sure I'll find my way, thank you."
"No problem," John replied, putting his hand on Sherlock's shoulder again, wondering why it seemed so natural to do so; he was never this physical with his other friends, let alone with someone who may as well be a stranger.
He removed his hand and wandered over to the canteen door, turning back to give Sherlock a smile before walking out, and Sherlock felt very warm inside when he did so.