It was half past three when Johnny crept into the kitchen of his home. His house, rather. It didn't feel much like home anymore these days. His mother was waiting for him at the kitchen table, with an enticing plate of warm cookies.
"Johnny, dear, how was school?" she asked.
"Fine," Johnny said.
"Won't you sit down and have a cookie with your mummy?" she asked hopefully.
"Sorry, mum, not really hungry." Johnny told her, walking past her without looking at her. He was blown far back into his childhood, when he was just starting school for the first time. Every day his mother would have some kind of treat waiting for him when he got home, and they would sit together at the kitchen table and he would tell her all about his day at school and she would wipe the crumbs from his little chubby cheeks. She hadn't done so in a long time, and the gesture today was intimidating. It wasn't a mother-son chitchat, it was an interrogation, possibly. Meant to pry at him. It would lead to another shouting-match. No, thank you.
Johnny barely set foot in the next room before his father materialized out of thin air and barked at him for not kissing his mother.
"Don't you give your mother a kiss anymore, lad?" he asked angrily. Johnny slowly met his father's eyes and saw that this was not a question, it was an order. He turned back 'round into the kitchen and gave his mother a peck on the cheek. His father's heavy footsteps followed him and to Johnny's great dismay, they led him into his chair at the table.
"Have a seat, lad. Your mother and I want to have a talk with you."
Johnny swallowed hard, trying desperately not to show his panic. Most teenagers liked arguing with their parents. It made them feel like they were listened to, like they had their say. Johnny hated the conflict. He wished that things could just go back to normal.
"So," Hamish said. "What have you been up to lately?"
"Err, school."
"Don't be wise with me!" Hamish warned. His temper was unusually short these days. Everything sent him over the edge.
"Darling, we're just worried a bit. We hardly see our children anymore, do we?" His mother asked, gently smoothing Johnny's hair.
"If you wanted to see your children more," Johnny said before thinking, but it was too late, the words spilled from his mouth like a bitter glass of wine, unable to be corked up- "you shouldn't have sent Harry away."
Hamish slammed his fist on the table, upsetting the plate of cookies and knocking them all over the floor.
"Hamish!" Johnny's mother scolded.
"I will not have it in my house!" Hamish roared. "I will not! That's not how we raised Harriet-"
"If everyone turned out like they were raised, we'd all be lawyers and doctors and bankers!" Johnny shouted back. "There's be no writers, or artists, or musicians. Nobody grows up to be exactly what their parents wished for!"
"-unholy, abomination-"
"Yeah? Guess what? Being gay isn't a choice! Just today I learned that some modern scientists believe that sexuality is linked with genetics! So which of you is it, then? Which one of you gave Harriet the lesbian gene?"
"God doesn't-"
The blood was boiling in Johnny's veins. Something overcame him and he ripped the pitcher of milk from the table and smashed it on the floor over the forgotten spilled cookies.
"WE DON'T EVEN GO TO CHURCH!" Johnny screamed. He was crying now. He couldn't help it. His wrath always yielded to sobbing. There was a shocked silence from his parents, who stared at him in disbelief, and the short, ragged breathing Johnny adopted was the only sound besides the trickling milk on the floor. He made the mistake of wiping the tears from his eyes because in the moment his eyes were closed he was tackled to the floor. His mother shrieked.
"Are you on drugs?" Hamish growled, weighing down on Johnny, breathing in his face.
"Are you on drugs?!" Hamish asked again, shaking Johnny a little by the shoulders.
"Get off me!" Johnny screeched. "You're crazy!"
This had never happened before. Johnny wasn't much of a trouble maker, and he had never deliberately destroyed his mother's good china before. True, he hardly even sassed his parents. Everything he'd said in the entire half hour was extraordinarily unlike him, which was probably why his father pinned him to the floor.
"That Holmes boy is a bad influence on you!" Hamish spat. "I never liked him!"
Johnny stared up at his father in horror.
"John Hamish Watson, you are forbidden to associate with him. Do you understand?"
"You can't do that!" Johnny sobbed, his will at last broken. "He's my only friend."
"You should have chosen a better friend, then," Hamish said savagely.
"But Sherlock isn't a dr-"
"My word is final!" Hamish shouted. Even Johnny's mother jumped in her seat at the harshness of his tone. Hamish barked once more at Johnny to clean the mess on the floor, and when he was finished to just go in his bedroom and do his homework. Johnny's mother tried wiping the tears from Johnny's face as he stood back up. Telling him that this was for his own good. That maybe if Sherlock cleaned up his act, they could be friends again, with supervision. But the dead look in Johnny's eyes stopped her, and she let him be.
"You've had a row last night." Sherlock said pointedly as Johnny approached him at the back entrance of the schoolyard.
"Don't," Johnny warned. He was in absolutely no mood for Sherlock's wit today.
"It was especially bad." Sherlock pressed on. "Your eyes are positively bloodshot."
"Don't!"
"There's no shame in crying, Johnny. It's natural."
"Shut up, Sherlock! This isn't a game!" Johnny hissed. "My dad's forbidden me to speak to you. Did you figure that out by looking at me?"
"I figured as much. You normally enter school through the front doors, not the back. That's where we meet in the morning. You were trying to avoid me. Rightly, so. I wouldn't want to cross your father. He's rather intimidating."
"Yes, well, he's convinced that I'm snorting crack because I hang out with you, and that you're the reason I've "got a chip on my shoulder" and he was going on and on about respect, and embarrassing him and my mum..."
"Well, you're not snorting crack," Sherlock said, almost with a laugh. "So clearly I'm not the reason your parents are displeased with you. So what is the reason, Johnny?"
"Sherlock, you need to find a new science fair partner. I'm sorry." Johnny said.
