DISCLAIMER: The character of Julien was borrowed (with permission) from the lovely and unfairly talented Mirith Griffin and her story Control, Alt, Delete, which if you haven't read you definitely should.


Cuxton Grammar School, Central London, 1992

Sherlock ended up being early to Chemistry.

After half an hour of restlessness around the five o'clock mark he had succumbed to the urge to move, and found himself in front of the bay windows in the common room watching the sun rise. The library didn't open until seven, and he was less than confident at the librarian's ability to procure any more informative books over the summer.

There was something about watching the sunrise that he liked, too. It was calming in ways and yet invigorating in others; Sherlock got lost trying to track the moment where the first and last sliver of sunlight slipped free of the trees backing the Cuxton estate. But as soon as the orange clouds faded and the sun made itself known, it lost its appeal somewhat.

The library turned out to be just as dull this year as it had been in the last, and so Sherlock found himself arriving at Lab Four ten minutes early for Chemistry, as opposed to his usual calculated five minutes late. Because it was the first lesson of the year, almost everyone else was also there already, having basically sprinted in order to get the best seats and the lab partner that they wanted.

It was a tradition of Mr Gibbon's that the person you shared a bench with on the first class of the year became your lab partner for the entire course. Sherlock always arrived late so that he could pretend it wasn't his choice to be lumped with the student who had barely made it into the course and couldn't really care less. In reality, he liked it that way; it meant he could do everything himself and not bother waiting around for someone else to keep up.

He walked into the class and looked around; most of the seats had already been filled, but there were three or four empty seats that he scanned critically, before making his way to sit beside Julie Simpson, who was looking vacant and seemed to be drooling onto her desk.

"Sherlock Holmes."

He stopped sharply and turned towards the voice. He kept himself to himself at Cuxton, and while he knew people talked about the way he knew more about his subjects than the teachers did and the way he had no friends, no-one ever dared to say anything to his face; the people who had tried at first soon found out that Sherlock could more than make life unpleasant for them if he wanted.

Sitting beside one of the empty seats was a boy Sherlock had never seen before, smiling softly at him. His expression was almost eerily calm and collected compared to the riot of pubescence around them; Sherlock's eyes automatically narrowed as he looked the stranger up and down. He was very distinctly French, upright and poised, immaculately dressed with fastidious care – gay, but comfortably so. He met Sherlock's gaze steadily from vivid green eyes, his plush, sculpted lips curving up in a slight smile. The bones of his face stuck out elegantly, his jaw square and his cheekbones so sharp as to be almost serrated. Sherlock swallowed. How did the boy know his name?

"Julien de Richelieu."

The searching eyes widened in surprise, the slight smile tugging wider. "Have they been talking about me already?" he asked. Sherlock looked around at his classmates; he should have guessed that they would try to warn the new kid away from him. He shrugged contemptuously.

"Probably, given your father's status. Your name's written on your books, though."

Julien de Richelieu made the cursory glance down at the lever-arch binder on his desk, and smiled. "Of course. You are very observant." Sherlock shrugged again. "Would you sit down with me?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes again. "Are you sure? We'll be stuck with each other all year. I'm… a demanding laboratory partner."

"Then I think we will get on very well," de Richelieu parried, still smiling. Sherlock gave one look back at Julie Simpson before sliding into the seat beside the French boy and dropping his bag to the floor. Julien winced slightly as it hit the ground. Sherlock smiled. This was going to be interesting; de Richelieu was a neat-freak and he, Sherlock, loved chaos.

"So," he said abruptly, yanking a book out of his bag. "How do you like London? The weather must be difficult after so long in the tropics."

One elegant brown eyebrow arched skywards. "The tropics?" he asked coolly.

"That's where you came from, isn't it? You're quite clearly French, but your accent is a mixture of dialects. You seem quite comfortable with your place in a new school, so it's obviously something you're used to. I'm guessing your father is a French ambassador, going by the amount he travels… or somebody high-up in a major French government sector? Something to do with law enforcement, going by your military neatness. Your skin is dark, but the tone of your cheekbones is browner than your chin, which suggests it's a tan gained over time. You're still a little bit hesitant with your English, so I'm guessing the last place you lived was a French-speaking country. The Seychelles would be my guess. How far off is it?"

Julien de Richelieu's eyebrow trembled slightly. "That is correct," he said, his lips curving upwards slightly. "You notice a lot, Sherlock. I heard you were different, but everyone refused to elaborate. You seem to have frightened off the entire school with this talent of yours."

Sherlock shrugged. "They're intimidated that I can guess their secrets. Teenagers always have something to hide."

The corner of de Richelieu's mouth quirked upwards quickly and his browned hand slid closer to Sherlock's on the bench, a teasing gleam in his green eyes. "What are you hiding?"

"That would be telling." Sherlock smirked, fighting the urge to move his hand because he wasn't sure if he wanted to move it closer to the French boy's, or further away. "You, on the other hand, you already are telling. The tell-tale marks of a faded bruise on your left cheekbone, slight discolorations where it's happened before – you've been used as someone's punch-bag. This level of neatness usually suggests that you're intimidated by someone in your family and didn't want to give them reason to get angry as a child – father seems more likely. The pattern of the bruising is of a fist – women don't punch, they slap. There isn't much feminine influence in any of your appearance, so I'd say your mother isn't around much, which is probably the reason your father takes it out on you. You've come to London from the Seychelles on your own – you would've made a grander entrance if your father had been around – so you were running away from him."

De Richelieu drew in a slow breath, his fists clenching on the desk. Sherlock flinched. People didn't usually like having these kinds of secrets mentioned out loud, but he'd said them reasonably quietly and he was confident no-one had heard them. "Don't worry, they didn't hear," he said. "I suppose I'm trying to escape my family, too."

After a moment, the boy breathed out again, his grip on his blue biro relaxing. He chuckled; Sherlock looked up in surprise. "You are quite brilliant," de Richelieu told him gently. "That is remarkable. No wonder people are intimidated by you."

A surprised smile weaved its way onto Sherlock's face. Brilliant wasn't something he'd ever been called before, not without the slightly patronising, clinical tone applied by primary-school teachers. "Thank you," he said. Julien de Richelieu smiled.

The door behind them banged open with all the theatrics that could only be attributed to a teacher; sure enough, with a world-weary grunt, the flabby, sweaty shape of Mr Gibbon waltzed into the room, brandishing a spiral-bound exercise book and crushing the arms of students leaning beyond the narrow confines of their desks. Sherlock pressed slightly closer to Julien de Richelieu to avoid being bulldozed; the French student chuckled lightly.

Instead, of course, the uneasily fat man stepped on the corner of his bag, and Sherlock heard a plasticky crunch that signalled that he would need a new pen. He sighed. De Richelieu grinned at him.

Gibbon made his way to the front of the class and slapped his book down noisily on the desk. At the noise, the rest of the class quietened hurriedly. The man's piggy little eyes narrowed viciously. "Good lord," he said eventually, his deep boom of a voice echoing genially around the room. "You lot look even more gormless than last year. Just when you think things can't get any worse…" He scanned the rows of seats, occasionally barking out an order or separating a pair that he disapproved of. Then his eyes lit on Julien.

"I see we have a new student," he said, his voice settling into a vaguely menacing lilt. "Stand up, boy, and introduce yourself."

If his tone was meant to unsettle de Richelieu, it failed; he stood up smoothly, patting down his white dress shirt. "Julien de Richelieu, Mr. Gibbon," he introduced calmly. Sherlock noticed wryly that a few female heads turned, impressed, when they heard his silky French accent, and their eyes widen when they saw his chiselled, elegant face. They were all about to be disappointed.

Gibbon nodded shortly. "Very good. Where are you from, then, and then sit down."

"My family is from Paris, originally, sir, but I have just moved from the Seychelles." He sat down as Gibbon's attention was transferred elsewhere, rolling his eyes. "Imbècile," he muttered.

Sherlock chuckled, and replied without thinking. "Tu n'avez aucune idee," he said. The French boy's head whipped around so fast his straight dark fringe flicked into his eyes.

"You speak French?" he asked. Sherlock shrugged.

"Only rudimentary," he admitted carelessly. "My grandmother refuses to learn English, so we learned the basics."

He looked up at the other boy as Gibbon started barking at them to get out their books and pens to find that he was smiling softly again. "I could teach you the rest, if you like," he offered. Sherlock dug the splintered remains of a pen out of his bag. He always neglected to bring spares. "Here." De Richelieu spun a biro effortlessly between his fingers before offering it to Sherlock, who took it gratefully.

"Thanks."

"For the pen, or for the offer to learn French?"

Sherlock fiddled with the biro. "Both," he said airily, turning to Gibbon before they got snapped at. "But I might pass on the French for now."

"You are not used to having people want to talk to you," de Richelieu guessed languidly.

Sherlock chuckled darkly. "People usually run as far away as they can after I tell them about their family crises."

De Richelieu returned the chuckle. "But I haven't," he surmised. "And you are not quite sure what to do with me now, are you?"

He didn't really want to admit to that, so he smiled tightly. "Why, what do you suggest?"

"Oh, I could suggest plenty of things," the other boy smirked. Sherlock frowned; was de Richelieu flirting with him? "But for now, I think you should not be so quick to turn me away. A friend is often nice to have."

Sherlock considered this. He'd managed fine without a 'friend' for most of his life – certainly through all of his time at Cuxton. He could still feel the French boy's eyes running appraisingly over his face and there was a slight air of one walking up and down in front of a line of racehorses, judging each one. From what he'd seen of de Richelieu so far, they seemed quite similar. Perhaps it would be best if they stuck together; without Sherlock's ability to parry physical blows with verbal threats, the other boy would become a target for the big and stupid boys, especially if they found out he was homosexual.

"All right," he said finally. "Thank you."

Julien smiled warmly. "Thank you."

"Holmes!" Sherlock jumped as Gibbon's voice barked through the room. He turned to look at the teacher, fixing his usual innocuous smile on his face. "I see your manners haven't improved over the summer. Am I to assume that you know everything already about the topics that you will be examined on this year?"

"Most likely, sir," Sherlock answered honestly. They hadn't taught him anything last year, so he was hesitant to believe that they could raise their game in the final year. "Titration, aqueous systems and organic chemistry this year, isn't it, sir?"

Gibbon narrowed his eyes piggishly. "Can you describe the ranking of the periodic table in terms of the elements' reactivity, then, Mr Holmes?"

Sherlock did so lazily; he'd finished most of the study materials for seventh-form after his first summer in the library. Gibbon huffed and gave up on him. He smiled innocently.

Someone in the table behind him murmured: "God, Holmes, you're such a freak."

He turned around quickly; the girl bore an expression of extreme distaste that was so carefully arranged as to be a cover-up for some other emotion, probably jealousy. He smirked. "At least I know the answers. When he gets angry at you, you'll just look stupid."

Sure enough, as she opened her mouth to retort, Gibbon's barking voice echoed through the room. "McDougall!" Sherlock smiled at the girl brightly. Julien chuckled.

"So, is this what you must deal with all the time, then?" Julien asked idly, trying to move his lips as little as possible so as to avoid Gibbon's eye.

"It'll die down once they get used to school again," he replied. "Though I'd keep your sexuality under wraps, if I were you."

Julien smirked. "Not that you know this from experience, because you obviously do not have any," he said gently. "Experience, that is. Sexually." His green eyes flicked up to meet Sherlock's shocked grey ones and his smirk widened in amusement.

"Would you like some?"