Chapter 4

John woke to a horrible beeping sound. Rubbing his face and groaning, he sat up. Sherlock was lying in the other bed, drowsily reaching for his phone on the floor, he turned the alarm off.

"John.." he moaned.

"Mmm?"

"'Kay, you're awake. Just checking."

John managed to drag himself out of bed and went in to the bathroom.

"You getting up?" he called through the open door.

"Mmm, yeah."

Sherlock flung his covers off and clambered out of bed, rubbing his eyes and leaving John to momentarily bask in the glory of the boy's messy hair. In silence they brushed their teeth, washed, and then dressed in separate rooms, again. The uniform was extremely dull. Black blazers bearing the school's logo, black trousers and dark green and black striped ties. John wore his uniform correctly, with his shirt tucked in and tie done all the way up. He looked horrific. Sherlock, however, refused to dress quite so smartly. His shirt was untucked and his tie was sitting rather loosely around his neck.

"Sherlock, what do you have first?"

"Chemistry. Boring."

"Oh, I do too."

"Do you know where the classroom is?"

"Um, no, but Greg said he's wait for me and show me."

"Ah, okay, then."

There was a knock on the door of 221B.

"John? It's Greg! You up?"

"Yeah, hold on."

John went to the door, not before he caught Sherlock's sad expression as he stared at the ground.

"Hi, Greg. Um, change of plan, if that's okay. I think I'm gonna go with Sherlock instead, thanks, though, you've been a big help."

Greg looked from John to Sherlock in surprise.

"Oh! Okay. No problem, mate. You two urr - have fun."

John could have sworn Greg was smirking as he walked away down the corridor.

"Why did you do that?" Sherlock asked in genuine surprise.

"Because we're both going to the same place and may as well go together. C'mon. Breakfast."

John meant that as an order rather than a question. Sherlock rolled his eyes but accompanied John to the hall. There were a few whispers from people walking by and John couldn't care less. Sherlock didn't deserve his reputation as a freak and he was going to make him realise that. They arrived in the busy hall and got in the queue. Sherlock avoided eye contact with literally everyone in the room, except John. As he put sausages and egg on to his own plate, he could see Sherlock was not interested. Determined, John picked up a sausage and an egg and plonked them on to Sherlock's plate for him.

"And you'll bloody eat it," he said, jokingly rather than aggressively. As they went to find seats, John heard a voice from the corner of the room.

"John! Over here!"

It was Greg, Philip and Sally, sat in the same seats they were sat in yesterday at dinner. Sherlock noticed and began to back away, but John grabbed his sleeve and pulled him towards them.

"C'mon."

The three of them made no snide comments as Sherlock sat down next to John on the same table. Well, they hadn't yet anyway.

"Oh wow, how did you get him to come down here, John?" Sally asked, "you must be pretty good to be able to pull him out of his cave."

"How's the boyfriend, Sally?" Sherlock asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Sherlock, don't." Greg threatened. Sally and Sherlock merely gave each other daggers from opposite sides of the table. John noticed Sherlock hadn't touched his food, and nudged his thigh under the table. Rolling his eyes yet again, he cut his sausage and took a mouthful. John couldn't help but smile slightly to himself at his achievement.

The conversation at the breakfast table was pleasant enough, mainly because Sherlock kept his sarcastic comments to himself for most of it. At five to nine, the bell rang, and Greg, Sherlock and John headed for chemistry, while Sally and Philip set off for the other building.


The lessons were about the same level of diffiuclty as they had been in John's old school, but seeing as he had sat with Sherlock for most of them (despite his eye rolling and refusal,) he got quite a bit of help. Well, he basically just copied off him but he understood things far better than he ever did before. Sherlock was such an interesting person, and John struggled to see how he had never had any friends before. It actually felt like a privilege to be accepted by someone who basically hated everyone. He said none of this out loud to Sherlock, though, afraid that it would overwhelm him.

It was 4 o'clock when John arrived back to his dorm. He was desperate to get his uniform off, it was the most uncomfortable thing he'd ever worn. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen, but John didn't worry, assuming he'd be in his little spot on campus. He was pretty bored without Sherlock, though, but he didn't really know anyone else well enough to go do something with them.

He had a shower and went on his laptop to kill time, and his heart sank slightly when he knew Sherlock probably wasn't planning on showing up for dinner. When 6 o'clock finally arrived, John headed for the hall. He now remembered the route and set off by himself. Sally, Greg and Philip were sat in their usual spot, but there was no sign of Sherlock, meaning dinner time conversation would be rather plain.

"Alright, John?"

"Yep, fine."

"Guessing you don't know where Sherlock is?"

"Not a clue. Ah well, he'll turn up."


When John returned from dinner, he was very surprised to see Sherlock sat at his desk, facing away from him with a cigarette in one hand and a mug of black coffee next to him.

"You know you're not actually allowed those, right?" he asked, closing the door behind him.

"What, are you gonna tell on me?"

"Well obviously not, but I'm just saying - those things kill you."

"Really? I had no idea."

John smirked, "smart arse."

Sherlock appeared to be doing homework, so John tried his best not to disturb him, even though he really wanted to talk to him.

"Are you ever gonna tell me where this secret hiding spot of yours is?" John asked, unable to bare the silence.

"Well if I tell you it's not much of a secret."

"So, that's where you've been?"

"Why must you know where I am at every waking moment?"

"No - sorry, just curious."

Sherlock tapped his fingers impatiently against the desk, shaking his leg at the same time.

"God, this is so boring, why do we need to know about the solar system? Other planets don't concern us so why do teachers feel a need drill our heads with useless trivia that we'll never need," he moaned, "I'm having a shower."

"'Kay."

Sherlock immediately went in to bathroom without looking at John, making him feel slightly useless for not being better company. He wouldn't bring up Sherlock not eating dinner, not again, it would just piss him off further.

Half an hour had passed since Sherlock went in to the bathroom and the shower was still running. John had the nagging feeling that Sherlock didn't want to talk to him. Even when the shower finally turned off he spent another 20 minutes doing god knows what. It was now half 10 and lights were supposed to be out. John didn't particularly care about this rule, but he was really tired, probably because he'd been so bored all day. He knocked on the bathroom door.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes."

"How long d'you reckon you'll be?"

"Why?"

"It's just that - not to be a pain, but I'm quite tired-"

"You want to sleep."

"Um, yeah."

The door immediately opened and Sherlock dashed past him, knocking John's shoulder as he went. John turned around instead of going in to the bathroom.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Sherlock had his head down and was on his phone.

"Yes, why?"

"You seem, a bit pissed off."

"Boredom has a bad effect on me."

He was slowly turning further away from John, keeping his head right down to stare at the screen of his phone.

"Sherlock, why won't you look at me?" John asked in a serious voice.

"No reason. I'm going out."

He quickly made for the door but John beat him to it, putting his hand on the door knob to prevent him from leaving.

"What's going on?"

Sherlock finally looked at John, who could now see a dark, slightly swollen bruise curving from Sherlock's brow bone to the top of his cheekbone, with a deep cut in the center. He slowly shied away from John, looking back down at the floor.

"What happened?" John said in a low voice.

"Nothing, it's nothing. I'm fine."

"It's not nothing, Sherlock, who did that to you?"

"John you've known me for two days, please stop acting like you care!"

"Well tough, because I do care!"

"I don't want to do this with you now John, I want to go out."

"It's past curfew-"

"And I really don't care!"

"You aren't going anywhere, Sherlock!"

John tried to be subtle when he took his key out of his pocket and locked the door.

"You do realise I have a key as well?"

"That doesn't mean you're getting past me."

"See, this! This is why I can't stand living with people! You all try so hard to be loyal and caring and it's all just an act because you're stuck here. You're just like all the others, thinking you can communicate and that people will open up to you when all they really want is for you to fuck off!"

Feeling extremely hurt -and angry, John simply walked in to the bathroom without another word to Sherlock and closed the door. As he had expected, Sherlock stormed out, probably thinking John had gone in there to cry or something, but in fact as soon as he heard the front door close John ran back out in to the bedroom, grabbed his jacket and put his shoes on, and headed out. He saw the end of a long black coat whip around a corner and began to follow.