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Chapter 11

John's knees were shaking as he entered the dorm to find that Sherlock was out of the shower and dressed. He had no idea how to begin the conversation.

"I'm putting the kettle on, do you want a coffee?" he asked with a smile. John enjoyed being the cause of Sherlock's smiling, and telling him what had happened could ruin it all.

"No, thanks I had a brew at Greg's just now."

"Ah, so that's where you were. Are you having a shower? We have assembly at 2 and we need to look like we weren't there last night."

"Right, yeah..."

He stared at his feet frowning and palms sweating like they had done on his first day.

"Sherlock? I- I need to tell you something."

"Yes?"

"Well, I erm, just thought I should tell you, er.." Sherlock was looking curiously at John, with his bright eyes wide and full of concern, "you know what, it doesn't matter. Forget it."

"Why, what were you going to -John-?"

"-forget it!" he hissed, slamming the door of the bathroom shut and turning the shower straight on, so that he could moan at his failure without being heard. Sherlock had looked at him the way a proper friend would look when you were clearly facing a problem, with concern and care. They had finally reached the point where it wasn't just John questioning Sherlock and treating him like a child, Sherlock actually seemed to care about John as well, and he couldn't risk throwing that away.

The hot water of the shower calmed him a bit. He stopped to think about how he was going to handle the situation. He felt so strongly about Sherlock, but could do nothing about in fear that it would jeopardise their friendship. He now knew that he was gay. He had been so uncertain for quite some time, always getting confused when he had felt attracted to men, but he accepted it now.

This was such a ridiculous thing to be getting so upset about. It was the type of dilemma you'd see in a chick flick, and he was the love struck little teenager. The manly thing to do would be to just bite the bullet and tell him, but then there was the thing stopping him, the thing Sherlock despised so much, emotion.

He decided that he would much rather have Sherlock in his life as a friend than not at all, even if it did hurt him. It would hurt much more if he had to leave 221B.

The assembly was in half an hour, so John finally got out of the shower and attempted to make himself look a little less hung over. When he entered the bedroom, it was empty. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so sharp with Sherlock, he was only angry at himself. John knew far too well by now that when Sherlock wanted to be alone, it was best to just leave him until he was ready to come back.

Reluctantly, he left the dorm and went down to the hall for the assembly, and braced himself for whatever the headmaster was going to say to them.

"John!" Greg caught up with him in the corridor, "how did it go?"

"Well, I didn't tell him so I guess it went pretty badly."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"I can't. I can't risk him freaking out about it."

"Mate, I can't believe you're getting this worked up over Sherlock Holmes."

John felt anger at these words as though it was he who had been insulted.

"He's brilliant."

"If you say so."

The other students had done fairly well to make themselves look presentable. They all filed in to the hall and sat down, and Sherlock was not amongst them. At the front of the room, John saw Jim Moriarty and Seb Moran together, looking rugged and tired. If they had been there last night, John hadn't noticed them.

When all the students were seated, the headmaster took his place on the podium, face stern, and cleared his throat.

"Given the situation I do not think it wise to be talking now settle down!"

The room immediately fell silent, with almost every student staring in to their lap, knowing that they were about to be told off.

"I am sure that every single one of you in this room is aware of the event that occured last night. This little tradition is something that was created by some of the more wreckless students many years ago, and unfortunately has continued. So I shall begin by apologising to those of you who are not feeling your best at this moment, I imagine the vast amount of alcohol you all managed to pour down your throats is now taking it's affect for the worse. I do understand that it was not all of you. There were an embarrasingly small number of students who had enough sense to not get involved.

The last time this event occured, the staff agreed that it would be unrealistic to track down each student that attended and punish them, but I assure you now the matter will not be taken so lightly..."

He continued to lecture them about the dangers of alcohol and the consequences of their actions, but John was not paying attention. When he finally dismissed them, John headed straight back up to his dorm to check for Sherlock. John's heart sank when he went to open the door and it was locked. The phone signal at the school was usually terrible, but he thought it was worth a try. To his surprise, it had worked, and he could hear the buzzing through the phone that meant it was ringing. It rang twice before the call was declined. John growled and flung his phone across the room, then went straight back out again.

He went to Greg's, as it was all he could think of doing to take his mind off Sherlock. He'd turn up when he wanted to, and John could apologise then.

"Alright?" Greg asked as he entered the dorm.

"Yep."

"He's buggered off again, hasn't he?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter any more, I'm not going to tell him how I feel anyway. Oh yeah, and neither are you, and don't tell anyone else."

"Fine, fine. Listen, mate, we're all going for a walk, why don't you come? Relax your mind a bit?"

"Yeah, yeah okay."

He, Greg, Molly, Philip and Sally all left the building to have a walk around the lake on campus, which was quite beautiful, and was close to the little stretch of woodland that contained Sherlock's hiding place. It was difficult to stop thinking about him, but after a while, he eased up a bit and realised that the situation wasn't as bad as he had thought.

He ate dinner with the four of them, (Sherlock as usual wasn't at dinner,) and hoped that he would have returned by the time John got back to the dorm. As he was walking back, he glanced down one of the smaller corridors to his right as whilst walking. His stomach flipped horribly as he did a double take, and saw Sherlock and Irene together. But this time Irene was the one with her back to the wall, and Sherlock was commiting to the soft kissing wholeheartedly. Her hands were around his waist, one of his lightly holding her cheek.

John couldn't take it. He stormed away as quickly as his legs could carry him, anger and jealousy bubbling up inside him. He felt so betrayed, even though he and Sherlock weren't together anyway. As he had just proven, Sherlock clearly liked girls. He slammed the door of 221B shut with such force, it caused the entire room to shake. This was torture. He didn't want to see Sherlock, didn't want to face him or speak to him in fear that he would just break down crying. But Sherlock would return, and John was dreading when he did.