You want a revelation. You wanna get it right. But it's a conversation I just can't have tonight.
Chapter Twenty:
To Sherlock it felt as though their three days in the Watson household was longer than all of the weeks they had spent in London. John was up by seven every morning and there were no cosy lie-ins. His father could burst in at any moment, John said and physical contact had to be kept to a bare minimum.
Sherlock hadn't told John that his mother was very much aware of their relationship and he didn't suppose he would until they were back in Redverse. John wasn't very good at hiding his feelings and if he knew that his mother knew, his embarrassment would be difficult for even Mr. Watson, with all his perception skills of a fruit bat, not to notice.
John was at the beck and call of his father. Sherlock was left by himself for hours at a time, while John was with his father practising. He came back at eleven or midday, covered in mud and grass and too tired to do anything but fall onto the sofa and lay there in a limp heap.
However, Mrs Watson was surprisingly good company. It felt as though she understood everything without him needing to say anything. She seemed unmoved by her husband's ferocious gushing about John and his curt disregard for her. Sherlock had a feeling that it had taken a few years for her to perfect the glassy, aloof facade she displayed to her husband. Sometimes her disdain broke through it in sporadic bursts but in front of John she seemed to apply every shred of will power into acting as though she was indifferent to her husband's uncouthness.
"Why don't you do something?"
Mrs Watson looked up at him from across the bench. "About what?"
"You know what I mean," Sherlock said, looking away.
She was silent for a moment. There was a chink as she put her mug down. "What should I say? Should I tell my husband that he's destroying his son's life? Should I tell my son that I know he's unhappy but I can't do anything to change it?"
Sherlock didn't reply. He had been saying the same thing to her every morning when they were left alone in the kitchen. Her fear and anxiety was so deeply ingrained in her. He knew she would never be able to face her husband, would never be able to face being the one who made her son an outcast to his own father and his peers. She'd rather he suffer in silence than take a risk and bring greater anguish unto him.
Sherlock had no such qualms. He had no doubt that if he let John coast through the last months of school in his comfortable shell he would regret it one day. He had decided what he had to do.
"We're going back to school tomorrow," Sherlock said offhandedly. "We're going to leave this afternoon so we don't have to rush in the morning." But really it was so that no one saw them arrive together.
"Yes?" she said, putting one of her slim cigarettes between her painted lips but not lighting it. "What precisely do you expect me to do, Sherlock?"
"Nothing," Sherlock said shortly. "I just thought that it might be nice if you said something to John before we go."
She gave a low chuckle into her cigarette. "You're so righteous, Sherlock. Are you always completely honest with my son all of the time?"
"Yes," Sherlock said firmly, and then he thought. He thought about the play still sitting in the bottom of his bag upstairs. He had known it was there all holidays. He had known that if they didn't work on it, it was unlikely that they'd get it done in time for the final deadline in one month's time. He knew that John's English mark rode on the back of this piece of assessment. He knew John loved that play and it made him happy.
Mrs Watson almost seemed to know what he was thinking. She gave a solemn laugh. "Look-"
There was a crash as the front door hit the hallway wall. John's mother visibly straightened in her seat as her son's and husband's footsteps sounded in the hallway. Sherlock jerked around in his seat. John had dirt in his hair and was clutching a filthy football against his hip. His father's broad hand was placed firmly on his shoulder.
"Excellent practice!" he said, giving John a hearty slap on the back. "He's not as rusty as he could be."
John slinked out of his grip and disappeared through to the patio. His father watched him go, his smile slipping a little on his face. He looked at Sherlock. "Morning, lad. Keeping the missus company? Don't let her bore you too much. There's a telly in the living room."
Mrs Watson gave a short laugh and slipped out of her chair. She went out to the patio, lighting her cigarette as she went. Sherlock moved to leave but he felt Mr. Watson's strong hand on his shoulder in the same manner it had been on John's just moments before.
"Thought we could have a quick chat, Sherlock," he said in a would-be cheerful voice. He dropped heavily into the seat Mrs Watson had vacated, staring at him with a wide smile pasted over his face that couldn't quite reach his eyes.
"Mr. Watson?" Sherlock said. He wished he couldn't see so much of John in his father.
"You're not on the team, are you, Sherlock?" Mr. Watson said. "You're not a footballer? Are you? Sherlock?" He kept saying his name like it was a new word he'd just learnt and liked the sound of.
"No, I'm afraid sports are not one of my many talents," Sherlock said coolly.
John's father gave a forceful laugh. "Academic are you, Sherlock?"
Sherlock shrugged. He stared over Mr. Watson's shoulder to the patio doors. He could see John in one of the deckchairs, hunched over. His mother was standing with her back to the doors, the cigarette hanging limply between two fingers.
"Now..." Mr. Watson licked his lips. "Look, I have nothing against academics, Sherlock. I had to slog my guts out at school to get where I am today." He fiddled with Mrs Watson's half-empty mug, running a callused thumb up and down the handle. "But I didn't have John's talent. You see what I'm saying, Sherlock?"
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but Mr. Watson held up a hand to silence him. The same way he did to his wife. "Look, Sherlock. I ain't saying that academics don't get you nowhere. They do! But when you have raw talent like that boy does," he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, "you don't throw it all away and go to some substandard university just because some teacher tells you, you should."
"Substandard?" Sherlock said, raising his eyebrows.
Mr Watson hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder and then leant a few inches forward." Look, let's face it. John's a good kid. He really is. But... come on, he's no Einstein."
Sherlock stood up. "Mr. Watson, I'm not having this conversation."
He couldn't breathe. He felt like he had swallowed something and it had got caught right in his throat.
"Sherlock!" he snapped. "Don't be so defensive!"
"John is not a dunce," Sherlock said coldly. "He thinks he's an idiot, because you make him feel like an idiot."
There was a screech of wood on tile as Mr. Watson got abruptly to his feet. "Now see here!" he said indignantly, jabbing a finger at Sherlock's chest. "You've known my son, what, a month? I've known him his whole life! I won't stand by and watch you bugger up his chances to-"
He lapsed into silence, swallowing hard.
He forced a smile that seemed to take every muscle of his face to produce. "Look. I wouldn't want to break up a nice friendship. You're good for my son. He needs someone with a good head on his shoulders."
Sherlock kept his eyes on the table. He didn't want to laugh but the words "bugger" and "head" coming from Mr. Watson's foolish, boorish mouth were just too amusing.
He got to his feet and gave him a painful slap on the shoulder on his way to the living room. Sherlock didn't move. He could see John talking to his mother. He hoped that their conversation was going better than his and Mr. Watson's.
"God damn that man," he muttered.
"Hey," John came back into the kitchen. His hair was sticking up and he had mud smudged over his nose. "What have you been doing all morning while I get tortured?"
"I just had a heart to heart with your father," Sherlock said quietly.
John's eyes widened. "Oh God. What did he-" He threw a hand over his mouth. "Let's go upstairs."
Sherlock nodded and followed him up. John's father was nowhere to be seen, but he'd left his tie and coat on the sofa.
"What the hell did he say to you?" John hissed, slamming his bedroom door behind them and flattening himself against it.
Sherlock stood by the window and watched him. He was treading mud and grass all over the carpet. "Told me I'm going to destroy your rising football career if I keep polluting you with my intelligence."
John stared at him. "What?"
"He thinks... Look," Sherlock sighed. "What did your mother say?"
John looked startled. "Not much."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"
John exhaled softly and turned away. "Just stuff about school and football. What else?" He stared at Sherlock. A small frown formed on his forehead. "Wait. Did she talk to you? Sherlock?"
Sherlock didn't reply. He wandered across to John's bed and sat down. John stared at him.
"Sherlock? What the hell did she say to you?" he snapped, flushing.
"Nothing!" Sherlock retorted. "Look! What the hell does it matter? She didn't tell me anything I don't already know and I certainly didn't tell her anything she doesn't already know."
John watched him, seeming (as Sherlock had intended) not to know whether that was a comforting or ominous statement. He covered his face with a groan. "Oh God. Let's get out of here. Let's just go. We'll stay in a motel or something and drive to Redverse tomorrow. I don't think I can wait until this afternoon."
"There'd be no point," Sherlock said, leaning back on the bed. "It's almost midday. Surely you can wait a couple of more hours."
John sighed and sunk down onto the mattress Sherlock had been using for a bed. "I know. It's stupid. I just feel so... so awkward. I feel like a child. Like an immature, infantile child. My father tells me what to do and my mother treats me like I'm four."
Sherlock paused. He didn't want to say too much. This wasn't the time or the place. "She really cares about you."
John flopped onto his back, still dressed in his football kit. His shirt edged up his slim, tanned stomach. Sherlock traced the line of the blonde beeline from his navel down to the band of his shorts.
He hadn't touched John since he'd fucked him in the dark with his father in the next room. After that it had seemed wise not to tempt fate and attempt anything like it again in John's parents' house.
John tilted his head towards him, finding his eyes on him. "Stop perving."
Sherlock smirked. "You have a sick mind. I was doing no such thing."
God, he was getting hard. It was his own fault. But it was John's too, sprawled on his back with his legs open. Without saying anything, Sherlock lay on his stomach and slid a hand down between John's thighs.
John squirmed. "Sherlock, stop."
Sherlock cupped his hand around John's cock through the thin polyester and squeezed. John arched his back with a soft gasp.
"Stop, Sherlock."
"You could move a few inches to the right but you choose to stay right where you, within optimal groping range," Sherlock said, beginning to rub him against his palm. "That suggests you don't really want me to stop."
John struggled onto his elbows. He was rocking very slightly against Sherlock's palm. "I don't want you to stop. I want you to get me off right here. I want to come all over your hand, but not in my parents' house."
Sherlock buried his face into the covers of John's bed with a groan. "You dirty slut. Stop talking like that. I'll lose it."
John grinned and stood up. Sherlock let his hand fall limp onto the mattress. "I've got to get out of these clothes."
Sherlock tilted his head towards him. He had left mud all over the mattress. John pulled out a pair of jeans and a shirt from his wardrobe and draped them over his desk chair.
Sherlock looked at the desk. John's mother had said that he still had the medical school application form on there somewhere. He wondered where he had put it. In one of the plastic folders on top or in one of the drawers perhaps.
John pealed off his kit and left it in a pile by the door. Sherlock stared as he took off his underwear and bent down to get a fresh pair from the drawers.
"You're a goddamn tease," he said, looking away from John's bare arse.
John straightened up and pulled on his signature pair of grey boxer briefs. Sherlock watched as he snatched his jeans from the chair and pulled them on, swallowing every inch of his perfect flesh in dull blue denim.
"You know that day last year when I walked in on you in the changing rooms?" Sherlock said, leaning back against John's poster peppered wall.
John frowned at him, pausing in the motion of putting his shirt on. "What?"
Sherlock closed his eyes with a laugh. "My God. You don't remember."
"Remember what?" John demanded, putting his hands on his hips.
"I walked in on you in the changing rooms," Sherlock said, opening one eye. "God, you only had your underwear on."
John blushed. "I think you must have dreamt this."
"No, in my dreams you were always wearing considerably less," Sherlock said, grinning at John's flustered expression.
"Why were you spying on me in my underwear?" John asked drily, pulling the shirt over his head.
When he emerged, he looked more flushed and dishevelled than ever. "I think I went down there because the bathroom in the dorms was out of order," Sherlock said, staring at the ceiling with a foolish smile. "You were the last one left after practice. I walked in there and you were stripped right down to your underwear. You looked at me and smiled. I almost pissed myself."
John looked away with a blush and a barely concealed smile. "You're such a pervert."
For the remainder of the day, they did their best to get John's room back to the way it was before they arrived. John looked particularly carefully over the covers of his bed for any remnants of their activities three days before.
He had to leave the door open because his father kept yelling things down to him from the study and if John didn't reply within fifteen seconds, his father came thundering down to demand why John was ignoring him. Once from the window Sherlock saw Mrs Watson going to get something from the car. Her platinum blonde hair flashed like glass in the sun.
Sherlock waited all day for an opportunity to ransack John's desk for the application form.
He got his chance when John went downstairs to put his bags in the hallway. Barely knowing how much time he had, Sherlock tore open every drawer, pulling out everything inside. Old wallets, notebooks, calendars, paper clips, miniature dictionaries, envelopes, letters from the bank. There was so much crap he could hardly distinguish one form from the next.
He opened every single one of the folders on top. Some had report cards, some had doctors' certificates or prescriptions or bills from the dentist. He heard John on the stairs when he opened the last folder and found what he immediately knew was the application form. It was kept in excellent condition and clearly hadn't been looked at in years. In huge white letters at the top was 'UCL'.
Sherlock folded it and slipped it into the front pocket of his suitcase just as John opened the door. "Well, we can probably get out of here now."
Sherlock nodded. "Want me to call a cab?"
"Ah." John bit his bottom lip. "I sort of... I sort of promised my father that he could-"
"No, you fucking didn't," Sherlock interjected. "Tell me you didn't ask him to drive us up."
"Look, he offered," John retorted. "I couldn't say no. You can't keep spending your parents' cash on transport. It's a bloody waste."
"Great," Sherlock said irritably. "Just great."
John gave a frustrated huff. "Look. You think I want him there?"
"Whatever," Sherlock said, picking up his suitcase. "Let's just go."
He said goodbye to Mrs Watson amicably enough. He wished he could get a minute to talk to her by herself but he thought he could tell from the warm, lipsticky kiss she left on his cheek that she didn't think he was ruining her son's prospects.
"Take care, Johnny," she said, cupping her son's face and kissing him on both cheeks. "Promise you'll call."
"I'll call," John mumbled, turning very red.
He walked out of the front door very quickly. His mother winked at Sherlock.
"You take care too, dear," she said. She leant forward, lowering her voice. "Keep an eye on him."
Sherlock just nodded. He heard Mr. Watson's footsteps on the stairs and retreated out into the front garden. John was leaning against the wall he had puked over earlier that week.
"My vomit is still in Mrs March's acacia bush," he said when he saw Sherlock. "I don't think we'll be getting a Christmas card from the Marchs' this year."
Sherlock leant against the wall next to him. "Are you ready?"
"To drive three hours with my father? Not really," John replied.
"No," Sherlock said softly. "Are you ready to go back to that hellhole?"
John was silent for a moment. "I guess. It kind of pisses me off that I have to go back to pretending I don't even know you."
"I'll say," Sherlock said, rubbing his face tiredly.
It might piss John off, but it tormented Sherlock. The thought of having to go back to sneaking around, hiding in empty classrooms and watching John don his fake, frustrating exterior as some moron who didn't care about anything but football and booze was pure torture.
Sherlock turned away. He had to steel himself against these sensations. He couldn't let them take control. He had everything he ever wanted. He had John and John loved him and he couldn't keep demanding more and more until one day he lost it all out of pure greed.
"Alrighty, boys!"
Mr. Watson barrelled out of the house, wearing a grey pinstripe suit and twirling a set of keys around his stubby finger.
"Time to hit the road! Get those bags in the back of the car. What are you waiting for? We have a long way to go!"
Sherlock had a feeling this was going to be an extremely long journey.
...
John almost felt relieved when Redverse's gates came into view. Three hours trapped in a car with his father (well, actually, it was probably more like two hours and forty-five minutes. His father drove like a maniac) had been even more torturous than he had imagined.
With Sherlock in the back observing their every movement and his father mentioning every inflammatory topic he could think of (football, girls, the team), it could not have been more perfectly designed to test him. John could almost feel Sherlock glaring at his father from behind him and was extremely relieved that Sherlock managed to hold his tongue and seemingly tune his father's prattle out the entire trip.
They stopped at the gates, John moved a hand to open the door.
"Hey! I can take you up to the foyer," his father said, grabbing his arm.
"No, it's fine," John said hurriedly. "Dad, really. We'll walk."
"Fine! Fine!" his father said, throwing his hands up. "I know you don't want to be seen with your old man. I can take a hint!"
John struggled out of the car with his backpack. "Thanks dad- for the ride... and everything."
Sherlock got out of the backseat, dragging his suitcase with him.
"I'll see you at the first game of the season then!" his father yelled at him through the window. "Train hard, son!"
John rolled his eyes to Sherlock. "Let's get the hell out of here."
They made their way up to the school. The grass was slippery and their bags made it a frustratingly slow process but it was better than spending another minute with his father.
"It's like he gets off on making me feel as crappy as possible," John snarled, through haggard breaths as they struggled along.
Sherlock didn't reply. John knew what he was thinking. He was wondering why John didn't say something if it bothered him so much.
Maybe he wasn't. Maybe the three days he had spent in John's house had made him see just what John's life had been like before him and maybe he didn't question why John did what he did and coped the way he coped.
The receptionist looked surprised to see them. Her eyes flickered from Sherlock to John and back again. "Mr. Holmes? Mr. Watson? Can I... ah, help you?"
John realised that it was their appearance together that surprised her. He supposed Sherlock's reputation as Redverse's resident loner was known to the admin staff too.
"Can we stay here tonight?" John asked. "Has anyone else arrived yet?"
"Yes, most of the international students are here and a few of the other students," she replied, still staring at Sherlock. "You're welcome to stay, of course. Do you need the keys to your rooms?"
"No, that's fine," John said hastily. "We have them." He ushered Sherlock towards the doors, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way the receptionist was goggling at him.
The dorms were as empty as a graveyard. The handful of students who stayed there during the holidays all seemed to be in the common room or in their rooms. John couldn't think of anything more depressing than having to stay in school over the Christmas holidays and pitied them.
He dropped his bags in a heap inside his dorm door and stared around the familiar surroundings. "Well, here we are."
Sherlock appeared next to him, staring at Billy's dishevelled belongings with distaste. "I can't wait until the summer holidays."
They went into Sherlock's room next. It looked very much like it had when they had left it. Empty, sparse and nothing like his room at home. John felt overwhelmingly miserable.
"How are we going to get through this?" he said helplessly, staring at the smudged window opposite.
Sherlock shook his head very slightly and hooked a finger into his hand. "Together. We'll be fine."
John didn't know if he could do what he knew he had to do. He had to pretend that Christmas hadn't happened. He had to pretend that he hadn't lost his virginity, hadn't kissed his boyfriend's brother, hadn't had sex in his parents' house. When they asked him what he'd done, he'd answer "nothing much". When they told him about all the girls they'd been with and all the parties they'd crashed he'd force a laugh and try not to feel disgusted. It was so much harder now.
"Don't worry," Sherlock said, as though he knew what he had been thinking. He turned to face him, still grasping his hand between his longer, paler fingers. "We did it last year. We can do it this year."
John just nodded. He didn't want Sherlock to think he needed him to protect him. He was right; they had been doing this for months. A few more months weren't going to kill them.
"Look," Sherlock said. He wandered over to his empty desk and dropped his suitcase down beside it. "I know these holidays have been difficult-"
"Don't," John said, holding up a hand. "I don't need anyone to summarize Christmas for me. Let's just forget about it."
Sherlock was quiet for a few moments. "Everything?"
John knew what he was thinking of and coloured. "Well... you know, not everything, just the bits with your brother in them."
Sherlock nodded unsmilingly and leant against the desk, folding his arms. "I should probably tell you something."
John raised an eyebrow. "That sounds ominous. You're not late, are you?"
Sherlock didn't laugh. "Look in my bag. The side pocket."
John stared at him. "What?"
Sherlock nodded at his suitcase leaning against the drawers of the desk beside him. John shrugged and knelt down in front of it. He unzipped the pocket along the front.
There was a stapled stack of paper crammed inside. John pulled it out and unfolded it, sending Sherlock a confused look. He glanced back down at it. "What is thi-"
He cut off with a jolt of realisation.
Sherlock cleared his throat. "Your mother-"
"She had no right," John said, straightening up and still staring at it. "This was what she told you? That I want to get into medical school?"
"Something to that effect," Sherlock said quietly. "Look, if this is what you want-"
"No," John said sharply. "It isn't. I don't want things that I know I could never achieve. I'm not that immature."
"Who says you couldn't get into medical school?" Sherlock snapped. "I've looked at the minimum academic achievements. They aren't unattainable."
"You know I'm already struggling," John hissed. He felt like this was all a sick plot against him. His mother, Sherlock, his father. It was like they were playing a game to see who could make him feel stupider and more insignificant.
"I am not applying for medical school," he said in a hard voice, folding the application form back in two. "I'm not going to put myself through the unnecessary humiliation and exhaustion."
"You could be so much more-" Sherlock began and then caught himself.
"Than a loser?" John said coldly. "Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. But that's what I am. A loser. And I don't have any big ideals about what I'm capable of. I don't need you sticking your nose into my life."
He turned to leave. "Wait!" Sherlock said. "Look, don't go away angry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I just... It was stupid."
John grudgingly turned back to him. "No, you shouldn't have. If I want to go to medical school, I'd tell you," he said gruffly. "But... thanks."
Sherlock shook his head with a half-shrug. "You'd make a more than adequate doctor, John. You shouldn't shoot yourself down before you've even tried."
John hoped that Sherlock didn't notice that he took the form with him when he left, but he knew he would. He was glad he didn't say anything and let John smuggle it out, as though he hadn't seen him do so. He took the form back to his room and put it in the top drawer of his desk under his school notebooks. He didn't want it, but he didn't want Sherlock to have it. He just wanted to bury it back in the most distant regions of his memory.
He sat on the bare mattress of his bed and wrapped his arms around himself. They hadn't brought the linen around yet. He stared at Billy's ramshackle side of the room. He had barely taken anything with him, everything seemed to have been left in an untidy pile on the bed.
John hadn't thought about medical school in two years. Now when he saw the form again, it seemed even more ridiculous than when he'd first downloaded it off the net. And yet he'd never been able to quiet the part of him that yearned to be good enough to fill it out.
"Three A levels," he said under his breath, burying his face in his hands. "Yeah right."
...
The next morning, the rest of the school arrived. Sherlock lay in bed, listening to the sound of what sounded like three hundred storm troopers parading down the corridor outside.
It was the first time in weeks that Sherlock had woken without John near to him. He was completely alone. He frowned to himself. Solitude had never bothered him before.
By eight the bell was ringing and the boys were being herded to home class. Sherlock got dressed slowly so that when he walked out to the corridor he was one of the last people left. He felt strange back in his school uniform. The socks seemed itchier, the shirt seemed to constrict his limbs and throat more than he remembered.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as he was almost at the door of the home room. He had an abrupt thought that it might be John but that was unlikely, John was probably already sitting in class with his friends.
Sherlock slid it out and saw the name "Mycroft". With lips thinned, he pressed "ignore" and went in.
Mr. Hurst was already in his seat, which was surprising given his tendencies to be ten or fifteen minutes late. He looked at him when he entered with what Sherlock thought was a markedly weary expression.
"Mr. Holmes, you're late," he said tersely.
Sherlock scanned the rows and spotted John sitting in the back, beside Hester. Marty was sitting a little straighter in his chair than Sherlock remembered, and he wasn't scrawling profanity on his pencil case or digging holes in the desk with his biro in his usual deranged manner. John was writing something in his school diary and didn't look up.
"Sorry," Sherlock said absently.
There was a boy he didn't recognise sitting next to Hester. A slim boy with dark hair. When Sherlock looked at him, he found his eyes were already on him. That he was staring at him with an almost decided lack of tact. Sherlock looked back at him with a frown. He realised he wasn't the only one looking at the new boy, eyes were darting across to him every few moments. There was something weird about him. Sherlock felt ridiculous for thinking it, but he couldn't help it. It kept niggling at him.
"Sit down, Mr. Holmes," Hurst said, breaking into his thoughts. "Unless you have something juicy to tell us about your holidays."
Sherlock ignored the titters and took his usual seat. He could almost feel the boy's eyes on his back. He didn't like him and he didn't like him staring at him.
"Alright," Hurst said, snapping the roll shut. "Hope you all had a good Christmas. We have a few things to discuss before class."
Sherlock couldn't help thinking how strangely quiet it was with everyone so preoccupied with new arrival. He expected every moment for someone to make some barbed remark but none came.
"Firstly, I hope you've all done some work on your English assignments," Hurst said, after a pause. "The final date is in four weeks' time and I expect that you would be well into editing the final draft."
Sherlock felt a cold trickle go through him. The play was still in his bag. He had meant to give it to John; he had been planning to give it to him that afternoon after school. He'd have to say that he'd forgotten it. That he'd left it at school.
He curled his knuckles on the table in front of him. He hated lying to John. After all his self-righteous anger over Mycroft's treachery, he had no right to lie to him. Especially about something so stupid.
"Also, there'll be a meeting for the senior football team tomorrow at five in Mr. Bates' office," Hurst said, staring down at the list of announcements with his brow furrowed.
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. Mr. Bates took Phys Ed with the idiots who were stupid enough to elect into it in their senior year and organised the yearly sports carnival but Sherlock hadn't been aware that he had much to do with the football team.
"And lastly," Hurst said, lowering the announcements and staring over the rims of his glasses at them. "We have a new student."
There was a screech. The whole class seemed to jerk in their seats. Sherlock looked around, the new boy was standing. There was an odd and not altogether pleasant smirk on his face. It was dancing in the corners of his pale mouth, just out of sight.
"Jim Moriarty."
End of Chapter Twenty