The following Monday John went to school with a splitting headache. He hadn't gotten very much sleep over the weekend. For some reason his mind kept flitting back to the beautiful yet troubling image of that scrawny, dark-haired boy standing on the roof. Had Sherlock really just been bored? John wondered. What would have happened if I hadn't gone up to check on him?
Sebastian and Anderson were waiting near the front row when John walked into English class. They waved him over, and he reluctantly took a seat at the table with them, not really in the mood to talk.
"So, did you give that Sarah girl a call yet?" Anderson asked.
"No, I was busy this weekend," John muttered, crossing his arms over his books and resting his chin on top. He knew it was no use trying to explain to them that he wasn't really that interested in Sarah. Guys like Anderson and Sebastian took every chance they got to shag a girl even if they weren't keen on seeing her again after. If they paid any attention, though, they would know that John wasn't like that. At all.
"Come on," Sebastian whispered. "If you don't make a move soon, Tristan will snatch her up. He was hovering around her for hours Friday night."
John's headache was starting to get worse. He massaged his eyelids with the tips of his fingers and mumbled, "That's fine. If he likes her then let him go for it."
The bell finally rang and the rest of the class found their seats as Mrs. Turner walked in. She called for silence and pulled out the class roster. John closed his eyes, knowing that he wouldn't have to respond for another few minutes since his name was at the bottom of the list. Halfway though roll call, however, he heard Mrs. Turner say the name, "Holmes?"
Everyone turned their heads toward the back of the room. Sherlock was sitting alone at a table near the window and staring down at a laptop screen. Mrs. Turner called his name again, and he slowly raised a hand in the air to let her know that he was present. She didn't bother telling him off for using his laptop in class without her permission. It was an old skirmish she wasn't willing to fight anymore.
After taking up the homework, Mrs. Turner handed out a worksheet and allowed the students to pass them along to each other. "You can pair up and work on these together, but I had better not see anyone on their phones," she warned.
John glanced back and noticed that the worksheets had been successfully dispersed around the room, but no one had given one to Sherlock. A girl was walking up the front to hand the remainders to Mrs. Turner, but John stopped her along the way and grabbed an extra one. Then he took a deep breath, gathered his books, and marched courageously to the back of the room, ignoring the stares and whispers that followed him.
Even under the harsh glare of florescent lights the very sight of Sherlock was breathtaking. The solid black t-shirt he was wearing clung to his slim shoulders and exposed his collarbone. His thumbs were hooked under purposefully cut holes at the end of his sleeves, but the long, slender fingers of his slightly oversized yet graceful hand were visible as Sherlock typed quickly, lightly pressing the square black keys.
"That's a dangerous move," Sherlock muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the computer screen. "People will talk."
John smiled. "People do little else." It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw smile twitch in the corner of Sherlock's mouth. "So what are you doing?"
"I'm working on a case."
"A case?"
"A murder case. My brother's copper boyfriend sometimes consults me on cases that he's working when he's out of his depths." He scanned over an email from D.I. Lestrade and opened an attached file showing an image of a corpse, "Heart condition, obvious," Sherlock muttered to himself. "Anti-coagulants sped up the blood loss."
"Right, yeah," John muttered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "Well, this is what we're supposed to be working on."
John slid the extra worksheet toward Sherlock. The boy didn't respond for about five minutes, but then he looked up at John as if he'd only just heard him speak. "Oh," he said softly. "Thank you." He opened his binder and took out a stapled packet of loose-leaf paper and scanned the pages for about a minute before turning to the worksheet and filling in all the blanks at lightning speed.
"Here," Sherlock said, handing the packet to John. "These are Dannie's notes. She has an excellent verbal memory."
John raised his eyebrows. "I didn't think a genius like you would need to borrow someone else's notes."
"I can never pay attention in class," Sherlock muttered, finishing the e-mail and closing the laptop. "All the tedious drabble that comes out of our teachers' mouths always ends up getting blocked out or deleted. Usually I just read the textbook, but this is faster."
"So," John said, biting his lip, "you and Dannie are just friends, then?"
"Study partners," Sherlock responded. He slumped over against the table and laid his forehead on his arms. "I don't have friends."
At lunchtime, John sat at the table in the canteen surrounded by his rugby friends and prodded at the food on his tray with a fork. He didn't feel very hungry.
"I can't believe it," Tristan said, staring at John from across the table. "You voluntarily went over to talk to that freak?"
John raised an eyebrow at him. "So what?
"Nobody in their right mind ever goes near him. The only person who does hang around him is that weird girl with the huge scar on her face." Tristan pointed towards the window, and John turned around and saw Sherlock and Dannie sitting just outside in the courtyard. Sherlock was leaning up against the wall with knees tucked up to support the notebook he was writing on. Dannie simply sat and watched the birds hopping along the sidewalk. Tristan scoffed. "She did that to herself, you know. Apparently some bloke tried to snog her in the hallway, and she showed up at the next class with blood still dripping down her face. That's the company he keeps, if that tells you anything."
It took John a moment to process this information. He couldn't imagine what could have been going through the poor girl's mind that made her want to cut her own face. He turned back to Tristan. "So what are they, then? Friends? Girlfriend, boyfriend? Did they used to date?"
"God no," Anderson interjected. "She's a frigid bitch, and he's a faggot." He saw the incredulous look on John's face and took it as shock at the news and not at his appalling word choice. "Seriously, that's why she hangs around him all the time, because she knows he's the one guy in this school who won't try to get into her pants."
John's resolve to be civil finally broke. "Or maybe it's just that he's not a misogynist prick." He got up and walked away, leaving his tray and his befuddled teammates behind.
Sherlock kept his eyes on his notebook when John entered the courtyard, but he recognized the militaristic quality in the sound of his footsteps. He didn't need Dannie thwacking him on the shins and whispering, "Sherlock, someone's approaching us."
When John drew near enough, he smiled down at Dannie. "Um, hi, I don't think we've met. My name's John. You're Dannie, right?"
Dannie's jaw dropped. With her hair tucked behind her ears, she looked like a shell-shocked elf. "Sherlock," she whispered. "Sherlock, look. He's making eye-contact with me."
Sherlock continued to stare down at his knees. "Lot's of boys look at you, Dannie. You're a very pretty girl," he muttered with an air of nonchalance.
Dannie thwacked him on the shins again. "But he's talking to me and smiling at me like he's not creeped out at all."
Sherlock finally glanced up at John's face. John was still standing there smiling amiably, unsure of what to say. "Interesting," Sherlock muttered.
"He's special, this one. Isn't he?" Dannie said brightly.
"I suppose so," Sherlock responded, "but I think talking about someone in the third person while they're standing right in front of you might be one of those things that makes people uncomfortable."
"Oh right, sorry," Dannie chirped, smiling up at John. "Have a seat if you'd like."
John backed up against the wall and slid down beside them. "So you're working on school stuff?"
"Sherlock's translating the visual diagrams and pictures in my homework into word maps," Dannie answered, "I can't remember any image for more than five minutes because my right temporal lobe is completely shot."
"This is just quid pro quo," Sherlock interjected, "in return for letting me use the functional part of her brain as a repository for all the extraneous information that I have to delete to make room for important things."
Dannie smiled wryly. "I'm not really that useful to him. He just doesn't like admitting that he has friends. It humanizes him too much."
Sherlock could still feel John's eyes on him. What was with this kid? It was as if some unseen force was causing the boy to gravitate toward him, some magnetic field. No one was ever drawn to Sherlock like that.
"Would you two have room for one more in your little study group?" John asked. "The midterm for English is coming up, and Mrs. Turner still hasn't told us which chapters it's going to cover."
"It'll most likely be cumulative," Sherlock said dryly.
Dannie reached into her messenger bag for an index card and wrote the back. "Here's Sherlock's phone number," she said, handing it to John. Then she got a glare from Sherlock, "What? I don't have a phone." Dannie turned back to John. "Maybe if we put our heads together we could match about a fourth of his brain power."
John chucked. "I doubt it." He pulled out a notebook and tore out a piece of paper to write his number down for them. "Text me anytime you two are planning to get together to study. Or if you just want to hang out. Whatever… just let me know."
Dannie thwacked Sherlock lightly on the arm this time, and he complied by holding out his hand while still writing with the other. John delicately placed the paper in the other boy's hand and felt a slight jolt in his stomach when his fingertips brushed the soft skin of Sherlock's palm. Then silently, and a bit reluctantly, he got up leave. "Nice to meet you Dannie," he said politely before turning to walk back inside.
Sherlock looked up and kept his eyes on John for the longest period of time yet as the boy retreated to the warm interiors of the school. Then he glanced back at Dannie. "Don't get any ideas," he said gruffly.
Dannie shrugged innocently. "Ideas about what?"
"You've been waiting for something like this for a while now, but it's not going to happen. He's just a jock asking a geek for academic assistance. That's all he's interested in. He's not interested in me."
"Come on, you know that isn't true. Besides, he's top of his class." She looked at him sideways. "Well, maybe not the top, but he's up there, and he can get along fine without our help. Honestly, I think he likes you."
"Why? Why would he?"
"You're special," Dannie said simply. "Unfortunately, it takes a special person to see that."
