Here's chapter 2! Quick warning for this one, there's some physical abuse and also the use of homophobic insults. Please enjoy!
"John?" A high pitched voice cut through John's thoughts, feeling much like a red hot sword had been thrust through the soft part of his skull. Mrs Bath had a voice which sounded not unlike the cry of a trodden on cat. Naturally, John jerked to attention, clearing his throat.
"Sorry," he muttered with all the energy he could manage on his few hours of sleep, blinking blearily at the hawk nosed woman staring back at him with pointed eyes. She reminded John of a bird, with a hooked nose and piercing, beady eyes.
"If you wish to spend the entire of this lesson asleep, Mr Watson, I have no problem with it but I'm not sure the headmaster, or your parents for that matter, would be entirely impressed!" she snapped, shooting daggers at him from across the room before going back to scribbling on the white board with as much aggression as her stumpy body could produce. She hadn't noticed her mistake, but John had and the few scattered throat clearings around the room told him others had to.
Mrs Bath was an idiot. All teachers are. They act as though they care for the students and the grades they get but in reality all they are to them is letters on a target sheet which have to be set and met. John felt the need to flunk his exam and go for a D instead of an A just to spite the bitch. He decided against it promptly, deciding that he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of watching him fail.
Beside him, Gregory Lestrade and Mike Stamford chuckled under their breath, clearly only finding the whole situation rather amusing as they were sat there giggling like a couple of 13 year old girls. They shut up after John directed a particularly harsh and well aimed kick against Greg's shin. He glanced across the room to where Sherlock sat.
The boy was slumped in his seat. The against-school-policy, blackened skinny jeans stuck to his legs and left nothing to the imagination. John eyes lifted from his worn out black converse trainers, up his legs to his lap. The denim was tight over the mound of his lap, covered by the pooling of an oversized, standard edition school jumper. The white collar stood out brightly against the dark material, seeming to fade into the boys porcelain skin. John finally raised his eyes to meet Sherlock's and near instantly turned a dark crimson as he found Sherlock staring back at him, his eyes alight with dark amusement. He flicked one eyelid shut in a wink, catching his bottom lip with his teeth. John averted his eyes. He felt as though he was stuck in some stupid game, with players attacking him from all fronts.
The rest of the Chemistry lesson pressed forward. They spent the last half an hour learning about Van der waals' forces and inter-molecular bonding through a series of cheesy Americanised tutorials which felt more like a slow form of torture. Creeping into their last few minutes, the teacher shot up with chilling purpose. John could feel the extended class time seeping into his nightmares, the chorus of groans from around the room suggested he wasn't the only one who struck this thought.
"As part of your final grade you are expected to work in pairs, or small groups, to produce a project on a subject of your choice," she said whilst stalking around the room, handing out squintly punched and badly printed booklets which would apparently guide them through this. "Read through this booklet as homework," she recited to every person she dropped the papers by, "You've got a few minutes before the bell. None of you are leaving until you tell me what group you belong to," Mrs Bath delivered a curt nod after addressing the class and swept a threatening gaze across them all before waving her hand dismissively.
John closed his eyes irritably in anticipation for the pure chaos that would surely follow her wave. He groaned as the still room exploded into a flurry of action and shouted claims of possession between friends and shag buddies. Grabbing his bag, he slung it over his shoulder and scribbled his name down next to Sherlock's on the glaringly blank list.
Sherlock was already gone, John concluded, with a spike of annoyance that the boy didn't wait for him. He followed his steps out of the class and jogged a few paces to catch up with the dark figure in the corridor.
"Thanks for waiting, you git." he huffed, but there was a fondness in his tone which suggested he didn't really mean the insult. Sherlock only rolled his eyes,
"You're a perfectly fit boy, John, with very good stamina-" there is a smirk laden glance sent John's way that has the smaller boy blushing darkly, "-I was sure you'd manage the two feet or so to catch up." he replied with another glance to check that the smaller boy wasn't actually irritated. He changed the subject promptly as John shot a glare in reply. "I thought we could do our project on orange juice." Sherlock said, his hand swinging by his side. John was utterly confused,
"Seriously?" he replied, his eyebrows raising, "What about it? Vitamin content?" he asked. Sherlock chuckled in reply.
"You must have been utterly enthralled in eye fucking me to miss that topic. It's all she was talking about for the entire lesson." He informed a rather dazed looking John, who elbowed him in the side for his comment, huffing a laugh in sync with Sherlock. The project was a conversation for another time because right now, a stranger would be forgiven for thinking the pair of them had spent the last week living out a vow not to sleep. John had his reasons. Sherlock never slept anyway.
It wasn't until they were a good bit away from the school gates that Sherlock's hand squirmed into Johns, their fingers intertwining in a familiar fashion. John blushed, as he so often found himself doing. It had been a good 6 months into their relationship before John had plucked up the courage to actually kiss Sherlock. Even the gentle touches exchanged between their hands still made John's temperature rise bashfully. Sherlock, however, had...Been around quite a bit before John.
John knew of five of them, not that he could remember the names exactly. He could remember what Sherlock had told him as being this, roughly:
"I had five sexual partners between the age of 14 and meeting you. The first two are irrelevant, we barely touched lips. I gave the third only two sets of oral, the first was rather shabby but I quickly made up for it. The fourth took my virginity, his name was James-" Sherlock told him just as John's lips parted to ask the question, "-And I took the virginity of the fifth after becoming bolder and more experienced through my relationship with James." he finished promptly, summing up two years of dating in a few simple sentences.
John laughed when Sherlock had finished, and blamed 'James' profoundly for awakening the sexual beast within Sherlock. Ever since he had discovered all of this, he had began to feel the simmering of nerves in his stomach every time Sherlock's hand pushed into his trousers. Sherlock wanted to fuck him, but John was utterly terrified to allow him to do so. He'd read too much online and experienced too little to be ready for it. Sherlock would wait.
John smiled tightly as they arrived outside his house. The sun was beginning to set now, as they had dawdled their way home in absent conversation about nothing in particular. The best kind of chat.
Sherlock sighed and drew John into a strangely gentle kiss before breaking away and pecking his forehead.
"I'll catch you later, John." he smacked the boys arse and shot a wink his way before smiling and letting go of John, giving a small wave and continuing down the street to head home.
John huffed a laugh to himself as he watched him do so, the sting left behind on his left cheek was strangely endearing. He slipped his key into the lock and frowned as it clicked. Why was the door already open? His father is still at work and his sister was staying at a friends. John pushed it open and stepped inside, glancing down at the shoes lying by the doorway and letting a soft exhale through his lips as he spotted his dad's work boots lying in the middle of the hall.
"Dad?" John called, kicking off his shoes and narrowing his eyes as he spotted his father by the kitchen window, his eyes hard as he stared out of the glass. The stench of alcohol was unmistakable. John's stomach turned as he glanced out the window to see the drive where Sherlock and himself were stood but minutes ago.
John's father had one hand on his hip, the other clasped tightly around the edge of the counter cutting into his opposite hip. It was obvious that he needed the counter there to stay upright successfully. That spike of anger John was becoming all too familiar with returned.
"How much have you had to fucking drink?" he asked his father, his tone clipped.
John and his father didn't get on at the best of times, so when the latter was intoxicated and irritable, John despised him. The man had never hit him. John had received countless numbers of lectures, rows and violent arguments from his father but the man had never laid a finger on him. But people react to guilt in different ways, and the streak of anger and roughness that John had wasn't inherited from his mother.
"You..." John's father started, his face screwing into a twisted expression as he rolled the words around his mouth, trying to piece them together. "You had to be a fucking faggot." he laughed, his voice bitter. John's jaw clenched, the nerve under his eye spasming in an irritated twitch. His father had never been happy about John being homosexual, but he hadn't expressed his anger towards it either. So, the harsh insult makes John take a step back, an expression of mingled confusion and hurt swimming over his features but disappearing just a split second later.
"Fuck you." he seethed in reply, through gritted teeth.
"As if Josie wasn't 'nough, my only son is a fucking cock sucker!" He shouted.
John clenched his fists by his sides, "Dad!" he yelped in reply, taken off guard by the sudden onslaught of vicious insults but standing his ground, "If you have a problem with my sexuality, you have never expressed it before." he pointed out, knowing that this was the worst time to have a conversation like this with his father but unable to stop himself from blurting out rapid means of defence.
There was a cruel laugh, "Jos' was-dying and you! You di'nt even notice b'cause you're shagging your boyfriend!" he screamed. John's eyes glazed over with tears following his father's cry and he couldn't stop the choked sob that forced itself out of his throat. His father laughed, his lips pulled back in a snarl, "Should've fucking known." he slurred, gesturing with the hand which was holding a tin of beer. As though the fact John was crying following his mother's death was a tell tale sign he was gay.
"Bastard. You fucking bastard." John pushed past his father with the intention of running up the stairs.
A hand grabbed his upper armed and tugged him back with such force that John slammed his hip into the corner of the table and stumbled backward, ending up on his arse on the ground. He blinked rapidly before pressing his hands flat to the ground and shoving himself up with a snarl, shoving his father's chest with all his strength, which was considerably less than his father's, "Don't touch me again." he shouted, his blue eyes narrowed in the determination to appear threatening.
It didn't work.
Johns eyes screwed shut just as his father's large hand smacked across the side of his head, the cool of his father's wedding ring slicing John's skin as it was pinned between bone and metal. John staggered into the wall, catching himself and looking up with wide eyes, his shoulders tensing as his fathers hand pressed against his throat, applying pressure as Johns back cracked against the plasterboard.
Their faces were close. John's was steeped with a mix of anger, guilt and fear, his eyes were wide and sloping up against the bridge of his nose, delicate with the threat of tears. His bottom lip was pulled into his mouth, caught by his teeth in an attempt to control his emotions as his eyes scattered between his father's face, the door and the floor. His father's was morphed into twisted anger, staring at his son with furious eyes. The hand around John's throat was white as it tightened, his knuckles pressing through the skin.
John started to panic as his air supply was cut off. Instantly his hands shot up to his father, scratching at them in a desperate attempt to free himself. He released a few choked pleas of "D-Da-" before resulting to violence, kicking at his fathers legs and digging his nails into the man's calloused arms. But he is weakened both by panic and by the lack of oxygen. It wasn't until John's eyes were blurring that his father tugged his hand back and John collapsed under his own weight, slumping against the wall and gasping in panicked mouthfuls of air, staring up at his father in terror. The man grabbed his tin of beer and sauntered away, stumbling over his feet and retching a loud burp, leaving John's earshot with another muttered insult.
John pulled his knees up and raised a shaking hand to his lips, pressing his knuckles against his lips. Tears stick to his eyelashes as he blinks and drop off, tumbling down his cheeks clumsily.
Sherlock scribbled down notes transferred from his textbook absently, glancing over at his phone as it lit up and flickering his eyes over the message it relayed, sent over Facebook messenger.
'Victor Trevor: Hey :p'
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, recalling just who Victor Trevor was. A rather attractive boy in his school group, a year old than him. He found himself smiling as he replied, his chest warming and his stomach giving a bashful twitch.
'Sherlock Holmes: Hello :)'
Hope you enjoyed! I'm hoping to update roughly weekly depending on the time I have to write and the reviews/feedback I receive! (Please leave me some and I'll love you forever c:)