Louis James Moriarty was the best student in 221 B class. Dilligent, good looking, excellent at cooking, athletic, kind to everyone.
Everyone except Sherlock Holmes, whom he despised with all his might for getting way too close to his beloved brother William.
During one of his frequent library visits, Louis came across a witchcraft book. At first, he shrugged it off, but decided to take a closer look nonetheless.
As he flipped the pages, he discovered an intriguing recipe for poison.
Driven by jealousy and anger at the thought of Sherlock, he lent the book, rushed to a few stores to buy the ingredients and ran to the mansion to prepare the potion.
Peeling, kneading, boiling, blending and stirring was his forte.
The poison needed a lot of patient stirring. Louis found the blending activity relaxing, and occupied his mind with fantasies of witnessing his annoying classmate suffer after the consumption of his wicked creation.
As he was about to finish whirling the wooden spoon in the pot, he heard a soft voice welcoming him.
"Hello, Louis."
"Welcome home, brother Albert. HEY!"
There was one thing Louis hated as much as he hated Sherlock: people running about in the kitchen as he was preparing food (or poison, for that matter).
Especially Albert.
"What are you doing here!?" - Louis hissed like a poisonous snake.
Albert did not take the angry tone seriously. In fact, he hardly could hide his amusement. In Albert's eyes, Louis looked like an angry little kitten.
"I just wanted cookies." - he said in an innocent tone.
Louis prompty opened a cabinet, grabbed a jar of sweets and placed it in Albert's hands. Then, he forcily turned his brother around and shoved him out.
"And now, leave."
Louis closed the door and sighed heavily.
"When I think about it, I could have just made Albert prepare ANYTHING and give it to Sherlock."
He gasped at his naive thinking. If Albert was to prepare anything and run around the school with it, all female students would beg him to give them whatever he carried. It would be way too dangerous for innocent students, and the food would probably never reach Sherlock anyway.
"Now, what's next?" Louis the very last look at the recipe, added the missing ingredient, closed the book and hid it well, as he shivered at the thought of William finding his witchcraft book and asking questions.
In the commotion, he failed to notice, that Albert flipped a page before getting shooed away from the kitchen.
The last ingredient of the recipe was the same, but the amount much lower, as the poison.
For the first time in his life Louis has seen Valentine's Day as something surprisingly convenient.
The classroom filled with gasps of surprise, admiration, jealousy and confusion, as Louis approached his classmate with handmade chocolate.
"Sherlock Holmes. This is for you. Happy Valentine. I'm sorry for... For... You know. That I wasn't nice to you and... stuff." - Louis could hardly slip his dishonest words.
"Ha?" - Sherlock blinked in utter confusion and looked at the box, then at Louis.
"...Is it poisoned?"
Oh no.
"NO, IT IS NOT!" - Louis screamed out loud and promptly lowered his tone. - "Of course it is not poisoned. I've just apologized, you know! I worked hard to make it, so could you try?"
"I guess John will just help me if something happened." - Sherlock thought, as he swallowed the sweet confectionery.
"It's really good, thanks!"
Seconds later, they both got surrounded by classmates, willing to give them their gifts.
John Watson was sitting in the cafeteria, trying to enjoy his meal in the company of his girlfriend.
It was the first time he and Mary could eat in peace, without Sherlock butting in.
But John's eyes kept following Sherlock, who really wanted to spend the lunch break with Louis.
"That's surprising. I thought they didn't like each other." - Mary said calmly.
"Yeah..." - John replied absend-mindedly, watching Louis clearly annoyed by Sherlock sitting close to him, patting his arm and laughing.
"You look jealous."
"I'm not jealous!"
Even with his girlfriend by his side, John never felt so lonely.
"John. Joooooohn. Johnnn! Joooooooooohn!" - Sherlock would say his name in all possible intonations.
Often needy. Often desperate. Sometimes angry, inpatient and displeased.
But above all, intently.
"LouLou! Let's go home together!"
"No! And my name is Louis!"
"You can go to my place. Hudson will probably go shopping after school, and John will go on a date with Mary. Well, if not, I can always ask him to."
"No."
"Then..." - Sherlock smiled slyly, put his fingers tigher on Louis and bent to whisper in his ear - "...What about a love hotel?"
"NO!"
Utterly confused, Louis regretted his actions. "It was supposed to be a poison, so why is Sherlock clinging to him all of a sudden. Is it a side effect? What is going on!?" - he asked himself, frantically trying to find an explaination for the unexpected turn of events.
Sherlock hugging him, ruffling his hair, walking him home, sharing lunch, inviting him to a forensics convention and for an escape room event.
Troublesome as it was, Sherlock's behaviour was surprisingly pleasing.
In fact, Louis enjoyed the affection, even thought he did not want to admit it to anyone.
Not even to himself.
The Principal's Office was sometimes more a love birds nest than a place cooperating with the school committee, and while the evening was too busy to use the large desk for affairs other than paperwork, it left enough room for a little gossip.
"My brother seems to fancy Louis. Unusual, isn't it?" - Principal Mycroft remarked, as he finished stamping some papers and put them aside.
"Well, at least nothing bad happened. And I never knew that playing cupid could be this entertaining." - Albert replied, putting a piece of paper in an envelope and peeling a stamp from its wax paper backing.
"Oh?"
"I might have accidentaly made Louis create love potion instead of poison."
"Accidentaly?"
"Accidentaly. I just wanted to see what recipe book he was using, but next thing I know, he shooed me away from the kitchen."
"Sherlock is a passionate boy. Good it was not an aphrodisiac. Louis would be in trouble."
"Indeed. Hm... Now that you mention it, we could try aphrodisiac one day. Maybe even tonight...?"
"Duties first."
"Yes, sir."