Chapter Text
It was probably cliché to re-invent yourself on the first day in a new school.
But Sherlock was past caring.
He looked at himself in the mirror, stroking his hair down, unused to seeing his own ears so much. Were they sticking out? Or were everyone’s ears like that? He couldn’t be sure. He ran a finger under the collar of his dark grey shirt. The red tie was a stark contrast, and he wasn’t sure the colours suited him, but this was an old-fashioned sixth form – the uniform was part of the school rules.
And Sherlock was already planning to stretch them to their limits.
He touched his ears again, wondering if he should have left his hair just a bit longer. He'd never cut his own hair, before.
“Sherlock!” Mycroft barked. “You’ll be walking if you don’t get a move on.”
“Right,” Sherlock grunted back, listening to his brother thud down the stairs.
The ebb and flow of nausea in his stomach increased. Mycroft was the first obstacle. Get past him, and there’d be more. Lots more. Obstacles every day until the day Sherlock died.
He could still change his mind. He could still shove on his uniform from his old school, make out his new clothes hadn’t come in time – no one would care, that much.
He made a fist, and looked at himself in the mirror, again.
No.
No, he could do this.
He had to, really.
He couldn’t stand it, anymore.
Sherlock clicked the light off, and headed out, and for the stairs. He took them two at a time, as always, enjoying the semi-freedom of his parents being out of the country (missing his first day, typically), and thundered into the kitchen to grab his school bag.
There was a clatter of a knife hitting a plate.
“Sh-Sherlock.”
Sherlock swung his bag onto his back. “Mycroft.”
“Sherlock… what on earth…”
The younger Holmes looked up, licking his bottom lip with nerves. He was shaking, even as he shoved his hands into his pockets, and stuck his chin out, trying to look tough.
Mycroft was staring at him as though he’d seen a ghost. Or a premonition, maybe. His eyes were goggling, mouth open, croissant in his hand crumbling in his grip as he gawped in a most unattractive manner.
“See you later, then,” Sherlock said, to break the silence.
Mycroft blinked, seeming to shake himself. He put the remains of the pastry on his plate. “…yes.”
“Bye.”
“Sherlock – wait – ” Mycroft took a step after him.
Sherlock stopped, a lifetime of younger sibling conditioning making him give in. “What?”
“You just…” Mycroft looked him over, eyes darting from Sherlock’s face to his chest, to his trousers, and back up again. “You look very grown up.”
It was Sherlock’s turn to gape.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “You’re going to be late.”
Sherlock didn’t smile. He just nodded. “Right. See you.”
He slammed the car door, and exhaled shakily, relieved that his first encounter seemed to have gone well.
Well enough, anyway.
At least he wasn’t going to be late for his first day. An argument would have been most inconvenient.
*
John Watson was running late.
Cycling late, to be specific. He’d had a rushed morning dragging his sister out of the bathroom, and trying not to touch the sick in her hair before realising he no longer fit in his school shoes, and having to wear his trainers, instead. He’d get bollocked for that, but he couldn’t help it. He’d have to nick some money off his dad and get some new ones when he had the chance.
“Late, Watson,” Mr Young barked at him as he darted into his tutor group at five past nine.
“Sorry, sir,” John threw himself into the first empty seat - beside some new kid. “I was –”
“And you’re not in uniform!”
“I had a shoe issue,” John said sulkily.
“You’ve had six weeks off to sort shoes, what on earth is your problem, Watson?”
John looked at the desk.
“This is your warning. Shoes tomorrow, or you’re on report. Now, copy your timetable down, please.”
John nodded, accepting a new planner from the kid next to him, and scribbling his name and address in the front before copying the relevant subjects into the week from the display on the whiteboard.
“I hate to add to what has obviously been a trying morning,” a whisper came from beside him, “but your pen appears to be leaking down your sleeve.”
“Fucking hell,” John twisted his arm around to see the blue smear down his skin. “That’s just brilliant.”
The kid next to him fished a biro from a clear plastic pencil case, and flicked it over without another word.
“Cheers,” John wiped an old tissue down his wrist, and carried on writing, before capping the pen and leaning back. “Uh, talk about first day mayhem, right?”
The new kid made a noise of ascent. He was probably shy. New school, after all.
“I’m John,” John said, filling the silence. “How’d you like St Barts, so far?”
“It’s ok,” the boy glanced over. He looked very young, and John wondered if he’d skipped a year.
“You know where you’re going for period one?”
“Mm… Chemistry,” the boy held his planner up. “Room 202.”
“Well, that’s easy enough. Science block, second floor. You doing any other sciences?”
The boy glanced at him again, looking confused. “Physics. Maths. Law.”
“I’m doing Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and P.E.,” John said, wondering why the boy was retreating further into his shell. People normally gave in a little when someone was trying so hard to be social.
And indeed, the boy looked over properly, and raised his eyebrows. He did look young – he looked clever, too, with sharp eyes and high cheekbones, and dark hair that looked choppy and messy. He didn’t look as though he smiled often, but John could have guessed that, by now.
“You’re doing all the sciences – and P.E.?” the boy scoffed.
John laughed. “Yeah, I know, everyone makes that face, but there’s more to P.E. than being a jock and doing press-ups. At A-Level it’s closer to biology, all how the body functions and recovers. It’s a good subject.”
The boy gave a nod. “You want to be a doctor.”
John blushed. “Well –”
“You’re used to people scoffing when they know that,” the boy said, his voice hitching. His eyes flicked over John’s uniform.
John braced himself for the sneer his well-worn clothes usually brought about.
The boy’s pale blue eyes softened, just a touch. “You get good grades, I’m sure you won’t have to worry.” He looked back at his planner.
John blinked. “Right. Yeah. You must be the same, though, right? A-Level Maths.”
The boy almost smiled. “I like numbers. They make sense.” He capped and uncapped his fountain pen. He had very long fingers, though the nails were bitten down to the quick, and the skin around them looked sore and picked-at.
The bell rang.
“Off you go,” Mr Young dismissed his form group “Keep it down, all of you. Oi, no shouting in the corridors!”
John picked up his bag, and stood, waiting for the boy who was taller than he had first seemed when folded under the desk. “Chemistry, then.”
“Sorry?” the boy blinked hurriedly.
“Chemistry,” John repeated. “We’ve got Chemistry, now.”
Another blank stare.
“In Room 202?” John felt like he was prodding at a piece of marble for all the response he was getting.
The boy suddenly looked relieved. “Of course. Of course… Yes.” He coughed, and when he spoke again his voice was a touch deeper, as if his voice was still breaking, or he was putting on a ‘macho’ tone on purpose. “Thanks for waiting for me.”
“No problem,” John smiled, and he felt rather proud of himself for his persistence. “So… what’s your name?”
“…Sherlock Holmes.”
“Nice to meet you, Sherlock.”
*
Mycroft was in the sitting room when Sherlock got back. He looked up sharply as Sherlock walked in. A look of sheer relief passed over his face when he saw Sherlock was neither beaten nor bruised.
“How was your day?”
Sherlock put his bag down, and shrugged. “Ordinary. Just a school day.” He pulled a folder out of his bag.
“That’s… good.” Mycroft gave a single nod, glancing at the family photo on the sideboard. Four figures grinned out of it, one of them in a baby-pink frock. He cleared his throat. “Will you be wanting any –”
“I’m going to start this,” Sherlock held his homework up. “I’ll get something in a bit.”
Mycroft didn’t argue.
Sherlock went up to his room, and dropped his homework on his bed.
He hung up his blazer and tie, and unbuttoned his shirt, balling up the cotton and lobbing it into a corner. The fitted white t-shirt followed, and Sherlock stood catching his breath for a moment, before hooking his fingers under the two sports bras he’d struggled in all day, and yanking them up and over his head, groaning at the pain of his ribcage being given room to expand.
He twisted his arms, and dropped the two bras with a sigh.
He grabbed a t-shirt and a hoody, pulling them on before deciding to wash his things straight away – he’d need the bras dry for tomorrow, after all.
Mycroft was in the kitchen when Sherlock went in, and started loading the machine. He could see what was going in, and his lips went thin.
“Whatever you’re going to say, you can keep it to yourself,” Sherlock sighed, his voice higher than it had been at school. His throat hurt from a day of concentrating on keeping it as low as he could.
“Even this?” Mycroft asked.
Sherlock pressed the button to start the washing machine cycle, before looking up.
Mycroft was dangling a credit card between his thumb and forefinger.
Sherlock snatched it, and looked down at the small plastic rectangle.
“Just this once,” his brother said. “I won’t have you hurting yourself… if you really are serious about this.”
“I… am serious.”
“Then order what you need,” Mycroft said. “And make sure it’s delivered before Mummy and Father come home.”
Sherlock nodded, and shuffled back out of the kitchen in his oversized hoody, going upstairs like lightning, and opening his laptop, going to the websites he had saved, for if, or when, he was able to get what he wanted. He already had a wish-list on his favourite site, and added everything on it to the cart before typing in Mycroft’s card information and selecting priority shipping.
He sat back in his chair, and smiled at the ‘order confirmed’ screen.
He’d lied to Mycroft.
It hadn’t been an ordinary day.
It had been extraordinary.
Someone had spoken to him.
Not just spoken to him – had actively tried to befriend him. John Watson. The boy who wanted to be a doctor. The one who was doing A-Level P.E. He’d shown Sherlock to classes. They’d eaten their lunch (well, John had eaten, Sherlock had hidden squished-up bits of sandwich in his pockets until he could flush it down the toilet, later), and they’d even said ‘bye’ at the gates.
John Watson… he’d made Sherlock’s heart skip even as he slumped beside him. He was a ‘proper’ boy. As Sherlock liked to call the sort of boys who played sports and got bruises and had no trouble making friends and getting girls into bed. Not that Sherlock was interested in girls. That had been one of the confusions – how could Sherlock still like boys when he… was one? But he did. He did, and that was just the end of it. And the boys he liked tended to look a lot like John Watson.
Maybe John Watson liked boys, too. Maybe that’s why he’d been so overly friendly. That’d be…
Sherlock smiled, then caught sight of himself in the laptop as the screen went blank. A smiling, girlish face. High cheekbones. A skinny neck. A rise at his chest, where his hoody was clinging to his shape. Thin arms and hands, full lips, wavy hair… His mother called him beautiful.
His stomach contracted horribly.
He pulled his homework close, looking over his student information.
Name: Sherlock Wendy Sophia Holmes
Age: 16
School: St Bartholomew’s School and Sixth Form College
Gender: F
Sherlock turned back to his laptop, typing in the address for his school server. He bypassed the staff login easily, and left a program running in the background, working its way into the administrative system.
A soft ‘ping’ let him know he was in.
He swung his chair around, and searched for ‘Holmes’. Then selected his own file. And started correcting the information there.
Name: Sherlock William Scott Holmes
Age: 16
School: St Bartholomew’s School and Sixth Form College
Gender: M
He pressed ‘Enter’, and closed the program, feeling somewhere between sick and elated.
Still, there was school, tomorrow.
And John.
His new friend.
That was something, at least.
Sherlock had something.