Chapter Text
Sherlock's POV
Boarding School Noun: A school at which the pupils receive board and lodgings during the school term
Or a place where rich ‘parents’ dump their kids when they have had enough of pretending to care for them. It’s all designed so that the parents can carry on, earning copious amounts of money, without the responsibilities of parenthood that they were clearly not prepared for.
Do my parents fit into this category?
Well, my mother is a retired mathematician who knowns nothing about anything, and my father is a complete and utter fool, following my mother around like a lap-dog. Sometimes I wonder how two idiots managed to have children like Mycroft and I. I fear the solution would take up too much brain power to solve, however.
Besides this, my father came from a relatively rich family, he himself being sent off to boarding school at the earliest availability (by parents who clearly did not love him), who left him rather a lot of money when they died.
Being hopelessly devoted to his work (as a bee keeper), my father didn’t spend any of the money, until he met my mother, and they decided that marriage would be the best next step in their relationship. Nine months later, after a rather exotic (so, I hear) honeymoon, Mycroft arrived on the 13th of October (two weeks late, might I add) and blessed the World with his enormous presence, so my mother had to put her mathematics career on hold.
When Mycroft was six, he found out that our mother was having another child, one that had taken her completely by surprise, meaning that by the time he was seven I was on the scene and the rest, as they say, is history.
Well, my parents still didn’t spend their money until someone suggested that, due to Mycroft’s impeccable intelligence, they should send him to boarding school. This was when I was six.
By this time, he had entertained my childish Pirate fantasies for long enough, and decided to piss off and leave me with all the idiots in the house: my mother, a woman who showered both of us in far too much love; my father, whose obsession with bees led me to having my own obsession with bees (they really are fascinating); and Michael, the young man who looked after the horses, and who I snogged against a barn wall last summer.
Michael was relatively interesting when I went home every summer, keeping me entertained with talk of horses, and of women that he fancied in the village. From the moment I met him, aged twelve, he swore on anything that he was completely heterosexual. I made it my mission to change that.
It took me four summers, but it was worth it in the end.
During term time, I too was sent to boarding school to endure the complete idiocy of the other males there. A surprisingly large amount of the other boys there had actually gotten some form of scholarship to get into the school, as their parents were unable to afford Eton as a full time, and full expense, school for said child.
I was also placed two years ahead of my own year group, which was something that rarely happened, hence I wasn’t put forward more, as Mycroft had been before me.
I’ve experienced my share of bullying during my time here, but Mycroft said that this was expected, because people were jealous of our highly advanced intelligence. He too had experienced this bullying, especially from those boys who had extremely rich parents (refer to above), and felt that he didn’t fit into the boarding school ideals.
The worst boy was in my year, however. His name was Philip Anderson, apparently dating a girl named Amelia Lockhart, but instead focusing a lot of his time on another girl named Sally Donovan (it was obvious that the two were seeing each other behind Amelia’s back, but it appears that Anderson did not like this information).
From the moment that I mentioned the white stain around Sally’s mouth, in front of the entire maths class, after her trip to the caretaker’s closet in the middle of the lesson with Anderson, the two have had a vendetta against me, that has never really gone away. That was two and a half years ago.
From then on, the two started a rumour claiming that my mother was sleeping with Headmaster, Mycroft was sleeping with the Deputy Head, and that I was sleeping with my Chemistry teacher. While I cannot be sure about Mycroft, I know that my mother would never cheat on my father (something about love, apparently), and that I do not need to sleep my way into getting good grades. Sally, on the other hand…
Currently it is February, I have recently turned sixteen, and I am in my last year of A Levels. In a matter of months, I can leave this infernal school and make my way into the real World.
This year though there is something, well someone, to keep me entertained. Someone, finally, who is actually interesting. Mainly because they’ve only joined the school for the last year of their education. In my mind, this seems completely illogical, but apparently it’s something to do with the boy (John Watson) needing to be away from his parents for a certain period of time.
What better place than a boarding school?
John Watson arrived at school on the first day back in September, blonde hair shining in the, surprisingly hot, sun and dragging a suitcase behind him.
I remember the day well. It was the day that I deduced about another of Anderson’s affairs, when the girl in questions walked into me outside the school gates.
Looking her up and down, I managed to keep my voice down slightly, as my eyes rolled, “How Anderson manages to sleep with so many girls is beyond me,” which unfortunately was not quiet enough for Amelia Lockhart, who overheard my question, and immediately dragged Anderson over to ‘sort me out’, as he so eloquently put it.
“What shit are you spreading this year, Holmes?” he snapped, his face so close to my own, that our noses touched, and his spit hit me in the face.
“Everything I spread is completely true, and based upon hard evidence,” I had replied, scowling slightly at his attempt to intimidate me, “evidence that your liaisons always seem to miss before they return to the normal World. Is there anything else you would like to kno-“
The fist to my nose cut me off completely, I am ashamed to admit.
This was not the first time that Anderson had used physical violence against me. According to Gavin Lestrade, it was his tactic to shut anyone up that threatened his position as one of the popular students of the school.
What I didn’t predict, however, was another body moving in front of my own to stop the next blow from hitting its target. John Watson’s, clearly rugby built, body was in between my bleeding nose, and Anderson’s fist (which was twisted behind his back now).
“I don’t know who you think you are, but beating up school students is not what makes you popular these days,” he said, causing other students, who had stopped to watch ‘the freak’ being beaten up, to laugh. He smiled at them all, pushing Anderson to the floor, and turning back round to me.
Holing out his hand, he asked, “What would you do without me?”
Refusing to take the hand, and therefore the bait, I pushed myself off the floor, and stared directly into his eyes, “I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t need protecting,”
I could feel my nose scrunching, so I had turned away from him, attempting to walking away to find my room, and my new roommate.
“Watson, John Watson. No problem, I’m glad to help,” I had heard him grumble to himself as he picked up his own bags from where he’d dumped them on the floor, his blue eyes rolling around on his face.
Just as I had made it to the door of the dorm building, I turned and shouted, “The name’s Sherlock Holmes,” with a little wink, before entering the building, and signing my name in at the ‘reception desk’ (a table that they had put there for this very special day).
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be that last that I saw of John Watson, who had, for some reason, prevented Anderson from continuing his battle against the freaks of the school.
My room was in Block 2, room 21B, and was like every other room in the building. Dull. Grey. Boring.
Lying on the bed, I had decided to think about the events of the morning, blood still dripping down my face (now with tissues given to me by reception to try and prevent some of the bleeding), and my fingers pressed together under my chin.
After five minutes of replaying the fight, if one could call it that, in my head, I heard a key make its way forcefully into the lock on the bedroom door. I waited, watching the door with interest.
The key turned, the door opened.
My mouth opened slightly, hoping that this wasn’t the person that I thought I would be seeing.
“Hello again.”