The Martyrs of Mischief

Chapter 9

He'd had plenty of friends around in the past, and his Mum made each and every single one of them feel welcome. Harry usually made a point of embarrassing him with her friends, but other than that it was usually a smoothly running household. So why was his stomach doing backflips as he unlocked the front door to let him and Sherlock in?

"Home!" He yelled into the house, shutting the door behind Sherlock as he stepped through. "Dump your bag down there," John told him, pointing towards a corner. Sherlock obeyed silently.

John's house was small, but cosy. His mum didn't care about tidiness particularly; as long as it was presentable, she didn't mind.

"A home is a place to live in," she would say, "not a house that's merely inhabited." Although, as John so often pointed out, it still didn't stop her from moaning about the state of his bedroom.

The hallway was long and narrow, with a red carpeted staircase leading towards the landing. Coat pegs lined the brickwork walls, and a small oak coffee table played host to a large collection of pens and notepads, as well as several pictures of Harry and John when they were younger. The entire of the downstairs catered to shiny oak floorboards running through it. All except for the kitchen however, which had sparkling black tiles that matched the dark marble work top. His Mum took pride in their kitchen. It was more like the typical house of an older lady, not a 42 year old single Mum.

John looked at Sherlock, who was standing stiffly by the front door. Both of their uniforms were plagued with grass stains, and they still had several twigs in both of their hair.

"Come on then," he motioned, leading him towards the kitchen. "Do you want a drink?"

He almost had to prise Sherlock away from the front door as he dragged him along the hallway and into the kitchen.

Owing to the lack of reply once he'd entered the house, John had expected it to be empty. However, as he entered the kitchen he clapped eyes on another boy leaning against the counter, drinking some of John's mum's famous homemade summer drink comprised of lemonade, lemon and mint.

"Jim," John nodded curtly, crossing the room and extracting two glasses down from the cupboard.

Jim smiled, bringing his drink away from his mouth and placing it behind him as John opened the fridge. Sherlock remained hanging in the doorway.

"Y'alright Johnny?" Jim grinned.

John nodded again, pouring out his and Sherlock's drink.

Jim Moriarty was Harry's oldest friend. The pair of them were thick as thieves, and had been so since their early primary school days. This therefore meant that John was used to having the older teenager around the house, often believing that he lived there rather than in his own home.

Currently, the slightly taller teen was wearing his hair messily, and his sixth form tie stood stiff around his pristine clean shirt. As John handed Sherlock his drink, he was pleased to note the contrast between the pair of them and Jim.

"Jim Moriarty," Jim said, leaning across the room and stretching out his hand for Sherlock to shake, which he did.

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock responded blandly. "And you might want to change your deodorant, especially if you want to get anywhere with that boyfriend of yours."

Jim's brows furrowed, while John couldn't help but grin massively. Sherlock on the other hand seemed unabashed by what he'd said, retracting his hand and taking a sip of his drink, leaving a silent John and Jim thinking about what he'd said.

"What do you know about it?" Jim sneered, folding his arms and glaring. John braced himself as Sherlock took a lungful of prededuction air.

"You have a love bite poking out from your collar," he started, pointing at Jim's neck. "It's in the centre, and usually they're around the sides of the neck- predominantly the collar bones. So what stopped whoever gave it to you from giving you that? I would say position, but I don't think that was a problem when it was administered." John snorted, earning himself a scow and an eye-roll from Sherlock.

"You're holding yourself strangely; you're conscious of the smell. Now, it's not BO, otherwise I'd be able to smell it. What I can smell however is a particular brand of deodorant most associated with a certain genre of person, that being an older gentleman with too much money. You however are neither. You're trying to come across as something you're not. Your boyfriend doesn't like it, otherwise he may have given you more than just a love bite. I suggest changing your deodorant."

The room was silent, so much so that John could feel like pulse echoing through the tangle of nerves in his brain. Sherlock had squared up against Jim now, staring down at him and smirking slightly, while Jim looked up slightly awestruck.

"Is that all?" Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or do you want me to talk about your obsession with the BeeGees, too?"

Jim shook his head, taking a step backwards. "Nope," he said, bringing his hands level with his chest as if to convey surrender. "That's quite alright. Besides, my love of the BeeGees is no secret, as Johnny here will quite happily tell you." Next to Sherlock, John shrugged. It really wasn't that much of a secret.

It was quite the oddity, seeing Sherlock stand up to Jim. Although John already knew that Sherlock didn't really have a problem with confrontations, he hadn't expected him to talk to Jim like that. He supposed, really, that it was to be expected. Sherlock could read people as though they were a nursery book, weaving in and out of every single detail and producing the correct result each time. John knew that Jim was gay, but he hadn't realised that he had a boyfriend before now.

Just then, there was a clatter of footsteps as Harry pounded down the stairs. She launched herself into the kitchen and clung onto John's neck from behind, causing his air supply to be shut off.

"Jooooohn!"

Every single time he came home from school, this was his greeting. She'd buggered off to the local sixth-form college at the start of September, and so instead of passing (and embarrassing) John in the corridors every time she saw him, she now took to over exaggerating their greeting.

She was the same height as John, only with a slightly rounder face and darker eyes. Her hair was dyed a purplish black, and her winged eyeliner was done perfectly. She too was in her uniform, only a lot scruffier than Jim with her shirt untucked at various points around her waist.

"You're all wet," she frowned, pushing John away slightly.

"Got into a water fight." John replied blandly, nodding towards Sherlock, who was also covered in wet patches. As Harry turned to look at him, her face lit up.

"Hello!" She beamed, moving away from John and putting Sherlock in a vice like grip as she put her arm around his shoulders. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

John spluttered.

"Stay for dinner?" He interjected. "We just came here so I could get changed, then we were going to walk his dog. Sherlock doesn't want to stay for dinner, do you?" He quizzed quickly, nodding and looking at the helpless Sherlock, who (after being so confident with Jim), seemed to have shrunken.

"Urm," he started, but Harry was shaking her head.

"That's settled then. Mum won't mind. Jim isn't staying anyway, are you?" She looked towards him as he opened his mouth in order to protest. "Nope!" Harry quickly cut across him. "Jim, fuck off." She grinned, while Jim sighed.

"You're a complete twerp, you know that, don't you?" He stated, watching as Harry shrugged with one arm still tight around Sherlock's shoulders.

As Jim left, John couldn't help but groan. What was Harry up to?

Okay. I'm not entirely happy with this one, but it's been a while since I gave you anything so I thought I ought to. They'll be heading down to London in if not the next chapter, then the one after that. So things should start to pick up again then. Does that sound okay? So yeah. Sorry for the wait. - Natalie :)