Like a Fairytale

Happily Friendzoned

In third period John returned to his normal seat, which made Sherlock turn completely pale. Mary was giving him the death glare from across the room, and he was sure she was expecting him to not be at school, dead on the sidewalk or something. But here he was, sitting very uncomfortably next to her boyfriend and trying to ignore the fact that they were so close. It seemed like first rate entertainment for anyone not tied up in this complicated hopeful and jealous love triangle, even Mrs. Pines watched them out of the corner of her eye, as if Sherlock was about to start kissing John once again. But he learned his lesson, never ever ever initiate anything. If ever there was something between them it would all be John's responsibility, because Sherlock had read the signs wrong before and will end up thinking John was proposing when in fact he was only tying his shoe. Sherlock knew that he couldn't talk to John about anything, class work or not, the kids couldn't think anything was up between them, platonic or not. If Mary found out Sherlock would actually find it quite funny to see her reaction. When the bell rang Sherlock darted out of his seat, just in case Mary or Greg had something to say on the matter. He scrambled to history, where he sat silently and stared blankly at his book once again. The whole kiss thing had sort of worn off, but still everyone would watch him, see what he would do, because now that he was unintentionally out people might think his skin might start bubbling or his hair would catch on fire. Because obviously the only possible way someone could be gay is if they are from some alien world out there, or straight from the Devil's laboratory. Stupid straight mortals. Speaking of which Anderson sat down right next to him, making Sherlock cringe, and elbowed him hard in the ribs.
"How are we going freak? Still kissing your poster of John?" he laughed. Drawings, loser, and he's never kissed them...
"You can make fun of me after you've gotten a girlfriend." Sherlock sighed. Anderson frowned, but he stopped talking, poking at his history book with dislike. The class ticked by slowly and dully, Sherlock's work done in a flash and his book out as normal. He never once looked over at John because he knew he was under constant surveillance from Anderson and the many other footballers that had taken to being John's personal body guard. So Sherlock remained silent, reading his book with a bored expression. He really did hate school. When the bell rang (Finally), John gave him a slight nod, as if telling him that they would meet in the park once again, before they left, making Sherlock's face glow once again. But he moved to his locker discreetly, no one should know, no one could know... conceal don't feel. He loaded his stuff into his bag and disappeared out the front doors, undisturbed except for a few comments he didn't want to repeat and walked to the café instead of home. It was completely empty, a perfect place for him to set up camp and scroll through his laptop in peace. He spent a lot of his time on the internet but he didn't really know what he even did on the internet. Mostly he looked up the newest scientific inquiries, checked the stocks even though he had no interest, and researched his name for thrills. Since he was sitting in the corner booth he was brave enough to google John's name as well, and a bunch of articles popped up about the Watson family son and all that stuff. Sherlock was never the Holmes' family son, which was Mycroft, he was more a shadow in the background, the kid in the family photos that looked like he didn't belong, the only thing he shared was a dinner table and a bank account. When four thirty rolled around he packed up and made his way to the park with two steaming cups of coffee, one for him and one for John. It kind of scared him to think of John's reaction to this, he hoped he wasn't taking things too far again, but it was the least he could do after everything else he's done. John had given him a second chance, and he's say that deserved at least a thousand cups of coffee. He sat down on the bench and noticed the leaves falling around him, a couple of crinkly brown leaves lying innocently on the table. He crushed it under his fist, the only good thing about fall really, the crinkling leaves that have a satisfying crunch when you step on them.
"You look like you're having fun." John said from above him, making Sherlock stop mid punch on the last leaf.
"John! I, um, hi..." he hastily brushed all of the leaf remains from the table. John sat down at the table, eyeing the two coffee cups with suspicion but not saying anything. "I got that for you, you know, if you like drink that sort of stuff, I know it was kind of stupid but you know I was buying a coffee and like I thought you...." Sherlock rambled on and on, trying to make up for his sudden embarrassment with a reasonable explanation, but all he did was sound stupid.
"Thank you Sherlock." John laughed, cutting him off and taking the coffee gently, as if he were afraid of hurting Sherlock's feelings.
"You're welcome." Sherlock muttered, blushing silently.
"So, I brought the paper from before, I know I couldn't ask you about it before, am I doing it right?" John asked, digging a crumpled worksheet from the dark depths of his bag. Sherlock took it nervously, as if he crumpled it the slightest John would get mad, and compared the answers to the ones he had written down.
"Yes, that looks right." Sherlock agreed in a squeak, pushing it back to him and taking a long sip of his coffee to avoid eye contact.
"That's good." John said happily, looking at Sherlock expectantly as if he were about to burst out in praise.
"Yes, it is good." He mumbled.
"Back to nervousness are we?" John pointed out.
"Did I ever leave?" Sherlock asked with a shrug.
"You really don't have to be scared of me; I'm not scared of you." John assured once again, making Sherlock nod the comment away. Of course he was scared of John, that was what he was obviously born to do. There was this enormous, heart wrecking crush he had on him and he was actually being sort of kind, it was too much. If Sherlock tried to say something he was sure it would be something stupid, like a love confession.
"Well I'm terrified of you so..." Sherlock admitted, looking down at the table again. John laughed a little bit nervously, as if he wasn't able to decide if Sherlock was joking or not.
"Is there a reason why you're terrified of me?" he asked, his voice still annoyingly calm. Why wasn't he running as well, why wasn't he at least calling Sherlock a freak or throwing things at him, why couldn't he just be like any other human being in this situation? Sherlock's lungs felt shriveled, for every normal breath he needed three, John was staring right at him.
"Because I know one wrong move and Anderson will be on my tail with a chainsaw." Sherlock admitted.
"Anderson is a whole other level of crazy, but you do know he's jealous right? The only class he can pass is gym, but he gets C's in that because he's such a bully and a ball hog." John pointed out.
"Why would he be jealous of me?" Sherlock asked in a confused little squeak. He was Sherlock, he didn't have anything special except brains, and apparently those are just a ticket to Hell. But John only laughed again, something that Sherlock was glad he didn't see, his laugh so close wouldn't be good for him right now.
"Because you're IQ is like 200 or something! Sure, football will get us girls and muscles, but after college we can't all go to the major leagues." John pointed out. "We're all jealous, we just won't admit it."
"Well I don't have muscles and I don't want girls, so I guess I shouldn't bother learning football anyway." Sherlock said with a shy little laugh, which made him blush a little bit.
"But, you are good at math, and I need a little bit of that to rub off on me, so could I have some worksheets?" John suggested, holding out one of his (perfect) hands with a lopsided smile. Sherlock nodded, digging through his bag and nervously handing over a couple of sheets. Jealous, they were all jealous, of him? Why would anyone want to be him, his entire life in school was nothing more than getting bored and bullied and watching your crush love someone else. He didn't watch John once again; he just popped the little tab on the top of the plastic coffee cup up and down, up and down, up and down. He drank it occasionally, but it was getting pretty cold as time went on so he kept the cup around purely for the nervous entertainment. Of course he wanted to see what John was doing, how he looked in this type of new fall lighting, his blond hair in contrast to the brown, red, and orange leaves, but Sherlock held back once again. He was not going to mess this up, someone upstairs really wanted him and John to at least be friends and he was not going to just screw up another opportunity by awkward things like eye contact.
"Alright then, he you are." John decided, sliding the paper over and taking another sip of his coffee. Obviously the other cup was just as good as preserving heat as Sherlock's was, because as soon as the cup touched his lips John spit out the coffee into the tree next to him.
"Cold." He pointed out. Sherlock dared a nervous smile but went back to the paper, correcting all of the answers, very happy he could make out the 5's from S's now that some of the nerves passed.
"Alright, good, you did good." Sherlock decided, giving John back the paper and packing up his own bag. Now that fall was back there was a lot less daylight, and even as they sat in the park the sun was sinking. This was a terrible disadvantage to Sherlock, because the only thing than trying not to look at John Watson in the day was trying not to look at John Watson in the sunset or night time. Sunset is the most romantic time of the day, so of course they had to be together, alone, just on that time.
"So, not to be nosey or anything, but you didn't tell your parents about that little incident did you?" John asked as Sherlock was trying to jam the last of the folders into his bag.
"No, of course not." Sherlock assured. "They'd send me away for sure."
"Good. I didn't tell mine either, I didn't really know what they'd do, but it wouldn't be good." John agreed. Sherlock's face was bright red yet again, but he kept his cool. He actually looked up at John again, and as he predicted the sun was bathing beautiful lights all over his skin and hair, not fair at all.
"The only person in my family that even knows about my life is Redbeard, and he's not talking anytime soon." Sherlock assured.
"Who's Redbeard?" John asked. Sherlock suddenly remembered that it's not the most common dog name in the world. Stupid three year old pirate days.
"My dog." Sherlock admitted.
"Well I'd hope he's not talking." John said with a laugh. "You're lucky, all I have are Yorkies and all they do is bark and yip and demand to be brushed. And they pee a lot."
"Redbeard's pretty much my only friend." Sherlock admitted with a shrug, as if that wasn't the most pathetic thing in the world.
"We're friends aren't we?" John pointed out, making Sherlock's heart jump out of his chest and run a marathon.
"Um, well, I don't know, that would..."
"Yes, we're friends." John clarified as Sherlock stammered on; trying to live with the fact that John called him a friend.
"That uh, okay." Sherlock mumbled, forcing himself not to smile, but he was so bad at acting anyway. A smile spread across his face and he looked up at John, who was smiling as well, and it was such lovey dovey crap that it might have been in a cheesy low budget romance movie. Smiling at sunset, how pathetically unoriginal.
"Okay. Well, it's six, my mom will be screaming, so I should get going." John decided, standing up with a determined sort of smile.
"Yes, that sounds good." Sherlock agreed, as if it were an invitation or something. They stood around the tree awkwardly for a little while, but then they both set off, throwing their cups of cold coffee into the trash can.
"So, I guess it's what already Friday, so do you want to meet on Saturday or just skip?" John asked.
"I don't mind, whatever you feel like." Sherlock shrugged, but he was still very stiff, standing as tall as possible so unfortunately poor John had to crane his neck to look at him.
"I guess we can meet up, do some math, play some football, goof around or something." John shrugged.
"I'm a lost cause at football."
"Then I'll bring a basketball, you're tall, you'll be good at that." John assured.
"I'm the worst athlete you'll ever meet; I'll be rubbish at any sport you want to throw at me." Sherlock assured.
"No one's rubbish at everything, as long as you try." John assured.
"Remember you lapped me in the mile?" Sherlock pointed out, feeling stupid for making John remember that. And the very fact he was talking to John was asking for death as well.
"That's running, no one's good at that." John assured.
"You are, obviously." Sherlock pointed out.
"You can solve one hundred questions faster than I can run a mile." John pointed out.
"No I can't." Sherlock debated.
"Well then I guess we should try shouldn't we?" John laughed.
"Shut up." Sherlock grumbled, but there was a smile forcing its way onto his face. He was shocked John actually wanted to talk to him, but here there were, once again, talking and silently giggling like idiots. This was something Sherlock was sure wasn't going to happen again, and as they crossed over from the park to the sidewalk it officially dawned on him that it was. After all they had gone through John was acting even nicer, what could that even mean? Did he like him as well, or was Sherlock making up stories, trying to make this pathetic hope a reality?
"So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, what time?" John asked, leaning slightly on a building as he paused to ask.
"Uh, I don't know, what time do you think?" Sherlock asked.
"Let's go 10 o'clock." He decided. Sherlock nodded feverishly, as if he didn't respond quickly the opportunity would vanish.
"Yes, sounds good." He agreed. John started walking again, hiking his bag farther onto his shoulders and looking quite at peace, as if he weren't walking next to the boy that had forcefully kissed him. When they arrived at John's house they said a quick goodbye, John smiling again, making Sherlock blush like a mad idiot, and walked down the street to his house. It was like nothing had changed, but that didn't make sense considering now John knew of Sherlock's undying crush on him, the fact that it didn't change anything should've made Sherlock as happy as could be, but for some reason it was unnerving. Was this all a setup, just more planned out? No one would react so casually to something as terrifying as that, what was John playing at? It's not like he had a change of heart, he definitely didn't like Sherlock now that they had shared such a makeshift kiss, god things like that just blew over his head didn't they? He and John Watson had shared a kiss, he kissed John Watson, the one person that had blessed his dreams and haunted his nightmares, made his days into dreams and his thoughts into gold, John Watson. That put a nice mood in his head when he got home, prancing up the steps and throwing his bag lightly down on the floor and doing a weird ballet twirl in the air.
"Hello Redbeard." He said with a smile, making sure the door was closed before flopping on his bed. "Happy weekend." Redbeard made an odd moaning sound, probably of annoyance, and rolled over on the floor, his tongue lolling out like an idiot. He gave Redbeard the update of the day, mostly just every time John smiled or moved or whatever, but since Redbeard was unable to talk he was therefore unable to interrupt, so he supposed it was a win- win situation. Sherlock plummeted his face into his pillows with an idiotic smile plastered onto his face. What would happen if he tried to kiss John again, this time in private and not so on-the-spot? Would he pull away or would he... not? Sherlock tried to imagine a world in which he and John were together; somehow he saw everything bright and sunny, with rainbows and unicorns prancing around. For some reason there no people either, paradise.
"Sherlock do you need to eat?" his mom called, rapping lightly against the door. True, he had skipped dinner in his nervousness, the past two days apparently, but he didn't feel the slightest bit hungry.
"No, I'm fine!" he assured.
"Honey I don't want you skipping meals, you're skinny enough as it is!" Mrs. Holmes replied, making Sherlock mutter about how rude that was.
"I said I'm fine, go away!" he snapped. He heard a sigh, but eventually her retreating heals told him that she was gone. Sherlock sighed, sinking back into his pillows with a book and reading for the rest of the night before finally falling asleep, Redbeard laying across his feet.