Secrets Aren't Made Slowly

Pick Your Poison

Sherlock prepared himself a depressing a dry turkey sandwich, sitting at the table and watching some TV shows on Mrs. Hudson's Netflix account (she only used one computer, and ever since Sherlock had found her password she could never understand who was watching on her account). At seven o'clock Sherlock got up from his chair and checked Janine's pulse, for he hadn't even heard her stir and he was beginning to get excited. To his disappointment her heart was still beating, and yet she was totally out and so he just left her there, that idiot was going to drink herself to death and no one would even notice. Oh well, once her flesh started rotting maybe Sherlock would get sick of the smell and finally decide to bury her. That sounded expensive...maybe he would be out even by then. Janine could keep the apartment; the moment her undesirable heart finally gave out he was leaving her and all of this behind. Who needed work, and who needed wives? Freedom was so far away, freedom was so impossible! Sherlock then headed down to Mrs. Hudson's, his stomach growling as he lingered ever closer to the impending smell of cobbler, it smelled delicious, and yet he had forgotten there was a password to get in. And so he just frowned, for Mrs. Hudson met him at the door with a frown, and for just a moment he tried to think of something good about his wife.
"I'm dearly sorry, Mrs. Hudson, that I have insulted the sanctity of my marriage. I shouldn't complain about Janine for she um...she...well sometimes she cleans the bathroom. And that comes in handy." Sherlock muttered forcefully, for honestly that woman possessed no desirable character traits. Mrs. Hudson sighed heavily, and yet she really couldn't say anything to disprove Sherlock or ask for something better, simply because she knew quite well that Janine was indeed a train wreck of a person.
"You really are one of a kind Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson murmured, and yet despite that she stepped aside to let him in.
"And you are just too kind." Sherlock agreed with a grin, and with that he walked into her apartment, for even thirty minutes of lecturing was worth cherry cobbler. 

John POV: When people think of the challenges of high school, they usually jump right to sports. For some reason everyone loved high school sports, and they really were just inconveniences for those who didn't play them, and challenges for those who did. Pep rallies were very obnoxious, sports hypes were loud, and John really despised hearing about how the game went. He did like to hear when they lost, but that usually wasn't talked about nearly as much. Well since John didn't play any sports, that challenge was irrelevant. After people think of sports then come the grades, which were something that were still considered when thinking about high school, and yet they always came after athletics...for some reason. The grades were why they were here in the first place, they were supposed to pass their classes, pass their tests, excel in all aspects, joining as many clubs as possible, be a leader, a volunteer, a role model. Well that was annoying too, and tedious, very tedious. Doing good in class means doing homework, that was never fun. John always had much better things to do, like nothing. Like stare at a wall, or roll about in his bed and pretend that maybe this time there would be someone with him. Or maybe he could count the number of assignments he had taken zeros on, simply because they looked complicated. No class meant nothing to him either, he wasn't going anywhere in life anyway, for his parents had already promised him that in just another one of their heated arguments. The third problem with high school was actually the only thing that applied to him, the social aspect. He was new to this school as of this year, didn't really fit in with anyone, yet there was always a crowd you could fake it. And so that's what he did, when he had no other route to go he decided that maybe it was just best to go down. All it took was a little bit of rebellion to get in, those ruffians like Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty who sat out back behind the benches during lunch and smoked a joint, well usually they were too stoned to notice who was genuinely their friend or not. And so that was all he had to do, really, sit out with them, take a puff, and ask them their names. That was his group now, the druggies, although to be honest he didn't really fit in with them either. He didn't like it, getting high, he never felt right about it. It hurt his head, it burned his lungs, it disorientated him and sometimes he would even pass out. That was why he only smoked with his friends, never by himself, although sometimes he would invest in a milligram or two just so that he could have the liberty of looking like he had gotten through the whole baggie while he was at home. His parents weren't smart enough to catch him and the administration never did a thing to notice, and so what was the harm? He was old now, this was his last year trying to fit in, trying to be cool, he could just fake it until then and then suffer the consequences later. As for girlfriends, well he had none of those either. He had moved from school to school, classmates to classmates, and despite this he had always seemed to be able to attract no one. I mean he had looks, obviously, he had money. He had a little bit of weed, but to be honest at this age that was attractive, it was miraculous that he hadn't picked up at least one girl by now. Maybe they were intimidated by him, maybe they wondered why he had moved to their school, maybe they had decided that they just better not get involved. It was rather depressing, really, to always come second to your father's job, because as soon as John settled down in some place it always seemed as though they were up and at it again. The moving trucks would come, the new house, the new school, class introductions...it was all just painful. And yet this was probably going to be the last time, the last move throughout his high school career. He was done soon, in a couple of months he graduated with strangers, and then he was off to college where he might just be able to settle and be himself for four years before he was regurgitated back into the real world to do real work and get a real job. Terrifying, I know, but necessary. John was rather disgusted by this new school, not only because of the lack of students that he liked but also because of the hostility between the walls. It was a city school, that was for sure, and so all the teacher's lanyards had clips on them, just to prevent the kids from using them to strangle them. There were metal detectors in the doors, to protect from any weapons or violence, and they had a gun or bomb threat every threat month (or at least that's what Jim told him). It was terrifying, really, and yet it was only for less than a year. He could tolerate that; he could stand that...only less than a year. For a while John tried, he actually did. The first couple of schools he was at he was able to get good grades, play good sports, and make good friends. And then he moved again. And again. And again. And then it all just got harder, it seemed as though there really was no point in trying to excel when he knew that he was just going to pack up and get back on the road, leaving all his failures behind him with people that would forget his name a day later. There was a time when John just kept his things packed, for he was always under the impression that it would take just another professional whim to get his dad shipped off across the country, to some dirty town who knows where, with terrible people and indifferent teachers. It was all just a matter of time, and so he decided that he would overcome that simply by forgetting. By stopping. Who needed grades and sports and a social life? He had his video games, he had his hamster, and he had a heart that was waiting for the right girl. That was what he told his parents at least, when they questioned him again on why he had never gone out with someone before. Maybe that was their fault too, because if they had really wanted him to get a girlfriend maybe they wouldn't have torn him out of like every school he had ever gone too. It might be easy to get a girl if they had known him for more than a week! School was stagnation, and really it was no better here than anywhere else, in fact it was probably worse. He hated his classes, they were longer classes and four a day, and so his schedule was confusing and it seemed to last forever. He started off in English, going over some dusty old literature that they were supposed to read over the summer. Well John certainly hadn't done that, and so he was left to follow along. That teacher was a peppy woman, Mrs. Hooper, who always wore brightly colored sweaters and gave them updates on her life throughout the day, like how her cats and kids were. Then he had history, world history presumably, and that was a sleepy class simply because it seemed as though their teacher couldn't be bothered any more than they could. That was Mr. Anderson, the stuffiest man who wore gray cardigans most every day, with a beard that gave him the impression of being a hobo. After that he had lunch, and then came math. Now math was actually the only subject John was naturally good at, for no matter what school you go to math was always just math. That numbers didn't deviate from location to location, one trig class four hundred miles away was enough to get him through the calculus he was having now, and to be honest he was actually doing quite good at it. John despised the teacher, however, in some ways he was even worse than Mr. Anderson. It was Mr. Holmes, and that guy was seriously messed up. John had quite some experience with being around people that were high; however Mr. Holmes was always on a different level entirely. Sometimes he would space out between lessons, between words even! And other times he would just mumble, to himself mostly, and not even on math. Sometimes he would use foul language and other times he would just sit there quietly, sitting quite still, and stare at something for a good ten or so minutes while everyone had their homework out and ready to go. He was confusing, to say the least, and not in the least bit desirable as a teacher. All the girls loved him, of course, and even John was observant enough to admit that they had fair reason. Mr. Holmes was attractive in a very carefree sort of manner; he had that natural glow to him that made him well, positively radiant. His skin was pale, his eyes were piercing, and his hair always looked even better after he ran his fingers through it, a trait that most people didn't possess. He was thin in an almost sickly manner, and yet he wore it well, he walked softly, moved gently, and he sometimes let his head dangle on his neck thoughtfully, bringing about a sort of pouty expression coupled with some drooping curls from his bangs, well of course this made all the girls go positively wild. And yet John still despised him, just because he was being taught by a Greek god didn't mean that the teaching was any good, thankfully however he was just able to go with the flow, for math was easy no matter who was teaching it. When math was over John was off to physics, which was boring a tedious and just plain miserable. Things moved, he understood that, and yet Mrs. Donavan couldn't seem to understand that they didn't just want to stare at pendulums all day. And yet that's what they did. They watched it swing, they got a calculation, they watched it swing, they got a calculation...John just hated it. And of course he had no genuine friends to make the class load and more manageable, I mean he had Irene and Jim, and yet they weren't really helpful. Usually they would go to the bathroom for ten minutes at a time, getting high before returning with red eyes and a smile that would last them until their next fix. That was quite a pitiful existence, dependency, and that was just another reason John had a strong dislike of drugs. They were good social tools, and yet when it really got down to it they were just going to kill you long term. And yet he had told his parents that he was at a friend's house, she always fell for that excuse when they had recently moved simply because she was so excited to hear that he was fitting in. She never knew that he had went to the local park to sit behind a clump of trees and smoke, she had no idea that while he was in fact with people he was most certainly not with friends.
"I'm running low." Jim murmured, holding up his little baggie of marijuana and frowning at its declining levels.
"Half empty." Irene murmured.
"Half full." John commented with a bit of a smirk, however both of his acquaintances just gave him a bit of a glare and so he silenced himself.
"I'll just get more, my parents give my gas money and yet they never can piece together that I never drive my car more than five minutes every day. They're yet to wonder where their twenty dollars a week is going." Jim muttered, shuffling in the dirt and taking another puff. The other two mimicked him, and together they blew quite a substantial amount of foul smelling white smoke around them, making it only too obvious as to what the sketchy kids were doing back behind the groves of trees.
"Who's your dealer?" John wondered, for he always needed to know these things just in case he needed to upkeep his 'habit'.
"Oh some guy named Victor, he lurks around downtown and he sticks out like a sore thumb. He's everything you'd expect from a drug dealer...just a bit more beautiful." Jim admitted with a breath, puffing out smoke as he let his head fall back towards the trees.
"You're lucky John; Victor's an opportunistic homosexual, and I don't have the luxury of using the alternate method of paying." Irene murmured, digging her heels into the dirt and frowning. John just nodded, for he really hadn't been expecting that description of a drug dealer.
"Does he go to our school?" John wondered, to which Irene just shook her head.
"He's like twenty five or something." she admitted.
"Oh he's wonderful. It's like a win win situation, I get the drugs, I get him." Jim said with what was most likely a drug induced smile. Really he shouldn't be so excited about his own prostitution, and yet maybe he thought he was being economically friendly by not paying in cash. That was quite a desperate state to get to, and yet John knew for sure that he wouldn't have to do such a thing. He wasn't addicted, and even if he was he had the money to afford such a costly and disgusting habit.
"Is Mr. Holmes...is he high all the time?" John wondered, looking over at the two who just started giggling.
"Drunk some days, high others. I don't think I've ever known that man to be sober." Irene admitted with a laugh.
"Now him! Man if I could just get my hands on him." Jim murmured hopefully, snickering excitedly while Irene sighed in agreement.
"Oh stop that, you can't have them all. I'd like him too, he's just beautiful." Irene admitted with a sigh.
"He's kind of a terrible teacher." John muttered with a shrug.
"Never had him, of course. He teaches the smart kids." Irene admitted with a shrug.
"You're smart." Jim protested.
"Not academically I'm not." Irene shrugged. She didn't seem to care all that much, in fact she had exactly the same attitude John had adopted, and with that she just took another smoke and willed herself to forget about GPA's for now. They were just lost in the smoke for the time being, and yet soon it would clear, and soon they would be thrown back into the world. The terrible world where reality happens.

 The next day in math class, John watched Mr. Holmes with a keen eye, trying to determine what his poison was for today. He kept drinking from that thermos, and sometimes he would wince as if it burned and yet other times he would just blink and continue on with whatever he was talking about, and so John was willing to bet that it was either very hot tea or possibly just hard liquor that only affected him when he let it. They were doing some sort of equations, John had forgotten to pay attention and yet he seemed to be able to do the practice alright, last year he had taken a pre calculous class and they had touched upon integrals, and so he was alright for now. The other students, however, seemed rather irritated, and John thought it was kind of funny to watch then struggle. Mr. Holmes, of course, seemed to suffer at his student's incompetence. Whenever someone asked a question he would heave a great sigh, as if it was such a burden to go over the questions kids had and actually do what he was paid to do. And every time someone asked something he would simply go through it faster, as if he thought for some reason that the redo should be somehow easier to understand than the original. John was fading in and out of the class, sometimes thinking about math, other times thinking of the man teaching it, and most of the times trying to remember what he had for lunch. To be honest he wasn't exactly sober right now, Irene had brought in something in a mug and they had all sat around lunch and taken swigs, however John wore it well, he played it off well, and even in his drunken state could he detect Mr. Holmes's stumbling about, mumbling, and nodding off. He really wasn't sober, that was for sure, and of course John couldn't remember a single day where he had come off as such. The guy was quite the mess, and yet John couldn't help but remember what Irene and Jim had been going on about him, how beautiful he was and whatnot. It was rather irritating, however John had to agree. Mr. Holmes was obviously something more than a man, and yet that observation was made in the most platonic way imaginable. Obviously. Besides, Mr. Holmes had a wedding ring on his finger, and so poor Jim and Irene would have to look for other beautiful men wandering about. When the bell rang everyone began to file out, one by one mostly, while John had just materialized back into his head and realized that he had to pack up his things to leave. He had no friends and so no one waited, and when finally the last pack of giggling girls left he suddenly found himself alone with the very man he had been day dreaming about for the entirety of the class. 

"Mr. Watson, am I right?" Mr. Holmes started, sitting down in his desk chair as if this alienation was the perfect time to start up a conversation. John cleared his throat nervously, tucking his calculator away in his backpack and zipping it up frantically. He had to get down to Mrs. Donavan's class or he would find himself in quite the situation, for she was one who watched the bell and insisted that everyone be right on time. John had the sneaking suspicion that Mr. Holmes wasn't one to write excuse slips.
"Correct." John agreed as he slung his backpack over his back and tried to look like he had places to be. However he knew he shouldn't leave, not yet at least, for Mr. Holmes still had his eyes fixed on him.
"I noticed that I had lost you there, the only one not with your eyes on the board. No one understands, and yet you still go off into your head as if your own thoughts..."
"I understand." John said flatly, interrupting the teacher in an almost rude way, for he hated when teachers made presumptions. Mr. Holmes just blinked, as if he wasn't accustomed to being interrupted like that, and yet for some reason Mr. Holmes's little ramblings infuriated John.
"You do, do you?" Mr. Holmes challenged, raising his eyebrows in a sarcastic way as if daring John to prove him wrong.
"Ya, I understand. I was taught this stuff before." John snapped. Mr. Holmes nodded, seeming as though he highly doubted that, and yet he finally just leaned farther back into his desk chair, smirking at John as if they shared some sort of inside joke. John just blinked at him, starting to wonder if he even had something to say, and when finally Mr. Holmes remained silent he started for the door.
"I assume then, that your test tomorrow will get top marks." Mr. Holmes murmured, and yet John pretended not to hear him for he knew that now he was only trying to antagonize. How unprofessional was that? So John kept walking, and thankfully that was the last he heard from Mr. Holmes, at least for that day.