Winter Breaks (Johnlock/Teenlock)

13

Mary and John ran to the library, at a speed that John preferred not to be going especially since on that day his stomach wasn't feeling so great, and he had just eaten.

When they got to the library Mary yelled, "There he is!" She pointed at Sherlock in a corner reading a book about Blackbeard.

Mary's yell received a harmony of 'hush's and 'shhhh's, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind.

Mary turned to John, "Go to him."

"Go to him? Mary, this isn't a fucking romcom," John whispered, catching his breath.

"You're right!" Mary whispered, "We need an even cuter way of telling him that you love him! We're going to full romcom style. Meet me at my place to study the art of cheesy 'I love you's."

John rolled his eyes, "I'm not saying that we need an even cheesier 'I love you', I'm just sa—"

"To late," Mary interrupted. She turned from the library and started to walk to class, "Well come on. Class is about to start."

~~~

In the middle of class Mary started to drop hints to the whole 'I love you' thing in her answers to class questions.

"I think that the reason why world war two was started was at least partially due to the world powers were led by cruel people who, as far as I know, lived through never hearing 'I love you'," Mary smirked.

Another time, in English class, she said, "Of course Emma wanted to set up romances, which she at least mostly succeeded in, and therefore the moment that anybody whom she set up says anything along the lines of 'I love you' or any form of affection has more power for Emma to hear because it means that she succeeded."

Suffice to say, Mary was not an overly subtle person.

After school, John met Mary in front of the school to go to her house.

"By the way," John said, "Sherlock will not start world war three if I don't say 'I love you'."

"Well," Mary said, "you never know with Sherlock. And besides, I wasn't saying that Sherlock was going to start world war three. I was saying that if he had any high status in any of the world powers during world war two he'd probably be partially responsible for world war two."

"And your not Emma," John added.

Mary nodded sarcastically, "Yeah. Sure."

"You know it's not a good thing to be Emma," John added.

"Can we move on from whether or not I'm Emma?" Mary snapped.

"Right, sorry," John nodded, "’course."

"Anyways," Mary said trudging forward, "let's go."

~~~

Mary's house was fairly nice. Her parents were around more than John's and were kind enough to acknowledge John and Mary's existence. Her dad sat on the couch watching TV and her other dad was drawing in a sketchbook at the dining table. They both said 'hello' as the two passed.

"Hey," Mary said passively to them.

Mary walked to the kitchen and pulled a bag of sliced apples from the fridge. She silently led John to her room.

Mary's room was bigger than John's or Sherlock's. It's walls were painted a yellow that made John think of spring. Mary had adorned her room walls with those posters with quotes on them of people from Amelia Earhart to Bilbo Baggins and practically everyone in between. She had a bookshelf full of books, all sorted by what appeared to be genre, and besides her bookshelf she had a desk and a filing cabinet. On her desk was a chromebook from about three years ago.

John glanced to the right. Perfectly positioned in front of the bed a tv hung on the wall.

"You have a tv?!" John exclaimed.

"Yeah..." Mary nodded.

"In your room?!"

"Yeah..."

John stared at the tv, "Wow."

"Listen," Mary said, snapping John out of his daydream, "If your going to stare at the tv, at least stare at it to study up on how to confess your feelings."

She turned on the TV and went through her recordings.

"First," Mary said, "Romeo and Juliet. During add breaks you will read the tabbed excerpts in these."

Mary pulled out an entire section of her bookshelf full of romances. Each book had colourful tabs marking romantic scenes.

John stared at the immense stack of books. He glanced at Carry On. There were perhaps seventy three tabs.

"Seriously?!" John asked.

Mary grabbed her chromebook. She opened a tab of Wattpad.

"Also, read basically any fanfiction on here," Mary added. "Finally, you need a notebook and a writing utensil."

John pulled out his crush notebook and a mechanical pencil.

Three hours later, John had consumed one movie, two episodes of Crazy Ex Girlfriend, all excerpts out of Carry On, Wayward Son, It Looks Like This, Lovely War, Pride, Jackaby, More Than This, Fangirl, American Royals, and—well, you get the idea. He'd also been forced to read thirty one shots and any scene from the the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series that Mary claimed proved that Ford and Arthur were 'meant for each other'.

John checked his watch, "I gotta go."

"Why?" Mary asked.

"I've gotta go home, my parents will get concerned," John said, "Not really about me, but about what I might be doing."

"Oh," Mary nodded, "Text your parents that your gonna stay here a little longer. We still have to get to the excerpts out of Go With the Flow, Shouting at the Rain, Little Women, and Wizards of Once."

John stared at Mary for a moment, "Fine. But if I get in trouble, it's your fault."

Another hour later, they'd consumed the last of the book excerpts, five more one shots, and two episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

When John got home, he went back over his notes, "Use metaphors. Sound passionate. Be awkward, the more awkward the more cute. Unless it's to awkward. There's a line you can't cross. Etc." John read out loud.

"Yeah," Mary nodded proudly, "I'm a good teacher."