Freak - Teenlock/Johnlock AU

Part 4

Mrs Carson had run out of the power, or will, or both, to argue. She didn't seem to think the strange boy in the third row was capable of doing anyone a favour.

"Who's that man outside?"

"Colin Hughes, he's the new English teacher. Oh God, I forgot to let him in."

Mrs Carson's eyebrows rose from where they had been set in a position to chastise Sherlock to meet her hair. She ran to the door and yanked it open, turning a red shade that just served to emphasise her brick-like appearance. I hid my grin behind Cousin Kate, feeling suddenly grateful for the sheet of paper. Mrs Carson did not take well to being humiliated. Sherlock had proved as much that lesson. By the time she reached her desk, she'd emitted a stream of apology so wide I thought she'd probably exhausted the thesaurus' synonyms for "sorry".

"Please accept my repentance, Mr Hughes. We had a bit of a class disturbance -"
She shot the now placid Sherlock a look. " - But don't worry, they're not like that all the time. So we've been doing some work on Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti... would you like a chair?" She pulled out a red plastic chair for him to sit on and then blushed again. "Oh, sorry, that's not very dignified."

I sat back and considered my hatred for English. The poem was stupid. Mrs Carson was stupid. I felt a particular, insatiable anger towards her because of the fact she'd shown no appreciation of Sherlock's dissection of the poem. It was impressive. It made what the class had to say most of the time a sorry excuse for understanding. Even if on 90% of occasions I could usually figure out something vaguely insightful to say, I couldn't do it from a brief scan of the text.

"Have you read the poem before?" I asked Sherlock.

"Why would I want to do that?" he replied, briefly lifting his chin from his fingertips to glance at me. I fought the urge to say "so you've never even seen it?" because I had a feeling he wouldn't think much of having to answer the same question, heaven forbid, twice.

"If not then that... that was brilliant."

I held my breath and waited for him to say something scornful. He seemed to be waiting too.

"What?"

He checked me.

"I was waiting for you to laugh."

"Laugh? Why would I want to do that?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's usually what people do after they compliment me."

"Join the club," I muttered, and let my eyes slide back to Christina Rossetti. I could see Sherlock's face in my peripheral vision; turned towards me and watching intently, almost as if he was still waiting for some cruel punch line. I turned towards him and shrugged with a half-smile to assure him that I had no plans for one, and he whipped his head back down to his paper, black hair flashing like that of a real octopus' ink as it ensconces itself into a hole.

The lesson finished with silence from Sherlock, and a lot of wondering why Anderson couldn't have been born deformed and without a larynx on my part. The bell went and I hopped up, crushing the poem into my bag as I went and hoping the act of voodoo might have stretched to paper. Mrs Carson was giving Colin Hughes a flamboyant run-down of her lesson plans, brandishing a pink highlighter. He looked slightly concerned for his wellbeing. Frankly, I didn't blame him.

Sherlock extracted himself from his chair, seeming to entertain himself by climbing out without any part of his slender body touching the table. The noise of his satisfied sigh when he succeeded was accompanied by a muttered "freak" on my right.

"Shut up Sally," I found myself saying. For a moment she just stared at me, too shocked that I'd actually retorted to reply.

"Standing up for the freak? Of all people you could choose to actually open your mouth for!" she said with a laugh. "In case you weren't concentrating in that English lesson, which is highly unlikely being the nerd that you are, I'll reiterate - Sherlock Holmes is a bloody psychopath."