FIC: Staircase Wit [1/6]
Apr. 23rd, 2012 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
splixTitle: Staircase Wit
Author: Alex
Fandom: Sherlock [BBC]
Rating: Varies
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John
Disclaimer: A.C. Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss.
Summary: L'esprit de l'escalier - Sherlock never suffers from it, which isn't to say he doesn't suffer for it. Five times he took a beating, and one time he got away.
Warnings: Violence, possible explicit sex to come.
Notes: This is my very first Sherlock fic, so please feel free to let me know if I've made any missteps.
Can also be read on AO3
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*
1. Thirteen
It was a puzzle of no small irritation that Sherlock hadn’t yet been able to work out the pattern of bullying adopted by the thick-witted, foul-smelling, spotty group of snot rags he was forced to call his schoolmates. He’d attempted to apply logic and mathematics to the problem, considering as many variables as he could: school schedule, time of day, days of week, instructor mood, assignments, barometric pressure, temperature, occurrence of compulsory chapel, days of sport versus days of rest – there was nothing for it, not yet anyway; until further data presented itself, he was compelled to conclude that the bullying was totally random. It was annoying and undignified, but he’d sort it out eventually. Until that glorious day arrived, though, he was reduced to scurrying around like a rat in an effort to avoid a thrashing. Mostly, he managed; today, he hadn’t.
“Holmes.” Bernie Halloran exhaled a noxious fume of mingled sausage, chips, chocolate biscuit, and contraband cigarette into Sherlock’s face as he shoved him up against the cool, sweating brick of the gymnasium. “You fucking swot. Licking Chandler’s arse again?”
If it was still worth trying to reckon what made Halloran, Pettit, Walser, Boothby, and Stokes seek him out on a given day or time, it was useless to wonder what the end result of their encounters would be; it was always pathetically predictable, and would have been boring had Sherlock not usually ended up on the ground in a heap afterward. He could have fought one, or even two, and won, but in the manner of all bullies, they made certain that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t fear them, not exactly, but he didn’t like getting thrashed, and he refused to cower, cringe, or toady in their presence. He knew they waited for the moment of desperation when he’d fight back. Every time it had happened, he’d counseled himself to be indifferent to their taunting, but then they’d shove or kick him and he’d take a swipe at one of them until they ended up rugby-tackling him from all sides and beating him bloody and breathless.
“I’m surprised you even know his name,” Sherlock replied coolly. That was as non-confrontational as he was willing to get, and besides, it was true. Halloran was a notoriously poor student; the only reason he was allowed to remain was that his father was an Old Etonian and gave pots and pots of money to the school to ensure that his flea-brained son would be permitted to remain.
“’Course I know his name. He’s the biggest fucking poofter in the school. Besides you, that is.”
“Right. Naturally. Stupid of me. Stands to reason you’d keep a list of poofters. So much more interesting than studying maths or chemistry or anything. I bet it occupies a lot of time, though – hard to form those letters, what with you not really knowing how to write very well. Let me know if you need the word poofter spelled.”
Halloran grinned, revealing teeth that had only a nodding acquaintance with rudimentary dental hygiene. “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re a turd, Holmes,” Boothby put in.
Sherlock snorted. God, they’re dull. “Thanks.” Contempt lent speed and blistering accuracy to his tongue. “You say that every time you see me, you know, and it’s starting to get a bit tired. I know you’ve just learned human speech, but you could vary your insults a little. It wouldn’t make you less of a sad, boring wank –“ Sherlock stopped speaking as Boothby drove a fist into his stomach. He gasped and fell to his knees, dropping his violin case and holding his midsection. Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes. Boothby’s fist had felt like a hammer. What the hell –
Boothby was grinning and holding up his fist, which appeared to have been wrapped with the remnants of a wire hanger. “You bored now, turd?”
Halloran grasped Sherlock’s tie just below its knot and dragged him upward. Unwilling to let Halloran strangle him, Sherlock struggled to his feet, wheezing for breath as he glared daggers, not sparing anyone. Halloran and Boothby laughed, but the others looked slightly uneasy – as well they might. They hadn’t exactly chosen a remote location for this particular assault. One of the prefects or instructors could stroll by at any moment. Sherlock played for time. “Let go,” he said in the soft voice he heard his father use before an explosion of anger. “Or you’ll be sorry. I promise.”
It didn’t work. Halloran laughed at him. “Sorry? You fucking shirt-lifter. We saw you staying after in the lab to talk to Chandler. What were you doing – sucking him off?”
“You’re really fixated on speculating that I might be a homosexual, aren’t you?”
“Don’t have to speculate,” Pettit said in a high, lisping voice.
Sherlock didn’t bother to respond to Pettit’s taunt, nor did he look into Pettit’s weaselly face. He merely sighed, as if it were all too tedious to be borne. “If you’re quite finished, I’ve got to go.” He didn’t dare to look down at his violin case; if they saw he was concerned for it, they’d probably smash it to bits.
“No, we’re not fucking finished.” Boothby slammed Sherlock against the brick again, moved in and grasped Sherlock’s tie, twisting it round in his hand until his fist was pressed hard against Sherlock’s throat. He smiled, showing his blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed looks off to good advantage. Beauty had all sorts of perquisites; well-built and even taller than Sherlock, Boothby was the nasty sort who gave younger, smaller pupils hearty thumps on the back in mock friendliness, sending them sprawling and then giggling about it, and the instructors and prefects turned a blind eye because Boothby knew how to smile angelically and look innocent, even when he was grinding his heel into another boy’s foot.
“Go on, Holmes,” Boothby said. “Tell us. Do you suck Chandler’s cock after class?”
Sherlock drew back at an unpleasant, familiar smell that seemed to drift from Boothby’s pores, and then something clicked inside his head – a strange flash of insight. He narrowed his eyes, staring at Boothby, taking in the cant of his shoulders, the swollen lips, the faint crust at the corner of his mouth that could have been saliva, but, Sherlock realised with sudden malicious glee, wasn’t. “No, I don’t. But tell me, Boothby – how did Halloran taste?”
It was a pleasure – no, a thrill -- to watch the color drain from Boothby’s face. Beside him, Halloran’s mouth dropped open, and the other boys gaped at Sherlock as if he’d begun singing opera in Hindustani. “What did you say?” Boothby asked, in the same soft voice Sherlock had adopted from his father and, Sherlock noted ruefully and with the smallest shiver of fear, was rather better at it.
But the fear paled before the triumph; he’d worked it out, the reason and rhyme behind the beatings. “God, it’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. The lot of you, coming from the gym. Showers, equipment rooms, plenty of dark corners. Do you hang about in a circle, or pair up, or what?” Sherlock flicked a glance at the dumbstruck boys. “No, not you, Stokes. You’re the lookout, aren’t you? Your clothes are orderly, not put on in a hurry. You’ve got time to fix yourself up, comb your hair, while you wait. The rest of you –“ Sherlock allowed his mouth to curve in a contemptuous smile. “You’re not even gay, probably, but where else are you going to get any around here? So you creep off to the showers or – yes, the showers. Knees are damp, Walser – and you have it off with each other, but that doesn’t quite assuage the guilt, I guess, because you’ve got to expend your energy and the rest of that unused testosterone, so you call me gay and beat me up. I doubt I’m the only one, either. Well done.” He looked at Boothby, grinning into that handsome face. “Probably should have wiped the spunk off your face before leaving. I mightn’t have known if you hadn’t moved so close. You smell like the hall of residence before it’s been properly aired.”
There was a silence, in which the boys glanced uneasily at each other, except for Boothby, who still pressed Sherlock to the wall. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” he whispered.
Sherlock’s stomach roiled unhappily at what sounded like a deeply sincere promise, but he’d die before admitting he was scared. He might die anyway, so he hadn’t much to lose. “Why? Did I miss something?”
“Hold him,” Boothby said, and like the thugs they were, Halloran and Walser grasped Sherlock’s arms.
“Will –“ That was Stokes, looking scared. “Someone might come and see.”
“Fuck off,” Boothby said. He wiped at the corner of his mouth and touched Sherlock’s lower lip. His face was grave and thoughtful, not at all the expression of bored annoyance he wore in lectures. “Someday I’m going to make you really eat it, Holmes, but right now I’m going to teach you a lesson. You like learning, don’t you…swot?”
For an answer, Sherlock spit at him. Boothby looked comically stunned, and Sherlock almost had time to laugh before the wire-wrapped fist plowed into him again. The two boys holding him started kicking and punching with their free hands, and no matter how much Sherlock struggled, he couldn’t get away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pettit scooping up his violin case. “No –“
They closed in on him, snarling, panting, grunting, and Sherlock crumpled beneath the hail of fists and feet. It hurt more than he could have possibly imagined, and he opened his mouth to scream – to hell with dignity, he needed help, he hadn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell against these five thugs – but a kick to his kidney put paid to that notion immediately. He writhed in torment, mouth still open in a silent shriek. He thought he would pass out. Don’t you dare, don’t you dare. They really will murder you if you faint. He bit the tip of his tongue, and the pain cleared his head a little. He kicked out, and someone grabbed his arm and rolled him to his belly, twisting his arm up behind his back. They wouldn’t stop; relentless, the beating went on and on and on. Oh God, it HURTS –
“You there! Hey!”
The hands and feet melted away. Sherlock fought for air, then let the world lapse into a grey fog.
It was very comfortable.
*
Violet leaned against the car door, smoking a Dunhill and absently plucking at a loose thread on her heather-tweed coat. She crossed one foot in front of the other, noting but not acknowledging the appreciative glances of the men and even some of the boys who streamed by, staring in admiration at her long legs, the curves of her body not quite concealed by her nonchalantly worn green Dior dress, the face that had once made her the darling of Tatler and Harpers & Queen. Why should she? She knew what she looked like, and didn’t take it for granted, but there was no point in beauty unless it could be used to some particular advantage.
Not an easy lesson to learn.
The door opened, and Sherlock trudged out, battered suitcase in one hand, violin case in the other, sporting equipment slung over one shoulder. His face was crosshatched with long, ugly cuts, his lower lip was split and puffy, and one eye was half-closed and blacker than soot. Violet sighed, overcome with twin impulses to clasp Sherlock close in her arms, and to shake some sense into him. Since neither reaction was even remotely appropriate, she dropped her cigarette to the ground, crushed it under her shoe, and opened the rear car door. “Come on, get your things in the back.”
Sherlock flung his suitcase and sports bag on the rear seat, but kept his violin case close. He slammed the door and climbed into the car, thumping down sullenly and staring out the window.
“Seat belt,” Violet said crisply, sliding into her seat and buckling her own belt as an example (she hated the damned things, but an argument was the last thing she wanted at the moment). She stared coolly at Sherlock until he complied, then started the car. She drove through the college grounds in silence, only now and then glancing at her son, who slumped down as far as the belt would allow and continued to stare out the window. She eased onto the motorway and accelerated, rolling the window down a bit to inhale the freshening early-spring air.
She wasn’t going to say a word, not one bloody word. Let him speak first. It was more than slightly ridiculous, this contest of wills that she doubted Sherlock even understood – he was thirteen, for God’s sake, and she didn’t know how to talk to him. Oh, she must have been just as willful, just as stubborn at that age, but Sherlock was a creature of deep silences and dark waters, and she had no idea what was going on behind those pale, slanted eyes so like her own. She glanced again at his white, strained face, at the cuts and bruises, and silently thanked the heavens that Siger was at the Kensington flat. If Siger had been the one to receive the call….
Violet shook her head and fished the pack of cigarettes from her bag. She lit one deftly, one-handed, and inhaled, spoiling the faint tang of freshness seeping into the car from the open window.
God knows she’d tried. She’d insisted on raising the children herself, even though Siger had disapproved strenuously and her own parents had offered to pay for a nanny, and she thought she hadn’t done such a horrid job. She didn’t believe in any faddish pop-psychological nonsense about befriending one’s child; Mycroft and Sherlock had been brought up in the nursery firmly, but fairly, wanting for nothing but taught to appreciate the myriad advantages of their exceedingly comfortable life. A sensible routine of afternoon walks, bedtime stories, a pretty tea table – she’d been raised that way and remembered it quite well enough to duplicate it – and both boys had been perfect darlings in early childhood. Adolescence, she mused with another sigh, was something different.
Mycroft, at least, was still lovely, gallant and respectful, and if he was a bit plump, what of it? Only Siger chided him about his weight, failing to notice that his contemptuous remarks only caused Mycroft to resort to nervous eating. Violet defended Mycroft, but much as she had hated to see him go, it had been a blessing when he had left for Eton and then directly to Cambridge. He avoided Siger now, only visiting Violet when he knew his father was absent from the house or flat. But Sherlock…Sherlock was too young to escape, and he hadn’t the caution nor the diplomatic nature to keep his mouth shut when it was necessary, to avoid his father’s irritation, his occasional raw anger and sometimes heavy hand. If Siger saw Sherlock’s face, he would likely say that the beating had been well-deserved.
Bastard.
Violet stubbed out the Dunhill in the ashtray, leaving an acrid odor behind. “Well?” It had been all of fifteen minutes, but she couldn’t resist speaking; it was a failing in her character, and she wielded it like a weapon when necessary. Sherlock had the same flaw, but he hadn’t learned temperance yet. God help him.
“Well, what?”
“Have you got anything to say for yourself?”
Sherlock was silent for a moment. “We’re not going to the flat?” He sounded disappointed.
“That is not what I meant. And no, we’re not going to the flat.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need some peace and quiet. And your father’s at the flat this week. He’s…entertaining.” Entertaining some trollop who’ll probably wear my bloody dressing gown all week and get lipstick and cheap perfume on it.
Sherlock snorted. “Entertaining.”
Violet said nothing. Sherlock knew. Both boys knew only too well what their father was like. And with a sudden and quite unexpected tug of maternal pride, Violet was proud of them. They were brilliant boys, keen and perceptive and extraordinary. She’d fed their curiosity about the world eagerly, buying them crate-loads of books, taking them to museums, allowing them to explore the far-flung reaches of their intellect. She hadn’t been permitted the same freedom, nor had Siger as a boy, but while Siger was content to see them become City boys, ordinary, Sloaney, boring bankers or brokers or solicitors just as long as they were, God save us, Old Etonians, Violet had yearned for something different for them. What, she wasn’t quite certain, but she understood, with a quiet conviction, that neither Mycroft nor Sherlock were meant for ordinary lives.
But there was a sort of knuckling-under one was obliged to perform first. One couldn’t simply wreak havoc and not expect to be punished for it, and so Violet applied herself to the problem again. “Your headmaster informed me that you’re to remain at home until the end of this term, at which point you are to write an appeal detailing the reasons you wish to return to school and how you intend to better yourself. I expect you’ve heard the same.”
Sherlock stared out the window.
“Sherlock.”
“I’ve heard,” Sherlock muttered.
“Fighting, darling? Honestly, I’m disappointed. I expected more from you.”
“I’m sorry, Mummy.”
“I know that tone. You’re not a bit sorry. Are you going to tell me what it was all about?”
“No.”
“Because the headmaster said that boy – Boothby, I can’t remember his Christian name – said you accused him of something really awful.”
“Did he say what?”
“He said modesty and delicacy forbade him to speak of it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sherlock said, sitting up in his seat to glare at her. “Boothby wasn’t there, was he?”
Violet frowned. “No, of course not.”
“Boothby’s parents?”
“No.”
“Well, you know it’s a load of bollocks, don’t you?”
“Mind your tongue,” Violet said sharply. “So what did you say?”
Sherlock slumped down in his seat again and fiddled with the horn closure on his duffel coat. “Boothby’s a bully and a prat, and everything I said about him was completely true.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, young man.”
Despondently, Sherlock shook his head and ran a hand through his regulation-short hair. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. I’m the one who’s got to explain to your father exactly why you’ve been booted out of school, Sherlock, and as you might guess, he is not going to be delighted to hear it.” Violet pulled the cigarettes from her bag again and fished one out. “Damn it, almost gone.” She clicked the lighter and inhaled ferociously. “So. You can either explain things to me, or you can explain them to your father.”
Sherlock let out a long sigh, unwittingly reminiscent of Violet’s own exasperated exhalations. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Boothby was performing fellatio on Halloran, and they called me a poof.”
Violet choked a little on her cigarette. She coughed and held on to the wheel through a veil of smoke-induced tears. Fellatio! Where in heaven’s name did he learn – dear God. The seriousness of her thirteen-year-old son’s voice kept her from a nervous giggle. How like Sherlock – every other teen-aged lad would probably say blow job, but not her son. She took a deep breath and considered carefully before speaking her next words. “Would you care to elucidate?”
Sherlock explained, step by step, how the encounter had happened, and how he’d arrived at his conclusion. Violet listened, half-amused, half-marvelling, not a bit shocked, and believing him wholeheartedly. As the story went on, her heart clenched as she realised that the headmaster had omitted the truth about the fight. Five boys against one. Five on one. Wretched little gits. She’d have clawed them blind, and with pleasure, if she could have done. Tears blurred her vision for a moment; angrily, she wiped them away.
At length she noticed that Sherlock was clutching his violin case tightly. “Darling…your violin. Did they….” Unable to finish, she reached out and touched his hand. So like hers, narrow and long and pale.
With another Violet-like sigh, Sherlock undid the clasps and showed her the shattered, splintered wood.
Violet bit her lip and focussed on the road. Hateful little bastards, the lot of them. Sherlock was well rid of them, of the whole bloody school. She’d be damned if she’d throw him back to the wolves after this. Siger could rage and storm as much as he bloody well pleased. It wasn’t his money that paid for Sherlock’s schooling at any rate.
Beside her, Sherlock was staring out the window again. Violet saw a wet streak on one white, lacerated cheek, and her heart clenched again. She hadn’t been raised to give in to public emotion, but she longed to pull the car over onto the side of the road and take her son in her arms, to rock him gently as she had when he was still very small, a small, curious, bright-eyed little boy with a head of dark curls and a rosebud mouth. But he was thirteen now, prickly and prideful about his dignity, and she turned her face back to the motorway and drove on.
The sun was setting, streaking the pale sky with pink and orange. They’d be at the house in less than fifteen minutes. Violet longed for another cigarette. “What do you want to do?”
Sherlock turned to her, startled. “What do you mean?”
“I’m asking how you’d like to proceed with all this. Do you want to return to Eton?”
“No,” Sherlock said, but cautiously, as if he expected the rug to be pulled from under his feet. “But Father –“
“Never mind Father. I’m asking you what you want to do.”
Sherlock considered the question. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t want to go back.”
“It’ll just mean another public school, darling. I’m not sure the next one will be so different.” She reached out tentatively and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. “I know it’s not particularly easy to be…to fit in when you’re….” Extraordinary, she wanted to say. Her lovely, brilliant, sharp-tongued, extraordinary son. “Unusual,” she finished.
For a time, Sherlock didn’t speak. He seemed to be mulling over her words, and in the unspoken understanding that Violet fancied she shared with him at odd times, she felt him coming to the realisation that she’d paid him a compliment of the highest order. He wasn’t a mere child any longer. He was the captain of his own fate. And if that hurt her more deeply than she could possibly acknowledge, she’d never own it. She had her pride too.
Shyly, Sherlock leant forward and kissed Violet’s cheek. “Thank you, Mummy.” He settled back in his seat and turned to the window again.
Violet Holmes bit her lower lip, then permitted herself a smile.
*
Author: Alex
Fandom: Sherlock [BBC]
Rating: Varies
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John
Disclaimer: A.C. Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss.
Summary: L'esprit de l'escalier - Sherlock never suffers from it, which isn't to say he doesn't suffer for it. Five times he took a beating, and one time he got away.
Warnings: Violence, possible explicit sex to come.
Notes: This is my very first Sherlock fic, so please feel free to let me know if I've made any missteps.
Can also be read on AO3
*
*
1. Thirteen
It was a puzzle of no small irritation that Sherlock hadn’t yet been able to work out the pattern of bullying adopted by the thick-witted, foul-smelling, spotty group of snot rags he was forced to call his schoolmates. He’d attempted to apply logic and mathematics to the problem, considering as many variables as he could: school schedule, time of day, days of week, instructor mood, assignments, barometric pressure, temperature, occurrence of compulsory chapel, days of sport versus days of rest – there was nothing for it, not yet anyway; until further data presented itself, he was compelled to conclude that the bullying was totally random. It was annoying and undignified, but he’d sort it out eventually. Until that glorious day arrived, though, he was reduced to scurrying around like a rat in an effort to avoid a thrashing. Mostly, he managed; today, he hadn’t.
“Holmes.” Bernie Halloran exhaled a noxious fume of mingled sausage, chips, chocolate biscuit, and contraband cigarette into Sherlock’s face as he shoved him up against the cool, sweating brick of the gymnasium. “You fucking swot. Licking Chandler’s arse again?”
If it was still worth trying to reckon what made Halloran, Pettit, Walser, Boothby, and Stokes seek him out on a given day or time, it was useless to wonder what the end result of their encounters would be; it was always pathetically predictable, and would have been boring had Sherlock not usually ended up on the ground in a heap afterward. He could have fought one, or even two, and won, but in the manner of all bullies, they made certain that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t fear them, not exactly, but he didn’t like getting thrashed, and he refused to cower, cringe, or toady in their presence. He knew they waited for the moment of desperation when he’d fight back. Every time it had happened, he’d counseled himself to be indifferent to their taunting, but then they’d shove or kick him and he’d take a swipe at one of them until they ended up rugby-tackling him from all sides and beating him bloody and breathless.
“I’m surprised you even know his name,” Sherlock replied coolly. That was as non-confrontational as he was willing to get, and besides, it was true. Halloran was a notoriously poor student; the only reason he was allowed to remain was that his father was an Old Etonian and gave pots and pots of money to the school to ensure that his flea-brained son would be permitted to remain.
“’Course I know his name. He’s the biggest fucking poofter in the school. Besides you, that is.”
“Right. Naturally. Stupid of me. Stands to reason you’d keep a list of poofters. So much more interesting than studying maths or chemistry or anything. I bet it occupies a lot of time, though – hard to form those letters, what with you not really knowing how to write very well. Let me know if you need the word poofter spelled.”
Halloran grinned, revealing teeth that had only a nodding acquaintance with rudimentary dental hygiene. “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re a turd, Holmes,” Boothby put in.
Sherlock snorted. God, they’re dull. “Thanks.” Contempt lent speed and blistering accuracy to his tongue. “You say that every time you see me, you know, and it’s starting to get a bit tired. I know you’ve just learned human speech, but you could vary your insults a little. It wouldn’t make you less of a sad, boring wank –“ Sherlock stopped speaking as Boothby drove a fist into his stomach. He gasped and fell to his knees, dropping his violin case and holding his midsection. Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes. Boothby’s fist had felt like a hammer. What the hell –
Boothby was grinning and holding up his fist, which appeared to have been wrapped with the remnants of a wire hanger. “You bored now, turd?”
Halloran grasped Sherlock’s tie just below its knot and dragged him upward. Unwilling to let Halloran strangle him, Sherlock struggled to his feet, wheezing for breath as he glared daggers, not sparing anyone. Halloran and Boothby laughed, but the others looked slightly uneasy – as well they might. They hadn’t exactly chosen a remote location for this particular assault. One of the prefects or instructors could stroll by at any moment. Sherlock played for time. “Let go,” he said in the soft voice he heard his father use before an explosion of anger. “Or you’ll be sorry. I promise.”
It didn’t work. Halloran laughed at him. “Sorry? You fucking shirt-lifter. We saw you staying after in the lab to talk to Chandler. What were you doing – sucking him off?”
“You’re really fixated on speculating that I might be a homosexual, aren’t you?”
“Don’t have to speculate,” Pettit said in a high, lisping voice.
Sherlock didn’t bother to respond to Pettit’s taunt, nor did he look into Pettit’s weaselly face. He merely sighed, as if it were all too tedious to be borne. “If you’re quite finished, I’ve got to go.” He didn’t dare to look down at his violin case; if they saw he was concerned for it, they’d probably smash it to bits.
“No, we’re not fucking finished.” Boothby slammed Sherlock against the brick again, moved in and grasped Sherlock’s tie, twisting it round in his hand until his fist was pressed hard against Sherlock’s throat. He smiled, showing his blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed looks off to good advantage. Beauty had all sorts of perquisites; well-built and even taller than Sherlock, Boothby was the nasty sort who gave younger, smaller pupils hearty thumps on the back in mock friendliness, sending them sprawling and then giggling about it, and the instructors and prefects turned a blind eye because Boothby knew how to smile angelically and look innocent, even when he was grinding his heel into another boy’s foot.
“Go on, Holmes,” Boothby said. “Tell us. Do you suck Chandler’s cock after class?”
Sherlock drew back at an unpleasant, familiar smell that seemed to drift from Boothby’s pores, and then something clicked inside his head – a strange flash of insight. He narrowed his eyes, staring at Boothby, taking in the cant of his shoulders, the swollen lips, the faint crust at the corner of his mouth that could have been saliva, but, Sherlock realised with sudden malicious glee, wasn’t. “No, I don’t. But tell me, Boothby – how did Halloran taste?”
It was a pleasure – no, a thrill -- to watch the color drain from Boothby’s face. Beside him, Halloran’s mouth dropped open, and the other boys gaped at Sherlock as if he’d begun singing opera in Hindustani. “What did you say?” Boothby asked, in the same soft voice Sherlock had adopted from his father and, Sherlock noted ruefully and with the smallest shiver of fear, was rather better at it.
But the fear paled before the triumph; he’d worked it out, the reason and rhyme behind the beatings. “God, it’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. The lot of you, coming from the gym. Showers, equipment rooms, plenty of dark corners. Do you hang about in a circle, or pair up, or what?” Sherlock flicked a glance at the dumbstruck boys. “No, not you, Stokes. You’re the lookout, aren’t you? Your clothes are orderly, not put on in a hurry. You’ve got time to fix yourself up, comb your hair, while you wait. The rest of you –“ Sherlock allowed his mouth to curve in a contemptuous smile. “You’re not even gay, probably, but where else are you going to get any around here? So you creep off to the showers or – yes, the showers. Knees are damp, Walser – and you have it off with each other, but that doesn’t quite assuage the guilt, I guess, because you’ve got to expend your energy and the rest of that unused testosterone, so you call me gay and beat me up. I doubt I’m the only one, either. Well done.” He looked at Boothby, grinning into that handsome face. “Probably should have wiped the spunk off your face before leaving. I mightn’t have known if you hadn’t moved so close. You smell like the hall of residence before it’s been properly aired.”
There was a silence, in which the boys glanced uneasily at each other, except for Boothby, who still pressed Sherlock to the wall. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” he whispered.
Sherlock’s stomach roiled unhappily at what sounded like a deeply sincere promise, but he’d die before admitting he was scared. He might die anyway, so he hadn’t much to lose. “Why? Did I miss something?”
“Hold him,” Boothby said, and like the thugs they were, Halloran and Walser grasped Sherlock’s arms.
“Will –“ That was Stokes, looking scared. “Someone might come and see.”
“Fuck off,” Boothby said. He wiped at the corner of his mouth and touched Sherlock’s lower lip. His face was grave and thoughtful, not at all the expression of bored annoyance he wore in lectures. “Someday I’m going to make you really eat it, Holmes, but right now I’m going to teach you a lesson. You like learning, don’t you…swot?”
For an answer, Sherlock spit at him. Boothby looked comically stunned, and Sherlock almost had time to laugh before the wire-wrapped fist plowed into him again. The two boys holding him started kicking and punching with their free hands, and no matter how much Sherlock struggled, he couldn’t get away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pettit scooping up his violin case. “No –“
They closed in on him, snarling, panting, grunting, and Sherlock crumpled beneath the hail of fists and feet. It hurt more than he could have possibly imagined, and he opened his mouth to scream – to hell with dignity, he needed help, he hadn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell against these five thugs – but a kick to his kidney put paid to that notion immediately. He writhed in torment, mouth still open in a silent shriek. He thought he would pass out. Don’t you dare, don’t you dare. They really will murder you if you faint. He bit the tip of his tongue, and the pain cleared his head a little. He kicked out, and someone grabbed his arm and rolled him to his belly, twisting his arm up behind his back. They wouldn’t stop; relentless, the beating went on and on and on. Oh God, it HURTS –
“You there! Hey!”
The hands and feet melted away. Sherlock fought for air, then let the world lapse into a grey fog.
It was very comfortable.
*
Violet leaned against the car door, smoking a Dunhill and absently plucking at a loose thread on her heather-tweed coat. She crossed one foot in front of the other, noting but not acknowledging the appreciative glances of the men and even some of the boys who streamed by, staring in admiration at her long legs, the curves of her body not quite concealed by her nonchalantly worn green Dior dress, the face that had once made her the darling of Tatler and Harpers & Queen. Why should she? She knew what she looked like, and didn’t take it for granted, but there was no point in beauty unless it could be used to some particular advantage.
Not an easy lesson to learn.
The door opened, and Sherlock trudged out, battered suitcase in one hand, violin case in the other, sporting equipment slung over one shoulder. His face was crosshatched with long, ugly cuts, his lower lip was split and puffy, and one eye was half-closed and blacker than soot. Violet sighed, overcome with twin impulses to clasp Sherlock close in her arms, and to shake some sense into him. Since neither reaction was even remotely appropriate, she dropped her cigarette to the ground, crushed it under her shoe, and opened the rear car door. “Come on, get your things in the back.”
Sherlock flung his suitcase and sports bag on the rear seat, but kept his violin case close. He slammed the door and climbed into the car, thumping down sullenly and staring out the window.
“Seat belt,” Violet said crisply, sliding into her seat and buckling her own belt as an example (she hated the damned things, but an argument was the last thing she wanted at the moment). She stared coolly at Sherlock until he complied, then started the car. She drove through the college grounds in silence, only now and then glancing at her son, who slumped down as far as the belt would allow and continued to stare out the window. She eased onto the motorway and accelerated, rolling the window down a bit to inhale the freshening early-spring air.
She wasn’t going to say a word, not one bloody word. Let him speak first. It was more than slightly ridiculous, this contest of wills that she doubted Sherlock even understood – he was thirteen, for God’s sake, and she didn’t know how to talk to him. Oh, she must have been just as willful, just as stubborn at that age, but Sherlock was a creature of deep silences and dark waters, and she had no idea what was going on behind those pale, slanted eyes so like her own. She glanced again at his white, strained face, at the cuts and bruises, and silently thanked the heavens that Siger was at the Kensington flat. If Siger had been the one to receive the call….
Violet shook her head and fished the pack of cigarettes from her bag. She lit one deftly, one-handed, and inhaled, spoiling the faint tang of freshness seeping into the car from the open window.
God knows she’d tried. She’d insisted on raising the children herself, even though Siger had disapproved strenuously and her own parents had offered to pay for a nanny, and she thought she hadn’t done such a horrid job. She didn’t believe in any faddish pop-psychological nonsense about befriending one’s child; Mycroft and Sherlock had been brought up in the nursery firmly, but fairly, wanting for nothing but taught to appreciate the myriad advantages of their exceedingly comfortable life. A sensible routine of afternoon walks, bedtime stories, a pretty tea table – she’d been raised that way and remembered it quite well enough to duplicate it – and both boys had been perfect darlings in early childhood. Adolescence, she mused with another sigh, was something different.
Mycroft, at least, was still lovely, gallant and respectful, and if he was a bit plump, what of it? Only Siger chided him about his weight, failing to notice that his contemptuous remarks only caused Mycroft to resort to nervous eating. Violet defended Mycroft, but much as she had hated to see him go, it had been a blessing when he had left for Eton and then directly to Cambridge. He avoided Siger now, only visiting Violet when he knew his father was absent from the house or flat. But Sherlock…Sherlock was too young to escape, and he hadn’t the caution nor the diplomatic nature to keep his mouth shut when it was necessary, to avoid his father’s irritation, his occasional raw anger and sometimes heavy hand. If Siger saw Sherlock’s face, he would likely say that the beating had been well-deserved.
Bastard.
Violet stubbed out the Dunhill in the ashtray, leaving an acrid odor behind. “Well?” It had been all of fifteen minutes, but she couldn’t resist speaking; it was a failing in her character, and she wielded it like a weapon when necessary. Sherlock had the same flaw, but he hadn’t learned temperance yet. God help him.
“Well, what?”
“Have you got anything to say for yourself?”
Sherlock was silent for a moment. “We’re not going to the flat?” He sounded disappointed.
“That is not what I meant. And no, we’re not going to the flat.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need some peace and quiet. And your father’s at the flat this week. He’s…entertaining.” Entertaining some trollop who’ll probably wear my bloody dressing gown all week and get lipstick and cheap perfume on it.
Sherlock snorted. “Entertaining.”
Violet said nothing. Sherlock knew. Both boys knew only too well what their father was like. And with a sudden and quite unexpected tug of maternal pride, Violet was proud of them. They were brilliant boys, keen and perceptive and extraordinary. She’d fed their curiosity about the world eagerly, buying them crate-loads of books, taking them to museums, allowing them to explore the far-flung reaches of their intellect. She hadn’t been permitted the same freedom, nor had Siger as a boy, but while Siger was content to see them become City boys, ordinary, Sloaney, boring bankers or brokers or solicitors just as long as they were, God save us, Old Etonians, Violet had yearned for something different for them. What, she wasn’t quite certain, but she understood, with a quiet conviction, that neither Mycroft nor Sherlock were meant for ordinary lives.
But there was a sort of knuckling-under one was obliged to perform first. One couldn’t simply wreak havoc and not expect to be punished for it, and so Violet applied herself to the problem again. “Your headmaster informed me that you’re to remain at home until the end of this term, at which point you are to write an appeal detailing the reasons you wish to return to school and how you intend to better yourself. I expect you’ve heard the same.”
Sherlock stared out the window.
“Sherlock.”
“I’ve heard,” Sherlock muttered.
“Fighting, darling? Honestly, I’m disappointed. I expected more from you.”
“I’m sorry, Mummy.”
“I know that tone. You’re not a bit sorry. Are you going to tell me what it was all about?”
“No.”
“Because the headmaster said that boy – Boothby, I can’t remember his Christian name – said you accused him of something really awful.”
“Did he say what?”
“He said modesty and delicacy forbade him to speak of it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sherlock said, sitting up in his seat to glare at her. “Boothby wasn’t there, was he?”
Violet frowned. “No, of course not.”
“Boothby’s parents?”
“No.”
“Well, you know it’s a load of bollocks, don’t you?”
“Mind your tongue,” Violet said sharply. “So what did you say?”
Sherlock slumped down in his seat again and fiddled with the horn closure on his duffel coat. “Boothby’s a bully and a prat, and everything I said about him was completely true.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, young man.”
Despondently, Sherlock shook his head and ran a hand through his regulation-short hair. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. I’m the one who’s got to explain to your father exactly why you’ve been booted out of school, Sherlock, and as you might guess, he is not going to be delighted to hear it.” Violet pulled the cigarettes from her bag again and fished one out. “Damn it, almost gone.” She clicked the lighter and inhaled ferociously. “So. You can either explain things to me, or you can explain them to your father.”
Sherlock let out a long sigh, unwittingly reminiscent of Violet’s own exasperated exhalations. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Boothby was performing fellatio on Halloran, and they called me a poof.”
Violet choked a little on her cigarette. She coughed and held on to the wheel through a veil of smoke-induced tears. Fellatio! Where in heaven’s name did he learn – dear God. The seriousness of her thirteen-year-old son’s voice kept her from a nervous giggle. How like Sherlock – every other teen-aged lad would probably say blow job, but not her son. She took a deep breath and considered carefully before speaking her next words. “Would you care to elucidate?”
Sherlock explained, step by step, how the encounter had happened, and how he’d arrived at his conclusion. Violet listened, half-amused, half-marvelling, not a bit shocked, and believing him wholeheartedly. As the story went on, her heart clenched as she realised that the headmaster had omitted the truth about the fight. Five boys against one. Five on one. Wretched little gits. She’d have clawed them blind, and with pleasure, if she could have done. Tears blurred her vision for a moment; angrily, she wiped them away.
At length she noticed that Sherlock was clutching his violin case tightly. “Darling…your violin. Did they….” Unable to finish, she reached out and touched his hand. So like hers, narrow and long and pale.
With another Violet-like sigh, Sherlock undid the clasps and showed her the shattered, splintered wood.
Violet bit her lip and focussed on the road. Hateful little bastards, the lot of them. Sherlock was well rid of them, of the whole bloody school. She’d be damned if she’d throw him back to the wolves after this. Siger could rage and storm as much as he bloody well pleased. It wasn’t his money that paid for Sherlock’s schooling at any rate.
Beside her, Sherlock was staring out the window again. Violet saw a wet streak on one white, lacerated cheek, and her heart clenched again. She hadn’t been raised to give in to public emotion, but she longed to pull the car over onto the side of the road and take her son in her arms, to rock him gently as she had when he was still very small, a small, curious, bright-eyed little boy with a head of dark curls and a rosebud mouth. But he was thirteen now, prickly and prideful about his dignity, and she turned her face back to the motorway and drove on.
The sun was setting, streaking the pale sky with pink and orange. They’d be at the house in less than fifteen minutes. Violet longed for another cigarette. “What do you want to do?”
Sherlock turned to her, startled. “What do you mean?”
“I’m asking how you’d like to proceed with all this. Do you want to return to Eton?”
“No,” Sherlock said, but cautiously, as if he expected the rug to be pulled from under his feet. “But Father –“
“Never mind Father. I’m asking you what you want to do.”
Sherlock considered the question. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t want to go back.”
“It’ll just mean another public school, darling. I’m not sure the next one will be so different.” She reached out tentatively and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. “I know it’s not particularly easy to be…to fit in when you’re….” Extraordinary, she wanted to say. Her lovely, brilliant, sharp-tongued, extraordinary son. “Unusual,” she finished.
For a time, Sherlock didn’t speak. He seemed to be mulling over her words, and in the unspoken understanding that Violet fancied she shared with him at odd times, she felt him coming to the realisation that she’d paid him a compliment of the highest order. He wasn’t a mere child any longer. He was the captain of his own fate. And if that hurt her more deeply than she could possibly acknowledge, she’d never own it. She had her pride too.
Shyly, Sherlock leant forward and kissed Violet’s cheek. “Thank you, Mummy.” He settled back in his seat and turned to the window again.
Violet Holmes bit her lower lip, then permitted herself a smile.
*
