Secretly I Think You Knew

Morning Mayhem With Greg Lestrade

"Hey Harry!" John called, knocking on his sister's door as a sort of joke.
"Go away!" Harry yelled. John sighed, good old Harry, not giving a care to any other living person in the world. He walked into his room, grabbing his pajamas and going into the bathroom to shower, wiping the sweat and dirt from today's practice down the drain. When John was done he dried his hair with a towel and threw his dirty clothes into the laundry basket, going downstairs and hearing his father's voice from the kitchen.
"Hey dad." John said with a smile. The whole family was in the kitchen, setting the table, cooking, and in John's case, trying to look like they were busy while doing nothing productive at all.
"Hi John, how was school?" Mr. Watson asked.
"Meh." John shrugged.
"Get drinks please dear." Mrs. Watson muttered, and John groaned. He knew something like that was bound to happen. So he poured four glasses of milk, sitting down at the table and watching as his mother served them pasta with alfredo sauce. That was another good thing about soccer practice; afterwards he seemed to develop a second stomach in which he could fit third servings of pasta. This was especially helpful when the food was especially yummy.
"So, John, did you talk more with Sherlock today?" Mrs. Watson asked.
"Ya, we got some time in class to work on the paper." John agreed.
"Anything...odd?" she asked doubtfully.
"What do you mean by odd?" John asked.
"Well, you know, he's a nice boy right?" she asked.
"Ya, course he is." John agreed.
"Alright, he seemed rather, distant I suppose, yesterday, I just wanted to make sure he was..." she paused, as if looking for the right word.
"Sane." Harry finished.
"Harry shush, that is most certainly not the word I was looking for." Mrs. Watson insisted, but she didn't seem to be able to come up with a more politically correct word, so she kept her mouth shut.
"Sherlock's sane, he's actually pretty nice." John insisted.
"He came across as very socially awkward yesterday, not the most polite boy either." Mrs. Watson decided.
"Everyone seems to think he's some sort of freak, but I really don't think he is." John insisted.
"I didn't say he was a freak John, that's certainly not what I meant." Mrs. Watson muttered, looking at her husband for help. Unfortunately he was too busy with his pasta to pay much attention to the conversation.
"Ya, I know what you meant." John sighed, pushing his plate away, suddenly not very hungry.
"So, Harry, how's the college search going?" Mr. Watson asked rather awkwardly, if not hopefully. Harry just laughed, pushing her pasta around with her fork and not responding. The rest of dinner had a sort of cloud over it. John didn't even finish his first helping; he just threw it out, did the dishes, and went upstairs to his room. His mother seemed rather upset about having struck and nerve, but it wasn't her fault, honestly John wondered about Sherlock's sanity, but it was horrible how everyone couldn't see past his awkwardness. Yes, he wasn't the most polite boy, and yes, maybe he was a bit socially awkward, but there was more to a person than just that, he just wasn't comfortable around John or his family yet. He'll open up, and when he does, John will finally know the real Sherlock Holmes. John took out his homework and sat at his desk, going through math equations and English vocabulary words, honestly he didn't know much but he jotted down random answers, who cares if he wrote 5 for every math problem? Certainly not John. His mind seemed to be somewhere else, although at the moment he didn't know where. Not at the soccer field, thinking about new drills, certainly not at school in a learning environment, what could possibly distract him if not soccer? It felt like he was back in middle school, drooling over Mary Morstan, but of course that couldn't be, he hadn't met a new girl in years. So why was there this overwhelming feeling of carelessness clouding his homework and his life? In the end, John just put his pencil down in defeat. His brain had wandered off; it wanted to think of other things, not stupid vocabulary words that he'll never have to say in his life. So he got his laptop out and watched Netflix for the rest of the night, drowning out this rather awkward time with as many episodes of Daredevil he could fit into one sitting.

When John woke up he had the false impression that it was Saturday, and for a moment he lay in bed and contemplated what he would do with an entire day to himself. But then his alarm clock went off and he found out the painful way that he had only made it to Wednesday, and he still had three whole days of school to suffer through before he made it to the glorious eye of the storm.
"John, up!" Mrs. Watson yelled down the hallway.
"I'm up, I'm up!" John growled, throwing his pillow at the alarm clock in an attempt to make it shut up. It was Mrs. Watson's idea to move the clock where he couldn't reach it from the bed, therefore he would actually have to get up and turn it off instead of sleepily pressing the snooze button for the fifteenth time. It had really sounded like a great idea in the middle of the day, but now, in the dead of morning, John hated himself for agreeing. The pillow, shockingly, didn't do anything except knock the stupid thing off of the dresser, so now it was even closer and it was on its side, beeping loudly. John groaned, rolling out of bed and going to pick up the alarm clock, finally turning it off before setting it back on the dresser where it belonged.
"Are you up?" Mrs. Watson yelled from downstairs.
"Yes I'm up!" John called back. He sighed; mornings would be a lot more bearable if Harry had to suffer through them as well. But no, she had graduated last year, so she could sleep for as long as she pleased. Usually that meant she went to sleep until about one, got up, made herself some pizza rolls and watched Netflix for about an hour, and then went back to sleep. An extremely healthy lifestyle, but John had to admit, he envied her. That sounded much more entertaining than going to school and suffering through the day. When John finally stumbled downstairs his mother was making waffles, pouring batter into the waffle maker and looking very sleepy.
"Hello John, sleep good?" she asked with a smile.
"Ya, I guess so." John groaned, wishing he could go back to sleep instead of doing, well, anything. He rubbed his eyes, sitting at his spot at the table and waiting for his mother to get some waffles on his plate.
"Well, I know your sister has to do something today, at least, I hope she does. I can't think of what. Your father has to work late, but I'll be here, and you've got practice?" she asked.
"Every day mom, it doesn't change." John pointed out.
"Well, Monday you came home with Sherlock." She insisted.
"Yes, coach was on a three day vacation and couldn't make it in time, I told you that before." John pointed out.
"Oh ya, was it...Atlantic Ocean?" she asked.
"Yes mom, he went to the Atlantic Ocean for a three day weekend. He went to the beach." John pointed out.
"Oh you know what I meant." She groaned, running over to wipe the batter that was dripping from the waffle maker onto the counter. John sighed, holding his head in his arms and daring to close his eyes for a couple of seconds.
"Here you are, first batch." She said with a smile, shoving a steaming waffle under his head and making John jump back to life.
"Waffle, thanks." He muttered, smearing butter into the little grooves and drowning it in syrup. When he was satisfied he cut it into bite sized pieces and started eating, suddenly extremely hungry from his lack of dinner the previous night. When breakfast was over John grabbed his school bags and walked out to his car, happy he didn't have to wait for the bus again.
"John, you're picking up Greg again, right?" Mrs. Watson called just as he was going to the door.
"Oh, ya, I forgot. See you after school!" John called.
"Bye honey, have a nice day!" Mrs. Watson yelled. John could've sworn he heard Harry yelling multiple swear words down the stairs from her room, all this yelling was interfering with her beauty sleep. Then again, if she wanted to get beautiful she might want to sleep a lot more than she already was. John sighed, grabbing the keys from his bag and throwing his bags in the backseat, pulling out of the driveway and driving down the road to Greg's house. Usually Greg took the bus to school, but for a while now he's been complaining that the middle schoolers were being unbearable, or that it smelled too badly, or the bus driver wouldn't let them on their phones. Of course John knew these were all thought out excuses to get a ride to school with John, but he wasn't complaining. Greg was good company. When John pulled up to Greg's house no one was waiting for him, which really wasn't a surprise. Greg was always late, for soccer practice, for school, for class, eh always seemed to have something else going on that was extremely important. So John honked the horn once or twice and as promised Greg came dashing out of the house, running in only his socks with his sneakers dangling by their laces around his neck. He was carrying both his soccer and his school bag on his back, a desperate look on his face.
"I'm here, I'm here, no need to worry." He muttered, pulling open the backseat the best he could and dumping all of his stuff in before running around to the passenger's seat and climbing in.
"At least you're ready." John laughed, moving some of his crap from the front seat to make room for Greg to sit down.
"I am ready, well; I would've been, if you'd arrive ten minutes later." Greg shrugged as John started to pull away.
"Then we'd be late for school." John pointed out.
"Which is bad, very bad, never want to do that." Greg muttered, pulling his shoes on and lacing them up.
"How many times have you been late?" John asked with a laugh.
"Oh, too many times." Greg laughed. His shoes properly tied, he decided that it was a perfect time to turn on the radio, pumping some pop hits and bobbing his head up and down to the beat.
"You're a great person to hang out with in the morning." John groaned with a yawn, stopping at a stoplight as the other traffic went. He lazily observed the lines of traffic, no one he recognized, but wait! There was a black car, a hearse looking thing, taking the corner, headed to the school.
"Hey, that's Sherlock!" John said excitedly.
"Oh my god, your best friend, why don't you pull into incoming traffic to say hi!" Greg said with false enthusiasm.
"Shut up Greg." John snapped, watching as the car disappeared out of view.
"You're obsessed with him John, it's creepy. Almost as creepy as he is." Greg decided.
"He's not creepy, why do you keep saying that?" John growled.
"Because he is! Come on, someone who keeps completely to themselves, who screams when you so much as pat him on the shoulder, it's abnormal John." Greg insisted.
"So what, I know there's more to him than that, you just have to give him a chance, that's all." John pointed out. Finally the light changed and they started to drive again, down the road in the direction of the school.
"Don't you think if he wanted a friend he would've gone looking for one? And, in my opinion, he always looks pretty mad when you're around him, as if he doesn't want to talk." Greg pointed out.
"He's stubborn, but don't you wonder what he's hiding? Do you think he has a backstory, secrets?" john asked.
"You're befriending this kid because you want to know all of his secrets?" Greg laughed.
"No, I just want to be his friend, there's nothing wrong with that." John snapped.
"Alright then, as long as he doesn't replace me. Then I'd be pretty mad." Greg decided. John just laughed, shaking his head in annoyance and pulling into the school parking lot just as the black car pulled out. He didn't see Sherlock walking into the school but then again he was a fast walker, he was probably already inside. John pulled into his parking space, getting out and unloading all of the bags from the trunk, all while craning his neck to see if Sherlock happened to be lingering by the door or something.
"John, stop looking around, it's just creepy." Greg insisted, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and staring off towards the school. John sighed, shutting the door and locking the doors, following Greg over towards the main doors. The two of them dropped their bags in the locker room and went their separate ways for their lockers. The lockers went in alphabetical order, so John was far away from all of his friends. James and Mike were basically right next to each other while Greg was pretty far down the line. But it was alright, it's not like they socialized much at their lockers anyway. John quickly switched out his things, grabbing his English book and walking very swiftly to the door, hoping that a certain someone would be waiting there when he arrived. For once the room was actually unlocked; the teacher was sitting at her desk grading papers for once. John smiled when he saw Sherlock sitting at his desk, tapping his fingers carelessly against his laptop as he read something online.
"Hey Sherlock." John said with a smile. Sherlock looked up with a rather defeated sigh, going back to his computer without a hello. John dropped his backpack on the desk, smiling at the teacher before going over and sitting on the desk next to Sherlock's, waving his feet through the air and watching as Sherlock's eyes scanned the computer.
"What are you doing?" John asked.
"Reading, obviously." Sherlock snapped. John smiled rather tediously, but he had to make some sort of conversation.
"What are you reading?" John corrected.
"Article." Sherlock sighed.
"About what?" John asked.
"Oh my god, John, how many times do I have to tell you to go away? Honestly, we're not friends, I drove you home one time, we're working on one paper together; we've known each other for a total of four days. So please, for both of our sakes, just leave me alone." Sherlock insisted. John frowned, blushing a little bit in embarrassment when he saw the teacher giving them both a peculiar look.
"I was just going to ask how the paper was going." John said in a rather flat voice, suddenly not all that eager to talk to Sherlock after an outburst like that.
"It's going fine, if you would like to edit it, be my guest. Now I'm trying to read something, if you wouldn't mind?" Sherlock asked, nodding his head back in the direction of John's lonely desk.
"Ya, course, whatever." John sighed. "I can tell when I'm not wanted."
"Obviously not well enough." Sherlock muttered, maybe a bit more to himself, but John got the message, shuffling over to his desk and pretending to busy himself with his laptop, shoving earbuds into his ears and listening to the 'sin music', as Sherlock put it. Whatever, if Sherlock wanted to be a rude jerk, be that way. John didn't need him, of course not. Who cares what secrets he might be keeping? Obviously he wasn't going to share anytime soon.