I Know Your Face

Too Pretty to Die

            "You have all class, any questions before we begin?" Mr. Anderson wondered, holding a large stack of tests in his hands. John really hoped they only looked so big because there were a lot of them, and not because they were six pages each. John had a question, he had many questions, but before he could even raise his hand Anderson started to pass out the tests, leaving him scowling at his desk. The test was passed back and John glanced over at Sherlock, who had a look of glee on his face as he began to scribble in the neatest of handwritings. John, however, didn't see numbers, he saw some sort of weird ancient language, maybe it was Latin, maybe it was alien, but it definitely wasn't math. He looked up at everyone else, all of which seemed to know what they were doing. Oh dear. He glanced over at Greg, who was writing himself, even Greg knew what was going on! This was so embarrassing! John flipped through the whole test, trying to see at least one thing that sparked his memory, but the only thing these equations brought to mind was a pencil drumming session to Back in Black. He really was going to fail his way out of high school. John wanted to just scream, but instead he remembered that he probably had the answers, or at least some clues, on his phone. And his phone was in the pocket of his sweatpants, if he could only just sneak the smallest of peaks...John glanced over at Mr. Anderson, who seemed to be clipping his nails at his desk, the small snip snip of the nail clippers was the only annoying sound filling the whole silent room. He would never know...John took a deep breath, staring at the first question for a moment more before sliding his hand into his pocket and retrieving his phone. He turned the brightness all the way down before proceeding to his camera roll, quickly finding the equation for the first problem and beginning to see just what the question was asking. Ah, you had to take the square root of that, solve for x, put it through some sort of equation on your calculator, alright; he saw where this was going. Maybe. John finally got through the first problem, coming up with some sort of very abstract number before going onto the next. He cleared his throat guiltily, looking back up to Mr. Anderson to make sure he wasn't paying any attention. As promised he was now filing his nails with a very prestigious look on his face, as if by filing his nails he was somehow superior to everyone else. John went onto the second problem, cheating his way through an entire page before suddenly he heard a gasp beside him.
"Mr. Anderson, John's looking at answers on his phone!" Sherlock exclaimed beside him. John's heart stopped, and he immediately shut his phone off, trying to shove it into his pocket before anyone else saw. But obviously Sherlock had made his point, because the whole class went silent.
"Mr. Watson, is this true?" Mr. Anderson wondered, getting up from his swivel chair so violently that it rolled away towards the windows.
"No, he's just...he's seeing things!" John insisted, looking over at Sherlock in hatred.
"Cheating is strictly forbidden in my classroom!" Anderson declared, grabbing John's test from his desk and crumpling it up in his hands. John winced; there went all of his answers...and his reputation.
"Mr. Watson, Mr. Holmes, with me. Now." He insisted, the evilest of all looks a teacher could possibly give.
"But sir, I'm not done with my test!" Sherlock insisted, as if that was the biggest of anyone's worries.
"You can bring it with you, but for now I need the accused and the witness to the principal's office!" Mr. Anderson exclaimed.
"Come on, it wasn't answers, it was just notes, come on, I've got a game today!" John insisted, but nevertheless he got up from his chair. There were a lot of whispers going around the room, and Greg looked horrified that he would somehow be convinced as well. They were, after all, his notes. Sherlock grabbed his pencil, test, calculator, and what looked like a little pocket mirror from his bag, stuffing most of it in the pockets of his black jacket before standing up elegantly. He looked very proud of himself, as if by ruining someone else's life he was immediately looked at as a hero. John scowled at him, a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach as he felt everyone's eyes on him.
"Alright, here we go." Mr. Anderson growled, grabbing John's arm tightly and pulling him along through the door. John was sure the moment he left everyone else would compare their own tests; he had forgotten that by trying to prevent cheating he was also ensuring that it took place in his absence.
"The nerve of some people, these jocks, thinking they can do whatever they want." Anderson growled, pushing John along with his fingernails digging into John's arm. Sherlock walked alongside them with very lengthy strides, pulling down on his jacket and shirt so they framed his shoulders impressively. He probably thought he was all that right about now, but John was glaring at him with such hatred that he was surprised the boy didn't just set on fire. They arrived at the principal's office not a moment later, and John was immediately thrown into a chair in the waiting room, Mr. Anderson making his way to the back to talk to the principal. John groaned, repositioning himself in the uncomfortable chair with a scowl.
"Why'd you tell him, you miserable snitch?" John growled as soon as Mr. Anderson disappeared. Sherlock looked down at John in confusion, as if he didn't see the problem here. But nevertheless his lips stretched into a proud little smile, raising his eyebrows in a very taunting look.
"Because you were cheating." He said simply. John growled, about ready to spring up from his chair to attack that awful boy when the principal walked in, a very stern expression on her face. John straightened up in his chair, obviously wanting to make it seem like he was an honest young man when he really had been cheating. There was no way he was going to worm his way out of this one.
"You both can come back here." The principal, Mrs. Turner, insisted. John got up hastily from his chair, and Sherlock eyed his test a bit shamefully, as if wondering when he would get time to finish up the remaining problems. John's legs felt rather numb as he walked down the short hallway to where the principal's office was, easing his way into the small, organized room. Mrs. Turner had just sat down in her swivel chair behind the desk and Mr. Anderson was standing impressively behind her, his arms crossed with a look of utter dislike on his face. John was sure that if this little incident had happened with any other teacher he'd just get off with a zero, but no, Anderson had to get the principal involved. Like that was even necessary. John sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk but Sherlock stayed standing, holding his test in both of his hands as if he didn't want to wrinkle it. That was probably his way of showing how honest and caring he was, or his way of rubbing it in John's face that he was most likely to get a one hundred percent, which is a whole hundred percent above what John was going to get.
"Mr. Holmes if you could just close the door there, thank you." Mrs. Turner muttered, clearing her throat and perching her reading glasses on the brim of her nose. She resembled a crow when she did that, the glasses made her eyes look very small and beady on her thin, wrinkled face. Sherlock closed the door obediently, looking back over at the adults as if asking for more directions.
"And you can just take a seat next to Mr. Watson." Mrs. Turner instructed. Her voice was calm and John could only hope that meant she didn't care as much about cheating as Anderson seemed to, but evidently if she didn't care they wouldn't be having this meeting in the first place. Sherlock took the seat next to John, sitting up very straight and crossing his legs daintily, one of his very shiny leather shoes swinging dangerously close to John's chair. John was really tempted to break his leg.
"So Mr. Watson, how do you plead?" Mrs. Turner wondered, looking almost jokingly at him.
"Um...is this a court case?" John wondered, looking over at Sherlock to see if he were just as confused. Unfortunately everyone seemed like this was great fun, they were all wearing the same teasing little smile that made John want to decapitate someone.
"I mean, I did look at my phone, but it's not like it had the answers or anything, it was just practice problems and stuff. It was like, low-key cheating." John decided.
"Which is still cheating in my book Mr. Watson." Mrs. Turner insisted. "I already called your parents, they're on their way."
"My parents? What do they have to do with this?" John asked in horror. They were definitely not going to be happy with him once they hear about this.
"Well it's standard procedure, we're going to have to go through your phone, a tedious task to be honest, but all in all, it's necessary." She insisted with a large sigh.
"I'll show you the pictures, there were only two, they're just of equations and stuff, don't take my phone!" John insisted in discussed.
"Something in there you wish to hide?" Sherlock wondered tauntingly, and John glared at him.
"No, of course not. I just rather like my phone." John admitted.
"Hand it over." Mrs. Turner insisted, holding out her manicured hand. John looked over at Mr. Anderson, who had lost interest already and was now filing his nails again, probably picking up where he had left off. So John just sighed, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and shoving it into her hand harshly, feeling as through someone had just cut off his conjoined twin.
"Thank you. Password?" she wondered, sliding to the lock screen. John winced to hear her long nails hitting against his screen protector, wondering if she was going to manage to scratch up the screen.
"6279." John admitted. There was a bit of silence and he could hear her typing it in.
"Mary." Sherlock muttered under his breath, but John could hear him nevertheless.
"My girlfriend." John snapped, as if he somehow had to defend his choice of password.
"Yes I know." Sherlock agreed, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair, as if that were even possible.
"Mr. Anderson, if I may, when can I finish my test?" Sherlock wondered.
"After we're done with you in here." he said simply.
"Well I'm afraid my presence isn't serving much of a purpose, and school does end in about ten minutes." Sherlock pointed out.
"Your parents can surely come pick you up." Mrs. Turner assured, still scrolling through John's phone as if she were expecting to find nuclear codes or something like that. All she was probably going to find were pictures of sports teams and Mary, maybe some text posts and tweets that he thought were worthy of screenshotting, nothing that was worth this whole investigation.
"Did you manage to find the only two pictures that have to do with math?" John wondered. The principal just chuckled a little bit before scrolling on.
"What?" Joh snapped.
"That was a funny tweet." She muttered guiltily. John didn't really know how to respond to that, looking over at Sherlock for support. But Sherlock was now looking over his test once more, trying to write neatly with the paper pressed up against his leg.
"Thanks." John muttered, not really knowing what else to say. Thankfully they were interrupted when the door opened and two very frantic looking Watson parents made their entrance.
"Please don't fail him, he has to go to college and earn a living!" Mrs. Watson said the moment she stepped through the door.
"And at least consider letting him stay in National Honors Society, it looks so good on a resume." Mr. Watson added.
"Dad I'm not in that club." John muttered, and he heard Sherlock snigger beside him.
"Ah, the Watsons." Mrs. Turner said with a smile. John sighed heavily; he knew that this meeting was bound to be the most boring of his entire life. And it was, of course. The final bell rang and John heard the commotion of the rest of the school dismissing, he envied them so much right now. Sherlock looked very uneasy, as if doubting that his parents would be able to pick him up in time. But the parents and the teachers talked, and talked, and talked. John told his story, Sherlock told his, and they talked and talked and talked some more. Then there was some paper reading and paper signing and some computer stuff, and finally John and Sherlock were allowed to take a little bit of a break so that they adults could, you guessed it, talk some more. John headed off to the bathroom angrily, thankful just to hear the sound of silence, or at least hear nothing except the pounding in his ears. God, Sherlock really was such an idiot, of all of this was because he was a tattle tale. God, that was such an elementary school term but it fit this situation perfectly. Sherlock was being an immature snitch, telling the teacher and getting all the adults involved, and John got all the fall from it. Sherlock was looked at as the hero. John was just washing his hands when someone else walked into the bathroom, obviously there was only one other kid around here that would use this bathroom, but John still had to look surprised when he dared enter a room alone with a livid soccer player.

           

"Well this is all a lot more tedious than I imagined." Sherlock said with a large sigh, standing in front of one of the mirrors and fixing the curls on his head the best he could with what looked like a small comb. John couldn't even process how weird that was, in fact he really didn't care, he just wanted to shove the tongs of that comb into Sherlock's annoyingly green eyes.
"Oh you poor thing, must have it so hard." John growled, crossing his arms in anger. Sherlock glanced over at him quickly before going back to his hair, maybe he wasn't seeing what the problem here was.
"Don't blame this whole thing on me." Sherlock said in annoyance, obviously too blind to see that John's anger was about to bubble over.
"Well I don't know, how could this possibly be your fault?" John asked.
"You were the one cheating." Sherlock said very calmly. Well that was the boiling point, right there, that obliviousness that Sherlock had, that pure idiocy. John smacked the comb out of his hands, listening to the stupid plastic thing bounce around in the ceramic sink. Sherlock yelped, but John just grabbed his hand, preventing him from running away. For a moment they just stared at each other, Sherlock looked scared out of his mind, John looking angry. Very angry. Surely now Sherlock could tell that this wasn't a game anymore.
"Give me one good reason for me not to smash your pathetic face into that mirror." John demanded lividly. Sherlock looked at him in fear, trying to pull away and back into the wall in defense. It was very nice to see a look of proper fear on his face, one that really showed just how human he could be. It was very satisfying.
"Because the principal and your parents are here, and they'll be looking for us soon and if I'm dead then you'll go to jail." Sherlock said very quickly. John growled, but of course, Sherlock made a good point, even when he was scared out of his mind. John let his fingernails cut into Sherlock's skin but finally let go, staring at Sherlock and cracking his knuckles with his thumb. It would feel so good to throw his fist at Sherlock's ridiculously sculpted face, but he was right, now wasn't the time. The poor boy whimpered, scrambling against the wall and looking very pale, holding his hands up defensively.
"Please don't hurt me, I'm too pretty to die." he begged, looking as if he were about to cry.
"I'm not going to kill...wait did you say pretty?" John wondered, halting on his anger for a moment. Sherlock stared at him in horror, as if just realized what he had said.
"Smart, I meant smart." Sherlock defended, straightening up and rearranging his jacket, trying to collect whatever decency he still had left. John blinked at him, trying to find an insult to fit this situation.
"You're not pretty." John snapped. Sherlock flinched a little bit but walked very slowly around him, retrieving his comb from the sink as if that were the most important thing he could be doing right now.
"Yes I am." Sherlock whispered, back peddling as quickly of the bathroom before John could chase him down.