Disclaimer: Characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; this particular version belongs to Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss

Parallel
Chapter 10

Examinations

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The hands on the clock continued its relentless abuse as John stared blankly at the examination in front of him.

What were the German submarines commonly referred to as in the First World War?

What?

The war commenced on which date?

John's palms began to sweat.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a nationalist of which country on said date?

He peeked around the room to see how his other classmates were doing.

Which countries formed the Allies?

Everyone was busy scribbling down answers while John stared at an empty test, the only thing written on it: his name. He didn't even know what the date was.

Which countries formed the Central Powers?

Why did he have to learn history?

What was the German response to the British naval blockade?

It definitely wouldn't do him any good in the future.

What was the name of the passenger ship that carried both British and Americans and was destroyed by the Germans, prompting an unprecedented response by the Americans and subsequently building on their decision to enter the war?

Really, he didn't quite care, but if he didn't answer at least one question, he would be turning in a blank test. John looked up at the clock. There was thirty minutes left. Thirty minutes.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

He looked back down when he caught the eye of his teacher.

Ignoring the Convention of Hauges, what military tactic did the Germans use?

John got excited. He knew this one. He wrote down 'chlorine gas' and moved on to the next question.

The British used which military vehicle for the first time in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette?

Oh! He knew this one as well! He hastily scribbled down 'tanks' and read the final question.

A Yugoslav-nationalist assassinated whom on June 28, 1914, thereby starting the war?

John did a double take. Did this question just answer two of the ones he failed to answer? He looked back and read, giddy that his teacher had not realized the mistake she had made. Or perhaps she did that on purpose to help her students? Nah. She would never do that. He went back and answered the respective questions, also writing in 'Archduke Franz Ferdinand' for the last answer as taken from the first question.

"Psst. Hey, John," he heard someone whispers. He looked up at his teacher to check if she was watching (which she was not; her head was bobbing up and down as she began to nod off to sleep). After making sure the final nod was indeed the final nod, he turned around to see who was calling him.

'What'd you get for number two?' a classmate mouthed as he held up his right index and middle finger in a 'V' shape to visualize the number he was asking about. John squinted his eyes and looked back down to his test. It was the question whose answer was embedded within question ten. He turned back around and lifted his hands and showed him the number ten very quickly, his eyes darting back and forth from between the teacher and his friend.

His classmate furrowed his brows, a look of confusion crossing his face. He gave an unspoken response of, 'Huh?', probably thinking that the blond meant the answer was 10.

John licked his lips, preparing to look like an idiot by pantomiming what he was trying to get across. Look at number ten, he mouthed as he pointed to the test, then to number ten.

His classmate still didn't understand. The boy shook his head and reiterated that he was asking about number two. John hit his forehead with his palm. What an idiot.

'Just tell me,' the boy mouthed. John wasn't one for cheating; it was wrong, so he refused to flat out give the answer. He didn't want to get caught and each second spent trying to accommodate his idiotic friend meant a greater possibility for him getting caught for no reason at all. He'd rather take half points than none which he was bound to receive if the teacher woke up. His other mates hadn't noticed she was in deep slumber. A few of the smart ones were already done, but they laid with their heads down on their arms, taking a nap themselves.

He turned back towards the classmate whom he was acquaintances with, but not quite best mates and shook his head. If he did not understand John's hint, than that was entirely his fault. It was evident the boy was getting angry to which John was getting angry at. How dare he get furious for John's seeming refusal to help? He gave him the answer, just not directly.

"Ahem. John, what are you doing?" a voice asked above his head. He turned his body back around and raised his neck to face his teacher who had woken from her short slumber. Everyone's heads turned to watch.

"Nothing," he answered truthfully. At the moment, he really was doing nothing.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I was just telling Ethan I was on number ten, you know, to get a sense of pacing."

"Right," she responded, not believing him. However, since this was John Watson, a nice boy who never gave her too much trouble, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. She glanced at Ethan, a troublemaker who grated on her nerves every day. "Ethan, stop bothering John and leave him alone or else I will take your test and give you failing marks."

"But-"

"-No buts," she interrupted his whine. He turned red (John wasn't sure if it was out of anger, or out of embarrassment due to the entire class looking at the spectacle), and lowered his head.

The examination period went on as normal. The teacher was rummaging through her drawers, bent down and out of view. John felt something small hit his head and a small paper ball landed on the floor. He picked it up and read the scribbling on the paper.

"You're dead, Watson."

He didn't need to turn around to know who it was from.

"Sherlock, why aren't you working on your test?" his teacher asked the young boy who stuck out amongst his other classmates who were busily scribbling away. The quiet, lithe boy shrugged his shoulders and stared into the space in front of him. Frankly, he didn't care about astronomy and what the difference between the heliocentric theory and the geocentric theory was. He hadn't studied and didn't bother attempting to at all. He was busy fending Mycroft off of him as he tried to work on an experiment. Mycroft and his big nose-literally-always getting into his business. He scoffed, returning back to his exam.

Hm. Surely one was about the earth, geo deriving from the Greek origin of the word 'earth'. Helio, that would easily be from the Greek word helios, meaning sun. Centric, obviously meaning center of.

Oh.

Sherlock wrote down the answer based on the logical thread he followed. Now, for the second question:

Which theory is scientifically correct?

This one was a fifty-fifty percentage of failure. He wrote one down, not really caring if he did get it right or wrong. Geocentric, he supposed, whatever 'scientifically correct' meant in absolutely no context given. Sherlock never was one to care for school and grades. In his opinion, the pursuit of knowledge shouldn't be tainted by the attempt to measure one's knowledge by points. What an absolutely absurd idea, he thought.

Who was the astronomer who proposed the geocentric theory?

What is the geocentric theory commonly known as?

How was he supposed to know? He didn't feel like cheating. The idiots in this class probably didn't know anything anyway. Sherlock didn't like memorizing things that wasted space in his head. If it had no use to him, it was no use at all.

Who refuted that theory with the theory we now believe today?

Boring.

Without giving a single glance to the rest of his test, Sherlock grabbed it and handed the mostly blank examination to his teacher. The man stared at his student, raising an eyebrow. He took it and flipped the top page to look at the one underneath.

"Sherlock, there's virtually nothing written on here," he said.

The boy in front of him merely shrugged.

"No point in attempting if I clearly know I don't know it. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to the library," he replied and promptly walked away, grabbing his books in the process. The other students watched as he left his teacher in a slightly shocked state. None of his students ever walked out of his class before.

He closed his slightly gaping mouth. "Sh-Sherlock, come back here this instant!" he called to a closing door. Too late.

Sherlock walked down the empty hallway. He was well aware of that fact that any student caught loitering would be punished, but he didn't care at all. School was somewhere Mycroft forced him to go. Well, his mother really, but Mycroft was the one who actually made sure he went, dragging him into the building every day. Somehow he managed to check in on him out of nowhere at the most random times. Luckily, it wasn't long until his brother left for university.

He headed towards the library when he heard heels clicking on the tile behind him. "Student, do you have a pass to be out in the halls?" Sherlock turned around to face the teacher. "Oh, it's you Holmes. What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be in class? Show me your pass," Mrs. Fowler ordered. She pushed up her horn-rimmed glasses with her fingers, the perfectly polished pink nails glinting in the light above them. Sherlock made a show of reaching into his pocket, realizing his 'pass' wasn't there, and shuffling through his things.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Fowler, but I seemed to have misplaced my things. You see, Mr. Atkins gave me a pass to the library because I had finished my exam quite early. Perhaps the stress of studying for it made me a bit absent-minded. I'm terribly sorry," he answered as he nearly teared up. Sherlock had noticed her usually clean-pressed clothes were a bit rumpled and her breath reeked of coffee. She had bags underneath her eyes indicating that she had stayed up late. As hard as she tried to look awake, she just couldn't get past his sharp eyes; the young boy knew she wasn't up for a fight and would try to avoid a confrontation at all costs.

The brunette woman tutted and fixed her bun, attempting to smooth down her stray, wispy hair as she attempted to suppress a yawn. If this Holmes was anything like his brother, his words should be taken into consideration, she thought. "Well, Holmes, I'll let you go this time with a warning, but make sure it doesn't happen again," she ordered as she walked on.

Sherlock gave her a grateful smile and watched her turn the corner. The moment she disappeared from view, he dropped the expression and boredly turned around, wandering towards the library. That was extremely easy, he thought to himself, that is, until he felt a hand grip his shoulder. Tightly.

"So, Watson. Trying to fail me, eh? Did that on purpose, didn't you?" Ethan griped as he

pushed John against the wall in the corridor. Students were busy shuffling by, crowding the hallway. No one was paying much attention to the two young boys but some nearer to them were casting anxious glances their way. Others had perked up in interest, eyeing them as they continued on their way, secretly hoping a fight would break out.

John leaned off the wall and dusted his sleeves. He slowly raised his head to his classmate and sighed. Ethan would never learn. "It's your own fault you got caught," he stated. The boy across from him turned red, this time, clearly from anger.

"You're a downright smartass, do you know that, Watson?" he growled as he lunged at the blond.

Activating his defense mechanism, John reached his arms out and the two began wrestling around on the floor. "You're dead!" Ethan cried as he swiped a punch at him. John turned his head and dodged it which caused his classmate's knuckles to ram into the floor where his head was moments before. A ring of students gathered around. Boys hollered, whooping and chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" He heard a couple shouts of "C'mon, Watson, you can take on that scrawny bugger!" Ignoring them all, he threw a right hook which landed squarely on Ethan's jaw. He fell over to the side and off of John who scrambled up and off the floor, crouched with his hands held out in a combat stance.

"What in the world is going on!" a voice boomed down the hallway. All the students who had gathered didn't spare a second glance and scrambled away in fear they'd be caught and punished. The crowd dispersed and scattered in record time.

The headmaster got a clear view of the two boys and walked up to them. John was hovering over Ethan, hands poised to strike. "You two. My office. NOW," he barked and turned on his heel. John and Ethan, glaring at each other, followed the tall man's retreating back until they had reached the office. They sat down on the seats in front of his desk as Headmaster Welch shut the oak door and sat down on the chair behind the massive desk.

He sighed. "Watson, Echolson, you two have been in here entirely too many times. Granted, not together-that's a first-but nevertheless, I'd appreciate it if you two behaved like normal students! What happened? You, Echolson," he said as he pointed to the boy with a split lip, "explain."

"Well, sir," he began, "it all started in our history class when John began to bother me during the exam. I was telling him to be quiet and stop cheating when Mrs. Nollstein came up to me and thought that I was the one who was causing trouble. She almost gave me a failing mark! After class, I came up to Watson here and was trying to ask him not to do that again when he suddenly threw a punch! The atrocity of it all!" he cried as John stared at him in utter disbelief.

He turned to Ethan. "You must be joking, right?" He turned to the headmaster. "That is, in itself, an entirely and utterly false statement, sir. Echolson was trying to weasel answers from me when he got caught. Mrs. Nollstein let him off with a warning and he got mad he got caught so he harassed me after class and well, I admit we fought," he finished rather sheepishly.

The headmaster's hand was covering his eyes as he leaned over and fought off a migraine. Today was just not his day.

"Bottom line, you are both suspended for a day. Now get to class," he ordered tiredly as he called his secretary in. They needed to contact their parents and fill out some paperwork. John and Ethan brushed past each other as tension crackled in the air between them.

"You're dead, Watson," Ethan reiterated as John walked away, rolling his eyes.

"Sherlock, what on earth are you doing here? Get back to class this instant," Mycroft said tersely. His younger brother turned around to face his sharp-nosed brother.

"What are you doing out here, Mycroft?" he asked. His brother shifted his eyes to the left.

"That's neither here nor there, Sherlock. Listen to your brother and get," he replied. The younger sibling scoffed.

"Judging by your reaction, you're skipping class, abusing your power as the well-loved Holmes model student. I can easily call Mrs. Fowler back. She's just around the corner down the hallway. Shall I?" he threatened.

Mycroft rolled up his sleeves. "Shh, shut it. Fine, you caught me. I'm going to get a bit of ice cream. Old Mr. Smith is dreadfully boring. I know you failed your test and left early," he said as he eyed his brother. "Let's get some ice cream," he urged as he walked down the hall towards the canteen (cafeteria). Sherlock, not really one for sweets, had a bit of a soft spot for ice cream (though he'd never admit it) and followed his brother as he always did in the past. It was a strange sight, the pair of them; the Holmes siblings were usually found bickering except for the rare instance where they actually got along.

"Is he going over the noble gases again?" he asked Mycroft who nodded.

"I'm about to graduate so I have no idea why he's going over such rudimentary material."

"Probably ran out of ideas. Plus the man is retiring. It's obvious he's decided that this will be his final year. The sloppiness. I've seen him around."

They turned the corner and entered the canteen, reaching the back where the ice cream machines were.

"Yes, quite. Your test, was it astronomy?" Mycroft asked his younger brother. He knew Sherlock absolutely loathed the subject and couldn't care less whether he passed or failed. He only cared about literature and actual science.

Sherlock nodded and his curls bounced up and down.

"Failed it. Answered one question. Well, two but odds are probably not in my favor."

The older Holmes gave him a stern look. "Sherlock, you better be keeping your grades up. God knows what mother would do if she found out you failed something."

The younger Holmes rolled his eyes at the mention of their mother. "Doesn't matter," he said as he began filling a cone with chocolate ice cream. Mycroft opted for vanilla.

"I know you're going to skip the rest of the school day, Sherlock," his brother said nonchalantly. If it were anyone one else, they'd think it was rather eerie how he knew everything due to his keen ability to deduce everything. It was better than Sherlock's ability, but the boy was young and still had time to hone and develop his skills.

"So?"

"I'm going too. After this. I'm bored and Smith's room is stuffy. The day is almost over anyway," he answered.

They finished their ice cream in silence and left school together.

A/N:

Wow this update was long overdue. My apologies!

I've realized that my style changes when I shift from John to Sherlock.
When I write about John, it's very action & thought out, but Sherlock's is short and concise; to the point.
Much like their personalities. Haha

I hope you enjoyed it!