Freak - Teenlock/Johnlock AU

Part 6

We got a few stares when we returned to school, which was understandable seeing as we did look like we travelled by river. There were five minutes of break left and I dragged Sherlock, shivering, towards our form room where I knew the radiators would be warm. When the school complains, Mr Rogers tells them "it's benefitting children academically by keeping the frogs alive". I'm sure the frogs don't notice, but the financial manager doesn't seem to be much of an expert on wildlife.
The second reason I wanted to eek out a radiator in the form room is because I was faintly terrified that someone with a grave face would demand to see me in an office about my storming out of Mr Raddisham's lesson, and then ring my father, or possibly worse, my mother. Yelling I can tolerate, but pity, disappointment and endless worry not so much.
It occurred to me that Mr Rogers would probably jump for joy when we walked in. He'd feel like Cupid - not only had he found a friend for John Watson, but Sherlock Holmes too. He might even buy a new jumper to celebrate.
The room was open, as it always is. "We can get a head start on the pigs eyes," Sherlock said. "Where are the scalpels?"
I waited for Mr Roberts to say "Just wait five minutes, Sherlock" but no sound came.
"Give me ten seconds to dry off, will you?" I replied. I peeled off my jacket and rang the worst out into the sink. Probably frowned upon in laboratory conditions, but God knows this particular room isn't a model for hygiene standards. I gave it a well aimed throw for the radiator, and noticed that Sherlock was still leaving a wet trail across the linoleum.
"Keeping your coat on?" I asked. He didn't give me a reply, just continued poking around in drawers for his scalpel.
"Do they really lock them up in these schools?" he asked. "Are you really all stupid enough to stab yourselves with one? On second thoughts it's not really much of a surprise, most of you can't even hold a pencil."
On saying this he swooped in behind Mr Rogers desk and started shifting files around and pulling out drawers.
"Want hypothermia then?"
In the end I physically pulled the coat off him amid angry noises of protest, which only cut off when he gave a sudden cry of triumph and held up a scalpel. Which is something I know I should have found terrifying but somehow didn't.
The pigs eyes were sat placidly on a little tray, and Sherlock started marching over to select one. And then he stopped.
"John," he said, and suddenly he sounded mechanical, and I felt like I was taking the Turing test. "Stay there. Don't come any closer."
"They're just pigs eyes, Sherlock," I said. "I want to be a doctor. I can handle a little blood."
"This isn't a little blood," Sherlock replied.
My mind began to fast track into what could possibly have happened to the pigs eyes, but then I saw it; a body, in the supine position, swimming in a pink pool. I felt as if someone had stuck a knife into my stomach, stabbed about a bit, and then pulled it out. I was also faintly aware that my mouth was hanging open and that I couldn't close it. And that my heart was banging against my ribcage like a horse stuck in a pillbox. It wasn't Mr Rogers, I realised, with a relief that I disgusted myself with. But something had happened to this man's face, something that made my hair stand on end and something rise in my throat.
Without a conscious decision I was on the floor, fingers at the man's neck, knee submerged in the liquid. It stung, God, it stung. I'd worry about that later, for now I had to...
"Get up," came Sherlock's voice. I ignored it, kept waiting, hoping. But there was no answering thrum beneath my fingers, no sign of life. I tried the wrist, but it was cold and limp like a puppet's in my hand, and the fingers were stiff with the beginnings of rigor mortis.
"John, get up. Your knee is in acid."
Oh, shit. Ten more seconds. Ten more seconds, just in case. Please, please, please. Nothing.
I stood up and yelped at the sight of my knee; the fabric of my trousers had melted away, some glued to the sticky red of my skin. I limped to the tap, turned it on full and held my knee under. My eyes were streaming and I was shaking, something like a combination of shock and pain. I dug in my pocket for my phone but my fingers clenched around fabric, and I realised with a resounding fuck that it was at home.
"Oh my God," I said. Breathe in, breathe out, be rational. "I'm going to get someone." The last sentence came out as a choke and I cursed myself. Think. The teachers would be on the staff room, one floor up - could I take the stairs with this leg? Who cared.
"Stay with the body," I said, relieved to hear a calm in my voice. "I'm going to get someone."
But Sherlock was already at the door. In his hands were a bunch of keys, Mr Rogers' keys, and now the keys were in the lock and Sherlock was turning them until the door clicked.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?"
He ran back and crouched at the body, ducking this way and that, tilting his head like a nodding bulldog on a mountain road, examining every inch of marred skin.
"Am I stuck in a room with a dead body and a necromaniac?" I no longer felt shock but anger, hot molten iron in every vein. "Have some respect!"
He whipped round to face me. "I'm examining the crime scene. Weren't you listening earlier?"
"No, sorry, I appear to have missed your absolute disregard for..." I gestured limply, not wanting to say "dead", "victim", "corpse".
"I like solving puzzles," Sherlock hissed. "I need all the information I can get before the imbeciles from the police ruin everything."
"Oh, so you're a detective now, are you?"
"A consulting detective."
"You haven't been consulted!"
Sherlock ignored me, seemed to finish what he was doing and stood up. For a second something crossed his face, his tense muscles relaxed, the steel softening from his eyes, as if allowing himself a moment's remorse.
Then he walked to the door and unlocked it, just as the sound of the bell rattled down the corridor. Already shouting voices and calls of "What was the homework?" were getting closer.
"Bloody hell," I said. We couldn't just walk out from the scene of a murder into a crowd of people. Sherlock seemed to have realised this too, and was whirling around for an escape.
"A window?" I suggested. Mr Rogers' windows opened out onto the biology garden, which was home to insects, fish and a pile of compost bins. In the summer, the air drifted in and dowsed us all with the fresh smell of decaying fruit.
"Yes, yes!" Sherlock ran towards one and yanked it open, diving through without a second thought. I followed suit, helping as my burnt knee scraped the window sill. I collapsed on top of Sherlock onto a pile of grass below, just in time to hear the scream as the first person entered the classroom.