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Your hand on the door handle, Sherlock peeked through the small window, his blue eyes darting around as he tried to take everything in. “There are so many of them,” he said quietly.
Going up on your tiptoes to take a peak, you replied, “That’s because they want to see you. I told you that you were popular.” You placed a comforting hand on his back. “Like I said, I’ll warm them up and then it’s all you.”
He turned to you, licked his dry lips and closed his eyes. “All me,” he repeated. “-responsible for making a room of two hundred of pubescent teenagers critically think for the first time in their lives.”
“You know the youngest age of those kids in there is 18, right? Do you know anything about college? Or puberty?” you stopped yourself. “Forget it.“ you kissed his cheek. You opened the door and he began to take off his coat and scarf. “No, no!” you said hurriedly. “Keep it until I introduce you. They will love it.”
Sherlock looked at you like you were a nut. “What are you, my pimp?” He re buttoned his coat and stood in the corner.
“Basically,” you smiled. “Come over when I call you.” you opened the door and made your way to the front. You took his files with you, placed them on the table and grabbed the remote to activate the powerpoint screen. As the giant screen lowered from the ceiling, ‘good mornings’ popped up from the audience, all addressing you by your formal title.
“Hey, guys,” you answered in a friendly manner. You still had your back turned to them as you watched the screen lower.
“It messed up yesterday, it was making the picture red and blue.” you looked up and saw Sam push his way through the mass of students. “I think I can fix it.”
You smiled, touched at how wonderful your students were. This was the reason you wanted to save the program; so many wonderful, talented people had the potential to bring something special to the forensic field.
“Hey,” Sam’s voice brought you back to the real world, "Sherlock Holmes is actually going to be standing in this room, yeah?” he whispered
“Yes, he will be standing in this room, Sam.”
He pumped his fist. “That guy has been my hero for years.”
You put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, I hope he’s everything you expect him to be. But I have to warn you that he can be a handful. So if he comes on as standoffish and rude, don’t be offended or hate him. That’s just how he is, and he’s nervous.”
Sam looked surprised. “Sherlock Holmes is nervous?”
You grinned, “Studies have shown that people are more afraid of public speaking than death. It’s not that surprising. Now get back to your seat.” You clicked your tongue as you turned on your laptop and opened up the presentation, smiling to yourself. You were interested just by looking through all of the information while setting it up; the audience should love it.
“Okay,” you said, clipping your small microphone onto your lapel. “Let’s get started.” When you looked up, you saw that almost everyone was messing with their phones. You sighed “Put those away now,” you ordered. When the devices disappeared, you continued, “Now, our forensics department works hand in hand with the Scotland Yard. The basic definition of forensic anthropology is ‘the study of human remains.’ So,” you put your hands behind your back as you walked around the table to the open floor. “-when there are human remains at a crime scene, we are the ones they call to identify bones and try to figure the height, race, and other characteristics that are available.”
You leaned back. “It’s not easy and there are a lot of things we can’t figure out on the spot. I work in our lab and process the remains, which means I study the decomposition of bodies, but that’s for another time. Never the less,” you smiled, “there is never one person who is responsible for solving a crime. It is a team effort, and I believe that you will all be very interested in the jobs that you never even thought of. Sometimes, we have very hard cases that can’t be solved.” you shrugged. “Naturally, we ask the person whose strength matches the situation. This particular strength is solving a crime by deduction. The most amazing part is that he does it on his own. This is a rare phenomena, and the only instance in which we do not have as much as a team effort.”
"Now, our guest speaker does have a very busy schedule, so we need to thank him for giving us some of us his time.” You heard murmurs in the crowd as realization dawned on them. Everyone sat up in their chair and you watched as heads began to turn.
“Holy shit, is he really here?”
“I thought it was just going to be a talk about him?”
“No fucking way.”
You saw John’s head peek over the chair he was hiding behind.
“He has solved countless cases while at the Scotland Yard and is their only consulting detective, please welcome Sherlock Holmes." You looked to your left and saw said detective slink further into the shadows as everyone started to clap. You walked over and held out your hand. He wouldn’t take it.
“HELL FUCKING YEAH!” You heard one guy shout.
And that broke the ice.
You slapped a hand over your mouth trying to cover a bark and Sherlock flipped his collar up, chuckling. He reached out and took your hand.
“I seem to have a fan.”
“At least two hundred,” you answered as you lead him out, and everyone went berserk.
He ignored the worshiping, the questions, and the declarations of love and marriage proposals. However, a small smile did appear when people addressed your relationship.
“Oh my god, they’re holding hands. Thant’s so cute!”
“I called it, man. He went into that lab like…a thousand times a month for like, ever.”
You both made it to the table and the babble continued. “Is this what you have to deal with all day?” he asked with a chuckle, unwinding his scarf. You could hear the cooing from the female crowd. They must have never seen him smile before.
“No. I’m me and you’re you. Do you want me to help you organize these?” You pointed to the files you had earlier put down.
Sherlock scoffed. “No, people hate me because I’m Sherlock Holmes, and yes - that would be helpful.” He shrugged his coat off, much to the girls' delight, and helped you arrange everything the way he wanted.
“Okay,” you said. “Just be yourself. But…” you struggled. “tone it down a few notches, yeah?” You clicked the microphone to his collar.
“Yeah.”
“I’m literally right here,” you pointed to the chair a couple of feet away that was sitting against the wall. “Go get them.” You squeezed his hand and sat down in the chair.
“Right,” Sherlock said. He turned to face the room. “The only reason I am here,” he started slowly, closing his eyes, “is because someone I care about asked me to.” he took a deep breath. “And she happens to care about you, which is just beyond me because looking at you for a second makes me wa-“
“Sherlock!” you hissed.
“Right,” he cleared his throat, “for that reason, I am going to try to waste as little time and effort as I can.” Every single being in the classroom was leaning forward, hanging on his every word. “So with that in mind,” he clapped his hands together and smiled.
“Oh, sweet Jesus no…” that gleeful look couldn’t be good, but you had to give it a chance. You watched as Sherlock walked up to the first row of students. He stopped and rested his chin on his steepled fingers.
A guy in the second row to the left nudged his friend. “He’s deducing,” he looked at the guy behind him “Dude, he’s deducing Alex! Record it!” A Girl whipped out her smart phone.
“She said no phones,” Sherlock said flatly, eyes trained on the recently identified Alex. “Give it here.” He held out his hand. His gaze still did not shift. Slack jawed, the girl tossed her phone that Sherlock caught with lightening dexterity. He dropped it on the floor at kicked it back to you.
“So you’re Alex,” Sherlock stated plainly.
“Yeah,” Alex answered, sinking in his chair.
Sherlock gave him a close lipped smiled. “You’re a moron. Get out.” The room filled with gasps, quickly followed by laughs.
“Sherlock!” you spat, getting up to drag him out of the room.
He held up a finger. “I am doing you a favor. I’m weeding out the dumb and the fraudulent.” You blinked and slowly sank back into your chair.
“W-what?” Alex stuttered.
Sherlock scoffed. “You obviously didn’t come here for academic purposes. The second I came in here you couldn’t take your eyes off of my lovely girlfriend’s chest, clearly thinking with your crotch and not your head.” he rolled his eyes. “-well, with what little you have of. You have an ink stain on your right hand of an ‘F,’ showing you failed a test and that you’re foolish enough to touch wet ink.”
“This is the best lecture ever,” a girl whispered.
Sherlock continued. “Your eyebrow hair is not fully grown, showing that you have recently shaved both of them, obviously meaning you willingly participated in a hazing to get into some stupid fraternity. There’s lingering residue around your face that indicates that you huff paint to get high. Get out of my classroom.” Sherlock turned on his heel as Alex gathered his things and ran out the door. You were pretty sure he was crying.
“Okay,” Sherlock took a few steps back and surveyed the crowed. “Stupid. Leave.” he pointed to a girl with curly hair. “Stupid.” he pointed to a guy wearing a black baseball cap. “Stupid.” he kept going. “Stupid, dumb, you’re going to be dumb, moronic, stupid, stupid,” he paused at a younger kid with buck teeth. “You’re just ugly and will distract me. Go.”
You watched in absolute shock as a group of young kids left the building, some trying to hold back tears. Sherlock walked behind the table and grabbed the powerpoint remote, all smiles. He let out a content sigh. “You were right,” he said, turning to you. “This is fantastic.”
You buried your face in your hands.
“Dude…you fucking rule!” You both whipped your heads around to the same guy who had given Sherlock the courage to start the lecture.
“Yeah!” a girl chimed in. “All of those people you kicked out were such jerks.”
Sherlock turned to you. “What are they doing? What is wrong with them? Are they sick?”
You laughed. “They like you Sherlock!”
Sherlock’s nose scrunched. “’Like me’? I just insulted people. John would be giving me a good punch to the head right now.’”
You waited until Sherlock looked away to look up at John, who was grinning from ear to ear and giving you a thumbs up. He held up is phone and pointed to it, signaling that he got everything on tape. You chuckled and rolled your eyes “They’re college kids,” you continued, 'they like it when you’re mean to other people.”
“Huh,” was Sherlock’s answer. You gave him a smirk. “Real quick – what was that about ‘my lovely girlfriend.’?”
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and opened it again. ”I…er…” he looked at the ceiling. “I was making a…point for the sake of shaping young minds.” He gave you his best convincing face for three seconds until you saw a corner of his mouth move up oh so slightly.
He turned to the class. “Now, the rest of you are here because you can at least read.”
You sighed. This was going to be interesting.