When Sherlock Holmes had asked himself if his day could get any worse, it was a rhetorical question, not a challenge. It was only 10 a.m. and already he'd had his jacket thrown in the loo, his pencil case stolen, and his books smacked out of his hands. He honestly thought that this year would be better; a month into it, things had gotten, if anything, worse for him. He also didn't think he could hate anyone as much as he hated his brother, but the cruel men of his year had made his life hell from the moment he arrived at university.
He'd dealt with people just like them from primary school, up all the way through hellish secondary school, and now his first year at university had started the same as they all had. First, the whispers as he accidentally let his natural talents out. Then, the name-calling, the isolation, the exclusion, and the petty thievery. Finally, the beatings if he let something slip (a week wasn't a proper week unless he'd been punched).
You see, he had a unique gift: deduction. He could simply look at a person and know their entire life story, their secrets, and their worst fears and traumas. He was also a bona fide genius as well as a massive showoff, a combination that bodes well with no one. It wasn't that he intentionally tried to humiliate or hurt people; he simply didn't know how to turn it off. Needless to say, this didn't exactly make him popular with other people.
And now, to top off an abominable day, this had to happen on his way to The Chapel, the students' nickname for the library ("because only goody little Holmes goes in there"). Though isolated, it at least gave him a bit of respite from the constant waves of resentment. Of course, Rob Gray, rugby player extraordinaire, and three of his toadies thought it would be a laugh to nearly knock the slender genius over and make him drop his things. As he was picking up his fallen books and papers, cursing under his breath, he suddenly found a bull terrier pup attached to his ankle.
"Jesus Christ, what the hell?" he shouted in pain and surprise. He shook his leg, but the bloody dog simply refused to unlatch. A few men walked by, laughed at the sight of him shaking as if he were doing a mad dance, and offered no help. He tried again in vain to remove the dog.
"Maximus, will you get back here?" a male voice shouted. Eyes watering, Sherlock managed to turn around to see a ridiculous sight. A tall young man of a medium build was chasing lolloping down the path at top speed after the awry hound. He was dressed in simple gray trousers, and a heavy black sweater, and in his left hand he held what appeared to be a broken red lead. He saw the dog with its teeth sunk into Sherlock's ankle. He cursed loudly and grabbed Maximus, pulling with all his might. Between the two of them, they were able to pry the dog's jaws apart and Sherlock was able to get free. He collapsed to the ground in pain, the blood beginning to flow from his injury. The dog's owner cursed again and stripped off his sweater, revealing a white T-shirt beneath. He applied pressure to the wound, but it didn't stop the bleeding.
"You're going to have to go to the infirmary, mate. Can you walk?" Sherlock stood up, and nearly blacked out from the pain. He stumbled and the other man caught him. He leaned heavily into his shoulder as they made the slow, limping trek to the infirmary. Luckily, it was in the building next to The Chapel, so they didn't have far to go. The man managed to get Sherlock inside, to the shock of the nurse, a stout, gray-haired woman.
"Get that dog out of here, Trevor! This is an infirmary, not a park. What happened to him?" she asked, her eyes widening at the sight of the blood.
"Maximus broke his lead and bit him, ma'am. I think he's okay, but I'm no doctor." His dark ginger hair was damp with the sweat of the running and then lugging another human being. She sighed.
"Well, he'll be alright once I get him stitched up. He'll have to stay here for at least ten days, if not more, though. Come on, my dear, come over to the cot. And Trevor?"
"Yeah?"
"Get that bloody dog out of here!" The young man helped Sherlock to the cot, firmly retied the lead on Maximus, and left, whistling a tune. Sherlock rolled up his pants leg and the nurse began to clean the bite, making him wince with every dab of the damp cloth. The nurse sewed up the wound, applied disinfecting ointment, and wrapped it up tightly with a clean bandage.
"You're lucky, it's only a bit of a sprain, not a break."
"Yes, I can see that, thank you," Sherlock said in an annoyed voice. The nurse's eyes narrowed.
"Don't take that tone with me, boy. What's your name, anyhow?"
"Sherlock Holmes," he muttered sheepishly. Her eyes flashed recognition at the name, as everyone's did when he said it. All the schools knew of his perfect, brilliant older brother, Mycroft, who never put a toe out of line, never had to switch schools because of fighting, never had to disappoint their mother constantly.
"Well, Mr. Holmes, you're going to be here for a while, so you best cheer yourself a bit," she said, handing him pajamas, "Here, put these on. I'm going to give you something for the pin, which unfortunately is going to knock you out for a while, so you might as well be comfortable."
She patted him on the head in a motherly way and left the room to give him a bit of privacy to change. He took off his sweater, tailored trousers, and button-up shirt and folded them neatly on the bedside table, placing his black shoes under them. He put on the pajamas, crawled into the cot, and took the pills the nurse had left him, gulping them down with copious amounts of water. Blissful unconsciousness swirled over him as the medication took hold, and he closed his eyes.
When he awoke from a peculiar dream about hedgehogs, he found a large pair of electric blue eyes staring at him. Sherlock sat bolt upright, all traces of sleep gone from him as he recognized the man who owned the dog.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Come to draw on me while I sleep? Seriously, why are you here?"
"I came to apologize, you prat. For Maximus, yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Sherlock asked incredulously. He barely slept, and now he had missed an entire day? Unthinkable! And even more unthinkable, someone had come to apologize to him?
"Yeah, Nurse Turner seriously drugged you out. Anyway, I also brought you these," he gestured to the stack of books on the nightstand, "since you're going to be missing classes and all. Also brought a couple of regular books so you don't die of boredom in here."
Sherlock was instantly suspicious.
"Why are you doing this? Haven't you got anything better to do?"
"Not really, no. I have a day off classes and basically, it's talking to you or talking to Maximus. And I really don't need another person to walk in on that."
Sherlock smiled in spite of himself, and was, for once, genuinely curious about another person.
"No friends?"
"The others don't like me much because I'm here on scholarship. I haven't got heaps of money like them, and they think that somehow makes them better than me. This is probably the longest conversation I've had with anyone besides Nurse Turner since I came here."
"I'm here on scholarship too. They're all idiots."
"I agree. Victor Trevor, by the way."
"Sherlock Holmes."
They lapsed into easy conversation, considering how little they usually spoke to others. The textbooks lay forgotten, and it was only when Nurse Turner kicked Victor out that he left the infirmary. As Sherlock lay in the cot that night, he felt an odd stirring in his chest, a stirring which he could not name, for he had never felt it before in his nearly twenty years: friendship.