A/N: I'm coming up with a sequel to Every Time, and a new chapter to Freak, but for now, here's a cute little one-shot. Well, I say cute—haha, it's a bit macabre, I suppose. Does it count as fluff? You tell me. :)
What is a friend?
To answer that, Sherlock didn't have to haul out the gigantic dictionary that lay on the shelf accumulating dust; he didn't even have to trace a finger over the screen of his phone; he merely had to access the lexical compartment of his brain (well—brain was the pedestrian term. Technically, he had a Mind Palace) and search for the word in the F section.
Friend [frENd] n.
A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
A person whom one knows; an acquaintance
For the first time since—oh, what did the time lapse matter? It was an irrelevant detail. For the first time since a long time, he posed two mental questions. One was, do I need a friend? And the other, Does Arcangelo Corelli count as a friend?
He glanced briefly at Arcangelo Corelli's empty eye-sockets, grinning vacantly at him from the mantelpiece. Lest any dull interloper inquire, the skull had not belonged to the famous Arcangelo Corelli—his name had been merely assigned in tribute. Naming a skull after one of his favorite composers was the closest approximation to sentiment which Sherlock permitted himself.
Arcangelo is merely a pleasingly silent audience for my audible musings, and every such confidant—voluntary or not—deserves some sort of name.
Arcangelo had been his companion since university, when he had been pilfered from the Anatomy and Physiology lab for a greater purpose (which had been really curiosity coupled with a desire to irritate the teacher).
Yet of late, he had found himself gazing into the straightforward yet un-penetrating stare of this grisly onlooker and feeling something like…loneliness.
Loneliness? Ludicrous. Sentimental.
I don't need a friend.
Do I?
Arcangelo counts as a friend—I know, like, and trust him. He is an acquaintance.
So far, good.
But…he's not a person.
He doesn't need to be.
He does if he is to meet the criteria of friend.
"Well? You were a person, once. Are there any vestiges of humanity left about you?" Sherlock queried aloud, tapping the tip of his violin bow on the motionless visage.
There was no answer. If there had been, he reflected, even his unruffled temperament might have been—disturbed.
Not a friend, then.
Friends.
Useless, really.
A weakness.
They might be useful, though. I could have willing participants in my experiments, I could have someone to talk to—
I wouldn't always be alone.
He surveyed Arcangelo's ivory features once more, pensively. "They couldn't know that you had a name—I'm afraid you'll have to go by 'my skull.' I have no opposition to being thought odd over my abilities, but over some sentimental tripe I will not be censured."
He slid his bow back into the case, feeling resolute.
Perhaps he would consider Mike Stamford's offer to find him a flat-mate after all.