Sherlock was finally beginning to settle in at Cambridge. He had been so excited to come, almost ecstatic. Mycroft had remarked on it as they sat down to dinner four months before. He'd said that Sherlock was 'as eager as an English Setter'. He had replied by calling Mycroft fat, but it was true. He had been eager, because he had heard that University was a new start, a place where he would be valued for his intellect. He had moved onto campus with a glee that made him almost appear to be a happy person, and not the morose teen that he had been all those years in Public School.

But in this, as in most things, life had not lived up to his expectations. Sebastian had followed him up from Harrow. He had always been a popular bastard, arrogant, and envious of other's talents. He ended up living in the same house and with his slick smile and thinly concealed hostility for Sherlock, he made sure that all of the old nicknames followed him there.

"Morning Curly Shirley. Did you sleep well?" Sebastian said with a smile like hot oil. "Oh of course you didn't. You were sawing away on that violin until all hours. Don't you know that there's a rule against making obnoxious noises after nine."

"Good morning to you too, Sebastian. And I don't think that you have any room for complaining about obnoxious noises with the racket that you make having sex on the weekends."

"That's only on the weekends. Besides, I can't help it if I know how to please a woman."

"You? Please a woman? You are the one who does all of the screaming. She's always unsatisfied after sex with you. That's why after she leaves your room she lets Thompson grope her behind the stairwell."

The young men at the table laughed as Sebastian turned beet red. "Well at least I have someone willing to sleep with me. No one will ever touch you, so get your fill of the sounds while you can, Curly."

Sherlock turned away then and walked briskly toward the door, but not fast enough to avoid hearing the word, "Freak!" thrown at his back. He slammed the door to the sound of laughter as he strode out down the stairs.

Why was it always like this? Why was it that when two or three boys got together, their first thought was to gang up on him? He hated it. He hated them. Only the thought of learning new things kept him from packing and leaving it all behind.

It was an infuriatingly pleasant day. The grass was as green as it only was after a sustained rain. The clouds had fled soon after, and the last few days had been annoyingly bright and sunny. In response, the students had become even more intolerable in their leisure pursuits, lounging in the grass and frolicking like ponies around the fountains. Sherlock saw a flock of the smiling sheep in front of him, so he turned at a right angle and strode out toward the church, cutting across the lawn to avoid them.

His eyes were on his feet, not the way ahead, and so he totally failed to notice the leather cord trailing on the ground. He heard a yelp when he stepped on it, and before he could fully assess the situation, the beast was on him, teeth digging into his ankle.

It was more shock than pain that he felt when he looked down at the furry thing. He shook his leg, but when that didn't dislodge him, he began to kick at the head of the dog whose teeth were clamped firmly around his Tibia. That was when a heavy weight struck him in the back. He fell to the ground, twisting his ankle further as his mouth filled with the taste of grass and mud.

Then he heard a voice, deep and loud yelling, "Heel! Heel Tristan!" He not only heard the voice, but felt it through his back as he found himself pinned to the ground under someone with a huge chest and large tanned arms. Around him was a cacophony of barking as what seemed like a dozen dogs surrounded them. A hand reached down and dislodged the dog's teeth from his ankle giving him a moment of relief before the ache of the twisted muscle hit him, and he cried out.

Hands grabbed his shoulders then and turned him over, and he looked up in the face of his... could he call a man who had tackled him and caused him to twist his ankle his savior?

"Are you alright?" The man said.

Sherlock looked up at a large man. His hands held Sherlock's slight shoulders. His face was in shadow, but the bright sun glowed through his golden hair.

"Are you alright?"

"Get off me!" Sherlock cried as he tried to crawl away. He batted at the man's hands, and he sat up as the man sat back on his heels, deepened his voice to call the dogs to heel.

"Tristan, Belvedere, Galahad!" he cried, and they sat on their haunches and waited as the man rose to his feet.

Sherlock shielded his eyes to get a better view. The man had a round face with gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing brown leather boots and a khaki colored suit that now had grass stains on the knees. He was broad-shouldered and thin-waisted and at least twenty pounds heavier than Sherlock who, although he had grown in height, had yet to grow into his shoulders.

The man reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet. Sherlock stood on one leg, wincing as the pain radiated up his leg. "Can you walk?" the man asked. Sherlock turned to him and noticed that they were almost the same height. The man's eyes were a bright brown, like the semi-precious stone tiger's eye.

Sherlock looked down at his leg. The pain hit him as he tried to walk, and he almost fell. A large arm grabbed him, and before he knew it, he was in the man's arms.

"Hey! What?" Sherlock called out panicked. He'd been picked up before, but nothing good had ever come of it.

"Calm down, Shhhh there mate. I'm only going to take you somewhere where we can get that leg treated." The man had deepened his voice as he had done to tame his dogs, and strangely enough, it worked on Sherlock as well. He looked up into the man's eyes and stilled letting him carry him away.

Sometime he had handed his dog's leashes off to someone else. Sherlock didn't have a clear memory of it. He only remembered blue sky behind golden hair, and being carried by firm, strong, arms across the campus and into a building where a first aider cleaned and then bandaged his ankle. He then was taken to see a doctor who said that he had sprained his ankle and should stay off it for at least a week. He was issued some crutches and released to hobble out of the building only to see the golden-haired man waiting outside for him.

He frowned and started to walk past him when the man stepped forward.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine, no thanks to you," Sherlock said. "It was your tackle that twisted my ankle. I'll be on these crutches for the next week."

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't let you harm my dog."

"Yet you had no compunction to letting your dog harm me."

"Tristan isn't usually like that. But you walked right onto his leash."

"So it's my fault that you twisted my ankle?"

"Yes, I mean, no, I mean...Let me make it up to you."

Sherlock stopped then and looked into the man's tiger bright eyes. "How?"

"At least let me walk you back to your flat."

"I live on campus."

"Good, then it won't be a long walk." Then the man smiled, and his face transformed into something more joyous than the sun. Sherlock was struck dumb. The man held out his large hand and said, "I'm Victor, by the way. Victor Trevor. And you are?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Sherlock."

Sherlock turned away and Victor followed him until they stood outside his house. "Thank you for your concern, Mr Trevor, but I can make it the rest of the way to my room on my own."

"Good, I'm glad."

They stood there for a moment, Sherlock on his crutches and Victor smiling with his hands in his pockets, until Sherlock tore himself away and began to work his way up the front steps. He reached out, but before he could figure out a way to hold both his crutch and the door handle, Victor had opened the door for him.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're very welcome," Victor said smiling, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Sherlock jerked straight and stared at the man before nodding his head, and hobbling inside, listening for following footsteps as the door closed behind him. He turned then and went to the window, peeking out to see a blond head weaving through the crowds of students as he passed back the way that they had come.

Sherlock woke the next morning to find that his leg felt stiff. He looked down at his ankle then, and remembered the previous day. He didn't know what to think of it all. He had missed his classes. He would have to make up the work today. He sat up and touched his ankle. It felt as numb as a rock.

He looked at the clock to find that it was still early. If he hurried, he could eat and leave before Sebastian and his followers came down for breakfast. He hopped to the bathroom, but everything took much longer to do, so that when he did come down the stairs with his crutches, they were already at the table waiting.

"What happened, Girly Shirly?" Sebastian asked. "Did someone break your leg? That's what you get for putting your foot in your mouth one too many times?"

Sherlock glared down at him. "At least it's only my foot in my mouth and not the barman's cock like you had in yours last Thursday."

"Shut it!"Sebastian said rising to his feet.

"And the Thursday before that," Sherlock added hobbling away with a smirk at Sebastian's blush and the shocked faces of his friends. He pushed his way out of the front door. Skipping breakfast was a small price to pay to avoid being in their company for another minute.

As he carefully lowered himself down the front steps. He looked up and saw a familiar smiling face. Victor was waiting for him. "Good Morning, Sherlock. Are you feeling well?"

Sherlock continued his way down the stairs and then walked toward the man. "Why are you here?"

"I told you I'd see you tomorrow."

"I remember, but why?"

"I want to make it up to you. It was my fault that your ankle got hurt. I thought that I'd check on you. See that you're getting along alright."

"I'm fine." Then belatedly he said, "Thank you."

The man beamed and Sherlock turned to stare at him again. He was an upperclassman by the pin on his collar, and an only child by the cut of his clothes. He wasn't what one would call rich, but his parents were well enough off to send him to school here. Parents? no a single parent, most likely father.

No stains on his shoes, so not in the laboratory sciences, and he didn't seem like he was in politics.

"Classics?" Sherlock asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Is it classics or perhaps Art that's your field of study."

"Neither, it's Modern Languages."

"Ah, I should have guessed by your clothes. I noticed it when I first saw you. You're British, but the cut of your clothes isn't. You took a gap year and traveled. That coat is from India isn't it."

The man laughed, and his voice bounced off of the stone walls of the neighboring buildings. "You're a clever one. Fancy getting to know each other better over a pot of tea?"

Sherlock's eyes darted in the direction of the lab. He had work there, but he had missed breakfast, and this man was, apparently, buying. Plus, he was interesting. He was very interesting, and Sherlock was interested. Sherlock jerked up, standing stiffly straight. He was shocked. In all of the years that he had been away from home, all of the years that he had been forced to socialize with boys who had hated him, he had never found even one of them interesting, but this man interested him. He wanted to forget classes and spend the day with this man listening to his entire life story from the beginning. It was an odd sensation that he felt, a kind of warmth pooling in his abdomen. He had never felt it before. The man raised an eyebrow in question, and Sherlock frowned down at his feet. Then he looked at the man and said.

"Fine. Lead the way."

The man's grin was incandescent. He patted Sherlock hard between his shoulder blades, almost making him fall, before he led him across the pavement.