"It's fine. I'm fine here." Sherlock glared at the desk. It was too small—his lab equipment wasn't going to fit here and his microscope hadn't even been set up yet. Everything was too small. The room was less than half the size of his bedroom back home and the bed was just big enough for Sherlock's toes not to dangle over the edge. Sherlock's bedroom had an upright piano, a bookcase, and a king-sized bed in the middle of it all. This was comparable to a prison cell.

He pushed a dusty curtain aside and looked down. He had a view of the field. At least that was almost the same. His bedroom back home looked over a green patch of their lawn.

"Are you sure?" His father sounded worried. Sherlock looked at his watch. It wasn't even seven in the morning. A bit insulting, really. "Do you get along well with the people there?"

"They're asleep," he lied. He could hear one of them in the kitchen. Two, he corrected himself when he heard another yell, followed by a stream of cursing. He'd cleaned the skull and left it to dry by the sink, which, now that he thought about it, was probably not the best thing to see in the morning. "Don't you have class?"

"In a while, yes. Come by my office if you need something."

"I'm fine," Sherlock repeated.

"You'll eat breakfast?"

"Yes." Another lie.

"Good. I'll talk to you later."

"Okay."

Sherlock gave his things one last irritated look before he left the room. His father wouldn't call—he would save Sherlock the embarrassment. But Sherlock kept his phone in his pocket. He had three missed calls from his mother and a text from DI Lestrade. It wasn't important. 'How are you? How's your first day there?' it read. Sherlock didn't reply.

He wanted a murder to solve. That was out of the question. His father had talked to Lestrade to ban him from taking any cases for six months. His father said something along the lines about Sherlock needing to adjust to the school system and to meet new people. Sherlock couldn't remember. He'd drowned his father out by shouting.

He wanted cocaine. Also not an option. Not even a cigarette.

Something, anything that would distract him from this.

Redbeard could do that but…no, best not think about him. Sherlock was in uni now. Nobody here cared about his dead dog. Nobody care about anybody here.

"Do you mind?"

It was the blond boy, the one Sherrinford had immediately latched on to like the social leech he was. He had the skull in his hands. And he wore nothing but dark boxers and a somewhat peeved expression.

"Pranking? Bit not good."

"It wasn't a prank," Sherlock muttered as he took the skull back. A client had given it to him and it was Sherlock's most prized possession, aside from the Stradivarius he'd inherited from his grandfather. Sherlock was the only one who should touch the skull. He glared at the older boy who merely raised an eyebrow at him. Sherlock could see Stamford in his peripheral vision, literally sitting at the edge of his seat. Sherlock turned his head to look at him. Half-naked as well.

Was that normal behavior? His brothers were always decently-dressed, even at home. And the boys in Sherlock's former boarding school had been conservative. Extremely homophobic as well. Sherlock could still hear their taunts in the back of his mind.

Actually, he could still remember the pain that Peterson's goodbye punch had given to his solar plexus. Sherlock had fought back. He'd punched him, scratched his face. Sherlock's nails had blood underneath them by the time someone pulled them apart.

It was a bit unnerving and Sherlock was annoyed that he was affected by something as simple as nudity. Or near nudity in this case. He'd seen cadavers in all their glory.

He was just adjusting, maybe. This was new territory after all.

The blond boy looked at him, eyes narrowed. He was short but muscular like any other athlete and Sherlock was positive that no amount of the boxing classes he'd taken could help him win a fight with this boy. There was something else. It was his stance. He stood with his legs slightly apart, his back straight, chest out. Army stance. The influence of an army father, then.

No, Sherlock couldn't fight him. Physically, at least.

"I'm John." The boy's eyes moved down his body then back up. He was thinking the same thing. Males did that; they sized each other up as soon as they saw each other. It was instinct.

Primal and a bit disgusting but it would save Sherlock from fights. If only he listened.

"Sherlock," he replied. They shook hands. John's left hand (dominant) was warm. His fingers had callouses on the sides. Guitar player. Sherlock swiped his thumb over a tan index finger. Knew how to play but didn't play often. Hobby.

John was looking at him strangely. Right. You weren't supposed to shake hands this long.

"Yeah…" John cleared his throat. Sherlock didn't miss the way he tried to subtly wipe his hand on his thigh. Was his palm sweaty? "I heard a lot about you. Mike's been telling me things."

"Nothing embarrassing," Mike teased. Sherlock frowned at that. He didn't really talk to Mike. His father had gone to the same secondary school as Sherlock's and Dr. Stamford made sure that Sherrinford was breathing normally, but that was about it. Sherlock left the socializing part to Sherrinford but his brother wasn't here to comment on a football match or make another awful joke about his severe asthma. Sherlock was on his own and he didn't know anything about what normal boys would be interested in.

He usually didn't make any effort when talking to a stranger, but he couldn't afford to get kicked out. Play nice, Sherlock.

"Neil's still asleep," John explained when Sherlock opted to say nothing. He could play the dumb freshman card for a few weeks. "You'll meet him later. Drink some coffee, though. You'll need the energy to keep up with him."

"I'm used to it."

"Oh, yeah, your brother. The freckly one. Sherrinford?"

"Yes."

"He seems nice."

Sherlock shrugged. That was the first thing people said when asked about their first impression of Sherrinford. Sherrinford was nice. Mycroft was polite. And Sherlock, well, Sherlock was odd.

Freak. Sometimes they said freak.

"You heading out already?" Mike looked incredulous. "Why'd you get a seven o'clock class?"

"I didn't." It wasn't a lie. Sherlock was going out. There wasn't a motive, either. He knew this place by heart already. His father had taken him here often enough when he was younger. Sherlock had spent most of his childhood sitting in the back of his father's class, pulling secrets out of his students with just a glance.

Outside, everyone had someone to talk to, even the freshmen. They were paired with people their age. Sherlock was the odd one out since he was staying with upperclassmen. If he stayed inside, he'd have to talk to these people. Lengthy conversations led to fights and fights led to complaints and complaints led to Sherlock getting kicked out again. He was supposed to try because he couldn't stay at home anymore. It was either uni or Sherrinford's place and Sherlock wasn't stupid enough to think that the second option was better.

Sherrinford wasn't nice. He could guilt-trip you into doing unpleasant things.

"Come on, stay for a bit," Mike insisted. "We can't let you swim with the sharks just yet."

"I really—"

"Please?" Mike was smiling. "There's nothing to see out there just yet. Wait for an hour or two and you can head out. We can tell you about what places you should go to." And avoid. It went unspoken but Sherlock got it.

Fine. Sherlock pulled out a chair and sat down. If this was what his brothers wanted, then Sherlock would try. He'd love to see the look on Mycroft's face if he lasted until October.

The kid was annoying.

John listened to him and Mike talk while he cooked breakfast. Sherlock spoke tactlessly and he tended to become dismissive when the conversation turned to his family. There was something irritating about the way he spoke as well. It wasn't the sound of his voice. Sherlock had a startlingly deep voice that John was sure could make wonders in the school choir. But he drawled. That was it. He drawled like some posh git who thought he knew everything. John dealt with enough posh gits in some of his classes. The Wilkeses and the Moriartys of the freshmen would get along well with this kid.

But he was also obviously, painfully innocent. It wasn't just his newness. It was the way he looked when he thought no one was looking at him. Brows furrowed, hands closed into fists, the nervous way he kept looking from side-to-side. Like prey. Like someone was going to hit him.

John frowned. Kid like that could attract bullies like moths to a light.

"You eating?"

Sherlock looked at the omelette disdainfully. John's eyes narrowed. The kid was thin as a stick. An eating disorder? He looked at Mike for confirmation but Mike looked just as lost as him. "I'm not hungry." Sherlock looked at his watch. It was a Rolex, strapped tightly on a bony wrist. John felt a twinge of envy. He'd never be able to afford something like that. "I ought to get going."

"Why? You've nowhere to go."

He rolled his eyes. "You don't know that."

John was about to argue when Neil burst in, naked as the day he was born. John wasn't fazed by it. Neil slept naked half the time and it was nothing John hadn't seen before. "Food?" he grumbled, face still hazy with sleep. His whole face lit up when he saw Sherlock. "Oh, hey, new guy!"

Sherlock wasn't looking. His hands, which were holding that stupid skull, shook slightly and he cringed when Neil moved close by. His face had turned red. Embarrassed? John couldn't believe it.

"Christ, Neil, put something on, you'll give him a heart attack," John chided when Sherlock still wouldn't look.

Neil looked down at his body. "Can't see anything wrong with it."

"Look in the mirror. Everything's wrong with it."

Neil didn't cover himself and Sherlock left after three minutes, his face still slightly red as Mike bid him goodbye. "What a cutie pie," Neil sang once Sherlock was safely out of earshot. "Not my type but he's adorable, Mike. It's like looking after a six-year-old in footed pajamas."

"Pedo."

"He's eighteen," Neil argued. "And cute. You have to admit it, John. The kid's a looker."

John didn't admit it out loud. But he supposed that yes, Sherlock was attractive enough. Up close he looked less like his father than John had thought. His features were softer in spite of the seemingly permanent sharp scowl he wore, and he had the ponciest hair John had ever seen. Dark brown and curly and it bloody bounced when he moved.

The eyes freaked him out, though. Sherlock had the strangest eye color John had ever seen on a human being. It changed color, like cat's eyes.

"He's gay," Neil insisted. John looked to Mike for confirmation. He shrugged.

"Asexual."

"Gay," Neil argued. His smile was full of plans and Irene Adler and no. John shook his head.

"No. You are not dragging my teacher's kid to the Queer Club. No."

The Queer Club was Neil's favorite thing in the whole world. "Apart from cock," Neil had joked, making both John and Mike nearly choke on their drinks. Irene Adler, a Music major, ruled it with a rainbow-colored iron fist, especially during the week before she threw a party. That was when the streets were lined with members of the LGBT community dressed in their colors, and it was when the statue of Marius H. Dudley, the school's founder, was made to wear a rainbow-colored flag. She ran in the same crowd as John, but John never felt comfortable being in Irene's presence. The girl was intimidating. She'd freak the poor kid out.

"Murray's throwing a party later, by the way," Mike said when they were walking to class. Neil had already bid them goodbye outside the med students' building. He was an Advertising major. John didn't care much about Advertising but Neil seemed to be good at it, if inviting people to come to parties could be taken as a sign of good advertising.

"Can't go. I have a date with Mary."

"Can't you guys just date at the party?"

John shook his head. "Nah. That would be like nothing changed."

And she wouldn't approve anyway. She was right, though. John had to take it easy on the drinking. He didn't want to add to his mother's worries. Harry was bad enough.

Mary didn't have many classes similar to John's. She was picky with professors. John just joined what class had an available slot. So it wasn't until John walked in Biochemistry did he see her.

She was talking to Janine, the two of them talking with their heads bent low over a phone. "Who are you flirting with now?" John asked as he grabbed the seat beside Mary. He looked at the texts and was unsurprised to find that most of them deserved an R rating. "Boy or girl?"

"Girl." Janine winked at him before snatching the phone out of his hands. Janine had a hobby of picking a number from the student directory. It was like Tinder, only far more seedy and far more, well, Janine. If it wasn't risky, it wasn't worth it. John had to admit that it seemed like fun.

"They were talking about Plaster of Paris dildos," Mary muttered once Janine faded back to Text World. She rolled her eyes at him. John quirked a smile which Mary copied. She had a nice smile. It was always subtle when she smiled at John, like they were sharing a private joke, and as John looked at her, he felt his heart skip a beat.

I should kiss her, he thought. He leaned in and did just that.

"Look, Sebastian, boring people doing boring things." Jim Moriarty flashed him a smile that was too-white, too wide, and downright sinister. He wore his usual expensive black suit and John couldn't help but feel shabby and unappealing in his presence.

That's what he wants you to think.

John glared at him. He felt Mary's hand grip his upper arm, warning him. Moriarty wasn't worth it. And even if John did pummel the wanker to death, there was a 99.9% chance John would be assassinated on the spot. The guy probably had bodyguards watching his every move.

Sebastian didn't say anything. Sebastian didn't talk much. He was on John's rugby team, but John doubted that his refusal to partake in Moriarty's taunting of John had anything to do with Moran respecting his position as captain. He glanced at John then sat at the back of the row, Moriarty following.

"Holmes should really kick them out," Mary said. She tucked a strand of her blond hair beneath her ear, looked over her shoulder, and then shot another glare at Moriarty. The bastard just smiled back. "They don't even need this class."

It was true. Jim Moriarty and Sebastian Moran were Politics and Economics majors. They were a year younger than John but that didn't stop them from creeping out the upperclassmen. If Moriarty found something interesting, he'd take it, and Sebastian would follow without a moment of doubt.

Moriarty picked on John often. 'Charity case' was what he called John and other scholarship students. "Peasant," he'd said once and John had nearly tackled him to the ground and beat him bloody.

John got it, okay. He came from a poor family. He wore hand-me-downs and he was more than familiar with the shame of having to borrow money from his mates. But Moriarty didn't have to rub his stupid Westwood all over John's face because John knew and accepted that he came from a poor, broken family. At least he was smart enough to get that scholarship.

He worked for it. All Moriarty had to do was tell Daddy to pay his way.

"I'll punch him one day," John told Mary. His hands were clenched into fists when Professor Holmes walked in. He raised an eyebrow at John but thankfully left it alone.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Mary teased and John snorted at that. Really, Moriarty could sneeze in front of him and John would deck the guy on the spot. Mary held him back though. Mary was the constant reminder for John to be good, to drink less, to gamble less. He had a scholarship to keep and there was no way John would go back home earlier than expected.

The girl sitting beside him in his Social Sciences would not stop looking at him. Sherlock kept his eyes glued on his textbook. He could see her glancing at him every now and then through his peripheral vision. It was unnerving. She was obviously a freshman as well. They dressed differently, like they were trying too hard to impress the upperclassmen. The clothes and bags were too new and they had a tendency to look at one person for too long in a desperate attempt to make eye contact. Sherlock didn't look like one.

"You dress differently," the naked boy had said. "Like you're a professor."

Sherlock wore what he always wore: a black suit with a plain shirt beneath. It wasn't odd. There were more outrageously-dressed people here, like the boy in front of him who wore elf ears or the girl in the back row who'd come in wearing a jacket with a hood that looked like a cartoon dragon. Sherlock had even spotted a student dressed in a costume from some popular sci-fi movie. Sherlock wasn't sure what it was. He'd probably deleted it.

Pop-culture was a waste of space in his mind palace.

"Sherlock?"

Professor Lewondowsky's smile was one of delighted surprise. Sherlock plastered a fake one on his face. People were looking. Sherlock glared at them.

Professor Lewondowsky was, embarrassingly, Sherlock's godfather. It was inevitable. His father worked here for too long so there was always a professor who was a godparent of him, Mycroft, or Sherrinford. Lewondowsky was a cheerful person who was far too talkative for Sherlock's taste. Sherlock kept his mouth shut, though. The man gave the best presents.

When he fixed his eyes on Sherlock, he already knew what he was going to say. "Since this is a Social Sciences class, we might as well start by introducing ourselves to each other. Start with the people sitting closest to you and spread out. I'll give you twenty minutes."

"I'm Molly. Molly Hooper." She had a mouthful of braces. Sherlock shook her offered hand lightly. There was cat hair on her jumper. Sherlock glanced at the notebook that sat in front of her. She'd taken notes of the earlier lecture. The i's were dotted with hearts and the margins of her notebook were filled with doodles of cats and flowers.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Hey, are you related to Siger Holmes?" Her smile brightened when he nodded. "I just had his class. He's amazing!"

Sherlock didn't know about that. He thought his father's classes were boring. He did more exciting things at home, especially when he let Sherlock help him in his experiments. Sherlock's childhood had been spent in the basement where his father had set up a lab, mixing chemicals while his brothers hung out with their friends. Or connections as Mycroft liked to call his.

"They can't all be geniuses like you, Sherlock," Siger had explained when Sherlock asked why he removed some details from his explanations in his class lectures. Sherlock was eight when he first asked that but he could already tell that there was something different about the way his father talked to his students. "You have to level with them."

Sherlock, of course, thought it was stupid. He thought it was stupid then, and his opinion had not changed at all. If you were smart, you were smart. It wasn't his fault the rest of the world couldn't keep up with him.

Molly invited him to coffee after class. Sherlock didn't bother refusing. Her treat, she said, and Sherlock was hungry. He'd barely eaten his dinner when he ate with his brothers and he'd eaten absolutely nothing before that. Besides, Molly was studying Pre-Mortuary Science. She had access to the mortuary and Sherlock was dying to get his hands on a body part to experiment on. And she seemed interested in Sherlock. She could be useful one day.

The coffee shop she'd discovered was on the edge of campus, near the Fine Arts building. A wall of cigarette smoke hit them when they opened the door. Sherlock's mouth watered at the smell. Sherrinford would collapse if he walked in here. The smoke was thick enough to make his eyes water.

Inside, it was dimly lit. There were glow-in-the-dark paintings of cartoon monsters on the back wall and newspapers folded into paper airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Nearly everyone inside was tattooed and pierced. Sherlock gulped when he saw the familiar exchanging of drugs under the table. One of them got up from the table and went to the bathroom.

He'd snort it, Sherlock thought. He carried nothing with him except for the bag. Sherlock preferred needles. Snorting disrupted his sense of smell and he needed that to solve cases. It wasn't as vital as his sense of sight, but it helped.

"My brother went here," Molly explained, unaware that Sherlock's attention had drifted elsewhere, "so I sort of know where the cool places are."

"This doesn't seem like the type of place you'd frequent," Sherlock observed. Molly was paisley-prints and knitted jumpers and small, furry animals. This place was a punk's paradise.

Wrong information. Sherlock scowled. He hated it when he missed things.

Molly smirked at that. "Brother, remember?"

Molly talked. She talked a lot about her family but Sherlock didn't care about the details. He sat there and stared past her, at the students hanging about. There was a girl who'd slept with her friend's boyfriend, a student who had an affair with a professor, another who was worrying about student loans. He could see marks from one-night stands on their skins.

Sex. Why were teenagers so obsessed with it?

"Hey, look," Molly said suddenly. She grinned. "There's a cute dog outside."

It was a German Shepherd. Sherlock sat up. He couldn't help it.

Sherlock was a dog person. Everyone thought otherwise. Everyone thought he liked cats because cats were independent and quiet and Sherlock seemed like the type of person who'd prefer a pet that didn't need much looking after. Sherlock wasn't into cats. Mycroft liked cats. Besides, they scratched too much and all they did was laze about. Cats bored him. Dogs, though. Dogs were different.

Redbeard had been an Irish Setter. A woman had given the puppy to him as a reward for solving his first case with Lestrade. To say that Sherlock had fallen in love was a severe understatement.

"You love that dog more than me," Sherrinford often said in mock-hurt.

"You treat that person too much like a person," was what Mycroft told him.

That was three years ago. Two weeks after Sherlock entered rehab, Redbeard was diagnosed with cancer. Sherlock never got to see him alive.

The dog barked happily as his owner approached him. It was a student. A Fine Arts major, Sherlock deduced. The cuffs of his jumper were dotted with paint and he wore the uniform of people in his course (black jumper, black-framed glasses, a pierced ear, Vans). He patted the dog's head then looked up, his eyes immediately finding Sherlock's.

Miracle of miracles, he smiled.

Strangers didn't smile at Sherlock. It was because of his eyes. They were deemed frightening and it wasn't just because of their color. It was the intensity of his gaze. "Like you're shredding us," one of Sherlock's old roommates had said.

Sherlock looked at Molly. She was texting, her attention already away from the boy. Sherlock looked back.

He smiled back.

'Would you disapprove if I had a one-night stand? –SH'

'I'll kill someone. Who is it? Sherlock no please no no no no don't'

'It's supposed to be a joke. -SH'

'Don't joke about things like that. You'll make me cry. You're my baby. I can't let you go just yet.'

'You're disgustingly sentimental. –SH'

'What's Mycroft doing? Eating cake again? He's getting fatter. –SH'

'Mycroft's at work. They sent him to Berlin.'

'Oh.'

'You?'

'In Dubai, Sherls. I'm really sorry. You're not going to see either of us this weekend.'

'You coming home?'

'Sherlock?'

'No. I'm busy.'