A/N: I probably should have said this before, but I would just like to point out that I have NO idea where Charing-Cross is or what it looked like. Likewise for this anonymous "University" Holmes mentioned in The Gloria Scott. But, heck, if our man ACD can write a fake detective, I can write a fake college. On with the show.

"What a lovely day!"

"Mmn."

"That's less enthusiastic than I would have thought, coming from a man who's just spent a week in a hospital."

"It's nice,"

I mumbled absently, to which Trevor only laughed. Indeed, it was nice—far too nice for a February. The air had a note of coolness to it, but this was mostly canceled out by the persisting sunlight. There were very few clouds, as well, and the wind was fairly calm, only an occasional breeze drifting about here and there.

"Yes, only thirty more days 'till spring equinox. Which is fortunate, because the lock on the door to the hall of residence has been freezing as of late—"

"Spring what?"

"The March equinox, Holmes."

"Trevor, the first day of spring is on March twenty-first. What is the meaning of all this 'equinox' jabber?"

Trevor halted in his tracks and surveyed me with disbelief.

"It is not 'jabber,' Holmes. You mean to tell me you really don't know?"

"Not a clue," I confirmed, beginning my pace again. Trevor skipped a step or two to catch up with me.

"Holmes, an equinox occurs when the planet's axis is tilted neither towards nor away from the sun, the sun being at a point vertically above the equator."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's why we have seasons, Holmes!"

"Trevor, I know the difference between summer, spring, autumn, and winter. And none of my definitions of those need have anything to do with where the sun is."

"Where the earth is!"

"Who cares!"

"Oh my God, Holmes," Trevor blurted out, quite suddenly dissolving into a peal of laughter.

"We were supposed to learn this in the third grade."

"What you don't understand, Trevor, is that I do not care."

"Oh, I had managed to pick up on that."

"All this babble about the sun and the moon and the stars. Let me ask you this: if our four seasons were to remain perfectly intact and regular, would you give a damn if the earth made figure-eights around Neptune?" I asked logically, consciously ignoring the passing glares resulting from my breach of conduct.

"Well, that would be impossible, but no, I suppose not," he chortled. I turned in the direction of my own hall of residence at the next street corner. My arms were beginning to ring with a dull ache that persisted and grew stronger with every limping step.

"Holmes."

"What?"

"Which is the worse: ignorance or apathy?"

"I don't know and I don't care."

"Exactly."

"Oh, was that the punchline? I thought you had simply been spitting out proverbs again."

I had not meant to be sarcastic or insulting, but nevertheless, I managed to drive every trace of good humor from his face, leaving behind an appearance that was neither insulted nor provoked, but apologetic and somehow intimidated. He pressed his lips together in acknowledgment and averted his gaze forward.

"Er... Not that I mind," was all I could manage to come up with in order to clarify that my careless choice of words had not been out of rancor. By the time Trevor returned his attention to me, that impertinent smirk had found its way right back across his face.

"Subtle," was the only word he uttered in response to my embarrassingly blatant apology.

"Let us make one thing clear for future reference, Trevor. In the interest of saving energy and time, please be outright and direct if you ever wish to tell me anything, because I promise you I will do the same whether you like it or not."

Quite unexpectedly, Trevor gave a crisp, pleasant laugh and his eyes twinkled with an unfamiliar sparkle of delight. I had never seen him in such a high spirit, and I certainly had not the faintest clue of what I had said or done to elicit this response from him.

"I rather like your policy, Holmes."

"Ouch!"

"What is it?"

Trevor stopped dead in his tracks and reeled towards me, looking as though he fully expected me to collapse onto the sidewalk at any moment and was preparing to catch me. In truth, I would not have minded if I did simply to relieve the acute pain and pressure that those damned crutches were wreaking on my underarms. Not to mention the fact that my leg had begun to cramp in protest of being deprived of the morphine I had been receiving fairly steadily all week.

"Nothing, Trevor, just sore arms."

"You look like it's much more severe than that, Holmes. We are going back to your room."

"On the latter note, I'll agree."

It took us a good ten minutes just to make our way back to the building, when under normal circumstances, it would have taken me only six. My tread was growing steadily worse along with the the pain under my arms, which were beginning to chafe. Trevor, somehow under the impression that if I fell, I was going to land right in the street and be trampled by a passing hansom, decided to switch to walking on my left side, where he treaded so close to me that I consciously had to avoid hitting him with my crutch or stepping on him. He came pathetically close to walking right into several light posts, having been more focused on me than on what was in front of him, but I was far too mortified to say anything.

Suffice it to say that the pain was to the point where I had begun to sweat by the time we reached the hall, and I realized too late after giving a brusque thank-you to Trevor that he had no intention of leaving me there. I had altogether forgotten the three flights of stairs that preceded my door (oh, God, the day when a flight of stairs should be the greatest of my troubles...)

For the sake of my self-esteem, I shall not describe what that prolonged and pitiful climb was like. I shall only say that I have never been through so much physical suffering in my life, not even when that mongrel had decided that my leg was edible. By the time we reached the door, I could hardly even keep my grip on the crutches at all, although I felt that I had at least done a halfway-decent job of obscuring any signs of my discomfort.

"I have your key," Trevor said, withdrawing it and unlocking the door. No later than he had done so, I stumbled into my quarters and promptly crashed rather ungracefully onto the bed, flinging those accursed crutches onto the floor.

"Holmes? Holmes! Are you alright!?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, I'm fine, Victor," I panted, although the statement was a complete and utter lie. My arms felt as though they were about to detach from my torso, and the skin underneath them was stinging and tender. The cramp in my leg had also, due to my carelessly ramming down it rather hard onto the mattress, escalated to a sharp, excruciating throb.

"I don't think you are," Trevor shook his head.

"As if there is much we can do about it now."

"Perhaps we should go back to the hospital."

"Are you seriously driven to panic so easily, Victor?"

"I am not panicking!"

"My friend, there is a mirror directly to your left. Pray look into it yourself and tell me if you are not the quintessence of the word."

"This is no time for games, Holmes!" he all but shouted, but I had ceased to listen.

"My friend?" Did I really just call Victor Trevor "my friend?"

"Holmes, I really think we should get you back to Charing-Cross."

"Trevor," I nigh on growled, "Not half an hour ago, I made an agreement with you that I would always be relentlessly straightforward and explicit in my manner of speech. Now, I am going to sleep, but before I do, I wish to make one thing abundantly clear: If, when I awaken, I am in a hospital bed with Doctor Stevenson looming over me, I am going to decapitate you."

The show that followed was one of which I love to picture—I snicker about it to this day. His jaw dropped—I thought it was going to come off its hinges. This, combined with the absolutely globular bulging of his eyes, made him look rather like a fish. I was not a little gratified (not to mentioned tickled) to come aware of the fact that it was my threat in itself—and not some innate reaction to my rudeness as I had first thought—that was making him squirm so. Nevertheless, I continued to masquerade my demeanor as deadpan and humorless, praying to God that Trevor would not wake up to the fact that I was going to be largely confined to limping about on crutches for weeks to come.

"You're being very unfair, Holmes."

"Would you please calm down?"

"Calm down? You're white!"

I am?

Once again, I endeavored to pull the straight-razor out of my pocket and utilize the blade as a mirror. Oddly enough, the face that stared back at me seemed to extensively corroborate Trevor's concern.

Such a fickle and transparent thing is the body, really, that it should so prominently manifest on its very surface all I have been so diligently trying to hide.

"Are you feverish?" he asked, and then quite suddenly pressed the back of one hand to my forehead, much to my outrage.

"For the love of God, Trevor, enough!" I objected more loudly than I perhaps should have and knocking his hand away rather sharply, "Do you expect me to expire right here? Either cease this absurd fussing at once or leave!"

He stood there brooding for a moment, studying me with a concerned but obviously peeved expression, and finally gave a frustrated sigh. I fully expected him to turn around and leave, but no, he only took a long stride forward and rather brashly took a seat on the edge of the bed.

"Trevor," I ground my teeth, staring up at the ceiling. Even he knew at this point that I was liable to explode, but he held his position firmly even on such unstable ground.

"You're enough to drive a man into dementia."

"Why, thank you. Now, as you so vigilantly pointed out, we are both being quite frank with each other... Perhaps a little bit too frank, as demonstration has show, but that's just my opinion."

Trevor paused as an amused snicker escaped me.

"You're either a master of diplomacy or of understatements, Trevor. Do continue."

"Anyway, my point being this: I am staying right the hell in this spot until I see you regain some color."

This time, it was my turn to play the fish. True, my mind screamed in protest at being ordered around in so impudent a manner (or any manner, for that matter), but I was more preoccupied with why in the world he even cared. Of course, I was in pain, but I was not going to die by any means.

Besides, it is not as though I can force him to leave.

"For your peace of mind, Trevor," I exhaled, sinking down onto the pillow and shutting my eyes, "and not my health."

I saw black lidded with a yellow haze, heard myself inhale, let out the breath, but did not open my eyes. I listened—not a sound.

Then Trevor is gone.

A brief "flick" caught my attention, so I pricked up my ears and remained alert. Surely enough, I heard it again a few minutes later. I barely cracked open my eyelids only to find Victor Trevor comfortably propped on the edge of my bed in the same place he had been before, only with a rather dog-eared copy of Melville's Moby-Dick in hand.

"You're still here, Trevor?"

He gave something of a start, but then smiled and nodded.

"That's looking so much better, Holmes. How are you feeling?"

"Much better, as you said. You really didn't have to stay here."

"Well, I..."

"But you felt you had to, of course. Of course," I filled in his sentence, although not derisive or mockingly at all.

"You're an enthusiast of American literature?"

"Well," he began, coloring slightly, "I wouldn't put it quite like that, although this particular volume, as you can see, has been... loved."

"Romantic drivel."

"You really think so?"

"Well, it is only a story, after all. It has no practical applications. Why bother?"

"It's called 'reading for pleasure.'"

"So? I rather enjoy reading my text-books."

"Yes, but at the cost of being jam-packed with information, they're also dry as bones. I'm rather surprised you don't take any interest in novels at all, Holmes."

"And why is that?"

"Well, there's much more to the story than what meets the eye. Underneath the plot are symbols, metaphors, meaning—it can be quite a challenge to wrap one's mind around and decipher everything that lays hidden beneath the simple text. For instance, the name of the main character... Well, I don't want to spoil it."

"What, you think I'm ever going to read it?"

He promptly snapped the book shut and held it out to me. Trevor was just that kind of inconceivably generous person—if you ever said you liked something of his, chances were, he'd give it to you gladly. Not yet having realized this, I stared at him dumbly and mechanically reached out to take the book from him, figuring that it would be rude and ungrateful not to. I quickly leafed through the pages (it had been loved, indeed) before finally settling at the beginning.

"Call me Ishmael. And this is supposed to hold some deep meaning?"

"Oh, just read it and find out. That is, if you ever figure it out."

This raised an eyebrow.

"I detect you are challenging me, Victor. Another hint for future reference: that is very unwise, in most cases."

"The keyword being most."

"Trite but true, even here. I'll leave you to ascertain which ones they are."

Trevor stayed a while longer, and his visits also remained constant, for I was still unable to attend my classes for another two days. He was also of invaluable assistance to me in the weeks to come, how ever much I disliked the fact at the time. It was not until two weeks later, when I had no further need of the crutches and subsequently him, that I began to comprehend the nature of the... I daresay "attachment" I had formed with him. Not only did it have nothing to do with "needing" him, although it had started that way, (am I prattling again?), but it was also, much to our contentment, mutual.

And it stayed that way for some time to come.