Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Was there ever anyone else?”

We lay on his bed, staring at the cream-colored ceiling above us. The wooden fan slowly rotates, and I follow it loyally with my eyes as a hand placed itself on my palm. The duvet rippled slightly from the air flowing throughout the room. Sunlight left my feet appearing bright and pale as it shone through the window. I clasped John’s hand and closed my eyes, feeling only my back laying against the comforter. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Mmm,” I moaned softly. “Do I ever, really?”

John placed three fingers on the right side of my jaw and gently pushed my face towards his. His eyes are brilliant when the light hits them just right, spouting kaleidoscope-like rings of gold and flecks of yellow. I held his fingers to my face, kissing his forehead in the process. “Sherlock.”

“Yes?” I ask, nodding my head down to touch it to his.

He lifted my chin up so he can look me in the eyes again, and darts them away for a fleeting moment. “There have been... people in your life, haven’t there?”

My vocal cords froze momentarily and I look at him, fully vulnerable, eyes wide. “Why do you ask?” I reach over to the bedside table and take a bite of my toast.

The giant chalkboard boasted the words Intro to Chemistry in scrawled, messy letters. I was assigned to a seat in the third row, which gave me a sense of relief as I set my bag down and ran a hand through my curls.

The first day of class was always the most interesting for me. Surrounded by hundreds of new faces, people to examine. It was always about sharpening my skill rather than actually learning the material. I had already known everything about the class, which gave me a space to judge others in the class without being outed for it. It was always quite funny to see students sweating, writing furiously, eager to both learn and ace their finals.

In any case, it became predominantly boring after I had deduced all I could about my classmates. I would go to class for a couple hours, bring a crossword or some other mundane puzzle, and leave afterwards for lunch. University was easy. No one bothered me like they would at home. I could do whatever I pleased at any time of day. My roommate requested to be moved after the first week, which left me with an empty dorm in which to experiment and play violin. Going didn’t seem to be too much of a waste of time, as I had thought it would be.

One day after just a couple weeks of class, I noticed that a student I’d seen before suddenly came in with a wheelchair. His eyes were bright, and as he scanned the room to look for some sort of reaction from everyone, they locked with mine. I nodded slightly, and he winked, smirking like he knew something I didn’t. Something within me stirred, and I shifted in my seat as he rolled himself into the first row.

I sat next to a pretty girl with freckles and blond bangs who would always whisper snarky comments to herself during class. She was entertaining enough, and smiled at me whenever she saw me, so she was pretty friendly as well. As soon as the boy became settled, she turned to me and said “Car accident”. And that was all I learned about him at the time.

He interested me to a decent extent. He was enthusiastic and always spoke up in class. Witty too. Out of sheer boredom I began to watch him during class. The way he fidgeted with his pencil, turning it in circles with his fingers. How he would push the hair out of his eyes with it. The fact that he would raise his hand limply, as if he didn’t care about what he was about to say. How intelligent he clearly thought he was. And he obviously hated the way people in the class looked at him when he said something smart. As if it were impossible that someone without working legs could have a working mind.

I never really approached him. Life continued as usual. I was ignored, and decently content with it. I used to hang out in the library quite often, and he would occasionally be there too. He never looked at me, I don’t think. It felt odd, looking at him and glancing back down at my books because I was afraid he would catch me. He just never seemed to care. And I didn’t either.

“Hey, Sherlock,” The girl with blond bangs whispered to me one day in class. “There’s a party tonight in my dorm. You should come.”

“I don’t really-“ But my efforts to decline her offer were futile as I noticed that she had already started ripping a piece of paper from her notebook and writing her dorm number on it. She handed it to me, smiling.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Just stop by. You seem lonely.”

I looked down at the sheet of paper she put directly in my palm. 47D, block 4. I had nothing else to do that night, and it seemed that a university party would allow me to get some sort of feel of where I was to spend the next three years. And they almost always ended in scandal. Interesting enough use of my time.

I grunted and crumpled the paper slightly in my palm.

When I stepped into the blond girl’s dorm building, music was blaring loudly over someone’s speakers, and students in windbreakers lined every possible inch of the walls. I pulled the piece of paper out of my trouser pocket, and someone slapped me on the shoulder and laughed.

“You lost, mate?” An older-looking student with greying temples and a flashy smile turned in front of me.

I swallowed and put the paper back in my pocket. “No, just not used to this sort of thing.”

He took a swig of his beer and chuckled. He offered me a sip, but I politely declined. He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Do you know Diana?”

I crinkled my nose. “Who?”

The boy motioned to his face. “Blond hair, kind of tall, pretty good-looking.” I looked at him, puzzled. “Freckles.”

I suddenly realized that he was talking about the girl with blond bangs. “Oh, yeah. I just didn’t know her name. She invited me, but I don’t really like parties.”

“Hey, mate, you just gotta party with the right people,” he exclaimed. He held out his hand, and I shook it. “Greg. Greg Lestrade.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“So is yours, Greg.”

“If you say so, Mr. Holmes. Listen, do you want me to introduce you to some people?”

I shrugged. “I suppose.”

Greg took me through a crowd of strangers, bumping into some of them and groaning. I followed suit, confidently sifting through the groups of people, though I didn’t feel like I belonged at all. He took me into 47D, and Diana stood against the wall, smiling at her beer. “You made it.”

I nodded and Greg kissed her, saying hello to some people as he sat down on someone’s bed.

Diana looked at me. “Hello, Sherlock.”

I’m sure I had introduced myself to her at some point, but I couldn’t remember. She had used my name when she asked me to the party. Must’ve blocked it out. “Hello.”

She scanned her room, and her eyes lit up when they reached someone. “Sherlock, you know Victor, right?”

She was looking at the boy in the wheelchair. He had dark, olive-toned skin, and he flipped his slightly tousled hair so it rested away from his eyes. He smiled, and his chiseled face parted into dimples and reddish cheeks. He wheeled towards me and held out his hand.

I took it. “Yes. Sherlock Holmes.”

He took his hand away, placing it in his lap and scoffing slightly. “Family name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve never heard the name before.”

“Victor doesn’t seem to be extremely popular in the modern era either.” I looked him up and down, noticing his scaly, dry elbows. His eyebrows were thin, but well groomed. And his hands looked oddly small for a man of his size.

“My parents are from Brazil.”

I stared at him for a moment, unfolding my arms and placing them in my pockets. I lifted my chin up. “My apologies.”

He nodded, and rolled back over near the window. He beckoned for me to sit down on the bed next to him. I obliged, and sat on what I assumed was Diana’s bed. It was covered in blue pillows and sheets, and she smiled at me from the other side of the room and sat down next to Greg. She slugged her arm around him and giggled. “You two want a drink?”

I shook my head, but Victor asked for a beer. Some bloke in the corner of the room got up and grabbed one from the cooler, tossing it to him. I sat in silence, watching Greg whisper flirtily to Diana, my fingers intertwined on my knees. After a few minutes of watching the rest talk, Victor elbowed me and pointed his head out the door. I nodded and followed him outside the dorm, and Diana quietly cheered happily behind me, not quite sober. I felt my face get hot.

He led me outside, and we stood behind the dorm building as I pulled out a box of cigarettes. “You smoke?”

He shook his head no, and I shrugged, pulling my lighter from my pocket and lighting one up.
“You sure are quiet.” He chuckled.

“Believe me, once you get to know me I never shut the hell up.”

He laughed. “I’ve seen you in criminology. You look at me a lot.”

I inhaled and let my hand go limp next to me. “I look at a lot of people.” I could feel my face heating up again.

“Do you look at them because you like them, or because they’re interesting?”

“Don’t really know,” I said, kicking the ground with my foot.

He nodded. “I don’t really like not knowing.”

“Me neither.” I flicked my cigarette onto the ground and crossed my arms.

“Are you gay?”

I inhaled sharply, startled. It was a question I had been asked time and time again by Mycroft, not in a painful manner, mainly a curious one. When I was ten years old, a little girl in my class named Caroline told her friend that she had a crush on me, and they in turn told me. I remember saying nothing but “alright” and letting them go off to tell Caroline the horrifying news. I told Mycroft when I came home, and he wondered why on earth I would respond that way to the news of a pretty girl being interested in me. “That’s quite an invasive question.”

“I’m an invasive person.”

I grinded my teeth together. “I noticed.”

We stood in silence for a moment, and I took a breath. “Are you?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I’m bisexual.”

“Oh.”

I felt my heart flutter slightly and I closed my eyes for a moment. “Yeah, I am gay.”

Victor laughed, and I couldn’t quite read what he was trying to tell me. “I was hoping you were.”

“Really?”

“I like skinny blokes.”

I laughed and covered my mouth with my hand. “Good to know.”

The silence turned awkward and then we broke into laughter again. “I would say sorry for making this uncomfortable but that was a bloody good joke.”

I smiled. “Decent.”

“You underestimate me, Sherlock Holmes.”

“I tend to overestimate most people.” I thought of Mycroft, and his uncanny ability to make me trust him over and over again, only for him to run and tell mummy.

“So I’ll be a part of the minority, then.” He smiled widely, running a hand through his hair.

I smirked. “I sure hope so.”

“I’m going to go to bed, if you don’t mind.” He started to back away from me.

I quickly brought my eyes up to his level. “Not at all. Sweet dreams.”

“But one more thing.” He wheeled himself towards me, and I bent down slightly as he grabbed my collar. Before I knew what was happening, his mouth was on mine, hot and demanding. I steadied myself as he kissed me harder than I’d been kissed in years, running a hand through my hair, hungrily begging for more. He pulled away after too short a time, and snickered as he adjusted his hair.

He started to wheel away, and I stayed in the same leaning position, like a bloody idiot. He turned around and casually said, “Oh, and my dorm is 22B. Block 1.”

I watched him roll away, and quickly adjusted my collar, standing up straighter. After a while, I returned to my room, breathing more heavily than before.

“Do you love me?”

The question came years later, when I was playing my violin in a non-empty room. John sat across from me, listening intently, eyes hungry for an answer. I placed it gently on the table, wandering over to him. I looked at him from above, his eyes light, softer than the pillow I had laid my head on the night before. His silvering hair caught in the sunbeams escaping through the window. I bent down, placing my hands on the sides of his face as I kissed him softly. The kiss turned deep quickly, hands running down my back, my thighs, moans retrieved by our mouths. Soon, we were tangled together on the couch, and it seemed to be enough.

We rarely did need words. Only glances.

Diana brought a large bottle of water with her to class a few days later. She was friendly and social, so it seemed as though she was always engulfed in some party or function of some sort. “You got any Advil?”

I leaned over to the side and rummaged through my bag, pulling out a small white bottle. She thanked me as I handed it to her, opening it slowly and swallowing two as she took a giant gulp from her water bottle.

She gave it back to me and put her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes. After a moment she sat up again, and smiled at me wearily. “I saw you leave the dorm with Victor the other night. He’s cute.”

I hadn’t gotten up the courage to go to his dorm since that night. Instead I continued to look at him in class, darting my eyes away during the fleeting moments where he noticed. “Yes. Why do you mention it?”

She scoffed. “Why do you think, Sherlock?” She took another gulp of water.

I looked over at her hands. “Drink small sips. Gulping water could make your hangover feel worse.”

“Believe me, I doubt it could get any worse than this.”

“Just trying to help.” I turned my head to my empty chemistry notebook, and noticed that I was fidgeting with a pen. I placed it down next to the notebook, and folded my hands in my lap.

“But anyways,” she continued, “Greg thinks you two would make a cute couple.”

“From what I know, I would guess Greg doesn’t think much.”

She laughed. “Last words.”

I glanced back at her with slight disbelief. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I think you’re lonely. And that you could use some friends. And I like you.” She folded her arms on her desk and smiled widely.

“Why do you like me?”

Her eyelashes fluttered. “I have no idea. But I don’t think I need an answer. I just want to know you.”

I nodded, boring a hole into the chalkboard with my eyes. I wondered how people could be so content not knowing.

I found him next to a park bench that afternoon. He was eating a sandwich, watching joggers and couples roam past.

He noticed me and smiled. “Sit down.”

I obliged, sitting up straight, my hands in my lap. He looked over at me, and I felt my cheeks start to redden. “You always have your hands in the same position.”

“Not when I play the violin.”

His eyes widened and he nodded his head. “Violin? Nice.”

“Quite.”

“I play the oboe.”

I tried to keep in my laugh, but after a moment it burst out, and I ran a hand through my curls. “Oboe?”

“My mum made me play it. I figured I should keep it up through university. Music improves your memory.”

I kept giggling. “You could always switch to something else, you know.”

He looked back at me, squinting to keep the sun out of his eyes. They were brown with green and golden flecks, glinting in the light. “Well, sometimes things just don’t happen.”

I quieted down and looked at my feet. “I apologise. For, you know. Not coming to your dorm.”

He smirked. “You don’t need to apologise. You’re clearly nervous as hell already.”

I clasped my hands together again, then pulled them apart when I realised that I’d done it again. “Yes.”

“I’d like to see you again. But of course, if you’re not comfortable, that’s okay.” He looked off onto the path where a girl and a boy held hands, his head resting comfortably on her shoulder.

“I’d like that.”

A short pause. “When was the last time you’ve been kissed?”

“Why do you want to know?” I asked, startled.

“It’s interesting when people phrase it like that.”

“Like what?” I looked at him, my facial expression softening.

“Like when you say that you’ve ‘been kissed’ rather than just ‘kissed someone’.” His eyes shone brighter as the trees fluttered in the wind.

“Gives all the power to the other person.” I folded my arms, noticing that I was about to clasp them again.

“Interesting.”

“Indeed.”

“What’s your dorm?”

I squinted. “I’ll come to yours. Tomorrow. Four.”

He nodded. “Sounds lovely.”

I watched an orange-tinted leaf fall from the tree in front of me. In the bark, someone had inscribed the words turn and face the strange. A robin flew across the sky, and landed on a nest in the tree. It would never be able to take that advice.

Once again, he was the first one to leave.

My long autumn walks had evolved to include John now. We walk in silence, occasionally interrupting with an anecdote about how beautiful London looks when the trees are dying.

“Is fall your favourite season?” He asked me once, hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers.

I stared at the ground, kicking a couple leaves. A crumpled one skittered across the pavement. “Don’t quite know. Never thought about it.”

He chuckled. “You don’t seem too outdoorsy anyway.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.” Recycled lines. John had heard all of them by now.

“Do you ever wonder why seasons exist?”

I sneered. “What kind of question is that?”

John shook his head. “I know that they’re due to the Earth’s orbit, obviously, but why is there a need for it?”

“You do realize that orbits are due to the gravitational fields of objects in space, correct?” I scoffed.

“Of course.”

“So what’s your question?”

“Why?”

I stared at him, and we stopped walking for a moment. “That’s it?”

His hands folded into fists, nonaggressive but assertive. “Have you never thought to question anything?”

“What on Earth are you talking about, John?” I liked saying his name. It always felt warm on my tongue. I smiled unconsciously.

“I mean, do you think it’s a coincidence that Earth is the exactly right distance away from the sun and contains just enough carbon and oxygen for life to survive? That the amount of gravity doesn’t just pull us into the ground at a moment’s notice?” His eyes softened, and his fists unfolded slowly. He looked genuinely curious.

I could feel my face loosen. “Do you want to know what I really think about coincidences?”

He nodded, eyes boring into my brain like he was scanning for an answer to his own question.

Mycroft’s boyish-sounding voice echoed in my head. “I think the universe is rarely so lazy.”

I heard an oboe playing when I stepped into Victor’s dorm, and a smile crept across my face. He continued to play as I leaned against the doorway, crossing my arms. I watched him for a few minutes, the high-pitched tone of one of humanity’s most odd instruments echoing throughout the room.

He put it down after a while and stared at me. “I hate it.”

I chuckled into my sleeve and looked back at him, eyes pleading for mercy. “You might want to learn how to play a more interesting instrument.”

He placed it back in his case, pulling it apart fast, like he had to run to a concert. “Or at least one I can use in the future. I’d like to play piano someday.” He looked back up at me as he closed the case. “Wouldn’t have to stand up.”

“How did that happen?” I remembered Diana whispering car crash under her breath, but knew nothing more. No one seemed to talk about it. Only fleeting glances and soft whispers to classmates, nothing more. “If you don’t mind-“

“Don’t worry about it.” He wheeled over to me and went out the door, and I swiftly followed. “I was visiting my family in Brazil, and I walked onto the wrong side of the road.”

“Seriously?”

“Were you hoping for a more interesting story?”

“I don’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair.

He smirked at me. “I was too.”

I chuckled again, shoving my hands in my pockets. My left one was trembling slightly, a force of habit that occurred whenever I found myself becoming anxious.

“You don’t ask as many questions about it as everyone else.”

I walked alongside him, focusing my attention on the way my heels hit the ground when I took a step. “Really?”

“But everyone is so bloody quiet about it.”

I twisted my jaw. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

He sighed. “People pretend to be polite about it, and are incredibly tentative when they ask. It’s like they’re trying to be sensitive, but feel like they have to have an answer at the same time. The politeness is a mask. If they asked me outright I wouldn’t care.”

“Hm.” I looked over at him again, and noticed a small mole sitting above his lip. He had more scruff than I had noticed before, and his hair consistently covered his right eye. A wide-set nose pulled all his features in and balanced his heart-shaped face. He could be a model if he wanted to. Although somehow I doubted he would be interested in it.

“Do you remember what I asked you yesterday?”

“No.” It was a lie.

“Sure,” he replied, seeing right through me. “About the last time you’ve been kissed. Or kissed someone.”

“Why do you ask?”

“You asked me the same thing yesterday.”

“Yesterday I asked why you wanted to know.” My eyes squinted in the sun, which was thinly veiled by clouds.

“So you do remember.” He chuckled.

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to.”

“I was fifteen.”

He looked at me, surprised. “Really? Three years?”

My hand started shaking more. “Yes.”

“That’s quite a surprise.”

“How so?”

“You’re good-looking.”

Mycroft used to tease me for looking like a sloth, or an otter, or any sort of animal he could come up with off the top of his head. He said that my eyes were too far apart, my face too oval-like, my forehead too tall. I never really took that much offense to it- he wasn’t the prettiest to look at, either. Sharp nose, thin hair, and thin lips combined to create an almost aggressive-looking face. I simply nodded.

“In an interesting sort of way.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hm.” I tried to appear casual, but my hand still shook in my pocket, and I was glad my feet were moving. If they weren’t, they’d likely be shaking in my shoes as well.

“You’re getting so red right now, mate.”

I sighed loudly. “Thank you.” I shut my lips, looking down at the ground again.

“Do you want to get coffee? So you can calm down a bit?”

“Coffee sounds good.”

“Black, two sugars please.” I ordered earl grey, and Victor folded his hands on the table. A bloke with thick glasses laughed obnoxiously in the corner, but otherwise, it was almost silent in the cafe. Glasses clinked in the kitchen, and a redheaded girl brought us our drinks a few moments later. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and light freckles framed her pretty face. A wisp of hair landed over her eyes as she placed the cups on our table.

I thanked her and she went back into the kitchen. Victor stared at me intently as I stirred some sugar into my tea. “What’s something that no one knows about you, Sherlock?”

My eyes widened, and I stared at my tea as I poured milk in. It became cloudy, and I watched the milk move slowly and settle. “Very subtle question.”

Victor laughed. “Do you want to know mine? Besides the fact that I play the oboe?”

My eyes leveled with his. “What?”

“I used to dance ballet.”

“So did my older brother.” I remembered teasing Mycroft when he wore his tight pants and ballet shoes, laughing hysterically whenever he came home and emerged into the kitchen. I would laugh so hard that I would fall over onto Redbeard, tears welling up in my eyes and falling into his fur. He would put his hands on his hip and call for mummy so I would stop laughing at him.

“What about you?”

My mind creaked slowly, and I went through my memories to try and pick out something that no one here really knew. It wasn’t incredibly difficult. “My hair is naturally red.”

“Why do you dye it so dark?”

I sipped my tea. “Who can take a man with red hair seriously?”

He giggled and took a drink from his cup. “True.”

“But dark also looks better on me.”

“It goes with your eyes. It’s a stark contrast.”

He was right, of course. My eyes were a hybrid blue-green, but usually looked different depending on the day or what I was wearing. They were light, though, and the dark hair and pale skin combined to create almost a creepy, intense stare.

I put my cup down on the table. “My mum said I looked like a ghost when I first dyed it.”

“It works for you. Goes with your personality.”

I smiled and clasped my hands together in my lap. My feet, which had been trembling before, slowed down, and I breathed deeply. “I hope so.”

“So tell me about your last kiss. You’re quite good at dodging questions.”

“People don’t normally want to ask.” I tightened my lips.

“Well?”

“It was after school, behind the building. A boy in my class has just asked me to go outside with him, and that was it.”

“I don’t buy it.”

I crinkled my eyes. “Buy what?”

“That that’s all that happened.”

I stirred my spoon in my teacup. “That’s all the relevant information.”

“What if I want all of it? Not just the relevant information?”

“Then I would tell you that I learned right after that the boy’s friends had dared him to do it. They all laughed at me, and he left with them. And I just sat on the steps for a while until I decided to walk home.” My eyes drifted down to the legs of the table.

“Sherlock, that’s horrible.”

“It’s life.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and it felt painful. The knowledge that he pitied me left me feeling more helpless, and I began tapping my foot against the floor. The redheaded waitress brought out a cup of tea to the bloke with thick glasses, and he thanked her loudly, as if he wanted the five other people in the cafe to know what a polite man he was.

Victor clenched his jaw and looked up at me. “Would it help if I told you something else that no one knows about me?”

I said nothing, and just watched his lips move, unable to focus on the sounds he was creating. I didn’t want a secret. I didn’t want to be even, or to have some sort of leverage over him just because he pitied me. I wished that he could just nod and acknowledge that it happened, and that I could close my eyes so not to see the expression on his face. Pity doesn’t mean shit.

“No.”

“No?”

I nodded silently. “Yeah,” I replied softly.

Victor crossed his arms and chuckled. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you.”

A smile crept across my lips. “Okay.”

He took a breath. “But as first dates go, I’d still give this one a decent rating.”

A wave a heat rushed from my stomach up towards my throat, creeping into my cheeks. The tapping of my feet began to sputter and then die. I smiled. “I’ve had better.”

He laughed, and pulled his hair behind his ear. It was nice to see his right eye.

“I walked by you and Victor in the cafe yesterday. You were laughing.” Diana twirled her pencil through her hair, and smiled. It was the kind of smile that was more for herself than for me.

I nodded and bit my lips. “We had fun.” I tapped my pencil on the desk.

She stared at her desk, continuing a sketch in her notebook. She shaded a finely detailed hand, and then brought her eyes back up to mine. “You think you’ll go out with him again?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? You’re obviously interested in him, and you had fun on your first date, and you expect me to blindly accept that you haven’t thought about it?“ She chuckled and tapped her pencil on the notebook, mimicking me. “I think you’ve thought about it a lot.”

“Huh. You see through what everyone else does, don’t you?”

“That’s because they don’t know you, Sherlock.”

“You barely know me.”

Her eyes softened, hidden slightly by her bangs. “I know you enough.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so interested in my life, Diana.”

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Because my life isn’t nearly as interesting as other peoples’. I live vicariously through you.”

“Greg seems… interesting enough.”

She smirked and grabbed my hand, but immediately let go when I quietly asked her to. “Greg is great. Yeah. But everything else is boring.”

I thought of the words someone had carved into the tree: turn and face the strange. “Well, you’ve got one thing that’s interesting in your life. Might as well run with it. It could make everything else interesting as well. Or else you might screw everything up.”

Diana laughed, and I appreciated her ability to ignore my initial coldness. “I might just take that advice. Thanks, Sherlock.”

“Anytime.”

Someone in the row below us turned to their neighbour and whispered, “Do they ever even try to pay attention?”

We sat at the kitchen table, taking turns eating out of a takeout box of rice. John looks at me in a different manner than usual, as if there were something he wanted to know, but didn’t have the courage to ask.

He cleared his throat. “Sherlock.”

“Mm?”

“I know that you were involved with Victor in uni, but you never really told me anything else.” His cable-knit jumper juxtaposed with the hardened look on his face. The sunlight that filtered through the window slightly blocked my vision, and my eyes focused on the small flakes of dust floating through the air.

I looked down at the legs of the table. “It’s not an easy story, John. Not for the faint of heart.”

My vision cleared, and he squinted. “You really think I’m faint of heart?”

I tried to come up with an excuse as quickly as possible. “John-“

He folded his arms on the table. “Do you remember what you asked me the first day we met?”

Want to see some more?

My eyes softened as I looked at the bridge of his nose. “Of course.”

“Are you just afraid to tell me, Sherlock?”

“I’ve never really talked about it.”

“Does Mycroft know?”

I paused. “Mycroft has his own way of knowing.”

John sighed softly. “Look, Sherlock, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.” He got out of his seat and kissed my forehead before heading towards the bedroom.

“John?”

He turned around in the doorway. “Yeah?”

My eyes drifted down to the wood floor, and then back up to John’s aging face. “I’ll tell you. Soon. I promise.”

He nodded and turned away.

A couple weeks later, I sat in Diana’s dorm, she and Greg sitting opposite me and Victor. Diana took a small table and set it in between both beds, and put our takeout on it. I was sharing a box of noodles with Victor, who turned out to be very hungry, all the time.

“Hey, quit hogging the noodles!” He laughed and took the box out of my hand while I had noodles in my mouth, and I quickly swallowed them before I choked on my own laughter.

I giggled and tried to grab some noodles with my chopsticks as he held the box away from my reach. Diana snorted as she drank her water and Greg just grinned at us, arm wrapped around her.

“I have to say, this is better than any other party Greg and I could throw,” Diana commented as she snapped a fortune cookie in half.

Greg shoved her playfully. “Oh, shut up! We throw great parties.”

Victor started to laugh, and then stopped when Greg stared him down. “Sorry.”

Greg leaned over to Diana, trying to read her fortune. “What does it say?”

She folded it and held it away from her, putting her chin up in the air. “I’m not telling. It won’t come true.”

I rolled my eyes. “It won’t come true anyways.”

Victor nodded. “Come on, Diana.”

She grumbled and unfolded it. “Ugh, fine. It says you might want to turn and face the strange.”

I raised an eyebrow, remembering the words carved into the tree in the park. I was about to say something before Greg cut me off.

“Isn’t that from that song, you know, the Bowie one?”

Victor nodded. “Yeah. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.”

“I don’t think that’s the name of the song.” Diana giggled.

Victor shrugged. “Close enough.”

“Sherlock, you’ve been awfully quiet.” Diana always seemed to be worried about me.

“I’m not normally that loud in the first place.”

Greg pointed his chopsticks at me. “He’s right, you know. You should know that, Diana.”

“Oh, shush. I just worry about him.” She looked up from her half-eaten fortune cookie. “The quietest people usually have the most to say.”

Victor’s eyes widened. “True.”

I smiled. “I do have a lot to say. But it’s all good.”

Diana winked back at me. “I bet you do, sweetheart.”

“So wait, you’re the only one in your dorm?” Victor asked, stupefied.

“Yes.”

“…And you didn’t tell me until now?”

I furrowed my eyebrows as I looked down at him. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

I opened the door, and Victor entered, and I closed the door behind me. He shook his head and laughed to himself. “Classic.”

I sat down on my bed. “Did I say something?”

Victor wheeled over to me, and put his hands on my knees. I looked down, and he lifted my chin up with his finger. “Of course it matters, Sherlock.”

He kissed me softly, and after a moment I placed my hands on his neck and kissed him back. I thought about what he commented on earlier, how it’s odd that people say you’ve been kissed. The curtain covering half my window cast a shadow on the floor, and I got up and put my knees on his chair, getting as close to him as I possibly could. I kissed him from above, and his hands caressed my back, one running through my hair.

This kiss was softer and slower than the previous one, not hungry and demanding. I felt like I could stay on my knees and kiss his for hours. In my head I ran over that last memory of Geoff Landstern taking me behind the school and kissing me, just because his friends told him to. Someone wants to touch me.

I felt a hand on my arse and I covered it with my own, mindlessly allowing myself to react to his touch. My face warmed up from the glowing sun, and I pulled away at random moments just to giggle. He smiled and placed his forehead against mine, both of us breathing heavily.

“You know the moments when you pull away from someone just to smile?”

I looked into his eyes and nodded.

He closed his just for a moment. “I think those are better than the actual kissing.”

I laughed. “Then you might be disappointed.” I kissed him again, letting my knees fall slightly. We stayed like that until the sun started to set and the light falling on our skin turned from white to red.

“Do you love him?”

I looked over at Diana, who was sitting across from me in the empty lecture hall after chemistry. I tightened my lips and clasped my hands together, laying them on my knees. Her eyes, a darker green than I had previously thought, stared at me with intense curiosity and care. Her wavy hair blew softly under the air vent, and added to the soft effect of her appearance.

I sighed. “Why do we always talk about me?”

She smiled politely. “I told you. Because my life is boring.”

I lowered my gaze down to her backpack. “May I see your notebook?”

She furrowed her eyebrows, but took her notebook out of the bag and handed it to me. I flipped through pages upon pages of drawings of oceans and strangers before I landed on the right page. On it lay a finished sketch of the hand she had been drawing weeks ago, when she asked me how my first date with Victor had gone.

I handed it back to her. “What does it mean?”

She raised an eyebrow at, me, after staring at the page in her lap. “Didn’t you read the words?”

The drawing was of a hand with its palm up, and on it the words I AM JUST DUST UNTIL GIVEN SOMETHING TO HOLD were printed loudly down the wrist. I looked at it again. “Tell me what it means.”

She looked concerned and slightly startled. “Well, isn’t it obvious?”

My eyes softened, and I noticed a vulnerability in hers that I hadn’t noticed before. “You never talk about yourself.”

Her gaze drifted back down to the notebook in her lap. “It means that life is only real when there are people with you. That nothing is meaningful by yourself.” She looked back up at me. “I’m so lucky. And I wasn’t so lucky before.”

I smiled tightly and put my hand on hers. “I understand.”

“Sherlock?”

“Yes, Diana?”

“I think that I only feel completely happy when other people like me, you know, romantically. I’m fine on my own, but if no one seems to like me more than usual, I feel lonely as fuck.” She turned her head away from mine and stared at the chalkboard, focused on something I could not pinpoint.

“The concept of independence only goes so far. You can’t be alone completely. And your feelings are valid, if that helps.”

She smiled softly and kissed my hand. “Thanks, Sherlock. But we both have people now. We’re both so fucking lucky.”

I could feel a grin creeping across my lips as well. Yes. We are.

“I love you.” The first time I said the words out loud, I didn’t even hear myself saying them. John lay asleep next to me on the sofa, and my violin was still sitting by itself on the coffee table. I grumbled and got up carefully, hoping that I wouldn’t accidentally knock him off the narrow sofa. I threw on my pyjamas and stumbled into the kitchen, putting a kettle on the stove and opening a new loaf of bread. I put two slices in the toaster and hopped up onto the kitchen counter, looking out the window at the busy street below. A woman with an umbrella attempted to shield herself from the rain as a man playfully tried to get under it. Behind them trailed a little girl who was skipping and holding hands with her father.

I heard grumbling from the sofa, and John groped around for his jumper, and I watched him put on his clothes, my eyes focusing from his spine to his neck to his hair to his spine again. He smiled at me and walked into the kitchen, grabbing a piece of toast as it popped up and grabbing two mugs from the cabinet. “I heard you.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Heard what?”

He just smirked and took out a teabag and then some margarine from the fridge. “Don’t even try.”

I smiled and jumped off the counter, wrapping my arms around his waist and laying my head on his shoulder. “I definitely don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hm.” He spread some margarine on his toast and took a bite. “The water’s about to boil.”

I rested my chin on his shoulder. “Okay.”

A few seconds of silence. “Say it again,” he whispered.

I dug my face into the nape of his neck. “I love you.” I kissed the bottom of his jaw and smiled. “I love you.” I rested my forehead against the side of his head. “I love you and love you and love you and love you.”

My toast started to burn and the kettle started to whistle, but we took no notice. “I love you.”

We lay on my bed, staring up at the white ceiling above us. Victor’s hand rested on my chest, and my hand on his. His wheelchair sat next to us, silently witnessing our conversation. It smelled like sweat and cologne. To him, he said, it smelled like love. To me it just smelled like a clothing store.

“Have you ever been in love?” It was an easy question, but I was startled nonetheless. What was I counting, exactly? Does looking at a boy who doesn’t like you like he’s the sun count as love? Does crying for three weeks straight after your dog dies count as love? Does being hugged by your mother and digging your head into her chest count as love?

“Why do we classify love between our family and friends as different from love between partners?”

“Good question. I guess it’s because we romanticize it.” He turned his face to mine, and his sharp jaw looked like it could cut my heart open and pull it out with ease.

“Then yes, I have. But not in a romantic sense.” I thought of Mycroft, who constantly teased me but always protected me when my classmates made fun of me or I got hurt. Who still played pirate with me and Redbeard when he was far too old to do so. Who would tuck me into bed when mum and dad were out for the night. Who always told me stories, even though he pretended to protest. I turned to face him. “Have you?”

“Not in a romantic sense, no. And I think I know why people like to separate the two.”

“And why is that?”

“We romanticize unique things in general. We all want to be unique, but somehow still qualify as ‘normal’. Like if I came out of my car crash completely fine, that would’ve been a miracle, that would’ve been unique. People would eat that shit up. But since I’m paralyzed, it’s not unique enough. I’m not average enough to be normal, and I’m not strange enough to be unique.”

My eyelashes fluttered under the bright sunlight. “I think I agree with you.”

“You know what else I think? I think that we’re taught to be unique to make the pain of life easier.”

I sighed contently, contemplating. “What do you mean?”

Victor put his hand over mine. “I mean that when you’re little, adults tell you that you’re special. They tell you that you’re not identical to everyone else. When you’re a little bit older, they tell you that everyone is the same on the inside, that everyone is equal. And then, when you grow up, you finally realise what they’ve been trying to teach you: we all deal with the same fucking meaningless shit in this world; but we deal with it in our own, twisted ways.”

“Some people deal with more than others. I mean, some people in this world can’t even afford basic necessities, while the very wealthy never-“

“But that’s not what I’m talking about,” Victor interrupted. “I’m talking about the fact that all of us feel lonely sometimes. And we all believe that we’re alone in feeling it. And so some of us tell other people, and some don’t. Some of us write, or paint, or play the violin; and some of us murder, or steal, or find other ways to harm people.”

He was right. I squeezed his hand and looked up at the ceiling, watching my fan move slowly, catching my eye on each plank as it passed by. “It’s because none of us can really communicate.”

“You know what I like about you, Sherlock?”

My face began to burn. “What?”

“You listen to other people, but you still have your own ideas. You’re brilliant.”

The word wriggled from my ear to my stomach, bouncing off the inner walls of my belly. It felt good. It felt brilliant.

No one would call me that again for years.

“You never fucking listen, Sherlock. I told you not to go after him, Lestrade’s team was right around the corner… good grief.”

John pat a damp washcloth against my temple. I muttered something along the lines of “we caught him” but he just scowled and complained about how I should listen to him.

He stopped after a few minutes and looked straight at me. John always looked you in the eyes, and it felt like he was boring into your skull and trying to figure out what the hell you were thinking. “What’s going on in that giant brain of yours?”

“Actually, the size of the brain doesn’t indicate your level of-“

“Shut it.” I obliged and sat against the wall, feeling it press hard into my spine.

John grabbed his first aid kid from the bathroom, and I started to see stars spinning in front of me. “Fuck. John?”

“What is it, Sherlock?”

I bit my lips. “Thank you.”

He smiled slightly. “You’re bloody welcome.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” I said, bowing my head down.

I felt some cream being put on my cut, and then John dabbed rubbing alcohol on it. I winced. John shushed me. “Yes, I know, it hurts. But you’ve hurt yourself enough times to know how it feels.”

After a few minutes, I was stitched up and bandaged. John lifted me up by my hand, and sat me down on the couch, turning on the telly and sitting next to me. “Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“It’s nice to know that you can apologize without pretending that a bomb is about to kill both of us.”

I smirked. “There’s still more to know about me.”

John kissed the other side of my forehead and held tightly onto my hand. “Promise you’ll never pretend to be leaving me again?”

I grumbled. “Fine. If I ever disappear without your knowledge, it won’t be of my own free will.”

John smiled and squeezed my hand. “Brilliant.”

Greg, who insisted now that I call him Lestrade, had switched his major from biology to criminal psychology. “I want to be the good guy, you know?” He had said after being questioned by Diana.

Well-built, intimidating, and stark, Lestrade would be a good detective. He was much smarter than he let on, and always seemed to notice details that others didn’t. He would ask me for help on his exams, and praise me for pointing out the things he couldn’t.

We sat in the library, his textbook open, two coffees sitting on our table. He ruffled his hair with both hands, obviously stressed. He stopped for a moment and looked back up at me. “Who was Kitty Genovese again?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

“Come on, Sherlock. There’s a lot of names to memorize, you know.”
I sighed and sipped my coffee. “Bystander effect.”

He furrowed his eyebrows.

“Diffusion of responsibility?”

His eyes widened. “Oh, shit! That was the woman who was attacked and no one helped her, right?”

I nodded. “Terrifying, isn’t it? We want to believe that we’re good people, but we constantly refuse to even try to be.”

He chuckled and wrote something down in his notebook. “You sound like Victor.”

“He rubs off easily.”

“How’s that going, by the way?”

“Fine.”

He leaned over the table. “How’s your, uh, sex life? With his… you know.”

“When’s the last time you gave Diana an orgasm?” I said, trying not to laugh.

“What the fuck, mate?”

“Eye for an eye, mate.”

He took a gulp from his coffee cup. “Fair enough, I guess. Sorry I asked. I know you two tend to be private about these things. And you seem to be a quiet person in general.”

“Believe me, I’m only somewhat quiet around people I like. I can be an obnoxious arsehole around most people.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, thank you for being decent.”

“My pleasure.”

“Do you remember that day in the cafe, when I told you that some day I’d tell you something no one knows about me?”

We were sitting on my bed, watching the sun set. “No.”

“You’re so bad at lying,” He replied, laughing.

I smiled and closed my eyes. “Truly.”

“Do you mind if I tell you?”

“I don’t know, Victor-” I truthfully told him. I still didn’t need leverage or answers to questions I hadn’t asked.

He looked down at his feet and interrupted me. “Sherlock, when I walked onto the wrong side of the street, when I was in Brazil, I did it on purpose.”

My eyes met his, and I could imagine my heart slowly ticking until it stopped completely. “What?”

Tears began to well in his eyes. “I didn’t want to live anymore. I hadn’t wanted to live before I almost died.”

I reached over and tried to grab his hand, but he pulled away. “Victor, I’m so sorry.”

His hair fell over his right eye again, and I saw a new face of vulnerability in him that I didn’t know existed. His eyes became red, and his face flushed. “Sherlock, no one loved me until I became broken.”

Somewhere deep inside my heart, I heard the friends of the boy who kissed me call me a freak. Broken. I remembered them pushing me onto the ground, laughing, kicking dirt in my face and telling me that that’s what people did to monsters. “You’re not broken,” I replied, putting my hand on his, “And if you are, I am too.”

“I love you, Sherlock.”

I bit my lip and squeezed his hand harder. “I love you.”

Diana had started to joke that she and I hung out more than she and Lestrade. We usually went for walks around campus and on nearby streets. She loved window shopping and always pointed out what she liked: floral, feminine clothes and dainty-looking things. She always perked up whenever she saw something she liked, and never failed to urge me to buy something that she thought would look good on me. She never jokingly called me her “gay best friend” or asked me incredibly personal questions about Victor. She was patient, kind, and selfless, and I greatly enjoyed being around her.

We happened to be walking on a busy street and she pulled out her blue umbrella as it started to rain. She was much shorter than I was, so I had to bend down to get under until I frustratingly grabbed it from her and held it myself. She giggled and told me I could’ve just asked to hold it.

After a while, she pointed in the window of a small men’s clothing store at a dark blue scarf. “That would bring out your eyes.”

I followed her into the store, as arguing with Diana tended to be completely hopeless. She grabbed the scarf off the rack and tied it on for me, pushing me in front of a mirror. It did look quite good. She popped off to the side of me and said, “You look like a model.”

“Doubt it.” I took it off and put it on again, turning from side to side. “You think Victor would like it?”

“Victor thinks you’d look good in a garbage bag, Sherlock.”

I scowled. “Lies.”

She put her hands on my shoulder, and she seemed even smaller next to me. “Yes, I do think he’d like it.”

“I’ll take it, then.”

Diana looked up at me, her eyes bright. “It’s great to see you so happy.”

“How do you know I’m happy? I wasn’t even smiling.”

“Friends know these things.”

I smirked and kissed the top of her head. “Guess so.”

Victor and I went to see Pulp Fiction, and he commented multiple times on how the film was much more violent than he expected it be. “But I like Tarantino.”

I hadn’t heard of him before the movie, but Diana kept raving about Reservoir Dogs and encouraged us to go see his new movie until she practically dragged us there herself. “It’s surprising that Diana loves those kinds of films so much.”

“I’ve learned not to characterize her in a certain way. She’s quite a surprising person.”

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it as we stood in the park, and Victor scowled. “Don’t do that.”

I put my hand down before smoking it. “Why not?”

“Because I’d rather have you alive.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Sherlock.”

I stared at him, his face fallen slightly. “Why do you care all of a sudden?”

“Because now especially, I’d rather not see you get hurt.”

I sighed and put it out in an ashtray a few feet away. “But only because you insist.”

“Thank you. How long have you been smoking?”

I remember stealing one of Mycroft’s cigarettes when he was home for Christmas. I was fourteen, and I coughed violently until he came over and yelled at me before quietly telling me not to smoke again. “I don’t want you to end up in hospital,” he said, near tears.

I sighed. “A few years. I’ve tried to quit a few times. Did you ever?”

“Used to.” He looked down at his legs. “But I figured that I have bad enough luck already.”

“I suppose I’ve never really cared enough to care about the possibility of me getting sick.”

“That’s the irony, isn’t it? You try and live for yourself, but when you do, you realise that you’re only living for other people. Living alone isn’t enough reason to live at all.” He started to wheel away from me, and I followed.

We ended up next to a pond, and I sat on a park bench as he sat down next to me. Some geese floated in the water, occasionally squawking at each other. “You know something, Sherlock?”

I watched as a duck waltzed gracefully through the water, her babies following orderly behind her. “Hm?”

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone.” I turned to meet my eyes to his, and on his face I saw an expression of relief unlike any other. My heart started to pound as his hair fell over his right eye, his lip beginning to quiver. I considered running, and my feet started to patter unconsciously against the dirt. My left hand started to shake in my pocket.

But I thought of the carving in the tree, and I started to calm myself. Suddenly the pounding in my head disappeared, and all I heard was the squawking of a couple geese to my side. “Me neither.”

I kissed him softly, and the words turn and face the strange echoed in my brain for hours and hours and hours and hours.

A few weeks came and went, and soon most of Victor’s acquaintances knew about us. While he wasn’t ashamed of his bisexuality and relationship with me, I preferred to keep most things about me secret. But over the course of a semester, I had managed to become closer to more people than I ever had before in my life. Besides Mycroft, Diana, Lestrade, and Victor now knew everything about me. And I didn’t mind much. I was plenty happy. Victor and I were happy. But unfortunately, not everyone was.

A number of my classmates would look at me during my classes, and Diana would always give them a hard stare during chemistry. But when no one was there to protect me, I just looked at the chalkboard and took mindless notes, trying to ignore them. Even more people stare at Victor, I thought. Be grateful.

Diana would tell them to fuck off when we were out in public, and then she would hug me and tell me not to worry about it. But it’s always impossible to believe your friends when they call you brilliant, when so many people obviously don’t believe the same.

“You don’t mind?” I asked him, as we both sat on the floor of my room. I played my violin, occasionally stopping to talk.

“Mind what?” He asked, biting into a croissant.

“People. Staring. You know.”

I started to play again, and he leaned his head forward. “Nope.”

“Why not?” He looked annoyed that I had stopped again for about the tenth time to ask him a question.

“Because people who always stare aren’t really happy. Or at least not as happy as we are.” He smiled, and bits of crumbs fell onto the floor. “Shit.”

“Try not to ruin my carpet, maybe?”

Victor laughed, and my heart fluttered. “I can think of plenty of ways that we could ruin this carpet that would be more fun for both of us.”

I blushed and put my violin to the side, crawling on my hands and knees towards him. “Oh really?”

He smiled and took my face into his hands, kissing me softly. “Absolutely.”

Mycroft thought it would be appropriate to visit me out of the blue, so we ended up at a coffee shop after he woke me up at 11 pm on a Sunday. He ordered earl grey for both of us, and he clasped his hands together, resting his chin on his fists.

“How are you doing, Sherlock?”

“Fine. Why are you here?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Can’t I visit my dear brother without being interrogated?”

“Not really.”

Mycroft sighed and poured himself some tea. “I’m here because mummy’s worried about you. She says that you’re not talking to her.”

“I never really do.”

Mycroft laughed and poured an enormous amount of sugar into his tea. “Yes you do. You talk and talk and talk like there’s no tomorrow. Mummy knows you’re not quiet.”

I folded my arms and leaned onto the table. “Mycroft, I’m happy. And God knows I’d never tell mummy about why.”

He smirked and sipped his tea. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”

“For the record, I probably wouldn’t tell you either.”

“Sherlock, do you remember the day they put Redbeard down?” Mycroft replied, a more serious look on his face.

“I don’t.” My stomach began to sink just thinking about it. It was the worst day of my life, more or less.

“You’re lying.”

I chuckled. “You truly are the world’s greatest interrogator.”

“You came in my room that night, and you cried for hours. I held you until you fell asleep, and you told me you loved me.” Mycroft’s face softened, and he narrowed his eyes at me. “And you’re still that boy. And you still do love me, no matter how much you want to avoid the reality that you do.”

I sat in silence for a moment, sipping my tea and thinking about what to say. He wasn’t wrong. Mycroft was the only person I had opened up to until my eighteenth year of life. “All right, I’ll talk to mummy.”

“Good,” he replied, biting into a piece of toast. “Self-reliance only goes so far. You have to actually talk to some people, at least.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Glad to hear it.” He put some money on the table, then put it back in his wallet when he heard rain pattering against the window next to us. “I’m always here, you know.”

I nodded. “His name is Victor.”

“Interesting. Care to tell me more?”

I proceeded to talk about Diana, and her seemingly endless kindness; and Lestrade, and his surprising friendliness. And I talked about Victor, his passion for life inspirational, his uncanny ability to express his emotions, and his love for thought. I talked about the way his hair almost always hung over his right eye, how his face was so structured, the roughness of his lips. I talked about his carelessness for how others saw him, his confidence, the way he spoke as if he knew nothing and everything at the same time. I talked about how he made me see the world differently, like I was always looking up at the sky instead of straight ahead. And most of all, I talked about how he made me feel like I was just important enough; not too big, but never too small.

“Well, have you ever had your heart broken?” John asked me, flat on his stomach. We were still lying on my comforter, and I was still eating my toast.

I considered telling him the whole story about Victor, but I figured it would be appropriate for another time. Two decades wasn’t long enough. “Yes, but not on purpose.”

John hummed peacefully. “Mycroft told me that there was someone you lost a long time ago.”

Not long enough. “Mycroft says a lot of things.”

“Is he wrong?”

I closed my mouth tightly. “No.”

John rested his chin on my chest and looked up at me. I ran a hand through his hair, and he closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

“Don’t be. I have you.” I kissed his forehead, putting a hand on his head and holding it to my heart.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I felt his breath on my bare chest, and I shivered. “I will. Soon.”

“Mkay,” he muttered, smiling and putting his arms around me. “I love you.”

I didn’t say anything as I ruffled his hair with my hand and looked out the window, where a fleet of birds were passing by.

It happened quick enough, but not slow enough either.

At 3 am on a Tuesday morning: I heard a scream from my dorm. Diana and I were sitting on my bed, chatting. Lestrade had left earlier, telling us that he was too tired to stay up late. Diana sat up straighter, nearly jumping out of her skin. “Did you hear that?”

“Of course.” It was a blood-curling, horrifying sound. My skin began to crawl as I recognized the sound again, running through my door and into the hallway, where a few people stood around, confused.

Diana came out after me, grabbing my hand. “Sherlock, calm down.”

I looked from left to right, shaking her hand away and listening to all the people muttering, waiting for someone to do something. I tensely rolled my hands into fists, and ran towards the door without shoes on. I threw it open, running towards Victor’s dorm, stopping suddenly after a few paces as I heard the scream again.

Diana ran after me again. “Wait, Sherlock!”

I paid no attention to her as I headed in the direction of the scream, my head pounding. She caught up to me, but I looking ahead, yelling “Victor!” over and over and over until I couldn’t hear his name anymore.

We ran some more along the campus, headed towards the park. Diana started to call out Victor’s name with me, both of us huffing, trying not to lose our breath. I fell over, tearing my shirt on a large rock, and cutting my skin deeply. Blood flowed down my elbow as Diana helped me up, leading me towards the park.

A few students had gathered by the park bench, muttering to each other. I let Diana go and tried to plow through them, but a much larger student held me back.

“Let me in!” I tried to push, but it was no use. I felt tears well up in my eyes, and I started breathing heavily, afraid that I would fall. “Let me in!”

Diana held me back, digging her face into my back as I pounded at the chest of the man blocking me. “Sherlock,” was all she could mutter as she sobbed and grabbed the back of my shirt.

The students in front of me finally cleared, and I couldn’t even hear the scream that belted from my chest as I saw Victor, lying down next to his wheelchair, covered in blood. He lay under the tree we sat in front of the day after we talked for the first time. The words turn and face the strange were still scripted in the bark, and I screamed louder as I finally escaped the man’s grasp and clawed at them, trying to cover them up, trying to destroy them forever, so no one could ever believe the fucking lie they were. I felt a small hand grab my arm, and I yanked it away, leaning my forehead against the words. I felt suffocated, and I pounded against the bark, unable to properly scratch the words out with my short fingernails.

Someone was calling my name, but I barely heard. Suddenly I was grabbed again from behind and forced onto the ground. I clawed at the face in front of me before it held my arms down, and Lestrade hovered above me, asking if I was okay and yelling for someone to get someone from the administration. I wheezed as he told me to calm down, taking off his shirt and wrapping it around my upper arm.

“Sherlock, I need you to breathe,” he said again, holding me down. Diana sat next to me, holding my hand and reminding me over and over that help was coming.

I was half-conscious, but I still managed to say that help wouldn’t do shit. “Victor. Victor-“

“Sherlock, don’t worry about Victor right now,” Diana said softly. Someone handed her a wet paper towel, and she pressed it against my forehead.

I felt my eyes roll back, and the last thing I saw was Lestrade yelling something incongruous at me, shaking my shoulders with ferocity.

John sat across from me at the kitchen table, his eyes widening at the end of my story. “Oh my god, Sherlock, how did you live through that?”

I stared at the bare table below me, and I traced the words from the song on it with my fingertip. “I barely did, until I met you.”

His eyes softened, and he took my hands in his. “I’m sorry.”

I stared blankly at him, trying to imagine Victor’s face in place of his, but I couldn’t.

“Sherlock- what happened after?”

The police didn’t file it as a hate crime, as it turns out. There were no indications of prejudice in the crime, just seven stab wounds and a student whose name I never wanted to learn.

I pushed my friends away, although Lestrade would appear years later. Diana gave up trying to communicate with me after a few months, and no one dared to try and make friends with me. University didn’t seem to be the place for me after my junior year, so I dropped out and eventually found myself wandering around London, solving crimes for fun and ending up in drug dens for even more fun.

Lestrade found me during a bust some years later when he started working for Scotland Yard, recognised me, and took me into his care. He found me a new apartment and gave me a job after figuring out that I was damn good at solving crimes, and kept in touch with Mycroft so they could check on me.

He and Diana had broken up a couple years earlier, but they remained friendly for a while. I never asked about her, although he told me many times that she missed me. I wanted to forget as much as possible, but Victor haunted me until John came along. The body of the boy I loved appeared in my head whenever I saw someone else’s body, but it motivated me to solve whatever crime I was given.

I met Molly, who I hated for being a duller, more flexible version of Diana. In my mind, all the people who surrounded me were imposters from my past life.

Mycroft tried to talk to me about Victor, but eventually gave up after he realised that I would always refuse. He introduced me to Mike Stamford, who would bring John to me years later.

I was alone. But as Mycroft had told me in that cafe so long ago, self-reliance is never enough.

“Sherlock?”

I snapped my head back up, looking at John, whose eyes were starting to water. “Yes, John?”

“That song, the one that was carved into the tree. Do you think someone was trying to tell you something?”

I thought about it for a moment, though I’d been thinking about it for the longest time. “I’ve no idea. But it definitely was no coincidence.”

“The universe is rarely so lazy, isn’t it?” He smiled, taking my hand.

“The universe brought you to me. That never could have been a coincidence.”

I got up and took him with me, wrapping my arms around him and digging my face into his shoulder. We stood like that for what seemed like ages until he softly said, “You should call Diana.”

I muttered that I would, and he chuckled and softly kissed me in the morning glow, saying “I love you” in between every breath we took.

I looked up Diana’s number and called it, anxiously waiting for her to answer. Would she even bother to listen to me after years of refusing to talk to her?

A soft-voiced woman answer. “Hello?”

I twirled the tie of my robe around my finger. “Remind me, did we ever end up passing Chemistry 101?”

She laughed in disbelief. “Sherlock fucking Holmes.”

A flock of birds flew past the window in no formation at all.

Still don't know what I was waitin' for
And my time was runnin' wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse of
How the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

- "Changes", David Bowie; 1971