sherlock holmes was quite unused to the concept of a confidant.

sure, he'd worked with police on and off again, blithered on drunkenly about some case to whoever was willing to listen to him when intoxicated- but nobody had ever seen the shivering, drunken lump of flesh and stayed.

not until you, at least. then again, you hadn't much a choice- you'd been assigned dorm mates at the beginning of your freshman year of college. now juniors, you were...shockingly close. you hadn't expected being able to stand him for that long.

but he was actually rather nice to have as a friend (he seemed to flush up with pride whenever you referred to him as such).

though emotionally constipated and sort of oblivious when it came to anything socially, he was kind to you as best he could be. he cared for you deeply, even if he showed it in the oddest ways possible.

like the time he'd ecstatically showed you pictures of a dismembered corpse, paused half way through ranting, and asked you what your favorite part was. or when he'd brought you a snake. no prompting- just. a snake. presumably from the roadside. he was sort of feline, in that aspect.

the snake's name was gregson and he lived in the best enclosure you both could afford.

it made up for his fluctuating emotional availability- from complete null to lethally attention-starved and his general lack of taking his housemate responsibilities.

oh, and he was smart, which meant he could help you with your school-mandated maths work. a bonus- a large one at that.

though it did come with giving him a free pass to make fun of you on the egregious attempts you made.

"what were you trying to do here?" he mused through a cheek full of pizza crust late one thursday night. or maybe early friday morning, you'd lost track. "not even close to the proper formula."

his face, though blank, seemed to betray his exasperated amusement- people really were so stupid sometimes.

the tv played continually on in the background, sherlock's eyes darting to the colorful screen every thirty seconds or so before training back on your laptop and the bedraggled piece of scratch paper you'd produced.

he was sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the couch. the laptop was perched on the coffee table- eternally messy as it was.

his free hand- the one that he was not using to pluck numbers into text boxes- held a drooping slice of pizza. he'd added bell peppers onto it himself after you'd refused to order such a monstrosity.

"my god, did you learn nothing in secondary school?"