John is a pre-med student in love with university life who wears ugly sweaters. Sherlock seems like he doesn't even want to be here. John is quit set on changing that.

John Watson wakes up particularly early today again. His alarm hadn't gone off and the sun is in its early morning rising, steadily embracing the earth with a soft, warm autumn glow. His roommate Mike is still asleep in the bed on the opposite side of the room, and most likely would still be sleeping for the next few hours.

On the days where John wakes up early, he enjoys going out for coffee, because cafes will always have better coffee than those instant crap packages he usually drinks. There's a café on the opposite side of the campus, a real honest-to-god hipster café like in the movies, and John really doesn't like to associate with hipsters but damn if their coffee isn't the best on the planet.

So he slips on a blue striped sweater (it's not ugly no matter what Mike says) because despite the warmth of the sun it's October and still fairly chilly, and sets off, careful not to disturb his sleeping roommate.

"Medium sized coffee, milk, no sugar, whipped cream, and uh…" John eyes the display case carefully. "Oh, and a strawberry Danish."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Jesus Christ!" The sudden deep voice from behind him startles John and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He drops the change in his hand and scrambles to pick it up and hand it to the cashier. How embarrassing. He snaps his head around to face a tall, dark haired man that, despite being so thin he might break in half if someone ran into him, looked so menacingly intimidating with his high cheekbones and that intellectual "I'm better than you and I know it" smirk playing across nearly perfectly shaped pink lips.

The man stares at him completely shamelessly, and gives a little shrug. "I'm just saying those pastries are quite calorie-packed, is all, and you look like you could do without."

John is actually quite shocked. Appalled, even. "Are you calling me fat?"

"On the contrary," is the other man's response. John takes note of just how impossibly deep that voice really is. "Your body type is rather aesthetically pleasing. I'd just not suggest eating pastries packed with fat every day can cause problems in the long run."

John snorts. "I do not eat pastries every day."

"No, I'd say thrice a week."

"Are you stalking me?"

Curly hair raises an eyebrow like John's question is absurd. "How rude. I've merely made an observation. The way you place your order without hesitation indicates you are a regular customer. When your eyes scanned the display case, they immediately locked with the Danishes, like you knew exactly where they were. I'd suggest you visited every day, but the way you were licking your lips and so obviously salivating at the thought of eating the delicacy shows you have yet to become accustomed to its taste, so I've settled on thrice a week."

John just sort of blinks, jaw gaped wide open in absolute astonishment. The man doesn't even seem that proud of himself after making such a wildly accurate assumption. "Blimey," John whistles. "Who the hell are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes," he says blatantly. And with that, Sherlock turns his attention to the cashier in front of him and places an order. "Coffee. Black. Two sugars."

John and Sherlock receive their orders at around the same time. John takes his cup of coffee and his pastry-albeit he's a bit reluctant to eat it now- and he's about to leave when he hears that deep voice next to him.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Excuse me?" John asks, turning towards the voice for the second time that morning.

"Your father. Is he in Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John shakes his head in disbelief. "How…?"

Sherlock shrugs. "You obviously come from a military family. Your hair is cut short and your posture is perfectly erect. Your face is a few years ahead of your age, most likely due to the stress of moving around so many times during your childhood."

"Are you calling me ugly?"

"On the contrary," Sherlock assures him. "I quite rather appreciate aged faces."

"Oh," John says, perhaps stammering a bit. "Uh, thank you, I suppose."

There's a bit of silence, probably more awkward for John than it is for Sherlock, and then John turns to finally leave.

"How long has your sister been an alcoholic?"

John spins around on his heels to stare wide-eyed at Sherlock, whose face seems to be completely indifferent.

"Your phone," Sherlock explains. "Sticking out of your back pocket. I can tell by the charger."

"Don't say another word," John snaps.

"By your defensiveness towards the subject, and I to believe she's not yet in rehabilitation? Or perhaps she has been, and failed?"

"Shut up."

"Does your father know, or is it a harbored family secret?"

John takes an angry step towards Sherlock, steam practically hissing from his ears. He points his coffee towards the man and shouts out, for the entire café to hear, "Don't you dare invade my life like that. You have no right to go around researching me."

"I didn't research, I observed."

"Bullshit," John snaps. "You, Sherlock Holmes, are a lying, insufferable bastard, I hope you realize this." And with that, he clicks his heels together and storms away, one hand tightly wrapped around his coffee and the other clenched in a fist so hard his knuckles begin to lose its color.

And yet despite the blatant invasion of his privacy, John can't stop wondering about Sherlock Holmes. Although there was a part of him that wanted to believe his outstanding deductions were all faked, there was a part of him that knew that faking a talent like that was stupid and worthless, and therefore must be real.

After his anatomy class, he joined his selective group of friends for lunch. It wasn't that John wasn't popular. He certainly wasn't an outcast, of course, rather normal, and he had a fair share of acquaintances, but he rarely considered someone a true friend until he was absolutely sure he could trust him.

"I met this horrible excuse for a human being this morning," John remarks, twirling a fork around a plate of Asian noodles.

"The prime minister?" Sarah asks, most obviously jokingly.

"Ssssh," Clara giggles. "The government's got all sorts of hidden cameras all over the country. If they catch you talking like that you'll be beheaded."

"They won't behead you," Mike argues. "You'll probably just rot in jail for the rest of your life."

John rolls his eyes. "Hello, does anyone actually care about my traumatic coffee shop experience?"

Sarah clears her throat. "Yes, sorry John, please continue on. Who was it that you have deemed an inhumane atrocity?"

"Sherlock Holmes," John says, the name rolling smoothly off his tongue like it was meant to be spoken by him and him alone.

Immediately, Mike and Sarah suck in a huge breath. "Oooh," they say simultaneously.

John is confused. "Oh my god, you know him?" And Clara just looks around like she had just woken up fifty years in the future.

Mike slowly nods. "Indirectly, of course. He's a chemistry major. He's a bit infamous around the science department, that's how Sarah knows, and I'm surprised you don't, since you and Sarah both are pre-med. I only know through my mate Greg Lestrade." Lestrade, John thinks to himself, son of a pretty important officer at Scotland Yard. "Apparently Greg is the closest thing Sherlock has to a friend."

John snorts as he takes a sip of water. "I wonder why. Bit of an egocentric douche, wouldn't you say?"

Sarah groans. "A bit? Why, I heard that in his freshman year he deduced that his math professor was having an affair with a professor over in the humanities department and made the both of them quit in shame."

"Sounds like him," John nods.

"Huge prude too, that one," Sarah continues. "He seems completely indifferent to any sort of relationship. I think he's asexual or something like that."

"Really?" Mike chimes in. "That's not what I've heard."

John raises an eyebrow. "Oh? And what have you heard?"

Mike looks around cautiously, like he's afraid someone is listening in, before he leans forward and whispers to the table "Rumor has it he's a queer. Supposedly got himself into an abusive relationship in secondary school with some bloke. That only probably turned him off from people entirely. Lestrade refuses to comment on it, but he doesn't exactly deny it either."

John blinks, perhaps a bit shocked. The Sherlock he had met seemed so high and mighty, he never would have guessed any sort of abusive past. Then again, John isn't too big on deductive reasoning.

"Massive genius, though," Sarah says. "I had a lecture class with him freshmen year. I swear he knew more than the professor himself. Certainly didn't hesitate in correcting the poor man every chance he got. He's an odd one, really. Apparently he hasn't got a roommate. Rumor has it he's scared off everyone who's tried rooming with him. I can't imagine why, unless he's got something repulsive like heads in the fridge."

"Oh, you remember that one year when that girl was killed right here on campus?" Mike asks.

John recalls that vividly. He was still in year ten when that happened. A terrible tragedy. A young girl at uni struck dead without a single bit of evidence left behind. The scene had nearly put off John from even applying to the university in the first place.

"Well, apparently Holmes helped the police solve that case," Mike continues.

"Bullshit!" John gasps. "He's our age! They wouldn't let a kid onto a crime scene!"

"Sure they would, if he's got connections. I heard he's best buddies with Scotland Yard itself. Either that or someone in his family is a pretty big deal in the government."

"I heard he's a druggie," Sarah comments. "Although don't take my word for it. He seems like he would, though. No one else can be that impossibly thin without help."

"Sorry I asked," John said, all the shocking information practically drowning him from the inside out. He checked his watch, realized that his next class was about to begin, and bade goodbye to his friends before leaving the cafeteria.

It wasn't a very far walk to the building where his next class was, but it still gave him ample time to think about Sherlock Holmes. Everything seemed outrageous, and he was sure half of all those rumors weren't even true, but when he really thought hard about it, it all actually made sense.

Was Sherlock Holmes even human?