A/N: Spoilers through Series 1, episode 2 - The Blind Banker. This one's just a quick one-shot. Sherlock seemed so lost, looking away when Sebastian called him freak and said that everyone hated him at Uni. John quickly corrected him when he called him his friend - changed it to colleague, and Sherlock looked like he couldn't figure out why. My take on the thoughts in that "funny old head." Sherlock's kinda angsty/mopey, but I know I would be too if I was being degraded after being asked to come in and solve a mystery. :(

"This is my friend... John Watson." The sound of the word felt right - it was heavy with meaning, so much meaning, and I thought that maybe... Maybe I might be worthy of just one friend in this lifetime.

"Friend?" Sebastian's surprised. Why? Is it really so inconceivable to everyone that I might have a friend? Am I truly so inhuman that friends are not something the rest of the world thinks I should have? Or is this that notion that when a man says friend he means lover? I've never been good at telling the difference, and never had a need to be able to do so before. Perhaps I should try harder...

"Colleague." Colleague. How clinical. Not forty minutes ago he was going to ask me for a loan against his debts and now I'm once again merely his colleague - neat, tidy, no uncomfortable questions or shifting apart for sitting too close to a colleague. Why wasn't friend good enough? Haven't we become friends over the last few weeks?

Sebastian looks a touch uncomfortable - fingers tugging at his collar, smile a little too amused, he's trying not to look nervous while giving every indidcation that he is. Perhaps he thinks he's walked into a lovers' spat?

"Right." Now he'll offer us coffee, tea, anything to break the moment. Very uncomfortable. Is it me, then? Am I the cause of his discomfort? We graciously refuse the offers. He's molified, at ease again.

Does the idea that I have a friend - just one, one friend, that's all - really make people so concerned?

"You're doing well. Been abroad a lot." Praise - everyone loves to hear praise. His smile is wide and inviting - he wants more, wants to hear me talk him up. He always was vain. Seems he's gotten worse since Uni.

"Some."

"Flying all the way around the world, twice in a month?"

"Right. You're doing that thing." He's looking at John like they're in on some little joke that I wouldn't understand. But I do. I've always been the joke, to everyone else. "This guy here had a trick he used to do."

"It's... not a trick." I've been over this so many times. Observation and deduciton are not magic - they are science and reason, and if the rest of the world attempted them more often...

Well, I'd be out of things to do. Dull. I suppose it's not so terrible that everyone else is an idiot.

"He'd look at you and tell you your whole life story."

"Yes, I've... seen him do it." Was that possibly admiration that John just flashed at me? Admiration for a colleague? Are you not allowed to admire me if we're friends? Why can't I be his friend? What's so wrong with the word friend? I just want the one...

"Put the wind up everybody, we hated him." Hated me. Of course they did. I was different. And simple minds hate anything that's different. "You'd come down to breakfast in the formal hall and this freak would know you'd been shagging the previous night."

"I simply observed." All these years later, and it still hurts. Why can't I make it stop hurting? I can turn off everything else but that, it seems. I can't even look him in the eye right now - suit jacket it is then. Freak. Hate. No wonder I have no friends. Not even one. Not even John.

Having a friend has never been something I worried about before. Why now can I not stop myself from worrying about it?

"Go on, enlighten me." A challenge. "Two trips a month, flying all the way around the world - you're quite right. How could you tell?" The same way I could tell when you'd been shagging your girlfriend's best friend. Pity Marian never believed me - I would have loved to watch you fall, back then... "You're going to tell me there was, um, a stain on my tie from some special kind of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan."

"No, I-"

"Or it was the mud on my shoes." So smug. I want to beat that smugness out of you. You were popular and ill-mannered at Uni and you haven't improved, it seems.

"I was just chatting with your secretary outside." Face still schooled into that ridiculous smile. There, I've stopped acting like a freak. A normal person would ask the secretary about you. I'm normal, are you happy? Normal people get friends. I'll keep being normal if I can just have one... "She told me."

He laughs. He's amused. But he still thinks I'm a freak, it's there on his face as plain as anything else is. I'm not normal - I never will be. But I would try - my god, how I would try - if I could just have one friend for my own. If I could just call John my friend without him rushing to correct me...

Everyone has friends, don't they? Even Mycroft has a few people he considers his companions. People he can go to when he wants advice or needs a favor. But I have no one. Not even John.

Well, not yet, at least...