For the prompt "Beast".
Sherlock's pale, trembling fingers ghosted the aberration that ravaged his face, his hand briefly brushing the slick remnants of his tears. Eleven centimetres of scarring ruptured his face, from his left eye to his chin. The pink indentation stuck out brashly from his pallid skin, the marks of the stitching still clearly visible.
And yes, the doctor's had done their jobs properly. They'd done well in patching him up after the bomb exploded, because God knows, he had been in a state. Sherlock had jumped into the swimming pool just a little bit too late, the blast ripping into the left side of his face and leaving destruction behind. He'd broken the surface of the water and seen his own blood mingle with it, creating a myriad of different patterns and swirling shapes. It was beautiful, in a weird sort of a way.
They'd told him how lucky he was to have survived, which he knew was true. But still, the mottled, blotchy quality of his skin was too obvious to miss, his once fine features disfigured by the speckled flesh. Because he had known, of course, about the kind of looks he received, it was obvious to anyone, let alone the world's only consulting detective. He had made an impression, turned heads, broken hearts before now.
So he noticed when they stopped, of course, and were replaced with something all the more wounding. The gapes of curiosity and revulsion felt like a blow to the chest, knocking all the wind out of him. Sherlock's flair for the dramatic withered as time passed, no longer wanting to draw attention to himself. When he did, he was only greeted with stares, and the absence of stares, and the occasional insult.
All these years, he had wanted to differentiate himself from others, and now he had. He wasn't treated as a person by strangers anymore, he was pitied. They pitied him. Oh, it would have been hilarious if it hadn't hurt so much. He wasn't sure whether to be angry, fearful or ashamed of himself, ashamed that he was very abnormal. He broke the mold, in the worst way imaginable. How could anyone stand to be in the same room as him, with someone with such a twisted and distorted appearance? Sherlock made himself uncomfortable, let alone anyone else.
So every time he saw Molly subconsciously recoil a little at his sight, the ache in his heart grew. And it grew, and it grew, and it grew, until he felt like one huge bruise; ugly, unnatural, unwanted. Damp shame clung to his grotesque form, weighing him down and stagnating. He felt like bits of old skin stitched together all wrong, hideously detestable flesh just waiting to burst apart at the seams.
When he and John were together in public, he noticed the stares more. They became so much more obvious when someone so… so whole was near, who received admiration from everyone who met him. Whilst John attracted others, Sherlock repulsed them. Not just them, John too. He noticed it sometimes, when he snuck up on John unexpectedly, he was often unprepared to deal with what he saw. That tiny flinch of repugnance shuddered and ached more than a thousand insults.
Beauty is only skin deep, someone once told him. But who would bother to look beyond the surface value of some so utterly monstrous?