Being Sherlock Holmes is hard sometimes.
He's brilliant, yes, but he can't get his head to shut up. It's one of those nights again – John's out with a woman who's technically still married and definitely still in love with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, but Sherlock kept that to himself because John hates it when he ruins things.
He's not trying to ruin things, he's trying to help.
And nights like this, with John away and no case to work on, Sherlock's mind spins and spins itself until it tumbles downwards and into the dark place again. He boasts that he only holds on to relevant information, but how relevant can the memory of the bullies in pre-school and primary school and secondary school and university be? How much knowledge can he glean from the words freak, spectacle, you-should-be-in-a-circus-not-in-my-class?
Usually it's John who gets upset over the things Donovan says, or Anderson mutters, or even what clients who don't like what his results shout, until John closes the door in their face. And John certainly cares too much about what people say on his blog – as if anyone would care what a middle aged man with no family (at least none who care about him), and an almost chronic wrist twitch has to say?
Freak. Psychopath. Freak. Know-it-all. Freak. Monster. Machine.
Sherlock's hands fist in his hair and he pulls – sometimes it makes the torrent of memories stop but usually, usually it gets worse.
Tonight it's worse than it's been in a while, and the voices in his head get louder and louder and louder and louder until he jumps down from the armchair he's crouching on and strides into his bedroom, opening the top drawer and pulling out his gun.
Everything in his head falls silent, except for one tiny voice.
Do it. It encourages. Do it, who will miss you?
Other voices join in, taking up the chant, until the 'do it's are louder than the words before, and Sherlock's making all the calculations like it's the first time he's thought about this.
Where will the blood spatter; what's the best angle to reduce pain; length of time to die from a fatal shot to the head?
And he almost does it, almost pulls the trigger. But he puts the cold tip of the gun in his mouth and his mind races back to that day, to the deductions about his gunshot wound and the cause of it and how he almost died (because he knows what he'd say with only minutes to live) and it's put into perspective because of John.
He couldn't do this to John Watson. Not after everything John has done for him.
So he slowly withdraws the gun, puts it back in the drawer and shuts it with a click. He dons his dressing gown and finds the eyes which he's been keeping in the fridge for some time.
When John gets home – obviously annoyed because the woman forgot that her husband would be over that night, and so when the pair of them walked in, there he was on the sofa – he finds Sherlock in the kitchen, avidly watching the microwave
"Don't tell me," John says with a shake of his head. "I don't want to know." He smiles, though, and although Sherlock makes no move to respond, he's feeling better already, and the voices go quiet for another night.