Defenseless

"I'm tired of defending my character. I am what I am. What you see is what you get." ~Dana Plato

Sherlock quite often went to a gym near Brownstone where he would stand for what felt like hours pounding away at the sandbag before him, with or without Watson, it didn't matter. Someone in his line of work not only needed to stay in shape, they needed to know how to fight and as Watson had so aptly put it, he needed to fight dirty. Criminals weren't always ones known for fighting fairly after all, but that also wasn't the entirety of the reason behind why he came there either. He was tired of being the victim.

As a child in school, his boyhood was often plagued by memories of schoolyard bullies, as if they were singling him out for being different from all of the rest, like they were trying to correct his behavior or to make him different or perhaps even a little stronger or better than what he was. The more that he thought of it, the more he felt the need to learn how to fight and to protect himself so that he would never be in that position ever again. Criminals were all bullies after a fashion, were they not? All with their own agendas that would knock down anyone who got in their way to clear their paths, cover their trails, and use others in ways that they saw fit. Part of being a consultant meant bringing those very same bullies to justice in his eyes.

He continued to pound away, blow after blow, until long after everyone else was gone and he was there alone, save for the manager who was on the computer in the back room with light music playing in the background. Determination coursed through his veins as he continued to punch harder and faster as his brain kept track of the sheer numbers that he was able to land on the single target before him, the faces of the different bullies kept flashing before him pushing him forward. It's not that he was pretending to punch their faces in, but he they served as a reminder to him of what could happen if he wasn't entirely prepared to defend himself against everything that may come his way.

The body wasn't the only thing that one could learn how to train of course; the mind was as much of a muscle as the rest of your body. If you didn't train it, it too would become to weak to be of any use to anyone. Sherlock read lots of books, studied different languages, as well as body language, he learned to pick locks and anything else that he could think of, which had helped him on more occasions than his physical strength training.

"You're still here?" the voice came as a question and not that of an accusatory statement from the manager. It was Watson coming to look for him and she sounded worried. "I was looking all over for you, are you alright?"

He allowed himself a momentary pause in punching the sandbag and dropped his arms to his sides as he looked over to her. He was obviously not alright, but he couldn't tell her what was on his mind without causing her even more stress and worry than he had already given to her.

"I'm fine." He muttered, looking down at his bare chest, noticing all of the sweat that he had collected during his hours of punching the bag over and over again until he could wear himself out. "But I'll be sore in the morning." He jested, hoping that would be enough to draw her mind away from the matter at hand, but she knew him better than that by now, she knew him better than anyone else as a matter of fact.

"I don't believe you." Came her next predictable words as he stooped over to pick up his towel out of his bag to dry off. "You left and didn't tell me where you were going and then you don't answer your phone for hours. There's something that you're not telling me."

"I've been here, punching this bag… and maybe a few of the other guys that just happened by in the arena. Just ask that man over there, behind his desk. He has been there all day, he'll tell you." He pointed to the manager who was now pretending not to listen to their conversation from behind the computer. It must have been an extremely dull job just sitting there all day long with nothing at all to do every day; certainly a bit of drama was just what he needed by that point, but Sherlock wasn't going to give in and give it to him. It would be a show of weakness and that was something that he could not afford to do any longer.

"Do you really expect me to believe that you have just been standing there all day for no reason?"

"No. I've been punching this bag." He retorted, causing a roll of her eyes. "I can assure you that I was only blowing off some steam, Watson. There's no need to worry."

"Sherlock… you know that you can come to me, anytime that you need to talk." She desperately wanted to break through to him, that he knew, she wanted to help but he just couldn't open up to her as well as she would have liked or as well as he would have liked to himself. "Is this about Irene? You need to be open about this, Sherlock…" She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder in a gesture that suggested that she cared very deeply, and that she meant every word of it. He wanted to open up to her, but it was almost as if there was some kind of brick wall there, one that he had built himself to protect himself from the world around him. Brick after brick after brick, he had built that wall from the ground up, even from her, the one person that he loved most in the world and he couldn't even show her how much he cared.

"No, it is not about Irene." He responded, taking off his gloves and tossed them into the bag along with the rest of his belongings. "How did you find me here anyways?"

"I noticed that your bag for the gym was missing after I went home to look for you, so I knew there was only one place that you could be."

Sherlock nodded his head in response to her answer as it was of no surprise to him, because she was a smart woman and she had obviously learned well from his teachings. "If you don't mind, I would like to have a shower." He picked up his bag and then gave her a sympathetic look. "If you will give me at least ten minutes to clean up, we can go for a coffee and then I will try to express to you what has been on my mind."

"How do I know that you won't slip out the back window when my back is turned?" she crossed her arms defensively over her chest.

"You don't. But you will just have to trust me." He replied before he turned his back to head off to the locker room. Slipping out a window somewhere, he had to admit, was quite an attractive idea at the moment. Sherlock wanted to run as far away as he possibly could if it would mean that he didn't have to open up to Watson, share his inner most thoughts, to feel… vulnerable. Being vulnerable to someone else, it meant having a great deal of trust for the other and he knew that he had that with his partner, but that didn't mean that he necessarily liked it. In fact the thought it was more frightening than staring down the barrel of a gun sometimes, or at least that's the way that he had felt after having several guns pointed at him over the years.

Sherlock tossed his bag down on one of the many benches and looked around the room before undressing. Modesty was never something that he really cared much for, but it was still curious to him that he was the only one who was still there to work out; surely there must be someone somewhere else in the building besides the manager.

Making quick work of washing off, Sherlock stepped out and got dressed in his t-shirt, scarf, and coat and then met with Watson who was sitting on a bench waiting patiently by the door. "At least now I will be slightly more bearable to be around." He smiled and walked over to the door to hold it open for her to walk out first.

"So are you going to tell me what that was all about? I was worried that you might have had some kind of relapse." She said, looking up at him, concern was clearly there in her eyes and he turned his head.

"Every time that I go missing you seem to think that I have had a relapse." He stuffed his hands in his pockets to have a look around. It was already dark outside, no wonder she was getting worried. "I would have thought that you would have had a little more trust in me by now, Watson."

"I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be. You were only concerned about my well being, and for that I owe you a fair bit of gratitude." He stopped in his path, causing her to turn to look at him. "I appreciate you more than you know… and you mean a great deal to me, but it's hard for me to express that fact as openly as I would like."

Watson nodded in understanding.

"I would like to have you believe that I was entirely over everything that happened to me as a child, that the bullying didn't have any long term effects on me, but the truth is, it did. You said once before that I fight dirty and I told you that I fight without mercy. That was only but part of the truth. I fight the way that I do because I know that in a long run, it will be more to my benefit. I learned from my bullies that real fights are never truly as fair as you would have liked them to be and that your attacker will use any means necessary to make you bend to their whims and I have no intentions of being their punching bag ever again."

Watson kept her eyes trained on him the entire time that he spoke, giving him her full attention, just as she said that she would any time that he wanted to open up. A true friend, but it was her face that came after that was the most dreaded part of having a conversation with another about these matters. The look of what some might call pity. He hated seeing that look. He didn't want or need their pity. "I felt defenseless when they came at me with their fists; when I was but a toothpick to some of the other boys within the school. All of the teachers, they just looked the other way… so from that I took that I needed to learn how to defend myself because no one else would come to my rescue."

"I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. In fact, I would prefer it if you didn't." he replied, hoping that she wouldn't take it the wrong way.

"Is that why you don't like opening up to people? Because being open about yourself makes you somehow feel like you're letting your guard down?" she asked, taking a step closer to him, his gaze following her as she moved closer and closer.

"That's part of the reason, I suppose." He answered, feeling his stomach trying to tie itself in knots at his admission of his own weakness. "Watson, I would truly like for it to be easier for me to open up to you, but it's not as simple as it sounds… not for me at least."

Watson shook her head 'no' in response, but then a smile formed upon her lips as she looked him over. Sherlock couldn't help but notice that it looked as though it was almost a proud smile that flickered across her features which momentarily confounded him. "You have improved so much during the short amount of time that we have known each other. I have faith in you that you will continue getting better at this, but only when you're ready. You can't force yourself and neither can I."

Sherlock smiled, grateful for Watson's tenderness on the subject matter at hand. "Right. Shall we go for some coffee then?"

Watson nodded and took hold of his arm before heading off down the sidewalk towards the nearest coffee shop. He had grown rather fond of this certain closeness that the two of them were able to share with one another and grateful for her understanding that he was different than the rest. Watson had a firm hand when she needed to use it of course, but it was something that he felt that he needed, even welcomed at times. She had helped change him for the better and she did it with a kindness that no one else had ever been able to present to him and that was more than he could ever ask for.