Set after 2.01 I know this is quite dark for me, and the first bit is quite extreme (and not particularly well written), but I find it really hard to re-write stuff I've already written and I hate deleting stuff even more x However I started this back last March and just haven't gotten round to completing it since x

I know Sherlock is a bit emotional, but that's why I set this after 2.01 x John and Sherlock have an even better relationship by this time and Sherlock is kind of mentally unsettled because of Irene Adler, and the realisation that he isn't entirely robot, and John is quite curious about that side of him as well x Please read and review x I also used some inspiration from Hydrochloric Coffee by JuubiOokami :)

*This has already been reposted, and probably will be for a few days*

It was a chilly April evening, a spot of rain pounding on the windows and roofs. John, Lestrade, Sally and Anderson had gone to 221B Baker Street to see Sherlock about a new case involving a dead woman and a piece of string. Of course, Anderson was baffled so they'd gone to visit their favourite consulting detective. Sadly (for Sally and Anderson) he was their only consulting detective.

In the time since their arrival he had deduced that Anderson and Sally were on the rocks, Lestrade's wife had left him (again) and John's sister Harry was back in her AA meetings (and back out of them again – not that she'd told John that). John had then deduced that Sherlock was in fact fast asleep. And sleep deducing. He'd heard of people doing strange things in their sleep but had never seen anything like this. And he'd been fighting a war in Afghanistan.

Sally and Anderson (why was he only referred to by his second name?) were both visibly disturbed by this new show of freakishness, Sally even more so than usual. Lestrade was getting there. In this state Sherlock wasn't even restrained by any of the few social niceties he abided by. Or the one's John forced him to comply with. This was pure Sherlock, raw insanity and genius in the guise of sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes and a mop of thick black curls. In his flat, surrounded by the clutter of his insanity, he was rather frightening, and more than a bit malicious.

The flat was quiet. Sherlock's recent deductions, more brutal than normal, had rendered them all silent.

Suddenly Anderson froze, a new though occurring to him as he watched Sherlock's edgy movements, a new light dawning in his eyes. "I did psychology at school. I wasn't the best at it but I was good enough."

"You weren't the best at anything," Sherlock said snidely.

Anderson looked at him with an odd expression. "I do remember some of the stuff though. I was really interested, so I did some extra work."

Everyone looked at him as though he was insane and Sherlock made several derogatory remarks about his intellect. Even when fast asleep, Sherlock loved to offend Anderson. A slow grin spread across the forensic scientist's face. "He can't lie. Not when he's like this. He has to tell the truth."

The others quickly caught on with different reactions to this news. Sally had a similar grin to Anderson's plastered on her face, despite their current relationship issues. Both John and Lestrade were alarmed.

"So he can't lie to us?"

"No."

Sally smiled cruelly. She would finally be able to get her own back for all of the humiliation that she had suffered at his hands; all the times he had insulted her publically, in front of her colleagues. He had destroyed her formerly good reputation with the other officers by smearing her and Anderson's affair all over the department.

"I bet the freak won't like that. Would you like that?" She directed the question at Sherlock.

"Excuse me; you'd actually have to make the question you are referring to clear."

"You can't like to us. I could ask you anything."

"And I'm sure you will." His vacant eyes hardened. "But I'm not sure you'll like everything that you hear."

Sally disagreed, wanting to finally get her own back on the consulting detective. "Freak. Do you mind it when I call you that? Do you mind it when I call you freak?" She asked maliciously. This time she wanted to take no chances that she was misinterpreted – she wasn't going to be called an idiot by a man who wasn't even conscious.

"No." His reply was short.

"Why not?" Psychopath, sociopath or just cold, he had to have some sort of feelings. Just once.

"It doesn't hurt when you say it. I've known nothing different, been called a freak all my life." Sally looked taken aback by that.

"Who else called you a freak?" Anderson asked. Everyone in the room could guess already but he just wanted to pleasure of hearing Sherlock admit it aloud.

"Random people, people at crime scenes, you two, people in college, children in school, children, aren't we all children? And their teachers ..."

"Yes?" Anderson insisted, knowing Sherlock was avoiding the question for some reason. The pause was ominous.

"My father," Sherlock whispered, barely audible if not for the tense silence in the room.

"What?" Everyone in the room was stunned by that revelation.

Sherlock just stood by the window humming, still as a statue. John stepped forwards hesitantly, wondering whether he should intervene.

Lestrade this time, his curiosity kindled at last, both by horror and fear at what he might hear, "What do you mean your father?"

"He called me a freak." Sherlock swayed slightly, off balance, as though he was surprised by the revelation, delving into his own memory.

"Why?"

"He hated me. Hate. Such a strong... Loathed me with everything he had and always made sure I knew it very clearly."

John was worried now for the empty tone in his friends voice. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock sighed softly, staring blankly out of the window into the night and watching the rain fall with sightless eyes. "I suppose you would call it abuse."

The room was silent.

Sally choked.

"Abuse?" John's voice was barely more than a stifled whisper, warring with the urge to throw out Anderson and Donovan and keep getting this strange insight to his unbalance friend.

"He hated me, hates me, Mother ignored me and Mycroft did nothing." His tone was scarily blank. "To be fair Mycroft was only a child himself. Still only a child. Children. Both of us..." His voice trailed off.

"Is that why you don't get on with him?" Lestrade was trying to steer Sherlock away from explicit details that Sally and Anderson could extract from him if they were provoked, Anderson more so than Donovan.

"He knew what was happening. And still I suffered. I know it wasn't really his fault. But I can't help resenting him – why did he get to eat, to sleep in a bed? When did he earn the right to be neutral if not outright loved by father? I hated him for it. And I know it wasn't his fault. His failure to help me then – it's why he has the surveillance. Why he worries." Sherlock rambled on, his confusion hidden behind his cold tone. His words were clear for once. John wasn't sure if he wanted his friend to shut up now, or carry on saying all the things he never would if he was awake. "He never used to worry."

Everyone was staring at the detective in horror.

"That's when I started to hate myself. Father hated me; no one cared, so I must've been doing something wrong." He was making scratching motions at his wrists, blank eyes flicking around dangerously.

Sally asked curiously, "What's with the sleeves?"

The detective grinned feverishly, a move even more maniacal with the emptiness in his eyes, before pulling the cuffs up to his elbows showing a myriad of scars and scratches. "The knives were the few friends I had growing up." His head twisted slightly, popping, and he swayed again against the window. "Friends? Are we friends?" He asked no one.

Everyone stepped back a few paces, disturbed (even more so than usual when confronted with Sherlock Holmes). "If you get into my file, the real one, not the imitation the police have, you would see me." He looked directly at Lestrade without seeing him. "You never would have let me go on the drug charges."

"Why wouldn't I?" Lestrade, against his better wishes, was intrigued.

Sherlock snorted derisively, heading towards his chair and leaning back in it, fingers splayed like when he was awake and thinking. He cocked his head. "You would have let me out? Not if you saw my file."

Sally now, "What's in your file?"

"Not if you saw it."

"What's in your file?" Anderson's voice rose to a shout. John strode forwards once again, to throw the pair of them out of the flat - they had no right to hear this - but froze at the hidden pain in his friend's voice, the quiet agony.

"Me, my past, all the things I've done. What I'm capable of. What I've created." His sentences were disjointed and not making any sense – well, even less sense than usual.

"What have you created?" John spoke soothingly, moving closer to Sherlock as though he were a spooked horse, away from Donovan.

"Myself." He cackled hysterically. "Never let me out – not if you saw my file."

Anderson was annoyed with the lack of clear response from the baffling detective, who was being more cryptic than usual, despite his inability to lie. "What is in your file."

"Me. Everything I've done to myself." This time the cackle sounded more like a sob. "Victim of child abuse, the self-harm, the suicide attempts, the anorexia, the knives, the drugs. You should never see my file." Sobs burst from his throat, strangled. "Don't let them see my file. Please don't let them," he begged no one. The arrogant detective was begging.

Even Anderson didn't care after hearing what Sherlock had said.

Lestrade spoke, voice trembling, "Why shouldn't they see your file Sherlock?"

"Because then they'll find out what a freak I am."

The detective was acting so out of character, John though he'd landed in another universe, but this was Sherlock. John knew his change in attitude came from the inhibitions that came with being fast asleep and the pain that came with talking about his past. Even Sherlock had feelings – and John knew that better than most.

"What should we do?" Sally looked desperately at Lestrade, knowing Anderson would have less of an idea than she did. John glared at her, wanting her out, now, and knowing that he should have thrown her out a while back, back before Sherlock had started getting personal.

Sherlock had been right.

They didn't like what they had heard. Not at all.

Sally and Anderson excused themselves as quickly as possible, to wipe their minds of what they'd heard. They knew that in the morning it would be business as usual with the Freak (Sherlock, it was Sherlock) and they needed time to hide their horror. Sally could barely hide the guilt she felt, knowing it would be even harder the next day.

Lestrade and John had stayed behind in 221B.

Sherlock had mostly calmed down, twitching slightly and still clawing at his wrists and arms. John managed to wrestle him into a seat, all the while not saying a word.

Lestrade didn't know what to say. He'd suspected some of this - spotting it was his job after all - and he had known Sherlock when he'd been going through withdrawal, some of his secrets spilled in the darkness of the nights. But he'd never known anything to this extent, not to someone he cared about.

"Sherlock," Lestrade spoke softly. "Are you alright."

"Never. Not fine. Fine. Not alright." Sherlock's mumbles were getting less and less coherent, getting quieter and quieter. He leant back in his chair and tucked up his knees, curling them beneath his chin like a child. He looked tiny and fragile, his slim frame only emphasising it. "Fine. Not fine, fine."

Lestrade choked back a sob at seeing the detective like this and ran a hand through the messy mop of hair. The detective had never been this bad even in the withdrawal.

John came back from the kitchen, where he'd been watching sadly, armed with three mugs of tea. Coffee was for staying up he said, and none of them would need help with that tonight.

Lestrade cupped one of the mugs and the other one was for Sherlock, when he woke up. Sherlock was still curled up in the armchair, rocking over so slightly, still mumbling under his breath, eyes blank with sleep.

It didn't take long before his breathing evened out and his trembling stopped. His knees dropped from his chest, his feet landing back on the floor, but somehow still looking younger than he ever had before.

Both the doctor and the DI sat and sipped their tea, watching and refusing to fall asleep.

Dawn found all of them curled up in their chairs the next morning, a single mug of stone cold tea on the table.