The Scars in the Man of Iron

by EchoResonance

A man isn't born strong. He is born dependent on his mother, and is later shaped by his environment. A man put through ridicule and torment must either become iron, or break like glass. But it isn't really that simple...Even the strongest man has scars from his past, scars he'll never be proud of

1. Prologue

He wasn't…well-liked. People mocked his very name, and they didn't wait until he turned around to do it. They would ridicule him straight to his face. They called him crazy, a freak, and said that on top of being nuts, he was a self-centered asshole that would someday be behind the murder instead of solving it. They laughed when he spoke, snorted in disgust when he walked in the room, sneered when he made a rather callous but entirely true observation. He was no more than an object of torment, something nasty that couldn't understand them, or else something beyond human emotion who didn't care what was said. Sure, he had his uses. The only reason his name was mentioned at all was because he was needed by the very people that seemed to despise him the most.

Sherlock knew all of this. How could he have missed it? Yet, in spite of all of their mockery and scorn, he continued to bear it for the sake of his cases, without showing any hint of emotion. It wasn't a far stretch for those people to say such cruel things about him, especially when they had yet to see him openly display any emotion except passive interest and irritation. He could certainly pass for an uncaring robot of a being, but he was an incredibly intelligent robot. He knew all of this as well. The man brushed it off time and time again, simply ignored their jabs or else just couldn't bring himself to care.

But was this how he truly felt, or was it just what everyone else saw? Was it possible that, behind that calm and collected exterior, was a man in agony, screaming for someone to see him, to hear him, to really and truly understand him? Could Sherlock Holmes possibly be hiding what nearly every single human being hides throughout the entirety of their lives? Hiding the desire that drove the human mind, the thing that made people push themselves harder and harder, just for a bit of recognition? It seemed unlikely, and to most, it seemed impossible. After all, when nothing could ever fracture such a perfect calm, that had to be because there was nothing behind the mask which could show through the cracks. It was simple enough. And yet…

Could Sherlock Holmes be hiding the need to feel accepted? Was he hiding a bitter pain in his heart, the pain of a man who knew deep down that this desire could never be fulfilled?