"Because John, I was afraid."
He hadn't meant to say that. Why had he said that? Sherlock clenched his teeth together, but there was no way he could remove those words that hung so obviously in the air. There was silence, John was staring at him with a look of disbelief, and even Mrs Hudson had turned to face him, her mothering eyes filled with sympathy. It made Sherlock's stomach twist. He could never understand sympathy, he never saw any logic in feeling apologetic for the misfortunes of others, particularly if it had nothing to do with the sympathetic. Let the misfortunate deal with their misfortunes, never encroach upon their privacy and probable desire to keep it hidden.
Sherlock realised that he was placed in a position where all of his power lay on his tongue, but he was used to that. His quick wit and scathing vocabulary had come in handy growing up with a brother who loved to make him feel inferior. Over the years he had refined his craft, he knew just what to say to hide behind locked doors his darkest secrets. And yet somehow they always came out. But never before had he been the one to divulge his own inner wounds.
He remembered when Lestrade had picked up on his addictions. That had been an awful time for him, having the older man always hovering at his elbow, stalking out his house. He had refused to let him work any cases, and Sherlock supposed he had always felt as though Lestrade had made him feel so weak and inferior on purpose. It was what Mycroft had done.
When his brother had first come across Sherlock's stash of cocaine, hidden expertly under the floorboards of his closet, the first thing he had done was lock Sherlock in his closet and screamed at him for being so stupid. Sherlock was sixteen years old, his brother twenty three. He had felt trapped and exposed at the same time, but he had shouted back that Mycroft needed an intervention on his addiction to pudding, and that had made him open the door.
Mycroft was red in the face, sweat beading on his brow. His lungs were inflating and deflating rapidly as he was breathing through his nose heavily. It was the first time Sherlock could remember Mycroft being at a loss for words, he was always so eloquent. He had gathered up Sherlock's stash and taken it, shooting a look of disgust over his shoulder as he left. Sherlock had remained standing in his closest, his secret hiding spot cracked open like an ugly scar, all his dirty secrets streaming out. Mycroft had tried to stop him, but he couldn't. Everything Mycroft said, Sherlock had to do the opposite, it was the way he was raised. He was so used to Mycroft's disapproval that he felt he subconsciously sought it out. It was much preferable to the other option. He couldn't stand the thought of having a real brotherly connection with the man who always made him feel vulnerable.
When Lestrade had found out about his recreational drug use, it wasn't much different. There had been shouting, his possessions had been ransacked, he could feel those beady eyes watching every move he made and turning him away every time he tried to show up at a crime scene.
One time he had been having a particularly bad afternoon. His fingers were twitching uncontrollably, his mind had been running in double time, and he just wanted to shut it off. He wanted to think, to really see his surroundings the way the drug helped him see. But all he could think about was how long it had been since his last hit. He needed clarity, he craved it so badly. Sherlock had gone down to the station to see Lestrade, prepared to beg to be put on a case if he needed to. And, he thought, breaking into evidence would be easy enough, and he knew he could find a hit in there. But then he saw Lestrade's face, the way he could identify the exact moment his mouth had twisted in disappointment as his eyes registered how strung out Sherlock was. He felt a weight come down on him, the weight of expectations. Lestrade had expected him to be a better man than he was, and that thought made Sherlock feel more pensive than he had in a while. He thought that maybe he really should try to clean himself up, to make sure he never saw that look of disappointment again. He could deal with Mycroft's anger with a sharply barbed tongue, but disappointment sent him flinging backwards, struggling to find which walls would be suitable to throw up in his defence. He couldn't figure out what to do to prevent anyone from seeing any outbreak of emotion from him. But he knew he never wanted any of them to see any of it, it was his deepest and darkest wound. Lestrade's disappointment left him without any walls, he had no defence, only the ugly gapping scar of a secret need for validation and approval. Two things he was deprived of in his youth. He was ready to break down, to plead for Lestrade's help.
But then Lestrade's face had tuned bitter. He ordered Sherlock away, cursing under his breath. Sherlock's walls were immediately redrawn, his hidden wound tucked away in the darkest corners of his self, and with dignity and indifference he had retorted with a harsh comment about Lestrade's inadequacy as a detective, and dangled a clue about how to solve the case under his nose with no further explanation of answer.
That was the way Sherlock had always navigated situations that made him uncomfortable. He built walls around his wounds, he hid his scars, he pushed people away so they would never see the truth. They could never see how badly Sherlock wished he could be better.
But Sherlock's walls were crumbling, and he could feel it ever since Serbia. The prison in which he had hidden his fears had broken free from his seeping wounds, laid into his skin by his ruthless torturer.
"What are you afraid of?" John asked, any harshness in his voice seemed to be directed internally rather than at Sherlock. It was like a nightmare that he couldn't wake up from. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to feel so exposed and vulnerable and have to discuss his feelings like he was a normal person. Because then John would realise just how damaged he was, and that he didn't think there was any way he could be put back together.
His wounds had festered, and not just his physical scars. The scars on his mind from a childhood of neglect, of having any feelings or emotions he ever displayed immediately criticized by his older brother, had ripped holes inside of him that he could never fill. Cocaine had taken the ache away, solving cases had distracted his mind, but his wounds were always there, rubbing away at the edges of his mentality. He was damaged, and that was his biggest secret. The shame he had hidden away, the only thing he was ever afraid of.
Sherlock Holmes never asked anyone for help.
Because he had never believed he had ever deserved it.
