"Sherlock?"

John knocked tentatively on the bathroom door. "Sherlock, what did I do wrong?"

There was no reply from within.

John sighed and leaned his forehead against the door. "Sherlock, I love you, God help me. And if you don't let me in right now and tell me what's going on I will go completely insane."

He lowered his voice, a single tear falling from his eyelashes. "I can't live without you, Lock. Please let me in."

"Please."

Sherlock pressed his palms flat against his face, silent tears tracing glimmering tracks down his sharp, perfect cheekbones.

"John…" he whispered.

I can't live without you either.

I only wish I could let you in.

"The Sherlock I know wouldn't hide behind a door. He would tell me what's going on, and he would make me laugh, and he would call me an idiot, but I would love him anyway."

"The Sherlock I know is my whole world. And I care about him, past, present, and future. So he should open this door. Because I love him more than anything."

John heard a shuffling noise from inside the bathroom, and suddenly the door flew open. He was faced with a wet, sniffling mess of a consulting detective.

"J-John…" Sherlock trailed off. His eyes were hesitant, as if he wasn't quite sure of his next move.

John took Sherlock gently into his arms and pushed them both back into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind them.

He sat down on the bathmat and carefully pulled Sherlock down beside him, wrapping the long, lanky detective in his arms. He carded his hand through Sherlock's silky brown curls in a comforting gesture. "Shh, Sherlock…It's okay, I'm here…"

Sherlock's shoulders began to shake, and he laced his arms around John like a small child. "J-John…I'm s-sorry, I can't…can't t-tell you..."

John stiffened. "What do you mean, you can't tell me?"

Sherlock looked up, wiping tears from his eyes. "C-can't tell you…about that night…"

John carefully disentangled himself from Sherlock and took the detective's hands in his own. "Sherlock, you can tell me anything. I love you, and I will never, ever stop loving you, no matter what you tell me. You know that, right?"

Sherlock nodded. "I-I know, John."

John looked straight into Sherlock's eyes. "So tell," he said tenderly.

Sherlock took a deep breath. "You promise you won't…hate me?"

"Sherlock." John squeezed his hands. "I could never hate you."

Sherlock nodded, too overcome to speak. He sat up, leaning his back against the bathtub, never letting go of John's hands.

Finally, after a few minutes of silence which Sherlock had used to collect himself, he began to speak.

"When I was a child, my family was…fairly well off." He looked at John. "My parents always threw a Christmas party, every year. Mycroft and I were required to attend; mother and father's little examples, I suppose."

John shrugged. "Every parent likes to show off their children."

Sherlock nodded tersely. "Yes, I know." He coughed and continued. "I was five years old. I was sitting at the children's table with Mycroft. All the other children had gone into another room to watch some idiotic Christmas movie about little clay reindeer."

"Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." John interjected.

Sherlock shot him a glare. "The point is, Mycroft and I were far superior to the idiotic drabbles of a socially inept deer species with a nose problem. We chose to stay in the room."

Sherlock paused to sneeze, and John made a mental note to check on him for a cold later. Sherlock sniffed and continued. "The adults had a bit too much to drink, and my uncle came over to the children's table where Mycroft and I were sitting playing poker and eating cake."

"You played poker when you were five?" John asked incredulously.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes, do try to keep up, John. As I was saying, Uncle Dreyfuss came over to our table. He leaned down and poked Mycroft in the belly. He turned to my mother, Violet, and said 'This one's getting fat, Vi'." Sherlock hesitated. "Dreyfuss was my father's brother."

John nodded carefully. "So what did she say?"

Sherlock looked regretfully at John. "She said, 'You're right, George. He needs to watch his weight'. Then she went back to her wine and conversation."

"Mycroft, who was 12 at the time and playing on the junior rugby team, was crushed. He…" Sherlock trailed off and sighed. "As many times as I have said it, Mycroft is not and has never been fat. He was very toned at that age, in fact. However, when a person is drunk their vision and perception of the world is very warped, and Dreyfuss was no excuse."

"So what did Mycroft do?" John asked.

Sherlock laughed hollowly. "Nothing, of course. Mycroft was the calm and collected diplomat, even back then." His eyes turned cold. "But then…" he trailed off, trying to maintain his composure.

John squeezed his hands again. "Sherlock? I'm here. And I love you."

Sherlock nodded, unable to speak. Finally, he worked up the nerve. "Dreyfuss shoved Mycroft's head down into the cake on his plate. 'There, you little pig…get fat.'"

John gaped. "That's…that's horrible."

Sherlock looked downward, not trusting himself to look into John's eyes without breaking down. "Yes. I thought so too. Which was why I did what I did."

John looked up at Sherlock carefully. "Wait…you didn't kill him or anything, did you?"

Sherlock snorted. "Of course not. I was five, John…Moriarty may have been a murderer at five, but not me." He shook his head. "No. I threw my plate of cake at my uncle."

John's eyes widened. "That was brave."

"Yes." Sherlock said tensely. "And foolish. The whole room went silent. Then my father spoke. 'Dreyfuss, take that boy into my office and knock some sense into him, will you?'."

"But…" John trailed off.

"I tried to show him Mycroft's face, the cake plate, et cetera, but he wouldn't hear it. Uncle Dreyfuss grabbed me by the arm and dragged me, screaming, from the room." Sherlock's eyes looked haunted.

"He pushed me into Father's office and locked the door behind him. 'You little brat…you'll pay for this,' he said. He took one of father's hunting whips off his shelf and he…he whipped me. Brutally. Over and over…"

Sherlock turned around with John's help so that his back was facing him. John hesitated for a moment.

"Go ahead," Sherlock whispered. "Pull it up."

John pulled at the edges of Sherlock's soft tee shirt and apprehensively rucked it up to his shoulders.

His eyes blurred with tears when he saw what was there.

Sherlock's back was crisscrossed with vicious red and white lines, a mangled mess of stark white skin never exposed to the sun and tender flesh where the skin hadn't quite healed right. His spine jutted out in the middle of it, shoulder blades sharp on either side.

John skimmed his fingers gently over the faded scars. "You were only five. But he must have hit you far more than your years deserved."

Sherlock nodded, tears falling down his pale alabaster cheekbones. "Approximately fifty-two times." He pulled his shirt back down around his middle. "And there were the other times, too."

"There were more?" John almost growled. "Where is this bastard? I'm going to kill him, if he's not already dead. And if he is, I'll go dig up his body and kill him again."

"Mycroft took care of him years ago. I believe he was, conveniently, sacrificed in a little-known African tribal ritual." Sherlock said. "But there were many more times." He laughed hollowly. "Oh yes…many, many more."

He twisted his hands in John's. "After that evening, I observed something that I may have been better off to leave alone." He coughed. "Mycroft was not eating as much as he should have been and often smelled like vomit. At the age of six I got my hands on a medical dictionary and ascertained that he had both bulimia and anorexia."

"I tried to tell my parents." Sherlock said, voice hoarse. "But they wouldn't listen. They thought that I was trying to get attention."

"A few weeks later, Uncle Dreyfuss lost his job…and his girlfriend. He moved in with us until he could 'get back on his feet', as my mother put it. I never understood why. Uncle Dreyfuss had even more money than our family did."

John tilted his head. "Then why…"

Sherlock took a careful, shuddering breath. "A few months later, the day after my seventh birthday, I found out that my mother and Dreyfuss were having an…affair."

"Oh, God," John said, horrified. "That's awful."

Sherlock nodded. "Yes. And I, being the not-very-socially-aware child that I was, decided that it would be a good idea to blurt it out at the dinner table one night, when everyone in our family was there."

John sighed sadly. "Same old Sherlock."

"Needless to say, no one was very happy. I was inflicted with the same punishment again, from Uncle Dreyfuss, for my 'insolence'."

"Father divorced Mother after that. She never married Dreyfuss, though he lived with us for the next seven years of my life." He clenched his hands into fists inside John's. "It was hell."

"God, Sherlock…That's horrible. I'm…I'm so sorry." John said. He picked up Sherlock's hands and kissed the knuckles gently. "No one should have to go through that. Especially not you."

Sherlock said nothing.

Silence filled the room.

"You said…seven years? What happened when you were fourteen?" John asked.

"I left." Sherlock said bluntly. "Ran off to London and discovered drugs. I lived in gutters and back alleys. I sold everything I had, spent all my money on the drugs, to shut down the mind that had gotten me in so much trouble in the first place."

"You mean…you did drugs because…"

Sherlock nodded, ashamed. "I thought that if I used enough, I wouldn't be such a freak. My mind wouldn't get me in any more trouble if it was drugged."

John clutched Sherlock's hands tightly. "Oh, Sherlock…" he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Sherlock nodded. "I know. I am too."

John pulled Sherlock into a tight embrace. The detective's shoulders began to shake with silent sobs, and John felt tears falling down his back. He held him even tighter.

"The past doesn't have to dictate the future, Sherlock. You told me, and I love you more than ever."

"B-but…how could you love me?" Sherlock asked, voice thick. "I'm…damaged. Scarred. Unlovable."

"Damaged? Yes. Scarred? Yes." John tipped Sherlock's chin up and looked straight into his beautiful cerulean-jade eyes. "Unlovable?"

He leaned forward and touched his lips to Sherlock's ever so slightly, eyelashes fluttering against the pale porcelain cheek.

"Never."