Sherlock let himself into the apartment, exhausted. He slumped down onto his sofa, closing his eyes. John would be back soon. He kept his eyes shut and pulled his legs in front of him so his knees were against his chest. He started to bang his head rhythmically against his knees, the new scar on his forehead feeling odd against his bony knees. It was less than half an hour later that John Watson came in through the door, soaked in London rain, his blonde hair slick against his face. Sherlock looked up.
"Hey" John said awkwardly.
"Why did you go away?"
"I told you. You needed to talk to someone."
"What if... What if I'd needed you?"
"Mycroft is nearby."
"I didn't say Mycroft, I said YOU. What if I'd needed YOU?"
"I was only at Harry's Sherlock. Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not bloody well okay! You made me talk! You left me here on my own and made me drag up old memories."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I promise. I just wanted you to get some help."
"I was fine. Forgotten a lot of it. But no, not anymore."
"I'm sorry." John said again.
"You're not allowed to leave now. Not after this. You have to stay and watch the floodgates and deal with the consequences of opening them."
"I promise I won't leave again. I didn't realise it would upset you. I'm sorry."
"Make me toast" Sherlock said in lieu of acceptance. John smiled and turned away, going to the kitchen to make his best friend toast.
An uneasy silence pervaded 221B that week. Sherlock was fidgety, bored, and dreading his next appointment with Annie. John was tense, wishing he'd handled his friend differently. He'd been an idiot. He'd done a psyche rotation in med school, he should have known that leaving someone alone when they'd just gone through trauma (like being hit by a murder's car) and had just revealed an even more traumatic past was a stupid idea. He was a doctor for heaven's sake. He should have known better.
Tuesday came too quickly for Sherlock's liking, and he got into his taxi with numb thoughts. He would have to bring it all back up again. All the things he had repressed, had never talked about, would all have to come back up. He blamed John and Mycroft in equal measure for it. Sherlock stood at the door of the large Victorian house just outside London, looking up at it. He felt more intimidated than he had last time. Eventually, a buzzer sounded, and a bored voice came crackling through the speaker on the wall.
"You coming in or what?"
"I'm coming" Sherlock said into the speaker. The door buzzed and opened slightly. He pushed it and went inside, back into the brightly coloured waiting room. Within minutes, Annie Stewart had called him back along the dark corridor to the unused child's therapy room.
"Good afternoon, Sherlock. How are you?"
"Fine"
"Did John come back?"
"Yeah. He didn't realise it would upset me." He said, trying to defend his friend
"Would you say that he usually misjudges people situations like that?"
"No he's good with people."
"Then surely he must have known that walking out on you was going to hurt you?"
"He didn't mean to hurt me. He didn't know I would be so sensitive."
"So it's not his fault. It's yours?"
"I... Yes"
"Sherlock, you spent most of our time last session making excuses for your father and brother. And now you're making excuses for John. You're making everything your own fault, blaming yourself for other's mistakes. Especially if they hurt you."
"I'm not! I'm laying out the truth. The truth is logical. The truth is that people don't set out to hurt others. The one getting hurt always shares the blame."
"How is it your fault that your father beat and starved you?"
"I was bad." Sherlock shrugged "he wanted me to be a better person, to be able to fit in with society."
"And how was it your fault that your brother hurt you?"
"He was stressed. He should never have had to cope with me. I made everything more difficult for him."
"And now John. How is it your fault that your best friend left you in a time of need?"
"I was being stubborn. He only wanted the best for me, even if he's misguided. I should have just caved and come to you before he had to leave."
"So you can satisfactorily blame everything bad that's ever happened to you, everything that everyone else has done to you, on yourself?"
"Yes."
"Sherlock, your feelings are typical of abuse victims. You want to blame yourself because it's easier to think that you are wrong or bad in some way than that the people who are meant to love and care for you didn't do it right. Some people come out of abusive pasts believing that they are worthless, some that they are bad or stupid or pathetic or weak. I believe that your father tried to teach you that you are bad, different from society's norm. But let me tell you this, Sherlock. You are not a bad person. You are not wrong. And you are not a weirdo. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"But you don't agree?" She could tell by his tone.
"No." Sherlock said. Annie sighed.
"Why do you believe you are to blame for other people abusing you?" She asked. Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, running his uncasted hand through his curly hair.
"I dunno. It just is. I just don't work like other people."
"I imagine that's true. But why does that mean that other people can hurt you without any consequences to them, not even from you?"
"I dunno!" Sherlock shouted "you want me to reveal something, to guess something big! Well I can't, okay? I can do anything, but not this! I can't sit here and talk about my feelings and who's to blame for what! I know the answers. It's a waste of everyone's time." Sherlock was panting with the effort that shouting his speech had taken. But he hadn't got up to leave.
"I'm sorry. But I disagree, Sherlock, I think you are more than capable of revealing things about yourself. I can tell that, in the past, whenever you have made yourself vulnerable, you have paid a price for it. But not with me, I promise."
"I don't want to talk" Sherlock said in a tiny voice, making him sound very young.
"I know it's hard. But you'll get through it, I promise." Annie never usually made promises to her patients.
"Okay" he whispered, intertwining his long fingers and resting his forehead on his hands. "What do you want to know?"
"We've already spoken about your father and brother. I would like to hear more about what happened in the run up to you leaving home. Principally the year you spent in a mental institution.
"Father sent me there when I was fifteen."
"Why?"
"I tried to kill myself with a massive overdose of heroin."
"Oh."
"So he sent me to this place..."
Sherlock clutched onto his backpack, slung over one shoulder. The nurses smiled at him, their white uniforms shining. Other teenagers milled around the room, watching the television and playing pool. He didn't want to be here. He didn't need to be there. The nurse took his arm and led him like a child to a small bedroom.
"This is yours. You can put your pack here, and then I'll take you to meet the others."
"No."
"I'm sorry?"
"I want to keep my pack"
"Why? What's in there?"
"Nothing, just a few of my things, some clothes that kind of stuff."
"Then why can't you leave it here?"
"It's important to me."
"Fine, whatever." The nurse shrugged, eyeing his black, shabby rucksack with disdain. Sherlock walked numbly back to the common room, and the nurse cleared her throat, calling for silence. Sherlock stood uncomfortably next to her, gripping the strap of his backpack like a life float. His brown hair was curly, a little shorter than it normally was. He was even thinner than usual, having spent the last two weeks in a hospital bed. He sported the hospital wristband, tattered on his wrist. He wore black jeans, a dark blue T-shirt and a zippy hoodie half way zipped. The nurse cleared her throat again, and the teenagers turned to face her. "This is Sherlock Holmes, he'll be with us for eight months minimum." She turned to Sherlock "what would you like everyone to call you?"
"Um... Sherlock?" He said, as though she was a little slow.
"All right. This is Sherlock, then. He'll be joining us for the suicide group session and for the addiction seminars." She dismissed the group with a nod, and they went back to their previous activities. "So, well then. There are some lovely people here, Sherlock, really nice boys and girls, I'm sure you'll love it here."
"Yeah, right"
"Okay. You go and chat to them, then. I'll make sure all your paper work and medication is ready for you"
"Cheers" Sherlock went to the nearest sofa and collapsed down onto it. He cast an eye around. The girl playing pool had tried to kill herself, like he had. The boy with the sun glasses looked as though he might be schizophrenic, he was jerking his head to talk to the air above him. The girl reading a magazine with her hand on her belly was clearly anorexic, her ribs sticking out visibly. Sherlock's ribs stuck out like that, he thought. The boy sitting in the corner, opposite Sherlock, was staring at him. Sixteen, abuse victim, psychotic break, hit the person abusing him, his father by the looks of the eyes, over the head with a frying pan. He looked cool. Sherlock stared right back at the boy, and he smiled. The other boy stood up, revealing a slender, short frame, and came over to Sherlock.
"All right?" He grunted. Sherlock clicked his teeth. "Alec, by the way."
"Sherlock"
"Nice. So, first usual question is how get I end up here."
"I won't ask. I already know. I could tell. You were abused by your father. He hit you, a lot. You had a breakdown and hit him over the head with a frying pan."
"Whoa dude, you been reading my file?"
"No. I deduced it."
"What?" He looked non plussed.
"Deduction. A science and an art. Working things out about people using the evidence you're presented with."
"That is so cool. I'd love to be able to do that."
"My brother taught me, but I had the ability first. I don't know if I can teach it."
"Fair play. Anyway, you know all about me, and I don't know a thing about you except your name."
"I didn't hit my father back."
"Oh. What did you do then?"
"I... I ODed on heroin."
"We're you trying to get high or off yourself?"
"You think they sent me here for getting high?"
"No. You want something to eat?"
"No. I don't eat."
"What, ever?"
"Not really."
"That your dad too?"
"I guess."
"Not mine. He was away all day, he'd only come home at night. Then a quick go on me for an hour, dinner and bed. I had the house to myself most of the time."
"Mine left me alone too, but most times with my big brother."
"Cool. I always wanted a sibling"
"I didn't."
"Right." Alec bit his lip, wandering what he was poking at. He decided to retreat. "Want to play pool?"
"Okay"
Annie looked at her patient sadly. She had never seen someone with so many scars, marked so deep into their psyche. Before Sherlock had turned sixteen, he'd been abused by his father and his brother, he'd resorted to drug use, attempted to kill himself, been admitted to a mental hospital and, she knew from are quick Internet search on him, been kicked out of four schools for fighting. And then he'd run away from it all, and lived on the streets for years. She felt sorry for him. But she didn't let it show on her face.
"Did you go to therapy at the institution?"
"I didn't say a word to them. Not on my own, not in group. I didn't fall for that stuff with art. I stayed in my room mostly, and if they made me go out, I played pool with Alec. But he left about six months in. So then I just wouldn't come out. I hardly ate, I couldn't stomach it. To be honest, all I wanted was to be left alone in that room with a lot of heroin and allowed to just leave. I wasn't being anything useful, just a waste of space, and if they let me just die, it would have been easier on everyone!" Sherlock was panting slightly, his voice had raised quite considerably.
"I'm just going to pick one thing out of that for the moment, Sherlock. Why didn't you tell them about your father or your brother?"
"I didn't want them to go to prison. They're my family." He said quietly, closing his eyes.
"Okay. Okay." She soothed. "It's time to end this session now, Sherlock. Will you come next week?"
"Yes."
"All right. I'll leave you to let yourself out. Bye Sherlock" she said everything gently, knowing how close he was to the edge of breaking down. She left the room, leaving Sherlock sitting on the too small bean bag alone. He sighed, and got up too, flicking on his phone and hitting speed dial one, Mycroft.
"Are you all right?" He said
"Yes. Send a car." Sherlock hung up the phone, waited a minute and then made his way outside and got into the black car. "Take me home, and then to Mycroft." He ordered. The driver, looking back at the slightly crazed man with wild hair and wilder eyes, did as he'd said. And soon, Sherlock, the driver, and a slightly confused John were on their way to see Mycroft Holmes.