Sherlock's secret

CHAPTER 1

Sherlock audibly gasped as he heard the door to 221B slam shut.

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit..." he repeated, as he ran around the kitchen trying to clean up the damage as best he could. As he heard his flatmate's footsteps draw closer, he hung his head in defeat and leant over the kitchen bench.

"Sherlock! I'm home. Mary had to cancel her appointment so we could go to the lab earlier if you'd- Sherlock?" John paused, taken aback as he saw his friend shirtless, hunched over, in obvious pain.

"Sherlock?" Being the only Consulting Detective's Roommate, John had seen some pretty weird stuff. A bag of thumbs? No worries. Eyeballs in the microwave? Normal. A severed head in the fridge? What's the issue? But seeing Sherlock like this, so...vulnerable, struck fear into John's heart.

"Sherlock, you okay?" He cautiously approached his friend while attempting to sneakily peer over his shoulder to see what he was so obviously trying to hide. Sherlock realised what John was trying to do and moved his back to block his view of the sink. John thought he saw blood on Sherlocks arm.

"Mary cancelled her appointment? How very unlike her, wouldn't you agree?" Sherlock said, attempting to reroute the conversation.

"Her sister was in a minor car accident, but that's not the point, Sherlock. What are you doing?"

"John, I'm fine." John thought he could hear tears in Sherlock's voice. "I'm absolutely fine, now would you please -"

Sherlock stumbled back as John abruptly shoved him, giving him a clear view of what lay in the sink. His stomach turned and his vision blurred.

Blood soaked tea towels and tissues lay everywhere, some a pale pink from having tried to be made clean again. Old bandages with bits of scab and dried blood stuck to it lay strewn messily across the bench. Blades and knives litter the inside of the sink surrounded by blood, like little crimson puddles. John knew what this meant. Oh god, he knew what this meant.

He turned his head slowly to find his friend leaning over, his palms pressed against his eyes with his shoulders shaking violently. He had never seen this type of raw emotion come from Sherlock before. Frankly, it scared the shit out of him.

John was consumed by thoughts of how this could have happened without his noticing when Sherlock fell to the ground, his half naked body curled up and shaking. His doctoral instincts kicked in and he rushed over to help him. He guided him gently to a nearby chair before bolting into the lounge room to grab his medical kit he always kept besides the lounge. He did his best to ignore his friends words of despair.

"You stupid fuck. You're nothing but a freak and a failure. He knows! How could you have let him know? You need to die. Just fucking die already." John paused to wipe tears from his cheeks as he sturdied himself and walked back into the kitchen.
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All the war and death he had seen in Afghanistan could not have prepared him for what he saw. Both of Sherlock's arms were covered in scars, some new, some old, some thick, some thin. His left arm was the most affected, the scars higher and larger due to the fact that he is right handed.

He immediately spotted scars so big that he know straight away hadn't been looked after properly - they didn't have the telltale scars from stitches surrounding them. His eyes moved down to his wrist where he found two jagged lines running about halfway up his forearm. Suicide scars. And from the look of them, recent. God, they were recent. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to ignore his heart breaking.

He leant in front of Sherlock on his knees and looked into his friends eyes, that beautiful mix of green and blue that he had always loved. They were the kinds of eyes you could be absolutely certain contained whole galaxies.

"Are you okay?" he whispered. Sherlock either didn't hear or chose not to. He remained silent and stared at a spot on the floor.

He reached over to Sherlock's wrist to take his pulse but Sherlock winced and pulled away.

"It'll be okay, I promise," John whispered, so quietly he wasn't even sure he heard him until Sherlock slowly held out his wrist for John.

He took his pulse. It was high, his blood pressure severely low and his hands were unable to stop shaking. He was in shock, and probably weak from the loss of blood.

"You haven't taken a large amount of pills or anything?" John asked quietly. Sherlock remained silent, giving a barely perceptible shake of the head. "Okay, good. You've lost a lot of blood and you're probably exhausted so I'll clean you up, see if anything needs stitching, and then you should rest. Okay?"

"Okay," he replied to himself.
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On his arms, he found two deep cuts that needed stitches. He offered Sherlock some anesthetic to help numb the pain but Sherlock refused. Of course, after the emotional pain that caused him to take a blade to his skin and the physical pain of actually attaining the cuts, a few stitches would be nothing.

He moved to Sherlock's stomach next, deeply angered by the words he found there. FREAK, FAILURE, FAT, all carved in deep purple letters. He felt his jaw clench and his own heart quicken at the thought of all the times Sgt. Donovan had called Sherlock a freak - all the times he kept a straight face while inside he was falling apart. What has this poor, poor man seen? John thought to himself.

After John had finished bandaging him, Sherlock moved to stand up and leave.

"No, I don't think so, we need to talk," John said loudly. First, John was upset. Now he was angry.