A/N: just a little idea that popped into my head after seeing the Silence at the Doctor Who museum in Cardiff.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, obviously.

It didn't make it easier, and it didn't make it hurt any less. It made him wonder why he even considered it a solution. But there was something about it, something about the rush, the feelings. He imagined it might be what emotions felt like – not that he was familiar with them at all in the slightest. He knew what pain was. He knew what need was. He knew the basic requirements of survival.

But the one thing Sherlock did not understand was emotion.

Perhaps understand is a misrepresentation. He understood it well enough and could even mimic it, should the situation require it. He knew the logic behind why people felt the way they did...well, for the most part. Sometimes people had the most bizarre reactions. He pondered on them sometimes, when he was bored.

He looked down at his arm, and the rivulet of blood that was flowing down it. This was not a result of boredom. He knew that. This, he had long since deduced, was most adeptly described as cause and effect.

The cause: the word 'freak'.

The effect: that single slash.

It had been a simple case. Well, simple by Sherlock's standards. He had barely been at the crime scene for five minutes before he was shouting at Lestrade, demanding to know why he was required to attend something so obscenely boring. Lestrade's reasoning had nothing to do with the fact that John had practically begged him earlier in the day to ask Sherlock to come to something, anything, just to give the man a distraction. His bored mind had been tearing apart their flat. There was only so much give in Mrs. Hudson's walls and floors.

Sherlock's deduction had been different this time in that it was so straight forward that no one bothered to argue. They would have found the solution themselves within minutes had not Lestrade asked them to wait. A woman hanging from the rafters at the bottom of the stairs but with a cracked skull, indicating a push down the stairs had come first. They didn't need a genius to solve it, not with the husband mysteriously missing. But they had entertained Sherlock nonetheless. Well, Lestrade had attempted to.

Of course, Sherlock's attendance could not be received without the usual spat of banter.

"Another scrubbing of Anderson's floors Sally?"

"Oh shut up, freak."

The conversation had gone back and forth, to and fro, as it always did. No one noticed the momentary cloudiness that spread through silver eyes. They never did. If John found anything off about the way Sherlock stormed from the crime scene, coat-tails fanning dramatically out behind him, he put it down to the detective's annoyed state. The same could be said for Sherlock's refusal to allow him in the cab and order that he get the next one.

Arriving back to Baker Street and finding Sherlock in the bathroom was no reason for alarm either, even Sherlock was not immune to the call of nature. It was only after John had finished an entire repeat episode of Top Gear that he realised his flat mate had yet to emerge. He muted the tv, frowning when he could not hear any running of water. So the shower was out, and Sherlock never took a bath. It left him rather confused, if not concerned.

Pushing himself out of his armchair, John made for the bathroom, rapping on the door with a single knuckle.

"Sherlock?"

The call was met with silence. It shouldn't have caused the first stirrings of panic, but it did. Mycroft had given him no tip-offs regarding a danger night, but even he could not see everything. John chewed his lip anxiously for a moment before cautiously testing the handle. If it opened, it opened. If it didn't, then...he would call out again? Send a text? He wasn't quite sure.

As it turned out, he didn't need to wonder. The handle turned with ease, and the door popped open that initial fraction of a centimetre. There was no turning back from this point and so John pushed the door open with his hand unabashedly. He didn't know if a final "Sherlock" had rolled of his lips, but in the second that followed, he wouldn't even care to remember. He didn't quite know what he had been expecting, but it hadn't been this.

Sherlock, a razor blade in his hand, carving a single line into the skin just above the waistline of his trousers.

Two cuts parallel to the one the detective was currently making, blood oozing from them.

But perhaps what shocked him the most was the scars. The scars that littered every part of Sherlock's skin from his elbows up, to his neck down. Scars that were all identical; single lines, four straight, one diagonal, creating perfect tally marks. The tally marks that covered that alabaster skin horrifyingly.

"Sherlock!"

Whatever trance the detective had been in suddenly snapped, his head jerking up, eyes widening as they met John's in the mirror. John was terrified by what he saw in those grey orbs. No genius, no wit, no sign that this was all about to be explained as an experiment. No, all that met him was a hollowness he had never, not even once, associated with his best friend. He took a step forward, heart tearing a bit when he saw Sherlock's frame become rigid.

"What are you doing?" he asked carefully, quietly, soothingly.

Something was mumbled in his direction as Sherlock's eyes dropped to the floor. Submission? Fear? Shame? From Sherlock?

"Sorry Sherlock, what?"

"Three times!" The voice was a snap, Sherlock's eyes blazing as they returned to lock onto John's through the mirror.

John's own eyes trailed down to the three marks Sherlock had made, marks that were still bleeding and which made his doctor side want to leap into action and clean them up immediately. But that wouldn't help. Sherlock could clean them up himself. From the looks of it, he already had, numerous times. What he could, that maybe Sherlock couldn't, was find a reason, a grain of sanity, a cure, in amongst all this.

"Three marks, yes, I see. Why?"

His friend spun to face him now, but whatever anger had risen melted immediately. "Don't you listen? Don't you observe?" his voice could only be described as a hiss. "Three times they said it. Well, I say 'they', but really it was only Sergeant Donovan."

John blinked at that. "Sergeant Donovan? She..." Something clicked. He wouldn't...? Not because...? "She-"

"Freak, John!" Sherlock finished in exasperation.

John spoke slowly, allowing his brain to quickly theorise. "You do...this...every time someone...someone says...that-" God forbid he say the word and have Sherlock carve another line. "Why Sherlock. My God, why?"

For a genius, the simple question seemed to perplex him. John was met with a frown, and an extremely rare expression of confusion. "Because."

It was not an explanation but it would be the best that John would get. Or rather, the best that Sherlock was willing to give. Perhaps normally John would have let it go at that point. But now, in this moment, with this? Oh no, he was not letting this go, no sodding way. He only deepened his frown and pointed at the toilet.

"You, sit, now."

Sherlock's mouth opened to protest – of course it did – but something in the way John held himself and that all too military frown had him obeying. He sat, but the flamboyant huff showed that he was less than pleased with the idea. John ignored it, as one would ignore a child in the midst of a tantrum, and instead set about removing his first aid kit from its position above the sink. Quickly opening it and checking to see that he had everything he would need, John moved back to Sherlock and crouched down in front of him. It was only when he knelt down and found himself at eye level with Sherlock's chest that he saw it, the word carved directly across where Sherlock's heart would be:

FREAK

"Oh my god," he whispered, the faintest prickling in his eyes.

"John." If anything, Sherlock sounded embarrassed. "John, please. It's no reason to cry."

"This...!" John met his friend's eyes, shocking him by the ferocity in them. "This is every reason Sherlock! Why on earth...How could anyone force you to do this?"

"You caught me with the razor in my hand and yet assume this is someone else's fault. John, I think you'll find your logic-"

"Damn your logic!" The next thing he knew, he had Sherlock's chin in his hand. "I don't care that you and Mycroft are above emotions, that you don't care about things, and that everything in life is just transport for your brains! If you weren't such an idiot-"

"I am no-"

"You're a bloody idiot!" John repeated, wetting a face cloth and pressing it to Sherlock's stomach. "If you got out of your head for a minute you'd realise that, if nothing else, you, the great Sherlock Holmes, feel pain."

"Well of course I feel pain. I'm not-" The hand on his heart made Sherlock stop abruptly mid-sentence. John was sending him a sad smile.

"I don't mean in here," John explained softly, tapping Sherlock's forehead with a finger. "I don't mean nerves and pain receptors, I mean here," His hand dropped back to Sherlock's chest. "Somewhere in that cold heart you pretend doesn't exist, you feel pain, and hurt. And you're letting people hurt you because you don't even understand what you're feeling."

"There are no feelings John," Sherlock told him gruffly. "There is only logic, explanations, science. Cause and effect John, cause and effect."

"That's what you think this is?" John pressed, a finger running over each tally of five. "All of these..."

"Two hundred and eight."

"I'm sorry?"

"Two hundred and eight."

"You...shit, you've been counting. Every one. Every time." He removed the wash cloth and patted the skin dry with a tissue. "The fact that you keep track doesn't tell you that it bothers you?"

A discombobulated look was his reply.

"Okay," John said slowly, applying the first band-aid with practised efficiency. "You say it doesn't bother you now and you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe, somehow in your...Sherlock mind, you've forced that to be true. But once it did bother you and that's why you started. But you...I know this is going to sound stupid-"

"Then don-"

"But stop."

Sherlock frowned down at him. "Excuse me?"

"Stop," John repeated simply. "Sherlock," he said with a shake of his head, returning his attention to the most recent cuts once more, "This can't continue. You can't keep doing this. If it doesn't hurt, it doesn't need fixing. No cause, no effect."

"I can't just turn it off John."

Was that shame that came with that honesty?

John offered a grim smile, finishing his work and rocking back onto his ankles. "No," he admitted, "you can't. So, I'm going to help you."

Before Sherlock could question what that statement meant, he found John's hands to be on his face again, only this time, instead of gripping his chin, a hand was placed on either side, holding his gaze firmly to John's.

"Sherlock Holmes," John said, voice quiet but oh so strong, "You are not a freak. You are not a freak. And, well, you're not a freak."

The hands were removed and John was gone, which Sherlock was quite grateful for because he suddenly found it quite hard to breathe around the lump that had somehow formed in his throat for no explainable reason.

"...Sherlock?"

The hesitation sparked his curiousity and the strange lump was banished from his thoughts. "Yes John?"

"Those...marks," he gestured loosely. "...when was the first?"

A pause. "When I was nine and half."

"And by who?"

A longer one. "...Mycroft."

"Ah."

"John!"

The slight panicked edge had John scaling the stairs two at a time upon his return from the surgery as opposed to simply walking up them. He entered the flat to find Sherlock madly pacing the floor, occasionally making a move towards the bathroom before all but hurling himself back. John's arrival into the room had him stopping completely, so much so that it was nearly mid-step.

"What?" John asked, placing his jacket on the back of his chair slowly.

"Case John, case."

At John's blank stare, Sherlock glared at him coolly before elaborately stiffly, haltingly.

"Donovan. Anderson."

In that instant John understood. He rounded the couch and herded Sherlock into his usual chair, thanking God that, from Sherlock's agitation, he hadn't made it to the bathroom yet. It had been several weeks since then, and no new marks, no more numbers, no more scars.

John crouched down in front of Sherlock, taking his face in his hands.

"How many times?"

"Just on-"

"Don't lie to me."

A bitter mumble: "Four."

John nodded, making a disapproving sound when Sherlock went to look away, wanting to deny that he needed this, that he needed help, that he needed John.

"Sherlock Holmes, you are not a freak. You are not..."

A/N: the end. Hopefully you liked it. I love the concept of Sherlock and the word 'freak' relating back to unpleasant experiences.

~Danno