"No, no, no, no, no!" Sherlock batted his scarf out of his face, grabbed it and pulled it off his neck with a sharp jerk to send it flying away from his body, pushing that which was unnecessary away from his personal space. "I know it's here! I know-"

"Sherlock..."

"No!" Sherlock retorted, spinning around in a movement that kicked up dirt and dust and debris. "No, it's fine, it's here, I just need to-"

"Sherlock-"

"- figure out what I've missed, I must have missed something, but I know I'm still right, I know-"

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock looked up at John, swallowing back a pang of uneasiness as he forced himself to look at the doctor.

"There's nothing here," John said firmly.

"No, there is... there has to be..."

"You've been searching for two hours. You know as well I do that there's nothing. We can tackle this tomorrow, go home and start fresh after some sleep."

"I..." know. Sherlock finished the thought in his mind. Yes, he knew there was nothing here. Logically speaking he did. But he had deluded himself into his own deduction - a wrong deduction and leaving now? It meant he failed. He had failed. And he couldn't face that without a dry mouth and an urge to flee and fling himself into a deep, dark hole dug specifically for him.

He did not. He spared himself the indignity of turning tail or the indignity of continuing to be adamant that was not here was. Instead, he collected his things, silently, and went home with John.

"Eat," John said, awhile later, after heating up leftovers shoved in the back of the fridge. He put a plate down in front of Sherlock, pushing his laptop away to make room.

Sherlock stared at the laptop, and grimaced at the food. "I'm not hungry."

"Eat it, anyway," John retorted, and sat down with his own plate.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"Queasy."

"Why?"

Sherlock's eyes were invariably drawn back to the laptop. "This clue... the missing clue..."

"If you're seriously telling me you've got yourself so worked up over a mistake..." John muttered, and Sherlock shifted a little at the notion itself. Fidgeting at the reminder of his failure, and being reminded just how much he needed to right what he had been wrong about.

He grabbed at the laptop and ignored the food and ignored John.

Ignored John, until John spoke again. "Why are you not allowed to make a mistake?"

Sherlock wrinkled his nose slightly, almost in disgust. Wasn't that obvious? "Because I'm Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant detective, as you're so fond of remarking."

"But you are allowed to make a mistake. You're only human, you can make mistakes."

Sherlock bit back a groan of displeasure, of anxiety and unpleasantry. He slapped the laptop closed and bounded onto his feet. "Thank you for continuing to illuminate my failures, John."

"I'm just saying that there are allowed to be failures," John said, and narrowed his eyes as he chewed. "It goes further than that with you, though. You're angry, but it's more than that."

"Great time for introspection here, John, there's a potential murderer on the loose," Sherlock retorted.

"Yeah, and you usually aren't so flighty when there's a potential murderer on the loose," John retorted. "You're pacing holes in the floor and you were panicking at the scene today. You say I don't see, but you're wrong. I know you. I know your emotions."

Emotions. The grit on the lens! "John," Sherlock started warningly.

John plowed on. "You get panicky every time I bring it up and you're trying to mask it with anger and yeah, maybe you are angry, at yourself, but you're also freaked out by the fact you were wrong. So, why," John continued, "are you so afraid of being wrong?"

"Because I'm always right."

"No." John shook his head. "No, it's not that. Everybody's wrong at some point. I've seen you pick wrong. Make the wrong decisions. You thought the drug was in the sugar back at Henry Knight's-" oh, God, not this again "- and that damn pill, back when we first met-"

"I didn't pick wrong on that!" Sherlock interrupted.

"Which we never found out because they were mixed up before they got tested in the lab," John said. "But you're so quick to say that you didn't pick wrong, anyway, which proves my point: you're afraid of making the wrong choice."

"I'm not afraid of being wrong," Sherlock retorted.

"Then what is it?"

I'm not afraid of being wrong; I'm afraid of failing!

There were not many things that Sherlock was particularly talented at. He could play the violin very well. He was a moderately good cook. He could draw, and he could sing (although he didn't), and he even knew how to push a sewing needle through fabric with a few different types of stitches. But, save the violin, those were not things he excelled at. His one true calling was, and always would be, solving mysteries. Be it a murder, a theft, a kidnapping, a mutant dog on the hills or a ghost in the night, he could solve the mystery.

That was his function.

If he could not fulfill that role, the one role that kept him clinging so tenuously to sanity and safety, then what did he have? He would be Sherlock Holmes, an ordinary person with no outstanding quality.

If he was wrong, it was irritating, and maybe a tiny bit humiliating, but he could pick himself back up and find the right answer.

But if he failed, he was useless. That was all.

Sherlock did not say any of that out loud.

Thankfully, he did not have to say anything at all, as Mrs Hudson chose the convenient time to knock with a cheerful little "hoohoo- oh, sorry, am I interrupting?"

"I'm going to bed," Sherlock announced, and spun away from his station at the window. "I'll be at Barts in the morning if you wake up late, don't interrupt me." Because he needed to find the right answer, an answer, so that this wasn't open-ended, and so there was a resolution. So he could protect the image he'd built for himself as much as solving the case at hand.

So what if it was selfish. So what if it was too self-absorbed, self-pitying?

It was how he had gotten by with what he had, and he planned on keeping it that way. Any other way would crack the entire fabrication of his nature and with only one thing to fall back onto, Sherlock was not willing to take that chance.

A/N: I think this might have been mentioned by someone in a review ages again, but TAB made me think about it, so it finally happened either way. Sherly's very critical on himself. He comes across as bitter because he is that bitter at the fact that he can fail.

Jumping tack, I'm hoping thunderstorm fear will be next. We shall see~

I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading; stay tuned!