Anderson is afraid of clowns. Sally is scared of doctors. Molly is terrified of people. Mrs. Hudson is scared of going outside. Moriarty is scared of heights. Lestrade is scared of dogs. Mycroft is scared of the dark. John is scared of going insane. Sherlock is scared of being alone.

(Sherlock characters facing their worst fears.)

…

Anderson's fear isn't debilitating, but it proves to be an minor inconvenience on a case that involves going to the circus.

"I need to stay here," he complains, while sitting at his office at the Yard. He's holding a bundle of papers and pretending to look busy, but really, he just doesn't want to go.

Lestrade shakes his head and makes him come along.

Sally senses his discomfort. "Are you okay?"

Anderson nods silently, never taking his eyes off the clown who is juggling knives a good twenty-feet away. He could stab me with those knives. I could be stabbed by a clown at a circus in front of my girlfriend.

He has to get the hell out of here.

He can't look at the murder victim without thinking, I bet a clown killed this guy. I know a clown killed this guy. Inevitably, this train of thought leads him to conclude, The clown that killed this guy is going to kill me.

Anderson is doing pretty well until a clown pops out of nowhere and honks its demonic horn at him.

He screams. It's an undignified, childish scream. He's surrounded by his colleagues and worst of all Sherlock bloody Holmes.

No one says anything. There are, however, several anonymous giggles that erupt from the crowd.

Afterwards, Anderson goes back to the police car and waits. He tries to calm himself down, but he can't shake the feeling that any second now a clown might pop out of nowhere.

…

Sally has a doctor's appointment today.

Frankly, she would rather listen to Sherlock talk about the decomposition process of corpses than go.

Still, she has to go. She needs to get her blood tested because someone (Sherlock) accidentally got a dead guy's blood in her mouth.

It's a choice between possibly dying and going to the doctor. Sally is leaning towards the former.

She isn't quite sure how his fear started or why she's even scared, but he just wants it to stop.

Still, she goes and sits in the tiny waiting room. It smells like disinfectant, and there's a child throwing up less than ten-feet away from her. She wants to leave, (tries to leave), but her body's frozen in place. She can't get up. She feels the panic creep up her stomach to her chest and wrapping itself around her heart, making the organ pound and beat until it feels like it's about to burst out of her chest -

The nurse finally calls her name.

She breathes a strangled cry of relief and shakily stands up, walking towards the office silently. She feels like her legs might give out from under her at any second. She opens the office door, preparing for the worst -

Her doctor is John.

Sally freezes. John evidentially didn't know either, because he looks just as confused as she is.

Awkward hellos are exchanged. The rest of the appointment goes by in silence, aside from embarrassing medical questions like, "Are you currently sexually active."

"Why don't you ask your flatmate," Sally thinks. "He seems perfectly comfortable deducing my sex-life."

The test comes back negative. Good, she thinks. Now I can die a painful death from embarrassment.

John gives her a strawberry lollipop and sends her off with a clean bill of health.

…

Molly can handle dead people. Live ones, however, are a completely different matter.

She remembers in primary school when kids used to tease her. All the mean things they said stuck to her and became a part of her, just as much as any organ in her body. She was never able to shake them off, no matter how hard she tried. She decided it was easier to avoid dead people all together, because frankly, they're a lot less judgmental.

The morgue is a place of refuge for her. The quiet halls are sterile and clean and free from her past. It's a sad place, but peaceful all the same. Sometimes, it feels more like home than her house does.

That all changes when she meets Sherlock.

Sherlock barges into the morgue one morning with a severed head in his hands. "Excuse me, did you lose this?" He smile politely and holds up the head for Molly to examine.

They strike up a conversation about how to predict time of death in buried corpses. Molly doesn't think she's ever met someone before who thinks so much like her. She can actually talk to him, and he actually wants to listen. The best part is, he's alone to.

That is, until he meets John.

It's not that Molly's jealous, she's just not keen on the prospect of losing her only friend. She does everything in her power to keep Sherlock around. She asks him out, gets him coffee, tries new makeup and hairstyles and clothes, gives him exclusive access to bodies, and does favor after favor after favor for him.

None of it works. In the end, Molly is alone again with her corpses.

Jim from IT comes along next.

Molly doesn't really like him. He has this vibe about him that reminds her of the guys who used to make fun of her at uni. No surprise he turns out to be a gay psychopath.

Molly helps Sherlock fake his death. He stays at her flat until the tension blows over. It's nice, albeit infuriating, having him around. He experiments on her cat and almost gets her killed twice and kisses her once. The two-weeks he's with her are the best of her life.

He leaves and she's alone again.

Tom is next. One word: Meat-dagger.

Molly is so fucking tired of fixer-uppers.

She runs into Greg at the Yard. Their mutual semi-obsessive concern over Sherlock makes them perfect for each other. Best of all, he's not a psychopath.

Molly is still scared of people, but she has Greg to help her out. He does background checks on all their new friends to make sure they aren't crazy, and always makes the introductions first. He protects her, threatens people for her, and is incredibly affectionate. In their spare time, they eat chocolate and solve cold cases together.

…

Mrs. Hudson hasn't left 221B in seven-years.

There are many reasons for this, the most prominent being fear. Ever since she witnessed the drive-by school shooting arranged by her husband, she can't stand being outside. Whenever she hears the laughter of children, she imagines the echo of bullets and her husband's hard words, We need to remind them who's in charge.

Sherlock sends Frank to his death. She's happy he's gone, but she knows his death won't bring those four-children back.

Mrs. Hudson sends Mrs. Turner and Sherlock and John out to do the errands.

Mrs. Hudson, leave Baker Street? England would fall.

Mrs. Hudson leaves the house for Sherlock's funeral. Not because she has to, but because she wants to pay her respects to that brilliantly idiotic tenant she put up with. The whole ordeal is terrifying, and every noise makes her jump. When she gets back to 221B, she stands on the outside steps, unable to go in.

She spends as much time as she can outside. She only goes back to the flat to sleep. She can hear the echo of violin throughout the halls and the bang of gunshot's upstairs. The house is haunted now, she sighs.

…

Jim Moriarty is having a terrible day.

First, he died. Honestly, that was a lot worse than he was expecting.

Second, Sherlock didn't die. Needless to say, Jim is a little more than disappointed Sherlock didn't keep up on his end of the bargain to shake hands with him in hell.

Third, Hell is not as great as was advertised. All the fire and the burning and the screaming is actually quite off-putting. Actually, Jim finds it all quite boring.

Jim's punishment is predictable. His worst fear: Heights. He stands, arms spread out, on the edge of the roof of Bart's morgue. He knows he'll never fall, but when he looks down into the sea of fire below him, he can't help being a little alarmed. He hears Sebastian screaming, yelling for him to come down, just like John did for Sherlock.

You're gonna love being dead, Sherlock, Jim laughs.

Honestly, Jim is pretty bummed out about the whole thing.

If there is one good thing, it's that Carl Powers is there too. The little bratty kid is forever trapped in the swimming pool, drowning for all eternity. Jim laughs at him from atop Bart's morgue.

…

Lestrade doesn't know what he is expecting when he hears the words 'Monstrous Hound'.

At first, he laughs. It is a hollow laugh, only designed to cover up the terror that is consuming his soul. Lestrade hates dogs, and he can't imagine how horrible a monstrous hound must be.

Let's just, when he finally sees it, he's not disappointed.

The hound is gigantic. Fiery red and a coat of pitch black fur, sharp fangs and a foaming mouth – it's a bloody nightmare. It looks like it hoped straight out of hell.

For the first time in Lestrade's life, he's so scared he can't move. His muscles freeze he's stranded in place. This huge, horrible thing is about to kill him, and he can't do anything about it. All he fears is pure, blind terror.

John shoots it. Two bullets, and it's dead in an instant. It takes him a moment after the gunshots ring out to realize it's dead and can't hurt him anymore.

Upon closer examination, the dog turns out to be nothing more than the combination of a badly behaved pooch and a hallucinogenic drug. The realization doesn't help Lestrade any. He still sees the hell hound for days whenever he closes his eyes.

…

"Mycroft is scared of the dark," Sherlock taunts.

Mycroft rolls his eyes, secretly hiding his embarrassment. "Brother mine, I'm not scared of the dark, I'm scared of what's in the dark."

Sherlock shuts up right away.

Naturally, as the British Government, Mycroft has seen some incredible things. However, nothing was more incredibly terrifying than the Vashta Nerada.

Mycroft finds the note on his desk as soon as he returns from lunch. Count the shadows, written in an unfamiliar handwriting.

The lights go off a few seconds later.

"Anthea," he calls, but receives no answer. He walks forward, running into a chair. He sighs. "How am I supposed to count the shadows when everything is pitch black," he wonders aloud.

Someone screams.

THE REST OF THIS DOCUMENT IS CLASSIFIED

Mycroft thinks his fear is very, very reasonable.

…

For John, having nightmares wasn't nearly as bad as what the nightmares might have meant.

John knows having PTSD does not mean he's crazy. However, he can't shake the feeling that it's one step closer to a dark possibility.

He remembers his mother, rocking back and forth uncontrollably while he tried to console her. She was absolutely heartbroken after his father's death.

His mother checked herself into a mental hospital.

Harry turned to drinking.

John joined the army.

They all had different ways of coping.

John's was by far the healthiest.

(At least, until he got shot.)

John worries he's going crazy at Baskerville. As it turns out, Sherlock just drugged him.

John worries he's going crazy after Sherlock jumps. He sits on his bed with his gun in his hand and thinks about killing himself. He doesn't, just because he can't bear to add any more tragedy and sorrow to the world.

John worries he's going crazy when Sherlock returns. His dead (really fucking dead) flatmate comes back from the dead. John thinks he's hallucinating, or that he's finally snapped like his mother.

John worries he's going crazy after he marries an assassin. (He justifies it: I didn't know when I married her, as if that helps.)

Is everyone I know a psychopath?

Yes.

It's what you like.

You chose her.

John doesn't read the AGRA flashdrive. He thinks it might drive him insane, or drive him to do something insane if he does.

…

Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.

Caring is not an advantage.

I will burn the heart out of you.

I've been reliably informed I don't have one.

Sherlock doesn't want to be alone.

It starts when the 'other one' dies. At the funeral, Mycroft and his parents leave him alone with his dead brother. Sherlock has never been more scared in his own life.

It gets worse when the teasing starts. Freak, loser, and loner are the insults that resonate with him the most. He can't deny they're true, but he wishes they weren't.

Mycroft is good enough to remind him that there's a difference between being distinct and going extinct.

Sherlock spends four-weeks alone in a padded cell, screaming and sweating out five-years of addiction. He sees no one, hears no one, speaks to no one. He spends the time in his mind palace, trying to put out the fire that threatens to consume his entire soul and leave him a putrid pile of ash.

Sherlock meets John and he doesn't feel so alone anymore.

Sally warns John. John doesn't leave.

Mycroft threatens John. John doesn't leave.

John shoots someone for Sherlock.

Sherlock calls John friend.

John corrects him. Colleague.

Sebastian smirks.

Sherlock almost gets them both killed. Sherlock is scared John will leave, but he doesn't.

Sherlock drugs John. He is instantly forgiven.

Things get a lot more complicated when Sherlock fakes his own death.

"You can't see him," Mycroft lectures.

Sherlock pretends not to care.

He spends two-years alone, jumping from place to place, getting shot and tortured and tormented for John.

When he returns, John punches him, screams at him, yells at him, tackles him.

None of that was as bad as John leaving him, though.

John gets married.

Sherlock is alone in his flat.

Sherlock takes a bullet for John.

Sherlock almost dies again.

Sherlock forgives Mary.

Sherlock shoots Magnussen.

Sherlock and John stand by the plane, ready to take Sherlock to his death. He knows this is the last time he'll see John, the last time he'll probably see anyone friendly again.

He has so many things he wants to say. Years and years of comments and jokes and feelings he wants to tell.

He doesn't.

John has Mary now. He doesn't need you.

Sherlock gets on the plane back to Serbia.

He closes his eyes and lets tears fall down his face. He knows this is the end, knows he'll be alone, knows he's going to –

The phone rings.

Sherlock smiles.

Did you miss me?

God, yes.

...

Notes:

As someone with social anxiety, general anxiety, panic disorder, OCD and several phobias, I am very well acquainted with fear. I tried to accurately depict phobias here, and I hope I haven't offended anyone. I hope you enjoyed! I love writing this! Please tell me what you think!