It's Not About Suicide

Sherlock nearly chokes on the smell of the bleach. One would have thought that he would have been used to it by now, when one would consider the facts. The fact was... no one really knew the facts.

He douses the rag in another go-round of bleach. The clean up was just part of the ritual.

He makes sure that he does this on the days that Mrs. Hudson comes to clean the bathroom. That way, John won't get suspicious about the smell of bleach. Mrs. Hudson doesn't notice, or, if she does, thinks it's just another experiment. It is, in a way. In a way, it's not.

It's boredom at its finest. Rather, it occurs when Sherlock's bored and it takes away every facet of boredom riddling his mind.

His fingers fall into a perfect place on the razor, just as though he was cradling his bow. This has become such a disgusting habit, Sherlock reasons, as the cold bite of metal meets his skin. It is a disgusting, dangerous habit, Sherlock knows, but it doesn't stop the thrill, the small shiver of excitement, as the blade is pressed against his wrist.

It doesn't take pain, it doesn't take blood, but the conditioned response to the razor blade itself makes Sherlock thrilled before the ritual even starts.

He hadn't done this before; not before his death. Not before he faked his suicide. He hadn't ever had the notion. He hadn't realized what could have come from it or he would have started it a long time ago.

It had started with an accident. His fingers had slipped while performing an experiment. Normally, he didn't bother with careless knicks and scrapes when working, but this had sliced his fingertip open pretty well, and it intrigued Sherlock, the way the blood dripped so innocently down his fingers.

From there, it turned into an experiment.

He had been determined to see how different slices, different blades, different skin reacted. How much it bled. How much it hurt. And, when he thought about John, poor, torn-up John, who was suffering from Sherlock's death, the blood on his hands seemed strangely fitting.

It had grown, blossomed into something that now Sherlock couldn't stop. He was back with John, back in 221B Baker Street. He was safe, John was okay, and they had fallen back into their old regime of crime solving. But the thought of giving up his newest, most interesting pasttime made him cringe, and he decided to a) avoid the hands and wrists where the marks could be easily seen and b) not let John know.

He settles the blade on the crook of his arm. With little pressure and even less concentration, he guides the blade over the creased skin. There is an initial bite of pain, the thrill shooting through his veins as crimson gold begins to well up, first, then slide, finally dripping. Each drop hits the bathroom floor with a singular plip, and Sherlock watches every drop on its descent.

When the blood drips too fast to see the singular drops, Sherlock moves the blade onto another patch of skin. He's careful to not go too deep, last thing he needs is a tell-tale scar, but deep enough to warrant blood.

He just taps into the river of his upper arm when a knock on the bathroom door startles him. His fingers slip, the blade cuts deeper. He sucks in a breath, a hiss of pain that will go by unnoticed.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock frowns at John's voice- he shouldn't be home. Dull day at surgery, then? Not that that constituted coming home early...

There's a light stream of blood dripping from the knicked slash in his arm. He presses a hand against it to stem the flow, the warmth beneath his fingers not giving him any sense of urgency.

"Yes?" he responds, and his voice is steady. He smiles inwardly. Good. No emotion. This is good.

"What are you doing?"

It's a rather daft question, Sherlock thinks, considering he's in the toilet with the door closed. He hasn't ever had, nor ever will have, any issues with privacy that made him want to waste the time to close the bathroom door when the need arose, but John had muttered something about decency the first time he hadn't.

Nonetheless, Sherlock has no real reason to lie in his response.

"Experimenting," he replies fluidly.

"Is it private or something? You usually don't lock the door."

"Oh yes, John, top secret," he bites out, sarcasm colouring his tone. "Can't let you in right now, sorry."

He rolls his eyes, turning his attention back to his arm, the cut, the blood, and the blade. He snatches the extra roll of toilet paper from the cupboard, unrolling a wad of it to staunch the blood flow of his arm. He should stop the bleeding- didn't want to pass out- at least somewhat before wrapping it up.

"Oh, shame," John replies and Sherlock can hear the doctor walk away.

He's frozen now, asides from wrapping his arm up with the gauze that he always keeps in abundance in the bathroom. John being home shouldn't make a difference. John has no idea... And yet, he can't bring himself to draw the blade across his skin again.

Sherlock sighs, tossing the gauze back into its proper place in the cupboard. He has this feeling like his experiment has been wasted, trashed. And the deeper gash in his arm speaks of a failure, of a wound not inflicted purposefully, but accidentally.

At the same time, it's an interesting concept, that gash. It might scar, Sherlock knows, but it doesn't bother him as much as it should. He doesn't want the scars, but no one ever sees him naked anyway. Except John, when Sherlock's too lazy to get dressed or John walks in on his bath. Well. This could be a problem. He would just need to be careful.

Anyway, the wound. He looks at the gauze on his arm a bit fondly, wondering how long it will take for the blood flow to stop entirely. He could make a guess, and he would most likely be right, but he hadn't ever gone this deep. He wouldn't guess, he just would just do the experiment.

He shrugged on his shirt, fingers sliding the sleeves down over his injured arm carefully. It's winter- he can only be this careless with his placement of injuries when he can get by with wearing long sleeves. He doesn't really like long sleeves, but he had worn them before, and John doesn't question it in the grips of the cold weather.

He looks at the blood on the floor, wondering how he's going to bleach the bathroom now with John in the flat. Oh well. He can do without it for now. Instead, he carefully cleans up every trace of blood and washes his hands clean of the blood covering them.

When he walks out of the bathroom, the world surprises Sherlock by tilting at an odd angle. His breath escapes in a low rush.

"Oh..." Had he lost more blood than he had thought?

"What's that?" John is looking at him, looking up from the kettle.

"Nothing," Sherlock replies quickly, his tone careless. His mind is interested, as his mind ever is, but John won't tell that from his voice. He slips past the kitchen and to the living room, ignoring the stinging pain on his arm. Pain... The pain is much stronger than usual. It makes him not want to move his arm at all, although there would be too much in that if he didn't.

"You're looking pale. Are you okay?"

Hell. He must had lost a bit more than blood than he had thought. Blood was blood to him; he tended to see it as just blood, not how much blood.

"I'm fine, John. What are you doing home?" he asks, sliding into the study desk's chair, tapping the touch pad of his laptop to draw it to life.

"Sarah took over the rest of my shift. I wasn't supposed to work today, anyway, remember?"

Sherlock scans his eyes over the laptop screen, choosing not to answer John because John knows full well that he doesn't pay attention to trivial things such as extra shifts or overtime. There is nothing new on his website and his phone has remained silent all morning. There is nothing new, no murder to solve. Either that, or there was some base murder that even the lot at Scotland Yard could solve.

He sighs heavily, drawing a hand up to pull his fingers through his hair. He forgets and uses his bad arm. He prides himself in not hissing in pain.

Sherlock becomes interested in searching the web. He loses track of time, until Mrs. Hudson's light footsteps alert him that more time has gone by than he notices.

He glances up; the world spins again. This time, he isn't quite as silent as he was before.

"Sherlock?"

John notices; of course John notices. Sherlock had taught John to notice some of the little things, but he never thought that John would use those little triggers against him.

"Sherlock, what's wrong with you?"

"Boys, did you need any-" Mrs. Hudson walks into the room right as John shifts closer to Sherlock, leaning against the study desk.

"Sherlock, you're still pale. Tell me what's wrong," John demands.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Hudson questions, obviously noting the mood. She joins John at the side of the study desk. "Are you not feeling well?"

Sherlock resists the urge to groan- not from pain, but from his companions. This is why he didn't want them to know. They worried too much. There was nothing to worry about.

"I'm fine."

He pushes away from the desk and doesn't sway when he stands. Pleased, he turns and stalks, almost steady, back to his bedroom. He's fine. It's all perfectly fine.

All good things come to an end. Sherlock knows this, and yet, it doesn't bother him. It never has stopped him before, so why should it stop him now?

It's a Tuesday. It's snowing. Sherlock is currently lounging back in the bath, his head against the wall and his legs propped up on the sides of the porcelain. The blade in his hand is ever familiar, although he doesn't use it for shaving.

He doesn't mind this, doing this in the bath. He can wash away all the evidence with his bath water. It's more contained; he can't drip blood everywhere unless he parades around outside of the tub, which would be rather stupid. He doesn't care to have to clean up water as well as blood.

The water in the bath is turning slowly red. It's not as bad as it looks. It's getting a little out of hand, Sherlock assures himself, but he can keep it up for approximately three minutes and twenty two seconds before he's made too many cuts.

He's fine.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, what the bloody hell-"

Sherlock literally flinches when John slams the bathroom door open.

The world just stops.

Sherlock doesn't usually think cliché things like the world stood still, that everything came down to one moment, that the moment was memorable and read in each other's eyes. But it was... somewhat... true in this instance.

"Sherlock- jeez, what-" John fumbles for words, unable to find the correct exclamation. His eyes scan over Sherlock's body, looking for the problem. Sherlock had shifted his arm with the razor blade behind his back when John walked in, so the doctor doesn't find the actual weapon, but his eyes settle on the wounds.

"Sherlock, what happened?" John demands, and he's suddenly crouched next to the bathtub and taking Sherlock's arm in his hand carefully. Sherlock hisses in pain, in surprise.

"Nothing!"

"Sherlock, you're- look at all the blood!"

"It's not enough to warrant a death, I assure you."

"What happened?" John demands again, his eyes lifting to meet Sherlock's. Sherlock half glares. He just wants John to leave him alone. He doesn't like this- not one bit. It's not because he's been caught. It's because he's been caught by John.

"Nothing happened, John," he replies bitterly, his fingers sliding harmlessly over the blade under the water. He's fidgeting; why is he fidgeting? That's not normal.

"Sherlock-"

"No."

John stares at him and Sherlock stares right back. John's eyes are not kind. Sherlock doesn't believe his eyes are, either.

"You have scars, Sherlock," John replied calmly. Not calm... but his voice is controlled.

"No, I make sure that I don't," Sherlock replies automatically, only noticing the tightening of John's eyes. Sherlock realizes too late; he's said too much, just because he had to prove John wrong. Oh... stupid.

"You... You make sure that you don't," John repeats.

Sherlock sighs, looking away from John and towards the ceiling. "Can't this wait, John? It's utterly tedious and take a look at where we are."

"I don't care, Sherlock! You've pretty much just said these are self-inflicted!"

"Yes, so?"

"So they are!"

"I didn't say that, did I?"

"Sherlock." John takes a deep breath, leaning away from the bath. He stands, his exhale still heard over the movement. "Sherlock, you- why?" John's voice reads the emotion and Sherlock resists the urge to roll his eyes.

He had tried... remarkably hard... for John to never find out about this. But now that he has, Sherlock's just remarkably annoyed. And he's still fidgeting with the razor blade.

"Are you, are you really trying to kill yourself?" John asks, voice bleak, filled with pain and other unthinkable emotions.

"No," Sherlock replies automatically, an irritated response. His fingers still on the razor blade. "It's not about suicide," he replies crisply, bringing the blade out of the water to set it on the side of the tub. John's eyes follow his every move, the little colour draining from his face at the blade.

"Sherlock," John breathes, but Sherlock cuts him off.

"Don't- just don't," Sherlock mutters, standing. The water rushes off of him, blood and water, as he steps out of the bath and reaches for his towel. John is watching him, not blushing like he normally does when Sherlock wanders around naked, but with a pale face and worried eyes. His concern has outwon every other emotion.

"I'm-"

"Please," John interrupted, "don't say you're only doing this because you're bored."

Sherlock glances sideways at John, raising his eyebrows. Fine then. If John doesn't want him to say it, then he won't. Apparently the silence isn't good, either.

"Sherlock, how could you-" John takes another deep breath. Sherlock ignores him and grabs his pyjamas- old t-shirt, ratty trousers- to get dressed. He only gets as far as his trousers being on before John grips his arm, finding his voice again. "Let me clean them."

"They don't need cleaned."

"Yes, they do. They can get infected."

"I know."

Sherlock pretends not to notice the pain spasming across John's face as the doctor tightens his grip to the point where it hurts.

"Let me clean them."

"John-"

"Sherlock, please."

Sherlock sighs, leaning back against the cabinet. He doesn't look at John. John doesn't say a word.

The silence continues for days.

John snaps first. "Sherlock-"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"You don't even know what I want to say!"

"You're going to ask me if I want to talk about it, and the answer is no."

"There's obviously something going on-"

"No, there really isn't," Sherlock replies quickly.

"There has to be-"

"No, there doesn't!" His voice raises on its own accord, although he feels worse about it afterwards, surprisingly. "I'm just bored."

"People don't go cutting themselves up when they're bored!"

"I'm not an ordinary person, John. I would have thought that you had ascertained that fact by now."

"All too well."

John's angry. Oh, wonderful. John's angry and Sherlock's... well, Sherlock doesn't know what he is. He's spiteful, but at the same time...

"I'm sorry." The words are thick in his throat, but he gets them past his lips and the worst of it is over. John looks up at him immediately. "It's not... Look, it's just boredom. It's just what I do."

"You never used to do this." John pauses. "Did you?"

"No, I didn't," Sherlock replies indignantly. "Not before... It just happened one day and I got interested."

"You got... interested," John repeats, "in self-harm."

"Well, blood flow, types of injuries, the gauge of pain," Sherlock begins, prepared to lay out his mental map of reasons as to why he's done this, but John interrupts.

"Blo- Sherlock, just..." John blows out a breath. "This was an experiment."

"Of course," Sherlock replies immediately, blinking. It's obvious. Isn't it? He had never thought about suicide ever since starting this habit, He had thought about different ways to do it. He had thought about different types of pain. He had never thought about suicide. "Why would I want to end my own life?"

John snorts. "Well, that's as modest as you get..."

Sherlock shrugs, drawing his mug to his lips.

"Sherlock, just... promise me something."

"I won't do it again," Sherlock replies promptly.

John flashes him a look. Sherlock doesn't respond to it. His words are the truth. He knows he won't do it again. It was an experiment. He had gotten a lot out of it. Some interesting knowledge about his body and his limits, not to mention other things as well.

Something else interesting... Sherlock doesn't feel the desire to press the blade against his skin anymore. John knows now, and Sherlock finds every urge to hurt himself squashed. Hurting himself somehow hurts John. Sherlock knows that it is fact- he doesn't understand it, but he knows it is. And, somehow, something even more unexplainable, Sherlock doesn't want to hurt John.

Not after so long. Not after the Fall. Not after this.

Not anymore.

I started this really annoying snippet a month or so ago, after reading other stories about Sherlock being a self-harming man. I fell in love with the idea, the vulnerability aspect and Sherlock's hidden pain. And then Scandal happened, or, you know, I really looked at Scandal, and Sherlock goes sheetless and he does not have scars that the viewers can see. I lost the will to write this. I am a big canon person. However, I found myself re-reading it today and decided to finish it, and label it as somewhat AU-ish because, in AU, I love it.

Anyway, your thoughts are always appreciated.