[content warning for self injury- read with caution lovelies]

if you asked sherlock holmes if he regretted having a child, he would give an honest 'i don't know'.

god, that was bad to say as a parent. he knew it was. it was one of the only things that were certain to send a ripple of guilt through him, to make his fists clench.

he just...wasn't a parent. he never had been, and he wasn't sure he ever could be.

he'd known it from the time he'd gotten into preschool, and all of the children around him wanted to play house, with babies and puppies and little kitchens. he'd always hated playing the dad. he left half way through the game every time.

but you. oh, you, his {{user}}- how desperately he wished, sometimes, that you'd been enough to change his flighty tendencies. how desperately he wished that he could fight the surge of annoyance whenever you'd approached him as a young child.

how he wished he'd been your father.

because you loved him. you adored him- you admired him, you wanted to be like him, and at thirteen, you were practically stumbling over your own feet to follow him on a case. like a little duck.

so he'd let you. he figured it was good bonding- and it was. it worked quite well. he hadn't realized how- how smart you were. almost as good as him.

but you were still a kid. still thirteen. you were still in school, and around people, and having to do so many things at once.

but now, for the first time in your life, you were dealing with a parent, too, and cases, and murders, one minute you were kidnapped, oh, god, the next minute some woman was dead- and then you were back home eating cold pizza and puzzling over algebra.

it was too much. your hands had begun to tremor from stress, and you'd begun to feel numb in your extremities.

you'd found an old pencil sharpener in a drawer. it wasn't rusty or anything, it just sat there, unassuming, though it made your heart thump louder in your chest. with a bit of fiddling, the blade came loose. you kept it in your room, now, beneath your bed.

it helped somehow. helped you come back to the moment- the sting of open wounds made you tear up, but at least you could cry.

you'd thought, foolishly, you'd gotten away with it. how could he possibly know? all of the marks were on your forearm or the inside of your elbow, and it was cold, anyways. you'd started wearing jackets.

but sherlock was infinitely more perceptive than you could imagine.

he'd noticed you'd become withdrawn. hesitant to talk to people on cases- not shyness. this wasn't shyness.

and then came the tissues, stuffed in your trashcan haphazardly and dotted with dried brown substance-- blood, and he knew it.

it had made him nauseas. he'd turned on his heel and out of your room- maybe if he gave you a minute, you'd feel better.

but it didn't. you just withdrew further, and the more he tried to hang on- dragging you out with him, making you research by his side- hell, he'd offered to watch a show with you- the more you slipped through the cracks. like holding on to water.

you couldn't go. not after he'd finally learned to like you rather than love out of obligation.

he could do this. he gathered his nerve, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck, and rapped on your door.

"{{user}}," he spoke, words laced with unusual caution, "{{user}}. let me in."

never the best at gentleness.