Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Sherlock took a razor to his wrist, he was Ten. He didn’t have to fear being caught; Mycroft had long since gone to university. His brother was exceedingly smart, more so than him, as he loved to brag, and had completely skipped college altogether. Their parents were never home either, which left him with nannies puttering about, and housekeepers, who really didn’t care enough about him to check up on how he was doing. It had been around three days since he had stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door- the Easter holiday beginning. No matter how hard he would beg, brother wouldn’t be coming home for his two weeks off, instead choosing to do more work as he so loved to do. By the time he was covered head to toe in scars, and running out of space, he was twelve.

The manor was cold and loveless as it had always been. The quietness left a hollow aching in his chest, a deep longing for some form of attention or coddling. He would say he misses it, but you can’t miss something you’ve never experienced. Maybe Mycroft loved him once, when he was still a tot and his brother had much more time on his hands to bother with his little brother’s affairs. He remembered the elder following him around as he drifted through the house- playing pirate or something akin to that. In a very far past, he even remembers Mycroft taking care of him when his parents refused to. Giving him a bottle or soothing his tears. Sherlock had always been desperate to be cared for. A shocking absence of that was the only thing that he could reach for in the cold, neglecting air of his home as he lay huddled beneath covers, sobbing into his pillow, feeling the desperate loneliness expand within him until he was enveloped into a pool of despair so deep, he doubted it could ever be fixed. No amount of attention could undo what his childhood had done to him. That was a fact he knew very well. Mycroft cared for him deeply, Sherlock knew he at the least liked him, but he was certainly not sure if he loved him. He sustained him as a child, yes, allowed him to be sucked into his childish games, but his form of adoration did not to extend to hugging or coddling, something Sherlock had so desperately wanted.

He was not fit to be a child of the Holmes’, he remembers many-a-times where he would see his parents and attempt to garner their concern, only to be shoved off to his nanny. His parent’s eyes were so cold, sometimes he was afraid that his eyes would look like that one day. Icy. Emotionless. Was the neglect from his parents generational, or was he just so horrible that he couldn’t have been loved even if he tried? The razor blade presses harder against the rubbery skin of his wrist. School was no better, no one cared about him there either. The only tending to he received was by classmates, and that was most certainly in a loving manner. They were so mean. So horrible. He would come back with bruises and scrapes and gashes from where they had shoved him onto a twig which imbedded itself into his flesh. They harassed and just wouldn’t stop. Thrashing him with their horrible, vile words until he was left sobbing, shaking, alone, in a place that was supposed to make him safe. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong. Perhaps it was true that a person who never experienced affection could never give it, and everyone else knew it, and they knew that his guardians didn’t give one single shit about him, no one did, so they decided he wasn’t worth the trouble. He wasn’t good enough to experience what it would be like to be happy. He wasn’t good enough for anyone. Not his parents. He sliced a cut into his wrist. Not his classmates. Another. Not his stupid, fat brother, who left him all alone in this stupid, loveless house.

Tears poured down his cheeks silently, besides from a devastating keen or a hiccup. He whittled at his skin until blood pooled on the tiles of the bathroom floor, clots wriggling about in thick clumps beneath his feet. In his frantic attempt at relief, he hadn’t made the wounds as deep as he wanted too. He could fix that. That’s what he liked about this; it was something he could control. He chose how deep he went. He chose how many he did. Maybe, maybe if he sliced a little too much, or a little too great, he wouldn’t survive. And then he would be cared about, sobbed over. The people who never worried over him in life would in death. He wouldn’t be there to experience it, but it was worth it, being alive wasn’t, he could feel relief, he could finally be content. Then, mummy and daddy would weep over a coffin, and brother Mycroft would finally come home from university and stop looking at the mounds of papers on his desk and avert his eyes to Sherlock’s face. Maybe he would cry too. The school would make an assembly- like they did when that girl died in a terrible car crash- and his classmates would be guilty. They would cry too. The teacher’s would feel like they failed him. A kid, only twelve, committing suicide because they failed to stop a horrific case of bullying. Failed to notice how bad his home life was.

He was snapped out of his spiral by a gasp.

His brother stood in the door of the bathroom, absolute sorrow on his face. Eyebrows drawn together and mouth agape. Grey eyes sparkled with tears and a shaky hand moved to wipe across his face and brush hair from his cheeks.
“Sherlock?” He wept; a sob caught in his throat. “’Lock, put the blade down. Please.” His brother never said please. He was ignorant, and uncaring, and he was staring at the gashes on his wrists and crying freely over it. Sherlock’s shaking hands dropped the blood-soaked blade into the puddle of gore beneath him. Why was Mycroft home, he was never home. No matter how much he pleaded or begged or wailed, Mycroft would always push him away from around his waist and sent him on his way back to the car, leaving from his short visit he was allowed once in a while.
“My?” He hiccupped; his brother stumbled towards him collapsing onto his knees as he pressed his hand around his arm, pushing roughly against his cuts. He ignored Sherlock’s pained moan.

-

Mycroft couldn’t believe it. He had been so busy with his studies, despite his intelligence, being the youngest person in his university wasn’t exactly easy. Maybe he shouldn’t have ignored his duties as a big brother for so long, refused his baby brother’s pleads for him to visit once, just once, he didn’t even have to stay for the whole holiday! Sherlock had begged. Sherlock had begged and Mycroft, the cold, calloused man he was had pushed him away. And now he was sitting here, atop the bloodied bathroom floor, with his darling ‘lock bleeding from gashes he had made on his wrists. His body was so covered in thick masses of scars. It had been happening for so long, so severe. How could he have not seen it? It wasn’t a hard answer. He had grown as neglectful as his parents. It mustn’t be easy, to live in this household, Mycroft had experienced it himself, and yet he had given Sherlock a glimpse of relief, a glimpse of what it felt like to be loved, before brutally stripping it away from him. He was the worst big brother in the world.

They sat there, Sherlock sobbing into his brother’s chest for a while, until Mycroft had calmed down enough to pull his little brother up. He was soaked in blood, practically caked in it. He let one more sob escape him before peeling his hand away from Sherlock’s arm- glad to see the bleeding had stopped. They were so bad. How could a twelve-year-old do this to themselves? It’s beyond horrific. He needed stitches desperately, but he knew that his darling brother would freak out if he brought the prospect of hospital up.
“Let’s get you washed up” He whispered gently, turning around whilst sherlock peeled his clothes from his body. He helped his brother into the bath, trying to ignore cuts which were barely a day old on his thighs. It was staggering. They went from his hip to the top of his knee, stopping at the joint before continuing to his calf, a gradient of age revealed. It was horrific, the majority of them needed stitches, but the majority of those had passed the forty-eight-hour mark. He would do his best. He would do anything. Anything for his brother. He thinks that’s a funny thought, considering how vile he had been all this time whilst Sherlock as at home, cutting himself and miserable.

Mycroft scrubbed the blood from his skin, soothing Sherlock’s tears and gasps of pain as he scraped a cut.
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay” He whispered, not knowing if he was talking to himself or his brother more. When they were finished, he helped the shorter clamber out of the bath and wrapped him in the towel he had prepared on the radiator.

Sherlock quickly dressed himself in pyjamas, a t-shirt and shorts, at Mycroft’s request. It made it easier to reach all his cuts. He started with the lower wrist, taking steri-strips and closing the ones which needed it. It was most of them, and he felt his heart clench. He rubbed a salve against them and pressed gauze, making sure it didn’t rub away the anti-biotic, before wrapping that gauze safely with bandages and taping it all together. Repeating the process until all the wounds were covered, his baby brother looked like a mummy. It was devastating, to see the person he loved so much so hurt. He wanted to suck all the pain from his tiny body and make himself absorb it.
“Why?” he asks, kneeling in front of him with hangs resting on his knees. Sherlock shuddered, tears dripping down his ruddy cheeks. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed to speak. “It hurt- it hurts so bad and- and mummy and daddy don’t love me and the people at school are so mean and I’m so, so lonely. You don’t come back from school at all and I ‘m left all alone in this empty, cold house where no one loves me and I have no one to love back-“ His baby brother is sobbing desperately into his hands, heart-breaking wails ripping from his small, love-filled chest.

“Oh, Sherlock.” He sighs, pulling the younger boy into his arms, where he clutches at his shirt, tears and snot soaking into the shoulder of his polo. “I’m going to- I’m going to have you tell me where the rest of your blades are, okay?” He soothes, “And then I’m going to stay with you- take care of you for the rest of the holiday, and I’ll be back for the entirety of all the other ones, and you are going to stop, okay?” Sherlock nods frantically and whines. Mycroft soothes him for a few minutes longer before gently pulling himself away from his clingy little brother. Sherlock gives away his hiding spots easily, and all the blades are removed from his room quickly.

-

The rest of the holiday goes well, Sherlock thinks. He manages not to cut himself at all in that time, and it’s mostly because he had no way to, but it still counts nonetheless. He knew that it wouldn’t last, though. Truly, he didn’t want to recover. Home life was slightly better with his brother around, but it still wasn’t good, and he lived in harrowing fear every day of what it would be like to return to school.

He was right, the return was bad. It was so, so bad. Mycroft had left, though leaving letters every day, and the manor was empty once more. The bullying didn’t lessen; it only got worse. The itch at his skin was horrific. He needed to hurt himself. He needed it now. It didn’t take long before he managed to smuggle blades from the corner shop. Mycroft would be mad, but it was worth it. A forced recovery will never work, because the person going through recovery actually has to want it for it to happen, and that’s one thing that Sherlock most definitely does not want, to recover. He wonders if he’ll be like this forever. In the future, maybe no one will love him when he’s older either, and going to work would be as horrible as going to school, and going to an empty flat would be as bad as coming home, and he’ll hide up in his bedroom and slice at his skin until his body is more wounds that skin actually kept together.

It's his fate. Sherlock will always be at least a little miserable, if he doesn’t kill himself by adulthood, and he knows that. In a way, he’s almost accepted it. When he thinks of his future it’s never a happy one. No partner. No children. No family. The only friend he has being his older brother, and a desperate need for love still caving into his chest as it did as a child. If he does manage to be happy in the future, or at least content, Sherlock will be beyond shocked. Its improbable, and most certainly not something a freak like him deserves.

Sherlock sits upon his bed once more, presses a blade against rubbery skin, and slices.

Chapter Text

At the age of sixteen, Sherlock had been cutting for six years, of course Mycroft had attempted to force him to recover, but after many failed attempts, he had finally given up. At the age of sixteen, Sherlock had been addicted to his favourite seven-percent-solution for two. His brother, once again, had tried to cut that one off as soon as it had begun. Forcing him into endless hours of gruelling rehab, and sending him to countless clinics. The worst of them all was when, after a minor overdose, his brother had forced him into a mental facility. His mind had stagnated in boredom, and the period was so horrific that he deleted everything that had occurred within those finely protected walls. The only thing he knew was that when he would even think about the prospect of such a place, he would shudder, a lump of misery forming within the pit of his stomach. Now, all Mycroft wished for, was a note when he consumed drugs, and a call when the self-harm grew severe.

At the age of sixteen, Sherlock lay on the floor of a drug den, sweat dripping down his brow as he shuddered and trembled. He was burning, so hot he felt as if combusting. Pouring down his chin, vomit sat in a grotesque puddle Infront of him, it appeared it wasn’t enough as his chest heaved and stomach twisted into knots. His hand shuddered, scraping against the concrete as he tapped about, moving against the cotton of his shirt and towards his chest, where, below, his heart thundered and stuttered. He didn’t know what was happening, and that was the worst part. His brain was melting in his skull and he was so confused. He didn’t know where he was or why he was here, all he knew was that it hurt and it hurt bad. Tears dripped languidly down his cheeks; Sherlock groaned and moaned.

He could hear people speaking but he couldn’t see people speaking. Whispers exploded in his head; he wasn’t thinking them. He didn’t know what was happening. He was so scared. So, so scared. Shadows morphed into bodies before disappearing within a blink; faces stared at him through windows. They stalked towards him and he shuddered, dragging his aching body closer to the wall he was leaning against. A moan. Was it him or was it the men he just couldn’t make out? Footsteps echoed and he wept harder, screeching when a hand rested in his shoulder.
“Sherl…” A familiar voice soothed between the whispers which were growing increasingly insistent. It was too much. He wanted it all to stop.

--

He didn’t know what he would have to face when he got the call from Anthea. Whatever it was, if it was about his baby brother, it would be about the cutting or the drugs or the suicidal tendencies his manic brother had gathered over the years. He didn’t know how Right he was. Seeing his Sherlock, thin as a stick, hair matted and greasy on his head, and skin ashen and the texture of leather, was the most horrifying experience he would ever go through. When he had arrived, the poor boy was cowering in a corner- sat atop an old, ripped apart mattress. He was shaking violently and sweating profusely, his breath coming in raspy pants. Despite his eyes being clutched shut desperately, beneath his eyelids, he could see the organs flickering about.

Mycroft approached him gently, voice soothing as he reaching out to press a gentle hand against his baby brother’s shoulder.
“Sherlock, brother dear, it’s me” he soothed gently, only to gasp at the younger’s desperate, agonised wail. The teenager thrashed in his grasp and threw himself back against the wall- hands crossing over his chest.

It took an hour to lull him from his psychosis, and for a while he held him against his chest before gently lowering him down to shudder against the mattress as he checked over the list his dearest brother had left for him to find. A promise he had managed to keep since the earlier years, the start of his addiction. The overdose would certainly not be fatal, just a horrific experience he would have to go through.
For the next three hours, Mycroft sat next to his brother as he wept and screamed and panicked, soothing him the best he could, with gentle rubs on his back, and kisses on his forehead.

When it finally ended, Sherlock was beyond miserable and utterly confused, unable to concentrate. Mycroft ,gently, helped him up, hand beneath his underarm as he walked his brother, in tiny, stuttering steps, to the car. His driver greeted him with only a nod, and Anthea in the back seat gave Mycroft a look of acknowledgement as she moved to the front, giving the brothers enough room to stay close. For Sherlock’s sake, not Mycroft’s. The car ride was stifling, silence only broken with Sherlock’s gentle sobs and hiccups as he clutched onto his older brother’s suit. They wouldn’t talk about this in the morning, ignore the sentiment both have them had shown, and he knew the feud between them would be re-enacted once more as soon as his younger brother had gotten a long, comfortable night of rest and was less agonisingly jumbled up as he was now.

--

When he awoke, he was warm for what felt like the first time in decades. Snuggling further into the covers, he sighed. Memories of the night before invaded into his mind and forced him to dip into his mind palace and examine them from every point of view possible, watching himself as he thrashed and sobbed, obviously hallucinating as he flinched away from non-existence touch. Watching himself as he gave into vulnerability, wailing into his brother’s arms. Watching as his hell finally finished and he was carried to the car, taken into the house which his brother owned for when he was in London, and being practically dragged upstairs and gently removed from his clothes. They were replaced with the very pyjamas he was wearing now. Mycroft had helped him into bed before tucking him in softly and sitting by his bedside, holding his hand as he fell asleep.

It was pleasant, but today he was angry. Angry at Mycroft for saving him when he hadn’t wanted to be saved. He allowed himself to become lost into an imagination of what it would be like if he had succeeded. Death would be lovely, no doubt. For one, he would no longer exist in anything apart from memories. He was knocked out from his blessed daydreams by a pang in his brain. God, he longed for drugs. A headache pounded ruthlessly in his skull. The door groaned with him as it opened, the form of Mycroft standing in the doorway, pompous as ever. His hair was slicked back and face solemn, dressed in a fancy suit with his umbrella , of course, clutched in his grasp. Sherlock dragged himself up from the bed into a sitting position and flicked his eyes around his room. His coat was hooked on the chair opposite the bed, and one of the pockets missed the faint bulge which held the remnants of his drugs. He growled and scowled at the man hovering between the room and the hallway.
“I know you’ll miss your drugs, brother mine, but I couldn’t allow you to keep them , not after… what happened.” His voice started vain before slowly cowering into a tone of worry… or condescension. He wondered if his brother had found the blades hidden within the soles of his shoes. He hoped not. God, would he need them living with Mycroft for however long he deemed necessary. More than that, he pondered on what he would have done if he had administered the correct dosage, he was an idiot, he had lowballed it, and now he was alive.

Mycroft would probably be upset. He thinks he should. Even if, at times, they seemed to distain each other, they were still brothers. The elder walked from the room not long later, told by the echoing of fancy heeled shoes. At once, Sherlock bounded from bed, stopped quickly by a sharp light-headedness. He warbled on the spot for a moment before the dizziness grew faint and the increased aching in his head died down, and he finally managed to reach his shoes at the opposite side of the room. Collapsing to the floor, he grasped at them desperately and slung the soles out. They were gone. The blades no longer there, presence only believable by the flickers of blood on the wood of the heels. His breath shuddered. Sherlock careened forwards until his forehead was resting against the wall and just let himself sob. If Mycroft had any cameras in the room, which he was certain he did, he was thankful for him not coming up to console him.

His hands grasped at his hair as hard as possible and pulled, head knocking gently against the wall as he rocked back and forth. His heart ached from something that wasn’t drugs, a deep, unbearable despair. He felt as if his ribs would crack with the pressure. He hurt, and it hurt, an he wanted to hurt worse. Pain in the body quiets the pain in the mind, as he had taught himself. But now his blades were gone, at the hands of his stupid, fat, older brother, and all he could do was scratch at scabs until they peeled and blood dripped slowly. Ever so slowly. Onto the carpeted floor of his brother’s spare room. For hours he wailed, and smashed, and banged, until the blankets on the bed were strewn across the room. Until the bedside table was knocked over and the drawers were falling out. Until the room was an absolute tip, and Sherlock sat in the middle, the biggest mess of it all. He was sated, for now. His anger had drained into exhaustion and his brain was finally quiet.

Slow footsteps could be heard by the door and it creaked open gently.
“Are you done now?” It soothed, and Sherlock couldn’t help but let out one last sob as his brother crouched down in front of him and drew him into his warm, familiar, and steady arms.