It was after a week-long case which had kept both residents of 221B (along with a certain Scotland Yard Detective Inspector) with little sleep, when John stumbled out of his bedroom and made his way to his morning tea.

Leaving some not-so-stale bread in the toaster and cradling the all-important mug, he made his way to his armchair and huffed in relief at the knowledge that he wouldn't have to spend his day chasing underworld warlords. Sherlock was sprawled over the sofa, seemingly oblivious to the other life around him, in his usual post-case bliss. John smiled as he sipped his tea and contemplated what the great detective could be considering.

"JOHN!" Sherlock shouted as he was suddenly knelt in front of the doctor who could only blink back in confusion as he tried to comprehend how his flatmate could at one moment be on the other side of the room and the next be right in front of him; without him noticing. At all.

"Toast!" John moved from bewilderment to alarm in a second as he flung himself off his armchair, and towards the toaster, knocking the kneeling Sherlock to the floor as he did.

He stopped short.

In the kitchen appliance, 2 slices of almost-stale-but-not-quite bread sat completely untoasted. Tentatively, John poked the still bread. It swayed before once again falling still within its metal confines.

Once again, John pushed the button down and watched as the heating filament slowly began to glow a bright, fiery orange, the heat warming his nose as he lent dangerous close to the toaster. Sherlock stood in the doorway awkwardly, watching the unpredictable movements of the one person he could normally most easily read.

The doctor still hadn't moved when the timer spun round to a stop and the toast bounced up and off his nose.

Sighing, partly in relief, partly in annoyance and partly in resigned acceptance, John returned to his chair with his plate of toast and a new cup of tea.

"Better now?" a slightly confused Sherlock asked as he continued to puzzle over what had just happened. John only huffed in reply as he stole a bite of his toast and ruffled his newspaper open.

He blinked as he tried to get the words to focus on the sheet. After a good two minutes of staring at the blurred words without reading a single one, John resigned himself to missing the paper until he woke up enough to allow his eyes to probably focus.

He took another bite of toast and began looking for something else to distract him. The toast tasted worse than expected, so much so that even the well-honed counter-gagging control of the solider/doctor could not prevent the offending mouthful from being projected across the room as John gagged in desperation.

"Mrs Hudson will take that from the out rent," Sherlock teased in an unusual swap of their usual roles, as John watched the mouthful slide, ungracefully, down the wall.

With a weary huff, John turned once more back to his paper. The words sat, firmly, where they should be, allowing him to fall back into his post-long-case morning routine. Without any conscience thought, he finished his tea, toast and paper without any further difficulty.

Content he had finished reading everything that was worth his time, he looked up to find his flatmate studying him.

"Sherlock," John asked cautiously "What are you doing?"

"Collecting data," the genius cryptically answered before launching himself off the sofa and donning his long coat. "Coming?" he shot across the room.

"Where to?" John shot back.

"Lestrade," came the one word reply.

John stood up and fell back down. "Stood up too quickly" he mumbled in answer to Sherlock's questioning gaze as he, more slowly, stood up once more.

Five minutes later, both doctor and detective were installed in the back of a black cab on their way to tell the police where they had gone wrong this time.

Exiting the taxi, Sherlock steadied John as he swayed dangerous with only a brief worried look playing across his face.

Together they entered the police HQ and made their way up to DI Lestrade's office. They gave their formal statement and later found themselves sitting in the office with its owner and cups of tea each.

Sherlock paused in his more informal and extended not-for-paperwork explanation of the latest murder case, when a strangely metronomic clicking of umbrella on tiled, Scotland Yard flooring began to crescendo as it neared the small male gathering.

"Mycroft, my dear brother, what are you doing here?" Sherlock filled the silence as his brother filled the doorway.

"Surely you're not too tired to work it out yourself, Sherlock?" the man behind the British government scolded.

"Let me rephrase the question then, following your meeting with some boring high-ranking police fool -" Lestrade huffed indignantly as John sent him a sympathetic, apologetic look but Sherlock ploughed on, and into, his brother, "- why do you feel the need to come and interrupt our rather pleasant and constructive conversation?"

"You mean your lecture to the only two people who would ever put up with it?" Mycroft gave no room for reply; the only response provoked from the rhetorical question being John's reproachful glare moving from the one Holmes to the other. "I came to say hello -"

"Since when do you have time to just 'say hello'?" Sherlock scoffed as he interrupted.

"- and to speak to your long-suffering flatmate," the older brother finished with no acknowledgement of the interruption at all.

John suddenly had everyone's faces pointed towards him; slowly he looked at around each of the men.

Mycroft had moved to stand half in the doorway, half out: his meaning clear, this was a conversation to be had outside. The look of patient expectation sat on his face. He knew the ex-solider would follow the unspoken orders and join him outside in his own time.

Sherlock had a look of smug annoyance as he wallowed in the knowledge that, although removing John from his ear-shot, he would still hear it word for word, or as close to as possible, from his friend the second they were out of his brother's physical ear-shot, if not mechanical. Mycroft gained absolutely nothing by having the 'private' chat while Sherlock had effective had one-up on him.

Lestrade, who had, in his time, had enough of his own run-ins with the elder Holmes, returned John a look of deep sympathy but even this could not quite hide the secret relief that, this time at least, the DI was not the one having to talk to the very powerful man who was Mycroft Holmes.

With a reconciled sigh, John slowly stood up. He took one step towards the door and then stopped.

He felt his hand flay out uncontrollable as he lost his balance and the room began to spin.

He watched as Sherlock suddenly started forward but could not reach him as his body jerked out of his control and to the floor.

He heard the worried call of his name from Sherlock, the hesitant questions from Lestrade and the assertive voice of Mycroft as he thrashed on the floor.

He felt Sherlock place his coat under his head and allowed the smell to envelop him as he continued to fit on the floor and darkness swiftly stole his eyesight.


Author's Note: Not sure if I've quite mastered the voices of all the characters - I would really appreciate any help and/or input that anyone may have to offer. Thanks