John generally thought that he'd gotten used to the many shades and hues of Sherlock fairly quickly: he could deal with the erratic bursts of violin and pacing interspersed with complete stillness, and the lack of eating and no sleeping, and pre-case Sherlock and post-case Sherlock and no-case Sherlock and all the other Sherlocks he'd dealt with since the insufferable man had become his flatmate (or the other way round, really, but that was moot point). And given he'd now spent over a year in residing in Baker Street he had thought that he'd seen it all, but then he'd never seen Sherlock deal with an actual failure before: sure, he'd been reported baffled about that business with the man in the boot of the car (although that had ended up related) and he'd been too late to save someone too – both of which resulted in him being irritable and silent and more of a pain in the arse than normal – but this time Sherlock had put all the pieces together and got the answer wrong because of his own sense of arrogance.

John hadn't even got the full story, really. Sherlock had turned up again in the middle of the night, white as anything, hadn't moved off the sofa for several hours before finally looking at the stack of cold cases Lestrade had given him for next time he was complaining of 'boredom' and in the next twenty four hours Sherlock had found enough information out of the 'poorly made inadequate' notes to locate two missing persons – one, unfortunately, buried in the parent's back garden – and solve two further murder enquiries without leaving the flat. He hadn't been able to find room within himself to be impressed, because the whole thing was frankly so alarming that it was all John could do not to confiscate the remaining files and sedate Sherlock with something.

He'd gotten the details off Mycroft.

Course, after his supply of cold cases ran out and Lestrade was buried too deep in the subsequent paper to get involved on that big murder and the other Detective Inspector – Gregerson – had been such a tosser that John had almost added assaulting a police officer to his resume, and in the end Sherlock had emailed the relevant details and fallen into a state of nothingness for at least a week.

And John had hated it.

Sherlock had barely spoken but to state that he was absolutely fine, John and then had taken to disappearing at odd times of the night and his expression melted into that vulnerability which was such a damn lie. The one John purely associated with some chemical high or other, or acting for short periods of time on a case – he didn't like it in either case. And when Sherlock disappeared for a long enough period of time that John had nearly filed out a missing persons file, John wasn't deluding himself into believing Sherlock's derisive 'case' in answer to his questions.

Course, the needle had been the last straw.

He wasn't ignorant, but the fact that Sherlock was either too far gone to bother hiding it any more, or was incapable of doing so was a blatant cry for help that he couldn't ignore. And the flat hadn't exactly been a nice place to be since then.

"John," Lestrade said, approaching with his own take out coffee cup and an almost grim expression, "how is everything?"

The last time John had seen Lestrade it had been to demand for Greg to catalogue the whole history of Sherlock's drug abuse, to his knowledge, so he could log every overdose, every substance Sherlock had been hooked on and all the other little details in between. What had changed? Why had he stopped before? To be fair to him, Greg had done his best, but hinted that the six years he'd known the man had definitely not been the worse before asking is Sherlock okay?

To which, obviously, John had to answer with a resounding no.

So Sherlock was off cases and even worse than ever, and John quit another job to act as a vigil to withdrawal-Sherlock, who was the biggest tosser yet. He tried to keep him at least semi-occupied with deducing the lie detectors on Jeremy Kyle or whatever it was. Endless google searches about drug addictions, more than a few trips to the library and phone calls to his other medical-mates later, and Sherlock was looking a little better. He'd put back on some of the weight. More liable to throw insults around again. But moody as ever stuck in the flat with John acting as a prison warden (more or less), and John was acutely aware that his brain was melting out of sheer boredom and that he was sure to get the classic 'but you don't think!' rant soon enough.

"Better," John said, shrugging his shoulders slightly and wondering how having his flatmate blame him for the murder of three women was an improvement but he was almost sure that Sherlock hadn't looked at the case until the past week, when he seemed to be a person rather than an occasionally animate corpse. "He's been clean for a few weeks."

"How clean?"

"Squeaky," John said, wondering how much of that he could actually believe. The withdrawal had certainly been very real, there was no denying that, but given he'd near-convinced himself that Sherlock wasn't that far off an overdose (probably him over thinking as with Harry and her alcohol was the main basis of his assumptions and they were a bit different) he'd expected Sherlock to still be… well, not exactly cold turkey. But right now he was sure the man was as sober as Sherlock ever was. "Got any cases?"

"One or two."

"Could you let him in?"

"Yeah," Lestrade said, after a sip of his coffee, "can't imagine he's much fun to live with at the moment."

"He said he could have solved the Vaisey murder after the first victim." John said, pressing his fingers to his temples for a second. In the beginning, John had decided that he only be pushed so far. The first time Sherlock brought him across London to text a bloody murderer, John decided there were certain lines that he would not cross.

Then, course, he killed for him and tried to save his life through sacrificing himself to a mad criminal mastermind with a fondness for Westwood, which meant at some point he'd probably crossed that line and then some. But, it had stopped being about living with Sherlock because he was interesting and he liked co-inhabiting a flat with a mad genius, to Sherlock being his best friend and the primary functional relationship in his life. And he could deal with self-destruction, too, but he had to redraw the line somewhere.

"I've got to ask," Gregory Lestrade said, looking a little more grey than John had last seen him, actually, "what happened? Been checking the blog, but…"

This was the point that always plagued John and followed him around, because it was a somewhat unspoken agreement of anonymity between Sherlock and John. Partially it was just common sense, because although he classified Greg as one of his good friends he wasn't really sure what the Detective Inspector side of the man would say about illegal fire arms (although, realistically, he must have noticed what with the holes in the walls), or the fact that they had, on several occasions, broken into apartments and what not. Then, more than that, was the unspoken agreement of friendship that was Sherlock-and-John… and he wasn't entirely sure whether Sherlock would want to know about the latest weakness John had upturned.

"National secrets," John said. Lestrade raised his eyebrows and didn't look entirely as surprised as the conversation would usually require within every day conversation and set down his cup of coffee.

"Just, what are we dealing with here?"

"A failure," John said, shaking his head slightly, "large scale."

"Seriously?"

"A woman."

"Jesus." Lestrade said, taking up his coffee again and shaking his head with what John considered due surprise and exasperation. Predating Christmas, he wouldn't exactly have associated Sherlock Holmes with woman troubles (any further than getting Mrs Hudson to either do the cleaning or not do the cleaning, depending on his mood), and yet this whole debacle had been kick started by a woman.

"Irene Adler?" Lestrade said, "saw that on you blog."

"Don't google it," John advised, "look, Greg, I need to get back – I mean, Sherlock… but if you've got a case?"

"Yeah," Lestrade said, pulling out his phone, "we'll stop by Baker Street on the way, if you think he's fit."

"Leave it any longer the flat certainly won't be," John said, drowning the dregs of his coffee and feeling the beginning of what was likely a very long day creeping up on him, "mind if I stay in the car? Dunno if I can resist hitting him in the face after this morning."

"Course," Lestrade said, crushing the coffee cup in his right hand.

"But…" John said, as they exited the shop onto the pavement, "ring the doorbell before you go in… he..." John was half tempted to say, in that usual exasperated tone, that Sherlock – the mad bastard – could now deduce who was at the door with ease, but suddenly felt it too personal, "probably hasn't got dressed," John finished. "Give him some warning."

~~0o0o0~~

John hadn't seen Sherlock smoke since before Christmas: after Mycroft, John and Mrs Hudson combined had 'overacted' so 'ridiculously' with the businesses about the cigarette on Christmas day in their three-way fight against danger-nights, Sherlock had made a point to ignore the things like they might actually cause him harm, or something.

The post failure downfall had gone straight from sobriety to cocaine, as far as John could work out (not that his questions had gotten any answer other than for Sherlock too attack his choice of jumper).

"Thought he'd given up." Lestrade said, climbing back into the front of the car and watching Sherlock smoke through one, two, three cigarettes before making to move towards them.

"Forgotten you owned real clothes," John commented when Sherlock eventually climbed into car. Purple shirt, coat and scarf reinstated and most welcome, because Sherlock's pyjamas were up there with some of his worst jumpers.

"Really, John," Sherlock said, turning his gaze on him, "hardly much point getting changed if I'm under house arrest."

"I said you could go to the shop."

"With an escort."

"Some people call it company."

"Shut up."

"Done bickering back there?" Lestrade asked pointedly from the front. "Want filling in, Sherlock?"

"I doubt it," Sherlock said, gaze turning to the window, "most likely anything you say will be clouded by so much ignorance that by the time you've stopped talking I'll know less than I did before hand."

"That's Sherlock for car journeys are supposed to be silent." John said, returning to his own window and trying to remember the few times he'd actually managed to have a conversation with the man whilst in a taxi (which is where they seemed to spend most of their time). Recently, he'd taken to climbing in and shutting the door before John had a chance to hear where they were supposed to be headed, but for the large part he got a string of deductions and case related talk if they were in the middle of something or going somewhere he thought might lead to something relatively interesting (which, when with Sherlock, was usually a bit alarming). Not before the case had really started though.

"Earls court." Lestrade said.

"You mentioned it."

"Kid's Vincent Harper, goes by Vince."

"Irrelevant."

"Sherlock," John muttered, looking back from the window to glare at him to find him still starting resolutely out the window. Tosser. "You can hardly solve a case without knowing the victim's name."

"Although it might be a nice little extraneous detail to add to your blog," Sherlock said, turning back to the middle to meet John's gaze, "it hardly bares any real importance to the matter at hand."

"Right," John said, "I'll remind you of that when you ask for more data later."

"Pointless asking you anyway." Sherlock said, still facing him. Sherlock still had that odd vulnerability that had been floating round him since the return to the drugs, and John couldn't help but notice that the man was shaking ever so slightly and started debating whether or not this was a good idea. The vague awareness of the apparent transparency of his thoughts (something he'd been reminded of all too often as of late) force him to push that back of his mind and just carry on the sort of staring contest that was continuing at the back of the police car.

Why did Sherlock usually avoid police cars like the plague?

He was still mad at his idiotic flatmate, course, but he also loved the mad tosser enough to sit on the anger and save it for when Sherlock could answer properly; a withdrawal-Sherlock with nothing to do and no cases and no freedom was surely not quite as responsible for what he said as John would like to hold him, and given a lot of the past two weeks had been his doing – for Sherlock's own good – he should have expected the back lash.

He'd had his breathing space in the form of Gregory Lestrade and a cup of coffee, and now it was time to go back to thinking solely about whether Sherlock was okay, really, wondering where the hell Mycroft was in all this and why Sherlock had started smoking again.

"Here." Lestrade said, pulling up.

Sherlock was pulling the cigarettes out his coat all ready, fumbling in a way that John might have called clumsy if it hadn't been Sherlock with his lighter.

"We'll be up in a minute," John said, squaring his shoulders at the cold of London in late February and stepping out the car. "Chaining it a bit today, aren't you?"

"Very little point in giving into your nagging about smoking inside to have you stand next to me." Sherlock said, inhaling.

"Is not smoking in the flat an apology?"

"No."

"Apology accepted, then," John said, glancing up at the row of houses in which Vince had apparently lived and died then. "Back on cases… how are we feeling about that, then?"

"You're the one with the therapist, not me."

"Never did understand that." John agreed, shoving his hands into his pockets and glancing at the street. He wasn't sure what could be said for Sherlock, but he'd really missed being on a case. Everything had been so hectic lately he'd barely had a chance to update his blog, and that fact alone seemed to have stopped new client s turning up on the door… as if they believed they might still be in the middle of something. Which they were, course, but he did hope the whole country wasn't aware that Sherlock was crashing off cocaine after screwing up a case centred around a dominatrix.

"I can go in now if you want."

"No," Sherlock said, perhaps a little too quickly, "it's… fine."

John nodded. He wouldn't fancy facing Anderson and Lestrade alone either. And it wasn't like he couldn't have predicted Sherlock's answer, but if the odd acknowledgement that something was fine were the only scraps of affection John could get from his best mate then John wasn't beyond digging for them, particularly after the frankly abysmal state of the day so far.