A/N
I got very bored with the case-fic I began, it didn't turn out at all the way I wanted it to. So I decided to scrap it. Sorry. This is a bit of a reboot, it picks up at the same place as the last chapter 3, but takes a completely different turn.

Chapter 3

At home, the suspicions of further boredom were confirmed. John pottered around to make tea, and Sherlock had another hit of cocaine. After clearing the mess around the table and on the chair, John took a seat in front of the computer and considered opening another document for the blog. But when inspiration failed to strike, he found himself just looking at Sherlock, who was stretched out on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, thinking intently by the look of it. John had a bad feeling about this. If a case didn't turn up within a few hours, Sherlock would begin to spiral, and he knew from experience that it wasn't a pretty sight. The man constantly walked at the thin line bordering boredom – a condition he couldn't handle – and whenever he fell down the wrong side, John had to pick up the pieces. But at the moment, Sherlock had locked himself into his 'mind palace', and seemed to be perfectly content. John leaned back. As long as he stuck to the cocaine there wasn't reason to worry; he knew, however, that if he started with the morphine, he would have to device something.

"What are you writing?" asked Sherlock, several hours later. It was dark out. In that time John had started to tidy up a bit, moved most of the chemistry kit back into the kitchen, gone to the shops, made himself a sandwich, and sat back down at the computer. He was already halfway through a blog post when Sherlock moved for the first time in (he checked the clock at the corner of the computer) five hours.

"My blog," John answered calmly.

"Well, it's not exactly your blog, now is it?"

Hmm, he was snippy. This did not bode well. He counted to ten.

"It actually is my blog, Sherlock. You have your own blog. It's about perfumes, cigarette ashes and different kinds of clay, remember? It's the one without any readers."

"The number of readers doesn't come in to it. Your blog is about me, which I think sort of devalues it as your blog."

"Did you wake up to actually say something, or are you just going to nag me?" John did not feel up for the usual games, he was desperately trying to steel himself against what he knew was coming. He was trying to detach himself as much as possible, because the usual stages of Sherlock spiralling caused him a lot of suffering, and he did not want to be dragged down by him again, not this time.

"What are you writing?" Sherlock asked again.

John took a deep breath and counted to ten. Again.

"I'm writing about that judge's son, the one that –"

Sherlock sat up. "I didn't like that one. It wasn't neat."

"Oh, so now I'm only supposed to write about the neat cases? You've already told me not to write about the unsolved ones, so I don't. You've told me to change all the names, so I do. You've told me to leave out your gratuitous drug-use, so I do. Now you tell me to only write about the cases you think were cleared up in a neat enough fashion?" Maybe he didn't need to distance himself, maybe this time it would feel good to watch the bastard suffer for a bit.

"Yes." He turned to look at John and added begrudgingly. "Please."

For the third time in less than five minutes, John had to count to ten. He then bit his tongue, and pressed down the command key and 'A'. Looking over the screen at Sherlock, he pressed 'delete'.

"There. Gone. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic."

There was a silence where John wanted to start screaming profanities, but didn't. Sherlock got up and walked slowly across the room.

"You going to bed?" John asked, hopefully.

"Hardly," Sherlock replied with that god-awful supercilious smile of his. John had to struggle to keep himself from running over to him and punch that smile off of his face. "I'm going out."

John didn't even bother to ask where. It was half past nine at night, and wherever he was going wasn't bound to be bad. He got up and reached for his coat.

"Alone," Sherlock added coldly.

John didn't say anything. It hurt, not being allowed to come along, but just in the same way as stubbing a toe on a piece of furniture that had been in the same place for years. It hurt, but half of the pain was in the fact that you had been stupid enough to think yourself on top of the situation.

As he watched Sherlock cross Baker Street from the window, he got a sudden jolt of curiosity and wondered briefly if he should follow him. The urge got to the point where he was just about to turn on his heel and grab his jacket, but decided against it. He wasn't a lost puppy; he was a grown man. He couldn't go chasing Sherlock's coat tails whenever he went out of view. It was just that… He sighed and leaned his forehead against the windowpane. It was just that if Sherlock had indeed begun to spiral down again, he wanted to be there. He wanted to, if not stop it, then at least to observe it, it feel as though he at least could steer it in the right direction. He could let Sherlock spiral out of control only if he knew that he was in control instead. If Sherlock wasn't there, didn't display the signs John had gotten so used to reading, he couldn't do anything. But so what was this? Maybe he wasn't spiralling? Maybe he was actually just going out? Sherlock always had had odd habits; it shouldn't come as a surprise. This wasn't the usual pattern. John knew the pattern.

With that, he decided that he wasn't going to worry, he was going to have a cup of tea, and then go to bed.

The plan of not worrying didn't turn out as he had planned. At three in the morning, he had his eighth cup of tea and sat back down in his chair. First, he had been watching a film, and when it ended he told himself that he just wanted to see what came next. He then told himself he was just going to watch that. And then what came after that, and after that. He had not changed the channel during the entire evening, and was now watching infomercials. In the beginning he had been able to fool himself that he wasn't waiting up at all, no, he was just watching telly. As the loop of infomercials started its fourth repeat, this lie was becoming harder to tell himself. At the most minute sound, he jumped, wide-awake, hoping it was the lock turning in the front door. It never was though, and at four, the nagging sensation in the pit of his stomach drove him out of his chair. He couldn't just sit there. Sherlock wasn't all right. He couldn't be. There was no way he could be all right. This wasn't the pattern at all. There was supposed to be at least two days of the cocaine-induced mind-palace on the couch before he turned to the morphine. And that was only if an interesting case didn't turn up before then, which it usually did. Maybe he was out looking for a case? No, that was vigilante behaviour, far too altruistic for Sherlock.

Before he really knew what he was doing, he was outside. The cold night air woke him up further, and the thick fog made it feel like he was being soaked through. It felt as though he was breathing water. He turned up and down Baker Street. The street lamps created weird glowing orbs in the fog. He had a bad feeling about this, but Sherlock was out there, somewhere. And he had a very uncomfortable feeling that Sherlock needed him.

A/N: If you'd like to read the chapters for the scrapped case-fic, feel free to message me, but I won't be publishing them.