"Home, sweet home," Sherlock said dryly, dropping his duffel bag into the entranceway. His voice was coming back, slowly but surely, in the few days it had been since the afternoon of the fire. His throat still ached, but he wouldn't go to doctor for it. There were more pressing things, like the fact that he had very little clothing left to his name, only the clothes that had been at Mycroft's that were now shoved irritably into the duffel bag he'd just dropped.

Without another word, he turned and took the steps two a time upstairs. Both of the bedrooms were upstairs this time. The last time Sherlock had slept upstairs had been when he had camped out in the attic when he was a child because he hadn't wanted to sleep in the same room as Mycroft. But it had been so hot in the attic, Sherlock's plan had been ruined. Hopefully, the central air in the house would chase summer heat away from the upstairs now. Sherlock hated sleeping when it was hot.

He tightened his grip on his laptop in one hand, his violin case in the other, and toed open the door to the bedroom that was now his. It definitely had Mycroft's touch; Sherlock could see it in the curtains, the duvet, and the carpet. Strangely, though, there were bits of Sherlock already in this room, too. There was a framed copy of the periodic table hanging on the wall, similar to his previous one but different in colour and font. Sherlock stared at it blankly for a long moment before stepping forward, putting his laptop onto the desk in the corner. Nearly identical to the old desk in Sherlock's old room, albeit a lot neater.

He shook his head and dropped his violin onto the double bed, flopping face-first into the brand new duvet. He ran his fingers idly over the worn-down, beaten-up case. It was one singularity, one instance of normalcy in this otherwise topsy-turvy world.

This definitely wasn't home. Yes, it was their flat. But a 'house' wasn't always necessarily a 'home'.

He guessed it was up to him and John to make it into one.

Instead of bothering to find something else to do, Sherlock stayed exactly where he was: sprawled out, laying across his bed with his face in the blankets. He left his room occasionally to use the loo, traipsing down the hallway with sluggish limbs and little enthusiasm. He went to get a cuppa once, but he just wasn't hungry or thirsty. Honestly, he wasn't in much of a mood to do anything.

That was depression. He knew that. He was determined not to let it get the best of him, but he also told himself that he'd deal with it later. He had the power to break out of the sluggishness. Sure. He didn't just want to right now.

He also didn't want to sleep. Or, maybe he did, but he couldn't. He hadn't done that for four, maybe five days now. He hadn't been sleeping because of the case prior to the fire, and now, after everything that had happened, all he saw when he closed his eyes were the flickering imprints of flames tearing down Baker Street.

He was reaching his limit, although he wasn't consciously aware of it. All he was consciously aware of was that he wanted to be sprawled out across their sofa with two or three nicotine patches, but his sofa wasn't there and neither were his nicotine patches.

Midnight crept by with the ticking of an ornate clock on the wall, and then one, and then two. Sherlock pressed his forehead into his pillow - too new, too stiff, too not plushy - and stifled a groan. It wasn't like he didn't want to sleep, no. He definitely did. Sleep was the only refuge from this terrible reality. But it was physically impossible. He was wound so tightly that he couldn't relax and he wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to come back from that. If there had been a sleeping aid in this flat, he would have taken double the intended dose and been out like a light. That was probably the reason there was no sleeping agents in the flat.

With an annoyed growl, he pushed himself into a sitting position and flung the tangled blankets away, grabbing his violin from the foot of the bed. He flipped the latches and jerked the violin out, whisking his bow free.

He wasn't in the mood for music so much as he was a distraction, so he didn't look for a composition in his vast room of Music Knowledge in his mind palace. Instead, he just sawed his bow back and forth over the noise, ignoring as the grating, screeching notes bit into his throbbing head, over and over again. He'd done this once before to chase Mycroft out of their flat; maybe it would work to chase away his thoughts.

It wasn't as though the notes helped that crushing headache settled permanently beneath his left temple, but the fact that John thumped down the hallway not a whole thirty seconds later and proceeded to pound on his door brought the first flicker of amusement that he'd felt in days to his body.

"Sherlock, stop that right now or I swear I will have Mycroft lock it up in one of his secret bases!"

It wasn't funny, it wasn't. But it was funny that John was angry at him. For some reason.

His own emotions were so dark and twisted that he was in a remarkably dark place, for him. His strops that were dark and twisted usually ended up with cocaine and drug dens, a die-hard habit, product of his past. But even the urge to go out and shoot up wasn't there, not right now, but instead replaced with the urge to see how far he could push John before he snapped. John snapping was better than Sherlock letting himself snap, right?

He jerked the bow harshly across the d string, scowling at his bedroom door as the sharp, wailing note echoed in the now-silence of the flat. That was his not-so-silent way of saying Piss off! with a capital P.

He tapped his fingers against the polished wood of his violin for a second, awaiting to see what John would do. Regardless of the threats, Sherlock didn't want to stop playing and therefore he wouldn't. He had to resist the insane urge to put two fingers on the a and peel off a c sharp, fingers itching to be back against the strings.

His door flung open seconds later. John marched in with his shoulders squared and expression set. "I understand," he said - it sounded like his teeth were gritted - "that the last few days haven't been easy for you, Sherlock, and maybe you don't want to sleep, but some of us do."

Sherlock didn't look up, but he was helpless to stop the very brief, vaguely homicidal grin that flashed across his lips. His back was to the door now, so John wouldn't see it, but the amusement was fresh in his mind. That was bad, he knew it was. He shouldn't be taking humour out of annoying his flatmate. After all, if John hadn't been out with him to get dinner, he might not even have a flatmate at all right now.

But he shook that thought away and raised his bow back into playing position. He returned to playing the patchy notes that had been sawing off before, ignoring John's presence behind him. He knew how this was going to end. He knew John would eventually tear the violin from his hands to prevent him from playing, take it with him so he could go back to sleep. But it didn't matter the end result. He was pushing all the wrong boundaries, anyway: how long he could go without food, without sleeping, what made John tick. Why should he put bother into trying to make amends while he was still actively tearing them down?

He heard John's footsteps. He was going to yell him into what he hoped was cooperation, Sherlock anticipated, and his already-coiled body tightened further, awaiting the moment where John would raise his voice. He could practically hear the adrenalin pumping through his body; there was a fight to be had. Or at least: he was going to be yelled at. Close enough.

But then John did something Sherlock hadn't expected at all: he put his hand on his shoulder.

Sherlock jerked as though he'd been shot. He had expected a row. He hadn't expected compassion. He couldn't deal with that.

"Get off," he snapped, the amount of venom dripping from his tone surprising even himself, and retreated to the other side of the room. He delved into his mind palace to find composition now and put the bow back against the strings, but his hands were shaking now, so much so that the trembling was actually causing errors in his usually flawless playing.

He was a mess. The sheer weight of that crashed down on him in that moment, almost chasing away whatever John was saying in the background:

"You need to rest".

"Leave. Me. Alone," Sherlock intoned, jerking a staccato note, each louder and more screechy than the last, to punctuate each word. "I'll sleep when I'm tired. If you're so worried about it, you should be in bed," he continued bluntly. "Piss off and leave me alone."

Part of his mind said it was very, very strange to be on the giving end of that order. Most people him to piss off, not the other way around. It was... interesting, he supposed. But, really, he was too tired to care. He just wished John would leave him alone so he could go back to suffering on his own. Was solitude really too much to ask?

John crossed his arms. "No. I'm not leaving. Someone needs to haul your sorry arse into bed when you finally collapse." Sherlock watched from the corner of his eyes as John walked across the room and dropped into the large chair in the corner of the room. He met Sherlock's gaze. "You're trying to handle things on your own again, Sherlock. You should know by now that that never works out for you."

"Fine." Sherlock jerked his violin and bow away from his chest and flung both of them onto the bed. "I'll leave."

He swept from the room, his dressing gown billowing out behind him. It was blue, but it wasn't his because those had gone out of production ages ago. He could have found a maroon one easily enough, but his blue, striped one was impossible. Besides, the maroon one didn't matter; the blue one had been the one he had lived in the most at Baker Street...

Sherlock shook his head, too fast, because the world spun wildly and he stumbled into the wall, barely catching himself. Annoying. All of this. Every damn thing. Because first the flat and then Mycroft and now this flat and everything was too damn quiet. Being in the country versus being on one of the most travelled streets in Central London? There was a difference and the silence was making his head hurt because this wasn't where they were supposed to be.

He wasn't sure where he was going, but he figured a walk was probably the best bet. It probably wasn't, actually, given his physical state, but mentally, he wanted to be alone. He took the stairs two a time down, until about the eighth stair from the bottom, where his physical state decided to conveniently give out and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

He was unconscious before he would have had time to blink, which was for the best; falling down eight stairs in a tumble of sleep-deprived limbs and a pounding headache wasn't going to really help anything, so at least he wasn't awake to witness the pain as he fell.


Prepared to do anything?

;p I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!