Author's note: Another chapter, and I'm still nowhere near the end... Well, at least nobody can say I don't update regularly, and that's something, I guess.

Warnings: As "normal" in this fic, drug and alcohol addiction. And, now that Lestrade is helping Sherlock – black humour. Black, sharp, dry humour. I love it – but I'm aware it can be offensive to other people. So I'm sorry if you are one of those. I don't mean to offend any of you, honestly. It's just... and I know this may make me sound unbelievably evil, but something about druggie Sherlock and alcoholic Lestrade going after criminals is so tragically awesome. Ignore me.

I don't own anything, and please review. What do you think? Is this getting too long?

Sherlock actually falls asleep at some point during the night – he wanted to stay up thinking about the case (and, in his real life, would undoubtedly have done so, much to John's chagrin), but everything that has happened so far finally caught up with him.

Greg is nice enough to tuck him in on the sofa, then goes to bed himself – a seldom enough occasion, nowadays. Sherlock might be right, he might be crazy, or he might just be a druggie – but he's happy the younger man decided to pick his lock and make his life so much more bearable by first of all shooting up in his living room.

Fate works in mysterious ways, he muses as he slips under the covers and, once again, at the thought of Sherlock, feels something stir in his brain that refuses to come to the surface. Maybe Sherlock's right, who knows. Stranger things have – well, not exactly happened, but he has certainly read about them.

When Sherlock wakes up, it's about half past five and still dark. He stands up, feeling the coke bugs, dizziness, exhaustion and headache all over again, and remembers now we he quit all those years ago.

It wasn't just so he could work with Lestrade; there was also the fact, that, while at the beginning the cocaine had helped him to focus, over time it threatened to destroy his mind. The one thing he couldn't function without. Until everyone else – Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, John, even Mycroft (again?) came into his life and effectively crippled his carefully grafted sociopathic persona, that is.

But there's nothing he can do about the withdrawal symptoms right now, other than to shoot up.

Greg stumbles out the bedroom just as he's inserting the needle and immediately rushes back in; Sherlock frowns. He can't suddenly have made up his mind that he won't help a "druggie" – he was very clear on the whole "Us Two against the world thing". So why...

"Are you quite finished?" Greg asks from the bedroom.

Sherlock presses the plunger, which he forgot to do while pondering Greg's behaviour, heard the tingling, felt the drug rush through his bloodstream, and put the needle away. "Yes, all done."

Greg comes out of the bedroom again. "Nice sight on an early morning" he grumbles, right before he walks to the kitchen and takes a beer out of the fridge.

"Because I'm the only one giving in to his addiction once again at this wonderfully early hour, you mean?" Sherlock answers as Greg returns to the living room, looking pointedly at the bottle.

Greg takes a sip. "You can't, however, deny that my dosing system is much more pleasurable".

Sherlock raises and eyebrow. "You don't have to keep doing that around me, 'Lock, I know when I'm cryptic and need to elaborate, thank you very much. It's just – " he looks at the sleeve of Sherlock's, or rather, his shirt, which is still rolled up, so he can see the little puncture wounds quite clearly, and shudders. "I'm not good with needles. They are so sharp and they go into your skin and... "

"At least my "dosing system" is quicker."

"True. Still prefer mine, though". Greg looks out the window. "So, I guess as soon as the sun comes up – or should come up, don't think we'll get any sunshine today, with these clouds – we're off to the crime scene?"

"Yes". Sherlock pauses, wondering how to phrase his next request. "Can I have – another set of your clothes, please?"

"Course you can. You're my favourite druggie, after all".

"Thanks a lot" Sherlock makes his way to the bedroom, fetches another shirt and a pair of jeans, as well as some underwear, before taking a shower.

When he comes back dressed, Greg is busy filling the contents of a whiskey bottle in a flask.

"So you are not going to run around all day carrying a beer bottle. How reassuring. But are you sure that will be enough?"

"It's my fourth flask, 'Lock. I'm good for a while. What about you? Everything all right, enough cocaine in your bloodstream?"

"For now, yes, though I might have to purchase more in the course of day and, I may need – " Greg interrupts him. "Hey, you want to get high on my money, be my guest. At least I'll make someone happy who isn't me, for a chance."

After Greg has finished filling his "lunchbox", as he calls it, they have breakfast, and Sherlock can't help but notice the irony that he's eaten more since he woke up a cocaine addict than he in did all the previous week – John was pestering him about it again when Lestrade called. He's not going to mention this to his flatmate; John would take it as an invitation to press him to eat even more often, and it's annoying enough as it is.

When they're finished, daylight, or as close to daylight as the middle of November in London usually gets, has come.

"Crime scene it is, then" Greg proclaims, while checking one more time that all his flasks are in place. "You know where it is?"

"Of course I do, I explained so much yesterday. Why?"

"Because, 'Lock dear, I am a drunkard who only did take a short look around the crime scene and didn't even take a note of the address."

"Naturally. Well, I suppose that's what you me for, now."

"The only reason I let you stay."

Then, without another word, the two leave the flat and find a cab – because, as Greg puts it, "People may look away when you ride on the tube, Sherlock – they usually don't want to look drug addicts in the eye. But someone like you and someone like me travelling together, you in this clothes and I regularly taking a sip from a flask – I think we could get quite a bit of attention." He has to agree with the DI, so they take the first cab that presents itself, and thankfully, since Sherlock is not smelling or shivering anymore, he doesn't even spare the two a glance.

They have him stop a street away from the crime scene – naturally, there will be a Constable guarding the premises and they have decided it will be easier if Greg simply sends him away.

Sherlock, hidden in the doorway of another mansion whose owners are clearly on a holiday in Spain, watches the DI going up to the PC and sending him on his way, but not before the PC looks at him surprised and asks a, by the looks of it, rather confused question. No surprise there. It must be well known at the Yard that Greg is at home getting drunk most of the time, and he certainly hasn't properly investigated a crime scene for years.

He strides over to Greg, who's grinning happily. "I think I just made his day."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, I told him to go grab a coffee – for a few hours, if he would like - and not to tell anyone I was here, which he happily promised, because Donavan and Anderson aren't very good at making friends, apparently."

"That doesn't surprise me in the least."

"Me neither".

Before they enter the house, they walk round it. Greg points to a broken window. "That's the dining room."

"I guessed as much" Sherlock answers, looking intently at the ground instead of at the window.

"Of course you did."

That said, the two duck under the crime scene tape and enter the house – Greg having obtained a key from the young PC, because "We don't need to make a habit out of you picking doors when I'm in the vicinity. Doesn't look good on the CV."

They quickly make their way to the dining room, where the dead man was found lying next to his wife bound to a chair. Sherlock only gives the hallway a glance, but it's enough for him to murmur "Interesting".

"What is, Sherlock?"

"So... They wife talked about a gang of robbers, right?"

"Yes."

"They would have needed to get in somewhere, and there are neither marks on the door nor any indication that they came through this hallway, which rules out..."

"There was a broken window in the dining room".

"Yes, and footprints of just two men on the ground beneath it – and we're talking nice, moist earth here. There should have been more marks, especially when the robbers where three grown men. Or do you really think one of them insisted on being let in through the front door, when they'd already broken a window?"

Greg shakes his head.

"Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're an idiot." In answer, Greg simply takes out his flask.

"Still at the first one, DI Lestrade?"

"Yes. You still high and well, Mr. Holmes?"

"As a matter of fact yes, but don't worry – I may be high and euphoric, but my mental faculties aren't in any way hindered by the fact."

"Too much big words, me too big an idiot for them".

"Come on, don't act like that – practically everyone is an idiot".

"Good to know, makes me feel a lot better about myself."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Maybe we should concentrate on the task at hand?"

"No shit Sherlock. Go ahead.
The man was lying there –" Greg indicates the marking – "his wife was bound to the chair and claims she was struck down by the robbers who weren't wearing masks, which is why we could identify them as the Randalls, around there" – he points at another part of the carpet. "She regained consciousness for a short time and saw the three drinking wine from a bottle she and her husband had wanted to open for their dinner. She, however, lost consciousness again almost immediately. When she woke up again, her husband was dead and she was alone".

Sherlock concentrates on the chair and the pieces of carpet where the body lay and where the wife should have fallen down, while Greg keeps himself in the background, to his credit actually looking for clues. Just as Sherlock is kneeling down to look at the carpet more closely –

The room, an elderly very motherly-looking woman. "Oh, my poor boy – you better be okay, John is so worried about you, and I am too, for that matter – "

"Hey, 'Lock, you found something there? You're staring at this piece of carpet rather curiously."

Sherlock rouses himself. He can think about Mrs. Hudson later.

"Well, there is no indication on the carpet that she fell down or lay on the carpet on any point in time. Also, there are no marks to suggest that she was dragged to the chair – and if you were a robber who'd just hit a woman and subsequently killed her husband– would you really carry her to the chair? Wouldn't it be easier to drag her?"

"Well, if there were three men here, it wouldn't have been so much trouble – "

"But why bother at all? And there is now indication that even three robbers where here..."

"What about the glasses, then?" Greg gesticulates at a little side-table, where three wine-glasses are standing.

"First of all, why bother taking the glasses out at all? They could just have taken a swig from the battle. And second... Look at the third glass!" Sherlock takes it in his gloved hand.

You can tell when a glass has been drunk from, and this one – no one took even a sip out of that. No, I think something else is far more likely..."

Greg's eyes dawn with comprehension.

"Her Ladyship lied".

"Yes, her ladyship lied" Sherlock agrees.

"So, what do we do now..."

"We go to St. Bart's."

"Why?"

"Because I need to take a look at the forensic evidence, if Anderson hasn't ruined it completely by this time."

"Fine by me". Greg takes out his flask again and takes a sip. Then he seems to think of something. "By the way, what exactly did your brother text you back yesterday?"

"Not much. He wants me to take care."

"Mmh, being at a crime scene without official permission – I don't count for the Yard, you know that – and now on your way to joyfully tamper with the evidence, still high as a kite. Oh, and accompanied by me. Does this count as "taking care" in your book?"

"Would you believe me if I said it did?"

"I already do, 'Lock. Now, come on, let's put another nail in the coffin of my career".

Five minutes later, they're on their way, with Sherlock still keeping his suspicion for himself.

The case – the crime scene was staged quite well, if you don't consider the fact that only two men could have been in that house, which could always be explained by one standing guard – they could have let him in through the front door for a drink afterwards, the carpet was very soft, so they wouldn't have left any footmarks there, it's unlikely, but not disprovable as of now - and the wineglasses, which any good lawyer could discredit if he only tried enough. And the missing marks on the carpet? Maybe her Ladyship didn't lie there long enough, same lawyer would say.

This is all – it's clever, and at the same time, someone is giving the police, through these little discrepancies, a chance to find out the truth, is inviting them to play –

It seems like Sherlock has finally found out what Moriarty is doing in this world.

Author's note: I fear the story hasn't really moved along, but you got two chapters yesterday, which I hope makes up for this. This is another one of those "I need it to move along but nothing very important happens"-chapters, but I still hope you liked it. Also, I actually do have a plan where this is going. Don't worry. Oh, and I couldn't resist letting Lestrade say "No shit Sherlock." Isn't that what we're all waiting for? Also, I'm a very big sucker for bromance. My apologies.

Please review.