John's day at the clinic was winding down, and he could not have been more relieved even if he had tried. The day had consisted mostly of pressing icy stethoscopes against chests and instructing the patient to breathe in, then informing a majority of them that they simply had a cold and to take it easy and wrap up warm for the next few days. It was incredibly—dull, but John insisted on reminding himself that 'dull' was good sometimes, and that this was going to be good for him in the long run.

The last patient of the day having been seen out, John checked the time to see he was five minutes early and chose to pack away his belongings at a leisurely pace. Just as started to do this, there came a light knock on his door and one of the receptionists' heads popped around it.

"Um, Doctor Watson there is a man here to see you," she said just about loud enough for him to hear. "He says he doesn't have an appointment, but it's urgent that he sees you immediately."

John rolled his eyes and cast a second, almost longing, glance at the clock hung up on the wall. He still had four minutes or so to kill before Sarah would finish up and they could head home together. He still found it strange to call her place his home because it honestly didn't feel like it; he still felt like a guest...but all the same, it would be better than to sit around aimlessly. He shrugged.

"See him in," John decided, reclining back in his chair as the receptionist nodded and went to do as asked.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this man. John literally bolted upright again in his seat as Mycroft Holmes, coat in the nook of his arm and his frequent umbrella companion in his other hand, let himself into the room.

"John," Mycroft greeted shortly, standing behind his chair rather than sitting in it.

John's jaw dropped a little though he hastily recovered himself and achieved a wan smile. "Oh er—hi! Hey!" he was stuck for words, and had to prevent himself from vocalising the thoughts that sprang to his mind, most of them connecting to Sherlock in one-way or another. John wasn't an idiot, despite what Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes may think. He definitely wasn't an idiot when it came to things concerning the younger Holmes brother, and understood immediately that he was going to be the topic of Mycroft's visit.

"I will skip the small talk, Doctor Watson," Mycroft said suddenly, making John sit up even straighter as he would have done when being addressed by a sergeant. "You know full well the order of business that we will be discussing so let's just get straight to that. I am not particularly happy with you, to be frank, Doctor. Abandoning my brother so easily didn't really put up much of a fight did you?" he pressed on in spite of the stung and indignant expression on the other's face. "Nonetheless, you can make up for that today. I will be blunt—I think Sherlock is using again."

John was so thunderstruck by the statement that he even dared to be so foolish and ask what he meant by using. It didn't take long for it to really hit him and his posture sagged. He didn't want to look so visibly affected by the news, but right at that moment he didn't care if he looked the most stunned and dismayed living creature on the planet. Sherlock was back on drugs. John did not bother to attend to the 'think' segment of Mycroft's sentence, because Mycroft was rarely ever wrong and John wasn't about to start questioning him now, especially not on a subject that was obviously so important. It hadn't even crossed his mind that Sherlock would do that, and he felt a terrific pang of guilt.

"What do you want me to do?" John hoarsely inquired once he found the ability to talk again.

"I want you to pay a visit to someone who I have right to believe is the one supplying my brother with drugs," Mycroft explained, leaning over and pushing a photograph that he had recovered from his coat across the desk surface for the doctor to take and look at. "I want you to find out if it is him...to have him arrested and then—then we can work on Sherlock."

John, prior to the conversation, probably would have argued against the 'we' part of that, but that fight in him against being the one to pick up the pieces and to fix the consulting detective, had died away. He took the photograph and his brow furrowed. He recognised the man in the picture, and it wasn't a face he was at all pleased to see again. Raz, the street artist, was smirking at him in it, and John ground his teeth together.

"I know him," he said stiffly. "Sherlock took me to him once, for advice on the Black Lotus case." He made a scoffing sound and shook his head. "The little bastard gave me an ASBO. What makes you think it's him?"

"He used to deal to Sherlock before," Mycroft informed him gravely. "A couple of years back. His older brother was a drug dealer, and to avoid my scent Sherlock went through the younger brother to get hold of the drugs he wanted. I have evidence that Sherlock has been in contact with this 'Raz' quite a lot recently, and no one else. Quite careless of him, but then again, he always did thrive on the risk of getting caught."

John nodded in acknowledgment because, once again, he found himself speechless and could only glare at the photograph in his hand. He remembered the genuine shock he had felt upon discovering that his flatmate had once been a junkie. Before Sherlock, John hated all kinds of substance abusers, including his alcoholic of a sister, Harry, and it had set him beside himself when he'd found out that someone as brilliant as Sherlock could have once been something so—so shameful. John could hardly accept it as the truth, even when those pale, intelligent eyes had looked deep into his own and confessed that he was guilty. Still, John had difficulty accepting it, but it now seemed so wickedly real.

"On the back of the photograph," Mycroft added after an elongated silence. "Is an address. I want you to go there and see if you can find anything out."

John pursed his lips. "Alright," he agreed. "I will do that first thing tomorrow."

Mycroft faltered for an instant, and looked as though he was about to argue, but then dropped it. John supposed it was because he considered himself lucky that he had consented to help him at all. The older Holmes brother looked so tired as he stood there, applying his coat, and mumbling something about John watching the roads due to the rain outside.

"I trust you, John," Mycroft said abruptly right as he drifted slowly towards the door, keeping his back to the doctor. "Please don't betray that trust. Do all you can for my brother? Because, despite what you think," he paused and turned to look at him. "He would do the same for you in a heartbeat. And that is a rare and special fact." Then he swiftly exited, closing the door behind him.

John sat there for a while longer, not sure what to do with himself now. That meeting had taken four minutes exactly, and he was right on time to head out and meet Sarah in the waiting room. He contemplated mentioning Mycroft's visit but, for a reason unknown to him, he chose not to and simply clasped her hand in his own and asked her about her day as they headed outside. Sure enough, it was raining.

[SH]

Mrs Hudson had seemingly assigned herself the duty of checking up on Sherlock every five minutes and keeping him company. Lestrade had sent him home and had banned him from coming into the station for a week until he rested himself up, because he 'fainted'. Sherlock wouldn't have called it 'fainting' but apparently falling over and napping for a few minutes on the floor was called that these days.

It had been two days since Erica Marshall and there had been no word from Moriarty as of yet...

"Mrs Hudson, please I—I could really do with some peace and quiet," Sherlock beseeched the landlady, trying to sound as gentle and calm as possible even though he really just wanted to scream; scream loud enough that everyone would deem him insane and lock him away so he could finally be alone.

"Oh I see," Mrs Hudson said, pressing her index finger to her jam-red lips. "You won't hear a peep from me dear. I'll just tidy up the place a bit."

Sherlock, who was lying sprawled out on the settee, kicked out his feet and squirmed in frustration the second she scuttled off to the kitchen out of sight. It was as if he was ready to explode, desperate to in fact, and everyone suddenly clustered around him preventing him from doing so, so it just swelled and grew inside of him. It was unbearable. Before, people would do their best to put as great a distance as they could between themselves at him, particularly throughout his adolescence. Back then, he desired the company. Now he detested it, and for some reason, people saw this as an invite to overcrowd him.

Still, looking on the bright side, Mycroft hadn't paid a visit since the pill incident when he'd thought he had been attempting suicide. That felt like years ago. It felt even longer since he'd last saw John. He felt that familiar, wretched tug of his heart that he felt whenever his minds crept towards his former friend and flatmate, and he subconsciously touched his ribcage. The bones there were still, at times, tender but they were virtually fixed by now. Sometimes Sherlock wondered if the ache he felt there from time to time was because he was remembering the way John had touched him in an attempt to ease his pain, but he would angrily knock this theory aside and do all he could to block it out again.

Sherlock stretched his legs and arched his back, closing his eyes. The only thing he could do now was wait until Mrs Hudson left so he could take his 'medicine' to distract himself. He began by focusing on Moriarty and pondering on what the second part of the puzzle would entail and what sort of dramatic end it all would meet, and then, for some reason, that trail of thought evaporated briskly. It was replaced by thoughts of John again, and Sherlock curled his long fingers into his palm in annoyance, pounding one of them down onto the cushions.

There came a piercing clatter and smashing sound from the kitchen, followed by a high-pitched squeak and "Oh dear" from Mrs Hudson.

"Oh dear," she repeated, hovering in the doorway as if torn between tidying up the mess she'd left and ensuring Sherlock knew how sorry she was. "Sherlock, dear, I'm so sorry..."

Sherlock heaved a sigh that fell from his body like a great weight and he got to his feet, not daring to even glimpse into the abused room in fear he'd lose his temper. He pulled on his coat and wound his scarf around his throat, tuning out of the nonsensical ramblings coming from his landlady.

"Don't worry about it too much, Mrs Hudson," he assured her unconvincingly. "Could you please try to tidy up the mess—actually no, don't. I'll see to it when I get back." He tossed her a faint smile. "You are my landlady after all, not my housekeeper."

"Are y—where are you going?" Mrs Hudson looked at a loss, wringing her hands with a distraught expression on her face.

"Just for a walk," Sherlock replied, smoothing out his clothing as he headed out the door. "Just need some clean air, won't be long."

[SH]

Sarah had a sort of obsession about going out every Friday evening for a meal, even when money wasn't exactly ripe in their pockets. She'd told John that her father used to take her out for dinner every Friday as a sort of tradition, and that she hadn't missed one since she was a little girl. John wasn't entirely thrilled about it all, but he grasped the importance of such a thing to his girlfriend and so obliged without fuss.

After his meeting with Mycroft, John had returned 'home' with Sarah to get freshened up and then they were to head out to eat. He tended to wear the same black jumper over the same plaid shirt with the jeans, so he was, more often than not, waiting around for a while for Sarah to select her outfit that she aimed to be different from the previous week and the week before that. John sat there on the sofa, only half-focusing on the news when the story of Erica Marshall came on. His ears pricked when he'd heard that the parents had been faking their daughter's abduction to earn money from the donations, and he fleetingly contemplated on whether a certain consulting detective had helped the authorities figure that out. John shook it off and changed channel.

Half an hour later, he and Sarah were walking hand in hand down the street, still debating on what restaurant to go to. All the ones she suggested, he disliked due to either the prices or the location. He wanted somewhere cheap and close to 'home', but he didn't put it like that when Sarah asked why he didn't want to go to a certain restaurant a bit further on. It was still raining, in fact, it had gotten heavier, and she was becoming impatient and irritable when they hadn't agreed on one and had to stop to discuss it properly.

"I hate that place," John said, keeping his voice down so they avoided curious eavesdroppers. "It's really overpriced."

Sarah puffed out her cheeks. "You can't say no to something if you don't have a better idea of where to go."

It was at that moment, when John had turned to look away from her glare, that he saw Sherlock. The consulting detective was on the other side of the road, standing stock-still and looking directly at him. John went rigid and all the colour and heat flooded away from his face leaving him feeling cold. He couldn't get Mycroft's words out of his head: I think Sherlock is using again. Sherlock's appearance had changed, that was for sure. He was the thinnest John had ever seen him, like the wind itself was too thick and would cut him in two. John couldn't put his finger on the rest of it, he just knew that there was something dramatically different about him and it actually winded him.

"Hold on a sec," John said gently to Sarah, already breaking away from her to start crossing the road.

Sherlock was visibly nervous about being approached by John, as he lowered his head as if to shield himself. John's heart was pounding in his chest, painfully in fact, and he didn't care if Sarah was pissed off at him, he didn't care if he was going to be made to sleep on the sofa or the lie low again. He couldn't care less right then. It felt like crossing the ocean rather than crossing a road, it seemed to take forever for the two men to come face to face.

John fell easily back into doctor mode and noted the dark bruise on Sherlock's cheek, and even went to reach out to study it before remembering himself and, with difficulty, kept both hands at his sides.

"What happened to your face?" he asked, forgetting to even offer an awkward greeting.

Something touched Sherlock's features then, and John recognised it instantly as amusement. "Angry father," he answered, his baritone rolling over John's eardrums nostalgically. "What happened to your leg?"

John frowned. "What's wrong with my leg?"

"You were limping when you were walking with Sarah," Sherlock observed. "But when you started to walk over towards me, it went."

John would have been surprised if it had happened another time, when Sherlock wasn't there, but because that was the case, he wasn't. Memories of that first entire day together, running after that cab like a team that had been assembled without uttering a single word, burned in his skull and, for the first time in a really long while, the dull throb in his leg was gone.

There was too much to be said in such a short space of time that they had right then. John had never planned on running into Sherlock again, not even after talking to Mycroft, otherwise he would have somewhat prepared something to say. Maybe apologise for leaving, maybe even offer to move back into 221b...that was what he wanted truthfully. Even though he knew this, for some reason he couldn't say it. Not even to that face that he had once trusted with his life.

"You have to go," Sherlock said, breaking the silence. "Sarah's waiting."

John didn't even glance over his shoulder at her. "She doesn't mind," he choked out.

"You know she does," Sherlock said, a knowingness and understanding reflecting in his eyes. "It's good to see you, John." He turned on his heel and started to walk away at his uncompromising pace that he shared with no one.

John wanted to call after him, ask him to stop, ask him to join them for dinner, even ask him to keep in contact, yet he did not find it within himself to do so.

[SH]

After profusely apologising and promising a variety of ways to make it up to her, John managed to persuade Sarah to let him have the day off without revealing the true purpose behind it. He claimed his leg was really playing him up, possibly due to the gloomy weather they'd had recently. She wasn't entirely pleased with it, as a lot of people at work were muttering that she let him get away with a lot more because of their relationship and it made her feel unprofessional even though such accusations were false. In fact, she was harder on John than anyone else just to ensure that her co-workers didn't get that idea, but it appeared all her efforts were in vain.

John feigned sleep as his girlfriend set about getting ready for work the next morning, but he hadn't really slept at all the entire night. He kept thinking about Sherlock. When he first left Baker Street, the consulting detective was all he could think about, and then over time, it transitioned into a range of things: work, Sarah, crappy telly, and so on. In the space of one day, Sherlock Holmes once again claimed ownership of his train of thought.

Sarah left the house at quarter to eight, and John got up exactly two minutes after the door closed to make sure she hadn't forgotten something and would come back. At twenty past, he was heading out himself, jogging out onto the street to do his best to get out of the pouring rain to hail a cab.

It took some time for the driver to actually decipher the scrawl on the back of the photograph, and when he did work it out he quirked an eyebrow and asked if John was sure he wanted to go there. John assured him that he did despite the twist in his stomach and the anxiety flaring inside of him. He soon saw why the driver had made sure with him because they came to a part of London that John had never seen before and would have been quite content with not seeing it at all throughout his life.

"I won't be long," John said as they pulled up outside a small, shabby house. "Could you wait here for a bit?"

The cabby was reluctant, but was persuaded once John agreed to pay him extra; he locked his doors once the doctor stepped out. Raz's house was a thin building, the front garden littered with rubbish. A collection of bin bags lined the front of it, some that were torn and spilling some of their rotten contents out onto the ground, and one of the front windows was splintered, looking about ready to fall in on itself at any moment. John opened the front gate that groaned as if in pain as he did so, and headed straight for the front door.

He knew it wasn't exactly 'spy-like' of him to head in through the front door, but he wasn't sure why he had been sent at all. He couldn't really do anything in broad daylight, and he was only really asking Raz a question, right? John knocked the door and pushed the doorbell, that turned out not to be working, and stood there for a good few minutes, knocking again every now and then. He felt a sliver of relief when the door wasn't answered, which was accompanied by disappointment. How was he going to explain to Mycroft that he had tried but no one was in so he left it? No that wouldn't suit the older Holmes sibling at all.

He wasn't keen on the idea, but he had to break in, meaning he also had to send the cabby away. John retraced his steps and tapped the window, which the driver rolled down, peering out at him with squinting eyes.

"You can go now," John told him, handing over the notes that he owed him.

The driver looked perplexed but didn't argue once the money was given. "You sure?" he checked. "Looks like no one's in."

"Oh they are," John lied. "My friend's just in the shower, he'll be down in a bit to let me in."

The taxi pulled off and left John feeling very alone and vulnerable. He made his way up the thin garden path a second time, and went to check the back. Just as he went to do so—

"Can I help you?"

John swung around, hand dramatically flying to his chest as if to restrain his own heart from jolting out of his chest, and saw a middle aged woman standing in front of him. She was a spidery thin lady with her greying hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she was dressed in a nightgown and slippers.

"Oh sorry about that," John turned bright red. "I tried knocking and I was just—er—yeah."

"Who are you?" she asked in her raspy voice.

"John Watson," he answered, holding out a hand to shake hers. "I came to see Raz?"

The woman blinked confusedly when he said this, and for a split second, he thought he had come to the wrong address.

"You mean Robert?" she said.

"Sorry, I only know his nickname," John admitted sheepishly. "You see, we met once through a—friend of mine. My friend asked me to come see him today to talk about something. Is he in right now?"

She seemed to deflate. "Robert hasn't been home for a few months now," she informed him quietly.

"Oh right, where is he?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. We had a bit of a tiff, and he just packed his things and went. He could be living with his brother or his dad."

"Could I have those addresses?"

The woman, for the first time, looked suspicious. "Why? What business have you got with a kid like Robert?"

"I-it's not really my business, it's my friend's," John stammered, flushing.

"Well, I can give you his brother's address, but Scotland's a bit out of your way really to go check if he's with his father," she said. "I'll just pop in to get a pen and paper. Be out in a tick."

John hovered on the doorstep, not really sure if he had been invited inside and wasn't about to go marching in after her. It wasn't long before she appeared again, handing out a piece of ratty looking paper with a scribbled address on it.

"Thanks," John said, holding it up and smiling at her. He made to make his way out of the garden when she called his name.

"Mr. Watson," she said. "Whatever business you have with my son, make sure to tell him to come back home and that I'm sorry."

"Why don't you tell him yourself?" John inquired, not intending to sound rude or anything, just purely interested.

"No way of contacting him," she sighed. "He lost his phone. That's what the argument was over."

John nodded and promised to tell Raz or rather Robert just that if and when he saw him. He would text Mycroft about Raz moving to live with his brother or his dad as soon as he was in a taxi on the way back to Sarah's. At least his visit wasn't completely a waste of his time. That would be an adventure for another day, he thought. All he wanted to do now was lie back and get some sleep because he could hardly keep his eyes open.

[SH]

Mycroft was sitting in his office late that night. Not because he was required for any extra work or a meeting or anything like that, in fact it had been a sort of mellow day compared to what was the norm for him. He was busy glancing over some photographs that he'd found in his desk drawer. He used to plant them on his desk proudly in beautiful frames, but he started to hide them after Sherlock had paid a visit and had openly mocked him for putting them there.

"You don't have to prove to yourself you're normal, Mycroft," Sherlock had remarked. "By copying all the other bastards you work with and cluttering up your desk with pictures of so-called loved ones. It just eats up all your space in the end, and to do what? To prove that you have a life, that you are loved, outside of your office. It's pathetic is what it is."

Mycroft had taken them out of the frames and had stuffed them into his drawer after that conversation. He liked having them at hand just to pour his gaze over whenever things got lonely or boring. His favourite was one of himself and Sherlock, reluctantly standing side by side and not even attempting to look cheerful or like they even loved one another. It had been taken by Mummy, who often complained she never had enough photos of her two boys together. There was no occasion, no birthday, graduation, or anything like that. Just the brothers glaring into the camera, despising those few seconds when they'd actually have to be close to one another. Sherlock had been eighteen, and Mycroft twenty-five; Mycroft remembered it being taken a couple of months before Sherlock left for university.

Mycroft would have hated the picture if it hadn't been for Sherlock being there, because for one, it had been taken right at the start of his diet so he looked goddamn awful in it, and two, it was one of the few photographs he had of Sherlock because his sibling loathed getting his picture taken. He would always turn his head away if a camera was even pointed in his direction, would cover his face, or knock the camera out of the offender's hand if they dared get close enough. For one reason or another, that time Sherlock just allowed it. Mycroft couldn't help but think that that was what a time before his younger brother had started drugs.

It made him sad to think that right then, he had no idea of what was to happen to Sherlock, what drastic changes were to occur in his life. Back then, he was probably just thankful that his brother was leaving home and would stop drugging their family dog and would stop sneakily cutting off chunks of Mycroft's hair in the middle of the night for supposed 'experiments'.

Sherlock had never been precisely normal. Then again, how could he be? They didn't exactly lead normal lives, not even when they were children. Mycroft liked to think he himself turned out moderately ordinary, yet he knew that wasn't the case really. Sherlock was always going to be more vulnerable, more naive, and more curious—he was so self-destructive. He had been from a young age. He wanted to destroy any limitations that he may have, and it seemed controlling an addiction was one of them. In reality, the addiction controlled him and it still did, perhaps even more so.

TBC