Note from author: I knew this was coming. There was absolutely nothing to stop it, especially when I had access to gin and insomnia and absolutely no internet access.

Rain lashed the windows of the small flat of 221B Baker Street with translucent onslaughts, as it had for the last 2 days. The thunder seemed implacable that evening, rattling the aged glass in it's' casings. Violent cracks of white split open the skull of the heavens, illuminating the city in brief and flickering electric blue brilliance. Inside the brick walls a dark Victorian fireplace's contents cast a gentle amber hue across the room. Tongues of flame licked lazily around ember studded bark, lulling to and fro across the rough surface. The pendulum of a grandfather clock just down the hall from the door, swayed tirelessly, it's ticking punctuating the passage of the evening like a nagging ache in the back of one's mind.

A gaunt rail of a being – dark curls of hair spiraling out of his head like a thousand tiny rams horns – padded the length of the oak floorboards barefoot. His outline was defined intermittently by the windows' view of the flashing light, making his taunt shoulders and austere profile all the more distinct. His long fingers steepled under his chin as he inaudibly mouthed something slowly.

A stouter man, exhaustion clearly etched into his brow, sighed heavily as he leaned back into an arm chair and tossed down a newspaper onto the side table. "I'm not getting anything Sherlock. Maybe you've finally caught the lot." He rubbed a callous thumb under his eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous, John." The pacing man muttered lowly. "It's only a matter of time...it's only a matter of human nature." There were four creaks of wood before he turned on his heel and spun 'round again. "It is deplorable, though, that intelligence does not coincide with average instinct."

The seated figure side-eyed his friend with some hesitation. It was hardly two days ago he'd spend several hours re-hinging the kitchen cabinets after Sherlock had tested the blood blistering of severed limbs in the doors. He wasn't entirely certain the man had eaten more than a pair of toast with jam in the last week. "Heard anything from Lestrade?" He questioned, swigging an amber bottle that had long since warmed to the temperature of the room.

"No. He hasn't responded to me." Lithe hands absentmindedly swept up a violin and picked notes at its ridged wires. "Not that there is something actually interesting the Yard would have for me anyway." His words seemed to be spat out sharper than usual and Sherlock broke his gait to let his breath ghost the window pane.

The street lamps and tail lights of cars whirring through the collecting puddles all seemed like a dark oil painting that had been flawlessly smeared straight down. The wet pavement stretched the gold and ruby glimmers in an unnatural perspective as if they were cascading into a pit. All the while a few sparse umbrellas seemed to dance over the void of the precipitation's wavering surface, defying gravity it's self.

Sherlock traced a little river of rain down the glass with his index finger for just a moment before it was swallowed up by a larger current. The dizzying orientation of lights below blurred together in the streams of the window, shifting the realistic into a moving abstract.

John settled the bottle on the table and shifted forward with hands folded between his knees, biting his cheek before continuing charily. His eyes cast down and paused before flicking up. "And Mycroft?"

The man at the window allowed his head to crook and pivot to the left just slightly as if to emphasize the pure vexation it took his brain to process the words. He plucked a sudden sour discord of strings and resumed to his pacing.

The remark "No" would have been easy for someone to miss, and even easier to misinterpret if it had been heard by anyone other than John Watson. While in this context most would have believed that the detective's vigilant brother had not bothered to make contact with his kin, it was very unsubtle to the doctor what Sherlock had meant.

"No" as in pride over-powering boredom.

"No" as in the absolute refusal to allow his brother to see him cave.

John knew the question would be deemed rhetorical before he'd bothered to say it out loud. Now it was just confirmed, along with many other things even the incredible Mr. Holmes hadn't realized he'd given away to someone who had finally learned to pick up on his well guarded weaknesses.

John had left Sherlock to his pacing some time after that, trudging upstairs to the solitude of his room where he could hear the screaking of the timber floors as less clearly. The veteran knew the ceiling above his bed like the back of his hand, having memorized the forming cracks and dips of plaster in the city tinted glow on such nights as this.

The man downstairs had fallen into one of his quiet moods...and those were the most disconcerting.

It hadn't been a long time since the last case, perhaps only five days. As Sherlock put it, though, it had been weeks since an even remotely challenging one. Dr. Watson had become accustomed to the roller coaster life that was living with Sherlock, but the thrill of the puzzle, the chase, and the climax sometimes had a terrible price to pay.

The severe let down.

Medically it was the crash after the adrenaline high However, for Sherlock, it seemed to be more like someone had taken away a favorite childhood toy, burnt it, and then handed back the ashes as if they would still provide the same entertainment and nostalgia.

In this situation, the ashes were news write ups on how the case had been solved. Sherlock would sit poised on the edge of the couch, paper billowed out like a sail obscuring his upper body. After a minute or so he would scoff loudly and announce that they had left out absolutely all of the important details and make a pointed note to debunk every other piece of writing the reporter would ever do. This was the stage where John, who actually wanted to read the rest of the paper, had learned to wretch the newsprint from the other man's hands before the whole thing was crammed into a tight wad and flung into the fireplace. Unbeknownst to the private detective, there was valid news that didn't involve mysteries or murders.

John released a lungful of air he hadn't realized he'd been holding and noted the light splayed across his ceiling was now a tell-tailing dusty royal blue. The sun was soon to crest over the townhouses and blaze steaming rays over London. The footsteps below him had stopped, but he still heard an occasional plucking of the G and E string. Sherlock had clearly given up on forming music tonight, but remained awake as always.

John threw a corner of his knit blanket over his eyes to block out the impending light.

If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that it would take death for Sherlock to finally get some sleep.

Should I press for more?