Violin music floats out over the sand, in the darkness and over the shouts of the soldiers trying to take cover. I'm fingerspalmswristselbows deep in a boy (so young, when did they become so young?) trying to keep his entrails from becoming his extrails. Isn't that a line from a movie? Something about knights and lying and the hero getting the girl.

A glissando of notes cuts between the screams, under the curses and behind the deep reports of gunfire. The heart under my hands (quite literally under my hands) flutters and stills, and there's nothing I can do. Everything gets quieter for a moment as I run through my options, which are limited out here in the middle of all this.

Yelling and violin music through the night. No, that's not quite right. I'm yelling, but my voice isn't heard but I can hear it but no one around me does but that can't be right, someone always hears me, hears the doctor. The lieutenant's right there, he should be able hear me.

Curling through it all, reaching a crescendo just as I feel a searing pain through my left shoulder. The song reaches its culmination and I jerk awake, disoriented, flailing against the things holding me down (sheets, blankets). The song continues, though, skewing dream into reality. I find myself free of the blankets and across the room through the door down the steps into the sitting room, where there is air and peace and music.

Right. New flat, new flatmate.

Sherlock lifts his bow and the music stops. I've stopped just inside the doorway, gasping for breath. I can feel my hand shaking (nothing unusual there) but my leg is steady.

"Did I wake you?" Sherlock asks. I try to reply, but my mouth is desert dry. "I told you I play violin when..."

"It's fine," I say, cutting him off. "You didn't wake me."

"You had a nightmare," he says, looking me up and down. Christ, I'm in a t-shirt and shorts, no robe, scar faintly visible through the shirt. I fought the urge to cover it with my right hand. He'd already noticed it, anyway.

"It happens," I reply, realising that I had been silent for too long. "I'm sorry to disturb you, I'll go back." I motioned up to my room, starting to turn.

"You're not disturbing me," he says. "Stay, if you want." He doesn't ask what the nightmare was about. He can probably guess (deduce, he'd correct me) what it was, probably heard me flailing around my room. Unfamiliar surroundings, new noises, new flatmate. "Do you need me to do anything?"

I feel bad asking. I feel foolish for wanting. But I'm so grateful that he offered I can hardly stand it.

"Can you play?" I ask. "Play some more, I mean? Please? Anything, anything at all."

He looks surprised. "Of course," he replies, lifting the bow again.

I drift into the kitchen to make tea as soft, slow notes start from the violin. The familiar motions are soothing, and I carry two cups back to the sitting room.

Sherlock's in the middle of the floor, so I place one cup on the mantle and take mine to the coffee table near the sofa. There's a blanket crammed at one end, and I pull it over my legs as the music continues.

By the time Sherlock's played two songs and my tea is gone, I've stopped shaking. He ends a third song, something slow that's making my eyelids droop, and puts his violin away. I know I should get up, go back to my bed, and leave him to whatever he does when he's not sleeping, but I'm too comfortable to move. It's that quiet time of night where nothing feels quite real, when the whole world is still.

He sits down on the other end of the sofa, and I tense involuntarily. Oh, God, here it comes, the talk about the nightmares, their subjects, about the things I don't (won't) even tell my therapist.

He wraps one hand gently around my shoulder and pulls my head into his lap.

"You're not able fall asleep while I play," he says, his voice low, a rumble I can damn near feel, this close to him. He's right.

"What makes you think I'll fall asleep like this?" I ask, and then his fingers are brushing through my hair.

"You like touch," Sherlock replies. "You don't mind it, at any rate; you're the first to offer your hand to shake when you meet someone new. Touch is comforting to you."

"I didn't think you would," I say. "Thought it might fall under that whole 'not my area' thing." That was rude. Damn.

But his hand doesn't stop. "This doesn't," he says. "You don't. You are surprising, John, new."

"Ah, so you don't have all of humanity figured out," I say, surprising a soft chuckle out of him.

"It seems not," he says. "Is this okay?"

"It's fine," I say. "It's more than fine." I'd like to actually be lying beside him. Would he do that?

As if he'd read my mind, he says, "My bed's more comfortable than here." I look up at him, dislodging his hand. "Nothing like that, John, I just know that company helps with nightmares."

"All right," I say, after thinking about it. He sounded like he had been speaking from experience. I couldn't help but wonder how he knew. "I may hit you, though. If I have another nightmare, I mean. You don't have to do this. And don't try to hold me down or wake me up." I sit up, pushing the blanket back down.

"I'll be fine," he replies, pulling me up and leading me to his room. "We both need to sleep."

It feels strangely intimate to climb into his bed, but it's Sherlock. My life hasn't been normal since I met him (what was it, now, a week ago?). Chasing cabs, shooting serial killers, nightmares from my own subconscious. Climbing into his bed. These are the things that are strange and yet somehow normal.

I start to lay with my back to him, but he tugs my shoulder until I turn over, and then starts carding his fingers through my hair again, slowly, lightly. I relax quickly, lulled both by his presence and the feel of his fingers in my hair.

"Thank you," I say, catching his hand and placing a kiss on the palm. His fingers stiffen just a little in surprise, and then stroke once down my cheek before winding back into my hair. It's the last thing I remember before falling into sleep.