Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to Sherlock
Summary: It's half part three in the morning and 221B is not quiet. Or how Sherlock's Violin playing soothed more than just him.
An Unsuspected Lullaby
At half past three in the morning 221B Baker Street thought it was high time for some rest. She wanted to sink deeper into her foundation and ease the tension in her timbers from the near constant motion of her family. The tramping up her stairs and pacing through her rooms and shooting of her walls ought to cease for a few hours each night. But not this night.
Sherlock Holmes is pacing.
To be fair Sherlock Holmes does more than just pace. He tears through the rooms of 221B with a speed and recklessness that her rooms can barely handle. He grasps at haphazard items searching for any hold on the world he can manage as his thoughts threaten to rip him apart. He makes his way round and round the cluttered sitting room through the kitchen and back again. And again. And again. And again.
He leaves the lights off. He knows his way. In the light he might see, and if he sees he will deduce and he cannot take any more into his whirling mind at the moment.
He makes for the door, ready to storm London until there is nothing left, until he has to hobble back to Baker Street in exhaustion, but he pauses. Because it is 3:30 in the morning. Because it is January. Because it is cold. Because John Watson might worry.
Through the dark Sherlock reaches for his bow then his violin.
He plays a scale.
He begins a piece and abandons it for another. Beethoven then Brahms. He begins some Vivaldi before he decides he wants Bach. By the time he reaches Mendelsohn he's frustrated. He forces himself through some Mozart and by Paganini he's angry enough to smash the bow down on the strings and scrape something that might almost be considered a dissonant chord.
Ah, there.
His mind stills for a moment.
It isn't enough.
He dives in again.
John Watson isn't sleeping. He blames his flat mate, but there's no real heat in it.
He lies in the dark waiting for sleep he knows he is too anxious to find. He gets up briefly and makes for the door, ready to head downstairs make some tea, write his blog, hell even clean the flat just to have something to do, but he pauses. Because it's 3:30 in the morning. Because they ran out of decaffeinated tea and milk. Because he can't be arsed to find his dressing gown in the cold. Because Sherlock Holmes need space to breathe.
Back in bed John hears Sherlock begin to cycle erratically through his favorite pieces and sighs. He is in the middle of wondering if a little bit of sleep tonight is really so far out of the question when—
Ah, there.
Sherlock has abandoned all pretense of melody. Instead he takes his restless frustration out on his violin.
John pulls his covers tighter around him and drifts off to the clamor of bow on strings.
The next morning John finds Sherlock asleep on their couch, violin cradled to his chest with his left arm, bow dangling from his right hand. John gently removes both, sets them on Sherlock's chair and tosses a blanket around his friend. He makes a pot of tea for the cold January morning and brings a cup to his seat by the fireplace. John Watson hasn't even touched his tea before he falls asleep right there in his armchair, across from Sherlock Holmes.
221B finally relaxes.