It wasn't normal. Sherlock didn't dream, and he certainly didn't have nightmares. And yet he sat up, heart pounding, breath coming in short gasps, in the darkness of the strange room in the strange bed. It had been John. It was always John in the nightmare. Tonight it had been the sniper. Other times he was the one watching John fall from the top of the building, as ridiculous as he told himself it all was once he woke, and how he swore not to dream it again…
Palms pressed into his eyes, and he lay back down, staring into the blackness of the room, refusing to allow the emotional response. It made him weak. It was why this had happened at all… And yet when he drifted back into sleep again, it was back into another nightmare where he couldn't save anyone.