Sherlock had eaten sparingly as usual. John tucked the leftovers away, frowning slightly at the unlabeled and unidentifiable somethings he had to shove over in the fridge. He thought about saying something but figured it would be pointless. Maybe even counter productive if the detective decided to up the ante in response. Ah well, nothing had poisoned him yet so he'd tempt fate.

Sherlock was still lying on the couch where John had left him. No longer staring at the spiders, his hands were beneath his chin in his trademark prayer. John wasn't foolish enough to think the man reached for a deity - more likely he was deep within his mind palace. There'd be no rousing him without a tantrum. John brushed his fingertips, gentle as a dandelion fluff, across Sherlock's dark curls and headed to bed.

As he climbed the stairs there was a tremendous boom and the lights extinguished. Bloody storm had knocked the power out. Probably a lightning strike (nearby from the deafening thunder) had knocked a limb into the power lines. There was nothing he could do about it at any rate. He doubted Sherlock would have noticed and he was tired so he made his way by memory to his bed.

He faced away from the window, watching the flickering shadows on the wall as they were cast by the lightning. The ran pattered heavily, whipped into a frenzy by the gusting wind. Momentarily he considered ear plugs, but they were downstairs after Sherlock had gone into another shooting-the-wall phase of boredom. He buried his face under his arm and breathed deeply, counting to a slow six for each inhale and exhale. Eventually he fell asleep.

00000000

He wanted to be perturbed. He was wandering around his palace, examining and recalling, making connections and deletions. But in nearly half the things he wanted to delete - things he felt unnecessary and mundane - there was John. The doctor had commingled with so many trivialities. His laughing blue eyes making gentle fun of Sherlock as he fidgeted through someone's uninteresting prattle. He couldn't delete the boredom without losing that laughing light. His warm hand holding Sherlock back from dashing off yet again on a whim. Sherlock couldn't delete the unneeded moments without losing that warm touch.

He wanted to be upset by this, but a small smile touched the corner of his mouth beneath the pressed palms. The doctor had crawled into nearly every recess of the palace, and in doing so had made Sherlock retain more of his day to day interactions with people. Details that were normally summarily deleted hung around and gave him a deeper, if still subtle, context for working with the people in his daily life. He didn't act any differently towards the others, but he was able to more readily understand some of the things they did.

He prided himself on his high, fast functioning perceptions. He observed, saw, spoke, and more often than not was rewarded with being called names. "Freak." "Arsehole." Even "raging cock womble" once. But when he deduced in front of John, or even deduce John himself, he was rewarded by "brilliant." "Fascinating." Ego stroking words for an ego he had truly tried to ignore, of not outright disown. Another niggling detail he couldn't repress.

His smile grew as he replayed the delicate stroke the doctor had trailed through his hair. A resounding crash and the lights went out. After momentary concern for the experiments in the crisper he determined that there was no need for concern. He continued to lie there, silently smiling to himself as the night wore on and the storm intensified.

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- Gunshots and heat. A life slipping through his fingers, soaking into cruel sand in a sanguine pool. Wrenching shoulder pain. Howling in rage and frustration. Instead of a brother at arms, the man with the blue/green eyes. Begging to be saved, instead lost in the Afghanistan sunlight. Rifle fire, blood, and a desert. And John was trapped, knowing it was a nightmare but unable to set himself free. And Sherlock died again. And again. And again. -

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A moan distracted Sherlock. Between rumbles of thunder he heard it. Low and piteous.

He was halfway up the stairs before he thought about it. He quietly opened the door to John's room. The doctor was huddled in on himself, shaking beneath the quilt while small pained sounds escaped his lips.

The storm. Strobe effect of lightning affects the brain. Thunder evokes memories of military and gun fire. The shoulder wound, acting up in the change of barometric pressure, putting another subconscious stress on the mind. Posture and vocalizations combined with unconscious external stimuli. Nightmare.

A peculiar pang lanced through his chest. He knew Watson had nightmares in the past, but he'd never been witness to one. He rarely dreamed when he slept - make that collapsed - as an adult and it wasn't something he was particularly familiar with. He knew he should do something. Wake the man up? For some reason he didn't like the idea. John wouldn't want Sherlock to know about what he would call his weakness. So what to do?

When he and Mycroft were young, before animosity and rivalry set them against one another, Sherlock would sometimes seek his older brother's comfort after a bad dream. He'd wake in a terror and slip into Myc's room. He'd stand before the bed until the older boy sensed him and woke enough to lift the edge of the blankets, allowing Sherly to crawl in and curl up against his brother's warmth. With a bittersweet smile, Sherlock laughed internally. It had been a long time indeed since he'd sought his archenemy's protection. Longer still since he'd first been told in no uncertain terms that dreams, like sentiments, are a waste of time and effort that made the brain weak.

Bugger that. In a few short steps he was beside the bed, gripping the corner of the quilt. In moments he had slid in beside the still quaking man. He placed a long-fingered hand on John's shoulder, gently and slowly. The effect was nearly instant as some of the tension drained away and John stopped twitching. Sherlock edged closer, using one arm as a pillow as he lay facing John's back. He made small motions against the pajama clad shoulder, feeling the shift as Watson left the dream behind and relaxed.

He would be gone before John woke. The storm and the dream would be in the past and John would never know what had happened. The bed was comfortable, though not as comfortable as his own. He found himself wishing they were in his room instead. They? He wasn't sure why he'd thought of the two of them in his bed. This was to comfort his flat mate. But flat mates don't get into bed with one another to soothe dreams do they? Flat mates don't watch the other as they smile, laugh, make tea, type, or any of the other hundreds of small motions John made that fascinated Sherlock.

The thoughts buzzed and whirled, making Sherlock tense. The tension vibrated down his arm to the tenuous connection he had with John and the shorter man twitched. New train of thought. He focused instead on breathing, matching his breaths to the man beside him. He went through the normal values table of the Arterial Blood Gas measurements. He mentally recited the abnormal values and indications. And before long he too fell asleep.