This was meant to be a one-off thing, but I found this fic lying around my brain one day and decided to publish it.

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He wakes up, heart rate quickly picking up when he realises that he is not in his room. It's too big, the walls oddly painted and the bed unfamiliar; his fingers twitch, longing for the safety of his gun.

And then he remembers. 221b Baker Street.

A wink.

Sherlock Holmes.

That brings a smile to his lips. Then he realises what woke him up; the sound of rushing water. John lets his eyes slip shut as he concentrates on the sound. It takes only a moment to indentify after that; it's the sound of the shower running.

In spite of himself, a happy glow spreads through his chest. His smile grows into a toothsome affair. The flatmate he saved from a murderer last week is downstairs showering and will no doubt soon be clattering about doing whatever it is consulting detectives do when they aren't brilliantly showing up Scotland Yard.

It is infinitely, indescribably better than waking up to silence.

The sound of flowing water lulls him back into a dreamless sleep.

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There is not one single flat surface, barring the floor, in the flat that Sherlock has not commandeered for his vast and impressive collection of stuff. The flat is empty when he comes down and John takes this opportunity to have a good look around the house.

In the end, he compiles a mental list of the things Sherlock has, which includes:

Taxidermised bats

A wooden rubics-cube thing with odd symbols

Newspapers that date back to the turn of the 20th century. John has a niggling feeling that these belong in a museum or library instead of being carelessly tossed by the windowsill.

A vat of industrial strength bleach under the sink

Enough lab equipment to cover the kitchen table and fill two of the overhead cupboards

Persian slippers. A pack of Benson and Hedges cigarettes is stuffed in the toe of the left slipper.

More mugs than a single human person should need. Half of them are stained, though, and not just with tea.

Three teapots

A tank of oxygen

Still, it is what Sherlock does not have that truly throws John for a loop. Nowhere in the flat can he find:

Cooking utensils. Whilst Sherlock has at least one of every piece of cutlery known to man, there is nothing that he can use to actually cook a meal. Not a single pot. Not one pan.

Alcohol

A filing system of any description. There are so many files stacked in the kitchen and living room that the flat probably constitutes a fire hazard, but they don't even sit squarely on the shelves. There are more books in the flat than he's seen in some libraries; as a consequence, they are stuffed into the cupboard by the fireplace until the shelves sag and piled high on any surface that'll bear them. There are nine bookshelves in the living room and kitchen alone; he's counted. A journal about Jack the Ripper sits next to a Bible. The 1991 edition of Science and the Future is separated from its 1997 counterpart by the New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry and Volume 2 of the Children's Encyclopaedia. Volumes 1, 3 and 4 sit on the lower shelf. John resists the temptation to reunite the lonely volume with its kin.

Sherlock comes bounding up the stairs at that moment, the morning papers tucked under one arm. He carelessly drops all but one on the table by the couch and John just knows that they will stay there unless he moves them. He doesn't have time to think about it, though, because Sherlock has shoved the Guardian under his nose.

"Look, John, you'll want to read this."

He takes the paper from him; on the page he sees a small photograph of Lestrade, still looking somewhat harried.

"What's this?"

"An article about the cab driver affair which takes even more liberties with accuracy than your blog post. I thought you might like being exposed to writing more incompetent than your own." Sherlock shrugs out of his coat, hangs it up behind the door and wanders into the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Yes, thanks." John settles into his armchair, back sinking into the Union Jack pillow. He's about to start reading when he notices the skull staring at him.

"Yes," he says to it. "Alright. Place needs to be tidied, I know. Just let me have a cuppa first, yeah?"

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John only agreed to have dinner at the super chic Le Gavroche because Harry threatened to drop in on his Baker Street Lodgings otherwise, on the misguided notion of looking after her little brother. He keeps his tongue firmly in check as she downs a bottle of Chianti and pushes her shrimp salad around her plate, and tries not to antagonise her with questions about Clara or her work. He sits through the entire miserable dinner before dragging himself home funny how quickly he's ascribed that word to 221b, looking forward to drowning his thoughts in a menial task of some sort, like cleaning or doing the weekly shop.

He is halfway up the stairs when he hears a scream coming from upstairs and his heart leaps into his throat. He takes the stairs two at a time and throws the door open, calling out for the detective.

"Sherl-"

The word dies on his tongue. Sherlock stands by the window, violin perched on his shoulder and bow resting on its strings. At his intrusion, Sherlock lowers the bow.

"John."

"I...there was a noise."

He gets one raised eyebrow in response. Sherlock then drags the bow over the strings.

Oh dear God. John can feel his toes curling at the ensuing squeal; it sounds like someone amplified the sound of a fork and knife scraping together.

"I believe I told you I play the violin when I'm thinking."

John remembers every second of their first meeting, and isn't that a sorry testament of how enamoured he is with this madman? Not at the moment, though. Still, Sherlock did give him fair warning and if a man couldn't practice his violin-playing in his own flat, where else would he do it?

"Yes, of course. Erm, carry on, then. I'll just be going up now."

No verbal response is received, but Sherlock manages something impressive in eliciting an even more horrific screech from the instrument in his hands.

It carries on past midnight. He has tried stuffing the crack of his bedroom door with the carpet and plugging his ears with the earbuds that came with his phone. Nothing helps. Any affection he may have had for classical music has completely evaporated and he gains a new appreciation for the patience his parents must have had to put up with his clarinet. Then again, he was never this bad. In fact, Sherlock must be the single worst violinist in existence; the man might be a genius, but manual dexterity he has not.

At 2.00am John relinquishes any hope of sleep and wanders downstairs for tea or something stronger. Sherlock is perched on the back of his chair, cradling the instrument of torture. At John's entrance, he stops playing. The momentary silence is nothing short of bliss. He nods in greeting, but Sherlock seems to be waiting for a reaction from him; he stares at John unabashedly, studying him as if he were a particularly interesting experiment. And then it clicks. Maybe this was why Sherlock was looking for a new flat, or a new flatmate. Maybe whoever else he lodged with earlier, who might have put up with the various corrosive acids and skull finally snapped after being kept up once too often because of the violin practice.

"So, have you worked it out yet? Whatever it was you were thinking about?"

Sherlock's eyes narrow. "It was a trivial matter. Did you sleep?"

"Nope." He walks into the kitchen, fills a kettle with water. "Not for one bloody moment. Pretty impressive, considering that I slept through the bombing of Basra once."

"You don't seem too upset."

John shrugs. "Yes, it's bloody annoying. But I don't have work tomorrow or the day after, at least not until I get a job somewhere, so it's not like I can't sleep in late." He doesn't say that he cannot work up the energy to get angry about this minor display of insensitivity after having to helplessly watch Harry self-harm again; after being filled with rage at his own impotence and her destructive streak. "My parents put up with me trying to learn to play the clarinet. I guess this is some sort of karmic retribution."

Surprisingly, Sherlock's features soften slightly. "It must have been a grating experience, still. I didn't intend to go on for quite so long." He settles the bow on the strings once again. "Any requests?"

That throws John for a loop. The invitation is sincere, he can tell that much, and there is no way he can turn it down without bruising some feelings in the process. Still, the prospect of having to listen to Sherlock play again, especially now that he has had a break from the relentless cacophony, makes his heart race with something akin to panic.

He has been silent for too long, because Sherlock frowns again. "I assumed you are familiar with some compositions, although this might have been an oversight on my part. Perhaps you could name a composer and I'll pick one of their more popular pieces."

Oh God, it was getting worse and worse. Get a grip, John, he tells himself. You've seen war, surely you can sit through another quarter of an hour or so of bad playing, especially when Sherlock is trying so uncharacteristically hard to be accommodating. Now, what was the easiest thing he learnt to play?

"Pachelbel?"

Sherlock's expression immediately changes to one of disgust and disappointment. Well done John, you've gone and picked something he clearly has issues with.

"Actually, I rather like Saint Saëns." He's not making it up; one of his fondest memories of school was performing the complete version of the Carnival of the Animals with the band.

Apparently pleased with John's selection, Sherlock slides into his seat, adjusts the angle of the violin on his shoulder and starts playing. For a moment, John is not entirely sure what he is listening to; there appears to be music actual, breathtakingly beautiful music coming from somewhere. Slowly, he realises that the music is coming from Sherlock, whose eyes have now fluttered close as he coaxes the finest notes from his violin. Finally, the disbelief gives way to indignant almost-rage. He sputters. Sherlock stops playing.

"Is something wrong?"

"You...you can play!"

When he doesn't say anymore, Sherlock says "Really, it was rather rude to interrupt me just to-"

"Then what the hell was that...the...that..." there is no word in the English language for the discordant series of sounds that he was subjected to earlier "...thing earlier?"

"It's still called playing the violin." He even has the gall to look miffed.

The word 'why' nearly falls off his tongue, but stops. Does it really matter why Sherlock wants to play badly? He doesn't seem to have done it to irritate John and from the looks of him, he is growing more and more ruffled at this line of questioning. Maybe his genius brain sees some sort of appeal in the un-musical notes. Or maybe he's just an intransigent bastard. John has seen enough fighting, both in Afghanistan and before, to know that some battles can't be won. He does not ask himself why he is so willing to make so many concessions to Sherlock's unreasonable behaviour, because the cane lying in the corner of the room is reminder enough of the debt John will always owe him. He does not ask himself why it is so important to him to show Sherlock that these things, these irritants which cause the Yarders to call him "Freak" and to take pleasure in tearing his home apart, will not drive him away. He does not ask himself why he wants and he wants so badly for Sherlock not to be lonely.

Luckily, the kettle pops at that moment. John disentangles himself from his comfortable chair and heads towards the kitchen. "Go on playing, then. I'll make us some tea."

The tea steeps to the most exciting, joyful rendition of Saint Saëns that John has ever heard.

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Please R & R, thanks :)