Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

"Sherlock, You're Having A Nightmare" (Part 1)

CONTEXT:

Y/N---who is renting the spare bedroom in 221B---is awoken in the night by sounds of distress.

__________

Someone was screaming.

Y/N had first become aware of it whilst still asleep---a distant note of terror, muffled like a shout underwater, a faded echo resonating around her sleep-clouded head.

Slowly she woke, reluctantly surfacing from REM cycle and into reality.

Fully awake now, and having assumed she had simply dreamed it, Y/N opened her eyes groggily, blinking blindly in the dark.

'How strange,' she contemplated 'that the human mind wants us to sleep, and then, when we finally manage to, it wakes us up again'.

But the sound hadn't been a fiction of her imagination, couldn't be, because she could still hear it. It had grown progressively clearer, its image sharpening as if a lens was bringing it into focus as she entered consciousness.

Throwing off the covers, Y/N leapt from her bed, bare feet already at a run as they hit the carpet. Knowing how to navigate her cosy London apartment by heart, she felt her way to the source of the noise like a blind man, instinct and muscle memory telling her when to reach for the door handle, where exactly it was she needed to reach for it, etcetera.

The sound lead Y/N from her own bedroom, soft carpet turning to cool linoleum as she reached the hallway.

Blood already thick with adrenaline from the knowledge that someone is in distress, her heart seemed to have trouble beating when she realised she was outside Sherlock's room.

The flat had fallen silent, the shouts had ceased, only to be replaced with uneven, erratic, soft whimpering. Sherlock's bedroom was definitely the source.

Y/N stood outside his door for a good few seconds, shifting from foot to foot, debating whether she should go inside. It wasn't just the idea of invading his privacy. Had Sherlock been screaming, still, Y/N---although she was ashamed to admit it---may not have pushed his door open. Something that could rip screams from the detective is something Y/N didn't want to encounter. What could possibly cause him such discomfort? Was someone attacking him? She'd heard no signs of a struggle, nothing to cause her to think there was an intruder within the apartment. That unknown, the lack of indication as to what she was dealing with, only made Y/N all the more hesitant.

Now, though, now that the sounds resembled more a wounded animal than a man in peril, something in her broke. Forgetting that the thing that had made him shriek with genuine terror could still be in that very room, Y/N pushed the door open.

All the lights were off, the air surprisingly still.

Y/N had seen the inside of Sherlock's room before, knew where to feel around for the bedside light switch, and clicked it on.

She'd closed her eyes, almost frozen for fear of what scene may lay in front of her. Had her imagination not been drunk on sleep, and had her every nerve not been swamped in anxiety-chemicals, she may have thought up theories as to what may be waiting on the other side of her closed lids. If the sun had been up, her mind alert and switched on, Y/N would have heard Sherlock scream, thought 'someone killed him', before proceeding to experience some kind of aneurysm.

She opened her eyes.

As far as she could tell, nothing about his room was out of place. His books still stood to attention in neat rows on their shelves. The stationary atop his desk was still compartmentalised in pots and cases, his writing paper stacked at it's usual right angle to the left corner. His bedside table, wardrobe, and chest of draws is the correct way up. The room was empty, apart from the two inhabitants of the flat, the window still closed against the harsh November winds outside.