when the sky turns
sherlock/john
angst
g
4971 words
an attempted fill for this lovely, lovely prompt by ineffableboyfriends on tumblr:
"Come along now," Sherlock tells a stray puff of cumulus clouds sternly and they follow with nothing more than a few sighing huffs, obediently herded towards Newcastle upon Tyne where they're due for the afternoon. "Can't have cloudy weather over Durham at two in the afternoon today and the lot of you know that well enough so come on, move it a bit faster and maybe I won't have to spend the whole day doing this."
It's a lonely job sometimes (the clouds don't talk back no matter how much Sherlock does and he knows they're listening), but Sherlock doesn't know anything else, so perhaps that makes it alright. Besides, when twilight falls and he's got the last of those blasted, flighty cirrus swirls penned up over their respective areas, at least there's John to talk to. Before John, Sherlock hadn't thought much about stars. Much too far away and too full of themselves to be paid any attention to, really. If it wasn't oh, oh won't you look at how I shine just so bright then it was bound to be something along the lines of my, how dull it must be, to be so close to the earth for so long!
But John is different. John is quiet, doesn't shine as brightly as the others, but it's alright, Sherlock thinks it's still the most beautiful light he's ever seen. Not that he's ever told John that of course, goodness. God knows how John would react then, probably laugh and tell him that his head is full of thermals again (which it isn't, thank you very much, Sherlock hasn't had a problem with thermals since he was a young herder).
"Hullo, Sherlock," John calls out in that clear voice of his and Sherlock is just doing a final headcount for his cirrocumulus herd, making sure all seven hundred and fifty two cloudlets are accounted for. "Just a moment," Sherlock calls back and oh isn't this absolutely wonderful, he's missing the seven hundred and fifty second cloudlet for the fifth night in a row. Now he's going to have to cut down his time with John and look for that stupid stray-
"Sherlock?"
"Just a moment, John, I'm-"
"Sherlock."
Exasperated, Sherlock turns on his heel, herder's cloak flaring out like a windstorm behind him and trying to tell himself to listen because it's John and no, he shouldn't snap at John, shouldn't…oh.
"Thought this one might have been one of yours so I picked him up on the way here," John says with a wry little smile and pushes the cloudlet towards Sherlock where it settles at Sherlock's feet, apparently content to stay there until told to move. "Would have been blown all the way to Ireland if I hadn't caught him. It is one of yours, isn't it?"
"It…it is." Sherlock gathers the cloudlet up in his arms and it's really no wonder why this one keeps getting lost, curious little runt that it is. "Thank you, John."
It comes out a bit more like than apology than Sherlock would have liked, a small spark of guilt already flaring warm in Sherlock's chest because he had been this close to-
"Oh come off it, won't you? I'm not going to run away if you accidentally snap at me or something. Lord knows I'll be on the wrong side of the milky way by now if I did that every time you had a bad day."
John smiles then, looking pleased with himself for having apparently diffused the situation and brought home a stray cloudlet, Sherlock finding himself smiling in return. This is why he likes John the best out of all the stars and this is why he lets John hold the cloudlet while he checks that everything is fine with this one, makes sure it's well watered before he sends it back floating happily into the herd.
"Clear night tonight," John observes when Sherlock comes to join him on the wind-swings. "Got all of them in, then?"
"Mostly. You know how the cumulonimbus ones are. Huge, slow, lumbering things."
John laughs and the flat plane of wind under Sherlock shivers with the sound. John will ask after Sherlock's day and Sherlock will tell him of how he had to move a rainstorm from Canterbury all the way to Ipswich, how the sun was bright enough to cast rainbows near a small village by the sea.
"You would have liked that," Sherlock says and John nods seriously, declaring that yes, he would have liked to see that very much indeed. John's world is one of moonlight and star shine, where the world is still and quiet and asleep in the dark. It's beautiful, of course, but Sherlock doesn't miss the way John's eyes light up brighter than ever when Sherlock tells him of how the fields look on late afternoons, or how the sea is in the midst of a storm.
"So are you going to tell me how my day went?" John teases when Sherlock has exhausted his arsenal of stories for the day. Sherlock doesn't know too much about stars, but John likes how Sherlock can still guess all the places he has shone over.
"Deduce, John, I'm not guessing," Sherlock had corrected him the first time John had said so. "I observe."
Tonight, Sherlock looks John up and down before launching into how clearly, by the amount of stardust John has on him, John hasn't actually went anywhere so far.
"Just crawled out of bed, didn't you?" It doesn't even sound much like a question coming from Sherlock, more like a statement or a prompt for confirmation. John fake-sighs and admits that yes, he had come to Sherlock the moment he had woken up, didn't even stop by the North Sea as usual to watch the moonrise. Out here, over the lights of London, Sherlock resists the urge to tell John that he should stay the night. Light up this part of London, even though everyone knows the city doesn't even need stars anymore.
"Going off to the Channel then, after this?" Sherlock asks instead, casually as always. He tries not to fiddle with the hem of his cloak since he knows that John is watching him intently, the glow that John is giving off a sure sign that John is just on the brink of finding out something and oh, Sherlock can't bear the idea of-
This barrage is interrupted by a noncommittal sound from John, the star looking down beneath their feet at the few humans still scurrying around after dark. "Maybe. The sailors don't need me like they used to and after all…" John waves his fingers at Sherlock, the soft shine from them warm and feeling inexplicably like home. Sherlock thinks he might want to kiss John's fingertips one day and no, what is he thinking?
"…it's not like I'm any good for them anymore," John finishes in a quiet voice and this is what snaps Sherlock back to attention, the herder turning on John with an expression just a few steps below vicious.
"Don't say that."
John startles and Sherlock is almost sorry, but not enough to consider backing down. "Don't say anything like that," he continues on and he's somehow holding John by the shoulders, almost shaking the poor star. "If they can't see how bright you shine, then they're all blind."
Sherlock lets go then, having made his point and John is staring after him like Sherlock has just made it snow in the middle of summer (not that he has, of course, not on purpose anyways).
"Thank you," John says after a bout of silence and Sherlock sniffs, suddenly embarrassed by this sudden show of emotion. John is important and Sherlock will be damned before he lets anyone say otherwise, even if that anyone might happen to be John himself.
"I was just stating a fact," Sherlock says and they swing for a while, watching London thrive in the near-dark. When John reaches for Sherlock's hand sometime before dawn, Sherlock doesn't move away. Just turns his wrist a fraction so that John's palm is warm against his, their fingers intertwined. Miles and miles away, the ships in the Channel are still fumbling around in the dark.
"Come back tomorrow?" Sherlock asks hopefully when John gets up to go. "I can meet you over the Channel if you want, it won't be right for people to sail without star shine two nights in a row."
The joy that spreads on John's face is almost like a sunrise in itself, Sherlock finding himself mirroring it.
"Over the Channel it is."
John squeezes Sherlock's hand in his, like sealing a promise and by first light, Sherlock is sitting alone again. For the whole of today, it feels like there will be sunny skies ahead.
-
The Channel is just as dark as Sherlock remembers it to be, nothing save for the pinpricks of ships on the water and the pale light of other stars wandering about overhead. John is trying to fix a wind-swing up by himself and Sherlock watches for a while, directing before it becomes apparent that John can't tie the knots by himself.
"Getting a bit stiff in the joints," John says, apology in his eyes and Sherlock finds himself wandering how it must feel like. Herders don't age the same way stars do. Maybe it's because there are so many like John and so few like Sherlock that the skies themselves thought it'd be better for herders to stick around for a longer time? The clouds are fickle things anyways, unwilling to be herded by anyone they haven't already been around with or years and years.
Sherlock pulls the last knot tight and settles down beside John, legs pulled up and leaning into John's warmth. It's cold tonight and John's arm around his shoulder makes it a little more bearable.
"What's it like being a star?"
It's a question that Sherlock has asked a thousand times before, and one that John has answered a hundred, but neither seem to tire of it. Sherlock likes dreaming of the life he could have had and John's voice is something he can never get sick of, even if he can already chart every cadence, every rise and fall of every word out of John's mouth, right down to the last syllable.
"It's…dark," John begins as always and Sherlock settles into John's side, ready for the rest. "Cold and eerie sometimes because the sky, it's just so big at night and all you see is the dark going on forever, but then it's also a strange kind of beautiful, you know?" Sherlock knows, knows it well because that's how it feels whenever he's out at sea with his clouds and they have to make it rain as hard as they can, whip the waves into something awful. It always leaves Sherlock a little breathless at the end, not to mention soaking wet.
A nod from Sherlock and John continues, his voice a lull that Sherlock can close his eyes against, dreaming.
"On the best nights, you can see Venus. Mars, Uranus, all of them. And the auroras, oh. It's a long trip and it's dreadfully cold so far up north, but it's worth it. The colours, Sherlock. They must be how your rainbows must look like."
"Rainbows are more…" Sherlock draws a half circle in the air, making John's eyes crinkle with amusement. "Like that. Auroras are all over the place, aren't they?"
"Chaotic," John agrees. "An absolute mess, if you ask me, but it's a good sort of chaos. We should go one day."
Sherlock murmurs his agreement against John's shoulder and John goes back to talking, tells Sherlock for the hundredth and first time about how the winter skies look when there's frost in the air, how the constellations hang high in the night, still shining as bright as ever after all these years. John isn't a young star, but Sherlock knows he's not as ancient as those fussy constellations, always bickering amongst themselves over who's the most important. The last John heard, it sounds like the Southern Cross was winning the debate this turn of the decade and the Dippers had declared they weren't on speaking terms again.
"The worst part of being a star is probably daytime," John says at length. Sometime during the conversation, John had turned towards Sherlock and now they were curled around each other, knees knocking and feet tangled. The water closest to the horizon is already turning light, dawn creeping towards them with every breath.
"Why daytime? Stars sleep in the daytime, surely you don't hate sleep that much. Don't be ridiculous, John."
"It's not that." There's a hint of protest in John's voice and Sherlock consents to settle, wait for John to explain himself.
"Well?"
"Well. It's just." John turns his face skywards, almost as if embarrassed and there's a blush to his glow, turning it just a tad pinkish. "I don't get to see you in the daytimes. You, the rainbows, the fields, the sea in sunlight. All of that, but mostly you."
Sherlock doesn't know what to say to that, can't find the right words, but John looks like he's going to apologise and Sherlock can't have that because this is wonderful and amazing and he's not going to let John apologise because…John. So Sherlock does the only thing he can. There's almost a physical spark when Sherlock kisses John, shy and cautious, careful even. Somewhere above, the other stars are calling to each other so they can go home but Sherlock can't spare a thought for them right now, not until John pulls away with the loveliest look on his face that Sherlock has ever seen.
"I hate daytime too," Sherlock says, if only to fill up the silence that gapes before them. "And when you leave, especially when the days grow longer and the nights are so short."
John reaches up to ruffle Sherlock's hair, a fond expression on his face that accompanies the gesture. "It's winter soon, so don't you worry."
"I don't worry," Sherlock huffs, in a small attempt to salvage what's left of his dignity. He can command snow and rain with the wave of one hand, a star shouldn't leave him like this. Ridiculous. Unbecoming. It's honestly quite, quite amazing.
"I'll see you in London?"
John rubs at a trail of stardust he has accidentally left on Sherlock's cheek, Sherlock not making it go away any easier given how he keeps turning into John's touch.
"London," Sherlock agrees. "Good morning, John."
"Good morning, Sherlock."
The sun rises over the sea and the stratus herds are still asleep, slumbering close enough to the waves that they're lit up in watercolor shades from watery sunshine. Sherlock won't have to wake them up for another few hours more so he just swings by himself for now, thinking of starlight.
-
Winter comes and goes. The days lengthen and Sherlock grows more restless with each hour of added sunlight. Even the cloudlets know to avoid him when he's in one of his moods, lest they be sent to somewhere far away like the Isles of Scilly to block out the sun there.
The nights are almost unbearably hot and John is tired most of the time, more tired than Sherlock remembers from the summers from before. "Stop worrying," John tells Sherlock with a sigh and Sherlock brings the cloudlet runt for John to play with, an unspoken apology for letting the worry show. When the sun comes up, Sherlock will fret all he wants and go visit Mycroft in Belgium so he can wring whatever information about stars he can from the other herder ("A star, Sherlock? Really now, I would have expected better from you.") but when night falls, he is John's and John gets distressed when Sherlock worries. It's a vicious cycle, if any.
"It's growing up nicely, don't you think?"
John is passing his hand over the fluffy back of the cloudlet on his lap, the puff of cloud almost arching into the warmth of John's touch.
"It'll make a good cumulus one day, if it stops wandering off from the herd at all hours." The last part of the statement is directed at the cloudlet itself and John has to pet it down again after that, its puffs quivering at the tone of Sherlock's reprimand.
"It's a big sky, don't be too harsh on it," John says in its defense. "Don't tell me you didn't wander over to Europe when you started herding."
Actually, Sherlock had been across the pond to the Americas when he had first started and Mycroft had to call in a few favours for Sherlock to return in one piece. One day, John will know of this, but tonight is not the night. Instead, Sherlock merely grunts in agreement and lets John card the stardust through his hair, the both of them lazily planning a day in winter when they can nip off to see the auroras in the North.
"Three, maybe four days with the winds on our side," John is saying dreamily and Sherlock makes it a point to draw it out for as long as possible. He's heard that sometimes, it's always dark in the North, or at least dark for months on end. The idea of John with him for months and months in the cold is almost too tempting to bear and Sherlock tries not to shiver at the thought, John's arm flung across him as they lie on the wind-swing barely keeping him still.
-
It's high summer the first time John doesn't turn up over London. Sherlock paces in the stifling heat, even wakes up a cirrus and sends it wafting over to Channel so that Sherlock can check along the coastline. He calls for John all night long and the other stars call back at him to be quiet, stop making such a racket but when he asks them about John, no one seems to know where John has gone.
Morning comes and Sherlock brings rainstorms all across England.
-
The next night and the next and the next after that, nothing. Flash floods across the country and still, no John. Sherlock washes the country clean a dozen times, wipes the skies until they're clear, and yet…and yet. John is nowhere to be found.
Mycroft must have heard about it, because by the end of the first week, Sherlock finds himself cornered against his exhausted herd and Mycroft's umbrella pointed at his throat.
"You will be death of everyone," Mycroft says in a crisp, icy voice. "Look at your herd and tell me just what part of you thinks you have the right to do this to them?"
So Sherlock forces himself to look. The cumuli are cowering against the strati for support, all of them tired and a washed out grey. Even the few cumulonimbus he has are lying on their sides, grumpy with the amount of work they've had to do to cover for the rest and the worst thing is, even worse than the few cloudlets he has lost over the past few days and even worse than the look of disappointed anger on Mycroft's face is the fact that Sherlock…feels nothing.
"He's gone," Sherlock tells Mycroft and wishes that Mycroft would just take that stupid umbrella of his that he's chosen for a herder's staff and stake him in the heart already. "John, I can't find him anywhere. He's gone, Mycroft, and I can't find him."
Mycroft lowers his umbrella with a slow exhale of breath and leaves Sherlock where he is, instead taking his time with patching Sherlock's herd up. From where he has slumped, Sherlock can hear Mycroft murmuring to the most distressed clouds, soothing ruffled wisps. John would be angry if he knew what Sherlock has been doing. Sherlock knows this, soul and bone-deep, and all it does is make his heart ache a little more. John, with his kind eyes and steady voice, John with warm hands and ready smiles. John, whose fingertips he never managed to kiss. John and auroras and stardust and oh it hurts, it hurts like nothing Sherlock has ever known.
-
Mycroft is old, maybe even wise. England had been his, once, before Sherlock had came and Mycroft had retired to Belgium where they don't need so much rain all the time.
"Listen to me," Mycroft says in that tone of his that allows for no argument and Sherlock listens even if he doesn't want to. What he wants is a torrent of sleet and snow and rain, weather to match his mood. What he wants is to tear the skies apart and wash the world away, if only to find John again but Mycroft is making him listen instead. It's horrendous and Sherlock fidgets until Mycroft snaps at him to stop.
"Listen to me, Sherlock," Myroft starts again, sterner this time. "You are a herder and this-" A hand waved towards Sherlock's flock, "- is your responsibility. I am not going to let you forget that all for the sake of a star, for goodness sake. You're going to run them to the ground if you go on like this."
"But-"
"John is gone, Sherlock." There is something almost like pity under the ice in Mycroft's voice and it catches Sherlock off guard long enough for Sherlock to stop glaring at Mycroft's words. "Stars don't last forever, you know that well enough yourself."
Gone. The word doesn't seem to register and Sherlock is standing so fast that he gets dizzy, cloak drawn tight around him like a shield against what Mycroft has to say.
"He. Didn't. Fall," Sherlock says with a snarl that's almost feral. John couldn't have fallen because he's John, for god's sake. John. With his fading light and dwindling warmth. John, with lines in his face and no, it isn't supposed to be like this, it shouldn't be this way and Sherlock is so stupid for not wanting to admit it the first time he saw John over the dark waters of the Channel.
Mycroft has open pity on his face now and it's ten times worse than anger, than disappointment.
"He would have told me if he thought he was going to fall," Sherlock finally says. Perhaps this is his punishment, for all the snowstorms that weren't supposed to happen, for all the nights that John left the Channel dark and sailors drowned in black waters that held no starlight. "He would have, I know it."
"And what would happen then, Sherlock? Not that this is any better of course."
Rainstorms. Dark clouds gathering like a disease, rainwater in the streets and seas lashing at shores. Gales that tear the very trees away. Sherlock turns from Mycroft and watches London instead, her people in the streets without raincoats for the first time in days.
-
It will take time, Mycroft had said. A long, long time, but it doesn't mean it can't be done. Humans are strange creatures that Sherlock doesn't quite understand and the idea of John living among them, shining in their dull midst is almost too much to bear. Mycroft wouldn't understand, can't even if he wanted to because Mycroft has Lestrade over in France and Sherlock can nearly spit with jealousy at the sight of them herding their clouds over state-lines together. Time, Myrcroft had said. At the very least, time is something Sherlock has in abundance.
Sherlock moves his herds and watches the cloudlet runt grow. Covers every last mile of land from Carlisle to New Forest, traipses into Wales and searches every village there when all is fog and darkness. No lights. No star that shines like his.
John is still nowhere to be found.
-
Mycroft drops by every season to check that Sherlock hasn't been neglecting his herds in his search for John and Sherlock almost, just almost delights in proving Mycroft wrong. The humans have started to call that one particular summer a freak of nature, a quirk of weather that can be looked back upon as something almost curious now that they're blessed again with cloudy skies instead of thunderstorms that last for days.
"I'll take that you've come to terms with it, then?" Mycroft moves his umbrella away from a curious cloudlet, tapping it gently on the rump to send it away. "There are many stars in the sky, Sherlock, should you wish-"
"Enough, Mycroft." Sherlock is sitting cross-legged on a less than sturdy looking wind-swing, eyes closed as he steeples his fingers under his chin. "None of them are John and you know that well enough so will you stop meddling in my affairs and let me find him?" Sherlock breathes out slowly as he charts a new path from Canterbury to Oxford, with a stop in London between the two. He hasn't seen London for a while now and he misses the city, misses the bright lights and bustle.
When Sherlock opens his eyes, the other herder is gone. Good riddance, Sherlock thinks sourly to himself and goes to check on the cloudlet that Mycroft had poked.
-
London has a layer of dirt on it that never seems to go away, no matter how many showers Sherlock sends over the place. It had bothered him at first, the constant grime that seemed to cling onto the very walls, but Sherlock supposes that after a while, the novelty had started to cling to him too. The walls wouldn't be too interesting if they were washed clean all the time and the Thames, murky as it is most days, wouldn't be the Thames if it looked like one of Mycroft's stupid Belgian rivers.
Sherlock is feeling lazy today, lounging over London with his herd already ambling towards Oxford where they're due for some light drizzles. Night time is coming soon and Sherlock moves the few alto stratus he has to give London a rather pretty sunset, all golds and reds and autumn colours in the middle of spring. There is a pang in his heart when the dark wraps itself around the city and London lights up like a field of stars on the ground, Sherlock watching each prick of light wink back at him.
Sighing, Sherlock moves each cloud away and London is laid out before him, clear as day and intricate as ever. If those dull humans would just turn their stupid little lights off and look up for once, they would see a clear sky for the first time in months.
Nonetheless, as much as Sherlock gripes about London, he knows he could watch it for days and never get bored. Maybe he'd been born in London once, before he could call his clouds by name and have them nudge against his hand in answer. Mycroft had probably been one of those posh Romans, but Sherlock can see himself in the backstreets and alleyways, running barefoot and picking pockets. He had told John that much as well, once, and John had only smiled and said that stars only have afters, no befores.
Sherlock swings his legs and watches the city lights. Here, the electric lights of a building giving it artificial glows, the tiny humans inside working late nights. Here, the London Eye with its circumference of light going round in set motions, the barges on the Thames with their coloured bulbs. Here, down a road by the corner, a light that-
No.
Sherlock doesn't dare to do anything other than trace it as it moves the way lights aren't supposed to, not artificial ones at any rate. Down the street, around the corner and stopping by a flight of stairs that leads to what Sherlock knows the humans call the Tube. Don't go, Sherlock whispers to himself and doesn't know what to do, cannot call rain or wind for fear of John going underground. John, if it's you, don't go.
But deep down, Sherlock already knows. Knows like the names of his flock and the memory of John's hand in his, knows with a raging certainty that this…this is John. No befores, but only afters. After the fall. After leaving Sherlock tearing the skies to shreds and leaving the country drowned.
After, when John looks up to the night with human eyes and is the only person to see the sky.
"I will find you," Sherlock whispers back down, a growing ache in his chest. Because from now on, where John goes, Sherlock will go.
St. Bartholomew's hospital, which Sherlock will bathe in sunlight and where John will learn how to wash blood off his hands without a hitch in his breath. The deserts of Afghanistan, where John will try to save the dying and where Sherlock will drown men in desert rains when a bullet gives John the starburst scar he will always carry above his heart.
All these places and more, the world traveled through heartache and beautiful skies. Sherlock reaches down towards the earth and knows, with a certainty that is as clear and cruel as winter frost, that this is always be the nearest John will ever be.
-
Faraway on a London street, John Watson looks up past the city lights and feels, if only for the briefest moment in time, that the sky is close enough to touch.
fin.
a/n- first Sherlock fic and sobs I don't think I really did the prompt any justice because it's just so amazing and akjsdnsk JOHNLOCK FEELS EVERYWHERE OKAY :(
also on AO3!