Sherlock Fanfiction: Lepidoptera (conclusion)

[saki101]

Title: Lepidoptera (conclusion)
Author: saki101
Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft Holmes, Mike Stamford, Mummy Holmes, Father Holmes, Puck
Rating: NC-17
Genre: slash
Word Count: ~17.5K (posted in two parts)
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: Mike introduces John to Mrs Hudson, but Sherlock finds John nevertheless.
A/N: A stand-alone AU of the Sherlock universe crossed with A Midsummer Night's Dream written for the Spook-Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon 2015 in response to the prompt: dark faerie(s).
Warning: Strange things ahead.

(First part on LJ due to word limits. Whole story posted on AO3.)



Lepidoptera (conclusion)

Sherlock sat with his back against the narrow side of the row of chimneys and his feet pressed up against the low wall around the edge of the roof across the road from 221B Baker Street. The brick at his back was warm. His feet were getting cold. He had been there most of the night.

It had been twilight when he had finally awoken feeling rested. He had breakfasted on pollen, rolled about in it then stuffed his pockets with as much as he could gather, in handfuls or on gold-coated leaves. He took one out and munched on it. They had helped get him through the night and this far into the grey morning.

John had been absent when Sherlock first arrived. He had made a cursory inspection, took note of the dwindling rose light emanating from the flue, sampled the blooming flowers on the boughs above John’s bed with satisfaction and decamped to the rooftop over the road. John’s nest without John in it was unsettling.

John was out again. He liked to come and go. Certainly not suited to captivity.

Sherlock ate another leaf, thought of wrapping John in a cocoon.

John would not like it.

Sherlock pictured spinning the silk, anchoring John to the bed. The boughs weren’t strong enough to hang him there. He would not wrap him up completely though.

Sherlock ate another leaf.

He could leave John’s head uncovered, so he could taste that red mouth, sting about its edges, drink a tear if John cried. He would shout, Sherlock supposed.

Sherlock licked pollen off his fingers.

He could leave another part uncovered, sting it only a little, drink from it when it swelled. John might still shout, but that shouting had a different timbre and there was so much more to drink. Perhaps John would lie quietly in his silken bonds if Sherlock made him shout like that frequently enough.

Sherlock felt in his pockets. There were only a few leaves left.

John had curled about him, held him in his arms. It was probably best not to bind John up, no matter how safe and delicious he would be. His embraces were sweeter, warmer; savoury, too.

Sherlock sat up. Was that when John had covered him with pollen? Sherlock could not remember. Could John turn into a flower? A bed of flowers? A meadow’s worth of flowers, growing from the seemingly dead wood that covered the floors?

The curtains had remained open all night, one window cracked at the top. They were still open. The bower above John’s bed was in full bloom. John should come sleep in it, without clothes, without covers, so the petals could fall directly on his skin and turn him into a flower.

Sherlock heard a sound, recognised the cadence of the footfalls. He leaned over the edge of the roof. The bites on John’s face and hands retained a hint of aqua light. It was sad to see them fade.

John entered the house.

Sherlock sat back, eyes trained on John’s windows.

John appeared there, disappeared into his bathroom.

Sherlock crammed the last leaves into his mouth.

***

John dropped his clothes into the basket outside the bathroom, turned towards his bed, dressing gown loose. He did not tie it.

He stood by his bed a moment. All the buds had bloomed. He buried his face in the blossoms, some of the petals fell. John sat himself beneath them, opened the case and assembled the instrument within.

***

Sherlock pressed his fingertips together, tried not to blink.

***

John approached the window, lifted the sash a little. The sill blocked the view below his hips, the clarinet obscured much of his chest that showed between the sides of his dressing gown.

Sherlock fluttered above the roof ledge.

At first, John played soft, low sounds, a few notes up, a couple down, then up again. A modified scale.

Sherlock’s wings trembled.

John’s fingers wavered between keys. He was looking up.

Sherlock wondered if John could see him. He had such good eyes.

The notes went higher.

Sherlock stretched his wings and fell from the ledge.

John’s notes went higher still, his fingers fluttering over the keys.

Sherlock beat his wings against the glass. There was space between the frame and the sill, but he couldn’t seem to quiet his wings to walk under it.

John stopped playing.

Sherlock dropped to the sill.

John took a step away and played a very low note.

Sherlock followed it under the window and took a long breath, antennae waving. John’s nest smelt so much better when he was in it.

John played a little higher, took another step backwards, then another until he was by his bed. He set aside the clarinet and stretched out a hand, palm up.

Sherlock swooped towards him, landed on the palm and bored deep.

***

John watched the creature drink.

“You’ve injured your wings on the window,” he said and placed his other hand next to the first.

***

Sherlock wove his way to the valley of the other palm and stung the mound below John’s thumb.

He grew larger, to drink more. John’s blood seemed even sweeter today. It was difficult to think of anything else even though John was speaking and Sherlock wished to mark the meaning.

***

“You’re growing red,” John whispered.

The moth moved, its legs tickling across his skin. It bored into the flesh between John’s fingers. Each sting sent a tingling sensation into his muscles, up to his fingertips and down to his arm.

John shrugged his left shoulder until his dressing gown fell down the arm. He twisted and bent it until it was free of the cloth. He stretched the bare forearm next to the hand where the butterfly lay, wings flattened, antennae drooped.

***

John bared more of his skin. Sherlock stretched his wings and his legs, dragged his swollen abdomen over the edge of the palm and onto the wrist, stung directly into the pale blue vein waiting for him. He was loath to withdraw, but the soft slope of John’s forearm beckoned.

Sherlock stung his way along the path of the vein and nestled in the crook of John’s elbow.

His wings had grown even larger. Crimson swirls blossomed on them as he drank.

John placed a fingertip by Sherlock’s head. Sherlock rested his front legs on it and stung shallowly. John lifted his finger, Sherlock clung to it.

There was a rush of breath.

***

“Show me your true shape,” John said, leaning back until he was flat on the bed. He set his finger on his cheek.

Slowly, the butterfly progressed towards John's mouth, began stinging around his lips. They seemed to swell.

The thought of anaphylactic shock crossed John’s mind. Some remembrance of the danger of asking mythic beings to appear in their true form was in there, too.

He wet his lower lip, left the tip of his tongue there. The butterfly stung it repeatedly, close together. Sensation darted from each piercing, one not subsiding before the next one began, down his throat, along his cheeks into his ears and on into his brain.

He wondered if he was dying. He had always thought it would be a gun.

***

Sherlock barely heard the words. He felt the vibrations of sound, but then John’s tongue was against his stinger. He drank from its surface before stinging it and then he found a place so tender on its underside that when he withdrew the stinger, he could not bring himself to move away, so he bored into it again, a little deeper, and yet a third time.

Somewhere in his mind, the words had registered. He felt himself changing. Only his parents and Mycroft had ever been able to make him do that and they had lost the power when he was fully fledged. Alarm flowed hot upon the thought and his wings fluttered, but he was pressed to John's side, his tongue deep in John’s mouth and it was difficult to focus on anything else.

***

John felt the muscles of a lower back then the firm curve of a buttock beneath his hand. He grasped it and growled. His fingers throbbed where they had been bitten and he sensed every hair upon the warm skin he held, every nuance of texture and heat. His hand slid lower. The thigh he found was hard with tensed muscles. He dug his fingers in.

“You cannot leave me,” he said, "whatever you are."

A broad hand cradled his head, a tongue entered his mouth. When it withdrew, lips moved across his cheek, below his ear and onto his neck. And then there was a voice, like the lowest note of his clarinet.

***

He had completely transformed. His limbs stretched over John; wings with a greater span than a swan’s and feathers jewelled like a peacock’s tail curved around him. Sherlock lifted his head.

“You can feel that your first wish has been granted. But be warned, sweet John, if you open your eyes and look upon me, your second wish will be realised in a manner that may not please you, because you will never be able to leave me.”

Sherlock slipped down John’s chest and applied his tongue to the rose-hued skin there. His words had kept him from John's flesh for too long.

John inhaled sharply.

“As tightly as a moth in its cocoon, you will be bound,” Sherlock whispered above the moist skin. He nipped and suckled and yet there were more words that insisted on being said. “But unlike a moth’s threads, yours will never break and you will never emerge.”

Sherlock moved across John's chest. His tongue was not as delicate an instrument as a moth’s sting, but he applied it with intensity. The waver in John’s respiration was a fine reward.

“I would come and drink from you in your silken bonds,” Sherlock continued. He held John tight against him. “Or I would squeeze inside with you, so there would be no other space, just you, and me pressed into every nook and cranny of you.”

John’s hands were in Sherlock’s hair.

“Keep your eyes closed and you may enjoy my form with your other senses, without being bound to me.”

Sherlock knew he was distracting John from making a decision, but could not refrain from speaking and kissing in turn. If he could sting around the delicate skin he kissed, make it swell and grow even more tender, the words would stop, but John’s wish was holding him in his true shape and that shape had a tongue that formed words.

John’s hands had found the feathers of his wings.

Sherlock lost track of what he said.

***

John stroked the feathers, imagined their colours. “Are you as beautiful as you feel?” he asked.

“More,” Sherlock replied.

“A modest being,” John managed to reply. The muscular weight shifting above him demanded his attention, the soft lips brushing over the tiny wounds in his skin made him stutter.

“If you want to know about more than my appearance, it will take time,” Sherlock said.

“Do I have time?” John succeeded in asking.

Sherlock’s fingers trailed over John’s cheek. “I cannot see the future,” he said, “but I suppose you will have as much as is usual for a human.”

“You would give me that much time?” John asked, the import of the words wresting his concentration away from his physical senses.

“More,” Sherlock breathed. “I would give you more.”

***

John’s hands stilled in Sherlock’s feathers, the otherness of Sherlock’s words more arresting than the feel of wings beneath John’s fingers. He slid his hands back onto skin, reached around Sherlock and pulled him closer.

“You would not grow impatient, if I took so long to choose?” John asked. It seemed an enormous request.

“That amount of time would not be long for me,” Sherlock replied, licking the moisture from John’s skin. “You are interesting and in other forms, I can drink your blood.”

“Will you drink it all?” John asked.

“No!” Sherlock replied, “I would have you no more, which would be stupid, and I am not inclined to stupidity.”

“Brilliant, are you?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

“Change into something else, so I can look at you while you speak,” John said. He felt the weight lessen, but he did not open his eyes.

“I’m thirsty,” Sherlock said.

“Drink first, then,” John said.

The weight vanished. There was a brush of wings on his chest and the stinging began again.

***

Sherlock hovered above John’s chest, started to bite while in the air. The pink flesh was fine, easier to pierce. He took small sips all the way around and then a long drink from the middle. He had gone dry even while they spoke and John’s blood was better than nectar.

John glanced at the translucent wings opening and closing, groaned and flung his arm over his eyes.

Sherlock waved his antennae across John’s skin. It was growing hotter and flushed. He bit gently at the other nipple’s edge, more fiercely at the centre and more than once.

John’s chest heaved.

Sherlock followed John’s breath up to his mouth, stung the middle of each lip a dozen times or more. They were scarlet when he fluttered away.

He was so full and he did not want to stop. He doubled in size while resting on John’s elbow and watching John’s tongue probe at the tenderness of each lip. He looked down John’s body, swooped towards the pink skin to which he had not yet ministered.

John’s breath quickened. It made a beautiful sound, almost whistling over his teeth. Sherlock stung once below the navel, once on the inside of a thigh, then flew up into the branches above the bed. He clung there, dislodging the cherry blossom petals and catching the fragrance of John as it rose from his overheated skin.

“Where have you gone?” John asked and it was nearly a wail.

***

In the dark behind his closed lids, John followed the progress of the small stings. He thought they had a colour that spread out around the point of penetration like the radiance of a light. And he tasted them, too, especially on his lips and his tongue, like a spice, only not one he knew. He thought he might be able to taste them with his fingertips as well, but he dare not move his hand for fear of breaking a leg or crushing a wing. He wanted to trace the line of bites around his nipples, follow the path being taken to his cock. Cautiously, he shifted his legs farther apart.

The bites stopped. No wings or fragile legs stepped over his skin.

The fear he felt was sudden and cold. He cried out.

***

Sherlock sensed the drop in temperature, smelled it.

He grabbed John’s arm, held it down over his eyes. “Don’t look,” he warned and kissed John’s stung lips.

John’s other arm reached out blindly and gripped so hard it hurt.

***

The pressure brought back the warmth and still John held on.

In synchronicity, the hand between his legs and the tongue in his mouth stroked him.

He let a leg slip off the bed, pushed up into that firm hand when he had a foot on the floor. The pressure increased, his back bowed and his wail told of a different feeling.

***

Sherlock swallowed the sound, pushed against that arch and spilled more liquid heat between their bodies.

John’s hold finally slackened.

Sherlock’s did not. He had John fast against his chest. “Can you continue not to look?” he asked when he had the breath.

John nodded, the movement easy along the slick skin.

“I want to hold you a while longer,” Sherlock said.

John nodded again, the motion slower than before. “Would you tell me your true name?” he whispered, sleep dragging at his words.

Sherlock wrapped his legs around John. “Sherlock is one,” he said. His wings vanished, a blue tail curled around John’s foot. “That’s more than enough to be going on with.” Long claws sunk into the mattress beside John and Sherlock slept.

***

John did not care to know how the long, strong legs twined with his looked nor even that there seemed to be three of them.

***

Mycroft looked Sherlock up and down, bedraggled wings duly noted. “That was a more adventurous evening than I would have predicted.”

“I’ll be going back,” Sherlock said as he tucked some rosin into his violin case. “Puck hasn’t been yet and you were right.”

Only the talons digging into the bark of the branch, kept Mycroft from falling off.

“Dr Watson does bear watching,” Sherlock concluded and clicked the case shut.

***

A taxi stopped at the kerb while John was pulling his keys out of his pocket. Mrs Hudson was in the hall when he opened the door.

“Oh, John, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, and held out a note. “The most marvellous thing has happened.”

John took the note, noticed the suitcase by Mrs Hudson’s side. “Right,” he said, “off to your sister’s this week.” He reached for the case. “Let me get that for you. I think your cab’s already outside.”

The taxi tooted.

Mrs Hudson jumped. “Why are they always early when you don’t need them to be?” she said. She patted the handbag hanging from her shoulder, looked at the suitcase John had picked up and pointed at the note in his other hand. “My sister’s number's there, just in case and the name...”

The cab tooted again.

John opened the door and Mrs Hudson hurried after.

“...of the new tenant.”

John stopped with the cab door half open. “What?”

Mrs Hudson ducked inside. “That was the marvellous thing. I let the flat today and he took it ‘as is’. I can hardly believe it.”

“You want that up front or back with you?” the cabby asked.

Mrs Hudson pointed to the floor next to her.

“I’ll put it in back,” John said to the cabby and slid the case in past Mrs Hudson.

“I was going to write more in the note, but...” Mrs Hudson waved her hand about. “Anyway, I got his name down, so go up and introduce yourself. He’s a musician. I told him you’re a doctor. He seems nice and...” She dropped her voice, “...he’s very handsome.” She winked at John.

“Yes, okay,” John said, shutting the door and giving the metal a pat. “Have a good trip,” he called through the glass.

Mrs Hudson smiled and waved as the taxi pulled away.

He looked up at the first floor windows. The shutters were still closed. He unfolded the note, glanced at the name written there and ran into the house, the glass in the fanlight rattling as he slammed the front door behind him.

***

The sunlight stopped at the glass. Night ruled inside, even the moon and stars were not allowed.

The outside of the windows glittered with reflected sunshine.

***

Half-way up the stairs, John heard a violin, plaintive and seemingly far away. His feet slowed; he rose on tip-toe, hesitated outside the door. It was ajar.

Long, low notes snaked through the opening. A shard of light from the hallway illuminated a wooden floor in need of varnishing, the corner of a frayed red carpet. Everything above the floor was dark.

John tilted his head, narrowed his eyes at it.

He rapped at the door. It opened further. The hall light lit nothing more. The violin skipped nimbly up the melody, trembled on its highest notes.

John threw his shoulders back and marched inside, closed the door and leaned against it. The heavy weave of an outer garment, redolent of tobacco, brushed the side of his face. The bright rectangles above the shutters shed no light on the room. By his feet, the arrow of wood and red carpet faded slowly. Any chance that a different Sherlock had taken up residence in his house, faded with it.

John’s eyes were not adjusting to the darkness. He closed them and listened. There was running water ahead, like a bath overflowing...or a brook. A faint draft bore the scent of mouldering leaves and moss. John crouched, removed his shoes and socks, stood them in the dim triangle of wood and wool. He eased forward, a slippery surface of wet leaves cushioning his footfall. He paused, extended an arm in front, the other to the side and finding no obstacle, took another pace, and another. There was a splash ahead, as of a dropped cake of soap, or of a frog or small fish jumping. He proceeded towards it, feeling ahead with his toes, counting his steps. The ground sloped. He no longer thought of it as a floor.

Cold mud squelched between his toes. He followed the edge of the stream cautiously. Twigs bent beneath his soles, rounded pebbles pressed up against them. He bruised his shins on rocks, some jagged, others mossy and slick under his groping fingers. He regained his balance each time, inched forward, clasped the broad trunk of a tree overhanging the bank, edged his way around the landward side of it, feeling for the roots with his feet. When the number of steps he had taken would have brought him beyond the Marylebone Road if he had been outside, he paused again.

The music slowed.

John faced the water. The music came from the other side.

***

He was half naked, wet and cold.

He had stumbled in the middle of the stream, banged his knees and an elbow on the submerged tree trunk over which he had fallen. Sputtering and shivering, he had followed the music to the farther bank, slipping down its steep side twice before scaling it by clinging to the exposed roots his scrabbling hands had found. At its top, he had peeled off his soggy jacket and trousers, used the inside of the jacket to dry himself then tied it about his waist.

The forest was dense on this side of the water, the trunks of the trees massive, their roots reaching across the spaces between them. John’s pace slowed even further. There were brambles in the undergrowth. They scored his legs. He tore his hand trying to push them away, tasted raspberry juice as well as blood when he sucked on the cut between his thumb and forefinger.

The music was clearer than before, its patterns intricate.

Hours seemed to have passed. The twisted roots of the wood gave way to grass. He hastened towards the music, stepped on a nettle and cried out.

The music stopped.

John swore and limped forwards, arms extended. They met only open air.

“Don’t you disappear,” he said, panting. “I’ve tracked you down.”

“Not yet, you haven't,” a voice taunted him from his left.

It had only ever spoken to him in the dark. John ran towards the voice and leapt into the air. His outstretched fingers touched a feather, others, a shoulder. His body slammed into a back and his legs clamped around a waist. “I have now,” he said, clutching as tightly as he could and pressing his cheek against silky curls. To either side, Sherlock’s wings unfolded, stirring the frangrance of the grass and the woods as they slowly beat the air.

***

John closed his eyes against the wind raised by the motion of what had to be enormous wings.

“Jump now, John. We aren’t far from the ground.”

John held on more tightly. Bands of muscle flexed and contracted under him.

“You’ll be able to find your way back to the door, the light, your ordinary world,” Sherlock said, “only slightly the worse for wear.”

“I’m going wherever you’re going,” John said through clenched teeth.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock asked.

The air around him grew cooler as they rose. John hunched closer to the warm body beneath him.

“Yes, I’m sure and so are you. Why else did you move Neverland downstairs?” John asked.

Sherlock tilted his body and glided.

The air whistled past the wings. John felt his heart thumping against the warm back. He tightened the hold of his legs and his arms, lowered his head and brushed his lips along the straining sinews of Sherlock’s neck.

“I wanted to give you a chance to know my bad sides, to grow familiar and become contemptuous,” Sherlock answered. “I hid the light, so you could come here and not worry about being trapped by seeing me accidentally.”

John kissed at the base of Sherlock's neck, beneath the hair. With each touch, his muscles relaxed a little more. "I think we leapt right over that stage," John said. He kissed behind Sherlock's ear. "I'm not worried about being trapped." He licked lightly along the edge of Sherlock's ear. "There is no need to bind me with spells or silk,” he whispered, “I want to be with you." John rubbed his cheek against Sherlock's hair. "Didn't I offer my hand to you? Serenade you from my window to call you back to me?" John curved his hand under Sherlock's jaw, stroked along it with his thumb. "Maybe I have ensnared you.”

Sherlock soared and swooped, wheeled in some vast arc. “With your delicious blood,” Sherlock said.

“There you are,” John replied. “Find somewhere to land, drink deep and show me your true colours. I give you my promise now to stay with you for the rest of my life because a life without you in it wouldn't be worth living.”

Sherlock no longer swooped or flapped his wings. He glided slowly downwards. “There is something else you need to know first,” he said.

All John’s muscles clenched. “Please, don't be ill."

Sherlock was quiet.

John smoothed his fingers over the long neck. “Is an enemy hunting you?” His brow furrowed. “Are you cursed?”

The air smelled of salt. John heard the susurration of waves.

“I am well. No curse could touch me. I am, in fact, indestructible,” Sherlock replied.

John breathed more easily. He rubbed his face against Sherlock's hair and sighed. “You aren't mortal,” he concluded.

“I am not,” Sherlock said.

The waves boomed, briny drops fell on John’s back.

“Now, I understand the music,” John said. “My span will be brief, you feel the sadness of my leaving you already.”

“It would wound me deeply,” Sherlock admitted.

“Deeper than any curse,” John said.

“Far more,” Sherlock agreed.

“And you might never have any release from the pain of it,” John said.

“Would never,” Sherlock said.

“I am a curse, then. I shouldn’t have tempted you,” John said. He rubbed his brow back and forth over the ridge of Sherlock's spine.

“You couldn’t have known,” Sherlock replied.

“But I did.” John said. “Long ago, I wanted to hold something that was not meant to be held by human hands. I took all its magic away. It couldn’t fly anymore. I tried to feed it, but it died.”

“The chimney sweeper moth in your album,” Sherlock said.

“Yes.”

“But you wished to have the specimen again,” Sherlock said.

“Maybe I needed to remember its warning.” John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s neck, drew the skin up between his teeth, released it slowly. “Even with it before me, I reached for the impossible again.” His mouth returned to Sherlock’s skin, tasted the sea water on it with his tongue. “Is there no miracle you can work so you won't grieve when I die?”

“You could stay with me and not die,” Sherlock said.

John laughed a bitter laugh. “Easy as that, is it?”

“How hard or easy it would be, is for you to decide,” Sherlock said.

“I don't follow,” John complained.

“Ahead is a barren islet, the last land before the sea tumbles over the edge of the world. If, instead of turning back to the night now, we fly on and land there, the dawn will come upon us soon after. If you choose to look upon my true form in that place, you will be bound to me as inextricably as I to you, and from that bond there will be no release for either of us.”

John considered the words, felt the warmth of Sherlock's skin against one cheek, the chill of the salt spray against the other. “I would not die?” he asked.

“Death could no longer find you nor the passage of years touch you,” Sherlock replied.

John squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. There were colours behind the lids. “On those terms you think you want me?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

"Surely, you would weary of me," John said and wished it was not such a reasonable assessment of such a future.

"I don't think it is a sure thing for me at all," Sherlock said. "Perhaps it would be for you." He sighed and banked into a turn.

John shook his head and held on more firmly. “I accept your terms,” John said and the weight that lifted off him with that utterance made him wonder if he, too, might fly. "I accept, Sherlock." It felt better to repeat it. "I accept."

Sherlock changed the angle of his body, gliding in an increasingly tight circle. Over his shoulder, John saw a distant line of faint grey light.

“Will I be able to fly?” John asked.

“Unaided, no,” Sherlock answered. “Want to change your mind?”

“No,” John said.

They landed on a rocky plateau. John slid off Sherlock's back. The stone was cold beneath his feet, the warmth along his chest quickly dispelled by the damp air. He shivered. Feathers swirled past his face in a cool rush of air, tickled his nose, drifted over his shoulders.

“Step here,” Sherlock said.

John stepped on a pile of feathers. Fleshy wings closed about him. “Will it be long?” John asked, leaning forward, finding Sherlock’s shoulder. He felt Sherlock turn.

“An hour or so. You have good eyes, you may discern me well before that,” Sherlock replied.

John pressed his mouth to the base of Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock murmured, closed his wings more tightly around John.

“Drink from me now,” John said.

Sherlock’s warmth disappeared. There was a whirr of wings, many small wings. Moths or butterflies, John could not tell from their touch as they settled upon him.

“Are they all you?” John asked.

There was no answer, but an increased flutter of wings. Delicate legs walked along his shoulders, crept up his neck. There was a bite, another, and another, twenty more. John inhaled and held out his arms, palms up. There were so many, he felt their weight upon his arms. They were on his face, his lips. He parted them and sunk to his knees. Wings brushed against his chest. He spread his legs. Tiny legs and wingtips swarmed over him. They stung everywhere. His flesh swelled. He groaned.

***

Sherlock’s head fell against John’s shoulder. John panted into Sherlock's hair.

“Can’t stay upright,” Sherlock said.

John’s hand ran through the dark curls. “My blood makes you drunk,” he murmured, his hand stroking along Sherlock’s arm. “Lie down, put your head down.”

“So sweet,” Sherlock said.

John guided Sherlock down, smoothed his hand along the long back, up and out over the wings. Down was sprouting on the bumpy flesh. John kissed the base of the wings, along the back to the swell of the buttocks that were still swaying in the air. He rubbed his cheek against them and sighed, licked his fingers and explored further.

“John,” Sherlock called.

“Soon,” John said and his fingers advanced and retreated.

Sherlock gasped.

“More, soon,” John assured, “more.”

Sherlock pushed back against John.

“Patience, a little more patience,” he said, withdrawing his fingers.

"John."

“Soon,” John reassured as he pushed gently. “Very soon,” John repeated and grasped Sherlock’s hips.

From the east, a breeze blew cool across his back. John lifted his head. Above the horizon, there was stripe of white. A band of deep blue separated it from the jet black sky above. He could not keep his head up. He shifted his hips forward and moaned, every bite tingling at the contact. He lowered his head to the slick skin between Sherlock’s wings.

A faint sound issued from Sherlock’s lips. John wrapped his arms further around Sherlock, strummed the fingers of one hand over a firm nipple. Sherlock murmured again.

John took a deep breath and summoned some reserve of strength. He sat back on his heels, pulling Sherlock onto his knees with him. Sherlock took a gulp of air, head lolling forward, hands falling loosely by his thighs. John drew Sherlock’s head towards him, rested it against the side of his face. The breeze blew tangled curls into his eyes. Sherlock exhaled, collapsing onto John’s lap and they both gasped. John tightened one arm, rubbed his other hand along Sherlock’s chest then closed it around Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock’s wings curled forward. John could not see the horizon any longer. He closed his eyes and tensed his buttocks. Sherlock’s chest expanded. John relaxed, then tightened the hand around Sherlock’s cock and tensed his muscles once more.

"John." Sherlock drew out the syllable, lost his breath by the end of it.

John tensed, relaxed, tensed again, falling into a rhythm despite the burn in his muscles and the lightness in his head.

One of Sherlock’s hands clasped John’s arm, the other reached back and gripped John’s hip.

John’s rhythm quickened.

Sherlock’s nails dug into John’s hip. Sherlock shouted.

John’s arm tightened. He crushed Sherlock against him and screamed into his feathers.

Sherlock’s head fell forward.

John loosed his grip, slipped his hand between Sherlock’s thighs and cradled his testicles.

They sat, hunched together and breathed.

The darkness behind John’s eyelids lessened. “Sherlock,” he whispered.

Sherlock stirred. “Sun's almost up,” he said.

John pressed one more kiss between Sherlock’s wings and opened his eyes. Pale light caught the sheen on Sherlock’s flushed skin, tendrils of dark curls clinging to it. John leaned back. The light shimmered blue and green and gold over the iridescent feathers that fanned out from the base of Sherlock’s wings, curving over the shoulders and covering the shafts of the first of the rows of long, dark blue feathers. John could not see their tips nor Sherlock’s legs as the wings curved forward, brushing the stones.

Sherlock shrugged a shoulder. Muscles John did not recognise rippled beneath Sherlock’s skin. John traced one with a fingertip.

“Look at me,” John said.

Sherlock arched backwards and turned his face towards John. The light was growing brighter and more golden, outlining Sherlock’s profile and casting deep shadows on the nearer side of his face. John pulled his gaze from the hectic pink of Sherlock’s lips and met his eyes, blue and green and gold on the morning side, a silver gleam on the near side. They both held his gaze, looked him through.

“I can see why anyone who sees you in your true form would be bound to you,” John said.

“Only the first one,” Sherlock said. “Any others will simply have to suffer.”

John reached up to the long throat and stroked it. “I have no sympathy for them.”

“Good,” Sherlock said and glanced upwards.

John did the same. Overhead, the sky was navy blue and the stars were visible. In the east, the aura of pale blue was spreading, the bands of white and gold intensifying, their light doubled in the water.

***

Mrs Hudson brought the empty dish by her kitchen door in to be washed and re-filled. She smiled at the four-leaf clover in the bottom of the bowl.

The music of a violin and a clarinet floated down from the floor above.

***

King Oberon looked up from the scrolls Mycroft was showing him when Puck skipped into the clearing. He set a box Mycroft recognised down in the middle of the document he and his father had been discussing.

“There is the interesting box of which I spoke,” Puck said and sat at the king’s feet.

Oberon opened the purse at his waist and drew forth a golden key. Puck rose to his knees, resting his chin on the table to watch.

Mycroft gazed in his inimitable, imperturbable manner and the key turned and the lock clicked.

“What matter of interest have we here?” Queen Titania enquired as she swept out from between the trees, her retinue fluttering about her.

Oberon waited to raise the lid of the box until she was near. He and Mycroft stood as she approached. Oberon kissed her hand and Mycroft her cheek. Puck turned a backward somersault and handed her a clover he had plucked from the grass. He returned his chin to the table. Titania passed the clover to her lady-in-waiting and waved her attendants away.

Oberon opened the box, lifted out the vial with the thin, dark roll within. “That does not look very interesting,” Oberon remarked, “but appearances can be deceiving.”

“Oh, that is a failed experiment of mine. It would have been fascinating, but it didn’t work,” Puck said and reached for the glass.

Titania closed her hand around it. “I shall dispose of its contents for you. I like the vial.”

Puck withdrew his hand.

“And what is this?” Oberon said, extracting a gold-tipped white feather from the cobwebs in the box and holding it up.

Puck leapt to his feet and bowed. “That is a new feather that I collected myself.”

“It fell out,” Mycroft translated.

“Yes, it did,” Puck conceded, “but I was there to snap it up and bring it hence.”

The king turned it in the light and it shimmered. “It is a pleasing bauble,” he proclaimed and tucked it in the band of his velvet cap. “Unless you would like it, my dear,” he said to his Queen.

Titania shook her head, her golden hair glinting in the sun. “No, thank you, dear heart. It looks well in your cap.” She swirled about, her skirts billowing about her and drifted away.

“You may take your box, Puck, if you wish to use it again,” Oberon said as he and Mycroft resumed their seats.

Puck bowed and gathered it up. He did not skip as he moved towards the trees.

“Oh, Puck, I nearly forgot,” Oberon said.

Puck turned back and the king crooked a finger. Puck cart-wheeled closer.

“We have just been going over documents with the Crown Prince, pertaining to a title for you,” Oberon said, tapping the scroll on the table with a be-jewelled finger.

Puck’s eyes grew very wide and his gaze darted back and forth between his king and his prince.

“We were considering making you a count,” Oberon explained, “because you like to collect things and count them.”

Puck bounced onto his toes.

“But Puck,” Oberon said, raising his forefinger, “a count must be decorous and neither caper nor cavort.”

“Ever?” Puck enquired.

“Not at court anyway,” Oberon said.

Puck’s eyebrows went up and then down. “But I am usually at court, unless I am on an errand,” he said.

“Exactly so, as we enjoy your company,” Oberon continued.

Puck looked at the magnificent curlicues of the writing on the document and the green seal with ribbons of silver and gold affixed to it. He re-focussed his gaze on the pointed toes of his slippers and his lip quivered.

“We also considered making you a knight,” Oberon said.

Puck looked up, his eyes shining.

“But a knight must go forth with lance and sword to fight any wild beast that threatens our realm,” Oberon said.

Puck fingered the leather pouch at his belt, filled with potent flowers. “I am better at magic than swordplay,” he said in a low voice.

“Truer words you have never spoken,” said the king.

Puck glanced with furrowed brow at the glowing border of leaves and birds and flowers on the scroll.

“And so it was with all the usual titles,” Oberon said, “not a single one suited.”

Puck flopped onto the grass.

“Puck!”

Puck dragged himself up again.

“Therefore, with the counsel of Crown Prince Mycroft, we have created a title for you that no one has ever had before and instead of your carrying a sword and maintaining a staid appearance at court, it requires that you wear this as a mark of your station,” Oberon explained and held out his hand to Mycroft.

Mycroft covered the king’s hand and set something in his palm that Puck could not see. He leaned forward.

“Come here,” the king said and gestured at his side.

Puck walked around the table, eyes fixed on the king’s hand.

“You wear a ring in your ear at times, do you not?” the king asked.

Puck’s hand flew to his ear. He pinched his lobe. “I do, sire, but I forgot today.”

“Well, this you mustn’t forget,” the king said pinning Puck with his gaze.

Puck swallowed. “Yes, sire.”

The king held up a large pearl, shaped like a teardrop.

Puck’s eyes moved to it and stuck there.

It was a lustrous pearl of silvery grey.

“Turn your head,” the king said and when Puck obeyed, slipped the long wire of white gold through the hole he found there. “There,” he said, taking a small mirror from his pocket. “You may admire it.”

Puck accepted the glass and stared at the gleaming gem weighing down his ear. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said and tore his gaze away to look at the king.

Oberon extended his arm towards Mycroft.

“Thank you, Your Royal Highness,” Puck said with sincerity.

Mycroft inclined his head.

“You are henceforth The King’s Pearl. It is your title and your badge,” Oberon said and motioned to Mycroft. “A fine conclusion to the matter. We will announce it at court the next time we have a large assembly.” He raised a forefinger at Puck. “Mind you don’t lose it.”

Mycroft rolled the document and tied a green ribbon around it.

Puck watched eagerly.

From somewhere about his person, Mycroft produced a small vial. Between his fingers, the scroll shrunk until he could fit it into the vial. Mycroft capped it with a silver-encased glass cap. He held out the tiny bottle.

Puck’s hand shook as he accepted the vial that was, in every detail, a duplicate of the one that Titania had carried away. “Thank you,” he said, glancing up and back down again quickly.

Music sounded from the wood. Oberon flitted up from the table and flew towards it.

Puck shifted his weight from one foot to another.

“You understand what you need to continue to do to retain that,” Mycroft said and fluttered his fingers at the pearl.

The gold wire grew hot for an instant in Puck’s ear. He nodded at Mycroft and refrained from pinching the edge of his ear lobe to relieve the pain.

“The feather is a reasonable start,” Mycroft said. “When did they begin coming in?”

“Last week,” Puck said. “His light is an even brighter gold now.”

“Good,” Mycroft said. “Reports at regular intervals, nothing indiscreet.” Mycroft narrowed his eyes at Puck and lowered his brows for an instant. “And mind you are not caught or...” Mycroft flicked his own earlobe.

Puck nodded and clasped his hands so he would not touch his ear.

Mycroft dismissed Puck with an upward swept of his fingers.

Puck did three back flips, checked his pearl was in place, then ran towards the lake and when the moon set he was still gazing at his reflection in its waters.

***

"Sherlock," John called as he came down the stairs, "did you want anything to eat, I was thinking to order some Chinese." John poked his head around the door. "Sherlock?"

He could hear waves slapping against wooden piers, sails snapping, the creak of rigging. Far along a dock, a lantern glowed. John closed the door and walked towards the light. Sherlock stepped out onto the deck and John's gaze took in every detail of his uniform, looked up at the mast and noted the flag.

"Permission to come aboard, sir," John said.

Sherlock let down the gangway.

~~~~~~ooO0Ooo~~~~~~

Notes: John sings the last part of the refrain of "The Fairies" (also known as "Up the Airy Mountain") by William Allingham (1824-1889). The refrain begins: Up the airy mountain,/Down the rushy glen,/We daren't go a-hunting/For fear of little men...