Fic: Healer, Soldier, Angel [John/Sherlock] Chapter One
Title: Healer, Soldier, Angel
Author:
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Warnings: medical description, experimentation
Rating: PG-13 going to R
Summary: Maybe letting your curious scientist of a roommate know that you have wings isn't the best idea...
A/N: This is in response to a kink meme prompt and it just kept going from there.
Prologue
When John Hamish Watson was born, he was a normal child; ten fingers and ten toes- a perfectly healthy baby. But when he was three, toddling around the Watson family home in London, something in him began to change. His shoulders itched fiercely and he often cried when the feeling would never go away. There were bony protrusions on his shoulder blades; his mother took him to see the pediatrician to the distress of his father, but since they were not life threatening the pediatrician recommended letting them be; they couldn’t do anything. It was a bit of extra bone that John was going to have to deal with in his life.
When John was five, the protrusions broke the skin, worrying his mother immensely; the family didn’t know what was going on with the young boy. When the protrusions began growing a downy layer, John’s father knew that his son had wings. He knew then what had happened, you see, John Watson was going to grow up to be a special boy. Hamish would have to protect his son from those who would take his son away from him and experiment on him. They would pull apart his frail son’s body just to see how it worked.
And he would not let that happen. He already knew what sort of experiments would be conducted on the young child. He resigned his position in the morning, citing the reason was his wife and her failing health, moved his family to the far countryside (away from any prying eyes) and it became apparent how different John was to other children. John’s body was light, but strong. He could lift heavy objects since his musculature was well-developed. His shoulders, especially, were very strong.
Hamish Watson pulled his son aside and told him never to tell anyone about his wings since the bad men would take him away and dissect him like a frog. John’s wings were growing larger with each passing year, fluttering along his back as he stretched them wide. They were still covered with downy fluff; they wouldn’t be full grown for some time yet. John was just a little fledgling, still protected in the nest. But there would come a time when John’s father would not be able to protect him. He built a leather harness for John to pull the wings close to the boy’s body. Buckles and straps pulled them tight. Jumpers were a handy excuse, being slightly too large, they could say that the boy was growing into the larger clothes.
John disliked the harness with a passion, but knew it was necessary to keep his secret. It hurt and bent the light bones in his wings and was a constant ache in his stance. He grew used to the pain in the background, but it was never a pleasant thing. When he was growing up, he realized he was much different from other children, his sister, and even his parents. He devoured any texts talking about angels or people with wings. The Bible mentioned the nephilim and angels, but they seemed more distant and not able to relate to his situation. Angels seemed much more than he was- beings of light and power. He had no powers, none like that. He tried late at night, eyes closed tightly and the effort just left him out of breath. So, he put that thought aside, nothing was going to happen that way.
He disliked his wings; it kept him from playing sports with the other boys. They had grown out of their fluffy dander and were developing into clear white wings with dappled gold on the bottom. The feathers were large and coming in strongly. Someday the long pinion feathers would be longer than his arm. He wanted to join the footie matches and play rugby, but his parents never let him, they even opted him out of physical education courses because of the possibility that someone might notice more than they should. Or if he were injured, the secret would be revealed, even in such a small village town. John worked at school and decided to become a doctor and do something useful with his life. Regardless of the warnings his parents gave him, he wanted more than a quiet life and the bustle of the large city of London called to him. He went to medical school and became a doctor.
Even the life of a doctor, while exciting sometimes as a surgeon, something still called him away from it. When the war in Afghanistan began, he knew that was where he would have to go. It was something he had to do. He needed to do this for himself. The protests of his parents and his sister fell upon deaf ears. It was during his first tour that his mother passed and his father turned away from his family, they didn’t see him again. John and Harry looked for him, but since he was missing they assumed he might be dead or moved to another country. Harry married Clara during his first leave. He wanted adventure every day and fieldwork was exciting. He felt he was truly doing something good for himself as well as other people. He found that his wings sometimes comforted people, and he went to the recovery tent when it was all quiet, taking the watch from a tired nurse as she went for some coffee. He would hold their hands as they cried and comforted them as best he could.
~*~
Then he got shot. It was a haze of pain, the bullet had moved through feathers, bone, and had lodged into his shoulder. The medical personnel attending to him were in for a bit of a shock when they found another set of limbs inside his uniform. Captain John Watson was an angel in a soldier’s uniform. His shoulder was damaged, and they didn’t know how to repair the wing, so it would always be a little crooked. But the bullet had missed his heart; his wings were probably what had saved his life.
He had never been graceful on his feet, and he had acquired a limp from the war as well as a shaking hand. He was afraid of the bad people that might swoop down at any moment and collect him for experimentation. He was depressed and lost a bit of weight. It was weight that he didn’t need to lose. He lived off a soldier’s pension, being invalidated back to London, where the whole journey began. He didn’t know if he’d be able to fly quite rightly again. He would have to learn to compensate for his injured wing. His deformity. Sitting on his bed in the quiet hotel room reminded him of the silence and the buffeting of space. It was suffocating, and still he sat.
Then he met Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes was the single most brilliant and infuriating person he had met in his life. But there was one thing that gave him the utmost caution. Sherlock was a scientist, and he dissected things to see how they worked- if the head in the fridge was anything to go by. He took things apart to analyze them. Sometimes John felt he was put under a lot of scrutiny, and in response he tightened his harness as much as he could to get his wings close to his body. The fragile bones protested it, and he was getting used to the constant pain again in his weakened shoulder.
They chased criminals around London and once again John felt alive. Long had been the days since he wrote “nothing ever happens to me.” Everything was happening to him now. But John had forgotten in such a small apartment that his molt was going to be horrendous. John always felt like he was under close scrutiny when Sherlock was around. But the more Sherlock got to know him, the less he paid attention. It was odd, in its own way, but something he could work with. Sherlock required him for tea and to bounce ideas off of, but had let go of close scrutiny after he lost his psychosomatic limp. But it wasn’t because his friend had been shot in the leg; it was because he was frightened by the prospect of being permanently grounded, left to be another pedestrian instead of in the air. His wing wasn’t healing properly and would always have a crook in it.
When he got a weekend free from Sherlock and had time and money from his pension (hardly likely- he would have to find a job somewhere), he had designs to go away to the old Watson home and to have a good flight to stretch out his wings. They ached and ached. His shoulders had long gone numb from the pain and moved to background noise in his head. He needed the time to spread them out and to finally groom them properly. He did as much as was necessary in the privacy behind a locked door. But locked doors didn’t stand against Sherlock for long so he was wary of Sherlock not respecting his privacy.
He raked his fingers through the downy layers of his wings; it was the freeing sensation- like running your fingers through your own hair to massage the scalp. Oh, how he needed this feeling, out of the harness and free if only for a moment.
~*~
Sherlock didn’t spend much time analyzing John Watson; he was on the whole quite unremarkable. But John was useful and interesting in his own way and encouraged Sherlock in his profession of being the only consulting detective. The man had saved his life. The more time he spent with John, the better his limp was. The adrenaline junky had come to him like moth to flame with the mention of an exciting case. They had solved “A Study in Pink” even though John’s blog was woefully full of inaccuracies and full of emotional undertones and drama. “But people like drama and all that, Sherlock.” John had said. Sherlock maintained a steady presence on John’s blog, reading it and providing commentary on where he had gone wrong and writing snarky responses to the other readers’ drivel on John’s blog. All in all, John was settling into a place in his life that he never knew that he needed filled. John, a brother in arms, who had killed for him and watched over his health. A friend. He hadn’t had one in a long time, his last real friend was his brother, and they were children then.
“John?! Tea!” Sherlock yelled from his place on the couch in his blue dressing gown. He hadn’t had any interesting cases recently. They were all so dull. And everyone around him was even duller. His only companion with any sort of patience was John. He wondered how far he could take it with John, the man was born with an extra helping of common sense, despite his care for obvious human woes like eating, sleeping, and God forbid breathing.
John sighed in his bedroom, with his wings out and in the middle of grooming them. He was just starting to get relaxed. He had nothing to do today since he didn’t have a job and was in the middle of looking for one. He was tired from going out and he felt gross, and he wanted to get his feathers clean. He hadn’t done it in a while and the pile of feathers at his feet was evidence of this need. His wings also needed to be oiled and once again put away.
“Make it yourself!” John shouted at the closed door.
“Boring!” was the response from downstairs.
“Not my problem, Sherlock!”
“Still boring!”
John sighed in frustration, he might as well quit now, or the git would run upstairs and bother him for something to do. There already were too many close calls for that. He would have to make the man some tea just to prevent boredom and for Sherlock to distract himself from the very obvious problem in the room. John preferred it when Sherlock had a case, despite the skinny man not eating or sleeping. It moved the focus from himself to other people and events at hand. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if Sherlock knew or not that he was hiding something. God forbid any of the Holmes’ found out what he was really hiding.
They had been so careful in his life, and his father was his personal physician until he went missing. There were things about John’s physiology that didn’t quite match up to normal people. Then John became a doctor, so the words ‘physician, heal thyself’ had never been more accurate. The only people who knew were the small team of medical corps that treated the wound on his shoulder. They swore to take the knowledge to their graves; the thought was still something that kept him awake some nights because every person had their selling point. He would have to be doubly careful from now on.
He made himself both essential to his roommate as well as distant, something not to be scrutinized. What the man did was amazing, self-diagnosed sociopath aside. He didn’t know what made him so protective of this man when he first met him, allowing him to make the decision to fire his Browning. The man had reinvigorated his life, given him a new purpose, and satisfied the itch that never seemed to leave between his shoulder blades. John supposed it was his love of adrenaline, or in John’s case the ecstasy that he felt in the air was brought down to earth.
John grumbled under his breath and picked up the pile of feathers at his feet, putting them into a plastic bag to be disposed of later. He then picked up his harness and sighed. He was only half done with his grooming. It would be a bad habit if he continued to do things only halfway. It wouldn’t do to neglect the care of his wings, they would get really itchy and he would lose a lot more feathers. His father was the one to remind him every day to look after his wings and ever since he joined the army, it became a normal habit; it was part of his toilette he did every morning. He hadn’t done it recently and that was the reason for getting it done now. He pulled his wings to his shoulders and placed the harness over them. He took handfuls of his wings and tucked the bottoms underneath; he met the stiff resistance on his left side because of his scar and frozen muscles. The nerve damage was there, but in all, he would be able to fly- the mechanics were still in place. He would have to take care to work the muscle more and strengthen the weakened side.
John pulled a shirt over his shoulders, one of his favorites- the red one; he made sure everything was tucked away and unlocked his door and went down the stairs to the kitchen. Well, he was hungry anyways, might as well find out what they had in the apartment. He saw Sherlock on the couch in his customary thinking pose and wrapped in his blue dressing gown; the man was ready to go into a sulk, he could feel it. He walked into the kitchen, seeing the mess he raised his arms and made a small noise in exasperation. He had just cleaned the kitchen yesterday.
“Anything to eat? I’m starving.” He went to the fridge to pull out some milk for the tea and to find any other foodstuffs they might have. He shut the fridge door just as quickly with a muffled explicative. He opened the fridge door again to prove that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. He spoke to himself quietly, “There’s a head.”
“A severed head?” John shouted towards the living room.
“Just tea for me, thanks.”
“There’s a head in the fridge!”
“Yes?” came Sherlock’s slow drawl.
“A bloody head!” he said moving towards the living room, but giving up halfway. He took a breath, trying to calm himself from flying into a temper. The man could have at least said something so that it wasn’t such a surprise.
He shook his head at Sherlock’s antics, living with him was trying. He thought himself to be one of the most long-suffering of mortals, especially living with the most infuriating of men. He pulled the pot from its place in the cupboard and filled it with water and set it on the stove to heat. He puttered around, trying to erase the image of the severed head from his mind.
“No new cases then, Sherlock?”
“Everything is dull.”
“No new experiments at the morgue?”
“Inviting, but Ms. Hooper has nothing for me.”
“Would you play for me then?”
Sherlock shot a look at his violin case where his precious Stradivarius was resting; he didn’t really feel the need to play. He had nothing to think about that would be helped along by its playing. But John liked to hear him play, and keeping John happy meant tea. He eyed it like it would bite him.
Soon John placed the tea near his head on the coffee table. John, who knew him well enough now to know how he took his tea. There came a buzzing from his phone. He read it quickly, finally the stimulation he was lacking!
“John! Case!” Sherlock scrambled off the couch and ran into his room to get quickly dressed. John sighed at the mess Sherlock was leaving him and made a note to get his roommate to clean a little bit if he was bored. He might be swayed at the prospect of finding something interesting while he cleaned. John put on his coat as Sherlock came out of his room with a spring in his step, quickly coming to where John was, putting on his own coat with a flourish and tying his blue scarf quickly around his neck.
They caught a cab, which John attributed to Sherlock’s strange powers of finding just the right information about placement of cabs throughout London at certain hours of the day. (John suspected an experiment). They headed to the financial district of London, where John met someone that Sherlock had a history with.
“This is John, my friend-” Sherlock began at the same time John said, “colleague.”
John instantly felt awful, since Sherlock considered him a friend. He might have only imagined the small note of hurt that passed over the detective’s face. They were friends, weren’t they? John hadn’t shot a man for no reason, had he? Friend then. He would fix this later with Sherlock, even if they were just flatmates, they could be friends as well. It wouldn’t stop people from poking fun at them, implying more to a relationship of an intimate nature. But friends, they looked out for each other, despite being a self-proclaimed sociopath, terrifyingly non-aware of personal boundaries, and a demanding tea drinker. It was fine. It was all fine. And John set out to make this up to Sherlock; they could be friends, despite not knowing each other for long. How did that phrase go? Familiarity bred…well, contempt, but that wasn’t the point.
John watched Sherlock race around the office like a pigeon on crack. He kept bobbing up and down, poking his head above and around dividers for a reason that was unknown to John. And the check, he had gawped at it when it was put into his hands. The glorious check in his hand that would solve all his problems as of late. No more watching the dwindling account on his bank statement until the next meager pension check. He might even be able to afford that small sojourn to the countryside to stretch his aching wings. He felt them twinge as he paid attention to them.
“Come, John!”
And he followed.
~*~
Sherlock’s acting skills were one hell of a shock for John when they reached apartment buildings that had rent payments that were more than his yearly salary in the military. These places were in a great part of town, and dare he say- posh. It seemed like the place fit Sherlock more than it did people of John’s caliber. He liked to think himself as a salt-of-the-earth type of person (well, y’know). He had the simplicity of life that he needed, and just enough to get by. After this case, they would have enough for rent and the chip and pin machine wouldn’t start a row, but he still needed a job to help him get by. He shook his head in remembrance of that hateful machine. Even Sherlock looked surprised when he said he fought with it.
They got into the apartment of one Edward Van Coon of the Hong Kong department of Seb Wilkes’ financial firm. They found the man dead, inside a locked apartment. He watched Sherlock’s entire demeanor light up at the challenge. They found the black lotus flower inside his mouth.
It was John that made the call to Scotland Yard, because unlike Sherlock, this had to go through official channels. DI Dimmock showed up, and John was relegated to watching Sherlock’s brilliance at work. The man managed to deduce that it was murder and the killer managed to enter the flat with the same sort of entry that Sherlock managed. There was nothing else to do here, it was another piece of the puzzle and they had to go forward to find the net one to put together the whole picture.
They found the tattoo, and now was the time to identify which particular gang was involved in smuggling Chinese antiquities. But first, John had an interview as a locum GP at a local clinic. It wasn’t too far from the flat and was within his means if he used his oyster card. He thought it went well and he started soon, he hoped that this case wouldn’t run too long. And it was awhile since he had any sort of normalcy. Well, as normal as a man with wings could get. He asked Sarah out. He had no idea where they were going for it. He needed to think this through.
Another break in the case had Sherlock and he wandering around the Chinese district of London, they were in over their head. Something bigger than them was going on with the smuggling network. John felt frission up his spine, the same one when he detected tension in Afghanistan. The same feeling he had before he was shot.
~*~
John was in the middle of the train tracks, wondering what the Hell he had done in his life to end up here. As soon as he analyzed it, the weirdest shit kept happening to him. He smelled the acrid odour of paint; it filled his nostrils as he moved closer to the source. Well, this was something Sherlock could definitely use. He turned as if to find Sherlock and bring him back here, but thinking better of it, pulled out his phone and snapped a quick photo. Just in case he would be dragged around by the detective and couldn’t come back right away. He went to get Sherlock.
“It was right…here,” John looked at the black paint that was drying on the brick wall. “It was just here, Sherlock, I swear.”
Hands suddenly reached out and grabbed him. John stiffened in surprise, almost ready to clock his roommate upside the head. Sherlock spun him in circles. All John saw were cool grey eyes looking into his own as he was spun. Sherlock was lovely in this light and the reflection of the streetlamps in his eyes was nice during every revolution.
What Sherlock would remember faintly from the encounter was putting his hands on his roommate’s shoulders and walking into personal space. Something he should have noticed was the pervasive heat that his roommate gave off. Sherlock was a tall, lanky man and with that came poor circulation. He was always cold, the greatcoat and scarf he wore wasn’t just a habit from his mother to bundle up against the cold (he would go outside naked just to defy her, but it quickly got too cold). It was warmer that way, and the gloves he chose were made of the softest leather to preserve his long fingers from the bitter air.
“Sherlock, no need,” John began, pulling out his phone. “I took a photo.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said dumbly. John had surprised him yet again, an oddly resourceful man. He would have to take a closer look because John wasn’t just a flatmate. John was just starting to get interesting.
TBC: Chapter Two
Author:
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Warnings: medical description, experimentation
Rating: PG-13 going to R
Summary: Maybe letting your curious scientist of a roommate know that you have wings isn't the best idea...
A/N: This is in response to a kink meme prompt and it just kept going from there.
Prologue
When John Hamish Watson was born, he was a normal child; ten fingers and ten toes- a perfectly healthy baby. But when he was three, toddling around the Watson family home in London, something in him began to change. His shoulders itched fiercely and he often cried when the feeling would never go away. There were bony protrusions on his shoulder blades; his mother took him to see the pediatrician to the distress of his father, but since they were not life threatening the pediatrician recommended letting them be; they couldn’t do anything. It was a bit of extra bone that John was going to have to deal with in his life.
When John was five, the protrusions broke the skin, worrying his mother immensely; the family didn’t know what was going on with the young boy. When the protrusions began growing a downy layer, John’s father knew that his son had wings. He knew then what had happened, you see, John Watson was going to grow up to be a special boy. Hamish would have to protect his son from those who would take his son away from him and experiment on him. They would pull apart his frail son’s body just to see how it worked.
And he would not let that happen. He already knew what sort of experiments would be conducted on the young child. He resigned his position in the morning, citing the reason was his wife and her failing health, moved his family to the far countryside (away from any prying eyes) and it became apparent how different John was to other children. John’s body was light, but strong. He could lift heavy objects since his musculature was well-developed. His shoulders, especially, were very strong.
Hamish Watson pulled his son aside and told him never to tell anyone about his wings since the bad men would take him away and dissect him like a frog. John’s wings were growing larger with each passing year, fluttering along his back as he stretched them wide. They were still covered with downy fluff; they wouldn’t be full grown for some time yet. John was just a little fledgling, still protected in the nest. But there would come a time when John’s father would not be able to protect him. He built a leather harness for John to pull the wings close to the boy’s body. Buckles and straps pulled them tight. Jumpers were a handy excuse, being slightly too large, they could say that the boy was growing into the larger clothes.
John disliked the harness with a passion, but knew it was necessary to keep his secret. It hurt and bent the light bones in his wings and was a constant ache in his stance. He grew used to the pain in the background, but it was never a pleasant thing. When he was growing up, he realized he was much different from other children, his sister, and even his parents. He devoured any texts talking about angels or people with wings. The Bible mentioned the nephilim and angels, but they seemed more distant and not able to relate to his situation. Angels seemed much more than he was- beings of light and power. He had no powers, none like that. He tried late at night, eyes closed tightly and the effort just left him out of breath. So, he put that thought aside, nothing was going to happen that way.
He disliked his wings; it kept him from playing sports with the other boys. They had grown out of their fluffy dander and were developing into clear white wings with dappled gold on the bottom. The feathers were large and coming in strongly. Someday the long pinion feathers would be longer than his arm. He wanted to join the footie matches and play rugby, but his parents never let him, they even opted him out of physical education courses because of the possibility that someone might notice more than they should. Or if he were injured, the secret would be revealed, even in such a small village town. John worked at school and decided to become a doctor and do something useful with his life. Regardless of the warnings his parents gave him, he wanted more than a quiet life and the bustle of the large city of London called to him. He went to medical school and became a doctor.
Even the life of a doctor, while exciting sometimes as a surgeon, something still called him away from it. When the war in Afghanistan began, he knew that was where he would have to go. It was something he had to do. He needed to do this for himself. The protests of his parents and his sister fell upon deaf ears. It was during his first tour that his mother passed and his father turned away from his family, they didn’t see him again. John and Harry looked for him, but since he was missing they assumed he might be dead or moved to another country. Harry married Clara during his first leave. He wanted adventure every day and fieldwork was exciting. He felt he was truly doing something good for himself as well as other people. He found that his wings sometimes comforted people, and he went to the recovery tent when it was all quiet, taking the watch from a tired nurse as she went for some coffee. He would hold their hands as they cried and comforted them as best he could.
~*~
Then he got shot. It was a haze of pain, the bullet had moved through feathers, bone, and had lodged into his shoulder. The medical personnel attending to him were in for a bit of a shock when they found another set of limbs inside his uniform. Captain John Watson was an angel in a soldier’s uniform. His shoulder was damaged, and they didn’t know how to repair the wing, so it would always be a little crooked. But the bullet had missed his heart; his wings were probably what had saved his life.
He had never been graceful on his feet, and he had acquired a limp from the war as well as a shaking hand. He was afraid of the bad people that might swoop down at any moment and collect him for experimentation. He was depressed and lost a bit of weight. It was weight that he didn’t need to lose. He lived off a soldier’s pension, being invalidated back to London, where the whole journey began. He didn’t know if he’d be able to fly quite rightly again. He would have to learn to compensate for his injured wing. His deformity. Sitting on his bed in the quiet hotel room reminded him of the silence and the buffeting of space. It was suffocating, and still he sat.
Then he met Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes was the single most brilliant and infuriating person he had met in his life. But there was one thing that gave him the utmost caution. Sherlock was a scientist, and he dissected things to see how they worked- if the head in the fridge was anything to go by. He took things apart to analyze them. Sometimes John felt he was put under a lot of scrutiny, and in response he tightened his harness as much as he could to get his wings close to his body. The fragile bones protested it, and he was getting used to the constant pain again in his weakened shoulder.
They chased criminals around London and once again John felt alive. Long had been the days since he wrote “nothing ever happens to me.” Everything was happening to him now. But John had forgotten in such a small apartment that his molt was going to be horrendous. John always felt like he was under close scrutiny when Sherlock was around. But the more Sherlock got to know him, the less he paid attention. It was odd, in its own way, but something he could work with. Sherlock required him for tea and to bounce ideas off of, but had let go of close scrutiny after he lost his psychosomatic limp. But it wasn’t because his friend had been shot in the leg; it was because he was frightened by the prospect of being permanently grounded, left to be another pedestrian instead of in the air. His wing wasn’t healing properly and would always have a crook in it.
When he got a weekend free from Sherlock and had time and money from his pension (hardly likely- he would have to find a job somewhere), he had designs to go away to the old Watson home and to have a good flight to stretch out his wings. They ached and ached. His shoulders had long gone numb from the pain and moved to background noise in his head. He needed the time to spread them out and to finally groom them properly. He did as much as was necessary in the privacy behind a locked door. But locked doors didn’t stand against Sherlock for long so he was wary of Sherlock not respecting his privacy.
He raked his fingers through the downy layers of his wings; it was the freeing sensation- like running your fingers through your own hair to massage the scalp. Oh, how he needed this feeling, out of the harness and free if only for a moment.
~*~
Sherlock didn’t spend much time analyzing John Watson; he was on the whole quite unremarkable. But John was useful and interesting in his own way and encouraged Sherlock in his profession of being the only consulting detective. The man had saved his life. The more time he spent with John, the better his limp was. The adrenaline junky had come to him like moth to flame with the mention of an exciting case. They had solved “A Study in Pink” even though John’s blog was woefully full of inaccuracies and full of emotional undertones and drama. “But people like drama and all that, Sherlock.” John had said. Sherlock maintained a steady presence on John’s blog, reading it and providing commentary on where he had gone wrong and writing snarky responses to the other readers’ drivel on John’s blog. All in all, John was settling into a place in his life that he never knew that he needed filled. John, a brother in arms, who had killed for him and watched over his health. A friend. He hadn’t had one in a long time, his last real friend was his brother, and they were children then.
“John?! Tea!” Sherlock yelled from his place on the couch in his blue dressing gown. He hadn’t had any interesting cases recently. They were all so dull. And everyone around him was even duller. His only companion with any sort of patience was John. He wondered how far he could take it with John, the man was born with an extra helping of common sense, despite his care for obvious human woes like eating, sleeping, and God forbid breathing.
John sighed in his bedroom, with his wings out and in the middle of grooming them. He was just starting to get relaxed. He had nothing to do today since he didn’t have a job and was in the middle of looking for one. He was tired from going out and he felt gross, and he wanted to get his feathers clean. He hadn’t done it in a while and the pile of feathers at his feet was evidence of this need. His wings also needed to be oiled and once again put away.
“Make it yourself!” John shouted at the closed door.
“Boring!” was the response from downstairs.
“Not my problem, Sherlock!”
“Still boring!”
John sighed in frustration, he might as well quit now, or the git would run upstairs and bother him for something to do. There already were too many close calls for that. He would have to make the man some tea just to prevent boredom and for Sherlock to distract himself from the very obvious problem in the room. John preferred it when Sherlock had a case, despite the skinny man not eating or sleeping. It moved the focus from himself to other people and events at hand. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if Sherlock knew or not that he was hiding something. God forbid any of the Holmes’ found out what he was really hiding.
They had been so careful in his life, and his father was his personal physician until he went missing. There were things about John’s physiology that didn’t quite match up to normal people. Then John became a doctor, so the words ‘physician, heal thyself’ had never been more accurate. The only people who knew were the small team of medical corps that treated the wound on his shoulder. They swore to take the knowledge to their graves; the thought was still something that kept him awake some nights because every person had their selling point. He would have to be doubly careful from now on.
He made himself both essential to his roommate as well as distant, something not to be scrutinized. What the man did was amazing, self-diagnosed sociopath aside. He didn’t know what made him so protective of this man when he first met him, allowing him to make the decision to fire his Browning. The man had reinvigorated his life, given him a new purpose, and satisfied the itch that never seemed to leave between his shoulder blades. John supposed it was his love of adrenaline, or in John’s case the ecstasy that he felt in the air was brought down to earth.
John grumbled under his breath and picked up the pile of feathers at his feet, putting them into a plastic bag to be disposed of later. He then picked up his harness and sighed. He was only half done with his grooming. It would be a bad habit if he continued to do things only halfway. It wouldn’t do to neglect the care of his wings, they would get really itchy and he would lose a lot more feathers. His father was the one to remind him every day to look after his wings and ever since he joined the army, it became a normal habit; it was part of his toilette he did every morning. He hadn’t done it recently and that was the reason for getting it done now. He pulled his wings to his shoulders and placed the harness over them. He took handfuls of his wings and tucked the bottoms underneath; he met the stiff resistance on his left side because of his scar and frozen muscles. The nerve damage was there, but in all, he would be able to fly- the mechanics were still in place. He would have to take care to work the muscle more and strengthen the weakened side.
John pulled a shirt over his shoulders, one of his favorites- the red one; he made sure everything was tucked away and unlocked his door and went down the stairs to the kitchen. Well, he was hungry anyways, might as well find out what they had in the apartment. He saw Sherlock on the couch in his customary thinking pose and wrapped in his blue dressing gown; the man was ready to go into a sulk, he could feel it. He walked into the kitchen, seeing the mess he raised his arms and made a small noise in exasperation. He had just cleaned the kitchen yesterday.
“Anything to eat? I’m starving.” He went to the fridge to pull out some milk for the tea and to find any other foodstuffs they might have. He shut the fridge door just as quickly with a muffled explicative. He opened the fridge door again to prove that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. He spoke to himself quietly, “There’s a head.”
“A severed head?” John shouted towards the living room.
“Just tea for me, thanks.”
“There’s a head in the fridge!”
“Yes?” came Sherlock’s slow drawl.
“A bloody head!” he said moving towards the living room, but giving up halfway. He took a breath, trying to calm himself from flying into a temper. The man could have at least said something so that it wasn’t such a surprise.
He shook his head at Sherlock’s antics, living with him was trying. He thought himself to be one of the most long-suffering of mortals, especially living with the most infuriating of men. He pulled the pot from its place in the cupboard and filled it with water and set it on the stove to heat. He puttered around, trying to erase the image of the severed head from his mind.
“No new cases then, Sherlock?”
“Everything is dull.”
“No new experiments at the morgue?”
“Inviting, but Ms. Hooper has nothing for me.”
“Would you play for me then?”
Sherlock shot a look at his violin case where his precious Stradivarius was resting; he didn’t really feel the need to play. He had nothing to think about that would be helped along by its playing. But John liked to hear him play, and keeping John happy meant tea. He eyed it like it would bite him.
Soon John placed the tea near his head on the coffee table. John, who knew him well enough now to know how he took his tea. There came a buzzing from his phone. He read it quickly, finally the stimulation he was lacking!
“John! Case!” Sherlock scrambled off the couch and ran into his room to get quickly dressed. John sighed at the mess Sherlock was leaving him and made a note to get his roommate to clean a little bit if he was bored. He might be swayed at the prospect of finding something interesting while he cleaned. John put on his coat as Sherlock came out of his room with a spring in his step, quickly coming to where John was, putting on his own coat with a flourish and tying his blue scarf quickly around his neck.
They caught a cab, which John attributed to Sherlock’s strange powers of finding just the right information about placement of cabs throughout London at certain hours of the day. (John suspected an experiment). They headed to the financial district of London, where John met someone that Sherlock had a history with.
“This is John, my friend-” Sherlock began at the same time John said, “colleague.”
John instantly felt awful, since Sherlock considered him a friend. He might have only imagined the small note of hurt that passed over the detective’s face. They were friends, weren’t they? John hadn’t shot a man for no reason, had he? Friend then. He would fix this later with Sherlock, even if they were just flatmates, they could be friends as well. It wouldn’t stop people from poking fun at them, implying more to a relationship of an intimate nature. But friends, they looked out for each other, despite being a self-proclaimed sociopath, terrifyingly non-aware of personal boundaries, and a demanding tea drinker. It was fine. It was all fine. And John set out to make this up to Sherlock; they could be friends, despite not knowing each other for long. How did that phrase go? Familiarity bred…well, contempt, but that wasn’t the point.
John watched Sherlock race around the office like a pigeon on crack. He kept bobbing up and down, poking his head above and around dividers for a reason that was unknown to John. And the check, he had gawped at it when it was put into his hands. The glorious check in his hand that would solve all his problems as of late. No more watching the dwindling account on his bank statement until the next meager pension check. He might even be able to afford that small sojourn to the countryside to stretch his aching wings. He felt them twinge as he paid attention to them.
“Come, John!”
And he followed.
~*~
Sherlock’s acting skills were one hell of a shock for John when they reached apartment buildings that had rent payments that were more than his yearly salary in the military. These places were in a great part of town, and dare he say- posh. It seemed like the place fit Sherlock more than it did people of John’s caliber. He liked to think himself as a salt-of-the-earth type of person (well, y’know). He had the simplicity of life that he needed, and just enough to get by. After this case, they would have enough for rent and the chip and pin machine wouldn’t start a row, but he still needed a job to help him get by. He shook his head in remembrance of that hateful machine. Even Sherlock looked surprised when he said he fought with it.
They got into the apartment of one Edward Van Coon of the Hong Kong department of Seb Wilkes’ financial firm. They found the man dead, inside a locked apartment. He watched Sherlock’s entire demeanor light up at the challenge. They found the black lotus flower inside his mouth.
It was John that made the call to Scotland Yard, because unlike Sherlock, this had to go through official channels. DI Dimmock showed up, and John was relegated to watching Sherlock’s brilliance at work. The man managed to deduce that it was murder and the killer managed to enter the flat with the same sort of entry that Sherlock managed. There was nothing else to do here, it was another piece of the puzzle and they had to go forward to find the net one to put together the whole picture.
They found the tattoo, and now was the time to identify which particular gang was involved in smuggling Chinese antiquities. But first, John had an interview as a locum GP at a local clinic. It wasn’t too far from the flat and was within his means if he used his oyster card. He thought it went well and he started soon, he hoped that this case wouldn’t run too long. And it was awhile since he had any sort of normalcy. Well, as normal as a man with wings could get. He asked Sarah out. He had no idea where they were going for it. He needed to think this through.
Another break in the case had Sherlock and he wandering around the Chinese district of London, they were in over their head. Something bigger than them was going on with the smuggling network. John felt frission up his spine, the same one when he detected tension in Afghanistan. The same feeling he had before he was shot.
~*~
John was in the middle of the train tracks, wondering what the Hell he had done in his life to end up here. As soon as he analyzed it, the weirdest shit kept happening to him. He smelled the acrid odour of paint; it filled his nostrils as he moved closer to the source. Well, this was something Sherlock could definitely use. He turned as if to find Sherlock and bring him back here, but thinking better of it, pulled out his phone and snapped a quick photo. Just in case he would be dragged around by the detective and couldn’t come back right away. He went to get Sherlock.
“It was right…here,” John looked at the black paint that was drying on the brick wall. “It was just here, Sherlock, I swear.”
Hands suddenly reached out and grabbed him. John stiffened in surprise, almost ready to clock his roommate upside the head. Sherlock spun him in circles. All John saw were cool grey eyes looking into his own as he was spun. Sherlock was lovely in this light and the reflection of the streetlamps in his eyes was nice during every revolution.
What Sherlock would remember faintly from the encounter was putting his hands on his roommate’s shoulders and walking into personal space. Something he should have noticed was the pervasive heat that his roommate gave off. Sherlock was a tall, lanky man and with that came poor circulation. He was always cold, the greatcoat and scarf he wore wasn’t just a habit from his mother to bundle up against the cold (he would go outside naked just to defy her, but it quickly got too cold). It was warmer that way, and the gloves he chose were made of the softest leather to preserve his long fingers from the bitter air.
“Sherlock, no need,” John began, pulling out his phone. “I took a photo.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said dumbly. John had surprised him yet again, an oddly resourceful man. He would have to take a closer look because John wasn’t just a flatmate. John was just starting to get interesting.
TBC: Chapter Two