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The first time John sees Sherlock, he doesn’t quite see him – not in the ways that matter.
That fleeting initial glimpse is across a cluttered lab bench in Bart’s, and so all he sees is a pale, knifelike face topped by a mass of dark curls. The man’s wings are partially obscured, though even through the mess John can tell that they are a deep, glossy black. He thinks lab, black wings, crow, and it is all very logical because crows do tend to end up in places like this – drawn as they are to the darker aspects of life.
The man starts to talk, and his dizzying deductions are only working to reaffirm John’s previous assessment of his wings – cleverness being another crow trait – when the man stands and, for a brief moment, turns away. His wings shift a little to steady the sudden movement and it is then that John spots it – a flicker of brilliant white amid all that darkness. He blinks, and it’s gone.
Sherlock Holmes leaves in a rush of arrogance capped off by an infuriating wink, and as he slips out through the door John can only stand there and wonder what the fuck just happened.
* * *
It’s only when John meets Sherlock Holmes for the second time that he starts to see the truth.
In the bright light of day the darkness of Sherlock’s feathers is even further enhanced, until he looks like he’s flanked by nothing more than the silhouette of wings. It really is quite sinister, in an awful B-movie cliché kind of way.
It’s only when the man embraces Mrs Hudson – an aged woman with broad, white wings that are most likely some kind of crane – that John gets his first proper view. Sherlock’s wings flare as she embraces him, displaying an elegant shape with mildly deep primaries. It’s a pretty average structure, all in all, but the colouration is something else entirely – the flight feathers are brilliant white, almost as if the end of each wing has been dipped in paint. John makes a little sound despite himself as he finally realises what Sherlock really is.
He’s a magpie.
John has only ever known one magpie, back when he was just a kid. An elderly man on his housing estate had been the individual in question, and what a strange fellow he had been – quick-witted and sharp-tongued, he had been in the good graces of a scarce few. Magpies belong in books and films, not in the real world.
Sherlock is a magpie, and John has never been more intrigued.
* * *
As it turns out, he doesn’t even have to make an effort to get to know Sherlock. He’s thrown straight into a crime scene, told to look at a body, and then dumped. The DI who had come for Sherlock – Lestrade – had brushed wings with him before they parted, and when John finds himself trying (and mostly failing) to get a taxi he realises that Lestrade had already guessed that he’d be left behind and had tried to be comforting. Lestrade’s wings were nice – powerful, some kind of hawk – but John is annoyed by the gentle treatment. He’s a soldier, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t need to be coddled.
Donovan and Anderson were another case entirely. Their attitudes were pretty typical of their types – a robin and a chaffinch, respectively – but John doesn’t excuse them for it one bit. They should know better.
Sherlock – is Sherlock. As he unravelled the mystery of the dead woman he had been a strange, eerie creature. His wings had been unfurled, spread wide in the confines of the room with each and every feather bristling with excitement.
As a doctor, John is a clever guy. He’s done his fair share of reading, both as a child and an adult. He’s known for a long time that many of the things that people attribute to certain wing types are self-fulfilling prophecies, or just outright lies. They’re all human never mind their wing type, so the bird behaviour doesn’t carry over as much as certain parts of society would like everyone to believe. Sherlock, however…is a magpie in every way imaginable. It’s as if he’s read all the stereotypes, memorised them, and then embraced them with glee. He’s sharp, cutting, clever, callous. He is just this whirlwind of madness and energy and for the second time in his life John knows what it is to feel Instinct, because when he watches Sherlock he wants. He wants to pin him down with talons he doesn’t have, just to see if it is even possible to get this madman to stop for even a second.
Then the phones. The cameras. A black car.
A woman is sat on the backseat at his side, eyes fixed on her mobile. She’s pretty, with soft features and a warm colouring, but when John’s eyes fall on her wings he rethinks his opinion of her. They’re slate grey, with heavy barring on the primaries and dramatically pointed tips. A falcon – she’s no pretty face, not by a long shot. The knowledge that she could outfly him (well, at the moment even a fledgling could outfly him, but that’s a thought he tries to avoid) unnerves John a little, but also prompts him into a bit of flirting. She’s as cutting as he had expected, but still. Worth it.
He steps out of the car into a vast warehouse, all dramatic lightning and desolation. A man with an umbrella is stood away from him, one ankle hooked over the other in a manner that is almost as ridiculous as their surroundings. For a long, terrible moment John doesn’t think the man has wings, and his gut goes cold. Then the man shifts, and what John had thought to be shadow moves and lifts, gleaming blue-black in the gloom. The man comes closer.
Raven, John decides, and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the cliché.
“Doctor John Watson,” says the man.
“What do you want,” John replies, flatly.
“Just your cooperation, Doctor Watson.”
“Pull the other one.”
The man tips his head to the side, and for all John doesn’t like the stereotypes he can’t help but think typical corvid. His eyes are like knives. John stands steady and square, wings stiff at his back. He’s not one to roll over easily.
“What is your business with Sherlock Holmes?”
“It's none of yours, that's for sure,” is his immediate retort. “Who are you?”
“An interested party.”
John has nothing to say to that, so he settles for staring. He learned control while in the army, but he knows that right then his wings are blatant in their showing of his distrust. He can feel his shoulder muscles straining as his wings flex and mantle, the feathers bristling out in anger. He doesn’t trust the man, and he is fine with showing it. More than fine.
Then – archenemy? Who actually has an archenemy? John had felt a little like he had somehow woken up in a work of fiction upon meeting Sherlock, and everything the raven said was only further affirming this feeling.
His mobile buzzes.
Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH
“Am I boring you?”
“A little,” John confesses, wings bristling even more. “You have the gall to bring me here – say you’re an archenemy or some crap like that – and offer me money to feed you information? If you really think I’m going to work with you after all you’ve pulled, then you’re pot out of luck. I want to go home.”
If inconvenient, come anyway. SH
“I am going home,” John reiterates, firmly. “Right now.”
“John,” calls the man, as he turned to leave. “You should fire your therapist. She says that the war haunts you, doesn't she? But look at you. You aren't haunted by the war - you miss it.”
Could be dangerous. SH
“Fuck you,” says John. “Of course I miss the fucking war. I could still fly.”
* * *
Children are flightless until around seven but John had been flying at five, with a surety and purpose that left his teachers bemused. Most kids had relatively neutral wings, with muddy brown feathers and soft-edged shapes. It was pretty common to only be able to distinguish wing-type as a teenager, when the mature feathers came through.
John’s wings were again unusual – they were powerful and broad even in childhood, with strong muscles and deeply forked primaries. He was nosing through his parent’s Wing Index one night when he came to a spread about thirty pages that made him stop in amazement. There were three photos on that page. One of a man and one of a woman, with their wings partially extended to show the shape and colouration, and one of the bird that they shared them with. Though his own wings lacked the crisp barring that was clear on the wings of the adults, the shape of them was unmistakeable. John could barely read the words, but he didn’t need to. He looked at those wings and that bird, and he knew.
A buzzard. John Watson was a buzzard.
As a hunter-type, John was a strong flier. He came out near the top of his classes, and would often fly just for pleasure. He loved the thrill of the stoop, and spent his childhood summers chasing thermals up into the cloud-bellies. When he was deployed to Afghanistan John flew perimeter, soaring high overhead as lookout. The baking heat buoyed him, thrilled him.
If he ever showed how his gaze lingered on the backs of the people flying below, his comrades were kind enough not to mention it. John’s close to the Instinct, they would whisper. Back home, the whispers would be worried. The Instinct was hunting, death and violence. Modern people liked to pretend that the Instinct was lost.
Modern people were stupid.
Then he was shot, and his shoulder was on fire and he was knocked sideways, thrashing, his wings tipping, spilling air – he was falling – he was falling, falling was unnatural, falling, falling, falling—
When he got home and found himself somehow, inexplicably Grounded, the hospital gave him a crutch and a therapist. John had been shot in the shoulder, but it was his wing – his left wing – that acted as if it were injured. He couldn’t extend it properly, never mind fly. It would shake and cramp despite the lack of injury.
John spends many hours cursing that wing.
* * *
It’s inexorable, the way they circle each other. Slowly drawing closer and closer, their scattered feathers mingling in the corners of rooms and down the sides of the sofa. The soft brass of John overlapping with the shocking black-and-white of Sherlock.
It works.
* * *
When they go to Angelo’s there’s an awkward moment where Sherlock seems to twig on John’s interest. He reels off something ridiculous about being married to the Work – John might not be on Sherlock’s level, but he isn’t stupid and he just knows that the capital is absolutely essential – and then they’re off again. The taxi Sherlock had spotted speeds away, and they’re forced to give chase. They’ve only run twenty or so yards when Sherlock stops, pulling furiously at his cloak. John hovers awkwardly, unsure whether to carry on without him, and is forced to take a step back when Sherlock hurls his cloak aside and – and spreads his wings.
“Sherlock—”
“Coming?”
Both of them are diurnal, so night flying is a ridiculous idea. Day flying is just as ridiculous in London, with its packed streets and busy airports. But Sherlock doesn’t seem to care for logic, as much as John had thought logic was his ‘thing.’ He flashes John a wicked flicker of a smile before he leaps upwards, wings rushing out to catch his weight and drive him higher. In the dim glow of the London nighttime, Sherlock’s wings are a strange silhouette – a study of contrasts. All at once he is a shadow and a beacon, a black-white-black-white ghost.
John follows him barely even a moment later.
* * *
They fly stupidly low, twisting through the muddled London backstreets the best they can. Afghanistan had been all distance and heat, but this chase is fast and cold – exhilarating like nothing else. Sherlock alights for a moment on a rooftop railing, wings flared for balance, before he leaps free again with John right behind. For all of Sherlock’s intense focus, his magpie’s wings aren’t the best to fly with. Somehow the odd stutter of his flight suits him, for all that John has to quash the need to try and steady him in some way.
His flight style is fitting for London – erratic and low, it more than lends itself to the confused alleyways and side streets that clutter the city’s sprawling girth. John has to think a little bit more about how he follows, for all he has the natural advantage. He’s so used to wide open spaces that Sherlock’s domain is almost foreign to him.
They catch the taxi a few breathless minutes later, only to find a bemused American in the back. His wings, inexplicably glossy from some sort of vanity treatment, twitch and shuffle – they get even more agitated when Sherlock’s wings mantle with frustration and the magpie colouration becomes blatantly visible. As far as John’s aware American magpies look different to European ones, but he supposes that some things are universal. Magpie mythos seems to be one of them.
They land outside 221b in a clatter of wings, and John has barely even straightened up when Sherlock grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him.
“What the fuck,” he growls, jerking free.
“You flew. John. John. You flew.”
“Wh—” John stops, jaw working soundlessly. Because – Sherlock is right. He isn’t Grounded anymore, and it strikes him as he stands there in the muzzy glow of the London night that Sherlock is the reason why. Sherlock, with his magpie wings and matching madcap brilliance. All along John has found Sherlock fascinating and bewildering in equal parts. He's looked and looked towards Sherlock again and again, but in all that time he had never imagined that Sherlock would be looking back.
“John,” says Sherlock. His cheekbones gleam like knives under the yellowish glow of the lampposts. “I’m married to the Work. You know that.”
“You’re a liar,” said John, pushing right up into Sherlock’s personal space.
“Don’t be—”
“I’ll be whatever I want to be.”
“John.”
“Sherlock. Shut up.”
They kiss, and it's fucking glorious.
* * *
“What’s it like?”
John blinks out of the lazy morning haze he had been luxuriating in, frowning as the question registered. “What?”
“Flying.”
“You have wings,” John points out, rolling over so that he can see Sherlock’s face. He instead finds his eyes presented with an agitated mantle of wings, the chalky-dark feathers as striking as ever against the contrast of his brilliantly white primaries. “…Sherlock?”
Sherlock’s wings droop, exposing the pale line of his vulnerable nape. Light and shadow chase down the length of his spine, teasing at the protruding knobs of bone as he sighs and leans forwards, head dropping out of view.
Slowly, John reaches out to him. His hand quavers in the long moment before he makes contact, fingers pressing flat to the pale skin as he tries to understand what is wrong. “It’s good,” he says, eventually. “It’s…freeing.”
“I never feel free when I fly,” comes the quiet reply.
“Why not?”
Sherlock turns, and John meets his gaze without wavering for even an instant. Those strange, angular eyes are oddly colourless in that moment, his pale skin and black-white wings almost making him seem like a character escaped from an old silent movie. He twists away from John’s touch only to crowd up against him, blindly pressing his face into John’s left shoulder. John doesn’t know what he’s doing until he looks down and sees the gnarl of scar tissue mushed up against the supple curve of Sherlock’s cheek. Something leaps inside at the sight, and he brings his arms up to wrap around Sherlock’s shoulders with a shaky intake of breath.
“I…feel like I might get lost,” says Sherlock, words hot over John’s bare skin. “Just spin apart in all that space. I can’t – it’s not like it is, for you,” he continues, helplessly. “My wings aren’t – I can’t fly like you can.”
“Not many can, and of those even fewer do,” John tells him. “You’re a corvid, Sherlock. People are always going to say things—”
“It’s not about the people, why would I care about the people—”
“Of course you care about people, you nitwit. You care about me.”
Sherlock pulls away, eyes wide and grey. “Yes. But that’s beside the point.”
“It’s not. It’s not,” John insists, when Sherlock rolls his eyes and moves as if to turn away from him. “Sherlock. What is it? You have to tell me, I can’t – I can’t just deduce it like you can,” he said, lowly.
Sherlock’s head dips, their gazes sliding apart like oil and water. John stares at this strange, oddly vulnerable creature and thinks, the Work.
They had kissed and then fallen into bed – not until after falling against the wall, the armchair, and the kitchen counter as they stumbled around confused by their own lust – only minutes after returning from a failed lead. The cab. The American. Their flight.
The case is still unsolved, and Sherlock has already made a point of stressing the importance of the Work. John looks at him with this new knowledge and finds confirmation in the subtle vibration of Sherlock’s limbs, the slightly manic way his eyes keep straying to the bedroom door. He wants to get back to the Work.
“Why don’t you?” asks John, bemused.
Sherlock blinks. “What?”
“The case,” says John, nudging him with a foot. “I can see you going crazy in there. Go on.”
Sherlock stares at him for a very long moment, his body going utterly still. John matches him, squares his shoulders as he does so. His wings flex, pushing back the sheets before tucking neatly back in against his shoulder blades. He has to fight a smile when Sherlock mirrors him seemingly without being aware of it.
In a rush of motion Sherlock twists free of the covers and leaps to his feet, wings unfurling for the briefest of moments to steady him before tucking in as he shoulders his way out through the bedroom door.
John will follow him in a minute. He just needs…he doesn’t know what he needs. He knows he has to do something, but he doesn’t know what. Sherlock is more suited to his wings than anyone John has ever known – every part of him a study of contrasts, from the black-white of his wings right down to his feelings and thoughts. Yes, feelings, because while Sherlock might call himself a sociopath John isn’t stupid. He’s known Sherlock for only a little while and already he can see the cracks in the self-diagnosis. It is an excuse, that much he knows. A way to excuse things he didn’t otherwise know how to explain. Sherlock…he isn’t normal. But then again, who is normal? We all have our little quirks. Sherlock’s ‘quirks’ are just numerous and extremely visible.
He turns and swings his legs out of bed. Then he plants his feet on the floor and flexes his toes, watching them with tired eyes.
What should he do?
He’s saved from trying to think his way out of the mess that is tying him more closely to Sherlock with every passing hour by a thunderous sound – footsteps. Someone’s coming up the stairs. Several someones, by the sound of it.
When he hears the door to 221b bang open he isn’t even surprised. He just sighs and stands, idly casting his eyes around for something to wear. He isn’t even sure how they ended up in Sherlock’s room, but it’s pleasantly surprised to find that it isn’t quite how he would have expected. What would he have expected? He isn’t quite sure. Either something extremely Spartan or something mind-blowingly cluttered. Instead it’s a homey mix of both, with a rich duvet and reasonably clear floor space.
He spots his discarded jumped by the bedside table, and goes over to scoop it up. He tugs it over his head, starting to hurry as he hears the intruders come in the direction of the bedroom. He’s only just finished fastening his jeans and flattening his hair down into something respectable when the door bursts open, revealing – Anderson? What is he doing here?
He mantles his wings and squares his shoulders.
“—You!” Anderson splutters, wings flexing in obvious agitation. “I thought you were a colleague, not a – a—”
“I’m his flatmate,” John says.
“A bit more than that, I’d wager,” says Donovan, clearly having heard Anderson’s outburst and come over for a look. She looks him up and down, her mouth curling into a smirk. “What’s he like, then? Is he a freak in that, too? Or does he save it for us?”
John steps forwards, feeling the Instinct rise up along his spine even as his wings stretch out from their mantled position, feathers bristling. A low, angry sound builds in the back of his throat, and John realises as if from a distance that he’s hissing at them.
There’s a gentle touch to his shoulder, and all at once his mind clears. He looks to the side to see Sherlock, one long pale hand extended to gently press against the soft fabric of John’s jumper. His wings are tucked neatly behind his back, and his eyes are wide – though for the life of him John can’t say whether Sherlock is angry or afraid. He can’t picture Sherlock afraid, though, so is he angry?
“John."
He turns away, bringing his hands up to rub at his face. “Christ, Sherlock. I – don’t know what came over me.”
“That was Instinct,” says Sherlock, very quietly.
“Don’t say it,” John snaps, looking sharply towards him. “Do you know what they – what happens to—”
“I do, and it won’t,” Sherlock tells him. “I have…people. In the government.”
“People?”
Sherlock waves a hand and frowns. “Oh, you know.”
“Friends?”
“Ugh, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
John finds himself unable to stop a smile. His shoulders jerk once, twice and then he’s giggling, slightly hysterical but a relief all the same. Sherlock joins him, and they stand there in yesterday’s clothes and laugh and laugh and laugh.
“Why are they even here?” John asks, once he’s calmed down enough to speak. “Sherlock?”
“Pink, John,” says Sherlock. “The victim – she had pink everything. What was missing? A suitcase. So the killer—”
“Still has her case, right,” says John. “So, uh, where do we come into this?”
Sherlock points to something under the bed. It’s weird, because it really is an alarming shade of—
“Sherlock, why do you have the victim’s suitcase?”
“Found it.”
“Her – you just said that the murderer has her suitcase—”
“John, please. The murderer had her suitcase. So after she’s dead he realises he still has it in whatever vehicle he’s used to bring her to the murder scene, and he panics. He’s made a mistake. He has to get rid of the case – it was just a simple matter of looking around. Found it in a nearby dumpster.”
“So why are the police here?”
“Withholding information,” says a new voice. John looks around to see the Detective Inspector from the day before standing in the bedroom doorway. His slate-grey falcon wings are held high and tight, and though he is clearly aggravated he has remarkable control. “Sherlock.”
Sherlock stalks away from John, slips around Lestrade and goes to stand in the middle of the main flat. He’s talking, all rapid-fire as he grabs John’s laptop, enters the name of the victim’s miscarried baby – fuck, why does the world have to be so fucking miserable – and…
Nothing. The phone is, apparently, at Baker Street.
The officers visibly deflate, and John comes over to have a look for himself. There it is – a depressing little blip. Baker Street. Well, that’s a bit shit.
The police continue to poke around, only now it’s a bit half-hearted, and after a little while John refreshes the page and. Huh.
The blip’s moved. It’s a good distance away now, blinking steadily between a pair of large buildings. But how could it have – it was at Baker Street only a while ago—
Taxi. Mrs Hudson said there was a taxi. For Sherlock. All of a sudden it’s so damn clear.
John surges free from the chair and bolts for the doorway, shoving the laptop into Lestrade’s chest on his way out. He races down the stairs so fast he almost falls, barging out the front door and onto the street. It’s dark and the air has gone chilled, but he doesn’t have time to care about that. He runs out, trying to flag down a cab, but they seemingly don’t give a fuck because he gets nothing.
He’s going to have to do it. He has to fly, or he’s not going to make it. Sherlock will—
Curve of pale skin in the dim glow of the city night, lips soft as they catch and push together, the click of teeth, the shutter of eyelashes, the touch of hands. The touch of hips, the grind of pelvis, the locking together of bodies. Human to human, man to man. Magpie to buzzard.
He has to fly.
He does.
* * *
While before he had flown with Sherlock in the world of the magpie, all twisting and low, this time – this time John is alone. This time he can fly like a buzzard.
He spirals up and up, soaring away from the muzzy glow of the lampposts that line the street and into darkness. The warmth from the day is mostly gone and meagre at best, so unlike Afghanistan he has to work for his height – but John is from England, and up until Afghanistan he had never known true soaring. His childhood was spent chasing the thermals, riding the plumes of warmth all across the sky while the other children fluttered around below.
Below him London unfolds in a glittering tapestry of golden light, the intricate shapes of the twisting streets locking together in a pattern made beautiful by its lack of symmetry. At the heart of it all flows the Thames, its cool grey waters carving a deep and distinctive mark into the city’s very foundations. This river has not always been an ally, and it has known much death over its long and weary life. Yet it has also known joy, and its shape is so well known to the people it supports that it has become a kind of natural signature – a shape people can see and just know.
For all the Thames’ importance, it isn’t where John needs to be. He dips a wing and wheels away, flying quick and true above it all.
There – he knows that shape, recognises it from the map shown on his laptop screen. That’s where they are. Sherlock – and the murderer.
He dives.
* * *
The cabbie dies under Sherlock’s boot, with blood blooming brilliant on his chest as a scarlet rosette. But he has a name. He has a name.
Moriarty.
The game is on.