A Gift Delivered on Owl's Wings

by Kijakazibibi

"Sherlock thinks taking advice from whores and madmen is, on a whole, not really the best course of action."

NOTE: Fourth in the series that began with "Tonight". Republished in a slightly edited form from AO3 12/23/2011.

Disclosure : The homeless man Sherlock encounters was based on Hugh Bonneville's great turn as the Beachcomber in "Third Star" and some of his dialogue is cribbed from there.

Warnings: Sherlock/OFC ; BDSM ; M/M desires ; Mentions of drug use

A Gift Delivered on Owl's Wings

It starts as it always has, like the beat of an owl's wings in the dark, something silent and barely noticeable and ominous. But he has felt it before – it's not so much a sound as a feeling – somewhere in the back of his head, the depths of his chest, in the core of his belly. He swallows and closes his eyes for a long minute and takes a deep breath and tries to ignore it. Most times these days, that's all it takes.

But there it is again.

He sets the laptop aside and stares straight ahead and tries to track it down so that he can will it out of existence. He closes his eyes again and keeps them closed, keeps everything still, delves deep for it. It can be elusive.

He's always thought of it like this: an owl, a bat, a raven in the night that will burst like a raincloud into a million more of itself until he is overwhelmed by it.

Get a grip on yourself, Holmes. You're not a fucking child. It's nothing to be frightened of.

Except that it seems like a bloody malignant tumor, dividing exponentially, uncontrolled, cell after greedy, selfish, obliterating cell. A life of its own. Small now, but left untreated it will soon overwhelm his brain. It will take over his brain.

He shakes his head, quick, hard, stands up abruptly and walks to the dark window to look out on Baker Street. Movement sometimes stops it, sometimes it keeps it at bay for days on end.

But, he knows it will not be distracted for long this time.

He rubs his fingers absent-mindedly against his lips.

John will not be back tonight. He knows that. He knew it before John walked out the door this morning to go watch that moronic game. He knew it even before that, when John was vague about who gave him the ticket.

Sherlock doesn't want this to happen. Not really. He knows he is powerless to stop it.

He could call Mycroft. Mycroft would come and sit, spread his laptop and his paperwork on the coffee table. He would fall asleep on the sofa with his feet crossed at the ankle, his hands resting on his belly, fingers entwined. Mycroft would do that for him, he knows. Mycroft wouldn't say anything about why he was there. He would complain about the mess and about there being no food and about the odd smell in the bathroom but he wouldn't leave. He wouldn't say a word about how Sherlock called him or why he was there. Nor would he ask why John wasn't there. Not then. Not ever.

He wouldn't need to.

But all of it would be there. It would be another thorn crown for Mycroft to wear, more spikes driven into his head by the errant behavior of his brother. It would be another gold star next to his own name in the double-entry accounting book of their brotherhood that Mycroft keeps in his head.

Sherlock leans his forehead against the cool window and closes his eyes again. He swallows and tries to breathe as slowly as he can, presses his hand against his belly, stands as still as possible.

Don't be so bloody dramatic, Sherlock.

There it is again…the owl's wings, swooping closer than ever, closer than they've been in a very long time.

He tells himself he can do this. Live without. He has done so for a long while now.

He knows he will keep telling himself that, even as he's giving in. Because he knows he will, in the same way he knows what Mycroft thinks of him and that John won't be back tonight.

The wings beat closer now.

Sherlock is trembling all over. But not because he is cold.

His heart thuds and thuds. It's like a punch in the chest with each beat. There is a buzzing in his head, a hive of angry bees, a radio out of tune, the initial vibrations of a tuning fork. He pants and he shivers uncontrollably. He keeps his eyes closed but he knows if he opened them everything would appear in high definition: the individual threads in the weave of the bedsheet, the texture of skin on his own arm lying up along the side of his head, the beads of sweat standing out on the skin.

He drags in a long gasp of breath and it comes out slowly as a long, low groan.

"Hush, angel."

Focus.

But his heart is hammering and his brain whirls like a mouse on a running wheel. The cane slashes down low across his bottom, across the underside of his hanging balls. He winces and grunts, grinding his teeth together, pressing his eyes into the upper part of his arm until he sees stars explode in the darkness.

He will not cry out.

His breath stutters and he barely has time to pull another in before the cane descends again, slashing red across the back of his eyelids just as it does across his white skin. He jerks, pulls down hard against the cords binding his wrists, holding his arms up above his head tied fast to the headboard. His tricep and teres mucles stretch unbearably, burn. He thinks he can feel each sinew shriek as he yanks and jerks at the bindings, twists his hands frantically.

"Stay down, angel. Don't move."

The end of the cane jabs sharply at his spine right between the shoulder blades. He collapses down again, chest to the bed where a moment ago it had been bowed up and away from it. He arches the small of his back until he feels the stretch there, lifting his backside high in the air. His legs quiver.

"Your form is bad. It's been a very long time since you've been here. You're losing your skills."

"I'm sorry."

The cane strikes again. A tear trickles out of the corner of his eye but he rubs it into the sheet with a twist of his head.

"Pardon?"

He clears his throat weakly, licks his dry lips. He's very thirsty. "I'm sorry."

"You should be."

She grabs him suddenly, roughly, her hand cool and slippery with gel. She rolls his scrotum in her hand, squeezing tightly until he feels crushed, strokes down tight along his rock hard cock. She starts jerking him quickly, lightly now, gently. It feels so nice, so incredibly and unbearably sweet alongside the ache and the burn that he can't tell the difference between what hurts and what feels good.

And that is what he really wants because if the hurt feels good then he can't really mind it.

Oh, god….oh, god…. "Oh god, god…my god…."

She pulls her hand away abruptly at the first pulse of his orgasm, stopping it. He whimpers in frustration, tries to lie flat to the bed to rub himself against the sheets but she slips the cane into the crook between torso and hips, pins his cock to his belly and pulls back to keep him on his knees. The press of the bamboo across his dick is so intense that he practically rears up like a horse on its hindquarters. He would do anything to throw her off, move away, but the cords on his wrists hold him helpless, the cords around his ankles keep him tethered to the center of the bed.

And he won't say the word that could stop her. Not now, not ever.

"What a mess you are," she says disapprovingly as he shudders, as he practically sobs in and out each breath of air. "You used to have such control. What am I going to do with you like this?"

He feels her move away, over to where she keeps her things. He won't open his eyes, keeps his head turned away. He won't give her the satisfaction.

Or, maybe she thinks he's trying to be good, that he's completely accepting of what she's done to him. What she's going to do.

Let her think that.

"Why are you here?" she asks, nearby again, moving, but not touching him. She's preparing something.

He keeps his head turned away, eyes closed. He's so thirsty. But he won't ask for water, won't beg.

Won't give her the satisfaction.

He can feel his own pulse in his neck, his wrists, the welts on his skin, the length of his cock.

The bed tips a bit as she crawls onto the bed behind him, straddles his legs. A long, moment of stillness and silence stretches out between them. And then she breeches him without warning, without preliminary, something cool and slick, not her fingers, a dildo of some kind.

"Ahhhh…Nuh," he shakes his head against the sheet as if trying to shake off the pain and stretch and pleasure of it.

"Quiet, angel."

He clenches his teeth and arches his chest down into the bed harder, opening himself just that little bit more. Appearing to want more. Wanting more.

Please, god, more, harder. Please…harder….

"It's been quite a while since you've been to see me," she says conversationally, as if none of it has anything to do with her angling the thing inside him, dragging it over his prostate. As if he's not making the half-smothered sounds that he is. "When were you here last?...Ages ago…."

She pushes faster, twists, presses down harder, ignoring his stuttering, groaning reaction. "It was after that tedious little girl left you, right? The Indian one? God, what were you thinking? Please don't tell me she's been back. Don't tell me this is all about that worthless little Sammy."

She rips the dildo from him brusquely, as if she's angry and he cries out helplessly. It feels as if she's just yanked his guts out.

She's not angry. It's an act. What she says is an act. She would never say things like that to anybody else. She only says it to him to make him angry. She thinks it helps him to make him angry.

Won't give her the satisfaction.

He inhales through his nose as slowly as he can, blows it out through barely parted lips.

Focus. Control.

He can feel her studying him. It's as if her vision has weight, feather light, tracing down the skin of his arms and shoulders, his back and waist, hips, ass, thighs…. He doesn't open his eyes, doesn't turn his head in her direction.

What would he do if she ordered him to look at her? Would he do it?

His heart flutters. She wouldn't do that. She's very good at knowing limits.

Won't give her the satisfaction.

Her hands, wiped dry now and warm cup his hips. They slide slowly over the globes of his bottom, sending stinging sparkles along his nerves when they brush on the welts there until her thumbs meet in the little hollow at the base of his spine. She kneads him there, slowly, minutely, with just the right amount of pressure to make him react. And he does, sighing out through his nose, his shoulders and forearms and thighs relaxing a bit. He rubs his face against the sheets again, this time like a big old cat appreciating a scratch.

He finally turns his head to the other side, but still doesn't open his eyes. The air of the room feels fresh and cool on his uplifted cheek after the heat of the sheets. God, he is so thirsty. He gulps.

She runs her hands slowly and firmly up along his spine, thumbs pressing in on either side. They separate, follow down the wings of his shoulder blades, thumbs shoving deep into the creases beneath them. He groans again, pure pleasure this time, from deep in his belly.

"You look better. You're not as thin…." Her fingertips splay out, slide up his to his wrists, squeeze tight, drag back to tops of his arms. "You're still my porcelain angel though."

Hands curve down over his ribs and she lifts the palms so that only the pads of her fingertips press against him as they shove between the bed and his chest. He leans forward as best he can, curves his spine so that his pecs lift off the sheet. She brings her hands together underneath him and presses ten tips hard into his sternum. His heart bangs there beneath her fingers like a trapped and terrified bird.

"So why are you here, angel?"

She pulls her hands apart as if spreading open his ribs, flaying him wide, pulling all the way around until her thumbs meet again alongside his spine and his back arcs down again, collapsing flat onto the bed and his thighs like a building fallen in on itself. She pets forward again, palms flat, around to his chest as he raises himself up again to give her access. Fingertips again, but she slides them down over his breast bone to his belly, lifts the tips up until just the edges of her nails bite into the skin of his midsection.

"Nuh…" he huffs out, tries to drop down and flatten out her fingers again, but she only digs deeper. "No! Don't!" He bucks, yanks his arms so hard the headboard sways and bangs against the wall. He tries to roll sideways, but he is caught, tangled, by the rope, between her strong thighs and the threat of her fingernails.

"Still," she whispers in his ear, over his thrashing, over the awful sounds he's making. "Be still, angel."

"Please…" he whispers. "Please…don't….please."

"You have a word to stop it," she says, scratching the nails a bit lower, to just above his navel and digging them in with agonizing slowness. "Do you remember the word?"

Of course he remembers it. In his mind he's howling it at the top of his lungs.

"Do you remember, Sherlock?" Her voice is a command and by using his name she shocks him into answering.

He nods.

Won't say it. Won't say it. Won't give her the satisfaction.

"Sherlock, answer me."

"Yes, god, yes! I remember….Just…I remember…."

"Alright then," her voice soothes, like honey. "Where was I?"

Her nails bite him and she opens the maw of hands. He howls for real this time, a long, wordless bay, and pulls the muscles of his abdomen as taunt as he can, trying to protect himself but it's no use. It feels like she's pulling him open, like she's gutting him.

He jerks and writhes under her. He has no breath left. He can't breathe at all now so his struggle is a silent, furious one as his brain feels like it's cleaving in two. One side begs for her to stop clawing at him like this. He can't stand it. His brain screams the word that would stop her because he can't stand this feeling, he just can't. He hates this. It's awful, the way she's pulling him to pieces and poking around in his entrails like a witch.

The other side won't give in.

Won't give her the satisfaction.

One hand on his belly, kneading it, as if still rooting around looking for a prophesy, the other sliding on his cock, quick and light.

Oh god…oh god…oh god…

He should never have come here.

"Come for me, baby." In his ear. He can feel the pressure of her draped over him, her thighs and belly curved over his bottom. "Come on, angel baby."

"Nuh…can't…"he shakes his head, the rasp of a starting beard loud against the sheets. " No… no… no… not…"

"Come on, angel love, it's okay. You know it's okay with me. Whatever it is."

But it's not okay. But he can't stop it. His body bucking into her hand. God, it feels so good. This awfulness is so good. Like the drugs. Like facing down a killer. Like being with John.

"Nuh….God….not…god….Juh….Juh…." He can't stop it. He doesn't want to stop it. It flairs in the base of his spine, the back of his head. He convulses, his head snapping up and his hips jerking forwards uncontrollably.

"That's it, baby angel, that's it baby boy….So good….Such a sweet angel boy…."

His brain shatters like a mirror dropped to a marbled floor.

Before he's even done shuddering out the last of his orgasm she is undoing the ties on his ankles. As she moves to the ones on his wrist he falls over onto his side like the tipping of an unstable wall. She pulls his hands free of the now slack silky cords and deftly massages up his arms. He groans as he curls them down until his face is hid in his hands. At the same time he straightens his legs, flexes the cramp out of them by pointing and unpointing his toes and then pulls his knees up to his belly. He lays there trembling, curled like a fetus. He is so thirsty.

"You have twenty minutes to rest and get yourself together," her voice is gentle, but businesslike. "I'll be back then."

She leaves him alone. He hears the door close and the lock click between them. She leaves him to reach out blindly to feel for the glass of water on the bed stand. To find the soft cotton blanket she's left behind, folded neatly beside his head.

When she comes back in he is just buttoning up his shirt having washed himself down quickly at the sink in the small bath room. He smells of her expensive soap. His hands are shaking a bit, clumsy.

She steps over to him. "You've got them wrong," she says. "You missed one."

He stands still, looking down at the top of her head as she undoes and then redoes the buttons. When she's done she steps back and looks up at him. She has a wide, generous mouth that often looks like she's holding something small under her tongue. She has eyes that are a stormy blue, not clear and dark like John's or a sharp gray like his own. She looks like she always has, except for the faintest wrinkles starting at the corner of her eyes and mouth. He knows they must upset her.

She holds her hand out, palm up. "Give them over."

"What?" He lifts an eyebrow. "I've already paid you. The envelope's on the desk."

She twitches her fingers. "Come on. I'm not your little girlfriend. Or boyfriend or whoever's got you in such a state. "

He shakes his head in fake confusion and manages to look away by leaning over and pulling his jacket from the back of the chair where he'd hung it. He shrugs it on, smirking a bit at her. His head is still buzzing. It's a bit hard to focus his eyes. "What?" he pretends annoyance, or maybe it isn't pretend.

She sees right through it and gives him the kind of hairy eyeball that makes him suspect, not for the first time, that she must have children somewhere in the world. He finally gives in with a roll of his eyes and reaches into the jacket's breast pocket. "Fine. Here. Consider it a tip. Like you ever cared before. "

He drops the glassine packet into the demanding palm.

"It was you before. It's not you now." She closes her hand around the little envelope of powder and turns away from him.

"How would you know?"

She turns back to him. "Because I read his blog, that's how I know. All you have to do is read it. A big chunk of your life is out there ready for anybody who knows how to use Google to see."

Sherlock blinks, startled, although he knows he shouldn't be. She's right. It's all out there. It's got his name attached to it as much as John's, more so in some ways. Somehow, though, he'd just assumed she was separate from all that. "You don't know anything," he tries to defend. "You don't even know him."

"I didn't until tonight. Now I know something of him." She lifts her chin in a challenging way.

"Yes, well…" he steps back from her again, tries to be brisk and officious while tucking his shirt into his jeans, tries on his Mycroft act as he walks across the room and takes his scarf and coat from the rack. As he wraps his scarf around his neck he starts talking in the clipped way he uses when he wants to put somebody off. "You always do like to think you know more than you really do, don't you? Forgot about that part of all this." He swings his coat around him and settles it onto his shoulders. "Thank you for your…services though. As always they were… skillful."

It's her turn to roll her eyes. "Sherlock," she stops him with her voice as he reaches for the door handle, but he doesn't turn to look at her. "Don't ever come back," she says quietly.

He can't help it. He straightens up and looks over his shoulder at her. He can't help tipping his head in inquiry. She's surprised him again. That's one of things that he's always liked about her: she could surprise him.

"Don't.…" She starts to speak, hesitates and then starts again. "Don't make a game out of this one. Don't make it some contest. It's not about winning or losing or being the best. Don't…break it just because it's not always perfect, or because you don't know what to do with it, or because you want to find out how it works."

He squints at her with sudden, inexplicable fury. She's managed to make him angry after all. "Advice from an old whore, is it?"

She smiles at him serenely, far too experienced to rise to the bait. "The most valuable kind."

"God, were you always so trite? Have I forgotten that too?"

"Oh Sherlock, stop it, will you? Just stop it. Stop…always pushing away anybody who tries to help you or care about you. Really, how old are you? It's not attractive anymore. Nor are the drugs. It's just… adolescent."

He glares across the room at her. Her own expression isn't angry. It's hard to read, complex. "I came here for a slap and fuck," he finally says. "Not some cheap novel therapy."

She sighs and shrugs indifferently, turns away from him. "Fine. Take your money back if you're not satisfied. Think of it as just a bad one-off. Or don't think of it at all, since that seems to be you're aim in life…speaking of trite."

But he barely catches the end of it, because he is already out the door.

He wakes up in the grey early morning on a park bench. He has enough experiences with park benches in the past to recognize the particular aches and pains that a night on one elicits. He becomes aware of a weight on him, not a heavy one, just one of…layers. Something smells of old, moldering, unwashed clothes. Sherlock stirs, turns his head upwards from where it had been lying on his hand. He blinks up at the sky with eyes of the same exact color. His head pounds.

He shifts under the layers, under the overwhelming stink and something falls over his face – long, thin, unbearably smelly. He pulls it off his face and blinks at it: a sock, filthy, worn thin and full of holes at the bottom. He hisses and drops it to the ground, shakes his hand as if he could shake off the microbes that might have got on it and then he forces himself upright.

"Ah, you're awake! It's a fine morning."

The voice belongs to someone sitting at the end of the bench at Sherlock's feet. The man is older than Sherlock, his beard short and grizzled. He's not wearing any clothes except for a knit cap, a bright yellow mac and a pair of dangerously short cut-off jeans and Wellies on bare feet. So that unfortunately, explains the sock, and also the other layers of fabric piled on top of Sherlock. He shoves them quickly to the side.

"You can have your clothes back," Sherlock says, his breath coming out in a cloud.

"Nah. I'm good just now, thanks."

Sherlock washes his face with his hands, runs his fingers through his tangles of hair. Of course there had been more drugs last night after he left her, more sulking and more running, more…adolescent behavior since that's how being told to behave is usually handled by adolescents.

"Do you have a best friend?" the man asks. He has the same kind of bright, berry blue eyes as John. That is if John were completely barking mad.

Sherlock ignores him and searches around in his pockets desperately hoping he'd bought cigarettes last night. He has a vague memory of doing so. He can't find any, nor as it comes to it, his wallet or phone. "Have you seen my wallet?" he asks the man beside him.

The man had been busy studying the sky and starts a bit. "What? Your wallet?... Umm…. Yeah, here." He reaches into his back pocket and hands it over nonchalantly to Sherlock without taking his eyes off the clouds. "I thought I'd hold it….While you were sleeping…." The older man's distracted mannerism reminds Sherlock of a radio station fading in and out. "Since, if anybody untoward came by…I figured I could run away. But you couldn't…because you were….sleeping." He says this while watching in a puzzled way as Sherlock goes through his wallet to make sure everything is there. "You're phone, too." The man pulls it from the pocket of his mac and hands it over. "I think Mycroft is expecting you to call him back first thing…Didn't seem to want to talk to me….Is he always so….annoyed. You're brother?"

Sherlock takes the phone and looks askance at the man. "How did you—"

"Wasn't hard really….Pretty obvious when you think about it."

Sherlock sighs and sits still for a moment deep inside his hangover. "Have you got a cigarette?"

The man finally turns his complete attention to Sherlock and looks at him in a sharp, appalled way. "Those things are a desecration of the finest temple created by the gods, mate. "

"To some of us they're an offering."

"I care for myself."

"Ah...well….To each his own religion, I guess."

"It's not a religion. It's just…what it is."

They sit silent for a while, Sherlock setting about the tedious mental work of rebuilding the scaffolding that denies his body everything it craves: cigarettes, drugs, sex, oblivion, John.

"Where's your best mate, then? Why isn't he looking out for you?"

"Oh…" Sherlock sighs, let's a half smile twist his lips. "Out with another 'mate', I guess."

"Oh…" He nods knowingly. "I lost my best friend…. Cancer…. Some years ago now."

"Sorry about that."

"It's not your fault. It's just…Since then I've been looking for another best mate…. Among the people I meet.… Here and there, you know…. Friends of friends and such….People find me attractive."

Sherlock, who had been gazing gloomily down at the destroyed toes of his Etons, and not paying much attention suddenly feels the weight of the older man's stare and glances at him from the corners of his eyes. The man rubs his fingertips against his mouth for a moment, as if he's trying to remember something.

"I expect I'll find him…somewhere…eventually. I think." The older man goes back to looking up at the sky, squinting, as if he can't quite make something out in the distance. "It's nice to have a best mate. To be…needed like that, y'know. And helpful. And helped. To just be…two friends…together…like that."

Sherlock thinks about it for a minute and then nods. "Yes, it is."

"It's…a gift." The older man holds his hands out in front of him, as if holding something small and fragile in his thick, stiff fingers. "And then something happens and…" He pushes his hands forward a bit and then lets them open, as if setting a bird to flight. "And you don't know what it was…That gift…or where it went exactly….or if it's alright to lose it….Or not…."

Sherlock lets his eyes swoop from the man's hands up to the sky, as if following the release of the bird. He looks back into the worn blue eyes, full of madness and confusion and sadness and an almost unbearable brightness. The man grins at him and then tips his chin upwards, as if inviting Sherlock to watch with him. They both stare up into the sky looking around as if trying to read something there.

"Well," the older man says after a bit, vigorously getting to his feet. "I've got to go over there now." He points towards a copse of trees with another tip of his head. He laughs. "Take a shit."

Sherlock can't help a grimacing smile. "Well…Enjoy."

"I will!" The man giggles enthusiastically, gives him a double thumbs up, stomping off clumsily in his Wellingtons. "Bye-bye." He calls over his shoulder.

Sherlock nods, raises a hand in farewell. He stares at the sky for another long minute, and then slowly, feeling a million years old, forces himself to his feet and heads his aching body toward home.

Sherlock thinks taking advice from whores and madmen is, on a whole, not really the best course of action. On the other hand, it's not like he has much experience to draw on in matters of the heart and the experiences he does have are more like some kind of fairly vicious operant conditioning involving high voltage electrodes. The only person he'd ever even consider asking for advice at all would be John and clearly that is problematic in this case. So he's left to struggle on with what he's got.

Even so and despite his hangover he's managed to work himself into a rather magnanimous mindset by the time he reaches 221B. He will, he decides, be forgiving when John gets home.

This decision lasts him all the way to the top of the stairs and in through the door. Sherlock is a bit slow because he's tired and hung over and the drugs probably haven't completely cleared his system, so he didn't catch the clues that John is actually home until he's already inside and pulling off his coat. Too late he smells tea and toast and sees John's shoes tipped over each other by the door mat.

John stands up from his chair and turns on Sherlock. "Where the hell have you been?"

Sherlock is stunned into momentary stillness. John is one of the few other people in the world who can truly surprise Sherlock. Usually, he likes that about him. However, now is not one of those times.

Where the hell have I been? The bloody nerve.

But he recovers fast, a split second. John may not have even noticed. Sherlock presses his lips together and goes back to shaking his arms out of his coat as if he hadn't even heard.

"Jesus, Sherlock, you look like shite. What have you been doing all night?"

Sherlock turns on John, tugging his sleeves down over his wrists to hide the bruises there. He gives John one of his long, expressionless stares, and then heads for his room.

The bloody fucking bollocks.

"Sherlock, what have you done now?"

Alright, now that really is it.

He whirls back to John. "Not that it's any of your business, John, but since you insist, I was out getting laid." John blinks and tries not to look shocked, but he is. "Alright? And now, just so you know, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, and then I'm going to have a lie down because I'm tired and I have a hang-over that could bring down a rhinoceros and I'm rather sore from overuse, if you get what I mean. Is that alright with you, John because I sure hope it's alright with you."

John blinks at him again. "Yeah…yes …it's alright. I guess. I mean…of course it is. I just…. You look….and I thought….Mycroft called me…." Sherlock can see the regret in John's face, the guilt and how much Sherlock's words have hurt him. John's face could be a mirror of how Sherlock feels, how he has felt. John presses his lips together momentarily and then looks determinedly, doggedly into Sherlock's eyes. "I already have a pot steeping. I'll pour you a cuppa."

Once John has walked past him into the kitchen, Sherlock sighs and closes his eyes. He has to fix this. He has to try, and not to make it perfect, but to keep it from being destroyed completely.

John has poured out two cups by the time Sherlock calms himself enough to enter the kitchen and stand beside him at the table. Wordlessly, John slides one cup along the tabletop until it sits in front of Sherlock. Usually Sherlock drinks his tea clear and unsweetened, but John has put cream in it. Sherlock knows there will be sugar in it too. John always makes him this kind of tea when things have gone badly, like giving a sweet to comfort a hurt child.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," John says gruffly to his tea. "You're absolutely right. It's none of my business."

Sherlock takes a sip. Neither of them says anything for a long moment, but they continue to stand side by side, both of them studying their cups, the table, the wall opposite. "Well," Sherlock says quietly, "to be perfectly honest I'm starting to think it's probably just easier to jerk off in the shower in the morning than go through all that nonsense."

John let's off one of his quiet laughs that's mostly just huffing air through his nose and Sherlock feels more than sees him twist his head in a semi-agreement. It makes the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch briefly. He takes another sip of tea.

John suddenly stops laughing. "Hey, you know, that's not so funny now that I think about how bad you are at cleaning up the bathroom after you've been in it."

"Don't worry, John. When was the last time you looked at the ceiling anyway?"

"What?" John grimaces. "Oh, don't be absurd."

Sherlock shrugs, leans over close to John, speaks in his ear, knowing that John will feel the wisp of his breath, scented with sweet tea. "Bet you won't be able to keep yourself from looking though."

John makes that laugh again, leaning away a bit, but just a bit. "God, get some sleep, Sherlock. You're hallucinating now."

But Sherlock's already walking away and then shutting the door to his room. He shucks his clothes as quickly as he can and, ignoring the bruises and welts and scratches he can see standing out like pen marks on his skin, he slips into pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved tee and crawls gratefully into his bed.

In the silence of his room, Sherlock closes his eyes, searches inside himself for that distant whisper of owl's wings. He feels things, but not the feather brush of owl's wings.

After a moment, Sherlock sighs heavily and his eyes bloom open, a deeper blue than usual. He reaches out and touches the side of his tea mug. It gives off a soothing, radiant warmth, like the belly of a puppy. He watches his fingers slide up and down the smooth ceramic surface. He thinks about John making the tea, pouring it for him, even after everything. He thinks about John adding the cream and sugar that Sherlock wouldn't think to add himself.

He thinks about what a gift it is. He thinks about how he should be very careful not to break it.

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