On the Side of the Angels

A fic that can't really be described as pre- or post- anything

Summary that might not permanently stay in the little box, but needs to be said: This is a rewrite of everything, from A Study in Pink to Reichenbach and beyond, with one twist: everybody has wings. Customarily, plumage color mirrors the personality, often like a bird's.

This is my first AU, guys, so I'm really nervous about it, so yeah… *fidgets* Reviews encouraged, as are suggestions and etcetera…

Act One

"A Study in Pink"

Chapter One:

"John Watson"

1

The sun, blindingly bright, maddeningly hot-

The gunfire, the explosions, the shockwaves that rocked a man's soul-

Flames, dancing, consuming-

The crack of a sniper's rifle-

Pain-

John shot upright in his bed, clutching at his left shoulder. In that instant, he would have been fully prepared to swear that only moments before, a bullet had smashed through it.

It was amazing, the carnage a small piece of metal could wreck on flesh, blood and bone, ripping, breaking, destroying…

Breathing deeply, he dislodged his left wing from the gap between the bed and the wall- it was bloody inconvenient, as whenever he woke from a nightmare, it would catch under the frame holding the mattress- and gingerly tested the joint that had been utterly decimated by the bullet that had gone through it before entering his shoulder.

Sharp spikes of pain echoed from the spot, but the wound was no longer fresh.

He reached around, brushing his fingers over the scar. A clean through-and-through shot, in relation to the fact that he supposed it could have been worse, but the bones, being hollow for flexibility, weren't designed to handle the force and shock of a blow from a sniper's bullet.

While the flesh wound from the bullet itself was actually fairly small, the bone itself had cracked all the way down to his shoulder on one side, and for three feet towards the tip on the other.

Not all of the shards had necessarily stayed inside the skin, either. That had led to acquiring both a separate scar and the need for a stiff wing-cover to hold the bones in place.

Accustomed to wearing one of those covers, although more flexible than the medical ones- they were frequently used, as a specially-designed piece of clothing that covered the entire wing and the primaries, masking the native color- John was used to the highly uncomfortable feeling of his feathers being pinched and his wingspan shortened by it.

It didn't mean he had to like it.

**

Later, pulling his laptop out of the drawer- carefully ignoring the gun underneath it- and setting it on the desk, he quickly pulled up his site.

Write a blog, she'd said. Put down whatever happens to you, say what you want to.

But was there anything to be said?

**

"How's your blog going?"

John considered. "Yeah, good." He cleared his throat. "Very good."

"You haven't written a word, have you?"

"You just wrote still has trust issues."

"And you read my writing upside-down. You see what I mean?"

John offered a half-smile.

"John," Ella began, leaning forward, her wings- too close to a falcon's coloring for John's comfort- coming around from the back of the chair to rest against her shoulders more comfortably. "You're a soldier. It's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life. And writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."

"Nothing happens to me."

**

Review, suggest, and the like: was it good, was it horrible, should I go forth and die quietly in a corner?

{Question: whatwasIthinking, writing two fanfics at the same time? Goodbye, life.}