July nineteenth. This year. His birthday. Two days away.

'Sherlock, why did you circle your birthday on the calendar?' I ask, staring at it.

'I—what?' He looks up from the newspaper and the colour drains out of his cheeks. He mouths an 'oh, God,' as his mouth hangs open.

'Sherlock?' I ask.

'You weren't supposed to find out about this yet,' he whispers.

About what?

I walk up to him, perching on the end of his arm chair. 'What's going on, love?'

'Nothing,' he says, loudly and clearly. 'Nothing right now. You'll find out in two days, anyway.'

With that, he stands up and walks over to the calendar, ripping away the 'July' page and screwing it up. He leaves the room.

I'm not believing my eyes. I'm seeing it but I'm don't believe it.

Sherlock is standing in the middle of the field, in his best suit (his best man suit), arms outstretched, eyes closed. A golden light engulfs him.

Suddenly, another flash of the same golden light starts up a little higher. When that flash ends something is left in its place.

But I cannot process that for it's at that minute Sherlock starts rising up. He levitates up and the something that was left comes down.

As they near each other, I recognise a pair of… wings. Angel wings. Sherlock rotates so his back is facing me and I watch, astonished, enthralled, amazed, as the wings attach onto his back.

They are beautiful. The wings and Sherlock both.

I remember hearing about something like this. I remember someone telling me about this, someone telling me and me remaining unbelieving. While the exact words have escaped my mind, I know that they have something to do with what's happening to Sherlock right now.

I watch as Sherlock takes one beat of his (are they even his?) mighty wings and soars up into the sky. He swoops down and catches my eye. He winks. (What is he trying to do to me?)

Finally, after making one full round of the sky, he dives back down and lands a couple of metres away from me.

I am unable to move. That is most probably the best thing I have seen.

He walks towards me, folding his wings. When he reaches me, he takes my hands, though I am still unresponsive.

It is only when he captures my lips in an angelic kiss (pun unintended) that I shake out of my stupor. He pulls back, grinning, shaking his head.

'I guess I owe you an explanation,' he starts.

I nod. 'Yeah, you do.'

He takes a deep breath. 'Did you ever hear about the myth about the descendants of the guardian angel?' he asks me slowly, as if he's afraid of what my answer will be.

'… No, I don't think so,' I reply.

He exhales. 'Right. Well. Back before dates even existed, there was an angel, who was deemed to watch over the whole of the universe.' Whoa. 'And many, many years later, there was a war between the angels and devils that resulted in him being fatally wounded. Before he vanished off the face of the universe, because angels can't die, he passed on his wings to his first-born child: his daughter Saella. And when she 'died', she passed them on to her first-born. Long story short, as the guardian angels passed away, they passed on their wings to their first born children and here we are.'

It takes me a while to process it all. So many words, so many questions swim around in my head but all I can ask is, 'So you're adopted, then? Because if you weren't, then how are you—'

He rolls his eyes. 'Yes, John. I'm adopted. I share no blood relation with Mycroft. I was only small when Mother passed, so my wings have been preserved for my twenty-first birthday.'

I take his hands. 'You—you're an angel,' I say as I look up at him.

'Yes. I'm an angel,' he says with a smile.

'But what if you don't have kids, what happens then?'

'Then my wings stay mine. And if I die childless, then the wings are passed onto my mother's younger brother, who's up there somewhere.'

'So this doesn't make you immortal?'

He smiles sadly. 'Nope. No immortality here. Just an extended life expectancy, provided nothing happens to me to kill me.'

'Wait…' I suddenly say. 'I think I did hear about this. My mum used to tell me the story as a kid… I had no idea that it was real.'

'Of course it's real. I'm right here, aren't I?' he tells me, pulling me in for a hug. I reach out my hand to touch the feather-soft wings. They are softer than I imagined, whiter than I thought they would be.

'Do Mr and Mrs Holmes know? That you're an angel, I mean?'

He nods. 'Yes, it took a lot of my relatives appearing in their dreams and things before they finally believed but oh well. And no, Mycroft is still clueless.'

'Then… how are you in this world? Wouldn't they have kept you up in Heaven or whatever until you were old enough?' I ask as we part.

Sherlock smiles again as his arm snakes around my shoulders. The wings fold into his jacket, which is still impeccably held together. 'My mother died when I was two and growing up without a mother where the most powerful of evil beasts reside is not the best idea, so they sent me here.'

'Well, thank god they did. Otherwise I'd never have met you.'

He kisses my forehead as we walk. 'Exactly. And I'd have never been able to save you.'

I smile, knowing he's referring to my PTSD, to my psychosomatic limp and how I was better just a day after knowing him.

Because he's angel who performs miracles.

A guardian angel.

My guardian angel.

Well. To be honest, guys, I have no idea what this is. This started off as me being obsessed with Lucifer's angel wings (god, Tom Ellis!) and being disappointed that he didn't have them on. But yeah. This is what you got.