Winged
It wasn't the first time that John had woken up from a nightmare to find Sherlock standing over his bed. Sherlock didn't wake him or make any move to comfort him, he merely watched and observed.
"Sherlock!" John gasped, struggling to breathe through the panic brought on by his nightmares.
"Nightmares of the war again, John?" He asked, observing the fact that usually in nightmares, people sweat. John, however, was completely dry. In fact, Sherlock would almost say that John seemed to be glowing. But that could just be his pale, untanned skin revealed by his t-shirt reflecting the weak light of the moon shining through the window.
Not exactly. "Y-yeah. Horrible." John fell back on to his bed, arm flung across his eyes, slowly lowering his rapidly beating heart. What Sherlock didn't know, was that he wasn't dreaming about Afghanistan, but his life before that. The Big War, as he dubbed it in his mind. The war that raged across dimensions, between Above and Below. Light and Dark. Good and Evil. John shuddered at the memory and saw Sherlock's eyes narrow. John could tell that Sherlock was trying to think of the right thing to do in these sorts of circumstances, since he was in John's room in the middle of the night, watching him suffer through another countless nightmare and all.
"W-would you… uh. Would you like to talk about it?" Sherlock was hoping beyond all hope that his friend would refuse. John knew this.
"No thanks, Sherlock." John removed his arm and studied his friend. "How long have you been there?"
Sherlock stopped to think for a moment "Roughly since you began having the nightmare." That didn't really help John.
"Okay. And 'roughly' how long would that be?"
"About an hour." Sherlock shrugged "Sixty-seven minutes to be precise." John nodded slowly and Sherlock lifted his chin slightly, his eyes glancing about the room.
"Okay. Well… have you finished with whatever it was you were doing?" Sherlock suddenly seems to come back to himself.
"Yes. Yes! Right. Uh, thanks, John. Erm. Sleep well." Sherlock fled the room. The ex-soldier shook his head and closed his eyes. Bright white burned his mind. Growling in annoyance, John swung his feet out of bed. He wouldn't be getting back to sleep tonight. The glowing red numbers of his alarm clock told him that it was 3:33am. No-one would be out and about now. Ensuring that the door to his bedroom had been fully closed by his departing flatmate, John removed his t-shirt and dropped it on the floor, spreading his arms wide. The doctor sighed with sweet relief as two, large, crisp white wings unfurled from his back. Momentarily, John struggled with his window, but he eventually managed to wrangle it open wide enough that he and his wings could crawl through. He leapt in to the cool night air, enjoying the stretch of his wings as he worked the rarely used muscles.
"Sorry, John. I forgot my noteb–" Sherlock trailed off as he caught sight of the curtains swaying in the gentle breeze flowing through John's open window. A nearly translucent feather lay on top of John's discarded sleeping shirt. Sherlock picked up the feather and studied it carefully. It was a feather larger than any bird native to Great Britain would have. Sherlock looked out the open window, his mind working full tilt.
'When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' He'd be a hypocrite if he didn't believe his own words. But… really? John has wings?
The orange glow of first light started to tinge the clouds as he drifted through them on the updrafts. With a reluctant sigh and yawn of exhaustion brought about from his strenuous exercise, John wheeled sharply in the air, before tucking his wings close to his body and beginning a high speed dive towards sleepy London below. Just as he began to make out distinct markings on the cars, he decided he was close enough and spread his wings, the three metre wing span giving him the amount of lift needed to pull him sharply out of the dive and speed along the rooftops of buildings. His window was still open and John slowed right down, managing to land his feet on the edge of his window and slowly tuck himself through, careful not to catch his wings as he climbed inside his bedroom again.
Sherlock couldn't help but notice the thud from upstairs as John presumably climbed through his window again. He wrapped his coat further around himself and stared through the brain numbing television, mind whirring. 'Need more evidence to suggest that John has wings. For instance, how does he hide them? Was he born with them? What would his feathers feel li–' Sherlock cut that thought, shaking his head as if to toss it from his mind. His fingers twirled the single feather he found in John's room, gently running it down his jaw as his mind was lost in thought.
The hot water soothed pleasantly aching muscles and slightly rejuvenated some of John's energy. John thought about getting a plumber in to fix the taps that squeaked as you turned them off, and the fact that no matter how tight you turned the taps… the water never really seemed to stop coming out of the faucet. John towelled himself down thoroughly, ruffling his wings afterwards to shake away the last of the water, groaning at the droplets that were flung everywhere. Reluctantly, John hid his wings and pulled on his shirts and jumper.
"I can feel you staring at my back, Sherlock." John muttered, for the most part, engrossed in the morning newspaper as he drank his tea at the table. "Is there something I can help you with?" John didn't need to look around to know that Sherlock had begun staring out the window instead, his violin bow swaying gently in the air as he stares in to space. "Sherlock?"
"Hmm?" The other man jolts back to awareness, still slightly unfocused eyes study John's back for any sign of something abnormal. But it looks no different to his own.
"I asked if there was something I could help you with. You've been staring at me for the last hour now. I can practically feel your eyes burning in to me. It is rather annoying." John finally turns in his seat to make eye contact for the first time that morning.
"I was hoping you might be able to give me a bit of help with the new case." Sherlock lied. John knew he was lying. "If you were a murderer and you had to go in to hiding, where would you go?"
Sherlock kept finding feathers around the flat, often in the strangest of places. Most predominately in John's bedroom, as is to be expected. But, occasionally, he'll find one or two in the bathroom. Sometimes he even finds them in the kitchen or living room. Sherlock finds the obvious conclusion - that still seems to be impossible - getting harder to ignore. Where else would the feathers be coming from?