John didn't really expect Mrs Hudson, but he can understand one of the watchful sisters present in Sherlock's abode. What he cannot understand, however, is the dark-skinned woman standing guard in front of the crime scene. Her eyes flash towards Sherlock in distaste, and in that moment, tawny wings loom over her body, beating once in a threatening stance. John notes the lack of an official weapon. A Guide.

'Hello freak,' she sneers. Her hand clutches at the radio in her hand possessively. Whoever is at the other end must be the human she is Guiding. Her gaze sweeps over to John, and her eyes widen slightly.

Of course she recognises him. There isn't an angel that cannot. 'What are you doing here?' she demands. Her eyes flash towards Sherlock. 'Why is he here?' she hisses, jabbing her finger in John's general direction.

In the dark, Sherlock's black wings creep over every light and drift on the cold wind. They are endless in size and girth. It is as frightening as it is enchanting. They envelop John in their dark embrace. 'Shut up, Donovan,' Sherlock replies icily, lifting the tape for John to pass. 'He's with me.'

For a moment, it seems that something in the Guide's mind has twisted and broken. Donovan stares after Sherlock's receding back with her mouth agape. John takes pity on her, knowing the volatile creature that the fledgling seemed to be. He settles his hand on her arm and offers an apology in Sherlock's behalf.

Donovan sets her jaw determinedly. Her tawny wings fold into a more submissive position. 'I didn't know they'd make you babysit him,' she grumbles. 'Good Soldier, of all people.' She cocks her head, narrowing her eyes. 'I thought you were in the trenches, getting shot at. What happened?'

For them, time does not exist in a single line. It is a morphing element full of twists and turns, and secret corners that the sisters know well.

'I got shot,' John responds dully. The words are barely enough to describe the agony of flesh parting for such a small amount of metal, or the sick fear of finally falling into the darkness.

Donovan is saddened. To her, becoming a human seems almost like dying. Becoming a cripple is an even worse punishment, but it seems no one will understand that John's disposition is not punishment. It was a choice he made long ago, a choice that he lives with as best he can.

Donovan stands aside to let him pass. 'Be careful,' she warns him anxiously. 'He's dangerous. He's not like us.' She nods towards the house that Sherlock disappeared into.

John smiles. 'I know.'

Inside, Sherlock is arguing with the grey-haired man. It seems his name is Lestrade, or at least, that is what Sherlock is calling him. The grey-haired man notices John's existence and gives a sigh of utter despair. John notices the radio in his hand and draws a conclusion. This man - Lestrade - is who Donovan Guides.

'He's with me,' Sherlock insists, and the man frowns at him disapprovingly. Sherlock turns to John with a bright smile and introduces the man as Detective Inspector Lestrade. 'Who's on forensics?' Sherlock demands.

'Anderson,' is the tired reply.

Sherlock curls his lip in disgust. 'Anderson won't work with me,' he announces. John suspects it is the other way around, which is unsurprising. 'John will be my assistant.'

Lestrade is unamused, but he allows the decision to pass. Sherlock bounces excitedly up the stairs as John is given a form of quarantine gear to wear. John struggles a little due to his knee, but Mrs Hudson's treatment has eased his progress a lot.

'Donovan calls you Good Soldier,' Lestrade notes calmly. 'Why is that?'

John stares at him, momentarily stunned. Then he understands. 'You're a prophet.'

Lestrade smiles thinly. 'Not really,' he replies. 'I'm more of a witness.' He tilts his head slightly, offering John a pair of gloves. 'So why Good Soldier?'

John cannot smile back. He looks at his feet and feels the ache of having physical form. 'It was a joke amongst my brothers,' he explains softly, so that no one will hear. 'It is only funny in our tongue,' he adds, shrugging.

Lestrade studies him carefully, brow contracted in a frown. 'Here I was thinking it was because you were a good person,' he says wryly.

John looks him in the eye, tightening his grip around his cane. 'I am many things, Detective Inspector,' he replies, 'but I am not good. You should remember that.'

They climb the stairs together in silence.

Sherlock is practically grinning with excitement by a door. More inappropriate rejoicing. John will have to talk to him about this. 'You're very slow, John,' he scolds. 'It's agitating.'

John thinks about tearing his wings off slowly and stuffing each jet-coloured feather into Sherlock's throat. He smiles awkwardly and mumbles something semi-apologetic about his knee. Of course, this does not impress the taller man, since he has already concluded that the limp is nothing more than psychosomatic. He sighs heavily and pushes through the door, ignoring the looks received from the forensics team wandering up and down the stairs.

It is not a sight for the faint-hearted. A middle aged woman lies collapsed on the floor, dressed in an alarming shade of pink and drowned in her own blood. Already it has started to form and coagulate, and the air is thick with the sickly sweet smell. There is a thick smear of brown on a dresser, and in the mirror the letters RACHE have been drawn in blood. The last letter is covered by a handprint. Lestrade covers his nose with a handkerchief, but this is a scene that John has seen too many times before.

Sherlock bends over the body, running his gloved hands over her coat, pulling out a pocket magnifying glass and peering at the woman's fingertips. He observes her jewelry and the soles of her shoes. He raises her hand slightly, causing her arm to pop out of the blood with a sickening squelch. He frowns, bending to inspect the woman's wrist.

'Suicide, obviously,' drawls a voice from the doorway. There is a distinct nasal drone to it that causes John's hair to stand on end. He turns to find a thin, pallid-looking man leaning against the door with a smirk plastered on his face. 'Slit her wrists. Fingerprints on the razor.'

Sherlock rises from his place, wings unfolding threateningly. John tries not to react, but he cannot quite believe how far the fledgling's wingspan seems to stretch. 'Very intuitive, Anderson,' he retorts, sarcasm dripping from every word. 'Apart from the fact that the cut on her right hand is too deep for a right-handed person, especially when she would have previously sliced her left wrist.' He mimes the motion using his pocket magnifying glass. 'Her tendons would have been completely severed. Isn't that right, doctor?' he presses, nodding at John.

John frowns. 'Well, yes,' he replies. 'Severed tendons make it hard to hold anything. She would have dropped the razor.'

Anderson immediately focuses his wrath on John. His eyes dance over the letters scrawled on the mirror. 'Well, maybe it's a form of revenge,' he offers, pointing at the bloody message. 'Rache. That's revenge in German,' he adds proudly.

John imagines burning the smarmy little bastard to a crisp. He finds himself entertained by the image of Anderson aflame, but then, anything set on fire eases his mood.

Sherlock seems more annoyed than John, because he strides across the room and slams the door closed in Anderson's face. This draws a slight chuckle from John, but he hides it quickly in a cough. 'Give me five minutes,' Sherlock instructs Lestrade.

The Dectective Inspector begins to protest, but Sherlock cuts him off quickly. 'You need me,' he reminds the older man smugly.

Lestrade meets John's eye. 'I do,' he agrees quietly. 'God help me.'

Direct contact with humans, then? Is that what Sherlock's duty is? John still does not understand how to Guide when he still doesn't know what the fledgling's purpose is.

Lestrade clears away the lingering forensics team and all other members of the police, throwing one last warning look at John. Sherlock nods towards the body expectantly. 'Well?' he asks expectantly. 'What do you think?'

John laboriously skirts the pool of blood, props his cane against his knee and squats in an awkward position to try to handle the dead woman without disturbing the coagulating crimson pool. He lifts the wrists, finding confirmation that her wrists have been completely severed, tendons, arteries, veins and all. Humans have been capable of dangerous feats under the influence of narcotics, so John bends to test the woman's breath.

That is when he smells it, almost drowned by the blood and the remnants of the woman's perfume, thick and sly: sulphur. He grits his teeth. Demons do not walk so boldly amongst the living. Like Guides, they are only capable of the mere suggestive word, or the manipulation of a situation. They cannot possess a human. The balance is tilting, the rules are being broken.

John suspects that being a Guide is not the only reason he has been sent here. He wishes for his sword, but he gave that up when he fell.

Then, he notices the cracked skull. He lifts his gaze to the dresser and makes the connection.

'Well?' demands Sherlock, impatient.

'She did cut her own wrists,' John reveals with a sigh, 'but she was definitely under an outer influence.' He nodded towards the dark smudge on the dresser. 'She didn't die from the bleeding though. She slipped and hit her head on that dresser.'

Sherlock's mouth twitched with pleasure. 'What influence?' he demands.

John smiles thinly. 'Not drugs.'

This seems to annoy Sherlock. 'Obviously' he growls. He does not like to be kept in the dark.

The fledgling is hardly ready for a showdown with demons. John decides to keep his knowledge to himself, offering an altered version of the truth. 'Madness,' he offers.

Sherlock is disappointed, and his attention diverts away from John back to the body. He is only interested in that which is new and exciting. John rises from his place, returning to the door. Lestrade appears instantaneously, watching Sherlock over John's soldier with an odd mixture of awe and disapproval. Sherlock notices and rises from his place, whipping a phone out of his pocket and typing away furiously.

'So?' Lestrade asks, crossing his arms over his chest. 'What do you know?'

'Everything's out of place,' Sherlock frowns, eyes fixated upon his phone. 'She didn't die from cutting her wrists, like the other victims, but from hitting her head on that dresser. There is no feasible reason that she would still be conscious after losing enough blood to slip on it, so why was she? She was certainly coherent enough to try to write Rachel on the mirror.' Sherlock gestures quickly at the mirror, having delivered the entire deduction in one breath. 'She was smart, too. A serial lover, by the look of her jewelry. Every piece has been cleaned except her wedding ring, shows the state of the marriage. Consider her obsession with appearance despite her age, unfaithful. But why is she here, and not with one of her lovers? She wasn't traveling far. Her coat is still wet. Why is it wet when she has an umbrella?' Sherlock questions, pulling the mentioned article from the woman's coat pocket. He is a teacher, and John and Lestrade are the dutiful students. 'The wind was too strong. So, given weather conditions and time period, she came from Wales, therefore she only needed a small suitcase.' He frowns then, and sweeps his gaze around the room. 'So where is it?' he demands crossly. 'Where did you put it?'

Lestrade looks confused. 'Put what?'

John is still catching up the whirlwind of information. His heart beats in a flurry, knowing that Sherlock's own organ is whirling to the same dance. Only a few hours next to the man, and they are already aligning. It is survival, for an older creature to absorb the existence of a younger one in his own kind. Only natural.

'The suitcase,' Sherlock repeats, growing annoyed. 'Have you moved it?'

Lestrade shakes his head slowly, glancing back at the woman. 'There was no suitcase.'

Apparently this means something to Sherlock, because his mouth falls open in a brief epiphany. The moment is soon over, and he darts past John through the doorway. A flurry of feet against the stairs, and Sherlock is almost halfway down. He pauses, commands for Lestrade to find Rachel, and is gone.

John is abandoned, angry, and very much confused. The pain in his knee is beginning to return. Mrs Hudson's alleviations have worn off.

'Forgive him for it,' Lestrade advises him kindly. 'He's easily distracted.'

John manages a smile, although he is currently wishing he could strangle the damned fledgling. He struggles on the descent. When he is finally out in the open air, all he has left of Sherlock is a single black feather floating on the wind. When he reaches Donovan, she looks pitying.

'He doesn't care about anyone,' she tells him, her wings folding gently around them to fight away the wind. 'He likes the chase. He likes the game. They made him like this, you know, on purpose. Cold on the inside. He's an experiment the Mighty concocted, and just like Morning Star, this will come and bite us all in the ass.'

John feels a piece of his heart draw taught at the mention of his lost brother. He drops his gaze to his knee.

Donovan breathes in a soft gasp. 'I'm sorry,' she apologises. The motion is sincere. 'You loved him.'

John shifts his grip on his cane and brushes her wings away. He does not need to be coddled like a babe. He is far older than she is, and he would prefer it if she could treat him as such. 'Everyone loved Morning Star,' he replies quietly. He glances up the street into the dark, noting the silence and the splash of colour that the lights cast on these walls. 'Do you know where I could get a cab?' he asks. 'It's just, my knee.'

Donovan nods understandingly and suggests he find a taxi at the end of the street. John smiles at her because he must be courteous to one of his own, and he limps a winding pathway to the road. The night grows colder as it ages. John does not get very far before he is intercepted by a mark on the wall: a dark rune branded against the red brick. To a human it is meaningless, but to John it is a command. Once, it would have meant a call to arms, but those days are dead.

He runs his hand tiredly over his face and sighs heavily. He isn't surprised by the black car that pulls up beside him. When he climbs into the car, he finds himself sitting next to the watching sister who stood over him in the mud and the rain, who offered him the life of John Watson. This time she is not dressed in white, but in complicated swathes of black.

'John,' she greets with a false smile.

'I thought you were only meant to watch,' he states.

'And transcribe,' she adds, showing the phone in her hand to John.

John looks at the city moving past, and he ponders on the amount of the ether that circulates Sherlock. He wonders dimly if the fledgling ever notices. 'I suppose you have a name, too,' he hums.

'Anthea,' she offers, but she is lying.

John suspects that she always lies, so he does not ask where they are going. He knows it does not matter where they are going, because he already knows who calls.

They arrive at a warehouse, and in the fierce glare of the car spotlights, John sees the four great wings unfurl before he even glimpses the tall figure they extend from. The man's physical form belies the power shifting in his immaterial wings, the feathers gleaming in all the colours of the rising sun. He holds no signs of strength, however in this world, it is not the sword and the arm that wins a war, but it is power, and power he does hold in the expense of his suit. He leans on an umbrella, but when John blinks, it becomes a spear. When he blinks again, it returns to its former innocent shape.

'You could just call me,' John sighs. 'On my phone.'

The man smiles thinly. His wings rustle slightly, and the smell of peaches warming in the summer sun wafts across the warehouse. 'Come now, Uriel,' he presses, tilting his head. 'Do not turn your back on your brothers.'

John grows irritated. He does not like being called by his old name. 'What do you want, Gabriel?' he demands.

'Oh, it's Mycroft now,' the archangel corrects airily. 'And I don't want anything much. I understand that you have inspected the flat. I also suspect your monetary condition is... less than adequate. I can provide you with supplementary funds, provided you cooperate.'

John taps his cane against the ground angrily. A rush of fire bleeds into his hands, warming the air around him. 'Get to the point, brother,' he forces through gritted teeth.

Mycroft pretends to look offended, but they both know it's an act. They both know that living as a human is no easy task, and that in time, one becomes bitter and tired. 'I need you to inform me of Sherlock's actions,' he commanded. 'I am deeply concerned for him.'

John laughs hoarsely. 'Are you?' he grins. 'Why would you put a fledgling in the physical world? He doesn't understand anything.' He shifts his weight off his leg. 'What the hell are you up to?'

Mycroft flinches at the mention of the abyss, but he makes no move to correct John. The choice to fall involved the freedom of expression. He tapped his fingers against his umbrella. 'The higher issues of the Mighty do not concern you,' he says coldly.

John's phone chirps as he receives a message. He discovers that it is from none other than his potential flatmate, the enigmatic damned fledgling himself.

If convenient, come at once. Could be dangerous.

John returns his attention to Mycroft. 'Then I see no reason to cooperate with you,' he retorts pleasantly.

'You are loyal very quickly,' the archangel notes, a strain of confusion colouring his voice.

John flashes the man that was once his brother-in-arms a bright smile. He likes being sarcastic, and he loves being an annoyance to those that might look down on him. 'He's a fledgling,' he replies. 'And I'm his Guide. I have to be loyal, or else I would make a pretty shit Guide.'

He glances down at his phone just as it chirps again.

If inconvenient, come anyways.

'I'm off now,' he announces, nodding at Mycroft. 'I'm going to do my job,' he adds, lowering his voice dangerously. John knows how to be dangerous. It is what he was once renowned for. 'If you want someone to watch Sherlock, talk to the sisters, or the damned fleet of angels you have surrounding him. Leave me out of your schemes.' He taps his cane once more on the ground, leaving his own rune of brilliant red against the grey concrete. His sign is not a call to arms, but a warning of fire and brimstone.

John is allowed to leave, unsurprisingly. After all, every archangel remembers the first battle, and how John burned a hole in Morning Star's chest before Michael threw him from the heavens. They remember the Good Soldier, and his fiery mark of war.

Of course, when he steps into 221B, Sherlock treats him with such imperiousness that it's infuriating. To Sherlock Holmes, he's nothing more than a retired soldier, an aging man with a psychosomatic limp.

John continues to imagine himself setting fire to Sherlock's dark curls, at least until he realises the madman has tricked him into sending a text message to a possible serial killer. He also finds out that the real reason Sherlock abandoned him was to search the city for a damned pink suitcase, and somehow emerged victorious. He suddenly finds himself amused, and remembers the days he was as brazenly foolish, and smiles to himself. For the first time in centuries, he feels like the Good Soldier again.