John looked down at Sherlock's peaceful, sleeping body, and exhaled slowly. He still couldn't even contemplate the fact that this might all be real. Real people didn't have wings.
Then again, real people weren't like Sherlock Holmes.
He wanted so much to run his hands over the smooth, sleek feathers (the half-forgotten knowledge of what the single feather had felt like in his hand acted only as a tantalising memory), but he knew he had to restrain himself, for Sherlock's sake. The expression of terror that had passed over his features momentarily when John had asked him if anyone had touched his wings had been heartbreaking. John couldn't bear to think of what he must have gone through, or for how long Sherlock had kept it bottled up inside himself.
He had seemed to appreciate the hug earlier, but John had no idea whether that was over the line of "appropriate" for Sherlock. Hell, he didn't even know if Sherlock had a line.
He glanced down at him again, and then averted his gaze again quickly, hoping to avoid thinking about how ethereally beautiful the man was. Too late. There was no denying it – the sight of Sherlock Holmes topless was enough to make anyone's legs tremble. Of course, he was too thin, but that was nothing some regular decent meals wouldn't sort out (John was determined to get him to eat more, looking at those ribs), and it was made up for by that perfect, smooth, alabaster skin, like sculptured marble. Sherlock's chest was hairless and his stomach and lean arms were toned without being bulky with muscle. His pale, intense, chiselled face (dear God, those cheekbones) was relaxed, his lips very slightly parted. Don't think about his lips, for Christ's sake! Those rebellious, inky curls tumbled around his ears, and John wanted to run his fingers through them so badly it hurt.
Yes, there was no denying his body alone was attractive. But Jesus Christ, who knew that a pair of wings could make anyone so impossibly, irresistibly gorgeous? He looked like an angel – a sinfully attractive fallen angel, who had been flung from heaven only to land perfectly on the sofa of 221B. John could hardly bring himself to look at the wings - the urge to bury his face into those soft-looking feathers was terribly strong. Layers upon layers of that delicate plumage – and not one feather was identical to its neighbour. There was deep chestnut, auburn, cream, chocolate, copper, dark grey, sienna, gold, rust, snow-white, ochre, beige, russet, ebony, bronze, sandy brown, fawn, jet black, and other colours whose names he had no idea of. They had a far greater horizontal span than their height, which was comparatively small, unlike in the traditional pictures of angels that John had seen.
On an impulse, he pulled his laptop towards him (partly to distract himself from staring at Sherlock), and typed in "winged humans". There were websites on apparent sightings in the US, the appearance of human/bird hydrids in mythology from around the world, fictional winged characters, and even an article on how it was absolutely impossible for humans to have wings. John didn't even bother to read that one. He did, however, find that Sherlock's wings were similar to those of Angel from the X-Men (which he had read enthusiastically as a child), but he decided that the character was unlikely to have been based on actual research of winged humans.
His eyes drifted back to Sherlock, and he realised once again that he was in deep, deep trouble. Fighting the urge to bash his head on the coffee table, he tried to remind himself that falling for his deranged, half-naked, vulnerable, asexual, genius, winged flatmate was really an extremely bad idea.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is very short and more than a bit rubbish, but I thought since winged-Sherlock was so damn self-critical, you hadn't really got a description of him in his full winged glory. And who better to provide it than his doting flatmate? ;) Anyway, plot will return next chapter, provided I don't get too much homework! And thank you so so much for your reviews – they've been so lovely that I swear you've broken my heart, put it back together again, and persuaded it to do a little stupid dance of happiness :D Seriously, I really really appreciate it – and I'd really love a few more if you have the time :) xxx