CHAPTER TWELVE: A CUPPA, A PINT, AND CASED CLOSED

The jacket had been left on the rooftop. Sherlock had done it on purpose – something he'd never admit to – but is starting to regret it, as he watches John walk from the cab down the block the next day, shivering in the wintery chill.

He thought about offering up his coat again, but he doubts John would accept it a second time. Sherlock is grateful that John covets those jumpers so much, as they do come in handy from time to time. As they make their way down the street, Sherlock can just barely make out the bumps beneath the thick knit, casting tiny shadows that you only could see if you were looking for them. He looks away, closing his eyes for a moment, and opens the door to the New Scotland Yard.

They walk up to Lestrade's office. The people around them are staring more than usual, and most aren't even trying to hide it or be the slightest bit discreet. Sherlock gives all of them glares, but it doesn't do much good. He catches John's eye a few times, and nods – the entire Yard must know about what happened last night by now, which isn't a surprise. Still, every stare and whisper and raised eyebrow and wide eyes that get cast John's way feels like a needle sticking into an exposed nerve – they're the same stares Sherlock gets on a regular basis, the same kind he's been getting his whole life. He glares at a couple of officers pointing from the corner until they back away; he's used to that kind of look by now, but no one should ever, ever look at John like that. The very thought that anyone might treat John Watson the way they treat him makes him sick.

He casts his eyes to the ground, and moves closer to John as they walk.

John's the first to knock on Lestrade's door – Sherlock sees Lestrade look up and nod to them, waving for them to come in. He says hello to John and nods to Sherlock – their usual greeting, if there is a greeting at all – and Sherlock catches him glance more than once at John's back, moving his jaw back and forth and furrowing his brow, opening his mouth as if to say something but never finding the words to speak.

Five minutes later, they're situated in a room with Lestrade and Lucy Heralds. She's not handcuffed, but there are guards at the door and she's far too terrified to try anything. Sherlock sits up straighter as John folds his hands on the table in that way he does. Lestrade leans against the wall in the corner.

Sherlock breathes in. "You were–"

"I didn't do anything!" Lucy screeches. Her voice echoes around the small space in ear-piercing vibrations.

Sherlock takes a moment, the well-timed pause he expertly delivers whenever he wants to make anyone uncomfortable. It seems to work: Lucy squirms in her seat. "You were in the building last night, where the bodies were," he continues, as if he was never interrupted in the first place. "What were you doing there?"

"Nothing!" she squeals again, flinching as if she'd been smacked. "God, nothing, why am I even here?"

Sherlock sighs. "Miss Heralds, no one appeared to be actually killed during this whole case, so if you really didn't do anything then you've got no reason to be tight-lipped." He sits back and lets the words sink in. "Now. What were you doing in that theater?"

She breathes in, and looks at her hands in her lap. She works herself up for a long time before she finally speaks. "They said… he said, it was the perfect place," she says, "-for doing something you don't want anyone else to know about. If you pay them enough, they'll let you use it – the theater, I mean." She swallows, and looks up. "They advertise so no one else will come in while you're… doing it. I paid him and showed up on time…"

Sherlock's head moves back in understanding. "An empty theater," he says, "an empty space for committing any crime you like – just pay them a fee and they'll advertise a phony show, hand over the space for a night, and make sure no one comes in. Is that right?"

Lucy nods. She looks back down. "But… I didn't… I didn't break any laws. I didn't do anything."

"Oh for god's sake!" Lestrade bursts from the corner. Three heads swivel towards him. "Those women were dead, of course you bloody did something!"

Sherlock rolls his eyes discreetly and looks back at Lucy. He narrows his gaze down to a laser pinpoint, under which she writhes in her seat.

"Miss Heralds, until we can find out what really happened to those women, we're classifying their state as a trauma-induced coma." He leans back and continues to stare at her. "Unless you tell us the truth, Detective Inspector Lestrade here will hold you for attempted murder, which you'll have to defend yourself against in court. Now. Are you ready to tell us what happened?"

Oh, does she look terrified. Sherlock smirks to himself, in a way so small that no one else can see it. Finally, Lucy breaks.

"I wanted her back," she chokes out, her eyes beginning to water. "I just wanted her back!"

"You wanted Esmé back?" Sherlock finishes.

She nods, bursting into tears.

"So what did you do?" Sherlock pushes, impatient.

She chokes up her tears, but more keep coming. "This… man…" she gets out, finally – "I don't know his name, he just called himself Switch – he said he could help me make her love me again…" She sobs for a moment, then collects herself. "I told him she was in love with Linda. He said that… if I paid enough… he could take Linda's end of the lith…" She paused, and looked up. "The lith is this thing that –"

"I know what it is," Sherlock snaps, waving a hand impatiently. She sniffs and continues, nodding weakly.

"He said…" she wipes her eyes, and looks up. "He said he could take out Linda's end, and put it in me, and Esmé would love me again."

Sherlock leans back, beginning to smirk just the smallest bit – oh this is good, this really is good. "Elegant," he mutters quietly.

"Elegant?" John repeats. He comes over and shakes his head. "No, god, this… bloody insane. That's… that's impossible." John looks over at Lucy. "How can he do that?"

She sniffs again. "To get the lith, he used–"

"-the vide," John finishes. He puts his fingers over his eyes and closes his lids. "Oh, yes, of course. Dear god."

"Um, sorry, excuse me," said Lestrade suddenly from the corner – he walks over to where they're crowded around the table. "What the fuck are you all talking about?"

Sherlock looks up at him – his eyes flick over to John, who sighs. "Later, it's a lot to explain," he says. Lestrade nods, and backs away.

Lucy's still trembling in her seat, tears streaming down her face. Sherlock looks her up and down, his flickering eyes just barely landing on every inch of her skin and clothing, alighting for a second and flashing away with a mixture of apathy and slight disgust. Interesting case, pathetic criminal, he thinks to himself. With a sigh, he stands.

"Well, that's everything," he says, flashing Lestrade a faux-grin. "Come along, John."

"Hold on, wait!" calls Lestrade as they're leaving the room. He stands there, looking about as lost and infuriated as a person can look. "What were you even talking about? What am I supposed to do with her?"

Sherlock's eyes flick over to the woman, twisted in her seat to look at him. She's pleading with her face, and that's really just the best – oh, he loves it when they plead.

"Attempted murder and assault," he says simply, smiling humorlessly again. "That's really all you need to know; John will fill you in on the details later. Lock her up, Lestrade, that's really what you do best."

With a swish of his coat, he strides from the room, Oxford shoes clacking on the floor as he goes. The satisfaction of the closed case is almost enough to make him forget the harsh stares and snipped whispers that shoot daggers at John beside him, in the way a heavy dose of morphine in the hospital can almost make you forget you're dying.

•••

John only looks up when he hears the light chink of ceramic on wood. His eyes move up just in time to catch Sherlock's vampirically pale hand lifting up and out of sight, away from where a steaming mug of tea has been placed on the table.

He stares at it for a bit, before turning and looking at the man walking back to his seat with his own mug steamy hot in his hands. "What's this?" he asks, just as Sherlock's sitting down.

"Tea," Sherlock answers, sipping out of his own mug and blowing on it.

"Well, yes, I know it's tea." John thinks, and realizes something. "You're… apologizing, aren't you?"

Sherlock doesn't answer. He sips more tea.

"You are."

Again, Sherlock doesn't answer.

John picks up the mug, holding it in his hands. It's just under scalding – not hot enough to burn your tongue, but just enough to nip – which is exactly how John likes it. He holds it under his nose and lets the tendrils of steam waft into his nostrils; English Breakfast, the expensive kind from Fortnum and Mason. Finally, he takes a little sip.

He stares at the cup, and takes another sip, and another. Just the right amount of cream and sugar – exactly how he always prepares it for himself.

"You know, most people would be more concerned if I threw them off a building," Sherlock remarks from the chair across the room.

John keeps staring at his cup. "Actually, right now I'm more concerned about the fact that you know my exact cream and sugar preferences."

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Why? I've made you tea before, and I've seen you prepare it for yourself. Is it really such a surprise that I picked up on that?"

"Well, for someone who didn't know that the Earth goes around the sun, yes."

Sherlock moans, his head rolling back. "Oh, not that again."

"I may or may not have put that in my blog," John comments with a slight grin.

"You haven't written anything in over a month."

"Nice to know you're keeping tabs. I'm writing up the taxi driver case, I'm almost done."

"Oh, god." Sherlock sighs, staring at the ceiling.

"Hey, what happened to the whole apologizing-for-throwing-me-off-a-building thing?" John sips more of his tea. "I sort of liked that."

"You said you weren't concerned about it."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean you're not a complete sod."

John waits for the sound of Sherlock's grin, but it doesn't come. He looks up to find the man staring at him with an expression of what can only be worry and guilt.

"I shouldn't have done that," he says. "I wish I hadn't."

John pushes his seat back so he can get a better look at him. "Hold on, no, don't say that," he says. He furrows his brow. "Just because I didn't like it when you shoved me off a roof doesn't mean I'm not glad you did."

Silence, and then Sherlock nods slowly.

John clears his throat and holds his tea with both hands. "It really was pretty rude," he says, "but it was probably the nicest and most thoughtful thing anyone's ever done for me."

Sherlock doesn't respond – John didn't expect him to.

"Thank you," John says.

Finally, Sherlock's eyes flick up and meet his, and he's met with a shockingly heartfelt and caring expression, honest and bared. It's only there for a second, and then gone with the swiftness of a mask being slipped into place. John smiles, and gulps down the rest of his tea.

As he walks out of the room, his wings are held high up, angled toward the ceiling – the highest they've been in ages.

•••

The phone's chirp is almost quiet to go unheard, but luckily, Lestrade is just unoccupied enough to notice it.

He takes it out of his back pocket and hesitates only for a moment when he sees the name. He hits the "answer call" button and holds the mobile to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's John."

Lestrade clears his throat. "Er, yeah. Hello."

"Is the case all settled?" John asks.

"Yeah, it's… well, for the most part." Lestrade sighs. "Of all the cases I've worked on with Sherlock, I swear this one makes the least sense."

"Well, it's not really stuff you'd know about."

"You knew about it," Lestrade says.

John clears his throat. "Yes. Well. I… learned it all growing up."

Lestrade pauses, awkwardly. He's not sure if he should bring it up or not. "Er. Because of your… because of… er."

"Because I'm a fairy, yes," John says. Lestrade shuts his eyes and breathes out slowly. "You just… tell your kid that sort of stuff, when you're a fairy, because they're not going to learn it anywhere else."

"Mmhm," Lestrade coughs, tapping his foot against the ground. He looks about himself, trying to make sense of anything at all.

John doesn't say anything for a long time.

Lestrade starts to wonder if he should just hang up altogether.

Finally, John clears his throat again. "So," he says, his voice fuzzy and soft through the receiver – "How about that pint?"

•••

"-and he just bloody blew his head at me! Kept telling me, 'I told you so, I bloody told you, young man! I told you were going to fly into a telephone wire one of these days!'" Lestrade laughs, rearing his head back with his eyes shut. John laughs as well, stopping to take a swig of his beer. "God, he never let me live that down. Didn't even care that I didn't get electrocuted, just that he was bloody right."

"My mum was like that," Lestrade says, grinning. "I used to skateboard, when I was a kid. I loved it."

"My sister did, too," John comments. "Actually, I think she still does."

"She would always throw a fit whenever I came home with anything more than a scratch," Lestrade continues. "Then, one day, I broke my arm, and she took away my bloody skateboard. Then it was my turn to throw a fit."

John giggles, even though it wasn't really that funny. They're both a bit tipsy, just a little bit, really. Just enough to take the edge off. The past fifteen minutes sort of flew bye once the initial awkwardness wore off and the first gulps of beer were downed. The fairy thing wasn't mentioned until Lestrade asked John why he wasn't wearing his wings out – as hesitantly and awkwardly as humanly possible – and John had answered that he was didn't want to draw attention to himself. After another moment or so, John had told Lestrade the whole truth – that he was afraid – and any apprehension Lestrade had shown in the past slowly ebbed away.

After a moment of silence and gulps of beer, Lestrade sets his glass down with a thud. "Look, John, I'm… I'm sorry," he says. He looks away for a moment and cleared his throat. "When all this started… I had no idea, that it was like this for you."

John coughs and sets his beer down. "It's fine."

"No, it's not fine." Lestrade sighs and looks straight at him. "There was a moment, a week ago, at the end of the case, at the theatre, when you were… flying down from the sky, and I first saw you and I realized… what was going on, what you were…" He closes his eyes and sighs again. "…and I was afraid of you. Afraid, or disgusted, or something. I don't know. Look, the point is… I was stupid. I didn't understand – I mean, I still don't really understand, but I'm working on it – but now I get it. You're still the man I always knew, you're still my mate. And I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

John sits in shocked silence for a long time – finally, a smile begins to warm his face.

He nods, grinning. "Thank you, Greg. That means a lot, it really does."

Lestrade nods in return. "Alright. Good." He picks his glass back up and takes a swig. "Just don't start glowing or something while we're on a case."

John resists the urge to roll his eyes, and laughs instead. "I don't glow."

"You don't?" Lestrade raises an eyebrow. "What do you do?"

"What, isn't flying enough?" John says.

"No, flying's fucking brilliant," Lestrade says. "I just thought fairies would be… you know…"

"Smaller?" John says, smiling into his glass.

"Well, I was going to say more magical, but yeah, I thought they'd be smaller. If they existed at all, I mean."

"I get that a lot," John says. "Sometimes people have asked me if I can shrink or something, or if I get smaller under the full moon, that sort of stuff."

"Wait… can you shrink?"

"No," John chuckles.

"Okay, fine, so fairies are big," Lestrade says. He takes a swig. "Then, what can you do?"

"Um, besides flying? Well, nothing, really." John thinks about it for a moment. "Nothing human's can't do if they try. But, I mean… flying's pretty cool."

"Yeah." Lestrade leans back in his seat. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

John smiles, and downs the rest of his beer.

•••

John slips on his pajamas. He pulls up his flannel trousers but decides against a shirt. Instead, he walks to the bathroom, chest bared, and brushes his teeth.

Once his teeth are brushed, he finds himself staring at the mirror. He studies the reflection peering back at him; he needs to shave – probably should get a hair cut soon, too. There's a thin layer of hair covering his fair-sized pectorals; not quite as defined as they were in the army, but his adventures with Sherlock have kept him fit.

A moment passes, and he finds himself turning to get a look at his wings.

He doesn't have to twist that much to see them. Two forewings and two hindwings, sticking out two and a half, maybe three feet. No, two and a half. His eyes wash over the glassy chitin skin, window-panes and black veins. Costal margin, discal cell, pterostigma, radius, media, cubitus – his mind runs through the anatomical names he was made to memorize as a child. He doesn't need to think about them now; the words are as familiar as "hand" or "kneecap."

John runs his hand along his left forewing, letting his fingers bend the chitin slightly as they run across the smooth surface. He lowers his hands and flicks his wings up and out, and again, and again, faster and faster until they've settled into the familiar rhythm that thrums throughout his body like his own heartbeat, and his feet lift off the ground.

He stares at himself in the mirror, a pretty peculiar sight now that he thinks about it – short bloke in his pajama bottoms floating about in his bathroom – and only stops fluttering when his head hits the ceiling and the shock knocks him to the ground. He falls, hard, and collapses in a heap on the tile floor.

When he's shaken himself off, he stands, and walks out of the room. He takes one step into the hallway and freezes. Slowly, he puts his foot down.

His wings start flapping again, gently but hard enough to get him off the ground. Once he's an inch or two above the floor, he angles forward and flies down the hall, up the stairs, into his bedroom and he lands on top of his bed.

John looks around, nods satisfactorily and slowly drifts off to sleep.

•••

Sherlock jumps back when a figure whizzes by him. He stops, looks up the stairs where the figure disappeared, and looks back.

John, he thinks to himself, and smiles, walking back to the kitchen and returning to his experiment.

•••

•••

Note: Wow, wouldja look at that - I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth! I'm so sorry for the giant hiatus... I seem to be having a lot of those, sorry! :( If I haven't mentioned before, I am working on an actual non-fanfiction novel, currently called Mission: Earth, which takes up most of my writing time. I will try to be better about it in the future, but next week I'm going to a shack in Canada with no internet access and then school starts immediately afterwards... so I don't know how much I'm gonna get done in the future.

If anyone was wondering, for John's wings I used references from dragonfly wings, generic beetle wings and butterfly wings. I'm not an expert on entemology so I might have gotten some things wrong, but then again I did make up this species so their wings can look like whatever I damn well please. If you're wondering what John's wings look like, don't forget to take a gander at the cover art I linked to on my profile :) Until next time, my dahlings. Moriarty out.