After a few weeks had passed, Sherlock became resigned to both creatures living in the flat with them. He also became resigned to being Fang's personal favorite; whenever he sat or lay down anywhere, the dragon would appear, climbing on him, nuzzling him, licking him, sleeping on him, and basically showering him in affection and dragon spit. Sherlock would grumble at him to go away, or to get off, "you stupid creature," all to no avail. He began to suspect that Fang thought the insult was his nickname. And secretly, though he was unwilling to admit it, he liked having an animal be so fond of him. It filled him with ridiculously nostalgic sentiments, true, but he told himself he could stop feeling them anytime he wanted, so indulging them for a while longer wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, Fang proved to be quite useful; Sherlock trained him to fetch items when he needed them, such as scalpels, bottles of chemicals, and the like; and when the Bunsen burner broke again, the little dragon's fiery breath proved to be a more than adequate substitute. Whenever he shed his skin, or lost a tooth, Sherlock had something new to experiment on. And he began working on a chemical compound to improve Fang's breath, which kept him entertained when there were no cases to work on.
As for Stella, after about five weeks she began to look far less hideous, because not only did her neck become stronger, so her head didn't flop around anymore, but her feathers began to grow in. And what beautiful feathers: long, vibrant, a sort of explosive mixture of red, orange and yellow, with even a few touches of green. She still couldn't fly, but she became able to stand on her own two feet, and walk around the flat after John, without needing to be carried all the time.
Speaking of which, John had some difficulty in handling Stella. She never wanted to be separated from him for more than a few minutes, which led to difficulties when he got called in to work. The first time, he just stuck her in the bathtub, in hopes she wouldn't be able to burn that down. However, he could hear her screeching and wailing from all the way out in the street (he had to do some very quick thinking to explain the noise to Mrs. Hudson on his way out, and finally just told her it was a new experiment that needed to not be disturbed), and when he came home early, he was greeted by Sherlock, wearing a lot of messily-done bandages all over his cut up, burned hands, and an enraged scowl.
"John, you are never, ever to leave here without that bird again. Do you understand me?!"
Thankfully, nothing else in the bathroom had been that much damaged.
On the bright side, this gave John an opportunity to test whether his tears really did have healing powers (they did, within a matter of seconds, but he shuddered to imagine what people might think if they saw him crying while bent over Sherlock's hand). After that, he sent Sherlock to the shop on Fleet Street (the kitsune gave him her number too; when he returned, he handed it to John with a dismissive snort. John crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the air for Fang to flame), in order to buy a spell that would keep the phoenix from being noticeable to other people. It came in the form of a small, gold collar. When Stella wore it, anyone who wasn't a monster or hawage would just not see her-or if they did, they'd see her as a canary or something; the human mind was easy to deceive like that.
Stella still hated anyone besides John, though after the scolding he gave her, she would no longer peck or breathe fire at Sherlock or Fang. She'd just hunch her neck, making her feathers rise in a large crest, and hiss at them, glaring balefully. But as she got older, she seemed to have developed slightly more discipline and self-control.
Speaking of the healing powers, John had been trying very hard not to use them while working. But it was a sort of automatic reflex; whenever he saw someone with cuts or burns or similar injuries, he would feel his eyes try to fill up, and have to blink very hard and pretend to rub his eyes because of itchiness or something. It would be somewhat difficult to explain if people started noticing; also, he worried that it was selfish of him not to use his gift. After all, he was a healer, and it was his job to help other people, so wasn't it wrong for him to save the tears for only himself and his flatmates? Finally, he reached a compromise that somewhat satisfied himself: whenever he started feeling the urge to cry, he would find liquid medicine bottles somewhere in the hospital, and drip the tears into there. It meant that more and more sick people started to show up, hearing about the incredible medicine that they seemed to have, but his conscience was somewhat sated.
He also began practicing his firemaking abilities, trying to throw fire, control where it went. It was easiest for him to just send it in a long stream towards a target, but it also left him feeling drained far too fast. It took a lot of effort, but finally John figured out how to create a ball of flame, and hurl it at a target, moving or otherwise. In some ways, it wasn't much more difficult than learning how to fire a gun. And it seemed oddly appropriate, his having both the power to heal or hurt. He was both a soldier and a doctor, after all.
***-****-*-*/*-*/**-/-/*/*-/*/
Then, in June, Sherlock, who had somehow managed to find a place that sold monster newspapers, came bouncing into the flat, with Fang at his heels (they had purchased a collar for him too; apparently people saw him as a dachshund when they took him out on walks), waving a paper in one hand.
"There's been a murder!" he proclaimed in delight.
John looked up from the book he'd been reading to Stella. "Yeah?"
The genius nodded. "Sue-May Fukuda, age 32, found dead in her shop this morning with only a dribble of green liquid in the corner of her mouth. They suspect poison or a potion of some kind, but don't know exactly. Come on!"
Curious now, the doctor held out his hand to take the paper from Sherlock-only for him to step back slightly. John made a confused sound. He looked at the detective, and saw he had an unusual facial expression-something that, if he didn't know better, he might have thought was guilt of some kind.
"You might not want to see."
"Why not?"
"It just might be easier for you if we go to the crime scene and you see in person."
John laid aside the book and got up, slipping Stella's collar from his pocket onto her neck as he did so. "Why? Come on, don't hold out on me. And are we even allowed at the crime scene?" He stepped forward and quickly snatched the paper from his friend's grip.
"I've met the DI of the monster division, she even asked for our help. John, you really shouldn't, it might make it hard for you to focus-"
Too late. John looked at the page talking about the murder-down at the rictus of the kitsune who owned the shop on Fleet Street.
It wasn't like he'd had that close a relationship with the woman. Heck, he'd avoided getting her number when she tried to make it clear she was interested in him. And he'd had people he knew die before. Far more than anyone should. But it was still a bit of a shock that she was dead; people he knew weren't supposed to die in civilian life. She'd obviously been a rather lonely person, and John felt an irrational pang of guilt for not going on at least one date with her, for not even knowing her name. He pulled himself together, and read through the details in the news. Then he laid the paper aside, and looked up at Sherlock.
"Shall we?"
Unexpectedly, Sherlock asked, "Are you all right?"
"It's fine. Nothing that's never happened to me before." John grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it, before Stella clambered onto his shoulder, and then headed for the stairs. "You coming or not?"
After a hesitant moment, wondering if he should try to say something, Sherlock picked up Fang's leash and followed, soon passing John up with those long legs of his.