Author's Note: Thanks to my betas Snogandagrope and MildredandBobbin!
Chapter 23: Loose Ends and Feathers
Lestrade comes by late that morning. Ostensibly, he needs to finish paperwork and fill in any holes in the case by talking to Sherlock. Actually, he wants to goggle at John. John doesn't make himself a very interesting spectacle, disappointingly. He wears a soft, biscuit-colored jumper and brown slacks. His feet are bare, and he's a little pale.
Sherlock fusses. Lestrade stares. He's never seen any such thing. John makes tea, as usual, but Sherlock hovers in the doorway, and can't seem to keep his focus on the conversation he's having with Lestrade. When John comes back in the lounge with the mugs, Sherlock instantly relieves him of the extras, handing Lestrade his with no flourish whatsoever. He shoves John down into his lumpy red armchair, and then props himself protectively against the winged back of it. He is silent, waiting.
Lestrade introduces the topic. "Dr. Linley is still pretty heavily sedated. We haven't got much but nonsense out of her. Bernie Leekes cracked like an egg. He's hemorrhaging information. We've got proof enough to put them both away for several life sentences, thanks to you." He nods pointedly at Sherlock.
But Sherlock's intense focus is on Dr. Watson. He does, however, say in a voice heavy with meaning, "I shall look forward to the court case."
Lestrade shifts on the sofa, propping his cooling mug on his crossed knee, and looks to John, who smiles tiredly back at him. "They both keep talking some gibberish about wings, Dr. Watson. Can you elaborate on that?" It's a rhetorical question, since everyone involved knows that there were wings. Lestrade even knows about the knives.
John's eyes cut briefly to Sherlock, who stiffens. They had actually printed out their statements an hour or so prior, to ensure that their stories were straight, carefully wording the documents so that no mention was made of John's exceptional characteristics. "As you say, Lestrade," Sherlock growls, lasering into his eyes with his patented I-can-melt-your-brain-with-my-stare-alone-if-I-so-choose look. "It is ludicrous. You should let it drop."
John quirks an almost invisible smile, and spreads his hands before him, thus ducking any responsibility in the conversation.
Lestrade rolls his eyes. He knows what he saw, and decides to press the issue. "I was there, Sherlock. Hard to miss the bloody wings, wasn't it? They took up half the room. It took you a long while to untie him, and I was staring right at you when they disappeared. I saw the corking knife disappear as well. So tell me, what the fuck is going on?" He looks at John, a little nervous, a little apologetic, but very much a cop, and says, "What are you?"
John's toes curl into the carpet, and he fixes his gaze on the tea. This is a critical question, fraught with risk. Sherlock leans closer and puts a hand on his shoulder. He glares icy daggers at Lestrade. "Can't you leave it alone?"
Lestrade stands up, and moves to lean against the desk, broad shoulders blocking some daylight. He picks up a pen and fiddles with it a moment. Finally, "Sherlock, you know you can trust me. I've known you for five years. When in that time have I ever betrayed your secrets? I know we're not mates. But you can trust me." He is referring to finding Sherlock, near to dying in a pool of his own vomit, forearms rusty in crusted-over tracks from his final cocaine binge. "If he-," and he nods at John, including him in the discourse, "ever needs help again, it'd be good to have another person on your side. What if you can't make it next time?"
"Mycroft-" Sherlock begins to bluster.
"Oh, bloody hell. Your brother knows, too? This is not a well-kept secret, Sherlock," Lestrade looks chiding.
"Well certainly Mycroft isn't going to blab about it-"
"What? And I am?" He looks back at John, still holding the cold mug of undrunk tea. "John, you're going to need friends and support. They very nearly had you last night."
John rolls his head, neck popping audibly, and twists his finger through the handle of the mug. The he relaxes slightly and looks up at Sherlock. "He's right, Sherlock. And he's seen already. If we can't trust him, then we're well and truly buggered now anyway, aren't we?"
For an instant, the morning's activities flash before his eyes, although it technically wasn't buggering, and he flushes a little.
Sherlock huffs out an angry breath and shrugs. "Fine, then. Fine." He glares at Lestrade, and his eyes are flat and gray and more menacing than Lestrade has ever witnessed. "But know that I. Will. Kill. You. If you ever leak of word of it." He is cold, and sincere, and Lestrade, inured as he is to violence and threats, still has to abort a primitive shiver of fear at that tone.
He holds out his hands. "It's safe with me, Sherlock. For god's sake! I already told you. Cross my heart and hope to die. Jesus, what else do you need? A contract signed in blood?"
There's an uncomfortable silence in the room. The distant ringing of the phone in Mrs. Hudson's flat and irritated honking in the street below are the only sounds.
"Alright, then." John says at last, when no one else steps in. "I'll just start with. Well. It's hard to know where to start."
"Start with the egg," Sherlock says shortly. Lestrade's eyebrows soar, and he swiftly moves back to the sofa and drops down, as if he's aware that he might want to be sitting for this one.
John nods. "Ok. Sherlock found an egg. My egg. Downstairs."
"In the basement flat," Sherlock takes over. "It couldn't have been there for too long. So I took it up here to incubate and hatch it. Fairly obvious procedures, and I was intensely curious about what it might hold." He smiles briefly at John, who smiles warmly back. "To my surprise, it was John."
"John." Lestrade repeats dully. "It was John. That hatched out of the egg."
"Yes," Sherlock says, cool as a cucumber and as if it were an everyday occurrence. "Over the next week, we realized that John had some... unique... features. You have witnessed both: the knives and the wings. I've tried several experiments, but none comes close to explaining the phenomena, so for now we just have to accept it."
In demonstration, John leans forward to set his mug on the table, and then holding his hands towards Lestrade, convulses his wrists and the knives are suddenly there. Lestrade's eyes are very, very wide, and his face a shade paler. "Where do they come from?" he says.
Sherlock makes an impatient sound. "As I have just finished telling you. We. Don't. Know."
"May I?" he reaches hesitatingly towards John. John obligingly hands over one of the blades, hilt first. Lestrade runs his fingers over it, noting the heft, the steel, the balance of it. He scratches the edge along his thumbnail and watches a tiny filing of keratin curl in front of it. It is very sharp. When he looks back up, John twitches, and the knife disappears out of his hand. Lestrade jerks. "Ok," he says. "Ok. And you don't know where they come from?"
"Same place as the wings, I expect," John replies mildly.
Lestrade rubs his hands through silvering hair. "Alright then, mate. Let's see the wings?" He holds his breath, hoping that John will do it. They are so far into uncharted territory now that Lestrade's only defense is to go with the flow.
John flickers a glance back to Sherlock, who stands back as if to say On your own head be it. But clearly something more has passed between them, because John's lined face smooths out, and his lips curve up slightly, and he rises from his chair. "Here," he says. "See?"
And with the whuff of feathers through air, the wings are there, held carefully so as not to get in the fireplace or knock things about in the room. But within the space available, John considerately spreads them out. Lestrade catches his breath. He'd been brought up a good Catholic, and John, John, is superimposed over iconic childhood images of angels. He shakes his head to dislodge the thought. Whatever else he is, the man in front of him is no angel. He stands up without being aware that he moved, and steps forward. John holds still.
The feathers cascading behind him are brown, and gold, and gray. Their pattern is nebulous near the shoulders, and vividly barred in gold and black at the wingtips. Those outer feathers are enormous, at least 50 centimeters long. His daughter has a hawk quill she'd found on a country visit once, still sitting on her desk, and John's are thrice as long, more dramatically banded.
Lestrade remembers to breathe again. He looks at John's face, which is an interesting contrast of amusement and apprehension. Sherlock moves behind John and puts his hands possessively on the crest of each wing, staring impassively at Lestrade. John visibly relaxes, both shoulders and wings lowering minutely, the latter rustling softly. Sherlock glances down and disapprovingly smooths a few feathers back into place. John smiles for real.
"May I-", Lestrade begins. God why does this seem like an indecent proposal? "-touch?"
John swallows, but nods. Sherlock looks thunderous. Lestrade approaches the wing furthest away from Sherlock, and reaches out a tentative hand. The feathers feel warm and alive, twitching under his palm, and he is filled with awe.
Then he notices that John is flinching, almost an expression of pain on his face; and Sherlock reaches over and ungently knocks his hand away. "Enough," says Sherlock, and Lestrade steps quickly back.
"I don't understand," he grumbles, barely aware that he's spoken aloud.
"Nor do we," Sherlock says briskly, hands still guarding John's wings, fingers carding absently through soft brown feathers. He glares at Lestrade over John's jumpered shoulder. The color of the wool goes well with his feathers, Lestrade notes absently.
Then Lestrade has another thought. "Where'd you get his identity?" he asks, and has a hysterical moment in his head, that he's accepted that an unknown man has hatched out of an impossible egg, and may require an identity.
"My old one-" John begins, but Sherlock says over him, "Mycroft, of course. Now Lestrade, perhaps we can just go over our reports and be done with this?"
Lestrade shakes his head. In disbelief, not denial. "Do you have anything written up for me?" he asks hopefully. Sherlock nudges printed sheets across the coffee table to a pleasantly surprised Lestrade, who sweeps them up and skims over them. Their statements, damning evidence from the perspective of the accused, neatly skirt around any mentions of supernatural characteristics. Lestrade laughs softly. "If I hadn't actually seen it with my own eyes," he says, nodding towards John's massive wings, "I would believe this," and he shakes the few pages at them.
"It is a good thing," said Sherlock. "Since that's what everyone else is going to need to believe, and that's what you're getting."
"Yeah, yeah," Lestrade grins at the pair of them. "I'd be sectioned if I tried to contradict you, wouldn't I, then? And since I like my job, you are, as I've already said, safe with me. I've never been fond of the idea of a straight-jacket."
John laughs, and even Sherlock's stern face twitches slightly, the idea of a smile cracking through until he stuffs it back inside.
As Lestrade leaves, the men behind him are still standing together in front of the fireplace, one bewinged and fantastical, and the other standing guard at his back. He thinks, Only Sherlock. Trust Sherlock to have found a partner as unique in every way as he is himself. Lestrade figures now that this must be the reason he could never picture Sherlock with a partner. Even in his wildest dreams he couldn't have come up with a more improbable, or more perfect, companion for the stiff, strange genius.