Sherlock is five when he first sees John Watson. Of course, Sherlock does not know that this is, in fact, John Watson.
You see, Sherlock Holmes is dreaming. Literally, dreaming.
He is dreaming of a boy with golden wings. He can't see the boy's face, though. Over time, he will come to realise he can never see that boy's- then that man's- face. This boy, this man, this being, is always running away, always looking away, always fighting with his back to Sherlock.
But the feathers are gold, and they fall in his dreams, and he is always utterly transfixed by the beauty of them.
Sherlock Holmes comes to understand later on in life- when he becomes a famous painter- that this boy is really an angel, and that he must, no matter what, find him.
.
.
John is merely a baby when he first starts to see them, the wings on the backs on every single human being on the planet, the feathers of each of those wings, spun in different colours, every one of them telling different stories.
He asked his mum once, what they were. She told him to shut the fuck up and leave her alone.
John, being four when that happened, took it to heart he was a burden and should stay away from everyone and everything until he learned to quell the absurdity of what it meant, to see wings and feathers and all the like.
Of course, Harry had believed him. She always did. Hers were a pearl-white, silver streaked and luminescent when the sun shone through them. They curled in the breeze, and fluttered to their full height of eight feet when she felt- quite literally- on top of the entire world. That didn't happen often: their dad was a violent drunk and their mum was useless.
It's no surprise when the dreams start then.
Or the nightmares.
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.
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When Sherlock Holmes is thirteen, he sells his first oil painting.
It is a small thing, really, but the elderly woman who buys it cherishes the thing, says the single, golden feather in the centre of the black and grey canvas is beautiful and something to be treasured.
"It reminds me of my husband. He's been dead for years and years," she says. Sherlock doesn't say anything to that.
He knows who owns that feather, and it isn't some old man who was secretly having an affair with a woman half his age.
After he sells the first painting, he sells a second, and then a third.
All the same inspired paintings, all of one boy who carries wings on his back as bright as the sun and as sad as the moon.
Sherlock wants nothing more than to meet this boy, because he knows- he knows- this boy exists. Somewhere.
.
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Thirty-five year old Mike Stanford remembered when the bullets lashed down over their heads under the heat of God's bloody sun somewhere between the corner of one lonely, sandy street and the next. He remembered Fury going down in a hail of blood and fire. He'd never forget the sight of Aidan hitting the earth with the screams of a twenty-two year old not ready to die. He remembered Carol's head getting shot off his neck in a half second flat.
He remembered tripping over the hard sand and looking up into the bright sun's rays. He remembered going blind.
He remembered the fear, the sudden, overwhelming, longing for home.
He remembered John Watson.
John Watson, the only one who faced their attackers with the calm patience of a saint and the ease of someone who'd done it all before.
It was only later that Mike Stanford realised John Watson had taken the Browning A5 out of their Colonel's cold, dead hands.
Later, he also could've sworn he saw gold feathers hit the sandy dust as eighteen-year-old John protected him with no hint of fear in those deep blue eyes. But then again… that could've been what gratefulness looked like in Afghanistan.
.
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John is six now.
He can see the devil, lying over his sister's dead body.
The devil watches the boy with cold, evil eyes: eyes as red and black as sin. He bleeds out through lips kissed with blood.
"How does it feel-" the devil grins maniacally, "-to be able to see demons like me, son?"
The devil chokes on his own blood then.
He dies.
John doesn't scream.
Yes, he believes in monsters, but he only thinks Harry's playing a game with him.
.
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John woke with a scream on his cracked lips. He breathed deep in the darkness. A flash of lightning boomed against the white walls of his bedroom: he flinched, and his heart pounded against his ribcage.
The same nightmare. The same nightmare after twenty one years. He is twenty-seven, and is still haunted by her. He is twenty-seven, and he is used to the bone-tiredness and crushing hollowness that has accompanied him all his life. Sleepless nights and terrifying dreams of Afghanistan and screams and tortured pleas for nothing but numbness haunts him like the phantoms those memories are.
Nothing has changed in all his life.
He still sees wings on people's backs: the feathers that fall like snow from the skies above him stalk him from the day and into the night. Ceaseless. Never-ending. Eternal.
They scared him now.
"Go away," he pleaded in the darkness, as thunder crashed against the crumbling skies outside his bare window. He looked out into that darkness. "Please, just go away."
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.
.
It had come to the painter in a dream.
The strokes were furious- angry. Poetic. Completely and utterly undone - as the brush flicked like madness over the eight-foot tall canvas.
Greg had gotten up to grab a glass of water in the middle of the night, and the painter was still there, still painting, still musing over the depths of the unknowable world within the once-white canvas.
"Sherlock-"
"Shut up, Greg. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."
The fire danced in the painter's fingertips, the energy in every single flick of the wrist a pain and a burden and an absolute ecstasy.
Darkness-
There wasn't a grin, there wasn't a smile of satisfaction: this piece wasn't a work of art- it was a moment taken from the very soul of the character he'd dreamed of, the very person- no, not person- the very inhuman being who'd graced him with these swirling images.
A man, running- running away- running from the entire world-
"Sherlock, it's bloody three in the morning-"
"If you speak one more time I won't be able to think Greg so shut up." It came out as a pile of jargon: he'd had a gulp of coffee before he'd refocused sometime between the one and the two on the clock.
Sherlock continued to paint until his fingers snapped from the icy-cold of the blue acrylics, and his palms crackled from the hints of glittering gold in this mysterious- no, not mysterious… ethereal- being's hair.
It was done with the slow realisation that nothing more could be accomplished from the world inside the world of the canvas.
Sherlock sighed, stepped back, and watched the realm before him glitter as it came to life in his mind's eye:
The feathers that danced away from this inhuman, ethereal body were from his wings.
Looking at them, Sherlock mused whether they came from a waking dream…. or if they were the product of mere fancy.
He didn't want to be the one to say he wished it was all real.
.
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"So? What have you been up to lately?"
"Nothing much, as ever. You know me better than any of the lads."
"Seriously? Nothing much?"
"Well, yes. Since leaving the army… there isn't much to be doing nowadays, Mike."
"I would've thought you'd be happy to leave, though. You said you wanted to leave… didn't you? Or was that just for my sake?"
A pause.
"John?"
John gripped a shaking hand underneath the café table. Mike stared at him. Silence.
John tried to ignore the single, faded-grey feather as it fell limply from Mike Stamford's small, warbler-sized wings.
He knew right then and there would probably be better if Mike Stanford never saw him again: the stress was finally taking its toll.
.
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"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"I said no."
"And I said yes. You're going whether you want to or not, Sherlock."
"I have work to do."
"And so do I, but you don't see me giving a bloody toss about it Sherlock. Honestly, can you not just leave it for one night? It wouldn't kill you," Greg rolled his eyes. Sherlock caught the sarcasm in his voice, and mulled over it for the hundredth time. It had been going on for a few weeks, but the hollow, emotionless eyes on the silver-haired twenty three year old told Sherlock it wasn't just stress that was getting his friend down.
They were sitting in the sitting room, their usual haunt in the apartment, and were waiting for Molly to return from her late-night still-life drawing classes. She was all up for getting out, and Greg was already dressed up in his tux.
It was a Christmas party. Mycroft had invited all of them. And Sherlock most certainly did not want to go.
Sherlock fidgeted, curled his long and gangly legs up on the deep blue couch. "No. Go yourselves."
Greg didn't say anything for a moment, choosing instead to stare at that painting, the one he'd painted well over a week ago now. It scared him, that painting, as well as all the others.
There was something… eerie, about how it made him feel. He twisted his fingers into the small sofa opposite.
No, not just eerie-
He'd had those dreams too.
He looked down, trying to dispel the gold dashes of glitter that sparked the man's hair in his dreams- his nightmares- and gritted his teeth again. God, he'd been doing that a lot lately. It had to stop.
"Look, I get it: you want to sleep and sleep and sleep until you find that person in your dreams again," he said. "I understand, Sherlock, better than you'll ever know. But you need to get outside the house. College, and these paintings, yes they're important, but… having fun is important too, and I think you've forgotten… what that feels like."
'I'm worried about you, mate. I don't know you very long, but I do know that no matter how long we've known each other, were friends. And friends care, you idiot.'
Of course, Greg being Greg, he'd never say that part out loud.
There were a lot of things he never wanted to say out loud.
One of them was written on the deepest part of that organ that pounded loudly in his ribcage. The truth.
A minute passed between them, and Greg finally summoned the courage to look up to Sherlock's grey-blue eyes. Sherlock looked away from the dismal worry on Greg's face, his mouth forming a thin line. He didn't realise he was that easy to read, and he gave up the second he heard the true fear in his voice.
"Fine." He bit it out like it was a disgusting word. "Fine."
The clacking of the door sounded Molly's hurried arrival.
Outside the apartment, Greg could see the first few snowflakes begin to fall.
December 22nd was finally here.
.
.
The city of London was a sprawling monster that succumbed to the beauty of the first snow.
Cars and lorries and last-minute letters and carollers surrounded John as he walked with hands in pockets to his small apartment somewhere on the outskirts of the city. He passed a few children who were chatting merrily about the looming Christmas night when Santa would come, he watched with amusement at the glowing wonder of some of the windows of shops he walked by, and he was dazzled by the silver beams of lights that twinkled far above his head.
Sometimes, in the briefest moments, he felt in awe of the power of Christmas, at how close it brought people together, of how perfect it all seemed from the outside looking in. Christmas at the Watson household when he was growing up was all face-value, none of it real. There was no magic, no presents under the tree, nothing.
His father would drink himself violent and stupid, his mum would walk out the door on Christmas Eve and be gone for days, there'd be nothing to eat save for the stone-cold turkey in the fridge and a few leftovers from a few nights back. There'd be no church, no prayers, no family. Nothing.
Harry and he used to make presents for each other, though. They'd each take great care of the cards, pencilling in curly writing their Merry Christmases and their pictures of what Santa looked like and all his happy reindeer. When Harry was nine, she cooked a few slices of the turkey and they had a merry feast in her bedroom with the cheap crackers she saved up especially for the two of them that year.
John never realised why she locked the door when they were together in her room.
He didn't know what drunk meant until he saw his dad sprawled over her dead body, with that wicked expression on his face, and her torn bedclothes in his bloody hands.
Gripping his palms in the here and now, he remembered Harry's happy face and pretended she was still alive, because that was what kept him loosely tethered here, in this world.
His breath tagged in the air. He didn't realise he'd closed his eyes until he opened them and faced the pedestrian crossing that led him in the opposite direction of his apartment. He was heading further into the city, and for once, he didn't question his feet. He simply walked.
The snow continued to fall, and he ignored the unpleasant sight of wings and feathers when he turned corners and saw children with the same coloured wings as Harry's.
The thing was, a part of him had gotten so used to seeing these things, and he'd probably miss it terribly if it was suddenly taken away from him. The other part- the sane part, the part that told him he was fucking crazy- said he needed to see someone about it, tell someone about it.
A little girl passed him, her mother gripping her hand tightly lest she walk out onto the road. The child's wings were a glittering yellow, the kind of yellow that reminded John of a canary bird, while the mother's dripped a beautiful pale-pink, the kind of colour that matched her daughter's perfectly. The feathers from their wings trickled onto the newly fallen snow.
A boyfriend and girlfriend chattered amiably as they exchanged presents in front of one of London's many churches. Their colours, a sombre blue for the girl, and a bright and cheerful green for the boy, told John that although they were young, they would be together a lot longer than either of them ever dreamed to imagine.
A little boy whose wings were the brightest, fiery red John had ever seen, was hastily grabbing his sister's hand before they both latched onto their grandmother, and together, the meld of red, orange and faded white mixed with all the patterns of colours in all the world to create a world so beautiful and so terrifying only John Watson could see it.
He knew he was alone.
In all the world, he'd never met someone who'd babbled about the wild, evil colours of some of his enemies in Afghanistan, the ones who pretended in broad daylight that they were friendly when their wings dripped a sickening grey. On the day he met Mike Stanford, John Watson saw the foreboding grey and charcoal feathers fall to the sandy ground before they attacked. He knew. He knew what true colours were.
He knew there was no-one else in all the world who saw angels where none otherwise existed.
.
.
"Mummy? What are they?"
"What are what John?"
"The things falling from the sky?"
"For God's sakes, John, there's nothing falling from the fucking sky."
.
.
Sherlock was staring out over the balcony of the hotel, watching London with the imprint of an unknowable face in his mind. Behind him, the doors had been thrown open wide, admitting fresh, cool air for the heat of the party now in full swing. The swish of the gauzy white curtains reminded him of the sound of feathers catching fire, turning gold in his hands.
God, he hated parties. So boring. So full of people who thought the world of themselves. So full of nothing but drink and smoke and secrets and lies. The music, though, that was good. If Beethoven was anything to go by.
"My my, Mycroft, is that your younger brother? Sherlock Holmes, the great artist?" a droll female tone echoed in the background of Beethoven's quiet violin sonata. Sherlock fought the urge to turn and tell her to shut the hell up: she was a dignitary in the political world, a substantial influence since her father became the head of national security. He would know: Mycroft had been trying for the position since he turned twenty-five, and though it pained him to say it, his older brother knew he would never get the job.
There was something altogether unhealthy about him. For one, his eyes were the colour of coals and he looked a man well beyond his years. Much the same as Greg. Much the same as Molly. Much the same as Sherlock.
"Yes, it is," Mycroft dismissed easily. "Best leave him alone: I can tell he's contemplating his next work."
Translation: Get your arse back into the party and start mingling, dear brother.
Sherlock waited until the pair had passed out of earshot and wandered deeper into the throngs of people who'd arrived simply to talk and to discuss affairs and the like. There was dancing, of course, and food, and a whole lot of bloody time wasted. Sherlock longed for the comfort of a bed and sleep and dreams where he could see that face again, memorize the lines in those hands, the lost, troubled shoulders, and the glittering evanescence of spiralling feathers, like the one that just passed his face now-
Sherlock stopped. What?!
He turned, looked up, and watched the gentle flicker of a single, beautiful golden feather as it danced downward through the chilly Christmas air. Standing on the tenth balcony, he watched with… with awe, as the thing continued to fall downward, as if falling from complete and utter grace, as if lost in a world where a city like London has no place for it.
Falling toward the hell of the streets far, far below.
"Holy shit," Sherlock murmured, his mouth opening, then shutting against the puffing air around him. He clasped the railings of the balcony, shifted his weight until he was looking out over the edge, to the city below his feet. There, the feather continued to fall, and Sherlock blinked and in the space of a breath-
"Harry? Where are you?"
Feathers, falling, everywhere. There were bloodstains on the white ones.
The unknowable face could smell her fear: it was so tangible he could almost reach out and touch it in the dark corridor in the middle of the freezing cold night. Dad had forgotten to buy oil for the heater.
"Harry? I'm scared."
A child's voice.
God, a little boy's voice-
"Harry?"
Now, the child was knocking on his sister's door. The feathers were falling more. All had bloodstains-
And the little boy…
Sherlock swore he could feel his little heart racing faster.
Sherlock wanted to see that face. He never ever got the chance to see that face, in any of his dreams.
This person was always running away from him, always trying to find a way to get away-
- he felt himself come right back to earth.
The single, golden feather was further away now, lost in the maze of London's streets.
The twinkling of the piano lulled him back to reality, lulled him back to where people drank champagne in between their daily routines to ease their stresses and worries, fought for law suits to gain profits and swore allegiance to a united Britain, and-
Sherlock honestly couldn't have cared bloody less, because he wanted to reach out and catch that feather-
He turned. He started running. He ignored Mycroft's calling him, he ignored Greg and Molly's shouts when he passed them.
The world was a blur: the single golden feather was the- no, his- only constant.
He didn't take the elevator {too slow} but pounded down the flights of stairs, skipping two, three, five at a time in order to find that feather, that golden feather. Sherlock felt a longing he'd never felt before, not since the hour between sleeping nd waking, when all he craved was to touch the boy, the man, in his dreams. He wanted to race out into the streets of London and search and search and search for that feather until he was no longer able to, because-
The world shifted into a clarity Sherlock never imagined impossible. Jesus, no.
The lobby of the London Hilton shifted into focus, and all the rich and famous turned to see him, Sherlock Holmes, the modern Picasso, run out into the fray of a London gone wild with falling snow and noisy carollers and bright, bright, bright Christmas lights. He couldn't see the feather- it was no longer falling through the sky- it must've landed somewhere- must've- {shit, no. No. No no no no-} and he swerved a full circle, before he felt himself crash right into someone-
A burning sensation filled the places where his body touched the stranger's-
"Sorry- I didn't mean-" he reached out, turned to apologise with the dull ember of loss filling his chest. {Shit. It's gone. I can't find-}His cold breath made him blink, then the whole world, everything- shifted into focus, and-
"Harry? Can we play a game?"
The bloody feathers were still falling, and the little boy felt so scared. He wouldn't open her bedroom door, because he didn't want to bother her-
The boy turned around and sunk to his bare feet against the wall by her bedroom door. The feathers had pooled from the blank ceilings around his legs, white, and stinking of blood. The little boy curled the teddy that was a little too big for him closer to his body, shivering with the thoughts that ran through his mind.
Sherlock simply crouched in front of that boy, simply watched in awe, in complete and utter wonder.
The boy's face.
He could finally see the boy's face.
The little boy looked up to him, eyes as blue as the deepest sea, as full of fear as a soldier's, as quiet as the barest hint of a breeze, as loud as the loudest clap of thunder-
"Sorry, that was my fault- I wasn't looking as to where I was going-" the man was saying, not looking back to Sherlock's transfixed eyes. "Sorry, um- Merry Christmas-"
The man turned to leave, and there, Sherlock Holmes saw them.
Those wings, the same ones from his dreams, the same ones from all those countless paintings he'd painted and sketched and breathed to life, and sold. These golden embers of bright flames were folded, fearful, tucked as close to this man's body as they could get. But they were big. Sherlock imagined them at their full height: daring, ominous. Godly, willing to protect, willing to save.
He stole a quick glance above him, and there, they were all falling- those feathers, more than one, or two, or a dozen- but thousands, all blurring into one glorious beam of golden fire. They sky was alive, alight, breathing with the smoke they created, the fire they sparked. If anyone else could see this, they'd wonder- they'd fear- whether the world was coming to an end. Sherlock simply believed it was nothing short of a… fascinating curiosity.
The man was leaving him.
Sherlock knew his eyes were the deepest blue.
Sherlock was still crouching in front of that little boy. The boy was staring back at him, like he really was there.
"Who are you?" Sherlock was asking, whispering. Just in case. The little boy merely watched him with a blank face.
"Excuse me-?" Sherlock said aloud, reaching out to touch the shoulder of the man. "Excuse me? Sorry- I think I-"
The man turned, and this time he looked- really looked- at him. Sherlock saw blue eyes: he smelled fear. Sherlock stopped. The man stopped.
Time slowed between them.
The feathers continued to fall.
For Sherlock, they were gold.
For John, they were the colour of pearls and brown.
Sherlock saw a thousand messages in each and every one of those golden feathers. "I'll run if I have to" was most definitely one of them- this man was so afraid of the world. Maybe now that he'd finally {finally} met him, he would stop fearing, stop tucking himself away from everyone else.
These were real feathers. By God. They actually existed. Not a symbol for the man he'd never met, nor a metaphor.
They. Were. Real.
Sherlock breathed in at the exact moment John breathed out, and somehow, the sounds of London dulled to the merest whisper.
"Excuse me? Sorry- I think-" Sherlock tried to remember what he was going to say. What was it?
What could he say to the person- the inhuman human- he dreamt of his entire life and never truly met?
It came to him in seconds. Finally, he let the world come crashing down around him.
The snow continued to fall, silent, promising. Between them. Around them. Above them.
"I know you."