Warning: There is a kiss between John and Sherlock in this. If you don't like, skip, um, the scene with the mirror.

Coincidental Cold

Book 2

'John'

Many people know and see Sherlock Holmes as a machine, a freak, a genius, maybe an emotionless monster, but always calculating and thinking, never stopping and beyond befuddlement.

Which is very close to accurate pre-John, but the moment Sherlock set his eyes on the man, he was constantly shocked and surprised and, maybe not so surprisingly, befuddled.

John, to him, was a grounded anchor on this world, when he got carried away with drugs and cases and boredom. He held his ankle in a firm but comforting grip, kept him sane, with a warm smile and simple words.

Now, as he laid on the floor of their flat, ivory wings spread completely and spreading through their living room and well into the kitchen, Sherlock knew he had good reason to be shocked stupid and stare. But, even though, his mind was whirling and trying to grasp a very simple, impossible flat: His one, true friend was winged.

The said winged man asked if he could crank up the air conditioning to nearly freezing. Sherlock did so and got a blanket for himself, wrapping it around his shoulders as he watched John gently peel off his torn and ruined jumper and shirt underneath. His bare back was revealed.

The wings were attached seamlessly into his back, muscle flowing flawlessly into the strong wing muscles, feathers smooth and glistening from the slight rain. Sherlock couldn't help but notice his wings had a blue hue to them, not a true blue, but a kind of shadowy blue on the edges of the feathers.

John then lay down on the floor, on his stomach, and sighed as his wings tenderly extended fully, touching the far wall and slipping under the kitchen table.

"How?" That, obviously, was Sherlock.

John smiled slightly, and turned his head to lie on his hands, and looked at Sherlock as the detective sat by his head. "You mean, how can I have wings?"

"Obviously."

"If you haven't already inferred, I'm not human. I may look so, but I'm really…" he trailed off, thinking. "There's no word to really describe the name of our species in any language I've encountered…the closet thing I can think is, ironically, 'Angel.' I'm technically an Angel."

Sherlock liked the coincidence.

"I don't know how to explain this…well, I have lived up in the sky for my entire life. Up in something called the Palace, in English. It's not all posh like you're thinking, it's not really a Palace, just the biggest building for Angels to live in."

"How did you fall, John?" Another thought occurred to him. "You're real name isn't John, is it?"

John smiled a bit ruefully. "No. You have to understand, when you asked me, I was totally ignorant in every kind of Earth tradition. I didn't know names, places, languages, things, traditions, anything. So I chose the first name that came to mind. 'John Watson.' It just…fit, I think." He thought about it. "I'm a bit sorry to say this, but I chose to be a doctor because you hated doctors."

Sherlock couldn't help but smile. "You became Doctor John Watson just to spite me?"

"Yeah, I did," he said. "I didn't want to interest you. I wanted to be able to get home without anyone remembering me—and if that means becoming a doctor just to get you off my tail, I would do it."

Sherlock thought back. "Can you tell me…everything? How you fell, how you got those records, how you're wings just…appeared?" He felt strange referring to the avian attachment on John's back, even though he could see it, nearly touch it.

So John told Sherlock everything. How he fell, how he got the scar on his shoulder (which turned into an hour long discussion about Howlers), why It was black and an angry red, how he could learn from other's minds, why he had trouble walking and breathing, why he thought his wings disintegrated and reappeared (under stress and filled with hormones—the wings probably weren't able to take it), why his eyes had flared that brilliant blue.

It lasted well into the night, and when John finished, he was strong enough to sit up and fold his wings softly, still slightly puffed out though. He sat with his legs folded under him, wings to the either side of him. He looked almost like, well, an angel.

Sherlock reached across the gap separating them and gently placed his hand on John's arm.

It was like a promise. A silent, binding promise. I will keep you safe.

Or: I understand.

Or maybe: You're mine.

You're my fallen Angel.

John's skin turned a rash red under his touch, but John's body, face and eyes showed no trace of any kind of pain. Sherlock pulled his hand back and hissed. "I'm—"

"No, don't apologize," John said quickly, retaking Sherlock's hand almost greedily. John wouldn't described it like that, but any witness (ahem, me) would have. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"'Anymore'?" Sherlock questioned, looking at the red marks on John's tanned arm.

John looked down at their hands. "I hurt at first. To be touched, I mean. It burned. I guess it was because I was still very pure—innocent, I suppose. I couldn't stand the touch of any human. You have to understand, Sherlock, that compared the Angels, humans are dirty, greedy little bastards. Filthy beasts eating all of the Earth's food and multiplying so fast that it was downright scary. Angels, on the other hand, are calm, peaceful beings. Never angry, never mad, never greedy. We live for thousands of years—it's so rare that Angels are ever born. I've been alive almost two hundred years—no, don't give me that look, I'm still very young—and only been alive to see one birth. That was when I was seventy two, and it was the birth of…" he trailed off, thinking of the name translated into English. "Sera, I believe.

"Anyways, when a filthy creature like a human touches something so pure, it hurts the pure and cleanses the dirty. But the more I got touched, the more smog and thick air I breathed in, the more I used this strange language, I felt…less pure. Tainted. But not in a bad way—I almost feel freed from that ignorant state."

Sherlock watched John's face throughout this explanation, watched his eyes and the lines around his mouth, saw his eyes shift and the subtle change in his voice when he spoke of his old home.

John risked a glance up at Sherlock's face and saw him staring. He held his eyes but didn't venture into his mind. "Sherlock, now that you know all of this, you're in such a dangerous place. If Angels ever found me, found me with you and saw the immense knowledge of their culture in your mind, they will not hesitate to kill you. Yes, I know, 'pure and innocent and untainted', but there are some Angels that are sworn to protect our world at any cost. I won't be able to stop them. You cannot tell anyone—nor can you think about it, if you can."

A thought seemed to strike him just then. "Oh, bloody hell, I'll have to teach you to protect your mind. It's good, though, that you already have some protection, but it will be a challenge—against an Angel or a Howler, you'll be crushed in seconds, even if I teach you for years and years." The angel suddenly yawned, for several long seconds.

Sherlock's lips curled into a smile without him really thinking about it. "You better get some sleep, John."

John nodded and slowly stood up, his wings snatching his attention from anything else in the room. He started to walk towards his room, then paused and looked back at Sherlock.

"Have you figured out why you're not an addict anymore?"

Sherlock looked up; having just been thinking on those lines, thought, then shook his head.

"You told an Angel you didn't want to be an addict. So some of my…magic that drops off of me naturally focused on you and eliminated the chemical and physical needs in your mind and body. You stopped being an addict literally overnight. Without withdrawal, because you basically slept through it when you fell asleep on the couch." With that, John walked up the stairs, his cape of ivory trailing behind him.

-Fallen Angel-

That night, our special boys had ignored the most obvious problem that faced them: how were they going to keep John's wings a secret?

He couldn't just not go out; Lestrade, Mycroft, and basically everyone at the station would notice the lack of John on cases. He also couldn't just pull a jumper over them, because they extended well past his knees, splayed out about a foot on each side, and hung over a foot above his head.

John was contemplating the problem in a full size mirror Sherlock and conjured from his bedroom. He tried typing the bottom edges together, and even though it did hide them behind his legs, he would have to stuff them down his pant legs, and that would be very painful for sitting and nearly impossible to extend them in any reasonable time.

Sherlock came in and watched John try to fold his wings tighter, as if that would minimize the sixteen and a half foot wingspan. The detective slowly walked around the Angel, looking over the wings repeatedly. He then grabbed a blanket and threw it over John's head and the wings.

Sherlock snickered.

John frowned from under the blanket, and lifted it up to look at his friend's face. "Yes, Sherlock, that will certainly work."

"Well, no need to be cynical about it," Sherlock said as he walked into the kitchen, searching for his phone. Maybe it had dropped out of his pocket when he had been manhandled into flying. Or possibly it fell out mid-flight. He was amused by the thought of it hitting a car or someone, and the thoughts of how a cellular phone could have fallen from the sky.

John had turned back to the mirror, and then pulled off the blanket from his wings. "The first time they disappeared, I was falling. I had fallen through the Howler's already, and maybe it was the pain and fear that made them disintegrate. When they reappeared, I didn't even think about it—I just knew I had to jump, grab you and fly. I just…assumed they would be there."

Sherlock, by this point, had practically prowled back to where John was talking to his reflection. "I believe you have just stated the connection, dearest John."

John glanced up in the mirror, seeing Sherlock's face loom over his shoulder and wing. He turned, seeing that look intensify in his eye as he looked into it, not just at the reflection.

That look was none other than lust.

Sherlock prowled closer, putting his hands on John's good shoulder and pressing him gently against the tilting mirror. The glass was cold on his wings and the sliver of flesh that touched it. John's eyes had widened impossibly big.

Sherlock put his lips near the much older man's ear, nearly brushing them. "My dear Angel, you really surprise me at how blind you can be, when the answer is truly right in front of you."

With that, he pulled back, grabbed John's head in his and pressed his lips against the Angel's.

John gasped, his eyes wide, as the human kissed him, and it was so strange and foreign and…right. He let his eyes slip closed and felt so many emotions course through him and nearly rip him in two. Sherlock made a small sound against his lips and pulled back, smiling triumphantly.

"Problem solved," he said and walked away.

John gasped for breath, clutching at his chest. Before he spoke, he turned and looked in the mirror. He was met with the sight of a wingless, breathless man.

John laughed, a little shakily. "Damn it, Sherlock, you bloody genius! But if you really wanted to kiss me that badly, you should have asked," he added teasingly.

Sherlock laughed, deep and true. "Yes, well. It was really simple, John, you just needed hormones and a pretty substantial shock to get those wings to disappear. Quickest way, of course, was a little out of the blue romantic approach."

"Only you would describe a kiss as a 'romantic approach'," John said, catching his breath in the cold air of their flat. Mrs. Hudson had given them an earful but Sherlock promised to pay her extra and kept the air conditioning blasting for John's well being.

Sherlock smiled, not letting John see as he opened his laptop. He turned and looked at John as he pulled on one of his more favorite jumpers, one that Mrs. Hudson had bought for him a week or two ago.

"Chinese tonight?" Sherlock questioned his angel's back as he made tea.

John pulled a face. "Angelo's instead?"

"Well enough."

He came back and handed Sherlock a cup and went over to the window, looking up at the sky.

Several minutes passed before Sherlock broke the comfortable silence.

"Do you miss them?"

John knew instantly who Sherlock was talking about, but took his time answering. "Not as much as I should."

"Are you going back?"

John looked at his cup. "Not on my own."

Sherlock's silence spoke more than any words could have. John sighed.

"I'm a big person in the Angel society, Sherlock, believe it or not. If there are any possibilities to get me back, the Angels will not hesitate to do so. I won't have a choice, really, and I will have to go." He paused and decided to explain from a different angle. "You know those holes in the clouds, when light seems to spill from them in pillars of gold? That's light from the Angel domain breaking through the Howlers. It's like a passage, that one could fly either down or up to get through the Howlers safely. The rescue would use one of those, if it is under the control of the Blue Palace, and find me, then wait for another and fly up through it."

Sherlock, by this point, had joined him at the window, looking at the gray sky. "Why haven't they already come for you?"

"They're not as common as you think, Sherlock, and they're very brief—you have to be at the exact place at the exact time."

Sherlock simply nodded.

"You won't leave, then?"

John smiled at his tall, not-Angel friend.

"No, Sherlock. I'm not leaving until I absolutely have to."

From my point of view, after watching thus far into these two unlikely friend's story, I find myself wishing that nothing would happen to them, that they would live quietly and peacefully, untouched by the Howlers and Angels alike.

But we all know that that could never happen. The pure wanted their fallen back, the demons wanted their long-awaited meal.

The fallen demon, however, was a different story.

Done! Wow, that was a long one! It really got out of hand after the explanation—and sorry for those who don't like the relationship between John and Sherlock, but I positively love them together, even if it is a simple kiss to de-wing the Angel. ;)

I now have slipped completely back into my most comfortable style, but I hope that's okay—I'll probably write the story-telling way at the end. Hopefully. Probably.

I've got really nothing more to say besides R.E.V.I.E.W. PLEASE.

Stay Happy,

Spirit

(Oh, by the way, I don't own Sherlock or the characters. But the plot it mine.)