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He was roused by the knelling of wind pipes—and that was very, very odd. Down here, so far below ground, the air never moved; it was stagnant and thick with the fug of blood and sweat and waste. That last blow to the head must have rattled something loose in his brains to have imagined such an incongruous sound.
Unsurprisingly, the mournful tones did not repeat. Sensory damage, he assumed. His body was shutting down, after all, having gone too long without food and water, having lost too much blood, having suffered too much trauma. A day at the most, he reckoned, and his remains would be fodder for the wolves. Not even a last-minute rescue could save him now. The stuff of fiction, that, the sort of thing John loved to read or watch, wherein the good guy had a spot of bother, but always, amidst a hailstorm of clever repartee (and a few bruises), made it home for tea.
He had come close. So close. Running full out, half naked, even then more than half starved, he had made it to within a few meters of the border. But between the armed men on the ground, the dogs, and the all-seeing eye of the helicopter whirling overhead, they had taken him down and dragged him back here, to this all too familiar hellhole.
But that was okay. John was safe. Two weeks ago—it was two weeks, wasn't it?—just before his capture, he had received a two-digit confirmation from Mycroft acknowledging receipt of his report. He would have acted promptly; Sherlock had to trust his brother that far. John was safe. He had to be. It was all that mattered.
"You're a right mess." Sherlock's ears pricked up; that was a voice he hadn't heard before. English—mostly RP, but with notes of indecipherable influences. Raspy—its owner obviously had a pernicious cigarette habit. Bored—Sherlock would recognize that jaded tone anywhere. It had come from the same shadowed corner as the drone of the wind pipes his mind had conjured.
With almost the last of his strength, Sherlock raised his head and peered through the overlong tangle of his hair. A man sat on a breeze block a few feet away, indolently slouching against the cement wall, one leg crossed over the other. A ridiculous pair of dark glasses concealed his eyes.
"Who are you?" Sherlock's voice was scarcely more than a hoarse whisper. Screaming, try as he might to abstain, took its toll.
"Your fairy godmother." The man sat forward and, even through the darkened lenses, Sherlock could feel the weight of his glower. "Get out of jail free card. Deus ex machina. What have you."
This was a form of torture he had not yet experienced. "You're here … to rescue me?" Sherlock said sardonically, and then tensed, expecting a blow.
But the man only smiled at him, displaying an inordinate number of sharp teeth. "He said you were clever."
Sherlock ignored the sarcasm. "He?"
"You did him a favor once, found a manuscript or text or some blessed thing that one of his light-fingered patrons had nicked."
It was not a memory that should have come immediately to mind. And yet … "The bookseller in Soho?"
"That's the one."
What an odd hallucination for his dying brain to dredge up. Sherlock summoned a ghost of a smile; it was all that his cracked and bleeding lips could manage. "And you would be?"
"His friend. He couldn't come, so here I am."
Sherlock's eyes began to drift shut, that small expenditure of energy more than he had to spare. "Ah," he mumbled, fading fast. "Too bad you're not real. He was a nice man."
"Actually, I'm as real as they come, lucky for you." There was a sharp sound, like the snapping of fingers, and Sherlock's head cleared. It simply cleared. More than that, he could breathe.
"What did … ?" He surrendered a moment to the unexpected exhilaration of working lungs. "Was that you? How … ?"
"Better to do it in stages. Ready for the next bit?"
Swallowing properly for the first time in days, Sherlock choked out, "Yes?"
The other man rose from his perch, all spidery limbs and slinky motion. There was something innately disquieting about him, something that Sherlock had never encountered before. If this was all a dream, however, it was leagues better than the horrors that had populated his existence for the last month. And if it wasn't a dream— "You shouldn't be here!" Sherlock hissed. "They'll be back any—"
"Nope. They're all sleeping." As he spoke, the man lowered his hand and, as he brought it back up, he swiped his middle finger against his thumb. The resulting snap seemed to send shock waves against Sherlock's ears.
But he had no time to ponder that. His bindings fell away and, freed from their support, he dropped like a stone to the soiled floor. He heard another snap and suddenly, even more impossibly, every wound on and inside his body—and he had stopped counting their number days ago—no longer hurt. Not only that, but somehow, even more astoundingly, every one of them was now obviously healed. "Who are you?"
The third time was, apparently, the charm. "Crowley." The man went down on his heels in front of him. "Someone's coming to get you out. Azira—my friend—thought you wouldn't make it if I didn't get here immediately. He was right; you were very close. And people are a lot more trouble than doves, so better not to have to bother with that." Sherlock could only stare at him. He understood the words, but they didn't make the least sense. "Also, you need to get back to London. Your friend is about to do something stupidly dangerous."
That got through. "My friend? John? Do you mean John?" Barely capable of breathing only moments ago, it was with astonishing ease that Sherlock yanked himself to his feet. All the same, he tottered for a moment as his body relearned the concept of standing on its own.
"Yeah." Crowley eyed him with a frown of disgust. "Still a mess." He snapped his fingers yet again, and Sherlock found himself clothed from head to toe. His skin-tight trousers were denim; his Oxford shirt, silk; and his jumper, cashmere. He was shod in something Italian and even his pants and socks fit perfectly. Shivering in the warmth, the delicious warmth, he gave his head a wondering shake. "How did you—?"
But the man, Crowley, was gone, the deep and very brief resonant tolling of wind pipes presumably signaling his departure.
"Oh." Sherlock shuttered his eyes, tight and tighter, until small glowing circles appeared behind his lids. This had to be a delusion, the last flickers of consciousness before everything shut down entirely. If the experience followed tradition, he should soon see a tunnel with a light beckoning at its end.
"Sherlock?"
He knew that voice. But his damaged brain could not possibly hate him so much as to parade Mycroft before him as the last thing he ever saw. Yet, there in the doorway, visible through slitted eyes, his brother stood, dressed in the uniform of the men who had hunted him down, a very strange expression on his very real seeming face.
"Mycroft?"
Mycroft lowered his head a fraction in affirmation. "Sherlock." Stepping cautiously closer as he took in everything—the chains dangling from the walls; the bloodied pipe on the floor; the car battery on the filthy table, attached cables tipped with crocodile clips; the disgusting fluids soaking into the dirt—Mycroft intoned with a rare baffled smile, "You're looking unexpectedly well."
A faintly hysterical giggle threatened to disgrace him. Sherlock clamped his jaws together. "Hm."
"I found a dozen unconscious Serbian extremists shackled together in the next room, their weapons melted in the corner. Did you—?"
"Not me."
"Then who?"
Sherlock expelled a sharp breath through his nose. He could have said, "Crowley," but that would have meant nothing to Mycroft. He could have added that Crowley was the friend of a bookseller in Soho, for whom Sherlock had once done a very minor favor, and that he had been sent by that same bookseller to free Sherlock from his bindings, to restore his health even though death had seemed unavoidable, and to dress him in clothing made out of nothing. And Mycroft's reaction would be entirely, insultingly, predictable. Not to mention understandable. So, he said, instead, "I don't know."
With an insouciance he didn't feel, he started walking toward his brother, trusting his legs to function, even though one fibula and one femur—not on the same leg—had been badly fractured only moments before. "I think it was a mira—" But he couldn't say it. He just couldn't say it. And it didn't matter anyway, as he had been wrong about his legs. They buckled beneath him and he started to pitch forward into darkness. But the last thing he knew, the last real thing he knew, was the solidity of his brother's arms catching him before he could fall.
* * *
Crowley's words haunted him every hour of the two-day, multi-leg journey back to London. Your friend is about to do something stupidly dangerous.
Doctors examined him on the plane and on the ground between planes and pronounced him in perfect health, with the proviso that he could stand to put on a few pounds, a rote pronouncement that Sherlock never failed to disregard. Mycroft questioned him over and over, with a watchful intensity that put Sherlock increasingly on edge. He answered truthfully, with certain necessary omissions, every single time, for fear that his brother might feel compelled to put him under professional observation, which would delay his return to London, and John.
It was obvious that Mycroft knew that Sherlock was leaving something out, but he refused to mention Crowley, more than half-believing that the man had been a figment of his malfunctioning consciousness. The snap of the fingers could not effect the things that Crowley had done. And yet, he had done them, and Sherlock's well-being and bespoke attire were the evidence of his efforts.
He spent much of the journey home ruminating on the facts of his experience. Human beings could not do the things Crowley had done. Did that mean that Crowley was not human? And by extension, did that also mean that his friend, the Soho bookseller, that quaint man with tiny spectacles on the end of his nose, that man whose face had seemed to glow with an ethereal light when Sherlock handed over his missing book, that same man whose name Sherlock had forgotten the instant he had walked out of the bookshop, was not human as well?
If not human, what were they? What could they be?
Sherlock itched to explore this mystery further. Once back in London, he would visit the bookshop and demand an explanation. The thought of it consumed him—until, an hour out of London, when Mycroft handed him a folder.
Inside it, he learned about John and the stupidly dangerous thing he was about to do. He had fallen in love and purchased an engagement ring—a proposal must be imminent. Stupid, yes; at least as far as Sherlock was concerned. But why it was dangerous, he couldn't begin to guess. His intended, sweet-faced but bland, as were most of John's girlfriends, was, if Mycroft's detailed information was to be believed, boringly unremarkable. So, why was John in danger?
* * *
Sherlock walked into the restaurant and began to scan the room. His eyes were drawn to John almost immediately, and his heart, already beating fast, skipped not only a beat, but seemed to leap over a chasm. Dressed in a flattering suit and still sporting the dreadful moustache Sherlock had noted in his dossier photos, John sat alone. In his hands he held a ring box, the ring within glittering with reflected light.
The last two years weighed on him, Sherlock was sorry to see, new lines carved into his brow and around his mouth, and the circles beneath his eyes almost luridly pronounced. His moustache twitched nervously as he pursed his lips and set and reset his jaw. Sherlock wanted to take him into his arms and drown him in apologies and explanations, to kiss him senseless, to bring him endless cups of tea and mountains of biscuits.
He knew that the first six months of his absence had taken a terrible toll on John. Drink had provided temporary consolation but had also resulted in the loss of his job as well as two encounters with the authorities that could have gone very badly but for Mycroft's intervention. The first had involved a minor altercation on the pavement outside a pub; the second, which had unfolded on the roof of Bart's, had almost caused the death of a constable. In trying to drag a deeply intoxicated and aggressively uncooperative John away from the edge, the man had lost his footing and almost toppled over the side, himself.
From that moment on, John had crawled his way out of the pit of depression and drink. He had been aided by Lestrade and Mycroft, both of whom, in his own way, had helped him onto more stable ground. With a new job, a new flat, and ongoing therapy, he had slowly come to grips with Sherlock's loss. And then Mary, the intended recipient of that ring, had joined the surgery. According to the dossier, she had set her sights on John from the moment she walked in the door. He had resisted, at first, refusing her invitations to coffee, to lunch, to the cinema. But within a few weeks of her charm assault, lonely and alone, he had succumbed. Now they shared her flat and an engagement was in the offing.
Sherlock feared that he had left it too late.
He needed to approach him, unobserved if possible, in order to assess the state of his mind and his receptiveness to Sherlock's return. John had never been the most perceptive of men, so, Sherlock decided, a simple ruse should suffice. In the back of his mind, klaxons blared and warning lights flashed, but he dismissed them as a natural side effect of his prickling nerves and set about gathering the props necessary to alter his appearance.
A few moments later, garbed in a bow tie and an eyeliner moustache, he started toward John's table. He had gone a single step when he was seized by the upper arm in a painful grip. "There you are!" a gravelly voice said sharply, as if through clenched teeth. "Chef wants to see us both immediately."
Aware that struggling would garner the wrong sort of interest, Sherlock began to object in a low, low voice, "What are you doing?" just as he got a glimpse of his abductor. "You!"
Crowley spoke sharply directly into his ear. "Yes, me, you idiot." The flame-haired man was stronger than his spindly frame suggested, and he hustled Sherlock through the maze of tables to the opposite end of the dining room with ease. Rather than taking him into the kitchen, however, he escorted him into the men's toilets. Sherlock managed a last glance at John before the door shut behind them, just in time to see a blonde woman he recognized as Mary Morstan lower herself into the chair opposite him.
With a casual flick of the hand, Crowley either jammed or locked the door, aborting Sherlock's attempt to wrench it back open.
Outraged, Sherlock exclaimed, "What are you doing here? Why are you—?"
"Shut up." Crowley ripped off his dark glasses and glared down at him, his extra inch of stature, combined with the thick heels of his boots, giving him a considerable advantage in height. At sight of intensely yellow sclera and vertically-slitted black pupils, the words died in Sherlock's mouth. "Are you trying to get yourself and your friend killed?" Crowley snarled.
Sherlock fell back a step. "What are you?"
Smirking crookedly, Crowley held out his hand. He rolled it over so that the palm was uppermost. A gout of flame shot up from his lifeline, and Sherlock reared back, as much in surprise as to avoid the fierce heat of the fire.
It was impossible, utterly impossible. But he had always trusted his senses—save for those times when he himself had caused their impairment—and he trusted them now. He gulped. "Improbable."
Crowley laughed, and the flame vanished. "At least you didn't say impossible."
Twisting his chin to ease the constriction at his throat—he detested ties!—Sherlock drew himself up to his full height, prepared to stand his ground. All the evidence indicated that Crowley meant him no harm, had in fact rescued him from certain death. He would depend on his goodwill now not to take offense."You are not human," he observed aloud, pleased by how matter-of-fact, how unconcerned, he sounded. "What kind of being are you?"
"Being," Crowley echoed, amusement making his narrow features slightly less daunting. "Most people say 'creature.' What do you think, Sherlock Holmes? You must have some idea."
Sherlock shook his head, meeting those fascinating but terrifying eyes unflinchingly. "It would be guessing, and I do not guess."
Crowley's smile widened. Was that approval? "Demon."
Sherlock blinked. Behind his composed facade, a storm of thoughts raged inside his head. He had never been an aficionado of fiction, not even as a child, once past the age of six, so his knowledge of mythical creatures was marginal. Demons were a folkloric construct, as ridiculous as fairies, or ghosts, or vampires. "Not an alien?"
Crowley tsked. "Aliens don't exist."
Sherlock sighed. Of course they didn't. He licked his lips and continued to meet Crowley's unnerving gaze. "What did you mean about my getting John killed?"
"I said your friend and you. You are at risk, too."
"How?"
"You won't like it."
"I already don't like it!" That glimpse had shown him a lovely woman with golden hair and soft features—and John's welcoming smile as she had sat across from him.
"Well, you'll like this even less." Crowley allowed a few seconds to pass, the tension building between them.
"Do you need a drumroll?" Sherlock snapped.
The man-shaped thing had the audacity to laugh. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He spread his hands. "She's a demon, too."
Sherlock felt his insides collapse in on themselves, and it was suddenly very difficult to breathe. "That woman?" he demanded in a strained whisper. "Mary?"
"Not her real name. Not that it matters. But yes, demon. And she means to kill one or both of you—if not tonight, then some time soon."
Sherlock wanted to ask, Why? Why John? Why him?—but all of that could wait, as it was imperative that he get to John immediately. He grabbed the door handle to yank it open. It did not yield. "I have to—!"
Bending near, Crowley's voice against his ear was rough and low. "Listen to me, Holmes. I said, listen to me."
Something changed in the … demon's voice, and Sherlock found himself compelled to obey. It was an alarming feeling. "What—?"
Leaning back, Crowley folded his arms across his chest and regarded him measuringly. "We'll go back out in a minute. But you have to follow my lead. You cannot win against her. Neither can your friend."
"All right," Sherlock agreed at once. He would agree to anything. "But we need to—"
Crowley shook his head. "Tell me what I just said."
"Crowley!"
A dark brow, angled as sharply as a lancet arch, jolted up over one reptilian eye. "Tell me what I just said." The demon's voice was cold as ice and adamantine with it. But all at once, shockingly, he caved. "He's safe. Believe me, your boyfriend couldn't be safer. Aziraphale is here, too, keeping watch."
Sherlock was almost dizzied by the sudden flow of oxygen to his lungs. "Aziraphale—is that the bookseller?"
"That's how you know him, yes."
It pained him more than he could say, but he had to know. "Is he a demon, too?"
Crowley's shoulders rocked as he guffawed without restraint. "Say that to him and you'll be pouted out of existence."
"He's human, then?"
Still grinning, Crowley shook his head. "Angel. He's an angel. Now tell me what I said."
Rattled beyond words but trying desperately to conceal it, Sherlock took a shallow breath and answered tonelessly, "I have to follow your lead. I cannot win against her. Nor can my friend." Why, he wondered, should it be any more difficult to believe in angels, if he was willing to accept the existence of demons? Yet his brain cringed at this latest insult to the hardline logic and fact-based reality it held so dear. What was next? The Easter Bunny? Father Christmas?
Sherlock sensed the foundations of his world trembling beneath him. It was a sickening feeling; one that he had not experienced for a very long time—not since Redbeard. His mother had told him that Redbeard had gone to live with Uncle Rudy, to ramble away his declining years. In reality, his father had taken him to the vet to be put down, which was what happened to very old and increasingly incontinent dogs. But Sherlock was a grown man now, a man who had seen and experienced all manner of things. Angels and demons were improbable, he reminded himself, even if they should be impossible. John needed him; that was all that mattered.
A preternatural calm descended upon him. For John he would even believe in the Easter Bunny, if it came to that. "What do you want me to do?"
"You're already doing better than most humans in this situation—not that it happens very often, of course. Well, ever, really." Crowley gave him a severe look. "Keep your cool. Your friend is going to be upset when he sees you. You're dead, remember? It's likely that Olixit will seize that moment to act." He briefly withdrew into thought. "I think," he said, tapping a finger against his lip, "that she'll go for him first. It's you she wants to suffer, but she'll take her revenge where she can."
"Revenge? For what? I've never heard of her before."
Crowley grimaced, his face contorting as if he'd bitten into something nasty. "Right. You don't know her, but you knew her boss. He died on the roof of St Bart's two years ago. Ring a bell?" Sherlock's stunned reaction seemed expected. "Yeah, of course it does. You'll be happy to know that he's back in hell now, where he belongs. Forever, with any luck."
Horror and revulsion had become the order of the day. Sherlock felt his way carefully in formulating his next words. "Moriarty is in hell." He winced; using the word 'hell' as if it were an actual place rather than a theological reference or a swear word made his already laboring brain twitch. "Does that mean he can come back?"
"Theoretically, yes; realistically, no. I don't think he'll be allowed. Since the Apocalypse failed and Adam renounced his fa—" Crowley shut himself up, eyeing Sherlock with some concern. "Never mind. More than you need to know."
"Crowley," Sherlock said wanly, "It's—it's a lot."
"Especially for you science-y types, I know." He took hold of Sherlock's upper arm in a firm grip again, thankfully less painfully than he had before. "Let's go save your boyfriend." Crowley flicked his fingers at the door, then reached for the handle at the same time that Sherlock heard the latch release.
"He's not—"
"Yeah, yeah. But you want him to be."
A wry grin overcame Sherlock's frozen features. This was something he could own up to. "Very much."
"Ah. One more thing." Crowley raised a finger and floated it toward Sherlock's face. Sherlock's first instinct was to pull away. But Crowley kept his finger aloft, waiting with exaggerated patience. "What?" Sherlock asked, and recoiled when Crowley gave his philtrum a light tap. It tingled, but there was no pain. As Sherlock ran a finger over his upper lip, Crowley explained, "You looked ridiculous, like a rat in a French cartoon." He opened the door.
There was a queue waiting outside. Crowley and Sherlock, focused on more important things, paid no heed to the annoyed mumblings as they went out into the alcove. They stepped onto the dining room floor and Sherlock's eyes returned to John. He breathed a sigh of relief at sight of him, though his heart pinched as John smiled across at the woman who, according to Crowley, was not a woman at all.
At that moment, a pale-haired man strode up to their table. He displayed a bottle for their approval. At John's nod, he decanted the first pour, which underwent a thoughtful sniff and a brief but intense scrutiny, after which he handed the glass to John for tasting. John raised the rim to his lips and, in the doing, glanced idly across the room. His eyes landed squarely on Sherlock. The glass slipped from his fingers, but before it could crash onto the table, their server—the Soho bookseller, Sherlock realized—deftly caught it in one hand and set it lightly on its base.
"Showtime," said Crowley gleefully.
John stumbled to his feet, his skin ashen and his eyes overwide. There was a terrible, barely controlled mix of emotions on his face that made Sherlock want to go down on his knees and beg forgiveness.
A mean smile crept across Mary's lips. Crowley said, "Protect him."
They split up, Sherlock walking directly toward John, Crowley cutting a path toward Mary. Her eyes narrowed when they were still a few feet away, and that was all the warning they had before she casually flicked a hand in John's direction, unleashing a small fireball directly at his head. The angel said, "Oh!" and to Mary's immense surprise, the orb of flame rebounded midway. It struck her full in the chest, and set her dress ablaze. She swore and John cried out, "Mary!" He had been so fixated on Sherlock, he had not seen what she had tried to do.
No longer smiling, she snapped her fingers and the fire disappeared. A few scorch marks remained, but she paid no heed to the ruin of her evening dress, turning her ire on Crowley instead. "You have no part in this, traitor."
"Yeah, Ollie, 'fraid I do."
"Ollie?" John repeated, looking with bewilderment from Mary to Crowley, who now stood alongside the angel, and then, tilting his head back, up at Sherlock. "Sherlock?"
"Hello, John." Sherlock edged past the others, creating a barrier between John and Mary.
"But you're—"
"Not."
"But I—" John lowered his head and Sherlock heard him swallow, heard the raw groan that followed.
"No time for that," Crowley grated. To Mary, he said, "These two are under my protection." He tilted his head toward Aziraphale. "And his."
"That one—" She pointed at Sherlock. "—owes me."
"How many humans have you already murdered, Ms Morstan; erm, Olixit?" Aziraphale inquired.
She bared her teeth. "These are the only two that matter now. And you have no business here, angel."
Crowley clicked his tongue. "You can't have them."
"You don't get a say in this!" She slowly rose from her chair, a small, shapely woman, who under any other circumstances would not possibly be cause for alarm. But waves of oily hatred and mephitic rage rolled off her, polluting the air around them. Sherlock pushed John further behind him.
Mary moved. She spun and launched herself at Sherlock. Mid-air, she changed, and the creature flying toward him was no longer human; no longer clothed, for that matter; and possessed too many limbs and far too many teeth. Something insectoid, Sherlock thought in the sane part of his mind, but huge, impossibly huge.
He braced himself for clawed appendages and lethal fangs—there was no time to do more—but then he could have sworn that time itself slowed and everything seemed to happen at once. Aziraphale said, quite calmly, "Crowley, behind me," and the demon's long legs ferried him quickly behind the angel's back. As soon as he was clear, the angel stopped shaking the bottle, removed his thumb from the opening, and wine geysered out. It splattered the demented creature from face to chest. She shrieked as it met her skin and, shockingly, she began to disintegrate. Her flesh came off in thick gobbets as it continued forward along the path of her trajectory.
Time seemed to reassert itself. What followed then was utter silence, save for the quiet plop of the demon Olixit's remains dripping off Sherlock onto the floor—until John shouted, "Christ!" Sherlock might have shouted, too, but the thought of opening his mouth at that moment was too horrifying to even consider.
There was a sudden chorus of screaming and the scrape of chairs followed by the thunder of many feet hurtling toward the exits. A finger snapped before any of them reached the doors. The panic became perplexity as people appeared to forget their purpose and, finding themselves away from their tables, slowly wandered back to their meals.
Flicking his wrists, Sherlock discovered that the creature's remains were rapidly disappearing. Rather than make him wait, however, Crowley muttered, "Always a mess," and the last of the thick sludge disappeared. Sherlock stood clean and dry, the horrible rank odor ceased to exist, the floors and the table were pristinely clean, and the sounds of piped music and laughing chatter once again dominated the room. The thing called Mary might not have existed at all.
"Oh god." John fell into his chair. Shaking more than he would ever admit, Sherlock sank to his heels in front of him and took one of John's hands in both of his. John shook his head from side to side, his breathing erratic, his face several shades greyer than could be considered healthy. Sherlock brought their joined hands up to his lips and kissed John's knuckles. "Are you all right?"
"Not sure." John attempted a smile, but his mouth didn't work correctly and he was blinking too fast. He choked down a swallow before attempting to speak again. But the question he asked was not the one Sherlock expected. "How are you not dead?"
Sounding bored despite all that had just happened, Crowley said, "He faked his death to save your life, then spent two years eliminating the people who meant to kill you. I rescued him before he could be tortured to death and fixed him before his wounds could finish what his torturers had started."
Glaring up at the demon, John said hotly, "And who the hell are you?"
"Good question." Crowley's eyes sparked in approval at John's choice of words.
"Perhaps we should continue this conversation elsewhere," Aziraphale inserted diplomatically, unhurriedly licking wine off his fingers. At Crowley's look of mild rebuke, he murmured, "Best to make do with what was at hand—and this is such a lovely vintage."
"Baker Street is closer," Sherlock pointed out. He guided John to his feet. The harrowed look was ebbing, but the confusion and shock in his eyes remained.
"You know what's going on." John said, more statement than question. "About Mary—or whatever that was?" He grimaced in Crowley's direction. "About them?"
"A bit."
Eavesdropping with abandon, Aziraphale said, "All will be clear as crystal." He smiled expectantly at Crowley. "You'll fetch the wine?"
"Sure, angel."
Fifteen minutes later, John lurched into the kitchen at Baker Street, Sherlock right behind him, and began to rummage through the drawers and cupboards as if he had never left. It was the first time that he had let go of Sherlock's hand since the restaurant, and Sherlock missed it already. He lifted down the teapot while John filled the kettle.
Crowley produced a bottle of something intriguing, along with four glasses. Once the kettle was making gurgling noises, John opened the cupboard under the sink and reached deep inside. "Still here," he said under his breath, and produced a bottle of his own: a long-ignored gift from one of Sherlock's wealthier clients. Covered with dust and twenty-five years old before it was gifted to them, Sherlock assumed that it could only have improved. John removed the cap. Sherlock's acute sense of smell picked apart the medley of scents: rich peatiness, a hint of citrus, a few floral notes, the faintest whiff of vanilla.
From across the room, Aziraphale, his nose rising into the air, exclaimed with interest, "Ooh." Sherlock found tumblers on an upper shelf. After rinsing them out and handing them off to John for an obligatory wipe, he generously filled each one with the gleaming amber fluid, assuming that no one needed or wanted ice. While he handed the glasses round—the bottle of wine and glasses no longer in evidence—he noticed John draining his portion in one go. He watched from the corner of his eye, amused, as John let out a small gasp, widened his eyes, then poured another couple of fingers. That portion he set aside to await the steeping of the tea.
When everyone was sorted drinks-wise, Aziraphale and Crowley commandeered the chairs by the fireplace, which was now lit—though Sherlock hadn't actually noticed anyone approach it. Aziraphale sipped his whisky with savoring bliss. Crowley appeared to be keeping an eye on the angel, heedless of the glass in his hand.
But it was John who held Sherlock's attention, John who looked ready to vibrate out of his skin. Sherlock waited by the kitchen door until the single mug of tea—bolstered with the contents of his tumbler—was prepared, then followed as John led the way to the sofa. They sat next to each other, separated only by a few millimeters, near enough for their body heat to mingle. A small hand came to rest on Sherlock's knee. "Is this okay?" John's moustache twitched; it was proving, Sherlock found, to be a useful barometer for his emotions. Before he could respond, John added, "It's just—this morning when I got up Mary was, y'know, human. And you were dead. I might be hallucinating."
"You're not. I'm real, as are these two … gentlemen. And, to answer your question, it is much more than okay." Sherlock laid his long fingers on top of John's short ones and folded them together. In truth, he would have liked to gather John into his arms and hold him on his lap, if he thought it would be allowed. He, of course, knew better.
John was no longer trembling when he lowered his mug to the table. He glanced around the room. "Right. Somebody, tell me what's going on."
Smiling sympathetically, Aziraphale was the first to respond, all melodic tones and compassion. "I've no doubt that all of this has been quite awful for you, especially discovering your lady friend's true nature in such a disagreeable manner."
John released a shuddering breath. "True nature."
"Demons have an essential form," Crowley added blandly, as if this were a normal topic of conversation. "That was what you saw."
John choked. His knuckles gleamed white, and Sherlock winced but did not protest. "Demons," John repeated, low and dark.
"I'm sure this is hard to take in—" Aziraphale began, but John cut him off.
"Hard!" John's words spilled out in a rush. "Hard was watching him jump off a roof. Hard was spending two years thinking it was my—" He closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. "This—this is not hard, it's insane."
"Please, Doctor Watson, allow me to explain." It wasn't really a request, Sherlock realized. There was a hint of steel in the angel's lovely voice and, despite his sweet affect and gentle manner, it was obvious that he expected John's complete attention.
"John doesn't know who you are," Sherlock said quietly. "What you are. Why you can do the things you do."
"So tell me." The belligerence was, at least in part, a front. Sherlock could feel a tremor rippling through John's body. But even in the face of the unknown, he was nothing if not courageous.
"This is Aziraphale, John. He owns a bookshop in Soho—and he is an angel. His friend is Crowley, and I have no idea what he does, if anything."
Crowley gave him a shark-like grin. "I keep plants." Three simple words should not have conveyed so much bone-deep menace.
Sherlock blinked. "He keeps plants. Also, as he said, he rescued me in Serbia. He is a demon."
"Sherlock."
Sherlock sighed. "I can't prove it to you, John. But that's what they call themselves, and they can do things." He looked away from John's tormented expression and inclined his head toward Crowley. "Maybe a demonstration?"
Eyes hooded, Crowley didn't immediately reply. "Big or small?"
Sherlock considered, earning himself another of John's distressed scowls. "I don't think small will suffice."
"Oh, Crowley, I don't think—" But Crowley was already raising his hand. It twisted at the wrist with a small upward flip. Huge flames, crackling and spitting like enraged cats, sprang up from the floor and raced round and round the sofa in a ring of blistering hot fire.
John, to his great credit, neither yelled nor jumped. Rather, his entire body went rigid and his renewed grip on Sherlock's fingers became a vise, threatening permanent damage. As suddenly as they appeared, however, the flames winked out, tiny wisps of smoke spiraling upward toward the ceiling in their wake. Nothing was damaged; even Sherlock's eyebrows were intact. John let out an explosive breath. "What the fuck—!"
Every bit as impressed as John, Sherlock nevertheless managed to utter calmly, as if this was an everyday occurrence, "Crowley came to save me, John, because Aziraphale asked him to, because he felt he owed me a favor."
The angel glowed. "Yes. And if you recall, you wouldn't take the reward I offered you."
"Now that you mention it, I do. But that was years ago. Before I met John, before I began my career."
"Steel-trap memory." Crowley's nose was tip-down in his tumbler, as if he was wondering why it was almost empty. "And he likes what you do, solving mysteries." He quirked a brow at John. "Used to read your blog devotedly. Quite cut up when your idiot went off the roof."
"Yes, well, it seemed such a waste," Aziraphale stated coolly. "Of course I knew that you hadn't actually died. One can sense such things, you know."
Crowley snorted. "Of course one can." Catching Sherlock's eye, he jerked his head toward the whisky bottle where it sat on the kitchen table. "D'you mind?"
"Not at all." The bottle flew from the table and into Crowley's outstretched hand. He caught it with ease and then focused on refreshing his glass, oblivious to John's tiny whimper.
"That was cruel of you," Aziraphale went on repressively, his gaze heavy on Sherlock. "Your so-called death caused a great deal of pain for those who cared for you."
"It was necessary." He pretended not to notice how painful John's grip still was. Between the display of flames and Aziraphale's thoughtless words, he expected there would be bruises. "I wasn't supposed to be gone so long; I'd hoped no more than a few weeks."
John drained his mug and set it on the coffee table. "We will be talking about that," he said tightly, just loudly enough for Sherlock to hear. "Later." He turned toward Crowley. "So, you're a … demon?"
Crowley inclined his head. "Yeah. Not like her, though, Olixit." He added in a prissy tone, "Mary Morstan."
"Not like her how? Aren't demons supposed to be bad? Are you bad?"
Braveheart! Sherlock thought, and this time it was his hand that did the mauling.
"Most of them are like Olixit, yes," Aziraphale interjected, before the demon could speak. "But not Crowley. He was never like that."
John persisted. "But … demon."
Aziraphale was adamant. "He is no more like all other demons than you are like all other doctors."
"But—"
Crowley tipped his glass toward Aziraphale. "I blame him. All that sticky goodness. It's like plaque on the brain."
"Stuff and nonsense," Aziraphale said starchily. "Crowley is the best of beings. Ever so thoughtful and, yes, nice—don't deny it. Even in the Garden of—"
"Aziraphale."
"Oh. All right." Thwarted from elaborating, the angel raised his round chin with a feisty air. "But he saved the world, you know, when he didn't have to. And that should certainly tell you something about his character. I wouldn't be married to him if he didn't have a bit of good in him, now would I."
"For Satan's sake, Angel—"
"Fine." Aziraphale tempered his tartness with a shrug of his sloping shoulders. "It's true, demons work for Satan, and Satan, it must be said, is a terrible influence. Most are bent on mayhem, at the very least; some are inclined to do much worse things. Sadly, the creature your lady friend worked for was a demon of exceptional malice, and she was very loyal as well as very manipulable." He tutted. "She held Mr Holmes responsible for his death."
John turned to Sherlock. "Moriarty?" Sherlock nodded. "Moriarty."
"He was a—" John grimaced. "—demon?"
"Yes, yes." With an angular grace of his own, Crowley pushed out of the chair and rose to his feet, extending his hand down to the angel. "Your boyfriend can tell you all about it later. Come on, Aziraphale—"
"Wait!" John jumped up, and Sherlock followed, perforce: their hands were still joined together. "Look, before you go—" He groaned and his cheeks flushed crimson. "I was with—I was with—that thing for six months." His face twisted with revulsion. "A bad demon. Should I be worried about—?"
"No, Doctor Watson." Accepting Crowley's assistance, Aziraphale shook his head with confidence as he took his place by his husband. "There will be no lingering effects. In fact, you won't even have bad dreams."
"I always have bad dreams," John muttered in response.
"Ah." Aziraphale's cherubic features radiated sympathy. "Not in this case." With a twinkle in his eyes, he added, "Nor will you have bad memories."
Sherlock jolted with sudden, uncomfortable understanding. "You mean to make us forget. Like you did all those people in the restaurant."
Aziraphale graced him with a deceptively benign smile. "You really are very clever."
"Don't." The single word was part demand, part plea. "There isn't any need. We won't tell anyone. Not that they would believe us, if we did."
"I''m afraid we can't just—"
But, to Sherlock's surprise, Crowley, wheedling, took up their cause. "Aw, come on, angel. No one gives a blessing anymore. Well, except for the crackpots. They've been around forever, and you've never tried to stop them." His lip curled into a sneer. "These days, they'd probably even laugh at Gabriel with his Be Not Afraid bollocks and carry on what they were doing, while he stood there looking like the idiot he is. And the Almighty—She certainly doesn't—"
"Crowley!" The demon's mouth snapped shut. Apparently that particular tone meant something to him. For an uncomfortable moment the angel contemplated his companion with pursed-lip reproach. But then, with a twitch of his nose and a tiny toss of the head, his cheerful nature returned. "Oh, all right. But if you find, Doctor Watson, that you're having difficulty coping …"
"I'll look after him," Sherlock promised. "Whatever he needs. Are you really married?" Why Sherlock's insatiable curiosity had seized on that of all the things he might have asked the most powerful beings he was ever likely to meet, he did not know. John's tense, "Sherlock," and his unstated, Bit not good, you madman, made him wonder whether he had just committed the world's worst faux pas.
"Oh for—" Crowley made a grinding noise—his teeth, Sherlock suspected. He braced himself for the demon to lash out, to remind him of his place in this hierarchy of beings. But he only rolled his eyes and made an annoyed ngk! sound.
Aziraphale's face glowed. "Why, yes; yes, we are." He raised his left hand, and there on his finger was a gleaming gold band.
"That wasn't there before," Sherlock felt compelled to point out.
"Angel, can we just—"
But this was a topic that Aziraphale clearly wished to expound on. "There are still those who would object," he said blithely. "So we keep them hidden."
"Um, congratulations?" John ventured.
Aziraphale's smile, already blindingly bright, became incandescent. "Thank you, Doctor Watson." He acknowledged Crowley's tugging hand on his arm with a very slight dimming of wattage. "Well, then. Given the situation, I expect we will meet again. I'm sure Doctor Watson cannot have recounted all of your adventures, Mr Holmes, and I should very much like to hear them."
John gave Sherlock a pointed look. "I don't know half of them myself, anymore."
Sherlock gazed down into John's eyes. He had so much to tell him, so much to learn in turn. For now, though, he said, "You will."
"Let's go, Aziraphale. They want to be alone." Crowley chivvied his partner toward the door. "And they've probably clamped the old girl by now."
"As if that is ever a problem for you."
"Gentlemen—" They paused on the threshold, Aziraphale attentive, Crowley irritated. Conveying as much of what was in his heart—immense gratitude and immeasurable esteem—as he could, Sherlock respectfully dipped his head. "Thank you. If I can ever be of service, anything at all, please call."
Looking very pleased, Aziraphale raised a finger and brought it back down, as if pulling something out of … somewhere. And that something, something else impossible, fell over Sherlock like a shivering mist, and he was almost staggered by its—there was no other word for it—goodness. John felt it, too; he let out a startled sigh and slumped against Sherlock's side. Sherlock pulled him closer and looked down into his face to find dark blue eyes shining back up at him, filled with a kind of bewildered happiness.
"What was that?" John wheezed.
But the ones with the answer, the angel and the demon, were gone, a tinkle of wind chimes and the soft knelling of pipes fading in the air.
The muted roar of an engine came from the street below, and John pulled Sherlock to the window. An ancient Bentley revved away from the curb, flailing pedestrians and veering vehicles escaping death or damage by a hair's breadth. In the gutter in front of 221, lay a smoking wheel clamp.
"Well," John said. "Huh."
John Watson was easily the most adaptable person he had ever met, but if the tingling sensation in Sherlock's crushed fingers was anything to go by, there were limits, even for him. "Are you all right, John?"
But John merely gave him a crooked smile and shrugged. "I don't know what he did; the angel I mean. But, yeah, I feel pretty damn good right now. In fact—" He stepped round so that they were facing each other and set his hands on Sherlock's waist, a tentative touch. Head bent back he returned Sherlock's gaze, his eyes wide and searching. "Angel. Demon. How are you even okay with this?"
"What choice do I have, John? Crowley—let's just say that I didn't expect I'd ever see you again. But because of him, because of Aziraphale, here we are. "
"Why, though? Why would they help you; help me?"
Allowing one hand to snake up John's spine, Sherlock mentally tallied each verterbra and its connective tissue with something like reverence. "Because I found the angel's book and returned it to him. You heard him. He wanted to reward me, but I turned him down. It was one of my first cases, before Lestrade let me in and I could be more selective. There's probably more to it than that, who knows. Maybe one day we'll get it out of them."
John's arms wound around Sherlock's waist and he leaned his head against his shoulder, such a small thing, really, but Sherlock quietly thanked whoever was listening—Crowley had said she—for the miracle of being held by John Watson. He had no use for religion, and he wasn't a believer. But a disaffected deity, a capricious deity—that was a being he might almost, maybe, accept as one of the yet-to-be explained mysteries of the world—perhaps, universe? He looked forward to meeting them again; perhaps one day they would be willing to answer questions worth asking.
John broke into his musings. "What Crowley said about rescuing you, and fixing your injuries ..."
"Yes?"
"He—they both seemed to like the whisky."
"Uh—yes?"
"I'll have to send them a case."
Sherlock laughed softly. "You might have to obtain a loan."
"Nope. Mary had a lot of money. And we have—still have, I reckon—a joint account." He hesitated for a fraction of a second, and when he next spoke, his voice wobbled. "I was going to marry a demon, Sherlock."
Pressing a kiss to John's temple, Sherlock said, "No, John." And then, impetuously bold, he nuzzled the recently shaved and scented cheek, thinking about John's lips and how close they were, and how he might react when he kissed him. "She undoubtedly would've eaten you before you got to the church."
John snorted, half laugh, half groan. "Bastard." He sniffed. "God, I missed you."
"This much?" Sherlock whispered, and molded his mouth to John's lips, a tender, deeply expressive kiss. Such things, kissing and embracing and much more, had happened often in Sherlock's mind during his time away, but nothing, he discovered, compared to the reality—John, relaxed and pliant; his lips, soft and welcoming; his warmth, melting the ice that had guarded Sherlock's heart during those years apart.
After a moment, John ran a finger down Sherlock's cheek and raised his head for a deep, much needed breath. Slowly opening his eyes, he sighed, "Finally."
Time seemed to stand still, or perhaps it was the aftereffect of whatever the angel had done, but Sherlock felt safe and utterly at peace for the first time in two years. The hunt was over, he was home, and John was here. "I won't let you leave. I won't ever let you leave, John. If that isn't what you want—"
John pressed in closer, the rounded part of his cheek rubbing against Sherlock's jaw, the heat of a soughing breath against his throat. "Not going anywhere, Sherlock. Not even your magic friends can keep me away."
"Good," Sherlock murmured fervently into John's hair. "That's very good."