Where We Started

Angels Are Evil

"So, what now?" he asked.
"There's not much to do around here, you know that." Sherlock pointed out.
"Of course I knew that."
"So we could, I don't know go in the woods, talk, look at the stars, try to get you better at violin, read and ignore each other, stuff like that." Sherlock decided.
"Well I think I know the one you do most of the time." John laughed.
"Yes, I'm sure you do." Sherlock agreed. John pounded the options, not much to do for someone who might be lazy, but thankfully he was done with sitting around a house all day.
"Let's go down to the stream, there might be some cool stuff down there when it's dark." John decided. Sherlock nodded in agreement, smiling as if that would've been the one he picked as well.
"Sounds great." He agreed, not bothering to get a coat or anything, but they really didn't need it. The air was as warm and still as it was in the evening last night, yet not blistering hot as it had been in the day. Instead of birds there were crickets chirping, and the moonlight guided their way instead of sunlight. Sherlock lead the way as usual, holding branches back to help himself, but they ended up swinging back and hitting John in the face. Sherlock thought it was really funny, but when John threatened to push him in the next set of thorn bushes he stopped, holding the branches long enough for John to get through. When they got to the river it was flowing slower than it had been, maybe something to do with the time of day, maybe not, but it was very relaxing.
"If we're quiet enough we might see some wildlife, they're everywhere at this time of night." Sherlock decided.
"What type of wildlife?" John asked uncertainly. He got deer and even some raccoon in his backyard when he was in his time period, but if Sherlock was trying to lure a bear into their midst he'd probably die of fear.
"Nothing harmful, they like the water." Sherlock shrugged.
"I don't fancy a bear attack." John pointed out.
"There are no bears, I've only seen one in my day back here, and it only looked at me and then walked away."
"You're not very interesting then. Maybe you should've tried flirting with it." John laughed.
"Obviously that doesn't result in anything but an annoying specimen that eats all of your food." Sherlock pointed out, walking over to a small clump of rocks and ducking behind it. John looked around nervously, since Sherlock disappeared anything could pop out and eat him, so he scampered behind the rocks and crouched down next to Sherlock.
"How long do we have to wait?" John asked.
"Haven't the faintest, but be quiet." Sherlock decided. John sighed softly in annoyance, but he stayed quiet. After a while John was just about to stand up, his muscles were cramping and he was done with sitting around waiting for wildlife to wander into their midst. But as he was rising, Sherlock grabbed his shirt, pulling him down with a shush. Just as he did six or seven deer emerged from the woods, their ears perked up and their dark eyes frantically looking for any danger. John excitedly slapped Sherlock in the arm, as if he hadn't already seen the herd. Sherlock just nodded, not letting go of his shirt for some reason, but neither noticed. John had seen deer before, in pictures or in a field by his house, but never this close. He could hear their feet hit the mud, their grunts of communication, their tongues splashing the water as they drank; it was like a live action petting zoo. The deer loitered around for a while, not doing much but standing around and sometimes taking drinks from the water, but eventually they walked lazily away, the last of their white tails disappearing into the forest.
"Oh my god, that was amazing." John decided, springing to his feet.
"Wait, John, what was that?" Sherlock asked, rising to his feet as well but with a look of worry. John quickly scanned the area, as if there were a coyote stalking them that he was unaware of.
"I don't see anything." he pointed out, but Sherlock was looking at him, not the surrounding area.
"Not that," Sherlock gently lifted up the bottom of John's shirt, which made him step back in surprise, almost about to slap his hand away when John saw what was on his side. There was a blue rash, like a spider web almost, stretching across his stomach from a center blue lump in the middle of his side.
"That's... that's where the angel touched me." John said, his voice shaking with fear.
"Do you know what it is?" Sherlock asked, keeping his voice calm but his eyes told a different story.
"No, I didn't know it was there until now." John admitted. Sherlock's eyes squinted in worry, examining it closely.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"No, I told you, I've never seen it before."
"I think I have, when we were down here swimming, Sunday morning I think. I thought it was just a light trick, didn't think anything of it, but now that I think of it, it was much smaller." Sherlock decided.
"What could it be?" John asked. Sherlock's fingers brushed up against the mark, making John blush immediately. But as soon as he touched John's skin, Sherlock seemed to come back to his senses, stepping away as quickly as possible.
"Sorry." He muttered, looking at anything except John and twiddling his fingers nervously.
"No, it's fine, really." John assured, but that definitely sounded a lot worse than he had imagined.
"I don't think it's harmful, for now at least, but you need to keep an eye on it. I have a feeling it's going to amount to something bad in the end." Dr. Sherlock decided. John nodded, his skin still tingling from where Sherlock had touched him.
"It's probably just something, maybe time traveler's rash." John said hopefully.
"I don't think there's a cream for that." Sherlock guessed, making John smile halfheartedly.
"Probably not." He agreed sheepishly. Sherlock sat on the rock, looking very mysterious in the moonlight.
"Don't look so worried, I'll be fine." John assured.
"We can barely cure the plague, what if that really is deadly?" Sherlock asked, sounding worried but not hopeless.
"Of course it's not deadly, if it were I'd be dead by now." John pointed out, craning his neck to see the blue, seeping through his skin like a leak or something.
"If there's anything worse than you leaving, it's you dying." Sherlock decided with a small laugh.
"Well I'm sorry to disappoint, but my greatest ancestors probably aren't born by now, so I really shouldn't be alive." John pointed out, sitting on the rock next to him, their feet almost touching.
"It makes me wonder, this is all my timeline, how I was supposed to live. Obviously something or someone wants us to meet, even though we were born in different centuries. It's all warped for you, wonder if we were supposed to be brothers or something and you got born too late, that's why the angel sent you back. What if it's an angel of God, coming down to make sure we meet?" Sherlock guessed, looking very excited now.
"Or it's an alien and bad luck. I'm not that important."
"Obviously you are." Sherlock pointed out.
"Are you saying that we're soul mates or something, is that it?" John asked with a little laugh, but Sherlock looked dead serious.
"Maybe." He shrugged.
"No. I say it's coincidence, I could've followed Greg home, could've gone into any other bar, ended up in any other town, it's just chance." John decided, not really a believer in fate and stuff. Considering his entire life was a train wreck from that house to now, it felt more like a punishment than anything.
"But you didn't." Sherlock pointed out.
"This isn't a fairytale, it is good luck that we met and got along so well, but I don't think the power of love is I play here." John decided, crossing his arms almost sulkily and looking at Sherlock with interest.
"Well here we don't have fairytales here, they're just lessons, end gruesomely." Sherlock grumbled.
"I don't know you could look like Belle if I squint a lot, close my eyes, and picture Belle." John decided with a laugh.
"Why would you name a girl after a bell?" Sherlock asked.
"It's a fairy tale."
"Which one? I've never heard of it." Sherlock pointed out. John just sighed; sometimes he thought Sherlock was born more in B.C. than in the 1600's. It seems like common knowledge was alien to him.
"You've never heard of Beauty and the Beast, wasn't that written around this time?" John asked with shock.
"No, never. Sounds like a thriller though." Sherlock decided.
"It's one of those kid stories, my sister used to love it."
"Tell me about it." Sherlock decided.
"I will not be a story teller." John protested. Sherlock just stared at him hopefully, staring at him with sad little puppy eyes. John groaned, never really understanding the power of big, sad eyes until Sherlock looked to the verge of tears. "Fine, fine, Beauty and the Beast." John groaned, wracking his brain to remember the story. "Well, I think there is this girl, and she gets kidnapped by a big beast thing because she traded her life for her fathers. So she was basically a prisoner, but there was a rose that a witch gave the beast when he was still human, before she turned him into the beast, and if all the petals fell off before someone fell in love with him then he'd be cursed like that forever. And then stuff happens and I think Belle and Beast end up falling in love but this guy from the town wants Belle to himself, so he tries to kill the beast but in the end he dies and Belle declared her love for her, he turned back to normal, they kissed, the whole castle turns back, and the end." John shrugged.
"Very descriptive, but interesting. The things people think of is amazing." Sherlock decided after a short silence, John getting his breath back from his rubbish story.
"All of the fairytales end the same way, the princess gets what she wants, marries the prince, they live happily ever after, the end. It's boring, you need some death once a while, makes it much more interesting." John shrugged.
"Real life is far more evil, it's best that kids aren't aware of that as they grow up." Sherlock agreed. "But if this is a fairytale, and I'm Belle, what does that make you?" he asked, a legitimate question apparently.
"Certainly not the Beast. I'll be the Candle, he's pretty cool I guess."
"The what?"
"Oh ya, the entire palace turned into talking house hold appliances, like a candle and a clock." John shrugged, forgetting to mention at least ¾ of the plot apparently.
"Were the writers of that story on drugs?" Sherlock asked curiously.
"Did they even invent drugs yet?" he asked.
"Oh yes." Sherlock agreed, smiling guiltily.
"What do you mean oh yes? You sound so sure." John pointed out.
"Well..." Sherlock muttered, looking away in shame.
"You're a druggy?" John asked in shock. Sherlock was probably the one person he thought to never do drugs, he was such a good little servant, why would he throw his life away like that?
"No, not in a while, just during the move, when I ran away." Sherlock muttered, seeing that John didn't take it as a joke like he did. "I was scared, it was my first time being all alone, so I chased my fears away, maybe not in the best way but it worked." Sherlock admitted.
"I should probably be scared out of my mind too, but for some reason I'm not." John shrugged, letting Sherlock pass with the drugs considering he was lost and alone.
"You're not scared because you've got a big strong man to protect you." Sherlock pointed out, puffing out his chest and sitting up straight with a goofy smile.
"I actually don't see one, just some nerd." John defended, making Sherlock roll his eyes. Of course that was a lie, Sherlock was definitely a lot stronger than John, obviously, but he couldn't actually let him think that.
"Well then, I see you as a much bigger loser than I am." Sherlock objected.
"At least I know what a microwave is." John muttered. Sherlock gave him a blank look, which he tried to wipe off as soon as possible.
"At least I can carry groceries without crying." Sherlock defended, making John laugh.
"I wasn't crying." He defended.
"Sure you weren't."
"I wasn't, I just had a little bit of your stupidity in my eye." John pointed out, making Sherlock look a bit confused and slightly amused.
"That doesn't help your case at all." He decided.
"Just a little." John shrugged.
"Not at all." Sherlock corrected. John sighed, giving up on his lost case and leaning in his knees, staring past Sherlock into the trees with a sigh.
"I'm tired." He decided.
"I'm not." Sherlock said, sounding like a little kid complaining that he didn't want to go to bed.
"I think we scared all the deer away, what are we even doing out here?" John asked, looking around at the dark river and trees, sending a small shiver down his spine. There could be anything out there, a bear, a deer, Irene having come early, or a full dragon because it hadn't become extinct yet.
"You're scared." Sherlock observed.
"No, I'm just, a little bit creeped out, that's all." John admitted.
"There's nothing to be scared of out here, I guarantee it." Sherlock assured, taking on the role of assuring parent all of the sudden.
"I'm looking at the scariest thing in the woods I think." John pointed out.
"Oh you." Sherlock laughed with a little wave of his hand.
"But seriously, can we go back now?" John asked, looking at Sherlock hopefully.
"Of course, if you insist." Sherlock agreed, getting to his feet and stretching out a bit. John mimicked this, wanting to get out of these woods as fast as possible. At the moment ever branch was a monster, every shadow a murderer crouched in the underbrush, the only thing that he seemed to know for sure was Sherlock. He had said he'd take a bullet for John, so he only had to assume that Sherlock would protect him against whatever evil this forest had to throw at them. But, obviously, they made it out of the woods unharmed, nothing evil moved except for a cricket that jumped across the path, making John freak out, almost jumping into Sherlock's arms in terror. But Sherlock just laughed, as if John were a baby that needed protecting, and continued walking. When they got back to the barn they said goodnight in the little path separating all the buildings and separated to their different houses, Sherlock with a little skip in his step and John jumping when the goats bleated.

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