Thanks as always to ScienceofObsession and Snogandagrope for lightning-fast turnaround, and thanks to Kayjaykayme for her most beautiful artwork. Y'all need to love these three as much as I do!

Chapter 5: Getting Used to It All

There's a quiet foomp and something happens back there, in the region of Sherlock's shoulders. John gives an aborted shout and jumps back against the far wall. "Fuck-" he gasps.

Sherlock snarls and whirls around, switching from lazy arousal to defensive aggression. He catches sight of something dark behind him, turns his head to track it, mind warning of Danger: and with that thought, the presence behind him moves. He jerks away as black wings fan out, pushing aside the shower curtain so that cold air rushes in and water from the shower falls out.

One of the wings crashes across John's face as he begins to duck, hand coming up to protect himself, and Sherlock hisses in shock, turning further: yet the wings are always behind him, noisily flapping, and water is everywhere. Sherlock's tail gets caught under John's foot as John steps forward to help, and Sherlock yowls, which he feels is very inappropriate but can't help himself, in his shock. He staggers away from John, who is hopping on one foot, trying to regain his balance after treading on Sherlock's tail, and the wings are threatening in his peripheral vision.

Sherlock lurches away from it all, knocks the shower head awry, grabs at slick plastic and falls over the edge of the tub, bringing the wet curtain down with him in a glorious crash. The rattle of water hitting the plastic as he lies on the cold tile floor is too loud, and puddles are forming under him, and he's tangled in the damned curtain, thrashing.

"Sherlock. Sherlock! Stop moving. Stop. It's ok. It's all right." John's voice begins in a commanding, loud tone, and gradually softens into his recognizable egg croon. There's a grating squeak as he turns the faucet off, and water stops beating all around Sherlock on the floor. "It's ok, Sherlock. Don't move. Let me get you out of there."

Sherlock struggles to suppress panicked instinct with rationality, and goes still, only his ears and the tip of his tail twitching feverishly. He can feel motion against his back, still, and flinches minutely, repeatedly, worried about what it could be, what threat it represents. He feels utterly disoriented and afraid.

John steps over the wall of the tub and crouches next to Sherlock. "I'm getting the curtain off, Sherlock. You've got wings. I think you must not have known that. You've got beautiful black… wet… wings, right here on your back. They're yours, Sherlock. It's just you. It's all you. You need to calm down."

Sherlock realizes that he's been growling and hissing under his breath, and with some effort, manages to quiet himself.

"Claws," John reminds him. Sherlock sheaths the talons at the tips of his fingers, stops scratching fissures through the curtain. John's careful hands untangle the wet material, and black feathers flash again behind Sherlock's back.

Now that Sherlock has had a moment to recover, he can feel the wings' point of attachment, feel the unconscious messages he is sending them. He gives them an experimental shake; and water flies around the room and John jerks back with a gasping laugh as feathers drag across his face.

"Hold on, Sherlock. Wait a minute. Wait, dammit! This room is too small. Here: can we get you up? Can you stand?"

Sherlock turns over and accepts John's offered hand, glad of the assistance in rising. He feels unsteady, unbalanced, and the wings behind him have a mind of their own, flaring out to compensate for his dizziness, which makes him startle, which makes them flap even more, sweeping a cup on the sink to the floor in a symphony of shattering glass. John steps close and wraps an arm around Sherlock, pinning down the wings, and uses his free hand to cover Sherlock's eyes. He pulls Sherlock's head down, into the crook of his shoulder, and then wraps Sherlock in a firm hug, holding everything still, clamping arms and wings tightly to his torso.

"Stay still, Sherlock, for god's sake. You're tearing up the room and you're going to hurt yourself. Shhhh. Be still."

Sherlock huddles close to the man, the warm body, strong and solid and so certain against his own. He closes his eyes tightly, can feel his wings straining against John's grip, and his tail is still lashing. He flexes his claws out and then back in, momentarily grateful that he hasn't accidentally done any damage to John. John is sturdy and patient. Sherlock can feel John's racing heart against his own ribs, gradually slowing down, and Sherlock's slows down beside it, desperately clutching at the intangible connection between them, until they are both breathing normally. Sherlock notices the cold, and shivers, pressing tighter against John, who nuzzles up against his hair, chin fleetingly against his arched neck.

"You okay now?" John asks, quietly, a simple murmur, so gentle. "I'm gonna let go and get you a towel. All right?"

Sherlock lifts his dripping head and nods, feeling bereft and vulnerable when John drops his arms and turns to get a towel off the rack on the wall. He wipes off Sherlock's face, running the soft fabric briskly through his hair, carefully dabbing in his flickering ears, and mops up the water sliding down his neck. He rubs Sherlock's chest and belly dry, and then urges him to turn.

"Look," he says encouragingly, pointing to a mirror above the sink. "Look. Do you see your wings?" He gingerly pats them dry with the towel and Sherlock stands sideways, looking at the black things on his back. They are smaller than the ones he saw on John when he first hatched. They extend to the mid-thigh, no further. He stretches, and the wings lift, flaring outward, sweeping through the sink and brushing an electric razor off the small counter with a clatter. There is a flashing of white on the underside of each wing, a surprising gracenote in a field of black.

John, meanwhile, is patting down his sides, across his buttocks, and slides the towel down the full length of his tail, holding it lightly in his closed fist, finishing by quickly rubbing both legs dry. He wraps the damp towel around Sherlock's waist, tucking in the end so that it doesn't slip down, and then hurriedly dries himself off with the other one.

He pulls a green terry dressing gown off the hook on the door and slips it on, belting it tightly. He indicates another, a blue one, and says, "Sherlock? Can you make your wings go away? I can't get this on you until you do."

Sherlock moves his shoulders and his back, but his wings remain stubbornly there. He gives John a confused look, helpless to control the wings, and John just nods a bit. "All right then," he says. "Lets go get you some pants, at least." He tosses his own towel onto the floor, flooded with water, and sweeps it around to soak up some of the excess. He tosses the shower curtain and rod into the tub to deal with later. "It's almost 5 in the morning. We ought to crawl into bed for a while, see if we can sleep."

Sherlock mutely follows him back to the bedroom. John stops on the way through the kitchen and starts a kettle for tea before pulling Sherlock behind him. He rummages in a drawer and stands back up with pants and track bottoms. "Put these on, then. That'll warm you up a bit. We'll do a shirt later, when you figure out your wings. And I'll tidy up the bed."

Sherlock has no idea what to do with the mound of soft fabric John has handed to him, and stares at it, frustrated and impatient. Electric rivulets of fear still run through his blood. This whole hatching thing has been extremely disconcerting. He knows for certain that he dislikes not knowing very intensely. He growls a little, and John turns around, having stripped the damp blankets and sheets off the bed, along with the pieces of shell.

John uses the bundle to push other bits of shell into a corner of the room, where he dumps his armful. "Here." John brushes his palms against his thighs and lifts his eyebrows, "Come here. Do you need help?"

Sherlock glares at him, ears back and tail swishing. John grins. "Just keep your claws in, yeah?" He comes over and shakes out the items, guiding Sherlock's legs up and into the holes that appeared. John gets them up to Sherlock's thighs before he realizes the tail is in the way. "We can stuff it down one leg," he muses; but the fur on Sherlock's tail is puffed out and it waves in warning, so John negates that thought. He pulls the clothing up until it brushes against the base of the tail, and Sherlock growls, pushing the fabric back down. "Uh. All right then," John concedes, sounding puzzled. "We'll just. You can just sleep in the buff. You're used to that, anyway."

Having given up, putting the clothes back where he got them, John nudges Sherlock against the dresser, out of the way as he makes the bed. Bright eyes peer down from the top of the wardrobe, where Griffin is watching the commotion with interest.

The kettle whistles in the kitchen, and John nods at the pillows: "Go curl up. I'll be back with your tea in a mo."

Sherlock cautiously approaches the bed, beginning to relax in the smell of his den, but still wary after the adrenaline ride in the bathroom. There's a scrabble and a flutter, and a shape launches from the top of the wardrobe to his left. Sherlock ducks, wings out, claws emerged and hissing. The shape banks to the right, avoiding him, and lands abruptly on the bed, resolving itself into the winged Little One. She looks surprised, but her ears and whiskers are forward, and it is obvious that her intent is affectionate and playful. Sherlock relaxes, and goes to sit beside her.

She immediately pushes into his lap, warm nose in his side, tail high and happy. She begins to vibrate, and shoves her two front feet into the soft skin of Sherlock's belly, kneading first one then the other. He relaxes further, and strokes his fingers across the top of her head, recognizing their similarities and differences. The ears, the tails, the wings: all the same. The rumbling satisfaction they emanate also seems similar; and earlier John had remarked on it with surprise, meaning it is not a characteristic that he shares.

John returns with two mugs of tea and a small package tucked under one arm. "Budge up, then," he smiles at Sherlock, pulling back the duvet and stacking a couple pillows, placing his items on the nightstand. John tosses his dressing gown onto a chair in the corner and slips into some soft nightclothes before he joins Sherlock on the bed.

Sherlock, comfortably naked, crawls to the head of the bed, but finds it quite a task to repose upon the pillows, his wings are frustratingly in the way. John asks a couple times if he can't 'put them away', which just makes Sherlock scowl, so he helps arrange them, so that Sherlock can nestle between them, and the wingtips trail down the bed on either side of his hips. His tail, snaking across one dark wing before wrapping around a thigh, blends in seamlessly with the feathers: the same, inky, depthless black.

John hands him a warm mug, which smells delicious and familiar, and flops next to him, tugging the blanket up until it is snug across their chests, working it under Sherlock's elbows and covering up half his wings. Sherlock lets him fuss, taking a small sip of the 'tea'. It is very good, tastes warm and comforting and strangely of John. He wraps his fingers around it and gives vent to a deep sigh, preparing to relax.

John grins next to him. "Well," he says. "That was exciting. It's certainly not how I'd have predicted the whole hatching thing would go. It hasn't been much… like I remembered mine."

Sherlock huffs at him, as if to say of course it wasn't, when has Sherlock ever been simple and predictable. And John laughs, the message having been successfully transmitted. He pulls the crinkling package from the nightstand and tears it open to reveal biscuits. He takes out a few and hands them over.

"Here," he offers. "These are your favorites." He pauses a moment, watching Sherlock carefully take a small bite out of one, after smelling it first. "You like to dip them in your tea," he says. Sherlock raises one eyebrow, chagrined that this man needs to tell him things about himself. It's… frustrating to be so trapped inside the small confines of his own head.

He closes his eyes, examining his mind. It seems to be a vast room, dimly lit from an unseen source, echoing and empty, corridors lined with firmly closed doors. He grinds his teeth and dunks a biscuit (mundane! his mind's voice scolds, pedestrian!) and puts it in his mouth. It is hot, and wet, and dissolves on his tongue, and is pleasurable indeed. He inwardly decides not to hold it against John (... well, too often, anyway) that John has to tell him these sorts of things. Things he feels he should know on his own. Things that could be revealed by opening any of the closed doors in his mind.

He clenches his hand around the mug and takes a drink. Warmth and comfort.

John leans a bit closer, so that his shoulder can brush against Sherlock's, carefully scooping feathers out of his way as he does so. "It's so odd to have you in bed again," he says quietly. "And not. You know. Wrapped up behind an eggshell." He looks at Sherlock, and the light reflects strangely in his eyes, showing the liquid gathered there, growing until it spills over his bottom lid. John gives a shaky smile. "Welcome back, Sherlock."

Sherlock nods a little at him, brows pulled together in soft confusion. He doesn't really understand what John is talking about. It is true that he's out of the egg (and quite relieved to be able to stretch his limbs.) But John seems to be referring to a time prior to being in the egg, when he was… also around?

It doesn't make sense, and so, for the moment, Sherlock lets it go. It's been a draining few hours, and he is exhausted.

He abruptly shoves his half-drunk tea over to John, who twists and puts it on the nightstand next to his shoulder. Sherlock tries to lie down fully and quickly realizes that he must sit up completely, and bump himself downwards in the bed to avoid pulling all his feathers the wrong way and torquing his wings. Finally, he is settled, and drops his head onto the pillow by John's hip, on his side, wings held tightly against his back, tail quiescent beside his leg.

"Ah. Oh. Tired, are you?" John sounds a bit startled at his brusque termination of their interaction. He draws his hand across Sherlock's forehead, smoothing fresh-dried, fuzzy curls off his skin, and then continuing back to his ears, stroking each with firm, curious fingers. Sherlock flicks them away, but his attitude is more sleepy than annoyed, and John smiles down at him, tugging the duvet carefully up to his shoulders. "All right then. Go to sleep." He leans down and kisses Sherlock's head, breath warmly penetrating his hair, bouncing off his skull into the sensitive inner hollows of his ears, causing them to twitch again.

John leans again to turn off the lamp, and then scoots down next to Sherlock, arranging himself under the covers and on his own pillow. Sherlock doesn't give him much time before wiggling closer, pressing his face into the curve of John's neck, wrapping his tail around John's knees as he draws his own up over John's thighs. He lifts his upper body a little as John snakes his arm under his shoulders, careful of the wings, and wraps his arm warmly around Sherlock, cradling him close to John's body.

Sherlock squirms a bit, pushing closer, enveloped in warmth, in the smell of their den, the smell of his companion, feeling pleasantly secured and safe. The rumbling builds up again in his chest, and he releases it, to thrum throughout his body, expressing his comfort and satisfaction. John tenses briefly when he first hears the noisy purr, and then breaks into a smile so broad that Sherlock can feel the change of facial expression in his skin, his jaw, the tension of his neck. "You're purring again, Sherlock. I can get used to this."

Sherlock grumbles a bit through the underlying purr, indicating his belief that John has no choice but to get used to it, and John laughs softly, fingers curling around the ball of his shoulder and other hand crossing his chest to stroke down his arm. "Sleep tight, love," John says. And Sherlock does. Loudly contented.

**SH**

Sherlock wakes in the morning with a jolt, and only survives not falling off the edge of the bed by dint of John's firm hold around his back. John is rubbing across his shoulder blades, and pulls back with a slow smile when Sherlock resettles against him. "Your wings are gone," John says in a raspy morning voice. "You must have withdrawn them in your sleep."

Sherlock casts a quick look over his shoulder, and sees nothing out of the ordinary. John rubs his hand across the top of Sherlock's head, and static electricity bites the tip of one ear. "Ears and tail still present, though. Trust you to be so unique." Sherlock curls the tip of his tail around John's calf and makes a grumpy noise in the back of his throat. John laughs again. "You've always been cat-like. Maybe you're too emotionally attached to your feline side to let the ears go? Or perhaps it's because you don't have human ears to replace them with."

Sherlock says nothing: he doesn't know what to say. He only knows what is, which at the moment, is that he is built with a tail and ears that differ from John's. The wings were a surprise, and he's not so sure what he thinks of them. They were a bit unwieldy; so he is content that they vanished during the night. He hopes they're not gone forever, though. He'd like to try some things out.

John's hand continues its circular track, across his shoulders, down his sides, dipping into the sway of his back above his tail, and then looping up again. Sherlock likes the rough texture of his palm, the solid pressure he exerts to avoid what he had called 'tickling' last night in the shower, the affection that seeps through his skin with the prolonged contact. Sherlock brings his own hand up, working it under John's soft shirt, scrubbing across the crisp hairs of John's belly.

John cups one hand around Sherlock's neck. "You still feel way too hot, though, Sherlock. Do you feel all right?"

Sherlock looks at him blankly. He feels the same way he's felt for the past half day, which is all he can recall feeling, so it is really rather a ridiculous question. John notes his feelings from his expression, and grimaces goodnaturedly. "Yeah, yeah, right. How would you know. I'd really like to get a reading on that, though. Let's try the thermometer again, yeah?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but he's amenable, and John scurries out of bed, quickly snagging the thermometer from the night before off the dresser before huddling back under the duvet with Sherlock. "Open your mouth, and put it under your tongue." Sherlock does, and John unexpectedly snorts. "Right. And now, close your mouth back up, Sherlock. It doesn't work if your mouth stays open." Sherlock glares, but does as John instructs. The little tool beeps shortly after that, and John takes it out to read it. 101.8°F / 38.8°C the display flashes.

John's face folds into many lines of worry so easily that Sherlock can deduce it is a common expression. "I'll get you some paracetamol," he says, exiting the bed again. He dresses himself, tosses a shirt and a dressing gown onto the bed for Sherlock, and disappears into the kitchen.

The little winged cat lifts her head from the foot of the bed, and she and Sherlock stare at one another for a while, one pair of eyes golden green and very round, the other lucent gray and sharply slanted. She trills a little greeting and picks her dainty way over the rumpled mounds of covers until she gets to Sherlock's chest.

There, she flops down again, little paws lazily pushing into his neck, doing her almost-silent vibrating purr, and Sherlock cannot help but relax. He doesn't smile, not quite, but his ears prick forward and he reaches up to wrap his hand around her resonating ribs, strangely gratified to feel the evidence of her happiness. He likes the feel of her fur under his hand, long and fine. His fingers have slid under her wings, and the feathers on top of them are a similar texture, stiffer, because of the shaft of each feather, but still soft and shiny and alive.

John walks back into the room, carrying tea and a small bottle. "That's Griffin, Sherlock. She came after you-... After. I mean. This is the first time you've really met, and I thought I'd make it official." He looks unutterably sad for a moment, but then rallies himself and smiles at both of the creatures on the bed. "She helped to brood your egg, you know. I think she's taken quite a proprietary interest in you."

Sherlock doesn't particularly care about that, but squeezes around delicate ribs anyway, and rumbles a quick purr back at her. Not as thanks, of course, or a greeting. Simply because he chooses to at that moment. Griffin's green eyes are slitted in pleasure, and she pulls back her lip a little so that one tiny fang shows. Sherlock snarls silently back at her, because he's bigger, and it seems rational for her to realize that. Wings stir across the back of his hand, and Griffin nonchalantly turns her head towards John, dismissing Sherlock's little display.

When Sherlock shifts to sit up in bed, the cat launches off his chest, leaving behind little pinpricks of blood, and flutters over to the top of the wardrobe, clearly her preferred perch. John says nothing about the byplay, handing Sherlock a steaming mug and then shaking out two capsules. Sherlock takes them with a certain lack of grace, and climbs off the bed to wrap himself in a silken blue dressing gown in a ritual that feels ingrained and familiar if he doesn't think about it too hard. He follows John into the tiny kitchen, and sits in the chair at the table, pulling his bare feet onto a lower rung, keeping them off the gritty, chilly floor.

John pulls bowls down from an upper shelf and loads them with some food, pouring milk over the lot. "Wheetabix," he says. "I've got a feeling you might want some milk…."

Sherlock curls one lip at him. He's beginning to recognize the cat jokes. John is unashamed and swings into the chair on the other side of the breakfast table. "Now, eat." Sherlock does, managing the mushy grain and thoroughly enjoying the milk, although he'd rather be beaten than allow John to know, so he maintains a haughty attitude even while drinking the last of it straight from the bowl. John grins knowingly.

He feels Sherlock's face again after breakfast, and frowns at the continued heat. "You simply don't look sick," he mutters to himself. "Hmmm."

When they settle in the livingroom, John tries to start language lessons again, beginning, as he remembered from his own hatching, with their names. Sherlock stares at him with a blank face, and John's repetition of John, Sherlock begins to sound frail and absurd, each word dropping into the emptiness of the room without recognition. Well, they're recognized, Sherlock certainly can understand language. But the importance of the lesson is utterly disregarded, and Sherlock makes no attempt to repeat the sounds. Out loud. He did repeat the sounds in his head the first time, and feels like that shows adequate effort.

He wanders off in the middle of John's lesson, walking to the window and looking outside.
The robe rustles around his legs as his tail tries to swish, and he holds it closed in front, curling his fingers through the silky material. John sighs with frustration. "All right, Sherlock. You win. I can see this is going nowhere."

Sherlock turns and raises a disdainful eyebrow. One corner of John's mouth twitches as he leans back and represses a smile. "All right, then, do you remember anything?"

Sherlock looks back out the window, because he doesn't know how to answer that question. Certainly there is a lot of random information floating around in his head, and he recognizes many things. And yet there is that giant palace in his mind, vast echoing corridors and doors that won't open no matter what he tries. He can sense that there is history and knowledge behind them, and twitches in frustration and impatience.

John moves to stand behind him, presses his cheek fleetingly against Sherlock's shoulder before stepping to the desk and grabbing something. "Here, Sherlock. I'm going to call up your website and my blog. We'll see if it jogs anything loose."

Sherlock reluctantly moves to sit beside John on the sofa. He instinctively dislikes looking ignorant, although, he supposes that if he must, he'd rather look foolish in front of John than anyone else. "Here it is," John says, scooting closer to Sherlock, until their sides are touching. "The Science of Deduction. Look familiar? Can you read it?"

Sherlock pulls the screen closer and looks attentively at the display. The black, blue and gray seem distressingly familiar, and thoughts stir in a rattling jumble behind the closed doors in his mind, but nothing comes through. He grunts, frustrated, and John sighs. "Can't read it yet, I guess? Do you recognize this one?" He changes to a different tab. There's a green background here, and a nice, clear picture of John near the top. Sherlock hums recognition.

"Let me tell you about some of your cases, Sherlock. See if it shakes anything loose." John sets the laptop to the side and puts his hands between his knees, watching Sherlock carefully.

"Before, Sherlock, before the egg. You were a detective. A consulting detective, mainly working with Greg Lestrade at the Yard. Remember him?" Sherlock twitches an eyebrow in a 'go on, then' gesture, and John stops trying to get feedback. "I'll start with when we met, then. Mrs. Hudson sent you to the basement one day and you found an egg… ."