Archive of Our Own

From the moment John was born he was destined to become a fisherman.
His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been fishermen and so, naturally, it was expected of him to become one too.
And so John had done just that.
But being a fisherman had never been his desire.
The blood of a fisherman might have run in his veins but it had never quite managed to reach his heart.

In his destined profession, he had been miserable, finding the work too laborious, monotonous, and lonely.
His days that he spent out at the open water with no other company but the churning of the salty waves and the creaking of his boat had seemed far too long, and the evenings and nights where he got to rest always seemed far too short for that purpose.
He would often rise well before dawn and not turn back to his bed until well after the sun had set again.

Perhaps sensing his displeasure, he had never managed to get along with the other fishermen in the area and he had also never quite managed to find himself a wife either.
And so, in his loneliness, he had turned towards the only guaranteed form of warmth and companionship he could find, he had turned himself towards the bottle.

On dark and stormy evenings where the other men of the small seaside town were already at home, securely bundled up in bed with their loved ones, John would still be at the local tavern, emptying tankards of ale and glasses of whiskey until his insides finally felt warm but numb and the thought of the empty bed waiting for him didn't hurt quite as much anymore.
And only then would he stagger back to the meager room he rented, collapse on his bed, and pass out, only to wake up again the next morning with a splitting headache and the return of that same familiar cold void that seemed to reside permanently within the depths of his chest where he could almost hear it howl like an arctic wind across the barren wasteland he hid inside of himself.

This had gone on for several years.
John becoming more and more ostracized and his boat falling ever further in disrepair.
Eventually he had amassed debts he could no longer pay and promises he realized he could no longer keep. And so, after a couple more years of this, on a fateful late autumn evening, standing on top of the tallest cliff right at the edge of land and sea, the wind blowing sharp and harsh against his body, and the waves beating at the land below unforgiving, he finally came to the conclusion that there were only two options left to him: make something better of himself or.....just....give up.

The sea below had looked enticing, beckoning him with frothy waves and deep and salty depths.
Black broken glass with silvered foam edges. A world of forgetfulness wherein he could finally lose himself and all his pain and mistakes.....if he would only jump.
And he almost did.
The road of least resistance seeming far more enticing than the long uphill climb that stretched before him if he truly wanted to change the course of his life.
It's always easier to just let yourself get swept away by the currents and the tide than to try and swim against it.
It's always easier to sail when the wind is at your back.....

But, that night, the wind hadn't been at his back. It had been blowing in his face, pushing him back to land and the resemblance of a life he was considering to leave behind, making the tears that had somehow gathered in the corners of his eyes sting and ache as if they were shards of ice.

And so he had turned back. He had walked back down the cliff. And John had changed his life.

First he had gotten sober.
He had quit drinking the very next day and he had not touched a drop of alcohol since.
He had worked hard and long and all through the winter, a time of year where the rest of the town's fishermen usually rested.

He had worked hard and honest and, by the end of the winter, he had been able to pay off most of his debts.
Most of them, but not all.
And when the new fishing season began he found he still had no money left to spend on his old and neglected boat.
He realized he would not be able to keep up with the other fishermen and their newer well-kept vessels.
If they all sailed out together again he would most certainly fall behind, not catch nearly as much as the rest of them or, perhaps, not catch anything at all, and he would be right back where he started from.

He had realized there was only one thing left for him to do, one final desperate option, if he wanted to stay on this new and brighter course he had set for himself: he had to go to The Western Island.

The Western Island was a small and inhospitable island off of the West coast of the mainland. During the summer-days when the sky was clear and the weather bright you could usually just make out the shape of it on the horizon if you stood on the beach and squinted.

Nobody ever went there.

It was whispered that The Western Island was haunted, that evil spirits lived there, that the very rocks of the island themselves did not want outsiders there and they would try to trip and crush you if you weren't careful.
In the past some fishermen had tried their luck amongst the island's craggy shores but none had managed to stay long and all of them had returned with stories of whispered voices in the wind, sudden and unexpected waves crashing over the deck, and the weather changing in the blink of an eye from completely wind-still to tempestuous storms.

Nobody ever went to The Western Island anymore.
And so it was the perfect place for John.
At least there he would not have any competition to deprive him of his livelihood and, who knows, he told himself, maybe a land as lonely, inhospitable and depressing like that, would actually welcome a man like him.

**************************************************************

And that is how John had found himself mooring his small, old boat at The Western Island's only dock, although......calling it a 'dock' would probably be giving the weather beaten outcropping of stones a little too much credit.
But he managed anyway.
There wasn't a better place to drop anchor anyway.
The island's entire coastline was made up out of sharp and uneven rocks, their surface made slippery by deposits of weeds and sludge dredged up from the depths of the ocean by the unforgiving waves.
When he was sure his boat was securely anchored he cautiously made his way across the shore and up the island's uneven terrain.
The island was small but, he supposed, large enough for one lonely man to settle on.
From his vantage point on the beach he could already see a couple of hills in the distance with a nice and flat valley below where he could also just make out the gleam of a river in the light of the rising sun.
It would probably be best if he built himself a small cabin there. That way he wouldn't have to sail back and forth from the island to the mainland every single night, he'd rather avoid braving its treacherous shoreline as much as he could, and, besides, he had already given up his rented room on the mainland, figuring it would be yet another way for him to save some money.
Spending at least some of his nights on the Western Island just made sense.

To the right of the valley he also spied a small forest, the perfect place to gather the logs and wood needed for his new home and, maybe, he would also be able to hunt some game there, securing him a meal to celebrate his first lonely night in this desolate place.

And so he took the satchel with his supplies from the hull of his boat and slung it over his shoulder and he also took out an ax and slung it over the other and, whistling a merry tune that echoed a bit too ominously along the craggy rocks of the shore, he made his way towards the distant valley and trees.

*******************************************************

Chopping down a couple of trees had been hard work but nothing John hadn't gotten used to over the past winter where he had toiled in an effort to settle his debts and better his life. While he had been in the forest he had also found some trees on the forest floor that had probably been felled by a previous storm and he gathered those too, as well as some branches and moss to help build his roof.

He had set himself to the task of building himself a small cabin in the valley right by the river with somewhat high spirits but his good mood soured quickly when, every time he placed a log, the moment he turned away, a gust of wind would unexpectedly rush through the valley and push it right back over again.

At first he had assumed this to just be a coincidence or just an effect of the slope of the hills, funneling the wind towards him in strange and unexpected ways but......it kept on happening, no matter how hard he hammered the logs into the ground and it only ever seemed to happen when he was looking the other way.

As another log could be heard toppling down behind his back John let out a loud grunt in frustrated anger. He had only half believed the villagers when they told their stories of strange occurrences on The Western Island but now.......now he feared there might be some truth to them after all.

He should have known that, even after everything he'd been through, that even now, luck still wouldn't be on his side.
Maybe he should just give up.
Maybe he should just sail his boat out into the deepest part of the ocean, drop his sails and lose his anchor and just...........disappear.........let the current take him wherever it pleased and........

John's depressing train of thought had stopped abruptly because he suddenly noticed.......he was no longer alone.
As he reached for the freshly fallen log he noticed a slender young man suddenly standing beside it, looking down at him defiantly.
The young man was thin but in a trained but very elegant way, as if he spent his days running or dancing, his skin was pale but his eyes were the most shocking shade of emerald blue John had ever seen, reminding him of windswept waves and rain-heavy clouds just before a storm.
On top of his head the strange young man had a mop of dark curls that constantly seemed to get swept away, this way and that, in the current of a storm that John could neither hear nor feel.
The young man wore simple clothing, a loose and thin shirt and equally thin trousers but no stockings or shoes were on his feet.

By all rights he should be cold. John himself was wearing a thick oilskin jacket, woolen trousers and heavy boots but, even he, from time to time, could still feel the icy grasp of receding winter reach underneath the hem of his thick clothes.
He couldn't imagine being out here dressed the way the young man was......and barefoot too.....

But, the young man didn't seem to mind.
He was looking down at John, a stern and defiant look on his face with his hands with their slender and elegant fingers firmly planted against his sides.
Not a trace of cold or discomfort about him.
Instead he just looked angry.
To John he looked otherwordly.

And that's probably what he was.
There was no way that this strange creature was just a simple mortal man.
John supposed he probably was some kind of trow or spaeman or, gods forbid, one of the fae....

A lock of the young man's raven curls got blown across the delicate expanse of his forehead by a breeze that John still could neither see nor hear nor feel, but the young man did not seem to be bothered by it, making no attempt to move it back again and leaving it to hang just in front of his left eye.
At the moment this strangely beguiling creature was far too busy glaring daggers at John to notice anything else.

“Who are you?”, the strange young man suddenly said, “and what are you doing here?”

His voice had a slightly melodious tone to it as if it was, somehow, coming from right beside John's ear but also, at the same time, from very far away, somewhere beyond the trees or way up on the hills.....coming and going......a constant ebb and flow like the waves of the sea.
John swallowed as he left his gathered logs lying on the valley floor, momentarily forgotten, and righted himself to his full height which, he noticed to his own discomfort, was still about a head shorter than that of the strange young man.

“My name is John”, he finally answered, trying to sound more confident than he actually felt, “I am a fisherman and I am trying to build myself a small house here.”

The young man sneered at him as if John had just said something absolutely vile and disgusting.
“Well......you can't.”

John frowned.
“Why not? And who even are you?”

The young man had then put his nose up in the air haughtily.
“You can't because I say so and this is my island. I am the Western Wind and I've lived here on my own for as long as I can remember. I like to run down the hills and through the valley and your......your house -“ here he gave another disgusted sneer as he looked down at John's haphazard pile of gathered logs, “- is right in my way.”

“So is that why you keep knocking it over?”

A small mischievous smile formed around the young man's shapely lips.
“Yes.”

Well.....so this young man was actually.....not a man at all but...The Western Wind.
John gave him another good and long look and......well......yes......it did make sense, the young man's lithe and elegant body, his perpetually windswept hair, his eyes the colour of a stormy sky........

“I will build my house somewhere else then”, John told him.

The young man gave him a small nod, barely acknowledging him.
“See that you do.”

And with that, he was gone again, swept away with the wind, up towards the tops of the hills or maybe out to sea, tiptoeing across the foamy crests of the waves on light and delicate bare feet.

John sighed.

So he couldn't build his house here after all.
He had a feeling that, every time he would try, the Western Wind would come blowing by and just knock it right down again....or do something worse to him entirely.
Having been a fisherman all his life, John knew all too well that threats made by the wind should never be taken lightly.

And so he gathered his logs, his ax, and his belongings and went looking for a new, slightly less perfect, location to build his new house.

**********************************************************

Eventually John found a new place to build his cabin within the nearby woods. While exploring their gloomy expanse he happened upon a small clearing that might suit his needs and keep him well out of the path of the haughty and cold Western Wind.
Granted, this new place was far smaller than the previous location he had wanted to build his house and the ground that would serve as his foundation was rocky and uneven but......at least it would still be better than sleeping out in the open.....at the mercy of the weather and the wind.....

And so John set to work.

It eventually took him well into the night to build himself a small shack. Only large enough to accommodate a couple of blankets to sleep on and nothing more but, well, he supposed he would expand on it as the season progressed......that was......if he even managed to stay that long....if the Western Wind didn't find him again and found him at fault....

**********************************

The next morning he woke up with a sore back, stiff limbs and slightly dampened spirits but he was pleased to find that, so far, The Western Wind seemed to have left him and his new abode alone.

Maybe the wind had forgotten about him entirely.....maybe the young man was just as flighty as his nature would suggest...John could only hope.....

And so as the sun rose he warmed himself in its early rays as they filtered in through the trees and made himself a breakfast out of some berries, mushrooms and a piece of stale bread he had brought with him from the mainland.

After he finished his meager meal he made his way towards the shore and he was pleased to find that his boat was also still there, anchored exactly where he had left it, but, after having been neglected through his previous darker years, it also lay in a state of disrepair.

John supposed that his first day on The Western Island might be as good a day as any to start fresh and new and he spent most of the morning cleaning out his boat and removing the many barnacles from the hull that had managed to gather there over time.

He was just picking at a very tenacious shell with the tip of his knife when he suddenly heard a now slightly more familiar voice that almost seemed to rise and fall along with the swell of the tide:
“Why are you still here? And......what are you doing?”

John lowered his knife and turned around and, sure enough, standing on the uneven rocky shore behind him, the toes of his bare feet curved elegantly and effortlessly around the jagged edges of the stones, was the Western Wind. In the warm hue of the early afternoon sun his pale skin almost seemed to reflect the light, with his raven hair appearing like glossy silver and his eyes like two emerald pools.
Otherwordly.
The sight of him like this was rather.......pretty.
But John decided, right then and there, that he would never tell him that.
His sour and ugly personality was probably enough to tarnish any external beauty he might possess anyway.

“I'm cleaning barnacles from the hull of my boat”, John said, only choosing to answer the latter of the young man's two questions. Part of him felt it might not be a good idea to let the Western Wind know where exactly he had built his house.
He might decide to come and knock it over again....just out of malice or spite or.....maybe just because he felt like it.

“Oh.....and......why?”
The young man had almost sounded.....curious.

“The more barnacles gather, the slower the boat gets and the less fish I catch”, John answered and he turned himself back towards his work, hoping that, if he just ignored him, the Western Wind might just go away again and leave him to work in peace.

And, just for a moment, that had seemed to be exactly what had happened as several more moments of silence passed wherein the only sounds that could be heard were the monotonous swish of john's knife and the equally monotonous coming and going of the waves amongst the rocks.

“It seems rather tedious”, the Western Wind suddenly commented.

John just shrugged, only slightly annoyed with the other man's persistent presence, as he pried another tenacious barnacle loose.
“It is what it is. It's just something that needs to be done if I want to get anywhere...........do you want to give it a try?”

The offer had managed to surprise even John himself.
He hadn't known why he had offered.
He didn't want this pesky young man to hang around and distract him longer than was absolutely necessary so.......maybe he had just hoped that a creature as flighty as the Western Wind would find the offered task so shockingly boring that he would instantly flee at the offer........perhaps......

The young man's beguiling blue eyes had widened, first with shocked apprehension and then......with something else, something that made their depths sparkle and shine like silver fish on the surface.
“Can I?”

John had given him another shrug as he offered him the knife, it was blunt anyway and if the young man planned to do any harm with it he'd have to really try.
“Sure.”

The Western Wind had taken the knife from him excitedly and had proceeded to kneel down next to John in order to try his hand at this new and unfamiliar chore enthusiastically, hacking away at the barnacles far too quickly and too violently but with a dogged determination.

With the young man now this close, John had been able to notice the fresh and slightly sweet scent that surrounded him, reminding him of dew on the grass or flowers just about to bloom.
It had been......nice. Almost comforting in a strange way.
It had reminded John of a better and simpler time where he had been much younger with the wind at his back instead of constantly in his face and his arms outstretched, his face turned towards the sun and the sky......

“Do you have an actual name, or should I just call you Western Wind?”, John heard himself ask and, much like the offering of the knife, he didn't really know why he was asking it. Why he wanted to know more about this strange creature and why he suddenly wanted to keep him close and.....

“Sherlock”, the Western Wind said, “but nobody ever really bothers to ask me about it and – ouch!”

A small drop of the darkest red blood could be seen welling up at the tip of Sherlock's finger where he had somehow managed to cut himself with the dull knife as he had been hacking away at the barnacles too forcefully and too impatiently.
John cautiously watched him as he scowled down at his own finger, the blue pools of his eyes becoming violent maelstroms as the sky above darkened with gathering clouds and the beginnings of a storm could be felt pulling at his clothes and rushing across his skin.

“This is stupid”, Sherlock said, the corners of his shapely mouth now pulled down, the lines of his face tight, as if in an attempt not to cry, “you're stupid......I am way too clever for these kinds of menial and mundane human tasks like this anyway and.....”

Sherlock didn't finish what he had been planning to say, instead he gritted his teeth in impatient annoyance and just got up, ready to leave, ready to let himself get whisked away with the violent gusts of wind that seemed to grow stronger and more erratic, more volatile, with every too deep and too shaky breath he now took.

A drop of cold rainwater landed on the skin of John's cheek and he wiped it away absentmindedly.
He should probably let Sherlock go.
It probably would be better this way.
Now that Sherlock seemed on the verge of an outburst at the slightest inconvenience......a destructive storm gathering at its edges and a miserable downpour on its heels.
With the Western Wind and his moods gone, John would at least be able to go back to cleaning his boat and his fishing and the familiar boring and depressing monotony of his life and......

“Wait..”, John said. He didn't know why he said it, why he would even want this petulant and maybe dangerous and very powerful young man to stay but.....he said it anyway.

“Wait”, John repeated as Sherlock halted and turned back around in order to look at him, now cautiously waiting, “you're just too impatient......too hasty.....come, sit back down and I'll show you how to do it......I'll help you.”

Sherlock had seemed to hesitate for a moment, thunder rolling down the hills beyond while he tried to make up his mind, and then......the sky calmed, the clouds cleared and the sea stilled as Sherlock sat himself back down beside John.
“Alright.....show me.”

And John had.
He had placed the knife back in Sherlock's soft and delicate hand and he had placed his own far more calloused one on top of it, guiding his movements, showing him how, slow....gentle.....carefully......and, as time passed and Sherlock started following along with John's movements instead of fighting them.....he eventually got the hang of it and a pleased smile formed on his face, the sight of it warming something deep inside of John's chest that he thought he had forgotten long ago, making him smile in return as well.

“You're too hasty”, John had told him, “too flighty and impatient. Work like this needs patience and gentleness......calm.”

Then it had been Sherlock's turn to shrug, a small almost careless lift of his slender shoulders.
“I am the Western Wind after all, what even am I if not flighty and impatient?”

John had laughed then, the sound of it had been strange to his own ears, he hadn't heard himself laugh in such a long time.
“I like your name.....Sherlock”, he had told the young man, tasting the sound the individual letters made on his tongue and finding their combination surprisingly sweet.

Sherlock had blushed at the praise.....actually blushed......a barely perceptible pinkening of his cheeks as an unseen wind ruffled his dark curls, sweeping them across his forehead and cheeks in an attempt to hide it from view.
It only made John like it more.
It had seemed to John as if this was a side of him he barely ever let anyone else see.
The loveliest gentleness hidden behind the raging tempest....

They had worked together like that for at least another hour, carefully removing every single barnacle from the boat's hull and leaving it in much better shape than it had been in when John had started that morning.

When the final barnacle had been pried free John had pocketed the knife and had given Sherlock a small grateful nod.
“Thank you for your help and......your company.”

Sherlock hadn't said anything for a good long moment then, something in the depths of his eyes brewing and roiling and then.....
“Thank you for teaching me” he had said, “and.....for your company as well.”
And then he had been gone, carried away by an unseen breeze that had ruffled John's hair and had made the boat rock in the water.
And then John had been alone again, although, somehow, he hadn't felt quite as lonely as he had before.

************************************************

That day John had been able to catch more fish than he had in a very long while.
The wind had seemed to be perpetually at his back as the currents carried ever larger schools towards his nets.
By the time the sun had started its slow descent beyond the horizon, dipping into the sea like molten honey, John's deck had been covered with so many fish that he had to take care where he stepped if he wanted to avoid trodding and slipping on their scaly bodies.

So, at dusk, he had found himself steering his boat back towards the mainland in order to sell his mountainous catch.
Once back to civilization the fresh fish were easy to sell and now with his pockets heavy with coin John had quickly found his way to the nearest tavern in order to secure himself a hot meal and.....who knew what else.

The food had been good and the tavern warm and the company plentiful but......none of it seemed to beguile him nearly as much as it had before.....suddenly it had all been far too loud, far too bright, far too hot, and far too busy for John's taste. The press of people and bodies and conversation almost suffocating as he tried to eat in silence at his table tucked away in the corner, all the while longing for some silence and solitude instead and.......something else.....something he had only recently learned existed.

When he had arrived earlier he had contemplated renting out a room for the night, just to be able to sleep in a proper bed, perhaps find a willing body to share it with, but.......now that he was here.......he somehow felt as if he didn't quite belong here anymore.
As if the bright vibrancy of life, somehow, no longer belonged to him.
And so, after finishing his meal and paying for it, John made his way back alone towards his boat and back to the lonely solitude of the Western Island, leaving the life he once thought he knew and craved, behind.

********************************************

The next couple of weeks on the island John saw very little of Sherlock. Sometimes he imagined he caught glimpses of him, racing along the valley and the tops of the hills, the sunlight just catching on his raven curls before he had moved on again, moved on to somewhere new, somewhere better, his voice a hidden hint in the rustling of leaves and the crashing of the waves, his very being a part of this island and so, with the whole island at his disposal, never willing or able to stay in one single place for too long.

Flighty and impatient.

And John tried not to think about him too much.
Not when he went out fishing, still catching more fish than he had ever done before, and not when he sailed to the mainland to sell his catch, never staying there for longer than he absolutely needed to.
Than he wanted to.
By now the bright lights and loud bustle of city life seemed to have absolutely lost their charm.
John found that, surrounded by it, it was always very hard to catch the calming sound of the wind.

And so, as John pulled in his nets, John tried not to remember what the delicate skin of Sherlock's hand had felt like underneath John's own.....how surprisingly gentle the Western Wind could be if he put his mind to it.......
If John........

John had found his thoughts drifting more and more towards Sherlock as more and more lonely days passed him by and......how could he not.....on this island......Sherlock seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once............a lovely contradiction that John just couldn't quite solve no matter how much he thought about it......and so, one day, he had been a little bit too distracted as he took down his sails and, in his negligence, he had managed to tear a large rip through one of them.

And, as John sat on the shore, mending his torn sail diligently with a bone needle and length of thread, that's when Sherlock finally found him again.

“Hello, John.”

John had not needed to turn around to know who this voice belonged to.
The deep tones of it with their surprisingly lighter undercurrent of rustling leaves and foamy bright waves unmistakable.
But he had turned around anyway.

“Do you need help with that?”, Sherlock had asked. The sound of his melodious voice and the sight of his perfect and yet otherworldly face quieting something deep within John that he hadn't known had needed calming in the first place.

John had smiled up at him – and how could he not – Sherlock somehow looked even lovelier than the first time they met, his eyes now a lighter blue resembling the sea at the shoreline and the clear skies of summer, his lovely lips pulled up in a pleasant and relaxed smile instead of the sneer he had worn on their very first meeting.

“I'm mending my sail”, John explained, “do you know how to sew?”

Sherlock shook his head, his silken curls swaying in an unseen breeze as he moved, the motions of a private dance only John got to see, “No, I've never sewn anything before, but I'm sure you'll be able to teach me.”

And so, very similar to the previous time they had met, that's exactly what John had done, with Sherlock sitting beside him, pressed close to his side, the warmth of his body and his unique sweet and fresh scent somehow managing to wrap itself around the both of them.
John had taken Sherlock's hands in his and, calmly and gently and very carefully, he had shown him how to sew, only very absentmindedly noticing how calm and placid the world and the weather around them suddenly seemed to have become.

**********************************************
It had taken about an hour to fully mend the sail and hoist it back into its proper position and John, if he was being honest with himself, actually felt a bit disappointed that the repair-work was already over.
He had quite enjoyed sitting with Sherlock and talking to him, touching him, just having him close.....

He knew he probably shouldn't enjoy the young man's company as much as he did.
He was not here to.....
He never really did well with people and company.
Eventually they would always realize that John wasn't really worth the effort and they would leave.........disappear like smoke on the wind and.......

The sea and the fish had always been the only constant in his life, he would do well to remember that and just stick to what he knew.

“Are you going out to sea again?”

For a moment John wondered whether Sherlock had, somehow, read his mind but...no....it was only the logical conclusion to draw after mending and repairing his boat while there were still so many hours of daylight left.

John had nodded.
“Yes, yes, I am, so.....”

“Can I come with you?”

John had been slightly confused then.
“You want to....what? Come with me on my boat? To fish?”

Sherlock had nodded enthusiastically and as his curls bobbed in the process a slight but sudden breeze caught in John's sails, making the linen pull tight audibly.
“I've never been on an actual boat before.”

John hesitated for a moment more. He had never taken anyone with him before. He had never wanted to take anyone with him before.
But with Sherlock......he had only known him for a short while but things already seemed to be different with Sherlock.
He liked spending time with Sherlock and he wasn't entirely sure what that meant, whether that was a good thing at all, but he nodded anyway.
“Yes, sure, alright, if that's what you want....”

John did not have time to say anything else because one moment Sherlock was standing in front of him and the next a breeze ruffled their hair and clothes and Sherlock was standing on the deck of John's boat, smiling, bright and.....lovely.
And so John had no other choice but to follow after him and also stepped onto his boat.

*************************************************

The day passed them by with relative ease as John soon realized that it could be quite handy to have the actual Western Wind on board of your ship.
Whenever he needed more wind, Sherlock would softly blow into the sails, making them billow and the boat glide along the water effortlessly, and whenever John needed the boat to stay put, Sherlock would close his eyes and the world around them would fall silent, holding its breath together with the wind.

It was nice.
Nicer than John had imagined it would be.
And with the work done far sooner than expected it left them with room for conversation that John, rather awkwardly, attempted to fill.

“Have you had people come to your island before?”, he asked Sherlock. He already knew the answer, of course, other fishermen had been telling tall tales of the haunted Western Island for years but he was wondering how Sherlock had experienced their visits and whether he had been as friendly towards any of them as he had been towards John, although........at the thought of Sherlock in close company and smiling at one of the other fishermen.......something sour and unpleasant rose up from within John's stomach.

Sherlock just replied with a shrug from his position on deck where he was sitting casually leaned against the hull.
“Oh yes, plenty came, but none of them ever stayed.”

“Ah.”
John didn't really know what else to say.
Whether Sherlock's answer should make him happy or sad or.....just relieved.
Sherlock sure didn't seem bothered, except......for a slight dulling of the vibrant blue of his eyes that John swore hadn't been there before.
But before John had been able to ask him to elaborate, Sherlock had countered with a question of his own:
“Why are you here?”

John frowned in confusion.
“Erm...to catch fish, I already told you, I'm a fisherman.”

Sherlock had rolled his eyes and as he let out an exasperated sigh a sudden gust of wind made the waves choppy and the hull of the boat rise and fall on their impromptu dance.
“You can fish anywhere”, Sherlock said, “but why here? Why this island?”

John felt uncomfortable now, nervous, not sure how to answer that question without bringing his own faults and ugly parts and darkened past to the light.
For some reason it seemed to matter to him how Sherlock saw him, how he thought about him.....

“I guess....”, John answered, “I came here from the mainland and....well....I used to fish and live there instead but.......I guess I just might not belong there anymore.”

It hadn't really been an answer but it had still been close enough to the truth anyway and, much to John's relief, Sherlock seemed to accept it as such.

“Ah”, Sherlock said, “that's alright. Neither do I.”

John frowned at him.
“Have you ever been to the mainland then?”

Sherlock bit his lip, casting his eyes down either in embarrassment or contemplation as the world around them, once again, went eerily quiet.
“Once.....a long time ago......but I prefer my island......there are not enough open spaces out there in the mainland where I can just.....run. I don't think I'll ever go back there unless it's for something very important. Something I truly want.”

John smiled at him, understanding.
“You're hardly ever calm, are you?”

Sherlock shrugged, still not meeting John's eyes.
“When you're calm it gives you too many opportunities to notice things.”

“Notice things? Like what?”

This time Sherlock did look at him, his eyes the deepest blue tornadoes that John could feel himself getting sucked into.
“Like you”, Sherlock said.

“And......is that a bad thing?”

Now Sherlock just smiled, lovely and reminiscent of days of spring and warm summer nights.
“No......not anymore.”

*****************************************************

From that day on they spent a lot more time together.
Whenever John went out to sea, Sherlock would often be there too, joining him on deck, making sure John had a favorable wind and enjoyable company.

John really did like spending time with Sherlock and the same seemed to be true for Sherlock as well.
John never could have imagined that the snarky young man he had met on his first day on the island, this cold prince of brutal and destructive weather, would end up having such a pleasant and gentle side to himself as well.

But that's exactly how it was, and John couldn't help but feel and hope that he himself had had a hand in the young man's change of character.
That they had had a hand in changing each other.
That, where Sherlock had been able to give John back some of his optimism and hope, John, in turn, had been able to calm and gentle the hasty and flighty Sherlock.

They were a good combination.

They worked well together.

Together with Sherlock, John felt less lonely and.....maybe that was true for the both of them.

But John also knew that, like all things, it could not last forever.

Soon the fishing season would be ending and John would have to go back to the mainland or risk the sea freezing over and stranding himself on the Western Island with very little to eat or drink and only his lonely ramshackle cabin as protection from the winter's cold.

He only had a week left on the island and then he would be leaving.
He had no other choice.
He hadn't told Sherlock yet.
He wasn't sure if he should tell Sherlock.
Sherlock would undoubtedly be upset, sad, angry.....maybe both, and John didn't want to spend his last week here with the bright lights in the depths of Sherlock's lovely eyes dimmed.

He knew it was selfish but......well.....that was just human nature, wasn't it......or maybe just his own nature in particular.
Maybe this had been exactly why he had been alone for so many years.
Why he hadn't been able to hold on to anything meaningful, letting it all slide through his fingers like the wind, impossible to grasp and even more so to hold on to.

The wind......

He had grown rather fond of Sherlock.

He would miss him terribly but.......he couldn't stay.

Without his fishing to sustain himself he would only end up becoming a burden to Sherlock.

A burden the young man had neither asked for nor deserved.

A dead weight.......and then Sherlock would tire of him soon enough anyway.
John had seen it happen before.

**************************************

Maybe Sherlock noticed John's slightly more gloomy mood in that last week or maybe he didn't.
If he did, he never said anything or called John out on it, he just cast worried glances his way when he thought John wasn't looking and if, when they were out on the open waters, the breeze ruffled through John's hair and dipped below his collar a bit more often than usual, well.....that was probably just his imagination.

*******************************

“I found a young bird that had fallen from its nest the other day”, Sherlock told John on the last day before John was set to leave.

John supposed Sherlock was probably aware of how dark John's mood had gotten today in particular and he was probably trying to make some casual conversation in his own awkward way.
It was rather endearing and it did manage to lighten John's mood somewhat.
He really was going to miss Sherlock.

“Oh?”, John said, encouraging Sherlock to continue talking. He really liked to hear Sherlock talk.

“I put him back in his nest but a wild cat came along and caught and ate it.”

“Oh.....”, John replied, not entirely sure why Sherlock was telling him this, the young man's deep oceanic eyes giving nothing away as he kept them focused on John, “well.....I suppose........in the end.....we're all just creatures trying to survive.”

“Is that what you are?”

John shrugged, turning himself back to his nets and the sea, the choppy waves beneath, beating against the wood of the hull in an irregular pattern.
“I suppose.”

When John turned back around, Sherlock was gone.

*********************************************************

That night, his last night on the island, John couldn't sleep, his room too cold and his mind too full.
He kept wondering to himself whether he had done the right thing, whether he should have told Sherlock about his departure after all, whether.....

It seemed as if he couldn't keep himself from thinking about Sherlock, from the way the young man had so effortlessly inserted himself into John's life, how he had carved himself a place where John had believed one no longer existed.

Sherlock.....

John would miss him, but.....Sherlock had already given him so much.......what could someone like John offer someone like Sherlock in return?

Not a whole lot............

Sherlock was the Western Wind personified after all.
If you were to view the span of his life like an ocean, endless and vast, John's part in it would consist of no more than a single drop of water, inconsequential and easily forgotten.

The wind is fickle and fast and impossible to hold down.
That's what John told himself.
He didn't deserve Sherlock.
Sherlock would forget him.

This was Sherlock's island and John had been taking advantage of it for far too long already.
John belonged on the mainland......even-though it hadn't felt like he did for a good long while now.

Sherlock would forget him.

And it was about time John let him go.

************************************************

The next morning John got up early, packed everything he owned, which wasn't much, and made his way towards his boat.
The sky, brightening at its edges with early dawn, was overcast and a sharp breeze stabbed underneath the collar of his coat and the hem of his shirt every couple of steps.

John had half been expecting Sherlock to be standing by the side of his boat, waiting, ready to sail along as he had done on countless days before but, when John reached the rocky shoreline, it was depressingly empty.

Maybe Sherlock had already forgotten him....

It didn't take John long at all to unfurl his sails and get his boat ready for the hour long journey back to the mainland, and so, with one last look back at the island that had started to feel more like home to him than any place he had ever been before, he set off.

*************************************

As dawn progressed the sky brightened only marginally. The light of the sun obscured by heavy clouds that seemed to follow John's path on a far too unnatural wind.
For all the months John had been on the island the weather had never been like this, this oppressive and depressing, and John tried not to think too much on what it could mean.

Thunder rolled ominously overhead as cold rain with drops the size of tears pelted down on him, drenching his hair and face and soaking his clothes while the wind whistled with a high mournful wail amongst the rigging of his ship.

It was agony.

But John didn't look back.

He couldn't.

He was all too aware what...or who.....he'd see if he did.

He told himself it was better this way.

That Sherlock would soon forget him.

The wind is fickle.

The wind is flighty.

The wind doesn't know how to love.

But John did.

And as lightning cracked open the sky, he could feel his own heart breaking as well.

John had fallen in love with the Western Wind, with Sherlock, only.....he had realized that that had been what was happening too late. Too late to stop it.
Too late to stop himself from falling in love with a creature who could never love him back.
A force too marvelous for a mortal man like him to ever deserve.

And so he sailed on, his eyes cast forward, fixed on the horizon, on the bright lights of the mainland that no longer seemed either warm or welcoming to him, that had probably lost their shine a very long time ago, and pretended the wetness on his face was just rain instead of tears.

****************************************

John's first week back on the mainland was nothing short of agony.
Even-though he had managed to amass a sizable fortune over the last couple of months due to his fortunate catches along the shores of the Western Island, he found there was no joy to be found in the lavish apartment he was now able to rent or pride in the respect and praise his fellow fishermen now bestowed on him.

In the end we are all just creatures trying to survive, John thought.

In his lonely struggle to survive he had managed to lose himself many years ago to debt and alcohol only to find himself again on the rocky shores of an inhospitable and haunted island only........he now feared that whatever he had found there......he had not been able to bring with him.......it had stayed behind within the gentle touches and smiles of an unlikely but beautiful young man.

He missed Sherlock.

He should have never gone back to the mainland.

But by now the sea had definitely frozen over and he had no way to go back to the island and right his wrong.

It wouldn't matter.

By the time the season had changed and he would be able to go return.....Sherlock would have forgotten about him anyway.

The wind is fickle.

He had probably not meant to Sherlock what Sherlock had meant to him and......how could he?
He couldn't blame Sherlock.
Sherlock was the wind personified while John.......John was just an ordinary, poor and depressed fisherman.

Sherlock would forget him, John was sure of it.

**************************************************************

The world kept on turning as usual and in its inevitable eternal spin it managed to pull everything and everyone on it deeper and deeper into the cold darkness of winter.

On the coldest and darkest night of the year John found himself laying shivering in his bed.
He often forgot to light his fireplace these days, finding it couldn't warm him anyway even if he did remember, not where he felt the coldest anyway, deep within his chest and heart.

He had assumed that, the longer he stayed away from Sherlock, the less he would eventually find himself thinking about him....the less he would miss him.... but quite the opposite had turned out to be true and so, when he heard a familiar voice within the whistling of the wind past his windows, he first thought it was just another hallucination.

“John.....”

John opened his eyes but in the darkness of the night his room was too dark to properly make out any details on the shape that was now standing at the foot of his bed. But John thought he recognized him anyway.
But.....he couldn't be here.......could he......

“Sherlock?”

As John's eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness around them it became easier to make out the shape of Sherlock himself standing in John's room and John found himself jumping out of bed in an instant, the cold be damned.

“Sherlock.....I......what are you doing here..........I thought you were never coming back to the mainland again......I thought.......”

I thought you had forgotten me.

I don't think I'll ever go back there unless it's for something very important. Something I truly want..

But, instead of answering any of his questions, spoken or otherwise, Sherlock only asked him a question in return.
“Why did you leave?”

“I.....”, John had no real answer for him. Not one that made sense anyway.

We're all creatures trying to survive in the end, he had tried to tell Sherlock once.
But if this was surviving......John wasn't really sure he was succeeding....or whether he actually wanted it.

“I know what it's like to be lonely too, you know”, Sherlock said.

John just shook his head.
“Sherlock.....I'm......I'm so sorry.....I never meant to.....I shouldn't have....”

But Sherlock just continued talking.
“I never knew what that word meant, 'loneliness', until I stopped being it. Until you came along. Until you showed me what the opposite of it was. Until you came along and refused to leave like all the others had done. And then......then you left me anyway.”

“I'm so sorry”, John said again, “I'm so sorry.”

“Will you come back?”

“Of course”, John's answer is instantaneous, “but....I'm afraid I don't have a lot to offer you.”

Sherlock shrugged.
“I don't need a lot. I just need you.”

And at his words the iced over part of John's heart finally managed to melt, heating itself up carefully on the delicate flames of hope.
“I think I need you too and......I think I love you.”

And at the sight of Sherlock's smile the room seemed to become impossibly bright, the scent of the sweetest spring-flowers drifting in on the air unseen and enveloping him.

“Prove it”, Sherlock said.

And so John did, taking Sherlock's soft and slender hands in his where they fit perfectly and pulling him against his body, against his lips, plush and perfectly pliant underneath John's mouth as he kisses him.

“I love you”, John said again.

Sherlock just smiled bright and warm and, instead of answering, kissed him back.
***********************************************

Epilogue:

They traveled back together to the Western Island the following morning. During the night a warm and very unseasonable current had appeared to have carved out a path through the ice just wide enough for John's boat to sail through safely.

Nobody was there to watch them leave and nobody was there to watch the ice freeze back over as soon as John's boat disappeared beyond the horizon.

John's absence was only noticed the following week when his rent was due.
His apartment got cleaned out without much fuss and within another week it was rented out to another fisherman who nobody would end up remembering either.

And John?
John lived out the rest of his days simple and poor on the Western Island, sustaining himself with meals of fish and game and anything he could gather for himself in the forest, with no other company but the Western Wind, and he couldn't have been happier.

But humans don't live forever, while the wind......the wind may lay low for a while but it never truly dies.

In the years that followed many stories were told on the mainland huddled close together by the fire on a late winter's night. Stories about the haunted Western Island where the wind is fierce and cold and inconsolable after the loss of his human lover who taught him the true meaning of the word 'loneliness'.
That, if you were to listen closely, you could hear him howl and wail in agony and despair, uprooting trees, tearing the land, breaking cliffs and rocks, and creating waves high enough to swallow a building.
Lamenting a loss.....a love that would never come back.

Or....

There are other stories too.
Stories wherein the Western Wind's human lover found a way to join his ethereal husband after death and that the rushing and wailing during the cold nights of winter isn't really a cry of desperate sadness at all but a song, a song they now sing together as they soar across the land and through the sky and dance across the foam-topped waves of the sea, happy and free, until the world itself comes to an end.

There's no way to be sure which of these stories is the actual truth without actually asking the Western Wind himself and, to ask him, you would have to catch him first, but the wind is fickle and flighty and fast and, so far, nobody has ever been able to manage it.