"What did you call him?" Sherlock, incensed.

John rolled his eyes and shifted, tucking himself more securely into Sherlock's chest. Black lines where feathers had once grown stood in sharp relief against Sherlock's pale arms. They were in the detective's bed, tangled in his sheets, in his living cool-water-breeze smell with its undercurrent of John and candle wax.

"I called him Trevor. A perfectly reasonable thing to do, when you consider that Trevor is his name."

John's voice was still hoarse, and perhaps always would be. When he gripped Sherlock's hand it was with calloused fingers. Sherlock, fingers long and unblemished, squeezed back. The consulting detective made a noise somewhere between disgust and impatience.

"I will not have something called Trevor living in my house. He needs a new name. A better name."

"You can't just go around changing things because you feel like it," John protested, leaning back, but he could see the wheels turning behind Sherlock's grey eyes and knew that his lover was no longer listening to him. John sighed. Nestled his head back beneath the other's chin. "All right, then, you wanker. What should we call him?"

Sherlock hummed, tightening his arm around John's back. "I've always fancied the name Gladstone."

Next to the bed, Gladstone—ne Trevor—barked once. John grinned at the stupid warmth that spread through him from Sherlock's skin on his and the dog beside their bed and the soft cotton of their sheets and their home.

"I suppose if he likes it, I can't really argue," John murmured. Sherlock hummed in content and tilted his head to nuzzle the side of John's face. It was prickly with stubble.

"No. I don't suppose you can."

Outside, the wind gusted, and the birds took off from their roosts. John let Sherlock squeeze him tighter.

"I'd do it again," he murmured. Sherlock shook his head. Nipped John's ear, just shy of too sharp.

"You won't need to."

Later

It is dark. Two men—one stocky, one long and lean—sleep, their dog at their feet. A candle gutters in the window but does not go out.

"I love you," one whispers to the other.

"I know," they respond.

It is quiet. Not the end but not the beginning. Continuation. Confirmation.

"I know," he whispers. "Forever, I know."