Well, I really should be working on All is Fair in Love and War, but this has been driving me nuts for a week now, so I decided to just write it and get it out of my head. Seriously, I haven't got a clue where this came from; it just sort of wrote itself. The premise is completely crack, but it's written at least semi-seriously. Basically, as I was laying in bed last Monday night, I wondered what would happen if Sherlock took place in the House of Night universe. You don't have to be familiar with HoN to read this, as it includes none of the characters or plot, just overlying elements, but some familiarity with the story probably makes this more understandable.

This is... not quite PWP, but it probably doesn't have more than half of a plot, either.

I'm going to mark it "complete" for now, but I may add more random drabbles in the same AU as ideas occur to me. Anyway, in case you didn't read the description, this does include slash and bloodlust, because, well, I have no life and apparently also too much free time.

Sherlock: Changed

Bloodlust

Sherlock stared into the bathroom mirror, lightly tracing the convoluted indigo tattoos that framed his pale features, and which emanated from a dark blue crescent moon in the center of his forehead. He spent so much time with the marks covered that he very nearly forgot what he actually looked like sometimes. He never deleted the information, though - if he forgot entirely and washed his face in public where people could see, he would doubtless have more than a little explaining to do.

"Sherlock?"

The detective winced, opening the medicine cabinet and searching frantically for the tube of concealer he kept mingled with the other two dozen chemical containers. Locating it behind the Mercury thermometer (he'd have to find a better place to hide that before John saw it), he squeezed a globule of the thick makeup on his hand and began smearing it over the pencil-thin design.

"Yes, John?" he called back. He never should have distracted himself. After a full year of rooming together, John knew his schedule better than he did sometimes. Of course his flatmate would get suspicious when he began spending too long in the restroom, especially when John was eager to get in and take a shower.

"Everything alright in there?" The doctor was now standing on the opposite side of the closed door. That was, as these things went, a bad sign.

"Fine, John," Sherlock replied, half the pattern marking him as a Changed vampyre adult now invisible. "Just a bit tired after last night." They had been on a case, the two of them, chasing an exotic animal importer across London until they caught him at nearly 3:30 that morning.

"Tired?" John sounded concerned. Damn, Sherlock thought. "You're never tired. Maybe you're coming down with something."

"No, I'm sure I'm fine," the detective hastened to reassure him. "Don't worry about it. I'm a genius. I would know if I was sick."

"Are you sure?" Sherlock could hear John's hand on the doorknob and panicked. There was still a large patch of uncovered skin on his left cheek. "I should take your temperature at least."

"No, don't come in, John," the dark haired man said urgently, his mind racing. If he barricaded the door, John would know for certain that something was wrong, but if the doctor saw him like this... Sherlock shuddered just thinking about it.

"What, do you have your pants down or something?"

"Uh..." If Sherlock had been thinking more clearly, he would have answered with a decisive "yes", but as it was, he was trying very hard to hide his tattoos and had run out of concealer in the palm of his hand. This meant squeezing more out of the bottle, the lid of which was now stuck. "Bloody hell," he cursed under his breath.

"Right, Sherlock, I'm coming in there," his flatmate replied decisively just as the detective worked the top off the small tube. He heard the creak of the door at his side and quickly turned so that the part of his face that was still displaying the incriminating evidence of his inhumanity wasn't visible in the mirror. In a flash, he finished applying the makeup and turned the rest of the way around to face -

"John," he said pleasantly. "I told you I'm fine. There's no need to be concerned."

The shorter blonde man, still in his pinstriped pyjamas, frowned skeptically at his friend. "Isn't there? What's that?" He pointed at the concealer still laying on the counter next to the sink.

Without missing a beat, Sherlock said, "It's for an experiment. I forgot to put it back."

Reaching around his flatmate, John hefted the plastic tube. "Makeup, Sherlock?" he asked.

Sherlock assumed a decidedly exasperated expression. "Like I said, it was for an -"

"But concealer, Sherlock?" John was now definitely regarding him suspiciously. "What could you possibly need that for?"

Not a bit good.

"It's not for -" he started to say, but John was already reaching up and rubbing his thumb across Sherlock's forehead - exactly where an indigo moon-shaped Mark was hidden beneath unset crème maquillage. The detective knew without question that the fleshtone cosmetics would rub off onto his flatmate's warm fingers.

For a moment, John just stared. Then, Sherlock could practically hear the cogs turning in John's brain as the doctor worked out what that filled-in crescent meant. It wasn't like it was a state secret that there were vampyres in the world. It was a little hard not to know, after all, when some of the most famous celebrities and leaders the whole planet over were ones. Hugh Jackman, Michael Jackson, the current emperor of Japan - they all sported the telltale blue marks. Even William Shakespeare and Bram Stoker were famous for their romantic trysts with the supernatural. Vampyrism was a genetic condition, triggered by hormonal changes that activated a latent DNA strand during the teen years - of course John, as a doctor, would be familiar with it. All this flashed through Sherlock's mind as he tried unsuccessfully to meet his friend's eyes.

"Sherlock," John said quietly. "What is that?"

The detective coughed lightly. He considered lying, but the list of potential cover stories were all too incredible to be believable, even to his slightly gullible flatmate. "It's, er, exactly what you think it is."

"Take it off. The makeup," the shorter man said tonelessly. "All of it. We need to talk."

He turned and left, pulling the door shut behind him with more force than was really necessary, and leaving a stricken Sherlock in his wake. Slowly, the detective reached for a towel, holding it under the faucet to run a bit of warm water over the fluffy cotton-and-polyester blend. Numbness settled over him like an asphyxiating blanket. Mycroft told him that it would happen, that it was inevitable when one took in a flatmate. One of the multitudes of reasons that his elder brother refused any sort of emotional attachment was the risk to his job if anyone found out what he was - what they both were.

Sherlock hadn't cared. He liked John. Actually, he liked John quite a bit. It had taken Moriarty wrapping him in Semtex for the detective to take the hint, but he knew now how much the man's companionship meant to him. At first, he hadn't explained what he was for fear of losing out on the other half of the rent. Later, it had seemed too awkward to bring it up in conversation: "Oh, hey John, by the way: I'm a sociopath and a vampyre. What a great combination, right?". And, more recently, he had avoided the subject for fear of driving away the only friend he had ever had. If John's reaction was anything to go by, he had succeeded in doing exactly that anyway.

With a sigh, Sherlock pushed open the door, wiping the side of his face with the towel. John was in the living room, sitting in his chair. He looked up as the raven haired man dropped into the armchair opposite, his expression unreadable. The detective did away with the remainder of the concealer before tossing the towel in the corner. Then he pressed his fingers together underneath his chin and waited for John to speak.

"So," John said finally. "You're a vampyre."

"Obviously."

The silence stretched on for a while, until at last John said only, "That explains more than it doesn't."

To this, Sherlock replied ten minutes later with, "Does it?"

"Mmm." John shifted in his seat. "Your bloody cheekbones and perfect hair, the fact that you're practically psychic -"

"Wrong," Sherlock interrupted. "I was always observant. The psychism is just a useful means of fact-checking my deductions."

"The fact that you never eat anything normal, that you get off on murder scenes - of course you would, with the smell of all that blood," John finished doggedly. "It's got to be better than getting high."

"Yes, the drugs rather lack the capacity to recreate the same effect," Sherlock said indifferently.

John shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. It was obvious!"

"Yes, it was, rather," Sherlock said quietly.

"Shut up, Sherlock, you are not helping!" The doctor was breathing somewhat harder, and there was a dangerous undercurrent in his voice that kept the detective's mouth shut. "I just can't believe you didn't tell me," he said quietly. "A year, Sherlock! We've been living together an entire year!"

"Yes, I know."

"Shut up!" John closed his eyes in exasperation. "What on earth made you think it was okay to offer to share a flat without mentioning that you are a vampyre?"

"I didn't think you would be comfortable with it. Me."

"And so you think I'm comfortable now?!"

Sherlock bit his lip. "Look, John," he said quietly. "I have been the absolute model example of a vampyre living quietly with other humans. No messy Imprints. No bodies in the dumpster. I've never even glanced in your direction when I've been peckish - the only blood I drink is supplied by the London blood bank, not -"

"That isn't the issue!" John exclaimed. "I don't care what you are; I care that you lied to me."

The detective blinked. "You don't care that I'm a vampyre?"

John rolled his eyes. "Why on earth would that make a difference? I'm already putting up with a childish prat; you can just add "vampyre" to your long list of personality flaws."

Sherlock's voice was harder when he said, "Perhaps I should have rephrased that. What I meant was, 'You don't care that I'm a blood-sucking monster?'."

This time, it was John's turn to blink. "But you're not."

Sherlock's mouth twisted in a sneer. "There is still such a thing as racism, you know. Plenty of people can't stand us. Like Donovan."

John looked ready to explode again. "Oh, wonderful. Does the whole London PD know? Am I always going to be the last one told anything?"

The detective laughed shortly. "Please, John. Do you really think I'd be allowed to help if they knew what I am? Donovan already calls me a freak - she'd get a restraining order if she knew the whole of it. No, you're the only one outside of the family who's got a clue." Actually, that last bit wasn't strictly true, but Sherlock wasn't interested in broaching that can of worms just yet.

Like a balloon, the doctor deflated. "Sherlock..." he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock looked at him sharply. "For what?"

"I'm sorry that you have to live like this, disguising yourself all the time. It's not right."

"That's not your fault, John." The detective's voice was unemotional, but there was a slight softening around his lips.

"And I'm sorry I shouted. I mean, I'm royally pissed off at you for not telling me, but that doesn't give me the right to go off like that, either."

"Meretricious." But Sherlock smiled, and John laughed, and some of the tension diffused itself.

"Do you know," John said, still smiling, "I have absolutely no idea what that even means?"

"Look it up," the detective told him, pointing at a dictionary on the shelf.

"Yeah, maybe I will," said the doctor. Then his eyes widened. "Oh, that's what they are!"

Sherlock regarded this outburst for a moment. Then he said simply, "Yes."

John's brow creased. "Wait, what? How do you -"

Sherlock tapped his forehead. "Psychic, remember? Or "intuitive" as the female vamps prefer to term it."

"But seriously though." John was gaping unabashedly at the detective's forehead. "Your tattoos - they're -"

"Yes."

"But they're -"

"I've had them since I was twelve, so yes, I know."

"But they're question marks."

And they were, if one looked closely. The twisted, curved pattern was, in fact, twenty delicate question marks turned every direction, linked and looped together in a curious design that was altogether Sherlock. The dark lines should have made him look even more skeletal than he did already, but instead, they brought out some of the blue in his grey eyes and without the mask of concealer there to hide them, the detective's cheeks held a faint natural blush. Actually, John remarked absently to himself, he looked significantly more fetching that way, which, given the way women already seemed to fawn on him, was actually quite an accomplishment. He shook himself as something else occurred to him.

"You said you were Marked when you were twelve?" John asked slowly.

"Yes." Sherlock already knew where John's interrogation was leading, but he let the doctor actually ask the question for a change.

"So how old are you now?"

"I'm exactly as old as I look," the dark haired man said softly.

"Come on, Sherlock," John pressed. "Vampyres get as close to immortality as is possible for mortal creatures. So how old are you?"

Sherlock sighed. "I told the truth - I Changed thirty years ago. About. I actually deleted the date, so maybe it was thirty one. Or two. But my point is still valid. I have not yet come close to outliving my mortal life span."

"Huh." John looked duly impressed by this for a moment. Then, "Mycroft?"

The detective snorted. "Please, John. Of the two of us, he's certainly the more obvious. Everything about my dear brother is so blatantly vampyre I'm astonished he hasn't had anyone killed for asking yet."

"Of course."

John stood and was halfway to the kitchen to make tea when he thought of something else. "The body parts in the fridge, Sherlock? Please tell me that's not -"

Sherlock groaned at his flatmate's density. "No, John. They're experiments, not snacks. I've got a mini-fridge in my room to hold things you might consider... unappetizing."

"Right." The blonde man sounded nonplussed, and for once Sherlock couldn't blame him. It would be a lot to take in, even if it had been obvious to a more attentive observer.

It was at this thought that Sherlock stood and strode to the window, listening to the comfortable sounds of John putting the water on behind him. Someone else knew what he was. Another vampyre. One who wasn't bothering to hide what he was. One who was definitely more attentive. It had taken Moriarty longer to figure it out than Sherlock approved of (five full minutes at the pool, to be exact), but figure it out he had. What made the detective uncertain was why the consulting criminal hadn't done anything with the information yet. He had expected blackmail at the very least. So far, though, not even a whisper.

John slipped a mug into the other man's spindly fingers, sipping from one of his own.

"So are you kicking me out?" the shorter man asked suddenly.

Sherlock started. Intuitive or not, John had a knack for surprising him. He certainly had not been expecting that to be the doctor's next question.

"Do I look like I'm kicking you out?" he asked quizzically.

"I just thought that maybe you were upset with me."

"Why would I be upset?"

John looked down sheepishly at his drink. "Well, I sort of invaded your privacy, didn't I, barging into the bathroom like that?"

"Do you want to leave?" Sherlock asked, his expression serious.

"Not really," John admitted.

"Good," Sherlock said, his satisfaction evident. "Without your absurd blog, I wouldn't get half so many cases."

"Does it change anything? My knowing?"

"Should it?" Sherlock returned to staring out the window.

"I don't know."

"Look, John, I'm the same as I've ever been. I'm going to continue wearing the concealer, even here at home - you never know when a potential client will walk in. The only one really in a position to change is you. So if you want to be scared of me, or are uncomfortable here, that's your prerogative. If not - if you're content with keeping up our live-in arrangement - then I don't see why anything would change."

"Yeah, alright." John leaned his head against the detective's shoulder, watching the comings and goings on Baker Street.

They were still standing like that when they got the call from Lestrade.

It had started as a small scale theft. It had escalated to murder.

The victims were a young couple, recently wed. The distraught husband, Marcus, had explained to Lestrade how his wife had heard an odd sound from downstairs and had gone to investigate. He hadn't heard anything himself, and thought nothing of it until the girl, Elaine, screamed. Upon running downstairs, he'd found his wife lying in a pool of her own blood and her killer already vanished. The only thing taken was her wedding band.

This was the story recounted to an unimpressed consulting detective by Marcus, who, though still in shock, managed the retelling without losing too much of his composure.

After Anderson took the lad back to the ambulance, Sherlock turned to John and the detective inspector.

"What's the Yard's opinion?" the tall man asked, arching an eyebrow at Lestrade.

"Well, er, the boy, Marcus doesn't seem to be behind it," the DI said nervously. John couldn't blame him - anyone would have been nervous trying to justify a position to that cold, blank countenance.

"Good so far," Sherlock drawled. "What else?"

"It seems like a simple enough case of disrupted breaking and entering..." Lestrade faltered as Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Isn't it?"

"No."

"Then what -?"

"Think."

The detective led the way into the small suburban house. As per Sherlock's usual modus operandi, the body had been left untouched on the hardwood floor. She lay on her back, eyes frozen wide with terror. A single bullet hole broke the suntanned skin of her left temple, and having worked with the detective long enough to know what to look for, John spotted the pale patch of skin on her finger where a wedding ring should have been.

"Now look." Sherlock's steel grey eyes swept the scene with expert precision. "She says she heard a noise. Her husband did not. If the noise was that soft, why should it have made her nervous enough to go and investigate?"

"You're saying she was afraid of someone coming after her?" Lestrade asked with a frown.

"Not just 'someone' - an ex-lover," Sherlock said decisively. "They had been in contact. He probably knew she was getting married and was pressuring her to break off the engagement. She refused and married anyway."

"And then the other man was jealous so he killed her?" John suggested.

"Not immediately," Sherlock corrected. "They talked first for a few minutes. The ex probably tried to persuade Miss Elaine to run away with him. Possibly he tried to blackmail her. She still refused, so the man shot her. Sentimentality got the better of him, though, so he stole her ring as a token to remember her by."

Lestrade was nodding along, prepared to take the detective's word as gospel.

"Right, can you find him, then?"

"If you leave for a minute so I can think without being suffocated by incompetence."

The DI took this with remarkable good grace and obliged Sherlock in stepping out onto the veranda. Now alone with John and the corpse, the detective knelt and examined the faint specks of blood that led through the house toward the back door. Evidently, Elaine's murderer had gotten some of her blood on his shoes. It wouldn't make much of a trail, but it was a place to begin.

As Sherlock was about to stand, he suddenly became conscious of John's eyes on him. Apparently, the doctor was watching him more closely now to see how intensely the spilt blood affected him. Sherlock smirked to himself. It was true that he perceived the crime scene rather differently from anyone else in the vicinity. Instead of the coppery-metallic way humans understood blood to smell, to Sherlock's heightened, more discerning senses, it was like fine wine, chocolate, and cocaine all at once. Certainly it was attractive, but like most carnal pleasures (drugs aside), it left the detective largely underwhelmed. Truly, it was the thrill of the chase that he loved.

So when he stood and turned to John, taking a deep whiff of the air, it was purely for his own amusement and not due to any desire to hang around the messy corpse. It was funny, though, watching John's eyes widen as the doctor made a (wrong) conclusion, and even funnier to watch the tips of John's ears go red as the detective winked and said, "Heavens, John, I never knew you were so voyeuristic."

John mumbled something between a curse and an apology as Sherlock led the way through the house and out the back.

"Shouldn't we get Lestrade?" the doctor asked, following the detective across the small patio and small yard.

"Boring," Sherlock murmured, squinting up at the neighboring building. The next lot over held an open field, but kitty-cornered to the fenced garden was a vacant apartment complex. It was old and built out of brick. The interior was probably decrepit. It was also the only obvious cover for someone just having committed murder.

Sherlock climbed over the fence, not even checking that John was behind him. He quickly found a window where the boards nailed over it were loose and pried them off, swinging his legs over the windowsill into an empty bedroom. John joined him a moment later. While they waited for the doctor's eyes to adjust (Sherlock's vision was inhumanly good in the dark), the detective outlined the plan.

"I'll go over this floor. If he's smart, he'll have stayed down here where it's easier to run away. I need you to check the other two floors in case he opted for height rather than accessibility."

"What do we do if we find him?" asked John.

Sherlock hesitated. "Call Lestrade, I suppose."

"No, but really, Sherlock..." But the detective was already off and running.

John sighed. The stairs were right at the end of the hall, so even if the metal handrail was rusting and it smelled of urine, it was at least easy to find. The second floor looked no different to the army doctor than the first - damp, musty, and abandoned. All the doors were closed, and though John put his ear to each one, he did not hear anything that sounded like a person. About halfway down the corridor he heard a scratching, but upon investigating discovered nothing more than a bleary-eyed mother raccoon and a pile of three fluffy kits.

It wasn't until the doctor got to the flight of stairs at the opposite end of the apartment building that he heard anything at all - a muffled exclamation and a thud. It wasn't coming from above him. It was coming from below him.

"Bugger," John breathed. Then he wrenched open the door to the stairwell and raced down the flight, firing off a text to Lestrade.

Back on the first floor, the blonde man could hear the sounds of a fight from in a room on his left. The door was locked, but John was very strong for someone of his stature. He kicked it once, and the old lock gave, swinging inwards.

The apparent murderer was intent on adding a second to his body count - he'd caught Sherlock by the collar of his shirt and had succeeded in positioning them both so that while the detective could struggle, he couldn't turn around without choking himself. The attacker looked up when John burst in and let Sherlock drop to the floor as he assessed the new threat. John wasted no time with sizing up the killer - neither of them had a gun in hand, so John lunged forward, grabbing the bloke (a shortish, brown haired fellow) by his vest and knocking him back against the wall.

In retrospect, a solid assessment of his opponent might have been more prudent than John had given it credit for. True, the man did not have his gun handy, but John hadn't accounted for the switchblade in his pocket. The erstwhile murderer managed to drag this from his pocket even as his head hit the brick wall, and in striking out with it gave the doctor a nasty laceration across his palm.

Sherlock, meanwhile, had caught his breath and fixed his shirt. Spotting the third man's small revolver sitting on top of his coat, the detective retrieved it when something positively ludicrous happened: the scent of fresh blood hit his nostrils and it was the most glorious thing he had ever experienced.

Head reeling, Sherlock managed to knock their opponent upside the temple with the butt of the gun, rendering him unconscious between the two of them. John met his eyes, and a moment later they were collapsed against the wall and giggling like idiots. That was how the DI found them shortly thereafter, puzzled, but contented to clap handcuffs on their senseless prisoner and let them alone.

John had tried, with a minimal degree of success, to staunch the bleeding of his hand with his shirtsleeve, and now that the adrenaline of the fight was wearing off, the wound was beginning to hurt a lot more. Grimacing, he upped the pressure of the fabric around his wrist. It was not his most effective tourniquet. Sherlock, too, was over his laughing fit and was standing very much with his back to the doctor.

"John," he said quietly, and the blonde man was startled to hear Sherlock's baritone sounding pained.

"What's wrong, Sherlock?" he asked taking a step forward. The detective held up his hand, and John stopped. "Did you get hurt, too?"

"You're bleeding," Sherlock practically hissed.

"Yes?" John was definitely confused - the detective had certainly never displayed any previous aversion to blood.

"You. Are. Bleeding," he said again, as if that was somehow supposed to make the problem more obvious.

And somehow, it did. Looking between his hand and the detective, John let out a small "Oh" of understanding.

"Yes," Sherlock said, tight-lipped.

"So you're saying you want to -"

"No!" Sherlock said forcefully. "I mean yes, I want to, but I can't."

"Why not?" John asked calmly. He could have been discussing the weather, or the reason for Sherlock's most recent experiment in setting thumbtacks on every available surface in the flat.

Sherlock let out a deep, shuddering breath. "You're the doctor," he snapped. "Figure it out."

John rather suspected the problem, but he was going to let Sherlock come out and say it. "I haven't the foggiest. All the research indicates that vampyres are healthiest when the blood they drink is fresh, so by definition, yes, you can. I understand that evolution has even accounted for this by making the experience a pleasant one for both parties -"

"Yes," growled Sherlock. "But it's not just that it's pleasant, is it? It's more than that."

"Sherlock..."

"They call it bloodlust for a reason, John."

There was a moment's silence.

Then, "I know that." When Sherlock glanced over his shoulder incredulously, John exhaled a little and added, "As you pointed out, I am a doctor. And I certainly can't hold you responsible for wanting -"

"But you can, though, and you should." Sherlock turned all the way around now, but held himself back at a distance. "I don't understand how you can place so much stock in sentiment and then say that it's alright for me to... to manipulate your emotions like that."

"Well, I offered, didn't I?" John said, frowning. "It's not exactly like you were all over me."

Sherlock threw up his hands. "You only offered because you don't know what you're suggesting!"

"Then tell me." John crossed his arms, folding his fingers over his injured hand. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, but it had by no means stopped, and it was very, very sore.

The blonde man could see the detective's eyes following his every move, could see the abject longing written there, but when he spoke, Sherlock's voice was careful and measured. "When a vampyre feeds off a human being, pheromones in the vamp's saliva do two things: they act as an anti-clotting agent, and they evoke a very physical reaction in both parties. Moreover, seeing as we're friends, it would probably also create an Imprint, a psychic homing device. You think my ability to read your mind is creepy now? An Imprint is worse."

John nodded slowly. "Yes, Sherlock, I knew all that already. I did have to take a course on vampyre biology to get my degree, you know."

"It makes you want sex," the detective said abruptly. "Me drinking your blood would make you want sex. With me. And... I would want it, too. Neither of us would be in their right minds. It would happen."

"Which is only a bad thing if one of us is uninterested."

Sherlock blinked, frowned, and repeated that phrase to himself, trying to figure out exactly what John meant. He failed. "...What?"

John regarded the other man levelly. "No matter what you say to the contrary, I am actually not an idiot. I am entirely aware of what bloodlust entails, and I made the offer anyway. That, to me, would suggest that I am not adverse to its effects and side effects. If you are refusing, then it's got to be the sex that you're against, because you obviously want the blood."

Few things possess the capacity to render Sherlock Holmes speechless. John had just unwittingly touched on one of those things. The detective was not gaping at him, but the way he was blinking dazedly, like he'd just been hit in the head with a gun himself, conveyed some of his confusion. Seemingly without realizing it, Sherlock took a step forwards.

"But..." he said tentatively, "but you're not gay."

"True," John said, keeping his voice even. Something about the way Sherlock was looking at him was making his blood rush in ways it definitely did not normally do around other men. And perhaps it was that more than anything that prompted him to add, "Under normal circumstances. But then, under normal circumstances, I'm a depressed, ex-army doctor with a psychosomatic limp, so being around you generally doesn't qualify as 'normal'."

Sherlock's chest was rising and falling more quickly as he approached, and the flush burning in his skin was evident. When he was standing exactly chest to chest with John, he dropped his chin to his neck so that they were also nose to nose.

"You're sure about this?"

In answer, John deliberately unwrapped the blood-saturated fabric from around his hand and pressed it into Sherlock's own. The detective raised it almost reverentially to his lips, looking all the while into John's face, searching for any indication that the doctor might panic and bolt. John, however, had something of an extended love affair with Danger, and he was most definitely not about to run now, even if there was something primordially predatory about the way Sherlock's dilated pupils were trained on him.

The taller man's tongue was warm against the doctor's skin as he gently licked clean the damaged skin. Though the organic chemicals hadn't entered John's system, for Sherlock had yet to actually bite him, the hormones had been coursing through the detective's for several minutes now, and that first taste of blood - John's blood - evoked a primal desire to protect and to have and to mark "MINE" in bold letters. The doctor scarcely noticed as Sherlock's other arm snaked around his waist; then Sherlock pulled John against him and a small gasp escaped his mouth, lost in the nearly feral hum that was Sherlock as too-sharp teeth reopened a cut that had only just begun to close.

It should have hurt. John should have been terrified. Instead, he was thrumming with desire and absolute ecstasy. Later, he would remember none of the details, only able to conjure up the sensation of complete and utter adoration. He had a fuzzy memory of grabbing handfuls of jet-colored curls, of pressing Sherlock's lips more forcefully to his palm.

Sherlock, on the other hand, remembered everything with a crystalline clarity, and knew without question that he had one memory that would never, ever be deleted. The way that John planted frantic kisses down his neck. John's soft little exclamations when Sherlock ran a hand down his back, and the way they turned into an actual moan as the detective pressed up against him. Inevitably, John's legs gave out and they sank to the floor in a puddle of arousal. It was at that point that Sherlock began to wonder exactly how much of John's blood he'd taken, and a pang of guilt ran through him.

As if knowing that Sherlock was considering pulling back, John took hold of the detective's collar and pulled him closer. That decided it. If John was getting psychic impressions of what Sherlock was thinking, then they had definitely Imprinted - probably very strongly. Sherlock had definitely drank too much of the doctor's blood already. It wouldn't do either of them any good if John passed out. Beside being bad for him, it would also be difficult to explain to Lestrade.

Attempting to regain some semblance of self-control, the dark haired man carefully pulled his teeth from John's skin, running his tongue over the cut again to close it. The same vampyric chemical that prevented the blood from clotting responded to a vampyre's cessation in feeding and changed structure, now providing the opposite function. A single, tender lap, and all that was left of the grim relic of a murderer was a pink line that would fade with time.

John blinked groggily at Sherlock.

"C'mere," he murmured. When the detective obliged, he reached up and pulled Sherlock's lips down to his own, kissing him soundly. "You taste like blood," he informed him sleepily.

"And you," Sherlock laughed quietly, "taste delicious."

"Tha's good t' know," John mumbled. "'Elp me up."

Sherlock did, but the doctor was sound asleep before he was on his feet. Sherlock chuckled and hoisted him easily. He would just have to tell Lestrade it was fatigue and let him draw his own conclusions.

When John woke three hours later, he was home on Baker Street, tucked under a blanket. He smiled, took a sip of the water in the mug sitting next to him (having quickly double checked that it was not in fact the remnants of some forgotten experiment), and went back to sleep.