"I cannot believe you managed to do this to yourself," John scolded, pulling the lamp down to focus the light on the angry red puncture wounds currently causing Sherlock's foot to swell alarmingly.
"I didn't do it intentionally," Sherlock protested. He tried to sit up, only to have John tug his ankle and throw him off-balance again. "John —"
"Stay," John said sharply, with the faintest growl behind the word.
Sherlock huffed in protest but leaned back in his chair again, staring up at the ceiling of the laboratory. "Something must have got out of one of the tanks. Breeding naturally in the forest or something," he said as he turned to look at the wall of climate-controlled tanks. They were Mother's, a prize collection of venomous reptiles and arachnids from all over the world.
John began a series of injections around the site of the wound. In his calm, controlled doctor-voice, he asked, "Breeding? Your mother keeps breeding pairs of deadly animals to release onto the family grounds... why? To ensure only the strong Holmeses survive?"
"Would you rather she collect spoons?" Sherlock asked scornfully.
"I will never understand rich people," John muttered, putting the syringe aside.
"Be happy she keeps a full medical kit."
John picked up a disposable scalpel, still in its sterile wrapper. "I'm happier that she's not here to ask awkward questions."
"Don't cut yet. You have the specimen containers?"
"Oh, for god's — Yes, I have them," John said, exasperated. "Honestly, Sherlock, if this hadn't happened while we were walking back to the house, I would've thought you'd done it on purpose."
Guiltily, Sherlock tried not to look in the direction of the tanks. He'd certainly considered it often enough out of curiosity about the effects of small doses of venom and out of simple boredom.
Either being a pack leader conveyed some form of primitive telepathy or John simply knew Sherlock that well. "No," he ordered, not even looking up as he scraped the corner of the plastic scalpel wrapper over Sherlock's foot. "Did you feel that?"
"Feel what?" Sherlock lied. He hadn't wanted the lidocaine injections at all, but John was adamant that being a were-dinosaur conveyed no special resistance to pain.
Stubbornly, John sat back on his stool, probably determined to wait the requisite two or five or ten minutes before getting on with the debridement. "Why does your mother keep breeding pairs of poisonous animals?" he asked in an obvious attempt to distract Sherlock.
"Because Father was always getting himself stung or bit or attacked when he'd go out on his collecting trips. Mother's PhD is in molecular biology. She'd have a PhD in biochemistry as well, but the thesis process is tedious."
He could feel John staring at him, processing this new information. "And she's currently at a horse race somewhere in France."
"She loves horses." Sherlock looked back at John as sternly as he could, given the indignity of his position, sprawled in a secretary's chair with one bare foot propped up on the workbench. "Get on with it already."
In answer, John stabbed the sharp corner of the wrapper into the arch of Sherlock's foot, making him flinch.
"Right. More lidocaine," John said, and Sherlock leaned back in his chair with another deep sigh.
Sherlock's movements tended to be sharp and decisive, even abrupt. My little bird, Mother had called him when he'd been very small, for he spent his time flitting from one place to another, able to turn on a pin and catch his balance in the most unlikely ways. If he had to be a dinosaur, velociraptor was a good choice — far better than some lumbering, four-footed vegetarian.
Only this time, his sharp, decisive movement ended ungracefully as his lidocaine-numbed foot refused to follow his brain's commands. In one of those rare smarter-than-Sherlock moments, John was right there to catch him, strong arm circling Sherlock's waist, shoulder pressed against Sherlock's body.
"I've got you," John said, a hint of laughter in his voice. Anyone else would have flinched away from Sherlock's deathly glare, but not John. He just grinned up at Sherlock in that way of his, and Sherlock's arm slid around his broad, powerful shoulders. Together, they restored Sherlock's one-footed balance.
Warmth and affection and fear all twisted through Sherlock's stomach, wrapping around the ball of ice that seemed to be expanding to fill his chest.
John's expression went soft and understanding even before Sherlock understood what was going on. "It's all right, Sherlock," John said as his smile faded. His fingers relaxed, no longer pressing right above Sherlock's hipbone, smallest finger just over the waist of his trousers. "I'm just going to help you get to... wherever. This place is a bloody maze, you know."
Sherlock bit down on his disappointment, firmly telling himself that he hadn't lost anything. John was right here with him, holding him close, of his own free will. He was a doctor caring for a patient. This touching was perfectly acceptable, no matter how John felt about... about anything else.
"It's fine," Sherlock muttered a little bitterly, thinking of dinner at Angelo's and John's stumbling attempts at conversation. At least this time, Sherlock managed to not do anything abysmally stupid like mention their first obviously-not-a-date.
Tension shuddered through John in a way that Sherlock couldn't read, much to his frustration. Silently, John helped him walk out of the lab and down the hall, following Sherlock's directions to the old study, which had been converted into a den. The close family rarely used it, but guests sometimes expressed a desire for television, so Mycroft had ordered the room redecorated a few years back.
"Look, Sherlock," John finally said, his soft voice echoing in the hall. "Whatever's going on... I mean, whatever you're thinking... All this... Us, I mean... It's not — it doesn't have to be anything but... what it already is."
Automatically, Sherlock cut in, "Enlightening as always —"
And then stopped.
Stopped talking, stopped walking, stopped breathing, because all the little pieces — the way John's voice had slithered low as if in apology for something he'd done, the way he was supporting Sherlock without touching any more than was absolutely necessary, the way he'd not been avoiding Sherlock but had been giving him space... Everything slotted together, fractal bits and pieces creating a new picture, one Sherlock had never even imagined.
This wasn't about Sherlock chasing John "I'm not gay and we're not dating" Watson.
This was about John trying not to chase Sherlock.
"Sherlock? Here, sit down," John said, turning Sherlock and giving him a little push to get him seated.
Standing his ground, Sherlock caught John's forearms and met his eyes. The pull of the moon was strong enough that Sherlock wanted to obey his pack leader, but he was still human enough to resist. "John... I'm not... It's... It doesn't —"
"Now who's being enlightening?" John teased, though he couldn't quite hide the concern in his voice or his expression.
For once, Sherlock realized he had a perfect excuse for what he wanted to do. The full moon caused all sorts of aberrant behavior, both in psychologically damaged humans and in were-velociraptors.
So he braced himself as best he could with one numb foot wrapped up in gauze and pulled John close. John let out a startled little gasp, and Sherlock leaned down to capture it with a kiss.
Kissing, Sherlock would later reflect, was something that should by all rights be as easy as breathing. After all, people had been doing it for quite some time, though he had no specific data on whether or not humans were kissing while living in caves or building early civilizations or really anything that had happened before the Renaissance, which really was the start of Time for Sherlock, since that was when humans had really buckled down to start taking science seriously. Kissing had to be stupidly simple. The cretins that lumbered through life contributing nothing to the world managed it every day.
The reality, though, was that Sherlock was even more rubbish at kissing than he was at hunting rabbits on his own.
He was used to his body's limitations being at odds with whatever his brain wanted to accomplish. His body was constantly dulling his mental acuity with fatigue, distracting him from thinking with irrelevant signals that he was hungry or thirsty or needed to use the loo. And he could remember physically fighting his own reflexes as he'd learned martial arts or when he was coming down off a cocaine high or when he couldn't run anymore and had finally been dragged off to rehab by Mycroft's goons.
This time, it was a much more intimate rebellion as noses and chins and even the need to breathe all conspired against Sherlock's desire to express, without words, exactly how he was... well, not feeling, precisely, but needing John close, intimately close, sharing his thoughts and his body and his breath.
And then John's hands cupped Sherlock's face, strong fingers gently taking control, holding Sherlock still so that John could kiss him back. And that was so very much better, because unlike Sherlock, John knew precisely what he was doing. He knew how to hold back just enough to allow proper breathing and he knew just how hard to press and how softly to lick and apparently he knew to set Sherlock's brain on fire, because Sherlock forgot how to catalogue what John was doing and simply felt.
By the time the kiss ended, Sherlock was dizzy and desperate and struggling to remember how to breathe. But it hadn't ended, not quite, because John pressed softer, gentler kisses to Sherlock's lips and his jaw and his cheek as he pulled Sherlock into his arms, one hand pressed to the small of his back, the other carding through his hair.
The tense knot of ice in Sherlock's chest finally melted completely. He leaned into John's arms, letting his head fall to John's shoulder, breathing in the lingering smell of the forest on his skin, stronger than the smell of laundry powder embedded in his shirt.
When John turned enough to press a kiss to Sherlock's neck, at the spot where he'd bit just last night, a tingling sensation swept through Sherlock's whole body before settling in his belly, low and hot.
"Thought you were married to your work," John teased in a low, rough whisper.
"Thought you're not gay," Sherlock snapped back, though he couldn't quite muster any sharpness. Instead, it came out nervous, because that was John's cue to say —
"I'm not."
Sherlock flinched and tried to pull away.
John refused to let him go. He just held Sherlock tightly and said, "Doesn't mean I'm not curious, Sherlock."
For one moment, they were both silent.
"What?" Sherlock finally asked.
John let him back away just enough to meet his eyes. Instead of answering, he asked, "Are you? Gay, I mean."
Sherlock had no way to answer that. "I'm... I'm not... I don't know," he finally admitted.
Instead of laughing at him, John just asked, "Curious?"
"About you," he said nervously.
John smiled. "Well, that's all right, then," he said, turning to look down the hall in the direction they'd been going. "Let's get you off that foot."
Dazed by what was going on, Sherlock nodded and allowed John to help him to the den, and he was very careful to hide his smile when John sat down close to him on the sofa instead of taking one of the recliners on the other side of the room.
The dark room flickered with orange-white light as something else blew up on the telly. "You like this?" Sherlock asked for what had to be the tenth time. Not that either of them was actually paying attention to the movie — they weren't even facing the screen, but were instead sitting sideways on the sofa to face each other instead.
John made a purring, growling sound of assent that shivered against Sherlock's throat. "I'm a soldier," he said, never taking his lips from Sherlock's skin. "Of course I do."
"You're a savage," Sherlock countered, tugging John's shirt up a bit more so he could define the lines of John's right scapula with his fingertips.
John laughed and nipped at Sherlock's ear, drawing a truly embarrassing sound that he was too polite to openly notice. "Stop being obvious."
"What if —" Sherlock's grasp on language scattered as John's tongue swept up over his ear, a light touch that absolutely shouldn't have caused so many physical responses.
"Hmm?" John asked with a low chuckle as he went back to exploring Sherlock's throat with his lips.
It took a minute for Sherlock to remember what he'd been about to say. "What if this is because of the change? Some sort of... pack thing?"
John backed up about six inches, just enough to meet Sherlock's eyes. With the curtains drawn and the lights out, the only illumination was from the telly, where a very loud gunfight provided a staccato counterpoint to the explosions.
"Do you want to stop?" John asked very seriously.
"No!"
"Do you want to go bite... I don't know, Molly or some other woman?"
Sherlock growled at the thought of bringing anyone else into their pack. "You're mine."
"Well, then?" John asked.
He might've meant the question to be rhetorical, but Sherlock enjoyed answering those questions most of all. "But you're not —"
"Curious, remember? That's the official term for it. Believe me, I've heard it enough from Harry," John said, rolling his eyes.
"But you were already a velociraptor before we met."
"Are you trying to talk me out of this? Because it's not going to work." John sighed and twisted around to sit back on the sofa, putting his feet up on the coffee table. He pulled Sherlock against him, and while it wasn't exactly comfortable, Sherlock never dreamed of trying to pull free.
"Then —"
"Look, not everyone is either straight or gay or even halfway both," John interrupted. "I didn't really even think about it until Harry came out. But then she did, and I got to wondering, and, you know, when you're at uni, things sometimes happen. Not much, but enough to prove I didn't hate it, but then I was in the military, and then there was you, with your 'not my area' and 'married to my work'..."
"I never did," Sherlock muttered. He turned around to lay across John's lap, wounded foot propped up on the sofa. The lidocaine had worn off some time ago, but there was almost no pain — just a dull ache. He had a feeling that the wounds were closing, but he hadn't wanted to distract John from far more important kissing.
John slouched down and rested a hand on Sherlock's chest, fingers sliding between the buttons of his shirt to find bare skin beneath. "Whatever you want, it's fine," he promised. "I never want to push you into anything you don't want." He looked away, his body going tense as he added, "God, I feel guilty enough for changing you the way I did."
"No. Don't," Sherlock said sharply. He reached up to touch John's face. Gently, he traced his fingertips over the tight line of John's lips, trying to soothe them into a smile. "I don't regret it. I never will."
Finally, John did smile, looking down at Sherlock with such affection that Sherlock couldn't help but smile in return. "Have you ever considered that's because you're an absolute madman?"
Sherlock grinned. "You mean, a mad dinosaur," he corrected as he sat up enough to hint very strongly that they should stop talking and get back to the kissing.
"That's not a comfort," John said, but he took the hint, and that was all that mattered.
Since the night he'd become a were-velociraptor, an alarming number of Sherlock's good ideas had proven, in the end, to be very, very bad, though often this was through no fault of his own.
For example, reverting to the teenage years that John had apparently mastered and that Sherlock had skipped as irrelevant seemed, at the outset, to be an absolutely brilliant idea. Sherlock had never felt more content than he did in John's arms, happily ignoring the screams and explosions from the movie that had reached the end and started back up again after a few fumbling swats at the remote control. John must have agreed and, in fact, had expanded the boundaries of the experience to include not only kissing Sherlock's lips and face and throat but the V of skin exposed by the top three buttons of his shirt.
In fact, John was such an enthusiastic participant that he was going for button number four, his fingers toying with the hateful little piece of plastic in a way that had Sherlock ready to rip the damned thing off himself, because he wanted more.
And then there were lights and the creak of hinges and the door opening, and there was that one voice Sherlock least wanted to hear, arrogantly declaring, "Two visits in two months —"
Which was as far as he got, because Sherlock's brain went from John to threat faster than neurons could possibly fire. John was his and this was their territory and the instinct to drive off the intruder overwhelmed what little rational thought remained after John's very skillful efforts to completely shatter Sherlock's ability to think at all.
Shredded fabric went flying as Sherlock leaped over the back of the sofa, scythe-claws shredding the leather. He threw himself at Mycroft, who screamed and bolted, slamming the door right in Sherlock's face.
His muzzle hit the old oak hard enough for the hinges to groan in protest. His claws splintered the wood. He slammed his body against the door again and again, wood shattering violently under each impact, until the shouting behind him ended and strong arms wrapped around his body as blunt human teeth closed hard on the back of his neck, right below the base of his skull.
With a shudder, he sagged against the door, contentment bubbling up through the possessive, territorial rage that had filled him. John was here, he thought, his growl fading into a low sort of purr. Enough of his humanity returned that he thought this might be the velociraptor sound for something like love, and his crest-feathers lowered.
John released his bite and rubbed at his mouth before saying, "You've got to calm down, Sherlock. Don't try to change back. I'll... deal with this."
Sherlock growled faintly when John pulled him away from the door, though his heart wasn't in it. But when John tried to leave, Sherlock growled in protest and couldn't stop growling even when John smoothed down his crest to try and calm him.
"Sherlock, that was your brother you tried to kill," John said, trying to sound reasonable.
Sherlock hissed. At the very least, Mycroft deserved a good scare and then some, considering what he'd interrupted. A bit of bloodshed was surely justified in this situation.
"I need to go find him before he calls in the local constabulary, an SIS strike team, and zookeepers with tranquilizer guns."
The hissing laughter devolved into a sigh. John was right. Of course he was right. Damn him.
John looked sternly into Sherlock's eyes. "That means you're to stay here," he ordered, pressing a finger down against Sherlock's muzzle. "Understand?"
Sherlock's long, sinuous neck allowed him to turn fully away from John without having to move his body. He let his head flop dramatically down on the destroyed leather sofa and sighed again, sending up a storm of couch-stuffing and the remnants of what had once been a pair of very expensive Armani trousers.
"Good," John approved, leaning down to rub his face against Sherlock's neck, comforting him. "You'll be starved in about twenty minutes. I'll get some food and... do something about the servants. And Mycroft. God," he muttered, getting to his feet. With one last, "Stay!" he went around the sofa and left the room, before Sherlock could figure out how to ask him to at least put on some other movie.
"Put the gun down, Mycroft."
The quiet command, carrying with it just a hint of John's pack-leader-growl, caused Sherlock to rise from the nest of sofa stuffing where he'd curled up. He spat out the strip of leather sofa that he'd apparently been chewing as if it were gum.
"That thing —"
John's voice went cold and quiet, almost too quiet for Sherlock to hear. "Refer to him that way one more time and you —"
There was no interruption from Mycroft. John must have stopped speaking to regain control of his anger.
Finally, Mycroft did speak up: "You cannot possibly expect me to believe that... that that is my brother."
"I really don't care what you think," John said coolly. "No, this isn't the best way for you to have found out, but you shouldn't have barged in on us. He's still learning to control himself."
"So you admit that you brought some half-wild beast into my home," Mycroft snapped out indignantly.
John growled.
It was human, but only barely.
"John!" Mycroft shouted.
Sherlock's claws dug into the sofa as he heard a sudden scuffle out in the hallway. Every one of his feathers stood on-end as he struggled not to rush out to John's defense. Rationally, he knew John could take Mycroft in a fight, even unarmed. He'd known that since the day they'd met, when John had come home with his bizarre story about being kidnapped by Sherlock's archenemy. Knowing what he did now, Sherlock knew John could take Mycroft and any ten of his SIS cronies, quite possibly without even shifting.
His pack leader wanted him to stay, but his friend — his... more than friend — was in trouble, and Sherlock finally gave voice to his frustration with a growl that turned into an enraged roar.
The door slammed violently open. Sherlock's head whipped around in time to see Mycroft stumble back into the den, hands raised. "John. You don't want —"
"Don't fucking tell me what I want." John took a deep breath and entered, gesturing with the muzzle of the rifle he held snug up against one shoulder. "Sherlock?"
Snarling, Sherlock got to his feet. The motion caught Mycroft's eye. He turned to look at Sherlock, and his usually pale complexion turned positively ashen. His pupils went huge and the pulse in his throat beat violently as his system flooded with adrenaline in preparation for the only rational option — running away in terror.
Prey, Sherlock's predator-brain thought.
He was, after all, very hungry.
"Sherlock," John repeated.
Slowly, Sherlock turned away from Mycroft to instead face John.
"Can you keep Mycroft here? We don't need him calling for backup."
He probably already did, Sherlock thought, and snarled because he had no way to tell John that.
Instead of trying, Sherlock jumped nimbly off the sofa and had the immense satisfaction of seeing Mycroft scramble back. But Mycroft, always too clever for anyone's good, was heading for the corner where a servants' doorway was subtly concealed by hardwood paneling, and Sherlock didn't really feel like getting into a chase through the labyrinthine maze of service corridors.
Well, actually, he did, but any chase would surely end with him eating his brother. As appealing as that was to his velociraptor-brain, intellectually he knew better. Besides, then he really would upset Mother.
Although a chase through the service corridors sounded wonderful, the game of almost-tag that they played was nearly as good, especially since it would end with Mycroft trapped in the corner between the hearth and a bookcase full of cousin Violet's third-rate self-published romance novels.
So he snarled again and leaped, putting himself between Mycroft and the door. Mycroft gasped in shock at being outwitted by what he was probably trying to convince himself was a large, deformed emu (though Sherlock still had no idea what color his feathers were).
Mycroft especially seemed to hate Sherlock's hissing laugh.
He couldn't contain his shriek of fear, either, when Sherlock used a foreclaw to tear open his expensive, bespoke jacket to get at his mobile.
But he really didn't believe that Sherlock was anything more than an animal until Sherlock picked up the mobile and, with somewhat clumsy stabs of his fore-claws, entered the proper unlock code.
Mycroft had cancelled the emergency call to the regional SIS team, or so Sherlock hoped, anyway. He didn't think Mycroft had given any sort of duress signal, but it was possible that the duress codes were generated by some bureaucrat somewhere. Sherlock could guess at Mycroft's passwords, but bureaucratic security protocols were too random for even him to get right more than fifty percent of the time.
Just in case, Sherlock kept Mycroft cornered, though he had mercifully allowed Mycroft to sit down. On the floor. Which he hated. Even as a boy, Mycroft had refused to play on the floor, preferring a proper table or a full-size writing desk.
Mycroft kept darting looks at Sherlock without giving in to the temptation to stare, perhaps thinking that direct eye contact would provoke an attack. Sherlock had hissed for a while at that thought, remembering when Mycroft had run in fright from a pair of dobermans at a Ministry of Defence base they'd visited for some ceremony.
He didn't like the hissing at all.
John finally returned pushing a tea trolley the likes of which would have given any society matron fits. The tea service had been moved to the bottom shelf, leaving room on top for what smelled like frozen game hens, rabbit quarters, and an entire beef roast.
Sherlock's stomach growled. He snapped up Mycroft's mobile in his jaws and went right for John, who regarded the two brothers with raised eyebrows, but was too civilized to actually comment.
"Tea, Mycroft?" John offered, holding out his hand for the slightly damp mobile Sherlock brought him.
Grimacing at the whole situation, Mycroft rose and slipped out of his ruined jacket. "Please," he said automatically, folding the jacket as if someone was actually going to dry clean and repair it. He laid it over the back of the nearest armchair before he sat down somewhat heavily.
John brought the tea tray to another table, leaving Sherlock free to crunch through his meal, scattering bits of ice and frozen meat and bone. Velociraptors weren't exactly known for being neat eaters.
Between bites, Sherlock hissed, listening to John serve the tea in blissful ignorance of the finer points of etiquette. Knowing John, he'd probably brought mugs from the servants' cupboard instead of the smaller china teacups that the family preferred, impractical as they were.
Mycroft would hate that. Even more, he'd hate the fact that etiquette forbade him from commenting.
"Go ahead, Mycroft. May as well start," John said once he was settled in another armchair with — Sherlock glanced over and hissed again, because yes, he did have a mug in his hands.
Mycroft's smile was a bit sickly, but only Sherlock knew him well enough to pick up the nuances. "I believe there's a great deal about the situation I should know. If you'd be so kind as to fill me in..."
Sherlock swallowed one of the game hens whole, turning to watch John. Really, he was somewhat anxious to finish eating and change back so he could provide definitive proof.
Though... they'd probably have to make arrangements to avoid getting tranq-darted in the night and shipped off to an SIS experimental facility where Sherlock could be 'cured' and John could be 'studied'.
Abruptly, John and Mycroft looked in his direction, and he realized he was growling, crest-feathers standing on edge.
John leaned forward and put down his mug so he could hurry to Sherlock's side. "Sherlock," he said softly, smoothing the feathers back until his hand rested just behind Sherlock's skull, where he'd bit down earlier. "We'll be fine, I promise."
Privately resolving that Mycroft wouldn't leave this room alive if necessary, Sherlock nodded, pressing his muzzle against John's ribs for a moment.
John smiled down at him and said, "Finish up so you can change back. I brought you a mug, too, but you can't have it until you've got proper thumbs."
Sherlock hissed violently, feathers ruffling with amusement, and turned back to his meal.
Before John, Mycroft had been the only witness to the highs and lows of Sherlock's life. He'd been at every science fair and every award ceremony. He'd accompanied Mother to the offices of no less than eight different headmasters wanting to complain about Sherlock's inability to keep from setting things on fire, dissolving them in acids (though once, the solution had been a base, not an acid, a distinction the idiot headmaster had been too thick-headed to appreciate), or, on one notable occasion, stuffing a heating duct with fresh bones taken from the biology lab in an effort to recreate the drying conditions of the desert while investigating a hiker's death in Arizona.
Mycroft had bailed Sherlock out of jail on four separate occasions. He'd brought Sherlock to rehab, then brought him back to rehab after he'd escaped. He'd sat on the other side of a locked door, listening to Sherlock swearing and threatening between dry heaves as he went through the worst of his withdrawal after the second visit to rehab.
So it wasn't particularly strange for him to watch Sherlock change from velociraptor to human. His only visible reaction was to look delicately away and offer Sherlock the ruined jacket so he could pretend at modesty.
John had forgot to bring him trousers.
Sherlock took the jacket and tied it around his waist. He accepted the tea John offered — four sugars, no milk — and sat down on the arm of the sofa beside John.
"How's your foot?" John asked quietly, leaning down. Before Sherlock could answer, John's hand wrapped around his ankle, lifting his foot. He carefully examined the wounds, now no more than small, healed scars.
"Did something happen?" Mycroft asked.
"No," Sherlock said, and they all knew he was lying, but Mycroft didn't challenge him and John already knew.
They all remained silent, falling back on the traditional English refuge of tea to help them through the moment. After a minute, John rested his hand on Sherlock's knee, looking up questioningly. Sherlock smiled and covered John's hand with his own.
Mycroft sputtered.
"Oh, do get over yourself, Mycroft," Sherlock snapped. "After everything you've just seen, you're going to be a prude about this?"
Mycroft had the grace to blush and look away. "I suspected you were suddenly visiting the estate because of some undiscovered cache of — well, you know," he said stiffly.
"Is the reality better or worse?" John asked mildly. He didn't try to move his hand.
"I wouldn't dream of drawing any conclusions until I have all the facts." Mycroft gave John that false smile of his before he looked expectantly at Sherlock.
"Biological transmission, unknown agent that I suspect alters both DNA and the cellular membrane due to the faint tidal effect of the lunar cycle," Sherlock said. "Escalated energy requirements, increased metabolism. Would you like me to bite you? It would solve your dieting problem."
"Sherlock," John scolded. He took a deep breath and turned to Mycroft. "I was changed in Afghanistan. Insurgents. I killed —"
"In that case, this is a threat that must be reported," Mycroft interrupted.
"I killed them," John continued more sharply. "I never saw any sign of others. It's very possible that Sherlock and I are the only ones of our kind."
"Mycroft, we do not consent to letting you experiment on us," Sherlock insisted. He could see the calculations racing through Mycroft's brain.
"And you're not biting him," John warned, glancing up at Sherlock.
"Surely you understand this requires at the very least a level of medical oversight that — and I don't mean to offend, John — that Dr. Watson cannot provide. Specialists —"
"Paleontologists, you mean?" Sherlock interrupted.
"Specialists should study this condition. There could be long-term side-effects. The, ah... aggressive nature could be mitigated through medication —"
Sherlock growled, his hand going tight around the mug of tea. "I don't do medication."
Mycroft looked at him condescendingly. "This isn't something to deal with your moods, Sherlock. This is an incredibly stressful physiological condition, and you're hardly capable of taking care of yourself at the best of times."
Just as Sherlock drew a breath to retort, John asked, "Mycroft, do you have any idea what a werewolf is?"
"Really, John, bringing pop culture into this —"
"We are fucking were-velociraptors, Mycroft," John snarled. Sherlock had no idea what shocked Mycroft more: the profanity or John's tone of voice. "If you really want to play with us, you go ahead and see just how much 'experimenting' your people do. Only I swear to you, if I do nothing else before I die, I will find you and turn you. Do you understand?"
Mycroft's lips pressed thinly together. He couldn't manage a smile and gave up trying after just a few moments of grimacing. "I'm only worried for Sherlock's health. And yours, too, of course."
"Worry more about yours," John said quietly.
Sherlock smiled proudly at John and leaned back against the sofa. "Anything else you want to know, Mycroft?"
Mycroft fell silent. Sherlock watched him consider all the things he did want to know versus the significantly lower number of things that Sherlock or John might actually tell him. Finally, he put down his mug, finally hiding his expression of distaste. "I believe that will be all, for now. Don't get up, please," he added to Sherlock.
"You'll need to schedule your crises to happen on nights other than the full moon."
"And for five days to either side," John added. He was exaggerating, and Sherlock would have known it just by looking at his face. Mycroft, however, was probably still too rattled to pick up on it.
"I'll keep that in mind." Mycroft gave them each a nod and left just slowly enough that it probably didn't count as a retreat, at least in his mind.
When his footsteps had faded down the hall, John let out his breath and sank back against the sofa. "God. I really did expect this all to end with us in a lab somewhere."
"They couldn't hold us." Sherlock smiled at him. "Thank you."
"For what? Not letting you turn your brother into a dinosaur?" John laughed.
Sherlock shrugged uncomfortably and got up off the arm of the sofa to check the teapot. He got a half cup out of it before it went empty. "For... you know. Not taking Mycroft's side."
"Mycroft doesn't have a side," John said firmly. "What happens between us is no one's damned business but our own."
Sherlock looked back at him, reading the resolve in his expression. "True. Though since you handled this so well, you can explain to Mother what happened to the sofa."
"Pack leader," John said smugly. "I can just delegate it to you."
"And I can turn her into a velociraptor. I'm fairly sure she'd take over the pack. She certainly takes over everything else that gets in her way."