HIIIIIIIII! so sorry everyone that it's been an age and a half, school was awful and i felt like i sort of needed a reprieve after that last week before graduation. but here we go, i've found new life for this story, so onward and upward! no smut in this chapter, but if sherlock is very good, and JOhn is very bad, there might be some next! here we go!

dont forget to review and pump some life back into my fingers!

Chapter 7:

John awoke slowly, his eyes bleary and unfocused. His first thought was, as usual, Sherlock? His second was to test his bonds once he scented the room and found no trace of that particular Holmes. However, based on his heat signal of the room, he could tell that Mycroft sat about ten feet off to the left, and clearly was not afraid. John must be held down pretty good. He shifted his weight minutely, and sure enough, he was held fast. On top of whatever drug he still had coursing through his veins, he was going nowhere fast. His heart may have beat just a little bit faster at the idea that he may not see Sherlock again.

"John?" Mycroft asked, taking a small step forward. He looked curiously at his captive, not quite sure how to go forward. He wanted a small blood sample, but so far any of the things they had tried sticking into the doctor thus far had been broken off. His skin was simply too thick.

That begged the question, how (or with what) did he get shot in battle? No Holmes could leave a question like that unanswered.

John grunted at him from beneath the river of downers his consciousness was swimming in. Mycroft took another step closer. "John we are merely trying to get a small blood sample, to test it, just to see how you differ, of course. Can you tell us how to pierce your skin?" he was back to the diplomat now, and the good doctor wished he knew precisely how much they had dosed him with so he could get a time fix on sinking his fangs into his meaty brother-in-law's neck. No such luck.

"Can't," he croaked, shaking his lead lightly. Luckily, that was not held down like his arms, chest, thighs and shins were. Just a thick collar round his neck, the D-ring fastened to the cool steel under his back. He was in Baskerville, he could scent the place, just like he remembered. Of course Mycroft would have brought him here. Where else could hold something like him?

"There is nothing then, that can pierce your skin?" the older brother asked, his frustration peaking. It was easy to side-swipe John, he was trusting enough. Getting the doctor away from Sherlock had been a massive test in patience, however, and he did not fancy trying to get through that again. Now they would be on their guard. "John, let me make this easy for you. You are not leaving, until I get a few drops of blood, and you are not going to see my brother ever again if you prove to be a threat to any person here. Do you understand?" he asked, a bit too saccharine for John's liking. He nodded once.

"Only I can, you'll need to give me a hand," he said, managing to mumble out the words over a thick tongue. Blast these drugs! He could think just fine now, why wasn't it wearing off of his body yet?

"IT is a macro-blend of the drug you and Sherlock came across during the Baskerville case. Of course, here we've had to amplify it a bit and add several narcotics to keep you down, a few elephant tranquilizers, and the like. But you'll be free of it soon enough, Doctor Watson. And then you can go back to Sherlock, to Baker Street. If you behave. Now, tell me how to pierce your skin without letting you go. I know something can, you've been wounded in battle. What caused the bullet wound? Obviously it pierced your skin effectively enough?"

John hesitated. He couldn't give Mycroft, the most dramatic and cunning person in the room, the only way to kill him. That was pure suicide. Maybe, MAYBE one day he'd trust Sherlock with that information, but that was not today, and hopefully it would not be for a good long while. "I dunno, Mycroft, maybe a stick got me in the explosion. The whole 'wooden stake trick' right?" if this was a waiting game for the drugs to wear off so he could snap these steel bonds, then so be it. He had all the time in the world.

Only one thing. Mycroft looked down at his watch a few times, then at his phone. A slow smirk came across his face. "Perfect timing, brother," he noted, and then left the room.

Not too long after, maybe a couple minutes, a few men in white haz-mat suits (utterly unnecessary, in John's opinion) came and rolled his table that he was strapped to into another room. Once the door was locked and his windows effectively barred, no chance of escape, a buzzing sound was made and his ties snapped off, falling loose by his sides. All that was left were cuffs around his wrists and ankles. He still had on clothes, thankfully enough, so he wasn't cold, but the room had a definite draft. He wandered the perimeter of the room curiously, checking all the nooks and crannies. All he found was one tiny air shaft high on one wall, and the steel (reinforced, eight inches thick, even he'd have a field day getting through without the drugs). There was also one intercom with a camera on the wall next to the air vent. No window, nothing by which to pass the time. Fantastic.

John settled down on the floor, kicking the gurney to one side of his holding cell. About an hour after he was locked in, a crackling came over the intercom, and he heard the small camera whir to focus on him. John looked up at it, expectantly.

"Are you hungry John?" came the ever-so-pleasant voice of his favorite soon-to-be-ex-family member. He shook his head. "Sherlock knows you are here, he says that he is on his way. Why don't we save him the trouble of getting shot at trying to get in here and you just give me what I want?" John sighed. What could he do with John's blood? The doctor held up a finger at the camera, intent on thinking it through. "You have five minutes before I turn on the gas and poke you with sharp objects until I figure it out."

A cold chill swept over John. Sherlock knew that his brother had him, and he knew it was here, at Baskerville. If he took a train and then rented a car it would take a day at least. Could John hold on that long? Probably not, especially with aerated drugs filling his room, keeping his strength tamped down. He could refuse to breathe, that might work, for a little while, until he forgot or got too uncomfortable without his scent.

But what could Mycroft do with his blood? Make an army? Sure. Why not? What's to stop him? Create a super-drug? Probably. John's saliva could cure almost anything. He hadn't tried it on cancer yet, but so far it had stacked up well against AIDS and a few other killer illnesses. How else could he feed so indiscriminately? What about a weapon? Could Mycroft use him to make a weapon? Only if you consider giving everyone in the world immortality and super strength, then yes. It would mean the end of the human race.

Then came the question he feared to ask; did Mycroft want the blood so he could change? Did he want the immortality, strength, and power?

Very likely, yes.

Then what could he, John, do? It wouldn't take long for Mycroft to succumb to the legends and get himself a silver blade and stick him with it, John was certain. He probably already had one waiting in that line of shiny things he had mentioned waiting to poke at his useless body. John had to figure out how to give Mycroft regular blood, and fast. He had none left in his stomach. It was likely that they'd just test what blood he was given if he agreed to take some in, if he said he was hungry. They'd know fast if it was fake. It had to be his DNA, and it had to be as human as possible.

What if he bit his arm, and then spit as much as possible into the mess he gave them? Would his saliva destroy the vampiric DNA well enough by the time the checked it that it would look human? Maybe…. But he now had 25 paired chromosomes, not 23. Mycroft would not miss that, not ever.

John found himself half-wishing that he'd never met Sherlock, and then took it back immediately. How could he wish that? He was the only thing keeping him from giving in right now. If he was out there, floating on the ether for this several hundred years, alone and without a friend or a love in the world, what would he care if he destroyed it? But Sherlock…he had to keep the world at least relatively safe for him, right?

Right.

"Piss off, Mycroft."