Author's Note: I hope this is the only time I have to apologise for leaving you all for so long. Let it be known that university classes get to a point where they eat up every waking minute of your life. Hopefully this chapter makes up for the wait, though! Thank you all for sticking with me.
Chapter Ten
Just like the month beforehand, John became less conversational and more irritable the closer it got to the night of the full moon. Sherlock had predicted as much, and it didn't deter him from following the werewolf home or pushing conversation even when he only received single syllable responses. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect - John's irritability only spurred him on, in hopes that being on edge would make John more likely to snap and shift before the moon was full. However, just like any other day of the month, John was impossibly controlled. He would tell Sherlock to drop certain subjects, telling him that he wasn't in the mood to have a conversation or to invite the vampire in for tea, he would refuse to answer questions, and sometimes, if Sherlock pushed particularly hard, he would raise his voice. However, he never needed to stop and breathe to calm himself down before he lost control, and he never showed the slightest indication that he was likely to shift.
The full moon came and went, and John spent it once again locked in the basement of Mycroft's home. Sherlock considered going straight to John's flat when the werewolf arrived back the following day, but he eventually decided against it. John would be exhausted from the preceding night, likely too much so to even care if Sherlock said anything to annoy him. Besides, Sherlock still had questions about the full moon and John's experience of it, and the last thing he needed was for John to decide that the vampire had annoyed him enough to warrant a refusal to answer.
It wasn't difficult for Sherlock to find a way to pass the next couple of days, despite the lack of interesting cases. He had, however reluctantly, promised to track a hunter, and so he passed some time sticking pins into a map on the wall as he traced out the hunter's path. The hunter in question wasn't moving fast, which suggested that he was taking his time everywhere he went, thoroughly searching each city or town for signs of the supernatural. That would be inconvenient, as a thorough hunter would mean that Sherlock would have to deal with him the moment he arrived in London, before the hunter got to him first, or to Mycroft or John. There was no way yet for Sherlock to tell whether the hunter was hunting vampires or werewolves, or something else entirely, but he decided it was best to assume that the hunter was prepared for anything.
He returned to his usual activities a couple of days after the full moon, deciding to visit John one evening after the werewolf finished work for the day. Much to his disappointment, John was unable to tell Sherlock much more about his personal experience of the full moon than he had been able to explain last time – he was still blacking out, unable to remember what had occurred that night. He was also still refusing to believe that shifting voluntarily would be even a little bit beneficial, and he was refusing to accept the fact that his limp was psychosomatic. The only thing Sherlock did manage to learn from their interaction that evening was that, although he had healed by that evening, John had woken up scratched and bruised the morning after the full moon. What that suggested was that the Wolf hadn't learnt from the previous month that the basement was inescapable; it seemed that werewolves were not particularly fast learners. Sherlock could have guessed that much, however. They were known to be creatures of instinct, not creatures of intelligence, after all.
(John had glared at the vampire when he said this bit out loud, but otherwise, he showed no indication of any emotional or instinctual response to the statement, much to Sherlock's disappointment.)
After that, normality and routine resumed once again (if you can ever consider anything in the lives of a vampire and a werewolf 'normal'). Sherlock returned to following John to and from the Tube station when he went out to the shops or to work, and he spent time in the werewolf's flat on the evenings when he did not have a case, experiment, or hunter to be focussing on. He continued to ask questions to gather information, pressing sensitive topics even when John closed off and tried to get him to stop. However, John was controlled, remarkably so, and it was becoming clear to Sherlock that words couldn't affect him in the way he had thought they could. Perhaps, he decided, a different technique was necessary.
After all, he did need to prove that John's limp was psychosomatic. Perhaps he could kill two birds with one stone.
OoO
The morning before the full moon, Sherlock received a text from Detective Inspector Lestrade asking (or begging, as Sherlock preferred to think of it) for his help on a case. Sherlock was going to refuse – he had planned to refuse, because he had other things to focus on, and surely the case could wait until the following morning – until Lestrade had explained that it was a locked room murder. In fact, it was a locked room murder that looked suspiciously like the other locked room murder that had been investigated, and supposedly solved, several weeks prior. Unusually controlled werewolves were incredibly interesting, especially within twenty-four hours of the full moon, but not quite as interesting as serial locked room murders, and if Sherlock had made a mistake on the last case, he had to fix that immediately.
It took Sherlock the entire day to solve the case. Had the case come to him on any other day, it probably would have taken longer – although, of course, Sherlock would deny that. On this particular day, however, he had the motivation to work even harder than usual in order to get it done as early as possible. It helped that it was an interesting case too, of course; he still had the desire to solve it simply so that he could say that he solved it, so that he could know that he was right. As it turned out, he had not made a mistake in identifying the man responsible for the previous murder; he had simply failed to consider the possibility of him having an accomplice willing to carry on his work afterwards. Sherlock's reputation remained intact.
By the time he had solved the case and managed to drag himself away from Lestrade and the detective inspector's determination to finish all paperwork before he went home for the night, the moon was already high in the sky, and the time on Sherlock's phone told him that John would have either begun to shift, or was just about to. It was a disappointment, really, because he would have loved to watch the change happen, but perhaps that was something he could save for another night. For now, he had a werewolf to study. He took a cab back to Baker Street, and had the driver wait outside while he dashed upstairs to find a pair of keys before he returned to the car.
On top of his home in London, Mycroft had holiday houses all over the world, and Sherlock had a set of keys to each and every one of them. He had never been sure whether Mycroft had given them to him in hopes that it would produce some sort of brotherly bond, or if it was simply because Mycroft knew that, if he didn't give Sherlock a set of keys, Sherlock would break into his house just to prove that he could. Regardless, it meant that Sherlock could get into his brother's house without difficulty, whenever he pleased. He didn't doubt that Mycroft was aware of the occasions on which Sherlock stopped by (with the exception of one day when Mycroft was attending to business, and Sherlock had entered his house to move everything four inches to the right). Loath as he was to admit it, Sherlock knew that Mycroft was the one person in the world whose intelligence surpassed his own. Regardless, Mycroft had never made any effort to stop him from entering, no matter what his reasoning behind it was.
He unlocked Mycroft's front door quietly, despite knowing that there was no way he could be silent enough to avoid Mycroft's attention. Vampires didn't need to sleep, and so Mycroft would be awake, likely working or reading, and he would hear the quiet squeak of the door, the sound of footsteps on the shiny floor of the hallway. The only way he could possibly miss the quiet noises would be if he was feeding, and Sherlock very quickly cut off that trail of thought before any images could come to mind.
He worked out the code to unlock the door to the basement based off the oil deposits and dust on the keypad, and what he knew about his brother. He shut the door behind him before he made his way down the narrow staircase, managing to see where he was going without needing to turn on the dim light that hung from the roof. He could hear John before he had even reached the steel door. He could hear footsteps, pacing back and forth, coming closer to the door and then further away. He could hear the sound of heavy breathing, loud panting. Just as he came to a stop at the front of the door, however, everything went silent.
He pressed his ear up against the steel door, and two seconds later, he heard a low growl.
It was a warning, and yet Sherlock didn't feel the faintest desire to back off.
Stomach twisting with anticipation, he reached up to the key that hung off a chain on the wall, and inserted it into the keyhole, watching the door slide open.
In this form, John was bigger than a normal wolf would be, although he would still be able to pass as one to the untrained eye. Granted, that was largely because most people would assume that he was an animal they were familiar with rather than a supposedly fictional creature, but the fact was that there was still similarity in appearance between a normal wolf and a werewolf. His fur was a mixture of grey and shades of sandy brown, almost similar to the colour of his human hair in places, although the colouring was not unusual on a wolf. The only feature that was unusual, the one that allowed people to differentiate werewolves from ordinary wolves, was his eyes - human eyes, the interesting combination of blues, browns and greens that Sherlock had become used to seeing.
Giving the circumstance, however, the most striking feature was the werewolf's sharp, white teeth, lips pulled back in a snarl. His fur was standing up on the back of his neck, and his eyes were narrow, glaring at Sherlock. Other than that, however, he wasn't moving. He wasn't preparing to lunge, to attack.
"Oh, for God's sake," said Sherlock. "Please don't tell me you're abnormally controll-"
The werewolf snarled, and all but flew at him, so sudden that it caught Sherlock by surprise and knocked him to the ground. There was a part of him that was filled with some sort of relief, that John Watson was not about to control himself in his most instinctual form; however, that part of him was drowned out by the part that was more focussed on not getting bitten by a very large, very angry werewolf.
He thrust his arms out above him, pressing them against the werewolf's chest to put some distance between himself and the wolf's snapping jaws. He tried to push John off of him completely, but the werewolf was heavy, and that, combined with the force that he was putting into his attempt to get to Sherlock's neck made sure that the vampire remained firmly pinned to the floor. He squirmed beneath him, managing to get his legs up underneath the werewolf's body so that he could use the strength from his legs as well as his arms. He pushed, and he managed to dislodge the wolf long enough for Sherlock to scamper to his feet, long enough for him to put more distance between them. This meant running further into the basement, until he was back against the wall.
The werewolf got to his feet, shook his head, and then charged at Sherlock once again. There was just enough time for Sherlock to notice (with a sense of smug satisfaction) that the beast wasn't limping, before he had to dive out of the way.
It felt like that fight in the alleyway, all those years ago, except that he and John felt more evenly matched than he had been with the unknown werewolf from before. Knowing his venom could be used to subdue the werewolf, Sherlock let his fangs extend, but John was never still enough for Sherlock to get close enough to his neck. At the same time, the werewolf continued to snarl and snap at whatever part of Sherlock was in reach. Sherlock did his best to put distance between them, to duck and dodge in whatever way he could, but there were times where he'd end up cornered, end up needing to struggle against the wolf in an attempt to get out of a vulnerable position. He had not fed recently enough to have the added strength of fresh blood in his system, and he could have kicked himself for being so careless.
John managed to get his mouth around Sherlock's wrist, and the vampire hissed in pain, kicking at the wolf to get him to loosen his jaw as Sherlock pulled his hand free. He had just enough time to look down and see with relief that John hadn't managed to break the skin. Then the werewolf was on him again, covering Sherlock's body and going for his throat. The vampire tried to struggle, to kick and push and thrash in the ways that had helped him get free earlier, but the position was different this time, John's weight in a different position, keeping him on the ground. He could feel the werewolf breathing, hot on his face and neck, and he pushed at the animal's chest and throat in an attempt to keep his distance.
The feeling of panic travelling through Sherlock's body had to be instinctual. When pinned beneath an animal that could kill you with one bite, it was only to be expected that you feel fear, a sense of impending doom. Sherlock was never normal in that respect. He searched out killers and criminals that would have other people running and hiding, and he never feared dying at their hands. Now, however, he was second-guessing himself, regretting bringing himself into this situation. If he had a working heart, it would be racing. He was afraid.
He could hear John's teeth snap next to his ear, and he tried, again, to push, to get the werewolf away from his neck.
Then suddenly, everything stopped.
The werewolf tensed above him, muscles stiffening, and it gave Sherlock the chance he needed to push him off and get to his feet. He took one look at John, lying crumpled on the floor, and then he looked up, eyes settling on the reason for the sudden change in the situation. He didn't recognise the woman standing before him personally, but he knew from her uniform and the Taser in her hand that she was a member of Mycroft's personal security. He would deny feeling any sort of relief at the sight of her.
The woman reattached the device to her belt and turned to him. "Mr Holmes would like to see you upstairs," she said, and immediately turned to lead him out of the basement.
Sherlock glanced towards the werewolf on the floor, conscious but weak, incapacitated. It was tempting to take the opportunity to properly study him in this form, while he was incapable of fighting. However, the weakness would not last for long, and John would be on his feet in as little as a matter of minutes.
This time, at least, he decided that following the security guard out was a good idea.