"Werewolves." John wondered aloud, between bites of sub-par Chinese food. Due to a sudden decrease in interesting crimes and patients at the local clinic, he couldn't quite afford his usual place. Luckily, he wasn't desperate enough to resort to Angelo's. The food is never bad, but you get sick of pasta and garlic bread very quickly when eating it three times a day.
'hmm?' Sherlock said, never lifting his eyes from the telly. He had an odd fascination with Jerry Springer that John didn't really want to understand.
"I was thinking. If vampires exist, then are there werewolves roaming about London? Howling at the full moon from their fire escapes. Ordering their steaks extra rare..."
Sherlock stayed silent until commercial break. "No. Well... not the way you're thinking. There is Lycanthropy. But it's just a hormonal disorder that causes rampant hair and nail growth, bone deformity and jaw malformation. Sufferers are sometimes incapable of forming words or walking on two legs. There have been reports of mood swings as well, but that could very well just be a product of the constant pain and being called 'werewolf' all the time." He said, leaning back in his chair as the t.v. cycled through it's commercials.
"Fascinating." He'd heard of disorders with similar symptoms, but had no idea it could be that extreme. "What about... I don't know- fairies. There's no way they exist."
"A species of hyper intelligent insect, not entirely unlike bees. They all went extinct a century ago. But I saw a colony once, as a kid. From a distance they actually do look almost humanoid."
John nearly choked on a piece of overcooked chicken. "You're pulling my leg. I mean, hormonal disorders and alternative dietary preferences are one thing. But-"
Sherlock held up his hand as his show came back on. John rolled his eyes with amused exasperation and tried to tune out the sounds of trash television. Sherlock watched with all of the intensity of a biologist watching a nature documentary.
"Your kind is so strange." He muttered under his breath as a brawl broke out on screen. "It seems like you reproduce as if it's some sort of competition. And then you're shocked at the inevitable outcome. It makes me seriously question your ability to think rationally."
"You do understand that this isn't-" His attempt at defending his species was rudely interrupted by a sharp hiss. John sighed and waited for the next commercial break. "You do understand that this isn't an accurate representation of all humanity, right?"
"Isn't it? Every other day I hear of another teenage pregnancy, another ripped condom, another missed pill. You people are overrunning the planet already. You might not have ten illegitimate children, but from my extensive experience, that is hardly the outlier." He said, the very voice of reason.
"Alright. People make mistakes occasionally, but that doesn't mean everyone's just one step away from being a Jerry Springer contestant. Just means we're human."
"Exactly my point." Sherlock muttered smugly.
"Wait wait wait. You're like a thousand years old. You can't honestly tell me that you've never had a close call. A random fling picked up at some 16th century tavern, limited birth control and understanding of the reproduction system, I imagine shit would hit the fan rather quickly."
"While that's rather... Flattering, I'm afraid it's entirely impossible." Sherlock said cooly, the slightest smirk tugging at his mouth. "I grew up in the victorian era. I was too busy trying not to be arrested for sodomy to knock up prostitutes. Sorry to disappoint."
John felt suddenly that he'd said something massively stupid, but he wasn't entirely sure what. Then he realized. It was pretty much every word that had left his mouth that night. "You're gay?"
Sherlock hummed mockingly. Sarcastically. John didn't know how one hum could make him feel so stupid. "You've already met Victor."
"Y-you mean the skull." John felt, the way a suddenly blinded man feels a doorknob, that he was missing something. "So... He's your boyfriend?"
"Boyfriend sounds so trivial, but I suppose the term is accurate."
"OK... Was he your boyfriend before or after he died?"
Sherlock sighed and stood, shutting off the telly. "Come with me."
John followed Sherlock without a word, just a ravenous curiosity, into his bedroom. He'd never seen the inside of Sherlock's bedroom before, as the vampire had made it very clear that even the space in front of his door was Off Limits. John liked to speculate, to himself and his blog readers, exactly what Sherlock was hiding in there. The most popular possibilities were 1) His secret massive stuffed animal collection, 2) Mirrors. Just so many mirrors, or (the inevitable) 3) A personal porn collection that you could make a museum out of.
Of course, all of these guesses were laughably wrong. What was hiding behind the plain wooden door was a perfectly ordinary bedroom. Which, in itself, was rather… unsettling. It wasn't normal in a real sense as much as an artificial one. It was though he had taken it straight off of a magazine. The bed looked as though it was never meant for sleeping in. The nightstand and the desk didn't have any of the random detritus that any real human's would. All of the frames lining the walls were perfectly level and evenly spaced. There wasn't even any dust lining the surfaces.
When John got over the split second of shock one gets from walking into a magazine, he realized Sherlock was talking.
"I haven't brought these out in years." He muttered reverently as he hauled out a small trunk from the bottom of the impeccably organized closet. He eased the lid open slowly, carefully. "But if this arrangement is going to work, you need to understand."
"What's that?" John peered over Sherlock's shoulder, catching a flash of color before Sherlock scooped the contents out and whirled back to his feet.
"Victor. The real Victor." Sherlock swept past him to the desk. "This isn't all of it. There are notebooks and more serious works and unfinished pieces. But it's enough."
John took up his place a few inches behind Sherlock's left shoulder to peek at the sheets of canvas and paper Sherlock was arranging on the wood surface.
Most were drawings. Rough sketches of noses or ears or vaguely humanoid figures with scribbles of notes on the edges and splashes of soft watercolors. But there were some rough paintings scattered through the collection as well.
"Some of these are self portraits." Sherlock said, waving a sheet of various, exaggerated expressions. "But they're all him. His work. His loves. His fears. His sense of humour. If I could put them all up on display, I would. But they're too fragile. They weren't exactly made to withstand the centuries, so all anyone sees of him anymore is that old relic on the mantelpiece."
John carefully shifted through the collection. He wasn't exactly an art aficionado, but he didn't have to be appreciate the refinement of the linework and the soft richness of the colors. Anyways, it didn't seem that Sherlock brought him here for his eye as a painting critic.
"He was beautiful. A truly exceptional human being. I watched him grow up. I observed the development of every line and wrinkle on his face. I tended to all of his wounds, from papercut to knifewound. I drank so much of his blood, I often suspected I had more of him floating around my system than me." Sherlock continued, dreamily running his fingertips across the aged paper. "He's been dead for a century, but my life will go on for another thousand years or more. There's no one to remember him but me."
John scanned over a detailed graphite portrait, labelled mirror portrait 1882. He was fairly plain of face, with sleepy, dark eyes, a patchy beard and beaky nose. The right eye was also a tad higher than the left, but he assumed that was just a drawing mistake. It was slightly disorienting to know that the skull that sat behind that face was currently sitting on his mantelpiece. But it was beginning to make sense, in a way. Plenty of people keep ashes of loved ones on display, it wasn't much different than that. He remembered all the comrades he lost on the battlefield. The ones that had to be left behind, so their friends and families had nothing left of them but a few leftover belongings and a medal to remember them by. "I'm so sorry."
Sherlock opened his mouth, as if to respond, but he only sighed. "Keeping skulls is an ancient vampiric whole of it is far more complicated than a single night's explanation. But I-"
"Hello, what's this?" John mumbled as he pulled a sheet of canvas paper from under a small pile.
"Oh no no, don't look at that." Sherlock scrambled to snatch back the sheet, but John was too fast. "I-I was sure that was somewhere else."
"How cute." It was a rather meticulous painting of Sherlock about two centuries younger dead asleep titled 'Ye Darke and Mysterious Vampyre'. There wasn't anything mysterious about the cloud of rumpled curls floating over his head, the small lake of pinkish drool collecting on his pillow or the matching warm flush of his cheeks. "You look so young!"
"Because I was around 30 at the time." Sherlock mumbled, poutily. "Ok. That's enough gawking. Put it down."
"Fine." John conceded, setting down the painting. Picking up another immediately afterwards. "Wait, there's an entire stack!"
"No. John, I must insist you put those down now." Sherlock said, frantically tugging at John's sleeve.
"Ohoho,The Vampyre Moste Fearsome. Victor had one hell of a sense of humour." John giggled over a painting of Sherlock curled up at the end of an beat up old sofa. Just as he was about to move on to the next one, the doorbell rang. The two exchanged a hopeful glance.
"A client!"
This was a pain to write, but it's also one of my favourites. I hope you enjoyed it!
Also, I made a Sym playlist of all the songs that get my creative gears going when I'm writing.
user/rocodarling/playlist/0GBznypzhDiOn56Oha3JxA