Author's Note: A million thanks to the best beta ever, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).
Chapter Forty-Nine
John was silent for the entire ride home. He had not spoken a word, not since he had realised that Sherlock was essentially unharmed and did not require urgent medical attention. The wound on Sherlock's chest was completely healed; if it weren't for the blood on his shirt, you would not realise he had been injured at all.
Sherlock's gaze flickered over John, out of the corner of his eye, as the cab took them back to Baker Street. John was sitting up straight, hands clenched into fists and resting on his thighs. His eyes were fixed on the back of the seat in front of him, glaring at it intensely as though the seat itself was solely responsible for all of their problems. His jaw was clenched, and Sherlock could hear his heart rate and his breathing – not elevated, not quite, but sounding as though John was consciously trying to keep them slow and steady. His breathing sounded forced.
When the cab pulled up in front of 221B, John climbed out immediately, leaving Sherlock to pay the driver, which he did (using Mycroft's card) before he headed through the door and up the stairs after John.
John was a man of routine, and he had always had a very strict routine when he came to Baker Street. Whenever he arrived there, almost without fail, he would take a path straight from the door to the kitchen, and he would put the kettle on. However, when Sherlock reached the top of the stairs, he found that John had not moved past the centre of the room. He was just standing there, almost as though he had forgotten what to do, like the events of the past hour had turned his ideas of the world upside down and now the simple act of making tea no longer made any sense.
Maybe Sherlock should offer to make tea himself. John made him mugs of blood from time to time; it was only fair that he did it in return. Plus, in an abstract sort of sense, it was Sherlock's fault that this situation had come to pass. Not only would John not have discovered who Mary was had Sherlock not gone to meet her, but if John had never had any sort of association with Sherlock, Mary never would have targeted him.
Sherlock looked around the room briefly, noting that his laptop was still where he left it, still open. John must have seen the messages on the screen; that must have been how he knew where to find Sherlock. That was Sherlock's fault as well.
Tea. Tea would help. John insisted on the healing properties of tea, so he would feel better after a cup of tea. He just needed a little push getting from now to the point where tea was in his system.
Sherlock got as far as "Should I..." before John exploded.
"What the Hell did you think you were doing?" he exclaimed. He was not quite shouting, but his voice was still loud in contrast to the silence from moments ago, loud enough and startling enough to make Sherlock flinch. He was reminded suddenly of hearing those words once before, in John's voice, the day after he went to see John in Mycroft's basement on the night of the full moon. Same voice, same tone, and yet so much had changed since then.
Now was not the time to consider that, however, as John had turned to face him, and he was fuming, hands clenched into fists by his sides.
"I told you so many times that I wanted to be a part of this investigation, so that I could make sure you didn't go out and get yourself killed. What part of your big head thought it was a good idea to go off on your own at the most dangerous point?"
"You were asleep," Sherlock countered. "You–"
"You didn't think that counted as important enough to wake me up for? Come on, Sherlock, you knew this could have been a trap! The last time you went out to meet a hunter you literally bled out."
"I didn't think I was going to meet a hunter; I thought I was going to meet Moriarty!"
"Oh, yeah, like that's any less dangerous."
Sherlock held his hands up defensive. "John, calm down. You're not angry with me."
John scoffed. "You want to bet?"
"You're angry with Mary, and you're taking it out on me. It's not my fault."
"Yes, it is!" John shouted, raising his voice even more. "For God's sake. I'm angry with her, and I'm angry with you, I'm angry with me for not realising she's been lying to me from the day I met her, and just..." He trailed off, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes and taking a deep, shaky breath.
Sherlock stood in silence, not sure what was expected of him in this situation and wondering if there was anything he should do. He didn't want John to get angry – or, angrier – with him, because the last time that had happened, they ended up brawling on the floor of the sitting room, and Sherlock wasn't sure he had enough blood in his system anymore to survive that.
After a moment, John lifted his head from his hands and met Sherlock's gaze once again. "Why didn't you feed before you left, Sherlock?" he asked, his voice now quieter than it was before, but not quite calm, still with a dangerous undertone.
Sherlock couldn't quite hold John's gaze, so he glanced around, fixating instead on the wall with the map on it (the map that he could now take down, he realised). "You saw the messages on the laptop. You know that Mor- Mary said that she would not be kept waiting." He frowned in thought, trailing off. Was Mary the one who sent those messages, or was it Moriarty? Moriarty had sent the puzzles, and surely it was Moriarty on the phone call. Had he been the one to contact Sherlock to send him to Mary?
It was impossible to tell, and it did not matter now. The case was over. At least, as far as it could be.
John looked sceptical. "You couldn't spare two minutes? You knew you were going into a dangerous situation, you didn't think you might need your strength?"
"It didn't cross my mind. Clearly I'm not hungry enough yet to be too weak to function."
"That's a lie and you know it. You know you're pushing your own body to its limits, rather than feeding when you're supposed to. It's not just today; it's been like this for weeks."
"I'm fine," Sherlock said shortly, moving to walk past John and hoping that breaking the eye contact would finish this conversation.
It did not. Instead, it just stirred up some more of John's anger. He turned so that Sherlock was not out of his line of sight, he raised his voice again. "No, you're not! Do you have some kind of death wish, or something?"
"Of course not."
"Then why are you doing this to yourself? What's this all about?"
"You wouldn't understand," Sherlock said, turning around to face John again.
"Then explain it!" John yelled, and Sherlock snapped back without thinking about it.
"Because it tastes wrong!"
It did not help to calm John's anger, because it wasn't an explanation that made sense. "What the Hell is that supposed to mean?" he said, and Sherlock looked away, hoping that he would drop the conversation.
Unfortunately, John, while not having an IQ as high as Sherlock, was smarter than he looked. He might not have been able to make brilliant deductions about where someone had come from or what secrets they had, but he knew Sherlock, and he knew enough to piece together the information in his head. It took him less than a minute.
"This is because you fed from me, isn't it?" he asked quietly. Sherlock looked at his feet, and then turned around, moving over to his desk and going through his papers. There was nothing more he could gather, the case was over now, but it gave him something to do with his hands, and something to focus his attention on other than John.
"You won't understand, John," he said again, voice softer now. "There's no human, or werewolf, equivalent to blood sharing. I can't explain it to you."
"Try."
Sherlock planted his hands on the desk and hung his head, looking down at the papers. After a moment, he said, "We're not supposed to feed from bags, vampires. We're wired to crave fresh blood. We have... instincts that make us want to either kill, or to take a feeder."
John hesitated for a moment. "So, because you fed from me, you feel some sort of... attachment? Craving?"
Sherlock did not answer. It was not a perfectly accurate explanation, but it was the closest thing he could think of. "I'm fine," he said instead. "I've become accustomed to blood bags before; it'll just take me some time to –"
"Why didn't you just ask me?" John asked, cutting him off, and Sherlock let out a wry laugh.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Sherlock," John said, and Sherlock reluctantly raised his gaze to John's eyes. When he was looking straight at John, John continued, "You're practically starving yourself. Why didn't you think to ask if I could help?"
Sherlock shook his head quickly, ignoring the way his throat had started to burn, just at the thought of being able to feed from a living body – from John – again. "I'm not going to ask you to become my feeder," he said.
"Good," John replied, walking over and sitting down on the sofa, "because I'm not offering that. I've seen the way you talk about Mycroft's feeder. I'm not interested in being your walking blood bag."
"You wouldn't be," Sherlock said quietly.
John did not comment on that. He shifted on the sofa, and then asked, "Would it make it better or worse if you fed from me again?"
Sherlock shook his head quickly. "I'm not going to ask that of you," he started, but then John all but cut him off.
"That's not what I'm asking," he said. "Don't think about me for a moment here, think about you. I don't know how this all works. You said it yourself; it's not something I can really understand. So you're just going to have to help me out here. Do you need to consistently feed from one or the other, or would you be able to feed from bags if you occasionally fed from me as well?"
Sherlock hesitated for a long moment. His brain could not quite wrap around the fact that this conversation was even happening, and it was even harder to think straight now that his attention had focussed almost entirely on the sound of John's heart, pumping blood around his body. John's heart rate was elevated, but only slightly, and it was still steady. He wasn't afraid. Why wasn't he afraid?
Finally, Sherlock murmured, "I could alternate."
John nodded slowly, and then patted the sofa cushion next to him. When Sherlock hesitated, John jerked his head in the direction. "Sit," he said in a commanding tone, and after a moment Sherlock walked over and sat down beside him. He pressed his back against the arm of the sofa so that there was as much space in between them as possible.
"Werewolf feeders are unheard of, John," Sherlock said after a pause.
"I'm not going to be your feeder," John reminded him.
"Yes, but even offering this at all is unheard of. We can feed from humans because they gain something from the experience, given the way our venom affects their brain chemistry, but you know that my venom could kill you. Without that, you would find it would hurt."
"I'm expecting so," John said, looking far too calm for this conversation. "I've seen your fangs, they're pretty intimidating."
"And you're still offering?"
John leaned back against the sofa. "Remember when you ran some tests on my blood, after I got stabbed? You found I recovered from blood loss quicker."
"That doesn't mean the experience is going to be pleasant for you."
"I never said it was. I'm saying that I can handle it, and I'm saying that you need blood and you're too stubborn to feed from bags. So, I'm agreeing to let you feed from me, occasionally, when I decide to allow you to, if and only if you agree to feed regularly from bags in between. Okay?"
Sherlock stared at John for a long moment. There was no way this conversation was really happening, no way he was hearing it correctly. And yet, John – impossible, possibly insane, brilliant John – was looking at him with a patient expression, without a flicker of fear or doubt on his face.
So, after a long moment, Sherlock nodded his head. "Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay," John said again, and then he shifted, rolling his sleeve up his arm. Sherlock's eyes were immediately drawn to the exposed skin of his wrist.
"Now?" Sherlock said.
John shrugged. "You're starving, you've just been shot, and my girlfriend turned out to be a hunter who wanted both of us dead. Now's as good a time as any."
His voice sounded calm, but Sherlock picked up on the ever so slight change in his heart rate at the mention of Mary. However, he did not comment on it. He was rather distracted by the veins he could see on the inside of John's wrist.
John continued, "Can you control yourself?"
Sherlock bit his own lip, and realised only then that his fangs were extending inside his mouth. "I'm not sure," he confessed.
"Well, I'll yank your hair out if you don't stop quickly enough."
Sherlock's gaze flickered between John's wrist and his eyes. "Are you certain?"
John's voice didn't waver. "Yes," he said. "I trust you."
"Then you're probably an idiot."
John smiled a little, faintly. "No, I don't think so," he said, and he lifted his wrist.
Sherlock hesitated for another moment, placing one hand beneath John's arm to steady it. He sought John's gaze, looking for any evidence of uncertainty, anything to suggest John was not completely okay with this. There was none. John showed no fear, no doubt, nothing to say that he hadn't put all of his trust – perhaps more than was deserved – in Sherlock.
Sherlock bent towards John's wrist, opened his mouth, and bit down.
He heard John wince in pain, felt the muscles in his arm tense before he (presumably consciously) forced himself to relax. It caused his heart rate to speed up, just a little, pumping more blood around his body, blood that was now flowing down Sherlock's throat, filling him with life. It tasted better than he remembered, and he could feel it flowing through his veins, warming his body. It was like that first sip of water when you found yourself parched. He wanted to press closer, to feed more desperately, but he held himself back. He had to stay conscious, not only so he didn't take too much, but also so that he did not accidentally inject John with venom.
He was vaguely aware of John's hand in his hair, like it had been those few months ago. He forced himself to focus on it rather than losing himself in the bloodlust. After a couple of moments, he felt it tighten, as John prepared to pull Sherlock off. It did not end up being necessary. Though it took a considerable amount of willpower not to fight against the hand in his hair, he forced himself to relax, and pull back himself, fangs sliding out of the puncture wounds.
He licked his lips to clean up whatever was left of the blood, and then looked at John. The werewolf was only slightly paler than he had been moments ago, but the expression on his face had not changed. He should look terrified, or at very least shocked. He didn't.
"How are you feeling?" John asked.
"I should be asking you that," Sherlock said. "Are you feeling light-headed?"
John smiled faintly. "Don't worry," he said. "You didn't take that much. I think your self-control is better than you believe."
The hand in Sherlock's hair loosened and began to slide away, and then paused by Sherlock's neck, two fingers pressing against the pulse point. "Huh," John said. "You have a heartbeat."
"Only for a little while, while it pumps your blood around my body," Sherlock said.
Something flickered over John's expression at the mention of his blood, but it was too brief for Sherlock to tell what it meant. "I hadn't even thought about what your heart might actually do, aside from sit there in your chest as a weak point in your body," he commented. "Is it always this slow?"
"For a vampire, this is fast."
John's lips quirked upwards, and he let his hand fall from Sherlock's neck.
"You should probably eat something," Sherlock said after a moment. "That's what you're supposed to do after donating blood, isn't it?"
"I'll make tea," John said, getting to his feet slowly.
"I said eat, not drink."
"Tea with biscuits, then."
Sherlock watched as John moved into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove, as if nothing had happened. Sherlock knew better than to believe that Mary would have easily left John's mind, knew that he would be trying not to think about it, bottling it up. Maybe focussing on Sherlock, offering his own blood, was all part of John's attempt to distract himself.
Sherlock pressed two fingers to his wrist, feeling the slow pulse, as his heart pumped the fresh blood around his veins – blood that John had offered, given willingly, without gaining anything in return. Humans could get addicted to being fed from, addicted to the high that came with it, but John had no such benefits. He'd not offered this for himself.
"You know," Sherlock said. "You are the most unusual werewolf I've ever met."
John looked over his shoulder, and a ghost of a smile grew over his face. "Yeah," he murmured. "So you've said."
Author's Note: The next chapter is the last (!) and it's also a bit shorter than the rest of them.
