The Consulting Vampire Chapter 3/?
The Consulting Vampire - AO3
Chapter 3 - AO3
Author: angel_kink
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Other characters: OCs
Rating: PG13 (will go up)
Warning: Vampire AU.
Word Count: 2900 (this chapter)
Summary: Sherlock takes John on a vampire hunt. Things don’t quite go as planned.
John felt that his interview at the clinic had gone quite well. The woman who interviewed him seemed to think he was overqualified for the position, but John assured her this was exactly the type of thing he was looking for. ‘Boring,’ she’d called it. But that’s exactly what he needed. Boring. He took the fact that he got through the interview without dwelling over the whole vampire topic a sign that he might be able to balance these two parts of himself after all. Maybe. He could at least attempt it. Probably.
He got home several hours before sunset, but Sherlock was already awake and working on some experiment in the kitchen. He was hovering over a microscope staring intently at something on a slide. The heavy curtains were tightly drawn and the room was dimly lit, but it seemed to be enough for Sherlock to work so John didn’t bother commenting on it. Perpetual darkness would just have to be something he had to get used to. It wasn’t so bad. He’d got enough sun in Afghanistan.
“The woman who interviewed you will be calling you in about an hour to inform you that you got the job,” Sherlock said without bothering to look up from his microscope.
“What, she called already?”
“No.”
“Then how did you-”
“Her perfume. Your qualifications. The state of the health system. The scuffs on your shoes.”
“My shoes?”
“Congratulations on the new job,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Right. Thanks.” He hung his jacket by the door and made his way to the kitchen to make tea.
“Would you like to slay a vampire with me tonight?”
“Uh.” John paused in the entry of the kitchen and stared at Sherlock. He wasn’t exactly sure he’d heard him right. “Pardon?”
“Just the one,” Sherlock said as he looked up at him. “The odds are in our favor. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“How the hell will we even find her?”
“Southwark. Near King’s College Guy’s campus. She was a young girl. A college student. There was a small amount of debris left behind in one of her footprints-”
“Footprints? I wasn’t aware they’d found any.”
“No. I kept it to myself. Anderson couldn’t find a footprint in the snow anyway. Wouldn’t expect him to notice it in the subtle patterns of the debris on the floor. Even if he had enhanced vision like myself, I’m sure he’d miss it. Lestrade’s team is woefully inept, which tends to work in my favor more often than not. The debris - a blade of grass and some dirt. They match Guy’s hospital grounds. King’s College has a campus there. She was a medical student-”
“Wait, but how did you... Even if you could match up a blade of grass, that doesn’t mean she was a student there. I mean-”
“Is a student. She may be a vampire, but she’s perfectly capable of finishing out her education if she chooses. She most likely won’t live through the night, however.”
“Right, okay, but how do you know she’s a student? She could have just been passing through the grounds. Visiting someone, even. It is a hospital.”
“No, John. She was a student. I could tell by her shoes and gate. She was either a student or in a band. Possibly both. But the blade of grass - college campus - student. Makes perfect sense.”
John didn’t press further. He just shrugged. “Alright. when do we leave?”
“Good. One hour and fifty three minutes.”
“Sunset?”
“Precisely.”
-
The taxi dropped them off a block from the hospital at Sherlock’s request. When Sherlock started walking in the other direction, John paused.
“Sherlock?”
“This way, John,” he said without stopping. John quickened his pace to catch up with him as he briskly made his way down the street. Sherlock’s legs were far longer than his and he already had a head start so it took John some effort to keep up with him.
“The hospital is the other way, Sherlock.”
“But her flat is this way.”
“What, the blade of grass tell you that, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said as he rolled his eyes. “I can smell her.”
“Smell....?”
“Does this surprise you? You already know it’s why the ‘no bleeding in flat’ rule is in place.”
“No. Well... yes, kind of. It surprises me. It’s just - there’s just so much I don’t know. I’ve thought up literally hundreds of questions, I just.. I don’t...”
“You don’t want to bore me,” Sherlock stated. It wasn’t even a question. Sherlock could read him like a book. He shouldn’t even try to lie.
“Sort of.”
“How considerate. I have no doubt that after hundreds of questions I would be quite bored, but I find your curiosity endearing. Most people would be too afraid to ask questions. But not you.” Sherlock glanced over at him. “That’s why I find you so interesting.”
“So I can, then? Ask questions, I mean.”
“As they come up, yes, but don’t expect me to tell you everything. Answering questions can be quite tedious. You were right about that. Besides, I much prefer others figure things out themselves.”
At this point they turned up a small staircase and entered a building. John wasn’t quite sure where they were going, but he trusted Sherlock to lead the way. Why he put so much trust into Sherlock so fast, he wasn’t sure, but it was there.
“Can you enter homes? Or is that just a bit of mythology too?”
“Not of the living. Have to be invited in. The rules can get a bit prickly in this area, however. Sometimes I just have to try and see if I can do it. This has led to several embarrassing encounters which I’d care not to dwell on at the moment.”
“Huh,” John said as followed him up a narrow staircase. “What if she has flatmates? Could I invite you in?”
“Yes, you could. You could be more useful to me than I first imagined.” Sherlock grinned. When they reached the top of the stairs Sherlock paused in front of what John assumed to be the girl’s door. “This time, however, I don’t think you’ll need to go to the trouble.”
Sherlock took out a small lock pick and jiggled the door open in two seconds flat. When the door swung wide, John was hit by the overpowering smell of death and decay. He quickly covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve.
“Oh my God.”
“She did have flatmates,” Sherlock said as he walked across the threshold. “I was wrong. She killed them first. That body was her third victim. These must be at least four, maybe five days old.”
John followed him into the room and flicked on the light. There were two young women lying in the middle of the room. Their throats had been ripped out even more violently than the woman they found before. There was a broken lap across the room and a half eaten meal on the table that had begun to attract flies.
“Fourth victim, actually,” Sherlock said. His voice sounded slightly different and it took a moment for John to figure out why. When John looked over to him he could see it was because his fangs were extended, resting gently against his bottom lip. John’s heart sped up at the sight. “There’s another woman lying dead in the kitchen.”
“You - you said she was still here, right? You could smell her, or whatever?”
“Yes. But her smell is all over the room. She lingered here several days after she murdered them. I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from.”
John started to look around nervously. Another vampire could be near. It could be anywhere. And John didn’t have any crosses or stakes and he didn’t know enough about them to know if anything else would work. He felt woefully unprepared. What was he thinking?
“Maybe I should have a weapon.” Before Sherlock could respond, John was thrown against the wall so hard he thought for sure he’d left an indentation in it.
“John!”
There was a flurry of motion around him again, but he was too woozy from his impact with the wall to make out what was happening. He fell to his knees and saw specks of blood on the floor in front of him that he was pretty sure weren’t there before. He put his hand to his head where it make impact with the wall and when he pulled his hand away it was covered in red.
John quickly pulled out a handkerchief and applied pressure to the wound on his head. For all he knew, he could have suffered some brain damage as well. A concussion at least. But all he had to do now was the avoid becoming dinner. There were two angry vampires just a few feet from him and he was bleeding all over the place. This could end very poorly.
After a few moments John finally managed to look up and what he saw took him by surprise. Sherlock and the female vampire were struggling with one another at such a high speed that they looked like nothing more than a colored blur darting across the room. When one of them would make impact with a wall or the floor they’d pause long enough for John to make out their forms. The girl, no older than her mid twenties, was wearing blood stained jeans and a t-shirt. She looked terrified, but determined to kill Sherlock.
Sherlock’s teeth were bared and he seemed to be in control of the struggle. If John didn’t know any better he’d say Sherlock were intentionally prolonging the struggle. He had her by the wrists one moment, the neck the next, then he held her firmly by the shoulders. It was quite obvious who had the upper hand. Why he didn’t just end the fight sooner rather than later, John wasn’t entirely sure.
The last movement John saw was Sherlock slamming the girl roughly onto the floor and impaling a stake into her chest. The girl screamed and her skin lost was little color it had instantly. She screamed again and her skin began to flake away like ash in the wind. It felt like an eternity for John, but the whole thing lasted probably less than a minute. When there was nothing but a pile of ash on the floor Sherlock stood up.
He approached John and looked at the wound on his head with those nearly luminescent eyes of his. But he didn’t look bothered by the scent, even though his fangs were still out and he was very clearly affected by it. He actually looked concerned, though. “John, are you alright?”
“Yeah, just a bit of a head wound,” he said, applying a little more pressure to where it felt like the cut was the worst.
“How bad?”
“Looks worse than it is, I think.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I think so.” John climbed to his feet using the wall for support. He wobbled slightly, but held his ground.
“Then let’s go.” Sherlock paused for a moment to be sure that John could stand on his own two feet. When John had proven that he could walk, Sherlock turned and walked towards the door. “The sound no doubt inspired some of her more kind hearted neighbors to dial nine nine nine. We must be quick.”
-
After three taxis rejected them due to John’s injury, they were forced to take the tube home. Thankfully Sherlock had some level of control over his fangs and managed to retract them before anyone saw them. With John bleeding, they were getting enough strange looks as it was. John really didn’t want to think about what kind of attention fangs would attract.
The walk from the Baker Street station to their flat wasn’t far, but his injury made even the short journey rather painful. He definitely had a head injury of some sort. John paused outside the building. Sherlock took a couple of steps ahead of him and turned around, confused.
“Guess I should get to hospital,” John said as he gestured towards the gash on his head.
“It’s a simple wound, John. There’s no need.”
“Yes, but... the blood...”
“It’s alright, John.” Sherlock closed the gap between them until he was standing right beside him. John was surprised when Sherlock put a comforting hand on his back as he guided him upstairs towards their flat. “It’s my rule. I can ignore it if I want to.”
Sherlock pushed him straight to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet lid. Sherlock grabbed the first aid kit and started rifling through the supplies. He opened up a clean cloth and unfolded it. When he reached out to wipe the area clean, John grabbed his wrist and halted him. Sherlock looked startled and confused by his action. John felt as though he needed to say something before he got the wrong idea about it.
“I’m just... before you do that, if you wanted to... I mean, you could... drink... I’m not unwilling is all I’m trying to say.”
Sherlock stared at him for a long time and John regretted even making the offer. He meant it, but he didn’t know what type of implications that carried. This was an entirely new world and he didn’t really understand how it all worked. But Sherlock said that vampires fed on willing people earlier, hadn’t he? Or had John just imagined it? Maybe it was the blow to the head or something.
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
“Not really - no,” John admitted. “But I mean it anyway.”
Another silent moment passed as Sherlock stared at him. John wasn’t quite sure if he’d crossed some sort of terrible line or not. He knew nothing about this stuff. Maybe he just unintentionally proposed marriage or something else equally weird.
Suddenly Sherlock was turning his head and John didn’t really have a choice, but to go with it. He barely had time to think before Sherlock’s tongue was sliding across his cheek, licking at the blood that had run down his face. Sherlock licked up towards the wound, taking a moment to swallow the small amount he’d lapped up before continuing to fall the trail of blood.
When his tongue swiped across the open would, it almost felt like the physical pain was lessened. John wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or if his saliva was some sort of topical analgesic, but all he could think about was the gently glide of Sherlock’s tongue across his flesh. He hadn’t even thought about how erotic it would be for Sherlock’s mouth being on his skin until it was happening. He knew it would be strange, but more for the fact that something was drinking blood from him, not the fact that it turned him on in some strange way.
“If you are to continue assisting me in this part of my life, you’re going to end up bleeding,” Sherlock said as he pulled away slightly. “Clearly our partnership will require adjustments to the usual rules. We’ll need to negotiate something.”
“What, you’ve never had someone helping you like this before?”
“No.” Sherlock was still looking at the wound, his fangs once more elongated and his lips smeared with blood. “This is a first.”
Sherlock set the box of medical equipment aside and tilted John’s head again to take a look at the cut. Then Sherlock bit his own finger and pressed it up against the wound.
“Sherlock? What are you doing?”
“Questions, questions, questions. Surely you’ll be able to figure this one out on your own.”
“You’re... you’re bleeding on me. But why?”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment. He just kept his hand pressed firmly against his head. John could feel his forehead tingling where Sherlock’s blood touched his damaged flesh. A small amount of panic rose within him, but that strange trust he placed in him overpowered it.
When he finally took his hand away he handed John a clean cloth and smiled. “Clean yourself up,” he said as he stepped out of the room.
John stood up and approached the mirror. He moistened the cloth and began to dab at the wound, but as he wiped the blood away one thing became startlingly clear to him: the wound had entirely healed. There wasn’t even a scar where that nasty cut had once been. It was as though nothing had ever happened.
Chapter 3 - AO3
Author: angel_kink
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Other characters: OCs
Rating: PG13 (will go up)
Warning: Vampire AU.
Word Count: 2900 (this chapter)
Summary: Sherlock takes John on a vampire hunt. Things don’t quite go as planned.
John felt that his interview at the clinic had gone quite well. The woman who interviewed him seemed to think he was overqualified for the position, but John assured her this was exactly the type of thing he was looking for. ‘Boring,’ she’d called it. But that’s exactly what he needed. Boring. He took the fact that he got through the interview without dwelling over the whole vampire topic a sign that he might be able to balance these two parts of himself after all. Maybe. He could at least attempt it. Probably.
He got home several hours before sunset, but Sherlock was already awake and working on some experiment in the kitchen. He was hovering over a microscope staring intently at something on a slide. The heavy curtains were tightly drawn and the room was dimly lit, but it seemed to be enough for Sherlock to work so John didn’t bother commenting on it. Perpetual darkness would just have to be something he had to get used to. It wasn’t so bad. He’d got enough sun in Afghanistan.
“The woman who interviewed you will be calling you in about an hour to inform you that you got the job,” Sherlock said without bothering to look up from his microscope.
“What, she called already?”
“No.”
“Then how did you-”
“Her perfume. Your qualifications. The state of the health system. The scuffs on your shoes.”
“My shoes?”
“Congratulations on the new job,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Right. Thanks.” He hung his jacket by the door and made his way to the kitchen to make tea.
“Would you like to slay a vampire with me tonight?”
“Uh.” John paused in the entry of the kitchen and stared at Sherlock. He wasn’t exactly sure he’d heard him right. “Pardon?”
“Just the one,” Sherlock said as he looked up at him. “The odds are in our favor. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“How the hell will we even find her?”
“Southwark. Near King’s College Guy’s campus. She was a young girl. A college student. There was a small amount of debris left behind in one of her footprints-”
“Footprints? I wasn’t aware they’d found any.”
“No. I kept it to myself. Anderson couldn’t find a footprint in the snow anyway. Wouldn’t expect him to notice it in the subtle patterns of the debris on the floor. Even if he had enhanced vision like myself, I’m sure he’d miss it. Lestrade’s team is woefully inept, which tends to work in my favor more often than not. The debris - a blade of grass and some dirt. They match Guy’s hospital grounds. King’s College has a campus there. She was a medical student-”
“Wait, but how did you... Even if you could match up a blade of grass, that doesn’t mean she was a student there. I mean-”
“Is a student. She may be a vampire, but she’s perfectly capable of finishing out her education if she chooses. She most likely won’t live through the night, however.”
“Right, okay, but how do you know she’s a student? She could have just been passing through the grounds. Visiting someone, even. It is a hospital.”
“No, John. She was a student. I could tell by her shoes and gate. She was either a student or in a band. Possibly both. But the blade of grass - college campus - student. Makes perfect sense.”
John didn’t press further. He just shrugged. “Alright. when do we leave?”
“Good. One hour and fifty three minutes.”
“Sunset?”
“Precisely.”
-
The taxi dropped them off a block from the hospital at Sherlock’s request. When Sherlock started walking in the other direction, John paused.
“Sherlock?”
“This way, John,” he said without stopping. John quickened his pace to catch up with him as he briskly made his way down the street. Sherlock’s legs were far longer than his and he already had a head start so it took John some effort to keep up with him.
“The hospital is the other way, Sherlock.”
“But her flat is this way.”
“What, the blade of grass tell you that, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said as he rolled his eyes. “I can smell her.”
“Smell....?”
“Does this surprise you? You already know it’s why the ‘no bleeding in flat’ rule is in place.”
“No. Well... yes, kind of. It surprises me. It’s just - there’s just so much I don’t know. I’ve thought up literally hundreds of questions, I just.. I don’t...”
“You don’t want to bore me,” Sherlock stated. It wasn’t even a question. Sherlock could read him like a book. He shouldn’t even try to lie.
“Sort of.”
“How considerate. I have no doubt that after hundreds of questions I would be quite bored, but I find your curiosity endearing. Most people would be too afraid to ask questions. But not you.” Sherlock glanced over at him. “That’s why I find you so interesting.”
“So I can, then? Ask questions, I mean.”
“As they come up, yes, but don’t expect me to tell you everything. Answering questions can be quite tedious. You were right about that. Besides, I much prefer others figure things out themselves.”
At this point they turned up a small staircase and entered a building. John wasn’t quite sure where they were going, but he trusted Sherlock to lead the way. Why he put so much trust into Sherlock so fast, he wasn’t sure, but it was there.
“Can you enter homes? Or is that just a bit of mythology too?”
“Not of the living. Have to be invited in. The rules can get a bit prickly in this area, however. Sometimes I just have to try and see if I can do it. This has led to several embarrassing encounters which I’d care not to dwell on at the moment.”
“Huh,” John said as followed him up a narrow staircase. “What if she has flatmates? Could I invite you in?”
“Yes, you could. You could be more useful to me than I first imagined.” Sherlock grinned. When they reached the top of the stairs Sherlock paused in front of what John assumed to be the girl’s door. “This time, however, I don’t think you’ll need to go to the trouble.”
Sherlock took out a small lock pick and jiggled the door open in two seconds flat. When the door swung wide, John was hit by the overpowering smell of death and decay. He quickly covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve.
“Oh my God.”
“She did have flatmates,” Sherlock said as he walked across the threshold. “I was wrong. She killed them first. That body was her third victim. These must be at least four, maybe five days old.”
John followed him into the room and flicked on the light. There were two young women lying in the middle of the room. Their throats had been ripped out even more violently than the woman they found before. There was a broken lap across the room and a half eaten meal on the table that had begun to attract flies.
“Fourth victim, actually,” Sherlock said. His voice sounded slightly different and it took a moment for John to figure out why. When John looked over to him he could see it was because his fangs were extended, resting gently against his bottom lip. John’s heart sped up at the sight. “There’s another woman lying dead in the kitchen.”
“You - you said she was still here, right? You could smell her, or whatever?”
“Yes. But her smell is all over the room. She lingered here several days after she murdered them. I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from.”
John started to look around nervously. Another vampire could be near. It could be anywhere. And John didn’t have any crosses or stakes and he didn’t know enough about them to know if anything else would work. He felt woefully unprepared. What was he thinking?
“Maybe I should have a weapon.” Before Sherlock could respond, John was thrown against the wall so hard he thought for sure he’d left an indentation in it.
“John!”
There was a flurry of motion around him again, but he was too woozy from his impact with the wall to make out what was happening. He fell to his knees and saw specks of blood on the floor in front of him that he was pretty sure weren’t there before. He put his hand to his head where it make impact with the wall and when he pulled his hand away it was covered in red.
John quickly pulled out a handkerchief and applied pressure to the wound on his head. For all he knew, he could have suffered some brain damage as well. A concussion at least. But all he had to do now was the avoid becoming dinner. There were two angry vampires just a few feet from him and he was bleeding all over the place. This could end very poorly.
After a few moments John finally managed to look up and what he saw took him by surprise. Sherlock and the female vampire were struggling with one another at such a high speed that they looked like nothing more than a colored blur darting across the room. When one of them would make impact with a wall or the floor they’d pause long enough for John to make out their forms. The girl, no older than her mid twenties, was wearing blood stained jeans and a t-shirt. She looked terrified, but determined to kill Sherlock.
Sherlock’s teeth were bared and he seemed to be in control of the struggle. If John didn’t know any better he’d say Sherlock were intentionally prolonging the struggle. He had her by the wrists one moment, the neck the next, then he held her firmly by the shoulders. It was quite obvious who had the upper hand. Why he didn’t just end the fight sooner rather than later, John wasn’t entirely sure.
The last movement John saw was Sherlock slamming the girl roughly onto the floor and impaling a stake into her chest. The girl screamed and her skin lost was little color it had instantly. She screamed again and her skin began to flake away like ash in the wind. It felt like an eternity for John, but the whole thing lasted probably less than a minute. When there was nothing but a pile of ash on the floor Sherlock stood up.
He approached John and looked at the wound on his head with those nearly luminescent eyes of his. But he didn’t look bothered by the scent, even though his fangs were still out and he was very clearly affected by it. He actually looked concerned, though. “John, are you alright?”
“Yeah, just a bit of a head wound,” he said, applying a little more pressure to where it felt like the cut was the worst.
“How bad?”
“Looks worse than it is, I think.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I think so.” John climbed to his feet using the wall for support. He wobbled slightly, but held his ground.
“Then let’s go.” Sherlock paused for a moment to be sure that John could stand on his own two feet. When John had proven that he could walk, Sherlock turned and walked towards the door. “The sound no doubt inspired some of her more kind hearted neighbors to dial nine nine nine. We must be quick.”
-
After three taxis rejected them due to John’s injury, they were forced to take the tube home. Thankfully Sherlock had some level of control over his fangs and managed to retract them before anyone saw them. With John bleeding, they were getting enough strange looks as it was. John really didn’t want to think about what kind of attention fangs would attract.
The walk from the Baker Street station to their flat wasn’t far, but his injury made even the short journey rather painful. He definitely had a head injury of some sort. John paused outside the building. Sherlock took a couple of steps ahead of him and turned around, confused.
“Guess I should get to hospital,” John said as he gestured towards the gash on his head.
“It’s a simple wound, John. There’s no need.”
“Yes, but... the blood...”
“It’s alright, John.” Sherlock closed the gap between them until he was standing right beside him. John was surprised when Sherlock put a comforting hand on his back as he guided him upstairs towards their flat. “It’s my rule. I can ignore it if I want to.”
Sherlock pushed him straight to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet lid. Sherlock grabbed the first aid kit and started rifling through the supplies. He opened up a clean cloth and unfolded it. When he reached out to wipe the area clean, John grabbed his wrist and halted him. Sherlock looked startled and confused by his action. John felt as though he needed to say something before he got the wrong idea about it.
“I’m just... before you do that, if you wanted to... I mean, you could... drink... I’m not unwilling is all I’m trying to say.”
Sherlock stared at him for a long time and John regretted even making the offer. He meant it, but he didn’t know what type of implications that carried. This was an entirely new world and he didn’t really understand how it all worked. But Sherlock said that vampires fed on willing people earlier, hadn’t he? Or had John just imagined it? Maybe it was the blow to the head or something.
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
“Not really - no,” John admitted. “But I mean it anyway.”
Another silent moment passed as Sherlock stared at him. John wasn’t quite sure if he’d crossed some sort of terrible line or not. He knew nothing about this stuff. Maybe he just unintentionally proposed marriage or something else equally weird.
Suddenly Sherlock was turning his head and John didn’t really have a choice, but to go with it. He barely had time to think before Sherlock’s tongue was sliding across his cheek, licking at the blood that had run down his face. Sherlock licked up towards the wound, taking a moment to swallow the small amount he’d lapped up before continuing to fall the trail of blood.
When his tongue swiped across the open would, it almost felt like the physical pain was lessened. John wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or if his saliva was some sort of topical analgesic, but all he could think about was the gently glide of Sherlock’s tongue across his flesh. He hadn’t even thought about how erotic it would be for Sherlock’s mouth being on his skin until it was happening. He knew it would be strange, but more for the fact that something was drinking blood from him, not the fact that it turned him on in some strange way.
“If you are to continue assisting me in this part of my life, you’re going to end up bleeding,” Sherlock said as he pulled away slightly. “Clearly our partnership will require adjustments to the usual rules. We’ll need to negotiate something.”
“What, you’ve never had someone helping you like this before?”
“No.” Sherlock was still looking at the wound, his fangs once more elongated and his lips smeared with blood. “This is a first.”
Sherlock set the box of medical equipment aside and tilted John’s head again to take a look at the cut. Then Sherlock bit his own finger and pressed it up against the wound.
“Sherlock? What are you doing?”
“Questions, questions, questions. Surely you’ll be able to figure this one out on your own.”
“You’re... you’re bleeding on me. But why?”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment. He just kept his hand pressed firmly against his head. John could feel his forehead tingling where Sherlock’s blood touched his damaged flesh. A small amount of panic rose within him, but that strange trust he placed in him overpowered it.
When he finally took his hand away he handed John a clean cloth and smiled. “Clean yourself up,” he said as he stepped out of the room.
John stood up and approached the mirror. He moistened the cloth and began to dab at the wound, but as he wiped the blood away one thing became startlingly clear to him: the wound had entirely healed. There wasn’t even a scar where that nasty cut had once been. It was as though nothing had ever happened.