Lycanthrope - Chapter 2/?
Title: Lycanthrope (or a Study in Insertional Retroviral Mutagenesis)* - Chapter 2/?
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Eventual Sherlock/John
Summary: John never once considered that his flatmate was hiding something like this from him.
Rating: Rated PG-13 now, NC-17 later
Spoilers: Some Season 2
Word count: Over 11,600 words and growing, 2,503 in this part.
A response to this prompt on the kink meme asking for Werewolf!Sherlock who acts wolf-like when he is human.
* WIP, title my change
Translated into Korean by millute
Even loosened by alcohol and easy conversation, John still feels some residual wariness when he goes home that evening, and hopes that Sherlock is sensitive enough not to reappear in wolf form, at least right now.
He is relieved that Sherlock is no where in sight, so John quickly goes upstairs and locks his door. He figures a wolf will have a harder time picking the lock.
-----
It is not addressed the next morning. Business seems to be back to usual, but John notices and smiles at the clean living room floor, and does not say anything about the addition of newly purchased fresh eggs and milk in the fridge. Apology accepted, Sherlock, John thinks. John makes tea, Sherlock drinks it, and ignores John’s offer of breakfast in favor of perusing the dilapidated tower of newspapers leaning against the armchair.
John happily fries up an egg in the basket in the skillet, and carries the perfectly golden-brown toast to his desk, where he tries to work on his blog. My flatmate is a werewolf, John begins to write flippantly, deletes the whole thing, and opens up Google.
He finds the Lycanthropy Affected Friends and Family forums (www.laff.co.uk) and begins clicking through the topics. There, John finds a healthy list of resources, links to research studies, a helpful “Debunking Myths” section (accelerated healing, for example, is a myth) and a variety of estimated population and demographic statistics on the UK, European, and worldwide homo lupus populations. He finds out that the rate of traumatic, non-consensual transmission of ALV virus has been declining steadily since the 1940s, when the first effective and affordable suppression medications were introduced. He reads arguments about the offensiveness of the antiquated term “werewolf,” and the even more derogatory term, “warg.” John bookmarks a thread with information on support groups in the greater London urban area. John finds himself fascinated with the sections on lycanthrope health. He finds out about common health problems and allergens, the infamous lycan sensitivity to nickle (not silver, and not deadly, but can cause painful blisters), and metabolism-related sensitivity to theobromine, a compound found in chocolate (not deadly in small quantities, and can cause prolonged sensation of ‘sugar high’ in children and adults).
When he reaches the Cooking with Lycans subforum and reads the recipes section, he comes to a startling realization. “Is that why you don’t eat like a normal person?”
Sherlock swivels his head slowly away from the paper he is reading, and his eyes turn to meet John’s a long moment. “I see you’ve reached the food section of the LAFF forums. Yes, I find most food meant for typical human consumption over-seasoned, too salty, and generally unpalatable. And although I am an omnivore unlike wild wolves, I find wheat and soy products unappetizing.”
“Have you tried the doggie bakery at Langthorne Street?” John asks curiously. He only knows this because one of his ex-girlfriends went there religiously to get cupcakes for her terrier.
“Hmm, no. The family cook used to make me special biscuits that Mycroft said tasted like cardboard. I think they are not that different from dog treats, although the idea of shopping at a bakery meant for pets is rather insulting.”
“No, we wouldn’t want to ruffle your fur,” John says with a chuckle, and turns back to his reading.
-----
When John leaves the flat in the afternoon, a black sedan slows down beside John as he is walking down the street. He tries to glare in the direction where he thinks Mycroft or whatever-her-name-is may be sitting, but he just feels ridiculous trying to glare at someone he cannot see through the tinted glass. So when the door opens, he gets in.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson. I believe you had a trying time with Sherlock yesterday. I always try to tell him to disclose in a less traumatizing manner. It only serves to reinforce stigma. But predictably, he never listens,” Mycroft laments in a tired way that makes John think this is a long-suffering argument.
“You mean he’s done that to other...colleagues?”
“I believe he showed up at poor Dr. Molly Hooper’s mortuary with a severed arm clamped between his jaws. Surprising the whole experience did not put her off.” John tries to imagine that, and can’t.
“And are you one too? That is, a...lycanthrope?” John asks hesitantly. He feels embarrassed to inquire, but it is obvious he is sitting in Mycroft’s car to talk about this, and to be quite honest, he is curious about how Sherlock became infected. He remembers seeing Sherlock’s nude body (the memory awakens the never-quite-dormant-especially-around-Sherlock lizard part of his brain) but did not note any significant scarring indicative of a wolf bite. Botched blood transfusion, then? Or genetic, like a lot of the born wolves on the LAFF forums?
“No, I am not. Sherlock’s lycanthrope state is somewhat unique, as it is passed on in an infectious hereditary, and initially, non-Mendelian pattern. In Sherlock’s case, our maternal grandfather was bitten as a child by a lycanthrope with acquired lycanthropy virus, or ALV for short. During a period of intense forensic investigation, we discovered a high likelihood that the attack on our maternal grandfather was intentional, orchestrated by his family’s political rivals, and that the perpetrator’s ALV viral load was extremely high. Enough blood to blood transmission occurred during the attack for our maternal grandfather to seroconvert. If the ALV antibody test was available back then, we would have discovered that he was positive for ALV, but as it was, he did not experience compulsory transformation near or around the full moon. In fact, according to his diaries and my mother’s own memory of him, he did not display or experience any lupine characteristics or behaviors. The family simply believed that the bite did not take and proceeded on in ignorant bliss.
“Imagine everyone’s surprise when Sherlock was born. I remember the commotion when Mummy was in labor. I was seven and terrified that something had happened, because no one would let me see her or answer any questions, and the family doctors were running about, and several specialists were called in, including, bafflingly at the time, the estate veterinarian. Turns out, Sherlock had shifted to his lupine form at some point during the labor and was actually born as a wolf pup. Blind, mewling, shivering, and absolutely harmless. Still, Mummy was hysterical and had to be sedated, and Father was in shock and no where to be found. The specialists decided to put him in an incubator for observation and fed him milk formula. Thankfully, Sherlock shifted to his human infant form after a few hours, much to the collective relief of everyone.
“Thus began the effort to piece together the mystery of Sherlock’s lycanthropy. Given that our maternal grandfather was famously bitten as a child, it was clear he was the most likely ALV-positive candidate in the family. But of course, the family historians and estate would never pass up the opportunity to validate a theory, and so the body was exhumed, tested, and found to be positive for ALV. Extraordinarily high viral load levels, if I recall correctly.
“As a doctor, John, I trust you can appreciate the rarity by which lycanthropy results from a retroviral insertional mutagenesis. In my maternal grandfather’s case, the viral insertion happened in such a way that the mutation occurs on the X-chromosome. Therefore, Mummy is a carrier, and because lycanthropy behaves as a Mendelian, X-linked recessive trait, she does not exhibit the outward signs of lycanthropy.
“There is a fifty percent chance any male son of Mummy’s would inherit the affected X-chromosome. I was born with a typical X-chromosome, and my little brother got dealt the mutated one.” John envisioned the Holmes family pedigree chart, with the colored squares and circles. “Mummy has always said that the situation, as it were, would have be far less challenging had the chromosomal assignments been reversed,” Mycroft commented wistfully.
John laughed disbelievingly at the idea of the Holmes household with an adolescent, hormonal wolf in residence. “Can’t imagine it being easy, growing up with Sherlock as a part-time wolf.”
“You have no idea. We brought in people, of course. Lycan-medical experts, behavioral specialists, a lycan nanny, and even a Labrador retriever companion to assist with socialization. Even so, he shifted at the most inopportune times, and drove Mummy and the household staff to the brink of their oceanic patience with his misbehavior. But I suspect that Sherlock, even without the lycanthropy, would have been a challenge.” Mycroft withdraws a leather-bound album from his briefcase, and handed it to John.
John opens the album and sees a series of tastefully done prenatal portraits of a pregnant, dark-haired, beautifully radiant woman, her belly framed by long pale arms and elegant fingers. “That’s Mummy when she was pregnant with Sherlock,” Mycroft describes. John smiles and flips a few more pages, and comes across the same woman, this time with a tired smile, holding a sleeping infant with fluffy dark hair that can only be Sherlock. As infants go, he looks about the same as any other infant. “Mummy calmed down considerably when Sherlock transformed to his human form, so we were able to take this photograph,” Mycroft says with a slight smile.
John flips on, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the intimacy of the photographs, but he is too curious not continue. He sees a photograph of a mostly black, downy-furred puppy with small triangular ears and light blue eyes staring into the camera on pudgy legs. John cannot keep from smiling widely. “That’s Sherlock? Wow. Who knew he could be so cute. He has blue eyes in this,” John notices. The most startling aspect of his first (and so far only) encounter with Sherlock in his wolf form has been Sherlock’s yellow eyes.
“Like wild wolf cubs, his blue eyes transformed to a golden color as he got older. He also lost those bits of white fur. Mummy warmed up to Sherlock’s wolf form, eventually. It would be hard not to. Especially because he would change at least once a day. Even as a cub, he learned quickly that Mummy refuses to nurse him in his wolf form. That’s when he gets a bottle.”
John flips the page and sees an image of a seven-year old Mycroft bottle-feeding Sherlock as a black puppy in his arms. He is shown cradled in Mycroft’s arms belly up, legs and tail tucked, his tiny front paws holding onto the top of the bottle. He notes Mycroft wearing thick gardening gloves.
“He might not have any teeth at this point, but his claws were atrocious.” Mycroft comments, wryly. The next few pages feature a slightly overweight young Mycroft romping with Sherlock as a wolf cub in a green pasture. The wolf cub’s wide open mouth, small pink tongue lolling out, gives him a look of pure happiness and innocent joy. In another series of photographs, the black wolf cub is pictured with a pale-colored puppy, obviously of the domesticated dog variety.
“Is that the Labrador retriever you mentioned earlier?”
“Yes. The behaviorists suggested we adopt a canine puppy to help with Sherlock’s lupine socialization process, such as learning proper social play and bite inhibition. It would also help establish a socialization history for his eventual lycanthrope sentience classification.” John flips past the puppy pictures, interspersed with pictures of Sherlock as a human infant, and then as a toddler. Bright, inquisitive, and intensely knowing blue eyes locks into the viewer on each page of the album, all fat cheeks and the beginnings of that heart-shaped mouth.
John realizes suddenly that he is enjoying himself, that Mycroft is acting the long-suffering but proud elder brother, delivering embarrassing childhood stories and pictures to satisfy John’s burgeoning curiosity about Sherlock’s wolfself. John is enjoying himself so much, in fact, that the absurdity of this meeting has almost escaped him. He looks out the window and thinks the driver is taking them on a roundabout tour of Westminster.
“As much as I am finding this meeting oddly pleasant for a change, why am I here, exactly?”
Mycroft fixes John with an indecipherable look. “Sherlock is as wolf as he is human. The split personality that other lycanthropes report is not part of his experience. When Sherlock was a child, we tried teaching him to separate his wolf instincts from proper human manners, but my brother has always been, if nothing else, incurably rebellious. When he was five, the behavioral specialists and the family tried to introduce him to a carefully selected pack, but to say that he did not accept the situation is a gross understatement.
“During university, he experimented with running with a pack. It led to some unfortunate liaisons with rather unsavory characters, and the consequences are lifelong. For a few years, we despaired that he would never overcome his downward spiral into self-destruction, and it was...agony to watch. You already know about his history with substance abuse. We were advised to stop enabling him, withdraw all offers of resources, and that he would come around when he made the decision to. In retrospect, it was a necessary but crippling way of dealing with his needs. From a psychosocial perspective, it is now my belief that he self-medicates as a means to cope with the lack of pack structure and the general shortage of tolerance for his poorly restrained lupine tendencies.”
“But, I thought, boredom...” John interjects.
“Oh, there was also his desire for constant cerebral stimulation, but he also needed structure amid the chaos to feel at ease. Despite his seeming laissez-faire attitude towards all things structured, he needs pack structure, he needs some form of discipline, even if he acts out against it.
“We were always his pack. He didn’t need a wolf pack as a child, and he threw proper tantrums over that. He resented me and Mummy for forcing him away from his human pack, and then he experimented again with a proper wolf pack in University. It didn’t work, because his ‘wolf’ is different from theirs.
“He only returned to us because we reassembled and gave him that structure. When he was ready for rehab the last time, we arranged for an alpha lycanthrope nurse and a lycan-tolerant support staff. It appears now, sober less than one year, he has begun assembling his own pack. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, myself to some extent, and now you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I may have initially disagreed about your inclusion to his ‘pack,’ as you are obviously unfamiliar with lycanthropes and uneasy even around dogs. But he is insistent; he has chosen you to be part of it.”
John barely has a moment to process Mycroft’s statement, when the door opens and he is being ushered back onto the street in front of his flat. He hears Mycroft say a perfunctory “Good day, Dr. Watson,” before the door shuts and the black sedan peels away from the curb.
Chapter 3
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Eventual Sherlock/John
Summary: John never once considered that his flatmate was hiding something like this from him.
Rating: Rated PG-13 now, NC-17 later
Spoilers: Some Season 2
Word count: Over 11,600 words and growing, 2,503 in this part.
A response to this prompt on the kink meme asking for Werewolf!Sherlock who acts wolf-like when he is human.
* WIP, title my change
Translated into Korean by millute
Even loosened by alcohol and easy conversation, John still feels some residual wariness when he goes home that evening, and hopes that Sherlock is sensitive enough not to reappear in wolf form, at least right now.
He is relieved that Sherlock is no where in sight, so John quickly goes upstairs and locks his door. He figures a wolf will have a harder time picking the lock.
-----
It is not addressed the next morning. Business seems to be back to usual, but John notices and smiles at the clean living room floor, and does not say anything about the addition of newly purchased fresh eggs and milk in the fridge. Apology accepted, Sherlock, John thinks. John makes tea, Sherlock drinks it, and ignores John’s offer of breakfast in favor of perusing the dilapidated tower of newspapers leaning against the armchair.
John happily fries up an egg in the basket in the skillet, and carries the perfectly golden-brown toast to his desk, where he tries to work on his blog. My flatmate is a werewolf, John begins to write flippantly, deletes the whole thing, and opens up Google.
He finds the Lycanthropy Affected Friends and Family forums (www.laff.co.uk) and begins clicking through the topics. There, John finds a healthy list of resources, links to research studies, a helpful “Debunking Myths” section (accelerated healing, for example, is a myth) and a variety of estimated population and demographic statistics on the UK, European, and worldwide homo lupus populations. He finds out that the rate of traumatic, non-consensual transmission of ALV virus has been declining steadily since the 1940s, when the first effective and affordable suppression medications were introduced. He reads arguments about the offensiveness of the antiquated term “werewolf,” and the even more derogatory term, “warg.” John bookmarks a thread with information on support groups in the greater London urban area. John finds himself fascinated with the sections on lycanthrope health. He finds out about common health problems and allergens, the infamous lycan sensitivity to nickle (not silver, and not deadly, but can cause painful blisters), and metabolism-related sensitivity to theobromine, a compound found in chocolate (not deadly in small quantities, and can cause prolonged sensation of ‘sugar high’ in children and adults).
When he reaches the Cooking with Lycans subforum and reads the recipes section, he comes to a startling realization. “Is that why you don’t eat like a normal person?”
Sherlock swivels his head slowly away from the paper he is reading, and his eyes turn to meet John’s a long moment. “I see you’ve reached the food section of the LAFF forums. Yes, I find most food meant for typical human consumption over-seasoned, too salty, and generally unpalatable. And although I am an omnivore unlike wild wolves, I find wheat and soy products unappetizing.”
“Have you tried the doggie bakery at Langthorne Street?” John asks curiously. He only knows this because one of his ex-girlfriends went there religiously to get cupcakes for her terrier.
“Hmm, no. The family cook used to make me special biscuits that Mycroft said tasted like cardboard. I think they are not that different from dog treats, although the idea of shopping at a bakery meant for pets is rather insulting.”
“No, we wouldn’t want to ruffle your fur,” John says with a chuckle, and turns back to his reading.
-----
When John leaves the flat in the afternoon, a black sedan slows down beside John as he is walking down the street. He tries to glare in the direction where he thinks Mycroft or whatever-her-name-is may be sitting, but he just feels ridiculous trying to glare at someone he cannot see through the tinted glass. So when the door opens, he gets in.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson. I believe you had a trying time with Sherlock yesterday. I always try to tell him to disclose in a less traumatizing manner. It only serves to reinforce stigma. But predictably, he never listens,” Mycroft laments in a tired way that makes John think this is a long-suffering argument.
“You mean he’s done that to other...colleagues?”
“I believe he showed up at poor Dr. Molly Hooper’s mortuary with a severed arm clamped between his jaws. Surprising the whole experience did not put her off.” John tries to imagine that, and can’t.
“And are you one too? That is, a...lycanthrope?” John asks hesitantly. He feels embarrassed to inquire, but it is obvious he is sitting in Mycroft’s car to talk about this, and to be quite honest, he is curious about how Sherlock became infected. He remembers seeing Sherlock’s nude body (the memory awakens the never-quite-dormant-especially-around-Sherlock lizard part of his brain) but did not note any significant scarring indicative of a wolf bite. Botched blood transfusion, then? Or genetic, like a lot of the born wolves on the LAFF forums?
“No, I am not. Sherlock’s lycanthrope state is somewhat unique, as it is passed on in an infectious hereditary, and initially, non-Mendelian pattern. In Sherlock’s case, our maternal grandfather was bitten as a child by a lycanthrope with acquired lycanthropy virus, or ALV for short. During a period of intense forensic investigation, we discovered a high likelihood that the attack on our maternal grandfather was intentional, orchestrated by his family’s political rivals, and that the perpetrator’s ALV viral load was extremely high. Enough blood to blood transmission occurred during the attack for our maternal grandfather to seroconvert. If the ALV antibody test was available back then, we would have discovered that he was positive for ALV, but as it was, he did not experience compulsory transformation near or around the full moon. In fact, according to his diaries and my mother’s own memory of him, he did not display or experience any lupine characteristics or behaviors. The family simply believed that the bite did not take and proceeded on in ignorant bliss.
“Imagine everyone’s surprise when Sherlock was born. I remember the commotion when Mummy was in labor. I was seven and terrified that something had happened, because no one would let me see her or answer any questions, and the family doctors were running about, and several specialists were called in, including, bafflingly at the time, the estate veterinarian. Turns out, Sherlock had shifted to his lupine form at some point during the labor and was actually born as a wolf pup. Blind, mewling, shivering, and absolutely harmless. Still, Mummy was hysterical and had to be sedated, and Father was in shock and no where to be found. The specialists decided to put him in an incubator for observation and fed him milk formula. Thankfully, Sherlock shifted to his human infant form after a few hours, much to the collective relief of everyone.
“Thus began the effort to piece together the mystery of Sherlock’s lycanthropy. Given that our maternal grandfather was famously bitten as a child, it was clear he was the most likely ALV-positive candidate in the family. But of course, the family historians and estate would never pass up the opportunity to validate a theory, and so the body was exhumed, tested, and found to be positive for ALV. Extraordinarily high viral load levels, if I recall correctly.
“As a doctor, John, I trust you can appreciate the rarity by which lycanthropy results from a retroviral insertional mutagenesis. In my maternal grandfather’s case, the viral insertion happened in such a way that the mutation occurs on the X-chromosome. Therefore, Mummy is a carrier, and because lycanthropy behaves as a Mendelian, X-linked recessive trait, she does not exhibit the outward signs of lycanthropy.
“There is a fifty percent chance any male son of Mummy’s would inherit the affected X-chromosome. I was born with a typical X-chromosome, and my little brother got dealt the mutated one.” John envisioned the Holmes family pedigree chart, with the colored squares and circles. “Mummy has always said that the situation, as it were, would have be far less challenging had the chromosomal assignments been reversed,” Mycroft commented wistfully.
John laughed disbelievingly at the idea of the Holmes household with an adolescent, hormonal wolf in residence. “Can’t imagine it being easy, growing up with Sherlock as a part-time wolf.”
“You have no idea. We brought in people, of course. Lycan-medical experts, behavioral specialists, a lycan nanny, and even a Labrador retriever companion to assist with socialization. Even so, he shifted at the most inopportune times, and drove Mummy and the household staff to the brink of their oceanic patience with his misbehavior. But I suspect that Sherlock, even without the lycanthropy, would have been a challenge.” Mycroft withdraws a leather-bound album from his briefcase, and handed it to John.
John opens the album and sees a series of tastefully done prenatal portraits of a pregnant, dark-haired, beautifully radiant woman, her belly framed by long pale arms and elegant fingers. “That’s Mummy when she was pregnant with Sherlock,” Mycroft describes. John smiles and flips a few more pages, and comes across the same woman, this time with a tired smile, holding a sleeping infant with fluffy dark hair that can only be Sherlock. As infants go, he looks about the same as any other infant. “Mummy calmed down considerably when Sherlock transformed to his human form, so we were able to take this photograph,” Mycroft says with a slight smile.
John flips on, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the intimacy of the photographs, but he is too curious not continue. He sees a photograph of a mostly black, downy-furred puppy with small triangular ears and light blue eyes staring into the camera on pudgy legs. John cannot keep from smiling widely. “That’s Sherlock? Wow. Who knew he could be so cute. He has blue eyes in this,” John notices. The most startling aspect of his first (and so far only) encounter with Sherlock in his wolf form has been Sherlock’s yellow eyes.
“Like wild wolf cubs, his blue eyes transformed to a golden color as he got older. He also lost those bits of white fur. Mummy warmed up to Sherlock’s wolf form, eventually. It would be hard not to. Especially because he would change at least once a day. Even as a cub, he learned quickly that Mummy refuses to nurse him in his wolf form. That’s when he gets a bottle.”
John flips the page and sees an image of a seven-year old Mycroft bottle-feeding Sherlock as a black puppy in his arms. He is shown cradled in Mycroft’s arms belly up, legs and tail tucked, his tiny front paws holding onto the top of the bottle. He notes Mycroft wearing thick gardening gloves.
“He might not have any teeth at this point, but his claws were atrocious.” Mycroft comments, wryly. The next few pages feature a slightly overweight young Mycroft romping with Sherlock as a wolf cub in a green pasture. The wolf cub’s wide open mouth, small pink tongue lolling out, gives him a look of pure happiness and innocent joy. In another series of photographs, the black wolf cub is pictured with a pale-colored puppy, obviously of the domesticated dog variety.
“Is that the Labrador retriever you mentioned earlier?”
“Yes. The behaviorists suggested we adopt a canine puppy to help with Sherlock’s lupine socialization process, such as learning proper social play and bite inhibition. It would also help establish a socialization history for his eventual lycanthrope sentience classification.” John flips past the puppy pictures, interspersed with pictures of Sherlock as a human infant, and then as a toddler. Bright, inquisitive, and intensely knowing blue eyes locks into the viewer on each page of the album, all fat cheeks and the beginnings of that heart-shaped mouth.
John realizes suddenly that he is enjoying himself, that Mycroft is acting the long-suffering but proud elder brother, delivering embarrassing childhood stories and pictures to satisfy John’s burgeoning curiosity about Sherlock’s wolfself. John is enjoying himself so much, in fact, that the absurdity of this meeting has almost escaped him. He looks out the window and thinks the driver is taking them on a roundabout tour of Westminster.
“As much as I am finding this meeting oddly pleasant for a change, why am I here, exactly?”
Mycroft fixes John with an indecipherable look. “Sherlock is as wolf as he is human. The split personality that other lycanthropes report is not part of his experience. When Sherlock was a child, we tried teaching him to separate his wolf instincts from proper human manners, but my brother has always been, if nothing else, incurably rebellious. When he was five, the behavioral specialists and the family tried to introduce him to a carefully selected pack, but to say that he did not accept the situation is a gross understatement.
“During university, he experimented with running with a pack. It led to some unfortunate liaisons with rather unsavory characters, and the consequences are lifelong. For a few years, we despaired that he would never overcome his downward spiral into self-destruction, and it was...agony to watch. You already know about his history with substance abuse. We were advised to stop enabling him, withdraw all offers of resources, and that he would come around when he made the decision to. In retrospect, it was a necessary but crippling way of dealing with his needs. From a psychosocial perspective, it is now my belief that he self-medicates as a means to cope with the lack of pack structure and the general shortage of tolerance for his poorly restrained lupine tendencies.”
“But, I thought, boredom...” John interjects.
“Oh, there was also his desire for constant cerebral stimulation, but he also needed structure amid the chaos to feel at ease. Despite his seeming laissez-faire attitude towards all things structured, he needs pack structure, he needs some form of discipline, even if he acts out against it.
“We were always his pack. He didn’t need a wolf pack as a child, and he threw proper tantrums over that. He resented me and Mummy for forcing him away from his human pack, and then he experimented again with a proper wolf pack in University. It didn’t work, because his ‘wolf’ is different from theirs.
“He only returned to us because we reassembled and gave him that structure. When he was ready for rehab the last time, we arranged for an alpha lycanthrope nurse and a lycan-tolerant support staff. It appears now, sober less than one year, he has begun assembling his own pack. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, myself to some extent, and now you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I may have initially disagreed about your inclusion to his ‘pack,’ as you are obviously unfamiliar with lycanthropes and uneasy even around dogs. But he is insistent; he has chosen you to be part of it.”
John barely has a moment to process Mycroft’s statement, when the door opens and he is being ushered back onto the street in front of his flat. He hears Mycroft say a perfunctory “Good day, Dr. Watson,” before the door shuts and the black sedan peels away from the curb.
Chapter 3