[Fic] Triune, chapter 7/??
Title: Triune
Rating: NC17
Warnings: TGG spoilers, vampirism, bloodplay, wip
Pairings: John/Sherlock
Notes: Unbeta'd. This is an AU fusion with "Fledgling" by Octavia Butler, with some details modified. Also available on AO3.
Sherlock was not omnipotent or immortal; John knew this, because he was a doctor and an intelligent man, and because Sherlock had said so himself. If an egomaniac said that he lacked something, you could generally assume he was telling the truth. But somehow, John found himself forgetting that Sherlock's general failure to get killed in any of the ridiculous situations he got them into was due primarily to extraordinary luck.
And nobody was lucky all the time.
They had chased a suspect through what seemed like half the back alleys in Lambeth, with a particular focus on the ones used as dumping grounds and public loos. This particular man also favored them for disposing of bodies, which Sherlock had seized on as both sloppy and as the means by which he would catch him; there were few things Sherlock despised more than sloppy murders.
John had chased him into one of these delightful alleyways, and was not especially concerned with the knife he was holding, which he didn't really seem to have any clear confidence in. He was mostly desperate at this point, and John was unarmed but confident that he could take the man down. Sherlock came around from the other side and surprised the suspect, which in theory should have made him realize he was outclassed and give up the chase. Except that would require a modicum of intelligence, which the suspect clearly did not have. Instead, he did what any cornered and frightened and stupid animal would do, and jammed his knife hilt deep into Sherlock's belly.
It was hardly an expert move, and the way he twisted the knife as he pulled it out was almost certainly unintentional. But Sherlock's internal organs didn't know that. John was there just half a second too late to slap the knife out of the fucker's hand and put him on the ground with a broken knee. He kicked the knife up the alley while the suspect warbled in pain; knee injuries are wretchedly painful and never heal right, and so help him if Sherlock bled out in this fucking alley John was going to go back and break his other knee too.
"Oh hell," Sherlock said distinctly from behind him. "That's this suit ruined." John didn't find this remarkable at all; in his experience the victims of traumatic injury often didn't feel the pain immediately. A few seconds later, as John turned back towards him, Sherlock staggered back against the wall and gasped. John didn't bother trying to pull Sherlock's hands away from where they pressed at the wound. He just dragged off his own shirt, fumbling the buttons in his rush, and wadded it up.
"Show me," John said briskly in his best trauma surgeon voice. Perfectly calm and professional, not at all freaking out, nope.
Sherlock wasn't fooled. He obediently removed his hands from his stomach but said, "Stop panicking, John, it's not that serious."
John's near-panic attack was momentarily derailed by honest surprise. Instead of being absolutely soaked in blood as he would have expected, Sherlock's clothing was only stained with liquid right around the wound itself. John shifted Sherlock's suit jacket aside and gently tugged the shirt out of his trousers, lifting it up so he could examine the damage. The stab wound was as wide and as messy as John had feared, but it was merely oozing blood, rather than gushing as it should have been. "You're hardly bleeding at all," John said.
Sherlock hissed as John probed with his fingers. "I rarely do," he said through gritted teeth. "Must have missed the major veins, in any case."
"That'll take sutures," John said, his calm voice now completely sincere. It was tremendously reassuring to realize that your best friend/lover/partner was not going to bleed to death in a filthy alley while you uselessly performed first aid and waited for an ambulance.
"Don't be so insufferably dense, John," Sherlock snapped. "Remember my hand. I will be fine. What I need is to eat, and then to sleep."
John did remember Sherlock's hand. And he really wasn't bleeding that much, which made Sherlock's version of first aid sound almost plausible. If a deep cut in Sherlock's palm could heal itself in about 90 seconds, John would bet that the stab wound could be closed before they could be seen at an A&E. But eating and sleeping were both tricky, given that they were in an alley, in the company of the unsavory character who had caused the wound in the first place. "What are we going to do with this mess?" he muttered aloud.
"Simple," Sherlock said. "I eat. You call Lestrade."
It took John a moment to realize what Sherlock meant; to realize Sherlock remembered as well as John did that he had taken a full meal from him the night before, and it was way too soon for another. "No," John said. "We've been through this, Sherlock, it's weird. I don't want to watch you."
"Go find a cab then," Sherlock said. "We'll need that next." He stumbled over to the suspect, who was still lost in his own very private- and painful- world on the floor of the alley.
"Hell no. I'm not leaving you here," John said.
Sherlock apparently thought further discussion would be unproductive because he eschewed it entirely. For one terrifying moment John thought Sherlock was about to ask John to hold the suspect down for him, but as it turned out Sherlock was perfectly capable of pinning the man whilst simultaneously rolling up his right sleeve. Sherlock clapped a hand over the man's mouth to muffle his shocked cry at having fangs messily sink into the crook of his elbow.
John firmly turned his back and tried to not think about it while he dialed Lestrade and told him where to find his murder suspect.
"I'll see you in a few," Lestrade said.
"No," John said immediately. The one thing they absolutely could not do was be here when the police showed up, Sherlock was right about that. "The man got Sherlock with a knife. Just a- a graze, but I want to get it taken care of right away."
"I can call you an ambulance," Lestrade offered.
"Are you fucking insane?" John hissed. Was Lestrade actually listening to what he was saying? Yes, please, absolutely call an ambulance for the actual functioning vampire, and they could lay bets on what would clue the hospital staff in first, his inhuman healing ability or his request for several packets of donor blood to suck on.
"Sorry, instinct," Lestrade said.
"The killer's incapacitated," John said. "He'll still be here when you arrive." John wondered if Lestrade could read between the lines, or if there'd been many other crime scenes featuring suspects who were oddly compliant or sporting strange wounds following their encounters with Sherlock Holmes.
When he turned back around, Sherlock was finished and the suspect had stopped struggling. Sherlock rolled down his sleeve, then leaned over to mutter in his ear a bit. The man closed his eyes and Sherlock staggered to his feet with difficulty. John ducked in beside him to provide a shoulder to lean on, which Sherlock made heavy use of.
"All right?" John asked inanely, not sure what else to say.
"In rather a lot of pain, actually," Sherlock said tightly.
In the cab back home, John carefully angled himself to block the driver's view and checked on the wound. It was noticeably smaller, but still oozing. Sherlock was looking rather gray and pinched by the time they arrived at Baker Street, and John had to help him up the stairs. "Sofa," Sherlock tried to command, but John overruled him and dumped him into his own bed. John checked the wound again. Still closing, still oozing.
"This is so unreal," John muttered. "They sure as hell didn't train me for this in medical school." Sherlock chuckled breathily. "Okay, you're the Ina expert in the room. What do you need now?"
"Sleep," Sherlock said. "Twelve hours or so of sleep, while my body repairs itself. Then I'll be hungry again."
"It'll be the middle of the day," John protested. "You can't go hunting then."
"Shut up," Sherlock said. "I'm too tired to explain things just now. When the shops open, go to a grocery- not the Tesco Express, it has to be one with a butcher. Take my card, get me about five pounds of round steak, have them cube it. Put it in the fridge, then go upstairs and stay there."
John followed everything except the last part. "Why?" he demanded.
"Just do it," mumbled Sherlock. John had never seen Sherlock like this: fighting to stay awake and failing. It made him seem almost normal. It seemed cruel to force him to stay awake answering questions, so John shut up and in another fifteen seconds Sherlock was dead to the world.
John couldn't bring himself to leave the room, in the end. He got a few hours of sleep himself, but he got them curled up against Sherlock's back, listening to his heart and lungs. Eventually morning dawned, and he got up and went to the shop. John put the squashy bundles of meat in the fridge and checked on Sherlock, who was still deeply asleep. Nothing now remained of the nasty wound on his stomach but a bit of redness and an upraised white scar. Based on the incident with Sherlock's hand, John guessed the scar would be gone by the end of the day.
Reassured, John went to the sitting room and answered his voice mail and e-mail; Harry had been up late posting dirty limericks in his blog comments again, and Lestrade wanted reassuring that Sherlock wasn't dead and would be coming down to the Yard at some point to give his statement. After that, John just settled in and waited for Sherlock to get up.
It was almost noon when Sherlock finally emerged from his room. John looked up when he heard him stumble into the kitchen. Sherlock was standing in the doorway, looking at John. His nostrils were flaring, and he had a strange and slightly scary expression on his face: muddled hunger and greed. For some reason, it almost frightened John when Sherlock took a step into the sitting room.
"Sherlock," John said evenly. "Sherlock!" he repeated, louder, when Sherlock took another step. That time Sherlock stopped and cocked his head, clearly intent on John's voice. That gesture helped John determine why Sherlock's expression was alarming him: it was blank of intelligence, the eyes somehow flat. All that was left was a sort of animal attentiveness, like a hunting bird examining its prey. "Sherlock, the fridge," he said, not moving an inch. "The beef, remember? It's in the fridge." Sherlock twisted his upper body around, looking back at the fridge, then turned back and looked at John again.
Oh, fuck. If he came in here, was John going to be able to stop him? Sherlock was stronger than John, at least when he was healthy. Running probably wasn't a good idea, Sherlock could be on him before he hit the door. John decided that he was not going to run, he was going to face Sherlock down, because there was nothing else to be done. He very slowly, carefully closed his laptop and set it aside. Sherlock started to take another step toward John, but froze and put his foot back down when John barked out, "No, stop." Seeing that reassured John; it meant that Sherlock was definitely still in there, still at least semi-rational. "Don't come in here," he continued. "The fridge, damn it." Sherlock looked at the fridge again, then hesitantly walked towards it. He got the fridge door open and John could hear paper rustling as he found the two packets of meat.
Sherlock turned and dropped them onto the table so he could tear the first open with both hands. He left the fridge door standing open behind him. The way he tore the paper apart was almost frenzied, and the instant the meat was exposed he began to grab fistfuls of the raw, cubed steak and cram them into his mouth. John watched with fascination. He'd rarely seen Sherlock eat actual food, and when he did it was always with utensils and small bites; completely normal dining, in other words. Now he was eating like a starving wolf, without pauses for chewing or, apparently, breathing. He managed to choke down two and a half pounds of raw meat in under five minutes, then paused and took several deep breaths. His face and hands were smeared with blood, and it had dripped all down the front of his shirt.
Sherlock pulled the second packet open with slower and more deliberate movements, finding the taped edges and lifting them up rather than simply ripping the paper apart. He ate the second half of the meat quickly, but he put one piece at a time into his mouth and chewed it before swallowing. John could see his rationality returning minute by minute, and it was clear that Sherlock was completely himself when he had finished the meat and looked up at John; the most peculiar expression of horrified embarrassment crossed his face, and then he turned his back and quite simply fled into the back hallway. A door slammed and John heard the shower start up.
John put his palm to his mouth to stifle a snort of laughter. He couldn't help it; Sherlock embarrassed was quite simply the most hilarious thing John had ever seen. The look he'd given John was the one you'd give your mother if she walked in on you tossing off. Still trying not to chuckle, John went into the kitchen and closed the fridge door. He cleared up the mess on the table and wiped up that and the floor where Sherlock had dripped, and was back in the sitting room by the time Sherlock came in wearing fresh clothes and looking utterly normal except for the look of fury on his face.
"I told you to go upstairs and stay there!" he snarled. This was probably as angry as John had ever seen him.
"And I chose not to. Calm down," John said reasonably.
"You're an idiot," Sherlock snapped. "You saw what I was like when I woke up. I wasn't myself, you have no idea what it's like to hurt that way."
John gave Sherlock an absolutely scathing look, raking him with his eyes and raising one eyebrow, because now who was being an idiot?
Sherlock caught it, clearly, because he rolled his eyes. "Not the pain, John, the hunger. I was starving, my body used all its resources healing. I'm like an animal in that state, not even rational." Sherlock's voice was thick with disgust.
John couldn't suppress his chuckle. "I noticed," he said. "I know you're proud, Sherlock, but seriously. You have nothing to be embarrassed about."
Sherlock looked at him as if he couldn't believe how impossibly stupid John was. "This is not about-" Sherlock was shaking, actually shaking. "I walked out here and you- you smelled like food, like meat."
"Oh Christ," John muttered, understanding. "Come over here." When Sherlock just stood there looking sick and angry, John walked over and simply hugged him. He silently willed Sherlock's panting breaths to slow and become even with his own. Sherlock didn't hug him back, but he did stop hyperventilating. "You recognized my voice," John said, pulling his head back and sliding his hands to Sherlock's upper arms. "I told you to stop, and you did. You were still you, and you wouldn't have hurt me."
"You couldn't have known that," Sherlock said tensely. "I might've killed you."
"Bollocks," John said, suddenly angry. And his therapist had thought he had trust issues. This was what fucking trust issues looked like. He wasn't sure if he was more furious at Sherlock for not trusting his own innate- for lack of a better word- humanity, or for not trusting John's ability to look after himself. "I'm not some delicate flower, Sherlock, for God's sake."
Sherlock's eyes snapped and he brought up his hands lightning fast, fisting them in the front of John's shirt. He bent his head to growl into John's face, "Compared to me? You are. You really are." He shook John once, hard, giving John a feel for just how much stronger Sherlock was. He shoved John back, releasing him, and John staggered back several feet with the force of the push and almost fell over the coffee table.
"Do you get it?" Sherlock said in that low, angry voice, stalking towards John, who didn't move. He swung a punch too fast for John to completely deflect it, and it glanced off his forearm and hit his right shoulder. It hurt like a bastard, but John ignored it and got his hands back on Sherlock, pressing them flat against his chest as Sherlock stepped still closer. Sherlock, clearly interpreting it as a defense gesture, laughed mockingly. "I am extraordinarily dangerous, John, and whatever you may think, you are not immune." He brought up his hands and grabbed for John's shirt again.
John didn't hesitate. He seized Sherlock's clothes in his hands and jerked him forward, sliding his left leg forward and around so that it hooked behind Sherlock's knee. Just as Sherlock began to shift his stance to maintain his balance, John abruptly shoved him back and to the left. Sherlock leg caught on John's and thanks to John's direction, the stumble landed him flat on his back on the rug. John followed him down and kneed him in the diaphragm for good measure. Sherlock didn't stay surprised for long, he almost immediately started grappling; but his advantages were counterbalanced by his inability to breathe and John was able to eel out of his clutches and flip him onto his stomach, wrenching his shoulder into a vicious armlock. Recognizing that he could not escape without breaking something, Sherlock submitted to the lock and John stopped twisting his arm.
Sherlock, his breath regained, began to make stifled noises against the carpet that John quickly identified as laughter. John scowled and suppressed a petty urge to pop Sherlock's shoulder out of the socket. "This isn't funny," he said testily. Then he thought about it and realized that no, he and Sherlock beating each other up to prove how much they could trust each other actually was screamingly funny, and he giggled a little bit himself. His thigh was starting to ache unpleasantly, and when he slid his leg into a better position it wound up pressed right up against Sherlock's groin, which was-
"Sherlock," he said. "Are you turned on?" John was sure he hadn't meant to sound that much like a scandalized maiden aunt, but somehow that was how it came out.
Sherlock laughed again. "As if you aren't," he said, muffled by carpet.
John was turned on, he realized. It was probably a little bit because of the adrenaline pumping through his system, which tended to have that effect. And he had to admit to himself, it was probably a lot because it was deeply satisfying to have got the better of Sherlock Holmes. "All right," he acknowledged. "I'm man enough to admit it that I like having you face down on the floor."
Sherlock didn't quite hide a sharp intake of breath. "I think you've proved your point," he said.
"Have I?" John said consideringly. "What is it then?"
"I wasn't aware there'd be an exam," Sherlock said tartly, then gasped again as John shifted slightly against his balls and then pulled his leg back. "I think I was meant to be learning that you're not afraid of me," he panted. He jerked his hips back slightly, looking for more contact, but he couldn't reach with his upper body stuck under John's control.
"Close enough," John said, and pressed a kiss to the knuckles of the hand he held in his grip.
"Going to let me up, then?" Sherlock asked.
"Not feeling especially inclined, no," John said. He shifted so that he was straddling one of Sherlock's thighs, and pushed one knee up against Sherlock's groin as he ground his own erection against the back of Sherlock's leg. Sherlock groaned and his hips jerked back again. John desperately wanted to get both their trousers off, but there seemed no way to do it without returning control of Sherlock's arm; the lock took both his arms to effectuate, although one hand and forearm was free. Ah. John was able to lower his hand enough to pick at the buckle of his belt until he got it open, then drag the length through the belt loops until it was free. John took a firm hold on Sherlock's wrist and released him from the lock, gently rotating his shoulder back into a better alignment and pulling the arm behind his back in a simple right angle.
"Give me your other arm," he said in a low voice, and was surprised at how quickly Sherlock complied. Freed from the lock, he was able to turn his head so that his cheek was pressed against the carpet and he could look at John out of the corner of his eye. John carefully wrapped the belt around Sherlock's wrists and cinched it shut. "All right?" John asked softly when he was done. Sherlock just laughed. "I ought to gag you, too," John muttered. "Smartarse."
"A gag wouldn't stop me laughing," Sherlock pointed out. Now that he wasn't at risk of seriously damaging his shoulder, he was free to grind himself back against John.
"Fuck," John said feelingly, and set his hands to work unfastening Sherlock's trousers and tugging them and his pants down past the curve of his arse. John took a moment to indulge himself, smoothing his hands over the taut cheeks and curving his fingers around the surprisingly knobby hips. Not being a contortionist of any renown, he had to slide further down Sherlock's leg to get his face as close as he wanted it. Sherlock wiggled a bit as he lost the friction against his groin, then gasped as John nuzzled into Sherlock's cleft and planted a rather wet kiss there. John tasted Sherlock's skin, licking and sucking and nipping across the expanse of both cheeks in what he considered to be a fine spirit of scientific inquiry. He found that the experiment did not disprove his hypothesis that each part of Sherlock's arse was equally delightful. He completed the study by fastening his teeth on Sherlock's right arsecheek and sucking a sizable love bite onto the skin there. Sherlock moaned and thrashed slightly, but stilled when John gave him a slightly sharper nip with his teeth. He lay very still while John placed a matching mark on the left side.
Finished with that, John placed another soft kiss at the top of Sherlock's cleft. "Touch me?" Sherlock asked hopefully.
"Soon," John promised. He grabbed Sherlock's trousers and pants and sat back to drag them down his legs. He had to crouch on his heels to finish pulling them off, and then Sherlock lay looking deliciously debauched with no bottoms and his shirt and jacket rucked up under his bound arms, displaying his arse and a sliver of lower back. John started unbuttoning his own shirt as he walked round Sherlock to stand a few feet from his face. Sherlock tilted his head and watched John disrobe quickly and efficiently. He wet his lips with his tongue when John pushed his pants down over his hips and his cock bounced up, rock hard and shiny at the slit.
Sherlock pushed his cock down against the floor, eyes closing in pleasure at the friction. "Hey, none of that," John said sharply, sinking back to his knees at Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock opened his eyes again, and John grabbed the base of his cock and brushed the head gently against Sherlock's lips. His tongue flickered out to taste the pre-come that John left there, and when John went in for another pass, he put out his tongue again and lapped gently at the head.
John sighed at the feather-light caress of Sherlock's tongue and resisted the urge to shove his cock into Sherlock's admittedly talented mouth. He left his cock where it was and ran a gentle hand through Sherlock's curls. "I'm going to step out for a moment," he said firmly. "You are not to move." Sherlock made a small noise of displeasure as John shifted backwards, away from his mouth. He tried to wiggle after, but John held his head in place with one hand. "Do you know what happens if you do?" he asked in his sweetest tone of voice, but didn't give Sherlock a chance to register a response. "I will go straight upstairs and have the noisiest orgasm in the history of England, while you lie down here working your way out of that belt and knowing you had nothing to do with it. Understand?"
"Yes," Sherlock replied sulkily, hissing the 's' a bit more than is perhaps strictly necessary.
John stood smoothly and padded back to Sherlock's bedroom. If he were less impatient, he would go all the way up to his own room, draw it out, keep Sherlock desperate and panting on the floor for as long as possible. But he's only mortal, and he was hard as steel and wanted to fuck Sherlock so badly that he could barely keep himself at an even pace as he returned with the lube in his hand. Sherlock hasn't moved at all; he didn't even move his head to see what John had brought. He'd probably figured it out from listening to John's movement in the bedroom, the prat.
John sank back to his knees between Sherlock's invitingly spread thighs, and took care to warm the lubricant between his hands before he worked the first finger into Sherlock's arse. By the time he got up to three, Sherlock was panting and obviously making a deliberate effort not to grind himself against the floor. "If you touch my prostate once more, I may actually explode," he said snidely. "So would you kindly just fuck me already." John laughed, because it kind of amazed him that Sherlock had managed to stop himself talking for that long.
John paused and considered the angles involved. "How strong are your thigh muscles?" he asked thoughtfully. Sherlock was already bracing his chest against the floor and trying to struggle to his knees before John finished the sentence, so John grabbed him by the hip and the shoulder and helped him sit up and turn to face John. Sherlock's face was beautifully flushed; one side was red and imprinted with the weave of the carpet, and his pupils were ridiculously wide. John considered positions and decided lying down was probably better, so he lay back and balanced Sherlock with a palm against his stomach while he shuffled into position, bracketing John with his knees. John grunted and seized a wad of someone's clothes to stuff under his shoulders, then grabbed Sherlock's arse, spreading him apart and guiding him as he lowered himself onto John's cock.
Sherlock's breath hitched as he pushed himself down and ground his arse against John, and John couldn't hold back a groan. "God damn," he said reverently, squeezing Sherlock's cheeks as he began to lift himself up again. Sherlock went slowly at first, giving John plenty of time to feel the exquisite pressure gripping him and sliding along his shaft. To judge from his slightly vacant expression as he levered himself up and down on John's cock, Sherlock was also feeling the experience rather intensely. Eventually he began to increase the pace, very gradually at first, then faster. Dissatisfied with the amount of calculation John could still detect in his expression, he grabbed Sherlock's hips and brought the two of them together at a slightly different angle, pushing his own hips up. Sherlock cried out brokenly and his cock jerked, spattering a few droplets of pre-come across John's stomach as it bounced with the force of their movements.
John loosed one hand and began to briskly stroke Sherlock's cock. Sherlock jerked one shoulder forward and his arms shifted, as if he wanted to swat John away. "Stop," he panted to John. "You first, I can't keep it going otherwise." John could feel Sherlock's muscles starting to tremble under his other hand and realized he had a point. So instead of arguing, John put his other hand back on Sherlock's hips and helped him slam down onto John's cock faster and still faster. John felt the sparks of pleasure building, but he was so intent on the force of his thrusts that he slammed into his orgasm like a car hitting a bollard. His thrusts immediately degenerated into vague and wandering things, although Sherlock kept riding him hard, and John immediately grabbed for Sherlock's cock and began stroking it again. He was through coming and he'd be soft in a moment, but he ground the last of his erection into Sherlock hard, angling for the prostate by muscle memory alone, and knew he succeeded when Sherlock doubled over, gasping, and came in long spurts across John's chest.
Sherlock was still shivering in the aftershocks when John disengaged and grabbed him by the shoulders to pull him down to lay on his chest. "Most satisfactory," Sherlock murmured, nuzzling against John's throat but making no move to bite him. "Are we done now?" How he managed to sound slightly peevish and completely sated at the same time, John had no idea, but it made him chuckle.
"I'm thirty-five, Sherlock," he said. Sherlock just lifted his torso slightly and arched an eyebrow, clearly not taking John's meaning. "God, yes, we're done," he huffed. Sherlock's smirk twisted into a look of concentration for a moment as he jerked one shoulder up, and then he was placing one hand beside John's chest and tossing away John's belt with the other.
John started laughing. "You wanker," he said. "Thank you." Sherlock rolled his shoulders a few times, propping himself up over John on knees and elbows. "I didn't hurt your shoulders, did I?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If my shoulders had hurt, I would have taken the belt off sooner." He pressed his chest against John's and rubbed slightly, apparently enjoying the sensation of his come sliding between them.
"Prat," John said fondly. But when he leaned up and captured Sherlock's mouth for a gentle, thorough kiss, he made a point of pricking his tongue on Sherlock's fangs, to show how much he actually approved.
Author's note: If you've read Fledgling, you'll notice that the first half of this chapter is conceptually very similar to one of the last scenes in the book. I feel a bit like I'm cribbing, but with how much Sherlock and John run around getting in trouble, I can't imagine that it would never come up. So there you go.
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Rating: NC17
Warnings: TGG spoilers, vampirism, bloodplay, wip
Pairings: John/Sherlock
Notes: Unbeta'd. This is an AU fusion with "Fledgling" by Octavia Butler, with some details modified. Also available on AO3.
Sherlock was not omnipotent or immortal; John knew this, because he was a doctor and an intelligent man, and because Sherlock had said so himself. If an egomaniac said that he lacked something, you could generally assume he was telling the truth. But somehow, John found himself forgetting that Sherlock's general failure to get killed in any of the ridiculous situations he got them into was due primarily to extraordinary luck.
And nobody was lucky all the time.
They had chased a suspect through what seemed like half the back alleys in Lambeth, with a particular focus on the ones used as dumping grounds and public loos. This particular man also favored them for disposing of bodies, which Sherlock had seized on as both sloppy and as the means by which he would catch him; there were few things Sherlock despised more than sloppy murders.
John had chased him into one of these delightful alleyways, and was not especially concerned with the knife he was holding, which he didn't really seem to have any clear confidence in. He was mostly desperate at this point, and John was unarmed but confident that he could take the man down. Sherlock came around from the other side and surprised the suspect, which in theory should have made him realize he was outclassed and give up the chase. Except that would require a modicum of intelligence, which the suspect clearly did not have. Instead, he did what any cornered and frightened and stupid animal would do, and jammed his knife hilt deep into Sherlock's belly.
It was hardly an expert move, and the way he twisted the knife as he pulled it out was almost certainly unintentional. But Sherlock's internal organs didn't know that. John was there just half a second too late to slap the knife out of the fucker's hand and put him on the ground with a broken knee. He kicked the knife up the alley while the suspect warbled in pain; knee injuries are wretchedly painful and never heal right, and so help him if Sherlock bled out in this fucking alley John was going to go back and break his other knee too.
"Oh hell," Sherlock said distinctly from behind him. "That's this suit ruined." John didn't find this remarkable at all; in his experience the victims of traumatic injury often didn't feel the pain immediately. A few seconds later, as John turned back towards him, Sherlock staggered back against the wall and gasped. John didn't bother trying to pull Sherlock's hands away from where they pressed at the wound. He just dragged off his own shirt, fumbling the buttons in his rush, and wadded it up.
"Show me," John said briskly in his best trauma surgeon voice. Perfectly calm and professional, not at all freaking out, nope.
Sherlock wasn't fooled. He obediently removed his hands from his stomach but said, "Stop panicking, John, it's not that serious."
John's near-panic attack was momentarily derailed by honest surprise. Instead of being absolutely soaked in blood as he would have expected, Sherlock's clothing was only stained with liquid right around the wound itself. John shifted Sherlock's suit jacket aside and gently tugged the shirt out of his trousers, lifting it up so he could examine the damage. The stab wound was as wide and as messy as John had feared, but it was merely oozing blood, rather than gushing as it should have been. "You're hardly bleeding at all," John said.
Sherlock hissed as John probed with his fingers. "I rarely do," he said through gritted teeth. "Must have missed the major veins, in any case."
"That'll take sutures," John said, his calm voice now completely sincere. It was tremendously reassuring to realize that your best friend/lover/partner was not going to bleed to death in a filthy alley while you uselessly performed first aid and waited for an ambulance.
"Don't be so insufferably dense, John," Sherlock snapped. "Remember my hand. I will be fine. What I need is to eat, and then to sleep."
John did remember Sherlock's hand. And he really wasn't bleeding that much, which made Sherlock's version of first aid sound almost plausible. If a deep cut in Sherlock's palm could heal itself in about 90 seconds, John would bet that the stab wound could be closed before they could be seen at an A&E. But eating and sleeping were both tricky, given that they were in an alley, in the company of the unsavory character who had caused the wound in the first place. "What are we going to do with this mess?" he muttered aloud.
"Simple," Sherlock said. "I eat. You call Lestrade."
It took John a moment to realize what Sherlock meant; to realize Sherlock remembered as well as John did that he had taken a full meal from him the night before, and it was way too soon for another. "No," John said. "We've been through this, Sherlock, it's weird. I don't want to watch you."
"Go find a cab then," Sherlock said. "We'll need that next." He stumbled over to the suspect, who was still lost in his own very private- and painful- world on the floor of the alley.
"Hell no. I'm not leaving you here," John said.
Sherlock apparently thought further discussion would be unproductive because he eschewed it entirely. For one terrifying moment John thought Sherlock was about to ask John to hold the suspect down for him, but as it turned out Sherlock was perfectly capable of pinning the man whilst simultaneously rolling up his right sleeve. Sherlock clapped a hand over the man's mouth to muffle his shocked cry at having fangs messily sink into the crook of his elbow.
John firmly turned his back and tried to not think about it while he dialed Lestrade and told him where to find his murder suspect.
"I'll see you in a few," Lestrade said.
"No," John said immediately. The one thing they absolutely could not do was be here when the police showed up, Sherlock was right about that. "The man got Sherlock with a knife. Just a- a graze, but I want to get it taken care of right away."
"I can call you an ambulance," Lestrade offered.
"Are you fucking insane?" John hissed. Was Lestrade actually listening to what he was saying? Yes, please, absolutely call an ambulance for the actual functioning vampire, and they could lay bets on what would clue the hospital staff in first, his inhuman healing ability or his request for several packets of donor blood to suck on.
"Sorry, instinct," Lestrade said.
"The killer's incapacitated," John said. "He'll still be here when you arrive." John wondered if Lestrade could read between the lines, or if there'd been many other crime scenes featuring suspects who were oddly compliant or sporting strange wounds following their encounters with Sherlock Holmes.
When he turned back around, Sherlock was finished and the suspect had stopped struggling. Sherlock rolled down his sleeve, then leaned over to mutter in his ear a bit. The man closed his eyes and Sherlock staggered to his feet with difficulty. John ducked in beside him to provide a shoulder to lean on, which Sherlock made heavy use of.
"All right?" John asked inanely, not sure what else to say.
"In rather a lot of pain, actually," Sherlock said tightly.
In the cab back home, John carefully angled himself to block the driver's view and checked on the wound. It was noticeably smaller, but still oozing. Sherlock was looking rather gray and pinched by the time they arrived at Baker Street, and John had to help him up the stairs. "Sofa," Sherlock tried to command, but John overruled him and dumped him into his own bed. John checked the wound again. Still closing, still oozing.
"This is so unreal," John muttered. "They sure as hell didn't train me for this in medical school." Sherlock chuckled breathily. "Okay, you're the Ina expert in the room. What do you need now?"
"Sleep," Sherlock said. "Twelve hours or so of sleep, while my body repairs itself. Then I'll be hungry again."
"It'll be the middle of the day," John protested. "You can't go hunting then."
"Shut up," Sherlock said. "I'm too tired to explain things just now. When the shops open, go to a grocery- not the Tesco Express, it has to be one with a butcher. Take my card, get me about five pounds of round steak, have them cube it. Put it in the fridge, then go upstairs and stay there."
John followed everything except the last part. "Why?" he demanded.
"Just do it," mumbled Sherlock. John had never seen Sherlock like this: fighting to stay awake and failing. It made him seem almost normal. It seemed cruel to force him to stay awake answering questions, so John shut up and in another fifteen seconds Sherlock was dead to the world.
John couldn't bring himself to leave the room, in the end. He got a few hours of sleep himself, but he got them curled up against Sherlock's back, listening to his heart and lungs. Eventually morning dawned, and he got up and went to the shop. John put the squashy bundles of meat in the fridge and checked on Sherlock, who was still deeply asleep. Nothing now remained of the nasty wound on his stomach but a bit of redness and an upraised white scar. Based on the incident with Sherlock's hand, John guessed the scar would be gone by the end of the day.
Reassured, John went to the sitting room and answered his voice mail and e-mail; Harry had been up late posting dirty limericks in his blog comments again, and Lestrade wanted reassuring that Sherlock wasn't dead and would be coming down to the Yard at some point to give his statement. After that, John just settled in and waited for Sherlock to get up.
It was almost noon when Sherlock finally emerged from his room. John looked up when he heard him stumble into the kitchen. Sherlock was standing in the doorway, looking at John. His nostrils were flaring, and he had a strange and slightly scary expression on his face: muddled hunger and greed. For some reason, it almost frightened John when Sherlock took a step into the sitting room.
"Sherlock," John said evenly. "Sherlock!" he repeated, louder, when Sherlock took another step. That time Sherlock stopped and cocked his head, clearly intent on John's voice. That gesture helped John determine why Sherlock's expression was alarming him: it was blank of intelligence, the eyes somehow flat. All that was left was a sort of animal attentiveness, like a hunting bird examining its prey. "Sherlock, the fridge," he said, not moving an inch. "The beef, remember? It's in the fridge." Sherlock twisted his upper body around, looking back at the fridge, then turned back and looked at John again.
Oh, fuck. If he came in here, was John going to be able to stop him? Sherlock was stronger than John, at least when he was healthy. Running probably wasn't a good idea, Sherlock could be on him before he hit the door. John decided that he was not going to run, he was going to face Sherlock down, because there was nothing else to be done. He very slowly, carefully closed his laptop and set it aside. Sherlock started to take another step toward John, but froze and put his foot back down when John barked out, "No, stop." Seeing that reassured John; it meant that Sherlock was definitely still in there, still at least semi-rational. "Don't come in here," he continued. "The fridge, damn it." Sherlock looked at the fridge again, then hesitantly walked towards it. He got the fridge door open and John could hear paper rustling as he found the two packets of meat.
Sherlock turned and dropped them onto the table so he could tear the first open with both hands. He left the fridge door standing open behind him. The way he tore the paper apart was almost frenzied, and the instant the meat was exposed he began to grab fistfuls of the raw, cubed steak and cram them into his mouth. John watched with fascination. He'd rarely seen Sherlock eat actual food, and when he did it was always with utensils and small bites; completely normal dining, in other words. Now he was eating like a starving wolf, without pauses for chewing or, apparently, breathing. He managed to choke down two and a half pounds of raw meat in under five minutes, then paused and took several deep breaths. His face and hands were smeared with blood, and it had dripped all down the front of his shirt.
Sherlock pulled the second packet open with slower and more deliberate movements, finding the taped edges and lifting them up rather than simply ripping the paper apart. He ate the second half of the meat quickly, but he put one piece at a time into his mouth and chewed it before swallowing. John could see his rationality returning minute by minute, and it was clear that Sherlock was completely himself when he had finished the meat and looked up at John; the most peculiar expression of horrified embarrassment crossed his face, and then he turned his back and quite simply fled into the back hallway. A door slammed and John heard the shower start up.
John put his palm to his mouth to stifle a snort of laughter. He couldn't help it; Sherlock embarrassed was quite simply the most hilarious thing John had ever seen. The look he'd given John was the one you'd give your mother if she walked in on you tossing off. Still trying not to chuckle, John went into the kitchen and closed the fridge door. He cleared up the mess on the table and wiped up that and the floor where Sherlock had dripped, and was back in the sitting room by the time Sherlock came in wearing fresh clothes and looking utterly normal except for the look of fury on his face.
"I told you to go upstairs and stay there!" he snarled. This was probably as angry as John had ever seen him.
"And I chose not to. Calm down," John said reasonably.
"You're an idiot," Sherlock snapped. "You saw what I was like when I woke up. I wasn't myself, you have no idea what it's like to hurt that way."
John gave Sherlock an absolutely scathing look, raking him with his eyes and raising one eyebrow, because now who was being an idiot?
Sherlock caught it, clearly, because he rolled his eyes. "Not the pain, John, the hunger. I was starving, my body used all its resources healing. I'm like an animal in that state, not even rational." Sherlock's voice was thick with disgust.
John couldn't suppress his chuckle. "I noticed," he said. "I know you're proud, Sherlock, but seriously. You have nothing to be embarrassed about."
Sherlock looked at him as if he couldn't believe how impossibly stupid John was. "This is not about-" Sherlock was shaking, actually shaking. "I walked out here and you- you smelled like food, like meat."
"Oh Christ," John muttered, understanding. "Come over here." When Sherlock just stood there looking sick and angry, John walked over and simply hugged him. He silently willed Sherlock's panting breaths to slow and become even with his own. Sherlock didn't hug him back, but he did stop hyperventilating. "You recognized my voice," John said, pulling his head back and sliding his hands to Sherlock's upper arms. "I told you to stop, and you did. You were still you, and you wouldn't have hurt me."
"You couldn't have known that," Sherlock said tensely. "I might've killed you."
"Bollocks," John said, suddenly angry. And his therapist had thought he had trust issues. This was what fucking trust issues looked like. He wasn't sure if he was more furious at Sherlock for not trusting his own innate- for lack of a better word- humanity, or for not trusting John's ability to look after himself. "I'm not some delicate flower, Sherlock, for God's sake."
Sherlock's eyes snapped and he brought up his hands lightning fast, fisting them in the front of John's shirt. He bent his head to growl into John's face, "Compared to me? You are. You really are." He shook John once, hard, giving John a feel for just how much stronger Sherlock was. He shoved John back, releasing him, and John staggered back several feet with the force of the push and almost fell over the coffee table.
"Do you get it?" Sherlock said in that low, angry voice, stalking towards John, who didn't move. He swung a punch too fast for John to completely deflect it, and it glanced off his forearm and hit his right shoulder. It hurt like a bastard, but John ignored it and got his hands back on Sherlock, pressing them flat against his chest as Sherlock stepped still closer. Sherlock, clearly interpreting it as a defense gesture, laughed mockingly. "I am extraordinarily dangerous, John, and whatever you may think, you are not immune." He brought up his hands and grabbed for John's shirt again.
John didn't hesitate. He seized Sherlock's clothes in his hands and jerked him forward, sliding his left leg forward and around so that it hooked behind Sherlock's knee. Just as Sherlock began to shift his stance to maintain his balance, John abruptly shoved him back and to the left. Sherlock leg caught on John's and thanks to John's direction, the stumble landed him flat on his back on the rug. John followed him down and kneed him in the diaphragm for good measure. Sherlock didn't stay surprised for long, he almost immediately started grappling; but his advantages were counterbalanced by his inability to breathe and John was able to eel out of his clutches and flip him onto his stomach, wrenching his shoulder into a vicious armlock. Recognizing that he could not escape without breaking something, Sherlock submitted to the lock and John stopped twisting his arm.
Sherlock, his breath regained, began to make stifled noises against the carpet that John quickly identified as laughter. John scowled and suppressed a petty urge to pop Sherlock's shoulder out of the socket. "This isn't funny," he said testily. Then he thought about it and realized that no, he and Sherlock beating each other up to prove how much they could trust each other actually was screamingly funny, and he giggled a little bit himself. His thigh was starting to ache unpleasantly, and when he slid his leg into a better position it wound up pressed right up against Sherlock's groin, which was-
"Sherlock," he said. "Are you turned on?" John was sure he hadn't meant to sound that much like a scandalized maiden aunt, but somehow that was how it came out.
Sherlock laughed again. "As if you aren't," he said, muffled by carpet.
John was turned on, he realized. It was probably a little bit because of the adrenaline pumping through his system, which tended to have that effect. And he had to admit to himself, it was probably a lot because it was deeply satisfying to have got the better of Sherlock Holmes. "All right," he acknowledged. "I'm man enough to admit it that I like having you face down on the floor."
Sherlock didn't quite hide a sharp intake of breath. "I think you've proved your point," he said.
"Have I?" John said consideringly. "What is it then?"
"I wasn't aware there'd be an exam," Sherlock said tartly, then gasped again as John shifted slightly against his balls and then pulled his leg back. "I think I was meant to be learning that you're not afraid of me," he panted. He jerked his hips back slightly, looking for more contact, but he couldn't reach with his upper body stuck under John's control.
"Close enough," John said, and pressed a kiss to the knuckles of the hand he held in his grip.
"Going to let me up, then?" Sherlock asked.
"Not feeling especially inclined, no," John said. He shifted so that he was straddling one of Sherlock's thighs, and pushed one knee up against Sherlock's groin as he ground his own erection against the back of Sherlock's leg. Sherlock groaned and his hips jerked back again. John desperately wanted to get both their trousers off, but there seemed no way to do it without returning control of Sherlock's arm; the lock took both his arms to effectuate, although one hand and forearm was free. Ah. John was able to lower his hand enough to pick at the buckle of his belt until he got it open, then drag the length through the belt loops until it was free. John took a firm hold on Sherlock's wrist and released him from the lock, gently rotating his shoulder back into a better alignment and pulling the arm behind his back in a simple right angle.
"Give me your other arm," he said in a low voice, and was surprised at how quickly Sherlock complied. Freed from the lock, he was able to turn his head so that his cheek was pressed against the carpet and he could look at John out of the corner of his eye. John carefully wrapped the belt around Sherlock's wrists and cinched it shut. "All right?" John asked softly when he was done. Sherlock just laughed. "I ought to gag you, too," John muttered. "Smartarse."
"A gag wouldn't stop me laughing," Sherlock pointed out. Now that he wasn't at risk of seriously damaging his shoulder, he was free to grind himself back against John.
"Fuck," John said feelingly, and set his hands to work unfastening Sherlock's trousers and tugging them and his pants down past the curve of his arse. John took a moment to indulge himself, smoothing his hands over the taut cheeks and curving his fingers around the surprisingly knobby hips. Not being a contortionist of any renown, he had to slide further down Sherlock's leg to get his face as close as he wanted it. Sherlock wiggled a bit as he lost the friction against his groin, then gasped as John nuzzled into Sherlock's cleft and planted a rather wet kiss there. John tasted Sherlock's skin, licking and sucking and nipping across the expanse of both cheeks in what he considered to be a fine spirit of scientific inquiry. He found that the experiment did not disprove his hypothesis that each part of Sherlock's arse was equally delightful. He completed the study by fastening his teeth on Sherlock's right arsecheek and sucking a sizable love bite onto the skin there. Sherlock moaned and thrashed slightly, but stilled when John gave him a slightly sharper nip with his teeth. He lay very still while John placed a matching mark on the left side.
Finished with that, John placed another soft kiss at the top of Sherlock's cleft. "Touch me?" Sherlock asked hopefully.
"Soon," John promised. He grabbed Sherlock's trousers and pants and sat back to drag them down his legs. He had to crouch on his heels to finish pulling them off, and then Sherlock lay looking deliciously debauched with no bottoms and his shirt and jacket rucked up under his bound arms, displaying his arse and a sliver of lower back. John started unbuttoning his own shirt as he walked round Sherlock to stand a few feet from his face. Sherlock tilted his head and watched John disrobe quickly and efficiently. He wet his lips with his tongue when John pushed his pants down over his hips and his cock bounced up, rock hard and shiny at the slit.
Sherlock pushed his cock down against the floor, eyes closing in pleasure at the friction. "Hey, none of that," John said sharply, sinking back to his knees at Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock opened his eyes again, and John grabbed the base of his cock and brushed the head gently against Sherlock's lips. His tongue flickered out to taste the pre-come that John left there, and when John went in for another pass, he put out his tongue again and lapped gently at the head.
John sighed at the feather-light caress of Sherlock's tongue and resisted the urge to shove his cock into Sherlock's admittedly talented mouth. He left his cock where it was and ran a gentle hand through Sherlock's curls. "I'm going to step out for a moment," he said firmly. "You are not to move." Sherlock made a small noise of displeasure as John shifted backwards, away from his mouth. He tried to wiggle after, but John held his head in place with one hand. "Do you know what happens if you do?" he asked in his sweetest tone of voice, but didn't give Sherlock a chance to register a response. "I will go straight upstairs and have the noisiest orgasm in the history of England, while you lie down here working your way out of that belt and knowing you had nothing to do with it. Understand?"
"Yes," Sherlock replied sulkily, hissing the 's' a bit more than is perhaps strictly necessary.
John stood smoothly and padded back to Sherlock's bedroom. If he were less impatient, he would go all the way up to his own room, draw it out, keep Sherlock desperate and panting on the floor for as long as possible. But he's only mortal, and he was hard as steel and wanted to fuck Sherlock so badly that he could barely keep himself at an even pace as he returned with the lube in his hand. Sherlock hasn't moved at all; he didn't even move his head to see what John had brought. He'd probably figured it out from listening to John's movement in the bedroom, the prat.
John sank back to his knees between Sherlock's invitingly spread thighs, and took care to warm the lubricant between his hands before he worked the first finger into Sherlock's arse. By the time he got up to three, Sherlock was panting and obviously making a deliberate effort not to grind himself against the floor. "If you touch my prostate once more, I may actually explode," he said snidely. "So would you kindly just fuck me already." John laughed, because it kind of amazed him that Sherlock had managed to stop himself talking for that long.
John paused and considered the angles involved. "How strong are your thigh muscles?" he asked thoughtfully. Sherlock was already bracing his chest against the floor and trying to struggle to his knees before John finished the sentence, so John grabbed him by the hip and the shoulder and helped him sit up and turn to face John. Sherlock's face was beautifully flushed; one side was red and imprinted with the weave of the carpet, and his pupils were ridiculously wide. John considered positions and decided lying down was probably better, so he lay back and balanced Sherlock with a palm against his stomach while he shuffled into position, bracketing John with his knees. John grunted and seized a wad of someone's clothes to stuff under his shoulders, then grabbed Sherlock's arse, spreading him apart and guiding him as he lowered himself onto John's cock.
Sherlock's breath hitched as he pushed himself down and ground his arse against John, and John couldn't hold back a groan. "God damn," he said reverently, squeezing Sherlock's cheeks as he began to lift himself up again. Sherlock went slowly at first, giving John plenty of time to feel the exquisite pressure gripping him and sliding along his shaft. To judge from his slightly vacant expression as he levered himself up and down on John's cock, Sherlock was also feeling the experience rather intensely. Eventually he began to increase the pace, very gradually at first, then faster. Dissatisfied with the amount of calculation John could still detect in his expression, he grabbed Sherlock's hips and brought the two of them together at a slightly different angle, pushing his own hips up. Sherlock cried out brokenly and his cock jerked, spattering a few droplets of pre-come across John's stomach as it bounced with the force of their movements.
John loosed one hand and began to briskly stroke Sherlock's cock. Sherlock jerked one shoulder forward and his arms shifted, as if he wanted to swat John away. "Stop," he panted to John. "You first, I can't keep it going otherwise." John could feel Sherlock's muscles starting to tremble under his other hand and realized he had a point. So instead of arguing, John put his other hand back on Sherlock's hips and helped him slam down onto John's cock faster and still faster. John felt the sparks of pleasure building, but he was so intent on the force of his thrusts that he slammed into his orgasm like a car hitting a bollard. His thrusts immediately degenerated into vague and wandering things, although Sherlock kept riding him hard, and John immediately grabbed for Sherlock's cock and began stroking it again. He was through coming and he'd be soft in a moment, but he ground the last of his erection into Sherlock hard, angling for the prostate by muscle memory alone, and knew he succeeded when Sherlock doubled over, gasping, and came in long spurts across John's chest.
Sherlock was still shivering in the aftershocks when John disengaged and grabbed him by the shoulders to pull him down to lay on his chest. "Most satisfactory," Sherlock murmured, nuzzling against John's throat but making no move to bite him. "Are we done now?" How he managed to sound slightly peevish and completely sated at the same time, John had no idea, but it made him chuckle.
"I'm thirty-five, Sherlock," he said. Sherlock just lifted his torso slightly and arched an eyebrow, clearly not taking John's meaning. "God, yes, we're done," he huffed. Sherlock's smirk twisted into a look of concentration for a moment as he jerked one shoulder up, and then he was placing one hand beside John's chest and tossing away John's belt with the other.
John started laughing. "You wanker," he said. "Thank you." Sherlock rolled his shoulders a few times, propping himself up over John on knees and elbows. "I didn't hurt your shoulders, did I?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If my shoulders had hurt, I would have taken the belt off sooner." He pressed his chest against John's and rubbed slightly, apparently enjoying the sensation of his come sliding between them.
"Prat," John said fondly. But when he leaned up and captured Sherlock's mouth for a gentle, thorough kiss, he made a point of pricking his tongue on Sherlock's fangs, to show how much he actually approved.
Author's note: If you've read Fledgling, you'll notice that the first half of this chapter is conceptually very similar to one of the last scenes in the book. I feel a bit like I'm cribbing, but with how much Sherlock and John run around getting in trouble, I can't imagine that it would never come up. So there you go.
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