Chapter Text
Sherlock had done it again: figured out everything in a blinding flash and gone haring off on his own to prove he was right, leaving both John and Scotland Yard trailing in his wake. John might have chalked it up to the inexperience of someone new to being a supernatural predator, hunter's instincts not yet under control (Sherlock had only been a vampire for a few years, after all), if he hadn't heard enough stories from Lestrade and others to know Sherlock had always been that way, charging into danger alone without a second thought. It was how he'd ended up a vampire, in fact, which might have been a learning experience for a normal person but not for Sherlock.
They'd captured most of a gang of gun-runners; the only member still at large was the ringleader, who was, as Sherlock had deduced in a solitary lightning-cascade of genius, trying to salvage what resources he could before fleeing the country. John was riding with Lestrade as they raced to catch up with the consulting detective, the two of them having converged on the same point while tracking Sherlock. On the way, they'd managed to piece together between them what Sherlock had seen in an instant, and it hadn't been reassuring. The man Sherlock would be facing was cunning, ruthless and dangerous, with nothing left to lose.
They were out of the car, crossing to the office building containing the suite the gun-runners had been using as a front, when they heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of gunfire.
There could be little doubt Sherlock was involved, one way or another.
Everything narrowed down into a headlong rush into the building, fighting past the panicked late-afternoon workers fleeing the building. Lestrade and John led the way, Lestrade holding his identification overhead like a talisman, the sigil of the Queen's badge burning blue on the palm of his hand. Whether in response to the badge, the sigil, or pure herd instinct, people gave way, flowing to either side like water.
The elevator was dismissed out of hand; they were only going to the third floor, so they took the stairs. Once they were in the clear, John shouldered into the lead, partly from force of habit as the least-killable individual on hand, and partly because Sherlock was up there. Bullets might not hurt a vampire, but . . . John took the stairs two, then three at a time, leaving Lestrade behind.
He skidded around the corner, absolutely convinced he'd find a bored-looking Sherlock waiting for them, probably standing over his unconscious quarry with a pistol dangling from one long forefinger as he swung it casually back and forth (John hated when he did that; Sherlock had no respect for firearms). The image was so sharp and clear in John's head, it took him a moment to process reality when he saw it.
The ringleader was indeed unconscious, crumpled at the base of one wall as if he'd been thrown against it, amid the incongruous contents of a janitor's closet strewn about the hallway.
On the base of the facing wall lay an equally crumpled heap that was Sherlock. He was still breathing, but that was only made obvious by the long shaft of wood rammed into his chest that moved along with his ribcage.
John stumbled forward, with the horrible sense of being trapped in his own worst nightmare. His eyes, darting around the site, picked up details that turned into a story: a mop head lying on the floor, still attached to a portion of shattered wooden shaft; bullet holes, ranged along the corridor wall . . . Working in hyperdrive, John's brain reconstructed the scene.
Sherlock, closing in for the kill, metaphorical as it might be; the ringleader producing a gun; Sherlock laughing; shots fired -- having no effect; the ringleader's horrified realization of what he faced; a desperate rummage in the janitor's closet, followed by the ringleader stepping on the end of a wooden-handled mop, snapping off the shaft at a sharp, splintered angle, taking the remaining weapon and striking out with it; Sherlock, mid-charge, catching the blow but still grabbing hold of his human adversary and throwing with all his inhuman strength; both men slowly slumping to the ground . . .
Nightmares were supposed to happen in dark alleyways or foggy churchyards or distant deserts, not in ordinary English hallways bright with fluorescent lighting, but that's where this one was unfolding. John dropped to his knees beside Sherlock, taking in the spreading pool of dark garnet red soaking the carpet and Sherlock's pasty-white pallor, unnatural even for him. The scent of blood was thick in the air, for all that John's sense of smell was little sharper than an an ordinary human's at the moment.
The makeshift stake had missed Sherlock's heart, but not for lack of trying: it was properly angled, going in through the stomach and up under the ribs, probably with Sherlock's own weight helping drive it home. John wanted nothing more than to rip the hateful thing clean out of Sherlock's body and fling it far, far away, but the doctor in him knew better and the doctor was in charge right now. That piece of wood might be the only thing keeping Sherlock from bleeding out completely, which was death for anyone, vampire or not. John didn't even dare apply pressure to the wound without knowing what internal structures might be jammed up against a sharp edge, vulnerable to shifting.
Sherlock's eyes were closed, not necessarily a bad reaction for a vampire (they tended to shut down when badly injured, the better to heal themselves), but his pulse was even slower and weaker than it should have been. John swore horribly in the privacy of his head. Out loud, his physical voice was already intoning a sequence of dry, precise medical Latin ("Longinus miles lancea ponxit . . ."), three spells so familiar he could say them all in a single breath, intended, respectively, to stop bleeding, ease pain, and soothe shock.
John felt the indescribable sense of something leaving his body and going into his patient's, even as golden light flared around his left hand -- his strong hand -- sure sign that the spells had worked, taking power from the reserves bound up in John's physician's oath. John wasn't entitled to much emergency energy these days, and those three spells drained his meager allotment completely in one go. But there were other resources, and John didn't hesitate to use them.
Sliding down Sherlock's body, he brought his head level with the mop handle protruding from his partner's torso, and called on a different sort of magic.
"Eorthe thee on bere ealle hira mihtum and magneum," he whispered, closing his eyes in concentration and bringing his mouth close to Sherlock's body so his breath could blow the words directly onto the wound. May the Earth bear you up with all her powers and might.
The incantation was neither Latin, nor modern. It was old beyond counted years, passed down by word of mouth to each new generation, one of the fragments of leechcraft, granny-magic and cunning-lore kept alive through the centuries because they worked, even if modern medical authorities disapproved of them for being unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, drawing as they did on the life-force of the practitioner rather than the safe and sterile reservoirs of the oath.
John managed three repetitions before his head swam and he needed to sit upright to avoid passing out. Gasping for air, he was greeted by the infinitely welcome sight of Sherlock, awake and smiling at him, blue-grey eyes open in sleepy slits.
"That was not MHRA approved," Sherlock murmured, sounding cheerful and slightly stoned from the effects of John's first anti-shock and painkilling charms.
John did his best to smile back. "You can sue me for clinical malpractice later," he said.
Sherlock huffed a soundless laugh, then winced. His eyes widened and a tiny frown line developed between his dark brows. "He got me with a mop," he said, sounding surprised and petulant at once.
"Yeah, he did," John said, checking Sherlock's pulse. "Idiot. I keep telling you 'supernatural' doesn't mean 'invincible,' and I should know."
Sherlock's pulse was stronger, but not strong enough. He needed a transfusion immediately. Fortunately, with his being a vampire, that bit was simpler than if he'd been a normal human.
Sherlock shivered, and his eyelids fluttered as they closed again. "I'm cold," he mumbled.
"I know," John said, keeping his voice calm, regardless of what was going on inside him. His body shielding the view from everyone else in the hallway (subliminally, he was aware of them all: Lestrade, Lestrade's people, the fallen ringleader, none of them important), he quickly hooked the forefinger of his left hand into a sharp claw and without hesitation ripped it down the inner surface of his right wrist.
It was a horrible parody of their first time together, and without any pre-prep it was going to hurt like hell, but John's hands were perfectly steady and his mind was clear as a sheet of white paper as he brought his bleeding wrist to Sherlock's mouth.
Sherlock inhaled, nostrils flaring, and when his eyes opened this time, they were black as the Pit. He struck like a snake, all survival instinct, fangs ripping into John's wrist. The pain was intense, but there was a trick John had learned in Afghanistan, a way of letting the things one couldn't afford to deal with – heat, discomfort, fear, grief – pass by without really experiencing them until later. John gritted his teeth and endured as Sherlock drank his fill.
Eventually, Sherlock's relentless demand eased, then stopped. Without warning or ceremony, his mouth went slack and his head fell back as he dropped into unconsciousness. A check of his pulse was encouraging. He wouldn't be able to heal completely until the stake was removed, and that would take surgery, but he would remain stable for now. John, dizzy, his vision fuzzing around the edges, breathed a sigh of relief and started paying attention of the rest of the world.
There were a lot more people in the hallway than there had been.
John turned his head unsteadily to see a waiting paramedic team. Lestrade must have called them in the interval. From the wide-eyed looks on their faces and their half-hovering, half-horrified body language, they were waiting to take Sherlock to hospital and they'd got an eyeful of the emergency transfusion in progress. The fallen ringleader was gone, probably already carted off by another team.
John cleared his throat. "Right. He's okay now, but for God's sake, don't jar that stake in his chest, you don't know what it's up against. And he needs a transfusion. A real one." He lurched to his feet, pulling his arm from Sherlock's loose grasp, and nearly blacked out. "He's a vampire," John added, dazed, as if anyone in the hallway might have the slightest doubt on that front. "I've tried to get him to wear a bracelet, but he won't, he's a stubborn bastard . . ."
Everything went red and gold and black, and John would have fallen, but there was a hand on his shoulder and another under his elbow, steadying him. When his vision cleared, he saw Sherlock, strapped to a board and on a stretcher, being wheeled through the elevator doors at speed by the paramedics. It was all John could do not to run after them, holding his left hand aloft, sigil blazing, demanding to ride in the ambulance, because he was a bloody doctor, but the grip on his shoulder held firm.
"John," Lestrade's voice said in his ear. "Easy. They've got him. You're still bleeding."
Lestrade was so calm, so matter of fact, his words actually penetrated John's fogged brain; John looked down and saw the blood dripping from the fingers of his right hand, making coin-sized spots on the carpet. Vampire saliva was loaded with anticoagulants during feeding. Sherlock had lost consciousness before he was truly finished, and hadn't had the time to clean the wound properly at the end. That wouldn't do.
Wavering like a drunken man (shock, blood loss, and two rounds of spellcasting in quick succession, he self-diagnosed), John brought wrist wound to his mouth and fastened his lips over it, ignoring the pain as he began cleaning it with his tongue. The taste of his own blood mixed with Sherlock's saliva was familiar and comforting, even now, and John closed his eyes to savor it. Lestrade's hands dropped away, leaving John to it.
When his wrist wound had stopped bleeding, John moved on, drawing his tongue in broad strokes down his palm and ending by sucking his fingers fastidiously. It was pure instinct to remove every trace of blood, anything that might attract other predators.
With a sigh, John dropped his hand and opened his eyes. People who had been staring looked hurriedly away and became busy with other things. John wasn't so out of it that he couldn't read the shades of embarrassment and distaste in most of the body language on display, but couldn't bring himself to give a flying toss at the moment.
Lestrade was a short distance away, conferring with Donovan, who looked ill; John noticed she was keeping her eyes turned away from the massive bloodstain on the floor that marked where Sherlock had fallen. He wondered if that indicated disgust or empathy on her part.
Lestrade nodded with finality and turned back to John, striding in his direction. Of everyone in the room, his was the only body language that didn't show some sort of negative reaction. His expression was serious, even grim, but his eyes were clear when they met John's.
"Come on," Lestrade said, sounding tired, "everything's under control here. I'll give you a lift to the hospital."
John nodded. "Thanks," he said, with an effort. His mouth was dry, all of his joints seemed rusty and his head was still swimming. Moving without thought, he reached for the jacket pocket where he kept a small supply of individually-wrapped hard sweets, a precaution he'd started taking after a few spur-of-the-moment blood donations to Sherlock in the past. Never under these circumstances, though.
He pulled out a sweet and unwrapped it, popping it into his mouth as he followed Lestrade to the elevator. He crushed the sweet between his back teeth and swallowed without tasting it, then reached into his pocket for another. Each step he took was becoming steadier as his shapeshifter's constitution went to work. He was grateful for that. It meant he'd be nearly back to normal by the time Sherlock had recovered enough to go home.
Because Sherlock would recover. John clung to that, used the certainty to keep himself moving. It would be all right.
It would.
tbc