lucybun | Prompt fill: A New Strain

Title: A New Strain
Summary: John starts to wonder about Sherlock's real nature
Pairing: Sherlock and John, maybe pre-slash if you squint through your slash goggles, but probably not
Rating: R, for language
Warnings: talk of vampires, some mild Twilight-bashing
Spoilers: None
Disclaimers: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.
Author's Notes: drabbly-type response to darkmagic luvr's prompt over at Sherlockbbc's Make Me a Monday thread found here: http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/1651936.html?thread=23126752#t23126752 . Not betad or brit-picked, so be warned. This is the story formerly entitled "My Flatmate the Vampire." I just thought of a better title.

It had started out as a sort of inside joke within his own head. Christ, just look at the man. It wasn't much of a leap to make. Pale, tall, dark hair, exotic features. He never ate as far as John could tell, he seemed to take tea, but, more often than not, John would find the cup still full of cold brown liquid when he picked it up from wherever Sherlock had left it last. And that coat. It might as well be a bleeding cape, something to make a modern-day Lugosi proud.

So, yeah, it was an obvious thing. It wasn't even an original thought to John, either. John had heard a few PCs at scenes murmuring about the "great bat" or "here comes the Count." John preferred those comments far more than the many "freaks" that were tossed out by Donovan and the likes. So, he'd started a bit of a running gag in his own head. Sherlock Holmes as Vampire. God knows he spent an entirely ridiculous amount of his life just watching the man. Catalogueing the man's movements, the expressions on his face, the gestures of his hands. Often John had pathetically little to do at crime scenes with Sherlock, and, frankly, watching Sherlock then was a bit like watching the only good thing on telly. Sherlock was almost always the most fascinating thing in the room...any room.

Periodically, John would catch himself noticing some new quirk of his flatmate, some new bit of knowledge that was just so damn odd that John would think to himself, "Yep. Vampire!" Turned down the case of the decapitated vicar. Of course, he did. No vampires in church. Refused a walk in the park on the rare, beautiful, sunny day. Well, duh...vampire! And then he'd have a bit of an internal giggle and move on.

He knew by now that it wasn't unusual to find pints of blood in their fridge. He didn't even blink at that now, was in fact just pleased it was something contained in plastic, something that wouldn't stink. So, when he came home from his hours in the surgery and opened the fridge to hopefully find some milk, he didn't bat a lash at the flat box full of what looked to be about two dozen neatly labeled bags of blood. He just grabbed his milk, pleased to find it was still in date and smelled only of good old milk.

The next day found him much the same way. Only this time when he opened the fridge door, about a fourth of the blood was missing, and he decided not to think about what Sherlock had done with that amount of blood in one day. Dying for his tea, he promptly did his own version of deleting it. Sherlock blew in after about his second sip of tea, color high on his cheeks and a spring in his step. John set down his tea regretfully, rising to get his coat to follow Sherlock to a crime scene.

"Where is it?"

"Where is what, John?" Sherlock asked, removing his coat and scarf. Wait, removing his coat and scarf? Maybe he was back from a crime scene. It wasn't unheard of for Sherlock to solve a mystery in the time it took for John to pull a shift, but anything so simply done rarely put Sherlock in this kind of mood.

"Where is the crime scene? I assumed you had a case. You look like you just got a case."

"Do I? Hmm. I don't. How does that look precisely, John?"

Piercing eyes diverted to him, focusing on John with lazer-precision.

"You look excited, is what. You know, kid in a sweets shop, that sort of thing."

Sherlock cocked his head to the side in thought, and apparently decided the matter wasn't worth further discussion. He turned on his heel and walked into his room with a "We're out of lightbulbs." thrown over his shoulder as he shut the door. John didn't see him again for three days.

Sherlock was still spending time in the flat during those days though. He was apparently staying in during the day and roaming about town all night, leaving before John returned from the surgery, returning after he'd gone back again the next day. And it was driving John crazy. If Sherlock wasn't working a case, what the hell was going on?

He hated himself a little for his first thought being "drugs." He didn't have any concrete details about Sherlock"s past addictions, but he knew they existed. And he knew from Harry that those sort of addictions never truly went away. But he refused to believe it of Sherlock. If the words and behavior of Mycroft and Lestrade were to be believed, Sherlock had been on his best behavior for the longest stretch either of them had ever seen. John felt a little spark of pride at that, sure in the fact that having him, having a friend at last, had helped Sherlock get into a such a good space.

But if it wasn't drugs or a case, then what the bloody hell was it? As expected, Sherlock didn't come home that night. John got a takeaway on his way home and planted his tired body in front of the telly to enjoy a half-carton of pad thai. At about 11 he stirred to stash his leftovers in the fridge and head up to bed. He opened the fridge and was surprised to find it empty of everything but food. That was odd wasn't it? He was too tired to even think about what the hell Sherlock had done with all that blood.

That night John dreamed of pale men, long capes, sharp teeth. Men with Sherlock's face. He awoke the next morning feeling worse than before he'd gone to bed, thankful it was the weekend and he had two whole days off. He pulled on his dressing gown and stumbled downstairs to wait on Sherlock. And wait he did. He waited and waited, finally frying up some breakfast and showering and dressing. Then he waited some more as he halfheartedly tidied the flat and then made some pasta for supper. And still no Sherlock.

He refused to be worried. If something was truly amiss either Lestrade or Mycroft would know, and they hadn't contacted him. So he sat in for another night of telly, not-worrying, and looking for something besides reality shows to keep him entertained. He stumbled across some of the movie channels he was pretty sure they weren't paying for and found himself watching that movie about the teenage vampires from last summer.

He was aware of the movies, of the books, had noticed the black tees sported by the angst-ridden "emo" kids who came into the clinic mostly with infected piercings and glandular fever. "Oh well, better than reruns," he supposed. At least he wouldn't be so ignorant of something that was such a pop phenomenon. Sherlock might not mind being oblivious to such things, but John liked to feel like he was part of the culture at large from time to time.

As it turned out, it was only marginally better than reality reruns. He got his fill of angst- ridden children in his own flat, thank you very much. And in John's opinion they'd completely fucked with the whole vampire concept. John had a catalogue of vampire symptoms stored up in his head just like he did for measles or flu, and he didn't think anyone should just come along and disturb the entire order of things. Oh well, at least it had killed a couple of hours. Still no Sherlock to be found, though.

John at this point was fairly certain that the man must be deeply embroiled in a case. Which meant he was liable to burst in at any moment expecting John to join him in a dash across London or hop a train up to Yorkshire. It wouldn't hurt to call it a night and get some rest while he could. And even if the fury of a case didn't descend, John still intended to wake-up early to lie in wait for his flatmate to show. He couldn't stand the not knowing any longer. Never mind the fact that he'd slept like crap last night and really was more than a bit tired. So he headed upstairs to bed for the night at an hour even Mrs. Hudson would probably think of as early.

But as is often the nature of such well-reasoned behavior, it was completely useless. He tossed and turned and flipped and flopped, but sleep wouldn't come. And he lay there and thought about that damn film, wondering if he wasn't being unreasonably fractious in his refusal to acknowledge any new symptoms of vampirism. Could they see themselves in mirrors? Did they just live in rainy climes? If so, then London was probably crawling with the things. Which of course circled him right back around to thinking (not-worrying) about Sherlock.

He knew Sherlock displayed many of the symptoms of classic vampirism, but how about this new emo strain? So John thought about it, listed them off, hoping it would work a bit like counting sheep. Beautiful face- check. Pale, perfect skin - check. Eerie, changeable eyes - check. Expensive wardrobe - check. Superhuman powers of perception - check. Never ate real food - check. Residence in one of the cloudiest cities around - check. Well that was it, wasn't it? If Sherlock only drank blood, John would be secure in diagnosing his friend as emo-vamp. No cure for it apparently, but it appeared one could live comfortably with the disease with a few lifestyle changes. Jesus, but he must be tired if this was the shit his brain was getting up to.

It was as he was laughing in his head at his own ridiculousness that he thought of the flat box of blood-bags that had shown up in their fridge. Thought about how quickly those first bags had disappeared, and how a Sherlock in high-color and springing-step had blown in that next day. He thought about how the rest of that blood had vanished in record time. He thought of all the other bags of blood that had found a place in their fridge, in their microwave, in their tub. Thought about the bloody heads, the bloody eyeballs, bloody arms, bloody animal parts...blood, blood, blood.

The thing was, he wasn't normally a scaredy person, he wasn't a superstitious man. He'd never been one to lie awake at night waiting for the bogey man or Freddy Kreuger or whoever other kids lay awake waiting to come visit them in the dark. He'd been two years younger than Harry, but she was the one who would sneak into 8 year old John's room to pile into his twin bed, unable to sleep because of a bad dream. John was practical, reasonable, level-headed. He was a man of science for Christ's sake. But as he lay there in the dark with thoughts of pale skin, dark hair, and bag after bag of blood splashing through his brain, he heard a door slamming downstairs, the familiar tread of footsteps springing up the stairs two at a time. And John Watson stopped laughing.

Prompt fill: A New Strain

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