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The transformation was bloody awful. John doesn’t remember most of it, honestly, must’ve blacked out from the pain, but what little he does remember sears his insides like a burn he’s never known. But with every waking moment, few and far between as they were, there was Sherlock, and more often than not Mariana, sat diligently at his bedside and wiping his sweaty forehead, holding water to his chapped lips and resting heads against his heaving chest.
In the end, when his fangs come in properly and the blood that keeps him going is no longer his own, the relief is naked on their exhausted faces. And yet where Mariana’s relaxes over time, Sherlock’s turns to stone.
He’s accommodating to the situation, let’s get that straight, first off. More than accommodating - Sherlock acts like John’s bloody butler those first days out of the transformation semi-coma, and it drives John a little mad, to be honest. ‘Are you eating? I know you don’t need to, but it keeps the mind steady’ and ‘Have you fed? You’ll need to feed frequently in the beginning, yes I recall you had a pint just yesterday but that’s really very little for a new vampire-‘ and ‘Are you hurting, Watson? Can’t I get you anything, Watson? Can I flay myself open for you, Watson?’ all the live long day.
Or, well. Something like that. The point is Sherlock bends over backwards on the off chance John’s the least bit uncomfortable with his new existence (and let’s face it, that’s sort of inevitable, isn’t it?), but John hasn’t had a real conversation with him since before Abe Slaney made his reappearance at the Norfolk.
John misses him. Plain and simple. And nothing, no amount of silly jokes or ‘see, I’m fine’ does anything to reassure him. But you’ve got to give it a try, haven’t you? You’ve got to make an effort. It doesn’t matter that your whole life’s been rewritten - because it’s been rewritten with him. And John’s staring at their bedroom door, not the one he got through the fever in but Sherlock’s room, the one they used to spend every night together in, where his master detective, vampire lover, light of his life eternal, sits now, alone.
Knocking on the bedroom door, John tries.
“How you feeling?” John is careful, quiet with his inquiries - Sherlock has been perfectly attentive since everything went down, but still there is a wall between them. Guilt, John’s sure.
“I should be asking you that,” Sherlock says softly - and yes, bloody guiltily, John’s a genius thanks very much.
“Oi, that’s insulting - look at me! I’m the picture of health!” John flexes an arm muscle just to prove it, hoping for a smile. He is unsuccessful. “You know, it’d be nice if the vampire thing bulked me up a bit. I mean, I’ve got pretty good arms I think, but still, seems unfair to me all that extra strength doesn’t show up at all.”
“You’d look unnatural if it did. You’d have the physique of a cartoon character.”
“Match my personality, eh?” This, finally, cracks a smile from Sherlock, though it fades quickly. John sighs and sits beside him on the bed, reaching a tentative hand out. Sherlock’s palm flexes underneath his but does not otherwise move. “Sherlock…”
“I’m sorry, Watson,” Sherlock says robotically, that phrase he’s used so often these past few weeks. “I’ve been distracted. Are you well, truly? Are you feeding enough-“
“Knock it off, come on,” John says softly, squeezing the limp hand in his own. Emotion stirs in Sherlock’s eyes as he watches the movement, but he remains passive as ever in every other respect. “Sherlock. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re- we’ll be alright-“
“Yes. Perfectly alright, forever. Lucky us.” Sherlock snatches his hands away, placing them stiffly on his knees and then balling up the fabric of his trousers in his fingers, anxious and unsettled. “Give me a moment. I am not myself.”
“Yeah, no, not going anywhere.”
“Watson-“
“Look, it’s just- it’s shit luck I got shot, alright?” John says suddenly, a little harsher than he means to. Sherlock winces at his words, and he fixes his tone. “Absolute shit. It was- I mean, jesus, it was pretty shit luck that I got blew up in Ukraine, too, yeah? And do you know what saved me both times?”
Sherlock blinks at him, his confusion temporarily pausing his anxieties.
“I- no,” Sherlock admits, “because you were dying the second time-“
“It was you, you idiot,” John interrupts. Sherlock’s mouth claps shut. John shuffles closer, so that they’re leaning shoulder to shoulder, and Sherlock does not pull away. “It was you.”
Sherlock shakes his head, as if trying to clear it, and then turns his hands so his palms are facing up. He stares at them, unblinking. John lets him sit with it all, for a minute.
“I almost lost you,” Sherlock says at last, his voice breaking. John nods, so close to Sherlock his chin rubs against the man’s shoulder.
“You didn’t, though. You saved me. I mean it, Sherlock. You saved me.” But if Sherlock is hearing him, it’s hardly the focus of his attentions. His body has gone rigid again, his breathing uneven.
“The thought of it…it’s unbearable.” Sherlock digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, rough, unyielding pressure that makes John nervous. He doesn’t know how to treat a vampire’s popped eyeballs. “You’re here, with me, but still I see you in that room-“
Sherlock cannot finish the sentence, gasping around a choked sob in lieu of further description. John, unable to help himself, grabs at Sherlock’s locked wrists and tears them down. Sherlock blinks at him in surprise.
“I know,” John says softly, holding his lover’s hands in his lap, forcing them to still for just a moment. “Believe me, Sherlock, I know. Just…just sit with me here, yeah? Here-“ John takes one of Sherlock’s hands and puts it to his own cheek, spreading long fingers over scruff.
“Feel that?” John asks, rubbing his cheek against Sherlock’s hand purposefully. “That’s me. I’m alive. I’m with you.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says dubiously. To emphasise the point, John takes Sherlock’s other hand and places it on the opposite cheek. He holds it all together tightly, and yes his cheeks probably are squishing stupidly, but it’s worth it if it grounds Sherlock even a little. Eventually, Sherlock seems to settle into the contact, stroking cheekbones with thumbs and then moving his right hand to the back of John’s head, fingers tangling in John’s hair. Satisfied, John lets go.
“I’m here. You and me. Can’t get rid of me.” To John’s delight, this forces a fond chuckle out of Sherlock - it sounds hoarse and ill-used, and John makes a vow to himself that they’ll both be laughing regularly from now on.
Starting later, though, because Sherlock is leaning in close, staring John down like he is seeing him for the very first time. Those deep brown eyes are dark, focused, and John finds himself scrambling for purchase - he’s got a hand on Sherlock’s thigh before he can think twice about it.
“Watson,” Sherlock breathes, his tone one of such awe that John has to fight the urge to squirm. “Watson, may I-“
“Yes, please, yes, I want you to-“ And then they are kissing, John’s first kiss of his new life. It is light, tentative, unsure, Sherlock pressing the least bit of pressure to John’s lips and then pulling away, coming back with a new angle. It is wonderful, yes, but still it is the action of a man who cannot quite believe what he has.
John is absolutely fucking determined to make a believer out of Sherlock.
On the next dip in, John balls his free hand in Sherlock’s shirt and pulls tight, keeping them close, forbidding teasing or questioning. It is uncouth, probably, possibly even rude, but John has been practicing with his fangs, and he might as well use them. When Sherlock tries to reset them once more, John bites down with his sharp new teeth, puncturing and tearing the supple flesh of Sherlock’s lower lip, and, most importantly, locking Sherlock temporarily to him. He growls, entirely by accident, before releasing, though it might add to the effect because Sherlock lets out a small, fascinated ‘oh’.
They stare at each other a moment, Sherlock stock still, John’s chest heaving. Then, in tender apology, John lets go of Sherlock’s shirt in order to brush his fingers over the lightly bleeding lip.
“I’m here,” John says again, his thumb coated in someone else’s blood, “and you can’t break me, Sherlock.” This is a revelation, it must be, because his lover’s dark eyes light up like stars, looking at John very much anew indeed. When Sherlock surges forward again, he shoves John down to the bed and pins him with a hand on his chest before sinking his own vampiric teeth into the junction of John’s neck and jaw.
“Oh, fuck me,” John gasps, his jeans like a vice over his crotch. Sherlock, unyielding, jams a knee between John’s legs, right where John’s cock is so desperately seeking friction, and lifts his head for just a moment.
“You-“ Sherlock chokes out before stopping himself, collecting himself. “Take what you need.” Suggestively, Sherlock rotates his knee against John’s covered cock, and before John can even fully comprehend this, Sherlock is latched back onto John’s neck and drinking him in.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” John chants, nearly delirious - he didn’t think Sherlock could drink blood from another vampire but obviously he was wrong, because he knows this feeling, he had missed this feeling, the pure, perfect bliss of being at his beloved’s mercy, the invasion of his body he’d used to pray would never end. Sherlock never mixed feeding and sex before, in part because John rarely had the blood to spare, but whatever is different now doesn’t matter - what matters is grinding on the proffered knee until he comes in his pants and then doing it again and again and again until they die, maybe.
“God. Fuck. God.” John is babbling, one hand fisted in Sherlock’s hair, the other trying to undo his flies and failing miserably. He can hear the process in a way he never could before, the messy, obscene slurping that had once been so quiet, the way Sherlock gulps John down like a man dying of thirst. It’s too much to bear, and yet to stop now would be a torture unlike any other.
“John,” Sherlock rumbles, and John doesn’t know when he detached but it’s clear he’s not planning on staying away long, massaging at the exact spot of the bite and licking over the tiny puncture marks. “You’ll pass out. You need to take from me.”
“Blood?” John asks in confusion. Sherlock grins, his teeth stained red.
“Blood,” he agrees, satisfied and drunken-sounding. “We can share. Here.” Sherlock returns his mouth to the open wound he’s created, but he holds his wrist over his head, dangling it tantalisingly before John’s eyes.
“Do as I do,” he says, not looking away from John’s throat, licking quickly over the dual marks. John, gingerly, takes Sherlock’s hand in his, bringing the brown skin to his mouth and licking over it, once.
“Good. Now-“ Sherlock’s teeth sink down again and he’s pulling once more. John, not wanting to be left behind, clamps down on the wrist and sucks like he would from a straw and-
Oh, it’s heaven. He might be in heaven. Nothing has ever tasted like this, nothing on earth - the blood bags did their job, but a microwave meal just doesn’t compare to fresh, does it? And what’s more, he’s taking from Sherlock. Secondhand, maybe, but this is Sherlock’s flesh, Sherlock’s sham pulmonary system, Sherlock’s twitching fingers that flex and fidget with every pull. It’s almost perfect, it’s almost perfect, it’s-
“I wish I could’ve tasted you.” John gasps out the sentiment he’s shared often enough, letting off for just the seconds required to confess. Sherlock must agree, because he moans loudly. John’s straining, needy, abandoned erection twitches at the sound, and John, recalling his earlier order, shifts himself violently against Sherlock’s knee. “Your blood should’ve been mine.”
Does he sound insane? Maybe. That’s a problem for John Watson of a few hours from now. At this moment all that matters is getting Sherlock’s wrist back to his- yes. Divine. Without equal. Why in god’s name would anyone do this any other way? John should mark this spot, this place where he first tasted euphoria - a nice JW tattoo in the exact location where his fangs first punctured, might taste like ink the first few feedings, but that’s alright, it’d be worth it-
“We could do this all day,” groans Sherlock, though that hardly seems like a problem, to John. “Eventually it will dilute, but until then…my god.” He sits up, for some insane fucking reason, knee still blessedly in the same spot but teeth no longer in John’s neck, which John would whinge about if he didn’t have something vitally important going on with his mouth. John tries with his eyes to signal that Sherlock should get back to business (drinking John’s borrowed blood), but Sherlock seems to have something else in mind, his dark, wild eyes roaming John’s body.
“It was always too dangerous,” Sherlock’s saying, his free hand messing with his jeans. “Could never get the timing right. But I wanted it, too, you know. I shouldn’t have. You were so vulnerable whenever I’d feed from you. I shouldn’t have wanted it. But I did.”
John furrows his brows in a silent question (because fuck talking, he’s currently experiencing a miracle), and Sherlock is apparently in a game kind of mood, because he manages to kick his jeans off without removing his wrist from John’s mouth. His pants betray the outline of his cock, limp but showing signs of interest. And then, all at once the pants are gone, too, and the knee that had been lifted to accommodate is back, and John thinks he might pass out.
“Hold this here for me will you,” Sherlock sighs, taking one of John’s hands and mirroring the scene below him, sinking his teeth into waiting wrist. John does as asked, holding Sherlock’s cheek to keep from dropping the hand away. Sherlock, for his part, apparently needs his free hand - he’s grabbing a small bottle and flicking open the lid, and-
“Sherlock,” John says suddenly, wrenching himself from the unmatched beauty that is his lover’s hand. “Sherlock, only do this if you’re sure you want to-“
“I am and I do,” Sherlock says easily before reattaching his mouth to John, one slick finger already disappearing behind him. John’s feet are kicking involuntarily, the sinful visual and the pleasurable sensation combining to make his body practically convulse.
“Right. Okay. Fuck.” More to shut himself up than anything else, John resumes the process of bloodsucking and finds his attention split four ways - the hand before him, the hand supplying Sherlock, the hand that’s making Sherlock rock and writhe so sensually, and the cock that weeps between John’s legs. John spares the last in this list, poor thing, at least some of its torture, finally getting his jeans undone and allowing it to spring free of his trunks. Sherlock’s eyes widen at the sight, and he bites down a little more viciously into John’s skin.
If it takes 10 minutes or two hours for Sherlock to prepare himself, John couldn’t say - to watch that brilliant, handsome face twist up in ecstasy would surely push John over the edge, so he stops looking altogether and is caught by surprise when Sherlock removes his knee entirely in favour of straddling John’s waist. He takes John’s aching cock in hand much too gently, barely a brush of fingers around the length of it, but he so swiftly angles the thing while sinking down that John supposes it can be forgiven.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Slow, don’t hurt yourself. Fuck.” Sherlock has the nerve to roll his fucking eyes at John’s concern while he takes John in, bit by bit. Sherlock’s wrist lies forgotten on John’s chest, the most perfect act superseded for just one moment by its only potential rival. Sherlock drinks continuously, mercilessly, as he bears down, right up until John has disappeared entirely inside him. Only then, only when John’s cock has been taken to the hilt, do Sherlock’s fangs release, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream.
“You alright?” John asks, panicked but terrified to move. “Sherlock, answer me right-“
“Good,” hisses Sherlock, hips rotating some to adjust to the feeling. “Good. Very- you’re inside me, Watson.” John fights the urge to laugh.
“I am, yeah,” he says fondly, holding Sherlock’s hips steady and helping him move, helping him get used to this new thing they’re doing. Experimentally, John cants his hips. “How’s, ah, how’s - ooh. Did I get your-“
“Prostate, yes,” Sherlock gasps out, grinding down and shouting hoarsely when John comes in contact with it again. “Shit. Fuck. Fuck, that’s-“ Sherlock cries out again, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure, his cock now fully hard. John, more turned on than he can begin to grasp by Sherlock’s swearing, takes a massive risk and grips Sherlock more firmly by the hips, lifting him some. Then, shallowly, John pulls him back down. Sherlock, surprised, falls forward, catching himself with a hand on John’s chest. They stare at each other, frozen.
“Hands,” they say together, offering one another their wrists once more, and the moment John feels Sherlock match him, feels that first sweet pull, he begins to thrust in.
This- this is heaven. John got it wrong before, that was just the pearly gates. This, this furious, needful intrusion on one another, this joining in every place it is possible to join, this is heaven, surely, because John has never been closer to Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock has never been closer to John Watson and now they are where they should be and it’s right.
John carries the load, which he’s glad to do as his cock has been practically begging to hump anything for half an hour now, and seeing as Sherlock makes the most rewarding noises of surprised pleasure with every stroke. It’s a messy union, and John doesn’t hit Sherlock’s prostate every time, but it’s better this way, surely, because for once Sherlock is left guessing, left gasping with delight every so often and it is John who guides them forward, John who takes care of them both.
There are other ways, of course, other positions that very quickly cross John’s mind - and most of them, admittedly, involve John being folded like a bloody pretzel while Sherlock has his way with him, but this, this first, rough, groundbreaking time is as it should be, and John could fucking cry with it.
“Wat- Wats- John,” says Sherlock, fighting to get even a word out. “I- I am-“ John takes a long drag before pulling away from Sherlock’s wrist, and it is quite satisfying when Sherlock shudders at the sensation.
“Come, then,” grits out John, because he’s thinking now maybe he’s never wanted anything more. “Come on me. If it’s too much we’ll stop but if not-“
“Don’t stop,” begs Sherlock, holding John’s hand to his cheek and nuzzling it. “Don’t stop. So close. Don’t stop, don’t stop, not ever…ever…”
When Sherlock comes, even that is a bit of a surprise to him - one last good brush against the prostate and his release is spurting in waves, down John’s chest and belly. Sherlock stares at it in awe, and then closes his eyes and groans again when John sits up, holding Sherlock to him, the mess getting them both sticky but neither of them caring.
“I’m here,” John breathes out, forehead pressed against Sherlock’s even as he pounds the man in fervent, shallow strokes. “Look at me. Feel me. I’m here.” Sherlock nods, tears in his eyes, one arm tight around John’s neck.
“Stay,” Sherlock whispers, and John whines, high and pathetic, because he can’t stay, not like this, not when he’s so close. The release will come eventually, the release and the falling apart.
“Stay,” Sherlock says again, offering his wrist up one last time, and John, understanding, latches his mouth to it. The marks, so open and ready from their constant use this afternoon, take his fangs in without resistance, a lovers’ meeting more than a bite. The same moment the blood hits his lips, he is coming inside Sherlock, give and take, push and pull, and John only ceases the feeding when at last his release does the same, removing himself entirely from Sherlock with a shuddering breath. Sherlock, shivering, flops to the bed.
“You okay?” John asks quickly, concerned, but Sherlock just offers a lazy, bloody smile. “Right. Good. Just - basking in the afterglow. Okay. Um. Alright, I’m sorry, Sherlock, can you- can you stop smiling because I don’t think I could go another round if I wanted to but my prick is really trying, and- thanks.”
Sherlock watches John collapse beside him, his smile far from gone, just hidden behind closed lips. There’s a spot of blood on his chin. John tries not to drool at the sight, opting to reach out and hold Sherlock’s hand instead.
“Couldn’t do that when I was human, could we?” John asks him cheekily, and Sherlock’s smile goes bashful, angled away demurely. “Admit it. It’s nice not having to hold back.”
“Of course,” Sherlock sighs, burying his face in John’s shoulder. “I don’t know that the small pleasures can make up for the rest of it.” John turns his head a bit, pressing a tiny kiss to Sherlock’s hair.
“Small pleasures are all there is, love,” John says gently. “I know you’ve got some…things to work through. With all this.” He gestures broadly to himself. “But I need you to hear me when I tell you: I’m glad to be here, like this. And I know- I mean, obviously, it’s not ideal, right? But I’ll take it over bleeding out because some mad American took a shot at me.” Sherlock shudders, cuddling closer, releasing John’s hand to wrap an arm around John’s waist.
“Sorry,” John mumbles, stroking his lover’s hair. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to remind you-“
“I cannot regret turning you, much as it eats at me,” Sherlock whispers. “My largest regret from that day is not killing Abe Slaney myself.”
“How would you have done it?” John asks, half-joking.
“I’d have ripped his throat out,” is Sherlock’s grave, immediate response, “and thrown his useless body through the window before his heart stopped beating.” He must get a look at John’s raised brows, eyes wide with surprise, because he then adds, “Sorry. That- I- that is to say-“
“Hot,” John says mildly, tracing a finger over Sherlock’s lips. It’s not the image of the brutality that John finds attractive so much as the intent - Sherlock, engulfed with rage and righteousness, acting only on instinct in order to avenge what he loves.
And what he loves is John. John. It sends a shiver up his spine, if he’s honest.
“You’re very odd, Watson,” Sherlock says quietly, clearly torn between feeling guilty at his own imagined versions of Abe Slaney’s death and wanting to laugh at John’s absurdity. “You’re so staunchly against violence and yet-“
“He’s dead, love,” John explains, pulling Sherlock closer, closer, until their limbs are no more their own than extensions of each other, “and he shot me, and I’ll tell you what, it bloody hurt. If we haven’t earned a few harmless vengeance fantasies who has?”
“But I would have done it,” Sherlock insists. John shrugs. “You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that, I just…” John waits a moment, choosing his words carefully, thinking it over. “Look. I was dying. If you were dying-“
“I wouldn’t be.”
“If you were,” John continues, ignoring him, “I’d lose my fucking mind, Sherlock. I can’t imagine what I’d do. I can tell you if you’d been shot at I’d do something a lot worse than rip the gunman’s throat out. Start with his balls, probably.”
“Watson.”
“I’m just saying!” But John didn’t imagine the laughter Sherlock unintentionally let out, and he’s not imagining the small, resistant smile peeking out on Sherlock’s face. “I don’t know how else to convince you love makes you- makes everyone crazy. It just does.”
“I suppose,” Sherlock says, clearly in pains at just the thought of agreeing with John for once. “It- yes. I suppose it does.”
“Good. Glad that’s sorted.” John strokes Sherlock’s back, slow and steady, breathing him in. Then, “So we gonna lay around all day, or…?”
“Did you have a better idea?”
“Well, and look, no pressure, but I think I can go again now if you’re interested- Christ alive, alright, okay, I get it, you’re interested- oh god, Sherlock, that’s- fucking hell don’t you ever stop-“
“Ever?” asks Sherlock, deftly turning John over onto his stomach and settling between his legs in a couple of fluid movements. “You should know, statements like that can be taken quite literally for an undead, untiring creature of the night.” And then of course Sherlock’s got his tongue circling John’s arse before John can even think about formulating a sensible response.
“Ever,” John reiterates, probably stupidly, balling the sheets in his fists. “God, god, god.”
“God’s got nothing to do with this,” Sherlock murmurs, pressing a couple of sweet, tender kisses to John’s lower back before returning to his vigorous work.
He does stop, eventually, but John will attest it’s not for a very, very, very long time.