Title: Bad blood
Author: fanficwriter101
Pairing: gen
Fandoms: Sherlock
Disclaimer: The characters from the show aren't mine, they belong to others. No copyright infringement intended. Any characters you don't recognize are mine. Feedback would be nice, positive feedback would be nicer. Enjoy!
Category: Sherlock (BBC 2010 version)
Rating: NC-17/adult overall just for mentions of Sherlock nudity
Characters: Sherlock, John, Mycroft
Series: No
Spoilers: None intended but anything might get a mention
Summary: John and Sherlock have been flat mates for some time when there's a full moon due. Mycroft's stuck...somewhere...and can't get home. Sherlock has no choice but ask John to take his brother's place.
Archive: Just tell me where it's going
Additional 'stuff': This came to me when friends who were due to fly home for Christmas couldn't go and as I looked out of the window there was a full moon.
This could have been a *lot* longer but none of the additional words I wrote seemed to fit with what was already there so they got deleted.

***

Some years earlier, a London auction house...

Sherlock raised his hand. The Victorian wooden medical case was the only item he had bid on, and he was bidding against a telephone bidder who was pushing the price up further than Sherlock had expected. Mycroft wouldn't approve but Sherlock didn't care. He had to have the lot. He would just spend less money for the rest of the week on food and ignore the mounting pile of unpaid bills.

Finally the remote bidder gave up and the case - Sherlock had no reason to doubt the auction house's catalogue description that it was mahogany - and its contents were his. He rushed home and unpacked the bottles - some still with the remains of their original contents - heedless of his stomach's angry rumble.

One of the labels in the box had caught his eye when he rummaged through the 'medical paraphernalia' laden table. The skull and crossbones, denoting the contents were poisonous or at least harmful, wasn't unusual but the label, faded and almost illegible was. At first he thought it read 'wolf's bane' but then he held it to the light and used a small magnifying glass from the box. From the moment he deciphered the label he knew the box had to be his.

******************************

Present day...Baker Street, mid-morning

Sherlock had stopped texting Mycroft hours earlier. Reluctantly, desperately, he had called his brother. Several times. Each time the outcome had been the same. Mycroft was stuck 'abroad' and couldn't get home as the two airports he could have flown into were closed due to snow.

John was in the kitchen making a pot of tea and couldn't help overhearing the one-sided conversation. After what seemed like the tenth phone call, he thought he could even fill in Mycroft's words. But then: "I can't...Mycroft...do something!"

The conversation continued for a few more minutes, Sherlock, and, John assumed, Mycroft becoming increasingly exasperated with each other when finally Sherlock snapped: "Well, I'll have to, won't I?!!"

Sherlock glanced down at his watch and called: "John, leave the tea."

Frowning, John walked from the kitchen to the living room where Sherlock was glancing nervously out of the window. "What's wrong Sherlock? Is Mycroft all right?"

Sherlock paced up and down the living room, hands twitching.

Unable to prevent the edge to his voice, John snapped: "Sherlock?!"

Sherlock slowed then stopped. "What I'm about to tell you can't go any further..."

John rolled his eyes. "I can keep Mycroft's location secret Sherlock."

"Sit down John."

John's anxiety level went up about a dozen notches as he obeyed Sherlock's instruction.

"Do you know what today is John?"

John frowned. "It's Tuesday Sherlock."

"It's a full moon."

John looked up at Sherlock, his confusion evident. "So?"

Sherlock disappeared into his bedroom for a couple of minutes, returning with a large wooden box. "I need you to help me. Quickly. A couple of years ago I bought this box. It's a Victorian doctor's medical chest. It had this and I took it...rehydrated it and injected it...as an experiment."

John took the bottle Sherlock held out, squinting at the pale label. "Um...wolf's...bl...blood. You injected yourself with a liquid over a century old? How are you still alive?" John shook his head disapprovingly.

Sherlock left John to repack the box, returning to his room and stripping his bed, covering the mattress with a heavy rubber sheet which hung down over the sides of the bed. When John walked into his room he continued: "I didn't think it had had any effect until a few days later. There was a full moon and...I...well, let's just say I took on some of the characteristics of the creature who had donated the sample."

Following Sherlock into the bedroom, deciding to play along, John chuckled, certain he was being teased. "Sherlock...what...you're telling me you'll turn into a..." His smile faded with his voice as Sherlock turned, nodding. "No...no Sherlock...you're not...that's not..."

Sherlock was already undressing, walking around his room, moving things away from the bed. He opened a drawer and took out a small padlocked box. Opening it, he handed it to John. "Mycroft usually stays with me but as he's away I'm afraid you'll have to do the best you can. Now draw up the Ketamine and leave it somewhere I can't reach it but you can. And load your Browning."

John again did as he was told, filling the syringe before capping it and leaving it on the small table under the framed print of the periodic table which filled almost all of the back wall of Sherlock's room. At Sherlock's urging he reluctantly loaded his gun and placed it beside the syringe. Finally he was beginning to think Sherlock wasn't winding him up and he wished he could swap places with the marooned older Holmes. Simultaneously, his phone, Sherlock's phone and their landline all rang at once.

Sherlock continued to undress and, naked, leaned over to open yet another box on his bed as John answered his phone. "John Watson...Mycroft...yes...but it's a joke, I mean...oh Christ!...I don't know...I mean...yes, all right...I'll manage."

Sherlock waved his hand at the box. "I'll need help to put the manacles on. Don't worry, they're leather-covered steel. I haven't broken them yet. Lock the padlocks and put the key somewhere only you know where it is."

John locked the cuffs around Sherlock's wrists, then his ankles, helping Sherlock to lie on his side. "Are you sure this is really necessary Sherlock. I mean..."

Interrupting John, Sherlock locked his gaze on John's worried eyes. "John, I want you to promise me. You won't let me get out of the front door."

John sighed deeply. "I promise Sherlock. Now, is there anything else I need to know?"

Sherlock was silent for a moment. "Don't touch me...and...the Ketamine...don't leave it too late. I'd rather have a puncture wound than a bullet wound." He forced a smile, for John's benefit, shivering a little in the cool room as he curled himself into a ball.

John looked over at the table, momentarily imagining what it would be like to have no choice but to shoot his flat mate, then back to Sherlock. "You're cold...do you want a blanket or something?"

Sherlock curled a little tighter and shook his head. "No...it's...fine. Um...a chair...you'll need to stay in here until dawn. Bring an armchair and a blanket so you're comfortable. And the paper or a book to keep you occupied."

*********************

For a very short time after he lay on the bed and John settled into the armchair, Sherlock continued to move around, finding the least uncomfortable position given his restricted movement.
 
Trying not to let his anxiety show, John kept mostly silent, only occasionally checking Sherlock didn't need anything.

Finally, as the hands on John's watch moved inexorably round, Sherlock lay still and quiet, eyes closing occasionally, tremors shaking his body. Except for being aware it was slowly getting dark outside, John didn't really notice anything more for a while then suddenly he heard it.

Sherlock growled.

The sound was low, soft, barely audible but it made the hairs on the back of John's neck stand up. Nervously he looked over to the tea tray on the table beside Sherlock's bed. The syringe, green plastic cap still in place over the hypodermic needle, lay within easy reach. Ketamine, originally a veterinary anesthetic, in a sufficient dose, Sherlock assured John, to be quickly effective if needed.

Sherlock rolled over a little and John looked across at him. Sherlock's pupils were dilated, his usually pale eyes darkened and he was panting softly between shivers and whimpers.

Torn between being angry at what Sherlock had done to himself and saddened for the result of Sherlock's 'experiment', unsure if he was even heard, John said softly: "It's all right Sherlock, I'm here."

A little later, John had actually begun to relax - Sherlock had almost completely given up fighting the manacles and lay on his side, moving only occasionally - when Sherlock lurched onto his knees and stared through the open bedroom door to the living room outside. John's heart thudded in his chest but Sherlock stilled again, breathing raggedly. Moments later Sherlock let out a plaintive howl. Outside the house, several dogs barked and howled in apparent response.

A moment later, Sherlock began to snarl angrily, pulling hard on the manacles, twisting his body to try and bite the bindings but with his hands behind his back and unable to reach his ankles he was unable to do more than scare John more than he'd been scared in a very long time.

Trying to keep Sherlock in view, John reached for the syringe, uncapped it and replaced it on the tray. He forced his eyes away from his Browning which lay beside it, placed there at Sherlock's insistence. He had thought it ridiculous a couple of hours ago. Now he was relieved it was nearby.

Sherlock's eyes tracked John's movements and, as Sherlock seemed to run out of steam and stilled, John reached out without thinking, resting his hand lightly on Sherlock's shoulder. "It's okay Sherlock...you're doing fine."

Sherlock snarled a warning and John snatched his hand back just quickly enough to avoid being bitten as Sherlock twisted, jaws snapping at the empty air where John's hand had been moments earlier.

Heart racing, John swallowed hard and sat back down.

*****************************

Every hour, on the hour, Mycroft called, checking John was coping. Stuck abroad - he didn't volunteer his location and John didn't ask - he was unable to get a flight home as he told John what he'd already seen on the news - the two airports Mycroft could have caught a flight to were closed due to snow.

John reassured him he was coping okay, Sherlock was fine apart from the occasional bed-shaking shudder and spine-tingling howl.

***************************

Early the next morning...

John was dozing - Sherlock had been still and silent for an hour or so, apparently no longer affected now the sun was rising slowly - and John's eyes were closing however hard he tried to keep awake.

"John?"

John started awake, looking across at the bed. "Sherlock...are you...all right?"

Sherlock smiled tiredly, nodding. "Yes...sun's up. Can you help me get these off?"

John retrieved the key from under the skull on the mantelpiece and unlocked the heavy metal-lined leather cuffs, stowing them in the box under the bed before leaving Sherlock to dress in private. He would deal later with the deep welts around Sherlock's wrists and ankles which he had glimpsed briefly.

*************************

Baker Street, mid-morning...

John pulled himself up from the sofa, where he'd been dozing, in response to several loud knocks on the front door.

"John." Without further conversation, Mycroft strode across the living room and looked through Sherlock's half-open bedroom door, careful not to make any noise.

John returned to the sofa and watched silently as Mycroft stood watching his younger brother for several minutes before walking across, standing over John, relief evident in his expression. "You both survived the night unscathed?"

"Sherlock's wrists and ankles got a bit scraped. Other than that we're fine Mycroft."

"Thank you John." Mycroft smiled a genuine smile, as quickly gone as it had appeared. "Oh, I bought you some breakfast."

John smiled tiredly and took the paper bag Mycroft held out,. "Thanks. So, the airports open again?"

Mycroft shook his head. "I managed to get aboard a...private flight."

Too tired to be more curious, John yawned and they both looked over at Sherlock's bedroom door as Sherlock called: "John? Is Mycroft still here?"

Mycroft said nothing so John confirmed: "Yes Sherlock."

"So...marooned abroad. Really? Or were you just relieved to have an excuse not to be here for once?"

Ignoring his brother's goading, Mycroft walked to the front door. "Goodbye John. And...thank you again."

John had unpacked the croissants onto a plate and found jam and butter. "Do you want to stay for breakfast?"

Mycroft shook his head. "Thank you but I ate on the plane."

John hoped his relief didn't show. He didn't exactly relish spending time making small-talk with Mycroft while Sherlock almost certainly pretended to be asleep only feet away. He was surprised, therefore, when Sherlock walked out of his room into the living room. "Is there any tea on?"

John rolled his eyes, following Mycroft to the door. "Try to stay on this continent around the next full moon."

Mycroft smiled and let himself out.

End

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