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The sun is setting as John double checks the address again, but his creased paper map and the grainy screen of his cell phone agree.
This is the place.
John turns skeptical eyes upwards at the gothic mansion looming in front of him. It looks like a film set from one of those BBC period dramas, with ornate roof spires and dark archways and stone balconies, all slowly crumbling to ruin and decay. If he squints, John’s pretty sure he can make out a gargoyle under the eaves. Even the weather has gotten in on it, the setting sun smearing red across the darkening sky and throwing long, black shadows as John hauls himself up the frankly ostentatious stone steps leading to a double-door entrance, heavy iron hinges sunk into the dark wood.
John cranes his neck, looking up and down. No mailbox, no doorbell. Not even a door knocker.
John shifts impatiently to rest more weight on his cane, clamping his arm more fully onto the file of papers he has tucked under his elbow. He’s beginning to wonder if this delivery is some kind of practical joke. A hazing ritual, maybe, like in the army.
He pounds, as loudly as he can, on the door with his fist. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
There is no answer. Only the distant cawing of a raven, and the low whistle of wind around the jagged edges of the mansion. John shakes his head, and takes a few steps back to take in the rest of the building. The many windows of the building are all unlit, the walls strangled with vines.
“Pretty sure this place was abandoned decades ago,” John mutters.
“You would be mistaken!” cries a sudden voice from above him, and John snaps his head up to see a pale man on the balcony above him, with flashing eyes and sharp cheekbones.
“I am homosexula!” cries the man, and then leaps off the bloody balcony like a nutcase, long cape flapping dramatically around him. Miraculously, the man lands unharmed, immediately rising from his crouch to approach John like a stalking cat.
“Sorry,” says John, tilting his head and refusing to give ground. “I think I misheard you. Did you say-“
“Holmes!” the man interrupts. His dark hair curls over his forehead. “Sherlock Holmes!”
John frowns. That’s the name of the man he’s supposed to give the files to, but that’s definitely not what the man first said.
“Right, but when you were jumping off the-”
The man interrupts him again, this time dropping his voice down into a low growl as he takes another step closer, close enough now to touch one another with an outstretched arm. “Why have you come, mortal? Do you seek an untimely death?”
Striking range, thinks John, and the thought sends a frisson of excitement through his body that chases away the stiff ache around his bones.
“Not particularly, no,” John says, voice calm.
“Then… do you bring news of an untimely death?” the man asks hopefully.
“I… guess so,” says John warily, and holds up the files. “I was asked to bring you these-“
Sherlock Holmes snatched the files out of his hands.
“Ha!” the man cries, flipping rapidly through the papers. “Scotland Yard, I should have known.” His eyes skim rapidly, flashing back and forth. “Two brothers, one sister, estranged… pathology report says car accident - anteroposterior compression fracture, type three.”
“Poor bastard,” mutters John. Unstable pelvic fractures are a painful business.
“Not an accident, that much is obvious,” declares Sherlock, slapping the file shut loudly. “Idiots, all of them!”
“Hey now,” says John, because Greg is a friend.
Sherlock throws him a look, raising one eyebrow. “You have met Anderson?
“Yes, but-“
“And Donovan hates me-”
“Look,” snaps John, rapidly losing his patience. “Would you stop interrupting me?”
“No,” says the man immediately. “Not unless you have something actually interesting to say.”
Jesus. “You’re a nightmare.”
“I am, yes. A monster, a fiend!” The man looms in closer. “Do you fear me?”
“I think,” John says, meeting the man’s intense stare with his own flat gaze. “You’re kind of a cunt.”
There is a brief, shocked silence, the strange man’s eyebrows flying upwards.
“…this can’t be the first time someone told you that,” says John.
“I’ve heard worse,” snaps the man immediately, as if it were a competition, and then pauses, shooting John a strange look. “Just not since… well.”
“Is this why you live in the middle of nowhere?” John asks. “Because you’re an ass to everyone you meet?”
“No, it’s.. I have a medical condition,” Sherlock says, voice stilted. For the first time since meeting the man, he sounds hesitant.
“Ah. None of my business,” says John immediately. “Sorry.”
“… you’re a medic. Nurse? No, doctor.” Sherlock abruptly declares. “And a military man! How intriguing.”
This catches John off guard. “Do you know me?”
“No!” Sherlock scoffs, and then begins speaking rapidly. “It’s obvious. Your stance is military - you’ve fallen into parade rest. You’ve got a tan, so deployed overseas, but suddenly home again. How to explain?” He points to the cane. “You were injured. You recognized the medical condition I mentioned from the pathology report, and immediately deferred to my privacy regarding health concerns. So, medical knowledge. Given your age, plus military service, you’re a medic. You frowned when I said nurse, so: doctor.”
“Wow,” says John, awestruck. “That’s brilliant!”
For the second time, Sherlock looks a bit stunned. “… you really think so?”
“Of course!” says John. How could he not be? “Is that what you do then? For the police?”
“On occasion. Whenever they’re in over their heads and have the brain cells to realize it. Of course, they have to be desperate enough to contact a vamp-” Sherlock cuts off, clears his throat. “To contact a valid and entirely reliable specialist in deduction. Which I am.” He sticks out his hand to shake. “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.”
John takes it, and is struck by how cold the man’s hand is. A circulatory issue, perhaps, he thinks. “John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. You know - when I first arrived, I could have sworn you said-“
“No time!” cries Sherlock, long legs launching himself down the pathway that John arrived from. “A murderer awaits us!”
“Us?” asks John, after a bewildered second. He has to jog to catch up. “I was just delivering the files, mate. And don’t you want to wait until morning?”
“I do my best work at night! And come on, John - don’t you want to see this through?” The man turns to grin at him, light glinting off his teeth. John notes his rather unusually pointed cuspids - almost resembling fangs. “I could use the expertise of a medical man with the nerves of a soldier,” Sherlock adds.
I could be useful, John thinks immediately, and has to physically restrain himself from immediately nodding his head up and down like an overeager puppy.
“Well,” says John, after a moment. He shrugs, as one might, when one could go either way. “I guess I haven’t got anything else on.”
But when Sherlock grins from ear to ear, John finds himself grinning right back. So much for restraint.
“You don’t need to let anyone know you’re leaving?” John thinks to ask, as they power-walk away from the creepy mansion. “No, uh, girlfriend or wife?”
Sherlock snorts. “Definite no. Not my area.”
“Oh. Then… boyfriend?”
Sherlock frowns. “I live alone. As befits my kind.”
“Oh,” says John. “So you’re like me, then.”
Sherlock’s head whips around. “You’re also a vam-“
“Single,” finishes John. “Sorry, what were you saying?”