Work Text:
There was a strange scent in the air.
This wasn’t an altogether extraordinary occurrence; with all the various substances he kept in stock for his experiments, not to mention the amount of ephemera that they accumulated, it would have been far stranger if there weren’t any questionable odours around the flat at any given point in time.
He could usually identify just what those odours were, though. Sherlock’s unusual sensitivity in that regard was a boon and a bane. Most Duals didn’t carry anything over from their Secondaries while untransformed, but Sherlock had always been an exceptional case. Since he was young it was as if he could constantly access his wolf’s heightened sense of smell.
The overwhelming scents of a city as busy and chaotic as London gave him severe headaches as a child, but he eventually learned to adapt and use his senses to aid The Work. He could identify two hundred and forty-three types of tobacco from just the smell left behind.
This, though, was something different. The infuriating smell, slightly sour and slightly bitter, was driving him slowly mad. He’d noticed it in the early hours of the morning in the middle of one of his experiments, while the weak dawn light filtered though the window. The strange scent had made him scrap the whole thing, mistakenly thinking he’d contaminated his samples. He’d had to redo a whole night’s worth of work, and it was near noon.
And John still hadn’t come down, Sherlock realised with a start. He hadn’t seen his flatmate all morning.
He frowned, closing his eyes, and extended his other senses. He couldn’t access his more sensitive wolf-ears as easily as he could his sense of smell, but after a few seconds of concentration he heard John, moving about restlessly in the upstairs bedroom. Still in bed, though, if the rustling sheets were any indication. What was John still doing in bed? "John, we're out of tea," Sherlock called out. There was no reply.
Sherlock stood at the foot of the stairs, feeling slightly annoyed at being ignored. "John, there's a fire in the kitchen." Still nothing. He frowned, and climbed the steps up to The upstairs bedroom quickly and threw the door open.
The scent was much stronger in the room, briefly overwhelming him before he pulled back. "What's wrong with you?" Sherlock blurted out without meaning to.
John was just a head of damp, dirty blonde hair; the rest of him was hidden under his blanket. "Piss off, you git," he said, in a hoarse voice muffled by the sheet over his head. "As if you don't know the symptoms of MT."
"From the bite you got when Theo caught us three days ago? That's impossible," Sherlock scoffed. "You've been bitten multiple times before, you're immune."
John's eye twitched. "Yeah, and most of those times were your fault, ta very much. Not impossible though, just highly unlikely." John lowered his blanket slightly, just enough to peer at Sherlock, who was still standing by the doorway. "Can you seriously not tell? I thought Duals were able to sense this sort of thing."
"Well, you've certainly been stinking up the flat. The smell's very distinctive." Sherlock wrinkled his nose and frowned, coming inside the room to sit at the edge of the bed. At least he knew what the scent was, now. Mitotransformation was fairly rare; there was less than a 0.1 percent incidence rate from simple bites, and he'd never witnessed it firsthand.
John rolled his eyes and hid back under his sheet. "Well, tough. You're stuck with the smell for another two to four weeks."
Sherlock grimaced. "So I suppose we aren't going ahead with the stakeout tonight."
"You could go do it without me. Lestrade could back you up."
"No, that won't do at all," Sherlock said, waving his hand dismissively. "Lestrade's too much of a stickler for rules."
The lump under the pile of blankets gave a short laugh that turned into coughing. "I knew it wasn't just a stakeout. What were you planning, some impromptu breaking and entering?"
Sherlock didn't dignify the comment with an answer, instead poking at his flatmate through the sheets. "What does it feel like?"
"Mm. Like I spent all of yesterday running after you instead of sitting at my desk in the surgery. Cold and hot at the same time. It's very weird. Any chance you could get me tea?"
"I'm afraid not. I wasn't lying earlier."
The blankets were thrown off so suddenly that Sherlock almost fell off the bed. "You mean the kitchen really was on fire?"
"No, obviously not that, or the smoke would have obliterated the smell of your MT. I meant we really are out of tea." He paused. "I suppose Mrs. Hudson would probably have some. I'll ask her to bring something up for you."
"Ibuprofen too, if she has any. You aren't going to be doing any breaking and entering tonight, right?"
"No, not tonight. There's some research I have to finish anyway."
"Right." There was a tired sigh as John reformed his blanket cocoon. "I'm going to get a bit more sleep. You can just leave the tea and Ibuprofen on the dresser for later."
"Of course," Sherlock said, awkwardly patting the bundle twice before leaving the room.
He waited until he was in the living room before his face broke out in the sort of grin he reserved for serial killers. John was turning. In less than a month his cells would fully integrate M-type organelles, enabling him access to a proper Secondary. Sherlock had no doubt that having a partner who was both a Dual and John would be absolutely brilliant.
The transitional period was much too long for his liking, though, and he felt slightly queasy at the thought of John experiencing the pain and discomfort traditionally associated with MT.
Fine, then; he'd get John his tea and painkillers, then he could proceed with his planned research. After all, Sherlock's practical knowledge regarding the transformation process was woefully inadequate, for all that he was a born Dual. He would have to rectify that tonight.
Sherlock took a deep breath--strange, the scent had changed, somewhat, and was far more pleasant now--before heading down to Mrs. Hudson's flat.