Chapter Text
James was, quite frankly, bored.
Of humans. Of Oxford. Of life in general. Of this… facade. In his years of living—or, rather, the opposite—he had become quite an expert in the art of deception. He attended lectures with meticulous diligence, argued over philosophy as though eternity did not await him, and smiled often enough to appear harmless. He declined invitations to late suppers with excuses pre-prepared, disappeared before dawn under the pretense of solitary walks, and mastered the delicate balance of never seeming quite ill enough to invite concern nor healthy enough to attract envy. It was exhausting work, preserving the illusion of humanity day after day.
The hunger only complicated matters.
The Oxford countryside teemed with creatures unfortunate enough to cross his path—rabbits, foxes, the occasional deer or pig that had sustained him since boyhood. They dulled the ache, little more. Animal blood quietened the beast without satisfying it, leaving a persistent emptiness that settled beneath his ribs like a winter frost. It was a life of measured restraint, of constant calculation, of pretending the thirst was no more troublesome than an inconvenient headache. He had grown accustomed to it. One learns, after enough years, to mistake survival for living.
Routine followed routine. Lectures. Essays. Libraries. Scholars. Whiskey. The careful maintenance of a life that was never truly his. Days blurred together until even centuries might have struggled to distinguish one from another. Had anyone asked, James would have declared himself perfectly content.
Well, he would have been lying.
Then Sherlock Holmes wandered into his life with the sort of impossible curiosity that ought to get him killed. James expected fear, revulsion perhaps. At the very least, a sensible retreat once the impossible had revealed itself. Instead, Sherlock had regarded him with infuriating fascination, as though discovering that one’s closest acquaintance was a vampire merely presented a particularly engaging intellectual puzzle. Where another man would have fled, Sherlock asked questions. Where another would have reached for a crucifix, Sherlock had reached for a notebook.
It was, James reluctantly admitted, the most interesting thing that had happened to him in years.
Somehow, against every instinct either of them ought to have possessed, curiosity became conversation, conversation became companionship, and companionship settled into a trust so improbable that neither could quite explain where it had begun. Sherlock kept James’ secret with the same unwavering certainty that he pursued every mystery, while James, in turn, proved remarkably unwilling to become the monster everyone expected him to be. There existed, after all, a considerable difference between feeding… and killing.
Every other evening, beneath the cover of darkness and behind a firmly locked door, Sherlock offered his wrist with the absent-minded patience of a man lending a friend a favourite book. It was an arrangement that defied reason, propriety, and nearly every law of nature. Yet it worked. James no longer hunted with the desperation of starvation, and Sherlock remained irritatingly alive to remind him when his deductions were flawed. Perhaps that was why Moriarty had not yet considered leaving.
Today was no different.
James’ gaze lifted from his mathematics assignment when the door creaked open. Sherlock entered their shared dorm with an armful of books threatening to spill onto the floor, his scarf hanging half-unravelled from his shoulders. He nudged the door shut with his heel, crossed to the desk where James was sat, and deposited the precarious stack onto the tabletop (his side) with a satisfied sigh.
“I’ve concluded,” he announced before so much as greeting James, “that Professor Thompson is either conducting experiments in secret or having an affair.”
James’ pen resumed writing away. “Good evenin’ to you as well.”
Sherlock simply gave him a smile as he shrugged off his coat and draped it across the back of the chair James had kept free for him.
James’ pen faltered not long after. The hunger was a patient thing. It did not roar as poets imagined, nor did it overwhelm him in some dramatic frenzy; it lingered. A dull, ceaseless ache beneath his breastbone, growing sharper with every passing hour. His senses stretched taut in response—the scrape of footsteps in the corridor became deafening, the scent of warm blood through the walls impossible to ignore, every heartbeat within several yards announcing itself with relentless insistence; Sherlock’s pulse obviously being the most prominent.
Holmes did not miss the slight stutter in James’ handwriting. Then, with the same casualness as one might remark upon the weather, he asked, “Hungry?”
James regarded him for a long moment. It was extraordinary, he thought, how a single word could have transformed over the months. Once, it had been an accusation waiting to happen, edged with fear and uncertainty. Now it was little more than habit. Concern, perhaps. An acknowledgment of necessity.
“A little.”
Sherlock rolled his left sleeve up to his elbow, more occupied with recounting a point from one of his books than with the action itself. He sat on the edge of James’ mattress.
“I have been considering,” he began, “whether your kind experiences any physiological changes after feeding. Increased body temperature, perhaps. Improved reflexes. It would be interesting to measure.”
James laughed, a genuine chuckle bubbling from his chest. The first time had been entirely different. James had refused until hunger made refusal impossible. Sherlock had insisted with a stubbornness that bordered upon offensive, having concluded that a controlled feeding was preferable to allowing him to stagger into the woods half-starved. Now, months later, Sherlock merely reminded him if he happened to lose track of the date.
“You are… the strangest human I’ve ever met.”
Sherlock, without another word, extended his left arm to James. Moriarty’s gaze settled on the offered wrist.
There it was again. The hunger had lurked at the corners of his thoughts all day. Now, with warm, living blood scarcely a metre away, it stirred in earnest. His senses sharpened involuntarily—he could hear the steady cadence beneath Sherlock’s skin. Calm, unwavering, so familiar that James could have recognised it amongst a thousand beating hearts.
He shifted onto the bed beside Sherlock, hand closing around the other man’s wrist almost tenderly. His dark gaze lifted to eye Sherlock once again, as though asking if he was truly sure.
“You are thinking too much,” Sherlock said, moving his wrist further up.
James huffed out a breath, before lifting Sherlock’s arm properly up to James’ face. His fangs pricked against his bottom lip almost painfully now. He nudged his nose against the man’s wrist—feeling, hearing, smelling the rush of blood beneath pale skin. Moriarty let out a shaky sigh. His gaze never left Sherlock’s.
With barely-held-back restraint, James swallowed and asked, “Can I try somethin’ new?”
Sherlock blinked down at him. “Like what?”
James hesitated, before pulling away from his friend’s wrist.
“Feedin’ from yer neck.”
Sherlock frowned. “The carotid?”
James nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing with another swallow. “The pulse is stronger. It is… easier.”
Sherlock’s blue eyes seemed to pierce right through James’ own. “I see.”
“… the wrist…” James searched for words with unusual care. “Imagine tryin’ to satisfy one’s thirst by drinkin’ through a quill. It works, but… the hunger has far longer to remind ya it exists.”
Sherlock thought for a moment, simply staring at him. Then, he replied at last, “Okay.”
“Okay?” James raised his brows. “I was expectin’ to do a lot more convincin’.”
“Lucky for you, my curiosity is on your side.”
James smiled an almost wolfish grin, fangs glinting in the dim candlelight of the room. He shifted closer to Sherlock, their faces mere centimetres apart. He gazed into his friend’s eyes, the hand not holding Sherlock’s wrist moving up to cradle the back of his neck almost gingerly. And then, slowly, he leaned in.
Moriarty’s nose pressed into the warm skin of Sherlock’s neck first, the flutter of the man’s heartbeat ringing in his own ears louder than a million drums. His lips brushed against the pulse point, and he felt Sherlock shiver. But he did not comment. He merely sunk his fangs into skin.
Sherlock’s breath hitched, and his pulse quickened, which was normal given the… position. James released his wrist, instead lavishing attention onto the column of his neck, free hand coming to hold Sherlock steady by his waistcoat. Sherlock’s own fingers curled into the fabric of James’ jacket, tugging subconsciously at the lapels.
And then came the sweet, coppery taste of Sherlock’s blood. James retracted his fangs from the skin once the puncture was deep enough, now moving to gently lap at the crimson liquid slowly oozing out. Sherlock let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh when James began sucking softly on the wounds, coaxing more of that blood out.
“Is this okay..?” James queried, pulling away just enough to look up at Sherlock. He stared right down at him—apparently, he had been staring the whole time.
“Your pupils are dilated,” Sherlock noted, huffing out another breath when James licked the wounds again. “Enlarged to almost… twice their usual size.”
James grinned against his neck, fangs dragging along his skin but not hard enough to pierce it again. His fingers gently ran through the strands of hair at his nape. “Are they?”
Sherlock nodded. He was wonderfully flushed now, despite how the blood should have been rushing away from his head. His hold on James’ coat tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Your body seems to be relaxing.” His voice remained remarkably neutral despite the intimacy of the situation.
“I would hope so,” James huffed a laugh against Sherlock’s neck, goosebumps rising from the skin in turn, “or I’m suckin’ the blood out of ya for nothin’.”
Somehow, Sherlock managed a faint smile. His pulse fluttered under James’ mouth, the initially languid rhythm settling into something faster. Another small, nearly inaudible noise rumbled in his throat—probably unintentional—before James rather reluctantly pulled away.
He absentmindedly licked the blood off of his lips, not forgetting to savour the taste, before reaching into his pocket and producing a handkerchief. He pressed it against the puncture holes in Sherlock’s skin.
“Hold it there.”
Sherlock let go of the fabric of James’ clothes, his chest rising and falling faster than it had been previously. His hand came up to press the cloth into his skin, while his gaze followed James’.
“Do ya feel… alright?” James asked. Sherlock nodded and immediately moved to stand up.
“I feel entirely—”
He had scarcely taken a few steps before the room seemed to shift beneath him. His hand caught the edge of the desk, more from instinct than panic, and he briefly shut his eyes. James was beside him before Sherlock had fully realised he had moved.
“Sit.”
“I merely… stood too quickly.”
“Sit,” James insisted.
“It will pass.”
“I know it will.” James’ voice was even, but carried the unmistakable tone of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “Sit down before ya demonstrate Newton’s laws by introducin’ yer skull to the floorboards.”
Sherlock cracked open an eye.
“… that was almost concern.”
“It was self-interest.” James gave him an exasperated look. “Now sit. Lest ye collapse and ruin the aesthetic of my evenin’.”
“Forgive me for my human-ness,” Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Hopefully my losing blood to feed you isn’t an inconvenience.”
James let a small grin stretch across his lips, finally pushing Sherlock to take a seat on the edge of the mattress. “Nah. Yer mortality is the very thing that makes this interestin’. A machine does not bleed; a statue does not flush; a corpse does not offer me such delightful sarcasm while half-conscious.”
“I’m blushing.” Sherlock canted his head upward and smiled at the other man, who made his way to get a glass of water—not whiskey—and returned to thrust it into Sherlock’s hand. He also had in his hand the remains of the bread Sherlock had abandoned at luncheon.
“Drink.” James lifted the bread. “Then eat.”
Sherlock inspected the glass. “I do not believe bread possesses miraculous restorative properties.”
“No,” James replied, “but your body is attempting to replace what I have just taken from it.”
Sherlock looked at the slice with mild resignation. “… I preferred you when you simply bit me.”
James gave him a lazy grin, moving to lounge on the bed next to Sherlock, hunger sated for the time being. He watched with quiet vigilance as Sherlock drank and then took little bites of his bread, until the colour had fully returned to Sherlock’s face.
“I shall adjust,” James spoke at last.
“Adjust what?”
“How much I take.”
Sherlock turned to him with a frown, still chewing his food. “There is no need. It was only a little dizziness.”
“It was avoidable.”
Holmes regarded him steadily. Then, “You know, for someone who insists human lives are of limited consequence…”
“Yours isn’t,” James interrupted before he finished. The words emerged so simply that neither of them seemed prepared for it. Sherlock’s gaze held his, before finally finishing his food. James took it as an opportunity to change the subject.
“There,” James declared, rising to retrieve the empty glass just as Sherlock set it upon the bedside table. “You look considerably less corpse-like.”
“I should hope so.”
“It woulda been awkward explainin’ your death to the college.”
Sherlock grinned. “You would have fabricated something suitably dramatic.”
“I’d’ve blamed the consumption,” James smiled, flashing his fangs.
Sherlock laughed. And James decided, not for the first time, that it was a sound worth preserving.
Routine had a curious way of disguising the impossible until even the extraordinary began to feel ordinary.