Prologue

Just as the sun was beginning to set in the icy winter sky on a cold Friday night, John Watson found himself walking down the street by his lonesome. He'd gotten away from most of the clubs, bars, and rowdy pubs and was walking down alleyways where there happened to be a couple of people huddled together and muttering quietly to each other, and even the occasional drunk talking to himself...or a wall. He shouldn't have been walking alone, especially since it was so late, he was so tired, and nearly anyone posed a threat.

Yet as John walked on, he began to sense he wasn't alone. He glanced behind him, but all that was there was a can rolling into the middle of the alley, and so he walked on. However the feeling of being followed remained and John was becoming uneasy. You're a soldier, John reminded himself, you aren't an easy target. But as he walked on, John could hear footsteps behind him along with the slight shuffle of a coat, and John turned swiftly to face his pursuer.

That was the last thing he remembered before everything went black and John couldn't remember a thing.

Chapter One

There were myths, tales, and even books and movies about vampires, depicted as cruel, bloodthirsty creatures or even lonely and lovesick, looking for an escape to mortality. Vampires were creatures of the night, burned in the sunlight and sleeping in coffins until their hour called them to awaken to feed on the innocent, even hypnotizing others to do their bidding. Their teeth and fangs were bright white, their beauty incomparable to any other, their speed and strength unimaginable, and their eyes the most hypnotizing…but all of this, of course, was a myth, and certainly not one John Watson was willing to believe.

"Bollocks!" he would say when his friend, Mike Stamford, would tell him silly little stories and try to entertain him with devilish tales of Dracula, "Why are you interested in all this anyway? You've never been interested in that sort of rubbish before."

"It's a fascinating topic, John," Mike would argue, "You need to branch out with your interests."

However, today was different. Mike met him in the park by coincidence and kindly left the vampire business out of their chat. Instead, Mike brought up someone who had been looking for a flatmate just as John was. John had only once brought up his looking for a flatshare with someone before and despite its only being a couple days prior, maybe a week, he was surprised Mike would remember. But today, Mike was full of surprises, for he invited John to accompany him to Bart's morgue to meet this potential flatmate. John hadn't set foot in Bart's in what seemed to be ages yet he would be lying if he said he wasn't excited. He looked forward to finding out how much things have changed as well as finding out who this man Mike was telling him about was, though it was a thought he did not voice to spare himself subtle taunting from Mike.

"He'll be pleased to meet you," said Mike as they rode in the back of a cab to St. Bart's.

"Why?" John asked as he twirled his hand around his cane.

"He's been looking for a flatmate for awhile now, and he's good fun. He'll be glad to have a friend around."

"And I'll be his friend?"

"Well flatmates don't always have to be friends—"

"Who said I wanted to be his flatmate?"

Mike sighed and rolled his eyes as he looked to John, "Just give him a chance. He deserves one just as much as you do."

John sighed and sank back into the seat. Stamford was right, but what if this man thought lesser of him because of his injuries and the fact that he walked with a cane? What if he just didn't like John altogether? It didn't matter in the end, though, did it? John would be back to searching for a flatmate and scraping along to live in his little apartment in London on an army pension if anything went wrong or neither of them wanted to give the other a chance. He had to at least try to see past the surface, right?

Finally, they arrived at Bart's, the cabbie was paid, and John followed Mike up to the morgue. The hospital seemed to look the same since John had been in it last, but as he walked on, it had changed more than he expected. It was more advanced and the obvious new staff that were running about minding their own business save the select few that bid Mike a good morning. Only one or two may have recognized John or acknowledged him as they made their way to the morgue, but he paid hardly any mind to them.

"Are you sure about this?" John asked just as they stopped outside the morgue doors.

"Yes," Mike answered, "he's a…polite fellow. Just come on, John."

Before John could argue, Mike opened the door and John stepped through with an acknowledgement as to how different the morgue looked from when he'd last been there as a student. He didn't exactly care about the things in the room at all (even if some specimens were particularly interesting), it was the tall, pale man with black curls atop his head standing at the end of the table over a Petri dish. John was awestruck. He'd never seen a man that looked quite like that: seemingly without a flaw and absolutely—

"Ah, Mike," said the man, his voice deeper than his face suggested, "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Needed to stop by for something from my office," he answered as he took a seat across the room, leaving John to stand by himself at the other end of the table, "This is an old colleague and a friend of mine, John Watson."

The man looked up to John and offered him a short, small smile before dropping it and looking him over and finally turning back to his work. John looked at Mike who was wearing a broad knowing smile which, in truth, surprised him. What was he up to?

"Pleasure," the man said as he carefully squeezed two drops of something that smelled like alcohol on the Petri dish, and the substance began to sizzle just as the man turned to face John again, "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John's face fell immediately and he did a double-take between Mike and the man.

"Wha—You told him about me?" John accused.

"Not a word," Mike vowed.

"Afghanistan…h-how did you—"

"You're looking for a flatmate, too," the man said," Just the man to fill the vacancy."

John stared at him and couldn't help a disbelieving smirk that quirked his lips, "Who said anything about flatmates?"

"I did. This morning when I passed Mike on my way to the morgue, I mentioned I must be a difficult…man to find a flatmate for."

Mike glanced between the two with a smirk on his face still. John was confused as to why Mike was looking so pleased with himself and why the man seemed interested in him yet at the same time completely uninterested in the two of them in the room at all. The man was still working on whatever it was he was doing, now sliding a small slide into a microscope, and John felt like he was intruding on something very intimate when he watched him work.
"Looking for something?" the man asked suddenly and made eye contact with John.

"Er…no, not really—"

"I thought you said you were looking for a flatmate. Living in London on an army pension must be difficult to live by."

John stared at him, clenched his jaw, and swallowed hard as he cocked his head to the side, as if daring the man to say more.

"I'm looking for a flatmate, you're looking for a flatmate, and Mike has conveniently brought you by for a meet-and-greet. You're an army doctor, everything about you says that. The way you hold yourself, your limp that is merely psychosomatic which would prove your therapist correct—"

"Who said I have a therapist?"

"Limp and army doctor, and you've recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan, of course you've got a therapist. Trained at Bart's too, I assume. You're rather familiar with the setup here though it may be different from a few years ago. You don't sleep well nights, the bags under your eyes suggest so, and you tend to eat very little which is suggested—"

"How could you possibly know all this?"

"I observe."

"Observe?"

The man shifted his eyes towards the heavier man sitting across the room and Mike's face fell as he let the man look him over for just a second.

"Mike took a walk in the park earlier this morning and had coffee judging by the stains on the corners of his lips and the slight bit of grass stuck to his shoe. He took a shortcut across the park, possibly to catch up to you since you too have bits of dirt still on your cane that is not from upper London where I assume you live. He had a tart for breakfast judging by the crumbs on the collar of his coat, so he ate in a hurry and I think that's enough to be going on, don't you think?"

John stared at him and Mike was grinning to himself, his cheeks tinted pink and his ears a bit as well. The man grinned and turned suddenly to sweep up his coat and throw it over his shoulders and tie a navy blue scarf around his slender, pale neck before walking by John towards the door.

"Sorry, I've got to dash," he said, "Molly will be back soon to inspect it for me. I'm needed elsewhere."

"Hang on," John called to stop him, "I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

Mike and the man shared a tiny smile that would normally go undetected, but John was so worked up with irritation and confusion and fascination that it would've surprised him if he missed it.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street. Afternoon, gents."

And with that, he left, and John Watson was left standing with an old friend and a tiny smirk on his face.

He was going to have quite an adventure living with this man, Sherlock Holmes.