Love of Heaven and Hell

Werewolves of Maryland

"Victor?" Sherlock called as John entered the room, now getting his gun out, but it was obvious there was no wolf, and no Victor.
"Where could he have gone?" Sherlock asked, turning back to John, the tears welling up in his eyes obvious. Now the shotgun in his hand didn't look as impressive, he didn't look as tough as he might have wanted. Sherlock looked pale, helpless even, like he had just lost the thing he held most dear. John should've felt sorry for him of course, and he did, Sherlock shouldn't look this sad, but the promise of a Victor free life was quite tempting.
"I don't know, there's no sign of a struggle." John pointed out, looking around the room for any scratch marks or blood, but it was just the same as they had left it.
"We've got to look, the wolf might've brought him to its lair, are there mountains or something around here?" Sherlock asked.
"Werewolves don't live in the mountains, they're normal people remember?" John pointed out. Sherlock looked panic stricken; he obviously had no idea how to save his only love.
"What, what do we do?" he asked in a weak, defeated voice. John sighed, the temptation was strong, but after one look into Sherlock's eyes he knew that he had no choice but to go after Victor.
"Fine, let's go." John decided, stuffing his gun back into his waistband and jogging out the door. Sherlock was right behind him, but just as he was grabbing for the door handle he heard a shriek behind him. John whipped out his gun and aimed straight at...Victor. Sherlock ran towards him in glee, flinging his arms around his neck and holding him just for a moment before letting the poor boy breathe.
"Where were you?" Sherlock demanded, holding Victor at arm's length.
"I was looking for the free food, I suppose they only do breakfast, I'm famished." Victor admitted. "You weren't worried were you, mother's dead is she not?"
"Oh she's dead all right." John agreed, grabbing the fast food bags out of the backseat and slamming the door shut.
"What do you mean by that, you killed her right?" Victor asked, looking more at Sherlock than John of course.
"She was already dead, I'm sorry." Sherlock muttered. A look of surprise washed over Victor's face, but it wasn't upset or scared, he looked like the death of his mother was the next Christmas.
"That's a shame; I wish you had the honor of killing her." He muttered, but a small smile spread across his face.
"You know, she is your mother, without her you wouldn't be here." John pointed out.
"True, without her I wouldn't have lived my entire life chained to a pipe in her basement." Victor agreed.
"Without her, you wouldn't be here, is that not enough?" Sherlock asked, looking upset that Victor didn't see it that way. Then again, John would love if Victor's mom wasn't alive, then he wouldn't be, and then Sherlock might still be oohing and awing over his sob story instead of Victor's. Why was he so jealous? John really couldn't say. Maybe it was because the first person he had ever dared to bring on a mission with him was so worried about someone else, or because Victor was a bit of an attention hog, or because he seemed dangerous, uncaring, Sherlock may be crying over his well being, but something told John that if Sherlock died all Victor would do was call the suit shop attendant up for a drink. Obviously John wasn't jealous in the relationship way, he wasn't attracted to Sherlock in anyway, in no way did those beautiful green eyes sway him, or his pale skin in contrast with his dark, chocolate curls... John's thought process was squashed when Sherlock gave Victor another hug and lead him into the hotel room, their fingers dangling together like a weak, uncertain web. John's stomach twisted and he clutched the fast food bags so ferociously that he almost ripped them in two. John may not have been too secretive about his anger; he closed the door so hard that the slam shook the two love birds back to reality.
"John, are you okay?" Sherlock asked. This might have been taken as a nice question if he hadn't been sitting so close to Victor that he was practically on his lap.
"Dinner." John snapped, throwing two of the bags at the two and leaving one for himself.
"John, don't be upset." Sherlock muttered. "It's not your fault the wolf got away."
"In a way it is." John pointed out. Because certainly, this was what he was upset about, not the fact that you were hooking up with any guy in a thirty mile radius that would display any signs of a traumatizing childhood.
"What exactly happened?" Victor asked, merely nibbling on his burger even though he had claimed to be famished.
"We got in there, the door was wrecked, and upstairs a wolf was tearing at your mother and then jumped out of the window before I could do anything." John sighed.
"Oh, that's awful." Victor sighed, but he didn't look too fazed by it.
"Is there anyone you know who would want your family dead?" Sherlock asked.
"Child protection agencies?" Victor suggested.
"Seriously Victor, you're in danger, there's a werewolf that killed your mother, who ended up not being a wolf after all..." John pointed out.
"Who said she wasn't a wolf?" Victor demanded.
"Wouldn't a werewolf be able to defend itself from another?" John debated.
"Not if the other was stronger. She's a werewolf, I'd bet my life on it, it just so happened that she wasn't the only one in the family." Victor pointed out.
"There's another one? Why didn't you tell us this before?" Sherlock asked, dropping the French fry he was about to eat back into the bag.
"I didn't think of it before, but the wolf mother was bitten by, it wasn't some random happening, and this wolf has been dead for ever..."
"Who is it?!" John demanded. Victor jumped a little bit, and Sherlock looked at John with shock, but Victor went right back to his dramatic story telling.
"Grandmother." He sighed.
"What?" John asked, expecting something a lot more probable.
"My grandmother was a wolf, mother told me so, that her own mother had bitten her, that her own mother was bitten by hers, it's like a creepy family thing, but Grandmother stopped killing as soon as she had my mother." Victor pointed out. Suddenly puzzle pieces in John's head clicked together, it all made sense.
"How old was your mom?" John asked.
"64." Victor muttered.
"64! Don't you get it Sherlock, the murder of Mr. Trevor was the only heart missing occurrence in 64 years, grandma killed everyone, but once mom came around she didn't kill again, bit the mom, but obviously they didn't want to expose their hierarchy of werewolves, so they locked themselves in the bathroom, it all makes sense!" John said with excitement. This was the best part of cases, when everything fits together nicely, when the secrets were solved, but...
"How could a dead werewolf kill someone? And why would she kill her own daughter?" John asked. Victor sighed.
"I would like to say that I have all the answers, but my best guess is that Grandmother didn't want Mother to get violent. She killed father, so Grandmother gets revenge, eliminates the threat to their kind." Victor guessed.
"Can there be a ghost of a werewolf?" Sherlock asked curiously, as if John had all the answers as well.
"I don't know, I've never seen one before to be honest." John shrugged.
"I'm sure there's a lot you haven't seen." Victor guessed, his voice sounding snappy and judgmental.
"I've seen things rip their skin off themselves, I've seen innocent people get their throat cut out, I've murdered the things that haunted your nightmares, do you really want to test me?" John demanded. Without meaning to he grabbed for his gun, flashing the metallic barrel in Victor's direction, aimed for the middle of his forehead.
"WHOA!" Sherlock exclaimed, jumping off of the bed and acting as a human shield for Victor. "John, calm down!" he insisted. John felt like he himself was going to wolf out, start tearing at Victor's unthankful throat, how dare he think that just because he was captured meant that he knew more about the paranormal world? John took a deep breath, but he'd never shoot Sherlock. He lowered his gun, stuffing it in his pocket, grabbed his laptop, and stormed out of the door. John didn't know where he was going, but he had about fifty bucks on him and a buzzing head of anger. John slammed the accelerator and was out of that hotel parking lot before Sherlock could run outside to try to stop him, this was all too much right now, he needed a drink. John drove through the town, but it wasn't hard to find the only bar. For one it was the only shop on the street with lights, and second there were cars parked and people stumbling around the sidewalk. John pulled up onto the curb, not caring about parking laws or whatever else this township wanted to challenge him with; he grabbed the laptop and stormed inside. The place was packed, mostly with men with the occasional tormented woman. John sat in a booth in the back and turned the laptop on, flagging down a waiter and ordering a scotch with his scarce dollar bills. John was extremely happy to see that the bar supplied Wi-Fi, because what better to do than research the ghosts of werewolves? The bar was alive with neon lights, games of pool, betting, smoking, and drinking, and here John was, completely alone, researching sacrilegious nightmare creatures while mentally shooting his friend's boyfriend. What a life a hunter had, huh? He couldn't tell why he was so fed up with Victor, honestly he was a nice kid, only doing what he thought was right and really he probably hadn't had much social skills growing up, seeing as he was in a basement for his entire life. But the way Sherlock looked at him, the way he constantly worried over him, and how he would defend him no matter what, it was sickening to John. His mind wandered back to nine or so years ago, all the way back then, when he thought his love life would be a breeze... he took another sip of scotch, cursing his past self. And this wasn't even his love life; this was simply Sherlock, his best friend, nothing more. Ghosts of werewolves, there were no sights that offered except the Scooby Doo fan club, which he had to say were the weirdest band of believers. But someone had claimed to see a 'werewolf ghost', on all four legs with fur, ears, the whole deal. What a load of rubbish. They were all high, he was almost certain. John supposed that it could be possible, angry spirits could rise from the grave as long as they had a restless spirit. Technically werewolves were humans once, so what's to say they couldn't come back to haunt as well? What a twisted, messed up life he had. Another sip of scotch for his regretful life. He wished he could look up and see Sherlock sitting in front of him, smiling innocently as he poked the ice cubes in his drink with the straw. He would smile up at John, make a lame joke about werewolves and laugh about it himself, and that would be enough to make John crack a smile... Another long sip, just to get those hopeful thoughts out of his mind. Sherlock wasn't here, he was with Victor, living it up, they've probably shared their first kiss by now, giggling to each other and getting lost in each other's eyes. John groaned, feeling as though he could just ram his head into the wood siding on the walls to get life over with. It would be a lot easier. Well, not much longer anyway. John stayed there until eleven, researching all he could about these werewolf ghosts even though there was basically nothing on them. They simply hadn't existed until now. So he closed his laptop lid and drained his glass, which had been filled far too many times, and drove shakily home. Yes, yes, yes, no drinking and driving, but considering John had done far more dangerous things something that stupid simply didn't apply to him. Thankfully he got safely to the parking lot and parked the car, groaning as he watched the door of their hotel room. Part of him hoped Sherlock would come running out, the other part hoped that Victor would come running out with his head partially severed. But the door was motionless, in fact, nothing moved in that parking lot except him. John stared at the parking lot, it was a bit fuzzy, but it was dark, and it was depressing. Was this what his life had become? He, who had some of the best grades in high school but no college to his name? He, whose entire life was a lie and a cheat, every single pack of gum he bought was stealing; he who sat in a parking lot wishing his love would stop loving someone else? John slept in the back of his car that night, balling up his leather jacket like a pillow, just as Sherlock had done back when John's name meant something to him except a disruption to his love fest with Victor? John grimaced at the name, but deep in his heart he wished that Sherlock could be here with him now, snuggled together in the safety of the leather backseat, ignoring the world and the monsters that lurked in its shadows.