blackmorgan:

The Wolf In The Tale ~ 221B

“Everything you have ever been told is a lie. We are born, not bitten and for every clever creature of us, we would rather be wise. We bow to no moon but time and when we take a mate, it is for life.”

John has never forgotten those words nor the choice he made on the moor that night.

Every time he oils the Sig, lays the bullets aside, he knows how close he came to taking the wrong life.

Mycroft asks him how he knew which wolf not to shoot and John says without hesitation, “The one with Sherlock’s eyes.”

The wolf across from him sips his tea. It’s suddenly all too civilized and John wonders what the brothers must have been like as boys, gangly, loping puppies ranging through the countryside.

Sherlock hastens proceedings, hurries Mycroft’s goodbyes; he wants John to himself tonight.

When he rounds upon his mate, there’s a feral gleam in his eye. Clothes have become a crime and there’s a new hunger to satisfy.

John bares his throat, lets Sherlock lick and bite. The victorious are insatiable and in the twenty-four hours since Baskerville, Sherlock has already bedded John twice.

Their third is just as fierce but neither would have it otherwise. Even the moon, bold through the window tonight, cannot tell man from beast.

Read on AO3

Tumult-In-The-Clouds’ lovely manip The Wolf Within got me thinking that there might have been more to the case in Dartmoor and Baskerville than we ever realised.