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The Vampire outing had been all the rage in London for the entire decade that had passed since that inauspicious morning in the national news, but the tone had radically changed. Recently there were groups for vampire rights and even some of them were deliberately out in public.
John remembered clearly those first years during his childhood, before the official outing, when all the rumors and the sightings were things of horror talked between adults after the children went to sleep. It was in those first years that the government created the Knightly Guard, something like a paramilitary group that patrolled the streets at night and were, allegedly, effective against vampires.
It was a while after, during his teenage years that vampire rights started to be a thing to speak about. His family was extremely against all vampire rights as it was the norm for the average British population. Vampires were dangerous, predatory, instinct-driven creatures so different from humans that it made no sense to speak about rights. The odd ones were the ones making a big deal out of it, the outcasts, the misfits, hippies life-loving-hardcore-vegans, and one or two wacky intellectuals. The kind of people that never took seriously the common thinking.
John was a simple person, an army doctor. He didn't have a strong opinion about it and he would probably have gone through his life without a care in the matter but for a vague thought, a fleeting question in the safety of his bed at night, rapidly put aside because, after all, what he had learned all his life was that Vampires are bad. Except that he met one.
They looked exactly like humans but for their eyes. No matter the color of their eyes, when the vampire suffered some emotional disruption the eyes were tinted red. Like a drop of ink that slowly mixed up with the iris colour creating a broad range of tones that looked like bright expanding drops until they settled on red. It was a beautiful sight, John thought, when he saw them shift for the first time. Honey tinted red making all the colors of the sunset. Maybe it was the shock of it, after all, he only knew in his head they were real but to encounter one was still very rare, his entire life vampires had been nothing but a hypothetical existence, like those tribes in the corners of the earth. John wasn’t easily stunned, but that day in the middle of that ruined room with the gunfire loud outside, he was paralyzed by those eyes.
The child, a bundle in the corner, was about 14 years old and carrying a baby in his arms, a sleeping and a bit dirty baby. John knew that in war it meant nothing, that 14-year-olds were no children in this land, but the boy wasn't armed and the whole area was already taken. He was no threat. Later he would realize that wasn't true at all, he wasn't armed but needed no weapons, Vampires needed nothing to kill but their bare hands. But in that first moment, he was just a normal kid, and his angry gaze and his protective stand only made him seem scared and vulnerable in his eyes, just another boy, a possible casualty of war. But not by his hand if he could help it.
He had slowly and carefully lowered his gun and approached just a couple of steps, making his utmost effort to appear non-threatening. The kid's enormous honey eyes fixed on him while he took his rations from his pack and left them on the floor. Then he'd taken the same couple of steps back and was about to be satisfied with the result when a voice interrupted the delicate procedure.
“WATSON” he'd heard the screaming of his commander and the boy jumped in his corner and his eyes shifted. And he was completely stunned. John saw the terror in his eyes when they looked back to him, and it was probably less than a few seconds before commander Sholto's second scream snapped the both of them from their trance “WATSON” he didn't hesitate. Put his finger over his lips in a clear sign to the boy and left the room before shouting back “On my way commander!” praying for the baby to remain in his quiet sleep. He reported the building clear and started the treating of the few injuries. He didn’t say a thing about the incident and acted normal, so much that it was almost like it never happened.
But a week later he had a dramatic remainder. He got shot in the shoulder, they were retreating, and he was left behind. It wasn't their fault, his team was under orders, and with the dramatic way he felt down and blacked out for hitting his head, they probably thought he was shot dead. He wasn’t. He woke up in the arms of a teenage boy, walking oh so quietly in the direction of John's camp. His shoulder was burning and tightly wrapped with a stained cloth, but it probably had been just about half an hour since he lost consciousness because otherwise the amount of blood loss would already have killed him. It hurt and he couldn't focus. The boy looked at him and smiled.
He walked them as close as he dared to the camp and then help him gently to stand in the cover of a slightly out of sight ruin. The boy was shorter than him but just a bit. John could barely stand but the camp was close enough now, his voice would carry. The kid retreated two steps from him, but not before lightly brushing his nose over the injured shoulder taking a shaky breath. longing, adoring, lovingly… blood. His eyes were red again when he looked up and the air got stuck mid-breath in John's throat. The boy smiled, put a finger upon his lips, and walked away.
The vampire boy had saved his life, yes, but unfortunately not himself. After his recovery, he was left with a tremor in his hand and a ghost pain in the leg. He was useless as a surgeon. They send him home. Or something like that. He ended up alone in London, he had never got along with his family well enough and time had served to widen the distance. Harry lived in London too but hadn’t talk to him since the time that John angrily asked her not to call until sober. About a year ago.
So there he was, in pain, alone and completely bored. Watching the news about interesting things happening around the city where he lived and could be happening at the other end of the earth for all he cared.
He put some nice comments on a few internet sites about Vampires. He did not tell his full story, John stored that in a private space in his mind. But he did say they could not be all bad, it simply was statistically wrong, pure nonsense. He considered the possibility of joining one of those activist groups, but it seemed a little too much, especially taking into account that almost none of those groups seemed to have actual vampire members. The vampires themselves remained stoically silent and in the shadows. He wasn’t against vamp rights but most of these groups were so intent on outing them that he felt it was a bit like an attempt against their privacy. Their safety.
He met his second vampire a few months later. Solved a crime with him, was abducted by the vampire's brother, fixed his limp, killed a man on the vampire's behalf, and started living together in what seemed like a matter of hours. Of course, John didn’t know at first but Sherlock Holmes would be the death of him. Sherlock Holmes with his eyes that went from the strangest shade of green-blue to violet, purple, magenta, plump, showing him all the colors in between like two small universes that finally settle red.