AN: Bits and pieces from the Vampire!Saguru AU. Which somehow never got posted to FFN? 2016 waves hello to 2019. The world isn't much brighter than it was then anyway.

A reminder that in this universe, before Saguru took on the name of Saguru, his first life was under the name Sheridan.

*o*O*o*

Sheridan's locked in his room again. Today the sun felt too bright. Yesterday it was scents. A lot of days it's the scents. It isn't something to be discouraged by; he has been informed that he is adjusting admirably. It doesn't feel like he's adjusting well. He almost bit his aunt yesterday when she cut her finger making dinner. If he had hurt her he would never have forgiven himself.

He paces. There is little else to do when he is so restless. In the past he would study, but studying feels impossible now. The thought of trying to force printed words to make sense is absurd. The same change that makes tracking prey so much easier (humans, they are humans and using the word prey makes it worse even if it is the word the Professor uses) makes it harder to read but oddly easier to do anything that requires hand and eye coordination. Sheridan could probably perform surgery in the dark with his new eyes and have the muscle control to stitch a patient down to fractions of millimeters, but he won't.

The book on anatomy is still on the bedside table next to his oil lamp, its stamped leather cover from the secondhand shop seems to be mocking him.

Sheridan crosses the room inhumanly fast and snatches it up, intent on throwing it, maybe into the fireplace or maybe out the window, he hasn't decided yet. Or maybe he will rip it in two—that's something he probably could have accomplished even before his strength changed. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that the medical track isn't possible anymore. Sheridan has acceptance letters. Everyone is starting the term now and he is locking himself in rooms because he doesn't have enough control to handle himself otherwise.

He snarls at the book and scares himself with the realization—again—that he has fangs and that they are sharp. His lip bleeds.

At last moment instead of destroying it or throwing it away, he turns and slams it back into place on his bookshelf. The shelf judders from the force. The miniature globe—Father's—tips and Sheridan catches it before it can break on the ground.

He takes a deep breath, two, three, almost dizzy on oxygen and places it carefully on its usual perch next to Mother's Oriental vase. A vase that the older Sheridan got, the more he doubted was actually Oriental no matter how Mother had admired it. It held more sentimental value than anything else like the few other keepsakes he had from them. Aunt Maeve had most of them and that was as it should be. Mother had been her sister before she was Sheridan's mother.

The Professor—always "the Professor" because as of yet Sheridan doesn't care to use his name, not when he doesn't use Sheridan's name—had warned that Sheridan would have trouble controlling emotions. It is one thing to know this intellectually and another to live it.

The hunger likely is not helping, but he is reluctant to hunt. He is not confident that he can use the hypnosis the Professor showed him and even less confident he can keep from damaging a person lethally.

("A test run," the Professor said when he sent Sheridan home. "Survive for a week and keep a log on your progress. At the end of the week we will choose what to focus on to reintegrate you into the world." 'We' he said, as if Sheridan had any participation in this.)

He will hunt tonight. He will not take Aunt Maeve up on her offer of blood.

Sheridan sits on his bed and goes through the steps of reminding himself he is a calm, rational being, and how a calm rational being acts. If he repeats it enough, he should be able to emulate it whenever he finds his control slipping. If the mantra is not enough, he does not know what will be. (Let it be enough).