Summary: Sherlock and John encounter a dangerous vampire-like murderer at a dress party.
Warnings: Brief mention of rape. There are some really nasty descriptions of blood drinking, so if you're not into that graphic stuff, you might want to skip that paragraph :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, only the specific plotlines that I write. All rights go to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss.
A/N: Please review/follow/favorite! I would appreciate it so much!
I'm American and I've never been to London, so I try to keep it as British as possible, but I apologize in advance for all of the American tendencies that might be in the writing.
Thanks to Starcross123 who brought this idea to me!
Also, should I switch to a first person writing perspective (both John's and Sherlock's, I would switch it up)? Or should I keep it third person? Please let me know in a review! Thanks!
"I never thought that Sherlock Holmes would willingly go to a party," John remarked as Sherlock came out of his bedroom decked out in his best suit. His hair was slicked back with gel and John had to keep from laughing at his friend, who looked strange without his mop of curls.
"For the last time, John, I'm not attending the party for my personal amusement," Sherlock retorted, looked scandalized at the very prospect of attending a party for "fun".
A recent chain of serial killings had piqued Sherlock's interest; they were in the fashion of a vampire, it seemed - the victim would be found quite dead, drained of blood. The crime scenes were extremely gruesome (to Sherlock's delight); the poor victim was pale and stained with their own blood.
They were close to solving the mystery. Sherlock had deduced somehow - John wasn't quite sure how he had figured this out, but he trusted his friend - that the killer (whoever it was, they weren't sure) would be attending a dress party that evening. Ironically, it was a vampire theme, but John supposed that the vampire-like murderer wouldn't be attending the party if he didn't kill by draining the victim's blood. He chalked it up to being some sort of twisted inside joke.
Thus, Sherlock and John were attending the vampire themed party. It was an annual event outside of London, hosted by a rich couple that put it on every year at their mansion. Sherlock had managed to snag two invitations. Guests were expected to dress like vampires, but according to Sherlock, they wouldn't be dressing with fangs and capes - it would be more similar to a Twilight vampire. They'd dress sharp, maybe put on a bit of paling makeup, and style their hair nicely. The women would wear red lipstick; rather, there weren't dorky party props.
Sherlock scowled at his reflection.
"If this weren't for a case, I would detest the fact that we're going to be socializing tonight," he assured John. He gave him a double look. "I don't think I've ever seen you in something that's not a jumper," he noted, smirking slightly.
"Ha, ha," John said sarcastically. "I feel bloody ridiculous, though,". He was wearing his only nice button-up, which was white, and black pants. He hadn't gelled back his hair like Sherlock but just combed it backwards. However, as they climbed into the cab to make their way to the vampire-themed party, he wished that he had made more of an effort to look vampire-y. Next to Sherlock, he felt stupid (not that that was anything new). Sherlock seemed to have been made to dress up like a vampire - his sharp features, pale skin, dark hair, and skinny, tall figure was akin to how John imagined a vampire appearing.
They rode out of the city and past the suburbs. The sun was setting as they rode so that the cab was bathed in an orange glow. The blinding sunbeams inhibited any sort of view out of the west side of the vehicle. The sky turned from pale to vibrant orange then to a purple as the world darkened with night.
"Remember, John," Sherlock murmured as they turned up onto a rural hill. "The killer could be anyone, and there will be at least a hundred and fifty guests - this is a huge house and party. I'll be narrowing down my suspects, but obviously it will be more difficult to deduce people because everyone will be in costume. Likely the killer will pick a new victim tonight since this is an inside joke to him, and if he follows his usual schedule, he's due for another murder tonight."
"I know. Sherlock, be careful, too - I don't want you to be his victim," John said. Sherlock only rolled his eyes.
The party was more elaborate than John could've thought possible. Lanterns hung everywhere, the lights were dimmed, fake blood stains decorated the floors, and there was even a small orchestra with a few violinists playing eerie music. At least a hundred people were already in the mansion when Sherlock and John arrived, so they slipped into the party hardly noticed.
"Look at him," Sherlock muttered in a low voice.
"Did you find the killer already?" John whispered back, astounded at his friend's prowess.
"What? No, of course not. Look at the violinist on the far right. He scarcely knows how to do vibrato," Sherlock said scathingly. "I wish I had brought my violin."
Just then, an older woman approached them.
"I don't think I've ever seen you here before," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Sarah. My husband is on the other end of the house, I'm afraid, but I'll be sure to introduce you to him later."
John shook her hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm John, and this is my friend Scott."
Sherlock had already told John that he wanted to remain anonymous, so they had decided to call him "Scott" for the evening.
Sherlock smiled warmly at the woman to play his part as just another guest at the party. "So lovely to meet you. We're friends of Teddy's. I was so glad to be invited, and this party is absolutely brilliant!"
John couldn't help but marvel at how Sherlock could switch his personality in an instant to act a role for a case. Teddy was the nephew of the hosts that Sherlock had befriended short-term in order to receive invitations.
"Well, nice to meet you, Scott and John," Sarah said happily. "I'll be moving around to greet other guests. By the way, Scott, your costume is wonderful - I wouldn't be surprised if you were an actual vampire!" She guffawed unnecessarily loudly, patting "Scott" on the shoulder, then moved on. The second that she had turned away, Sherlock's smile vanished off of his face.
"Alright, John, you start in the sitting room. Tell me if anyone is suspiciously quiet, twitchy, aggressive, anything out of the ordinary. I'm going to start in the living room. We'll meet back here in ten minutes." He dashed off, leaving John in the entry area. John watched him, open-mouthed - how was he supposed to determine who was suspicious in the sitting room with only ten minutes? - before obeying his flatmate's orders and making his way over.
Fortunately, the sitting room only had about ten people in it. John doubtfully tried to apply Sherlock's methods and deduce them, but when his mind came with absolutely nothing, he resorted to his gut feeling and trying to read their body language. He dearly hoped that he could return to Sherlock with some sort of helpful observation, but ten minutes had passed and no one seemed out of the ordinary, so he returned to the entryway where Sherlock was waiting.
"Nothing?" Sherlock guessed. "I didn't see anything suspicious either. However, the dining room remains, and it's massive. There's an absurd amount of food in there so I suspect that's where most of the people will be."
John underestimated Sherlock's use of the term "massive" until he entered the dining room. He realized that they couldn't even quite call it a dining room; rather, it was a great hall with buffets and nearly a hundred people milling about.
"You take the right side and I'll take the left. We'll meet in thirty minutes this time," Sherlock commanded, and was about to whirl around to begin his search for the vampire-like killer when John stopped him.
"Hang on! Do we have to split up?" he asked. "I mean, we've got all night. Why don't we just do it together?"
Sherlock frowned. "John… I sincerely deplore parties. The sooner I can leave here, the better." He really did have a pained expression, as though the drunken laughter and amicable gossip surrounding him were physically hurting him. John conceded.
"Alright," he grumbled. "But I think we're still going to be here for a while!" But he was talking to no one; Sherlock had already disappeared into the crowd.
No one seemed out of the ordinary. Of course, there were stranger people there, but no one fit the murderer persona that John had unfortunately grown inclined to recognize after having lived with Sherlock for a long time.
"Never seen you here before," a voice said behind John. He turned. A woman who looked extremely similar to Sarah, the host, was grinning up at him. She looked to be around his age, give or take three years.
"Yeah, this is my first time," John said. "Are you… related to Sarah?" Their mannerisms and facial features were strikingly alike.
"Yeah, I'm Olivia, her daughter."
"John," John said, smiling at her. "Your costume looks good."
Olivia laughed. "Oh, geez, but thanks, though. My costume is nearly twenty years old. I've stopped bothering to get a new one each year because my parents have been doing this for so long. It's a bit strange, you know? But I don't mind; they always turn out quite good." She had dark hair that was straight and pinned tightly to her head. Her eyes were bright green and she had pale makeup on with, as Sherlock had predicted, red lipstick.
"Are there usually this many guests?" John asked, gesturing at the vast crowd of people all dressed like vampires. "I mean, there's got to be… over a hundred people here."
"There's about a hundred and twenty in just this dining hall alone and around two hundred guests total," Olivia confirmed. "It gets busier every year. My brother - he comes, to appease my parents, but then resorts to the upstairs after thirty minutes. He can't stand being around people for this long."
"Yeah? Well, he'd get on great with my friend, Sher - Scott," John said. "He's the world's most reclusive man, I'd say."
"I don't know, you haven't met my brother," Olivia laughed, twirling her bracelet around her fingers.
"Would you like to get a drink together sometime?" John asked suddenly, thinking to himself that he was the absolute worst person at flirting in the world. However, Olivia smiled. "I'd love to!" She peered over at the buffet table. "Let's get one now!"
John was startled. "Oh - yeah, okay!" he said enthusiastically (hopefully not too enthusiastically), making a mental note to continue watching the other guests so as to not let Sherlock down. They each got a glass of wine and drank it with lively conversation. Once they were done, they refilled their drinks, then Olivia wrinkled her nose. "It's awfully loud in here - want to move somewhere quieter?" she asked.
Any other day John would have denied leaving the dining hall for two reasons. One, he wanted to spend more time with a woman he just met before going somewhere "quieter" with her, and two, he didn't want to leave Sherlock to find the murderer himself. But Olivia was already dragging him away, and it seemed too public of a place to refuse, so he followed along.
Oh, well.
If she wanted to do anything more than kiss him, he would certainly refuse, and he supposed that he could get another look at the guests aside from the dining hall to check for anyone suspicious. He fired off a text to Sherlock letting him know that he was moving on to a different section of the house.
Olivia was leading him towards the stairwell. John backpedaled. "Let's stay in the living room?" he suggested.
Olivia pouted. "Come on, John, it's too noisy in there!"
"I thought your brother was the one that didn't like noise?" John joked, seriously regretting his decision to talk to Olivia. "But, you know, my friend - the introvert, mind you - is still in the dining hall, and I probably shouldn't leave him alone back there. So, maybe we could head back there…" His voice trailed off.
"You really just have to be difficult, don't you?" Olivia sighed, and quick as a flash, she was at his side, her arm around John.
John tugged his arm away, saying, "Look, let's just…" when the needle pierced his neck.
A bit not good.
He clawed at where the syringe had gone into him, but by the time he had, she had already retracted the needle. His thoughts ran wild and, panicking, he couldn't seem to form a decent plan - should he attack her? Call Sherlock? Call Lestrade? Run?
"Oh, stop freaking out," Olivia said, pulling him into a darkened allway where the sounds of the other guests were faded out. "I won't rape you, I promise."
John shoved her away, and she stumbled backwards, but he could already tell that it was with less vigor than with what he could usually manage. Whatever she had injected him with was a strong sedative. Darkness crept into the edges of his eyes, and he kicked Olivia this time, square in the chest, and pulled out his phone. He was typing out a message to Sherlock when Olivia had slapped the phone out of his hands.
Dang. His reaction time was definitely slower.
A heavy wave of exhaustion washed over him, but he fought it along with the blackness creeping into his vision and the dizziness that was overcoming him. He realized he was swaying on his feet. Olivia seemed to be waiting for him to succumb to the drug. Reason came back to his mind and he remembered one of his loose plans. Run.
He turned on his heel and tried to take off down the hallway, but had only managed a few steps when nausea forced him to stop and grip the wall… his legs buckled and he was barely even aware that he was crumpled onto the floor…
"Sherlock!" he tried to yell, but the drug was too strong, and he passed out.
John woke up later, but had absolutely no idea of how much later. Several bad realizations occurred to him as his location came into focus.
He was in a small room that seemed to be upstairs in the mansion.
He was tied down and couldn't move his arms or legs.
He was locked in.
He was accompanied by Olivia and a man that looked strangely like her. John remembered her speaking about her introverted brother. Well, it seemed like he had me him.
"He's awake. Let's start," the man said.
"Alright. You want to do it or do you want me to?" Olivia asked, pondering John.
"You. You found him," the man responded.
"Hang on!" John said. His speech was slurred from the drug. "Let's… be reasonable about this… whatever's happening."
That was when the fifth realization came in.
He was in a room that had an abundance of blood stains, but they looked different compared to the fake ones that were downstairs. These looked real. The room was full of plastic bags, syringes, and straws, and there wasn't a lack of sharp objects, either, scalpels included.
"You're the vampire murderers," John said. How could he have been so stupid? Olivia and her brother were probably the most suspicious people he encountered at the party, yet he hadn't even stopped to consider that it might be them - the children of the vampire fanatics. How could he be so stupid?
"I'll explain to the poor man quickly," Olivia allowed. "Alright, John. We're practically what you could call a vampire. I mean, we're human, whatever. But we grew up with parents who love vampires, and when we were kids, we tried drinking blood. Just for fun, you know? But it tasted so good. It was exhilarating to drink it. We've moved around the country to not arise suspicion - people like your friend Sherlock Holmes tend to notice a trend of people dead with their blood almost all gone - but have been drinking blood for what, thirty plus years?" Olivia looked at her brother, who nodded. "Sorry John. You're our next beverage." And without further ado she plunged the scalpel into his chest.
John could feel himself screaming but only barely because the horrifying pain in his chest trumped all other senses. He could feel the scalpel toying around in his chest and he vomited, but his legs and arms were tied, and he couldn't move - instead he could only watch, as Olivia inserted a small straw into the stab wound, which had been cut expertly and wasn't bleeding profusely.
"You first," the brother said, and Olivia put her mouth to the straw and sucked in. John choked on more vomit in his mouth as the thick, dark blood slowly made its way up the straw and Olivia drank it. He could feel the straw inside of him, coming out of his skin like a stem. The blood was beginning to spill out a bit, and it was sticky and metallic; it took all of his willpower not to pass out, and his thoughts wouldn't stop - everything was a run-on sentence in his mind - because he was screaming, whether for pain or for Sherlock's help, he wasn't sure, but then the brother cut open another section on his abdomen.
The second scalpel wound was much messier; he could feel it. Blood gushed out of this one.
Stay awake, he told himself, shutting his eyes to block out the siblings that were bent over him, sucking his blood through the straws.
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
His eyes were tightly shut still when there was a sudden crashing sound. His eyes flew open, quickly analyzing how much blood he had lost (too much) to see Sherlock's blur knocking out the siblings and rapidly dialing a number on his phone.
"Sherlock?" John croaked, pressing his hand over the messier wound that the brother had made. "I think - I think I'm hurt."
"You're okay," Sherlock said, and his baritone voice almost convinced John until he focused on the blood that was all over him and the fact that Sherlock was trembling as he spoke.
Or was it him that was trembling?
"Cold," John muttered, forgetting to keep his hands on his wound and now holding himself. "It's… bloody cold in here…" Within an instant Sherlock's suit jacket was around John.
"Lestrade is on his way," Sherlock said, taking his tie off and tying it around John, who had a sharp intake of breath as the cloth was fastened tightly around his worse wound. "John! Stay awake!"
John hadn't even realized that his eyes were shut until Sherlock was slapping his face.
"Ouch," he slurred. "Ow - this really hurts. Sherlock, this hurts."
He tried to indicate to his wound to show Sherlock where it was hurting, but Sherlock kept his hand down.
"Stay still. The paramedics are on their way," Sherlock said, and John struggled to stay awake - the doctor inside of him was telling him to stay awake - but then he thought of the siblings that were drinking his blood and he passed out, whether because of disgust, the blood loss, or both, he couldn't remember.
"That is proof that we are never attending parties again unless for a particular intriguing case," Sherlock monotoned as they climbed the stairs up Baker Street. John contemplated his friend as they regained their seats in their armchairs, then got up and made tea for them. The flat was silent; Mrs. Hudson was visiting her sister.
"Hey, I never really… thanked you properly, in the hospital," John said. "Thanks, mate. For saving my life. I mean, if you hadn't come, I'd be dead now."
"Of course, John," Sherlock said diplomatically. "I wouldn't let my blogger perish."
"It's quiet in here," John noted. There was a pause where the silence became even more pronounced and heavy before Sherlock leaned over and swept his violin underneath his chin.
"Any requests?" Sherlock asked, his bow poised above the instrument. John blinked in surprise - Sherlock never asked what John wanted him to play.
"How about Tchaikovsky?" John asked, and Sherlock obliged immediately, playing a tune that John recognized as something from the Nutcracker, although he wasn't sure what.
"Thanks, mate," he said, leaning back in his chair, and falling asleep.
Okay, first I have to thank Starcross123 again because I think that was my favorite plot I've ever written!
I would be so grateful if anyone could leave a review letting me know if I should do first person (for Sherlock or John, it would vary) or stick with third person like I usually do! Reviews suggesting an accident / illness / injury are also very very welcome!
Thank you so much for reading!