In honor of Samhain, I give you a human sacrifice!-er...murder! A murder! That's what I meant... Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain!

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes..." ~Shakespeare

Another day passed and there were still no crimes or cases to be solved. Life on Baker Street was less than pleasant at the moment. The only cases that had come across their paths were ones that the genius thought were beneath him and unworthy of his time and talents.

It was in the middle of what was turning out to be a strop of epic proportions that the call they were both waiting for finally came. Though instead of answering it, the consulting detective just let it ring.

"Sherlock, come on. Don't you want to get your phone?" John coaxed, a hint of desperation leaking into his voice despite his best effort.

"No," he said sullenly and turned over to burrow further into the couch.

With a sigh, the doctor heaved himself up out of his chair and crossed over the mantel to retrieve his flat mate's mobile. "It's Lestrade—maybe it's a nice murder to brighten your day…" he cajoled and held out the device. That was all it took.

"Sherlock Holmes…"

Half an hour later, they were standing at the entrance to Highgate Cemetery West. John looked questioningly at Sherlock but blindly followed him nevertheless. Cemeteries weren't on his list of places to visit, no matter how hauntingly beautiful they might be—and this burial ground was no exception. To put it in the shortest terms, they creeped him out. As a child, he and Harry along with a few friends of theirs had played hide-and-seek in the local cemetery just on the outskirt of their town. In his haste to discover his companions' hiding places, he had tripped and fallen into a freshly dug grave. It had been several hours before he was found and pulled out. The doctor had been so terrified that his parents failed to discipline him for being where he shouldn't have been in the first place. But, even years later, that unfortunate event had colored his view on burial grounds. So needless to say he was significantly uncomfortable as he trailed after his best friend.

Lestrade met them at the gateway to the Egyptian Avenue. He just shook his head at the pair and motioned for them to follow him down the tomb lined walkway.

"I think you'll like this one, Sherlock," the DI stated over his shoulder. "Definitely a weird one. And they've saved us the trouble—leaving the body in the cemetery for us and all."

"So where are we?" Sherlock asked as he tugged at his gloves and sniffed in indifference.

"It's further back this way, near the Circle of Lebanon. Body was left just under the cedar tree," Greg advised.

John glanced around on either side as they made their way through the tunnel-like hall. He tried to catch a glimpse of the engravings on the tomb walls as they passed but he couldn't do that and keep pace with the other two.

"Come along, John," Sherlock demanded without slowing his stride, seemingly completely uninterested in his surroundings.

He quickened his pace to a jog and declared, "Well, isn't this massively creepy."

Lestrade gave him a sidelong glance he knew didn't bode well before replying, "Wait 'til you see the body…"

"And who found the victim?" questioned Sherlock as he looked down at the ground, trying to discern if there was anything worth his attention—a clue that the police would have been blinded to.

"It was one of their tour guides," the DI answered and waved off to the person in question when they finally came within sight of the base of the giant cedar. There was a young man standing a good few meters away looking visibly shaken. "Said he was 'checking the path before he began the first tour'. Dunno if that's true but—"

"Most likely not, considering he was probably meeting his young female coworker for a quick lovers' tryst," the genius said in huff as he disengaged from his companions and strode with purpose towards the body.

Greg and John shared a silent look before they followed. Once the doctor rejoined his partner, he knelt down next to the corpse and studied it with unveiled curiosity.

"A stake through the heart—really? Well, at least this will be an interesting one, Sherlock…" he said as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves and prodded gently at the piece of wood sticking out of the body. "What was he going to a fancy dress party or something? What is that? Like I don't know—Victorian gothic?"

"I'd say it's more than just that," Sherlock replied as he took a nearby stick and carefully lifted the victim's upper lip away from his teeth, revealing a set of high end veneer vampire fangs.

"So and stake through the heart and fangs? Who would do something like this?" Greg wondered aloud.

Without missing a beat, John said with all seriousness, "The Lycans; they've been at war with the vampires for centuries."

Both his flat mate and the DI turned to look at him with two very different expressions. Lestrade grinned at the Underworld reference while Sherlock scowled at his attempt at humor.

"Can we please focus on the actual crime here? Thank you!" the consulting detective exclaimed in an agitated voice.

With a chagrined expression, his blogger cleared his throat, answering, "Right, right. Sorry. Umm… looks like the stake was driven in post-mortem. No ligature marks around the neck… and… no signs of asphyxiation…"

"No," Sherlock agreed as he leaned closer to examine the chest wound with his magnify glass. "Look here, John—looks like he was shot first—there appears to be gunpowder residue on his shirt…"

The doctor leaned closer and to get a better look. "You're right! Small caliber, I'd say, going on the fact that there's not too much damage."

"If he was shot, then why go through the trouble of staking him if he was already dead?" Greg demanded.

John and the consulting detective looked up at each other at the same time. It was then that the doctor realized that their faces were only inches apart. His mouth went dry instantly and he nervously licked his lips as the most interesting shade of pink crept along his cheeks. Sherlock smirked knowingly and rocked back on his heels as he turned his attention to the DI.

"It's a message, I believe," the genius answered as John tried valiantly to regain control of himself and reexamined the body.

"Well…if it was a small caliber handgun—say from a .22—then our victim was shot at pointblank range in order to have left this particular soot and burn pattern on his clothes. And with the location of the wound, there is no way the killer would have missed either his heart or his one lung… if he managed to somehow survive the bullet, the stake surely finished him," the doctor added. "But it seems a bit overkill—no pun intended—just for a simple fancy dress party."

Sherlock's eyes darted back and forth, taking in all the evidence, his massive brain calculating. He stood swiftly and shook his head. "No. This was not merely for some party—this is more of a lifestyle choice. The veneers are too high end to be from just any costume shop. They also are the exact shade of enamel as the rest of his teeth—that says even more. The fact that a wooden stake was used is evidence enough."

"Well, I'll request Molly to perform the autopsy since you're working the case," Greg told them. "Right now we have him tagged as a John Doe—he wasn't found with any form of identification on him."

"If he had the veneers done in London, I know the most likely place he would have gone to," John volunteered. He had an eerie sense of déjà vu when Lestrade and Sherlock both turned to regard him matching odd expressions. "What?" he demanded, felling a little self-conscious.

Finally, his flat mate raised an eyebrow and asked, "Sounds like you have partaken of this particular fetish before, John."

With a shrug, he answered, "I dated a girl once who was into the lifestyle. I was curious so I tried it…"

Greg couldn't help the snicker that emerged from his mouth. "So… what? You're obviously not still into it. Did the relationship suck?" He laughed at his own joke.

The flat mates rolled their eyes in unison before John informed them, "It was like a weird social club—you like to play golf, I like to play golf. You like to drink blood, I like to drink blood. Deal breaker was that she wanted to have sex in a coffin—I'm open-minded, but not that open-minded."

The DI found this hilarious and cackled so loudly that the other Yarders working the scene stopped what they were doing to turn and stare. John blushed furiously again at being the center of attention once more.

When he had finally calmed down enough, Lestrade said, "Right… so, I'll leave you two to question the fang masters of London since this is something you know a little about."

"Yes, of course," Sherlock agreed pleasantly then stalked off to interrogate the tour guide who had found the body.

The doctor and Greg stepped back to allow the forensics team to take care of the body. The stood by watching the happenings for several moments before the DI spoke.

"So…how did the other night go after we left?"

With a groan, John hid his face behind his hands and answered, "Oh God! I made a right bloody fool of myself! I was so drunk, I don't remember it, but Sherlock says I came on to him quite strongly. He told me this over our morning cuppa and then after going on about how alcohol just lowers your inhibitions to free your subconscious mind, he asked that since I was now sober if I still wanted to take him to bed."

Lestrade openly gaped at his friend before collecting himself enough to respond, "To which you said 'Why yes, Sherlock! I'd love to shag you senseless against the sitting room wall right now!' Right?"

"We were in the kitchen—and no I didn't," the doctor confessed. "I made up some excuse about showering and hightailed it out of there. I was probably beet red too."

"Ooh! The kitchen counter—even better!" declared the DI, earning him a punch on the arm from the short ex-army doctor. He took it good-naturedly and started laughing, which caused John to giggle as well.

Sherlock had approached just in time to overhear Greg's last statement and eyed the two older men suspiciously. Their merriment died down rather abruptly as they noticed his presence. He knew they were talking about him in some capacity but he failed to see what the worktop in the kitchen had to do with anything.

Instead of addressing whatever nonsense his two companions were up to, he just raised his eyebrows and queried, "Shall we then?"

Lestrade nodded and that was all the incentive John needed to go dashing off with this mad best friend. They made their way back out of the cemetery through the tomb lined alley once more, this time at a more leisurely pace than before. The doctor recognized the fact that Sherlock was giving him time to sate his curiosity with the grave markers.

"You know," the genius began conversationally, strolling along side his blogger with his hands clasped behind his back, "that legend has it that this cemetery was part of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. Specifically Highgate is thought to be where Stoker has the unfortunate Lucy buried in her family's crypt."

John stopped in the middle of the pathway and stared at his partner in surprise. "How is it that you know Dracula trivia yet nothing about the solar system?" Much to his surprise, the detective smiled.

"Information on the solar system is useless, John," Sherlock said to him. "But in my sixth form I was rather taken with the novel. I found it poetic."

"Somehow I'm not surprised that you like a tale on vampires," his blogger replied. "But you…I don't know…you have never struck me as the type to enjoy classical literature."

Baffled by his flat mate's statement, Sherlock asked, "Have you not seen my personal library?"

"No, I never go in your room."

"Well, John, if you did you would find that Stoker is among well respected company. He shares a shelf with Dickens, Keats, Byron, Kipling, Marlowe and Shakespeare, Milton, Blake—shall I continue?"

"I think that officially covers the entire history of British literature right there—save for Chaucer, Bronte, Austen, Eliot..."

Giving his companion a smirk, the detective stated, "Oh they're there as well. What? Why are you giving me that look?"

John just shook his head, a perplexed expression gracing his face. "Nothing—you just…I never thought you would be interested in any of that, is all. Especially a fanciful tale about vampires."

Sherlock cast a look at him that the doctor couldn't even being to decipher before he turned his back to John and started to examine an inscription on one of the tombs. "It's the wolf in sheep's clothing scenario, I suppose. The struggle between the monster and humanity all in one character, something which developed over time into a sort of heroic villain. A character who eternally struggles to come to terms with what and who he is…"

The doctor was drawn closer to his best friend. He couldn't help but think that the genius was no longer talking about a fictional person and more a self-reflection. John's chest tightened painfully and he felt himself slip a little further down the rabbit hole. He lived for moments like these, when Sherlock opened up and let him in just a little.

The consulting detective reached up and ran his gloved fingers over the engraving on the wall of the sepulcher. John leaned over his shoulder to read the inscription, which was a moving eulogy to a man's beloved wife.

They stood there for a moment staring at the engraving, with Sherlock relishing in the warmth and closeness of his blogger. But now was not the time. There was work to be done and apparently John was not ready to admit that he had feelings for him yet.

He took a step back and was the picture perfect epitome of calm and collected as he continued his leisurely pace down the pathway towards the exit. As ever, John followed him wordlessly. Sherlock glanced around once more. "Despite the morbidity of all this," he waved his hand around as a means to encompass their surroundings, "I find it all quite beautiful."

As they finally exited the cemetery, the doctor took one final glance back and said, "And so it is."

Sherlock smiled and held open the cab door for his blogger.

Oh John-I sympathize on your fear of cemeteries. I have an irrational fear of zombies. And yes-I'm fully aware it's irrational. On another note-Sherlock has excellent taste in literature! Fun side note-one of my best buds works for a division of Barnes & Noble: when we all go shopping, the rest of the peanut gallery buys smut. And what do I have? Literature. Captain Evil commented that at least one of us has to be a responsible, mature adult...so NOT me, but okay!