"What are we doing here?" John tried to shout over the pumping music but wasn't sure if he could hear him; or he was just ignoring him, it isn't like he's never done that before.
Either way, he yelled once more, "Why are we here?" His yell didn't even reach his own ears.
"God, John, patience." Sherlock replied in a clipped tone; his voice hadn't nearly been at the level of which John had been yelling yet it still broke through the raging club music with ease.
John grimaced; usually he was the one telling Sherlock to wait, never the other way around. Deciding that getting answers out of Sherlock was going to be impossible John followed him blindly through the club, trailing behind the tall, ivory figure.
Sherlock had pulled him along on one of his usual late night cases, claiming that it was of the upmost importance. Knowing that he'd eventually regret not going, John grabbed his coat and headed out the door. After a long cabbie ride and an even longer walk, the pair of men arrived at an underground club that was only made remotely noticeable by a muscular man standing outside of a back alley door.
The man was very imposing; taller than even Sherlock he stood much more above John. His head was shaved and he looked as if he lived in a tattoo parlor with ink up to his ears, his eyes were bulged and blood shot and the shirt he was wearing had a blood covered hole in the shoulder that looked eerily similar to a bullet hole.
Sherlock pranced up to the man in his usual graceful manner and whispered something in his ear; John stayed back on the curb of the road, keeping a safe three meter distant from the guard.
The man's eyes suddenly widened and he shook his head brutally, "No, no! I let you in, I let you in!" His voice was thick with worry and an accent of some kind. His eyes bulged even further as he flailed his hands to a handle he had concealed with his massive body, flinging it open and stepping out of the open doorway's way.
Sherlock held a simple smile on his face and turned to me while he started inside, "Well, come on then."
John hadn't realized his mouth was hanging open and quickly closed it. He had a strange feeling in his stomach when Sherlock called to him; fear, he presumed, "Uh-coming!" He ran after him , giving the guard a wide berth.
The doorway led to a long staircase that seemed to run into darkness until a sudden flash of red light appeared, then green, and then blue, "Sherlock, where are we?" He wasn't sure why he had waited this long to ask, but now seemed a better time than never.
Sherlock ignored him and simply hopped down the stairs taking three at a time. With the thought of being left behind without knowing the secret phrase to subdue the imposing guard, John followed suit and hopped down the stairs as well, trying to catch up to the quickly proceeding Sherlock.
As they travelled down the steps beat-heavy music started to become legible, the heavy bass and quick rhythm reminded John of late nights during college in underground London.
"Why are we at a bloody night club?" John shouted at Sherlock angrily as the music became deafening; had he really forced him to drop everything, run out the door, and walk three miles for this? John wouldn't admit it, but he was expecting, no, hoping, for something a little more dangerous than getting your toes crushed by a tipsy woman's heel. This week had been dreadfully uneventful at the clinic and at home and John needed some excitement; a grinding dance with his flat mate didn't really fit the bill, although the thought wasn't completely repulsive…
"We aren't here to dance, John. The subject of upmost importance is here, and don't worry, your adrenaline will be pumping soon." Sherlock's voice sounded oddly giddy, as if he was running downstairs on Christmas morning to find presents under the tree. John could feel his face flush red with the answer to the question he hadn't asked aloud; why do I keep forgetting he reads minds?
"I don't read minds; your thoughts are just shouting at me."
John thought of elevator music.
They finally reached the bottom of the staircase and stood at a door with a small window – the source of the lights. They opened it and walked through, straight into a tightly packed crowd of drunken men and women, bumping and grinding each other into oblivion.
And now here they are, wandering around the entire club looking for some unknown person – well, unknown to John, Sherlock knew exactly who they were looking for.
"Would this be a bad time to tell you about my claustrophobia," John shouted as they climbed up a staircase that led to a balcony on the far wall of the club, overlooking the entire crowd.
"You aren't claustrophobic John; you're the complete opposite in fact. You find tightness to be comforting, that's why you where all those shirts and sweaters and why you wrap yourself so tightly in blankets when you fall asleep."
John paused in the middle of the crowd, staring after the detective, "You watch me when I sleep?" Sherlock stopped and reached back to grab John's hand, yanking him up the rest of the staircase.
They reached the middle of the balcony and squeezed their way to the railing as to get the best view of the dance floor possible, "Only when I can't sleep," Sherlock defended himself; he only seemed interested in the conversation as to keep John busy from further wonderings of their current state.
"You're an insomniac, you never sleep! And you said that I can't get to sleep without wrapping myself up, that means you've been in my room before I sleep. Sherlock how many times do I have to tell you to not spy on me, it's so – "John paused, finding himself about to say "comforting" instead of a "creepy" or "invading."
"There!" Sherlock suddenly shouted, pointing into the crowd below.
Surprised from the sudden outburst and thankful that Sherlock had seemed to not read his mind, John followed Sherlock's finger and spotted a specific group of dancers in the very center of the room.
A group of several men conglomerated around a single dancing couple. The woman had long brown hair that she whipped around viciously as she danced, causing John to become concerned about possible future back problems. She wore a pair of jeans and a cardigan but with the way she was dancing she might as well have been naked. The man just stood still, letting the woman rub herself all over him.
"Oh, she's fantastic…" Sherlock murmured, staring at the woman with wide eyes.
John was taken aback, "Are you actually getting off on this?" The night was becoming increasingly ridiculous by the second; especially considering that his fists clenched when he noticed the way Sherlock was looking at her.
"Why won't the others move? The man must be important, monumentally important, too important to lose. Why won't he make a move? She's trained, yes, very skilled in fighting from the way she dances, improved since last time, but he could still probably take her...oh, if she didn't have that." Sherlock started to ramble in low murmur, only the bass of his voice making his words audible.
John glanced from Sherlock to the girl and back to Sherlock, why was this woman of "upmost importance"?
Something glinted on the dance floor and caught John's eye, he turned his gaze back to the couple and gasped as he saw the glint again; the woman was holding a small knife in her right hand, grazing it along the man's body as she danced around him. She held half the blade in her palm, concealing it from anyone who wasn't looking for it.
"Sherlock, she has a knife!" John yelled, pointing as it glinted once more.
"Yes, yes, I know, but why him? Why is he important? All members Caucasian, American, retired military…oh…related. But what does she want from them? Drugs? No, she wouldn't want drugs; she doesn't care for anything that can affect her beauty. Money? She doesn't have need for that, either. Fun? Possibly, it does look like a game; it must be information…" John tried to keep up with Sherlock's mumblings but he could really only hear a third of them with all the laughing and yelling around them…wait, yelling?
John stared hard at the woman and saw that the glint was now dulled with a slight red hue, the man she danced with had his mouth open and was yelling, his hands clutching the left side of his head. It didn't take long for John to understand, "He didn't tell her what she wanted so she cut off his ear?" he asked incredulously.
Sherlock's wide expression turned into a malicious grin, "You've got it now." His voice was quiet, he didn't want to miss any of this.
The woman danced to the back of the man, facing the two men on the balcony. The knife was pressed against the man's neck and she was whispering something in his ear while her hips swayed against his back and he shook his head tightly, not wanting to scrape his neck against the blade. The woman suddenly glanced up and met John's eyes; the sudden contact startled him and he straightened. Her eyes then flicked to Sherlock and she smiled, she whispered again in the man's ear and angled is head toward Sherlock who waved in response; his expression had dropped from a giddy grin to a passive stare.
The man's eyes widened as the door guard's had and his mouth started to vibrate with dozens of words tumbling out of it. The men surrounding them seemed to move in once his mouth started to move, all of them shaking their heads and reaching towards the man. The woman, keeping her eyes locked on Sherlock, pressed the blade harder against the man's neck and he stopped whatever he was saying to cry out to the other men, "Stay back!" He screamed although it sounded like a whisper once it had reached John; the other men complied although they didn't seem all too pleased about it.
The man with the blade pressed against his throat had, after a few more moments, given the woman all the information she needed and her smile grew wider. She finally broke her unblinking stare from Sherlock and grabbed the man's face as she pulled the blade away from his neck and pulled his lips to hers. John was taken aback at how passionate of a kiss the woman gave and a bit disgusted as he could see a dance of tongues from the balcony; he was all for a good snog every now and again but that was just sexual intercourse via tongue.
She suddenly broke the kiss off and turned towards the stairs, starting up the steps as the surrounding men encircled the man in the middle; their behavior was odd, as if they didn't know what do to with him, some of them pet him, one placed his hand over the ear wound, another even hugged him.
"Brothers, all of them," Sherlock said in John's ear; he was leaned in so close that John jumped from the breath that rushed over his neck, "that's why they're so…protective."
The woman had made it up to the balcony and was now making her way to the pair of men who had just watched her torture and then face sex the bleeding man below. She still held the bloody blade in her palm which glinted as she extended her arms towards the tallest of the pair, "Sherlock," she said lovingly in an odd mix of an American and French accent.
"Clara," Sherlock replied in a neutral tone; a small smile danced across his lips as he embraced her lightly, allowing her to kiss both his cheeks.
Clara turned her gaze toward John, "And who is this little morsel?" John felt himself turn red.
"This is my partn- colleague, John Watson." Sherlock motioned towards him and John held out his hand politely; although he had just witnessed her cut a man's ear off and she called him a "little morsel," John was determined to always make a good first impression. Besides, she had the name of his favorite ex sister-in-law, how horrible could she be?
Instead of accepting his hand she stepped forward and pushed her lips onto John's, giving him a full kiss on the mouth. John, still hell bent on making a good impression, held up his arms as if to push her away but didn't; mostly out of fear that she'd cut off his ear but also for the impression part.
A sudden pain filled yell screeched from the dance floor below and John broke away from the kiss to turn to the obvious cry of pain; the complete excruciating tone of the scream had made his muscles tense and ready to jump over the balcony railing to help. He'd heard that scream before, several times before, usually when a soldier had just gotten his legs blown off by an explosion.
The pair of men and now woman stared down as they watched the previously antagonized group of men huddle around the man with the missing ear. From their vantage point John could see the man struggling on the ground in a seizure with foam spilling from his mouth onto the floor with such volume that he was sure it had to be medically impossible. The brothers were all yelling and screaming for help as they struggled to do something for their dear brother but as the seizing stopped it was obvious that so did his heart; there was no question about it.
Sherlock turned his head to Clara, "Kiss of death? How cliché," he tsked at her.
She giggled and turned around, leaning her back against the railing and lolling her head against her shoulders, "I broke a caplet of crushed castor bean into his mouth," she sighed to herself and slid the blade from its hiding place in her palm and studied the blood the shimmered on it. She glanced at John, "Consider yourself lucky…" she trailed off dangerously.
John didn't recognize the name of whatever she had put into the dead man's mouth but whatever it was it killed him; he spit and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Clara cackled at John's desperation to clean his mouth, "I like him," she said to Sherlock as John decided that his lips were rubbed raw enough for no poison to still be on them, "can I have him?" Sherlock just kept his small smile, not glancing at John.
Her voice dropped to a seductive tone and she danced the blade across her lips as she turned to John and looked him over, "Soldier, I see," she grazed her tongue along the smooth surface of the blade, leaving a clean streak of silver through the red, "I haven't had a soldier before."
John swallowed and wondered in what way she meant that.
"So," Sherlock said after a moment, "shall we?" he motioned towards the door that the pair of men had travelled through only several minutes earlier.
"We shall. I want John's bed." She claimed as she pushed herself off the balcony and continued to lick her blade as if it were a lollipop.
"Sherlock?" John asked in a worried voice; she wasn't really staying with them, was she?
"Yes, John, she is." Sherlock replied to his thought unsaid question.
Clara turned to John and giggled as she licked the last spots of blood clean from the blade.
John was terrified.