According to Sherlock, the cabinet that he'd hit his head on in search of food had suffered a similar bashing to that which his head had received. There was a sizeable dent in it, though John had a funny feeling that may have been from punching it after hitting his head, though he didn't tell Sherlock this. After all, whether he remembered what had happened or not, alcohol still could have been involved after such a day.

Naturally, Sherlock knew about this dent because while John had been finishing his shower, for a stubbournly long time, Sherlock had somehow located some cardboard boxes (he had a funny feeling it had something to do with the woman living upstairs who hoarded such items) and began to pack the contents of the flat into them. It certainly was a sorry sight to see the entire (pitiful) contents of his cupboards and fridge rattling around in the bottom of a banana box, especially when he never gave permission for them to be there at all.

And to think, yesterday, all he'd done was offer Sherlock a hand of help on impulse. Now, it seemed, he was definitely moving in to a flat of which he'd only seen one room.

"Um... What is this?" he asked, gritting his teeth in vague irritation. Strangely enough, he wasn't as annoyed as he probably should have been- Sherlock had that effect on him.

"I thought I'd help. But it's fine now," he put the box down with a clatter, and strolling towards the door, "We've got things to do."

"We?" John frowned. The air about him went still, and Sherlock surveyed him, eyes glacial and unblinking. "I-It's just..." John's voice shook and faltered.

How was he to put it?

Yep, Sherlock, you're a nutcase, of course I'm not coming with you, I felt sorry for you yesterday...

Of course not. It wasn't really as if John felt that way; he thought he should feel that way, but, despite all the snags and tight spots Sherlock had gotten and could get John into, he was a brilliantly intriguing man, and John couldn't just say no to him and not live to regret it.

Alas, for the second time that week, he found himself standing at the crossroads of his life. If he walked out with Sherlock, god knows what could go wrong. But if he stayed put, he'd be facing months; perhaps years more of himself, and his meagre existence in the world, after seeing so much.

Inhaling, he forced a smile, but, as Sherlock smiled back, slyly, he couldn't help but smile naturally in observation of Sherlock's keen, puppy-like fidgeting.

"Nothing. We can come back for this later?"

"Sure!"

Sherlock had been very secretive of his plans again.

As he'd said, "I work on the element of surprise in my field," which could have almost made him sound like a detective, except John was pretty sure that it was dirtier work that Sherlock did than one's average detective inspector was used to.

Still, John hadn't at all imagined that Sherlock would have any business where they had pulled up to in the taxi: a long, elegant row of terraced buildings, mostly offices, painted in a clean white, each with poker straight wrought iron fencing guarding the paved garden feature and neatly potted plants. Sherlock got out, payed the cabbie, and, hands in his pockets, strolled towards the nearest gate, so John really saw his only option to be to follow the hooker's lead.

He shivered as he stepped from the taxi, his breath curling up in the air in little white wisps. Sherlock was waiting for him as the taxi pulled away, holding open the gate so they could ascend the steps side by side, in a sombre, yet not awkward, silence.

Until John couldn't bear it any longer, that was, and broke it.

"W-Where are we?"

"N-N-Nice, i-isn't i-it?" Sherlock's teeth chattered now. He seemed to be feeling the effects of the cold rather quickly, John noted, wondering why he only had the coat, which was too big for him, and no scarf or anything, if he knew that he was so intolerant to the November weather. "I-It's not w-w-what you'd exp-pect-t it t-t-to be," he smiled shakily, before placing a pale hand on the brass handle and opening the door.

Almost immediately, John felt the heat rushing onto his face. It was so amazingly contrasting to step from the below freezing temperatures of a winter's day into the toasty warmth of this household, whatever it was. Sherlock, not surprisingly, was quite eager to close the door, and so John found himself plunged into semi-darkness of a hallway he didn't know.

John's senses came alive. Sherlock's arm brushed his in the thin corridor as he lead him down, past a grand wooden staircase and down the corridor, of which there were an almost ridiculous amount of doors to his left along the wall opposite the staircases. The decor was cheap, yet oddly lavish; old velvet curtains with a gleaming gold tieback trimming some of the doors, and an interesting item of furniture half way down the hall which John and Sherlock had to manoeuvre themselves around: a kind of mottled, varnished bureau.

Each step John took filled him not only with interest, but also with dread, as he couldn't help but feel Sherlock's restlessness mounting a step ahead of himself. He felt a bit bad for punishing Sherlock by spending extravagantly longer in the shower.

At last, they reached a ominous door. Large, forboding, and the only one of it's kind- a huge, oaken slab, structured tightly in it's frame much like the front door they'd just come through. There was a woman stood to one side of it, smoking a cigarette. She was like Sherlock, in that she was a prostitute, though more obviously so; the black dress she was wearing barely covered her bony hips, and she was slunk across the doorframe, fiddling with the studs hugging her waist and looking at Sherlock through her black-rimmed eyes.

"You better be here to cheer him up, freak," she said sulkily, nodding at the door, before her eyes flicked away from his face and behind his dark coat to John, who felt rather inferior being scanned by this rare specimen of a woman.

He had a really violent urge to grab hold of Sherlock's sleeve, perhaps even go so far as to pull him back down the hallway The way they'd came and jump straight back into the taxi.

He swallowed as the girl leant forward, putting her long fingers on Sherlock's shoulder. "Oh, an accomplice? What a change."

"He bats for the other team, so kurb your enthusiasm," Sherlock snapped.

John was too busy minding that he didn't breathe too loudly to hear him telling her this, but was relieved nevertheless when the woman snapped away, returning to her position on the wall. Sherlock said nothing more as she added, "I wasn't interested, weirdo," but simply plucked the cigarette from between her lips, took a long drag, and then stubbed it out on the doorframe, where, although John hadn't previously noticed, there were lots of similar tar-hued stains.

And with that, Sherlock gave a sharp knock at the heavy looking door, ignoring any evil glares that this woman might have been directing at him or his "accomplice", and, after politely waiting for an incoherent yell of some variety from the other side, leant in to open it. John leapt in behind him, glad to be shot of the sulky woman, before he found himself in the corner of what appeared to be a...?

John wasn't sure how to describe it. Firstly, he never knew that one could tell a room had been used for sex before, but seemingly, John was overwhelmed with such the sense when the air from inside the room hit him in the face (yet again)- a kind of warm, perfume and sweat-tinged atmosphere, almost coating his very being like a nectar, and suddenly making him feel more relaxed. Of course, maybe without the knowledge John had, the room could simply be described as "stuffy", but, from John's point of view, it was the final pointer that he was, in fact, inside a real brothel.

There wasn't actually a bed in the room. It was dark, and only dimly lit by a few lamps along the walls, giving quite a soft shadow across the face of the man seated at the couch, surrounded by what looked like files.

"My," Lestrade said, eyeing John cautiously, and boldly projecting his voice across the room, "If it isn't the one and only. Sherlock."

"Before you ask," Sherlock mumbled, and pulled his shirt up slightly to extract, rather typically, the bag of cash John had seen him take from Sebastian Moran the previous day, from the waistband of his trousers, and curtly stroll over and put it on the coffee table in front of the grey-haired man.

He observed it for a second, and then, without warning, lunged at Sherlock, executing a move similar to the ones John had seen Sherlock use, grabbing him by his shirt and twisting him so that he slammed down on the table, Lestrade quickly controlling him by shoving a knee roughly down into Sherlock's crotch so that every jerk Lestrade gave made Sherlock squirm violently.

The woman outside had obviously come into the room upon hearing the disturbance, because, as soon as John went to move to help his... whatever Sherlock was to him... there was an arm on his shoulder, and he heard the flick of a penknife and a sharp feeling on his Adam's apple.

Fuck, he thought.

"Firstly," Lestrade began, enjoying watching Sherlock's chest struggling to rise and fall normally with the pressure of Lestrade's hand holding him to the mahogany table, "Who the fuck is you're little friend?" He nodded his head towards John. "I would have thought you'd have more sense to leave him at home. He better not be an officer. I swear, I'll-"

"Of course not," Sherlock interrupted through gritted teeth, "Do you really think that after everything I've done I'd go and make friends with a police officer?"

"Don't fucking talk to me like that, sunshine," Lestrade snarled, moving in to Sherlock aggressively. John could only watch, stood stock still, hoping, as Sherlock noticed John's position and seemed to back down to the man, shaking his head slightly before continuing.

Please," he begged, "Sally, put that knife down, I swear on my life he's got no connections to the police whatsoever." John wasn't at all going to point out that Sherlock didn't necessarily know that for sure, especially when Sherlock was right, bluffing or not, as the so-called Sally still had the knife pressed up against his jugular.

Judging by how he'd seen Sherlock reacting to Lestrade so far, he had no doubt that if Lestrade wanted his throat slit, Sally wouldn't hesitate in doing the dirty work.

"He's a homo, apparently, right, freak?" came the voice from behind John's head. If John was gay, this was news to him; but this didn't seem to be the time to tell anyone otherwise, so he went with it. "What is he, a fuck-buddy? Surely not a client..."

"Neither. We're just friends."

"And you decided to bring your "friend" here?" Lestrade snapped.

"Since when did you care who- ah!- came here as long as they paid well?" Sherlock almost whimpered, and there was a pause as Lestrade considered this argument.

"Jesus," he said eventually, after what seemed like an age, "Let him go, Sally," he said, and the knife dropped away from John's throat and he fell to his knees almost immediately, inhaling shallowly.

"I don't know what you're up to, Sherlock, but I'm going to let you get away with it, so long as you keep out of trouble. One slip up," he drew a finger across his throat menacingly, glaring at John as he did so.

John gulped.

"Can you... get off... now..." Sherlock protested feebly. Lestrade laughed drily.

"I can get off, sure, and boy, do you know how to help me. But I'm not done." Lestrade dropped his hips, bringing him closer to Sherlock, and John watched as he ran a finger up the side of his bare neck, gently, and grabbing his jaw tightly, with his wrist pressing down on Sherlock's throat just as the knife had been at John's only a few moments previously. His face was only centimetres from the prostitute's, when he spoke quietly, almost too quiet for John to hear; "I'm watching you, Holmes. You think you can get away with shit because you're the best, well, don't think I wouldn't bring you down if I wanted to. I don't allow fuck-ups. One more time," he said, picking up the bag of money, "And you're in for it."

And with that, he sprang back from the dark haired man, standing up and letting Sherlock untense on the table, flinching a bit before silently too, getting to his feet. The money was stashed into Lestrade's pocket, and Sherlock walked back over to John, dropping his impassive expression when his back was to Lestade and bending down to help a confused and rather afriad John back up. He was wearing an apologetic, sympathetic look, mouthing "I'm sorry". It was the most emotion John had seen on the man's face since they'd met- and how long ago that seemed!

When John was on his feet, grasping Sherlock's hand like a child, Sherlock turned to the woman at the door, who was staring at them with a look of disgust.

"You can go now. You're input is not needed."

"Whatever, freak," she replied, though she did leave without much more fuss, leaving Sherlock to lead John to the sofa opposite where Lestrade had repositioned himself, and they both sat down, all too civily.

"I need to tell you something." John still somehow had hold of Sherlock's hand, but was too dumbstruck to let go. Sherlock clenched it momentarily, as if to connote that this applied to him also.

"Better be good. I've got shit to do."

"I realise," Sherlock said calmly. "You remember Molly Hooper, Lestrade?" When he clearly didn't, Sherlock expanded. "I pay her way. Small, thin lips, brunette. Meeker than the others."

"Oh yeah, the one that fancies you. Yeah, I know her, she doesn't really come back here very often. What about her? This better be important..."