Chapter Four

The place for a 'nice lie down' turned out to be a holding cell. Having both fallen asleep in the patrol car and been awoken by a gentle nudge from a night-stick, neither Sherlock or John cared any longer. The bench was bloody hard, though, and clearly not designed for two. Sherlock had tried to persuade John to sleep on the floor (good for his back), but his friend had stubbornly refused.

John didn't smell as good as Molly. She smelt of lemons. And sometimes vanilla. And formaldehyde – but in a good way. Mostly lemons, though. Strange that he couldn't stop thinking about her now; if he was sober it would bother him, he knew, but now…

"Pretty Molly…"

"Mm?"

"Pretty…smells nice…too nice…"

"Not now, Sherlock," John muttered.

"Eyes…soooo brown and…kind…Breasts not too small – stupid! Stupid thing to say!"

He felt a sharp elbow in his ribs.

"For Christ's sake, Sherlock, stop talking about Molly Hooper's breasts and go to sleep!"

So he did. He must have done, because the next thing he heard was…

"NOT REALLY!"

Sherlock shot up. Then wished he hadn't – god, what had happened to his head? It felt as though someone had tried to extract his brain through his ear.

Was that Lestrade? Where was John? In fact, while he was at it, where was he?

He still had sufficient brain cells remaining to recognise that this was a police cell and, yes, he remembered it now, it had been his bed for the night. He wobbled out of the cell, his head now feeling like the Helmet of Hell.

A few minutes later, his coat retrieved from the smirking desk sergeant (Graham needed to keep his people in line), Sherlock delved around for his phone. He vaguely felt that he might have done something unfortunate the previous night in the way of telephonic communication. To his relief, it became clear that he hadn't made any calls and, thank god, he hadn't sent any texts to The Woman either.

Instead, one unread text. From Molly. The time stamp read 01:16.

Sherlock's heart started to thud as his finger hovered over the unread message. He willed the events of last night to come back to him, but his pounding head wouldn't co-operate.

He tapped the message.

Er…what? Mx

That was all it said. Which meant it was in response to something…

He scrolled upwards, his mouth suddenly feeling dry.

Molly xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx SH

Oh god. He had basically snogged Molly Hooper via text message. And had no memory of doing it.

Suddenly, John was at his shoulder. Sherlock hoped he didn't look as terrible as his friend did, but John's appearance was probably an indication of how catastrophic the previous night had been.

"Come on, Sherlock," John mumbled, his eyes little more than a squint. "Cab's waiting."

He passed Sherlock one of the bottles of water he'd bought from the vending machine in the hall.

"Um, John…" he began in reply. "Can you remember…you know…much about last night?"

John peered at him.

"You vomited…somewhere," he replied. "The rest…might come back to me. Although, to be honest, probably better if it doesn't."

"Mmm," Sherlock said, discovering that even frowning was currently painful. "Quite."

This was good – if John couldn't remember anything incriminating, then it would probably all be fine. Molly knew about the stag night, and that text message could easily be explained away. He'd do it casually, when he was next in the lab.

When they reached the main exit, John stopped. Slowly, he turned around.

"What?" Sherlock asked, suddenly extremely worried.

"Molly Hooper's breasts," he said, his face breaking into a very self-satisfied smile. "Mm. Interesting, Sherlock."

"What?!"

"You kept going on about them while I was trying to get to sleep."

"You must have misheard me, John."

"Sorry, mate, but you were. Very animated on the subject, in fact."

Between the headache from Hades and this conversation, death couldn't come soon enough.

"In vino veritas, eh, Sherlock?" John grinned, as they made their way outside.

Sherlock scowled at him, groping in his jacket for his sunglasses, as the sun was now apparently intent on scorching his feeble retinas.

"In aqua sanitas," he replied miserably, removing the cap from his bottle of water. "I mean, at some point in the next millennia, with any luck."

And with that, the worst stag do in the history of the world came to an end. One thing remained clear, however – John could never know about the text message.

THE END