As Sherlock walks past where Joan and Molly are now lounging with some of the patrons, spread out on cushions like the indolent queens they resemble, he overhears a snatch of the conversation.
"… God, do you know what it did to us, watching you dance? I'm very much hoping that your evening is… open, shall we say. Shall I discuss procuring some of your time with the manager?"
Sherlock's head whips around and he catches the culprit in his sights. The middle-aged Scotsman is talking to Joan, running a bold finger along the strap of her top, and his words are said so close to her that they ruffle the wisps of hair that frame her face.
Another man moves in behind her on the cushions. He is heavy-set, swarthy, and sweating, with a mess of unruly, greasy black curls. He puts a hand on her waist, perilously low.
"I make you... wife, of me. My three wifes, they shall like you."
All it takes is the look of alarm of Joan's face for Sherlock to abort the plan and veer off towards her. It is around this time that Everard and his compatriots pull back the curtains around their booth, clearly with the intent of engaging with Molly and Joan. They spot Sherlock and Lestrade, and against all odds, recognize them for what they are. Guns and knives are drawn as the four men prepare to defend themselves, Lestrade is extricating his pistol from his shoulder holster, and all hell threatens to break loose. The men accompanying Everard are gesticulating with their firearms, uttering threats into the cloying air as the rest of the patrons scramble to get out of the room.
Then, of course, things get unutterably worse.
Joan decides it is her responsibility to place herself right into the line of fire.
Everyone stops moving. Everard and his men look puzzled, and Lestrade looks positively gobsmacked. Sherlock just knows his eyes must be bugging out of his head, and he feels like all of his thoughts have fallen together into a great jumbled mess. He is used to seeing Joan with firearms pointed at her, but she is almost always similarly armed and entirely prepared for the necessary risk. This risk is most certainly not necessary, and Sherlock opens his mouth to tell her so.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, there's really no need for that here," Joan purrs, sidling towards Everard with an uncharacteristically coy smile. "There are so many… pleasurable alternatives to spending the evening killing each other, don't you think?" She is close enough to direct this suggestively at Everard. "So many other activities to engage in, hmm?"
Everard is struck dumb. If staying to watch the performers is a regular habit of his, then clearly watching women dance is something he enjoys; for one to approach him so overtly, even if he subconsciously knows it is a ploy to avoid violence, his interest will be at least piqued. Joan is not a traditionally beautiful woman, but she has a sort of magnetism that makes her very difficult to ignore. According to one of her Army mates, Willow Murray, who confided in Sherlock whilst exceptionally drunk at one of Joan's pub nights, Joan had earned the moniker "Three-Continents Watson" not for her widespread sexual experiences, but for the trail of pining men she'd left behind her. From trysts in Egypt during Joan's Gap year, to the men who'd fallen hard for her in Army fatigues and a bulletproof vest, to her undeniable chemistry with the men and women of London, Joan certainly is a force to be reckoned with. Sherlock is intimately familiar with this phenomenon by now, and though at the time all he'd felt was oily rage that all these men and women had touched his Joan, had loved her, he later realized that he didn't fault them for falling for her. It seems like a mostly unavoidable outcome.
Sherlock is about three shallow breaths away from literally shaking with rage and protective instinct (good God, he hates it, this biological imperative to shelter her that comes with the attraction he feels, except really, deep down, he really can't hate it at all). Lestrade's gaze is flicking almost comically fast between Sherlock's enraged expression, Joan's falsely beguiling simper and the very real weapons still pointed in their direction. It's like he doesn't know where the real liability is anymore, and Sherlock doesn't blame him.
"Well then," says Everard intelligently, allowing his gaze to run across Joan's bare skin with a small, lascivious smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It'd be my pleasure." He moves closer and klaxons start to go off in Sherlock's head. There is blood rushing in his ears and the knot in his belly is writhing like an enraged mink. Everard places a bold hand against the fringe of beads at the hem, runs a finger through the strands and up, through the valley between her breasts and along the edge of the cup.
Sherlock sees scarlet.
He lunges forward without a clear plan in mind, which is a bit new, but Joan has him beat. She latches onto Everard's wrist, twists it viciously, then slams her knee into his crotch. She follows this with an uppercut to his jaw and Everard drops like a stone. His compatriots blink owlishly for a moment.
"Army," Joan says with a shrug.
Everard's men aren't stunned into inaction for long. Luckily, during Joan's distraction Lestrade had the wherewithal to call for backup, and Sherlock, Joan and Lestrade now have a bit more muscle on their side. They grapple with the other men, Molly even gets her two cents in, clubbing the largest of Everards men with a heavy copper censer.
Everard's small force doesn't stand a chance. Between Joan's well-developed penchant for bar-brawling, Lestrade brutal copper's strength, their backup and Sherlock's devastating, efficient command of martial arts, they cut the men down in very little time. And if Sherlock delivers a merciless kick to Everard's prone body during the scuffle (really, it could have easily been an accident that Sherlock's foot had slammed into the vicinity of Everard's kidney), well, no-one has to know.
Once Lestrade and his backup have bundled the felons away into the waiting van, he comes to find Sherlock, Joan and Molly. They are waiting just inside the doors.
"Well, as usual, we'll need your statements, but it can wait until morning. I'm well knackered," Lestrade says, scrubbing a hand through his already tousled hair. His cheeks look oddly pink, and Sherlock knows it isn't from the chill outdoors. "Uh, Molls, do you need a ride home?"
"Er, yeah, actually!" she pipes up, and a blush spreads across her face and down her exposed throat. "If it's not too much trouble…" Lestrade silences her with a little dismissive wave. He shrugs off the jacket he'd donned while dealing with the arrests and tucks it around her small shoulders.
"Tomorrow, yeah? Nine AM?" Lestrade tosses over his shoulder as he leads Molly away to the lone police car that has been left for his use.
"Yes, fine," Sherlock says distractedly. He's only just realized that Joan is shivering faintly; the entrance hall is not insulated and draughty, and she is still only clad in the barest scraps of beading and silk.
"Here," Sherlock says, wriggling out of his greatcoat and shoving it in her direction. "You're of no use when you've a cold, you complain about it constantly."
Joan gives him an odd look but doesn't hesitate to wrap herself up in the fabric, still warm from Sherlock's body heat. Belatedly, Sherlock realizes that giving away the coat wasn't the brightest plan. His suit jacket is nowhere near long enough to cover his crotch, where he's still half-hard as a result of watching Joan dance and, now, adrenaline. He hopes, rather frantically, that she doesn't notice.
She doesn't. They catch a cab.
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