John unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and peeled his eyes open. His head throbbed in protest at the influx of light and it was more than a few moments before he understood that he was in Sherlock Holmes' bed.

It might have been an ideal moment to panic, but his aching brain refused to make any such effort. For the moment the best he'd be able to do was to take stock of the situation. He slowly slid the sheets back and grimaced. He was wearing just his boxers.

He dropped his head back down on the pillow and breathed a long exhale. He closed his eyes and willed the memories from last night to come back to him. He'd been drunk, there was no arguing with the dizziness and sticky dry mouth of a hangover, but he hoped not drunk enough to have blacked out entirely. Today was Friday, he remembered. No shift at the surgery, thank god. He rubbed his hands across his eyes as though it could stimulate thought. What happened last night?

There was the ball. Sherlock was dancing. He was at the bar. He met Nathan and they decided it would be a good idea to drink every time they heard someone say something pretentious. The way home was a blur. Getting back into the flat was a blur. He didn't remember saying goodnight to Mrs. Hudson.

He concentrated hard. The flat. Last night. How did he end up here? He got a flash of an image. Stairs. And then… Yes, that was it. He'd fallen on the stairs leading up to the flat. He confirmed the memory by touching the bruise on his leg. The resultant dull pain brought back the memory in full.

"Nope," he had said to Sherlock, shaking his head at the stairs leading to his bedroom. Falling on the first flight had not made him keen on a second. "Stairs can't be just all the time."

What had Sherlock's expression been? Had he rolled his eyes? Been irritated? No, John didn't think so. He'd been amused, hadn't he? Trying to stifle a smile—

But why hadn't he gone to the couch? Whose idea was it—

"Couch," John had announced definitively, shrugging off his suit jacket and starting to work at the buttons of his waistcoat.

"I'm going to work for a while"—there it was—"you can sleep in my bedroom."

"Stuck," John replied. Having got the waistcoat off he'd moved on to the considerably smaller buttons of his shirt. Upon failing to get them he had attempted to pull the shirt over his head.

He remembered this part clearly. Sherlock crossed the room swiftly and grabbed his arms to prevent him from tearing the shirt. With deft fingers he'd undone John's shirt in an instant.

John had stood blinking at his flatmate through the haze of intoxication. "You'd think you were undoing men's shirts all the time," he mumbled.

"I am," Sherlock said. "I wear them."

Smartarse, John thought. What had happened next? Had he just simply walked into Sherlock's bedroom? No he'd been confused…

"Ok, g'night," John had said, aiming for the couch.

"No," Sherlock said, catching his wrist. "This way." He'd pulled him, John remembered.

"Why?" John asked, obediently following his favourite detective down the hallway.

"Because I will have the light on in the living room and I will be working. You'll sleep better here."

He guided John into the room by his wrist and let him go. But that wasn't the end of it. John remembered he had sat down on the bed, undoing his shoes.

"It's nice," he said.

"What?" Sherlock asked.

"You."

Sherlock waited.

"You, dancing."

The detective leaned against the doorframe.

"You are a professional dancer."

"I'm an amateur dancer."

"Psssh," John laughed, "like you're an amateur detective."

John was sliding off his belt. He pulled down his trousers.

John cringed at the memory. Couldn't he have waited until Sherlock left the room?

"They're right you know," John had said, apparently just sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers at this point.

"Who?"

"Everyone."

"What are they right about?"

"You're very pretty."

And John had chosen that moment—as opposed to a much more convenient two minutes prior—to lie down on the bed and pass out.

John covered his face with both hands. He was never going to hear the end of it.

When John had got the flat to stop spinning enough to walk to the living room, he found Sherlock stretched out on the couch, laptop balanced on his thighs. John wondered if he'd slept on the couch or if he'd slept at all. He felt guilty about having taken his flatmate's bed, but on the other hand Sherlock probably wouldn't have used it anyway.

The detective's eyes ran over him, reading him, John knew, in that piercingly analytical way of his and John was suddenly hyperaware that he was still wearing only his boxers. The only clothes he had in Sherlock's room were the ones from last night, and in his current state he truly couldn't be arsed to get them on again. Sherlock would just have to cope with his boxers. They were nice boxers, anyway. John's head swam and he wished his unbelievably intense flatmate would stop looking at him like—

"Good afternoon, John!" Sherlock said, expression snapping from scrutinising to cheery in an instant.

John slatted his eyes at his suddenly chipper flatmate. He did not like that tone on Sherlock one bit.

"Tell me, I couldn't decide"—Sherlock shut his laptop and jumped up on couch—"do you think I'm prettier in the red or the blue?" he asked, holding up two of his dressing gowns.

John held the edge of the wall. He couldn't be expected to maintain his balance if the flat was going to tilt and wobble so. "I think you're a twatting tosspot."

"Pretty though, right?" Sherlock jumped to the floor. "Where are you going?"

John walked into the bathroom as determinedly as his hangover would allow. He grabbed Sherlock's shampoo and conditioner. He marched up to the conceited ball of ego in his living room and shoved the products in his face.

"Look at these!" John said. "Look at them!"

Sherlock gave him a bewildered look. "Is there a reason you're brandishing shampoo at me?"

"Forty pounds each! I looked them up. And god knows how much the rest of the products in there cost."

"You know nothing of the daily struggle that is curly hair," Sherlock said, taking his phone out of his pocket as it buzzed.

"That's not the point."

"Are you making a point?" he asked as he checked the message.

"You know you're pretty, you toff." Sherlock blinked up from his phone at that. "It's an obvious fact. Everyone knows it, including you. So don't act like what I said last night is any kind of revelation."

"You're a very nasty hungover person," Sherlock said, flopping down onto the couch sulkily.

"My head hurts," John frowned.

"By the way, if you're planning to be naked all day I should warn you Mrs. Hudson's threatened to come up with tea in an hour."

"I'm not naked," John said, feeling his face get hot.

Sherlock shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just remember our dear landlady has recently learned how to use the camera function on her phone."

John stalked off to the bathroom and as he brushed his teeth he wondered if there was anyone else living with such a difficult detective. He wondered if there was a support group for people living with difficult detectives.

"By making the necessary inquiries I discovered that there was one woman who had appointments with all three of our dead men on Friday, October ninth. Her name is Karina. More likely was Karina," Sherlock explained as their cab wound through the London streets toward the strip club. "The woman we're meeting tonight is Alexa. Probably not her real name. She's worked at Monroe's for a few years so she should have the information we need."

"And what information is that?"

"We need to know who owns the club. If this place is what I think it is the person on the books won't be the real owner."

"What do you think it is?"

"A front. For most patrons Monroe's is just a strip club. For those who know better it's a brothel. I would guess they sell drugs too. The two usually go hand in hand."

"Right."

"And we need anything she can tell us about Karina."

"How are we going to question her while pretending we're only there for sex? I suppose she won't be interested in an interrogator/witness roleplay." John chuckled at absurdity of the idea and Sherlock gave him a sideways glance.

"Another apt demonstration, John, of why we let me handle the planning."

John wondered if Sherlock would be as patronising with his scarf wrapped and tied around his face. He clasped his hands together to prevent them from trying it. "So what's my role then?"

"You're going to distract her while I have a look around."

John looked at him. "You aren't serious."

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows. "Yes I am."

"And how do you suppose I'm going to distract a prostitute? Hm? I don't suppose they have Scrabble there, do you?"

"John—"

"No, Sherlock, I told you I won't have sex with her. I won't—"

"I don't want you to have sex with her," Sherlock snapped. "But you can act like you're interested. Keep her attention, you know the drill."

"Right," John sighed and turned to look out the window. Because we have a drill for interrogating prostitutes undercover.

As an alleged 'front' for prostitution and drug dealing, John had imagined Monroe's to be a dingy, seedy place that would practically spell out crime. The place the cab pulled up to, however, was decidedly upmarket, with a valet option at the door.

"This is not what I was expecting," John said as they stepped out of the cab.

"Weren't you?" Sherlock asked. "What do the dead men have in common?"

"Scars on their thighs."

"Yes, and?"

John shrugged.

"Money."

John wondered if he was underdressed in his jeans and shirt, but a glance around revealed other men in the same attire. However, Sherlock, with a dark purple designer shirt visible beneath suit jacket, was (for once) not overdressed either. There were a considerable number of men in suits as well—straight from the office to the bar on a Friday night.

The heavy thudding of some kind of dubstep or drum and bass or whatever the kids were calling it these days preceded their entry into the building.

John handed over cash for the cover charges. As a rule, his bloody incompetent flatmate never had cash. He often wondered if Sherlock had ever used a cash machine, and even more often wondered how the man managed to simply survive on a day-to-day basis.

The club was an enormous space, darkly lit and alternatingly illuminated by neon lights. A sleek, modern bar stretched almost the length of the place. Dotting the area were circular platforms featuring silver poles. They served as miniature stages for the strippers, who, topless, were performing their routines to their respective audiences: a ring of chairs around each stage filled with hollering, note-waving revellers.

The time was almost ten, and the club was in full swing. It was crowded. The majority of the patrons were men, although John spotted a few women here and there, and one particularly conspicuous group of women surrounding a platform, shrieking and cheering.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and he followed Sherlock over to a stage where there were two empty seats.

They dropped into the seats and Sherlock leaned over, "Act interested," he said close to his ear, probably forgetting that John was the sort of goldfish who would not have to be instructed to 'act interested' in a topless dancer. "We need to look no different than these brainless idiots across from us."

John smirked at the detective's usual amount of tact. No one stood a chance. With Sherlock you were stupid long before you had the chance to open your mouth and incriminate yourself.

He watched in fascination as Sherlock faced the stripper with an expression that would have looked mildly interested to anyone else. But John could see he'd gone away. To his mind palace, he supposed, hopefully to run over the plan for their impending encounter.

John kept his eyes moving between the stripper and the detective. He had to appreciate the exceptional circumstance of being at a strip club with Sherlock Holmes. Even a Sherlock who was not remotely paying attention was an extraordinarily out-of-place figure at a pole-dancing performance.

John had been to a few strip clubs in his day. A stag party here, a drunken night there, but he'd never warmed to them. Confusing feminist questions aside, he didn't like the atmosphere: A bunch of leering men, some clearly aroused… Strip clubs weren't John's scene.

There were ten other men in the chairs around the platform. Some were cheering and clapping and talking animatedly amongst each other. A few sat sipping drinks, an unpleasantly predatory look on their faces as they watched the woman gyrating in front of them.

The beat throbbed on and he watched the woman display impressive strength, pulling herself up and down the pole. She was fit, to be sure. It wasn't difficult to see why she would have success in showing off her body. His eyes flicked sideways again, a repetition John found he couldn't help. Sherlock in the seat next to him was surreal, eyes fixed blankly on the woman in front of them, colour shadows playing across his face warm and cold. John wondered where he was in his mind palace. Even after all the years it was still incredible to John that the detective could leave the conscious world like this, shut out all sensory input and turn his gaze inward. The mental control was truly amazing and John wondered, not for the first time, what it must be like in Sherlock's mind palace. He would give anything to see it. Because the rooms must be filled not only with enough stores of science and crime information to rival the British Library, but also treasures of Sherlock's memories and imagination. If he could have even just an hour to explore the corridors and doorways of that unfathomable mind—

The stripper dropped to her hands and knees on the platform. Cheers followed her as she crawled around and John couldn't help grinning when he saw who she had chosen to favour with her attention.

John cleared his throat, nudging his friend.

Sherlock's eyes snapped back into focus and John savoured the look of surprise on his face when he realised the woman he'd been absently watching was directly in front of him on all fours. She turned around, shaking her arse for him.

"John…"

John laughed. "She wants money," he said over the music.

"What?"

"Give her money and she'll move on."

John took out his wallet and handed him a fiver. Five pounds was nothing. He would have paid considerably more to watch Sherlock do this.

"Can't you—?"

"Just do it," John said.

Sherlock Holmes straightened his jacket, leaned up, and tucked the note into the band of the stripper's thong. The people around the stage whistled and clapped and she moved on to the next group.

John gave Sherlock what he hoped was his best obnoxious grin and Sherlock in turn told him to shut up.

A server appeared behind them. "Mr. Taylor?" she asked.

Sherlock turned around. "Yes?"

"If you and Mr. Bradley will just follow me for your appointment."

Sherlock stood and John followed.

"Taylor?" John muttered to Sherlock as they crossed the crowded floor, knowing he wouldn't be heard over the music.

"I have a random name generator," Sherlock explained, tapping his phone. "Tonight I'm Matthew Taylor and you're Sean Bradley."

"When were you planning on telling me this?"

"Right now."

Impeccable timing, as always.

"Don't they think it's weird that there are two of us for one 'appointment'?"

Sherlock smirked, "I don't know much about the world of prostitution, but I'm sure they've seen weirder."

The server led them round a wall in the back. She entered a security code at a door and they followed her through and up a large, sweeping flight of steps.

In contrast to the ultramodern club, the upstairs décor seemed an attempt to mimic the style of an old Parisian brothel. Chandeliers lined the hallway ceiling and ornate doorways led off to, what John assumed, were the bedrooms.

"How much did you pay for this?" John asked under his breath.

"Enough," Sherlock responded.

He wondered how such a place could exist without the police knowing about it. Maybe they did know about it. But John didn't have time to speculate about the level of corruption at Scotland Yard. They stopped at one of the doors.

"May I take your drink orders?" their guide asked.

"Vodka martini with lemon," Sherlock replied, adding a bit of the James Bond touch to being undercover. Actually, John doubted if Sherlock knew who James Bond was. John looked at his friend suspiciously. He must know.

"Scotch, neat," John said. He knew it would probably be better to order something he hadn't been consuming excessively the night before, but his hangover had been his fault, not the whisky's. Scotch was by far his favourite drink and he wasn't about to let one bad morning ruin their relationship.

The server tapped on the door and a woman opened it.

John had never met a woman who worked as a prostitute. If he had any ideas about how she might look based on the Hollywood version of street hookers he was mistaken. She was young, beautiful. Long, thick, undulating dark hair fell around her waist. Her makeup was subtle on delicate features, full lips, dark eyes; John wouldn't think she'd have any trouble getting work with a modelling agency, but he supposed her reasons for her profession were her own. Alexa, he presumed. She was wearing a small silk dressing gown, barely long enough to cover the necessary parts. Stilettos had her height between his and Sherlock's. Her long, tan legs were bare—

Sherlock nudged him and John realised he must have been gaping.

"Come in," she said, opening the door wider and stepping back. "Have a seat." She had a subtle accent John couldn't place.

It was a large, luxurious room. The bed was certainly big enough for three people, and if there were any force on Earth that could erase that last observation from his mind he would've happily paid for it.

They sat in the two wooden, cushioned chairs she indicated.

"So, how shall we start?" she asked, moving to stand in front of them. She undid the silk belt around her waist and the dressing gown fell open. John swallowed, dragging his eyes up from her lingerie to her face. "How about a private dance?"

She picked up a small remote from the side table.

"I thought we might get to know each other a bit first," Sherlock said, eyes boring through her. John knew he was ascertaining as many deductions about her as possible. The detective leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. "Tell us something about you."

She smirked, meeting his gaze unwaveringly, seeming to appraise him in turn.

There was a tap at the door and the server set down their respective drinks on the table between the chairs. When the door had clicked shut again she tossed off the dressing gown entirely and cast her gaze down as if to indicate her own figure.

"I think you know enough about me. Now, you may drink your drinks, and I'll give you a little dance."

It was enough to shut Sherlock up. She hit 'play' and a sultry song with deep bass flooded from unseen speakers.

She swayed, moving her hips slowly to the rhythm. John was more than happy to see Scotch again, the disagreements of the morning forgotten entirely.

"Now," she said, moving closer to Sherlock. She put one foot on the edge of his chair and he had to tilt his head back to see her face. "What do you want to talk about?"

Sherlock hesitated.

"No?" she asked. Her smile showed her teeth. She backed off of Sherlock's chair and moved toward John's.

She stood over him, straddling his chair. John kept his gaze firm, looking up at her face. She dipped down, rolling her hips with the music, giving him a lap dance. John took a deep breath. She was beautiful and he gathered he should probably look like he was into it for the sake of 'distracting her' or whatever the hell it was Sherlock had said he was supposed to be doing. But perhaps it was because they were on a case, or maybe it was just the inescapable unreality of strippers and prostitutes in general, but John found it more difficult to look like he was enjoying it than he might have thought. There were two talented actors in the room and he wasn't one of them.

He placed his hands on her waist and he turned his head to look at Sherlock thinking, Well…? Plan? But Sherlock was watching them with a blank expression. Calculating, John hoped.

She stopped moving and sat down in John's lap, facing him.

"You're both very attractive," she purred, lifting her hands and running them through John's hair. "Such a shame that you're cops."