The amount of bass that was currently buzzing its way down John Watson's spine was something that seemed ironically comforting. He was never a club type man, always insisting that it was far too busy for his sensibilities, but tonight, he had to admit, he was having one hell of a time.
The night originally started out horrendously awkward — which really was no surprise when one's stag party consists of a consulting detective, an actual detective chief inspector, a retired army doctor/blogger, and one of the most important figureheads of the british government. All of them, out of a sense of affection, duty, or both, were semi-willingly getting sloshed as scantily clad go-go dancers served them varying amounts of alcohol in a different assortment of bars.
At first, the alcohol was generally consumed in order to stave off the painful sort of silence that exists between men who sometimes barely like each other. However, what began with desperation, eventually sort of dissolved into general amiability. Lestrade, of course was the most genial of the group, trying in vain to converse with the Holmes brothers despite their almost dizzying levels of animosity. John was second to him of course, somehow able to calm the virulent glares the brothers' kept shooting at one another — especially now that the alcohol had really started flowing.
At first there were some beers, all amounts ingeniously calculated to achieve the most stable level of coherent intoxication for each attending stag member. This was approximately monitored by an application Kairi and Molly whipped up for their respective bar crawls. Next, there had been some sneaky subterfuge on the side of Lestrade and John, unable to bear the absolute stiffness of the Holmes brothers, who had flat-out refused to speak to each other after one of them brought up some childish affair from their past. Lestrade and John had taken it upon themselves and started ordering things like boilermakers to speed up the jovial processes and get the party going. Luckily, the Holmes brothers were not only woefully inept at social constructs such as getting smashed, but they also didn't pick up on John and Lestrade's evil plan because their refined palates couldn't differentiate between shit beer and spiked beer.
They were currently at their third bar, the theme of which was still rather unclear to John, but Sherlock had insisted it held some sort of inane significance. At this point, John was a little bleary eyed and ready for a nap. Lestrade seemed to have the giggles. Sherlock had become some sort of raging diva (but John would admit that Sherlock was already quite a prima donna in the first place). Then, of course, there was Mycroft, who had a cheerful smile on his face, which was probably the most concerning of them all. They all sat in a dilapidated booth at the back corner, far enough away from the sad dance floor of the current bar, sipping on their augmented drinks and mumbling on about random topics. Eventually amicable debate ended up in furious tirades over said mundane subjects. In a fit of silence, John finally looked around himself, one eye open, the other eye squinting, and wondered aloud.
"Sherlock, where in the hell are we actually?" John hiccupped.
"This is the bar symbolizing your relationship with Lestrade." Sherlock grumbled, attempting to fold a paper napkin into some sort of sad-looking, lopsided bird-like thing.
"I've never been here before." Lestrade intoned, looking at John and shrugging with one shoulder. "Have we?" He looked around suspiciously, as if his memory was altered.
"How is this place significant to me and Lestrade?" John shouted and held back a burp, the whiskey and beer edging up inside his stomach, "It's kind of a shit hole."
"Oi, thanks!" Lestrade hissed and swung a hand at John, but missed terribly.
"What is it that those fairy tales all say? Beauty is fleeting?" Sherlock looked up from his depressed paper crane and up at the cheap spinning lights on the ceiling, momentarily distracted like a cat gazing after a laser pointer. There was an odd sort of awe in his eyes as he gazed after the spinning lights, as if the universe were revealing something profoundly poignant through patters on the cracked ceiling.
