Title: Evacuate the Dancefloor
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Alternate Postings:
At AO3 Rating/Content: PG13, Spoilers for 3.02, squinty gen, humor, silliness, dance club, alcohol, stag night, probably OOC
Warnings: none
Word Count: 1100
Disclaimer: Not my world.
Notes: Written for
watsons_woes July Writing Prompt #25:
Moved by Music. Song used for title and prompt is
Evacuate the Dancefloor by Cascada. Run y'all, it's a Stag Night fic!
Summary: Sherlock Holmes, dance beast.
Evacuate the Dancefloor
The shots were a good idea, John thought. A warm buzz was starting to overtake him; he was beginning to feel less like someone's dad here amongst all the early-twenty-somethings and Uni students at the dance club Sherlock had brought them to.
He hadn't been to dance clubs since Uni, and not much then. Same principle as always though; get drunk, get loud, get writhing around on the dance floor. Not something either he or Sherlock were about to do, at least the writhing part.
John glanced over to see if Sherlock had noticed the high-proof addition to his beer. Sherlock was in the process of draining his beaker - John giggled inappropriately, frowned at himself, then giggled again - so he apparently hadn't.
The music changed for something less like a toy jet engine gone mad and to something John found slightly familiar. He tried to place it but couldn't be arsed to focus on remembering it. Probably something that was over-played in shops, though it seemed too energetic for the usual audio wallpaper. The standard stuff though; 'turn up the music', 'I like to move it' something something. Catchy. He tapped his fingers on the side of his nearly-empty beaker and hummed tunelessly along.
"Hey, Sherlock, do you know what this-" John blinked around, but Sherlock had disappeared. Hunh. His 'loo timer' has probably gone off.
Strange sort of a pub crawl, this. John was having a good time though, and that extra shot was making him care far less what the club patrons thought about two men in their late thirties, hanging round a dance club, drinking beer out of graduated beakers and fussing with timers and blood alcohol calculators. Far more bizarre things were going on in the club, most with far less clothing. Not that he was looking anymore. He was getting married tomorrow after all. The motion of dancers was distracting though. Colourful and full of whirling glow-sticks and-
In a gap between dancers on the red-lit dance floor, John spotted a cyclone of familiar black coat.
"...No." He drained his beaker, set it on the counter next to Sherlock's, and pushed his way into the crowd to get a better look.
Sherlock Holmes was dancing. Or possibly having a seizure. Or having a very complicated visit to his Mind Palace.
Evacuate the dance floor, I'm infected by the sound, wailed the song lyrics.
Too right, thought John, mildly boggled by the sight.
He wasn't sure what Sherlock was doing, but it certainly wasn't the sedate waltz he'd been teaching John for the wedding. Arms and legs where going in every direction, mostly to the pounding beat. It looked... well it mainly looked ridiculous because it was Sherlock doing it, and gyrating like a backup dancer in a rock video did not fit in John's mental box for Sherlock Holmes.
The club patrons had cleared a circle around Sherlock on the dance floor, clapping along to the beat and hooting encouragement.
Christ. And I was worried he might take us someplace with karaoke.
As he watched Sherlock move to the music, flailing his arms like an electrocuted octopus, John felt a slight twinge of regret for slipping Sherlock an unplanned-for shot of whisky. Then he felt a bigger twinge of regret that he'd never managed to figure out how to work his new phone as a video camera. Then he caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd who looked quite a bit like Sergeant Donovan (but on second glance obviously wasn't) and had a brief twinge-like thought about this ending up on the Yard's private "Sherlock Follies" YouTube channel. He wasn't sure where he stood on that idea.
Still processing the flurry of conflicting twinges, John shrugged and stood off to the side of the dance floor, watching Sherlock twirl and clapping along with the crowd.
Sherlock spun to the edge of the cleared circle during a rap verse about 'shaking that thing' and peered over in the direction of their abandoned empty beakers. "John?" he shouted, looking around with sudden alarm.
John waved and hooted from where he stood, rather than let Sherlock worry he'd been abducted or whatever.
"John!" Sherlock shouted, and threw his arms into the air in giddy invitation. "Come dance!"
"What?! No!"
Sherlock shimmied over to John. "Practice! For the reception!"
"This is not the sort of music I'll be dancing to with Mary!"
Sherlock shook his head, bobbing, weaving and clapping in time to the music as club patrons filled in the dance floor behind him for the remainder of the song. "Rhythm, keeping the beat! Always important!"
The look on Sherlock's face was so open and happy, John was disarmed just long enough for Sherlock pull him onto the dance floor, spinning and stumbling. A few cheers went up near them, but the club's circle of attention had shifted over to a young man doing some amazing sort of Russian squat-kicks.
"I don't know what I'm doing!" John shouted over the music, wiggling vaguely and grinning. "I don't know how you know what you're doing!"
"Undercover case in a club in Ireland, before I met you. Had to blend in." Sherlock gave a wicked smile that indicated he really hadn't much minded the blending. "This song was 'my jam'."
John nearly doubled over laughing at Sherlock describing anything as 'his jam', head swimming from drink.
"Not much chance to dance though, too difficult to keep track of the thingy." Sherlock waved a hand out of time with the beat. "Suspect."
"Ah," John said sagely.
The song thankfully ended just then, after the lyrics requested the DJ burn the place to the ground, and the DJ took the opportunity to shout out at the crowd, the crowd hooting back cheerfully. Sherlock and John staggered back to their empty beakers, giggling.
"That," John said, "was rather ludicrous."
"Fun though." Sherlock picked up his beaker and squinted blearily at it with evident regret. He glanced sideways at John. "Good beer here."
"Hmm." John repressed a grin, pretty sure his trick with the shots had been rumbled. "We still on your schedule?"
Sherlock tucked the beakers under his arm and awkwardly retrieved his phone. "Ah, four minutes behind. Need a cab now." He pointed toward the door and strode off in a slightly crooked line, John following.
Behind them the next song started up, the opening beats boinging in a way John was certain he recognized.
Oh God no.
"Ooo!" said Sherlock, turning back toward the dance floor.
"No!"
"No?" He turned a vaguely puppy-like gaze on John.
"Um. Schedule?" John said with more than a hint of desperation.
"Oh." Sherlock deflated slightly, and hiccuped. "Hm. Right."
They left the club clutching their drinking beakers, the strains of "I'm Sexy and I Know it" following them out into the street.
-.-.-
(that's it)