Fair Game (Johnlock/Morlock/Sherlock x Irene) (iamsherlocked, John Hamish Watson, The Woman, and James Moriarty)

Sherlock gives a curt nod to Irene before quickly heading in the direction of the North wall of the ballroom, determined to find something and find it quick, he was not in the mood to stay around all these people into the wee hours of the morning.

John wandered slowly around the South part of the room as instructed by Sherlock, trying to concentrate as best he could, and employ Sherlock's methods to see, observe and deduce. The place was heaving with people, he weaved carefully in and out occasionally apologising as he bumped into the other guests.

At the bar, he spotted a man he thought he recognised, but he couldn't quite remember from where. The man caught him staring and he looked away quickly, heading off in a different direction.

Irene walked straight into the crowd, searching for suspicious things. John and Sherlock should know that the perfect place to hide something was in plain sight. Which meant in this case: among the people. She scanned the room with hawk-eyes, but found nothing particularly uncommon.

Sherlock, on the other hand, had found quite a few things of interest. Stupid people, it's so easy to read them. How does his wife not know he's cheating on her? In fact, the overwhelming amount of things he was seeing was almost clouding his ability to focus on the case. /Almost./ He too saw this man that John had noticed at the bar, when he headed off in that different direction, he was heading towards the side of the ballroom Sherlock was on. He caught the man's eye and the man bee-lined to him, obviously he had some information, probably related to this case and what Moriarty was planning to do.

John pushed his way through the crowd, occasionally nodding or smiling at people. He hadn't spotted anyone else of interest other than the man at the bar. Everyone seemed to be quite....well...normal really, just mind their own business or chatting to friends, enjoying the party.

He stood on tip toes and managed to spot Sherlock at the other end of the room. The strange man from the bar appeared to be approaching him. John shouted out to try and warn him but all he got was an odd look from the people immediately in front of him. It was far too loud and Sherlock didn't hear.

"Excuse me," he said and pushed past the couple in front, trying to make his way towards Sherlock. Suddenly there was a tap on his back. He turned round and was punched hard in the stomach. He doubled over, winded and felt someone grabbing him by the shoulder.

((hmmm, it seems as if we need someone to play these two men, Irene? Could you possibly do it?))

((Ehm... I guess so? I didn't really had those two men in mind, but well, I guess I can do them ))

Together as buddies, they made John inactive. The broader one of the two hid him behind his back, so that the happy, silly dancing people wouldn't notice them. Of course, Sherlock Holmes would catch upon them, but that was all part of the game.

They shuffled to the back of the ballroom and closed the heavy curtain behind them.

((Was that ok? I really don't know what to do actually XD))

John tried to call out Sherlock's name as he was dragged away but he was quickly silenced by a gag around his mouth, tied tightly at the back of his head, and his hands roughly roped up behind his back. He wasn't even convinced that Sherlock would have been able to hear him over the noise of the party but he knew he'd notice he was missing eventually. At least he hoped he would.

Behind the curtains of the ballroom John was shoved down onto a large hard backed chair and roped up around the middle by the two men, who then moved to the side and whispered to each other, glancing over at John occasionally and checking the time on their watches. He started to struggle against his ties, trying to loosen them off without the men noticing.

The strange man reached Sherlock, Sherlock looked him up and down and deduced that he was a slob, aware of these habits and quite proud of them, he had been out drinking last night, and he worked with Moriarty. "Do you have a message from Moriarty?"

Sherlock was straight to the point, he didn't want to waste time fussing about here, he knew that Moriarty had a deeper plan and he wanted to cut to the chase.

The two men stood opposite John clearly talking about him or discussing their plan in quiet hushed voices. One of them looked at his watch, then turned to address John.

"Where is Sherlock Holmes?" he asked. "Why hasn't he come to rescue you?"

John shrugged. At least he knew the men were planning to keep him alive. That was a relief. He coughed as one of them punched him in the stomach, winding him.

Irene had lost her boys in the crowd, so when she didn't see John anywhere and Sherlock standing before a massive gorilla, she rolled with her eyes and pushed her way through the crowd to Sherlock. Oh, if he was going to do something stupid, it wouldn't be her fault.

When she reached the pair, she looked up to him and asked: "Hello, what is my assignment?"

((who is doing the bad guys? I liked your input, admin ))

((I can do the ones that are with John so that you and Sherlock can hang out for a bit while John gets roughed up, lol...Anyway, do carry on....))

((alright, Irene could you do the bad guys who are with us? Since I'm not exactly sure what the plan is...and then I'd be talking to myself. haha complicatedd!! Well then I guess you'd be talking to yourself too, what do you wanna do?))

Sherlock saw Irene as she approached. He gave her a look asking if she knew what was going on. When she asked the mysterious man what her assignment was he had to re-asses what was going on. It seemed that this was one of Irene's cohorts in whatever assignment it was that she was supposed to be carrying out. Was it possible that this man didn't know he was Sherlock Holmes? He smoothly slide his arm into Irene's and said, "There you are honey, what's all this about an assignment? Is this the man you were hoping to meet here?" He hoped Irene would go along with it.

((I think we'll be talking to ourselves either way XD We'll manage. I actually had a whole other plan, so I'm at a loss too right now.))

Irene was surprised at Sherlock's approach. She had thought he was more direct with asking, but she acted along with it perfectly.
"Yes there I am, my dear. I lost you." She smiled at him, letting her hand slip in his and wrapping the other around his waist and pulling him closer, she gave him a little peck on the cheek. "Oh, I recognized him from my work. We had an assignment to do together. He would work on it over the weekend and give me the part he couldn't do." She unlocked her gaze from Sherlock to the robust man standing in front of them.

"You are Sherlock Holmes." The man said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

((I'm lost too, oh well, we'll run with it!))

Sherlock's eyes turned cold and fixed on the large man, "And who are you?" He practically growled this question, done playing around.

"Doesn't matter." The man said. "If ye wanna have yer pet back, you'll have to look for him. But first, ye'll have to a find and solve a murder in this building. If ye don't, yer doggie, along with a numerous amount of other people, will die, here."

Well that was clear.

((Was it? xD))

Sherlock scanned the room for John and realized he couldn't find him anywhere. At that moment a women came into the ballroom, full of hysteria, Sherlock rushed over to her and dragged Irene along with him, "What is it? What's happened?"

The women let out a wail before saying, "My husband--he's been murdered!!"

Sherlock glanced back at where the goon had been but he was gone. Sherlock cursed under his breath before turning back to the women, "Take me to the murder scene." His tone was cold and demanding. It sobered the women up enough that she quickly led them up a flight of stairs to where the murder had occurred. After solving this murder, he would be hot on the trial of John, he hated thinking that Moriarty had him in his clutches again.

John took another punch in the face with a loud groan. His two captives were quickly getting bored and had decided to take it out on him. Then one of their phones began to ring. He took it out and answered it, the other man pausing to take a drink and John was glad of the interuption.

"Hello?" he said into his phone. John watched with interest, trying to get as much information he could from listening to the one sided phone call. "Great. OK. No problem boss." And he hung up. The other man looked at him quizzically.

"It was him. The wheels have been set in motion."

"Good news," the other man replied and ruffled John's hair. "Don't worry Johnny Boy...he's on his way."

John cringed. Only one person ever called him Johnny Boy and that was Moriarty. He suspected these two men might work for the consulting criminal and he suddenly got a bad feeling about the whole thing. Their smiling faces and secret nods to each other. Sherlock was on his way. And they were pleased about that? Why? What were they hiding? He couldn't help thinking this whole thing was some kind of trap for Sherlock.

The woman led Sherlock and Irene up the grand staircase to the second floor, there she led them left down a hallway and at the last door stopped and began crying again. "I don't want to go back in." She wailed.

"Fine. Then stay here." Sherlock said bluntly, "Irene," he said turning to the woman, "Stay with this woman and see what information you can possibly get from her." Sherlock swept inside the room, immediately seeing a man lying on the floor in the middle of the room, a pool of blood under his head. Next to the man was a candlestick with a note attached to it. Sherlock quickly went over to the note, observing everything about it that he could before finally reading it, 'Mr. Jones with the candlestick in the bedroom...but who killed him?' Sherlock cursed again, Moriarty was playing CLUDO with him, and he had a feeling that he wasn't playing by the rules.

John was busy trying to loosen off the ropes that bound his hands. His two captors had become distracted comparing messages on their phones and smirking to each other, possibly looking at some kind of porn, he thought to himself.

His hands were tied pretty tight behind his back but he wriggled and twisted as best he could, trying to ignore the friction burns. He had to find a way to get free and get out of this situation. He needed to warn Sherlock that something was going on.

After observing everything about the crime scene that he could, Sherlock swept out of the room with the same speed and grace as he had arrived in. He consulted Irene immediately, "What did you learn?" He asked quiet and fast. The wife of the deceased was no where to be found and as time ticked on Sherlock couldn't help worrying more and more about John. He needed to find him he wanted to say Cluedo could wait but that's exactly what Moriarty was trying to do, to play the game. It was like the bombings, if he didn't play along more people would die. Moriarty would invertibly keep John alive, if not extremely uncomfortable but innocent people's lives were like mere pawns in Moriarty's cat and mouse game of chess.