"Tell me again how this is for the case." John looked in the mirror and pulled the rather too tight jumper so that it stretched away from his chest, frowning when he released it and it seemed to display the very prominent lines of his upper body even more. "Because, frankly, I'm not getting it."

John watched the mirror as the taller man stood behind him, appraising the results of his costuming. Sherlock reached up and and adjusted the wig that turned John's usual pragmatic, and very short, military cut, into a straight, shoulder-length style with fringe. John rolled his eyes as his partner avoided answering the question by running a strand of the wig's hair through his thumb and the first two fingers of his right hand, obviously gauging the texture of the advertised "natural" hair feel. "We should have gone with the extensions," he said. "More real feeling somehow and far less likely to slip."

"Yeah, that was never going to happen." John leaned in a bit and squinted into the mirror. "Am I wearing too much make-up? I'm wearing too much make-up, aren't I." He turned his head to look at his profile. "I don't want to come off like…" His voice slowed down as he realized what he was saying. "I'm trying too hard." John (I'm not gay. Why does everyone assume I'm gay?) Watson, pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned hard as he struggled to find the words to start again while simultaneously being careful not to smudge the eyeliner it took him almost an hour to apply. "Tell, me Sherlock," he started, and his voice had the just this side of completely losing patience timbre to it. "Tell me why I'm dressing as a woman."

"Because Anderson's an idiot, obviously." Sherlock (Why am I stating the obvious yet again?) Holmes took two steps back when John abruptly turned around to face him full on. Well, as abruptly as one can when one is used to wearing trainers or army boots but is now wearing open-toed sandals with two-inch heels.

"According to you, Anderson is always an idiot, so you had better explain now how this wasn't just some experiment in how far we could push John into humiliation before he punched his best friend." John really hope he didn't have to punch his friend, partly because his nails were still not set and he was not going through the torture of a full manicure again.

Sherlock turned his back on John, and the mirror, and started playing with the different perfumes he had laying on the table, apparently looking for just the right one, but quite transparently searching for a way to minimize the damage he might be subjected to after he explained. After spraying a few and wafting the scented droplets toward his nose and sniffing quite loudly (think full on bloodhound), he picked up a tall, rectangular bottle holding glass cleaner blue liquid. With the speed and precision of a ninja sample lady at one of the more upper class department stores, he aimed the spritzer and deftly sprayed John so that he would smell of Desert Oasis for the required period of time.

While John sputtered and spit and blinked and teared in the manly effort to remove the perfume that had gone into eyes and mouth without wrecking hours of hard work or tripping on his own elevated feet or, God forbid, ripping the skirt he paid twice as much for as any pair of trousers he owned, Sherlock quickly explained. "Anderson refuses to even entertain the idea that the killer could be a man in women's clothing or possibly a pre-operational transexual because, and really you have to admit this is quite ridiculous, John, 'any normal person can tell the difference between a man and a woman'". Sherlock had made air quotes around Anderson's words, but he stressed the word normal while making the ugly face he only used for especially ugly words.

John stopped sputtering and just sort of stared at his friend while he processed this new information. When Anderson said normal, it was obviously he was implying that not only was Sherlock not normal, but that he was somehow sexually abnormal as well. That Sherlock took offence at that was not unexpected and, considering that quite a number of Sherlock's network were within the LBGTQ community, it was also not unexpected that rather than let such ignorance slide, he was determined to demonstrate to Anderson just how wrong he was. There was just one problem.

"Sherlock, if you expect to fool Anderson into thinking I'm really a woman, then it just won't work. He's um, well, we have been to the loo at the same time."

"Don't be ridiculous, John." Sherlock handed John a surprisingly tasteful leather bag already packed with things he might need for a night at the pub with some friends, including his keys, wallet, a tube of the mauve lipstick, and his gun, because, well, you never know. "Anderson and I will be at the bar while you will be sitting in a booth chatting up Gavin. When you go off to the loo, we'll join the Detective Inspector and participate in a bit of good natured ribbing of the sort that often takes place on these pub nights of yours. Then you will come back, all will be revealed, and Anderson will be forced to admit he was wrong."

"And then, what?" John asked. "I just sit down and join you all for drinks and crisps dressed like this?"

Sherlock looked genuinely perplexed. "Is that a problem?"

"Well, yeah. It's a big problem if you ask me." John held the stern look for the count of five before breaking into a huge grin. "In this outfit, I think I could do better."

Sherlock's mouth turned up just a bit on one side, but he simply flung his coat on with the flourish of a matador tempting a bull, and said, "Come along, John. We don't want to be late."

John, for his part, followed behind, as he always did, but when he got to the door of 221B he stopped as a question came to mind.

"Sherlock," he called. "This skirt. It doesn't make my bum look too big does it?"