Friday

The alarm of John's phone went off at eight o'clock, as every morning. He opened his eyes, sighed and rebooted his laptop before even getting up from bed. He sat up and took a quick look to his blog comments: over five hundred since last afternoon, and only a quarter of them seemed to have read and understood his explanation about the video and the gifs. He deleted all of them, angrier each moment, and turned the comments off the whole blog.

Only then he went through his morning rituals, trying to make them last: he knew these routine moments would be the most peaceful ones in his day.

When he appeared in his sitting room with two mugs of coffee and a plate full of toasts in delicate balance, he was surprised to find his flatmate already composed, dressed and sitting on his armchair. He avoided to look at him while he placed their breakfast on the side table and settled himself in his own armchair; he could feel Sherlock's frown even without looking at him.

"Anything wrong?"

"Anything wrong that's new. Eat your toast before it turns cold, Sherlock."

They ate their breakfast in silence for a while, each one reading from their laptops, until Sherlock exclaimed:

"Oh, look, that's new! We have fanarts, now."

John snapped into attention and his friend turned his laptop so John could see the screen.

"They are drawings made by our fans."

"Yeah, I get it, thank you!", John grunted.

Oh, God, that was… Well, the drawings were really good, and it was obvious that someone had spent a good deal of time making them, because they were no doodles, and some were even in full colour. So the quality wasn't the issue, no. It was the content what made John blush. And it might have gone during all the week, because there were dozens. Dozens of nicely done drawings showing John and Sherlock having sex in every known posture. Okay, to be honest a few of them only showed them kissing, but he was too pissed off by now to make any difference.

He ran upstairs and came back minutes later with a video camera. Sherlock shoot him a questioning look.

"We are going to post our own video."

Sherlock looked horrified.

"No, not that kind of video!". Sherlock relaxed visibly. "A YouTube video explaining our relationship to those idiots, and asking them to stop seeing things that aren't there."

The detective just arched an eyebrow.

"I don't think it will stop them… Do you want to see the response that Tumblr has sent me? They apologize, but basically they say that they don't have any control on the blogs contents, and the only thing that we can do is ask the blog's owners to take it down, nicely. But alright, if it makes you feel better, we'll film that video."

And they did. John felt quite proud of the outcome: it was clear, direct, it had the right faces and bodies in it, and everybody would notice how the ones in the other video weren't them, and perhaps, only perhaps, would get the point. They uploaded it to YouTube and decided it was time to get back to work: Sherlock still had a loose end to close the robberies case, after all.

It was already early afternoon when they arrived to a cleaning service company; according to his reports, they have worked with only one of the victims, so John didn't know exactly what were they doing there. It became clear the moment Sherlock opened his mouth, of course (and when not?).

"Has this man ever worked for your company?", he asked as soon as the manager let them in his office.

The manager frown, and John thought they were about to be threw out of there, but as soon as Sherlock produced his notebook with a written name, the man's face changed to astonishment.

"Why? What has he done now?"

Sherlock grinned. They sat down and the manager offered them tea and an explanation. That man (one Kenny Lombard) had worked with them, indeed, for a couple of years, until a month before. He was dismissed after some customers complained of his continuing filching. Anything important, no money or valuables involved, but still. Kenny got really angry. As far as the manager knew, he was now working for another cleaning service. And yes, he had cleaned one of the victims' flats.

Sherlock stepped the street with a smug smirk on his face. He stopped a cab, John hastening to avoid being left behind (it wouldn't be the first time, after all).

"New Scotland Yard", Sherlock announced.

"So", asked John clearing his throat, "is this Kenny Lombard the robber?"

"Mmmmmm? No, of course not, but I wasn't sure of his implication, if any, in those robberies. I'm not still a hundred per cent sure, mind you, but I have enough evidence to ask for an official interrogation."

John tried to link that to the bits of information that he managed to extract from Sherlock the day before. "But the git always has to retain something to show off and come across as a fucking superhero", he thought, grinning.

As they came in the Scotland Yard premises, though, their good mood got mudded by the amount of looks they received. It's not that Sherlock wasn't used to getting attention, mind you, but they were usually angry looks, disdainful ones, and a few admiring ones. He was startled to find the normally scornful head clerk shooting him a definitely dirty glare. Or the officers from the Fraud Department smirking knowingly. As soon as they arrived to Lestrade's Department, a rain of applauses greeted them. John hadn't felt as embarrassed in his life. Some of the sergeants he knew went as far as to clap his back and congratulate him. Nobody dare to do so to Sherlock, even though he could felt a lot of feminine eyes set on him until he closed Lestrade's door at his back.

The D.I. smiled sympathetically.

"I'm sorry, guys, I asked them not to do it, but…"

"Yes, we know, they got carried away", Sherlock finished. "We are not here to discuss this topic; if you are all so idiotic that you choose to believe that John and I are involved into an intimate relationship of sorts, then I'll leave you to your miserable tiny brains. We are here to provide you with a new lead to close the robberies case."

Lestrade's face lighted up as a Christmas tree.

"Seriously? Well, if that's true you two can fuck as much as you like, and I promise that I will never even raise an eyebrow!"

John sighed loudly.

"Greg, for the last time, Sherlock and I are not fucking! That video was a porn film tampered to look as if they were us!"

"Oh, who worries about the video any more?" He looked a bit guilty before asking: "Have you seen the fanarts?"

Sherlock nodded; John raised his hands in surrender and turned to look out the window.

"Don't be so upset, John, sorry… I just thought they were cute, and that you two together… well, let's talk about the case, eh?"

"Yes, it would be a better use of our time", Sherlock replied coldly. "There's a cleaning employee, Kenny Lombard, who has worked for five of the seven victims. The last of them I just checked today: he was fired a month ago and I didn't have enough data to link him to all the flats."

Lestrade frowned, writing down the name.

"Is he the robber, then? What about the other two flats?"

"He is not the robber, but I think he was the one who provided the key to the actual robber. I'm not sure about his knowing what was going on, though, so I need you to call him here for interrogation."

Lestrade wrote down the rest of the suspect's details and thanked Sherlock. They crossed the building in slightly better mood that at their entrance, but the glares carried on all the time. Sherlock insisted in taking a cab for their way back home, too, and for once John said nothing of how wasteful his friend was.

During the short ride, he went through the contents of his kitchen cabinets in his mind, and found out that they had nothing to make a proper dinner. He suggested Sherlock dropping by Speedy's to eat something before going home; the detective frowned but accepted. So when the cab stopped in front of 221B, they went inside Speedy's and asked for the day's special. John realised how hungry he was and made quick work of his food, but Sherlock kept on fiddling with his steak and ale pie and poking the mush and gravy with his fork, instead of actually eating it.

"Sherlock", John said at last, annoyed. "Can't you just eat it, please? It's good."

"It's greasy. Why can't we have a nice home-cooked meal as the other day?"

John's annoyance dissolved as if it never had existed. He answered with a tiny smile:

"I haven't gone to Tesco since Monday, I'm sorry. I promise tomorrow we will have a proper dinner at home, cooked by the best cook of 221B Baker Street. Well, that is, the best after Mrs. Hudson, of course."

Sherlock smiled back and got up to pay for their dinner. When they were out the door, though, John added:

"But I want something in exchange."

His friend turned to look at him, expectant.

"You haven't played the violin for me since all this mess started."

Sherlock smiled fondly and leaned towards John. The doctor felt his heart skip a bit; for a moment, he thought Sherlock was going to kiss him right then and there, in the street, in front of his door, where Mrs. Hudson and all their neighbours could see them. But no.

Sherlock suddenly straightened up, his eyes looking everywhere but at John, and turned to open their door. John felt something alike disappointing fleeting in his stomach.

That evening, Sherlock complied and played the violin while John read a novel, feeling warm and cosy in his old armchair. He raised his eyes from the book from time to time, and wondered why any of those damn fanarts had captured Sherlock in that moment, playing the violin with his eyes closed, as ethereal that he seemed about to float.

Later, alone in his room, he deigned to look to the drawings again. Cute, according to Lestrade, thought John with a crooked grin. Most of them weren't at all what John would call cute. His eyes got caught on one picture of Sherlock and him kissing, though, and he could accept, perhaps, that it was nice: well drawn, and the surprised look on Sherlock's face was definitely something. Without thinking, he typed on the "ask" button of the artist's Tumblr blog and wrote an anonymous request: "Could you draw Sherlock playing the violin and looking as an angel?". He pressed 'send' and felt stupid all of a sudden, but he shrugged the feeling and got ready for bed.