Really, really sorry for the delay! But the end is almost here, most probably posted tomorrow.
Thank you for the nice comments and the encouragement!
Saturday
The rattle of rain awoke John before his alarm clock went off. He got up from bed and looked out the window: the morning light was sorely lacking, Baker Street was washed by a curtain of rain, and a distant thunder rumbled southward. John sighed: it was the kind of day he liked to spend staying at home, cosy and warm, watching old films, reading and drinking tea. But today's schedule included an early interrogation at Scotland Yard, so much for that.
He knocked on Sherlock's door on his way to the bathroom.
"Sherlock! We have to be at Scotland Yard at half past eight, wake up!"
He went through his customary routines in a rush and put their coffees in plastic cups. Sherlock appeared at the sitting room neatly dressed, combed and shaved just in time. He took his cup and sipped it, smiling at the awful weather at the other side of the window.
"You've got to love the British weather".
"Yeah, I'm sure all the colonies envy us…", retorted John, annoyed. "Why are you on such a good mood, anyway?"
Sherlock turned and got into his coat, all graceful and smooth movements.
"The case is almost closed, John! How should I feel if not joyful? Come on, the cab is here, hurry up!"
And John grabbed his jacket and his umbrella, feeling like a shabby shadow of his friend. They arrived to Scotland Yard in time and tried to ignore the glares and the smirks their passing arose. With their dignity only half intact, they met Lestrade out his office.
"Ah, here you are! Lombard is already at the interrogation room. You can watch from the annex room. And Sherlock? Are you sure Lombard is not the thief? You haven't even met him!"
"Ninety five per cent sure", Sherlock whispered, barely paying attention to them and walking forward. "Focus the questions on finding out if the man had a grudge against the victims, and then on whom he commented on his annoyance. Someone who had access to the flats' keys."
Half an hour later, they finally had a name. Sherlock ran out of the small room, leaving John behind, his fingers flying over his phone.
"A computer! Fast! Donovan, let me use your computer, now!"
Sally Donovan's forehead was suddenly adorned with a rather ugly straight line, and she did not move in order to obey. Sherlock stamped his foot like a disgruntled toddler and turned, frustrated, looking for help. Luckily, John and Lestrade finally appeared, coming out from the interrogation room.
"Lestrade! I need a computer, quickly!"
"Sherlock, what the hell…? You can't use the Yard equipment; tell me what you hope to find out using the computer and my team will look for it."
The frustration on Sherlock's face was painful to watch. John could tell that his friend was trying desperately to stop his mind for a moment and form words, explain his train of thought, but it was a Herculean task for him. When he couldn't stand it any more, John stepped forward and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, squeezing. Sherlock seemed to come out of his struggle and breathed deeply once:
"Lombard and two other cleaners, Jackson Smith and Sarah Lewis, used to go to the same person to make copies of the keys of the flats they got assigned to clean. It's Locks&Smith, on The Strand, near the cleaning service companies they worked in. The owner, Will Gordon, found himself with a nice bunch of labelled keys, all of them belonging to expensive flats in Central London. When Lombard complained about his employers, Gordon decided it was too good to let it pass: he could rob the flats without forcing the entry and he had a useful scapegoat, too… He didn't think the police would link him to the robberies, not when having Lombard at hand. And now could you please look for Will Gordon's details? We need his address, and you should check if he's rented a storehouse lately."
Lestrade opened his mouth to reply, but no word came out.
"Amazing!"
All the eyes in the wide room turned to look at John, who started to feel warmth creeping up his cheeks as the eyes began to be accompanied by knowing grins. Lestrade reacted quickly, clearing his throat.
"Well! Let's do it before he escapes, shall we? Donovan, look for it!"
"The storehouse should be located near the river."
"I've got it!", Donovan shouted, her nose close to the computer's screen. "In Dartford, in the Southbank! He rented it three months ago."
"Text me the address!", Sherlock answered, marching with wide strides towards the door.
"Wait, Sherlock!", Lestrade said, running after the detective. "Leave it to us now, there's no need you keep being involved."
"Send a car to his address and another to the storehouse; I'll go to Dartford on my own. I mean, with John, of course."
And he was off the building in a snap, with John at his heels.
The cab left them in a deserted street, with warehouses at both sides and absolutely nowhere to shelter from the violent rain. The umbrella John carried was insufficient, and Sherlock resorted to hide his neck inside his coat collar. John tried to shelter his friend, but he was too tall for John's umbrella, and they both were soaked before they arrived to the storehouse's door.
"Well, genius, what now?"
John's mood was not at his best. The fact that the thunders sounded much closer wasn't helping.
"We find an accessible window and we enter. I thought you had figured it out, John, honestly…"
"I feared something like that, yes… Couldn't we just wait here for Lestrade's men? They will arrive in a moment…"
"I dare say that we have ten minutes before they are here. Let's make good use of that time, come on! Turn left… No, my left!"
John threw the useless umbrella away and grunted. Sherlock's fringe hung graceless down his forehead and cheekbones, and John imagined he looked very much the same. The sooner they solved this, the sooner they would be dry and comfortable at home.
"This window looks good enough for me, Sherlock."
"OK, hitch me up, I'll enter."
"What?! No way, Sherlock, I'm lighter than you, I should be the one who…"
"Stop complaining and hurry up, I'm soaked!"
John complied while muttering about sodding stubborn detectives; Sherlock climbed the high window, stood on the window sill and forced the opening. Only the upper half of the window opened, so he had to jump and slither through the narrow space. John heard him fall down on the other side with a loud "Bump". "Nice thump", he thought, suddenly glad of being the one outside the building.
Then he looked around him, and noticed, feeling rather stupid, that he was alone in the street, among low storehouses and the odd truck passing, the skies had opened and the rain was thick, lightings flashing quite often, and Sherlock was, again, fighting the baddies on his own. He had every right to be fuming, right? But just when he decided that yes, indeed he had, a loud shot resounded, slightly muffled by the storm but still pretty audible. John ran towards the main door, just in time to almost catch a man who was escaping from the building. The man was agile and quick, and broke away from John's grabbing hand with a swift twirl.
"John! Go after him!"
John lost precious seconds turning to look for Sherlock, and there he was, getting up from behind a pile of wood boxes, but seemingly uninjured. He started to chase the criminal at full speed, and a moment later he could hear Sherlock's steps behind him. The burglar was fast, but John managed to get closer to him a couple of times. Unfortunately, the man shook him off as a slippery snake and jumped over a fence inside the Littlebrook power station complex. Swearing, John followed him, realising that he couldn't hear Sherlock any more, and where the hell was he now? Was he injured after all? John tried to focus in the sneaky man running ahead, and chased him around one of those huge round concrete tanks; but the burglar was nowhere to be seen when he reached the back of the building. He stopped for a second, trying to regain his breath and wipe the rain off his face. The day was so grey that it was difficult to figure out anything beyond a hundred of yards. A sudden movement behind the next tank caught his eye, and he made a run for it. He bumped into a dark form, belatedly realising that the shape fitted Sherlock's coat.
"John!", the detective growled. "Don't tackle me! You are letting the criminal escape!"
"Not in purpose", John groaned, rubbing his poor shoulder. God, the man was as hard as a rock.
"He's over there! Run! On your right!"
And John sped up around other tank, chasing a barely there shadow; he hoped Sherlock was right, though.
This time, when he collided with a coated shape, it was indeed the burglar! The detective knocked the man from the other side and John grabbed the criminal's arms and made him trip up and hit the ground. He kneeled by his side, feeling that only the adrenaline kept him going so far under the cold rain, and looked up to his friend with a wide smile.
"What now?"
And what came then were the police sirens and a lot of sudden talking and movement. The boys endured it, each one in his style (Sherlock managing to look bored even in those circumstances, John sneezing and attracting all the yarders sympathy, especially the female ones), and they were finally allowed to go home in a cab, with the promise of making their statements next Monday morning. John, then, remembered something and made the cab stop at the nearest Tesco to Baker Street. Sherlock smiled and said nothing. Well, at that moment, at last. He made a lot of witty remarks once they were inside the supermarket, following a long-suffering John who tried to ignore him for the sake of the rest of Tesco's costumers.
So it was already afternoon when they at last reached 221B Baker Street, both of them carrying groceries plastic bags and soaked and shivering again, but they had a nasty surprise before they could climb the stairs to their dry and cosy flat. A bunch of colourful umbrellas were waiting for them outside their building.
The umbrellas (well, not they, but their owners) started to squeak as soon as they saw Sherlock and John.
"Oh my God, they are there!"
"Aaaaaw, look, they come from the supermarket!"
"So domestic! How cute!"
The doctor stared in awe as the girls quickly surrounded them, yelling their names and trying to grab him. Sherlock kept on walking past the wall of fangirls, and John reacted and followed him inside the building.
"What the hell was that?", he grunted. "Sherlock, this is out of control!"
The flat was dark and cold, unaware that it was only October and not winter at all. They left the bags on the kitchen's floor and John busied himself putting the food away. Then he hung their wet coats in the bathroom and made tea for them. Nice, hot tea was definitely in order, and right away. He found Sherlock in the still dark sitting room, watching out the window half hidden behind the curtains. He turned to meet John's eyes.
"They have left."
"Thank God! I need a tea, a shower, a nice early dinner and a quiet evening with a book and a blanket."
Sherlock smiled and turned again towards the street. He was still completely soggy, his curls falling limp but still graceful over his nose and cheekbones. John joined him at the window, peeping out and making sure the damned fans were really gone. They were. He was gazing at the empty, wet street, and the dark huge clouds above it, when a sudden thunder rumbled exactly over them, and he was so close to Sherlock that he could feel him shudder. John looked at him, and a lightning illuminated Sherlock's profile. The detective felt John's eyes fixed in him and turned to look at his friend: they were mere inches away.
None of them could have sworn who was the one to initiate the movement, but suddenly their lips were touching, and if they felt any surprise at all, it was gone before one could say "kiss".
But it was Sherlock who first deepened the kiss, that part was certain. And it was John who pushed his friend backwards until he was half sitting on the window sill. The frequent thunders shushed their first moans, so afterwards they accused each other of being the loudest. They agreed, though, that both of them lowered their hands at the same time, as they met in their way to each other's belt. Both gasped when their trousers dropped and their cold and wet flesh met the still cold air of the flat, but the inconvenience only lasted a few seconds, until their hands managed to conjure enough heat for their partner's comfort.
Sherlock's skin was wet and with goose bumps when John unbuttoned his shirt but, in turn, he allowed his friend to get rid of his jumper as well: all in all, all their clothes were sodden, so there was no need to keep them. In a minute, though, both of them were engaged in the hard work of warming each other with hands and lips, and the cold glass of the window was exchanged by the cosier surface of John's armchair. The ex-army doctor and currently consulting detective assistant /flatmate /lover thought of moving the action to the bedroom, but that habitation looked suddenly incredibly far, so he contented himself turning Sherlock around and bending him slightly over the back of the armchair. As they were still standing, that put them more or less at the same height (John realised, delighted), so he could kiss Sherlock's nape and elicit those moans that even the thunders couldn't hide any more. Their hands met again, over Sherlock's deliciously hard member.
"We aren't moving any further, then?", Sherlock gasped.
"Good deduction", John grunted.
"Let me turn; I can't touch you this way!"
Sherlock sounded quite desperate, but John had a one and only image burnt in his retina, and he couldn't think in anything else: that gif of fake him mounting fake Sherlock had been teasing him for days, and he was now so close to bring that image to real life… He rubbed his prick along Sherlock's crease and down his balls, and God! That was good! He did it again, but then the head of his cock got caught between Sherlock's thighs, and his friend squeezed it, and it wasn't good, it was heaven! He managed to establish a rhythm, one hand working with Sherlock's one and the other embracing his wiry silky waist, pumping between Sherlock's thighs.
The detective soon lost the rhythm, his breath laboured and his face obscured by the wet curls falling over his front, and John's cock slipped out of his cocoon. Desperate, John rubbed it against Sherlock's arse again, feeling his pleasure skyrocketing. And exactly then the head decided to get caught again, and John's mouth went dry all of a sudden when he looked down and saw exactly where it was trapped: the tiny hole swallowed almost all of John's head. He watched, enraptured, while he thrust again and the hole sucked in his first shot of come. He pushed into his hand and sent the rest of his come over Sherlock's bum, and that part was so similar to the video that he couldn't help to grin, pleased.
"John!", Sherlock shouted, and a shaky groan trembled through him. John held him tight, his chest completely glued to Sherlock's pale back, and only when he seemed recovered John let him go, giving him a bit of space. Sherlock turned and placed his forehead on John's shoulder, still shaking. But John could feel his friend's matching smile. He took Sherlock's face in his hands and kissed him.
"Good?", Sherlock asked, almost shyly.
"Good?", John repeated, smiling widely. "It was the hottest thing I've ever done!"
"But better than the video?"
Both laughed and embraced each other. After a moment, Sherlock added:
"You said you wanted a hot shower."
His eyes were shining with mischief, and John grinned and slapped his arse playfully.
"Sure! I want it still more now, in fact!"
And they chased each other to the bathroom, thinking more or less the same: a nice quiet evening in 221b Baker Street was the best way to spend a stormy Saturday.