This one goes after The story of the red pants. Lots of kudos to my beta, Possessmemore, who is the most patient person in the world. Any remaining mistake in the story is only my fault.

I hope you like it and, if you do, please review!

THE STORY OF THE DARK ALLEY

After our eventful first time, Sherlock and I spent the next two weeks at home, hiding from the world, experimenting and barely leaving his bed. There were so many things to try! We had lots and lots to learn from each other, and Sherlock… well, you know how is him, I had to stop him twice from jump out the bed and make annotations on a chart in his moleskine. Not that I complained about him being methodical. And he was in such a good mood that even agreed to make the shopping, online, of course. I couldn't complain, neither, of the extra goods that appeared in our delivered shopping bags, which obviously didn't come from the supermarket.

I knew he was turning down cases, because Lestrade called him a couple of times, but Sherlock kept the phone conversations short, and I couldn't help to feel flattered. It was nice knowing that he found me more interesting than The Work, or rather that carrying out experiments in my body was more interesting: this would be more accurate, yes.

But I knew that our idyllic situation had to finish one day. The said day we were having tea, lying lazily naked on the sofa, our bodies intertwined in a very pleasant way, when we heard Mrs. Hudson opening the front door to a guest.

"Lestrade", said Sherlock immediately.

I jumped from under Sherlock's body and hurried clumsily upstairs, to my bedroom. I grabbed the first clothes I happened to find, put on pants and jeans and trotted downstairs again while I ran my arms through the shirtsleeves. I stepped in the sitting room beginning to button my shirt and clearing my throat, trying to appear as casual as possible.

"Hello, Greg. Would you like some tea?"

And then I raised my eyes from my shirt to his face, and I realized that we hadn't fooled him the least: Lestrade was staring to us, his gaze going from Sherlock to me and then again to Sherlock, with his mouth open but seemingly unable to find anything to say. Sherlock was smirking with his smuggest smile, sitting in his armchair with only his robe on (but we were in August, I thought, so nothing wrong in being only slightly undressed at home, right?). I looked down to myself while I turned to the kitchen to make more tea. Oh, damn! My trousers were unzipped, and I had buttoned my shirt wrong. I cursed quietly while I arranged my clothes and began fumbling with the tea. I stayed in the kitchen until Lestrade's cup was ready, straightened my clothes again, and then went back to the sitting room. When I handed the inspector his tea, he looked at me again from head to toes, frowning, but luckily he was already engaged discussing the details of the case with Sherlock. Anyway, I knew The Conversation would take place sooner or later. Oh, my God. And I had considered myself lucky for still not having received Mycroft's visit.

I tried to keep up with the case they were discussing. I already knew about it, in fact: it was about a girl disappeared a month ago. Her mother had papered the whole city with 'missing' posters, and I had seen the girl's face in the telly at least twice. The Mets men had found the body that afternoon, in a solitary alley near Fenchurch station. She had been shot. The discovery still hadn't got to the news, but the press would be there at any moment.

"They will ask for our heads if we cannot provide a culprit, Sherlock", said Lestrade. "Have you seen the security campaign her mother is promoting in the telly? She is asking for citizen patrols, for the sake of…! Scotland Yard won't have it. But then the girl appears, shot as a cheap whore or a dealer. The press will make it look like if every University girl could get murdered at any moment."

"Isn't it the truth?", Sherlock asked, still smirking.

"Oh, Sherlock, you know what I mean!", shouted Lestrade. "The fact that crimes like this one can still be committed, in spite of the CCTV cameras, makes our city look like an unsafe place, and Scotland Yard like a bunch of incompetents!"

"And didn't the cameras catch anything important?", I asked, before Sherlock could add any remark.

Lestrade shook his head, defeated.

"The body is in a blind spot, half hidden in the entrance of a building site. Will you come, then? We haven't got much time, I'm sure it will make the night's news."

"Alright", said Sherlock, nodding, and he stood up and crossed the sitting room in fast strides towards his bedroom.

Lestrade looked at me, and he seemed about to speak, but then changed his mind and wrote the crime scene address in one of the notebooks from our table and only said:

"We will talk later".

And then he left.

Dusk had fallen upon the city when we arrived to the alley. As Lestrade had predicted, the press was already there, but the policemen kept them at a prudent distance from the crime scene, and beyond the yellow tape it was difficult to get any detail. The alley wasn't especially well lighted, but there were some pubs opened, and some bystanders were pouring from them, crowding behind the journalists. There was only a shop in the street, and it was on the other end; they could have heard the shot, but they were too far to have possibly seen anything. The CCTV camera was in that part of the alley, too. So the crime scene was surrounded only by a church, one closed restaurant and the back front of some office buildings. The body was set, half hidden for the casual passer-by, inside the car entrance of a building-site. The workers have been the ones who found her. The camera flashes blinded me while I stepped inside the yellow tape. It all felt familiar, but still strange: all the eyes set on us, the Yarders usual faces shutting up when we arrived, making faces and sighing, but making us room to work all the same, and Sherlock's warm body by my side.

We had our modus operandi by then: first he observed all the details around the crime scene, standing a few feet from the body, and then he nodded to me, and I knelt beside the dead girl and told him all that I could notice.

"Female, nineteen years old", I said, "no signs of punctures in her arms, but she looks a bit malnourished and dehydrated. She's been dead for three hours. The cause of death is a shot that sectioned her jugular; she surely was dead in a few moments, and unable to shout for help. She has bruises in her upper arms and throat; she was held, then, but not as deep as to have been asphyxiated. Her position is a bit strange. Do you think she was murdered here? I can't see dragging marks around her, but I'm not an expert…"

"There are some marks", answered Sherlock, "but they are fight marks, not from dragging the corpse. She was killed here".

"One of the neighbours declare that he heard some shouts around six p.m.", Lestrade said. "Can we move her yet? The ambulance is waiting."

Sherlock took in the body's position for a few seconds, and then nodded. I came to stand by his side again, my work over. Two paramedics in blue overalls approached us and set the girl in a stretcher. Sherlock crouched by her side, put on a pair of plastic gloves, and observed her closely before the paramedics covered her with a blanket. I looked at him, hypnotized, as he walked in all fours by the space left by the dead girl, analyzing every detail with his torch and his magnifying glass. I felt my mouth suddenly dry at the sight of his perfect ass lifted for balance, as it had been that very morning. His curls were falling over his eyes, but he was too concentrated to notice, and I had the sudden urge to flatten his hair myself. And then he licked his lips, still thinking, and it was like Proust's cupcake for me: Suddenly, we were in his bed, the morning light flooding the bedroom, and his lips were around my fraenulum, making me shiver, and that tongue was doing marvels to driving me into insanity.

"John. John!"

Lestrade put me out of my reverie, shaking my arm and giving me a disapproval look. He pursed his lips, aware of the fact that we were surrounded by the people he worked with. The Conversation must wait.

"Lestrade, have your people seen this?", said Sherlock, oblivious to my embarrassed face. He had a cheap pen in his hand.

I repositioned my damn erection, hoping it wasn't obvious for anybody apart from Lestrade and Sherlock. Lestrade and I came nearer to my detective, and we observed the pen: plastic, cheap, common brand, evidently used.

"Was it on the floor? Beneath her?", asked Lestrade. "I don't think it matters, people sometimes throw litter to the building sites, there are rubble and waste just a few feet inside, so… Or perhaps one of the workers has lost it".

Sherlock was on his feet again, and he had that excited and bright look in his eyes that I adored.

"No, no… I don't think so… The victim had it hidden in her hand; you had noticed the strange position of the body: she looked like a broken doll, thrown in an unnatural posture. She was trying to repel her attacker with one arm, but her right arm was behind her back, hiding this: a pen, a used pen, used by the murderer!"

Lestrade shook his head, unconvinced. The paramedics closed the ambulance doors with the dead girl inside, and the noise level rose, with all the journalists trying to take a good picture and a matching headline.

"I don't know, Sherlock, this seems too far fetched."

My friend sighed, impatient.

"Look", he began, "the girl escaped with her boyfriend, one boyfriend whose parents didn't approve of. She has been hiding in his place, waiting until the waters calmed down before phoning her family; perhaps she wanted to punish them a little, making them worry this way. But after a couple of weeks, she realized what kind of person was in fact her boyfriend: I'm sure he's clean, or he would have been already arrested, but he is clearly involved in petty crimes, perhaps even the small link in a big crime network. He's not getting a lot of money yet, because he hasn't bought her new clothes. She obviously tried to leave him and come back with her family, but then was locked up and starved by him. She managed to escape, or rather he took her here, with the promise to let her go in exchange of silence, but instead he murdered her."

Lestrade was astonished. He took his phone from his shirt pocket and dialled, impatient to check those details.

"And", Sherlock added, with his smug smirk again, "when they were struggling, perhaps because she attempted to take the gun from his hand, she took this pen from his pocket and, the moment she felt about to fall backwards, she hide it behind her back, but she opened her hand and left it drop before dying".

"I will have it analyzed", Lestrade said. "It's been bitten, so it has genetic material of the attacker. I will ask for a DNA sample of the boyfriend, I'm phoning the judge right now".

He began to shut orders to his men, still with the phone in his ear.

"Are we done?", I asked, pleased with the prospect of going home and follow with our previous activities.

"Not yet", Sherlock said, still in 'detective mode on'. I sighed, frustrated. "The murderer may notice the disappearing of his pen, and come back to the crime scene trying to recover it. We will wait for him here."

"Oh. What a nice evening, Sherlock, you are great planning dates".

He grinned.

When everybody had left, we settled our watch spot inside the grated entrance of the next building, in the corner. From there, we had a good sight of the two ways the murderer could come from. Lestrade had left a man watching the third entrance to the alley. The street was again dark and solitary. I snuck a moment to the nearest pub to fetch something to eat; it was half empty, and the waitress started to sweep the floor as soon as I went through the door. We ate our crisps in silence.

"You know, we can be here for hours", I said at last.

"I know, yes".

"And perhaps he won't appear at all, not everybody would notice if they lost a pen".

"I also know that".

He turned to look at me, slightly annoyed. He changed his face when he saw the way I was looking at him, and his mouth formed a perfect: "Oh".

"John…", he whispered, his voice still deeper than usual. "We are on a case".

It was my turn to say:

"I know".

And I pulled him to me and kiss him, hungrily. He reciprocated with his hands stroking my hips, but when I opened my eyes again, I saw his gaze still fixed in the alley. I felt guilty. We had a case, true, and the poor girl's murderer was walking free as a bird in the streets of London, ready to attack again.

"John…".

He turned again to watch the street entrances. I embraced him from behind and nibbled his nape and his earlobe. He turned slightly his neck to allow me better access to his ear and caressed the hand that was roaming his chest. I bit his neck, covering the mark of a previous love bite with a new one, and he moaned. I stuck my body to his, and he noticed my erection and began to push his bum against it. I grinded my hips, holding him tighter, and I mumbled in his ear:

"I need it, Sherlock, please… You can keep on watching the alley, nobody will see us here. Please, Sherlock…"

I pressed his body against the grate, and he grabbed it with both hands, his breathing already fast and heavy. One of my hands went to grope the front of his trousers, and I was delighted to feel his hardened length. I unfastened his belt and unzipped his trousers, inebriate with lust. He checked again both ways: the alley was completely empty. I pulled his trousers and pants down, just until his thighs, and kept kissing his neck and stroking his chest over his shirt and the bare skin of his hip. I searched into my pocket and yes, the new provisions had included a single dose lube. I freed my aching erection and rubbed it against Sherlock's arse. It felt good, really good, but I knew what felt even better. I opened the small tube and spread the viscous liquid over my hard member, and then I turned my attention to Sherlock again. His gaze never left the street, but his body was responding. Yes, responding quite enthusiastic, actually: he had separated his legs as much as he could, given the trousers barrier, and kept rolling his hips backwards, trying to meet my erection. I hold his hip with one hand and found his arsehole with the other, introducing two slippery fingers inside. He groaned, and I felt my cock throb with the sound. Those last two weeks had reconciled my theoretical medical knowledge with my sexual practises: until fourteen days ago I obviously knew about prostates, but I had never dispensed a prostate check. Now I was an expert. Sherlock put a fist in his mouth, trying to keep quiet, but his writhing body made up for the lack of sound feedback for me. I rutted against his buttocks, feeling about to explode already. I took all the sensations in, and it was too much: Sherlock's skin burning beneath my hand, sweat falling by his back and wetting his shirt, the salty savour of his flesh mixed with my saliva, the dear fresh smell of his hair, tickling my forehead, the strained and desperate look in his face, biting his hand and struggling to keep his eyes fixed in our goal. And, of course, the incredible feeling of his intern muscles dilating around my fingers, that hot entrance welcoming me, throbbing with every stroke to his prostate.

"Are you ready?", I asked softly in his ear.

"I was ready ages ago! It was supposed to be quick, John, hurry up…"

I chuckled and retired my fingers from his hole. I took my slick erection and pulled Sherlock's waist even closer to me to make the access easier. I placed it in his entrance, and moved him again until I had the perfect angle. I pushed just a little, and the head of my member fitted there perfectly. The hot sensation went right to my balls, and I tried to relax a bit before continuing. But Sherlock had other things in mind, and he grabbed the grate again with both hands and, now well balanced, started to push hard against my length. I gasped and tried to slow his movements, but Sherlock had gained control and he was reluctant to let go once he had it, of course… He kept thrusting fast and hard, impaling himself deep every time, and all that I could do was adjust the angle to give him more prostate friction with every shove, before collapsing, gripping his hipbones hard and biting my lower lip to avoid crying out his name.

I panted, completely spent, and held him tight again, kissing his cheekbones and breathing in his hair and his ear. Then I took out my member from him, and tucked it away in my trousers, zipping them. I kneeled beside my friend and he turned his hips to face me with his lower body. I caressed his abused hipbones and grasped them, avoiding the red marks in his skin. I swallowed his length, knowing by his trembling body that he was almost there. I stroked his full balls with one hand, and I felt him start to come. His shaking was out of control now, and I embraced his waist, sucking down all his come before standing up and holding him tight.

He was still regaining his breath when he saw the man: a silhouette crouched where we had found the dead girl, clearly looking for something in the floor. He should have passed furtively in front of us, or perhaps he had fooled Lestrade's man at the other end of the street; I prayed fervently for the second option. Sherlock pulled up his clothes and started to run towards the man, followed by me. The silhouette heard us and raised his face: he was in his early twenties, his eyes half hidden in the shadows of his bushy eyebrows. He stood up and I could see the gun in his hand despite the dark, its shape elongated thanks to a silencer. Sherlock didn't run to catch him; instead he made his way towards the end of the alley, twenty feet past him, where a short and narrow flight of stairs connected the alley with the street above and the entrance of Fenchurch station. I stayed where I was, blocking him the other way out of the street.

After those moments, I thought that, had I been the attacker, I would have tried to escape across the spot where I was standing. But he was closer to Sherlock's end, so he didn't consider other options, or perhaps he did, I will never know. I only know that, suddenly, Sherlock jumped backwards with a pained look in his face, and from that moment on, I could only see red. I felt cold sweat running down my back while I planted my feet open and firm on the ground, took out my own gun and made a perfect shot, aiming for the hand that had dared to hurt my friend, that still got his gun with that silencer targeting Sherlock, getting ready for a second shot that, obviously, never arrived, because all of a sudden a huge noise crossed the air and his hand had vanished, his gun had vanished, and the murderer looked at the bloody space where his hand used to be before starting to shout.

My not at all silent shot and his cries finally got the attention of the Yarder that watched at the other extreme of the alley. He came running and opened his eyes wildly when he saw the scene: the murderer holding his bloody stump, Sherlock getting on his feet again with a hand over his injured shoulder and I… standing there with my gun still aiming at that man.

"Doctor Watson, please", he told me, "could you put your gun away?"

I did as I was told. Then he ran the rest of the distance that still separated him from the murderer, and took out his handcuffs. After hesitating some seconds, put the handcuffs around the man's good wrist and dragged him closer to me. In my hazy state, I didn't understand where he was going, until I saw him handcuffing the young man to the grate in the corner, the grate where Sherlock was balancing himself just minutes ago. Sherlock approached us, making me a gesture that I read as "Don't worry, it's only a trifle" and addressed the policeman:

"There's already a warrant to compare his saliva to the one found in a pen. If it fits, and it will, you can charge him for the murder of the missing girl."

The young man ululated.

"And I will denounce you for shooting my hand! I will have your badge, you bloody sniper!", he cried to me.

My stomach clenched. He thought that I was a policeman. The Yarder and Sherlock looked at me with a carefully deadpan face. My gaze went to rest in what was left of the man's hand: there was too much blood in it, and the Yarder was holding it tight with his own hands. I removed my shirt and wrapped his stump, adding pressure, and held his arm above his head. The Yarder followed suit, and removed his shirt too, coiling it and tying it around the murderer's wrist. Sherlock turned and phoned Lestrade.

Our grey haired friend was not at all happy about the events. He gave me an annoyed look, and I was expecting the shouts, the 'are you insane?' and the 'why?', but instead he turned away from me, grabbed Sherlock's sleeve and talked with him far-off so that I couldn't hear their conversation. Greg was visibly angry, and Sherlock shook his head, refusing, more than once. He came back to my side a few minutes later, looking irked.

"Come on, John, we have finished here".

"Hey!", called Lestrade, "you should go to the hospital to have that shoulder seen!".

Sherlock didn't stop or slow his strides, so I followed him as fast as I could, shouting back to Lestrade:

"Don't worry, I will take care of him!"

Lestrade only frown deeper.

"Yeah, John, I know…"

Sherlock was unusually quiet on our cab trip back home, and while I cleaned and stitched his injury. The bullet hadn't penetrated enough, thank God, and it was only a matter of ripped flesh, once I disinfected it and stopped bleeding. But it happened to be a flesh that I loved, as I realized with a pain in my chest. I had killed before to protect Sherlock, and in those early days he was only my flatmate-to-be. But Lestrade and Scotland Yard knew nothing of it, of course: this time was different, there was a policeman as a witness, and that vengeful murderer, who was going to be in jail for a long, long time, but clearly would enjoy having me as a cellmate for a while. Surely Lestrade would sort it out? He hadn't arrested me, but I was aware of the amount of paperwork and phone calls that he would have to make to keep me out of jail. A civilian with an unregistered gun, shooting in the streets of London? We could always ask for Mycroft's help, but it wasn't that what was itching me, no…

Sherlock was annoyed with me, too. He still hadn't explained that conversation with Lestrade, but the policeman obviously wanted something, a punishment. Perhaps he would deny Sherlock access to crime scenes if he kept our relationship? I frown, considering that possibility. And then I froze, still stitching, when I thought of what Sherlock's reaction to this would be. He might want me out of the flat. The Work was his life, and I was interfering with it, oh, hell! What could I do? I finished my work with his shoulder, and I bent to kiss the injury gently, feeling my heart sinking and my stomach clenching again. Sherlock moved away, and I coughed and put all the things I'd just used inside the medical kit, my eyes avoiding Sherlock's face. At last I felt his fingers grabbing my chin and raising my face in his direction. He was serious, but his eyes were kind, without a trace of anger in them, so I relaxed a bit. Only a bit.

"Stop thinking and sit down, will you?"

I nodded and sat on my armchair. I wondered how much longer it would still be 'my' armchair.

"Oh, I said stop it, John!", he said, reading my face so easily as always.

"I'll try," said I, smiling, "but I can't promise".

He dropped in his own armchair, gave me a warm look and sighed. Then he straightened and intertwined his hands below his chin, still staring at me. I couldn't find words, they had all flew from my head, and he had just asked me to stop thinking, so…

"You are out of cases", said Sherlock, abruptly.

I opened my mouth, surprised.

"That's… That's what Lestrade had asked from you?"

"Obviously. You can't go near a crime scene or go to the Yard with me. You won't provide the proofs or anything that implies you have to testify in front of a jury. But," he made a dramatic pause here, the bastard, while I listened to my fast and loud heartbeats, "you still can assist me interviewing witnesses and with a lot of other legwork. Without your gun, of course. Sorry for that."

"Then, you won't make me move out?"

I bit my tongue, but it was too late, I had said it. Sherlock looked uncomfortable and his gaze left my face to grace the fireplace.

"Lestrade's first option was something in that line. He wanted my word that we would finish whatever relationship we were having, and suggested that a bit of space between us, like living in separate flats, would help to keep our professional career in its right place". He anchored his eyes on mine again. "I told him that was out of the table".

I felt relief pouring from all the pores in my skin. He sighed and stood up again, starting his way to the kitchen. When he passed by my side, I caught his arm.

"Wait, wait, Sherlock…"

I pulled him to me, to sit on my chair arm. He was avoiding my eyes, as I did moments before. My fingers went to his hair, removing his fringe from his forehead. He finally looked at me again. He seemed… so uncertain, it wasn't like him to react that way.

"Are you sure, Sherlock? I don't want to put you into trouble, I know how important are Scotland Yard cases for you. If you prefer another kind of solution, we could think of one".

'As if I could be even one day away from Sherlock', I thought. 'How clever of you, Doctor, falling madly in love and complicating all you had…'

He placed his hand around my shoulders and kissed me softly.

"As I told Lestrade, any other solution is out of the table, John. I would rather have you with me in all our cases, but I won't stop… being with you".

My heart skipped a beat. I held him tight, sinking my face in his chest, as I didn't want him to see my stupid smile. And then I thought: 'Mycroft is still going to provide cases for the two of us'. And, after that thought: 'Mycroft still haven't said anything about our new relationship', and of course, with that my smile fell.