Welcome to my early birthday gift for the lovely Lucy36! Have a lovely birthday my dear, and I hope you enjoy this little tale...
Thanks to MapleleafCameo for looking it over for me
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original story line...
For three days Moriarty had tormented him with the knowledge that he had taken John, and held him captive somewhere where neither he nor Mycroft's minions could find him. Advised that bringing in Lestrade and his officers would result in the doctor suffering an 'unfortunate accident', Sherlock found himself chasing across town in all directions trying to hunt down the self-styled Consulting Criminal, becoming more and more frustrated at every turn.
To make matters worse, John's mobile lay where he had left it on the kitchen worktop, forgotten as he left the flat. For the first time in his life Sherlock was at a loss.
He turned at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and greeted his brother as he walked through the door.
"He can't have disappeared from the face of the earth!"
"Good afternoon to you too, brother," the elder Holmes responded, unfazed. "I can assure you he hasn't disappeared indeed; Moriarty has made contact once more."
"When? Where?" Sherlock stepped up into his brother's personal space, standing toe to toe with him, glaring.
"Really Sherlock, a bit of decorum wouldn't go amiss." He pulled from his inside pocket a padded envelope and passed it to the younger man.
Checking it over, Sherlock could see that the seal had already been broken.
"You know what this contains?"
His brother nodded and watched as he carefully removed a DVD from the package. Turning on both the television and the DVD player, removed the disc from its cover and slipped it into the machine.
The screen went snowy, and then Moriarty's face appeared, taking up almost the whole screen, a cheesy grin stretching his lips.
"Hello!" He sounded like a cheery children's television presenter. "I know you both think you know everything about me, but let me tell you kiddies, you know nothing!"
Mycroft lowered himself into John's chair, and like Sherlock his eyes were glued to the screen.
"But first you're wondering how I know you are both there watching this little production of mine...well! It's not so hard to work out boys! I sent it to Mr British Government, knowing he'd still be there when you played it – clever Sherlock, don't you think?"
The madman on the screen sat back in his executive chair and steepled his fingers, imitating Sherlock's favourite thinking pose.
"Now let me tell you a story, all about a boy from outskirts of Dublin. He didn't have many friends, because he didn't have money, and without money he had to wear his cousin's hand-me-down clothes. But the boy's mother was wonderful, she was someone real special."
He paused as if listening.
"What was that? What made her special? Why the fact that she was a witch! Her name was Finola Newton Moriarty, and she was a direct descendent of the famous Florence Newton, Witch of Youghal" Moriarty chuckled and leant forward, his expression taking on a more conspiratorial mien. "And you know what? She taught me so much….oh the things I learned on my mamma's knee boys, you just cannot imagine…..but you'll find out soon enough!"
As if someone had flicked a switch he changed, snarling into the camera as he pointed a finger at his audience.
"You should have taken me seriously Sherlock – you and I, we could have ruled the world but no! You chose to stay with John – ordinary, uninteresting John. Your pet."
His demeanour changed again, as he sat back once more and adopted a story-teller pose.
"And so we end our tale on a note of mystery. I'll return your pet to you – oh please Sherlock, don't say he's not a pet because he is, and from now on he'll be more of a pet than ever….but at least he'll be special!"
The camera zoomed in to his grinning face, and then faded to black before the screen went snowy again.
The brothers sat stunned, staring first at the blank screen, then at each other.
"I assume you've taken all the forensic information from the envelope?"
"My teams found nothing." It hurt Mycroft to have to admit defeat.
"There must be something! It couldn't have…."
A heavy banging at the front door interrupted him, and it was followed by the sound of running feet. Sherlock leapt from his chair and hurried to the window, but had only the fleeting impression of a child running away down the street.
Mycroft joined him, standing at his shoulder and he too stared down the street.
"A prank?" He asked.
"I shouldn't think so."
"Sherlock…" Mrs Hudson called, struggling through the door with a largish box. "I don't know what you've ordered this time but it's moving!"
Stepping forward to take the box Sherlock screwed up his face into a puzzled frown.
"Thank you Mrs Hudson."
"Well whatever it is…."
"Meow"
"What…?"
Balancing the box on one hand, Sherlock pulled open the flaps at the top and all three occupants of the room peered in.
And peering back up at them was a bewildered looking tortoiseshell and white cat wearing a cream felt collar with a disc proudly bearing the name 'JOHN'.
~O~
With Mycroft and Mrs Hudson gone, Sherlock sat in his armchair and looked at the cat. 'John' sat opposite him on the arm of his armchair, and stared back.
"How did he do this to you, John?" Sherlock asked, rubbing his aching temples.
'John' blinked slowly and tilted his head slightly to one side, the way John always did when trying to follow Sherlock's train of thought, and the tip of his pink tongue slid forward to poke out between sharp teeth and lips.
"Do you have to do that when you're concentrating – it's most annoying!" For a man who liked the sound of his own voice Sherlock was becoming frustrated with the lack of response from his friend.
'John' however was more interested in the cup of tea rapidly cooling on the table at Sherlock's elbow. He stood, stretched, then hopped from the chair and trotted purposefully towards the table. He made short work of the leap onto the table and sat down, contentedly lapping up the tepid liquid.
"Make your own tea John."
"Really?" Greg's amused voice made Sherlock jump. "You're talking to a cat?"
"Not any cat." Sherlock replied defensively.
"No, I can't imagine any cat that you'd name John would be ordinary." Crossing to sit in John's chair, Greg leaned forward and scratched the cat's ears, forcing it to choose between the tea, and the attention. It chose the tea, but moved itself round so that the tickling fingers could scratch down his back.
"You've been ignoring my texts."
"It's an open and shut domestic. The wife did it because she wanted his insurance money now go away, I have a far more pressing case."
"Oh? And that is?"
"Finding out how to change that…." He pointed to the cat. "Back into John."
The sound of Greg's laughter could still be heard over the sound of the flat door being slammed behind him as Sherlock threw him out.
~O~
Eyes tired from days without sleep followed by hours of research into forced Therianthropy, Sherlock laid aside his laptop and leaned back against the cushions on the couch.
Through the doorway to the kitchen he could see Mrs Hudson placing a dish on the table. John leapt up and immediately started eating as if he hadn't been fed for ages.
"There, I imagine that nasty man didn't give you anything to eat did he John?" she said, scratching lightly behind his ears.
"What are you feeding him?" Sherlock called from the living room. "He's a vegetarian you know."
Mrs Hudson turned and glared at him.
"If you ever bothered to take notice of your friend young man, you'd know he's actually a pescatarian; he eats fish, and that's what I've given him – best salmon steak." As she spoke she took a long look at her volatile tenant. "Oh Sherlock, look at you! You've burned yourself out with worry."
Bustling in with a mug of tea in hand, she set it on the coffee table, grabbed his legs and swung them up onto the couch.
"You need to rest – it will be easier to fix when you've had some rest."
Sherlock bit his tongue on the comment that rose, that 'fixing it' would be nigh on impossible without the knowledge of how it was done in the first place. Instead he picked up the mug, brought it to his lips and looked at his landlady through the steam.
"He likes tea too." He said as she bustled back towards the kitchen, only to return moments later with a saucer in hand.
"I know – this is his." She placed it on the coffee table.
John stalked in behind her, pounced on the table and delicately lapped at the warm brown liquid.
With a final scratch behind the cat's ears Mrs Hudson left, adjuring the young man to get some sleep.
"Why is it," Sherlock asked his furry friend, "that she always nags me to eat, or sleep, but not you?"
As if sensing the serious nature of the man's question John sat back on his haunches and meowed, but the noise sounded more like "Me?" than meow, and silver grey eyes snapped across to stare into blue-green feline ones.
"Yes you, John."
And almost as if shrugging it off, John lifted his left paw and started to clean himself, paying particular attention to his ears and whiskers, his eyes closing sleepily.
Huffing in disgust Sherlock returned the mug to the table, steepled his fingers under his chin and thought some more about the problem of his flatmate cat.
~O~
The sound of the flat door banging shut startled Sherlock out of the sleep he had drifted into, and as he tried to sit up he realised the weight on his chest was more than just an emotional response to the 'loss' of his friend.
Curled comfortably in a tight ball, John was purring loudly in his sleep, his whole body radiating contentment at being where he was, on Sherlock's chest.
Sherlock's first thought was to push him off, his second – hard on the heels of the first – was the one that he acted upon. Gently stroking long fingers along the length of the cat's spine he smiled as it slowly uncurled and stretched languorously, purring more loudly, its little pink nose twitching and its mouth appearing to smile at the attention being given.
"I'm sorry John, but you really can't sleep on my chest."
"What?" A voice from the doorway made Sherlock sit bolt upright, and as a consequence the cat dug his claws in, even though the young man's arms had automatically come up to clutch him tight.
"Sherlock? Is that a cat?"
Switching the light on, John placed his small suitcase on the floor and looked around the room – his gaze coming back to his flatmate who looked – for want of a better description – shell-shocked.
"Did you just call that cat John? What the bloody hell is going on here? I go off to a conference for a few days and come back to you looking more like shit than usual hugging a cat called John."
Sherlock scrambled to his feet, attempting to put the cat down, but 'John' would have none of it. He scrambled up Sherlock's chest and settled himself to purr over Sherlock's shoulder.
"John? Conference?" The younger man stuttered.
"Yes, in Birmingham, remember? I was giving a talk about field trauma and surgery, and then I stayed to hear some lectures on the latest work on amputation rehabilitation."
Shaking his head he turned and headed for the kitchen, taking in the dish with salmon flakes clinging to the edge, noting it was on the table where he normally sat.
"But John…."
John turned his head and saw Sherlock standing in the kitchen doorway, one hand supporting the cat who was quite content to be carried around, staring at the world over his shoulder.
"Do you ever listen to me? I stood here five days ago and told you I would be away, I specifically said it could be up to a week if the closing lectures looked interesting – fortunately they didn't," as he spoke he busied himself making a fresh pot of tea. "Or I would have been gone another day at least, maybe two. You'd have wasted away to nothing and I don't doubt 'John'" he pointed at the cat. "Would have ended up sleeping in my bed!"
Standing with his mouth open Sherlock let John brush past him and deposit two cups of tea on the tables beside their chairs.
"Sit down Sherlock, and tell me what this is all about, and try not to make me more confused than I already am." He wrapped his hands around his mug, watching as his friend took his seat opposite before adding "And if you're going to keep stroking that cat like that can you please not call it John?"
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, thought about what he was going to say, realised it would sound as if he had totally lost it and so he shut his mouth again and said nothing.
John watched him as the curly headed genius struggle for words.
"This has got to be a first!" he thought, amused.
Deciding to give him a bit of a push he leant forward, rested his forearms along his thighs and nodded his head towards the cat which had remained on Sherlock's shoulder, purring loudly.
"Shall we start with why you called him John?"
"Because it's his name, I mean, he has a name tag that says John…"
"Ah." John nodded and waited.
"He was delivered in a box."
Slowly John's eyebrows rose as he took in that piece of information. Sherlock saw it and clutched defensively at his feline shoulder decoration, his fingers scratching behind its ears and making it purr even louder.
"Moriarty sent him."
"What?" John jumped up and stepped closer to his flatmate. "Are you telling me that you have accepted a gift from that…that…" words failed him as reached forward and tried to remove the cat from Sherlock's shoulder but the young man just clutched tighter.
Unfortunately this caused the cat to yowl loudly in his ear, and dig his claws in – Sherlock shot out of his seat like a scalded…well…a scalded cat actually, releasing the creature and allowing it to leap from his shoulder to the book case, claws pulling books out as he scrambled to get to the top.
"Now look what you've done" Sherlock cried, exasperated. He stepped up closer to the cat's refuge and held out his hands. "Come on John, jump. I'll catch you."
"Will you just stop it! Stop calling him John. Find another name – anything else but you can't call it John."
Sherlock's handsome face took on a sullen pout, and he turned and faced John, hands on hips.
"I can – it's his name" he snatched Moriarty's DVD from the desk and thrust it into John's hands. "Moriarty phoned, and texted me, said he had you prisoner. I looked everywhere for you." He held his hand up as John opened his mouth to ask a question. "I couldn't bring in Lestrade; he threatened to hurt you, so Mycroft and I…"
"Mycroft is part of this madness?"
"We did all we could to find you. Then that arrived – watch it."
With a frown, John did as he was asked, watching at first with horror, then finally, as it drew to a close, he dropped his head in his hands.
In the background were the sounds of objects falling and papers sent flying as the cat decided he liked this new game of 'catch me if you can'.
By now, disturbed by all the commotion Mrs Hudson had arrived, taking in her stride the presence of both 'Johns' and putting a comforting hand on the doctor's shaking shoulder.
"There, there, dear." She said. "Sherlock was very worried about you."
Sherlock looked down at his friend.
"Yes, that was my reaction too!" he said, looking at the trembling figure.
John sniffed and shook his head, but he couldn't speak. Finally he looked up; tears of laughter streaming down his face as he could no longer hold in his mirth.
"And you believed all that guff?" he chortled
"I looked up the references," Sherlock explained. "Florence Newton was hanged as a witch in the mid seventeenth century."
"And then he sent this." The cat had decided that maybe John wasn't so bad, and had insinuated himself onto the denim covered lap, allowing the smaller human to read the name on the disc.
"Well, he's not you, is he." Mrs Hudson stated the obvious, reaching down to stroke the cats head.
"We'll have to look for a home…."
"John! I thought we might keep him."
"Sherlock, how long would the poor thing last before you gave in to the urge to experiment?"
The light in the younger man's eye gave lie to his protest that he would never hurt the feline John. Mrs Hudson saw that light too and immediately became protective.
"You will not experiment on the poor thing!" she said, holding out her hands to take the cat from John. "I'll give it a home – a safe home."
John lifted the cat and held it towards their landlady.
"Here you go Mrs H," he said with a grin. "But I'm afraid you still can't call it John – I won't have it."
"Well dear, what do you suggest?"
His gaze flicking between Mrs Hudson and Sherlock, John's grin widened.
"Well considering he's a she – how about Joan?"