A/N: A reader suggested I continue this little crossover and I happily obliged and then, like a klutz, I went and forgot his/her name! I'm pretty sure it was on this site though. Sorry!
Most of the people who visit 221B Baker Street are private clients, and most of those come in asking about problems of either a financial or amorous nature: cheating partners, stealing employees, blackmailing neighbors... Both of which Sherlock finds completely and utterly boring, and those clients are promptly sent away. Sometimes, if the consulting detective is in a particularly good mood, he will bother to fling a few words their way, along with an insult as to their intelligence, effectively solving their so called case. If Sherlock is in a bad mood though, he might just fling whatever is closest at hand, which can be anything from a plain sofa cushion to the more disturbing severed hand. John wishes he had never known the sound a decomposing hand made as it hit a wallpapered wall, stuck there and then slowly slid down. Unfortunately, he now did.
Scotland Yard officials can be found often enough at 221B too. It's usually DI Lestrade asking for Sherlock's help on the particularly difficult cases, which Sherlock is always happy to do, although he does his best not to show it. He'd rather hold in his excitement, patiently waiting for Lestrade to exit and then explode with childish glee as soon as he'd crossed the threshold. John had even seen him dance once, it had been...enlightening.
Much less likely to be found in their living-room is a sobbing animal control employee. John hands him the box of tissues they always keep handy whenever they have a prospective client. According to Sherlock, 67% of them end up in tears and not always because of him, surprisingly.
"There, there," John says, patting the man's shoulder while Sherlock rolls his eyes.
"I don't have all day, you know?" he drawls, putting his feet up on the coffee table and glaring when John pushes them off.
"Yes. I'm sorry," their visitor mumbles, blowing his nose loudly. "I've had such a scare, and my boss won't believe me and he threatens to take my job away if I don't sort out the problem. I'm usually good at my job… I like my job… But this… It's beyond me."
Sherlock waves his hand for him to continue, and their visitor squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, as if to confess a great secret.
"I've been called to different tube stations these past two weeks because of attacks on the commuters. It happens. Rats, you know. It's dark, underground, food lying about, plenty of space for them to run around. Sometimes a commuter gets bitten. Go figure, maybe they fancy something a bit fresher than what they find in the bins."
The man laughs at his little quip, but rapidly stops and coughs nervously when they don't join in, watching impatiently.
"Well problem is, according to witnesses, this is a mighty big rat we're dealing with. A giant rat with a mouth as wide as this," he explains, showing about ten inches between his two hands.
"That's impossible," Sherlock says. "It can't be a rat. There are no rats with such a large mouth. The rat itself would have to be as big as cow."
John snorts despite himself when he tries to imagine a hybrid of a cow and a rat. He blames Sherlock. He could have found a better comparison.
"But no, see? That's the weird part, it has a huge mouth but it's only the size of a cat, and it scuttles around close to the ground like a rat. It has dark grey fur and beady black eyes too. That's why most people think it's a giant rat with a monstrous mouth. Maybe it's… I dunno, deformed?"
"Do you think it's a rat?" John asked curiously. "You've seen it, right? That's why you're here now."
Sherlock shot him an approving look that made him glow all over with pride. Sherlock was rubbing off on him in more ways than one.
Their visitor nodded.
"I'm gonna have nightmares of that thing. That mouth. Jeez, it's right awful, it is. And my boss wants me to catch it by the end of the week or I'm out. I need your help, Mr Holmes. My cousin said you can find anything. He's always raving about you. Got stars in his eyes, he has. So… You'll help me? You can find a giant rat, right?"
Sherlock scoffed, not deigning to grant that with an answer.
"Who's your cousin?" John asked, curious, when Sherlock didn't answer.
"Antony Dimmock. He works at Scotland Yard."
John nods, recalling the younger DI they'd worked with on a couple of cases. Nice bloke. Eager, hard-working, polite, even to Sherlock.
"All right!" Sherlock exclaims suddenly, springing to his feet and surprising them both. "I'll need all the details you can give me: dates and location of attacks, information about the bitten commuters, what measures have been taken to capture the beast… everything! The hunt...is on!"
John chuckles at his exuberance. He always got excited by the strangest of cases, and here he thought he would have to convince Sherlock to help the poor man.
ooo
Sherlock points one long finger at the London map with the red dots placed all around a suspiciously empty circle.
"See, all of these attacks happened in the stations closest to this abandoned one: Sumatra Road station. This must be its nest. It's perfect."
"Do you think there could be more than one?" John asks a bit nervously.
He didn't like rats and he most certainly did not look forward to meeting a whole colony of the giant variety.
"It's a possibility, but slim. I think the number of attacks would have been much higher if so."
He strides to the door and puts his coat on, looking at him impatiently.
"We're going now?" John asks, not feeling the least bit prepared.
"Outside, yes. To Sumatra Station, no. I need more data and a few articles before we get to that."
John groans, knowing that he would be the one who would be carrying whatever Sherlock had in mind to capture the giant rat. A giant wheel of cheese maybe?
Sherlock hails a cab, the vehicle coming out of nowhere as if it had been waiting for him all along. John sometimes wondered if that wasn't the case, if Mycroft hadn't put a cab at his disposal. It would be a good way to keeps tabs on him. They stop in a residential area and Sherlock raps smartly at the door, putting on his best fake smile. Interrogating witnesses, then. John prepares himself to jump in for whenever Sherlock starts insulting them.
"Yes?" a young woman asks.
"Miss Virginia Dwight? Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. We're here about the incident that happened at Kilburn Station."
Her eyebrows shoot up, clearly surprised and she cradles her right arm absent-mindedly, stepping back to let them in. She leads them into her small living room, taking the seat next to Sherlock on the sofa, eyeing him with interest. Typical.
"You were injured just yesterday, if I understand correctly. Your right arm?"
"And leg," she answers. "That...thing. It just came out of nowhere and clamped down on my leg. I tried batting it away with my hand, which is why I got bit there too. And it growled, I was terrified. I might have screamed, I don't remember, but that thing only left when someone else came to my help."
"May I see your wounds?" Sherlock asks, his voice all sugary with mock concern.
"Erm...yes? Will it help?"
"Certainly," Sherlock says, grabbing her leg to rest it in his lap and pulling her trousers up without so much as a by-your-leave, before unravelling the bandages.
The woman blushes furiously but is clearly enjoying being manhandled by his boyfriend, while Sherlock, completely oblivious of the effect he has, whips out his magnifying glass and then a pocket tape measure and finally some other strange tools he has never seen before and has no clue what they might do, but he suspects Sherlock might have invented them himself. All the while he's muttering and humming in appreciation.
"Come look at this, John. It's magnificent," he orders.
Johns gives Miss Dwight an apologetic glance and leans over to look at the wounds. They're like nothing he has ever seen before. It doesn't look so much like bites in fact, more like-
"Paper cuts," John breathes out.
Dozens and dozens of rather deep and large paper cuts criss cross the woman's leg and after inspection, her right arm too, just above her wrist.
"And no claw marks," Sherlock remarks, brilliant as ever. "If any animal were to attack, it would fight with its claws as much as it would with its teeth."
"Curiouser and curiouser," John muses.
"Are you sure it was a rat?" Sherlock asks her.
"I never thought it was, but animal control certainly wanted me to believe it. But that mouth…" she shudders. "Huge, as large as its body. But it was very late and very dark, I didn't see it all that well to be honest, not enough to give a good description: it was just furry, dark and had that huge mouth. But it growled. Do rats actually growl? I thought they squeaked, like mice."
"Quite correct, Miss Dwight," Sherlock pronounces, suddenly letting go of her leg. "Well, I thank you for your time. We'll let ourselves out."
John would have scolded him for his abruptness, but Sherlock did thank her, which is rare in itself, and John decides that is more than enough when he catches her just about undressing Sherlock with her eyes as he struts out.
"So?" John asks, curious despite himself when he joins him on the kerb. "Any idea?"
"I haven't the foggiest," Sherlock answers with a wide grin. "Oh, this is fun! I thought it may have been some sort of collective hallucination caused by some fumes from a chemical spill in the tunnels, but those wounds are proof enough that there is actually a wild beast down there. Maybe a new species! Can you imagine? How very exciting!" Sherlock gushes and leans over to kiss him soundly.
"So we go hunting then?" John asks as he chuckles at his boyfriend's exuberance.
ooo
That very night, they stake out the abandoned Sumatra Road Station after they installed over a dozen different traps around the cavernous place. They're sitting on a couple of abandoned crates with their feet up in case their mysterious quarry manages to sneak up on them and decides to take a bite of fresh meat. They're also holding a fishing net each, the vendor assuring them it was strong enough to resist the struggles of a twenty pound animal, whatever claws or teeth it had. John has his doubts about that after seeing the wounds on Miss Dwight and he feels ridiculous sitting in the dark with a fishnet resting against his shoulder for only weapon, but Sherlock wants to capture it alive and he's happy. His eyes are shining in the dark and he looks like a kid who'd been told he's going dragon hunting. John leans against him and Sherlock glances his way, his eyes crinkling as he offers a smile and a peck on his forehead. That will have to suffice until they solve this case, Sherlock doesn't like getting distracted when he's working, not even by him.
Later in the night, one of their traps is set off and they hear a growl and something scuttling across the platform.
"Do you see it?" John asks, net at the ready and his eyes blown wide as he searches for movement.
"That was trap number twelve, it ran towards-"
This time, there a snapping sound and a snarl. Something crashes and the sound of something dragging across the stone floor.
"Uh-oh. It's coming this way," Sherlock warns and John thinks he can just make out its shiny eyes glittering in the darkness, but there ar more than just the two.
"Erm, Sherlock, It has four eyes. At least."
"Four? Interesting, and I can't see any legs. How does it move?"
The thing disappears in a thicker patch of shadows and the strange noise it makes as it moves vanishes with it.
"Good God, I hope that thing doesn't teleport too," John mutters.
"Don't be ridiculous, John. It's just lying low to ambush us."
"But so are we. So what… We're both waiting for the other to make the first move? It could take hours."
"Nope," Sherlock says and jumps off the crate and onto the ground.
"Sherlock!" John protests, leaping off their safe observation point to join him. "We don't even know what that thing is, you can't just go and attack it head on without any kind of plan."
"I have a plan," Sherlock says and winks at him. "I have you."
John rolls his eyes but he's secretly pleased and without a word they each take a flank of the dark patch. John can hear a faint, continuous growl so it's still there but it's very good at hiding in the shadows. Two more steps, and all the warning they get before the beast launches itself forward is an almighty roar. It attacks him, of course. Animals always go for the smallest prey after all, but it only manages to bowl him over. John thinks he got lucky but he looks up as he feels a weight on his chest and stares right into a white papery maw snapping inches from his nose?
He has no time to wonder about that before a large net swoops the thing off his chest and up into the air. Seconds later, the empty spot is replaced by a hand and Sherlock helps him up.
"Are you alright?" he asks and John nods.
He's only a bit stunned and confused. He looks at Sherlock, proudly holding up the net, obviously full of a struggling, snarling beast. All they can see if grey fur, strange appendages and flashes of white. John feels like he should take a picture of Sherlock standing there proudly with his catch as if this was some strange sort of non-lethal safari hunt.
"Let's get it in a cage," Sherlock says.
Once they've got the beast secured, they flick on their phones to the torch app and shine it on the cage. Since Sherlock is just as quiet as he is, John is fairly certain they're seeing the same thing.
"Tell me you see a book too?" Sherlock asks after a while.
"Yep. A book. Definitely a book. With teeth." John answers, pinching himself to determine if maybe he's dreaming. He's not. "Do you think we got drugged, like in Baskerville? Or maybe it's a genetic manipulation, like Bluebell."
"Bluebell?"
"You deleted that already?" John huffs. Nobody should delete glow in the dark bunnies. "The glowing white rabbit with extra jellyfish genes? But why would you cross a dusty old book and a bad tempered rat? What am I saying? That's not even possible! This is crazy. Maybe you were right about the collective hallucination."
"John?" Sherlock says his name softly, the weight of his hand on his shoulder soothing him.
"Uhm?"
"Remember the shrinking-mints?"
"Oh…" John breathes out as realization sinks in. "So what do we do with it? If it's another oddity like the mints, we can't hand it over to anyone."
Sherlock crouched in front of the cage and studied the beast within. It had calmed down while they talked, watching them attentively with its beady black eyes.
"Well... I like books. You like dogs. This seems like a good compromise," Sherlock finally says.
"You can't be serious."
"What else do you propose we do with it? Have it put down by a vet or throw it in the paper recycling bin?"
"All right, all right, I see your point. But Mrs Hudson is not going to be happy about this. You'd better get her that tea set she was raving about on the shopping channel."
Sherlock smiles victoriously and cooes at the horrible thing.
ooo
Sherlock wastes no time experimenting on their new… pet. It sounds wrong and John would never have allowed it had the thing been a real cat or dog. Sherlock starts off by finding its weak point, because every living thing has one, obviously, and he quickly deduces it's its spine because it's as far as you can get from the teeth that are everywhere on the other three sides, its eyes don't cover that angle and the fur there is definitely more patchy. So Sherlock strikes the spine and it goes completely boneless, looking more like a book and less like a giant rat, so they can now study it at leisure without it trying to shred one of their fingers off.
"It has a title," John says, running his fingers over the faded letters on the cover, wondering if this counts as animal cruelty to have seared words on its skin. "The Monster Books of Monster". At least the title is appropriate."
Sherlock grins and flips the cover open. There in a messy childlike scrawl are the words Roonil Wazlib.
"Strange name. Google it, John." Sherlock orders.
"You're one to talk, Sherlock," John mutters but does as he's asked, not surprised when the search turns up empty. Honestly if someone out there had really names their kid Roonil, he might have had some words with them.
John turns to tell Sherlock as much, but the man looks completely depressed now.
"What's happened?"
Sherlock points dejectedly at the page opened at random. It seems it had contained some texts, even some illustrations at one point, but time, water and a fair bit of shredding had made the whole thing unreadable. John turned to a few pages at random with always the same result. Shame, he'd been looking forward to know what the book contained too, so Sherlock was probably devastated by the loss of such knowledge.
"There, there," he said, clapping his shoulder in sympathy. "Don't worry, you can still experiment on it."
ooo
"A dog? Really? Wow, that's a pretty important step in a relationship," Greg says as he drops three pints on the table between John and Anthony before reclaiming his own stool. "But you've been together for years, I suppose."
"It's only been three months, Greg and you know it," John replies, not wanting to get into that old argument again.
"Right," Lestrade snorts and Anthony joins in. "What breed is it? I didn't see it when I came by earlier. Actually, I didn't see it when he did a number on the guy that broke into your flat either."
John had grown very fond of their unusual pet after it had defended Sherlock against a would-be-murderer out for revenge. John had been out, working his shift at the clinic, and Sherlock, for once, had been sleeping and only awoke to the terrified and pained screams of his attacker.
"Count yourself lucky," John said with a knowing grin. "He's an ugly little beast. He scares Mrs Hudson and she regularly cleans our fridge without batting an eye."
"I imagine Sherlock's the one who chose him then."
"It's more like it chose us. We found him while working a case," he said avoiding looking towards the Anthony Dimmock who'd indirectly brought the case to them, and thus, the beast. "And we kind of kept him with us. His name's Roonil."
"Roonil? Does that mean something?" Anthony asked.
"Not that I know of. It was written on… its collar."
"Could be worse. Imagine if Sherlock had named it."
John gives an exaggerated shudder and they laugh, drinking to Roonil's health.
ooo
Now, when clients visit 221B Baker Street with inane cases, Sherlock snaps his fingers and a menacing growls come from under the sofa they're sitting on. Of course, Sherlock would have taught Roonil something as useless as that, but it was efficient. Sherlock only needed to point at the front door for the unwanted clients to scatter out as fast as they could.
Word must have gotten around too, because they had not had any intruders visit their flat in weeks and even Mycroft seemed reluctant to drop by, but when he would, his piercing eyes would analyze everything, searching for a glimpse of the mythical beast living there. He knew they had no dog since they never took it out for a walk or he would have seen it on his bloody CCTVs, but he knew there was something.
Thankfully he never found out what or it would have been the last he and Sherlock ever saw of Roonil and they'd gotten rather attached to one another.