Jim counted the stairs to 221b by how many times the pet-carrier was bumped against Sherlock's knee. Seventeen, by the way.
Once inside, Jim was assaulted by the most wretched chemical smell he had ever encountered. It smelled like lye and chlorine and ammonia had all gone to the gym together and sweated like wild animals. He gagged when he took in a breath to try and tell Sherlock as much.
"Urgh! I'll open a window!" John said stumbling into the flat.
"No John! Moriarty might get out!"
Escape! That was a thought that hadn't even occurred to Jim. In retrospect, it should have, but with all that had been going on, he just hadn't been working at full capacity recently.
"Just leave him in the carrier, he's no use if we're all dead from the… cough, cough…thah…cough, cough, cough… fumes…hack, cough, urgh!" John sputtered, shielding his eyes from the powerful chemical cloud and barreling through the flat to the window, which he opened and stuck his head out gratefully, sucking up the fresh air.
Sherlock dropped Jim onto a small coffee table and stalked away, leaving him peering through the bars, and virtually unguarded.
"Now's the time!" he thought.
Jim tried to fit his paws through the bars of his cage, in order to lift the latch and open the mechanism which was keeping him imprisoned, but his paw wouldn't fit through all the way. It was too wide. He tried the other paw and had the same problem.
He tried sticking his paw out length-wise and he managed to squeeze it out, but he couldn't quite reach the latch. He stretched once, twice, three times; but he just couldn't reach it!
Jim yowled "This isn't fair Sherlock! You haven't even given me a chance!"
"Quiet you." Sherlock replied.
"Make me!" Jim hissed.
John returned from the window, and had begun to stare at Jim again, but this time Jim glared back, burning him with the heat of his eyes.
"Did you have to go and turn him into a cat? It's unnerving as hell." John complained edging around Jim.
"There are two words you don't hear in mixed company: unnerving and hell."
John entered the kitchen and left Jim's range of view. Jim huffed and lay down, resting his new, oddly shaped head on his new, soft paws and thinking wretched thoughts.
Next Chapter: I haven't finished yet, but I think that more of the cast of Sherlock will make a debut. Namely the only person who would care if her tennants got a cat!
