Prompt: a cat, from V Tsuion

A/N: FINALLY, MYCROFT

Mycroft Holmes considered himself a simple man with small pleasures and fewer wants. He looked for no accolades or rewards from his unique position in the British government and valued nothing more than his routines and his solitude. He had spent years carving out a position catered exactly to his strengths and preferences, expended much effort in founding a club tailored to men such as himself who enjoyed the trappings of club life without the socialization inherent in every other London club, and now sought only to enjoy the benefits that he viewed as the result of his efforts. Even the smallest disruption to his routine was abhorrent to his sedate and lazy nature.

Which is why when Mycroft left his rooms at Pall Mall in the morning on the way to Whitehall, he was perhaps more put out than other men would be at the appearance of a small, gray cat mewing loudly on his front stoop. Mycroft stopped and stared at the cat, unpleasantly reminded of his childhood at his parents' manor. Growing up in the country had been a trial to a boy of Mycroft's nature, for every estate, even one as small as the Holmes's, had its share of horses, dogs and cats. While Sherlock had always been fond of dogs slobbering all over him and had learned horsemanship with a minimum of fuss, Mycroft had spent his childhood avoiding all the muddy, outdoor spaces where his family's animals congregated, and considered himself well shot of the entire estate, which had sold the moment he came into his inheritance and moved to London. In any case, Mycroft now considered the animal kingdom and himself to have an agreement, namely, that they were to leave each other alone.

This cat did not seem to be aware of this, for not only did it not run off at Mycroft's appearance, it came closer and began to twine itself around Mycroft's ankles, mewing pathetically. "Go. Shoo," Mycroft said quietly, pushing the cat away gently with his walking stick. He was not a cruel man by nature, and had no intention of hurting the creature, but he couldn't very well appear at Whitehall with cat hair around his trouser cuffs. The secretaries were liable to think he had lost his wits. "I said, shoo!" Mycroft said louder, rapping his cane smartly on the stoop. The cat scampered off, and Mycroft went on, his mind back on the rising price of timber from Canada and how it would affect the shipping industry this winter.

Yet when he left Whitehall, he was greeted by another pathetic mew, and turned to find the very same cat seated primly on the sidewalk in front of him, forcing all the passersby to step around it. It was as if it had been waiting for him. "However did it manage to find me here?" Mycroft grumbled, ramming his hat onto his head and walking a bit faster than usual to the Diogenes, with the result that he arrived at twenty to five rather than a quarter, and sent the staff into a tizzy at his early arrival.

He settled into his favorite armchair with the day's newspapers and proceeded to forget all about annoyingly persistent cats in favor of wondering what was on for dinner and reading about the assassination of the Russian monarch, an event which caused him to move up his prediction of the monarchy's fall from thirty years hence to twenty.

The next morning, however, he stopped dead as he left his rooms and again found the same cat on his front steps, this time almost glaring at him as if angry he was not paying it enough attention. Preposterous, Mycroft thought to himself. Cats could not glare or get angry at humans who disliked animals for perfectly logical reasons. Still, there was something unnatural about this cat. He failed to see any reason why a stray cat should attach itself to him so strongly. He had certainly done nothing to encourage its affection.

The answer to this question soon appeared in the form of his maid, taking out the remains of his breakfast. "Oh, Mr. Holmes, do forgive me!" she said, near trembling from fright. Mycroft did wish his staff was less frightened of him. It served his purposes for members of Cabinet to quiver with fright at his arrival, but his own staff had nothing to fear from him, for he was a generous employer who had little in the way of outlandish demands and caused no fuss in his own home (unlike some detectives he could mention).

"Quite alright," he said. "Do you know anything of this cat?" he asked curiously. "It seems to be familiar with you," he added, as the cat approached the maid without fear and seemed to be sniffing the air.

The girl blushed in embarrassment. "Oh. Well, yes. I've been feeding him, you see, from what's left. I expect he's used to it now, sir." They both looked down as the cat mewed in apparent impatience at its food taking too long, and the girl put down the plate of sausage so it might eat its fill.

"Ah, that explains why it has been following me from here to Whitehall to the Diogenes. It is looking for food," Mycroft said.

The maid looked skeptical. "I don't see it, sir. Begging your pardon, but you don't feed it. It would take a very clever cat to realize all the food comes from your kitchen."

"Well, I have no need of a cat," Mycroft said. "See to it it is no longer fed from my kitchen."

"Yes, sir," the maid said with a curtsy, and Mycroft went on his way, where he spent a blissfully cat-free day calculating the approximate value of diamonds found in South Africa versus the cost of maintaining the army there. He suspected Cabinet would not take his recommendations, but he would find a way to use that to his advantage. He always did. His mood brightened further when he left Whitehall and found no cat waiting for him on his way to the Diogenes. Perhaps it was clever enough that it had understood him when he said it would receive no more food from his kitchen, he thought, before shaking his head. Cats could not understand English, he reminded himself as he made his way to the Diogenes through the now heavy rain and wind. Perhaps the cat simply disliked the horrible weather.

He had, in fact, forgotten all about the cat when the staff at the Diogenes opened the door to let in several waterlogged club members when a gray streak ran in and promptly leaped onto Mycroft's chair, soaking his finest jacket and causing him, for the first time ever, to exclaim in disgust and break the Diogenes vaunted no-speaking rule. The other members looked aghast at him, for this was his first offense in nearly twenty years of membership, and Mycroft glared around the room, though most pointedly at the cat. He knew they would do nothing to him; no one would dare suggest that the founder of the club should be expelled. Instead, he picked up the offending animal and took it outside into the hall, intending to set it out into the street where it belonged.

Only, the cat was very wet, and dug its claws into Mycroft's coat when he tried to set it down (he would have to throw this coat away when he returned home), and now that he was holding it, the cat did seem very thin. He sighed. Against his better judgment, he turned to one of the attendants. "Do see if you can find a towel to dry the creature off," he said. "And perhaps some fish from the kitchen."

He was certain he was going to regret this.

But the next day, there was no sign of the cat as he left for Whitehall, and rather than being pleased by its absence, Mycroft wondered what exactly had happened to it. He had not heard what had happened to the creature after he had handed it off to the attendants at the Diogenes Club. By the time he left Whitehall at the end of the day, with no sign of any cat, he was miffed at how much space in his mind the infernal creature was taking up. There was no reason the unwelcome visitor should be on his mind at all.

Still, when he arrived at the Diogenes to find a bowl laid out full of salmon and a familiar gray cat going from one silent club member to another for pets, Mycroft almost smiled. He could not help feeling a sense of, if not gratification, but of ownership, when the cat noticed him and jumped directly onto his lap, to remain there for the rest of the night.

Really, it was not such a very annoying creature. It was clever enough to recognize him as the source of food and shelter at the Diogenes, and it certainly knew the value of silence as well as any of the other club members. It had as refined a palate as any of them too, judging by its taste in salmon. From the smiles as the other club members greeted its appearance each time it walked by, Mycroft thought he was not the only person to find the cat not such an unwelcome addition anymore.

Two weeks later, Mycroft had become thoroughly accustomed to the cat's presence, and hardly thought of it as something unusual as it settled next to him on the chair each evening. The staff at the Diogenes seemed to be in competition with each other for who got to feed it each day, requiring Mycroft to draw up a schedule to prevent bloodshed, and by the time his brother threw open the doors unannounced, Mycroft thought nothing of it as the cat followed him to the Strangers Room.

"What is that?" Sherlock asked bluntly as they sat at the table and Mycroft ordered a cold ham from the kitchen.

"It is a cat," Mycroft said, watching the animal jump onto the windowsill and rub against Dr. Watson, who was watching the street below, for pets, which the doctor readily gave. "It seems to have adopted the Diogenes as its home," Mycroft continued.

"I did not think the Diogenes required a mascot," Sherlock said. "A club full of the most unsociable of men can hardly be the best place for a cat to find an affectionate home."

"I seem to recall that you were always much fonder of dogs than of people," Mycroft said, bristling, thinking it a bit rich of Sherlock to take other men to task for being unsociable. Mycroft, after all, did not regularly drive all his neighbors out of their homes with chemical explosions.

"Yes, well," Sherlock said. "Dogs are useful creatures, in tracking criminals and missing objects. A cat does nothing but require food and a place to sleep from its human masters."

"An ideal pet for a club of unsociable men," Mycroft said with a smile. He did so enjoy getting the better of Sherlock, who now looked annoyed at the excellent point he had made. "Dogs require altogether too much socialization," he continued, petting the cat absently where it had settled on his lap.

Sherlock looked about to respond when Dr. Watson stepped in, as he must do often between Sherlock and Scotland Yard, Sherlock and his own clients, and Sherlock and his landlady. Mycroft had wondered on many an occasion what exactly had caused his brother to take a flatmate, and concluded that someone had to ease the friction between Sherlock and the rest of the world. Even Mycroft found his brother easier to talk to with the Doctor as a buffer. "What is its name?" Doctor Watson asked now.

"Whose?" Mycroft asked.

"The cat's," Dr. Watson said. "Every mascot must have a name."

"Oh," said Mycroft, who had hardly thought of it, but now felt rather silly that he had continued to think of the cat simply as "the cat." "None of us had thought of it," he admitted.

"Might I?" Watson asked. "I have been reading recently of the recent discoveries in Egypt. One of the goddesses was a cat, named Bastet. Perhaps that would do for a name."

"Cats do enjoy being worshipped," Sherlock added with a silent laugh.

"I shall have to put it to a vote," Mycroft said. "Though as none of us have come with anything better, I daresay it will win. Bastet." He tried the name out and the cat mewed pleasantly, as if agreeing that it was quite content to be worshipped by the members of the Diogenes Club. "Very well. Now, let us get down to this excellent ham and tell me what you are here for, Sherlock. If it is to try to convince me to go on another one of your cases, let me assure you that you shall be disappointed."