Chapter Text
“John, could you come in here, please?”
It wasn’t the almost preternaturally calm voice that made John dropped the newspaper he was reading and practically run toward the loo, although that might have been enough. It was the word “please”. When Sherlock Holmes says please, and he’s not actually in character, well, it’s not exactly the sounding of the apocalypse, but it really is damned close.
Upon reaching the door, John found that it was only slightly ajar. Placing the flat of his hand against the wood, he pushed it open just a little farther, enough to see that Sherlock was standing in front of the sink, facing the mirror. He could only see parts of his side, but the parts that he could see seemed to be naked, and that meant that the parts he couldn’t see, and wasn’t he grateful for that, were probably naked as well. He stopped pushing the door, and considered actually closing it, but Sherlock had said, please, dammit, so he had to go on.
“Sherlock?” he called, looking at the door and definitely not in to the other side. “You okay?”
“No. No, I don’t think I am.”
John looked away from the door, and focused on the floor of the bathroom. No blood, so that was good. Sherlock’s bare feet seemed steady and straight, also good.
“Oh, for God’s sake, John, would you just come in.”
Insufferable attitude intact. Right, so it couldn’t be that bad. Bolstered by this new found confidence, John pushed the door the rest of the way open. It wasn’t the totally naked form of his roommate that made him stand, unmoving, his jaw dropped, his eyes fixed. After all John Watson was a doctor. He had been in the Army. He attended physical education classes in school. The human body was nothing new to John Watson. So, when he opened that bathroom door and observed the unclothed body of Sherlock Holmes, he had only one thing to say.
“Well, that’s new.”
“Yes, well, that’s one way to describe this, I suppose.” Sherlock looked perplexed, but then he had good reason to look that way. This was, well, this was perplexing. Somehow, during the night, the man had seemed to acquire a tail. An actual, long, furry, moving with a mind of it’s own, tail. It was kind of beautiful, all silky and black, and it was definitely mesmerizing the way it moved, twitching back and forth, but yeah, it was perplexing.
“You have a tail.”
“You noticed that, too,” Sherlock said. “Good for you. Your observational skills are right on point today.” Sherlock’s sarcasm was punctuated by sharp flicks of his tail.
John decided to let the biting tone pass, given the circumstances. “Okay,” he said. “So, want to tell me why you have a tail?” He reached out and grabbed it gently. “Is it even real?”
“Oh, it’s definitely real.” Sherlock stood still as John examined his new appendage. When John’s let his hand run down the length of it, he shivered a little. “And it’s apparently very sensitive, so if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sorry.” John dropped the tail, suddenly embarrassed, although he wasn’t sure why. It was a tail. On a human. He was a doctor. Of course he would examine it. Nothing odd about that.
“Right,” he said. “So, you woke up and, what? You came in to take a shower and you found… that.” John frowned, trying hard to think what to say next. “So, ummmm…. any other symptoms?” When in doubt, go with what you know.
“Oh you mean beside these?” Sherlock bent down so that the top of his head was even with John’s eyes.
“Oh my God.” John hand slowly reached out, drawn, as if by some invisible magnet to two triangular tufts of smooth black coming from the shaggy depths of Sherlock’s usual mess of hair. “Oh my God, Sherlock? Are those… they are, aren’t they.” John found his hand drawing near with an almost irresistible need to touch. “Those are your ears.”
“Don’t touch them!” Sherlock’s command would have been far more intimidating if, when he said it, the items in question hadn’t flattened in a pretty cat-like, and yet, on a human, comical manner.
John pulled his hand back and raised it palm out. “I’m not touching anything.” He meant those words to sound cross and put upon, but somehow they sounded boyish and guilty. He looked down so that the little suede ears that were now doing a sort of radar like twitching didn’t distract him. He needed to think.
“Oh,” he said, suddenly, because all that thinking had indeed produced a thought, and it wasn’t a good one. “You don’t suppose this is some sort of after-effect of the Baskerville gas, do you?” John pushed Sherlock to the side to examine his own head in the mirror. “You don’t think I’m going to turn into a cat, too?”
“No.” The word came out slowly as Sherlock pondered the idea. “I rather think not. By now, you would be showing at least some sign of change, and Henry Knight, who had far more exposure than either of us, showed no feline tendencies.”
“Yeah.” John ran his fingers through his hair, just to straighten it; certainly not to check for velvety triangles of ears. “Yeah. So, feline tendencies.” John unconsciously licked his lips. “Are you feeling any?”
“Are you asking if I have an overwhelming desire to chase mice?” Sherlock took a flannel and put it under some warm water. “Then, no. I don’t suppose I do.” After squeezing most of the water out of the flannel, he used it to slowly rub his right ear, starting from just behind his right eye and working back.
John watched the almost ritualistic cleansing in fascination, then abruptly shook his head. “Right,” he said. “We need to get you to a hospital or... “ John really didn’t want to say this, but… “Maybe call Mycroft.”
“God, no.” Sherlock moved to wrap a towel around his waist, but after several attempts at working around the tail, gave it up. He dropped the towel and looked down as it pooled on the ground at his feet. John watched as his friend’s face went from irritated to something much more worrisome. Sherlock Holmes, for only the second time since John had known him, looked scared. “How am I even supposed to get dressed?”
John considered for a moment. “Maybe it’s like… you know, dressing to the right or left?”
Sherlock face twitched, the corners of his mouth fighting to rise, despite the situation. “This might be a slightly…” His head made a small quirk to the left. “Bigger problem.”
“Yeah.” John’s mouth didn’t fight the smile at all. “I can see that. So leaving the flat might be a problem.” He left the loo while Sherlock stood in front of the mirror experimenting with purposeful ear movements, and went through the sitting room into the kitchen. “I’m just going to make some tea,” he called out. “Or would you rather have maybe a saucer of milk?”
“Tea would be just fine, thank you.” Sherlock ambled into the sitting room, wearing a dark blue dressing gown and nothing else, the tail lifting it in the back with every step he took. John could help but think he was seeing a whole new side of Sherlock today.
John brought out two cups, put one on the table next to Sherlock’s chair and then sat down in his own. Peering into his cup, he pretended to be seeking solace in his traditional manner, but really he was watching Sherlock try to find a way to sit. Tails, it seems are not really conducive to the human style of sitting. Sherlock finally ended up sitting on the back of his chair, feet on the seat, tail swinging behind. Funnily, it wasn’t the first time John had seen him in this position. “I’m calling Molly.”
“What?” There was a chance he had missed something here.
“I said, ‘I’m calling Molly’.” Sherlock plucked his phone from the table and began tapping. “She’s seen a lot of bodies, knows people who have seen lots of others.” He pushed the send button with a flourish. “I can’t have been the only person ever affected in this way.”
Less than an hour later, the shy, but competent forensic doctor stood staring at the once again naked Sherlock. “Honestly,” she said, walking slowly around the tall man. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.” She touched the point on his spine where it seemed to sort of separate from the rest of the body, and was rewarded by the tail looping around her arm. “Oh.” It was less an exclamation than a squeak.
To John’s amusement, Sherlock’s entire body blushed. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t seem to have much control.”
“No,” Molly smiled behind Sherlock’s back. “I liked it. It’s quite…” She let her hand pet the the fur. “soft.”
Sherlock made a noise that could have been an uncomfortable clearing of his throat, but sound very much like a purr to John. Startled, Molly pulled her hand back. “Yes, well…” Molly was now making a similar noise but there was no doubt that she was trying very hard to find her lost professionalism. “I mean, there have been cases of people being born with tails, or um… misformed ears. And, of course, there have always been cases of hypertrichosis, but nothing so sudden or specific, well not outside of…”
“Hypertrichosis?” John knew he had heard the phrase, but right now his inner medical texts had pretty much been replaced by The Cat in the Hat.
“You know,” she lowered her voice, as if it were some sort of secret. “Werewolf syndrome.”
“Oh for…” Sherlock’s ears flattened and his tail started whipping around so violently that both John and Molly had to move to avoid being pummeled. Suddenly, he turned and, there was no other word for it, he pounced on Molly. He gripped her small shoulders in his long fingers. “You said, outside of…” He gave the shocked woman a little shake, and John was pretty sure that up until now he had never really understood the meaning of the phrase ‘like a mouse in a trap’.
“Sherlock!” John tried to move between his friends. “Calm down. She’s here to help.”
Sherlock’s hands flew open and up, releasing the startled woman from his grip. “I’m sorry. Molly.” His eyes were wide in an expression that was almost the same as the one he wore when making a discovery in his mind palace, and at the same time, completely not like that at all. “I… I’m not sure exactly…”
He looked to John, silently begging for help. John fervently wanted to comply. “It’s okay, Sherlock.” Yeah, quite helpful that. “It’s been a stressful day, yeah?”
“Yes,” Sherlock whipped the dressing gown around his body and tied the sash around his waist with such force that John was sure he’d actually lost an inch or two in the process. “It has, rather.” He started to plop into his chair, but remembered the tail at the last minute and stopped, sort of squatting just above it, and let out a growling sound of frustration. Then he took a deep breath and. slowly, he stood, until, standing straight, and brushing off the front of the gown, he seemed to have his emotions under control once more. “Molly,” he said. “Before I…” He moved one hand vaguely through the air. “Well, before, you said that you had never seen it outside of something. What was that?”
Molly grabbed her ponytail and started to stroke it, much as she had earlier done to Sherlock’s tail. She looked at John and then at Sherlock. Then she looked down, obviously trying to hide her embarrassment. “It was nothing,” she said. “It’s, well... I’m, well... See, it’s just so silly.”
Sherlock stood back and gestured to his body. “I think we’ve pretty much gone beyond silly, here. Don’t you, Molly?” Unexpectedly, Sherlock smiled, and it was genuine and fond. “Why don’t we all sit down and you tell us where you’ve seen anything remotely like this.”
When everyone was seated, or, in Sherlock’s case, perched, and fortified with new cups of tea, Molly started. “Okay, so, how much do you know about fanfic?”
John looked at Sherlock who looked at him and shrugged. John looked back to Molly. “You mean those stories that lonely women write for each other about television shows.”
“They aren’t always about television,” Molly answered. “And they aren’t always lon-” She stopped, thought a moment, then seemed to find some kind of inner fortification. “Look,” she said. “I did say it was silly, but, really, some of them are quite good.”
John opened his mouth, hoping to find some sort of cogent apology before the words actually came out, when he was saved by Sherlock. “In these fanfics,” he started, his fingers tented under his chin. “You find situations like this?”
“Actually, just like this.” Molly put down her cup and went to the table where John’s laptop lay open. “Do you mind?” John shook his head. He moved behind her, intending to quietly give her his new password, when he noticed she was already typing. StaYaWaySH wasn’t really a strong password after all. although it had to be an improvement over StPDgit. Even Mrs. Hudson got that one.
He looked at the site that Molly had just pulled up and frowned. “Johnlock, Now and Forever”?
“Oh, yeah,” Molly said. She moved the cursor a bit and clicked a few drop menus. “There are lots of fan sites for you two.” She started slowly scrolling down a page. “They started popping up after your blog got popular, and then after Sherlock well, died, they sort of exploded. There’s, let’s see, Sherlockiana, BakerStreet Boys, WhumponWatson, but this is the most popular by far.” She hit one more button. “Here it is!” she triumphed. “I knew I saw it this morning. Page three, already, so we were lucky to find it. By the time they hit page five, they’re pretty much forgotten.”
Sherlock spun from his perch on the back of his chair and jumped over to the table, moving both John and Molly aside. “Through the curtains, morning light filtered into the bedroom, giving John a glimpse of his new pet.” Sherlock frowned and looked at John like this was his fault. “Pet?” John just shook his head slightly and shrugged his shoulders. He was still working his mind around the idea of a site devoted to whumping on him.
“Keep reading,” Molly urged.
“He was so adorable,” Sherlock made a face as he said the word, and a part of John couldn’t help thinking that, in itself, was actually kind of cute. “John couldn’t help thinking. He had his shiny, black tail wrapped around his tucked in legs and one velvety ear was slightly twitching. John climbed in beside the mancat and…”
John reached over and slammed the laptop shut. “I think we get the gist, thank you.”
He held the laptop in his arms as he stepped back. “So, what are we thinking here, Sherlock? That this…” He tapped the computer with his fingernails. “Is some how related to that?” He nodded with his head to the tail that was now rubbing slowly up and down Molly’s leg.
“Possibly.” Sherlock paced the room. “Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.” He looked up. “You can go now, Molly.”
John rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Molly,” he said. His tone made it clear that he was saying it for both of them no matter what Sherlock had, or hadn’t, said. “You’ve been a great help.”
John had intended to walk Molly down, but just as he was following out the door, Sherlock reached over his shoulder and grabbed his computer and strode back to the table. John whirled and started to grab for it back, but got a face full of tail for his effort. “Fine,” he said, pretending he actually meant to let Sherlock have it all along. “What do we do now.”
“Research,” Sherlock answered. “Obviously. We need to know how many times our actual lives have intersected with these stories.”
“So we are going to spend the night reading bad fiction about our own lives.” John sighed. “That sounds entertaining.”
“Necessary.” Sherlock looked up from what he was reading. “Why do you suppose it’s called Johnlock?” He continued reading, while John picked up the iPad Sherlock sometimes used. “Oh.” Sherlock sat down in the chair, making sure his tail found the gap in the back. “Oh, I see. It’s for John slash,” He actually made the little air quotes this time. “Sherlock.”
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It was around three in the morning when Sherlock finally looked up. “There does seem to be a pattern here.” He stood and stretched. He looked out the window at some ravens pecking at something under a street lamp. “Tomorrow, we’ll have to find a way to investigate some of the writers.” As he watched the ravens, one stopped and quirked its head. Sherlock had the strangest feeling it was looking directly at him. “I suppose we shall have to alter some of my clothes and find that silly hat people are so fond of.”
He turned to find his friend slumped in his chair, the iPad on the floor where he had dropped it hours ago. “I SAID!” He held back his smile when John startled and looked around, obviously trying to pinpoint where the hell he was. “We will have to alter some of my clothes.”
John looked at Sherlock, did a fairly theatrical double take, closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t think we will.”
Sherlock gave John the pointed look that always meant, “Don’t be an idiot. Not that you can help it, really, but do try.”
John sighed and moving to stand next to his friend, he turned him until he was facing the mirror. “They’re gone,” he said. “I don’t know how. I’m not even sure I want to know how, but they are gone.”
Sherlock looked at his now much more human looking head in the mirror. He moved his head one way then the other, touching both ears as he did so. Then he spun and, while he did see his dressing gown twirl dramatically, there was no tail accompanying it. He looked over to John, hoping for some explanation, but John was busy looking around on the floor.
“Where do you suppose they went?” John continued to look around suspiciously, as if he were afraid one of the shadows would turn out to be a disembodied tail looking for revenge.
“I don’t know,” Sherlock said slowly. “But I am going to find out.”