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The Lord of Crime hadn't been involved in anything for two and a half weeks. By any other person's opinion, this would have been a wonderful occasion. A godsend for England. A reprieve from the chaos.
For Sherlock, however, it was the opposite.
It was too quiet. Something was happening.
But despite how on edge he was, everything in London was calm, to the point that the media was saying that perhaps the reign of terror that the Lord of Crime had imposed was over.
Sherlock didn't believe that for a single second. So he went out to investigate.
— — —
Sherlock walked briskly through the dark streets of London, eyes darting back and forth. He spotted any number of things as he made his way past dark alleys - copious amounts of drug dealing and prostitution, to name some of the milder activities.
As he walked past a derelict bar, Sherlock heard a commotion coming from a few streets over. Shouting, thuds, footsteps on the ground. His pace sped up, making his way towards the action. Could it be the Lord of Crime?
He broke into a run as the voices grew louder. When he rounded the corner to the mouth of the alley where the noise was coming from, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Two men, who looked stronger than Sherlock could ever hope to be, were tripping over their own feet as a cat weaved in between their legs, biting their ankles, tripping them up.
"Fuck!" One of the men barked. "How hard is it to pick up a damn cat!" He lunged down, grabbing the cat roughly by its sides, only to yelp and drop the feline as it hissed and scratched at him.
The other man pulled his friend up by the collar. "Look, it's not worth getting our eyes clawed out for a damn cat. We can find another for the market."
The first man pulled away, shoving his friend off as he stalked towards the cat. "No. We need to meet our quota. We've already spent so much time with this one, it would be a waste to leave now."
His friend sighed, hands in his pockets. "I told you we should've just gone for a kitten or something, man. They don't bite as hard, and besides, where there's one kitten, there tends to be more. We could've exceeded the quota by now, but no, you just had to have this one."
Sherlock stood in the mouth of the alley watching all of this unfold, blood reaching a boil. He saw a lot in his line of work that turned his stomach, but animal abuse and trafficking was one of the things that really got him furious.
He strode forward, confident as anything, where the man had finally managed to get his hands around the cat, who was yowling and screeching like Sherlock had never heard before. His heart ached for the animal.
He tapped the man's associate on the shoulder calmly. When the man turned around, a dopey look on his face, Sherlock reeled his fist back and broke the man's nose. "Fuck! What the hell!" The man gasped as he stumbled back. Sherlock accompanied the punch with some of the moves he'd learned in Bartitsu, until the man was lying unconscious on the ground.
The man who was holding the cat had heard the fight and was backing up nervously from where Sherlock was standing. "Hey, I'm just a grunt, man, I don't know anything, I was just doing my job- look, look, look. I'll give you information, hmm? Information about the group I work for?"
Sherlock paused, eyes roving up and down the man's form. After a moment's consideration, he nodded.
The man quickly reached into his pocket, fumbling around until he was able to produce a piece of paper and a small, broken off shard of lead. Contorting the cat roughly under his arm so it couldn't get away, the man frantically started to scribble things down on the paper - places, people, and numbers, from what Sherlock could see.
When he was done, he handed the paper back to Sherlock with trembling hands. "There we go. All good now, yeah?" Sherlock nodded, scanning the paper briefly before tucking it away in his breast pocket. "Yes, I think everything is just as it should be."
The man relaxed, grinning. "I appreciate it." He hefted the cat under his arm once more, making his way to the end of the alley.
Sherlock called out to him. "Oh, there is one more thing." The man turned around, confused, only for Sherlock to knock him to the ground and render him unconscious. He brushed his hands together, wiping off the feel of the man as he stood back up.
The dark haired man looked down at the cat, who was wriggling its way out of its captor's grasp. As Sherlock kneeled down on the ground to get a better look at it, the cat hissed at him, batting one clawed paw out to deter him from coming closer.
Sherlock raised his hands in surrender, sitting down on the ground. He grimaced a little at the feeling of the cold and damp underneath him, but it was worth it as the cat tentatively stepped forward.
"Hello there," Sherlock whispered softly. "I imagine that you've had a hell of a time of it, hmm? With those men? Don't worry. You're safe now."
The cat stared up at him with huge wide eyes, blinking slowly. Sherlock had never really described himself as a cat person, but looking down at the creature had something he didn't even realise had been there tugging on his heartstrings.
Sherlock reached out his hand slowly, stopping when the cat flinched away. "It's alright, it's alright," he said soothingly, stretching his palm out for the cat to approach him if it wanted to. "I just want to make sure that you're safe," he murmured.
"Those men did a number on you. You're a fighter, I can see that. But you're safe now. You can rest. If you want, I can take you somewhere where you can get all patched up."
Sherlock realised how stupid he looked, talking to the cat like this. Cats couldn't speak or comprehend human language, after all, apart from some basic things. But this cat looked intelligent, Sherlock thought. Like it could not only understand what he was saying, but also dissect the intonation of his voice.
Sherlock must have been convincing enough, because the cat trotted up to him, rubbing its cheek up against the palm of Sherlock's hand. The dark haired man used his other hand to reach over and scratch behind the cat's ears. Carefully, he scooped the cat up in his arms, relaxing when it didn't try to bite him.
"Don't worry," he whispered. "I'll take good care of you."
— — —
After dropping off the paper that the thug had given Sherlock at a police station, and a trip to the vet to make sure that the cat didn't have any sort of communicable diseases that could infect Sherlock (along with other health check ups), the cat was laying quite comfortably in front of the fire at 221B Baker Street.
Sherlock was watching the cat intently, book and whiskey long forgotten on the side table. He only realised that John had entered the room when he felt the hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the blond, startling.
"Lost in thought there?" John asked teasingly. Sherlock folded one leg over the other, not taking his eyes off the feline. "I'm just making sure that the cat is okay. The vet said to me that it's important to monitor him to make sure that he doesn't have any issues with his breathing."
John hummed. "He's beautiful, isn't he? Lovely blond ragdoll." Sherlock nodded, a hint of pride creeping into his voice. "Yes, I made sure to clean him thoroughly after we got home." At John's worried look, Sherlock clarified. "And yes, I cleaned the bath after."
The doctor nodded, moving over to a chair and settling himself quite comfortably. "A cat man now, are you?" He asked, clasping his hands in front of him, gaze locked onto the cat. L
Sherlock huffed, but then paused. "I'm coming around to the idea of it," he said slowly, lips quirking up at the corners as the cat rolled over, eyes blinking slowly. "Red eyes are unusual on a cat, aren't they?" John remarked.
Sherlock nodded. "They are, but the vet said that he had no visual problems. He's just special."
The cat's tail swung lazily back and forth as he said that. Sherlock smiled.
He was definitely a cat person now.
"Have you heard anything from Professor Moriarty recently?" John asked. Sherlock shook his head, picking up his drink and taking a long swig. "Not a peep. Liam did say that he was going to be busy with work, though. Exam season, I suppose. Lots of marking to be done."
At the mention of William, the cat's head shot up from where he had been languidly laying. Sherlock beckoned the cat closer. As the feline made his way into Sherlock's lap, curling up contentedly, Sherlock slowly started to run his hand down the cat's back.
"You'd like to meet Liam, wouldn't you kitty?"
At the cat's meow, both Sherlock and John laughed.
"I think that's a yes."
— — —
William was unsure of what man or beast had decided to turn him into a cat, but here he was.
Furry and small.
The world around him was incredibly overstimulating, regardless of where his little legs carried him - whether it be down the street, up along the rooftops, or around puddles.
He got cooed at wherever he went. Women especially were kind to him, giving him small nibbles of food if he pawed at them or scratched his ears. The attention was a little bit nice, he would have to admit.
The ability to experience being fawned over with no social machinations behind it was something he'd never really been able to have. If people were doing it, regardless of whether they were male or female, they would want something - usually to do with their financial operations, or an attempted ignition of courtship.
William's worry about how he'd even been turned into a cat outweighed the fact that people were being nice to him, however.
When those two men tried to steal him away and sell him off - bastards, he'd make sure that they were punished when he was human again - William thought that it was it. Doomed to be abused for the rest of his life, unable to ever see his family or friends ever again.
Unable to see Sherly again.
But like a knight in shining armour, there he was. The best detective in London, if not the world, and the match to William's wit.
William recoiled away from the man more out of instinct to protect himself rather than anything else. He found that, in this form, words became difficult to understand. He still could, if he focused hard. If he didn't though, the words became distorted, like he was trying to listen to them while underwater.
Even without being able to understand Sherlock immediately though, the sense of safety he brought outweighed the fear William felt.
The trip to the vet had been unpleasant, being poked and prodded and examined more thoroughly than he had been since he was born - probably more so.
But it was worth it, he thought as he curled up in Sherlock's lap and started to purr. William had only visited Baker Street once or twice, when Dr Watson and Ms Hudson had been out, and seeing it from this perspective was a little strange, but he was loving it.
At the feel of Sherly's hand through his fur, William let out a long sigh, becoming boneless in the man's lap.
He would have to figure out how to turn back into a human soon, that was inevitable.
But for now, he was quite happy to be curled up in Sherlock's lap as a fluffy cat.