The Conversion of a Dog Lover 1/?
Title: The Conversion of a Dog Lover 1/?
Disclaimer: Just a poor college student
Rating: pg
Warnings: fluff, angst, mauling
Parings: John/Sherlock, Lestrade, OC's
Summary: Fill for Sherlockbbc-fic prompt - Sherlock and John have always been cats. Lestrade is their owner. Reichenbach. Empty House
Lestrade had never really been one for cats. If you had told him five years ago that he would be sharing his home with two of them, he would have snorted in distain and told you to lay off the pills or, if he hadn’t had his morning coffee, call a drug raid on your house.
He had always been more of a dog person, and disliked cats on principle. They lacked the loyalty and devotion that he had always adored in his boyhood pets. And being stalked by his aunt's malicious Persian had been something of a traumatizing childhood experience (character-building, his arse).
Cats were unnerving and ornery creatures. Needle teeth and razor claws instead of playful licks and cold noses. Frosty expectation instead of warm affection. Ownership instead of companionship. Often acting far too human for his taste.
Somehow, though, Lestrade ended up married to a cat person (suckered in his youth by her sweet-natured smiles, steady personality, and delicious cinnamon scones) He really did love Alice, just not her taste in pets.
Unfortunately for him, his daughters inherited their mother’s love of the blasted animals and begged and begged and begged for a kitty, "please, please, please, please, please~!"
Even if he was a dog person to his very core, fate didn’t have the decency to give him even a mild cat allergy. He had been tripled teamed by the three most important women in his life, and their broken hearted expressions were like steel-toed boots to the gonads. So he caved and bought 'Johnny', a mild mannered orange tabby kitten, from the elderly Mrs. Hudson who lived down the street.
Lestrade had been completely ready to endure every horror imaginable when he brought the creature home. He had even warned his girls that the feline would be their problem and theirs alone. Just to establish it once and for all, he had even engaged in a one-sided glaring contest in order to cow it into submission.
“I’m not having anything to do with you, y’know.” He had warned the tiny kitten. Had to show it who’s boss. “Absolutely nothing to do with you.”
Just to spite him, Johnny had curled up in Lestrade’s shoe (and only his shoe) to sleep every single day, until he couldn’t fit anymore.
In some strange paradox of fate, his very first cat was an absolute angel.
Easily house-trained and almost annoyingly affectionate, the roly-poly furball handled Lestrade’s girls better than he did.
Johnny tolerated almost any and all abuse with admirable restraint. As the smallest creature in the house is was inevitable that he was trodden on every now and then, but besides a squeak of pain and surprise, Johnny never bit or scratched. Even the dress-up games his youngest would play earned only a resigned huff and the occasional dirty look. (which was horrifically adorable in a pink lace bonnet)
He did not steal Lestrade’s socks or scratch up the furniture (once he had proper scratching post) or bring home dead things. Johnny did hunt the mice that were unfortunate enough to intrude, but he never ate them; he would just catch and deposit the terrified rodents outside. It was almost amusing how little killing instinct he seemed to have.
In fact the only time Johnny had ever harmed another living creature was during an altercation with their former neighbor's aggressive hound. The small but stocky tabby saved his girls when the dog broke into their yard while its owner was out.
For his efforts Johnny had earned a vicious bite to his shoulder and a permanent place in Lestrade's heart. (he would never again complain about the cat curling around his head at night)
Johnny grew into a sturdy, handsome tabby. He was just as happy to be a purring shelf decoration as a personal lap/head/foot warmer. Lestrade had been quite honestly baffled at how much he liked the cat. It felt unnatural to be so comfortable with him, but after a year of enduring Johnny’s insistent affection he gave in and admitted (to himself, of course) that maybe cats weren’t so bad after all.
It had been quite nice for a while, positively domestic, until one day, his little girls brought home a stray.
The rain had been coming down in squalls that day. Lestrade had been blessed with a rare day off and been sleeping in enjoying the furry, purring hot water bottle curled around his ears. It had been a nice cozy weekend morning. He should have known better.
MRRROOOUUUUWRRRRRR-!
Lestrade had stumbled downstairs at the unholy screeching and other disturbing sounds he had never heard before coming from the kitchen, and found his girls huddled around the dining table armed with heavy towels.
With Johnny following cautiously at his heels, he made his first mistake and stepped closer to investigate.
A sopping wet blur of fury launched off the table and sunk its claws into his unprotected leg.
Needless to say, Lestrade had not been all that enthused about keeping the rabid monster no matter what his kids or his wife said. It was his cat-nightmare come true: mean-tempered, ornery, unnerving. Refusing to be touched. The thing would stalk him, climb on things it had no business climbing on, and ambush him when he left for work. It would even attack poor Johnny for no reason at all, chew on his ears and tail, and steal the tabby’s food.
Scratched up and covered in vicious bites, Lestrade had put his foot down within the week, and had the creature kicked out of the house with no small amount of vindication. To no avail.
Somehow or another, the black gangly feline would find his way back into the house (staring, always staring), and Lestrade would kick him out again. And again. And again.
Once he managed to catch it, put it in a cage (he still had the scars), and took it over to Mrs. Hudson's, in the hope that the professed cat-lady could handle it. Lestrade got him back first thing in the morning, the damn cat having mauled Johnny's littermate, Harriet and smashed several expensive antiques.
He tried dropping it off at the shelter, only to find the cat sitting on his doorstep when he got home from work, mocking him with its full moon eyes.
For all its madness, the feline had claimed Lestrade's house as its own (although it clearly despised the occupants) and refused to leave. Eventually Lestrade gave up, and the blasted animal would come and go as he pleased.
That was how they got saddled with Sherlock.
The years passed. Johnny continued to be a comfort and head/lap warmer. Sherlock continued to be a nuisance and domestic terrorist.
Lestrade learned to rub Johnny's belly while peeling Sherlock off of his leg. He got used to dodging aerial attacks to and from the car. He got used to trading exasperated glances with Johnny without feeling foolish. He taught his girls how to dispose of the mangled, dead things that Sherlock would bring home and deposit in unacceptable places (like inside Lestrade's pillow). He also learned how to clean cat vomit out of his carpet when Sherlock decided to eat the mangled, dead things.
What he never got used to was how the cats acted when they were together.
During the first year with Sherlock, Johnny would come to Lestrade mewling pitifully, his nose or ear bleeding, after trying to make friends with the mad cat.
"Oh, Johnny-boy." He had cooed, scratching under his chin after cleaning the scratches. "Just leave it alone. He doesn't like you or anybody else for that matter. He doesn't want to be friends, old boy. Let it go."
But Johnny would always go back, always find him hiding under or behind something, always trying to play and make peace, only to earn another wound.
It hadn't been until the second year that Lestrade noticed the shift in their dynamic.
One day he had walked into the living room and saw Sherlock sprawled on top of Johnny, gnawing on the poor tabby's ear. It was a scene he had long grown used to. Lestrade had habitually leaned down to come to Johnny's rescue, when the bastard cat released Johnny's ear and sunk his fangs into his hand.
The action had startled him, not the pain (though it hurt like bloody fuck). Normally he could shoo the cat away from Johnny, earning nothing more than an acidic hiss or disdainful look. But instead of fleeing after successfully bullying Johnny into submission, Sherlock had held his ground over the tabby refusing to budge. And Johnny-
-...was sound asleep, chewed ear and all. The older cat twitched awake when Sherlock's teeth left his ear and drowsily looked at the larger cat expectantly. Sherlock, his glowing eyes never leaving Lestrade, kneaded his claws deeper into the orange fur and resumed masticating Johnny's ear. The abused ear's owner settled and went right back to sleep.
Apparently Lestrade wasn't the only one to fall into routine.
Somewhere along the line, when he wasn’t looking, Johnny and Sherlock settled into an abusive coexistence. By the third year the two were platonic life mates; completely inseparable.
Lestrade ended up with not only a head warmer, but a creepy headboard decoration when he went to sleep at night. He couldn't even give Johnny a bath without Sherlock climbing onto the toilet beside the tub and swatting Lestrade's ear when he felt Johnny was being handled too roughly.
He couldn't even pull Johnny onto his lap for a good cuddle anymore without earning a very offended caterwaul and a set of scratches from the tabby's personal bodyguard.
Johnny never seemed bothered though, perfectly content to go on adventures in the neighborhood, lounge around in the afternoon sun, and curl up for a long grooming session, even letting Sherlock lick his old dog bite scar.
(Although he did seem rather put out whenever Sherlock cuddle-blocked him. The family learned to sneak their cuddles when Sherlock was out spying on the neighbors)
His girls thought it was 'sweet' how much the two loved each other. Lestrade thought it was nauseating. His wife told him to suck it up and love his 'adorably queer cats' while he had them.
Lestrade decided that he would call it 'adorable' the day Sherlock touched him without inflicting some sort of damage. From the way the touch-allergic cat was hurling those Death Beams of Doom at the back of his head, that day was not coming within the foreseeable future.
MMMMRRRRROOOOO~WWRRRRRRR
Yep. It would be a sign of the apocalypse...Ah, there were the teeth.
Cat fur, dead things, and regular blood-letting: It was as close to domestic bliss as Lestrade could get for about five years, until Dr. Sawyer moved in next door with her American Shorthair, Irene.
Johnny was predictably curious and friendly, as he was with all things in the universe.
As for Sherlock...well, it wasn't the first time he'd had to pry two angry cats apart.
Sherlock hated Irene (hated her even more than he hated Lestrade); probably because the mischievous kitty kept finding her way into Lestrade's house to taunt his cats. She was in some ways worse than the lanky male because she reeled you in with her apparent sweetness, allowing a pet and rub behind the ears, before snatching a biscuit off the counter or some food from Sherlock's dish, and darting out the nearest window.
Thankfully, Sarah was only renting the neighboring flat for a couple months before buying an apartment in the city closer to her job, finally allowing for some peace and quiet; and letting Lestrade recover from the numerous gouges in his hands and legs and face. (It was nice having a short vacation from his paperwork, but the stitches itched like hell.)
Unfortunately, the peace never lasted long for the Lestrade family, and it wasn't long before new troubles were afoot.
One day Lestrade was cleaning up a black and orange hairball that Sherlock had left behind the toilet when Mrs. Hudson, neighborhood-cat-lady, rang at their door. He managed to get her settled in the sitting room with a cup of tea and Johnny purring in her lap like his motorbike engine. (Sherlock was out and about, doing who knows what)
The elderly woman, once she had finished cooing over how big Johnny had gotten, plying him with treats, and updating the cat on the status of his littermate Harriet (who had a rather problematic fondness for catnip), told Lestrade about the strange things happening to the neighborhood pets.
Birds gone missing from locked cages and found in mailboxes two streets over. Hamsters, mice, and rats found carefully eviscerated in their sheltered indoor huts. Lizards, frogs, and fish stripped down to their skeletons still in their secured glass tanks. Cats and dogs acting strange and skittish. And at least a dozen other odd and gruesome happenings.
She asked if his cats had been acting oddly or if he had seen anything of the like. He hadn't, but promised to keep an eye out and ring her up if he did see something. After coaxing Johnny off the nice lady's lap and shutting the door after her, Lestrade paused, unease curling in his belly.
He knew that his cats would wander around the neighborhood a lot. But Johnny wouldn't harm a fly much less a bird or a mouse (not including the dog that attacked his kids). Johnny was a favorite amongst the neighbors and growing a bit round from all the treats they kept feeding him.
Sherlock on the other hand...
As if summoned, the black menace slipped in through the window and dropped a dead sparrow in the hallway flower vase. The feline stopped to glare disdainfully at him as per usual before stalking off to smother Johnny in cuddles.
Sherlock was admittedly Lestrade-the-former-avid-dog-person's nightmare: malicious, ornery, destructive, messy. The cat hunted small animals (namely wild doves, pigeons, crows, sparrows, rodents, and bugs) leaving them in odd places for he and his wife to find, and stalked the entire neighborhood.
But, he had never harmed any of their pets. Annoyed and teased them yes. But nothing like this. Right?
"Da~ddy! There's dead bird in my dollhouse again!"
Lestrade sighed and reached for some gloves. No. Sherlock was a menace to Lestrade's mental health, but the cat wouldn't go about doing things like this when he still had his own family to torment.
"Daaaad?"
"Coming, sweetheart. Just don't touch it."
Besides, the neighborhood pets were all docile, tame and would hold little to no entertainment value for Sherlock. Not when he could hunt wild prey. The feral creature loved danger almost as much as he loved Johnny's cuddles.
There was no way it was 'his' cat.
Right?
Disclaimer: Just a poor college student
Rating: pg
Warnings: fluff, angst, mauling
Parings: John/Sherlock, Lestrade, OC's
Summary: Fill for Sherlockbbc-fic prompt - Sherlock and John have always been cats. Lestrade is their owner. Reichenbach. Empty House
Lestrade had never really been one for cats. If you had told him five years ago that he would be sharing his home with two of them, he would have snorted in distain and told you to lay off the pills or, if he hadn’t had his morning coffee, call a drug raid on your house.
He had always been more of a dog person, and disliked cats on principle. They lacked the loyalty and devotion that he had always adored in his boyhood pets. And being stalked by his aunt's malicious Persian had been something of a traumatizing childhood experience (character-building, his arse).
Cats were unnerving and ornery creatures. Needle teeth and razor claws instead of playful licks and cold noses. Frosty expectation instead of warm affection. Ownership instead of companionship. Often acting far too human for his taste.
Somehow, though, Lestrade ended up married to a cat person (suckered in his youth by her sweet-natured smiles, steady personality, and delicious cinnamon scones) He really did love Alice, just not her taste in pets.
Unfortunately for him, his daughters inherited their mother’s love of the blasted animals and begged and begged and begged for a kitty, "please, please, please, please, please~!"
Even if he was a dog person to his very core, fate didn’t have the decency to give him even a mild cat allergy. He had been tripled teamed by the three most important women in his life, and their broken hearted expressions were like steel-toed boots to the gonads. So he caved and bought 'Johnny', a mild mannered orange tabby kitten, from the elderly Mrs. Hudson who lived down the street.
Lestrade had been completely ready to endure every horror imaginable when he brought the creature home. He had even warned his girls that the feline would be their problem and theirs alone. Just to establish it once and for all, he had even engaged in a one-sided glaring contest in order to cow it into submission.
“I’m not having anything to do with you, y’know.” He had warned the tiny kitten. Had to show it who’s boss. “Absolutely nothing to do with you.”
Just to spite him, Johnny had curled up in Lestrade’s shoe (and only his shoe) to sleep every single day, until he couldn’t fit anymore.
In some strange paradox of fate, his very first cat was an absolute angel.
Easily house-trained and almost annoyingly affectionate, the roly-poly furball handled Lestrade’s girls better than he did.
Johnny tolerated almost any and all abuse with admirable restraint. As the smallest creature in the house is was inevitable that he was trodden on every now and then, but besides a squeak of pain and surprise, Johnny never bit or scratched. Even the dress-up games his youngest would play earned only a resigned huff and the occasional dirty look. (which was horrifically adorable in a pink lace bonnet)
He did not steal Lestrade’s socks or scratch up the furniture (once he had proper scratching post) or bring home dead things. Johnny did hunt the mice that were unfortunate enough to intrude, but he never ate them; he would just catch and deposit the terrified rodents outside. It was almost amusing how little killing instinct he seemed to have.
In fact the only time Johnny had ever harmed another living creature was during an altercation with their former neighbor's aggressive hound. The small but stocky tabby saved his girls when the dog broke into their yard while its owner was out.
For his efforts Johnny had earned a vicious bite to his shoulder and a permanent place in Lestrade's heart. (he would never again complain about the cat curling around his head at night)
Johnny grew into a sturdy, handsome tabby. He was just as happy to be a purring shelf decoration as a personal lap/head/foot warmer. Lestrade had been quite honestly baffled at how much he liked the cat. It felt unnatural to be so comfortable with him, but after a year of enduring Johnny’s insistent affection he gave in and admitted (to himself, of course) that maybe cats weren’t so bad after all.
It had been quite nice for a while, positively domestic, until one day, his little girls brought home a stray.
The rain had been coming down in squalls that day. Lestrade had been blessed with a rare day off and been sleeping in enjoying the furry, purring hot water bottle curled around his ears. It had been a nice cozy weekend morning. He should have known better.
MRRROOOUUUUWRRRRRR-!
Lestrade had stumbled downstairs at the unholy screeching and other disturbing sounds he had never heard before coming from the kitchen, and found his girls huddled around the dining table armed with heavy towels.
With Johnny following cautiously at his heels, he made his first mistake and stepped closer to investigate.
A sopping wet blur of fury launched off the table and sunk its claws into his unprotected leg.
Needless to say, Lestrade had not been all that enthused about keeping the rabid monster no matter what his kids or his wife said. It was his cat-nightmare come true: mean-tempered, ornery, unnerving. Refusing to be touched. The thing would stalk him, climb on things it had no business climbing on, and ambush him when he left for work. It would even attack poor Johnny for no reason at all, chew on his ears and tail, and steal the tabby’s food.
Scratched up and covered in vicious bites, Lestrade had put his foot down within the week, and had the creature kicked out of the house with no small amount of vindication. To no avail.
Somehow or another, the black gangly feline would find his way back into the house (staring, always staring), and Lestrade would kick him out again. And again. And again.
Once he managed to catch it, put it in a cage (he still had the scars), and took it over to Mrs. Hudson's, in the hope that the professed cat-lady could handle it. Lestrade got him back first thing in the morning, the damn cat having mauled Johnny's littermate, Harriet and smashed several expensive antiques.
He tried dropping it off at the shelter, only to find the cat sitting on his doorstep when he got home from work, mocking him with its full moon eyes.
For all its madness, the feline had claimed Lestrade's house as its own (although it clearly despised the occupants) and refused to leave. Eventually Lestrade gave up, and the blasted animal would come and go as he pleased.
That was how they got saddled with Sherlock.
The years passed. Johnny continued to be a comfort and head/lap warmer. Sherlock continued to be a nuisance and domestic terrorist.
Lestrade learned to rub Johnny's belly while peeling Sherlock off of his leg. He got used to dodging aerial attacks to and from the car. He got used to trading exasperated glances with Johnny without feeling foolish. He taught his girls how to dispose of the mangled, dead things that Sherlock would bring home and deposit in unacceptable places (like inside Lestrade's pillow). He also learned how to clean cat vomit out of his carpet when Sherlock decided to eat the mangled, dead things.
What he never got used to was how the cats acted when they were together.
During the first year with Sherlock, Johnny would come to Lestrade mewling pitifully, his nose or ear bleeding, after trying to make friends with the mad cat.
"Oh, Johnny-boy." He had cooed, scratching under his chin after cleaning the scratches. "Just leave it alone. He doesn't like you or anybody else for that matter. He doesn't want to be friends, old boy. Let it go."
But Johnny would always go back, always find him hiding under or behind something, always trying to play and make peace, only to earn another wound.
It hadn't been until the second year that Lestrade noticed the shift in their dynamic.
One day he had walked into the living room and saw Sherlock sprawled on top of Johnny, gnawing on the poor tabby's ear. It was a scene he had long grown used to. Lestrade had habitually leaned down to come to Johnny's rescue, when the bastard cat released Johnny's ear and sunk his fangs into his hand.
The action had startled him, not the pain (though it hurt like bloody fuck). Normally he could shoo the cat away from Johnny, earning nothing more than an acidic hiss or disdainful look. But instead of fleeing after successfully bullying Johnny into submission, Sherlock had held his ground over the tabby refusing to budge. And Johnny-
-...was sound asleep, chewed ear and all. The older cat twitched awake when Sherlock's teeth left his ear and drowsily looked at the larger cat expectantly. Sherlock, his glowing eyes never leaving Lestrade, kneaded his claws deeper into the orange fur and resumed masticating Johnny's ear. The abused ear's owner settled and went right back to sleep.
Apparently Lestrade wasn't the only one to fall into routine.
Somewhere along the line, when he wasn’t looking, Johnny and Sherlock settled into an abusive coexistence. By the third year the two were platonic life mates; completely inseparable.
Lestrade ended up with not only a head warmer, but a creepy headboard decoration when he went to sleep at night. He couldn't even give Johnny a bath without Sherlock climbing onto the toilet beside the tub and swatting Lestrade's ear when he felt Johnny was being handled too roughly.
He couldn't even pull Johnny onto his lap for a good cuddle anymore without earning a very offended caterwaul and a set of scratches from the tabby's personal bodyguard.
Johnny never seemed bothered though, perfectly content to go on adventures in the neighborhood, lounge around in the afternoon sun, and curl up for a long grooming session, even letting Sherlock lick his old dog bite scar.
(Although he did seem rather put out whenever Sherlock cuddle-blocked him. The family learned to sneak their cuddles when Sherlock was out spying on the neighbors)
His girls thought it was 'sweet' how much the two loved each other. Lestrade thought it was nauseating. His wife told him to suck it up and love his 'adorably queer cats' while he had them.
Lestrade decided that he would call it 'adorable' the day Sherlock touched him without inflicting some sort of damage. From the way the touch-allergic cat was hurling those Death Beams of Doom at the back of his head, that day was not coming within the foreseeable future.
MMMMRRRRROOOOO~WWRRRRRRR
Yep. It would be a sign of the apocalypse...Ah, there were the teeth.
Cat fur, dead things, and regular blood-letting: It was as close to domestic bliss as Lestrade could get for about five years, until Dr. Sawyer moved in next door with her American Shorthair, Irene.
Johnny was predictably curious and friendly, as he was with all things in the universe.
As for Sherlock...well, it wasn't the first time he'd had to pry two angry cats apart.
Sherlock hated Irene (hated her even more than he hated Lestrade); probably because the mischievous kitty kept finding her way into Lestrade's house to taunt his cats. She was in some ways worse than the lanky male because she reeled you in with her apparent sweetness, allowing a pet and rub behind the ears, before snatching a biscuit off the counter or some food from Sherlock's dish, and darting out the nearest window.
Thankfully, Sarah was only renting the neighboring flat for a couple months before buying an apartment in the city closer to her job, finally allowing for some peace and quiet; and letting Lestrade recover from the numerous gouges in his hands and legs and face. (It was nice having a short vacation from his paperwork, but the stitches itched like hell.)
Unfortunately, the peace never lasted long for the Lestrade family, and it wasn't long before new troubles were afoot.
One day Lestrade was cleaning up a black and orange hairball that Sherlock had left behind the toilet when Mrs. Hudson, neighborhood-cat-lady, rang at their door. He managed to get her settled in the sitting room with a cup of tea and Johnny purring in her lap like his motorbike engine. (Sherlock was out and about, doing who knows what)
The elderly woman, once she had finished cooing over how big Johnny had gotten, plying him with treats, and updating the cat on the status of his littermate Harriet (who had a rather problematic fondness for catnip), told Lestrade about the strange things happening to the neighborhood pets.
Birds gone missing from locked cages and found in mailboxes two streets over. Hamsters, mice, and rats found carefully eviscerated in their sheltered indoor huts. Lizards, frogs, and fish stripped down to their skeletons still in their secured glass tanks. Cats and dogs acting strange and skittish. And at least a dozen other odd and gruesome happenings.
She asked if his cats had been acting oddly or if he had seen anything of the like. He hadn't, but promised to keep an eye out and ring her up if he did see something. After coaxing Johnny off the nice lady's lap and shutting the door after her, Lestrade paused, unease curling in his belly.
He knew that his cats would wander around the neighborhood a lot. But Johnny wouldn't harm a fly much less a bird or a mouse (not including the dog that attacked his kids). Johnny was a favorite amongst the neighbors and growing a bit round from all the treats they kept feeding him.
Sherlock on the other hand...
As if summoned, the black menace slipped in through the window and dropped a dead sparrow in the hallway flower vase. The feline stopped to glare disdainfully at him as per usual before stalking off to smother Johnny in cuddles.
Sherlock was admittedly Lestrade-the-former-avid-dog-person's nightmare: malicious, ornery, destructive, messy. The cat hunted small animals (namely wild doves, pigeons, crows, sparrows, rodents, and bugs) leaving them in odd places for he and his wife to find, and stalked the entire neighborhood.
But, he had never harmed any of their pets. Annoyed and teased them yes. But nothing like this. Right?
"Da~ddy! There's dead bird in my dollhouse again!"
Lestrade sighed and reached for some gloves. No. Sherlock was a menace to Lestrade's mental health, but the cat wouldn't go about doing things like this when he still had his own family to torment.
"Daaaad?"
"Coming, sweetheart. Just don't touch it."
Besides, the neighborhood pets were all docile, tame and would hold little to no entertainment value for Sherlock. Not when he could hunt wild prey. The feral creature loved danger almost as much as he loved Johnny's cuddles.
There was no way it was 'his' cat.
Right?