Title: Milk
Author:
saki101Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: G
Genre: slash
Word Count: ~500 words
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: Kittens.
A/N: I was simply going to reblog a
cute drawing by Boffinart on tumblr and found myself writing a ficlet instead of tags. (A sequel will be posted shortly.)
Also posted on
AO3.
Milk
The cries were sharp in the quiet hallway. As John made his way up the stairs, the sounds grew louder. He hurried.
The sitting room door was open. John leaned against the door frame. He probably shouldn’t have had that last pint before closing, but Mike had raised his hand to the barman with a wink at John and John had nodded his assent. They so rarely got to spend an uninterrupted evening at the pub catching up on the parts of life that happened between the rushed visits to Bart’s.
John stared at Sherlock in his chair by the desk and counted. He was fairly sure there were four: a ginger, a grey-and-white and two dark grey kittens swarming over Sherlock. At least John thought he saw a tail and two bright eyes amidst Sherlock’s curls. “What the hell, Sherlock?!”
Sherlock didn’t look up. “For science, John,” he said softly, his concentration clearly elsewhere and John could barely hear the words over the mewing.
John stepped closer. Sherlock’s laptop was open and pushed to the side. An open pint of milk and a half-empty glass of water stood next to a bowl of cloudy liquid. Sherlock was slowly depressing the plunger of a syringe wedged into the side of the grey-and-white kitten’s mouth.
"I don’t think people feed cats cow’s milk anymore," John said, reaching out with a finger to stroke the ginger kitten on Sherlock’s nearest shoulder. The kitten hissed and John saw needle fine claws sink into Sherlock’s shirt. "Sorry," he said, lifting the finger and hooking it through the handle of the milk jug. He glanced around for the top.
Sherlock drew out the syringe. The kitten mewed and pressed its face against the heel of Sherlock’s hand. “We didn’t have any cat milk on hand, John. Not accessible anyway.”
John turned towards the kitchen with the milk jug. “I must’ve forgot to pick that up last trip,” he muttered. He spotted the blue cap on the kitchen table by a large, plastic container. He capped the jug and glanced into the box. “Ah,” John said, setting the milk down with a thump. A tiny bit of metal bounced off the edge of the table, catching the light as it fell. A white-and-ginger cat rested inside the box, silent, back legs and tail soaked with blood, stomach swollen.
"How long’d it take you to find her litter?" John asked, turning around. Sherlock had the ginger kitten in one hand, the syringe poised in the other. The mewing wasn’t quite as loud. John wondered if the grey-and-white one had fallen asleep.
"Ten minutes. One street over, garden flat, to let sign in the window, one small pane cracked, glass half missing. Good lock though. Took me almost a minute to open it," Sherlock replied.
"Right," John said and headed up the stairs to his room. He had more than one syringe in his medical kit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A sequel may be read
here.