The weekly writing prompt on the Watsons_Woes LiveJournal Community this week was simply Watson + a cat - so here is my answer. For Endgegner07:

Surprisingly enough, when my telephone rang this beautiful spring evening I had just finished my work for the day. No patients were calling for my help, as it should be on a gorgeous night like this, and a gentle rain was tripping lightly on the roof over my head, steadily thrumming the world into harmony. Even the noise of motor-cars and shouting people in the street outside had retreated, a cessation of hostilities in honour of the peace of spring.

I corked my ink bottle with one hand (after so long, I still enjoyed writing via the old-fashioned method) and reached for the telephone receiver with the other, stretching myself with a satisfied yawn as I lifted it.

"Hallo?"

"Are you busy?"

"Good to hear you too, Holmes," I chuckled, leaning back in my chair with my slippers upon the corner of my desk.

"Yes, yes." I could almost hear his hand waving impatiently at me. "I need your professional opinion on something, Doctor."

I raised an eyebrow before remembering he could not see it. "Something medical?"

"Good heavens, no. Something literary."

That arrested my attention. "What, are you writing another of those awful monographs? What's it to be this time, Upon the One Hundred and Fifteen Common Household Uses for Bees-wax, with Coloured Photographs Illustrating the Differences in Comb Structure?"

"Very good, Watson!" I winced at the acerbic sarcasm eating its way through the wires, but he continued in a lighter, softer tone that I had come to thoroughly anticipate and enjoy over the many conversations held over this instrument. "You had a light work load today, didn't you?"

I frowned. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did…why do you ask?"

"Just that you usually are nearly dead on your feet talking to me by this time of a Thursday evening," came the response, even quieter. "I am glad to hear the change."

Sighing, I smiled at last. "Yes, well, I am rather pleased to have an evening completely free."

"Excellent!" That time I could positively hear the grin in his tone, and I laughed and settled in for a long and pleasant conversation.

"No, it is not another monograph, Doctor," he informed me, sniffing injuriously into the telephone. "A pretty little business occurred down here only a week or so ago, and I should like to try my hand at scribbling it down."

Oh, lovely. As if his Adventure of the Blanched Soldier hadn't been hard enough to sell to the Strand. "All right…" I began cautiously. "How exactly are you wanting my help?"

"Well…" I heard a small noise of discontent, and silence for a moment. Then he began afresh. "I had Stackhurst read it after I wrote it – you remember him? Because the man who was killed was one of his tutors at the Gables…at any rate, I had him read it."

Well, the man did possess a degree of common sense, and I rather liked him. "And?" I prompted, curious.

Silence. Then, "He said he'd recently read more interesting trigonometry textbooks," Holmes muttered reluctantly.

I started to snicker and then hastily clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound – but I had been heard, and after a growled "Et tu, Watson?" my poor friend joined me in a fit of rueful laughter.

"Oh, dear," I finally gasped, rubbing my eyes with my free hand and giving vent to a final chuckle. "I – I am sorry, Holmes. But I always told you it was not as easy as you liked to think!"

"Yes, I suppose I deserved that, and more," said he, harrumphing loudly into my ear. "But what am I to do about it?"

"Besides turn it into a monograph?" I asked wickedly.

"Watson, I swear before heaven…"

"All right, all right," I chuckled, for I did not want him to hang up the receiver. "You needn't get so miffed about the matter. But really, I cannot very well help you with it over the telephone – why don't you come up to London?"

"Why don't you come down to Sussex?"

"I asked first. And besides, I just went, two weeks ago."

"Sixteen days," he corrected forlornly, and in that tone I never had been able to withstand for long, even after some of the worst deceptions of his life.

I exhaled in a long sigh, and craned my head round as my ajar study door creaked open. "I suppose I could come down tomorrow…though I shall charge you the train fare as my consultation fee."

"Done!"

I laughed, and heard his gleeful clapping to confirm the real reason for his calling tonight. And he thought he was a master of deceit. Honestly.

Small padding feet silently slunk up to my chair, and I looked down into two wide yellow eyes, whose pleading was another thing I could not resist.

I lowered my legs, and the second occupant of my study, a sleek black-and-grey striped tabby cat with white feet, hopped eagerly up onto them, rubbing her head under my free hand and purring like my motor-car just after I had managed to start it.

The receiver squawked indignantly in my ear. "Watson. What the devil is that noise?"

"Hmm?" I asked absently, scratching the kitty under her white chin and eliciting a louder purr of appreciation.

"That noise – is your stomach growling?"

"What? Oh…no, Holmes. That's…er…that's my cat," I explained, feeling my ears tinge warmly.

Dead silence. "Your cat."

"Mmhm. I haven't decided what to name her yet, though." The cat meowed plaintively when I paused in stroking her silky fur, and I smiled and continued the motion as she curled up in my lap, flexing claws gently into my trousers.

"You got a cat."

"I just said so, Holmes. Not a very logical deduction, is it?"

I could fairly see him planting his head into his hand. "My friend, you are indicating old age – living alone with only a cat for company?" he moaned, sing-song. "Watson…"

"She's a very nice cat, Holmes," I retorted, purposely infusing my voice with an offended slant.

I covered the receiver to hide my laughing as he immediately began backpedaling. "Erm…yes, of course…I have no doubt it is, Doctor," he muttered hastily. "But – Watson, why did you go out and get a cat, for heaven's sake??"

I stopped petting the tabby and covered a yawn. "Because for one thing, the poor thing showed up in the street outside, drenched and starving, after nearly getting run over by a cab a few nights ago."

"So naturally, you took the little devil inside, fed it, treated it, and now it won't leave."

"Naturally."

"Of course." He snorted, and a moment later we were both chuckling.

"Besides," I added after an amused moment, my voice softening, "I enjoy having something around the house that is alive, besides the staff; these nights get very long and lonely, you know."

A long sigh trickled through the line. "Then in that case I have no doubt he will be a good thing for you."

"She."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's a she."

"Whatever, Watson. It is all the same to me."

"I doubt she would agree with you."

"Give the little beast my apologies in that case."

I glanced down at the animal curled in my lap, and she raised her head, perking ears in my direction. Mischievously, I grinned into the receiver and then said, "Holmes says he is sorry for insulting you," quite seriously, down toward the barely-interested animal.

"I did not mean that literally, and you well know it, Doctor," Holmes, greatly amused, spoke into my ear.

Mrrrrrow? The cat asked, butting her head against my arm.

"What was that?"

"I don't know; I am no expert on interpreting forms of feline communication. Isn't that right, hmm?" I asked the purring animal in a coaxing tone, as I patted the shorter fur along her head, scratching behind one silky ear for a moment.

Holmes snorted audibly. "You, my dear Watson, are in twenty years going to turn into a doddering old man who talks to his animals as if they were human and tells them stories about the 'good old days back in my time' with Sherlock Holmes."

Mrrrroooooow? The cat mewed, batting at the cord of the telephone receiver in curiosity. Mrrrow?

"Stop that," I scolded, removing her paw from the cord.

"Stop what?" Holmes asked, confused.

The tabby placed both paws (and ten claws) on (and through) my waistcoat and yowled plaintively up at my face.

"Watson, what on earth –"

"Ouch! Stop that, kitty!" I cried, wishing now that I had named the little devil.

Holmes's snort of laughter nearly deafened me. "'Stop that, kitty'?" he asked in amusement.

"Yes – ouch!" I unsnagged five of the claws, but the paw remained. I increased the volume of my voice to be heard over the cries for attention. "She – " I raised it a bit more. "She doesn't have a name yet!"

"Noisy little thing, isn't she?" he observed dryly, though I could tell he was grinning.

Rrrrrrrooooow!! Kitty suddenly yowled again at me, ears back in annoyance that I was not dropping all to pet her, and swiped at the telephone receiver.

"I think she wants to say hallo to you, Holmes," I informed him with a smirk.

"Erm…" he trailed off, obviously wondering if I were serious, and if not, should he make fun of me. "Doctor…"

"Say hallo to the nice bee-farmer, Kitty," I said, holding the receiver down toward the animal.

She gave it one disinterested eye, and then when Holmes's voice squawked out an awkward "Watson?" hissed ferociously at it, ears flat against her head. Before I could recover from my surprise she had growled, swiped at the receiver with one splay-clawed paw, and then streaked from the room as if the neighbour's greyhound were after her.

"Well!" I snorted, reclaiming my telephone. "I suppose that she did not like your voice, Holmes."

If actions could be heard through telephone wires, then his rolling of the eyes would have deafened me for life. "Watson, honestly. You really are going to keep that thing?"

"Why not? You keep bees."

"My bees are my hobby, not pets!"

"I fail to see the difference," I replied, yawning and replacing my feet upon the desk. Oh…now my trousers were covered in grey and black hairs. Lovely.

"My bees do not demand my constant attention, do not require me to feed and water them, do not need me to dump a sandbox, do not leave hairs all over anything and everything in my house, do not jump on me when I come in the door…though they do sting, confound the little blighters…do not – Watson, are you even listening to me?"

I was listening, and smiling off into space as the rain pattered on the windowpanes, just watching the world go by in watery, shimmering, gas-and-electric-lit splendour – like a living, breathing, watercolour painting. A beautiful world, even if Holmes had not liked the progression of it and had retreated before it accordingly.

With new things to discover in town and people to serve with what abilities heaven had granted me; a dear, dear friend to visit on the weekends; and a small living creature who actually noticed when I was home and was not, to come back to – what more could a man want in this life?