The Many Fields of Orange and Gold.
Title: The Many Fields of Orange and Gold
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4600
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: John's seen what dragons can do, how fast they move - just a flare of updraft and then the whole world is on fire.
AN: Me and goldenusagi are writing a story every month where Sherlock is something other than human. This is my story for August. For something else using the dragon theme you could try An Impermanent Destination.
Mike Stamford meets John in London, on a bench away from the foot traffic and the blare of car horns. He looks good, he looks better than John feels. John feels old and weathered, and a little like he's come to the end of something. He hates how desperate he is, he hates that it probably shows. But he just doesn't have the energy to try and hide it.
"I hear you're looking for a place to stay in London?" Mike says, after the strangely stilted greeting that makes John, if anything, feel even more distant from the man.
John doesn't trust himself to say the right thing any more. He doesn't really trust himself to say anything, but he nods, a hopeful sort of nod, then clears his throat and tries to sound normal. Even if he can't quite remember exactly how that goes.
"Yeah, I mean, yes, I really have nowhere else to go." His voice sounds dry to his own ears, too long out of practice, but Mike claps his hands as if he'd been hoping for that. The smile on his face is familiar though, friendly. John forces himself to relax.
"It happens I have a - well, I know someone who's also looking for a flatmate, in London." There's a pause, Mike looks at him, eyebrows up, mouth a bit uncertain.
"What's the catch?" John asks, tension drawing his shoulders tight again, because there's going to be a catch, he can feel it.
"It's not too expensive, not out of your budget - " Mike says, rather than answer the question. He's always had a talent for stalling in pleasantries and excuses. "You should consider it, I think you'd get along." The hesitation after that is obvious, there's something he doesn't want to say. As if he's feeling his way around an idea that he knows John's not going to like.
There aren't many things John would be tempted to refuse outright.
"He's not human is he?"
Mike winces a little, like he'd wanted to work up to it.
"He's a dragon."
~
The woman who'd slipped quietly in through the door of the flat is now folded uncomfortably in their largest armchair. She's thin and nervous, hair held back in a scarf, eyes carefully darting between them. She's holding her small bag in front of her as a shield, looking from John to Sherlock - but mostly Sherlock. John gets the impression Sherlock was something of a last resort for her. She'd probably be surprised how common that is in their guests. How many of them sit exactly where she is, fingers clenched around something, resisting the instinct to run away. Some of them hide it better than others. John's seen more than a few.
Sherlock himself is sitting in the other armchair, hands steepled, eyes at lazy half-mast, body completely relaxed. On anyone else the posture would look casual, attentive and harmless. Sherlock might as well be clawing the wallpaper for all the reassuring air he doesn't give off. Though John has to wonder if that's physical or psychological.
John's the one who carefully prods people forward, with a smile and a nod. He's heard how harmless he looks more than once - objected to it more than once, proved it a fallacy when he's had to - but he never thought he'd need it quite so much.
"My son -" the woman, Mrs. Wise, starts, then seems surprised by how loud her voice is. She clears her throat nervously and continues at a lower volume. "My son, Warren, he's been missing for almost a week now. The police, they - I've tried talking to them, they won't help. They say he ran away. They say he's over eighteen so they can't - they won't do anything. But there are things he would have taken, things he wouldn't have left behind. The window was open, he wouldn't have left it open. He wouldn't have left...the cats next door, they've got in before..." She deflates, slowly, in stilted little movements, John can see it happening. But her eyes are still fixed on Sherlock, nails clutching the leather of her bag like they might pierce through it.
John gets the impression she's waiting for Sherlock to eat her - that she's resigned herself to the possibility of it. And yet she came here anyway, hoping for his help. She takes a huge breath as John watches, tightens her hands and then lets it out.
"They say you can find people. That you solve the mysteries that the police can't, that no one else can. Please, please help me." She stops talking, as if her body just won't make any more words.
Sherlock uncrosses his legs and leans forward, the springs in the chair making faint protesting noises. He's heavier than a human being, heavier than he should be for his size. John's not entirely sure how that works. How dragons fold themselves, magic, or other dimensions, or strange biology. He just knows that they do. He'd tried to tell himself at the start that the Sherlock he'd been introduced to was a disguise, an outfit he could wear at will. Something the real creature used when he wanted to slink among the sheep. But he'd had to drop that idea after the first week. The way Sherlock had strode around in that ridiculous half-charred dressing gown, climbing over furniture, throwing clothes all over the floor, long fingers turning his hair into some sort of insane collection of half-curls. The way he left unrolled newspapers around to slip on, and shoes down the back of the furniture. There was something very real about him, and John had come to grudgingly realise that dragons don't wear human bodies as disguises. They own them, just as much as their own.
Sherlock doesn't advertise what he is, but neither does he bother to hide it in any way. Which ensures that most of London knows. John had expected some sort of constant police presence near the flat, or at the very least the buildings around him to be cleared. But the place is small, nowhere close to big enough to fit him if he ever decided to...suddenly stop being human. Though John has never once seen him lose control by accident. He's seen him do it on purpose. Sherlock's not above scaring a suspect with the occasional flash of yellow eyes, or quiet smoldering. The flat carpet doesn't always thank him for that. But John supposes that's a small price to pay.
No, there's Mrs. Hudson downstairs, who brings round cakes that Sherlock never eats, and fusses like he can't take care of himself, fixing his coat collar and smacking him every time he makes one of his subtle and wildly inappropriate jokes. Which John watched at first in a sort of bewildered, wary expectation. Until it became as normal as everything else.
~
John's immediately tense. He's seen what dragons can do, how fast they move - just a flare of updraft and then the whole world is on fire. His first instinct is to immediately refuse, he doesn't want to get involved with that. He doesn't want to have to pretend to get along with something - with someone like that.
He has a polite refusal on the tip of his tongue, but Stamford continues like he doesn't notice.
"Oh, he's not like the others - honestly, I understand that it's - it's complicated for you, and yes he's arrogant, and bossy, and he knows he's smarter than everyone around him. But he spends most of his time looking like a person and he likes to...get involved. I mean he doesn't come across as one of them, he doesn't come across like that. Once you get used to him he's actually -" There's a frown and an odd, confused gesture. "Well, he's Sherlock. But not in a bad way."
John doesn't think that helped much. He's still stuck on the fact that there's a dragon living in London. He thought there were treaties, London territory and all that rubbish, that was hammered out back in the fifties. They're too dangerous to be inside city limits.
"I thought dragons lived alone? In giant mansions with servants and things. Beds of gold." Virgin sacrifices? John wonders briefly if that's one of those old stereotypes it's impolite to bring up. "What on earth is one doing in a flat in London?"
"He helps the police." Stamford clearly expects him to be impressed by that.
"Helps?" John stops before he asks what exactly he does to help. He can't think of many ways a dragon could help the criminal justice system. Nor what the police would find an appropriate method of payment.
~
Mrs. Wise, the thin, nervous woman almost too afraid to tell her story, leaves them with a battered mobile and a very short list of Warren's friends. Sherlock spins the phone on the table restlessly with two fingers, nails clacking on the screen, while John works his way through breakfast. Through what's left of breakfast anyway. It's mostly cold now, but he's poured himself a fresh cup of tea, people always seem to come during breakfast. He has to wonder whether that's anything to do with the commonly held belief that dragons are sleepy and lethargic in the morning. John could have refuted that in the first week. Sherlock likes to perform experiments in the morning while the mood is apparently 'suitable for biological study.' Things are rarely suitable for biological study. There are five fire extinguishers in the flat, two fire blankets, and a bucket of sand.
"So, what do you think?" John asks, around half a rasher of bacon.
Sherlock's looming, he tends to do that. At a fraction of his original size it really shouldn't be so threatening. John's going to blame the primitive parts of his brain, the ones that can probably smell a giant, carnivorous lizard. He sometimes wonders if bludgeoning all those very sensible threat warnings into submission is a good idea. There's still Mycroft after all.
"I think Warren should have chosen his friends better. Mrs. Wise will find a large sum of money missing at some point, and I'm fairly certain that Warren took it to dig someone else out of trouble. Judging by his extended absence, and his last text message, things didn't go well for him." Sherlock lets the phone spin to a stop and pushes it across the table.
"You think he's dead." John's egg is still runny at least, even though it's heading for cold.
"I think it the most likely option. Which we will have a chance to confirm later. Or, more correctly, you'll have a chance to confirm later. I have other matters to attend to."
"Not napping?" John accuses.
"No, not napping, work." Sherlock doesn't even bother to pretend to be insulted.
"Because I know you can fall asleep at the drop of a hat."
"Shut up." Sherlock steals John's lukewarm tea. He won't eat in this body, but he sees nothing wrong with the blatant thievery of every beverage John makes for himself. Even when John makes him one of his own.
He steals it back.
"You didn't really question her much. You usually glare at people for a bit longer."
"She smelled honest," Sherlock says. "Very likely that she knew nothing."
John nods and prods at his cold bacon, then frowns when he catches Sherlock eyeing his plate with a vaguely disgusted look.
"What have I told you about the faces at the breakfast table," he complains. "I don't make faces when you do that thing you do. It's bad table manners."
Sherlock's nose wrinkles, like he disputes the fact that he ever does anything that might constitute bad manners. Or, more likely, that he's immune from the whole concept. Definitely more likely.
"Then I suppose I'm lucky to have never eaten at a table."
"Only because you'd rather go off somewhere and swallow a cow whole?" John points a fork at him. "Which I will remind you again is very, very disturbing, please stop doing it in front of me."
Sherlock's smile curves into his face, big enough to go past threatening straight into ridiculous.
"Says the man who has never known the satisfaction, and believes that 'toast' is an acceptable substitute."
John's not entirely sure he'd want to swallow a cow whole, even if he could. For a start it would be alive at the time, and also cows are sort of disgusting.
"There's also bacon," he points out.
"Because if I feel like pig I should cut it into tiny pieces, and then fry it in lard?"
"Well then it would fit into the mouth you're wearing now."
Sherlock's still smiling, and John can't decide how it always feels as if Sherlock has gotten the better of him, even when he's fairly sure he's right. People shouldn't be allowed to win arguments purely through force of personality.
John sighs and pushes his mostly empty plate to one side.
"Fine, tell me what I'm looking for at his house."
~
Sherlock Holmes is tall, severe from almost every angle, though not in a way that the wind might take. No there's something permanent about him, something staked into the ground about his posture. He looks at John, judges him in a brief sweep of eyes and a slant of mouth. If John hadn't known what he was he might have suspected it anyway. There is definitely an air of superiority there. A strangeness that doesn't belong and isn't welcome.
John thinks this is a bad idea, this is never going to work.
Sherlock holds out a hand, which surprises John, because from everything he's ever been taught dragons don't usually touch people - they don't usually touch people like another person might. Sherlock's hand is warm and hard for a moment, until it relaxes, judges how much grip to use and then shakes. It feels normal and human, for a strange, extended moment. John finds himself - not smiling exactly, but something less wary than he was before. Sherlock introduces himself, and there's surety, and arrogance but no disdain, no mockery. To John's astonishment he doesn't need to return the favour. Sherlock reads him like a book, his hair, and his clothes, and his injures. Sherlock unravels his story and leave him a half-finished puzzle without him even saying a word. He gets almost everything right.
"That was...impressive," John admits, and not as reluctantly as he'd worried it might come out.
"Thank you," Sherlock says simply. "People are not usually so generous."
"Don't get compliments very often?" It seems curious, most people tend to treat dragons like royalty that might bite their head off at a moment's notice. But he can't think of a polite way to phrase that. He doesn't want to say 'obedient' it sounds wrong, 'terrified' is probably not a good word either.
"No, it's usually heavy artillery mostly," Sherlock replies. Which reminds John of exactly what he's talking to.
"London tends to frown on that sort of thing," John says. "Property prices suffer."
There's a huff of laughter, brief but startled.
"You're not at all what I thought you'd be," Sherlock admits.
"Isn't that my line?" John asks.
"If you like." Sherlock smiles. He has an odd smile, it's genuine but also stiff, John doesn't think he's had much practice.
John thinks there's a slim chance that this might work out.
~
John goes to Warren Wise's house, carefully goes through everything in his bedroom, takes pictures and videos. Most people don't want dragons in their personal spaces. They tend to permeate the furniture, metaphysically speaking. Even John, who's completely human and has barely any sense to tell, can recognise that strange, heavy feel to the air. God knows what it's like for people who can feel all sorts of things that he can't. The flat must be a nightmare. The psychic equivalent of walking into a room heavy with the smell of blood and gunpowder. Or whatever a more dragon-focused version of that was? Sherlock usually just smells of chemicals and smoke - or occasionally expensive aftershave, when he's trying not to smell like smoke.
There isn't a lot to find in Warren's room. Warren doesn't seem to have a diary, or a calendar, there's nothing on his computer. People tended to like technology because it was reliable. You couldn't crack a password with magic. It was why so many people kept journals on them, checking their memories for signs of manipulation. In John's opinion that's a quick and easy way to go mad.
All he finds is a gold St. Christopher medal, shoved under the edge of a lampshade, hidden there for all intents and purposes. He can't tell if it has any significance, but he feels like it might. Why would you hide something like that? Why would you bother?
He takes pictures of it, then pushes it into his pocket. He can't take it to Sherlock, for obvious reasons, but he can leave it at the station on the way back. They can always look at it later, if it turns out to have some meaning. He puts the rest of the things that might be useful in a bag, zips the tops closed and stacks them together so he can carry them without them sliding everywhere. Mrs. Wise hovers just out of earshot, still thin and quiet like most of her is far away. John can't help but wonder if some part of her knows, if most of her knows her son isn't coming home again.
He walks home slowly, texts Sherlock to let him know what he found - though he doesn't put it past him to know most of it already. He picks up chips on his way home, because he feels like chips and he doesn't have to share because Sherlock, for some reason, fussiness or disgust? never eats while he's human shaped. Even if he sometimes looks like he sort of wants to.
The flat's hot when he gets in, not uncomfortably so but the difference between outside and inside has him pulling off his coat and his jumper, and leaving his chips on the arm of the sofa.
"Must you put the thermostat up so high, the bill's going to be ridiculous. It's not like you can die of cold, you know." John stops talking because Sherlock is in the doorway to his bedroom, feet bare, eyes fixed on him. There's a book loose in his hand, like John caught him in the middle of something. "What?"
Sherlock doesn't say anything he just stares at him - and then he's not staring, the book hits the floor, pages splayed, and Sherlock's moving, stalking, flowing forward on what feels like more limbs than he currently owns, forcing John into the bookshelf in self-defence. Hard enough to hurt, hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
"Sherlock -"
The stare shuts his mouth for him. Sherlock doesn't speak, doesn't make a sound, but his hand drops, fingers finding the curve of John's pocket and shoving inside. Suddenly and aggressively inside his personal space, in a way John doesn't let anyone else - and John knows what he's after, knows and curses the fact that he'd forgotten it was in there, that he'd let it slip his mind. But Sherlock already has that sliver of gold between his fingers, unerring and aggressive in the way he draws it free, and claims it.
"What have I told you," Sherlock says quietly, voice barely louder than a breath. He's twisting and sliding the medallion between thumb and finger, smearing St Christopher into a smooth, flat plane with the force of his attention. "Don't bring gold into the flat. It's distracting."
"I forgot it was there," John says. "I took it from Warren's room, I was going to leave it at the station. I thought it would be...helpful."
"Very unhelpful," Sherlock murmurs. His eyes are no longer blue, gold is spiralling in from the edges, pupil a speck of utter darkness. John can still see his fingers twisting out of the corner of his eye, can see the thing flashing between them. "Very unhelpful."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Sherlock says, voice deeper now, something rough and bone-dry in his throat. Words sparking off his tongue. "Don't do it again. You know what happens."
"I know -"
Sherlock makes a brittle noise which sounds frustrated.
John doesn't pull away, something in him, some part of him, is always waiting for Sherlock, always waiting for a cue. It occurs to him suddenly that perhaps Sherlock is waiting for the same from him.
"Sometimes I think you do it on purpose," Sherlock growls out, consonants cracking apart.
"I don't - I don't, I swear I wouldn't." John cuts off the rest.
The sentence tangles, falls apart and re-forms in his head, meaning twisting into something else entirely, something darker and more confusing by far.
"I wouldn't do that to you," John says, trying for reassurance. But it drops airless instead, bereft of any calming emotion at all.
"How would you know?" Sherlock offers, quietly, almost accusing.
John just blinks at him. Surprised and confused all at once. He suddenly realises how close Sherlock is, how much body heat he's giving off.
Sherlock unclenches his hand and takes a quick step back, shoving the mutilated medallion back into the pocket of John's jeans with a shaking hand, fingers stiff when they force themselves free.
"Take it, get rid of it, get it out of here. Go, and don't come back again until dark."
~
It's later, but still early in their strange partnership, in the basement of the British museum, where John ends up sprawled in a collection of smashed sixteenth century pottery and gold coins. His head's ringing, dust still settling around him, something creaking high above him. There's a smuggler to the left of him, a collapsed wall to his right, everything charred and smoking in a way that sticks in his throat and leaves him breathing the smell of cooked meat and dust. He doesn't know where the others are, but the whole world is silent, so he's going to assume they are no longer among the living.
He wonders if Sherlock is liable for the damages - since he's the one who wrecked the wall. Understandable considering the - considering the size of him.
When Sherlock appears at his side, small and pale and serious again John manages not to flinch. There's blood on his teeth, and most of his coat is charred away, so the pale of his arm and shoulder is visible. His eyes shine like polished brass, the hand curled round John's arm is sharp and thin. He's burning hot and he feels less real, less human than he has since John met him.
He's shaking.
"Sherlock -"
Sherlock's hands tighten at the sound of his name, and John can't tell if the jolting movement that follows is a shake or a tremble. He hauls John out of the wreckage, gold coins scattering under his feet, and only then does John realise what that means. The way they slide and roll, a fortune as dangerous as broken glass.
Sherlock looks down instinctively, into that carpet of gold.
John's feet skid, and Sherlock's fingers dig so tight the skin will bruise. There's a quiet rumble, and the world smells like smoke again. Unlike Sherlock, John is not fireproof.
"Sherlock." John forces himself to grip Sherlock back, to press his fingers where the skin is bare and hot. "Sherlock, look at me."
Unexpectedly, Sherlock does as he's told, face suddenly tight and bloodless.
"We should make sure this -" John starts.
"Leave them," Sherlock says harshly. "Don't touch them." He's still looking right at John and nothing else. As if he might become lost if he looks down again. "I can't touch them." The fear of it almost a tangible force between them. John worries that it might be the truth.
~
The flat's dark when John comes back, all the lights switched off - not smashed, he checks - it's quiet but he can tell Sherlock's still here. There's a weight, a thickness that he's learning to recognise. He doesn't go looking for the man himself. He walks on socked feet to his own room and pushes the door shut.
The next morning Sherlock is sticking pins in the wall, half stood on a chair, grumbling something about Anderson's lackluster note-taking abilities. He's stringing bits of red and black thread between the pins, and writing measurements of time along them.
He doesn't say anything to John, but there's a lukewarm quantity of tea in a pot on the side, which is as close to an apology as he'll probably get. Closer to an apology than most people believe dragons are capable of.
John accepts the tea, resolves to drink it quickly, and puts his feet up on the stack of papers Sherlock has left alone for long enough that he's probably not interested in them any more. They slide unreliably under his socks and John knows that if they all fall down they will stay exactly where they are until he can be bothered to clean them up. Dragons apparently don't clean. Ever.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and he wishes the tea was hotter, wishes Sherlock wasn't quite so hard to read.
"It's fine," Sherlock says, but the words are stiff like it isn't, like he's still trying to make it that way between the dig of pins and harsh scribbles, pen dug too hard into the paper.
John doesn't know where to start, but he forces himself to continue.
"I know it's complicated - look, I'll be more careful in the future."
The pen stops writing, dangles from Sherlock's fingers. He slides down the chair back until he's sitting on it, watching John with a sudden and unnerving sort of focus.
John's not sure he's going to speak at all until he does.
"You don't ever leave a hoard," Sherlock says thickly. "Once you start collecting, once you start to accumulate, that's where you stay, and you can never leave." His nails drum on the wood of the chair, hard like they want to dig in, or perhaps change and claw through it. "That much gold - you can't abandon it, it's unthinkable. It's our weakness. It's what chains us in place, what leaves us old and mistrustful and angry."
It's the most John has ever heard from Sherlock concerning what he is. He's so good at wearing the man, using the dragon to intimidate and deflect. John sometimes forgets that it's the man that's the carefully built construct.
"Which is why you don't?" he asks, careful, because it's the most he's dared to ask about the things Sherlock never talks about.
Sherlock nods, once, in agreement.
"Which is why I don't."
The idea of it seems unthinkable, a dragon without gold, a dragon who doesn't want to possess it, is like - nothing comes to him. John's starting to understand how humanity is not an amusement for Sherlock. It's not a holiday, or a rebellion. That perhaps it's more of a loophole.
"You are amazing, you know that don't you?" John says, quiet and honest. "The way you refuse to be anything but you."
The expression Sherlock's wearing now is hard to read, there's surprise there, but also something amused and a little helpless.
"Shall I make us some more tea?" John says finally, to break the sudden unbearable silence. "Yours was fairly awful."
Sherlock grunts agreement, mutters something about transference, and goes back to his pins and his mysteries.
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4600
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: John's seen what dragons can do, how fast they move - just a flare of updraft and then the whole world is on fire.
AN: Me and goldenusagi are writing a story every month where Sherlock is something other than human. This is my story for August. For something else using the dragon theme you could try An Impermanent Destination.
Mike Stamford meets John in London, on a bench away from the foot traffic and the blare of car horns. He looks good, he looks better than John feels. John feels old and weathered, and a little like he's come to the end of something. He hates how desperate he is, he hates that it probably shows. But he just doesn't have the energy to try and hide it.
"I hear you're looking for a place to stay in London?" Mike says, after the strangely stilted greeting that makes John, if anything, feel even more distant from the man.
John doesn't trust himself to say the right thing any more. He doesn't really trust himself to say anything, but he nods, a hopeful sort of nod, then clears his throat and tries to sound normal. Even if he can't quite remember exactly how that goes.
"Yeah, I mean, yes, I really have nowhere else to go." His voice sounds dry to his own ears, too long out of practice, but Mike claps his hands as if he'd been hoping for that. The smile on his face is familiar though, friendly. John forces himself to relax.
"It happens I have a - well, I know someone who's also looking for a flatmate, in London." There's a pause, Mike looks at him, eyebrows up, mouth a bit uncertain.
"What's the catch?" John asks, tension drawing his shoulders tight again, because there's going to be a catch, he can feel it.
"It's not too expensive, not out of your budget - " Mike says, rather than answer the question. He's always had a talent for stalling in pleasantries and excuses. "You should consider it, I think you'd get along." The hesitation after that is obvious, there's something he doesn't want to say. As if he's feeling his way around an idea that he knows John's not going to like.
There aren't many things John would be tempted to refuse outright.
"He's not human is he?"
Mike winces a little, like he'd wanted to work up to it.
"He's a dragon."
~
The woman who'd slipped quietly in through the door of the flat is now folded uncomfortably in their largest armchair. She's thin and nervous, hair held back in a scarf, eyes carefully darting between them. She's holding her small bag in front of her as a shield, looking from John to Sherlock - but mostly Sherlock. John gets the impression Sherlock was something of a last resort for her. She'd probably be surprised how common that is in their guests. How many of them sit exactly where she is, fingers clenched around something, resisting the instinct to run away. Some of them hide it better than others. John's seen more than a few.
Sherlock himself is sitting in the other armchair, hands steepled, eyes at lazy half-mast, body completely relaxed. On anyone else the posture would look casual, attentive and harmless. Sherlock might as well be clawing the wallpaper for all the reassuring air he doesn't give off. Though John has to wonder if that's physical or psychological.
John's the one who carefully prods people forward, with a smile and a nod. He's heard how harmless he looks more than once - objected to it more than once, proved it a fallacy when he's had to - but he never thought he'd need it quite so much.
"My son -" the woman, Mrs. Wise, starts, then seems surprised by how loud her voice is. She clears her throat nervously and continues at a lower volume. "My son, Warren, he's been missing for almost a week now. The police, they - I've tried talking to them, they won't help. They say he ran away. They say he's over eighteen so they can't - they won't do anything. But there are things he would have taken, things he wouldn't have left behind. The window was open, he wouldn't have left it open. He wouldn't have left...the cats next door, they've got in before..." She deflates, slowly, in stilted little movements, John can see it happening. But her eyes are still fixed on Sherlock, nails clutching the leather of her bag like they might pierce through it.
John gets the impression she's waiting for Sherlock to eat her - that she's resigned herself to the possibility of it. And yet she came here anyway, hoping for his help. She takes a huge breath as John watches, tightens her hands and then lets it out.
"They say you can find people. That you solve the mysteries that the police can't, that no one else can. Please, please help me." She stops talking, as if her body just won't make any more words.
Sherlock uncrosses his legs and leans forward, the springs in the chair making faint protesting noises. He's heavier than a human being, heavier than he should be for his size. John's not entirely sure how that works. How dragons fold themselves, magic, or other dimensions, or strange biology. He just knows that they do. He'd tried to tell himself at the start that the Sherlock he'd been introduced to was a disguise, an outfit he could wear at will. Something the real creature used when he wanted to slink among the sheep. But he'd had to drop that idea after the first week. The way Sherlock had strode around in that ridiculous half-charred dressing gown, climbing over furniture, throwing clothes all over the floor, long fingers turning his hair into some sort of insane collection of half-curls. The way he left unrolled newspapers around to slip on, and shoes down the back of the furniture. There was something very real about him, and John had come to grudgingly realise that dragons don't wear human bodies as disguises. They own them, just as much as their own.
Sherlock doesn't advertise what he is, but neither does he bother to hide it in any way. Which ensures that most of London knows. John had expected some sort of constant police presence near the flat, or at the very least the buildings around him to be cleared. But the place is small, nowhere close to big enough to fit him if he ever decided to...suddenly stop being human. Though John has never once seen him lose control by accident. He's seen him do it on purpose. Sherlock's not above scaring a suspect with the occasional flash of yellow eyes, or quiet smoldering. The flat carpet doesn't always thank him for that. But John supposes that's a small price to pay.
No, there's Mrs. Hudson downstairs, who brings round cakes that Sherlock never eats, and fusses like he can't take care of himself, fixing his coat collar and smacking him every time he makes one of his subtle and wildly inappropriate jokes. Which John watched at first in a sort of bewildered, wary expectation. Until it became as normal as everything else.
~
John's immediately tense. He's seen what dragons can do, how fast they move - just a flare of updraft and then the whole world is on fire. His first instinct is to immediately refuse, he doesn't want to get involved with that. He doesn't want to have to pretend to get along with something - with someone like that.
He has a polite refusal on the tip of his tongue, but Stamford continues like he doesn't notice.
"Oh, he's not like the others - honestly, I understand that it's - it's complicated for you, and yes he's arrogant, and bossy, and he knows he's smarter than everyone around him. But he spends most of his time looking like a person and he likes to...get involved. I mean he doesn't come across as one of them, he doesn't come across like that. Once you get used to him he's actually -" There's a frown and an odd, confused gesture. "Well, he's Sherlock. But not in a bad way."
John doesn't think that helped much. He's still stuck on the fact that there's a dragon living in London. He thought there were treaties, London territory and all that rubbish, that was hammered out back in the fifties. They're too dangerous to be inside city limits.
"I thought dragons lived alone? In giant mansions with servants and things. Beds of gold." Virgin sacrifices? John wonders briefly if that's one of those old stereotypes it's impolite to bring up. "What on earth is one doing in a flat in London?"
"He helps the police." Stamford clearly expects him to be impressed by that.
"Helps?" John stops before he asks what exactly he does to help. He can't think of many ways a dragon could help the criminal justice system. Nor what the police would find an appropriate method of payment.
~
Mrs. Wise, the thin, nervous woman almost too afraid to tell her story, leaves them with a battered mobile and a very short list of Warren's friends. Sherlock spins the phone on the table restlessly with two fingers, nails clacking on the screen, while John works his way through breakfast. Through what's left of breakfast anyway. It's mostly cold now, but he's poured himself a fresh cup of tea, people always seem to come during breakfast. He has to wonder whether that's anything to do with the commonly held belief that dragons are sleepy and lethargic in the morning. John could have refuted that in the first week. Sherlock likes to perform experiments in the morning while the mood is apparently 'suitable for biological study.' Things are rarely suitable for biological study. There are five fire extinguishers in the flat, two fire blankets, and a bucket of sand.
"So, what do you think?" John asks, around half a rasher of bacon.
Sherlock's looming, he tends to do that. At a fraction of his original size it really shouldn't be so threatening. John's going to blame the primitive parts of his brain, the ones that can probably smell a giant, carnivorous lizard. He sometimes wonders if bludgeoning all those very sensible threat warnings into submission is a good idea. There's still Mycroft after all.
"I think Warren should have chosen his friends better. Mrs. Wise will find a large sum of money missing at some point, and I'm fairly certain that Warren took it to dig someone else out of trouble. Judging by his extended absence, and his last text message, things didn't go well for him." Sherlock lets the phone spin to a stop and pushes it across the table.
"You think he's dead." John's egg is still runny at least, even though it's heading for cold.
"I think it the most likely option. Which we will have a chance to confirm later. Or, more correctly, you'll have a chance to confirm later. I have other matters to attend to."
"Not napping?" John accuses.
"No, not napping, work." Sherlock doesn't even bother to pretend to be insulted.
"Because I know you can fall asleep at the drop of a hat."
"Shut up." Sherlock steals John's lukewarm tea. He won't eat in this body, but he sees nothing wrong with the blatant thievery of every beverage John makes for himself. Even when John makes him one of his own.
He steals it back.
"You didn't really question her much. You usually glare at people for a bit longer."
"She smelled honest," Sherlock says. "Very likely that she knew nothing."
John nods and prods at his cold bacon, then frowns when he catches Sherlock eyeing his plate with a vaguely disgusted look.
"What have I told you about the faces at the breakfast table," he complains. "I don't make faces when you do that thing you do. It's bad table manners."
Sherlock's nose wrinkles, like he disputes the fact that he ever does anything that might constitute bad manners. Or, more likely, that he's immune from the whole concept. Definitely more likely.
"Then I suppose I'm lucky to have never eaten at a table."
"Only because you'd rather go off somewhere and swallow a cow whole?" John points a fork at him. "Which I will remind you again is very, very disturbing, please stop doing it in front of me."
Sherlock's smile curves into his face, big enough to go past threatening straight into ridiculous.
"Says the man who has never known the satisfaction, and believes that 'toast' is an acceptable substitute."
John's not entirely sure he'd want to swallow a cow whole, even if he could. For a start it would be alive at the time, and also cows are sort of disgusting.
"There's also bacon," he points out.
"Because if I feel like pig I should cut it into tiny pieces, and then fry it in lard?"
"Well then it would fit into the mouth you're wearing now."
Sherlock's still smiling, and John can't decide how it always feels as if Sherlock has gotten the better of him, even when he's fairly sure he's right. People shouldn't be allowed to win arguments purely through force of personality.
John sighs and pushes his mostly empty plate to one side.
"Fine, tell me what I'm looking for at his house."
~
Sherlock Holmes is tall, severe from almost every angle, though not in a way that the wind might take. No there's something permanent about him, something staked into the ground about his posture. He looks at John, judges him in a brief sweep of eyes and a slant of mouth. If John hadn't known what he was he might have suspected it anyway. There is definitely an air of superiority there. A strangeness that doesn't belong and isn't welcome.
John thinks this is a bad idea, this is never going to work.
Sherlock holds out a hand, which surprises John, because from everything he's ever been taught dragons don't usually touch people - they don't usually touch people like another person might. Sherlock's hand is warm and hard for a moment, until it relaxes, judges how much grip to use and then shakes. It feels normal and human, for a strange, extended moment. John finds himself - not smiling exactly, but something less wary than he was before. Sherlock introduces himself, and there's surety, and arrogance but no disdain, no mockery. To John's astonishment he doesn't need to return the favour. Sherlock reads him like a book, his hair, and his clothes, and his injures. Sherlock unravels his story and leave him a half-finished puzzle without him even saying a word. He gets almost everything right.
"That was...impressive," John admits, and not as reluctantly as he'd worried it might come out.
"Thank you," Sherlock says simply. "People are not usually so generous."
"Don't get compliments very often?" It seems curious, most people tend to treat dragons like royalty that might bite their head off at a moment's notice. But he can't think of a polite way to phrase that. He doesn't want to say 'obedient' it sounds wrong, 'terrified' is probably not a good word either.
"No, it's usually heavy artillery mostly," Sherlock replies. Which reminds John of exactly what he's talking to.
"London tends to frown on that sort of thing," John says. "Property prices suffer."
There's a huff of laughter, brief but startled.
"You're not at all what I thought you'd be," Sherlock admits.
"Isn't that my line?" John asks.
"If you like." Sherlock smiles. He has an odd smile, it's genuine but also stiff, John doesn't think he's had much practice.
John thinks there's a slim chance that this might work out.
~
John goes to Warren Wise's house, carefully goes through everything in his bedroom, takes pictures and videos. Most people don't want dragons in their personal spaces. They tend to permeate the furniture, metaphysically speaking. Even John, who's completely human and has barely any sense to tell, can recognise that strange, heavy feel to the air. God knows what it's like for people who can feel all sorts of things that he can't. The flat must be a nightmare. The psychic equivalent of walking into a room heavy with the smell of blood and gunpowder. Or whatever a more dragon-focused version of that was? Sherlock usually just smells of chemicals and smoke - or occasionally expensive aftershave, when he's trying not to smell like smoke.
There isn't a lot to find in Warren's room. Warren doesn't seem to have a diary, or a calendar, there's nothing on his computer. People tended to like technology because it was reliable. You couldn't crack a password with magic. It was why so many people kept journals on them, checking their memories for signs of manipulation. In John's opinion that's a quick and easy way to go mad.
All he finds is a gold St. Christopher medal, shoved under the edge of a lampshade, hidden there for all intents and purposes. He can't tell if it has any significance, but he feels like it might. Why would you hide something like that? Why would you bother?
He takes pictures of it, then pushes it into his pocket. He can't take it to Sherlock, for obvious reasons, but he can leave it at the station on the way back. They can always look at it later, if it turns out to have some meaning. He puts the rest of the things that might be useful in a bag, zips the tops closed and stacks them together so he can carry them without them sliding everywhere. Mrs. Wise hovers just out of earshot, still thin and quiet like most of her is far away. John can't help but wonder if some part of her knows, if most of her knows her son isn't coming home again.
He walks home slowly, texts Sherlock to let him know what he found - though he doesn't put it past him to know most of it already. He picks up chips on his way home, because he feels like chips and he doesn't have to share because Sherlock, for some reason, fussiness or disgust? never eats while he's human shaped. Even if he sometimes looks like he sort of wants to.
The flat's hot when he gets in, not uncomfortably so but the difference between outside and inside has him pulling off his coat and his jumper, and leaving his chips on the arm of the sofa.
"Must you put the thermostat up so high, the bill's going to be ridiculous. It's not like you can die of cold, you know." John stops talking because Sherlock is in the doorway to his bedroom, feet bare, eyes fixed on him. There's a book loose in his hand, like John caught him in the middle of something. "What?"
Sherlock doesn't say anything he just stares at him - and then he's not staring, the book hits the floor, pages splayed, and Sherlock's moving, stalking, flowing forward on what feels like more limbs than he currently owns, forcing John into the bookshelf in self-defence. Hard enough to hurt, hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
"Sherlock -"
The stare shuts his mouth for him. Sherlock doesn't speak, doesn't make a sound, but his hand drops, fingers finding the curve of John's pocket and shoving inside. Suddenly and aggressively inside his personal space, in a way John doesn't let anyone else - and John knows what he's after, knows and curses the fact that he'd forgotten it was in there, that he'd let it slip his mind. But Sherlock already has that sliver of gold between his fingers, unerring and aggressive in the way he draws it free, and claims it.
"What have I told you," Sherlock says quietly, voice barely louder than a breath. He's twisting and sliding the medallion between thumb and finger, smearing St Christopher into a smooth, flat plane with the force of his attention. "Don't bring gold into the flat. It's distracting."
"I forgot it was there," John says. "I took it from Warren's room, I was going to leave it at the station. I thought it would be...helpful."
"Very unhelpful," Sherlock murmurs. His eyes are no longer blue, gold is spiralling in from the edges, pupil a speck of utter darkness. John can still see his fingers twisting out of the corner of his eye, can see the thing flashing between them. "Very unhelpful."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Sherlock says, voice deeper now, something rough and bone-dry in his throat. Words sparking off his tongue. "Don't do it again. You know what happens."
"I know -"
Sherlock makes a brittle noise which sounds frustrated.
John doesn't pull away, something in him, some part of him, is always waiting for Sherlock, always waiting for a cue. It occurs to him suddenly that perhaps Sherlock is waiting for the same from him.
"Sometimes I think you do it on purpose," Sherlock growls out, consonants cracking apart.
"I don't - I don't, I swear I wouldn't." John cuts off the rest.
The sentence tangles, falls apart and re-forms in his head, meaning twisting into something else entirely, something darker and more confusing by far.
"I wouldn't do that to you," John says, trying for reassurance. But it drops airless instead, bereft of any calming emotion at all.
"How would you know?" Sherlock offers, quietly, almost accusing.
John just blinks at him. Surprised and confused all at once. He suddenly realises how close Sherlock is, how much body heat he's giving off.
Sherlock unclenches his hand and takes a quick step back, shoving the mutilated medallion back into the pocket of John's jeans with a shaking hand, fingers stiff when they force themselves free.
"Take it, get rid of it, get it out of here. Go, and don't come back again until dark."
~
It's later, but still early in their strange partnership, in the basement of the British museum, where John ends up sprawled in a collection of smashed sixteenth century pottery and gold coins. His head's ringing, dust still settling around him, something creaking high above him. There's a smuggler to the left of him, a collapsed wall to his right, everything charred and smoking in a way that sticks in his throat and leaves him breathing the smell of cooked meat and dust. He doesn't know where the others are, but the whole world is silent, so he's going to assume they are no longer among the living.
He wonders if Sherlock is liable for the damages - since he's the one who wrecked the wall. Understandable considering the - considering the size of him.
When Sherlock appears at his side, small and pale and serious again John manages not to flinch. There's blood on his teeth, and most of his coat is charred away, so the pale of his arm and shoulder is visible. His eyes shine like polished brass, the hand curled round John's arm is sharp and thin. He's burning hot and he feels less real, less human than he has since John met him.
He's shaking.
"Sherlock -"
Sherlock's hands tighten at the sound of his name, and John can't tell if the jolting movement that follows is a shake or a tremble. He hauls John out of the wreckage, gold coins scattering under his feet, and only then does John realise what that means. The way they slide and roll, a fortune as dangerous as broken glass.
Sherlock looks down instinctively, into that carpet of gold.
John's feet skid, and Sherlock's fingers dig so tight the skin will bruise. There's a quiet rumble, and the world smells like smoke again. Unlike Sherlock, John is not fireproof.
"Sherlock." John forces himself to grip Sherlock back, to press his fingers where the skin is bare and hot. "Sherlock, look at me."
Unexpectedly, Sherlock does as he's told, face suddenly tight and bloodless.
"We should make sure this -" John starts.
"Leave them," Sherlock says harshly. "Don't touch them." He's still looking right at John and nothing else. As if he might become lost if he looks down again. "I can't touch them." The fear of it almost a tangible force between them. John worries that it might be the truth.
~
The flat's dark when John comes back, all the lights switched off - not smashed, he checks - it's quiet but he can tell Sherlock's still here. There's a weight, a thickness that he's learning to recognise. He doesn't go looking for the man himself. He walks on socked feet to his own room and pushes the door shut.
The next morning Sherlock is sticking pins in the wall, half stood on a chair, grumbling something about Anderson's lackluster note-taking abilities. He's stringing bits of red and black thread between the pins, and writing measurements of time along them.
He doesn't say anything to John, but there's a lukewarm quantity of tea in a pot on the side, which is as close to an apology as he'll probably get. Closer to an apology than most people believe dragons are capable of.
John accepts the tea, resolves to drink it quickly, and puts his feet up on the stack of papers Sherlock has left alone for long enough that he's probably not interested in them any more. They slide unreliably under his socks and John knows that if they all fall down they will stay exactly where they are until he can be bothered to clean them up. Dragons apparently don't clean. Ever.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and he wishes the tea was hotter, wishes Sherlock wasn't quite so hard to read.
"It's fine," Sherlock says, but the words are stiff like it isn't, like he's still trying to make it that way between the dig of pins and harsh scribbles, pen dug too hard into the paper.
John doesn't know where to start, but he forces himself to continue.
"I know it's complicated - look, I'll be more careful in the future."
The pen stops writing, dangles from Sherlock's fingers. He slides down the chair back until he's sitting on it, watching John with a sudden and unnerving sort of focus.
John's not sure he's going to speak at all until he does.
"You don't ever leave a hoard," Sherlock says thickly. "Once you start collecting, once you start to accumulate, that's where you stay, and you can never leave." His nails drum on the wood of the chair, hard like they want to dig in, or perhaps change and claw through it. "That much gold - you can't abandon it, it's unthinkable. It's our weakness. It's what chains us in place, what leaves us old and mistrustful and angry."
It's the most John has ever heard from Sherlock concerning what he is. He's so good at wearing the man, using the dragon to intimidate and deflect. John sometimes forgets that it's the man that's the carefully built construct.
"Which is why you don't?" he asks, careful, because it's the most he's dared to ask about the things Sherlock never talks about.
Sherlock nods, once, in agreement.
"Which is why I don't."
The idea of it seems unthinkable, a dragon without gold, a dragon who doesn't want to possess it, is like - nothing comes to him. John's starting to understand how humanity is not an amusement for Sherlock. It's not a holiday, or a rebellion. That perhaps it's more of a loophole.
"You are amazing, you know that don't you?" John says, quiet and honest. "The way you refuse to be anything but you."
The expression Sherlock's wearing now is hard to read, there's surprise there, but also something amused and a little helpless.
"Shall I make us some more tea?" John says finally, to break the sudden unbearable silence. "Yours was fairly awful."
Sherlock grunts agreement, mutters something about transference, and goes back to his pins and his mysteries.