Fic: Of Dragons and Detective Inspectors
Title: Of Dragons and Detective Inspectors
Author: nicnac918
Fandom: Sherlock, The Hobbit
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Word count: 736
Summary: John, however, turned to him and said in a completely serious-sounding tone of voice, “Because he’s a dragon.”
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit
AN: Fifth in the Many Intersecting Planes series.
*~*~*~*~*
Despite what Sherlock Holmes may have claimed on many (many, many, many, many) occasions, Gregory Lestrade was not a stupid man, nor was he unobservant by most standards. He knew that there was something off about Sherlock. Something beyond his general oddness and social ineptitude - though the question of whether it was true ineptitude or just an inability to care about social rules was still up for debate.
The first thing was his sense of smell. That one was the hardest to pin down, because Sherlock was uncharacteristically closed mouthed bout his observations from that particular sense, not to mention there was a certain degree of variation in the strength of any given sense from person to person: Donovan had the eyes of a hawk, for example. But occasionally Sherlock would make a comment that lead Greg to suspect his nose had an almost superhuman ability.
Then there were the drugs. Greg knew Sherlock had gone through a phase where he had been more or less been getting high constantly. He knew what a person who was stoned off his arse looked like, he’d seen the track marks on the man’s arms, and, hell, Sherlock hadn’t even tried to deny it. And yet, across all the drugs busts and ‘drugs busts’ Greg and his team had performed, they’d never found the slightest trace of cocaine, or any sort of illegal substance, at all.
Also troubling was the man’s aging, or lack therefore of. When they had first met, Sherlock had looked like a man in his early to mid-thirties. Now, a decade later, Greg’s hair had gone completely gray, and Sherlock still looked like a man in his early to mid-thirties. Bloody annoying that.
Perhaps the most obvious though, were his eyes. Greg had heard of people with color-changing eyes before; he’d even had a girlfriend with them once. So he knew for a fact that the eyes themselves didn’t actually change color, they just looked like they did because of different contexts and lighting and whatnot. At least, that was true in every other case, but Sherlock’s eyes actually changed color. When he was angry, really angry, not just in a strop, his eyes started to flicker orange and red, like he was a ruddy cartoon character with literal flames in his eyes.
It was the last of these that he mentioned, in a casual ‘have you noticed this’ kind of way, to John one time when the two of them went out for pints. John nodded with the sort of long-suffering agreement that was typical of most conversations about Sherlock. “Yeah. They get like that when he’s feeling possessive too.”
“Really?” Greg said, though he didn’t actually doubt it - if anyone knew what a possessive Sherlock Holmes looked like, it was John Watson. Sherlock didn’t dehumanize the man, not more than he did every other person on the planet, but he made it very clear that he thought the good doctor was a thing that Sherlock owned.
“You should have seen him at the end of the thing with Moriarty. His eyes went bright orange.”
“Why in the world do they do that?” Greg said, more musing aloud than actually expecting an answer.
John, however, turned to him and said in a completely serious-sounding tone of voice, “Because he’s a dragon.”
Greg let out a bark of surprised laughter. Not because it was a ridiculous suggestion, but because it wasn’t. “That’s exactly what he is, the obnoxious git. You think he’s got a secret stash of gold out in the country somewhere?”
John shook his head. “Too much bother. He’s just expanded his definition of treasure to include skulls and eyeballs in the microwave.”
And retired army doctors too, Greg rather thought. “You’re right. It’s his brother that’s probably got the secret stash,” Greg said, but John was shaking his head again.
“No, no, Mycroft isn’t a dragon. Mycroft’s a wizard.”
Greg chuckled, because once again John had managed to hit the nail square on the head, and then changed the subject to something else less fantastical. Not once throughout the entire brief conversation did it ever occur to Greg that John was being literal. But, from that moment on, he always took extra care around Sherlock when his eyes stared to go orange, and always got John to come calm him down as soon as possible.
Gregory Lestrade was not a stupid man.
*~*~*~*~*
Sequel is here.