A/N: I haven't been in London for over a decade, so apologies if my story makes for a bad travelling guide. You followed my narrative and found no dragons in Trafalgar Square, you say? How quaint!

There'll be one more after this, an information which is very helpful in case you are looking to avoid this plotline. -csf


Dragon Sherlock, part three

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I realise I should have called Mycroft on my phone as soon as we spotted the first military manoeuvres out in the open. Sometimes a good idea just comes a bit late, and in London's Underground tunnels the signal is so rubbish that now I can't establish a connection. I write up a text – "Stop it, the giant git is your brother" – leaving it drafted for when I get a signal.

Carefully avoiding to mention said brother intends to come show unexpected brotherly attentions at Mycroft's club.

For now we rely on Sherlock's incredible Mind Palace information repository (perhaps it too has grown in size along with the dragon transformation) to guide us through the quiet, dark maze of interconnected tunnels, the ones commuters know about and also the side maintenance tracks, the abandoned stations, and the incomplete stretches of rails. Sherlock progresses stubbornly, unerringly, and I find this is a much nicer ride than I usually get on my way to work at the surgery.

.

'Are we there yet?'

Novelty has worn off, in the dark, silent, claustrophobic space. Sherlock has yet to admit any wrong turns.

'Not there yet.'

It's unending.

'Are we there yet?'

'No!'

'Is it going to be long?'

'No!'

'Are you sure, Sherlock?'

'Will you just drop it, John? I'll let you know when we get there! Or you can read the maintenance porthole signs and make your own deductions!'

I frown at once. 'No, I can't! It's pitch dark in these tunnels! I don't have... night vision!' Lucky enhanced creature, of course my mate would turn into some better version than mere humans. If I had been enchanted, I'd probably become a boring earth worm, or something equally unhelpful...

Sensing my grumpiness, he huffs in derision. That shrouds me in a haze of smoke and I start trying to cough my lungs out.

'Sorry, John', he mutters sheepishly.

'No worries', I gasp.

Being Sherlock's best mate is a dangerous job at the best of times.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

'John, we should investigate the opportunity of making you into a dragon too. Return to that restaurant and have you eat copious amounts of food. It's not the sort of activity to which you would usually object.'

'Me? A dragon?' I'm surprised to entertain the possibility; and a bit sad, because it makes me think Sherlock is feeling isolated and lonely. 'Maybe.'

'Still worrying about Mycroft and the army deployment on the surface?'

'Haven't forgotten, no. What will we do? You're not exactly easy to camouflage, Sherlock.'

I can feel his careful shrug; it nearly tosses me back onto the rails. It's extremely hard to get grip on his slick dorsal scales.

'Why would I want to dull my shine?' he retorts, in fully pledged dandyism. 'And why should Mycroft lose the chance to capture a dragon and run a secret scientific experiment to check my usefulness as a weapon, a protecting super hero, or an oversized lucky charm? You underestimate a Holmes at your own peril, John.'

'I don't—' I try to start.

'We're here, John.' He contorts the long sinuous body to climb up to the platform. The overhead lights and open space feel blinding to me after so long in the tunnels.

'Here, so soon?'

He huffs again, and the new puff of smoke makes my eyes sting.

.

The rule of silence in the Diogenes club meant the complaints of the gentlemen were scarcely an impediment to the intruding dragon.

It was a short walk from the station to the club, through wide sidewalks that caused people little or no trouble at all. A toddler giggled delighted through the death grip of a runaway governess at one point, and a nurse turned around a very old man who was insisting on giving the dragon a military salute, making me wonder how perhaps the age fringes of society were the only non-terrorised inhabitants. Through the habit of years as Sherlock's PA, I kept my composure and made small talk to all the new ogling fans out there. Of course they didn't know I had Sherlock by my side, hardly recognisable as he was. Although the gruff unsocial attitude was a dead sure giveaway, I thought.

Now in the club, I open the door to Mycroft's office myself, being generally better with door handles than the baby brother Holmes in his current enchantment. Making my way in as Sherlock impatiently awaits on the corridor, I find Mycroft thundering silently from behind his desk.

'Morning, Mycroft. How's the Commonwealth?'

'Doctor Watson', he acknowledges, eyes narrowing dangerously. I notice he does not wish me a good morning at all. That's rude. 'I have been waiting for you to drop by all morning.'

'That's funny, I didn't know I was coming until fifteen minutes ago.'

'Oh, I seem to have picked up some information about Trafalgar Square.'

I forgot to send the text, so I keep a straight face for the moment. 'Really? What's been happening there?'

'You have been positively identified in Trafalgar Square, John. That only confirmed my suspicion.'

'Suspicion?'

'I'm a genius too, John, cleverer than my baby brother, in fact. Do you not think I'd pick up on my brother if I saw you wandering about accompanied solely by a dragon to which you were particularly attentive and unafraid? John, please, in my line of work I've dealt with my fair share of science fiction and fantasy coming to life. There was the Swan Countess in the Lake District, harmless but for her lethal singing, and the curious case of the Twin Gargoyles of St Theodore's that rose from the abandoned cemetery grounds near the dear old folks home, that one was a bit of a mess', he shakes his head in mock lament. 'They all had their medication increased, naturally, but I made sure to give the ones affected by the pretend collective mental delusion phenomenon a placebo. I'm not an evil man, John.'

'Wait, if you knew all along it was your brother in Trafalgar Square... You deployed the army, Mycroft!'

'I told them to capture the dragon alive, if at all possible', the older Holmes shrugs.

I've been backing away slowly, I notice, towards the only door. Mycroft is giving me the creeps, way more than he usually does.

He finally gets up and steps around the solid desk. 'I know my brother is just outside on the corridor, John. Listening against the door, just like he did when he was a child. I know what my brother is now too. So let's talk about what you both can do for me.'

'Do for you?'

'Naturally. Would I waste such an opportunity?'

'We came here looking for your help, Mycroft.'

'Yes, how amusing! Seeing you trying to pull my heart strings. I'm a Holmes, John, you'd do well to remember I don't have a heart to tug.'

The office door is still nearly shut, behind me. I finally reach the heavy oak with my fingertips behind my back, and whisk it open to reveal Sherlock.

I find him glaring at his brother. By the destruction of the ceramic pots and empty suits of armour in the corridor, along with the scratches in the silk wallpaper and shreds of carpet, I'd say we made a logistical error. Dragons filling narrow corridors can't reverse, and struggle just as much to double back.

Not that Sherlock wanted to run away from his deranged sibling; oh no, Sherlock wouldn't back away from a mental fight between higher minds. It's just that Sherlock found his advantage of surprise harshly taken away from him and he'd been happy to sneak in through the window instead.

'Did you do this to me, Mycroft?' The dragon thunders. Overhead the broad dark ceiling beams crumble dust about. I carefully step aside, from my position under a ceiling chandelier, just as a precaution.

'Not at all, baby brother, you did it to yourself. It has been your nature all along, after all. The power, the drive, the arrogance and snide, all very draconian traits. How could you have missed that, due to your menial distractions handling human misery? "Dear Mr Holmes, my house got burgled. Dear Mr Holmes, my aunt was murdered. Dear Mr Holmes, my boss went missing without paying me." Such mundane woes fill your work, brother dear. Is it not time I send you on a big boy's errand?'

Sherlock thunders: 'Why would I do anything for you?'

Mycroft sighs theatrically. 'Of course you'd put it like that.' He glances darkly at me and brings up a pocket revolver from his side. 'Easy, Sherlock. I'll threaten John's life until you give me what I want.'

The dragon thunders, smoke billowing across the room. Mycroft sticks that gun neatly against my ribs as he yanks me towards him, a human shield.

'Now, now, Sherlock. Contain yourself. You don't want to harm John as well as me.'

Dangerous mercurial eyes narrow further.

'One case?'

'Yes, just one, in exchange for John Watson.'

'Why would I believe you?'

'No reason. I'm just hoping one case is enough to bring you the realisation that you want to work with me out of your own free accord. Kidnapping John has become such a clichéd thing to do.'

The dragon stops himself from snorting more smoke in the last possible second.

'What are you after, brother of mine?' he asks instead.

I try to pull away, freeing Sherlock from this slavery pact, but I'm yanked against the heavy tomes in the bookcase wall, powerless to fight back. It's not like I'm usually scared of the big brother, but he is armed and acting quite erratic at the moment.

Mycroft keeps a tight aim on my heart with his outstretched arm. Sherlock signals me to back down. Not yet, John.

Damn it, Sherlock is curious by the promise of a case that would drive his brother to insanity and threat us like this.

'Go on, Mycroft, you're getting distracted.'

The older Holmes grimaces nastily. 'You're a detective and a dragon, Sherlock. Two good reasons for you to rescue the Great Black Pearl of the Orient from the Thames for me.'

'I'm sorry, still got soot from the Underground tunnels in my ears, did you just capitalise that very long title?' Sherlock mocks.

'It's certainly appropriate. A late eighteen century relic abandoned forgotten in the Thames River bed, only very few selective people know of its location.'

'The Thames margins have been heavily industrialised.'

'I got hold of the engineering blueprints, of course.'

'How did it get there?'

'Shipwreck, how else?'

'Pirates would do the trick.'

'It hardly matters. Once bedded in the Thames mud, the pearl was nearly impossible to rescue. Those who tried it got killed by those who wanted to take it from them. An object of greed, but also of incomparable beauty and worth. As decades went by, it became a mere thing of legend, and as all legends, it got dismissed as a myth eventually. Like dragons, for instance.'

'How big is this pearl? Why could it not be concealed by a rescue diver resurfacing?'

'More like a team of divers working in tandem. The Great Black Pearl of the Orient is about half a meter wide sphere of nacre resin.'

Sherlock whistles through his slithered tongue. 'It will be heavy and burdensome.'

'Not so much so for a dragon, Sherlock. And I'll trade you John for the Pearl. I heard dragons like pearls, and detectives keep being asked to find old matrons' pearl necklaces, don't they?'

I intrude on the negotiations: 'You're turning your brother into a criminal, Mycroft!'

The man smiles a half-nuts grimace. 'To protect you? I rather think he would, don't you do too, doctor Watson?'

Damn it, looking at the obstinate lines in Sherlock's countenance I do too. My shoulders sag in defeat.

'What will you do with a pearl that big?' I ask, resentfully to Mycroft. 'Can't quite wear it, can you?'

'I shall add it to my collection, John', he answers simply, as if there was nothing much to his secret collection. He probably keeps his collection in a dungeon, under rotten castle ruins in Bavaria...

Sherlock's eyes keep glinting, his scales now a purplish toned coat to his form. All his attention turned to study Mycroft and the revolver aim he keeps trailed on me.

'Very well, I'll do it, Mycroft. Set it up, will you? Stop all traffic on the river bed, and divert people's attention as you need, and I shall rescue your pearl.'

'Marvellous!' Mycroft smiles coldly in victory.

Sherlock smiles the same dead smile back, recognisable even through his deep transformation. It's a Holmes smile, of the creepy, manipulative kind.

'Wait a minute!' I interrupt. 'Sherlock, can dragons swim?'

The two brothers glance at each other questioningly, then nod in general consensus. Yeah, they reckon dragons can swim.

I suppose that makes my kidnapping alright now, does it? I huff, annoyed, and lament not being able to puff fireplace smoke.

.

TBC