Chapter Text
“How long is this going to take?” John sighed to Sherlock, attempting discretion but as an eleven ton middleweight combat dragon, this was difficult.
“If you hadn’t eaten that stupid cow we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Sherlock replied, unbuckling John’s flight harness.
“It’s your fault I ate it, you told me I could! And then Earl whats-his-name had a fit –“ John shifted his wings so Sherlock could access the buckles behind his forelegs. Two ground crew men had run over to help, but Sherlock waved them away impatiently.
“And your deductions about his wife and son really didn’t help either,” John continued. Sherlock undid the last strap and pulled the harness off John’s back, letting it crash undignified to the ground. He motioned for the ground crew to pick it up, and took a large cloth from the smaller crewman with a tic tac addiction and overbearing mother.
Using John’s foreleg as a platform, Sherlock vaulted onto his back and began rubbing the dragon down. John stretched in contentment, wings unfurling as Sherlock worked his muscles.
“I guess we have to be thankful for Mycroft’s intervention,” John muttered. “Even if it does mean we have to do this stupid interview.”
“He’s under some delusion that a sensationalist article in The Sun will fortify human/dragon politics,” Sherlock said.
John snorted. “You sweep into a room and everyone sane goes running. And then you got yourself a bloody great dragon. Of all the citizens of this country, we are the last ones that could boost morale.”
“Mycroft disagrees,” said Sherlock savagely, now rubbing John’s neck.
“As do I,” called a loud female voice. Sherlock looked down to see a shortish woman with a straight cut fringe, picking her way through the courtyard in kitten heels and a restrictive skirt. A large field microphone gripped tightly in her hand, notepaper and pen in the other.
Sherlock swung his legs round either side of the dragon’s neck as John stepped forward a few places to greet the woman. Sherlock scowled his way through the introductions. She knew who he was, who John was, and he didn’t give a rat’s arse about who she was. This was all highly inconvenient.
“So you prefer ‘John’ then?” the annoying reporter was saying. “I understand you used to go by ‘Watson’.”
“Yes,” replied John. “Watson is my official name, but my first two Captains liked to call me ‘John’. Everyone uses it now.”
John had lifted his left foreleg in a clear signal he wanted Sherlock off his back. With a huff of indignation, Sherlock dismounted as one would a horse, onto John’s leg before jumping down in front of the nosy woman.
“Ah!” she cried. “Captain Holmes. It’s a pleasure.”
“Is it?” Sherlock replied, ignoring her extended hand. John’s enormous head swung round and fixed Sherlock with a reproachful stare.
“’Sherlock’ will do,” he said, gathering up the cloth he had been using before ducking under John’s neck and striding off. The reporter watched him go, rather wrong-footed.
“Don’t mind him,” said John. “He’s not too keen on reporters. There was a bit of interest in us after we solved a few high profile cases – particularly the Reichenbach painting one – he hated it.”
“How did you take your rise to fame?” she said, reverting back into reporting mode.
John mused for a moment before replying, “It worried me in regards to Sherlock. I told him we ought to be more careful. But I wouldn’t really call it ‘fame’ as such; we were only in the paper for a day or so. Unless after that Sherlock simply didn’t show me any more – I can’t exactly read them myself,” he smiled, showing her the four talons on his right foreleg.
At her lack of reaction besides a polite smile, John noted, “You don’t seem to be afraid of me.”
“Course she’s not,” butted in Sherlock, who had returned with a bucket of warm water and a sponge. “Her brother is in the Corps.”
“Really?” asked John just as the reporter said “How do you know that?”
Sherlock glanced at her. “Your shoes.”
She looked a halfway mix of flabbergasted and impressed as John inquired about her brother.
“Oh, he’s positioned in Scotland at the moment. Can’t remember his regiment. Flies on Securitas, she’s a Yellow Reaper.”
John nodded. “Yes, I’ve met her, I think.”
“Handy of Mycroft to find a reporter who’s not terrified of dragons,” said Sherlock, glowering as he squeezed out the sponge and began soaping down John’s withers.
“Hoping to get me to roar and scare her off?” John asked.
“Something like that.”
The reporter smiled to herself and quickly jotted down some notes in shorthand. The microphone was capturing the sound just fine, but she liked filling out her articles with more than just relaying conversation.
She wanted to capture the essence of her interviewees, wanted to relay this to her readership. From her brother she knew firsthand the opposition and fear the Aerial Corps still faced – perhaps, as commissioned, she would be able to do something to change that if the article was successful. And also perhaps finally get her first big promotion.
“John,” she said, and fierce, deep blue eyes met her own. “Could you tell me about your previous Captains?”
The dragon’s gaze became rather injured, and the reporter sensed that Sherlock, mostly hidden from her by enormous leathery wings, had frozen up.
“If that’s not too hard,” she said gently.
“No, its fine,” the dragon sighed. Behind him, Sherlock re-wetted the sponge and moved it in deep, calming circles along John’s side.
“My first Captain was Sarah; I met her straight from the egg. She was ... incredible. We trained so hard, mostly working on my aerial manoeuvring abilities. We wanted to be the best fliers in the Corps - and considering my parentage, we had a pretty decent chance.”
The reporter could see he was subtly leaning into Sherlock’s grooming. For comfort – or reassurance? She jotted it down.
“I turned out to be a bit smaller than expected – they’d hoped I’d be a heavy weight, or at least a large mid weight. Sarah had always had an interest in medicine; she’d studied it while waiting for me to hatch. So we became the quick response medical team.” John paused to breathe in deeply, licking the roof of his mouth in an effort to stop his words becoming thicker than they already were.
“We tended to the wounded in the midst of battle, human or dragon, didn’t matter. I loved it.” He stopped again, staring into the distance.
“Sarah was killed by enemy fire on June 25th, 1965. ” John said eventually. “I still have the scars on my shoulder.”
The reporter felt she should offer some words of condolence, but didn’t want to interrupt John at the risk of him refusing to talk further on the subject.
“Her daughter Mary, who was sixteen at the time, became my next captain. Which is standard practice in the Corps ... it’s easier to bond with someone who is experiencing the same pain, the same aching loss, as you are.”
The dragon was raking ditches in the dirt with his claws absent mindedly as he spoke. “I didn’t stay a surgeon with Mary; she loved warfare with a passion. We joined an aerial squadron with four other dragons and their captains. It was fantastic. But Mary stopped flying to look after her own family.”
“You didn’t want another captain after that?”
“No, none of Mary’s children were old enough and I couldn’t stand the idea of a captain who wasn’t from my family.”
“Not even from your crew?”
John shook his head. “A captain is – special. I don’t know if someone who isn’t in the Corps could understand. Plus my shoulder meant flying was becoming difficult. I retired to one of the breeding grounds.”
“How long were you there for?”
“Ten years. I met Sherlock ... two years ago - 2010.”
“John!” called Sherlock, who was cleaning his tail. “Do you have to tell her everything?”
John snorted. “That’s a bit rich, coming from you!” he said, and flicked his tail around just to be irritating. “You’re the king of too much information.”
This exchange resulted in a few more hurried notes in the reporter’s notebook. She was pleased at how John was starting to warm up to her.
“So which of your three captains has been your closest companion? Your favourite?” She asked.
Instantly John reared away, backing off with distress. He gave a startled and low, offended growl that reverberated through her. Sherlock had flung his sponge on the ground and marched up to her.
“Are you insane?” he roared, bearing down on her with anger sparking in his eyes. “How dare you presume to ask John – absolutely moronic – I’ll kill Mycroft –“ Sherlock spun around, pacing circles in fury. The reporter wrung her hands as she tried to work out what to do to try and save the situation.
“Sherlock, it’s okay, she didn’t understand,” hissed John.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman was saying.
“Maybe we could take a short break? Five minutes?” John asked her. She quickly agreed and wandered off, murmuring about a coffee.
“Idiotic woman.” Sherlock snarled, picking up the sponge and rinsing it.
“She’s not that bad, Sherlock, she just made a mistake –“
“She repels me.” Sherlock mashed the sponge into John’s ribs and began scrubbing furiously at the dirt caked onto the golden hide.
“Look, if you’re not going to wash me down properly, I’ll get someone else to do it,” said John.
“No. You won’t.” said Sherlock fiercely.
Sherlock had finished John’s side and was working on his wing joint and left shoulder, the scarred one, when he asked “Can we go flying after this?”
“What the hell has been the point of grooming me then?” John said in exasperation. “Besides, we’ve already spent five hours flying today.”
“That was boring patrol work. And was with the crew. I meant just us.”
“Oh,” John said, and smiled down at his captain. “Of course we can.”
Sherlock smiled too, but spotting something behind John, converted it with alarming speed into a deep scowl. "That stupid reporter is back."
"Hello, John, Sherlock," she said, struggling to hold a steaming coffee cup and microphone in one hand. "I'm so sorry about before -"
John waved her apology away while Sherlock ignored her completely.
"Well then, John, could you tell me about the day you met Sherlock?" she asked, oblivious to the Captain's horror struck face.