A/N: yes, I wrote this after seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Don't judge, that movie was amazeballs. I just thought it'd be interesting to see how I could turn Bilbo and Smaug…into John and Sherlock…and this is what I got. Ta-da!

Bored.

Sherlock Holmes despised being bored with a passion. It was enough to induce madness (though according to John, he was already quite mad). His mind was left with nothing to do, so he lay back and sank into his mind palace. Somebody needed to be murdered. Hopefully in an interesting, not-boring way that would give him something to think about, something to deduce. Of course, John would consider his want for someone else to die so he would be entertained quite unhealthy. But Sherlock found that didn't much bother him. If he was entertained, why would it bother him that someone else died, provided that it wasn't one of his acquaintances?

As he lay there sorting through his mind palace, absently wandering with Redbeard trotting faithfully beside him, a sudden thought struck him: tomorrow is my birthday. Strange that he should remember that now. He hadn't celebrated his birthday for ten years, except for the traditional phone call from his parents, which he never understood. What was the importance of a birthday? It's only purpose was to mark another year that said individual survived without dying a catastrophic death. Speaking of catastrophic deaths, he really was starting to want Lestrade to call with a case. How sad was that? He actually wanted Lestrade to call him. Shudder. Another shudder when he realised that John would probably want to do something ridiculously sentimental for his birthday. But at the same time...he found that he didn't mind. It almost scared him, sometimes, thinking about how indulgent he was when it came to the matter of Doctor John Hamish Watson.

Blowing out a slow breath, Sherlock pushed to his feet. The hell with it. He'd head downstairs, experiment some despite John's rule about no experimenting after 11:00. As he walked into the living room, the sound of the clock chiming softly drew his attention. Midnight. He was now 33 years old. As he took a step towards the kitchen, sudden pain ripped into his stomach.

An involuntary gasp was drawn from his throat as he doubled over, long arms wrapped around himself. That cannot possibly be good. He had felt hunger pangs before, a mild thing, but this was more akin to someone driving a knife into his stomach. Sherlock couldn't even get a proper breath into his lungs, as it currently felt like a giant hand was squeezing his lungs tightly. His brain scrambled for any explanation for such a reaction, but he came up with nothing. The pain in his midsection suddenly doubled, even though it seemed impossible for it to get any worse. What had been a jagged knife became a white-hot, barbed lance, and he very nearly passed out. Oh, God, it hurt. He must have been in pain if he was invoking a deity which he didn't even believe in. Abruptly, all the starch ran out of him, and Sherlock slumped to his knees on the living room floor, still struggling to breathe, feeling as if an invisible attacker was trying to carve out his entrails without an anesthetic or numbing agent. Like a water balloon being burst, the coiled knot of agony in his gut suddenly spread to the rest of his body. All at once, his heart was pounding so hard and fast it felt as if it'd break his ribs, impossible as that was. His blood ran hot through his veins as a flush of heat swamped him from head to toe, sweat beading on his brow. Every bone ached and throbbed, his joints in agony, muscles cramping in ways that didn't even seem possible. His breath came in shallow, rasping pants, vision swimming. He wanted so desperately to pass out, but now his brain was refusing to do that, though by all rights, pain should have sent him into shock already. A fragmented thought—of course I'm in shock. Look, I've got a blanket—darted across his mind.

His mind slowed, blurred, seemed to warp, and then snapped back into place. Energy unlike anything he'd ever felt, white-hot and blinding, shot through every fibre in his body as if he'd just been plugged into a nuclear reactor. He would have screamed in pain, had there been air in his lungs to scream with, writhing in the intolerable agony of it. The only equivalent to it was being dipped in acid, run over by a bus, and trampled by bulls all at the same time. He fell forward onto knees and forearms, digging his fingers into the rug, tears streaming down his face. Something inside of him shattered, reformed, fell together, was reborn entirely. A change had occurred, an irreversible and inexorable change in his very being. The pain grew even worse, doubling in ways he couldn't imagine. He prayed, desperately wanting to black out, but he remained fully conscious and vividly, agonizingly aware. It felt as if he was being pulled in two. He couldn't see, couldn't hear or feel or smell or even taste anything. And then…quickly as it'd come…it was over. All of a sudden, he felt powerful, lightened. All his pain and achiness had been washed away in a swell of visceral power.

Sherlock opened his eyes. Everything looked different. It was crystalline, sharp and clear. Things that'd before been nothing but blurry shadows were now defined in full colour. Scent returned next. He so nearly gagged at the overwhelming stench of slowly decomposing flesh, formaldehyde, latex, and a bouquet of chemicals struck his nose. Odd. The smell of his experiments had never bothered him before. He could smell bloody everything. Then his hearing returned, just as powerful as his other senses. The soft, rhythmic breathing of John in the other room, the rustle and creak of the bed as he shifted. Car engines rumbling past outside. The delicate, shuffling footsteps of Mrs. Hudson in 221A below. A low, persistent humming noise became audible, and for a moment, he turned his head this way and that trying to pinpoint it. Why did everything seem to be larger than he remembered it being before?

The low hum was still there, and suddenly his ears twitched. Sherlock whipped his head around to stare at the lamp in the corner: the noise he heard was the vibration of electricity within the filaments. For a moment, he preened over having puzzled out that mystery, but then he froze. His ears had twitched. Ears were not supposed to twitch. He started to rise but then faltered. He felt...different. Wrong. Something was very, very wrong. The knowledge made him want to growl—wait, why in the name of logic would he growl at anything for any reason? Still, he felt a prickle run along his backbone, and something behind him twitched and rustled in response. Sherlock went very, very still. Then, gradually, he turned his head to see what it was that was behind him, and he got a good look at himself in the process.

He screamed for John.

In the middle of the dark house, a man sat in front of the fireplace, a tumbler of whisky in one hand as he stared into the flames; slowly, he ran one fingertip around the rim of the glass. On the outside, nobody would believe that this man had any sort of problems, anything to trouble his mind or keep him awake at night. They would look at him and see a very wealthy, secure man enjoying a drink before bed. How very wrong they would be.

It'd happened. He'd felt it the moment that it struck midnight, a shift in the balance of the world, a tilt upon gravity. The world had adjusted. He sighed quietly, watching the dancing flames. Why had he not told the truth straight from the start? The moment that he saw the mark appear on his little brother, he should have told the truth, told him who they were, what they were. It would've given him time to prepare, but it was too late now. Things were too far gone. The man shifted his gaze to the pale mark on his forearm, a birthmark that'd been there since he was born. It was a twisting, coiled mark that almost looked like a tattoo, a shade paler than the rest of his skin.

He should've known this would happen, though, should've realised it the moment that his little brother had befriended the caretaker. I'll have to tell him, he decided resolutely. With a quiet sigh, Mycroft Holmes downed the last of his drink and stood up. Any normal person would be asleep at this hour; sleep was boring.

"John! Jo-ooohnn!"

Sitting up groggily, John Watson rubbed at his eyes with one hand and fumbled back the covers with his other hand. He could hear Sherlock's voice calling his name, but there was something different about it. It wasn't demanding or imperious, but actually thin and almost childish. Heaving out of bed, he shuffled out of the bedroom and into the living room. "What is it, Sherlock?" he mumbled, but got no reply. It was dimly lit, not a surprise, considering it was just past midnight. The violin lay untouched. The experiments were undisturbed. But there was a rumpled pile of fabric in the middle of the floor; John bent to look closer. They were Sherlock's clothes, ripped all into shreds, faint wisps of smoke rising from the cloth. The edges of the fibres were blackened and curled, almost like they'd been burned apart. Now he was starting to feel uneasy, his senses sharpening as his training kicked in, looking around for any sign of a threat. Please, God, he thought to himself, tell me that Moriarty hasn't gotten into flat. "Where are you? Sherlock?" he called, noticing how quiet it'd gone in the flat.

The quiet reply came from the space behind the couch, soothing his rising tension before it became full-blown fear. "John…there's something very wrong with me," said Sherlock in that same small, near-childish voice that he'd used before. It was almost disconcerting. John took a step towards the couch. "No! Don't—don't come any nearer, please."

He withdrew his foot, thrown. "What's wrong? Why do you think something's wrong with you?" he asked in his soothing doctor's voice. He knew that something had to be wrong because Sherlock was never this pathetic-sounding, never sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Hell, he wouldn't have even thought Sherlock was capable of tears. It seemed too human, and there were times Sherlock seemed to be the furthest thing from human.

He heard a faint rustle of movement and the unexpected clack-clack of what sounded like claws on the hardwood floors. It sounded like an animal. John tensed slightly, unsure and wary, and he cast a fast glance around for anything that might be construed as a weapon. With small, shuffling footsteps, the animal lingering behind the couch stepped into his line of vision. At first, what emerged from behind the couch appeared to be no more than a large exotic lizard. But its plated underbelly and bat-wings gave away its true nature—a dragon. John had seen them before in the picture books he read as a child with Harry, huge fire breathing creatures with wingspans to cover whole villages. This one was a little bigger than a housecat and entirely black, looking like it'd been carved of the night sky with the stars pulled out. The little dragon sat down on its haunches, tail twitching back and forth, frilled ears lying almost flat against its neck. It looked up at him with incredible intelligence, then its little mouth opened wide, and it said in Sherlock's plaintive voice, "I've been turned into a lizard!"