Author's Note: I don't generally go for AUs or crossovers, but with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Smaug and Martin Freeman playing Bilbo, I just couldn't resist this idea. So far this is taking the form of a collection of missing scenes, but only my muse knows where this will go.

Disclaimer: The usual stuff. Sherlock belongs to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, and Smaug belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien. Cover image is by lollypopninja on LiveJournal.

The Desolation of Sherlock

Prologue

John Watson didn't expect Sherlock Holmes to have warm hands. He didn't usually make those kinds of snap judgments about people. His time in the Army taught him to listen to his instincts, and he found they were usually right, but his instincts didn't usually have much to say about the temperature of a man's hands. Something about Sherlock, though, made John think he ought to have cold hands. It came as surprise to John when he shook Sherlock's hands and found them warm—almost feverishly so.

At the time, John didn't think anything of it. Later, it seemed significant

There were other signs. Like Sherlock's too-warm hands, they seemed unimportant at the time. The way Sherlock could never bear to throw anything away. The way he was highly territorial, becoming snippy when John entered private spaces, like his bedroom (though he felt no compunction at invading John's own privacy). The way he exhaled forcefully when smoking a cigarette, as though the smoke was a weapon he was hurling at some invisible foe. The way his voice dropped when he was angry—really angry, not shouting-angry—into a range that seemed too deep and resonant for his body.

If Sherlock had been "normal," John would have dismissed all these things as eccentricities. As it was, Sherlock was so eccentric John hardly registered these few among the many. Looking back, he didn't blame himself for missing the clues. How could he have known? How could anyone have known?