Fic Rec: The River Variations

[swissmarg]

Title: The River Variations
Author: withoutawish
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 11,619 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John Watson never knew that he wanted a ‘no toast in the mornings’ normal until he realized what an honor it is to be destroyed by Sherlock Holmes.

Reccer's comments: On the surface, this is a casefic, the case in question being a very faithful modern re-telling of Conan Doyle's The Three Garridebs. But we're not actually here for the case. We're here for the emotions and the metaphors and for Sherlock's attempts at telling John how he feels consistently being misunderstood (which, to be fair, said attempts are extremely oblique). We're also here for Sherlock being a BAMF who very much goes over the line of 'a bit not goodness'.


Excerpt:

[John] had made the mistake of telling that story to Sherlock one night while sitting in the living room at the flat, about how people liked to drown themselves in the Helmand.

“And you know, it was ridiculous, really—sentiment, I know, you probably wouldn’t get it. People do really stupid things when they love someone, drown for them, even. Hell, if it was the villagers, sometimes even family members would watch them do it from the river bank. Sickening, really. ”

“Oh yes, fascinating, John. Your elucidations on sociological normatives are groundbreaking, really ground breaking.” Bored, per usual, but then, “Wait—they do? Why would they do that?”

“Sometimes, yes. They say that love is watching someone die, after all.”

A long pause.

“It would be beautiful,” Sherlock had said somewhat absentmindedly as he had tucked the violin back under the crook of his chin, “to watch you drown and then bring you back to life again.”

This story turns out to be rather important, as do the physics of bee flight, the space on Sherlock's hard drive, John's relationship to toast, and the difference between what is 'good', what is 'lovely', and what is 'beautiful'. Really, everything's important. I had a hard time picking an excerpt to share because you can take pretty much any section of the fic and find that it's saying something profound without being obvious about it.

The fic is rated Teen, but personally I feel like it pushes the boundary with some fairly explicit gore, strong language, and a bedroom scene. So just, you know, go in prepared. It'll be worth it.

Comments

[foxwrapped.livejournal.com]

thank you for that rec! It was incredible

[swissmarg]

Isn't it just? I probably didn't gush enough in the rec. ;)