Fic Rec: Ridiculous

[butterflyweb.livejournal.com]

Title: Ridiculous
Author: professorfangirl (lizeckhart)
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 6256
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: A fic for Red Pants Monday (all hail reapersun!), but not as playful a "red pants" fic. More of a "BAMF!John overcomes the indignity of the red pants with a little stylish asskicking and then gets well and thoroughly laid" fic.

Reccer's comments: Oh where to begin. I seem to have a weakness for a fantastic John characterization, maybe because I have a much firmer idea of who I want him to be in fic and so when I get what I'm looking for I'm over the moon. That said--this fic. professorfangirl takes the Red Pants trope, which has never really appealed to me one way or another, and turns it on its head from most other incarnations I've seen and into sheer amazingness. From John's indignation about his height to his masculine pride to Sherlock's typical dismissal of both, the author is perfectly on point. And oh yes, did I mention the lovely banter and the gorgeous sex? I didn't? How silly of me.

John was a bit surprised at the depth of his self-consciousness when people like Angelo assumed he and Sherlock were lovers. He didn't consider himself homophobic, but he’d kept his gay trysts secret; he shrugged off this contradiction by telling himself that it was necessary in the army, and more than he wanted to deal with in a hospital. It didn’t really touch his masculine pride, it just made him feel misperceived. As time went on he gave up trying to convince people he wasn’t gay, in part because it was hopeless, but also because he came to see that it truly didn’t matter; no one ridiculed them one way or another, and John’s qualms looked foolish in retrospect. It was fine.

Until it wasn’t. Until Sherlock wanted to take advantage of the assumption, to use it for his own ends in a case, in a gay nightclub on the Strand. “Young men are being murdered, John,” he said. “Besides, it might be fun.”

“You have a truly fucked idea of fun, then. But all right, I’ll be your prop. Just don’t expect any bloody method acting.” This earned one of Sherlock’s rare, distracted smiles.

“Good. Now here, you’ll need to dress the part.” He burrowed into a bag from Harvey Nichols and tossed a pair of jeans at John. John smiled at the brand name.

“True Religion. I didn’t know you were a man of faith.” Sherlock rolled his eyes without turning from his keyboard.

John held the jeans to his hips skeptically. “A bit low-cut, aren’t they?”

“They need to be, to show off these.” Sherlock pitched without looking; John caught without moving.

“Oh, you have got to be taking the piss. There is no way I’m wearing these.”

The pants were well-made, to be sure, probably more expensive than the shirt John wore, but they were also bright scarlet with white trim. John
looked at the logo stitched into the waistband. “Since when did Armani start making clown pants?”

Comments

[swissmarg]

That was wonderful, thank you for the rec.

[butterflyweb.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it too :D

Holy crap!

[liz eckhart (from livejournal.com)]

A 221_B Recs rec! Wow. I'm soooo flattered. Especially considering it's a story I've kind of discounted in my own head; as you say, the "Red Pants" trope isn't that great for me, so I wanted to do something different with it. The fact that you picked up on this aspect makes me really pleased. Thank you so much!