FIC REC: All Those Things I Told Myself To Forget (and to make it through)

[bluebrocade.livejournal.com]

Title: All Those Things I Told Myself To Forget (and to make it through)
Author: momotastic
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 42k words
Rating: Explicit
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: After over a year of not talking to each other John did not expect to meet Sherlock in that pub. In fact, if he'd known that Sherlock would be there, he wouldn't have gone inside in the first place.

Reccer's comments: My favorite kind of fic is long and angsty with a happy ending. I love to be absolutely torn apart, sobbing and then have everything work out in the end. This fic (newly published a couple of weeks ago) is a great example of the genre. John and Sherlock haven't seen each other for over a year--not since That Day when Sherlock broke his heart in the coldest, cruelest way possible.

After 16 months apart, John runs into Sherlock unexpectedly. Sherlock seems to want to go back to their old existence--some form of it, at least--and starts asking John to help him on cases. But John wants nothing to do with Sherlock. Or rather, he wants to want nothing to do with Sherlock. Unfortunately, he's still in love with Sherlock and still helplessly drawn to the lifestyle Sherlock provided. The fic is non-linear and as Sherlock & John reconnect in the present, we slowly learn how they came together and what happened to tear them apart in the past. It's a fantastic journey, that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

Fic Rec: Ellipsis, or Sherlock in Love

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

Title: Ellipsis, or Sherlock in Love
Author: aderyn8
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 2,252
Rating: NR (PG?)
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: What would it be like if you *were*, not as people think you are (virgin and confirmed bachelor) but as you *are*, if you were, if you were to say you believed in it?

“This is written like a *love story*,” John says, reading the latest about them in the Sun.

It’s difficult, believing in the unseen.

But sooner or later, one of them is going to say it.

Reccer's comments: The (rhythmic, emotional) tension of (not) saying, masterfully handled. Allowing the reader, like Sherlock and John to "mind the gaps", to learn the beauty of spaces, voids, fissures and cracks, bridged by silence, by the intangible. An insightful and sensitive exploration of John and Sherlock's bond. Why are you waiting for me to fill this space further?

Excerpt: There are explosions. There are explosions that don’t happen. There is a Woman who points out that Sherlock believes in a higher power. (Before she drugs and beats him.)

“I love you,” Sherlock mutters. The light is very low in the bedroom because John has left the door to the passageway open only a crack. He can barely read the elements on the wall.

What?

“Love you,” says Sherlock, muffled, from the bed.

Right. It’s standard, mumbling one’s indefinites and maybes and nots while drugged, dehydrated, mostly asleep.

There might be some doubt at this point, anyway, as to the antecedent. Of the pronoun you.

“John?” Sherlock says.

Well.