Fic Rec: Ulysses and other tales

[opaljade.livejournal.com]

Title: Ulysses and other tales
Author: Moranion
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 6317
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: Sherlock Holmes thinks he knows the world, but the journey is long, the years pass and John Watson will always be a riddle.

Reccer's comments: Wonderfully written (great Sherlock pov), smart, and with outstanding characterization, but it's really the many subtle touching moments--not only between Sherlock and John, but also between Sherlock and Mycroft--that made this story special for me. The timeline skips forward quickly but is quite effective in creating character depth and highlighting the milestones of Sherlock's emotional/sexual journey of self-discovery.

Ulysses and Other Tales is one of those unique stories that touches the heart. It was so enjoyable that I hated for it to end!

excerpt:

"Oh." John exhales. "Oh, fuck. Sherlock ..." But he doesn't finish the sentence, dropping his head down instead and grabbing his hair with both hands.

Sherlock waits. He forces his legs to remain still. (give him some time. hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron carbon nitrogen oxygen fluorine neon sodium magnesium aluminium silicon and then)

"I need some air," John says, voice strangely hoarse. "I'll ... be back. In a few."

He isn't back in a few.

Sherlock absolutely refuses to make any fuss about it. His experiments need tending to.

Fic rec: That Tired Old Metaphor, Alchemy

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

Title: That Tired Old Metaphor, Alchemy
Author: anactoria
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 10,163
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none needed by comm rules
Verse: BBC Sherlock

Author's summary: I want this, all of it. I want to dissect you and know all of you; I want to caress the dark and ugly parts just like the red muscle of your heart; I’ll hold them in my hands and wonder at them, because they are so much rarer than mundane goodness. So much more interesting, and that’s why you can’t let anyone else have them, only me.

Reccer's comments: This is recently posted, and very lovely. It immediately became one of my favourite BDSM fics in the fandom. It’s based around quite a familiar trope – the idea that sub!Sherlock likes pain/submission because it makes his mind go quiet – but where lighter fics use that as an endpoint, it’s really just the starting point for anactoria’s deep-sea dive into the subject. The whole story is Sherlock POV (the narration beautifully taut and in-character), and takes us through an intense real-time bloodplay scene which is punctuated with flashbacks that cumulatively show how John and Sherlock’s relationship developed through caution and misunderstanding into something so mutually vital. Throughout, Sherlock is both obviously compelled by need and also his unstinting, caustic self.

( Excerpt )