Fic Rec: A Secret About A Secret

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Title: A Secret About a Secret
Author: sciosophia
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 3,200 words
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: Sherlock is too far over the line into scientific, into precise and deductive, too results-oriented. There isn't enough data for him in pretty pictures.

Reccer's comments: This is a delicately-written, lovely story in which Sherlock steals a camera and John finds himself wondering whether Sherlock has any interest in creating art for its own sake. He sees so much creativity, such flashes of artistry in Sherlock, but he can’t quite believe his friend would care about something as purposeless as the colors of sunrise. The story is a perfect one for December, because it is deliciously wintery; it literally centers itself around a striking photograph of the London Eye in the snow. Also, I like the way the story understates its romance, ending with sparse, beautiful images that – like a silhouette – show us the shape but not the detail of John and Sherlock’s new understanding.

There is a passage in the original Arthur Conan Doyle story “The Naval Treaty” in which Sherlock Holmes contemplates a flower, and comments that no one needs beauty to survive, it is an embellishment of life rather than a condition of it. “Only goodness gives extras,” he concludes, and beauty becomes for him a hopeful sign that life may carry a deeper meaning than pure reason can reach. To me, this story feels like a perfect modernization of that moment, though I have no idea if the author intended it that way.
( Excerpt )

Fic Rec: The Science of Forward Momentum

[dioscureantwins.livejournal.com]

Title: The Science of Forward Momentum
Author: thisprettywren
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length:3,800 words
Rating:PG13
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC,
Author's summary:Sherlock understands the impossibility of second chances.

Reccer's comments:thisprettywren is a master at writing blood-curdling fics that you just have to keep reading, even though you know full well it would be so much wiser to stop and go do something nice like tend the garden or something.
Her best horror-stories are reminiscent of the best work of the great Edgar Allen Poe himself. She loves playing with boundaries, testing to see whether her protagonists will manage to stay upright or topple over the edge, straight into the abyss. In her stories she is not only fucking with the minds of the protagonists but also with that of the reader.
I love it!
This is actually one of the gentler fics. Still, it floored me. And then it had me panting for more...