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Fic Rec: Human for a While, by fengirl88
Mar. 23rd, 2016 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ancientreaderTitle: Human for a While
Author: fengirl88
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 12,375
Rating: M/R
Verse: BBC Sherlock
Author's summary: Written for this anonymous prompt on sherlockbbcfic:
John/Selkie!Sherlock
John comes home from a trip to the seaside with a pale-eyed young man in tow. Sherlock is tall, brilliant, and strangely sad, and seems incapable of leaving John's side. One day John brings a seal skin to Harry's house and makes her promise to hide it, and that she will never, ever tell Sherlock where it is.
Reccer's comments: This seems to be magical realism month in my brain. Anyway, this fic. I hardly even know what to say about it. Sherlock's a selkie, a seal-being who can shed his skin and live on land, among people, for a while. He's the love of John's lonely, heartsick post-Afghanistan life, and of course John betrays him, stealing and hiding his seal!skin -- which is not much of a spoiler, as it happens in the first chapter.
It transpires that great love can heal betrayal. And we know how huge Sherlock's heart is, right? Poignant, sexy, beautifully written, this is one of my favorite fics by a brilliant writer.
Excerpt:
“Promise me you'll never tell anyone,” he said. “And especially not Sherlock.”
“Jesus, John, what is this?” [Harry asked.]
“It's his,” he said. “He mustn't find it. Promise me.”
She lifted a corner of the velvet, touched the smooth pelt that lay heavy in his arms.
Sealskin.
She stared at him.
“You have got to be fucking joking.”
But he wasn't, that was clear.
She'd heard the stories often enough from Hector. Used to know the Great Silkie ballad by heart. Never imagined for a moment any of the stories could be true.
“I love him,” John said desperately. “I can't let him go.”
“Oh God, John.”
She wanted to hug him, but he wouldn't want that, and the sight of that crazy bundle in his arms made her feel sick, thinking of what must surely follow.
What they both knew about the ballads and the stories, what everyone knows: the love between a selkie and a human always ends badly.
Read on the AO3.
Author: fengirl88
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 12,375
Rating: M/R
Verse: BBC Sherlock
Author's summary: Written for this anonymous prompt on sherlockbbcfic:
John/Selkie!Sherlock
John comes home from a trip to the seaside with a pale-eyed young man in tow. Sherlock is tall, brilliant, and strangely sad, and seems incapable of leaving John's side. One day John brings a seal skin to Harry's house and makes her promise to hide it, and that she will never, ever tell Sherlock where it is.
Reccer's comments: This seems to be magical realism month in my brain. Anyway, this fic. I hardly even know what to say about it. Sherlock's a selkie, a seal-being who can shed his skin and live on land, among people, for a while. He's the love of John's lonely, heartsick post-Afghanistan life, and of course John betrays him, stealing and hiding his seal!skin -- which is not much of a spoiler, as it happens in the first chapter.
It transpires that great love can heal betrayal. And we know how huge Sherlock's heart is, right? Poignant, sexy, beautifully written, this is one of my favorite fics by a brilliant writer.
Excerpt:
“Promise me you'll never tell anyone,” he said. “And especially not Sherlock.”
“Jesus, John, what is this?” [Harry asked.]
“It's his,” he said. “He mustn't find it. Promise me.”
She lifted a corner of the velvet, touched the smooth pelt that lay heavy in his arms.
Sealskin.
She stared at him.
“You have got to be fucking joking.”
But he wasn't, that was clear.
She'd heard the stories often enough from Hector. Used to know the Great Silkie ballad by heart. Never imagined for a moment any of the stories could be true.
“I love him,” John said desperately. “I can't let him go.”
“Oh God, John.”
She wanted to hug him, but he wouldn't want that, and the sight of that crazy bundle in his arms made her feel sick, thinking of what must surely follow.
What they both knew about the ballads and the stories, what everyone knows: the love between a selkie and a human always ends badly.
Read on the AO3.
