Fic rec: Thrall, by Velvet Mace

[internetname.livejournal.com]

Title: Thrall
Author: Velvet Mace
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: Around 100,000 words in four chapters
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Nope...well, I guess there are hints at non-con, but not really.
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: Sherlock is sober, but his life is still spiraling down hill. Despite this, he has resisted the notion of ever getting a mate. The very idea of having a human balancing his life is abhorrent. As Mycroft, a case, and a new flatmate all vie for his attention, he misses the most important clue of his life: that his mate has found him.
Reccer's comments: (This is a sequel to the Mycroft/Lestrade story Mate, which you don't have to read to understand this story, but you should read if M/L is your thing.)

Imagine "A Study in Pink" told with everything pretty much the same except that Sherlock is a powerful vampire and John is one of those people suitable to be a vampire's mate, though he doesn't know it.  Here's an excerpt from near the beginning:

"Sherlock looked up, suspicious. A short man, normally of stocky build but now hiding his thinness under a loose  checked shirt and a heavy jacket, limped into the room. Soldier hair cut. Injured. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – still shedding vitality, willy-nilly like he expected his life to end any moment. Mouthwateringly eager to have some monster snatch him up and steal away his blood, take him to the brink.

"Sherlock let out a breath. Mystery solved. Just a twitchy ex-soldier. For a second he'd been worried the man might be a mate or something."

Very fun and super hot like only Velvet Mace can make it!

Comments

[the-hobbet.livejournal.com]

For those of us who don't like to read fics on livejournal unless we have to, Thrall is also on AO3, here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/323493/chapters/520908)

Thanks for the rec. It looks yummy.

[internetname.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the alt. :-)

[haikitteh.livejournal.com]

I've had this in my calibre library for ages, and never cracked it open. Your rec might push me to finally read it!

[internetname.livejournal.com]

I'm not usually big on vampire stories, but this one gets the nod, big time.

[swissmarg]

Is there a major part I am missing? It is only 39,000 words on the LJ link you've given, and 40,000 on the AO3 link. I would of course love to see an additional 60,000 words of this!

[internetname.livejournal.com]

Alas, no, I'm just a wanker who made a typo. :-( The two stories together (with Mate) are around that, if it's any consolation.

[swissmarg]

Ah okay, right. I've read both already then. :)

[internetname.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you've read everything. ;-)

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

This story along with the Mystrade story that precedes it are just incredible. I'm always very suspicious of vampire/werewolf/wing/omega or what have you, but this story is among the best because it uses the vampire aspect to enrich the existing characterizations. I loved it!

thanks for the rec!

[internetname.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked it. I think what makes it work so well is Sherlock's arrogance as a vampire matches so well with his (BBC canon) arrogance as a genius. John can't help being a mortal any more than he can help being an idiot, so Sherlock values the things John can be and the strength of his choices.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Yes! And the vampire mythos is very well fleshed out but not too heavy handed -- even while it explains so much about Mycroft and Sherlock. :)

[internetname.livejournal.com]

There's something so sad about the BBC version of Sherlock and Mycroft, and maybe that's why there's so many incest stories out there (and everyone's entitled to their own thing, but that's a major squick for me, so I haven't read any of them so maybe I'm talking out of my bottom). People want to know that back story, want to know why there's so much dislike there. We know from the episodes that Sherlock hates that Mycroft treats him like a child and tries to control, spy on, and manipulate him, but we don't really know how Mycroft feels. Does he actually care about Sherlock or just worry about the trouble his brother will cause?

This AU, the part that kills me, is when Mycroft is talk about how Sherlock was fading away. You can feel there the loneliness that Mycroft was facing, watching as Sherlock tried to turn himself into a brain in a jar. There's that same "brain in a jar" attitude in the BBC version, this idea that when we first meet Sherlock he's been actively trying to turn himself into a non-human, a thinking machine with legs. So in this AU, he is, in fact, not human, but he's just as bad at accepting himself as a vampire.