Fic Rec: A Shipless Ocean

[pipmer1.livejournal.com]

Title: A Shipless Ocean
Author: myswordfishmind
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 22135
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: Ten years after the fall, Sherlock goes back to London to find that John no longer lives there. Instead he resides in a seaside town, a widower, and the father of a seven year old son. Now, Sherlock must struggle with the fact that there may no longer be a place for him in this new world.


Reccer's comments: This is a very lovely look at the slow build-up of Sherlock and John's relationship after Sherlock's return.  Ten years is a long gap to have between the Fall and the Return, but it's necessary in order to establish the circumstances John finds himself in.  He is a single father with a seven year old son, Samson.  I fell in love with Samson the moment we are introduced to him, which happens when Sherlock shows up late one night and scares John half to death.  Thinking his father is being threatened, Samson throws his small body between the two in at attempt at protection.  It is touchingly endearing.  John invites Sherlock into their life, allowing him to slowly create a place for himself within their small family,  Evenings at dinner and days at the beach allow Sherlock to grow close to Samson and to reacquaint himself with his best friend.

 A little side plot that both warmed me and saddened me is when Sherlock visits London to reveal himself to others, and all those others - including Mycroft - give him a hug as soon as they see him.  And yet, even after several weeks, John still hasn't allowed himself to make even that small gesture.  His caring is evident in other ways, though, and the physical intimacy does happen eventually, culminating in a very tender love scene that brought tears to my eyes.

“Leave my dad alone!” The child shouts with a volume and vehemence that shocks even Sherlock, who stares at the small boy, at his familiar and unfamiliar features, at the pure anger and fear, and feels, in a place inside himself so deep underwater that the light never reaches, a feeling of sudden despair. All his life, he has never fit in anywhere, and he would be completely truthful in saying he had never cared. He had observed the machinations and dances of the people around him with detached disdain, wondering how they so blindly let themselves open to social situation which are so obviously, nonsensically without true benefit, simply to temporarily patch up their feelings of loneliness. He had never wanted for that, and had never imagined he would sacrifice so much for any group of people, and yet he, of all people, had spent the last ten years doing exactly that. He, Sherlock Holmes, he thought incredulously, had given up his life to assure the life and happiness of friends. But as the saying goes,

No good deed goes unpunished,

And the truth is that the very people he had fought to protect did not need him, and had formed their own lives, and had found new people to protect, and to be protected by, and Sherlock, who had foolishly assumed otherwise,

is alone.