221b_recs | Fic Rec: A Secret About A Secret (Reply)

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:

When he finally forces himself into the kitchen there's a piece of string stretching from the window to the handle of one of the cupboards; there are small rectangles of paper held on with pegs from the washing line they don't have, and as John draws closer they resolve themselves into shapes, into white that is more than just a blank page.

Pictures of snow, John realises. Different angles, different distances; some are just the snow, flat or with indentations, here a footprint, there a handprint — others with objects; the hand itself, sticks, stones. One has a ruler stuck into the snow, 10cm just visible above it. There are trays in the sink that smell faintly of chemicals.

John has questions, when and why — though he suspects a morning with Sherlock damp-haired and fired up, vials in hand, is the root of this — and a nagging feeling that the camera borrowed from the police was digital and not film, which brings up questions of provenance, and then he looks along the line to the pictures at the very end and finds those thoughts entirely lost to others.

These are different, just a little; here there are no extraneous objects, seemingly no scientific purpose — just a window glazed with ice, sunlight fracturing outwards, and a building half-drowned in snow. There are icicles along the windowsills and the points shimmer with evening light. Sherlock had obviously walked along the Embankment — the last one is the London Eye, half in focus and dappled with foregrounded snowflakes. It's like an afterthought caught on camera.

John reaches a hand out as though to touch — doesn't — doesn't know if it's safe yet. He looks instead, tries to find the reason in them, tries to find the data, but...it must be there, he thinks, there must be something. With Sherlock there's always something.