Fic Rec: the grand tour of Europe
Apr. 7th, 2014 04:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rachelindeed.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
221b_recsTitle: the grand tour of Europe
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
falling_voices
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 6,500 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: In the afternoon of May 20th, 2015, Sherlock Holmes starts down the steps of the British Museum and walks neatly into the arms of a dead man. Reversed!Reichenbach, based off of the ACD!canon storyline — no spoilers for S2.
Reccer's comments: I find this story haunting and beautiful and odd. It feels like it should be exactly those things, because it's really a story about Sherlock grieving, and his grief is as unique and extraordinary as he is. He finds his emotional burden both tiresome and seductive; his ways of remembering John are sensual and abstract at the same time -- the smell of smoke, the trajectory of injury, the light of a magic lantern set spinning in his mind.
This is a story that has stayed with me.
Excerpt:
Three days after the memorial service, coming home damp and trembling from a hot, feverish summer shower, Sherlock made a systematic hunt for everything left of John in the flat. He picked out every item of laundry, stripped the bedsheets, gathered the books, laptop, shoes, journals, Army uniform, Army medals, Army photos, phone, sketchbook, three pens, two lamps, jacket, toothbrush, reading glasses, jumpers thrown over the back of John's chair like afterthoughts from before Switzerland, forgotten in the packing. Carried it all down to the fireplace in 221C and made a bonfire.
(It was that or drawing chalk imprints around each and every one of them, Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D, the entire flat a crime scene of its own, what an engaging thought. John's body present in absentia. It would be nice. This was nicer.)
He had thought sometimes it would be interesting, would be very lovely, to burn the house down to its foundations — hear it crackle and spit in red luxury. But the aftermath would be tedious. It would be an inconvenience to find proper lodgings again. So he stayed, to make sure the fire did not spread. He stood against the door, hands pocketed, watching.
Fire was interesting. This was another experiment — he had designed a chemical accelerant to purge away the smoke excess, and his assessment of its outcome tugged gently at his heartstrings; but this time there was nothing entirely cleansing about the process, about watching the grinning figures in John's pictures shrivel and tear, the wires and connections in John's laptop crackle and sizzle as the welding melted. 221C filled with smoke, smelling sweet.
It would seep into the walls, into the cracks of the parquet. Smoke, everywhere. It was a futilely romanticized notion, he thought, but on the days when boredom gnawed at his brain cells, he would come down. The rooms would smell like John.
Author:
falling_voicesPairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 6,500 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: In the afternoon of May 20th, 2015, Sherlock Holmes starts down the steps of the British Museum and walks neatly into the arms of a dead man. Reversed!Reichenbach, based off of the ACD!canon storyline — no spoilers for S2.
Reccer's comments: I find this story haunting and beautiful and odd. It feels like it should be exactly those things, because it's really a story about Sherlock grieving, and his grief is as unique and extraordinary as he is. He finds his emotional burden both tiresome and seductive; his ways of remembering John are sensual and abstract at the same time -- the smell of smoke, the trajectory of injury, the light of a magic lantern set spinning in his mind.
This is a story that has stayed with me.
Excerpt:
Three days after the memorial service, coming home damp and trembling from a hot, feverish summer shower, Sherlock made a systematic hunt for everything left of John in the flat. He picked out every item of laundry, stripped the bedsheets, gathered the books, laptop, shoes, journals, Army uniform, Army medals, Army photos, phone, sketchbook, three pens, two lamps, jacket, toothbrush, reading glasses, jumpers thrown over the back of John's chair like afterthoughts from before Switzerland, forgotten in the packing. Carried it all down to the fireplace in 221C and made a bonfire.
(It was that or drawing chalk imprints around each and every one of them, Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D, the entire flat a crime scene of its own, what an engaging thought. John's body present in absentia. It would be nice. This was nicer.)
He had thought sometimes it would be interesting, would be very lovely, to burn the house down to its foundations — hear it crackle and spit in red luxury. But the aftermath would be tedious. It would be an inconvenience to find proper lodgings again. So he stayed, to make sure the fire did not spread. He stood against the door, hands pocketed, watching.
Fire was interesting. This was another experiment — he had designed a chemical accelerant to purge away the smoke excess, and his assessment of its outcome tugged gently at his heartstrings; but this time there was nothing entirely cleansing about the process, about watching the grinning figures in John's pictures shrivel and tear, the wires and connections in John's laptop crackle and sizzle as the welding melted. 221C filled with smoke, smelling sweet.
It would seep into the walls, into the cracks of the parquet. Smoke, everywhere. It was a futilely romanticized notion, he thought, but on the days when boredom gnawed at his brain cells, he would come down. The rooms would smell like John.
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