Fic Rec: The Breaking Wheel
Nov. 9th, 2016 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swissmarg posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
221b_recsTitle: The Breaking Wheel
Author: J_Baillier
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 93,259 words
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None
Verse: BBC
Author's summary: His immune system is decimating his nervous system - a civil war raging inside of him. Is there a reaction he's supposed to be having to this news, now? Something normal: cry, scream, pound the wall? Shake his fist at the uncaring universe? John can't stop this. An uncomfortable bed at some hospital ward isn't going to stop this. They keep telling him that this will most likely pass, but no one is answering the most important question: how will he be able to endure the uncertainty and the long wait?
Reccer's comments: This is big time Sherlock whump, a brilliant sickfic that locks us inside Sherlock's head with him and his demons as his body slowly deteriorates, leaving him unable to move or speak. The medical realism in this is writ large, full of insider descriptions of medical procedures such as MRI scans, lumbar puncture, mechanical ventilation, and insertion of central lines. Basically, Sherlock is very, very sick. The meat of the story is twofold: John and Sherlock's relationship, and how Sherlock deals with being essentially reduced to nothing but a brain for weeks on end. In other words, it's full of juicy hurt/comfort, realizations, words left unspoken, flashbacks to Sherlock's childhood and various incisive incidents in his past. Oh, and Mycroft, this has a fantastic Mycroft.
I don't want to give away the ending, except to point out that there is no Major Character Death tag, and there is a sequel which will begin posting on December 1. Don't worry though, this ends in a good place. Also, about the rating: it's rated Mature although there is no smut and I actually think it could have gone with a Teen rating but there is some suicidal ideation and references to sex.
Author: J_Baillier
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 93,259 words
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None
Verse: BBC
Author's summary: His immune system is decimating his nervous system - a civil war raging inside of him. Is there a reaction he's supposed to be having to this news, now? Something normal: cry, scream, pound the wall? Shake his fist at the uncaring universe? John can't stop this. An uncomfortable bed at some hospital ward isn't going to stop this. They keep telling him that this will most likely pass, but no one is answering the most important question: how will he be able to endure the uncertainty and the long wait?
Reccer's comments: This is big time Sherlock whump, a brilliant sickfic that locks us inside Sherlock's head with him and his demons as his body slowly deteriorates, leaving him unable to move or speak. The medical realism in this is writ large, full of insider descriptions of medical procedures such as MRI scans, lumbar puncture, mechanical ventilation, and insertion of central lines. Basically, Sherlock is very, very sick. The meat of the story is twofold: John and Sherlock's relationship, and how Sherlock deals with being essentially reduced to nothing but a brain for weeks on end. In other words, it's full of juicy hurt/comfort, realizations, words left unspoken, flashbacks to Sherlock's childhood and various incisive incidents in his past. Oh, and Mycroft, this has a fantastic Mycroft.
I don't want to give away the ending, except to point out that there is no Major Character Death tag, and there is a sequel which will begin posting on December 1. Don't worry though, this ends in a good place. Also, about the rating: it's rated Mature although there is no smut and I actually think it could have gone with a Teen rating but there is some suicidal ideation and references to sex.
