Fic Rec: The Magnificent Division, by gardnerhill

[vulgarweed]

Title: The Magnificent Division
Author: gardnerhill
Pairing: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Length: 9,186
Rating: Teen
Verse: BBC + Elementary, also crossover with Cabin Pressure and a stealth Doctor Who nod
Author's summary:If you want something talked about, get a man. If you want something done, get a woman.

Reccer's comments: Lestrade doesn’t know where to turn when his partner Mycroft Holmes is kidnapped and Sherlock is under house arrest - until a very steely and competent Mrs. Hudson hooks him up with well, a monstrous regiment of women, all with terrifying personal skill sets (and who have a special and hilarious method of subduing male opponents). Well, females: not all the members of this brilliant strike team are human, technically. There’s an American doctor, a charter plane owner, a team leader who drives like James Bond, a tough police officer who works for a mysterious black-ops agency, a cadaver expert, a ruler among her own species (and her followers too),and a not-really-dead assassin and mom.

This is a cracking good adventure tale, fast-paced and thrilling and very funny, and with a lot of wise things to say about women, emotional labor, and ways of devaluing and underestimating women’s strengths both subtle and obvious.

Lestrade gets his Mycroft back alive and he also learns some valuable lessons from his experience as the secondary character in someone else’s action story.

The story focuses mostly on the rescue mission and the teamwork - but the little emotional sting between two women and a child at the end still burns a bit when the tale is done.

Excerpt: Martha Hudson hugged Greg as he got up to go. “He’s a reptile. But he’s your reptile. We’ll find him.”

Mycroft had once called him a goldfish. Goldfish, reptile – they were a proper menagerie weren’t they?

Greg realised that he was actually exhausted enough to sleep properly now. He pondered the whirl the night had been as he gave the cabbie the address and sat back. Six of them all together – seven if you counted the Queen. And his job in the team of commandos was to make the sandwiches and worry about his missing lover.

He smiled a little. So this is what it feels like to be The Girl in an action film.

Comments

[scfrankles]

Seconding like mad ^___^

It's all great but a particular mention for that 'special and hilarious method of subduing male opponents' ^___^

[ancientreader]

I could have sworn I commented to second this rec, but I see I shall have to content myself with thirding. The word "romp" springs to mind (with of course the sting you mention), and the political point is so sharp -- gardnerhill has outdone herself here.