Fic rec: That Tired Old Metaphor, Alchemy
Title: That Tired Old Metaphor, Alchemy
Author: anactoria
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 10,163
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none needed by comm rules
Verse: BBC Sherlock
Author's summary: I want this, all of it. I want to dissect you and know all of you; I want to caress the dark and ugly parts just like the red muscle of your heart; I’ll hold them in my hands and wonder at them, because they are so much rarer than mundane goodness. So much more interesting, and that’s why you can’t let anyone else have them, only me.
Reccer's comments: This is recently posted, and very lovely. It immediately became one of my favourite BDSM fics in the fandom. It’s based around quite a familiar trope - the idea that sub!Sherlock likes pain/submission because it makes his mind go quiet - but where lighter fics use that as an endpoint, it’s really just the starting point for anactoria’s deep-sea dive into the subject. The whole story is Sherlock POV (the narration beautifully taut and in-character), and takes us through an intense real-time bloodplay scene which is punctuated with flashbacks that cumulatively show how John and Sherlock’s relationship developed through caution and misunderstanding into something so mutually vital. Throughout, Sherlock is both obviously compelled by need and also his unstinting, caustic self.
Without warning, John’s fingers curl in his hair, and John uses it to yank his head back, making him gasp and blink against an answering sting in his eyes.
“Up,” John says, and tugs again.
Hands still clasped behind his back, Sherlock stumbles to his feet. His scalp sings with pain, but John’s hands are an anchor as well as a torment, and he’s unsure whether to lean back into them or to pull away.
(He is never unsure.)
(He is becoming unlike himself. His pulse quickens.)
Something bright and metallic, then, seen from the corner of his eye. Malign gleam, suggestive like bared teeth. A knife. In John’s hand. How did he miss-
But then that’s not important, because the flat of the blade is pressed against his cheek and John’s voice is in his ear, edging lower and darker as he orders, “Bedroom. Now.”
Sherlock falters briefly in the doorway, breath catching in his throat, the first hint of real apprehension curling low in his gut. (Cock twitching.) John has stripped the bedcovers and laid out towels, instead. On the bedside table: rubbing alcohol, antiseptic wipes, latex gloves. Surgical scalpel. Sherlock trembles at the curl of John’s free hand around his bicep.
He is going to bleed.
He keeps his eyes down, his face forward; resists the impulse to turn and press his nose into John’s hair and murmur, thank you. John might not like that, might change his mind and find some other, less perfect way to punish him. And that would be unbearable.
No doubt there are simpler ways of changing the world, for people (idiots) who experience it in simpler ways.
Not for him. Not for them.
Author: anactoria
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 10,163
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none needed by comm rules
Verse: BBC Sherlock
Author's summary: I want this, all of it. I want to dissect you and know all of you; I want to caress the dark and ugly parts just like the red muscle of your heart; I’ll hold them in my hands and wonder at them, because they are so much rarer than mundane goodness. So much more interesting, and that’s why you can’t let anyone else have them, only me.
Reccer's comments: This is recently posted, and very lovely. It immediately became one of my favourite BDSM fics in the fandom. It’s based around quite a familiar trope - the idea that sub!Sherlock likes pain/submission because it makes his mind go quiet - but where lighter fics use that as an endpoint, it’s really just the starting point for anactoria’s deep-sea dive into the subject. The whole story is Sherlock POV (the narration beautifully taut and in-character), and takes us through an intense real-time bloodplay scene which is punctuated with flashbacks that cumulatively show how John and Sherlock’s relationship developed through caution and misunderstanding into something so mutually vital. Throughout, Sherlock is both obviously compelled by need and also his unstinting, caustic self.
Without warning, John’s fingers curl in his hair, and John uses it to yank his head back, making him gasp and blink against an answering sting in his eyes.
“Up,” John says, and tugs again.
Hands still clasped behind his back, Sherlock stumbles to his feet. His scalp sings with pain, but John’s hands are an anchor as well as a torment, and he’s unsure whether to lean back into them or to pull away.
(He is never unsure.)
(He is becoming unlike himself. His pulse quickens.)
Something bright and metallic, then, seen from the corner of his eye. Malign gleam, suggestive like bared teeth. A knife. In John’s hand. How did he miss-
But then that’s not important, because the flat of the blade is pressed against his cheek and John’s voice is in his ear, edging lower and darker as he orders, “Bedroom. Now.”
Sherlock falters briefly in the doorway, breath catching in his throat, the first hint of real apprehension curling low in his gut. (Cock twitching.) John has stripped the bedcovers and laid out towels, instead. On the bedside table: rubbing alcohol, antiseptic wipes, latex gloves. Surgical scalpel. Sherlock trembles at the curl of John’s free hand around his bicep.
He is going to bleed.
He keeps his eyes down, his face forward; resists the impulse to turn and press his nose into John’s hair and murmur, thank you. John might not like that, might change his mind and find some other, less perfect way to punish him. And that would be unbearable.
No doubt there are simpler ways of changing the world, for people (idiots) who experience it in simpler ways.
Not for him. Not for them.