Fic Rec: Electric Pink Hand Grenade
Title: Electric Pink Hand Grenade
Author: truths_in_lies /
BeautifulFiction
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 67,787 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: "If Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, then these attacks are an electro-magnetic pulse." Sherlock Holmes does not do anything by half, not even a migraine.
Reccer's comments: This is a gorgeous hurt/comfort fic, which can basically be summed up as: Sherlock has the mother of all migraines. John helps him through it.
One of the most fascinating things about this fic is the view we have inside Sherlock's head throughout the course of the migraine. In the initial stages, he suffers from synaesthesia, a phenomenon in which visual input may be perceived as sound, or auditory input as colour, for example. This makes for spectacular imagery, as when John is administering a medication intravenously:
A twitch of his finger was enough to bring on the whispering symphony of John's movements, and he listened to the umber and vermilion tones of John's sunset voice, trying not to flinch as pain ricocheted up his right arm from the gentle tap of John's fingertips raising a vein. He tried to squeeze his hand into a fist to assist, but his knuckles grated against one another: ruination and strife. At last he could only lie still, waiting for the quick flick of a needle diving in to the yield of his flesh.
The drug whirled through his bloodstream, a chaotic internal rush of sanguine smoke, filling up his empty spaces with haze. His pain did not go, it never did, but the edge eased from the panicky, anxious alarm that filled him, allowing him to observe the chaos of his mind palace with a detached eye.
To say it was a mess was to miss an opportunity for other, better words: Disaster and cataclysm in shades of cerise filled his skull, staining the scatter of facts and knowledge with putrid tones of rot and maleficence. The walls were tumbledown, overgrown as if a century had passed. His metaphor literal in the caverns of his head.
There is quite a lot of medspeak and medical procedures (non-invasive, other than occasional blood draws and injections), but not so much that I, as a layperson, felt alienated. There is a modicum of mystery as John and the other doctors try to discover what is causing Sherlock's symptoms, but it's not really the point of the story. It's all about the relationship between John and Sherlock, and to a lesser extent that between Sherlock and Mycroft, who plays a significant role as well. Over the several days that the migraine lasts, each man in turn reassesses his preconceived notions both about himself, and about the others, and the concommitant shift in dynamics is delicate and expertly orchestrated by the author. The question is, when the illness recedes, what will remain of the fragile connections that have been made?
Author: truths_in_lies /
BeautifulFiction
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 67,787 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: "If Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, then these attacks are an electro-magnetic pulse." Sherlock Holmes does not do anything by half, not even a migraine.
Reccer's comments: This is a gorgeous hurt/comfort fic, which can basically be summed up as: Sherlock has the mother of all migraines. John helps him through it.
One of the most fascinating things about this fic is the view we have inside Sherlock's head throughout the course of the migraine. In the initial stages, he suffers from synaesthesia, a phenomenon in which visual input may be perceived as sound, or auditory input as colour, for example. This makes for spectacular imagery, as when John is administering a medication intravenously:
A twitch of his finger was enough to bring on the whispering symphony of John's movements, and he listened to the umber and vermilion tones of John's sunset voice, trying not to flinch as pain ricocheted up his right arm from the gentle tap of John's fingertips raising a vein. He tried to squeeze his hand into a fist to assist, but his knuckles grated against one another: ruination and strife. At last he could only lie still, waiting for the quick flick of a needle diving in to the yield of his flesh.
The drug whirled through his bloodstream, a chaotic internal rush of sanguine smoke, filling up his empty spaces with haze. His pain did not go, it never did, but the edge eased from the panicky, anxious alarm that filled him, allowing him to observe the chaos of his mind palace with a detached eye.
To say it was a mess was to miss an opportunity for other, better words: Disaster and cataclysm in shades of cerise filled his skull, staining the scatter of facts and knowledge with putrid tones of rot and maleficence. The walls were tumbledown, overgrown as if a century had passed. His metaphor literal in the caverns of his head.
There is quite a lot of medspeak and medical procedures (non-invasive, other than occasional blood draws and injections), but not so much that I, as a layperson, felt alienated. There is a modicum of mystery as John and the other doctors try to discover what is causing Sherlock's symptoms, but it's not really the point of the story. It's all about the relationship between John and Sherlock, and to a lesser extent that between Sherlock and Mycroft, who plays a significant role as well. Over the several days that the migraine lasts, each man in turn reassesses his preconceived notions both about himself, and about the others, and the concommitant shift in dynamics is delicate and expertly orchestrated by the author. The question is, when the illness recedes, what will remain of the fragile connections that have been made?