Fic Rec: Synonymous Angels
Title: Synonymous Angels
Author: Aderyn
Pairing: Gen or Sherlock/John (author lists as both)
Length: 2,119
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: He’s on the side of the angels…and they’re on his.
Reccer's comments: Aderyn long has been one of my favorite authors in the fandom. Her spare style leans heavily towards prose poetry; striking imagery and blurring the lines between dreams and reality, the natural and supernatural, frequently charge her work with tension even when the surface appears placid. For example, in this work, no overtly dramatic event takes place, no actual reunion between Sherlock and John, or revelation that Sherlock lives. Still, the passing of time brings tension, as Sherlock's return draws closer.
Aderyn excels at the depiction of mourning, John's main activity in this work, usually pairing it with healing, or at least hope. Winter (grief) followed by the promise of resurrection of growing things in spring is evoked near the end by the OFC Eleri in a graveyard conversation with John that he later echoes in a question for the stone angel, suggesting that Sherlock will return as tangibly as the plants now lying beneath the ground:
“I can see you’re suffering.”
“I’m not…”
She lets a hand drop to his shoulder, stands up, glances at their mournful companion.
“What’s that?” she says.
“What’s what?”
Up at the trees, down at the earth.
A rook settling in. A crow.
“You hear it?”
“No.”
“Must just be the sound of things, you know, waiting to come up again. Plants and such. My mum used to say they had a sound.”
“I don't …”
“Listen,” she says, tugs her coat around her.
Waves at him as she goes.
*
“What things have you got growing here?” John says to his angel.
That I haven’t heard. That I haven’t seen.
Communication is the other primary activity in this one-shot: directly between Mycroft and Sherlock (but we only hear Mycroft's words), John with the gravestones (including the angel), John with Sherlock (but only in John's dream), Molly and Eleri with John. Plenty of nonverbal communication occurs too, primarily through the gifting of flowers and the calls of the birds. Nor does the mourning angel statue in the cemetery speak to John directly, but John does speak to her and one has a sense of a healing presence, embodied by two human women: Molly and Eleri, one of the Homeless Network (or is she one of Mycroft's? that happily is left ambiguous, for the reader to decide). These women, the synonymous angels, are John's quiet guardians, helping him with the work of grieving without abandoning their own work.
Author: Aderyn
Pairing: Gen or Sherlock/John (author lists as both)
Length: 2,119
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: He’s on the side of the angels…and they’re on his.
Reccer's comments: Aderyn long has been one of my favorite authors in the fandom. Her spare style leans heavily towards prose poetry; striking imagery and blurring the lines between dreams and reality, the natural and supernatural, frequently charge her work with tension even when the surface appears placid. For example, in this work, no overtly dramatic event takes place, no actual reunion between Sherlock and John, or revelation that Sherlock lives. Still, the passing of time brings tension, as Sherlock's return draws closer.
Aderyn excels at the depiction of mourning, John's main activity in this work, usually pairing it with healing, or at least hope. Winter (grief) followed by the promise of resurrection of growing things in spring is evoked near the end by the OFC Eleri in a graveyard conversation with John that he later echoes in a question for the stone angel, suggesting that Sherlock will return as tangibly as the plants now lying beneath the ground:
“I can see you’re suffering.”
“I’m not…”
She lets a hand drop to his shoulder, stands up, glances at their mournful companion.
“What’s that?” she says.
“What’s what?”
Up at the trees, down at the earth.
A rook settling in. A crow.
“You hear it?”
“No.”
“Must just be the sound of things, you know, waiting to come up again. Plants and such. My mum used to say they had a sound.”
“I don't …”
“Listen,” she says, tugs her coat around her.
Waves at him as she goes.
*
“What things have you got growing here?” John says to his angel.
That I haven’t heard. That I haven’t seen.
Communication is the other primary activity in this one-shot: directly between Mycroft and Sherlock (but we only hear Mycroft's words), John with the gravestones (including the angel), John with Sherlock (but only in John's dream), Molly and Eleri with John. Plenty of nonverbal communication occurs too, primarily through the gifting of flowers and the calls of the birds. Nor does the mourning angel statue in the cemetery speak to John directly, but John does speak to her and one has a sense of a healing presence, embodied by two human women: Molly and Eleri, one of the Homeless Network (or is she one of Mycroft's? that happily is left ambiguous, for the reader to decide). These women, the synonymous angels, are John's quiet guardians, helping him with the work of grieving without abandoning their own work.