Fic Rec: Push!verse series
Title: Push!verse series
Author: lindentreeisle
Pairing: Gen. John and Sherlock are the main characters; also prominently features Mycroft, Sarah Sawyer, and Moriarty
Length: 29,300 words
Rating: rated T overall (some descriptions of violence and detailed medical procedures)
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John shrugs. It's not like he hasn't met Assets before; not like they can tell he's one of them, unregistered and untapped, just by looking. All he has to do is act normal and he's fine, like always. He's not letting Bill's rampant paranoia infect him.
Reccer's comments: This is probably my favorite gen series in BBC fandom. lindentreeisle writes such tough, grounded, intense stories, and her characters ring completely true to me in this AU setting. She includes such a wealth of detail that the situations feel completely real, and yet she never clutters up the narrative with over-explanation. She has a gift for pacing, for action sequences, and for giving characters and their motivations room to breathe. Just a superlative author, and of all her stories, these are, to me, the most satisfying. They're fun, but also frightening; heart-warming but with an edge as characters face truly uncomfortable obstacles and do not emerge unscathed.
Essentially, Sherlock and John have particular powers in this dystopic universe (John is a "Stitch" with gifts of healing, Sherlock a "Sniff" with gifts of tracking), and both are trying to escape the powerful government agency, run by Mycroft, which recruits all those with supernatural assets and dominates their lives. In the course of their resistance, they wind up meeting each other, working with each other, and unintentionally compromising each other. Not to mention annoying and fascinating each other in equal measure. I just love their dynamic in these stories; the mutual exasperation is delightful, the instinctive teamwork perfect, and both Sherlock and John are given plenty of time to function on their own, so we see who they are apart as well as the people they might become together. The stories also flesh out both Mycroft and Sarah, who are each (in very different ways!) terrifyingly competent.
The stories are based in the supernatural universe created in the film Push (2009), but you don't need to have seen the movie to appreciate the stories; you pick up the rules of the world just by reading. Also here's a summary list of the rules/terminology of the universe's superpowers if you want a guide. The fic series is marked as 'not complete,' but the author has said in recent comments that she has told the story arc she set out to tell; there may or may not be additions to the series in the future, but it has been inactive for two years and can be read as complete. A tremendously engaging, satisfying, and yet quietly discomfiting adventure. I love it.