Sacrifices (4/4)

[marysutherland]

BBC Sherlock

Rating 12: angst, slash, really not-good Sherlock, violence, hints of fluff

Spoilers: none

Summary: Sherlock's stolen John from Mycroft, but back at Mycroft's favourite warehouse, anything could happen...

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Bonus: fluffy epilogue - Last Christmas

Comments

[fengirl88]

I was really hoping this might appear today and I'm delighted it did. really not easy to work things out between these two but every step was believable and right.

how sex went wrong with this particular Sherlock made complete sense. also that John is finally able to pursue happiness and healing rather than destruction (even if he is still going about it in a dangerous way). very glad to see Mycroft showing a bit of fight for once (about time!) and Jeremy Bentham being put in his place as a dispenser of advice on dating.

[marysutherland]

Glad you liked the end result - I knew the overall shape of the outcome from the start, but it was hard getting the detail of the final scene right.

As for your wish for Mycroft showing more fight earlier, I did rig the Social Darwinism/Benthamite face-off in part 2 with malice aforethought so that he couldn't win at that point. What scuppers Mycroft finally isn't that Sherlock might kill himself, but his belief that John won't be able to cope with Sherlock's suicide, especially given the potential guilt and anger around the fact that that both he and Mycroft sometimes want Sherlock dead. So there's no other obvious option than the break-up, and even after it Mycroft can't make a move until either Sherlock's feelings or John's change, or the whole emotional blackmail routine may just start up again. Or can you think of a better tactic he could have used?

[fengirl88]

I really don't think it could have worked out differently from how it did - given what you'd set up it was quite a feat to make it work out at all! it occurred to me belatedly after part 3 of Sacrifices that Mycroft's agonizing attempts to behave well might leave John very little idea how M really felt about him - that J might think M didn't care that much or didn't feel J was worth fighting for. possibly even more so by comparison with S's emotional blackmail. so the "spine-ripping" outburst in this part felt right and necessary.

[marysutherland]

It was actually quite easy to set the end up, because like most of my plots, this got written and rewritten from several different points within the story. (Although I often post stories in several sections, I've almost always got the whole story written in draft before I post anything, because it's only in that way that I can get the whole thing tied together properly, and put in the connections that run through the story - I'd never have hacked it as one of these Victorian serial writers).

So, almost from the start, I had the idea of Sherlock getting bored in a sexual relationship with John (which was a theme I'd already played with in a different way in Experimentation). Once I'd stuck that together with Mycroft as middle-aged Romeo, and set up John as inexperienced with relationships, there's an obvious plot there about John's choice between Richmond and rooftops. I then just had to make the option of Mycroft look both appealing and different from Sherlock

[ginbitch]

YAY!!!!

Normally, I'm a total J/S shipper but in this verse... let's just say you made an eloquent and persuasive case!

I loved this fic so much - I love the weirdness, the brokenness of them all and the ways in which John's sanity and self-preservation ultimately cuts through the crap. And lines like this are an absolute delight:

"The second Falklands War?"

"It didn't happen, so I shouldn't have mentioned it."

Wonderful, wonderful writing! Thank you!

<3 <3 <3

[marysutherland]

Most of the weirdness and brokenness is there already in the scripts (although admittedly not my peculiar belief that a romantic end to a story is two rather grubby and battered men in a warehouse having hysterics over Jeremy Bentham). But Sherlock as adult-sized toddler, and John's contradictory urges towards the mundane and the dangerous, and the self-destructive possibilities of both of them, are all outlined in the TV series. And it was only while editing the emotional blackmail scene that it fully dawned on me that we know not just that John's been responsible for people's deaths, but that Sherlock has (Mr Hudson at minimum), and that Mycroft's almost certainly made decisions that have got people killed as well. They're all dangerous men in their different ways.

After this I'm largely back to S/J, which is my main focus too. I was inspired to try John/ Mycroft fic by Calicokat's Sexual Needs, but it took a bit of thought as to how to get Mycroft right. It was only when it dawned on me that he could be done as Sir Humphrey

[ginbitch]

Absolutely to the danger! And to the brokenness. One of the things I love about the show is the way Sherlock's impatient disregard for convention tips over into ruthlessness, incomprehension and near-creulty. I say near-creulty because as a viewer,there is the sense that we know him better than that, but Donovans assessment is equally valid (as a great Donovan-centric fic pointed out this week

[et_cetera55]

Oh I'm so pleased that John came back to Mycroft but so sad this story is over. It has been wonderful throughout, most especially with the little throwaway lines like
while I sort out David and Nick and Ed and all the rest of them, and tell them to behave responsibly for a few days

An absolutely wonderful story

[marysutherland]

Glad you enjoyed it, but I think I have to end it now. Having finally managed to get John and Mycroft back together, I'm not sure I could cope with any more attempts to separate them. As for the political side, someone, somewhere, at some point has to write about Mycroft encountering Sarah Palin, but my pen freezes in my hand at the prospect.

[theatervine]

This is wonderful and well written and brutal and very, very upsetting but I'm glad they got a somewhat happy ending.

[marysutherland]

Glad you enjoyed it, or some of it (I did deliberately put in the extreme angst warnings on some parts). But I think Mycroft and John's prospects together are good now that the menace that is Sherlock has been diverted.

[theatervine]

Hee, the menace that is Sherlock. While I adore him that sounds about right!
And I enjoyed all of it, I like my fics layered.

[ungalad]

OH YES! Happy ending! :D I loved it. This fic (the 3 of them together, that is) is a bit melodramatic--two brothers fighting for the same guy, one of them truly loves him and the other is just a brat and a villain. And after much angst we get our happy ending! :3 I loved it, really, because you made it amazing and very enjoyable. You used the characters and developed them in a way that was believable for the story, while keeping them IC (canon-wise) and coherent. It was wonderful. It made me squee with glee and nearly cry. Your style is great, you chose the words and expressions well, and all this babbling of mine is to try to explain why I liked it and enjoyed it so, so, so much. Great fic, definitely one of my favorites in this fandom. Thanks for sharing! ♥

[marysutherland]

I'm glad you enjoyed it - it was fun, if sometimes rather painful fun to write. As Moffat and Gatiss show, you can get an awful lot of mileage out of repressed Englishmen put in melodramatic situations, and left emotionally tangled as they try to stick to their own codes of conduct. Because, yes, Mycroft could run off with John (or get Sherlock locked up in an Algerian jail), but he wouldn't still be Mycroft if he did, just as John can't let a friend kill himself, if there's any way he can stop it.

But I'm happy I didn't lead you to damage your computer in the end!

[ungalad]

Repressed Englishmen? Why do I find that so interesting and exciting? xD It must be my inner Austen, heh. But yes, it could've not happened any other way, neither of them would've done anything that could potentially harm Sherlock, and that's why the bastard took advantage. x( Not so repressed, that one, uh? Ah seriously, what a great, great fic. :D I think I'll go re-read my favourite parts!

[ungalad]

Repressed Englishmen? Why do I find that so interesting and exciting? xD It must be my inner Austen, heh. But yes, it could've not happened any other way, neither of them would've done anything that could potentially harm Sherlock, and that's why the bastard took advantage. x( Not so repressed, that one, uh? Ah seriously, what a great, great fic. :D I think I'll go re-read my favourite parts!