Fanfiction Rec-List: Sherlock (BBC) Part Two
Part One
Note: I finally decided on a definite form for my rec-list's and this is it *points below* This way, I will actually manage to get things done, so you can look forward to many more rec's to come - or just ignore me LOL
If a FF (all here - except one - with a focus on John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, either bromance or slash) caught your interest and you follow the link, please heed the warnings/ratings to be found at the archive/authors site.
1. Leave the Signs and the Sirens by out_there (AO3)
Excerpt:
It feels like open-heart surgery. Like someone's sliced through his sternum and the relatively thin breastbone there, inserted a sternal retractor and slowly applied pressure. It feels like his chest has been forced open, like there's too much space in his ribcage, nothing around his lungs, his heart beating in a vacuum.
It feels wrong and terrible. It hurts. That's how Sherlock feels as he presses one palm over the other and pushes against John's chest for a count of five, as he leans over John's tilted head and slack mouth and tries to force air in. As he waits for distant sirens to get closer.
The open-heart surgery metaphor fits, Sherlock thinks. It's accurate and feels impossibly, painfully true.
Then there are flashing lights and paramedics, and someone else making John breathe. John wheezes in one dreadful, winded gasp and Sherlock stops worrying about metaphors.
2. echoes through time by chellefic (AO3)
Excerpt:
"What's this?" John asked, stepping around a dark brown trunk that had appeared at the entrance to the flat whilst he was at the cinema. Sherlock had claimed to have more interesting things to do than accompany John, not that he'd said what they were.
"Mummy sent it," Sherlock, seated at his desk, answered without looking up from his computer.
"Childhood mementos, then?" John wondered what those could possibly be for Sherlock. His first microscope and the remains of a dissected frog seemed likely. Maybe there'd be photos. He'd quite like to see a young Sherlock, maybe even a photo of a toddler Sherlock covered in birthday cake, because every parent in the Western world had to have taken one of those.
"Unlikely. It's from my great-uncle's house. He was a beekeeper in Sussex."
***
Sherlock was quiet and John started to drift again. "I have begun to understand Watson's descriptions of his feelings for Holmes," Sherlock confided.
"Me, too," John said.
Sherlock snuggled closer. "Go back to sleep. You're going to need your rest."
"I am?"
"I'm going to fellate you tomorrow."
"Well in that case I best rest up."
3. Spaces Between by aubkae (AO3)
Excerpt:
Sherlock is standing by the window in the dark when John comes downstairs, a black on grey silhouette against the weak light. It's been raining for three days. He hasn't seen Sherlock in sunlight... since.
John goes into the toilet without speaking. It's full of steam, and it smells of Sherlock's soap and aftershave. Turning on the light makes him squint.
He has this sudden and bizarre urge to write on the fogged mirror - something, anything, no and no and yes and yes and why and how could you and fuck fuck fuck how am I supposed to live like this, tell me tell me. A note left in invisible ink. Shards of glass all over the floor.
John takes a deep breath, inhaling the evidence, and he wipes the mirror clear.
4. Five Things Sherlock Will Never Admit Out Loud by raina_at
Excerpt:
To his surprise, he discovered that the reasons he likes living with John have nothing to do with him doing the shopping, the vacuuming, him paying the rent and the utilities and stopping Sherlock from destroying the flat in any way that will make even Mrs. Hudson evict them. In fact it has everything to do with John, who, underneath his quietly normal façade, is intelligent, interesting, capable, strong, who he can talk to and have some outside chance of being understood, who thinks Sherlock is brilliant as well as weird, who can keep up with Sherlock in every way save intellectually (which, let’s be honest, nobody else could, either).
Sherlock quite logically deduced that living with another person would make life easier. He never considered that living with another person could make life this much better.
5. Hero by Mass Effecting Your Pants (FF.net)
Excerpt:
And it was only the long horrified silence that would clue Sherlock in to the fact that he had indeed said something quite Not Good. Anderson scoffed, Donovan always looked surprised at the extent of Sherlock's 'freakishness' and Lestrade would wince and shake his head. Usually he didn't care a great deal - feelings and understanding them was, generally, a waste of time and got in the way of more important things - but this time John had cringed along with Lestrade.
This had Sherlock mentally backtracking frantically, but he had no idea what he said to cause the reaction of his colleagues in the first place, let alone attempt to keep track of his stream of thoughts.
Still, he didn't ask until Donovan and Anderson had moved away.
"Not good?"
John smiled weakly. "Bit not good, yeah."
"Which..." Sherlock hesitated, and could see that he had John's complete attention with his uncertainty. "Which part? I mean, which part was Not Good?"
The detective was generally immune to feeling small, but beneath both John and Lestrade's surprisingly intense stares, Sherlock could feel heat rise in his face and the almost involuntary want to fidget.
"Good luck with that, doctor," the inspector slapped John on the shoulder before walking away.
6. A Brief Account Of Life With Zombies by silverpard (AO3)
Excerpt:
[From the encrypted notes of Mycroft Holmes]
Have noticed a distinct rise in incidents of violence where attackers attempt to consume brains. Despair of UK population; is not going to help IQ. Except perhaps if victim happened to be Stephen Fry. (Mem., order guard for Stephen Fry.)
Worrying reports coming back from laboratories. Contacted JW: Sherlock not allowed to raid morgues until reports normal again. Don't care how many fits he throws.
Am very pleased with Sherlock's keeper. Have apparently discovered the one person capable of dealing with him, and without letting him know was in any way connected. :)
7. Applied Linguistics by what_alchemy (AO3)
Excerpt:
“I’m his partner,” Sherlock had snarled. He hated that term. It was so inadequate. It encompassed none of the nuance, the depth, of his relation to John. He needed a whole new word for what John was to him (fleshmoppet?). What he was to John (swizzlespoon?), and what they shared between them (stranglebum?). He resolved to think on it. But just then, the receptionist with his telly-fogged brain was incapable of comprehending anything more crafted and true than the common vernacular.
8. The Road to Awe by sinuous_curve (AO3)
Excerpt:
The night they somehow manage to survive Moriarty, a battalion of snipers, and an explosion that leaves the swimming pool a damp crater smelling thickly of chlorine, Sherlock predictably refuses to go to the hospital.
John watches him pace from the back of an ambulance, orange blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders by firm EMT with streaks of gray shot through her blond hair. John isn't in shock, but it seems like a professional courtesy to at least let her go through the routine.
Honestly, of more pressing concern in the water soaked through his clothes and shoes and the fact that Moriarty is nowhere to be found. He doesn't share the police's confidence that they'll find his body in the wreckage.
9. All That I Have by the_arc5 (AO3)
Excerpt:
“Sherlock, you need to go home,” John tells him. They’ve started weaning him off his drug cocktail, and he’s more alert than he has been in days. “You need to get some sleep.”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response. He’s trained his body to get by on very little. The chair is an abomination against furniture, but light in terms of penances. He’s not leaving.
John frowns at him. “How are you not climbing the walls? I know what they put me on, and people on that do a lot of sleeping and a little bit of rambling and not much else. Aren’t you bored?”
He does hate the sickly green walls and the harsh florescent lights and the hatefully unfashionable rose-colored upholstery. He hates the kind nurse who coos over John and brings him paper cups of tea and tells him John is a fighter, he’ll be right as rain soon. He knows exactly who and what John is, and none of this is right, and he despises the awful tea that John never put on to brew, never put hand to pour, never complained over because Sherlock is a lazy bastard and if he wants tea he should make it himself, even as he passes over the mug and peers over at whatever Sherlock’s working on.
John isn’t fond of the experiments, but only because they crowd up the food space. It’s three in the morning, and this fact is very important just this minute.
“No,” he says, and it’s like his voice has forgotten how words sound. John’s frown gets a little deeper.
10. Interview with the Devil by mwaters (AO3)
Note: Jim Moriarty & Sebastian Moran
Excerpt:
“Like what you see, mate?” Sebastian snarled.
The man pulled a face of mock bewilderment that only aggravated Sebastian further, while Ruff threw him a pale and furious expression from behind. “I think I do,” he finally said, and the voice surprised Sebastian. It fit the body, and yet seemed oddly inappropriate. “He's a spunky one, isn't he?”
“Mr. Moriarty, Sir, I apologize for my...”
Part Three
Part Four
Note: I finally decided on a definite form for my rec-list's and this is it *points below* This way, I will actually manage to get things done, so you can look forward to many more rec's to come - or just ignore me LOL
If a FF (all here - except one - with a focus on John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, either bromance or slash) caught your interest and you follow the link, please heed the warnings/ratings to be found at the archive/authors site.
1. Leave the Signs and the Sirens by out_there (AO3)
Excerpt:
It feels like open-heart surgery. Like someone's sliced through his sternum and the relatively thin breastbone there, inserted a sternal retractor and slowly applied pressure. It feels like his chest has been forced open, like there's too much space in his ribcage, nothing around his lungs, his heart beating in a vacuum.
It feels wrong and terrible. It hurts. That's how Sherlock feels as he presses one palm over the other and pushes against John's chest for a count of five, as he leans over John's tilted head and slack mouth and tries to force air in. As he waits for distant sirens to get closer.
The open-heart surgery metaphor fits, Sherlock thinks. It's accurate and feels impossibly, painfully true.
Then there are flashing lights and paramedics, and someone else making John breathe. John wheezes in one dreadful, winded gasp and Sherlock stops worrying about metaphors.
2. echoes through time by chellefic (AO3)
Excerpt:
"What's this?" John asked, stepping around a dark brown trunk that had appeared at the entrance to the flat whilst he was at the cinema. Sherlock had claimed to have more interesting things to do than accompany John, not that he'd said what they were.
"Mummy sent it," Sherlock, seated at his desk, answered without looking up from his computer.
"Childhood mementos, then?" John wondered what those could possibly be for Sherlock. His first microscope and the remains of a dissected frog seemed likely. Maybe there'd be photos. He'd quite like to see a young Sherlock, maybe even a photo of a toddler Sherlock covered in birthday cake, because every parent in the Western world had to have taken one of those.
"Unlikely. It's from my great-uncle's house. He was a beekeeper in Sussex."
***
Sherlock was quiet and John started to drift again. "I have begun to understand Watson's descriptions of his feelings for Holmes," Sherlock confided.
"Me, too," John said.
Sherlock snuggled closer. "Go back to sleep. You're going to need your rest."
"I am?"
"I'm going to fellate you tomorrow."
"Well in that case I best rest up."
3. Spaces Between by aubkae (AO3)
Excerpt:
Sherlock is standing by the window in the dark when John comes downstairs, a black on grey silhouette against the weak light. It's been raining for three days. He hasn't seen Sherlock in sunlight... since.
John goes into the toilet without speaking. It's full of steam, and it smells of Sherlock's soap and aftershave. Turning on the light makes him squint.
He has this sudden and bizarre urge to write on the fogged mirror - something, anything, no and no and yes and yes and why and how could you and fuck fuck fuck how am I supposed to live like this, tell me tell me. A note left in invisible ink. Shards of glass all over the floor.
John takes a deep breath, inhaling the evidence, and he wipes the mirror clear.
4. Five Things Sherlock Will Never Admit Out Loud by raina_at
Excerpt:
To his surprise, he discovered that the reasons he likes living with John have nothing to do with him doing the shopping, the vacuuming, him paying the rent and the utilities and stopping Sherlock from destroying the flat in any way that will make even Mrs. Hudson evict them. In fact it has everything to do with John, who, underneath his quietly normal façade, is intelligent, interesting, capable, strong, who he can talk to and have some outside chance of being understood, who thinks Sherlock is brilliant as well as weird, who can keep up with Sherlock in every way save intellectually (which, let’s be honest, nobody else could, either).
Sherlock quite logically deduced that living with another person would make life easier. He never considered that living with another person could make life this much better.
5. Hero by Mass Effecting Your Pants (FF.net)
Excerpt:
And it was only the long horrified silence that would clue Sherlock in to the fact that he had indeed said something quite Not Good. Anderson scoffed, Donovan always looked surprised at the extent of Sherlock's 'freakishness' and Lestrade would wince and shake his head. Usually he didn't care a great deal - feelings and understanding them was, generally, a waste of time and got in the way of more important things - but this time John had cringed along with Lestrade.
This had Sherlock mentally backtracking frantically, but he had no idea what he said to cause the reaction of his colleagues in the first place, let alone attempt to keep track of his stream of thoughts.
Still, he didn't ask until Donovan and Anderson had moved away.
"Not good?"
John smiled weakly. "Bit not good, yeah."
"Which..." Sherlock hesitated, and could see that he had John's complete attention with his uncertainty. "Which part? I mean, which part was Not Good?"
The detective was generally immune to feeling small, but beneath both John and Lestrade's surprisingly intense stares, Sherlock could feel heat rise in his face and the almost involuntary want to fidget.
"Good luck with that, doctor," the inspector slapped John on the shoulder before walking away.
6. A Brief Account Of Life With Zombies by silverpard (AO3)
Excerpt:
[From the encrypted notes of Mycroft Holmes]
Have noticed a distinct rise in incidents of violence where attackers attempt to consume brains. Despair of UK population; is not going to help IQ. Except perhaps if victim happened to be Stephen Fry. (Mem., order guard for Stephen Fry.)
Worrying reports coming back from laboratories. Contacted JW: Sherlock not allowed to raid morgues until reports normal again. Don't care how many fits he throws.
Am very pleased with Sherlock's keeper. Have apparently discovered the one person capable of dealing with him, and without letting him know was in any way connected. :)
7. Applied Linguistics by what_alchemy (AO3)
Excerpt:
“I’m his partner,” Sherlock had snarled. He hated that term. It was so inadequate. It encompassed none of the nuance, the depth, of his relation to John. He needed a whole new word for what John was to him (fleshmoppet?). What he was to John (swizzlespoon?), and what they shared between them (stranglebum?). He resolved to think on it. But just then, the receptionist with his telly-fogged brain was incapable of comprehending anything more crafted and true than the common vernacular.
8. The Road to Awe by sinuous_curve (AO3)
Excerpt:
The night they somehow manage to survive Moriarty, a battalion of snipers, and an explosion that leaves the swimming pool a damp crater smelling thickly of chlorine, Sherlock predictably refuses to go to the hospital.
John watches him pace from the back of an ambulance, orange blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders by firm EMT with streaks of gray shot through her blond hair. John isn't in shock, but it seems like a professional courtesy to at least let her go through the routine.
Honestly, of more pressing concern in the water soaked through his clothes and shoes and the fact that Moriarty is nowhere to be found. He doesn't share the police's confidence that they'll find his body in the wreckage.
9. All That I Have by the_arc5 (AO3)
Excerpt:
“Sherlock, you need to go home,” John tells him. They’ve started weaning him off his drug cocktail, and he’s more alert than he has been in days. “You need to get some sleep.”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response. He’s trained his body to get by on very little. The chair is an abomination against furniture, but light in terms of penances. He’s not leaving.
John frowns at him. “How are you not climbing the walls? I know what they put me on, and people on that do a lot of sleeping and a little bit of rambling and not much else. Aren’t you bored?”
He does hate the sickly green walls and the harsh florescent lights and the hatefully unfashionable rose-colored upholstery. He hates the kind nurse who coos over John and brings him paper cups of tea and tells him John is a fighter, he’ll be right as rain soon. He knows exactly who and what John is, and none of this is right, and he despises the awful tea that John never put on to brew, never put hand to pour, never complained over because Sherlock is a lazy bastard and if he wants tea he should make it himself, even as he passes over the mug and peers over at whatever Sherlock’s working on.
John isn’t fond of the experiments, but only because they crowd up the food space. It’s three in the morning, and this fact is very important just this minute.
“No,” he says, and it’s like his voice has forgotten how words sound. John’s frown gets a little deeper.
10. Interview with the Devil by mwaters (AO3)
Note: Jim Moriarty & Sebastian Moran
Excerpt:
“Like what you see, mate?” Sebastian snarled.
The man pulled a face of mock bewilderment that only aggravated Sebastian further, while Ruff threw him a pale and furious expression from behind. “I think I do,” he finally said, and the voice surprised Sebastian. It fit the body, and yet seemed oddly inappropriate. “He's a spunky one, isn't he?”
“Mr. Moriarty, Sir, I apologize for my...”
Part Three
Part Four