Halloween is just 'round the corner, so this final Friday of fic recs means it's time for the list to expire, and to join the sheeted dead: it seems appropriate, then, to give over week 4 to ghosts. Sending out wishes to one and all for a splendid All Hallows' Eve, snug in the knowledge that the ghostly presence of 1895 continues to reappear in so many variations across the future, and, most compellingly of all, due to the fabulousness of fic writers and the gifts they bestow. 👻
previous weeks
10.21: most spine-chilling adversaries
10.14: occult transformations
10.7: tricks to treats
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~in order of word length~
The Haunting of 221B Baker Street by earlgreytea68 (2012), rated M, 10388 words.
We know from the start that: Sherlock hasn't survived the Reichenbach Fall; is very much a (spectral) presence; and is surreptitiously resident at 221B. Unaware of the latter two facts, John has decamped from Baker Street, but when Mrs. Hudson has trouble keeping tenants because they report the flat is haunted, he comes back to investigate. Experiencing a moment of emphatic ghostly dramatics convinces him that "if anyone was going to figure out how to be a ghost just to be a pain in everybody’s arse, it would be you" -- and he promptly moves back in. 221B is something like a deserted island in which two shipwrecked flatmates -- one alive and one not -- negotiate the perplexing terrain engendered by that great divide. The bittersweet premise starts out weighted more toward the bitter, although their journey through various forms of emotion (reminding me quite a bit of the film Inside Out) eventually delivers them with a never-to-be-forgotten rightness to the other end of the spectrum. A stunningly-executed love story that takes you on a deep dive into John's and Sherlock's personalities as revealed through their interpersonal dynamics -- which is why we read Johnlock fic, yeah? -- this is a fic that is supernaturally good, in all senses of the good word good.
podfic by magiccranberries
A Thousand Kisses Deep by Susan (2017), rated E, 12689 words.
This fic is such an exquisitely cut gem that it is thrilling (I guarantee that sentence will make perfect sense once you read the fic). A soul-satisfyingly second chances reversal of time narrative, in which a Sherlock who is old in body and spirit is informed by a ghostly visitor one sleepless night that a wish by John is being granted -- that is, if a Sherlock returned to 2010 can set things right. The incredible amount of readerly fun that results from following Sherlock's high-spirited romp as he makes his way through his gob-smacked deductions (about his reinstated younger body, about the perfection of his only consultant in the world London life, and in aid of his race to outwit the fates), brings about an equally incredible amount of heart-melting readerly rapture at the romantic entanglement that ensues. The different bits of call-and-response literary flourishes evoked in the text lend an already deeply-layered story an extra-dimensionality that goes beyond the temporal paradoxes. The epigraph to the story is from Leonard Cohen, and is a perfect distillation of the story that unfolds: And fragrant is the thought of you / The file on you complete / Except what we forgot to do / A thousand kisses deep.
He's Coming To Us Dead by Vulgarweed (2014), rated E, 13397 words.
Part of the Bone Fiddle universe (but can be read alone), set in 1970s Appalachia, a place where enigmatic trouble-magnet Sherlock Holmes has drifted to, and to which Vietnam war vet John Watson has returned home. The two have semi-secretly taken up with each other in ways undeniably mutually satisfying, although the strain that possible apparitions place on their connection turns out to be scarier than the 'haints' themselves. This is a classic ghost story, steeped in local and Doylean lore (tragic love for the first, Baskervillean unease for the second). A fic full of questions answered and unanswered, in which Sherlock observes, "when we've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable -- is still fucking impossible." Like everything in the BF universe, this is a totally absorbing ride through the ways in which Sherlock and John reveal themselves to each other and to us, indelibly inscribed in smart, funny, captivating prose that gives us an addictively realized picture of them.
De profundis by darcylindbergh (2017), rated M, 32036 words.
This is a charmer of a tale, sprung from the premise that since the age of 12 Sherlock has been able to see ghosts, and which uses that fact to ingeniously repurpose the elements of A Study in Pink in all kinds of clever ways. The ins-and-outs of what seems to be his singular ability to attract the attention of ghosts upends Sherlock's life, accompanied as he often is by the dearly-departed-although-not-yet-gone, and the fic's depiction of his inventive interactions with them -- exasperated, yet tolerant and kind and gentle -- has a winning sui generis tone that is sweetly absurdist. The chief plot point hinges on Sherlock's uncertainty when he meets John Watson as to whether or not he's alive or dead, a question that is stubbornly resistant to resolution over the course of the next day as he and John become increasingly enamored with each other as they team up to tackle the serial suicides, leaving the reader with an enticing puzzle to try and solve before Sherlock does.
The Cost of a Wish by slashscribe (2015), rated E, 102493 words.
Since John Watson was a boy, he's had to contend with the terror that grips him due to the "formless spirits and ghosts that it seems only he can see," which press against him in threatening ways as a darkly massed cloud, chilling him to the bone, whenever he dares to venture outdoors. The desperation he feels one day suddenly lifts as he flees down a familiar street and ends up at the door of a building he's never seen there before. He tells the woman who opens the door that he has no idea why he's there, but the deep rumbling voice from the man at the top of the stairs gives him one word in reply: "Inevitable." Sherlock is the proprietor of a wish-granting shop, and the fascinating series of events that take place reveal the many mysteries of Sherlock, John, and the ways in which their lives have been entwined. The Sherlock series’ characters turn up in especially memorable ways, along with an enchanting cast from the Japanese manga the fic it is fused with -- including what is the most ridiculously cute animal in all of Sherlock ficdom, a Pipe Fox spirit creature, whose mysterious nature brings John and Sherlock closer in many endearing ways.
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*fic reblog recruits, perhaps??? ❤️ @totallysilvergirl @blogstandbygo @mydogwatson @keirgreeneyes @helloliriels
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