Sherlock fic rec: The Good Old Days
Feb. 19th, 2015 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
martasficThis week I've been digitizing records, which because I'm working from home means taking lots of cell phone pictures, cropping them, and converting them into PDFs. It's fairly mind-numbing work but requires a good attention to detail to get the fiddly bits right, so to keep my brain sharp I've been breaking it up with fic every now and then. Today's mental stimulant was a real treat and I want to share it.
The Good Old Days, by cathedral_carver
This is essentially retirement!lock, that genre of Sherlock fic where John and Sherlock leave London and retire together, interspersed with brief scenes of their earlier lives. It's domesticity, but it's domesticity with a bite. Sherlock hunts for hallucinogenic mushrooms and smokes not long after suffering a stroke, from sheer boredom. John slams the door so hard it knocks a cup off the shelf. They're both a bit not-good, but they're not-good together (as opposed to not being good together), and it's a spot-on characterization of these men in their twilight years. No major angst, but there are some themes related to growing old that might put some people off, as well as implied sex and one explicit (but not at all graphic - it's maybe three paragraphs) sex scene. Very organic and "integral to the plot" as they say, but I know some of you prefer not to read explicit slash so I thouoght I'd mention it. There's also, as you would expect given the genre, references to canon character death, though nothing is shown onscreen. Also ... a case, of a sort. A very small case, but a case nonetheless.
What really makes this fic stand out to me is the characterization, particularly as John and Sherlock are so far removed from their canon point in time. It's also a really interesting and moving look at the stresses of aging, I thought - the everyday stresses, not that one moent when you find out soeone's terminal. Check it out.
Btw, does anyone know how to set up author alerts for an author at AO3? I ask because this is an author I want to keep an eye on...
The Good Old Days, by cathedral_carver
This is essentially retirement!lock, that genre of Sherlock fic where John and Sherlock leave London and retire together, interspersed with brief scenes of their earlier lives. It's domesticity, but it's domesticity with a bite. Sherlock hunts for hallucinogenic mushrooms and smokes not long after suffering a stroke, from sheer boredom. John slams the door so hard it knocks a cup off the shelf. They're both a bit not-good, but they're not-good together (as opposed to not being good together), and it's a spot-on characterization of these men in their twilight years. No major angst, but there are some themes related to growing old that might put some people off, as well as implied sex and one explicit (but not at all graphic - it's maybe three paragraphs) sex scene. Very organic and "integral to the plot" as they say, but I know some of you prefer not to read explicit slash so I thouoght I'd mention it. There's also, as you would expect given the genre, references to canon character death, though nothing is shown onscreen. Also ... a case, of a sort. A very small case, but a case nonetheless.
What really makes this fic stand out to me is the characterization, particularly as John and Sherlock are so far removed from their canon point in time. It's also a really interesting and moving look at the stresses of aging, I thought - the everyday stresses, not that one moent when you find out soeone's terminal. Check it out.
Btw, does anyone know how to set up author alerts for an author at AO3? I ask because this is an author I want to keep an eye on...
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Date: 2015-02-19 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-19 08:38 pm (UTC)Btw, going to the author page made me realize this is the same author who wrote that fic where John has dementia, which was also brilliant. I'm going to tag this so hopefully she'll see the review. :-)