221B Recs

Title: The Printer Is Jammed
Author: startrekto221b
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 40,336 words
Rating: General
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John is a disgruntled customer who just wants his money back for a shoddy printer Harry ordered for him off of a catalogue. Sherlock is a bored customer service rep working the summer he has off from Oxford. They are both about to get more than they bargained for.

Reccer's comments: This fic is like one of those recursive images, only in written form. The author has written about John and Sherlock writing about William Scott and Arthur Conan (who are really just avatars for themselves) having adventures from the BBC series while they (John and Sherlock) have adventures from the BBC series and are in turn written about by fans who ship ‘Willthur’ as well as Johnlock. Or in other words, life imitates art imitates life imitates art imitates life. There is also a RPF layer, with Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and even mention of "some Barneyflump Curlyflap guy” and “that guy from The Office”, although if you aren’t into RPF don’t worry, it’s little more than name-dropping.

It’s very slow-burn with a great mix of humor, angst, fluff, and mystery, although I was good and frustrated by the time John and Sherlock finally got together! The story is told exclusively in an epistolary format, but the author has mixed it up with emails, online chats, text messages, surveillance reports, interview transcripts, and blog posts to keep things lively. The whole thing is highly entertaining and creative, with twists and tweaks that kept me unsure how things would turn out right up to the end.

As a side note, the fic is posted on AO3 with a General rating, but there is a bit of smut and discussion of dubcon and drug abuse which may be sensitive for some readers.