221B Recs

Title: The Cleverness of Me
Author: Solshine
Pairing: Gen, focuses on Mycroft and Sherlock
Length: 4,500 words
Rating: not rated, I would say T for minor character deaths
Warnings: minor character deaths including a child
Verse: Sherlock BBC fusion with Peter Pan
Author's summary: Sherlock has always been incredible, has always been cocky, has always been childish. He just wasn't always Sherlock. This is the story of how Peter Pan left Neverland.

Reccer's comments: J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan is the perfect fusion for Sherlock: Peter canonically crows compliments to himself ("O the cleverness of me!"), dashes from adventure to adventure (most of which involve pirates), constantly forgets/deletes everything and everyone that fails to hold his attention, and takes terrible risks without any understanding of real life consequences. Neverland is an ageless, immortal Boys Own Adventureland where Peter gets to endlessly boss everyone about.

This story introduces Mycroft into that world. Dubbed "Brolly" by an absent-minded Peter who finds his umbrella more memorable than his name, he becomes the fiercest and most inscrutable Lost Boy because he is the only one who truly understands the dangers of Neverland and of the real world. He appoints himself Peter's protector, and ensures that his childish captain continues to emerge unscathed from -- and incomprehending of -- all the perils surrounding him.

But Mycroft can't protect Peter forever.

I find this a breath-taking reimagining of both Peter Pan and Sherlock; it captures the magical, melancholy tone of the original work as well as its clean elegance of phrasing. I have rarely loved Mycroft more.

Excerpt:

It was in front of a London sweet shop one night, on an empty street, that Peter Pan first found Brolly. He was very, very thin, and had a cough. He was looking quietly in the shop window, and the rain was coming in through his umbrella with the broken spoke.

He was older than most of the boys Peter found, old enough to understand certain things they usually didn't. So when Peter came flying out of the sky and landed in front of him, clad in rags and leaves, his dark, wild hair tangled with twigs and bracken, the rain sparking on the pavement around him, Brolly figured he was probably dying.

Brolly was not really his name, of course. But the first thing Peter did after arriving was point to his umbrella and say "What's that?" and the boy had said "It's a brolly," and Peter had gotten distracted by the shop window before he'd gotten around to asking "Who are you?" so that had done for an introduction.

They stood in silence in the dark and rain for a few minutes, Brolly getting wetter, the rain dripping from his ginger hair, and Peter somehow not seeming to. They stared in at the sweets in the window, Brolly with somewhat keener interest, though not quite as invested as before now that he thought he was going to die. All at once, Peter turned to him, and looked him up and down as though he'd only just noticed him standing there.

"Hullo!" said Peter. "I'm Peter Pan. Would you like to come with me?"

Brolly didn't ask where they were going. He only said "Do you have any food?"

"Oh yes, loads," said Peter carelessly.

"All right," said Brolly. Peter stuck out his hand. Brolly wrapped his larger hand around it, and they both lifted off into the rainy sky.