221B Recs

Title: And also with you.
Author: reckonedrightly
Pairing: genderqueer!Jim Moriarty/Irene Adler
Length: 6,513 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: violence, underage (characters are both 15 years old), cissexism, misgendering
Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: "And then there’s him and he’s him, he’s Jim, he’s the default and now when he looks in the mirror there is nothing between himself and himself. He’s there, he is sharp, his corners meet his corners and he is so damn well pressed it’s like he was never folded."

Jim is a he like God is a he; Irene Adler is always the Woman.

Reccer's comments: I think I've probably read this fic twenty times by now – every time it blows me away with its razor-sharp dialogue, language flowing like poetry, flashes of humour and stunning views on gender and sex. There's enough reference to the canon events of A Scandal in Belgravia to make this canon-compliant; it just feels so real, like this is exactly what must have happened between Jim and Irene. I love how they are matched word for word, that neither of them is really smarter or stronger than the other, and how they're constantly trying to trick each other into making a mistake. It feels very true to these characters. What I love most about this fic is the references to wee!Jim's childhood as an Irish child moving from female to male and inbetween. There is so much beautiful loveliness to sample in this story, and so much ugly violence, and it all works together incredibly well.

She’s only nineteen and barely into the business—but she’s been stripping for a year, she says, lounging in the corner of the coffee shop they’ve chosen to meet in and hugging an americano to her birdlike chest. Her hair is long and wild and dark like clouds around her pointed, alien face. Her eyes are a little too big, her mouth a little too thin and greedy, scribbled red. She looks hungry all the time, even when she’s picking apart a croissant and wolfing down the fragments, licking her fingers. He likes the look of her, and her lovely starving mouth.

“I’m being vulgar, but since you’re paying—I never turn down free food. Or free anything.” Her voice is croaky and callous at the edges. Even though every word she says is chosen with precision, she talks like she’s throwing her syllables carelessly away. She flicks crumbs off her fingers and gives him a low-lashed look in case he’s the sort of person who falls for that kind of thing. He isn’t, and she relents, but nonetheless looks pleased. “Can’t tell you how exciting it is to finally meet you—Mr Moriarty, is it?”

“Moriarty. No Mr. Or Jim.”

“Jim. I like that.”

She’s actually still at drama school, she explains lazily, when he asks her what she does when she’s not being vulgar; she likes to keep busy, and anyway, she’s not had her fill of Shakespeare just yet. Pro-domme work is her calling, but no one’s ever asked her to roleplay as Olivia strapping Viola to her bed.

Her name’s Irene, but she’s thinking of changing it. To what? She doesn’t know. Does she know anything? She knows what people like.

(dear mods, could I get a "pairing: moriarty/irene adler" tag, please? <3)