221B Recs

Title: The Doubtful Comforts of Human Love
Author: PoppyAlexander
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 61,500 words
Rating: Mature
Warnings: None
Verse: BBC
Author's summary: Or, The Adventure of the Red Shoes. UK Ballet principal dancer Sherlock Holmes and assistant rugby coach John Watson met and fell in love as ambitious, optimistic teenagers. Twenty years on, they are entering midlife, facing the break-down of their bodies and the ending of their careers, and contemplating what the future holds for two middle-aged men forced to start over. With a frightening crisis unfolding at the Ballet, Sherlock must balance the demands of his career, his friendships, and his marriage with his own struggle against bitterness and discontent, while John takes a long-overdue glance from the outside, in, and stutter-steps toward making a kind of peace. AU - ballet!lock/rugby!john

Reccer's comments: If the ballet!lock/rugby!john note makes you want to nope out, then you are precisely the audience for this fic. This takes all the tropes from the popular AU and blows them out of the water.

I thought this was an especially brave story to write because it doesn’t portray Sherlock and John as an ‘opposites attract’ odd couple who only find true happiness in each other, or star-crossed lovers who are destined to be together. This is a startlingly mature and stark story of two very flawed individuals who struggle with both themselves and each other, and the weight of their shared history. There are some very difficult scenes, emotionally speaking, and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that there is no fairytale ending. (But it’s hopeful! The author promises it in the tags… ;))

The dance scenes are some of the most powerful ones in the story, but it’s not a prettified, sugarplum version of ballet; it’s tough, gritty, and powerful in a very earthy way, full of sweat, anger, and blood. And speaking of blood…

On top of the frankly masterful study of Sherlock and John’s dual mid-life crises, the author has been bold enough to add a full-fledged casefic, loosely leaning on Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Red Shoes’. It’s beautifully (and creepily) done, and is definitely not for the faint of heart.