221B Recs

Title: Transports
Author: ancientreader|ancientreader
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Length: 136K
Rating: explicit
Warnings: childhood sexual abuse, show-typical violence, character death (not John or Sherlock)
Verse: BBC
Author's summary:
[part 1, Curriculum Vitae] How to become a consulting detective.
[part 2, The Beginning of Knowledge] Jim's lessons are hard to unlearn.

Reccer's comments:
This AU examines Sherlock's troubled relationship with his "transport" and with self-acceptance by having him grapple with the effects of sexual trauma and progressive physical disability. (To clarify, those two life events have entirely independent origins. Sherlock deals with both, but they had nothing to do with each other at the outset.) Although the fic has the "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" tag, the author provides notes and content warnings at the chapter level. It's a roller coaster ride of angst to be sure, but there's wisdom, warmth, and humor throughout. And a happy ending. I actually thought I'd found it via rec here, and I was surprised to discover I was mistaken.

Sherlock meets Moriarty when he's 14 and Jim is in his early 20s, and Moriarty manipulates him into a malicious sexual relationship. Sherlock ends it after several months; years later Moriarty finds him and begins a new round of manipulation and retaliation, including violent crimes against others.

If you like exquisitely selected poetry-inspired chapter titles and/or end notes with links to research materials, you will be pleased by this fic.

This John is independent and self-confident and immediately smitten with Sherlock. His journey in the story focuses on his connection with Sherlock and all that means. The beginning of Part 2 does include some scenes from John's POV about being shot and its aftermath, but it doesn't delve much further into his post-war recovery. It's definitely a slow-build to that happy ending, and something of a rocky one. In this alternate set-up, John isn't looking for a flatshare and doesn't move into 221B when they meet; having their own apartments is used to good effect at various points in the story.

John has just one scene in Part 1, but don't let that be a reason to skip it, because in addition to laying the foundation for what happens in Part 2, "Curriculum Vitae" introduces two truly marvelous OCs, Sherlock's one-time nanny and lifelong friend/mentor/parental figure/caregiver (to the extent he allows the latter), Sarita Banerjee, and the "research subject" Sarita gives him when Sherlock is 6 years old. I LOVE Sarita! A sentiment common to many readers, judging by the AO3 comments. Her relationship with Sherlock is charming, funny, tender, and eventually life-saving when he turns to her for help when finally trying to break from cocaine.

Child-Sherlock's relationship with his rat, Silvanus, is lovely in itself but also beautifully woven into the narrative to be meaningful at key points throughout the story. I think it's crucial to the power of the work as a whole, and I was stunned to learn from the comments that apparently some readers skip Part 1 entirely? There are difficult passages about abuse and loss in Part 1, to be sure, but...but...Silvanus!

Both relationships (Sarita and Silvanus, I mean) remain significant over the course of the fic, although Sherlock's own recollection of Silvanus is mostly dormant after the first few chapters of Part 1 until the coda at the end of Part 2. Which brings me to the other significant, if suppressed, relationship of the fic, and the framing device for the story (oh! and I just realized how appropriate the reference to that frame is, a cryptic remark I shall leave unexplained for the benefit of the reader): Sherlock and Mycroft.

The sweetness of the sibling bond in the early chapters of part 1 is destroyed by the severe and unyielding estrangement that separates them. The coda, which always brings me to tears, allows Sherlock to reexamine the way he judged both himself and Mycroft (reevaluation of both self-perception and the regard of others is a central theme in the fic). Not to the point of erasing the past but with a consideration of how perception can change over time, and how the way we understood something at 7 or 14 or 21 might be different from the perspective of 40. The younger self wasn't wrong to feel betrayed, but the older self can find healing nonetheless.

On the one hand, perfect ending is seriously perfect. But on the other hand OMG I want the scene that comes next. And also Sarita's and Władek's wedding. and John's thoughts about his own experience of debilitation and loss w/r/t his former career. and and ::shakes fist at cruel author:: ::takes it back:: ::sniffle:: ::rereads::

Kernels of Indian corn. Sunflower seeds. Slender ribbons of raw kale. The smallest carrot dice Sherlock can cut, breathing through his mouth to help himself concentrate. Banana slices. Puffed rice. Sherlock experiments with all of these but can’t work out which ones Silvanus likes best. First, he places one of each item at a set distance from Silvanus and then times the rat’s approach, but soon confounding factors become clear: At each trial run, Silvanus must be less hungry than at the one previous, because each run ends with his eating the … “Reinforcer,” Sherlock reminds himself, under his breath. “Treat” sounds unscientific. He might present all of the treats at once, arrayed, say, half a meter from Silvanus, but the trea— reinforcers had varyingly intense odors. Silvanus might approach the more strongly scented items first only because he perceives them first; the intensity of the odor might not match up with the … palatability (not “tastiness”!) of the offered food. Finally Mycroft, suitably envious of Sherlock’s new experimental subject, points out that even if Sherlock can’t work out Silvanus’s favorite, any treat (“Mycroft! It’s a food reinforcer!”) the rat will work to earn will serve Sherlock’s purposes. (“You can’t know in advance whether it’s a reinforcer, Sherlock. You only learn that later, when you discover whether receiving it has increased the likelihood of the target behavior.” There’s no more satisfactory way to tease Sherlock, Mycroft has found, than to correct his use of scientific terminology.) (Sherlock narrows his eyes at Mycroft. “I’d like to bite you.”)

In his cage, Silvanus is at work on a quarter of a Weetabix. He’s a beautiful rat, of the color variety called Black Badger.

Everything about Silvanus is neat and elegant, particularly his pink toes and the translucent loops of his ears, and he makes a warm, breathing bundle in Sherlock’s cupped hands. He hops on by invitation, a trick Sherlock has taught him. After several months of careful instruction, Silvanus will also climb a small, rat-size ladder, jump through a hoop, touch the end of a chopstick with his nose even when Sherlock presents the chopstick as much as a meter away, and turn to Sherlock at the sound of his name. His fur is silky. He is a manifestly clever rat and Sherlock takes pains to keep his life interesting by providing him regular lessons and elaborating his enormous cage with tunnels, boxes, and a shallow pool with stepping-stones. There had been a papier-mâché mountain range, as well, handmade by Sherlock, but it had to go because Silvanus persisted in eating it. The turreted plastic castle that has replaced the mountain range is vastly inferior in every way except for its durability. Silvanus will run up to the top of it to greet Sherlock when Sherlock awakens in the morning and says “Good morning, Silvanus.”

*

At Christmas break, when Mycroft visits, Sherlock shows off every one of Silvanus’s accomplishments. “That’s well done,” Mycroft allows. The eight years between them seem immense; he wishes he could keep Sherlock as he is, six years old, delighting everyone around him. He thinks he can just remember a time when, like Sherlock now, he had no idea how lonely it is possible to be.