Title: All In
Author: thesignsofserbia
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8,139 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Violence, references to past torture
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: There are moments in life where time stops, and all you can feel is one singular point of terror. It’s instant nausea, it’s the breath stuttering in your chest, every organ dropping, the ice crystallising down your spine. It’s that one thought that eclipses all else, that one feeling, that one, two letter word.

Reccer's comments: This painful, haunting fic explores an alternate take on Sherlock's return post-Reichenbach—he is badly damaged by the things he has seen and done, and his natural response is to retreat inward. He reunites with John and the two resume living together at Baker Street (there is no Mary in this story).

John tries his best to forgive. Yet it is Sherlock who continues to flounder, the trauma he endured while dismantling Moriarty's web threatening to overwhelm his already poor coping mechanisms at every turn. There is a palpable sense of unease, an understanding that they simply cannot go on like this, until a case goes bad and all of that repressed anger and pain comes to a head in one absolutely devastating emotional moment.

 Sherlock does what he’s told, laying out his movements in minute detail; obscure facts, vivid descriptions. He explains everything he saw, heard, and did, without hesitation, as questions become increasingly irrelevant.

 They ask, and they ask; what did he hear, what did it sound like? He tells them that when he screamed for death; the note was an A sharp.

 This story has a lovely hopeful ending, which is a balm for how much the characters have suffered.