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magibrainThose of you who watch my journal have probably noticed that I never do recs, usually because I'm too damn lazy, but I have to share this fic with everyone ever because it makes me that damn happy: A Strange and Abundant Love: BBC Sherlock, 20k words and unfinished (I believe?) at the time of this posting, a lovely, deep, intimate gen three-way relationship with a Sherlock who's decidedly asexual and a Watson and Lestrade who are both decidedly straight.
Man, where to even begin.
First off, this is probably the most spectacular study I've ever seen of navigating a close and physical platonic friendship, and the places where there are no maps, and the places where the map lies. The relationship begins with a kind of compassionate pragmatism – John thinks Sherlock isn't finding his emotional needs fulfilled (not that he knows – or believes Sherlock knows – what those needs might be), and approaches Lestrade about it, as Lestrade seems to be the only other person Sherlock voluntarily interacts with on any sort of ongoing basis. Of course, none of them know what they're supposed to do with that goal, and Sherlock knows less than either of the other two about just how the underpinning mechanics of this whole "emotion" thing works or impacts people, but that's the story.
Because, see, in the absence of any of the usual templates, they have to work out the conventions and boundaries of their relationship from scratch. So you get this careful, well-considered deconstruction and reassembly of intimacy, as the three of them feel out forms of affection which are usually straightjacketed into the narrative of "intimacy exists, therefore sex must follow". You get this extended disentanglement from the sexual framework, and the three of them build something which is neither sexual nor romantic but is still well beyond the bounds of what most people think of as "just friendship".
All three characters are distinct and well-rendered, to this reader, at least: there's John with his common sense, pragmatism, and fond exasperation; Lestrade, with his strange blend of outsider perspective (John and Sherlock clearly have their own thing going on, and he may be in an inner circle, but not the innermost) and insider knowledge (he's known Sherlock considerably longer than John has, and has a more of an awareness of the skeletons in Sherlock's closet than John has had a chance to develop), and Sherlock... is Sherlock, with his rigid logic and occasional petulance, and his imperiousness often running right up against the places where he doesn't get what's going on, when he needs someone to explain it to him.
A Strange and Abundant Love is very much a character study; it's got an even, measured pace which isn't high on dramatics, even when on occasion dramatic events occur. There's a fair amount of rumination, discussion, and sometimes navel-gazing, but I'm inclined to forgive it because it's picking apart an entire socialization. It veers close to my [SAP! DISENGAGE!] trigger at times, but given that my [SAP! DISENGAGE!] trigger rests somewhere at the upper bound of "these characters are civil to each other," this may not be a problem for most people. It reads, to me at least, like a pretty shameless feel-good fic, though that might be my immense glee at finding a type of relationship relevant to me rendered in fic. It doesn't pull back from or shortchange intimacy. It just doesn't need to become erotic to do it justice.
And oh, the justice it does.
Anyway. You should read it, and love that there's good asexual fic in the world.
Man, where to even begin.
First off, this is probably the most spectacular study I've ever seen of navigating a close and physical platonic friendship, and the places where there are no maps, and the places where the map lies. The relationship begins with a kind of compassionate pragmatism – John thinks Sherlock isn't finding his emotional needs fulfilled (not that he knows – or believes Sherlock knows – what those needs might be), and approaches Lestrade about it, as Lestrade seems to be the only other person Sherlock voluntarily interacts with on any sort of ongoing basis. Of course, none of them know what they're supposed to do with that goal, and Sherlock knows less than either of the other two about just how the underpinning mechanics of this whole "emotion" thing works or impacts people, but that's the story.
Because, see, in the absence of any of the usual templates, they have to work out the conventions and boundaries of their relationship from scratch. So you get this careful, well-considered deconstruction and reassembly of intimacy, as the three of them feel out forms of affection which are usually straightjacketed into the narrative of "intimacy exists, therefore sex must follow". You get this extended disentanglement from the sexual framework, and the three of them build something which is neither sexual nor romantic but is still well beyond the bounds of what most people think of as "just friendship".
All three characters are distinct and well-rendered, to this reader, at least: there's John with his common sense, pragmatism, and fond exasperation; Lestrade, with his strange blend of outsider perspective (John and Sherlock clearly have their own thing going on, and he may be in an inner circle, but not the innermost) and insider knowledge (he's known Sherlock considerably longer than John has, and has a more of an awareness of the skeletons in Sherlock's closet than John has had a chance to develop), and Sherlock... is Sherlock, with his rigid logic and occasional petulance, and his imperiousness often running right up against the places where he doesn't get what's going on, when he needs someone to explain it to him.
A Strange and Abundant Love is very much a character study; it's got an even, measured pace which isn't high on dramatics, even when on occasion dramatic events occur. There's a fair amount of rumination, discussion, and sometimes navel-gazing, but I'm inclined to forgive it because it's picking apart an entire socialization. It veers close to my [SAP! DISENGAGE!] trigger at times, but given that my [SAP! DISENGAGE!] trigger rests somewhere at the upper bound of "these characters are civil to each other," this may not be a problem for most people. It reads, to me at least, like a pretty shameless feel-good fic, though that might be my immense glee at finding a type of relationship relevant to me rendered in fic. It doesn't pull back from or shortchange intimacy. It just doesn't need to become erotic to do it justice.
And oh, the justice it does.
Anyway. You should read it, and love that there's good asexual fic in the world.