All the Places on the Journey to Here by cold_feets

He drags his eyes open when he feels John’s thumb run along a jagged, poorly healed scar along his hip. He does not remember how he got it, only that it happened about a year after he left. In Gdańsk, possibly. Or Zurich. One of those. He had stitched it up himself with shaking hands in a dimly lit hotel bathroom, sweating and gritting his teeth and aching to go home.

My vote- A must-read oneshot Return story. Because, we simply can’t have too many of those till season three airs. And this one will spear you straight through the heart  with everything it says between the lines. An ‘I love you’, more eloquent for the fact that it is unsaid yet understood by both the boys. Don’t miss this one.

Rocks of Salvation by KeelieThompson1

Moriarty’s games and Sherlock’s own arrogance have cost him the battle, but the war for Sherlock’s soul plays on. Who would have thought that the shattered army doctor and the tiny girl could put up such a fight?

My vote- (Warning! This is going to be a long rec)

This is a part of the Ava Watson verse and follows Paved with love. Ava Watson is John’s niece who he chooses to raise as his own daughter after Harry’s untimely death during the hiatus. When Sherlock returns, she is about five years old.

I have recced Paved with Love  before (when my blog had less than 10 followers, so understandable if you missed it) and it’s on my list of fandom must-reads. I love this verse so much that now that the writer has completed a second story in it, I absolutely had to rec it again…

You meet Ava Watson in Paved with love. That story (~50,000 words) is from her point of view and is so adorable and at the same time so grounded that (unless you are one of those readers who is openly disdainful of kidfics), I challenge you to stop before you finish. It shows through Ava’s pov how Sherlock returns after the hiatus, how his relationship with John changes from friendship to love, how they finally defeat Jim, all while coming together as a family.

If the writer wasn’t done being wonderful enough, she then wrote a second story, which looked at the same events except this one is from Sherlock’s pov.

And she nailed it, the guilt, the fear that John would never forgive him, the fear of Ava as an intruder, the one person in John’s affections he could never hope to replace; and how she slowly goes from being ‘that child’ to someone who becomes as important to Sherlock as John, if not more.

And the writer has taken no short-cuts. It’s a painstaking lesson learned by Sherlock (~1,20000 word length) that nothing is more important than family. And the story covers only half the events from Paved with love. You can very well read this story first, if you prefer Sherlock’s pov and fluff scares you.

Take my word for it. This epic is too good to be missed. Needless to add that it is one of my five star fics now.

I read this story where Sherlock comes back after the Hiatus and John doesn’t forgive him, not even as a friend.

There’s no one else though that’s immaterial when it boils down to just forgiving Sherlock. It’s not like he’s committed himself to a Mary or Sarah; or gotten together with Lestrade during the three or so years. That’s completely understandable as John would never turn his back on the person who was there for him during those three years simply because Sherlock has waltzed back to life. It’s understandable because he’s John Watson and he would never treat anyone like that, not even for Sherlock. It’s also okay if not forgiving Sherlock is the only way to keep him away from his new life, because with Sherlock it’s all or nothing, and John doesn’t want to yield to temptation. He wants to be fair to the person he’s with right now.

But all this is beside the point because in these stories there’s no one else. John simply refuses to forgive his friend/ex as the case maybe.

It’s also not the first story of it’s kind. What makes me wonder when I read such a story is what’s the point? What was the point to their friendship, their sacrifice (and it was a sacrifice on both sides), their struggle, if John simply chooses never to forgive Sherlock. 

I don’t blame the writer/s. I mean every fan-fic writer has a right to their own interpretation (however meaningless it may be) and Sherlock did fuck with John in the worst way possible. 

But I wish such stories had a separate warning of some kind…say ‘friendship death’ so that someone like me doesn’t stumble across them by mistake. They make me want to kill myself and put me off my reading.

If this is an over-reaction, I can’t help it. I’m just that invested.

Unnamed fill by doodle on the kinkmeme

OP- Sherlock fall through a mirror and ends up in a AU, where he and John are together. And everytime Sherlock goes through this mirror, he keeps coming upon AUs where he and John eventually get together, were together, soon-to-be together, ect. Is the universe trying to tell him seomthing?

My vote- Thankfully, the writer chose a better way to make Sherlock go through the different verses than a mirror. It was a hard lesson as a cynical, logical Sherlock couldn’t help but fall a little more irrevocably in love with John in each consecutive verse. The line that got to me was- “I love you,” he said, before blackness enveloped him. He would say it to every John, until he could say it to his own. Beautiful!

Pipe Song - Anonymous fill on the kinkmeme

Full Prompt: Well even if Sherlock was an ass, I liked the fact that Molly was invited to the Christmas party. And she seemed to know Mrs Hudson so it wasn’t the first time she was there. So I think she’s now a part of the “Baker Street family” and Sherlock wouldn’t let anyone actually hurt her. So someone (can be a stranger) tries (or actually manages) to mug/rape Molly. Sherlock goes BAMF!

My vote- First, no pairings here. Also, the assault is not detailed. An amazingly well written fill where Sherlock tracks the man who hurt his friend in the worst way possible while battling his own demons - his one old failure to bring a case to its rightful conclusion, which enabled the rapist to strike again.

Sherlock’s characterisation is guaranteed to give you goose flesh. So much for claiming to be an emotionless sociopath. The writer brilliantly captures a Sherlock who feels too much to know what to do with the emotional data. His reactions are the highlight of the story. And the ending is perfect.