// STILL HOT THOUGH

Round 1 Match 1

Evidence of Human Life by thesardine (E, 17k) Sherlock Holmes/John Watson; SUMMARY: Sherlock's sanity deteriorates while he and John are stranded on a deserted island.

vs.

The New Year by greywash (E, 10k) Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade; SUMMARY: —but of course, disaster can't be barred. Won't.

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A tough competition, right out of the gate!

Evidence of Human Life was posted by thesardine in 2011 (S1), so unsurprisingly the Sherlock we find in this fic is obsessive, possessive, and epitomizes the "Dark Fuck Prince" label S1 Sherlock was frequently assigned. There were fewer fandom arguments during/after S1 than there later would be, about whether Sherlock was a top, bottom, or switch. He was pretty obviously toppy in S1, and so he is here.

The story opens with an improbable but not impossible survival scene wherein our men have fallen off a boat (or rather, John has fallen and Sherlock has immediately dived in after him), and swim over a mile to the shore of a small, temperate (not tropical--probably in the North Sea based on context clues) island, where they get busy surviving. As it says on the tin, Sherlock's sanity unravels over the course of time, due to the understimulation/lack of brainwork because of No People. He seeks sensory input--harming himself in alarming ways, attacking John physically, tasting every substance on the island: the cliff faces, the sand--and even requires physical restraint at times.

The interiority (the story is from Sherlock's POV) is compelling; his disassembly feels realistic, with a palpable sense of desperation. The sex, when it comes, is un-loving and disconnected, rough and fight-y, and fits the narrative perfectly. Sherlock and John help each other survive but also get on each other's nerves, as one would expect. There are no deserted island love declarations.

Their rescue is also thoughtfully handled. The real emotional crisis here is not the time on the island but the aftermath--Sherlock blissful about returning to "real life" full of people, vs. John unable to release the trauma of their uncertain survival--and 15 years after first reading this fic, I still carried a vivid mind-picture of Sherlock so happy to have new and varied input on arrival to the mainland, he eats the dirt (and cries when John stops him).

This fic is deftly written, with vivid visuals and heart-rending emotion. My only gentle criticisms were that Sherlock went mad very quickly--in less than a week--and the need for brainwork vs. the inability to tolerate its absence seemed a bit over-simplistic; and the ending (after the rescue)--including a love confession--felt a bit rushed compared to the pace of the rest of the story. Overall, what a joy to revisit this memorable, early fic.

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The very prolific greywash posted this pre-S1 sherstrade fic, The New Year, in 2013 (S2). This dream-like, time-shifting fic plays out of order, like spliced together film without a script or direction, or like scattered photos shuffled at random. Its language is poetic, its rhythms subtle but reliable--certain repeating phrases ingeniously resettle the reader into the current timeline after flashback sequences--and its angst-filled, urgent prose embodies a sense of hectic obsession. Lestrade chain-smokes and drinks too much coffee, is late for work, is mentally absent and emotionally jangled. Sherlock gets high on the attention, the tension, and speed.

In the simplest way, this is the story of pre-series, not-yet-DI Lestrade cheating on his wife with the (much? turns out, not so much) younger Sherlock, in a doomed, obsessive "romance" built on mutual exploitation of each man's needs and desires. Sex is central to this candle-burning-at-both-ends, weeklong situationship, and it is of the clawing, clutching type. Lestrade wallows in depravity while simultaneously fretting about consequences--to strung-out Sherlock, to Greg's failing marriage, to his own carefully constructed self-definitions. While the sex is not ugly or unconsenting, it is mutually unkind. They paw at each other, undermine and sabotage each other, lock each other up.

This story is a poem, the memory of a nightmare, hallucinatory but with its feet still firmly planted. While I did not have particularly clear memories of specific scenes (well. one. Greg wants to tear Sherlock open, eat him alive, shred him to pieces, and in one particular scene this obsessive desire plays out with a closed fist.), I have full-body memories--gut memories--of the churning, border-of-madness feeling it so masterfully evokes. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this story, all in one hard swallow.

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I tried to discern the best way to decide winners in these 1v1 scenarios, debating use of a letter-grade system, points values assigned to different qualities, gut instinct. . .there's no ideal way to do it. So I decided to just ask myself: if I could only read one of these two, ever again, forever, which would I choose to keep?

book cover commission for @yourtinseltinkerbell​ of our place in the family of things