December daily: Fanfiction unicorn

karmageddon prompts: What's your fic unicorn : the story you would read the hell out of, if only it existed?

Oh my. I wish I had started on this earlier!

Guys, this should be a meme. I encourage everyone to answer this question in your journals, because it was all kinds of fun.

As for my story, let's see. It would be BBC Sherlock and John, obviously, since they're the ones I'm in love with at the moment.

It would be published complete, all at once, and it would have pacing on purpose instead of just tension rising and falling depending on how much writing time the author had that day.

It would be satisfyingly long but not so long that a person couldn't read it all in one day.

It would have a slow-burn love story, and the author would understand that coitus interruptus is not the same thing as romantic suspense. The emotional barriers that are there in the canon would be there in the story, or possibly even more so, and it would take actual work to get past them. There would be genuine relationship development, which would continue even after the sex.

There would be enough possibility of emotional misunderstanding to give me some good gut-clenchy moments. The resolution would be solid and satisfying, but not be carried out in the form of a long out-of-character conversation.

The guys would be themselves; I wouldn't be saying to people, "Did you read that AU where Sherlock cares a lot about how other people feel?" But they would be good at what they're good at, too.

Most readers, at this point, say, "There'd be a good case," or, "The other characters we love would be their adorable selves," but honestly, dear readers, I don't care if the entire story takes place in John's bedroom and no other human being is seen, heard, or referred to from start to finish.

John would not be coaxing Sherlock to eat or sleep, as if John were a parent who hadn't quite worked out that one has no control over a toddler's bodily functions. There would be no mention of shopping, washing dishes, tidying, or any sort of chore whatsoever. If there was a pancreas hanging over the towel bar on the first page, there would still be a pancreas hanging over the towel bar on the last.

I'm a sucker for virginity, for John getting to be smarter than Sherlock about some things, and for sexual desperation, and for Sherlock being really, really touch-starved.

John would be strong enough that I could feel happy about his being in a relationship with Sherlock, rather than having the sinking feeling that he was going to wind up flattened by Sherlock's emotional steam-roller.

Possibly there would be sequels.