Fic Rec: The (Second) Prime of Life

[sanguinity]

Title: The (Second) Prime of Life
Author: AwkwardAnnie
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes / John Watson
Length: 2,325 words
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Author's summary: In which measurements are taken, a question is asked, plans are made and it is no great tragedy that that which is forgotten stays lost.

Reccer's comments: In the 22nd century, Holmes was resurrected and rejuvenated in order to fight crime again. Meanwhile, a Yard-issue crime-fighting robot read the journals of John H. Watson and... became John H. Watson. What that latter thing means is never fully explored in the show; Holmes has not-my-Watson feelings for the space of an episode then handily gets over it, accepting this Watson as that Watson and happily fighting crime with him thereafter.

AnnieAwkward's "The (Second) Prime of Life" is a poignant, domestic little story that explores the paradox of this Watson both being and not-being that Watson. After all, there are things that robo!Watson doesn't know, and can't know: John Watson never committed them to paper and Holmes won't -- or can't -- discuss them. Further, as a non-human brain in a non-human chassis -- and operating from a decidedly non-human memory of John Watson's life! -- robo!Watson is a fundamentally different creature than John Watson was. These things matter, of course; how could they not? And yet both men choose over and again to accommodate them, to embrace this and avoid that, and painstakingly build a new relationship on the sometimes-treacherous remains of an old one.

Because there are decided rewards to that effort, and going to Mars is the least of them. :-)

Comments

[donut_donut]

this sounds fascinating! I'm totally unfamiliar with this verse, thanks for reccing.

[tripleransom]

I always think there was a lot of unexplored potential for angst in this series. I read this fic a long time ago and just enjoyed it again.

Thank you for the very sensitive rec. Also for calling attention to the More Holmes collection on AO3.

[sanguinity]

Hah, reading through the 22C tag at AO3 gave me a bad case of whiplash: all the Holmes/Lestrade shippers happily tripping along with their canon ship, and all the Holmes/Watson shippers tearing their breasts while delivering angst by the bucketfull. What the show did not supply in the way of angst, the H/W shippers certainly did!

I've been neglecting the More_Holmes collection; I need to do another pass through the archive, and then spend some time promoting the collection again. Because those small 'verses deserve more attention than they tend to get. But after Holmestice is over. ;-)

[sanguinity]

22nd Century is an animated cartoon from the 1990s; the entire thing is on Youtube, last I checked. Most episodes are sci-fi versions of canon stories, some more closely adapted to the original than others. (Their Hound of the Baskervilles is a trip and a half: Dartmoor wasn't bleak enough, so they did theirs on the moon!) Lestrade is a young woman who likes kicking in doors, and they have a very flamboyant Moriarty, if one likes flamboyant Moriartys.

I'm not going to go out on the limb of saying that it's good -- it has the frenetic idiosyncrasies of '90s-era children's cartoons -- but there is something compelling about it, and I know many who are fond of it. But whatever one's feelings about the show itself, the premise all but begs for fic. Holmes resurrected 200 years after his time to bring a Moriarty clone to justice? Watson replaced by a robot who believes he's that John Watson? Both of them living in 221B, which nowadays is the remains of a museum to themselves? Begs. For. Fic.

Or maybe that's just me. *casts a guilty eye at the draft of my sprawling epic of a 22C crossover...*