221B Recs

Title: A Handsome and Generous People
Author: sanguinity
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Wt'sn; background Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 7519
Rating: Teen
Warnings: N/A
Verse: Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century
Author's summary:
“Watson,” Holmes said, reaching up to clasp my wrist.

“I’m sorry, old chap,” I said, giving him my hand. “It’s only Wt’sn.”

Reccer's comments: All the details you need to know about this adaptation (which is distinct from the 22nd Century one) are provided in the notes; don't let lack of familiarity stop you from reading this story. It's a particular kind of hiatus tale in which Holmes really had no control over his separation from Watson (pesky timewarp). Here he has an able and admirable new companion, Doctor Wt'sn from the Rigel system, who both helps him come to terms with that loss and encourages him not to give up on finding a solution. Not without some mixed feelings, as Wt'sn observes Holmes' grieving process and the ways he is and isn't a substitute partner. As sanguinity also notes, "this is simply a story about being the wrong Watson." The result is bittersweet, somewhat more for Holmes' sake than for Wt'sn whose own agency is fully intact.

As a bonus, this fic offers yet another explanation for the chronological inconsistencies and absurd plots that pop-up in the canon stories.

Excerpt:

“I wish to ask an indulgence, Holmes.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “With your permission, I would like to read the stories.”

He peered at me a moment, startled, before returning his eyes to his paper. As I expected, he did not ask me whose stories I wanted to read. “I understood that you already had. Your every reaction positively screamed it, when we first met.”

“When I was a young man, newly arrived in London, yes, but not since coming to room with you.”

He made an irritated noise. “I’m cursed by romantics.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “If my company is so unpleasant, Holmes, you need only find new lodgings. I am no longer the only person you know in London.”

He glanced at me. “I don’t think we need go quite that far.”

I smiled. Two weeks to the day after I had first met him, he had appeared on the doorstep of my squalid rented room, carrying a half-empty carpetbag and fuming about how he refused to live in that museum one day longer. It seemed that he had been driven beyond endurance by anthropologists, who chided him for his desire to embrace the marvels of the twenty-third century, and curators, who nagged him about which chairs on which he might sit.

He must have had reasons of his own for not appealing to his family for assistance, but I did not need to know what they were. I drew him inside by the elbow, and offered up my bedsit as a refuge. “Such as it is,” I apologized, “and for as long as we can keep the landlord from noticing.”

“You’re very kind, but when we first met, I could not help but notice that my arrival interrupted your search for lodgings. Perhaps if we throw in together, you will have better success?”

I had liked him immediately when we met, and we had got on well during that first case. I had even attempted re-reading A Study in Scarlet, before being brought to a halt by the sensation that I was taking a liberty with a man I barely knew, underlined by my refreshed memory of what a terrible novel it was. The imp in me could not resist: I told him about a place that I had an eye on, one that I thought would suit us right down to the ground.

Today, I blush at myself for making the joke: I had not realized how deep his feelings for Dr Watson ran, or I would never have implied the parallel. Holmes, however, had only raised an eyebrow at me.

“Watson was a terrible liar,” he said. “You’ll be comforted to know I have never once been tempted to poison a fellow lodger.”

From that moment, our pact of friendship was sealed.

ps: if you're interested in the smaller corners of Holmes fandom, do visit the More Holmes collection on AO3, created to make it easier to find fanworks outside ACD, BBC, Elementary, House, and the Ritchie films.