A/N: Indulging in a bit of "generic character Chandler" inside joke. I rather not name throwaway characters, or if I do, I end up naming them Chandler. Oh well. Here we go, new piece, on a wing and a prayer. -csf
1.
John returns upstairs, after his predictable habit of preceding Mrs Hudson's standard call of "I'm your landlady, dears, not your butler" and actually answering the front door bell. Even if Sherlock has already tried to permanently disable the devilish thing, under Mrs Hudson's annoyed huffs. He's tried knife, acid, short-circuit and sticky toffee, but the buzzer is oddly resistant to malfeasance activities. The detective suspects his meddling brother may have had something to do with it.
'Another desperate client?' Sherlock drawls as if inattentive, distracted by the living room's ennui. Only the living room hasn't really changed in the last couple of years, certainly not enough to have suddenly become so engrossing to the owner of the littered clutter about.
John's thread on the steps coming up is slightly slower than his usual, as if hindered in some way, yet his voice reveals no pain, and his breath is not laboured. A bulky object, therefore, light but cumbersome on the narrow stairs.
'Not a new client, no, lord forbid you'd have to actually get up from the sofa!' John huffs, then a soft thud echoes from Sherlock's chair, exactly opposite the man planking on the long sofa.
'I've taken clients from the sofa before, John.' The detective fully misses the point. The doctor secretly takes it as a win.
'You already solved his case, Sherlock. That was Mr Chandler. You remember him, right?'
'Aren't all my clients you tell me about called Chandler?'
John chuckles. 'That's not how they sign their cheques, mate.'
Sherlock shrugs. 'I don't insist on getting paid.'
'Well, Mrs Hudson does, so I do your accounting for you you're welcome, you berk.' After a second he adds: 'We do take plenty of cases pro bono though, as we should.'
The languid detective still lounges on the sofa, curling his toes and stretching his body like a cat on a hot roof, carefree and superior.
'How much did he pay us? Can we now stop being so mercenary, or are we still under our landlady's claws?'
'No, it was one of your early cases, I think. He dropped by to give us an extra thank you note, and a gift. Turns out you warned him about a distant cousin and whatever you told him, it has come to pass, and you were absolutely spot on.'
'Why feign surprise, John, you're my blogger, you know my abilities better than the public at large.'
'Sometimes I really fear one day your ego will no longer fit the room, mate.'
Sherlock rolls his boneless body over towards the edge of the sofa, without getting up. His feline eyes follow John closely about the living room. John is waiting by a cardboard box, crudely wrapped.
'What did he get us, John?'
'No us in this case, he got it for you. I really think I wasn't really a part of that case. You were having a lot of cases, and I was working with Sarah at that surgery – you remember Sarah, from the Chinese circus and the Blind Banker case, right? – and sometimes you wrapped up new cases before I managed to clock out from work.'
'No, I'm sure you were there, you're always there.'
Sceptically, John glances at the detective. God help him, he talks in earnest. Has this anything to do with him talking to John when John is not even in the room?
Mellowed, John mutters: 'I'll find those case records later anyway.'
'What's the gift?' the detective's attention lingers on the battered box; he's a detective, of course he can't resist a mystery. He's probably deducing it already.
'You can't deduce it?'
Sherlock blinks. Hardly fair. He still has no clue as to who this mysterious Mr Chandler is. Could be one of his clients, for sure. Half of London was, or hoped to have been, his client at this point. John is too naïve to notice how far and wide Sherlock's fame has travelled. A delusion that the detective has no intention to break, lest John suggests a consulting detective franchise to better help the whole of England. Sherlock does not wish to be serialised.
The box taking over Sherlock's chair calls for his attention. Apart from the client identifying as a human male according to John's choice of pronoun, Sherlock is very limited for clues over the client's identity, so he decides to get up – at last, moved by curiosity alone – and study the cardboard box. It's amazing all the hints of personality a package can produce about its sender. Organisation, cleanliness, suitability, access to substances (according to any hazard labels if we're lucky), stamps or codes from couriers, scents and stains, transference of fibres and newspaper ink imprints, smudged fingerprints; the list is endless to any detective, and practically speaks volumes to a world class consulting detective.
It takes a two seconds glance for Sherlock to point out:
'The client works for a big theatre company, uses a variety of fabrics, many that shed colourful fibres that got collected on the edge of the adhesive tape he used to seal the box. Simple, plain cardboard, general grade, not a reused box, it's far too new for that, definitely someone who has to hand a stock of cardboard boxes. A manual worker and artisan, builds custom products and sends them to clients in boxes. Going by the size of the box, stage props likely; no, a very specific size of box, bulk bought. A different sort of a theatre, a sizeable affair, with periodical workshops for the public, families or school children... Puppets or marionettes likely, am I right, John?'
The blond doctor smiles openly in admiration, but prefers to state: 'I knew you'd get there in the end! Remember Mr Chandler now?'
'Not a clue.'
John's face falls.
'He remembers you, though. Whatever you did for him, he's very grateful. In fact, Sherlock', John starts, propping the cardboard box open to plunge in and extract the contents, 'he remembers you so very well, he's made a Sherlock Holmes marionette, mate, and the resemblance is cunning.'
The shocked detective flinches. That monstrosity does not look like him one bit. It fails to capture Sherlock's essence, his genius, his artistry, his difference from the crowds of vulgar human specimens. It's but a caricature of a stereotype, it's an insult – and John is already fond of the goddamned doll. Good heavens, Sherlock has been serialised.
.
The string puppet waltzes on the living room's rug with frantic energy, as John seems completely taken by the miniature of his flatmate. Sherlock watches in mild horror. The marionette is lanky, gangly, topped by a mop of unruly black hair, eyes unblinkingly oakmoss green, cuttingly sharp cheekbones, vivid deep blue scarf, twirling long coat and shiny shoes. The while thing is about 50cm tall, big enough to be clearly identifiable from a stage to an audience of families with small humans... Sherlock groans to the thought that someone would want to expose their offspring to him as some sort of role model.
But, he adds to himself, if it promotes scientific reasoning and deductions, perhaps it may not be quite as bad as that; can it?
'My name is Sherlock Holmes and I'm the greatest detective that has ever lived!' John squeaks his voice to annoy his friend as he exaggerates his model's gestures to a captive audience, as if the stringed marionette was about to give what was commonly referred to, at the Yard, as a deduction speech. Wide maniac gestures, coat ends floating twirls, dastardly swoops to the imaginary corpse laying on the ground. To all this the real, in the flesh, detective is a spectator, looking himself a bit baffled and even a bit concerned, as if self-conscious.
'I wouldn't ever say that!'
'Last Friday at 3 PM, mate.'
'And I don't sound like that.'
John mischievously shrugs, hinting at the possibility. It's actually quite the opposite, Sherlock has a rich deep voice that could do radio shows if he ever considered it.
'And I'd certainly not wave my arms about as much! No one would take me seriously if I acted like that!'
Sensing a near meltdown, John relents. 'Alright, maybe I'm pushing it a bit. No harm done.'
'No, don't stop now!' The detective swoops forward, his trousers' knees straining against the rug so that Sherlock can better watch the wooden figurine at eye level. Again he's like a cat watching a mouse before attacking the prey.
The marionette remains painstakingly indifferent to the genius observing it with derision.
'My genius is not dependent of an audience, John.'
Sherlock's eyebrow raises. Murky, but decisively consistent with the situation. He's easily reminded that John is controlling the strings, and John is a storyteller. He can make this experience so much more than it is now – a surreal exercise of looking in on oneself through an outsider view.
'What else would I be expected to do, to say?' he demands, studying the doll as he'd want to study himself.
John knows this is dangerous territory, but it's also an imminent train crash he can't avoid. Still, he sticks to basic staples of Sherlock wisdom, for now.
'Everyone is so stupid, no one compares to my grandiose intellect!'
'True, although it risks stating the obvious, John. Carry on, I'm very interested.'
'Go away, Mycroft, you are a fat pompous—'
Someone at the open door to their flat coughs, interrupting the little play, and they jump and turn towards the sound, looking exceedingly guilty. It turns out not to be Mycroft – probably a good thing, that is until you account for the infiltrated home CCTV probably set up in the flat – but Mrs Hudson, who coos and adores the small man in the long coat at once.
'Oh, Sherlock, he's just like you! Isn't he adorable?' She looks at each other tenants and adds: 'I can see it now, just like you two's lovechild. Isn't it cute?'
It wouldn't take long for the romantic landlady to be kindly but firmly escorted out and back to her own flat downstairs, still muttering about "little Sherlock" and if there would be a "little John" to keep the other company. She was most other adamant that a Sherlock doll needed a John doll, for some reason, and she was also on about a baby clothes stored in the attic.
She seemed disappointed when Sherlock rudely assured her that the doll had not been either tenants' idea, but that of a former client. She disappeared into her own flat with a mischievous smile and a fixed idée for her Baker Street fan club (of which both Sherlock and John were finally hearing about) that she would not divulge as a payback for her boys' lack of cooperation.
'We're keeping it', Sherlock decides, in all seriousness.
'Well, of course we are. I wouldn't throw you in the bin, now would I?' John replies, with too much seriousness himself.
Sherlock smirks fondly, as he starts ruffling through the living room's clutter, trying to find his old case notes. Chandler, was it? How many Chandlers could he have possibly got as clients over the years?
.
TBC
