Chapter Text
Take one
Glad of the fully-tiltable screen and gripping the handy, detachable remote like his life depended upon it, John Watson stared deep into the single, blinking eye of the Cannon and took a tremulous breath.
The single red light stared right back and the RODE VideoMic almost crackled in anticipation of his first words.
"Welcome dear viewer."
John arched his back slightly in a chair he'd sat in for the last eight years without cause for fidget and his heart thudded hard, possibly being recorded by the RODE Mic, as he paused.
"Welcome to 221B Baker Street. Not only the home, but also the hub of all things in the life and work of Mr Sherlock Holmes, the world's first and only consulting detective."
A short clatter emanating from the kitchen area punctuated the next pause but John ploughed on, slightly regretting taking the instant share/ live streaming to YouTube option proffered by the Cannon Powershot G7.
"Sherlock's international reputation in criminology and his unique approach to deduction and inference have frequently made him the first port of call for the victims of crime, wrongdoings and misfortune."
Again he paused, realised the bathroom mirror rehearsals had ill-prepared him for live documentary-style presentation to a waiting world. Did he sound too pompous? Too Victorian? Too much of a suck-up?
He stood up, partly to cover another (slightly louder) clatter and partly to restrict the fidgeting.
"So many clients have sat here, in this chair - "
The camera duly swivelled as the remote control did him proud.
"- weighed down with worry and concern, relaying their story to my friend and colleague and awaiting his invaluable advice."
The camera panned back to him and he began walking, really hoping the mutterings he was now discerning beyond the sitting room would be sotto voce gems of wisdom from a genius detective rather than potential swear words.
"But now, dear viewer, in a time where we all live our lives across the media, you too may experience what it is like to visit Baker Street and witness the inner workings of the deductive process, see the evidence, meet the people and witness the real science that lies beneath the apprehension of so many notorious criminals over the past ten years."
Fearfully, John attempted to ignore the encroaching stench of burnt chemicals wafting across camera, as well as the running of water and slamming of cupboards. Also, a phone had begun ringing and he had no clue where it was hidden. With a slight panic in his perambulation, John suddenly changed direction, causing a slight shudder in the HG-100TBRT tripod grip as the camera tried to keep up. Within moments he was at the mantelpiece.
"Those of you familiar with my Blog (and I hope that link brought you here) may recall the letter knife Sherlock uses to keep his post tidy, and perhaps the skull (Billy was lifted and briefly held aloft, Hamlet-style) he often used as a silent witness before I arrived on the scene to chronicle his cases."
Momentarily, amidst the rising tide of scuffling, muttered profanities and the unholy, acrid stink of burning, John contemplated how wonderful the gift of a silent witness would be at that very moment as he replaced Billy. Was it too early for a break from filming to perhaps find his equilibrium - and maybe a bucket of water?
"The hustle and bustle of a lively detective agency is part of what makes Baker Street what it is."
A determined John Watson grinned manically at the blinking red light, panning a whirring camera to catch his traverse towards the windows. Surely that was a safe enough distance? Film a little of the passing traffic and people ambling by 221B for some authenticity.
Then his heart sank at a familiar tread on the landing and diatribe at the door; of all the times she could have chosen...
"Now, blood stains I can deal with, but this!" Mrs Hudson parried a large, pink plastic basket across her least affected hip as she held one of Sherlock's blue Turnball & Asser shirts up like it was a Ku Klux Klan robe, fresh from a recent lynching.
John almost stammered, gathering himself in a monumental effort.
"Ah, Mrs Hudson, Sherlock wore that on one of our more recent cases…"
"In a sewer or a farmyard?"
The camera blinked, as did John.
"Mmm… both actually, but Mr Scott Eccles is now in police custody thanks to - "
But she'd turned on her heel, tossing the offending item back into the basket and huffing out a snappy diatribe of complaints about her tenant all the way down the stairs. The phrase most distinguishable seemed to begin with 'not' and end with 'housekeeper'.
"Of course, no tour of 221B would be complete without introductions to the folks within its walls!"
John's grin was wavering now and he palmed the remote, index finger hovering over 'pause'. Scanning around the room, desperate for some wholesome and intriguing content, he glanced out of the window just in time to witness a dark, sleek Bentley draw up at the curb and a familiar tailored leg emerge from its depths.
It was the final straw.
His finger readied to press and end this debacle of what the kids on the street called 'YouTubing' just as Sherlock Holmes emerged, stained, wild-haired and dangerous from the kitchen, still holding a smoking pair of tongs and a furious expression.
"John! What the devil are you doing? What are you wasting time with a camera for when there's work at the morgue? You promised to retrieve the calcification slides from Molly Hooper two hours ago!"
"I'm filming," said John, weakly, his life force ebbing away beneath a deadweight of disastrous footage. "Or sodding well trying to."
Sherlock flicked the tongs in the direction of the door, his hair also slightly singed around the edges and soot striped across his forehead.
"If you go now you can catch her before end of shift - "
John sighed. To be truthful, the first day of using the fancy new camera set-up had shoved the slide errand completely from his mind.
He pressed 'stop' and the red light stopped blinking. Sherlock turned away, casting carbonated tongs and apologies away with a wave of his hand.
"And don't forget to slam the door in Mycroft's face for me on the way out please." His eyes flashed bright blue over his shoulder. "If that doesn't interfere too much with … filming."
All in all then, Day One of vlogging… a little bit not good.
…
Three weeks previously...
"It's time 221B got in line with the twenty-first Century! Seeing is believing, Sherlock."
"Seeing is vastly overrated actually. Observation, on the other hand, is extremely rare and unable to be reduced to entertainment for the click generation. I do not wish for dissection by the slobbering masses staggering home from the pub."
"YouTubers are millionaires, Sherlock."
"I have money and a modicum of self respect, so … no."
"But think of all the people, Sherlock - those few, deluded unfortunates…"
"You'll have to narrow it down."
"Those people who haven't yet gained awareness of your genius ... your art (deep breath) ... the Science of Deduction."
(Sherlock narrows his eyes as he holds the test tube aloft momentarily, but he has paused)
"Imagine, Sherlock, of a case out there so phenomenal and intellectually magnificent; a case you were born to solve, undiscovered and unsolved because those involved hadn't read my dusty old Blog?"
Certainly, there was a fair degree of truth jostling for space alongside the sycophantic hyperbole in John Watson's words.
Footfall at Baker Street had always been fairly regular, if a little varied in quality, but they'd recently missed out on several intriguing cases which had been attempted by other, less reliable agencies (and consequently ended in disaster for all concerned). Any glee Sherlock savoured in these failures of rivals were obviously tinged by outrage that word had not reached him first; but then if one regularly shied from publicity the way he did, such exclusivity was bound to lead to some losses. In part, John agreed that many seeking Sherlock's skill set were not necessarily equipped with the wherewithal to find it.
"You mean they're idiots!"
"Idiots with great cases to solve - and without your number, mate!"
There had also been the unfortunate incident with Robert Norberton, owner of Derby winner Shoscombe Prince, who had been so overjoyed at Sherlock's handling of his prematurely deceased sister (and all that entailed), he'd embraced John Watson like a life raft, pumping his hand in an ecstatically enthused handshake.
"I can NEVER thank you enough!" (clap on the shoulders for good measure as Sherlock watched from the side lines, eyebrow cocked, arms folded)
"You've not only saved my home and my business but also my reputation and the sanity of my entire family - " (beseeching and inordinately grateful teary-eyed stare into John's navy eyes)
"Thank you, thank you, thank you Mr Sherlock Holmes! Your talents have more than lived up to your reputation. I am forever in your debt!"
To his credit, Sherlock didn't correct Mr Norberton, but John felt the resentment fizzing about his friend as they stepped out of the racing yard and into a waiting Uber.
"It was a bit dark in there … he probably needs glasses…" John realised the poor quality of the straws he was grasping at.
"He had 20:20 vision, as you would surely have noticed when he showed us the manuscript from two metres' distance in a dimly lit stable."
"We-ell - you've not really been on telly or in the papers much lately, and you always pull that hat down over your face…"
Sherlock turned and John was surprised to see something unusual floating about his eyes. Hurt.
"He thought you were me. He directed his statement to me, thinking I was your chronicler!"
John shook his head as he closed the car door. "You always did cherish your anonymity, Sherlock."
But as the car merged into the traffic, John Watson glanced at his silent friend and speculated on whether that truth remained.
Then, of course, there had been the fraternal element -
Mycroft.
Molly Hooper had greeted John in a most turbulent and flustered manner at the bottom of his stairs one Friday. Her jumper held its usual shocking grasp on the eyeballs but her hair was frazzled and slightly undone, her cheeks livid with some degree of mortification and her hands were clawed nervously about a brown manilla folder stamped with the red Bart's warning to not remove it from the hospital. Her eyes swivelled from him to the upstairs she had just vacated where raised voices, ominous thumps and scraping furniture could clearly be heard.
"Mycroft," she hissed, eyes wide as a significant 'thump' was made against the door to the flat which frogmarched John's clouded thoughts immediately towards -
"Sherlock isn't high," hissed Molly. Another thump. "He's just really furious. Mycroft nearly got the union jack cushion across his head."
John rolled his eyes, contemplating his long day of palpating, probing and paraphrasing unwanted advice to his patients and longed for a sit down with some cheese straws and a beer.
"Mycroft told me to leave," added Molly as John unwrapped his scarf and unbuttoned his coat, as if to delay the inevitable. Mycroft bossing Molly would not have been his wisest move where Sherlock was concerned.
"It's OK Molly," he said, "I'll see what I can do about the pillow fight between two, intellectually gifted adult men, one of whom runs most of the British Government, and I'll pass on this - " he took the file - "when they've put their dummies back in."
She smiled gratefully, pulling on a pink duffle coat and searching for her Oyster card.
"Any ideas?" It always helped if one knew what nonsense was being battled over. "Nicked his Action Man? Wants Sherlock to stay away from the most recent government scandal?"
Tucking away a silken piece of hair, Molly wrinkled her nose and shook her head. At least she had managed to regain her composure.
"Nah, opposite really. Mycroft actually wants to recruit him. To the Ministry. Said there was little future or intellectual challenge in being a detective. Apparently, Eurus thought it a brilliant idea."
Oh, brilliant.
John sighed.
"You know this family is about as messed up as they come, don't you Molly? You should just steer clear."
She laughed out loud.
"I will if you will," she replied, cheerfully waving as she closed the door and John trod wearily up to Ground Zero.
That evening…
They'd had supper, cleared up any stray soft furnishings and Sherlock was over his brotherly altercation. Almost.
He was also smoking.
"Mycroft was intensely irritating and intolerably rude to Molly but he had a point."
John blinked.
"Shame you didn't mention this to him before rearranging the front room and yelling at each other for twenty minutes. Mrs Hudson was almost on the phone to your mother."
Sherlock rolled his bright eyes, inhaling deeply and waving the cigarette as if to chase away the whole nonsense.
"My caseload recently has been less than … ideal."
John put down his bottle and listened properly.
"Low calibre love affairs and domestic tragedies which would scarcely draw interest in a gossip magazine are too frequently demanding my attention. It seems there are fewer great minds plotting great injustices against society these days and the criminologist is all the poorer for it."
"You usually sniff them out when they don't want to be found; that's what you do."
Sherlock sat back, knees drawn up and eyes now squinting against the smoke that wreathed about his dark head.
"I do, but sometimes John ... sometimes I want them to approach me. I need the strange, the potentially unsolvable; the mystery itself as much as any crime committed. People need to bring their conundrums to my table. They need to seek me out."
So, seeing the world's only consulting detective - seeing him in his home, meeting clients, solving puzzles, deducing, being Sherlock Holmes. That would increase the footfall; that would shoo away Mycroft and current lack-lustre choices. Everyone would know what he looked like and what he could do.
John grasped his phone from the side table and, with the air of a latter-day Pandora, googled 'vlogging'.
Three Weeks later
Take one (evening) …
Well, thought John Watson as he lay in his creaky single bed that evening, tracking the Nile shaped crack in the ceiling for about the thousandth time, there had been a few teething problems and mercifully, he hadn't been livestreaming after all (imagine…) but that meant the only way was up. Sherlock had, admittedly, been his usual, rigorously opposed self, but with a bit more practise and a few more interesting set ups for content, he'd soon be uploading Episode One of The Science of Deduction to the world wide web.
He tossed back the duvet as the night was unseasonably warm since Sherlock had the radiators blasting to dry out some ancient fungal deposits, and contemplated the current situation.
Sherlock had been (however reluctantly) part of the experience and they had emerged (mostly) unscathed.
Mrs Hudson hadn't turned them out and Mycroft hadn't sent his brother on a one way trip to Serbia.
In addition, Mary Morstan hadn't teased him too overtly regarding his efforts (although that could certainly turn on a sixpence) and Molly had taken delivery of her slides.
He turned over, smiling a little into the pillow with the promise of another day to come.