Can you hear me now?

Can I Borrow Your Phone?

by J.H. Watson
~ 400 words

Sherlock Holmes looked down at his phone and frowned. “John, I need your phone.”

John Watson face expressed his exasperation as he got up and walked over to where Sherlock was sitting looking into scope in a lab at Bart’s Hospital. John fished his mobile out of his coat pocket and placed it in Sherlock’s  demanding, out-stretched hand. “What do you do when I’m not here to loan you my phone?”

“Borrow Molly’s,” Sherlock said as he made one more adjustment to the scope before looking up and adding, “Or go up on the roof. I get perfect reception on the roof.”

“That could be dangerous.”

Sherlock made a derisive face as he finished typing his text and hitting send.

Watson said defensively, “You could fall off.”

Sherlock stared at his friend as he held out the phone in return

John blinked and added, “Or get struck by lightening.”

Sherlock held the stare and the right corner of his mouth curled in a derisive smirk. John snatched the phone from Sherlock’s hand. A blush crept up John’s face as he stuffed it back into his pocket. As he turned he muttered, “Or someone could push you off.”

Sherlock had returned to peering through his scope.”What did you say?”

“I’m just going to push off.”

Sherlock slid another slide in place as he said, “Right. You might  try the ginger barmaid who paints.”

John turned back. “What?”

Sherlock was peering through scope making an adjustment as he replied, “At the pub. She’s interested in going out with you.”

“How —”

“She deliberately turned around to look at your backside last night and smiled.”

John paused. “Right. Thanks.”

John left the lab. Sherlock smiled to himself. A few moments later he spotted something, quickly replaced the slide with another, made another adjustment, then sat up and pulled out his phone. He started to punch in something, stopped, looked at it and made face. “Damn! I’ve got to get another carrier.”

He stood up and collected his scarf and coat.

### End ###

Sorry. Another bit of niggling continuity issues that get to me is that in the Sherlock-Watson “cute meet” scene in A Study in Pink, Sherlock needs to borrow John’s phone because he can’t get a signal inside Bart’s, but after that he never seems to have any trouble. Especially in Reichenbach Falls when he can’t afford to have any interruption with his phone service because of the intricate timing of his final move with Moriarty. I’m mentally justifying it with some backstory that Sherlock changes his mobile carrier after the initial meet-up with John. It’s the simplest explanation…

Oh, alright, I’ll throw the slash/shippers a bone (no pun intended) and say that another alternative answer is that Sherlock looks John over and decides he wants to impress and connect so he pretends he can’t get service inside of Bart’s so he can borrow John’s phone because he’s already deduced that Stamford doesn’t have his. But I’ll let someone else write that story.