I.

RINGING

It was torturous.

Like a dripping tap, amalgam on silver foil, nails on a blackboard, static from an untuned radio - and John had had enough.

"Sherlock! For Christ's sake, answer your sodding phone!"

John Watson's flatmate barely acknowledged his existence when the curse of his black moods descended, so the flurry of a pile of grass-stained(?) newspapers and slightly theatrical hand gesture was the only indication Sherlock had even heard him.

And the phone remained unanswered.

During these irksome periods of a case, where the answer was dangling just out of reach like the trials of Tantalus, regular mealtimes were as likely as unicorn dressage, yet John always attempted at some kind of rudimentary semblance of nutrition; was he not a medical man after all? Wasn't nutrition the absolute in fuelling the brain, engendering the genius that was his friend's… bread and butter?

"Not even a packet of crisps?"

Hands on hips, barefoot atop the coffee table, dressing gown awry and hair even more so, Sherlock surveyed the paper, string and drawing pin version of his mind palace, arranged so carefully on the wall opposite, and still shook his head.

"Slows… me… down," he bites, through gritted teeth and knotted jaw, eyes slitted and brow drawn down, facing off Tantalus.

"So close," he adds in a whisper of frustration, throwing an unpredictable dart across the room a fortuitous second before Mrs Hudson enters with a tray of tea and, surprisingly, a hammer.

John is glad of the distraction, takes his tea and smirks. "Out of biscuits then?" he quips, as Sherlock leaps from the table and the all too familiar jarring mobile breaks through the fretful restlessness that has curled its way about the confines of the room.

"No, dear," she returns, face deadpan and turning on her heel as she places the hammer on the recently vacated coffee table. "I just thought it might come in useful if he continues to ignore that blasted thing!"

Unfortunately, he does.

~x~

Naturally, it was Mycroft's fault.

And Lestrade's.

The former had been responsible for recommending Sherlock for a case which took him into the deepest, darkest country lanes of East Anglia, away from 4G, newspapers and several of his on-going cases which were coming to critical conclusions. What had resulted in keeping him from London and his own central business district had ultimately then proved to be a fruitless, dead-end of a case ("barely a two!") which was topped off by a stranding rail strike and the discovery that big brother was using him to pay back 'a favour'. Thus, Mycroft was being (even more) vigorously ignored until Sherlock's ire had fizzled out a little. Gregory Lestrade had done nothing more than arrive at the wrong time with the wrong kind of sympathy for the man who was the British Government (ie: any) and was therefore being ascribed a similar fate.

Hence the phone and its incessant cry for attention, which Sherlock would not mute, since his text alerts were of "vital importance" to the problematic little conundrum currently inhabiting their sitting room wall.

"Mycroft loves to phone me," he had observed, mainlining coffee and nicotine, squinting through acrid smoke at the unforthcoming montage being offered by the wall, "since he knows I detest it."

"And now we can all share in the fun," returns John Watson, eyeing up the hammer as another, grating, shrill tone shatters the relative silence. "Brilliant."

~x~

"You're going to have to pack it in. He's not gonna crack, Mycroft."

In desperation, John lies in conciliatory mode across his bed upstairs, but it appears the shrill tones can be heard through walls and ceilings.

"I feel differently, John," comes the measured yet smug reply, "but of course, you are entitled to your opinion."

"I have a hammer, Mycroft, and I have already had more than one opportunity to use it."

"My brother," purrs a reply laced in honey and kerosene, "has more than one phone."

"John, I'm sorry, but I've got the Commissioner breathing down my neck - I need Sherlock to shed some light on this one." Greg is sympathetic, but John is now hearing the ringtone in his dreams.

"Come and get him then! There was a time your blues and twos were spotted more frequently down Baker Street than a cab! Just stop calling him on that bloody thing for a few days."

"Yeah, not allowed to do that fake drugs bust/police escort thing any more - budget cuts and the like. Can you just have a word…?"

John presses the End Call, regretful for the loss of a handset, curly wire and a cradle to crash them into.

~x~

II.

FINDING

It wasn't until Thursday that John accidentally discovered, via Eamon Holmes (no relation) on This Morning, that ring tones could be muted with embarrassing ease, without affecting the text alert. He must watch daytime telly more often it would seem, since being almost forty had him relegated to being a virtual Luddite these days. It was a good job that nice Mary from the main office at the surgery was on hand to help when his computer (i.e. him) hit a glitch; she seemed very competent as well as nice. He smiled briefly, but there was vital work to do.

The wall case had reached critical mass the night before and Sherlock had given Lestrade the coordinates of the forgers with a mixture of triumph and disdain, content in the knowledge he had bested Scotland Yard and the puzzle had played out as he had deduced it would. The Clancy family were overjoyed and sent a crate of Bollinger to the Yard, eliciting the ghost of a smile from Sherlock; it seemed he was thawing towards Lestrade, even if his brother was still relegated to the icy tundra for the time being. All this then, resulted in a very fortuitous situation for John Watson, since a triumphant detective was very nearly always an exhausted detective and thus, he was greeted by a tangle of arms, legs and red dressing gown sprawled across the sofa, deep in the unconsciousness of an exhausted body. Nothing was going to wake Sherlock for hours, so what better time than now to utilise Eamon's well-timed advice? It was true that Lestrade was going to leave them in peace for at least a day or two, but Mycroft's propensity for annoyance knew no bounds.

As was the rule of thumb in these matters, when a despised irritant is sought out rather than avoided, it proves impossible to find.

Pockets, drawers, cupboards and every visible surface were painstakingly investigated and delicately ransacked to find Sherlock's phone and disable it. With one eye on the time and the other on a sleeping detective, John knew all the truisms about more haste resulting in less speed, but the clock was ticking and although Sherlock's breathing was still regular, it was lighter and levelling out towards more shallow sleep. Jesus, the man had sonar rather than ears most of the time which made subterfuge nigh on impossible in dealings with him.

Magazines, newspapers, peevishly discarded journals were all lifted from their varied resting places; sofas, chairs and even kitchen cabinets were searched beneath (although John was not always prepared for the extra little delights he discovered during his quest - the amputated mouse tails had been… unexpected). Then, thirty minutes in, John paused in his frantic search mode and stared down at the man who lay before him, dreaming the dreams of the smug and the vindicated.

What, his mind coaxed out into a more coherent and logical format, if it's actually still in his pocket?

But no. Even Sherlock, despite his inhuman tolerance of discomfort in order to prove a point, would not wish the irritant to be quite so close; it would make more sense for him to have put it out of sight and (almost) out of earshot -

Bedside drawer.

Buoyed up by certainty, John took the four paces across the room it took to enter Sherlock's bedroom and gingerly closed the door behind him, all the better for a further barricade in his espionage. In shocking contrast to their shared living quarters, it was an immaculate (if somewhat spartan) space, an observation eliciting the rather childish resentment rising in the breast of John Watson. Picture frames straight and dust-free, surfaces clear of clutter and no clothing, toiletries or nicknacks on public view. John so rarely came in here, he turned in his speculation, feeling the slight tug of inappropriate intrusion into his flatmate's privacy, but clearly not enough to dissuade his gentle tug on the drawer handle -

And there it was.

An expensive Nokia; John was glad he hadn't resorted to quietening it with Mrs Hudson's hammer, momentarily anticipating the password hurdle before he realised Sherlock was too impatient for passwords.

Settings… he should try and recall what Eamonn had said with a little more clarity as his thumb swiped across the offensive instrument rapidly, one ear to the living room and one eye -

John Watson froze, his heart stilled, blood surging in his ears, his thumb poised atop the screen that was illuminating a face halted in shock.

It was a photograph. It had been recently viewed and therefore not yet hidden away in Sherlock's photo gallery, and the photograph's subject lying across the very bed he sat upon glowed hot in his hand, as if come to life. The person had been caught wrestling out of a flurry of bedclothes, arms blurred, eyes crinkled in amusement and pale skin lit by the close proximity of a bleaching flash. John had to remind himself to breathe as he stared. It was the smile; the genuine, trusting, openness that radiated humour, playfulness and utter joy at being photographed; it was a smile he had never seen before on this face of this person, lying half-naked, half sheet-wrapped as he tried to retrieve the phone from the person taking the picture.

It was the face of his friend, his flatmate, the man he'd imagined he knew better than all others, now wearing the mask of someone he'd never met.

And if Sherlock Holmes was the subject of that picture, the question now blazing through his brain (hands hastily restoring the Nokia to the drawer as if it had burst into flames into his palm) begged to be answered:

Who, in God's name, was the photographer?

~x~