Written for the LiveJournal community Watsons_Woes for their July Writing Prompts challenge. Amnesty prompt 06 was: purple prose: Use however this inspires you.
Warning: my use of the prompt is groan-worthy and I know it :-D
_A Touch of Color_
Of all the times to run out of ink, it had to be near the end of the day when Holmes was in the middle of a case and needed to send several telegrams. He left in a huff to write them at the telegraph office, while I hurried out in hopes of reaching the stationer's before it closed for the day. I arrived with a minute to spare and grabbed the first bottle at hand.
I did not use it until the following evening, when I sat down to jot some notes about the now-concluded case. It wasn't until I had written several lines that I noticed something peculiar about the color. Holmes peered over my shoulder at my weary sigh and said blandly, "I would not have called your prose purple before, but now there is no more appropriate descriptor."
"I will purchase new ink tomorrow."
"You could use that. After all, it lends your writing the color that it lacked before," he said with a smirk.
I knew he was joking, but still felt a bit hurt.
A few drops of ink in Holmes' morning tea served as my revenge: his lips and teeth were stained for days.