Circumspect

by librophile

Throughout Holmes and Watson's shared career, they discovered many things through careful judgment. The most important was that there could, indeed, be such a thing as a friend. Drabble series, companion to "Fortnight."

22. Play Away

Written:3-14-13

Play Away

He knows that his habit is by far beyond its safe limits... He doesn't need to see or hear (or feel) the pain in his friend's gaze, when he sees that Holmes has once more been at the drug while he was away, to realize it. Watson's features lose the jubilance of a good day's work to quiet obscurity as he turns away, shoulders slightly more bent than before.

Holmes looks after him blankly, pain of his own curling through his chest in red-hot wisps of agony. His friend deserved far more from him. How could he hold Watson to his own standards and not abide his friend's?

The next day, the case is conspicuously absent from its place on the mantle. A week later, a larger box replaces it, filled with sheet music gathered from various parts of the globe.

If Watson objects to his midnight violin sonatas whenever the mood strikes, he never mentions it. And Holmes can see the gratitude in his face when he finds the remains of that accursed case in splintered pieces by the hearth not long after.