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Even before he entered their room, he knew.
The case had been long and productive, and that night Holmes had hummed happily in his best evening attire, his arm clasped tightly in the doctor's so that his fingers rested softly and discreetly on the gripping wrist. A caress, simple and secret, absorbed and unnoticed by the outside world, as it would always be.
The concert had been beautiful and majestic, and Holmes had a calm, bright smile on his lips, and all was well.
But then the hours passed and they returned home, and the days flew by, and so did the consecutive weeks – dull in their slowness. Watson had followed his schedule for times like these as usual: he had kept him in bed in the mornings, busy in the afternoons and entertained in the evenings, eager and then lethargic until late hours – and then the cycle started all over. Holmes sometimes managed to entertain himself, with his pipettes and test tubes, or occasionally disturbing his Boswell in his writing.
A month passed by and the doctor noticed the first signs.
It started as little quirks – low, harmless sparks that fell and died down on a stone floor. Easy to ignore or overlook, and if Watson hadn't been such an avid observer of his companion, he certainly wouldn't have noticed. Reduced hunger, nervous energy, restless nights.
The second stage was perceived when Holmes gently but firmly dismissed his invitation to retire to bed. Their conversations would dwindle to a dying murmur, and inevitably cease. Holmes would no longer eat on his own, and his hair and clothes, usually so meticulously arranged, would fade in his sloppiness. The doctor would try his best to remain unbiased as a nurse, professional and tenacious in his care, and if at night he tossed and turned in his bed—his bed, not theirs—and woke up with a scream caught in his throat and the roar of a cascade in his ears, that was his problem to deal with.
The third stage was where Watson would forsake any decorum or pride that an English gentleman should have as a rule and beg, actually beg on his knees, for Holmes to just eat something, anything, dear heart. And when gray eyes, gray as an opium mist, and not stormy as a thundering sky or hot as molten iron as they should be, stare at him with nothing but dismay, sadness, weariness, and a heartbreaking emptiness, he would finally let him, allow him to assuage that unbearable anguish with the one thing he absolutely loathed, that would destroy that brilliant mind, that fabulous body, that golden heart in time.
He would go out and drown his sorrows and helplessness in his club and his colleagues would know better than to try to cheer him up, and leave him to it.
He wouldn't stay long – even in the worst of times, he wouldn't find the strength to leave him alone for long. The stairs would make his old war wound sting, and he would hesitate on the threshold. His pace would be silent as he hung up his coat and hat, as he set down his cane. And the doctor, anxious yet reluctant, would turn the key in the ignition.
Holmes would not have appeared to move an inch. If it weren't for the slightly crumpled robe sleeve and the syringe lying on the desk, he might never have moved at all in the first place. The doctor appreciates that illusion. Sometimes he would like to be as ignorant as his literary counterpart and actually allow himself to believe in it.
And just then, John H. Watson would lie on the divan beside him, carefully cradle his lover's hand between his, clasped beneath his heart, and ramble softly about anything, silently offering his presence and stubbornly ignoring the tears that prick his eyelids.