I'm doing another 50sentences prompt table, with different prompts. This was going to be one with the prompt of Talent, but it kind of insisted upon expansion.

Their pleasant evening out ended rather gruesomely by witnessing (and, in Watson's case, treating the aftermath of) a bad cab-accident. Upon reaching home post-midnight, the Doctor immediately climbed exhaustedly up to bed.

But Holmes remained; pondering, half-sadly, half-admiringly, upon the frailty of life and the nobility of those who expended their own in prolonging it.

Later that week, after yet another thankless day, Watson returned tired but determined to write his account of Holmes's recent adventure in Ireland. The man himself was whining away at Vivaldi, and only nodded absently upon the Doctor's entrance.

Watson set down his journal, and noticing a crisp paper upon his desktop picked the foolscap up to hold in the firelight.

Clean and elegant, it declared the artist's name without superfluous signature. A simple enough pencil-and-charcoal sketch, but intricate down to minute stitching on the neat lines of a darkly-shaded medical bag; layered details and complicated simplicity – mirroring the personalities of both artist and subject.

He smiled through sudden blurriness and glanced up, but Holmes was apparently engaged in butchering a contemporary music-hall chorus, happily oblivious to all else.

Art in the blood, indeed, Watson thought fondly, and carefully placed the sketch inside his journal.

Holmes was quite embarrassed when, next afternoon, some entirely different artwork appeared on the nail where General Gordon's portrait had been.