A/N: Written for the shkinkmeme prompt: Since the surgery room, Holmes hasn't been able to play the violin.
I'd love some Holmes/Watson h/c.

The abrupt staccato of a plucked violin drifted down the stairs and informed him that Holmes was still brooding over his latest problem. As he mounted the steps, the plucking turned into discordant strumming, the instrument voicing its discontent at the misuse.

The sitting room was hazy with smoke, but Watson could see that Holmes had turned his chair to face toward the window, its back to the rest of the room. It neatly summed up Holmes' manner since his return: withdrawn and taciturn despite Watson's best efforts to draw him out and encourage him to confess those things that brought the haunted look to his eyes.

Watson propped the door open and lingered in the doorway for several minutes to see if Holmes would acknowledge his presence. The strumming dwindled down to plucking again, but Holmes said nothing, curled up in his chair so Watson could not see him, only hear his instrument.

"Your violin might appreciate being played normally once in a while. I know you can," Watson said finally, approaching Holmes' armchair.

The noise abruptly ceased and Holmes' left arm appeared, the violin dangling from his loose grasp. Watson rescued it before it could slip to the floor and, as he turned away to rest it in its case, he heard Holmes quietly correct him, "Could, not can."

But when Watson returned to Holmes' side, Holmes was staring forward, his hands pressed together in his thinking pose, and acting as if Watson wasn't even there. "Holmes?" Watson ventured, then there was a knock at the door: Mrs. Hudson bringing up their tea.

Watson prepared a cup for Holmes and held it in front of the still figure until Holmes surfaced from his reverie and accepted it with murmured thanks. Watson settled in his chair with his own cup and watched Holmes as he drank. The tea seemed to revive him somewhat, and at length Holmes looked over at him with a vague look of confusion. "Why are you here?"

"I live here, remember?" Watson reminded him patiently. It had only been about a week since his official return and Holmes had been nearly constantly occupied by cases and other matters of importance in that time.

"Right," Holmes said faintly, then drained his cup. "Then you shall have no objection to accompanying me this evening."

"None whatsoever," Watson assured him.

"Bring your revolver," Holmes instructed as he rose from his chair. He set his cup and saucer onto the tea tray and vanished into his bedroom, closing the door with a bang.

He remained there until it was time to leave.

Holmes emerged from his room looking unkempt and disreputable, his clothes filthy and in disarray, his hair more mussed than usual and what seemed to be a layer of grime on his skin. He crossed his arms and frowned as he surveyed Watson. "You are far too neat," he declared. "Go find your most worn jacket and your dirtiest trousers-if they are torn, so much the better-and I will scuff up your shoes. We must look the part if tonight's surveillance is to succeed."

The surveillance involved sitting in a dark corner at a seedy public house and watching a pair of brutes to see who they talked to and, if possible, determining what they talked about. Holmes took a number of trips to the bar for more drinks for his compatriot. Watson really didn't mind not having to move, and playing drunk wasn't so bad either, but his clothes were never going to be the same with how much of the alcohol "spilled" down his front.

Holmes seemed pleased with what he'd gathered through judicious eavesdropping and more than a little lip-reading, so when the brutes left, he proposed they depart as well. After finishing another pint, of course. It wouldn't do to leave too quickly and arouse suspicions.

Watson didn't realize just how much he'd actually drunk until he tried to stand and staggered into the table, his knees buckling and his head swimming. Holmes took his right arm over his shoulders, grabbed him around the waist, and helped him stumble out, his drunken act no longer entirely feigned.

The cool air outside revived him somewhat, but Holmes didn't move away. "Be on your guard," Holmes warned quietly as they made their slow way toward the main street to hail a cab. Watson tightened his grip on his rough cane and warily eyed the deep shadows along the nearly deserted street.

Holmes' suspicions were confirmed when the shadows suddenly coalesced into the pair Holmes had been observing. The roughs set upon them without any words said, and Watson and Holmes separated to fight them off.

Adrenaline went a long way toward finishing what the fresh air had started and Watson felt almost sober as he and his opponent circled each other warily. Then he stumbled, not entirely intentionally, and the rough advanced on him quickly enough that he couldn't alter course when Watson brandished his cane and walloped him in the head with the weighted end. The man went down and lay motionless.

Once he'd made sure the man still lived, he watched Holmes for a moment to see if he'd need assistance. What he saw surprised him: Holmes was striking out only with his left arm, keeping his right close to his body with his fist up in a defensive posture-the stance he'd used during their escape following his injury. But surely Holmes was not still so hindered by the damage? That wound should have healed long ago.

Holmes' opponent seemed to realize this vulnerability even as Watson recognized it and pressed his advantage, forcing Holmes to use that arm away from his body. A solid blow to his shoulder forced a cry from Holmes and Watson hurried to intervene. He'd retrieved his revolver from his pocket while watching, so he advanced a few paces-but not close enough for the brute to realize he had an audience-and took aim.

The brute continued to exploit Holmes' weakness, driving him to his knees, providing Watson an opening. He sent a bullet straight into the man's right shoulder. The brute turned tail and ran, cursing and crying out in pain.

"You had me bring my revolver but you didn't bring your own?" Watson inquired as he approached Holmes, not expecting an answer and not getting one.

Holmes slowly climbed to his feet, his right hand clutching the edge of his waistcoat as it had in the days when the wound was new.

"Do you have any injuries that should be seen to before we go home?" Watson asked.

"No," Holmes said shortly.

Watson hooked his right arm through Holmes' left and they meandered their way down the remaining three blocks to catch a cab. Holmes did not speak even when they were en route to Baker Street, so Watson was left to his thoughts and conjectures as to Holmes' shoulder and why he had not used the arm until forced to.

When they arrived, Holmes went straight upstairs, but Watson lingered to speak to Mrs. Hudson. Then he, too, wearily ascended the stairs.

Holmes was standing before the sitting room fire, his hands in his trouser pockets as if nothing were amiss. "Take off everything above the waist, I want a look at that shoulder," Watson directed as he retrieved his medical bag and poured a glass of brandy.

The brandy he handed to Holmes, who had managed to unbutton his jacket and shirt but not gotten any farther. Watson waited until Holmes had tossed back the brandy before easing his shirt off, holding it still as Holmes withdrew his left arm from the sleeve then carefully sliding the clothing down Holmes' right arm.

It didn't look all that bad, but Watson knew looks could be deceiving. He ran his hands over the front and back of the shoulder, feeling for anything obviously out of place and finding nothing. Holmes flinched at his touch and looked away, flushing.

Watson stepped away and returned with a syringe. When Holmes saw the needle he held out his left arm and waited patiently as Watson administered the morphine. "I'm going to have you move your shoulder now," Watson warned after setting the needle aside. "This is going to hurt."

Holmes nodded once in understanding and adjusted his stance so he stood more squarely. "Ready."

Watson placed one hand so he could feel the way the muscles moved while the other nudged the arm in the direction he wanted it to go. "Straight in front of you, lift it as high as you can."

Holmes was able to lift his arm enough that his hand was even with his shoulder, though from the way he trembled it cost him a good deal of effort to do so. Watson could feel the resistance in the muscles and scar tissue and let Holmes lower his arm again.

He was even more restricted in lifting his arm out sideways, only able to raise it about sixty degrees from his side before he had to stop.

Watson took hold of Holmes' elbow and moved his arm back and forth at a variety of angles, judging the resistance and monitoring Holmes' reaction to the pain.

When he stopped, Holmes' face was sweaty and his arm continued to twitch even when he tucked his hand back into his pocket. Watson was in the middle of pouring him another brandy when Mrs. Hudson arrived with the hot water bottle he'd requested.

Holmes had seated himself before the fire while Watson was preoccupied. Watson thought he would be more comfortable on the settee, but there really was no reason to make him get up again. He knelt at Holmes' right side, gave him the brandy, then showed him the hot water bottle and motioned for him to lie down.

Holmes obeyed with a grunt, squeezing his eyes closed as he made the awkward transition from sitting to lying down, and frowned when Watson placed the warm bottle over his shoulder. "Is it too heavy?" Watson asked with some concern.

"What? No."

Watson considered what he had found and the best way to broach the subject.

"So what's the verdict, doctor? Will I live?" Holmes asked dryly.

"Live? Yes, of course. Will you ever box in the ring again? Unlikely."

Holmes snorted. "I had determined as much on my own."

"You can regain some of the lost motion with exercise, but the scarring will limit how much. I'm afraid you aren't likely to see much improvement in the sideways direction." His mind abruptly produced an image of Holmes playing the violin, his right arm lifted high as he prepared for the downstroke. "Oh," he murmured unhappily, involuntarily glancing toward the violin case in the corner.

"Your sleep will no longer be disturbed by the violin at three in the morning," Holmes said flatly, reading his mind as usual.

Watson glanced down to see his expression, but Holmes had his left arm over his face, his eyes concealed by the crook of his arm. "There must be some way to play it-you've already proved you can still make a racket with it."

He fell silent as he thought about the last time they had been to a concert quite some time ago. "There are string instruments that are played between the knees. Couldn't you attempt something like that?"

Holmes snorted from beneath his arm. "The cello is designed to be played in that manner. The violin is not. Attempting to do so would only produce what you termed a 'racket'." His tone was dismissive, so Watson dropped the subject.

"How is your shoulder feeling? Has the heat helped?"

"I have endured worse."

"Then I suppose you won't need any more morphine."

"I'll manage."

"Is that going to include getting some sleep?"

"Possibly."

"I'll leave you to it, then." He stood, retrieved Holmes' dressing gown from the back of the settee, and tossed it toward him. "Try not to catch cold."

"Yes, Doctor," Holmes said sarcastically.

.

Holmes moved stiffly for several days, holding his arm close to his body as if it were in a sling, though Watson knew better than to actually offer him a sling. Even when he'd finished his case, he didn't speak to Watson unless Watson spoke first and spent much of his time in his bedroom or staring out over the street.

About a week after that night, Watson woke in the early morning and couldn't get back to sleep. He heard noise from the direction of the sitting room, so he reasoned Holmes must also be awake and it wouldn't disturb him if Watson went down to retrieve something to read.

As he went down the stairs, the noise resolved into discordant squeaks from a violin. There were some normal-sounding notes amongst the chaos and Watson crept into the room as quietly as he could, hoping to glimpse what Holmes was doing.

Holmes was seated in his chair, his upright violin balanced on his thighs with the scroll resting near his collarbone as he tried to play it like a cello. He had managed almost a half dozen good notes in a row when the instrument slipped and the bow slid across the wooden bridge instead of the strings, producing a shudder-inducing noise. Holmes huffed impatiently and looked for a moment as if he was going to throw either bow or violin.

"I knew it was possible," Watson said, announcing his presence as he entered the room.

"Hardly. There are significant structural problems."

"You'll work it out," Watson said confidently, picking up the book he'd left by his chair. "Though perhaps you ought to wait until the daylight hours. Mrs. Hudson is already less than pleased with you."

"She ever holds a grudge against me," Holmes said dismissively, setting the violin in its case. He lingered over putting it away, almost hesitant as he slid the bow into its groove in the lid. Watson watched him carefully latch the case and take it across the room, tucking it into a distant corner and patting it briefly before turning his back and crossing the room to rummage in their store of liquor.

"Good night, Holmes."

Holmes nodded in acknowledgement, then emptied his glass in one gulp.

Watson left him to it, still confident that Holmes would figure something out eventually.

.

But if Holmes ever took the violin out again, even just to pluck it, Watson never witnessed the occasion. The weeks, then months, dragged on and while Holmes allowed Watson to assist him with some exercises to regain some movement in his shoulder, he would change the subject if Watson ever mentioned music or the violin.

The dusty case remained tucked away even as everything else in 221B returned more or less to what was normal. At first Watson wondered how Holmes would cope with being deprived of one of his hobbies, but as time passed and Holmes seemed the same as ever, he assumed it didn't matter.

It wasn't until years later that he realized Holmes had merely replaced the violin with a new hobby.

"Bees?" he repeated incredulously.

"Bees," Holmes confirmed, spreading his papers out on the table.

Watson didn't hear much of what Holmes said after that, too dazed by the thought of swarms of stinging insects hovering around their new cottage day and night. "What can you possibly hope to achieve by keeping bees?"

"There is much yet to be learned about their habits," Holmes said promptly. "And the location is ideal for producing honey."

"Honey? Oh, well, that's all right, then."