The first noticeable sign of it or at least the first one he was willing to acknowledge was the jitter of his quill upon the parchment. Smooth script had turned into jagged chicken scratch precisely a line and a half ago and the lab report was only getting more illegible by the letter.
He looked to his left hand and the thin arm attached, chipped nails, sharp edges and the ugly yellow of an almost faded bruise curling around his wrist. Said ugly yellow bruise was taking longer than it had any right to in healing from an unsightly pink and purple mess and he had almost hoped it would stay as some type of testament- some type of proof. Something that perhaps he could use to justify the heavy stock of calming potions in his personal trunk.
The emptiness of the common room was the only grace he would be granted it would seem and well enough to- there would be too many questions to answer had anyone seen him like this. Severus ran his right hand over the table he was sat at and then the wall of the hall leading up to the room of one Lucius Malfoy.
The texture passed by fluidly seemingly little help in breaking him out of the beginnings of this trance- one that he was becoming familiar with all too quickly. Lucius was quick to answer the door but moved more slowly to usher him in. Lucius with crooked teeth and his upturned nose, Lucie; a safe haven he could be a burden upon.
Slender hands adorned with neatly filed nails and rosy joints were the first thing to come back into focus. They weren't warm; they never were, however the Malfoy’s were warm in other ways. The heavy green blanket woven with the utmost care (no less than two decades ago at least) and warm shoulder kissing his own were proof of that. No speaking, no eye contact, the world was de-liquefying and he was finally sitting on the bed not blurring through it like some unfortunate apparition.
The first time coming back never lasted long. Unearthed again the bed now seemed like an undeserving place he would sink forward to the floor to press his hands against the stone his fingers trying to sink into grout set eons ago. The haunting viciously morphing blond hair in his peripheral to black and the concerned hand on his shoulder to a rough hand knotted in his hair.
Being pulled up and told to breathe, to focus. Blond hair, green sweater, soft hands on his shoulders and it was almost over. He bowed his head forward to gently rest it upon the chest in front of him as Lucius murmured small reassurances.
"Thank you" was not left unsaid.