Warnings: Depictions of injuries, allusions to possible sexual abuse (NO instances. Just a mention of a possibility and nothing else).
John jolted awake as a door creaked. He sat up- he'd fallen asleep on Sherlock's bed- and immediately looked towards the kitchen.
"Sherlock?"
He knew he was probably hearing things, but then... a thump. John all but ran downstairs, his bare feet loud on the creaking steps.
"Sherlock! Where the hell... shit."
It took John all of five seconds to realize that something was wrong, something was really, really wrong. Sherlock's shoulders were slumped, he was deathly pale... and that wasn't even the worst.
The consulting detective had a spectacular black eye, there was blood smeared all over his face, and his eyes were... dull. They were sunken in, but they were... glazed over, no sense of purpose or intelligence. They were vacant, free of everything that made Sherlock Sherlock. John only noticed when those eyes rolled back because he was staring at them in horror.
He lunged forward and threw his arms around Sherlock, stumbling with the dead weight and crashing to the ground.
"Sherlock! Sherlock?"
John's fingers deftly looped around Sherlock's wrist. Pulse, out of control. He leaned close, feeling the reassuring brush of Sherlock's breath against his cheek. He couldn't smell alcohol, not that he had expected to. Something bad had happened, not Sherlock getting drunk and getting into a fist fight. Besides, Sherlock rarely drank anything, let alone alcohol.
"John, is that you?" Mrs. Hudson's voice floated down the hallway as the click of another door opening echoed.
"Mrs. Hudson, call an ambulance," John ordered, his voice steady. "Now."
She peered around the corner, visibly paled, but nodded determinedly and vanished back into her flat.
John peeled Sherlock's eyes open, noting that the detective's pupils were dilated. He placed his hand on his forehead, adding to himself that his patient had a fever.
He was just about to lower Sherlock onto the floor from his lap when the consulting detective tensed before throwing up. John didn't flinch, just focussed on making sure Sherlock didn't choke on his own vomit, scraping his hair out of his face and holding his head up.
That was when he noticed the blood. His fingers felt warm and wet and, when he removed them from Sherlock's scalp, found them covered in crimson. His fingers immediately went back to Sherlock's scalp to assess the damage. It wasn't a terrible gash, if John was correct, but like any head wound, it was bleeding a lot and he thought that it might require stitches.
"Sherlock?" Sherlock's eyes were open, but still as vacant as before. "Sherlock, I need you to tell me what happened."
Sherlock didn't seem to hear him, but he did throw up again.
John helped Sherlock into a sitting position. He was essentially sitting on his lap at this point and John became strikingly aware that he could feel Sherlock's ribs. He pushed Sherlock's coat out of the way, his mind blanching when he found Sherlock's clothes tattered and torn. There were several places where the trousers and jacket/shirt seemed to have been slashed at; there was dried blood. His shirt was missing half the buttons and his jacket wasn't buttoned, nor was the button on his trousers.
John swallowed and closed his eyes briefly, collecting himself.
He did not need to think about what could have happened to Sherlock right now. He needed to treat Sherlock's wounds, as a patient, and worry about anything else after John was sure that he wasn't going to die.
Sherlock threw up a third time before slumping forward. John caught him and gently leaned him back against his chest, ignoring the twinge of panic when he found that there was blood in Sherlock's vomit.
The sirens were loud now and John struggled to his feet, not sparing a second glance at Mrs. Hudson as she held the door open.
The ambulance ride was painful, to say the least. John was used to being part of the action in taking care of someone, not sitting to the side and being forced to watch. Not when it was his best friend strapped onto the stretcher.
He just focussed on Sherlock's symptoms.
There had been a fight, some sort of abuse, obviously. The black eye and all the blood was the indication of that. John knew that Sherlock was great with fighting. Hell, he had the art of jujitsu or whatever the hell it was on a poster above his bed! Sneaking up on him was nearly impossible.
The pupils could be a sign of a drug's influence, but given the head wound and the vacant stare, John thought that Sherlock had a concussion.
His ribs were prominent; on any given day, Sherlock didn't eat and that was alright, in a pinch, but he was clearly malnourished now, not to mention dehydrated.
His clothes looked like they had been cut at, torn... With a pocketknife? John couldn't tell. And he also didn't want to think about it right now. The hospital would be able to confirm or deny if any sexual activity had occurred, but John couldn't stand to think that his best friend had lost his virginity in... that way. It made him want to vomit.
And, on a less painful topic, Sherlock's vomit. The blood could mean something as simple as a Mallory-Weiss tear in the esophagus or something as volatile as internal hemorrhaging. Whatever the problem was, it needed to be aided.
As John thought all of this, he was telling the paramedics everything. How Sherlock had been missing for three days, how John had thought that something was wrong, how they had searched for him. How Sherlock had stumbled into the flat, collapsed, vomited, and the look in his eyes...
They got separated once they got to the hospital. John wanted to run after them, to demand what was happening and how he could help, but, no. This was not Afghanistan, even if that was his best friend lying on the gurney.
That being said. It was going to be a long night.
So, Sherlock's back. Now, as for what exactly happened and what exactly is wrong with our beloved detective, that's still a mystery. I understand it's a bit boring right now, but I must get through the medical standpoint before I start the psychological standpoint.
I do not own Sherlock. Thank you.