Ok. Shorter chapter here, sorry it took so long but I did warn you that would be the case. Hope to get more up soon.
Between them Tom and John made quick work of stripping their frail patient, cleaning him and redressing him. His skin was pulled tight against bones and organs, his arms were covered in needle marks. Some looked to be almost 10 years old, while the rest were no more than a year old. It made John sad to think that this man could have been clean for so long before devolving this quickly. He wondered what had happened to the man's support system to allow this to happen.
When the man was clean and dressed, and his visible wounds had been cleaned with TCP, John voiced his concern to Tom that they may have to cut the man's matted hair in order to treat the lice infestation. Tom shook his head, the man's hair was shoulder length and very curly, like Tom's but unlike Tom's it was also thinning and grey: it had obviously not been cared for, for some time.
While Tom set about cleaning the man's hair, John began to take the man's vitals. He recorded the man's pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels and temperature. He also ran a feeding tube down the man's nose, to his intestine, opting to avoid putting food directly into the stomach to reduce the risk of nausea. He also inserted a cannula into the man's hand, which he connected to a bag of IV fluids. Getting fluid and nutrients into his patient was a high priority.
By this time Tom had finished cleaning the man's hair and applying the lice treatment and John was momentarily taken aback. The grey colour was gone and instead there were dark wavy curls. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering a time when he had felt so alive running through the streets of London behind a long and flowing coat that had been topped by wild, bouncing curls just like the ones their patient had. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and sent Tom to make up a set of the modular feed that they used to treat the malnourished babies that were often brought in by their equally malnourished mothers. When Tome came back through, John hooked up the feed to the tube in their patient's nose and set the flow rate on the small pump.
John and Tom sat down to drink their drinks and eat their cake. They didn't talk; there was nothing needed said. Tom knew that if he wanted to stay he could; John knew that Tom wouldn't stay because he felt responsible for checking up on the younger runaways each night. When Tom left, they wished each other a good night and John rechecked his patient's vitals and recorded them next to the results from the first check.
He settled himself in his armchair, his phone alarm set to go off every hour so he could get a good idea of how his patient was doing. He dozed a little between alarms, dreaming as always of gunfire, of running and of heroes falling. After waking up from a particularly vivid dream of the last time he saw Sherlock, John glanced at his phone and saw that he had 20 minutes before he needed to run his checks again. He got up to make himself a cup of tea.
When he came back through, he noticed that his patient had started talking in his sleep. John put his cup on the table and leaned closer. The man's voice was little more than a raspy whisper.
"No... Kill all... Moriarty..."
John stifled a gasp at that name.
"Stay away... John safe... Stay away... Kill all... For John..."
John jumped when his phone alarm sounded and fumbled with it for a second, trying to turn it off. He did his checks on automatic before sitting back to really look at his patient. His long, lanky frame, his wild dark brown curls, the shape of his lips and his high angular cheekbones. John leaned forward and lifted and eyelid to see if the man's eyes were pale blue – they were. He picked up his phone and dialled a number he never thought he'd dial again.
"Really John," answered the voice on the other end, "I never thought you'd be drunk calling me at 3am."
"I'm not drunk, Mycroft."
"Oh."
"Are you?"
"Of course I am. Don't tell me you've forgotten what today is."
"Hmmm... Well that answers my question."
"Question?"
"I was going to ask if you knew. Obviously you don't."
"What don't I know? I know everything!"
"Come to Baker Street. There's something you need to see."
"Are you going to break my nose again?"
"No," John sighed, "I promise I won't touch you."
John hung up the phone and allowed himself a second to think how bizarre it was to hear Mycroft drunk. He sat down on the sofa next to his patient and ran his hand gently through the man's hair. It was hard to be angry with someone who was so badly broken.
"Sherlock," John whispered, barely more than a sigh, "What happened?"