John Watson accepted a fresh pair of latex gloves from one of the paramedics and, managing to maintain his perfect calm, turned to a detective constable with a dislocated shoulder to begin administering cold packs.
Dimmock watched him with something approaching concern. He'd heard much of Watson since his first encounter with the man, one detail of which was that he suffered from PTSD or some similar kind of problem. It made Dimmock wonder if he should even be here.
Here, of course, being a complete and utter bombsite. Literally. Sherlock had worked out the location of the bomb from some smear of something on the note...Dimmock hadn't really been able to follow that bit, but he'd worked it out, that was the important thing. They'd searched the department store that the smear-thing had led them to and found the device a good hour before it was due to go off. Good news, as it gave them opportunity to evacuate the two hundred or so shoppers and staff.
Unfortunately, the bomber had had no intention of surviving his criminal campaign, planning to go up in the explosion with his victims, and had managed to make a run for the bomb before anyone could work out who he was. The resulting explosion had badly injured twelve police officers and fire fighters, and had caught a further fifteen or so people with minor injuries, though thankfully the only death had been that of the fool who'd planted the damn thing.
Now, camped out in the car park in the dwindling dusk, journalists and morbid passers-by peering at them from the other side of the hastily erected police barriers, everyone was putting themselves back together. The paramedics were obviously appreciative of Watson's help, doctors with such extensive experience of treating injuries sustained in explosions being apparently few and far between in London, and he had been bustling about applying dressings and cleaning wounds for most of the half hour since the boom.
Sherlock was uncharacteristically well behaved. Or, not exactly that, but certainly quiet. As soon as the ambulances had turned up and Watson had announced his intention to get stuck in, Sherlock had perched stiffly on the concrete base of a lamp post and had been watching the scene in front of him ever since with an eerie attentiveness that made Dimmock wonder if some other terrible crime was about to be committed.
Surely Sherlock would tell somebody if that were the case though. He would, wouldn't he?
Dimmock was startled out of his musings by a touch on his shoulder, and turned to see Dr Watson standing at his side, a weary but reassuring smile on his face.
"How's the head, Dimmock?" he asked, his tone polite despite the rather improper use of Dimmock's surname.
Dimmock raised one hand to touch the sticky trail of blood on the side of his face, but Watson pushed the hand away and drew him over to one of the ambulances, tutting.
"It's okay, Watson, I-"
"I'll decide that, thank you," Watson cut in, in a tone that brooked no argument. He pushed Dimmock to sit down on the edge of the ambulance floor, between the open rear doors, and smoothed his short hair out of the way to reveal the cut. Dimmock hadn't even seen what it was that had cut him, some bit of glass he supposed, but it had bled like mad for a few minutes. He'd known to put pressure on it though, and it had stopped, but he knew he'd probably need stitches.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Watson pick up a pair of tweezers and braced himself for the horrible, creeping feeling of grit being picked from the wound. Watson was fairly quick about it though, and in a couple of minutes the wound was clean and Dimmock had a wad of gauze secured in place over it with a bandage.
"That'll do until you can go to A&E and get it stitched, I think," Watson said lightly. "Hurt anywhere else?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
Dimmock nodded and tried to get to his feet, but Watson pushed him back down. Sherlock had wandered over to them and was peering at Watson.
"Alright Inspector?" he asked Dimmock casually, his eyes still on his partner.
"Yes," he replied, feeling suspicious.
"Only, you've failed to mention to John about that cut on your arm, and he's noticed it. He won't see to his own injuries until he's dealt with everyone else's. He's that sort of man, you know."
Dimmock looked over at Watson; he didn't seem to be injured at all, but not desperate to draw Sherlock's ire after what had happened with Anderson's wife last month, he agreeably slipped off his jacket, unfastened his shirt cuff and pulled up the sleeve to reveal his injured elbow.
"It's only grazed," he muttered as Watson set to work. Apparently, even a graze was an issue to the doctor though, as he cleaned it just as thoroughly as the head wound. Dimmock felt like a bit of a tit for hiding it, actually. Watson was frowning at him, but still didn't appear to be hurt. There was no more tension in his face than usual and his mobility seemed normal.
Finally they were done, and Dimmock was allowed to get up, with strict orders to go to A&E as soon as possible. He thanked the doctor and made to walk away, but something made him look back.
Watson had put one foot up on the ambulance floor, where Dimmock had been sitting, and was pulling a small tear in the left leg of his trousers open wider. Dimmock saw blood trickle over his gloved fingers and realised that the heavy, dark brown corderoy had camoflaged the bloodstain. Sherlock picked a metal instrument up from inside the ambulance and passed it to Watson and, over Sherlock's shoulder, Dimmock saw a wince of pain cross Watson's face. A couple of paramedics were staring with something like impressed horror and Sherlock gave them a repressive glare. Then Watson was doing something with gauze and carefully rubbing his leg.
"Your pain threshhold is unusally high," Sherlock mused, loud enough for Dimmock to hear. "I'm going to do an experiment to test it."
"No you bloody aren't," Watson replied.
::
I don't know where the ideas for this came from, but there's quite a few of them suddenly popping out of my head. I'll try and get one done every few days. Enjoy and, as always, I love feedback.
Oh, also, John's blog entry title in the prologue was a reference to The Sussex Vampire.