Sherlock Dari Drabble Chapter 7: Field Surgery I
A/N: Although Sherlock and Greg would know about John's skills as a surgeon, Anderson and Donovan are so snide that I can see them disbelieving him when Sherlock calls his medical training into use on cases. Because I am a horrid person, I shall thus prove that John is awesome by writing fics in which he saves people.
They had been about to leave the flat, convinced that their robbery suspect had managed to beat them to the pass and run away, when a strangled cry drifted out of the back bedroom. The lack of hidey-holes had convinced Dimmock to allow one of his younger officers, a lad just out of the puppy-walking stage, to start the search as the older ones wrapped up in the bathroom. Dashing down the corridor, James reminded himself that he had never followed traditions without questioning them thoroughly first. Now he knew why. His gut told him something had gone seriously effing wrong.
Rounding the corner, his eyes widened in horror. The kid was lying on the afghan, knees squeezed up to his chest, pressing very hard on his own left thigh. The pool of blood underneath his lower half was spreading steadily. Swallowing bile, the DI stuck his head around the door and bellowed.
"JOHN! Sergeant Donovan, get Doctor Watson, now. NOW!"
The sneer was shocked off her face as she reeled back, pelting down the stairs at full tilt.
Thirty seconds later, Dimmock, pressing on the wound himself and trying not to look at the butcher's knife not two metres to his left, was alerted to John's presence by a gentle shadow falling across him. Saying nothing, John motioned for the paramedics, who had been posted on scene during the raid, to wait in the doorway as they prepared the stretcher.
He knelt beside the frightened boy, and Dimmock could almost feel him taking in the details in nanoseconds: how much blood he'd lost, the location of the wound, his consciousness level, breathing, pulse, shock...
"What's your name, mate?" John's voice was gentle and light, and it instantly soothed the patient.
"B-Blair. Blair C-Cumming. Am I gonna die? My mum, oh God, my Mum, I didn't tell her I loved her this morning-" He swallowed nervously, screwing his eyes shut as though that could stop the hysterical sob welling up in his throat. Dimmock looked up at just the right moment to see John gazing down at the young man, eyes full of compassion and something close to pain. His expression made him look older and wiser than anyone else he knew, even his granddad-it was a stupid thought, gone as soon as it had come, but he knew his admiration for John Watson had just increased about a hundredweight. Turning calmly to the paramedics, John opened his mouth, crisply rattling off a precise list of instructions-orders, James realised-which they followed without question.
"You are not going to die, d'you hear me? Not on the floor in a dingy bedsit. You're going to be old and grey and surrounded by a dozen grandkids, understand? I need to sedate you to help you, okay? Let's do something about that leg."
The boy nodded, setting his jaw as John slipped the IV into the back of his hand without even looking. Sally was hovering in the background, looking green around the gills, struck dumb by the doctor's near-silent work. As Blair's eyes slipped closed, John was already reaching for the scalpel being proffered by the younger paramedic. The elder of the two attached the leads for the heart monitor and the oxygen mask to the kid's chest, kneeling next to Dimmmock on his other side, facing the door.
"Clamps, please, Jenny. Bill-can you apply pressure to the top of the artery? He'll start bleeding red ink soon..."
Hands flying over the young man's clammy skin, John worked quickly, retracting the skin and muscle and isolating the nick in the artery that was pulsing crimson over his gloved fingers. Snapping the clamps around the top of the artery, John set about a temporary repair, sprinkling some kind of powder that Sherlock had just handed him from his own kit over the vessel. Still bleeding sluggishly, it stopped, merely oozing now. Bill peered over interestedly.
"Pixie dust?"
"Yep. Forgot I had that. Thank fuck it's got a seven-year shelf life..."
"Pixie dust?" Sally's face had contorted into a gormlessly confused expression.
John rocked back on his heels as he finished packing the wound, thoroughly unbothered by Donovan's shock at his seamless transition from jumpered blogger and crime scene surveyor to Captain J.H. Watson, an army medic of considerable experience and gravitas.
"It's like Bondaweb for people. It makes a temporary barrier that mimics veins or muscles-it holds things until you can get a patient to a vascular surgeon. Speaking of: Tommy's?" The paramedics nodded in the affirmative, Bill taking Blair's legs, Dimmock and Jenny gripping his sides and John gently resting his head against his sternum as they eased him onto the trolley. With Blair stable and sleepy, just beginning to come round from the morphine, John rested his hand on the orange blanket, fingers just brushing the lad's as they twitched. Squeezing lightly, he kept his hand curled loosely around the bony digits as they hefted him down the stairs and out into the dusk. John jumped in the front without asking, Dimmock leaping into the back as the Yarders stood ranged out across the grass, numb and still.
After the handover, during which a number of impressed murmurs had come from the general direction of the vascular consultant on call, John slumped into a violently-coloured plastic chair in the waiting room, adrenaline leaving and filling him with a familiar bereft feeling best described by the word 'oof'.. John yawned and exhaled slowly, stretching his shoulders and rolling his neck with a satisfying crk. He looked up as the double doors opened, pushed by a thin, prematurely greying woman with startling green eyes. This must be Blair's mother-why did he recognise her? As she passed him, she stopped. As she turned, her eyes widened.
"John Watson? Captain John Watson?"
Frowning at her, John stood up. "You must be Blair's mum. He'll be alright-the vascular surgeon on call's one of the best in the city, and he's a hell of a strong one. The wound's not too deep, he'll be on his feet in a couple of days. You're remarkably calm, if I may say so."
"You don't remember me, do you?"
Shaking his head slowly, John scrunched up his forehead as he tried to sort through his memory banks to find out to whom he was talking. "Oh. Oh! You're Cameron's mum-Blair was only 15 when I met him, that's why I didn't recognise him. How's he doing?"
"Very well, thanks dear. A wife, three kids, a dog and a job he enjoys, thanks in no small part to you disobeying orders to stay behind and finish up on his arm."
Her eyes twinkled as she looked sideways at him, and John had the good grace to look abashed. "I'm a doctor. It's what I do. Every time someone brings up something I've done, I get the urge to tell them to try and ignore a sick person when they've taken an oath. People seem to think I'm ether really brave or very stupid, when the reality is I'm not much of either. I'm glad Cammy's doing well, though. Did he and Allie get married, then?"
Angela nodded with a smile, hugging John in a very Mrs Hudson sort of way before poking her head around the open door. "Thank you again. You take care now. When you go back, look out for yourself."
John smiled sadly to himself, turning to leave and wincing as his bad shoulder reacted to the cold of the ambulance bay. It was time for a hot bath, a cup of tea, and a Firefly marathon...and five whole minutes of savouring the look of shock on Sally Donovan's smug face when the paramedics had deferred to him instead of her.
A/N II: I don't know if pixie dust exists. I'm sure I've heard of it being used in combat situations, but if not, I claim dramatic license. Guilty as charged, m'lud.