fossilised | For John Watson

For John Watson

[Sherlock is still finding pieces of the melted laptop in the carpet.

It had actually been quite an ingenious booby trap to be devised by a fourteen year old boy with only household chemicals to work with but, as Sherlock surmised, rather overkill to keep his mother from finding his extensive porn collection. Not one of their more illustrious cases, but it had been quite entertaining to watch both the boy and mother's faces as he revealed that he did know the how and why. He lost interest after the mother started shouting and John started shouting and the whole thing turned tedious.

He rather thinks John won't actually be doing a full write-up of this one on his blog.

It's been two days since their last case and he's beginning to get more than a little antsy. Lestrade has sent him nothing, just a boring hit and run that he refused to even leave the flat for, and nobody interesting has appeared through the blog. Said blog he is currently scrolling through on John's laptop, having borrowed it again.

He did ask, it's not his fault John hadn't been in the room at the time.]

Bored, John.

[He doesn't even know if his flatmate is even in, but that's hardly a necessity for him to actually speak to John. Frustrated, he throws the laptop across the room to hit the wall, where it summarily breaks. Which is where he can be found whenever John appears, sulking amidst pieces of laptop, both from the melted one of their last case and John's poor broken one.]

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[A quick palm held up near the man's nose tells John he's also breathing without an issue, which is positive.]

Let's get him up on the seats. Clear out of the way, you lot.

[He goes to help Reuben get the man up, but his he gets halfway to hefting when his back just refuses. Molly will see the moment John's body gives out as drops the unconscious man, and he goes down onto his knees. He tries to will himself up immediately, fight through the pain and sudden vertigo, but it's not happening.]

Sorry. Sorry, just a minute. Bad back. [Bad back and bad everything else. He very strongly suspects that he might be bleeding through his bandages.]

[Damn it all.

Molly is at John's side in a moment, half shielding him from the view of everyone else in there to help save his stupid prickly pride, and half supporting him with her good arm.]

It's okay, you got him off the tracks so someone else can take it from here. You should sit back, breathe, and I'll try and find a signal to call for help.

[Actual police and paramedics sound good.]

[John's only a little grateful that she cordons him off from view of the other onlookers.]

I'll be fine in a moment. [His voice is low.] Just lost my balance, that's all. [Which is a bad sign, but he's the only doctor here at the moment. There's a man with a thready pulse, and they're stuck in the tube. They'll have to send someone along soon, at least. London likes its trains running on time and an engine without the rest is going to look odd pulling through the next station.]

We need to find the on-board medkit if there's one, too. He's got burns along his chest. Might get infected.

[Not that John would know anything about that.]

[Molly isn't buying that for a moment, she's not nearly stupid enough to think that he's just off kilter, she's seen what he's hiding under his shirt and it's bad enough that he should be the one getting tended to be a doctor.]

Infected burns, huh?

[She might be a little sharper than usual, but she's worried and John keeps being an idiot.]

I haven't seen that recently, but I'm sure it's nothing, he'll probably be fine to discharge himself tomorrow.

Molly... [The irritation in his tone is accompanied by a glare.] Can we argue about this when there isn't someone in more danger of immediately dying than I am?

If you can stand up without help, then we can argue about it later.

[Otherwise they're going to argue about it now, because it's not like John will be able to be a proper doctor to the other man anyway.]

[At least Reuben seems to have taken his cue in the interim to get their injured man up and over to the seats without John's help. The doctor grits his teeth as he mentally and physically prepares himself to stand. He just needs to do this long enough to get Molly off his back.

Taking a breath, John surges to his feet. He looks down at Molly, jaw set. His head is spinning, his back is agony, and nausea's hitting him again in a rolling wave.]

'M fine, Molls.

[He steps forward, trying to discreetly use the seats to hold himself up and balanced.]

[She honestly thought that Sherlock Holmes would be the most stubborn man that she would ever meet, but now she's starting to understand just why the two men are such good friends. John is even more stubborn, and he does it in a way that makes it hard to be angry at him.

She watches him use the seats as a crutch and the look on her face says that she isn't even slightly convinced about his 'fine' status.]

If any other doctor tried to work like this you'd stop them. You could do more damage than good if you're working with your concentration compromised.

I don't need to be standing to tend to him. That's only problem. Please find a phone and send out a signal, Molly.

[He's aware that she's right but there aren't any other doctors in this carriage. John's worked under pressure before. Heavy fire, scorching sun, the screams of people dying around them. He can manage this. He has to. Caroline's snarls about her husband are in his mind. Her husband who didn't get the care he needed in time, who was irreparably damaged. There's no one else coming sooner. It has to be him.]

[She scowls at him for a moment or two, before her expression softens in resignation and she nods. It only takes her a few seconds to run back through to another carriage and start looking for a phone, leaving John with the strangers left in this carriage.

The man who had been on the tracks is badly burned, he'll probably need a skin graft, but his breathing doesn't appear to be getting worse. The problems will come if he wakes up and goes into shock.

Molly won't reappear for a good twenty minutes or so.]

[John only half-collapses next to the injured man. He goes down on his knees and that's fine. He can work from here.]

Does anyone have any sedatives or painkillers? I need to keep this man unconscious or at least reduce his pain. He's going to wake up screaming if we don't get to paramedics soon.

[The passengers are, once more, reluctant, but the woman who had first told John about the man on the tracks offers some acetaminophen she has in her purse. Another person, a young woman in a suit offers a small bottle of hand sanitizer. As Reuben still seems the most reliable assistant, John asks him to go and check for an on-board medkit. He suspects it was in the engine, but he has to hope they have a back-up in one of the carriages.

In the meanwhile, John's eyeing the painkillers for himself, but resists the temptation when there are so many people looking on. He gets a handkerchief from an older gentleman after demanding it, and pours some of the sanitizer on that. He doesn't press directly to the man's wounds--that would probably wake him up, but John tries to delicately peel back some of the fabric of his shirt and clean along the edges while he waits for Molly.]

Edited 2018-08-06 15:25 (UTC)

[There's a nasty wetness to this man's burns that aren't exactly blood, but more a mixture of that and the first layers of skin and fat being fried together. He groans very quietly, on the edge of consciousness, when John starts to dab around his wounds, but thankfully remains under for now.

Molly comes running back into the carriage at full pelt, face pale and a frightened look in her eyes. But she just about manages to stop blurting out her news where it might cause a stampeding panic amongst the other passengers.]

John? [Voice tight.] Could I have a private word, please?

[That doesn't bode well, but when does anything lately? John pulls himself up and follows Molly to the very back of the carriage where the door is and they can whisper. With the 20 minutes to rest... sort of, he at least feels a little more steady on his feet.]

What's happened?

[She's really trying not to be too afraid right now, but it's hard.]

I got through to DI Lestrade, and he says-- there's been bombings in some of the tube tunnels, the one we're in is totally blocked off. That can't be a coincidence.

Shit. [Except that means...]

Have they shut down the tube completely?

[Maybe turned off the third rail? John's not sure they would, but he can hope. Maybe there are doors in this section with access to maintenance tunnels.]

I don't know, the line was really bad and that's all I managed to find out before we got cut off. But... I guess so? I mean, they can't try and dig through the blocked tunnels if the rails are live, can they?

[It's a real effort to keep her voice low when she wants to give in to the rising panic, but causing a mass stampede of other passengers really won't help.]

Water... [He turns from Molly and calls out:]

Does anyone have a bottle of water?

[The woman in the suit who'd offered her hand sanitizer sighs and raises a water bottle.]

It's for him, isn't it? [She motions to the injured man as she steps over to hand it to John.]

No, not quite.

[He uncaps the bottle, turns to the door and promptly squirts some of it out across the tracks. John waits for the crackle of electricity.]

[The water spatters harmlessly on the tracks with no sign of live electricity, which probably explains why the other man is injured but not dead, he must have hit only moments before the live rail got turned off.

One of the other passengers leans over and frowns in alarm.]

Why is the line dead? What's happening, why would they cut the line?!

[This is one of those times that John feels it's appropriate to lie.]

I'm not sure, but it's probably something to do with us being stuck. There might be some sort of issue with getting an engine back down here, so they're having to come in manually. Or there might be maintenance tunnels they're sending people through and need it to be safe. I'll go check and see if I can find a door. That's probably our best bet for getting out of here quickly. We need to with the state that man's in.

Molly, can you stay here and keep an eye on our man there? [He nods to the one who's been electrocuted.] I promise I'll only be a few minutes. I won't be going that far.

[Mainly because he's not well enough for an extended journey.]

Meanwhile, you lot, we might need a crowbar, so look for what you can.

[Molly had already had her mouth open to tell someone else to take over in here, but she shuts it again with a very disapproving and disappointed look. He shouldn't be heading out there alone, and they both know it.]

Five minutes and then I'm coming after you.

[It's a low warning, before she turns to the nearest passenger with a forced brightness.]

Right! Crowbar! Come on, everyone, let's get looking, you heard what Dr. Watson said.

[Molly's the closest thing to a doctor after him. If that man wakes up, John would prefer at least one of them are here. But he nods to her conditions and he's off. It's not really hopping off the train, but he gets down carefully and uses the light from his mobile to try to see. into the darker areas. His first goal is to reach the wall so that he can start scanning it for handles or hatches, anything that's an obvious entrance that they could use.]

[There's no visible exits in the nearby vicinity, but the track disappears into the darkness in both directions, and there's a split in the tunnel up ahead where a different line joins this one.

The light from the mobile catches on an arrow on the wall, drawn in white chalk and pointing down the left fork.]

[That's... odd. John looks back toward the train, wondering if he should call for Molly. No, if there's danger, he wants her staying in there, honestly. It might not be the most sensible, but it's the right thing for her. She's been through too much already. He pauses at the fork for only a moment before following the chalk arrow.

He's reminded of Caroline's first victim, the chalk on the ground leading to Harry. His heart starts thumping faster.]

[A little bit further along, there's a child's alphabet book missing the first few pages. It looks battered, and possibly like it might have been run over by a train at some point.

There's a light up ahead and the chalk arrows keep pointing that way.]

[There we are, then. John looks around for anything he can use as a weapon. There's really nothing that's coming quickly or easily to hand. He should have waited for that crowbar. Or he should go get Molly.]

Damn it.

[John mutters that to himself as he pockets his phone and creeps as quietly as he can toward the train. He'll try to get a look in the windows for any signs of movement before going around to the door.]

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