Chapter Text
It had all started with a rather unusual cult, bent on achieving enlightenment through ingestion of some strange cocktail of substances as set out by an Elizabethan-age manuscript. It had been a diary kept by a relatively high-level clergyman, in which he’d detailed the confessions of all the people in the region who had, under torture, admitted witchcraft. One woman had apparently been particularly creative, and had detailed a procedure by which one could attain ultimate knowledge. This had, of course, intrigued Sherlock, leading him to take on the cases of the cult’s victims (apparently, quite a number of the ingredients consisted of vital pieces of the human anatomy, which had been surgically removed from their previous hosts with little concern for whether the bodies in question could survive the procedures). Unfortunately, the cult in question had become aware of the consulting detective’s attentions, and decided he’d be an excellent sacrifice.
So John had been forced to make another last-minute rescue, illegal gun blaring as he raced to save his oft-captured flatmate and more-than-friend.
At that moment, John was glad he was a doctor. Because the sight of someone one knew, someone one cared for laid open on an operating table, while never easy, would undoubtedly have caused someone in another profession to lose consciousness then and there.
Sherlock was thankfully unconscious, secured to a perfectly clean metal operating table that looked quite out of place in the abandoned factory the group in question had been using for its base. Monitors beeped and the floor was littered with animal bones and spent sutures, and three young people in full surgical attire were crowded against the wall behind the whole arrangement, eyes darting as they made futile attempts to hide their bloody gloves.
But John’s eyes went to the light blue surgical sheets that covered his flatmate’s midsection, and to the gaping abdominal cavity they circled. He took in the reports from the monitors and, gun still trained on the cowering trio, stepped up to the operating table.
John wasn’t scared. In an emergency, he never felt anything but calm. It was an excellent quality for a doctor, a soldier, and anyone who had an emotional attachment to Sherlock Holmes. So when he looked down into his friend’s very person, John’s reactions were clinical. Which was a good thing because, if he’d made room for emotion, there wouldn't have been room for anything else.
Just then, Lestrade caught up, closely flanked by his team. John indicated the cowering medical students (Sherlock had deduced days ago that it was medical students being used to perform the ersatz surgeries), and Lestrade took over covering them with his own gun while Sergeant Donovan handcuffed the three. She and Lestrade were speaking, but John couldn’t hear them. Emergency first, background noise later.
Dr. Watson had seen a lot in his career, but never anything like this. Not only had those children cut in to Sherlock, needlessly hurt his Sherlock, they had done so in a manner that was both cruel and criminally unsafe.
The first thing John noticed was that far too many internal organs were visible. The inside of a healthy human body is a net of membranes and fats within which the vital organs are safely nestled. But in this case, such protection had been cut away, sloppily patched to prevent the worst of the bleeding. And there was bleeding. This was to be expected with any abdominal surgery, but that was hardly a comfort. The too-visible internal organs, intestines and the like, looked like aluminium cans that had been kicked once too many, and John noted at least four large burn marks. Only the steady beeping of the heart monitor kept him from shooting the perpetrators then and there.
The heart monitor, and common sense. His Sherlock needed a doctor, a real doctor, and now. John could help best by being this doctor.
John blinked, noticed that Lestrade was shaking him by one shoulder. Both the Detective Inspector and Sergeant Donovan were hanging back, and the long body on the floor seemed to indicate that Anderson had fainted. Lestrade was still talking, but John interrupted, indicating one of the three now-handcuffed medical students.
“Let me talk to her.”
Lestrade paused, then seemed to decide that it was alright and nodded for the girl to approach. Most of her face was hidden by a surgical mask, but her eyes were terrified. She started bawling right away.
“We didn’t want to!” she wailed. “We didn’t know what we were doing! Dan’s friend just brought us the organs for his group, said they were animal parts, and we just cauterized the shapes he wanted! Today was the first time any of us knew they were human, and they had guns, and—”
“What did you do, exactly?” Lestrade might want the girl’s full story, but John was only concerned with a very specific piece of it. The young student skipped ahead, eager to oblige.
“Well we didn’t want to hurt anyone, so we did what they said as safely as we could. They’d already knocked the guy out, but there wasn’t any gas so we had to use injections to keep him out. It took a lot, but Jason monitored that,” she indicated one of her compatriots, “and Dan and I did the cutting.” Her eyes grew wide over her mask as she realized how callous that had sounded, but a look from John kept her talking.
“We were as safe as we could, but one of them said to remove everything but the organs, and cauterize the shapes on all of those, and somebody kept chanting something I couldn’t understand except that I think it was Latin, and throwing all this salt over the surgical field!”
There, John prodded her. “You’re sure it was salt?”
She looked even more panicked, but answered, “I think it was, at least mostly, because of how the tissue responded.”
“And the shapes? How many?”
“Pentagrams, mostly. Thirteen in all, though you can’t see all of them because of the blood. I tried to clamp off everything, but it just wouldn’t . . . it’s only my second year!”
John shook his head. He was in a place of perfect tunnel vision now, seeing nothing but the problem at hand and thinking nothing but how to fix it. He turned to the girl one last time, nodding to himself.
“Where do you scrub up?”