bakerstreet | On Your Doorstep

[She'd run when the first bullet had hit her, just a graze, but she knew she was outmatched. There was too many of them, and Nyx was under prepared, and very much outgunned. There wasn't supposed to be people trying to kill her here, this was supposed to be an easy pick up.

She was going to have a serious discussion with the higher ups when she got back.

Whenever that ended up being, possibly after she finished her blind run which was slowly turning into a disorientated stagger the longer she kept going. So maybe the graze was worse than she originally calculated.

Nyx had no idea how long she'd run before her shoulder impacted with a solid surface and she stumbled, barely managing to sit down before she fell back down the staircase she'd climbed, guess here was good enough to rest.]

[Sherlock's inside, lazing about on the sofa and considering a handful of things John and his brother would adamantly disapprove of to fend off the stagnant boredom of not having a case for the last three days. Three days. It's beyond hellish. The thump just outside catches his attention enough to snap him out of his irritable trance.

Not a knock, not a buzz. Not a client?

He huffs out a sigh and calls Mrs. Hudson to check. No answer. He tries again with John with much the same results. It takes him almost two minutes of groaning and fighting the inertia before he's off his sofa and out his door only to find someone bleeding half to death at his doorstep.

Mrs. Hudson won't be pleased with the clean up.]

John's not here.

[She could be looking for a detective, but her state says a doctor would be of a more immediate benefit. He doesn't make a move to kick her out or invite her in just yet. It takes several seconds to assess her condition and damage. She clearly needs fluids at the very least and perhaps some sutures. Anything beyond that, he can't help her with.]

[Her mind had started to wander as she sat, staring at nothing in particular, hand clutching her side as she felt the warm spill of blood against her skin. Definitely worse than she originally thought, didn't matter she'd still have to keep moving. Who where those men, now that she thought about it they seemed familiar the clothes or--

Cersei's agents, of bloody course. What twisted game was that woman playing with her now?

Nyx probably didn't want to know, and inevitably would find out anyway whenever the woman decided to indulge her. Whether by showing her face or calling her, the usual chain yanking. It makes her sigh and check to make sure no one's followed her yet.

No, no one barging up the steps.

She thought she heard something though, steps, a door opening. She definitely heard a voice and when she looks up sure enough there's someone standing there at the door. Oh. It takes her a few seconds to process what he said to her, and she blinks.]

John?

[Another few seconds to think it over, why would he bring 'John' up? The only guess she could make was that he was a doctor, given her condition.]

I'm...sorry if I disturbed you, I just needed a place to rest.

[If he were busy, Sherlock would have called the ambulance and left her to fend for herself until they got here. But, she's literally the most interesting thing that's found his doorstep since that Scotsman with the missing daughter, so he might as well make the most of it. Just one look at her condition says she's neck deep in trouble. Could be the sort of trouble he'd like to get involved in.]

If I phoned 999 right now, the ambulance would take at least eleven minutes to get here this time of day.

[He approaches her, lifting his hands and rotating them front to back to show he's unarmed. He's wearing a dressing gown, an inside-out, loose t-shirt, and a pair of pyjama pants. Not exactly threatening, but an injured animal - human included - tends to get defensive over the littlest things.]

Not sure you have eleven minutes of consciousness left with that wound.

[She almost protests his statement about the ambulance, it was a terrible idea, they'd find her there and put a bullet in her skull with doctor's and nurses right there watching. Instead, though he's approaching her.

Her eyes dart down to his hands when he lifts them, then scan over the rest of him before returning to his face. He passed the test for being unarmed, Nyx didn't see any tell tale sides of a weapon hidden anywhere.

His next statement pulls her attention down to her wound finally, and the pain she'd been ignoring floods her senses and she hisses slightly before looking back up. She's not sure she has that long to sit and stay conscious either, now.]

I'm not either.

[Sherlock steps a little closer. Something tells him that even if this woman's on the verge of collapse, she could probably leave him dead if he's not careful. Best to explain the situation instead of simply acting, then.]

I'm going to pick you up and carry you to the tub in my flat.

[Blood stains on his furniture would be a good conversation starter, but only if the conversation's worth having. So far, he doesn't have any indication that it will be anything more than 'I took her in, patched her up, then she left the first chance she got'.]

I'll do what I can to slow the bleeding and you'll tell me about the people you're running from.

[Seems like a fair deal to him.]

[He was smart to explain what he was going to do first, because her first reaction would have been to snap his neck had he just picked her up. Unarmed or not, she was still wary. Still, Nyx was trying to convince herself getting help from a total stranger would be better than risking going to a hospital.

It was still a risk anyway even just staying in one spot for so long. Her eyes narrow slightly at his idea of a deal and she tilts her head slightly.

It's the shouting outside that finally forces a split second decision out of her, they'll both be dead if it's who she thinks it is.]

Alright, fine.

[Sherlock glances at the door when the shouting starts. It's a second of distraction, but it piques his curiosity. It certainly seems to have an effect on the woman. Hopefully, she hadn't left too much of a blood trail into the house, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

He kneels down and puts his left arm behind her shoulders and works his right under her knees. Bridal style will put more of a strain on him than fireman or piggy-back, but the bigger concern is avoiding more bleeding. With a bit of a grunt, he manages to get back to his feet. She's heavier than she looks - muscle mass weighs more than fat or water. He should be strong enough to carry her up the stairs and a few metres to the bathroom without dropping her or taking a break.]

You'd have been luckier if it were a penetrating wound.

[Or a perforating one, for that matter. Well, maybe not. It all depends on location with that.

He's already considering making a false trail of blood leading up to the empty flat upstairs. John's only uses it when they're working a case these days and it would give them time to work out a plan in a pinch. To make it more believable, he works his house slippers off his feet before stepping onto the landing. He glances around to make sure she's not actively dripping before going towards the kitchen entrance.]

[She was hoping the same thing and was honestly unsure if she had or not. Her attention remains locked on the door for several seconds before she looks down at the steps leading to where she's sitting, she didn't see any blood on them.

Nyx hears him kneel down beside her and she looks back at him bracing herself for the moment he finally picks her up. She grits her teeth when he does finally lift her, the hand not clutching her side lifting to grip his robe to steady herself.]

The bullet would have hit my lung.

[She's not entirely sure that could count as 'luckier' in the slightest. She might be bleeding all over herself, but she wasn't drowning in her own blood, which was a slight step up.]

Or your rib.

[Sherlock would agree that a lung shot is ultimately a bad thing to have. He's got a bit of experience with that thanks to John's charming wife. But what's a bullet between friends?

He sets her down as gently as he can - which really could have been more gentle, sorry about that - and opens the cupboard above the toilet. He picks out an older, frayed towel and tosses it down on top of her. Again, he's reluctant to stain anything he wants to keep, even if Mrs. Hudson adds a bit of bleach to the linens and towels.]

Put as much pressure as you can on it. I'll be right back.

[Once he's finished tracking a small trail of blood up to the upstairs rooms and pilfering John's medical kit. She'll be in luck, because he tends to keep a vial of morphine around to remind him he's 'off the sauce'. Bit backwards, that, but it works better for him than putting it out of arm's reach.]

[Nyx could have lived with a bullet lodged in her rib, but she had never been that lucky when it came to getting shot. Other than that, she had the luck of the devil but one had to fall short somewhere, right?

Her hand releases it's grip on him when he sets her down, and she takes a moment to adjust herself to a slightly more comfortable position. She leans her head back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut for a few seconds, before she opens them again, blinking. Blurred, a little dizzy, damn.

The towel hitting her stomach jars her enough that it brings her mind back into action and she grabs it, removing her hand and replacing it with the towel. She nods at him before he leaves, and shifts enough to get the angle she needs to press down as hard as she can.

While he's gone, she's going to try and figure out how she's going to explain her situation.]

[There may be some comfort for her to hear no doors open and only one door close upstairs about a minute after Sherlock's left. He's left his slippers in the guest bathroom and he takes the time to look for any trail leading into his flat. Nothing that any normal person would pick up, but someone like himself or Mycroft would notice the evidence of a pause in the trail around the first storey landing.

Nothing he can do about it that won't make it stand out more. He'll just hope that her pursuers don't look inside the building and if they do, that they aren't as observant.

He'll come back in another minute and a half later with a medium-sized black box in one hand and a smallish brown, leather one in the other.]

Can you take off your shirt or do I need to cut it off?

[He sets the boxes down on top of the toilet lid and rolls up his sleeves to wash his hands. He's not a doctor, but he's also not an idiot. Infections are tedious.]

[It is a small comfort to only hear that one door shut, she hasn't heard anymore yelling or the stampede of boots up the steps. They where probably tracking her under the presumption of her normal habits, which was run until she couldn't anymore, rest and then run more.

They probably assumed she stopped nearby his building and rested before moving off again. That would give her a little extra time, and depending on this man, might give her a little extra help.

Nyx still isn't sure what to think of him, yet, and as he returns she's already watching him again taking a moment to study what he's brought back with him.]

I can take it off.

[She sits up and while he's busy washing his hands, gingerly removes the towel from her side long enough to pull her shirt up and off, biting down on any pained sound. She tosses it over her legs before sitting back again, pressing the towel back to her side for the moment.]

[Sherlock hums acknowledgement when she says she can do it herself. It saves him the trouble, really. When he's done washing his hands, he leaves the room without saying anything. This time, when he comes back, he's working a pair of blue, nitrile gloves onto his hands. They're for his lab work in the kitchen, in case she'd had the time and capacity to notice it the couple seconds it would have been visible to her.]

John's got some Lidocaine in his bag, but I don't know the dosage.

[He uses his elbow to push the top of John's medicine bag open. He should have done that before washing his hands, but he's used to dealing with people who are too dead to care. He's patched himself up enough to know his way around, though.]

So... antiseptic first, then sutures, then the ointment, then the bandagaes. Lidocaine if you know the dose, morphine if you're interested.

[He's out the door again, and she's trying to shake the haze from her mind. Really, stay awake, it's important. His return gives her something to focus on, and it helps. Had she been more alert she would have taken note, but as it was she'd been more focused on her own well being to worry much about what was where in his flat.

Lidocaine...Nyx knows what it is, it's been used on her before, but the dosage escapes her. She can endure the pain of being stitched up without it so it's not a big set back for either of them.]

Don't know the dosage either, morphine is a maybe.

[Sherlock taps the smaller leather bag with his knuckles.]

Morphine's in there. Tell me when you want it.

[He assumes she already knows that being dosed up on morphine will hinder her cognitive ability and some of her motor function. But so does massive blood loss. Speaking of which, he should probably look in the refrigerator to see if he's got any saline bags left. Later.

He fingers through John's things until he finds a bag of what he assume are sterile cotton swabs and the bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol. He saturates one of the swabs and starts to clean the area around the wound first. The wound itself will be cleaned last with a new swab to avoid more contamination that it's already been exposed to.]

Who shot you?

[Oh does she know. Nyx would rather avoid having that slow down because she knows if Cersei's agents do eventually circle back she'll end up in another shoot out, dosed up on morphine she'd be little more than a fish in a barrel.

She could recover better from the blood loss, or she was holding on to that hope.

The towel is drawn away when he leans over with the cotton swab, and she let's it drop into the bottom of the tub, moving her hand up and out of his way.]

One of my m- [Her state was making her slip slightly, almost referring to Cersei as 'mother.' While the statement is true, she doesn't think of that woman as her mother, she hadn't for years ever since they started this hellish game.] -Cersei's agents. She's been trying to kill me for a few years now.

[Sherlock glances at the woman's face when she starts the word. Mother, matron, maid, or any other things could have been what she'd intended to say. If she hadn't corrected herself, he would have assumed it was due to the confusion and that it meant nothing in the same way someone might call their friend by another name.

Cersei is someone she'd had some sort of familial intimacy with. He puts that in the box of 'implicit details' right next to the box of 'explicit details' that he can sort through later.]

Something you did or something you didn't do?

[He gets the area relatively dirt free, but the blood is still dribbling from the wound. Blood's sterile, so he'll leave it for now. He tosses the bloodied swab into the bin and gets a second one. (John won't be pleased by the contamination in his kit, but it's his own fault for going off and having a life outside of working with him).]

Be as specific as you'd like. If you require my assistance in the matter, I advise you that more specific is better.

[Honestly his question was the same one she'd been asking herself for as long as she'd been fighting. Cersei was a terrorist, Nyx was on the opposing side to her, that was the most obvious response. Yet she knew that there was something much more personal as to why the damnable woman kept doing this to her.

She just had no idea what that little detail was, and it was a source of constant frustration.]

Something I did.

[She's not sure if he wants to get involved with her. At this point - alone as she was here - he might be able to help her evade her pursuers and get back to Germany. If Cersei was here, though, then her game plan would change drastically.]

She's a terrorist, I'm part of the organization trying to stop her. If her agents are here...she might be here as well.

[More specific would require a life story.]

[Keeping her talking is benefiting both of them. Sherlock gets to learn more about the mysterious woman and a potential case and she gets to have something to distract her from what he's about to do. It may help keep her awake a few minutes extra, too. He tosses the bloodied swab into the bin once he's cleaned the wound proper, then he pokes around in the bag until he finds the butterfly bandages. They won't hold long-term, but he needs something to keep the wound closed while he stitches her up.]

They came here following you?

[If they crossed paths here, that's one thing. If she's being targeted personally? That adds quite a lot of risk getting involved. John will be eager to help, if he decides to inform him, that is. Mycroft might have some intelligence on one or both organisations. But he won't mention it unless he's contacted first.

He pinches his left forefinger and thumb on the outsides of the wound to push it together so he can apply the first butterfly strip with his right hand.]

[She knows she's starting to lose it when it takes her longer than usual to process the question he asked and she her mind refuses to even give her words to speak at him. Nyx is quiet for a while, staring at a spot on the edge of the tub, brows knit together in concentration as she tries to get her brain to work again.

Thankfully it sputters back to life and words come back to her. It would be a story to tell when she got back 'I got shot and wound up passing out in some guy's bathtub' she'd be laughed at for sure.

With a slight shake of her head and another blink she clears her throat and licks too dry lips.]

More than likely.

[Rarely did she just randomly run into this people, sure, they may have been after the same data as her, but she couldn't be sure unless she got her hands on one of them.]

[Sherlock glances at her a few times just to make sure she's still conscious. Another of the few medical tricks he knows is that if someone goes out, they need to lie flat lest they risk brain damage. One of those things he looked into for himself that's coming up useful in this circumstance.]

Starting to lose you.

[He applies the second strip and moves back. He pulls the gloves off and sets them to the side. He'll realise he should get new ones a little later. If she's still awake when he leaves the room, she'll hear the tap go on and off. He'll come back a moment later with two new gloves pinched between his fingers. He's stirring the glass of water while he kneels down again.]

I've added some mineral salts. Might taste a bit odd, but it works better for hydration than plain water.

[He sets it within her reach, then puts the new gloves on before he can start again.]

On Your Doorstep

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