thearena | Water, water...

Entry tags:

Water, water...

Who| John and Sherlock
What| John's near-death experience with piranhas
Where| Adventureland
When| Backdated before the fireworks
Warnings/Notes| ~~UST~~ ~~Bromance~~ Piranhas.

They needed water. To that end, John was lugging one of the large, empty candy jars from the gift shop they'd broken into on Main street as they made their way towards Adventureland, where Sherlock assured him there would be plenty. They'd probably need to sterilise it as best they could, which John assumed would be easy enough as long as they could start a fire- but with his military survival training and Sherlock's own expertise both in chemisty and hell-raising, he wasn't too worried about that.

"Are you sure it won't crack?" he asked, tapping his fingertips on the glass as they walked, "Or is that a stupid question to ask a chemist?"

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"No, they won't crack," Sherlock said blandly as he pushed past the fake jungle plants to edge up to the river. He glanced down either side of the water, but it appeared they were alone. "The temperatures we'd be heating the water at will go exceedingly slowly as it is, and we can regulate it."

He edged right up to the water and leaned over to look down into it. "And we will need to boil it... This does not look anywhere near fit for human consumption."

"No," John agreed, crouching down to poke at the surface of the water with a stick, carefully setting his jar down beside him. "And I don't know if this particular kind of algae will make us ill, but I'd rather not risk it. Keep an eye out and I'll fill mine, then we'll swap?"

Sherlock merely nodded, setting the glass jar into the mud at his feet and slipping the knife from his belt almost as a token, settling into a defensive posture as he scanned the area. They were, however, still alone.

"All clear."

He nodded, twisted to pick up the jar, leant in- and the redistribution of his weight was enough to make the ground beneath him give way. He barely had time to think about how what he was standing on couldn't be the true edge of the water and that dirt must had accumulated over the top of rotten boards before he was in the drink, green-scummed surface closing over his head.

The ground beneath him creaked and warped and Sherlock scrambled up the bank a couple of steps, just in time to watch his friend plummet into the water.

"John!" He cried immediately, lurching forward and stumbling in the mud, almost tipping himself into the water but somehow catching his balance. Once the initial moment of panic wore off, however, reality caught up with him. John was a strong enough swimmer, even in all those clothes and his shoes. They would have to make a larger fire than they had meant to, but the nights weren't too cold, so surely they could dry him off well enough--

John was a competent swimmer- not as strong as he had been before getting shot at, true, but strong enough. That being said, the water was deep and filled with tangling weeds that seemed to wrap around him as if following some kind of purpose as he swam to the surface, finally breaching it and sucking in a sharp breath. His clothing was heavy, dragging him down, and his leg- damn his leg- it was caught in something, and he couldn't seem to pull free.

"Sherlock- I'm fine," he spluttered, wiping the grime off his face as best he could. "Leg's-- there's something--"

He let out a breath as John's head broached the surface and immediately began scrambling in his belt for the knife - pulling it out and leaning over the edge of the surface to try to hand it off to John, the blade still folded.

"Here - cut yourself loose. I wouldn't stay in there, John, water isn't-- it's rarely safe, in the arenas--"

He stretched out to take it, the effort required clear on his face- and for a terrifying moment John was absolutely certain the knife would slip out from his fingers and drop into the water, never to be seen again. Fortunately, he managed to wrap his fingers tightly around it and clumsily pry it open.

"No-- trust me, no intention of staying in here any longer than I have to," he retorted, adrenalin high as he began to hack at the weed wrapped around his leg, hissing sharply as he accidentally nicked himself. "Grab the j--"

And then he felt it. Teeth, snapping at his flesh.
He cried out in pain, thrashing under the water to try and get whatever it was off him, to get himself free of the weeds...

Sherlock had heard John cry out many times in his life, mostly various forms of warning, frustration, or anger. Pain was not a common occurance, and certainly not from a source that Sherlock could not even see. The murky water made it impossible to see anything past John's shoulders, and there could be anything down there...

There was barely a second thought as he ran right up to the edge, dropping a foot in the water and splashing it around violently to see if he could distract whatever was down there. Hoping, at least, that it was something alive, and not simply a booby-trap.

If he hadn't been completely invested in getting himself free he would have spared a breath to shout at him, to tell him to get the hell away from the water. As it was, every last ounce of energy was going into cutting at the tangle of weeds despite the pain- intensifying, now, difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from anymore.

He floundered desperately, finally thrashing free of the weeds and doing his best to make it back towards Sherlock. Their eyes met just for a moment before the pain made him squeeze his shut- and all he could think was how much he hoped this wasn't going to be it. Dying here, with Sherlock just out of reach. Sherlock wouldn't forgive himself.

He kicked under the water violently, hoping he was propelling himself towards the edge and safety. He wasn't going to die here. He refused.

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Sherlock ripped off the ridiculous jacket, kicked off his shoes and plunged into the water - careful to leave a hand gripping tightly at the clay at the edge, already crumbling under his fingers but connecting him firmly to the shore. He reached out through the murky water and found the front of John's jacket and pulled, hard.

Freed from the weeds, it was easy enough to pull John through the water. He was still clutching the knife tightly, grimy water plastering his sodden hair to his head, but he wasn't thrashing so much any more- kicking reflexively to try and free himself from whatever it was biting at him but having little success.

Sherlock's face fell as he saw dark shapes in odd places all over John - it only took a couple of seconds to recognize what they were, though he'd never seen them in action before. Piranhas. But what little he knew about them assured him that they never acted like this.

He took a sharp intake of breath as he grabbed the knife from John's hand and pulled him down to the ground, immediately using the blade to try to knock the vicious creatures free.

John was quite obviously in shock, doing his best to let Sherlock help him but not quite aware of what was going on, his chest heaving with shuddering breaths and his torn, sodden clothes growing sticky with blood.
The muttated piranha clung on viciously but were eventually knocked off or cut off by Sherlock's knife, jumping about uselessly once they realised they were out of the water. Their teeth still snapped.

"Sherlock," John mumbled, slurring slightly. "How-- how bad..."

"You're fine," Sherlock snapped quickly, almost sounding annoyed at having been interrupted during something so important, but really it was nerves.

There was no bad guy to face down, here. No one to show a stoic face to, save the capitol, and he couldn't give a damn about them half the time, let alone now. No. Now he was completely and utterly focused on the blood slowly blooming through John's sodden clothes, of the tiny tears and gashes everywhere.

"You're fine," He snapped again, taking a breath as he leaned down to cut open the side of John's pant leg to get at a piranha that had slipped inside. "Dammit," he muttered to himself as he cut the thing free and a torrent of blood rushed from the wound on John's inner thigh. Immediately, he pressed a hand down hard against it, feeling the warm blood well under his fingers.

John groaned, his head falling back heavily and his eyes flickering shut.

"Sherlock, I can't-- I can't help you treat me if you lie to me," he chastised, a mildly pained smile sliding onto his face. "Anything that high up is serious, might be arterial..."

"Give me your hand then!" He snapped, grabbing out at it without asking and pressing it close in against the wound. He scrambled to cut a long piece of cloth from what was left of his ragged cape and tie it around John's leg, right at the top, as tight as he could manage.

"Fine. Multiple lacerations, most of them superficial, but three or four losing blood rapidly. Most prominent on the inside of your upper right thigh," he said as he pressed his hand down against John's, hard.

"Piranhas," he explained, belatedly.

"Piranha," John echoed incredulously, laughing- his hand shaking with it as he tried to press on the wound. "Bloody piranha. That's... that's a new one. Sherlock... Sherlock, we need to stop the bleeding, need to elevate above the- above my heart..."

"Elevate." Sherlock snapped his head up, looking around, but really couldn't see anything useful, so instead he simply grabbed John's legs and hefted them up onto his shoulder so that they were well above his heart.

He couldn't help laughing. It was the shock, he knew it was, but he was helpless with giggles- his shaking hand pressed against the most serious of his wounds and his legs dangling over Sherlock's shoulder a far more ridiculous set-up than it had any right to be.

"Like that," he encouraged between bursts of laughter. "God, Sherlock, I'm sorry."

Sherlock did not laugh. In fact he found the entire situation far from humorous, and John's laughter only worried him rather than relieved him. He pressed his fingers as hard as he could against the wound, relieved that it wasn't bleeding nearly as much in this position than it had been lying down.

"I don't think it got the artery," He mumbled as he shifted under the weight of John's legs.

"Okay. Good. That's good," he said, trying to stifle the laughter bubbling up with every shaky intake of breath. He was shivering, too, though he barely noticed it. "Just got to... stop the bleeding. I'm sorry, I just- it gave way..."

Sherlock noticed the shivering, and the slight paling of John's skin. Fire was the next order of business, but not until he could stop the bleeding.

"It's fine," He snapped, wanting to tell John to shut up but realizing he shouldn't. He started to tear off pieces of John's pants and tying them end to end around John's leg. "Just talk me through it, John."

"You're doing it right," he assured him, teeth chattering. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to concentrate. "Bandage, then apply pressure. If it doesn't stop in ten minutes, it's arterial and... we'll think about that when we get there."

"It's already slowing," Sherlock reminded him through his teeth as he used them to tear the fabric into a long strip. He was forced to release the wound for half a moment as he made to tie the bandage, watching a slow surge of blood bubble from the wound but ignoring it. Once he had the bandage tight he pressed his hand hard down against the wound once more, ripping off a second piece.

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