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A man formerly of Her Majesty's Armed Forces Overseas, Dr John Watson had been in his life prior to civilian employment accustomed to sights of a gruesome and violent nature, as all men in his position must become. As assistant to the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, he had been privy to stranger and more lurid corpses than he had ever had the misfortune to inter as a military doctor; this is not to say, however, that he had given up entirely the essence of gentleness to which all good souls owe their Christian feelings. When his companion and good friend Holmes returned to their rooms late one night bent double and ashen-faced, he was immediately alarmed.
"Holmes --" he cried, reaching out in an abortive gesture which did little but communicate his distress. Holmes struggled slowly from his coat, and the extent of the damage became apparent to him.
Watson had rolled up his shirt sleeves and rushed to the hand basin almost the very moment he saw the crimson blooms spreading across the shoulder of Holmes's best shirt. "Take off your shirt," he barked over his shoulder, scrubbing the ink stains from under his fingernails as fast as he could.
"My dear fellow," Holmes complained through what sounded like a clenched jaw, "I am quite aware of how to treat a bullet wound."
"Then perhaps you would see your way to not acquiring so many, if you are so well-versed in how fiddly and dangerous they are to minister to," Watson sighed. He returned to Holmes's rooms in time to both hear the resounding crash and see its cause; the ungainly sweep of Holmes's uninjured left arm as he brushed from his desk the detritus and wealth of curios which had so densely forested the sage green leather of this most venerable of work surfaces. "I was just going to do that," he added, unbuttoning his waistcoat for ease of movement. "More carefully."
"I thought only to save you time, Mother Hen," Holmes said with uncharacteristic mildness and a pale mouth, "do take the utmost advantage of the sacrifice of those cowrie shells."
It was only at moments of such heightened need, Watson thought as he examined the wound, that one could put aside all thoughts of impropriety, rank, and sex and the other small divisions of mankind. Were this another circumstance he might have heated about the face to face Holmes bare from the waist up, his braces pulled roughly aside and his head tipped back over the end of the his own desk in exposition of a length of unshaven throat. Were this another circumstance, Watson hoped fervently as he traced the path of the bullet through the man's collar and out through the deltoid muscle, he would not find himself in the presence of a half-naked and supine Holmes at all.
"Could I trouble you to make haste with your ministrations, Watson?" Holmes said in what Watson judged to be unexpected asphyxia, "I have many avenues of investigation still to pursue."
"You are fortune, old cock," Watson said, wiping his hands on his shirt and reaching for his bag. "One might even say blessed, for the shot has passed through without so much as tripping a vein, and left as I see it no trace of himself behind."
A fat bead of blood burst forth from the wound and raced the length of his clavicle like rain down a window pane. Watson compressed the dressing he held in his hands, squashing and squeezing it as he so often wished he could press a measure of self-preservation into the skull of his dead friend. "Lie down," he said with considerable forbearance. "I must still dress the wound and you must refrain from agitating it."
"Nonsense, this case is close to completion and it is a matter of mere moments of hesitation that will--" Holmes snapped, trying to prop himself up on his elbow. Another plump sphere of scarlet made egress through his wound.
"Lie down," Watson growled, "or I will tie you down."
Any other patient might have been paid the courtesy of etherisation to calm their nerves or delay their rising, but after the Curare Incident Watson had no great desire to assist Holmes in rendering himself unconscious through unnatural means, no matter how strong a temptation the thought of subsequent peace of mind might be.
Holmes lay down and closed his eyes, two coal-black smudges on either cheekbone marking his eyelashes. Watson suppressed an alarmed cough, hurrying away to make ready a small basin of water and the iodine with its tiny glass dropper set in heavy india rubber. They were familiar as Holmes's truculence and a deal more welcome, being instruments of healing and some of the very foundations of his profession (although Watson had often vainly hoped that his bedside manner was what set him apart from the common doctor).
Upon his return to the desk that served at present as an operating table (and for far from the first time), Watson found Holmes breathing shallow breaths and lost, it seemed, in thought. He resolved to disrupt as little of this rarefied process as possible, and dabbed at the gunshot with damp cloth as tenderly as if cleaning the grazed knee of an infant.
"It was a trivial miscalculation," Holmes muttered, his eyelids twitching. "You may sleep soundly knowing I am as piqued as you at my momentary lapse in judgement."
"It bears an unusual resemblance to a bullet through the shoulder to me," Watson said dryly, wiping from the curve of his clavicle the excess of red. It smeared in orange-brown streaks as polish on wooden floorboards, but with diligence he began to remove the blood wholly from the skin. Watson felt compelled to swallow rather more saliva than the demands of the task might have created, but he fixed his frown upon the task and shook away the discrepancy.
"The gunshot was not, I confess, on my mind," Holmes said slowly.
"Then perhaps it should be," Watson replied, his knees suffering a most unusual weakness. He stepped back from the desk and allowed himself to sink into Holmes's chair.
"That is my chair," Holmes said without opening his eyes.
"A moment, I beg of you."
"A momentary … lapse. A trifle. Not to be –" Holmes muttered, and Watson sat up straight, a foolish fire burning in his face. He had been so concerned with keeping the man still and with his own terrible guilt that the mere science of such a sudden wound had eluded his notice. He was unfit to call himself a doctor.
"Er," he felt around in his visiting bag once more, "perhaps you would prefer to be asleep while I finish dressing this."
"A mere flesh wound, a scratch?" Holmes scoffed, his eyes still shut. "You are absurd, Watson, quite absurd. I shall have to find another name for you, 'Mother Hen' is not near rude enough for your silliness."
"I think you would prefer not to be awake," Watson repeated, and Holmes opened his eyes. The pupils were tight in spite of their recent enclosure and his eyelids were not steady. Watson gave all his attention abruptly to the wound, which gave forth a pitiful last gasp of blood before conceding victory to the wash cloth.
"I think you may be right," Holmes said, closing his eyes again.