Chapter 2. Sherlock is shot and bleeding out. Can John's last, desperate technique save him?

The bleeding just would not stop. John kept his hands pushed against the blood-drenched scarf that he had pressed against the wound in Sherlock's belly.

It had started as a birthday dinner for Greg Lestrade at Angelo's. Naturally, Sherlock didn't want to go. "Boring. Predictable. Sentiment," he had railed.

"Camaraderie. Relaxation. Friendship," John had countered. And it was. There was good-natured ribbing, gag gifts, a bit too much wine and beer. Sherlock had even eaten a bit. And there was laughter that carried into the street as they'd walked out the front door. Sherlock had turned back to speak with Lestrade when they'd been met with several shots from a moving car whose licence plates were obscured by mud, its occupants' identities hidden by camouflage uniforms and face paint.

Unperturbed by the screams around them, John was scrambling on his knees to his fallen friend; just as quickly, Lestrade had pulled his phone and was calling for back up and an ambulance and his eyes swept over the patrons and staff.

"Anyone else down?" John shouted.

Lestrade responded with a decisive, "No."

Both men had small rivulets of blood coming from cuts from flying glass; they were either unaware that they'd been hit or they didn't care.

"Aw, dammit!" John cursed to the air. "Sherlock!" The Consulting Detective's eyes were creased in fear, his hands feebly grasping at John's sleeves.

Angelo gawped at the shattered window and the bloody scene in his doorway.

"I need table cloths!" John barked at him.

Angelo didn't move. "Angelo! Table cloths, now!"

"Ambulance is eight minutes out," Lestrade reported, his voice tight with fear.

John shook his head fractionally. The look Lestrade saw in John's eyes was as near to despair as he'd ever seen in the doctor. Lestrade turned away, still holding the phone to his ear. When he was far enough away that Sherlock couldn't overhear, he said curtly, "He doesn't have eight minutes. Hurry it up."

He returned to John's side.

Hands shaking, Angelo ran out with an arm-full of kitchen towels and table cloths.

Christ, there was a lot of blood.

"Help me sit him up."

Angelo paled. "I c–… c–… can't."

He met Angelo's eyes with a calm but firm stare. "You can and you will."

Angelo nodded.

John turned to his friend. "It's going to hurt, Sherlock."

"Do it," came the weak reply.

Greg already had one arm behind the fallen man; John nodded at the usually jovial restaurateur. Angelo complied, and together the two men raised Sherlock's back. Sherlock groaned, his vision momentarily blacking out.

"Sorry."

John whipped off the Belstaff and suit jacket as one.

John saw what he was expecting: a deceptively small, circular entrance wound. "I need a tampon," he shouted. He scanned the crowd that had gathered, making eye contact with the women. "C'mon. Any of you? A tampon."

A forty-something shook herself out of her stupor and fumbled with her purse. Lestrade impatiently waved her forward. "Well, c'mon, c'mon. Give it here."

Lestrade opened the wrapper.

"Hang on, Sherlock." With that, the doctor pushed the tampon into the wound as onlookers gasped. Sherlock shuddered from the pain and cried out.

"I'm so sorry," John whispered.

The tampon matched the size of the bullet hole almost perfectly, and Lestrade could see the blood flow lessen.

"Lower him now. Good job. Good, Angelo… Easy…Easy." John had stuffed a few table cloths under him.

John took off his own jacket and lay his and the Belstaff over his friend.

"Bit better, eh?" Sherlock managed a nod as John guided Lestrade's hands to add pressure to the linens covering the abdominal wound. John checked his watch, then Sherlock's pulse and fingertips. No one needed him to comment on the sickly shade of blue Sherlock's lips and fingers had turned. He was glassy eyed and diaphoretic. Hypovolemic shock.

"John—," came the whisper. It sounded like good-bye. It was the voice and look of someone who knew he was dying. There was an unspoken plea in Sherlock's eyes. Although he was just barely hanging on to consciousness, the trust in those eyes was unbounded.

Except there was nothing more the doctor could do. John's hands rose in a gesture of helplessness.

Except…

John decided to play his last card. If this was going to work, he had to do it now.

There was nothing like being shot to put someone in a highly focused, suggestible state. John should know. Sherlock was, in effect, already in hypnosis. All John had to do was give him the suggestion.

Lestrade watched, mesmerized, as John got right into Sherlock's face. There was no praying, no pleading, no urging of Stay with me, Sherlock. What followed was simply the most profoundly commanding order Lestrade had ever heard, echoing with complete High Priest of Medicine authority and assurance.

Dr Watson pointed a blood-stained finger at the pale man haemorrhaging to death before his eyes. "Sherlock Holmes, I am your doctor. You will do what I say, exactly what I say. I am telling you right now that you must stop bleeding. Your body knows how to do this. On the count of three, you will clamp closed all the vessels that are bleeding until the haemorrhaging stops. One…two…three. Stop bleeding!"

Sherlock's pain-filled eyes fought to stay on his physician's. Doctor to patient; friend to friend. In the distance, the sound of sirens.

And the bleeding stopped.*

Three weeks later, Sherlock was somewhat mobile, although still bandaged and weak. It had been a nightmarish period of surgery and post-operative recovery, but he had survived. He was home.

He had his laptop open and was fully engrossed in reading. John glanced at the screen as he passed by, but Sherlock slammed the cover down.

It took a moment for John to process what he just saw.

"What are you doing?" he asked in that mildly perturbed style that he had that, frankly, Sherlock enjoyed inducing. "You're researching hypnosis, aren't you?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"That wasn't a denial. I saw it. I definitely saw the word hypnosis."

Sherlock looked caught out for a moment, then decided to confess. Partially. "I am researching the evidence of efficacy documentation on medical hypnosis, particularly in the field of emergency medicine.

The doctor's eyes narrowed. "And?"

"The evidence is…surprisingly strong." There was reluctance in the tone, as if the facts were a personal affront.

"And?

"Nothing, John."

"I know that tone."

"What tone? I don't have a tone."

"Yeah, you do… There's something else… You're hiding something… What are you—? No, no, no. You're trying to learn how to do it!" the good doctor deduced. "That is wrong on so many levels. You can't-" He threw his arms up in the air. "Sherlock, you can't learn hypnosis just by reading about it. It takes a few hundred hours of good training, plus practice, plus—…Oooh! No. No. Absolutely no. You are not trying it out on me. Not happening. Not happening," John shouted as he walked away.

Sherlock smirked.

A/N: This is based on a real-life incident. My teacher, a San Francisco-area M.D., used medical hypnosis in just this fashion to save the life of a woman in the Emergency Department who was haemorrhaging during childbirth.

My stories have dealt with Complementary and Alternative Medicine techniques of acupuncture, massage, and now hypnosis. Can you tell it's a favourite topic of mine? And it's a field I work in. And before you ask—yes, I am certified in hypnosis, among other techniques.