NIGHTMARE SCENARIO
Chapter 4
Surely things can't get any worse for our two favourite brothers...
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Sam crouched down as best he could in the cramped space and grasped his unconscious brother's shoulders, "Dean, dude; talk to me, Dean..." he barked urgently.
Dean's head lolled limply onto his shoulder.
Sam gently removed the pilot's headset and explored his brother's clammy, bloodstained face with nervous fingers, pausing to probe the copiously bleeding wound on his hairline.
Satisfied that there was no glass or debris in the wound, he removed his overshirt, wincing as the motion pulled on abused shoulders and a neck that would, no doubt, be as stiff as a board tomorrow pressing it against Dean's forehead.
All the while speaking soft, soothing nonsense, he unclipped the shoulder harness that was pinning Dean into the pilot's seat and was mightily relieved to feel a strong heartbeat under his hand as he did so.
He took a moment to scan the picture of devastation around him.
The aircraft's interior was in a state of utter disarray; the flight deck and windshield, a grotesque tangle of metal and shattered glass. A ghostly layer of orange desert dust, carried high on the currents caused by the plane's landing was already settling over the wreckage.
Sam took in the crusting vomit stains across Dean's lap and the seat, he saw the tracks of tears staining the unbloodied side of his brother's face; he could smell the lingering odour of adrenalin-fortified sweat. Sam knew all too well how his brother felt about flying, and he couldn't bring himself to imagine the horror of the harrowing ordeal that Dean had been forced to go through to get that plane down safely. An ordeal he had to endure alone.
The very thought of it crushed Sam.
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Suddenly he felt Dean's head shift beneath his hand; the movement was accompanied by a low groan.
"Hey Dean," he murmured softly, cupping Dean's face. "S'okay, we're down on the ground now; you got us down safely you brave sonofabitch, you."
Dean blinked vacantly, flinching as Sam gently pressed down on the wound on his forehead. "S'mmy, you okay?" he whispered.
"I'm good," smiled Sam, "bit battered and bruised, but nothing' like I haven't had before!" Dean turned to look up at him, but Sam held his head fast.
"shhhh, take it easy dude," Sam soothed, "don't move, you're bleedin' a load."
"Couldn't wake you Sammy." Despite Sam's repeated pleas to him not to move, Dean turned, staring wide-eyed up at his brother from under the crumpled shirt Sam had pressed against his head, "you were sleepin' the whole time; really scared me." He swallowed hard and took in a long shaky breath, "thought you were really sick."
Sam looked directly into his brother's eyes; he could feel Dean was still shivering violently, and he knew that was nothing to do with the desert's rapidly dropping temperature, now dusk was falling. "I-I dunno what happened." His eyes dropped to the ground as he shook his head, "I don't remember anything, I'm just sorry I wasn't there to help you bro', really I am."
He lifted the cloth and was relieved to see the blood flow had slowed encouragingly.
"What happened, dude?" He asked, his free hand shifting to Dean's shoulder; "what happened to the pilot?"
"Don' know, I jus' …" The words dissolved into a hiss of pain. Sam felt Dean's brow furrow beneath his hand.
"Hey man, you hurtin' anywhere else?" Sam asked in concern, scanning his brother's body. It was then he noticed Dean's leg trapped under the crumpled flight deck.
"P-Peter …" he grunted, "call Peter, m'leg hurts."
"Who's Peter?" Sam asked, gently kneading the tense shoulder beneath his hand; "radio," whispered Dean, "guy on the radio, he talked me down; said he coun't find us on his radar thing, but maybe he has now?"
Sam was becoming worried about Dean. Apart from his physical injuries, Dean was unusually subdued; glassy, expressionless eyes watching Sam's every move, the crippling tremors that gripped his body, if anything, growing stronger with each passing moment.
Sam had seen this before, in a lot of people they had saved; some people called it shock, some called it post-traumatic stress, many people didn't have a name for it. It was the body's 'fight or flight' reflex; a natural and instinctive preparation for dealing with severe and life-threatening danger which often meant that once the danger was past and the anaesthetic of adrenaline began to leave the system, many succumbed to a complete breakdown.
Sam sadly rubbed his brother's arm; he knew some people spend a lifetime in therapy to get over something like this.
Scanning the remains of the flight deck, Sam saw the radio handset laying under the co-pilot's seat. He picked it up, only to find a length of severed wire dangling from underneath it.
"CRAP!" he yelled angrily, throwing the dead handset through the shattered windshield in frustration.
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"Okay dude, I'm gonna try and lift this wreckage so we can free your leg." Sam spoke softly, but urgently, keeping his eye closely on his brother; "ready?"
Dean bit down on his lip and nodded mutely from under the rumpled bloodstained shirt that Sam had charged him with holding against his forehead for the duration of this exercise.
"Okay, on three," Sam grasped the crumpled edge of the flight deck, and braced himself, "one … two …"
Ignoring the ache across his back and shoulders, he heaved the mangled unit up a few inches to take the pressure off his brother's leg. Dean cried out, arching out of the seat in agony.
"Okay, okay, dude;" Sam reassured breathlessly; every fibre of him desperate to hold and soothe his distressed brother, but knowing, as he strained to hold the heavy unit up, he absolutely couldn't drop it back on Dean's leg.
"can you move your leg dude?" He gasped, arms trembling under the weight.
Dean's eyes closed tightly as he shook his head, swallowing convulsively, looking for all the world like he was about to vomit.
Sam realised he couldn't hold the metal frame up and help Dean extract his leg, he just didn't have enough hands; or enough strength. "Okay dude, hang in there," he muttered softly, face betraying a cheerfulness in his voice he didn't feel. He dropped down to his knees, bending his back and wedged a shoulder under the ridge of the tangled wreckage.
Using all his strength he arched his back, lifting the metal ridge as high as he could, grimacing against the pain of the metal edge digging into the flesh of his back. No wonder Dean was in pain, having that weight crushing his leg, Sam shuddered at the thought.
"Careful Sammy …" came the voice, barely a whisper from beneath the bloodstained shirt.
With both hands free, Sam grasped Dean's leg gently at the knee and ankle, and took the opportunity to gently run his hands along the length of Dean's lower leg. There was a warm, sticky wetness to the denim below Dean's knee; blood Sam assumed. When his hands moved down nearer to Dean's ankle, Dean flinched violently with a yelp and Sam's heart sank as he felt the unmistakable grinding of loose bone edges.
Knowing he had to work quickly, and sagging against the increasing pressure of the trashed flight deck on his back, he carefully cradled Dean's leg in his long arms, and gently manouevred it out from under the unit onto the co-pilots seat. He whispered soft reassurances as Dean buried his face into his shoulder, stifling a yelp.
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Kneeling over the bloodied denim with their first aid kit beside him, Sam looked across at his brother, gesturing to Dean's jeans. "I'm gonna have to cut them to take a look, okay?"
Dean had swivelled round in the pilot's seat and was now leaning against the side window so he could look directly at Sam without bending or turning; he chewed his lip and nodded shakily, allowing Sam to gently cut the denim up the front of his leg to just above his knee.
He instantly saw the source of all the blood, a deep gash down the side of the shinbone, but nothing more than a flesh wound he was relieved to note; nothing he hadn't dealt with a hundred times before; Dean's ankle, on the other hand, was a deep, bruising purple and already swelling grotesquely. Sam grasped at small mercies; sighing in relief that the break hadn't pierced the skin.
"Gonna take your boot off dude," Sam smiled at Dean who was watching him wordlessly from beneath weary, heavy lidded eyes, "your foot needs room to swell up." He carefully removed the laces from Dean's boot, and gently worked it off his foot. Cutting his sock off, he added with a mischevious grin, "shame I didn't bring a peg for my nose!"
"my feet don' smell, they're sweet and fragrant;" came a huffed response, Dean wrinkling his nose in a mock scowl, wincing as the motion pulled on the gash on his forehead.
Sam gently squeezed Dean's knee, and cringed in playful disgust; "not from where I'm standin' bro'," he grinned.
"bitch …"
Sam smiled, buoyed by a tiny hint of the old Dean, "jerk!" he replied fondly.
Sam worked quickly and efficiently considering he was hunched and restricted in the cabin's tiny space, binding Dean's broken leg to his uninjured leg in the manner of a splint; all the while Dean remained silent, his gaze never leaving Sam's confident hands.
When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he set about cleaning and dressing the wounds on Dean's leg and head, soothing and reassuring, keeping as much eye contact with his brother as possible. As time went on, he was becoming increasingly concerned about Dean's condition; yes, he was injured, but, this quietness, this timidness was just not Dean. Dean was always a thoroughly obnoxious and, Sam smiled at the pun, impatient patient. This incarnation of his brother was a pale imitation he had never seen before, and it scared him to death.
Dean's eyes had begun to droop closed under Sam's soft touch, and once he had finished dressing the wounds, and knowing how cold the desert night could become, he wrapped Dean in one of his big fleece sweatshirts, and covered him with a jacket, cushioning his head against the plane's window with a folded pair of jeans from his duffel.
"Get some sleep bro', everything's okay." he soothed, fingertips ghosting across Dean's spiky crown until he was sure he was asleep.
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Sam clambered carefully and quietly into the back of the plane, swearing as he grazed his head on the cabin's ceiling and slumped heavily into a seat, fumbling for his phone, he flipped it open.
No signal.
He inwardly cursed; no of course there wasn't; that would be far too convenient.
He'd told Dean everything was okay. That was a complete bunch of crap; everything was about as far from okay as it could be.
They were stuck in the middle of the desert, in a wrecked plane, no idea where they were, unsure if help was coming, no idea where or why the pilot had gone, and to cap it all Dean was injured and immobile.
He rubbed a hand across his aching head as he watched Dean twitch in his sleep, a breathy moan of discomfort escaping his lips.
Sam frowned. No way he was going to lay this all on Dean. Dean had done his bit, he had pushed himself to the verge of insanity to keep them safe. Sam would help them this time, Sam would work something out, Sam would protect his brother.
It was his turn to do the worrying.
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tbc