OhSam Triple Play 2015!
The comm hosted this little event a couple of years ago, and as November 2 is an auspicious day for our darling Sam, today would be the perfect time to revisit this challenge. Welcome to the Triple Play 2015!
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For a moment he just lay there in the warm air, listening to the beat of his heart in his ears.
“You okay?” he asked the girl tucked in his arms and his voice sounded as if he had his fingers in his ears. He couldn’t tell what was laying on top of him.
She answered something he couldn’t hear. He swallowed and his ears popped. “Don’t move for a moment, okay?” he said loudly, although he still sounded muted. He wondered if he’d ruptured his eardrums.
He slowly loosened his hold. The girl moved a little in his arms.
As best he could figure out part of the roof was laying half on them, partly held up by debris so they hadn't been crushed but he felt tangled and trapped. “Are you okay?” he asked again loudly.
“Yeah,” she said and he could tell she was raising her voice so he could hear.
“Can you wiggle your toes? Does your head or neck or back hurt?”
“I can move everything,” she said.
He braced his shoulder against whatever was on them and then felt everything start hurting. He could lift part of the slab of whatever four or five inches. “Can you climb out?”
She wiggled out between his arms and he heard her sliding on debris. “Ow!” she said.
“You okay?!”
“There’s glass everywhere,” she said. “I cut my hand a little but I’m okay. I can’t hear so good. It’s like after a concert.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“Can you get out?” she said.
He could move everything but he didn’t think he could pull out of the wreckage without help and he could feel blood running on his leg. “Not yet,” he said. “Have you got a phone? Call 911 and tell them there are people trapped here.”
“Oh!” she said and after a moment her face lit up with the glow of her phone, shining in the rain.
#
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“SAMMY!”
His ears were still ringing but his hearing was better. “DEAN!”
The girl’s name was Suong Minh but mostly she went by Sue. She was eighteen and a senior in high school and was coming home from babysitting. Sam had kept her talking to keep her calm: emergency services were somewhat overloaded. She called her parents but they were stuck in their neighborhood by fallen trees. Lying still he hurt but not too bad (okay, his definition of too bad was probably not the average definition of too bad) but something was seriously going on because he was getting wonky. Sue turned on her phone so the screen was lit and waved it for Dean. “He’s here! He’s stuck!”
He was stupidly, irrationally grateful to see Dean, who had a scrape on his forehead but otherwise looked good. “How did you get out?” he asked.
“The roof is still held up by the back wall, like a lean to,” Dean said. “We just had to dig our way out.” Dean flicked the flashlight over the area. “Roof is not your best look.” He crouched and tried to shine the light under. “Are you pinned? Can you feel everything?”
“Feel everything way too well,” Sam said. “This is Sue. Sue, this is my brother, Dean. Are you okay?
“You’re the one under a roof. I’m fine.”
“Did you check the car?”
“Right, I’m going to check the car before I check you. Sue, can you hold this flashlight so I can move some of this?” Dean pulled some of the wreckage aside.
Sue stood holding the flashlight. A couple of more people trickled around. They were all soaked.
“Anything feel broken?” Dean said.
“No,” Sam said. “Not for certain.”
“He saved me,” Sue said to no one in particular.
“Yeah,” Dean said, sounding a little irritated, “he’s like that. Dale, can you help me lift this? Sam, you think you can move if we get this lifted off you?”
“I’ll let you know,” Sam said.
It was hard to read expressions in the light of the flashlight but Dean’s was a pretty clear, really?
“One, two, three,” Dean said and they lifted, grunting, and the chunk of roof came up about a foot.
Holy crap did it hurt when it did and Sam’s vision threatened to go black. He tried to elbow out, and felt hands pulling him. Then Dean going, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” There was a clunk and he was being lifted by lots of people (of course lots of people, it took lots of people, Dean was going to make comments about his size any moment now.) Someone was saying ‘oh my God’ over and over again. Then he was on clear pavement. Someone was holding his right leg, keeping it off the ground. It didn’t feel broken but it felt cut up.
Sam tried to sit up, saw white specks and felt hands pushing him down. “Lie still, Sammy,” Dean said.
“Messed up, huh?” Sam said. Dean was sounding preternaturally calm. No jokes. That meant he was worried.
“You’ve just got some glass in your leg.”
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Sam closed his eyes and took deep breaths until his head felt clearer. When he opened his eyes again, Dean was looking down at him, visible in flashlight. “Sue called 911,” Sam said. Then he raised his head. His boot as sitting on a chunk of wood so his leg was raised and there was a long shard of glass sticking out of his thigh. Which was weird because it was the back of his thigh that hurt. Just some glass in his leg. Right. “Dean? Is it all the way through?”
“Yep,” Dean said. “And it’s going to stay there until the professionals pull it out.” He was pulling his belt through his belt loops.
“Good plan,” Sam said, feeling a little sick. Pull it out and he’d probably bleed like a drinking fountain. At least it wasn’t near the femoral artery.
“Next time, you lead everybody to the promised land,” Dean said. He looped his belt around Sam’s thigh above the shard.
“The promised land?” Sam said.
“Dude, it was a beer cooler.” Dean pulled the belt tight into a makeshift tourniquet and Sam gasped. “I’m gonna go find some Gatorade in that mess. Stay here.”
“Check the Impala,” Sam managed.
#
The good news was that the Impala had been parked next to one of the non-glass walls and other than some scratches, a flat tire, and a blown out back window was in good shape. The Gatorade Dean found was clear for which Sam was grateful. Dean’s preference was for the blue stuff. Sam considered it a color not found in nature. Although honestly, in the dark, he wasn’t sure it mattered. Once the storm had passed the temperature dropped. Not a lot, but down from the pre-storm humid stillness. Lying on the wet pavement in wet clothes was cold.
“Sam?” asked Sue, “Can I take a picture of your leg? Is that tacky?”
“No,” Sam said. “It’s okay. Just can you make sure no one can tell who I am?”
“Okay. I hate to have my picture taken, too.”
Sam did kind of hate to have his picture taken but mostly it was just habit. No photos of his face in the media.
Time was starting to move in little jumps. He’d close his eyes, open them, have the sense that he’d missed a chunk.
Dean knelt down and took his wrist, searching for pulse. Sam knew he was breathing too fast. Everything felt a little too far away. “How you doing,” Dean asked.
“Just don’t ask me to dance,” Sam said.
“Have you seen you dancing? It’s kind of scary.” Dean pulled his other foot up on the wood so both feet were elevated. “I’m giving them another thirty minutes and then I’m putting you in the back seat of the Impala and heading for a hospital.”
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“How long has it been?” Sam asked.
“Almost two hours.”
“Time’s jumping,” Sam said. “Like with Gadreel.”
He heard Dean’s sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Kind of out of it.”
“It’s okay,” Dean said quietly and there was a hand on his forehead. “Just rest, okay?”
He closed his eyes again and Dean was saying, “Sam. Sammy.” He opened his eyes and red lights were splashing across everything, the sound of an EMT truck bouncing over the curb. “Sam? Come on little brother. Eyes here.”
Sam blinked at Dean. “Shock,” he tried to say but no sound came out.
“Took you long enough,” Dean growled at someone.
“There’s an entire subdivision that’s just basically matchsticks and trees down blocking the roads", said a woman’s voice. An EMT leaned over him and said, “Hi, can you tell me your name?” She had blond hair pulled back in a pony tail and looked so clean and dry.
“Sam,” he said and this time sound came out. “No medications or…allergies.”
“Well, Sam no medications or allergies, you know the drill. Are you in the health profession?”
He shook his head. “Accident prone,” he said.
He heard Dean laugh and felt his brother squeeze his hand. “You have no idea,” Dean said.
“This is a pretty impressive accident,” the EMT said.
“He saved me!” Sue said from behind him where he couldn’t see, sounding very young.
The EMT put a blood pressure cuff on him. “I’m Patty. Base, I’ve got a thirty-three year old male with a puncture wound through the right thigh and multiple abrasions. Blood pressure 90 over 78, tachycardic, patient is cold and clammy. He’s got a shard of glass going all the way through his leg. Going to need a surgeon.” To Dean, “How long ago, during the tornado?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “I’ve been giving him Gatorade.”
“That’s smart.”
“Like he said, he’s prone to accidents.”
Sam lifted his hand (which was somehow incredibly heavy) and gave Dean the finger.
The EMT laughed. “Patient is responsive. Preparing to transport.”
“I’ll be there, Sam,” Dean said. “I’m coming with the Impala. We’ll get you fixed up.”
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They were back at the Bunker three days later. Castiel had healed the post-op. “This freaking long,” Dean explained, holding up his hands.
“It was not,” Sam said. “Every time you tell it, it gets longer. It’s like a fishing story.” He preferred not to think about it.
“What’s a fishing story?” Cas asked. He was sitting at the table with Sam while Dean leaned against the counter.
“When fisherman tell stories about catching fish, every time they tell the story, the fish gets bigger,” Sam said, showing with his hands. He went back to his laptop. There was still news of the aftermath of the tornadoes all over the Internet. He clicked on a link about Hobart, hoping he could show Cas where they were. People survive in beer cooler or something.
There was his leg. And the freaking piece of glass.
“What’d you find,” Dean asked. He came behind Sam. “I WAS RIGHT! THERE IT IS!” It was Sue’s photo. The headline was NO DEATHS THREE INJURED IN HOBART and under it, Sam’s leg. Dean was ecstatic. “Look at the size of that, Cas! Did I exaggerate?”
Cas studied the photo while Sam cringed. “No, you did not. That looks very painful, Sam.”
Dean shrugged, “He was in shock most of the time. I was hoping they’d give him the piece of glass. You know, like they used to give people their tonsils in a little jar.”
“Thanks, Cas. It actually hurt a lot,” Sam said.
And Dean had been worried but you’d have to know Dean to know it. Sam knew. He remembered Dean’s hand on his forehead. He remembered Dean telling him to rest.
Sometimes, though, Sam wished Dean would show it just a little better.
Fin
(Apologies: I can't clear my throat in less than 5,000 words.)
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The natural as much a threat as the supernatural, yeah. You've been in this landscape, I know; I feel it.
So great!
P.S. I wish I could clear my throat in more than 500 words, heh.
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Plus, I really enjoyed all the tornado safety information. Awesome fic! Thank you for sharing :)
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And I found it sweet and so true to character that Sam would stop and explain what a fishing story was to Cas.
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