(This is just redonk self-indulgence, sooooo.... hi! I''m Anon!)
Someone shakes Sam's shoulder to wake him. A doctor with a pointy nose and huge horse teeth who Sam vaguely remembers from forever ago when they dragged Dean off on a gurney. The word "Powers" is embroidered on her shirt, and he squints at it for a second before he understands it as her name.
"Sam? Your brother's out of surgery," she says, giving him a well-rehearsed half-smile.
He peels himself off his plastic chair and nods. He feels like he's been stowed away in a crate to cross the Atlantic on a steam ship. But he figures Dean feels a hell of a lot worse.
"How's he doin'?" he asks, following the doctor down the hall.
"He should wake up soon. We had our work cut out for us with his tibia, I'm afraid. Since it hadn't healed properly, as soon as he exerted pressure on it, the bone splintered even further."
Sam winces and nods. This doesn't sound too good.
"When he regains consciousness," she starts, pausing outside a door marked ORTHO-ICU RM 204, and Sam suddenly can't stop staring at it. "Sam?"
His head twitches and he tears his eyes away, looks at the troubled face of Doctor Powers. "Sorry. Yeah."
She starts again slowly, as if she's helping him learn English. "When he regains consciousness, he might be upset by what he sees. If you can stay calm and attentive, that would really help. Okay?" she asks, nodding towards her hand on the door handle, waiting for some sign that Sam is ready to face whatever horror show is on the other side of that door.
He isn't too sure that he is, but he takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath and nods anyways.
There's only one bed in the cramped and windowless room. Dean's lying still on it, his leg hanging from a metal frame that arches over the bottom half of his bed. The frame is rigged to wires that are fastened to rings that are clamped to pins and steel bolts and more wires and, Christ, somewhere in the center of this complex industrial matrix, is Dean's leg. It looks like a goddamn modern-day torture device.
It's a lot to process. "What..."
"Intense, I know. But it's your brother's best chance at a full recovery."
"Okay. Jesus. How long does this stuff..." Sam tapers off again, waving his hand at the web of surgical steel.
"We'll keep him here four to six weeks to be safe, since there's a risk of infection. Then he'll need around eight to ten more weeks in the external fixation. If no other surgery's necessary after that, we'll fit him with a leg-brace and start some serious physio."
"That's like four months in that thing. God."
"Sam, most patients don't recover from an injury like this for a good year. If they fully recover at all."
"Okay. But it's just... It's just a broken leg. What happened?"
"Hey, I know this seems crazy right now, yeah? But these things do happen. The other day I operated on a woman who tripped over a garden hose. She tore so much cartilage in her wrist she'll have to learn to write with her left hand. I'm really sorry. It's not easy to see a healthy young man like your brother pull such a short straw."
"Yeah, well. You don't know the half of it," Sam says, slowly edging closer to the bed and trying his best to process the visual information without curling into the fetal position.
FILLED: to hold the bones together 1/?
Someone shakes Sam's shoulder to wake him. A doctor with a pointy nose and huge horse teeth who Sam vaguely remembers from forever ago when they dragged Dean off on a gurney. The word "Powers" is embroidered on her shirt, and he squints at it for a second before he understands it as her name.
"Sam? Your brother's out of surgery," she says, giving him a well-rehearsed half-smile.
He peels himself off his plastic chair and nods. He feels like he's been stowed away in a crate to cross the Atlantic on a steam ship. But he figures Dean feels a hell of a lot worse.
"How's he doin'?" he asks, following the doctor down the hall.
"He should wake up soon. We had our work cut out for us with his tibia, I'm afraid. Since it hadn't healed properly, as soon as he exerted pressure on it, the bone splintered even further."
Sam winces and nods. This doesn't sound too good.
"When he regains consciousness," she starts, pausing outside a door marked ORTHO-ICU RM 204, and Sam suddenly can't stop staring at it. "Sam?"
His head twitches and he tears his eyes away, looks at the troubled face of Doctor Powers. "Sorry. Yeah."
She starts again slowly, as if she's helping him learn English. "When he regains consciousness, he might be upset by what he sees. If you can stay calm and attentive, that would really help. Okay?" she asks, nodding towards her hand on the door handle, waiting for some sign that Sam is ready to face whatever horror show is on the other side of that door.
He isn't too sure that he is, but he takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath and nods anyways.
There's only one bed in the cramped and windowless room. Dean's lying still on it, his leg hanging from a metal frame that arches over the bottom half of his bed. The frame is rigged to wires that are fastened to rings that are clamped to pins and steel bolts and more wires and, Christ, somewhere in the center of this complex industrial matrix, is Dean's leg. It looks like a goddamn modern-day torture device.
It's a lot to process. "What..."
"Intense, I know. But it's your brother's best chance at a full recovery."
"Okay. Jesus. How long does this stuff..." Sam tapers off again, waving his hand at the web of surgical steel.
"We'll keep him here four to six weeks to be safe, since there's a risk of infection. Then he'll need around eight to ten more weeks in the external fixation. If no other surgery's necessary after that, we'll fit him with a leg-brace and start some serious physio."
"That's like four months in that thing. God."
"Sam, most patients don't recover from an injury like this for a good year. If they fully recover at all."
"Okay. But it's just... It's just a broken leg. What happened?"
"Hey, I know this seems crazy right now, yeah? But these things do happen. The other day I operated on a woman who tripped over a garden hose. She tore so much cartilage in her wrist she'll have to learn to write with her left hand. I'm really sorry. It's not easy to see a healthy young man like your brother pull such a short straw."
"Yeah, well. You don't know the half of it," Sam says, slowly edging closer to the bed and trying his best to process the visual information without curling into the fetal position.