Fic: Come Fly With Me (or, Agony at 30,000)

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Title: Come Fly With Me (or, Agony at 30,000)
Author: desertport
Recipient: gayeld
Rating: PG
Warnings: Description of medical situations and severe pain.
Author's Notes: 3,200 words. gayeld provided perhaps the best prompt in the history of the world. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy! Beta'd by the sharp-eyed tygers.
Summary: A year after Phantom Traveller, Sam and Dean are back in the air, though Dean probably should have left his appendix behind.

Dean knew Sam had about had it with him, but he couldn't help another grimace of pain. Even the people in line were looking at him funny. Dean squinted around. Yeah, crowded as the terminal was, he had a bubble of personal space all to himself.

"You look like you're about to keel over," Sam whispered. He pushed Dean along by the shoulder and didn't notice when Dean bit back a gasp. Moving was a bad idea. Very, very bad. "Come on, Dean, we're boarding."

Dean wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then wiped more effectually using the sleeve of his shirt. Even his first flight ever, as unexpected and risky as it had been, hadn't made him sweat this much. Maybe because a demon had been on board; Dean could keep his cool when he had ass to kick. Today would be Dean's second flight ever, and he had a feeling his own ass was in for a thrashing.

Sam prodded him along to the gate as the line shortened and they approached the ticket lady. She was wearing one of those uniform outfits with a collar and a tucked-in tie and a sharply ironed cap that Dean found so hot when his stomach wasn't twisting itself into pretzels. Sam returned her smile with a plastic one of his own as he handed her his boarding pass. Kid never could cover up his tells when handed someone a fake ID.

"Welcome aboard, Mister Newman," the ticket lady said, allowing Sam to pass her. Dean winked at Sam, earning a raised eyebrow in response. Okay, maybe the wink had come out as a wince. Dean shuffled up to the ticket lady and handed her his boarding pass.

"Nervous flier?" she asked, lipstick smile warmly professional.

Dean did his best not to clutch his stomach and fall down to the floor. "Got me," he gritted.

She tilted her head. "Are you all right?"

"He's fine," Sam broke in, taking Dean by the elbow and pulling again. "Just a little phobia, right, Dean?"

Dean glared up at Sam. This was not how you kept a low profile. But his boarding pass, like Sam's, had passed muster, so he simply set his jaw and waved meekly to the ticket lady as they entered the vacuum tube thing that led onto the plane itself.

"I think I'm gonna puke," Dean said.

"You just psyched yourself out is all," Sam said. "Take a few deep breaths."

Dean didn't want to. His stomach felt tender and sensitive. "You take a few deep breaths. Where are our seats?"

"Toward the back," Sam answered.

Of course they were. Dean tried to wait patiently as every single passenger on the plane stood in the aisle stowing luggage in the overhead compartments. A million years later, they arrived at their row.

"I call window," Dean whispered, and finally sat down. The seat was built in such a way that if he had been sitting up straight, it would have kept his head tipped forward. Fortunately, he had no intention of ever straightening up again.

Sam took the middle seat and snapped on his seatbelt. After a few minutes, Dean opened his eyes, just realizing he had squeezed them shut. Sam was studying him. "Do you want some water?"

Dean shook his head. The thought of water made it worse.

Sam frowned. "Dean, have you ever been this nervous over anything else?"

"I'm not nervous."

"Right."

"I'm not. Just leave me alone." He twisted as best he could in the seat, ignoring the sharp pain it induced in his middle.

***

Sam flinched sympathetically when Dean stiffened in the middle of his turn toward the window, but didn't say anything more. He wondered once again what made Dean such a bad flier. At least last time he'd pulled his shit together long enough to exorcise the demon. Without anything to fight now, Dean appeared to have totally undone himself.

The plane took off without interruption by federal agents chasing serial-killing bank robbers, but Sam didn't breathe easier. Dean was still curled around his stomach, face pressed into the seat cushion, breathing stiffly. He was taking phobia to a whole new level.

Sam was just about to tap his brother gently on the shoulder when the man in the aisle seat caught his eye. Sam hadn't paid much attention to him when he sat down, too busy watching Dean try to contort himself into what Sam assumed was a more comfortable position. The man had white hair and an impressive mustache to match. He reminded Sam a little of Mark Twain. He wore a business suit a few pay grades above the ones Sam and Dean used as disguises, with the gold chain of a pocket watch hooked over the edge of the pocket of his sport coat.

"Your friend doesn't look well," he said. "Is he all right?" East Coast accent, mildly unobtrusive interest. Sam shrugged.

"He has a hard time on planes. Our last one almost crashed," he added, not entirely wanting Dean to come off as a wuss. Besides, it was the truth.

The man took another look at Dean's back, about all you could see from this side, and nodded. "Must have been a difficult adventure," he said.

Sam made some sort of vague agreement. Had their flight a year ago only compounded Dean's fear of flying? Sam turned to him. "Dean, ease up. You're gonna make yourself sick."

A bitter laugh emerged from Dean's huddled form. "You just figured that out, college boy?"

"I'm serious. Let's talk about the case." Get your mind off it, Sam thought. "We gotta have a plan when we get in to see Bobby."

Dean shifted and groaned. Sam had never seen him quite so vocal about anything except a hangover, and that was usually an opener for an unnecessary conversation about, well, his "adventures" with whatever woman he'd met the night before.

"Dude, even thinking hurts. 'M gonna leave the plan to you, okay?"

Sam stared.

This morning, Dean had woken as cranky as when he'd gone to sleep, bitching about their flight and mumbling about his car, by then safely in storage. Sam had his own misgivings about flying, which had more to do with Homeland Security than the possibility of a crash. Dean had spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, until Sam banged on the door and told him loudly to man up. That had done the trick, and Dean had sat quietly during their cab ride to the airport. A little too quietly, Sam realized.

"You're really sick, aren't you?"

Dean nodded minutely. "Think I could be Bobby's roomie at the hospital?"

Sam looked around the cabin, not even sure what he was searching for. They were at thirty-thousand feet in a giant metal tube that wouldn't land for another three hours and…. He checked his watch. Three hours and forty minutes. Absently, he lifted the armrest separating him from his brother and set it upright. His brother immediately took up the freed space, using it to sit at a more horizontal angle, pressing his hip unselfconsciously against Sam's.

"Dean, do you really need a hospital?"

His brother was practically doubled over, tense and sweating. His face had gotten a little red, scrunched up, jaw locked. "Maybe," he admitted.

"Excuse me." Sam turned to the man sitting in the aisle seat. "I couldn't help but overhear. I'm a doctor."

Sam looked from the man to Dean. He wasn't sure what a doctor could do without equipment or medicine, but you never knew. If they'd been on solid ground, Sam would have had Dean in the car on the way to the emergency room by now, but up here he couldn't even do that much.

"Do you have an idea what's wrong?" the man asked.

Sam leaned over and repeated the question to Dean.

"My insides hurt," Dean said through gritted teeth. "Down around my stomach."

Sam put his hand on Dean's forehead. It came away sweaty from the hot skin. "He has a fever too," he said.

The doctor nodded. "When was the last time you ate?"

***

It had been breakfast the previous morning, and Dean had thrown it up soon after. Food poisoning, he'd thought, and hadn't told Sam about the incident. Salmonella was as constant a danger to them as ghosts and demons, and a lot more difficult to guard against. He hadn't eaten anything the rest of the day, and even water had made him a little nauseated.

The doctor continued asking him a list of questions designed to narrow down a diagnosis, most of the questions familiar from a lifetime of periodic emergency medical care. Dean wished he could lie down.

"Have you ever had trouble with your appendix?" the doctor asked.

Dean shook his head, the seatback scratchy against his cheek. The doctor stopped questioning him, leaving Dean to consider the implications of appendicitis. All he knew about it was you had to cut out the appendix before it burst and splattered all over the rest of your insides, causing an infection that would make you die in agony.

Or something. He'd seen it once on General Hospital.

"…need a CT scan to be sure, but it does seem to be centered in that area," the doctor was telling Sam. "I'll speak with a stewardess. I believe they can divert the plane for a medical emergency."

Dean shot upright, yelped, and bent back over himself, this time leaning against Sam's side. "No, can't do that," he said. Sam steadied him with an arm across his back, hand heavy on his shoulder.

"Dean's right," Sam said, voice vibrating through his chest. Dean attempted to move a more polite distance away, shifting incrementally. "We can't let them do that."

The doctor paused for a discreet couple of seconds. "I do know the airlines don't charge for emergency medical landings, if that has you worried…."

"No, it's not that," Sam said, exchanging a look with Dean. They both knew unplanned landings always wound up on the news. Not only that, but it would have the airline and government agencies prying into their shallowly constructed identities. If Dean were stuck in a hospital when the shoe dropped, he'd be arrested. Sam had to know it as well as Dean, but he had a troubled cast to his eyes.

"Sam, you know we can't."

Sam turned back to the white-haired old doctor. Dude looked a little like Mark Twain. "What happens if we wait?"

The pain in Dean's belly intensified. He bit down hard on his tongue and squeezed his eyes shut while the doctor explained. Sam's arm still hadn't left his shoulders.

"If it is the appendix, then it is blocked by a bacterial infection," the doctor said. "The blockage will grow worse the longer it remains untreated. At some point soon, the appendix will rupture. Your brother could die from the resultant peritonitis."

"What are the chances of that happening?"

Dean could imagine the funny look on the guy's face. For some reason, civilians were always giving them those surprised double-takes. A spasm from within distracted Dean from the answer and brought Sam's attention back to him.

"Dean? Dean, hold on. It'll be all right."

"I freakin' know that, Sammy." He took a labored breath. "How long till the plane lands?"

***

"Two hours," Sam lied. In Dean's state, time was probably passing slowly enough. The truth, three and a half hours, would be much too long to contemplate. He gave the doctor a warning look and received a sharp nod in return.

"I highly advise we land early," the doctor said. "This is a valid medical emergency. They can have an ambulance waiting for us on the field, and your brother could be in surgery within a few hours."

And in jail within a few days. How long was the recovery period for an appendectomy anyway?

Sam knew what he had to do, but a muffled cry from his brother kept him from relaying the decision. Dean pulled his knees up, searching for a position that would relieve the pain in his abdomen. The one seat was small for him in the first place, but it was ridiculously too cramped for these contortions. The doctor stood up and moved into the aisle, allowing Sam to move over, pulling Dean along with him. Dean got his legs up onto the seats and pulled one knee up toward his chest, swearing as he did. "God, Sammy. Oh, sweet Jesus."

Sam squeezed his shoulder. "It'll be all right." Dean could use the third seat as well, so he carefully disentangled himself and stood.

"Is everyone all right?" Sam looked up to see a couple of flight attendants had arrived. They looked concerned instead of annoyed, which put Sam a little off balance, so used was he to the latter.

"It's my brother," he told them, indicating Dean, who lay in a knot taking up the whole row of seats. Dean didn't appear to be paying them any attention. "He's sick, but we're not sure what it is."

That led to a discussion. The doctor, who finally introduced himself as Charles Adams, gave his medical opinion on what should be done for Dean. The attendants looked uncertainly from Dean to Sam. They clearly did not want to land early if it could be helped, but Dean's occasional muted whimpers appeared to be winning them over to the idea.

Not that Sam disagreed. He wanted Dean off this plane as soon as humanly possible. He wanted it to land right this second.

"I don't think we should land early," he told them. "Dean will be okay until we get there. Doctor Adams even said a few hours might not make that big of a difference."

That led to another discussion, and the introduction of the head flight attendant, who listened to the pros and cons from Sam, the doctor, her two colleagues and one passenger seated nearby who threw her two cents into a conversation that probably should have taken place in a more private area in the first place. The head attendant let everyone have their say, then leaned over to speak quietly to Dean.

"Dean? My name is Linda. Can you understand me?"

A spike of relief shot through Sam when Dean wearily opened his eyes and gave Linda a disbelieving look. Same old Dean. "What is it?" he rasped.

"We might need to land early so you can get to a hospital. Is that something you would consent to?"

Dean rocked a little, in full pain management mode. The answer was yes, Sam could tell. But Dean said, "No. No, I think I'll waive that option, thanks. Or just do whatever Sammy says."

All eyes went to Sam. "You heard the man. We'll wait."

***

Once Sammy's powwow ended, things started happening. The doctor relocated to the one empty seat on the plane. Sam wasn't allowed to stand, even though he argued for it, and settled for the aisle seat. Any other day in his whole life, Dean would not have agreed to lie against Sam in public, but today was special.

Sam helped him out of his over-shirts, exposing sweaty skin to cool, recycled air and making Dean shiver. That did nothing good for the pain in his middle. Little paper-cased pillows appeared, supporting his back and making it easier to put aside his reservations and use Sam's lap as a resting spot. Sam didn't seem to know where to put his hands, which was okay with Dean because, hey, why make it worse?

Of course, as soon as he thought that, someone brought over a glass of water and an ice pack wrapped in a towel. Sam held the cup to Dean's lips and prodded him to drink.

"You're gonna dehydrate."

"I'm gonna puke."

In the end, Sam settled for a symbolic sip of water. Dean had to admit (except, he totally wouldn't) that wetting his mouth helped.

Marginally more comfortable, he tried to settle in for a long flight. The threat of his appendix rupturing, at this point, seemed preferable to even another minute on the plane—and not because of the height and the known fact that physics did not explain air travel at all, no matter what Sam said—but because he wanted to be somewhere that had sedatives and people who could literally slice the pain right out of him.

"Painkillers?"

Sam's hand came down tentatively on Dean's nape, a warm weight. "Sorry. Doc Adams said they'd do more harm than good."

"The hell, Sammy? The hell?"

Sam's hand tightened on the back of his neck. "I know. Can you sleep?"

Dean sighed. He'd slept over pain quite often in the past, but he couldn't remember anything as bad as this. "It's like in that cabin. With dad."

The hand on his neck froze. It had actually been feeling kinda good, Sam kneading the locked muscles up there. It started up again after a few seconds, steady and firm.

"Try that yoga breathing Pastor Jim liked to teach us."

Dean hated that shit because it never worked for him, but he'd try anything to reduce the knifelike pain at his core.

The pain didn't recede over the rest of the flight, but Dean somehow detached himself from its immediacy. From time to time, the pressure increased and he heard himself react to it. Sam's hands lost their hesitancy, stroking circles over his back, squeezing a shoulder. The more lost Dean became, the closer Sam was, with his nonsense whispers and firm grip around one of Dean's wrists.

The plane landed smoothly, but Dean still felt it when the wheels touched ground. The expectant air in the cabin brought him up out of his daze, and he became aware of a damp cloth pressed against his face. It felt amazing. The rest of him could take a hike, but the skin of his face and that cloth could stay.

Naturally, he said, "Dude, are you mopping my fevered brow?"

"Don't cheapen the moment," Sam returned. He squeezed the cloth out over Dean's face, but the water was still cool, and it felt pretty good. It was so hot in here.

"Bitch," Dean muttered. He kept his eyes closed. If he didn't get some relief pretty soon, he'd have to ask Sam for a mercy killing, and that might get awkward. They might have to start a tally.

"We're taxiing to the gate," Sam said. "They're gonna let us out first, and have a stretcher read—shut up—and then they're gonna take us to an ambulance they've got waiting."

"Yeah, but will they lose our luggage," Dean said. "Is this going to work out?"

Sam was quiet. "I think so. It doesn't matter. We'll deal with everything else once they've fixed you up."

That was all they could do. Dean let out a careful breath, opened his eyes to see Sam's knee close to his nose. "You did good, Sam."

Sam said, "I did the same thing you would have."

If their positions had been reversed, Dean would have had the plane landed so fast the tower radars wouldn't have been able to track their descent. They'd have wound up in jail, and no regrets on Dean's part. Dean was certain Sam knew that. "Hey, you think we'll be in the same hospital as Bobby?"

End

Author's Note: If you suspect appendicitis, tell them to land the damn plane.