Actions Speak Louder Than Fortune Cookies

58 - Safe

Sebastian was given a bit more morphine which helped him sleep much more easily through most of the night. That was until around 4:00 am.

Rylee was laying asleep, curled on the small sofa in the corner when she was awoken by a blood curdling scream. She jolted up to see that the source of the noise was Sebastian.

He was drenched in sweat, and his face was now filled with more pain than she'd seen him physically have yet so far during his stay. A few machines that were tethered to his body began to screech and beep incessantly, adding to the abrupt chaos.

Rylee immediately stood up and bolted to his bed side. "Baby, hey, I'm here. It's Rylee. What happened?"

Sebastian was starting to hyperventilate, causing his punctured lung to contract more than it could handle, a searing pain ripped through his chest. His good eye, wide open in fear as if he'd just seen a ghost. He couldn't get out any words, even if he tried.

"Baby, look at me. Seb. Breathe honey." Rylee tried to calm him, but to no avail.

Laura came jogging in, stethoscope bouncing around her neck. Laura looked at his various levels on the machine and then went to stand right beside Sebastian.

"Sebastian. You are safe. You are at the hospital. Whatever you just experienced was just a nightmare. You are safe. You're with Laura and Rylee. " Laura said, placing a hand on his good shoulder, rubbing her thumb there for comfort.

He held eye contact with her, wide eyed and frightened. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
Rylee watched on, stepping around the bed to give Laura room.

"Can you breathe with me Sebastian? In through your nose, out through your mouth. In..2..3..4..  Out..2..3..4..Again." She used the hand on his shoulder to mark out the tempo to their breathing with her thumb, drumming it lightly on his shoulder.

"Sebastian, can you hear me? Don't talk, just, if you can hear me, blink twice."

He did so, still breathing very heavily but in a steadier rhythm than he had been.

"Great. Amazing. You are okay. You're having a a panic attack brought on by a nightmare. As long as we just keep breathing we're going to be a-okay." She demonstrated breathing in and out on four counts and soon enough, he was starting to come back down, breaths evening out, but he still winced every time he inhaled.

"Your chest is probably going to hurt for a bit. Those big deep breaths can do a number on that puncture in your lung. Your shoulder is also going to smart for a hot minute from all the tenseness you just held up there. Does anything else hurt?"

Sebastian huffed a small sarcastic laugh, but it caused him to cough, making him flinch in pain again.

"Sorry, bad question," she smirked at the fact that he still had his sense of humor through all this, "Is there anything else that hurts more now than it did before you fell asleep?"

Sebastian nodded ever so slightly, lifting his splinted hand gently to touch his jaw.

"Ah, yeah. That makes sense too. Your jaw was dislocated, so for the next month or two, it'll be prone to doing so again much more easily because the muscle there is weak now. You may have briefly dislocated and relocated it when you yelled."

Sebastian nodded gently, expressing that he understood. Laura patted his shoulder and reached over to grab his chart, jotting down a few notes and numbers, and then putting it back.

She held up a "one minute" finger and she walked out of the room.

"Seb..." Rylee looked forlornly at him.