#dead serious as of right now i. on a daily basis. am consuming water in amounts that can only be described as “iterator”

[forbiddenwords]

Stranded (Chapter 3)

Written By: TheHeathenSlave Rating: Mature for Plane crash, injury, survival, desert island, stranded, drug usage, drinking, alcohol, awkward flirting, voyeurism, watersports, fetish, sexual tension, extreme illness, graphic, puss, wound cleaning, surgery, vomiting, oral sex, fluff, angst, romance, drug usage, assault, near death, happy ending. Fandom:  Real Person Fiction (Hours Era But Modern Day)

She never thought that a trans Atlantic flight could end in perfect paradise with David Bowie. Well…almost perfect paradise.

Previous Chapters.

When they got back to the camp, Leila sat down near the fire. The sun had passed high noon in the sky and had started to descend. She was very much hoping that it wouldn’t get freezing there at night but there wasn’t much way to tell until they spent the night there. David moved the cans of soup from the stone where he’d had them set to heat up. They were quickly placed into the sand to cool a bit. The rock was pushed off the coals at that point and he stoked the fire up more, glancing over at her. In the morning she planned to explore as much as she could. Find food sources, fresh water, and see if by any miracle there was going to be some other human on there. Friendly of course. The problem was if they were all the way out here then they probably weren’t the kind to want guests around.

“Thanks for everything.” She said, touching the sides of the can gently to see if it had cooled enough that she could pick it up and sip at the broth inside.

“No, thank you.” David said.

“What exactly have I done that I need to be thanked for?” She asked with a bit of a chuckle. All she’d really done was pull the metal out of him (which he could have done himself) and passed out a lot. Especially after making him shift her bone back into place. He’d made a fire, helped with the tent, and some how never once muttered any sort of complaint about how his side hurt. Which she was sure it did he just wasn’t saying it.

“I think you’ve done more for me than you have realized.” He said, “A lot of it has to do with anxiety…long story.” She gave him a look and decided not to ask. It probably wasn’t her business. However, maybe he was bringing it up because he wanted her to know and wanted to talk about it. If he had anxiety he could have ended up with a worse person than a psychiatrist.

“I can probably understand, now. I’m a psychiatrist.”

“You said you were an FBI agent.” He said, “And a doctor…now a psychiatrist?”

“You are aware that I can be all three of those things at once right?” She asked with a smirk. The can had cooled enough so she picked it up. After rotating it a bit to find an edge that wasn’t sharp she took a sip of the liquid inside. She honestly hadn’t tasted anything this good in a very long time. Desperation could make a gourmet meal out of just about anything.

“Yes,” He said and picked up his can as well, “Usually people go with one specialty and, there they stay.”

“Except you who has had how many stage personas by now?”

“You get my point.”

“Sorry…” She laughed, “I’m not upset. I know that people usually don’t take this into consideration.”

“So you aren’t a clinical doctor then, are you? Or even a psychiatrist. You must be forensic, which means the most you do on a daily basis is autopsies.” He pointed out.

“Correct. You’re very knowledgeable about this.”

“I read a lot.”

“It shows.” She said and drank more of the soup. “So maybe all I do is cut up dead bodies, it doesn’t mean I lack the medical skill of a practicing doctor. Autopsies get you very intimate with human anatomy just on a dead person. I still had to get the same life saving training and do the same rotations as any other doctor you’ll meet.”

“Considering my options were being stuck here with someone who didn’t go to medical school, I won’t complain too much.” He said, “Just…try not to think of me as a cadaver before I am one.”

“Yeah, same.” She smirked. He smiled back at her and then got more relaxed in the sand to consume his soup. Rest would do both of them good. Recharge them. Tomorrow they could sort out the items they had found more. Some of it would need to be buried before bed, to ensue that if there were animals around they couldn’t get to the food. It was easy to do that in sand since a hole could be dug deeply and with relatively little effort. All they needed to do was jam it into a suitcase and shove it down in there until tomorrow.

When she had finished her soup, she got up and moved to the rest of the stuff. It was all still in the raft. She grabbed the side of it and pulled, dragging it up towards the tent. David joined her a moment later to help, and it was a great help. She cautioned him to be careful of the wound on his side, though. If she had to literally stitch it shut that would risk far more infection than the superglue method he’d used before. She did pretty badly want a chance to clean it out properly but opening again also definitely meant infection. A bad one. He’d probably get an infection now, but it would be mild. Should be. It wasn’t something she wanted to mention to him. Hopefully she’d go through all of the pills and find some antibiotics. She’d already found narcotics. It was more likely that someone was traveling with penicillin than narcotics so she felt her odds were good.

“What are we doing now?” He asked.

“We need to separate the food. Anything that has a scent or could possibly draw animals this way.” She said. “The rest of the things we can move into the tent and keep there. The last thing we want is to attract wild bears here or something.”

“Bears? On a tropical island?”

“Okay whatever then, giant birds.”

“You really don’t know much about island wildlife, do you? This isn’t Australia.” He laughed and started to go through the supplies they had. She glared at him and then smiled as she looked away. Tropical islands and the animals that lived on them was definitely not one of her ares of expertise but she didn’t think her logic was flawed despite her being correct (or incorrect) about what type of animal might come snooping around their camp.

“I know enough. At least enough to stay safe in the areas where I usually camp. When I go to a tropical island it’s usually a vacation not…this.” She said. She found a small suitcase to empty out so they could pack up some of the food. They had found some beef jerky, which would be pretty essential when it came to protein in the next few days unless they could find a way to replace it. She wouldn’t know until tomorrow. They also put the potato chips in there, someone had packed a whole bunch of weird Asian flavors only really found in Japan. They were sealed in their bags but Leila was still worried the scent could attract animals even if it was very mild.

The other things were less fragrant. Some cans of food were left over from the emergency rations off of the plane. There were still a few bottles of left and some bottles of alcohol. Really good stuff that was being transported back. Including an incredibly expensive bottle of sake. There were chocolates, cookies, and a few candy bars. That was about it. A place like this would definitely had some kind of fruit, even if it was just coconuts. The bigger problem would be figuring out how to get up the palm trees to collect them. Also opening them. A big rock may do the trick. This could work reasonably well until they were found. If they were found. No, that wasn’t the way to think. Not only was she with David Bowie, but being an heiress there would be a whole fleet after her. Rika wasn’t the type of friend to give up a search until there was a body found (alive or dead) and she had plenty of money at her disposal. It really was a matter of when they’d be rescued. Not if.

Once things were taken care of to her liking, they added a bit more fuel to the fire. That would also help keep animals away. It was only a few feet from the outside of the tent. They didn’t exactly have blankets but they did have a ton of clothes. The few blankets they did have were still soaking wet, despite them being hung over an impromptu line to dry in the sun. Who knew that airplane blankets could hold that much liquid? Maybe they needed to move them more towards the heat of the fire. They still had a bit of time until the sun was completely set, they could dry in that period. Leila folded up some of the warmer clothes she could find, and piled them into a bed shape. She did this for David as well. A large down coat was all they really would have in way of a blanket and a lot of other clothes had to be set out to dry as well.

When it came to finding other medications they came out fairly well. Another bottle of narcotics, half a bottle of amoxicillin, a bottle of nyquil, some claritin, a few different bottles of ibuprofen, and then a very tightly sealed baggy of pot. Whoever had packed that had risked some serious problems boarding a plane with it. However, she knew from the dank smell the moment she’d opened it that it couldn’t be anything other than marijuana. It had been a long time since she’d smoked any pot but it may be a better idea for a painkiller than continuing to down narcotics. At least there was a pipe also packed in that bag. Along with drug paraphernalia magazines, bumper stickers, and a bunch of hippie style clothing. Like this guy had walked right out of 1977. She’d even found an Aladdin Sane shirt but had decided not to mention it to David in the chance that it would put him in a sour mood.

“So,” She said once he was laying on his ‘bed’ in the tent. “I’m going to need to check your side and make sure it’s clean, at least as clean as it can be given the situation.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Well, there are a few options, including opening the wound again. We have fishing wire and hooks that could be used to stitch–”

“Don’t finish that sentence please.” He said, wincing heavily at the thought.

“I know that it’s not great, David, but, like it or not you’re already risking infection. I want you to take the antibiotics I found.” She said, grabbing the bottle for him. He took it and looked at her.

“You’re sure this is…okay?”

“I know what the medication is and what it does. It’s only half a course but it’s better than nothing. Unless you have a severe allergy to amoxicillin I wouldn’t worry.” She said. He nodded and opened the bottle then dumped one pill out into his palm. “Drink a lot of water with it.”

“You need water too.” He said and took the pill anyway.

“True but we may find other sources of it on this island. If not, we can rinse out those soup cans and boil it. If we can find a fresh source. If not…I’ll have to see if I can remember the weird process of making ocean water drinkable. I think you can filter it through sand or something then boil it after that.” She sighed and grabbed the emergency flashlight from the first aid kit. Getting closer to him she turned it on. The little window in the tent let in light but not nearly enough to inspect a wound. “Now, hold still.”

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“It’s not going to feel nice.” She said, “You want some codeine to help with it?”

“Yeah that would be…a…good idea.” He said laying more on his side. She got out two pills of the T3 and handed them over then one of the packets of cookies they found.

“You’ll want to eat with that.” She said.

“Two? Leila, I don’t really–”

“You are trying so hard to pretend you aren’t in pain, and if you want to keep doing that, fine, but I know you are from how you tense, gasp, sigh, and move around. If you want to be able to sleep, two is what you need. One will help but it’s really just going to relax you and you need rest if you are going to fight this.” She explained. He nodded and took the pills, opening the packet of cookies to eat them, propping himself up so he could do that while she looked at his wound.

She moved the shirt back and shone the light on him. As suspected, there were already signs of infection. Swelling, bruising, and a bit of puss there. The good news was that the seal was holding up, the superglue that was in the kit had come in handy for that, but it had also managed to seal in any sort of dirt, debris, or rust that would have been left in there that couldn’t be cleaned out before he could seal it. Had she not passed out like she had, she’d have done it for him but she hadn’t gotten that opportunity. She resisted the urge to touch the area. It was tempting, because she wanted to feel if the redness was actually swelling or if it was trapped fluid. If it got any worse she was going to have to start draining the area and that was going to not only be painful, but incredibly gross.

“The good news is, the seal is holding up.” She said, “There is some signs of infection but the antibiotics should help keep it at bay for a bit. I want you to take six within the next 48 hours then 2 every 24 hours after that until you run out.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to space them out and conserve?”

“Not really.” She said, “The faster we get the into your system the faster they will work. Normally you’d be on 4 a day, not three, but I also have to consider how many we have. Antibiotics do keep working even after you finished the course, for about two weeks. So even when you are done they should keep flowing through your system. Your stomach isn’t going to be very happy with this you know.”

“Oh I’m well aware.” He said. He got comfortable again and closed his eyes. She grabbed the large down coat and draped it over him.

“Just try to get some rest, I’ll be outside if you need me, I’m going to try to dry those blankets better and maybe dry out a book or magazine to read.” She said. “I’ll be back in here around the time the sun has completely set as we really don’t have that much light to work with and I want to keep the flashlight for emergencies. That or having to go use the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

“You’re quite the angel you know, even if you are a bit anal retentive.”

“Thanks, I think.” She said and stroked some of his hair back softly. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

“Of course.” He said and closed his eyes. She moved out of the tent and zipped it up. From the outside she opened the other two windows so that a nice breeze could pass through the tent and make sure the temperature stayed tolerable. It already wasn’t too bad in there but she needed him to stay comfortable so she wouldn’t move around a lot and risk tearing open his side. Once that was done, she got to work attempting to dry the blankets. She dreaded the first night there but at least she wasn’t going to spend it alone.

Next Chapters.