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Descent into Shadow
By![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
varkelton
© 8/8/10
Genre: GEN
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6,500
Warnings: Massive preteen-Sammy whump (he's twelve), copious angst, horror
Betas:snarkgoddess, who, even if it wasn’t already true, I would have to love, because she’s continuously willing to jump into my shark-infested waters and tackle my muse, and sublimatedangel, who was full of good advice and made me make the boys just a little bit more manly – sometimes, even I can admit I love the angst just a little bit too much. Thank you, darlings!
Summary: John took the boys with him on a hunt. They were supposed to stay in the car... This is the story of what happens next. (Pre-series AU)
A/N: So not too long ago, my lovely friendrivestra wrote a short story that ate my brain. When I told her that if she wanted to avoid blood-shed, she needed to write me more, her only response was to tell me that if I wanted it so bad, I should write it myself. So I did.
This story parallels hers. It doesn’t actually matter which you read first, but I would suggest starting with hers, because it rocked!
Click here to read Steel on Shadow, byrivestra.
Descent into Shadow:
Dean threw the door of the Impala open angrily. “Dean!” Sam yelled, outrage making his traitorous voice squeak up at the end. Sam tried to grab Dean’s arm to stop him from leaving, but Dean easily avoided the attempt and swung himself out of the car.
Considering how much more mature he was than his big brother, it was really infuriating that he was smaller and weaker.
“Just stay here, Sammy,” Dean ordered briskly, dismissively, not even bothering to turn around. He sounded just like Dad.
“Dad said for both of us to stay here!” Sam insisted as he slid over to the driver’s seat, preparing to follow Dean out.
Sam flinched backwards when his brother slammed the door in his face without even acknowledging him. Dean’s attention was fixed on the tree line, as if Dad was going to come walking back out at any moment.
“Jerk!” Sam shouted indignantly. He banged his fist against the glass, hoping to get his brother’s attention, but Dean didn’t even react to the abuse of his damn car - which was completely infuriating. Dad had hinted that one day that it would be Dean’s, and his brother had been an over-protective ass about it ever since. Not today, apparently.
When Dean took a few steps away, Sam hastily opened the door again and clambered out. He reached out to tug on Dean’s shirt. “Dad said…”
Dean finally turned around; even though it was mostly to glare at Sam, at least Dean was finally acknowledging his existence. “That was five hours ago, Sammy. He wasn’t supposed to be gone this long. Something’s wrong. Now, get your ass back in the fucking car.”
“Language, Dean!” Sam spit back, a sarcastic mimicry of their Dad’s constantly barked order.
“Get in the car, Sammy.” The threat was clear in Dean’s voice. Sam wavered, torn between wanting to stay with his brother and fear over what might be lurking in the forest.
Dad had left armed to the teeth, and, in a typical Dad maneuver, he hadn’t said much before leaving beyond that he didn’t think he’d be more than a few hours. Whatever Dad was after, though, it was obviously something really bad.
The forest was thickly grown, and kind of sinister. Sam could feel Dean’s angry eyes boring a hole into him and demanding that he obey. Fear finally won. He stumbled backwards, eyes locked with Dean’s, to sit down miserably on the edge of the driver’s seat.
He refused to swing his legs inside and shut the door, though. Dean would just have to deal.
Dean scowled at Sam again, shook his head dramatically and moved around to the trunk. Sam could hear him rummaging around for a few minutes; when he came back into view, there was a gun stuck down the back of his jeans.
Dean walked a few feet forward, and then turned back to look at Sam. “Stay here, Sammy,” Dean reiterated, as if Sam was just a kid and stupid to boot. “I’m just going to head over to the edge of the woods to see if I can find Dad’s trail. I’m not gonna be gone long.”
Sam took a deep breath and nodded his agreement, trying to be brave. Before Dean had made it more than a few feet away, Sam heard himself begging, “Dean, please don’t leave me here.” His voice was small and whiny. He sounded exactly like the little kid Dean seemed to think he was. He scowled at himself. Dean was gonna tease him unmercifully over that.
Dean looked back. His eyes were sympathetic and held none of the expected derision. “I’m not going to go far, okay? I just need to make sure Dad isn’t lying just beyond the tree-line bleeding to death while we were sitting here playing around in the front seat of his car.”
Sam paled at the image of that, sick to his stomach. He curled his feet up onto the bench and nervously wrapped his arms around his knees.
Dean took a step back towards him. “I’ll be back soon. You’ll be fine. When have I ever let you down, huh?”
Something sad and guilty flickered over Dean’s face at the question. Sam had no idea why, he just knew he needed to erase that expression from his brother’s face. It had no business being there. “You’re the best, Dean. You’ve never let me down.” Not like Dad has, he thought, but he managed to keep that thought inside… this time.
A quick, cocky grin smoothed the pain from Dean’s features, and he turned and jogged towards the tree-line.
Sam watched his brother move, confident and fearless, and he wondered if he’d ever move like that, if he’d ever be that brave. Dean was better than him at pretty much everything… everything except school maybe. That was only true because Dean didn’t really try, though. If he did, Dean would probably even beat Sam at that.
Sam moved out of the car and leaned against it, hoping to keep Dean in sight as long as possible.
Dean was about half-way between the car and the trees when Sam saw, just inside the forest, something dark and shadowy move quickly through the trees. It disappeared almost as fast as it had appeared. It was probably just his imagination, or a harmless animal, or… something.
“Dean?” Sam husked out, his voice failing him. He was almost relieved when Dean didn’t turn around; all Dean would’ve done was call Sam a girl and tell him to get back in the car again. Sam swallowed thickly around his fear. He still didn’t want to stay by himself.
Dean wasn’t gonna to be able to make himself turn back if he didn’t find Dad right away, no matter what he said about not being gone long... and then what if he was gone for hours just like Dad? It’d be dark in another hour or two.
Cold sweat slicked Sam’s body, and he found himself racing forward, suddenly unwilling to allow too much distance between himself and his brother. He was close when the black shape hurtled out of the forest at Dean.
The creature moved gracefully, soundlessly, and Dean was looking away.
Praying for Dean to turn around, Sam increased his speed. Fear for Dean took him unwaveringly towards his brother’s side. He was too scared to make enough noise to alert his brother; any warning he might cry out would only pull Dean’s attention to Sam. If that happened, Dean’d be even less likely to notice the creature in time.
Moments expanded into hours. Each step, each breath stretched out painfully clear, like a slow-motion replay. Sam watched as Dean finally looked around, saw the creature and staggered back a step in alarm.
Even Dean’s lightning-fast reaction wasn’t enough; he pulled his gun just in time for the creature to barrel into him, knocking the gun from his hand and landing him on his back with a loud humph. The thing was huge, wolf-like but far bigger than anything Sam had ever read about in books, and it had Dean pinned, with Dean’s hands gripped tight in its neck fur and his muscles straining with the effort of holding the thing back, of keeping its teeth from his flesh.
“Dean!” Sam cried out, terror winding his voice to a high pitch.
The giant wolf thing was staring down at Dean with something Sam could only interpret as hatred. Its lips were pulled back in a fierce snarl, and a strange, foreign intelligence shone from its eyes. A thick, viscous glob of spittle dripped from its mouth onto Dean’s face. Dean flinched away, his arms almost ready to give out. It reared back and opened its mouth even further, preparing to bite.
Sam lengthened his strides. Running faster than he ever had in his life, Sam launched himself against the creature, slammed into it and rolled it off of Dean in a tangle of arms and limbs and fur.
Vaguely aware of fiery pain shooting along his left side, Sam heard a low, crunching, grinding noise deep in his chest as they rolled together in the grass. They slid to a stop, and the thing stared down at him. Its lips pulled back from sharp teeth in a snarl that fully displayed the white, jagged edges of ivory that looked like they could rip through metal. Helpless panic gripped Sam’s chest and froze Sam to the spot.
He couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and their eyes locked together as it stared him down. It reared back to strike and then… stopped. It glanced back at Dean, scrabbling for the gun, and then looked at Sam calculatingly. Sam shrank away from it, and its lips tugged into a smile, predatory, anticipatory, cold. A moment passed, its eyes boring into Sam’s soul with crushing intensity… and then it lunged down and snapped its jaws closed over Sam’s shoulder.
Agony like he’d never felt ripped through his body, and he screamed, loud and long and vulnerable. He could hear himself pleading with the thing, begging, “No, please, stop!” as if that would help. He could hear Dean’s panicked cry of, “Sammy!” echoing across the field.
Then the thing shook him, tearing at his shoulder. He howled, wracked with excruciating pain. Each shake, each new tear ratcheted up his terror. He sobbed out to Dean to please, please save him. His vision blurred; red faded to black, and the sharp report of a gun chased him down into the dark.
~o0O0o~
Oblivion was good; Sam chased after when it threatened to slip away, but it wrenched itself from his grasp. Each shallow breath set his chest on fire, but, starving for air, he couldn’t help drawing in more gasping, desperate breaths. An insistent buzz of words barely pierced his haze of misery.
“…what was… Dad…”
It was Dean’s voice, but it sounded far away, distant. Sam puffed out a soft plea of, “Dean.” He needed Dean here with him. The soft plea made him cough wretchedly, adding to his misery.
“…just… you… get to… town…”
Dad’s voice grumbled across his consciousness. The torment spread. Firework bursts of pain shot up into his shoulder. Sam wanted to stay strong for Dad, to stay strong for Dean, but a high-pitched whimper tore from his lips as he frantically tried to twist away from the pain. He knew it wouldn’t work, of course - you can’t run from your own body, and Sam sobbed when he felt his father’s strong arms wrap more securely around his chest, and his father’s fingers close more tightly against his shoulder.
“Sorry, Son. I gotta keep the pressure on - you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.” His dad’s voice was low and soothing, like it almost never was anymore, and Sam couldn’t help pressing more deeply into the comforting safety. “I know it hurts. Just concentrate on your breathing. Keep it regular, just like I taught you; it’ll help.”
Sam tried to breathe more slowly, tried to focus on taking air in and breathing it out. Each breath tore through him with molten claws, and a choking sob ripped itself from his throat. He buried his face in his father’s arm and prayed to pass out again.
“Damn it, Dad! We gotta get him to a God damn hospital!” Dean swore from the front seat. Sam knew his constant, wheezing whimpers were stressing his brother out, but he couldn’t seem to hold them back.
“Watch your tone, young man!” his father shot back immediately. “If you’d done what I told you to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
There was dead quiet silence from the front seat. Sam let out another shuddering sob, “Please, stop… yelling at...” His stomach cramped. He didn’t think he could take throwing up on top of everything else; death might be better than all this pain.
“Just drive us another 50 miles, and then find us a hotel,” Dad said in a voice still overflowing with tension.
“Why?” Dean muttered mutinously from the front. “Just tell me why we can’t we go to a hospital this time, Dad.” His voice was wrecked, begging for answers.
“Are you questioning my orders, soldier?” Dad snarled.
There was a long pause, punctuated by Sam’s soft cries of pain, before Dean finally replied, “No, sir.”
Sam was willing to believe it was the pain fogging his brain, but for the first time he could remember, there was hesitancy, a hint of defiance, in Dean’s response.
A wave of agony burned itself from his chest to his shoulder up to his head. His screams chased him back to unconsciousness.
~o0O0o~
A low throb of pain pulsed rapidly in his shoulder, and Sam flinched away from it, grasping for the oblivion of sleep. An angrier, more demanding pulse this time, and Sam whimpered, high-pitched with pain. The third pulse coursed fire through him. Waves of dizzying pain made him feel ungrounded, like he was falling, even though he could vaguely feel the bed he was lying on.
“Dean?” he moaned. His voice was low and gravelly and wrecked. He sounded like somebody else.
“I’m here, Sammy. Right here,” Dean soothed.
Sam opened his eyes to search out his brother. He found Dean’s hand clasped tightly around his own, could blurrily make out Dean’s other hand stroking against his forehead, but he couldn’t really feel the comforting touch past all the pain. Agony was continuously spasming through his body, and his sight blurred even more as his eyes filled with tears. “Hurts…” he forced out, willing his brother to hear the desperate plea to do something behind his single word.
Dean leaned forward, a soft shushing noise escaping that was so unlike Sam’s bad-ass, I-can-handle-anything big brother that Sam huffed out a sharp breath in surprise.
His gaze sliding up away from Sam, Dean begged, “Dad? You gotta do something.”
“I’m sorry, Son. I can’t give him another dose for at least another hour yet.” Dad sounded angry. Sam didn’t know why, and the uncertainty of that clenched around his heart, amplifying his pain.
“Daddy?” Sam cried. Sheer, overwhelming agony pulsed through Sam, even worse than before, and a hoarse scream ripped from his throat as his body arched off the bed from the force of it.
“Sam? I’m sorry, Sammy. God, I’m so sorry.” Dean’s anguished, helpless cry cut past the pain and straight through Sam’s heart. He tried to open his mouth, tried to offer reassurance, but the tidal wave of pain swept back through him, sweeping him back into the blessed relief of nothingness.
~o0O0o~
A confusing cacophony of sound pulled him from his peaceful slumber, and as he struggled back to consciousness, he inhaled deeply. The rank, hideous smells that filled his lungs made him cough and retch. The reek of his own dried blood and stale sweat, the putrid, sickly-sweet stench of underlying infection, saw him scrambling up to lean over the side of the bed and spit bile out onto the floor.
He felt his brother wrap strong arms around him. Every instinct called to him to lean into the comforting embrace, but his senses were scrambled, and he found himself pulling away instead. He slammed his hands over his ears and forced himself to pull in shallow, open-mouthed breaths. Nothing helped much.
“Dean?” he panted. “What’s wrong with me?”
He wanted his brother to explain it all away, needed desperately to understand, but Dean’s only response was, “I dunno. God, I…” His brother’s voice trailed away, sounded clogged and wet when he finally continued, “You’re gonna be okay. All right? Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Sam heard the sound of failure in his brother’s voice, and he forced himself to inch closer, until he was curled up in Dean’s arms like when he was young, huddling there for shelter. He felt the tears come then, and he let them fall for both of them.
~o0O0o~
Dean and Dad were both watching him like he’d grown another head or something. The atmosphere in the cabin was oppressive. He needed to be outside. He climbed out of the bed and stretched. “I’m not sick; I don’t even feel bruised anymore. Let’s go outside. God, it reeks in here. How can you stand it?”
Dad just scowled at him and growled, “Stay inside, Sammy.”
“Why?” Sam immediately shot back. He was tired of always following Dad’s rules, especially when they almost never made any sense, when they came like ultimatums out of nowhere. Sam was twelve years old now, more than half-way to thirteen. His Dad didn’t have to treat him like a little kid anymore.
“Just do what I tell you to, Sammy.”
Sam matched Dad’s glare with his own. He knew better than to expect a reasonable response from the old man.
“Sam,” Dean said from behind him, “Just do what Dad says for once, okay? It’s only been five days since the attack.”
Sam whirled around to confront his brother. “What, so now you’re taking his side?!” Sam yelled, rage filling him. He pushed past Dean, and Dean slammed into the far wall. Sam was too furious to stop and wonder why. He banged the door open and stepped outside, inhaling the luscious smell of freedom.
“Sammy!” Dad barked, but Sam ignored him, taking a step forward, a step away.
The scent of copper, sharp and sweet, filled the air. Sam whirled around, sniffing out the source. Dad had cut the back of his arm, and rich red was sliding down to drip enticingly to the ground. Sam took one cautious step forward, and then another, fascinated by the tantalizing scent so close, by the taste of metal and earth on the back of his tongue. A soft, needy whimpering sound slipped past his lips as he wrapped his hands around his fathers arms and brought it close, letting his tongue dart out to taste the warm, dripping wound. It was like tasting the essence of life, like tasting joy. It was everything he never knew he needed before… but now that he had, he wanted more.
A sharp sting against the side of his neck jerked him back before he could get any more than that single, teasing taste. He clamped a hand over the tiny wound, a sudden wave of dizziness making him sway on his feet. “Dad,” he asked, confusion filling him, “Dad, what did you do?”
Dad didn’t respond to his question, turned his gaze instead to Dean. “Do you see, son?” Dad sounded destroyed. Sam had never believed he would hear that tone from his unflappable father. “It’s got him in its grip. We need to contain him before this gets worse, before he hurts someone. I swear to you, I’ll keep looking for a way to reverse it.”
The world was spinning full out now, trying to drag Sam down. He fought against it, but his legs buckled anyway, and he went down hard. Dean rushed to his side, and Sam nuzzled against Dean’s throat where the smell of love and comfort and home was the strongest. Dean rocked him slightly, and Sam relaxed into his embrace. He could feel the drugs rushing through his system. They were going to win. His hands gripped the fabric of Dean’s shirt, clutching tightly. “Dean?” he pleaded, unnamed fears coloring his understanding of the world. “You’ll stay with me… protect me, right?”
He could feel dampness spreading on his shoulder, the wet of his thin shirt sticking to his skin. “Yeah, Sammy. Always. I’m always gonna be here for you.” Dean’s murmurs of reassurance gradually faded away into grey.
~o0O0o~
A thin grey mattress was all that lay between him and a metal floor. His eyes snapped open, and he was greeted by the sight of bars - bars that filled his vision, that were all around him, that were holding him confined, trapped. His eyes locked on them in horror even as his body tried to huddle as far away from the abhorrent things as it could.
“Dean!” he sobbed out, fear strong enough to choke, to strangle; he couldn’t breathe past the terror, and a second helpless, choked-out cry of, “Dean!” ripped from his throat.
“I’m here, Sammy. I’m right here.” Dean rushed into the room from the kitchen, only to slow as he neared the cage. He came to a stop a couple feet out and hesitantly sank down.
The bars crisscrossed close enough to run straight lines across Sam’s view of his brother, close enough that he wouldn’t be able to reach more than the first part of his forearm through them. Sam wanted contact; he needed to touch. The sensation of being alone, cut off, itched across his skin.
He swallowed his fear and inched forward enough to extend trembling fingers out as far as possible. “Dean?” he whimpered. “Let me out. Please. God, I just need…” The bars this close, this confining, felt like molten fire, the wrongness of what they represented chafing at his skin. He wanted to rid himself of everything keeping his soul bound and trapped, wanted to scratch his ill-fitting skin completely off, his rising agitation pushed him steadily, rapidly towards desperation.
Blood sliding seductively over skin flashed through his mind, and he forced the thought away. He’d been sick, it was only a delusion he’d had. It had to be.
Except, Dad had put him in here. Why? His thoughts tumbled frantically around in his head as he sought for something to cling to, something to make sense in this madness he’d woken up to. Dad wasn’t here; Dean was. Dean was here, and Sam was still in the cage. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?” he husked out, wounded.
The thought of Dean wanting him to be in here, doing this to him on purpose, amplified the tumble of torment gathering inside his chest a hundred, a thousand fold. “I can’t stay in here, Dean!” The bars were too close; they were going to crush him with their weight. Dean had to let him out, had to see that being in here would kill him. His volume rose, reflected his suffering enough to make Dean flinch back. The small flinch felt like vindication. “Please, don’t make me stay in here. Why are you doing this me?”
Dean inched a little closer, taking Sam’s hand tightly in his own. “I’m not… God, you didn’t do anything wrong, Sammy.” Dean was shaking, his eyes wide and desperate for Sam to understand. “I swear I would if I could but… Dad said…” He seemed to be wrestling with his resolve, just long enough for Sam to feel a flare of hope, but then he slumped, strength leeching from his body.
His hand pulled away from Sam’s, and it felt like an empty void opened up in Sam’s soul. Dean’s eyes locked on the hand that he’d pulled from Sam’s. “I just can’t, Sammy. It’s too dangerous. I can’t let you out. I’m so sorry.” Dean was staring out the window across the room, trying to hide the liquid shine in his eyes from Sam, trying to come across as the strong one. It wasn’t working; Sam could always tell when Dean was covering.
“Dean?” Sam pled softly, “Please don’t be sad. I can’t… I can’t…” He couldn’t find words to describe the depth of his feelings, so he changed his question. “Where’s Dad?”
“He… he went out… to try to get some help,” Dean answered hesitantly, wiping his face angrily on his sleeve.
“Dean, I need to feel that you’re here. Please?” Sam shoved his arm further through the bars, not stopping even when the metal chafed and tore at his skin.
“Sammy, stop!” Dean ordered frantically, seizing Sam’s hand with his own and holding Sam’s arm still.
Sam clutched at his brother’s hand like a life-line. He needed Dean, needed to feel his brother close, needed Dean to wrap him up in a tight embrace and keep him safe from... The bars seemed to tighten around him, and he turned to Dean in burgeoning panic. “Please, Dean, please! You hafta let me out of here!” He didn’t care that he was begging. He’d do anything. “Please, Dean,” he sobbed again, “Please, I need out!”
He squeezed Dean’s hand tightly… maybe too tightly. Dean’s face twisted with pain. He made himself let Dean’s hand go. Dean snatched it back and cradled it against his chest, his eyes wide and hopeless.
“I’m sorry, Dean, but, please, listen to me. Help me. I’m your brother. You can’t keep me in here! You know you can’t!”
“Dad said not to…” Dean whispered, his face washed with horror. He scooted back away from the cage about a foot.
Sam flung himself at the bars, his shoulder slamming against them so hard he bounced backwards. “Please, Dean, please!” he begged frantically, “Please, don’t leave me!”
“I’m not,” Dean rasped back. “Not gonna do that, Sammy…”
Sam threw himself at the bars, once, and then again. Maybe if he threw himself against them long enough, threw himself against them hard enough to break bones, he could break enough of them to be able to fit between the gaps. Or, maybe, he would die. He didn’t care. Either option was preferable to remaining caged like this.
“Sammy, stop! Sam dimly heard Dean’s horrified yell through his frantic efforts just as Dad slammed the door open and took in the situation in less than a heartbeat. Calmly pulling out a dart gun, Dad raised it with a set look on his face.
“Dad, no!” Sam screamed, anger and the rage of betrayal ripping through his body. His Dad wouldn’t even talk to him. Dad pulled the trigger anyway; it was like he didn’t even exist anymore.
Sam didn’t fight the effects of the drugs that pulsed into his system from the dart. This time, he wanted the oblivion they brought.
~o0O0o~
He was running through the forest full out, the air rushing past him smelling like earth and trees, like life and promise. This was freedom, and his heart sang with it. He was running for no other reason than that it felt blissful, and he reveled in the happiness that coursed through his veins.
A tantalizing aroma tugged at his senses, and he slowed. The low, throbbing emptiness that tugged at his guts surged with anticipation. There was rabbit about, and the thought washed his mouth with saliva. He came to a full stop so he could look for the trail. The rabbit sat at the edge of the clearing he was in, looking at him with sad, old eyes that ripped at his soul. His stomach pulsed again, and he obeyed, leaping forward to land on the rabbit and tear at it with his mouth.
Don’t hurt it! A small, silent voice was screaming at him, demanding to be heard. The rabbit hadn’t even tried to run, hopeless in the face of its fate.
We only kill what’s evil, Sammy. A different voice, familiar, loved.
The blood hit his tongue, and both voices were drowned out by the rush of bliss that followed.
Circle of life.
Something was missing, though. He looked down at his prey, and despite the hunger that still clawed at him voraciously, he forced himself to stop. Half of the animal was still left; he looked around for the one he would share it with.
He was alone.
Sorrow clutched at him, squeezing his heart, and he howled his grief into the night. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t meant to be alone. Rage rushed in to fill the empty holes within him, and he launched himself forward, running without destination, searching for the other half of his soul.
He slammed into the barrier that came out of nowhere, knocked senseless and bruised. With a whimper, he backed away only to be stopped by a second set of bars behind him. Ignoring the slow throb of tenderized skin, he flung himself up again to run, this time at a diagonal, but the walls of his prison were waiting for him once more. They were tormenting him, playing with him, but he couldn’t stop the game. Over and over, he picked himself up and ran in a new direction. The bars were always there, implacable, and he finally collapsed in a sobbing, exhausted heap. It was too hard to fight anymore.
The smell of blood, real and intense, forced his eyes open to reveal the poorly lit cabin where Dean and his father were keeping him caged. He growled his displeasure, low and fierce. He tried to pull himself up, but the world tilted dangerously as he did, and he collapsed back down with a pained whimper.
Dad and Dean were sitting at the small table nearby. Dad had an open gash on his arm, oozing red promise, and Dean was carefully stitching it. Sam drooled, wet globs of spittle trailing down the sides of his chin. He needed… He tried pulling himself up again and actually made it a step forward before his legs somehow twisted under him, and he crashed down hard, rolling into the side of the cage and crying out in confusion.
“We should up his drugs,” Dad grumbled.
Dean had stopped stitching and was staring over at him, his brow creased in thought. “No, Dad. It’s the blood. It makes him worse. We should’ve done this outside.”
Dad didn’t even acknowledge Dean’s statement, instead getting up to pull down a small, locked safe and open it with a key he pulled from his pocket.
“Dad…”
“I heard you, Dean,” Dad barked sharply. He pulled a needle and a small vial from the case and started prepping it. Sam whimpered in the corner. He didn’t want more of the drugs; they hurt.
“Yeah, but you’re not listening to me!” Dean yelled back, matching their father’s tone and then some.
Dad slammed the drugs back into the case and turned on Dean furiously. “When you speak to me, you do it with respect, boy.” His voice was low and full of warning, his body rigid with contained rage.
Dean didn’t back down. He even took a step forward into Dad’s space. “Maybe I’d respect you more,” he gritted lowly, “if you were actually fixing the problem, instead of drugging Sam and drinking yourself into oblivion so that you can pretend he doesn’t exist!”
Dad drew his arm back, ready to strike. Sam had never seen Dad raise his fist in anger towards either of them. Dean flinched back. The fist held steady in the air, tension holding everyone frozen for several long, agonizing moments.
“Daddy? You can’t hurt Dean. This isn’t his fault.” Sam finally forced out in a voice gravelly with fatigue and disuse.
Dad crumpled in on himself, still for a moment, then strode forward and swept the bottles littering the table onto the floor with a dramatic crash. Breathing heavily, he braced his arms against the table and struggled to get his temper under control. Resolve settled over him like a mantle, and he jerked up to move back over to the drug case. “Get out of my way, boy,” Dad growled.
Dean reluctantly stepped just enough out of the way so that Dad could get past.
Grabbing the syringe once more, Dad moved back towards the cage and Sam. Sam shrank back clumsily, knowing he was too weak to fight back. “Please, Daddy, don’t,” he begged, but Dad ignored him, threw open the lock on the cage and grabbed Sam by the shoulder. The needle buried itself in his neck, and liquid fire burned through his veins. Dad released him and he fell forward, unable to hold himself up. Dad slammed the cage shut and locked it. Locking up the drugs and grabbing a half-full whiskey bottle, he stormed out, slamming the front door behind him.
Sam’s vision swam so badly that Dean looked like a blurry, grey statue standing alone and forlorn in the middle of the room. He opened his mouth, hoping to call Dean over, but he’d only begun to make the words form when oblivion swallowed him.
~o0O0o~
The drugs held him cradled in a foggy void of nothingness, unable to move, feel or even think. He was dimly aware of the passage of time. He knew in an abstract way that he was occasionally allowed to come around just enough to eat and use the bathroom before being plunged back into bleak, empty darkness without end. He ached for this non-life to end, somehow, someway, but there was nothing he could do to make that happen.
He was trapped, his existence a continuing loop of tedious nonexistence. Eventually, a single feeling crept into the fog. It was despair.
~o0O0o~
Pain ripped him from his hollow space without warning. It jackknifed through his body and threatened to tear him apart. The numbing despair ripped away from him under the onslaught, but he immediately longed for it back. His very bones grew, shifted, reformed, and he howled his fury into the night air. Tendons and ligaments tore apart, and nausea forced the contents of his stomach to bubble out. He landed on his hands and knees, retching and heaving through the pain that, please God, would surely kill him soon.
When he had nothing left in his stomach to give, words took the place of bile, and he pleaded desperately for Dean, for Dad, for anyone to come and save him. But… the pain didn’t stop. It only grew.
From his kneeling position, he could see his hands, his torso, his legs reforming, growing hair, changing into something other. For the first time, he allowed himself to put all the pieces together, and understanding ripped through him with a mind-searing thrust: He was a monster. Half man, half beast, his body suddenly stopped changing. The sudden release of tension sent him to the floor, panting for breath. It wasn’t over; he could feel it. This was the calm before the storm.
“Dean?” he begged. His voice sounded odd, alien.
“Right here, Sammy, I’m right here,” Dean choked out, sounding oddly far away.
Sam couldn’t bear the thought of being alone as the last of his humanity slipped away. “Dean,” he begged, “please, let me out. I need you to let me out!”
He heard a soft scuffle. His father’s command of, “Don’t,” echoed loudly in the otherwise silent cabin.
“Dean, please!” Sam screamed, feeling his body ramping up for more.
“I’m sorry,” Dean called back, hopeless and terrified.
Sam’s vocal cords were swelling, his throat closing to cut off his air. “Please, just… come in here,” he wheezed. “I need you to hold me, just hold me, so I’m not alone. Please, I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He wouldn’t. He could never hurt his brother. At the core of his being, he knew that to be true.
Dean didn’t answer. Pain blossomed, first in his heart and spreading down to his stomach, then out his extremities, filling his head. It grew until there wasn’t room for anything else, and he lost himself in the river of it.
~o0O0o~
Moonlight streamed into the room from the window, the heavy drapes pulled back for the first time. The light played over his body, comforting, and filled him with warmth and life… and hope. Carefully, gradually, he stretched out his legs. Every muscle in his body ached and was weak from disuse. He had no idea how long he’d been confined in this prison of his father’s making; the time before and the time to come all blended together in his mind. His body pulled strength from the cleansing light that bathed him, and the sharp, heady smell of blood pulled his eyes all the way open.
Dean.
Dean was crouched down next to the bars, his hand bloody on the lock from his too tight grip. He was close enough to touch.
Sam could touch. His breath caught, almost doubting what his senses were telling him, but he pulled himself up anyway, swallowing the cries of pain from his protesting body.
Loss, failure, hope, self-blame all flowed strong and confused through his brother’s being. Sam inched closer, until his nose was almost touching Dean’s face.
Dean was still, transfixed by the blood that flowed heavy from his hand, heavy enough to trickle down to his sleeve and seep into the cloth.
Sam couldn’t allow the smell of sadness and fear to continue radiating from his brother’s rigid posture. That scent tore at his heart, ripped it open and lay it bare and exposed. Sam would do anything to make it stop, except… He didn’t know what he could do. He seemed to have lost the ability to make Dean do anything as soon as his father had put him in the cage. He huffed out a breath, willing Dean to look at him. Connect with him on a level that went beyond sadness.
Sam felt a moment of triumph when Dean looked up and their eyes locked together.
Please, Dean. Sam willed his brother to finally do what Sam needed Dean to do, had needed Dean to do since this whole nightmare began. Please, you need to let me go. Death would be a far kinder end than this, don’t you understand?
Dean was suddenly an economy of action, unlocking the cage with a steady hand and throwing the door of it open wide. The front door was clear. He could leap to freedom before his brother pulled the trigger… but he didn’t want freedom without Dean. He wanted release.
Dean held his arm out, capturing Sam’s attention with the decadent, rich smell of his blood. For the first time, Sam considered that his brother might have a third option in mind.
No! Fear held him still for a moment, and he fought against all his instincts. He didn’t want to turn Dean into a monster, didn’t want to take his brother away from his father.
Too late. Sam broke against the pull of what his brother offered. He hated himself, but he wanted too much to be denied. The wolf inside him whispered sweet promises. He was not as much a monster as his father feared. He was offering Dean a chance to be more than human. Better.
He kept his mouth closed at first, his inner struggle not quite over as he nudged against Dean’s smooth, silky, beckoning skin. But, he had almost no reserves left to fight, and his tongue darted out, stroking across the salty taste of Dean. He found the blood quickly, and it filled him with power as he lapped at it. Healing energy pulsed through him with the connection, making him feel truly alive for the first time in… forever. Every urge in his body was screaming at him to take Dean now! No, no, he chanted to himself. But there was no way he could do the right thing and pull away. None. That would be their undoing.
“Come on, Sammy,” Dean urged, calling Sam home. Sam’s resolve broke, and he opened his mouth wider and bit down. Echoing across the tidal wave of claiming that flowed over him, a single word sang, “Mine!”
They would never be alone again.
By
varkelton© 8/8/10
Genre: GEN
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6,500
Warnings: Massive preteen-Sammy whump (he's twelve), copious angst, horror
Betas:
snarkgoddess, who, even if it wasn’t already true, I would have to love, because she’s continuously willing to jump into my shark-infested waters and tackle my muse, and sublimatedangel, who was full of good advice and made me make the boys just a little bit more manly – sometimes, even I can admit I love the angst just a little bit too much. Thank you, darlings!Summary: John took the boys with him on a hunt. They were supposed to stay in the car... This is the story of what happens next. (Pre-series AU)
A/N: So not too long ago, my lovely friend
rivestra wrote a short story that ate my brain. When I told her that if she wanted to avoid blood-shed, she needed to write me more, her only response was to tell me that if I wanted it so bad, I should write it myself. So I did. This story parallels hers. It doesn’t actually matter which you read first, but I would suggest starting with hers, because it rocked!
Click here to read Steel on Shadow, by
rivestra.Descent into Shadow:
Dean threw the door of the Impala open angrily. “Dean!” Sam yelled, outrage making his traitorous voice squeak up at the end. Sam tried to grab Dean’s arm to stop him from leaving, but Dean easily avoided the attempt and swung himself out of the car.
Considering how much more mature he was than his big brother, it was really infuriating that he was smaller and weaker.
“Just stay here, Sammy,” Dean ordered briskly, dismissively, not even bothering to turn around. He sounded just like Dad.
“Dad said for both of us to stay here!” Sam insisted as he slid over to the driver’s seat, preparing to follow Dean out.
Sam flinched backwards when his brother slammed the door in his face without even acknowledging him. Dean’s attention was fixed on the tree line, as if Dad was going to come walking back out at any moment.
“Jerk!” Sam shouted indignantly. He banged his fist against the glass, hoping to get his brother’s attention, but Dean didn’t even react to the abuse of his damn car - which was completely infuriating. Dad had hinted that one day that it would be Dean’s, and his brother had been an over-protective ass about it ever since. Not today, apparently.
When Dean took a few steps away, Sam hastily opened the door again and clambered out. He reached out to tug on Dean’s shirt. “Dad said…”
Dean finally turned around; even though it was mostly to glare at Sam, at least Dean was finally acknowledging his existence. “That was five hours ago, Sammy. He wasn’t supposed to be gone this long. Something’s wrong. Now, get your ass back in the fucking car.”
“Language, Dean!” Sam spit back, a sarcastic mimicry of their Dad’s constantly barked order.
“Get in the car, Sammy.” The threat was clear in Dean’s voice. Sam wavered, torn between wanting to stay with his brother and fear over what might be lurking in the forest.
Dad had left armed to the teeth, and, in a typical Dad maneuver, he hadn’t said much before leaving beyond that he didn’t think he’d be more than a few hours. Whatever Dad was after, though, it was obviously something really bad.
The forest was thickly grown, and kind of sinister. Sam could feel Dean’s angry eyes boring a hole into him and demanding that he obey. Fear finally won. He stumbled backwards, eyes locked with Dean’s, to sit down miserably on the edge of the driver’s seat.
He refused to swing his legs inside and shut the door, though. Dean would just have to deal.
Dean scowled at Sam again, shook his head dramatically and moved around to the trunk. Sam could hear him rummaging around for a few minutes; when he came back into view, there was a gun stuck down the back of his jeans.
Dean walked a few feet forward, and then turned back to look at Sam. “Stay here, Sammy,” Dean reiterated, as if Sam was just a kid and stupid to boot. “I’m just going to head over to the edge of the woods to see if I can find Dad’s trail. I’m not gonna be gone long.”
Sam took a deep breath and nodded his agreement, trying to be brave. Before Dean had made it more than a few feet away, Sam heard himself begging, “Dean, please don’t leave me here.” His voice was small and whiny. He sounded exactly like the little kid Dean seemed to think he was. He scowled at himself. Dean was gonna tease him unmercifully over that.
Dean looked back. His eyes were sympathetic and held none of the expected derision. “I’m not going to go far, okay? I just need to make sure Dad isn’t lying just beyond the tree-line bleeding to death while we were sitting here playing around in the front seat of his car.”
Sam paled at the image of that, sick to his stomach. He curled his feet up onto the bench and nervously wrapped his arms around his knees.
Dean took a step back towards him. “I’ll be back soon. You’ll be fine. When have I ever let you down, huh?”
Something sad and guilty flickered over Dean’s face at the question. Sam had no idea why, he just knew he needed to erase that expression from his brother’s face. It had no business being there. “You’re the best, Dean. You’ve never let me down.” Not like Dad has, he thought, but he managed to keep that thought inside… this time.
A quick, cocky grin smoothed the pain from Dean’s features, and he turned and jogged towards the tree-line.
Sam watched his brother move, confident and fearless, and he wondered if he’d ever move like that, if he’d ever be that brave. Dean was better than him at pretty much everything… everything except school maybe. That was only true because Dean didn’t really try, though. If he did, Dean would probably even beat Sam at that.
Sam moved out of the car and leaned against it, hoping to keep Dean in sight as long as possible.
Dean was about half-way between the car and the trees when Sam saw, just inside the forest, something dark and shadowy move quickly through the trees. It disappeared almost as fast as it had appeared. It was probably just his imagination, or a harmless animal, or… something.
“Dean?” Sam husked out, his voice failing him. He was almost relieved when Dean didn’t turn around; all Dean would’ve done was call Sam a girl and tell him to get back in the car again. Sam swallowed thickly around his fear. He still didn’t want to stay by himself.
Dean wasn’t gonna to be able to make himself turn back if he didn’t find Dad right away, no matter what he said about not being gone long... and then what if he was gone for hours just like Dad? It’d be dark in another hour or two.
Cold sweat slicked Sam’s body, and he found himself racing forward, suddenly unwilling to allow too much distance between himself and his brother. He was close when the black shape hurtled out of the forest at Dean.
The creature moved gracefully, soundlessly, and Dean was looking away.
Praying for Dean to turn around, Sam increased his speed. Fear for Dean took him unwaveringly towards his brother’s side. He was too scared to make enough noise to alert his brother; any warning he might cry out would only pull Dean’s attention to Sam. If that happened, Dean’d be even less likely to notice the creature in time.
Moments expanded into hours. Each step, each breath stretched out painfully clear, like a slow-motion replay. Sam watched as Dean finally looked around, saw the creature and staggered back a step in alarm.
Even Dean’s lightning-fast reaction wasn’t enough; he pulled his gun just in time for the creature to barrel into him, knocking the gun from his hand and landing him on his back with a loud humph. The thing was huge, wolf-like but far bigger than anything Sam had ever read about in books, and it had Dean pinned, with Dean’s hands gripped tight in its neck fur and his muscles straining with the effort of holding the thing back, of keeping its teeth from his flesh.
“Dean!” Sam cried out, terror winding his voice to a high pitch.
The giant wolf thing was staring down at Dean with something Sam could only interpret as hatred. Its lips were pulled back in a fierce snarl, and a strange, foreign intelligence shone from its eyes. A thick, viscous glob of spittle dripped from its mouth onto Dean’s face. Dean flinched away, his arms almost ready to give out. It reared back and opened its mouth even further, preparing to bite.
Sam lengthened his strides. Running faster than he ever had in his life, Sam launched himself against the creature, slammed into it and rolled it off of Dean in a tangle of arms and limbs and fur.
Vaguely aware of fiery pain shooting along his left side, Sam heard a low, crunching, grinding noise deep in his chest as they rolled together in the grass. They slid to a stop, and the thing stared down at him. Its lips pulled back from sharp teeth in a snarl that fully displayed the white, jagged edges of ivory that looked like they could rip through metal. Helpless panic gripped Sam’s chest and froze Sam to the spot.
He couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and their eyes locked together as it stared him down. It reared back to strike and then… stopped. It glanced back at Dean, scrabbling for the gun, and then looked at Sam calculatingly. Sam shrank away from it, and its lips tugged into a smile, predatory, anticipatory, cold. A moment passed, its eyes boring into Sam’s soul with crushing intensity… and then it lunged down and snapped its jaws closed over Sam’s shoulder.
Agony like he’d never felt ripped through his body, and he screamed, loud and long and vulnerable. He could hear himself pleading with the thing, begging, “No, please, stop!” as if that would help. He could hear Dean’s panicked cry of, “Sammy!” echoing across the field.
Then the thing shook him, tearing at his shoulder. He howled, wracked with excruciating pain. Each shake, each new tear ratcheted up his terror. He sobbed out to Dean to please, please save him. His vision blurred; red faded to black, and the sharp report of a gun chased him down into the dark.
~o0O0o~
Oblivion was good; Sam chased after when it threatened to slip away, but it wrenched itself from his grasp. Each shallow breath set his chest on fire, but, starving for air, he couldn’t help drawing in more gasping, desperate breaths. An insistent buzz of words barely pierced his haze of misery.
“…what was… Dad…”
It was Dean’s voice, but it sounded far away, distant. Sam puffed out a soft plea of, “Dean.” He needed Dean here with him. The soft plea made him cough wretchedly, adding to his misery.
“…just… you… get to… town…”
Dad’s voice grumbled across his consciousness. The torment spread. Firework bursts of pain shot up into his shoulder. Sam wanted to stay strong for Dad, to stay strong for Dean, but a high-pitched whimper tore from his lips as he frantically tried to twist away from the pain. He knew it wouldn’t work, of course - you can’t run from your own body, and Sam sobbed when he felt his father’s strong arms wrap more securely around his chest, and his father’s fingers close more tightly against his shoulder.
“Sorry, Son. I gotta keep the pressure on - you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.” His dad’s voice was low and soothing, like it almost never was anymore, and Sam couldn’t help pressing more deeply into the comforting safety. “I know it hurts. Just concentrate on your breathing. Keep it regular, just like I taught you; it’ll help.”
Sam tried to breathe more slowly, tried to focus on taking air in and breathing it out. Each breath tore through him with molten claws, and a choking sob ripped itself from his throat. He buried his face in his father’s arm and prayed to pass out again.
“Damn it, Dad! We gotta get him to a God damn hospital!” Dean swore from the front seat. Sam knew his constant, wheezing whimpers were stressing his brother out, but he couldn’t seem to hold them back.
“Watch your tone, young man!” his father shot back immediately. “If you’d done what I told you to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
There was dead quiet silence from the front seat. Sam let out another shuddering sob, “Please, stop… yelling at...” His stomach cramped. He didn’t think he could take throwing up on top of everything else; death might be better than all this pain.
“Just drive us another 50 miles, and then find us a hotel,” Dad said in a voice still overflowing with tension.
“Why?” Dean muttered mutinously from the front. “Just tell me why we can’t we go to a hospital this time, Dad.” His voice was wrecked, begging for answers.
“Are you questioning my orders, soldier?” Dad snarled.
There was a long pause, punctuated by Sam’s soft cries of pain, before Dean finally replied, “No, sir.”
Sam was willing to believe it was the pain fogging his brain, but for the first time he could remember, there was hesitancy, a hint of defiance, in Dean’s response.
A wave of agony burned itself from his chest to his shoulder up to his head. His screams chased him back to unconsciousness.
~o0O0o~
A low throb of pain pulsed rapidly in his shoulder, and Sam flinched away from it, grasping for the oblivion of sleep. An angrier, more demanding pulse this time, and Sam whimpered, high-pitched with pain. The third pulse coursed fire through him. Waves of dizzying pain made him feel ungrounded, like he was falling, even though he could vaguely feel the bed he was lying on.
“Dean?” he moaned. His voice was low and gravelly and wrecked. He sounded like somebody else.
“I’m here, Sammy. Right here,” Dean soothed.
Sam opened his eyes to search out his brother. He found Dean’s hand clasped tightly around his own, could blurrily make out Dean’s other hand stroking against his forehead, but he couldn’t really feel the comforting touch past all the pain. Agony was continuously spasming through his body, and his sight blurred even more as his eyes filled with tears. “Hurts…” he forced out, willing his brother to hear the desperate plea to do something behind his single word.
Dean leaned forward, a soft shushing noise escaping that was so unlike Sam’s bad-ass, I-can-handle-anything big brother that Sam huffed out a sharp breath in surprise.
His gaze sliding up away from Sam, Dean begged, “Dad? You gotta do something.”
“I’m sorry, Son. I can’t give him another dose for at least another hour yet.” Dad sounded angry. Sam didn’t know why, and the uncertainty of that clenched around his heart, amplifying his pain.
“Daddy?” Sam cried. Sheer, overwhelming agony pulsed through Sam, even worse than before, and a hoarse scream ripped from his throat as his body arched off the bed from the force of it.
“Sam? I’m sorry, Sammy. God, I’m so sorry.” Dean’s anguished, helpless cry cut past the pain and straight through Sam’s heart. He tried to open his mouth, tried to offer reassurance, but the tidal wave of pain swept back through him, sweeping him back into the blessed relief of nothingness.
~o0O0o~
A confusing cacophony of sound pulled him from his peaceful slumber, and as he struggled back to consciousness, he inhaled deeply. The rank, hideous smells that filled his lungs made him cough and retch. The reek of his own dried blood and stale sweat, the putrid, sickly-sweet stench of underlying infection, saw him scrambling up to lean over the side of the bed and spit bile out onto the floor.
He felt his brother wrap strong arms around him. Every instinct called to him to lean into the comforting embrace, but his senses were scrambled, and he found himself pulling away instead. He slammed his hands over his ears and forced himself to pull in shallow, open-mouthed breaths. Nothing helped much.
“Dean?” he panted. “What’s wrong with me?”
He wanted his brother to explain it all away, needed desperately to understand, but Dean’s only response was, “I dunno. God, I…” His brother’s voice trailed away, sounded clogged and wet when he finally continued, “You’re gonna be okay. All right? Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Sam heard the sound of failure in his brother’s voice, and he forced himself to inch closer, until he was curled up in Dean’s arms like when he was young, huddling there for shelter. He felt the tears come then, and he let them fall for both of them.
~o0O0o~
Dean and Dad were both watching him like he’d grown another head or something. The atmosphere in the cabin was oppressive. He needed to be outside. He climbed out of the bed and stretched. “I’m not sick; I don’t even feel bruised anymore. Let’s go outside. God, it reeks in here. How can you stand it?”
Dad just scowled at him and growled, “Stay inside, Sammy.”
“Why?” Sam immediately shot back. He was tired of always following Dad’s rules, especially when they almost never made any sense, when they came like ultimatums out of nowhere. Sam was twelve years old now, more than half-way to thirteen. His Dad didn’t have to treat him like a little kid anymore.
“Just do what I tell you to, Sammy.”
Sam matched Dad’s glare with his own. He knew better than to expect a reasonable response from the old man.
“Sam,” Dean said from behind him, “Just do what Dad says for once, okay? It’s only been five days since the attack.”
Sam whirled around to confront his brother. “What, so now you’re taking his side?!” Sam yelled, rage filling him. He pushed past Dean, and Dean slammed into the far wall. Sam was too furious to stop and wonder why. He banged the door open and stepped outside, inhaling the luscious smell of freedom.
“Sammy!” Dad barked, but Sam ignored him, taking a step forward, a step away.
The scent of copper, sharp and sweet, filled the air. Sam whirled around, sniffing out the source. Dad had cut the back of his arm, and rich red was sliding down to drip enticingly to the ground. Sam took one cautious step forward, and then another, fascinated by the tantalizing scent so close, by the taste of metal and earth on the back of his tongue. A soft, needy whimpering sound slipped past his lips as he wrapped his hands around his fathers arms and brought it close, letting his tongue dart out to taste the warm, dripping wound. It was like tasting the essence of life, like tasting joy. It was everything he never knew he needed before… but now that he had, he wanted more.
A sharp sting against the side of his neck jerked him back before he could get any more than that single, teasing taste. He clamped a hand over the tiny wound, a sudden wave of dizziness making him sway on his feet. “Dad,” he asked, confusion filling him, “Dad, what did you do?”
Dad didn’t respond to his question, turned his gaze instead to Dean. “Do you see, son?” Dad sounded destroyed. Sam had never believed he would hear that tone from his unflappable father. “It’s got him in its grip. We need to contain him before this gets worse, before he hurts someone. I swear to you, I’ll keep looking for a way to reverse it.”
The world was spinning full out now, trying to drag Sam down. He fought against it, but his legs buckled anyway, and he went down hard. Dean rushed to his side, and Sam nuzzled against Dean’s throat where the smell of love and comfort and home was the strongest. Dean rocked him slightly, and Sam relaxed into his embrace. He could feel the drugs rushing through his system. They were going to win. His hands gripped the fabric of Dean’s shirt, clutching tightly. “Dean?” he pleaded, unnamed fears coloring his understanding of the world. “You’ll stay with me… protect me, right?”
He could feel dampness spreading on his shoulder, the wet of his thin shirt sticking to his skin. “Yeah, Sammy. Always. I’m always gonna be here for you.” Dean’s murmurs of reassurance gradually faded away into grey.
~o0O0o~
A thin grey mattress was all that lay between him and a metal floor. His eyes snapped open, and he was greeted by the sight of bars - bars that filled his vision, that were all around him, that were holding him confined, trapped. His eyes locked on them in horror even as his body tried to huddle as far away from the abhorrent things as it could.
“Dean!” he sobbed out, fear strong enough to choke, to strangle; he couldn’t breathe past the terror, and a second helpless, choked-out cry of, “Dean!” ripped from his throat.
“I’m here, Sammy. I’m right here.” Dean rushed into the room from the kitchen, only to slow as he neared the cage. He came to a stop a couple feet out and hesitantly sank down.
The bars crisscrossed close enough to run straight lines across Sam’s view of his brother, close enough that he wouldn’t be able to reach more than the first part of his forearm through them. Sam wanted contact; he needed to touch. The sensation of being alone, cut off, itched across his skin.
He swallowed his fear and inched forward enough to extend trembling fingers out as far as possible. “Dean?” he whimpered. “Let me out. Please. God, I just need…” The bars this close, this confining, felt like molten fire, the wrongness of what they represented chafing at his skin. He wanted to rid himself of everything keeping his soul bound and trapped, wanted to scratch his ill-fitting skin completely off, his rising agitation pushed him steadily, rapidly towards desperation.
Blood sliding seductively over skin flashed through his mind, and he forced the thought away. He’d been sick, it was only a delusion he’d had. It had to be.
Except, Dad had put him in here. Why? His thoughts tumbled frantically around in his head as he sought for something to cling to, something to make sense in this madness he’d woken up to. Dad wasn’t here; Dean was. Dean was here, and Sam was still in the cage. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?” he husked out, wounded.
The thought of Dean wanting him to be in here, doing this to him on purpose, amplified the tumble of torment gathering inside his chest a hundred, a thousand fold. “I can’t stay in here, Dean!” The bars were too close; they were going to crush him with their weight. Dean had to let him out, had to see that being in here would kill him. His volume rose, reflected his suffering enough to make Dean flinch back. The small flinch felt like vindication. “Please, don’t make me stay in here. Why are you doing this me?”
Dean inched a little closer, taking Sam’s hand tightly in his own. “I’m not… God, you didn’t do anything wrong, Sammy.” Dean was shaking, his eyes wide and desperate for Sam to understand. “I swear I would if I could but… Dad said…” He seemed to be wrestling with his resolve, just long enough for Sam to feel a flare of hope, but then he slumped, strength leeching from his body.
His hand pulled away from Sam’s, and it felt like an empty void opened up in Sam’s soul. Dean’s eyes locked on the hand that he’d pulled from Sam’s. “I just can’t, Sammy. It’s too dangerous. I can’t let you out. I’m so sorry.” Dean was staring out the window across the room, trying to hide the liquid shine in his eyes from Sam, trying to come across as the strong one. It wasn’t working; Sam could always tell when Dean was covering.
“Dean?” Sam pled softly, “Please don’t be sad. I can’t… I can’t…” He couldn’t find words to describe the depth of his feelings, so he changed his question. “Where’s Dad?”
“He… he went out… to try to get some help,” Dean answered hesitantly, wiping his face angrily on his sleeve.
“Dean, I need to feel that you’re here. Please?” Sam shoved his arm further through the bars, not stopping even when the metal chafed and tore at his skin.
“Sammy, stop!” Dean ordered frantically, seizing Sam’s hand with his own and holding Sam’s arm still.
Sam clutched at his brother’s hand like a life-line. He needed Dean, needed to feel his brother close, needed Dean to wrap him up in a tight embrace and keep him safe from... The bars seemed to tighten around him, and he turned to Dean in burgeoning panic. “Please, Dean, please! You hafta let me out of here!” He didn’t care that he was begging. He’d do anything. “Please, Dean,” he sobbed again, “Please, I need out!”
He squeezed Dean’s hand tightly… maybe too tightly. Dean’s face twisted with pain. He made himself let Dean’s hand go. Dean snatched it back and cradled it against his chest, his eyes wide and hopeless.
“I’m sorry, Dean, but, please, listen to me. Help me. I’m your brother. You can’t keep me in here! You know you can’t!”
“Dad said not to…” Dean whispered, his face washed with horror. He scooted back away from the cage about a foot.
Sam flung himself at the bars, his shoulder slamming against them so hard he bounced backwards. “Please, Dean, please!” he begged frantically, “Please, don’t leave me!”
“I’m not,” Dean rasped back. “Not gonna do that, Sammy…”
Sam threw himself at the bars, once, and then again. Maybe if he threw himself against them long enough, threw himself against them hard enough to break bones, he could break enough of them to be able to fit between the gaps. Or, maybe, he would die. He didn’t care. Either option was preferable to remaining caged like this.
“Sammy, stop! Sam dimly heard Dean’s horrified yell through his frantic efforts just as Dad slammed the door open and took in the situation in less than a heartbeat. Calmly pulling out a dart gun, Dad raised it with a set look on his face.
“Dad, no!” Sam screamed, anger and the rage of betrayal ripping through his body. His Dad wouldn’t even talk to him. Dad pulled the trigger anyway; it was like he didn’t even exist anymore.
Sam didn’t fight the effects of the drugs that pulsed into his system from the dart. This time, he wanted the oblivion they brought.
~o0O0o~
He was running through the forest full out, the air rushing past him smelling like earth and trees, like life and promise. This was freedom, and his heart sang with it. He was running for no other reason than that it felt blissful, and he reveled in the happiness that coursed through his veins.
A tantalizing aroma tugged at his senses, and he slowed. The low, throbbing emptiness that tugged at his guts surged with anticipation. There was rabbit about, and the thought washed his mouth with saliva. He came to a full stop so he could look for the trail. The rabbit sat at the edge of the clearing he was in, looking at him with sad, old eyes that ripped at his soul. His stomach pulsed again, and he obeyed, leaping forward to land on the rabbit and tear at it with his mouth.
Don’t hurt it! A small, silent voice was screaming at him, demanding to be heard. The rabbit hadn’t even tried to run, hopeless in the face of its fate.
We only kill what’s evil, Sammy. A different voice, familiar, loved.
The blood hit his tongue, and both voices were drowned out by the rush of bliss that followed.
Circle of life.
Something was missing, though. He looked down at his prey, and despite the hunger that still clawed at him voraciously, he forced himself to stop. Half of the animal was still left; he looked around for the one he would share it with.
He was alone.
Sorrow clutched at him, squeezing his heart, and he howled his grief into the night. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t meant to be alone. Rage rushed in to fill the empty holes within him, and he launched himself forward, running without destination, searching for the other half of his soul.
He slammed into the barrier that came out of nowhere, knocked senseless and bruised. With a whimper, he backed away only to be stopped by a second set of bars behind him. Ignoring the slow throb of tenderized skin, he flung himself up again to run, this time at a diagonal, but the walls of his prison were waiting for him once more. They were tormenting him, playing with him, but he couldn’t stop the game. Over and over, he picked himself up and ran in a new direction. The bars were always there, implacable, and he finally collapsed in a sobbing, exhausted heap. It was too hard to fight anymore.
The smell of blood, real and intense, forced his eyes open to reveal the poorly lit cabin where Dean and his father were keeping him caged. He growled his displeasure, low and fierce. He tried to pull himself up, but the world tilted dangerously as he did, and he collapsed back down with a pained whimper.
Dad and Dean were sitting at the small table nearby. Dad had an open gash on his arm, oozing red promise, and Dean was carefully stitching it. Sam drooled, wet globs of spittle trailing down the sides of his chin. He needed… He tried pulling himself up again and actually made it a step forward before his legs somehow twisted under him, and he crashed down hard, rolling into the side of the cage and crying out in confusion.
“We should up his drugs,” Dad grumbled.
Dean had stopped stitching and was staring over at him, his brow creased in thought. “No, Dad. It’s the blood. It makes him worse. We should’ve done this outside.”
Dad didn’t even acknowledge Dean’s statement, instead getting up to pull down a small, locked safe and open it with a key he pulled from his pocket.
“Dad…”
“I heard you, Dean,” Dad barked sharply. He pulled a needle and a small vial from the case and started prepping it. Sam whimpered in the corner. He didn’t want more of the drugs; they hurt.
“Yeah, but you’re not listening to me!” Dean yelled back, matching their father’s tone and then some.
Dad slammed the drugs back into the case and turned on Dean furiously. “When you speak to me, you do it with respect, boy.” His voice was low and full of warning, his body rigid with contained rage.
Dean didn’t back down. He even took a step forward into Dad’s space. “Maybe I’d respect you more,” he gritted lowly, “if you were actually fixing the problem, instead of drugging Sam and drinking yourself into oblivion so that you can pretend he doesn’t exist!”
Dad drew his arm back, ready to strike. Sam had never seen Dad raise his fist in anger towards either of them. Dean flinched back. The fist held steady in the air, tension holding everyone frozen for several long, agonizing moments.
“Daddy? You can’t hurt Dean. This isn’t his fault.” Sam finally forced out in a voice gravelly with fatigue and disuse.
Dad crumpled in on himself, still for a moment, then strode forward and swept the bottles littering the table onto the floor with a dramatic crash. Breathing heavily, he braced his arms against the table and struggled to get his temper under control. Resolve settled over him like a mantle, and he jerked up to move back over to the drug case. “Get out of my way, boy,” Dad growled.
Dean reluctantly stepped just enough out of the way so that Dad could get past.
Grabbing the syringe once more, Dad moved back towards the cage and Sam. Sam shrank back clumsily, knowing he was too weak to fight back. “Please, Daddy, don’t,” he begged, but Dad ignored him, threw open the lock on the cage and grabbed Sam by the shoulder. The needle buried itself in his neck, and liquid fire burned through his veins. Dad released him and he fell forward, unable to hold himself up. Dad slammed the cage shut and locked it. Locking up the drugs and grabbing a half-full whiskey bottle, he stormed out, slamming the front door behind him.
Sam’s vision swam so badly that Dean looked like a blurry, grey statue standing alone and forlorn in the middle of the room. He opened his mouth, hoping to call Dean over, but he’d only begun to make the words form when oblivion swallowed him.
~o0O0o~
The drugs held him cradled in a foggy void of nothingness, unable to move, feel or even think. He was dimly aware of the passage of time. He knew in an abstract way that he was occasionally allowed to come around just enough to eat and use the bathroom before being plunged back into bleak, empty darkness without end. He ached for this non-life to end, somehow, someway, but there was nothing he could do to make that happen.
He was trapped, his existence a continuing loop of tedious nonexistence. Eventually, a single feeling crept into the fog. It was despair.
~o0O0o~
Pain ripped him from his hollow space without warning. It jackknifed through his body and threatened to tear him apart. The numbing despair ripped away from him under the onslaught, but he immediately longed for it back. His very bones grew, shifted, reformed, and he howled his fury into the night air. Tendons and ligaments tore apart, and nausea forced the contents of his stomach to bubble out. He landed on his hands and knees, retching and heaving through the pain that, please God, would surely kill him soon.
When he had nothing left in his stomach to give, words took the place of bile, and he pleaded desperately for Dean, for Dad, for anyone to come and save him. But… the pain didn’t stop. It only grew.
From his kneeling position, he could see his hands, his torso, his legs reforming, growing hair, changing into something other. For the first time, he allowed himself to put all the pieces together, and understanding ripped through him with a mind-searing thrust: He was a monster. Half man, half beast, his body suddenly stopped changing. The sudden release of tension sent him to the floor, panting for breath. It wasn’t over; he could feel it. This was the calm before the storm.
“Dean?” he begged. His voice sounded odd, alien.
“Right here, Sammy, I’m right here,” Dean choked out, sounding oddly far away.
Sam couldn’t bear the thought of being alone as the last of his humanity slipped away. “Dean,” he begged, “please, let me out. I need you to let me out!”
He heard a soft scuffle. His father’s command of, “Don’t,” echoed loudly in the otherwise silent cabin.
“Dean, please!” Sam screamed, feeling his body ramping up for more.
“I’m sorry,” Dean called back, hopeless and terrified.
Sam’s vocal cords were swelling, his throat closing to cut off his air. “Please, just… come in here,” he wheezed. “I need you to hold me, just hold me, so I’m not alone. Please, I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He wouldn’t. He could never hurt his brother. At the core of his being, he knew that to be true.
Dean didn’t answer. Pain blossomed, first in his heart and spreading down to his stomach, then out his extremities, filling his head. It grew until there wasn’t room for anything else, and he lost himself in the river of it.
~o0O0o~
Moonlight streamed into the room from the window, the heavy drapes pulled back for the first time. The light played over his body, comforting, and filled him with warmth and life… and hope. Carefully, gradually, he stretched out his legs. Every muscle in his body ached and was weak from disuse. He had no idea how long he’d been confined in this prison of his father’s making; the time before and the time to come all blended together in his mind. His body pulled strength from the cleansing light that bathed him, and the sharp, heady smell of blood pulled his eyes all the way open.
Dean.
Dean was crouched down next to the bars, his hand bloody on the lock from his too tight grip. He was close enough to touch.
Sam could touch. His breath caught, almost doubting what his senses were telling him, but he pulled himself up anyway, swallowing the cries of pain from his protesting body.
Loss, failure, hope, self-blame all flowed strong and confused through his brother’s being. Sam inched closer, until his nose was almost touching Dean’s face.
Dean was still, transfixed by the blood that flowed heavy from his hand, heavy enough to trickle down to his sleeve and seep into the cloth.
Sam couldn’t allow the smell of sadness and fear to continue radiating from his brother’s rigid posture. That scent tore at his heart, ripped it open and lay it bare and exposed. Sam would do anything to make it stop, except… He didn’t know what he could do. He seemed to have lost the ability to make Dean do anything as soon as his father had put him in the cage. He huffed out a breath, willing Dean to look at him. Connect with him on a level that went beyond sadness.
Sam felt a moment of triumph when Dean looked up and their eyes locked together.
Please, Dean. Sam willed his brother to finally do what Sam needed Dean to do, had needed Dean to do since this whole nightmare began. Please, you need to let me go. Death would be a far kinder end than this, don’t you understand?
Dean was suddenly an economy of action, unlocking the cage with a steady hand and throwing the door of it open wide. The front door was clear. He could leap to freedom before his brother pulled the trigger… but he didn’t want freedom without Dean. He wanted release.
Dean held his arm out, capturing Sam’s attention with the decadent, rich smell of his blood. For the first time, Sam considered that his brother might have a third option in mind.
No! Fear held him still for a moment, and he fought against all his instincts. He didn’t want to turn Dean into a monster, didn’t want to take his brother away from his father.
Too late. Sam broke against the pull of what his brother offered. He hated himself, but he wanted too much to be denied. The wolf inside him whispered sweet promises. He was not as much a monster as his father feared. He was offering Dean a chance to be more than human. Better.
He kept his mouth closed at first, his inner struggle not quite over as he nudged against Dean’s smooth, silky, beckoning skin. But, he had almost no reserves left to fight, and his tongue darted out, stroking across the salty taste of Dean. He found the blood quickly, and it filled him with power as he lapped at it. Healing energy pulsed through him with the connection, making him feel truly alive for the first time in… forever. Every urge in his body was screaming at him to take Dean now! No, no, he chanted to himself. But there was no way he could do the right thing and pull away. None. That would be their undoing.
“Come on, Sammy,” Dean urged, calling Sam home. Sam’s resolve broke, and he opened his mouth wider and bit down. Echoing across the tidal wave of claiming that flowed over him, a single word sang, “Mine!”
They would never be alone again.
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