I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down
Title: I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down
Author: 27_jaredjensen
Characters/pairing: Sam, Dean, Lucifer, Castiel
Word count: 1,145
A/N: Written for the ohsam comment fic meme for the prompt at the end.
A/N2: I used some dialogue from an episode (7.17), a line from a cool book for the title, and the characters from the mind of a beautiful, beautiful person.
:::
“I’m serious. Sammy is definitely the name of the dumbest pig. He built his house out of straw.”
“I’m telling Dad!”
Dean caught Sam’s arm just as he was about to leap from the bed and yanked him back. Sam tumbled against the pillows and struggled for a minute in Dean’s grip, then finally gave up and relaxed, breathing hard.
“You’re s’posed to be asleep. You’ll get us both in trouble.”
Sam wiggled around until he was tucked under Dean’s arm.
“Fine. Which pig are you?”
“I’m the pig who protected the other two, duh.”
“The one who built his house out of bricks?”
“Yep.”
“Is Dad the stick pig?”
Dean shrugged and gave his little brother a light thump on the chest.
“Go to sleep, Sammy.”
Sam pulled the covers to his chin and turned pleading eyes to Dean.
“Will you read it to me one more time? Please?”
Dean rolled his eyes even as he turned back to the first page, and Sam snuggled closer, lifting the blanket to cover them both, eyelids already drooping shut.
“Once upon a time, there were three little pigs…”
:::
There’s a light, a faint reddish glow straight ahead. There’s always a light. Sometimes he goes toward it, catches sight of a door illuminated in the distance. Sometimes it lets him approach, and he sees that the door has no handle, and he’s sweating when he finally reaches it, pounding and kicking with all his might, but it always ends with him in a heap on the ground and bloody fingernails and splinters of wood in his skin. Sometimes, it stays in the distance, no matter how fast or how long he runs toward it.
Sometimes, when he sees the light, he turns in the opposite direction and goes further into the darkness.
:::
Sam spends the first week in the cage screaming.
The sounds he makes are cries for help at first, fear and pleading echoing off concrete walls loud enough that someone surely will hear. He shouts for Dean, for Cas, for Bobby, for anyone, until his voice is nearly gone and his throat is so sore that swallowing brings tears to his eyes.
Even then, he doesn’t stop yelling. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the shadow of a person, never in his full sight but always there, always watching, always listening as he screams.
After several days he isn’t sure why he’s still going, only that if he stops he won’t be able to start again, and he needs desperately for someone to hear him. And then, there’s a snap of someone’s fingers, and his voice is gone. Something touches his shoulder and he turns around with a hard punch, fist landing solidly in the perpetrator’s face. Lucifer takes a step back and holds Sam’s fist, crushing it between his fingers until the bones break with an audible snap, and Sam opens his mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.
He’s still trying when Lucifer heals his hand and wraps his throbbing fingers in a bag of frozen peas.
:::
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Sam flinches and brings up shaking hands to cover his ears, but he still hears the firecrackers loud and clear.
Pop.
He squeezes his eyes shut. His mind fills with images of sparks in the darkness and his own skin on fire.
Pop.
The flames turn to a burst of light and brilliant color in a sky full of stars that illuminate a field, a black muscle car, Dean’s arm around his shoulder. Lucifer laughs long and hard.
Pop.
It’s hard to believe you were the guy that saved the world once.
:::
If he runs far enough in one direction, he reaches a wall. The second he touches it it starts to transform, cold metal slipping into his grip. He tries the other three walls and finds the same, four sides of bars, like a cage. He pulls hard and the bars give. Maybe they’ll bend far enough for him to slip through.
He’s so caught up in using what little strength he has left that he doesn’t realize his hands are on fire until he smells burning flesh. The metal sizzles, glowing red with heat, but he’s so fucking close and he can’t let go, not when he’s almost there.
He’s at the bars for days, until his skin is charred and blistering, until he feels Lucifer throwing firecrackers at his back to add to the pain.
When he turns around, a hand lashes out, sharp fingernails scarping at his burning face until blood runs into his eyes. He tries to back away, but everything spirals into blackness, and when he comes to, he’s on his back, naked and shivering and covered in ice.
There’s a hand playing at his hair, and he’s too weak to push it away.
:::
He doesn’t want to listen to Dean tell him that he’s searching for a way to fix him.
He doesn’t want to get angry, doesn’t want Dean to get angry, because angry isn’t getting them anywhere and he doesn’t have the energy to get pissed off.
He knows there’s nothing left. He knows he’s going to die.
:::
He’s so cold his teeth are chattering. Something falls across his skin, startlingly soft and warm, and he curls up in it even as his mind is screaming at him to get it off. His hands are shaking hard. He clasps them together and closes his eyes. A hand brushes over his forehead, the sound of an opening book is in his ear.
Let me read you a bedtime story, Sammy.
:::
The first little pig built himself a house of straw.
“Who fucking cares,” Sam mumbles, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes. He ignores Lucifer’s resulting laugh and tries to focus on his brother, who’s glaring at Castiel, hands in fists at his sides.
“I cannot, Dean. Sam just…”
The rest of Castiel’s words are lost to Sam as Lucifer turns a page in the book he’s holding in his lap, the sound crisp and sudden, like tearing paper. He flinches but doesn’t look over.
I see that third little pig was smart. Went out and got some bricks.
Sam closes his eyes and listens to the pounding in his skull.
“What the hell do you mean you can’t?”
Dean’s voice rings out in the small room, and Sam winces, the pain in his head nearly unbearable.
“I mean,” Castiel replies, “there’s nothing left to rebuild.”
“Why not?”
“Because it crumbled. The pieces got crushed to dust by whatever’s happening inside his head right now.”
In his ear, Lucifer chuckles softly, so close Sam can feel his breath, his voice a whisper that raises the hair on Sam’s arms.
I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down.
:::
Prompt: Did you notice the scene where Lucifer's reading Sam a bedtime story? Between Cas' first attempt to heal Sam and the transfer of crazy? That happened in the cage too. At unpredictable times, cruelty would turn to kindness and Lucifer would comfort Sam like Dean used to when they were kids. At first Sam resisted, but when you've no hope, you take what you can get.