The Glass Vial | Chapter Two
Chapter Two: A Gift
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It’s been one week since Sam’s wall came crumbling down, and progress is small. Dean feels like they make it two steps forward and have to go back three. He’s opening Bobby’s front door to take out the trash one morning when he sees a small object on the doorstep, glistening in the sunlight, with a tag on it. He looks around the scrapyard, listens for any sound that indicates anyone is there, but it’s deserted, as far as he can tell at least. He bends down to retrieve it, eyes still scanning around the scrapyard as he does, and picks it up. It’s a small glass vial full of a silver liquid. Around its neck is a tag, with Sam written on it in careful, gold letters. Dean eyes it suspiciously, putting the rubbish down just outside the door and walking back inside with the vial. If somebody thinks he’s just gonna let Sam drink this mysterious shit that turned up on their doorstep, they are sorely mistaken. Curious, he pulls the stopper off and takes a small sniff. He can’t quite put his finger on the smell, but it reminds him of something clean and warm and bright, like summer mornings. Regardless, this is some creepy shit, so he walks into the kitchen, tips the liquid down the drain, and chucks the glass vial into the kitchen bin.
He starts to make some warm milk, hoping Sam will drink it, and doesn’t think about the vial for the rest of the day.
***
The next day Bobby walks in to Sam’s room while Dean is making a tower out of a pack of cards, and puts down another glass vial on the table. He looks at Dean, and crosses his arms.
“Care to explain this?”
Dean frowns, picks it up, and flips the tag over. This time, it reads: Sam - drink. It will help. He glances over to Bobby who’s glaring at him.
“Hey,” Dean says, shrugging, and knocking his card tower over as he slams the vial down with a little more force than is necessary. “I don’t know who put it there.”
“Why, when I go to chuck a banana peel in the bin, do I see a glass bottle, just like this one, with Sam’s name on?”
Dean tries to give him his best innocent look, but Bobby just shakes his head at him and Dean runs a hand over his face, sighing. “I found one on your doorstep yesterday, but if somebody thinks I’m just letting Sam drink - whatever the hell this is - then they don’t know me very well.”
Bobby sits down opposite him and picks the glass vial up, turning it over in his hands. Dean watches him and looks over at Sam, who’s sleeping peacefully, for the time being.
“Any idea what it is?” he asks, turning back to Bobby.
Bobby opens it and peers inside, before tipping it in the air and letting a drop fall onto the surface of the camping table. The silver droplet lands silently and sits there. Nothing smokes, nothing burns, and when Bobby pokes it with his finger nothing happens either.
“Doesn’t look like it’s harmful right off the bat,” he says, sniffing it.
Dean crosses his arms over his chest, defiant. “Still,” he says. “Not giving it to him.”
“No, I agree with you,” Bobby says, “but this doesn’t look like it could hurt you. I’d have to do some tests on it, sure, but this could be a good thing, Dean.”
“A good thing? Are you kidding me?” Dean asks, shaking his head. “When do we ever just get good things?”
“I’m just saying,” Bobby starts, placing it down on the table in front of them. “You don’t have to throw it away just because you think you should or because it could be dangerous. Fact is, Sam’s not well, and if he’s getting better, it’s slowly. Maybe - maybe, Dean - we could drive it a try.”
Dean glares at him before snatching it from the table. He rolls it it between his fingers a few times. If he’s giving this to Sam, then he’s trying it first, and that’s that. He takes the top off, takes a deep breath, and then swallows a mouthful.
“Ugh,” he says, putting the stopper back on. “Slimy.”
At first, nothing happens. It’s just like any other drink. And then, suddenly, he starts feeling a warmness spread through him, as if somebody is standing behind his shoulder, protecting him. It’s a jarring sensation and he shakes his head a little to clear it.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “That was weird.”
“What?” Bobby asks, narrowing his eyes. “That weird juice give you the heebies?”
Dean picks it up again. He feels like there’s something familiar about this, but he can’t place it. “I feel fine. Good, even. It just made me... warm?”
“Whiskey warm or cuddling with a nice lady warm?”
Dean cocks an eyebrow at him and Bobby shrugs.
“Cuddling warm, definitely,” Dean says. “Not that I cuddle or anything.”
Bobby rolls his eyes and picks the vial up again before slipping it in his pocket. “Alright then. Guess we just wait and see if anything bad happens.”
It probably wasn’t the best way to go about testing the strange liquid, but Dean nods. “Guess we do.”
Sam starts making low groaning sounds again, with halted breathing and small cries, and Dean moves over to the side of the bed in three long strides. “Hey, Sammy,” he says, pushing his hair back from his forehead, sticky with sweat. “It’s okay.”
“Dean!” Sam screams out, and Dean shakes Sam’s shoulder a little to get him to snap out of it, anything to stop him having nightmares.
Sam’s face is contorting into pain, and Dean talks to him, tries to get him into lucidity. It doesn’t work - it never does - but he always tries.
Bobby watches on with sympathy but doesn’t get up and come over. There’s never anything they can do to get Sam to snap out of this.
“Fuck,” Dean grits out, letting his head hang on the mattress. “Do you...” he pauses and compulsively swallows, and rests a hand on Sam’s chest. “Do you think that stuff will help him?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby says. “I can’t give you any more than that, son. I don’t exactly got a rulebook on what do when an angel breaks somebody’s head, but we can do some research. We can look through some books, see if there’s anything that resembles this stuff in any of the hoodoo remedies. You can check the voodoo ones just to be sure.”
“Okay,” Dean says, letting out a slow breath. Sam is whimpering and Dean gently pats his chest a few times. “Let’s start researching.”
***
That evening, Bobby is still deep in the books, and Dean is by Sam’s side again. He takes the washcloth and dips it in the bowl of warm water, before he wrings it out and dabs it over Sam’s forehead. He gently moves down the line of his nose and along his cheeks. Sam lets out a small sigh in his sleep and Dean pauses, waiting to see if he’s going to start screaming, but nothing happens and Dean submerges the cloth again.
“When you’re better we’re gonna go on a trip, okay? I don’t care where, man, I’m just getting tired of Bobby’s little house. Give him a break, too.”
He washes Sam’s jawline and chin, and very gently dabs at his eyelids. Sam doesn’t wake, just continues to sleep and Dean continues to talk to him. He finds it comforting, more comforting than sitting in the heavy silence.
“We can go anywhere you want to go. And we don’t have to go far, if you don’t want to. Baby steps at first. I’ll go wherever you want to, Sammy. You just let me know where.”
He moves down to washing Sam’s neckline and collarbones, and then sets the washcloth down and brushes his hair from his forehead, gently with his fingertips.
“Shit, I’ll even get on a plane if you want to go somewhere out of the country. You just - you just come back to me, okay? Then we’ll do whatever you want.”
Dean puts the washcloth back in the bowl and stands up. He stays there for a few minutes, watching Sam’s steady breathing, before leaving the room and leaving the door open behind him.
***
In the middle of the night Dean wakes up to the sound of whimpering, and he rolls out of bed, tired and agitated, and walks over to Sam. He’s sleep deprived, he’s exhausted, he just wants Sam to go an entire night without waking up and calling out for him. Shit, he’d do anything for the kid, but he wants a few good solid hours of shuteye once and awhile.
Still, he really would do anything for him, so he kneels down on the dusty carpet and places a hand on his chest. There are tears trickling from beneath his shut eyelids, rolling down his cheeks, and Dean grabs a tissue from the bedside cabinet and wipes them away.
“It’s okay, Sam,” he says, scrunching the tissue up and throwing it across the room, watches as it bounces against the wall and just misses the bin. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
Dean isn’t surprised when his words have no effect.
“Lucifer, no, no. I’m sorry, I won’t, I’m sorry.”
These are some of the more painful times, listening to Sam bargain with Lucifer, listening to him not scream but whisper, as if he’s too afraid to raise his voice. Sometimes it’s Michael, but the quiet terror is normally associated with the devil, and nothing Dean ever says can snap him out of these nightmares.
He does what he can, and that consists of climbing up on the bed and pulling his brother close. Dean’s half-glad Sam isn’t lucid for this times, doesn’t want him to know he practically cuddles him when he cries, but it’s an instinct that’s been there for nearly all of his life, and he can’t argue against instinct.
Sam doesn’t quieten down, constantly muttering and whispering about the pain, the torture, pleading, crying, begging for it to stop. The sun is rising, light seeping through the thin curtains when Sam finally stops and falls into a motionless sleep again. Dean feels all his muscles relax and he closes his eyes. He wants to sleep, he really fucking does, but something else is now clinging to the back of his mind, and coupled with the fact half his body is numb, he slowly peels himself from beneath Sam and creeps out of the room.
He obviously hasn’t died, and so figures that maybe that weird, silver liquid isn’t as harmful as he’d first thought. He’s up early enough though to maybe catch whoever’s doing it, and so he goes to the front door, slowly opens it, and sits outside on the front step. He could hide, choose a vantage point and wait for the person to sneak in and out again, but he wants to catch them and confront them in the act. There’s nothing on the doorstep yet, so he just waits, getting comfortable in the crisp morning air. He looks up into the sky and sees a few clouds, but the sun has already started to shine and it’s clear it’s going to be a nice day. The junkyard is quiet, and so is the house behind him. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the back of the door, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face.
He rests there for five minutes and opens his eyes, tired but content. At least for a little while. And it seems he’s still alone, no sign of--
“Holy shit!” he shouts, looking at the space beside him. There, on the step, is another glass vial, with the same silver liquid in. Dean grabs it and jumps up, looking around the broken and decaying cars. He lets out a slow breath and looks up into the sky.
“This is the work of you dicks isn’t it?”
The sky is as quiet as it’s always been, and Dean is left in the silence, still gripping the vial tight in his hand. He reads the label, which this time says: Dean - give some to your brother. It will help with the nightmares.
Dean glares at it, scrutinizing the writing.
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean says, as he walks into the house. Bobby looks up from his desk, and pauses in his reading. “Can we do a tracking spell or something to find where this came from?”
Bobby picks up his glass of whiskey and drinks some before standing up and walking over. He takes the card out of Dean’s hand and stares at it. “Well, we can try. I doubt it will work, though.”
“Why not?” Dean asks.
“If whoever - whatever - is doing this doesn’t want to be found, then they ain’t gonna be. Not if they’re powerful enough.”
“Like an angel,” Dean states, and Bobby stares at him for a long moment before nodding.
“Yeah. Like an angel.”
Dean shifts uneasily and brings the vial up to look at. “Maybe we shouldn’t--”
“Hey,” Bobby says, shaking his head at him. “This is the only thing we got. Might be the only chance we’ve got of helping your brother.”
Dean turns around and walks into Sam’s room, Bobby behind him.
“Think about it,” Bobby continues. “The longer we wait, the worse he could get. The truth is we don’t know what’s happening inside his melon. This could be exactly what he needs.”
“Fine,” Dean says, tone sharp. “He gets this bottle. If something happens--”
“Nothing bad is going to happen, Dean. You said it yourself - you felt fine after drinking some. You felt good after just a tiny drop.”
Dean wants to argue back, tell Bobby he only had a tiny bit, that this much could hurt Sam. But at the same time, they’re running out of options, and Dean wants his brother back. He wants his brother back more than he can stand.
“Okay. We’ll do this.”
He walks over to the bed and Bobby helps him lift Sam up, who only murmurs in response. Dean gently lowers his jaw and Sam complies easily, and Bobby keeps his mouth open. Dean slowly pours some in, tilting Sam’s head back so he swallows it, and does this slowly for the next ten minutes until he’s finished the vial.
“Now we wait,” Bobby says, sitting down at the camping table and picking up the deck of cards. Dean brushes a piece of hair from Sam’s forehead and nods in assent, before walking over to the camping table and sitting opposite.
“Deal ‘em.”
Bobby smiles at him and starts to shuffle the cards.
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