Turn, Turn, Turn; for sowell
Title: Turn, Turn, Turn
Author: Jeanny
Recipient: sowell
Rating: PG-13 - please see warnings
Word-Count: ~7,000
Warnings: Spoilers only through the first episode of Season 3. Mild bondage, violence, angst, gratuitous vomiting, profanity and, um, cannibalism? Lots of hurt with probably not enough comfort. Not a death fic, despite the opening line.
Author’s Note: Title is from the song by The Byrds. Thanks for all the fun prompts, sowell!
Summary: The third time Sam wakes up all he knows is he’s alive, he has no idea where Dean is, and he’s trapped with a wendigo he has no way to kill.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The first time Sam wakes up, all he knows is he’s dead. And based on the pain probably in hell.
There’s a flutter of fear, but mostly he feels resigned, even a bit relieved. If he’s dead, maybe that means that his brother’s clear of the deal; hell, maybe that’s what killed him! It doesn’t matter. He can’t really think and he’s pretty sure his brain’s going to ooze out of his ears anyway.
Dean going to be furious with him, Sam knows the feeling, but it’s not like he wanted to die. He wanted to find a way to save his brother and himself, but it’s fine, he can live with this. Or not, because, dead. Right.
Except now his brain’s settling down from about-to-ooze and he’s starting to think he’s maybe not dead. For one thing there’s the smell. It’s not sulphuric or smoky like he would expect hell to smell, and not like that perfume Jess wore, which always was heaven to Sam. But more like dirt, some vague kind of dank smell like stagnant water, and the faint iron tang of blood. If this is the scent of the afterlife, Sam is unimpressed.
So maybe he’s dead, and maybe he isn’t, but it should be pretty easy to confirm either way. He just needs to open his eyes. His eyes are not on board with this new plan. Apparently someone glued his lids shut while he was dead. There’s a distant screeching sound, like a thousand nails on a chalkboard growing louder and louder, but he can barely hear anything over the buzzing in own head. The floor’s no longer cool beneath his cheek, and the flash of white behind his glued eyelids makes tears start to flow or maybe his brain’s oozing out through his eyes now, and then there’s nothing.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The second time Sam wakes up, all he knows is he’s almost sure he’s not dead, his brain may still be in his head miraculously enough, and he has no idea where Dean is.
It’s that last thought that his eyes fly open on. The tears must have loosened up the glue from before or something. It feels like rocks and pebbles are digging into his back, so he’s pretty sure he’s lying on the ground. His foot brushes something solid, maybe a wall, and he can’t see the ceiling because it’s too dim and his vision’s too fuzzy. It’s not pitch black, so there’s some kind of light source; he thinks he sees shadows flickering out of the corner of his eye. It makes him dizzy if he tries to watch them, a little sick to his stomach. Or that might be the major head trauma; Sam’s had enough concussions in his life to know this one’s bad. Hospital bad, even, though that seems unlikely to happen in the near future. Not until he finds Dean at least.
He’s alone, and Dean would never leave him alone, not injured, not in a strange place. For a brief heart-stopping moment he thinks Dean’s in hell; but it’s not time yet, it can’t be. Sam has to believe he’d know. So Dean’s just not here, which means he’s probably looking for Sam, and he can’t find him. If Dean can’t find Sam, Sam will just have to get up and find Dean.
Unfortunately this will require movement.
Sam thinks sitting up is a good place to start, but right away there’s a new wrinkle: his hands are tied. They’re tied in front of him, not behind him, but Sam still can’t believe he hadn’t noticed before now. Tied up can mean nothing good; his mind flashes briefly to the Benders, to Gordon Walker, to being tied up at Bobby’s with Meg burning him from the inside. Panic makes the vague nausea flare and a horrible stench fills his nostrils. Sam manages to turn his head back to the side, hoping he’ll be able to void his stomach contents without choking.
Sam finds himself eye to eye with a monster.
His mind supplies wendigo pain and worry and Dean ricocheting through his skull, when it takes all his effort to keep his stomach calm and intact. He swallows against sourness in his mouth and wonders if he actually did end up throwing up on the wendigo. He wonders if that’s why it’s not eating him yet. Sam hopes so; he wants to see Dean’s face when he adds that to Dad’s journal. ‘To fend off wendigo attack, spew at will.’
Of course, Dean might ask what kind of hunter lets a wendigo get right in his face like that without having a clue it was there. Especially with the way its stink fills his nostrils and his unsettled stomach insists he not breathe anymore. Sam’s positive the wendigo couldn’t have been in the room when he woke up before, even the few fractured memories he has tell him that much. It bothers him now that he remembers so little.
//A really good cup of coffee, Dean giving equal love to his breakfast and the curvy young waitress. A newspaper article, people killing loved ones in Virginia, insisting afterwards they were monsters. Dean makes a crass remark about Virginia being for lovers that he half tunes out. Paying for breakfast, returning to the car as Dean grins at him and cranks up the radio. Sam trying to muster up a smile for his brother but all he can feel is more time slipping away...//
He can’t remember if they even made it to Virginia. For all he knows the hunt he’s remembering could have been weeks or months ago, a thought which makes his gut churn even more. He tries and tries but it’s all a big blank and trying to force the memories just seems to make them slip further away. Sam’s nothing if not determined, but when white flashes start to spark beneath his eyelids he knows he has to let it go. Right now he certainly has more pressing concerns.
After a few minutes hearing nothing other than his own breathing, Sam chances opening his eyes. He’s lying on his side with his face to the wall. Did he roll over or did the wendigo move him? He decides it doesn’t matter; he needs to save his remaining brain cells for escaping, finding his brother and eventually plugging up the annoying holes in his memory.
It’s time to take a look around, get his bearings, look for the wendigo’s exit as well as any others and find a way to kill the freak that’s trapped him here. He uses his bound hands to push off the wall and falls onto his back. While parts of his body, especially his head and shoulder, lodge a vehement protest, the first thing he sees, almost directly above his head, makes the pain and effort more than worthwhile.
There’s a torch on the wall. It’s anchored in a simple sheath, sputtering flames. Sam smiles as the undercurrent of his thoughts changes to hope and escape and Dean; he tries to keep them from buzzing him straight back into unconsciousness. He’s itching to just get up, get to the torch and get away but his training tells him he’s got to wait and move when ready, especially injured against an opponent with the strength and speed he knows the wendigo possesses.
Sam’s not unused to quickly assessing and triaging injuries. The hunter is certain his busted head really is the worst of it; he’s covered with shallow scrapes, bumps and bruises but none of that looks serious. There might be a deeper cut on his shoulder; he can’t see it but he feels the sting when he moves his arm and his fingertips come back bloody when he touches the tear in his shirt. It’s not an alarming amount of blood, though; it’ll keep until later. His hands have gone pretty numb but he can still flex his fingers well enough so he thinks there’s no issue getting untied won’t fix.
He has no other weapons, which frankly sucks; he isn’t as obsessed with such things as Dean, but he knows he’ll miss the knife his brother had given him for a long ago birthday. He usually keeps it on him these days but it’s gone. He tells himself there’s no point in worrying over it; it would have been helpful to remove the bindings but not much else.
The room’s a rectangle, long and narrow with only three walls. Sam thinks he might be taller than the room is wide. It’s open to some kind of hallway but it’s too dark for him to see much, especially with his compromised vision a la concussion.
Slowly and with care, Sam rolls himself back to face the wall. A few contortions later and he’s managed to get upright, and from there it’s surprisingly easy to remove the torch even with his hands still bound. He almost fumbles and drops it when his head starts swimming from the change of elevation, but he’s not a Winchester for nothing and he knows it’s his only chance. He contemplates leaving this space; he’s cornered here, which is not good in a fight where you know you’re out of your weight class, but he doesn’t know how far he’ll be able to go before he loses consciousness again, even now it’s taking everything to stay vertical. His only chance is the element of surprise; the wendigo thinks he’s bound and helpless.
That part of the plan, at least, works. The wendigo freezes when it sees Sam. The creature’s glowing crimson eyes widen comically, but it recovers before Sam can move, more quickly than he’d hoped. It charges him--he’d forgotten how fast they are--and as he meet its attack Sam already fears the outcome. He just hadn’t realized how much his own reflexes had slowed with pain and fatigue. He does get one blow with the torch to its chest, it howls in pain, but it’s not enough to disable it or do any real damage and it doesn’t retreat. In embarrassingly short order his weapon’s been knocked from his hands to sputter harmlessly out on the ground and it’s clutching his shoulders. All he can see in the near total darkness is glowing eyes as it shakes him like a rag doll--he’d forgotten how strong they are, too--and his head hits the stone with a crack that sounds so final as the world drops away.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The fourth time Sam wakes up he hears his brother’s voice.
“Sammy! I’m sorry.”
“D-Dean?” Sam’s eyes fly open, he’s sitting up against a wall in the same spot he fell, he thinks. He knows his vision’s for shit, but there are red eyes everywhere like he’s in a room full of wendigos. He tries to focus on one of them, difficult because they don’t seem to stay still, swirling and swooping and making him dizzy. He remembers the wendigo’s talent for mimicry and blinks back tears. Dammit, he just wants his brother.
“Sammy! I’m sorry,” one wendigo says in his brother’s voice. Sam trembles; injury and loss and cold fury.
“Stop,” he grinds out, his voice dry with dust and disuse, “You don’t use his voice!”
“Sammy! I’m sorry,” replies the wendigo, if he concentrates there’s only one of them now. That should be encouraging but it isn’t, not when he’s stuck listening to it mock his need so cruelly. “Sammy!”
“Don’t you get it? That trick doesn’t work when people can see you!”
“I’m sorry,” the wendigo replies, and the real grief in his brother’s voice leaves Sam curled up on himself, his arms covering his face, his tied hands over his head.
“Dammit, Dean, just please don’t be dead,” he whispers, a soft prayer to the only one he has true faith in.
“Sammy!” replies his brother’s voice.
“Shut up! So help me I will end you if you k-killed my brother!” Sam growls, dropping his arms to glare at his nemesis.
The wendigo rocks back on its heels, gives the hunter a look that practically speaks, ‘you already tried to kill me, stupid,’ and moves towards him. Sam flinches away; he’s pressed to the wall and there’s nowhere really to go and he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it from hurting him. Nothing that could hurt more than what it’s already doing. He knows his family will be disappointed in him for it but he can’t stop himself from turning his face away and closing his eyes.
Something heavy, plastic and cool is in his hands. Sam looks down in surprise at the sealed bottle of water and back up at the creature, who grunts expectantly.
“What...I don’t...what?” Sam stammers eloquently. He eyes the bottle in his hands like it’s a puzzle he can’t solve, but now that he has it he realizes he’s never been so thirsty in his life. It’s not the easiest thing to unscrew the cap with his hands tied but he manages it, and gulps down half the bottle, too good, too much, too fast. He feels it threaten to make a reappearance and stops, swallowing hard, keeping the liquid down by force of will. The wendigo growls and he freezes, holding the bottle up uncertainly. It is instantly snatched away, a blow to his shoulder knocking him down to punctuate the creature’s displeasure. Sam slowly sits himself back up, muttering, “Yeah, got it, you’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry. Sammy!” it replies as it shreds the plastic bottle. Drops of water scatter but most of the water had already been swallowed, and Sam thinks ‘wendigo recycling’ somewhat hysterically. He feels floaty and disconnected, but it’s better than dead. The wendigo menaces over him, clawed hands inches from his throat, but it’s not making any more moves towards him. He feels like it’s waiting for something Sam has no way to understand.
“M-m-my brother’s gonna find us and he’s gonna kick your ass!” he stammers. The wendigo’s expression is odd, what Sam would have called helpless on a more human face. Sam feels like he’s shaking apart, this monster won’t stop imitating his brother and he can’t kill it and he doesn’t know what to do. He holds his hands up in supplication, “Please don’t say it again, just...please!”
“I’m sorry,” it says again, sad and gruff, and Sam wants to cover his ears but he can’t with his hands tied and he’s losing his mind. He’s losing it.
“Stop! God! Don’t you understand?” Sam shouts at it, “I can’t h-hear his voice, it’s not real, it’s not h-him and I don’t know if he’s even...if he’s dead and I d-didn’t save him! I didn’t have time and he’s going to hell and he...he can’t! Not ever! He can’t say he’s sorry and leave me alone!”
Sam covers his face in his hands and takes a shuddering breath. He totally blames the wendigo piling on the head injuries for his loss of control. Two deep breaths later and he’s reined it in enough to attain some semblance of calm. The wendigo is still staring at him, but he turns away toward the wall and using his arms and shoulders starts to inch his way up, getting his calves and finally his feet underneath him. John Winchester would kick his ass for turning his back on this thing but Sam can’t find it in him to care anymore. He figures if it’s going to attack him it will, whether he’s facing it or not, and at this point he might prefer a direct attack to this confusing impasse.
Nothing happens. When he finally turns around, leaning back against the wall to take some pressure off shaky legs, the monster is still in the same exact spot as before. Sam knows he wasn’t exactly breaking the Guinness record for crawling up a wall. There are too many things here that are confusing and painful and overwhelming and Sam’s had enough.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing. I don’t get what you want from me,” he complains, gesturing around, “and I don’t get this place. It’s like the dungeon at Hogwart’s, and I don’t think either of us is supposed to be here. I know this isn’t a wendigo lair. There’re no bones, or half-chewed people so this can’t be where you normally, uh, hold your meals.”
The wendigo says nothing in response to Sam’s musings, just shifts away almost uncertainly. Sam considers what it might do if he bolted for the exit, but he doesn’t want to risk this fragile detente to try. He’d rather keep trying to unravel the mystery, because he knows in his heart if he can it’s the way home, the way to Dean.
“It’s like you’re trying to help me.” The wendigo glares and gives a tetchy huff, as if irritated that it was found showing a kindness. It’s an oddly familiar gesture and Sam pauses before continuing. “Maybe you need me for something, though I can’t think what you’d want me for other than eating...bottle opener? Advice on hygiene? Fashion tips?”
“Sammy!” the creature snaps back.
“Look, if you can’t stop doing that just...maybe just stomp once for yes and twice for no.” It’s back in his face again in an instant, a bruising grip on his arms and Sam hastily tries to calm it before it knocks him silly again or finally decides it’s mealtime. “Sorry, sorry, I...guess I’m channeling my brother.” Rather than soothe it, that remark gets him shaken again before it releases him, arms raised before it turns away with a snort of frustration. Again Sam feels that sense of familiarity, but pain and exasperation make his temper finally flare. “Give me a break, in case you haven’t noticed I’m not at my best! Next time I play twenty questions with a monster I’ll try not to have major head trauma.” Sam’s legs choose that moment to decide they no longer want to hold him and he collapses to his knees. The wendigo looks down at him, its body language uncertain. Sam’s head feel too heavy and he lets his chin drop. He can’t help a cry of surprise when the creature at the hair on top and yanks none too gently. Sam flinches away when its other clawed hand cups his jaw, forcing the hunter into close eye contact.
“I’m sorry.”
“I only want to hear that from my brother.” Sam can’t look away from the blazing red eyes. He sees something that nearly stops his heart, a minute flash of green that’s all too familiar. “No, no, no no it can’t be...it can’t be...”
“Sammy! I’m sorry.” It releases him, rocking back on its heels and this time it is Sam gripping its skeletal arms as all the clues start to coalesce into a horrible truth.
“Dean? Oh God, Dean is it you?” The wendigo’s hand moves over Sam’s head in a parody of patting it like he’s a prize pupil, but thankfully doesn’t actually hit him again. Sam looks down and the burn on its chest looks angry, accusing. “Damn, I hurt you.” He releases its arms, reaches towards the wound tentatively but it gracefully rises from its crouch and turns away, looking back only when it reaches the opening. The thing that Sam is more and more certain is his brother transformed gestures to Sam to follow and he staggers behind it in a daze, his mind whirling with possibilities.
“How could this happen? Do you know where we are? What we need to do to fix...this, fix you?” Sam trails off as the move into the corridor. There are torches providing enough light to follow, and Sam sees five uneven grooves running along the wall. He thinks he knows what the screeching sound from earlier was. They make a few turns, the corridors all look the same, all look like the original room he found himself in. “This place, it’s like a maze. You were somewhere else, before? Or you were with me and you tried to find a way out, marked a path so you could find your way back.”
“Sammy!” Sam sighs, rubs at his eyes to try to force away the worst of the headache that still plagues him. He still feels like his thoughts are struggling through a sea of molasses.
“You’re like a broken record, dude, you know that? I don’t know if you even know what you’re saying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Right, okay, I’m just trying to get this. The last thing I remember was leaving Illinois, that’s all, there’s nothing else. God, I just, I’ve just got to remember what we were doing!” Sam’s knees threaten to buckle once more, they’re moving so fast, everything’s too fast. They turn another corner; everything looks the same except for his brother’s marks. Making the walls was smart, but wendigos aren’t mindless beasts; Sam’s not sure how much of his brother is in control. “Whatever happened to you, are you, um, you? I mean, are you human and you just look like a wendigo? Are you a wendigo that just used to be Dean? Are you a Deandigo?” Sam starts to chuckle somewhat hysterically. “Sorry I’m...whoa!”
Sam’s traitorous legs declare break time without warning. He’s yanked upwards before he can fall, pulled into odoriferous arms. It’s like a parody of one of his brother’s hugs, except he hears a strange wet snuffling sound near his shoulder. The one that’s still bleeding. Panic is a bird fluttering from his chest upwards to his ponding head and he struggles, tries to pull away but its impossibly strong. He’s held even tighter, he can’t breathe and there’s fabric ripping and white hot agony in his shoulder. Sam screams. He’s being torn apart. The last thing he registers is the horrible sound of chewing.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The fifth time Sam wakes up he’s being dragged down a corridor by his wrists. He’s pretty sure he’s in shock, both from blood loss and because apparently his brother’s been turned into a monster and Sam’s been cast in the role of new chew toy. His head still wants to fall off and his whole body feels like one big bruise but it’s his shoulder that’s sending shockwaves through him. The pain is too intense for him to form words. He groans and his brother drops him immediately, leaving Sam flat on his back and moaning. When he opens his eyes that gray nightmare face is once again in his, but this time they both flinch back. Sam is struggling to breathe through the pain but he hastens to speak before he has to hear his childhood name and that two word apology he’s come to loathe.
“That...was so wrong,” Sam mumbles breathlessly, his eyes sliding back shut as he attempts to ride the waves of pain coursing through him. “Can I just...say this is probably...in my top five worst days ever. And with our lives that’s really saying something.”
“Sammy!” is the mournful reply. Long fingers once again curl around his biceps, but this time he’s merely pulled into a sitting position. His hands are grabbed roughly and his eyes fly open to see the wendigo’s fingers shredding the bindings on his wrists and tossing them away with a grunt of disgust, moving quickly back away. Sam sighs with relief.
“Thanks,” he murmurs absently, tentatively examining the raw hamburger his wrists have become, “now if we only had the first aid kit.” An object hits his leg. It’s a backpack that’s already been torn open. The outside is stained with spots he recognizes too easily: old dried blood. He opens it and finds a treasure trove: not just a first aid kit but a granola bar, some clean socks, a t-shirt and duct tape. He sets the bag aside as more feeling returns to his fingers in a rush. After the fire in his hands dies down some he’s able to apply antibacterial cream and wrap gauze around them. The shoulder wound is more awkward because he can’t see it, but eventually he manages to get a decent pressure bandage using the t-shirt. He’s just grateful it’s not his dominant shoulder that’s hurt. The kit doesn’t include any antibiotics or heavy duty painkillers, but there’s some aspirin and Sam manages to swallows two. It’s not easy because his mouth is dry as the desert; that bottle of water feels like a lifetime ago. The granola bar he warily sets aside; he knows he should probably eat it but nausea flares at the thought. He doubts he could bring up enough moisture to get it down.
Dean’s kept his distance while Sam was tending to his wounds, and this more than anything convinces Sam that Dean’s still with him, even if not in full control of the monster he’s become. Whatever’s done this, his brother is fighting it with everything he’s got. Sam feels a wave of guilt as he remembers his brother’s wounded too; the burn may not be severe but it still must be painful. He checks the kit but the burn cream is missing, if it was ever a part of the kit at all, and he sighs.
Another bag is tossed in his direction from the shadows, startling him out of his musings. This one is a small purse and the contents are pretty meager: lipstick, car keys, wallet. Sam removes a wallet, pulls out a Virginia driver’s license with a picture of a blonde woman smiling.
“Lily Keene,” he reads aloud. “Lily Keene, I know that name...”
//“Lily Keene’s the only survivor. She and her husband Glenn went missing for three days. They were found back where they were last seen, but no one could figure it out. He was burned to a crisp.” Sam’s fingers click the keyboard as his brother nods.
‘Like Trevor Small.” Dean takes a long sip of beer and reaches for another slice of pizza as Sam nods absently.
“Lily was shredded. Apparently she regained consciousness long enough to say she killed the monster, burned it to death. She slipped into a coma after that. Police think she offed her husband in self-defense.” The brothers look at each other for a second. Dean chews more slowly, considering.
“Drew Piersen and Trevor’s mom?” he asks, treating his brother to a view of half-chewed pizza that makes Sam grimace. Sam shakes his head at his brother’s lack of couth then looks back at the hacked file he’s been reading.
“Right, both also all torn up, although in both cases some of the wounds were determined to be bite marks from an ‘undetermined animal or possibly a deformed human.’ Hannah Small was alive when found but died of her wounds at the scene. Police were thinking possible serial killer.”
“Dan Piersen?” Dean asks, and Sam pulls up the appropriate record, skims through it quickly, decides he’s done with the pizza for the night. Or maybe ever.
“He was found dead next to his brother’s body, covered in his blood. Gunshot wound, self-inflicted apparently. The weird thing is his brother’s blood wasn’t just on him, it was in him. In his mouth and stomach contents. ”
“They think he ate his brother?” Dean asks, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“The bite wounds didn’t match, but yeah. Cops had him pegged for all the killings, closed the file until the Keenes went missing,” Sam sighs. Dean shrugs at him as he closes up the pizza box then leans back, patting his stomach contentedly. Sam can’t help but smile. A full Dean is always a happy Dean.
“So what are we thinking? Some new freaky kind of werewolf curse?”
“I don’t know Dean, I think the key is where do they go? They all went missing in the same square mile radius, and the bodies were found there too. There were tons of people and police combing that area but not one witness who saw how they got back. Whatever’s happening, the answer’s gotta be there.”//
Sam blinks and the nondescript hotel room of his memories fades like smoke. He can’t recall if they ever figured out what they were hunting or were caught before they could, but he now knows what happened to the victims, even if the why is still unclear. He puts the purse aside and another object drops into his hands. His fingers clench and then recoil from this new gift; Sam throws the flare gun back at his brother, eyes blazing. Adrenaline gives him the energy to struggle to his feet. As soon as he’s standing Dean forces the weapon into his hands again. Sam growls, throws it down the corridor with all the strength his body has. The pain in his shoulder flare and he leans against the wall, wincing.
“Sammy!” Dean glares at him incredulously for a second, then lopes off to retrieve it. He presses it meaningfully into his brother’s hands once more. Dean moves back and stands perfectly still, accepting, expecting his brother to kill him like it’s nothing. Nothing.
Nothing’s ever pissed Sam off more.
“I’m so sick of this self-sacrifice martyrdom crap, Dean! Stop trying to kill yourself for me, I’m not even worth-” Sam does the only thing he knows will make his point; he turns the flare gun towards himself. A second later it’s ripped from his hands and he’s pushed down again, his brother towering over him growling with fury. Despite the fresh pain Sam nods up at him. “See? That sucks, right? Look, I’m not gonna kill you, Dean, and you can’t make me, so you can just forget that plan. We need to figure out a way we both get out of this and then we’re gonna stop it so this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Or else we’ll both end up dead just like all the others.”
Dean growls at him for another moment then roughly hauls him to his feet. He gives him another bag, a backpack that hasn’t been torn and that has “Property of Trevor Small” written in careful block print on a label affixed to the flap. It’s surprisingly heavy. He pulls open the flap and yanks out textbooks, a spiral notebook, markers and pens and a calcuator, and finally, miracle of miracles, a couple more bottles of water. He opens both and hands one to his brother, almost choking in his haste to down the other one. When he crumples the plastic, a full bottle is thrust at him and he shakes his head.
“No, that’s yours.” Dean continues to glare at him, holding the bottle out, and his eyes say ‘you, blood loss’ and ‘me, big brother’ and ‘stop fighting me on every damn thing, Sam!’ It’s so much Dean that Sam feels a loosening in his chest. He sighs and takes the bottle. “Okay, okay, you win,” he grumbles. He counts as a blessing that his stomach accepts the fluid so readily, Sam doesn’t think he can take another barf session.
“I’m sorry.” Sam rolls his eyes, which is a big mistake; he pinches his forehead as the headache bloom back to full life. Dean grunts in what Sam knows is concern and he waves a hand absently while keeping his eyes closed.
“I’m okay, just...stupid.” Dean grunts in what Sam knows is agreement. Sam snorts and finishes his water, turning the case over in his mind and thinking aloud.
“Okay, so we know with the other victims it let them out once at least one of them was dead. You think if we can manage to escape this place without killing each other it might break the curse or spell or whatever the hell this is? Make you human again?”
Bony gray shoulders shrug. The brothers concur; it’s as good a theory as any.
“Okay, so we need to escape a maze, from the inside. That’s doable. You’ve already been marking passages you tried, right?” Dean blinks at him, holds up his hand and Sam gives a small smile. “Right, so we can keep doing that, we keep turning in the same direction each time, and we mark where we’ve been so we know if we’re caught in a loop.” Sam grinned. This they could do. This they’d been trained to do. “Dude, it’s just like the cornfield mazes Dad used to make us find our ways out of when we were kids, except we don’t have to do it blindfolded. We can do this, Dean. Once we’re out, if that doesn’t break the spell, I’ll find a way to reach Bobby. We’ll get out of this, I swear.”
“Sammy!” Dean replies. Sam feels the flare gun pressed back into his hands firmly and he stiffens, but as their gazes meet he sees the spark of green that holds his brother’s fear, knows what he needs to say so they can continue.
“I won’t need to use it, but I’ll keep it. You won’t hurt me again, Dean, I promise.” Dean huffs, but Sam sees relief in another glimpse of green eyes. They walk to the dead end of this passage. The other victims’ things all seem to be piled in a heap, lost and forgotten. More signs of violence and struggle and loss; Sam can’t imagine anything harder than having your loved become something you have to kill before it destroys you. He remembers his father begging him to end this, remembers what they both made his brother promise, and he knows there’s a world of apologies owed but they are Winchesters and they’ll never be spoken.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, handing him his missing knife, and Sam can’t help the bitter laugh that escapes him as he slips the sheath into his waistband. His brother’s found their weapons bag, he slings it over his bony shoulder in a way that’s so Dean and they start to find their way out.
Dean leads the way, but at every turn he stops and waits for Sam to provide direction. It’s slow going, and the sound of monster claws scraping stone sets the hunter’s teeth on edge and will haunt his dreams. He stumbles a few times and when he does Dean stops and refuses to move until Sam rests and recovers a bit. His brother stays in his sight but never comes too close, and at some point Sam realizes his shoulder is bleeding again. He marvels, not for the first time, at Dean’s strength. None of the other victim’s had been able to restrain the beast, let alone actually care for their loved one. He knows that his brother is straining against instincts, the throbbing in his shoulder reminds him that Dean’s control is limited, but he has to keep going, make sure it won’t come to that. His brother will keep him safe, even if it costs them both everything.
When they see sun and sky and open field they both freeze, disbelieving their own eyes. The view isn’t familiar but Sam’s memories are still scattered; whatever did this to them could have taken them anywhere. Dean’s further away and there was a fuzziness to the world that Sam knows means they have to move now or he won’t be going at all.
“I think we should go through at the same time,” he states, and Dean growls uncertainly. It might be a missing memory, or just instinct, but Sam feels the truth of it in his bones. “Together, Dean. I know, I know it’s hard, I know you’re fighting but we’re almost there, man. Just a few more feet, we can do it. You can do it.”
Dean does nothing but growl at him for a moment, and when Sam meets his eyes there’s no flash of green, only hunger. Sam wants to scream at the world, they can’t have made it this far, come this close to lose now. Dean’s running towards him, snarling and Sam raises the gun. His mind’s stuck: please don’t please don’t please don’t make me do this but it doesn’t matter. Dean’s too fast and he’s hesitated too long. Sam’s weightless, flying, and then blood is rushing to his head and he can see the ground is moving too fast and Dean’s growls vibrate through him like he’s in the Impala. There’s a wave of vertigo and the world glows like his brother’s eyes, red then green then Chevy factory black.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The sixth time Sam wakes up he thinks he’s still dreaming, because he’s in the Impala. He turns his head and takes in his brother driving, frowning in concentration, humming a Foreigner song and tapping the steering wheel. Dean being Dean. He feels warm and hazy, the comfort of being home thrumming through him in a pleasant way. He tries to sit up a bit and pain tries to make a reappearance and it’s the best thing ever because that means this is all real, and some of the haziness is probably painkillers. He makes a small noise and Dean looks him over, smiles as he eases onto the shoulder. Sam knows he should be full of questions, but he’s only got one.
“Are you okay?” Dean looks at him like he’s lost his mind.
“You’re the one who’s a quart low and a few inches shorter from being pounded, dude, I should be asking you. But I won’t because you’d say you’re fine and you’re not. We’re heading to the hospital once we’ve cleared a few more counties.” Sam just looks at him, waiting, and finally he sighs. “Put the damn eyes away. I’m fine. It sucked. It’s over.”
“Is it over?” Sam asks wearily Dean shifts, sighs again. He swallows hard, looks away, and Sam knows his brother is drowning in pointless guilt.
“Yeah, seems to be. Talked to Bobby, he’ll do the cleanup. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.” Dean takes a deep breath, building up to something neither of them want. “Sammy, look, I’m...I’m...”
“God, don’t say sorry, Dean, I will shoot you.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Dean snapped. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry.”
“Starving. I can’t remember the last time I...” Dean trails off, his face like copier paper as fumbles for the door handle, wrenching the door open and half-falling out the car into the road. Sam jumps out and wavers for a moment holding the car for support, the sound of retching filling his ears. As soon as he’s got his feet more firmly under him he’s at his brother’s side, hauling him back into his seat as he spits bile into the gravel.
“Stop it, Sam, your shoulder,” Dean pleads and Sam shakes his head fondly.
“My shoulder’s gonna be fine,” he tells his big brother gently, willing him to believe. “I’m fine. It’s all okay.”
“Dammit, it’s not,” Dean glares at his brother. “How could you let me do that to you?”
“How was I supposed to stop you?” Sam returns incredulously.
“You’re a hunter, Sam, you should have tried!” Dean argues back, and Sam is momentarily speechless. He knows they’re both overcome with what’s happened, but he can’t believe his brother still doesn’t get it.
“I wasn’t gonna kill you, Dean!”
“I’m already...” Dean stops and Sam’s mind finishes the sentence. Dead. Gone. Neither is acceptable. Dean sighs wearily, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter now. Let’s just get you to a doctor before you mess up my patch job.”
“You know what, Dean?”
“What, Sammy?” Dean responds tiredly, and Sam knows he needs to do something to break through to his brother, that his usual repertoire of pleading eyes and earnestness isn’t getting through Dean’s walls this time. What happened in the maze was too altering and what’s happening with his deal is too big, and Sam elects to face it with something unexpected, something small. Something he learned from his brother.
“Bite me.”
For a moment he thinks he got it wrong, Dean’s frozen, his expression one Sam can’t read. Finally a shadow of a smile breaks through and he knows Dean understands what he’s really saying. I forgive you, Dean. I love you, Dean
“Get in the car, funny guy.” Dean retorts in pretend annoyance. The older Winchester gets out of the car, pulls Sam to the other side and gently sets him in, eyeing him anxiously for any sign of further injury. Sam grins up at him.
“You admit I’m funny?”
“You taste funny.” Thank you, Sammy. I love you, Sammy.
“I...what...?” Sam sputters as his brother makes an exaggerated face of disgust.
“Dude I’m gonna have to have a whole bucket of beers to get the taste out of my mouth, it’s disgusting.”
Sammy, I’m sorry.
“You just puked, Dean.”
“Yeah? Well, you threw up all over me back there!” Dean growls at the younger man’s smug grin. “It’s not like it’s something to be proud of, dude.”
“I’m concussed. I always barf on you when I’m concussed. It’s like tradition.”
“Tell me about it, pukey little freak,” Dean mutters as he pulls them back onto the road. “Kept telling Dad to stop feeding you before hunts but he thought it might stunt your growth. Ha!”
“You’ve got issues,” Sam replies sleepily as he leans back, satisfied.
The next time Sam wakes up, he’ll be in a bed with scratchy hospital sheets and machines that go ping and antiseptic smells. But he’ll be alive, with Dean hovering over him and flirting with the nurses and just being Dean, so that’s more than fine.
THE END
Author: Jeanny
Recipient: sowell
Rating: PG-13 - please see warnings
Word-Count: ~7,000
Warnings: Spoilers only through the first episode of Season 3. Mild bondage, violence, angst, gratuitous vomiting, profanity and, um, cannibalism? Lots of hurt with probably not enough comfort. Not a death fic, despite the opening line.
Author’s Note: Title is from the song by The Byrds. Thanks for all the fun prompts, sowell!
Summary: The third time Sam wakes up all he knows is he’s alive, he has no idea where Dean is, and he’s trapped with a wendigo he has no way to kill.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The first time Sam wakes up, all he knows is he’s dead. And based on the pain probably in hell.
There’s a flutter of fear, but mostly he feels resigned, even a bit relieved. If he’s dead, maybe that means that his brother’s clear of the deal; hell, maybe that’s what killed him! It doesn’t matter. He can’t really think and he’s pretty sure his brain’s going to ooze out of his ears anyway.
Dean going to be furious with him, Sam knows the feeling, but it’s not like he wanted to die. He wanted to find a way to save his brother and himself, but it’s fine, he can live with this. Or not, because, dead. Right.
Except now his brain’s settling down from about-to-ooze and he’s starting to think he’s maybe not dead. For one thing there’s the smell. It’s not sulphuric or smoky like he would expect hell to smell, and not like that perfume Jess wore, which always was heaven to Sam. But more like dirt, some vague kind of dank smell like stagnant water, and the faint iron tang of blood. If this is the scent of the afterlife, Sam is unimpressed.
So maybe he’s dead, and maybe he isn’t, but it should be pretty easy to confirm either way. He just needs to open his eyes. His eyes are not on board with this new plan. Apparently someone glued his lids shut while he was dead. There’s a distant screeching sound, like a thousand nails on a chalkboard growing louder and louder, but he can barely hear anything over the buzzing in own head. The floor’s no longer cool beneath his cheek, and the flash of white behind his glued eyelids makes tears start to flow or maybe his brain’s oozing out through his eyes now, and then there’s nothing.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The second time Sam wakes up, all he knows is he’s almost sure he’s not dead, his brain may still be in his head miraculously enough, and he has no idea where Dean is.
It’s that last thought that his eyes fly open on. The tears must have loosened up the glue from before or something. It feels like rocks and pebbles are digging into his back, so he’s pretty sure he’s lying on the ground. His foot brushes something solid, maybe a wall, and he can’t see the ceiling because it’s too dim and his vision’s too fuzzy. It’s not pitch black, so there’s some kind of light source; he thinks he sees shadows flickering out of the corner of his eye. It makes him dizzy if he tries to watch them, a little sick to his stomach. Or that might be the major head trauma; Sam’s had enough concussions in his life to know this one’s bad. Hospital bad, even, though that seems unlikely to happen in the near future. Not until he finds Dean at least.
He’s alone, and Dean would never leave him alone, not injured, not in a strange place. For a brief heart-stopping moment he thinks Dean’s in hell; but it’s not time yet, it can’t be. Sam has to believe he’d know. So Dean’s just not here, which means he’s probably looking for Sam, and he can’t find him. If Dean can’t find Sam, Sam will just have to get up and find Dean.
Unfortunately this will require movement.
Sam thinks sitting up is a good place to start, but right away there’s a new wrinkle: his hands are tied. They’re tied in front of him, not behind him, but Sam still can’t believe he hadn’t noticed before now. Tied up can mean nothing good; his mind flashes briefly to the Benders, to Gordon Walker, to being tied up at Bobby’s with Meg burning him from the inside. Panic makes the vague nausea flare and a horrible stench fills his nostrils. Sam manages to turn his head back to the side, hoping he’ll be able to void his stomach contents without choking.
Sam finds himself eye to eye with a monster.
His mind supplies wendigo pain and worry and Dean ricocheting through his skull, when it takes all his effort to keep his stomach calm and intact. He swallows against sourness in his mouth and wonders if he actually did end up throwing up on the wendigo. He wonders if that’s why it’s not eating him yet. Sam hopes so; he wants to see Dean’s face when he adds that to Dad’s journal. ‘To fend off wendigo attack, spew at will.’
Of course, Dean might ask what kind of hunter lets a wendigo get right in his face like that without having a clue it was there. Especially with the way its stink fills his nostrils and his unsettled stomach insists he not breathe anymore. Sam’s positive the wendigo couldn’t have been in the room when he woke up before, even the few fractured memories he has tell him that much. It bothers him now that he remembers so little.
//A really good cup of coffee, Dean giving equal love to his breakfast and the curvy young waitress. A newspaper article, people killing loved ones in Virginia, insisting afterwards they were monsters. Dean makes a crass remark about Virginia being for lovers that he half tunes out. Paying for breakfast, returning to the car as Dean grins at him and cranks up the radio. Sam trying to muster up a smile for his brother but all he can feel is more time slipping away...//
He can’t remember if they even made it to Virginia. For all he knows the hunt he’s remembering could have been weeks or months ago, a thought which makes his gut churn even more. He tries and tries but it’s all a big blank and trying to force the memories just seems to make them slip further away. Sam’s nothing if not determined, but when white flashes start to spark beneath his eyelids he knows he has to let it go. Right now he certainly has more pressing concerns.
After a few minutes hearing nothing other than his own breathing, Sam chances opening his eyes. He’s lying on his side with his face to the wall. Did he roll over or did the wendigo move him? He decides it doesn’t matter; he needs to save his remaining brain cells for escaping, finding his brother and eventually plugging up the annoying holes in his memory.
It’s time to take a look around, get his bearings, look for the wendigo’s exit as well as any others and find a way to kill the freak that’s trapped him here. He uses his bound hands to push off the wall and falls onto his back. While parts of his body, especially his head and shoulder, lodge a vehement protest, the first thing he sees, almost directly above his head, makes the pain and effort more than worthwhile.
There’s a torch on the wall. It’s anchored in a simple sheath, sputtering flames. Sam smiles as the undercurrent of his thoughts changes to hope and escape and Dean; he tries to keep them from buzzing him straight back into unconsciousness. He’s itching to just get up, get to the torch and get away but his training tells him he’s got to wait and move when ready, especially injured against an opponent with the strength and speed he knows the wendigo possesses.
Sam’s not unused to quickly assessing and triaging injuries. The hunter is certain his busted head really is the worst of it; he’s covered with shallow scrapes, bumps and bruises but none of that looks serious. There might be a deeper cut on his shoulder; he can’t see it but he feels the sting when he moves his arm and his fingertips come back bloody when he touches the tear in his shirt. It’s not an alarming amount of blood, though; it’ll keep until later. His hands have gone pretty numb but he can still flex his fingers well enough so he thinks there’s no issue getting untied won’t fix.
He has no other weapons, which frankly sucks; he isn’t as obsessed with such things as Dean, but he knows he’ll miss the knife his brother had given him for a long ago birthday. He usually keeps it on him these days but it’s gone. He tells himself there’s no point in worrying over it; it would have been helpful to remove the bindings but not much else.
The room’s a rectangle, long and narrow with only three walls. Sam thinks he might be taller than the room is wide. It’s open to some kind of hallway but it’s too dark for him to see much, especially with his compromised vision a la concussion.
Slowly and with care, Sam rolls himself back to face the wall. A few contortions later and he’s managed to get upright, and from there it’s surprisingly easy to remove the torch even with his hands still bound. He almost fumbles and drops it when his head starts swimming from the change of elevation, but he’s not a Winchester for nothing and he knows it’s his only chance. He contemplates leaving this space; he’s cornered here, which is not good in a fight where you know you’re out of your weight class, but he doesn’t know how far he’ll be able to go before he loses consciousness again, even now it’s taking everything to stay vertical. His only chance is the element of surprise; the wendigo thinks he’s bound and helpless.
That part of the plan, at least, works. The wendigo freezes when it sees Sam. The creature’s glowing crimson eyes widen comically, but it recovers before Sam can move, more quickly than he’d hoped. It charges him--he’d forgotten how fast they are--and as he meet its attack Sam already fears the outcome. He just hadn’t realized how much his own reflexes had slowed with pain and fatigue. He does get one blow with the torch to its chest, it howls in pain, but it’s not enough to disable it or do any real damage and it doesn’t retreat. In embarrassingly short order his weapon’s been knocked from his hands to sputter harmlessly out on the ground and it’s clutching his shoulders. All he can see in the near total darkness is glowing eyes as it shakes him like a rag doll--he’d forgotten how strong they are, too--and his head hits the stone with a crack that sounds so final as the world drops away.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The fourth time Sam wakes up he hears his brother’s voice.
“Sammy! I’m sorry.”
“D-Dean?” Sam’s eyes fly open, he’s sitting up against a wall in the same spot he fell, he thinks. He knows his vision’s for shit, but there are red eyes everywhere like he’s in a room full of wendigos. He tries to focus on one of them, difficult because they don’t seem to stay still, swirling and swooping and making him dizzy. He remembers the wendigo’s talent for mimicry and blinks back tears. Dammit, he just wants his brother.
“Sammy! I’m sorry,” one wendigo says in his brother’s voice. Sam trembles; injury and loss and cold fury.
“Stop,” he grinds out, his voice dry with dust and disuse, “You don’t use his voice!”
“Sammy! I’m sorry,” replies the wendigo, if he concentrates there’s only one of them now. That should be encouraging but it isn’t, not when he’s stuck listening to it mock his need so cruelly. “Sammy!”
“Don’t you get it? That trick doesn’t work when people can see you!”
“I’m sorry,” the wendigo replies, and the real grief in his brother’s voice leaves Sam curled up on himself, his arms covering his face, his tied hands over his head.
“Dammit, Dean, just please don’t be dead,” he whispers, a soft prayer to the only one he has true faith in.
“Sammy!” replies his brother’s voice.
“Shut up! So help me I will end you if you k-killed my brother!” Sam growls, dropping his arms to glare at his nemesis.
The wendigo rocks back on its heels, gives the hunter a look that practically speaks, ‘you already tried to kill me, stupid,’ and moves towards him. Sam flinches away; he’s pressed to the wall and there’s nowhere really to go and he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it from hurting him. Nothing that could hurt more than what it’s already doing. He knows his family will be disappointed in him for it but he can’t stop himself from turning his face away and closing his eyes.
Something heavy, plastic and cool is in his hands. Sam looks down in surprise at the sealed bottle of water and back up at the creature, who grunts expectantly.
“What...I don’t...what?” Sam stammers eloquently. He eyes the bottle in his hands like it’s a puzzle he can’t solve, but now that he has it he realizes he’s never been so thirsty in his life. It’s not the easiest thing to unscrew the cap with his hands tied but he manages it, and gulps down half the bottle, too good, too much, too fast. He feels it threaten to make a reappearance and stops, swallowing hard, keeping the liquid down by force of will. The wendigo growls and he freezes, holding the bottle up uncertainly. It is instantly snatched away, a blow to his shoulder knocking him down to punctuate the creature’s displeasure. Sam slowly sits himself back up, muttering, “Yeah, got it, you’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry. Sammy!” it replies as it shreds the plastic bottle. Drops of water scatter but most of the water had already been swallowed, and Sam thinks ‘wendigo recycling’ somewhat hysterically. He feels floaty and disconnected, but it’s better than dead. The wendigo menaces over him, clawed hands inches from his throat, but it’s not making any more moves towards him. He feels like it’s waiting for something Sam has no way to understand.
“M-m-my brother’s gonna find us and he’s gonna kick your ass!” he stammers. The wendigo’s expression is odd, what Sam would have called helpless on a more human face. Sam feels like he’s shaking apart, this monster won’t stop imitating his brother and he can’t kill it and he doesn’t know what to do. He holds his hands up in supplication, “Please don’t say it again, just...please!”
“I’m sorry,” it says again, sad and gruff, and Sam wants to cover his ears but he can’t with his hands tied and he’s losing his mind. He’s losing it.
“Stop! God! Don’t you understand?” Sam shouts at it, “I can’t h-hear his voice, it’s not real, it’s not h-him and I don’t know if he’s even...if he’s dead and I d-didn’t save him! I didn’t have time and he’s going to hell and he...he can’t! Not ever! He can’t say he’s sorry and leave me alone!”
Sam covers his face in his hands and takes a shuddering breath. He totally blames the wendigo piling on the head injuries for his loss of control. Two deep breaths later and he’s reined it in enough to attain some semblance of calm. The wendigo is still staring at him, but he turns away toward the wall and using his arms and shoulders starts to inch his way up, getting his calves and finally his feet underneath him. John Winchester would kick his ass for turning his back on this thing but Sam can’t find it in him to care anymore. He figures if it’s going to attack him it will, whether he’s facing it or not, and at this point he might prefer a direct attack to this confusing impasse.
Nothing happens. When he finally turns around, leaning back against the wall to take some pressure off shaky legs, the monster is still in the same exact spot as before. Sam knows he wasn’t exactly breaking the Guinness record for crawling up a wall. There are too many things here that are confusing and painful and overwhelming and Sam’s had enough.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing. I don’t get what you want from me,” he complains, gesturing around, “and I don’t get this place. It’s like the dungeon at Hogwart’s, and I don’t think either of us is supposed to be here. I know this isn’t a wendigo lair. There’re no bones, or half-chewed people so this can’t be where you normally, uh, hold your meals.”
The wendigo says nothing in response to Sam’s musings, just shifts away almost uncertainly. Sam considers what it might do if he bolted for the exit, but he doesn’t want to risk this fragile detente to try. He’d rather keep trying to unravel the mystery, because he knows in his heart if he can it’s the way home, the way to Dean.
“It’s like you’re trying to help me.” The wendigo glares and gives a tetchy huff, as if irritated that it was found showing a kindness. It’s an oddly familiar gesture and Sam pauses before continuing. “Maybe you need me for something, though I can’t think what you’d want me for other than eating...bottle opener? Advice on hygiene? Fashion tips?”
“Sammy!” the creature snaps back.
“Look, if you can’t stop doing that just...maybe just stomp once for yes and twice for no.” It’s back in his face again in an instant, a bruising grip on his arms and Sam hastily tries to calm it before it knocks him silly again or finally decides it’s mealtime. “Sorry, sorry, I...guess I’m channeling my brother.” Rather than soothe it, that remark gets him shaken again before it releases him, arms raised before it turns away with a snort of frustration. Again Sam feels that sense of familiarity, but pain and exasperation make his temper finally flare. “Give me a break, in case you haven’t noticed I’m not at my best! Next time I play twenty questions with a monster I’ll try not to have major head trauma.” Sam’s legs choose that moment to decide they no longer want to hold him and he collapses to his knees. The wendigo looks down at him, its body language uncertain. Sam’s head feel too heavy and he lets his chin drop. He can’t help a cry of surprise when the creature at the hair on top and yanks none too gently. Sam flinches away when its other clawed hand cups his jaw, forcing the hunter into close eye contact.
“I’m sorry.”
“I only want to hear that from my brother.” Sam can’t look away from the blazing red eyes. He sees something that nearly stops his heart, a minute flash of green that’s all too familiar. “No, no, no no it can’t be...it can’t be...”
“Sammy! I’m sorry.” It releases him, rocking back on its heels and this time it is Sam gripping its skeletal arms as all the clues start to coalesce into a horrible truth.
“Dean? Oh God, Dean is it you?” The wendigo’s hand moves over Sam’s head in a parody of patting it like he’s a prize pupil, but thankfully doesn’t actually hit him again. Sam looks down and the burn on its chest looks angry, accusing. “Damn, I hurt you.” He releases its arms, reaches towards the wound tentatively but it gracefully rises from its crouch and turns away, looking back only when it reaches the opening. The thing that Sam is more and more certain is his brother transformed gestures to Sam to follow and he staggers behind it in a daze, his mind whirling with possibilities.
“How could this happen? Do you know where we are? What we need to do to fix...this, fix you?” Sam trails off as the move into the corridor. There are torches providing enough light to follow, and Sam sees five uneven grooves running along the wall. He thinks he knows what the screeching sound from earlier was. They make a few turns, the corridors all look the same, all look like the original room he found himself in. “This place, it’s like a maze. You were somewhere else, before? Or you were with me and you tried to find a way out, marked a path so you could find your way back.”
“Sammy!” Sam sighs, rubs at his eyes to try to force away the worst of the headache that still plagues him. He still feels like his thoughts are struggling through a sea of molasses.
“You’re like a broken record, dude, you know that? I don’t know if you even know what you’re saying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Right, okay, I’m just trying to get this. The last thing I remember was leaving Illinois, that’s all, there’s nothing else. God, I just, I’ve just got to remember what we were doing!” Sam’s knees threaten to buckle once more, they’re moving so fast, everything’s too fast. They turn another corner; everything looks the same except for his brother’s marks. Making the walls was smart, but wendigos aren’t mindless beasts; Sam’s not sure how much of his brother is in control. “Whatever happened to you, are you, um, you? I mean, are you human and you just look like a wendigo? Are you a wendigo that just used to be Dean? Are you a Deandigo?” Sam starts to chuckle somewhat hysterically. “Sorry I’m...whoa!”
Sam’s traitorous legs declare break time without warning. He’s yanked upwards before he can fall, pulled into odoriferous arms. It’s like a parody of one of his brother’s hugs, except he hears a strange wet snuffling sound near his shoulder. The one that’s still bleeding. Panic is a bird fluttering from his chest upwards to his ponding head and he struggles, tries to pull away but its impossibly strong. He’s held even tighter, he can’t breathe and there’s fabric ripping and white hot agony in his shoulder. Sam screams. He’s being torn apart. The last thing he registers is the horrible sound of chewing.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The fifth time Sam wakes up he’s being dragged down a corridor by his wrists. He’s pretty sure he’s in shock, both from blood loss and because apparently his brother’s been turned into a monster and Sam’s been cast in the role of new chew toy. His head still wants to fall off and his whole body feels like one big bruise but it’s his shoulder that’s sending shockwaves through him. The pain is too intense for him to form words. He groans and his brother drops him immediately, leaving Sam flat on his back and moaning. When he opens his eyes that gray nightmare face is once again in his, but this time they both flinch back. Sam is struggling to breathe through the pain but he hastens to speak before he has to hear his childhood name and that two word apology he’s come to loathe.
“That...was so wrong,” Sam mumbles breathlessly, his eyes sliding back shut as he attempts to ride the waves of pain coursing through him. “Can I just...say this is probably...in my top five worst days ever. And with our lives that’s really saying something.”
“Sammy!” is the mournful reply. Long fingers once again curl around his biceps, but this time he’s merely pulled into a sitting position. His hands are grabbed roughly and his eyes fly open to see the wendigo’s fingers shredding the bindings on his wrists and tossing them away with a grunt of disgust, moving quickly back away. Sam sighs with relief.
“Thanks,” he murmurs absently, tentatively examining the raw hamburger his wrists have become, “now if we only had the first aid kit.” An object hits his leg. It’s a backpack that’s already been torn open. The outside is stained with spots he recognizes too easily: old dried blood. He opens it and finds a treasure trove: not just a first aid kit but a granola bar, some clean socks, a t-shirt and duct tape. He sets the bag aside as more feeling returns to his fingers in a rush. After the fire in his hands dies down some he’s able to apply antibacterial cream and wrap gauze around them. The shoulder wound is more awkward because he can’t see it, but eventually he manages to get a decent pressure bandage using the t-shirt. He’s just grateful it’s not his dominant shoulder that’s hurt. The kit doesn’t include any antibiotics or heavy duty painkillers, but there’s some aspirin and Sam manages to swallows two. It’s not easy because his mouth is dry as the desert; that bottle of water feels like a lifetime ago. The granola bar he warily sets aside; he knows he should probably eat it but nausea flares at the thought. He doubts he could bring up enough moisture to get it down.
Dean’s kept his distance while Sam was tending to his wounds, and this more than anything convinces Sam that Dean’s still with him, even if not in full control of the monster he’s become. Whatever’s done this, his brother is fighting it with everything he’s got. Sam feels a wave of guilt as he remembers his brother’s wounded too; the burn may not be severe but it still must be painful. He checks the kit but the burn cream is missing, if it was ever a part of the kit at all, and he sighs.
Another bag is tossed in his direction from the shadows, startling him out of his musings. This one is a small purse and the contents are pretty meager: lipstick, car keys, wallet. Sam removes a wallet, pulls out a Virginia driver’s license with a picture of a blonde woman smiling.
“Lily Keene,” he reads aloud. “Lily Keene, I know that name...”
//“Lily Keene’s the only survivor. She and her husband Glenn went missing for three days. They were found back where they were last seen, but no one could figure it out. He was burned to a crisp.” Sam’s fingers click the keyboard as his brother nods.
‘Like Trevor Small.” Dean takes a long sip of beer and reaches for another slice of pizza as Sam nods absently.
“Lily was shredded. Apparently she regained consciousness long enough to say she killed the monster, burned it to death. She slipped into a coma after that. Police think she offed her husband in self-defense.” The brothers look at each other for a second. Dean chews more slowly, considering.
“Drew Piersen and Trevor’s mom?” he asks, treating his brother to a view of half-chewed pizza that makes Sam grimace. Sam shakes his head at his brother’s lack of couth then looks back at the hacked file he’s been reading.
“Right, both also all torn up, although in both cases some of the wounds were determined to be bite marks from an ‘undetermined animal or possibly a deformed human.’ Hannah Small was alive when found but died of her wounds at the scene. Police were thinking possible serial killer.”
“Dan Piersen?” Dean asks, and Sam pulls up the appropriate record, skims through it quickly, decides he’s done with the pizza for the night. Or maybe ever.
“He was found dead next to his brother’s body, covered in his blood. Gunshot wound, self-inflicted apparently. The weird thing is his brother’s blood wasn’t just on him, it was in him. In his mouth and stomach contents. ”
“They think he ate his brother?” Dean asks, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“The bite wounds didn’t match, but yeah. Cops had him pegged for all the killings, closed the file until the Keenes went missing,” Sam sighs. Dean shrugs at him as he closes up the pizza box then leans back, patting his stomach contentedly. Sam can’t help but smile. A full Dean is always a happy Dean.
“So what are we thinking? Some new freaky kind of werewolf curse?”
“I don’t know Dean, I think the key is where do they go? They all went missing in the same square mile radius, and the bodies were found there too. There were tons of people and police combing that area but not one witness who saw how they got back. Whatever’s happening, the answer’s gotta be there.”//
Sam blinks and the nondescript hotel room of his memories fades like smoke. He can’t recall if they ever figured out what they were hunting or were caught before they could, but he now knows what happened to the victims, even if the why is still unclear. He puts the purse aside and another object drops into his hands. His fingers clench and then recoil from this new gift; Sam throws the flare gun back at his brother, eyes blazing. Adrenaline gives him the energy to struggle to his feet. As soon as he’s standing Dean forces the weapon into his hands again. Sam growls, throws it down the corridor with all the strength his body has. The pain in his shoulder flare and he leans against the wall, wincing.
“Sammy!” Dean glares at him incredulously for a second, then lopes off to retrieve it. He presses it meaningfully into his brother’s hands once more. Dean moves back and stands perfectly still, accepting, expecting his brother to kill him like it’s nothing. Nothing.
Nothing’s ever pissed Sam off more.
“I’m so sick of this self-sacrifice martyrdom crap, Dean! Stop trying to kill yourself for me, I’m not even worth-” Sam does the only thing he knows will make his point; he turns the flare gun towards himself. A second later it’s ripped from his hands and he’s pushed down again, his brother towering over him growling with fury. Despite the fresh pain Sam nods up at him. “See? That sucks, right? Look, I’m not gonna kill you, Dean, and you can’t make me, so you can just forget that plan. We need to figure out a way we both get out of this and then we’re gonna stop it so this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Or else we’ll both end up dead just like all the others.”
Dean growls at him for another moment then roughly hauls him to his feet. He gives him another bag, a backpack that hasn’t been torn and that has “Property of Trevor Small” written in careful block print on a label affixed to the flap. It’s surprisingly heavy. He pulls open the flap and yanks out textbooks, a spiral notebook, markers and pens and a calcuator, and finally, miracle of miracles, a couple more bottles of water. He opens both and hands one to his brother, almost choking in his haste to down the other one. When he crumples the plastic, a full bottle is thrust at him and he shakes his head.
“No, that’s yours.” Dean continues to glare at him, holding the bottle out, and his eyes say ‘you, blood loss’ and ‘me, big brother’ and ‘stop fighting me on every damn thing, Sam!’ It’s so much Dean that Sam feels a loosening in his chest. He sighs and takes the bottle. “Okay, okay, you win,” he grumbles. He counts as a blessing that his stomach accepts the fluid so readily, Sam doesn’t think he can take another barf session.
“I’m sorry.” Sam rolls his eyes, which is a big mistake; he pinches his forehead as the headache bloom back to full life. Dean grunts in what Sam knows is concern and he waves a hand absently while keeping his eyes closed.
“I’m okay, just...stupid.” Dean grunts in what Sam knows is agreement. Sam snorts and finishes his water, turning the case over in his mind and thinking aloud.
“Okay, so we know with the other victims it let them out once at least one of them was dead. You think if we can manage to escape this place without killing each other it might break the curse or spell or whatever the hell this is? Make you human again?”
Bony gray shoulders shrug. The brothers concur; it’s as good a theory as any.
“Okay, so we need to escape a maze, from the inside. That’s doable. You’ve already been marking passages you tried, right?” Dean blinks at him, holds up his hand and Sam gives a small smile. “Right, so we can keep doing that, we keep turning in the same direction each time, and we mark where we’ve been so we know if we’re caught in a loop.” Sam grinned. This they could do. This they’d been trained to do. “Dude, it’s just like the cornfield mazes Dad used to make us find our ways out of when we were kids, except we don’t have to do it blindfolded. We can do this, Dean. Once we’re out, if that doesn’t break the spell, I’ll find a way to reach Bobby. We’ll get out of this, I swear.”
“Sammy!” Dean replies. Sam feels the flare gun pressed back into his hands firmly and he stiffens, but as their gazes meet he sees the spark of green that holds his brother’s fear, knows what he needs to say so they can continue.
“I won’t need to use it, but I’ll keep it. You won’t hurt me again, Dean, I promise.” Dean huffs, but Sam sees relief in another glimpse of green eyes. They walk to the dead end of this passage. The other victims’ things all seem to be piled in a heap, lost and forgotten. More signs of violence and struggle and loss; Sam can’t imagine anything harder than having your loved become something you have to kill before it destroys you. He remembers his father begging him to end this, remembers what they both made his brother promise, and he knows there’s a world of apologies owed but they are Winchesters and they’ll never be spoken.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, handing him his missing knife, and Sam can’t help the bitter laugh that escapes him as he slips the sheath into his waistband. His brother’s found their weapons bag, he slings it over his bony shoulder in a way that’s so Dean and they start to find their way out.
Dean leads the way, but at every turn he stops and waits for Sam to provide direction. It’s slow going, and the sound of monster claws scraping stone sets the hunter’s teeth on edge and will haunt his dreams. He stumbles a few times and when he does Dean stops and refuses to move until Sam rests and recovers a bit. His brother stays in his sight but never comes too close, and at some point Sam realizes his shoulder is bleeding again. He marvels, not for the first time, at Dean’s strength. None of the other victim’s had been able to restrain the beast, let alone actually care for their loved one. He knows that his brother is straining against instincts, the throbbing in his shoulder reminds him that Dean’s control is limited, but he has to keep going, make sure it won’t come to that. His brother will keep him safe, even if it costs them both everything.
When they see sun and sky and open field they both freeze, disbelieving their own eyes. The view isn’t familiar but Sam’s memories are still scattered; whatever did this to them could have taken them anywhere. Dean’s further away and there was a fuzziness to the world that Sam knows means they have to move now or he won’t be going at all.
“I think we should go through at the same time,” he states, and Dean growls uncertainly. It might be a missing memory, or just instinct, but Sam feels the truth of it in his bones. “Together, Dean. I know, I know it’s hard, I know you’re fighting but we’re almost there, man. Just a few more feet, we can do it. You can do it.”
Dean does nothing but growl at him for a moment, and when Sam meets his eyes there’s no flash of green, only hunger. Sam wants to scream at the world, they can’t have made it this far, come this close to lose now. Dean’s running towards him, snarling and Sam raises the gun. His mind’s stuck: please don’t please don’t please don’t make me do this but it doesn’t matter. Dean’s too fast and he’s hesitated too long. Sam’s weightless, flying, and then blood is rushing to his head and he can see the ground is moving too fast and Dean’s growls vibrate through him like he’s in the Impala. There’s a wave of vertigo and the world glows like his brother’s eyes, red then green then Chevy factory black.
~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~SPN~~
The sixth time Sam wakes up he thinks he’s still dreaming, because he’s in the Impala. He turns his head and takes in his brother driving, frowning in concentration, humming a Foreigner song and tapping the steering wheel. Dean being Dean. He feels warm and hazy, the comfort of being home thrumming through him in a pleasant way. He tries to sit up a bit and pain tries to make a reappearance and it’s the best thing ever because that means this is all real, and some of the haziness is probably painkillers. He makes a small noise and Dean looks him over, smiles as he eases onto the shoulder. Sam knows he should be full of questions, but he’s only got one.
“Are you okay?” Dean looks at him like he’s lost his mind.
“You’re the one who’s a quart low and a few inches shorter from being pounded, dude, I should be asking you. But I won’t because you’d say you’re fine and you’re not. We’re heading to the hospital once we’ve cleared a few more counties.” Sam just looks at him, waiting, and finally he sighs. “Put the damn eyes away. I’m fine. It sucked. It’s over.”
“Is it over?” Sam asks wearily Dean shifts, sighs again. He swallows hard, looks away, and Sam knows his brother is drowning in pointless guilt.
“Yeah, seems to be. Talked to Bobby, he’ll do the cleanup. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.” Dean takes a deep breath, building up to something neither of them want. “Sammy, look, I’m...I’m...”
“God, don’t say sorry, Dean, I will shoot you.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Dean snapped. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry.”
“Starving. I can’t remember the last time I...” Dean trails off, his face like copier paper as fumbles for the door handle, wrenching the door open and half-falling out the car into the road. Sam jumps out and wavers for a moment holding the car for support, the sound of retching filling his ears. As soon as he’s got his feet more firmly under him he’s at his brother’s side, hauling him back into his seat as he spits bile into the gravel.
“Stop it, Sam, your shoulder,” Dean pleads and Sam shakes his head fondly.
“My shoulder’s gonna be fine,” he tells his big brother gently, willing him to believe. “I’m fine. It’s all okay.”
“Dammit, it’s not,” Dean glares at his brother. “How could you let me do that to you?”
“How was I supposed to stop you?” Sam returns incredulously.
“You’re a hunter, Sam, you should have tried!” Dean argues back, and Sam is momentarily speechless. He knows they’re both overcome with what’s happened, but he can’t believe his brother still doesn’t get it.
“I wasn’t gonna kill you, Dean!”
“I’m already...” Dean stops and Sam’s mind finishes the sentence. Dead. Gone. Neither is acceptable. Dean sighs wearily, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter now. Let’s just get you to a doctor before you mess up my patch job.”
“You know what, Dean?”
“What, Sammy?” Dean responds tiredly, and Sam knows he needs to do something to break through to his brother, that his usual repertoire of pleading eyes and earnestness isn’t getting through Dean’s walls this time. What happened in the maze was too altering and what’s happening with his deal is too big, and Sam elects to face it with something unexpected, something small. Something he learned from his brother.
“Bite me.”
For a moment he thinks he got it wrong, Dean’s frozen, his expression one Sam can’t read. Finally a shadow of a smile breaks through and he knows Dean understands what he’s really saying. I forgive you, Dean. I love you, Dean
“Get in the car, funny guy.” Dean retorts in pretend annoyance. The older Winchester gets out of the car, pulls Sam to the other side and gently sets him in, eyeing him anxiously for any sign of further injury. Sam grins up at him.
“You admit I’m funny?”
“You taste funny.” Thank you, Sammy. I love you, Sammy.
“I...what...?” Sam sputters as his brother makes an exaggerated face of disgust.
“Dude I’m gonna have to have a whole bucket of beers to get the taste out of my mouth, it’s disgusting.”
Sammy, I’m sorry.
“You just puked, Dean.”
“Yeah? Well, you threw up all over me back there!” Dean growls at the younger man’s smug grin. “It’s not like it’s something to be proud of, dude.”
“I’m concussed. I always barf on you when I’m concussed. It’s like tradition.”
“Tell me about it, pukey little freak,” Dean mutters as he pulls them back onto the road. “Kept telling Dad to stop feeding you before hunts but he thought it might stunt your growth. Ha!”
“You’ve got issues,” Sam replies sleepily as he leans back, satisfied.
The next time Sam wakes up, he’ll be in a bed with scratchy hospital sheets and machines that go ping and antiseptic smells. But he’ll be alive, with Dean hovering over him and flirting with the nurses and just being Dean, so that’s more than fine.
THE END