For All I Know 3/4
Thanks to all the kind people who did take the time to comment on what's been posted so far. Thanx.
Title: For All I Know
Genre: Gen - H/C
Rating: R Swearing/blood, etc.
Characters: Dean, Sam and OMC's
Length: 3/4
Summary: Set inbetween 5.02 and 5.03. Sam and Dean get kidnapped and imprisoned, together...but apart.
*
*
The strength of the imitation lights outside stung - and he blinked back the strain on his eyes.
A warehouse. Sawdust on the floor. A permanent dry dust in the air. The gentle hum of hundreds of chickens nearby. Probably the warehouse next door. This place had metal pens and buckets. Hay and chicken feed sacks everywhere. Sam’s eyes flicked over each item in a nano-second inventory.
The muzzle of Figgis’ gun in the small of his back forced him forward and into a small office like room. A rough hand on his shoulder pushed him towards a bucket in the corner. He stalled for a moment - then realised neither Figgis nor Fulmer was going to leave him too it. Sam sighed, unbuckled his belt and did it anyway.
“How long is this gonna go on for, guys?”
“For as long as we want.” Fulmer replied. A quick glance to the side saw Fulmer hanging up the AK47, only to pick up a sawn-off shotgun and train it on him. “Call it a service for the community.”
“People are gonna start looking for us.”
“What...Bobby Singer?” Figgis gave a moronic guffaw only Goofy would’ve been proud of. “Hell, if he’s your only hope, you’re screwed.”
Sam clenched his teeth and stared at the filthy wall ahead of him. The muzzle of the gun signalled the end of his toilet break.
“Got someone else for you to meet,” Fulmer said quietly. Figgis pulled Sam back by his collar and walked him down towards the other end of the warehouse. Wide eyed, he scanned the pens for signs of movement.
They had another demon.
Only this one was either too big, or too pissed to drag to the cages for his extermination.
Sam slowed his pace, the door at the end of the warehouse becoming the one thing he never wanted to reach. If he left the warehouse, and Dean set his cage on fire, by the time they discovered it, his brother would be dead from smoke inhalation alone.
The stench of chickens assaulted his nose and stomach and he drew up an elbow to stem the smell. Figgis...being Figgis hadn’t even noticed Sam’s change of pace and as soon as his fat face loomed into his peripheral sight, he took his shot.
He slammed his elbow straight into Figgis’ jaw - teeth and blood spraying across the sawdust floor. As he forced Figgis over to his right, Fulmer’s shot gun blasted off a round - a sudden searing pain flashing over Sam’s right shoulder. Sam followed the man down and jammed a knee into his ribs to wrestle the gun off him. He rolled himself up against Figgis - close enough that Fulmer couldn’t secure a clean shot. And just as Sam levelled the gun, Fulmer’s eyes widened at the realisation that he was out in the open - with nothing to save him.
Sam fired the weapon - Fulmer’s left thigh seemed to explode in an unearthly sight of blood and tissue, both legs buckling and bringing him down.
Sam pushed Figgis away from him - the butt of the gun making a satisfying crunch as he forced it into his head and he rolled onto his face with a groan.
Sam lunged forward, unsteady but focussed. Just as Fulmer reached for his own gun, Sam kicked it away. He lifted a boot and swung it under Fulmer’s chin, snapping his head back and knocking him out.
Silence.
Sam sucked in breath. He shook his head from an immediate rush of dizziness. His lungs on fire with a combination of exertion and dust. He stood looking down at the unkempt duo, sprawled out on the ground before him.
Without restraint, he ransacked Fulmer’s pockets - and as he did so, he noticed rivulets of blood running down his right arm and off his hand. He followed the trail back up to his shoulder. It was covered in blood. It ran down his back and covered the ass of his jeans. He’d been caught by the shrapnel of Fulmer’s sawn-off.
He swayed momentarily, grunting with the effort it took to stand up and transfer his attention to Figgis nearby. Soon the comforting jangle of keys was heard and he grabbed them and stumbled towards the room with the cages.
At the door, Sam looked down at the huge bunch of keys.
Ten of them. Jeez.
Sam let the guns drop to the floor and glanced back to the far end of the warehouse. He drew in a cleansing breath and focussed on the keys. They all looked the same.
He jammed one into the lock and turned. No give.
The next one. Nope.
The third one...wrong again.
His shoulder shot back little stabs of pain at his every movement, the adrenalin rush beginning to wear off. He swapped hands in an attempt to lessen the slick of blood covering the keys and making them slippery, but only succeeded in losing his concentration.
A wave of prickly heat seemed to spread up his neck and face and he paused to gather his senses.
Then he smelt smoke.
Looking up, he could see black ribbons steaming from the top of the door and staining the wall.
Dean had started a fire.
“Dean! “ He yelled.
His heart thumped harder - the pain in his arm and shoulder screamed louder and he jammed another key in the lock.
No joy.
He closed his eyes, an attempt to lessen his haste - and picked the next key on the ring.
The lock turned.
He reached out for the handle and pulled at the door. It seemed to swing open without effort.
A hot gust of air immediately engulfed him and his eyes locked onto the flames at the back of Dean’s cage - the rush of new oxygen making it roar even higher.
He slammed a bloody hand against the light switch and a nervous strip light flickered it’s obedience - but the smoke was down to head height already and Sam strained to see his brother’s cage. At the far end was a veritable bonfire of the wood that had been broken up during Sam’s fight with the demon. Dean had obviously pulled a pile of it through the fence and the combination of tinder, sawdust and dry air had given the fire all the fuel it needed.
The air was thick and acrid.
Dean looked pitiful, huddled against the fence, his bloodied shirt jammed up against his face, nothing but a thin tee shirt to protect him, his arms bare to the searing heat and his head down.
Resigned to his fate.
“Dean!” Sam shouted above the noise. The heat of the air already burned his nostrils and dried his mouth. He forced a key into the cage lock.
No movement.
Another key...
Sam’s eyes blurred and watered against the grime of the atmosphere and he hacked a cough.
Another key...surely this one would be it.
The heat made him turn his head away - an instinct to protect his face.
Another key.
The fire licked up against the ceiling - sparks shooting erratically back into the cage.
Another key.
And...the lock turned.
The cage door slammed open, and Sam bent down and crawled inside towards Dean. He grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back and was rewarded by a flinch as Dean lifted his head.
Sam pulled him back, Dean’s legs cycling against the floor - a confused attempt to assist. Sam’s lungs strained with the lack of clean air, and the heat from the flames made him fumble blindly for the exits.
Groaning with the effort, he dragged Dean out into the warehouse and crumpled to the ground, the cool air now an exquisite contrast to the muck and grime of the smoke filled room. Wiping his eyes, he turned to look back at Dean. Smoke blackened skin surrounded his eyes and mouth - but he was moving, and coughing and for that, Sam felt grateful.
He forced himself up and pulled Dean’s tee shirt into his fist - Dean’s eyes opened a crack to look at him.
“You stupid bastard! What the hell were you thinking?” he rasped into Dean’s face. Dean’s head lolled back, his hands pushing Sam’s away as he coughed even more.
*
*
The warehouse continued to burn.
But Fulmer and Figgis had a ringside seat, tied up outside and far enough away that they wouldn’t be harmed. Which was more consideration than they’d ever shown to Sam and Dean.
The demon had already gone. A pathetic mangle of plastic ties in a converted pig pen, the only indication that someone had ever been there. Whatever drug the Backhouses had fed him, must’ve worn off. Thanks to their continued incompetence, a demon was free. The first guy wasn’t though. He lay, slaughtered just outside the warehouse. A bullet to the skull of an innocent host. He could have gone home to his family. But for the Backhouses.
“The police will find him, and charge them with murder,” Sam had stated baldly. Dean had merely nodded. As good a justice for what had happened as any.
Fulmer’s pick up transported them the three hours it took to drive back to their motel.
Sam drove sullenly, favouring his right side all the way.
Dean coughed himself into spasms in the passenger seat. His hairless arms curled around his ribs, his eyes streaming white streaks down his blackened face. They’d both stumbled into their room, one flopping onto the bed, the other retreating to the bathroom. The silence heavy and cumbersome between them.
They swapped rooms wordlessly. Sam sat gingerly on the bed holding his right arm in an attempt to decrease the movement in his shoulder, the familiar sound of Dean’s shower lulling him into a daze. He threw the towel down behind him and leaned back on the bed. His muscles relaxed and he suddenly felt exhausted.
“Sam.” Dean’s voice was far away.
“You’re still bleeding, man.” Louder now.
Sam opened his eyes to see Dean hovering over him. He turned Sam’s head to the side and examined the erratic spatter of wounds around his neck and shoulder.
“We gotta get them out. You know that, don’t you?”
Sam groaned at the thought, but pushed himself up into a sitting position while Dean grabbed the first aid kit and fumbled inside for the tweezers. He pushed a packet of pain killers into Sam’s hands along with a bottle of water and switched on the electric jug to boil.
Later, settled beside his brother, Dean drew in a fortifying breath and poised the sterilised tweezers above the deepest wounds. Sam braced against the gnawing pain, as Dean delved into each little wound on his shoulder.
“Another few minutes and you would’ve been toast, you know.” Sam began. No tone to the statement.
Dean focussed on his task. The gentle ‘chink’ of bloodied metal hitting the glass on the night stand.
“Well,” he said softly, “once I heard the gunshot, I figured, ‘what the hell.’”
“I might have failed. You would’ve burned. I told you not too.” Sam’s eyes remained trained ahead of him.
Dean stopped working for a beat and he lifted his gaze up to his brother’s face.
“You told me not too?”
“We discussed how it would go and you did it anyway.”
The tweezers ricocheted into the glass as Dean stood up and moved away, his face dark with anger.
“Yeah, we did. We discussed it and you told me not to do it. Any part of that scenario seem familiar to you, Sam? “ Sam looked away, nostrils flaring with tension. “I spent the past year discussing, pleading and arguing things with you too, remember? “
“Look, Dean - “ Sam moved to stand up.
“Look at what?” Dean turned away. “Look at you trying to tell me what to do, when you wouldn’t take the same advice from your own damn brother?
Sam wiped his face and stepped back from the confrontation. A rush of heat pricked his skin as his heart picked up its beat - his mind racing to find the words to throw back at him.
“You don’t have to keep reminding me... I know what I did was wrong.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t stop you from doing it, did it?” Dean snapped back. He pushed the bathroom door open and turned back to his brother.
“Now you know how it feels,” Dean’s eyes were piercing in their intensity. “Stings, don’t it.”
Sam didn’t hear him though. His vision was blurring and his mouth suddenly dried. He pushed out a hand to steady himself, but there was nothing there. By the time Dean had turned on the tap to wash his hands, Sam was already falling.
*
*
Dean placed a hand over Sam’s face, the dark blood on his neck a sharp contrast to the pale of his skin. He felt clammy and Dean thumbed away the moisture collecting under Sam’s swollen, black eye.
Exhaustion. The boy was exhausted. He pursed his lips and pushed the hair away from Sam’s forehead. A sound beating - incarcerated in a damn cage- underfed, and forced to exorcise demons and now cut up with buck shot and bleeding. And all it took to push him over the edge was another fight with his brother.
Dean frowned and pulled a hand across his own forehead.
This wasn’t working.
They weren’t working.
After Dean had told him that he didn’t think he could trust him, he’d actually been expecting Sam to leave. That he’d just pop the trunk, grab his stuff and go, right there from the hospital car lot. But he’d stayed.
He’d leave another time. And soon.
Oh, Dean knew he was sorry and ashamed. But even so, he still had that little spark of entitlement to the team that Dean wasn’t quite ready to give him yet.
And Dean knew it was him. He couldn’t let it go. Even on his better days there’d always be something that would bring it all back. A look. A word. Or a statement like, ‘I told you not too.’
Dean sighed and reached up to the night stand and pulled down the glass. 'May as well pull some metal out of his shoulder while he’s out of it', he told himself.
*
*
OK, looks like the next chapter is the last one. A sprinkle of Sick!Sam.
chapter 4
Title: For All I Know
Genre: Gen - H/C
Rating: R Swearing/blood, etc.
Characters: Dean, Sam and OMC's
Length: 3/4
Summary: Set inbetween 5.02 and 5.03. Sam and Dean get kidnapped and imprisoned, together...but apart.
*
*
The strength of the imitation lights outside stung - and he blinked back the strain on his eyes.
A warehouse. Sawdust on the floor. A permanent dry dust in the air. The gentle hum of hundreds of chickens nearby. Probably the warehouse next door. This place had metal pens and buckets. Hay and chicken feed sacks everywhere. Sam’s eyes flicked over each item in a nano-second inventory.
The muzzle of Figgis’ gun in the small of his back forced him forward and into a small office like room. A rough hand on his shoulder pushed him towards a bucket in the corner. He stalled for a moment - then realised neither Figgis nor Fulmer was going to leave him too it. Sam sighed, unbuckled his belt and did it anyway.
“How long is this gonna go on for, guys?”
“For as long as we want.” Fulmer replied. A quick glance to the side saw Fulmer hanging up the AK47, only to pick up a sawn-off shotgun and train it on him. “Call it a service for the community.”
“People are gonna start looking for us.”
“What...Bobby Singer?” Figgis gave a moronic guffaw only Goofy would’ve been proud of. “Hell, if he’s your only hope, you’re screwed.”
Sam clenched his teeth and stared at the filthy wall ahead of him. The muzzle of the gun signalled the end of his toilet break.
“Got someone else for you to meet,” Fulmer said quietly. Figgis pulled Sam back by his collar and walked him down towards the other end of the warehouse. Wide eyed, he scanned the pens for signs of movement.
They had another demon.
Only this one was either too big, or too pissed to drag to the cages for his extermination.
Sam slowed his pace, the door at the end of the warehouse becoming the one thing he never wanted to reach. If he left the warehouse, and Dean set his cage on fire, by the time they discovered it, his brother would be dead from smoke inhalation alone.
The stench of chickens assaulted his nose and stomach and he drew up an elbow to stem the smell. Figgis...being Figgis hadn’t even noticed Sam’s change of pace and as soon as his fat face loomed into his peripheral sight, he took his shot.
He slammed his elbow straight into Figgis’ jaw - teeth and blood spraying across the sawdust floor. As he forced Figgis over to his right, Fulmer’s shot gun blasted off a round - a sudden searing pain flashing over Sam’s right shoulder. Sam followed the man down and jammed a knee into his ribs to wrestle the gun off him. He rolled himself up against Figgis - close enough that Fulmer couldn’t secure a clean shot. And just as Sam levelled the gun, Fulmer’s eyes widened at the realisation that he was out in the open - with nothing to save him.
Sam fired the weapon - Fulmer’s left thigh seemed to explode in an unearthly sight of blood and tissue, both legs buckling and bringing him down.
Sam pushed Figgis away from him - the butt of the gun making a satisfying crunch as he forced it into his head and he rolled onto his face with a groan.
Sam lunged forward, unsteady but focussed. Just as Fulmer reached for his own gun, Sam kicked it away. He lifted a boot and swung it under Fulmer’s chin, snapping his head back and knocking him out.
Silence.
Sam sucked in breath. He shook his head from an immediate rush of dizziness. His lungs on fire with a combination of exertion and dust. He stood looking down at the unkempt duo, sprawled out on the ground before him.
Without restraint, he ransacked Fulmer’s pockets - and as he did so, he noticed rivulets of blood running down his right arm and off his hand. He followed the trail back up to his shoulder. It was covered in blood. It ran down his back and covered the ass of his jeans. He’d been caught by the shrapnel of Fulmer’s sawn-off.
He swayed momentarily, grunting with the effort it took to stand up and transfer his attention to Figgis nearby. Soon the comforting jangle of keys was heard and he grabbed them and stumbled towards the room with the cages.
At the door, Sam looked down at the huge bunch of keys.
Ten of them. Jeez.
Sam let the guns drop to the floor and glanced back to the far end of the warehouse. He drew in a cleansing breath and focussed on the keys. They all looked the same.
He jammed one into the lock and turned. No give.
The next one. Nope.
The third one...wrong again.
His shoulder shot back little stabs of pain at his every movement, the adrenalin rush beginning to wear off. He swapped hands in an attempt to lessen the slick of blood covering the keys and making them slippery, but only succeeded in losing his concentration.
A wave of prickly heat seemed to spread up his neck and face and he paused to gather his senses.
Then he smelt smoke.
Looking up, he could see black ribbons steaming from the top of the door and staining the wall.
Dean had started a fire.
“Dean! “ He yelled.
His heart thumped harder - the pain in his arm and shoulder screamed louder and he jammed another key in the lock.
No joy.
He closed his eyes, an attempt to lessen his haste - and picked the next key on the ring.
The lock turned.
He reached out for the handle and pulled at the door. It seemed to swing open without effort.
A hot gust of air immediately engulfed him and his eyes locked onto the flames at the back of Dean’s cage - the rush of new oxygen making it roar even higher.
He slammed a bloody hand against the light switch and a nervous strip light flickered it’s obedience - but the smoke was down to head height already and Sam strained to see his brother’s cage. At the far end was a veritable bonfire of the wood that had been broken up during Sam’s fight with the demon. Dean had obviously pulled a pile of it through the fence and the combination of tinder, sawdust and dry air had given the fire all the fuel it needed.
The air was thick and acrid.
Dean looked pitiful, huddled against the fence, his bloodied shirt jammed up against his face, nothing but a thin tee shirt to protect him, his arms bare to the searing heat and his head down.
Resigned to his fate.
“Dean!” Sam shouted above the noise. The heat of the air already burned his nostrils and dried his mouth. He forced a key into the cage lock.
No movement.
Another key...
Sam’s eyes blurred and watered against the grime of the atmosphere and he hacked a cough.
Another key...surely this one would be it.
The heat made him turn his head away - an instinct to protect his face.
Another key.
The fire licked up against the ceiling - sparks shooting erratically back into the cage.
Another key.
And...the lock turned.
The cage door slammed open, and Sam bent down and crawled inside towards Dean. He grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back and was rewarded by a flinch as Dean lifted his head.
Sam pulled him back, Dean’s legs cycling against the floor - a confused attempt to assist. Sam’s lungs strained with the lack of clean air, and the heat from the flames made him fumble blindly for the exits.
Groaning with the effort, he dragged Dean out into the warehouse and crumpled to the ground, the cool air now an exquisite contrast to the muck and grime of the smoke filled room. Wiping his eyes, he turned to look back at Dean. Smoke blackened skin surrounded his eyes and mouth - but he was moving, and coughing and for that, Sam felt grateful.
He forced himself up and pulled Dean’s tee shirt into his fist - Dean’s eyes opened a crack to look at him.
“You stupid bastard! What the hell were you thinking?” he rasped into Dean’s face. Dean’s head lolled back, his hands pushing Sam’s away as he coughed even more.
*
*
The warehouse continued to burn.
But Fulmer and Figgis had a ringside seat, tied up outside and far enough away that they wouldn’t be harmed. Which was more consideration than they’d ever shown to Sam and Dean.
The demon had already gone. A pathetic mangle of plastic ties in a converted pig pen, the only indication that someone had ever been there. Whatever drug the Backhouses had fed him, must’ve worn off. Thanks to their continued incompetence, a demon was free. The first guy wasn’t though. He lay, slaughtered just outside the warehouse. A bullet to the skull of an innocent host. He could have gone home to his family. But for the Backhouses.
“The police will find him, and charge them with murder,” Sam had stated baldly. Dean had merely nodded. As good a justice for what had happened as any.
Fulmer’s pick up transported them the three hours it took to drive back to their motel.
Sam drove sullenly, favouring his right side all the way.
Dean coughed himself into spasms in the passenger seat. His hairless arms curled around his ribs, his eyes streaming white streaks down his blackened face. They’d both stumbled into their room, one flopping onto the bed, the other retreating to the bathroom. The silence heavy and cumbersome between them.
They swapped rooms wordlessly. Sam sat gingerly on the bed holding his right arm in an attempt to decrease the movement in his shoulder, the familiar sound of Dean’s shower lulling him into a daze. He threw the towel down behind him and leaned back on the bed. His muscles relaxed and he suddenly felt exhausted.
“Sam.” Dean’s voice was far away.
“You’re still bleeding, man.” Louder now.
Sam opened his eyes to see Dean hovering over him. He turned Sam’s head to the side and examined the erratic spatter of wounds around his neck and shoulder.
“We gotta get them out. You know that, don’t you?”
Sam groaned at the thought, but pushed himself up into a sitting position while Dean grabbed the first aid kit and fumbled inside for the tweezers. He pushed a packet of pain killers into Sam’s hands along with a bottle of water and switched on the electric jug to boil.
Later, settled beside his brother, Dean drew in a fortifying breath and poised the sterilised tweezers above the deepest wounds. Sam braced against the gnawing pain, as Dean delved into each little wound on his shoulder.
“Another few minutes and you would’ve been toast, you know.” Sam began. No tone to the statement.
Dean focussed on his task. The gentle ‘chink’ of bloodied metal hitting the glass on the night stand.
“Well,” he said softly, “once I heard the gunshot, I figured, ‘what the hell.’”
“I might have failed. You would’ve burned. I told you not too.” Sam’s eyes remained trained ahead of him.
Dean stopped working for a beat and he lifted his gaze up to his brother’s face.
“You told me not too?”
“We discussed how it would go and you did it anyway.”
The tweezers ricocheted into the glass as Dean stood up and moved away, his face dark with anger.
“Yeah, we did. We discussed it and you told me not to do it. Any part of that scenario seem familiar to you, Sam? “ Sam looked away, nostrils flaring with tension. “I spent the past year discussing, pleading and arguing things with you too, remember? “
“Look, Dean - “ Sam moved to stand up.
“Look at what?” Dean turned away. “Look at you trying to tell me what to do, when you wouldn’t take the same advice from your own damn brother?
Sam wiped his face and stepped back from the confrontation. A rush of heat pricked his skin as his heart picked up its beat - his mind racing to find the words to throw back at him.
“You don’t have to keep reminding me... I know what I did was wrong.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t stop you from doing it, did it?” Dean snapped back. He pushed the bathroom door open and turned back to his brother.
“Now you know how it feels,” Dean’s eyes were piercing in their intensity. “Stings, don’t it.”
Sam didn’t hear him though. His vision was blurring and his mouth suddenly dried. He pushed out a hand to steady himself, but there was nothing there. By the time Dean had turned on the tap to wash his hands, Sam was already falling.
*
*
Dean placed a hand over Sam’s face, the dark blood on his neck a sharp contrast to the pale of his skin. He felt clammy and Dean thumbed away the moisture collecting under Sam’s swollen, black eye.
Exhaustion. The boy was exhausted. He pursed his lips and pushed the hair away from Sam’s forehead. A sound beating - incarcerated in a damn cage- underfed, and forced to exorcise demons and now cut up with buck shot and bleeding. And all it took to push him over the edge was another fight with his brother.
Dean frowned and pulled a hand across his own forehead.
This wasn’t working.
They weren’t working.
After Dean had told him that he didn’t think he could trust him, he’d actually been expecting Sam to leave. That he’d just pop the trunk, grab his stuff and go, right there from the hospital car lot. But he’d stayed.
He’d leave another time. And soon.
Oh, Dean knew he was sorry and ashamed. But even so, he still had that little spark of entitlement to the team that Dean wasn’t quite ready to give him yet.
And Dean knew it was him. He couldn’t let it go. Even on his better days there’d always be something that would bring it all back. A look. A word. Or a statement like, ‘I told you not too.’
Dean sighed and reached up to the night stand and pulled down the glass. 'May as well pull some metal out of his shoulder while he’s out of it', he told himself.
*
*
OK, looks like the next chapter is the last one. A sprinkle of Sick!Sam.
chapter 4