Fic: The Cold
Title: The Cold
Summary: A man is cheated by John Winchester and he decides to take what he's owed.
Word Count: 3,571
Author's Note: Based on a prompt. Thanks to winchesterpooja for helping with the medical facts :) Warning: this is a bit dark and bloody.
Now
Sam feels heavy. Heavy in his bones, in his head, in his heart. He can feel how frail he is. He can see it in the way Dean handles him, the way his dad looks at him.
He's lucky there's anything left of him.
Dean is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, mixing a bowl of porridge with sugar. Sam stares at it. It's sticky, sickly, congealing, sopping wet. Bloody.
Dean holds out the spoon to Sam's mouth, but Sam clamps his lips together and turns his head to the side.
"You need to eat," Dean says.
"Not hungry," Sam rasps. And it's true. His stomach may feel like it's trying to consume itself, but he never feels like eating ever again. The nasal cannula is awkward in his nostrils and he tries to breath its cool air steadily. He can't help but shiver, from the cold and the pain. Everything is a dull, throbbing ache.
"Please, Sam."
Sam shakes his head.
He was half wasted away once they found him. He's half a person now.
"Sam," that's his dad. A warning tone. "Sam, Dean's right. We're worried about you."
Sam glares at John. He thinks, you should have gotten there sooner. You should have found me earlier. You did this.
As if hearing his thoughts, John says, "I'm sorry, Sam."
Then
Dad said to stay where he can see him, but Sam can't concentrate in the bar. It's a constant hum of chatter, there's a lot of yelling, too, and more than once Sam has been nudged by rowdy truckers getting into fights. He can see dad and Dean over at the pool tables, hustling some rat-faced dude and his beefed-up friends. Rat-face, who seems to be in charge of the little group, reminds Sam a little of the Joker from the Batman comics, and he keeps sneering angrily at John with his yellow teeth.
Dean doesn't seem fazed by the leering of the other two. He's been looking up now and then, subtle enough that no one would notice but Sam. He's probably just checking Sam is where he left him, but Dean hasn't really glanced over in the past hour so Sam figures it's safe to sneak back to the car to finish his essay. He'll be back before they notice he was gone.
Sam downs the rest of his soda and scrapes up his textbooks and papers. He's pretty much invisible in this bar. He's not short anymore, in fact, he's almost as tall as Dean. But Sam is also skinny as a rake and he slips easily past each body in the place. More often than not, he gets an elbow in his side and no apology to follow. No one bothers to pay attention to the only underaged person there.
He manages to slink through the crowd and out the door.
The sounds of the bar quieten once the door falls shut behind him and he finally feels like he can breathe once he's outside. Sam pulls the cool, fresh air into his lungs and sighs. They're in the middle of God-knows-where, on their way to Michigan for the next job. Sam is just trying to catch up before he gets to his next school, hence the six essays he's done over the weekend.
It's a school night and he's hoping he can make it to classes in the morning. If his brother and dad would just hurry up, they could leave.
Sam fiddles for his key in his pocket and opens the passenger side door. He hops in and turns on the heater, settling his work on the dashboard. He holds his keychain flashlight between his teeth so he can see what he's writing in the dark.
He'd been sitting in the bar for three hours and he only got four paragraphs done. In the quiet of the car, he finishes it in half an hour. He skims it once and then decides to proofread it until he's satisfied. The tiny flashlight is running out of battery and it eventually flickers off halfway through the second re-read. He groans, tapping it against his palm, clicking the switch, hoping it'll turn back on. Nothing.
It's really dark out, now. And they aren't close enough to the highway that he might be able to get a little light from traffic. He looks back towards the bar where everything is pitch black except for the lights coming from the windows. He should probably head back inside before Dean and dad throw a fit, but the walk back is going to be a stumble in the dark.
He yawns and almost blindly collects his school work together. He leaves it in a pile on the back seat and prepares to walk back to the bar.
Tap tap tap
There's someone outside, leaning down to peer at him through the window. It's dark and Sam squints to figure out who it is. It's not dad or Dean, that's for sure.
"Hey, kid," the person says. Sam's eyes adjust a bit and he can just about recognize who it is. He quickly pushes down the lock and feels for the pocket knife he left on the seat beside him.
"Kid, I was just checking if you're alright out here on your own," Rat-face says. "I saw you out here on your own. You're a little young to be hanging out in a place like this."
Sam keeps fumbling, then his hand hits something and he hears it thunk to the car floor.
"My dad's gonna be back any second," Sam says.
The man grins and something awful tingles Sam's spine.
"Oh, I don't think he will be," the man says. "He's quite busy with a friend of mine in there. He won't be out until I decide he can come out."
Sam backs away towards the other door, hand reaching down for the knife. Then, he realises. He didn't lock the other door. It's yanked open behind him and someone grabs him roughly by the shoulders, pulling him out onto the gravel. All while Rat-face watches through the passenger window.
Sam squirms and kicks and grabs at anything he can. He can hear himself yelling, crying like a little kid, but he doesn't care. His heart is beating so fast it could burst right out of his chest. Where is his dad? Where's Dean?
Gravel crunches under boots and Rat-face is there. Whoever pulled him out of the car is holding him down flat on the ground, pushing him hard enough that he hurts all over. Sam thinks of Giles Corey in The Crucible.
More weight.
"Your dad tried to cheat me," Rat-face says. "He cheated and now he owes me something. And, you see, I don't think your daddy has any money. All he's got is this rusty old car… and you."
"Please," Sam manages to say, his voice is heavy and breathless. "He'll get your money. I swear. I can make sure of it. Just let me go. Please."
Rat-face pauses, eyes shining in the dark as he considers Sam. "I don't think I want his money. You, however, will come in handy for a while."
A while.
What does that mean? His heart becomes more frantic. Oh God. They're going to kill him. He's going to die.
"Let's get him in the van," Rat-face says, but he's talking to the heavy weight on top of Sam. "I'll give Vic the signal and we'll head back home."
Sam is being pulled upright.
"Please. Please, don't," he begs. His feet are digging into the ground, looking for some purchase, anything to keeping him from going where they're taking him. Then, he manages to find his voice and lets a long scream rip from his throat.
"HELP ME! SOMEONE PL - "
A large, meaty hand smacks over his mouth, cutting him off. Rat-face undoes his belt and Sam squirms harder, breaths huffing desperately.
"Jesus. Relax, kid. I'm not a pervert," says Rat-face. The hand is removed from Sam's mouth and quickly the belt is shoved between his teeth and knotted at the back of his head, tight enough that the leather digs into the corners of his mouth.
There's a van and the back doors are open. Someone ties Sam's hands behind his back and shoves roughly him inside. The doors are slammed shut and it's suddenly so dark. Sam can't see a thing.
He's not sure how long they drive for. He's too busy crying. Inside, he's thinking of how weird it is that he's been kidnapped. And the more he thinks about his current predicament, the more he cries. Someone tells him to shut up a few times but Sam doesn't think he could even if he wanted to.
He thinks of his pocket knife lying on the car floor. He thinks of how much he wishes he could have grabbed it. He wouldn't be here if he had.
Then, he thinks of his dad and brother. He wonders if they're hurt. If they're alive. If they know he's missing. If they're looking for him.
He tries to calm his breathing but he's jostled with the van and it only seems to get worse.
Calm down.
He can't.
If you don't get yourself together, you won't have a chance at getting out of this.
The voice in his head sounds an awful lot like his father.
Sam takes a deep breath.
The van comes to a sudden stop and Sam goes to the floor with a painful thud. He wriggles, tries to get back upright, but the doors open and there are three figures there. The shortest one is Rat-face, and he leans in and grabs Sam by the collar, pulling him out. Sam stumbles, almost loses his balance and goes down in a heap, but he's held tightly. Rat-face is a lot stronger than Sam would have guessed.
He's mostly dragged towards what looks like an abandoned barn.
"Come on, kid," Rat-face snaps. "Work with me here, would you?"
Sam growls at him through the belt between his teeth.
The three of them laugh.
"Got a little monster here," one of the says. "Not a full moon, is it?"
Rat-face leans in close and sniffs Sam's hair. "He's human, that's for sure," he says.
Sam freezes and almost goes tumbling to the ground. They aren't human, he realizes. They aren't -
"What you got, Joe?" there's a girl standing in the barn's doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily. She glances at Sam for a little while, watching him all the way inside. She's a lot younger than the others, only a teenager. "He's only a small one, ain't he?" she says. "Not much juice in that."
"Hunter's kid," Rat-face, Joe, tells her. And Sam stops breathing for a moment.
What are they? How did his dad not know?
He's going to die.
"Oh," the girl says. She bursts into a grin. "He'll be sweet, huh? Do I get first taste?"
Ghouls? Sam thinks.
Oh, God. They're going to eat him alive.
Now
"You're still very weak," the doctor is saying. Sam doesn't pay her much attention. He glances out the window. It's a sunny day. He can see people wandering around the hospital grounds below.
"The blood loss was severe," she goes on. "And you were extremely malnourished and dehydrated. It will take a while to get back on your feet… Sam?"
Sam rolls his head on his pillow and glances at her. "Huh?"
"Did you hear what I said?" she asks gently.
Sam shakes his head.
"Sam, if you need to talk to someone, someone professional, about what happened," she offers, "I can get someone for you. Talking to a therapist can really help."
"No thanks," Sam says. He glances down at his arms, every inch of them is bandaged. He can feel the bandages wrapped tight around his neck, his thighs.
"Think about it?" the doctor suggests.
Sam shrugs. "I got abducted by some psycho cannibals. Not much more to think about."
Then
The girl's name is Tiff, short for Tiffany, and she hasn't left Sam alone since he arrived. He's tied to a wooden post, his wrists and arms ache from being held in one place for so long. Tiff strokes his hair.
"He's the same age I was," she says, to no one in particular. "I probably woulda had a crush on him. He's cute, don't you think?"
"Not my type," says Joe.
It's freezing in the barn and Sam can't stop shivering. The rest of them, the people who took him, don't seem to feel the cold.
"Are you ghouls?" Sam stutters, breath catching the air, asking what's been on his mind for almost two days.
Tiff's eyes widen. "Ew! No!" She starts to stroke his hair and smiles. She turns to Joe and says, "I like him, he's cute. Can we keep him?"
"No. We don't need another mouth to feed," Joe says. He's fiddling with a beer bottle label, lounging on a ratty old couch, watching Tiff and Sam.
Tiff pouts and looks Sam in the eyes. "Sorry. I thought maybe he'd let you stay with us. I'd would'a shown you the ropes and everything. But what the boss says goes," she says, pouting.
"He's not doing any good there hanging like a goddamn decoration for this fugly place," Vic, one of the bigger guys, says. "I'm starving."
Sam gulps. His mouth is dry. He hasn't eaten or had anything to drink in two days. He's been watching the sun rise and fall through the slats in the barn walls. Everyone sleeps when the sun is out, Sam tries to keep his eyes open at all times. He hasn't slept yet, but fatigue is creeping up on him.
"Not you, Vic," Joe says. "The kid will be dead in a minute if I let you at him."
"The fuck?" Vic exclaims.
Joe shrugs. "Tiff can have him. She knows how to make her food last."
Tiff beams.
"Go ahead, sweetheart," Joe tells her.
She turns back to Sam and pecks his cheek. "It won't be so bad with me," she whispers in his ear. She lingers close to him and he can feel her breath near his neck, it's cold.
Then, there's pain. His neck is aflame, he's sure. He can't move, it hurts so much. But he manages to scream, gutted and rasping. She's latched onto him like a leach and he can feel her sucking. Blood drips down his neck, soaks the collar of his shirt. It's the only warm thing there is, his blood coating his side.
He's not sure how long it goes on for but his energy is seeping. Everything is tilting around him and when Tiff sits back she's split into two. Her mouth is bloody red and she's smiling around a full set of razer teeth, shark-like.
She leans forward again and laps at his neck.
Sam drifts away.
Now
Sam isn't sure when exactly he woke up, but he lies there for a long time with his eyes closed. He's cold, despite the three hospital blankets he's wrapped in.
"We can't leave. Not yet," that's Dean's voice, low and hissing.
"We don't have a choice," John whispers.
Sam hears Dean's frustrated silence.
"Sam's too sick," Dean says after a moment, hushed. "He can barely sit up by himself."
"The police are already involved, Dean," John replies. "Things are getting out of hand. How long do you think it will be before CPS turns up?"
"That won't happen," Dean denies. "We told them the truth. Or a version of it. Cannibal kidnappers isn't much different from vampires. Vampires… I still can't believe it. You said there was no such thing."
"I thought they were extinct."
"Well, dad, you were wrong."
Sam peels an eye open. Lying on his side, he can see nothing but the wall by his bed and the strip of light seeping in from the hallway.
"We need to go, Dean," John says again.
Dean sighs, defeated. It was only a matter of time. Dean can't refuse Dad.
"Okay. Fine. But we wait a little while. A day."
"Dean - "
"Give him one day."
"Alright. Just one day."
Sam doesn't sleep again that night.
Then
"I'm gonna miss you when you're gone," Tiff says.
Sam can't say the same. Even so, his neck is so torn up he's afraid to speak in case the bleeding starts again. She seemed to notice, too, so she's started feeding from his wrists and arms. Even worse, sometimes she bites the insides of his thighs. He's in nothing but his boxers. At least they gave him that dignity.
He's so cold.
So tired.
Tiff begins to braid a section of his hair.
"You know, it gets kinda lonely hanging out with these old dues all the time," she confides. "It's nice to have someone my age here. Well… not quite my age, but you get the picture."
Sam looks at her, heavy lidded. He would cry but he doesn't think he has enough water left in his body to do it. He's just a lump of meat, salty and dead. He stinks, too. There's piss staining his boxers and legs, and, God, it had stung like hell when the urine touched the open wounds on his thighs.
Tiff doesn't seem to mind the smell, or the fact that Sam is rotting away right in front of her.
She pauses her braiding and glances around. Joe, Vic and the other guy are playing cards on the other side of the barn.
"I can fix you," she whispers to Sam, "if you want. You can be like me and we'll live forever. Together."
She drags a nail across her palm and draws blood. She holds it close to Sam's mouth. He turns away.
"You need to drink it, it'll make you better," she says slowly, like he doesn't understand, but Sam has a pretty good guess of what drinking her blood will do to him.
He clamps his teeth together, turns his neck far enough for it to hurt.
"Come on, please," Tiff begs.
"Tiff! What the fuck are you doing?" Joe's voice barks across the barn. "I said he's a blood bag, nothing else. If you turn him, you have to kill him, and that'll just be a waste of food."
Tiff drops her hands to her sides, face falling sadly. "But I like him," she says, looking on the verge of tears.
Joe is striding over to them and he grabs Tiff's shoulder and shoves her back.
"You don't get to touch him anymore, girl," he snaps. "He's mine now, got it? I even see you look at him, I'll tie you up outside during the day."
Tiff trembles a little, head dropping. She nods and quickly gathers herself, hurrying across the barn to the others.
Joe sighs and grabs Sam by his hair, tilts his head from side to side. "She's made a real mess of you," he remarks, "but I'm surprised you're still living. Most folk give up and drop dead by now. You're one stubborn little kid."
He leans in close to the less damaged side of Sam's neck and Sam knows he won't survive it. This is it. Joe will feed from him and Sam will die. There's nothing left in him to keep going.
Sam closes his eyes. He's too tired.
Gunshots ring out through the barn and Joe let's go of him as Tiff shrieks. Sam tries to open his eyes to see, but he can't. He can't even stay awake anymore.
Now
Sam is limp and heavy as Dean lifts him from the hospital bed to the wheelchair. He can barely keep his head up straight. He lets it fall back into Dean's arms.
"We'll get you settled in at a motel, okay?" Dean is saying. "Get you all tucked in and drugged up. I'll rent some movies and we can watch them together. What do you say?"
Sam shrugs. Dean sits him down in the wheelchair, bends down to place Sam's dragging feet onto the stirrups. He leaves the line in Sam's arm, hangs the IV bags on the pole on the back of the chair, then he places two blankets over Sam's lap. He kneels in front of him and brushes a hand through Sam's hair.
"You good?"
"I'm fine," Sam says. His voice is cracked and barely above a whisper. His throat has been sore since he woke up in the hospital, long before that even. He thinks maybe he screamed his voice out of use.
Dean smiles a false smile and stands up to take the wheelchair handles.
Sam barely remembers the escape, nor the five hour drive out of state. He does remember retching all over dad's shoes on the side of the road and how the strain in his neck made a stitch almost split. He remembers crying from the pain.
He doesn't remember much after that until he wakes up again, tucked under both blankets from the beds in their motel room. Dean is beside him, stroking his hair, mouthing the lines along to some black-and-white western film on TV. And Dad is sitting beside him, writing something in his journal.
John looks up and sees that Sam is awake. He smiles, and Sam smiles right back.
He feels almost safe.
Summary: A man is cheated by John Winchester and he decides to take what he's owed.
Word Count: 3,571
Author's Note: Based on a prompt. Thanks to winchesterpooja for helping with the medical facts :) Warning: this is a bit dark and bloody.
Now
Sam feels heavy. Heavy in his bones, in his head, in his heart. He can feel how frail he is. He can see it in the way Dean handles him, the way his dad looks at him.
He's lucky there's anything left of him.
Dean is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, mixing a bowl of porridge with sugar. Sam stares at it. It's sticky, sickly, congealing, sopping wet. Bloody.
Dean holds out the spoon to Sam's mouth, but Sam clamps his lips together and turns his head to the side.
"You need to eat," Dean says.
"Not hungry," Sam rasps. And it's true. His stomach may feel like it's trying to consume itself, but he never feels like eating ever again. The nasal cannula is awkward in his nostrils and he tries to breath its cool air steadily. He can't help but shiver, from the cold and the pain. Everything is a dull, throbbing ache.
"Please, Sam."
Sam shakes his head.
He was half wasted away once they found him. He's half a person now.
"Sam," that's his dad. A warning tone. "Sam, Dean's right. We're worried about you."
Sam glares at John. He thinks, you should have gotten there sooner. You should have found me earlier. You did this.
As if hearing his thoughts, John says, "I'm sorry, Sam."
Then
Dad said to stay where he can see him, but Sam can't concentrate in the bar. It's a constant hum of chatter, there's a lot of yelling, too, and more than once Sam has been nudged by rowdy truckers getting into fights. He can see dad and Dean over at the pool tables, hustling some rat-faced dude and his beefed-up friends. Rat-face, who seems to be in charge of the little group, reminds Sam a little of the Joker from the Batman comics, and he keeps sneering angrily at John with his yellow teeth.
Dean doesn't seem fazed by the leering of the other two. He's been looking up now and then, subtle enough that no one would notice but Sam. He's probably just checking Sam is where he left him, but Dean hasn't really glanced over in the past hour so Sam figures it's safe to sneak back to the car to finish his essay. He'll be back before they notice he was gone.
Sam downs the rest of his soda and scrapes up his textbooks and papers. He's pretty much invisible in this bar. He's not short anymore, in fact, he's almost as tall as Dean. But Sam is also skinny as a rake and he slips easily past each body in the place. More often than not, he gets an elbow in his side and no apology to follow. No one bothers to pay attention to the only underaged person there.
He manages to slink through the crowd and out the door.
The sounds of the bar quieten once the door falls shut behind him and he finally feels like he can breathe once he's outside. Sam pulls the cool, fresh air into his lungs and sighs. They're in the middle of God-knows-where, on their way to Michigan for the next job. Sam is just trying to catch up before he gets to his next school, hence the six essays he's done over the weekend.
It's a school night and he's hoping he can make it to classes in the morning. If his brother and dad would just hurry up, they could leave.
Sam fiddles for his key in his pocket and opens the passenger side door. He hops in and turns on the heater, settling his work on the dashboard. He holds his keychain flashlight between his teeth so he can see what he's writing in the dark.
He'd been sitting in the bar for three hours and he only got four paragraphs done. In the quiet of the car, he finishes it in half an hour. He skims it once and then decides to proofread it until he's satisfied. The tiny flashlight is running out of battery and it eventually flickers off halfway through the second re-read. He groans, tapping it against his palm, clicking the switch, hoping it'll turn back on. Nothing.
It's really dark out, now. And they aren't close enough to the highway that he might be able to get a little light from traffic. He looks back towards the bar where everything is pitch black except for the lights coming from the windows. He should probably head back inside before Dean and dad throw a fit, but the walk back is going to be a stumble in the dark.
He yawns and almost blindly collects his school work together. He leaves it in a pile on the back seat and prepares to walk back to the bar.
Tap tap tap
There's someone outside, leaning down to peer at him through the window. It's dark and Sam squints to figure out who it is. It's not dad or Dean, that's for sure.
"Hey, kid," the person says. Sam's eyes adjust a bit and he can just about recognize who it is. He quickly pushes down the lock and feels for the pocket knife he left on the seat beside him.
"Kid, I was just checking if you're alright out here on your own," Rat-face says. "I saw you out here on your own. You're a little young to be hanging out in a place like this."
Sam keeps fumbling, then his hand hits something and he hears it thunk to the car floor.
"My dad's gonna be back any second," Sam says.
The man grins and something awful tingles Sam's spine.
"Oh, I don't think he will be," the man says. "He's quite busy with a friend of mine in there. He won't be out until I decide he can come out."
Sam backs away towards the other door, hand reaching down for the knife. Then, he realises. He didn't lock the other door. It's yanked open behind him and someone grabs him roughly by the shoulders, pulling him out onto the gravel. All while Rat-face watches through the passenger window.
Sam squirms and kicks and grabs at anything he can. He can hear himself yelling, crying like a little kid, but he doesn't care. His heart is beating so fast it could burst right out of his chest. Where is his dad? Where's Dean?
Gravel crunches under boots and Rat-face is there. Whoever pulled him out of the car is holding him down flat on the ground, pushing him hard enough that he hurts all over. Sam thinks of Giles Corey in The Crucible.
More weight.
"Your dad tried to cheat me," Rat-face says. "He cheated and now he owes me something. And, you see, I don't think your daddy has any money. All he's got is this rusty old car… and you."
"Please," Sam manages to say, his voice is heavy and breathless. "He'll get your money. I swear. I can make sure of it. Just let me go. Please."
Rat-face pauses, eyes shining in the dark as he considers Sam. "I don't think I want his money. You, however, will come in handy for a while."
A while.
What does that mean? His heart becomes more frantic. Oh God. They're going to kill him. He's going to die.
"Let's get him in the van," Rat-face says, but he's talking to the heavy weight on top of Sam. "I'll give Vic the signal and we'll head back home."
Sam is being pulled upright.
"Please. Please, don't," he begs. His feet are digging into the ground, looking for some purchase, anything to keeping him from going where they're taking him. Then, he manages to find his voice and lets a long scream rip from his throat.
"HELP ME! SOMEONE PL - "
A large, meaty hand smacks over his mouth, cutting him off. Rat-face undoes his belt and Sam squirms harder, breaths huffing desperately.
"Jesus. Relax, kid. I'm not a pervert," says Rat-face. The hand is removed from Sam's mouth and quickly the belt is shoved between his teeth and knotted at the back of his head, tight enough that the leather digs into the corners of his mouth.
There's a van and the back doors are open. Someone ties Sam's hands behind his back and shoves roughly him inside. The doors are slammed shut and it's suddenly so dark. Sam can't see a thing.
He's not sure how long they drive for. He's too busy crying. Inside, he's thinking of how weird it is that he's been kidnapped. And the more he thinks about his current predicament, the more he cries. Someone tells him to shut up a few times but Sam doesn't think he could even if he wanted to.
He thinks of his pocket knife lying on the car floor. He thinks of how much he wishes he could have grabbed it. He wouldn't be here if he had.
Then, he thinks of his dad and brother. He wonders if they're hurt. If they're alive. If they know he's missing. If they're looking for him.
He tries to calm his breathing but he's jostled with the van and it only seems to get worse.
Calm down.
He can't.
If you don't get yourself together, you won't have a chance at getting out of this.
The voice in his head sounds an awful lot like his father.
Sam takes a deep breath.
The van comes to a sudden stop and Sam goes to the floor with a painful thud. He wriggles, tries to get back upright, but the doors open and there are three figures there. The shortest one is Rat-face, and he leans in and grabs Sam by the collar, pulling him out. Sam stumbles, almost loses his balance and goes down in a heap, but he's held tightly. Rat-face is a lot stronger than Sam would have guessed.
He's mostly dragged towards what looks like an abandoned barn.
"Come on, kid," Rat-face snaps. "Work with me here, would you?"
Sam growls at him through the belt between his teeth.
The three of them laugh.
"Got a little monster here," one of the says. "Not a full moon, is it?"
Rat-face leans in close and sniffs Sam's hair. "He's human, that's for sure," he says.
Sam freezes and almost goes tumbling to the ground. They aren't human, he realizes. They aren't -
"What you got, Joe?" there's a girl standing in the barn's doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily. She glances at Sam for a little while, watching him all the way inside. She's a lot younger than the others, only a teenager. "He's only a small one, ain't he?" she says. "Not much juice in that."
"Hunter's kid," Rat-face, Joe, tells her. And Sam stops breathing for a moment.
What are they? How did his dad not know?
He's going to die.
"Oh," the girl says. She bursts into a grin. "He'll be sweet, huh? Do I get first taste?"
Ghouls? Sam thinks.
Oh, God. They're going to eat him alive.
Now
"You're still very weak," the doctor is saying. Sam doesn't pay her much attention. He glances out the window. It's a sunny day. He can see people wandering around the hospital grounds below.
"The blood loss was severe," she goes on. "And you were extremely malnourished and dehydrated. It will take a while to get back on your feet… Sam?"
Sam rolls his head on his pillow and glances at her. "Huh?"
"Did you hear what I said?" she asks gently.
Sam shakes his head.
"Sam, if you need to talk to someone, someone professional, about what happened," she offers, "I can get someone for you. Talking to a therapist can really help."
"No thanks," Sam says. He glances down at his arms, every inch of them is bandaged. He can feel the bandages wrapped tight around his neck, his thighs.
"Think about it?" the doctor suggests.
Sam shrugs. "I got abducted by some psycho cannibals. Not much more to think about."
Then
The girl's name is Tiff, short for Tiffany, and she hasn't left Sam alone since he arrived. He's tied to a wooden post, his wrists and arms ache from being held in one place for so long. Tiff strokes his hair.
"He's the same age I was," she says, to no one in particular. "I probably woulda had a crush on him. He's cute, don't you think?"
"Not my type," says Joe.
It's freezing in the barn and Sam can't stop shivering. The rest of them, the people who took him, don't seem to feel the cold.
"Are you ghouls?" Sam stutters, breath catching the air, asking what's been on his mind for almost two days.
Tiff's eyes widen. "Ew! No!" She starts to stroke his hair and smiles. She turns to Joe and says, "I like him, he's cute. Can we keep him?"
"No. We don't need another mouth to feed," Joe says. He's fiddling with a beer bottle label, lounging on a ratty old couch, watching Tiff and Sam.
Tiff pouts and looks Sam in the eyes. "Sorry. I thought maybe he'd let you stay with us. I'd would'a shown you the ropes and everything. But what the boss says goes," she says, pouting.
"He's not doing any good there hanging like a goddamn decoration for this fugly place," Vic, one of the bigger guys, says. "I'm starving."
Sam gulps. His mouth is dry. He hasn't eaten or had anything to drink in two days. He's been watching the sun rise and fall through the slats in the barn walls. Everyone sleeps when the sun is out, Sam tries to keep his eyes open at all times. He hasn't slept yet, but fatigue is creeping up on him.
"Not you, Vic," Joe says. "The kid will be dead in a minute if I let you at him."
"The fuck?" Vic exclaims.
Joe shrugs. "Tiff can have him. She knows how to make her food last."
Tiff beams.
"Go ahead, sweetheart," Joe tells her.
She turns back to Sam and pecks his cheek. "It won't be so bad with me," she whispers in his ear. She lingers close to him and he can feel her breath near his neck, it's cold.
Then, there's pain. His neck is aflame, he's sure. He can't move, it hurts so much. But he manages to scream, gutted and rasping. She's latched onto him like a leach and he can feel her sucking. Blood drips down his neck, soaks the collar of his shirt. It's the only warm thing there is, his blood coating his side.
He's not sure how long it goes on for but his energy is seeping. Everything is tilting around him and when Tiff sits back she's split into two. Her mouth is bloody red and she's smiling around a full set of razer teeth, shark-like.
She leans forward again and laps at his neck.
Sam drifts away.
Now
Sam isn't sure when exactly he woke up, but he lies there for a long time with his eyes closed. He's cold, despite the three hospital blankets he's wrapped in.
"We can't leave. Not yet," that's Dean's voice, low and hissing.
"We don't have a choice," John whispers.
Sam hears Dean's frustrated silence.
"Sam's too sick," Dean says after a moment, hushed. "He can barely sit up by himself."
"The police are already involved, Dean," John replies. "Things are getting out of hand. How long do you think it will be before CPS turns up?"
"That won't happen," Dean denies. "We told them the truth. Or a version of it. Cannibal kidnappers isn't much different from vampires. Vampires… I still can't believe it. You said there was no such thing."
"I thought they were extinct."
"Well, dad, you were wrong."
Sam peels an eye open. Lying on his side, he can see nothing but the wall by his bed and the strip of light seeping in from the hallway.
"We need to go, Dean," John says again.
Dean sighs, defeated. It was only a matter of time. Dean can't refuse Dad.
"Okay. Fine. But we wait a little while. A day."
"Dean - "
"Give him one day."
"Alright. Just one day."
Sam doesn't sleep again that night.
Then
"I'm gonna miss you when you're gone," Tiff says.
Sam can't say the same. Even so, his neck is so torn up he's afraid to speak in case the bleeding starts again. She seemed to notice, too, so she's started feeding from his wrists and arms. Even worse, sometimes she bites the insides of his thighs. He's in nothing but his boxers. At least they gave him that dignity.
He's so cold.
So tired.
Tiff begins to braid a section of his hair.
"You know, it gets kinda lonely hanging out with these old dues all the time," she confides. "It's nice to have someone my age here. Well… not quite my age, but you get the picture."
Sam looks at her, heavy lidded. He would cry but he doesn't think he has enough water left in his body to do it. He's just a lump of meat, salty and dead. He stinks, too. There's piss staining his boxers and legs, and, God, it had stung like hell when the urine touched the open wounds on his thighs.
Tiff doesn't seem to mind the smell, or the fact that Sam is rotting away right in front of her.
She pauses her braiding and glances around. Joe, Vic and the other guy are playing cards on the other side of the barn.
"I can fix you," she whispers to Sam, "if you want. You can be like me and we'll live forever. Together."
She drags a nail across her palm and draws blood. She holds it close to Sam's mouth. He turns away.
"You need to drink it, it'll make you better," she says slowly, like he doesn't understand, but Sam has a pretty good guess of what drinking her blood will do to him.
He clamps his teeth together, turns his neck far enough for it to hurt.
"Come on, please," Tiff begs.
"Tiff! What the fuck are you doing?" Joe's voice barks across the barn. "I said he's a blood bag, nothing else. If you turn him, you have to kill him, and that'll just be a waste of food."
Tiff drops her hands to her sides, face falling sadly. "But I like him," she says, looking on the verge of tears.
Joe is striding over to them and he grabs Tiff's shoulder and shoves her back.
"You don't get to touch him anymore, girl," he snaps. "He's mine now, got it? I even see you look at him, I'll tie you up outside during the day."
Tiff trembles a little, head dropping. She nods and quickly gathers herself, hurrying across the barn to the others.
Joe sighs and grabs Sam by his hair, tilts his head from side to side. "She's made a real mess of you," he remarks, "but I'm surprised you're still living. Most folk give up and drop dead by now. You're one stubborn little kid."
He leans in close to the less damaged side of Sam's neck and Sam knows he won't survive it. This is it. Joe will feed from him and Sam will die. There's nothing left in him to keep going.
Sam closes his eyes. He's too tired.
Gunshots ring out through the barn and Joe let's go of him as Tiff shrieks. Sam tries to open his eyes to see, but he can't. He can't even stay awake anymore.
Now
Sam is limp and heavy as Dean lifts him from the hospital bed to the wheelchair. He can barely keep his head up straight. He lets it fall back into Dean's arms.
"We'll get you settled in at a motel, okay?" Dean is saying. "Get you all tucked in and drugged up. I'll rent some movies and we can watch them together. What do you say?"
Sam shrugs. Dean sits him down in the wheelchair, bends down to place Sam's dragging feet onto the stirrups. He leaves the line in Sam's arm, hangs the IV bags on the pole on the back of the chair, then he places two blankets over Sam's lap. He kneels in front of him and brushes a hand through Sam's hair.
"You good?"
"I'm fine," Sam says. His voice is cracked and barely above a whisper. His throat has been sore since he woke up in the hospital, long before that even. He thinks maybe he screamed his voice out of use.
Dean smiles a false smile and stands up to take the wheelchair handles.
Sam barely remembers the escape, nor the five hour drive out of state. He does remember retching all over dad's shoes on the side of the road and how the strain in his neck made a stitch almost split. He remembers crying from the pain.
He doesn't remember much after that until he wakes up again, tucked under both blankets from the beds in their motel room. Dean is beside him, stroking his hair, mouthing the lines along to some black-and-white western film on TV. And Dad is sitting beside him, writing something in his journal.
John looks up and sees that Sam is awake. He smiles, and Sam smiles right back.
He feels almost safe.