Fic: Wind Chimes
Title: Wind Chimes
Word Count: 3156
Summary: John and Dean have to identify a body.
Author's Notes: Based on this prompt: I just watched season 1 again, and in the episode 'Benders' I think it was practically Sam's fault that the dad died as he got out, took out the brothers and the father, whatever.
So I think that if the brothers got outta jail or escaped they would come after Sam as pay back. So they tortured Sam or they hunt him like they were going to do the first time or anything really, your call on that :). It can also be a deathfic, don't mind. Don't care what season, thou not within season three
The ending is open to interpretation. Contains themes of horror and violence. And a possible main character death, depending on how you see it.
Find Dad. That had been the mission from day one, even before Jessica. It had been the thing keeping Sammy going. Find Dad, Sam had thought, and maybe he wouldn't drown after the dam Jessica's death broke came rushing down to meet him. Find Dad, Dean thought, and they could be a family again.
Dean found Dad. It had only taken a phone call this time, one call after many. Even after John had ignored Dean's desperate message from Lawrence, or Sam's pleas after Dean's run-in with a Rawhead. He'd ignored the other messages;
Dad, I can't find Sam. I don't know if you're even going to listen to this… I can't find him. I will though. I'll find him.
It's been a week, Dad. I can't find anything. Nothing. Dad, I need help.
Dad, call me.
Dad, It's been two weeks! Why the fuck haven't you called me? Do you even care that Sammy's missing? You know what? Fuck you. I'll find him myself.
Dad. Please. I think I know who took him. It's bad… please. Call me.
I don't even know if you're alive anymore. I don't know if Sammy's alive. Please… just call me.
Dad, the cops are involved. They think Sam is involved in something… those fuckers took other kids. They're not monsters. Just people, Dad. I need you. Please.
Dad… Dad, they. They, uh, found them. I need you to come to the morgue. Call me back. Please.
John had been listening. Dean knew he had, after that last message John had called him right away, demanding Dean's location.
Here they are, in some dim, overly-clean hospital corridor, way down at the bottom of the building. The police had said there were a few kids. Five young men; all tall, all brunette, all Caucasian, all in their early twenties.
A woman walks by, slowly, like every step is agony for her. A man has his arm around her, taking her weight like she can't carry it herself. She's crying, quietly, red-eyed and shaking. She looks destroyed, completely broken. She makes her way, hunched and weary, out of the mortuary.
A few families have been, Dean has been there the whole time, long before Dad had arrived. Dean had been the first one there, could have gone in first, but he'd refused. He was waiting for his dad, he'd told them. It was only a half-truth. He'd watched people enter and leave the room, some looked relieved, some looked like the woman who'd just been by, they had all looked different upon leaving.
Four bodies have been claimed, he noticed that much. That left one more. Dean prays that he wouldn't recognise the last one. Every time he does he hears Sam's voice in his head saying, 'You know praying doesn't mean anything when you're an atheist, right?'
If he could answer Dean would say, 'It does mean something when you're desperate.'
His dad hadn't said a word to him. He'd hugged him tighter than Dean ever remembered, squeezing hard enough for Dean's spine to crack, then he'd just dropped down into the seat next to him. He's been leaning forward, hands clasped and pressed to his lips, for a long time. Dean wonders if he's praying too.
Sam didn't like bars, not much. Sure, he would enjoy a beer, play some pool, but it wasn't his place. Bars were where Dean thrived. Sam thrived in libraries, quiet places where he could sink into his own thoughts. He'd thrived at Stanford. While Dean drank and hustled and flirted, Sam huddled in the corner with his laptop and his notes, barely touching his drink.
Dean had told him, 'If you're going to grow your hair out, Samantha, you might as well let it down.'
At that point, Sam was exhausted, dreams of Jess kept him up at night and work kept him up all day, even when he wasn't working. They'd been at the bar for three hours by then and Sam just wanted to go back to the motel. For once, he wanted to sleep.
Dean had been sharing his airspace with a pretty blonde girl in a cropped band tee and cut-off shorts. Her lips were overly-glossed and her hair was overly-fluffed. She was like Dean's perfect woman; Jessica Simpson in Jukes of Hazard.
He'd seemed a little… busy, and Sam had managed to slip out with only a small wave from Dean, a gesture which pretty much told Sam to go, he could take the car and he probably wouldn't see Dean until the next morning. And, yes, he had gotten all that from one little wave.
Then he was out in the parking lot, setting his laptop and journal down on the hood of the Impala as he fished out the keys. It had been quiet, despite the muffled sound of rock music coming from inside the bar. Sam had known right away that something was off.
But he should have realised that history was repeating itself.
Every time someone walks by their shoes squeak against the linoleum flooring, a constant whine as Dean and John sit there, waiting. He never thought that finding out if someone was dead could be so formal. Honestly, Dean had never imagined being in this situation, not for Sammy. Sam is supposed to live forever, longer than Dean, that's for sure.
Sam's supposed to be the one to stay behind once John and Dean have been chewed up or hit their head hard enough to loosen a few screws. Sam's supposed to be the one to get a life-sucking corporate job and a pretty wife who bakes for the neighbourhood barbeques and he's supposed to have a couple of annoying little Sammys to tuck in at night.
Sam is not supposed to be a potential cadaver.
Dean stiffens every time someone in scrubs walks their way, sucking in a breath as if not breathing means time will stop or he'll turn invisible or something else dumb he'd convinced Sam of when he'd been little. A girl strides past, not giving him a second glance. She's pretty, red ponytail swinging behind her, but she has a determined, over-achieving thing about her. Maybe it's because her expression is fixed like Sam's usually is when he's concentrating.
Every thought comes back to Sam; it isn't painful until he remembers where they are.
A woman exits the morgue, clipboard in hand, dressed in a white coat. She's looking at Dean and John, heading their way. Dean knows who she is but it doesn't stop him from holding his breath like the magic ability that had been working until now will just send her right by. He doesn't look up until she stops in front of them.
"Dean and John Winchester," she says softly. Practised sympathy.
John's on his feet, shaking her hand. Dean stares at the ground, not ready to shake her hand, never. He ends up on his feet when John hauls him up, his hand lingers on Dean's back. The woman nods to them and leads them down to the morgue.
He expects everything to stop, like in the movies. He'll walk, slow motion and silent, into the morgue, lay eyes upon Sam's body and the world will suddenly freeze because how can it keep turning on its axis when Sam is gone.
Things aren't like in the movies; Dean should know that better than anyone. The hospital keeps bustling around them like they're not even there. Once they're through the door he realises they aren't even in the morgue yet, they stop in an office but Dean can see a metal table through another doorway with a white sheet over a few lumps, too flat and unevenly shaped for it to be a whole body.
He remembers the mobile of human bones from the last time.
He woke up with wind chimes in his ears. His neck stung and his head was foggy. When he remembered that he never actually got into the Impala he jolted awake. Wherever he was, it was familiar- crooked, dirty, cluttered with the oddest things. The cage was what sparked his memory. He was in a cage again. Sam knew where he was.
It wasn't like the last one with the impossible lock and room enough to sit up. This one must have been meant for a dog, a large one, but a dog smaller than Sam. He glanced around; weapons, dishes of… teeth, oh God. The wind chimes weren't that at all; human bones hung from string and jangled against one another in a dull, broken song.
"We got you for sure now, boy," a voice thick with a southern accent, missing a few teeth. Sam looked up through the bars. The Benders… who were supposed to be in jail. "Took us a while, got some o' the wrong pretty-lookin' boys."
Sam would have backed up in the cage if he'd had the space.
"They were practise, though," Bender said. Sam didn't remember their names; the two sons had been barely distinguishable anyway. "Bet you're surprised to see us again," he added.
Of course, Sam was surprised. He'd last seen them only a few months ago and he'd been more than happy to put every memory of that experience in the Impala's rear view mirror.
"We're gonna have some fun," Bender told Sam, eyes glinting, grinning like he'd just thought up the smartest thing to say. Sam didn't say anything. He had already been kidnapped by a cannibal hillbillies for the second time. It was like some crappy horror flick. In any other situation, Sam might have laughed.
Bender stared at Sam, waiting for an answer, probably waiting for him to beg. Sam wouldn't do that, begging wouldn't get him anywhere. He just had to wait it out for Dean to find him, because he would, Dean always found him.
Unless he was getting busy with Jessica-Simpson-lookalike. No, Sam's laptop was left on the car, Dean would notice that and he'd kick blondie to the curb as he went frantic looking for him.
"You killed Pa," Bender accused, which wasn't technically true. Sure, Sam had shot the bastard, but the cop had been the one to take him out. Though, the Benders wouldn't know that… well, shit. Sam didn't answer, nothing he could say would help the situation.
"Missy's been missing her daddy," Bender went on. "I think you owe her."
Then there she was, still as creepy as the last time. Last Sam had heard the girl had gone into the system, hopefully along with a crap-load of counselling. She moved in an unhuman way, like an animal sniffing out something lesser than them, a fox after a rat. She had a knife in hand, small and sharp, a shaving blade, and Sam couldn't stop himself from stiffening.
"Missy, you can play, but don't make too much o' a mess. We still need him, 'kay?"
Missy nodded and slinked over, joints moving like she'd never learned to walk properly. Likely, she hadn't. In a way, Sam felt sorry for her.
"I like making pictures," she said, not to anyone in particular, whipping the blade up. Sam shied away, but he couldn't get away from her in the confined space, and she made a careful line on his arm. It stung, enough for him to grunt with pain. He wouldn't scream, not for them.
He struggled, but in the end, Missy made her picture. She smiled at it.
"Now you're even prettier," she said. Sam dared to glance down at the seeping red flower etched into his upper arm, it was crooked and messy, slashed through with lines from each time Sam had tried to jerk away. It was dirty, the knife had been rusty and unclean, and now it was in his blood. His time had seriously shortened unless Dean hurried up and took him to the ER for a tetanus shot.
Sam didn't feel sorry for Missy Bender anymore.
"I understand you've been waiting for a while," the doctor says. "But it's my job to speak to you before you go in."
John nods, still a professional under the circumstances.
"There's only one person left to be identified," she explains. " I understand that this is uneasy. If you wish to leave at any moment, please say so. You may take as long as you need."
Dean nods that time, he's just doing it, because it's all he can do. Pretend that he understands. His head refuses to wrap itself around the fact that Sam might be in there. He's not, he can't be.
His eyes flicker back through the door. Everything is shiny grey, cold-looking. It's where the dead is kept, it's where Sam might be.
"Whenever you're ready," she says softly.
"We're ready..."
John barely finishes his sentence because Dean just snaps, "No."
Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been in there, cramped and twisted behind the bars. He'd not been fed, just drawn on by Missy and her rusty knife. He felt unwell, which was bad enough, the flaming red carvings on his arms were enough to tell him that they desperately needed to be cleaned.
His head was pounding, like something was pressing on his skull from the inside, his mouth and throat were dry enough that it hurt to swallow. The worst of it was the pain in his stomach, it was twisting and cramping. He was so hungry but he felt so nauseous.
The Benders liked to tease him with unintelligent insults, they wouldn't have gotten to Sam if he hadn't been wasting away to his bones.
Maybe they'd tie him up like a wind chime.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been there. But he knew it was longer than it should have taken Dean to find him. By now, Sam knew Dean wasn't coming. He was going to die. He just wished they'd hurry up with it. Cut off his meat, hang up his bones, add his teeth to the tin. He didn't care anymore, just do it sooner than later, please.
He prayed. All the time. At first, he'd prayed for Dean to find him, or for himself to find a way out. Then he'd prayed that Dean would be okay once he was gone, that he'd have something to burn. Now, he prayed that it would be over. That maybe he'd see Jess soon. Maybe he'd meet his mother.
Then one of the Benders came in, unlatched the cage door, dropped a blunt knife on the floor and left the room. Sam untwisted himself from the cage and let himself stretch out onto the floor. It was painful, his joints cramped and cracked, but he was used to pain. He stayed there for a long while, ignoring the knife and hoping that they might come back and finish the job.
They didn't come back.
He didn't want to move, he wanted to stay where he was and drift away, hopefully it would be an end. It was pathetic, but he didn't really care anymore.
Get your ass off the floor and fight, Sammy. At this point, Sam couldn't tell if he was just imagining it or if he'd really lost it this time and was hearing voices. Dean. Of course, he'd hallucinate his own brother. That really said something about their relationship.
Fucked up.
Dean, or not-Dean, was right. Even if Sam wanted to give up, he couldn't do that to his brother. He had to try. Dean would try. Sam grabbed the knife, though his hand-eye coordination was a little off because his vision was blurry, pounding and pulsing along with his head.
Getting to his feet was difficult, he went down a couple of times, knocking over jars filled with bits of… people. Sam used the wall to keep himself up and pushed himself on. It was raining outside, and dark, and he slipped in the mud a little as he left the house. It wasn't the same as the last one, smaller, and there was no barn but plenty of surrounding wood.
Sam had no clue where he was, how far from the nearest town, how far from Dean. He didn't even know if he was in the same state. He was freezing but his arm was on fire, flaming and sickly. Even if he escaped the Benders, he didn't know if he'd find a hospital in time. He might go into sepsis or starve to death at the bottom of a ditch.
Nevertheless, Sam had to move. He made his way into the woods, stumbling on tree roots, slipping on soggy leaves, getting soaked down to the bone. He could hear them coming, laughing, like it was sport.
Sam ran.
"Dean," his dad is saying it gently. "We need to - "
"No," Dean bites out. "Not until I'm ready, right?"
He turns to the woman and she nods.
"Well, I'm not ready," he says.
The mortician looks sympathetic, though it's clear she wants them to get in there and do it, she needs them to identify, or not identify, the body.
"Your father can do it," she suggests. "You don't have to do it."
"No," Dean shakes his head. "I have to do it."
Because it's Sam. And Sam wouldn't want the last person to say Yes that's Sam, that's my boy to be dad. Because if that really is Sam in there, cold and naked and covered in a white sheet, Dean owes it to him to be there and claim him.
He glances again through the door at the half-boy under the sheet, the boy that's already been claimed by some poor mother, a woman who had to look at her child in pieces. Dean finds a twisted gratitude within himself that this body was the freshest, that if it is Sam, then maybe he'll still look like Sam.
"Are you ready?" she asks, like she's said it a dozen times already. She could have and Dean wasn't listening. He can only find it in himself to simply nod.
She leads them into the next room. There are five neatly lined metal tables, all with varying shapes under their sheets. Dean stares at them as they go by, trying to see if he can make out facial features under the sheets. All boys, all sons, all dead.
She stops at the last table, waits for them to catch up. Dean finally looks at it. The body is long, almost filling the entire table, but it's obvious that whoever is underneath is skinny. He can only make out the nose sticking up under the sheet.
John and Dean stand next to the head; he finds himself breathing evenly. He should be hyperventilating.
"Are you ready?" she asks again. John looks to Dean, lets him dictate this for once. Sam was more his than John's, they both know that.
She pulls back the sheet.
Word Count: 3156
Summary: John and Dean have to identify a body.
Author's Notes: Based on this prompt: I just watched season 1 again, and in the episode 'Benders' I think it was practically Sam's fault that the dad died as he got out, took out the brothers and the father, whatever.
So I think that if the brothers got outta jail or escaped they would come after Sam as pay back. So they tortured Sam or they hunt him like they were going to do the first time or anything really, your call on that :). It can also be a deathfic, don't mind. Don't care what season, thou not within season three
The ending is open to interpretation. Contains themes of horror and violence. And a possible main character death, depending on how you see it.
Find Dad. That had been the mission from day one, even before Jessica. It had been the thing keeping Sammy going. Find Dad, Sam had thought, and maybe he wouldn't drown after the dam Jessica's death broke came rushing down to meet him. Find Dad, Dean thought, and they could be a family again.
Dean found Dad. It had only taken a phone call this time, one call after many. Even after John had ignored Dean's desperate message from Lawrence, or Sam's pleas after Dean's run-in with a Rawhead. He'd ignored the other messages;
Dad, I can't find Sam. I don't know if you're even going to listen to this… I can't find him. I will though. I'll find him.
It's been a week, Dad. I can't find anything. Nothing. Dad, I need help.
Dad, call me.
Dad, It's been two weeks! Why the fuck haven't you called me? Do you even care that Sammy's missing? You know what? Fuck you. I'll find him myself.
Dad. Please. I think I know who took him. It's bad… please. Call me.
I don't even know if you're alive anymore. I don't know if Sammy's alive. Please… just call me.
Dad, the cops are involved. They think Sam is involved in something… those fuckers took other kids. They're not monsters. Just people, Dad. I need you. Please.
Dad… Dad, they. They, uh, found them. I need you to come to the morgue. Call me back. Please.
John had been listening. Dean knew he had, after that last message John had called him right away, demanding Dean's location.
Here they are, in some dim, overly-clean hospital corridor, way down at the bottom of the building. The police had said there were a few kids. Five young men; all tall, all brunette, all Caucasian, all in their early twenties.
A woman walks by, slowly, like every step is agony for her. A man has his arm around her, taking her weight like she can't carry it herself. She's crying, quietly, red-eyed and shaking. She looks destroyed, completely broken. She makes her way, hunched and weary, out of the mortuary.
A few families have been, Dean has been there the whole time, long before Dad had arrived. Dean had been the first one there, could have gone in first, but he'd refused. He was waiting for his dad, he'd told them. It was only a half-truth. He'd watched people enter and leave the room, some looked relieved, some looked like the woman who'd just been by, they had all looked different upon leaving.
Four bodies have been claimed, he noticed that much. That left one more. Dean prays that he wouldn't recognise the last one. Every time he does he hears Sam's voice in his head saying, 'You know praying doesn't mean anything when you're an atheist, right?'
If he could answer Dean would say, 'It does mean something when you're desperate.'
His dad hadn't said a word to him. He'd hugged him tighter than Dean ever remembered, squeezing hard enough for Dean's spine to crack, then he'd just dropped down into the seat next to him. He's been leaning forward, hands clasped and pressed to his lips, for a long time. Dean wonders if he's praying too.
Sam didn't like bars, not much. Sure, he would enjoy a beer, play some pool, but it wasn't his place. Bars were where Dean thrived. Sam thrived in libraries, quiet places where he could sink into his own thoughts. He'd thrived at Stanford. While Dean drank and hustled and flirted, Sam huddled in the corner with his laptop and his notes, barely touching his drink.
Dean had told him, 'If you're going to grow your hair out, Samantha, you might as well let it down.'
At that point, Sam was exhausted, dreams of Jess kept him up at night and work kept him up all day, even when he wasn't working. They'd been at the bar for three hours by then and Sam just wanted to go back to the motel. For once, he wanted to sleep.
Dean had been sharing his airspace with a pretty blonde girl in a cropped band tee and cut-off shorts. Her lips were overly-glossed and her hair was overly-fluffed. She was like Dean's perfect woman; Jessica Simpson in Jukes of Hazard.
He'd seemed a little… busy, and Sam had managed to slip out with only a small wave from Dean, a gesture which pretty much told Sam to go, he could take the car and he probably wouldn't see Dean until the next morning. And, yes, he had gotten all that from one little wave.
Then he was out in the parking lot, setting his laptop and journal down on the hood of the Impala as he fished out the keys. It had been quiet, despite the muffled sound of rock music coming from inside the bar. Sam had known right away that something was off.
But he should have realised that history was repeating itself.
Every time someone walks by their shoes squeak against the linoleum flooring, a constant whine as Dean and John sit there, waiting. He never thought that finding out if someone was dead could be so formal. Honestly, Dean had never imagined being in this situation, not for Sammy. Sam is supposed to live forever, longer than Dean, that's for sure.
Sam's supposed to be the one to stay behind once John and Dean have been chewed up or hit their head hard enough to loosen a few screws. Sam's supposed to be the one to get a life-sucking corporate job and a pretty wife who bakes for the neighbourhood barbeques and he's supposed to have a couple of annoying little Sammys to tuck in at night.
Sam is not supposed to be a potential cadaver.
Dean stiffens every time someone in scrubs walks their way, sucking in a breath as if not breathing means time will stop or he'll turn invisible or something else dumb he'd convinced Sam of when he'd been little. A girl strides past, not giving him a second glance. She's pretty, red ponytail swinging behind her, but she has a determined, over-achieving thing about her. Maybe it's because her expression is fixed like Sam's usually is when he's concentrating.
Every thought comes back to Sam; it isn't painful until he remembers where they are.
A woman exits the morgue, clipboard in hand, dressed in a white coat. She's looking at Dean and John, heading their way. Dean knows who she is but it doesn't stop him from holding his breath like the magic ability that had been working until now will just send her right by. He doesn't look up until she stops in front of them.
"Dean and John Winchester," she says softly. Practised sympathy.
John's on his feet, shaking her hand. Dean stares at the ground, not ready to shake her hand, never. He ends up on his feet when John hauls him up, his hand lingers on Dean's back. The woman nods to them and leads them down to the morgue.
He expects everything to stop, like in the movies. He'll walk, slow motion and silent, into the morgue, lay eyes upon Sam's body and the world will suddenly freeze because how can it keep turning on its axis when Sam is gone.
Things aren't like in the movies; Dean should know that better than anyone. The hospital keeps bustling around them like they're not even there. Once they're through the door he realises they aren't even in the morgue yet, they stop in an office but Dean can see a metal table through another doorway with a white sheet over a few lumps, too flat and unevenly shaped for it to be a whole body.
He remembers the mobile of human bones from the last time.
He woke up with wind chimes in his ears. His neck stung and his head was foggy. When he remembered that he never actually got into the Impala he jolted awake. Wherever he was, it was familiar- crooked, dirty, cluttered with the oddest things. The cage was what sparked his memory. He was in a cage again. Sam knew where he was.
It wasn't like the last one with the impossible lock and room enough to sit up. This one must have been meant for a dog, a large one, but a dog smaller than Sam. He glanced around; weapons, dishes of… teeth, oh God. The wind chimes weren't that at all; human bones hung from string and jangled against one another in a dull, broken song.
"We got you for sure now, boy," a voice thick with a southern accent, missing a few teeth. Sam looked up through the bars. The Benders… who were supposed to be in jail. "Took us a while, got some o' the wrong pretty-lookin' boys."
Sam would have backed up in the cage if he'd had the space.
"They were practise, though," Bender said. Sam didn't remember their names; the two sons had been barely distinguishable anyway. "Bet you're surprised to see us again," he added.
Of course, Sam was surprised. He'd last seen them only a few months ago and he'd been more than happy to put every memory of that experience in the Impala's rear view mirror.
"We're gonna have some fun," Bender told Sam, eyes glinting, grinning like he'd just thought up the smartest thing to say. Sam didn't say anything. He had already been kidnapped by a cannibal hillbillies for the second time. It was like some crappy horror flick. In any other situation, Sam might have laughed.
Bender stared at Sam, waiting for an answer, probably waiting for him to beg. Sam wouldn't do that, begging wouldn't get him anywhere. He just had to wait it out for Dean to find him, because he would, Dean always found him.
Unless he was getting busy with Jessica-Simpson-lookalike. No, Sam's laptop was left on the car, Dean would notice that and he'd kick blondie to the curb as he went frantic looking for him.
"You killed Pa," Bender accused, which wasn't technically true. Sure, Sam had shot the bastard, but the cop had been the one to take him out. Though, the Benders wouldn't know that… well, shit. Sam didn't answer, nothing he could say would help the situation.
"Missy's been missing her daddy," Bender went on. "I think you owe her."
Then there she was, still as creepy as the last time. Last Sam had heard the girl had gone into the system, hopefully along with a crap-load of counselling. She moved in an unhuman way, like an animal sniffing out something lesser than them, a fox after a rat. She had a knife in hand, small and sharp, a shaving blade, and Sam couldn't stop himself from stiffening.
"Missy, you can play, but don't make too much o' a mess. We still need him, 'kay?"
Missy nodded and slinked over, joints moving like she'd never learned to walk properly. Likely, she hadn't. In a way, Sam felt sorry for her.
"I like making pictures," she said, not to anyone in particular, whipping the blade up. Sam shied away, but he couldn't get away from her in the confined space, and she made a careful line on his arm. It stung, enough for him to grunt with pain. He wouldn't scream, not for them.
He struggled, but in the end, Missy made her picture. She smiled at it.
"Now you're even prettier," she said. Sam dared to glance down at the seeping red flower etched into his upper arm, it was crooked and messy, slashed through with lines from each time Sam had tried to jerk away. It was dirty, the knife had been rusty and unclean, and now it was in his blood. His time had seriously shortened unless Dean hurried up and took him to the ER for a tetanus shot.
Sam didn't feel sorry for Missy Bender anymore.
"I understand you've been waiting for a while," the doctor says. "But it's my job to speak to you before you go in."
John nods, still a professional under the circumstances.
"There's only one person left to be identified," she explains. " I understand that this is uneasy. If you wish to leave at any moment, please say so. You may take as long as you need."
Dean nods that time, he's just doing it, because it's all he can do. Pretend that he understands. His head refuses to wrap itself around the fact that Sam might be in there. He's not, he can't be.
His eyes flicker back through the door. Everything is shiny grey, cold-looking. It's where the dead is kept, it's where Sam might be.
"Whenever you're ready," she says softly.
"We're ready..."
John barely finishes his sentence because Dean just snaps, "No."
Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been in there, cramped and twisted behind the bars. He'd not been fed, just drawn on by Missy and her rusty knife. He felt unwell, which was bad enough, the flaming red carvings on his arms were enough to tell him that they desperately needed to be cleaned.
His head was pounding, like something was pressing on his skull from the inside, his mouth and throat were dry enough that it hurt to swallow. The worst of it was the pain in his stomach, it was twisting and cramping. He was so hungry but he felt so nauseous.
The Benders liked to tease him with unintelligent insults, they wouldn't have gotten to Sam if he hadn't been wasting away to his bones.
Maybe they'd tie him up like a wind chime.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been there. But he knew it was longer than it should have taken Dean to find him. By now, Sam knew Dean wasn't coming. He was going to die. He just wished they'd hurry up with it. Cut off his meat, hang up his bones, add his teeth to the tin. He didn't care anymore, just do it sooner than later, please.
He prayed. All the time. At first, he'd prayed for Dean to find him, or for himself to find a way out. Then he'd prayed that Dean would be okay once he was gone, that he'd have something to burn. Now, he prayed that it would be over. That maybe he'd see Jess soon. Maybe he'd meet his mother.
Then one of the Benders came in, unlatched the cage door, dropped a blunt knife on the floor and left the room. Sam untwisted himself from the cage and let himself stretch out onto the floor. It was painful, his joints cramped and cracked, but he was used to pain. He stayed there for a long while, ignoring the knife and hoping that they might come back and finish the job.
They didn't come back.
He didn't want to move, he wanted to stay where he was and drift away, hopefully it would be an end. It was pathetic, but he didn't really care anymore.
Get your ass off the floor and fight, Sammy. At this point, Sam couldn't tell if he was just imagining it or if he'd really lost it this time and was hearing voices. Dean. Of course, he'd hallucinate his own brother. That really said something about their relationship.
Fucked up.
Dean, or not-Dean, was right. Even if Sam wanted to give up, he couldn't do that to his brother. He had to try. Dean would try. Sam grabbed the knife, though his hand-eye coordination was a little off because his vision was blurry, pounding and pulsing along with his head.
Getting to his feet was difficult, he went down a couple of times, knocking over jars filled with bits of… people. Sam used the wall to keep himself up and pushed himself on. It was raining outside, and dark, and he slipped in the mud a little as he left the house. It wasn't the same as the last one, smaller, and there was no barn but plenty of surrounding wood.
Sam had no clue where he was, how far from the nearest town, how far from Dean. He didn't even know if he was in the same state. He was freezing but his arm was on fire, flaming and sickly. Even if he escaped the Benders, he didn't know if he'd find a hospital in time. He might go into sepsis or starve to death at the bottom of a ditch.
Nevertheless, Sam had to move. He made his way into the woods, stumbling on tree roots, slipping on soggy leaves, getting soaked down to the bone. He could hear them coming, laughing, like it was sport.
Sam ran.
"Dean," his dad is saying it gently. "We need to - "
"No," Dean bites out. "Not until I'm ready, right?"
He turns to the woman and she nods.
"Well, I'm not ready," he says.
The mortician looks sympathetic, though it's clear she wants them to get in there and do it, she needs them to identify, or not identify, the body.
"Your father can do it," she suggests. "You don't have to do it."
"No," Dean shakes his head. "I have to do it."
Because it's Sam. And Sam wouldn't want the last person to say Yes that's Sam, that's my boy to be dad. Because if that really is Sam in there, cold and naked and covered in a white sheet, Dean owes it to him to be there and claim him.
He glances again through the door at the half-boy under the sheet, the boy that's already been claimed by some poor mother, a woman who had to look at her child in pieces. Dean finds a twisted gratitude within himself that this body was the freshest, that if it is Sam, then maybe he'll still look like Sam.
"Are you ready?" she asks, like she's said it a dozen times already. She could have and Dean wasn't listening. He can only find it in himself to simply nod.
She leads them into the next room. There are five neatly lined metal tables, all with varying shapes under their sheets. Dean stares at them as they go by, trying to see if he can make out facial features under the sheets. All boys, all sons, all dead.
She stops at the last table, waits for them to catch up. Dean finally looks at it. The body is long, almost filling the entire table, but it's obvious that whoever is underneath is skinny. He can only make out the nose sticking up under the sheet.
John and Dean stand next to the head; he finds himself breathing evenly. He should be hyperventilating.
"Are you ready?" she asks again. John looks to Dean, lets him dictate this for once. Sam was more his than John's, they both know that.
She pulls back the sheet.