Sammy In Captivity 2/4
Sammy in Captivity
Summary: Sam has obviously been planning during the time they've sat in silence.
A/N: Thanks everyone for your wonderful reviews! And again, big thanks to SecondStarToTheRight18 for her help with editing. Warnings from chapter one still stand.
Chapter Two
Sam has obviously been planning during the time they've sat in silence. The sound of a key slipping into the lock of their door has Sam on his feet in a flash, as though he hadn't been lying on the mattress seemingly too weak to move.
He scoops up the bowl that the oatmeal came in from beside his mattress, Jason's bowl rather than the one the girl Keeper spat in, and darts over to the table by the door, bare feet soundless on the wooden floor. He raises it up in the air, the door opens - it's the young Keeper - and Sam swings the bowl in a wide arc and crashes it into the Keepers face.
Jason is stunned. He's never seen anyone attack a Keeper like that. The young man rears back, letting out a yell as his hands fly to his face, dropping the slightly furry bread rolls he'd been carrying, and Sam ducks around him. He's out on the balcony, out of Jason's sight, before the Keeper even turns around.
There's a shocked moment of stillness, then the Keeper gives chase and Jason jumps up so he can watch from the doorway. He grips the frame, poking his head out just as much as he needs to see. Sam hits the stairs, stumbling down three of them before he snatches the handrail and regains his balance, narrowly avoiding a fall. He barely pauses though and he's jumping over the last three stairs by the time Jason notices that the young Keeper isn't chasing him any more. Instead, he stands at the top of the staircase, one hand massaging his cheek as he watches Sam run. Jason looks around. The other three Keepers are on the first floor, the bearded one still sitting at the computer, all still and following Sam's path with their eyes as he sprints the short distance from the mouth of the stairs to the door he was brought in four days ago.
It's not right. Jason edges out onto the balcony and crouches down to watch between the railings, waiting for something to go wrong.
Sam appears not to have noticed the Keepers' strange behaviour, too focussed on escape. He skids to a stop before the door and reaches out. His fingers touch the handle and the air freezes. Bolts of blue and red flash through the room. There's a bang that brings Jason's hands up to cover his ears and Sam flies backwards as if thrown, sliding across the floor in a jumble of limbs and coming to a stop seven feet back from the door. He's on his side, facing away from Jason. He is very, very still.
Only now does the young Keeper descend the stairs, boots thudding down each step. The bearded one gets up from his seat at the computer and they all converge over Sam's limp form.
Jason is fairly sure that the bearded one is in charge, at least of this little group. He's heard him speak before about sending reports to someone so perhaps he works for someone else, but either way, it's the bearded Keeper that crouches down and puts his fingers against Sam's neck.
“Still alive,” he tells the others, before turning to the young one. “What happened?”
“Little monster hit me with it's bowl,” the young Keeper growls.
There's some muttering that Jason can't make out and then the bearded Keeper says loudly, “We'll sort it out later. Let's get this one strapped in. No point wasting the opportunity to see what a high-voltage shock does to these things.”
Without further discussion, the young Keeper grabs Sam at the armpits and the blond one hooks his hands under Sam's knees. Together they pick him up and carry him. Sam hangs between them, head tilted back and his arms and feet dragging towards the floor. He's like a doll. If the bearded Keeper hadn't said that he was alive, Jason would have been sure that he was dead.
They drop Sam into the Chair and buckle him in quickly. They don't bother to undress him though the girl Keeper gets a pair of scissors from the drawer and cuts Sam's t-shirt up the middle, attaching what might be a larger version of the electrodes to his chest while the blond one and the young one start sticking the usual ones to his head.
Jason doesn't stay to watch any more. He goes back to his room before anyone can see him and maybe punish him for Sam's disobedience.
XXX
Sam beats the Solitary record by four hours. If Jason hadn't heard the Keepers shove him in he would have assumed that Sam had died, but he did hear them. He wonders if they checked on him every now and then to make sure he was breathing, or if maybe Sam actually is dead in the cupboard. He doesn't think they'd let him die yet.
Two days and 20 hours after Jason heard the closet door shut, he watches silently through his ajar door as the bearded Keeper, accompanied by the blond one, unlocks the cupboard door and swings it open. Sam tumbles out and thuds to the floor, momentarily suspended on his hands and knees before he crumbles the rest of the way down. He curls one arm to his chest and clumsily raises the other to cover his eyes against the sudden light. He shakes.
“Think it'll behave itself now?” the blond Keeper asks.
The bearded Keeper grunts and shrugs.
Jason expects them to return Sam to their room but instead they take an arm each and pull him up, dragging him down the stairs. Jason listens to the thumps Sam's feet make as they hit each step, not carrying his own weight at all. They're down on Level One before Sam seems to realize where they're taking him.
“Nonono,” Jason hears him moan, words slurred together, “I'll behave, I swear.”
Of course the Keepers don't listen. Sam hasn't learnt yet that he shouldn't bother trying to talk to them.
The Keepers don't take him straight to the Chair though. First they stop in the open space of Level One, between the Chair and it's semi-circle of equipment and the door with the mouths of the staircases on either side of it and force Sam to stand while the blond Keeper strips off his once white clothes, now grimy with sweat, dust and urine, the t-shirt sliced up the middle. Sam shivers, head down, wrapping his arms around himself.
The bearded Keeper unravels the hose that's kept coiled against the wall, the facility's version of a shower, not often used, until it has enough length to reach Sam and then presses the handle at the nozzle. Water sprays out, hitting Sam in the chest and knocking him over. The Keeper simply steps forward another pace and keeps spraying while Sam huddles on the floor. Jason sees him open his mouth to try to get a drink and the Keeper abruptly lets go of the handle. The water stops.
Jason wonders if Sam has figured out that there's no point in fighting or if he's simply too tired. He doesn't struggle at all when the Keepers drag him to the Chair and strap him in, first wrists, then ankles, then waist. Sam has his eyes closed. The Keepers leave the forehead strap unbuckled and the bearded Keeper takes the razor the blond one gets for him. He pushes his shirt sleeves up and flicks it on, beginning to shave off the week-worth of regrown hair. Tiny filings of stubble patter to the floor. Sam doesn't resist as the Keeper moves his head back and forth, turning it side to side until his whole head is smooth and hairless again.
The bearded Keeper turns off the razor and hands it back to the blond, then buckles the forehead strap.
Together the two Keepers attach the usual electrodes to the newly-bare skin. Jason tries to watch their hands so he can count them but it's too confusing with both of them working at the same time. Once they're finished, the blond Keeper goes to the set of drawers and pulls out a small box that Jason hasn't seen before, square and grey. He unwraps some things tangled around it, two wires, Jason sees, and a plug for a standard wall socket and sets it on the table, reaching back to plug it in behind the computer. The bearded Keeper takes the wires and untangled them and Jason realizes that at the ends are two electrodes.
The blond Keeper fiddles with the box and the bearded one fixes the electrodes at the end of the wire to Sam's chest. He stands back.
“Don't, don't, please,” Jason hears Sam moan, tugging uselessly at his straps. “God, please, I'll behave, don't-”
He's cut off as the blond Keeper flips a switch on the box. There's a small zap and the air stands almost as still as it did when Sam touched the door handle. He doesn't go flying this time but jolts against the straps that hold him, suddenly completely tense, back arching, teeth clenched together, spasming in the Chair.
The Keeper flips the switch back into position and Sam goes limp. He blinks a few times and moans low in his throat, seemingly involuntarily. The Keepers ignore him and watch the monitors. The pictures on the screens don't look like anything decipherable to Jason, one's just lines with bumps in them and what he thinks are numbers but they're too small to make out, another is a sort of circle with dark patches and light patches in different colours.
Zap, goes the air, and Sam jerks again. His fingers twist into claws, heels pressed hard against the foot of the Chair. Jason thinks he might be able to hear the drops of water on Sam' skin sizzling.
Again, the Keeper lets him go limp and they study the monitors, and again, the air zaps and this time Sam screams, this horrible noise forced out through grinding teeth, full of wordless pain that Jason understands so well.
The process repeats and repeats and repeats. Sometimes the Keepers don't even look at the monitors, often enough for Jason to understand that this is about punishment as much as research.
Sam cries after a while (everyone cries, everyone but Jason), Jason can see the moisture on his face, can hear the hitches in his breath, and he shakes uncontrollably. He stops screaming. Jason watches blood bubble on his lips as he moans through zaps and sobs in the moments between them.
Nearly an hour has passed by the time the Keepers stop. Fifty-two minutes and forty-two seconds.
The bearded one presses a few buttons on the computer's keyboard and a long strip of paper prints out. It seems to be the pictures they were looking at on the monitors and they speak in quiet voices for a while before the bearded one folds up the paper and puts it on the desk.
The blond unbuckles the straps, forehead, wrists and waist first and the bearded Keeper tugs a new white t-shirt over Sam's head, forcibly shoving Sam's arms through the holes. The blond undoes the rest of the straps and holds Sam up while the other pulls a pair of pants onto him.
When they begin to drag Sam toward the stairs, Jason hurries back to his room, leaving the door ajar because it's better if they know that he knows the door isn't locked and he makes no attempt to escape.
He's lying down on his mattress, staring at the ceiling when the Keepers haul Sam in and drop him on the other mattress. This time they do lock the door behind them, of course, now that Sam's back from Solitary.
Only when he hears their footsteps heading away does Jason dare to look at Sam, as if looking before would have classed him as a trouble-maker too, guilty by association.
Shudders run through his room mate, so hard that it seems possible he might just vibrate off the mattress. Sam's eyes are closed, the skin around them puffy and red and tears cling to his lashes. There's still blood on his lips, maybe he bit his tongue, and the hand that touched the exit looks burnt, fingers curled painfully over raw weeping flesh.
“Sam,” Jason says and he doesn't know why he says it but Sam opens his eyes and looks at him. He takes a shaky breath in and out. “Hey, Jason.”
It's suddenly so wonderfully awesome to hear someone say his name. The Keepers never say his name or anyone else’s, as far as he's heard, so it's probably been one year, seven months and seventeen days since he's heard someone say it, and he likes it. He doesn't know what to say next though so he just looks at Sam for a while. Sam breathes, slow and controlled, and shakes and shakes.
“Shouldn't run,” Jason says finally.
Sam looks surprised, then huffs a small laugh that Jason doesn't think is sincere. His mouth quirks up into a small quick smile that looks like it hurts. “Yeah, I figured... not that way, at least.”
“Shouldn't run.” Jason frowns. Doesn't Sam get it, even now? It's better not to run.
“No, I need a plan. I think...” Sam seems to wilt a little. “...I need to wait, and watch them until I... or until Dad and Dean get here. They're looking. They'll be looking right now.”
It's five in the morning. Jason wonders if his mother is looking for him. He thinks she probably is. She has no one to make green eggs and ham for, no one to read to at night. She has no one.
He and Sam are both quiet for a long time.
Footsteps. They look towards the door as a key slips into the lock. Breakfast time, Jason thinks.
It's the girl Keeper, her nose back to normal except for a green tinge, like Sam's eye. It sits on her face, this wide, flat thing that steals all the attention from the rest of her features, though none of them hold any attraction either; sharp grey eyes and thin lips always pursed. She doesn't look at them as she places a couple of pieces of bread each down on the table. There are no plates.
Instead of leaving, like Jason expects, the Keeper reaches into the pocket of her thigh-length black coat and pulls out a syringe, uncapping the needle as she steps over to Sam and crouches down.
Sam watches her but doesn't move, maybe can't move, and cries out a muffled yelp when the girl tugs out his arm with the burnt hand, squeezing his eyes closed.
The Keeper slips the needle into the crook of Sam's arm and depresses the plunger. It must be something to fix Sam's hand. The Keepers may be cold and cruel but Jason doubts they would let Sam die of an infection. At least, not yet, when they've only just begun to study him.
After she has capped the needle and put it away, she takes a small tube from a different pocket and smears the thick white ointment inside over Sam's damaged hand. Finally she wraps it up in bandages, roughly efficient, and stands, wordlessly leaving the room.
With her out of the way, Jason can see how Sam is pressing his face into his mattress, his now-bandaged hand held out stiffly like he can't bare to move it.
Jason gets up and goes to the table to eat his bread.
Sam doesn't get up, probably won't get up for a while, and Jason finds himself picking up Sam's bread and carrying it over to Sam's mattress. Sam's only eaten half a bowl of oatmeal since the Keepers brought him here. He must be very hungry.
Jason kneels down and holds out the bread but Sam's not looking.
“Sam,” he says. Maybe Sam will say Jason back.
Sam opens his eyes and turns his head to look up at Jason. It takes him a while to focus on the bread and when he does, he just looks at it for a moment like he doesn't understand what it is. Finally his gaze switches to Jason's face and his un-bandaged hand reaches out to pluck it from his grasp.
“Thanks,” he whispers, his voice thin. He doesn't say Jason, which is disappointing but he's still being spoken to rather than around, so that's okay.
Sam doesn't sit up to eat. Jason goes and lies on his mattress too because that seems to be what they're doing and he watches Sam eat the bread in small tired bites. He falls asleep before he finishes the first slice, leaving Jason to stare at the empty white walls of their room and wonder how the Keepers will bring them water without giving Sam a weapon. Usually it comes in a two litre plastic jug.
Sam's sleep is restless, full of flinches and whimpers. Sometimes he calls out for Dean, only twice for his Dad. Jason is used to hearing kids cry or scream in their sleep here.
At ten o'clock, the Keepers come to take him for his weekly visit to the Chair. Usually only one comes but all four of them escort him from the room. Maybe they're still wary of Sam.
It's not really so bad if you don't fight. At least, compared to if you do. Jason goes willingly, the Keepers don't need to drag him or even hold him. He walks by himself, doesn't struggle when the Keepers strip him, and sits in the Chair without prompting, even though he hates the Chair and hates the Keepers too. He stays still as they strap him in and tries not to wiggle when the razor tickles his head.
Honestly, unless it's painful - and then it just hurts - being in the Chair is only slightly less boring than being in his room. Every week the Keepers attach the electrodes and watch the monitors, take blood and inject the strange red liquid that makes his skin tingle, watch the monitors some more and dress him in a fresh change of clothes when they're done. Jason thinks that whatever they're looking for in him, they haven't found it yet. He's seen the busy excitement when the monitors show something new in one of the kids. Him, they're just keeping track of. Or maybe they're just keeping.
When they take him back to his room, the blond Keeper puts water on the table. It's in a thin plastic sack with a twist nozzle in one corner. He waits for them to leave before taking a drink, awkwardly holding the bladder up with one hand and twisting the nozzle with the other. The water's fresh. He wonders if the sack will keep it that way. The water in the jug goes warm and stale quickly.
He finishes drinking and twists the nozzle back in place. He's about to put it back on the table when a glance at Sam shows he's awake and looking at him. Or rather, looking at the sack of water. Jason brings it over to him. It seems to be becoming a habit.
Sam holds the bladder even more awkwardly than Jason, his bandaged hand making it near impossible but he manages. More than manages, really. He drinks like he'll never stop, like it's the best thing in the world, solely focussed on it. Jason's not sure if the Keepers give even water to kids in Solitary so Sam must be desperate for it.
Eventually he stops drinking, twisting the nozzle to stop the flow, apparently understanding that it has to last the whole day. He lets the bladder drop onto the mattress next to him and breathes for a while, seeming to have ignored the need while he was drinking.
“You were gone,” he says finally. “Did they put you in the Chair?”
Sam's eyes roam up to Jason's freshly shaven head. Jason nods.
“I don't understand what they're looking for,” Sam sighs. “Why us?”
Jason wonders this too sometimes. His mother used to tell him that he was special but he doesn't think this was what she meant.
XXX
An uneventful week passes, then two, and Jason misses not having a room mate that needs the door locked. He thinks he might like Sam, like having someone who talks to him and looks at him like he's an actual person, even if sometimes Sam asks strange questions about whether his mother hunts anything (she doesn't) or if their house once caught on fire (it didn't), but he misses being able to peek out his door or crawl out onto the balcony to see what's happening. The four white walls of their room are suffocating.
He gets to watch Sam when the Keepers take him to the Chair though, which means he's crouched in his usual place on the balcony when the usually straight-forward process of electrodes, blood, injection explodes into an uproar over the images on the monitors.
The girl Keeper has taken blood and depressed the syringe full of the tingly red liquid into Sam's arm and the result is almost instantaneous. She has enough time to turn away, then Sam cries out, a small stunned sound that has her whipping back around. Sam's hands clench into fists, his eyes squeeze shut, he arches up a little, and the Keepers all look to the monitors in unison, as though they're one person split into four, a thought that Jason finds creepy and he decides not to think it again. A section of the wonky circle on the screen lights up.
“Got it!” The bearded Keeper rushes to the computer, where he taps away on the keyboard, fingers zipping around.
Sam cries out again and his eyes fly open, darting back and forth at something Jason can't see.
The young Keeper shines a small flashlight into Sam's eyes, checking one and then the other. Next, he sticks a pin in Sam's leg, moving up his thigh and jabbing it in and out six times.
“No reaction,” he reports. The bearded Keeper nods distractedly, typing away. The blond and the girl are folding up a long stretch of computer print-out, talking quietly and occasionally pointing at things on the paper.
Jason sees the lit up patch of the circle go dark. Sam slumps, tension leaving his body and his eyelids flutter.
“What did you see?” the bearded Keeper demands. Jason didn't see him move but now he's right next to the Chair, leaning over Sam.
Sam doesn't look at him, doesn't seem to hear him, gaze skittering around the room, heaving deep breaths.
“What did you see?” the Keeper asks again, louder, and Sam's eyes jerk to his face.
“I... I don't...”
“Solitary,” the bearded Keeper snaps, turning to the girl who hovers at his shoulder. “Until it talks.”
“No!” Sam cries. “No, I saw, it was, the room, with Jason. We were in the room.”
“What else?” The bearded Keeper turns back, fixing Sam with a glare that even Jason understands. Talk or deal with the consequences. Without looking away, he motions to the young Keeper who has taken his place at the computer. The young Keeper starts typing.
“Nothing, I promise. That's all, just the room. I was telling Jason about my brother.”
“Have you spoken of your brother before?”
Sam goes to shake his head but the forehead strap's still in place. “No, I haven't.”
There's a long pause as the Keeper looks at Sam and Sam looks back. Finally the bearded Keeper turns away. “Get it dressed,” he tells the other three, “And take it back to it's room.”
The girl Keeper and the blond one unbuckle Sam and manhandle him into new clothes. Sam's unsteady on his feet, one hand pressed to his temple as the two Keepers lead him to the stairs.
Jason scampers back to his room, settling himself on the mattress before Sam's brought in. They don't take him to his mattress - that's only when Sam can't walk - just push him into the room and close the door. Sam winces as it shuts, like the sound is too loud.
He stands there for a moment, swaying, before glancing at the door and stepping gingerly over to Jason. He sinks down on the mattress beside him, which he hasn't done before. Jason looks at the shiny pink skin on Sam's injured hand.
“Do they listen in here?” Sam asks quietly.
Jason doesn't think so. He shakes his head.
“I didn't see this room.” Sam's voice is barely above a whisper. “I saw... I don't know how, but I saw us running, through trees. I think we're gonna get out of here.”
Jason doesn't understand. How did Sam see them? And no one ever gets out. This is crazy. It's not... It's not that Jason likes it here, not at all, but it's less frightening than the idea of escape. He knows the routines here, he understands, to a point, what the Keepers are doing. Watching. Waiting. Just like him.
Sam sits his elbows on his knees and puts his head in his hands, shuddering a little when his fingers touch smooth skin instead of hair. “I have, like, the worst headache imaginable,” he mumbles, “Just wanted to tell you that I'll figure this out.
Sam pushes himself up with what seems like extreme effort and staggers to his mattress, dropping down on it in a way that makes him seem heavier than he is. Jason has watched the weight melt off Sam, shoulders and elbows sharper, collarbones visible through the neck of his t-shirt. The drawstring stops his pants from from slipping down narrow hips and the shirt droops like off a coat-hanger. No, it doesn't take long before the new kids start looking like the old kids, pale, thin lab rats with dead eyes.
Sam's eyes still have hope though. He still thinks his Dad and brother will come for him, or now, that he and Jason will escape. Hope's a dangerous thing to have at the facility. All it leads to is Solitary.
To Be Continued
Chapter Three