Taken - ficlet for anonymous prompter at November comment fic
Title: Taken
Rating: GA/All
Word Count: ~650
Summary: for prompt: Sam loses his ability to read. This is a hint of Sam/Cas, maybe just a close friendship, however the reader would like to interpret it.
Sam’s never taking Lunesta again. Just one of the random pills in his small, personal med kit (his) There was just no way he was going to fall asleep on his own last night after fleeing the scene and ending up here, but he knew he’d need the rest, and he’s still so angry now after sleeping six hours.
The angel is gone now. Sam’s full awareness and agency isn’t the only thing it took; all-consuming rage isn’t the only thing it left behind. He’s sure of that, and he has to identify it more specifically, but can’t quite reach it.
Sam could have gone back . To Kansas, to Cas. He will.
But right now he’s having a hard time with his phone. The maps don’t make any sense. He grabs the TV remote, presses the big button at the top without looking, and the television comes on. News, he thinks, local news. But something’s off with that too, because all the graphics are wrong. Blocks with just weird shapes in the corner and ticking across the bottom of the screen. Like - blurry? Some funky effect that’s clearly not working.
Probably it’s that stupid sleeping pill, fucking with his brain. He doesn’t even clearly remember getting here last night; there’s a flash of throwing cash on a counter, a man telling him last room down that way, slamming the trunk closed on the stolen Camry he’d driven here.
Sam doesn’t feel any other lingering effects from it, though. He’s not tired, not sleepy, not groggy. He’s also not hungry, but reaches for the folded up pamphlet on the nightstand, the one that tells weary travelers where they can get food, or liquor, or a Wal-Mart.
And something’s wrong, definitely, very wrong. Because the paper is covered in random letters, numbers, and symbols. Some are backward, some are upside-down. Sam blinks, shakes his head, blinks again. It looks the same.
With shaking hands, he drops it and opens his laptop. Today’s random image on the screen saver is a meteor shower. Figures. Clicks and sees the last website he’d had up and that’s it. He can’t make sense of anything on the page except for the pictures.
Because he can’t read.
He stares for a few more seconds, then shoves the laptop to the floor, because his breath his coming faster and faster now, sweat is dripping from his hairline. He pulls up his knees and leans back against the headboard, can feel the knot in his throat and the stinging in his eyes but doesn’t fight them.
Sam starts to cry, and then he’s sobbing, heaving in big breaths when he can, his face streaked with tears and snot and he feels like he won’t ever stop.
He’s seen, he thinks, everything scary that can possibly exist.
None of them are more terrifying than not being able to read.
So he shakes and he weeps and he has no idea how long he’s been lying there but he knows he has to get back to the bunker. He’s not far, but -
Surely there are people who can’t read and still drive a car? Right?
Sam doesn’t know if he can walk to the bathroom without being able to read. If he can keep breathing without being able to read.
He has to do it. He’s not calling Dean. Everyone thinks Dean’s the one who knows every highway and back road in the lower 48, they don’t know that when paper maps were the only navigation tool available Sam spent all of his childhood learning them because his brother and his dad got motion sickness if they tried to read in the car.
Sam doesn’t need exit signs or state road mile markers. He’ll be fine (except that he is so incredibly not fine at all), he’ll make it.
He’ll make it and then he’ll call Cas, and then Cas will do that thing where he touches Sam’s cheek and calms him down, and then Cas will fix it.
First he’ll have to stop crying.
Rating: GA/All
Word Count: ~650
Summary: for prompt: Sam loses his ability to read. This is a hint of Sam/Cas, maybe just a close friendship, however the reader would like to interpret it.
Sam’s never taking Lunesta again. Just one of the random pills in his small, personal med kit (his) There was just no way he was going to fall asleep on his own last night after fleeing the scene and ending up here, but he knew he’d need the rest, and he’s still so angry now after sleeping six hours.
The angel is gone now. Sam’s full awareness and agency isn’t the only thing it took; all-consuming rage isn’t the only thing it left behind. He’s sure of that, and he has to identify it more specifically, but can’t quite reach it.
Sam could have gone back . To Kansas, to Cas. He will.
But right now he’s having a hard time with his phone. The maps don’t make any sense. He grabs the TV remote, presses the big button at the top without looking, and the television comes on. News, he thinks, local news. But something’s off with that too, because all the graphics are wrong. Blocks with just weird shapes in the corner and ticking across the bottom of the screen. Like - blurry? Some funky effect that’s clearly not working.
Probably it’s that stupid sleeping pill, fucking with his brain. He doesn’t even clearly remember getting here last night; there’s a flash of throwing cash on a counter, a man telling him last room down that way, slamming the trunk closed on the stolen Camry he’d driven here.
Sam doesn’t feel any other lingering effects from it, though. He’s not tired, not sleepy, not groggy. He’s also not hungry, but reaches for the folded up pamphlet on the nightstand, the one that tells weary travelers where they can get food, or liquor, or a Wal-Mart.
And something’s wrong, definitely, very wrong. Because the paper is covered in random letters, numbers, and symbols. Some are backward, some are upside-down. Sam blinks, shakes his head, blinks again. It looks the same.
With shaking hands, he drops it and opens his laptop. Today’s random image on the screen saver is a meteor shower. Figures. Clicks and sees the last website he’d had up and that’s it. He can’t make sense of anything on the page except for the pictures.
Because he can’t read.
He stares for a few more seconds, then shoves the laptop to the floor, because his breath his coming faster and faster now, sweat is dripping from his hairline. He pulls up his knees and leans back against the headboard, can feel the knot in his throat and the stinging in his eyes but doesn’t fight them.
Sam starts to cry, and then he’s sobbing, heaving in big breaths when he can, his face streaked with tears and snot and he feels like he won’t ever stop.
He’s seen, he thinks, everything scary that can possibly exist.
None of them are more terrifying than not being able to read.
So he shakes and he weeps and he has no idea how long he’s been lying there but he knows he has to get back to the bunker. He’s not far, but -
Surely there are people who can’t read and still drive a car? Right?
Sam doesn’t know if he can walk to the bathroom without being able to read. If he can keep breathing without being able to read.
He has to do it. He’s not calling Dean. Everyone thinks Dean’s the one who knows every highway and back road in the lower 48, they don’t know that when paper maps were the only navigation tool available Sam spent all of his childhood learning them because his brother and his dad got motion sickness if they tried to read in the car.
Sam doesn’t need exit signs or state road mile markers. He’ll be fine (except that he is so incredibly not fine at all), he’ll make it.
He’ll make it and then he’ll call Cas, and then Cas will do that thing where he touches Sam’s cheek and calms him down, and then Cas will fix it.
First he’ll have to stop crying.