The Devil's in the house of the rising sun
Title: The Devil's in the house of the rising sun
Summary: Something is wrong with Sam.
Word Count: 2141
Notes: Pre-series, Sam is 10 and Dean is 14. Warning for unpleasant things happening to children, withdrawal, blood drinking.
The cold cloth warms against the heat of Sam's skin, the water in the bowl has seeped to lukewarm. He pants, sweat-drenched and shivering, his pyjamas clinging to his skin in wet clumps. He curls onto his side again, folding himself in half, arms wrapped around his middle. Dean is quick to clamp his hand over Sam's mouth right before the boy screams, his pained cries are muffled beneath his palm.
"You need to be quiet," Dean hisses. "If someone hears, they'll try to come in here."
Sam, too consumed by the pain, doesn't hear Dean, or he chooses to ignore him, and continues to shriek into his hand. After a few minutes, Sam tires himself out and his body loosens, the taut muscle on his neck and shoulders relaxes. He lies heavy and limp on the bed, the covers kicked down to his feet, eyes drifting in and out of focus.
Dean quickly makes a dash to the bathroom, empties the bowl of water into the sink and re-fills it with what's melted at the bottom of the ice bucket. Sam hasn't moved an inch when Dean returns to the room, he's rasping his breaths in and out, his eyelids flickering. Dean pats him not-so-gently on the cheek, his hands shaking.
"You can't fall asleep, Sammy," he says in his best Dad voice, sharp and impossible to defy.
Sam coughs a little and blinks himself back into the room. His eyes wander around blindly for a moment before they find Dean. His lips wobble and a tear escapes, slipping down his cheek and onto the drenched mattress.
"It hurts," he whispers, his voice too raw to manage anything louder.
"Dad's coming back," Dean promises. He'd spoken to John four hours ago when Sam had collapsed while brushing his teeth, and he's been messaging him every half hour since. Their Dad is six states away, and it could be another day before he comes back. Dean's not sure if Sammy has that much time, and he told his dad as much. Right now they've got Jim and Bobby headed their way too.
"I want Mommy," Sam whimpers. Dean freezes in the middle of wringing out the cloth. Sam has never said that in his life, not even when he was really little, because he doesn't know what it's like to miss his mom.
"Well, she's not here. You've only got me," Dean snaps, which is his usual knee-jerk reaction to any mention of their mother. It's not fair to Sam, who looks pathetic and tiny and scared. His face crumples and he bursts into another round of sobs. Sam is ten years old now and has only cried once since he was six, when he figured out the terrible truth of the world all by himself. Dean feels immediately guilty.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get mad at you. I'm not mad, I promise," he says, pushing Sam's sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. Sam is still crying, but quietly now. He stares blankly over Dean's shoulder.
"She says she misses us," he whispers.
Dean can't help turning around, but of course there isn't anyone else in the room. He leans in close to Sam, can feel the heat radiating off his skin, and pulls his brother up into his arms. Sam is boneless, head flopping over Dean's elbow, as he's lifted. Dean carries him gently into the bathroom and settles him into the tub. Sam, who doesn't even seem to have noticed he's been moved, continues to stare at nothing in particular.
"The fever is messing with your head, Sammy," Dean says, trying to be calmer than he is. "There's no one here but me and you. Okay?"
Sam doesn't give him and answer, just stares at him slack-jawed and blinks tiredly. Dean can't help reaching down to feel his pulse, mostly to check if it's even there. He's seen death enough time now to know it comes when you least expect it, he could turn around for one second and Sam would be gone by the time he turned back again. He reaches up and unhooks the shower head, holding it low and pointed at the drain as he turns on the water and finds the right temperature. Sam yelps and thrashes a little when Dean begins to rinse it over him, but Dean holds him down and tries his best to ignore the sobs.
"Please!" Sam cries, voice rising higher and higher, and Dean knows the kid will belt out a scream any second. He clamps his hand over Sam's mouth and waits for him to finish. He's limper than the wet cloth on his brow when Dean undresses and re-dresses him, arms dangling and head rolling all the way back to the bed.
Dean spreads a clean sheet over the soaked mattress and lays Sammy on top of it, then he gets back to wringing out the cloth and dabbing his forehead. Sam continues to shudder and mumble. After another few rounds of the same - the pain in his stomach, the screaming, crying, sweating, feverish nonsense, the pain again - Sam finally falls asleep. Dean sits beside the bed with the shotgun on his lap, watching the door, waiting for the headlights of someone's truck to flash in the window and signal rescue.
Sam has a nightmare, and Dean climbs up onto the bed to hold him through it until he wakes up crying.
"It was just a dream," Dean says in darkness of the room. Every few seconds a light flits across the ceiling as cars drive by outside. Sam is quiet excepts for his raspy breaths, which cut off, guttural and sudden.
Dean feels desperately for the bedside light. The room blinks back into existence, the damp-stained ceilings and the torn wallpaper by the fridge, and Sammy pulled taut and shuddering beside Dean. Even more horrifying, his veins are sticking up visibly under his skin, turning almost black.
"Sam!" Dean yells, despite his own rules to be quiet, but any sense he had is suddenly gone. Sam trembles even more violently, his hands are fixed into claws and reaching up to nothing, his feet try to bury into the mattress, his back arches almost unnaturally. Dean can't help it, he stumbles back and watches it all happen. He watches Sam shudder and shake, the whites of his eyes staring out from under his flickering eyelids. He twists and locks, back arched, chest lifting higher until... until he's not on the bed anymore. He's hanging just above it, still jerking.
Dean snaps out of it and grabs Sam by the ankle, yanking him back down. Sam's body begins to relax, but it's another minute before he's still again, dragging in painful breaths. His skin is greyish, he almost looks dead. Dean grabs a flask of holy water from the bedside drawer and trickles some into Sam's mouth. Sam reflexively swallows, but there's no smoke or sizzling.
He'd been sick for a couple of weeks, but Dad had said it was only the flu, that Sam was dizzy and tired and nauseous because of some regular bug. This is anything but normal, Dean knows that now, and he's scared of what his dad might do when he gets back and sees for himself.
Sam rolls his head towards Dean, eyes still closed, and he reaches out with one hand until it finds Dean's shirt. Dean is frozen still, he can do nothing but stare, waiting for something else horrific to happen.
"Dean," Sam mumbles, just a scared little kid and nothing else. "Dean, I'm thirsty."
Dean blinks and nods, even though Sam can't see with his eyes still closed. He pats Sam's hand and lays it back on the bed before heading to the kitchenette. He stops when there's a knock at the door. Dad would use a key, and Bobby or Jim would use their special knock. It could be motel manager coming to kick them out because of noise complaints, but if he sees them on their own, and how sick Sam is, he'll call the CPS.
Dean tiptoes over and peers through the peephole. The man on the other side is not the motel manager. He's dressed in a suit and smiling like he can see Dean staring at him. The chain slides out of the lock and drops with a soft clang, then the handle begins to turn. Dean dashes back for the shotgun, but the door opens first and he's jerked off his feet, sliding into the wall opposite with a thud. The man steps over the salt line and into the room, still grinning like a Cheshire cat.
His eyes immediately fall on Sammy, who's eyes are still closed as if he didn't notice any of the commotion.
"Get away from him!" Dean yells as the man - thing - takes a step towards the bed. He pauses and looks at Dean, amused.
"Sammy isn't very well, Dean-o," he says. "I'm here to make him better."
He perches himself on the edge of the bed and places the palm of his hand on Sam's cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb across his skin.
"Sammy!" Dean cries. "Please don't touch him!"
He tries to get up and make a dash for Sam, but he can't move. It's like there's something heavy weighing him down and keeping him pressed to the wall. He can't do anything but watch as the man gently pulls Sam onto his knee and hold him there like he belongs to him. Sam stirs, eyes opening a little and focusing on the man.
"Dad?" he asks.
"That's not Dad, Sammy!" Dean shouts. The man throws a glare at him, and suddenly Dean can't make another sound, his mouth opens and closes uselessly.
The man pulls a knife from the inside of his jacket, Dean's heart pounds frantically in his chest as he squirms even harder, but he can't move, he can only watch. Surprisingly, the man turns the knife on himself, makes a neat cut along his wrist. As soon as the first drop of blood spills over the edge of the wound, Sam rouses even more, keening like it hurts.
Dean watches, horrified, as the man presses the wound to Sam's lips. He just about stops breathing when Sam curls his fingers around the man's arm and sucks like he used to when he was a baby and their mother tucked him under her blouse.
"There's a good boy," the man says softly. "Drink up."
Sammy doesn't even know what he's doing, he's sick and confused, and Dean can't do anything to save him. It goes on for a few minutes, those terrible, wet, sloppy sucking noises, the man grinning all the while. It's the man who brings it to an end, pulling his arm away, ignoring Sam's pathetic whines for more. He places him back onto the bed and Sam curls up and falls asleep again, with more colour in his cheeks than he's had in weeks. The man gets to his feet and tugs his sleeve back down. He pauses as he passes Dean.
"Don't worry, son," he says. "I'll be back again when he needs me. Look after him for me, would you?" He chuckles on his way out the door and says, "See you boys again in a few years."
The door swings closed and the locks click back into place, the weight on Dean vanishes and he slumps to the ground. The room is quiet like it was before.
"Sam?" he calls, testing his voice. Sam blinks awake and stares at him sleepily, eyes widening when he sees the fear in Dean's expression.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
Dean steps forward and picks the shot gun back up again. He settles back down beside Sam and brushes a few drops of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
"Nothing, Sammy," he says dully, too wired with shock to really do anything but be still and quiet, like he might somehow bring the man back if he speaks to loudly. "Go back to sleep."
Jim arrives first, sighing when he sees that Sam isn't sick at all, not anymore. "You only call when it's an emergency, Dean," he says, and goes to tell Bobby and John that everything is fine. Still, he spends the night and makes their breakfast in the morning. Sam sits across from Dean, eating lucky charms and giggling at the Saturday morning cartoons as if nothing at all happened the night before, like he's forgotten he was sick in the first place. Dean wonders if he dreamt it, if it was the just a horrible nightmare, but the sweat-stained bed sheets and the shudder along Dean's spine each time Sam's eyes catch gold in sunlight say otherwise.
Part 2
Summary: Something is wrong with Sam.
Word Count: 2141
Notes: Pre-series, Sam is 10 and Dean is 14. Warning for unpleasant things happening to children, withdrawal, blood drinking.
The cold cloth warms against the heat of Sam's skin, the water in the bowl has seeped to lukewarm. He pants, sweat-drenched and shivering, his pyjamas clinging to his skin in wet clumps. He curls onto his side again, folding himself in half, arms wrapped around his middle. Dean is quick to clamp his hand over Sam's mouth right before the boy screams, his pained cries are muffled beneath his palm.
"You need to be quiet," Dean hisses. "If someone hears, they'll try to come in here."
Sam, too consumed by the pain, doesn't hear Dean, or he chooses to ignore him, and continues to shriek into his hand. After a few minutes, Sam tires himself out and his body loosens, the taut muscle on his neck and shoulders relaxes. He lies heavy and limp on the bed, the covers kicked down to his feet, eyes drifting in and out of focus.
Dean quickly makes a dash to the bathroom, empties the bowl of water into the sink and re-fills it with what's melted at the bottom of the ice bucket. Sam hasn't moved an inch when Dean returns to the room, he's rasping his breaths in and out, his eyelids flickering. Dean pats him not-so-gently on the cheek, his hands shaking.
"You can't fall asleep, Sammy," he says in his best Dad voice, sharp and impossible to defy.
Sam coughs a little and blinks himself back into the room. His eyes wander around blindly for a moment before they find Dean. His lips wobble and a tear escapes, slipping down his cheek and onto the drenched mattress.
"It hurts," he whispers, his voice too raw to manage anything louder.
"Dad's coming back," Dean promises. He'd spoken to John four hours ago when Sam had collapsed while brushing his teeth, and he's been messaging him every half hour since. Their Dad is six states away, and it could be another day before he comes back. Dean's not sure if Sammy has that much time, and he told his dad as much. Right now they've got Jim and Bobby headed their way too.
"I want Mommy," Sam whimpers. Dean freezes in the middle of wringing out the cloth. Sam has never said that in his life, not even when he was really little, because he doesn't know what it's like to miss his mom.
"Well, she's not here. You've only got me," Dean snaps, which is his usual knee-jerk reaction to any mention of their mother. It's not fair to Sam, who looks pathetic and tiny and scared. His face crumples and he bursts into another round of sobs. Sam is ten years old now and has only cried once since he was six, when he figured out the terrible truth of the world all by himself. Dean feels immediately guilty.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get mad at you. I'm not mad, I promise," he says, pushing Sam's sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. Sam is still crying, but quietly now. He stares blankly over Dean's shoulder.
"She says she misses us," he whispers.
Dean can't help turning around, but of course there isn't anyone else in the room. He leans in close to Sam, can feel the heat radiating off his skin, and pulls his brother up into his arms. Sam is boneless, head flopping over Dean's elbow, as he's lifted. Dean carries him gently into the bathroom and settles him into the tub. Sam, who doesn't even seem to have noticed he's been moved, continues to stare at nothing in particular.
"The fever is messing with your head, Sammy," Dean says, trying to be calmer than he is. "There's no one here but me and you. Okay?"
Sam doesn't give him and answer, just stares at him slack-jawed and blinks tiredly. Dean can't help reaching down to feel his pulse, mostly to check if it's even there. He's seen death enough time now to know it comes when you least expect it, he could turn around for one second and Sam would be gone by the time he turned back again. He reaches up and unhooks the shower head, holding it low and pointed at the drain as he turns on the water and finds the right temperature. Sam yelps and thrashes a little when Dean begins to rinse it over him, but Dean holds him down and tries his best to ignore the sobs.
"Please!" Sam cries, voice rising higher and higher, and Dean knows the kid will belt out a scream any second. He clamps his hand over Sam's mouth and waits for him to finish. He's limper than the wet cloth on his brow when Dean undresses and re-dresses him, arms dangling and head rolling all the way back to the bed.
Dean spreads a clean sheet over the soaked mattress and lays Sammy on top of it, then he gets back to wringing out the cloth and dabbing his forehead. Sam continues to shudder and mumble. After another few rounds of the same - the pain in his stomach, the screaming, crying, sweating, feverish nonsense, the pain again - Sam finally falls asleep. Dean sits beside the bed with the shotgun on his lap, watching the door, waiting for the headlights of someone's truck to flash in the window and signal rescue.
Sam has a nightmare, and Dean climbs up onto the bed to hold him through it until he wakes up crying.
"It was just a dream," Dean says in darkness of the room. Every few seconds a light flits across the ceiling as cars drive by outside. Sam is quiet excepts for his raspy breaths, which cut off, guttural and sudden.
Dean feels desperately for the bedside light. The room blinks back into existence, the damp-stained ceilings and the torn wallpaper by the fridge, and Sammy pulled taut and shuddering beside Dean. Even more horrifying, his veins are sticking up visibly under his skin, turning almost black.
"Sam!" Dean yells, despite his own rules to be quiet, but any sense he had is suddenly gone. Sam trembles even more violently, his hands are fixed into claws and reaching up to nothing, his feet try to bury into the mattress, his back arches almost unnaturally. Dean can't help it, he stumbles back and watches it all happen. He watches Sam shudder and shake, the whites of his eyes staring out from under his flickering eyelids. He twists and locks, back arched, chest lifting higher until... until he's not on the bed anymore. He's hanging just above it, still jerking.
Dean snaps out of it and grabs Sam by the ankle, yanking him back down. Sam's body begins to relax, but it's another minute before he's still again, dragging in painful breaths. His skin is greyish, he almost looks dead. Dean grabs a flask of holy water from the bedside drawer and trickles some into Sam's mouth. Sam reflexively swallows, but there's no smoke or sizzling.
He'd been sick for a couple of weeks, but Dad had said it was only the flu, that Sam was dizzy and tired and nauseous because of some regular bug. This is anything but normal, Dean knows that now, and he's scared of what his dad might do when he gets back and sees for himself.
Sam rolls his head towards Dean, eyes still closed, and he reaches out with one hand until it finds Dean's shirt. Dean is frozen still, he can do nothing but stare, waiting for something else horrific to happen.
"Dean," Sam mumbles, just a scared little kid and nothing else. "Dean, I'm thirsty."
Dean blinks and nods, even though Sam can't see with his eyes still closed. He pats Sam's hand and lays it back on the bed before heading to the kitchenette. He stops when there's a knock at the door. Dad would use a key, and Bobby or Jim would use their special knock. It could be motel manager coming to kick them out because of noise complaints, but if he sees them on their own, and how sick Sam is, he'll call the CPS.
Dean tiptoes over and peers through the peephole. The man on the other side is not the motel manager. He's dressed in a suit and smiling like he can see Dean staring at him. The chain slides out of the lock and drops with a soft clang, then the handle begins to turn. Dean dashes back for the shotgun, but the door opens first and he's jerked off his feet, sliding into the wall opposite with a thud. The man steps over the salt line and into the room, still grinning like a Cheshire cat.
His eyes immediately fall on Sammy, who's eyes are still closed as if he didn't notice any of the commotion.
"Get away from him!" Dean yells as the man - thing - takes a step towards the bed. He pauses and looks at Dean, amused.
"Sammy isn't very well, Dean-o," he says. "I'm here to make him better."
He perches himself on the edge of the bed and places the palm of his hand on Sam's cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb across his skin.
"Sammy!" Dean cries. "Please don't touch him!"
He tries to get up and make a dash for Sam, but he can't move. It's like there's something heavy weighing him down and keeping him pressed to the wall. He can't do anything but watch as the man gently pulls Sam onto his knee and hold him there like he belongs to him. Sam stirs, eyes opening a little and focusing on the man.
"Dad?" he asks.
"That's not Dad, Sammy!" Dean shouts. The man throws a glare at him, and suddenly Dean can't make another sound, his mouth opens and closes uselessly.
The man pulls a knife from the inside of his jacket, Dean's heart pounds frantically in his chest as he squirms even harder, but he can't move, he can only watch. Surprisingly, the man turns the knife on himself, makes a neat cut along his wrist. As soon as the first drop of blood spills over the edge of the wound, Sam rouses even more, keening like it hurts.
Dean watches, horrified, as the man presses the wound to Sam's lips. He just about stops breathing when Sam curls his fingers around the man's arm and sucks like he used to when he was a baby and their mother tucked him under her blouse.
"There's a good boy," the man says softly. "Drink up."
Sammy doesn't even know what he's doing, he's sick and confused, and Dean can't do anything to save him. It goes on for a few minutes, those terrible, wet, sloppy sucking noises, the man grinning all the while. It's the man who brings it to an end, pulling his arm away, ignoring Sam's pathetic whines for more. He places him back onto the bed and Sam curls up and falls asleep again, with more colour in his cheeks than he's had in weeks. The man gets to his feet and tugs his sleeve back down. He pauses as he passes Dean.
"Don't worry, son," he says. "I'll be back again when he needs me. Look after him for me, would you?" He chuckles on his way out the door and says, "See you boys again in a few years."
The door swings closed and the locks click back into place, the weight on Dean vanishes and he slumps to the ground. The room is quiet like it was before.
"Sam?" he calls, testing his voice. Sam blinks awake and stares at him sleepily, eyes widening when he sees the fear in Dean's expression.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
Dean steps forward and picks the shot gun back up again. He settles back down beside Sam and brushes a few drops of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
"Nothing, Sammy," he says dully, too wired with shock to really do anything but be still and quiet, like he might somehow bring the man back if he speaks to loudly. "Go back to sleep."
Jim arrives first, sighing when he sees that Sam isn't sick at all, not anymore. "You only call when it's an emergency, Dean," he says, and goes to tell Bobby and John that everything is fine. Still, he spends the night and makes their breakfast in the morning. Sam sits across from Dean, eating lucky charms and giggling at the Saturday morning cartoons as if nothing at all happened the night before, like he's forgotten he was sick in the first place. Dean wonders if he dreamt it, if it was the just a horrible nightmare, but the sweat-stained bed sheets and the shudder along Dean's spine each time Sam's eyes catch gold in sunlight say otherwise.
Part 2