Title: Through the Darkness
Rating: T
Summary: Sam woke up alone and hurt along an abandoned road with no idea how he had gotten there. Immediately post "Lucifer Rising"
Spoilers: Everything up to the finale of season four.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From a very early age, Sam had been taught that if he ever got lost then the first thing he had to do was calmly and rationally assess the dangers of his surroundings. His father had trained him to detach himself from the situation so that he could look past the anxieties that would most likely cloud his judgment. It was a technique that was supposed to be necessary only if he somehow managed to get himself separated from his protector. His brother. Dean.
And right now Sam was most definitely alone. He took a calming breath, steadying himself on the tree he was leaning against, and looked around with the analyzing eyes of a hunter. There was not much to see, at least not in the pitch black night. He could barely make out the deserted road in front of him. The only reason he even knew it was there was because he accidently stumbled upon it after spending what felt like hours trying to escape the forest he had woken up in.
He did not know how he had gotten there.
Or even where there was.
Everything was fuzzy. The trees looming over him kept moving and the road was slanting. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open when his head was throbbing like that. He lifted a shaking hand to his forehead and could practically feel the veins pulsating beneath his skin.
Sam felt like he was going to be sick. His trembling legs gave out as he slid to the cold ground. He tried to put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from hurling, but instead it made matters worse as the coppery smell of blood filled his nostrils and he instantly succumbed to the painful spasms that accompanied the dry heaves clenching at his already empty stomach.
He had forgotten about the blood.
It was everywhere.
Covering almost every inch of his body.
What was most disturbing was how thickly it coated his hands. He tried to weakly rub it off on his pants, but there was too much and it was already mostly crusted on. Sam knew that it meant he might be injured. But it was just too much. There was too much blood for it to have all been his.
He tried to remember how he had gotten here.
Had he been on a hunt?
But then where was his Dad?
And, more importantly, where was Dean?
He could not remember, though, and thinking just made his headache worse. It hurt too much. Everything hurt. But Sam knew he needed to move. He had no weapons. He had no idea what enemy he was up against. If he stayed where he was, then he was just waiting to be attacked. His father's words penetrated the fog in his mind, "A sitting target is a dead target." It was the same angry tone his father had used when he was twelve and he found Sam resting on a log during a training session.
It was all the motivation Sam needed, though, as he used the tree to help pull himself to his feet. But he had moved too quickly and had to close his eyes to block out the world that was spinning at a dizzying speed around him. When he felt slightly less lightheaded, Sam opened his eyes and took a cautious step forward. He staggered into the street, but eventually was able to straighten himself enough to limp down the highway.
There were no cars coming from either direction. Which was bad because that meant no one could stop to help him, but was also probably a good thing because Sam knew that he did not have the reflexes right now to pull himself out of the way of a car's path.
Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost.
He kept repeating the word to himself as he stumbled down the abandoned road. It did not help his situation, but it gave him something to focus on. Something other than the ringing in his ears that was doing nothing to alleviate his headache or the fact that every step seemed to cause the bile to claw its way a little further up his throat.
Sam wished he had never moved. He wanted to lie back down and curl up somewhere far away from the pain that seemed to encompass him. Even in this daze that he could not shake, he was ashamed to admit that he was afraid. Winchesters were not supposed to be afraid. But he did not feel well and he was all alone. Sam was never alone when he was sick. Dean had always been there, ever since he could remember, to give him medicine and rub his back until he fell asleep. Then, when he went to Stanford, Jess would make him soup and run her hands gently through his hair when she took his temperature.
His eyes widened and he staggered under the weight of his realization. Jess.
This was all wrong.
He should not be here.
Looking around in confusion, he once again tried to focus on why exactly he was here. There was no way he could have been on a hunt. There was no reason why he would have gone on one. Sam did not hunt anymore. Not since the night his father told him to leave and never come back.
Sam was supposed to be home right now. He should be sitting at his desk in their apartment, studying for his LSATs while Jess tried to get him to take a break and get some sleep. Jess was probably worried sick about him. He felt a slight flicker of hope in his chest as he realized that Jess had most likely sent out a search party for him the moment she realized he had not called to tell her he would be late coming home.
But that flicker died just as quickly when he shivered and remembered that California was not usually this cold.
Sam was brought out of his thoughts and into the real world when he felt his body start to waver. He tried to take a step forward, to surge through the moment of weakness, but his quivering legs gave up their fight to support his body and he felt almost removed from the moment as he watched the ground rush up toward him.
But then he hit the hard pavement and a sickening crack reverberated through the previously silent night. Hissing, he cradled the arm he had fallen on to his chest while white hot pain shot up and down it. Sam leaned forward, panting, as the nausea and dizziness overwhelmed his senses.
Something was digging into his already bruised side and he used his uninjured hand to try to move the rock or whatever it was that was trapped below him. There was nothing there. He looked around in confusion before he realized that there was a bulge in his pocket that he had not noticed before.
With a trembling hand, he reached into his pocket to pull it out. Sam held the object to his face and stared dully down at it. It was getting too hard to see when everything kept swaying like that. He blinked a few times in an attempt to focus on the blurry object before him.
It was not until one of his fingers accidently hit a button and caused the whole thing to light up that he realized it was a cell phone. A cell phone that he did not recognize, but it was still a phone. One that he could use to call for help, if it even still worked. The screen was black with long cracks running down it, but all the buttons still lit up and he could faintly hear a sound when he pressed the keypad.
He had to call Jess.
He had to tell her that he was okay so that she would stop worrying.
Sam was not sure that he really was okay, probably not, but he would figure it out on his own. He had worked too hard to keep her sheltered from his old life and he did not want to ruin it now.
His hands fumbled over the keypad as he tried to dial the number. When he thought he finally got it right, he held the phone to his ear. Within seconds, a piercing sound penetrated the air and he moved the phone away. He listened as an automated voice told him that the number had been disconnected.
Sam was too tired to figure out why Jess would have disconnected her number. It was getting harder to focus and he knew he needed help. He squinted down at the keypad. The blood from his hands had rubbed off on the buttons and he could no longer read the numbers below the red smudges.
But the number he dialed this time was so engraved into his memory that he did not need to be able to see the numbers as he pressed them.
Dean would come.
Dean would help him.
When the automated voice once again began speaking in his ear, Sam dropped the phone in his lap and stared at in confusion. Dean had disconnected his number also. Why would he do that? He had told Sam the day he left that he would always keep this number in case Sam needed to reach him. Dean never went back on his word. But then Sam remembered that he had not seen his brother in two years. Maybe Dean had finally given up on him.
The very thought hurt more than any of his physical pain and he quickly pushed it out of his mind.
There was only one other number he could remember. He dialed it slowly, using all his energy to make sure that his uncooperative fingers hit the right buttons. The phone was starting to get too heavy, but he held it to his ear with as tight of a grip as he could manage.
Sam almost sighed with relief when he heard the first ring. Of course his father would not have disconnected this line. This was the number he gave to any of his contacts who could possibly give him information on the thing that killed Sam's mother.
He could feel himself fading with each ring. The world was tilting on its axis and he was unsure if the phone was actually ringing or if it was all in his head.
Sam barely noticed when the phone slipped from his slackened grip and his body fell limply forward as he gave into the sweet nothingness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: So this is my first multi-chapter Supernatural story and, to say the least, I'm a little nervous about this.
A/N2: The title is a song by the band Cover Up. It's not a good title and I'll probably change it when I can think of a decent one.
Please review! I would love to know if I should continue or if it is just too craptastic to even bother.