It dawns on me that the worst is over.
When I open my eyes, I know where I am - Bobby's panic room. I know why I'm here – another blood withdrawal. I know that I'm in here alone – no hallucinations, no leering demons, no in-the-flesh self-recriminations.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that now I'm hyper-aware of all the agony I'm in.
I'm freezing on the outside and burning on the inside. Every joint pivots on large grit sandpaper. Every breath pulls acid into my sinuses. My back aches like I was thrown down a staircase. My stomach feels like it's being driven up my esophagus by fireworks. My hands have electric sparks exploding in them. Inside my boots, fire ants rampage over my feet. My brain is dried to dust, and some week-old road kill has crawled into my mouth and is rotting away.
Somebody please make it stop.
I'm on the floor, near the cot. I must've fallen off, but I don't remember it. I know that it means I wasn't cuffed to the cot, but I can't remember right now what that means. Or if it even means anything. The floor feels hot under me, but maybe it's just me. The pitcher of water is on the table on the other side of the cot but there's no way I'll ever make it that far on my own.
All I can hear is my own breath, harsh and painful, as it shreds in and out of me. There's no sound from the other side of the panic room door, but who knows what time it is. I think it's nighttime, but I can't be sure my eyes are clear enough to differentiate.
But if it's night and nobody is out there, there'll be nobody to come in here and help me get a drink of water. And if I don't get a drink of water, I'll melt and bubble into toxic sludge here on the oven-hot floor.
But – Dean has to be out there. Dean has to be somewhere close enough to hear me if I call him. He'll come in and give me water and maybe he can make the ache in my back go away and stop the fireworks in my throat or if nothing else he can just be here with me.
Dean.
Dean has to be here.
My mind focuses on that one thing – that one person – so completely, that suddenly I'm at the panic room door when I didn't even realize I was crawling there. I'm half lying, half sitting, pressed up against the door that's just as hot as the floor is. And now the water is even farther away from me.
"D – D – D'n." It's all I can get out and it's not loud at all. It's sure not loud enough to be heard through two inches of steel door. But I keep trying, lifting my hand to pound – tap – against the door. "D'n?"
Then another thought – some fear or memory – stabs into my brain that Dean is dead. It's in there solidly; I can't pull it free from all the other noise to figure out if it's true. I can't remember how or why that thought is in my head, or how or why Dean would be dead, but the thought is there.
Dean is dead.
I stop to listen out the door, but with the buzz in my head and my breath in my ears and my heartbeat in my throat, I can't tell what I hear and what I only want to hear and I feel the panic building in my chest, crowding out my breathing, squeezing my heart.
Is Dean dead?
What if he is?
What if he's not here? What if nobody is here? What if nobody ever comes and I'm stuck here forever in pain and misery and no water? What if nobody ever comes back?
What if Dean is dead?
I lift my hand and slap it harder against the door, for all the good it maybe does me, but all I know is that I'm in burning, freezing agony and it's all I can do to pull in enough breath for one last plea.
"Dean – please – make it stop."
That last bit comes out a high pitched whine but I don't care because if nobody comes in I'm going to die anyway so who cares if I'm whining or what I sound like. I want Dean. I just want Dean. He'll make it better. He always makes it better.
Is he dead?
And then the door is opening and I'm falling sideways and then I'm not falling sideways and Dean – Dean – is here. He must be on the floor too because I'm eye level with his shirt collar and his arm is around my shoulders and his voice is right at my ear.
"Man, I can't leave you alone for two minutes, can I? What d'you think you're doing? What are you doing getting off the cot? How'd you even get this far? I've seen over-boiled spaghetti that had more strength than you do right now. C'mon, let's get you back on the cot."
He sounds like he's pissed and he sounds like he's joking and he sounds like he's talking too fast on purpose and I know that he's not dead. He starts to lift me, but any movement is going to be fresh agony and I can't stand it. So in that same high-pitched, 'I'm whining and I don't care who hears it' voice, I beg him again,
"Please – make it stop."
"What? Sammy, what? What do you need me to stop?"
And he asks in that tone of voice that says he will stop it; no matter what it is, he'll stop it.
"Hurts. Hurts." It's all I can say. "Make it stop. Please, make it stop."
"I will, I will, Sammy. C'mon. Let's get you off the floor, okay? Hey, Cas? C'mon in here, will you? Okay, Sam? Cas and I'll get you back on the cot. Then we'll get you some – "
"No, no. Don't move me. Don't move me. Don't. Please."
Dean's strong but not strong enough to move me easily and the effort it'll take will be agony on me. My bones and muscles and skin already feel like they're liquefying. Any pressure will be like acid eating my flesh away.
There's no way of explaining that to Dean, there's no way I'll get all of those words out in any kind of sense and order and Dean will try to lift me and my arms and legs will twist off in his hands like melting taffy.
Melting taffy with exposed, electrified nerve endings.
But Dean doesn't move me, I feel his arm more secure around my shoulders and after a few moments he says,
"Cas? Bring in my sleeping bag, will you? Lay it out here against the wall."
I keep my eyes on Dean's collar so I only see out of the corner of my eye that Cas carries an unrolled sleeping bag into the panic room. He doesn't take it too far past me, he must lay it out just behind me and all I can think about from that second is getting off this baking hot floor onto anything else. All it takes is Dean saying,
"All right, Sam. We're just gonna get you…"
And I'm reaching behind myself, turning, crawling onto the sleeping bag, desperate for comfort, for softness, for anything that isn't this bone-scraping, soul-sucking, unremitting agony.
It's heaven. The sleeping bag. It's a thick, soft, clean surface. It's not hot like the floor; it's warm like Dean was only just sleeping on it. He must've been sleeping just outside the panic room door. That realization overwhelms me as I stretch out full length, and it's not just my muscles that want to cry out in relief.
"Sam? All right, Sam. It's okay. Let's just get you comfy." Dean has followed me to the head of the sleeping bag. He must be on his knees, he's down at my level. "Cas, you got it? Okay, here, Sammy, here."
He lifts my head and there's a pillow and it's not the one from the cot because it doesn't smell like vomit and I'm the most comfortable I ever remember being in my entire life. I feel Dean's fingers pressing through my hair and even though it doesn't ease the freezing or burning or fireworks or pain, it eases something and for the first time in who knows how long, I feel like I might survive this.
"So, what d'you think, Sammy? A little water? You must be kind of parched, hunh?"
I want to nod. With everything I have left in me, I try to nod but I think all I manage is another pitiful squeaky whining sound because even with the relief that Dean is here, that he's always been here, I'm still freezing and burning and gagging and in pain. I expect a smart, snarky response from Dean, but he only leans closer.
"I know. I know how bad you must be feeling. The worst is over now, okay? Everything from now on is just about getting you better. All right? Here. Here's some water. Small sips, c'mon, you know the drill."
He lifts my head again and I take the small sips of water and my life is complete. But he no sooner lets me back into the pillow and moves around to set his back against the wall next to me than my stomach revolts and forces even that little bit of water back out again, and I'm off the pillow and half off the sleeping bag, retching and cramping and whimpering and just as miserable as I ever remember feeling as both my stomach and my brain try to follow that water up my throat and out of my nose and onto the floor under my hands.
"Dean – please –" I manage to whimper while I'm still retching. "Make it stop. Make it stop."
I have no idea what I think Dean can do; all I can think is that only Dean can do anything.
"I will. I will, Sam. Just hold on. Just hold on."
His fingers are still in my hair and his other hand is on my back and his voice is close to my ear and when the retching stops, he gently tugs me back onto the pillow. Pillows, it seems, the pillow is higher than it was. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe I just can't tell.
"All right, Sam. It's gonna be okay. We'll take care of this. Okay, Cas…."
He says more to Cas but another bolt of nausea erupts up my throat and all I can concentrate on is not puking my guts up into my sinuses while the muscles in my back feel like they're ripping in two and my eyeballs are shriveling and whatever died in my mouth turns into the creeping undead and I think it's planning on creeping back out again.
"All right, Sam. Cas'll be back in minute. Then we'll get you squared away. Okay? Okay, Sammy?"
I want to say 'okay', because Dean wants me to say it. But I don't know what 'squared away' means or what Cas has to do with it; if it means the pain will be gone or that Dean will be gone or if I'll just be gone somewhere else.
So I don't say anything and Dean only massages his fingers through my hair and across my shoulders and when he shifts, the pillow moves and I figure out that he's put it on his thigh and I'm bundled right up against him.
Then Cas is back or back again and whatever he's brought squeaks and clangs like thin metal on wheels and Dean shifts and my pillow moves and then he's taking my hand and talking to me.
"Okay, here we go. Just a pinch. That's what they always say, right, that it'll just feel like a pinch when really it feels like they're driving a spike up your vein. Right? But let me just… first I just have to…"
I feel something cold and wet swipe across the back of my hand and then a pinch, a little pinch or a little prick but thinking about what Dean would say to that remark makes my head hurt worse, so it's a pinch and I look at whatever is happening to my hand but my eyes are gummy and sticky and all I see is a milky blur.
"All right, there we go. Just c'mon and lie back. Let's give that a few minutes and see how you feel."
Give what a few minutes, I wonder. But whatever it is ~ an IV my brain finally deciphers ~ I'll give it a few minutes. I'll give it as long as forever, mostly because I don't have any other choice, do I?
Nothing changes, it doesn't feel like anything changes but I wait because that's all I can do and then slowly, incrementally, unbelievably, the agony in my back eases up and the acid in my sinuses stops chewing through my brain and the freezing and the burning finally meld into one general feeling of bearable warmth and just as I'm about to sink into how good it feels I realize when I've felt this good after feeling this bad before.
"No!" I sit bolt upright and blindly, awkwardly, unsuccessfully, try to find the IV needle in the back of my hand and rip it out. "No blood! Dean – please – no – don't – I can't – I can't –"
"Hey – hey! Stop it! Stop it!" Dean grabs my shoulders and blocks my hands and pins me lightly against the wall. "It's not blood. Sammy, I promise. It's painkillers. Just painkillers. Okay? Painkillers. Painkillers."
He keeps saying it, just saying that one word 'painkillers' again and again, until I understand what he's saying and what it means and what it doesn't mean. It's not blood, it's not the 'hair of the hellhound that bit me', it's just a regular IV and painkillers.
And it's working.
"Okay?" Dean asks and I hope he doesn't need any kind of firm, clear response from me because that's going to be a long time coming. The pain and sparks and fire ants drain out of me and it leaves me even weaker than before and I don't nod as much as I think I try and fail a couple of times to keep my head up.
But Dean doesn't need more, of course he doesn't. He can tell – from my breathing, from my posture, from less than that – that the painkillers are working and I'm rappelling back from the summit of hell, and his breathing and his posture relax too.
"Good. Okay. Good. Let's get you situated again. Okay? C'mon. C'mon and lie down, Sammy. It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here. We're just gonna sit here and wait it out, okay? Well, I'll be sitting. You'll be laying down. Okay? C'mon."
He helps me untwist from my defensive posture and settle back onto the pillow on his thigh and I sink into sleep and sleeping bag and the feeling of Dean's hands on my head and on my back, and his whispered reassurances,
"It's okay. It's okay, Sammy. Just sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up. Just sleep…"
I'm more than happy to do as I'm told and I let the waves of sleep wash up around me and over me and pull me into a warm, calming, quiet darkness.
To be continued…