Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
There's burning, and feeling like you're burning. This, Sam thinks, gives the former a run for its money. Warm blood oozes from a gaping wound of ragged flesh on his neck. The edges of his wound are jagged from teeth… No, from fangs. It cries out crimson tears that drip down onto his clothes and, eventually, the dusty ground.
His shoulders are dislocated. They have to be for this much pain to shoot through them with the slightest movement and for this deep of an ache to throb in their very fibers every moment.
His breaths are more like gasps, labored attempts to suck oxygen into a dying body that rejects it at any chance. Each breath he manages to inhale reeks of death and the blood of previous victims.
Vampires. Who the fuck knew?
A smile paints itself on his face with his bloodstained lips. His father, that's who. What he wouldn't bet to find out that his dad knew all along that Vampires existed, but never bothered to let him and Dean in on the secret. No, he'd rather endanger them. Leave them unprepared.
His smile fades and he closes his heavy-lidded eyes, afraid each time they might not open again.
The floor creeks underfoot. He pauses, but there are no sounds to indicate that any creatures have been alerted to his presence. With steps a tad more careful, he continues, given the task to inspect the second floor and attic of an old home occupied only by spiders and rodents these days.
His dad's been vague on what they're looking for. All they know is that victims turn up with their blood drained and their wounds dry and gaping, and this house is one of the properties that sits in the area of where the victims are found.
He swallows the protests that fell on his father's deaf ears and moves to the next room. It might have made a nice master bedroom once upon a time, before time ravaged any trace of inhabitability.
He remembers admiring the view of the night sky from the alcove window in that master bedroom, but after that, everything is a blur. He isn't sure if he fell asleep and relived that moment in a dream, or he played it out in his mind for the hundredth time. He feels like he's just gotten off an amusement ride that spun him around and around until he was on the verge of throwing up.
He closes his eyes again, knowing he's safe for the moment. As long as sunlight streams through the hastily boarded windows, the vampires won't dare to show themselves. He doesn't know how much of the legends about vampires are true, but they seem to hate sunlight.
Unlike them, Sam is starting to hate the dark.
All it brings is pain.
His eyes open when white-hot pain spreads from his shoulder through the rest of his body. He tries to jerk away, but his wrists remain bound and strung up high above his head. He doesn't remember how long it's been like this, only that the answer is 'too long.'
One vampire is leaning against the door frame, watching. The other one pulls his head back from Sam, blood dripping down his chin and from his fangs.
"Careful," says the woman in the doorway. "We need to keep him alive as long as we can."
"We can find another," the man says.
"Not from this place, we can't. Once that kid's dry, we have to move on. And we can't move on until the others get back. We already drawn too much attention if his kind are skulking the area for us."
She moves closer to him, the tap of her heels echoing through the room. "Isn't that right, little hunter? You thought that you could take down some big bad monsters and play the hero?"
Sam doesn't answer. This is how their feedings always go, and he's kept silent. Learning.
Not that the information will help anyone considering he dies at the end of their plan.
They're waiting for other vampires to come back to what they refer to as their nest, but Sam hasn't found out how many vampires there are in all or where the others have gone.
They like the taste of his blood, and they say that they've never had anything like it. While those sentiments should concern Sam, he has more important things to worry about.
"Just a boy trying to pretend he knows how to handle the big bad creatures of the night," the male vampires says, licking his lips. "Luckily for us, that isn't true."
The woman takes her turn, taking a bite out of the base of his neck. Sam doesn't scream, there isn't enough air in his lungs to make a sound.
"Sleep, boy," she says, raising her mouth to his ear. He feels her breath against his skin. "Sleep, but don't die. Just a few more days."
He lets his head hang, cold sweat falling from his brow as shivers from blood loss leave him trembling.
He wishes that Dean and his dad would find him soon, but he wonders if they're looking at all at this point.
The jolt of pain from his arms' sudden release and fall alongside the jarring impact of his knees on the ground wakes him. His eyes snap open and he looks around in a panic, uncertain at this new change.
And he finds Dean. Dean holding onto him so he doesn't fall all the way to the ground. Dean with tears in his eyes and the sunlight seeping into the room shining on him.
"Careful, Sammy," he says. "Man, you look like shit."
Sam smiles, each exhale of his breathy laugh aggravating his aches. "Took you long enough," he gets out in a voice no louder than a whisper.
"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, I know. Sorry, I… I'm here now, okay? We're gonna get you out. You're gonna be fine, Sammy."
"Nasty business, vampires," John says, entering the room while he wipes speckles of blood from his face, but succeeds only in smearing it across a larger area. He stops and stares. "Sam. Shit, I…"
Sam doesn't know what his dad wants to say. He trails off, and Sam doesn't have the energy to inquire. He registers that he's safe for the first time in too long, and not only because he sees the sunlight. He's safe because Dean is here.
Dean won't let anything happen to him.
A/N: Between work and Summer semester finals, I'm exhausted and stressed. Obviously, that means I end up spewing out a one-shot in the minimal free time I have. I hope you enjoyed it, and if there interest, I might do a mini follow-up chapter once life calms down.