Inspired by Jenn's request to Sky for a stuck!Sam fic. How that ended up with me writing a story I have no clue. Just go with it. :D
Disclaimer: Dude, this type of scenario would be, like, a required scene in three out of four episodes if I owned them. :D
The floor was cold and wet.
This might not have been anything to note, if not for the fact that he was touching it and was unable to stop doing so.
And he had tried.
For at least twenty damn minutes he'd tried to move from this painful crouch, balanced on the balls of his feet, knees up around his ears on his ducked head, arms extended down between his screaming thighs and shrieking calves to press into the floor of his prison, bracketed in either side by his—thankfully—numb toes. He'd tried but he just . . . couldn't.
Not even to a more painful position to give him a break from the cold and wet floor.
Not even when his phone had rung. And rung. And rung.
Dean, no doubt, wondering where the hell he was.
He would have answered it, but he was in a fair amount of pain and his phone wasn't within easy reach at the moment.
Actually, that was how he had managed to shift positions briefly, but it was too agonizing and had left him bleeding from the forehead, so he hadn't even been able to enjoy the time long enough to dry his hands let alone warm them up.
And he hadn't made it to his damn phone yet either.
He shivered and then groaned.
The involuntary movement did nothing to appreciably warm him up and the restricting confines of his current locale only made any movement at all—even something as slight as a shiver—excruciating.
Sniffling, shivering, water soaking into his pants and slowly inching up his legs, just all around miserable, Sam sucked in a deep breath in mental preparation.
He had to try moving again.
It was going to hurt like a bitch and a half, but he couldn't stay here until someone found him—if someone found him—because he would either die or have a complete mental breakdown. He needed to let Dean know what was going on.
He carefully plotted his attempt, trying to anticipate problems and setting up goal posts along the way, knowing he would need them because if he tried to do this all in one shot he was going to permanently injure himself.
Or bring on that breakdown.
Once he had what he hoped was a workable plan, he braced himself for the pain and executed step one.
Lifting his left hand, the bones in the right creaking from the added stress placed on them, he fumbled his shaking hand toward his coat pocket and tried to get his only sort of responsive fingers to cooperate and grab onto the prize there. The shaking grew more intense the longer it took, both desperation and pain sending the nerves in his hand into spasms that made his task all the more difficult.
He bit down on his lip, hot breath rushing in and out in noisy, ragged, panting gasps.
He almost had it, had his fingers in the right places and ordered his hand to clamp down and not let go, then lifted it up.
His fingers slipped, either from the moisture on the ground or the sweat that was pouring off of him in amounts large enough to make it appear he was outside in the rain. Didn't matter which it was, it dropped the phone back down and his fingertips came together painfully, pressing on each other as a whimper escaped his lips.
It was followed almost immediately by a second sound, the one Sam knew would get him help faster than any other word in the English language that actually meant 'help'.
"Dean."
It was a prayer and a plea and a fervent request for assistance. It was the sound of a man teetering on the edge of a very large, very dark hole.
Now if only he could get that sound to the one person who could understand what it meant.
Closing his eyes, Sam inhaled as much as he dared, very aware of the roof of his prison pressing into his back and neck and how much it hurt when he tried to stretch that particular boundary.
He gritted his teeth, tearing a hole in his lip in the process, but ignored the warm rush of metal flooding his tongue, the same flood that washed over his lips and mixed with the cooling sweat dripping down his chin.
He was going to get that phone, dammit.
He had to lower his hand back down to the floor, sighing at the blessed relief that brought. It was still painful, but compared to the other pain it was nothing.
He gulped down air and wished he could just be done with this.
He wanted to be in back in the room, surrounded by the latest crappy and bizarre decorating scheme in a long line of crappy and bizarre decorating schemes, stretched out on that tiny bed with his feet and hands hanging over the edges, on cardboard thin pillows that smelled funny and yet familiar, watching some dumb movie with Dean on a teeny, tiny black and white TV, drinking crappy beer and eating stale potato chips from the vending machine.
Not that that was his highest ambition at the moment, but he'd happily take that and count himself lucky since he was pretty sure he'd have to sell his soul to get anything more.
But to do that, Sam, you have to get your damn phone and call Dean so he can come fucking save your pansy ass one more time, he berated himself.
He swallowed a mix of saliva and blood and grimaced at the taste as well as how much he was about to hurt.
Then he closed his eyes and moved.
It was no less painful than last time. Maybe more so, in fact.
But he gritted his teeth until they squeaked and forced his hand up and to his pocket, stuffing the whole damn thing in there and wrapping it around the phone, ignoring the bolts of pain that flashed between every damn nerve he had in his left arm, from the fingers on up to the shoulder.
He pulled it back out and panted and gasped as the pain receded to a level that was still very much present and not nearly ignorable, but somewhat muted in comparison to before.
A sort of triumphant laugh rode one of those exhalations and he felt the corners of his lips twist up just a little.
He had to lower his hand again, but willingly paid the price of a little extra pain to keep it from dropping into the water with the phone still clutched in the fingers.
That would not be helpful.
After a moment to maybe cry just a little, he sucked in air and lifted the phone to where he could see the screen.
Or not.
His vision was too blurry for him to make out what was displayed on the tiny screen in even tinier text.
So he fumbled around until he found the "1" button and pressed and held.
As soon as the faint thrumming sound of the ringer came out he lifted the phone and, wincing and hissing for the pain it caused, managed to wedge the device between his head and shoulder so it wouldn't fall.
Then his hand went down and he basked in the lessening of pain.
Three more rings and then a click and then, "Dammit, Sam. I've been looking all over for you. Where the hell have you been?"
"Dean," Sam said, almost whimpered. He meant to say more, but that took a lot out of him and, well, he didn't need to say much more. Not to Dean. Not when he said his name that way.
"Sam?" Dean said, all impatience gone, replaced with big brother's deepened timbre of concern.
Sam had to bite back another whimper. That tone of voice told him everything was going to be okay. Dean would find a way to make it okay, no matter who he had to kill or maim or what laws he would have to break. He'd do whatever it took and he wouldn't even hesitate.
"Hurts, Dean," Sam croaked out. He sounded like he was five, and he might not like that later, but right now he really wished he was five. He wouldn't be in nearly this much pain if he were the size he'd been when he was five.
"What hurts? Where are you?"
"Alley. Um." He swallowed and tried to think. "Be-behind the Shop&Save." He hoped that was it anyway. He could see the alley and he couldn't imagine he'd been taken all that far from the store. Not when you considered who had to have taken him.
"Okay. I'm, like, five minutes away. How bad are you hurt?"
Sam gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath. He'd almost forgotten about the pain in the relief of knowing Dean was coming.
He wanted a bed in a room where the floor and ceiling were at least nine or ten feet apart, but right now even the Impala would feel freaking huge compared to this.
"Not . . ." He swallowed again and tried to think of how to explain. "Not injured." Technically he wasn't.
"Sam? You with me?"
Sam blinked and wondered if he'd lost the connection for a moment.
"What?" Then he heard the roar of the engine not on the phone and the splash of water as it was pushed away by the tires running through it. It sent a little wave into where Sam was, lapping up onto the crotch of his jeans and soaking it with cold, oily, mucky water.
Lovely. Now he was going to look like he'd peed himself. And, oh, yes, now he was wet and freezing in a place no guy ever wanted to be that wet and cold. Fan-fucking-tastic.
A car door slammed and more splashing and he tried to crane his neck to see out the small round holes on the side.
"Sam! Sammy!" More splashing. "SAAAM!"
"Dean," he called. Well, tried to. It came out pretty pathetic and the falling rain sort of covered it up. He swallowed, sucked in air, and tried again. "Dean!"
There was no sound but the rain for a moment, then the splashing grew closer.
"Sam?"
The little light there was from a street lamp outside the alley grew dimmer and that was Sam's first indication he'd been found. He couldn't turn his head to see, though.
"Dean?"
"The hell, Sam?"
"I'll exp-explain in a minute. Please get me out?"
That last sentence very quickly dissolved into a pathetic plea, definitely a bit of a whimper.
"Hold on," Dean said and Sam bit his lip as he waited.
A rattle of the door didn't yield it opening, but then Sam's questing fingers had already discovered the padlock when he'd tried to get himself out.
"The fuck happened to getting a fucking pizza, Sam?" Dean said in annoyance, but it wasn't directed at him so much as the problem of how to get Sam out. "It's not rocket science, dude. How the fuck did you end up inside a damn dog crate anyway, you big asshat?" He continued muttering as he circled around.
Sam kept his mouth shut, both pain and humiliation keeping him from trying to defend himself at the moment.
"Huh," came from the back of the crate. "Okay, I have a solution, Sam, but it's gonna take a minute or two. Just hold tight, okay?"
"Hurry. Please."
"I'm going as fast as I can, Sam," Dean said, his voice back to calm and soothing now that he'd found the solution and was working on executing it. "You're gonna be out of there in just a minute."
Sam could faintly hear the sound of something scraping against something else, but couldn't make sense of what it could be. It did involve moving around the cage though, he noted, as Dean made a complete circuit and then stopped where he'd started.
He splashed his way back to the front of the cage and said, "Ready?"
Fortunately, he didn't wait for an answer. He just lifted the top half of the cage off and Sam nearly got whiplash from sitting up so fast.
He did grey out pretty thoroughly and when hearing and sight and all those other lovely senses returned he was staring at Dean, face inches away from his, hazel eyes scanning to see how he was doing and looking for injuries. A finger gingerly brushed over his forehead and Sam winced and hissed, pulling back.
Dean had one hand on the back of his neck though and it kept him from getting very far. Didn't matter much since Dean stopped poking at that point. His eyes locked on Sam's.
"You with me now?" he asked.
Sam nodded, feeling twinges of pain in his neck from the strain it had been under.
"Ready to try standing up?" Dean asked.
Oh Sam was so ready for that.
When the restriction above his head had been removed and he was therefore able to lean back, his feet had slid forward until they hit the front of the crate. Which had left his butt to fall into the water filling up the plastic bottom even faster than before. If not for the fact that the rain was still falling, he would definitely look like he peed his pants.
And he was even more cold and wet.
But now he was free and he could stand and stretch and-
Or maybe not so much.
He got up with Dean's help and then very nearly went right back down, the pain in his legs enough to have him crying out.
"Oh shit!" he informed Dean's amulet, hanging night next to his nose as he clung to his brother, Dean's strong arms the only thing keeping him remotely upright at the moment. "Ohshitohshitohshit."
"It's okay, Sammy. I gotcha," Dean said, one hand holding on tightly, the other rubbing circles on his back that had Sam's eyelids drooping slightly. "You're okay. Just take a moment. You're okay. No hurry."
Sam laughed at that.
They were standing in the pouring rain and it was freezing and Sam needed a least minor first aid—not to mention a hot shower and a big flat bad, not necessarily in that order—and Dean had to be uncomfortable and worried because he hadn't found out what the hell had brought them to this point.
But no hurry.
Although—and Sam would never admit this out loud, even under threat of going back into the crate—Dean's steadily thumping heartbeat under his ear was nice and soothing. It awakened memories of being curled up next to Dean in the back of the Impala while they waited for Dad to get a room or pump the gas or kill something mean and nasty. Not that they'd known at the time that's what he was doing.
Sam hadn't anyway, not in his earlier memories.
That sound, that steady—if slightly faster than normal—but reliable lubdub-lubdub-lubdub had been Sam's lullaby for most of his life and he was kind of relieved that even at almost twenty-four years of age, it still had that same effect.
Embarrassing, maybe, because it made him want to cling tighter, but still kind of nice to know.
Finally the pain lessened enough that Sam was able to let go of his death grip on his brother's waist and climb his way back up to standing, though he was still holding onto Dean for support.
"You got it now?" Dean asked, one hand on Sam's shoulder, the other wrapped around the back of his neck.
Sam nodded, grateful that it was raining. It helped hide the tears brought on by both pain and gratitude for his big brother.
"Good. Because hugging in the rain is just a bit too chick-flicky for me. Let's get you someplace warm and dry. Then I will go get food because apparently it's a very difficult and confusing task. I thought college was supposed to make you smarter."
Sam barked a laugh as Dean helped him hobble his way over to the passenger side of the Impala, continuing to make jokes and cast aspersions on Sam's intelligence the whole way.
The fact that he didn't make Sam wait while he dug out a towel for the seats, however, said he was still concerned.
The door was shut and Sam slouched into the seat, arms and legs stretched out as much as he could manage. It felt like heaven and he could only imagine how nice it would be to sprawl on a bed.
Dry.
And warm.
He tracked Dean from under hooded lids as his brother circled the car and climbed in.
"Come on, Marmaduke. Let's get you home."
Sam didn't bother to waste the energy it would take to flip his brother off.
Not to mention that would be a shitty way of saying thank you for saving his ass.
Again.
Part two will be up in a few days. Review plz&thx.
Oh, and betaed by the ever lovely Skysalla, who shares my love of stuck!Sam and cage!fic. :D THANKS, HONEY.