None Goes His Way Alone
By Coffeemaniac
Not Slash
A/N: Set in Season 1. After Shadow but before Devil's Trap.
"There is a destiny that makes us brothers: None goes his way alone: All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own." (Edwin Markham)
The Wait
Sam paced around his metal prison until exhaustion forced him to stop and sit down. He pushed himself back against the wall so he could watch the door. At first he expected the stranger and his henchmen to return soon after they left. After dropping the threat against Dean and then observing Sam's distress, it seemed likely they'd come back and just ask about Jess again. They had to know he'd tell them anything to protect his brother.
But, they didn't come back.
The monitor in the ceiling didn't turn on either. The cameras that were likely watching Sam continued displaying their tiny blinking light but that was it.
When yelling for attention didn't work, Sam scoped out a place in the corner to use as a toilet. He picked something out of camera range or at least he thought it was which was less about modesty and more about hiding his attempt to keep clean. Ultimately that wasn't possible and he cursed at the discomfort of wet, smelly clothes.
He spoke to the camera hoping it had audio or that whoever was watching could read lips. He promised to tell them whatever they wanted to know if they'd let him see Dean.
It didn't matter that the memory of Jessica's death was still an open wound or that the truth was unbelievable.
He'd tell them that she was pinned to the ceiling. He'd tell them that a demon murdered her.
He shook his head. If the stranger was harming Dean then all that mattered was saving him. He would tell them anything, prove anything, even the impossible.
An ache along his shoulders and arms had started building noticeably a few hours earlier. Having his hands bound behind him for so long put pressure on muscles that weren't used to it. He had tried to roll his neck and shoulders to loosen them up but that stopped working some time ago. He wished he could do some cool contortionist thing and get his arms in front of his body but he didn't bend that way. If he did, he wouldn't smell like a urinal.
Sam leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Boredom had long before taken over and doing math in his head, or figuring out the outline of a term paper that he'd never gotten to write, could not keep his mind occupied. Sleep crept in. He knew he only drifted as worry over his brother repeatedly jerked him awake but he was also losing track of time.
With a sigh, he fought to stay conscious, hoping with every breath that the stranger would come back or that Dean would burst through the door. One or the other had to happen to deal with this mess.
He jumped awake when a scream tore through the room and he scrambled to find the source. Finally he found it on the monitor that had lowered from the ceiling while he dreamed. Blinking for focus, it took a moment to figure out what he was seeing. But, then his stomach dropped and fear jabbed as surely as a knife when he recognized Dean, shirtless and writhing as scream after scream tore from his throat.
Sam rolled on to his knees then pushed himself up. He walked to the screen as if he could get closer to his brother just by being closer to his image. The horrible anguish in Dean's voice blocked any other sense and, for a moment, Sam couldn't see past the noise to what was happening.
Then the details started filtering through, a white bandage on his arm, stark and bright against skin, bare feet squirming and kicking, and his face, stricken and twisted. His brother, Sam's brother, cocky and tough and brazen in everything he did, screaming and twisting in agony.
With nothing else to do, Sam rushed the door. He hit it over and over with his body, throwing all his strength into it while he yelled for someone, anyone, to hear him. He was so intent on getting through the door, the sudden, deafening silence followed by the monitor going dark and being pulled back barely penetrated his consciousness.
Then his shoulder and hip and leg registered their complaint and Sam stopped. He sunk to his knees, hurt and defeated, overflowing with fury.
All they had to do was come back and he'd tell them everything. But, they had to come back.
He turned to the nearest camera with its unflinching eye. He guessed they had audio because he could hear Dean but he didn't know for sure so he spoke slowly and clearly, "I will tell you what happened."
He waited and repeated the same statement over and over, praying they'd believe him.
Then time just passed, the way time does. Sam couldn't track it, couldn't judge how much or how little and nothing came to break the endlessness. He knew he was thirsty and hungry. His body ached from having his hands still bound and from the other abuses it had suffered. His mind never strayed far from Dean and the image of him screaming. But, nothing made the time move faster.
When promising to talk about Jessica gained zero response, he rammed the door again. He kicked the walls when no one answered the door. The stranger didn't come back and Sam finally sank back down because there was nothing else to do.
The Pressure
Dean shifted his body against the cold metal. He blinked and groaned as his senses caught up with his situation. Sweat coated his skin like a grimy paste. His throat felt like he'd been swallowing gravel. Exhaustion warred with relief as he realized that the pain had dulled to something more like an ache, much more tolerable than before but not quite gone.
The memory of the pain seemed to fade like a bad dream. He figured his mind was protecting him and he was glad.
Footsteps against cement forced his heart into overdrive. His body tensed painfully as he squeezed his hands into fists.
"Hello, Dean," the big man greeted. The other two, the brothers, didn't speak as the three of them gathered around the table.
"Miss me?" Dean asked, surprised when the sound was barely audible. He cleared his throat then wished he hadn't when it felt like a sharp rock was jammed in there.
"I was worried," the man said. "When you quieted down after all that screaming, I thought we had given you too much of the cocktail and perhaps your heart had stopped."
Dean didn't respond to that but the fear jolted up inside him.
"I gave your brother 48 hours to decide to speak with me and that means we're not quite finished with you yet."
"What does that mean?" Dean rasped.
The man nodded towards the brothers again. Before Dean could brace himself the taller one had gashed a new wound into his body. This time it was across his stomach and the detached part of Dean thought that it was shallower than the one on his arm. Just as they did before, they bandaged it immediately.
"Give me a minute," Dean said when he spotted the needle in the shorter brother's hand. "I just need a minute. Just wait. Let me talk to…"
The taller brother wrapped his hands around Dean's skull and shoved, bearing his neck again. The shorter one jabbed the syringe in and the poison started spreading through his blood stream.
"This will be very much the same as before except now, you have two wounds for the drug to attack. I don't think we'll need a third session because your brother is almost ready to tell me everything. That probably doesn't help much right now though."
"You're a dead man," Dean ground out before his muscles began curdling into themselves.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"You're a dead man."
Sam stared at the monitor, watching with a burning ache so deep he thought it might drown him. Dean huffed and squirmed and clamped his lips together but nothing was going to contain him. Whatever the needle contained overwhelmed his efforts in moments and Dean started screaming again. No words, no begging for relief, just mindless, gut-wrenching shrieks.
The stranger and the other two walked away from him and out of view of the camera.
"You don't have to do this." Sam yelled into the empty room.
He wiped his face against his shoulder. The hot tears of frustration, anger and helplessness made him furious. He needed to get out, needed to get to his brother.
Sam started over. He checked the door, examining it again from the top down, checking the hinges, checking the seal, looking for any weakness. From the door, he moved to the seams in the walls. The metal had been welded together to create the enclosure so those were the weakest points. He kicked at them with all his strength, enduring the bone jarring vibration over and over as he tested each one. Nothing rattled, nothing shimmied and nothing broke loose. Getting on his knees, he crawled along the floor, looking for an opening between the wall and the cement. He couldn't believe there was no way out. There had to be a way to save Dean. Nothing else was tolerable.