Lost To Madness
Part 4
If I'm Already On My Knees, I May As Well Pray...
Pre AN: I know there are a ton of reviews I haven't responded to from the last chapter. I was gonna respond before I posted this but I decided you'd maybe rather have the new chapter than the responses. At least I hope that's okay. I read them all, I always do, and some of them twice, Your words to me are little sparkles of light in the sometimes very gray world I operate in, they startle me, delight and thrill me and they frequently make me laugh with pleasure that my words have elicited such responses. I treasure the sight of the names that have become familiar to me and embrace the new ones that appear. Ta so much.
AN: I wanted to keep this simple.
I actually wake up in the middle of the night and lay there, buried under 4 cats and a blast furnace husband, (honest to God, his body temperature must be 300 degrees and add to that the mini oven that is a cat times 4 and I'm surprised I don't spontaneously combust and why the hell can't he stay on his side of the frigging bed???) trying to figure out where the hell this is going, (the story, in case you lost your thread there) racking my brain for a plot.
I wanted lingering pain, a little torture, maybe some angst sprinkled on for good measure and a nifty ending that would make you want a cigarette and to lay back and watch the ceiling for a bit in wanton satisfaction.
But NO, I had to go and add hints of a PLOT.
Like I had one in mind to start with, which would imply I had a plan.
Guffaws.
Loudly.
Don't hold your breath.
AN 2: Seriously, it ain't gonna happen.
AN 3: Gaelic has been kind enough to pre-read and help fix these chapters. This, of course, makes me question her sanity. She is a brave soul. Waves at Gaelic.
Sam groaned, his head rolling back and forth on the pillow as he struggled toward awareness. He was hot and uncomfortable but whatever he lying on was soft and seemed willing to support his weight. He almost decided to hell with it and was about to allow himself to drift back down when something cold and wet brushed over his face. He gasped, the sudden blaze of pain in his side the only thing keeping him from springing up.
"Easy! Easy..." an unfamiliar voice admonished. "You'll start bleeding again!"
Sam swallowed and coughed; he couldn't breathe, his throat was closing up it was so dry.
"Here, have some water," said the voice. A strong hand lifted his head and glass touched his lips, water tipping toward him. He drank instinctively, choking as little, the sensation jarring his side once again.
Blinking to clear his vision, Sam stared up at the heavy-set man hovering over him, belatedly startled.
"Who are you?" he gasped, drawing back, looking around in confusion. Where the hell am I? He had some vague recollection of falling out of the car...
The man sat back out of Sam's space, setting the glass on the table. "My name's Mike Richards. I own the bar you decided to pass out in front of, and since I had to drag your ungodly tall ass in here so you could bleed on my couch, I might ask you the same thing."
"Sam... my name's Sam," Sam replied automatically. He drew in a breath and tried to sit up. The room was dimly lit; what he could see of the furnishings looked worn, as did the man sitting next to him. Mike?
"Stop fidgeting! I'm not kidding. That might be a flesh wound but you bled like a stuck pig, so settle down or I'll call an ambulance!" Mike's hand was a heavy presence on Sam's chest, forcing him back.
Sam relented, drawing a hand over his injured side, feeling the thick bulk of bandages taped there. He glanced up at Mike. "Who..."
Mike gestured loosely. "I was a medic in the Army. Not my best work, but it's been a while. Should stop you from leaking all over the place." He held the glass of water out to Sam. "Drink this. Now, what hell happened to you?"
"Someone shot me," Sam said, he took the glass and drained what was left.
Mike rolled his eyes. "I worked that out, kid," he remarked drily. "Who and why? Wasn't that friend of yours, was it? I hate to say it, but he looked the type."
"What?" Sam stared at Mike uncomprehendingly, the realization of who the man was referring to a snap-hiss of connecting synapses in his mind. "No... NO!" Sam snapped. "He's my brother." Sam handed the glass back and shifted restlessly. "I need to help him. Some guys took him...they shot me..." He wasn't making sense and he knew it.
Mike's hand landed on Sam's chest again. "Who took him? Those guys he was shooting pool with?"
Sam stared up at Mike, confused, ruffling a hand through his hair. "I think so, had to be..." he muttered to himself, trying to piece together the dislocated images of the last several hours. "Wait… how did you know who he was playing pool with?"
Mike laughed shortly. "Kid, you been doing this as long as I have you can see trouble on two legs when it walks through the door. Those guys? Were trouble." He forbore to point out he had had the same feeling when he had seen this kid's companion. A walking bomb looking for a place to explode. Dangerous, yes, but he had to admit it was different dangerous than the three men that had come in within minutes of Sam and his brother.
They felt bad dangerous. Especially the older guy.
"You know them?" Mike asked.
Sam struggled to sit up and this time Mike let him, offering him a hand. "No," Sam grunted, rubbing his face. "I've never seen them before. I figured they lived here. They don't?" He braced himself to stand, discovering it was pretty much impossible without involving his side. His face twisted in a grimace as he pushed to his feet.
"I know everyone who still lives here," Mike replied, rising as well in case the kid toppled over. He was just too damn big to carry. "A stranger sticks out like a whore in a convent."
Sam lurched toward the nearest window. He squinted at the dial on his watch but it appeared to have stopped. Must have happened one of the times when he had hit the ground unexpectedly. "What time is it?" He asked.
Mike trailed Sam to the curtained windows. "2:30. Tuesday afternoon."
Sam turned to gape at Mike, gasping at the pull in his side. "What? It was night-" he snapped, reaching out to jerk the curtain back, making a face as bright sunlight burned his eyes. He let the curtain fall back with a hiss.
"You were out of it. Trust me." Mike responded. "The only reason you aren't in the hospital is cause you were right, it's just a flesh wound and every time you came around you threatened to kill me if I took you to one."
"I've gotta find Dean," Sam exclaimed. "It's been almost two days...he could be dead..." Sam clutched at the wall, feeling dizzy.
Mike grabbed his arm and guided him to a nearby chair. "Sit the fuck down!"
Sam really didn't have any choice; sit down, fall down, his body just wanted down any way it could get it.
"Look, last night before you blacked out you said something about a church--" Mike began.
"A church!" Sam interrupted. "That's why I came back here!" He grabbed Mike's shirt sleeve. "They said they were gonna take him to some old church. Some rat-faced guy shot me, but I was conscious long enough to hear them talk. They were sloppy," he added without thought. "Didn't even check to see if I was dead." He didn't notice Mike's look of surprise at the comment or the seasoned veteran sound of it.
"I came back here because I thought someone here might know what church they were talking about," Sam went on. He looked up at Mike desperately. "Please...do you know what they were talking about? I've gotta find him-"
"Whadda they want with him? Why would they kill him? Why shoot you and leave you?"
"I don't know!" Sam snapped in frustration. "I told you I've never seen them before! We had a job to do here; we did it. We'd have been gone in the morning. We just stopped for a beer, for God's sake! Do you know what church they were talking about or not?"
Mike straightened, pulling his sleeve free from Sam's grip with effort. The lines on the older man's face deepened as he studied Sam's intensity.
Finally, he nodded. "There's only one church around here. Hasn't been used years. It's in Old Town."
"Old Town?"
Mike shrugged and made an expansive gesture. "Long time ago there used to be really productive silver mines around here. Lots of money. Old Town is about twenty miles south. A boom town that sprang up around the first mines they discovered. It's in the frigging middle of nowhere. When they realized just how rich they were, the town fathers decided to move the town itself to a better location. One that would bring in investors and business." He made a face and sank in the opposite chair. "Hell, my grandfather worked the mines back then. My Dad, too."
Mike sighed, shrugging almost helplessly, his eyes focused on nothing as Sam took in his words.
"After all that, all the money that went into the move, new buildings, make everything pretty, the mines suddenly all but dried up and everything went to hell. Investors abandoned the place practically overnight. It took a while and folks tried to make the place work, but this scraggle of buildings and a few families that get work at the mills are about all that's left and that's not gonna last much longer." Mike shut up as he realized he was rambling. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "If you want to go to a church around here, that's the only one."
Sam pushed himself up again, clutching his side, grimacing as he tried to straighten. "I gotta go there. Tell me how to get there and I'll leave."
Mike watched him wobble and sighed, shaking his head. Shit. "What the hell do they want with your brother, anyway?"
Sam looked toward the window and shook his head. "I don't know. I wish I did. But whatever it is, I know they'll kill him if he can't--or won't-- give it to them." Sam's eyes fluttered slightly and he visibly pulled himself together. "So how do I get there?" he said turning back to Mike.
Mike snorted disgustedly and heaved to his feet. "Son of a bitch," he swore.
He had smelled ham.
The scent pulled his eyelids open slightly and he lifted his head a bit to try and discern the origin.
He had learned long ago that the human body could only deal with one major sensation at a time. It was impossible to be overwhelmed with a multitude of bodily needs for different things. One always took precedence, and when it was overcome the brain moved down the list in order of priority to the next issue requiring resolution. You couldn't feel freeze-to-death cold and feel starvation at the same time.
As his limbs trembled and ached with cold, he thought nothing else could be worse. Until the smell of food hit him. He had gone without food and water before, but as he dragged his dry tongue over cracked, bloody lips, watching Rex, Davy and Gus share beer and sandwiches through half open eyes, he had to fight to force back the moan that hung in the back of his throat.
He didn't want to be cold or hungry or in pain or feel anything except the need to vent destruction on Sammy's murderers, but his body was determined to betray him and crave those things that should no longer matter.
It was all he could do not to strain against his bonds as his stomach twisted emptily, his dehydrated body's attempt to produce saliva actually painful. He'd be damned if his enemies would get the satisfaction of watching him suffer in any manner they could see.
As a change of pace, he supposed, he was tied to a splintered old post in the main church. Its purpose appeared to be propping up floor of the shallow, sagging balcony over Dean's head. The jagged bits of protruding wood dug painfully into the flesh of his back, making it impossible to even slide down the post and sit on the ground to give his aching legs a break. Even now the muscles in his legs were shaking; it was only a matter of time before they would finally refuse to hold him up any longer and his back would be ripped by the pillar.
They hadn't questioned him, or even tried to hurt him anymore. They'd just tied him up and left him there, unable to brace himself in any way that was even remotely comfortable. He had watched the sun move through the broken stained glass windows; shattered rainbows spilling across the floor as the day came and went.
Untold hours later, startled by the creak of the door opening, he had roused himself to watch in bleary-eyed disgust as his captors had settled themselves comfortably at a rickety table close by and proceeded to have a frigging picnic in front of him.
He closed his eyes again and shuffled awkwardly to re-brace his feet on the rough floor, head jerking back, grimacing as he felt his skin pierced by one of the large splinters. It hurt, but wasn't worth the effort to swear.
"Ya know," Rex speculated through a mouthful of sandwich, "As much as I've enjoyed this," he paused to take a long pull from his beer bottle, "I think I'm about at the end of my patience. You must be losin' your touch, Gus." He added with a quick glance to the mousey little man, who frowned.
"What do you expect?" Gus snapped. "I don't have any equipment, nothing to really work with."
Davy's pale blue eyes darted uncomfortably between Rex and Gus, a child caught in a parents' argument.
Rex held up his hand. "I'm kiddin', Gus, for God's sake. Learn to take a joke. I know you've done the best you could. I just think we need to try a new approach here. This obviously ain't workin' and we don't got forever." He rubbed a calloused hand over his stubbled face and got slowly to his feet, grabbing his bottle of beer from the table.
The boards beneath Dean's bare feet shifted as Rex crossed the old floor. Dean lifted his head slightly as Rex approached, watching the grizzled older man through matted eyelashes. He tried to raise himself more on the post, stand taller, but his body didn't even attempt to cooperate.
Rex cocked his head to see Dean's eyes. The green was washed out and floating in bloodshot pools of white, but even though Dean's head shook as he tried to hold it up, the look in those eyes as they fastened on Rex's was unsettling. It reminded Rex of a trapped wolf waiting defiantly for death, daring its captors to venture close enough to try and actually kill it.
Rex straightened with a grunt and splashed Dean's face with beer.
Dean jerked, blinking the burn of it out of his eyes and cursed his bastard tongue as it instinctively slipped between his lips to draw the beads of moisture running down them into his mouth.
"You just don't know when to quit do you, boy?" Rex sneered. "You think if you hang here long enough, refuse to talk, we're gonna just get bored and go away?" Rex squinted an eye and came closer, old boards creaking loudly as they moved in protest of the additional weight, waving the beer in Dean's face. "It's not gonna happen." Rex stated flatly. "I am getting bored, but we ain't leaving without something, even if just the pleasure of gigging you like a frog and tossing your carcass next to your partner in that mud puddle." Rex leaned in, nose almost touching Dean's. "Is that what you really want?"
Rex closed in and Dean automatically pushed himself against the post in a fruitless attempt to get away from the effluvia emanating from the older man. To Dean's surprise, the floorboards sank under his feet as Rex shifted his weight, actually dropping a good inch or two.
And as he pushed back against the post… it moved.
End Notes: Hangs head. I'm sorry Phoebe, I can't help it....
