Sam leans back in his chair, the Beretta pressing into his back as David sloshes a generous shot into each glass. Sam slides a hand across the table, pulling the glass slowly towards him. His other hand stays resting on his thigh. It's not so much that he doesn't trust his new drinking buddy; it's that he can see absolutely no reason for the trust to extend in the other direction. Sitting in the middle of nowhere having a drink with a total stranger, who has no reason to believe anything you might have to say, is a good a recipe as any for getting dead. Sam smiles tightly, despite himself. Easy come, easy go.
"Salut." David raises his glasses and knocks back at least half of the contents. Sam takes a small measured sip. The alcohol rushes across his tongue and blazes a trail of heat down his throat and beyond. He clears his throat, clenching the hand on his thigh. The scar bisecting his palm is itching, and he desperately wants to scratch at it. He tries not to twitch. His visitor's eyes dart briefly around the cabin, Sam knows that David has taken in every facet of his environment; he's assessed and analyzed everything around him, including Sam. His bearing and casual demeanor can't hide what Sam has been long been taught to recognize. Someone or more often, something capable of doing whatever necessary to fulfill their needs. Sam doesn't know what David wants or needs and it's a variable in his routine that causes his heart to flutter with uncertainty.
David is speaking; Sam drags his attention to the words falling across the table and concentrates on making sense of them.
"..place looks tidier than I remember. Rufus never was that house proud. His father built it, you know?" Sam clutches the glass in hand and attempts to school his expression into one of interest. It's hard to focus on the face in front of him, Sam would like nothing better than to turn away from this stranger, but it's a risk he can't take.
"So," say David, and Sam shifts in his seat. "You were a friend of Cousin Rufus?"
Sam blinks slowly. "Colleague," he intones flatly, this is not a discussion he has any intention of pursuing. David sighs loudly and swallows more whiskey.
"Hunting. Right? Boogey men, things that go bump in the night. The unseen enemy of the living. And all that hocus pocus. Man, I warned him." He shakes his head. "He tried to get me interested in his field trips. Huh." David laughs quietly. "I always told him that I don't have time for chasing phantoms and staking Dracula, there are plenty of humans living and breathing that cause more trouble for more people that a few disembodied spooks."
He stops and pours himself another shot, not as much this time Sam notes, he's got a lot of muscle mass, no doubt it would take quite a few shots before his reflexes were in any way diminished. David has a nice voice, Sam thinks, he speaks in a tone of genial amusement and he's smiling the whole time. Sam is very aware of the man's physical presence. He seems to fill the room with a sense of warmth and his face open and sincere; his dark brown eyes reflect a calm, compassionate intelligence.
Sam wants him gone. He's filling up Sam's space with life and breath and a dangerous aura of energy that prickles against Sam's skin and is settling across the cabin. It's a smothering weight that Sam can actually feel pushing down on him, making his head ache and his heart thump hard against his ribs. He can feel the sweat starting to pool on his back and stick to his shirt, he takes another tiny sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving his visitor.
"He helped people." Sam puts his glass down. "He knew the cost. We all do." He winces internally, too much, too close to home. A string of thoughts he's suddenly powerless to stop begins to unravel untidily across his mind. There is no 'we' anymore. The cost has always been too high. People like David didn't care and didn't understand. Sam can't help but drop his gaze, his eyes are stinging and the little bit of whisky he has drunk is making him feel lightheaded; his head is starting to pound.
He hears the scrape of a chair across the floor and snaps his head back up, hand instinctively going to the small of his back and he's on his feet shoving away from the table. David blinks up at the gun barrel pointing at his face and raises his hands slowly. He quirks an eyebrow, he's just dragged the chair closer to the table and Sam feels his face heat up. His hand wavers and he drops his stance. He takes a deep breath; it catches painfully in his chest. It feels like it's getting harder to breathe.
"Uh, sorry and I'm sorry about Rufus. I am. I was there when we buried him." So was Dean, Dean said things, important things but Sam can't, won't think them about now. "But if you're looking for more than that," Sam shakes his head, "There's not much I can do." It's the most he's said to anyone in weeks.
David is unruffled. "I'm not after anything, kid. Rufus' business was his own. Not mine." He stands and smiles ruefully. "I'll go. Keep the whiskey. Not really my thing."
Sam watches him pick up his crate and shut the door behind him. His stomach spasms just as he hears the engine roar to life and bending double he drops back into his chair. He feels shaky and weak. He sets his Beretta down in the middle of the small table; his head is swimming, so he stretches out his arm across the tabletop and lays his head down. The gun is at eye level, barrel pointing away. Sam puts a finger by the trigger and spins the gun around and around. It has excellent balance; it wobbles slightly but maintains a steady axis, the barrel passing his forehead every few seconds.
Sam has no moral objections to putting a bullet between his eyes. If he could cease to exist, well, that would be a different matter. Death, on the other hand is low on his list of options, as ultimately it would most likely be a waste of time and materials. He's been to Hell, or something like it. Heaven was no better and the repercussions were just as painful and the idea of his spirit and mummified corpse spending their days confined to Rufus' cabin has a limited appeal. More importantly Dean is coming back and Sam is going to be there waiting for him.
Sam closes his eyes as the gun rotates, opening them at random intervals to see if he can guess where the barrel will be pointing. His body is slowly starting to relax as the daylight begins to fade and the room around him retreats into a dusky gloom. The gun gleams dully and spins silently. Sam starts to drift, fingers still resting on the trigger.
He's teetering on the edge of consciousness, when a small sound registers with his slowing senses and suddenly, there's a shadowed figure looming above him. Something slams down on the Beretta and Sam jerks his head up as claws clamp down on his shoulder, the touch burning into his flesh like barbed meat hooks. He screams in shock and in rage, twisting around and grabbing at his assailant, wrenching the hand on his shoulder down and slamming into the broad figure standing over him, feeling its bones grind together under his hands. Sam wants to snap them all.
They hit the floor, Sam brings a knee up, but an elbow hits him high in the chest. He screams again, there's no pain only fury bubbling up and pouring out of him, his fist finds something hard and bony and there's a grunt of pain. There's someone's voice nearby, there are words but Sam doesn't understand them.
"No," Sam yells, "no." He's spitting and screaming and he doesn't want to stop, he kicks out and scrambles upright, lunging at the figure coming towards him, its hands reaching for him, palms outward and open.
"Sam." It says. "Sam. Stop." There's only one voice that Sam wants to hear and it's not this one. "Dean," he screams. "He's coming back. He's coming back to me."
They crash into the wall, Sam rakes his nails over exposed skin, he can't see but he can feel and he can inflict hurt. Something solid catches him under the chin and before he can react he pressed face into the log beams of the cabin wall, paper crinkling around him. His arms are pinned behind him, his neck held immobile by rigid steel fingers. He kicks and bucks, only the pressure on his arms and weight on his back increases. He pants furiously and whines low in his throat. He can't hear, see or move.
He's crushed up against the wall for what seem like hours until his panting slows, and gradually he becomes aware of the sound of harsh breathing in his ear, the feel of the wood walls and the blur of white paper around him. The suffocating warm weight of someone holding him. His face is wet.
"Sam. Sam can you hear me." The voice is quiet and a little breathless. Sam ignores it.
"Sam, I need you to answer me. Can you do that, Sam?" The voice is insistent. Sam grunts.
"Nice try kid, but I need words. I will let you go but you need to tell me you're okay."
Sam tries to remember where he has heard the voice before. He wants to move his head, the interlocked hands on his neck are hot and searing his skin. He licks his lips.
"David?" he croaks, his throat is sore and feels raw for some reason.
"Yep. Can I let you go?" David voice is steady and matter of fact, his grip loosens a little and Sam draws in a heavy breath. He can feel the tension in the body behind him.
"I'm okay. You can let go now." David releases his hold and steps back and Sam slides bonelessly down to the floor, crumpling onto the sheets of paper ripped from the wall as he slumps to his side.
David's moving across the darkened room and Sam screws his eyes shut as the light comes on, and then he's back and squatting down a good arm's length from Sam.
"Did I hurt you?" Sam squints at him, one side of David's face is starting to swell and there are parallel scratches scored into his neck. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Sam snorts quietly, he's too drained too speak. He looks down at the papers around him and with clumsy hands fumbles to gather them together. He doesn't object when David scoots closer to help him. He lets David take them gently from him and tap them into a tidy pile on the table top, leaving them there. He comes back and leans over Sam.
"I'm going to help you up now. Okay. Let me know I can do that?" Sam nods and lets David pull him up and guide him to the couch and his blanket. A glass of water appears in front of him; Sam drinks it gratefully and watches as David picks something up from under one of the chairs. It's the Beretta. David pockets the magazine and places the gun on top of the stack of papers sitting on the table, he looks over to Sam meeting his eyes with a solemn gaze.
Sam wants to tell him that he's got it all wrong, that a Good Samaritan is the last thing Sam needs, but he's having difficulty keeping his eyes open. The blanket has made its way up to his shoulders and he decides that he's had enough for one day.