WHO: Sam Winchester. Narrative, unless someone from the Winchester home wants to jump in. WHAT: Demon blood detox. It's not fun. WHEN: Backdated; sometime after this. WHERE: The Winchester home; their version of a panic room. RATING: High.
He woke up alone; shirt drenched with sweat, vision blurry against the dull lighting. The tiny cot lodged into the room only barely had the capability of supporting the length of his entire body, which was exactly why he found his legs dangling halfway off the end while the rest of his figure twisted uncomfortably against the thin white sheet spread out beneath him. Confusion mapped it's way through his mind, digging into every single thought and sense until - aha, there it was! - it tangled itself into the dulled rage pitted away deep inside him, grappled onto it like a fist closing around a pile of crisp dollar bills, and yanked it up to strangle every other emotion that Sam Winchester was willing to exhibit.
He sat upright, sleeve rubbing across his brow to rid himself of the sweat that was dripping into his eyes. Inhaling deeply, Sam blinked up at the lights, watching in momentary fascination as they fizzled brighter and brighter. The process delivered a faint buzzing sensation to the back of his skull, followed by the sudden desire to shield his face from the blinding light burning into his vision.
One hand covered his eyes. The other groped out blindly, feeling against the empty spaces between the cot and the closed door that loomed ahead. Staggering toward it, Sam's fingertips eventually found the solid confirmation of the doors presence and he immediately slumped against the surface. The door. He knew this door. There was something...he was home, wasn't he? Home. In the panic room, awkwardly replicated from a version that Bobby himself had created back at the old junkyard. Why was he in here, of all places? What was going on?
A shaking hand found the smooth space where the handle to the door resided, laying on an uneven tug.
It was locked.
Heavy gasps of breath were delivered before Sam pressed his exhausted features against the door and barked out a sudden: "HEY!"
No response.
Cursing, he balled up a fist and slammed it against the door. "Guys? This isn't funny! Lemme outta here! HELLO?" The shouts were repeated multiple times before Sam chose to combine his vocal bursts for attention with the sound of his fists attacking the door angrily. They tired out quick, both his arms and his voice did, and Sam soon slid to the floor. Feet planted on the ground, he buried his face into his palms and unleashed a stifled moan.
Fuck.
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Muffled cries for help eventually fell into silence. In turn, that silence led to darkness, clouding the corners of his vision until exhaustion took him over and led Sam into a muted slumber.
The volume, however, was only willing to remain limited for but so long.
"Shhh. It's okay, Sammy. Take what you need."
Large hands found her tiny wrist and Sam bowed his head before her, tongue sweeping out to lick up the glorious red leaking from Ruby's veins. Warmth, strength, the ignition of a once faded hope sparking up again. He had it all, right in his hands, and he was more than determined to make sure that it stayed that way.
Mine.
His grip tightened, squeezing harder as he forced the blood in large gulps down his throat. The burn was welcomed, as was the familiar taste of copper and sulfur all twisted into one. Teeth sank into Ruby's flesh and he hauled her closer, forcing the demon's arm at an odd angle. Access became easier. The blood flowed more quickly. He drank and he drank and he drank.
"Sam, you're hurting me."
He bit down harder.
"Let go!"
Shut up! Sam pushed a hand out, palm pressing down against the side of Ruby's mouth to silence her. A muffled cry of protest breathed against his wrist, but Sam ignored it. His focus was on her arm, draining the warmth that pumped through that false body of hers. Making him warm. Making him whole.
Ruby bit him.
Blood dribbling down his chin, staining the front of his shirt, Sam wrenched his mouth away from her arm and fiercely glared up at her with eyes that were black as night. The picture perfect image of a demon himself.
Sam's eyes snapped open and he began to scream; his cries a conflicted mix of fear and desperation, echoing loudly from deep within the room he was trapped.
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He couldn't remember when they started. Who it had started with, how they had approached him. They were all faces. Blurring in and out of focus, yelling at him, stomping all over the tiny space between the cot and the door with an almighty superiority that Sam had been entirely incapable of understanding.
They weren't real. He had established that much. Yet they were there. His only company for the time being and, slowly but surely, as was the ache in his stomach, they were beginning to drive him mad.
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Sam had forgotten how small he had been as a child.
"You know, you could have had a future with her," the younger version of himself stated, pacing before him in the jeans that were three sizes too big - compliments of Dean, as Sam had recalled - and the mop of hair that was just as much of a mess today as it had been back then. Plaid ridden shoulders slumped over lightly; Sammy, as Sam had decided to call him, looked disappointed.
"I still do," Sam muttered, flopping down onto the cot wearily. Shirt clinging to his chest from the sweat that had overtaken him, Sam clasped his hands together and leaned forward, chin drooping onto his knuckles.
He was getting weaker.
Sammy snorted, eyebrows jumping upward in disbelief. "Really? Do you think she's gonna wanna be with you after all of that? C'mon." The boy spread his arms out at his sides, shaking his head almost in a pitying manner. "We know better than that. She's walking away; she walked away in there! She couldn't even look at us!"
"That's because she doesn't understand! If I could just talk to her, make her see reason, then we'll be fine. She'll understand everything and we can be together." Sam looked down at the floor. "I can make her happy."
A sharp snap stung the side of his face. Sam winced, looking up at his younger self in surprise. Had he just - he had! He had just slapped himself!
"Do you even hear yourself?! You just verified that you've already screwed it up too badly to come back from! I mean, you didn't even tell her when this was all happening! You were so afraid of being honest with her, and now you think you can just pretend that you weren't lying to her for months without there being consequences?"
"But she doesn't even know WHY I'm -" Another bash to the head, delivered by Sammy's palm. Sam reached up to grasp at his cheek, a glare cloaking over his worn features. "WOULD YOU STOP HITTING ME?"
"Then would you grow up for five seconds? She's in love with you and you're running around with a demon - yeah, a DEMON - behind her back, drinking her blood like...like some kind of freak! If you couldn't tell her about that then, what makes you think that you can make everything all right now? She ran away from us, Sam! SHE RAN AWAY. She's not coming back. She doesn't WANT us anymore!"
Sam shook his head, protesting every single world. "No. That's not true." A faint burning leapt at his eyes and Sam looked away from himself, biting it all back. Stupid feelings. Emotions. Fuck, he needed the blood. Had to numb it out, had to make it go away. "She loves me."
"She used to. But not anymore." Sammy's voice was close. Sam closed his eyes, ignoring the painful wrench in his heart. "You ruined it. You ruined everything."
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Fingers threaded along the back of his neck, Sam buried his head between his legs. A weak attempt at sustaining himself. The blood was furious with him. He could still feel it inside of him, burning angrily. Why wasn't he providing more? Why wasn't he continuing the flow? Why wasn't he drinking?
The blood licked at his insides in retaliation, spitting pain from the pits of Hell itself out to make him suffer.
Why? Why had she abandoned him? Why, why, why?
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"Awww, don't look so down, kiddo," a voice leapt out at Sam, curling in from the dark.
Sam was laying on the floor. Arms and legs spread out, body positioned in a way that, if he were lying in the snow, would suggest that he was on the verge of creating an angel. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, Sam grunted in response to the voice. Whatever.
"They've all trapped you in here, in this tiny little box. Now me? I don't like small spaces. They make me all itchy." Footsteps followed the words.
Sam closed his eyes and sighed.
"And yet, somehow, this special little room is probably better." The speaker was standing beside him, Sam could tell. His voice was too close. "The screams only belong to you, there's no one here cracking a whip at your back; heya, Champ, whaddaya think? Which is worse: being trapped in Hell or locked up by your own flesh and blood?"
...Champ? Champ?
Sam's eyes snapped open immediately.
A pair of glowing yellow eyes reflected back at him.
"Holy fuck! FUCK!" Wildly, he scrambled to his feet. The action was one worth regretting, of course, as he was no longer quite capable of standing up properly on his own. He swayed, staggered, and fell back against the wall behind him, eyes wide and filled with pure horror and disgust. Voice hoarse, yet filled to the brim with nothing short of pure terror, Sam let himself go. He didn't care if it was cowardly, he didn't care if it was going to provoke the son of a bitch. He needed help. He needed to get as far, far away from this demon as fast as humanly possible. "GUYS! GUYS! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
Same body. Same face. Same yellow eyes.
Azazel tilted his head to the side curiously. "Now, now, Sammy. Is that any way to treat an old friend?"
"You're no friend of mine," Sam gasped, pressing his back to the wall as far as he could. No! NO! His vision blurred and Azazel inched forward, looking as smug as ever. Too close! TOO CLOSE!
"SOMEBODY HELP ME! HELP!"
"Are they going to stop me? The big, bad hallucination?" Azazel grinned at the falter in Sam's voice. "I didn't think so."
Not real. He wasn't real! Sam heaved a breath of relief, yet still refused to pry himself away from the wall. Hallucination or not, Sam was far from fond of the demon. He didn't want to be anywhere near him - not when he was the one who had started all of this. From the very beginning. His blood and all of the horrors that followed.
Fuck that.
"I'm not hallucinating you anymore. Go away." Decidedly, Sam used what little strength he had left to push away from the wall and, in an intimidated manner, step around old Yellow Eyes himself. Back to the monster, Sam screwed his eyes shut and wished him gone. There. It was his stupid hallucination. The bastard could go back to Hell for all he cared. Swallowing hard, Sam swayed in place and slowly turned to look back over his shoulder.
Azazel had vanished.
"Oh, thank God," Sam breathed.
"I really wish people would stop saying that," Azazel retorted, voice coming at him from behind, "it's so offensive."
Sam wheeled around in shock. No, no, no! He was supposed to be gone!
"Aren't you upset? Your own family, locking you away in here for trying to do the right thing?" Azazel shook his head, almost sadly. "Tsk, tsk. See, this is why they were always expendable. Slowing you down, making life tough." An exaggerated sigh. "Boy, don't you just hate it?"
"Don't get me started on hate," Sam growled, slumping back against the wall again.
"I can relate, Sammy. Got a handful of kids under my belt and they're all good for nothing. They run around, make with the ritual sacrifices, possess people - hey, I heard about that last go around, wasn't that fun?" Azazel didn't give Sam a chance to respond. "My point is - why'd you let them do this to you?"
"I didn't have a choice." Did he? If he had walked away with his Dad when he was told to, would he still be here like this?
"Oh, you had a choice," Azazel responded, pacing a few steps to the right. "Heck, you've been making a lot of choices lately, haven't you? Can't say that I'm not proud of them either." He beamed off at him, mouth stretching wide. "You're doing me real proud, Champ. I always knew you had it in you."
The room began to spin again. Back pressed to the wall, Sam slowly slid to the floor.
"Think about it. Why'd you go after that disgusting angel the old fashioned way? With your hands? Really?" Azazel laughed. "The last I checked, you had a bit more 'whoomfh!' in your bite nowadays. Why'd you go for the stupid when you could have gone for the kill?" Azazel tapped a finger to the side of his head. "That just doesn't seem very smart to me."
He was right. Sam had enough juice in him to do more than attempt a strangle. Why had he held back?
"But, hey, you know what? It doesn't even matter now, does it? Cause the second they pull that door open, you're gonna have a second chance." He began to step toward him, yellow eyes flashing intimidatingly in the dark. "Do what you've gotta do to get on outta here. Find that little whore, suck her dry, and try again."
Sam shook his head. No.
"Awww, don't be a spoilsport! Not when you were getting all fun!" The demon knelt down beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Look at me, Sammy." Sam twisted his head to the side. "No, no, no! Look. At. Me."
He did as he was told.
"That's a good boy." More grinning. Sam wanted to slap that smile right off his stupid face. "I told you before, didn't I? You always had it in you." He shrugged a little. "Or at least you did after I put it there. How is the blood, by the way? Hers isn't as good as mine, but I'll tell you, it's gotta be the next best thing!"
A response wasn't dignified to the demon. Sam didn't know how to retaliate against something that he knew to be true. He forced his eyes away from Azazel once again and glared off at the opposing wall. He needed to leave.
"Drinking it up, embracing what you are. I'm sad that I'm not here myself to see it, but hey, a fella has got to take what he can get."
"I'm not," Sam hissed.
Azazel didn't speak. He waited for Sam to finish, yellow eyes trained solely on nothing but Sam himself.
"I'm not gonna be whatever it is that you think I am," Sam continued through gritted teeth. "I'm doing this for good, not for -"
"-oh, yes, of course you are. You and Ruby? Together? Mhmm. So was it for justice when you killed all those pesky little demons? What about that woman, way back when? In the alley? All accidents and candycanes, wasn't she?"
Sam slammed his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "Shut up."
"You can't escape what you are, Sammy." Shutting up? Him? Yeah, right. "Someday, and someday soon, you're gonna realize that you've been wasting all this time. With your family, with your friends, with that traitorous bitch. You're better. You're better than all of them and we both know it." Sam shook his head, silently protesting. "Shh, it's all right. It'll be our little secret. Not to worry!"
Azazel slowly began to stand, leaving Sam with a whole lot more personal space. "In the meantime! You need to fix your way on outta here. There's a locked door here, a few idiots on the other side..." He snapped his fingers and shot Sam a slightly irritated look. "Darn! Don't you wish I was real now? Could've given you all the blood you needed. Hmm." He held his hands up and backed away, shrugging. "Ah, well. You were always the smart one. You'll figure it on out."
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Sam never did figure it out. He lay there, body growing weaker, screams fading in and out with each hallucination that passed him, begging for a way out.
For the first few hours, he thought that she would save him. Then all thoughts of Ruby dwindled down to nothing more than her blood.
Blood.
He was at the wall again, head hung low. Odd things kept happening to his hands, black lines tracing their way up his knuckles and through his arms. Fading. Reappearing. Fading again. He had stopped screaming about it all, to his credit, but the conversations with the invisible bodies around him never did quite cease.
They weren't real. They were real. They weren't real. They were real again.
He was real. He wasn't real.
Sam Winchester finally knew what it was like to be insane.