A mosquito hummed in on jet-engine wings and landed on his hand. Sam squinted at it in the harsh moonlight and watched with morbid curiosity as it fed.
It fed, like a mosquito on a normal person. When its gut swelled red, Sam slapped it, smearing bug carcass and his own blood over his skin. The world didn't need vampire mosquitoes.
God, he was hungry. Sam sniffed his hand and realized he was in a potentially dangerous transition period: not yet dead, hungry, full of human blood. Assuming he was actually turning.
He licked his finger and scrubbed the blood off. In an anxious moment, he stuck his finger back in his mouth and prodded his gums again, mostly-human iron hitting his tongue, and in a startling savage reflex, something at the base of his lips squeezed, thin skin tore, new tracks and folds of tissue stretched and rippled. Sam found himself grimacing automatically, lips drawn back to safety the same way his eyes stayed closed while he sneezed. He'd pricked his finger. The new teeth, loose-rooted, clicked against his old teeth.
He panted, beginning to shake, and squeezed his nicked finger into a fist. Gradually, the fangs relaxed and eased back into the folds of his gums. He'd turned. He'd done the first part. Now he just had to put it to use.
He darted back into the shack and opened his bag. Giant plastic syringe, thin soft rubber tube, personal lubricant, duck tape. He taped up his finger, then smeared lubricant on the blunt tube, and in fits and starts, threaded it up his nostril and down into his throat.
It really wasn't fun.
Coughing, and resisting the urge to sneeze and puke at the same time, Sam wrapped the open end of the rubber tube around his head and duck taped it to the back of his neck, out of range of his teeth. More tape secured the tube to his hair. It would be a bitch to remove, but.
He sent Jodie the text: just the location of the shack, a time six hours from now, and "Please come. Everything's under control."
He mixed his sire's blood into the cure base, peeled the label off the jar of cure base, and re-labelled it "Cure."
He cuffed his ankles to the railroad tie, and for fifteen minutes recited a Tibetan meditation meant to prepare the soul to confront the denizens of the underworld. He burned incense and gunpowder in a brazier, sending up a flare of harsh light and scent. He marked up his forehead and hands with the hot ash. He dedicated a few words to Kali, wherever she was, a "Sorry" and a "Promise I'll get back to fixing the world when I get Dean back." He got the jar of cadaver blood, cuffed his wrists to the tie, and with what little maneuvering room was left to his hands, he tipped it to his lips.
It was foul. He choked it down, forcing himself to swallow despite the dull sting of what he suspected was formaldehyde, despite the sick emptiness of it; it was death, not the stolen life he needed, that he was taking in -- assuming he wasn't just giving himself botulism. His guts rebelled. His lips went numb, spilling blood down his chin. His neck grew weak. The jar fell from his hand. His body imitated death, and with a push from the ash on his skin, Sam slipped free from it and into the void.
He drifted.
He drifted in emptiness.
He became aware again of the passage of time, and as he watched, with dull, bodiless curiosity, time passed slowly in great waves. He had been drifting for eons and not come to rest. He was patient.
More eons passed.
His patience ran out.
There was nothing to rest on, no form, nothing to orient by, no destination, and Sam realized that instead of a leaf fluttering to the earth, he was an astronaut drifting untethered through space. An astronaut with no skin. He had no sensation, but he knew, with a primal horror, that the gap he'd fallen through was unfathomable, that it was a gap, a chink, a dead space. There was no psychopomp to direct his travel. He hadn't been reaped.
This must be what happened to socks when they disappeared.
He was a sock.
He was lost.
His thoughts coiled tight into the mantra he carried for Dean, but the void yawned all around, and nothing could distract him from it, nothing could give him purchase in it, nothing could guide him through it, and Sam had failed.
Re: Filled: Crash 2/3
It fed, like a mosquito on a normal person. When its gut swelled red, Sam slapped it, smearing bug carcass and his own blood over his skin. The world didn't need vampire mosquitoes.
God, he was hungry. Sam sniffed his hand and realized he was in a potentially dangerous transition period: not yet dead, hungry, full of human blood. Assuming he was actually turning.
He licked his finger and scrubbed the blood off. In an anxious moment, he stuck his finger back in his mouth and prodded his gums again, mostly-human iron hitting his tongue, and in a startling savage reflex, something at the base of his lips squeezed, thin skin tore, new tracks and folds of tissue stretched and rippled. Sam found himself grimacing automatically, lips drawn back to safety the same way his eyes stayed closed while he sneezed. He'd pricked his finger. The new teeth, loose-rooted, clicked against his old teeth.
He panted, beginning to shake, and squeezed his nicked finger into a fist. Gradually, the fangs relaxed and eased back into the folds of his gums. He'd turned. He'd done the first part. Now he just had to put it to use.
He darted back into the shack and opened his bag. Giant plastic syringe, thin soft rubber tube, personal lubricant, duck tape. He taped up his finger, then smeared lubricant on the blunt tube, and in fits and starts, threaded it up his nostril and down into his throat.
It really wasn't fun.
Coughing, and resisting the urge to sneeze and puke at the same time, Sam wrapped the open end of the rubber tube around his head and duck taped it to the back of his neck, out of range of his teeth. More tape secured the tube to his hair. It would be a bitch to remove, but.
He sent Jodie the text: just the location of the shack, a time six hours from now, and "Please come. Everything's under control."
He mixed his sire's blood into the cure base, peeled the label off the jar of cure base, and re-labelled it "Cure."
He cuffed his ankles to the railroad tie, and for fifteen minutes recited a Tibetan meditation meant to prepare the soul to confront the denizens of the underworld. He burned incense and gunpowder in a brazier, sending up a flare of harsh light and scent. He marked up his forehead and hands with the hot ash. He dedicated a few words to Kali, wherever she was, a "Sorry" and a "Promise I'll get back to fixing the world when I get Dean back." He got the jar of cadaver blood, cuffed his wrists to the tie, and with what little maneuvering room was left to his hands, he tipped it to his lips.
It was foul. He choked it down, forcing himself to swallow despite the dull sting of what he suspected was formaldehyde, despite the sick emptiness of it; it was death, not the stolen life he needed, that he was taking in -- assuming he wasn't just giving himself botulism. His guts rebelled. His lips went numb, spilling blood down his chin. His neck grew weak. The jar fell from his hand. His body imitated death, and with a push from the ash on his skin, Sam slipped free from it and into the void.
He drifted.
He drifted in emptiness.
He became aware again of the passage of time, and as he watched, with dull, bodiless curiosity, time passed slowly in great waves. He had been drifting for eons and not come to rest. He was patient.
More eons passed.
His patience ran out.
There was nothing to rest on, no form, nothing to orient by, no destination, and Sam realized that instead of a leaf fluttering to the earth, he was an astronaut drifting untethered through space. An astronaut with no skin. He had no sensation, but he knew, with a primal horror, that the gap he'd fallen through was unfathomable, that it was a gap, a chink, a dead space. There was no psychopomp to direct his travel. He hadn't been reaped.
This must be what happened to socks when they disappeared.
He was a sock.
He was lost.
His thoughts coiled tight into the mantra he carried for Dean, but the void yawned all around, and nothing could distract him from it, nothing could give him purchase in it, nothing could guide him through it, and Sam had failed.