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“On your knees.”
A switchblade pressed into the soft of Sam’s neck, and he reluctantly let the point of it guide him to the grimy deck. Seaspray drenched the hunter’s jeans as he knelt before his deranged captor, pulse thudding against the blunt side of the knife.
“Vampire pirates.” Dean mused, struggling against his restraints. “Awesome.”
Sam shot his brother an unamused frown. The ship’s captain, a scruffy blonde man, chuckled and edged the switchblade up the younger Winchester’s jawline. Sam winced as the metal bit deep enough to coax blood from his skin, and grimaced when the man’s fingers roughly scooped up some of the escaping redness.
Small, choppy waves slapped against the hull of the fishing boat.
“You know, vampires aren’t the only creatures sensitive to blood.” The captain started, thoughtfully rubbing his bloodstained fingers together. “Sharks, for example, have a real nose for it.”
Sam visibly blanched at the notion, all too aware of their location off the coast of Maui, and he couldn’t help but steal a nervous glance over the boat railing. Cerulean water, growing dark and opaque under the evening sky, glinted back at him.
“Especially at dusk...” The second vampire continued, his dark brows lifting in enjoyment as he gripped Sam ruthlessly by the hair. “What do you say Cap'n, should we give the poor bastards a snack?”
“Bite me.” Sam threatened, his face pinched in anger.
Deeper waves rolled against the side of the ship.
“We’ll leave that up to the sharks, I think.” The captain snarled, and slowly licked the blood from his fingers. Without warning, the dark-haired vampire drove Sam’s head into the gunnel and promptly rolled the taller man overboard.
Sam didn’t even have time to swear; in a blurry instant he was enveloped by cold, open ocean.
His skin jolted painfully - whether in numbness or from adrenaline, Sam couldn’t be sure. Disoriented, he broke the surface of the water, sputtering and gasping for breath. Desperately trying to calm his raging heartbeat, Sam was able to pick up a strained voice from between the cresting waves.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Dean spat out, acid in his voice.
“Big words for a small fish.” The bloodthirsty fisherman smiled, before quickly pouring a bucket of chum over the side of the boat.
Sam clawed at the hull, desperate for a grip, as he tried to haul himself out of the water. He could just barely reach the deck if he stretched himself upward, but between the crashing waves and his waning energy, he failed to find solid purchase.
A heavy smack to his hands - courtesy of the blonde vampire’s rubber boot - dislodged him completely and Sam slid back into the water, the word “no” ghosting at his lips.
Slick with fish guts, the ocean grew muddy with blood, and Sam gagged at the stench of it. Waterlogged, his limbs felt lead-like under the weight of his clothes. He was growing tired. The captain laughed as he watched Sam attempt to latch onto the boat again, and sent the hunter crashing back into the waves with another well-aimed kick.
Sam resorted to treading water.
Puffing out deep, throaty breaths to chase the cold, Sam remembered how far off shore they were. He couldn’t swim back to the island. The vampire’s boat was his only hope for survival.
Dusk settled around them. Luckily, the rusted, crew lights aboard the vampires’ boat provided enough light for the capsized hunter to see by. Enough light to watch his brother rocket out from his ropey restraints, a blade in hand.
Distracted, the fisherman set after Dean, leaving Sam some room to climb back aboard.
Just as he was hoisting himself onto the railing, his waist still submerged in the inky, dark sea, Sam felt it.
A tug.
Something had hold of his left foot, and was snagging on the pant leg of his jeans. A quick jerk from his knee and Sam felt the pressure dislodge...only to reapply itself aggressively to the meat of his semi-submerged thigh.
Blood. Even in the dimming light Sam could see his blood mixing with the baited water.
Instinct drove his hands off the railing, to bash at the set of jaws locked around his leg. His hands pulled and pushed at the shark’s nose, beat tirelessly against the animal’s rough, unyielding skin. Nothing. In a flash of strength, the shark dragged him below the surface, and Sam, writhing in pain, had barely a breath of air to cling to.
He had been stabbed before. Been tortured. Been stitched up afterward, semi-delirious. Nothing like this. This was almost akin to his experience in the Cage. Almost.
Terrified. Disoriented. In agony. Helpless.
Prey.
For a moment, Sam lapsed from his body, stilled by a mixture of shock and lack of oxygen. In his head, the shark was mimicking Lucifer’s cold, animalistic infliction. Sam let the last of his breath escape him. Felt the bubbles trickle past his lips on their way back up to the surface.
The shark shook him like a ragdoll, teeth ripping deeply into his flesh, flirting with his femur bone. Sam played dead. It wasn't hard to do. When the animal went to reposition it’s bite, jaws sinking out from his numbed skin, Sam moved.
Dug his fingers deep into the shark’s eye socket, breaking through the protective lid. He pushed down hard on the massive animal’s snout, forcefully guiding it away. The shark’s boxy face jutted into Sam’s stomach as it resisted, and in a final feat of desperate strength, Sam curled his body inward and kicked the fish square in the nose with his good leg.
He screamed, the noise broken and disjointed underwater.
Everything was blurry. Sam closed his eyes. The water was murky, lightless, and he was on the brink of passing out entirely. He could feel the water shifting around him with every close pass of the shark. He’d grown alarmingly used to the emptiness in his lungs.
Sam hung there, suspended in the water, bleeding out steadily into the deep. The first dry heave rolled through his body like a white-cap, and he involuntarily drew the ocean into his lungs. He convulsed, again, and again, filling himself with the empty, as if he could drink the sea.
Sam let the empty consume him, fear ebbing with the tide.
How long had he been down here? An hour? A matter of seconds? Dean crossed his mind, like the flicker of a candle. Like a promise.
As he slipped away, Sam heard the distinct, lulled noise of a bullet shot through water. Felt something encircle his chest, and hoist him upward.
And then nothing.
Just empty.
***
Dean broke the surface of the water was a ragged gasp, Sam unconscious and slack in his arms. He pushed and pulled at the ocean, frantic, struggling beneath his brother’s added weight as he swam them back to the ship.
“S-Sam! Mmph-...Sammy!” He yelled, trying to keep his mouth above the waves.
No reply. Fuck.
Finally at the hull, Dean contemplated how to get them onboard. He noticed Sam’s face lolling into the water, and he quickly lifted his brother’s jaw up into the air. Damn Sam’s height, his mile-long limbs, his weight.
At least the vampires were dead. Their heads were floating somewhere amidst the chum. Served them right. They’d been sinking boats and drinking the survived crewmembers dry for the past two years. Blamed the deaths on storms. Tech malfunctions. Human error. Sharks.
Gathering his strength, Dean managed to haul Sam’s upper body onto the loading flat of the ship, beside the dead engine. Once on board, Dean’s breath caught in his throat as he took in Sam’s shredded leg. He could see the lazy pulses of blood escaping his brother’s arteries, and the older Winchester haphazardly tied his soaking jacket around the bleeding wound.
He’d deal with that later, when Sam was breathing again.
Dean had performed CPR several times before - successful only twice. With angry determination, he centered his clasped hands on Sam’s chest, and started pumping. He felt his brother’s ribs resist the force, cracking under his heavy blows, and he winced. But continued. It had to be heavy to work.
Sam’s body shook with the force of the beats, limbs sprawled across the deck, his blood mixing with the seawater. His face was slack and greying, broken blood vessels crawling below his eyelids. He didn’t look unconscious. He looked dead.
Dean pushed harder, resolve swimming in his veins. Two minutes later, and Dean’s arms were burning. His whole body ached. But he denied himself the luxury of fatigue.
“Come on, Sammy. Come on!” Dean gritted out between clenched teeth, his throat closing. “Don’t you-u...don’t you fucking die on me Sam, n-not like this. Come on, Sammy, please...p-please…”
Sam convulsed, eyelids fluttering before peeling back, his eyes white with terror. Dean supported his brother as Sam’s back arched in agony, nausea climbing up his throat. The younger Winchester rolled to the side and emptied himself of the ocean, water cascading out from his stretched and shaky mouth.
Dean blinked the tears from his eyes, immediately focusing himself.
Still sputtering, Sam managed to drag in his first breath, deep and full. The alien sensation shook him into a painful coughing fit. Grimacing, he resorted to smaller, more shallow gulps of air.
Then, the pain came. Agony erupted on Sam’s face as he register his ruined thigh, and he tossed his head back as a coping mechanism, mouth falling open. Bile rose in his throat. He scrunched his eyes shut, and refused to look at the severe injury, already deep enough in shock as it was.
“D-Dean, Dean-n, fuck- ffuck- I can’tttt-” He whimpered, face scrunching up as tears rose in his bloodshot eyes.
“Yes, you can. You’ve had worse. God knows you have.” Dean stated, not unsympathetically, and started to tend to Sam’s leg. “Hang in there, Sammy, we’ll get you help.”
Sam’s pained complaints turned into broken slurring, words retreating from his tongue. Sam had lost a shit ton of blood, and he was growing delirious. Drunk in his trauma.
Dean found a first aid kit on board. Tied off the wound. Called for help using the Captain’s cell phone. Called Cas. Reminded a semi-conscious Sam of their boating adventures with Bobby as kids. Anything to pass the time as emergency services rushed to their location.
He didn’t let go of Sam until his brother was wrapped and nestled safely in the belly of a helicopter. Only then did Dean collapse beside the emergency response staff, relieved, and watch them properly clamp down on Sam’s bite wound.
***
When Sam eventually woke up in hospital two days later, it was with over a hundred stitches in his thigh, and a severe lung infection - courtesy of a twelve-foot tiger shark, and the filthy, baited water that had attracted it.
The animal wasn’t at fault. It didn’t want to kill him because he was a hunter, a Winchester, or an abomination. The shark had simply been hungry, and Sam had been interpreted as an easy meal.
As prey.
Sam wasn’t used to being attack by normal things. It was...weird. Unexpected. If the shark attack hadn’t flashed him back to the Cage, to Lucifer, he’d have found the change of pace almost refreshing. Instead, he felt hollow and sore. Dark thoughts that he’d been repressing kept bubbling up into the shallows of his mind. Painful memories.
Dean stayed with him. God, Sam was thankful for that. But he was used to pain, and in that moment it was more a welcomed distraction than a nuisance. He managed the next couple days with the help of dozy painkillers, strong antibiotics, and idle chat with his brother. Castiel eventually reached the hospital and healed his afflictions. Unfortunately, he only had the power reserve to heal Sam's lacerations, not the pneumonia.
Still thankful, Sam pulled his friend into a rare hug, hands shaky in Castiel’s trenchcoat.
Once given privacy to get changed out of the hospital gown, Sam inspected the skin where is injury had been. Brushed the stitches from his healed thigh with a quiet frown. Gone. Just like that.
Not even a scar. Sam didn’t know why, but he was disappointed about that.
They snuck out of the hospital before the nurse could baffle at his recovery. Exhausted, Sam let Dean take some of his weight. Hunt completed, the trio zapped back to the mainland states, trading tropical waters and temperate weather for a one lane highway and a six pack of beer. Sam hoped they’d never have to return to Hawaii for a case. Not for a while, at least.
Him and Dean had never been good at vacationing anyways.
Sam grabbed a beer, then remembered he was on antibiotics. He shouldn't be drinking. Reluctantly, he tossed the bottle back to Castiel. He lost himself in a couching fit, chest lurching forward, hand resting against the dashboard. After recovering from the fit, lungs aching and tight, he noticed something rolling around on the floor. Thirsty, Sam grabbed the day old waterbottle from beneath the front seat, raised the plastic container to his lips, and drank. The water was warm, stale, and had an artificial aftertaste. More importantly, it was unsalted, unbloodied, and controllable.
On the road in the impala, radio blaring, Dean jovial at the wheel, Castiel experiencing intoxication in the back, Sam smiled. Laughed. Coughed. Returned the bottle to his dry mouth, and parted the seas on his tongue.