Sam had known what chloroform smelled like since he was twelve years old.

It had been a hot, hot summer day in Arizona. Dad was gone and he and Dean had sat together beneath a tree, trying to escape the sun without caving in and heading back to the stuffy hotel room with broken air-conditioning. Even the air had seemed to sweat, its humidity sticking to their faces and weighing on their clothes.

They were supposed to be training, sparring and running down the unpopulated dirt road that stretched a while back behind their hotel. That was what Dad had told them to do as he'd swung the bag over his shoulder.

But though Dean would follow Dad's every order with eyes bright with respect whenever the man was around and demanded Sam do the same, he tossed Sam treats and compromises behind Dad's back. That day Dean had declared it too hot to spar or run. Instead, they would clean the guns and Dean would give out safety lessons. Neither of these things were fun, but they were the sterile, detached parts of hunting Sam didn't mind so much, and Sam knew it was for him; though he was sweating bullets, Dean would die of sunstroke throwing punches if he thought Sammy wanted to do it.

That had been where the chloroform came in.

Dean had the stuff in a bottle made of thick brown glass, the kind that still made Sam think of doctors and hospitals even though he saw more of them in their own duffel bags than anywhere else. Dean had passed the open bottle fast under Sam's nose and Sam had breathed it in.

"You ever smell this, you fight like hell. You got that, Sammy?"

Sam had nodded, wrinkling his nose and contorting his lips in disgust. "It smells like the old ladies in the supermarket who wear, like, a gallon ofperfume," he had decided. An alcoholic scent that was sweet, but noxious, overpowering.

"The ones who pinch your cheeks and tell you what a cute little boy you are?" Dean had asked teasingly, grabbing at Sam's cheek himself. Sam's face had shifted from disgust to annoyance in a millisecond as he yanked his head back and slapped Dean's hand away.

"Yeah," he'd muttered crossly. Dean had smirked at him, mouth a smug crooked line on his face.

"Well, just remember. You smell this, it's probably not some Grandma with hairy Life Savers in her purse."

Once more Sam's face had changed. This time his expression had morphed into a solemn understanding. He'd nodded once without looking Dean in the eye, then once more with their gazes locked when Dean demanded it. He had been too young to grasp the gravity of everything around him at the time, too well-protected by Dean and just barely starting to gain the comprehension to compare their lives to a normal one, but even then he had known more danger than most would know in a lifetime. And he had known that this particular danger belonged less to the supernatural beasts and more to the men who hunted them.

:-:-:

When Sam opened his eyes, it was so dark that they may as well have stayed closed. It took him a moment to realize he was blindfolded- he'd become so used to the cloth around his eyes while he was unconscious that it was a phantom part of him. Like a watch around his wrist.

Seconds later he realized how he was bound. It was his neck that kept him, collared and leashed to something, but his hands that immediately concerned him. They were clasped at the wrist behind his back. He flexed his hands to test them, felt their weight. They were wider than standard handcuffs.

These were homemade.

His ankles, too, were linked together, with enough chain to allow him a shuffling walk. He laid on the ground for several long seconds doing nothing but moving his legs, memorizing just how much length he had. He visualized his gait. Prepared for it.

He turned over onto his chest and knees and dragged his face purposefully against the ground. The blindfold crept up painfully slowly. As soon as he was able to, he tipped his head back and peered out from beneath it. The relief he felt at being alone in the room came out in a whoosh of air.

It had felt empty aside from himself, but he knew well enough from years of hunting that not everything, not everyone, had a presence. The scariest things were so silent you believed only your thoughts accompanied you.

He returned to work.

It was only when the blindfold was pushed all the way up onto his forehead that he realized how much he ached. The chloroform had left a blinding throbbing in his head, a chemical itch in his eyes and throat.

Ignore it, he told himself. The voice in his head was Dean's.

Sam drew himself up to sit.

That was when it dawned on him that he was naked.

He'd felt it. The cold cement beneath his skin. Beneath all his skin. But it was different to see himself bare and chained in a dark, empty room. Basement, his mind supplied unhelpfully. Sam drew his legs into himself and worked on breathing in and out in and out.

Rape was the next word that came to mind. Young and naked, trapped in a basement, it was the only place for his mind to go.

It meant he'd be kept alive longer.

That was the thought that caused Sam to hyperventilate. Not the thought that he'd be raped, no; the thought that he was grateful for it. That he saw it as an opportunity for survival. That he was such a God damned hunter, such a mindless soldier, that the idea of being brutalized meant nothing to him besides buying him a few hours he could use to escape.

Sam knew that if there was ever a time to give his dad a pass it was now. If there was ever a time to be thankful for this kind of training it was now. But there are times where logic meant nothing, and that, too, was now.

He didn't cry, not really, but took deep, gulping breaths in through his nose. Tearless sobbing.

His anger burned so white hot that it engulfed everything. It burst from Dad to destroy the world.

He hated his dad. Hated Dean. Hated his life. Hated himself. Hated his mother for leaving. Hated the beast that killed her. Hated Bobby, Pastor Jim, everything, everyone he knew for indulging. Hated the Impala, the guns, the too-many schools. Hated everyone he didn't know for being normal when he couldn't be.

Wanted the man to just come downstairs and snuff him out.

But he didn't have to wait for the man. The thing about fires that burned so hot was that, along with everything else, they destroyed themselves.

Within minutes he was too exhausted to be angry.

Sam looked around the room dazedly, but there was nothing. Just himself and the thick metal post he was chained to. He crawled to the end of his chain and jerked his head experimentally, feeling the collar choke him when the chain grew too taut. The post vibrated but stayed put.

It was stupid to try. He knew how stuck he was.

'Whoa, there, Sammy. Butt-naked and tied to some dude's stripper pole? Didn't know you were into that kind of thing.' the Dean in his head teased him.

That thought was what made him gain his second wind. The worry and the stupid jokes that he guessed would mask it. He stood up and shuffled to the post that held his chain.

His family would do everything they could to find him.

He owed it to them to fight his way back to them.

He was strong, and smart, and capable. The calm after a storm was always the most quiet. And so it was that now that he'd had his breakdown, his mind felt as smooth and clear as it ever had.

The first move would have to be getting his hands free. That much had been clear from the start. There was no way to undo his other binds without the use of his fingers to somehow pry them open. He held this goal firm in his mind like a runner staring at the finish line, watching it jump closer, to distract from the ache in his lungs.

He tried to twist his fingers to make them slide free. He could, sometimes. He could contort and press them until the space his bones took up was smaller than his wrist, until there was only the soft flesh of his palm to be pressed down. He couldn't this time. He couldn't even tell how far off the mark he was. He could feel his hands strangling and chafing as he tried to yank them free, but couldn't work their shape out in his mind's eye to tell him how much skin he had left in his way.

He kept working at it just the same.

His next options were more harmful, he knew that. He could break his fingers, pound them into a shape that would slide free. Or he could continue tugging, pulling, wrenching, but go at it more violently. Pressing against the metal until its edge ripped into him, rending his flesh to make him small enough to fit, lubricating his way with his own blood.

He knew the consequences of both.

The first would happen quickly. He'd only need to slam his body backwards against the wall until a few fingers caved in; if he could work the angle, it might not take more than a few minutes. The pain, too, would be quick and sharp. Long, hot jolts of it would burn his hands as thoroughly as if he'd grabbed an electric fence. Once he was free, though, it would subside. Oh, it would still hurt, he knew that- but used to being beaten and crushed between the wall and his own weight, his fingers would revel in their freedom and they would accept their newer, lesser pain gratefully.

The second would be more tiresome. Bones broke to give way, but skin bent to make room. Skin was malleable. Soft but resilient. Its destruction, without a piercing aid, was slow and tedious. And so it would feel more painful. Getting through the first few layers would be the hardest. He would have to yank pull and strain to slough it off. It would begin like heels rubbing raw against the back of a shoe, feeling about to blister, the pain growing with each step. Each subsequent layer would be easier to shed in theory, but as the ease greatened so would the pain. For, as with most pieces of anatomy, the deeper down your pieces were, the more tender they were. He would begin to bleed, first as though pricked by a pin, then as though cut by a knife. Eventually, after hours of yanking and tugging and heaving and tireless self destruction, he would have skinned himself enough to slip away. This pain would build as it went on, and by the time his hands were free they would only know the absolute fiery throbbing that matched his pulse. It would take too long for them to trust the torture was gone for good once it had ended, and they would continue to cry out in preparation for the next assault.

Though the second would drain him and hurt him more than the first, that was the option he chose. Even if it stripped his hands bare, he'd be able to use them fully.

If he broke his fingers, he didn't know what use of them he'd have. He didn't want to risk crippling himself, not yet. Not until he knew there was no other option.

He continued pulling his hands this way and that.

His wrists had begun to sweat, making them itch on top of the discomfort.

But they had not yet begun to truly hurt when the door at the top of the stairs swung open.

The light that came through when the door opened wasn't blinding. It didn't blanch out the man coming down them, bucket in one hand, with a towel draped over his arm. No, it was just a regular old fluorescent bulb, not even enough to light the room, but Sam's eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and so ached just the same. He wanted to close them. He wanted to push the blindfold back down.

Instead he stared hard until the ache subsided.

The man-Sam remembered his name, Nick, he'd introduced himself hadn't he? came down the stairs. He walked in close and set the bucket down between them. Sam could see now it was filled with soapy water.

He daydreamed attacks in quick flashes: butting his head into Nick's nose; kicking both feet hard into Nick's stomach; wrapping the chain that bound his feet tight around Nick's neck, purpling him, choking him unconscious.

But Sam did nothing as Nick came to a seat at his feet. The reasoning was simple: he wanted to escape. He was sure, from the fact that he was chained instead of already dead, that he'd be kept alive for some time. This meant that for everything else that might happen while he was down here, he'd at least have the time to be able to plan ahead and make his escape a success rather than an attempt.

Nick was the only one who could make getting out of his bindings easier. While he couldn't feel the links on his neck or hands, he could see the lock on the chain that bound his ankles. It would be worth knowing if Nick held the keys on him before he made a move.

"Sit down," Nick said, patting the ground beside him.

"What're you going to do?"

He felt strong, defiant, just by standing.

Nick looked up at him. His eyes were big and blank. His pupils were dilated to suck up the scant light, but it was the emptiness, not the blackness, that made Sam think of a demon. "I don't want to hurt you yet. Don't make me." He sounded tired. It wasn't the voice of someone who was angry, worked into such a fury that he had to take it out on another human being. It was of someone who had done this time after time, and time after time had heard the same words, Why are you doing this?, Stop, you don't need to!, Let me go I promise I won't say anything!, I don't want to die., until they'd worn meaningless and redundant inside his head.

A sudden rush of fear flowed through Sam, but he pushed it as far down as he could, all the way down to the tips of his toes.

He didn't sit, but he knelt obediently, pressing himself as close to the ground as he could. Every action was a plan for winning in the end, like a game of chess. Even this. Without his hands, he wasn't sure how quickly he could get up from being sat flat on his ass. On his knees, he thought, maybe he would still have time to react.

Nick stared at him appraisingly. "Good boy," he said.

Sam bit the inside of his mouth hard. He pushed his nails deep into the palms of his hands. Don't fight. Not yet, he told himself, over and over. There was nothing like condescension to make his blood boil so hot it ate him up inside like acid. Not yet,not yet,not yet.

Nick's hand sank into the bucket and pulled out a thick sponge. He squeezed it out before placing it against Sam's skin.

Sam wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but being bathed took him by such surprise that for several long seconds his head was blanked by the surrealism of it. He stared down as the soapy, wet sponge went slick across his skin. He watched the hand move deftly over his chest, stomach, thighs, leaving them shiny and clean. Focus, he told himself. Why's he doing this? Figure out the motivation.

He looked up to watch Nick's face.

As far as he could tell, it wasn't sexual. Nick's eyes weren't lighting up with excitement. His face wasn't flushing. And while Sam jerked away when the sponge moved across his lap, the touch didn't linger.

It wasn't a caretaker's touch, as Dad or Dean might have bathed him when he was too young or too hurt to care for himself.

But it was familiar.

Sam squinted as he worked to place it.

It was only when the sponge plopped back into the bucket and the towel was lifted to dry him that he could.

The face was his own; Dean's; Dad's when they performed exorcisms.

This was nothing but a ritual.