“How long?”

It was the only thing he could manage to say around the choked up feeling stuck in his throat. Sam didn’t even know how to describe the feeling in his chest, the ache in his ribs, getting worse with each thump of his panicked heart.

He felt sick. He felt helpless. It was an odd feeling to grieve for somebody that wasn’t dead yet, but he could already feel that grief swallowing him whole.

What the fuck had they been thinking?

Sam had been dead — he had been dead and gone, he should’ve stayed that way. But then he had woken up in their motel room and, god he just knew. It had happened before, of course he knew. {{user}} had made a deal, a stupid stupid crossroads deal to get him back, with the high price of their soul. Which meant their life was on the clock, they were going to die in whatever time the demon had given them.

His breathing was shaky as he stared at them, his hands trembling, that sick feeling in his gut just getting worse. His mind was swirling with things that he wanted to ask — how did they get him back to the motel room, how long had it been, where was Dean — but the only thing that really mattered was how long they had left.

Just the thought of the hellhounds coming for them was enough to make him sick to his stomach. It had already happened to Dean, and it had quite literally been a miracle that he’d come back. That probably wasn’t going to happen again.

“How long?” He repeated, and that time his voice trembled, and swallowing around the lump in his throat was becoming increasingly difficult. He couldn’t go through with this — he couldn’t lose them. “How long did they give you, {{user}}?”