There's a hum of acknowledgement before Sam heads out. From there, he has relatively decent interaction with the other scavengers; some have been out with Dean; some praise his quickness and smarts out there, which is the last part of Dean that Sam wants back. The run goes pretty smoothly, and Sam manages to secretly nab some pain pills and a few bandaged and alcohol swabs before he hears a scream from the other room - Croats.

Sam rushes in instantly, finding one of the men they came with grappling frantically with a wild infected; there are more, too, and Sam jumps in immediately. He's able to get the guy free, sinking his knife into one's heart before two descend on him. They slam his forehead into a wall too fucking hard, and everything goes black.

When he wakes up, the man he helped, Emel, he's looking down at him grimly. For a frightening moment he thinks he was "infected" and the man was planning to kill him, but he just nods. "Close call, man."

Sam eventually wanders back in to his room late into the night, holding a ice pack to a nasty bruising mark on his hairline, only to find Laura turning over to look at him in surprise.

"......"

"Careful, he has a history of crabs."

You're welcome, Dean.