Oktoberfest '07 Entry, Reunion by aoibhail

[neverreallyfit.livejournal.com]

Title: Reunion
Author: Jenn (aoibhail)
Beta (if applicable): I made my housemate look it over, but have no official beta.
Word Count: 2075
Rating: PG-13, probably
Character(s): Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore, mention of Dean Winchester, mention of various monsters
Pairing(s) (if applicable): Sam/Jess
Summary: Sam encounters a familiar face, and learns that, sometimes, the only illusion is that there isn't one.
Notes (if applicable): I'm too self-conscious to write others' characters, so I cop out by writing Sam and a character who isn't present at Landel's (I hold out hope! ...Very, very faint hope). I know the ending of the fic isn't entirely IC, given Sam's general issues when facing things that seem human. It came about via a bizarre train of thought which started with recalling that he hesitated when facing the doppelgangers in canon, thinking he would do the same when faced with what he thought was a mimic, and then wondering what would happen if he didn't. Spoilers for the pilot of Supernatural.


Sam winced as he rolled his shoulders, pulling at skin torn and not yet knit along his back, and doing nothing at all to disperse the tension that had been slowly transforming his muscles into corded steel, bunched and knotted into snarls that ached with each movement. He shook his flashlight, grimacing as the weak beam flickered before steadying, a touch stronger, but not by far. He hoped the light would last the night out - it had been weak already when he’d set out, and had been diminishing by slow increments since. Now the device only cast a small circle of brownish illumination on the floor, and his eyes ached from trying to tease out the details softened by night and smudged by flickering shadows. He hoped that it was simply the batteries, that it had not been damaged when he dropped it earlier in the fight against the cat - and to think, at the first mention of zombie felines he had half-assumed a joke. A new set of batteries would likely be far easier to come by than a new flashlight, and he could not be remotely certain that he would be any easier on a replacement besides.

Behind him, silence had fallen once more - or as much silence as there ever was in this place. Distantly, he could hear the echoing sounds of conflict, distorted as it bounced along the halls until he could no longer so much as make a guess as to the origins. Even further, there was a scream, short and cut off. He grimaced and hoped that it hadn’t been human, knowing even as he did that it was by far the most likely explanation. Still, the distant sounds that seemed to paint a perpetual auditory backdrop to the hellish landscape of the asylum at night were all he heard. He hoped that this was a good sign. He doubted he had been followed, as the warped grotesqueries that had met Dean and himself directly as they’d stepped into the entry hall seemed neither inclined towards nor capable of subtlety. However, they’d managed to cut the brothers off so that, when it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to fight the things with the meager weaponry they’d managed to amass, Sam and Dean had had to bolt in different directions.

He picked his way back to the door through which he’d come, skirting a table covered with magazines that, at a swift glance, seemed to quit being current around the same time as his sixteenth birthday. He cracked the door open enough to allow eye and flashlight to peer through, but in the gloom he could make nothing out - not the twisted, hybrid wrecks, not his brother, nothing.

Behind him, towards the far corner of the room, there was a scuff of foot on tile. Sam whirled, bringing the flashlight up to eye level, his other hand dipping into the pocket of his now rather battered coat to clutch at the box cutter that served as his only real weapon. The light barely reached far enough to illuminate the shape that stepped forwards, just enough to outline a form that was probably female, and definitely looked human. It threw up one arm with a hiss, shielding its eyes as though the weak beam of the flashlight were in fact the noonday sun condensed to pocket-sized portability. “Sam?”

The surprised hope in the woman’s voice could not come anywhere near to matching that which Sam felt. It took only an instant for recognition to kindle, and on the wake of it came shock, a wave so heavy that the hunter stumbled, hissing as the doorknob planted itself firmly into his back. It was only long experience with paranoia that kept his hand firm about the flashlight, kept it from tumbling from nerveless fingers to the floor - where, knowing his luck, it really would break.

“Sam?” The question this time was half-pleading. The woman stepped forward, fully into the faint light. Her blonde hair was in disarray, normally neat waves tangled, and he thought he caught a glimpse of a dark smear along the curve of her jaw. Her eyes, achingly familiar, were too wide, staring at him as though willing him to somehow fix this hell they’d been landed in.

“You can’t be her.” His voice was barely above a whisper, and rasped as though drawn from a throat long unused to speaking. He swallowed past a painful not in his throat, fighting against a violent swirl of emotion he couldn’t even begin to define. “Who are you?”

“What?” Her face fell even further, what hope had dawned now withering in confusion. “What do you mean? Of course I’m me, who else would I--?”

She cut off as he took a stalking step forward, normally gentle demeanour skewed dark under the swirling press of confusion and grief and the beginnings of a rage so deep he could barely fathom it. That anything in this place would take her face, her shape, her voice - Sam was not accustomed to hatred, but he felt it now, a rush of black emotion that all but overwhelmed him. “Who are you?” He could feel the edges of the box cutter digging into his hand, the catch of it slowly gouging out a small, rectangular furrow. It would be bruised come morning, maybe bloodied. The sting registered only peripherally.

She recoiled, not retreating, but rather shrinking in place. Both hands splayed in front of her, a gesture of warding off, of deflection. It made her look smaller, more vulnerable, and for all his certainty that this was an illusion, just another damned mindgame, it made his stomach twist. “Sam, it’s me. Jess. What’s wrong with you?”

“You can’t be.” His insistence sounded weaker, even to his own ears. Despite the fury boiling through his veins, some small, treacherous part of him wished it to be true. Wished for the chance to see her again, even here, in a place so close to hell that it may as well be. “You can’t be Jess. She’s dead.”

Jess’s eyes widened even further, an expression that would be almost comical were the circumstances different. “Who else would I be?” Her hands, still raised before her, trembled slightly. Her jaw quavered, then set as she refused to give into the tears so obviously threatening, born of hurt or frustration - he couldn’t tell which, but was willing to wager on the latter. “I - I don’t know what’s going on here. But I’m me. I’m not - I’m not dead.” Her voice, too, shook on the last, uncertainty chased with fear rendering the argument weak, even as she repeated, “I’m not dead.”

His hands clenched further, whitened knuckles standing out in sharp relief, skin stretched so taut it threatened to split. “I saw you.” Dimly, something in him registered the shift in pronouns and hissed warning, the part of him governed by sense and caution protesting even so subtle a lapse in wariness. “I saw your body. I--” He cut off, looking sharply away. The memories, never truly buried roared readily to the surface of his mind.

The drip of blood on his forehead, one drop, then two. Just enough to alert him that something was wrong, to shake the cozy domesticity that had surrounded him as soon as he’d stepped into the apartment. The blood had still been warm, tauntingly warm, telling him that if only he had returned sooner - an hour, maybe even fifteen minutes - he would have had a chance to save her. His eyes opening, his mind already rebelling at what he knew, gut deep, would be there. Her body, pinned to the ceiling. Her face, frozen forever in panicked horror. And then the wash of heat, boiling outward as though the gates of hell had cracked open. So hot that he didn’t, at first, detect the reek of charring flesh.

He felt a hand on his arm, and his gaze snapped up, staring into that familiar, concerned face. She was at arm’s length, as though wary of approaching any nearer, of startling him into violence. His heart ached at that, even as the same warning voice reminded him that she should have no reason to fear him. With her, he had never been anything but Sam, the boy next door. Sam, the serious, studious young man who hadn’t even had the courage to ask her out until midway through their second semester. Until after their first date, in fact, on which she had not so much invited him as told him he would attend.

“It’s me,” she repeated, peering up at him with soulful eyes, determined beneath the lingering damp shimmer glossing them. “I - there was this man. He did - something. And then I woke up here. I’m…” She trailed off, taking another step closer. “I’m afraid. This place. There are things here. Monsters. I know I sound crazy, but I swear they’re real.”

“I know.” Sam barely recognised his own voice, wounded and longing. “There are a couple of them outside, in the entrance hall.”

“What are they?” Jess’s gaze flicked past him, as though she expected to see the door open and something hideous and malevolent slip through. “Do they have something to do with that - that demon?”

Sam stiffened, gaze sharpening as he peered down at her. “Demon?” he asked, and was surprised to hear that his voice did not reflect the sudden, howling numbness he felt. “What do you mean, demon?”

“That man. The one I saw before I passed out. His eyes… And the things he did…” She shuddered, a full-body tremor that seemed strong enough to rattle her bones out of her skin. “He must have been the devil.”

“I don’t think he has anything to do with this,” Sam replied. He closed his eyes against the sick wave of furious hurt, cresting again and threatening to be even more overwhelming in the wake of the brief ebb. More the fool he, he thought bitterly, to even hope anything here might be real.

“Are you sure? This place…” Another shudder. Even without seeing her, he could feel the motion where her hand rested on his arm. “Do you think it might be hell?”

“No.” He prayed it wasn’t. If this was hell, there would be nowhere else to send the bastards responsible for this. In his pocket, his hand tightened even further. The faint snap-click was buried beneath his voice as he continued, “It’s just a place.”

His arm shifted beneath her hand, beckoning her close. He did not open his eyes, but he didn’t have to see her to recognise her relief. Her arms slid around him, head resting briefly against his chest before she leaned upwards, mouth brushing against his neck. Her breath was warm, tickling the pulse point beneath his jawline. His own hand curved around her waist, and she made a small noise of protest as the flashlight dug into her back.

And then she stiffened, back arching. His eyes opened to meet hers, wide and and shocked and pained, though the physical discomfort could not yet have registered. Her mouth opened once, twice, before she finally managed, weakly, “Sam?”

By the look in her eyes, she couldn’t recognise him.

He drew his hand away from the handle of the blade imbedded beneath her ribcage, angled up to do the most damage. Through the buzzing numbness in his head, he felt a vague amazement that it had penetrated. Blood leaked slowly around the plastic, staining the front of her hospital-issue uniform.

“Why?” The question was choked, betrayed. So convincing even now.

“You shouldn’t have known what he was.”

She uttered a noise that might have been a sob. The racking coughs that shook her suggested it had torn something loose, accelerated the catastrophic cascade begun by the wound. He was certain his arm was the only thing holding her up.

He knew the damage was lethal.

“What else would he be? Those eyes - his powers - he said you were his.”

Something twisted in Sam’s chest, dawning sickness that only deepened the num buzz in his mind. She did not struggle, just stared up at him, horrified betrayal in her eyes.

“He was right.”

The flashlight tumbled from Sam’s numb fingers, hitting the floor with a sharp clatter.

The light died.