Everyone Starts Somewhere

[deedwithoutname]

Dorky little drabble. Two years old. Another OC.

Not much else to say, honestly.

Jay Kinneman rolled his wrists uncomfortably in the metal cuffs that attached them to the table in front of him. Coughing slightly, he raised his eyes to the harsh lights above and the dark mirror across from him, and wished for some water. But he doubted they would bring him any, even if he asked.

He felt empty. Numb. He had cried for a little bit, horrified, overcome with grief, but he had stopped once he saw how the two cops bringing him in were looking at him. Like he was just trying to get them to sympathize with him. A monster playing at being human.

God, wasn't that ironic.

Jay squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, wracked by a sudden wave of memory and guilt. His mother's blood on the floor of the kitchen she had spent so much time keeping absolutely spotless. His sister's screams, then her eerie silence when she realized that he wasn't going to stop. His father's struggles fading under him.

Nausea surged up his throat, and he retched, violently. Nothing came up, and he still felt sick. Jesus. What the hell had he done?

He dropped his head to the table, breathing heavy and throat hitching with tears he wasn't sure he was capable of shedding. He almost prayed to pass out, but caught himself just in time. He was pretty sure that God didn't want to hear from him right now-or ever. Jay hadn't been raised religious, and he'd never had any real interest in any church. But he knew, without a doubt, that he was going to Hell.

Jay closed his eyes against the harsh lights. The most horrible thing a person could do, and he hadn't even had the balls to finish. Even before the neighbors had heard the screams and called the police and sirens had sprung up in the distance. He had stood and backed away, to lean trembling against the wall and press his bloody hands to it as he sobbed and gagged, completely unable to carry on with what he had set out to do. His dad had still stirred weakly on the floor, breath rattling in his throat. And then he laughed. High and weak and scornful. He had spoken, as well, and convinced Jay that everything he had suspected was true, but he still hadn't finished. And then the police kicked down the door.

No, you've gotta believe me, they weren't-they were-

Jay shuddered a little. He had had such a hard time getting his motives out coherently. Somehow, he'd been sure that they would understand if he could just say it. But they just assumed he was stark-raving nuts. Or high. Actually, probably both. He supposed he really couldn't blame them. He certainly felt more than a little unstable right now.

The door suddenly opened, and he opened his eyes and raised his head, just a little. There was a cop standing slightly outside the door frame. Older, with gray in his hair and lines around his eyes, still fit. And trembling with hate, though he hid it well.

"You're entitled to a lawyer," he said stiffly, his tone and eyes perfectly conveying the you soulless, scum-sucking animal that he didn't add. "Some poor bastard volunteered."

"That really necessary?" asked a calm, if slightly weary, male voice. The officer just stepped aside, vanished into the depths of the station. Jay studied the man behind him, who stepped through the doorway, very nearly having to stoop to do so because of his impressive height.

He was white, with strong, prominent features that rendered him attractive, in a rugged, exotic sort of way. Even Jay, a straight male, could tell that. His eyes were green, narrowed in the hostile glare of the lights. He wore his dark hair long enough to be a sharp contrast to his immaculate suit. Jay regarded him tiredly as he pulled out the chair tucked under the other side of the table and sat down across from him, folding his large hands in front of him. There were scars on the knuckles, Jay noticed. Like he had once spent a lot of time fighting.

After offering him a quick, tight smile, the guy who was apparently his lawyer leaned forward to quietly say, "So, your name is Jason Kinneman."

"Jay," Jay automatically corrected him. He nodded, accepting the nickname.

"I'm Sam," he said, extending one scarred hand just far enough that Jay would be able to reach it, even with the cuffs on. But he kept his own hands in his lap. Honestly, it shocked him that this stranger would be so casual about touching him. Didn't he know what he'd done?

Sam pulled his hand back after a couple seconds, not looking particularly bothered by the fact that Jay hadn't reacted the way that he was supposed to. He studied him with the look of someone who knew how to pick out flaws, mild curiosity evident in his gaze, as well as...sympathy. Jay felt a sudden surge of anger. Why the hell should he feel sorry for him?

"You're wasting your time," he said suddenly, speaking through gritted teeth and looking away.

"Why do you say that?" His voice was way too steady, in Jay's opinion. He glanced up, feeling the ache of grief behind his breastbone.

"Don't you know what I did?" he asked, voice dull.

Sam sighed, breaking eye contact. There was a rustle of smooth fabric as he crossed his legs.

"You killed your mother and your sister," he said. "And you tried to kill your father." He leaned forward, hunching his broad shoulders. "Wanna tell me why you did that?"

"I'm nuts," Jay replied, looking down at his hands. "Obviously. Didn't the cops tell you what I said?"

"Yeah. That your family wasn't human. That they were monsters, and you had to go after them." A pause, during which Sam shifted in his chair. "Jay, what exactly made you think they had turned into monsters?"

"Why? Are you gonna try for an insanity plea or something?" he asked bitterly.

"I don't think you're crazy."

Jay raised his head, and focused on green eyes. There was something cold and steely in their depths, something that reminded him of a more mature version of what he was feeling right now. But he didn't think Sam was lying. Or, if he was, he was really, really good at it-which, considering his profession, might be the case.

"You will," Jay began quietly, "if I tell you why I was so sure I had to kill my family."

"We'll see. I'm a little more open-minded than most people." He smiled, and it was all but humorless. "Trust me on that."

Jay hesitated.

"No matter how nutty you think it sounds, believe me when I say I've heard worse," Sam told him, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "Hell, my dad and my brother send my wife and I letters every so often, and the things they say-" He cut himself off, shaking his head.

"You have a brother?" Jay asked. It was Sam's turn to hesitate.

"Yes," he said, nodding slowly. "I do."

"Older or younger?"

"Older."

"So," Jay said, leaning forward and putting his hands on the table. "Do you think you could fight with him until he stopped struggling? Ignore him begging for you to stop? Hold him down, and-and-" He stopped, gritted his teeth, fought back a wave of nausea. "-stab him? Until he quit struggling and you were...you were sure...beyond all doubt...that he was dead...?"

Sam regarded him for a few seconds, before quietly asking, "Why'd you do that to your sister?"

"Her eyes," Jay spit, tightly closing his own. "For months now, they'd glance at me, all of them, and their eyes-"

"What about their eyes?" Sam prodded gently, leaning forward again.

"They were black. Solid black. Like a bird's, but...it just looked wrong." Jay shuddered a little. "There was other stuff, too. Just little stuff, at first. Like, Mom stopped cooking with salt." He swallowed painfully. "That was weird."

"What else?"

"Marie. My sister." He paused, trying to gather his thoughts.

"Wait. Marie and Jason?" Sam's tone was a little skeptical.

Despite himself, Jay smiled a little. "My parents. They were, uh, diehard Ludlum fans. They thought it was kinda clever."

"And what'd you think?"

"I liked to be called Jay," he replied quietly, glad to change the subject, even if just for a second. "I mean, named after Jason freaking Bourne-kinda hard to live up to."

"Your parents expected a lot out of you?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I guess. Not, like, international assassin stuff, but just normal things." Jay tugged at the chains attaching him to the table. "They definitely didn't expect this." He opened his eyes and looked up, suddenly frightened. "I didn't kill them because they put a lot of pressure on me. I didn't resent them or anything. They were just-they were trying to help me. I never hated them for that."

"It's alright, I believe you," Sam soothed. He smirked a little. "Yeah, I understand what it feels like when your parents think they've got your entire future planned out, but you don't strike me as the kind of guy who'd kill his family over that."

"Thanks." Jay twisted his fingers together.

"So. Your sister. Marie," Sam began. "Tell me what happened with her."

"She was twenty, but still lived at home. So she had a curfew." He swallowed. "One night, she came in after it, and my parents didn't say a thing to her when she passed them downstairs. That was weird enough, but I didn't really think about it until she came up the stairs and into my bathroom. I was brushing my teeth, water running in the sink. Marie just shoved me out of the way and stuck her hands under the water." He closed his eyes again.

When he didn't continue, Sam shifted in his seat and prompted him with a, "So?"

"She was covered in blood," Jay said numbly. "Her hands, her arms. Her shirt. I didn't even know what to say. It's not really something you expect to see, y'know? I think...I think I asked her what the hell was going on."

"And then what'd she say?"

"She told me it was fine, and not to worry about it. Someone had just...come too close? Gotten too close? And so she'd had to take care of it. That was all." Jay drew a shaky breath. "Then she walked over to me, and whispered in my ear. She said it'd all make sense soon, and all I had to do was be patient."

Sam was quiet for a few seconds, before asking, "So what did you do?"

"I freaked out. I jumped back and screamed at her about how I wanted to know what was happening. She just smiled at me, and her eyes were black. She said, 'Don't worry about it, Jason, there's not really anything you can do right now.' And she left." He smiled bitterly. "I guess she really didn't expect me to do what I did."

"And that's when you decided to go after them?" Sam asked.

"Not right then. But I started thinking about it." He squeezed his hands together. "I was just so afraid. I knew they weren't my family anymore-I could feel that something wasn't right with them. But I didn't really know what to do."

"What made you think a knife would work?"

Jay smiled widely, humorless. "My mom cut herself while she was cooking, one night. I figured that as long as they bled like humans, I could kill them like humans." His smile vanished. "It wasn't as easy as I expected, though. It took a lot to make them stay down, and-oh, God." He dropped his head into his bound hands.

Sam let him tremble violently for a couple minutes, hiding his face and trying not to cry again. Then he heard his chair creak as he leaned forward, and felt a large hand on his shoulder.

"Jay," Sam said, his voice full of all the compassion and understanding that Jay had been unconsciously craving. "You can't hate yourself for this."

"What? You don't think it was wrong for me to brutally murder my entire family?" he snapped.

"I think you were really scared and in a whole lot of danger, and you handled the situation better than a lot of people would," Sam replied. "Definitely a lot better than I would've when I was your age."

"Are you just trying to make me feel better?"

"Yes, to a certain extent."

"I killed them."

"You did the best you could, given the circumstances. And you stopped whatever they were planning. I know a lot of people who would think you were a hero for that."

"I'm not a hero," Jay said, his voice barely audible.

"No," Sam agreed. "You're a scared, freaked-out seventeen-year-old, and your life has been pretty much ruined by three demons who just happened to take up residence in your family members."

"...demons?"

"Yeah, demons." And they're not the only things out there-or the worst." He paused, taking a deep breath. "But my point is that you didn't just roll over and die. You chose to defend yourself, to do what you somehow new was the right thing, despite how hard it was and what it meant for you."

"Yay me," Jay said.

"I'm sorry for what you had to do, and what happened to you," Sam told him. "And what's going to happen to you. But I know what it's like, and I think I know what type of person you are. So I'm going to give you another choice. Alright?"

"Alright."

"You can accept that you killed your family and you got caught," he said matter-of-factly. "We'll go to trial, and I will do my best, but there's only so much I can do for you if you choose this. You'll spend the rest of your life in a lock-up ward, or prison, or on Death Row. And people will hate you for what you did, because they won't understand." He paused, studying him. "But the thing about that is that all the weirdness ends. No more black eyes, no more trying to figure out if something bleeds or not, no more wrongness. It'll be over."

Jay considered that. He'd have to live with what he'd done-he was pretty sure that you had a lot of time to think in all the places that Sam had listed. But he would know that he was atoning the way that he was supposed to-and he'd have the word of a long-haired lawyer that he'd done the right thing.

"What's the other option?" he asked.

"I'll give you a couple of phone numbers," Sam answered, fingers laced together on the table in front of him. "If one doesn't answer, try the other. Last I heard, they were traveling together, but they could have split up. Tell whoever answers your name, and say that Sam told you they would help."

"Then what?" Jay asked, briefly entertaining the idea.

"Then they'll help you figure out why what happened to your family happened," Sam said. "And they'll teach you how to track down the things that did it, and kill them."

Frigid horror shot down Jay's spine. "They're not dead?"

Sam shook his head. "Only the vessels are. The demons probably fled the second you turned your back."

So everything he'd done had been for nothing. He'd failed, and gotten the people he loved killed doing so. Their blood was literally on his hands, he thought, examining a smudge of red-brown on one of his knuckles.

But maybe he could at least finish what he'd set out to do.

"Okay," he said, looking up. "I want to-"

Sam had already produced a pen and a piece of paper, and was scribbling out two strings of numbers. Within seconds, he shoved the paper into Jay's hands. He stared at it, about to ask what he was supposed to do with this with his hands cuffed to a table, but Sam stood up and moved around to his side of it before he could. He crouched, pulling a set of long, thin tools out of his pocket, and went to work on Jay's handcuffs.

His brain wasn't quite able to catch up with what his eyes were seeing. His thoughts were sluggish, and all he could think to say was, "They'll arrest you for helping me."

"No, they won't," Sam replied, standing and putting the tools back where he'd gotten them as the cuffs fell from Jay's wrists. "They're going to think that you slipped your cuffs, knocked me out, and ran."

Jay blinked, slowly standing up, stretching muscles that had been cramping from hours of being in the exact same position. "But the cameras-"

"Turned off." Sam glanced at the nearest ceiling corner, where the dark bulge of a camera lens shone in the bright lights. "I gave them some bullcrap line about lawyer-client confidentiality. They aren't watching us."

"You knew you were going to have to help me escape?" Jay asked. Sam hesitated.

"I...had a feeling."

He glanced down at his unbound wrists, and the paper in his hand. He shoved it into the pocket of his jeans and looked up at the guy who, for some reason, had taken it upon himself to risk everything in order to help a teenage murderer. He had to crane his neck a little to do so. Jay stood at just shy of five-eleven, but Sam had to be well over six feet tall.

"Thank you," he said quietly. Sam offered him a tight smile.

"Don't thank me," he responded. "I've just sent you straight into the same hell that I spent about twenty years trying to get out of."

That sounded pretty damn ominous, but at this point, Jay didn't really care.

"Well, hey, you did manage to get out, right?" he pointed out.

Sam studied him.

"Sometimes, I'm not so sure I did," he said quietly.

Before Jay could respond, he returned to his chair, folding his lanky frame into it with all the grace of a former warrior. He leaned over, lowering his head until his brow was parallel with the table.

"You're going to have to slam my head into the table, to make it look real," he explained. "As hard as you can. Don't worry about hurting me; I have a thick skull."

Jay squared his shoulders, but hesitated.

"My dad," he began.

"He's still alive," Sam told him, not moving. "Awake, too. He's going to be fine."

"Is he..." Jay gestured vaguely to his eyes.

"No. You got it out of him." Sam paused. "He doesn't remember what you did. Or the last nine months, for that matter."

"Can you tell him something for me?" Jay clenched his teeth and swallowed.

"Of course I can. What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell him that it was really, really obvious to you that I'd snapped. That I was completely crazy, and I wasn't sorry about what I did. Not at all." He felt his fingers curl upwards into fists. "Tell him that Jay's all but gone, and he should consider his son dead."

Sam sat up straight, and looked at him. Jay knew that he probably didn't need to explain, but he tried to anyway.

"It'll be easier for him," he said. "I mean, 'cause...even when I do catch up to the things that did this to us, and it's over, I don't plan on going home." He closed his eyes briefly. "I couldn't."

"I understand," Sam said with a nod, and Jay somehow knew that he did. Perfectly. He returned to his original position. "Now, come on. We don't have all night."

Jay took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not sure I'm strong enough to-"

"You were strong enough to shove a knife up under your mother's ribs," Sam pointed out. Seeing Jay raise his hands in angry, clumsy preparation out of the corner of his eye, he smiled. It conveyed no happiness. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Thud.

"You, too."