Fic: Time Won't Find the Lost (1/3, complete)
Time Won't Find the Lost Part 1 (4,910 words)
Summary: In 2006, Sam walks away from his brother and heads to California to find their father. He winds up going a lot farther than he intended. (13,000+ words, complete)
Warnings: Torture, language, dark themes
Note: This was inspired by a scene in season 2's Hunted, in which Gordon reminisces about torturing a demon and killing the host in the process, and Dean is horrified and appalled. That amused me a lot.
Time Won’t Find the Lost
_____________________________
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned
_____________________________
-1-
He smacks against the floor and his head bounces. Pain cracks across his skull and his vision blacks, flares white, a heartbeat instant of anguish that’s gone before he can register it. He blinks and blinks again and his eyes clear and he’s staring up, a long way up, or maybe he’s looking down. It’s blue-why is it blue? Are those clouds? Is that…is it the sky?
He pushes himself upright, battling disorientation, shoving his elbow against a hard surface that’s still too soft to be tile or concrete. He’s not falling down or sideways, he’s still looking up, and yes. Yes. It’s the sky and those are clouds and he’s sprawled on the hard packed earth of some field and there’s grass in his hair. He rakes his fingers through his mop and frees bits of grass and earth, winces at the pull on his bruised scalp.
“I was inside,” Sam mutters, pressing a hand to the back of his head and staring around dazedly. “Inside. What the hell…”
He’d been dozing, but this isn’t a dream. He shuts his eyes and he can bring to mind the squeak of shoes on the bus station floor, and his nose twitches with the memory of that very special aura shared by bus stations everywhere. He’d been there moments ago. And now…he isn’t.
What the hell?
He’s got his phone in his hand before he even realizes he’s reached for it. It’s heavy and he stares at it and bites his lip.
Dean will want him to call. No matter how pissed he might be, he’ll want to know. Of course he will. But the minute Sam goes to explain-what the hell is he going to say? Fell into a wormhole? Dean’s going to have questions and Sam, well, he sure as hell doesn’t have any answers.
I will leave your ass, you hear me?
Goodbye, Sam.
“Dammit,” he mutters. “I don’t even know where the hell I am.”
He looks around. Even his bag is gone. He’s got….thirty bucks in his pockets, a quick check reveals, along with a Swiss army knife, Balisong, wallet and IDs, paracord, and phone. And that’s it. Everything else was in the bag.
He waffles, there on the side of the road, under an unapologetically cloudless sky. Birds flitter around and make bird noises. He wants to call his brother, but has no idea what he’s going to say.
Hi, yeah, I was at the bus station and now I’m not, no idea where I am or how I got here, no water, no food, no map or anything-can you come get me?
Yeah, there’s no way that could end badly.
He wonders how Dean’s doing with the case. Dad’s case.
He’ll be okay. Of course he will. He’s Dean.
Sam weighs the phone in his hand. He should call. Dean will want to know. Even though they fought, even if Sam can’t tell him anything, Dean will still want to know. He flips it open, rests a thumb on the keypad.
I will leave your ass, you hear me?
He stares at the entry for Dean. Flicks past it, then back.
That’s what I want you to do.
Hits connect.
When the voice tells him the number’s not in service, he feels a new electric thrill run from his toes to the roots of his hair. Tries again, and again.
Nothing.
He looks up at the sky again. Stands there for a while.
_____________________________
He picks a direction and walks. It’s a cheery day, completely non-threatening in any way. He rubs at the back of his neck repeatedly because his hair keeps trying to stand on end. Goosebumps run up and down his skin in waves. He suppresses the urge to shiver more than once.
The sun is trying to bake his skin and he feels the lack of water keenly. Wisps of cloud cling to the horizon and threaten to creep closer, but the day stays clear. It’s cool but the exertion brings Sam out in a fine sheen of sweat.
He wipes at his face when he crosses from the last farm road to the outskirts of a town.
Thank God, he thinks, and goes looking for a gas station.
He’s maintained his calm pretty well, he thinks. He didn’t stop to throw up on the side of the road, though at one point he had to lean hard on his knees until he could get control of his breath again. He’s not freaking out. He’s not. He didn’t even try Dad’s number. He stood for a few minutes in the shade of an old oak and stared at his phone again, but he couldn’t handle another ‘not in service’ message. He put the phone away before he could talk himself into dialing.
He doesn’t need help anyway. He’ll work it out on his own.
Sam wipes his face again.
He’s been on his own before.
He finds a gas station after another twenty minutes of walking, and prowls the aisles for water and something solid enough to keep him going for the next few hours. The back of his neck prickles almost continuously and he doesn’t recognize the song playing tinnily in the background. He’s been out of the loop for a while, though. Pop music is hard to keep track of even when he’s not running halfway across the country chasing his father’s phantom trails.
His mouth is dry, and not just from the long walk.
The clerk, heavyset and faded blonde, smiles and hands off the key to the station’s single restroom at his request. He locks himself inside with a certain sense of relief, and lets the plastic bag of purchases slide to the tiled floor on a spot that looks pretty clean. He splashes his face and peers at himself in the mirror. Trail dust and faint sunburn. He could keep going for a while yet, he thinks, if he paces himself.
He needs information. An internet connection. A library.
He gets directions from the clerk and his feet protest as he steps out into the street again and sets off, this time toward the center of town.
He walks for blocks, past rundown houses and little stores and a power station. He crosses a set of train tracks. It could be any town, anywhere in the upper Midwest.
He stops, footsore, in a tired neighborhood of grand houses and iron fences, and leans for a moment against the heavy walls of a burger joint. Local, he guesses-he doesn’t recognize the name.
It’s the tiny voice drifting from the alley at the back whispering, “Please, please,” that gets his attention.
“Oh no,” he mutters tiredly, shoving himself away from the wall. “Not now.”
But it is now and he’s the only one here, so he goes around to the back of the building, where the trash and boxes are piled, and follows the whimpering voice saying, “Please,” to itself, over and over and over. He picks his way through the mess, catches sight of matted dark hair, chalky skin. A girl, about seventeen. She makes a noise when she sees Sam, desperate and anguished.
“No,” she whines, “No, please. Please.”
“Shh, hey,” he crouches down, makes himself as non-threatening as possible, “Hey, it’s okay. Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?”
Her eyes are huge, and he can see the way something inside’s been cracked, damaged in an unforgivable way. Hot anger coalesces in his belly, that old familiar hunger to punish an attacker, an abuser, a monster. Tears and dirt streak the girl’s face, and there’s blood under her nose.
“I can help you,” Sam murmurs, “Let me help you.”
She shakes her head spasmodically, tries to shrink away, but she’s already pressed herself as far against the wall as possible. She whines again, a sick animal noise.
“Shh,” he reaches out, carefully, with one hand, cursing its hugeness, the way she seems so small by comparison.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re going to be fine. Promise. I promise. Can you stand up? Can you try?”
He keeps up a steady stream of quiet words in his softest, most non-threatening voice. She’s terrified, that much is clear, and even her previous repetition of ‘please’ has dried up. She whimpers when he hesitantly lays a hand on her shoulder, but doesn’t fight him when he starts to peel her off the wall.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he says, pulling out his phone with his free hand. “I’m going to call 911, okay? You just hang on until-”
“No!” she gasps, breathlessly, and he pauses.
“What?”
“No, please-not the h-hospital. Please.”
Well, at least she’s talking-barely, her voice a quivering whisper that hardly makes it past her lips. But Sam will take what he can get.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, catching her eyes before she drop them. She shakes her head, pulling away again. He lets go.
“I’m okay. Just…just banged up, a little.”
“Your head?”
She shakes her head again. Slowly, hesitation in every inch of her, she lifts her arms.
Rope burns on her wrists. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
“I’m okay now,” she whispers. “I got away.”
_____________________________
He wants to carry her. Just pick her up and carry her, tuck her against his chest and shield her from the world. He can’t, of course, but at the very least he can help her get someplace safe.
“Do you-you should talk to the police. Do you want me to...” he hesitates. “Or I could help you get home.”
She bites her lip, stares at the ground. “Home,” she agrees, softly. “I just want-” she lists to the side, and Sam lays a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Okay,” he says, “Okay, let’s see if we can get inside. I can call you a cab, you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“Stay,” she agrees, “With me. Please.”
He can’t stay forever. He needs to get moving. Figure out what’s happened. Find Dean. But her anxiety is clear, the marks on her wrists livid. Right now, the urgency of her need is greater.
She doesn’t flinch when he cautiously bundles her under his am, but she trembles continuously. He fishes his phone out with his free hand and starts coaxing her, stumbling, out of the pile of boxes and garbage.
“What’s your name?” he asks carefully.
“Kara,” she murmurs, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Okay,” he says, squeezing her shoulder a little, trying to be reassuring, “I’m Sam. I’m gonna make sure you’re okay, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Under his arm, she stiffens. That’s really the only warning he gets.
Big hands fist in his hair and yank his head violently backward, and a foot stomps heavily on the backs of his knees. He hits the concrete and Kara screams and he twists toward her, but he’s just not fast enough. Knuckles smack his temple and it screams through his skull and he’s twisted and wrenched further backward, feet scrabbling against the ground and he can’t tell up from down, he’s gonna be sick, his eyes tear and nausea claws at his gut.
Suddenly he’s got a face full of material, dropped over his head and cinched expertly around his neck, and he lurches again, struggles to get his feet under him. He can hear Kara gibbering, desperate and terrified. An angry voice snarls at her and a sharp slap punctuates the air, followed by her sob.
He can’t get up. There’s no up or down. He’s blind and he can’t breathe. A kidney punch shoots dark red pain through his whole body and he crashes to the ground again, on his ass, and an iron grip crushes his wrists and begins binding his hands.
“No,” he growls, “No!”
Smack! Bone and skin connect with the hard plane behind his ear and white
_____________________________
His hands are shaking. He’s sore and sick and it’s hot and dark and his eyes are open. Are his eyes open? He blinks experimentally.
Yes. They’re open.
It hurts. His back aches where he knows there’s bruising, and the whole left side of his head feels pulped, chewed up and spit out, nothing but ground beef and chunks of bone. He’s panting. He can’t breathe. Every time he tries he gets a mouthful of material and he can smell the reek of his own sweat. Saliva’s pooling in his mouth. He’s gonna be sick. He’s dizzy. He’s thirsty.
No. He needs to get ahold of himself. Now. Right the hell now.
Shit. How did everything go so wrong so quickly? But his brother’s still out there. He’ll come. He’ll-
And then he remembers. No. Dean’s not coming.
Dean doesn’t even know.
Goodbye, Sam.
He bites the tip of his tongue and shuts his eyes. Pushes away the pain (all of it) and shuts his mouth, breathes through his nose. Swallows the spit and nausea, swallows it all down. Listens, because that’s the only sense he’s got left. He’s tied to a chair and his wrists twist against the bonds almost of their own accord. Muffled noises swell and recede in his awareness, like waves at the edge of the ocean.
Kara’s crying. She’s begging again. “Please, please, please.”
Someone growls, words he can’t make out. Too low. Too quiet. Another slap, a thud, a sob.
Please, please.
Her litany continues, endlessly, as Sam struggles and twists, wearing his skin uselessly against his bonds. Too good. Too strong. Someone knows a hell of a lot about tying knots.
Kara’s voice climbs suddenly, a shriek like the wind, over and over. No more words. No more begging.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut. He promised her she’d be okay. Oh God. He promised.
A door opens and her screaming is suddenly piercing and he flinches in spite of himself. The noise cuts off sharply with another slap and a gasping cry. The door clicks shut and muffles the voice of her abuser. Low and soft and controlled and so, so angry.
A hand drops on the top of Sam’s head and another makes quick work of the knots at the back of his neck. The bag or shirt or whatever jerks away unceremoniously, and he flinches from the sudden light, squints up at a large, blurry shape.
It hunkers down in front of him and in the poor light of a windowless room, Sam stares into the one face he’d absolutely not been expecting to see.
His own.
-2-
It’s him, but it isn’t him. Whoever-whatever-made this copy didn’t get it quite right. It’s too big, for starters, older and meaner-looking. Sam knows he can be a little bit scary when he’s pissed, but not like…this. This thing is all shoulders and arms and massive chest, face too broad and hair too long, eyes hard and focused and cold. It looks a little bit pissed. It squats on its haunches and regards Sam wordlessly, elbows on knees, big hands hanging down. It cocks its head and stares, and Sam does his level best to stare back.
Kara’s subsided, for the moment. Sam doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
Finally the-what? The Sam-monster? The thought of it makes Sam feel sick and cold inside. The creature, the mirror-thing, stands up and walks a few steps away. A small table’s been set up, with a few specific implements and, oddly, a bottle of what is apparently holy water, draped in a rosary.
Not a demon, then.
Other-Sam (only not, not Sam) picks up a thin bright knife-Probably silver, Sam’s mind supplies-inspects it for a moment, then looks at him with a small cheerless smile. It doesn’t speak, just strides back over, grabs his hair again, and yanks his head to the side. Sam’s abused scalp screams, but he manages to bite back any noise, until the knife slices into the skin between his neck and shoulder.
“F-fuck! You asshole!”
Monster-Sam ignores him, eyes the weeping injury, the thin trickle of blood Sam can feel oozing down his neck, without any change in facial expression. Shakes its head and wipes the blade on its pants, then goes back to the table.
The door opens again. Sam jams his tongue between his teeth to keep any sound from escaping.
Oh God. Oh God.
It looks like Dean. It looks like him, but only in the same way that Other-Sam looks like Sam-bigger, somehow, older. Harder. It casts one sharp look in his direction and shuts the door before Sam can get a look at Kara. Can at least see if she’s still alive.
There might be blood on the floor. He swallows again.
Not-Dean goes quickly to his giant not-brother and they confer quietly, heads bent, voices nearly inaudible. Other-Sam waves the silver knife around a little. The thing with Dean’s face nods.
“Okay,” it says, and the voice is all wrong, and Sam can’t believe they screwed that up too. It grates, like skin dragged over sharp stones. It’s dark as old blood. Sam shifts in his bonds.
Not-Dean grabs up the bottle of holy water and unscrews it, and in one motion crosses the room and flings half of it in Sam’s face. It’s fucking cold and he sputters and spits and shakes his head sharply, flinging droplets everywhere.
“Fuck!” He blurts, “Fuckin’-Christ!”
“Dean,” Other-Sam says, softly, and it’s the first thing Sam’s heard it say and no, no, that voice is wrong too. Not as wrong as Not-Dean’s, but enough.
“Christo,” Not-Dean barks, and Sam manages to glower at him from behind his dripping wet bangs, despite really, really not feeling it.
“I’m not a fucking demon,” he snarls. “That doesn’t even make any goddamn senseM.”
“Dean,” Other-Sam repeats, more insistently, and Not-Dean keeps its gaze locked on Sam for another beat before turning away, slamming the bottle down on the little table with more force than necessary, rocking it and splashing water everywhere.
“Salt,” it growls, and Other-Sam looks like it might be worth arguing over, but instead picks up a canister and then Sam is once again being pelted in the face. He catches Other-Sam’s gaze and there’s a terrible moment where he sees his own frustration mirrored there, and it feels exactly like falling. Sam jerks his gaze away.
“It’s a trick,” Not-Dean growls.
“Maybe,” the other one says, placing the canister back on the table. “But for whose benefit?”
“You got somethin’ to say, Sam, spit it out.”
It shakes its shaggy head. “No. Not here. Not yet.”
Other-Sam doesn’t even look back as it opens the door and slips through. Sam’s pretty sure there’s blood on the floor out there.
Dean-Not-Dean-stands and regards him for a long moment with hooded eyes. Sam’s seen this expression on his brother’s face before, but not like this. Dean’s face threatens. This one promises.
When it moves to stand in front of him again, Sam can’t help but lean back. He clenches his hands on the chair’s arms.
In a weird echo of the previous doppelganger’s action, it crouches down slowly and rests its elbows on its knees, hands dangling. Cocks its head and regards him coolly.
Sam works some spit around in his mouth.
“You’re not my brother,” he says.
It nods, after a moment, a slow and considering gesture.
“Yeah,” it says, with a mouth so very like Dean’s, and a voice like every dark thing Sam’s ever hunted. “I think you’re probably right.”
It leaves him alone after that.
He’s not even surprised when Kara starts screaming again.
_____________________________
In the Impala on the side of the road, the night around them is huge and silent. Sam glowers at his brother. His stubborn, blind, asshole of a brother who can’t take five freaking seconds to try to see Sam’s point of view. God, he’s so sick of having this fight. Why does it have to be so difficult to make Dean see? If he could just make him see what this is doing to Sam, make him understand somehow….
“Okay, look,” Dean is saying. “I know how you feel-”
That’s too much. Too much by a long, long way.
Sam snaps, “Do you?” and feels a small, vicious surge of satisfaction at Dean’s sudden gobsmacked expression, his rapid, confused blink.
“How old were you when Mom died?” Sam presses, “Four? Jess died six months ago.” He shakes his head slightly, swallowing back the pain of the memory. Crushing it all down, turning into anger. Into something he can use.
“How the hell would you know how I feel?”
_____________________________
He didn’t ask about Kara. He should have asked about Kara. She’s not screaming again, at least.
He can hear her softly crying in the other room, and footsteps moving back and forth. Sam’s worn holes in the skin of his wrists, enough to bleed, but it’s no good. He can’t get to her. Can’t stop them from hurting her.
He can’t make sense out of any of this. He squeezes his eyes shut, wracks his aching head for some hint from the last few hours, last few days, that can help him put the situation into any sort of context. He can bring to mind the bus station, the coolness of the floor, the face of the girl-Meg, his brain supplies, though how that’s going to help him he has no idea-the low hum of conversations and the squeak of shoes on tile. Maybe he’s lost time. Maybe he hadn’t really gone from dozing in a chair to crash-landing in some field somewhere. Maybe it hasn’t been hours since he last saw Dean, maybe it’s been days. Hell, weeks even. Maybe he got involved in something that took his memory, and maybe it’s the same thing that created these doppelgangers.
It’s something he’s never encountered before. Something none of them have encountered before.
When the door opens this time he almost doesn’t bother to look. Almost can’t bring himself to raise his head, and after a brief glance shows him Other-Sam leaning on the doorjamb, he drops his head again and goes back to slowly twisting his wrists.
The knots are getting looser. Just a little bit, but it’s something. It’s all he has.
Other-Sam sighs, and it sounds heartfelt. Sam can’t quite help his flinch. The doppelganger grabs a chair from the other side of the little room and drags it closer, plucking the bottle of holy water from the table as it goes. It grabs Sam around the base of his jaw and tilts his head back, gripping with iron fingers, forcing Sam’s jaw apart.
“Open,” it says, and when he does it shoves the mouth of the bottle roughly inside. Sam chokes and sputters.
“Swallow,” it orders. “I know you’re thirsty and it won’t hurt you.”
He glares from under his bangs. Debates taking a mouthful and spitting it out, spitting it in the thing’s face, but his body betrays him and he’s gulping water before he even realizes it, with a desperation that appalls him.
“Good,” it says, and pulls away. It straddles the chair and folds huge arms across the back.
Sam says, “Look, I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t but…let Kara go. Please? Just…let her go.”
He doesn’t know if he can take listening to her scream again.
It says, “Kara? Is that what she told you her name was?” There’s a hint of a sneer around its mouth.
“Let her go. You’ve hurt her enough.”
Patiently, almost delicately, it tips its head at him and says, “It’s not a girl, Sam.”
He wants to spit in its face, scream at it not to use his name, Don’t you dare say my name. Scowls instead, jerks his hands a little in their bonds. Other-Sam’s eyes fall to his wrists.
“Wow,” it says blandly, “You really did a number on yourself there.”
“You’re going to screw up,” Sam snarls, giving another jerk against his bonds for good measure, “You’ll make a mistake and then I am going to skin you.”
It doesn’t say anything, just watches him. Goes on watching for a while. Sam sits back in his chair, tries to return the calm, silent gaze, but after several long moments has to blink and look down. His skin is crawling again, chilled. He hopes viciously that he throws up all over the thing’s boots.
Finally, in a quiet voice that nevertheless still manages to be flat, it asks, “How long ago did Jess die?”
Oh yeah. He’s definitely gonna be sick all over something.
He squeezes his eyes shut. His back hurts and his head is pulped and he’s cold on the surface of his skin, and the thing wearing a face almost-but-not-quite like his own is asking him about his dead girlfriend. Who died because of Sam. Who bled on his face and roasted on the ceiling and he can still smell it, he never got it out of his clothes and he washed his face and washed it and washed it until Dean had to drag him away from the sink and he never got it clean, not really, not-
“Hey!” a big hand smacks him lightly in the cheek. “Don’t you pass out on me, Sam. Sam.”
He jerks his eyes open with a gasp. The thing grabs him by the jaw again and gives him a little shake.
“How do you-” Sam swallows thickly, fights his own nausea. “How do you know about…”
“Just answer the question,” Other-Sam says wearily.
“Fuck you. Fuck you.”
It sighs heavily and unfolds from the chair, lightly cups the side of Sam’s face. Rests a thumb at the corner of Sam’s eye, carefully, delicately. The thumbnail presses lightly into the skin.
“Answer the question,” it says.
“I-” he licks his lips. The thumb doesn’t move but the rest of the fingers squeeze, slightly, bone pressing against skin pressing against bone.
Sam swallows. He can’t afford to throw up now.
“Six,” he whispers, gaze slipping a little to the right, away from the monster with his face. “Six months.”
It nods and releases him. Turns around and before Sam really registers it, he’s alone again.
He leans over as far as possible and vomits onto the floor.
_____________________________
He’s dozing when the fight starts. Snatches of words float through the walls, sound a little like Dean (when he’s hurt or sick or tired or drunk) and for a moment he can feel leather at his back, hear the sound of the Impala’s engine ticking over, smell metal and old blood and vomit…
His eyes open, slowly. He hears his own voice, snappish and irritated, cutting through the wall in fits and starts.
“…right now, dammit…you don’t have….we’ve got…”
Dean’s (Not-Dean’s) voice is harder to make out, low and snarly, alien and furious. Sam pulls against his restraints before he realizes he’s doing so.
“…it’s bullshit…fuckin’….Sammy no….”
“…perfect chance…perfect…”
Dean’s voice rises. “…no…fuckin’ mean it, don’t you try…shit…”
“You know it’s-”
“No! Goddammit Sam!”
Something thumps the wall, hard. Sam flinches. The air stinks of vomit. He strains his ears. Other-Sam’s voice is a low murmur, but he listens. Really listens.
“You know I’m right, Dean. You know it.”
Then footsteps, moving away. He imagines Not-Dean standing by the wall, breathing hard, furious and silent.
The wall thumps again. He waits, listens for Kara’s voice. Hopes Not-Dean doesn’t take it out on her.
He doesn’t.
When the door opens the thing with his brother’s face doesn’t slip inside, just stands there framed by the poor external light. Sam sees blood on the floor behind him, and catches the edges of marks on the floorboards, in white chalk, that he doesn’t recognize. Something horrible and arcane. He can see Kara’s feet, her ankles bound to a chair, and then Not-Dean steps into the room and he can see her head hanging down, blood drooling from her mouth.
“Is she alive?” he’s gasping out, horror in his voice, yanking at his bonds before he’s even really had time to process what he’s seen. “Is she-did you kill her you asshole? Did you? Did you?”
The thing says, “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
It looks down at the table, almost idly picks up a small knife, hefts it briefly. Shoots a calculating glance at Sam.
“If I untie you, will you promise not to try and run?”
Try, Sam notes bitterly. Not even a possibility in its mind that he might succeed.
He doesn’t let the thought show on his face.
“You gonna cut me up like you did her?” he jerks his head in Kara’s direction.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, kid,” it says. Tired. Both doppelgangers sound so tired.
So human.
What the hell is going on here?
“What are you?” he asks, forcing himself to look at its face. The set of the jaw, the grooves around the eyes-it looks old. Worn down.
When it sets down the knife and picks up a syringe full of clear liquid, Sam feels his eyes go wide. He yanks harder at his bonds.
“Y’know, Sammy,” it tells him quietly, “One of these days you’re going to have to learn how to give a straight answer when somebody asks you a question.”
_____________________________
-3-
-4-, epilogue
_____________________________
Summary: In 2006, Sam walks away from his brother and heads to California to find their father. He winds up going a lot farther than he intended. (13,000+ words, complete)
Warnings: Torture, language, dark themes
Note: This was inspired by a scene in season 2's Hunted, in which Gordon reminisces about torturing a demon and killing the host in the process, and Dean is horrified and appalled. That amused me a lot.
Time Won’t Find the Lost
_____________________________
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned
_____________________________
-1-
He smacks against the floor and his head bounces. Pain cracks across his skull and his vision blacks, flares white, a heartbeat instant of anguish that’s gone before he can register it. He blinks and blinks again and his eyes clear and he’s staring up, a long way up, or maybe he’s looking down. It’s blue-why is it blue? Are those clouds? Is that…is it the sky?
He pushes himself upright, battling disorientation, shoving his elbow against a hard surface that’s still too soft to be tile or concrete. He’s not falling down or sideways, he’s still looking up, and yes. Yes. It’s the sky and those are clouds and he’s sprawled on the hard packed earth of some field and there’s grass in his hair. He rakes his fingers through his mop and frees bits of grass and earth, winces at the pull on his bruised scalp.
“I was inside,” Sam mutters, pressing a hand to the back of his head and staring around dazedly. “Inside. What the hell…”
He’d been dozing, but this isn’t a dream. He shuts his eyes and he can bring to mind the squeak of shoes on the bus station floor, and his nose twitches with the memory of that very special aura shared by bus stations everywhere. He’d been there moments ago. And now…he isn’t.
What the hell?
He’s got his phone in his hand before he even realizes he’s reached for it. It’s heavy and he stares at it and bites his lip.
Dean will want him to call. No matter how pissed he might be, he’ll want to know. Of course he will. But the minute Sam goes to explain-what the hell is he going to say? Fell into a wormhole? Dean’s going to have questions and Sam, well, he sure as hell doesn’t have any answers.
I will leave your ass, you hear me?
Goodbye, Sam.
“Dammit,” he mutters. “I don’t even know where the hell I am.”
He looks around. Even his bag is gone. He’s got….thirty bucks in his pockets, a quick check reveals, along with a Swiss army knife, Balisong, wallet and IDs, paracord, and phone. And that’s it. Everything else was in the bag.
He waffles, there on the side of the road, under an unapologetically cloudless sky. Birds flitter around and make bird noises. He wants to call his brother, but has no idea what he’s going to say.
Hi, yeah, I was at the bus station and now I’m not, no idea where I am or how I got here, no water, no food, no map or anything-can you come get me?
Yeah, there’s no way that could end badly.
He wonders how Dean’s doing with the case. Dad’s case.
He’ll be okay. Of course he will. He’s Dean.
Sam weighs the phone in his hand. He should call. Dean will want to know. Even though they fought, even if Sam can’t tell him anything, Dean will still want to know. He flips it open, rests a thumb on the keypad.
I will leave your ass, you hear me?
He stares at the entry for Dean. Flicks past it, then back.
That’s what I want you to do.
Hits connect.
When the voice tells him the number’s not in service, he feels a new electric thrill run from his toes to the roots of his hair. Tries again, and again.
Nothing.
He looks up at the sky again. Stands there for a while.
_____________________________
He picks a direction and walks. It’s a cheery day, completely non-threatening in any way. He rubs at the back of his neck repeatedly because his hair keeps trying to stand on end. Goosebumps run up and down his skin in waves. He suppresses the urge to shiver more than once.
The sun is trying to bake his skin and he feels the lack of water keenly. Wisps of cloud cling to the horizon and threaten to creep closer, but the day stays clear. It’s cool but the exertion brings Sam out in a fine sheen of sweat.
He wipes at his face when he crosses from the last farm road to the outskirts of a town.
Thank God, he thinks, and goes looking for a gas station.
He’s maintained his calm pretty well, he thinks. He didn’t stop to throw up on the side of the road, though at one point he had to lean hard on his knees until he could get control of his breath again. He’s not freaking out. He’s not. He didn’t even try Dad’s number. He stood for a few minutes in the shade of an old oak and stared at his phone again, but he couldn’t handle another ‘not in service’ message. He put the phone away before he could talk himself into dialing.
He doesn’t need help anyway. He’ll work it out on his own.
Sam wipes his face again.
He’s been on his own before.
He finds a gas station after another twenty minutes of walking, and prowls the aisles for water and something solid enough to keep him going for the next few hours. The back of his neck prickles almost continuously and he doesn’t recognize the song playing tinnily in the background. He’s been out of the loop for a while, though. Pop music is hard to keep track of even when he’s not running halfway across the country chasing his father’s phantom trails.
His mouth is dry, and not just from the long walk.
The clerk, heavyset and faded blonde, smiles and hands off the key to the station’s single restroom at his request. He locks himself inside with a certain sense of relief, and lets the plastic bag of purchases slide to the tiled floor on a spot that looks pretty clean. He splashes his face and peers at himself in the mirror. Trail dust and faint sunburn. He could keep going for a while yet, he thinks, if he paces himself.
He needs information. An internet connection. A library.
He gets directions from the clerk and his feet protest as he steps out into the street again and sets off, this time toward the center of town.
He walks for blocks, past rundown houses and little stores and a power station. He crosses a set of train tracks. It could be any town, anywhere in the upper Midwest.
He stops, footsore, in a tired neighborhood of grand houses and iron fences, and leans for a moment against the heavy walls of a burger joint. Local, he guesses-he doesn’t recognize the name.
It’s the tiny voice drifting from the alley at the back whispering, “Please, please,” that gets his attention.
“Oh no,” he mutters tiredly, shoving himself away from the wall. “Not now.”
But it is now and he’s the only one here, so he goes around to the back of the building, where the trash and boxes are piled, and follows the whimpering voice saying, “Please,” to itself, over and over and over. He picks his way through the mess, catches sight of matted dark hair, chalky skin. A girl, about seventeen. She makes a noise when she sees Sam, desperate and anguished.
“No,” she whines, “No, please. Please.”
“Shh, hey,” he crouches down, makes himself as non-threatening as possible, “Hey, it’s okay. Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?”
Her eyes are huge, and he can see the way something inside’s been cracked, damaged in an unforgivable way. Hot anger coalesces in his belly, that old familiar hunger to punish an attacker, an abuser, a monster. Tears and dirt streak the girl’s face, and there’s blood under her nose.
“I can help you,” Sam murmurs, “Let me help you.”
She shakes her head spasmodically, tries to shrink away, but she’s already pressed herself as far against the wall as possible. She whines again, a sick animal noise.
“Shh,” he reaches out, carefully, with one hand, cursing its hugeness, the way she seems so small by comparison.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re going to be fine. Promise. I promise. Can you stand up? Can you try?”
He keeps up a steady stream of quiet words in his softest, most non-threatening voice. She’s terrified, that much is clear, and even her previous repetition of ‘please’ has dried up. She whimpers when he hesitantly lays a hand on her shoulder, but doesn’t fight him when he starts to peel her off the wall.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he says, pulling out his phone with his free hand. “I’m going to call 911, okay? You just hang on until-”
“No!” she gasps, breathlessly, and he pauses.
“What?”
“No, please-not the h-hospital. Please.”
Well, at least she’s talking-barely, her voice a quivering whisper that hardly makes it past her lips. But Sam will take what he can get.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, catching her eyes before she drop them. She shakes her head, pulling away again. He lets go.
“I’m okay. Just…just banged up, a little.”
“Your head?”
She shakes her head again. Slowly, hesitation in every inch of her, she lifts her arms.
Rope burns on her wrists. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
“I’m okay now,” she whispers. “I got away.”
_____________________________
He wants to carry her. Just pick her up and carry her, tuck her against his chest and shield her from the world. He can’t, of course, but at the very least he can help her get someplace safe.
“Do you-you should talk to the police. Do you want me to...” he hesitates. “Or I could help you get home.”
She bites her lip, stares at the ground. “Home,” she agrees, softly. “I just want-” she lists to the side, and Sam lays a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Okay,” he says, “Okay, let’s see if we can get inside. I can call you a cab, you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“Stay,” she agrees, “With me. Please.”
He can’t stay forever. He needs to get moving. Figure out what’s happened. Find Dean. But her anxiety is clear, the marks on her wrists livid. Right now, the urgency of her need is greater.
She doesn’t flinch when he cautiously bundles her under his am, but she trembles continuously. He fishes his phone out with his free hand and starts coaxing her, stumbling, out of the pile of boxes and garbage.
“What’s your name?” he asks carefully.
“Kara,” she murmurs, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Okay,” he says, squeezing her shoulder a little, trying to be reassuring, “I’m Sam. I’m gonna make sure you’re okay, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Under his arm, she stiffens. That’s really the only warning he gets.
Big hands fist in his hair and yank his head violently backward, and a foot stomps heavily on the backs of his knees. He hits the concrete and Kara screams and he twists toward her, but he’s just not fast enough. Knuckles smack his temple and it screams through his skull and he’s twisted and wrenched further backward, feet scrabbling against the ground and he can’t tell up from down, he’s gonna be sick, his eyes tear and nausea claws at his gut.
Suddenly he’s got a face full of material, dropped over his head and cinched expertly around his neck, and he lurches again, struggles to get his feet under him. He can hear Kara gibbering, desperate and terrified. An angry voice snarls at her and a sharp slap punctuates the air, followed by her sob.
He can’t get up. There’s no up or down. He’s blind and he can’t breathe. A kidney punch shoots dark red pain through his whole body and he crashes to the ground again, on his ass, and an iron grip crushes his wrists and begins binding his hands.
“No,” he growls, “No!”
Smack! Bone and skin connect with the hard plane behind his ear and white
_____________________________
His hands are shaking. He’s sore and sick and it’s hot and dark and his eyes are open. Are his eyes open? He blinks experimentally.
Yes. They’re open.
It hurts. His back aches where he knows there’s bruising, and the whole left side of his head feels pulped, chewed up and spit out, nothing but ground beef and chunks of bone. He’s panting. He can’t breathe. Every time he tries he gets a mouthful of material and he can smell the reek of his own sweat. Saliva’s pooling in his mouth. He’s gonna be sick. He’s dizzy. He’s thirsty.
No. He needs to get ahold of himself. Now. Right the hell now.
Shit. How did everything go so wrong so quickly? But his brother’s still out there. He’ll come. He’ll-
And then he remembers. No. Dean’s not coming.
Dean doesn’t even know.
Goodbye, Sam.
He bites the tip of his tongue and shuts his eyes. Pushes away the pain (all of it) and shuts his mouth, breathes through his nose. Swallows the spit and nausea, swallows it all down. Listens, because that’s the only sense he’s got left. He’s tied to a chair and his wrists twist against the bonds almost of their own accord. Muffled noises swell and recede in his awareness, like waves at the edge of the ocean.
Kara’s crying. She’s begging again. “Please, please, please.”
Someone growls, words he can’t make out. Too low. Too quiet. Another slap, a thud, a sob.
Please, please.
Her litany continues, endlessly, as Sam struggles and twists, wearing his skin uselessly against his bonds. Too good. Too strong. Someone knows a hell of a lot about tying knots.
Kara’s voice climbs suddenly, a shriek like the wind, over and over. No more words. No more begging.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut. He promised her she’d be okay. Oh God. He promised.
A door opens and her screaming is suddenly piercing and he flinches in spite of himself. The noise cuts off sharply with another slap and a gasping cry. The door clicks shut and muffles the voice of her abuser. Low and soft and controlled and so, so angry.
A hand drops on the top of Sam’s head and another makes quick work of the knots at the back of his neck. The bag or shirt or whatever jerks away unceremoniously, and he flinches from the sudden light, squints up at a large, blurry shape.
It hunkers down in front of him and in the poor light of a windowless room, Sam stares into the one face he’d absolutely not been expecting to see.
His own.
-2-
It’s him, but it isn’t him. Whoever-whatever-made this copy didn’t get it quite right. It’s too big, for starters, older and meaner-looking. Sam knows he can be a little bit scary when he’s pissed, but not like…this. This thing is all shoulders and arms and massive chest, face too broad and hair too long, eyes hard and focused and cold. It looks a little bit pissed. It squats on its haunches and regards Sam wordlessly, elbows on knees, big hands hanging down. It cocks its head and stares, and Sam does his level best to stare back.
Kara’s subsided, for the moment. Sam doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
Finally the-what? The Sam-monster? The thought of it makes Sam feel sick and cold inside. The creature, the mirror-thing, stands up and walks a few steps away. A small table’s been set up, with a few specific implements and, oddly, a bottle of what is apparently holy water, draped in a rosary.
Not a demon, then.
Other-Sam (only not, not Sam) picks up a thin bright knife-Probably silver, Sam’s mind supplies-inspects it for a moment, then looks at him with a small cheerless smile. It doesn’t speak, just strides back over, grabs his hair again, and yanks his head to the side. Sam’s abused scalp screams, but he manages to bite back any noise, until the knife slices into the skin between his neck and shoulder.
“F-fuck! You asshole!”
Monster-Sam ignores him, eyes the weeping injury, the thin trickle of blood Sam can feel oozing down his neck, without any change in facial expression. Shakes its head and wipes the blade on its pants, then goes back to the table.
The door opens again. Sam jams his tongue between his teeth to keep any sound from escaping.
Oh God. Oh God.
It looks like Dean. It looks like him, but only in the same way that Other-Sam looks like Sam-bigger, somehow, older. Harder. It casts one sharp look in his direction and shuts the door before Sam can get a look at Kara. Can at least see if she’s still alive.
There might be blood on the floor. He swallows again.
Not-Dean goes quickly to his giant not-brother and they confer quietly, heads bent, voices nearly inaudible. Other-Sam waves the silver knife around a little. The thing with Dean’s face nods.
“Okay,” it says, and the voice is all wrong, and Sam can’t believe they screwed that up too. It grates, like skin dragged over sharp stones. It’s dark as old blood. Sam shifts in his bonds.
Not-Dean grabs up the bottle of holy water and unscrews it, and in one motion crosses the room and flings half of it in Sam’s face. It’s fucking cold and he sputters and spits and shakes his head sharply, flinging droplets everywhere.
“Fuck!” He blurts, “Fuckin’-Christ!”
“Dean,” Other-Sam says, softly, and it’s the first thing Sam’s heard it say and no, no, that voice is wrong too. Not as wrong as Not-Dean’s, but enough.
“Christo,” Not-Dean barks, and Sam manages to glower at him from behind his dripping wet bangs, despite really, really not feeling it.
“I’m not a fucking demon,” he snarls. “That doesn’t even make any goddamn senseM.”
“Dean,” Other-Sam repeats, more insistently, and Not-Dean keeps its gaze locked on Sam for another beat before turning away, slamming the bottle down on the little table with more force than necessary, rocking it and splashing water everywhere.
“Salt,” it growls, and Other-Sam looks like it might be worth arguing over, but instead picks up a canister and then Sam is once again being pelted in the face. He catches Other-Sam’s gaze and there’s a terrible moment where he sees his own frustration mirrored there, and it feels exactly like falling. Sam jerks his gaze away.
“It’s a trick,” Not-Dean growls.
“Maybe,” the other one says, placing the canister back on the table. “But for whose benefit?”
“You got somethin’ to say, Sam, spit it out.”
It shakes its shaggy head. “No. Not here. Not yet.”
Other-Sam doesn’t even look back as it opens the door and slips through. Sam’s pretty sure there’s blood on the floor out there.
Dean-Not-Dean-stands and regards him for a long moment with hooded eyes. Sam’s seen this expression on his brother’s face before, but not like this. Dean’s face threatens. This one promises.
When it moves to stand in front of him again, Sam can’t help but lean back. He clenches his hands on the chair’s arms.
In a weird echo of the previous doppelganger’s action, it crouches down slowly and rests its elbows on its knees, hands dangling. Cocks its head and regards him coolly.
Sam works some spit around in his mouth.
“You’re not my brother,” he says.
It nods, after a moment, a slow and considering gesture.
“Yeah,” it says, with a mouth so very like Dean’s, and a voice like every dark thing Sam’s ever hunted. “I think you’re probably right.”
It leaves him alone after that.
He’s not even surprised when Kara starts screaming again.
_____________________________
In the Impala on the side of the road, the night around them is huge and silent. Sam glowers at his brother. His stubborn, blind, asshole of a brother who can’t take five freaking seconds to try to see Sam’s point of view. God, he’s so sick of having this fight. Why does it have to be so difficult to make Dean see? If he could just make him see what this is doing to Sam, make him understand somehow….
“Okay, look,” Dean is saying. “I know how you feel-”
That’s too much. Too much by a long, long way.
Sam snaps, “Do you?” and feels a small, vicious surge of satisfaction at Dean’s sudden gobsmacked expression, his rapid, confused blink.
“How old were you when Mom died?” Sam presses, “Four? Jess died six months ago.” He shakes his head slightly, swallowing back the pain of the memory. Crushing it all down, turning into anger. Into something he can use.
“How the hell would you know how I feel?”
_____________________________
He didn’t ask about Kara. He should have asked about Kara. She’s not screaming again, at least.
He can hear her softly crying in the other room, and footsteps moving back and forth. Sam’s worn holes in the skin of his wrists, enough to bleed, but it’s no good. He can’t get to her. Can’t stop them from hurting her.
He can’t make sense out of any of this. He squeezes his eyes shut, wracks his aching head for some hint from the last few hours, last few days, that can help him put the situation into any sort of context. He can bring to mind the bus station, the coolness of the floor, the face of the girl-Meg, his brain supplies, though how that’s going to help him he has no idea-the low hum of conversations and the squeak of shoes on tile. Maybe he’s lost time. Maybe he hadn’t really gone from dozing in a chair to crash-landing in some field somewhere. Maybe it hasn’t been hours since he last saw Dean, maybe it’s been days. Hell, weeks even. Maybe he got involved in something that took his memory, and maybe it’s the same thing that created these doppelgangers.
It’s something he’s never encountered before. Something none of them have encountered before.
When the door opens this time he almost doesn’t bother to look. Almost can’t bring himself to raise his head, and after a brief glance shows him Other-Sam leaning on the doorjamb, he drops his head again and goes back to slowly twisting his wrists.
The knots are getting looser. Just a little bit, but it’s something. It’s all he has.
Other-Sam sighs, and it sounds heartfelt. Sam can’t quite help his flinch. The doppelganger grabs a chair from the other side of the little room and drags it closer, plucking the bottle of holy water from the table as it goes. It grabs Sam around the base of his jaw and tilts his head back, gripping with iron fingers, forcing Sam’s jaw apart.
“Open,” it says, and when he does it shoves the mouth of the bottle roughly inside. Sam chokes and sputters.
“Swallow,” it orders. “I know you’re thirsty and it won’t hurt you.”
He glares from under his bangs. Debates taking a mouthful and spitting it out, spitting it in the thing’s face, but his body betrays him and he’s gulping water before he even realizes it, with a desperation that appalls him.
“Good,” it says, and pulls away. It straddles the chair and folds huge arms across the back.
Sam says, “Look, I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t but…let Kara go. Please? Just…let her go.”
He doesn’t know if he can take listening to her scream again.
It says, “Kara? Is that what she told you her name was?” There’s a hint of a sneer around its mouth.
“Let her go. You’ve hurt her enough.”
Patiently, almost delicately, it tips its head at him and says, “It’s not a girl, Sam.”
He wants to spit in its face, scream at it not to use his name, Don’t you dare say my name. Scowls instead, jerks his hands a little in their bonds. Other-Sam’s eyes fall to his wrists.
“Wow,” it says blandly, “You really did a number on yourself there.”
“You’re going to screw up,” Sam snarls, giving another jerk against his bonds for good measure, “You’ll make a mistake and then I am going to skin you.”
It doesn’t say anything, just watches him. Goes on watching for a while. Sam sits back in his chair, tries to return the calm, silent gaze, but after several long moments has to blink and look down. His skin is crawling again, chilled. He hopes viciously that he throws up all over the thing’s boots.
Finally, in a quiet voice that nevertheless still manages to be flat, it asks, “How long ago did Jess die?”
Oh yeah. He’s definitely gonna be sick all over something.
He squeezes his eyes shut. His back hurts and his head is pulped and he’s cold on the surface of his skin, and the thing wearing a face almost-but-not-quite like his own is asking him about his dead girlfriend. Who died because of Sam. Who bled on his face and roasted on the ceiling and he can still smell it, he never got it out of his clothes and he washed his face and washed it and washed it until Dean had to drag him away from the sink and he never got it clean, not really, not-
“Hey!” a big hand smacks him lightly in the cheek. “Don’t you pass out on me, Sam. Sam.”
He jerks his eyes open with a gasp. The thing grabs him by the jaw again and gives him a little shake.
“How do you-” Sam swallows thickly, fights his own nausea. “How do you know about…”
“Just answer the question,” Other-Sam says wearily.
“Fuck you. Fuck you.”
It sighs heavily and unfolds from the chair, lightly cups the side of Sam’s face. Rests a thumb at the corner of Sam’s eye, carefully, delicately. The thumbnail presses lightly into the skin.
“Answer the question,” it says.
“I-” he licks his lips. The thumb doesn’t move but the rest of the fingers squeeze, slightly, bone pressing against skin pressing against bone.
Sam swallows. He can’t afford to throw up now.
“Six,” he whispers, gaze slipping a little to the right, away from the monster with his face. “Six months.”
It nods and releases him. Turns around and before Sam really registers it, he’s alone again.
He leans over as far as possible and vomits onto the floor.
_____________________________
He’s dozing when the fight starts. Snatches of words float through the walls, sound a little like Dean (when he’s hurt or sick or tired or drunk) and for a moment he can feel leather at his back, hear the sound of the Impala’s engine ticking over, smell metal and old blood and vomit…
His eyes open, slowly. He hears his own voice, snappish and irritated, cutting through the wall in fits and starts.
“…right now, dammit…you don’t have….we’ve got…”
Dean’s (Not-Dean’s) voice is harder to make out, low and snarly, alien and furious. Sam pulls against his restraints before he realizes he’s doing so.
“…it’s bullshit…fuckin’….Sammy no….”
“…perfect chance…perfect…”
Dean’s voice rises. “…no…fuckin’ mean it, don’t you try…shit…”
“You know it’s-”
“No! Goddammit Sam!”
Something thumps the wall, hard. Sam flinches. The air stinks of vomit. He strains his ears. Other-Sam’s voice is a low murmur, but he listens. Really listens.
“You know I’m right, Dean. You know it.”
Then footsteps, moving away. He imagines Not-Dean standing by the wall, breathing hard, furious and silent.
The wall thumps again. He waits, listens for Kara’s voice. Hopes Not-Dean doesn’t take it out on her.
He doesn’t.
When the door opens the thing with his brother’s face doesn’t slip inside, just stands there framed by the poor external light. Sam sees blood on the floor behind him, and catches the edges of marks on the floorboards, in white chalk, that he doesn’t recognize. Something horrible and arcane. He can see Kara’s feet, her ankles bound to a chair, and then Not-Dean steps into the room and he can see her head hanging down, blood drooling from her mouth.
“Is she alive?” he’s gasping out, horror in his voice, yanking at his bonds before he’s even really had time to process what he’s seen. “Is she-did you kill her you asshole? Did you? Did you?”
The thing says, “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
It looks down at the table, almost idly picks up a small knife, hefts it briefly. Shoots a calculating glance at Sam.
“If I untie you, will you promise not to try and run?”
Try, Sam notes bitterly. Not even a possibility in its mind that he might succeed.
He doesn’t let the thought show on his face.
“You gonna cut me up like you did her?” he jerks his head in Kara’s direction.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, kid,” it says. Tired. Both doppelgangers sound so tired.
So human.
What the hell is going on here?
“What are you?” he asks, forcing himself to look at its face. The set of the jaw, the grooves around the eyes-it looks old. Worn down.
When it sets down the knife and picks up a syringe full of clear liquid, Sam feels his eyes go wide. He yanks harder at his bonds.
“Y’know, Sammy,” it tells him quietly, “One of these days you’re going to have to learn how to give a straight answer when somebody asks you a question.”
_____________________________
-3-
-4-, epilogue
_____________________________