WHO Souless!Sam Winchester and appearances by Sam and Dean Winchester •
WHERE The Overlook •
WHEN Midmorning, October 9
Souless confronts his biggest fear
WARNINGS some blood, death, language
Sam grinned down at the page of one of his favorite books, and one of his favorite scenes in said book, smiling further at the salute the tiny poltergeist gave to the Weasley twins as they exited Hogwarts. It was so easy to get lost in a book sometimes, and for a while, he hadn’t been able to as so much had been on his plate. Starting the apocalypse, finishing the apocalypse, going to Hell, being brought back, finding out that he had no soul…it had been a constant stream of insanity and there was no time for the simple pleasures that life offered. Now, however, now in this place he learned that he had nothing but time. He never slept, he didn’t eat unless he was with company that expected it, seeing his family had become nearly out of the question, and doing his job - in a place like this? - senseless. At least at first glance, not that he had looked very hard. Something could turn up later that required killing, but as of right now, his job was sadly, not needed. So this was what he did.
He looked up to yawn and stretch his neck, grab a sip of the cold, black coffee that had been sitting in front of him for the better part of an hour as he read amongst the gentle background noise of the crowd that had been passing by, going in and out with their purchases. But it was all gone. The table he had been sitting at was gone, as was his coffee and, well, everything that had been around him before, including the building he had been in. All of it was replaced with another place, in another locale that had the disarming yet cheesy look of a spot that 1973 had thrown up all over.
This had to be the Overlook, the ‘Hotel Hell’ he’d been hearing reading about, and hoped to come across. He was a fan.
“Finally,” he breathed as he stood, discarding his book in the chair he had just vacated and pulling his gun from the back of his pants to keep at the ready. He moved around the lobby, half expecting to find ghosts coming out of floors or furniture coming to life to chase him, but the further he walked, the deeper into the hotel he got, the less he found. Nothing of note. Nothing of interest. Not even another person that was pulled here running from whatever they were seeing. Nothing.
"Come on, I've heard good things," he called out in frustration. "You finally bring me here and you're going to disappoint me like this? Dragging me here just to see this crap interior can't have been the only reason, give me something."
And that's when he turned the corner and saw it. Himself. Dressed exactly the same, holding his gun the same way, the only difference to be seen was one's eyes were slightly widened and he was swallowing hard, looking afraid, while he himself looked amused and just smirked in return.
Sam rolled his eyes to look upward as he started to slowly approach his other self, the one that he was sure was all souled up and better received by his family. "Seriously? This is it? I get me?"
Anything further Sam was going to say was abruptly cut off when the other Sam, the unsure looking one, looked behind him and then ran. Not a word, not a taunting look, he just ran. That was all it took for Sam to abandon his shit-talking to the air and pursue. He turned a corner just as he caught sight of himself at the end of the long hall slide on a piece of carpeting and fall, only to scurry back to his feet and head left at the elevators.
"All I wanna do is talk, Sam!" he yelled, cocking back the hammer of his gun while still giving chase, though not as quickly as before because see? At the end of that hall was truly a dead-end, eight doors, four on each side directly across from each other, and nothing else. "Maybe make sure you stop existing. This shit with you having a soul is going to be a problem I won't get rid of until I get rid of you."
That, not surprisingly didn't bring Sam out of hiding. And he was hiding. He had to be, there was literally nowhere else for him to go. "How does it go? I'm on the first step." Sam didn't even try the knob of the first door he came to, he just stepped back and kicked it in. A brief glance inside told him the room was empty since Sam was too big to hide under the bed and the bathroom door was open wide. He crossed the hall to the next door.
"I'm on the second step." A look around the second room told him that it was empty too. "Third step, Sammy. You should just come on out and take this like a man. You know we both can't live."
The seventh door appeared ahead, there were only two more doors to go before this shitshow came to some sort of climax. Either he'd find Sam and kill him, yes, kill him, or he'd see that the hotel had been fucking with him and there was no Sam. Which, seriously, that would be an awesome ending. Bravo, Overlook. "I'm on the seventh step!" He sounded a little more jovial than before, knowing that he was almost at the end.
He stepped back to kick in the door, just like he had done six other times previously, but was halted midstep by a loud noise followed by a burning, painful sensation in his shoulder that knocked him off his feet. The pain he felt was intense but bearable, and he was about to bitch about the hole in his shirt, but a face appeared above him, serious looking and stern, and holding a gun aimed right at his head. "Dean," he whispered as he heard a door open. and the other Sam came to stand next to Dean. This had been a trap.
"You know I have to do this, Sammy," Dean looked determined as he spoke, jaw set and eyes focused, only glancing once at the pol of blood that was surrounding Sam. "Gotta put you back together, man. I can barely even look at you, you're not right like this."
"It could kill me, Dean. You heard Cas and Crowley, putting my soul back in - that could be worse than death for me. I don't want this. I don't wanna die or.. or be some cucumber for the rest of my life."
And then Sam moved as he talked, so fast that even he was surprised he'd done it. No hesitation, one shot, one bullet, right in the center of the other Sam's forehead. As he heard Dean's gun fall, he sat up, watching his brother catch the now lifeless corpse of his other self as he yelled out his name. The pain in his shoulder slowed his movements just a little more now and he thought he might have torn something in addition to the gunshot wound.
When he got to his feet and turned around, the Sam he'd shot was gone, and all he was left with was a tearful Dean on his knees in front of him. "He's not coming back, Dean. Not ever. I'm it." He watched Dean shimmer into nothingness before him, and an exit door that hadn't been in the hallway before opened up enough for him, as if to say that he was free to go.
[ooc: book quote from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix]