Ghost of You

Her past had finally caught up to her. Staring at Sam from the ground, blinking up at that tall form that had once been gawking, all Alix could see was the fragile life she’d been holding on to from the moment she’d first turned crumbling around her. Black specks of it drifted around Sam on the air, like the ash from it, although that could’ve been her oxygen deprived, adrenalin soaked brain’s attempt to try and hold on to her vision. That primitive part of her brain had taken over control the moment that the rugaru had arrived home early, fight or flight getting stuck on fight until it had been short circuited. The clock continued to tick in her head with each drop of blood that ran from his fingers, down the blade to her hand. Dripping from her palm they landed like bullets against her skin. That slow splat, splat, splat that filled her mouth with the taste of copper. It could be her own blood, any minute now. Sam had never been like her parents, his dad, or even Dean. He wasn’t a zealot when it came to killing, he waited, he researched, some part of him had needed to be as sure as a part of her did. But still … she wasn’t her now, she’d killed and not just things like the beast on top of her who was trying to make her the next victim in his little basement of horrors.

From the way the creature stiffened as she called out to Sam, as that voice echoed back at her, Alix knew that Christian could see that the scales were rapidly shifting from him being in control here. Two against one, a blade already close to slicing his fingers off and biting into his neck. Alix turned her head slightly as the clock began to tick faster, taking the next splatter of blood on a cheekbone instead of in her mouth. ”Long time no see,” she managed hoarsely. That little voice in her head was working far faster than the sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. Had Ralphy reached out and sent another hunter in? Was this the attempt to finally kill her or a way of making sure that the names on his little list all disappeared. Was she overthinking the whole thing? Was Sam Winchester the person that would shore up the ground under her feet instead of stomping on it until it really was nothing but dust? She didn’t know, couldn’t, until this thing taking another snap at her throat, was dead and she got more than a stuttering of her name out of Sam’s mouth.

In a heartbeat the weight on her was lifting. Christian had taken Sam’s momentary stunning as an opportunity. No. A gasp tore itself free of Alix’s chest as she flopped back. The blade clattered at her side, her fingers loose around the hilt. She heard as well as felt Sam fall. Something clattered aside even as she was rolling, fighting her way back to her feet to get back in the fight. Alix’s weight shifted from foot to foot, her green eyes widened as she tried to figure out how to get in there without hurting Sam in the process. ”Lift him,” she ordered breathlessly. ”I can’t get at him, not like that.” Not without risk. While she was happy to put her own life on the line, she was done with dragging innocent people into this. One person who’d tied himself to her emotionally had already almost died at her hands. Cursing under her breath, feeling her eyes burning Alix shifted closer, trying to find an angle. She caught Sam’s eye over Christian’s shoulder, their positions now reversed. Sam was quicker than she was though, nodding towards a lighter that now lay on the floor. Fire. The one sure way to kill a rugaru. She’d been going for the head but perhaps this was better.

Alix skittered aside, dropping down on her knees to scrabble to pick the lighter up. It slipped once before her fingers closed around it, the sounds behind her making her clumsy. As she pushed to her feet she heard the sounds behind her pick up. Spinning, she was forced to take a clumsy step back, the rugaru flying past her. ”Someone got stronger when he grew up,” she managed with a grim trace of humour. Dodging close, Alix offered Sam a hand to help him up. Her head was turned away, her gaze focused on the rugaru as it seriously began to stir again. Christian’s head lifted, his gaze meeting hers as he hissed. The charge was weaker this time but Alix felt her legs tangling with Sam’s as she stepped back. A choked growl rose from her throat, her eyes flashing blue as she shoved the lighter between her and Christian. They all went down in a heap, her thumb fumbling to get the lighter lit. ”Grab him,” she gasped. ”Lift him, Sam, I can’t get to the lighter….” Claws pierced her fingertips, her throat aching again as her body fought to do all it had to in order to kill the thing trying to kill her.

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 872

If it hadn’t been for the desperate rugaru trapped between the two of them she might just have been glad to see Sam. Staying away from her parents meant cutting herself off from any sort of connection with them, making sure that she didn’t pop up on anybody’s radar who were still tangled up with her parents or brothers in any way. Alix wouldn’t have said that she was struggling with the side effects of what she had become anymore but all it took was one tiny slip to reveal something. The last she’d known her parents hadn’t worked with the Winchesters for years but despite the size of the country the hunting world was relatively small and good God could they gossip. Her family weren’t the only ones who tended to toss the general principle of only kill that which hurt others out the window, there were militants all over and not a single one of that lot would resist putting her down without waiting to see if she actually deserved it. Not Sam, Alix thought, probably not Sam, at least.

This one might need all her strength though and she didn’t have the height or the bulk of someone like Sam to explain it away. The Mighty Mouse scenario only went so far, even for a hunter. Alix heard the groan go out of him and winced at it. With the blood still drying on her face she’d clambered up from where Christian had left her flopping around like a fish out of water. If she could get her blade to his throat she could still make sure that she had his head before he managed to kill somebody else but there just wasn’t the room to do it. ”I can see that,” Alix managed with a huff of breath. There was humour in her voice, more than she’d expected when the words had formed in her head. She shifted on her feet, angling the blade as she considered whether to just dive in but then Sam was indicating the lighter that had been in his hand, the one she’d heard knocked aside. Beheading something tended to kill the majority of things but with rugarus fire was a little more standard and meant you didn’t have to get in range of those vicious teeth if you did it right. Maybe that was the way she should’ve gone from the start, torching Christian in his basement instead of trying with the blade, but she hadn’t really had much thinking time when he’d returned home.

Turning to pick up the lighter, Alix hadn’t seen Sam move, not really. One minute the rugaru was on top of him the next Christian was flying, literally. How, she wasn’t quite sure but the size he was, Sam did have some power in him. Hers on the other hand came from something she couldn’t let free right now. A grim laugh emerged instead, just the right side of hysterical as she helped him back to his feet. ”Last time I saw you maybe you were beginning to sprout, you definitely started hitting Hercules levels at some point though…” But not strong enough, never strong enough. Christian was already back on his feet, hissing, rushing at them. If only she’d been able to take the damn thing’s head in the first place, if only she hadn’t been forced to work on the fly when Christian had decided that there was nothing down in his basement pantry that tickled his fancy for dinner.

Caught on the ground between two men who were far bigger than her Alix felt her body strain to use its weapons to get her free. Pain pricked at her fingertips as she closed her fist around the lighter. Sam was easing out from under them, getting himself into a position where he could grab Christian by the scuff of the neck and pull at him. Alix hissed as hands fumbled for her neck again, the rugaru’s teeth gleaming in the light in away that turned her stomach. She didn’t know that her body had already been pushed to the point of her eye colour changing, all of her focus was on the rugaru, on flipping the lighter on as Sam began to give her the room to work. ”I’m going to light him up,” she warned hoarsely. Alix lifted her legs, braced her knees, her feet against the rugaru as she finally flicked the lighter into life. She shoved it against Christian’s expensive shirt. It probably cost more money than she’d ever spent on anything in her life but it wasn’t fire proof, flames began to creep across it. A shriek went up through the strangled throat, the creature’s eyes widening as she half grinned at him, a little more canine than normal showing. ”You should’ve gone veggie Christian.” With a slap of her hand Alix crushed the lighter against the rugaru’s chest, cracking the container, letting the lighter fluid ignite the flames further. Alix kicked, her booted feet knocking the rugaru off of her, out of Sam’s arms, away from the two of them. She flopped back as the rugaru stumbled away, already becoming the human torch. ”Are you OK? Sam?” Rolling, she tried to get a look at him, to make sure she hadn’t burned him with her trick.

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 889

As cynical as she was these days it was an easy matter to want to call bullshit on Sam’s excuse for how he managed to kick the rugaru away from him. They weren’t the strongest creatures out there, weren’t even close to it, but even just a plain old full grown man was heavy. Martial arts movies might make it look like you could kick someone your weight across a floor but when reality hit, it so often wasn’t possible. Often, but not always. Alix was pretty sure that it hadn’t just been a double dose of Wheaties on Sam’s part that had allowed him to toss Christian across the yard. Something was up, something that was ringing every alarm bell in her head and thanks to the fact that she was now part animal there were plenty of those bells to ring. She might’ve been bordering on hysterical but Alix could hear them loud and clear and she could blow Sam’s excuse off with a snort. ”So Dean’s still the little big brother?” she asked, glad for a thread of normality even as the unusual seemed to hover around them like a cloud. ”You did get pretty damn tall though.” There was a ring of truth in her words as she looked up at him, way up at him. Even as a teenager Sam had towered over here and he still did now, standing at least a foot over her own five foot three.

Her brothers had always been taller, stronger, faster, but Alix had never let that slow her down. Pushing as she had today she’d given every hunt her all, even if her first solo had seen her in hospital, her arm barely hanging on by a thread. She unconsciously rolled it, shifting anxiously on her feet as she’d sparked up the lighter Sam bad brought with him to put a real end to this. It was a brutal way to go, one that would fill the air with a scent that the werecoyote in her would find more appealing than the still very much human part of her did. With bile flooding her throat Alix touched the lighter to Christian and felt the instant eruption of heat. He might struggle, he might fight now but she’d never seen a rugaru manage to put itself out. She didn’t stand by though, kicking Christian away from her as he went up like a Roman candle, getting herself out of range as the rugaru stumbled a few yards away and fell, burning, still struggling. Worried about Sam she turned her back on the creature rapidly. Alix scrambled to her feet, rubbing blood stained hands off on her jeans, trying to hide the fact that the cuts her own knife had put across her fingers as she’d fought to keep it against Christian’s throat had entirely healed. Brows drawing together she reached out to Sam, tugging at his clothing to check for herself that Christian hadn’t managed to get a tooth into him. ”I think my knees are still shaking,” she quipped, swallowing hard as she lowered her head so she wasn’t meeting Sam’s eye. The truth was that she’d come far too close to changing during the fight.

That would’ve been the end of her. Sam would’ve been more willing to listen to her than Dean would, definitely more than their dad would, but still, she was a monster and she’d almost used what she was against another. The fight would’ve been righteous to her but when all hunters wanted to see what something to kill that wouldn’t make one bit of difference. Alix dropped her hands away from Sam as she found him unharmed, scrubbing them against her already stained jeans again before she glanced up and met his eye. That was all it took to catch the gesture he made at her. Eyes that were now a normal human green went wide. Stumbling back a step, Alix gritted her teeth and shook her head for a moment. There wasn’t any pretending it hadn’t happened, it wasn’t like a werecoyotes eyes could be confused for anything but a shifter’s. Bright yellow, bright blue, bright red, a trio that was unmistakable. Her own were a bright piercing blue, proof that she’d taken an innocent life thanks to Ralphy. A sign for all those hunters to see, killer. ”You saw?” she asked as she straightened up, almost preparing herself for some sort of blow to come. ”If we’re playing I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, how about you tell me what you did there? You’re no Andre the Giant Sam. No matter how big a growth spurt you hit, you didn’t throw him all that way with a few hours in the gym.” All the cards out on the table, she thought, taking another step back as she swallowed hard.

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 813

Even when she’d barely been in her teens Sam had been catching up on his brother height wise. The tall, whippy kid who had seemed all hands and feet, Dean, shorter, cockier, always so filled with confidence that it had induced eye rolls of mammoth proportions. Dean wouldn’t have let his gaze skitter away from her like Sam’s had, it would’ve been bang on her, green eyes gleaming, his mouth quirked into a smug grin. Just like her older brothers. The thought was a faint punch to the gut, a further blow that Alix wasn’t so sure she could handle right now. ”Never thought he would,” she managed wistfully. Back then there’d been a chance she’d run across the Winchesters’ path again, work alongside of them maybe, but she never could’ve imagined that she would be so far away from who she’d been then. Or that Sam would maybe be too. The hysteria melted away a little as he kidded around, her grin settling crookedly as she looked him up and down. ”Being little’s always kinda had its advantages, like being able to slip out of bathroom windows.” Or away from awkward conversations.

Chest rising and falling in a sigh Alix knew she couldn’t do that now, they were too far into this together. Sam might not look at her the same when she came clean but for now he was still letting her within reach as the Christian-pyre burned behind the two of them. She watched Sam cover his eyes, took the opportunity to check him over with brisk movements. Her eyes rose to his for a moment as she aimed a semi-withering look at him like she was wrong to check. ”I was making sure. That was a rough one.” And God it was only going to get worse. Sam wasn’t going to let her that close again, not once he realized that she was something the two of them once would’ve tried to put down. Some part of her badly wanted to trust that he wouldn’t do that as he put his hands up almost in surrender but she’d been around too many hunters over the years to trust that entirely. Throat tight, Alix managed a grim smile. ”You never were but you … you might think I deserve it once I get through that story.” If she was entirely innocent it would be a different matter but thanks to Ralphy she’d killed people, things, who honestly hadn’t deserved it.

She’d become the sort of hunter she’d always hated. It might take the fight of her life but she wanted to break away from that person and be her again. That started with giving Sam the benefit of the doubt. She wanted to believe that neither one of them were the sort of thing that was irredeemable. Sinking down, Alix sat on a low wall at the edge of Christian’s hard, her head rising to watch Sam. ”Aren’t they all?” she asked hoarsely. Slowly she wrapped her arms around her knees, propping her chin on them to watch him. One hand fluttered up slightly, a sign of resignation. ”I’ll tell you,” she agreed. ”And I promise, I won’t hurt you either. Scout’s honour.” Her blood spotted fingers rose in a sloppy salute. They dropped as Sam began to explain, the world as she knew it twisting on its axis. Something visiting a six month old, changing it? There were things that could do that, but nothing that could do what she thought she’d seen Sam do. Dean and him had never agreed on much but the two of them always seemed near inseparable. ”Ben? Azazel?” Alix questioned the names, unsure about exactly what Sam was describing until he mentioned the devil and his nephew. ”Hang on, you’re talking about demons?” Green eyes going wide, Alix pushed to her feet. ”I knew that Lucifer was locked up somewhere but are you honestly saying one of his people did something to you and others to give you gifts?” Shit. That beat being handed over to Dread Doctors who wanted to create a perfect killing machine by her uncle any day of the week.

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 694

AKA Sam was used to it just being the Winchesters against the world. In a way Alix could understand it, her family had been the same way for the most part, keeping things in house so to speak. That wasn’t to say they were adverse to getting some outside help when they needed it, that was how she’d met Sam and Dean after all, but for the most part they were a law unto themselves. Alix supposed in a way she’d kept that up after she’d been run but steering clear of other hunters had been more about avoiding the news of what she had become getting back to her parents. Her withering look gave way to a crooked grin as her indignation over watching out for her faded. ”On a scale of pie to worst hunt ever, that wasn’t exactly cherry or rhubarb,” she told him. Letting out a breath that dimmed her smile somewhat Alix lifted a hand, rubbing it at the blood drying on her face. ”I’ve got to admit, I’m not that used to it either, not these days.” Not since it had seemed wiser to run.

Wisdom would have had her doing the same now but Sam deserved more than being left in her dust. She’d avoided doing that once before when he’d invited her along to try and get their hands on the nest of vamps before their parents. This was settling the score at the very least. She had the good grace to look slightly sheepish as he quipped about her gesture, tilting her head slightly with her green eyes narrowed. ”How do you know I wasn’t one?” she asked. Like her parents would ever let her do that. Her education had rarely been in school, never in after school activities that didn’t involve her dad, uncle and brothers teaching her how to kill. For as long as she could remember it had been all about the supernatural. Obviously even then she hadn’t learned enough. There was no way she could have known who Ben was, or that Dean had turned his philandering ways into fatherhood but she should have known that there was a new King of Hell. ”I should’ve known that,” she said hoarsely. ”Last I heard it was Crowley.” But then again she’d been out of the loop. Far, far out of the loop.

Sam and Dean right in the middle of the toughest supernatural battleground in their world. Alix stared up at Sam, her mouth open slightly as she shook her head. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been as surprised about learning what they were caught up in as she was. Letting out a long breath, she scrubbed her hands over her face. ”Do you two ever believe in making it easy for yourselves?” Obviously not with the situation they were in. Red brows drew together as Sam continued to explain, her legs unfolding as she pushed herself upright on shaking legs. ”You ended up in a cage in hell with Lucifer? Jesus Sam. What the hell did you get caught up in?” She wanted to ask how to get them the hell back out but there was probably no easy answer for that. Hands that itched with the drying blood were shoved into her hair, fingers tightening until the roots ached. ”This is seriously screwed up. So now he’s back and you’re going to put … that … up against him and this new bunch of kids?” Knowing Sam it wouldn’t be a matter of battling other ‘special children’, it would be about saving them.

For hunters that was all it should’ve been but not all hunters were the same. Alix swallowed back her sudden nausea, chuckling bitterly. Of course Dean was trying to protect his brother. He’d been doing that for as long as she’d known the Winchesters. ”Dean’s watching out for you but that’s probably no comfort.” Family always thought that knew better, her own included. Picturing Ralphy hearing all of this Alix felt the wind go out of her sails. She sank back down, casting her gaze down at her hands as she began to scrub them down her thighs, trying to rid herself of Christian’s blood. ”No demons in my story,” she admitted hoarsely. ”You remember my Uncle Ralphy? Smug bastard, blood thirsty? Well, it looks like he not only arranged to have my aunt and her werewolf husband killed, he had me taken by a group of scientists known as the Dread Doctors. They did something I don’t think was all that different from what Azazel did to his special kids and voila, their little experiment here became a werecoyote.” Alix’s mouth pursed as she spread her arms and let her claws emerge. Green eyes flashed blue for a moment but she still refused to look up at Sam.

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 805

Key lime pie. Damn. She’d never been one to accept that she was screwed, not when he arm had been torn nearly clean off by the first alpha she’d ever faced, not when she’d woken up in the school nothing that something inside of her was fundamentally changed, and not when her life had literally fallen apart around her. Alix had always trusted that there was a way through, even if that path was long and twisted and painful. Every one she’d taken lately had been blood soaked and the feel of it on her skin left her scrubbing at it, trying to rid herself of the knowledge that a few more coins had just dropped into Ralphy’s coffers. Her eyes ticked up to Sam as he suggested she wash up here. She shook her head, her throat working. ”That’s morbid, even for me.” There were wipes in the car, a shower that had seen more blood than was in her own body back at the loft. Alix tilted her head as Sam used her question to pull apart the notion she’d posited about her being a scout. ”Spoilsport,” she said dryly, without any venom. ”We’ll just call it my dad’s version of the scouts.” A place where you got badges for knowing how to kill a crocotta or taking down your first werewolf rather than for memorizing knots or building a campfire.

Her dad was right about certain things though, going in without training, rushing into a situation, both would get you killed. The hunt for Christian had been planned but so many other things in Mystic Falls had been done on the fly and without enough knowledge. She was lucky she wasn’t dead, lucky that hers hadn’t been the family the demons had fixed upon instead. Alix swallowed hard, looking up the long length of Sam’s body. ”I’m sorry,” she managed hoarsely. ”Things should remain dead, especially things like him.” But that was the way of the supernatural world, there was always some fresh torment to ruin lives. Hearing Sam laugh, she dropped her hands away from her face and managed a wan smile. ”You should give it a try some time,” she cautioned. There was a huge difference between shouldering things in their line of work and willingly allowing themselves to get crushed beneath things. Sam was definitely doing the latter now and she reached out for a moment, settling her fingers on Sam’s arm for a moment. Knowing him he went into that cage willingly. His description now had concern etching itself deep into her features. ”If Dean was there then who was the family?” she asked, picturing John there instead. He’d always been a hard man but it wasn’t the end she would’ve waited for him either. Whatever had happened in that café had to have been horrific.

And that horror was now back on earth along with the former, now current King of Hell. It was enough to have her brain exploding inside of her skull. Alix pulled at her hair, trying to bury her own shock at it all. ”So you’re doing all of this on your own?” she asked tightly, shaking her head. ”There’s not wishing it on anybody else and there’s being suicidal, Sam.” And this was definitely the latter but for his family Sam was God damn doing it anyway. Sam’s description of himself had her mouth twisting with just a little sadness to the expression. [”Stubborn and crazy,” she said without rancor. ”You can’t do this on your own.” Not if he wanted it to work but there he was, taking things on his shoulders again in the way that all Winchesters seemed to. Alix’s gaze cut to the now smoldering form of the rugaru. Dean would have done the same had the shoe been on the other foot. ”Would Dean say that it hadn’t even worked out for him before this now?” She’d tried to put aside the supernatural and grab another life for herself out in the wilderness, away from her family but it hadn’t worked any better for her than it had for Sam. They were both here now, having absolutely failed to grab the brass ring.

Ralphy had dragged her back in, stringing her up like a marionette, jerking on those strings to make her dance for him ever since. Bitterness flooded Alix’s throat at the thought of him. She wasn’t surprised that Sam remembered him, Ralphy was always at her dad’s side. Slowly she dragged her knees back up towards her chest, wrapping her arms around them, curling in on her cold core. ”That’s the way it looks like it went down at the moment,” she said with a nod. ”My aunt must’ve fallen in love with something she was meant to kill. They had three kids and Ralphy and my dad still killed them.” After that it wouldn’t have been a great jump to handing over his own niece to the demented scientists. Suddenly it dawned on her that he might’ve done the same thing to Brady’s pack. Christ. It would’ve been easy to sink down into that pit of shock and misery but leave it to Sam to pull her out of it. She let her claws snick back in, her eyes returning to their usual green as she swatted at him. ”Watch who you’re calling weedy,” she warned. Sucking in a breath, Alix pushed to her feet, scrubbing her hands down her thighs again. ”You’re right and we both need to remember that.” Pausing, she glanced at the body of the rugaru and then cursed, spinning around. ”There was a victim … he was bringing someone in when I went after him…”

Tagged: SAM WINCHESTER * Word Count: 951