lux_tuli

Title: "Sam in Wonderland"

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: Teen

Pairing(s): Gen-fic, past Sam Winchester x Jessica Moore

Characters: Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore, Lucifer, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Crowley, Death

Word Count: 5,058

Summary: [AU] Sam finds himself sucked into a journey that appears to have taken a page out of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. He slowly starts to wonder if he has lost his mind...or there is something else lurking beneath the surface of this quite vivid hallucination.

Written for: Sam Winchester Big Bang

Originally posted: March 17, 2017
Artwork by: illiminal

It was if it all was just a dream. Sam had woken up in a bed of flowers deep in the woods wearing a blue dress, knowing not of how he came to be here and his own memories were as hazy as a dense cloud of fog. Since when had he taken up cross dressing? He did remember, through the cracks that existed in the haze, that he used to get comments back at Stanford that he had the legs for it. Jessica used to tease him about wearing one of her short dresses, though Sam was pretty sure that if he had tried to put it on that it would not even cover his ass.

“Dean?” Sam called out, wondering where his brother was as he was nowhere in sight and Dean was not the type to abandon him in the middle of the woods, at least not willingly. However, he received no answer. There was no point in hanging around so he pressed onwards, dress-clad as he was. He did not stop calling out for his brother.

It was if the woods did not end because no matter how far he walked, Sam could not find a road or exit. Suddenly, a white rabbit standing upright and walking on its back legs darted across chanting, “I’m late!”

The odd thing about it, beside the rabbit walking as if it were bipedal, was the voiced sounded awfully familiar. His brow furrowed in deep thought before saying, “Dean, is that you?” But regardless of whether the rabbit did not hear him or was ignoring him, it had carried on until it stopped in front of an Aspen tree, whose leaves were tinted in shades of yellow and red, before jumping down a hole by the trunk.

Sam kneeled down to inspect the hole. It was far too deep, Sam could not even determine where it ended, to be one that someone had dug with a shovel. All the meanwhile he pondered whether he should follow after the rabbit that oddly sounded like his brother or carry on and try to find an end to the woods.

Taking a big gulp of air to push down the nervousness, Sam dove into the hole to face whatever awaited at the other end.

---

The haze around his mind that was blocking his memories were slowly starting to dissipate, as sluggishly as sands in an hourglass.

He had been falling but it was if time itself had frozen around him. Amidst the darkness, the stern and elderly face of Death stared at him. Not that he had anything against the Horseman since he had been kind enough to hand over his ring, the only Horseman that they did not have to fight for the ring, so that they could send Lucifer back into the Cage but he knew that seeing Death was never a good thing as his business was primarily in reaping souls of the deceased. But as far as Sam could recall, he was not dead...however, how certain could he be of this?

“You’re a foolish boy, I said explicitly to not touch the wall.” He reprimanded in a stern manner. Sam became confused as he did not understand what “wall” that he was referring to.

“I’m sorry...what?” He responded, trying to convey that he was not following what he was saying.

“Human minds...so fragile.” Death let out a sigh, “yet you humans can also be so resilient...perhaps it is too soon to write you off just yet.” He contemplated.

“Look, I have no clue what are you talking about. What’s wrong with me?” Sam asked just as the figure of Death faded away. He let out a curse.

---

Sam regained consciousness in a bed of purple limonium and red poppies, he was laid out on his back staring up at the clear blue sky. It was rather bizarre as he had dove through a hole yet there was no sign of it. It was if the hole had teleported him to another location. As he sat himself up, he noticed that there was no trace of the white rabbit that he had been following after.

He was yet in another set of woods but at least this time there was a clear path laid out in brick. There was no better alternative that he could observe so Sam decided to follow the brick road. Eventually he came to a fork in the road, the wooden sign was unhelpful as it had the right direction labeled as “left” and vice versa, which did not provide any sense of where he was. Most signs would give the name of nearby towns and landmarks along with the distance to them.

Then again, nothing made sense in this place. It was like being inside a carnival fun house but on a much grander scale.

“Oh dear, which way indeed?” A familiar sounding voice spoke suddenly, almost startling Sam. He looked up and saw a bizarre cat with purple and magenta stripes that had a huge red lollipop in its mouth. He just stopped trying to ask questions because it made his head hurt trying to understand so he did not bother to wonder why a cat was eating candy.

“Don’t you know?”

“Hmm...do I? What do I know? What do you know, Samwich?” Gabriel, Sam had realized, the use of the nickname had allowed him to instantly connect the dots between the voice and the individual. Speaking of the archangel, could this be another one of his trickster constructs?

But no, Gabriel was dead...wasn’t he?

Regardless, he glared at the feline creature for being largely unhelpful and randomly decided which path to take. He could only hope that he chose wisely.

The scenery had changed from a near endless barrage of trees to huge purple leaves and oversized fungus. Sure, he had grown sick from seeing nothing but trees - however, this was not much better as an alternative. Amidst the cluster of mushrooms, he found a caterpillar, which was about a thousand times bigger than an ordinary one, sitting on top of a mushroom smoking a pipe.

“What do you desire?” The large caterpillar, which oddly sounded like Crowley - was this going to be a recurring theme, asked and puffed smoke into his face.

“I just want to go home and everything be normal.” Sam emphasized by tugging at the end of his dress.

“But, can you handle it? Are you ready to face what awaits you? I’m not too sure…”

“And who gave you the right to decide?”

“You have mistaken me. The decision is not mine to make. Rather, it rest entirely with you.”

---

Sam then stumbled into a garden of roses that were being painted red. Inside the clearing of the garden, he saw a regal figure bent over of a flamingo that was being used as a golf club. The person noticed his presence and paused the game to look at him, lifting up the flamingo so it was upright.

“Lucifer.” He froze as he saw the familiar form of Nick but he was wearing a golden crown and a red and black dress that had a strong v neckline, exposing his chest. Not that he could see much of the skin as it was pulled back to reveal a grotesque looking heart. He knew that angels were technically genderless entities, wavelengths of light as he was told, but since when did the Devil start wearing dresses? Then again, Sam had found himself wearing a dress even though he normally harbored no inclinations for it.

“Samuel. You should not be here, at least not yet.” He spoke lightly with an unreadable expression on his face. Why is it that everyone that he had talked to had been unhelpful and extremely vague in their responses? It was as if they were intentionally keeping him in the dark of what was going on.

However, Sam would not be deterred from asking questions in attempt to get at the truth, “How do you figure that?”

“You’re not ready to face me.” He pursed his lips as he consider his following words, “In video games, the protagonist does not face the boss until the very end. To rush into the battle without proper preparation would mean certain death.” Sam lingered not on the fact that Lucifer was expounding knowledge about video games, despite how ironic it was that the Devil knew quite a bit of popular culture when he loathed everything about humans.

“This isn’t a video game.” He stated firmly. Sam might not have been entirely sure what this was but he knew that it was not a video game at the very least.

“No, it isn’t. The stakes are much more real. Isn’t that right, Michael?” Lucifer titled his head to look at the flamingo that he was holding in his hands. The flamingo gave him an unimpressed look. With a wave of his hand, a pair of playing cards acting like guards grabbed him and carried him out of the garden.

Sam was still reeling from his interaction with Lucifer as he stood up from where the guards had thrown him carelessly onto the ground. The Devil had manipulated him in the past, invading his dreams - going so far as to wear Jessica’s face in attempt to sweet talk him - in attempt to garner his consent but this felt totally different from that. This was not about him saying yes.

Scanning the area opposite from the gardens, Sam debated on where to go next. All he could see were more woods with no clear path laid out before him. He supposed that he was just going to have to forge his own path.

Eventually, he stumbled upon a long wooden table inside a small clearing occupied by a bunch of animals and a Cas look a-like wearing a large top hat and a bright suit, a sharp contrast to the dull tone of his standard trenchcoat. The animals paused in their activities and stared up to him as they noticed his presence.

The awkward silence was broken by an oddly joyful remark from Castiel, “Hello, hello, have you come to join us for the unbirthday party? Come now, have a seat, don’t be shy.”

Sam was ushered into a seat beside a hare, with a brown coat as opposed to the white one that the one representing his brother possessed. He really wanted to protest as he should really figure out what was going on and getting out of this quite vivid hallucination but Castiel was insisted. Once he was settled, Castiel took his place at the head of the table.

“Now, friends, thank you for joining me on this joyous day.” He stood in front of the chair to address the group of attendees,“I wish you all a very merry unbirthday and I hope that all your wishes come true.”

Lulled by the deep, soothing tone of Castiel’s voice, Sam lost himself in his own thoughts, the party and the forest fading out of his vision, swept away by muddied darkness as memories washed over him.

---

Jessica smiled so brightly, it was as if it could lighten up the whole room. She often found delight in the simple things of life, like stumbling upon a flower starting to bloom or an adorable animal that she wanted to pet.

“What are your plans for the future?” She has asked while they were out on a date at an art museum, head resting against his shoulder as they gazed up at the painting of St Michael casting out Lucifer. The painting had not held much meaning to him back then. Sure, he had always believed in the existence of God and the angels but Sam had never envisioned that he would get to know them or that he would be Lucifer’s true vessel.

Sam had taken a moment to ponder her question. Back then, he had a lot of dreams for the future, he had thought that Jess was the one and that they would get married then start a family. Unfortunately, Brady, and by extension Azazel and Lucifer, had ruined any chance of that.

“One with you in it.” Sam had beamed at her, which caused her to smile back and smack him playfully.

“I mean besides that, silly.” Jess laughed.

“It would be nice to one day have my own firm and make a difference.” While Sam did have faith in the justice system, he was not blind to its faults.

Countless number of people are wrongly convicted and end up losing a good chunk of their life by time evidence comes out to prove their innocence, generally years later. And in return, they are provided with little compensation for an act that changes their whole life. Unfortunately, in many cases, the stigma remained even when proven not guilty.

“Look at you, Mister Hero.” Jess innocently teased, blissfully unaware of the life that he had left behind. He had been tempted to tell her the truth about the family business but he thought that ignorance would protect her, not worry about ever getting tangled up into the supernatural.

If only.

“I would hardly call myself that.” It had just been part of the job to save people. And even then, as Sam looked back at all the mistakes that he had made, trusting the wrong people and making poor decisions, he could not look back at himself in pride.

He had believed in Ruby, who guided him towards cultivating his psychic powers by tainting himself with demon blood and killing Lilith in vengeance, only to let Lucifer loose onto the world to jumpstart the Apocalypse. All those people that had died, from the devastation that the Horsemen had wrought to the destruction that Lucifer and the other angels had left in their wake. And poor Adam, their half brother, who had been content in heaven to only be cruelly plucked out to be used as a tool for Michael.

Taking his swan dive into the Cage with Lucifer had been his act of penance for his sins.

“Don’t be so modest.” She nudged him.

---

Sam is jostled awake by a firm hand shaking him by the shoulder. As he lifted his head up from the wooden table, he is presented with Castiel, still donning his ludicrous outfit. He tsked at him, “You missed out on most of the fun. Everyone else has already gone home.”

It was true. As Sam looked around, the table was devoid of the guests that had occupied it earlier, just him and Castiel. He let out a weak apology, “Sorry, I guess that I am just tired.”

“Perhaps you should find your own way home then. You do remember where home is, don’t you?” He responded cryptically. What exactly was home to Sam? Certainly not their childhood house that was set ablaze in Lawrence. And Sam and his brother travelled too much on the road for their hunts to have a stable location to settle down at.

“I don’t…” Sam started, unsure of how to answer that.

“I think you do know, deep down.” Castiel interjected.

“None of you make sense.” Sam shook his head in frustration.

“You are the one that doesn’t make any sense. But if you’re that desperate for guidance then perhaps you should seek out the White Queen.”

The White Queen? Strange, for how much this hallucination seemed to have taken a page out of the Disney adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic, she was not a character to be found in it. No, she was from the original.

“I bid you a good day and a very merry unbirthday. May your wish reach fruition.” Castiel bid him farewell, leaving him alone at the table as he walked off. Sam rose up from the chair and scanned his surroundings. Of course, it was still nothing but trees with no clear path.

“Decisions, decisions, though it must be hard to use reason when you’re in a place devoid of it.” He heard Gabriel’s voice echo around him and Sam looked around to find where it was coming from. He found him floating in the air behind him.

“Enough with the riddles.” He snapped. Gabriel grinned and bounced in the air around him.

“Why don’t ya make me?”

“You’re insufferable.” Sam huffed out in irritation. Somehow this distorted version of Gabriel was more annoying than the real thing. But despite of everything - how he killed Dean over and over again to just make a point to him then trapped them in a television world to make them say yes - Gabriel had been the one that guided them towards finding an end for the Apocalypse when they had been unable to find a method on their own.

The literal keys to Lucifer’s Cage.

---

One day Jessica had gotten a call from her father that her grandmother had passed away and Sam had went along with her to the funeral to provide emotional support. Sam had never had the fortune of knowing any of his grandparents but Jess had been rather close to hers. She had told him stories of how her grandmother, Eleanor, had always baked her cookies and taught her how to crochet. Jess had used those skills to crochet him a scarf for one of his birthdays.

He sat beside her during the mass, arm wrapped around her shoulder. It pained him to watch the woman that he loved so much be in so much agony. Unfortunately, death was something that Sam had been faced with since a young age, all starting with his mother. The hunting life was a dangerous one and not many hunters lived long enough to ever consider retirement.

Following the viewing there was a two day viewing before she would actually be buried, marking the first non-hunter funeral he had been to. Salt and burn the corpse was the way they said farewell to their fellow hunters, to ensure that they would not come back as one of the many things that they hunt. Well, hunted, Sam corrected as he had no intention of returning to that life.

Oh, how wrong he had been.

“Do you think she’s in a better place?” Jess had rasped out, voice hoarse from crying and tear strains streaked down her face.

“I do. I bet you she is looking down at you right now thinking how proud she is of you.” He had truly believed in heaven, long before he actually had the opportunity to visit and remember his time there.

Hell was only the punishment for unrepentant sinners.

---

The forest eventually led into another clearing, this time much larger to accommodate a pond, the koi fish swimming were of bright odd shades of pink, green, and yellow, and beyond that sat a pure white castle, a large balcony overseeing the pond. There was a figure standing out on the balcony, which Sam almost did not catch at first as she was covered in a white dress that blended into the walls of the castle. Long blond hair was pulled up into a stylish ponytail and a set of white roses pinned to the left side of her head, just over the ear.

His breath hitched, pulse started to race, and palms grew sweaty as he realized the identity of the so called “White Queen”.

Jess.

Sam tried to remind himself that this was not real, his girlfriend had long been dead. He let out a growl of frustration, nails digging into the palms of his own fists. Was this another trick from Lucifer?

The Devil had done it before, stealing her face to pay him a visit after he had parted ways from his brother and taken up a brief stay at the Great Plains Motel. Tried to manipulate him into saying yes.

She beckoned him with a wave of a hand, telling him to meet her up on the balcony. How tempting it was to turn his back to her and walk away. But Castiel had implied that she was the key to escaping from this nonsense. He navigated through the pristine, almost clinical, walls of the castile until he found his way to Jess.

“Jess.” He gasped, tears almost threatening to spill down his face but the White Queen kindly shook her head with a sad smile. Oh, how he missed her, even just the little things that they used to do together.

“I’m not her but you already know that, don’t you?” And Sam was immensely grateful that she did not respond to him with a riddle or a cryptic message.

“What is this? I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“In a way, you are.” She answered simply but did not provide any further explanation. “I know that you desire to seek a way out of this haze of confusion but I am afraid that you cannot escape until you have confronted the Queen of Hearts.”

“You mean Lucifer. I ran into him before and he told me that I was not ready yet. Any idea on how to take care of him?”

“There is no weapon or item in existence that will secure your victory. Success will have to come from within.”

“I don’t understand.” Sam voiced his confusion.

“I know that the weight of your memories is almost too much to bear but you cannot afford to run from them anymore.” Jess answered then started to take a stroll around the castle, Sam trailing after her like a lost puppy.

She stopped as she reached the parlor with a gilded cage on top of a round white table. Even as she bowed her head to look inside, Sam noted that the cage was empty and was perplexed at what she was staring at.

“What are you…?” He started to ask but was interrupted but her smooth voice.

“Seems familiar, doesn’t it? But it’s not your prison, not anymore.” Jess lifted her head to look back at him.

---

He was strung up on a meat hook, limbs dangling helplessly beneath him, as Lucifer snarled and carved up his skin with a knife. The Cage had been the archangel’s punishment for rebelling against God so how was he able to have such power over him?

Sam did his best to not cry out in pain, to not give the Devil the satisfaction, but he had his limits of what he could handle. This torture went beyond simple gunshot wounds and cuts and bruises.

Lucifer made it his mission to tear him apart slowly then rebuild him to start over again, frothing at the mouth, “I would have given you everything! Given you paradise that heaven would never grant you!”

---

The flash of the memory left as quickly as it had came and Sam found himself staring back at the regal figure of the White Queen, who stood there patiently watching him.

“That is the way.” She assured him. Sam was then alarmed as the ground started to violently shake and the castle walls around him started to crumble. Strange that a castle which seemed like it was built to be strong enough to endure would collapse so easily. He wanted to shout at her to leave and get to safety but she calmly remained in place, giving him a soft smile.

Sam cried out as he became buried by the debri.

---

Once the quakes had settled and the debri had ceased falling, Sam had pushed and crawled his way out, finding himself back in the familiar rose garden from before, where he knew Lucifer was going to be waiting. There was nothing of the white castle left, as if it had never existed, nor was the White Queen anywhere in sight.

He found the Queen of Hearts at the end of the rose garden, the card soldiers paid him no attention as he walked by, stroking at the flamingo cupped in his right hand absentmindedly. Lucifer’s face twisted into a grin as he looked at him, “Finally ready, are you?”

“Ready to get the hell out of here, definitely.” Sam nodded. He still was not entirely sure on how to overcome the Queen of Hearts as Jess had been evasive but he would find a way. A Winchester always did.

“Then prove it!”

“You're nothing but a pack of cards! You don’t hold any power over me! Not any longer!” He bellowed.

“More!”

“I am stronger than my memories! You might have tried to break me in the Cage but you have failed.”

“Failed? But your noggin is cracking under the pressure!”

“Then I will put all the pieces back together and heal. I won’t allow you to keep me here for another moment.” Sam stated firmly.

The words worked like magic as the scenery around him started to melt into darkness and as he saw a bright light starting to form in the distance. He vaguely heard a masculine voice say, “ He is starting to awake .”

---

It was as if the haze that had loomed over his mind had finally dispersed completely once the darkness had disappeared and Sam became overtaken by the light. He was finally met with clarity as memories of his time in the Cage rushed through his mind.

Lucifer had been angry that Sam managed to take control back from him and tossed him back into his prison. He had never wanted to go back there, the Cage was agony and isolation. Michael had been frustrated from being dragged along with them saying that he did not deserve to be there. Sam took the brunt of their anger, Adam being spared for the most part since he had very little do with the situation.

Dean had never told him what being tortured in Hell was like but Sam supposed that what he had endured had been close to it. Lucifer and Michael might have had their differences but they pushed that aside and worked together for the sake of hurting him. Michael favored physical means of harming him, scorching him with fire in particular, but Lucifer leaned towards more psychological methods, made easy by the fact that he had been inside his head.

Even though he had told his brother to not try to find a way to get him out, deep down he knew that Dean would try and had all the faith that he would succeed. However, Lucifer attempted to squash his hopes by telling him that Dean did not care and had forgotten about him, just like they had forgot about Adam.

They had not forgotten about their half brother and Sam had continuously beat himself up over what happened to him. They had failed to save him from being manipulated into saying yes to Michael.

---

Sam blinked his eyes, wincing at the intensity of the light inside the room. Once he was no longer blinded, he glanced at his surroundings. He was lying on a hospital bed with Dean seated on a chair beside the bed and Death standing beside him.

“And so the slumbering maiden awakes.” Death drawled out. Dean practically jumped out of his chair and hovered over him, face set in deep concern and relief at the same time.

“Sammy, how are you feeling?”

“Very confused and relieved that you’re no longer hopping around as a white rabbit,” Sam answered with a bit of humor. Dean looked at him as if he was crazy.

“What…!?” His brother sputtered out.

“I believe that in order for Samuel’s mind to cope with his memories of the Cage, it had constructed a quite vivid delusion until he was strong enough to face reality and hence awaken from his coma.” Death answered smoothly.

“Well...that explains why I felt like I was on a major acid trip the whole time. I was basically Alice in freaking Wonderland.” Sam was relieved that it was not the product of a djinn or trickster and that he was not losing his marbles.

“With the dress?” Dean asked and Sam rolled his eyes.

He ignored him to address Death, “You know, I remember there was this part that did not really match the rest of the hallucination....I was talking with you. That was you, wasn’t it?” It was possibly the only real thing to have happened.

“You are correct. I had attempted to make contact with you inside your mind but the connection only lasted briefly as your mind promptly shut me out.” Death explained with mild amusement.

“About Adam…” Sam started, thinking Death was the best shot at getting their half brother out. Death’s look turned thoughtful.

“Fret not. When I had retrieved your soul from inside the Cage, I had also restored Adam to where he belongs.” All this time thinking Adam had been left alone with two angry archangels, he had been safe in Heaven. It was surprising, however, considering Death had given Dean an ultimatum between him and Adam.

“Wait, he’s on earth!?” Dean sounded optimistic but Sam knew better.

“In Heaven.” Death corrected, “Those whiny brats were foolish to meddle. Why God entrusted them with watching over the afterlife of humans, I have no idea.”

Dean look devastated.

“It’s for the best, De.” Sam spoke softly.

“Now that Sam has recovered, it is time for me to take my leave. I do have other business to attend to,” Death shot an accusing look at Dean. Hopefully his brother had not been stupid to try binding the Horseman again, especially considering after the last time Death had warned him to not test his patience.

“Thanks,” Sam said to him before the Horseman left, a small smile tugging at his lips, “Perhaps we should get started on getting me out of here, I’m not a huge fan of hospitals.”

“You and me both.” Dean let out a small chuckle.

---

As Sam approached the temporary holding cell that Rowena had constructed to hold Lucifer, he found that he was not scared. Even though this was the real deal and not some twisted and false version generated by his mind, he knew that he had the strength to endure through this.

He would not break. He would not crumble.

No, he would stand strong against whatever the Devil would throw at him.