Meg wakes up on the ground in the alley, staring into her own eyes.
Or, more accurately, her meatsuit's eyes. Emily Winters, Meg remembers, studying the girl's face. Her eyes are wide open and full of fear as she clutches at the wound in her stomach. Her own stomach is throbbing with an identical stab mark, and Meg reaches over to gently brush the hair from her former vessel's face.
"Help me," the girl pleads, blood bubbling at her lips. "You rode me for years and got me into this, so help me." Meg shifts, and blood gushes between her fingers as she hauls herself up and over to the girl.
"You'll owe me," she says. The girl's face contorts in anger.
"You rode me, so you owe me," she spits. Meg's face breaks out into a grin.
"Guess I do," she replies, and zaps them to a motel room.
.
"What, no thank you?" Meg asks, leaning against the wall outside of their door. Emily glares at her and tries to limp to the payphone, but Meg grabs her and tugs her back inside.
"Let me go!" she squeals as Meg slams the door closed.
"Don't think so, sugar. What are you even going to do? Run back to mommy and daddy? They're dead." Emily's face crumples, and Meg almost-gently sets her on the motel bed. "They're dead, and you've been missing for years. What do you think is going to happen to you out there?"
"What do I do?" Emily asks the demon. "You did this to me. You tell me what I should do! Tell me how this happened!"
"I don't know how I didn't die in that alley, and I sure as Hell don't know how two of us wound up there," Meg snaps. "What I do know is that, for some reason, I'm taking care of you. I kept you alive in there for years when I could've let you die under all the torture our pretty little body went through. So don't go get yourself killed."
"They'll think I'm you," Emily whispers. "Crowely's men. They'll think I'm you and they'll take me and oh, oh my God."
"There's no room for God in this, honey."
.
When Emily and Meg are healed, Meg drags her out of the motel room and puts a gun in her hands. "I rode your body for a long time, kiddo. All that memory should still be in there," she explains as she sets up targets. "Let's see what you can do."
By the end of the day, Emily can shoot straight. By the end of the week, Meg's hand to hand combat flows back into her head. At the end of the month, Meg steals a car and tells Emily to get in; she'll drive, and welcomes her to a life of laying low.
"Where will we go?" Emily asks from the passenger seat, staring out the window.
"Doesn't matter. We'll keep running until something happens to Crowley," Meg answers. "After that, I go back to Hell and try to drum up some of the old regime, and you can do whatever you want.".
Emily stiffens and turns to look at Meg. "What will I do without you?" Meg shrugs.
"Whatever you want, kiddo. Crowely's goons will be off you," Meg says. "I'll tell my boys to keep away from your pretty little head, though. I've got my own copy of your meatsuit now, but that doesn't mean I'm not possessive of our body."
.
"I've always wanted to see the ocean in Florida," Emily suggests as they pass through Tennessee.
Meg grunts and changes lanes. "Florida it is then, baby," she says.
.
They're halfway through Texas, in a little diner, when they hear a table of teenagers talking about a ghost in the woods. Emily shies away, but Meg's head perks up in interest. When they've paid with their stolen credit card, Meg drives them to the library and tells Emily to start looking for anything they can find on the haunting.
"You up for digging a grave?" she asks, pulling a shovel out of the bed of their latest truck.
"What?" Emily yelps. Meg rolls her eyes.
"It's been months, Em," Meg says, throwing her a shovel. "It's not anything to get your panties in a twist about. Just a routine salt 'n burn, as the hunters say."
Emily protests the whole way, but when Meg throws the matches onto the corpse, she stays behind and watches it burn with her. Emily glances over and sees Meg's eyes, her own eyes, full of happiness and longing as they stare into the flames.
"You're thinking of Hell," Emily says, pushing Meg's memories out of her mind. The demon turns to her and smirks.
"So are you, sweet cheeks. It's written all over our face."
.
They do salt and burns all around the state after that and Emily gets quicker with each grave they dig. Every time she or Meg throw the matches into the grave, they stay behind to watch the fire, and Emily feels a certain sense of longing for the flames that she can't quiet place. Meg's memories bubble up inside her from the demon's time in Hell as she stares into them, and each time it's more of an effort to push them back down.
When she dreams, Emily dreams of Hellfire and the screams of the damned. She sees Meg's hands cutting into a fresh human soul, and wakes up smelling the blood.
She does not call them nightmares.
.
"Let's do a real hunt," Meg says as they drive through Georgia. Emily pulls away from the window where the sulfur-scented air comes through and stares at Meg with wide eyes.
"What do you mean a real hunt?" she asks. Meg's eyes gleam as she pulls into a rest stop.
"Let's go kill us some monsters." Meg pushes the car door open and steps out. "It's been months, Em. It's time I killed something, and you're not exactly on the list."
"It's dangerous!" Emily protests. "I could get killed!"
"Aw, don't you trust me?" Meg asks. Azazel's voice flashes through Emily's mind. Trust me, daughter. All will be well.
"Of course I don't. You possessed me! I don't even know why I'm traveling with you!" Emily spits. Meg shrugs.
"'Cause you've got nowhere else to go," Meg says. "Besides, I know you miss it, too. The feeling you get when hot blood washes over your hands, when you watch the light leave something's eyes. I see it when you look into the fire." Meg laughs, short and mocking. "Guess I rubbed off on you, spending time inside that meatsuit."
Emily looks away, ashamed. "Nothing too weird, okay?"
Meg bares her teeth in another smile. "I promise."
.
Emily picks up on hunting almost right away with Meg's memories swirling through her head. She stumbles back into the motel room leaning on Meg, splattered with gore from beheading the vampires Meg had found.
She hates to admit that feeling the blood on her skin makes her feel good. She almost doesn't want to wash it off in the shower. Instead, she smears it over her skin and wipes her hand over her face so it coats it, runs her fingers through her hair and feels it stiffen and stain the still-blonde locks.
"You look good enough to eat." Meg walks up next to where she stands in front of the bathroom mirror. Emily stares at Meg's identical reflection and changes her own expression in an imitation of Meg's easy, arrogant smirk.
They're both splattered with blood, and Meg still holds the machete at her side.
"You look like warrior," Meg tells her, reaching over and smoothing back Emily's hair. "Like my own little hellspawn."
The spell breaks, and Emily pushes herself away from Meg and steps into the shower, clothes and all. She doesn't begin to undress until Meg leaves the bathroom, laughing to herself.
I'm not like her, Emily thinks as she watches the blood swirl down the drain. Please, God, don't let me be like her.
.
Two months after the first hunt, they finish killing a kitsune in Idaho and Meg drags her to the bar. Even when she was in LA, trying to become an actress, Emily had never been fond of bars. They were seedy places with overpriced drinks and annoyingly grabby men that she never liked getting dragged to.
This time was no exception, but Meg tells her that she needs to let a little loose, and that she hasn't had a good fuck in ages and intends to find some other way to blow off steam.
"There's nothing like fucking after killing something," Meg tells her as they pull into the parking lot. "You'll get it, one day."
Still, she doesn't move from the bar until Meg walks back inside after leaving with a burly man, a satisfied smile on her face. "I thought you were in love with that Castiel guy," Emily comments. Meg makes a face and orders a shot.
"So? I'm a demon, Em," she says, lifting the glass to her lips. "Clarence ain't here, and it's not a thing like it is with you humans." Emily grunts and continues to nurse her beer.
"He was a good kisser, though. I remember that."
"Oh, yeah. That was one wild night, wasn't it, Emmy?"
.
They're in New Jersey when Meg's eyes slide to black and she pulls Emily into a random arcade on the boardwalk. "Demons," she hisses, pulling her by her hand to the back exit.
"Do you still have the angel blade?" Emily whispers. Meg nods and reaches into her jacket, fingering the blade Crowley had stupidly left in her hand in the alley.
"Can't do it here, though" Meg tugs her out of the arcade and pulls her into the bathrooms. "Good thing its winter," Meg comments as they walk to the back of the empty bathroom. Emily watches Meg draw the angel blade over her own arm before she paints a small devil's trap in front of the bathroom door.
The two demons rush in and curse at them as they try to step out of the trap. Meg smirks and hands her the knife. "I can't get out of there, so the honor is all yours." The feeling of sliding the blade into dozens of different demons over the years flashes through her mind, and Emily's hands tighten on the hilt. "Any way you wanna do it, sweetie."
"But…aren't there people in there?" Emily asks.
"Even if they're still alive in there, without the demon they'd die, anyway," Meg says. "Do you want them running back to Crowley and telling him about this thing that happened?" Emily shakes her head. "Then go ahead. I know you want to. Remember how many demons tortured us? Aren't you angry? Don't you want revenge?"
She reaches into the circle and slits the first demon's throat, closing her eyes as orange light explodes out of him and hot blood washes over her face. She blinks it out of her eyes as she steps into the trap and shoves the blade into the second one's stomach. This time, she looks into its eyes as she kills it, and watches the light fade before the body slumps to the ground. She breaks the trap for Meg and hands her back the knife when she's done, and feels the blood already drying sticky on her skin.
"Oh, don't you look pretty," Meg says dryly, tucking the blade back into her jacket. The demon reaches over and cups her face, running her hands along Emily's cheekbones. She closes her eyes and leans into the touch, images of Lucifer, doing the same in Carthage all those years ago, flash through her mind.
Meg leans in and presses her cheek to Emily's. "I knew you missed it."
.
They kill a lot of demons after that. Meg sniffs them out and traps them for her, in warehouses and fields and back alleys. At first, Meg hands her the angel blade and Emily kills them quickly, watching the light leave their eyes with a smirk of satisfaction on her face, until Meg tells her to take her time.
"Work off some steam, sweet cheeks," Meg suggests, standing immobile in the devil's trap. The demon they'd caught hissed that them through the mouth of a forty-something accountant, and Emily hands Meg the angel blade.
"Show me," she demands, standing behind Meg's shoulder. Her own face grins back at her and Meg raises the blade.
"Of course."
.
Meg acquires more tools for the trunk of their stolen car, and Emily learns what each one can do to a demon. In an abandoned warehouse in Maine, she learns how a demon will scream when holy water is forced down their throat. In the woods in northern Washington, she learns what salt water will do when forced into a demon's bloodstream. Out in the desert in Nevada, she learns which parts cause the most pain when cut, and how the screams change in pitch when she twists the blade in a shallow wound or a deep one.
Meg stands behind her all the while, correcting her, teaching her, guiding her hand.
After, covered in blood, they burn the bodies. In a snowy wood in Michigan, Emily reaches out and takes her twin's hand as they watch the flames.
"I remember Hell," she says, squeezing Meg's hand. "Your memories of it." Meg stares into the flames and Emily reads longing on her face. "I miss it. How can I miss somewhere I've never been?"
Meg does not answer.
.
They're somewhere in Kansas when Emily accidentally drinks demon blood.
She doesn't close her mouth when she slits the twentysomething pre-school teacher's throat and she can feel it trickle down her own, leaving behind the aftertaste of sulfur. She stumbles away from the body and chokes, falling to her knees.
Meg laughs when she sees it and kneels beside Emily on the floor of the little cave in the woods. "Oh, babycakes, it's that just delightful?" she says, rubbing the girl's back. "It's in you now, like I was."
You still are, Emily thinks as she presses her blood-covered forehead to the dirt. That's why I can remember everything you can. That's why I stayed. That's why I'm doing this. You're poison.
Meg burns the body, and Emily does not watch the flames.
.
She sneaks sips of demon blood after that, licking it from her fingers when Meg's back is turned or swiping it off the angel blade when the demon suggests they switch to other methods of torture.
Each time she does, her strength increases just a little. It reminds her of how her body was when Meg was in it, and her dreams of Hell become more vivid with each demon she drinks from. Whenever she cuts into a new demon, Emily stares at the blood flowing from their vessels with longing.
Meg pretends she doesn't see.
.
The demon on their makeshift rack struggles and screams, and Emily watches the blood flow from his vessel with a hungry look in her eyes. She's stronger now, not strong like Meg, but strong enough to almost lift the burly demon by herself. Something in her head whispers that if she drank more, she'd be stronger, like her twin.
She leans down and presses her lips to the wound in the demon's side and Meg jerks her back by her hair. "No, not him," she growls, dropping them both to the floor. "You want to get stronger, you can drink from me." Emily watches the demon drag the angel blade across the skin above he left breast and she leans forward as Meg gathers her in her arms. "Go ahead, sweet cheeks. Drink up."
Emily clamps her mouth over the wound and sucks the blood from it while Meg rubs her back with one hand and cups her head with the other. "That's it, just drink. Take as much as you want," she whispers, allowing the obscene parody of nursing to continue. "Drink, baby, drink."
Emily does, letting Meg's blood flow down her throat. When she unlatches herself from Meg's chest and stares up into her own eyes, she can see the demon underneath for just a moment. Her mouth burns like fire and tastes like sulfur, but she can feel the strength flowing through her veins.
She tears a chunk of the demon's flesh from its side with her bare hands. When she grins at Meg, the demon smiles back and focuses on Emily's bloodstained teeth.
.
They hunt a ghoul in Arkansas, and Emily stands in the motel room for a long time, after, staring at herself in the mirror.
Her hair is still blonde, and blood and dirt are streaked through it like highlights, clinging to the matted locks that are plastered to her head. She's covered in dirt and gore from head to toe, smeared on her face like a thick layer of paint.
"You're beautiful," Meg says from behind her, turning on the sink.
We're beautiful, Emily thinks. Meg smiles at her in the mirror.
"Like the good old days, huh?" she asks, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "You want any?" Emily latches onto the small cut on her neck right away, licking away the dirt to lap at the blood welling there. Meg strokes her hair as she sucks on the demon's neck. When she's had her fill, Emily leans her head against Meg's shoulder, and Meg just continues to stroke Emily's blood-stiff hair. "Like I said, you could be my little hellspawn. You even look just like me."
Emily doesn't push away.
.
"D'ya wanna see Hell?" Meg asks as they drive through Louisiana. "After Crowley's dead, I could take ya down with me. Wouldn't want to leave you up here, drinking from random demons, all by your lonesome."
Images of torture chambers flash through Emily's mind. Places where all the tools you would ever need would be laid out for her to use, an endless parade of demons needing to be punished placed in front of her to play with.
"I want to," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. Meg smiles at her.
"That's my girl."
.
She drinks from Meg almost every night, curled up in a random backwater motel. The wound above Meg's breast is a permanent scab now, re-opened whenever Emily crawls into her twin's lap to drink. Meg holds her while she does and rocks her, whispering stories of the torture chambers of Hell into her ears.
"It's where you belong, darling," she whispers one night, stroking Emily's hair as she sucks the blood from Meg's breast. "You belong with me in Hell, daughter. Malka."
Emily raises her head from the wound and lays her head on Meg's shoulder. "Malka?"
"Queen," Meg whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "My little queen of Hell." Emily closes her eyes and leans into Meg's neck.
"Mother," she whispers into the cool flesh.
"As Azazel was my father," Meg tells her, stroking her hair. "I will bring you to the Pit and make you one of us."
Emily curls against her and sleeps.
.
They meet Dean in Kansas, blood from another demon torture session dripping from Emily as she stands there on the road. Dean's mouth hangs open when he sees them, and Emily stands up straighter.
"Hey ya, Deano," Meg says with a smirk.
"How in the Hell are you alive?" Dean shouts. "When did you get a twin?"
"I dunno what happened, but when I woke up in that alley, the girl I was riding was next to me. Emily, you remember Dean, don't you?" Meg asks. Emily's eyes narrow at the man and she steps closer to Meg. "We took care of the demon, do you can be on your merry way now."
"You dragged her into this?" Dean accuses, pointing at Emily. She snarls at him and bares her teeth, the blood on her face glistening black in the moonlight. "She's innocent!"
"She wanted to come," Meg snaps, taking Emily's hand in her own and squeezing it. "She's mine, Dean. Back off."
"I don't care if you did help us, I'll kill you if you don't let her go," Dean warns, pulling the demon knife from his jacket. "Enough with the demonic Stockholm Syndrome."
"Let's go," Emily whispers. "Mother, please." Dean's eyes fly open at the word mother, but Emily stares at the knife and blinks rapidly as her eyes begin to hurt. Dean snarls at them and takes a step forward, but Meg gives him a cheery wave before she moves them to their motel.
When she looks at her reflection in the motel mirror, Emily sees black eyes staring back at her.
.
"We'll kill Crowely soon," Meg promises as Emily drinks from her. "You're almost strong enough, sweet cheeks." Emily continues to suck the blood from the wound above Meg's breast, gripping the demon's shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. "He won't be able to kill the both of us, not together. We're the rightful queens of Hell, you and I. Azazel's blood."
Emily remembers Meg's loyalty to Lucifer, and as she drinks more blood, the loyalty seems to thrum in her, too. Crowley betrayed his God, and his rightful queen. He cannot live.
"Can I do it, Mother?" she asks, her fingers brushing over her own scar from the stab wound. She reaches out and runs her fingers along the one on Meg's stomach, identical to her own.
"If you want to get him back for stabbing us that badly," Meg answers. Emily feels her eyes slide to black as she begins to drink again.
.
When Emily kills Crowley, she feels a weight inside her lifted. The demon chokes on his own blood as she thrusts the angel blade through his throat. When she pulls it out, his blood sprays her, burning like the fires of Hell she half-remembers from Meg inside her head.
Meg smiles and presses a kiss to her mouth, and when she pulls away, Crowely's blood is smeared there. "Good girl," she whispers against Emily's skin.
"Mother, can we go home now?" Emily asks, turning away from Crowley's body. Meg smirks and takes her hand.
"Anything you want, daughter," she promises. Emily's eyes slide to black in time with Meg's, and she feels something rippling under the surface of her skin. "You're so beautiful," Meg whispers, running a hand over her cheek. "Almost perfect. You're ready to be born."
Meg takes her to Hell, and Emily walks through the fire as the last of her humanity begins to burn. Demons whisper around them as Meg leads her deeper into Hell and announces Crowley is dead, and that she is their new Queen.
"One day you'll be, kiddo," she says, leading Emily to the torture chambers. She pushes her into one of the rooms and toward the souls chained to the rack. Her human parents stare at her and gasp, struggling against their bonds. "They don't deserve to be here, but I managed to get them, just for you. A welcome home present." Emily stares, and Meg gives her another push. "Aren't you gonna thank me?"
Silently, Emily selects a tool from the selection laid out on the table next to the rack before turning back to Meg. "Thank you, Mother," she says quietly, moving toward the rack. Her human mother begins to weep as Emily raises the blade and begins to cut.
"Good girl," Meg says. She leans back and watches the last of Emily Winters' soul crumble away.