SAVED TO SAVE
CHAPTER ONE
"Here," Ruby spat, throwing what looked like bean bags at the brothers as she stood at the foot of their hotel room beds. "Hex bags. They'll protect you - throw Lilith off your trail." Her lip curled slightly. "For now."
Sam turned the bag over in his hands. "Thanks. For-"
"Shut up," the female demon spat. "Don't you dare thank me. Not after this." She waved her hand toward the television screen, where the special report of the police station's decimation was still rolling out. "Lilith killed everyone - can't you realise that? She slaughtered your precious little virgin you were trying to protect and half a dozen people besides!" She crossed her arms and tilted her head, tossing her blonde hair over one shoulder as she did so. "So, after all your big talk about humanity even in war? Turns out your plan was the one with the body count!"
Sam and Dean looked at each other, struck dumb in the face of her vehemence.
Ruby made a disgusted sound, throwing her hands up. "Do you even know how to run a battle?"
"Do you even know how to shut up?"
The Winchesters were suddenly on their feet, guns drawn and pointed at the dark-haired man in the business suit leaning against their motel doorway, arms crossed over his chest and legs crossed lazily at the ankle.
"Crowley," Ruby snarled.
Sam blinked. "Wait - like Alistair Crowley? Writer of the Satanic Bible?"
"Aaaah, the Moose has a brain," the newcomer purred, his voice holding a distinctly British accent. "Good call - although I'm not him." He clicked his tongue. "Adore his name, though."
"Whatever he wants," Ruby bit out, "don't accept."
"Oooohh." He pushed off of the doorframe and stood up. "Big words from Lilith's right hand bitch herself."
"Wait - what?" Dean roared.
Ruby glared at him. "Shut up, Crowley."
"I'm here on business, Blondie," he snapped at her. "And looking for answers. For instance - there's the little matter of one of my girls making a deal for a soul that she has no right to. There's the little matter of just what Azazel's little minions brought back when that deal was made. And then - of course - there's the matter of what in the bloody blue hell the crown princess of half of Hell herself is doing sending her most trusted operative to pretend she's fighting against her?"
"Ruby, what's going on?" Sam demanded.
"Oh, Ruby is it this time?" Crowley chuckled. "Seems you went by another name last time I ran across you. And it seems you were manipulating my girls into making deals behind my back that time, too."
"Ruby," Dean barked out. "Answer Sam!"
"Yes, Ruby," Crowley spat, his head tilting. "Answer Sam. Tell him the truth for once - tell him that Azazel and Lilith have been manipulating his family for decades to try to trigger the bloody Apocalypse, using the Winchesters as their pawns in a civil war with nothing less than Hell and Earth itself as their prize!"
Ruby's fists clenched.
"Go on!" Crowley roared. "Answer them!"
"Go back to hell," she snarled.
Crowley laughed. "You'd love that. Then you could continue to pull the wool over their trusting little eyes and continue the merry manipulations!" He turned to Sam and Dean. "I'm here with a counteroffer, buckos."
"What counteroffer?" Dean asked.
"Man after my own heart," Crowley said. "Straight to the point."
"Dean! Sam! Do not listen to him!" Ruby shouted.
Crowley faced her again. "You never told them your real name, did you? Because then you knew they wouldn't listen."
Ruby was trembling now. "Shut up, Crowley!"
He pointed at her. "Make me, Asherah!"
She flinched, eyes clicking black as she hissed.
Sam's shoulders straightened and he suddenly whirled his gun to face her. "Asherah?" he growled.
"Sammy?" Dean asked, eyes flicking back and forth between the demons.
"You're Asherah?" Sam spat. Taking her silent glare as mute assent, he informed Dean, "Asherah is a demon mentioned in the Old Testament. She tricked the people of the ancient Near East into worshiping her as a fertility goddess. And..."
Crowley nodded. "And tell him the rest of it..."
Sam gave a soft, scoffing chuckle. "And they called her the Queen of Heaven. Medaeval scholars figured out she was a demon - one of the highest-ranking female demons. Manipulative and seductive and sharp-tongued."
"And?" Dean asked.
Sam took a deep breath. "And second only to Lilith herself."
Dean's jaw twitched. "So where does that leave us?"
"Screwed," Sam growled softly.
"Not necessarily," Crowley put in. "As I said - I'm here on business." He nodded his head at Ruby. "She manipulated my girls into -"
"Wait, your girls?" Dean interrupted. "Your girls - make deals."
Crowley nodded.
"You're a Crossroads demon!" Dean gasped.
"And it looks like there's an actual brain inside that pretty head!" Crowley smirked. "Who would have thought? I'm not A crossroads demon, however, boy-o. I'm the King of the Crossroads. And these manipulative bitches have been screwing with my girls! Tricking them into bargaining for souls that weren't theirs to bargain for!"
"My contract?" Dean asked, eyes widening.
Crowley nodded. "The terms are unacceptable. That particular minx was manipulated into manipulating you. And the manipulations end right here."
"I'll destroy you," Ruby snarled.
"You haven't the guts or the juice," he shot back before turning to the Winchesters again. "As I said - I'm offering a deal. An out. And it won't cost a soul or a limb or anything like that. You won't even have to seal it with a kiss."
"Start talking," Sam ordered. "We're listening."
"Sam-" Dean shuddered, suddenly aware of the limitations his deal had placed on him.
Crowley chuckled. "No worries, Dean. Sam won't drop dead. He never would. Because that part of the deal never held. It would only have held if what was brought back was - as Azazel put it - 100% pure Sammy. And it just so happens - it wasn't."
There was a moment of shocked silence, then Ruby started to laugh at the exact same moment Dean and Sam roared in perfect unison, "WHAT?"
"First things first," Crowley said, turning his full attention onto Ruby. Without even seeming to move - he was a demon, after all - he was suddenly across the room and pressing something into her neck.
She arched, her head falling back and her body stiffening. Crowley lowered his hand and the Winchesters saw that he had fastened a golden scarab to the side of her neck.
"Now, Asherah," Crowley purred. "Talk to me. Tell me the truth. Were you pretending to work against Lilith, or truly working against her?"
Ruby opened coal-black eyes. Her voice was a low monotone as her head returned to a more natural looking position. "Pretending."
Sam's jaw twitched and he turned away, shaking his head in incoherent rage. He had trusted her. He had believed her. And it had all been a lie.
Dean's free hand - the one that was not wrapped around a gun - squeezed Sam's free wrist.
Crowley nodded. "I thought as much. There is a reason you were pretending. Reveal it."
She seemed to struggle, but the words came out anyway. "Plan. Part... of the plan."
"Whose plan?" Dean demanded. "What plan?"
"A-Azazel," she choked out. "A-And Lucifer. Free Lucifer.. trigger Apocalypse... remake Earth... in the Lightbringer's image..."
Sam gasped out, "Why us? Why the Winchester family?"
Ruby's black eyes shifted to him. "...I..."
Crowley's fingers pressed the scarab and she wailed out, "It could have been any family... because of Sam's abilities... it could have been any family w-with a special ch-child... some-something went wrong with that..."
"What was that?" Dean asked.
"Your f-father," she replied. "He sh-should have reacted like the others did... but he didn't. He should have denied. He should have grieved and moved on."
"Instead, he became a hunter," Sam finished.
Dean nodded. "And he turned us into hunters." Then something else she said clicked. "Sam's abilities. But those were caused by the demon bl-" He broke off, seeing both demons shaking their heads. "Are you serious?" he yelped.
"My visions are inborn?" Sam gasped.
Crowley smirked. "You're getting it. Your visions are inborn, and you have other abilities that make you very, very dangerous to demons." He waved a hand. "The demon blood amplified them and was a conduit for Azazel to reach you. But the abilities are inborn."
He shook his head. "I don't want them."
"Then don't use them." Crowley shrugged. "Simple as that."
"But the visions," Dean said. "They've stopped!"
"Dormant," Ruby stuttered out. "Not stopped."
Crowley clapped his hands. "Right, then! All we have to do to stop all this - to truly stop Lilith, not the false way that Asherah here was feeding you - is to keep Dean here out of Hell."
"Wait!" Dean yelped. "You're a demon - how do we know you're telling the truth? Demons lie!" He jabbed a finger toward Sam. "And what the hell did you mean that isn't 100% pure Sam?"
"Because I like you, bucko, I'll take those in order." Crowley held up a finger. "One - yes, demons lie. Yes, I am - technically - a demon. But I am, first and foremost, a businessman. I may deal in souls, but I still deal. I barter. And lies work against a successful barter. Those who deal with me and mine go into the deal fully knowing all the terms. Then it is their choice whether or not to accept those terms."
"Dean wasn't -" Sam began.
Crowley interrupted, "No. He wasn't aware of them all. Because that little minx was working for Lilith, and was no longer one of mine. Thanks for your assistance, Sam. You spared me the tedium of dealing with her myself." His lip curled. "As it is, I still have to deal with the fallout."
Ruby opened her mouth, and Crowley jerked the scarab off of her neck and snarled, "You're finished." He lunged for her, shoved her backward, and tossed something to Sam in one fluid motion.
Sam caught it one-handed. Realising what he held, he flipped the knife in his hand and threw it.
Ruby wailed, arching as the demon-killer knife sank deep into her shoulder. She lit from inside and fell to the ground, dead within seconds.
Dean pulled the knife from her shoulder and gestured the bloody blade in Crowley's direction. "Answer the other question before I use this on you. What did you mean about him being not 100% Sam?"
"Haven't you noticed?" Crowley asked, jerking his head toward Sam. "Shorter temper. Quicker to kill. Colder about it. Refusing to take care of himself because his brother is in danger. Are you honestly telling me you can't see it?"
"See what?" they asked in unison.
"Hell's bells," Crowley growled. "For a pair so smart... Look, Lilith needed to manipulate you, Sam. She needed you reeling. Off-balance. So single-mindedly focused that she could get you do to anything - Any. Thing. - so long as it was tied to that purpose. And she could trick you into doing her bidding that way. As you were, that couldn't happen. You were too stubborn. Too independent. Too intent on avenging dear Jessica and then returning to your normal life."
Dean blinked. "I've not heard you mention anything like that since you... came back."
"Because he's not like that anymore," Crowley said. "You still don't get it, do you?"
"Just spit it out!" Sam growled.
Crowley let out a groaning sigh. "All right! Fine! What came back isn't interested in normal. He's not as independent. He's a hunter, through and through. And his purpose - his one reason for living - is his brother."
Dean's eyes went huge and his gun and his jaw both lowered in his shock.
Crowley threw up his hands. "And he gets it!"
Sam looked back and forth between the pair of them. "Well, could someone fill me in? Because you're discussing my life and I'm feeling left out of it, here!"
"Oh, my G-d," Dean breathed. "What came back wasn't 100% Sam Winchester..."
Crowley nodded and finished for him, since Dean's throat seemed to have closed up and choked off the words. "All Sam in body. But in mind and personality? That's not Sam."
Sam scoffed. "Okay. So if I'm not all Sam - who am I?"
"...me." Sam's eyes swiveled to Dean, who was so pale his freckles were standing out in stark relief on his nose and cheeks. His voice was wrecked. "...you're partly... me."
CONTINUED...