I'd just like to thank the two guest reviewers who commented my previous story "Sins of A father", as well as everyone else who read and reviewed.
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The Tempting of Sam.
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Dean would have been hard done to recognise his little brother in the destroyed, downhearted, derelict, drunken young man who sat at the rickety table.
Sam's concentration was fixated on the weapons; cleaning them, taking them apart, putting them back together and beginning all over, as if those familiar actions were the only thing that was grounding him, the only thing keeping from going over the edge, from losing the small part of his mind that still had a margin of sanity.
When his desperation for Dean threatened to overwhelm him, he would take a shot from the bottle of cheap whisky that he kept eternally at his side.
The part of him that was logical and rational was well aware that what he was doing, how he had degraded himself was pointless, but the loss of his brother and the reason for that loss, saving his worthless ass, was too much for him to bear.
The whisky made everything better.
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Soon after Dean had gone to Hell, he has still been lucid enough to search for a way to get him out, poring over volumes of occult books looking for spells but he had soon begun to lose hope, for they had already tried everything before Dean had been dragged away by Lilith's hellhounds.
His eyes misted up at the terrible memory.
Then the attempt to exchange his own soul for that of his big brother had ended up with the crossroads demon sniggering and gleefully informing him that they had Dean exactly where they wanted him.
Sam Winchester, had he been more rational at the time, might have wondered about that!
If the crossroads demon had revealed that they had Dean exactly where they wanted him, perhaps they had Sam exactly where they wanted him too, but the younger Winchester was too despondent and out of his head with pain for his brother and for the suffering he would be going through in hell, to be thinking clearly.
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The knock at the door took him by surprise.
It was Ruby; at least he realised it was her after she clued him in to the whole ecological dead body overhaul that she had done, just to keep him happy.
Just what the hell did she want, Sam asked himself. Couldn't she leave him alone! Okay, she had saved his ass in that shitty motel room days ago but that didn't mean she could come and go whenever she felt like it.
During that attempt on his life, he had been more than ready to die for he knew that he would end up in hell; where else would a demon blood human go if not with others like himself, but at least he would be near to Dean; at least he could share the pain and suffering that was being this very minute inflicted on his brother.
He hadn't even fought back and if Ruby hadn't intervened he would be dead now. He hadn't asked for her help then and he hadn't asked her to come here now.
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His one idea was to drink himself to death for he didn't want to kill himself, not because he was afraid to but because he wanted to suffer before dying. He deserved to have a long drawn-out death for what he had done to Dean.
Sam listened with only half an ear as Ruby talked. She was going on about how he could get his revenge on Lilith; get his own back on her for what she had done to Dean. She would show him a way to become strong enough to take her out.
While she babbled on, Sam's thoughts wandered back to the six months he had passed alone after Dean's final death in the Mystery Spot affair.
He had been obsessed with trying to get his brother back during those months but this time he hadn't been able to focus. There had been hope then of finding the Trickster but this was different. Dean was in Hell, and even Ruby had told him straight that there was no way to get him out.
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All the while Ruby was sashaying closer to him.
She had taken on an attractive body and Sam had been deprived of any kind of company since Dean had died, especially the female kind. He felt his body's treacherous arousal as she pressed up to him.
He wanted to lash out, he needed to lash out, to get the anger and destructive feelings out of him and he knew that he could with Ruby. She was a demon, used to violence and she was inside a body that was technically dead.
He was about to give in to his shameful urges; she was already entwined around him like a parasitic ivy, her lips tantalizingly close to his own.
He hovered between surrendering himself to her, although somewhere in the back of his alcohol befuddled brain, he was aware that if he gave himself over to her now it would be nearly impossible for him to pull back; or exorcising her ass back to hell.
As he teetered on the brink, Dean's words came back to him. "She's a demon Sam; you never trust a demon especially when she acts out of character!"
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He felt his lips starting to chant the familiar words of the exorcism and he held on tight to Ruby, his powerful shoulders tensing with the strain as the body in his arms gradually convulsed ever more savagely; and as he pronounced the last phrases the black smoke that was Ruby's soul exited the body and seeped through the dirty floor-boards down to Hell.
He almost tipped forward as the dead weight of the body in his hands fell back. He let it slide delicately to the floor. That corpse was someone's daughter, wife or mother and he would treat it with the respect it deserved.
That night he would take it back to the hospital from where it had been stolen.
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He wondered who had given him the moral and physical strength to refuse Ruby but he felt some sort of release and satisfaction at what he had done.
He had chosen rightly and if he couldn't get Dean out of Hell by his own merits then he would continue on the road he had chosen, drinking himself to death and joining his big brother in Hell.
They would eventually be turned into demons like all the other unfortunate souls, but who could tell what would happen. They were the Winchester brothers. He loved Dean and Dean loved him, perhaps that love could overcome even blind violence of the demonic world.
He turned back to the friendly bottle on the table. He had plenty more stashed in the trunk of the Impala.
It won't be long now before we're together bro, he mused.
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He took a swig of the cheap whisky blaming the alcohol for the voice he heard at his back.
"Well, Lookee here! You chased my ass for months to get Dean back and when you found me you put on that pitiful show of begging me to give him back to you, which I generously did!
What happened to that obsessed bitch of a Sam Winchester I met back then?
I expected to see you even more motivated this time, now that you've carelessly misplace 'Douchy Dean' again. But no, this time you wanna go where he is; you're surrendering, not even trying any more! Well, well, well! How things change!
It's not my place to say it Winchester, but I will. Get up off your sorry ass and go get your brother back. There is a way; you just have to find it.
If you want, and if you're nice to me I may even give you a few tips."
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Sam was completely taken aback, eyes wide, mouth gaping in astonishment. Of all the beings he expected to encounter again in his life, the Trickster wasn't one of them.
Suddenly for the first time in months, he felt a wave of optimism wash over him. The Trickster was one powerful son of a bitch; maybe he really could help him with Dean.
He put the bottle back down on the table, tilted his head to the side and declared simply. "I'm all ears."
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