A/N: This one's almost done. Got only a couple chapters left, and then you won't hear from me until after New Year's Day. But I've got plans for some new stuff, so I promise I'll be around for a long while.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the rights to Supernatural or anything related to it.
...
" . . . and according to Claire, this thing takes your soul, sticks it temporarily in a wooden vessel—like a puppet—and then uses your body until the spell breaks the next morning," Sam finished.
The voice on the other line was quiet for a while before, at last, he heard, "And you two must have interrupted the spell before it was finished."
Sam nodded. "We figured our souls were already out when the controls caught on fire, and when they tried to go back, they got mixed up."
"This is bad, Sam," Ruby said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But think about it for a second, Ruby. This is the first real shot I've got at saving Dean."
"Sam—"
"I mean, if they come for me instead of him—"
"Sam!" Ruby shouted at him, and when Ruby shouted, he had learned it was a good idea to listen. She sighed heavily, then said, "Look, it's not that I don't want to help you save your brother. It's really not. But you've got to understand. Dean's still got an expiration date on his soul, not just his body."
"Maybe I can confuse the hell hounds long enough to—"
"To do what? Get Dean through the day?" Ruby laughed. "And even if you do manage to confuse them, you don't think every demon in town is gonna want a piece of your brother?"
"Maybe I can—"
"And what if it doesn't work? What if you're stuck in this body and Dean still dies in yours and it was all for nothing? You're telling me you want to stay in someone else's body, never comfortable in your own skin, trying to relearn all the muscle memory of hunting? You'll get yourself killed that way, Sam! And then what good are you?"
"Ruby—"
"You listen to me, Sam Winchester," Ruby continued. "You're learning how to control your powers; it's your best shot at saving your brother. And you're going to give all that raw power to your brother when you know he won't use it to save himself?"
"At least he knows better than to try," Sam muttered.
"Sam," Ruby said softly, slowly, "Sam, you've got to get back in your own skin. I can't . . . I won't be able to help you if you stay like this."
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but he heard shouting behind the door. It was Dean.
He didn't even bother to finish the conversation. He hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket with one hand while the other was unlocking the door to let himself in. He wanted to break down the door, but he just barely contained himself.
And then he was inside, and he almost wanted to laugh with relief. Dean wasn't being attacked; he was just having a nightmare.
Sam had never seen his brother have nightmares before. Not like this. Dean had tangled himself up in the sheets, was thrashing around, shouting, moaning. Sam frowned and rushed to his brother's side. "Dean," he said, trying to get his brother's attention. He tried to grab Dean's hand, but he was thrashing around too much. "Dean," he said, more urgently this time. He grabbed Dean's shoulders and tried to shake him awake.
Dean's eyes—well, Sam's eyes—opened wide, and Dean shouted, scrambling, trying to sit up but stuck in the tangled sheets. He was still somewhere between waking and sleeping, and the only thing he could process was the fact that he was stuck and couldn't move. Therefore, he'd gone straight into fighting mode.
"Dean," Sam said, holding his brother by the shoulders until Dean looked him in the eyes.
"Sammy," Dean gasped in a rasping voice. "Sammy, there's something inside me. There's something in here with me."
Sam tried not to panic, tried to think. "Do you know what it is?"
"I don't know," Dean said. He kept his jaw tightly clenched, but he had controlled his breathing now, and Sam could see the clarity behind eyes that used to be his own. "I don't know, Sammy. There's just something . . . in here. Something dark." He took a deep, calming breath. "I don't like it."
Sam helped Dean untangle himself. He tried not to notice that Dean was sweaty, that his longer hair was now matted down and tangled, wet and glistening. Dean wasn't comfortable in his own body, and now there was something else in there with him. Sam couldn't imagine what Dean was going through, and he was determined to fix this before they killed that puppet. If Dean was going to be in Sam's body . . . .
In Sam's . . . .
Sam sat down hard in the chair by the table. He reached up to run his hands through his hair and was surprised when that hair stopped before he expected it to; they were definitely hitting some speed bumps in the body-switching thing.
"Dean," Sam said slowly.
"What?"
"I know what it is."
"Great." Dean had finally untangled himself and sat at rapt attention. "How do we get it out of me? And even better, how do we kill it?"
"We don't."
Dean just stared at Sam for a while before he shook his head. "Look, Sammy, if this is one of those 'give 'em a chance' kicks you've been on since the psychic kids and—"
"I mean we can't kill it," Sam said. "That's me you're feeling inside you. Those are my powers."
Dean was silent for a long time. It was his processing face, and it took a while for him to get through that information. But when he had finally thought it through, rolled it around in his head to really get a handle on it, he snapped and made a face. "Really? That's what it feels like?"
Sam nodded.
"Dude, it feels all wrong." He shuddered. "Glad you gave up on those powers. I don't like it."
Sam tried not to let it show on his face, but he was disappointed by Dean's reaction. He had been trying to show Dean that there was more to his powers than just darkness and evil, that maybe he could do good with them, but Dean always looked at him like a freak, a mess he had to clean up after. And even now, when he could access Sam's powers himself, Dean thought they were wrong, something to be avoided.
Sam wished he had Dean's clarity, his sense of the world in black and white.
Dean shivered some more, then hoped in the shower to clean off all the sweat real quick before they met up with Claire.
They'd argued about that one a lot, too. Dean trusted Claire to get information and to handle herself as a temporary member of their team, and he got along with her much better now that she understood what had happened to the two of them, but he still insisted that she wasn't allowed to be around for the actual hunting part.
But Sam figured she could stick around. She hadn't been so bad helping him out with some research. (Turns out the best way to get rid of that thing was the burn the controls to make sure it couldn't steal any more souls, then cut him up and burn the pieces while he didn't have a weapon.) And she knew her way around the town.
Besides, Sam was worried about that puppet. It seemed to have it out for him and his brother, but it didn't go for people from the town. He figured Claire was safe, and he wanted someone around to make sure their souls stayed in their bodies—whether in the right ones or the wrong ones, Sam wasn't so concerned just so long as they didn't end up in those little wooden puppets.
Claire knocked on their door just after Dean finished showering and only had his pants on—he hadn't yet picked out a shirt that he liked. His fashion sense was just different enough from Sam's that he was taking a long time and being picky (Sam called him a girl, and Dean had countered that if Sam didn't dress like a girl maybe Dean wouldn't have to act like one. They shared clothes all the time, but that was different. Dean had favorite shirts of Sam's that fit him really well; he was trying to dress for a completely different body).
When Sam opened the door, Dean's eyes widened, and he threw on the nearest shirt. He wasn't usually careful about modesty, but being around kids brought out the weirdest tendencies in Sam's big brother.
"Claire?" Dean asked. He stumbled over a bit. He was still getting used to being taller.
"Hey," Claire said. She held up several boxes of matches, some cigarette lighters, and a bag full of what smelled like gasoline. "I figured y'all hadn't had time to get the supplies y'all needed, what with being up half the night and all."
Dean finally got his shirt on. "I appreciate the effort, but you can't—"
Claire waved her hand at him and rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. Like you're keeping me out of the case that killed my entire family." At that, Sam saw the strength leave her expression for just one, fleeting second. But she pulled herself back together and shot Dean a look that clearly said "Eat dirt."
"Like I'm taking a kid into danger," Dean countered.
Sam held up a hand. He was used to this, to being the one to broker the peace. It was just weird to be doing it as Dean, because he still hadn't mastered The Look yet with these facial features. He sighed and turned to Claire. "Thanks for coming," he said. "We appreciate it." Then, he turned to Dean. "And of course we can have her along. This thing doesn't want locals, so she should be totally safe."
"And besides, I've got more than enough matches to go around," Claire said. And she was right; she'd brought enough to take down the puppet thing and a half dozen changelings.
Dean could tell he was outnumbered in this argument, so he sighed. But he held up one hand—a hand that looked much bigger now that he was the short one—and pointed at them both. "Okay, but on one condition," he said. His voice got deep and dangerous, and Sam didn't even know his voice was capable of doing that.
Claire just nodded at him.
"You have to let us do the fighting," he said. "I'm serious. If that thing sees you as a threat, it might come after you."
"Right. I'm just backup, and I'll leave the hunting to the professionals," Claire said, but she said it so deadpan, so casually, that Sam was quite sure she didn't mean a word of it.
Dean could tell she was just saying that to please him, and he narrowed his eyes, but there wasn't much more he could do when she had already made up her mind. So, he just continued with his demands. "And if you think we're about to go puppet on you, if you think we're becoming mindless zombies, you drop everything and run," he said.
"Don't need to tell me twice," Claire said. This time, Sam could tell she meant it. He could see the darkness behind her eyes, the darkness of losing someone and watching it happen. She wasn't keen to repeat the experience.
"Good," Dean said. He reached into Sam's bag and pulled out his favorite flashlight. "Then let's get going. I'd like to get settled before the sun goes down so we can catch this thing on our turf."
