Several seconds pass during which none of them moves. Cas's eyes never stray from the man who has to be Dean and Sam stands with the gun still aimed squarely at the man's forehead. The whole time the man is the very picture of calm, but after a long pause a knot of mild puzzlement forms between his brows. His palms turn outward slightly in a questioning gesture and he says, "Um, relax, Sam. Everyone's gone, you can put the gun away."
"Dean?" It just slips out of him. Simply because he cannot reconcile what he is witnessing and knows must be true with what he knows cannot be true… he has to make sure.
Demons lie, one of the many voices in his head reminds him, but just for now, he snuffs it out.
The man rolls his eyes in the most dramatic fashion apparently possible, but says nothing.
"Are you really Dean?" he whispers, not trusting himself with his full voice.
Those eyes come to meet Sam's, and they are utterly unfamiliar. "I was," he says.
It's not the first time Sam has wished Dean were only dead. He'd be more retrievable if he were—he's come back from death countless times before. Like this, he's just… he's just gone. At least the Dean that Sam knew, and knows. The Dean that still exists is rapidly turning into something else entirely; he's falling down a pit and it seems there is no bottom. And the further removed he gets from what he was, the more terrified Sam is that they'll never be able to pull him back from oblivion.
"You know," the man comments in the silence, and Sam's eyes refocus on his—but they're not Dean's, this is not his brother, not even close—"I definitely like being taller than you."
Sam blinks dumbly. There's something in the grin that curls the man's mouth, the show of simple pleasure in a meaningless triumph, that does ring familiar. He recalls all the pranks they used to pull on each other, those little tricks they haven't had the energy for in years, and how every time Dean pulled one over Sam he would cackle in jubilation until Sam's resolve broke and he laughed right along with him.
Those were the days when there was still life in Dean's eyes.
"I haven't been here for more than an hour, I don't think…" the man muses. "How long you been tailing me?"
Sam tries to swallow, but nothing goes down. His mouth is too dry and his throat just closes up. But before there's time for a real pause, Cas interjects, voice grave as it's ever been: "Long enough to know you need to be stopped."
The man widens his eyes in exasperation, but doesn't press the issue. "Right," he mutters, and eyes Cas. "So, you would rather kill me," and he turns to Sam, who's still struggling to recall how to organize and articulate his thoughts, "and you would rather let me go to kill others. My, my. Dissent in the ranks." He chuckles. "You got the Blade on hand? Or have you forgotten that that's the only thing that can actually put me down?"
Sam hasn't forgotten, except on occasions that he had to because too many emotions were filling his brain for rational thought—when he was holding that knife to Dean's throat, for example. It doesn't matter anyway; he's glad of the fact the man has just stated, though shame burns within him on acknowledging this, even to himself.
He remembers that he's still holding out the gun, and he lowers it. The movement feels strange; usually it signifies a shift in the tone of the conversation, the decision to be a little more trustful. Now, it's simply because there is no point to it anymore. Though it does provide a nice complement to the raspy words Sam finally manages to push through his lips: "We don't want to fight."
The man nods, lips pursed, and replies promptly, "Smart of you. So then what exactly do you want?"
Just let me live my life, I won't bother you. What do you care?
A suspicion is beginning to creep into Sam's mind that he actually means these questions genuinely. And it scares him almost as much as the idea of Dean's rapid spiral out of his reach.
"You really don't know?" he manages, and immediately clears his throat, because damn, he cannot keep sounding like he's about to fall apart every time he opens his mouth.
The man immediately shrugs. "No, I do. You want to pump me full of a magic 'cure' that will turn me back into what you want me to be, or maybe need me to be. Pass. We done?"
Sam can't think of a single thing to say.
The stranger waits, looking back and forth between them for a few seconds, before letting out a long, quiet sigh. "Okay, you know what?" He holds up his hands, smiling mirthlessly. "I'm over this. We've met too many times for you to still be alive."
The smile drops from his face as he waves one hand in the slightest motion, hardly any more than a twitch of his fingers, and Sam finds himself sailing backwards through the air. He makes a delayed attempt to curl into a ball to protect his head and chest, but it hardly matters, because he ends up in the middle of the floor, a wooden chair splintering underneath the force of him coming down on it. The crack is so loud his ears are ringing as he lies there, trying to collect himself, and even distracts him for the first few seconds from the splitting pain in his thigh.
But then it comes, and he's biting back a scream, and he turns his bruised body over painfully to examine the damage. An enormous chunk of wood, about half of one of the chair legs, protrudes from the outside of his leg, a few inches above the knee. Blood wells around it, but it's the sight of the foreign object jammed so far into his body that finally rips the scream out of him after all.
Words are floating vaguely through his head but they're not his, in fact he thinks somebody else said them out loud… maybe they came from Cas's direction? He struggles to focus on what they actually were and finds them incomprehensible, until he switches his brain over to recognize them as not English: "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…"
He looks up, clutching his leg between both hands, just in time to see the man twitch his fingers again. Another piece of chair flies off the floor and across the room. Sam follows its path with his eyes and blinks, the pain making his brain fuzzy, as he tries to process the sight before him: Cas, pressed against the opposite wall, feet several inches above the floor, apparently utterly unable to lift his arms or head from it, and a chunk of wood wedged firmly between his teeth.
"None of that," comes that unfamiliar voice, sounding largely unconcerned. "I happen to be enjoying this body, thank you very much. It's a good fit for me."
Sam tries to focus on his face, on his words, tries to block out the pain using the psychological tricks he's been refining throughout his life, and gradually that anguish begins to fade, at least enough for him to think with the barest modicum of clarity.
"I tell ya," the man continues, "the first couple didn't do much for me. I felt, quite literally, very uncomfortable in my own skin. Figured out at maybe the fourth or fifth body that you need to give 'em a few days, break 'em in. After that? Feels like the body you were born in."
Sam knows he has to say something. Keep him talking. Maybe, with some careful manipulation and a generous dose of luck, they'll still be alive when the authorities come around. And maybe, by some miracle, there'll even be enough that Dean will bail rather than leaving behind another massacre. Finally he manages to push out, voice strained and shaking, "And this? Who are you riding right now?"
The man seems utterly unfazed by his efforts, and responds casually, "His name's Kaden. Kaden… Norwick? Newton? I forget. He's probably a long way from home, but I can't really be sure—picked him up at an airport. Poetic, dontcha think?"
Sam is silent, just watching the blood pool slowly on the floor beneath him, strangely detached from the sight. He feels Cas's puzzled glance on him. To him, though, Dean's meaning is crystal clear—an allusion back to the very first demon they ever encountered. The phantom traveler. Everything's come full circle.
Thinking back to the whole fiasco, all he can picture is Dean's terrified face as their flight began, and what he wouldn't give to see that familiar fear, that human weakness, in him right now. He responds in the only way he can think to respond: to try to remind Dean of the same thing. "Surprised you voluntarily got so close to planes without having some sort of breakdown."
The grin that curls the man's face is sickening. He can't decide whether it's a grin he might see on Dean's face. He really doesn't think he knows anything for sure. "Knew you'd try that. But ya see, Sammy, that fear is dead and buried now. Along with all others. It was based in reality, but the degree to which it manifested in old Dean-o was irrational, and oh how very human it was. What reason does a demon have to be afraid of plane crashes? We cause the crashes, bitch."
The question Is that what you were doing? hovers on Sam's lips and dies. He doesn't want to know. "You don't have to be a demon," he whispers, but by this point the words sound lame even to him.
Dean is clearly and predictably unimpressed. He leans in over Sam, until he can feel the breath threading through the host's lips on his neck and he cringes because even that is unfamiliar.
"I don't think you're listening to me, Sammy," he breathes, so softly. "You always did have problems with that. I'll go nice and slow: I. Want. This." He snaps up to stand fully upright again, but he continues seamlessly: "Holy hell, I want it so much. I'll tell you why life as Dean sucked so much ass—the work was never over. And in a sense, sure, he loved the work! He loved helping people and feeling for a fleeting instant like he was worth something to the world. Like an adrenaline rush, with a pretty dramatic crash at the end called 'disillusionment.' Only for him, it happened pretty much on a weekly basis. He loved the work, but the work never loved him back. All he wanted in return was for you to be safe. And—" He cuts himself off with the most mirthless chuckle Sam has heard in his life. "No. Never mind. The point is, he never was able to convince himself that it was fair that he had to save all these people and couldn't even survive living out of his car without committing regular credit card fraud. Some thanks, huh? Do you even know how many times the two of you saved the world? I sure as hell don't! Lost count! I am finally free. Of all the confused guilt, the obligation, the PTSD, the nightmares, the shame, the alcoholism—I mean I'll still embrace that, but for different reasons—the constantly trying and failing to justify the general crappiness of life, and most of all, the constant fear of losing your sorry ass."
Sam finally gathers the wherewithal to attempt to move, even if he can't stand just yet. But when he drags his impaled leg two inches across the floor, a cry of pain rises from his mouth.
The man stops and shifts his attention completely and immediately to Sam. After a few moments of considering him silently while Sam just tries to hold it together, the man smiles, and sinks down to his level, balancing on the balls of his feet next to him. "Let me help you with that," he says softly, voice dripping with false compassion.
In one fluid motion, he grasps the spike of wood and yanks it out of Sam's leg.
The scream he produces is unearthly. The pain bursts like an atom bomb throughout his entire body and his feet kick, his muscles working overtime to try to provide some sensation that will distract him from the horror show his leg has become. The blood is pouring out of him hard and fast now, and he feels himself very quickly going into shock. Between the large black spots that rapidly explode in irregular increments over his field of vision, he sees the man adjust his grip on the stake-like chunk of wood and pull it back as if aiming carefully, his gaze trained on the center of Sam's chest.
A flash of movement, a split second of unbearable agony, and then Sam is flying.