Sam was awoken at 3 in the morning by a loud knock on his door. He groaned, still sore but ready to fight the demon that was probably throwing its body against the door. He didn't doubt it.
Instead of being greeted with a roaring demon like he expected, Sam was met with a very angry motel manager who was gripping the demon's bicep tightly in his hand.
"This belong to you?" he growled, violently shaking the demon's arm.
"Uh, no," Sam mumbled, confused. He also didn't miss the look of anger that passed across the demon's face at that comment.
"Don't play stupid with me, kid. I saw him come in this room; customers were complaining about you two fighting and one even said he saw you throw this man out of the room while you continued to yell at each other. Now I don't know what either of you did, but kiss your boyfriend and make up because I can't have him continuing to sleep at the doorstep of your room. You know how many complaints I've gotten, how this will turn away customers if he's still out there in the morning?"
Sam didn't know what to say. He was trapped. Stealthily, he broke the salt line as the manager shoved the demon inside, closing the door with a grunt.
The demon cracked its back and started walking back to the bed closest to the door. "Now don't be getting any ideas from that motel owner." It winked a black eye. "I may be a demon but I'm still your brother."
Sam didn't say anything as he watched the demon hop into bed and pull the covers over it. When it closed its eyes for a brief moment, Sam could almost pretend it was Dean. His throat choked up and he quickly turned out the lights and climbed into his own bed, turning away from the demon. Maybe it was enough for now to just pretend this thing was Dean when he looked at it. The demon wanted something from Sam, but it didn't want to kill him so why not just go along with this, at least for the time being? Sam had nothing else to do but drown his misery in alcohol and violent hunts. Why not have some company, especially when this thing was in Dean's body, and maybe had been Dean at one point.
And maybe he was just hoping that the demon would kill him. End his miserable life, because Sam couldn't do it himself. Not while Dean was suffering...or had suffered enough to turn into a demon monster.
But still, Sam didn't feel like dying today. And while this thing might look like Dean, it wasn't him and Sam didn't trust it at all especially after what happened with Ruby. Sam grabbed his can of salt that was on the table and proceeded to create a barrier on salt around the demon's bed.
"Seriously, Sam?" The demon sighed and Sam continued to ignore it as he worked on the barrier. Why the demon wasn't jumping up and getting out of it now, Sam had no clue. "Well if you're going to trap me here you better get ready to prepare me some breakfast in bed." It grinned and Sam didn't hold back his shudder.
"I'm trapping you in bed so you won't get up in the middle of the night and kill me," Sam spat out as he used the last of the slat and checked for breaks.
"Oh yeah, I'm just going to wake up and randomly decide that I want to kill my baby brother in the middle of the night. That sounds so much fun."
"I'm sure it does to you." Sam decided to ignore the nickname of 'baby brother' for now. The demon would understand that sooner or later, Sam wasn't going to fall for the game it was playing.
"I was being sarcastic." It growled and looked over by the door. "Maybe you should have been paying more attention to really protecting yourself. You left the salt line broken by the door. The stuff out there is the threat, not me."
The salt can was empty and the rest was in the Impala. Sam was exhausted and the last thing he wanted to do was go outside. He just wanted to sleep.
"I'll take the risk," he grumbled as he got into bed and turned away from the demon.
"Suit yourself." The demon made noises like it was getting comfortable in bed. "Well at least this prison is a lot more comfy than the one I had in Hell."
Sam closed his eyes tight, tried to focus on the fact that he wasn't alone anymore and that the thing on the bed looked like his brother that he missed so dearly. It made a little bit of the ache in his heart go away, and Sam felt guilty for it immediately. He flopped on his stomach in order to get more comfortable and flinched when the demon suddenly spoke.
"Goodnight, Sammy."
It sounded so much like Dean that Sam cried himself to sleep.
Sam woke up and he already knew he slept in past check-out time. He glanced over at the clock only to shoot straight up in bed. It was one in the afternoon. Checkout was at eleven. Shit! But if it was one...that meant that the motel owner hadn't been pounding on his door, waking Sam up telling him to pack up and leave or pay for another night. It didn't make sense.
And that's when Sam finally realized that the other bed was in disarray, it clearly had been slept in but it was empty. At first Sam thought a bum had decided to get a good night's sleep in his motel room for the night, but then he saw the salt line that he had broke last night and everything came flooding back at once.
The demon, the fight, the motel owner shoving him back in the room, the 'goodnight Sammy'.
Sam rapidly looked around the room for any signs of the demon. The salt line by its bed had been broken by a pillow the demon must have thrown on the ground to scatter the salt and free itself. The only other thing he saw was a bag of fast food on the table. Standing up and slowly walking over to it, Sam saw that a note was attached to the bag.
I didn't know what the hell you wanted because you wouldn't wake up. So I got your favorite, you better eat it bitch, I didn't steal this for nothing.
In a flash Sam was seeing red. Damnit that was Dean's handwriting! What gave this thing the nerve to tease him like it was doing? Sam grabbed to note and crumpled it up before tearing it into a dozen different pieces...
"You know, if you want to efficiently trap a demon on a bed, it's best to get rid of anything it can use to escape, like pillows and blankets. You should….Whoa, you don't like the sausage biscuit anymore? Geeze dude, you could've told me instead of throwing a hissy fit," Dean's voice said. Sam turned around to come face to face with the demon just as its eyes changed from green to black.
"Stop it." Sam swallowed, rage bubbling inside of his stomach. "Stop acting like you're him. Stop teasing me by acting like you're my brother!"
The demon rolled its black eyes, a very strange yet fascinating site. "I am your brother dickweed. Just without morals and a lack of care for anything but myself."
"Then why the hell are you giving me food instead of killing me?"
The demon suddenly looked pissed. "How many times do I have to tell you? Are you ignorant? Because you're my brother asshole."
Sam backed off, he had the answer he needed right there. Dean would never ever call him ignorant or an asshole. Sam turned away from the creature and started walking towards the bathroom.
"Come on! I got you this food out of the kindness of my dark damaged revived heart. Just eat the damned biscuit because you're so skinny that a woman could break you in half."
Sam turned around with a heartless laugh. "What's it to you? You're a demon; wouldn't you love to see me slowly starve to death?"
The demon's stare didn't waver. "I found us a hunt in Nebraska. Get your shit packed up."
Sam didn't know why he had simply followed the demon out to the Impala. But really, what other choice did he have? He figured that if he didn't cooperate with it, it would probably tie him up and throw him in the trunk. He wanted to avoid that at all costs.
"Oh I've missed you baby!" The demon purred as they reached the Impala and Sam had to look away to keep from throwing up. "You've taken good care of her Sammy. A lot better care than you have your body."
Sam growled in the back of his throat. He knew he had lost weight, he knew he looked like shit and he didn't need it shoved in his face by this abomination. Sam stalked over to the Impala without looking at the demon and threw his stuff in the back seat before walking over to the driver's side.
"Uh-uh. You think I'm going to let you drive my baby after all that time I've been burning in Hell without her? Not gonna happen." The demon shoved Sam aside and got in the driver's seat. "Besides, I've got the keys." He jingled them with an annoying smirk and Sam had no choice to get into the passenger seat, slamming the door as he did so.
"Watch the merchandise Sasquatch. Didn't think you'd have all that strength in you since you look like a walking skeleton." It started the car and they made their way out of the parking lot.
"It's my car now, Dean gave it to me. So I can do whatever I want with it."
The demon shot him an annoyed glare but said nothing else. Sam looked out the window as they passed by the motel and a thought occurred to him.
"How come the motel owner never kicked us out of the motel at checkout time?" At the least this demon could be something to talk to.
"You looked wiped so I decided to let you sleep. I didn't want to go through the hassle of finding your wallet and credit cards to check in for another day so motel-man conveniently had a problem to take care of the last few hours."
Sam's head snapped over to the demon. "What did you do?" He gasped.
The demon shrugged with that annoying smirk. "His car went up in flames from a wonderful explosion. Guy went nuts, brand new car...what a shame." The demon chuckled and Sam couldn't believe this thing was trying to pass as Dean.
"You disgusting piece of shit," Sam spat , looking away.
"You should have some respect for me Sammy." The demon's tone was ice cold. "I suffered eighty years of pain and endless torture for your ungrateful ass to come back to life. The least I should get is a thank you."
"Dean went to Hell for me," Sam said in-between the lump in his throat. "Not you, you're just the thing that he changed into. Dean's dead, gone forever."
Sam heard the demon sigh but he didn't turn to look at the black eyes. "That's not how it works, Sammy. And you'll see...sooner or later, you'll understand."
Sam ignored the comment. "Why are you taking me on a hunt? Demon's don't hunt."
"Most of them don't, no. But Dean Winchester does. And I'm doing this for you, to get you back in the game. To get you prepared for Lilith."
"Lilith? I still don't understand what you want me to do."
"You'll get it as soon as you let yourself believe. Right now you're in denial...about me...about my story...everything. But it will fall into place. This can't just be something I want you to do, but something you want to do. It won't work unless you want it. And that's what I'm here for. To help you understand, to make you want this. It's the only way this will work, how this will all end."
"Sounds like a trap, like you're trying to trick me. Ruby said some shit about Lilith just like you; it's the same damned thing."
"Nah, I'm actually being one-hundred percent honest with you. Besides, demon-bitch wanted you to kill Lilith. I can't have you doing that, for reasons I'll explain later. We're just gonna have to send her back to Hell and lock'er in tight."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Haven't I already told you?" The demon was getting aggravated and Sam didn't know how much longer he could push its temper at the moment. "Because if we don't stop her, the apocalypse will start, and I want to live my second-life."
Sam didn't believe a word it said, but he went along with the story. "You never told me that. Wouldn't you want the apocalypse? Isn't it like a demon's paradise or something?"
The demon wearing Dean's body chuckled. "That's what most of the demons think. However I'm smarter and much more well-informed. After Lucifer kills off humans guess who's next on his list? That's right, us demons. We're nothing but rotted human souls to him, taking up his precious space. Plus it doesn't help that Lucifer wants to wear you as his meat suit."
"Wait, what?"
The demon shook its head. "Not now. I'm sick of explaining things to you that you do not even believe; I'll tell you more when you're actually on board with everything."
When they arrived at their new motel room Sam salted the room so the demon couldn't escape and wreck havoc over the town. And after yet another fight with the demon Sam fell straight onto the furthest bed and slept until the next day, ignoring the demon's goodnight wishes once again. Sam didn't worry about the demon when he fell asleep, if it wanted to kill him it would have done so already.
The next morning Sam woke up to the demon throwing papers in his face, it had given Sam the research of the case to look over. Sam glanced down at the articles the demon had printed out from the other day, something about mothers killing their children within a ten mile radius.
"Some freaky shit has been going down," the demon told Sam while it sat at the small table. "I'm thinking its involving Lilith trying to break the sixty-six seals."
Okay, what the hell was this thing ranting about now? "What are you talking about?" Sam asked.
"I'll explain this very quickly because you're not as smart as I remember you being. Lilith wants to free Lucifer. In order to free him sixty-six out of hundreds of seals have to be broken. Some involve unleashing certain demons or killing a certain amount of people in a specific way. But you know what? She can break as many as she wants, as long as the sixty-sixth one isn't broken."
"And what would that be?" Sam asked in an uninterested tone.
"Her. She's the trigger. She's breaking all these seals hoping that you'll find out and try to stop her by killing her. But killing her would be the final seal and you would have been tricked. Come on, doesn't it make sense now? What that demon posing as Ruby was trying to do to you?"
Sam didn't want to believe the demons words, but he had heard a very similar story from Ruby. But instead Ruby had said that Lilith needed to be stopped, needed to be killed in order to prevent the apocalypse….
"Ruby was lying to me? Is that what you're saying? Ruby was trying to get me to actually start the apocalypse by getting me angry and telling me to kill Lilith in order to get revenge on her."
"Yes, exactly. Except that wasn't Ruby."
"Now what?"
"Ruby and Lilith didn't have a great history, I thought that was obvious when Lilith took over Ruby's vessel and sent both me and her to Hell. Do you really think Ruby would have been able to get out of Hell that quickly and escape Lilith's wrath? Ruby was burning in a corner when I was making my escape. I helped her out a bit, so she might be out nowbut she wasn't that demon bitch you've been spending time with."
The demon shook its head as if it was patronizing Sam and sat down on the bed.
"I mean, come on Sammy. I thought you'd have enough brains in that stupid massive head of yours to notice the personality changes. Ruby was a kickass cool demon. This thing was whiny, annoying and a downright terrible actor. It was ordered by Lilith to pose as Ruby and get you to believe it was her and to earn your trust."
"And how do I know that you're not lying?"
"You don't. But I'd think you'd trust your brother by now. Plus, the real Ruby has a thing for me, not you."
It took a while for Sam to process what that meant. "You slept with Ruby?" He knew this demon wasn't his brother, but right now his mind kept screaming at him that Dean was telling him about sleeping with a demon."Where, in Hell?"
"Yep. When I said I helped her out, I not only helped her escape her trap but other things as well." The demon wagged its eyebrows and it was such a Dean thing that Sam felt his eyes beginning to water.
"Awee, don't cry Sammy. You shouldn't feel left out. You know, the Ruby impostor was going to get you to sleep with her too. Make you believe she was your lover and cared about you and all this shit. Then get you to drink her blood and go all darkside." The demon explained like he was reading off the description for a really cool story. Sam on the other hand felt his body begin to shake as he realized just how much the demons had screwed over his family in their lifetime.
There really was no escaping it.
The next moment he was falling to the floor as his body gave out and then…he wasn't.
"Whoa, don't go getting' all dramatic on me now. You should feel lucky that I saved you from all that." The demon had caught him before he fell and for a moment Sam thought Deanbefore the demon unceremoniously tossed him on the bed furthest from the door.
"Why should I feel lucky? It's just continuing. Now I have you using me." Sam mentally cursed as his voice cracked under the pressure of his sadness.
The demon didn't answer for a moment and when it finally did speak, it did so as it was walking toward the bathroom, back to Sam.
"I'm only using you to save the damned planet. And yourself. I didn't fight my way out of Hell just so I could trick and manipulate the thing I died for. Think about it for a minute why don't you, and maybe it will make sense one day."
The demon was a good hunter, and liar. Sam couldn't deny that. It had found a pretty interesting hunt. There were people going missing in a number of neighboring towns in Minnesota. The towns were close enough that a hunter would pick up on it, but not close enough that the police bothered to find a connection in the case.
"I looked up all of towns and circled them." The demon was bent over a table and slapped a map down. Sam glanced at the towns the demon had circled and he found himself talking despite his will not to.
"The towns...they form one big circle," he said quietly, his logical brain finally being used for the first time since Dean had died. It felt good in a way to get back into hunting, to use his mind for research. He was always good at finding out patterns and discovering what he was hunting.
"Exactly," the demon spoke and Sam's mood went sour as he remembered what he was hunting with and why. He was hunting with a demon because the thing had practically forced him to come. "And look what's in the middle of the circle genius."
Sam flinched at the demon's mocking tone that used his big brother's voice. How in the world was he supposed to get used to this? If the demon was telling the truth about needing to send Lilith back to Hell that meant Sam was stuck with this demon. How could he get used to being with this thing that looked and sounded exactly like the brother he missed so dearly, yet acted nothing like him?
"Hey, earth to Sammy." The demon waved its hand in front of Sam's face and out of instinct Sam batted its hand away. "Look in the center. What's there?"
Sam sighed as he glanced down at the map and saw... "Nothing. There's nothing in the middle. I don't know if you're seeing something else with your freaky demon powers or whatever but I don't see anything."
The demon full-out grinned which wasn't what Sam had been expecting. "Exactly. There's no town. Which means there's probably a lonely little farm house in the middle of all that land. Guess who's doing the work?"
"The person that lives there. A witch that likes to be secluded from civilization so it can do its dirty work maybe."
"There you go, I knew your brain was still in there somewhere geek boy. Just gotta clear all the alcohol and misery from ya and you'll be as good as new." The tone in its voice wasn't mocking for once and Sam couldn't help himself as he felt his throat close up. It sounded so much like Dean, something Dean would say to cheer him up. But as soon as Sam looked up at the creature standing before him and saw those black eyes...he knew this was no Dean.
This was a demon. And Sam had to work with it. Just because it was wearing his brother's form couldn't mean that Sam could get soft. He needed to put up a wall, build it strong and tall and shove all his emotions and sadness behind it. Sure it looked like Dean, but it was a cold, twisted and damned soul that could trick him at any time. Sam couldn't be getting soft, he had to be strong and stubborn even though he was breaking down inside, losing a little of himself day after day.
He knew without his brother, he'd never be the hunter he was before. But he had to toughen up and get ready because even if the demon was lying...something big was going down, Sam could just feel it. He needed to be prepared...for anything that might come his way. And if he went down...at least he'd go down fighting.
Just like Dean had.
"So I say we go straight out there. Talk to whoever lives there and find out what's going down." The demon looked up at Sam, those unnerving black eyes staring into his own.
"Could you at least keep your eyes normal?" Sam bit his lip and turned away.
He heard the demon huff. "This is normal. I'm a demon, remember?"
Sam went to say something back but he held his tongue. It was probably best if he got into as little conversation with this demon as possible.
Unfortunately the demon seemed to enjoy his company. "Ohhh...I see what it is. You're creeped out by the black eyes on your brother. If you're gonna bitch and moan about it, I'll switch them. But come on, this is what I am now. You're never going to accept me as your brother if you can't accept what I am now. Keeping my eyes green is only adding to your illusion, you have to come to terms with..."
"You're not my brother!" Sam spun around and grabbed the demon by its shirt. "You're not him! You're a disgusting piece of shit that belongs in Hell. So do me the slightest favor and don't show me those hideous soul-less black eyes so it's one less thing for me to deal with."
For a split second Sam thought he saw an actual emotion pass through the demon face. It looked...shocked...if Sam didn't know any better he could have thought the demon was hurt by his words. And for that split second Sam almost regretted the words he spoke. Almost.
But then the scowl was back on the demon's face and it grabbed Sam and pushed him to the floor with inhuman force. "You have no right to call me that after what I suffered for you," it snarled at him. "Now quit your bitchy moaning and get cleaned up. We have to interview whoever lives in this house and I need you to look decent for once."