"It's scary, isn't it?" The older lady who owned the farmhouse informed them. "All those poor people dying so suddenly. It makes me afraid for my little Nellie."

The demon remained stone-faced, the same blank expression it had on throughout the entire interview. Sam mentally sighed as he spoke up, trying to be kind because the woman sure wouldn't get any kindness from the creature sitting next to Sam.

"Who's Nellie?" Sam asked with a small smile.

The woman smiled. "My granddaughter. It's just me and her that live here." As if she was on cue, a small girl about six years old bounced down the stairs.

"Granma, who are they?" she asked with a slight lisp.

"These are detectives that are trying to help the towns around us," she told the little girl. "Why don't you bring in the plate of cookies I made earlier so these nice men can have a snack?"

The girl skipped into the kitchen and came back a moment later with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. They weren't freshly baked, but Sam felt his mouth watering. He was starving. He had turned down all the food that the demon had offered him and Sam managed to realize that he hadn't eaten anything since before the demon found him.

Sam went to reach out, but suddenly it was as if his hand was weighed down by lead. He tried his other arm only to find out that it wouldn't move either. He felt like his arms were tied to his sides. His breathing picked up as he began to panic, but a moment later the demon stealthily nudged him in the side and Sam looked over.

Its now-green eyes were shockingly easy to read. Don't do it. Something's wrong. The demon was keeping Sam from moving, keeping him tied by using its mind. Sam felt himself relax a bit. He wasn't going to die today. The demon had stopped Sam from taking the offending dessert and most likely making himself a witch-meal.

"We're fine." The demon spoke up and Sam felt its hold release on his arms as he flexed his fingers. "Sammy here is allergic to chocolate anyway."

That's a pretty crappy lie. Sam doubted the woman, or witch, or whatever the hell she was would fall for it. However the woman just smiled although something in that grin was a bit unnerving.

"What a shame, chocolate is my second favorite snack."

"Yeah, and human flesh is your number one snack, you psycho old bitch," the demon growled once they got in the Impala a few minutes later.

Sam looked back at the old farmhouse as the demon sped away. "What the hell happened in there? Was she trying to poison us?"

"Yeah, although it only would have worked on you. Demons are pretty tolerable to that stuff." It grinned and Sam tried hard not to roll his eyes. "Those cookies were so old; they've probably been sitting in her fridge for ages. I bet she's been feeding them to her unknowing visitors."

Sam shivered, thinking about how he could have been this woman's next meal. The demon had actually protected him from that.

"So we have a witch that likes to snack on skin and guts?"

The demon looked at Sam like he was a first grader and not a twenty-six year old hunter that could stab him at any moment. "Are you dense? Couldn't you tell she wasn't a witch? She's a ghoul, her and the girl."

Sam shook his head, not understanding how the demon just seemed to know. "How do you know? Do demons have some kind of monster vision or something?"

"No, I guess I'm just the smart one in the family now." Sam cringed at the mention of 'family' and the demon snarled in response. "What witch eats people? Couldn't you smell the death in the house? There was fresh meat too, that smell stood out. It's probably the real bodies of the people they're posing as right now. Ghouls take the forms of the last people they eat."

"How can you be so sure?" Sam asked, although he was more creeped out by the fact that the demon could 'smell death'. And could tell the difference between old and fresh meat.

"I just am. But we should go back and check the place out while they're gone. If we find the bodies of the old fart and the little girl, we know for sure that we have a ghoul on our hands."

"Well I agree with you there." Sam said and he couldn't argue that fact. Well, he could if he really wanted to, but truth was...he was tired of arguing. These past two or three days all he had been doing was yelling and belittling the demon. And while he wasn't wrong in doing that, it was exhausting. If he had to work with this thing, he could at least try to tolerate it.

The demon looked at Sam like it didn't believe his sudden agreement. Sam didn't fail to notice how it wasn't changing its eyes to black but rather leaving them the green that Sam had begged him to. That was strange. The demon shouldn't have cared enough to bother to listen to Sam's request.

Sam suddenly felt the car stopping and he looked up to see that they were in the parking lot of a diner. "What are you doing?" he asked the demon, turning around to glare at it suspiciously.

"What does it look like? I'm stopping here so we can get some grub. You're starved." It opened the door and moved to exit the car but Sam, again on instinct, reached out. He grabbed its jacket... Dean's jacket... and the demon spun around to stare at him with an irritated look on its face.

"Why would you do that?" Sam asked quietly. "Why would you bother to notice I'm hungry and feed me?"

The demon snorted and rolled its still-green eyes. "Maybe because I don't want you to die from hunger? Ever think about that, smart one?"

Sam waved his hand out at the demon. "Uh, hello? Demon."

The demon didn't waste a second as it pointed back at itself. "Hello? Brother. Your brother."

Sam wanted to retort back, oh did he want to. But he remembered his promise to himself from a few minutes ago. No more arguing unless absolutely necessary. So he bit his lip and looked away.

"So..." The demon looked around awkwardly. It looked so much like Dean, right down to his mannerisms and the way he conducted himself. "You going to finally eat something? I'll pay."

"With your stolen money, I bet." Sam replied back, but it wasn't out of anger. It was merely a comment this time.

"But of course." The demon grinned and Sam tried with all his might to fight back the smile that wanted to form from seeing that Dean-grin.

Instead he just nodded. "Yeah, I'll eat. And you're right, I am starving."

They walked into the diner, and as the demon lead the way, Sam couldn't fail to notice that it even had Dean's cocky swagger and confident stance. Well, it did make sense in a way; this thing had been Dean at some point. But still, Sam thought Hell should have burned away all of that in the demon. Sam was wrong earlier when he said it didn't act like Dean... because the demon actually was acting like his brother. Not the big things maybe, but the little things that only Sam would notice.

The demon even grinned flirtatiously at the waitress and ordered the juiciest half-pounder cheeseburger with all the sides... complete with pie for dessert.

Sam was so shocked that when it was his turn to order he almost couldn't get words out.

"Let me guess." The demon chuckled. "A garden salad with light ranch. Or a grilled chicken sandwich on wheat bread with veggies?"

"Shut up." Sam retorted back but he couldn't help it... Despite himself he smiled back to the demon, the antics seeming all too familiar, bringing him back to happier times. He turned to the waitress. "Actually I'll get what he's having. But a quarter pounder. And no pie afterwards."

"Dude how can you not have dessert afterwards?"

"Maybe because I want to wait until after I eat to see if I have room for some." Sam shot back, not realizing until after the waitress left just how easily he fell back into their old routine...

No, not their old routine. His and Dean's routine. And this wasn't Dean.

But all throughout these two and a half days... he felt it getting harder and harder to hate this thing.

"Are you absolutely positive that those people are ghouls?" Sam asked the demon as they were heading back out to the farmhouse that night. The demon had stocked the Impala with machetes that would easily take their heads off.

"I'm sure, a hundred percent. Call it a demon's intuition." It grinned and Sam sighed.

"That's exactly why I do not trust your instinct. You're a demon. You wouldn't care if they were humans or ghouls, as long as they could be the suspect you'd kill them before you found them guilty."

The demon rolled its eyes as it clenched its fists around the steering wheel. "Yes you're right, I could care less. But I'm not going to do that because you'd kick me out. That's why we're checking the place out while they're gone. I have to play by your rules if I want to stick around."

The thought of the demon leaving Sam all alone once again made him feel uncomfortable and that surprised him. He should want the demon gone, shouldn't he? "Why would you want to stick around anyway? I'm sure you think I'm some annoying, obnoxious, disgusting human you'd love to kill with your mind."

The demon chuckled. "Annoying and obnoxious? Hell yeah, you've always been. Disgusting... well, your haircut's pretty disgusting." It paused for a moment, still looking straight ahead at the road. "But there must be something wrong with your head if you think I'd ever consider killing you. I thought you'd know by now I never could kill you, no matter what. You should be the one that wants to kill me."

Sam felt something inside him change from that statement and he knew that he wouldn't kill this demon, even if it was threatening his own life.

"Nah, that wouldn't help in stopping Lilith, now would it?"

"Now I think your head's on straight."

They drove in what Sam couldn't deny was a pretty comfortable silence until they reached the farmhouse. It was just past midnight and the car was gone from the dirt driveway. The demon had been right in figuring that they'd be out at night... probably looking for more meat.

"Don't ghouls only eat dead meat?" Sam whispered while they grabbed their machetes - just in case - from the trunk of the Impala.

"No, they don't have to. But most do because it's an easy way for them to live. Snack off dead bodies in graves or in the morgue and they won't get tracked down by the cops. I'm not sure what's up with these two. Maybe they want some more excitement, or there's a shortage of dead bodies?"

"A shortage of dead bodies?"

Sam could see the demon grin from the light of its flashlight. "Who knows? Maybe the ghoul population went way up and there's a shortage of food now so they have to compensate."

"You have horrible reasoning." Sam groaned. They walked up to the backdoor where the demon shined the flashlight on the door handle. It was obvious that he was doing so for Sam to pick the lock, Dean had done the same thing so many times...

"At least I reason, unlike you. All you do is ask questions."

Sam turned away from his work on the lock to glare at the demon. "Quit being so loud, keep your voice down."

"What does it matter? They're not here." He groaned but surprisingly listened to Sam by lowering his voice dramatically.

"It only takes one person... or ghoul... to drive a car. One of them could still be here." Sam reminded the demon and with a click he had the door opened.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see who's right." The demon muttered. They entered the house and softly closed the door behind them.

"Alright." The demon quickly surveyed the house. "I'll take this floor and you take the downstairs."

"Or how about I take this floor and you take downstairs?" The last thing Sam wanted to do right now was navigate through a dark, creepy basement.

The demon shrugged. "Fine by me. Call me over if you find the bodies and I'll do the same."

Sam was about to respond, but by the time he opened his mouth the demon had already darted down into the basement, not being all too quiet about it either.

Sam slowly made his way through what seemed like a normal young girl's room. He half expected bodies to fall out of the closet but all he found were dresses and baby dolls. For a brief moment he was brought back in time to the case where he and Dean were investigating that old hotel. Dean had made the woman there believe that Sam was an avid doll collector. He remembered hating that and being so angry at his brother. He felt that ever-present pain in his chest grow horribly sharp. Sam let out a quiet sad chuckle at the memory and let a single tear fall. He'd do anything to have that teasing and embarrassing brother back, anything. With a sigh, Sam made his way into the next bedroom. He was busy investigating the grandma's closet when his phone buzzed.

Sam was startled for a minute- no one had his number. Not even Bobby, since Sam isolated himself by switching phones. It buzzed once more, meaning it was a phone call. Sam considered not answering since it was most likely a telemarketer or wrong number, but curiosity got the best of him.

"Hello?" He asked quietly.

"Hey," Sam was strangely relieved to hear Dean's voice, even though he knew it wasn't really his brother. "I found the bodies...or what's left of them anyway. Other than the old coot and girl, there's about a dozen others. Come meet me down here."

Sam wondered how the demon got his number, but he wasn't about to fret over it. "Alright, I'll be down in a minute. I'm just going to finish checking the grandma's room."

"Okay but hurry dammit. It freaking reeks down here, man!"

While Sam was deciding whether or not to laugh at or ignore the Dean-ness of that line he felt something grab ahold of his ankle. He let out a bellowing scream as he went down hard, his phone flying from his grasp. Even so, he could hear the demon calling his name.

"Sam? Sammy dammit, I'm coming!" Dean's voice crackled from the phone and in a second Sam heard footsteps, but not before the... little girl... was looming ahead of him.

"Gotta love fresh hunter meat." She giggled wickedly before grabbing a knife from her dress pocket and slashing Sam's left arm vertically in one quick motion.

The pain was instant and intense and Sam couldn't help but to scream out again, so loudly that he almost didn't hear his rescuer.

"Sammy!" The demon bellowed once more. Sam felt the little girl's teeth on his arm, sucking at his blood, and then she was off of him and in the air lunging at the demon that stood in the doorway.

Through his pain, Sam felt himself feeling a bit worried about the demon. He knew the demon was more than capable of defending itself, and hell...a ghoul couldn't kill a demon anyway. Sam tried to tell himself that the worry must have stemmed from the fact that the demon was wearing Dean's body.

Sam's irrational worry wasn't needed though, as the ghoul froze in midair inches away from the demon. It smirked at the little girl's imposter and then flung the creature into the opposite wall with a flick of its hand.

The demon then glanced down at Sam and there was no way the youngest Winchester could mistake that look in its eyes. It was furious at Sam's condition and not only that but it held the same protective look that Dean used to wear 24/7.

The ghoul seemed to be in shock by discovering that the other hunter was a demon and struggled to stand up. It knew right then and there that it stood no chance.

"You should have thought twice before messing with my little brother, you flesh-eating bitch." The demon snarled, its eyes flashing to black for the first time in a while, and it held its hand out. "Now you're not going to have the satisfaction of the quick death that we were going to spare you."

In one quick moment the demon clenched its fist and the ghoul let out an ear-piercing shriek unlike anything Sam had ever heard before. He turned his head to a better angle as he watched the ghoul fall back to the floor, clutching its stomach. Blood started seeping from its eyes and nose. Its small body bent backwards grotesquely as its spine snapped loudly. Sam closed his eyes and turned away from the scene... the torture scene that the demon was playing out, and reminded himself that this was not a little girl.

The shrieks kept coming and Sam heard blood bubble out its throat. Oh god, this could be him. The demon could be doing this to him right now... or could have already. But it wasn't. Instead for some reason it was inflicting this pain onto the ghoul because of what it did to Sam.

Forcing himself to open his eyes, Sam was shocked by the pure darkness that was shown on the demon's face. It looked anything but human at that point. Sam wondered how this thing...this thing that had just been joking and laughing with him and had that protective look in his eyes moments ago could turn into this. For some foolish reason he didn't think his demon could be capable of being so... evil. He just prayed that the demon continued to show its dark side in times like this and not when Sam happened to annoy it or say the wrong thing.

His demon seemed to like him...and Sam just had to keep it that way.

The ghoul continued to shriek but that didn't stop Sam from noticing that the grandma had appeared behind the demon.

"Dean! Behind you!"

The demon reacted automatically at the call and didn't waste any time as it grabbed the machete and sliced the ghoul's head clean off in one swift motion.

It didn't turn around to take care of the tortured ghoul that was now moaning against the wall, though. It just stood there, staring at the dead body of the one it just killed and taking deep breaths. When it finally turned around its eyes were green once again and it looked much more like the demon Sam had gotten used to the past few days.

Without looking back down at Sam, it walked over to the distorted ghoul and chopped its head off. It then walked out of the room only to come back with a first aid kit that must have been in the bathroom. Kneeling down next to the injured hunter, Sam was surprised by the gentleness that the demon used to not only lift him into a sitting position, but to grab his arm and inspect the large gash.

He proceeded to take the next five to ten minutes to carefully clean the wound in silence and wrap gauze around it. When he was done he stood up and held a hand out to Sam.

Not even hesitating this time, Sam took his hand and let the demon help him stand up. He swayed for a moment before looking down at the demon.

"Thank you. Really, thank you."

The demon didn't reply, and instead looked away. "You called me Dean," he said instead.

Sam blinked back at the demon in shock. He did no such thing! But as he slowly replayed the last half hour back in his mind he realized he had called out to the demon in a state of panic but had used his brother's name.

"I... it was just out of familiarity. There've been countless times I had to call out to Dean when he was in danger." Sam noticed how the demon seemed to become dejected and angry at the same time. "You're wearing his body and on a hunt with me, what did you expect?"

The demon shook his head and this time looked at Sam right in the eye. "I'm wearing my body. I didn't run in there and save you to look good or suck up to you, you know. I did it because I couldn't let you get hurt, because I can't stand to see it." He looked so frazzled that Sam was at a loss for words. "What's it going to take for you to realize?"

The demon then turned away and walked down the stairs in silence. With a sigh, Sam went to follow. They had a lot of bodies to clean up before dawn and he wasn't looking forward to doing so with a grouchy demon. How could this thing expect Sam to believe he was Dean?

But Sam realized, with a little bit of horror that somewhere along the line tonight Sam had started referring to the demon as a 'he' instead of an 'it'.

He should worry about this, Sam knew he should. But with a household of bodies to bury, he couldn't find it in himself to fret too much.