For the next few days the demon was silent to Sam, never saying much more than he had to, although he still kept up the freaking 'Goodnight, Sammy' every single night. He seemed to get over his moping session though after a couple days and was back to his annoying chatty self. They worked a few more cases and the demon cooperated for the most part. Sam was pleasantly shocked.

But the demon kept referring to Sam as his brother. Sam had to watch himself; they almost screwed up a case because Sam had told a witness that the demon was his business partner when the demon had told the same girl earlier that Sam was his brother. It led to another shouting match between the two but the demon had refused to budge, intent on still calling Sam his brother.

They were now busy tracking down a nest of vampires in Iowa. Sam had caved earlier in the week and had texted Bobby, letting him know he was alright and was continuing to hunt. The older hunter had seemed to understand that Sam still wasn't ready to talk and didn't push it; instead he had sent Sam some leads. One of which had included this vampire case.

The rural house the vampires were staying in was currently full of at least six vampires. In normal circumstances, Sam wouldn't dare barging in and risking his life, but these weren't normal circumstances. Sam had a demon working with him, and hunting was practically a walk in the park now.

The demon had stated that they should simply walk right in while he could pin the vampires to the wall using his mind and Sam would chop their heads off. Simple enough.

Except when they flung open the door, it was Lenore who stood there.

She seemed to go into defense mode but quickly recognized the faces of her would-be attackers. She held out her arm to stop the approach of her fellow vampires.

"Sam? Dean?" She asked, and the rest of her clan visibly relaxed once they realized that Lenore knew them on what seemed to be a good note.

Sam instantly felt stupid and a bit embarrassed. The articles that Bobby had sent him were nothing but a bunch of strange sightings and cattle deaths, the same as the first time he had run into Lenore. Maybe he would have realized it earlier if it weren't for his demon's eagerness to jump on any case available and kill things.

"Lenore! Sorry... we just... we were given a case and I didn't know..."

Lenore smiled, "Hey, it's alright. We thought we were doing well by moving around more frequently but I guess we have to keep the cattle count down a bit. At least this was a good heads up." One of the vampires behind her, a tall burly man, grunted and stepped forward with a menacing glare.

Lenore glanced back at him and then turned back to Sam and the demon, looking nervous. "You might want to head out though, now. They aren't too fond of hunters, as you can probably understand."

"It's not that one," the vampire grunted and nodded his head towards the demon. "It's the shorter one. Something's off about that one."

"Your face is off." The demon replied and glared right back at burly-vamp.

"Don't provoke him." Sam whispered even though he wanted to laugh at that comment, it seemed all too familiar. He then faced Lenore and spoke louder. "We'll be heading out, sorry about the mix-up."

They turned around to leave but vampires must be just as quick and sneaky as demons because in one moment the demon was walking right next to Sam, rolling his eyes and in the next moment he was gone.

Sam turned around just in time to see three other male vamps help burly-vamp pin his demon down on the floor.

"What are you guys doing? They aren't harming us! Let him go!" Lenore spoke, her eyes wide.

Sam rushed forward to help the demon but was met with the remaining two female vampires pinning his hands behind his back. Their force seemed unbreakable. Lenore stood in the middle of it all, unsure of which move to make.

"Lenore, hand me that gallon of holy water in the fridge," burly-vamp growled, struggling to keep a hold of the thrashing demon.

"Why should I do that, Jason?" she asked but didn't seem worried like the rest of the vampires did.

"Just do it!" burly-vamp, Jason, bellowed. "Like I said, something is off about this one. He's way too strong and can't you smell it? We all do, he stinks!"

When Lenore refused to move, one of the female vampires let go of Sam and grabbed the gallon of holy water. Why they had that sitting in their fridge, Sam had no idea. He knew they were screwed when the demon's eyes went huge. The demon had informed him that he was trying to build a tolerance to holy water, but obviously such a large quantity was no match for his resistance.

And Sam could only watch, in what he had to admit was horror, as the holy water rained down on his demon. His skin began to bubble and blister as smoke poured from his body but he didn't scream. It was obvious how much pain he was in, but he didn't even whimper.

Jason grew furious then. "Fuckin' demons! Good for nothing hell-spawn!" He turned to Sam. "You think we're low and you're walking around working with a demon?"

"Let him go!" Sam couldn't hold his emotions in any longer. The demon's skin on his face was starting to bleed now, and Sam's eyes were locked to his pain-filled black eyes. "He was leaving with me! Why can't you just let him be?"

Jason cocked his head, studying Sam's outburst. "You care for him, don't you? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"It's his brother, Jason!" Lenore spoke up. "Dean is Sam's brother. They're family just like we are, certainly you can understand that?"

"It was his brother, Lenore. I know you've met them before and have a soft spot for them, but this thing was human when you met him, right? Well now there's a demon inside of him. Might as well help this poor guy here get out of his illusion that his brother's still with him." With that Jason thrust the demon's jaw open and proceeded to pour the rest of the holy water down his throat. And this time the demon couldn't help but scream at the top of his lungs. Even the female vampire holding him flinched.

"He may be a demon but he's my demon!" Sam bellowed and used the distraction of the female vampire to push himself from her hold. He grabbed his machete from his boot and had her in a headlock within seconds.

Blood was bubbling from his demon's throat now and Sam couldn't exactly tell from the blackness but he was pretty sure his eyes had rolled back. "I don't want to hurt her but I will kill her if you don't let him go."

"It's him, Jason," Lenore said, her eyes pleading. "Trust me on this; I saw Dean before. I remember him and this is still him. The demon is Dean. Sam will keep him under control. Just let them go, he was never going to harm us."

Jason didn't look like he believed Lenore, but his eyes were set on the female vampire in Sam's grasp. He loved her. Sam had a knife to his girlfriend's neck and he wasn't going to risk her life.

"Fine." He grunted as he and the other vampires released the now whimpering demon. "Take your hell-spawn and stay far, far away from us."

"I wouldn't dream of coming back," Sam hissed. He walked up to Jason before finally releasing the girl who ran into his arms. Sam then quickly bent down to grab his demon, fearing that the vampires might make the jump on him while he was vulnerable. But once he had the bleeding demon in his arms and stood up, none of the vampires even glanced his way. Sam thought it might have to do with the look that Lenore was giving Jason. She looked downright pissed.

"I'm sorry." She whispered as he went to leave. "For the record I knew he was a demon right away but just by looking at you both, I could tell he was still Dean. I was hoping to get you both to leave before they realized and I apologize for not doing so."

Sam nodded, her strange words ringing in his head. How could she think that the demon was Dean inside? What did she see?

"He's been through Hell and back but you two still have that bond. Just take care of him."

Listening to the demon gurgle in the back seat made Sam break nearly every traffic law. For one, the sound was absolutely disgusting, and the other reason...well, Sam just couldn't forget the horrible sounds Dean had made as he was dying... these noises weren't too far off.

But when Sam finally had the demon back in the motel room and lying on the bed, his worries didn't cease. The noises were still coming and now in the harsh light of the room Sam could really see just how bad his demon's injuries were. He nearly looked like a burn victim; his skin all red, bubbling in places and blood dripping through the cracks of his mouth. Sam could either go lie in his bed and wait days for the demon to heal on his own and ignore the painful wounds, or he could at least help a little bit by trying to treat the wounds the best he could and try and speed up the healing process.

He might as well make himself useful. And demon or not, this was Sam's hunting partner and he needed him to get well.

So Sam sat down on the bed next to the demon and started to clean the endless wounds to the best of his ability. However, every time Sam rubbed ointment or poured water on a wound to rinse away the holy water, his demon's face would buckle in pain. That was Dean's face and Sam was causing damage to that face. Just looking at his demon reminded Sam too much of his brother on his final day, of lifting up Dean's body and desperately feeling for his pulse...hoping with every fiber of his being that there was some life left in his brother...

Sam couldn't relive that day, and plus Lenore's words from earlier were circling around in his head. He put the supplies away, trying to ignore the demon's moans, but failing when he felt something tug at his insides at the sound of them. Getting into his own bed, Sam lay down and turned away from the demon. Why were the noises he was making bringing tears to Sam's eyes? And how come Lenore was so positive that the demon was Dean? What was she seeing that Sam obviously wasn't? What had gotten her so mistaken?

Why was Sam worrying about this so much in the first place?

Sam had been lost in his thoughts for a while before he heard shifting from the bed next to him. He waited a minute before he heard the undeniable sounds of the demon getting out of bed. What in the world? Why would he want to get out of bed when he was in such excruciating pain? What on earth would make him do that, what would make the pain worth it?

Before Sam could even turn around he felt a hand on his shoulder and the demon breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief. The hand lingered for nearly a minute and gently squeezed. Then through his scratchy, bleeding, hoarse throat he spoke.

"G'night, Sammy."

And that was the moment when Sam felt his heart stop, when he knew everything he had been denying was actually true.

His demon was his brother. This was Dean.

Sam spun around and looked right up at the demon - Dean. Even though his eyes were still bleeding a little he had changed them to their normal green. For Sam. He'd done that for Sam.

"Dean," Sam called out. Just as his brother began to retreat back to his bed Sam reached out an arm. Dean turned around slowly at the contact and even through all the pain and the distortion of his face Sam could read him like an open book. He was suspicious and didn't believe Sam's confession. How could Sam not have realized this before?

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam whispered. He didn't have to go any further into detail on what he was sorry about. This was his brother. He would understand what Sam meant and one look at Dean's face confirmed that.

Dean simply nodded once and grunted before collapsing back onto the bed. Now it was Sam's turn.

"Goodnight, Dean."

[KH1]I can't decide if it should be "wasn't" or "weren't"!