And this is where it gets interesting. The action you've all been waiting for. So sit down, get comfy, and hold on :D

Chapter 12

Between Who You Are And Who You Could Be

He ignored Dean. He felt bad about it, especially after all that he'd done, all that he'd gone through to get the older man back. He had to know, though. He had to find out why he'd done the things that he'd done, why he'd gone against what he'd hoped was his true nature, kindness and mercy and life.

He also had to save the world, had to help in the only way that he knew he could. He had the knife. He had the element of surprise. He had the experience in the field of killing. He had to murder himself.

It would be hard, he knew, but he could do it. He slipped the knife from its place at his side as he ran, ready for anything. He could barely hear his brother's soft pleas for a safe return as pure adrenalin filled his body.

Sam kicked the door down and barged into the house. There were two guards standing by a staircase, and they looked a bit surprised to see him. Their eyes turned black, and Sam grinned as they ran at him.

The girl was a brunette. He had trouble picturing her as anything but a blonde, so it had thrown him off-guard. She bared her teeth at him, her eyes turning black, and demanded her knife back. Sam was more than happy to give it to her.

The first demonic guard came in low, probably hoping to knock him off balance. It was in for an unpleasant surprise when Sam finally revealed the blade, jabbing it into the man's stomach and cutting upward, hitting the heart. Warm blood spilled over his shirt and hands, slicking them like grease.

The little girl turned wide, blue eyes up at him, her face contorting in a mixture of pain, confusion, and fear. It wasn't a little girl, and he knew that, but the look still hurt. Her blood still coated his hands. She dropped to the ground, her pale body standing out in perfect contrast to the black hulk of the Impala in the parking lot behind her. Sam screamed.

He pushed the guard back, dragging the knife from the host's stomach as the demon died in a flash of red light. The other guard looked between the body and the hunter, as if unsure about what to do. Finally, it made up its mind, turning to run away. Sam was too fast for it, caught it as it fled toward the stairs, dug the knife deep into the base of its spine.

She fell to her knees instantly, just as Sam had nearly three years before. He ripped the knife from her back, her blood on his hands, and leaned in close to her. His long fingers wrapped themselves into her hair and he yanked her head roughly back to stare into her dying eyes. "Go to Hell."

Sam blinked, bringing himself back to the present, realizing that Hell was here, was now, was him. He swallowed hard, trying to avoid looking at the bodies that lay on the ground. He wiped his hands and the knife on his jacket, a futile attempt to cleanse them of their sins.

He was starting to see why some demons were willfully going back to the pit.

Above him, boards creaked and groaned with weight. Taking a deep breath to steady himself against whatever he might soon have to face, whatever he had become, he started up the stairs.

The rickety wooden staircase led to a short hallway- really more of a platform- with one door leading off it. Adjusting his grip on the now-tacky knife, Sam edged himself toward the door, careful to limit the amount of noise he was making, and placed his hand on the rusting knob. It was surprisingly easy to turn, and the hinges on the door had recently been oiled, a sure sign that someone was living there. Or expecting him, trying to trick him into a false sense of security with ease.

He pushed the door open, his pace agonizing, heart beating out a troubled rhythm in his chest. This was it. Somehow, he'd known that he was going to do it since Jo had first mentioned war, since he had been given the ok to fight. He had to fix things, and killing what he was going to become would definitely help.

As soon as the door was open enough for him to slide through, Sam entered the room. It was bigger than he'd expected it to be, taking up the whole top floor. It was cleaner than the rest of the house, and looked almost new. Two beds had been pushed up against the wall, and for a moment, he was reminded of Dean's room back in the sewer.

He snuck farther into the room, investigating, looking for signs of life. Large windows looked out over the town of Cold Oak, sending in streams of gray light. A few paintings hung on the walls, obviously relics of the house's old days, before psychics and demons had claimed the town. A large, rectangular box covered in a red sheet had been positioned at the foot of one of the beds, and something inside was rustling. Sam approached it slowly, his muscles tensing, readying for whatever might jump out.

A white flash illuminated the room, strobing in through the windows and marking Sam's shadow against the wall. Years of training had him on the ground with his arms over his head in mere seconds as the sound of the explosion rocked the town.

The ringing in his ears died down as a new noise filled the air. Shouting, yelling, screaming. The sound of gunfire, of Latin, of metal-on-metal in combat. He was sure that if he looked out one of the windows, he would see war.

Sam stood on shaky feet, the knife still clutched in his hand. He turned toward the windows, momentarily distracted from his own self-appointed mission. He was reminded of it by the sound of the door slamming.

Sammy spun, knife held at the ready, to face the door. No one was there. The room was empty. Unless…

He spun again, this time toward the covered container by the beds. He didn't think, just reacted, tried to make himself go numb inside the way he had after Dean's death, tried not to think about what he was doing. He just wanted it to be over with.

Sam lunged at the dark figure, slashing at it, hoping to hit it, to make some kind of blow that would result in its death, because what he could see of the thing made him believe that it couldn't be him.

He felt the knife hit skin, though it was a glancing blow, a flesh wound. If he'd had more time to prepare, more leverage, more traction, more anything, he could have gone straight through the ribcage to the heart. Instead, he nicked the flesh directly above it before flying across the room, pushed by invisible hands.

The figure stepped forward as Sam's head connected with the wall. It looked at him, its head cocked in a perfect imitation of a curious puppy. "Well, I'll be damned," it said, the familiarity of the voice sending shivers down Sam's spine. The thing walked up to him, and any doubts about its identity were stripped from the hunter's mind.

He was staring at himself. An older version of himself, one with longer hair and a slight inkling of gray at the temples, but Sam Winchester, nonetheless. Only, it- he- was wrong. His eyes weren't green, weren't compassionate, weren't even human. Specks of red floated in the irises, spinning like a tornado of fire, boring into his soul. The face was hard, angular, gaunt. Evil.

"Looks like I've got a guest," the thing Sam had somehow become said, his face splitting into a wicked grin.

"Looks like you do," Sam agreed as his double approached, taking Ruby's knife from fingers weakened by whatever hold he had over the younger man.

"I remember this," he said, "Ruby's, right? Remember how that bitch begged and screamed? That was a fun kill."

Sam just turned away, suddenly sickened by what he was seeing, what he was hearing. "Shut up."

"Oh, come on, Sammy. You enjoyed it. And you'll keep enjoying it, for many years to come. After all, you can't fight destiny."

"I don't believe in destiny," the hunter muttered.

The older psychic nodded sadly, tossing Ruby's knife to the side, watching it skitter across the floor. "Neither does Dean."

Sam's head snapped back over to look at the thing holding him captive. "You remember him?"

"Of course I remember him. He's my brother."

"But, he told me-"

The thing with the red eyes laughed. "Seriously? You believed him?" He sighed. "You and Bela and Jo. Rule number one, Sammy-boy. Demons lie. Remember that? The phantom traveler in Pennsylvania? That was Dean's rule. Made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, didn't it?"

"He didn't lie to me."

"Oh, really? So, he didn't tell you some sob story about me leaving him in Hell? Because that was our cover for him, if I remember right."

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked as the day before flashed through his mind, forcing him to recall every odd comment Dean had made, every weird look.

His captor grinned. "Forgot how stupid I used to be. I spent fifteen years trying to save my brother. You really think I was just gonna let him rot because destiny came knocking? You think an army of smoky black clouds was really more important to me than blood? What kind of inconsiderate bastard do you think you are, Sam?"

He looked away, back toward the windows, trying to clear his muddled thoughts, his confused mind. "No."

"I broke into Hell and I found him. You should have seen him," the older man said, his voice breaking, "he was all chained up, suspended, like a piece of meat on a hook. For fifteen years. I saved him, got him down, hand-picked a host for him. I found that Tyler kid and made sure he wouldn't put up a fight."

"You killed him?"

"I gave Dean a body that wouldn't fight him off. Like an organ donor. Skin's an organ, right?" The same cold edge that had been there when he'd first stepped from the shadows crept back into his voice, choking off any semblance of human emotion that might have been there. His eyes were cold and dark.

"You killed an innocent kid."

"No. You did. And then you got your brother back. And we're happy. Just like old times. He plays spy for me now. He got them to come to me. And now no one's going to stop us from being a family."

"You're twisted," Sam snapped, "and you're lying. Dean would never side with you."

"I'm-"

"You're not his brother. You're not me."

The older man smiled, backing away from the wall, appraising Sam. "Give it time. Just give it time." He turned suddenly toward the door, his smile growing wider, warming as his eyes lost that coldness.

Sam followed his- own?- gaze to the door just as it was flung open and Dean stepped in, a large smirk planted firmly on his stolen face. Before the younger man could even open his mouth to speak, the older psychic had crossed to the door and pulled the demon into a fierce hug.

"Relax," Dean said, struggling from the embrace, "I told you I'd come back."

The older man nodded. "Yeah. I know, but I was so excited. Dean, I got you something."

Sam wrinkled his nose in a mixture of confusion and disgust. It was hard to miss the change that had come over the red-eyed figure since Dean's appearance, even in that short amount of time. He seemed softer, acted different, almost like a kid who'd gotten lost in the mall, only to find his mother a couple of stores away. Yeah, he was acting like a kid who'd been lost… or abandoned.

He figured he could muse about that later, though. He had something to get to the bottom of. "You lied to me."

Dean turned, apparently surprised to see him pinned to the wall. "Oh, hey, Sammy. Was wondering where you'd run off to."

"You lied!"

"What can I say?" Dean shrugged, his eyes turning black, "it's the nature of the beast."

"Dean," the older psychic whined, pulling on the young host's arm and looking every bit like the child Sam had mentally compared him to. "Come on. You've gotta see it!"

"In a minute," Dean sighed, shaking what used to be his sibling from his arm. "Gotta talk to the prisoner." He stepped up to the wall, gazing at Sam with a content look on his face.

"They haven't found a way to break the troops, have they?" Sam asked, staring down at the demon as the numbness once again seeped into his soul, invading him, cooling him to world. He didn't try to fight it. Maybe if Dean had stayed Dean, if Sam had stayed Sam, then there would be something worth fighting for. But Dean was a demon, Sam was a leader, and nothing could change the Hell they'd been through. It was easier to just not feel the disappointment than to face it head-on.

"No," Dean said. "We haven't. But we're working on it. And now that we've got a whole new batch of guinea pigs, it'll be a hell of a lot easier to develop."

"What happened to you?"

"The same thing that happened to you. Hell." He stepped away from the wall, turned to face the brother that had sprung him from Hell, had put him to work as a spy, had made him lie, had made him a demon. "All right, Sammy. What is this amazing thing that you've got for me?"

Sam let himself hang limp on the wall. He was done. They couldn't kill him, couldn't risk hurting the future ruler of a demonic world, but they could use him, make his reign come faster. And he wouldn't fight it. There was nothing to fight. Destiny had won out. Destiny had stated that people who went to Hell became demons and that Sam was set to lead their army. That had happened. Fighting it was pointless.

The man he would become stood behind the covered box, smiling like an idiot. At least, if this was destiny, Sam would have his brother. They could still be a family. A messed up family, but a family, nonetheless. Maybe that would be worth all of the chaos and destruction that he left in his wake. Maybe it was worth it.

The man beside the box was still grinning, bouncing on his feet, happier than Sam had been for a long time. "I know how much you want your own body back," he was saying, his eyes never leaving Dean, "and I remember you telling me that you'd talked to one of their shifters about hopping hosts."

Dean nodded. "Yeah. So?"

"So," the psychic said. "I got you a present." He pulled the red cover off of the box, revealing a cage. Inside the cage sat a man, looking very unhappy and just a little drugged.

"Marc?" Sam asked, recognizing the man that he'd met in the sewer the day before.

"He's yours," the older version of Sam said, ignoring the hunter still pinned to the wall, "so you can be yourself again, Dean."

Dean smiled. "Sammy, I don't know what to say. I've been waiting to get a shifter for a long time." He stared into the cage, inspecting what was soon to be his new host, before looking back up at his brother. His eyes narrowed. "You're bleeding."

The psychic glanced down at himself, the big smile never fading, even as he found the blood seeping through the front on of shirt. He pulled the fabric down and away from his skin, revealing fading ink lines carved into his skin. A pentagram inside a sunburst, marred by a single line of blood.

"Oh," he said, "yeah. Just a flesh wound. Kid must've done it when he came at me with his little sticker. No big deal." He looked back up at Dean, red eyes shining. "So, I did good?"

The demon nodded, his eyes flashing with some unidentifiable emotion that the older psychic apparently didn't catch. "Yeah, Sammy. You did great."

"Well, go on. Hop in. I'll look away while you change if you want."

"All right," Dean said, smiling. "I think I'll do that." The boy's mouth opened wide, unleashing a stream of black smoke into the air. Sam watched as the smoke swirled overhead, forming into something that vaguely resembled his brother, necklace and all. The cloud crossed the room, heading toward the cage, but changed course at the last minute, forcing the psychic's mouth open and invading the body of the man responsible for bringing Hell to Earth.