I'd like to thank reader and reviewer Zendog for giving me this prompt!
Sam sighed, rubbing his aching temples and looking up from the large book that sat in front of him. When he'd asked the librarian for a book on ancient curses and witchcraft lore, she'd given him the strangest look, but now he was starting to wish she had refused him. The print was small, and the book was entirely in Latin. He was starting to really hate this hunt.
Suddenly, his phone rang. Everyone around him gave him nasty looks as he hurried outside to answer the call from his brother. He sat on the front steps of the Richmond Public Library and pressed the green answer button, holding it up to his ear.
"Yeah, what'd you find out?" He greeted, getting straight to business.
"Absolutely nothing." Dean replied in a disheartened tone. Sam groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in between his thumb and forefinger, and feeling his headache intensify. "Guess what though?" Dean was asking as Sam's hands began to shake. He felt a dark presence try to creep into his mind, oppressing his thoughts and making it hard to focus or breathe. "Sam?" Dean snapped. Sam could practically hear him roll his eyes. "This isn't the time to be playing your stupid immature games, answer me." He commanded, taking on the only tone he knew how to use when he was actually worried. That was the John Winchester tone.
"Dean…'' Sam managed to get out before the phone fell to the ground, the screen cracking and going black. Sam clutched at his head, slamming his eyes shut and trying not to scream out loud. His mind blanked and his entire world went dark, bringing sweet relief.
Sam's body stood up, a dark smile resting on his face as he held his arms out in front of him, curling his finger and uncurling them.
"Oh, I like this body." The spirit inside of him grinned, slipping his hands into this pocket and taking jaunty steps down the library stairs.
As he was walking down the street, deciding what to do and where to go, a black muscle car roared up beside him. The driver quickly shut off the engine and got out of the car, rushing towards him calling a name. Oh, I must be Sam.
"Sam, what's going on? Where's your phone?" The man asked, grasping 'Sam's' arm tightly. The spirit turned around, trying to shake the grip of the man.
"Who are you?" The spirit didn't even try to play along. "This is my body now. So, you can leave." The man with short hair stepped back as if he'd been shocked. The spirit smiled. "This is fun. Let's see if we can pull some memories." The spirit reached back into the mind of the man he was possessing, grinning when the man let out a yell of pain inside his head. "Oh, you're Dean. You're Sam's older brother. Aw, you took care of him? So cute. Little brother says hi. Wow, his noggins a real mess. It's like constant Satan vision. Must suck, being tortured like that. Oh, but I guess you didn't know that he doesn't have it all together." Dean looked like someone had sucked all of the air out of him. Sam stood back, watching with a broken heart and trying desperately to take his body back. He hated that the spirit was doing this to Dean. There was a reason he'd kept all of this a secret, and it was so that he wouldn't have to see that look on Dean's face. "Aw, little brother was trying to protect you, Dean. He didn't want you to know any of this. Of course, you knew he's been seeing Satan all over the place. And you know that the wall came tumbling down. But you don't know the extent of it. Sammy's messed up, Dean. He's got so much wrong with him. I'm surprised he's still upright and not a big drooling mess on the floor." Dean smirked cockily, throwing up a mask so the spirit wouldn't know how much this was really messing with him.
"He's pretty strong. Too strong to let a wimpy spirit like you keep control of him for much longer." The spirit sneered at that, reaching out and gripping Dean's neck tightly. Dean reached up, grasping at Sam's arm as his hand tightened, cutting off Dean's air supply.
"Little bro's given up Dean. So don't stand there and tell me how much stronger he is than me. He's not strong at all. Not when he has to live with all of this in his head. Maybe he's strong enough to stay partially sane, but he isn't strong enough to fight an ancient spirit like me. For thousands of years I was locked in that stupid book, and he let me out. He opened the book. And I quite like this body, so I'm here to stay." The spirit released Dean, smirking as the older man stumbled away, coughing and wheezing while he tried to regain his breath.
"Come on Sammy, I know you're in there." Dean begged, leaning against the side of the impala. The spirit smirked, looking up as if deep in thought.
"Yeah, he's in here. He can hear you loud and clear. He's trying Dean, but he's quite weak mentally. He's unstable. He's a ticking time bomb, and it won't be long until he blows. And until then, I'll stay. So, this is goodbye I guess. Say bye to Sammy now." The spirit lifted his hand in a wave before spinning around and walking away. Dean would have lost all hope. Dean would have collapsed there next to his car and given up. He would have, except he saw Sam's steps falter, and that's when he knew Sam was fighting back with everything he had. His hand came up to his head and he spun around, looking torn.
"Dean." That was Sam's voice. Dean was sure of it. He hurried to his brother's side, resting his hand on Sam's shoulder.
"I'm here, little brother." Dean assured, giving him the strength he needed to fight this spirit out of his body. "You can do it." That was all Sam needed. With one last final heave, he had trapped the spirit into a corner of his mind.
"I have it held. We need to get that book." Sam winced at the loud screaming in his head, screams of refusal and curses spat in a voice that wasn't his. "Now."
The two brothers hurried back to the library, rushing to the table where Sam's book sat untouched. Dean was glad the page was still open to the last one Sam had looked at. And how about that, it was a spell on how to trap spirits inside the book. Like the spirit had said, it had been trapped in that book for thousands of years, on that page forever.
Dean spoke the spell in a quiet tone, hoping to not disturb anyone else in the library. Sam winced, breath catching as one last yell of stubbornness echoed through his head, and then he was alone again. Shaken by the events and strangely weak, Sam's legs gave out and he collapsed, grasping the table to keep himself upright.
"Easy there, tiger." Dean's hands gripped his shoulders with surprisingly soft tenderness. "Man, I can't take you anywhere can I?" He asked humorously, though Sam could hear the tense worry underneath it.
"Guess not." Sam chuckled along with him, panting breathlessly.
"We're gonna have to talk about it, sooner or later." Dean suddenly said, making Sam turn to look at him with a confused face. "Hell." Sam winced, shaking his head. "Not anytime in the near future, don't worry. But…I don't want you to have to go through this alone man. There's a reason I'm here, and it isn't just to exorcise you of stubborn spirits who like to butt into your personal space."