:

"I said inside! Don't make me repeat myself again."

"If you were gonna kill me, you wouldn't have brought me here," Ross replied with a certain logic. "And I don't think you're gonna shoot me on the doorstep of a motel."

:

Dean almost rolled his eyes. This freaky version of his brother had more than his appearance in common with Sam.

But while Dean might have had a moment's hesitation in shooting any version of his little brother, Sam didn't have the same problem.

The sleepy-eyed man who'd appeared at the door vanished and the hunter took over, dragging the outsider into the room, and with a twist of his muscular arms Sam pushed him onto the nearby bed. In the blink of an eye the younger Winchester was pointing his own Taurus at the recumbent man.

:

"What the fuck is he?" Sam growled. "Shapeshifter...or ..what?

The frightened look reappeared in Ross' eyes. Lying on his back across a bed with two guns now pointing at him kinda upped the unfavourable odds.

Dean kicking the door shut with a backward turn of his heel added the cherry to the cake.

:

"That's what we're gonna find out, " Dean replied, pensive. "Keep eyes on him while I do the tests."

:

Ross must have equated the word test with torture for he lifted his hands beseechingly.

"Listen. I don't know why you've kidnapped me, other than maybe," his eyes moved to look at Sam, "my resemblance to him, but I'm not rich, I can't pay a ransom. Just let me go and I'll forget this ever happened."

His eyes had taken on the exact, earnest, puppy-dog expression that Sam himself wielded so well and Dean could feel his protective instincts solicited, even though he still retained the clone to be a potential supernatural creature.

"Dean," Sam bitched. His brother seemed to be fascinated by the elephant in the room, bur Sam wasn't as impressed.

"He's not me, dude! Get on with it."

:

The unfortunate man gurgled in surprise as a a copious slosh of holy water hit him in the face.

"What the ..." he yelled, shaking the drops from his hair like some overgrown dog.

"Not a demon, then," Dean announced calmly.

While Ross was still recovering from his unexpected shower, Dean grabbed his hand and traced a shallow cut with a silver knife along his palm, humming as the blood oozed out.

"Not a shapeshifter either."

:

He glanced over at Sam and shrugged before addressing the guy on the bed who was staring at him as if he was mad.

"Sorry, dude, " Dean said. "Maybe there's been a misunderstanding after all. I guess it's been a case of mistaken identity. You're free to go."

The older man opened the door to the motel intimating for Ross to leave.

:

But now that the guns had been lowered and he was clearly being allowed to go, curiosity mixed with anger came to the forefront, quashing any residual fear he might have.

Ross got up, one hand clutching his stinging palm. "Oh no you don't! You fucking kidnap me off the public sidewalk, threaten me with guns, throw water over me and cut me. Before I go to the police, I wanna know why."

:

Once again Dean couldn't remain but fascinated by the two men now standing side by side. The resemblance was astounding.

Dean had run into others who bore a hazy resemblance to his brother.

Once, when John had still been alive, a ghost had taken to killing teens who'd looked eerily like his fifteen year old brother, but what he was seeing here was something else.

And, Dean mused uneasily, he felt drawn to the guy as if his gut was telling him there was something of his Sammy there beyond the resemblance, as striking as that was.

"Look man," Dean began. "I thought you were my brother, okay. I mean you look just like him..."

"Right," Ross interrupted, his tone uber sarcastic. "And when you see your brother you kidnap him. That adds a whole new dimension to brotherly love!"

:

Up till now Sam had been silent, letting Dean deal with the situation.

His big brother had been the one to drag them into this mess, and he was all for letting Dean clean it up, but he understood why Dean had freaked out. If he'd seen such a perfect version of his big brother roaming the streets, he'd have probably done the same thing.

Slapping on an empathic expression, he spoke up.

"Listen, my brother and I... we work undercover.

What we do is pretty dangerous and Dean was just taking precautions. I can't tell you any more than that, just... we had to make sure you weren't someone that might jeopardise our cover. We're really sorry we came down on you so hard."

:

Ross stared at Sam, really taking him in for the first time now that his life wasn't being threatened.

The crazy guy by the door had been right on one account, Ross mused. The man in front of him was identical to himself in every way.

He even had the same mole on his cheek. It was kinda uncanny, like looking in a mirror.

:

"Undercover?" Ross repeated.

"Uh huh, " Dean confirmed, going with Sam's story. "My brother; it's not healthy for him to be seen on the streets. I had to check you out."

"Since when does the law check people out by dousing them with water and cutting them?" Ross bitched.

Dean gave him a toothy smile. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. "

In complete synchronisation two pairs of identical hazel eyes rolled in their owners' heads, causing Dean to watch once again enthralled.

:

"You read my book, by any chance? " Ross asked, a odd note in his tone.

"Sorry dude. I'll give it a go when I retire," Dean replied, pulling the copy he'd bought earlier from his inside jacket pocket and tossing it onto the table.

:

Gerard Ross gave a quick nod.

"Well, can't say it's been nice meeting you guys but as I'm walking out with my ass intact, I'll count it as a win," he said making his way warily to the door, not quite sure if this was some kind of taunting torture, letting him think he was being freed just to slam the door in his face.

But the two crazy dudes were definitely letting him go.

On the threshold he turned to give his two kidnappers one last lingering look, then high-tailed it out of the parking lot as fast as he could.

Dean watched him go with a sensation of ….loss, but he mentally took himself to task. Just because the kid looked like his brother, didn't mean he was.

:

Sam meanwhile had picked up the book and was skimming through the pages.

"Dean, Did you read any of this?" he asked

"No. Why? Is it a porn?" his big brother replied, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"No, but it's a story about the supernatural and two guys who hunt monsters, and get this, their arch-nemesis is a demon called Azazel."

TBC