I turned on the light and all I see is his eyes. Who's eyes? Who do you think? It's the same dream I always have when it comes to him. He's staring back at me through my own father's eyes like the son of a bitch he is. Dean is against the wall unable to move and I'm standing there with the Colt aimed at my dad's head. I could pull the trigger and he'd be dead then and there. It would all be over.

Sometimes Dad comes back to the surface and tells me, no he orders me to shoot him. Dean is begging me not to do it. Then the demon comes back and taunts me. All of it could be over in a manner of seconds, but each time I find myself lowering the gun just like in reality. A gunshot to the leg and the demon is gone for now. Not dead, but he's gone.

Dad's pissed.

Would it have worked out differently in the end if I had killed him then? Dad sacrificed himself not days later and died anyway. We wouldn't have wasted months after that searching for the demon and so many lives would have been spared. We never would have opened the doorway to hell and let all of those demons out of their cages.

But I would have had to shoot my father in the head. Every time I replay the scene, I come up with the same ending. A gunshot to the leg and the demon disappears for a while. Dad's alive for a few days.

There wasn't any other choice to make but the one that was made that night.

One of my earliest holiday memories is of us being on the road and locked up in some hotel room. Go figure. I don't really remember how old I was at the time, but I was young enough that Dad kept Dean on me all the time to make sure I didn't get lost. Well, actually he did that later on anyway no matter how old I got huh? Yes, you still do it now out of habit.

Anyway, Dean wasn't going to let Christmas go by unnoticed for his little brother. Probably because I whined about wanting to watch one of the Chrismtas specials on tv or something. Rudolph and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I was still young enough that I believed in Santa Claus and there was a little place not far from the hotel we were staying had a Santa for kids to go see. I think it was Christmas Eve or the day before when we went out for an hour or so. Dean took me to see Santa Claus and I got to sit on his lap.

I didn't really understand why Dean didn't want to do the same thing, but he just stood at the door and waited for me to get finished. Then we went back to the room and ate dinner while I watched Rudolph. Dad came back on Christmas Day with a few things for the both of us. It's weird, but sometimes I miss those kind of holidays.

Sometimes I wonder when this is all going to be over. When we put the bullet in the demon and finish him off once and for all. It's what we've been working for my entire life. Dean, my dad, and me. It started when I was six months old and some twenty plus years later, it's kept on. I tried to run from it for a while. I didn't think it was my fight or at least I didn't want it to be my fight but when really it was mine and mine alone all along. Or it should have been mine.

The thing is, though, that when we do give the demon what's coming to him (and we will, I don't doubt that for a second) - it's not going to be over.

No matter how many yellow-eyed demons and his children we send back to hell, there's always going to be spirits out there looking to cause trouble. The supernatural doesn't get peace. It's never going to end and there isn't going to be a definite point when we get to rest. That's what I've realized. There might be a light at the end of the tunnel in some ways, but it's just the start of something else.

We're fighting a war and wars aren't won by killing one particular leader. There's always going to be anothe to rise up again in his place.

ooc: canon based

Dean used to say how I was more like our dad than either of us realized. It was all or nothing with the demon. Who cared what happened to either of us as long as that bitch was taken out. Maybe he was right because there was that point that I didn't care. As long as the demon was dead, nothing else mattered. For my entire life, that's what we'd been fighting against.

Now I'm starting to realize that it's the other way around. Dean and my dad are more alike than I ever wanted to find out. Dean was so pissed at him for taking the deal to save him not that long ago. He made a deal with the devil and traded his own life for his son's. This time Dean did it for me. Jake killed me that night. He wanted to come out on top and in reality, he did. I wasn't willing to do the same to him at the time, so he took me out first before I could change my mind.

So, like a dumbass, Dean makes a deal with the Crossroads demon. He traded himself for me and now has to pay the price for it. Only it wasn't a done deal like the one with Dad. No, he gets a year to think about the deal he made and look forward to until his time is up. And I get to sit around and watch my brother try to enjoy the last three hundred and sixty-five days he has left instead of working to try and find a way out of the deal. Because he thinks if he does, it'll cost him me again.

He says he's tired. Well, hey what do you think I am? I was gone and he did what he had to so that I could live on after him. I get it and I appreciate what he did more than he'll ever know, but not at the cost of his own life.

One of these days I'll do the same thing and make some deal. Wonder which of them will crawl out of hell to beat my ass.

As a kid, all I knew was the life on the go and Dad going from one job to another. I didn't always understand it and later voiced how much I hated the life, but it was still all I knew. We were hunters and the people we knew were hunters. Dad's friends or maybe just the people we were closest to. It's not an easy life and it's rough, but there's a certain kind of person who takes on the job as a hunter and there's a certain kind of bond or recognition when a few come together for whatever reason.

Hunters all over are fighting against demons and spirits of whatever kind. They all have their own reasons for doing it and some probably know nothing about who I am and the reasons I choose to do what I do.

I have no clue how many hunters are really out there because we meet and learn about more all the time. Some run a different kind of show than Dean and I do, but in a way we're all fighting on the same side. There's just one particular evil certain hunters focus on more than others. I know I do.

// locked to the yellow-eyed demon bitch only //

Maybe you got an up on us this time. I don't fully believe that you did since you were the one who was kicked out of the body you stole. This war is a series of battles and you might have won a few, several even, but you're not winning anymore than I can help. We don't belong to you and we never will. The people we belong to are those you stole from some of us as infants. My parents can call me their own. I belonged to Jess. You took all three of them away from me and I'm not letting it happen again you son of a bitch.

Call me your favorite all that you want, but I'm not going to live up to your potential. You read my mind that day in the church and maybe you read it right. I am curious about my abilities but only in the way that they'll help beat your ass back to hell where you belong. Back with your sons and daughters that we've already sent there. Remember them? I do. I remember them real well. We sent them to the fire and brimestone where you'll soon be joining all of them again.

After what you did this time, I'm not stopping until this battle is over. The battles and the war will come to an end and I'm going to make sure you don't come out on top. Gabe probably had it right the first time when he asked me to do him in if things got too far out of hand. I'm not suicidal but if this costs me my life to see you burn then so be it.

I'm not hiding from you. Come and get me, bitch.

I tell myself that a person's destiny or whatever the hell you call it, isn't written in stone. We all have the ability to make our own choices and that's what determines what comes next. It's not some birthmark on our souls that says who we're going to be. Plans change all the time and no matter how final you think they are, nothing is set until it actually happens.

The demon says I belong to him, but I can't really believe that. I don't want to believe it and I'm working damn hard to make sure I prove him wrong. None of us belong to him, not really. We might choose his side, but that's all it is. A choice. I'm not meant to go against the people and loved ones I'm fighting so hard to protect or make sure that their deaths weren't in vain.

When he comes for me again, and I know he will, there are ways to protect myself. I've been raised to fight the things that go bump in the night or children only thing live in their closets or under their beds. Tall tales that only exist on the internet or legends that have been passed down five generations. It's what I do. We break the patterns of spirits and the supernatural all the time and I know I'm able to break the pattern with me.

I don't have to become what he wants me to be. I won't. I'm not his child and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure he doesn't get anyone else.

At least that's what I try to tell myself. Easier said than believed.

When I met Jess, I fell for her so hard and probably faster than she did for me. She was the girl I knew I wanted to spend my entire life with and I was ready to take that step. I was going to ask her to marry me and then she was killed. The demon took her from me just like he took away my mother all because they supposedly got in the way of his plans for me. Fuck his plans, that son of a bitch shouldn't be able to decide what my life is going to be. Not that me saying that helps since he'd just laugh it off and then say I didn't have a choice in the matter. Same tune I've heard for a while now.

Then there was Sarah. I only knew her for a couple days, but I cared about her. She was the first person I really let myself care for after Jess because I was scared that when I got too close, they'd end up in a gulf of flames on the ceiling too. Except I left town before anything could really come of that later. I've had thoughts of going back to see how she is, but there's no way I can do that now. There's too much at stake and too much we have to accomplish before I ever stay put in any place for any length of time. If I went back, I'd just be leaving again and she deserves better than that.

A few months later and there's the werewolf case and we run into Madison. Come to find out she actually happens to be the werewolf we're looking for, or at least one of them, and there's this possibility that she's going to die. We'd done some innocent flirting back and and forth and there was this pull I felt towards her. Eventually, we thought she was safe. We'd killed the werewolf who'd bitten her and so she was cured. But it's just never that easy and me being in the picture or not, she's dead and I was the one who literally killed her while she looked me right in the face. Not the beast that lived on the inside, but the girl who I'd started to care for during the couple of days we'd been working the case.

When I fell in love with Jess I thought it would be forever, but that's just another one of those fairytales that don't exist.

I don't really have a specific song or artist right now. I mean, there are bands, songs, and styles I like more than others, but as for just one? Nah, not really. Dean calls it the emo music but, well, that just means it's something he doesn't like. As in, anything that hasn't been produced or released in the past fifteen years or more. I swear, he could update his collection to something different.

And I don't mean the best of hip hop either.

Before Emily started coming along with us on the road, I don't know how I put up with it for so long. I guess I learned the advantage of headphones and the shuffle feature on my ipod. It's not like I could change the music all that much even if I wanted to since the Impala is equipped with just a cassette player. My brother hasn't discovered the wonders of digital music yet.

He told me once that the driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cake hole. Funny since that's what he says when I'm driving too. Something about not needing a distraction of messing around with the stereo. Hell if I know his reasons. Though, after recent events I guess I owe it to him to shut up about the music for a while. That's where the ipod and headphones come in handy.

I barely saw the gun coming at me before I was on the ground and knocked out. Emily had come back into the room and I wished she would have just stayed back at the car. I could hardly protect myself against this guy much less her too. Just when I heard the real Gabe come up and demand that I shoot him. Shoot to kill. He wanted me to shoot the bastard between the eyes, but that wouldn't do anything but kill him. The demon would just go on and stuff himself into someone else, but Gabe didn't want his own body used as a weapon to take out anyone. Yeah, I knew how that felt.

When my eyes popped open, I groaned and winced a little at the throbbing I felt in my head. Jesus, he'd hit me hard with the gun. I sat up off the floor and looked around, but I already knew I was gone. Fuck. Not only was it inside of Gabe's body, but now he had Emily too. We'd left to get away from any danger with the demon and it trying to hurt people and now we'd gone and gotten ourself stuck in something we couldn't get out of easily.

Now I had to call my brother and have my life threatened for leaving on him.. again. And for taking his car.

This phone call was the last one I wanted to make right now, but we needed to get moving if we wanted to find Emily before something happened to her. Something like what happened to Ava. I stood up from the floor, my head still killing me and I reached into my back pocket for the new phone we'd gotten after trashing our other ones. Dean wouldn't recognize the number and I almost wish he would since he could start yelling at me without me even having to say anything.

Sighing, I dialed his number and waited for him to pick up. When I heard his voice on the other end of the line, I hesitated for a second and finally spoke. "It's me."

[Open to Dean]

The dreams have been coming more regularly over the past several weeks. Some are of the past having to do with his mother or Jess and others show the demon itself. He's always trying to convince Sam to come over to his side and embrace who he really is. Sam struggles with the dreams, but isn't about to give in anytime soon. He doesn't want to ever become the thing he fears he has the potential to be someday. The thing that his own father was sure he would turn into eventually.

Dean and Sam had been working a case, had gotten back in late, and both practically passed out on their beds in the hotel room they were staying in this week. Emily's in the room next to theirs and Dean checks on her before crashing out for the night. Sam is practically asleep by the time he gets back and not long after he does fall asleep, the dreaming starts all over again.

First, he sees his mother. She's standing over his crib as a baby and just like the other times he watches as her body is pulled up onto the ceiling and soon the room bursts into flames. Sam yells at the demon with yellow eyes to let her go, but he knows this story already. The scene changes and at first he's thinking he has woken up, but when his eyes open he sees Jess on the ceiling just like his mothe had been. Dean isn't there to pull him out of the room this time, but he stands up to see the demon standing in the corner of the room.

"See what you've done, Sam?"

"Leave her alone! She didn't do anything!" Sam yells at the demon, but this is another scene he's lived through already and over and over again in his dreams. The room catches fire and as much as he wants to stop it, Sam is forced out of their apartment.

Again the setting changes and Sam is standing in the middle of a hotel room. It could be any place that he and Dean have stayed in before, but for the most part it looks unfamiliar. Dean's there and he's holding his shotgun up to something that looks like any normal human girl, but Sam sees the eyes and they're black. Suddenly, the gun is out of Dean's hands and he's pressed hard against the wall. "Dean!" Sam calls out, but he stops short when Dean looks at him.

"Sam," Dean whispers hoarsely but now Sam realizes that Dean is looking past him, not right at him. Spinning around, Sam sees another version of himself standing there with a sadistic smile on his face. He has black eyes.

"Gonna beg? Are you, Dean?" Sam's other self is taunting his brother now. He pulls a knife and approaches Dean slowly.

"NO! STOP IT! LEAVE HIM THE FUCK ALONE!" Sam's yelling now, but it's obvious that it's not doing any good. He sees tears start to run down Dean's cheeks and he watches in horror as the Sam with the knife just laughs.

"Sammy, please. This isn't you." Dean's begging now but the only response he gets it another laugh from both Sam and the girl who's now standing next to Sam holding the knife, both with wicked smiles on their faces. Suddenly, the knife is slashed across Dean's abdomen and then stabbed into his chest.

"NO, WAIT! STOP, PLEASE!" Sam's yelling and is about to run towards them but stops in his tracks when he hears a familiar voice behind him.

""See what you've done, Sam?"

He turns around and sees the yellow-eyed demon standing there. "I didn't do anything! That's not me! I'd never kill my brother."

"No, Sam, that's what you could be if you ignore who you really are. Are you coming home with me, Samuel?"

"I'm not becoming your bitch," Sam spits back at the demon and takes a step back.

"Then you've killed him."

Looking down, Sam sees blood on his hands and his eyes widen because he knows it's Deans.

He wakes up suddenly, his heart pounding in his chest and breathing hard. Dean's passed out in the bed next to his and very much alive. He'd never kill his own brother, he couldn't. Sam looks down at his hands but instead of blood, they're shaking. It was just a dream to fuck with his head. He's been possessed, he reminds himself, but he wouldn't actually go through with killing Dean. He's been responsible for the death of so many people in his life and his worst fear is knowing he'd be the cause of his brother's. He feels as if he's going to be sick so he grabs his jacket and, without waking up Dean, he leaves the hotel room.

The four of us set out towards each of the houses we were supposed to torch and I was the lucky one who got the house where Gabe was lured into by the demon or some damn evil priest that kicked Dean's ass earlier. Dean hated sharing cases and I got the impression that so did Rachel. Too bad, though, because there were four houses and luckily four of us. Ellen knew what she was doing when she called us to come check things out.

I was a little worried about running into a bunch of cops, but the only thing I found was a ton of 'do not cross' tape across the door. I had the gas can and a gun in hand and was able to get inside through one of the side doors that hadn't been locked. The place was already a crime scene so no need to draw attention to myself when I was trying to break in. Until I set the place on fire.

Once I was inside, I winced at the sight of blood over the walls and furniture. Apparently the agent had cleared Gabe of all the charges, but seriously what the fuck happened here? At least he didn't have blood on his hands. Yeah, that was a bitch.

I didn't bother checking any of the rooms for people because it was already obvious that no one was here. The place was eerily quiet and I just wanted to get this done and up in flames. Dean was paranoid that something was going to happen to either me or Emily and I was ready to make sure that didn't happen. I walked through the rooms, covering the place with gasoline and eventually made my way back downstairs only to feel the temperature in the room drop suddenly. Shit. I should have known it wouldn't be this easy. Never was. I pulled out a lighter from my pocket, ready to torch the fucking place but stopped short when I just knew someone was behind me.

Turning, I was face to face with a girl probably around my age. She was just staring at me and had this smile on her face that I fucking knew was familiar. Why? Because I'd seen it before. "Hello, Sam," she said calmly and took a step towards me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked even if I knew it was a stupid question. I didn't have time for this. The son of a bitch was the one who started this mess and it was time to end it now. I wanted to end everything once and for all right now, but I couldn't. I could burn the bastard right now, shoot him (or her) in the face with my gun and nothing would happen. But whatever. "Get out before I burn your ass along with the rest of this place," I said angrily and raised the gun straight between the girl's eyes. I could shoot, but the only dying that would happen would be an innocent girl while the demon moved on to someone else.

The grin spread across the girl's face and eyes flashed yellow. Good. Show me who's really in control and make this a little easier, bitch. "You know as well as I do that neither the flames or your gun will do any good, Samuel." Not taking my eyes off those yellow ones, I cocked the gun in my hand but the demon simply laughed at me. "So, you'll kill an innocent girl for no reason at all but fail to kill your father when he asked you to when you could have ended it all? Really, Sam, your father would be so disappointed in you."

"Shut the fuck up!" I yelled and stared hard back at the bitch who'd taken so much from me and I wanted to fire the gun so fucking much. Cause him at least the smallest amount of pain for what he'd done to my family and everyone else like me. Could I kill the girl he was in just for the satisfaction? What would Dean say if he knew? Maybe he'd want to do it too, but god I was so close to firing off the gun and killing an innocent girl. The demon was right. Dad would be disappointed. The demon? Would be thrilled I was living up to my full 'potential'.

"It's one thing to be inside a person who has no idea what is going on, but to be inside someone like your father? Someone who has the hate driving him?" The girl's lips curved up into a smirk. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Sammy?"

Raising my chin, I took a step back but still had the gun aimed. The lighter was still in my other hand and I flicked it on, setting fire to the couch that was already soaked in gasoline. "One day you're going to pay for what you've done to my family. Then you'll see exactly how much I and the rest of us don't belong to you. Bitch." I said and tossed the lighter onto the stairs behind me and watched as they quickly caught fire. The place was being engulfed fast by the flames and I knew I needed to get myself out of here.

I started coughing as I breathed in smoke. My gun was still raised and I was caught in a staring match with the demon. I fucking hated him, but I also knew there was always going to be something that drew me to him. I was just determined to not let that part of me take over. I couldn't.

"Sweet dreams, Sam," the demon said through the girl then suddenly she was gone. My eyes darted around the house, but I knew the thing was gone. Coughing again, I raised up my arm to cover my face and squinted as the smoke started to burn the hell out of my eyes. The place was seriously going to start coming down on top of me if I didn't get out of here. Dodging the flames, I ran for the door but didn't worry about being seen by going out the front. The way I'd gotten inside was blocked and even if someone saw me, this bitch was going down in flames.

My brother is a control freak. It's not like that's any secret to me, him, or anyone who knows the name Dean Wincester. Though, hey, I'm not always saying that's a bad thing. Sometimes it works in our favor. We set out to get a job done and don't stop till it's finished. It has to be done a certain way and even if we piss each other off sometimes with the certain way we think it should be done, there's not questioning the fact that the job does have be finished.

My brother should grow a mullet. He's stuck in his rock bands and throws a fit whenever someone tries to change the tape in the tape player. This is why I carry around an ipod for the really long trips. There's only so much Metallica and Black Sabbath a guy can handle. Or Dean's new favorite song, Ridin' Dirty. What the hell, man? You bitch about my music, but the next time I hear you humming that I'm kicking your ass to the backseat.

// locked from Dean //

My brother doesn't know it, but he's willingly (sort of) changed the station of the radio while in the driver's seat. No more mullet rock for this little brother. Why? Oh, because of a certain friend we've got riding with us named Emily. She's someone like me, but instead of visions she's got that little power of persuasion. One of those abilities that only works on the simple-minded. Tell someone to do something and they do it with a smile on their face, no questions asked. Doesn't work on me, but hey what can you do? I need to watch myself though because as much as I hate hearing Dean hum that damn Ridin' Dirty song, I crack the hell up when I hear him singing Opposites Attract.

In the beginning this was all about Jess. Find the demon that killed her and mom then it would all be over. I'd be able to get back to my life and finally move on. Hunting became more than that the longer and deeper I got into it, but the main goal in all of this was to find the demon and I didn't care what it took to get there. That was something Dad and I had in common and Dean couldn't stand about the both of us. He wanted the demon as much as the two of us did, but not at any cost.

After Dad died, hunting became more than just a means to an end and more than just getting the job done. I still want to find the demon that took three people I loved away from me, but it's more than that now. It's something I know I'm supposed to be doing. Killing demons, vanquishing spirits, helping people, it's all something good and I happened not only did it run in the family, but I happened to be pretty damn good at it. Every time Dean and I save another person, I know I did something good and this is where I'm supposed to be right now.

Except now there's the chance I might be used as part of the demon's army. Me and all the other people out there who have these gifts. I could become something I'm supposed to be hunting. I won't let that happen though. I might've been drunk off my ass, but I made Dean swear to me that he'd make sure I didn't become something and fight with the demon we both hate. It's not going to push me back and wait for the demon to come after me and I'm still going to do anything I can to make sure I don't suddenly decide to play for the other team. One way to do that? Kicking the ass of every son of a bitch demon, spirit, poltergeist, or whatever else gets in my path back to hell.

Sam knows it's coming. Ever since Dad died his head has been quiet. The visions and the signs that the demon was still at large had practically disappeared. Dad died fighting now more than ever, Sam is determined to find the son of a bitch who took both his parents and Jess away from him and end this game for food. There'd still be the demons to fight, the people to save, but the fight that he, his brother and father had been fighting since before he could remember would finally be over. The demon would be dead and his parents' deaths wouldn't be in vain.

It's the quiet that gets to him. They had been so fucking close during the days and weeks up until Dad's death. Sometimes he dreams about the night he could've ended everything. 'You shoot me. Shoot me in the heart, son.' Sam had held the gun right at his father's chest and for a second he saw himself firing. 'Sam, don't you do it.' Dean had begged him to stop. So close, but it wasn't worth the sacrifice.

He and his father were more alike than Sam would ever like to admit, but when it came to destroying the demon they were eye to eye even if they happened to butt heads on more than one occasion. That killing the demon came before everything else. Just not before everything. Sam wasn't willing to sacrifice a member of his own family even though, if it came right down to it, he'd be willing to give his own life away to end it. A fact that pissed Dean off and Sam knew it. Just like Dad had been willing to sacrifice his own life and even the Colt to keep Dean from dying.

The storm is coming. He can feel it. He's not sure how the vision about Croatoan ties into the demon, but they always do. The demon told Sam it had plans for him and the fact that he knows it's coming and coming fast scares him. But he wants it to end and to finally be over.