[middle of nowhere] In which Dean makes a poor leadership decision.

[ilove_atallman]

Dean was starting to get a bad feeling about this case.

They'd been trailing Ruby for a while now after the whole church incident, trying to keep an idea on her and what she was up to, but she was all over the map as far as victims were concerned. Dean would acknowledge that she was too good at what she did to not have some other kind of ulterior motive. There was a pattern there, but Dean just hadn't found it yet. He also knew that going in blind wasn't the smartest plan in the world, but there was a kid involved. Little eight year-old girl who Ruby had grabbed and hauled out of town like she was some kind of sacrifice to whatever Hell god she worshiped, and while Dean my not have known anything about what exactly it was Ruby was up to, but he wasn't going to take a risk on the kid's life.

He pulled the Impala up to the side of the cabin where they though the kid was being held. He could see the lights on through the window, and the small silhouette of a girl who was most likely scared out of her mind. If they could get in there and get out without alerting the demon bitch, then they would be golden. "Alright. In and out, right guys?"

Sam didn't like this. Something was just wrong. Wrong beyond the fact that Ruby had kidnapped a child because Ruby didn't kidnap people. She killed them. At least that was what Sam knew of Ruby beyond the very bad but feel good sex she shared with him that he wasn't allowed to do again. But why would she kidnap this child without doing anything else and bringing her back to the toy cabin in the woods?

"I still don't like this," he said softly. "There is something more. More than we can see and I don't like that. We should go."

"More? What more?" Alec asked. Sam knew his stuff no matter how childish in manner it may come out. He was feeling a bit edgy too. Maybe he was picking up on Sam's nerves or maybe it was the animal instinct. He wasn't sure yet.

"Yeah, Sammy. What do you mean?" Dean frowned. He didn't like going in blind, but this was a kid they were dealing with.

He bit his lip. "It just... not right. Not like her. Feels wrong."

"Okay. What part of this isn't like her?" Alec believed in trusting the expert.

"It's not bloody." He couldn't think of any other way to describe it.

"Okay." That description made perfect sense to Alec. "So we need to know why."

"It's an eight year-old kid," Dean pointed out. "We can't just leave her in there for Ruby to screw with. Maybe she just hasn't gotten bloody yet."

Sam bit his lip. He really really didn't like this, but Dean was right. It was a little girl. And Alec was right. They needed to know why it wasn't bloody. Yet. "... maybe."

"No, we can't but gut instinct says I'm about to become prey."

"Yeah, well -- that's not anything new," Dean sighed before pushing the door open and starting to climb out of the car. "Even we go for it or we don't. What're we doing?"

"You're going to go no matter what," Sam said. He knew his brother too well. Dean wouldn't let a girl get hurt. He was a good man. Good men didn't let people get hurt, so he got out of the car as well. "I won't let you go alone."

Alec pulled himself out of the car. "To quote Han Solo, I've got a bad feeling about this." But it wasn't a refusal.

"So do I," he said softly, before grabbing his rifle and starting to head towards the door.

Sam followed behind, watching to make sure there was no one else around. He didn't want them to get jumped by demons in the trees. Demons liked to hide in trees because it was safe there and no one ever looked up to see them. That's why he liked them. But there were no demons in the trees so they were safe from that.

Alec too swept his eyes up. And then down low to the ground. He was coming at this like a predator, not a human, and he still felt like prey. He snagged his own M9 out of the car and followed.

Dean lead the way towards the cabin, stopping at the window and peering inside for a moment, looking to see if there was anyone else inside other than the little girl, before moving to the front door and making like he was going to kick it down.

Sam looked at the windows. The curtains were down and he couldn't see the girl, just make out her form. And Ruby wasn't anywhere to be seen. But he had his knife and went to stand on one side of the door so he could go in and make find her so she didn't hurt Dean or Alec or the little girl.

Alec didn't really approve of Dean making himself that easy of a target. He'd be right in out there with no cover and off balance.

Once they were all inside and a bit down the hall, that was when all hell broke loose. The door behind them slammed shut and Ruby appeared behind them. "Looking for something, boys?"

"Actually, we just found it." Dean smirked as he raised his gun at her head.

Sam smelt it first and his head looked away from Ruby and down the hall. "We need to leave."

"Oh, but Sammy, you just got here." The little girl skipped down the hall and while Dean and Alec turned to look at her, Sam whimpered and pressed his back against the wall. "I haven't seen you since you left the pit. Look at how big you've gotten."

"No, please no..."

"Sam?" Dean looked at his brother, not sure who he should be more worried about.

"I'm not a bad thing..."

"Oh, but I hear different. And now you've been a good little puppy and brought some new friends for me to play with." The little girl looked at Dean and smiled. "Hello, Dean. Your brother told me all about you when he wasn't screaming your name."

"Who the hell are you?"

"The silly goose never talked about me?" The little girl pouted at Sam who cowered smaller. "I'm his best playmate. Lilith."

"Guess you just weren't worth mentioning." Dean turned the gun from Ruby to Lilith.

Lilith sighed. "You're no fun at all. I'll just have to play with your other brother first." She held a hand out and the door beside Alec opened. Before he could react, she telekentically threw him into the room and appeared in the door. "I'm sure Alec and I will have a lot of fun."

"NO!" Sam got up to his feet. He couldn't let Lilith hurt Alec. Lilith knew how to make it hurt bad and he didn't want Alec to get hurt bad like that.

"Bad puppy," Lilith glared and held out her arm, and Sam was blown out into the large room at the end of the hallway and tumbled right into the center of a devil's trap. "Now be a good puppy and stay." And with that, the door slammed shut behind her.

When the door was shut, Ruby turned back on the two brothers in front of her, giving them both a slow grin, moving closer to Dean with a slight roll to her hips. "Well. Dean. I have to say I have been waiting a long time to meet you."

"Really? I've been waiting a long time to send you back to Hell. So I guess we're even."

"Let him go!" Sam shouted, looking around the trap and trying to figure out how to get out of it. He remembered that once someone had gotten out of one, and he had to get out of it. He couldn't let Ruby hurt Dean. "Ruby, just let him go!"

"Why would I do that, Sammy?" she asked, glancing back at him. "We haven't even had any fun yet!" But now Sam had attracted her flighty attention, and she was moving closer to him, managing to just stay out of reach so that he couldn't pull her in with him. "Don't you want to have some fun?"

Sam bit his lip, then looked at his brother. He couldn't let Ruby hurt Dean. Dean could be hurt. She would hurt Dean and make him watch to bring out the bad thing in him. She wanted the bad thing. "I do. If you let him and Alec go, we can go have fun." He tried to sound like the bad thing. To make her focus on him.

Ruby gave him a bit of a slow grin at that, before taking a step away from him as she spoke. "Oh, Pinocchio, as fantastic as you're trying to make that sound -- this show isn't about you." She took a breath before turning around again and facing Dean. "This is all about Dean-o here. You're just the consolation prize."

"You don't want Dean, you want me!" Sam pounded his fist on the invisible wall. He needed to get her attention back. Away from Dean. If she stopped he could find a way to free Dean if not himself. Then Dean could save him and Alec.

"Oh, I do want you, Sam. I want you a lot. But my boss -- he wants Dean. Dean is very, very special, and the Big Man needs him to do something very, very important."

Dean raised an eyebrow at her, not even bothering to fight the telekinesis. He'd been pinned by enough demons to know there wasn't any point. "I'm special? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Just what it says it means, shortbus," Ruby sighed. "You're the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, and Azazel has been waiting a long time to get his hands on you."

"Azazel." Sam blinked. He knew that name. Why did he know that name? "No, I'm the special one. Not Dean."

"Not this time, gorgeous. This time, Dean's the one up on the judgment block." She turned and paced away from both of them, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Besides, Sam. I'm about to do you a favor. You wanna know why you're such a bad thing, Sammy? I think Dean's got the answer to that one, don't you, Dean?"

Dean grit his teeth. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm a bad thing because I'm a demon," Sam stated. But he looked at Dean, not knowing what Ruby was talking about either.

"No, Sam. You almost weren't a demon." Ruby kept her eyes on her prey. "You were right there, Dean. Right there. And you chickened out."

"I didn't chicken out."

"All that big talk about how you'd die for your brother, how you'd take a bullet for him, and you couldn't even bring him back. You left him there, Dean. You left him there to rot." She got closer to Dean, grabbing his chin in her hand before turning him to face Sam again, before speaking, a slow line of Latin that was intended to be just enough to get Sam's true demonic form to come to the forefront.

Sam gasped and his head shook uncontrollably as a spike of pain ran down his spine. His teeth instantly snarled and his eyes went black as he glared at them. "Stop it," he growled.

"Look at what you did, Dean. Look at what you did." She was leaning in close to him. He could feel her breath against his face, and it was pissing him off, but there was nothing he could do about it. "Sure, you got lucky. He came back cute. Hell, he's downright cuddly. But cuddly's got a price, and you know from experience that it's a real ugly one."

At that Dean's face softened slightly, and he shook his head. "Stop it."

"You could have prevented all of this. You could have saved those twelve people if you just hadn't been too chicken shit to follow through."

"Stop, damnit."

"All it would have taken was one little kiss, and Sam would have been back, safe and sound. But you couldn't even bring yourself to do that. Now, was it just cuz of your pride, or was it because you just didn't want to die?"

"HE SAID STOP IT!" Sam shouted, and he closed his eyes, trying to pull any power he had to him to try and aim it at Ruby. If being a bad thing and that power could save his brother. He just needed to break the trap. Just a crack and he tried to shake the floor but it fought back but he kept trying, needing to get to his brother.

She laughed, light and breathy against the side of his face, before whispering in Dean's ear again. "Think you'll get lucky twice?"

Dean blinked, surprised at the question, before looking back at her. "What?" Ruby gave him a cat-like grin, before pushing away from him and starting to make her way towards Sam. "No. No!"

Ruby was already talking though, the exorcism coming quickly and easily, and only slowing down when Sam started to writhe.

The latin hit him like a blow and he fell to his knees, holding his head in pain. His eyes went back to hazel and he looked at his brother. "Dean, help me!" he cried, his fingers clawing at his skull, his neck where his binding mark felt like it was being seered off his skin as she spoke. He clung onto the body, not wanting to leave it. Not wanting to leave his brother. Not wanting to go back to hell. "DEAN!" he cried out in pain again.

"You goddamn bitch," Dean growled, trying to push himself off the wall and get to Sam before it was too late, but he couldn't. She had him pinned far more than he was comfortable with. "Stop it, okay? I'll give you whatever the hell you want, just stop."

But she didn't. She kept going, waiting to see that plume of smoke leaving his body.

"Dean..." it was a whimper, and then he couldn't hold on any longer as the mark was gone and his head tilted back and the smoke came out, floating up to the ceiling and circling in the trap before Sam's soul was wrapped up in hellfire and he was gone. The body he had been possessing fell to the ground with a dead thunk, lifeless eyes staring at Dean as the occupant had left it months ago.

Once Sam was gone, Ruby let Dean go, slowly letting him slump to the floor. He just kept staring at Sam's body, praying silently that his brother would wake up, that this was just some kind of cruel joke, but it wasn't. Sam wasn't going to wake up. And God only knew when he'd be back. He was trying to figure out what he was going to do next when he heard a sickening snap from the other room and his eyes flew open. "No, not him too -- "

He shoved Ruby out of the way as he rushed past her, just in time to see Lilith coming out of the room, wiping her hands off and giving Dean a bright grin. "There! All done."

"All alone again, Dean-o," Ruby whispered softly in his ear. "What're you gonna do this time?"