likethegun | Singer Salvage Yard, South Dakota, Saturday Evening

When Sam came to, the first thing he was aware of was that his jaw hurt a whole hell of a lot. He had to admit, for an old guy, Singer sure had a hell of a right hook.

When he tried to move, he realized he was tied down in a chair, and when he tried to summon the strength to break the ropes, he realized he couldn't. In fact, he couldn't move at all.

Glancing up, he saw Singer and the Winchesters, and he wasn't sure if it was his swimming vision or the after effects of the holy water that had him seeing two of Dean. Noticing Singer's smugness, he looked up above himself, and finally saw the devil's trap on the ceiling.

Fuck, he hated hunters.

	"Welcome back," Bobby said, both smug and concerned. While it seemed like Sam was safe for the moment, there was no telling how well off he'd be once they got the demon out of him. "I was beginning to wonder if I hit you too hard. I hope you're nice and comfortable," he added sarcastically.
	Sam glared at Bobby. "Oh, I'm just peachy," he shot back, before turning his gaze on John. "I'm probably still better off than some of you. How's the shoulder?"
	John gave him a wolfish grin. "How's the throat?"
	"Not too bad, seeing how I'm still here," he replied.
	"Not for long."
	"Oh Dean, so sure of yourself." Sam smirked at him. "I wouldn't think you'd be so proud, considering how long it took you to figure out that I was in here in the first place. But then, you've never been very good at realizing when your loved ones need help, have you?" he said, glancing at Alec.
	"Hey, I've got no complaints," he said, smirking. "But I know you've got your little demon thing to do, so go ahead and keep trying."
	"I would, but that would require you to let me go, and somehow, I don't see that happening."
	"Oh, we'll be sending you on your way, momentarily," Dean said. "Back to Hell where you belong."
	Sam just glanced around at all of them, smiling and saying nothing. It wouldn't do to ruin the surprise, after all.
	Bobby figured it was long past time to wipe that smirk away, and opened his book, watching Sam carefully as he started the exorcism.
	Sam grimaced as he felt Bobby's words start to take hold, and he gripped the arms of the chair tightly, trying not to show any pain.
	Dean tensed a little as he watched, holding his breath. He should say something gloating, but even if it was the demon, it still looked like Sammy in pain. Not something he ever wanted to see.
	On the other hand, Alec's smirk widened - if Sam felt anything like he had, he was sure the younger Winchester wouldn't mind whatever they threw at him (them?) to get that thing out.
	Sam groaned as Bobby continued and the pain got worse, and for a moment, he was afraid that he'd done something wrong and that the exorcism might actually work. But then, just as quickly as the pain heightened, it started to fade. He felt himself staying just as solidly in Sam as he'd been all along, and started to laugh.
	John started at the noise, then frowned quellingly. That so was not what should be happening. He gave Bobby a questioning look -- he hadn't messed up the exorcism had he?
	Bobby looked at John and shrugged, not sure what the hell was going on either. He went back to his reading, speaking louder and clearer, knowing full well that he wasn't screwing anything up on his end.
	Sam glanced up at Bobby with a satisfied grin on his face. "You can stop now. It's not going to work."
	Though he was thrown and he knew everyone else had to have been too, John didn't let any of that show on his face. "Then we'll find something else," he said without missing a beat.
	"None of it's going to work. Not with the tricks I've learned," he said, lowering his head and starting to murmur some ~~sexy~~ Latin of his own. The floor beneath him started to shake, and his voice grew more confident.
	Confused, Alec grabbed Dean's arm as he moved back a step. Dean wouldn't go far, he knew, but he'd rather it didn't blow up in his double's face for being too close.
	Dean let himself be pulled back, his eyes still staring at Sammy, mind trying to translate the Latin he was hearing without much luck. This wasn't how it was supposed to go down. They were supposed to exorcise the demon and all go back home. He wasn't supposed to have to be considering if he'd need to use his Vkandis blessed dagger on his own brother.
	Bobby was none too pleased about this turn of events - anything that could start talking and make his house start shaking did not need to be inside Sam - and he started looking Sam over, searching for anything that could explain what the hell was going on. He nearly missed the mark on Sam's arm until he grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his shirt sleeve up, groaning as the demon's incantation only grew louder.
	"What is it?" John asked, moving in closer to see what Bobby was looking at.
	"It's a binding link," Bobby said, shaking Sam a little while he had a grip on him in the hope it would stop the demon's spell. "The damn thing locked itself inside of Sam."
	"Well unlock it!" Dean demanded, not liking the sound of this one little bit.
	"I don't exactly see any keys lying around," Alec said, his expression a mirror of Dean's for the moment.
	Sam was nearly oblivious to their talking, too determined to finish his incantation to allow himself to lose focus. As he finished the spell, he threw his head back, letting the power he'd channeled flow up towards the devil's trap. The walls shook and the floor creaked, but most importantly, the ceiling cracked, breaking the trap and releasing it's hold on him. "There," he said, his eyes going black. "That's much better." With a kinetic push he shoved the hunters back, throwing them against the walls and trying to separate them as much as possible. The ropes weren't hard to break at all now, and it was only a moment before he was on his feet again, stalking towards Dean.
	Dean shook his head trying to clear it from being thrown into a wall and get up, but before he could Sammy was there holding him down.
	"Not so cocky now, are you?" Sam asked. He grabbed Dean by the shirt to hold him steady, and pulled back before punching him.
	Dean wasn't able to summon enough coherency to reply in between the demon powered punches he was receiving. He settled for just grimly holding on and not letting himself get knocked out.
	"You know you could have stopped this, don't you?" he asked, before hitting Dean again. "If you'd been protecting Sam, I never would have been able to get in him. What's that you're always saying about how you won't let anything bad happen to him?" He punched Dean again, letting his anger about how badly this whole mission had gone fuel his fighting. "Maybe I'll kill you last, so you have time to think about how badly you failed your baby brother." Tightening his grip on Dean's shirt, Sam pulled back, ready to punch him again.
	As the thing-in-Sam drew back its fist, Alec caught it in a grip tight enough to rival the demon's own strength. With his other hand he lifted a poker from the fireplace, red-hot and sizzling, to press against Sam's flesh - across the sigil that held the demon inside. Alec really hoped that he'd made a decent guess of this; otherwise there'd be a room full of pissed off Winchesters (one still demon-possessed) to deal with.
	There was a moment where he had a split second of surprise at how strong Alec was, and tried to pull his hand back. Then the binding link was burned through, and it was worse than the holy water, worse than the exorcism, worse than everything else, and with a scream, the demon was released, black smoke pouring out of Sam and flying towards the fireplace, through the chimney, and into the open air to escape. And Sam - just Sam - sighed and slumped bonelessly to the ground.
	"And good riddance," Dean muttered, slumping back against the wall the demon had had him pinged to. He glanced down at his brother. "Sammy?" he asked hoarsely.
	Sam gasped as he opened his eyes, his hand immediately going to the searing spot of pain on his arm. He glanced around, taking in the sight of the mess in the room and how everyone looked, and found himself wishing he could hide. "Hey Dean," he said weakly. "Did I miss anything?"
	Dean couldn't stop himself. He pulled himself up enough to throw a bunch at Sammy. Did he miss anything... Of all the stupid things to say.
	As much as the punch hurt, Sam knew he kind of deserved it after that. He put his hand to his cheek, rubbing the spot where Dean had hit him and looked up, seeing Alec with the fireplace poker. His thoughts were swimming as the events of the past week slowly started to come back to him, but it wasn't tough to put two and two together here. "Um. Thank you," he said, giving Alec a sincerely grateful look.
	Alec shrugged. "Don't mention it." And he rather hoped Sam wouldn't. "Better than letting you keep beating the crap out of us, anyway."
	"That was some quick thinking," Bobby said, going to take the poker from Alec and patting him on the back. "We'll make a hunter out of you yet." He looked down and gave Sam a less jovial look. "Feeling better now?"
	Sam looked up at Bobby and nodded mutely, before looking to his dad and Dean. They were the ones he was more worried about now.
	"You okay, boy?" John asked roughly as he gritted his teeth and pulled himself upright.
	"Yeah, I guess so," Sam said, glancing at his dad's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
	"I'll survive," John said with a ghost of a smile.
	Sam looked at least slightly relieved at that, and turned to Dean. "I'm sorry," he said, taking in the sight of his bruises. "I'm really sorry, Dean."
	"It wasn't you," Dean said. "If anyone gets that it's going to be us, right?"
	As much as Sam got that, it didn't necessarily make him feel better, but he nodded nonetheless. "Yeah, you're right. I'm still sorry though."
	"If it'll make you feel better you can make it up to me," Dean offered. "Detail the impala and buy me lots of pie."
	Sam couldn't help but laugh, almost surprised that he was capable of doing it. "I'll see what I can do."
	Dean grinned and reached out, ruffling Sammy's hair, then yanking him in for a hug.
	If Sam's hug was a little more clingy than usual, he could only hope that Dean didn't mind.
	Dean hugged Sammy tightly as his brother clung to him, letting out a sigh of relief finally that they'd all come through this mostly intact. It all so easily could have ended very differently.
	"Maybe we should go," Sam said, not letting go of Dean. "Get you checked out and let Bobby get back to his stuff and...I'd really like to go home."
	"I'm fine," Dean said quickly. "What kind of pansy would I be if I couldn't take a few punches?"
	"They were pretty strong punches, Dean," Sam said. You know, in case he hadn't noticed.
	"You're not the first possessed person to rough me up, y'know," Dean said. "I told you, I'm fine."
	The last thing Sam wanted to do right now was argue with Dean and possibly make him mad. "Okay, I believe you."
	"I mean possessed or not, you're still my little brother. It's not like you were actually going to be able to take me out or anything."
	"Of course not," Sam said, sounding completely convinced for Dean's sake. He only managed to keep up the casual expression for a minute though, before he was staring down at his hands again. "Can we go home now?" he asked. He had a lot of people to start figuring out how to apologize to.
	"Yeah Sammy," Dean said softly, reaching out to ruffle his hair again. "Just let me, y'know, get cleaned up a little and we can go."