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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘵

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Delaney followed Sam and Dean into the small book store that was on the corner of the block. The shop was a almost like a hole-in-the-wall place with only two other people in it and Delaney squeezed herself between Dean and Sam when they approached the clerk. He was a balding man with a chin beard, glasses and was dressed in a black zip up hoodie with flames on the sleeves and a graphic tee. A watch and bracelets decorated both of his wrists and a large silver ring rested on his right hand.

It had been a few days since Dean and Sam got out of the hospital and they found a case they could look into where lights were flickering and people complained of rodent sounds in the walls. Dean had said they should check it out and make sure it wasn't a haunting even though Delaney thought they should have taken a full week off from hunting so Dean and Sam could make sure they were fully back to themselves. Castiel had healed them for the most part, but Delaney was worried the boys would hurt themselves.

Rookie mistake on Delaney's part for thinking the boys would listen to her when they both wanted to do anything but sit around in a motel room for a week. She would just have to watch their backs extra closely on this one.

"Uh . . . can I help you?" the clerk asked, eyeing the three Winchesters who stood before him in their FBI suits.

"Sure hope so. Agents DeYoung, Shaw and Michaels," Dean replied, holding up his fake FBI badge along with Delaney and Sam. "Just need to ask you a few questions."

"Notice anything strange in the building, last couple of days?" Delaney asked, placing her FBI badge back into the pocket of her suit pants. "Some other tenants reported flickering lights."

The clerk squinted his eyes as he tried to recall anything related to what Delaney mentioned, but came up with nothing. "Uh . . . I don't think so. Why?"

"What about noises? Any skittering in the walls? Kind of like rats?" Sam chimed in.

"The FBI is investigating a rodent problem?" the clerk questioned in confusion.

"What about cold spots? Feel any sudden drops in temperature?"

The clerk's face suddenly brightened in amusement as his eyes bounced between the three Winchesters. It was almost like he had suddenly figured out all of their dirty secrets and he snapped his fingers. "I knew it! You guys are LARPing, aren't you? You're fans, right?"

Delaney blinked for a few seconds, her brain trying to work out where the hell that had come from. They were just asking him about the building and he suddenly thinks they're LARPing? "Fans of . . . what?"

"What is LARPing?" Dean asked at the same time as Delaney.

"Like you don't know," the clerk teased, but sat up straighter when he noticed the extremely lost expressions on the three siblings' faces. "Live Action Role Playing. Pretty hardcore, too."

Dean stared at the clerk as if he had grown twenty heads in the last second and slapped his hands lightly to his sides. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're asking questions like the building is haunted, like the people from the books. What are they called? Uh . . . Supernatural. Two guys and their baby sister, use fake I.D.'s with rock aliases, hunt down ghosts, demon, vampires. What are their names? Uh . . . Steve, Danielle and Dirk? Uh, Sal, Del and Dane?"

Delaney raised her eyebrows in minor shock and exchanged a wary look with Sam and Dean before her eyes flickered back over to the clerk. "Sam, Delaney and Dean?"

The clerk perked up and the grin was back on his face, pointing a finger at Delaney. "That's it! It was a series. Didn't sell a lot of copies, though. Kind of had more of an underground cult following." He jerked his thumb to his right to signal the siblings to follow him and he lead them over to a small display stand where miscellaneous books laid on their side with the binding face up so you could still read the titles. There was a small, yellow handwritten sign that read BARGAIN BIN in blocky lettering attached to the stand. The clerk shifted through the books until picked up a book with a dark cover and handed it over to Delaney.

"That's the first one, I think."

Delaney took the book from the clerk and flipped the book over so she could see the cover. The cover was set in the night time with the white moon in the top right of the cover behind a tangle of leafless branches. Two men ━ one shirtless with a six pack and long, flowing blonde hair and the other in a black muscle tank top and black jeans ━ and a girl who was dressed in a tight fitting black tank top, sleek leather jacket and black jeans stood off to the left of the cover while the Impala rested behind them on the right. The trio stood before a run down house that looked like it could be knocked down if a gust of wind blew by.

"Supernatural by Carver Edlund," Delaney read the front cover and flipped it over to the read the description on the back. "Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious Woman in White lures men to their deaths."

"Give me that," Sam mumbled, his eyes wide as he took the book from his baby sister and skimmed the back of the book as if Delaney didn't just read it out loud. His face had gone as ghostly pale as Dean and Delaney had. This whole thing had to be a coincidence, right? "I'm gonna need every copy of Supernatural that you have."

Delaney sat in the motel room with Sam and Dean as she sat at the table with Sam's laptop opened up. Dean and Sam laid out on their beds as they each skimmed through the pile of books they had gotten from the book store. The motel room had been filled with silence for the past hour as the boys read and Delaney researched everything about the books she could find. Some information definitely making her feel sick to her stomach and wished she could call Castiel to burn that memory away from her mind.

"This is insane! How's this guy know all this stuff?" Dean huffed from his bed, skimming through the book titled Route 666. It was a photo of the massive black truck that had created terror in the town that Cassie lived. Delaney momentarily wondered how the girl was doing now-a-days and wished she had the girl's number so she could check in on her and her mom.

"You got me, Dee," Delaney replied distractedly, her eyes still skimming the wiki page on the series.

"Everything is in here ━ I mean everything. From the racist truck to ━ to me having sex with Cassie. I'm full-frontal in here, guys!"

Delaney scrunched up her nose while Sam shook his head frantically to rid the mental image that Dean had so beautifully created for his younger siblings. "Dean, I'm begging you to please stop talking. I really do not need those images in my head or I'll be using Randy's knife on myself."

"I just wanna know how we've never heard of these books before," Sam replied, tossing his book back onto the side of his bed. The title read BUGS in a creepy font while a bunch of bugs littered the front of the cover. Delaney had to remember to burn that one, not wanting to remember the constant feeling of her skin crawling on that hunt. 

"Well, they're pretty obscure," Delaney informed her two brothers who pushed themselves up from their beds and made their way over to sit at the table with Delaney. "I mean, almost zero circulation. Uh, started in '05. The publisher put out a couple dozen before going bankrupt. Uh, the last one ━ No Rest for the Wicked ━ ends with you going to Hell, Dee."

Dean pulled the laptop closer to him and Sam when Delaney spun the laptop around to face them. He scrolled through the page that Delaney had been on with the last of the book titles printed on it. "I reiterate ━ freakin' insane. There's actually fans. Not many, but still. Did you read this, baby girl?"

Delaney grimaced and really wished she hadn't read any of it. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Although for fans, they sure do complain a lot," Sam commented, pointing to a spot on the laptop and making Dean stop his scrolling. "Listen to this ━ Simpatico says the demon story line is trite, cliched, and overall craptastic. If only Simpatico knew that we lived through all of this crap."

"Yeah, well, keep on reading. It gets better," Delaney told her brothers, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed across her chest. "Or worse, I guess, depending on how you look at it."

"There Sam girls and Dean girls and Delaney girls and boys and ━ what's a slash fan?" Dean questioned, his eyebrows knitted together as his green eyes met with Delaney's matching ones.

Delaney shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she scratched the back of her head, laughing to herself already. "As in . . . Sam-slash-Dean and Dean-slash-Delaney and Sam-slash-Delaney. Together."

Sam's face contorted in disgust and Delaney nodded her head in agreement. "Like . . . together together?"

"They do know we're siblings, right?" Dean added in, staring at the words on the screen in horror.

"Doesn't seem to matter," Delaney answered, shifting uncomfortably again as she felt her skin crawl at the thought of getting into bed with either one of her brothers. How could anyone find the idea of wanting siblings to get with each other okay? Delaney had to fight down the bile in her throat at the thought.

Dean gagged quietly and pushed away Sam's laptop from him as if it had burned him. He had half a mind to douse the laptop with holy water. As if that would delete the sin that he had just read on the bright screen. "Oh, that's ━ that's just sick. We got to find this Carver Edlund."

"Yeah, that might not be so easy. He has no tax records, no known address. Looks like Carver Edlund is a pen name," Delaney informed her brothers, shrugging and leaning her arms on the table. "I don't even know where to begin to look for him."

"Somebody's got to know who he is."

Thankfully, Sam was able to find out who published the books and was able to get him, Delaney and Dean to meet with her posed as article writers. It didn't take much convincing once Sam had told the woman that they wanted to write an article about the book series to shed some light on them since they've been so dead in the ground. The publisher ━ a small woman with a pixie cut and streak of blonde hair in her otherwise dark brown hair ━ definitely loved those books because she had every single book lined up on a long shelf in the office of her house and a massive posted of the first book framed in the living room connected to the office.

"So you published the Supernatural books?" Sam asked, trying to not stand as uncomfortably as he felt. The whole situation was just . . . weird. 

"Yep. Yeah. Gosh, these books . . . you know, they never really got the attention they deserved. All anybody wants to read anymore is that romance crap. You know ━ Doctor Sexy, M.D.? Please."

Delaney lowly whistled as she followed the woman towards her office where she stood in front of the books with a longing look. At least, someone liked these books. "Right. Well, we were hoping that our article can shed some light on an under appreciated series."

The woman nodded along in agreement to Delaney's half-assed statement and pulled her gray cardigan tighter around her. "Yeah, yeah, because, you know, if we got a little bit of good press, then maybe we could start publishing again."

"No, no, no. God, no," Dean declined instantly, holding his hand up to stop the woman from going any further. " I mean, why ━ why would you want to do that? You now, it's, uh, such a complete series, what with Dean going to Hell and all."

The woman gushed and pressed her hands to her heart as she frowned. "Oh, my God! That was one of my favorite ones, because Dean was so . . . strong . . . and sad and brave. And Delaney and Sam . . . I mean, the best parts are when they'd cry." Her voice broke and she took a moment to compose herself, fanning her face to try and rid the tears that welled in her eyes. "You know, like in ━ like in Heart, when Delaney had to kill Maddox, the first boy since William that Delaney was starting to fall for."

Dean and Sam both snapped their gaze over to Delaney who had flinched at the mention of Maddox. That was a name that she had tried to fight and keep in the dark corners of her mind so she wouldn't be reminded of having to kill the boy for being a werewolf. His pretty brown eyes and bright smile flashed across her mind and Delaney had to subtly shake her head to rid the image away before it stayed for good. 

"And in Home . . ." the woman continued, not realizing the tense air that suddenly took over the room at the mention of Maddox. ". . . when Dean had to call John and ask him for help." She sniffled and laughed incredulously at herself, wiping the sleeves of her cardigan under her eyes as she turned away from the trio. "If only real men were so open and in ━ in touch with their feelings."

"Real men?" Dean repeated, sounding offended even though the woman had unknowingly just complimented both he and Sam.

The woman whirled back around and Delaney rolled her lips into her mouth to try and hide the smirk that fought its way onto her face. "I mean, no offense. How often do you cry like that, hmm?"

"Well, right now, I'm crying on the inside," Dean laughed awkwardly, glancing around the room that was littered with Supernatural merchandise and other small knick-knacks. 

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Lady, this whole thing is funny."

The woman hummed and rounded her desk to take a seat in her chair, eyeing the trio suspiciously as they walked closer to the desk. "How do I know you three are legit, hmm?"

Sam scoffed quietly and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. "Oh, trust me. We, uh . . . we're the real deal."

"Well, I don't want any smart-ass article making fun of my boys and my girl."

"No! No, no. Never. We ━ we are actually, um . . . big fans," Delaney quickly interjected with an innocent smile. "We've read the books cover to cover."

"What's the year and model of Dean's car?" the woman asked, clearly not believing the Winchesters. Technically, it was a lie. They didn't read the books cover to cover because they lived the books cover to cover. Not like the Winchesters could tell this woman that.

"1967 Chevy Impala."

"What's October 15th?"

"That's my ━ " Delaney cut herself off when she realized she almost called herself Delaney. She awkwardly cleared her throat and rocked back on her heels. "Uh . . . that's Delaney's birthday."

"January 24th is Dean's and May 2nd is Sammy's," Dean chimed in to add extra knowledge to help their case.

The woman nodded her head, pursing her lips as she tried to think of another question for the siblings. "Delaney's score on the LSAT?"

Delaney blinked rapidly for a second, barely even remembering that minor detail herself. She hadn't really thought about her Stanford life since she left it behind to join Dean and Sam on the road after Will left. Will was even still a sensitive topic for her to think about even though she's already come to terms with the fact that Will was gone. "Oh, um . . . one . . . seventy-four?"

"Dean's favorite song?"

"It's a tie. Between Zep's Ramble On and Traveling Riverside Blues."

"What song did Dean used to sing to Delaney on the nights she wouldn't fall asleep?"

"Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles because Delaney liked when Dean made faces on the do do do parts," Delaney instantly replied, giggling to herself when Dean bumped his hip with hers.

The woman's face suddenly brightened once again from its previous straight faced expression and she tapped the top of her desk. "Okay. Okay. What do you guys want to know?"

"What's Carver Edlund's real name?" Sam queried right off the bat, not even attempting to be subtle about it. It only earned him a subtle glares from his siblings to which he shrugged at.

"Oh, no. No. Sorry. I can't. He is very private, like Salinger."

"Please? We are, um . . . big . . . fans," Delaney trailed off, moving her flannel to the side to shove the anti-possession tattoo that rested over her heart that Sam and Dean had got her to get for her own protection. The boys also both had one in the same spot which they also showed off to the woman in the hopes that it would get her to nudge them in the right direction.

The woman breathed out a laugh and pushed herself to her feet, turning around and pulling down her pants enough to show the Winchesters the same tattoo that rested on her right ass cheek. Why she would put an anti-possession tattoo on her ass of all places was beyond the three siblings. 

Dean and Sam diverted their eyes after a second, feeling uncomfortable with the woman's pants being down. "Wow, you are a big fan."

The woman didn't move to pull up her pants and instead moved to grab packet of sticky notes and a pen, scribbling something across the dark blue square paper. "His name is Chuck Shurley. He's a genius, so don't piss him off."

Delaney, Sam and Dean approached Chuck Shurley's house with trepidation around fifteen minutes later. They eyed the ramshackled house warily as the trio were all lost in their own thoughts about the whole Supernatural book series. Did any of them really want to learn the secrets that laid beyond the chipping wooden door? Delaney traded soulful looks with her brothers as they stood before the front door, each one silently asking the other to be the one to ring the doorbell.

With Dean being the closest one to the bell, he pushed the button as the ring sounded through the house. It was only a moment later that a man with brown curly hair, a beard and dressed in a patterned robe, dirtied white tank top and pajama pants opened the door. "You Chuck Shurley? The Chuck Shurley who wrote the Supernatural books?"

"Maybe. Why?" Chuck responded, continuing to hide slightly behind the half opened front door.

"I'm Dean. This is Delaney and Sam. The Dean, Delaney and Sam you've been writing about."

Chuck rolled his eyes and shut the front door, only for Dean to ring doorbell once again to get him to reopen the door. He reopened the door and offered the trio a small smile. "Look, guys, I . . . I appreciate your enthusiasm. Really, I do. It's, uh, it's always nice to hear from the fans. But, uh, for your own good, I strongly suggest you get a life."

Dean tutted and shot his hand out before Chuck could close the front door a second time, shooting the man an unamused look. "Look, man, we have a life. You've been using it to write your books."

Chuck stumbled away from the door as Dean pushed his way into the house with Delaney and Sam trailing in behind him. "Now, wait a minute. This isn't funny."

"Damn straight it's not funny," Dean barked at the scared writer who had backed himself up against a chair in the living room.

"Look, we just want to know how you're doing it," Sam calmly explained, trying to diffuse the situation before it got too carried away.

"Are you a hunter?" Dean demanded next, earning himself an elbow to his ribs from Delaney.

"What? No. I'm a writer," Chuck responded.

Dean narrowed his eyes and took another step closer towards Chuck, against the wishes of his two younger siblings. "Then how do you know so much about demons and tulpas and changelings?"

Chuck moved to continue backing up as Dean advanced on him and this time fell backwards over the side of his couch, landing on his back. He stared up at Dean warily as the green eyed male continued to walk towards him. "Is this some kind of Misery thing? Ah, it is, isn't it? It's Misery thing!"

"This is not a Misery thing. Trust me, we are not fans!" Dean snapped, growing progressively more annoyed with Chuck as time went on.

"Well, then, what do you want?!" 

"I'm Delaney. And that's Sam and that's Dean."

Chuck huffed in annoyance and sat up on the couch with his legs dangling over the side. "Sam and Dean and Delaney are fictional characters! I made them up! They're not real!"

Seeing they weren't getting anywhere with Chuck, the Winchesters had Chuck go out to the Impala with them, which Chuck instantly noticed as the Impala when they approached the car. Dean had popped the trunk open and pulled up the spare tire compartment to reveal all the guns and weapons to Chuck's eyes that widened at the sight.

"Are those real guns?" Chuck gaped at the sight of all the very real guns inside of the trunk.

"Yep, and this is real rock salt and these are real fake I.D.s," Dean said, pointing to each of the items as he said them. 

Chuck chuckled and glanced away from the guns and fake I.D.s to bounce his eyes between the siblings. "Well, I got to hand it to you guys. You really are my number one fans. That's awesome. So, I - I think I've got some posters in the house."

Dean growled in frustration and shut the Impala trunk, following after Chuck. "Chuck, stop!"

"How much do you know about the angels? Do you know about Lilith breaking the seals?" Delaney rambled off, waving her hands around spastically to try and get her desperate point across. If he knew anything, they needed the answers.

That seemed to get Chuck's attention as his face fell for a moment in confusion. "Wait a minute. How do you know about that? I kept writing after the publisher went bankrupt, but those books never came out. This is some kind of joke, right? Did that ━ did Phil put you up to this?"

Delaney mentally facepalmed as Chuck jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards his neighbor's house. She just wanted the answers her, Dean and Sam needed but it seemed no matter how many different ways from Sunday that Delaney and the boys proved who they were, Chuck still didn't believe them. "Chuck, I am Delaney Winchester, and these are my older brothers, Sam and Dean."

Chuck tensed up even more at the sound of the last name and held his robe tighter around himself as he closed in on himself. He eyed Delaney for a long moment, as if trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. "The last names were never in the books. I never told anybody about that. I never even wrote that down anywhere."

Something snapped in Chuck and he shook his head, spinning away from the Winchesters as he mumbled to himself and stalked back into his house. The three siblings followed back him inside the house and towards the kitchen where a table sat in the middle of the room. A desktop and keyboard sat on the table with a printer placed next to it and a mess of notebook paper and pencils scattered the desk along with a pizza box with a half eaten plain pie sat near the keyboard.

Chuck drew back a glass of scotch and coughed as the burning liquid slid down his throat. He placed the now empty glass onto the counter, turning around to see the siblings still stood there. "Oh! Oh, you're still there. You are not a hallucination. Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a God."

Delaney choked on the laughter that desperately fought its way out of her throat and she cleared it to try make it seem like she wasn't going to laugh at him. "Um, you're not a God, Chuck."

"How else do you explain it? I write things and they come to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a God. A cruel, cruel capricious God. The things I put you through ━ the physical beatings alone."

Dean threw his hands out to the side from where he was leant up against the wall behind him. "Yeah, we're still in one piece."

"I killed your father. I burned your mother alive right in front of your face," Chuck sadly recalled, his voice straining with emotion as his eyes met Delaney's. "And then you had to go through the whole horrific deal again with William."

"Chuck . . . " Delaney trailed off when Chuck let out a small whimper and threw his head back dramatically. 

"All for what? All for the sake of literary symmetry. I toyed with your lives, your emotions, for . . . entertainment."

"Chuck, you didn't toy with us," Dean said, pushing off from the wall and walking back over to Delaney and Sam who stood by the kitchen table. "You didn't create us."

Chuck turned back around to face the Winchesters again with his arms crossed. "Did you really have to live through the bugs?"

Delaney shuddered at the thought of it and held her hand up for Chuck to stop while he was ahead. "Please, do not remind me of that."

"The ghost ship?" Chuck asked, earning another round of nods from the Winchesters. His shoulders slumped in defeat and his eyes softened with guilt and sorrow. "I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live bad writing . . . if I would have known it was real, I would have done another pass."

"Chuck, you're not a god!" Dean yelled, tugging his hands through his hair with a groan.

"We just think you're a psychic," Sam cut in before Dean could start to go off on Chuck. 

"No. If I were psychic, you think I'd be writing?" Chuck countered, walking over to the kitchen table and dropping down into the chair in front of the desktop. "Writing is hard."

Delaney shrugged lamely and stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, rocking back on her heels. "It seems that somehow, you're just . . . focused on our lives."

"Yeah, like, laser-focused," Dean said, narrowing his eyes at the awkward writer sat before him. "Are you working on anything right now?"

"Holy crap," Chuck sighed, picking up a small pile of papers and held it up for the Winchesters to see. "The, uh, latest book. It's, uh, it's kind of weird. It's very Vonnegut."

Dean leaned closer to Chuck with his hands pressed to the smooth wood of the tabletop. "Slaughterhouse Five Vonnegut, or Cat's Cradle Vonnegut?"

"What?"

"What?"

"It's, uh, Kilgore Trout Vonnegut," Chuck corrected, placing the pages back down on the table. "I wrote myself into it. I wrote myself, at my house . . . confronted by my characters."

Delaney traded odd looks with both of her brothers, not really knowing what to think of this whole situation. It was just all too . . . weird . . . even for them.

A bit later, Delaney and the boys left Chuck's house with what he had written so far for the newest book. She had to do laundry so Dean suggested they go to the laundromat while he and Sam scoured over the pages to find anything that could help them out. Delaney still didn't know how to feel about her whole life being written out on paper to taunt her for the rest of the life. As if her own memories weren't taunting enough as it was.

"I'm sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself ━ my head hurts," Dean complained, pressing his hands to the sides of his head with a low whine.

"There's got to be something this guy's not telling us," Delaney spoke up, picking up the pile of clothes that had to go into the wash next and tossing them into the machine.

Dean smirked and leant his elbow on his knee as he proceeded to read from the stapled in his hands. "Delaney tossed her darks into the machine. She was starting to have doubts about Chuck, about whether he was telling the whole truth."

Delaney rolled her eyes and turned to face Dean again with a deadpan expression. "Shut up, Dean."

Dean's smirk only grew wider which only soured Delaney's face more than it already was. "Shut up Dean, Delaney said. Guess what you do next." He snorted when Delaney turned away from him wordlessly and went back to her laundry. "Delaney turned her back on Dean. Her face brooding and pensive. I mean, I don't know how he's doing it, but this guy is doing it. I can't see your face, baby girl, but those are definitely your brooding and pensive shoulders."

Delaney stuck her tongue into her cheek and mentally called Dean a dick, focusing on taking out her laundry from the other machine as it had just finished.

"Hey, you just thought I was a dick!" Dean accused, earning himself a chortle of laughter from Sam next to him. The middle Winchester pressed his hand to his chest and threw his head back at Dean's offended face as if Delaney had never called him a dick before.

"Huh, the guy's good," Delaney commented, glancing over her shoulder at Dean with a taunting gleam in her eye.

"You're a brat."

"What? Didn't know I was gonna say that, too, Dean?"

"Again, you're a brat."

Delaney had only just finished her laundry when Chuck had called Dean, rambling incoherently on the phone about how he wrote something that the Winchesters needed to hear. He didn't give much information and Dean said Chuck had sounded like he was half drunk and half asleep so they immediately headed over from the laundromat. Chuck had welcomed them in almost instantly and he looked like he was a nervous wreck as he clutched the newest chapter in his hands, pacing back and forth in his small living room.

"Um . . . so . . . you wrote another chapter?" Delaney asked Chuck after five minutes of tense silence in the room. 

Chuck puffed out a breath and stopped pacing in the middle of the living room to face the Winchesters. "This was all so much easier before you were real, but Dean and Sam especially are not gonna like this."

"I didn't like Hell either, Chuck," Dean quipped.

"It's . . . uh . . . it's Lilith. She's coming for Delaney."

Delaney tensed up from her spot next to the fireplace while both Dean and Sam's gazes snapped over to her from their spots on the chairs across from her. She slowly dropped her arm back to her side that had been previously propped up on the mantel of the fireplace, taking a small step closer to Chuck in anticipation. "Coming to kill me? When?"

"Tonight," Chuck replied shortly, tearing his gaze away guiltily from Delaney and clutching the pages in his hands tighter.

"She's just gonna show up? Here?" Sam inquired hastily, sitting on the edge of his seat. The worry and concern was etched deeply into the lines of his face.

Chuck let out a shuddering breath and slowly sat down on the couch, placing his reading glasses on his face and his eyes scanning the pages in his hand. "Uh . . . uh . . . Lilith patted the bed seductively. Unable to deny her desire, Delaney succumbed, and they sank into the throes of firey demonic passion."

Delaney was quiet for a long moment as her mind processed the words that Chuck read out loud before she burst into laughter, doubling over with her hands on her knees. Fiery demonic passion? Was he serious? She cheats on Randy? Sure, Randy was lying and deceiving her, but Delaney would never cheat on any boy she was with. No matter how much they hurt her first. "Oh my God."

"You think this is funny, Delaney Elizabeth?" Dean chastised, his face red in annoyance that Delaney wasn't taking this seriously. The demon that wanted her had on a stick was gunning straight for this town and straight for Delaney like she was a prize.

"Wha ━  why am I getting middle named right now? Dean, you don't find this the least bit funny?  I  mean, come on. Fiery demonic passion? I'm supposed to cheat on Randy?" Delaney listed incredulously, gesturing wildly to Chuck.

"It's just a first draft."

"Wait, wait, wait. Lilith is a little girl," Sam reminded.

Chuck shook his head and skimmed the page in his hand. "Uh, no, this time Lilith is a ━ comely dental hygienist from Bloomington, Indiana."

"Great. Perfect," Dean remarked, shooting Delaney an unamused look when he noticed she was still smiling to herself about what Chuck had written. "What happens after the . . . fiery demonic whatever?"

"I don't know. That hasn't come to me yet."

"Boys, come on. There's nothing to worry about here. Lilith and me? In bed? I wouldn't touch Lilith with a thirty foot pole."

Dean ignored Delaney and turned his gaze back towards Chuck, visibly pissed at Delaney at the moment. "How does this whole psychic thing of yours work? Your . . . process or whatever."

"Well, it's usually starts with a headache. A really bad headache," Chuck began, dropping the newly written chapter into his lap and rubbing his hands down the sides of his beard. "Aspirin is useless, so . . . I drink. Until I fall asleep. The first time it happened, I thought it was just a crazy dream. It flowed. It just ━ it kept flowing. Still does. I - I can't stop it, really."

"You can't seriously believe ━ "

"Humor us, please," Sam cut across Delaney, silently begging her to just let Chuck talk instead of making fun of him like she originally wanted in the first place. He stood up from his seat in the chair and walked closer to Delaney so he was stood between her and Chuck. "Look, why don't we . . ." 

Chuck held up the stapled pieces of paper, staring a stain on the floor as he now looked visibly drained from the conversation they just had. He flickered his gaze up for a moment as if silently telling Sam to take the papers from him before he chucked them across the room.

". . . take a look at this and see what's what," Sam suggested, taking the pages from Chuck with an unfazed look. "You ━ "

"Knew you were gonna take them, yeah," Chuck finished for Sam with a small nod.

Delaney laughed to herself as she read through what Chuck had typed up while the Winchesters were at the laundromat while Dean drove the Impala through the town. It was all way too weird and obscure to even happen, much like her getting into bed with Lilith. "Boys, seriously, come on. This is insane. Just listen to this ━ The minivan accident wasn't that bad, but Dean was still seeing stars. He scratched absently at the pink flower band-aids on his face."

"What's your point, Della?"

"My point is I have seen you gushing blood more times than I count, okay? You would use duct tape and bar rags before you'd put on a pink flower band-aid. The last time you wore one was when I was four and you let me bandage you up when I was pretending to be a doctor. All of this is totally implausible. It's nuts."

Sam poked his head into the front seat between Dean and Delaney, having taken the back seat so he could lay across the backseats. "He's been right about everything so far. You think he's just gonna ground out at first now?"

Delaney snorted as she flipped the page over and read the next paragraph. "Dean slid behind the wheel of his beloved Impala with Sam next to him and drove off, the plastic tarp on the rear window flapping like the wings of a crow."

"A tarp?" Dean repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. On the rear window and you drive it like that," Delaney said, tearing her eyes from the page to look at her brother with a pointed look. "When would you ever drive Baby with a tarp flapping in the wind like it was Superman's cape?"

"Well, Chuck may be wrong about the details, but it doesn't mean he's wrong about the end result,"  Dean argued.

Delaney scoffed lightly and tossed the stapled pages onto the seat between her and Sam. "So . . . we're just gonna run?"

"We are a long way from ready for a showdown with Lilith, Delly," Sam reminded Delaney, squeezing her shoulder and going to lay back across the seats.

Up ahead, two police cruisers blocked the road that would lead up to the bridge that lead out of the town and into the next one. Dean had pulled up to a slow stop just a few feet away from the cruisers and police wooden blockers that would stop anyone from entering the area. He rolled down the window when one of the officers walked over and stuck his head slightly out of the window so he could talk to the man properly. "Hi, officer. What seems to be the problem?"

"Bridge is out ahead," the officer replied, bending down so he was eye to eye with Dean.

"We're just trying to get out of town."

"Afraid that's not gonna happen."

"Is there a detour?"

"No."

Dean's chest heaved slightly in frustration, but he kept a normal facade for the officer so he wouldn't get himself a ticket. "There's not a side road that takes us to the highway?"

"To get to the highway, you have to cross that river. To cross the river, you have to take the bridge," the officer explained to Dean as if he were five years old. "Sorry, guys, you're gonna have to spend the night in town."

"Great."

Since there was nowhere else to go, Dean suggested that they go to a nearby diner to eat since they hadn't really eaten all day thanks to being with Chuck mostly that day. The diner was small and only had three other tables that were occupied at the time, that were thankfully more towards the back so the three Winchesters had some privacy at the moment. It was obvious that Dean was pissed they couldn't escape the town as he sat quietly across from Delaney, scouring over the the pages they had so far from Chuck between the ones they got before the laundromat and afterwards.

"Hey, this could be a good thing. I mean, if this is what puts us on the path to Lilith, then all we go to do is get off the path," Dean spoke up after a few minutes of silence with Delaney and Sam still deciding what they want to eat.

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned, looking up from his menu.

"It's a blueprint of what not to do. I mean, if the pages say we go left ━ "

"Then we go right," Delaney finished for Dean, catching on to what he was plotting out in his mind. If Chuck had written the book the way he'd seen it in his dreams, maybe if the Winchesters did the opposite then they'd be able to avoid Lilith just the tiniest bit longer till they were ready. Delaney was pretty even Randy was still preparing himself for Lilith's appearance. They just needed a little bit more time before they attacked properly.

"We get off-book. We never make it to the end. It's opposite day. It says that you and I get into a fight with you that Sam tries to stop . . . so no fighting. No research for you or Sam . . ."

Delaney smirked mischievously and closed over her menu, ticking up her eyebrow knowingly. "That means no bacon cheeseburger for you, Dee."

Dean paused as his face fell in realization that he couldn't get his usual meal of bacon cheeseburger and fries. He'd have to go with something else that he never gets to keep them off the pages of Chuck's book. "Yeah . . . no problem. I'll just order something else." As if on cue the waitress appeared in that next moment and Dean smiled charmingly up at her. "Hi, what's good?"

"Well, if you like burgers, Oprah's girlfriend said we had the best bacon cheeseburgers in the country."

Sam and Delaney both laughed at Dean's pained expression of not being able to get the cheeseburger now. "Uh, I'll just have the cobb salad, please."

"Me, too, please," Delaney smiled kindly up at the woman, passing her and Sam's menus over to the woman.

"I'll have the . . . veggie tofu burger," Dean requested grimly, handing off his own menu before the waitress walked away to put their order in.

Delaney placed her chin in her hand and crossed one leg over the other. "You boys know this whole thing is ridiculous, right? The idea of me hooking up with Lilith is at least."

Dean barked out a small laugh and made a face at her. "Right because you'd never get in bed with a demon. Ever."

Delaney decided to let Dean's off handed comment about Randy slide off her shoulders as she didn't want to fight with him or Sam. She was too tired and she had to keep herself from following the script of Chuck's book. "Boys, for the first time, we have warning that Lilith is close. So . . . we've got the jump on her. If we know she's coming, we know where ━ this is an opportunity."

"Are you ━ "Dean cut himself off, realizing that his tone would have instigated a fight and he quickly backpedaled. "Baby girl, it frustrates me  when you say such reckless things like that."

"Really? Well, it frustrates me when you would rather hide than fight. Do I need to remind you Lilith wants me dead?"

Thankfully, before Dean could interject and add anything else, the waitress came back with the three plates. She placed the two salads in front of Delaney and Sam and handed Dean off his tofu burger. He offered the waitress a quiet thank you before she walked off again. "It's not hiding, Delaney. It's being smart. It's picking your battles. This is a battle that we are not ready to fight. I'm not going to lose my baby sister again because we did this recklessly."

The table went quiet after that as Dean took a bite of his burger and he slowly stopped chewing as his eyes blew wide in surprise. He stared at the burger as if it had opened up his eyes for the first time and he glanced between Sam and Delaney who eyed him weirdly. "Oh, my God. This is delicious. Tofu is amazing!"

"I am so sorry," the waitress said, rushing back over to the siblings and picking up the plate just after Dean placed the burger back down on it. "I gave you the bacon cheeseburger by mistake."

The three siblings exchanged a look when they realized that Dean had done exactly what Chuck wrote. They were already off to a bad start.

Dean pulled up into the parking lot of The Toreador motel that had a massive matador statue on the side of the blinking sign. The motel looked like it didn't get much foot traffic besides from the ones that wanted to use a room for a night to rump in the sheets before going home. It even charged by the hour. Something that Delaney was sure that Dean wouldn't want to pay.

"Dean, this place charges by the hour," Delaney pointed out, motioning to the sign that they just passed when they entered the small lot.

"Yeah, well the book says Lilith finds you at the Red Motel. Hence the, uh, Hooker Inn. It's opposite day, baby girl, remember?"

Not having much else to do choice wise, Delaney and the boys booked their room for the night and dropped their bags down on the two beds. Dean had opened up his own duffle bag and dug around inside of it until he pulled out a few tied pouches in his hands. He placed them around the room while Delaney watched him in confusion.

"Dean, what are you doing?"

"Couple of hex bags ought to Lilith-proof the room."

"Whoa, hold on! You and Sammy are just gonna hole me up in this motel room all night by myself?" Delaney cried, suddenly realizing why Dean and Sam hadn't shucked off their jackets like they usually did the second they entered a motel room.

"That is exactly what you're gonna do, okay? No research, either, you hear me? I don't care what you do ━ can't call your demon boyfriend but you can watch TV for however long you want. I won't even give you a bad time," Dean teased, pinching Delaney's cheek mockingly.

Delaney huffed and shoved Dean's hand away who only laughed at her expense. She pouted when she noticed Sam take the laptop out of the laptop bag and tuck it under his arm. "Aww, boys, come on!"

"Just call it insurance, little one."

"Well, what are you two gonna do?"

"The pages say that Sammy and I spend all day riding around in the Impala. So we'll just go park her somewhere. Behave yourself, would you? No homework. Watch some TV. Love you, kiddo!" Dean said, pressing a kiss to the side of Delaney's head before he was rushing out of the room with Sam already ahead of him. 

Delaney's jaw ticked as she heard the Impala pull out of the parking lot and dropped back onto the motel room bed with a puff of air. If she was going to get through this day alone, she was going to have to call the only person she could call right now to come to her.

Chuck.

Delaney was only alone for about an hour before the sound of a knock was heard on the motel room door. She stood up from where she had been laid out on the motel room bed with nothing else to do and opened up the door to see Chuck stood on the other side. He was dressed in a green button up and red and black under shirt, jeans and sneakers and a calculating gaze was on his face. As if trying to figure out why Delaney had called him in the first.

"Thanks for coming," Delaney said as Chuck stepped into the room and she shut it behind him, meeting him in the middle of the room near the divider that divided the kitchenette and living room area and the beds. "Uh . . . I was just wondering how  much you know . . . about me. Like . . . have you seen visions of me when I'm not with Dean and Sam?"

"Oh . . . " Chuck trailed off, shuffling on his feet uncomfortably and pulling his sleeves over his hands. "You want to know if I know about the demon blood that your boyfriend's been giving you."

"You didn't tell the boys," Delaney noted.

"I didn't even write it into the books. I was afraid it would make you look unsympathetic."

Delaney balked at Chuck's response and dropped her hands to her sides with a scoff. "What? Unsympathetic? I didn't even know Randy was pouring a whole other vial into the coffee. I only even took his blood the last time to save Dean and Sam from Alastair. How is that unsympathetic?"

Chuck tilted his head at Delaney and gave her a look that showed he wasn't buying any of what Delaney just said. "Come on, Delaney. You didn't think your demon boyfriend would deceive you like that? He knows you would never take the blood willingly unless he fed it to you himself. And then just to suck it out of him just a week ago? You have to know all of this is wrong, Delaney."

"You're preaching to the choir here," Delaney replied sadly, walking over to the chair at the table that sat below the window next to the motel room door. "It scares me, you know. The demon blood ━ I can feel it inside of me like hot lava had been poured into my veins instead. Like this darkness keeps trying to cover my heart like a blanket. I wish I could stop it and stop lying to my brothers."

"Yet, you keep going back to Randy," Chuck argued softly like he was the angel on Delaney's shoulder that hadn't been there since Dean died months ago. "You want more of it right now. You want to call Randy and have him bring you more blood."

"What choice do I have, Chuck? I mean . . . you know why I'm doing any of this. I didn't want to take the blood at first because I thought I could work up my strength without it . . . but . . . that's just not possible. I'm not a normal demon, Chuck. I need to feed on demon blood like I'm some kind of freakin' vampire in order to use the demon abilities I get from the demon blood and psychic abilities Azazel gave me. I need to stop the Apocalypse and ━ "

"I thought that was Dean and Sam's job. That's what the angels say, right?"

Delaney exhaled heavily and shook her head, running a hand through her hair. "No, Dean . . . he's not Dean lately. Ever since he got out of Hell. He needs help and Sam can't take on the Apocalypse by himself."

"So you got to carry the weight?" 

"Dean and Sam raised me because my father was never there. Too busy trying to hunt down Azazel and kill him for killing my mom. I owe Dean and Sam my life, especially Dean who had gone to Hell just to keep me from going there myself. I would do anything for Dean and Sam. Am I not allowed to do that?"

Chuck crossed his arms and walked over to take the seat at the table across from Delaney, squinting slightly when the sun shone in his eyes through the slits in the blinds on the window. "Of course you can do that, Delaney. I mean, if that's what this is."

"What else would it be, Chuck?"

"I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger? More in control?" Chuck suggested.

Delaney instantly shook her head, denying any of that being true. She wasn't using the demon blood for her own gain. She needed to do this to stop the apocalypse and keep Lucifer from be from getting out of his cage. "No way. That's not true."

Chuck didn't say anything for a long moment as he tried to read Delaney's face. It would be no use lying to Chuck because Chuck knew everything leading right up to this current moment in time. "I'm so sorry, Delaney. I know it's a terrible burden ━ feeling that it all rests on your shoulders."

"Does it? All rest on my shoulders?" Delaney inquired quietly, picking at a chipped piece of wood on the table. She knew she wouldn't like Chuck's response, but she still needed to hear it for her own sanity.

"That seems to be where the story's headed."

"Am I strong enough to stop Lilith tonight?"

"I don't know. I haven't exactly seen that far yet."

Delaney closed her eyes shut and banged her head back against the wall behind her. Of course things never worked out that easy for the Winchesters. Why would they start now?

Delaney was left alone for another few hours after Chuck had left once their conversation was over. She knew Dean and Sam would kill her, but she decided to burn all the hex bags and let Lilith come. If she was even coming at this point. It had been hours since they'd been in the town and a solid hour since it had gotten dark outside and still no sign of Lilith anywhere. Randy hadn't even texted or called Delaney to check in on her so she knew he was busy off doing whatever it was he did whenever not with Delaney.

If she was expected to end this whole thing and stop the apocalypse, then let Lilith come for her if she planned to. She'd end this all right here and now if she could and Delaney hoped there was enough demon blood in her to make her strong enough to gank the demon. She'd go down trying if she had to at this point. Anything to save the world and her brothers.

The motel room door suddenly opened, alerting Delaney who had been pacing the length of the room as she waited for Lilith to just show up for the showdown. Either Lilith was going to kill her or the anticipation and anxiety would. Dean and Sam made a beeline for the beds where their duffle bugs still sat and shoved their loose items back into them. "Come on, Della. We're getting out of here."

"What? Where?" Delaney asked, spinning around to face Dean and Sam with furrowed eyebrows.

"Anywhere, okay? Out of this motel, out of this town. I don't care if we got to swim, we are getting out," Dean answered, his eyes scanning the room for the hex bags that Delaney had burned earlier. He began to search the room for them like Delaney moved them and she watched him with a grimace. "Delaney, where the hell are the hex bags?"

Delaney awkwardly cleared her throat and picked at a loose thread on her flannel. "I . . . uh . . . I burned them."

Sam balked at Delaney's statement and froze mid-motion of putting one of his socks back in the bag. "You what?"

"I . . . look, if Lilith is coming which is a big if ━ "

"No, no, no. It's more than an if, Delaney. Chuck is not a psychic. He's a prophet," Dean informed Delaney, his face paling significantly as he realized Delaney had single-handedly outted their location to Lilith with no care in the world. He only realized then that Delaney really didn't care if she died at this point, so long as she got rid of Lilith in the process and that terrified him. "Cas showed up at Chuck's and apparently Chuck is writing the gospel of us."

Delaney was stunned into silence as she never expected to be dealing with a prophet before. Though, arguably, Delaney never expected to deal with any of this before so none of this should even surprise her at this point. "Uh . . . okay."

"Okay. Let's get the hell out of here," Dean agreed, brushing past Delaney again to get to his duffle bag so they can go.

"Dean, no."

Dean threw his duffle bag back onto the bed that he had just picked up to bring out to the Impala. He turned to Delaney with a stern look, not liking that she was arguing with him when he was trying to save her life. Something that Delaney clearly didn't care about anymore. "Delaney, Lilith is gonna slaughter you. I will not lose you again. Once was enough to last Sammy and I a lifetime."

"Maybe she will. Maybe she won't," Delaney argued lamely.

"So what? You think you can take her?"

Sam reached out to tug Dean back from stepping closer to Delaney with a pleading look. He'd really rather not have his siblings fight right then. They needed to get out of the motel before Lilith could show up and throw Delaney right down to Hell. "Guys . . . "

"Only one way to find out, Dean, and I say bring her on," Delaney said, determination laced in her tone."

"Delaney!"

"You think I'll do it, don't you?" Delaney accused her brothers, crossing her arms as they both looked at her expectantly for what she thought they were thinking. "You both think I'll go dark side if I do this."

"Yes! Okay? Yes. The way you've been acting lately? The things and people you've been doing?" Dean snapped, his tinting red in anger when Delaney's face fell when she realized she'd been caught. "Oh, we know, Delaney. How you ripped Alastair apart like it was nothing, like you were swatting a fly. Cas told us when he woke us up at the hospital."

Delaney rolled her lips into her mouth out of guilt, diverting her gaze away from the betrayed looks on Dean and Sam's faces. The one secret she didn't want the guys to know was now out and it wasn't even the full secret. Castiel wouldn't know that she was using Randy right back for using her. Another thing that the boys didn't know about just yet either. "Did he say anything else?"

"Nothing we don't already know," Sam replied softly like he usually had. He usually didn't jump into yelling at Delaney and was always the "good cop" in raising Delaney. Dean had always been the "bad cop" that was a tad bit harder on her to get her to understand why whatever she'd done was wrong or bad. He may be softer towards Delaney in certain instances, but Dean never held back when trying to get Delaney to see she was being reckless. "That you've been using your psychic crap and you've been getting stronger. We just don't know why and we know how."

Delaney relaxed the slightest bit when she realized the boys didn't know about the demon blood. They just knew she was getting stronger, but there was no reason as to why yet in their minds. Just the fact that it was happening. She'd do anything to keep the boys away from that knowledge or they'd worry even more for her. "It's not what you think, okay?"

"Then what is it, Della? 'Cause Sammy and I have come to a dead end when it comes to any of this," Dean demanded, which didn't get him a response from Delaney like he wanted. She really didn't have many words left to give Dean or Sam, especially when they didn't know everything as it was. That was her own fault, but she had her reasons and she wouldn't be going back on her promise to herself to get Dean and Sam safe and protected. 

After a long beat of silence, Dean snatched his duffle bag back up and stormed his way towards the motel room door. He turned when he didn't see Delaney move to follow him or Sam who had just started to pick up his own duffle bag to leave and get to safety. "Delaney, are you coming or what?"

"No. I have to do this," Delaney replied, standing her ground on her decision. Lilith was either going to come to her or she was going to stay in hiding for however much longer. It was only a matter of time before Delaney finally cornered her.

Dean blew out a harsh breath through his nose and shoved his bag onto the chair near the motel room door and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The loud noise caused Delaney to flinch as it echoed off the walls of the room and she wasn't surprised when Sam mumbled he was going to run out after Dean to check on him.

Delaney whined and dropped down on the bed with her face buried into her hands, feeling the heavy weight of guilt weigh her down like a pound of bricks. She just wanted to gank Lilith and get on with her life. The apocalypse could be stopped and Delaney could stop with the demon blood and act like she never even had demon blood in her in the first place. She and the boys could try to have a normal life and take a small break from the hunting life. 

A knock on the motel room door snapped Delaney out of her thoughts and she pat the back of her jeans to make sure her gun was still in the waistband. Dean and Sam both had a key so it definitely wasn't them and with everything going on, Delaney could only imagine who would be knocking at her door. She slowly walked over to the door and tugged it open to see no one on the other side. She stuck her head out the door and checked both ways to see if it was some random kid, but saw nothing.

Delaney shut the door and turned away, jumping back when she saw Lilith stood behind her. She had opted for a blonde haired and blue eyed vessel that resembled the features of the first body Randy had possessed. The vessel was even dressed in the usual leather jacket, dark jeans and black t-shirt Randy wore on a daily basis. He always joked about liking the color black because it both matched his soul and his eyes. It was momentarily forgotten by Delaney that Lilith could possess whatever body she wanted and, clearly, she thought possessing a body that resembled Delaney's boyfriend's previous vessel would make her relax and given. 

As if.

"Hiya, Dellycakes."

"Lilith. I've been waiting for you," Delaney greeted coldly, her eyes darkening at the sight of the demon. "Took you long enough. Realize I might actually be able to stop you?"

Lilith faked a pout as if to say Delaney had hurt her feelings, pressing a hand to her heart. "Ouch, Dellycakes. I was just going to ask you where the knife was."

Delaney's eyes flickered over to where the beds were with the nightstand between them. She had left the demon knife on the nightstand, hiding a devil's trap underneath the fuzzy, thick purple rug that rested underneath the beds to stop them from scuffing up the floor. "On the nightstand."

Lilith hummed and turned away from Delaney, going to walk towards the beds. However, she stopped when the tip of her black boot stopped just before the rug, her eyes eyeing the rug for a moment. She squatted down and lifted up the rug to reveal the chalk drawn devil's trap, pressing her fingertip to the edge of it and burning a line through it so it no longer worked. "You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that."

"How 'bout this?" Delaney taunted, raising her hand palm up and focused her energy on exorcising Lilith from her body. A strong gust of wind blew through the room, but Lilith didn't even so much as flinch or choke as the wooshing sound of Delaney's powers working sounded through the room. After a minute, Delaney realized it was no use and dropped her hand back to her side with an ashen face.

"Awww, Dellycakes," Lilith mocked, pouting tauntingly at the youngest Winchester and tilted her head. "You're strong, baby, but you're not that strong. Not yet."

"So why don't you fling me around like a rag doll then? You want me dead so badly . . . " Delaney trailed off and threw her arms out to the side. "Well, I'm right here."

"Because I can't and you know it. You're my immune to my charms. Seems we're at a stalemate," Lilith grit out through her teeth, stalking closer to the youngest Winchester as if she were her prey.

Delaney rolled her eyes at the greater demon and flinched away from Lilith's touch when the demon reached to brush Delaney's hair behind her ear. "What are you even doing here, Lilith?"

"To talk."

"Yeah, well, I'm both taken and not interested," Delaney quipped hotly, following Lilith with her eyes as the demon slowly circled Delaney's form.

"Even if I'm offering to stand down . . . from the seals . . . the apocalypse . . . all of it?"

Delaney burst out into a fit of laughter and shot Lilith a look to show she didn't believe a single word the demon had just said. "You expect me to believe that?"

"Honestly? No. Besides Sammy, you always were the smart one," Lilith responded, stopping in front of Delaney again with her hands on her hips. "But it's the truth. You can end it, Dellycakes. Right here, right now. I'll stop breaking seals, Lucifer keeps rotting in his cage. All you have to do is agree to my terms."

"Why would you back down? Why now?"

"Turns out, I don't survive this war," Lilith admitted, turning to walk a few feet away from Delaney before turning back to her again. "Killed off, right before the good part starts. I just want for it to go back to the way it was. Before I had angels to deal with twenty-four seven. The good old days, when it was all baby blood all the time."

Delaney knew there was a catch to all of this. She was a demon for crying out loud and it was no secret that demons always had a catch to everything they did. No matter what they wagered, what they wanted was bigger than what they were offering you. "And what do you want in return, cupcake?"

"Your head on a stick. Dean's, too, actually. Leave Sammy Boy here all by his lonesome with no family left," Lilith responded with a devious smirk on her face. "Call it a consolation prize. So what do you say, Dellycakes? Self-sacrifice is the Winchester way, isn't it?"

"You really think I'm stupid enough to fall for any of this?"

"I make a deal, I have to follow through. Those are the rules and you know it. Are you really so arrogant that you would put your life before the lives of a six billion innocent people? Maybe it's all that demon blood pumping through your pipes. A girl after my own heart."

Delaney eyed Lilith up and down, having half a mind to send the demon flying across the room just for the sake of it. It wouldn't kill Lilith, but it would definitely rid Delaney of at least a little bit of frustration she had towards the demon. "You think I'm like you? I am nothing like you."

"Then prove it," Lilith argued, stepping closer to Delaney's and leaving just a mere few inches between them now. "Going once. Going twice."

Delaney growled deep in her throat as her jaw ticked in anger. "Fine."

"I knew you'd see it my way, Dellycakes!" Lilith cheered, clapping her hands together with a wide grin. "Bye the way, a contract with me will take more than a kiss. A lot more." She backed her way up to the bed that Delaney and Dean were originally supposed to share and sat on the end, patting the space next to her with a seductive grin. "Don't worry, baby, I won't tell your demon boyfriend about this."

Delaney eyed the demon knife out of the corner of her eye, plotting how long she should wait before grabbing it and stabbing it into Lilith. If she got Lilith distracted enough, Delaney could have time to grab it and stab it into the demon's heart. She wouldn't have to go so far as to kiss the demon and make Delaney do the one thing she promised she'd never do ━ cheat. She slowly walked up to the demon and Lilith's hand ━ which was oddly warm ━ instantly went to Delaney's waist as she laid back on the bed with Delaney leaning over the side of the bed. 

Delaney waited for Lilith's eyes to drift away from the sight of the nightstand, focusing on the buttons of Delaney's flannel, to grab the demon knife and swing her arm to stab it into Lilith. She had quickly been overpowered and Lilith clutched onto her wrist, flipping them around so Lilith was now on top of Delaney, pressing her weight to Delaney's waist. Since she had used a male body, it had a bit more weight because of the muscle mass and Delaney couldn't move with the pressed weight on her waist and legs. 

Before Lilith could plunge the knife into Delaney's chest, the motel room door burst open and Dean, Sam and Chuck rushed into the room. Chuck froze in the middle of the room when he saw the male vessel that Lilith currently possessed and held his hands up in defense. "I am the prophet Chuck!"

"You've got to be joking," Lilith huffed, rolling off Delaney and standing up onto her two feet as she narrowed her eyes at Chuck who stood between Dean and Sam.

The walls around the room began to shake and rattle, a whooshing noise whipping through the room deafeningly as Delaney pushed herself to sit up on the bed now that she wasn't trapped. Her eyes scanned the room for what could be shaking the walls so hard, but she didn't see anything besides her brothers and Chuck. 

"This is no joke. See, Chuck here has got an archangel on his shoulder," Sam warned Lilith, placing a hand on Chuck's shoulder. The walls began to shake and rattle more intensely and a bright white light began to filter in through the window. Almost like a car had pulled up in front of the window with its brights turned on instead of the headlights. "You got about ten seconds before this room is full of wrath and you're toast!"

"You sure you want to tangle with that?" Dean yelled over the rising noise in the room.

Lilith's lip curled in anger and she whipped her head around to glare at Delaney, silently telling her she'd be back for the youngest Winchester. Black smoke poured out of the demon's mouth and it broke through the window behind Lilith, littering the floor in shards of glass and debris. The shaking and rocking of the room ceased the second Lilith was gone from the room and Delaney collapsed back on the bed with a huff.

Just when Delaney had Lilith right where she wanted her, she lost her. It was a never ending cycle and Delaney just wanted it to end already.

"So, a deal, huh?"

Delaney sighed and sank lower in her seat in the back of the Impala. Rain poured down heavily on the Impala, which had a tarp on the rear window much like Chuck had predicted it would be. They had dropped Chuck off not too long after Lilith had escaped and Delaney had been quiet ever since, stewing in her pent up anger that Lilith got away in between her retelling of what happened while Dean and Sam were gone. "That's what she said."

"To call the whole thing off ━ angels, seals, Lucifer rising, the whole nine? Huh."

Delaney glanced over to Dean who looked deep in thought and rose an eyebrow. "What, Dean?"

"You didn't think once about taking it?"

"You kidding me, right? You spent all day trying to take me off the Lilith track," Delaney argued.

"I'm just saying . . . "

"She would have found some way to weasel out of it. All it would have cost us was our lives, Dean, leaving Sam all by himself."

Dean exhaled heavily and a ran hand across his forehead, leaning his elbow on the window sill. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Anyways, the point is that she's scared. I could see it on her face. Lilith is running. I don't know what from, but she's on a race away from something. She was telling the truth about one thing, though. She's not gonna survive the apocalypse. I'll make sure of that myself."

Delaney wouldn't be giving up on the Lilith hunt until the demon's head was on a stick.

AUTHORS NOTE

Hi hey hello

FIRST, thank you guys so much for 3K reads on this book so far! I am so glad you guys are loving Delaney as much as I do and I hope you guys still love her even after the events of these final FOUR chapters gah! Our baby girl is about to hit her dropping point and I'm ready for the development that follows afterwards. 

Also, I know in Supernatural demons possess the gender they were when they were alive, but I like to think the demons just possess whoever they want, especially the ones like Lilith, Lucifer and all of them and that they really don't care for gender or anything. So, yes, Lilith can either possess a female or a male in this story and so can any of the other higher up demons like Lucifer, Azazel, etc. Plus, it's an important change for Delaney's story and it's different so we are going with this change up of the SPN lore thank you! 

Lilith now also thinks if she possess a vessel that resembles Randy, it'll get Delaney to cooperate with her. Little does she know what she's going on with the couple right now and that Delaney will cooperate even less now. Sorry @ Lilith.