Nick

"I say that I do the terrible things I do because I couldn't find who killed Sarah and Teddy. And once I did, I'd be free of this darkness and this rage... But I lied. The truth is, I... like... doing these things. And I don't want to stop. I'm bonded to you... and what you are. It's how you first found me. I don't know who I am if I'm not you. No consequences, no pain, no sorrow... I want that back. I want it back. I don't want to feel now what I didn't feel then. Where are you? Where are you...? Help me... Help me..."

- Nick praying to Lucifer

Nick is a solemn and lugubrious widower from Delaware who became Lucifer's primary vessel until he possessed Sam Winchester instead. Several years later, Nick was resurrected and his body was restored and improved by Crowley to act as Lucifer's vessel once more, but a permanent one. This lasted until Lucifer's death at the hands of Dean Winchester which restored Nick back to himself.

Following the weeks of Lucifer's demise, Nick struggle with trying to be a normal person again as he was tended to by the Winchesters and friends. Recalling his grief, Nick would try to solve his family's murder but get nowhere and soon confronted his old neighbor Arty Nielson who seemed to know more than he let on. Nick ended up killing Arty, which showed the damage to his psyche Lucifer left behind. Nick subsequently embarked on a mission of revenge that led to Nick becoming a serial killer as he hunted for his family's killer.

Early Life
Nick was married to a woman named Sarah, and together they had a son named Teddy. One night, the demon Abraxas crept into their house and murdered Sarah and the baby in their beds. Nick himself was getting drunk at the Elk's Lodge at the time. Though Nick's neighbor Arty Nielson claimed to have seen someone running from the house, the murders were never solved as Arty changed his story. After the home invasion, Nick still resided in the house, and kept some objects that were connected to Sarah and the baby.

Season 5
In Sympathy for the Devil, Nick started hallucinating Sarah and his baby, and their blood. Lucifer appeared as his wife Sarah and told him that he was a vessel, and that Lucifer wanted his consent to possess him. Nick, believing it was a dream yet doubting it was, nonchalantly refused. Lucifer told him that he was misunderstood, that he was punished for "loving God too much". He promised Nick justice for his family. Nick consented to possession.

In Abandon All Hope..., Nick's body began to develop burn-like sores from containing Lucifer's essence. When Castiel mentioned the sores appearing on his vessel's face, Lucifer admitted that Nick was "wearing a bit thin."

In The Song Remains the Same, when Anna Milton suggested that killing Sam would be a way of stopping Lucifer since it would deprive Lucifer of a vessel, Castiel pointed out that Lucifer already had a vessel. Anna's response was to ask if Castiel meant "that guy Nick" and pointed out that Nick was "burning away as we speak." As a result, Anna stated that Sam was the only vessel of Lucifer's that mattered.

In Hammer of the Gods, Nick's body had deteriorated further under the effort of containing Lucifer and massacring the pagan gods.

In Two Minutes to Midnight, Castiel told Sam and Bobby Singer that Lucifer would have to have been drinking gallons of demon blood in order to help maintain the integrity of Nick's body.

In Swan Song, Dean and Sam met up with Lucifer at an abandoned apartment in Detroit. Nick's body had degraded even further from the immensity of Lucifer's essence. Sam agreed to be Lucifer's vessel, and Lucifer then left Nick and entered Sam, leaving Nick dead on the floor next to the dead vessels of Lucifer's Guards.

Season 7
In Meet the New Boss, Sam starts hallucinating and sees Lucifer, in the guise of his vessel Nick, without the burn marks. The hallucination retains the form of Nick throughout its appearances.

Season 11
In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Lucifer manifests inside a cage in Limbo in the form of Nick despite having no vessel.

In Hell's Angel, Lucifer takes on Nick's form again when confronting Crowley inside Castiel's head.

In We Happy Few, while Amara extracts Lucifer from Castiel, Lucifer takes on the form of a transparent Nick overlapping Jimmy's body.

Season 12
In Stuck in the Middle (With You), while trapped within a small cage in Crowley's throne room, Lucifer manifests in the form of Nick.

In Family Feud, Crowley reveals to Lucifer that his demons found Nick's body a few years before and repaired and improved it so it would be "a fitting final home" for Lucifer. When Rowena MacLeod had cast Lucifer back into the Cage, Crowley perverted the spell so instead Lucifer was sent into Nick's body. Lucifer thanks Crowley, but wonders how Crowley really expects it to end.

In Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, Lucifer briefly escapes his chains only to have Crowley reveal that Nick is his true prison, Crowley having warded Nick's body based on Lucifer's Cage to restrain him while the chains were just ornamental.

In The British Invasion, Drexel examines Nick's body for Lucifer and tells him that the repairs to Nick's body are complete and he is a sound vessel for Lucifer. However, Drexel is unable to remove Crowley's "security system." On Lucifer's command, he promises to try.

In There's Something About Mary, Drexel continues his work on removing Crowley's security system from Nick's body. While he is unable to remove it, Drexel's efforts cause it to power up in reverse, giving Lucifer control over Crowley's vessel. With this, Lucifer is able to make Crowley's vessel unconsciously mimic his own movements in Nick. After apparently killing Crowley, Lucifer is free upon the Earth once more with Nick as his permanent vessel. Once Lucifer has his freedom, he changes Nick's wardrobe slightly, now donning a black leather jacket rather than his usual outfit in Nick's form.

In Who We Are, moments before being killed by Jody Mills, Doctor Hess presents Sam with a file containing surveillance photos of Lucifer in Nick's body outside of Crowley's lair and informs him of Lucifer's escape.

In All Along the Watchtower, Sam shows Dean and Mary the pictures of Lucifer outside Crowley's lair. Sam notes that its definitely Lucifer as he recognizes Nick as Lucifer's old vessel. While confused as to how its possible that Lucifer is using Nick as a vessel again, Sam correctly surmises that Crowley is somehow responsible.

Season 13
In Let the Good Times Roll, Lucifer battles Dean who is now the vessel of the Apocalypse World Michael. At the end of the fight, Dean kills Lucifer with an archangel blade to the heart, leaving Nick's body lying on the floor of a church surrounded by the burned imprints of Lucifer's wings.

Season 14
In Stranger in a Strange Land, three weeks after Lucifer's death, Sam visits Nick in the Men of Letters bunker dungeon which has been turned into a makeshift bedroom for him. For the first time, Nick has woken up without screaming from a nightmare and his wound from the archangel blade is healing. Sam speculates that because the blade is designed to kill the archangel inside of the vessel, it didn't harm Nick. Nick recognizes how weird the situation is for Sam and admits that he's glad Lucifer is dead. Though Nick experiences some flashes of his possession by Lucifer, he doesn't know much about Michael or his plans aside from the fact that Michael wants to "do it right this time."

In Gods and Monsters, Nick is visited by Castiel as he flashbacks of several of the things Lucifer did while possessing him, including killing Mercury and supposedly killing Gabriel at the Elysian Fields Hotel. Nick is unable to understand why he would let Lucifer in and Castiel explains that it was because of the murder of Nick's family. Nick recalls Lucifer's psychological manipulation to get him to say "yes" and is horrified by it.

Later, Nick arrives in the bunker's main room, having researched the murder of his family and having discovered that the case is still unsolved despite there being a witness who subsequently recanted. Nick's behavior alarms Castiel, particularly when he snaps his fingers at Castiel in a Lucifer-like manner after being enraged. Castiel examines Nick and determines that while Lucifer is gone, he may have done more damage to Nick's psyche than they realized. Castiel admits to sympathizing with Nick, explaining his own history with his vessel Jimmy Novak. However, Nick sees Castiel as no better than Lucifer for what he did to Jimmy, leading Castiel to tell Nick that what happened to Jimmy and his family is the biggest regret of his long life.

In an attempt to solve the murders of his family and get revenge, Nick visits his old neighbor Arty Nielson who was the witness the night Nick's family died. Though Arty claims to know nothing, his nervous behavior causes Nick to suspect that someone got to Arty and he strangles him up against a wall, demanding answers. Nick subsequently beats Arty to death with a hammer, the same manner that his family was murdered in. After Arty's death, Nick stares at his blood splattered clothes in the mirror, lays down the bloody hammer and leaves in horror of his act.

In The Scar, Castiel tells the Winchesters that Nick left the bunker saying he had something personal to deal with and that he hasn't returned Castiel's phone calls since.

In Unhuman Nature, Nick tortures a priest for information and then murders him as Arty had gone to the priest in confession. However, the priest refused to break his vows and reveal anything to Nick. Nick later approaches the crime reporter that had covered the story of his family's murder and asks her about who the beat cop in his neighborhood was at the time of the murders. She identifies the cop as Frank Kellogg who has since moved to Montauk, New York and become a security guard.

After resisting the urge to murder a young woman, Nick tracks down Frank and brutally tortures him for information. Nick reveals to Frank that Arty told him that he had seen a cop leaving Nick's house on the night of the murders and was then threatened into silence by the police which Nick believes to be a cover-up to protect one of their own. Frank finally reveals to Nick that Sarah had called the precinct to report a prowler and when Frank went to check it out, he was greeted by a man named Abraxas. As Nick muses on the name, Frank tells him that the next thing he remembers is waking up in his patrol car covered in Sarah and Teddy's blood. Based on Frank's story and remembering that Lucifer knew Abraxas' name, Nick realizes that Abraxas is a demon that possessed Frank to commit the murders. Though Nick realizes that Frank himself is innocent, he also recognizes that Frank's hands were used to commit the murders even if he wasn't in control at the time and beats Frank to death with a hammer.

After his murder of Frank, Nick prays to Lucifer, having enjoyed giving into his darker urges and believing that it was what drew the archangel to him in the first place. In the Empty, a skeletal figure with glowing red eyes awakens in response to Nick's prayer, presumably Lucifer himself.

In Damaged Goods, Nick captures a demon who had been working with Abraxas before Abraxas was captured by a hunter. Having been led to the demon by a previous demon he had killed, Nick holds her within a devil's trap and tortures the demon using an angel blade that Nick took from the bunker when he left. The demon offers to freely tell Nick what she knows about the hunter who is in Hibbing, Minnesota, having no reason to protect her, but Nick tortures the demon anyway, going so far as to take out her right eye with his angel blade. The demon identifies Mary Winchester as the hunter in question who she had witnessed trap Abraxas in a box. Once the demon tells him all she knows, Nick kills her.

Now knowing where to look, Nick travels to Hibbing where he stops at a grocery store for directions, unknowingly just missing Mary. Nick draws the clerk's suspicions, particularly with his aggressive questions, causing the clerk to lie to him and then call Sheriff Donna Hanscum to report the encounter once Nick is gone. That night, Nick is pulled over by Donna and handcuffed with Donna having discovered that he is driving a van reported stolen two weeks earlier in Missoula, Montana. Nick refuses to cooperate with Donna who uses a mobile fingerprint scanner to run Nick's fingerprints in an effort to learn his true identity. As Donna is distracted running his fingerprints, Nick picks the lock on his handcuffs. From Nick's fingerprints, Donna learns of his identity and his being wanted for a murder spree, but Nick is able to subdue Donna with a stun gun. Nick learns of Mary's location at Donna's cabin from emails on Donna's cell phone and leaves the sheriff unconscious but otherwise unharmed in the driver's seat of her patrol car.

At Donna's cabin, Nick kidnaps a surprised Mary and explains how he is looking for Abraxas who murdered his family the same way he murdered a Girl Scout troop that Tonya Baker, who Mary had rescued, belonged to. Mary tells Nick that she killed Abraxas, but he reveals that he knows she's lying as the demon that had escaped her witnessed Mary trapping Abraxas. Mary finally admits that she couldn't defeat Abraxas so she instead locked him in an Enochian Puzzle Box. Mary reluctantly agrees to lead Nick to her lock-up in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the puzzle box is stored, but forces Nick to search through the lockers himself without telling him which one contains the box. After finding it, Mary reminds Nick that Abraxas will need a vessel that can't be either of them, so Nick kidnaps the security guard at the facility, Jeff. With Mary uncooperative, Nick tries to figure out how to open the puzzle box on his own, finally resorting to drilling into it which releases Abraxas in his smoke form and forces the demon, stuck within a devil's trap, to take Jeff as his vessel.

After Abraxas takes possession of Jeff, Nick demands answers from the demon who doesn't realize who Nick is until Nick tells him that he is from Pike Creek, Delaware. Abraxas proves to be amused by Nick's questioning, the fact that Nick is no longer possessed by Lucifer and that Lucifer is dead. Abraxas, holding a grudge of his own for Mary's trapping him, offers Nick answers if he kills Mary slow and bloody. As Nick moves to do so, he is interrupted by the Winchesters who tracked Nick through his stolen van with Donna's help. Desperate to get answers, Nick uses his angel blade to break the devil's trap, releasing Abraxas who immediately slams everyone to the floor with telekinesis. Turning to a shocked Nick, Abraxas reveals that he murdered Nick's family on Lucifer's orders. Abraxas explains that Nick was chosen, but he's not special as "we threw a dart at the phone book" to choose who to target. Dean begins an exorcism that Abraxas stops, but Nick takes advantage of the distraction, shoves Abraxas to his knees from behind and stabs the demon in the chest with his angel blade, killing Abraxas and finally avenging his family.

With Abraxas dead, the Winchesters surround Nick who tries to strike at Mary with his angel blade. However, Donna shoots Nick in the leg, allowing Mary to knock him unconscious. In the aftermath, Nick is arrested for his murder spree by Donna. When confronted by Sam before Donna takes him away, Nick is unrepentant, believing that he did what he had to do to get revenge for his family and that Sam would've done the same thing. Nick tells Sam that Sam couldn't help him as he isn't broken, but Sam feels that Nick is wrong about that. Sam tells Nick that he doesn't feel sorry for Nick but for Nick's victims who will haunt Nick for the rest of his life and that Nick can burn.

During Prophet and Loss, Nick is taken to the hospital for his injuries and is told four different jurisdictions that want to prosecute him for his crime spree. Nick secretly works to free himself and after receiving taunts from an officer, he broke free and overpowered the latter. With the officer defeated, Nick gathered his items and escaped the hospital.

Nick returns to his old house only to find it long abandoned, he is soon greeted by Sarah as a ghost, who initially mistakes for Lucifer until realizing otherwise. Sarah explains that she is trapped on Earth as a ghost by unfinished business: her and Teddy's unsolved murders. Nick tells Sarah that it was Abraxas possessing Frank Kellogg and he got her revenge by killing the demon and the man, but Sarah tells him that her unfinished business isn't just Abraxas or Lucifer, its Nick himself.

Sarah explains that she was present the night that Nick became possessed and witnessed Nick say "yes." She recognizes that Nick has returned in search of Lucifer in the place where they became one with each other. Sarah demands that Nick prove her wrong by rejecting Lucifer which will allow her to finally move on and find peace. However, Nick can't and departs to continue his search for Lucifer, leaving Sarah trapped in their house.

Personality
Due to the loss of his family, Nick has become a bitter and grief-ridden man. Lucifer was able to exploit this by showing Nick several hallucinations resembling his family's death, causing him to break down. Eventually, although Nick at first coldly told the Devil to stop bothering him, he quickly began to be convinced by Lucifer's condemnation of God and eventually agreed to be his vessel after Lucifer promised he could get him justice.

After being resurrected and freed from Lucifer's control, Nick feels a great deal of remorse for what his body was used by Lucifer for, looking tormented as visions of Lucifer's kills haunt him. He is initially confused by how Lucifer could get him to say "yes," but after realizing what happened, Nick is ashamed of how easily he was manipulated by Lucifer. Upon interacting with Castiel, Nick seemed distraught at how awkward Castiel was to him but after learning of how Castiel used Jimmy Novak, he was disgusted by what Castiel did, scornfully replying he is no better than Lucifer, although he genuinely reconsidered it after Castiel told him what happened to the Novaks was his greatest regret.

However, his long-time hosting of Lucifer has negatively affected Nick. He becomes more determined than ever to find justice for his family, even going as far as to brutally kill his neighbor who turned out to see the killer but did express horror at his act. He was frustrated at how his family's murder was never considered important enough to be solved by the police. Very soon, Nick killed others to get information on the crime but stopped himself from killing a random woman. When finding out a demon killed his family, Nick acknowledged while the human vessel was innocent of the act, his hands were still dirty and killed him.

He also showed some of Lucifer's tendencies when angered, angrily snapping his fingers in a heated moment with Castiel as if trying to kill him in the same way that Lucifer killed those who angered him, though Nick didn't remember doing it. After killing so many people, Nick prayed to the deceased Lucifer and begged to be possessed again to take away the pain he felt, unknowingly awakening him in the process. Nick's desire to be reunited with Lucifer is so strong that he chose to forsake his wife, who is trapped in their home as a ghost and cannot pass on until Nick severs his connection with Lucifer.

By the end of his revenge quest, Nick was willing to go to any means to find answers and avenge his family, even kidnapping an innocent man to be Abraxas' vessel so that he could talk to the demon and kill him. However, Nick still maintained at least some morals, knocking Sheriff Donna Hanscum unconscious when she got in his way and discovered his true identity, but otherwise leaving her unharmed instead of killing Donna. Nick also claimed that he would release Mary Winchester once he was finished. However, when Abraxas offered Nick answers in exchange for him killing Mary slow and bloody for Abraxas' own revenge, Nick didn't hesitate to turn on her and do what Abraxas asked of him. After killing Abraxas, Nick showed no remorse for his murder spree, stating that it was necessary to get answers and revenge for his family and didn't believe that he was broken. Sam suggests that despite Nick's attitude, the faces of his victims will haunt him for the rest of his life, with Nick being unable to look Sam in the face as he says this, possibly feeling some remorse at this harsh reminder of what he has done.

Powers and Abilities
Though Nick is a regular human, he has picked up some extraordinary skills along the way.
 * Lucifer Containment - Due to Crowley's upgrades to his body, Nick is able to contain Lucifer without degrading, allowing the archangel to use the full extent of his powers without problems while Nick is his vessel.
 * Investigative Skills - Nick has shown himself to be a competent investigator in his hunt for his family's killer, piecing together from Arty Nielson's reaction that he was threatened into silence and then that the police had presumably initiated a cover-up to protect one of their own. Though he couldn't find out Frank Kellogg's name as the man Arty specifically saw, Nick was smart enough to suspect that the cop Arty saw was the beat cop in his neighborhood and seek out the crime reporter who covered the story to find out who that was. Later, he was able to find Mary Winchester's exact location by looking through Donna Hanscum's cell phone after learning that Donna was friends with Mary when she pulled him over.
 * Basic Hunting Skills - Nick, though he is not a hunter and doesn't consider himself one, possesses some basic hunting skills with regards to demons. Nick credits this to the Winchesters, stating that he has picked up a few tricks from them. This includes knowing how to use a devil's trap against a demon to hold them and using an angel blade to harm and kill demons.
 * Lock-Picking - Using a paperclip, Nick was able to pick the lock on his handcuffs in a matter of seconds.
 * Hand-To-Hand Combat - Nick has shown some skill in hand-to-hand combat, as he was able to overpower and knock a police officer unconscious, albeit by using a bedpan and taking the officer by surprise. He was also able to overpower Donna Hanscum in a fight, though he resorted to a stun gun to knock her unconscious.

Physical Appearance
Nick has messy, short blond hair and light blue eyes. He is six feet and one inch tall, making him shorter than Lucifer's true vessel, Sam Winchester, by three inches.

His usual attire consists of a green T-shirt, a dark green shirt hanging loose, blue jeans and dark shoes. Although he was wearing a white shirt and sweatpants when he assented to possession, Lucifer changed into this attire and continued to use Nick's guise when not occupying a vessel.

Nick's wedding ring is also worn by Lucifer.

After breaking free of Crowley's control, Lucifer dons a brown leather jacket over a white shirt.

While trying to become a new God, Lucifer changes Nick's attire to a suit and tie and briefly, sunglasses which he quickly discards. Lucifer wears this outfit while exorcising Anthony, but later changes his clothes back to normal.

Over the course of his possession of Nick, Lucifer sports varying lengths of hair and scruff from short hair to slightly longer and little to no facial hair to significant scruff at the time of his death.

After Lucifer's death, Nick wears a white button-down shirt and jeans along with his wedding band. He also has some scruff.

Appearances

 * Season 5
 * Sympathy for the Devil
 * Free To Be You and Me
 * Abandon All Hope...
 * Hammer of the Gods
 * Swan Song
 * Season 7
 * Meet the New Boss
 * Hello, Cruel World
 * Repo Man
 * The Born-Again Identity
 * Season 11
 * O Brother, Where Art Thou?
 * The Devil in the Details
 * Hell's Angel
 * Season 12
 * Stuck in the Middle (With You)
 * Family Feud
 * Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
 * The British Invasion
 * The Future
 * There's Something About Mary
 * Who We Are
 * All Along the Watchtower
 * Season 13
 * Lost & Found
 * The Rising Son
 * War of the Worlds
 * Various & Sundry Villains
 * Devil's Bargain
 * Bring 'em Back Alive
 * Beat the Devil
 * Exodus
 * Let the Good Times Roll
 * Season 14
 * Stranger in a Strange Land
 * Gods and Monsters
 * The Scar
 * Unhuman Nature
 * Damaged Goods
 * Prophet and Loss

Trivia
Nick
 * The name 'Nick' is possibly a reference to 'Old Nick', which is a nickname for the Devil.
 * When Lucifer is yanked from Castiel by the Darkness, his true form appears as Nick for a moment before he disappears.
 * Nick is the second vessel whose body is restored specifically for an angel to possess as his vessel. The other vessel is Jimmy Novak whose body was restored by God for Castiel's use. As revealed in Stranger in a Strange Land, Nick was actually resurrected to act as Lucifer's vessel unlike Jimmy who remains in Heaven.
 * The method Lucifer uses to approach Nick is later used on Vince Vincente. Both are subjected to blood that horrifies them, and meet with Lucifer who takes on the guise of their deceased lover or wife.
 * Given the alternate reality version of Michael's inability to recognize the main reality Lucifer along with several other angels, Nick was presumably not the vessel of the deceased alternate reality Lucifer. It is unknown who he used as Sam never existed in that world.
 * Nick is the first vessel to survive the destruction of the angel possessing them. Sam speculates that as the archangel blade was designed to kill archangels, it left Nick unharmed aside from the wound in his side where Dean fatally stabbed Lucifer.
 * Before Season 14's Stranger in a Strange Land it appeared that only Nick's body was restored to act as Lucifer's vessel. In Stranger in a Strange Land Nick himself is revealed to have been resurrected contrary to prior belief.
 * In Damaged Goods, Nick's true identity and crime spree is revealed to Sheriff Donna Hanscum when she runs his fingerprints. However, his full name is never revealed with Donna just calling him Nick and "some guy named Nick" when talking to Dean.
 * When committing his murders, Nick takes no obvious precautions to prevent leaving behind forensic evidence, even leaving the hammer he killed Arty Nielson with behind at the crime scene, a hammer that he touched with his bare hand. This is why Nick's fingerprints linked him to the murders when Donna ran them. Presumably the police found his fingerprints at the crime scenes when they investigated and identified Nick as the killer through them.
 * The fact that his fingerprints could be used to immediately identify him suggests that Nick has some kind of criminal record that caused him to be in the system. Otherwise, while his fingerprints could connect him to his murders, there would be no reason for them to specifically identify him by name.