Sam had his back turned towards Dean, but he could see it all. Sam was... relaxed. Not even one muscle in his body seemed to tense up; he moved with ease.

"Dean, Dean, Dean," Sam started. "Did you really think I changed?"

Dean swallowed in response; he almost prayed that it was inaudible.

Sam turned around and chuckled. "Oh Dean, I changed since you made that dumb deal to bring me back from the dead. I'm shocked that you didn't see it sooner."

He took his brother's silence as a cue to continue. "You know... The coldheartedness? The bonding with Ruby? The demon blood?"

Dean remained silent, in fear of his brother using his own words against him.

"Wow, you really are impotent." -Sam paused- "..Or maybe you're afraid of me."

Luckily, Dean had learned how to mask his fear long ago. His father's first lessons in manhood were to swallow your fears and pride. But Sam could see right through it, he lived with Dean his whole life after all. John had tried to teach Sam the exact same lessons, only he was too stubborn. Sam turned his back to Dean once again and sighed.

"You know what I'm going to have to do, right?" Sam said, again taking the silence as his cue. "You see, Dean, you just get in the way of the scheme of things," -He strolled back over to his brother, who was pinned to a cement column- "And, I think the world would be better off without you anyway."

Even though it was useless, Dean struggled against the invisible force holding him as his brother closed in on him. He knew his life would end short, but by no means did he figure it would be by his own brother; not a demon or a monster posing as his brother, but his own blood. He suddenly felt blinding pain sear throughout his abdomen; he looked up to see his brother's cold expression staring back at him.

"Not really sorry for this." Sam said.

Dean gasped and bolted up from his bed, drenched in both old and fresh sweat. He would have been relieved if Sam's bed wasn't empty. Dean jumped out of bed, shotgun in hand, and crept around the room. The salt line in front of the front door was broken, although there were no signs of forced entry from anything other than human. Hell, if Dean didn't know better, he would have thought Sam just walked out on him. The rusty gears began to turn in his brain as he started to fully awaken; he grabbed his cell phone off of the nightstand and rang his brother's cell. To his luck, the phone was right where his brother left it before he went to sleep, on his own nightstand. Dean threw his phone in frustration and tugged on his short hair. He sat down on Sam's bed, placing his head in his hands; he noticed something he wouldn't have thought to check. The bed was at room temperature, meaning Sam had been gone for a while. Baby was still parked outside the room, and who knows how far his brother could have went by foot, with those gigantic legs and all. Unlike when Sam went missing before, Dean now had supernatural connections on his side (some more than others).

"Castiel! Please come, I need you right now; it's an emergency!" Dean said aloud.

On cue, Dean heard a soft fluttering sound from behind him. He turned around so he could be face to face with the angel.

"Hello Dean," said Castiel.

"Hey, listen, do you think you could help me find my brother, Sam? He went missing, and I have absolutely no freaking clue where he could have gone."

"I'll be right on it."

Castiel stared blankly ahead, causing Dean to arch an eyebrow.

"Dude.." He commented.

"I can't seem to find him anywhere, I searched Earth and all parallel realms to Earth; I'm sorry Dean." The angel replied.

"Wait wait wait," Dean said quickly, before the angel could leave. "How did you search without even going invisigirl?"

"I don't understand that reference," Castiel replied, "but I don't have to teleport to search in different areas."

"Well, why can't you find him?"

"He could be warded or could have been taken to a place where the wardings prevent me from finding him. There isn't anything else I can do."

Dean sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Thanks anyway."

"Of course Dean."

And with that, the angel took off to the heavens. Dean didn't give up quite yet; when it was family, he could never do that quite easily. Maybe the angels couldn't get a lead on his brother, but he still had one more option up his sleeve.

Dean rummaged through both his brother's bag and his own for the materials he needed, having a ritual assembled within minutes. He struck an unused match and held it above the bowl, filled with numerous contents.

"Ad construgendum, ad ligandum eos, pariter et solvendum. et ad, congregantum eos, coram me."

As the flame inside the bowl diminished everything to ash, a slender figure appeared feet in front of him, turning around. The sound of high heels ricocheted off of the paper-thin walls as Ruby's face came slowly into view.

"Well, well, this is the last door I expected to be knocking down." Ruby said.

"I didn't summon you for snark, I summoned you for information you might have." Dean replied in annoyance.

"And who says I would give it to you, Dean Winchester?"

"If you want to live, you will."

"With my knife that I gave you? How Dean-like of you."

"Where is Sam?"

"Geez, calm down there Romeo, I have no idea where your brother ran off to."

"Why wouldn't you know? It's not like your his drug dealer or anything."

"Look, I've been trying to contact him for days, he hasn't picked up. Just because I'm trying to help him doesn't mean I know where he is every second of the day."

"Well, can't you locate him or something?"

"Don't you think I've tried that already? Wherever he is, I can't close in on him. He must have warded himself or something."

Dean gritted his teeth in aggravation. "Wow, what help you were."

"You asked a question, and I answered. Now I have more important things to worry about right now, than a man in a mid-life crisis."

She left as fast as she appeared, leaving Dean back at square one, and more distraught than he could have imagined.