A/N: I'm so sorry for the wait in updating! Life got a little crazy on me. But to make up for it, I'm posting the next three chapters today: two right now, and then the third one a little later. I hope that'll make things a little better!

I know you feel these are the worst of times
I do believe it's true.
When people lock their doors and hide inside
Rumor has it, it's the end of Paradise.
-"The Best of Times" by Styx

Even as they pulled up to the salvage yard, Dean knew something was wrong.

The entire ride over had been tense, and Bobby hadn't answered his phone. That had been the first troubling sign: Bobby always answered his phone. Even if he wasn't answering his dozen other phones he had for various cover stories, he always answered the main one. He had a business to run, after all. So by all accounts, he should've picked up at the first ring.

Definitely should've picked up the twentieth and thirtieth rings, too.

But the salvage yard was way too quiet, and as they stepped out of the car, Dean realized why: no friendly dog to greet them. Bobby's dog was always there.

This was nine types of bad, and Dean was still struggling to remember when everything hadn't been turned sideways.

There was a crash from inside, and they both froze for a minute. Then Dean was hurrying forward, grabbing for his gun, flying up the stairs. Sam was behind him, staying as close as he could, and as much as Dean didn't want his brother out of his sight he refused to put Sam in harm's way. "Stay back," he whispered. The front door was open slightly, and another crash had Dean bursting through, gun raised.

There were three men standing in the living room. All three looked completely out of place, nothing identical about them. Cop, businessman, and chef, of all things. Different hair, different ethnicities. The only thing they had in common was that all three were keeping Bobby Singer pinned in the corner near his bookshelves.

And then they all turned to Dean, and he realized they all had black eyes. Demons. Three demons, all in the same place, and no wonder Bobby was backed up as far as he could go. Fuck.

"Them too," one of the demons said, before turning back to Bobby. The other two headed for Dean, and Dean realized in a split second that Sam had followed him in, and worse yet, that the door was now being slammed shut behind them, trapping them in the room with three demons.

Trapping Sammy in the room with three demons. No.

"The bookshelf!" Bobby shouted, and Dean's eyes swung wildly around until they fell on a bookshelf on his right side. A jug of water rested on one of the shelves, and Dean grabbed it even as the demons hurried to reach him. The cap was flung off and the contents thrown, and both demons fell back with cries of pain. The hissing of their flesh made Dean flinch, but he tossed more of the liquid in their direction.

Suddenly the demon advancing on Bobby began to scream. Beneath the scream Dean could hear Latin being poured steadily off of Sam's tongue, his voice catching here and there. But the Latin was solid and soon all three demons were shrieking, covering their ears, trying to get to Sam. Dean only had to keep throwing water in their direction to make sure that wasn't going to happen, and moments later three trails of black smoke flew from the bodies, straight up to the ceiling only to disappear. Then the shrieking ended and the three bodies tumbled to the floor.

Then it was silent again. Dean rubbed his hands down his covered arms, trying to make the goosebumps go away. Freakin' screams were unnerving, and Dean had never heard more than one at a time. Three at a time...god.

Sam looked a little unsteady now that the Latin was done. "You okay?" Dean asked quietly. Sam nodded jerkily, and then his head shot up to gaze across the room. Bobby. "You all right?" Dean called, also turning to their friend.

"Wouldn't have been if you boys hadn't shown up," Bobby admitted. "Jesus. Three demons. Never seen it. I mean, I figured it was comin' what with all the signs, but-"

"Signs?" Sam asked. His eyes were wide, and suddenly Dean remembered what had started this endless nightmare of running in the first place.

Bobby told me about some weird things going on around Sam's campus

"Like the signs around my apartment?"

Bobby sighed. "Yeah, those. Your daddy get out to you boys okay?"

Dean was suddenly really glad they hadn't stopped to eat anything after leaving Jim's: he'd tried to encourage Sam to eat, but Sam had shaken his head no, even with his stomach rumbling. Now Dean's own stomach was twisting, and what the hell had happened to his world? "He was coming to us?"

Bobby's frown disappeared in shock. "He didn't call you?"

Yeah, there'd been a call all right. "He did, but the message got scrambled. There's not a lot left of it, and if he said he was headed towards us, we can't hear it."

When Bobby Singer looked freaked, it was time to duck and cover. Shit. "Then how'd you boys know to come here?"

"It's a long story." Dean glanced back towards Sam, and found that his brother was no longer there. He whipped his head around rapidly, only to stop when he found Sam crouched next to the three bodies piled on the floor. His hand was pulling away from the neck of the cop, and for a moment Sam looked so young that Dean had to blink away the mirage of his fourteen year old brother to the reality of a twenty-two year old Sam. When his brother finally looked his way Dean knew they were all dead. Cop, businessman, chef. Somewhere, they all meant something to someone.

"They've probably got IDs on 'em of some sort," Bobby offered, sounding gentle. The last time Dean could remember him sounding like that had been directly after the second fire, and he shut his eyes tight, because damn if that wasn't exactly where this all wound back to? The demon wreaking havoc across their lives, and this was supposed to have been done. Sammy was supposed to have been safe, and it was a mantra running through his head. His brother was the salt of the earth, the only reason Dean felt like breathing sometimes, and that demonic sonuvabitch hadn't been satisfied with trying to take him the once. And goddammit, Sam was supposed to have been fucking safe.

"Let's take care of the bodies, then talk," Bobby said, and Dean forced himself to nod and move, if only to make sure Sam didn't have to get any more involved than he already was.

"Honest to god, boys, I don't know what in the hell's going on anymore."

Dean swallowed the last bit of whiskey from his shot glass and nudged it back towards Bobby. Sam looked like he was considering taking the whole damn bottle, and when he tried for another shot Dean reached out and snagged it before his fingers could find it. His brother glared at him half-heartedly, but Dean didn't care. The kid was a lightweight on a good day. God, just a little while before they'd been talking about how much of a lightweight he was, and they'd walked out of the bar, laughing and having a great time.

"You haven't heard from Dad or Jim?" Dean asked again.

Bobby shook his head. "Neither one, like I said. Last I heard from John was that he was on the way to you. Didn't know if he'd get there before you did, Dean. Whole world's suddenly gotten lit up like a Christmas tree with all the demonic omens and signs. Something big's trying to go down."

"I don't understand," Sam said suddenly, his voice loud enough to be a surprise. He looked angry, but underneath it Dean saw it as the fear that it really was. "I mean, the demon said it wouldn't touch us. It gave its word, and its word is supposed to be its bond, right? It's not supposed to break it, or even be able to do so."

"It can't," Bobby agreed. "It's not supposed to be able to do this. I don't care how high up on the demon ladder it is, it can't break its promise."

It was like one of the light bulb moments Dean had seen characters in a mystery show have, where their face went from a frown to a wide-eyed stare of realization, and the pieces for one part of the puzzle fell into place. "It didn't," he said quietly. Sam frowned at him, and Dean hated himself for what he was about to say, but he had to say it anyways. "It hasn't broken its promise. It hasn't touched you. Or me. And it probably hasn't touched Dad. But Jess isn't you. Jim isn't me."

Sam's jaw dropped and his eyes flooded suddenly, and Dean felt like the worst big brother in the world. "Oh god," Sam breathed, sounding winded. Then, "Oh god," and Sam was pushing his chair away, stumbling from the table.

Dean's rise to follow was held back when Bobby caught his arm. "Leave him be for a minute," he said. "But I think you hit it on the head. We're not specifically you three, which means we're fair game. It's a way to hurt without throwin' a punch."

Which meant Sam's hope of keeping Jess uninvolved by breaking up with her was worthless. Sam still cared about her, and that was all the demon was going to care about. Everyone around them was a pawn to be used in order to hurt them, to get what it wanted.

"We're the ground you three run to," Bobby continued, grimacing as Dean tried to rein in his own emotions. "And it knows it. Emotionally hitting, physically removing help. It's not stupid."

His head kept swirling, and too many new ideas were cramming itself up in his skull at once. "Can it...can it break its promise if Dad breaks his?" Dean asked in a rush. "If Dad asked you to look at stuff around Sam's campus-"

"He didn't ask," Bobby said. "Your daddy refused to do anything to put you boys at risk. I found the signs myself, and then I realized just how close to Sam they were, which is why I called John and told him. I didn't even know they were the signs for that particular demon, but he knew, right off the bat. He might've thrown the papers away, but your daddy still obviously remembers a lot about what he found on it all those years ago."

"But could it break its promise if...?"

Bobby let out a heavy sigh. "Hell if I know. I don't know, Dean. It might be able to. Part of me wants to say that no, it can't, but part of me just doesn't know."

The slam of the door made them both freeze, before Dean darted up and out of his chair. He hurried outside and found Sam stalking off to the car, his shoulders hunched up near his ears. "What are you doing?" Dean called after him. "Sammy?"

When Sam didn't answer, Dean pushed harder to catch up, and then caught his brother by the elbow to pull him back. "Hey, hey, talk to me. What's going on?"

"I'm leaving," Sam said tersely, his voice low. "Let go." He jerked his arm free and kept moving towards the car to, presumably, get his things.

Dean stared and felt like he'd been slapped. Leave? "The hell do you mean, leave?" he said. Sam didn't answer again, and Dean moved to pull Sam's arm back again. Sam fought back this time, trying to tug his arm from Dean's grasp. Unfortunately for Sam, Dean had no intention of letting go and leaving his little brother to go off for whatever reason he wanted to. "Sam, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Let me-"

"No, I'm not letting you go, just freakin' talk to me-"

"Dean-"

"Don't 'Dean' me-"

"I'm trying to save you!" Sam exploded. Dean froze, and even thought he let Sam's arm go, Sam made no effort to move away. Sam gulped down air and blinked rapidly. "You said it, Dean: it's trying to hurt us, hurt me. Which means it's gonna go after everyone I care about."

"It can't touch me," Dean argued, but Sam was already shaking his head.

"It's breaking all of its promises; I can't trust it to not hurt you. And god, Dean, hurting you would..." He swallowed hard and tried to regain his composure. "Losing Jess would've hurt like hell. Losing you would destroy me."

Like Dean hadn't known that. "Yeah, and what do you think its hurting you is gonna do to me?" Dean challenged, because damn if Sam wasn't still attempting to leave. "God Sammy, outside of Dad you're all I have. And I'm not gonna let you take off somewhere that I can't follow to keep you safe!"

"I'm trying to keep you safe, Dean! I don't want to lose you! That's why I have to go, before it catches up with us and hurts you-"

"The demon can't hurt me or you, but it can take you, Sammy. Do you hear me? It can take you, and if you leave, right now, I won't be able to protect you."

Dean didn't realize he was shouting until he stopped talking and everything got very still and quiet again. Sam still looked scared and tired and near his wit's end, but he wasn't reaching towards the car anymore. If anything, he looked like he was leaning towards Dean, and Dean caught him as he fell towards his shoulder. One arm wrapped around Sam's, and they stood there for a minute, leaning into each other. "I can't lose you," Sam whispered.

"You won't," Dean swore. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

"No one's going anywhere."

Dean's gaze slid from the top of Sam's head to Bobby, who looked like he'd been standing on the porch for some time. He stepped off the porch, fixing his cap more firmly on his head. "What we need is a plan, one that involves all party members," he continued. "I suggest getting more wards and salt up in place and then sleeping before we make our next move."

Sleep. Dean could do with some sleep. Scratch that, Sam could definitely do with some sleep. "And dinner," Dean added, and he shook off Sam's automatic protestations. "Don't even bother arguing with me. You gotta eat something."

"You're such a nag," Sam muttered, but he was still leaning against Dean, still trusting that his big brother wouldn't let him down. And god knew that both of their worlds were in a tailspin but right now, they just had to focus on smaller things. Like getting Sammy to eat something and pushing him to sleep.

"It's my job," Dean said simply, guiding Sam back into the house. Eat, then sleep. Then planning.