A/N: This one was a bitch to write. I'm still not entirely sure about it, but hopefully you guys enjoy it. :)


Okay, this was bad. This was very bad. This was very, very bad. There weren't enough words to describe how bad this whole situation was.

Sam had thought it was bad when it was just him and Yellow-Eyes, had been surprised and relieved when his family came bursting into the warehouse, but this was so much worse than that. Sam felt like his brain had gone into overdrive.

Between Dean and Dad's reaction to all of this and the horrible things Yellow-Eyes had whispered to him just now (stay with me, they hate you now, you don't belong with them, they don't deserve you...) and the stupid choice he was forced to make, Sam didn't think he could take it any more.

And the way Dean was looking at him, like his world had just collapsed around him... oh God, Yellow-Eyes was right, Dean hated him. And why wouldn't he? Sam felt tears sting the backs of his eyes, felt that strange feeling stir at the pit of his stomach again.

"Sam, don't-" That was Dean, silenced by Yellow-Eyes before he could continue. Don't what? Don't bother? Don't come back? Thoughts flung themselves across his mind irrationally and Sam was powerless to stop them, his train of thought only broken by Yellow-Eyes' voice.

"Ya gotta choose, Sammy." The demon flung his hands out and grinned broadly. "Surely the choice is obvious."

And it was. It was so obvious it hurt. His family might hate him now – and Sam dropped his gaze again, determined not to see the condemnation on their faces – but he still cared about them. He still loved them. He wouldn't let them get hurt.

"Okay," he said, softly, and felt something break deep inside him, felt himself sag with the heavy weight of defeat. "Okay," he said again, "I'll stay with you. Just... don't hurt them." Sam wanted to hate himself for giving in, for letting his family down by being so weak, for working with the thing that had torn their family apart, but he couldn't. He was doing the right thing, dammit.

"Awesome." Yellow-Eyes sounded triumphant. No doubt he looked it, too, but Sam wasn't about to look and find out. He kept his gaze firmly on the floor, as if hiding his weakness from the world would somehow make it leave him alone. "It's gonna be great, Sammy-boy. I knew you were my favourite for a reason."

The demon was right in front of him now, blocking Sam's view of his family – if he had been looking at them, anyway. He glanced up, met with a pair of yellow eyes staring right at him, into him. Distantly, Sam wondered if Yellow-Eyes was reading his mind. It wouldn't help the demon; even Sam didn't know what he was thinking right now. He couldn't focus. He felt like he was falling apart.

"Let them go, first," Sam said. His family had to be out of here. Sam wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to make the mistake of taking Yellow-Eyes at face value. The demon had to be planning something, and he wanted his family to be out of the blast zone when it happened.

Yellow-Eyes shrugged. "I'm surprised you still care, Sammy," he said softly, so softly that only Sam could hear. "I mean, with what they know now? How they feel towards you? We both know they hate you, Sammy-boy. Hell, if I let them go, they might even hunt you."

"No." The reply was instinctive. They wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't go that far. They wouldn't hurt him. "Let them go."

But no matter how much he told himself that they wouldn't harm him, he couldn't make himself believe it. The tears that had welled up in his eyes finally spilled over, slipping silently down his cheeks. Sam swallowed and met the demon's eyes, trying to strengthen his resolve. He was a Winchester; he didn't cry.

Only he wasn't much of a Winchester any more, was he?


Something was wrong.

It didn't take a genius to work it out, even if Caleb liked to think he was something of a genius. Not everyone could do what he did, after all.

But the fact remained that something was wrong. From his position at the back of the building, Caleb could just about hear muted voices but nothing else. No sounds of a struggle. Nothing. And yet the demon was still there, that much Caleb was sure of. The Winchesters would be out by now if the demon had been dealt with.

They had to have been trapped. That was it. Caleb clenched his jaw and puffed an irritated breath of air from his nose. Damn demons. He hadn't signed up for this. He didn't do demons; ghosts and witches were more his thing. He was just here to help John get his kid back.

And okay, he liked Sam well enough – it was hard not to like the kid – but really he was doing this for John and Dean. He didn't want to think about what would happen if Sam didn't make it through this. The small, dysfunctional family held each other together. If one of them died, the other two might follow soon after.

He was thinking way too much. He had to get moving. There were no entrances around this side of the building, save for a grimy window that looked like it had rusted shut over the years. It was worth a shot, because Caleb didn't like the idea of going in the same way the Winchesters had. The demon would be expecting that.

Gun still clutched in both hands, alert and ready to go, Caleb moved quietly towards the window. A glance through it revealed nothing. He'd just have to hope they were distracted. One hand lifted from the gun and pushed against the window. It didn't budge. Caleb pushed harder. Nothing.

He groaned. This wasn't going to work. He would just have to smash it. It would alert the demon to his presence, sure, but he'd have the element of surprise – he hoped. Caleb gritted his teeth and slammed his elbow, hard, into the old window. The glass splintered, surprisingly quietly, and Caleb pulled his sleeve over his hand before clearing the rest of the glass away.

Small cuts littered his arm. Caleb stood still and listened for a few seconds, waiting to see if anyone was coming, if anyone had heard him. The muffled voices were a little easier to hear now, but no one seemed to have noticed him. Trying not to think about how it was probably a trap, Caleb checked that he had everything – gun, salt, and an extremely vague recollection of an exorcism – before hauling himself through the window.

It was a tight fit, but eventually he managed to wriggle through and land on the floor inside. He was in some kind of storage room, it seemed, which was weird because wasn't the entire building just one huge storage room? Caleb tried not to think about that, just counted his blessings that he was alone in here.

Okay, so he didn't remember the exorcism. He wouldn't be able to waste the demon with his gun. Salt was, apparently, useless. But maybe he could distract the thing long enough for John to get it. He didn't have time to work on a plan. They needed help now.

Slowly, he twisted the door knob and the door (which was, mercifully, unlocked) swung open. Gun firmly in his hands, finger on the trigger, Caleb stepped into the room. All eyes were on him. "Howdy," he greeted with a cocky grin.

Time to get distracting. He quickly made a note of the situation. If he could distract the demon long enough, Sam might be able to get free – his bonds looked kind of loose, and Caleb assumed the older Winchesters had been in the process of untying him when they were forced against the wall. Yeah, those two wouldn't be much help. The demon had them pinned.

Ah. Yeah. Psychic powers. He'd forgotten about that and he resisted the urge to slam his fist repeatedly into the wall. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Now they'd be lucky if any of them got out alive. God dammit, this was why he rarely worked with other hunters. There was too much at stake.

The demon did not attack immediately. "Hi," it greeted with a grin.

Caleb hated it when demons smiled. He flickered his gaze to Sam. "You look like crap, kid," he told the teen, and it was true.

Sam just gaped at him. Yeah. Okay. Caleb could understand that. He glanced up at John and Dean. John looked furious but Dean... Dean looked panicked.

Dean did not panic, Caleb knew that much. This was even worse than he had imagined it to be.


It was a good thing Sam had been taught to expect the unexpected, otherwise seeing Caleb stride casually into the room might have been the final straw.

As it was, he settled for staring incredulously at the man, even when Caleb spoke to him. Yeah, he looked like crap. He kind of figured that.

But this was not good. Caleb shouldn't be here. He was just another person who was in danger because Sam was a freak and the demon wanted to mess up his entire life. Swallowing down the nausea rising in his throat – his stomach was full-on rebelling by this point, and Sam didn't blame it – Sam turned back to look at Yellow-Eyes.

The demon did not look as though he was about to whisk Sam away, leaving his family and Caleb in relative safety. No, he looked as though he was just warming up.

"You must be Caleb," Yellow-Eyes was saying. Sam blinked back further tears and forced himself to think. He couldn't let someone else get hurt because of him. And Caleb would get hurt, it was just a matter of when.

Caleb nodded. "That's me," he agreed. He sounded confident, like always. Sam had always liked Caleb. The man was a confident and capable hunter, without the drill-sergeant manner that John carried with him.

Yellow-Eyes glanced over his shoulder to look at Dean and Dad, amused, and Caleb shot Sam a meaningful look, staring at the ropes wrapped around him. Escape. He had to escape. A part of him didn't want to. Yellow-Eyes would hurt his family if he did.

"You guys don't do things by halves, huh?" Yellow-Eyes was saying, turning back to face Caleb. For once, his attention was not on Sam. He had to take this chance. This entire thing was going downhill so fast, it was ridiculous. If he didn't do something soon, Caleb could die. Yellow-Eyes had promised not to kill his family, but Caleb was fair game.

He alternated his gaze between Yellow-Eyes and the ropes, not wanting to be caught in the act, and began to work on the bonds. Dean had loosened them just enough for him to slide one arm free. Ignoring his aching muscles (being tied up for so long really wasn't fun), Sam started to untie the ropes securing his other arm.

Yellow-Eyes was clearly tiring of small-talk by this point, as he flung his arm out towards Caleb. Sam winced, waiting for the other man to be flung against the wall too, but it never happened. Instead, the arms dealer started choking. His hands clawed at his throat desperately as he made horrible, strangled noises. Sam looked up, eyes wide and panicked, before redoubling his efforts to untie himself.

Oh God he's gonna die he's gonna die he's gonna die... Finally, after what felt like hours but couldn't have been over a minute, Sam's other arm came free. It wasn't enough. His legs were still bound to the chair and Caleb needed help now.

Sam's heart was hammering against his chest, the blood – demon blood, he reminded himself – that pounded through his veins feeling like fire. The panic was like a vice, wrapping itself around him tighter and tighter and refusing to release its grip on him. In desperation, Sam threw his hand out like he had seen Yellow-Eyes do so many times before and tried to do something, anything.

He pictured himself killing the demon. This thing that had caused him and his family so much misery, this thing that had ruined his life, it had to die. And he could be the one to do it. He had to. These psychic powers had to be good for something, surely.

The pain was near unbearable. Black blurred the edges of his vision. His head pounded. Blood dripped from his nose. And the power, the sheer, raw power... He wasn't sure he could handle it. Yellow-Eyes had stopped his attack on Caleb, though. There was something akin to surprise on his face, and surely that meant Sam was doing something right so he stopped thinking, stopped worrying, just focused on this.

"No! Stop it!" That was Yellow-Eyes, Sam was certain of it. Whatever he was doing, it was working.

And then it happened. The demon threw his head back and a cloud of black smoke came shooting from his mouth and Sam realised that he wasn't killing this thing, he was exorcising it, but surely that was good enough because if anything deserved to go to Hell, it was this thing.

Finally, it stopped. The demon was gone. The host slumped bonelessly to the floor – unconscious or dead, Sam didn't know. Caleb was leaning against the wall, hands massaging his throat. Dean and Dad were released from the demon's hold and fell down from the wall, landing gracelessly on the ground.

It was over.

For a few moments, silence prevailed. Then Dean spoke, his voice shaky. "Sam?"

Sam struggled to stay conscious, but using his powers to get rid of Yellow-Eyes had taken everything he had and every inch of him hurt and it didn't seem worth it to stay awake, to hear his family's disgust because he had been drinking demon blood.

The last thing he thought before he succumbed to the threatening darkness was that the demon might be gone, but this whole thing was actually far from over.


I hope I haven't disappointed anyone with this chapter. Let me know!

Oh, and Merry Christmas! :) Or happy holidays, if you don't celebrate Christmas. Is that right? I'm pretty sure that's the politically correct thing to say. Oh well. Just enjoy yourselves :)