A silly title for once, because I was itching to do a silly one.

You get a very recent update, because it's late on a Friday night and my plans have been more or less demolished completely.

I'm going for the 'idiosyncratic martyr' feel lately. I'm a theatre kid, I like me some dramatics…

Anyways. Here you go. Read and review, you guys have been great so far so keep it up—that's what keeps the story going!

Chapter 4: Write a Poem About It

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"It's really desolate out here."

"Desolate?"

"Empty."

"Okay, Samantha. Write a poem about it," Dean's voice was thick with sarcasm. Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and glared. When Dean returned his glare with a lopsided grin he moved he rolled his eyes and looked away. They walked some short distance before Dean abruptly stopped, and Sam bumped right into him. Dean let out a curse under his breath.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Look like you're looking for your phone," Dean said, holding Sam's gaze. "Don't look around. There's a girl on the corner. I saw her in the manila folder dad had. It's that Jamie girl."

"The demon?"

"I have the holy water."

"I have the salt."

"Just act like it's no big deal. Maybe she doesn't know."

"Dude. We're on a main street."

"That would be a problem for her if it weren't for the fact that it's fuckin' desolate."

"Well jeez, Dean. Write a poem," Sam had his fingers curled around the little water bottle full of salt that he had in his coat pocket. The two tried not to look conspicuous as Dean watched her over Sam's shoulder. She passed by moving with a sense of purpose—her eyes flicked back over her shoulder just once to see if they were still there and she took an immediate sharp left just before the gun store.

"What was she doing?" Sam asked, and the two stayed rooted to the spot under the sickly yellow glow of a flickering streetlight.

"Not the gun store. Question is, why not?" Dean narrowed his eyes at the corner around which she had disappeared.

"Do you think she knows that we're headed that way?"

"How could she? I think she didn't want anyone seeing her going in there. If she's up to no good."

"So she won't be around there then?"

"If she is, we'll just leave. Head back as soon as we see her. I just want to check and see if they have it. Or if they know of it, at least."

Sam followed him but refused to relax his grip on the salt. From the looks of it, Dean didn't put down the Holy Water either. The two made their way down the thankfully well-lit but nonetheless empty street towards the shop, whose only sign of life was a lit neon sign, the dim glow of fluorescents behind the tinted glass front wall, and an Oldsmobile parked out front.

Sam was only aware of the tension he'd been holding in his muscles when they relaxed all at once with the delicate charm sound that signified their arrival. The sound of the bell on the door brought the cashier around the front of the display case behind which he'd been crouching—a case full of dangerous and intricate looking knives of all shapes and sizes. Dean couldn't help but admire them for a moment.

"Can I help you?" the shop owner was an older gentleman, with white hair and lots of lines. His skin was tanned and patchy looking, and as he stared down at them through his thick glasses, Sam couldn't help but feel the air of suspicion with which he was regarding them.

"We were looking for something. A gun, in particular. An old revolver," Dean pulled the folded up picture out of his coat pocket and handed it to the man.

"A Colt," he ascertained with an expert pursing of his lips. "Quite old. Probably very valuable but no, I haven't seen it before. Quite a few have been asking me."

Dean and Sam exchanged worried glances. "Oh yeah? Was one of these people a girl? Tall girl—heeled boots and bright orange hair?"

"That would be her. She was in here just earlier. You know her?"

"Yeah. Family friend. Our…dad…is a collector. You happen to know where we might find one of these?"

"Antique weapons isn't really a common profession son. I'm sorry," the man shrugged. "If there's anything else you're interested in…?" His voice was doubtful.

"No, that was all. Thanks, though," Dean gave the man a polite and yet painfully disappointed smile and turned for the door with Sammy trailing him.

"What now?" Sam asked as they headed out into the open air.

"I don't think the demons will be much trouble anymore. They should head out after they figure out there's nothing here. Either that or they keep killing each other off."

"I wonder why that Jamie girl wasn't with the others. Dad and Bobby were going to pull them all in, weren't they?"

"Worried about Daddy?" Jamie's voice was soft in his ear as they cut out into one of the darker streets down the block from the shop. Sam whipped around, water bottle in hand, but the cap was too loose and she knocked it deftly out of the way with a flick of her wrist. Dean jerked Sammy back by the arm, pelting her with Holy water and taking off. Sam's brain caught up with Dean's legs and he sprinted after him. They two ran side by side down the block. They were almost to the motel when Sam heard Dean drop heavily beside him, dragged backwards by the demon from thirty feet back.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, alarmed. Dean had dropped his bottle of Holy water. Sam sprinted after him and picked it up off the ground.

"No, no!" the demon cooed, and Dean's throat flew into her waiting hand. Dean gasped for breath and Sam froze ten feet away, Holy water poised. "We're all going to see your daddy together, understand? None of that nasty stuff, if you please." Sam didn't move. "I'm not above sending one of you back to your dad in pieces." So saying the demon took the knife and traced a line over Dean's clavicle, driving it in deep in the niche just between his chest and his shoulder.

And big bad Dean, whose everyday aspiration was to make sure no pain was inflicted upon his brother, screamed out in agony and bore witness to Sam's most hysterical outburst of emotional distress. Nothing alarmed him more than seeing his brother hurt—seeing his brother tortured was a new level of emotional pain.

"No! Dean! Please! Let him go!"

"Let him go? No, Sam. That's not how this works. You're going to set those ugly things down right now, and the three of us are going to take a little trip. And if either of you try running…well…you won't get very far."

As though to enforce the point, her hand slid down Dean's torso, bloody knife still in hand.

"Hey, demon girl, watch it. I don't do the kinky dominatrix thing." For Dean had taken one look at his mortified brother and ascertained that a smart ass remark was most definitely the only way to calm Sam's nerves and assure him in no uncertain terms that he was okay. (At least his personality, if nothing else.)

Jamie didn't think the remark was any more amusing than Sam had, and she plunged the knife into the outside of Dean's thigh. He did his best not to scream, sucking in a breath in one slow hiss and relinquishing such a torrent of profanities upon the demon that she quirked her eyebrow and smiled at him.

"Walk."

Sammy took an instinctive step forward, half wondering if the demon was going to stop him. He slung Dean's arm over his shoulder—gasping at the blood pouring over his shirt—and began to walk. Dean trudged forward with a set face, determined not to give Jamie the satisfaction of seeing how much pain he was in. Sam didn't take his eyes off his brother as they followed her down the street, away from the moderate safety of the well-lit main roads for the shady back roads lined with dilapidated barns and farmhouses.

Sam thought the walk would kill Dean. It took a half an hour of cursing, and with each passing minute Dean seemed to sink slowly towards him, pulling Sam down with more of his weight. Sam marched on without complaint, and his brother said nothing out of spite. Sam counted how many steps they were from the main road and each turn they made. It wouldn't be easy to find their way by landmark in the dark. One hundred paces and twenty two down the street adjacent the main road. A left turn. Two hundred and seventy four down one on the outskirts of a neighborhood. Right turn. No houses. Two hundred and thirty seven steps. Left turn. Empty cow paddocks and farm houses. Four hundred and eighty five steps. Another empty, wilting farmhouse, tilted extremely to one side. They turned down the overgrown, weed-eaten drive and stepped in from the relative brightness of the moonlight into the shadows beyond.

"Honey, I'm home," she trilled mockingly.

Dean, barely awake and weary, didn't register anything aside from one fact: the place was alarmingly empty. One solitary figure lay spread eagled on a carpet of damp, moldy hay, face up and eyes frozen. An empty shell. He also noted that the body was not that of either Bobby or his father, which brought such a wave of relief he felt his body relax. Sam crumpled a little beneath the weight.