First and foremost -- I am SO SO sorry that it took so long to update! I actually had most of this chapter done, but then my computer crapped out on me and for a while I thought I was going to lose all my data. Luckily I was able to resolve the problem (after the longest month of my life), and I eventually finished this chapter just a few days ago.

I mentioned in the last chapter that when I went on vacation, I went to the laundromat that I kind of based the one in this story on and tried to get the right colored gumball. Well, I just got back from vacation (we go to the same place every year) and I DID try to get the right colored gumball again. (Right colors being 1: Blue for Dean, 2: Purple for Sammy, 3: White for the crap that Dean got while he was trying to get blue) I tried FIVE TIMES. I got GREEN, YELLOW, and THREE WHITES. At least I got white, but I can't believe that for the second year in a row, I didn't get blue or purple! I'll have to wait until next year... (Because I have to use THAT gumball machine in THAT laudromat, apparently...)

Well, enough rambling. Thank you for being so patient!

I don't own Supernatural, dammit.

The first thing he did, though, was did out his phone. He needed to call his father. He knew that John would probably hate him for losing Sam, but he also knew that John would kill him if he didn't tell him about the demon.

Dean dialed his father's number, and then waited impatiently. I swear to God, if I get his frickin' voicemail, I'll—

Dean's thoughts were cut off by his father's voice.

"Hello?"

Dean inwardly let out a sigh in relief. "Dad, it's Dean."

Even those few words completely gave him away. "Dean? What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

Dean sank down onto his bed, running a hand though his hair. "Dad… I'm really sorry, Dad." He squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly wishing that he had gotten John's voicemail.

John was quiet for a moment, a short breath coming through the phone in a burst of static. "Where's Sam, Dean?"

Dean felt sick to his stomach. It was almost as if John knew that this was going to happen. "This morning he felt sick, so I went out to get him some medicine. And, Dad, if I had known, I'd… I was only gone for a minute, and I…" Dean shook his head to himself. He couldn't even explain. He took a deep breath. "Dad, it was the demon. He took Sam."

This time John was silent for a long time. "Do you know where they are right now?" Something in his voice had changed. Now it was deeper, more serious…edging on icy. Dean wasn't sure if it was because it was the demon or because it was Dean's fault that the demon had Sam.

Probably both.

"There was this note or something that Sam had tried to write. He said…" Dean trailed off for a second. "It said he had a vision this morning. He didn't want to tell me about it, I guess. He said that he was being kept in some old building with a lot of graffiti in it."

Dean could practically hear John thinking right then.

"Where are you?"

Dean told him.

"Okay. I'm a while away, but I'm on my way now. I'll probably be there tomorrow morning. Don't you move."

"Dad! I can't just sit here while Sam…Sammy…" Dean clenched his fists. This was it. He had failed Sam. He had failed his father. This couldn't be real… "Dad…I can't do that… You know I can't do that."

"Dean, listen to me! Don't you dare—"

Dean bit his tongue hard, hanging up before John could finish his sentence. He knew his father was just about to order him to stay put, and he knew that if he had heard that order, he might follow it. He couldn't just sit around. He took a deep breath, standing once more.

I can't wait for Dad to come. Sammy needs me now.

He surprised himself with his own thoughts. Sammy needs…

Dean shook his head. He couldn't think about that right now. He quickly left his room and went back to the front desk. The previously unhelpful woman was still there. He planted both hands on her desk and stared her straight in the eye. "Listen. Do you know about any abandoned buildings around here?"

She stared at him dumbly. "What?"

"Abandoned buildings," Dean repeated impatiently. "You know, the ones with nothing inside them?!"

"But why would you—"

"Can you just help me out here!?"

The woman stared at him for a moment, taking in his fierce eyes before saying, "There are two abandoned warehouses on the outskirts of town. Oh, and there are three…oh, wait, only two old apartment buildings. One of them got torn down just last week."

Dean rubbed his forehead. At least there weren't a lot of places to search, but still… "Do any of them have lots of graffiti?"

The woman frowned at him. "You're not thinking of vandalizing any of these buildings, are you?" She looked him up and down. He really did look suspicious, just like she had thought before. Trouble waiting to happen, that's what he was.

"No!" he said, in exasperation. "My…my uh, brother, you know, the one I was asking you about earlier…"

She nodded. "What about him?"

Dean took a deep breath. "He's so much trouble. Everywhere we go, he insists on vandalizing everything."

"That's…"

"He's already been warned several times, but it's kind of like an addiction for him. See, I'm supposed to protect him… I mean, I need to keep him from doing these kinds of things so he can overcome this. So I need to know where he might go, you see?"

"Oh, I see. Well, the two apartment buildings are locked up tight… And they're in very public areas. I doubt he would go to either of those places in the middle of the day."

"And the warehouses?"

The woman shrugged. "As far as I know, they're empty. Way out in the middle of nowhere."

Dean nodded. "Okay, okay, where are these places?"

"Well, they're pretty far apart, but…" She grabbed a piece of paper. "I can write some directions for you."

"Yeah, by the way, sometime tomorrow, I think, another guy is going to come in here."

The woman looked up suspiciously.

"My father," Dean explained quickly. "He's coming to help me with his brother. If I don't come back before he gets here, I need you to give him directions to these places too, okay?"

"What's this guy look like?"

"Dark hair, dark eyes, beard. He'll probably ask for my room number. You can let him go back if I'm not back by then. But you really need to tell him what I said first, okay? It's very important."

The woman sighed. "Okay, okay." She handed him a slip of paper. "Good luck finding your brother."

Dean nodded his thanks before striding out the door, his mind only on one thing.

Don't worry, Sammy, I'll find you.

Sam blinked open his eyes to see a painfully familiar wall marked with graffiti.

The two demons from his vision had barged into the motel room, promptly overpowering Sam before he even had the chance to fight. They had knocked him out sometime during their ride, and now Sam was right where his vision said he would be, bound so tightly that he could hardly move.

And hot as all hell because of the fever, he thought to himself. God hates me. Why else would all this happen?

Sam blinked a few more times, trying to clear his cloudy head. He could hear the two demons talking. It was the same exact conversation from his vision. If he hadn't been able to change anything from his first vision, then did that mean that his second one would come true too? He couldn't let Dean die… There had to be something he could do to stop it, but what?

"It won't be long now," said the voice Sam had also heard from his vision. The man who owned the voice knelt beside Sam. "Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite little psychic boy."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "You're…you the demon, aren't you?"

The man smiled in amusement, his eyes revealing his true identity. "Well aren't you a smart one. Dean didn't even know who I was until I showed him."

"What did you do to him?!" Sam demanded. The energy that he forced into those words left his ill body drained, but he stared at the demon with flashing eyes, trying to ignore it.

"Hmph. You two are so alike," the demon remarked. "I didn't do anything to him, Sammy. We'll leave that for later."

The image of his brother with his chest torn open flashed across Sam's mind, sending shocks of panic through his system.

The demon nodded, reading him perfectly. "Yes. You know just as well as I do that Dean will be rushing in here sometime soon. Don't need to be psychic to figure that one out."

Sam struggled against his bonds. "If you do anything to him…"

The demon's eyes glittered. "You'll what? Come on, Sammy, tell me. What could you possibly do to me? I don't think that foreseeing my future will harm me. You're going to have to reach a lot deeper to find a power strong enough to go against me."

Sam glared, refusing to feel helpless. "What do you want with me?!"

The demon gave him a wide, all-knowing smile. "Anyway," he continued, pretending that he hadn't heard one word from Sam's mouth. "Dean seemed awfully worried about you. His whole like seems to revolve around worrying about you, huh?"

Sam turned from his gaze, his glare deepening. "That's not true."

"He'd probably be better of if you hadn't been born. Because, you know, if it weren't for you, your mother wouldn't have died. Which means none of this would have ever happened. Dean would have lived a normal life with Mommy and Daddy."

Sam remained silent. It was all true.

"Which also means that Dean wouldn't have gone through all the things he did these past few months."

"That was your fault," Sam hissed.

The demon shrugged. "Details. But again, it can all be traced back to you. I can betcha that Dean would be a lot happier if you weren't around—why did he run away from you in the first place? You've condemned him to a miserable life of hunting. All he's ever going to know is pain and death, and he knows that you're the one to blame for it."

Sam took a deep breath. Everything bad that had happened to his family—it was all his fault. Just because he had been born. Sam felt the fever's fire rushing through him, making his head swim. He tried to fight it—he couldn't get sick, not now. When he got sick, he tended to get a little delirious. And he needed to have all his wits if he wanted to get out of here.

"He is going to come here, eventually," the demon went on. "And I'll make sure he regrets it."

Sam could barely register what the demon was saying—he was so tired, he needed to close his eyes.

The demon smiled to himself. "It's a beautiful day. I love it when a plan comes together neatly. Now all we have to wait for is D…"

Sam only heard bits and pieces of the demon's sentence after that. Moments later, he had completely drifted off.

It was late at night when Dean reached the second warehouse. The first one was completely empty—well, actually, not completely empty. There were a few homeless people who had, unfortunately, given Dean some trouble. But no Sam.

Once Dean had realized that, he glared to himself and clenched his fists. He had just wasted a lot of time. A lot of time that could have been used to hurt Sam. If the demon did anything to him…

Dean shook his head, ridding it of the thought. He needed to be able to think clearly if he was going to save Sam. He carefully made his way to a window, hoping to see Sam through it. The window was grimy, so he tried to wipe away the dirt with the sleeve of his jacket.

But even after a minute of scrubbing, Dean couldn't see through the glass.

Great, he thought. Double-sided grime. That meant that he'd be walking in blind. It wasn't something he liked to do.

But Sam's in there, he told himself. So it doesn't matter if I walk in blind. The demon is expecting me, anyway. So what if I give up the element of surprise?

But for all you know, there could be a hundred other demons in there, the reasonable part of his mind reminded him.

Screw it, you're wasting time, the reckless part of him was screaming.

For a moment, he weighed his choices. What else could he really do other than barge in there?

"Oh, well it seems we have a visitor."

Dean whirled at the noise, his eyes meeting those of a curvy, raven-haired woman. If it weren't for the demon possessing her, he might have thought that she was hot.

"Where the hell is my brother?" Dean demanded, in a low, threatening voice. He casually reached for his holy water.

But she noticed this small gesture and snarled angrily. She sped towards him with inhuman speed and picked him right off his feet, throwing him through the window with a magnificent crash!

Dean landed hard on the filthy glass and felt pain slicing into his back. He suddenly wished he had worn his leather jacket—it surely would have protected him from the glass. He swore under his breath. Glass was in his hands, too, where he had unconsciously tried to soften his fall.

The woman stepped through the window with feline-like grace. "You must be Dean Winchester." She crouched beside him and smiled. "We've been expecting you…" She gave him a long look before grasping his hand. "You have beautiful blood," she whispered as she plucked a large piece of glass from his palm.

Dean snatched his hand back, quickly removing any other protruding glass shards—he knew they'd get in his way later. He then shot a dark look at the demon. "Where. Is my. Brother?"

The woman's eyes drifted upwards. "Next floor up." She took a long knife from the sheath at her ankle. "Come on, I'll take you to him."

Dean stood, glancing around discreetly, looking for his holy water. Of course, it had to be across the room, unreachable. And his gun certainly wouldn't do any good. How exactly did I plan on saving Sam again? Oh, right…

Dean cleared his throat. "Regna terrae, cantate Deo—"

The demon snarled again, wasting no time to cut Dean's words off by burying her knife into his thigh.

Dean fell to one knee, biting back curses and a shout of pain. Well there goes my perfectly flawless plan, he thought bitterly. How exactly did I think that this was going to work again? Oh, right… I thought that the demons might just be paralyzed with fear or pain or whatever. Guess that doesn't happen until later in the exorcism. Of course I know that. I was just depending on luck. That's the problem right there. What was I thinking, depending on my wonderful luck? Stupid.

The demon pulled her knife from Dean's leg. "Now, you're going to come with me."

Dean's mind was racing as he stared at his wounded leg, the blood already making a dark spot on his jeans. "And maybe I don't want to."

The demon laughed in amusement and grabbed Dean's shoulder, easily lifting him to his feet. "I don't think you have a choice in the matter."

She led him to the stairs, and every single one creaked as they stepped on them.

I guess my surprise attack wouldn't have worked either way, Dean thought, while trying to ignore the shoots of pain with every step.

When they reached the second floor, the first thing Dean did was find Sam, and run over to his brother's crumbled and bound body. He didn't look around to see how many demons there were—at this point he didn't really care. Sam's body was so still, his face so pale, it almost looked as if he were…

Dean shook Sam's shoulder. "Sammy, wake up."

But Sam's eyes remained closed.

"Sam," Dean warned. "Open your eyes." He laid a hand on Sam's sweaty forehead. "Shit, you're burning up. I've got to get you out of here…"

Once again, Sam didn't respond.

"You gotta wake up, man. I can't just—"

Before he could even finish his sentence, Dean was kicked in the gut and was sent skidding across the room. It hurt like hell because of all the glass he knew was lodged in his back. His world went black for a second, and the next thing he knew, he was staring up at a large, muscular man.

"No talking with the special guest," the man, obviously another demon, rumbled.

Dean sat up and took a quick look around. Other than him and Sam and the two demons, Dean didn't see anyone else in the room. The yellow-eyed demon seemed to be absent.

His eyes shot to Sam. Now how am I gonna…?

The female demon was suddenly crouched beside him. "Don't move."

Dean smirked at her. "And what are you going to do if I do?"

She smiled at him, almost sweetly. Then she shoved him to the ground so hard that his head smacked painfully into the floor and stabbed her knife into his hand. It went straight through and into the floor, forcing shouts of pain from Dean. She pushed it deeper and deeper until it could go no further. "Don't move," she repeated, before turning away.

Dean took a few deep breaths, the pain in his leg now forgotten as he tried to block out the pain in his hand. Just looking at the knife buried to the hilt in his hand and the floor beneath him, blood already oozing—what could he say? It really wasn't helping him ignore the pain.

Fuck, Dean swore to himself. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

GAH! After three years, will I finally be able to finish this story?!? I'm such a lazy bum!

Another quick random story. There's this hair salon called "Fantastic Sams"... HA, I love that place because I think of Sam Winchester (of course.) AND their motto is "Gotta be the hair" (And of course I think of Sam's hair.) Haha, sigh......

Well, anyway, I'd greatly appreciate if I got lots and lots of reviews! I'll try my hardest to get this thing finished!