Hello, guys! Sorry for the late update; writer's block was being that little devil jumping UP and down and UP and down on my brain. But here you go; this'll be a short chapter, since it was all that I could think of. But enjoy regardless!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I wish I did, though.

Chapter 2

Dean flipped through the pages of John Winchester's journal, aimlessly looking around at any monster that wasn't a Leviathan. He didn't exactly have the stomach to look at anything on those bastards now, so it was a good thing that his dad's knowledge hadn't extended to the most ancient monsters of Purgatory.

Sam came out of the bathroom, a cloud of steam emerging with him as the big ol' Sasquatch shook the water droplets from his long brown locks. "Hey," he acknowledged Dean as he pulled a pair of dark jeans on over his boxers. "Whatcha looking at?"

"Nothing much. Just remembering the good old days when ghosts were ghosts and the only human-eaters were wendigos and rugarus." Dean glanced up at Sam with a weary grin. "You get over that...happy dream?" he asked, raising his eyebrows knowingly. Of course, he earned himself Bitchface #23.

"I told you, it wasn't that kind of dream!" Sam protested with a scowl, pulling a soft black cotton T-shirt over his head. Dean couldn't help but notice that Sam almost never wore white anymore. "It was a different sort of dream."

Dean snorted, reaching over to pick up his bacon cheeseburger. "Whatever gets your rocks off, princess," he muttered, taking a bite of the greasy piece of heaven.

Sam shook his head in exasperation and pulled on his jacket. "I'm going to go scope out the town; maybe I'll get a sense of where Dick and his friends are hiding out."

"You do that." Dean got up and crossed to the couch, plopping himself down on the soft, faded, flowered upholstery with a grunt. "I'll...I'll man the police scanner, okay?" He flashed his brother a winning smile and held up the silent device. "You never know when it might go off, you know," he informed Sam proudly.

"Sure." Sam grabbed a pistol and shoved it down the back of his jeans, snatched up his phone and room key, and left the room.

As soon as Sam was gone, Dean hopped off the couch and whipped out his phone, once again cursing the touch-screen technology as he fumbled to type in his password of 0666. He scrolled through his extremely short list of contacts and called the second name on the list.

"I'm not available. Go to hell. Beep."

"I know you're there, Frank. What do you have for me?"

"Well, aren't you a genius? I have one thing, and it came from this book so old, it was bound in human skin. I had to wash my hands."

"Oh, aren't you just a fragile butterfly?" Dean scoffed. "Just tell me- do you have the info on what there is that can kill Leviathans?"

"Only one thing, and you sure as hell won't find it sitting in your local supermarket."

Dean sighed. "What?"

"A dragon."

"Like, Purgatory dragon?"

"No, I mean older-than-dirt dragons. Older than God, even."

"Dude, do those even exist?"

"As far as I know, they did. They say that these things are parts of certain humans, that they live in them, just dormant and waiting for the right moment to come out." Frank's crackly voice was skeptical.

"Frank, is there any known dragon dude around here? Because that's what we kinda need right now." Dean anxiously ran his fingers through his spiky hair.

"Two have been prophecised in the book: a guy called the Holder of the Eldest, and this other one simply referred to as the Blackened One."

"No other info?"

"Nope."

"Fucking peachy."

"Well, sweet cheeks, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have some badass immortals to hunt. See you later, Dean-o." The line went dead.

Dean tossed the phone to the couch and paced around the crappy room. "Shit, shit, shit." He put his head in his hands and muttered, "Well, all we need to do now is just find a person with a fucking dragon piggybacking in their skin. And won't that be an adventure?"

Sam came back later that night with a bagful of diner food and bad news. "Nothing at first, but then I saw this one old hotel on the outskirts of town that had a bunch of the suited monkeys manning the front doors. They're there and they're waiting for us. All we have to do is go."

Dean just grunted and buried his teeth in his burger, chewing in stony silence. He didn't know whether or not to tell Sam about Frank's findings. Admittedly, the idea of dragons was a bit far-fetched, but it was no different than the concept of a succubus or a demon or a damn Leviathan.

So what was he waiting for?

"Any news from Frank?" Sam broke into Dean's thoughts. Dean looked up in panic, shocked out of his reverie. Sam was looking at him expectantly, his wide hazel eyes questioning.

"No," Dean answered shortly, reaching to take a swig of beer. "None at all."

His brother nodded and went back to his salad.

Sam had a nightmare that night.

It woke Dean up, at first prompting him to whip out Ruby's knife from under his pillow. But then he looked over at the next bed and saw Sam writhing and muttering in his sleep. "Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, swinging his legs out from under the covers, clicking on the light at the bedside and walking over to Sam's bed, wincing when nearly every muscle in his body screamed in protest. "God, Sammy," he murmured to himself, preparing to shake his brother awake, but then Sam breathed out a string of words.

"Lucifer...don't...fly...fire...Dean...green..."

Lucifer? Dean knew what this could mean, but Dean and green and fly? This had to be the craziest motherfucking dream of all time. Dean grunted, "Come on, Sammy, back to the land of the living."

He reached out and brushed his fingers along Sam's twitching arm. A static shock jumped between their skin, and for a heart-stopping time, the shock flashed an image to Dean's brain, searing itself into his mind, creating the image of something moving and breathing just next to Dean.

It was Sammy, his Sammy, but it couldn't be. Sammy was asleep in the bed right there! This Sam's muscled, lean form was clad in full-body chain main and armor, his body glinting with a black glow. He held a long ebony sword in his black-gloved hand, and when Dean met this phantom Sam's eyes, the dark hazel was obscured by bright, shining pure gold, ringing the obsidian pupils. Next to this Sam, coiled around the room over and over again, the shadow of a black dragon shifted, making the atmosphere of the room shudder. Dean reached out to try and touch this Sam-that-wasn't-Sam, but when his hand was inches from the phantom's shoulder, this Sam fell to his knees, screaming and shouting in agony and terror as the reflection of invisible flames glimmered in his golden eyes.

The smoke dragon threw his massive head back and howled as well, and the two apparitions filled the motel room with a shrieking wail of what was surely Hell-induced anguish. Dean crashed to the ground, curling up with his hands over his ears while the not-real-Sam screamed and the real Sam slumbered fitfully in his bed. Dean screwed his eyes shut, hoping and even praying that this nightmarish vision would end—

Silence. He opened his eyes to the blank darkness of the motel room, lit only by the dim yellow glow of the lamp. Sam groaned in his sleep and turned over, shaking the bed, which nudged Dean's leg. Dean struggled to sit up, searching the room for any sign of whatever the hell he'd just seen.

What was it?

What was this Sam that he'd seen? This Sam that was a warrior with a dragon of black smoke, yet was plagued by the fires of the Cage?

Who?

What?

Sammy?