Author's Note: Spoilers for 9.09 Holy Terror. If you haven't seen it yet what are you doing here? This is for Ashley, sorry Gadreel killed your future husband.

Kevin Transferred

"Kevin...?" Dean said softly, though it may have been begging. Kevin didn't respond, the empty holes where his eyes used to be still sizzling. Dean needed to get away from the smell of burning flesh that tainted the air and turned his stomach. But he couldn't move, stuck in place by the need to be with whatever family he had left.

He hung his head and cried. There was no one there to see it after all, no one left. Zeke—whatever-his-name-was, he was gone. He'd killed Kevin and then he'd left. Just like that. Sam was gone, too. It was all Dean's fault, he knew that. Suddenly the bunker was too big and empty, Dean's sobs echoing off the walls. He needed to get out, to move, but his grief held him in place better than any chain.

"Dean, I need—" he heard Castiel say from somewhere behind him. He hadn't heard him arrive. But he felt too hollow to care. Cas had stopped talking, and Dean listened to his footsteps approaching hurriedly. A hand was on his shoulder, and he flinched away. "Dean?"

"Kevin..." It came out a hoarse whisper. Dean's tears had dried for now. He stiffed wetly. "Kevin's... dead." It was a pointless thing to say, he knew, because his body was right there. Dean finally looked up from the spotty concrete floor to Cas' face. "Kevin's dead." It was angrier this time.

Cas pretended not to notice the tear tracks on Dean's face as he got to his feet. "I... don't think so, Dean."

Dean sniffed again. Hope was flaring in his gut with no chance of stopping it now. "What?"

"When a prophet dies, angels can sense it," said Castiel. "Kevin must still be alive... somewhere." He started rummaging through one of the large wooden trunks beside the mini-library, leaving Dean standing there. He leaned against the concrete pillar Sam—that damn liar of an angel had glued him to.

"Great!" Dean made sure his gaze stayed on Castiel's back – he noted the trench coat – so he wouldn't look at Kevin. Maybe the universe wasn't out to kill every member of his family until Dean was a grief-stricken husk, after all. If Cas was wrong... "So how does that work, anyway?" he asked, in part to distract himself from the corpse and the smell, mostly because he had no idea what was going on. He needed somebody to talk. All he could hear was sizzling—

"Kevin is special," was all Cas said, coming over to join him again. He was holding a large satellite dish like the ones people stuck onto the sides of their houses to get all the sports on TV.

"What's that for?" Dean bobbed his head at the dish.

"It'll help me to listen. I can find him." Castiel sounded so confident it gave Dean a little lift. The thought of seeing Kevin again, alive and well... the first thing Dean was going to do was apologise. A thousand times over. And then he was going to get Kevin as far away from him as he possibly could.

Dean fetched his jacket and shrugged it on. "Okay, let's go," he said.

Castiel nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, listened to Castiel flap his wings. He was happy for Cas' sake that he had his mojo back again, and made a metal note to tell him later. But more pressing matters were on hand now. When Dean opened his eyes again they were knee-deep in snow.

It smelled better here than at the bunker at least. They were surrounded by towering fir trees. The branches swayed gently in the wind. "Where the hell are we?" asked Dean. Was Kevin stuck in a snow drift somewhere, freezing to...

"I don't know." Castiel put the dish to his ear and listened. "This way," he said and walked off, Dean having to trot through the snow to keep pace. There was no sign of a person being here, though. But it was likely the snow had covered any tracks there were.

Dean's jacket was pathetically thin out here in wherever here was. He hugged his arms closer to his body in an effort to conserve heat. Dean was so busy trying to walk fast and not fall over he didn't notice Cas had stopped until he bumped into his back with an "Oof." Cas didn't seem to notice.

Cas was listening to the satellite dish again. He altered his course only slightly before continuing onward. The falling snow and the wind were doing a good job of clearing Dean's nostrils of the smell of cooking Kevin. But his thoughts still wandered to dark and lonely places while he followed Cas. Once they found Kevin, they'd have to find Sam.

"Here," Castiel said. Dean looked up to find himself in small clearing, and smack-bang in the centre was a tiny fir tree. It was thin and scrawny, but the wind didn't seem to be affecting it. The tiny tree was surrounded by much older and taller ones in an almost perfect circle as if they were standing guard.

Dean did a three-sixty twirl, but there was still no sign of Kevin. "I don't understand, Cas. Where's Kevin?" The hope that had flared earlier was beginning to buckle under the pressure of crushing disappointment.

Castiel pointed at the tiny little tree, no taller than Dean. "That's Kevin. Listen." He held out the dish for Dean to put his ear against. For a moment he thought Cas had gone crazy again, but then he heard it.

"Dean?" It was only a whisper, barely audible with the wind noise, but the voice was still recognisable: Kevin. "Hey, you found me, man." Dean Winchester wasn't often taken aback, but sometimes he did wonder at what point his life had started being quite this crazy. Dean looked at the tree, and then at the dish, then at Cas, who gave him a little smile. Dean's mouth opened and closed a few times before any words came out.

"Kevin? Is that you?" Dean was talking to a tree. A freakin' tree. And he was expecting an answer from the tree too. Maybe this was all a dream and he would wake up and Kevin would bitch about tablets or something.

"Hey, Dean," said Kevin the tree, and was Dean mistaken or did the tree sound... happy? "I'm a tree."

"I can see that." Dean glanced at Cas, but the angel didn't make eye contact. Giving him space to wrap his head around this whole thing. In that case Cas might want to find a book to read. Or several. "And... how? Why are you suddenly a tree?"

"Oh, when I was younger I wanted to be a tree for a while. It seemed peaceful, no stressing about school and stuff, you know? It was kinda stupid."

"Right. So you've been reincarnated, that it?" The question was directed at Castiel with a sideways glance.

"In special cases it does happen," he said. "Kevin's special. God was listening to your prayers. He's safe here, protected." He emphasised the last for Dean's benefit. Dean followed Cas' gaze to the treetops, pretending it was the cool wind that was making his eyes water. "This forest is full of souls."

This was a lot to process even by Dean's standards. Kevin was... dead. But he wasn't. His soul was safely encased in a layer of bark. Surrounded by a family of trees with souls in them too. Dean could dig the Kevin tree up, bring him back to the bunker, but Dean had always sucked at caring for plants just like he had family members.

It was if his mind could be read. "It's okay, Dean," said Kevin the tree. "It wasn't your fault. I mean, I'm friggin' dead, but I think I like it here."

"Huh," was all Dean said. If Kevin could read his mind, he knew exactly what he thought about that.

Eventually it became too cold to stand beside Kevin. Cas allowed him a few minutes to shiver beside the little tree. Dean wished he had something with him to leave here, but there was nothing in his pockets that would last very long. Except for that little packet of slightly linty mints. So Dean left Kevin with a simple "See you around, Kevin."

"Bye, Dean."

He would visit again if he could, if and when the war was over. Dean gave the angel a little nod, and back to the bunker they went. The body was still there – it had stopped sizzling, thank God – and Dean and Castiel gave it a hunter's funeral. He would miss the constant complaining about headaches, the unexpected bender weekends and his stupid grin when he found something useful on a tablet.

He'd miss the kid, all right.

There was some comfort to be drawn from the fact that he wasn't gone, not completely. He'd take more comfort from catching the angel who'd stolen Sam, however. He watched the flames on the pyre leap upwards, Castiel standing by his side. He took the time to build the walls again, his grief over Kevin held back like a dam. It could break another day.

Dean squared his shoulders again. Wiped at his eyes. They had work to do.

"Let's go find this brother-stealing bastard."

A/N: I have no idea what this is. I thought of a few Kevin Tran puns – my favourite being the one I used for the title. Transfirred – geddit? He's a fir tree now and forever. Maybe Dean could dig him up, bring him to the bunker and decorate him for Christmas. That's what was going to happen. It was going to be fun. But my Kevin feels are too raw, so here have this angst-fest instead. Soz. Writing this oddly enough did make me feel a bit better about the whole thing though. (First Supernatural fic too! Yay!)