He hears the click of the door closing behind a stranger wearing his brother's face, the period at the end of the sentence that was Kevin Tran's life, and he thinks of Castiel.
Dean feels so heavy with shame that he doesn't want to see Cas and look him in the eye, the same way he'd only minutes earlier looked at Sam and Kevin before watching them be wiped away in a blue flash. But there is a need he acknowledges with aching self-loathing, to see who he has left, to see Cas alive.
He calls Cas's name in his head until it is clear that Cas is not coming.
Maybe he isn't re-mojoed enough to hear prayers, Dean doesn't know how that shit works, or maybe some revenge-bent angel got to him already, and Dean tries to swallow down the rising panic at this thought. Maybe Cas just has better things to do, running from angels and all, Dean needs to stop assuming that he's a fucking priority. Cas will be better off without him anyway, Dean tells himself bitterly, Cas should go off and find some of his brothers and sisters that maybe don't want to kill him and fly away and go cloud-bowling or whatever the fuck angels do when they're not lying and killing people's families. Cas should stay the fuck away from Dean because Dean destroys everyone he has.
Dean breathes. He explodes into grief at a few random intervals. An hour passes.
It takes him a while, looking over and over again -as much as he tries to make himself look elsewhere, to convince himself to put a sheet over the body, some old inner voice of self-preservation (Bobby's voice, he thinks distantly, and the reminder of Bobby hits him harder and colder than it has in nearly a year) telling him to spare himself pointless agony- into the angry blackened holes where Kevin Tran's eyes used to be and trying to imagine what they looked like when they were still there, brown and tired and sometimes laughing at Dean, but more often than not sad and angry and Dean had done that to Kevin. Dean did this to Kevin too.
The sky is darkening outside and the lights are off in the bunker and Dean is swallowed in shadow. Sometimes crying, mostly fuming, he has the presence of mind to pick up his cell phone once and stares at it for a long minute, thinks of trying to call Charlie or even Garth - somewhere knowing he needs some perspective and that he is in no place to get it himself, but mostly out of some pathetic desire to hear the voice of someone he knows and be assured that they're still around . He looks over the keypad blankly for a while, before tossing the phone onto the kitchen counter.
He's made this particular call more than a few times before, he knows what he would have to say, and he doesn't want to have to explain this, to say it aloud like it's a fact, like it's something that he can't change. Probably, he knows, he's being a coward. After fucking his family over so many times before, Dean thinks, bitterly, hatefully, you'd think he'd have the balls to at least say the words.
But it's harder now then it's ever been, and maybe that's because Dean is equally more dogged and more desperate than he'd been those times before. He's gotten Sam back after losing him so many times now, he'll find a way to do it again. He's clawed his way out of Purgatory to get to Sam, he can claw his way out of this mess.
He tries to tell himself this, gripping the counter, with conviction that fades into insecurity that Dean feels slipping into his chest and swallowing it. His need to keep Sam is what did this to Sam. And the world is so different now. The angels have fallen. A lot of demons, Abaddon's followers, have stopped making deals altogether. Not-Zeke or whoever the hell is wearing Sam's body right now-it could be Lucifer for all Dean knows, and Dean could have let the fucking Devil into his brother again for Chrissake - and even if, beyond all the impossibilities that Dean is quickly realizing, he does manage to slaughter some sons of bitches or something, (or threaten fucking Abaddon into dealing with him, offer up his own meatsuit if he has to, Dean doesn't gives a shit anymore) he doesn't know how he would look Sam in the eye after this.
Dean stares for a long time at the table still strewn with so many dog-eared books that Sam had been curled over only hours ago and suddenly they're flying off the table and across the room, pages flapping uselessly as they crash to the ground, landing with pages crushed and bent at wrong angles, fragile bindings tearing from their crumpled insides. Dean throws one huge, worn out book hard and blindly and straight upward, and it comes shooting back in two pieces-the cover clattering to the ground somewhere he can't see it, and the barely bound together contents hitting him straight in the head and falling to his side, spewing pages that couldn't hold on.
Dean looks over the floor, the books fallen apart all around him, looks for a long moment at the bright green post-it sticking out the side of the naked book by his feet, that tiny scribbled handwriting that suddenly blurs in his vision, then he's cursing and tripping over a chair and his own body to pick them all up and get them back together again and onto the table, making hasty half-assed attempts to smooth out bent pages and trying desperately to place them the way they were positioned before, to put them back just as they had always been on that table before Dean fucked it up and he can't get it back, he can't fucking do it anymore-
-and suddenly all the books are back on the table, whole and bound, neat and looking for all their wear and tear like Sam Winchester doted over them because he had.
Dean breathes, turns around, wanting to shove Cas with all the grief in his body, if only just for something to do with himself, but instead he pushes his hands into Cas's chest and sags for a moment.
Dean feels like he is living more in his limbs than anywhere else, his chest and stomach hollowed, and he feels simultaneously weak and wildly, desperately physical, as though if he keeps swinging hits he could purge himself of any energy he has left for feeling, for memory, and it might all just stop.
Wordless, Dean grips the fabric of the stupid coat-and hey, nice that Cas had the time to change his outfit while Kevin and Sam were dying- taking in then the
blood soaking his cuffs and streaking his sleeves and collar, drying on his fingers and the hilt of the angel sword visibly leaning from an inside pocket.
''Dean. I'm sorry.'' He says Dean's name in the old, familiar grave way that Dean realizes he hasn't heard in a long time from Cas. He looks at Cas's face then, finding it miserable and angry in a way that Dean suspects his own face looks too, and which betrays Cas's newly acquired grace, lest one forget that he was recently so human. And he is there and alive and so much the Cas that Dean knows-not the Gas 'N Sip's Steve, or Naomi's Castiel, or heaven's soldier Castiel, but Dean's friend Cas, that Dean has to look away.
''This your blood?'' Dean grits out finally, in a rush, knowing by the way Cas holds himself, the thunder under his cadence of his words, that it is not, but needing to be sure.
Cas barrels ahead. ''Sam's soul-it hasn't ascended, Dean.''
Dean pushes off of him.
''It hasn't descended into the pit either.''
Dean can't breathe. ''So what-what are you saying, Sam's alive?''
''The angels I spoke with seemed to be in agreement that it was likely. ''
''What angels? We're going on the word of angels now?'' Cas can't just come in here and tell him that his brother might be alive if there's a chance that isn't true. Dean can't handle that.
''There's certain angels whose duty it was to take records of the movement of souls after death. They were able to develop their grace to an extent where they could sense the path of each soul after exiting a human body. I was able to find a few of them, but none of them knew anything about Sam's soul.''
''Oh, and we're just trusting them?''
Cas ducks his head but visibly darkens, and for the first time in a while but certainly not for the first time, Dean wonders at the power and fury just behind that face. ''They weren't lying, Dean.''
Dean reconsiders the blood on Cas's clothes. ''So, what, he's stuck somewhere inside while some angel runs around in his meatsuit, killing people or god know what?'' Dean imagines Sam, screaming somewhere, caged in his own body, and Dean feels abruptly ill. He turns from Cas, running a shaking hand through his hair. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to gather himself, but can only think of Sam, trapped in this nightmare again because of Dean.
He feels a hand squeeze his shoulder. ''In all likelihood, yes.''
Dean sets his jaw and turns back to level with Cas. ''Where is he?''
''I don't know. I can't track an angel if I don't know who he is. But I'll find out, and we will find him Dean, and we will get Sam back.''
Dean looks at Cas, that sure expression on his face which has often moved Dean himself to straighten his spine and has led them sometimes into victory, or more often idiotic destruction, and despite everything it's reassuring. He nods, then considers something else, steeling himself. ''And Kevin?''
Cas's face falls into sadness that a few months ago Dean would not have believed he was capable of expressing. It stirs Dean's rage, and his eyes sting suddenly. ''Fucking heal him, Cas. Go over there and mojo him back.''
Cas shakes his head and Dean wants to shove him again. ''The grace inside me isn't enough to bring him back. Dean, I'm sorry. His soul is, in heaven.''
Dean snorts, sick horror rising within him at the confirmation of what he didn't want to believe. ''Yeah, that's a real relief.''
There is long pause, as they gaze over at Kevin Tran's body, silent in mutual grief for a few minutes. ''Dean, I will find Sam.'' Cas says again, eventually. Dean says nothing, thinks about the last conversation he had with Kevin, thinks about what might end up being the last conversation he ever had with Sam. Dean complaining about research, Jesus.
Cas prepares the funeral pire. They watch the flames in solemn silence, Dean looking more through than at any of it.
It's an hour before he hears Cas say, quietly, ''I didn't speak with him often.''
A few long minutes of silence pass before Cas speaks again. ''You took him in, Dean. You gave him a family when he was lost. '' Dean looks at Cas then, the shadows fallen over so much of him, and his cheeks and chest aglow and turned toward Dean. And what has Dean done to deserve that? He has to turn away, and is horrified to feel his eyes stinging with something other than ash.
After, Cas will tell Dean he's going to look for answers, to find angels that may have come across the angel who called himself Ezekiel after the fall, or may have come across an angel using Sam Winchester as a vessel. Dean will demand to go with him, and Cas will insist that it's foolish for Dean to throw himself into harm's way when there isn't much he can do to help Cas's efforts, and that Dean should stay and look further into angelic happenings in local news.
They'll argue about this for a long while, until Dean lets up, exhausted in every aspect of himself. Cas tells Dean to eat something, that he needs his strength.
Then Castiel disappears to look for Dean's brother, leaving the bunker large and empty and silent. Sam's laptop casts a dull light through the darkness as Dean skims furiously through the bookmarks. Dean feels monstrous and useless and wants to destroy something.
He makes a cheese sandwich and he eats it. He opens a book.