Disclaimer: I don't own anything

This is my first Supernatural fanfiction, though I've written like ten others from other fandoms. I din't know why but I jept putting off writing something supernatura-related. The episode inspired me probably since it'was 12 a.m. and I was awake and writing this.

He is back,

The moment he opens his eyes and sees hovering over him the most important people in his life, looking down at him with eyes full of fear and sadness it all comes rushing back. The killings, the partying, Crowley, the black eyes. He has no excuse for what he had done. They should have killed him on spot, instead of trying to fix him. He remembers enjoying every bit of being a demon.

He had enjoyed killing that man, enjoyed beating the crap out of people who didn't deserve it, enjoyed hearing that Sam had been kidnapped.

God, how he wishes he had been killed by that Lester guy. If he had just died back then he wouldn't have told Sam those horrible things Dean was sure Sam had been telling himself since forever. Having someone else tell you that those things are true, having your own brother tell you that you ruined his life, that hurts. If Cas wouldn't have come when he did, Sam would have been probably dead by now.

They help him to his room and let him alone with his thoughts. He's sure it's not going to be for long as those two know him. Probably know his darkest thoughts and also know that he isn't to be trusted with those alone for long.

So he thinks, while he's still alone in the room.

He closes the door and lays on the bed. On the right side like he's always had since they've made the bunker their home. It felt like home, the same as it was the last time he's been there. The half eaten pie slice is still there, the pictures he often contemplates are where he's left them, so he takes them and looks over the smiling faces of the two brothers.

Shining eyes and large smiles with beers in their hands in Bobby's house and he doesn't recognize them. The two evil fighting hopeful brothers. They've been long dead. Somehow they've drowned in waves of pain and guilt, so much guilt. They used to know what they were fighting and who they were fighting for. Now everything's upside down. No more black and white, good and bad, only choices. Once choice leads to another, all of them hard to make, some could get you killed some actually did, some could get other people killed, so you chose what's best for others. Because that's what being good's about. Now Dean is aware that from the list of many, many adjectives he could be described with, "good" is nowhere to be seen. There never was anything good in there. Only hollowness. Only pain and guilt.

If those two brothers from the picture would have seen Sam and Dean now, they would have-

God knows what they would have done.

They would have killed Dean probably. If not for Sam and Cas he would have done that himself.

He sighs and rests his head on the pillow. Dean closes his eyes and plays all that's happened for them to end up here. Mary Winchester making that deal, her burning on the ceiling, his dad telling him to take care of Sam not knowing that he had given Dean a full-time job for the rest of his life. A job he sucks at, apparently. He remembers how he pulled Sam out of a burning house for the second time and with that burning house died Jess, someone who he had known for a day, yet had mourned her just because Sam had. With that house died Sammy's last hope of a relatively normal life.

He remembers the Yellow Eyed demon, Meg, Sam's death and how he would have done and actually did everything to bring him back. The certain end – hell- he remembers that clearly. Not in dreams anymore, no. Recent dreams are more terrifying. He remembers his time in Hell not being sorry for a single thing he did back then because it had been all for Sammy and it has been worth it.

Back then he didn't realize it, but Castiel crashing from upstairs literally into Dean's personal hell, was one of the best thing that has happened to him. He remembers the first time he's seen Cas. It was back in hell and all he could see was a bright, blinding pale blue light which looked hostile but didn't feel like it was. That is all he remembers from back then. From when he's played his first part as the righteous man in heaven's little play.

Castiel, the first angel he's ever laid his eyes on, the angel whose job was to raise him from perdition, rebelled from heaven and kicked the dicks with wings' asses and despite what he had said, it wasn't for Dean. It couldn't have been. Cas has always been cunning and rebellious long before the idea of humans came up in his father's head. Sure, you can help an angel understand emotions and being human, but you can't change somebody that much. Cas did it all by himself and Dean was so proud of him, almost as proud as he was of Sammy for becoming the man he is today.

Cas died when the apocalypse thing went down. Sam also died back then. Sammy fell in the cage with the devil in person and there was nothing Dean could have done about it. He barely registered the fact that Cas came back almost immediately, because Sammy wasn't among the living anymore. For the second time in his life he had lost him. This tine though he couldn't have sold his soul and bring him back. So he turned to Lisa for comfort. It was all nice for a while, like being asleep. As long as he didn't think about Sam, life was bearable. Of course Sammy popped into his head at least two times a day. But he managed.

When Sam came back and wasn't himself he entered again the type of life he had walked away from. Angels, demons, wendigos, ghosts, fairies, he was never meant to live a normal life while there were things to hunt, he realized.

They sorted the whole soulless thing like they always had. Team Free Will always managed to make it through the day. Except when they didn't, but that's another story.

Since family doesn't end with blood and not everybody you get to call your family gives a crap about you, he realized all the family he needed was Sam, Cas and Bobby, later Charlie, the nerdy redhead that managed to slip through his defenses. There were also members of their little family that didn't make it at the end of the day. Jo, Ellen, Ash, Kevin, the list goes on with far too many names to be able to read through without his chest aching with sadness.

Sammy going crazy and then Cas. Cas giving up an army for him, just for fucked up, sad, lonely Dean Winchester only for him to die and come back as his evil twin like an episode from a bad soap opera.

At the end of the day it was just the three of them, like it has always been for the past six years.

When Cas enters his room, Dean remembers how the angel managed to trap him in his arms, stopping him from hurting his little brother. Dean really wants to hug the blue eyed angel right now.

He doesn't because he's never been really good with emotions. Instead he thanks him for being there. For being there to stop him from hurting Sam more than he already has, for being there even when he was fighting a losing battle with heaven, for being there to raise him from perdition, for helping his brother, for being a constant in his life.

For being there.

And Cas just smiles that little knowing smile of his, because he understands. And while Dean being a demon probably made the angel furious, lost and angry at Dean, feelings which Dean has already experienced back in the day when Cas was a god, he managed to overlook it all and do what needed to be done. To use his grace to restrain him.

A break from all of it. Yes, that sounds wonderful, yet they both know Dean would never do that. He will keep fighting until his last breath. Cas knows and looks like he wants to say something more and Dean would have given anything for Cas not to turn around and walk away. He has a feeling whatever Cas wanted to say to him was important. For Cas at least, so he almost calls him to ask.

Almost.

There's no time for such things now. If it will ever be.