*tips hat* Well. In the wait for season six to hit the UK I have spent way too much time wondering how they'll sort it all out. And, in a moment of dedication, I chose not to watch the first episode that a friend emailed me (perfectly legal, of course *hem*). It's still sitting in my inbox, though. I might give in.

Anyway. Slightly AU for the end of season five (AKA no Lisa and whatnot). And though at times it veers kinda close, this is not a slash fic. I think a certain friend would kill me for making Cas gay. I've just been on a bit of a hurt!Dean kick at the moment, and this is what my brain spews out when really sad fangirl angst takes hold. Yeah. It's a little rambly, but I kind of like it. Anywho - feedback encouraged and loved muchly. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: Dean and Cas belong to Kripke, unfortunately. I shall return them safely. Possibly.

Broken

The motel is somewhere in California, Dean thinks it's in Silicon Valley. He hadn't given it much thought - he just drove. Sam had always hated the place after Jessica, after Stanford. Sam had hated Cali, Dean remembers. Then he stops, because thinking of Sam hurts too much and he hates knowing that he can't bring him back like last time. Nothing he can do will get Sam back, and it's slowly killing him.

He's not alone in the motel room. Castiel stands in the doorway, silent until spoken to. Like he's been since he came back. The silence between the two is almost unbearable, but each is used to it. When Dean is out drinking himself into a stupor or getting into fights for the hell of it, just to kick the crap out of someone else because he's sick of beating himself up, Cas isn't around. Dean doesn't know where he is, and when he's in that kind of mood he doesn't care. But other times, quieter times, Castiel turns up and listens. Sometimes he talks, but mostly he just listens.

It's been two weeks without Sam, and now is one of those times.

"You can get him back, can't you?"

"Dean, I—"

"I mean, I know it wasn't easy, but you saved me. You can get him back too, right?"

"I wish I could, but—"

"You got me out of Hell, Cas, you can damn well get him out." Dean's not shouting. Today he's too tired and too hopeless to shout. "He doesn't deserve to be there, not him. Sammy doesn't deserve it."

Castiel gives him a careful look. They've been through this so many times. "It isn't that easy. I don't have the same power over Sam, he gave himself to Lucifer willingly, and I—"

"Damn it Cas!" Dean stands up, the chair he's been sitting on hitting the floor with a dull thud. "I signed a deal to end up there. Doesn't this, I don't know, work in the same way? He didn't want to, does that mean nothing? I mean, doesn't it… doesn't it count, at all?" It's getting increasingly hard for Cas to look at him and say he can't save his brother. Dean is grasping at straws. "Can't you get a friend or something to get him back? Someone who can do it? Please, Cas. I'm…" He swallows hard, the words grating in his throat. "I'm begging you, man. I don't ask you for much, okay? But this, I-"

And then Dean has to stop talking because the overwhelming sensation of complete and utter failure hits him again, with the same force as it did the first moment he realised Sam was gone and he knows that the one thing Dad asked him to do, the one thing he was good at, he screwed up. He doesn't know if that's worse than the death of his brother or not. He hasn't referred to it as a death out loud, because saying it makes it more final and no matter how true it might be he doesn't want to think about it like that.

Being the older brother was hard, sure it was, with Sammy always getting himself into trouble and screwing up and pissing dad off, when he was alive, and the arguments always spiralled out of control if they let them. But not being a brother at all – that's worse. That's so much worse.

Castiel says nothing as Dean sinks on to the end of the single motel bed and roughly scrubs his hands over his face. He stands, and he listens, even though the only thing he has to listen to is the sound of Dean Winchester bawling his eyes out, something so uncharacteristic it's almost painful to watch.

For a while, Cas thought he might be the only angel left who wasn't behind the Apocalypse attempts of the demons. He'd thought he was the only one who still had faith in God, even though He'd deserted them. In that sense, he can relate. Because Dean is used to being part of a unit, too; a unit with it's fair share of cracks, sure, but a tight unit. The Winchesters, the close-knit but so contrasting set of hunters. Then John died, and it was just the two of them, but still, it was okay. They worked as a team; always had each other's backs, always ready to take a bullet for the other. An unbreakable, impenetrable unit.

And now, it's broken, and so is Dean. And it hurts. Going from being one of two to the only one left hurts, and he doesn't know how to make it better, how to stop himself feeling like nothing else matters. How to pick up the jagged pieces and fit them back together without cutting himself.