They arrived a few seconds later at the bunker. All was still and silent, nothing seemed to be out of place.
"Where is he?" Dean said. As he spoke his eyes wandered around the room, finally resting upon a table filled with various tools, a bowl, and a used syringe. Although he was curious about these things, none of it mattered compared to Sam.
As soon as Dean asked the question, Cas's eyes flicked upstairs to Sam's "bedroom". Dean made his way up the stairs as fast as he could, but as he approached the room, his step became more cautious.
Sam was sprawled on the floor when Dean walked in. All Dean could see behind the bed was an arm and the top of his head, blood soaking his hair. Lifeless, as far as he could tell. As he approached, his heart rate increased and a strange feeling in his stomach occurred. Like someone had grabbed a fistful of guts and organs and anything they could find and ripped it right out of him, leaving a gaping hole. This was not the first time Sam had made him feel this way.
Sam eye's were wide open. Glazed over and unseeing. He was nothing but a corpse now, just a thing to be buried in the ground and forgotten. Blood was still dripping out of the hole in the back of his head.
By this time now, Dean's eyes were more than watering. He was in disbelief.
"Sammy?" He said. He shook his shoulder. Nothing would happen. Sam wouldn't magically come back to life, and Dean knew it too. But it didn't seem right not to try. Even if it meant nothing, even if it didn't change anything. He couldn't abandon his little brother, not when he had fought so hard to save him.
A creak in the floor made him turn around, where he saw Cas standing in the doorway. This gave Dean hope, revelation.
"Can't you fix him? You're an angel, you can touch him or whatever and he'll be good as new!"
"I'm sorry, Dean. I can't"
"You fix me all the time! Lucifer snapped Bobby's neck and you healed him in an instant!"
"This is different," As Cas talked he no longer focused on Dean, but on what had been Sam. Gazing and racking his brain to find out what he did wrong. Here had been a soul, a bright yet dismal oddity, that had been filled with purpose and a desire. Gone in a flash. Sam had told Cas he understood it was wrong to run towards death, even for a greater good. But he lied. He ensnared it and brought it down upon himself.
"I-I can't heal people who...who choose to do this to themselves. Just like an angel can only possess a human with permission, I can't heal someone if they choose to damn themselves to hell."
"Wait, he's in hell? He went to hell for this?"
"Taking one's life is a sin, one worthy of damnation. Thou shall not kill. Which happens to include yourself as well."
This, of course, only served to increase Dean's angst. His brother was upset enough to shoot himself, just to get away, and instead of relief he only got a worse hell than what he was living in. He fought to look away.
"There's-there's got to be something we can do."
But Cas didn't respond. He didn't move, he didn't blink. Because at the time he was witnessing a miracle, or thought he was. And when Dean turned his attention back to Sam, he thought so too.
