Castiel remembers telling Dean in their very beginnings that since he was the one who pulled him out of Hell, he can throw him back in as well.

And while looking at Dean's face for the very last time right before the portal could cut them apart once and for all, Castiel thinks that he probably just did.

What had he just done.

He never meant to carry out that threat.

Even if he had to, he never would.

And yet, it did happen by the fault of his hand.

Castiel thinks that he finally did with this freedom what God had wanted him to do.

In a way, he took this length of a rope and hanged both Dean and himself with it.

Except, Castiel realizes, it is worse. Because neither of them is dead and there is no way to stop the agony.

Dean lets air go out of his chest heavily and painfully. He's in the wilderness again. He knows it is not the same one. It's not because of there's night around him suddenly. It smells and feels different, this much he knows. And that would be it. The only thing he knows for sure. Or at all. Because just like that, he had lost everything. Everything. And he doesn't even know just like how, exactly. All he can hear, the sound ripping through his skull like a blunt, rusty blade, is Cas's hoarse "no!" escaping his mouth right before it ended like this. And it won't shut up, it won't leave, it won't let go.

Another thing that Dean does not know, or at least not anymore, is that the piercing dreadful echo is left behind by his own screaming, with "No" being his secret password and his god damn ultimate answer to everything through the whole 'back to the shit-ball trip'.

No to Cas pushing him away. No to Cas dying just like that all alone. No to Cas forcing him out the very last second. No to all of this bullshit, Dean Winchester will be having none of this, fuck you very much. No to letting this sink in. No to this fucking bushland, that one was better. This one lacks the essential element. And from now on forever will, no matter where he goes. That, for a change, he allows to sink in while he's walking towards the source of light that he happened to catch a glimpse of. Wow, he thinks, fuck everything.

Out of all the fucking things possible, it's a fucking tent. As in, with people spending nights together, secluded and perfectly intimate in this endless goddamn nature's hideout. And it does so fucking much remind him of something that he had and irretrievably just lost. Dean's seeing red and for a moment there, he really wants to tear this poor sap and his girl a new one. His gun is faithful and ready, but he regains his shit of course, he always does, even though Cas's pained cry is still a hurricane inside him, making it nearly impossible to see in this mess that his head is, yet he makes it, cause he's just that tough and he leaves those campers alone. It is not their fault.

Then whose is it?

Dean has got around good five hours of marching for the time to figure this answer out. So he does spend it like this, cause it won't let go. And to choose from all the possible surroundings that aren't helping, this is fucking really not helping. He winds himself again out in the wild with the machete in his hand, only this time there's really no point in going. He will find nothing at the end of this path. No stream, clearing, no his Angel, no second strip-down from his bullshit, no purifying breeze making things right and clear within his own feelings. There's just this big gaping hole of fucking nothing, and it doesn't matter even if he kills a whole country of ugly mooks on his way, even if he becomes the next Pope model – there's no reward. He snorts bitterly at the Pope thing. If anything, he's Ted fucking Bundy already, so someone might as well sit him on the damn electric throne to put him out of his misery for all he cares, but he doesn't get the consolation prize, either, because there is no one even there. Anymore. Story of his life.

As the screaming memory in his mind quiets down eventually, Dean realizes that he misses the sound of the trench coat writhing on the wind and he misses that one of a kind son of a bitch voice that used to whine right behind his ear what seems to be centuries ago, in the time when the journey still had a god damn goal. He wishes at least the scream came back because there is nothing more painful, solitary and empty than this silence. It's a steel-cold bitch that had gripped his heart in her claws with no intention to ever let go. He won't get rid of it unless he rips it out of his chest, taking the pain with it. And he doesn't mean it as the metaphorical shit. He's being pretty damn literal about this.

By the time Dean is already standing by the road, waiting for nothing in particular, not really interested if he even wants to decide whether he's actually hoping for a ride or not, he's strongly convinced that none of it – not Cas's loss, not those fuckers from that tent, not this place, not this blinding pain, not this sucking void, not this lack of point – fucking none of it is in any way coincidental. He had it fucking coming. He should have never leave something as fragile as Cas all alone. He should have never let him break in the first place.

He's trying to convince himself that in those circumstances, he tried to do the best he could, though. And he really wants to believe it. But another part of him tells himself to fuck off with this bullshit. Dean nods at it while trying to pretend he didn't even hear it at all.

He's going fucking crazy, that's it.

Jesus, he needs that ride and it better be soon. Psycho or not, he's got shit to do alright, even if it changes nothing.

A few days later, when he leaves some poor sap's truck and embraces his loneliness again, he's as clean as new but feels filthier than he's been when he was running around covered with blood, sweat and dirt for the whole year. Wearing fresh clothes and a fresh, fake smile oh his clean, empty face, he knows for certain, he is nothing more but a shell. What was pure and what was him came to and end once he placed his foot in the Maine part of the Appalachian Trail, and its remains, along with his clothes, were abandoned in a dumpster somewhere in Louisiana. He takes a look at his forearm and he laughs bitterly, because, well, what do you know, finally he's nothing more but damn a vessel, hands down, God wins this one.

He keeps on walking until the night finds him, and while he does, Dean can't help but think about what the amount of time that passed had most likely done to his Cas. It's been five days, Dean counts wet-eyed, and strikes another knife down his chest as he finds himself wondering whether those sons of bitches had eaten the poor guy whole or if they left him as a fucking carcass to rot in the sun until he's bones and dust, until he's nothing, all of this because for the one time too many, Dean Winchester had failed to do his goddamn job.

As he's standing on the long abandoned grounds, feeling the skin of his hand burn with fire while he's digging the grave up, slowly returns to him the flood of awareness that he does have an another arm, and arm that could and was supposed fit an Angel as well. There was a time when that was the very point of Dean having any arms at all. And somehow, not having an entity writhing inside it, suddenly makes the vacant limb feel much more worse than the vampire-bearing one. It is like it has withered. Dean doesn't know how to mend it, so he tries to transfer all of his attention to freeing Benny instead. It turns out to be quite easy and fast. And it could have been as simple with Cas, as well. "Could", sadly being the key word.

"The hell took you so long?" Benny asks him without much of a foreplay, obviously either suspecting something or already knowing enough because Benny's no idiot alright and he can obviously count to three just fine.

"You're welcome." Dean deflects because he's having none of this right now, or, in fact, ever fucking again. "Everything working?" He asks in an attempt to change the subject onto something not that is not being him and has nothing to do with him in general.

"Good enough" Benny vaguely addresses the question. "So…What now?"

Dean knows too damn well that the son of a bitch isn't talking about just this exact moment. That's a question that has got very little to do with the future but all too much with the past. While it is disturbing and slightly frustrating, Dean can't actually say he's surprised with the inquisitiveness. Benny always seemed to have a thing for asking him the inappropriate questions. Dean on the other hand had a thing for not liking to answer them.

"Like we talked about, I guess" he says, nodding, trying to convince himself that this outcome has anything to do with what they all talked about back in Purgatory. Cause frankly speaking, it doesn't.

"Then this is goodbye" Benny says sadly, eyeing Dean with worry.

Dean tries to answer that and fails. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out of it. Benny is not the only one who Dean is trying to say goodbye to with this. And maybe that's why he fails here, he thinks. He just can't let go, can he?

He forces a second attempt. He changes the topic once more.

"Keep your nose clean, Benny. You hear me?"

"We made it, brother. I can't believe it." Benny plays along for once, taking Dean into a reassuring hug.

"You and me both" Dean answers him, and because he can't be possibly seen, allows the very last remains of his face's composure to break as he hears the word "both" coming out of his mouth.

When they part, Dean is once again wearing the peculiar expression that is a result of deliberately forging despair into a smile. He isn't sure how he is going to get there yet, but he's positive he will reach Sam soon enough. So, since he wasn't doing any of the pity shit with Benny, he sure as hell is not going to have this with Sammy, either. That is why a well-crafted smile and an emergency kit of appearances is exactly what Dean needs right now, aside of a good plan.