He shakes her hand off.
"What?" he snaps. "So Kev's in Hell without me around? Someone could pull him out".
His argument is weak even to his own ears. He knows how difficult it is to pull someone out of Hell. For the first time, he looks at her and wonders if maybe, he should try and learn the lesson. He might get out of this, at least.
"He isn't the only one" she replies with sympathy in her eyes.
"Not the only one in Hell?"
She answers too slowly, and he knows immediately there's something she isn't telling him. But she only says, "Not the only one you saved who – "
"Saved?!" he screams, "Saved? Kev is dead because of what I did. He couldn't even go to Heaven until we more or less re-opened it, Sam killed him with his own hands and will never stop hating himself for it, and you are talking about saving him?"
"Don't you think that an eternity in Heaven, where he is with his mother and others he loved, is better than be imprisoned in Hell forever and losing his mind?"
"Well – " Dean stutters. "I mean yeah, but why should this have anything to do with me being around, another hunter would have taken care of him, or maybe even the angels, they let Chuck live the way he wanted – "
"They might have done that for Kevin" she agrees, "but the King of Hell got to him first".
"We should have ganked Crowley long ago" he mutters and she shoots him a look that he can't quite read, but once more makes him sure there's more than she's telling him to the story.
"Who knows more about demons and prophets than you?" she suddenly inquires, and it's enough of a non-sequitur that he simply stares at her uncomprehendingly for a few moments.
"Who was hunted almost everything that, as you would put it, "goes bump in the night"? Sam told you once, didn't he? That you were the best hunter he knew".
Yeah, he did, but they were trying to close the gates of Hell and praise from his baby brother doesn't count.
She stares at him as if he is mad.
"Time for a few other visits" she announces, and they are off.
There are so many Dean loses track eventually.
At the end, he's all but speechless.
Sure, he knew he made a difference, but if he allows himself to believe what she shows him only ever so slightly, it's one Hell more of a difference than he could ever have supposed.
He would have thought that other hunters would have taken up his cases, Bobby or Rufus or Garth before he got bitten, or Sam – although after her reactions to his mentioning his brother, he's decided that he'd rather not know where he is in this strange universe.
Apparently he was wrong.
The very first thing she shows him is a man, aged before his time, standing on the edge of a drowned lake.
He remembers.
"Why did you take them?" the man asks in a shaky voice, "why? Why not me? I was the one who did it. You didn't have to take them".
Lukas.
His heart clenches as he thinks about the little boy and his mother. The ghost took them and left the Sheriff alive. Maybe it would have taken him after all, but the lake was drained before it could do so, and now –
The scene changes.
It's a cemetery, and young woman he has never seen before is laying down flowers on a grave.
"I miss you, 'Manda" she says quietly, "at this time of the year most of all".
The demon on the plane. No one exorcised it.
Amanda was nice. She should have been allowed to live her life.
It goes on and on.
A girl drowned in a swimming pool.
A haunted painting killing more and more people, no one there to gank the ghost trapped in it.
The corpses of two mangled children on the floor of an abandoned house, a monster standing over them.
Dean's close to begging Lana to stop, but he has his pride after all. He focuses on the plus side – no Dean means no breaking of the first seal and no true vessel for Micheal, so no Apocalypse, and they never let the Leviathans out of Purgatory.
But still – seeing all the people they saved dead or worse is far from okay.
There are a lot. In fact, far more than Dean thought there were, even after Crowley's attempt to kill them all.
He probably figured because this isn't exactly the same situation, that others would have come and saved at least a few of time. Apparently not.
"Don't you think it's time?" Lana asks and he looks at her eagerly.
"Yes, please, just get me out of here, and we go our separate ways, how does that sound?"
He doesn't have much hope it will work, and she shakes her head.
"I meant to do what you wanted to do since you understood and believed that you didn't exist in this world."
He can't speak. His throat is closed up, and he can't speak.
Of course there's something he has wanted to do since he landed in this parallel universe.
There is someone he has wronged more than anyone else, except for Sammy.
Someone who would still be a big badass angel if it weren't for him.
"Pray" Lana tells him, and although he doesn't want to follow a monster's orders, he can't help himself.
"Cas – tiel?" He calls out, remembering just in time that here, it's more than likely that no one gave his friend a nickname.
"Castiel!"
"Sam" Cas says, barely concealed panic in his voice, "I can't reach Dean".
"I can't either" he admits. For the past hour, he has been calling his brother, trying not to become more and more frantic as time passes. He was just about to talk to Cas when the former angel rushed into his room.
"I can't track him down with GPS" Cas continues. When Sam raises an eyebrow, he admits, "I had it turned on".
Sam nods. "Good thinking".
"I was worried". Cas bites his lip. "I know that Dean doesn't want me to be around him or accompany him on cases. I understand. I can't help you anymore, not really".
"No, Cas" Sam interrupts him. "That's not it".
Far from it. Sam knows his brother, knows him better than anyone else, and Dean doesn't want Cas around because he is ashamed and hates himself that he's permanently human because of him.
He's ready to bet that, if Dean just allowed himself to have something good for once, he would have Cas around all the time.
And closer, much closer, than they are now.
And Sam sees the same desire in Cas' eyes, although he isn't sure his friend understands.
When he gives him a sad smile and shakes his head, Sam suddenly is sure after all, and once they have found Dean, he's going to make his brother see sense.
God knows they deserve some happiness after everything they have been through.
It's almost embarrassingly easy to track Dean. For demanding he be left alone, he has taken no precautions whatsoever to ensure they can't find him, and he hasn't protected his room either.
Sam should never have allowed him to go.
Cas is obviously blaming himself as well, but he still tries to comfort Sam.
"He can take care of himself".
Neither of them believes it.
It becomes obvious that Dean has done precious little research – aside from the obituaries of the victims there's only a map with the marked locations of the killings. Sam frowns.
They build a perfect circle.
And right in the middle of them is a small street. It can't take long to go over every house.
Dean must just have ran there without bothering to check any evidence whatsoever.
Just how big is his desire to die?
Sam looks at Cas and sees the ex-angel fight the temptation to run after Dean. They can't. They have to know what they are up against.
They put on their suits and drive to the PD as fast as possible.
It quickly becomes clear that this wasn't a normal vampire.
The victims have been sucked completely dry, but there is no real vampire bite on their throats – just a small hole, barely big enough to put a straw in – and, instead of the usual assortment of different characters one would expect from a monster that strikes randomly, they all have something in common.
They are all men and women who were having a hard time lately, but were feeling much better a few days before they died – they did better at work or in school, they finished pieces of art they worked on, they had a different, more positive outlook on life in general, as several witnesses testified.
Sam and Cas can only come to one conclusion after looking over the evidence.
They are not dealing with an ordinary vampire. They don't even know what they are dealing with.
And Dean just ran right into the creature's arms.