Two weeks have passed when Cas finally gets a hold of some crutches. Sam knows the fractures were very, very serious, but if he stays lying on this damned couch for another second he is going to lose his mind. As Cas helps him to an upright position and he begins hobbling around the bunker, he feels something very close to euphoria—for about thirty seconds, before he slips and ends up on the floor with a stabbing pain shooting all up his left leg.

"Sam!" and Cas is immediately at his side as he lies there grunting, trying to push himself back up. "Are you okay? Are you injured further?"

"I think I'm fine," he grunts, endlessly frustrated.

"You know I don't have the energy to heal you if you hurt yourself again, Sam."

"I know."

"You need to get better as fast as you can."

"I know, Cas."

"Which means be careful."

Sam curbs the urge to sigh deeply and dramatically. "It could be another four weeks before I can get around on my own even with crutches." He rubs roughly at his dry eyes.

Cas is silent for a long moment. Finally comes the oh so graceful subject change: "So. Got anything to report?"

"Jack squat. I've been trying to get a hold of Crowley, see if he's found anything. I've left a couple messages. But he's not picking up."

"He did seem rather… irate, when last we saw him."

Sam gives a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, he was pissed." The smile quickly drops off his face. "I'm worried, Cas. I want to know what he's up to. What if he finds Dean and doesn't tell us?"

Cas shakes his head. "We simply must trust that our own resources will find him first."

Sam knows they're past the point of questioning whether trust like that is warranted or deserved. It's the only thing they've got left; can't look a gift horse in the mouth.

He's never felt so helpless.

After a long moment of somewhat awkward silence, he says, "Cas?"

"Hm?"

"Can you help me off the floor, please?"

The bartender's name is Harper. Harper doesn't seem to like much being tied up in the shack that Dean has taken over, but Dean assures her it'll only be a few days. After that point, he'll either kill her before she can die of thirst, or decide to let her go. He's not sure which. Normally it wouldn't even be a question, but… well, he's not sure what the "but" is.

By the end of the second day, he's had no success at all in doing any of the things he's tried. Not even in shutting her up, the only ability he knows for a fact that he has. As he sits in a bar—not the same one Harper came from, of course—in the middle of his second shot of whiskey, he curses Cain for refusing to help him. He knows he'd be so much further along if he had a teacher.

Whatever. Life's never done him any favors. He's still not sure why he's ever surprised when his plans go to hell. When have they not?

"What's eatin' you?" comes a voice from off to his side.

He doesn't know why, but he turns to see who it is. A kid is looking back at him from a couple seats over, holding a bottle of cheap beer that he's clearly made some progress on. Dean performs a double take at seeing his age—he can't be any older than twenty-five, if that—and he wonders for a split second at the strangeness of being addressed conversationally by somebody who's still college age, until he remembers that his current host is twenty-eight, an apparent peer. He's still not used to it.

He peers over at the kid. He's got on a pale blue button-down with a pencil in the breast pocket. His hair's in that slightly spiky style and Dean things he sees something vaguely Asian in his features. He's a pretty good-looking kid. What's he doing alone in a bar on a Wednesday night?

"Life," he says by way of answer, after a long pause.

The kid chuckles. "Ah, the age-old bane of man."

"And you?" Dean ventures. "Lemme guess, a girl?"

The kid shakes his head in a highly exaggerated motion. "No sir. Classes suck mightily right now. Get this—I might be about to flunk my first class of college. It'd delay graduation."

Dean twitches slightly at the words "get this." "So what?"

"So what, that's what I keep askin' myself, so what if there's a semester's delay, and I can't find a solid answer, but it feels devastating anyway, ya know? You put something up on a pedestal for ages and then when it's almost there and suddenly you realize you might not get it—even if it's really not essential, ya gotta almost reshape your world view."

Dean shrugs. "I wouldn't know. I don't put anything on a pedestal unless it is essential."

"Teach me your ways, oh master." The kid grins, obviously amused with himself, and sticks a hand out. "Noah."

Dean considers the hand for a few moments, before accepting it and giving a shake. He needs the brief pause, to remember his host's name. "Emery."

Noah releases his hand and leans back, taking another swig from his bottle. "So then, Emery, what's on your pedestal right now?"

Dean doesn't hold back an eye roll; the kid seems too wasted to notice anyway. He guesses he has been spending a ton of time in bars lately, and he's been due to have a drunk stranger get weirdly personal on him for a while now. "There are a coupla degrees of pedestals at the moment. Trying to get good at something so I can use those skills to get the thing I really want."

Noah nods knowingly. "In the workplace?"

"Sure," Dean says flatly.

"It's not going well, huh?"

Dean stretches his mouth wide in an obviously fake smile. "How couldja tell?" With the glance over at the kid that accompanies the response, for the first time he notices the cross hanging around his neck. For some reason, Dean grimaces at the sight of it.

"I'll tell ya what, man," Noah says, leaning in conspiratorially. Dean automatically responds in kind, and immediately braces himself to regret it, but the smell of alcohol on Noah's breath is not nearly as strong as he'd expect. Kid must be a lightweight. "If you're struggling, that's good, because you're still fightin'. If you're in pain, it's good, because it tells you you're not dead yet."

This eye roll is much more exaggerated. Something deep inside him twitches, though—the words would have meant a lot to the man he used to be. "Oh, but I am. You don't get much deader than me."

"Dead inside, yeah, yeah, so am I, so are all of us." Right, he's a college student. Noah blinks at his bottle for a moment before returning his attention to Dean. "Then… what've you got to lose?"

Dean blinks.

It's far more motivating than anything he would've expected out of tonight.

"Now, God knows I'm talking out my ass—" and at that second word Dean flinches. He can't help it; something inside him twists sharply on hearing it, and it hurts, it really does, far more than Dean would've anticipated, but the flare of pain fades rather quickly, and Noah is still talking, but Dean's pretty done listening to him. He was annoying, then surprisingly helpful, and now he's outworn his use. He gets up and leaves while the kid is in midsentence, and just turns over the situation in his head on the way to the car.

He has nothing to lose.

He has nothing at all.

Dean—the old Dean—Dean is past saving. The demon that he has become is not going away anytime soon. He is free. Freer than Dean ever was, or could've hoped to be.

It's like he's been born again.

And he's not gonna waste this second chance at life. Not another second of it.