Bobby tried to console Dean with food that night. It had worked when he was young, when he was a teenager, and hell, it had worked right up until the day before he went to Hell. All it took was something greasy and made at home in a frying pan and Dean would instantly feel better, he would become more talkative, more animated, more Dean. But even when the deep fried chicken and fried potatoes and the coleslaw, and the corn on the cob Dean so especially liked, was sitting in front of him on the table he simply looked at Bobby and said "I'm not hungry Bobby."

The smell of the friend foods made Dean's stomach recoil, it reminded him of the flesh he had personally singed while he was in the pit, not to mention his own flesh sizzling on his bones, just as Ruby had promised would happen. Dean couldn't look Bobby in the face, couldn't see the disappointment, the aggravation, Dean knew he went to a lot of trouble to fix this meal for him, and he let the older hunter down again.

Bobby wasn't disappointed, he was sad, and one look at the bruised and battered face of the boy he loved like a son crushed his heart and made him want to march right down into hell and give them a piece of his mind and a piece of his fist. He looked to Sam. Sam gave a small shrug and continued to shrink in on himself. Sam looked so small sitting at his normal place at the table, looked so vulnerable. "Son you have to eat. You are too thin." Bobby said gently. Dean just gave him huge sad green eyes.

"Dean." Sam tried. The haunted green orbs shifted to Sam. "Dean, please, eat, for me."

"I can't eat." He said finally. "Smells like charred flesh. I can't eat." Bobby and Sam exchanged sad looks.

"I can fix you a salad." Bobby said softly.

"Has the texture of my own intestines." He said. "Food isn't good." He said in a sort of daze.

"You have to eat or drink something Dean. You can't starve." Sam said softly.

"Done it before. I can do it again. Plus I…"

Bobby cut him off, he knew exactly what the boy was going to say, "Boy if you say you deserve to starve so help me god I'll clock you." Dean looked over at Bobby, eyes empty, and tears starting afresh, following the tracks laid down by previous tears.

"I deserve that too." He said and his cheeks began to quiver with the sobs that he had been trying to hold back. Bobby looked at Sam, and Sam simply put his fork down and hung his head. He didn't know how to fix this hole in his brother any more than Bobby did.

"Boy, go on up, take a shower, and get yourself comfortable, we'll watch some TV."

"Can I just sit outside?"

Bobby looked down at his plate and did everything he could to suppress a sigh. "Yeah, son, go ahead." Dean scooted away from the table and slowly trudged outside and shut the door.

"You didn't tell me it was this bad." Bobby said when the coast was clear.

Sam shrugged. "I don't know how bad it is really. I mean, I killed Alistair…."

"You what?"

Sam gulped. "I killed Alistair. I was so mad, I saw Dean lying on the floor, bloody, you've seen his face. You should have seen it right after he punched him. Bobby, he looked…he looked…" Sam swallowed, shuffled his feet and regained his voice. "He was starting to look as bad as he did the night…" He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose trying to pinch the memories back into their box, into the box that he never opened, the box that contained the images of Jessica burning on the ceiling, his worst memories imaginable. "That night." He finally said and Bobby cast his eyes downward, trying not to recall the mess either. "I was just so furious….I did it. And then I got him to a hospital, they weren't even sure he was going to live Bobby. I couldn't lose my brother for a second time, and then, then Castiel," Sam's eyes grew dark, the sadness and pain was instantly gone, replaced by the cold and calculated hunter that Bobby recognized as John Winchester, but in Sam's face looked alien and twisted. "Castiel put my brother in that predicament, and he had the balls to tell him that this whole thing is HIS fault?" Sam licked his lips, his face a mask of anger. "He has the nerve to tell my brother, to confirm it, that he opened the first seal…what balls, what guts…" Sam ranted. His rant so loud and so furious that neither heard the angel wings fluttering behind him.

"It was necessary." Castiel said. Bobby saw the angel first and when Sam turned and started towards the angel, stalking, using his superior size and build as an intimidation tool, Bobby had the sudden desire to help the younger hunter kill the angel.

"Necessary?! It was fricking necessary to let a demon, who use to torture my brother in Hell by the way, to beat him almost to death?! That was necessary?!"

"I had no intention of allowing your brother to be killed."

"Yeah, you were doing such a bang up job on saving him. I saw how that was working for you."

"That was not what was supposed to happen."

"Then what, pray tell, was supposed to happen you arrogant prick? My brother go all torture master, and then once that's done he becomes self loathing and withdrawn? Yeah, that sounds like an even better plan."

"Samuel Winchester, you can not begin to understand the ways of heaven…"

"What? Why? Because I'm some demon spawn and I can't love any one of God's precious creatures? Well I'll have you know, Dean was mine a whole lot longer than he was God's! I was there for him from the beginning, where was God when he was hurting after Dad, no one came and helped him. Where was God when he was so scared about going to hell that he would start crying? I never saw anyone from heaven come and help me with that! You sons of bitches think you can come here and do whatever in the hell you want to, to my brother and I'm just supposed to sit back and take it because I'm some ass with demon blood coursing through my body, I'm something to be tolerated only because Dean wants it that way. Well I'll have you know, he's MY brother, and from now on, you have to get through me to get to him. Understand me? Do I make myself clear?!" Sam demanded, towering over Castiel, hands clenched at his sides.

"You make yourself very clear."

"Now get the hell out of here. My brother, can't take you dicks right now. You broke him. Now just leave so I can put him back together again." Castiel blinked and disappeared. Sam raked hands through his hair.

"I need air." Sam said and went out the back door. Bobby stood there stunned and amazed. Sam had seemed so indifferent to Dean since his return, and a small smile crept onto the older man's lips at Sam's fury.

"You show them Sammy." Bobby muttered.