Over the next few days, they attempted a few spells to locate Bobby's body, but to no avail. Dean took to a spirit board to try to contact Bobby's spirit, even Sam's spirit, however far gone it might be, and received no response. Cas attempted to teleport but just ended up standing there with the same contorted, angry look on his face every time he failed. Cas tried to communicate with Jimmy's soul, but Jimmy was sleeping, or dead, or just ignoring him. Cas, in his desperation, attempted to summon the one or two angels who might not want him dead and they ignored him too. Cas prayed and tried to get Dean to pray with him, but he wouldn't, couldn't; he still thought God was an asshole. Mostly they sat around the hotel room, reading Bobby's useless books. After all, spells were useless if they just wouldn't work. Mostly Dean moped and drank whiskey. After five days, Cas was convinced that it wasn't God who brought him back, wasn't the angels, but some freaky transference thing with Lucifer, or the "evil presence" he'd felt in the graveyard, which he was resolved against returning to, probably because it was where he had exploded. It made no sense whatsoever. The truth was that he had no answers, he was grasping at straws. Finally, Cas broke too.

"Why am I here? Why am I here?" Cas asked the ceiling in the hotel desperately. "Father, if it were you, I could go home, I could help people, I could see my brothers and sisters. But it wasn't you, was it? Please, father, I need a sign."

"The ceiling isn't going to answer your questions, Cas. There is no God. Remember what Uriel said, what Raphael and Michael said? God's dead. Or at least he's a deadbeat Dad who isn't paying Cas's baby mama any child support." Dean said sarcastically, taking a huge swig from a bottle of Wild Turkey. It was his third in five days and it was almost gone.

Once again, Dean knew he was being an asshole, but he was getting sick of Cas's praying. He missed Cas's misplaced sense of optimism, however fake it was.

"I have no idea why I am here. My father wouldn't have brought me back without some sense of purpose." Cas said. "I must have been brought back to help you get Sam back… after all, someone who willingly goes with Lucifer into Hell deserves to be saved."

"That's a load of bullshit, and you know it. God wouldn't want to save ANYONE who let Lucifer overtook his body, even if it was with good intentions. You know, the path to hell is paved with them, and all." Dean said, chuckling a little bit.

God, I'm actually drunk. He thought. You have to be drunk to laugh at a joke that horrible.

Cas growled, growled and came over to the armchair where Dean was seated with his whiskey and his useless books and spirit board and picked him up by his throat. Dean gasped, dropping the bottle the floor while he choked for air.

"How about you quit drinking, complaining and try to help me FIX THIS?" He hissed, staring ice-blue daggers into Dean's eyes.

"CAS, are you crazy? Put me down. PUT ME DOWN." He choked.

Cas dropped him on the floor. "You are selfish, self-loathing and have no respect for me whatsoever, do you Dean Winchester?" He growled again. "I brought you back from Hell, gave up Heaven for you, and was torn apart by Lucifer for you, yet nothing matters to you but your pathetic need to self destruct."

With one swift motion, Castiel swiveled on his heel and stomped out of the hotel room. It still was strange that he couldn't just zap out of there.

Lying on the floor, still choking for air, Dean thought about his guardian angel. As the days passed, Castiel was looking and acting more human. His eyes were red, ringed with black circles. He looked gaunt, as if not eating for 3000 years, save for 100 cheeseburgers here and there, was finally beginning to affect him. As far as Dean knew, angels didn't get black circles, nor did their vessels lose weight. Sure, humans couldn't easily heft a guy his size out of a chair, nor could they heal his wounds, but Cas almost seemed more human than angel these days. Maybe that's why his desperation and anger were so palpable. Most people would be grateful to be brought back from the dead, but Cas wasn't most people. He needed a purpose. He needed answers. Without them, he was dangerous.

Dean groaned in pain, rubbing his throat where Castiel had grabbed him.

"I really have to stop picking on the nerd angel." He muttered to himself, remembering his epic ass kicking from just last month.

He hoisted himself up the ground and walked out of the hotel room. Cas couldn't have gotten far, or at least he didn't think he could have. The whole not being able to teleport thing was really putting them on even ground when it came to speed. Dean thought about getting into the Impala to look for him, but then he remembered that all he had really consumed in the last week was whiskey. Then he saw that it wouldn't have mattered either way, because the Impala was gone. Cas had driven away in it.

"Asshole!" He screamed.

It was one thing to choke him, one thing to kick his ass until he was a bloody pulp, but another thing entirely to hijack his car. Dean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Castiel's number.

"Cas, answer your damn phone!" He yelled into the receiver.

Of course, he didn't. Cas barely knew how to operate the cell phone and he sure as hell wouldn't want to talk to Dean right now anyway.

"Cas, you better get back here with my fucking car! If anything happens to her, I'll make you wish God hadn't brought you back to life!" He screamed into Cas's voicemail.

Dean hung up the phone and started walking. It occurred to him that he hadn't left the hotel in days. He hadn't really eaten, slept, had (admittedly) not showered too many times, and he probably reeked of whiskey and Axe body spray. He felt a sudden urge to need to get away as possible from the cramped, depressing place that had been his home for the last week . He decided to find a bar, since his bottle had broken when Cas had nearly choked him to death.

After walking a few blocks, not paying too much attention, steam coming from his ears, Dean found a suitable dive bar to drown the last of his sorrows. The worn sign above the door read "the Skull" and judging by the motorcycles outside, he deduced that he'd probably be unlikely to encounter an attractive woman who'd be appalled by his stench and appearance. Dean wandered in, went straight to the bar and sat down on a rickety stool.

"Give me a bourbon. I don't care what shelf. And make it a double." He grumbled to the heavily bearded bartender.

"That'll be four dollars." The bartender growled.

Dean groaned and handed over a fake credit card, on which he was dubbed "Angus Bonham."

"Leave it open." He mumbled

The bartender snorted and took the card and mixed him up a drink. Dean took a swig and shuddered. It tasted exactly like lighter fluid. Exactly what he needed and exactly what he deserved. As he sipped, he thought about drinking with Sam. Sitting on the Impala having a beer after a good hunt, or hustling losers in pool, with Sam buying him a congratulatory shot afterward, or even downing purple nurples the first time they met Gabriel. Alcohol would always remind him of his little brother, and mostly, these were good memories. He realized that he'd never have a beer with Sam again and he got a little choked up.

"God, Sammy." He whispered into his glass. "I miss you so much, man. I am so sorry. I am so sorry I couldn't save you."

Dean wiped his eyes with a cocktail napkin and ordered another double bourbon. He drank this one a little more slowly, but he was already three sheets to the wind from drinking at the hotel, that it didn't take much to finish him off. Dean used to think he couldn't get drunk, but the last few days had proven him wrong.

Dean ordered another drink, because why did it matter, and watched the people in the bar. He was amazed at how blissfully unaware of what had gone on in this town just the week before. He, Sam, Bobby and Cas had saved the world, thrown the devil back into his box, and no one knew.

His brother went to the worst part of Hell to save their lives. Castiel was a fallen angel, completely broken because he wanted to preserve their right to live the way they did. Bobby was dead; his corpse denied a proper funeral, his life lost in the battle. And Dean? He was alone. Completely alone. This is what they had to show for saving the world.

These people? They went on with their lives, drinking at shitholes like this, fucking each other, killing each other, just completely unaware of what was going on just beneath their noses. These people were completely unworthy of the sacrifices that Dean and his family had made for them. Dean watched a tattooed man slap an obese woman on the ass and laugh about it and he knew they were worthless.

He chugged back the rest of his bourbon and the world slowly began to spin and his vision become milky and diluted. He ordered another drink because why the hell not? He sat there, took the drink in one shot, and suddenly he understood Castiel's utter desperation and sense of loss and he remembered why he had so desperately wanted to be dead when the battle with Satan was over.

"Fuck this." He slurred. "Bartender! Close my tab please."

He stood up, the world around him spinning even faster. The bartender stared at him and Dean thought he heard the guy ask if he was okay, if he was driving, if he wanted him to call someone. Dean shook his head violently and scribbled on the receipt. He stumbled out of the bar, stomach churning, vision blackening. Of course, immediately he ran into someone.

"Fucker, move! Git outta the way." He yelled, his words completely slurred and then he fell down, straight to his knees. The pain in his knee was sharp and the indignity of falling, trashed beyond belief outside a dive bar in a hick town was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

"Dean!" The guy said. "You are very, very intoxicated. The whiskey smell is seeping from your pores. Don't worry. I am not intoxicated. I will take you back to the hotel. I assure you, the Impala is safe."

The guy was Castiel. Dean couldn't exactly see his face because his vision was so blurred with booze and tears, but the strangely literal way he spoke gave it away.

"How didya find me?" He blubbered. "Oh God, Cas, I am so sad. I was such a dick to you. I'm sorry, Cas. God, Sammy. Sammy is gone."

Castiel loaded him into the Impala without a word and drove back to the hotel. Once they got back, Dean ran to the bathroom and immediately vomited. He puked on and off for 20 minutes, his body rejecting his all whiskey and bourbon diet that he had lived on since Sammy had jumped into the hole. He lay there when he was done, filthy, sobbing, completely degraded and humiliated.

Cas cracked the door and came in to the bathroom holding a bottle of water, which he handed to him without a word. He sat on the edge of the tub, rubbing Dean's back as he tried to drink the water without puking more. He felt Cas taking him in, a picture of drunken disaster. He felt like he'd be sick again, just letting his friend see him this way.

"God, Cas, what the fuck man." Dean groaned. "An angel holding my hair back while I puke. What has become of my life?"

"You're mourning." He murmured. "We all mourn in different ways."

"I wish I was dead." He whispered

"No, you don't. If you really wished you were dead, you would have found a way to go by now. And trust me, I wouldn't have the power to bring you back this time. You are… dealing… I think is the phrase." Cas said.

Dean sighed and finished off the water. He was still drunk, but at least it was out of his system now. And at least there was water.

"I am gross. I need a shower." He muttered.

"I concur. You're… slightly ripe." Cas said.

Dean glanced at him and saw a hint of a smile on the angel's usually stern face. Dean rolled his eyes at him.

"Help me up, would you? I've still got the spins." He said

Castiel chuckled and helped him up. "You say you wish you were dead, and some way you've gotten your wish, because you smell like a rotting corpse." He cracked.

"Enough with the gallows humor, which I may add, is not appropriate just yet." Dean said, rolling his eyes again. He felt the corners of his mouth turn up a little bit. A smile?

He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled.