THE BRIGHTEST STAR OF ALL

It is not hard to find Dean, amongst the rusty old cars and empty metal frames that seem to made up for a city of their own in Bobby's salvage yard.

Despite being hidden by Enochian sigils, Castiel is drawn to him, not because Dean is screaming his powerlessness to the heavens above; not because Dean is breaking things in a futile endeavor to ease his anger; it's not even because he is pounding his fists bloody against the unforgiving metal to try and ease his pain.

No. Even though all those choices have crossed Dean's mind, when Castiel finds him, he is silent.

Castiel finds him now in the exact same way he was able to find Dean in Hell before. He figures that it is fitting.

There is a bottle of whiskey standing guard, and Dean sits on the wet floor beside it, his back against a green Buick that's missing its front bumper and most of it's trunk.

"Have I ever told you how I came to find you in Hell?" Castiel says quietly, hands behind his back and gaze lost somewhere in the vicinity of a tyreless blue Camaro, ten feet away.

There is a quick motion of hands across cheeks as Dean hastily wipes the wetness away. Self-consciousness, or perhaps simple self-preservation, something visceral that Dean still manages to cling to. And yet, even that is beginning to wear thin.

These days, everything is wearing thin with Dean Winchester.

"I really appreciate it if you left me the fuck alone," Dean hisses, trying to pass the tremor of brokenness in his voice for anger. The swig of alcohol he takes feels like a provocation.

"Hell... it is often described to us as being as broad as thought, of spanning as long as eternity. In reality, it is much larger than that."

"Cas... please."

Castiel doesn't look down. He doesn't need to look at the sitting hunter to see him. To feel his pain and despair.

"Infinite as that place of damnation is, and despite the urgency of my quest, the only direction I was given was to 'find Dean Winchester'. And even though I asked 'How? How can I find one human soul amongst so many others?', the only answer I got was 'have faith'.'

The bottle in Dean's hands clings harshly against the ground and he grunts in pain as he rises to his feet. His hand reaches blindly to the car frame to his left, eyes closed as he struggles to find his balance.

"Fine! You stay there, monologuing... I'm out of here!"

Castiel watches with sad eyes as the man picks up the half empty bottle and walks away, the mess of pilled cars rapidly swallowing his slight figure. There are no lampposts in this part of the yard and the moon is too new to give them any light. The angel has no idea how Dean can find his way around in the pitch-black darkness.

Castiel is waiting for him when Dean turns the corner of a particularly precarious pile of junk. The man stops in his tracks and gives the angel a look of frustration.

"When a soul arrives in Hell, the weight of its sins and the lack of true repentance has already stolen away much of its natural light. Those souls look nothing like the one you and Sam saw. They are dimmed essences of poor luminosity, disappointments of the human condition. It doesn't take much for the despair and torture of Hell to rob those souls of all of their remaining light, transforming them into nothing but the blackness of a new born demon."

Dean's eyes, red from the emotions he's been trying to hide from all of them since their return to Bobby's house, turn to steel and bore into the talking angel like sharp daggers.

"I don't care how many more fingers I break... if you don't shut up right NOW, I will punch you!"

"Even though I had never visited upon Hell since its creation, the instant I gained entrance I knew that there was a bright light in there that did not belong," Castiel went on, ignoring Dean's menacing words. Broken fingers heal; this would fester if left unattended. "I followed its shine through pits of blood and fire; I climbed over mountains of pleading hands and charred hearts; I flew over clouds of tears and pained screams. The light never faltered, never dimmed. It would only grow stronger and stronger--"

"SHUT UP!" Dean shouts, the bottle in his hand flying dangerously close to Castiel's trench coat before shattering in a shower of pulverized glass against a red Ford. Free of anything to hold on to, Dean's hands turn into fists by his side, white knuckles eager to vent some of their energy.

Were he human, Castiel would have read the signs and stopped right there; were he human, Castiel would've realized that he was one step away from pushing too hard.

He was becoming more humane, Castiel could see that now. But he was not human. So, he takes a step forward instead, forcing his presence into Dean's personal space.

"That light was you, Dean," he says, ignoring the way Dean's eyes turn down, refusing to met him. "Your soul shines as brightly as any I have ever seen. It was strong when you descendent in to Hell, but it became radiant as a star after everything that you were forced to endure there—"

Castiel has no choice but to stop when he feels Dean's hands on his vessel's chest, shoving him hard. The force of the push catches him by surprise and Castiel finds himself stumbling back.

"I don't care if my damn soul was a frigging firefly bug feast for you! I don't care about what you saw or felt or did in Hell! Famine was RIGHT... hell, Alastair was RIGHT- I came back wrong, I came back dead inside, Cas... and there is no amount of pretty lights and euphemisms that's gonna change that!"

Dean is yelling, even though Castiel is no more than an arm's distance away. Each RIGHT is punctuated by one more hard shove, one more push, until Castiel has no where else to retreat to, until his back is pressed against the stripped door frame of some old car. When he stops, there is nothing but Dean's harsh breathing to fill the night air.

"There is nothing here," Dean goes on, his fists no longer making contact with Castiel but hitting his own chest now. "And I don't know what else to do... I can't stop Lucifer; I can't stop the apocalypse... I can't even stop Sam from losing himself again—I'm empty of strength, empty of masks, empty of hope—" he keeps on saying until his voice is nothing more than a broken whisper. "I—"

"You are wrong."

Dean blinks, feeling the stubborn tears that always try to glue his eyelashes together, breaking apart. He looks at the angel, waiting for the rest, knowing that there has to be more to it than a simple and vague statement.

"I'm wrong... that it?" Dean presses when he gets tired of waiting. "Well, thanks a bunch, Cas... you're as helpful as your Daddy," Dean vents as he turns his back on the corned angel and leaves.

"I did not say that your soul shined brightly... I said it shines still," Castiel says, quietly. "So radiantly in fact, that the Enochian sigils I branded into you and your brother's ribs, barely manage to veil your souls' glow from any of us who can see it."

The words, at least, stop Dean on his tracks, even if he doesn't turn.

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying that, despite what you may feel or what foul creatures try to make you believe in... you are far from dead, Dean," the angel states. "And nothing they say or do to you can ever diminish that small piece of Heaven that you and Sam carry inside."

Castiel doesn't wait to see what impact his words will bear. There was no point. Dean will either believe him and keep on fighting for another day; or he will not and still fight for another day.

Either way, it is the truth and truth begs to be spoken to those who need to hear it.

His brief contact with the horseman known as Famine has served, if anything else, to teach Castiel an important lesson on helplessness. Trapped inside his vessel's body, slave to its needs, the angel had been powerless and impotent to do anything but submit to someone else's urges. Someone else's decisions.

Castiel could always say that he understood what it was like for Sam and Dean to fight their destiny; now, however, he could truly mean it.

And even though Dean could never see an angel's true form, Castiel hoped that, one day, his friend would be able to see his own.

The end