Dean is back from Purgatory. Covered in dirt and blood, armed and ready to shoot some helpless campers, but he’s back.
4 days, a good shower, some hitch-hiking and a good sound track (don’t judge my music choices) and he’s dug up a grave. Apparently a matter of some urgency since his arm is glowing red and throbbing very nastily. He slices across it and pours the red good that comes out across the bones – there’s a flash and a man appears, a vampire. A vampire Dean’s friendly with, by the hug and the agreement to go their separate ways now they’re free from Purgatory.
Sam sneaks out of a woman’s house(and her dog) – and bed – to get in the Impala and make a trip to the old safe house – where he is accosted by Dean pouring holy water on him, borax and cutting him with a silver knife (demon, leviathan and shapeshifter testing), Sam tries to say hello (silly Sam, checking to see if you are a demon is how Dean says hello) before the exasperated Dean tests himself to prove he’s the real Dean as well.
Dean has spent the whole year in Purgatory, running for his life and surviving among the monsters. Sadly Castiel didn’t make it – though Dean is very cagey about the details (so he WILL be coming back. You hear me!? HE WILL!)
HE WILL BE BACK!
Sam has spent the year… not hunting. Alone, with his whole family killed, no Bobby, no Dean, no Castiel, Sam stopped hunting. Which Dean, after a year of fighting monsters for his life, isn’t amused by – and is even less amused by the fact Sam didn’t even look for him. Relations become… rather strained.
They become a little more strained when Dean goes through the mobile phones Sam abandoned and finds messages from Kevin Tran, (the Prophet and Sole Keeper of God’s Word on Earth) asking for Sam and slowly degrading as he was completely abandoned, eventually stopping to try because it had been 6 months without any contact. Dean says Kevin is their responsibility and is extremely pissed that Sam couldn’t even pick up a phone when he was called – something even Sam agrees to and investigates the call so they can begin tracking Kevin down.
On the road Dean smells the crime of dog smell in his car – and zones out over a vending machine and again in the hotel room. Clearly he’s not adapting well to the peace after constantly fighting for his life for a year. And things are not all rosy between him and Sam about him giving up on fighting the monsters. Working past that they go check on Kevin’s ex-girlfriend , Channing, who hasn’t seen him in a year and, since he’s not going to Princeton any more, isn’t particularly interested in him. That could be because she’s a demon who then uses her room-mate’s blood to communicate with her bosses that Dean is back.
