Author's Note: Updated. I got an unfavorable review of this story on AO3 and considered it such a failure I took it down there. While I left it up here on FFnet, I couldn't look at it for eight months. I finally took the time to revise it a little. Hopefully I've made it less confusing, but my style has a hopeless stream of consciousness quality to it right now, so at the very least this update is happening just so I can put this thing to bed at last.
The truth came to Dean as the gunshot rang through the ruins of Detroit. The Colt couldn't kill the Devil.
Sam's body didn't bleed, and Lucifer, that son of a bitch, was smiling in his brother's skin. To say Dean had trouble looking at it did not begin to describe the power of doubt that ripped through him.
It was as if, no matter how hard Dean pulled, he just couldn't get down off that metaphorical cross. He had failed. Again.
In his nightmares, Dean had seen this. Every night since the idea of finding the Colt had crossed his mind, he'd been haunted by the thought that it might not work. His mind threw the scenario together in black and white, slow motion, and a haze of rain. If he was playing by the script, at this moment he'd fall on his knees. All the strength in his body would drain into the soles of his shoes, and he'd wonder how it was he'd been able to keep on going for the last two years.
But nothing ever worked out like he thought it would.
Dean feinted left and moved right in a whorl of gun smoke. He kept his eyes open, but his heart hid from the command his brain gave. Dean slammed the butt of the gun into Sam's temple—as close to a killing blow as he was ever going to get—and wrapped other arm around his brother's neck.
The Devil could have dodged it, but he didn't. He was bemused and only mildly discomforted by the snarling animal hanging off his back.
Both of them realized, at about the same time, that Dean Winchester didn't remember how to stop fighting.
Michael, you fuck. In Dean's head, he swore he heard his own voice echo. Maybe that was what happened when you were one of the last people left alive on the planet. I know you're out there. I can't kill my brother, so how about you come kill yours?
They blew two tires outside Wanesville. Their commandeered police cruiser hobbled to a stop in the middle of a wooded highway.
"Son of a—both of them? Jesus Ch—Cas, if the roads fucked up, you stop."
Angel driving lessons were on Dean's to-do list, scheduled for some idyllic time when his nerves weren't burnt to ash and the camp wouldn't come undone if he postponed some errands. So, Cas didn't drive—at least, not unless the stars aligned, and tonight was a starry night.
Dean tore the handheld mic from the radio console. It only took him three tries to get his fingers in the right place. He slumped, his head against his forearm, on the dash and hissed into the radio, "anybody copy?"
The driver's door creaked. Cas got out and leaned back into the car to pop the trunk. His eyes grazed Dean and lingered for a moment to time his breathing. It was still a little too quick, but Cas bottled his concerns. This wasn't the first time Dean had been injured on a run. He'd be alright with a good night's rest. Still, watching Dean slumped in the darkened car, Cas couldn't help but reach down deep, and search and scrape for any speck of healing power he might have left.
Darkness. Cas only found darkness. He reached into the bottom of his hip pocket, found a loose pill, and popped it into his mouth. It didn't occur to him to share.
Squinting, Cas reached across the seat and turned the dial to their secondary channel. Then, he ducked out of the car.
"No," Dean said, and Cas turned back. "Are they punctured or is she on her rims?" Dean scrunched his nose at the smell of burnt rubber and every likelihood that they were, as usual, boned. Cas stared back levelly, not needing to double check the front end nor wanting to report the bad news.
Dean grimaced and brought the mic up to his mouth again. "Somebody copy." He growled it like an order, like he was going to put his fist through the radio if the universe didn't comply. Just this once. Come on.
The receiver said nothing, and nothing, and nothing, and then it crackled around an in-and-out voice. The tension drained out of Dean's shoulders. It wasn't appropriate at all the first thing out of his mouth is, "hallelujah." He hit the button on the mic next. "Say again."
The head vehicle of their convoy replied. It would be half an hour before she could make it back down the hill to where the tow chain had busted, where Dean had told them to go on, that he and Cas would take the scenic route around the mountain.
"Give me that," Dean said, sliding down onto the cracked asphalt at the wheel well. It wasn't a question but Cas hesitated, watching Dean lean against the car and close his hand around the tire iron. There was a rifle offered in exchange. Cas didn't take it straight off. Someone had to stand guard, that was important; but someone had to be certain Dean wasn't going to pass out, and it wasn't going to be Dean.
"The answer is yes," Dean warns. "You can still make this worse. If the Croats get the drop on us—" Cas took the rifle to stop Dean's griping, and that freed Dean's hand so that he could wipe the run of blood out of his eye.
It was a competition at that point—one neither of them wanted to see play out—as to who, between the addict and the injured, could get a kill shot off at a quarter past two in the morning through tree cover. Of course, they'd only need to shoot if they inadvertently attracted the attention of the demonic monsters crawling across the countryside. In the preliminary silence contest, Cas pulled ahead. Dean made a racket every time he switched the tire iron's position, having to seek the bolt with his fingers and line it up with his fist. The socket slid off the bolt twice, and the second time the tire iron hit the jack. Clang.
Dean and Cas tossed each other the same look. It wasn't one of horror, as people in scary movies put on when they snap a twig or bump a table when hiding from the axe murderer. It wasn't really surprise, because it's the apocalypse and they never counted on getting home anymore. It was just, well, that happened. Screw you, Murphy.
The rifle's muzzle tipped as Cas fished for another dose of whatever he was swallowing this week. The humidity made it a bit mush, not that that mattered. "Say," Cas started loudly, because they might as well make all kinds of noise now, "if they did melt down the Colt…" Deans was rolling his eyes before the sentence was done.
Tugging on the tire with one hand, his words became clipped grunts. "We find another way." It was the only thing he could have said, even if he didn't think there was any other way to put an end to the Devil. He couldn't leave Sam like th—
"Michael?"
Funny, Dean thought. Funny how he just says it like that. Dean stole a glance, just one, and saw Cas wearing his typical glazed-over look. Dean half-wondered what memories were playing in the fallen angel's head. That expression didn't suit thoughts of Heaven's most terrifying weapon.
Dean twisted to get a better angle on the tire. "That blade Alastair used to kill the reaper in Wyoming."
Maybe Cas blinked, or maybe he just kept staring dead-eyed at the stars. "That won't kill an angel. Or whatever Lucifer is now."
There was a bang and a clank and a string of curses. Dean jerked his hand back out of the wheel well and the tire fell at an angle and hung, stuck. After a while, Dean replied, "point. The hell is he?"
"Do you think he'd tell us if we asked?"
"What about that knife you used on Zach's cronies?"
Cas made a sound, like a sigh, and Dean wasn't sure what that meant.
Dean almost said something about consuming demon blood. There wasn't much of a difference between letting an archangel wear his skin and drinking Sammy's go juice. Hell, there had been nutsoes pass through camp that thought Angel blood would do a trick for them, and that was easier to get a hold of— "Gimme a hand."
It took another ten minutes, but between the two of them—the half of each that was still there—they got the tire off. Cas handed off the rifle before going to the trunk.
Cas rolled the spare tire up to the front of the cruiser. Dean reached for it and missed by a mile. It took him two more tries to find the real tire iron amidst the phantoms lying on the ground.
They were moving to the other side to start on the second tire when Cas started on it again. "If they came back…"
The tire iron clanged hard against the side of the cruiser and then skittered off into the street. "When exactly did you start rooting for the away team again?" For all of Dean's solid indignation, Cas was liquid aching and he bent where Dean pushed through. The birdlike tilt of his head meant Cas didn't understand where he'd lost Dean.
They never shared words on the topic, but Cas had always thought the two of them had a certain kind of understanding. Unfortunately for Cas, Dean had been too busy to put two and two together. Keeping the last bastion of humanity running from day to day didn't leave room for introspection.
Dean had never admitted out loud to anyone that it hadn't taken long at all (something like thirty years? Like a few miles to the nearest crossroads?) for him to break. Because he always broke. But this time, when he broke and he said yes, please, God, yes, no one was watching. The angels weren't listening. He'd broken with nothing to show for it, and here was Cas, able to see the cracks in Dean's composure even as drug-addled and world weary as he was.
Of course Cas knew.
It felt bad. Worse than saying yes. Not as horrible as losing Sam. Somewhere between an ache and a burn. No one was supposed to know.
Dean held a grudge and answered, "then Michael kills the Devil and this all stops."
"Michael kills your brother," Cas said like he could see a glimpse of reality for the first time in years. "Depending on who's still alive, he kills everyone at camp."
Dean leers. "Probably everyone in this hemisphere. Yeah, we've had this conversation."
"And you don't care?" Yeah, we've had this conversation.
Oh, I care. I care a lot. "No. Not if I can stop it."
Michael leveled Detroit when he touched down.
No, Dean leveled Detroit. He was so sick of it by then.
And he was sick of it in ruin, and sick of the spot on the Earth where it had been.
And he was sick of himself. His insides felt like a blazing grave, like salted bones and burning ghosts.
He buried himself in his own skin and it got worse. He was blinded by the light of angel fire.
Time folded. Angels crept out of the creases like silverfish skittering out of old shoe boxes. Dean wanted it to be over, but he could see like Michael saw. It never ended. Eternity. Dean stopped breathing.
The remnants of Cas's team were locked down into a stairwell when the garden lit up outside. Cas jerked violently as the Hell was scared out of him. There was nothing to see, it was just white, just white, and the pressure built over the span of three seconds, and then the glass burst in on them.
The gunfire ceased in the tumult. The building groaned as the windows finished raining, and just as everything came to a standstill, the floor gave way on one side.
While everyone left alive grabbed for something solid to hang onto, Cas lost his breath. Somewhere between the shock wave and the skid to the south wall, it felt like his heart had exploded. He couldn't figure out, couldn't rationalize, as he scrubbed his clothes for bullet holes or glass barbs, if he was dying or if maybe this is what heartbreak felt like.
Suddenly, the lower floor of the building wasn't there anymore. If Cas could have processed anything properly at that moment, he would have understood the ozone smell of the impact of an archangel's sword. That was lost on him as the stairwell crumbled under his feet. The ceiling caved in and the universe, with all of its brilliant, bright lights and deep voids, was visible in the sky. It came crashing down with comets for teeth and a hunger like the end of everything.
There was a second wave of destruction, and the building blew away. Cas found himself in the pit of what was left of the basement, bound by the debris. The sky was on fire.
Dean and Sam were fighting. Cas knew this without being able to see it. He knew it was not actually Dean and Sam. He knew it was what Dean had come to want, as much as a diving bird could want to see the bottom of the ocean, anyway.
The pain in his chest, Cas belatedly came to understand, was the reignition of his grace. It burned like a snake bite. It was what he had always imagined death by holy fire to be. When the pain ripped through him, he thought he might be too human to cope. Then, bit by bit, the nerves died.
There was a reverb in the air when it was over. The world vibrated with the rush of Death and his reapers. The cinders of lost demons, angels, humans, and everything else was pulled away into the mystery of thereafter.
Lucifer, too, went.
Each point of light on the face of creation was an instance of warmth, and slowly the earth was growing colder.
Michael cut down the last Croats in one pass, and then he landed in a whisper in front of Cas. Cas didn't lift his head and he didn't open his eyes. He knew Michael by divine sensation, and he would not let him be Dean.
"Castiel," Dean's voice called.
The hood of the Impala was lukewarm from the winter sun when Dean woke. His phone was playing Carry On Wayward Son in his pocket. He didn't remember driving this highway. He knew full well he didn't stop the car and climb onto the hood and take a nap in the middle of the road.
Everything was tilted at a weird angle. As he got down, Dean could see the car was jacked up on one side.
The Impala's left front tire was lying flat on the center line, and a couple
dozen dashes up the road
there was
Sam.
Author's Notes: Originally posted 04-26-13.