A/N: Hello! This is a series of one-shots based on songs I listen to. Mostly AUs, variety of genres and pairings (including Destiel, Samifer, Megstiel, etc.). Updated sporadically, 'cause of my other longer fics. Enjoy and thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural (the CW and Eric Kripke do) or any of the songs mentioned and/or quoted here. This is purely for entertainment purposes.
Song 1:
"Lost It All"
(Black Veil Brides)
Destiel AU
Summary: After the Apocalypse, Dean and Castiel are left alone and hunted in a hopeless America. Before they die at the hands of Crowley's demons, however, they have one last mission: find Sam.
"Because I built these walls to watch them crumbling down.
I said, "Then I lost it all."
And who can save me now?"
They ran a lot, in this new world. Dean with his foot pressed desperately into the gas pedal of the Impala, his Baby, while Castiel muttered spell after ancient spell, useless means of protection. They were always out of breath, in this new world, and even as they slowed and rested and hid, they never quite stopped running.
"They'll find us here," Castiel warned Dean once somewhere in Minnesota, his back pressed against the worn tires of the Impala. He turned to gaze, expressionless, at his companion. "We are never safe."
"Fuck. I know that, Cass," Dean dragged a hand over his jaw, his rifle resting in the crook of his arm. "It's just a few hours, then we'll hit the road again. Stop being so damn negative 'bout everything. We'll get to Sammy in no time"
Castiel frowned. He looked at the ground, picking at a loose thread that wound from the sleeve of his borrowed shirt.
"Dean," he said after a while. "If we die–"
"No. No, man, I'm not gonna have that conversation with you," Dean cut him off, shaking his head, pushing himself off the ground. He looked down at Castiel with a set face, brow furrowed. "We're getting out of this alive. C'mon," he grabbed Castiel's hand, pulling him to his feet. "Let's get some sleep, okay?"
"Assbutt," Castiel mumbled.
Dean grinned.
"Baby in a trench-coat," he replied.
They slept curled together on the worn backseat of the Impala.
...
The next day, they met the demons passing into Iowa. The road was bare and made of dirt, and the dead grass fields surrounding it were gray with rain and mud. The demons stood in the road. There were four of them. Three men, one woman. Their borrowed lips curled into cruel grins as the Impala approached.
Castiel's breath was cold on Dean's arm as he embraced him, rushed and desperate. He offered only a comforting squeeze before nodding, holding aloft his rifle. They climbed out of the car. Slow, with purpose. The demons shifted where they stood.
"So, Crowley sending cannon fodder our way again?" Dean shouted, forcing his own face into a cocky grin. He knew Castiel was behind him, holding a .22 steady in his hands, just the way Dean had taught him.
The female demon let out a strangled shriek of laughter.
"Winchester!" she took a step forward. "Oh, Crowley's just about tired of running into you. After what happened with your poor, wayward little brother–"
A bullet smacked into her shoulder, and she stumbled back an inch, dirty sneakers scraping on the hard dirt road. Sighing, she glanced down at her shirt. A trickle of dark liquid ran down the white creases.
"Tsk," she said lightly. "I liked that shirt."
Dean cocked his gun again, eyes dark.
"Say another word about Sam and I put one in your ugly skull," he snarled. In the back of his head, pictures of a smiling face and hazel eyes haunted him. Castiel whispered a warning, whispered a caution. The female demon snapped her head towards him, black eyes shining with delight.
"Oh don't worry, Feathers," she said. "Crowley didn't forget about you. Having fun with Deanie-boy here?" she raised an eyebrow, grinning. "Didn't anyone ever tell you he's a love-'em and leave-'em kinda guy?"
Another bullet, this one from Castiel, jerked through her knee, and she fell to the dirt with a roar of discomfort, face livid and red.
"What–you hurt me!" She was screaming now, waving her arms at her slack-jawed companions. "That's it–we're going to rip you two apart bone by fuckin bone!"
The demons crashed forward, their teeth white and their limbs quick in the stiff air.
By the time night had fallen, the endless rainfall had pushed the bodies over and into the grass fields, black eyes still crooked with bloodlust.
The Impala had long since gone.
...
In Kansas, the demons were more condensed, six or seven per town. Dean and Castiel lost count of the bullets wasted on them, but the trunk never seemed to run out and Castiel's fingers were becoming raw and calloused with the constant reloading as Dean drove.
They went in silence. The demons never talked much now, and if they did their words were strangled and warped and usually started with "Winchester" and ended with "Crowley".
Castiel pressed his fingers into his temple, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden headache that chewed at his nerves. He rested Dean's rifle on his knee, bullets rattling in the glove-compartment.
"I can't do this anymore, Dean," he said, his voice hoarse. "There's too many. We're going to die out here."
Dean didn't answer. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and his jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth.
"Can't die," he replied, after a moment. "Gotta find Sammy."
Castiel went quiet. They drove for ten more miles. Two demons at an abandoned Chevron and three more outside a farmhouse off the highway. Castiel's shirt was stained with blood, and he wiped it away carefully with a towel when the reached the car again.
He padded over to the open trunk, feet sore from walking. (As an Angel such things were trivial. As a human they were violently irritating, and Castiel gritted his teeth against it.)
He tossed the towel in over their untouched duffel bags, their plastic sacks of non-perishable groceries, and the abandoned bottles of pain medication and cheap gas-station beer. With a pause, the former Angel glanced down at these things–they reminded him painfully of the Apocalypse. For a moment, he felt a pang of yearning. Things were complicated then, but at least he'd had some semblance of divinity to cling to. A family to protect. His fingers itched for the bottles.
"Ready?" Dean was calling from the front seat of the Impala, the engine already churning. Castiel spared one last glance at the assortment of gear–his headache briefly calmed–then slammed the trunk shut silently, heading back to slide into his shotgun space.
He tried not to think about who used to occupy his car seat.
...
When they finally get to Lawrence, Dean was dead tired, his muscles aching with no rest. He quelled the engine, letting the Impala glide peacefully into a spot alongside the crumbled sidewalk. Yawning, he turned to smile at Castiel. He finds his companion asleep, cheek pressed against the cool, stained glass of the passenger-side window.
Dean let his smile drop. He reached out a hand as if to run his fingers through Castiel's dark hair, but stopped himself at the last minute. He had a job to do.
"Wake up, sunshine," he said, gently shaking the former Angel's shoulder. "I found Sam."
Castiel stirred from his sleep slowly, frowning slightly as he rolled his neck. He shifted in his seat so he was inches away from Dean, blue eyes still and unblinking.
After a moment he breathed, and his breath is warm.
"Are you sure?"
Dean nodded. The tightness in his chest was nearly unbearable now. He blinked, once, and his eyes were suddenly hot and stinging. It frustrated him.
"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." He broke the eye-contact, leaning back in his own seat to push open the door. A wave of sticky night air washed over them, and Castiel followed him outside. "This is the place."
They gather on the sidewalk, blood-stained and sore.
In front of them was a graveyard. Castiel's hand found Dean's, and for a moment they are still. The Kansas sky was littered with stars, the kind Dean could never see from the smoggy Earth before the Apocalypse. Now, in the silence of nothing, the last human gazed at them. He vaguely registered his Angel saying something, some words on life and rest and dying peacefully "God-rest-this-soul-Sam-Winchester-was-a-good-man" but all he could really hear was his own heartbeat.
It was loud, frantic. Dean walked back to the Impala in a strange state of catatonia. His footsteps were too loud. His head was too quiet. His skin was too cold but his blood was hot and violent as it coursed relentlessly through his veins.
Castiel gave him a worried look as they climbed back into the Impala. He'd already taken out the gun again, a few dull bullets gathered in the pale of his palm.
"You good?" Castiel sounded almost human as he said it.
Dean nodded.
"Yeah," he said. Slid a cassette into the deck and revved the engine. "I'm good."
They were always running in this new world.