Goodbye, Cruel World

In the Prophet's Cabin, neither Dean nor Sam reached for the swirling red orb hovering a mere inch above its rusted old pedestal. It sat before them, shifting and shining with all the activity of a living soul, such a small thing and yet the power of the universe floated in it. Of all the things it could be, of course it would be something so simple; all the evil actions of the past, present, and future, mixed together in a tiny space of six measly little inches. The salvation of everything in existence, both living and dead—the ticket to a new reality without sin or darkness or death. . .except for whatever poor sick bastard touched it and had his soul burnt away into nothing from the pure evil contained inside. What could save everyone else would decimate the savior. Talk about the weight of the world.

Maybe if they had more time, they could have figured something else out. Maybe there was some spell, some holy chant, something that could purify everything, stop the New Sun from destroying the whole human race because of the sin inside them all. But the old sun was going to set tonight, and this hellish power in front of them had to be devoured before it did; tomorrow, the New Sun would rise, and it would change everything. Its light would seek out evil and destroy it wherever it was found, and it would be found everywhere. There just wasn't enough time now.

Time—the one monster they'd never been able to kill.

The hazel of Sam's eyes was cut through with the reflection of the red glow. His words spilled out before he could stop them, before he realized what he even meant.

"We both know what we have to do."

Dean looked at Sam, the first touch of dread beginning to curl in his gut.

"Sam—"

"No, Dean," he interrupted harshly, still without really thinking. "Think about it. You know. We already knew before we even got here."

"No, Sam," Dean shot back, his entire form tensing, a telltale sign to his brother that he was ready to fight if it came to it.

"Dean—" Sam stopped, reality striking him like a slap waking him up, for the first time in his life seeing everything fall into place.

His gentle eyes met his brother's bright green ones evenly, his entire body shaking with the truth of it all. He knew—for the first time, he knew what the point of it was.

"I want to take it all, myself," Sam continued, fast and shaky. "I want to save you. But I…"

Dean had to force his breathing to slow from where the mere suggestion had made it quicken in fear.

"I can't," his little brother continued, not looking at him now, but at the terrible red orb, his brow tight with misery but his eyes somehow soft with a sad understanding. "I know now, Dean. I get it. After all this time. . ."

"Get what?" Dean demanded sharply, unnerved by the knot forming in his gut. "You're not making any sense, Sam. We're going to figure this out. We always do. Don't jump the gun here, man. Let's talk about this before we make any stupid moves, okay? Come on."

But Sam was shaking his head, and Dean didn't like how the hand holding his gun at his side was trembling visibly.

"There's only one way out of this, Dean," he said, almost a whisper in the eerie silence of the abandoned shack. "We've been over it a thousand times. Chuck said—"

"Screw Chuck," snapped the older Winchester. "This whole mess started because of him and his damn choices, all of it. He's spent all these millennia knowing this was coming and doing nothing, just like with Lucifer, and Amara, and every other apocalyptic screwup we've had to stop. You're telling me that he's God, and this is the best he could come up with? Some poor, sick bastard has to sacrifice himself like this in order to save everyone else, and of course it's one of us. It's always one of us, Sammy; well, screw being God's favorite little soldiers. We've always been able to find a better way than his, and that's no different this time."

"This was what he did," replied his younger brother, and he would've expected Sam's voice to rise to meet his, but instead it stayed the same—barely a murmur—as his eyes burned with some newfound intensity that scared the hell out of Dean like nothing else. "It was this, Dean. He gave us a way out, a way to save everyone and everything. We just have to take it."

"So what?" Dean had to force his own voice down, his turn to be the rational one, the one who pulls his brother back from the edge, just like they'd been doing for each other forever; this wasn't any different; it couldn't be. "You're telling me you just want me to stand here and let it take you over, take your soul, destroy you? Forget it, Sam. That is never going to happen, ever."

"Don't you get it, Dean?"

Dean could only freeze at the horrible sound of Sam's voice; it was broken, grating, and full of the worst kind of despair. The last time Sam's voice had sounded like that, he'd been six and had watched Dean fall through the second-story floor of the abandoned house their father had put them in while he was off on a hunt. It had looked and sounded scarier than it had actually been, Dean with only a sprained elbow and a few bruises, but little Sammy hadn't been able to sleep for three nights. That was the first time Dean had imagined Sam wanted to protect him as much as he protected Sam.

And those eyes from way back then, as he'd looked up from where he'd lain stunned on the ground floor, were the same eyes looking at him now. Like he was dead and there was nothing Sammy could do, even though he'd give anything to change it. Like it was killing Sam too.

The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity, their gazes locked, the air heavy and thick around them.

"I can't live without you," Sam said, just as wrecked but somehow stronger, calmer, at the same time, "and you can't live without me."

Dean wanted to protest, but every word of it was true, and they'd both known that for a long time. That's when he realized what Sam had meant.

Once he saw the realization beginning to cut through Dean's expression, Sam went on, hands shaking so hard the gun would have fallen if he hadn't been clutching both fists so tightly.

"We have to do this, together, Dean. There is no other way."

Sam said nothing more, just waited and watched as Dean finally broke his gaze with a harsh swallow. His big brother gritted his teeth as he looked at the wall, then shifted his jaw as he looked to the orb. The older brother bent over and set his gun on the floor, and then took a step closer to the pedestal.

"Dean—"

What started as a protest died in his throat as Dean's eyes met his again, because there was something there now—an understanding as wonderful and sad and agonizing as he himself felt, a sense of giving in after a lifetime of fighting. Green eyes, always as wild and aggressive as a sharp blade, were glittering in the red light with the same kind of tears in Sam's. Because Sam had been right. They'd both known, deep down, before they'd ever gotten here. To see it in Dean's face was proof of that.

Sam nodded, once, and deliberately moved to place his own gun on the dusty wood ground. He moved a step closer to match Dean's. They were less than an arm's length from it now. Sam could feel the heat radiating off of Dean's shoulder; he could see how his brother was shaking.

While he was watching Dean, Dean was watching the orb; the look there in his brother's face was sad, so, so sad. They had both felt enough of it by now, but it seemed that if they still had a little more left to feel, this was the most beautiful kind of sadness imaginable. He wasn't sure if Dean would agree, but that's how he saw it, anyway.

In perfect sync, they reached and their hands slipped through the sphere of energy. It took less than a second for the orb to flare and divide, one half slipping into Sam's palm, the other into Dean's.

They looked at each other, the room now dark except for the moonlight highlighting their faces.

The sun had already begun setting when they had reached the Prophet's Cabin. They could have left and gone somewhere else, but there was really nowhere else to go—at least, nowhere they could get to in time—and besides, the view of the horizon was perfect through the open doorway.

Sam and Dean sat with their backs against the wall, shoulders pressed together and weapons useless on the floor several feet away.

Sam's soft chuckle—really more of an exhale—would have startled Dean, had he not been expecting his brother to speak for several minutes now. The sound did confuse him, though.

"What?" he said, a little too loudly, not knowing what else he could say, wondering what Sam could possibly find funny about any of it.

"I was just thinking," came Sam's immediate response, slow but sure. "Alan and his brother had one big fight, and they didn't speak to each other for twenty years. I feel like everything that's ever happened in our lives has tried to tear us apart, and at the end of everything, here we are."

Although several thoughts came to his mind at once, Dean wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. After another short silence, Sam spoke again, in that voice he always used when he'd finally found the right words to explain something very, very important—quiet, firm, and a little breathless.

"I'm really damn glad you're my brother."

Dean's eyes burned at all the implications behind those few simple words, and he knew exactly how to respond.

"Me too, Sammy," he whispered, vision blurred.

Sam looked up from the floor to Dean's face, and any past doubts or regrets or guilts melted away just like that. Dean had spent his entire life loving Sam more than anything and anyone else, but he was sure he had never loved his brother more than in that moment. The best part was that he was sure Sam felt exactly the same, looking at him.

He offered a half-smile, and Sam smiled back faintly.

At that moment the sun disappeared over the mountains; there was a rumbling as the floor under them shook, but they couldn't tell whether it was the whole earth or just the cabin itself. They both looked out at the remaining orange rays still lighting up the horizon. Everywhere in the sky was dark but that one shrinking spot.

Dean could feel the dread trickling through his veins, but more importantly, he could see it in the stiff line of his brother's shoulders. This was it. This was the end.

"Sam, look at me. Sammy, look. Look at me."

When he got no response, he slipped one arm around Sam's back and one around his chest, using both hands to turn Sammy toward him.

His heart shattered silently at the glimmering in Sam's wide eyes, but he ignored his own and smiled again, moving his left hand to the side of Sam's face while the other tightened on his shoulder.

"Hey, s'okay." He didn't break Sam's gaze to blink, letting the tears leak out even as he smiled freely and meaningfully. "Everything's gonna be okay, Sammy."

Sam smiled then, tears slipping out just as silent to hit his brother's thumb, and nodded.

"Yeah. I know, Dean."

Dean let Sam turn around but kept his arm around his little brother's back, and Sam shifted closer and a little lower so that he could let his head rest partly against the wall and partly against Dean's shoulder. It made him feel a little like a kid again, tucked against big brother's side when the world started getting scary, but though he'd once fought it tooth and nail, Sam didn't mind feeling like that anymore. That's what he was, after all—Dean's little brother. That was the only version of him that had survived everything, and it was definitely the only one that mattered now.

Together, they watched the darkness slowly overtake the light. But it wasn't until Sam felt Dean shift and press the side of his face against his temple that he really knew everything was all right, and he let his eyes slip closed as Dean's breath tickled his hair.

Eyes dry now that he felt Sam calm against him, Dean kept his cheek resting against his brother's head, hooking his arm over Sam's shoulder to splay his hand comfortingly on his chest (though whether he was comforting Sam or himself or both, he wasn't sure). He never closed his eyes, feeling his brother breathe against his palm, watching intently over Sam's dark head as the last of the light faded. He saw it disappear.

Sam's body jerked with silent agony at the same time his own did, but then it was over.

The moon shone above, and their spirits had burned away into nothing with the sunlight.

Castiel's invisible wings settled and he froze into a rigid figure standing outside the Prophet's Cabin. The bright, clear moonlight made it easy to see ahead, and he could tell that the cabin door was open. Once, not so long ago, the concept of dread had been impossible for his ignorant angel mind to fathom. Now it rippled through his body in chilling waves. It felt like drowning in an ice-cold sea. It was horrific.

He stepped through the doorway without looking in first. Like ripping a band-aid. That's how Dean had always said to deal with fear.

That was as far as he could manage to get, however, because as soon as he entered he knew that the brothers sitting against the wall were dead. He could feel it. He could see it, the remaining inner burns where their life forces had been destroyed completely by the sins of the universe, gaping emptiness inside painfully familiar-looking shells.

He moved around and crouched next to Dean so as not to obstruct the moonlight shining on them. It reflected eerily in Dean's faded open eyes, turned away from Cass toward the visible mountain range and the horizon. Castiel reached out and shut those beautiful eyes for him with a swipe of his hand, and then continued to stroke once over Sam's soft, long hair before he pulled away, careful not to disturb the balance in how they were sitting.

For the first and last time of his life, Castiel suddenly felt what humans had always described as heartbreak. He couldn't control his own body; his face crumpled like he was being tortured, the sobs felt like they were being ripped out of him, tears coming so fast and strong that he couldn't have wiped them away fast enough to see even if he'd tried. But he didn't try to stop or control it at all; instead, he let it consume him willingly. He owed them that much.

There on his knees, the angel bent over and muffled his pained sounds in Dean's soft flannel shirt, wrapping his arm around Sam and holding on to them both like if he held hard enough, he could somehow bring them back.

When he felt the first touches of warmth, Cass couldn't be surprised. In a way, it felt like he'd spent centuries crying; and yet, though all his tears had been gone for hours, his breaths still trembled with the remnants. As he raised his head and blinked red eyes tiredly, he wondered if that would ever stop. It certainly felt like it never would. It felt like he'd be struggling to breathe forever.

Outside, the first light of morning was just touching the horizon; the new sun was not high enough yet to shine directly on the cabin, but Cass could see just from its first rays that it shone with a perfectly pure white glow.

Forcibly unclasping his hands from Sam's collar and Dean's sleeve, Cass stood and walked around his friends—his brothers—to the door. Standing it its threshold, he watched in hypnotized fascination as the blackness of the sky was driven away by curling tendrils of white light.

He looked back into the room behind him, wondering what they would say if they could see it. He didn't begin to imagine that Dean would be much impressed, but at least Sam might have appreciated the beauty of this first morning of New Creation.

As it was, he would never know. Neither of them moved, their bodies sitting lifeless so that a universe full of people they didn't know could have new, perfect life, Dean's arm around Sam and Sam's back half-pressed against Dean's side.

Together, as it was always going to be.

He turned back to the mountains just in time for the light to strike him. It was powerful enough to be blinding, but somehow not painful, and when the white faded, everything was different. The plants around him were strong and fresh and green without a single brown leaf, the air crisp and sweet to breathe. His torn and stained clothes were now cleaner and softer than his grace ever could have made them, but that was nothing compared to how clean and soft he felt on the inside.

He had heard a million different definitions for Paradise, but in the end it was always going to be something unexpected. It was exhilarating and peaceful at the same time, of course it was, but it was also strangely unnerving, like how you feel when you slowly wake in the soft glow of early morning's total silence, warm and comfortable and knowing it's safe to fall back to sleep. It was like that, but it coursed through his whole body and didn't disappear as the seconds passed.

He looked up from his hands in awe, and turned back toward the cabin room.

Like everything else, it had gained new life. All the rotted or broken floorboards had been made whole, the sagging walls straightened. Vines grew through the open windows, great red roses blossoming along the walls and ceiling, but with not a single thorn to be seen. The previously abandoned wasp nest in the corner was bigger now, but the wasps that glided in and out of it had no stingers and made no intimidating sounds; they were just beautiful winged things. The old pedestal on which the cursed energy had perched was clean and polished, the two guns that had been lying on the floor gone. Where it had been cold and frightening before, the whole room now had an air of new birth.

The new sunlight had driven away all signs of pain and misery and rot. That meant it had sent the two dead bodies of Sam and Dean with it. They were gone…just gone, forever, now, like thorns and stingers and guns. Although Cass and many others might disagree, it seemed that destiny had decided they had no place in Paradise. And perhaps they would agree with that; after all, what purpose was there in being hunters if there was nothing left to hunt, if there would never be anything to hunt again because everything—Earth, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, all of it—had been made pure? Whatever they could have done now, whatever they might have been, was lost. In the stories that would be told about them, they would only ever be hunters.

If he had had any tears left to cry, they would have slipped out then; but Cass could only feel the grief touch his eyes and stay there, probably forever. Forcing his gaze away from the empty space, he reached into his pocket and stared for several long moments at the pendant in his palm. It had changed too, but only slightly. The worn, previously fraying cord on which it hung was deep black again, and the horned face made of bronze was somehow softer around its edges and glinting in the pale sunlight.

Cass slipped it over his head, feeling the weight of it settle on his chest.

He didn't look back into the room, knowing that it would still be agonizingly empty. Instead, he reached behind and pulled the door closed. For a long moment, he breathed in the perfect air, watching the new sun rise higher. Then, he took the first few steps away from his old life and toward his new one.

No longer a symbol of Heaven or a soldier for Earth, Cass still had his purpose. This new, perfect universe would wonder about the amulet the famous homeless angel wore, and he would tell them. He would spend the rest of eternity telling the story of that amulet, of Dean and Sam Winchester, of how they had lived and died for the bond the amulet represented, of loyalty and free will and beer and burgers and family. Everything everywhere in existence would know the story.

From that final day on, he went only by "Cass," and even those who knew his real name never dared call him anything different.

Somewhere in a past where the sky was smoke-filled, a little boy's voice whispered over the sound of sirens.

"It's okay. Everything's gonna be okay, Sammy."

Four-year-old Dean Winchester held his infant brother against his shoulder, and in the dark safety Sammy fell asleep almost immediately. Dean pressed half his face against the baby's warm blanketed head, listening as his father argued desperately with the firemen and watching the last of the flames go out, not knowing that this was going to be the end of him and Sammy, but the beginning of everything else.

The End