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Bluebell, Chapter 1.
San Francisco.
[30]
Smoke burned Dean's lungs as he surveyed the chaos in front of him from his vantage point on the rooftop. He and Cas had split up to try and find him - Dean had chosen to take the inner city, while Cas had taken the outskirts. The others were still back at the Roadhouse; Dean didn't want to endanger anyone without cause. Fires raged around him; around an overturned car, a rundown building, a skip full of rubbish. Chemical fumes and smoke from the burning piles clawed at Dean's throat and scratched at his eyes.
As his raw and painful eyes watered, Dean squinted through the blur of tears and smoke for any sign of him, but his eyes couldn't make out faces in the smoke. When he turned around, he was met with a sight he could have gone his whole life without seeing.
People were turning on each other, fighting like wild dogs over the last scrap of meat as they pillaged and looted from shops. They were animals, fighting hand-to-hand or with makeshift weapons for the most inconsequential items. No one would need them soon anyway.
It had been fine until the news broadcast the previous night; after that, people had just snapped. It seemed impossible that things had somehow gotten even worse. The rioters smashed through windows, sending showers of broken glass cascading over anyone who got too close and covering the ground. The glass created a hellish mosaic as it reflected the orange flames, the grey sky and the blue streak of Bluebell, and became ever slicker with dark red blood. It was a massacre; no matter what anyone said, this was the end of the world, not what was to come.
Dean scanned the brawling and rioting crowd. His green eyes dragged along the ground, praying he wouldn't see his body. He passed his eyes through the rowdy groups, knowing he wouldn't be there; he was too innocent for that. He picked his way through the groups of people standing on and under balconies and helping to get people to safety. If he was going to be anywhere, he'd be there. He had to be there.
Dean's heart constricted in his chest as he saw him - he was helping people get off the road and onto the rooves and balconies along the sides of the street. Of course he was. He was so close, just on the other side of the street, but Dean couldn't get down and cross the street, and it would take too long to go around. Dean wanted to shout out and get his attention, but that would mean drawing attention to himself and he would have a enough of a hard time with this rescue mission without having to fend off rowdy drunks too.
Dean's eyes landed on him again. He was holding a young girl, two at most, trying to pass her to some idiot who was more busy with filming the whole ordeal than helping.
"Take her! Now!"
Dean heard him scream over the noise of the rioting and the screaming of the squirming child. "I'm slipping!" Dean squinted into the anarchy as his heart thudded in his chest, and saw that he was standing on a rickety, slanted pile of rubble.
Then, everything happened at once.
The overturned car exploded, sending plumes of fire and smoke into the sky. The wind blew the hideous black cloud across the sky and street, blocking out the light and obscuring Dean's line of sight. What he did see broke him. The rioters were stampeding in the opposite direction. A woman on the balcony grabbed the screaming girl and hoisted her to safety. Then he slipped, tumbling down the pile of rubble, rolling into the middle of the stampede.
"SAMMY!" Dean screamed, but he didn't see him get up again. Didn't see the tall, skinny, gangly form of his baby brother appear, unscathed, from the crowd. But he had to. Sammy had to be alright.
Minutes passed, and there was still no sign of him. Dean's world shattered around him, and he fell forward, slamming his fists into the gravel on the roof top. With a tearless, strangled sob, Dean called out again.
"SAM!"
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Two and a Half Months Earlier.
Sergeant Bill Greene's coffee mug slipped from his fingers, smashing as soon as it hit the ground. Nobody moved to clean it up, even when dregs of grainy brown dripped from the shards onto the spotless linoleum floor.
"Check again."
He was a man of action, unseasoned with matters like science. He knew more about training men than what makes a man, more about bomb tactics than what made bombs blow. All of this – men in white coats with black-rimmed glasses and passive faces, hand sanitizer dispensers at every corner – was a whole new world to him. Out of all the places he could've been today, California State Observatory was at the bottom of the list.
"Sir, we've done every test there is." The scientist beside him was all skinny limbs and reflective glasses, too wimpy in appearance to gain the sergeant's respect.
"Well do more!" he snapped, and the man scurried off.
The sergeant was far, far out of his depth. He turned to the nearest assistant. "Status report."
"The asteroid is over 60 miles in width, the minimum diameter that could decimate all life being 7-8 miles." The scientist sounds shaky, to say the least. "It appears to be travelling at a speed of around 30,000 m/h. NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission failed, due to the colossal size of the meteor. The meteor is a fragment from Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede. The fragmentation was caused by a period of extended stress a long a pre-existent fissure. It had been hypothesized that this was a potential outcome, but the statistics were minuscule."
The government official, three glinting honour badges pinned to his chest, grasped onto the only part of the conversation he had understood. "How miniscule?"
"0.00001587301% chance for a normal meteor strike, in this case I'd say that it was approximately ten thousand times less likely."
Sergeant Greene puffed out his chest. "Call in your supervisor, check the bloody results again then! It's obvious that this is a mistake-"
"Sir, would you have been called here for a mistake? You're on track to become the next leader of American and Global defence. We wouldn't ask for you to be here for a mistake." Sergeant Green didn't answer.
"So," the assistant continued professionally, "based on the distance from that moon to us, the probability of a moon fracturing against the inward acting centripetal force of gravity, as well as the chance of it flying off at a tangent that directed it at Earth with a speed that was enough to prevent it from being pulled into the orbit of a neighbouring planet is next to nothing. Many people are saying that this is… something intended, sir."
"And how far away is this moon… thing?"
"There are 628.3 million kilometres from here to Ganymede. It's the only moon that is known to have a magnetic field. Opposite polarity on different sections of the moon would explain it breaking apart, sir."
For the first time that day, the sergeant relaxed. "So we still have a lot of time to find a way to stop this?" He gave a vaguely conceited chuckle. "You must know that technology is advancing at an astounding rate, boy."
Looking solemn, the observatory assistant passed over his clipboard. "Technology might not be advancing for much longer, sir. We have just over three months before this thing, however powerful it is when it does, hits."
Sergeant Bill Greene lowered his glasses, peering over them in horror at the note-covered paper. "Holy mother of god."
Outside a square window across the room, Lunar-End M17 winked at them, bright blue in the dusk.
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An autumn morning, cold, calm and crisp, dawned over the campus of West Stanford University. The orange sun of early dawn reflected off car windows as they shot in ones and twos up and down the streets. The area was dappled with bright spots of honey-coloured sunlight as the rays broke through the canopy layer of the trees. The light was almost camouflaged against the burnished oranges, deep reds and patchy browns of the fallen leaves that fell quietly and coated the ground. However, even among silent dorm rooms, not everything was as a calm as the slowly brightening sky.
Cas gave a loud groan of despair into his thick pillow, rolling over and looking up at his roommate miserably. He looked utterly defeated, and Sam had to stifle a laugh at his expression alone.
"You only had to miss two lectures, Cas. It's not the end of the world."
"It might as well be!" Cas exclaimed vehemently.
"Can't you just ask your professor for notes?" Sam raised his eyebrows questioningly, trying not to laugh.
Cas gave his friend an unimpressed, sulky look. "Oh yeah, me and social interactions, that'll totally work."
"Well, what am I supposed to say?" Sam strolled casually towards the door, snagging the corner of his jacket from a nearby chair and halting his exit long enough for Cas to speak up.
"Comfort would be nice," Cas said pathetically, fixing his friend with two big puppy dog eyes.
"Comfort would be 'wasting your precious time', if I remember correctly." Sam grinned easily – it was fun to tease the twenty-two-year-old pre-med student, but his early-morning lecture started soon. "I'm gonna grab some pizza. You coming? It might wake you up a little."
Castiel gave the young student a withering look, like Sam had mortally offended him. Sam was a little confused, he'd invited the guy to breakfast, not grievously insulted him. "Pizza?! For breakfast?! You need nutrition, not a mass of saturated fat and sugars-"
Sam let out a sigh of realization and irritation, rolling his whole head towards the ceiling in time with his eye roll before staring back at the older student. "Cas, we talked about this. Don't doctor out on me."
"But you are recklessly hacking at your immune-"
"I guess I'll go on my own, then…?"
Sam didn't wait for an answer, simply swinging open the door and side stepping quickly out, closing the door as quietly as he could behind him. He padded quietly along the floor, avoiding all the creaky steps he had memorized quickly after his arrival and listening along the silent, hangover-ridden corridor as Castiel had another minor breakdown.
The twenty-two-year-old med student was in his last year here, while Sam had only been at Standford for a few months. Had had been difficult to adjust; the reliance on independent study, the new people, new places, the home sickness. It had been tough leaving Dean, his legal guardian and big brother, but a university like Stanford was an opportunity that Dean had never had, had never dreamed of having – and the older of the two brothers was all too eager for Sam to reach the higher and greater heights that he never could. Sam's face softened in fondness at the memory. Dean had given up everything for Sam, and Sam wanted to make him proud.
Dean had only been eighteen when their father died, barely old enough to become his younger brother's legal guardian. Since then, everything had gone out of the window for the older of the brothers; his schooling, his free time and most of his hobbies and his happiness alike. Sam didn't think he'd ever stop feeling bad about the last four years, and how Dean's eyes were a shade duller, hair untrimmed and constantly looking like he'd just rolled out of bed with some dude from the local bar. Dean's voice was still slightly lower than Sam's, even now that Sam was eighteen, and sounded constantly worn and gravelly now.
However, it wasn't just the physical tells that Sam had picked up on, it was other little things too. He never visited their parent's graves, he rarely listened the music anymore and when he thought Sam wasn't looking, his face crumpled into a look of pain and disarray. And it broke Sam's heart. The last few years hadn't been easy on him – hadn't been easy on either of the brothers.
But now, a law student in one of the best universities in the country, Sam had reached a point further than the younger brother had ever thought he would. Castiel had been awkward and surly at first glance, stingy about everything from his slot in the toaster to his toothbrush to his timetable.
After a few weeks, however, the man softened towards his new roommate. Sam soon learnt that Cas wasn't nearly as scary as he had first seemed, his people skills were just a little rusty, and now (despite the four-year age difference), they were best friends.
Stepping out of the large, slightly battered wooden doors of the main dorm block, Sam squinted into the sunlight. After a second, he grinned.
This was going to be a good day.
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Pressing down harder on the gas, Dean felt the momentum force his head hard against Baby's front seat. As she purred, roaring low and loud, her tires screamed against the ground. Flying down the freeway, Dean Winchester whooped loudly, ignoring the middle finger from a nearby truck driver. Sun poured through the back window in abundance, warm over his shoulders, and the city ahead of him was a yellow-orange body of glass, reflecting the sunrise like the earth's own personal dawn.
Hot leather against his back, flat road stretching in front of him and a cooling breeze rippling through his hair and clothes, he drove with the reckless abandon that he so often demonstrated. The strong and cloying smell of coffee filled the car, thick and bitter but just what Dean needed. Reaching across and taking a swig (and resolutely ignoring the metal flask glinting temptingly in the back seat), the green-eyed man swerved around yet another car – in the front seat of this one sat a disheveled woman who looked so sleep-deprived that she barely noticed that he was there.
A sign blurred past - it wouldn't be long now before Dean was practically on his little brother's doorstep. The visit was impromptu, sure, but he was sure that Sam wouldn't mind. Hey – Dean would even get to meet his roommate, which would most likely end in a fight - which Dean would no-doubt win, obviously. Dean didn't exactly play well with others and he was very protective of Sammy, hence the fact that he always seemed to end up fighting with his friends. But hey, Sammy always forgave him…eventually. The Unforgiven blared out of the speakers (the full version, he had standards), and Dean drummed his hands to the beat on the steering wheel, until Baby nearly swerved off the road because of a particularly hard-hitting beat, and he had to stop drumming, falling apart laughing.
The city grew more and more on the horizon, his back tires throwing up dust in the rear-view mirror. He drank in the world around him, losing himself in the roar of the engine, the taste of the dry, dusty air against his lips, the heat of the autumn sun creeping across his skin. Suddenly, something strangely blue-white far off in the depths orange sky caught Dean's eye. Peering out at the open sky alongside the road, the sandy-haired man caught a brief glimpse of a bluish-silver streak - like somebody had brushed the sky with a paintbrush – before it was blocked by the huge monster form of a cargo truck.
By the time the truck had rumbled idly past, Dean had forgotten what he was looking at again, and turned back to the road.
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Sam's first lecture was a bore, as per usual, but he took all the notes he needed to take diligently, exchanged a smile and a few words of conversation with a few friends, and then headed in the direction of a nearby burrito stall on a secluded street in the west of the district. As he walked, he passed a street performer – all long legs and mint-green nail polish, strumming out a Gabrielle Aplin song. Her voice was good enough that Sam could, for a few seconds at least, ignore the sharp buzzing from the cell phone in his pocket.
After a few seconds and a few curious and disapproving looks from passing strangers, Sam sighed and fished around in his pocket until he could find this phone. He flipped it open with a click and answered, "Hello?"
"There's a stranger here." Castiel's voice was short and clipped. "He says he wants to see you."
Sam frowned, worried now, and started to walk with a rapid pace down the street towards the direction of the dorms. "Who? Cas, what's his name?"
There was a moment of silence before Cas' uncomfortable and anxious voice returned. "He says his name is 'Dean'. He keeps calling you 'Sammy', Sam, what do I do?"
Suddenly it all made sense, and Sam could've laughed with joy. Of course, Cas was uncomfortable with Dean - brash, loud, rough Dean – and he was positively petrified of social interaction anyway. But Dean was here. The two brothers hadn't seen each other in nearly three months, and Dean (in pure Dean-fashion) had just decided to drive halfway across the country and scare his roommate half to death on a whim.
Sam was ecstatic. "I'll be right there!" he said to his friend and, ignoring the protests of the still confused and concerned Cas , the brown-haired man clicked his phone shut and started to walk excitedly, nearly running, towards the dorms.
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Dean gave some kind of awkward cough, shooting Sam's roommate a concerned look. The man, all blue eyes and a shock of messy sex hair, was standing awkwardly on the other side of the room, as if Dean had some kind of epidemic-worthy disease that he didn't want to catch. He was standing very stiffly, eyes fixed on Dean and body facing the door as if to ready himself for a quick getaway. When Dean had first turned up, his first impression of the man hadn't been the best. Hair sticking up madly, eyes ringed by sleep deprivation, he roughly resembled a zombie; or your typical stressed college student. Either way, he had Dean secretly hoping that Sammy hadn't melted into the hot mess of stress this man looked like.
"Uh," Dean started, "are you okay?" He would have attempted to flirt but, well, this guy didn't look like he was exactly in the mood.
"Oh I know," the man replied in a gravely monotone.
"You… know?" Dean repeated. "Am I missing something?"
The man stuttered for a second, realising that he wasn't making any sense and reaching for a response wildly, before catching himself and simply shooting Dean a distinctly disapproving look. "Can we just wait for Sam?"
Dean raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean anything."
The next few minutes were painfully tense, and Dean occupied himself by looking around the room. He could see clearly which side was Sam's – he'd pinned up a few pictures of him and Dean on a corkboard beside his bed, and it was far less neat and tidy compared to the other man's. Outside of the small, square window, the sky was just starting to lighten to a bluebell colour, the clouds like scratches of white chalk on the horizon.
Dean didn't know how long it was before Sam walked through the door, but when he did, he shot Dean a blinding grin and moved in for a hug. Dean filled the distance, wrapping his arms around his younger brother's shoulders and tugging him down towards him in a bone-crushing hug – customary big brother style. They hugged for a few seconds before Dean slapped Sam on the back and pulled away, giving a lopsided grin.
"You alright, Sammy?" he asked, looking the other up and down. He could've sworn that Sam had grown even more in the last few months – his hair was just as floppy and brown as it had always been, covering his eyes slightly, and by now he was even taller than Dean. The eighteen-year-old was still as lanky and gangly as always, despite regularly eating enough to sink a ship. Luckily, he didn't look nearly as tense as the other man.
Dean, on the other hand, looked a little less drawn than the last time they had seen each other – and far happier. His hair was more orderly than usual, and his wide grin was genuine (something that didn't happen often anymore). Green eyes alight with mirth, the man glanced across the room at Castiel.
"I was just meeting your…. roommate," he said, trying not to laugh. Sam shot Cas a look that clearly asked, 'what did you do?', but Cas just gave a mild glare and sat down hard on his immaculate bed.
"Can I ask who this is?" Cas asked, sounding painfully awkward as he gestured towards Dean.
"Oh, yeah, this is my big brother Dean. Dean, meet Cas, Cas, meet Dean. Have you two had time to… Make friends yet?" Sam tried and failed to diffuse the tension in the room, and all it did was widen Dean's grin, and redden Castiel's face. "…How about we go grab some food?"
Cas jumped at the excuse. "Yes. Yeah! Great! I'll just-" (he tripped over a coffee table, stumbling clumsily and grappling in mid-air before regaining his balance) "-grab my coat, I…guess. Yeah."
(On the way out, Sam had to whack Dean over the back of the head when he swatted Cas' ass in the doorway.)
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Surprisingly, once they got to know each other, Dean and Cas got on quite well. At the all-organic diner Cas insisted they went to, they both ordered the exact same meal, and teamed up against Sam in an aggressive game of Jackswitch (which they won by a landslide, despite neither having played the game before). The atmosphere was relaxed and casual. It was a nice change from the stress of classes, and all three of the men were enjoying simply chatting and catching up.
Cas, surprisingly, didn't feel as uncomfortable around Dean as he did with most people. Maybe it was the fact that he acted like they had known each other for a long time and there was none of the awkward small talk that Cas found so difficult, they just swapped stories and jokes. Unluckily for Sam, he was the focus of most of these, but he didn't mind that much: he was something they knew they had in common and Sam was just glad that they were getting along. Dean needed friends and Sam was more than happy to share Cas.
Even within his happiness, Cas sighed. With all these stories from Sam and Dean's childhood, it was hard not to think about his own.
Then.
Cas is young, a toddler in his crib, reaching up towards his older brother. Gabe is only seven, all eyes and pointy elbows and knees, but he's grinning a grin almost too wide for his thin face. Around them, the world is made up of faded yellows and creamy-browns that meld into sunrise.
Cas is six, and his father is finally home. He goes to hug him, small and chubby feet patting on the cold floorboards, but Gabe holds him back in the shadows. Now ten, the older of the two is a slip of a thing that doesn't complain when he slides his portion from his plate to Castiel's every night. Michael and Luke are eighteen and sixteen, working five jobs between them, and when Chuck Novak returns they can barely look at him. Any love they had for their father is long gone.
Cas is eleven, scoring his first A+ on a test and actually expecting a little praise when he gets home. Gabriel ruffles his hair, eyes shadowed but fond, but then leaves to help out at the pub. His dad spares a single noncommittal look, and Michael tells him to go to his room. He's sobbing himself to sleep in his room, bitter and helpless and small.
Cas is thirteen, screaming out as one of the older boys' fists pounds into his face and yelling out for Gabriel, tears streaming down his bruised and bloody cheeks. Nobody runs around the corner – no dad, no Michael or Luke and no Gabriel. When he gets home, collapsed on the doorstep into Gabe's arms, his sandy-haired brother is the only one at home to take care of him.
Cas is fourteen, dipping nimble fingers into the bags and pockets of students around him. People stare at his second-hand clothes and his shadowed eyes and pale skin, but they don't ask and he doesn't elaborate. Michael and Luke are worse than they've ever been. Gabe is sick half the time, and out working for the rest. None of them have seen dad for a year, and Cas has now slowly started to call him 'Chuck' in his mind.
Cas is sixteen, smacked across the face by Luke when the man walks in on Cas and Don-from-down-the-road. Don is Castiel's first kiss, rough and inexperienced but thrilling in itself. All that thrill evaporates on the wind when there's blood running over his swollen lips, and Don won't even say his name for fear of his family.
Cas is eighteen, Gabriel's hushed goodbye still warm in his ears as his feet patter in the rain-filled gutters. A soggy train ticket freezes his palm and he only carries a canvas rucksack, but for the first few minutes he is full of elation. After that of course, he's sure that Michael and Luke will be waiting in the shadows around every corner for him, but at least he's free.
Cas is twenty-two, new roommate and the same anxiety as always, and that same deep ache in his chest that has been there for years. He misses Gabe so, so much more than he would admit.
Now
After the meal, Sam and Dean's catch-up about the last three months and the miraculous friendship of Cas and Dean, the trio headed back to Sam's dorm. After letting slip that he hadn't slept for a lot longer than he should've, Dean was pushed reluctantly to the couch for a few hours' sleep by Castiel. Dean had started to try and refuse the offer, but Cas had fixed him with a murderous glare and started ranting about the effects of sleep deprivation in males aged 16-25. After that, Dean had given in, Sam chuckled and decided that he would try to employ Cas' techniques on Dean more often. While he took a long nap, Cas and Sam had a silent but productive study session. Sam soon got bored of his own work, and instead shifted over to help Cas with his. The man was stressed enough and, even if they did bicker, Sam genuinely wanted to take away some of that stress.
As the sun arched through the sky and started to decline, Dean woke up, drowsy and disorientated, but immediately busied himself exploring the dorm room. Digging around in the fridge, he emerged with a cold slice of some flavour of left-over pie, making Castiel roll his eyes dramatically in disapproval. Dean just smirked back and winked as he dug into the pastry.
Dots of reflected sun from the window pane peppered the walls like yellow sapphires, and for the first time in the last three months, Sam actually felt like he was home.
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The sun had set now, and the sky outside was clear and starry. Sam leaned back in the squishy beanbag that sat in the corner of his room and stretched out his back with a groan. He looked across the room at Cas and Dean, who were sitting chatting on Cas' bed, and laughed to himself quietly. He could see where this was going. Dean shot him a glare and Sam responded with an innocent shrug and a cheeky grin. Dean turned back to Cas, who was confused by the brothers' silent interaction.
"You swoop in here unannounced, scare the crap out of me, make me uncomfortable with your crazily boisterous personality and then have some sort of secret conversation about me with my best friend." Cas listed breathlessly, his tone joking. "I hate you," he said, his expression soft and his eyebrows high. It had been hard being around someone so energetic and vocal again, but it was different with Dean than it had been with his family.
Dean laughed, loud and clear, "Yeah, yeah, I know you love me."
Sam shook his head as he laughed and took out his phone to occupy himself while the other two talked. He saw a text from Jessica and smiled. Even if they weren't dating anymore, she still talked to him every day on her breaks at work. They had drifted apart, life getting in the way and neither of them willing to admit that it was over until. They had eventually accepted the fact that dating wasn't working and although they may not be in love, they still loved each other and their friendship meant a lot to both.
He opened the message and read it. Twice.
To: Sam
From: Jessica
Work cancelled. Some sort of mandatory national broadcast. Get to a TV NOW!
Sam was momentarily stunned and confused, his mind reeling. There hadn't been anything in the news to suggest that a crisis worthy of national broadcast would occur. And it must've been huge - although the Emergency Alert System had been set up in 1997, it had never been used before. Whatever was going on, it was big.
"Hey, guys?" Sam called out in a tone thick with concern. There was no change in the quiet mumbling from the other side of the room. "Guys!" Sam interrupted loudly. Cas and Dean turned around and looked at Sam with two very different expressions; Cas with questioning concern; Dean with the annoyed bitchface that only a sibling can muster.
"What!?" demanded Dean in irritation.
"We've got to get to your motel now, all of us. The TV in the common room is shitty and the room'll be packed. We had better get going now or we might mi- "Dean cut in over Sam's incoherent, high speed rambling.
"What the hell are you yammering about, Sammy?" Dean asked, furrowing his brow. "Take a breath and try to form actual sentences this time." Sam gave his brother his premium childish glare. Just because he was stressing himself out with overthinking didn't mean he suddenly became serious.
"There's a mandatory broadcast, which is one of the branches of the EAS - the emergency broadcast system - so it must be serious. There's no way we'll get a space in the common room to watch it, the TV is awful anyway, so we need to get to your motel to watch it. Now." Sam spoke in a condescendingly slow tone; Dean wasn't amused and looked like he was going to vocalize this, but Cas interjected.
"Look, guys, this sounds important, we should go."
There was a ruckus of footsteps and muffled shouts from outside the room. Dean looked at the door then looked back at Sam with an expression of mild concern. "Fine, let's get a move on."
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Dean pushed open the door of Sam and Cas' room and was met with complete and utter anarchy.
People were thundering around the building, grabbing their friends and pulling them down the stairs. What the hell is going on? thought Dean. He grabbed Sam by the arm and reflexively grabbed Cas too, guiding them down the stairs, past the herds of students in the corridor and the rows and rows of people in the common room, packed like sardines in a tin, all their beady eyes fixed on the dusty, black box in the corner.
But if Dean had thought that the inside was hell, the outside was something indescribable. Cars were backed up as far as the eye could see, and a fender-bender on the corner was splitting the stream of terrified and tumultuous travellers as they poured around either side of the feuding drivers. Dean's senses were overloaded; his head was spinning and his mind was whirling.
Dean whipped around to try and find Sam, suddenly aware of the fact that he had let go of his arm. The sun was setting and long shadows were cast across the world. Darkness started to cover Dean's mind and body alike. His heart stopped and his mind raced.
Then.
"Sammy!" screamed Dean, his throat tight with fear and raw with the sheer amount of screaming and crying he had endured over the past few hours. They had just gotten back from the funeral; Sammy was so angry. Angry at dad for dying, angry at Dean for not stopping it, angry at the world for treating them this way. Dean knew that everyone grieved in their own way, but it hadn't mattered, he just hadn't been able to take it. He had screamed at Sam - he had screamed at him to calm down or leave.
And Sammy left. A fourteen-year-old kid; scared, grieving and alone. Dean had to find him. He wiped a stray tear from his cheek and pulled his head back inside the window of the Impala. If he wasn't wandering around the neighbourhood - and he would have heard Dean calling and come if he was - then there was only one place he could be.
As soon as Dean pulled into the cemetery he saw him, lying in front of their father's grave, curled up with his head rested on his arm. Dean pulled over and walked the distance to the grave, not wanting to disrupt the eerie calm that was permanently settled in the area. When he reached Sam, the kid looked up at him with red, glistening eyes.
"He left us, Dean. I don't care if he didn't do it on purpose, he left us." Dean bent down and scooped Sam into a soft hug. The kid was almost the same height as him now, but there was something about being a big brother that meant that these kinds of hugs always seemed to envelope and protect Sam.
"I'm not going to argue with you anymore, and just try to remember that I will never, NEVER, leave you." Dean's protectiveness harshened his voice, but it seemed to still comfort Sam.
"Except when I go to university?" joked Sam.
"Even then," countered Dean, "I'll visit you every weekend and embarrass the crap out of you." Sam chuckled and sniffed. Dean was glad that his words had cheered Sam up, but his motivations were selfish; he couldn't live without Sam, he wouldn't live without Sam. Not now.
Now.
He couldn't then and he couldn't now. He spun around, searching for the tall, gangly shape of his baby brother, a scream already on his lips.
"Dean! He's here. I've got him. Let's go!" Cas' voice wrenched him from the chaos his panic and his hand shot out and grabbed Dean's, pulling him along as he snaked through the chaos of the crowd.
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They burst into through into the lobby of Dean's motel building and pelted up the stairs.
"Third floor!" Dean yelled in Cas' ear as he dragged him up the stairs. People rushed up and down the stairs on either side, pushing and shoving. Sam stumbled and must have hurt himself if the string of profanities was anything to go off, but he kept moving. The corridors were a flurry of movement, two men whispering harshly to each other in the doorway of the room next to Dean's, and the loud, shrill scream of a police siren outside of the window.
The next thing Cas heard was the click of a door being unlocked, and soon he was yanked inside a bare, dull motel room with a closed door between him and the unbridled chaos outside. However, they didn't stop moving until they hit Dean's small bed. They didn't let go of each other for a second - if the mandatory broadcast hadn't been enough to freak them out, seeing everyone else's panic had. They flicked the TV on and were greeted with robotic voice, a black screen and white text showing a count-down and a message:
The broadcast will commence in-
59 mins.
Please wait patiently and calmly near a television or radio. Viewing of this broadcast is required of every citizen, and neglect to do so will result in severe legal consequences.
The message repeated several times before Dean muted it and the room went silent except for the ticking of the clock on Dean's bedside table, still except for the steady flickering of the TV screen. Outside, there was a hysteric hum. The city was alive with fear, anticipation. Rumours ran rampant, and for the first time, Dean's eyes landed on the large, blue-silver body in the sky from earlier. The star was bright, unusually large, and looked completely still in the clear darkness. Dean almost expected it to move.
Cas couldn't take it anymore; the waiting was going to drive him insane. As his brain riffled through a hundred possible doomsday hypotheses, he knew that it could never be as bad as what his mind was creating.
…Right?
He sighed and crossed his legs on the bed, the sleeves of his sweatshirt tickling his wrists. The only sound he could make out was the crunching from Sam, who was making his way to the bottom of his second box of Lucky Charms. Cas didn't know what disgusted him more, the constant racket in his ears or Sam's blatant disregard for his health.
Cas pulled out his phone and navigated to his study playlist, putting it on shuffle and looking down at the song that was coming on. A tad on the nose, but he was too on edge to care. He plugged in his headphones and Disturbed - The Sound of Silence echoed around his head while he lay back on the bed between a crunching Sam and a quietly humming Dean. Images of nuclear warfare and outbreaks of deadly diseases swirled before his eyes.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence
Sam had recently informed them that this wasn't a nationwide broadcast, it was a global one. Apparently, Jess was just as freaked out as they were - she had called Sam in a panic about fifteen minutes ago. As the whole world held its breath, Cas closed his eyes and tried to lose himself in the music.
People writing songs
That voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence
Cas didn't know how long he lay there. After a while he tuned out the music; he tuned out the whole world, but he was pulled back to reality by Dean shaking him.
"It's time for the broadcast," he announced, and all heads turned to the screen as he unmuted it.
Dean wasn't ready to know, the ignorance seemed to all he had left. It reminded him so much of his father's death, it was like he was reliving it. The unspoken discussion to not talk about it, the fear and suspense, and the waiting. Oh, god, the waiting.
Then
"Dean?" mumbled a half-asleep Sam, curled up on the seat next to Dean and wrapped in dad's old leather jacket. "What's going on?"
Dean didn't have an answer. Dad should have been out of surgery an hour ago, and the surge of doctors and nurses running back and forth had been enough to pull Sam from his deep slumber. It was a shame; the kid hadn't slept right in weeks. But then again, neither had he.
"It's OK, Sammy. Just go back to sleep. I'll wake you when dad gets out, OK?" Dean's voice was false and shaky, but Sam didn't pick up on it.
"'Kay" he mumbled and burrowed back into the cocoon of blissful warmth and ignorance within the jacket.
Dean didn't know how long he sat there, watching people rush past, watching Sammy sleep, watching the clock tick by. The taunting click of the hands seemed to time out a funeral march in Dean's mind, and the little voice in his head pounded at his remaining strength waned.
Tick. He's dead.
Tock. You're all alone.
Tick. Sammy is all you have left.
Tock. He's too good for you, he will leave you too.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick- And then you will have nothing.
"Mr Winchester!" By the tone of the nurse's voice, she had been there for a while. "Mr Winchester, did you hear me?"
"Mr Winchester is my father - please, call me Dean," he replied flirtatiously, anything to distract himself from the assault on his consciousness.
"…Dean. I said, your father's… I'm so sorry. We di-"
It hit Dean like a battering ram.
"Don't!" he interrupted. "Just- Don't." Dean stood up abruptly and the nurse took a step back. The eighteen year-old grabbed Sammy, hoisting the boy surprisingly easily into his arms.
"Woah! Dean! What the hell?!" shouted a startled Sam, flailing in Dean's arms.
"We're leaving," replied Dean bluntly.
"No. Dean! What about dad? We need to be there when he wakes up!"
Dean's face crumpled, and he looked down at Sam. "We're leaving," he said softly, allowing Sam to turn towards his chest and scream his grief and sorrow out as Dean walked quickly from the hospital.
Now
Dean couldn't run from this, he wouldn't, he had to protect Sam. This had to be something he could protect his little brother from.
"Good evening America!" The reporter looked like she had had to use every cosmetic there was to cover up her blotchy face, but her eyes were clearly red-rimmed. Around her, a few solemn pictures of various politicians Cas didn't know flicked up.
"Tonight, I regret to inform you that an asteroid called Lunar-End M17 has been sighted from California State Observatory. Information has been released that, as far as we can tell, it is on a direct course towards our planet. Should it collide, there is- there's no possibility of survival."
The woman started crying, and a hand reached over the desk to offer her a tissue. She took it and mopped her face, regaining her composure. She gave a watery but professional smile.
"However, there's no need to panic. There is only 30% chance that this asteroid will collide, and that will be in just over three months-"
There was some inaudible mumbling from off screen, and the reporter's face crumpled.
"M-Make that… a 30% chance of survival."
No sooner had she stammered the words out did she break down again. The pictures around her changed to a blurry, blown-up image of a blue star – with a thrill of fear, Dean realised just what he had seen out of the window.
The transmission cut out, and the trio was left staring at their own reflections in the inky blackness of the TV screen.
Sam saw his face distorted and wide in the curve of the TV, his hands clutching the box of cereal and his eyes wide and terrified. The blurry path onwards – law school, first long-term girlfriend, first full-time job, new house, first kid, second kid, grandchildren, retirement, death – was suddenly cut short. There was some monstrous form in the way, something blocking everything he had ever known, and Sam was suddenly the most alone he had ever been.
Dean saw the same face he always did, strangely blank as the information slowly started to sink in. He had no identity outside of Sammy, no life, and now he was losing both. Any will, any drive and any motivation he had to fight snapped out of existence. He might not try a lot of the time, but what was the point in trying at all if all he had to do was sit back and wait three short months for the end?
Castiel's mind, scientific and logical, scrambled for some kind of explanation. Maybe this was a social experiment, and there was no asteroid at all. Maybe there was some kind of mistake – she had been right first time, and there was a 70% chance of survival. There had to be something wrong here – because now that he had finally gotten away from his family, it all couldn't just end.
But as the noise outside the apartment, which had hushed for a few minutes, started to raise, the trio could almost feel the panic flooding the streets. It was tangible, like some kind of disease that couldn't be purged.
It was all coming to an end.
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