This is a disclaimer.
AN: It's only the end of the world again. Title from Tolkien.
In darkness buried deep
"It wasn't your fault, you know."
Sam laughs, harsh but quiet, turns his face away. "That make you feel better after you told me about Hell?"
Dean shifts in the darkness. "No," he says. "But it's true."
"I screwed up," Sam whispers. Dean's knuckles brush against the back of his hand, and Sam turns it over and grips his big brother's fingers tight like he's six and Dean's ten and everything will be OK as soon as Dad gets home.
They haven't undressed. They haven't made any attempt to protect themselves. If He wants in, He will get in. They both know that in their bones.
If He wants them dead, they haven't a hope, and prayers are so last year.
Not that cowering in a darkened motel room is the way Dean pictured himself going out, even if it is Satan himself who kills him, but too much has happened for his mind to process anything else. He supposes it's shock, this numbness that's stolen his ability to think.
"I don't think you did," he says at last. "I don't think either of us did."
Sam is silent for a while. Then, "Why not?"
"Destiny," Dean says. For the first time since - since the convent, an edge of anger enters his voice. "They woulda hounded us for eternity until we gave them what they wanted, Sammy. Both sides."
Sam sighs. "I guess you're right."
"I mostly am," Dean says with a ghost of arrogance. Sam huffs, imitation of amusement.
Silence for a long while. Cars rush past the motel; footsteps of a woman in high heels, click-clacking along the corridor. Lowered, hurried conversation passing their door. Hum of the air conditioning, or the water heater, or something, anyhow.
Then Dean tightens his fingers around Sam's, as if to ease the sting of the question, and asks, "What about the freaky demon powers?"
From the sound of Sam's shirt shifting against the sheets, Dean gathers that he's shrugging. "I don't know," Sam admits. "Ruby said I blew my payload on the boss, whatever that means. I couldn't do a thing to her."
"Blew your payload on the boss," Dean mutters. "She always did think it was cool to go around talking like a gangster's moll."
Sammy actually laughs, real mirth, although it's a little broken too. "Yeah."
"Not to mention Zachariah," Dean adds. "This is not a TV show scripted by Joss Whedon, kids."
Sam's still laughing. That's good. Distracts him from the coming Armageddon.
"Maybe they really are used up," he says at last. "Maybe I've fulfilled my destiny by doing what Azazel wanted me to use them for, and they'll never come back."
Dean isn't so sure. He has the nasty suspicion that Sammy will be struggling with the legacy of what Ruby got him to do to himself for the rest of his life.
Of course, judging by what they saw in the convent, that won't be for much longer anyway.
He just squeezes Sam's hand, and doesn't answer.
"We should go to Bobby's," Sammy says. "I gotta apologise. And the Impala's still there."
"Right," Dean says. "The world's not allowed to end while I'm separated from my baby by how many states?"
Sam grins in the dark, and there's a new note to his voice when he speaks, a kind of relief, a kind of hope. "We'll lock ourselves up in the panic room, and watch backlogged episodes of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and mend our broken relationship."
Dean pats the back of his hand condescendingly. "Of course we will," he says soothingly.
"Don't patronise me," Sam says without heat. "I feel different, you know. Cleaner. Like Frodo after the Ring was destroyed."
Dean snickers. "Obviously, we were named for the wrong grandparent. Shoulda been the other way round."
"So Ruby was Gollum?" Sam says. "I can't - I can't believe I just - I mean, I didn't question a word she said." He snorts. "Talk about pathetic. Trusting her like that."
"Sucker for a pretty girl," Dean says. "Long standing Winchester tradition. We always knew she wanted Lilith dead. We just never stopped to wonder why."
Sam's silent again. Guilt's eating at him, and he's running back over the events of the last weeks - months, years! - in his mind, trying and trying to discover the point where it all went wrong, trying to figure out what he should have done differently, how he could have avoided this mess.
Dean knows, because he's doing it too.
"Hey," he says at last, gives Sam's hand a shake. "Tomorrow, we go to Bobby's. We get sorted out. We try and summon Cas. Maybe Anna. We face this. We fight this, same as we always have. And, you know. If letting Lucifer out will rid us of the angels as well as the demons, then we're off to a good start."
Sam nods. "OK," he says. "OK then. Same as always."
"Yeah."
"OK."
"Are you?"
"I think so. I really do. You?"
"I'm always all right."
"Are you sure, though? I mean, you passed up a threeway with Ginger and Mary Ann."
Dean bites down on his lower lip in an attempt to hold in something that threatens to be an unbecoming giggle. "I know. It was the most difficult decision I've ever made."
Sam laughs again, helplessly, maybe a little hysterically, true, but he'll be OK. Dean will make sure of it.