The figure walked up the road towards him but he had long ago given up so much of this fight. It was rote at this point and that presence, that suppressed the demons from coming, that kept the winds from blowing against him was almost welcome.
Sam was comatose, he was shaking in his sleep at most but it was so little, there wasn't much time left in this vast wasteland.
"Dean."
"Don't."
That hand still touched his face, his brother convulsing, still resisting and he was weeping without permission as Sammy held in there all this time, hands gripping the cotton sheets. Even if he didn't wake up anymore.
"Listen."
The wind whipped around them, the cries of defense, one of the last out posts on earth and the eyes towards him holding something that was beyond pity, shifting into something that was closer to compassion.
"He's still here."
"It need not be my paradise," the man responded and Dean closed his eyes because false whispers came so often now. They that held, they stood the line his brother still fought and he would not leave till then.
Hands were on his face and there was something underlying in them, begging him for something that he didn't know that he had left outside of this. This desperate existence they had been reduced too from a virus that hadn't been caught in time.
Bobby's wheel chair riddled with holes still haunted him as did Castiel's lost laugh.
"I can bring it back."
"As paradise?" and there was no hiding his bitterness as that head shook.
"As what it was. I need a vessel to stop this, to stop this desecration across all of creation. To save us, this, your brother."
That mouth was so close to his, that face leaning in and he clung to that still form in his arms despite not wanting to. Not wanting to show that kind of desperation.
"He hears you when you speak to him," those lips said and Dean closed his eyes, the heat of the day blistering but suddenly gone.
Wings, his mind feebly defends.
"We must save them all, beyond this, to restore this," that mouth was saying and Dean's head lagged down, trying not to think about how bad this was.
"You promise, how it was?"
"Yes beloved, I understand now," and all he can do was stare at that face that cradled his own. "I see it now, we must restore it. Not destroy. I promise it all, myself, everything in creation to end this and bring it back."
The dust sank into his legs, biting at his jeans the men in the distance firing at something that may or may not be real. Illusions with demons. Might as well use what you got he'd say except they were out of tricks.
Chapped lips on his, that power was his for the taking. They would strike it all down, burn it and raise it maybe not new but here again, turning and free of all of this. The burden placed on them so long ago and he sighed into that mouth.
"Beloved."
His hands tightened into that jacket, his brother nearby muttering in his sleep never conscious but still battling and he turned his attention back.
"You have to –"
"All of it how it was," that mouth whispered against his. "How it was before it opened. All I want is you and even then I will let you live here until you ascend to me."
"Sammy."
"We will protect him."
Finally Dean let his head drop and nodded, clutched those lapels in front of him, those eyes not judging but compassionate falling towards his comatose bother.
"On all that I am, on all that will be, I will keep my word to you."
"Yes," he whispered into that dry mouth and felt it seal over his as he filled out and everything might end or might begin again.
E/N So, Was Michael telling the truth?