Notes: This was written in a mockup of an episode arc, so, if you would, begin your read by first tunelessly singing "Carry on my Wayward Son" and flashing back over every moment between the Winchesters and Castiel.

Up to 8x17.

Rating: M

Warnings: AU, explicit language, angst, drug use, violence, murder, concepts of suicide, and a BAMF Dean threatening to burn heaven.

Here's what Dean knew: Some bitch-ass winged fuckup named Naomi sent three more flying ass clowns down to earth to capture and return the rebel pinup Castiel, and they were ordered to retrieve him alive, but only just if need be. So Dean and Sam had spent the longest fifteen minutes of their lives pinned by invisible creeper angel mojo against a wall and watched helplessly as their friend was robbed of his grace, stabbed in various places with fucked up little torture-seraph knives, and drug bloody, but still kicking and screaming into the maws of Heaven.

Which Dean now thought less of as 'heaven' and closer to God's sandbox for junk and throwaways; there was a single clause to that of course, and that was Castiel, who obviously preferred life on earth to life in heaven because he did not belong with the rest of the holy shit-for-brains mistakes.

Dean knew in the moments that followed the echo of wings and Castiel's screams fading from his ears that he was going to get Cas back no matter what it cost, which probably involved going to heaven. A tight knot of guilt and anger twisted around the Winchester brothers in the aftermath of the angelnapping, because they both loved Castiel and he was a rare and endangered species; the last of the extended Winchester family.

This saw Sam and Dean in preparations for weeks, pouring over every crumb of information about heaven and its bastard patrol as they made careful, strategic arrangements. And every night, Dean would get down on his knees, intertwine his fingers, let his eyes slide shut as he concentrated on a bewildered, bluer then blue stare and an echo of a rough, gravel voice, and say, "Cas, hang in there buddy, I'm coming for you."

Every night, Sam tried to pretend he didn't notice.

The first order of business was figuring out how to escape the soul pit, and break into heaven proper. Step number one then was finding a way to break the heavenly trip down memory lane without the aid of Zacariah's intrusive spotlight. That train of thought led them simultaneously to "Ash." Sam flexed his fingers, muscle memory, and his entire god given intelligence to lump together a theory about going back in time using the blood sigil their grandfather had used and giving Ash the most important goal of his afterlife. Ash had to remember Castiel's incarceration and since they knew he would figure out how to link memory lanes of various hunters and loved ones, they could count on him to jerk them out of their reveries and set them straight.

So while Sam hunted down spells and pieced together incantations, Dean sank his foot to the floorboard and gathered every dust mote of ingredient he could find. As he drove, the eldest Winchester found himself praying almost constantly.

"Cas, I hope you're giving those flying monkeys hell."

"Castiel, angel of the Lord who doth not give a shit, please be okay, because if you're not, I'm going to burn heaven out of the sky."

"Cas, buddy…me and Sammy, we miss you like hell. We're coming to save your damsel in distress ass from the goon squad real soon."

"Hey Cas, it's me again. Just checking in…I dunno, in case this helps you at all."

"Cas! Dean Winchester. Um, me and Sammy are very close to rolling out and swooping your girly ass out of heaven. So, be ready."

On the night they gathered the final ingredient, both Sam and Dean prayed in their heads quietly, not wanting to embarrass themselves in front of the other. Sam prayed that Cas keep his strength, Dean demanded it, but added a tiny, softly spoken, "I miss you."

Sam set the bowl made of elm on the table, surrounded by sprigs of herbs and bones, powders and jars and paste, and a vial of their most precious resource. The edge of a smile lifted at the corners of Sam's lips as he recalled the memory with Jo, Ellen, and Ash. Jo's pretty blond hair curling around her shoulders as she laughed at her mother, and Ash's quiet, mischievous smile as he pointed out the various ingredients they kept in store in the basement of the Roadhouse, and the vault of vials of blood from every hunter that had ever walked through the door.

Ash said it was for protection; the voodoo version of a restraining order should any hunter turn into a creep and attempt to gank their base of operations. Whatever the reason, they were grateful to have a blood link with Ash, and Sam upended the tiny glass phial into his bowl of mystic and magic. He hated this part, the disgusting blend of life and death and creepy that went into every spell. Why couldn't magic be sterile and sparkly, like Harry Potter? He wouldn't mind waving a stick in the air and muttering made up Latin in a stupid British accent, instead of this sick ass concoction.

But it was reality, and Sam stirred and smashed and muttered dead language into thin air without an outward complaint. He drew the twisted and looping sigil onto the door of their motel room, and stepped back to look at his brother. Dean's face was set, his eyes narrowed and focused.

"Okay, try to focus because this is important. You have to tell Ash about Castiel, really drill it into his head that this is a memory he has to keep. Make it a happy memory somehow, I don't know. All I know is, you can't lead him astray, he has to stay in the Roadhouse and die that day with everyone else, don't try to save anyone. Got it?"

Dean nodded curtly, a segment of his top lip curling as revulsion and anger washed over his features. "Yeah I got it."

He stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, and slammed his hand into the bloody image. Sam prayed to Castiel one last time, and he tried to ignore the pain in his brothers body language.

Dean was standing in a very tiny, very black room. There was a constant hum behind him and a warm, metallic texture pressed into his bicep so he assumed he was in a utilities room. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to prepare himself. As much as he wanted to barge into heaven right now, Dean was going to step out of this room and look into Jo's face and know that her young life would be brutally short. He would have to look at Ash without giving away any secrets.

Dean sucked in a deep breath and let it out through his nose, straightening his shirt and clenching his jaw. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob he found in the dark, and stepped into the warm, glowing light of a deserted hallway. He could very easily follow the clamor of glasses and idle chatter, laughter and music of the Roadhouse.

Up a flight of stairs and through the kitchen door, Dean could not help the violent jolt that went through him as he set his eyes on Ellen and Jo at the bar, hunched over a ratty collection of papers that Ash was pointing at.

"Now, this here is a nest in the bayou, I'm sure of it. Been three disappearances in four months, all three victims have turned up with two puncture wounds in the jugular. I'm gonna call in a few hunters and see if anyone wants it, but uh, I don't know. There's just something weird about this that makes me want to hold off. This article plain as day lays out a perfect vamp nest classic, but it's almost 2 weeks old and as far as I know, and I know a lot, no one has picked up its scent.

Seen odd to you? Like it was planted almost."

Jo's brilliant head lifted as Dean approached, and she smirked at him. "Dean. What hole did you crawl out of this time?"

He laughed and after laying a piece of paper down on the bar, approached her; grabbing one of her hands, wrapping his free arm around her slim waist, and pulling her towards the empty floor. Jo's eyes grew wide as dinner plates, but there was joy on Dean's features, not hard desire, so she relaxed in his embrace and danced the waltz of not-knowing-how-to-waltz-at-all with Dean Winchester. After a few moments of twirling in circles and loud laughter from Dean, he let Jo's hands go, and side stepped suavely to Ellen, pulling her in a similar two step dance. The mother was just as startled as the daughter, but she too detected the strange, almost exuberant joy in Dean's body language and so she smiled and showed him a thing or two about the actual dance.

Ash smiled from his perch at the bar, sipping the beer in his hand as Jo reclined on her elbows over the counter top watching Dean and her mother spin in lazy circles of fond friendship. "I wish I knew what's got him all smiles, but it's a damn treasure to see a hunter smile like that."

Ash nodded his agreement, and turned around to look over his papers when he noticed a much newer sheet of paper lying on top of his article clippings. It read in small, viciously red letters:

Winchesters trapped in heaven. Tell them, 'Castiel was taken.'

It took Dean nearly a week to get back to Sammy, though much of it was simply a grudging desire to stay at the Roadhouse and drink in the presence of the friends he would lose once he returned. He could not ignore the desire to return and move on to the next step of the plan however, he was sure Castiel was somehow suffering even though he went backwards in time, well before the angel was made to pay for his third great rebellion.

A rebellion that still did not make much sense to Dean. The only thing he was aware of was a flash of light in the middle of the night which brought the Winchester's to staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-gun from dead sleep in under three seconds, both boys still sitting in their individual beds wrapped up in blankets. Cas fell out of that light, face first into the motel carpet. His clothes were hanging off of him as if someone had tried to rip them away, or Castiel had the most tremendous sex of his strangely non-sexual existence.

Cas had climbed to his feet and shot a hand in the general direction of the brothers, saying "Run!" in a hoarse voice, as if he'd been screaming for hours. Any further communication had been cut off however, when three pissy flying pigs stumbled in after him, and shoved the weakened star of heaven around, stabbing into his vessel with thin, rakish versions of the archangel blade. Cas roared and screamed and punched and kicked and stabbed himself, but he was one and they were three and Castiel looked to have already been through round twelve hours before.

He had appeared half beaten out of his wits, and though a tremendous fight ensued, in the end, they hoisted the barely conscious divine creature and climbed into the sky without a word of explanation. But Dean knew, deep in his gut where instincts are always right, that this was the last time heaven would allow their rogue angel a taste of rebellion. Warning the Winchesters of whatever was supposed to come their way that night was Castiel's third strike, and heaven is not a kind teacher.

Sammy did his part however, and by the time Dean returned to his proper place in their timeline they were ready to prepare for the next stage. They hashed it out over piping hot pizza and cold beer, enjoying their meal like it was their last beneath the warm glow of a dimming yellow light. The brothers discussed and laughed and poked at one another, but the hidden subtext was blaring, and it was in fact their last meal on earth.

"Alright, we have to find a way to die without doing it intentionally, we don't want to commit suicide and go to hell. So, the obvious answer is to go hunting, and do really stupid shit. Like forget the flamethrower against a wendigo or something. I mean, eventually our luck has to run out, right?"

Dean nodded as he chomped his way through his oozing cheese slice of pizza, "Sounds like a plan Sammy, anything show up on the radar?"

Sam produced several article clippings that and nodded, "Yeah, I think I found a case in Louisiana, looks like a vamp nest. So, I say we go through our stash, get rid of any dead man's blood and any other useful things against a vamp, and go in guns blazing, except with regular lead slugs in the chamber."

Dean's brow furrowed and he leaned forward suspiciously. "Wait, you said Louisiana, as in the bayou?" When Sam nodded something occurred to Dean, and he set the mostly eaten slice of pepperoni and crust heaven down on his paper plate. "I think the fucks upstairs are on to us. Ash was talking about a vamp nest in Louisiana, and that was almost 2 years ago by this time. I think someone is listening in, trying to prevent us from getting to heaven in case we try anything funny, send us on a wild goose chase until they can finish whatever it is they're doing to Cas."

Sam's eyes flared in concern, and he nodded. "I guess that would make sense. Well, we gotta go legit then. Find a way to die, without…purposefully walking in front of a bus that will probably swerve around us and kill everyone in the bus just to torment us. Seems like something the monkeys upstairs would do."

Dean grunted in agreement, pulling a long drag from his cold brew as his mind churned. "I dunno Sammy. Let's sleep on it, see if we've got any bright ideas in the morning?"

Sam nodded, his dark brown eyes swirling in concern at the taunt, distressed face Dean carried around daily. It was in some ways much worse than the apocalypse, because that they'd won, they'd beaten it back and stomped it into the ground and laughed in its face when it was said and done. But they had Castiel then. Now they had just the two of them, and Dean was cracking under the surface. So many people were dead at the hands of 'heaven', so many good people whose lives were ended on account of the good and right that it made next to no sense that the house of holy was causing even more grief for its own stupid, selfish reasoning.

But, Dean conceded, that was his general opinion of religion anyways.

So they packed up their food and their beers and they turned in for the night. A tired, heavy "Goodnight," exchanged as the lights went out and the brothers settled down beneath their covers.

Dean had been asleep for an hour or two. Soundly asleep, quiet snores and tossing and turning in the throes of the ever present nightmares. But Sam never did, he laid in his bed, his thoughts whirling as he tried to come up with a way in which a person could intentionally die without committing suicide. And that's when it hit him.

Sam bolted upright in bed, suddenly breathing quickly and painfully. He glanced over at his beloved older brother, staring for what seemed like hours before he decided on a plan of action. He swung his legs out from beneath the covers and quietly picked up Dean's car keys as he made his way outside, and lifted the trunk of the Impala. Rustling through some of their duffle bags, Sam found the two things he was looking for, and prayed one last time to Castiel before he returned to the motel room where his brother lie slumbering.

"Castiel, I…I just want you to know, if you can hear this, that I'm doing this for Dean and for you. And when it's all said and done and you're rescued—because I know Dean will find you even if he has to tear heaven apart—maybe you could give him back to me?"

With a heavy heart Sam Winchester walked back into their dingy hotel room, opening a packaged syringe as quietly as he could. He stared at it for a long while, trying to fight back the emotions in him. Every cell in Sam's body was on high alert, every inch of his being screaming at him to back away, to find a different way to do this, but this was the only way Sam could ensure Dean didn't find his way back to hell. It was a burden he would carry to, for once, take care of Dean.

So when the capsule behind the needle was full with a disgusting amount of morphine, Sam stretched his arms out, and shot a lethal dose of pain killers into his brother system. He watched Dean for a moment, trying to gauge his reaction and see if he would wake. The eldest Winchester dozed on, unaware of his impending fate whilst Sam tried to angle the needle in Dean's arm to make it appear like a suicide.

His tears were falling before he could cross the foot distance between beds and hang his head, sobs growing in volume. Dean's snoring was growing quieter, and the agony in Sam's soul was tremendous. He wished so hard that he could siphon the morphine from Dean's body, from one instant to the next he swung in a painful bout between self-loathing and devotion. On one hand, Sam knew Dean would be grateful for his shot to get to Castiel, even if it meant Sammy had to murder him.

But then, Sam was not sure that Dean could have the strength to kill Sammy if the situation had been reversed, in fact, he knew he wouldn't. There was no darkness in Dean, only Sammy carried that taint. So Sam cried his heart out as his brother died next to him, and he prayed so hard that Castiel might hear him and please, please give Dean back when it was all over.

Sam waited for one hour before he picked up his cell phone and dialed for the emergency authorities, hysterically crying—and it was genuine—that his brother was dead. The ambulance came and assessed the situation and took Dean away, needle still hanging from a vein whilst Sam sat on the bed and bawled. The police came and questioned him, and Sam answered everything and went silent and numb. The papers reported a suicide, and there was no one left to ask Sam how Dean was doing because they hadn't heard the news, because they were all dead too.

For Sam, it was now a waiting game. He had to try to avoid dying or he'd go to hell for murdering his brother, but it did little to prevent the youngest Winchester from ganking any supernatural creature he could find. While Dean and Castiel were in heaven battling it out with the bastards upstairs, Sam was the only one left to guard his home, and the watch dog had a very short temper these days.

First posted fanfic, I thought I would try to give the narrative voice of the characters something much closer to the characters themselves then to what I typically write as...well, myself. So I chose to use profanity within the narrative to make Dean seem more surly and aggressive, and to detail Sam's progressive journey as he loses his brother and the emotional upheaval he will experience afterwards. Let's see how it works out!