This is purely speculative for season 14, but there are 13x23 spoilers, so be warned. Just one way I could see the situation 'resolving' itself, and the idea didn't want to let me go. The title is from Imagine Dragons' 'Bleeding Out', and specifically the live acoustic version (which is haunting and beautiful) helped inspire the piece. Let me know what you think, it would be greatly appreciated!
I don't own anything Supernatural, Imagine Dragons, or Peaky Blinders related, though I wish I did.
I'm bleeding out
Said if the last thing that I do
Is to bring you down
I'll bleed out for you
So I bear my skin
And I count my sins
And I close my eyes
And I take it in
And I'm bleeding out
I'm bleeding out for you
The battle comes down to Dean and Sam, in some strange format, as it should. Only, Sam's not fighting Dean, but the archangel that's still piloting his body like an evil puppeteer, pulling on the strings to hurt their family while Dean sits in some dark corner of his mind, forced to watch the entire thing.
By the time they are the only two standing, Dean is kicking, screaming, and cursing at the archangel. He's watched everything happen. He's seen what angels Michael could scrape together fight the survivors from the other world and Dean's family. It was by some miracle that Michael got distracted before he was able to finish off Cas, and he left the angel in a bloody heap before he went to deal with the pitiful humans that were making this war so irksome.
Mom, Jack, Bobby, Charlie…Dean loses track of them eventually. He can't exactly turn his head any more to look for them amongst the bodies that are starting to fall along the warehouse floor. He doesn't recall Michael throwing Dean's fists and blades into them, and Dean's hoping that Michael hasn't blocked the memories from him. He doesn't see Sam until it's just the two of them left.
Michael lost the newsboy cap somewhere along the way and his hands are bruised and bloody from the fighting, but he's going strong. Sam, on the other hand, is still bloody, but he wavers only slightly when he stands. It's clear by the way he straightens up that he's putting on a show for Michael, but Dean can see right through it.
"Dean, I know you're in there, you can fight this, I know you can!" Sam's voice raises as he says it. How many times he's done so, Dean's lost count. Every single encounter they've all had together, Sam's said the exact same thing. Dean wants to break through and shout at Sam that he's actually here, he's actually listening, but Michael's clamps on him are too tight.
Michael tilts his head in an action that's foreign to Dean, sitting copilot in the body he used to own. "Sam, we've been over this," the archangel says calmly, and damnit, Dean can feel his lips twitching up into a smirk, "Dean's gone, tossed so far into a corner he'll never see the sun. You're wasting my time."
It's somewhat true. Michael's allowed him to 'see' a few times over the past few months. The only reason behind the action was to break Dean down and let him know that no matter what person Michael was torturing with Dean's hands, he'd never be able to stop it.
"That's my brother you're possessing," Sam points with a bloodied angel blade, even though it won't do anything against the archangel, and Dean knows he won't use it on this body, "so you've already lost, you just don't realize it yet."
It starts slowly, a chuckle that builds in Dean's chest and comes out Michael's lips, and Sam's eyes alight with a new fury. "Your optimism is…endearing, but it's not enough to keep you alive. You will move, Winchester, this is the way the world will work from now on, and the humans will learn. Bow. Or die."
Sam doesn't even consider this. He just shakes his head, his eyes not moving from Michael's, from Dean looking through them. "Pass," he says simply, and if Dean weren't so worried about Sam's well-being, he'd fist-pump the air out of sheer proudness.
"Shame. Option two it is, then." Michael's fists clench and unclench at his sides, and then he begins moving towards Sam with no intention of stopping until he has the disobedient human in a pile at his feet. Dean knows this because Michael's thinking it, he's seeing it, he's about to put it into action.
And Sam, hopeful, loyal, pain in the ass little brother that he is, tosses the angel blade nearby and clenches his fists as well. The angel blade will do nothing against Michael, and will only serve to injure Dean should they ever successfully get the two beings separated. "Dean, you've got him beat," Sam reminds in a warning tone, but the angel continues to advance.
Dean's pushing as hard as he can, but the walls inside his mind aren't moving. The chains binding him won't snap, and he can't open his mouth enough to let Sam know he's still listening or to tell him to fight back.
"Persistent," Michael mutters, amused as he does so, and throws a punch at Sam's abdomen. Why he's doing it hand to hand and not simply snapping his fingers or going for a weapon, Dean has no real idea, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he wants Dean to see the destruction of everything he's ever loved. In Michael's mind, it'll give him nothing left to fight for and make him a peaceful host. He couldn't be more wrong.
Sam dodges the first punch, but in his weakened state, brings his hands up too slow to block the second one that comes to his face. His head snaps back and the reverberations from the blow tingle up Dean's arms, right into his mental prison.
"Sam!" he screams, and pounds harder and harder, so hard that he thinks, for a split second, that Michael's hand hesitates before he delivers the next blow.
"No matter the universe," another blow, "you humans are all the same!" It's punctuated with a hard knee to Sam's stomach that sends him doubling over and falling to the floor. "Disobedient! Wasteful! Pathetic!" Each insult was matched with an attack and soon the blood on Sam's face matched that on Dean's knuckles.
Michael towers over all six and some feet of Sam, collapsed on the floor and grimacing in pain. He regards him for a moment before bending down slightly to grab Sam's collar, effectively pulling the beaten hunter up more to look him in the eye. "You don't deserve what you were gifted with," he spits, and shoves Sam back as hard as he can. Sam falls back onto the ground, head and shoulders raised as much as he can bear.
Dean almost begs him to fall unconscious so maybe Michael will lose interest…but of course that will never be the case. Instead, Michael pulls the archangel blade out of his pocket, a showing of power (cockiness, by Dean's perspective, which Michael would pay for) and twirls it in his bloodied hand.
"You won't ever deserve it, not unless you change, but your species is doomed to repeat the failures of that from my world. You, Sam Winchester, are inconsequential in that. I had hoped for more. But now," this time Michael gestures with the blade, "it doesn't matter. You will die, and I will move on."
Dean's breathing heavily, if that is even possible to when he is literally trapped inside a prison of his body's own making. Sam's looking at Michael, no, almost through him, trying to reach Dean through half-lidded eyes. "Dean," he whispers yet again, and winces as he does so.
It's quiet, a plea for Dean to hear him, a showing of his unending faith in his big brother to come save the day, call it what you want to, Dean knows what it is, and it shakes him to his core. It's the last word Sam's said before he's died…how many times? A shout of danger approaching, of danger present, or of danger already attacking him. When the vampires had ripped out Sam's throat only months ago, it had been a desperate shout in a dark, deadly cave, and Dean hadn't been able to reach him in time.
He will reach him now. He won't let his brother's last word be his name, not again, now when he's still got faith that they can pull this off. They killed the devil together, Michael's just another archangel to add to the list.
"You stay the hell away from Sam," he grits his teeth and pours everything he has into it, even as Michael advances against his wishes. Dean envisions taking back control of every single one of his muscles, starting first with his hands and arms, then legs, then everything else.
There's too much blood on Michael's hands, Dean won't let Sam's reside there too.
Michael stops moving. Dean knows because he's watching. He freezes in place like a grotesque statue as Dean fights back for control. Sam is watching the whole silent exchange take place from his position on the floor.
Dean sees himself trapping Michael in a dark, mental cage like the one he's been stuck in. He picks the archangel up with two hands, stuffs him inside, and locks the door behind him. He pulls a curtain around it, whatever else will help. He takes that ball of angelic grace and evil and puts him where the sun doesn't shine.
Just as soon as he's sure his head is about to explode, Dean's hands re-situate around the blade in his grasp.
Dean's hands. His own, not controlled by the overpowering, omnipresent force of the past few months. His legs give out beneath him, half out of sheer relief, and half out of not quite remembering how to pilot a physical form.
He just has to get his sea-legs back, that's all, he'll get used to it…And then it begins to dawn on him. There's no way out of this. Michael is already screaming, shaking the cage Dean put him in, threatening to melt the bars and Dean himself from the inside out. There's only one way to fix this. He glances at the archangel blade in his hand-
"Dean?" cuts through his mess of thoughts that are actually his own. Sam's looking at him hopefully, tears welling in his eyes, but he hasn't yet moved towards him.
Dean smiles then, pained and relieved all at the same time. "Sammy," he whispers. "Sorry it took so long." Sorry I almost didn't get to you in time, sorry I had to watch everything happen without being able to stop it, sorry for doing this in the first place, sorry for ever thinking it would end well for anyone.
"Dean." There's no question about it that time, and Sam's face breaks into a similar relieved smile. "I knew you could do it, I knew you were in there, I knew…" he sits up ever so slightly, and Dean meets him halfway by pulling him up into a hug, being mindful of the blade and of Sam's injuries. Despite them, Sam's hands immediately wrap around Dean's back. He can feel them, slightly shaking, but present all the same, so different from any of the sensations he got while Michael was piloting.
"You always were the hopeful one. You know, I-" Dean's forced to cut himself off with a groan as Michael lets out a particularly powerful burst from inside his head, so much that his vision spots for a few seconds.
Sam's pulled back and is eyeing him warily, but not fearfully, he still knows Dean's in control. "Michael?" Dean gives him a curt nod, which is all he can do until he gets the ringing in his ears back in control. "We'll go to the bunker, expel him, it'll be fine."
Dean hears it, the tiny twinge of doubt in Sam's voice, and knows what it's about. "Sam," he warns softly.
"No, we expel him, we find a way to kill him, with all the lore, there's bound to be something."
Dean just shakes his head. "This is the something. I can't hold him forever. We need to end this, here and now." He keeps the doubt in his own voice in check, but Sam sees through it, as he always does.
"And you in the process?"
It settles uneasily between them, and Dean swears he can hear Michael laughing through the screams. It ends Michael in the process, thus saving the world, that's what matters.
"Just another day on the job." Dean means it to be a joke, but there's no levity behind it. He's pulling the same stint Sam did almost a decade ago, and they both know it. One of them for the fate of the world, hell, Dean did the same thing to a different degree only three years ago, it's time for another sacrifice.
Dean shifts his grip on the archangel blade, but doesn't move an inch away from Sam. He can see the wheels turning in his brother's mind, trying, and failing, to find a way out of this that doesn't involve Dean dead with wing imprints on the floor. He wishes they had time to go over all the options, he wishes he had time to tell Sam at length everything he'll never be able to verbalize, he wishes he could see the rest of his family one last time. Dean Winchester typically doesn't deal in wishes, he's had too much experience with them never coming true.
His just sighs and his eyes fall to the blade, which he moves to sit in his lap. Eyes white, wing imprints on the floor, soul no longer in his body, that's what the blade means. And he doesn't want Sam to see any of it. As the last request of a dying man, he figures he can ask Sam not to.
"Close your eyes, Sammy."
It's been uttered a few dozen times in Sam's life, all in varying degrees of Dean's voice. The slightly harsh tone that made it clear Sam shouldn't be looking at the burning monster corpse before he's a teenager. The gentler but still strict one directing Sam to not look at the gash on his arm that needs stitches. The pleading one begging Sam to not watch what he was about to do, standing over him with the scythe in his hand.
This time, Dean says it softly, the complete and utter opposite from the way Michael had been abusing his vocal chords just minutes prior. Despite the war going on in his own head to maintain control over his actions, his voice is stable and reassuring.
As always, the tone alone tells Sam that everything will be alright, even when he knows that things will probably never be alright again. Dean's looking at him, pleading with his green eyes open, and Sam finds he'd not breaking eye contact with his brother to look anywhere else. He can't. He physically can't tear his eyes off of his brother's face, the freckles on it, the hair that Michael let grow longer than usual…
And the smirk. The slight upturning of Dean's mouth on one side that's just so Dean that it makes Sam's eyes burn. He's fighting inside his own mind, and he's still smiling for Sam's benefit. Ninety percent of everything he's ever done has been for Sam's benefit, why would he stop now?
"Dean," he whispers, his voice breaking more than his brother's as he tilts his head ever so slightly. If Dean can hold Michael off this long, they can find a way to beat him, trap him, expel him, kill him, do something without hurting Dean. Sam opens his mouth to try to get Dean to understand, even if he himself doesn't believe it, but he doesn't get very far.
Dean's hand rests softly on Sam's shoulder, his other hand holding the gleaming archangel blade in his lap. He knows what Sam's thinking, he's always known, but this is their last and only shot. It's for the good of their whole world, and Sam hates it. He hates that once again, his brother is about to sacrifice himself for everything and that no one outside of the few survivors in the room will ever know he did so.
He squeezes once, and there's an almost imperceptible shift in his features to a slight wince before the smirk returns. They're running out of time. Not Dean, them, both of them, because when one of them dies, the other tends to not fare too well.
"Sammy," is all Dean simply says. It's the first word Sam remembers Dean saying to him, and it's probably fitting that it will also be his last. The emotions behind the words, the 'I love you' and the 'take care of yourself' and the 'don't do anything stupid' and the 'I'll see you soon, but not too soon, jerk' are all there in such force that Sam's eyes begin to fog up. He blinks the tears away, he can't miss a single millisecond of his brother's last moments. There's no coming back from this.
Dean's last request is for Sam to not watch as he ends possibly the greatest threat this world or other worlds have ever known…and himself in the process. As much as it guts Sam to do, he has to give in. He knows Dean won't do it with him watching, waiting for the flash of light and the life to go out of his eyes. Dean will wait for him to close his eyes, and if he doesn't, Michael will take over and lock Dean down so he can finish torching the planet, Sam first. He won't let his brother live out that agony. He won't. That's also why most of what Sam had ever done has been for Dean's benefit.
His gaze still hasn't left Dean's, but he gives the tiniest of nods, and a tear streaks down his face, probably trailing blood and grime as it does so. Dean pats his hand twice on Sam's shoulder, and then slowly moves it up to wipe off the blood on Sam's cheek and grasp the back of his head. The moment is fleeting, and Sam wants to live in the security of it forever, but eventually Dean's hand drops to join the other around the archangel blade, the instrument of death that Sam can't bear to look at.
Sam keeps looking at Dean until tears gather too in the older hunter's eyes, half-smirk still stuck on his face in defiance of what's to come. Sam's hand scrambles in front of him and finds the edge of the coat that Michael put on and grasps it like a lifeline. The cap is lying off in a heap somewhere. If Dean could stick around, they'd make jokes about sewing razor blades into it just like the gangs in Peaky Blinders. They never did get to finish it, and Sam doubts he can ever watch another episode without seeing his brother in the clothes of every man that walks onscreen.
The coat feels wrong, too scratchy and foreign and dark, not like Dean's hunting jackets or his flannel or the leather jacket from years ago. Everything about it is wrong.
He looks for just a split second longer and right before the tear falls from his brother's face, Sam shuts his eyes.
Sam's always had expressive eyes. They can betray his thoughts, emotions, worries, and a myriad of other things that have gone into Dean's book on how to be a good big brother. How many times has he looked back into those eyes and seen complete and utter heartbreak looking at him? Too damn many. He wishes he could have done more to prevent some of those looks, and he wishes there were a way around the one he's on the receiving end of now.
But there's no way around this, and they both know it. Even now, Dean can feel Michael clawing back for control. Of course, Sam's worry shifts ever so slightly and without saying anything, Dean can tell everything he wants to ask. He smirks, he puts a hand on Sam's shoulder, and he wishes he could do more. He wishes his little brother didn't have to be in the same damn room when this went down, but there's no time to convince him to leave and come back, and Dean's not sure how far Sam would make it anyways with his injuries.
He wishes Sam wouldn't have to take his body back again. He wishes they weren't dying in each other's arms again. The world's never done much for the wishes the Winchesters have asked for, and Dean's past hoping for any other outcomes.
He makes this as alright as he can, because that's all he can do. He puts on a facade he's sure Sam can see right through. He wipes a tear and a spot of blood from his little brother's cheek, and it's all he can do, and before long tears are gathering in his eyes as well.
Sam's memorizing his face, Dean knows it because he's doing the exact same thing, using all the mental capacity not taken up by holding Michael in place to spend with his brother.
The pained smirk stays on Dean's face and almost blessedly, Sam's eyes close right before water can stain Dean's cheeks. Sam's got his hand fisted into the foreign coat around them, just like he would with Dean's jackets in the Impala, giving him something to hold onto, and Dean's not about to remove that grip.
Sam tilts his head down further to the ground, and Dean takes a moment to look around the warehouse. Bodies, dead and unconscious, hunter and angel, litter the floor. There's a trench coat peeking out from behind one of the bodies, and something in Dean knows that Castiel is still alive. Injured, but alive. He can't see mom or Jack or Bobby or Charlie or Ketch, and his memories are so muddled that he can't remember if Michael fought them or not. He can't remember if any of the blood on his hands belongs to them. He can hope not, but he'll never know.
Sam will know, and Dean hopes that they can help piece each other back together again after all this is over.
The smirk falls from his face and he grits his teeth in a physical showing of keeping Michael at bay. The archangel is pounding inside his head, screaming to be let out, and Dean's hands shake as they clench around the blade and position it, point touching the front of his chest.
He closes his eyes, breathes, and opens them again. Michael is shouting at him to not do it, to not be an idiot, to drop the blade before it's too late. But Dean's head is filled with the sound of Sam's slightly ragged breathing. His eyes don't see the archangel behind them, but the brother on the ground next to him, hand in Dean's coat so tight the knuckles that aren't bruised have turned white.
Maybe, just maybe, with Michael and his followers gone, Dean's family, and the rest of the world at that, can finally have a break. If it keeps Sammy safe, it's worth it, there's no other choice to make. It's just another in the long line that have gone towards keeping his brother alive.
He nods just once, psyching himself up as the angel inside him roars and fights to take back control. Of course, with Sam's life on the line, Michael isn't getting back in control ever again.
Dean's shaking fingers steady. He feels the tip of the blade pierce his chest and for a split second, it feels like he's being burned from the inside out. Michael's scream reaches a crescendo, and there's nothing Dean can do to prevent himself from doing something similar. He hopes the sound doesn't haunt Sam's nightmares.
The fire continues. It burns and envelops and destroys, just like it did to his mother all those years ago. Then there's nothing. No pain, no Michael, no Sam at his feet, just…nothing. And Dean lets it carry him, knowing his job is done.
A small, tiny, minuscule part of Sam believes that in the seconds that follow, Dean won't go through with it, that he'll still have a brother to hang onto when this is all over. He should know by now that any hope or belief is usually detrimental to everything in situations regarding angels.
His eyes are screwed shut so tightly they almost hurt, but that does nothing to prevent the sudden brightness beyond his eyelids. The brightness he can stand, but the scream that follows he can not. It starts slowly and quietly, as if Dean's trying to hold it in, probably for Sam's sake. But pretty soon it's ripping through Dean's chest and coming out his throat in a loud cry.
The last sound Sam will ever hear from his brother is that of him dying, Sam thought he'd heard it enough, and apparently he was wrong about that too.
He'd put his hands over his ears if it wouldn't mean letting go of Dean's coat. Another tear falls from the corner of his eye and almost blessedly, the screaming stops. Sam knows what it means and following…there's just silence.
Then Dean's body starts tilting, unable to support itself under muscles with no one behind the wheel.
Sam opens his eyes the second he feels Dean start to shift, Sam's not about to let him collapse in a heap on the ground, not after everything. He keeps his eyes on Dean's face and shoulders, and guides the slumping mass towards his own chest. It's not hard to do, since they were both already kneeling on the floor.
But once again, Sam's supporting the lifeless weight of his brother, only five years after he did it the last time, and before that, six years since he did it the first time. There won't be another time.
Sam guides him down to rest on his lap, and pulls the angel blade out as gingerly as he can, and lets it rest with a clatter on the floor. He uses the coat to cover up the hole, though it doesn't do much for the blood. One arm supports Dean's head and shoulders, cradling him safely as if he were a child needing protecting. The roles are reversed when Dean dies, now Sam's the caretaker, the protector, making sure his brother gets what he needs even though he's no longer around to appreciate it or joke with Sam about being such a mother hen.
When his eyes finally make their way up to Dean's face, his green eyes are forever closed. Instead of being open in a silent scream like Sam had feared, Dean's mouth is in a line and his features have softened out. His face has some lines, worn on by time and the ever-present crushing weight of Sam and the world on his shoulders, more than should be on the guise of a man that never even hit forty.
He looks at peace, about as peaceful as a Winchester can be in death.
The survivors will no doubt celebrate Michael's demise, but it will be in a place away from Sam, in a subdued manner in honor of the man that gave his life to end Michael's. For now, they obey Castiel's wishes and tend to their wounds in quiet, not daring to come any closer to the brothers. It won't be long before more survivors begin to rouse, including the rest of Sam's family.
Cas moves just a few steps closer, enough to ensure himself that Sam is in fact alive on the outside, his lovingly and jokingly nicknamed 'sasquatch' frame shaking and huddled tight around the brother in his grasp. He lets Sam have his moments, however many he needs, before he quietly steps over and they can begin grieving together for the man, brother, hunter, and hero that offered up his life so many times for his family and the betterment of the world.