Author Note: I don't own Supernatural, and even if I did I wouldn't do half as good a job. Title from Led Zeppelin.
Nobody's Fault But Mine
You mess up in Winner, South Dakota. Oh cruel irony. You try to take on too much at once but you've been dealing with Croats for near on eight months now and you all seem to reckon you can handle this. By no means can you handle this. Jackson is gone in moments (well, most of him anyway) and it doesn't take long for Cyn and Grossman to bite it either. You and Cas and everyone else who is still not dead yet help you drag the ones that almost made it out in one piece back to Bobby's place. You blaze in through the back and before you can even throw Mark down onto a table he's turned. Bobby gets a nice (or not so nice) bite taken out of him and things are moving far too quickly for you even after you've emptied a clip into what used to be your friend. Not that you really have friends any more. You don't know how you survived watching Sam (no, not Sam) walk away but you did. You don't survive Bobby. The second last thing he says to you is "take care of yourself kid". You almost cry. The last thing he says to you is "you better make this good" before you finish off Mark's rounds into the man who may as well have been your father. You almost cry with the effort it takes not to.
-
Cas finds you outside afterwards. You throw yourself against the nearest solid surface (a wall) and the noises you make should terrify you but you're too lost in making them for fear to register. And by the time you're able to breathe again you're in too much pain to care. Cas puts his hand on your shoulder and you think "screw it" and you kiss him and you never go back. Someone else burns Bobby's body for you, none of them think to pick up his chair.
-
It takes you another five months to shut down completely. Killing people you've come to care about can do that to you. In the end you just stop caring (well, almost), and you don't want to start again. Unfortunately there's one person who keeps you going through the barriers of desolation, and it's not Sam.
-
When you meet Past You it is the last thing you want to see. No, really. You'd rather Lucifer walked up the drive. He's peering around the Impala; you stopped driving her a long while ago when you realised you didn't trust yourself to go anywhere alone. It's like seeing everything you could have been and aren't. It's like seeing the man you should have killed (no, it is like that) and all the anger and self-hate and bitter regrets incorporeal form. You've never wanted things to end more. So maybe you take the others out when you aren't quite ready. You justify it with timing and even Cas doesn't try to argue this time so you go and you get two of you killed and another body to burn. You're starting to see a pattern (a horrifying pattern) and you just want it to stop.
-
"You just killed a man in cold blood." Oh, if only. You look past yourself and Cas is looking the way you often catch him looking at you these days, these fatal days. Not ashamed or disappointed. He just looks sad. And you think that your angel has been through enough (Enough.) but unfortunately you're going to have to put him through just a little bit more of Hell before he finally gets his reprieve. Soon, but not soon enough.
-
The way Cas can't even look at you, at Past You, when he mentions the torture doesn't break your heart as much as the fact that you don't feel anything when he does. You wish you could hate yourself for what you did (what you do) but you stopped feeling a long time ago. You play your role: the fearless (oh cruel, cruel irony) leader, the ladies' man. All you really want is to skip back five years, five months, just to feel something. You'd even go back to the day Bobby died (the day you killed him) just to know that you loved Cas. But it doesn't work that way.
-
"Are you coming?" And although you know the answer you are begging him to say no, you'd go to Hell and not come back for him to say no. But Cas has never been able to say no to you and, by God, don't you know it.
-
Before you go (and you're really going this time, aren't you) you find Cas out on the porch, watching the heavens. You never talk about the drugs, mostly because if you pretend you don't know you can pretend you don't know it's not your fault. You should have said yes, and you should have looked after Sammy, and most of all these days (what's left of them) you should have looked after Cas. You should have loved him when you had the chance. You just sit with him a while, because it's the last time you'll do that as humans (well, almost). It's the second to last time you'll be sure you can still feel, sure you can still love. It's a painful realisation but you'll take that pain.
-
"Even Cas?" You take a break from killing the devil to wonder how long ago you didn't realise you cared. Five years seems like a long time. Four years of blind ignorance feels even longer but at least you had a year. Not your first countdown, your first last grains of sand, but although you may have had your doubts last time, you know you could have done better with these last twelve months. Then again, there is no place for love in this world (your world) and you'd never have made it anyway.
-
As you feel Sam (no, not Sam) twisting the bones in your neck almost until they snap you realise you should be thinking about the survivors; Chuck, Jane, maybe even Sam if he's still in there somewhere. But it's not those you're leaving behind that you think about. It's Cas. You're pretty sure ex-angels can't be turned so you're pretty sure he's one they'll tear apart. Well, either way, at least you won't have to shoot him (thank God you won't have to shoot him). You try not to think about the obscene amounts of blood that will litter the warehouse afterwards; crimson is the only shade left in God's paint pot. So you think of the man (Angel.) you love, and you reckon you won't mind leaving this world (again) with that thought. Cas. And hey; maybe he'll make it.
Here's hoping.