Welcome to my first sort-of fix-it fic (sort of because it's still very depressing)
Inspiration from Johnny Cash's "I See a Darkness" and "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse.
Cas stormed past him, dropping his angel blade into his hand. Dean stiffened before promptly making up his mind to haul him back. The fight was over. They could still walk away from this.
"Cas!"
Cas ignored him. Dean felt hands on his arm, tugging him back. He struggled furiously in Sam's grip, even when Sam put himself between Cas and Dean like a human barrier.
"No, Dean-" Dean's fingers fisted into the shoulder of Sam's flannel as he tried to shove him off. But Sam was bigger and stronger, and Dean was already injured as it was. He could only let himself be dragged back to the portal.
"Get offa me," he wrested in Sam's grip, but Sam's only acknowledgment of his struggles was to tighten his grip. He watched in horror over Sam's shoulder as Cas approached Lucifer. He barely saw Cas stab him, and the devil doubled over, clutching Cas' blade arm. Even from their distance, Dean could see the devil's eyes glowing with red hellfire as he looked up at Cas with something akin to shock.
Then Sam pushed him into the portal. They both stumbled through, and barren dust was replaced with grass.
Dean whipped around, staring at the portal. Cas was coming back. He had to come back.
And he did. Dean breathed a sigh of relief when Cas reappeared through the portal. He could hear the smile in Sam's voice.
"Cas-" Sam laughed, a short huff of amazement- Cas was okay. They could figure this out, together.
But no, they couldn't. It was simple Murphy's Law- whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
Cas died thinking that the Winchesters didn't trust him. That they hated him.
And now they would never be able to tell him otherwise.
Then Mary- their mom, the only blood family they had left to desperately cling to, the one both brothers agreed would have to be pried from their cold dead fingers before they let her go- she-
She was gone. The devil ripped her away. The portal closed.
Sam watched as Dean slowly fell to his knees next to Cas. Gold light was throwing itself across Dean's face, casting the ground in a glow, accentuating his brother's sharp features. The house was glowing. Sam turned in time to see the light on the windows grow brighter, becoming a supernova, searing shapes into Sam's eyes that danced under his closed eyelids.
He was reluctant to leave his brother alone right now. But he was the only one of the two that was together enough to be functioning. He cast one last reluctant glance at his brother before sprinting towards the house.
Kelly. He supposed a part of him hoped that he was alive, but even as he ran upstairs for the room he knew that it was a ridiculous notion.
Kelly was laying on the bed, hands folded neatly on her lap. Sam could almost trick himself into thinking she was alive if not for the complete stillness of the blankets, her unblinking eyes.
He cast a furtive glance around the room. The nephilim was gone.
Sam stood over Kelly's bedside, closing her eyes.
She was innocent. Just another victim screwed over by Fate's humor.
He continued his search. The nephilim was somewhere in the house. A ticking bomb with a timer that no one could control.
He ran into the next room, casting a quick glance around. It was dark, a stark contrast to the glow from only a moment before. He didn't see anything at first glance. He stepped further inside, craning around to see behind the furniture.
There was a dark mass in the corner. It had eyes. It shifted, and Sam could more clearly see his features as they caught the light. No older than a teen.
His eyes widened. He gasped slightly, taking a step back.
The nephilim.
Dean knew he should be doing something, should be looking for something, or someone, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He couldn't feel Sam's presence behind him anymore.
He should move. But his legs weren't working, and every breath he took was a stabbing nuisance. Lucifer had broken a few of his ribs, he supposed.
He couldn't bring himself to care.
The nephilim disappeared with an evil smirk, and for a horrifying moment Sam could see the devil in its was a sucking sound, like air being displaced, and he found himself staring at the wall.. Sam stared at the empty space, waiting for it to reappear- but it- Jack- was gone. Sam's brain stuttered to a halt.
He stood there, dumbstruck. This- all of it- was for nothing. All that they'd lost, all that they'd sacrificed- there was no point.
Sam needed to pull himself together. There were things that still needed to be done, and Dean was in no state of mind or body to be doing them.
When Sam went back outside, Dean was still kneeling next to Cas. He hadn't moved. His eyes were squeezed shut, his breath coming in shallow gasps, ribs grinding with every move he made.
Sam went behind him, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder before crouching down next to him. His stomach churned when he saw the wing prints on the ground, but he forced himself to keep going. If he stopped now, he didn't think he could ever start again. He needed to get Dean away from here. He was in shock, he was injured.
Dean let himself be hauled up. His legs had fallen asleep from being in that position for so long, and he very nearly collapsed, but Sam caught him, putting a hand to his chest to keep him upright. Dean sagged against him, letting his fumbling feet blindly take him wherever Sam was leading him.
Cas died on a Thursday.
It was May. Sunny. They'd chosen a nice grassy patch under the weeping willow tree. The upturned earth was warm as two graves were dug by two brothers. Sweat made Sam's shirt cling to his back as he brought the shovel down to the earth.
Dean tried to help. A last gesture, a sign of loyalty to a fallen brother.
But Sam noticed that he was getting tired out more easily than usual. Dean's hands were shaky from nerves and pain, a sheen of sweat appearing on his too-pale skin. Every time he brought the shovel down, his broken ribs threatened to puncture a lung. But if Dean noticed, he couldn't bring himself to care.
It didn't take long before Sam snatched the shovel from Dean's hands. "I don't need you killing yourself." Sam had said.
Dean didn't argue, which only made Sam that much more worried. Quiet Dean was not good. He made his brother go sit at the base of the willow until he was done.
Halfway through digging Kelly's grave, he looked over to see his brother bent over something with his pocketknife in hand. Good. He was keeping himself busy. Trying to stay distracted.
A few minutes later Dean limped over, and Sam finally saw what he was working on. He had made a rickety little cross out of some nearby tree branches and lashed them together with braided pieces of grass. He wordlessly handed it to Sam, who stuck it in the ground at the head of the graves. The wood was worn and gnarled, cockeyed, almost falling apart. But it was holding itself together better than them.
They weren't holding it together. They had their facades, of course, but even a facade can look like a familiar face to your loved ones. They were both falling apart, a pair of marionette dolls that Fate had played with a bit too harshly. They were broken. Fate had been careless.
It was fitting that the world would come crashing down around Dean's ears so soon after Cas' death.
As it was, the best they could give him was a hunter's burial. Salt and burn the body. Leave nothing but the bones. Nothing to remember either heroes by except a handmade cross, with the letters C.W. and K.K. painstakingly carved into both arms of the cross. The letters were sloppy, simple, scratched in.
Dean helped spread the gasoline and salt after Sam put down the bodies. He could still see the little image of the cross seared into his mind, even when the flames rising up out of the graves obscured his vision. The white bundles were blackening under the fire, soon to be no more than a memory.
It felt- wrong, somehow. Like a betrayal. Cas deserved more than this, he deserved to be alive and breathing, standing here next to them as the world said its goodbyes to Kelly Klein. Standing with them against the world, against all odds. Like he always was.
Like he always had been.
Why they even bothered to salt and burn the body, Dean didn't know. Cas didn't have a soul to come back and haunt them with. Even if he did, he surely wouldn't become a vengeful spirit. He wasn't coming back. The cosmic consequences had found him in the end, after all. He'd paid his price for protecting the Winchesters.
Now they'd repay him, in the only way they could.
Dean was beginning to wonder if Cas' insane hope in the nephilim, his faith, was all for redemption. He needed to believe that he hadn't broken the world, he needed to believe that the nephilim would save the world when they were too weak. Or maybe it was for a sense of security: when they died, Cas wanted someone to keep the light on.
Dean didn't care about intentions. It hadn't even been born yet and it already killed two people that Dean held closest. He couldn't help but hate the nephilim.
He'd went through Cas' car, trying to find any hints as to where the nephilim might go for safety. He'd found nothing, just the sense that he wasn't alone.
And the books in the glove compartment.
He didn't know why they made him so angry. Just knew that when he picked one up- "What to Expect When You're Expecting"- his teeth were on edge, the ringing in his ears seemed to grow in pitch, and he suddenly had the urge to just throw it out the window along with the bottle of women's vitamin gummies he'd found, towards the spot where his mom disappeared, near where Cas' bony wings were seared into the ground.
Because of course, Cas would be the one to go all den-mom on the child of Lucifer. Because of course, Cas, the angel, would end up being the most human of all of them.
Because of course, Dean realized, as he looked through the rest of Cas' stuff (for clues, he told himself) Cas would be the kind of guy who would take an online Doula class, who would read 74 books about raising kids, who would spend a small fortune to make Kelly's final days as comfortable as possible, who would be the one who promised to protect the "savior" with his last breath, just as he'd done for the two saviors that had been born around 40 years ago.
Because, of course, Cas did protect Jack with his last breath.
That's just who he was.
It'd be easier to move the stars than to change Cas.
Thanks to DarkHeartInTheSky for pointing out the little continuity error in here :)
As always, I live for your reviews- if you have time, don't hesitate to drop a comment. I don't have specific update days set, but I already have 3 chapters written, so I'm too invested to just abandon this.