Chapter title is from song by Metallica.

80

The Unforgiven - Metallica

He waited for them in the shadows, well back from the entryway, tapping the First Blade restlessly against his shin. He waited, until he saw them silhouetted against the light, Cas' trench coat fluttering in the breeze. Cas turned towards him unerringly, and took a step forward.

"No. No closer." He was grateful, for the time, that Cas had no wings. It meant he couldn't move faster than human feet, couldn't move Sam faster than human speed. He kept his back to the wall and kept his eyes on Sam. "Where is it?"

Cas stared at him a second longer, indecision flickering on his face.

"That way."

The spell-shield made from the Nephilim's heart was blue. Blue and shimmery, cliché like every movie force field he had ever seen. His hand tightened around the First Blade and he took a deep breath, glancing down once at Zee by his side. She had her angel blade out, looking past the Nephilim shield, looking at the glowing orb of Cas' grace, parked over the biggest damned book he had ever seen.

This was it.

He took a deep breath, tracking Sam's position out of the corner of his eye. When he was sure Sam was far enough away, he swung at the blue-glowing curtain, hard.

The nephilim's heart shattered on contact with the First Blade, splitting into a thousand flakes of light. Bits of light that swirled angrily in the air, looking for something, swarming towards…him.

"GO, CAS, GO, GO, GO!" He swung the First Blade through the flecks of light, and took a step back, drawing the angrily buzzing cloud that surged towards him, tiny flecks that nipped at the First Blade, bit at his arm, bit at his face. He swatted at them, but all that did was make them buzz louder, shriller, until he wanted to do nothing but clap his hands over his ears, to block out the sound of a thousand prayers and invocations and curses and hopes, one voice overlapping another and another, the denseness of everyone in the city pressing down on him, every voice shrill and shrieking, nipping at him, nipping and nipping, taking tiny bites out of his mind like a shoal of pirahnas, shrieking at him until he couldn't THINK.

The Mark roared to flame on his arm, a roar of fire loud enough to drown everything else out, drown out the thousands and millions and billions of pinprick gray things stretching over the horizon and beyond, stretching through time without end, monsterangeldemonhuman, nothing out there but a thick swarm of gray, cresting over his head like a tidal wave, come to drown him.

He swung violently toward the flash of movement at the corner of his eye—angel—brilliant and searingly bright, so bright, too bright, too brilliant, and he snarled at the new ear-splitting whine that suddenly filled the room, filled his head, a reminder of something he had lost, fallen from, and he needed to pull it down, down into the blanket of the earth, where it would be muffled, where he could make it burn.

A voice.

Brother.

"DEAN!"

No.

Burn. It all had to burn.

It was hard to turn his head.

"Cas, NOW."

A woman's voice, the command in it sharp and authoritative. He knew that voice. By a hair of concentration he clung on, clung on to the promise in that voice. Stay still. He had to hold still, for just one more shut his eyes tight, panting with the effort of it, his arm rigid, his nails drawing blood as they bit into his palms around the hilt of the First Blade. He braced himself for the quick thrust of an angel blade beneath his ribs.

It never came.

A hand clamped down hard on his forearm instead, palm covering the burning Mark. His thoughts were so slow, nerves and muscles bound by a single gesture from Cas, unresponsive to the desperate panic of his heart. The hand that covered the Mark was cool, like water from a cold mountain stream, caressing over his skin. It severed his heated connection to the Blade, and his nerveless fingers dropped the ancient instrument of death, unable to manage even a twitch to summon it back. He felt dizzy, as the power of the Mark drained from him through the touch on his arm, drained the power that animated him, gave him what passed now for life.

Another glow started, this time much closer, bright in its immediate proximity, a different kind of burning heat. He feared what it was. Even though his eyes were sure Sam was well away from him, his brain was not adding, not computing and making a scramble of the possibilities.

With a wrench he tore his head out of Cas' control, the muscles of his neck cording and yielding with reluctance to a combined exercise of human and demonic will. He looked down. He did not want to see what he saw, did not want to acknowledge it, did not want the pain that cleaved the demon from his soul at last even as it took the fake life from his limbs and tore apart his human heart. He looked into amber eyes like molten gold, at her hand on his arm, the bright steady blue of her soul merged with the Mark's red glow like a balm over a wound, and that small smile he knew as his alone on her pale lips. He did not think he could hurt more, but he did. Her face was serene, but the fingers digging into his arm and the rigidity of her posture said anything but. He tried to pull his right arm from her grip, to free himself, to free her of the spell binding them now, but he was fading fast and she held on, grip tightening to prevent his escape. Everything spun and spun and darkness threatened. He could no longer see Sam, nor Cas, nor anything else but the narrow area immediately before him.

A whoosh of air fluttered to his right. He felt Cas place two fingers on his forehead, and saw him place two fingers on Zee's at the same moment. A thing wrenched in his body, vaguely like a heart remembering its purpose, and beat weakly against old fatal injuries. The wound he carried from Metatron's angel blade reopened, and blood spilled out.

Time sped up, then slowed to a crawl before it stood perfectly still. He could see her eyes, shining with clarity and peace, and the absence of tears. Her expression held him, saying all the thousand things for which words were weak. His throat worked, as he tried to find a way to empty what was left of his ruined soul into his eyes. To give her it all in the too small moment of time left to them. Her free hand reached up as he bent down, and drifted the softest of caresses along his cheek. Her light glowed until it stung like needles to look, but he would not look away.

Her smile was brilliant with anticipation over her whispered words.

"Be seeing you."

His legs gave way as the light from her soul expanded, blinding him. A heavy rush of solid air knocked him backwards, away from Cas' healing fingers as Cas too was flung by the growing iridescence. The shimmering glow contracted inward to a point, then disappeared.

His heart gave a final weak flutter as his lungs collapsed. Blood pumped in slowly failing spurts through the hole in his chest. His world dimmed and darkened.

And then it was just dark.