THREE:
I Will Face The Sun, Leaving Shadows Far Behind
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Sam and Dean felt the quake as the fire burned closer and closer. The sweat was pouring off them. Dean, as his hand encountered the front of his t-shirt in sharp pain, was reminded it wasn't the only thing.
A harsh tremor threw the boys from their feet. They sprawled in the dusty crags of the cliff top, hearing the lick of flames from beyond the edge.
Adrenaline gone, Dean had a sinking feeling he knew why he had no strength to get up again. He spread his right hand under his front, heard the slight squelch, felt the fire in his skin, and his suspicion was confirmed. He closed his eyes, refusing to get angry at something that had been inevitable since the day he had picked up a shotgun, ready to shoot a Striga.
He heard his brother grunt and realised that, no matter how sore he was feeling, Sam had to have it worse. He turned his head in the dirt to look at him.
Sam's eyes glittered yellow in the bright sun. "Dean…"
"We are so screwed, Sammy," he allowed. "That idea you had? Better be good."
"I can't control him much longer, Dean. He has to fight to get out, that's how he'll welch on all this. But if he gets me from the inside, if he gets out too soon, it won't just be us two who are screwed."
"I know," he managed, his voice rough at the dawning realisation of his brother's plea.
Sam gave a slight grunt of effort, of pain, clawing his way to the edge of the rocky cliff. He looked over.
"It is still burning, right?" Dean coughed.
"Yeah," Sam smiled in relief.
"Super." He put his one good hand out, grabbing at the rock beneath him. Sam heard movement and turned.
"Dean--"
"Shut up," he strained.
Sam bit his lip, watching his brother strain and heave his battered body to his side. He relaxed in the dust, breathing hard. He coughed, spitting out blood like it was sour milk.
Sam, startled, took in the spill of red, the way it was starting to pool under his brother. He clenched his teeth.
"Look, Dean… I've got to go. I've got to go over. To stop him. But you'll be ok - you can hold on," he managed.
"Not - this time," Dean rasped.
He shuffled his right elbow under him to bring his hand free. It was not, as Sam had thought, his arm that was injured. Two huge gashes had swept across his elder brother's chest, presumably from a tail. The deep lacerations, the flesh hanging weakly down each edge, the seep of too much blood - it was all too painful just to look at, and Sam felt his heart constrict.
"No," he whispered.
"Too old for this shit," Dean coughed. He turned the bloodied hand out, setting it on Sam's forearm. "Too slow. We shoulda retired already."
There was a long, awkward silence. Sam felt the twisting, thrashing fallen angel inside of him. "I'm running out of time," he whispered.
Dean turned his head to rest it in the dust, smiling at him slightly. "You and me both." He shoved at his baby brother's arm. "Hurry up," he grunted painfully. "We go together."
"Together?" Sam asked, smiling at last. He felt his face wet but didn't care.
"Always," Dean managed, his voice an agonised rasp.
"Right." Sam grabbed his upper arm and he shuffled closer to the edge. He helped his brother closer to the sheer drop. They both looked over.
"That's a helluva barbecue pit," Dean breathed, all his strength gone. "Think it'll fry Lucifer?"
"It'll fry us," Sam grinned knowingly. "And to kill the number one fallen angel, you gotta have that very rare thing no-one, no monster, no murderer, no demon ever found."
"Whut's - whut's that?" Dean coughed. Blood spilled from his mouth, but the only thing Sam had to offer was a sad smile.
"The only thing that can kill an angel is an angel," he reasoned. "And the only thing that can kill a fallen angel is a - is a fallen angel," he nodded, pushing at his brother. His meaning didn't appear to register with Dean, but Sam felt it stretching his face into a proud smile. "And the only thing that can kill a Winchester is a--
"Winchester," Dean managed. He grinned abruptly, but it brought more blood. "Well let's go then."
Sam looked over the edge. "Now?"
"Now or - or never."
Sam nodded, bracing himself for the push. But Dean caught his elbow with what seemed like the last of his strength.
"Sammy," he urged.
Sam just waited, staring at the blood, the bruises, the broken big brother before his eyes. No, he realised with suddenly bright, shining pride: not broken. Never broken. Beaten down, but never broken.
"What?" he managed, when Dean hadn't spoken.
"I…" He appeared to catch his breath, and Sam suddenly feared he wouldn't find it. The elder brother's face ran the gamut of emotions from guilt to pride to understanding to gladness.
"What?" Sam dared.
Dean was out of breath, out of courage to say what had to be said, and out of time. He decided on the one shortcut that could encompass everything, the one thing his baby brother would understand. "Bitch," he ground out.
Sam grinned but it brought water to his eyes. "You were always my favourite jerk," he allowed.
Dean's mouth curved into an indulgent smile as his eyes closed and his head sank to the rock beneath him.
"Dean! Dean!" he called, grabbing at his wrist. "C'mon man. Who's gonna make sure we both make it to the afterlife?"
Dean's eyes blinked open with an Herculean effort. His hand tightened on his younger brother's arm and he pulled at it.
Sam pulled too, struggling to get them both to the very tip. They paused, hanging over slightly.
"They better have - have wenches," Dean spluttered.
"They will." Sam looked at his brother, knowing it was for the last time. "Hey - you think we'll remember we did this? Wherever we end up?" he dared quietly.
Dean's eyes fluttered as he fought to keep them open. "Well I sure as Hell am - wherever I end up," he grunted. "Story of my goddamn life, that only you and me are the ones who could know."
Sam's face fell, twenty-six years of hope and failure battling it out on his tortured features. "I'll remember. I'll remember you brought him down. All I did was keep him there."
Dean shuffled his head to catch his brother's anguished, hopeful stare, the eyebrows begging for everything to finally, and once and for all, be alright. Just for a second, his eyes flashed brown-green again. Then the yellow closed over, fighting for control.
"Be hard to forget you, you pain in the ass," Dean coughed, a gruffness to his demeanour that Sam knew he would miss like the air he was breathing. "Let's go."
He tugged at Sam. His sibling pulled too. They rolled a few inches: that was all it took.
The drop from the edge was nothing. The fire into which they fell was a different story.
It consumed.
Everything.
The wind whipped at the flames, the flames stroked long fingers up the side of the rock face. But they failed miserably to get anywhere near the top.
The top. Where the pool of Dean's blood slowly sank into the rock itself, causing a large stain, dark with injustice. Where the tracks of Sam's dragged boots almost looked like part of the craggy surface.
Where two scuffed black shoes stopped.
He felt the wind in his face, heard the crackling of some world-changing fire far below. The wind howled and gusted, sending ash and grit into the air around him. He did not go to the edge. He did not look down. Instead he turned, about to leave.
Something caught his eye. It was small, shiny, half covered in the swirling dust. He approached warily, before crouching to look at it. His head tilted left and right as he inspected it.
"What is it?" said a voice from behind him.
Castiel put out his hand, digging into the dirt and lifting the small, bronze object glinting in the sun. He got to his feet slowly, letting the dust drain between his fingers. He turned to her.
An entire world of sadness coalesced into the two small words: "It's Dean's."
Anna put her hand out, taking it from him. She let her fingers rub over the surface of the small amulet slowly, pushing the smears of blood from it.
"I shall return it to Bobby," Castiel breathed, putting his hand out for it. "I should tell him what they have done here today."
She handed it back to him slowly, her eyes on the ground as she turned away. Castiel put his hand out for her sleeve. He missed. The back of his hand encountered hers. She hesitated, then turned to look at him. His eyes, so drawn and so haggard, pleaded with her.
"We'll go together," she allowed, smiling slightly. She curled her fingers around his.
They began to retreat from the cliff top.
"Can you feel that?" Anna asked suddenly. Castiel gripped her hand as if it would stave off the Lord's wrath itself. She turned to face him. "This is not right."
They looked around, the peaceful, tranquil summer's day uninterrupted, calm.
But the angels felt it; a massive shifting, grinding of Time and Place, a heaving, painful re-ordering. They looked back at each other, finding their hosts' eyes quickly. Anna grasped at the taller angel's forearms, his fingers gripped her upper arms.
"Hold on," he warned.
The ground beneath their feet was steady, sturdy, solid. No movement rippled the rocky crags, no tremble, no matter how slight, urged anything into the tiniest shudder. The world was at complete and utter peace.
Only the angels felt the screaming, anguished grinding of time immaterial, the rough edges of time immemorial, flail and sheer against the stress. All linear movement halted. All conceptions of fluidity and consequence fizzled away into a howling, keening protest of momentum being dragged to a reality-defying dead stop.
Anna let go of Castiel's arms long enough to fling herself into the front of his shirt and tie. Her arms clamped round his sides. He was already reaching around her back, his head lowering to press to hers desperately, as if it could keep out the destruction and demolition threatening to tear them to pieces on the very spot.
The sun shone, the birds flew, the wind gently plied over the serenity of the cliff top, completely oblivious to the two heavenly creatures trying to hold on to their very existence.
Light started to bleed into the real-time space around them. The tear began to pull at the edges of Time itself in an arc spreading from their position and lancing out into the sky, the cliff top, the air. It crackled and seared, leaving the overpowering stench of ozone as it ripped a huge tear in the fabric of substance itself.
Castiel kept his cheek pressed to the top of Anna's head. But he tilted it slightly, daring to open an eye and look out.
"They were too late! It's ending!" he warned.
He felt her human host trembling against him, and on instinct tightened his grip, hoping to spread some confidence. But he felt himself scratched and torn by a thousand tiny blades flying at high speed.
"No - they did it! It's starting! It's all starting!" she realised.
He squeezed onto her tighter, knowing the biting wind carrying the jagged, sanding pieces of reality was whittling his host down to nothing. Soon there would be no sign of Jimmy, no sign of Anna Milton - just two frees angels in a steadily spreading jagged crack in Time itself.
"I'll say one thing for those Winchesters," Anna managed with the last of her host's breath.
As Castiel felt the rest of Jimmy's body whipped away by the Hephaestian wind of the universe herself, he strained to hear the last words she would speak aloud.
"They don't do things by half--"
The Earth's spin began to slow. In an age that took barely a blink, it screeched and screamed and shuddered painfully to a complete halt. Powerless, helpless.
Dead in the water.
As the last remnants of the two hosts powdered into nothing, sloughed away by the undoing of the universe, the Earth once more began to spin. Slowly at first, it gained some momentum and the forces came together, pushing it on faster and faster. Soon the sun was haring across the sky in an impossible streak of speed.
Backwards.
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Don't shoot me - I know what happens next! And so will you - Wednesday 15th July. Promise.