[Ruby =
ilove_atallman, Castiel is an NPC, Sam is
likely_evil. Set was the Sam/99!verse.]
“Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters...then all that matters is what we do. ‘Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.”
Dean was gonna die. Again.
His luck had finally ran out. He was convinced that was what it had been-just a really spectacular run of luck that was coming to a big end. And when he said big, he meant big.
Ruby wasn’t going to be able to stop this bleeding on her own. It was coming too fast and hard, and while the hand stretched across his stomach making a feeble attempt to keep his blood inside his body, he could tell that he was probably going to die right where he was lying. He had one bullet left, and a sea of dead demons around him-if he was going down, he was taking them with him-and he couldn’t find Ruby anywhere. That was probably the part that panicked him the most, not being able to find Ruby. He’d become entirely to dependent on her as of late, and the thought of losing her was scaring him. Scaring him a lot. If she went back to Hell, he didn’t know who was going to watch his back, and it certainly wasn’t the angels.
What Dean was doing-it was messy. Angels didn’t like to get messy. He learned that fairly early on, but he’d managed to get to a place where he was okay with that. When he was human, or even if he’d been pulled from the Pit earlier, he probably would have never understood that. But from where he was standing now, he could see that him getting messy wasn’t just the angels not wanting to get their hands dirty. It was atonement. Redemption. And yeah, maybe by now he hadn’t done enough, or he’d liked it too much, and he was going to go straight back to Hell, but-he was okay with that. At least he had tried to atone for what he’d done down there, where he’d actually hurt people who didn’t exactly deserve it.
Or maybe that was just the blood loss talking.
Dean wasn’t worried about dying. Dean had known for a long time that it was what you did that mattered, not what your thoughts were. And maybe Castiel would show up at the end of all of this and redeem him like he was hoping, and maybe he wouldn’t, but there was a chance that Dean could hold on to this on his second go-round on the rack and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t let whoever was running the line this time around (considering Alastair was dead, thank fucking God) get under his skin quite so easily. All this calm self-assurance, though, was fading into panic as he still couldn’t fucking find Ruby.
“Ruby!” he shouted out hoarsely-a not-so-wise move, he realized, because if the demons found out he was alone, they would be all over him in a half a second-but that wasn’t what was on his mind at the moment. He struggled slightly to push himself up, so that he could get a better view and as he did his eyes fell on the crumpled body of a brunette in the pile of demons, and he felt his stomach drop almost instantly. “No-nonononono.”
He tried to drag himself over towards her, but the push pull of the movement on the wound in his stomach caused him too much pain. He gripped the shirt of one of the nearby bodies to try and keep himself from screaming in pain. He could feel the panic starting to rise higher. He couldn’t die like this. Not now. Not when he still had so many things to say to people-Bobby, Beth, Sam, all of them-things that they needed to know. So that they could be prepared.
“Well, look at this-a dog that needs to be put down.”
Dean barely had the chance to turn and look to see who was attacking him before the blow to his stomach came. He felt a few fingers cracking under the force of the demon’s steel toed boot, and he couldn’t stop the scream of pain as the boot met his insides. He felt like his body was being torn in two and he wasn’t quite sure why he wasn’t dead already, but he knew it was coming. He rolled onto his back, trying to get away from his attacker, and he managed to look up and see who he was fighting with, and his eyes went wide as the demon’s eyes flashed gold.
“Caim.”
The demon smirked slightly, amused as Dean floundered for his gun, but then the boot came down on that hand, causing another scream of pain from the man underneath him, and kicking the gun away into the pile of bodies, just out of Dean’s reach.
“You know, I’ve been waiting to do this for a long, long time, Dean,” Caim said, crouching down next to him as he grabbed hold of the man’s throat. “Send you right back to the pit where you belong. Just sent Ruby down there myself-maybe when you join here, you two can throw a little party.” As he said the last word, the grip on Dean’s throat tightened, and he could feel his larynx starting to cave, cutting off his ability to breath. Broken fingers came up painfully, scrabbling at the grip the demon had on him to no avail, and it only got worse, his vision starting to swim, colors blurring into each other as he tried to keep hold on his consciousness.
Suddenly, his vision started to glow white, a sign Dean took as approaching the end, and there was some kind of rushing noise of wind above him. He was suddenly being moved, quickly, far too quickly for him to realize where he was going or what was happening. The white light was constant though, and it wasn’t long before the light took on a different tone. It was more glaring, and less comforting, and Dean wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean.
“This man needs help!”
Dean blinked a minute, before he recognized the voice. “Cas?” He couldn’t see the angel’s face, but there was no questioning his voice.
“Oh, holy Jesus.” That voice he didn’t know. “Get him to trauma two-hang two bags of O neg, and then cross and type for later. Someone call surgery.”
“Hang on, Dean,” Castiel’s voice broke through the chatter again, and he felt the comforting presence of the angel’s hand in his as his vision started to swim black.
“Sam,” Dean whispered softly, before his hand finally went limp and everything faded to black.
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