Chapter Text
Then:
He’s been trying to heal Jack. He tried but as soon as he touched his forehead with his fingers he knew it was a fight he couldn’t win. God himself is the one killing Jack and who is he, Castiel angel of the Lord, to fight the almighty. But he had to try. Jack was his son. From the moment on that he touched Kelly Kline’s baby belly he knew he had to protect this child, his son. Not Lucifer’s, not Sam or Dean’s, but his. The young nephilim that he sacrificed his own happiness for. And now he’s dying...again and this time he won’t be able to save him from heaven.
Then a shot rang out. Castiel turned around and saw Sam hitting the ground with the gun in his hand...alive. When he turned around to God, oh sorry Chuck it is, he saw a bullet hole in his clothes right above his shoulder. Sam tried to kill him and failed.
As Chuck got angry the angel knew something bad was about to happen. Even though the majority of his attention was on Jack he still heard the words that followed by Chuck and a shiver ran down his spine.
“Fine! That’s the way you want it? Story’s over. Welcome to the end!” And everything went dark.
When Castiel looked at Jack he saw the worst thing he could imagine. The once so kind eyes burned out of his skull. He vaguely heard Dean coming over and asking Sam if he was alright but he couldn’t look away from his son.
As Dean began to speak he finally was able to tear away his eyes but they were always drawn back to the horrific display of God’s powers.
“Wait I thought Chuck said that gun was the only thing that could…” Dean began but stopped in the middle of his sentence. Even he couldn’t believe the cruelty of the act he just witnessed.
When Cas heard that he became angry. Angry at Dean for listening to Chuck in the first place and for trying to kill Jack without hearing the angel out first, angry at Sam because he saw the doubt in his face about his brother’s plan but never acted on it and most of all angry at Chuck. For playing them, for killing his son, for “the end”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and for everything that ever happened to him, those he loved and on earth.
“He’s the writer...writers lie.” Castiel remembered Chuck saying something similar earlier and he couldn’t help to think about the irony of this whole mess. God actually told them that he doesn’t care about what’s happening to them as long as the story is good. Castiel could hear his own voice tremble and realized that he was close to tears. Crying is something he has never done in his long, long life, not even as a human but now...he’s about to break down and the only thing that is stopping him is the obvious problem: What the hell just happened to the sun and what exactly does “the end” mean?
Suddenly the ground underneath their feet began to shake and Castiel stood up to look around. He couldn’t believe his own eyes when he saw what happened next. Soul after soul was shooting out of the ground, the earth split open to fiery holes and releasing even more souls.
“What the hell is happening?” Dean asked in horror.
“Souls. They’re...souls from hell.” Castiel answered.
They watched as the souls possessed dead body after dead body and sprung them from their graves. The bodies all started walking towards them and Castiel did what every good soldier would have done. He summoned his angel blade and planned on facing them head on. Dean grabbed two rusty metal rods from the fence and gave one to his brother. He knew it wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. By the time they aligned themselves back to back they were nearly surrounded by the dead. No one said anything but everyone knew this was it. This was the end…
Now:
The dead were overwhelming them and the only thing that was left to do for Castiel was to gather his grace for a powerful blast. He hasn’t been the same ever since the fall but he still had enough strength left to blast through a few (hundred?) dead meatsuits with some souls from hell inside them.
So he gathered every last bit of his grace that he could sacrifice without dying and stretched his arm forward before screaming towards the Winchesters “Close your eyes!”. Then he released his power and watched every corpse around them fall to the ground, their eyes burned out and very much dead again.
He looked back at the brothers and saw them opening their eyes and looking around before falling on Castiel. When the angel made sure that both brothers were out of danger he let himself overcome by exhaustion and fell to ground unconscious.
When he came to the first thing he recognized were the walls of his room in the bunker. The second thing was that he was alone. He slowly sat up and tried to assess the damage the blast had on his vessel. His skin seemed to have stayed intact but he suffered major internal damage. The grace that is replenishing is immediately used up to heal his organs. So far most has been healed and he decided it was time to stand up and look what is going on outside of the bunker. He grabbed his trench coat and walked out of the door of his room and towards the exit of the bunker. When he came by the war room he was spotted by Dean who was sitting at a table drinking whiskey with his brother.
“Hey, look who’s awake? How are you doing Cas?” Dean asked seriously. Castiel didn’t even look at him when he answered. “I’m leaving and see if heaven knows what’s going on and what to do about it. As far as I can see you don’t seem too motivated to do something so I assume you have given up.” He pointed at the whiskey bottle and turned around. “There is nothing left for me here.” Castiel muttered loud enough to ensure that the Winchesters could hear his anger and disappointment.
He had enough of it. For more than ten years he’s been helping the brothers. He raised both Dean and Sam from hell, healed them more often than he could count and gave everything up for them and never heard a sincere ‘thank you’, always complaint. He thought they were his family but they just used him whenever his powers came in handy and all the other times he was just thrown away and overlooked. He had finally enough of them treating him like a child who didn’t know any better. He was thousands of years old for crying out loud. It’s true he made mistakes but so did they. It wasn’t him who released Lucifer the first time or the darkness for that matter. Whenever the Winchesters messed something up that endangers the whole world it was always because they tried to save each other, for selfish reasons. When he let the Leviathans or Lucifer out and when he caused the angels to fall it was because he thought he could save the world by avoiding a war. He knows he made mistakes, big ones but at least he tried to think about the greater good and the Winchesters always condemned him for his mistakes.
He let them patronize him for too long and he even thought he deserved it but after the last few days he realized something. The brothers might tell you you are a part of their family, a Winchester, but as long as your last name is not actually Winchester you don’t matter in the end. It was like that with him and it was like that with Jack. As soon as his son stepped out of line the first thing Dean thinks about is how to kill another monster. The same thing happened when he had the Leviathans inside him. He wasn’t himself and Jack wasn’t either but instead of helping them Dean searches for a way to kill the monster he once called family. In both cases someone with the actual Winchester name got hurt by the ‘monster’ and so Dean forgets everything they ever did for them.
It’s true, Dean decided against shooting Jack but that doesn’t change the fact that he went behind Castiel’s back anyway. It started with the Ma’lak box and ended with the gun. Instead of listening to Castiel or letting him try to find another option Dean just did what he wants to do without asking for permission. And look where it got them? Jack is dead, Castiel sold himself to the Empty for nothing and the world is about to end. Yeah, he definitely had enough.
“Cas, wait!” Sam called after him. Castiel turned around slowly and looked at the younger brother. “I’m sorry for what happened to Jack. I know he meant a lot to you. He meant a lot to me too and I wished it didn’t happen. Hell, I shot God because I got so angry and wanted him to stop and now I started another apocalypse.” Sam’s voice wavered and it was clear that he was close to tears. “I’m so sorry Cas. Please stay. We need you hear. We need to figure this out together and we can’t do it without you. Please don’t leave us too.” At the last sentence he actually let out a sob which was followed by a few tears running down his cheeks. His eyes pleading with Castiel to stay.
“It’s not your fault Sam. I don’t blame you for Jack’s death or for the end. But I can’t stay here. Not with him around.” He looked at Dean before turning around once again.
“What the hell Cas! You really blame me? I didn’t kill Jack, God did!” Dean yelled while running after him. He grabbed Castiel’s arm and turned him around. The angel used the momentum of being turned around and flung Dean across the room.
“No Dean. I blame you for so willingly listening to him just because he gave you an easy way to kill Jack. Instead of giving me a chance to find another way you were so willing to sacrifice yourself again. You treat me like I don’t know what I’m doing but you are wrong Dean. I’m older than you can imagine and even though I had to learn a lot about humanity I’m not stupid. Sometimes you should listen to me and trust me and with Jack you should have trusted me. And you obviously knew you were wrong because why else would you have gone behind my back? Why else would you have waited with your plan to pray to him and call him down to you until you were sure I was far enough away in heaven so I wouldn’t be able to stop you.” Castiel took a deep breath before speaking again to keep his emotions in control but judging from the looks of fear in both brother’s faces he didn’t do a good job. He knew his eyes were glowing with rage but he didn’t care at the moment. “I will go to heaven and take my place on the throne. I will unite the angels and we can all work together in solving this problem but after that you won’t hear or see anything of me ever again. Congratulations Dean, you just pushed away the last friend you had.” For the third time he turned around and started walking. This time no one stopped him when he left the bunker.