bakerstreet | THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MEME

THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MEME

THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MEME
inspired by the Left 4 Dead games, The Walking Dead, and various other zombie-related media.

It's a scenario that needs little introduction: the dead have risen to feast upon the living.
In the beginning there were evacuations, emergency broadcasts, reassurances from the government and the media.
It was hoped that things would return to normal sooner rather than later. But eventually, all that's left are the shambling hordes.
So take up that baseball bat, or your father's shotgun. Cling tight to your memories of the better times, or your faith, or whatever keeps you going.
The odds aren't stacked in your favor....but maybe you'll survive.

WHAT.
a productive survivor is a happy survivor.

1) Scavenge/Search: The end of civilization as we know it also means the end of all things convenient, up to and including hot water, electricity and McDonald's. Whether it's ammo or edibles, you're looking for any salvageable supplies. This option is also for if you're trying to find a familiar face somewhere among all the destruction and danger.
2) Fight: Not for your right to party, but for survival. Whether against a lone zombie, an entire horde or a fellow human being, there's nothing else to do but try and come out of the encounter alive.
3) Barricade: There's nowhere to run, but you can at least hide out and hunker down for awhile. Hopefully being cooped up won't drive you stir-crazy.
4) Escape: There comes a time when the only thing to do is run. Is there a horde on your tail? A final evacuation helicopter waiting just ahead? Whatever the reason, better hope you don't stumble.
5) Scout: Charging ahead blindly is an easy way to get killed. A little reconnaissance can prove to be the wisest decision.
6) Relax: Seems like an out of place choice, doesn't it? But sometimes, peace is just as important as safety. You've managed to secure a little while to breathe, to forget the horror you've just gone through.

WHERE.
location, location, location.

1) City/Neighborhood: These places used to be bustling with life. Now they're silent, littered with wreckage and likely crawling with foes.
2) Farmstead/Mill/Lighthouse: Isolated, secluded buildings out in the sticks.
3) Sewers/Subway/Rooftops: If you're heading through these areas, you're likely just trying to get to someplace better. Here's hoping nothing gets the jump on you.
4) Hospital/Army Base/Evacuation Center: These places once offered hope and protection. There might still be firepower and supplies stocked somewhere within.
5) Woods/Swamp/Coast/General Outdoors: Nature hasn't gotten any kinder, but it might just provide needed cover or a place to gather food the old-fashioned way.

WHEN.
at what stage of the world's end do you find yourself?

1) Initial Outbreak: This awful reality is new and frightening. There's chaos and panic everywhere you turn.
2) Two Weeks Later: The horror isn't quite so fresh, or maybe you're just starting to get a little numb to it.
3) Two Months Later: Some of the dust has settled on what remains of society. How have you been holding up?
4) ???: Specific time of your choosing.

WHO.
humanity's numbers have thinned dramatically, but you aren't alone.

1) Family: In this world, kin may be all you have left, or those who are as good as.
2) Friends: Better to be in the company of those you know and trust than those you don't, right?
3) Lovers: This isn't exactly the time or place for a honeymoon, but you're lucky enough to have found your spouse/romantic partner/fuckbuddy/whatever.
4) Strangers: You don't know this person and they don't know you. In any other situation, your paths might never have crossed. But here the two of you are anyway, like it or not.
5) Enemies: Perhaps you were at each other's throats long before this world went to hell. Maybe you just ended up that way over time, or due to the stressful circumstances at work.
6) Guardian: It could be that you don't even like this other person, but you feel responsible for them anyway.

EXTRA.
feel free to add these at your own discretion.

A) Power Loss: Immortality? Gone. Magic? Nixed. You're just an ordinary person now, for better or worse.
B) Infection: You've been bitten, or scratched, or maybe you're grappling with a sickness that has the same eventual end. You can resist the symptoms for awhile, but the only "cure" to be found is a bullet to the head.
C) Injury: Unlike the option above, you aren't hurt because of a zombie. How badly have you been knocked around?

AS ALWAYS, if there isn't a prompt that suits your needs, you're free to make up your own scene.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Preferences:
Canon mates or Previous Threaders prefered for Lovers option / shipping
Crossover & medium divide friendly
Gen / Het / Slash acceptable
Prefer tagger to set up scenario.]

Edited 2013-07-29 09:06 (UTC)

[ He thinks he's going to vomit. It's such a peculiar bodily reaction, an unpleasant one that usually accompanies binge drinking or something similar, but neither are directly related right now. Castiel is supposed to be dead, having purposely walked straight into that trap of croats without a second thought. Instead, though, he's here.

Wherever here is supposed to be. The world hasn't gone to hell quite yet, but he fears it might be close.

When he rolls over, there are a few things he does take note of, strange things he hasn't seen (or thought of) in years. He's lying adjacent to the Impala, level with the tires and very aware that the door had been left ajar. The car had simply faded away into the background after everything, not made to survive the apocalypse, and Castiel reaches out, grazing the rim with the tips of his fingers. No rust, no sign of disuse. There's a hint of a smile before the echoing sound of gunshots ring loud and clear through the air. It's like a switch flips, back in the middle of the fight and twisting so he's on his belly rather than stretched across the ground at an odd angle to get a better look around.

It's a hospital, bodies littering the walkway leading up to doors partially busted out and smeared with blood. He doesn't see a name, has no idea what city he might be in. They? Dean or -

His mind slips right on past that, automatic as he forces himself to his feet and leans against the end of the car for support. His legs aren't very steady, the dying dregs of adrenaline making him nauseous, but the continuous sounds of a gun being fired has him moving away from the Impala anyway, instincts taking over as he runs forward. Through the glass, there's a rather familiar figure he would know anywhere and half surrounded by things he's positive are no longer people. His eyes flick down in search of a weapon, stepping through the broken window in an effort to remain quiet and unseen.

Castiel doesn't hesitate, lifting a scalpel from an overturned medical tray a few feet away and thrusting it straight into the eye of one of them trying to flank the other man from behind. They remind him of croats, but he's not entirely sure that's actually what they are. His voice is a low hiss, bracing for whatever may come of this. ]

Dean —

[Years have passed since Dean's little trip to 2014. The apocalypse is practically ancient history now, with Lucifer and Michael tucked away in their room at the bottom of the pit for the rest of forever. The war for the souls has come and gone, and with it the Leviathan. Dean's done his stint in Purgatory and come through it more or less alright, plus one vampire and minus one very important angel.

He doesn't like to talk about it.

Not that there are many people left to talk about it with. Of all the things Dean was expecting, an actual fucking Zombie apocalypse was pretty low down on the goddamn list. They're not Croatoans, they're not hellspawn or angel bred or the product of any sort of demon or wrath on high. They just are, just a straight up product of humanity itself. A product of stupidity and arrogance and one stupid fucking test monkey escape, if Dean had to guess.

He doesn't know, he doesn't know the specifics, he just knows that it started out small. Started somewhere in New England and slowly spread across North America like the worst kind of plague anybody's ever seen. The entire continent's been quarantined, and they're completely, 100% on their own.

And Dean's completely 100% on his own. He should've known better, shouldn't have separated from Sam, shouldn't have spent so long trying to be strategic, and as far as he's concerned, this is it. This one last failed, pointless recovery mission that he has absolutely no intention of surviving. He'd gone in, guns blazing. Gotten cornered in a hospital room and flooded with every single fucking Walker on the first floor in a matter of minutes.

It's alright.

There's nobody left to judge his rash, admittedly suicidal decision now. Nobody at all.

Until there is.

The voice behind his right shoulder is so sudden and unexpected, so out of the blue, that he whirls around and levels his gun at it before he can even process what it means. He doesn't, however, manage to pull the trigger- which is pretty goddamn lucky for the both of them, because the face on the other end of his gun brings him to a complete stop. For a second, he forgets the horde, forgets everything, and can only stare.

That's not...]

...Cas?

[There's a thump, a gurgling sort of growl, and time snaps back into place. He whirls in time to bust a cap in the head of a walker just before it manages to get a good grip on his arm. It falls to the ground with a wet and bloody thump.]

[ The gun, of course, is to be expected. He doesn't flinch or recoil because he'd known, and it had certainly been a risk saying his name mid-fight the way he had. Dean could have put a bullet through his brain without thinking twice, and honestly, who could have blamed him for that? However, it's luck that he doesn't, and he sounds so surprised, Castiel takes the seconds offered by Dean's pause to kill the creature at his arm to seriously think about what that could mean.

His face is different - older, like he's seen and done so much more than Castiel might ever know. There's a moment of loss, certain the Dean of his time is already dead, certain he doesn't deserve this again, and he doesn't quite school the expression, instead distracting himself with the task of crouching over the body at his feet to retrieve the scalpel. He jerks it free with a slick pop. ]

What are they? [ No hello, or what are you doing, that was reckless. There are a number of things he wishes to ask, but there's no time for that either. He can hear more of them close by, ambling slowly in their direction. Then, as if thinking better of the question, he's standing again and directing his line of sight straight through the door he'd walked through. It's too dangerous to stand around and talk. ]

Never mind - we should go.

[ Unless he had a reason to be there, the suggestion is an easy one to follow: run to the car and drive off without looking back. Besides, he's exhausted, can feel it creeping up through him, and he'd rather not be part of this self-destructive mission. ]

[What are they? That's the first question he asks? It's so absurd that Dean can't even wrap his head around it for a second, for about fifty different reasons. They're friggin' zombies is what they are. Anyone who's ever seen any move made in the last twenty years knows what a goddamn zombie is, but then again... Then again, this is Cas. This is... this is the Cas he remembers from a future parallel to this place, this time. This is Cas from there, and by the time this man was human enough to give a shit, movies weren't exactly a thing anymore, were they?

But more than that, what are they instead of how did I get here, what's going on, how are you, nice haircut? The situation is so bizarre it's almost baffling, so Dean shoves down all of his questions and chooses instead to focus on acting instead of thinking. It usually gets him through pretty well.

In fact, he even makes to move toward the exit with Cas before his mind catches up with him again and reminds him why he came here in the first place. He stops, draws back suspiciously, suddenly, defensively, and glances backward toward the onslaught of bodies.]

No, I gotta-- Sam.

[Sam's corpse, a realistic voice in his mind whispers. He ignores that, too. Even if Sam's just a fucking body, Dean wants to drag him out of there, carry his baby brother out his goddamn self instead of leaving him as a snack for these moaning, groaning inhuman sons of bitches.

But he can't go get Sam and keep Cas alive and Jesus Christ it hits him suddenly that Cas is right there, he's actually there and Dean hasn't gone crazy.

Well, more crazy.

So he relents, nods finally and fires off a few rounds into the closest bodies to buy them a little more time.]

[ It's nearly fine like this. For a moment, Dean's actually cooperating and following through with the suggestion, and it's almost as if he trusts him. Even if there are years separating them, even if he can physically tell the difference. There are things he will want to ask him, specifics on the year and what's happened, but now isn't the time for that. They need to move.

Castiel jerks around at the words though, the name, and his gaze flicks to Dean before watching him take out a few more of the creatures dragging their way towards them. Of course it would be Sam. ]

Where is he?

[ He turns once to look out the broken door, to the Impala that would get them away from here, and regardless of his previous statement, he decides to stay. Castiel stands at Dean's side, scalpel gripped tight. Close combat isn't necessarily a favorite method, but it'll work if it means going where Dean wants to go. If it gets them there and out and away as quickly as possible.

A slight tilt of his head means he's ready, tired yet still focused enough for whatever comes. ]

Third floor.

[Which means fighting their way up two flights of stairs and down a hospital wing with nothing but a few spare clips and a scalpel. Dean can't be entirely sure he's not hallucinating Cas right now, but given how he'd taken out a walker a second ago, he's going to go with his heart and hope that it's completely real. He's got about a hundred questions and no time for any answers, and the look he shoots Cas is as desperate as it is determined.

He came all this way, he wouldn't have made it alone, but now? Now, he might actually have a shot.

He'd feel bad, too, for dragging his obviously fatigued new companion through all this, but... well, it's Sam. That matters a hell of a lot more than anything else his stress-addled mind is willing to comprehend.

And Cas stands there, ready and willing, adjusting his grip on a fucking scalpel in the middle of a glass-shattered hospital entrance lobby in a parallel universe, ready to jump just because Dean asked him to, no questions asked.

The last time Dean saw him, he had more facial hair and a flappier coat.

The last time Dean saw him was the last time Dean would ever see him, and there he is, and it breaks him a little. A sound huffs it's way out of his chest, something like an outward gasp, something wounded and disbelieving.

But they don't have time, so he tears his eyes away and moves, shifting from open to closed, from wounds to the hard line in his jaw jumping in aggression. Boots thud along the linoleum floor, and he raises his gun. There are six of them left in plain sight, four male, one female, and one that's hard to identify, all dragging and sloppy and blood and teeth, slower than the rest and trailing at the end of the pack, and he shoots neatly through the forehead of two in rapid succession. The stairs are on the left, and he hesitates before opting instead to tug that door open and nod Cas through.

Better to save the ammo and just bar the door.]

[ He tries to remember the last time he'd been in an actual hospital. There had been a scouting mission once, mostly recon and possibly retrieving whatever they found that hadn't been picked clean or ruined. The layout had been a little confusing the deeper in they'd gone, and people had died that day. Castiel refuses a repeat, downright adamant as he stands and calculates and breathes slowly through his mouth like they're not waiting directly out in the open.

Three floors up is a long way to go.

But when Dean moves, there's only one choice: follow. He's good at this, falling in line and reading the unspoken in the body language of a man he knows and can never understand. He will go with him until the end, live the wrongs he has made until, perhaps, they are right again. Even if he dies here, it would not be for nothing. Castiel has always stood strong in that conviction, and this is no different. Though time separates them, they still look at each other the same.

Castiel lashes out with a fluid movement and slits the throat of the closest one with a quick slash of the scalpel, felling it and coating his arm in blood. He gives it little thought as he pass through the door, quickly helping to slam it shut. ]

Tell me what happened.

[ With this, with Sam. They have a few flights of stairs to take, and it might be the only time there is. Precious seconds, though he doesn't spend them looking at Dean or listening to the creatures thump their bodies to the door in a futile attempt to get inside.

He's slowly climbing up, eyes focused above and hoping nothing is inside the stairwell with them. ]

[The feeling of someone at his back makes things go a hell of a lot more smoothly. The sense of security might be dangerous, but considering this whole situation is dangerous, it doesn't really hinder them. It grants Dean the freedom to be more alert at point, to move more swiftly with his eyes scouring the stairwell above them. Hands grope suddenly from over the railing above their heads, and rather than pulling the trigger, he just grabs by flailing wrists and jerks, sending the body over and down. There's a crack on the floor below them, then silence. He moves again, thinking on the command.

It's a long story, but he's guessing Cas wants the personal version, not a brief overview of the spread of the disease.]

Back when it first started... figured we had things under control. I'd already done this once, y'know, that whole...

[He glances back at Cas, looks him over, then turns his attention forward again.]

I remember you. The croats. The whole... fucked up future, we really thought we had it. Apocalypse was over, hell, this kinda thing wasn't even... we never even saw it coming.

[He shook his head slowly.]

No Lucifer, no Croatoan virus. Whole different set of problems, but not... not this. And then it started happening, and it was a hell of a lot like what happened on your end. Government revoking the right to assemble, quarantines, but it... Just kept spreading. Hell of a lot worse, because there's no Satan, no angels controlling the chaos, it's just... Chaos.

[When he talks, he half mumbles. Like he's not used to talking, and certainly not above a whisper. It echoes through the stairwell, which might well be the reason.]

But we knew how to fight 'em. Me, Sam, couple dozen hunters. We thought we were so... on it, you know? Set up a barricade, set up a wall, hell, we took back an entire town, and it was... good. Safe.

[A beat.]

...Until it wasn't.

[He falls silent at the sound of scratching, freezes with a hand on Cas's shoulder and just... listens. It's nails on metal, it's a slow and steady skittering behind the door in front of them, not the thudding of bodies but something softer.]

[ It's almost harmony. Even if Castiel takes to the steps first, he falls back to the rear and keeps them protected. That, even after the apocalypse and all the hell they'd suffered through, had never changed. It surprises him, however, how much talking there is, the honesty Dean gives him and the emotion with it. He's being given what he's craved for years, and there's nothing remotely satisfactory in the words, that lend an ounce of comfort. ]

I — [ And he bites his tongue, interrupted by the quick succession of killing another thing that nearly stumbles down onto him. The blade slides clean and perfect into a decaying eye socket, shutting it down. Castiel leaves it to continue following, one foot in front of the other. ] I'm sorry it's like this.

[ It's all he knows to offer, unable to change what's been made. He apologizes for that, for wondering if the Castiel in this time had ran or simply ignored the rest, for himself and being the only thing Dean would get. Better than nothing, but barely. A cheap and defected consolation.

His body goes rigid with the touch, focusing in on the sound and foregoing the thought to suppress the odd shudder traveling down his spine. Though it's dim, his eyes immediately find the other's, and the scratching grows louder, harder as he stares at him. He fears he knows what it is, and he swallows, can't bring himself to actually say it.

They're already three flights up and... ]

There is nothing good through that door, Dean. [ He doesn't want to open it. ]

[He's definitely not the hardened bastard he was in Cas's timeline, definitely not the cut off soulless son of a bitch he'd turned into there. In a way, it'd almost be easier if he were. Maybe if he were as cold and calculating as he'd been in that future, in that alternative, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe the breach wouldn't have happened, they never would have been compromised.

This used to be a safe zone. This hospital was theirs, taken and operational and- alright, admittedly a little makeshift, but it worked. They didn't have the electricity to fuel most of the machines, but it was more the environment that mattered. Some kind of fucked up Lord of the Flies thing that just spoke civilization and maybe people got too comfortable. Maybe Dean got too comfortable.

All those bodies on the first floor... He wandered in to die, because they were his fault. They were people he knew, he had a name for each and every face, rotting and disfigured though it may be.

The only face that really mattered right now, though...

He closes his eyes at Cas's hesitance, because Cas knows what it is. So does Dean. He knows what it is, and Cas knows full and well that he's got to open it.

So he moves, slowly and with resignation. Wraps his hand around the lever of the door, and tugs downwards. It opens with a click, calm and quiet, and the door swings open.

The only face that really matters right now is on the other side of the door.

It's Sam.

Of course it is.

Sam, only not. Sam, with his long hair falling nearly to his shoulders, neat save for a ruffle near the crown of his head. Sam, wearing his stupidly enormous flannel that hangs down off of his shoulders, spattered in blood near a tear at one elbow.

Sam, who's eyes are dead and pale and open, staring at them blankly and with not even a trace of emotion or recognition. The skin near his mouth is missing, as well as half a lip. Teeth and the bones of his jaw are exposed on one side, gnarled and twisted into something skeletal, and there's silence except for the rasp of breath coming from Sam's hollowed cheek. A huffing sort of wet sound that's worse than the scratching on the metal could ever be.

He stares, and Dean stares back, and neither of them move for a minute.

Until Sam begins to shuffle forward, and still Dean stands frozen.]

[ He watches, fails and feels the world fall apart.

It's worse than the first time it happened, a sharp pain that twists deeper than he remembers. Before Sam said yes, before the angels left and the virus spread, when he knew he'd began that slow descent into humanity without a way back up. No one had been there for those things, had stopped them. Sam, always alone and doing his best but never good enough to bring about a better end. Sam, who had been his friend, and who, despite the motion of his body, is dead. Still dead, no matter how Castiel tries to see it.

His heart aches. He drops the scalpel without realizing. ]

Dean.

[ It's a soft breath of air, a prayer that doesn't quite reach where it means because Sam moves and Dean does not. They are glued to the weight of this truth, one Castiel thinks he had known but could never readily admit. The deterioration of his skin, the exposure of tendon and muscle. There is no life in him, and everything that is left of him aches for Sam. For Dean.

This is breaking him, will break him. He's seen it, lived it. He can't do it again—not like this. He doesn't know what to do. ]

Dean. We have to...

[ End this. If anything, Sam deserves mercy. He deserves better than this hospital, left to rot in the halls until the building crumbles in atop him. He deserves better than the devil burning him out. Castiel had never gotten the change to say goodbye, to tell him how much his friendship had really meant. He mourns him twice, now, and if Dean will not be so kind, Castiel will.

He reaches for the gun, an attempt at passiveness that fails the closer Sam comes to them. ]

[Dean's mind, for once, is blank. So many years, decades, of being able to process shock. He's able to think on his feet, able to plan, able to be despite traumas that would drive other men to freeze like a doe in the headlights. He's seen a thousand things and felt a thousand more and it's just... nothing to the sight of Sam like this. For a moment, it's like Stull Cemetery. It's like watching his brother fall from his motionless place with his back against his car, but this is just... It's worse. It's so much worse.

The scalpel hits the ground with a metallic sound his ears don't even detect. His own name doesn't even register. Cas's words aren't English, they don't process into a language, they don't mean anything, just garbled background noise to the feature presentation, to the soft scuffle Sam's boots make as they slide across the tiled floor.

It's only the feeling of Cas going for the gun that gets any kind of reaction from him, a sharp and sudden jerk, and he bodily shoves Cas away, defensively, terrified, because Cas is going for the gun to shoot his brother.

To shoot...

To...

His face falls, crumbles when the truth sinks in, starts to shake a slow back and forth denial that he doesn't want to accept, because it just... can't...]

Sam...

[Less a word and more a plea, something broken and throaty and borderline unintelligible, a protest straight from his core.

Sam twitches, movements faltering and for a second, he stops. Just... looks at Dean, like he's trying to comprehend. Like there's still some sort of...

And then he springs, a low and throaty growl, a roar really, thrusting himself toward Dean with arms outstretched and teeth gnashing in a gruesome, horrifically visible way thanks to the hole in his cheek.]

[ It's happening all over again, slow motion chaos that begins with a blink and ends in a whirlwind of madness.

Castiel grunts from the force of the shove, expecting it and not. Blank but recoiling because the weight of Dean's body rolling into his is enough to slam him back into the railing of the stairwell, and he's paralyzed by it, weighed down and struck by the knowledge that, perhaps, he wants this. Dean wants Sam to take him too. There are no deals to be made, nothing to trade that would fix this. There is finality here.

He doesn't want this again.

He will be alone, and it's selfish to change the course of this world by thinking it. Castiel would rather suffer aftermath of a broken relationship with Dean than have no one at all.

He reacts quickly.

The lunge forward throws him off-balance, hand shaking as he fumbles for the scalpel and retrieves it by the tips of his fingers. His palms sweat. The adrenaline rushes wild and unchecked when he gets closer, forcing a hold in Sam's hair so that it's firm and does not budge with the easy tear of scalp and flesh. The rot becomes evident, standing so close, and Castiel shuts his eyes. He blinds himself to this deed, blade shoved hard and deep into the back of his skull without hesitation. Inches from Dean's face.

A twitch, a dying moan. It's over. He's done this.

Castiel doesn't let go, grip tighter and tighter as the weight grows heavy until he can't balance it anymore. But he refuses to let him fall, awkward in the stumble to his knees to lay him to rest there. Coated in blood, the remains of Sam. He can't look up, can't face Dean, can't breathe.

He does nothing but stare blankly at his hands and the body on the floor. ]

[It's not that he wants this. It's not that he's got some grand plan, some poetic sort of desire for Sam to be the one that ends him. It's not that he's thinking that a lunge, a bite, the end should come by Sam's hand, because he knows somewhere deep within him that it isn't Sam anymore. It's just a rotting disease, it's just death on legs, and he knows that Sam would be horrified by this whole mess.

It's just that he froze, that for a split second he snapped and went completely irrational and his mind shut down and there it was, the face of his brother, launching at him like it's something Dean deserves.

He doesn't want it, but for a whole eternal second, he's expecting it.

And then Sam's face freezes a foot from his own, it's surreal and he doesn't put it together that Cas's hands are tangled in his brother's hair. His eyes lock on Sam's and there's silence and then a splat of blood that hits him in the face as Cas's scalpel drives into the back of his brother's skull. He flinches, twitches a little at the spackling of blood that splinters along his cheek and forehead.

Watches, stunned, as Sam goes slack.]

No, no, no no no....

[Sam's weight staggers Cas and he moves forward, a hand fisting in Sam's shirt and another curling around his back to help ease the burden, to heavily lower him to the ground. The gun is gone, dropped at some point he doesn't even recall, it doesn't matter. He's on his knees as well, and finally Sam comes to a resting stop there in the floor between the two of them, eyes still open and blank and pale. Sam's distorted cheek lay face up, and Dean brings a hand forward, smooths it up his brother's neck until thumb catches jaw and he turns it gently in the other direction until all that can be seen is the human side. The correct side, slack and vacant and nearly perfect.

Dead.

He's not sure how much time passes. He's not sure of the sounds he makes, something hitched and wounded, and his head drops down, presses against his brother's shoulder for a long moment. Shoulders shake with the weight of it all, but after that he's quiet. After that, he forgets that he isn't alone, and there's nothing.

He wasn't even the one to do it. Could he ever have been, though? Could he have picked up the blade? It's not something he can fathom, not an answer he can give, and Cas relieved him of the burden. Taking up the razor's what got them into this mess in the first place and this time, in this hell, Cas beat him to it.

He pulls away almost drunkenly, shifts to put distance between himself and Sam's corpse and settles heavily on the top step. Buries his face in his hands, smearing blood into his hair, and breathes.

Below them, the rhythmic thudding of bodies pounding on the metal door echo. He glances over his shoulder at Cas finally, exhausted.]

[ Through the motions, the touches, and the noise, he remains still. His limbs are heavy, body sinking further and further into the floor, and his fingers are shaking, the excess of it all overflowing with no real outlet. Castiel's mind is a mess. Sam, not Sam. This Dean's Sam, not his Sam. Did it matter? Would it make sense if he tried?

He thinks they should talk about it. He feels there are no words for this.

Castiel gently touches his fingers to Sam's cheek, the one that's him and speaks of all the good he had. His bravery, his strength, his intelligence, his kindness. His dear friend. The urge is suddenly strong, too overbearing to ignore now, and his own eyes slide shut the moment Dean leaves him to sit on the step, praying to anyone who would care to listen. He thinks he's forgotten how, but he doesn't stumble through it, calm and quiet in the midst of the noise looming up from below.

When he hears Dean shift, the moment's broken, and he's finally looking at him with burning eyes that just hurt and sting and won't stop. Angels don't cry, he thinks. But he's not one now, would like to wonder if he'd have mourned him with just as much grief as he feels now. Double the weight, double the blame.

Castiel wishes he had never come here. ]

We can't leave him.

[ His voice cracks, bleeds, shakes on the we and him, and it's a jumble of discomposure, of guilt rearing up and swallowing over him so that his gaze falls from Dean's face to the ground. To Sam again, the blood pool he's kneeling in and soaking up with his jeans. Castiel considers if this is worse than dying, his punishment for disobeying and turning his back and choosing humanity over his own. His weaknesses laid bare, and finally, finally, he pushes back, easing himself from the floor with balance from the rail.

He would go to Dean then, reassure him with a touch to the shoulder or a smile or something not this broken disarray of a person. Castiel tips his head back to look up instead, sees nothing worth staring at.

They can't leave him, but there's no way they'll survive the hoard downstairs. ]

Which way? [ And yet... Yet, he asks for Dean's guidance, his help. He had ended it, yes, but they would really finish it together. Somehow. He doesn't want to die like this. ] Out the back? The roof, maybe?

[ It's absurd, and his coping methods have always been poor, nothing to keep the haunting realization of this entire situation at bay. Castiel's shoulders shake, and by the time he realizes it, it's too late to stop it. He just laughs until his throat is raw with it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MEME

Dean Winchester | Supernatural

hi again! kind of mashed a bunch of stuff up, so hope this is okay (and sorry for the tl;dr)

Howdy! I can definitely roll with it. tl;dr is my favorite, yo.

okay, awesome. didn't want to scare you with the wall of text

Sorry for the delay! Work swamps me on my busy week.

Nah, you're good. I'll always backtag.

Groovalicious

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