Work Text:
Snow and Ashes
by Sam-Tony
When they first see his wings, there's snow in the feathers. Or maybe it's ash; they can't tell, can't take the time or the attention off the demons in their path to discern the difference. The battle is raging all around them now, they're cut off from reinforcements; from friends, from allies, from any hope of this not ending bloody and red in the snow. At least not for them.
At yet, Cas is still swinging that light-bright angel sword of his, trench coat and inky black feathers flapping and fluttering in the gale force wind Lucifer has called up to force them back. Force them apart so he can get to Sam. Make him say yes. *Ask* him, politely, one more time while he breaks bones and rends flesh. His time has run out; *this* is the final battle, and he knows it.
Castiel looks back just as Sam and Dean look away from each other. Resolve strengthened, love and so many things they've already said - so many others they'll never get to - shining from green to green as they turn, standing firmly shoulder to shoulder. Dean raises the colt, Sam the knife...they both know in the end neither will save them or each other.
Blue eyes narrowed against the whip and sting of the wind meet green; dark hair and darker wings bring to mind a quieter time, a more gentle time when those wings, all unseen, touched, fluttered, shielded bare bodies from the chill of a cheap motel room in Detroit in Winter. Skin to skin, purpose to purpose; desire, desperation, love and duty given, taken, shared...
One calm, still moment to hold on to, knowing it wouldn't last. It couldn't. Was never meant to.
One last, shared smile and Cas is turning back, his wings spread and sword raised in hard defiance of the angel now walking through the demons parting before him like the Sea. Castiel can't defeat Lucifer, everyone on the field of battle knows this. Cas will stand between Sam and Dean and Hell until he can stand no longer. Everyone on the field knows this, also.
The bullet fired over his left wing, the knife that sailed over his right, both to impact solidly in the decaying vessel Lucifer is forced to wear say that they don't care. Because, by God or angels or demons or whatever else the universe feels like throwing at them, Sam and Dean Winchester refuse to go down without a fight.
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