At the end the find themselves back in the garden.  The roses are dead and there’s chaos surrounding them.  At least Sam’s not wearing the God awful white suit borrowed from Constantine and there isn’t a homicidal clone of himself running around with an AK-47 and a really crappy attitude.  He learnt his lesson from Alistair, even if it wasn’t the one he was teaching.  They are stronger together, he and Sam, they keep one another human, but more than that they belong together.  It had just taken time for them to realise it.

They stand face to face, dirty and bleeding from the fight to reach this place, this point, having known for a while that it’s where they need to be, here and now.  Each takes a step forward and a deep breath. 

Dean raises a filthy hand to his brother’s face, cupping his cheek, stroking away the dried blood with his thumb.  He smiles sadly and asks, “Ready?”

Sam mirrors the gesture, long fingers fanning out from Dean’s jawbone to his ear.  He nods once.  “Let’s end this.”

Together they tip their heads back and in unison they just speak one word up to the sky.

“Yes.”

It hurts, worse than they imagined; so much worse than Castiel’s bone-chilling, matter-of-fact warning.  It’s like someone else trying on their skin with them still inside.  The screams are their own and the noise alone sounds like it could tear apart the universe.

Then there’s just the rush of blood, the beating of their pounding hearts, and the mind-numbing terror of being trapped inside their own heads – forced into voyeurism through their own inevitable, unavoidable choices.  To Sam it feels like being stuck in an elevator with so many strangers it’s difficult to breathe and everything smells of other people.  To Dean, it’s more like being stuck in a nightmare he can’t wake up from, even though he knows it’s a dream. 

But when the screaming stops there’s something else, another sound; like the crackle of a stylus at the end of an old 33.  And that’s them.

They are a heartbeat away from the greatest, most almighty of fights, from blood and fire, during which the angels now resident in Dean and Sam will tear the Earth asunder.  Their hands shake against one another’s faces, fingernails clawing skin just to hold on.  Teeth clenched, eyes flashing, finally their gazes lock and this is the moment when it had to be them, the Winchester brothers, at the end of the world.  They had to be raised as hunters, live with horror, learn to fight shoulder to shoulder.  They had to be torn apart over and over, put themselves back together again; question one another and to find the answers, finally to forgive everything.  Even the apocalypse.

And in that one, all-important moment in the breath before the fight, they aren’t Michael facing off Lucifer, they are Sam and Dean, John and Mary’s kids, brothers, and they love each other.

Sam pulls Dean’s face towards him and is met half way, their mouths connecting not in violence or in rape but in a kiss of unfailing, unselfish, unconditional love.  Nothing was stronger than them like this.  Not God, certainly not Satan.

The blast spreads outwards in a flat circle, with them at its epicentre.  The angels leave them, ripped away; one going up, the other going down.  Their vessels drop, dolls with the last strings cut, released, bodies devastated just by those few seconds for which they fulfilled some twisted destiny.

Peace follows the blast.  Flowers bloom, life returns.  The brothers lie in the blossoming garden, broken, bleeding, dying.  Dean turns his head, biting back the agony of shattered bones, and looking his brother in his eyes one last time he croaks out the words, “I love you, Sam.”

Sam manages a smile even though his mouth’s full of blood, spits as he replies, “Love you too, Dean.  My hero.”  Then his face slackens and he dies, and once he’s sure, Dean does too.

#

It’s almost a let-down, opening his eyes and seeing darkness above and lights below.  He glances to his side even though he knows Sam’s sitting there.  He can feel his brother’s presence in a way he thinks he could very easily get used to.  Sam smiles at him, a smile that quickly opens up into laughter.

“No imagination, that’s their problem,” he says quietly and Dean rolls his eyes as he turns to look back out of the window.

“I really hate flying,” he mutters but he doesn’t mind, not really.  Better up here, bound for God knows where, than lying in pieces with the world gone to hell.

On impulse, Sam leans across and plants a sloppy kiss on his brother’s cheek, and Dean turns his head in time to catch it and turn it into something else, something real, before the pilot announces their descent into Lawrence Municipal Airport.

For now at least, it’s all right.