Disclaimer: None of it's mine, except the parts that are.

Summary: In which the world isn't saved. In the end, there's only one way this is going to play. Standing at the end of the broken earth, Sam and Dean take the final step over the edge.

Warnings: Profanity, violence, character death.

A/N: Angsty little melodramatic oneshot. Wrote this really, really quickly. It ain't much, but it's something. Haven't seen any of the latest episodes, so forgive me if I missed anything important.

Here you are:

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

It ends like this.

Castiel never finds God, though he goes to the ends of the earth searching for him. No one ever finds God. God never shows. He's gone. Maybe he was never there. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

They tear Castiel apart with fire and darkness in he dies in a blaze of light and a crumple of broken wings. He gives Sam and Dean just enough time to get out, and they make it by the skin of their teeth.

Bobby holes himself up in his house with rock salt and bullets in piles around the spindly metal wheels of his chair. A thousand demons storm the building, and by the time they're gone there's nothing left of the place. They burn it to the ground and leave Bobby in a pile of ash and bones. It's a message. Sam and Dean get it loud and clear.

Chuck's guardian angel doesn't quite live up to his job description. He goes out with a bang. The angel, not Chuck. Chuck goes quietly, gurgling on his own blood. Weeks later Sam and Dean's sneakers are still stained dark rusty-red.

The plagues come. The fires come. The sky rains down ashes and embers and hot flame. The world fills with smoke. The people starve and bleed and die. Their skin bubbles with the flames and sloughs off in ragged strips.

Everyone dies.

Sam and Dean run.

There's no where to go, of course. They know this. So they do what they've always done best.

The apocalypse has unleashed the supernatural in an unholy free-for-all. Every evil thing that used to hide in the darkness, in the shadows and the night, roams the streets freely. They wreak carnage. The world is filled with monsters. But there's not much left of the world, anyway.

Sam and Dean fight. It's all they can do. It's all they've ever done. There's no other choice.

It's a losing battle, and they both know it. But they never talk about it. They take it one day at a time, one kill at a time, living bloodbath to bloodbath. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

It can't go on forever.

And eventually, it ends.

The devil hunts them down with his quartet of dark riders in their flashy cars. Sam never says yes. Dean keeps him from saying yes. Now, Lucifer is ready to take no for an answer.

And then this is it.

It's raining outside, lightly. The first rain in months. It's always either droughts or floods, and so the light grey drizzle outside is a blessed relief. It falls down into the streets and dilutes the blood into a fine, clear pink. Turns the ashes to mud.

Sam slides the clip into the bottom of his gun and turns to Dean.

"These are my last bullets." He says. "You?"

Dean shakes his head, loading his shotgun. "I'm down to rock salt."

Sam quirks his lips. He leaves dirty fingerprints on his gun, the filth caked into his fingers over the months.

"I guess this is it, isn't it?" He asks lightly.

Dean nods. "Guess so."

They're not afraid.

"Dean..." Sam begins, and then stops. He doesn't know what to say. There's nothing to say. Instead he leans over and grabs his brother, pulling him in for a tight hug.

"Sammy..." Dean breathes out, eyes squeezed closed.

They stay like that for a moment, but they don't have much time. They don't have any time.

They pull apart, eyes hard and bright as stars and steel.

Slowly, they stand, back-to-back. The world is grey outside the windows, the light dim.

"Just like robbing banks in Bolivia," Dean mutters quietly.

They can't run. They can't lay down in die. There's only one way to do this.

They're going down fighting. Taking as many of those bastards with them as they can.

There is a heavy moment of silence, filled only with their heart-beats, and then the windows implode. Glass rains down on them like silvery rain. And the darkness floods in.

Sam and Dean start firing, and death and blood and fire surrounds them.

Slowly, the sky outside darkens into night.

And Sam and Dean rage.