Author's note before we begin:

I hate waiting between season breaks, and I need to start writing again, so lets just write our own season 8, shall we? okay!

I'm going to try to update it every other day. there are no non-canon pairings yet, but there may be later? I dont know. I want to keep it realistic~ so we'll see. Knowing me there will probably be some Destiel later, but for right now there is none. I'm going to try to give everyone equal time, and there will be more adventures and mishaps and scary stuff as time goes on. okay, lettuce begin. (also, good to be back, darlings. ;))

Simplicity was all he wanted.

There was no simplicity here.

There were monsters. There was a shrouded star that cast twilight until it set and then there was blackness. There were dead forests, stagnant pools, and bones that littered the ground.

Maybe things were simple here.

After all, the only thing there was to do was survive.

And protect.

"Cas, you feather brain. Where the fuck did you go?"

Isn't that what his life had always been?

Both heads snapped to a branch breaking close by. A rustling of leaves and bones.

Here alone in this tree was simple. Adding another body would be difficult. The dead tree was weak, and two non-fighting bodies in a bare tree would attract attention here. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. It's not that he didn't like Dean. He loved Dean. But Dean made things difficult. He required food, rest, patching up. And there was the vexing emotional aspect of him.

He had felt better among the bees.

He wanted to share that with Dean, tried to bring him a present that he didn't appreciate. There was yelling, and swatting, confusion, and lust. He left before Dean could do more than scold him.

He could hear Dean's heart pounding.

A deft hand plucked Dean from the ground and placed him on a tree branch. His eyes watched the panicked man comprehend what was happening. Below them, a wrath in its true form stalked below them. It sniffed the air. Stillness was part of Castiel's nature, but not of Dean's. It was the shock of it all, and the fear, it had paralyzed him. Castiel understood that, paralyzing emotions. The first week in the hospital he had just sat wallowing in his guilt. The pain, the suffering, the potential end to all humanity, betrayal of his real family consumed him. It suffocated him. He had to move eventually, when they started putting needles and tubes into him. But he occupied his mind with everything else. He couldn't think about that again, or he would stop like a car out of gas.

The wrath sniffed the trunk of the tree. Castiel was glad neither he nor Dean had touched it. It let out a gurgling growl and stalked off. They sat in absolute stillness for an hour. Two hours. After the third, Castiel turned towards Dean. He lay a hand on his shoulder. Wide green eyes turned towards him, filled with panic, fear, and desperation.

"We've been through worse."

Something snapped in Dean. From fear, to rage.

"Worse? WORSE!"

Castiel cringed, someone—something would hear this yelling.

"This is worse than Hell. This is a land of nothing but fucking monsters, being eaten and god knows what else! And you," his voice was venomous; "you unleashed those fucking leviathans from this place. And you put us in this place. Your selfish scheme not only almost destroyed the world, but now it's going to get us fucking killed. Are you happy now, Cas? Do you feel fulfilled, now?"

"No, Dean. I do not."

Crowley was wrong. This hadn't been the first time he was on his own. When Dean was in Hell. They year without his soul, before he found Samuel. Or maybe this was the first time, really.

There was no Bobby.

No Dean.

No Cas.

No Meg, as much as he hated her she had her pros.

No Crowley.

Just Sam.

He couldn't take on the remaining leviathans by himself. Without Dean. There were troves. And now there was just him.

He just stared at the spot where the last of his family had disappeared. He didn't know if Dean was dead. Or in hell. Or in purgatory. Or just locked in some cage with Dick like he had been with Lucifer.

"SAM!" the voice hit him like a brick

Kevin had been screaming at the shell shocked Sam.

"We have to get out of here!"

He thrust a machete in Sam's hands.

This was what Sam was. He was a hunter, a warrior, a protector. And he had to keep going. He looked at the tar like filth of leviathan dripping from the blade. Keep going.

"Let's get you home, Kevin."

"Finally!...and I'm—I'm sorry about your brother."

"Yeah."

Sam just walked. Slaying every levi in his path. Heads rolled, and kevin snatched them up in a laundry cart they found. It was piled high when they reached the Impala.

Dean's Impala.

He opened the trunk. There was Dean's duffle. And the spot where Castiel's coat had lain.

He put garbage bags of heads in the trunk.

He drove through the night, Kevin slept in the passenger seat, twitching with nightmares. Sam pitied him. From an honors student applying to Princeton, to a prophet of the lord. Kidnapped, tormented, witness to monsters, death, destruction. How could you go back to being normal. Sam never had the chance to be normal, but he craved it. He wish he could give it to Kevin.

He gave Kevin the machete as a parting gift.

"Practice your swing. You never know what's around the corner…And good luck getting in to Princeton."

He drove to the Mississippi. Dropping bags full of heads and cinder blocks in every fifty miles all the way up to the Twin Cities. They'd sink in the muddy bottoms and never be able to pull themselves out.

He drove back to the only home he'd ever know, Bobby's house. Which had been left to Sam and Dean. And now only to Sam.

He looked at the maps before him. Laying out a game plan. The news was full of the San Francisco "epidemic" and Dick Roman's disappearance. His marker circled SucroCorp factories as his computer hacked databases for building schematics. This wasn't over, not by a long shot.

Cut off the head, and the body shall flounder.

The body is going to suffer, and Sam Winchester was going to make sure of it.