Chapter Text
“Hey Dean, what’s that?”
“Huh? What’s what?”
Sam pointed up at the sky. “That thing that’s moving really fast. Is that a shooting star?”
Dean looked up and smirked. “Yeah, guess it is.” He looked over at his younger brother. “You know what that means, right?”
Sam looked back and nodded. “Make a wish?”
“Close your eyes, Sammy,” Dean instructed and waited for his brother to close his eyes. “Okay, now make a wish in your head. You can’t tell me or else it won’t come true.”
“Okay,” Sam said and made a wish.
Dean leaned back against the hood of the car and closed his eyes as well. After a few moments of silence, Sam opened his eyes again. He smiled. “You really think it’ll come true?”
Dean shrugged. “I mean, that’s what they say.” He hopped off the car and shuddered at the light breeze. “Now come on, let’s get inside. It’s freaking cold out. I’ll make some hot chocolate for us.”
Sam couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not that cold.” He followed after his brother. He glanced back up at the sky. It looked so beautiful out with all the stars. He waited for Dean to walk inside before whispering to himself, “If you really make wishes come true, I hope you make mine come true. I just want Dean and I to be together. If anyone is listening out there, please make it come true.”
Dean poked his head back out. “Sammy? Come on, hurry up!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Sam said and turned to head inside.
-
Anna was not strong enough. She swung her sword but Michael was ready for her and the blade glanced off Michael’s with ease. Dean glanced around to see that Sam was still unconscious on the ground. He didn’t know what happened while he was out but he guessed it had to be Michael as well. Before he could say yes to Lucifer, Michael incapacitated his brother somehow. That had to be it.
Castiel was also unconscious nearby. Dean had missed the first part of the battle but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be the one to end it.
-
“Sam? What is this?”
Sam couldn’t meet his eyes as Dean held up a crumpled piece of paper. He’d found it stuffed deep in the trash when he went looking for a missing receipt.
“And don’t you dare tell me it’s nothing,” Dean growled. Because it wasn’t. It had the words Stanford on it and Acceptance and University and Scholarship and Congratulations. There was ‘nothing’ about any of those choice words. Dean’s alpha side seemed to go into overdrive the longer Sam kept his silence.
Couldn’t Sam see how much Dean needed his brother?
“It’s exactly what it looks like, Dean,” Sam said finally.
The words seemed to pierce into Dean’s heart.
Rejection.
That was exactly what it looked like.
“So then,” Dean swallowed, “you’re leaving.”
Sam didn’t have to say yes. Sam didn’t have to say anything at all.
-
“It’s over. Just give up,” Michael said as he swung his sword down, knocking Anna to the ground.
She huffed, bleeding and hurt, tired and helpless as she stared up at her brother. “You’re not going to win,” she told him.
“It isn’t about winning,” Michael said. “It isn’t about what I want but what I have to do. Has Lucifer infected you with his lies as well, my dear sister?” He crouched down to touch Anna’s face. “Do you not understand just how dangerous Lucifer can be? How he lies and manipulates to get his way?”
Anna had to laugh. “You think this is about your and Lucifer’s spat with each other? You think I care about your stupid little argument about who’s right and who’s wrong in your little lover’s quarrel?” Michael narrowed his eyes at her words. Anna didn’t seem to care. She glared up at him. “You want the truth? I don’t care! No one cares if you secretly love Lucifer as much as Lucifer loves you! Father doesn’t even care! He never did. But you need to grow up, Michael. Not everything revolves around you or Lucifer. If you keep going, you’re going to destroy this whole planet. And there are innocents that will die! People - humans! Dad gave us a job to do and that’s to protect them! Or have you forgotten?”
Michael’s face twisted into rage. “You think I would forget my duty? I’ve put up duty before anything all my life! You think I do not take any of this seriously? And you really think our father, who has long since abandoned us - me - still cares about his precious little humans? If he did, he wouldn’t have abandoned this planet! He doesn’t care, Anna! About any of this. I don’t think he ever has! And if he doesn’t, why should you? Why should I? Why should any of this matter?” He shook her like a marionette.
Anna stared up at him. “Wow. You really have lost it. This isn’t about Lucifer at all, is it? It’s about them.” She glanced over at Dean. “You’re jealous.”
“No, no, no, I’m not!” Michael seethed. He tossed Anna to the ground. “You should not have betrayed me, Anna.” He stood up and looked coldly down at his sister.
“You kill me and they win,” Anna said.
Michael ignored her and plunged his sword into her chest.
-
The shot rang out before anyone could do anything, before even Dean knew what was happening. He looked around in confusion, trying to find where the source of the noise had come from. But there was no one but him, Lucifer and Michael.
He glanced back to see the large hole in Michael’s meatsuit. Michael had glanced down briefly, almost comically, as if to wonder how it got there. Then slowly, he looked back up to meet Dean’s eyes. And Dean felt his eyes widen in horror as the gap in his chest started to slowly close up.
“Oh Dean, did you really think that thing would work on me?” Michael asked with a raised eyebrow.
Dean glanced down to finally realize he was the one who had shot Michael just now. And with the colt. Then it finally dawned on him that it didn’t work.
Oh fuck.
The colt that supposedly could kill anything couldn’t quite kill anything. At least not an archangel.
Holy fuck were they screwed.
Michael snapped his fingers and he flew back and hit a tree. He groaned and closed his eyes.
-
“Sammy? What are you doing up?”
Sam looked over at Dean. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Well, I see that, doofus. But come on, we gotta go back to bed. You didn’t have a bad dream again, did you?” Dean sat on the couch next to his brother.
He let Sam lean back against him. “And if I did?”
Dean sighed. “Well, I’ll let you sleep with me tonight, I guess.”
“Really?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, but don’t get used to it. You’re like eleven, dude,” Dean said.
-
When Dean woke up again, Michael and Lucifer were going at it. Their swords swung against each other and every time they clashed, Dean could feel the earth beneath him tremble. This was what Anna had meant. Even just fighting, they were shaking the earth, causing small fissures to come up. When one of the angels would hit a tree, that tree started to turn dark and erode. They were slowly destroying the planet with their battle.
This had to end.
Michael got the better of Lucifer, tripping him over with his sword. Lucifer fell on his stomach only to roll away just as Michael swung his sword at him. Michael kept following after his brother, relentless in his swings and Dean saw the writing on the wall. It was only a matter of time before Lucifer grew tired and was too slow to dodge the blade.
Now was the time to act. Dean saw no other window of opportunity. He prepared himself to leap at the archangel and hold him off long enough for Lucifer to get up but before he could do anything, a blur of movement to his right caught him off-guard. Dean froze.
The blur was a body and the body had toppled Michael over somehow. Dean’s heart stilled once he could make out who that body belonged to.
“Sammy!” he cried out just as Michael shook him off and tossed him onto the ground in front of him.
-
This was it. Sam knew his time had come. But still, it didn’t stop his heart from fluttering when he heard Dean’s anguish scream of ‘SAMMY’, of knowing what he was going to do next. This was atonement.
He closed his eyes.
Let me in, Sammy.
Just one word.
Say ‘yes’. We’ll take my brother out together. You and me, Sammy. Like it was meant to be.
Dean.
Dean will be fine. I’m not going to kill him. He was never the issue. But say ‘yes’ and we can destroy my brother for good. He tortured your brother, remember? He tortured you.
Lucifer was right. It had to be this way.
“I’m not evil,” he whispered, more to himself.
Neither am I.
“Sammy, please, there’s gotta be a different way,” Dean’s voice pleaded.
Sam opened his eyes and looked back at his brother. “I’m going to make this right, Dean. I’m going to make everything right again.”
“NO! NO NO NO, SAM!” Dean raced over to where Sam was but Michael pushed him back with a wave of his fingers. Just then Castiel began to stir. Good. Maybe the angel could knock some sense into his brother. “Fuck you, Michael! That’s my brother. You better not kill him, you fucking asshole!”
Sam blinked, looking back at Dean. His lips curved slightly into a crooked little smile. “It’s okay, Dean. I just…I gotta do this. After everything I did. To you. To this whole fucking world. I…” He trailed off slowly before shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for everything and I know it’s not enough. Nothing is ever going to be enough. And I…I know that. Fuck. There are no words, Dean, to make any of this better. To make the thing between us better. So, I guess, I, just want to make things right, okay? Let me go, man.”
“I don’t want you to ever look at me like you in the past year, Dean,” Sam confessed. “Like you feared me. I love you. And I realize that now…I just need to let you go. Now you need to do the same for me.”
“No, fuck you, Sam!” Dean shouted. “Fuck you and your promises! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I love you and you don’t get to just take yourself away! Not after everything you did! You fucking selfish asshole!”
The words stung. And worst of all, he knew it was true. Sam was being selfish. He was going to leave his brother after he broke his brother. But he couldn’t think of a better solution. Lucifer was the only one who could stop Michael at this point and his vessel right now was too weak. They were lucky Dean hadn’t given in and said yes but Lucifer was still too weak. But with Sam, they had a fighting chance.
He wrecked the world.
He wrecked Dean.
The least he could do was put the world back together and hope Dean found peace in this life.
So no matter how much Dean pleaded and shouted and cursed him out, Sam knew he was doing the right thing.
Him staying here to be with Dean would be the wrong thing to do. Letting the world burn just because he was too weak to let Dean go would be selfish of him. He wanted to think that maybe after that year of hurting Dean and ignoring his wants and needs, that maybe this time around, he could change. He could do the thing that seemed so hard for either of them to do and that was to break this endless cycle that was clearly damaging them both. He loved Dean too much to just stand back and watch as his brother continued to hurt.
“Goodbye, Dean. I love you,” Sam said. He turned to Lucifer who looked up at him expectantly. “Yes. My answer is yes.”
“SAMMY!”
The sudden beam of light exploded the area and knocked Dean back another couple feet. Castiel woke up in time to see that Sam finally said yes to Lucifer.
-
Excerpt from WINCHESTER GOSPEL
CASTIEL
P. 142
I’ll be quite frank. I am not sure why I have been handed the task to do this. This has always been believed to be the prophet’s job - to write down the intricate details of the Winchesters and how they’ve come to defy all odds. But Chuck insisted that I write down my own account and so here I am, sitting in the den in a quiet suburban human neighborhood. I’d like to preface this by admitting that I am not a writer but I told Chuck I would try my best. I’m not quite sure where to start, so I guess I’ll have to start at the beginning.
My name is Castiel and I am an angel. Not quite the ones often imagined by humans. We don’t have harps and we don’t sit on clouds. We don’t perch on people’s shoulders. We’re warriors of God.
I’ve spent a lot of time on earth, more than I truly care to admit. I’ve learned many things while I’ve been down here, whether it has been through my human vessel Jimmy Novak, whom I’m loath to admit, I’ve come to cherish like one of my own. We’ve fought alongside each other for years, decades, he and I. He’s a human, out of billions, who seeked me out of his own accord, because his love for mankind and for God ran so deep. But he’s more than just a human. He’s a soldier. A comrade. A brother. Part of me. He’s my eyes and ears and hands and legs and memories and passion and motive and every single human emotion that courses through my veins. Without Jimmy, I don’t think I could’ve come to truly appreciate what is down here. I’d be another Michael. Another Lucifer. I shudder to think back to the time when I was like them. Carrying out orders without question, serving for the greater good and yet haven’t had an ounce of what that might have been.
No, without Jimmy, I’m afraid I would never have truly understood and appreciated the sheer complexities of humanity. Angels are not made like humans. They don’t know the joys of free will. They don’t feel love and regret, anxiety and anger, happiness and sadness, such passionate fury and revenge and lust and a deep seated hunger to do more, to be better. It’s not that we are incapable. Because believe me, we are. We just are not programmed the way humans are, not from birth. While it’s ingrained in humans, it is learned in angels. That I know of.
I will always be grateful that Jimmy Novak decided to become my vessel. I don’t think I ever really understood what he’d given up for this life. What he had to sacrifice. Love. Family. Something that the Winchesters, whom I met at the very end, had so desperately tried to cling to. It’s something I’ve found in every human I’ve encountered. They all long for the same thing, the thing that seems just out of reach to some.
You could never hope to understand that, Michael.
After the final battle where you lost, and the Winchesters won, I gifted Dean Winchester something he’s never had before. A second childhood. He’s six months old and he’s in the good hands of a semi-retired hunter named Bobby Singer. I’ve altered the memories of all the people that may have come into contact with the Winchesters. I’m positive Bobby Singer will do right by Dean. I plan to visit the Singers every few years to see that Dean’s progression from child to adulthood flourishes. Because with everything he has been through Dean Winchester deserves more.
He deserves the choices. The freedom. The potential for happiness.
As for Sam, it wasn’t all his fault the way he turned out. He never stood a chance against destiny either. When he died, I met with him and laid out a couple choices for him.
-
Dean was sitting on a folding chair in front of the lake. He put down his fishing rod next to him and grabbed his beer before leaning back and taking a sip. This was the part of heaven that he liked best. Mom and dad were just down the road, their house as he remembered it. He’d stopped by the other day when dad invited him and a few other people he deemed family to a small barbecue party. The weather was pretty fucking gorgeous lately - sunny and cloudless. But then again, it was heaven.
Cas made sure that the Winchesters, treated as pretty much VIP up here, had good weather most of the time. He wanted to keep the weather like this all the time but Dean eventually sat the angel down and told him point blank that while heaven was a great place to be when people died, nothing was ever perfect and besides, people got bored with no variety. He was pretty sure the angel still didn’t really understand but he eventually just gave Dean some rain here and there, a thunderstorm once in a while and even snow.
He took another sip before he felt a light tug on his fishing rod. Dean’s smirk turned wider as he grabbed hold and tugged back, realizing he got this sucker hook, line, and sinker.
-
When Sam woke up, he wasn’t sure where he was at first. The last thing he remembered was saying ‘yes’ to Lucifer and letting the devil in. He remembered how Dean had been shouting at him, struggling to grab him before it was too late.
Sam had turned and looked back at Dean with a sad little smile. He remembered thinking, ‘I’m going to make this right. I’m going to make everything right again.’
“NO! NO NO NO, SAM!” Dean shouted. “That’s my fucking brother! Sam! SAMMY!”
Sam blinked, looking back at Dean. His lips curved slightly into a crooked little smile. “It’s okay, Dean. I just…I gotta do this. After everything I did. To you. To this whole fucking world. I…” He trailed off slowly before shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for everything and I know it’s not enough. Nothing is ever going to be enough. And I…I know that. Fuck. There are no words, Dean, to make any of this better. To make the thing between us better. So, I guess, I, just want to make things right, okay? Let me go, man,” Sam said. Dean didn’t think he ever sounded as sincere as this moment. This was Sam. The real Sam. Forget all the fucking demon blood. The corruptness of his soul. The so-called evil within him that all the angels kept saying. Sam wasn’t fucking evil. Maybe misguided but dammit…this was still Sam. And fuck, it took him so long to realize it, but maybe Sam loved him differently. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was the same kind of deep-seated love that Dean had. Maybe it got tainted and twisted along the way. Maybe he was just as tainted.
He didn’t know. He didn’t fucking know. And he realized, for once, he didn’t fucking care. This was Sam. This was Sam intending to sacrifice himself for the world, for DEAN. Like a fucking stupid idiot.
“SAMMY!”
“Good-bye, Dean. I love you,” Sam said, smiling for real, tears trailing down his cheeks.
NO!
Dean hurled himself at Sam but Castiel was there before he could be engulfed in the sudden bright white light that encased his brother.
Sam remembered wrestling control with Lucifer. He remembered winning for just a brief moment. A moment that would be important to the outcome of the battle, the outcome of the world.
“Don’t you feel that, Sam?” Lucifer asked from within him.
Sam stared at a mirror of himself. Lucifer wore a white suit. “If we’re going to do this, I need full control,” he growled.
“That wasn’t the deal, kiddo,” Lucifer said as he crouched in front of Sam. “Now sit tight and watch as I kill my brother.”
Sam watched as Lucifer made quick work of Michael. Michael was on the edge of death. “Think my brother deserves a quick death? Or should I prolong it and make him watch as I ruin this world?”
Sam’s eyes widened with horror. “That wasn’t part of the plan!”
Lucifer looked down at him. All he could sense was the devil’s cold seething hatred. “I’ve had a long time to think of how to feel about my brother’s betrayal. I loved him even when he locked me in that cage. Don’t you think I should deserve a little bit of revenge?”
“That was your brother but you destroying this planet means that you’ll kill everyone, including innocent humans,” Sam growled. “And they did nothing to you!”
“Their mere existence did everything to me, Sammy,” Lucifer shouted.
Sam lunged.
He remembered how bewildered everyone looked when he came back to himself, staggering back a step. He didn’t care about the others though, his only target had been Dean. His heart had been racing.
“Dean, now,” Sam said, holding his arms wide open. “Do it, come on, shoot me,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I got, but please, don’t miss.”
Dean stared at him. “Sammy?” He shook his head, the shock of seeing his brother again fading as he realized what his brother wanted him to do. “You want me to shoot you with the colt? It won’t work, Sam. I tried that on Michael.”
“Crap! What do we do then?” Sam winced as Lucifer attacked him mentally, like a caged animal. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold him off.”
Castiel stood up and looked at Dean. “The colt might not kill angels but an angel blade would. But Lucifer isn’t just any angel so the angel blade might not work.”
Dean cursed to himself. “Then what do you think will work?” He winced as Sam went down to his knees, clutching his head, appearing to be in a mental battle with Lucifer. He could sense Sam’s desperation through their connection. Dean’s eyes widened in realization. That was it! They still shared a connection through their souls. Maybe…
Fuck.
He looked around quickly to see the sword Michael had used was still laying on the ground a few feet away. The fallen angel was still slumped on the ground, his injuries grave from when he’d fought off Lucifer. Dean went to grab the sword.
“Dean…” Michael opened an eye and groaned as Dean got closer. “What are you doing?”
“Something I should’ve done before,” Dean said, picking up the sword. It was heavier than he thought it would be and glinted in the light. He turned to Sam with a smile. “You really think you’re just going to sacrifice yourself and leave me to pick up the pieces?”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “Dean, that’s not what-”
“Shut it, Sammy. If we’re going to do this thing, we’re doing it together, you get me?” Dean said.
“Dean?” Castiel questioned.
Dean ignored the angel. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”
Sam sighed. “I should’ve known better, huh?”
“What are you doing, Dean?” Michael asked again, struggling to get up.
Dean finally turned to the archangel on the ground. “I’m not going to let Sammy die alone,” he said simply. “And I’m going to make sure you don’t have your true vessel so you can’t try this shit again.”
“You can’t do that! I won’t let you,” Michael hissed.
Castiel seemed to realize Dean’s plan and stepped in between the human and the angel. “You’ll have to get through me before you can touch Dean Winchester,” he said, blue eyes glowing. “Anna’s sacrifice will not be in vain.”
“You ready, Sammy?” Dean asked, gripping the sword tightly. Sam nodded as Dean turned the sword toward his own chest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Smiling, he murmured, “See ya on the other side, little bro. Love ya, man.”
He ignored the sudden furious screaming that came from Michael as he plunged the sword into his heart.
-
“So that’s it, huh, Cas?” Dean asked once he woke up to the void. He remembered killing himself so that he could kill Sam along with Lucifer. He remembered the desperate scream from Michael as he watched to the very end.
Castiel smiled and helped him stand up. “Where are we?” Dean asked.
“Limbo,” Castiel said.
“Limbo?”
“It’s the in-between world, neither hell nor heaven. It’s where all the souls go before judgment,” Castiel explained.
“So you’re here to judge me,” Dean said.
Castiel tilted his head. “Something like that. Here, have a seat.” Out of nowhere a small plain brown table appeared before them. Two chairs appeared as well.
Dean reluctantly sat down. He was nervous though he ought not to be. Castiel knew without a doubt how pure Dean’s soul was. “I was told to give you a couple choices. Just like I did for your brother.”
“Sam?” Dean’s eyes widened. “Sam was here already?”
“Yes,” Castiel said.
“What choices did you give him? What did he choose?” Dean asked, intending on following Sam wherever he went.
Castiel sighed. “I cannot tell you any of that.” Dean looked ready to argue but Castiel just raised a hand to silence him. “It is not my place, Dean. I can only list out your choices for you and let you pick.”
-
Sam remembered as he walked down the road. It took him a long time to get here. He’d been a boy who grew up with a baby sister named Deana. He’d also been a young woman who married a man named Jason. He’d been a doctor who saved the life of a boy and his baby brother. He had been a lot of people and learned a lot in his many lives before he earned his right into heaven.
It had been a choice that Castiel had given him.
“To atone for your mistakes, Sam, I’m going to let you choose,” Castiel told him.
Sam could either suffer thirty years in hell or reincarnate as different people on earth until he was ready to reunite with his brother.
Sam chose reincarnation.
Of course with each life, he remembered nothing of his old one until he died.
-
Sam climbed up the steps carefully. The house in front of him was gorgeous, a perfect rendition of the house he remembered when they were kids. Back before the fire. Only it wasn’t in the old neighborhood like he remembered it to be on earth but sat in the middle of acres of land. Behind it sat a large beautiful lake. He walked up to the door and thought about knocking on the door but thought better of it and decided to check out the lake first.
He found himself walking around the house and opened the small white gate that led to the back. There sitting on the recliner was Dean.
Dean turned to look at him with a smirk, pulling the shades off his eyes as he said, “Hey, Sammy. ‘Bout time you made it. Mom and dad were starting to wonder if you’d ever make it to one of their barbecues.”
-
EPILOGUE
“So legend goes that the Winchesters never actually died,” Peter said. He looked at his fellow hunters-in-training.
“Oh shut up, Pete. That’s why it’s a legend. It’s not real,” Mary said, swatting him on the arm.
Peter winced. “I thought you were a hunter. You would know a lot of legends actually have some truth to them.”
“The Winchesters might’ve been good hunters but they were just human,” Richard said, “but nice try trying to scare us.”
“What’s scary about the Winchesters? They’re the good guys,” Mary pointed out.
“Were the good guys, remember?” Richard said. “They’re dead now. And have you read some of the lore on them? They were kind of crazy.”
“I heard they didn’t actually care about the world, just each other,” Peter added. “They’d do anything as long as they were both together. Isn’t that creepy?”
“I don’t know. I heard a lot more good things about them. They saved people,” Mary argued.
“You want the real truth about the Winchesters?” a blonde haired girl came up to them.
“Who are you?” Peter asked. He’d never seen the girl here before and the academy wasn’t all that big.
“Claire,” the girl said. “Anyways, if you want the truth, you should follow me. I know this guy who’s been with the Winchesters the whole time. He’d definitely tell you what the Winchesters were really like if you know, you wanted the truth and not just to spread lies.”
The three exchanged looks. “We do want the truth but how can we trust you?” Mary asked.
Claire shrugged. “I mean, we’re all hunters here. Don’t you guys trust other hunters?”
-
Castiel sighed when Claire brought more kids to him. They looked at him curiously. He knew instantly what they were here for. He went to grab an old, tattered but cherished, book down from the high shelf.
It was called The Winchester Gospel.