A/N: So this is based vaguely upon the movie Starman, which is way awesome, 10/10 would recommend.
Two days from now, it would be six months since Jimmy's... passing, and while Dean's coping habits had become a bit less self-destructive after Sam threatened to move himself and his fiancé Jess into thei- his home, he couldn't claim to be the poster boy for quality grief decision making.
Which is how, once again, Dean found himself slumped across the couch long after any sane person would have gone to bed, watching and rewatching endless hours of home-videos. Dean thought of himself as more of a live-in-the-moment kinda guy, but Jimmy, Jimmy could rarely be found without a camera in front of his face. It was this little quirk that now left him with a cinematic recounting of their entire relationship, everything from their first date to their honeymoon and almost all the moments in between.
Tonight's tape contained the perils of their trip to the beach two years ago. The joy had kicked off when, 200 miles down the road, Dean had suddenly whipped off the highway, making a hasty stop outside an abandoned gas station and looking everywhere but Jimmy and his camera as he informed him he had forgotten the one bag he was suppose to remember, which just so happened to contain about all of their important travel information..
Dean took another swig of whiskey as Jimmy's laughter spilled out of the speakers. He swiped angrily at the tears he refused to let fall as Jimmy informed him he was aware, and had grabbed the bag himself while locking up.
It was too much, too soon.
In one not entirely swift motion, Dean jabbed the button to shut the tv off and flung himself to his feet, chucking the remote off into some far corner of the living room. He staggered in the direction of the bedroom, trying his damnedest to keep it together long enough for his body to fall into its nightly coma. The nightmares tended to be the only thing capable of waking him before morning, and Dean anticipated tonight would be no exception.
He was wrong.
Roughly an hour after Dean had managed to fall into a restless sleep, he was dragged back into reality - but not by a nightmare.
His living room was glowing.
The first thought his alcohol-addled brain came up with was fire, and the brief twinge of fear that spread through his system as he recalled another fire a long time ago helped clear his head enough to rule that possibility out. While the room was indeed alight, it lacked all the accompanying terrors. There were no flames, no smoke to fill his lungs or imped his vision, and the light cast a whitish tinge about the place. And there was this.. sound. Not the crackle and pop of something being burned, more like a thousand broken bones being set at once, overlain with a screeching hum.
No, this was definitely not a fire.
Another possibility sprang to mind then, one nearly as unpleasant: intruder.
Sucking in a silent breath, Dean rolled off the bed, blindly reaching out to grab the gun he kept under his side of the bed. Call him paranoid, but it was a Winchester's way to be at least semi-prepared to take on things that go bump in the night. Dean had let some of these habits slip after Jimmy died, no longer having someone he was immediately responsible for other than himself to need to protect, but as the crackling from the living room increased, and he felt his fingers close around the cold metal, he became glad he'd kept up with at least this one.
His mind was no longer foggy, and his stance was confident as he got to his feet and crept toward the source of the oddities. Quickly he rounded the corner, aim locked on the dude standing in his house, back turned to Dean.
"Don't move, asshat."
The guy slowly started to rotate towards him, and it was then Dean began to notice a few things. Like that the unearthly pops and squeal seemed to be coming from the guy, who's back was rippling as if hundreds of miniature mice were crawling around under his skin, which was plenty visible as the dude was completely in the nude. The dark, sex-marathon hair had Dean's breath hitching, but he refused to let his guard down over a similarity as small as. . .
The gun clattered to the floor. Dean's breathing cane to a halt, and he was pretty sure his heart did for a moment, too. Nude Dude had come a full one eighty and was facing Dean head on, and all coherent thought immediately left the equation.
His voice broke, he was surprised it was working at all. "J-Jimmy?"
And then the face of his dead husband filled Dean's sight, Jimmy's eyes lit with an unearthly glow.
"No, I am Castiel."
Then Dean's world went black.