Metatron sipped his martini thoughtfully in his darkened booth, as he half-listened to God try out different chords and lyrics on an acoustic guitar for a half-finished chorus. The world wasn't created in a day and, apparently, this song wouldn't be either. In Metatron's opinion, God's bearded human form was ridiculous, with all of the foot stomping rhythms and hesitant strumming. So was this night club setting. And for that matter, so was the very idea that God couldn't snap his finger and have a host of angels singing his new gospel so that all of creation could hear it. But the drinks were nice.
'Chuck' laughed at himself quietly. "Nothing in English rhymes with 'Soldier', does it Metatron?"
"Rhymes are a crutch. Cadence and storytelling make the song."
"But rhymes make people feel…", Chuck shrugged and wobbled his guitar with his thoughts, "Secure".
Metatron sighed with annoyance. "Guard and scarred".
Chuck smiled. "Yes!" He strummed a chord and hummed a few lines, presumably reworking the thought in in his head with his new words.
"I'm pretty sure this is on topic," Metatron squinted knowingly at Chuck, "I've always wanted to ask…what is it with the Winchesters anyway?".
"Hmm?" Chuck glanced back and forth between Metatron and his guitar strings.
"Why?"
Chuck sang back the word "Whyyyy". His eyes widened as if the word was a solution to a problem with his song that he hadn't even known he had. "That works", he murmured quietly, counting out the song's rhythm with his foot.
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Dean visibly shivered and pulled his long grey coat closer to him. "I hate hospitals. They're cold, sterile, and the food is usually awful."
"They've put us back together often enough.", Sam smiled unhappily, prodding his brother through the bustling hospital lobby and into a nearby elevator that held several other occupants.
"Don't remind me. All I'm saying is that Cas had better be sure of this demon spirit pixie thing or I'm going to kick his feathered ass and he'll need a doctor." Dean realized he'd been speaking too loudly when the elevator became deadly quiet. Dean smiled down at the elderly woman next to him who regarded him with open, surprised eyes. "Mornin'."
Sam held his breath, gritted his teeth and stared forward, turning various shades of red until the elevator came to a bumpy stop. He pulled Dean out wordlessly and without so much as a glance at the other occupants.
"We'll be home by lunch." Sam assured his brother. Each direction he turned he faced a hallway of small glass rooms, most with curtains drawn. Dozens of them. "Which way is the nurses station?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw his brother visibly relax, which usually meant that ...Sam turned around and saw the angel Castiel sweeping quickly down the hall towards them. "Dean!" Sam elbowed his brother to turn around.
"It's about time, Cas." Dean huffed.
"Sorry, I was speaking to my...contact."
"Your contact? You have contacts now?" Dean skeptically squinted down at his friend.
Castiel was visibly flustered and his blue eyes darted the halls before he leaned in to whisper. "An angel, my contact is an angel".
"Of course an angel works in a hospital. Along with reapers and witches and ghosts. God, I hate hospitals!"
"Dean." Sam frowned disapprovingly at his brother's tirade.
Dean straightened his body and cleared his throat. "Proceed."
Cas blinked at Dean, not believing the man's naivete. His annoyance flared and he briefly wondered if that trip to 'Perdition' had been worth it. "Yes, an angel. Every hospital has an Angel. Hospitals are anomalies at the the veil of life and death and the souls here are extremely vulnerable. The angels stationed in hospitals try to make sure that the souls can pass without being...tampered with."
Dean's teeth audibly clacked together, biting off whatever he was about to say. He paused just a moment before finally speaking. "And what does...your hospital angel say is going on here?"
"Souls aren't passing over like they're supposed to."
"What, so, like they're not being reaped? They're not going to be judged?" Sam grasped for understanding.
Castiel set his jaw tightly. "They're being devoured."
Dean sighed and glared at his brother. They were going to miss lunch.
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"The Winchesters." Metatron interrupted pointedly, getting God back on task.
Chuck continued tapping, "I don't understand your confusion".
Metatron was extra annoyed. He always did hate it when God insisted he spell things out. "Okay, so you have Dean."
"A righteous man." Chuck had stopped tapping, but was now, infuriatingly, bobbing his head.
"Righteous enough to ruin everything he touches!" Metatron was a bit taken back at the use of that word to describe the elder Winchester. "The man has never met a sin he didn't like. He's been possessed, damned, chewed up, spit out, and torn to pieces on a cosmic level."
"And Saaaam?" Chuck sang, making the guitar wail a note with the name.
"He's just an abomination. An angsty, whiny abomination" Metatron discarded the very thought of that particular Winchester. "And then you foist Castiel on them-"
Chuck interrupts him with two long, sad notes from the guitar.
"Exactly!", Metatron gestured to the guitar before he realized how absurd it looked. "Castiel cracked in the kiln. I mean, his heart is in the right place, but –"
Chuck smiled, amused by the whole conversation. "I commanded all of the angels to love humanity. It was kind of a big deal back in the day."
"If by humanity, you mean Dean Winchester."
"Mazal Tov!" Chuck smiled and laughed with his head against the guitar's neck.
Metatron narrowed his eyes, unsure of how to take that response. "Why though? Why those men? They get beat up, you send their personal angel to heal them. They die, you allow them to be brought back. Those broken, twisted, tired souls time and time and time again. You're aware that it makes you look like…", he stared at the table, grasping for the correct word for the holiest of fathers.
"Kind of a dick?" Chuck offered helpfully.
Metatron threw his arms in the air with a shrug.
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Castiel led the group to a nurse's station centered in the pod of hallways. Dean saw a smaller woman at the desk who was wearing a modest black dress and a large cross on a chain across her chest. "Is that your 'contact', Cas?"
"No...she is." Castiel bobbed his head deliberately casually towards a pleasantly shaped woman dressed in pink, form fitting, nurse's scrubs. The dark skinned nurse-angel was bent and frowning into a computer monitor, but looked up at their approach. She seemed unimpressed by Sam and Dean, but smiled at Castiel. Really smiled at Castiel. Castiel floundered a bit, but returned the smile. Dean stepped back and stared between the two briefly wondering about Cas's contact with his contact. "Diniel", Cas finally answered to break Dean's thoughts, "but they go by Tima here".
"And what does...Tima think we're dealing with here?"
"An Ix."
"Well, boys, let's go Ix hunting."
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Chuck slouched against the guitar. "What if I told you there was no cosmic plan and no divine intervention? Not even for the Winchesters."
Metatron was slightly horrified. "John and Mary's marriage was ordained and arranged by Heaven. Dean and Sam were meant to be."
Chuck nodded, resuming the strumming on his guitar. "Their creation was meant to be. As well as Castiel. I handmade all of you angels personally."
Metatron blinked, even more horrified at the evolving implication.
"Dean and his ferocity. Sam and his unwavering faith. Castiel and his oversized heart. Their instincts, their resiliency, their fears and faults are all…" Chuck trailed off.
"Perfect?!" Metatron had never been nauseous in his angel form, but he felt like he should be.
"On the whole, I do have a pretty good track record with this whole creation thing.", Chuck mused bobbing his head again to some unheard melody. "Are you suggesting I make mistakes?". God smiled devilishly at the Scribe.
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"Ix!" Dean spat the name to no one in particular as he huddled, out of breath, in a dark corner of an empty patient cubicle. Apparently Ix was Mayan for invisible bug bastards that can fly, drink souls, and psychically vibrate people to liquid death. At least they're supposed to die the same way other bugs do - you kill them with fire. He shook his hand-held Butane torch to make sure it still had juice.
Dean slid across the room on his knees and he peeked out around the door to the cubicle where he caught the eye of Sam who was likewise mostly hidden in a glass cube. Sam braced himself and nodded. He held up his hands an counted down from three. At one, both men scrambled to the center hallway and stood back pressed against back, torches held out like guns.
"You ok, Sammy?"
"Still solid, Dean."
"Well, alright then. You seen Cas?"
"He said something about making sure Tima got to the maternity ward to guard the newborns."
"Very chivalrous of him."
"Yeah….you hear that?"
"That buzzing that sounds like certain death?"
"Yeah."
"And it's getting louder?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I hear it."
"Ahh."
The Winchesters took a breath and, at the same moment, snapped shoulder to shoulder and triggered their torches. The form of a giant burning mosquito took shape just in front of them.
"I don't think it's working, Dean." Sam heard a barely audible but familiar squeaking getting closer as well.
Castiel appeared at the end of the hall and he ran towards the burning Ix, with his own torch at the ready. Cas's torch ignited just as Sam's and Dean's emptied. Under the extended burning, the bug form shook erratically and finally popped like a pizza roll left in the microwave too long. Burning ash covered the walls, floors, and left Castiel making hissing sounds behind the hands covering his face.
"Cas?" Dean rushed to close the distance between himself and the angel. He gripped the smaller man's shoulders. "Cas? Castiel?"
Castiel moved his hands away from his face and blinked his blue eyes before finally finding Dean's blurry face. "I got some hot ash in my eyes."
Dean examined Cas's eyes carefully and slowly before finally deciding, "You'll be fine, but let's get you to an eyewash station. You really toasted that bitch!"
The Angel of the Lord quietly let Dean Winchester take take his arm and lead him numbly and blindly through the hospital's maze.
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"Where does it end though?"
"End?"
"Humans die, that is your universal truth."
Chuck closed his eyes and started strumming a different but annoyingly familiar tune that Metatron couldn't place at that moment. As if he is, was, and will be there in person, Chuck watches Sam Winchester screaming pleas to heaven and hell. At Sam's feet, his brother lay on his back, eyes open but empty. Astride Dean lay Castiel, smiling with awareness that they had really won and he had finally accomplished his mission. This time, his light would fade for good. Chuck already knew that the next morning some passersby would comment that there appeared to be two sets of angels' wings shaded on the pavement. Aged and wizened, Sam would and did huff to himself in amusement from the library's comfiest rocking chair. "Well? We don't have all day, Sammy!". Sam smiled and rose to hug his brother, growing younger and pain-free as he did. For his part, Chuck almost couldn't wait to get behind the wheel of that Impala. Was that a sin? It sounds like a sin. The car and the men traveled a very long road.
Chuck hummed loudly. He'd get back to his own song, eventually. He always did. "Have you ever heard of a band called Kansas?"