Gates of Bronze and Bars of Iron
A DCBB 2014 submission
Since this is a big bang, it comes with art. For the art post of this fic please proceed to bluesyundertone. livejournal. com [slash] 1615. html (without the spaces, and with / instead of [slash] because ff.n is bad about censorship like that.) She's a wonderful artist so please encourage her art and comment on the artwork (especially if you liked the story, but especially if you liked the art!) at her LJ account. The cover for this fic that you see displayed here is her work, don't forget to drop a line.
Alright, before we start this baby, I'd really like to thank a lot of wonderful people who made this happen:
Eliza Ye - who has a very very strong Dean voice, a great beta and helped me with a lot of the canon in the fic, and with the headaches of the capitonyms. I have been a fan of her My Name is Castiel, since forever. (I'm looking forward to reading Reapers and your DCBB! :D and the TFWBB too)
Lady Lini - who finished betaing the entire story in a few days, and was really instrumental in the ending of the fic (I would have all stuck you with chapter 13 as an ending if it wasn't for her, so give her a warm shout out once you realize how awful that would have been). I was also very close to panicking when I thought I might not get a beta because I don't know anyone in the fandom when she took me on.
The Hope Lions - who was one of the alphas of the fic, pointed out some very confusing things for readers, was instrumental in naming one of the important minor characters, and was also very helpful with the stumbling block of the ending scene
Johin - was really helpful with the Spell and its counterspell. She was the reason I got over all of my writer's block. She doesn't even watch Supernatural and she'd just answer random questions that went: if you were a super-powered angel douchebag... what would you... :D Congratulations on getting married and I'm still jet lagged, twerp.
All of them could be found in so you can go and search for their ff.n pages.
Whatever errors that remain are mine, and these wonderful people have tried their best to kick this baby into shape.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is property of WarnerBrothers and the CW, and is the brainchild of Erik Kripke. All use of the characters and their lines from the series is unauthorized. I am merely borrowing them for a time, and will return them (a little bit worse for wear, but functional) promptly.
This is an alternate canon (or a divergence for all of those who classify it that way... I can't aptly name it alternate universe). It was conceptualized and was written on the hellatus between Season 8 and 9 and was continued to be written alongside of the 9th season. The series diverges at the ending of Season 09x09 Holy Terror but you'll find some easter eggs from season 9 here and there.
This fic was Inspired by: These are Not Real Problems by dachinchilla
Opening credits done. Here's Chapter 1.
Chapter 1: Baptism
Driving around little pockets of Heaven wasn't like driving around Earth. While Earth was defined by rules that were mapped out, like gravity and time, Heaven's rules were defined by the person whose space you currently occupied.
So though there was a road, because Dean always had a road open to him and that much was his definition of Heaven, there were pockets of Heaven that you couldn't reach by driving. Then there were areas of Heaven that you could only access by doing certain things in a certain order, or there were areas in Heaven that gave you a mandatory waiting period out in their driveway unless they invited you in.
Some people who'd mapped out some areas of this tract that they now called home said that it was easier when the angels were present. Heaven's roads were not built to be patrolled by humans, and angels had been able to travel its air streams smoothly. Dean didn't know about that; he'd reached Heaven after Metatron's Spell, so he didn't really know anything other than his current existence.
It was just one reason why Metatron's plan to completely kick everyone out had been such a douchebag move. He made it so there was no one to call for help except what could pass for elders in this place. Even then, even though hunters were a close-knit community on Earth, Heaven was made to be isolated.
As always, it was Ash who found him first. Ash's perpetually stoned look was offset by the wide grin he had when he found Dean and opened the passenger side of the Impala to ride.
"You are not writing Enochian on my baby," Dean warned as he shifted gears, eyeing the chalk that Ash held with his fingers, bypassing the usual means of travel so they could move around Heaven smoothly.
"That was one time, and we were running from what passes for Heaven in the land of the crazy," Ash said good-naturedly, tugging his long cape into the passenger side. "Are we passing by Bobby's?"
Dean shook his head; anything Bobby related at this point would just be visiting family, and there was time enough for that later, when they had gotten what they'd come for. "You sure this girl—Ysa—wants out?"
"Suicide attempt in Heaven," Ash said solemnly, looking out the window. Dean gripped his steering wheel tight. Heaven was about contentment, and pre-Spell, (as most of the long-term inhabitants called it) an angel would have noticed the signs of someone wanting out before something like this happened.
He popped in the cassette for Stairway to Heaven and let its soft melody fill the car, letting the song fill in the small talk that seemed obligatory for such a trip.
oOo
Dean hefted the small pistol that his dad had given him during his first successful hunt. The colt was a familiar weight in his hands, the nickel well-worn by use from his father's earlier cases. He was trying to train to shoot the gun faster, but he still couldn't quite get the aim, and when he tried to shoot target to target the second shot always veered slightly to the right. His father had always told him to train his eyes more than his body for speed. The body would always go where the eyes fell.
"It's more important to be accurate than to be fast," John reminded Dean as he finished another round of speed shots. The target board was already riddled with holes, signifying an end to Dean's drills. John gave a small jerk of his head to indicate that Dean should refill the boards, and then he fixed his attention on Sam. "Come on then, Sammy, your turn on the block."
Sam walked up slowly to the area that Dean vacated as John handed Sam his weapon. Dean had worked hard when he chose that weapon from his dad's cache, carefully sizing up the guns with Sam's hand and shooting empty to check the recoil. He had asked John if they could delay Sam's shooting lessons until after high school, but John had been adamant. Dean had fired a gun when he was six, he had learned shortly after that. They were in the hunting business. Hunters learned young. Twelve was old enough. The targets replaced, Dean walked back into place, where John and Sam were waiting for him.
"So, Sammy, Dad told me to give you this talk," Dean said, kneeling down to look Sam in the eye. The rules, as it were. "Always treat the gun like it's loaded. Always keep your gun pointed in a safe direction, unless you want to shoot it. Keep your trigger finger off the trigger unless you're gonna use it. And always be sure of your target. Got it?"
"The gun is deadly and serious. Don't shoot anything human," Sam summed up as he tried to imitate Dean's stance. Dean smiled, ruffled Sam's hair, and adjusted him a little before telling him to relax and assume the position again.
"Okay, before you do any shooting, it's really important that you get the muscle strength to keep that posture so that you can handle the gun and the recoil properly," Dean commented as he adjusted Sam's arm again. "So you have to practice holding this a couple of times a day while you're doing homework and—"
"You know, I was going to sit back, relax, and watch you go through your axis mundi, what, is this the fifth time around?" The smooth drawl interrupted his lecture, and Dean straightened up to come face to face with his personal reaper. He raised his eyebrows. "Seriously, teaching your brother to become the next Patrick Bateman was not one of my top ten things Dean Winchester would relive."
Dean frowned at her, breaking away from the parody of Sam listening raptly at him and John, whose face he hadn't been paying attention to before, had broken into the small proud smile that Dean wished his father had shown more when he had been alive. "I thought I'd been through the Greatest Hits before. You'd have watched. It should be a recurring theme. Go away, it's only my second time remembering this."
She snorted as she waved her hand, motioning at the ongoing scene. "You change as you grow, Dean. Your version of the events on the axis mundi changes as your priorities and personality change. Sam and you burning the field down, your mother with PB&J, these will always be constant, but this wasn't here before."
John's face changed as they noted the darkening clouds. "Looks like an early evening for us, son." John threw the Impala's keys over to Dean, which he caught. "Let's put your driving skills to the test and go to that movie Sam has wanted to see."
"It was a documentary. Boring as hell. Should have known it when Sam picked it. But it was one of those times that the three of us actually—enjoyed each other's company," Dean said as he pocketed the car keys, took Sam's hand, and loped his other arm around his father's shoulder. John stiffened momentarily, unused to the contact, as if this fragile thing would not last, but accompanied his boys to the Impala.
Maybe this was new because before now, Dean hadn't truly remembered the good times with John. He had tried, and he was a good son, but he hadn't thought about the good times in a long while.
There was silence as he drove, John and Sam fading into the black as his baby followed the road of the axis mundi. The larger than life moon illuminated their path. Tessa easily took the place that John had vacated, filling the space with an expectant hush.
The axis mundi this time around was still that asphalt road, but unlike last time, the moon shone brilliantly, casting everything in a lighter tone than the dark shadow that they had travelled the first time around. Or maybe it was the difference between being hunted by Zachariah the first time and the almost relaxed pace today.
oOo
With Ash's directions, they reached Ysa's heaven quickly. One moment, they were driving down an asphalt road, the next they were in a library. Dean looked up and saw floors and floors of books with a wide open center and a large sky light illuminating a large bed with a girl propped up, lost in a smallish paperback which looked like it was a cross between an angel falling and a teen romance flick.
The girl was all light and shining, with blond hair and light green eyes making her look even younger than the fifteen her soul was manifesting. She didn't show signs of the suicide, but most suicides in Heaven didn't show wear and tear of their bodies. She closed her book with a snap when she noticed that she wasn't alone and regarded them wearily.
"I get it already; there's no death here." She shrugged, her blond hair slipping from the ponytail that she had gathered it into when she had time to think about appearances. "No need to lecture me about it."
Dean's eyebrows rose in question as he looked at Ash. That wasn't the usual response when he visited. It was Heaven; there wasn't anyone who meant you harm when they visited, but these souls were usually so fresh that they forgot that Heaven and Earth didn't follow the same rules.
Ash mouthed, "grandmother," before he turned back to her. "No lectures, here; I just thought you'd want to talk to the Righteous Man. He might have what you're looking for." He scratched the back of his neck when she shrugged. "I'm going to go check out the sci-fi section until you're done."
"Ninth floor. Watch out for the Enterprise hanging from the ceiling," Ysa directed, nodding towards the small elevator hidden behind rows and rows of books. It was Heaven; there was nothing to do but share space and be proud of the little niche that you'd carved out of wants and light.
With a low whisper of "cool," Ash went over and scrambled into the elevator, leaving Dean alone with the teen. At least, she looked like a teen; age was hardly relevant here, and she could totally still be older than him. People in Heaven were given the shape of the body they felt most comfortable in. It was confusing at times.
She motioned for him to sit in a reclining chair that she probably spent hours on. They sat there in front of each other, because Dean didn't have any ideas on how to start this conversation, apart from, 'So you decided to slit your wrists—' and he felt that it was a poor way to start rapport.
"I had fun building my heaven, you know," she confided as she followed the elevator's light, tracking Ash's progress. The elevator was made of glass and overlooked all the books that she had read. It was reminiscent of Metatron's own hotel room, but grander because it wasn't in the mortal plane. "I thought that if I had this one thing that I'd loved since I was a child, I wouldn't mind waiting for my mom and my dad here."
"Yeah, I keep busy with my car and fishing, waiting for Sammy—that's my brother," Dean said in the low, steady voice that he used to use to prevent a twitchy victim from bolting.
She hummed noncommittally, looking at Dean and finding that maybe she wasn't alone in this after all. "How did you die?"
It was rude of her to ask. It was an unspoken rule that the citizens of Heaven did not talk of what they had lost, because that was too painful for this place. It was like asking outright how old you were, or who you voted for president, but more personal, and with more baggage. "Hunting accident, wasn't pretty."
It was more than that, really, but the truth wasn't what she was asking for.
Ysa closed her eyes and leaned on her headboard. "I was running from something. I can't really remember, it's been so long and this place is one big—" she waved her hand, unable to find the right words, so Ysa just shrugged and gave a small smile. "I got strapped down and taken, and the next thing I knew, I was here. I was a teenager."
Sometimes death memories were difficult to mesh with moving on and coping. So souls forgot, just so they could have their temporary sanity. So that they could be happy.
She opened her eyes slowly and gave him a look that felt like she was trying to understand. "It was all right for a while. The people here, they care for you in a way that you don't expect on Earth, and there's surprising kindness in people." She sounded like she hadn't experienced kindness back when she was alive.
"But that's not enough for you anymore," Dean supplied, because no one chose to die in Heaven, and risk being doomed to Hell without thinking twice.
"My parents died." In Heaven, you need only to wait for so long as you can bear before your loved ones came to see you. "Our heavens are propped around each other, but I'm not part of their soul bond. Their heaven, it's not built around mine. I'm envious of that." She smiled sadly. It was watery and tinged with a small amount of shame.
"I was fifteen when I died. That's barely half a life lived. Not even half by most people's standards. I want to live, love, create something. I want to write my own story, and barring that, then maybe I want to forget even for a little while that there's more than this." She pressed a fist against her chest. Like there was a hole that she'd managed to fill with the endless stories. Stories that she'd read about in the books that she filled her heaven with. Stories that weren't hers.
For all the contentment that Heaven provided, sometimes its citizens realized that it was life itself that they could not do without. And that was one thing that Heaven could not give, its pockets filled to the brim with old souls. Sometimes, after the souls "let go," something reminded them of their old lives, and that was when they lost the simple joys that Heaven had to offer. They began to yearn for something different—for new life, for that never-ending happiness—and the most Heaven could offer was an illusion.
"There's a way to fall from Heaven," Dean said slowly, looking at her straight in the eyes. He had a unique perspective of the afterlife, probably because he was the only person who'd been to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven for more than one day, actually lived through them and remembered them. "I could bring you there."
"Fall?"
There it was, the inevitable fear. For all that Heaven was repetitive and its boundaries limited by one's imagination and the repository of souls it held, it also promised lack of suffering. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. Not the best way to talk to a non-angel. "There's a way to be reborn. Not every soul is brand-spanking new."
"Oh…" There was a small glint in her eyes that reflected hope, dulled by a small, wistful look that she threw around the large room that was filled with stories. "Grandma will be so disappointed if I leave."
"She's your grandmother. She's the one who told Ash you wanted out." Because it was Heaven, and its residents were nothing if not generous.
"Could I say good-bye?" There was a small tremble in her voice that signified tears, and a smattering of rain offset the bright sun that was shining through the large skylight. Her sky was doing the crying for her.
When he'd been alive he would have said, "Sure, kid." But he'd learned that some people didn't take kindly to that when they'd been living as a preteen for forty years. Children, they were easy to please; they never grew tired of the happiness of Heaven. The teenagers were the ones who were blessed and cursed with ever-changing wants, impossible emotions and unfulfilled desires. Imagine realizing after forty years, a hundred, that you had unfinished business. Too late to become a ghost and stuck behind the impenetrable Gates of Heaven.
"Take all the time you want," he allowed as she stood up shakily. She brushed her hands against the small bookshelves that were closest to her bed, books dog-eared from previous reads and well-loved. She pulled out a small book from one of the lower shelves. The cover featured a picture of a tower with the word Rapunzel printed in script above it.
A door parted, with the very loud clicking and unmistakable turning of gears, until the bookshelf was a doorway leading to a garden path showing what Dean guessed to be her grandmother's house. Maybe she even had time to say goodbye to her parents.
"I'll be back," she whispered before she stepped through and the doorway closed.
oOo
The road ended abruptly at a wide asphalt driveway, beyond that was a sprawling lawn complete with the standard pine tree, nicely tended bushes, and a house painted in blue. Dean's heart constricted with remembered pain as he stepped onto the driveway.
Ben was waiting by the porch with a baseball and a catcher's glove, idly twisting and tossing a ball in the air, eyes lighting up when he heard Dean's boots hitting one of the creaking porch steps. Dean had never gotten around to fixing it, while he was living with Lisa.
Dean tugged the bill of the boy's cap, eyes twinkling playfully.
"Mom's up in her room, curled under the blankets. It's that time of the month." Ben sighed in miserable sorrow, knowing that Dean would show concern for his mother first, rather than play. It was that protective instinct that Dean worked to instill in Ben.
Dean looked up the stairs and frowned. "Go fill the kettle with water. We can grab some ice cream and play catch in the park later, after your mom is settled."
Dean took the steps to Lisa's bedroom at a slow trudge, trying not to make excessive noise. He reached the room, noting that the curtains were drawn to keep the sun out, the thermostat on the highest bearable setting. Lisa was on the bed and seemed to be asleep until Dean sat down beside her, smoothing down sweat-damp hair. She moved restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position, and smiled up at him weakly.
"Hey," Dean whispered gently, his hands moving from her head to rub soft circles against her back in small comfort. "It's a particularly bad month, huh?"
Lisa groaned, looking at him balefully from under the blankets. "I hate cramps. They were supposed to get better after pregnancy, but..." she trailed off as she leaned towards him.
"I'll go get you warm tea with honey," Dean decided as he pulled away from the bed, brushing the last tendril from her face and giving her a reassuring smile. "I'll be right back."
Lisa just threw the covers over her head again, ostensibly trying to go back to sleep despite the promise of a warm beverage.
Once he reached the kitchen, Tessa was already there sitting on the counter, back braced against the cabinets. "So domestic, Winchester—I'm surprised. You really are a mother hen."
Dean had been taking care of Sam long before he remembered anything else. Taking care of people, that was second nature. It had always been his purpose, no matter what role he was thrust into, protector and nurturer had never left. "Fuck off, Tessa."
"I have seen really strange memories filling a soul's last moments before Heaven, but your axis mundi..." Tessa trailed off as she watched him take one of the cups from the shelf, plastic and insulated because Lisa had a tendency to fall asleep still holding the cup. "Sam, your father, your mother, Lisa, Ben... you want a family."
He shot her a look of irritation. "I have a family, Tessa," Dean pointed out as he found the water Ben had prepared and stirred in a precise amount honey from a jar, measured against the tang of the ginger tea.
Tessa frowned, tagging along after him as the road to Lisa's room opened to another field. Dean glanced back at the door in annoyance. Because these were memories, they could not be changed, and because of that unchanging character, Dean could not lay down roots and start building a new life—or afterlife. It was merely a layover towards whatever endpoint Heaven was supposed to have in store.
"There are no new souls here, Dean," Tessa whispered as she stared into the vast field; this area represented another battle, another triumph. "This Heaven, it's a repository of souls, but it's not life. It was never meant to be a replacement for living. You can't make anything new here."
Dean jerked back from reminiscing to look back at the skylight. Rain was still pattering down against it, but it was starting to get dark. Taking all the time you wanted was risky in Heaven, because time was a construct of mortality, and souls were eternal. But this soul was eager to leave, and no matter how much she loved her grandmother, she would return sooner rather than later.
Ash had returned with a paperback copy of Robotech and had settled down in one of the large beanbag chairs haphazardly strewn around the floor. Dean watched the sky. Usually, the souls returned to them when the sun set and bathed their corner of heaven in eternal night.
The wait was always the hardest, because waiting in someone else's heaven felt a little intrusive, like looking at someone else's soul. He was always thankful when the souls returned.
She returned with flowers curled around her hair—white orchids—which she self-consciously touched, a gift from her grandmother that she probably would have rejected, had it been offered on Earth. But they were in Heaven, there was really not much judgment to pass.
"The Righteous Man travels in a black classic car," Ash said helpfully, putting the book he was reading into one of the carts that held books for re-shelving, accommodatingly placed near the bed where Ysa would have stayed the longest. "We need something that will resonate with the car to travel."
"Ah," Ysa said as she scrunched her nose and tried to think of a place that would connect her heaven and Dean's bridge to all the rest of the world. "I read the Winchester Gospels once."
She motioned for them to follow. The Supernatural series was lodged on the first floor, separate from all her favorite books, but still near enough for it to be something that she treasured. "I never thought I'd meet you."
She raised her eyes to meet Dean's, and she held up a book in her hands. Unlike most of her books, it was printed in legal sized bond paper, bound together with a soft glossy finish and covered with more cartoonish pictures than had been on the first published works. "Instant download and print from the web on my side of the world. Dark Side of the Moon from Carver Edlund's unpublished works should work."
Finding a bridge from one heaven to the Impala had never been easier than it was Ysa's corner of the world. As soon as he held the manuscript, he was back in his beloved driver's seat, Ash to his right and Ysa behind him.
"Directions to the Garden, Ash?"
At least Becky's obsession with the series had given him something useful. She'd inadvertently helped by uploading all the books, even the unpublished ones, making it available to Ysa. One more reason not to find out what Becky's heaven was like.
oOo
"The last time we were here, the path led to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens." Dean looked at the roads, battered from use, peering across the thicket that hadn't seen human activity in what seemed to be ages.
"All roads in Heaven lead to the Garden, regardless of where you're headed." He looked at her, confused, and Tessa gave him an odd laugh. "You can still reach the Garden from the axis, but there are no angels. It's more of a forest than a cultivated backyard." She shrugged as she pointed back at the road.
Dean had no business in the Garden, and they had only ever wanted to talk to Joshua because of Cas. Searching for an absent father wasn't one of his goals right now.
"Everything in Heaven is as near or as far as you need it to be."
The Garden was an ever-changing thing. But because Dean was here, and because Dean was the reason they were all here, it adopted the form that Dean was most used to.
The Garden was larger than life, the center where all the heavens connected. It was sprawling and largely un-navigated, because the humans had not been allowed entry since they were cast out of its gates, in the beginning of time. When Anna fell, someone else had taken the flaming sword's mantle and kept watch. Until the Scribe flung its caretakers out of Heaven, its gate had been guarded vigilantly.
Ysa followed Dean as he walked along the path, leading them to a large waterfall, bathed in ethereal light. It came from what had to be an impossibly high mountain and fell to an unending spray of white. Dean gave her time to take in the scenery, from the mountain to the large tree that dominated the entire Garden, its branches making a canopy for the rest. The Tree was a center point for all.
Though the tree was technically on top of the mountain, it felt less like the tree grew from the mountain and more like the mountain built itself up around the tree. From its branches sprouted thousands and thousands of blossoms of differing colors. The blossoms swayed with the wind and, when fully grown, fell into the shimmering, flowing water before dropping further into the white abyss that was the falls.
Dean laid a reassuring hand on Ysa's shoulder and led her to the water's edge, on a natural rock formation that was no harder on the knees than a church pew. He helped Ysa kneel, hands folded in prayer, before he turned back to the falls and cupped his hands to catch some water from it.
Ysa watched silently as he brought his cupped hands over her head and let the water trickle down softly to bathe the flowers that her grandmother had given her.
Once all the water was gone, the light from the falls intensified until it was almost blinding, bathing Dean and Ysa in white. Dean held her smiling face until he couldn't bear the sight and had to look away or be forced to go sightless for the remainder of his existence.
When he looked back at the rock, all that remained was a circle of white orchids.
"And this is my beloved—"
"Okay, Ash, quoting the Bible? Still one of the most disturbing things you do around me," Dean said, mildly irritated as he swept the orchids Ysa had left behind to hang among the tangled ivy that overgrew the rocks around the falls.
Ash grinned as he shook his head. "Sorry, man, it's just that you baptizing people to get reincarnated needs some solemnizing words."
Dean wouldn't have called it baptism, but he let Ash do most of the talking.
The Garden seemed lonely for all that it was a construct and the center of all known heavens. But it could tend itself, whether or not Joshua was here. Anyway, it wasn't as though Heaven's occupants were rambunctious punks who needed to be reminded to lay off government property.
Heaven's Garden could go untended for another day.
oOo
Tessa smiled as they rode along the road. "Stage Four: Acceptance."
"I thought maybe your first reference would be the crazy Katy Perry song," Dean scoffed as they parked into an empty lot opening into the wide fields of Wyoming.
"I'm surprised you even know who she is." 'The One That Got Away' was clearly not Dean's music.
Tessa rolled her eyes as they moved out over the dry grass at the old forgotten cowboy cemetery. She eyed the dark clouds roiling from the crypt as Dean leaned back against a tree, watching his father distract Azazel for him. He knew this script intimately, reached for the Colt and trained it on Azazel as he regained control over the body he'd been possessing.
All of them watched as arcs of hellfire lit up Azazel's stolen body, spreading from the Colt-induced wound and killing him.
"The final victory. Vindictive much?" Tessa asked as Azazel's lifeless form crumpled to the ground.
"Not really," Dean murmured as he turned towards his father, tears streaming down his face. This was here not for Azazel, but for John. Affirmation, because that was what he'd been waiting for. John's love. John's last gift. The bright light that Dean couldn't close his eyes against, despite the burn.
Family, self-sacrifice, and deaths. Maybe that was the trinity that made up a Winchester male.
Dean scrubbed his face clean with the back of his hand. This was shorter than most of his other memories in the axis mundi, but as Tessa said, it was a victory. It was John telling them he loved them; it was reassurance that John was not left trapped behind the Gates of Hell. Dean walked towards the broken railroad, instinctively knowing where the next axis was. Tessa, the ever-vigilant shadow, followed.
"Ain't there something else for you to do?" Dean asked roughly, fingering his father's leather jacket, one of his constant reminders of who he was and what his father had made him. He walked on the broken railroad as the day grew impossibly short, the tracks transitioning back into asphalt.
Tessa shook her head. "The angels are locked out of Heaven. No one else is going to welcome you into your final pocket of virtual reality."
Dean stopped. Somehow, he hadn't really thought of that. He had been aware, of course, of Metatron's little rebellion. But he hadn't thought that this would be a repercussion.
"Azrael's garrison was stationed to help transition in this circle of Heaven," Tessa commented, waving her hand to indicate the rest of the plane they were in. Castiel's garrison had been tasked to look over human affairs as guardians and soldiers. Azrael, it seemed, was the angel of death. "I kind of miss them here."
oOo
He was sprawled over Bobby's living room, propped up on the couch that he'd known intimately since his father had started leaving him in Bobby's care.
There was a big, widescreen TV in front of them—it looked like they were about to watch football. Every individual heaven had a way to look into those that you've left behind. Mostly, it was TV, but Ash says heavens occupied by souls present before the age of electricity have things like whirlpools and see through mirrors. It was all very Sword and Sorcery like that.
Bobby usually invited Dean to watch with him because Dean watching Sam alone tended to get depressing. The time discrepancy between Heaven and Earth was more mercurial than it was between Heaven and Hell. There were no single time lines, and the abrupt time shifts kind of reminded Dean of fairy mounds and changelings, but what did he know?
When Dean got back from Hell, he'd done the math: a year in Hell was three days on Earth. But in Heaven, time passed as slow or as fast as you wanted it to. You could watch your loved ones slowly grow old beside you, or you could fast forward to all the good parts.
Bobby and him, they'd decided to keep to real time, having agreed that slowing down or moving faster than Sam's own timeline felt weird. Dean had already lived forty more years than his brother in Hell alone; he really didn't want to fast forward Sam to his death.
Karen was busy puttering in the kitchen, baking pie, which Dean thought was silly because she could just imagine it, and it would appear out of thin air. But she just laughed and shot down his suggestion, because apparently baking was a way of showing her love. What did he know?
No one knew where John Winchester was, and so, no one knew where Mary was. Sometimes, Dean spent his time driving around the interstate, hoping that he'd see a sign that his parents were in this wilderness of memories, light and candy dreams. If they were here, they were too drunk on each other to care. He couldn't imagine his mom simply not caring, and he couldn't bear the thought that they were barred from Heaven, because seriously?
But Sam had to have gotten Lucifer's vessel's bloodline from somewhere, and they all knew that John was Michael's. Or maybe Sam hadn't inherited the bloodline—maybe it had been force-fed to him by Azazel, and Dean didn't want to think about that clusterfuck, because it was over, and there was no use going around in circles.
Dean put those thoughts away if only to keep his sanity. Ash had promised to look into it, and that was enough for Dean, because Ash was a genius, and his word was golden.
Dean threw a couple of kernels of popcorn at Sam's face inside the flat screen when he clenched the ring he'd kept inside his pocket for six frigging months, the coward. Dean seriously did not raise a brother who couldn't propose worth jack shit.
"Dean!" came Karen's warning tone, and Dean rose up to pick the kernels from the front of the screen.
Bobby was giving him a look that was bordering on a verbal idjit, but not quite there yet. Dean rolled his eyes, and they both decided that they'd had enough of Sam being wishy-washy for the moment. Bobby flipped the channel to watch real life football, because yes, you apparently could miss that lot when you were dead. And yes, Samantha's insecurities sometimes needed large doses of commercials to wash out.
Dean hesitated briefly before falling back into the couch heavily.
Bobby eyed him speculatively under the rim of his red cap, the one he wore when he was rooting for no particular team. "Did you want to watch someone else?"
"Nope. No one else." He hadn't watched anyone down below other than Sam because there were some things that he did not want to see if he couldn't be a part of them.
oOo
Dean put down the now-useless cup beside the road, a slight roll of anxiety gripping him as he recognized this place—a lone forest at the peak of a rarely visited mountain in Colorado. Of all the scenes he thought he'd revisit, he hadn't thought that his death would be one of them.
His body went from tense to relieved as soon as he spotted Castiel sitting down, cradling something within the circle of his arms. He put it down, stood, and turned, gaze finding Dean unerringly.
"Dean," he said with a small, bittersweet smile, one that he'd learned as a human and that Dean could never understand, "when you look back, when you see this, know that though I grieve, I also hope that you find comfort in my old home."
Cas had always been unfailingly selfless, and here he was, giving Dean a place of solace in a home forever barred from him. What little angel was left in Cas had sensed him in this final moment, and the axis mundi had allowed the angel a last farewell.
Tessa gave the angel a small shake of the head as Castiel, who still looked out of place without his tan trench coat, turned back to what Dean could only assume was his lifeless body. "I seriously hope you prepared him well for being human," Tessa commented.
Dean turned his focus toward his reaper, the extended pause asking his question for him. She gave him a small sad smile, oddly similar to the one Castiel had just given him. "You have friends, Dean, family, other people whom you've built foundations around. Castiel…"
She trailed off slowly, looking back at the angel, and yes, he was an angel despite having lost his grace, because losing a part of yourself didn't mean that you were anything less. Castiel looked lost in the middle of the wilderness, holding the body that he'd once re-created whole.
"He only had you."