This is a super short oneshot to get rid of an idea I couldn't shift out of my mind. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do please review.
These characters are sadly not mine.
Dean had always known that his life was going to end with a bang.
Dean had always known that he would die to protect his family. In the end, both came true.
After he stood up to John, after he stopped fighting ghosts and started fighting wars. After he changed his leather jacket for a Marines uniform. After he left his distant father and far away brother to find a new family in the people he fought beside. After he proved to everyone that he wasn't just a high school dropout.
He always knew he would die protecting his family.
So when he saw the grenade, he was already at peace with his decision. As he shouted for his new family to run, it was his old family on his mind. As he started running forward, he thought of the 67' Impala that he had spent so much of his life in. As he threw himself down he thought of John Winchester, who had already seen too much pain in the world and was about to be forced to feel loss once again. As he curled his body around the bomb, he thought of Sammy Winchester with his stupid fringe and wise eyes, and knew that he was more than willing to die to save his family.
Then there was a bang.
Nothing.
He dully registered a pain, but within a second or two even that stopped. Every edge of his surroundings started to fade and blur, until all he was aware of was a cool hand in his. As he looked into the young women's eyes, he held her hand tighter.
And he would've stepped towards the light, if the voice from behind him didn't make him an offer. An offer he couldn't refuse.
So Dean Winchester rose once again, power racing through his bones and majestic white wings erupting from his back. He now had a new purpose, to protect his charges at all costs.
But then again, in a way he had been training to be a guardian angel his entire life.
There were ten of them altogether, hunter and civilians alike. They were his charges, and the heavens had decided that these people, these ordinary people, were crucial to the heavens themselves. Some were people he had met in his past life, and they were all people he would do anything to protect.
The first person he flew to was a stripper called Cherry, who had bright red hair and a mean right hook. When the men with bulging wallets and wandering hands were discovered unconscious in an alleyway, she smiled a genuine smile for the first time in quite a while. And when a lottery ticket she found in her pocket gave her the opportunity to go back to school and make a better life for herself, she learned to thank the man with a confident smirk and kind eyes that visited her in her dreams sometimes.
The second person he flew to was a man called Jack, whose memories were starting to go fuzzy with old age. All he had to his name was an old photograph and a determination not to ever give up on the hell that his life had become. When he would wake up on the cold streets covered with a warm blanket or when he seemed to be sheltered from the pounding rain by the silhouette of a young man with majestic white wings, Jack learned once again what it was like to have faith.
The third person he flew to was a pastor named Jim in a small town, mourning the death of a friend when he mourned Dean Winchester. He talked to the voice that came from the other end of the church, and knew that he had been touched by a guardian angel. His faith never wavered, and he never stopped helping those who needed him. When his car broke down a second before he departed on what could have been his last ride, he thanked the man with the low chuckle he could her behind him on quiet nights.
The fourth person he flew to was Jo Harville, who grew to just accept that sometimes when things got too much a figure would appear and fight beside her. She'd long since given up on talking to the shadow, but its presence comforted her all the same. Some days, when the homesickness got too much, her mobile would ring her mother of its own accord, and once the car she had borrowed decided to turn itself around and go back home. When Jo later learned of the bloodbath she could have walked into, she stayed with her mother for a few weeks. She didn't mention the shadow of the man with magnificent wings.
The fifth person he flew to was a boy called Adam, who never even knew he had a guardian at all. He didn't believe in ghosts and ghouls and definitely not angels, and dismissed the man in his dreams that visited sometimes. The dead ghouls outside his window were never found, and if he noticed the shadow that sometimes lingered over the photo of him and his father at a baseball match, he dismissed it as a product of his own imagination.
The sixth person he flew to was Bella Talbot, who didn't understand who to thank when her father was escorted away in handcuffs when she was just twelve years old. Ten years on she had a terrible nightmare, where hellhounds were chasing her and trying to take her to Hell. When she woke up the window was ajar, and a single white feather was still on the windowsill. She kept it under her pillow, and the nightmares didn't come again.
The seventh person was Bobby Singer. He tried to hunt the shadow, but soon realised that it was doing more help than bad. When a salt line appeared in front of his very eyes and he felt someone breathing next to him on the nights he went to see his wife's grave, he started to do some research guardian angels. When he heard the chuckle he knew from summer afternoons taking care of two kids he loved more than he admitted, he realised that maybe family don't end in blood.
The eighth person was John Winchester. The impala became much less lonely, and if he turned his head fast enough he could almost see a boy sat there, his head turned to check on Sammy once again in the back seat. He could almost hear his son's chuckle, could almost feel a presence that made him put down the whiskey on rough days. He bought rooms with two beds still, and always bought a blueberry pie to put on the table before he went to sleep. It was never still there in the morning. And as the wendigo's claws ripped out his heart, and he was left lying on a cold floor in a dark alley, he could see a bright green eyes and hear Dean's leather jacket crinkling as he held him tightly. As he slipped away he mustered up a smile of thanks, because he hadn't had to die alone.
The ninth person was Jessica Moore, who listened to Sam's tales of his brother in awe. She knew right from the start that she loved Sam Winchester, who she'd never have met if she hadn't arrived to the party two hours late because her car broke down. She held Sam when the tears woke the both up at night, and could here the words to Hey Jude sung ever so faintly over her shoulder. A candle that was placed too close to the curtain went off a second before it started a fire, but she dismissed it as an over active imagination. But when the man with yellow eyes in an alley laughed that horrible laugh and took another stride closer, a flash of light made him disappear. She didn't understand what was happening, but knew that the man, the angel, doing this for her loved Sam Winchester just as much as she did.
The tenth person was Sammy Winchester. Dean watched his own death shatter Sam into a million pieces, and knew no matter what he did he could never stop that pain. But Dean had been Sam's guardian since being a little kid, and he would be damned if he was giving up now. When tears replaced smiled on his baby brother's face the radio would blast classic rock, and he'd set a ghost hand on Sam's shoulder. He'd deliberately hide Sam's books and make sure everything he ever attempted to cook got burnt. He'd lose Sam's place in every book he read and occasionally just throw random objects at him to slowly drive him mad. Dean didn't fix Sam, but he made pretty damn sure that he knew that he wasn't free of his big brother just yet. When Sam broke down Dean would leave a feather on his bedside table, and stand by his side when he was needed. He stood beside Sam as he chose an engagement ring, and let his baby brother glance his reflection in a mirror as Jess was walking up the aisle. He stood by him in every moment he was needed, and slowly but surely fixed the gaping hole he'd left with his death.
When Sam welcomed his first child into the world, Dean was there to sit next to Jess and put air into the little one's lungs. When Sam welcomes his second baby, Dean left a tiny white feather in its little fist. And when both little babies left for college, Dean filled the house with golden light and reassurances that he would never stop watching over them.
When more years went by, Dean was there beside Sam on his deathbed, holding his hand and leading him towards he light. In that moment Sam saw a crinkled leather jacket, spiked blonde hair and green eyes that had been etched under his eyelids since he could remember. He begged for Dean to follow him to the light, to the heaven that wouldn't be complete without him.
The angel looked at him with a smile that had seen the world and somehow forgiven it, and simply said, "My job isn't over yet."