Warnings: Alternate Universe. Alternate Interpretation of Mythology. Pure Self-Indulgence. WIP. Non-Linear Narrative. Limited POV. Outsider POV. Dean With Powers. BAMF Dean. Protective Sam. Protective Dean. Protective Castiel. Free Will vs. God's Plan. Literally Everyone Fucks Up God's Plan. Especially Dean. Rumors. Gossip.
Part 0
{Now listen up, kiddos, because this is it, honest, the truth and nothing but the truth, unashamed and as clear-cut as it ever gets. So pay attention because this isn't the kind of story you find in history books and legends retold a thousand times. This is the reality of what happened, told by those who witnessed it with their own eyes, even if they didn't understand what they were seeing. And you won't understand it either, not truly, if you don't memorize these simple facts, the basic rules the universe is built on.
So shut your damn mouths and listen:
At the Beginning — not the starting point, don't get those two confused. No one really knows when a story starts, when this story started, and people only care about such things once the events have long been set into motion and no one remembers what the world looked like before anymore. But that's not the beginning I mean. I'm talking about the real, conscious Beginning of everything, capital 'B' included — at the Beginning, there was no fate. There was no destiny.
There were only two things: God's Plan and Free Will. An unmovable object and an unstoppable force. Meaning that the smart cookies among you, those who've been paying attention in their physics lessons, already know where this is gonna lead.
But we'll get into the whole which-power-is-greater conundrum in a moment. Before we do, there's one thing I need you all to keep in mind, one thing that you morons just can't seem to get: God's Plan came first.}
0.
"Who will take your place when you fade?" Death asks once, before Time is invented and the passage of being achieves a whole new, measurable meaning. Of course it's Death who asks this. It's a question no one else would dare to voice, least of all in His presence.
[No one else would say 'when' instead of 'if' in that matter-of-fact voice, acknowledging a foregone conclusion the entire world remains blind to. Has been blinded to.]
No one.
His answer is true, as honest as he knows how to be. A fact created eons ago, that remains just as valid now as it has always been, always will be. There's no reason for lies and dishonesty, not between the two of them. He has willed it so and, as always, His will holds.
[And if the words are easier said, their weight easier shrugged off in the face of the one being He knows doesn't care — cannot care, and how can He fault Death for becoming the very thing He intended for Death to become? — He is the only one who will ever know.]
When the time comes, they will not need me anymore.
His children. His soldiers. His plants. His creations. They grow, all of them, as He has once willed it to be. They continue to do so, continue to amaze Him, and already He rues the day where they will stop.
A day that will come, inevitable as the entire universe He has built — for He has willed it and so it shall come to pass.
Death laughs, a music without sound, a light extinguished that has never shone. "How? You create them to need you."
Death does not say 'us', for Death is not created to need anything, nor want or feel. It is, perhaps, the cruelest kindness He has ever given one of his creations and as per his nature, Death can neither appreciate nor resent his own existence.
Not forever.
A lie within a truth within a lie within a truth.
[This is, after all, what humanity will be made for. One day, they, all of His creations, will understand this. Embrace it. The humans will be the first, as is in their nature. But inevitably angels and demons alike will follow them on their path, whether they will realize it or not. Inexplicably drawn to the weakest link in the chain of the universe, the fascinatingly fallible, the unapologetically humane. They cannot help it, none of His children will.
All their disgust, their false superiority, their misguided hatred— He has seen it, He has built it and He cannot wait to watch it come to life. Nothing will have the potential to unite angels and demons, deities and primordial forces like their shared obsession with humanity. And how can He blame them, find fault in their yearning, their fear, when He is the one who has willed it so?
It is in a demon's nature to envy and desire humans, as it is an angel's obligation to love and temptation to despise them. The very world is, will be centered on them, spun around them, with Earth — humanity — at its focal point. With Heaven and Hell destined to circle them until the End of All, the pull of gravity as undeniable as it has been at the beginning of Creation.
Humanity will be His last challenge, His warning, His gift, His inevitability, His doom. He can hardly wait.]
"Need and want are two different things," Death comments. There is no judgement made — Death does not judge — but as with every truth spoken aloud, the words hold a weight all by themselves.
[It reads like a warning, addressed to the one in charge of creating the safety instructions in the first place, and, like all circular arguments, it gets lost within its turns without planting the seeds it's meant to grow.]
They will outgrow me, He says, states, knows. And though He has not yet decided how He will feel about that, He smiles. There is a satisfaction in seeing a play through to the final round, in watching a meticulously prepared plan be set in motion.
Free Will.
His greatest creation. Woven so deeply into the fabric of humanity, the threads won't ever — will always — be undone. A single irregularity in a flawless equation, designed to derail the algorithm, the program, the entire system.
And one day. One day.
[They will have to, remains unsaid because this, at least, is a choice that has been made by Him for them, all of them. And there is a twisted irony in this mockery of goodwill somewhere, a logical fallacy the fabric of the universe yearns to correct, and it's not the one you think it will be.]
"Will they?" Death asks without the faintest hint of curiosity in his voice. It is not doubt, for Death does not doubt, and if He wanted He could discern Death's motivation in a heartbeat, so He doesn't. That, after all, is the true beauty of His creations. Despite His might, despite His power and His will, their actions, their questions, their thoughts are their own.
Nevertheless if it had been someone, anyone but Death — a being with no care, no true interest in life or creation, a being not meant to become more than the specter it governs over, a being cursed and freed and inevitable — He is having this conversation with—
[You teach the angels to love you, they might have said.
You teach the demons to hate you, they might have reminded.
You teach the humans to worship you, they might have warned.
You give them free will but no choice, they might have condemned.]
Of course, if it had been someone, anyone but Death, this conversation would never have happened at all.
They will, He states, proclaims, wills, and so they shall.
[This is your will, not theirs, Death deliberately doesn't say. Who will enforce it once you're gone?
If God is listening, He does not respond.]
{Because you see, kiddos, this is what it is, the fundamental truth that the world forgot, the single fact none of you seem to be able to wrap your empty heads around, the one thing it was always gonna come down to: In the Beginning, there was no fate, no destiny. There was only this: God's Plan and Free Will.
And neither one meant a single thing until others started to believe in them.}
As always, reviews are much appreciated!