John Winchester was happy. With his wife Mary and two young kids – Dean was four, and Sam would be exactly six months old in two weeks – they lived in a nice, peaceful neighbourhood in Lawrence, Kansas. It was an exceptionally warm spring Sunday afternoon, so the family was sitting in the back yard: Dean was playing with his toys in the grass while Mary was lounging in one of the folding chairs they'd just ridden of cobwebs and dust, Sammy was in the cradle beside her.
John came to her and handed her one of the two beers he'd just retrieved from the fridge, tiny water drops already forming on the glass. She smiled at him gratefully, and John reclined on the other chair he'd set up next to Mary.
"How's Sammy doing?" he asked his wife. Even though it was quite early in the year for a sunburn, John had feared Sam's still sensitive skin would redden easily so they'd put an old towel half over the cradle to protect the baby's head. John always was like that when it came to his sons' health and safety: perhaps too cautious and protective – to prevent a burn or a bruise or a stubbed toe was in his opinion always better than to deal with it afterwards. Mary suspected that was mostly because he did not know how to deal with crying children, John insisted he was purely taking care of their well-being.
"Sam's doing fine." Mary responded almost automatically, Sammy was still sleeping, she hadn't heard a sound from him in a while now. "I'm more curious about how you are doing, to be honest. You've been making a lot of long days at work lately, do you take good care of yourself?"
"I need to support this family somehow." John answered. "Besides," he leaned out of his chair toward Mary until his lips were brushing the base of her neck, "I have a beautiful, intelligent wife to take good care of me." She giggled when he kissed her, then he brushed his lips up to kiss her just below her ear, inhaling the flowery scent of her hair. She turned her face towards him, and caught his next kiss on her mouth – where she could respond.
As they were kissing, a warm, comforting glow came over John. At first John thought it was just the sun shining a bit more brightly, before he noticed there was a man standing right in front of them, staring intensely at John.
At once John was standing upright, protectively shielding Mary from the stranger's piercing blue eyes. Not that they ever wavered towards the woman – or the baby in the cradle, or the child playing in the grass.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?!" John demanded aggressively. The man actually flinched from John's harsh tone, and finally cast down that creepy stare to shyly look at John's shoes.
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you angry." the stranger murmured mournfully.
Only then did John notice that the stranger was wearing a white hospitable gown underneath his tan trench coat. He suddenly didn't look all that threatening any more, he rather looked tiny in his baggy clothes even though the man was taller than John. He could probably handle the guy if it came to a fight.
"I'm sorry, but this is my lawn and I'd kindly ask you to leave it." he said more calmly. He figured the guy might be mentally ill, so it would be best to be kind but authoritative, he thought. Hell, what did he know about handling mental patients? He was a mechanic for fuck's sake!
How did the guy even get here?
The stranger looked around the garden, as if only just recognizing the area as a private place.
"This is Heaven. This is my home as much as yours." Or not… what did he mean this was his home? "Or at least, it should be. I have to say Earth feels much more like home than Heaven nowadays." The man – no, the creature – gave a melancholic sigh.
Even though he liked to pretend he did not, John knew he was in Heaven – that Mary, Sam, Dean – that none of them were real. That he was in fact dead – that he had made a deal with the Yellow-eyed Demon to save Dean's life, that he'd died, that he'd gone to Hell (luckily he did not remember any of what happened there) and after a while had gone up to Heaven.
He remembered Mary burning on the ceiling, and he remembered the countless life-long lessons he'd taught his boys about being a hunter. Number one of them: never trust what isn't human.
"What are you?" he growled lowly, the threat clear in his voice. Only both the hunter and the creature must have known it was a bluff: John knew of nothing that could follow a soul to Heaven, let alone how to kill it.
The bright blue eyes caught John's once again, and John's breath faltered as he saw a world of pain and sadness in that endless, ancient look.
"I am nothing of import." the creature spoke, "But we shouldn't be here – I don't want to be here… I want to be with my friends."
Then he raised two fingers to John's head, and before he could even think of backing away the scenery changed and they were standing in a dark wooden cabin.
"Holy hell..." John knew that voice – he knew it as no other…
"Dean?"
Dean stood stock still, seemingly unable to even take a breath – he looked like his long dead father suddenly stood before him, actually.
John opened his mouth, not sure whether he was gonna embrace his oldest boy in relief, warn him of the creature that had brought him here, freak out, be angry at him for dying or accuse him of being an illusion to play with his mind – but whatever it was, it had to wait as a tremendous wave of nausea hit him like a train and John buckled over, landing on hands and knees and needing to swallow back the rotten taste of vomit in his throat before he spilled his guts all over the floor. He heard Dean worriedly calling out above him, but quicker than it came the feeling disappeared again – together with the aftertaste, fortunately – and he was left confused but physically alright kneeling on the floor boards.
At once he whipped around, to find the creature looking at him with the biggest, happiest, most genuine smile any being could have ever pulled off.
"You –" he scrambled away from it, trying to get upright, "What are you? Why did you bring me here – what is this place –" John saw Dean grasp the creature at the front of his gown, he expected him to haul it away from John or to knock it out but instead Dean simply turned it around to ask it something in a hushed, urgent voice. A moment later he realised that Dean – or the illusion of Dean – must have asked it about him, because when Dean looked at him again every trace of suspicion or animosity was gone.
"Dad –" Dean rushed towards him, turning his back to the creature, and helped him stand up. John now also saw Sam, passing the stranger without a glance and approaching John with the exact same, incredulous, awed, teary look in his eyes as Dean had.
Dean moved as if to hug him, but halfway changed his mind and awkwardly patted him on the back. John then turned to Sam to receive and actual hug, albeit it was very short and a bit weird because of the height difference.
"Boys," he said, looking at them both, and then he didn't know what to say. "I – how am I – am I –"
"You're back alive, Dad." Dean told him, "Azazel killed you after you traded your soul for my life, and now you're back alive."
That cleared some part up: he was not just in another part of Heaven, at least. And most importantly, his sons weren't dead. Yet.
John glanced behind Sam's broad back to find the creature sitting curled up on the couch, his arms hugging his legs against his chest, looking at them.
"What is he?" he asked them lowly, eyeing the stranger suspiciously. He likely had heard him, but he did not react.
The best thing that he could come up with was that the seemingly harmless man was a demon, as that was the only thing that could bring a person back from the dead. He had been in Heaven, however, and he would not have thought demons had access to that place. Plus, he hoped not that Sam or Dean had made a deal for his life. He'd tear them a new one if they had.
Sam swallowed, and then smiled at John as he stepped aside to introduce the creature to his father. "Dad, this is Castiel. He is an angel."
"An –" his protest died on his lips before it could even form. Yes, they'd never seen, or heard of anyone seeing an angel, and yes, it was hard to believe in a loving God or angels when one saw atrocities walking the Earth every day, but why wouldn't they be real when demons and pagan gods were? And John now knew there was a Heaven, so it was not a leap to believe angels could reach him there, could it?
"But why?" he asked the creature – angel, Castiel – "I was in Heaven, I must've been dead for years now, why resurrect me now?"
Castiel bit his lip, glancing at Sam and Dean. "Family is important." he decided then, "We must not fight amongst family, and we are all family, so we must never fight. Let's play a game, what do you think of Trivia?"
Then, with the sound of large flapping wings, it disappeared.
After a moment of stunned silence, Dean asked John if he was truly in Heaven. When John nodded, Dean sagged with relief and also Sam smiled gladly at him.
"That's good, that's very good." Dean spoke, and explained further at a questioning look from John. "We figured you'd sold your soul pretty soon after you died and I miraculously came alive, we thought you'd landed in Hell after that."
"I was in Hell, in the beginning, at least I think so." John admitted, "But I don't remember anything from it, luckily."
Sam and Dean shared a long glance, communicating something John did not understand. Dean concluded, "That must've been Heaven, then, I guess. I mean, what would Heaven even mean if you still got nightmares from your time in Hell?"
John shrugged, he honestly had not thought about it one way or the other. "I guess." he agreed. He had bigger concerns at the moment. "So what exactly is the matter with this – 'Castiel'? Why did he resurrect me? I swear, if you've made some kind of deal with him because you believed I was rotting in Hell –"
"Dad, we didn't make a deal. I swear, we didn't even know he would resurrect you until you were standing here. It's just that Cas…" Sam paused, trying to find the right words.
"Cas went as nutty as Nutella." Dean finish roughly. Then he cursed and turned away, wiping his hand over his mouth.
"So you're saying… the angel is insane, and you don't know why he resurrected me?" John summarized incredulously.
Sam shrugged. "Dad, we're truly glad you're here, but…"
"But I was in Heaven, at peace, and the dead should not return to the living. I understand perfectly, son." John assured him. Sometimes you wanted nothing more than your loved ones to turn back from the dead, but after passage of time, people came to terms. Sam and Dean had processed and accepted his death, probably a long time ago, and for him to return now…
"It's just not okay." Dean exclaimed suddenly. "You just don't resurrect people on a whim, that's just not okay!"
There was a rustling of feathers and something clattered on the table behind them, and as they turned they just saw a gust of air moving some of the cards of the half-way set up Trivia game.
…