After Life
It had been ten years. Fifteen years to the day that Dean had gone to fetch Sam from Stanford. Eight years since the day that Sam had torched his own soul to save them all.
The "Shattering" as it came to be called had freed Purgatory into the human and angelic worlds. Castiel had rallied these escapees, monsters and leviathans, and recruited them as his army against Rafael. Weary of his abuses, they had agreed to Cas' terms. That they would only feast on the souls of Raphael and company.
This is how the whole Supernatural world came to be at war. From the stars of Infinity, to the deepest circles of Hell, armies upon armies of spirits had been rallied in Castiel's war against Raphael.
Benny became a Navy brigaider of the Seas of Heaven. All manner of Leviathan were recruited to the Black Skies, sailing through the many worlds and universes that Sam's "Shattering" had busted wide open.
Dean was barely alive after his brother's soul had burned up, putting an end to all of the Shadeem. He agreed to take on the most vile job that there was. He became Castiel's executioner. Thieves, traitors, legionaires...All of these servants of Raphael's cause deserved what they were getting. It didn't make it any better, or the road any easier. Dean was required to round up all of Raphael's war criminals, hunt them down, carry them back to the Valley of the Shatter as it had come to be called, and put them to death. By the millions.
Dean didn't really get his hands dirty as he dispatched the traitors. He told himself that, as he began to hate the man he was more and more. His hands weren't dirty because these traitors were put on a raft and floated into the Abyss. The hole of Emptiness that had opened up in the place where Sam's soul had self-destructed.
Dean stood in the doorway of a grime-slick tent. This was one of the camps of Castiel's army. One of the mud-puddle, weary angel army, crippled tent camps of an army engaged in forever war that could not be won but could not stopped for the imminent take over and end of existence that would come.
Dean swirled his coffee and looked out into that exhausted place. He sometimes wondered what existence they were still fighting for.
Anytime he thought that way, he laughed. He laughed at himself because he realized that it didn't matter. To him, this was his afterlife.
This day, eight years later, fifteen since the day Sam climbed into his ride was important. It was the most important day of Dean's life. He didn't know it at the time. The only thing he knew was that he must get back to his grueling labor. The labor of a hunter of millions of traitors of a spiritual war that could continue for 10,000 years.
As he stepped out of his tent and out onto the gravel road that ran through somewhere in the rough country of Colorado, he felt eyes on him. He turned around to look and no one was there.
He felt a buzzing sensation in the back of his spine. It made his nostrils twitch. He'd had that sensation ever since Sam had died but he had no idea what caused it. He'd always supposed it was a side effect of being that close to the blast.
He kept walking and the buzzing grew stronger, painful even. He shook his head.
Under a tree, new eyes were watching him. Someone who had risen from the Abyss.
