Title: chasin' after sunbeams
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: future!fic AU; spoilers for season 5
Pairings: het
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 815
Point of view: third
Prompt: periwinkle
She had always dreamed of marrying in a periwinkle blue gown on a warm summer day, with her hair swept up and Daddy walking her down the aisle to give her away.
But Daddy died when she was a little girl. And she never goes to her own wedding because she doesn't marry. She dies in agony, trying to save the world so other little girls can marry Prince Charming.
And one day, a long time after she dies in sacrifice, a man she once knew walks his niece down the aisle. Her dress is soft blue and the blonde hair her grandmother gave her glistens gold in sunlight.
She kisses her uncle on the cheek, gently wiping away his tears; he whispers, "I love you, sweetheart."
Her Prince Charming is waiting, so she lets go of her uncle's hand and goes to him.
She doesn't know about the girl who dreamed of marrying in periwinkle blue. She doesn't know about sacrifice or world-ending pain or blood turning streets to crimson rivers. No one does anymore, because of power and hope and love.
So she kisses her husband and smiles at the uncle who raised her and can't remember the life where she died for the world.
Her uncle can't stop crying. You should see her, Sammy, he thinks. You should be here. He rubs at his eyes. I see so much of you in her.
Don't worry, Dean, he hears, so faded it must be a dream. We'll meet again. You and me, big brother. You and me, forever.
Three years later, Uncle Dean dies the same day Sam's daughter conceives twin sons. She names them for her long-dead father and beloved uncle, and life goes on.
On the wall is a picture of a new bride and the man who taught her to ride a bike and throw a curve ball and fire a gun. Soon enough, new pictures are placed beside it, of two boys who grow tall and strong and brave. No one knows what went into their creation, of the past of this family, of what they became and what they sacrificed.
Dean, the elder twin by four minutes, grows up to be a police officer. He eventually becomes an FBI agent.
Sam, younger and taller, thinks about law school for a few years, but he finally joins the FBI as a profiler.
Their mother married in a periwinkle gown on a summer day. They don't know what once was, or the angels that watch over them, or the demons that salivate on the edge of the wards, ever waiting. They don't know so much, and their dreams are easy because everything is locked away.
When the locks shatter, Dean is dead, caught in a shoot-out. Sam holds his still-warm body.
They've always been each other's weakness.
Sam doesn't say yes because the expiration date on that offer passed a lifetime ago. He doesn't need to, anymore. He's not the Sam Winchester who fought Lucifer and drank demon blood and died to save the world, hitting a massive reset button. And his brother, dead in his arms, is not the Dean Winchester who made a deal and became Alistair's favorite, who let the archangel ride him to keep Sam safe long enough for a successful last-ditch-effort to pan out. They're Dean and Sam Colt, and Dean is dead.
But Sam is Sam Winchester's grandson in blood and Sam Winchester in soul, so when he screams, existence screams with him. And the apocalypse that he stopped last time is child's play compared to the one his grief unleashes this time.
And Dean whispers to him, quiet enough to be a dream, Dude, what the fuck are you doin'?
Sam says, "Dean?"
C'mon, his brother asks. I'm tired, Sammy. Let's rest now.
And Sam, physically unhurt, collapses over his brother's corpse; quick as it came, the end of the world goes, leaving a bright sky to grin down at their bodies.
Dean's little girl, barely three when he dies, has only daughters. Sam's son, yet unborn, has a boy. He isn't named for his father or uncle or the great-grandfather he never knows existed.
Angels still watch over the family, always and forever, and demons still wait, but what they wait for never comes.
(Sometimes, when he's lonely and missing the men he knew, Castiel searches Heaven for their souls. He doesn't find them. He scours Hell, once, but they are not there, either. Lucifer invites him to stay and visit awhile, but Castiel flees in sorrow.
Dean and Winchester are completely gone, and Castiel longs to hear a pointless joke he doesn't understand and a detailed explanation or scoffing laugh.
One of Dean's granddaughter's marries in periwinkle blue on a bright summer day. Castiel is there, a silent guardian, and then he goes to the far side of the sky. )