I'm in front of a house. No, a home. With mint green panels and a caramel-colored door. A boy, about five years old, with big green eyes under a tuft of light brown hair sprints across the lawn. His goal a bushy shrub.

"Hmmm. Now, where can my baby be?"

He's hiding behind a tree, stifling a giggle behind his chubby hand. He pokes his head out and directs his gaze toward the voice. A woman in her mid-thirties with pale, creamy skin. She is beautiful. Her blonde hair almost glowing under the mid-afternoon sun. A yellow summer dress brushes against her knees as she tiptoes past his hiding spot.

"Deean?"

Dean? I look back towards the young boy in an instant. How could I not realize? The same freckles splash across his nose, the same beautiful shade of green in his eyes.

Growing impatient, little Dean jumps out of his spot and grabs the woman. "I'm here! I'm here!"

She swipes him up into her arms. Her fingers tickle at his ribs. "You're supposed to wait for mama to come find you, my silly little angel."

Dean's peal of laughter fills the air as he tries to squirm out of her grasp. "B-b-but I didn't want you to lose me."

She holds Dean close on her hip, her face tilted down to see him eye to eye. "I would never lose you, baby. Never."

"Pinky promise?"

"Cross my heart." She sticks out her pinky and intertwines hers with his. "Now, let's go see if Daddy and Sammy are up from their afternoon nap, huh? And maybe make ourselves a PB and J. How does that sound?"

Dean nods his head eagerly as they make their way up the front porch.

As soon as the door closes behind them, it turns night time. The once, clear blue sky replaced with blackness. The moon dimly shining down upon the house, the clouds eerily drifting over its light. A piercing scream erupts from one of the second story windows and the room bursts into flames.

NO. The flames quickly engulf the house room by room, the lovely home I viewed just a few moments ago turning into cinders, smoke curling towards the sky like a reaching hand.

Dean storms out of the front door with his hands holding a bundle tightly to his chest. He almost trips on the last step before making it to the edge of the lawn. He turns around with tear-filled eyes, tears cutting through the ash that cover his round cheeks.

A giant explosion blows out the right side of the house and another body dives out of the front door. A man clad only in his bathrobe, the cloth burnt around the edges. He shuffles back on his heels and makes his way towards Dean, coughing madly into his sleeve.

"Sammy, is Sammy alright?!"

Dean pulls back the blanket around the bundle in his hand and a wailing cry pierces the air.

The man smiles in relief, taking infant Sam into his arms and holding him tight to his chest.

"Daddy, where's mom?"

He shakes his head, pulling Dean to his side and Sam even tighter into his grasp. His lashes wet with tears. "She's gone. Mommy is gone."

A childhood unlived. Monsters and hunting becoming the only things they knew. A mother murdered and a father just as likely to be dead until he shows up on the doorstep. Motel to motel, a brief home for a week until a case brings them onto the next town.

Dean grows up spruce and rebellious, dropping out of high school and joining the family business, while Sam surrounds himself in his books and goes on to Stanford in hopes of becoming a lawyer.

The two boys part ways until their father goes silent, more than usual, and they drop everything to look for him, bumping into their first case. That same night Sam's girlfriend, Jessica, dies by the same way his mother did. The pain of her death is so great that he forgoes his career in law and joins Dean on the road. The two hunting together again, this time Sam thirsty for vengeance.

Good never lasts longer than a second in the hunting business. People that cross Sam and Dean's path either dead or dying. Their father selling his soul to save Dean's and Dean selling his soul to save Sam's. The only lightness being the lives they can save; the only difference they feel obligated to make.

The world endlessly trying to be destroyed by one evil or another. Lucifer taking the cake, forcing the boys to choose the world or each other. In the end, they sacrifice, as they have done and always will do. Sam saving Dean and putting Lucifer back in the cage where he would be trapped for an eternity.

I feel every emotion, every touch, every broken bone that they have felt. Dean feeling responsible for his father's death and Sam watching Dean get ripped to shreds and dragged down to hell. Sam tormented by Lucifer in the cage to the point of insanity. The pain so much that I want to explode. To scream.

It feels like my head is about to crack open. So much of their lives, so much of their memories being crammed into my mind until suddenly, it ends in darkness, like reaching the end of a film, and the connection finally breaks.

A strong current runs up the expanse of my arm, like I just touched a live wire, the force of it knocking me back into my own head space. My mind is too quiet after the onslaught of memories that restrained it just moments before. My own breathing sounding too loud, coming in gasps as I stumble backward, my feet shuffling in the grass until Cas grabs a hold of me. I gape at Sam and Dean as my heart restarts and my hands latch onto his trench coat.

A wet trail stains Sam's cheeks as he stares back, his hands shaking. Dean abruptly stands, his own hands wiping down his face. His lower lip quivers.

Their memories, their life. I tore open old wounds wide open with just one touch. "Sam, D-Dean..."

"What was that?" Dean strains, his face blotchy and his fingers clenched tight into a fist.

"I-I don't know…"

A hand touches my shoulder and I find Cas. His expression is odd, hopeful. "Dean, she did what she was told. She completed—"

"No, Cas." Dean's head turns up towards the sky, letting the warmth of the sun comfort him briefly. "You had no right to do that. You had no right to do that to us." He mutters in a watery rasp. He turns on his heel and strides towards the church, not taking a second look back. Sam still sits silently, his head bowed into his hands, his body trembling.

"Sam, I'm– "

"Talk to him." His voice barely comes out as a whisper.

"I…"

Sam glances down. His eyes close as he clasps his shaking hands together. "Go. Go talk to him" is all he responds.

Castiel places a comforting hand on Sam's back and he immediately relaxes against his touch. His blue eyes meet mine and he nods, his head tilting towards the church where Dean went.

"Go" he agrees.

When I enter the front doors, I quickly spot Dean. He has his boots kicked up onto the pew in front of him. His back slouches and an arm lies across the back of the bench behind him. His other arm is angled towards his mouth with a metal flask in hand, which he takes a generous swig from. It's no doubt some kind of alcohol. "I know you're back there." He calls out.

I stroll to where he sits, each foot cautiously stepping in front of the other. He takes no notice in me as I take place beside him. My mouth opens and his hand cuts me off before I can say anything.

"I know what you're going to say." His speech slurs slightly, his breath tainting of whiskey. "Just don't."

"Then I won't." I heave a heavy sigh before kicking my own feet up onto the pews to join his. "Pass me the flask."

He watches with foggy eyes as I take a long pull, just enough feel the warmth of it settle into my bones. "You can't let a man nurse alone, can you?"

"Not when I'm the reason said man is drowning his sorrows."

Dean shakes his head, tilting it back so it rested against his seat.

"What can I do?"

He looks at me then. No anger or blame in his gaze, just a connection of his eyes with mine before he looks away. "Enjoy the view with me."

I don't understand what he is talking about until he motions towards the front of the church. My eyes follow the swoop of his arm right as the afternoon sun hits the stained glass window centered over the pulpit.

To my surprise, a mosaic of blue, yellow, and green casts across the pews in a colorful glow, angling over where we sit. My eyes squint against the bright light, finally revealing the art that was too dark to see the night before, and haven't noticed until now. Displayed on the glass is a dove.

A halo of gold surrounds the snowy white bird and emerald green olive branches frame its ever expanding wings. Small, blue tendrils of holy fire curled around the branches like vines. I turn to Dean, expecting him to be as enamored as I am, but instead find his gaze back on me. An intricate pattern of the glass's design is splayed across his face. The similarity between the art and the man in front of me is unquestionable. He is just as beautiful and complex as the stained glass. Every piece is uneven and shaped asymmetrically. Separately, each shard of colorful glass looks broken, out of place, but together, they create a masterpiece.

Finally, I understand. Humanity is God's art, God's finest creation, and humanity is what it will take to save the world, to save each other.