Sam and Dean next came back in the fall, about a month and a half or two months later. They didn't have a lead on Balthazaar or Raphael, but Bobby demanded that they come back for Thanksgiving and have it proper, like a family. So, they showed up on the doorstep in the middle of the night, while Chuck was passed out upstairs.

"Boys," Bobby grumbled, opening the door to let them in. "It's 3 am you know."

"Hey Bobby," Sam whispered, giving the man a one arm hug, then dropping his duffel in the hallway to go through the fridge.

"It's always one of you," he grumbled good-naturedly.

"How's Chuck?" Dean asked, looking around.

Bobby pointed upstairs. "Passed out."

"Any change?" Sam asked, still bent over the fridge.

Bobby shrugged. "Nope."

Sam continued,"But… You realize that we have God sleeping in the spare room upstairs?" he said in a hushed tone.

"I'd like to be sleeping in a room upstairs," Dean whined as he dropped his duffel in the hall. "Yeah, old news, Bobby."

Bobby hadn't gotten a chance to talk to them on the phone alone in a while, and the thoughts were itching at him. "He's got a point," he insisted. "We gotta be asking ourselves, what's he gonna do when he realizes? What if he accidentally uses whatever power he has, without knowing? And…"

He sighed. "I don't know if I mentioned this, but sometimes he gives me the jeebs. Some of the things he says, you know?"

"I know," whispered Sam. "I've been worrying about it too, believe me, but what the fuck are we supposed to do? He wants this, and he's God."

"I don't give a shit what God wants," Dean mumbled, less quietly. "He took my childhood away from me, I'm not letting him take this night of sleep." He pounded up the stairs more loudly than necessary, and slammed the door.

"What's his problem?" Bobby commented, pointing to Dean as he walked up.

"He's in a bad mood and he's an asshole, what do you want," Sam offered, grabbing a beer. "Why are you up, anyway?"

Bobby raised his eyebrows. "Worrying about this. And Raphael trying to wind up the end of the world again."

Sam shook his head. "We'll figure out something Bobby, we always do. Hey, maybe Chuck will remember and fix it for us. It would be nice to actually have God on our side for once."

The noise woke Chuck, who noticed his bladder was uncomfortably full. He ambled to the bathroom, and relieved himself gladly.

But as he left the upstairs bathroom to go back to bed, voices drifted into his awareness.

"He's a loose nuke…" came Bobby's voice.

Chuck wasn't going to eavesdrop, he wasn't, until he heard Sam's reply at the top of the stairs.

"But it's Chuck, Bobby. He doesn't even know."

Doesn't know what?

"He's gonna…" Bobby's voice became too hushed for Chuck to make out, but he could pick out particular words. "God," "don't know how he feels about this," and "all gotta come out sometime."

Hushed voices in the middle of the night was an odd time to have a theological conversation.

"Chuck might be God, Sam, but is God Chuck?"

What? Chuck thought to himself. What the hell are they talking about?

"Of course he is," was Sam's reply. Their voices were getting louder. "You've seen the way he talks. He says something deep, gets that awful expression like he's a million years old, and then he just doesn't notice he said anything unusual."

"That might just be the tortured writer talking," Bobby warned.

They think I'm God.

The thought sounded hilarious. Yeah, alcoholic Chuck Shurley was secretly God.

Ha ha.

So he kept listening.

Sam snorted. "Bobby, if I had to guess what kind of person God was, I'd answer tortured writer."

But then again, what did he know? Fallen angels didn't know they were angels. But Chuck sincerely doubted that God was the sort of guy who would fall. Or maybe he was?

Could God even actually fall?

This whole line of thinking was preposterous.

But as he looked at the two men bickering at the bottom the stairs, the less preposterous it seemed.

This is so arrogant, he thought to himself. You're going to hell just for thinking this.

You're going to hell anyways, his self-loathing side replied.

So he looked at the men at the bottom of the stairs, and wondered what to do next.

Would he actually entertain this line of thought?

At that moment, something tugged at his awareness, something that seemed like it had always been there, but he'd always ignored it.

Chuck considered resisting, but knew it all was going to come out sometime.

As soon as he let go, he felt himself fill with power, golden and hot pouring out of the air right in front of him and into his bones. The world exploded into new colors, sights and sounds that he'd never experienced before. They were hot, and new, and he swore that he could see every atom.

The vision was gone as soon as it came though, and Chuck was left on the stair step feeling dumfounded.

He could still hear them talking at the bottom of the stairs, so as quietly as possible he padded back to his room.

That night, the nightmares Chuck hadn't had since he was a child returned.

He didn't understand what he was seeing; the lights were bright, the motion confusing. He heard voices, musical voices that screamed on all sides. The colors were blinding, a kalidescope, the rainbow itself exploding as they crashed into each other, inconceivable.

And there in the center, something bright and terrible was falling, falling into the inky blackness. The thing was roaring, the blackness was screaming, the pit too dark to look into for long.

It was his fault it was falling. He pushed him, threw him in.

He didn't have a body, he didn't think, but the thing was looking up at him with piercing white eyes. Or were they red? There was rage and pain there, and betrayal. They loved each other.

A step back, and it was on the edge of the pit.

"How could you do this to me?!" It shouted. Lucifer.

He felt the decision in his chest, he blew Lucifer back, Lucifer fell. He watched him fall, watched him until he could see him no more. The colors were still exploding around him, a kaleidescope, but he didn't care.

The pain in his chest was unbearable, and he didn't want to live with it anymore.

Suddenly Chuck was sitting up, aware that he was making noise. Shouting, quietly shouting would have been more accurate, and just like in his childhood there were tears streaming down his face.

"Chuck," Sam's frantic voice was saying. The three humans were standing in his room, clad in their boxers and flannel. "You were screaming… yelling… Lucifer."

Chuck blinked tiredly at them. It felt like he'd been rolled over by a truck, his muscles uncooperative and eyes unable to open.

He peeled his eyes open, focused on the men crowded around the door.

Immediately, Chuck snapped. "What the hell! Get out!"

"What?" was Dean's nonplussed reply.

Chuck was flipping the blanket open, already on his feet. "Get out!"

"Jesus, fine dude, you just didn't sound happy!" Sam bitched, face irritated in an instant. "You wanna suffer through nightmares, be my guest." He stalked out without a backward glance, and the others quickly followed.

Chuck looked at the closed door. He scowled, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He shouldn't have yelled, they were trying to help, doing the right thing. He opened the door and sighed.

"Look, sorry guys," Chuck said, still pinching his nose. "I just don't want the third degree."

"What do you want us to do, then?" Bobby asked, eyebrow raised and all.

Chuck groaned. "I know, I probably woke all of you up and you all happened to come running or whatever, but don't do that. Take turns, leave me alone, I don't know, just…"

Dean laughed. "Bobby's obnoxious nightmares tapered off mostly before we knew him, and whenever it's Sam or I it's the obvious job of the other one, you know." He trailed off at the end, unused to showing such concern.

He says that like this is part of the job, he thought tiredly.

"And Castiel doesn't sleep," Chuck supplied.

Chuck rubbed his face. I'm… god. And they know. And I know. But they don't know I know.

Fuck this.

"I'm going back to bed," he declared, closing the door on them.

But as he laid down on the bed, he found he couldn't relax. After feeling what must have been his god-grace, or whatever, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He could tell it was still there, just out of reach, just one fright or one nightmare away. That's probably what the blackouts have been, all this time, memories that leaked through.

He was curious, deadly curious, and wanted to use the power again. But the power was heavy, and thick, and with it came an impenetrable darkness. Chuck had felt the feeling of thick and crushing depression before, but this was something else. Chuck didn't remember a lot about being god, but he remembered why he'd forgotten.

He'd told The Darkness "Can't you feel it? It needed to be born," as he clenched his fist and formed the world. He created everything and it had it's purpose, but it was always there. And he'd created it, he'd followed the first instinct he'd ever had and created. What power the creation was, the archangels were furious and stalwart, and the chilling thought occurred to him that if they rose up against him they could end him. Well, all children outgrew their parents.

But the instinct was unsatisfied, and after an immeasurable amount of time, he'd realized his mistake. His children were like him, just and powerful, but they weren't him, couldn't love and forgive. So as he breathed out, he breathed with it the good things of love and loss, pleasure and pain, and this intricate material world, complete with humanity, became.

Like any artist, he wouldn't say that he came up with it. No, the creation was there, waiting to be revealed.

But then it turned dark, and sour, and he couldn't stop it; it was poison, the love all turned to hate and the pleasure gave way to pain. His children suffered, oh how they suffered, and with all his power and all his knowledge the one thing he couldn't overcome, would never take away from them, was their choices.

How dare they ask him to take it away? It was in their very nature, they begged him to rip out their souls and destroy them, they called him evil and sent him away when he refused. In the midst of their sin, they blamed him for their suffering.

The next few days were littered with unbearable nightmares. When he came down the stairs, and everyone was wearing their pity face again, it was too much.

"No," Chuck snapped, before anyone opened their mouths. "Just, no. Shove your pity up your ass."

Dean's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "Wow, Chuck, I've never heard you speak like that before, honestly," a smile and a small laugh was torn from his lips.

"I spent most of my childhood as the recipient of pity," he bitched. "I've seen the pity face more times than I can count. Enough."

Sam, the least pitying of everyone, leaned back in his chair. "Fine by me, I hate doing the dance anyways. Like you're expected to do certain things, or feel a certain way because they feel a certain way -"

"It's all crap," Chuck agreed.

"Where was this guy when we came crashing through your door three years ago?" joked Dean.

"You scared the shit out of me, you know," Chuck informed them. "Not just because you're scary, but you are my characters come to life. It rattled me."

"Enough that you didn't talk to us like we were normal human beings until at least a clear year later."

Chuck frowned. "You try having your characters come to life, see how you feel."