"Okay Chuck," Bobby hummed. "You've had a few days to toy around. Think you can do something useful?"
Chuck laughed. "No."
"Come again?"
Next he scoffed. "Sure, I can like, make a giant hill or produce a rose out of thin air. But my actual memories about being God are limited to pretty much anything shoved right under my nose, or…" or my horrifying flashback about condemning my firstborn son to hell.
"Well, that might be enough,' Bobby drawled. "We could lure Raphael out to you, and you could deal with him."
"Deal with him?" Chuck exclaimed defensively. "What the hell does that mean?"
Bobby shrugged. "You're God! You probably have a lot of feelings about him. And like you said, shoved under your nose in a high pressure situation, it'll come to you.
Chuck leaned back into the couch, crossing his arms. "This is crap."
Castiel appeared before them.
"Great timing," Bobby said. "The boys are out fucking around or something, but I was just talking Raphael with Chuck."
"What do you want to do, Father?" Castiel asked, straight backed. "This might be the thing you need to recover what you've lost."
Chuck made an unidentifiable noise in his throat. "I don't think I was supposed to remember, not in this lifetime. I think this lifetime was supposed to be some sort of horrible penance that I was going to forget, so I could go back to being a just and righteous God or whatever."
"Okay?" Bobby asked.
Chuck shook his head. "I don't know. Don't you think it should be… clicking?"
"Yeah, I do. But it isn't, and there's not exactly a handbook for these things."
"It's because some part of me still doesn't want this, and that doesn't take a genius," he replied, sarcastic. "I know most people would rush to discover what their magic god powers could do, but I just… get nauseous."
Bobby contemplated him. "I don't know, I've noticed a change. You use bigger and more formal words these days, for one."
His tone was mockery. "Wow, yeah, I use big words, very lordly."
"So accept yourself, then!" Bobby exclaimed. "What do you want me to tell you?"
Chuck stood, roughly, sweeping everything off the desk where he was researching. "Want to talk acceptance? I'm angry, Bobby! So angry. Livid, constantly. When I'm nowhere to be found, it's because I feel like I'm this far away from smiting you," he bit, holding his forefinger and thumb barely apart.
The air itself was humming, cracking. Castiel was the first to notice, eyes going wide. Bobby was the second.
Chuck's voice was no louder, yet it echoed with what seemed like thunder. "What would you have me do, Singer? Accept my role as the righteous lord? Because the righteous Lord thinks most of the time these days that destroying everything and handing over the reins to the Darkness is the right thing to do."
"It is as I told you when we discovered the truth," Castiel stood firm, voice sure. "You are my Father. If you think ending it all is what is best for everyone, I will stand behind you."
He tilted his head, and considered his son. "You know, when I talk smiting, most people feel a sense of self preservation," he led, tone dark. He could remember standing before people, the air cracking much louder, those before him cowering in fear.
Castiel's whole demeanor softened. "There is no purpose to life if the one who gives you purpose has taken it away."
His anger didn't drain. The air still cracked with power, static electricity.
But suddenly, Chuck saw Castiel as separate from his fury, standing in the middle. Castiel had fallen so far, but Castiel redeemed himself and always sought to love humanity. He was the only angel who followed his last command.
"I'm furious with humanity," he hissed, teeth bared. But the air didn't crack, there was no threat here this time. "But…" he turned to Castiel.
Would Castiel have fallen and been redeemed without him? If God stuck around, Castiel would never have fallen. But he would have never learned from humanity (from Dean Winchester), and he would have never been as much as he was now.
That was his original plan all along, after they fell. Brokenness, redemption, family. Love.
"But the despair broke me," Chuck whispered. The memories washed over him.
He stood behind the desk, hand on the chair. His entire stance was shaky, the air no longer cracking with power. He was tired, and depressed, his back bent as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders.
Bobby barely breathed, deathly still.
God was absent on the pages of history from the time of Noah until now, and never in that time had he expressed anything other than absolute authority. This was a pivotal moment; not just in human history, but in the history of all creation.
And it was happening in his shitty living room, observed only by a fallen angel and an old drunk.
"It was so long," Chuck's voice broke, was stretched, as if he was holding back tears. "After I left heaven, I went to earth. I revealed myself to people across the world, the first Buddha, Ishmael, I told the pagan spirits I created of the plan and sent them to do their work, and when all that didn't work…"
A tear slid down his face.
"I became human. I let you beat me, and jeer at me, and displayed only my love in return. I let you kill me, nail me to a cross. I let you put nails through my hands and feet. I can still feel myself suffocating on my own blood."
His breath was beginning to catch, the tears coming one after another.
"Surely, if humanity saw that I would let you murder me, you would realize I loved you!"
Tears were running down his eyes, and he wasn't bothering to hide them.
He had never been a pious man, never really thought he owed a creator anything. Still didn't. But this creator didn't create him and then expect obedience based just on that fact; this creator wanted a family. And then the family he breathed life into literally nailed him to a cross and bled him dry. And he stood here, before his murderers, and cried, and asked why they didn't love him.
"My desperation turned to anger," he continued his story. "I'd done everything for you, and I was your creator. And you never returned my love." He turned away, eyes dark. "So, I left."
He heaved a rattled sigh. "I didn't destroy everything, because I've invested far too much in it to give up now. But I stopped investing any more. I thought if you were gonna come around, well, you will or you won't."
"I've been Chuck since then," he shrugged. "Well, I've lived a lot of lifetimes. But I was basically Chuck in all of them. An alcoholic, self-hating writer of some kind."
Castiel's shaky whisper entered the conversation. "Is that how you see yourself, Father? As a," Castiel looked like he would choke on the words. "…miserable failure?"
Chuck gave a wan smile, and said nothing in reply.
"I was really ready to tear you a new one," Bobby quietly shared. "When you got all your memories back, I was really gonna rip you a new one. But now I find that I can't."
Chuck shrugged. "Usually when I remember this much I go talk to Joshua. And we talk, and I go home and get high or drunk, and then wake up the next morning and don't remember."
But he sighed, and straightened his shoulders. "Not anymore. Because the Winchesters decided that Chuck was family. Not God, not Jesus theMessiah. Just… a random human. Hell, I'm not even much of a human. But I found a home with you, and you welcomed me in, just like -" He snapped his fingers "- that."
Chuck gave a watery smile. "Just like that, you forgave me of everything I'd done, without knowing what it was."
"I wasn't so quick to forgive you once we found out who you were," Bobby said reproachfully, but Chuck cut him off.
"Yeah, you were, Singer," he mocked him. "If you didn't forgive me, you wouldn't have let me go when you hypnotized me. You would have made me remember for ten or twenty seconds, long enough to get your pound of flesh."
"Then you would have disintegrated him," Castiel added unpleasantly.
"Revenge doesn't care about that," Chuck said, waving his hand.
Bobby stood there, without even his hatred of God to hold on to anymore. "No, Cas, he's right, the idjit," he huffed. "We all knew Chuck, and if Chuck was God and he wasn't lying to us, I knew there was an explanation. Chuck Shurley is a coward sometimes," he gave Chuck the eye, "but he's a good guy."
Bobby cleared his throat. "So that's it then, huh?" he asked. "God's back in the game?"
"Don't call me that, still," Chuck insisted, pulling at his hair. "God isn't the one the Winchesters welcomed into their family; Chuck is. I'm a lot more proud to be him than I am to be 'God.' God is just the guy who was here first."
Bobby couldn't help it, the warm tendril that reached into his heart. He put on being gruff and he was pissed off most of the time about aching bones, or shitty weather, but these damn Winchesters just did that to him.
Just then, Sam and Dean Winchester pounded into the house.
"You boys are usually right at ground zero, but this time I got all the glory," Bobby jeered.
"What the hell?" Dean asked incredulously as Bobby took the beer case he was holding.
Castiel turned to face the brothers. "Chuck has remembered."
"Remembered?" Sam asked. "Like, for real permanently remembered?"
"Yeah, and since when are you back to calling him Chuck?" Dean demanded of Cas.
They looked up to see Chuck still standing behind the desk, eyes clearly still red from crying. When they met his eyes, he looked down at his shoes. "Hey boys," he supplied mildly.
"He remembers everything?" Dean pointed at Chuck, just to make sure, eyes narrowing at the man.
Castiel foolishly answered. "Yes -"
"All right then," Dean dropped the grocery bags instantly.
Bobby put an arm out on his chest to stop him. "Dean, stop," he insisted. "It's Chuck, it's really Chuck."
"What are you saying, Bobby?" Dean ground out, still looking at Chuck.
Chuck was returning the gaze somewhat shamefully, which didn't make it any better.
Castiel now stepped in front of Chuck. "You know I fell from heaven for you, Dean Winchester, so listen when I tell you you should not be angry at Chuck. We all misunderstood his intentions -"
"I don't give a damn what his intentions were!" Dean all but shouted. "Intentions never got anyone anywhere!"
"This is the price of free will!" Castiel roared back, shaking the household. "Do you remember what I told you?" his eyes flared. "After Sam fell. You didn't want heaven, or hell, you wanted free will. This was the price."
He held his arm back, gesturing to Chuck. "Chuck has given everything he has, which is a considerable amount, to ensure the integrity of our free will."
"Besides all of that," Bobby said. "It's Chuck, remember? Chuck who stood up to Lillith when he was nothing more than a 'penthouse forum writer,' Chuck who pulled Castiel's teeth out of his hair and kept fighting the angels anyways, despite how shell-shocked and scared he was? Chuck, who, when it was go time, dropped everything and went. That's what I mean when I say it's still Chuck. It's still the same guy."
"What did he say to convince you two?" Sam wondered aloud, stepping in. "I mean, Bobby hates God like every hunter hates God, and Castiel, he actually abandoned you."
Castiel sighed. "I find it difficult to hold that against him given all we've done in return."
Sam pushed past Castiel, to Chuck.
He was still standing there, looking down at his shoes, ashamed.
"Still a self-loathing wreck?" Sam asked Chuck plainly.
"Yep," Chuck admitted with a grimace.
Sam considered him, and took a seat opposite him. "Why did you leave?"
"I just finished up explaining this to Bobby," he said rather tiredly, walking around to sit down on the couch where no table was between them. "I saw that nothing I did was working."
"Working to what?" Dean asked, eyes narrow.
"To show you that I love you!" Chuck exclaimed. "Love you enough to respect your choices. Dean, I let you go to hell when you traded yourself for Sam because I love you enough to respect your decision that his life was worth your soul. I thought it was a stupid as shit decision, but I let it happen."
"But you could have just saved me!" Dean yelled. "And you said it yourself, you let it happen!"
"Dean, give him a chance!" Bobby shouted into the fight.
"What did you do, Chuck, mind control him?" Dean rounded on Bobby. "Because the Bobby I know would be in this with me!"
"The whole point of creation was about giving you choices!" Chuck roared. The foundation beneath him quaked. "About the choice to love! What does love matter, if it comes with no risk of heartbreak? What does any choice matter without consequences?"
"You know, that all sounds nice," Dean sneered, "But what the fuck does that even mean?"
The earth felt heavy beneath their feet. "I'll put it in terms you understand, Dean," he all but spat. "I wanted what anyone wants. I wanted someone to love me, I wanted someone to love. I wanted a family. But it's not really a family if they're literally slaves to my will, is it?"
Chuck stood up to meet Dean, squaring. His voice came out like thunder. "Don't you think if I had another way, I would have taken it? I watched you literally climb over yourselves for millennia to get away from me! You threw yourselves to sin, evil, torture and death to escape me. I tried every different way I could think of; being an authoritative father, being a loving father, being a helicopter father, being a father who let his kids make their own choices -"
Chuck's voice turned broken and desperate "- And no matter what I did, you still all just wanted to get away. Everything I'd ever made was trying to get away from me. I created sixty billion people and not a single solitary one of them would love me, no matter how much I loved them."
He collapsed in the chair, rubbing his face.
"Sometimes I consider wiping the slate clean, but only because it's what everyone says they want. You…" tears were leaking from his eyes. "You'd all rather die than love me."
Dean found he couldn't yell at someone who was this pathetic, even if he was God. "What about suffering then, huh?"
"Did you not just hear me? It's not love if it's slavery. And it's not free will if there's not a choice. It's not my fault you guys choose the worse choice, every time," he said. "Or maybe it is. Maybe I'm not a good enough father."
Castiel took a step closer. "You must know that's not the case."
"What other explanation is there, Castiel?" He said. "I created… everything."
Dean looked at Chuck, and he didn't see an all powerful God. He saw Chuck Shurley, the guy who threw himself to Lillith to save his blood sucking brother, who even the angels called an abomination.
"But there's always another way," Dean said, sinking onto the couch beside him. "There always is."
"I know," Chuck replied. "It was that you were all going to make your own choices anyways. Atheists often respond with the accusation that I could have made them into the sort of person who would choose differently, but I didn't make anyone pre-set to choose anything. Wouldn't really be free will if people were made the sort of people who would always choose something."
"Everyone makes their own choices, in the end, and nobody is gonna tell them any differently." He heaved a sigh, and turned to Sam. "I left because there was nothing I could do."
Sam asked quietly, "And you hate yourself, because they wouldn't love you?"
Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose. "Even the things I created won't love me. What's that say about me?"
"He died, you know," Bobby said bluntly. "Let us nail him to a cross, hoping that humanity would see that if he literally let us murder him, and still love us, that he was worth it."
Chuck turned his head away, looked down somewhere in the corner. "I'm not concerned about that so much," he mumbled. "I have nightmares about it, but what's a nightmare?"
He turned to face the Winchesters. "This, I never anticipated. My life as Chuck, it's everything I see myself as." He grimaced as he spoke. "It's one thing for a family to show you hospitality when you're the promised Messiah. It's another when you're a drunk writer, and a coward."
"You aren't a coward," Dean waved his hand, despite himself. "You had a lot going on we didn't know about at the time. We didn't know you had weird nightmares, or were serially beat in your childhood, or whatever. We thought you were just a perv in a bathrobe."
Chuck raised his eyebrows, laughing as he stood. "Oh, I am definitely a perv in a bathrobe."
"Am?" Sam gave a crooked smile, standing too.
He sighed. "I'm Chuck, aren't I?"
Dean cursed his life, that he was forgiving God. But it wasn't God standing in front of him, it was Chuck Shurley, a born tortured writer who's shit childhood and meaningless adulthood didn't help the situation much. He had a wealth of strength and goodness inside of him, and this cruel world had left it to rot.
He'd hugged Cas, Bobby, and Sam, so he went in for the acceptance hug here.
What he didn't expect was Sam piling on, then Bobby, and even weirdly enough, Cas, who was hugging the tightest of them all.
"This is the gayest thing I've ever done," huffed Dean from the middle of the pack.
"No it's not," mocked Sam. "You had a big cry right to my face after a nightmare a couple years ago. That was the gayest thing you've ever done."
Just then, they all felt Chuck shaking from the middle of the pack. Yes, he was definitely crying again.
"Now it's the gayest thing you've ever done."
"Enough," Dean snarked, pushing everyone free.
He grabbed Chuck's shoulder, and looked down at the man as he hurriedly wiped his face again. "Go clean yourself up, okay?" he said, squeezing the shoulder firmly.
Chuck gave a sort of wild nod as he fled the room.
Not ten seconds later, Sam was giving him the bitch face.
"You have got to me kidding me. I just forgave God, isn't that a big enough step for me?" Dean bitched, arms out.
"He's like, three billion years old, Dean, and this is the first time he's ever had a family. Don't judge him for crying."
"I'm not!" Dean's face was put on sincerity. "Promise! It's Chuck, right? Did I judge Chuck when he threw that big fit after digging up that grave?"
Sam gave Dean bitch face #34, withering condescension.
Dean walked into the living room to find Chuck, with a glass of whiskey and his laptop on his lap.
"Still working on that crap novel?" Dean joked, sitting down next to him and pouring his own glass.
Chuck's tone was humor and derision. "What else would I be doing?"
Dean shrugged. "Remember how all I did was yell at you to get off your ass and stop wallowing?" he laughed. "Well -"
"You were right, Dean," Chuck said, turning to the man at the other end of the couch. He turned back to his screen, and said no more.
"Could you say that again, for posterity?" Dean quipped. "Wait, I need to go grab Sam so he can hear."
"Chuck thinks I'm right!" Dean yelled at his brother.
"Fuck what Chuck thinks!" Sam shot right back. "This isn't Chuck's life!"
"Chuck is God, Sam, remember? The final arbiter of right and wrong?"
Chuck himself was just watching the altercation with Bobby, Chuck a little astonished and Bobby a lot annoyed.
"I thought you liked that God shit, Sam!"
Sam scoffed. "Yeah, but it's you whose been his biggest fan ever since he showed up."
"That's not true," Dean said aggressively. "Bobby has."
Bobby turned on his heel, muttering "Oh my God" as he left the room.
Chuck decided that was a good move, and followed him. But the brother's pointless yelling could still be heard from inside the house.
"This is unbearable," Chuck commented. "I would ask if they're always like this, but I've lived here long enough to know the answer to that."
"Two seconds is enough to know the answer to that," Bobby muttered. "And you know what? In a month they'll have forgotten whatever the hell it is they're arguing about. Idjits."
Bobby walked in the room to find Chuck bent over his dusty old books
"What are you doing?" he asked, a little startled.
Chuck looked up at him through his glasses. "What's it look like? Researching!"
"Researching what?" he gestured. "Don't you, like, know all?"
Chuck looked down at the book, finishing the sentence he was reading. "I mean, sort of. I made everything, I know how it all works. But man, it's crazy, the people that things have done with it," he laughed. "I didn't invent spells. Sometimes when I read spells, I'm blown away. Like, I'd never thought of doing that before!" he laughed. "I didn't think of Nachos, either, and I love nachos."
He looked up at Bobby again, who was still looking at him. "Take the basic key of solomon," he explained. "That's the Key of Solomon, not the Key of God. I didn't have anything to do with that. So simple, yet such a practical application of basic Enochian symbols. Elegant in it's simplicity."
"Why are you impressed, though? You can do all that stuff," he replied, sitting across from him.
"Yeah, but I just… will it. It's crazy what people have come up with. It's only been ten thousand years and humanity has already conquered almost the entire natural world."
"I don't know about that," Bobby waffled. "There's still great swaths of the forest that are untouched, the poles -"
"- that technology exists, you just haven't used it that way," Chuck waved Bobby off, getting back to his book.
As it was, Chuck did not return for a long time. Long enough that they all found their way to the kitchen table, and began to drink themselves silly at it. Even Castiel had acquired rather a large amount of alcohol, and five bottles in was beginning to outrun his angelic metabolism.
"I have never heard of my Father being anything but righteous fury," Castiel slurred. "The stories Anael would tell, of The Lord who commanded all things to be. I idolized the Great Authority, the Final Good."
"Yeah, this isn't what any of us expected," Sam slurred back. "But at the same time it is, isn't it? Why shouldn't God feel this way?"
"Chuck," Dean slurred, drunkest of them all. At the time, standing up to God seemed like the only thing to do, but after the fact it seemed like the stupid thing to do.
"Why shouldn't Chuck feel this way?" Sam continued conversationally. "I mean, he gave us free will, look what we did with it."
"I'm not sure it excuses him," Bobby grumbled. "We all suffered."
"But you heard what he said to me," Sam leaned over the table. "It's the price of free will; and since even the worst suffering is temporary, it's kind of all worth it, right?"
"You don't even know what the reward is, boy, how can you say it's worth it?" Bobby leaned forward as well.
"An eternity of not-suffering?" Sam snorted. "Hell, it doesn't have to be peace and joy, just an eternity of not-this, spent in freedom, is worth it."
"I concur," Castiel hummed, emptying the tenth bottle of vodka. "Millions of years spent in obedience was not suffering, but it was not a life."
"Tell us about it," Dean prompted, hitting the table. "What's it like being millions of years old?"
"Might help us understand… Chuck," Sam mumbled, the words getting lost in his mouth.
"My time was not spent like Chuck's," Castiel protested. "His existence is decision, leading creation… mine was simple obedience."
"Tell us anyways," Bobby said. "Sue me, I'm curious."
Castiel sighed. "The humans, no matter what you tried, things tended to end the same. I have seen no victories as full of love and family as yours," Castiel said, nodding towards them, "But I have seen other small victories over the years. Mostly, humanity is marked by suffering, caused by weakness. Humans have always been trying to forsake their free will."
Castiel sighed, more deeply. "If he has been around since the dawn of time, I can certainly see why he would feel hopeless."
"I don't feel hopeless," Chuck murmured, appearing in the kitchen. Castiel had attuned them to people who could teleport, though, so they were less than startled by it.
"If I felt hopeless, none of this would exist anymore," that low quality returned to his voice, but it was sad. Everything fell silent, creation itself turning to listen.
"Do you know you do that?" Sam turned, swaying to look at Chuck. "With your voice?" he clarified, giving a crooked smile.
Chuck cleared his throat. "Sorry Sam, I just forget sometimes."
"How do you forget?" Dean spluttered. "Chuck, when we met you, you were scared of me."
Chuck put his hands up, mock surrender. "Confused, remember?" he quipped, pouring himself a glass. "Let me catch up."
"Can God even get drunk?" Sam wondered aloud.
"Chuck certainly can," Chuck said, downing a glass.
"Still have the tolerance of a baby," Bobby rumbled, laughing, when Chuck blinked hard.
"You don't need to stop, with the voice thing," Sam continued rambling, picking up the lost thought. "If you're God, be yourself, whatever, just remember that you do it." It's really cool, he thought privately to himself. Gives everything a sense of gravity. "Makes me feel like I'm really getting to know you."
"You're really drunk, Sam, you said the last part out loud," Chuck laughed, throwing back another glass.
"Are you reading our minds?" Dean leaned back in his chair, indignant.
"Not really, but Sam was thinking loudly," Chuck defended himself. "Plus, Sam doesn't mind, he practically reads his own mind to me every night in prayer."
"You still pray?" Dean's voice was soft.
"Yep," he verified. "Well, I don't know if I'll keep doing it if God is sleeping the next bedroom over, but until yesterday I did."
"Do not stop," Chuck murmured, voice heavy again. "It brings me great comfort to know that you still believe in me." He was leaning over the table now, normal drunk Chuck, but his voice stilled everything around him as the earth itself turned to listen.
"You care that I believe in you?" Sam whispered.
Chuck smiled wanly. "I want the people I love to love me back. Isn't that what anyone wants?"
"Hear, hear," Dean reached out his glass, and they all clinked together.
"We gonna have more sappy ass conversations like this?" Bobby grunted. "Ever since Chuck moved in my house has turned to a soap opera."
"It's God, Bobby, -"
"Chuck," he interjected.
"Chuck, you're God, get over it," Dean grumbled. "It's God. I think if God himself needs a chick flick moment,"
"Or a million," he interjected again.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Or a million, we can handle it. You're the one who told me Dad was cowardly because he'd rather discipline Sammy than reach out to him."
Bobby pursed his lips. "Yeah, but there's enough morose shit in our lives."
"This isn't like getting drunk and saying 'the darkness is within me,' or whatever," Dean replied easily. "This isn't an intervention to keep someone from recklessly hunting."
"This isn't a rerun," Sam summarized. "Chuck needs help, here we are."
"Help with what?" Chuck mumbled into the still night. "God isn't even meant to need help," he sneered.
The glass he was holding shattered in his hand, and whiskey got all over the floor. Castiel waved his hand, and the mess was cleaned up easily.
"The Creator isn't meant for anything," Castiel said. "It is the created beings which have purposes, but I was always taught that the uncreated Father was mere being."
"I think what he's saying is, are you really meant to be anything?" Bobby supplied, gesturing. "Like, who makes the decisions about what you're meant to be? You?"
Another glass with more whiskey was already in Chuck's hand, and he slammed it down on the table. "It's a little preposterous, don't you think? God needing the help of humanity?"
"It's a little preposterous that I need Samantha to drag chick flick moments out of me, but it's still true," Dean shrugged, drinking more.
"You've never admitted that out loud before, no matter how drunk," Sam whispered, touched.
"He has, when you're not around," Bobby chuckled. "Boy's a big sap."
"Of course, because little Sammy can't see," Sam jeered, a little hurt.
"We're giving God therapy, I figured it was time to drop the pretenses," Dean mumbled, shrugging.
"All right, I take your point, Winchester," Chuck grumbled. He sighed. "I created humanity in my image, and then I expect them to somehow be different than me. I created humanity to need love, and connection, and then I expect myself to do without."
"But humanity was not meant to be my equal… or maybe they were," he complained. He put his head in his hands. "It's been so long."
"But what is the alternative?" Castiel supplied quietly. "Ending it all? Or ending yourself? If you are alive, you might as well try."
"I'm not alive," Chuck mumbled, being difficult. "I am."
"What do you even want, Chuck?" Dean pressed. Their volume had all dropped, Chuck's voice by far the most commanding in the room.
Chuck's eyes narrowed again, and he stood up roughly. "I don't know!" His voice thundered, quiet and loud at the same time.
"If that's not human then I don't know what the fuck is," Bobby pointed out, just leaning back in his chair.
His head turned on a swivel to Bobby. "I'm not meant to be human," His voice ground, seemingly shaking the foundation of the house. "I am as far above you as you are above an ant."
"And yet you admire the ants!" Sam exclaimed, a little louder, sitting up.
"Humanity could learn from the ants," He sneered.
"Then why could you not learn from humanity?" Sam pressed, perhaps a little foolishly.
"Because I created humanity! And the ants! Humanity did not create the ant -" His face changed, frustration, age. "Why am I bickering with the antichrist about ants? This is beneath me."
"If you think like that, Chuck, everything is beneath you," Dean pressed. "If you won't engage with what's beneath you, literally what else do you have?"
Dean saw the hurt on Sam's face out of the corner of his eye, and resolved to talk to him about it tomorrow. If he remembered. God, he hoped Sam didn't remember.
Chuck swallowed, and the anger drained from his face. It was replaced by a bone-crushing sorrow, and Dean felt his own heart reach out to it.
"I suppose this is a human crisis I'm having," he laughed uncertainly. "Humanity keeps choosing death over life, hate over love, and I keep wondering…" he dipped his head. "This is pathetic. I keep wondering 'why does everyone leave me?'"
"We're here," Dean defended. "Castiel fell to defend humanity. We fought the dick angels to stop the apocalypse."
"You think I'm a dick too," Chuck sniped at Dean. "And every one of you here has fallen. You threw yourself to the pit, Sam drank an innocent woman, Bobby has sins that don't need shared, and Castiel hates me more than any of you can comprehend."
Castiel shifted in his chair, looking guilty.
"You didn't choose to love the lord, you chose to love humanity," Chuck's voice quieted. "I was going to say they deserve it less than me, but I'm not so sure."
"There are people who love you, God," Sam offered. Chuck rolled his eyes, but decided to say nothing. "At churches the world over, there are millions of people who love you, and give everything to follow the example you set as Jesus."
He pursed his lips.
"I know you hear their prayers," Castiel murmured. "You know their hearts, you know they're sincere."
"Their opinions would change the second they met me," Chuck laughed, tremulously. "I'm a train wreck."
"Everyone's a train wreck, get over it," Bobby said, not unkindly.