A/N: I realize that this will undoubtedly contradict whatever Heaven we get to see in Supernatural, but dammit, I'm a writer, not a clairvoyant. And as much as I'd like to write Bobby or John, or even Shawn Spencer, as God in this fic, I thought I'd stick to a neutral here. No need to complicate things further. I won't beg for reviews, but it'd be nice to hear from someone. Love it, hate it, have suggestions, I don't care.
Pure white light was the first thing Dean registered when he opened his eyes, coming at him from every direction, and it nearly blinded him as it filled every part of his mind. His eyes adjusted quickly, with details emerging from the light as he looked around: he was laying on the wood floor of a kitchen, surrounded by cabinets and countertops, with the light streaming in from huge windows all around him. Standing up, confusion dominated his mind as he looked around and he realized that, if the gold and green waves of corn outside the windows were anything to go by, he was in a house in the country.
"Dude, are we in a... farmhouse?" a familiar voice asked from his right and Dean spun so quickly to look at the person that the room had to play catch up with him. When he saw who it was, his heart jumped into his throat and he had to squash it back down, not that he'd ever admit that it was even there in the first place.
Sam stood on the other side of the kitchen island, clean and whole and dressed in his usual t-shirt-jeans combo. The older Winchester furrowed his brow, which didn't hurt like he thought it would–didn't he have a gaping gash up there or something?–but he wouldn't linger on that for very long because he was too confused by where they were and what was going on, and that was all piled on top of just how happy he was to see his brother in one piece.
"Um, yeah?" he replied hesitantly, a hand patting his chest to reaffirm that he wasn't going nuts. He was here alright, or something was making him think he was, not that he could see any sense in an evil plan that dropped then onto a farm in the middle of nowhere on one of the nicest days he'd ever seen. They'd seen stranger, but... It was just too much for him to consider right now. "Weren't we just..."
"Dying in the street after knocking Lucifer back to Hell?" Sam filled in, seeming just as hesitant as his brother as he looked around the kitchen and adjoining rooms, all of which seemed well lived in and offered few details to reveal who actually lived here. "Yeah, we were."
"And now we're in a farmhouse." Dean glanced around dubiously. "Even for us, this is kind of weird."
"I'm calling bull on that," a new voice responded. The brothers Winchester turned to the stairs, where a man, no older than forty, bounded into the kitchen with a smile on his lips. He was dressed like any other guy, wearing worn blue jeans, a baggy white t-shirt and no shoes, with a thick, well-trimmed beard to match his barely messy hair.
Dean raised an eyebrow, watching the stranger cautiously, not because he seemed threatening, because he gave off one of the most calming vibes Dean had ever felt, but because that was just how he'd been taught to act toward people who were this serene about two random guys appearing in their kitchen.
"Who are you?" he asked, keeping a trained eye on the guy, who just ambled up to the island and sat on a stool.
"We've never met personally, Dean, but you know who I am, and I definitely know who you are. You, too, Sam." He smiled pleasantly as the brothers exchanged matching glances. "You've met some of my kids, if that helps." The boys stared at him quizzically, trying to figure out who this nonthreatening stranger was, and suddenly it clicked for Sam. His eyes went wide, mouth dropping open slightly.
"No way," he murmured, utter disbelief dripping from his voice. "You're... God?" Dean's eyebrows shot up at the charge, eyes suddenly glued to the older man, who was just nodding with that same smile on His face.
"I am," He replied simply, glancing between the astounded Winchesters, both of whom just stared back at Him with wide eyes, because, honestly, it was God. They were in a room with God, and He just sat there in all His glory wearing old blue jeans and a t-shirt. "Not what you were expecting, I'm sure."
"You're sure no burning bush," Dean muttered without thinking, stomach lurching when he realized whom he'd just snarked back at, but he drew an unexpected laugh from the bearded man.
"I appear in a lot of different ways to a lot of different people," He replied cheerily. "That was just one of my better ideas. No better way to catch someone's attention than by presenting yourself as a flaming shrub." Dean grinned amusedly, but Sam, by his very nature, broke into the moment with another question.
"So if you're God, and we just died, then we're in Heaven, aren't we?" he deduced, once again receiving a nod from God, and this was so surreal, the older brother just couldn't hold back the questions cropping up as he sorted through the bizarre deluge of new information.
"Heaven is a farmhouse?" Dean asked, vaguely incredulous. At this, God just shrugged.
"Many forms, many people. And," He added, "I thought a farm would be a simple place for us to talk."
"Talk?" the older Winchester repeated, not sure whether this was a good thing or not.
"It's a good thing," God reassured, and it was still weird to Dean to have his thoughts read by angels, let alone the Supreme Ruler of Existence. Things never stopped being bizarre in their lives, not when the next step in weirdness was standing in a farm kitchen in Heaven with his brother and God, which is a thought Dean never in his life expected to think, and all the thinking about thinking started to warp his brain. Luckily, Sam was there to save him from an infinite loop of brain-melting thoughts about thoughts.
"If it's not rude to ask, why talk to us?" Sam inquired, and Dean gave him a sidelong look that wondered why he, Sam Winchester of the carefully unoffensive, un-rude words with strangers or elders, would even consider saying something that could be construed as rude to God of all... people? Beings? Gods? Whatever, he wasn't in the mood to continually destroy his mind right now. Things were complicated enough.
God seemed entirely unfazed by the question, though.
"Why not? After all, you helped prevent the Apocalypse while I was gone. You've dedicated your entire lives to saving people you don't even know. You've fought every awful thing in the books, and kept on doing the job anyway. You could have run from it and never looked back, but you didn't. You gave up everything in return for nothing." The Supreme Being sounded sincere, but Dean, never one to take something at its face value, wasn't entirely convinced, even if it meant contradicting the Word of God, which a voice in the back of his mind noted was almost never the best choice.
"We're not that awesome," he shot back. "We helped stop the Apocalypse because we're the reason it was even a problem. We're criminals. We hustle pool and scam credit cards to make money. We lie to almost everyone we meet. We drink all the time and screw random women in every town we visit. One of your angels even fell for us. We're not the saints you think we are." A smile quirked God's lips upon hearing that last comment, and after a second, He began His short rebuttal.
"I wouldn't have made grains ferment into alcohol if it wasn't meant to drink, credit card companies wouldn't be so easy to cheat if I didn't want guys like you to keep protecting the rest of my creations, and I certainly wouldn't have designed sex to feel good if you weren't meant to have it and enjoy it."
As this sunk in, the Bearded One gave the boys a smile that conveyed just how pleased He was (pleased as punch, if Dean had to guess) to He watch their eyebrows shoot up into their hairlines. Hearing God say sex was meant to be had and enjoyed wasn't high on their list of things they ever thought they'd hear God say, at least not the Christian god, and their expressions betrayed just how astonished they were.
The older Winchester spent a few seconds attempting to think of a way to segue from that point, his mouth opening and closing like that of a beached fish as sentences started and died in the same moment; God saved him from this struggle by piping up after a few seconds.
"The point I'm trying to make is that whatever you guys have done that's considered morally reprehensible, I'm willing to overlook that because of all the good you've done. I know you're not perfect. You're only humans, after all. I made you that way. But in your cases, the good definitely outweighs the bad. Besides," He added with a smile, "I like you two. You're interesting, even without the whole saving the planet angle."
"And that's why you want to talk to us, to tell us you like us?" Sam asked, trying his damnedest not to sound rude or incredulous, and succeeding for the most part.
"Well, that and a thing or two else," He replied, standing up and walking over to the old-fashioned red fridge in the kitchen in a sudden change of pace. Pulling out a jug of milk and three glasses, He smiled over His shoulder at the boys. "Want a drink? I guarantee it's the best milk this side of Purgatory. Valhalla's got nothing on us." Sam and Dean, thrown for a loop once again by the utter bafflement of being offered anything by God, just nodded in quiet acceptance.
It seemed God's default facial expression was a smile, because He gave them yet another of His good-natured grins and passed them both a full glass of the opaque white liquid. Each Winchester took a polite drink at first, still entirely bewildered by what manners were applicable in this situation, but as they drank and realized it really was good milk, cold and fresh, it went down quicker until it was gone.
"Thanks," Sam replied, setting his glass down and smiling back at God for the first time since they'd woken up in this strange farmhouse Heaven. Dean looked to his brother and laughed out loud before he even realized why: Sam had a thin white moustache over his upper lip. The kid raised a confused set of eyebrows at him, while God continued to grin. The elder Winchester motioned to his lip after a couple seconds of laughter, and Sam finally got the idea, wiping away at his milk moustache with a barely concealed grin of his own.
"Very funny, guys," he said, his voice lacking any of the usual venom from being the butt of the joke. "So really, why did you want to talk with us? If it's not just because you like us and all that, then what is it?"
"I've got a proposition for you boys, actually," God answered plainly, not drawing it out any longer, and thank, well, thank Him for that because there was only so much more weirdness Dean could handle before his brain melted out of his ears. "I want to canonize you two." Instantly, Dean's eyebrows arched and furrowed, processing what that meant, because it couldn't mean what he thought it meant. That just wouldn't make sense, and he thought he'd heard the word before anyway, just not in relation to what he was thinking about.
"Like at carnivals?" he asked reflexively, even though he knew that couldn't possibly be it, while Sam snorted with laughter.
"No, Dean," the younger Winchester replied, eyes back on God. "Canonization is when they make someone a saint. He wants to make us saints." The weight of those words must have struck the kid suddenly, because his eyebrows disappeared into his shaggy hair and his wide eyes snapped to God. "You want to canonize us?" The Supreme Bearded One shrugged.
"What's so hard to believe about that? You're both good guys, and frankly, some people have been canonized for less."
"Saints?" Dean repeated, the idea so unfathomable to him, he could barely process the magnanimity of it, and before he could delve into another rant about how they were the worst kind of people, God held up a hand.
"I know, Dean, you and Sam aren't perfect little followers, but that doesn't matter," He stated, leveling an even look at the older Winchester that spoke volumes. "You boys are some of the best men I've seen walk that little planet, and you deserve some credit for all the good you've done. If you really want to heft all that blame on yourselves, just think of it as repentance." Both of the boys considered the idea, and God again shrugged. "Of course, it's up to you. Being a saint isn't perfect, after all."
"How so?" Sam asked, folding his arms across his chest. Even from the research he'd done on saints in the past few years, he was curious to know what it actually meant.
"You'll obviously be the saints of something, and have to protect the people who pray to you and all that," He answered, listing the responsibilities off like they were nothing, which they probably were in comparison to being God. "I'll send you back to Earth, with your bodies, clothes, guns, all that stuff you had before, and you'll basically keep doing what you were doing before. Hunting evil, saving people, all that jazz."
"So we'll be the saints of hunting?" Dean clarified, still not quite able to wrap his mind around the full meaning of what was being offered. God simply nodded in response. "And we'll go back to our lives, moving from town to town, doing our own hunts but helping anyone who prays for our help too?" Another nod.
"There won't be another Apocalypse waiting for us, will there?" Sam asked, eyes guarded but curiosity seeping through his very demeanor.
"Nope, that's all behind you. Just old friends, the open road and the usual monsters," God answered serenely, and only now did the reality of all of this begin to sink in for Dean, all the potential good and bad that could come of it.
They would return to their previous lives, lonely and tiring and shitty as they were, but they could keep on saving other people's lives in the process. At least they would be doing good work, even if it was thankless; the alternative seemed to be hanging around up here, doing whatever dead guys did, which seemed to involve a lot of playing the harp if the cartoons and greeting cards Dean had seen got it right. If that really was what they did up here, then he was already sold on this whole canonization thing.
It meant he could see the Impala again, too, and that put a new smile on his face. What would happen to her otherwise? Someone would find her alone a random city, and either tow or steal her, and there was no way in Hell he was tolerating either option, or whatever unknown possibilities someone else could come up with. People were damn creative when they wanted to be, and he didn't trust most of them to keep her pristine any further than he throw them.
Most of all, they could see all their friends again, and even though those were few and far between in a hunter's life, the few they kept mattered.
"Can we fix Bobby up?" Sam asked suddenly, more than a little bit of hope eking into his words.
"It's the least I can do after all the good he's done for you boys," God replied, and a smile spread across Sam's lips before he could realize it was even there. "I'll even let you deliver the good news yourselves."
"And we'll still be able to see Cas, right? You're not going to reel his ass back to the Silver City?" Dean asked, similar hope glimmering in his hazel eyes.
"If he wants to stay with you two, he's fully allowed to do so, and let me assure you that he does want to stay." A matching grin burst onto Dean's face, and he shared a meaningful look with his brother, who nodded ever-so-slightly. The two looked back to God after a moment, smiles lingering.
"Alright, we're game." A now familiar smile bloomed on God's face once again.
"Great. Now," He added with a slightly more serious edge to His voice, "there are some things you're going to need to know. You'll be able to hear when people ask for your help. You're not going crazy, there really are other voices in your head when that happens. You won't die or age, but you can get wounded. You can jump between Earth and Heaven if you want, but try not to do it too often. Seriously, it throws off the balance if you do it too much."
"Got it," Sam replied, nodding as he filed away all the information.
"And, really, let Chuck write his gospels. The guy has to make a living, and it's not like he chose to be a prophet." Dean pursed his lips, but nodded grudgingly after a second, the same as Sam. Couldn't really fight the Big Guy's suggestions, even if they were just that. While he seemed more laid back than Dean had imagined, he would still bet money on God being able to deal out a smiting or two if it really came down to the wire.
"So how does this work?" the older brother asked. God stood up, motioning them both toward Him from their points on either side of the island, a command which they obeyed dutifully. Like they really had any other choice when God had them do something. He placed a hand on each of their foreheads, that same smile adorning His face.
"Just take a deep breath and relax," He said. "I've got the rest." The boys did as they were told, heads bowing forward instinctually. White light filled the room, engulfing Dean once again as everything sensory seemed to fade into the distance. The last thing he knew before the ether enveloped him completely was God whispering, "Thank you, boys."