So, I know it's been a long time. Without going into any details, things have been busy in the real world, too busy to leave much energy for fanfictions. I've been missing my work a lot though, and I've been sitting on this one-shot for a while. It seems appropriate to post it now, along with an update for you readers that I'm trying to get back into things and hope to get to my chaptered stories soon if I can get back on my regular schedule. For now, please feel free to peruse and enjoy this work.
Endings Are Hard
There's a part of the story that comes after the story, a part the reader never sees. It exists only in the mind of the writer, or in non-canonical writing experiments not intended for the public eye. Having finished the journey through the world they had created, the writer will sometime feel nostalgic and wish to revisit it. They will reread, a sort of flip through a photo album or call to an old friend.
And they will write, an adventure down the paths they had laid out to discover what may lay down the routes not traveled at the forks in the road. They will speculate what befalls their world and the characters that fill it after the story's end.
Curious critics and eager fans would inquire endlessly about the part that comes after, because endings are hard, for everybody.
The story, the part meant for everyone else, was over. The audience would move on to tag along on the adventures of other characters in other worlds. They would be welcomed on these journeys because without them, the story did not exist. A story wasn't a story until it was shared, seen by eyes that didn't know what lay beyond the turns in the road and the twists in the plot. Until it was read, it was just detailed author's notes.
So, readers were cherished companions, and when the trek was over, they would make their way back the literary highway to flag down their next ride.
The writer wasn't so lucky. The writer had to live with the ending. The writer knew that what had unfolded had come from their hand. The writer has to live with the weight of what they had done, had to do, because it had been what the story required.
Sam had not deserved Hell, but a climactic ending is a must. And for the Shakespearean tragedy that had been the tale of the brothers Winchester, it had to be, at best, bittersweet. An 11th hour tone shift to an ex machina happy ending would have ripped all the meaning out of everything that had happened on the way to the ending. It would have been contrived and plot convenient, and in no way fair to the readers.
On the five year road trip to Hell and back, a third member of the team had ridden along in the Impala's back seat. The silent partners had invested a lot of time and energy and emotion into this shared journey. They deserved better than a sharp turn out of a high stakes drama into a fluffy fairy tale.
So, Sam had to go to Hell. It wasn't a question of what he deserved. It was what the story had required. This is what Chuck told himself on long nights when his drinking would bring neither peace nor sleep.
Dean had to lose his brother. He had to carry on, going through the motions, pretending the love of a found family could fill the hole left by the piece of him that had been ripped away.
The stakes had gotten too high, the odds too low for any last minute magical MacGuffin. It had to be that way or all the rest was ruined, the whole story sacrificed for the sake of the ending.
Silently Chuck told himself all of this as he stared into the dark at nothing in particular, a forgotten drink in his hand. Nights like this he had to remind himself. Or convince himself. One or the other. He wasn't sure.
And then there was Adam. Poor Adam, created only to suffer. A broken family, the loss of his mother, a horrific death, betrayed by the angels and ultimately condemned to Hell.
At least Sam had been allowed a measure of good with the bad. Adam's high point had been a cheeseburger. How sad was that? Chuck had called this being into existence and the only good thing he had ever given him has been a cheeseburger. The poor kid hadn't even been allowed to finish it. Chuck chided himself. What he been thinking?
He took a shaky gulp of the drink.
It had been what the story had required. It needed an ending and powers greater than Chuck's had dictated that it could not be a happy one.
The ground of Stull had to open up, swallow Michael and Lucifer, drag them down to the cage, taking their vessels with them.
That wasn't on him, right?
Chuck reached out to the keyboard and opened a fresh text document. The screen illuminated, bathing him in its soft glow in the dark room. With a deep breath, he began to type.
God watched as his sons fell, taking with them the threat to his creation. The two humans had done well, found the courage to fulfill their destinies. He reached out his hand, catching the two souls as they fell. With only a moment for an approving nod, he cast them upward, free to fly to Heaven.
Chuck hit save. No one else had to know that the story had been ruined. That part was just for him.
Leaving the unfinished drink behind, he rose from the chair and headed for the stairs. Maybe now, sleep would come.