*AUTHOR'S NOTE: I didn't update because I was busy reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It's an addicting story.*
What Sam was doing was dangerous. Blasphemous. Ludicrous.
That is, if it worked at all. He half-hoped that it didn't
He eyed the dark mixture before him as if it was made of black powder. It might as well have been. Because if he was successful, he knew that he wasn't wrong, but he hopedhehoped he was, then there was no telling how explosive the consequences would be.
Summoning God was risky business, there was no denying it. Sam tossed the match in, and stopped himself from following his instinctual inclination to pray.
Wait, what was that?
Sam was not only incredibly intelligent, but also insufferably good. His dreams immediately following his breakthrough were laced, not with elation, but with guilt. When he woke up, that guilt only grew more poignant.
He felt he should have come up with the solution sooner. When Cas went looking for God the first time, he should have seen the solution immediately, it was simple enough, he could have been more help. But he was thoroughly absorbed in his own problems at the time, so when Dean said it was a bad idea, it automatically was. Sam sighed and rubbed his temples. At times, he was all too aware of how much he still, however subconsciously, considered his brother to be omnipotent. It always hurt, in a million different ways, to do something that Dean disagreed with, and it was rare for him to even consider that his brother's judgment was flawed. And to some small degree, that same deference applied to Castiel, as well.
Not that Dean wasn't right about finding God, at least in a few ways. Castiel had gone about the whole thing in entirely the wrong way, because it was true that God didn't want to be found, didn't want to help. Playing hide-and-seek with the Being that conceptualized the game wasn't likely to yield much success.
But there were rules that governed the universe, rules that could summon and bind even Death. If that could be done, who was to say that God couldn't be summoned and bound as well?
Hence the blasphemy.
Sam's breathing caught when he heard the tell-tale crack! of a displacement of air.
"I know, that my Redeemer lives," a weak, yet resonant voice sang from behind him. Sam whirled to face the source, and made a sort of choke-gasp when he saw who it was.
Kevin's eyes weren't just glowing gold; in fact they weren't golden human eyes at all. They were eagle eyes. The significance of this hit Sam like a sledgehammer. The Griffon.
"Kevin?" he asked, stunned. The Asiatic kid smiled indulgently.
"He lives to guide me with his eye." An elaborate way of saying no, but effective nonetheless.
Sam floundered. "I don't, I mean, what_"
God-Kevin decided to quit speaking in verse. "You have been called," he said serenely, "as a Prophet of the Lord."
Wait, what was that?
"Huh?" Sam said intelligently. His mind was in overdrive, trying to piece together exactly how it was that Kevin ended up being God. At least it might explain some of Crowley's abnormal interest in him, although it didn't explain much else. In fact, it just made everything else much more confusing.
"Neither shall thy name any more be called Samuel Winchester, but thy name shall be הבא עבור יהוה, for a helper have I made thee," God-Kevin continued. (1)
"Woah, woah, wait," Sam said, holding up his hand, still trying to comprehend what was going on. "Helper? I… I summoned you here. And Kevin_?"
"All signs," God-Kevin said vaguely. "It would take too long to explain. Time is short."
"What do you mean?" Sam's plan, in spite of its inherent genius, was absurdly simple. Get God, bind God, and get his brother and friend the hell out of Purgatory. Now complications were springing up like dandelions on a freshly mowed lawn. Because from all appearances, it looked like God was…
"Your task is to gather the Word of God from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. To save all of Creation."
…it looked like God was sending him on a mission. And that if he didn't do it, the world was going to end again. Wouldn't it be nice if he could just save his family without getting landed with a worldwide crisis?
"I don't understand," Sam said. The words sounded foreign, coming out of his mouth.
God-Kevin threw his hands in the air, searching the room as if for help. A strange juxtaposition from the nervous, stiff young man that Sam knew. "The Enlightenment was a gamble, I know, but I'm getting tired of having to explain everything!" he said in a frustrated tone. "Look, you must have noticed that Creation is fading. The laws are bending, glitches are appearing in the system. You really think that these last few years would have happened if the laws of causality were operating normally? It's crazy!"
Sam shook his head slowly. To him, crazy was just another day in the life. "How can creation be fading? Isn't the Word of God like, eternal?"
God-Kevin sighed. "I admit there was a bit of hype," he began.
Understatement of the millennium, Sam thought. Might as well have called the Flood a "bit of rain."
"But I'll try to explain this simply. Imagine you say something, anything. "Roses are red, violets are blue," for instance. Those words would come out of your mouth and hang in the air for a moment, before becoming so tangled up in everything else that they would just fade away and disappear."
Sam knew enough about sound travel to argue a bit about the wording.
"Okay, bad example. But I can't just tell you everything about dark energy and all else, right? Just imagine, I spoke the Word to the universe, and for a prolonged moment, it listened. But that single moment is coming to a close, and everything that I've worked so long on is going to flicker out of existence."
Sam wasn't quite sure if he followed. If what God said was true_ which was doubtful, because it didn't make any sense_ then the end seemed pretty inevitable. "So, what? You need me to gather the Word for you? How is that going to help?"
"If I can Speak the Word again, I could 'renew' the laws. Delay the termination date. I need you to gather the hard copies. The fact that you summoned me is proof enough of your ability to find them."
"Hard copies? And why don't you get them yourself?"
God-Kevin fixed him with a condescending stare. The predatorial glint of the eagle eyes made Sam feel doubly uncomfortable. "Do you know how complicated the laws governing this world are? Do you really think I can just say Let there be light, and make it so? From one fundamental law of logic, I fashioned trillions upon trillions of secondary, tertiary laws, an impossible combination of rules unfeasible to simply conjure from memory! The dangers of getting a variable wrong are too high to risk! I could change the function of humanity by mispronouncing the Interactive Chaos Equation. This world is a work of genius, and half of it was a mix of accident and good luck. In fact, it's only recently that I could find a way to have different, coexisting creations. Of course I need the hard copies, of course I put them where no one, not even myself could find them! After the first time, with Noah… I realized I couldn't just try and improve upon it. I had to leave it be, and to do that, I had to put the Word where I could never find them." (2)
Sam felt thoroughly scolded. He also couldn't help but feel a little disillusioned. He used to be religious, after all. "Right," he said apologetically. "So I find the Word of God. Like, the stone tablet you_ I mean, Kevin_ translated for us?"
"I believe there are twenty five, total" God-Kevin said thoughtfully. Inwardly, Sam groaned I believe was never a reliable phrase, even from God. "Kevin was originally meant to find the Word, but the signs…" he shrugged. Sam tried not to think too hard about how the whole Kevin-God relationship worked. He had a creeping suspicion the explanation would end up being just as confusing as the Trinity itself.
"Right. But…" Sam said, calculating his chances, and reasonably certain that God depended on his continued survival enough not to blow him to Timbuktu with his next words, "I want you to do something for me first. I don't know if you noticed, but my brother and my friend are trapped in Purgatory. If you get them out, I will help you."
Sam hastily re-did his calculations when he beheld the terrible expression given him, transforming Kevin's mild face into something closely resembling a squashed bat. It now looked very much like he would be blown to Timbuktu.
"I had Jonah eaten," God-Kevin said, voice rumbling through the room, making Sam shudder involuntarily. "For you, the consequences would be much worse. You have been called. Your brother and Castiel are where they are meant to be, and they are safe."
Dean and Castiel were currently running for their lives.
(1) In case anyone was wondering why Castiel, who has the names of all of the prophets seared into his brain, didn't realize that Sam was a future prophet, it was because God very cleverly changed Sam's name just as he became a prophet. God: 1 Castiel: 0. Also, the translation of הבא עבור יהוה is "Fetch for the Lord." After some thought, God decided that "Golden Retriever" would have been a tad offensive.
(2) God not knowing until recently that two different Creations, with entirely different Laws could coexist is an important point. After making this discovery, God hand-picked a candidate to become another God. Who that is, is yet a mystery.