Title: The Dream Maker
Rating: PG
Pairing/character(s): Dean/Castiel (sorta of)
Word count: ~1,200
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not even a feather.
Summary: A day in heaven is not like a day on earth.
Warnings: Spoilers for Swan Song and a bit of angst.
Notes: Not my first Supernatural fic, but my first Supernatural English and Dean/Castiel fic. I’m kind of proud, kind of afraid.
A (heaven-sized) Thanks to:
spacebabe who did a hell of a job betaing this. Girl, don’t ever change. ♥
A day in heaven is not like a day on earth.
You know that because you’ve seen both. A day in heaven is eternal. On earth it always has an end. You remember enjoying the nights simply because you knew that people were in their beds, asleep in some kind of peace.
You know what dreams are made of. You know it and it haunts you, because you know what his dreams feel like these days. Yes, you’ve tried to stay away. You may keep telling yourself that you played your part, and played it well, but you also know, deep down, that it’s not that easy. Easy to believe you’re good with that. You rebelled, once. You had doubts, once. Those doubts are still there.
You also know why you did it, why you returned to heaven in the first place. God brought you back without asking for anything in return. You rebelled against Him, you cursed Him and still, He cares about you. And you aren’t an ungrateful son and you’re thankful for being an angel, His angel, again. So you came back, because He asked you nothing. Because that’s the right thing to do. And you're doing your best every endless day.
But when the days on earth are about to end, you know, you can feel it. You know when Dean dreams. What he dreams about. And you want to be there the moment he wakes up in the middle of night, soaked in cold sweat. You want to be there and promise him that everything is going to be alright. And of course you know you can’t promise that.
There’s no paradise on earth. Or hell, for that matter. But you know Dean is trapped inside his personal hell. A hell that you can't go down and bring him back from, as you did once. You have a job to do, now. A new one. No garrison of your own, no Apocalypse to stop. Just keeping your brothers and sisters safe from themselves. You have a day to get through. A very long day.
A day in heaven is not like a day on earth.
It can’t be counted in hours, minutes or seconds. It doesn’t have all the different colors of the sun. Up here, you don't have sunrises. Or sunsets. You do have all those things together all the time and yet, they don’t mean anything to you. Not anymore.
Your brothers and sisters are afraid of what you are now, but they don't respect you. They all know the truth about what happened and you know they're saying that you... got soft. For a human, of all things. It’s because of a human you aren’t enjoying the perks of being God’s new favorite. You aren’t, you just can’t enjoy an endless day in paradise.
You experienced paradise, once. It had the shape of a smile and the sound of a deep, clean laughing voice. Laughing at you. Because of you. You knew what it was, then. You felt it even before, but you only knew for sure in that dirty alley outside the brothel in Maine. You thought you would regret that night, but you didn’t. It ended well for you, you thought, back then. You had his smile, once.
You had his blood, later. And you didn’t regret that, either.
You asked yourself once why God chose you to save Dean in the first place. Between all his sons and daughters He chose you. Well, perhaps He didn't exactly choose you, but He allowed you to be chosen. So maybe He had known that you would end up doing all the right things. Maybe everything had been written exactly that way. The seals, the rebellion, the search. All the blood. Yours. Dean's.
Your Father told all of you that they’re His masterpiece. Humanity. Some of you liked it, some of you didn't. But you... you loved them all because they were His work. You saved Dean from Hell because you thought you were doing His work, and maybe, maybe you really were.
Maybe you were supposed to fall. For Dean. For your Father’s finest creation.
You want to tell Dean it’s alright to be angry. You want to release his brother and you know you can’t. Because that would mean setting Lucifer free and that would be the end of everything you all worked for. And Dean would die, too. He would go to paradise, of course, and you know you wouldn’t be there. You know you don’t have a place in Dean’s personal heaven.
It would be funny if wasn’t tragic. It seems you don’t have the right to be with him in peace. It has to be the Apocalypse, the End of the World. Hell and him rescued, gripped by an angel. You.
You wish you could be there. There, where everything is just more of the same. Because anarchy aside, everything up here is more of the same, too. They’re all the same. Same discussions, same fights. And you're not. You have changed. You fought, you died, you lost all hope and then you woke up, half-human, hurt, and happy because he had said no.
You miss earth. You miss Dean.
You miss the simple idea, the knowledge that he's doing his job, saving the world for the day and that he’s going to bed, not before messing with Sam’s hair or drinking a beer. You miss experiencing the end of the day and knowing that it is just a new, fresh beginning. You miss the idea that you would be there to see when that new day starts and then, ends again.
You miss the whole concept of endings. Because there are no endings up here. No endings and no beginnings. Just here and now... for eternity. Eternity never bothered you before. Because before all this, that was all you’d ever known.
A day in heaven is not like a day on earth. It’s eternal. And perfect.
And perhaps you won't die in heaven, but you know that you're not perfect anymore. Never were, maybe. God made you like that. God remade you once, twice, and that feeling never really changed. You came back for Dean every single time. And maybe you will go back for him when it’s time again.
But right now, you can’t be there when he wakes up, after a bad dream about his brother. You can’t go back for him now. You have a job to do.
But you know what dreams are made of. And you can replace Sam's cage for the Impala and the demons for ghosts and guns and rock salt. All the screaming for Kansas and AC/DC. The terror of hell for the thrill of the hunt. You can and you do.
A day in heaven is not like a day on earth.
But you can watch over him for eternity until it’s finally time for Dean to wake up.