Snapshots From Tomorrow (SPN, PG-13)
I was going through my fanfic files and discovered quite a few Supernatural fic I'd begun and then forgot about. This one was supposed to become a long AU monster, but I feel it works in the snippets I left it in. So you're not getting any more, unless you request it on a prompt post. But do feel free to ask me what I think happened, or contribute your own explanations.
I have to say, writing Supernatural fic is really difficult for me right now because I've picked up something of an accent and when I hear my words in my head -- they don't sound American at all.
Title: Snapshots From Tomorrow
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Warnings: PG-13? A pretty utilitarian inclusion of religion. And Dean/Castiel, in case you prefer your SPN fic a la carte.
Wordcount: 1,759
Summary: The morning after the apocalypse, God makes the world anew.
Snapshots From Tomorrow
The angels remake the world after Armageddon. They lay waste to all the cities and great works of Man, and deplete the bounties of the earth. In the dark burning ground where lies the body of Lucifer, the earth buckles and collapses, and all Hell convulses on contact. The angels lift off with their victory to their Paradise, their kingdom come at last. The earth lies cold and still and barren below.
The spare man who housed the grace of Michael coughs the last of the life from his lungs. He is not a mighty man, not an important man. He gave himself that the world might be saved. He dies beside Lucifer, in the ashes and embers, and the angels do not return for his body or his soul. The sun rises instead, weak in the dust and the smoke. And it is not the Son but the Father who looks down upon His Creation and what the angels have left of it, and sees that it is not good.
ONCE AGAIN, He intones.
The morning after the apocalypse, God makes the world anew.
--
("There is no Heaven on Earth," Castiel said, harsh like he still isn't okay with what he's saying, like he's still shocked by it. "There will be no Hell. There's only life or death and to the victor go the spoils."
"We'll go down fighting," Dean promised, eyes hard, fists clenched. "We'll give those bastards everything we got."
Castiel shook his head. "They have found a new vessel for Michael."
Sam's eyes went wide, even as Dean's narrowed. "But -- that means -- is it too late?"
"It's too late," said Castiel.)
--
Castiel is first aware of his wings, insubstantial but still a weight on his back. Then it's the wholeness that catches his notice, the fusion of grace and form that bewilders him for a reason he cannot quite comprehend. He knows himself, and his name, and that he is an angel of the Lord his Father. He recognises the pads of his fingers, the slope of his nose, the roughness of the skin of his face. He doesn't recognise the stiffness of his neck, the heaviness of his body, the newness of the world around him. I am newly born, he thinks, and puts a hand to his mouth to taste his fingers.
God hath made me in His image, he thinks, and then wonders where the words came from.
--
"The Lord our Father wills it," says Anael, and Castiel feels surprise. He steps back to distance himself from it, for what true angel feels anything at all?
"Michael felt vengeance," Anael replies, because she of course heard that thought through the others. "Your brother Uriel feels irritation. You often feel wonder -- is feeling so bad?"
"I'm told it is," says Cas, but now he's feeling doubt, and so he abandons this contemplation as too dangerous. "What you suggest, Anael..."
Anael smiles. "It is the will of God that you do this, little angel of the fifth day. Your time of importance will come. Our Father will look favourably upon your sacrifice of a few short years."
"And I will rejoin the Host when this has been done?"
--
Cas is there when he trips over the remnant of the wall, hands closing over Dean's shoulders and pulling him back up. "You must continue," Cas says, like it's killing him, and maybe it is. There's blood dripping down his face and drying in his hair, and his hands where they brush against the bare skin on Dean's neck are too hot, even for an angel. "Dean, go," he urges.
Dean gets his balance and then grabs Cas by the arms, tables turned. "What happens to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I get through," Dean says. There are about fifty feet to go, fifty slippery, treacherous feet of bracken and tree roots and mud, before he reaches the tower. "You said this'll stop all the angels. What happens to you when I finish this?"
Cas puts a hand on his shoulder. Hesitates. Says, "Dean," like it's benediction, like he's asking forgiveness, like he's asking for everything. For anything. Dean drops the mallet to the floor, spins around and grabs Cas with both hands, pushing them mouth to mouth and breathing in the scent of him. Cas doesn't freeze, doesn't pull away, just slides his other hand up Dean's neck and all but collapses against him. It's a desperate kiss like the ones in the movies, before the war, and Dean can almost taste blood and gunpowder smoke.
When Dean pulls away, Cas doesn't open his eyes immediately, and when he does they're hard and tight and his jaw clenches. He leaves the one hand on Dean's shoulder. "Do it now, Dean," he says. Dean picks up the mallet again but keeps his eyes on Cas. "Now."
Throat locked, Dean just nods once. Then he turns back to the seal, raises the mallet and strikes down on the glass etched into the stone floor.
It fractures with a crash, and then the room fills with the sound of splitting glass. A moment of silence, and Dean turns back to Cas, opening his mouth to ask what next, but Cas is smiling sad and proud at him, actually smiling. Then the room fills with light and the seal explodes.
Dean throws out an arm to catch himself, and the other in front of him to catch Cas, who's falling with him. His fingers pass through thin air, but then his shoulder is on fire where Cas is still holding on, and Dean screams, and Cas screams, and then there's too much light to see. Dean hits the ground blindly and rolls, and for a moments he can see Cas through his eyelids, all fire and huge black absence-of-light wings. Then the thunderous boom splits the air, shakes him to the bone, and when it clears everything goes dark.
--
A month and three days (not that he's been counting) after he and Sam averted the apocalypse, Dean wakes up from a dream of burning alive on the stone floor of a tall tower to a shimmer in the air above his motel bed. He rubs his eyes, but it doesn't go away. "Cas?" he whispers, voice breaking on sleep and nothing more.
There's a whisper in the air like feathers rustling against each other, like a low hoarse voice saying close your eyes, but when Dean reaches up into the darkness he feels nothing, not even a bit of residual heat. His eyes slide shut all by themselves, and when he opens them again there's sun getting past the cracks in the windowshades and water's running in the bathroom. Dean puts a hand to his right shoulder, where the handprint's a scar burned into his skin, and looks around the room for something to break.
He doesn't talk about the dream to Sam, who would probably listen if given half the chance, but luckily Sam for once seems to get that Dean doesn't want to talk. There's Asia on the radio, but Dean clicks it off and shoves in one of the tapes he made. He sings loudly and out of tune on purpose until Sam complains, and then he sings louder. The sky clouds over a bit in the afternoon, but the sun still shines through in patches and no rain falls. There's a faint layer of dust on the windshield and on the hood of his Impala, and when he opens the window he sneezes on it.
The sunset, when it comes, is fucking gorgeous.
--
Dean knows that head of hair anywhere, and it's knocking the wind out of him. The bar fades out of focus. He doesn't speak, he gasps: "Cas?"
"What?" The head of hair looks up, and it's the same eyes, the same goddamn mouth, but it's all wrong just the same. "You talking to me?"
It's not Cas, then. But he looks just like Cas, and it's enough to keep Dean's mouth working without a single sound getting out. "No, I -- thought you were --" someone else, he finishes in his head. His throat's still not working properly. He smiles instead, hoping he looks friendly and not manic.
It seems to work. The man who isn't Cas smiles back and extends a hand. "The name's Jimmy," he says. "I'm guessing you don't know me."
"Just one of those faces," Dean manages. Over drinks, he gets Jimmy's life story: a quiet, religious man studies theology and becomes an accountant, marries a quiet, religious woman, and has a rambunctious and passionate daughter that they're both proud of to a ridiculous degree.
"All my life," he says, "this might sound stupid, but all my life I've felt like I've got some kind of... guardian angel. Watching my back."
"Yeah," says Dean around the dryness of his throat, "I know what you mean."
--
And Lucifer and his followers were locked away in Hell, behind many seals that kept them trapped there, while the remaining angels continued to exercise their influence upon humanity, the Winchester Gospel reads. Chuck hates his attempts to write in the old style, but anything else just seems wrong somehow. Only a human could break these seals, but only an angel could unlock their resting places, and so they remained undisturbed for many centuries.
Chuck rubs his face. "I can't write fast enough," he moans into his hands. A clink on the desk is a full beer bottle replacing the empty; Sam's even weirder in person than in writing, but he's still got some priorities in the right order. "And no one's gonna believe this crap anyway."
"It doesn't matter," Sam says. "It happened. To me, and my brother. Someone has to record it."
--
The Earth smokes slightly, a charred ball of ash. Nothing survived the blast that Gabriel caused, neither angel nor demon nor human. Nothing even witnessed it in its entireity, save That who is All Things.
God looks down upon His Creation, and sees that it is not good. Where once he carved oceans and raised mountains, there is nothing. No glory remains on His spinning lump of rock. It will stay that way for almost eternity, until the end of the universe, and then God will return from the other end of existence and bring all Creation to the dust from which it sprung.
But on the morning after the apocalypse, God will make the world anew.
I have to say, writing Supernatural fic is really difficult for me right now because I've picked up something of an accent and when I hear my words in my head -- they don't sound American at all.
Title: Snapshots From Tomorrow
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Warnings: PG-13? A pretty utilitarian inclusion of religion. And Dean/Castiel, in case you prefer your SPN fic a la carte.
Wordcount: 1,759
Summary: The morning after the apocalypse, God makes the world anew.
Snapshots From Tomorrow
The angels remake the world after Armageddon. They lay waste to all the cities and great works of Man, and deplete the bounties of the earth. In the dark burning ground where lies the body of Lucifer, the earth buckles and collapses, and all Hell convulses on contact. The angels lift off with their victory to their Paradise, their kingdom come at last. The earth lies cold and still and barren below.
The spare man who housed the grace of Michael coughs the last of the life from his lungs. He is not a mighty man, not an important man. He gave himself that the world might be saved. He dies beside Lucifer, in the ashes and embers, and the angels do not return for his body or his soul. The sun rises instead, weak in the dust and the smoke. And it is not the Son but the Father who looks down upon His Creation and what the angels have left of it, and sees that it is not good.
ONCE AGAIN, He intones.
The morning after the apocalypse, God makes the world anew.
--
("There is no Heaven on Earth," Castiel said, harsh like he still isn't okay with what he's saying, like he's still shocked by it. "There will be no Hell. There's only life or death and to the victor go the spoils."
"We'll go down fighting," Dean promised, eyes hard, fists clenched. "We'll give those bastards everything we got."
Castiel shook his head. "They have found a new vessel for Michael."
Sam's eyes went wide, even as Dean's narrowed. "But -- that means -- is it too late?"
"It's too late," said Castiel.)
--
Castiel is first aware of his wings, insubstantial but still a weight on his back. Then it's the wholeness that catches his notice, the fusion of grace and form that bewilders him for a reason he cannot quite comprehend. He knows himself, and his name, and that he is an angel of the Lord his Father. He recognises the pads of his fingers, the slope of his nose, the roughness of the skin of his face. He doesn't recognise the stiffness of his neck, the heaviness of his body, the newness of the world around him. I am newly born, he thinks, and puts a hand to his mouth to taste his fingers.
God hath made me in His image, he thinks, and then wonders where the words came from.
--
"The Lord our Father wills it," says Anael, and Castiel feels surprise. He steps back to distance himself from it, for what true angel feels anything at all?
"Michael felt vengeance," Anael replies, because she of course heard that thought through the others. "Your brother Uriel feels irritation. You often feel wonder -- is feeling so bad?"
"I'm told it is," says Cas, but now he's feeling doubt, and so he abandons this contemplation as too dangerous. "What you suggest, Anael..."
Anael smiles. "It is the will of God that you do this, little angel of the fifth day. Your time of importance will come. Our Father will look favourably upon your sacrifice of a few short years."
"And I will rejoin the Host when this has been done?"
--
Cas is there when he trips over the remnant of the wall, hands closing over Dean's shoulders and pulling him back up. "You must continue," Cas says, like it's killing him, and maybe it is. There's blood dripping down his face and drying in his hair, and his hands where they brush against the bare skin on Dean's neck are too hot, even for an angel. "Dean, go," he urges.
Dean gets his balance and then grabs Cas by the arms, tables turned. "What happens to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I get through," Dean says. There are about fifty feet to go, fifty slippery, treacherous feet of bracken and tree roots and mud, before he reaches the tower. "You said this'll stop all the angels. What happens to you when I finish this?"
Cas puts a hand on his shoulder. Hesitates. Says, "Dean," like it's benediction, like he's asking forgiveness, like he's asking for everything. For anything. Dean drops the mallet to the floor, spins around and grabs Cas with both hands, pushing them mouth to mouth and breathing in the scent of him. Cas doesn't freeze, doesn't pull away, just slides his other hand up Dean's neck and all but collapses against him. It's a desperate kiss like the ones in the movies, before the war, and Dean can almost taste blood and gunpowder smoke.
When Dean pulls away, Cas doesn't open his eyes immediately, and when he does they're hard and tight and his jaw clenches. He leaves the one hand on Dean's shoulder. "Do it now, Dean," he says. Dean picks up the mallet again but keeps his eyes on Cas. "Now."
Throat locked, Dean just nods once. Then he turns back to the seal, raises the mallet and strikes down on the glass etched into the stone floor.
It fractures with a crash, and then the room fills with the sound of splitting glass. A moment of silence, and Dean turns back to Cas, opening his mouth to ask what next, but Cas is smiling sad and proud at him, actually smiling. Then the room fills with light and the seal explodes.
Dean throws out an arm to catch himself, and the other in front of him to catch Cas, who's falling with him. His fingers pass through thin air, but then his shoulder is on fire where Cas is still holding on, and Dean screams, and Cas screams, and then there's too much light to see. Dean hits the ground blindly and rolls, and for a moments he can see Cas through his eyelids, all fire and huge black absence-of-light wings. Then the thunderous boom splits the air, shakes him to the bone, and when it clears everything goes dark.
--
A month and three days (not that he's been counting) after he and Sam averted the apocalypse, Dean wakes up from a dream of burning alive on the stone floor of a tall tower to a shimmer in the air above his motel bed. He rubs his eyes, but it doesn't go away. "Cas?" he whispers, voice breaking on sleep and nothing more.
There's a whisper in the air like feathers rustling against each other, like a low hoarse voice saying close your eyes, but when Dean reaches up into the darkness he feels nothing, not even a bit of residual heat. His eyes slide shut all by themselves, and when he opens them again there's sun getting past the cracks in the windowshades and water's running in the bathroom. Dean puts a hand to his right shoulder, where the handprint's a scar burned into his skin, and looks around the room for something to break.
He doesn't talk about the dream to Sam, who would probably listen if given half the chance, but luckily Sam for once seems to get that Dean doesn't want to talk. There's Asia on the radio, but Dean clicks it off and shoves in one of the tapes he made. He sings loudly and out of tune on purpose until Sam complains, and then he sings louder. The sky clouds over a bit in the afternoon, but the sun still shines through in patches and no rain falls. There's a faint layer of dust on the windshield and on the hood of his Impala, and when he opens the window he sneezes on it.
The sunset, when it comes, is fucking gorgeous.
--
Dean knows that head of hair anywhere, and it's knocking the wind out of him. The bar fades out of focus. He doesn't speak, he gasps: "Cas?"
"What?" The head of hair looks up, and it's the same eyes, the same goddamn mouth, but it's all wrong just the same. "You talking to me?"
It's not Cas, then. But he looks just like Cas, and it's enough to keep Dean's mouth working without a single sound getting out. "No, I -- thought you were --" someone else, he finishes in his head. His throat's still not working properly. He smiles instead, hoping he looks friendly and not manic.
It seems to work. The man who isn't Cas smiles back and extends a hand. "The name's Jimmy," he says. "I'm guessing you don't know me."
"Just one of those faces," Dean manages. Over drinks, he gets Jimmy's life story: a quiet, religious man studies theology and becomes an accountant, marries a quiet, religious woman, and has a rambunctious and passionate daughter that they're both proud of to a ridiculous degree.
"All my life," he says, "this might sound stupid, but all my life I've felt like I've got some kind of... guardian angel. Watching my back."
"Yeah," says Dean around the dryness of his throat, "I know what you mean."
--
And Lucifer and his followers were locked away in Hell, behind many seals that kept them trapped there, while the remaining angels continued to exercise their influence upon humanity, the Winchester Gospel reads. Chuck hates his attempts to write in the old style, but anything else just seems wrong somehow. Only a human could break these seals, but only an angel could unlock their resting places, and so they remained undisturbed for many centuries.
Chuck rubs his face. "I can't write fast enough," he moans into his hands. A clink on the desk is a full beer bottle replacing the empty; Sam's even weirder in person than in writing, but he's still got some priorities in the right order. "And no one's gonna believe this crap anyway."
"It doesn't matter," Sam says. "It happened. To me, and my brother. Someone has to record it."
--
The Earth smokes slightly, a charred ball of ash. Nothing survived the blast that Gabriel caused, neither angel nor demon nor human. Nothing even witnessed it in its entireity, save That who is All Things.
God looks down upon His Creation, and sees that it is not good. Where once he carved oceans and raised mountains, there is nothing. No glory remains on His spinning lump of rock. It will stay that way for almost eternity, until the end of the universe, and then God will return from the other end of existence and bring all Creation to the dust from which it sprung.
But on the morning after the apocalypse, God will make the world anew.