Chapter Text
“Are you enjoying the dream, Dean?” says a voice from behind him.
Dean is sitting on a lawn chair on a beautiful summer’s day, sun shining, breeze blowing. Cassie is sitting next to him, her half-moon reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she’s poring over a newspaper intently. He’s got a beer in his left hand, and Cassie’s fingers entangled with his on his right, and he’s swingin’ their hands together, humming an old song, watching the kids play in the grass.
Sammy’s at the grill, flipping a couple of burgers; his pretty blonde girlfriend–wife, now–is helping the kids draw a hopscotch grid on the ground, and there are delighted shrieks from that corner of the yard as Mom comes out with a tray of popsicles for her grandkids, and Dad comes out of the house behind her, his hair shot through with grey, matching hers. Their smiles are wider than his own, almost.
Something approximately child-sized lands on his lap, and he lets out an involuntary oof because she’s all elbows and knees at this age. “Daddy!” she squeals, and it’s all Dean can do to not crush her when he hugs her. She looks just like Cassie, soft brown skin and big curly ringlets of dark hair, same single-minded intensity as she attacks her popsicle.
She’s got his eyes, though. “Hiya, sweetheart. What’cha got there, hm? Little something on your nose, I think.”
Her skinny arms are twined around his neck when she laughs and it’s the most wondrous sound Dean’s ever heard. A little boy follows suit and jumps into Cassie’s lap, and their intermingling voices and Cassie’s hair blowing in the breeze and Sammy’s smile and Dad’s content face and Mom’s laugh–it’s all he could’ve ever wanted.
He blinks, once, twice, and then he’s back in his motel room.
“Yeah,” he says, fighting the prickle of tears in his throat, “yeah. I was.”
The voice is male, and gravelly and strange. “You still are,” it says. The dream-room smells like ozone and the voice sounds uncertain, unbalanced. There’s a whoosh and for a split second Dean swears he sees the shadow of giant wings against the other twin bed, in the double room he’d ordered on autopilot when checking in.
Dean sinks down onto the dream-bed. He can see out of the window, and it’s completely dark. It’d been snowing when he’d fell asleep; there is no pale glow sneaking in through the curtains now.
“I have a proposition to make, Dean Winchester,” says the voice, which now belongs to a rumpled, dehydrated man standing in a tan trenchcoat before him. The blue of his tie stands out to him; it brings out his eyes.
“I don’t swing that way,” jokes Dean half-heartedly.
“I am an Angel of the Lord,” says the man. Dean snorts. “You are a player in the world’s biggest game of sacrifice and death. What you do may precipitate the deaths of millions. You will be the reason the Apocalypse is brought to fruition.”
Dean’s blood runs cold. “There’s no such thing as angels,” he says.
“I offer you this choice,” says the Angel of the Lord. “You can take your own life in the here and now, and the Lord will reward your sacrifice with the eternal light of Heaven. Or, you can continue on this course, and be the cause of the deaths of millions.”
“Of millions,” echoes Dean. His mind is still far away, on the old dream. A breeze blowing in the backyard. A Saturday full of love and laughter. A place to come home to. A place to rest.
“You will suffer endlessly on this path,” intones the Angel of the Lord. “You, and your loved ones will experience death and destruction and torture like no other.”
This catches Dean’s attention. “My loved ones,” he says sharply, looking up at the Angel, “Sammy? Dad? Cassie, Bobby? What’ll happen to them?”
The Angel blinks twice, like he wasn’t expecting that reaction. “If you choose to keep going–and you can choose that, if you’d like, Dean Winchester–John Winchester will die. Bobby Singer will die. Samuel Winchester will die. And even though you will try to save them all, time and again, it will never be enough.”
Dean feels a cold shiver run through him, even though this is a dream, and he shouldn't be able to feel anything. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
The Angel of the Lord’s expression falters, for just a moment, and then he sits down next to Dean. This close, Dean can feel the radioactive heat coming off him through the trenchcoat, like a semi-contained star burning straight through cosmos.
“The life you lead, should you choose to keep living,” says the Angel gently, almost sorrowful, “is not all strife. In between all the horror and tragedy, there are beautiful things that come to light. You help save thousands. You bring families back together—including your own. You become a father, of sorts. You—” and here, the Angel stutters, and Dean furrows his eyebrows in confusion because really, you’d think an angel wouldn’t fumble his words like this, “—fall in love. And you are loved in return, with more strength behind the love than your earthly mind could comprehend.”
Dean finds his dream-eyes welling up with dream-tears, and he surreptitiously wipes them away, while the Angel sits there and seems to reckon with the enormity of what he’s just told Dean.
“But Sammy suffers. He dies, you said. And I can’t save him. Or Dad, or Bobby, or any of the other millions you were talking about.”
The Angel nods.
Dean nods, then, almost imperceptibly in the dark. “Alright, then. I’ll do it. But how are you going to make sure that it works? You’re an angel, you should know about all the ways people can necromance, huh?”
“There will be a halt on any kind of demon-deal exchange for your soul. You are what kick-starts the Apocalypse, and without you on this mortal coil, the chances of any of that happening are slim-to-none.” The Angel’s voice has gone gravelly and quiet, almost like he regrets offering this choice to Dean. Dean doesn’t regret taking it, though.
“Alright,” he says. Alright. If he has to die to keep Sammy and Dad safe, so be it. HIs job in this family is complete anyway. Sammy’s tucked away safely at college, and Dad is out doing what he does best: hunting solo. Dean’s work here is done. And if the last thing he does is save his family, well, it will have been a death to be proud of.
“Hey, Angel,” says Dean, looking over at the rumpled, dehydrated man in his accountant-like trenchcoat. “When I wake up, it’ll be my birthday. If I kill myself on my birthday, it’ll be a round-trip. Like I almost never existed, like I cancelled myself out of reality. Kinda funny, huh?”
The Angel doesn’t seem to find this very funny. “The world would not be the place it is today without your existence, Dean,” he says, voice low. Dean isn’t sure if that’s a compliment.
“Whatever,” he says. And then he thinks. “Will, uh, will Heaven be anything like…well, what will Heaven be like?”
“Heaven,” says the Angel, sadly, “will be the most enjoyable dream you’ve ever had.”
Dean thinks of Cassie’s hand in his, of Mom’s laugh, of Sammy’s smile and a daughter of his own. He thinks of blue skies and fresh air, and responsibilities borne of love rather than necessity, and he thinks of how he will never, ever have that in this life.
“Happy birthday, Dean Winchester,” says the Angel, and then Dean wakes up.
It’s dark outside, and the snow is still falling, the faint silvery glow illuminating the room ever-so gently. The alarm clock next to him reads 02:00. Perfect time to make some phone calls, he supposes.