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[Do you know how God comes to be, Lucifer says, not asks, tilting his head as though Dean is a fascinating insect he'd like to dissect, and there is a clue in there somewhere that Dean is terrified to decipher.]
It begins when Castiel falls.
{An angel’s love is all-encompassing, Anna whispers mournfully, and there is an emptiness ringing in her voice that sends shudders of something down Dean's spine. It's not a human sentiment, and in that moment Dean wonders if she has ever been one. If tearing her grace out hasn't turned her into anything, has simply left her a hollow shell, going through the motions. It it a terrifying thought. His faith absolute.}
Or maybe that is where it ends.
[There are many righteous souls, Alastair laughs, low and unhinged. His words cut as easily as his knives because there is nothing about him that hasn't been twisted by Hell into the worst monster he can become. And despite everything Dean almost drowns in it, in the blame, the self-hatred Alastair so easily invites. Your father was one of them.]
Maybe it begins many years before that. Before the angels and blood addictions. Before the demon deals and swords forged in the fires of Hell. Before fate and destiny became something wretched and feared and inevitable. Before the hopelessness that Dean chokes on when he allows himself to think about it for too long.
{It was always you! Gabriel shouts, furious and bitter and betrayed. The flames surrounding him burn bright and glorious.}
Maybe it begins when Dean in eleven and he jumps between a sobbing girl and the sick ghost that is so obsessed with her. When he takes the hits, so she won't have to, and fights back the best he knows how to because John Winchester raised no quitters. Maybe it begins when the salt and burn job is done, when the smell of fire and ash lingers all too heavily in the air, and the girl presses a shy, barely-felt kiss onto his cheek in thanks. Maybe it begins when she looks up at him from the floor the first time the ghost disappears with a wail of fury, eyes wide and teary and bright, like Dean can't possibly be real but she hopes with her entire heart that he is. Like he is her own personal hero. Like he is salvation.
[They needed Sam tainted, sure. But they didn’t need him on the road, hunting monsters, did they? Meg smirks at him from the shadows, vicious and bloodthirsty and never sated. They didn’t need him growing up hating and fighting demons, standing against the supernatural, against us. That wasn’t his fate, Dean. It was yours.]
Maybe that one girl is only the first in a long line of people Dean has long stopped trying to remember. He likes to think of them on occasion. Of the living, breathing proof that what he does isn't meaningless. That on some days, you get to go home, knowing you were some kid's Batman. And that's, that's enough. It's always been enough. What they do with their lives afterwards, that's none of his damn business. Isn't it?
{There are some destinies that cannot be given, only earned, Pamela whispers in his mind, head turned away so he can't see her eyes, and it sounds like an apology.}
Angels do not change. They can tear off their wings, rip out their grace, bury themselves underneath magic and false godhoods, seal their very nature away. They can lie, they can deny, they can hide. But at their core, they always, always remain the same. This — their inability to change — chains them in a way the lack of free will never has, a way humans will never understand. Are not meant to understand.
[The Righteous Man himself, once more standing rather with humanity than with us, Uriel spits disgustedly.]
Because humans can. Humans are made to change.
[Why do you think you two are the vessels? Gabriel asks with a harsh smile that is all Trickster, no archangel.]
What is creation but taking a little bit of yourself, reshaping it and sharing it with the rest of the world? Dean’s art teacher had once told him, in one of his many, forgettable high schools. He doesn’t remember their face, but those words have stuck with him for a long time. And never before have they sounded so foreboding.
{When does it start, do you think? Sam asks him when they're neck-deep in research about various Pagan deities. Curious despite himself, like he always his. When does a human stop being human and start being— something else? Dean still doesn't know how Sam had intended to finish that sentence before he'd thought better of it. He doesn't want to know.}
It does not occur to Zachariah for even a moment that there might be anything Dean could do to actually harm him. It does not occur to Dean for even a moment to close his eyes as he slams the angel blade through the bastard’s skull.
[Every human has the potential to become a demon, Lucifer says, and there is none of the disgust Dean has grown accustomed to seeing on his face. Only wistfulness. Then Lucifer lifts his gaze from where it’s been resting on the flower in his hand, and in his eyes rages a furious longing as old as time itself. That is the first time Dean is afraid, truly afraid, not for Sammy, not for Cas, not for the world, but for himself. For what Lucifer sees in him.]
You have to be careful, Dean, he remembers his mother telling him. To love means to give a piece of yourself away. It's a beautiful thing, but you have to be careful not to give away too much. Otherwise there won’t be enough left of you. Dean remembers those words too, remembers his mom’s warm voice, but for the life of him he cannot figure out why she told him that. Regardless, he listens. Long before Cassie or Lisa, he always listens.
{There has to be a balance, Missouri murmurs with unexpected gravity. There is no absolution to be found in her eyes. In everything.}
It begins and ends when Castiel falls but doesn’t.
When he falls, but walks steadily forward, stands tall, grace thrumming brightly within him like a fire that will never run out of fuel. When he looks at Dean with a faith so absolute, Dean can barely stand it. When he fights for them, for Dean, again and again without hesitation. Without wavering. Without fading. Dean can't imagine what an angel like Cas — the best out of all of them — will be like without his grace, can't close his eyes without seeing the memories of a future-that-won't-be flash behind his closed eyelids. Cas is an angel, picturing him as anything but— Dean just can't do it.
Waiting for it to happen though is almost worse. Because the decline should have started by now, they're all more than aware of that even if none of them mention it, but it hasn't. It doesn't. And even as they greet this latest miracle with cautious relief, Dean knows damn well they're all waiting for the day the other shoe is going to drop.
The day that doesn’t come.
[Lucifer rubs a finger along his chin thoughtfully, eyes glittering with a horrifying truth that Dean tries to shield himself against but can't. There lies a terrible power in truths that even the Devil himself is hesitant to tell. Lucifer shrugs, nonchalant as you please, but he hasn't taken his eyes off Dean even once.
Every human has the potential to become God.]
The golden charm resting against Dean’s collarbone is warm. It has been for as long as he can remember.
*
And so it was foretold that all that was faded would one day regain its might. For he who has trapped the Lightbringer will be the only one who may release him.