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Angels aren’t supposed to interfere with human heavens, but it seems like all Castiel knows anymore is how to break the rules. And it’s important, he tells himself. He needs to understand what ideal love looks like in a human paradise, if he’s even going to make this thing work. It’s not as easy as sneaking around living humans, but he’s sufficiently stealthy as he looks in on Mary Winchester’s heaven.
In Mary’s heaven Dean and Sam are older, though barely more than teenagers. Castiel stands on the fringes of her world and listens carefully as she dispenses advice over the phone with Sam. “Don’t try so hard, darling,” she says with an exasperated smile, washing dishes with the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear. “If this girl is as amazing as you say, she won’t say no. You’ve got your father’s charm.”
He watches with some awkward mix of fondness and pain when Dean announces his engagement to his parents over dinner, a smiling dark-haired girl on his arm while Mary laughs and John claps Dean on the shoulder.
Mary and John fight in her heaven. For as many days that pass in perfect bliss, just as many find them yelling before dinner — “You don’t listen, you never listen, John! We can’t just clap our hands over his ears and pretend this doesn’t exist!” They fight about money, they fight about the house, they fight about their sons — but at the end of every right, Mary leans on John’s shoulder and he kisses the top of her head while they sit in bed together. She reads a book, he watches a sitcom. They sleep with their feet touching, and she smiles in her sleep when he steals the covers, even though she’ll scold him in the morning.
Castiel isn’t sure how long he watches this pass before he moves on, no more sure than when he first looked in.
John Winchester’s heaven is harder to infiltrate; he always seems to look over his shoulder almost right where Castiel is watching. But he moves through his world — where Dean is only six and Sam is two. He works at a nearby garage, and every day he walks home to have lunch with his family. “Sammy has two new teeth!” Dean says with a grin, as though he somehow helped make this true.
When Sam wakes up feverish in the night, John rubs Mary’s back as she snores before getting up to sooth the baby. He carefully administers painkillers. He paces the hallway and whispers soothingly to his son. If it’s a Saturday morning, he shows Dean how to clean and care for the Impala, while Mary and Sam play on the front lawn.
John’s ideal of Mary is strong. She challenges him, and even though John holds his ground, he also listens. He adapts. When Mary accuses him of having a drinking problem, John dumps his beer down the sink. Even though they yell, it never lasts for long.
Later, Castiel tries to remember this love, though he doesn’t understand it. When Dean shouts at him for not being there, Castiel does not yield outright — but he tries to listen, tries to give an inch. When Dean acts like a petulant child, Castiel challenges him.
He understands the importance of laying quietly together at night, understands the soothing nature of small touches and gestures.
Even though he doesn’t understand how human love can include as much hurt and wonder, it works. And more than anything, Castiel wants it to work.