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Castiel finally gives up and dies.
At least that's what he thinks happens. One minute Lucifer is mocking Dean with his body while Dean just gives him funny looks, which is par-for-course really, and then he’s here, which is not.
He would say he’s standing in a white room but he's not really standing. He doesn't actually have feet. Instead he feels like he did before he got a vessel. Before he met Dean and Sam. He feels like he did when he was an angel, when he had uncountable wings and many faces and grace that was light and burning and-
Something like joy surges through him, only he can't really feel joy like this so instead he just... kinda... wiggles.
Anyway.
He's existing in a white room- except it's not really white and it's not really a room. Not like the white paint and white lights that one angel- what was its name?- picked out during the Great Redesign of Heaven after Lucifer fell. No, this is white like... everything. Or nothing, depending on which color spectrum you use.
(As an angel, Castiel had always been partial to the light spectrum since he was light, in a manner of speaking. As a human, he'd come to appreciate the pigment spectrum. So maybe... both? Both.)
No, this is white like... everything and nothing, all at the same time.
So we have established this:
Castiel dies and he-
Castiel dies and id exists within everything and nothing. Id wiggles in place with the feel of it, a sensation long forgotten. Id shifts ids reality and the everything and nothing remains the same. It is calm. It is peace. Id takes a deep breath-
Right, id doesn’t breathe…
Id expands within the everything and nothing.
Then, something very large and very far away- or very small and very close- makes a noise. It is like a pin falling in an empty room-
(This is a metaphor. We've already established that Castiel is not within an actual room and is also alone, so therefore there is no pin and it cannot fall to any kind of floor, let alone make any kind of noise. This metaphor is meant to imply that it is a very clear, sharp noise, distinctly heard.)
Then, something very large and very far away- or very small and very close- makes a noise. It is sharp and clear and catches Castiel's attention as it is the only noise for idre to hear. Castiel shifts again and looks very closely.
The source of the noise is the Earth. Small and round (oblong, but most people don't know that) and blue and green (and brown and red sometimes- have you been to Oklahoma?) and Castiel feels something like fondness move within idre. Id can't actually feel the fondness in this form so instead id just... kinda... wiggles.
But as Castiel looks, id realizes that the whiteness around idre is not actually white. It is black- it is nothing and everything, all at the same time. And this nothing and everything- or everything and nothing- is actually Castiel idself.
Castiel exists everywhere and nowhere and id can feel the pull of the universe within idself, the drag of gravity, the empty press of space, the coldness, the hardness, the roiling and boiling of the gas within stars, the wide arcs of planets circling suns, the drag of matter into black holes- and the pull of one very tiny planet in a very faraway place.
It is in this moment that Castiel realizes id is God.
This is not like the Leviathans when Castiel felt power surge through his limbs and hunger gnaw at his gut and anger curl the edges of his kindness into hardness. This is whole and pure and the understanding of existence and creation in its purest form and-
utterly confusing. Wasn't id an angel? Id very clearly remembers being an angel.
But this is also knowledge, Castiel realizes, and so id looks back through ids stars and ids dark matter and the birth and death of worlds to see-
Chuck.
Castiel squints- or would if id had eyes in this form. Id doesn't so instead id just... kinda... wiggles. Id also cocks ids head, but the same principle applies, so there's more wiggling.
Castiel sees Chuck and id sees Amara and they are playing together, rolling forms of chaos bumping into things and generally making a mess. Castiel feels the knowledge rise up in idself.
Chuck and Amara are not gods. They are entities who want to be gods. They are the opposite of everything (Chuck) and the opposite of nothing (Amara) and they want to actually be something. So they plot against Castiel, who is something- and also nothing.
Castiel had not seen it then; Chaos itself was outside Castiel before id had become human, because id had never experienced Chaos. Id had never known the loss of control, the pull and drag of events around oneself, of the desperate clutching at hope. Castiel understands this now, and now id can see the way Chuck and Amara whispered in secret and made things happen with the subtle shifting of events. They trapped Castiel in a different form, in a form Chuck called an angel, but they did not give idre consciousness, not yet.
This perhaps was their first mistake because it was the first time they disagreed. Chuck wanted Castiel as the first angel, but Amara thought Castiel would be dangerous if woken. Amara won the fight, and in a fit of pique, Chuck created more angels. Chuck created whole garrisons of angels and then turned on Amara and trapped Amara inside the core of Earth.
But nothing and everything, or the opposites thereof in this case, need each other in order to exist. Chuck got lost and left the angels behind and Amara went insane. Castiel woke as an angel and knew nothing different.
(Secretly, Castiel is appalled that someone who stank like booze and someone who had a problem with inappropriate touching were able to pull one over on idre, but live and learn, id supposes.)
Now that Castiel understands how id came to be in this moment, id nods to idself (a wiggle so small it might not have happened (and didn’t in some planes of existence)) and looks for Chuck and Amara. They are hiding behind a solar system deep within Castiel, but they are arguing with each other and their fight is loud. Castiel watches as they forget themselves and roll out from behind the solar system scrabbling at each other like the children they are. Id reaches out and snags them by the collars- metaphorically speaking, of course.
With a shake, Castiel sits them both down for a good speaking-to. Chuck listens, abashed and still smelling faintly of booze.
"I just wanted to be something," Chuck says plaintively.
So Castiel turns Chaos-Chuck into human-Chuck. Id cleanses him of his addiction to alcohol and sets him into the womb of a woman who will raise him properly and love him kindly. Castiel looks and sees that Chuck will be a good person, but a simple person living simply, and concludes that this is appropriate. Chuck is happy, anyway, and that's all that Castiel wants for him.
Castiel offers the same to Amara, but Amara sneers at idre, so id unmakes her.
Satisfied with this, id peers back at Earth. Id discovers that a few months have passed since the death of the Angel Castiel, and Dean is still questioning if the body of Jimmy Novak is housing Angel-Castiel or if something has happened to Angel-Castiel.
God-Castiel sighs.
Wiggles slightly.
God-Castiel, however, is still love. Id loves all the vast emptiness of space and the not-really-there way black holes exist and even the red dirt of Oklahoma. Id also loves Dean and id loves Sam, even if they do not love idre back. Id thinks about the pain and loneliness the brothers both had growing up and the harshness of the years in Hell and the way they never learned to make smart choices. Or understand cause and effect.
Id supposes that they aren't really to blame. There was a demon who offered a deal, and a woman who accepted the deal. The woman, however, is beloved to both Dean and Sam (even though Sam doesn't really remember her), so she is beloved to idre as well.
The God Castiel shifts through time and id finds the demon Azazel and id pulls it from time. The demon screams and wails and gnashes its teeth against the God Castiel's existence, but if the Earth is the equivalent of a pin to the God Castiel, then such a creature as this is less. Castiel wiggles and Azazel no longer exists and has not existed and will not exist. Dean and Sam's grandparents do not die, their father does not die, and their mother does not make a deal.
Dean and Sam do not have a perfect childhood- it turns out John is really just an asshole, and he and Mary end up divorced when the boys are still young- but they do have a normal one with plenty of love, because Mary, for all her faults, knows how to love her boys.
Castiel nods to idself and turns ids attention to Heaven.
Id considers unmaking the angels- they are creatures born of chaos, even if they do not know it- but id remembers ids time as one. Id knows there are good angels, lost angels, angels who do not know what to do and who have been scrabbling for a leader. So Castiel considers.
The archangels id unmakes, with the exception of one. Id pulls Gabriel from Death (Death is not really dead; you can't kill a concept and Castiel despairs that Dean never realized this.). Gabriel sits in Castiel’s being and gapes.
"Castiel?" he whispers, and id curls him into a hug. (Gabriel won't admit it, but he cries. He cries in great, gulping sobs, because he finally has someone to love him and hold him and give him peace from the fighting.)
Castiel asks Gabriel to help lead the angels. Castiel will give him help- other angels who are kind and good and will be with him. Castiel will also always be there, because id is everything.
Gabriel agrees and so Castiel pulls Hannah and Anael from Death. Id shows the three of them what angels should be like. Shows them kindness and helpfulness and love and compassion. Id pokes into them and gives them what creatures of chaos could not: the capacity to be these things wholly and fully and without reservation. (Gabriel may cry again, but he still won't admit it.)
With the three of them in agreement, Castiel opens Heaven again. Id gathers the lost spirits of Earth, both those who were trapped while Heaven was closed and those wandering the Earth from times prior, and id sets them to their afterlives. Id gathers the angels and id shows them as id'd shown Gabriel and Hannah and Anael. Id gathers Metatron to idself and offers him the same, but Metatron thinks Castiel is an idiot who should learn ids place, so Castiel unmakes him.
Castiel also looks into Death to see the other angels there. Some want to come back, crying in despair at being destroyed unfairly when Castiel was a not-God before. Others are at peace. Id leaves those alone but id brings back those who deserve to come back. Id shows them the new Heaven and shows them their new way of being. A chorus rises up, the ranks of Heaven filled once again, not with warriors this time, but with healers and protectors and caregivers.
Castiel also has some remaking to do of Hell. With Lucifer unmade, the ranks have changed. Castiel banishes demons from Earth. There is need for the souls of the truly damned to be punished, so Castiel will allow them to do that work, but id will not allow them to manipulate children or desperate souls or souls who lack understanding into such pain. Castiel shifts through the souls of the demons who should not be such and untwists them back into their human selves. Id sends them to Heaven where a special contingency of angels wait to welcome them. Castiel searches through the condemned souls and finds those who should not be there and sends them to Heaven.
(One woman lingers after the others. She tells Castiel she remembers. She knows who id was once upon a time and she asks idre to give Dean the finger. Castiel agrees because id is bemused at her disdain for Dean. Ids wiggling nearly knocks her off her feet and she glares at idre before wandering into her Heaven which, strangely, consists of a bed made of money.)
Once Castiel is satisfied, id does as id said id would and id stays. Id curls around the angels and makes ids presence known to all of them. Id exists as nothing and everything and watches what the world should have been.
Which is not to say that it's perfect. Demons and angels cannot make playthings of humans, but there are still supernatural creatures. There are still humans who are evil and who make stupid choices.
Dean and Sam grow up happy. In college, a ghost haunts Dean's dorm and his mother ends up coming out and hunting the ghost. Dean and Sam learn about the supernatural. Dean does a little hunting (not too much; he wants to earn his master’s). Sam doesn't like hunting, but he likes learning so he ends up researching for other hunters. (This is how they meet Bobby, whom Castiel also pulled from Death because he had loved Dean and Sam so well that he had fought Death for them. Bobby still loves them once he gets to know them, and Castiel smiles- wiggles- as id watches.
(They also meet Jo and Ellen this way, because Ellen cannot convince Jo not to hunt. She becomes as well-known as Dean and Sam were once in another world, but more because of how good she is rather than now much shit she causes.))
Dean does earn his master’s (multiple ones, actually). He also marries a man with a soul nearly as beautiful as his own and they adopt several children together.
Sam marries Jessica and they have one child together.
If Castiel could feel joy the way id used to, id knows id would be swollen with happiness, ids chest ready to burst with the feeling. As it is, id wiggles so much id accidentally sets off a couple of earthquakes. (Castiel quickly contains the damage- and stops wiggling.)
However, id very carefully does not acknowledge the tiny, tiny part of idself that is still the Angel Castiel. This is the part that was in love with Dean and misses him dearly. The part of idself that longs to hear Dean call idre Cas and crack a stupid joke. Most days, Dean's happiness is enough to pretend this part doesn't exist at all, but some days...
Some days Heaven is a little darker, the chorus a softer, sadder song. Some days Earth is a little slower, the weather colder or harsher or so bright as to be unbearable. Some days Hell is a little meaner and a little bloodier and a little angrier.
But these days pass and no one comments on them, because there is still the love and hope of a God who cares with ids whole heart. With too much heart, sometimes, though (the angels whisper amongst themselves) this is never a bad thing.
(The God Castiel is wiser and full of understanding id did not have at one time, but id still does not know everything, so id does not know that when Dean is old and gray, when his second spouse (a wonderful woman he meets in his late sixties who had lost her husband as Dean had) has already passed, and his oldest daughter makes him comfortable for one last time- when this happens, Castiel will go to help Dean's soul to Heaven, but Dean will linger. He will feel the touch of the God Castiel and he will ask, "Do I know you?"
Castiel will answer: I have always been here.
But Dean- stubborn, beautiful Dean- will shake his head. "No. You remind me of someone." He will look around at Castiel's everything and nothing, at Castiel's great expanse of space and stars and planets and grass and red, red dirt, and he will say, "I think I loved you once. Where did you go?"
At this, the Angel Castiel will cry out and the God Castiel will give a part of idself that form once more. He will walk through idself to find Dean waiting for him.
Dean will smile and say, "There you are! I've been waiting for you, Cas."
When the Angel Castiel is close enough, Dean will wrap him in a hug and the God Castiel will feel it though ids everything and nothing. And because id is everything and nothing, id will be two. Id will continue to watch and protect and love those inside idself, those on Earth and in Heaven and even in Hell. But he will also take Dean's hand and meet Dean's family (Sam will recognize him, too, and hug him tightly with lots of back-slapping.) and have Dean hold him as Dean cracks a joke that makes everyone else groan.)