Written for the SPN Quote Fic community on LJ.

Prompt - Father Reynolds : You are not an angel, Thomas. Men cannot be angels.

Summary: In the end, the hardest thing about dying is wondering where he's going after he finally lets go. Set in the future AU in 5.04 "The End." Also, past!Dean never went to the future. Death!fic, extreme AU, like totally extreme, WTH?

At The End Of It All

It's easier than he thought it would be, dying.

It's easy to just let go, to breathe out, breathe in, then just...stop.

It's easy to leave the pain of a physical body, a body that needs sustenance, a body that bleeds when it's hurt and shits after it eats, a body that needs sleep.

It's easy to leave the body that's not really his; his true form is, was, the size of the Empire State Building (in its prime, not as it is now, a pile of rubble, broken down and covered in a layer of the gray dust that coats the entire world).

It's even easy to leave Dean, the only human around anymore who really knew him as an angel. Dean has long since stopped caring about anything. Hearing about what Sam had done had slowly crushed what made Dean Winchester Dean into someone who Cas is sure the Dean of before would have called a dick, or a douche, or something very similar.

Cas has stopped caring, too. He can thank the numbing effects of the drugs for that. In fact, he thanks his Father for whoever invented prescription medication every time he pops a pill.

In the end, the hardest thing about dying is wondering where he's going after he finally lets go.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, the pain is gone and there's a familiar angry-looking brunette standing over him with her arms crossed.

"Hey there, gorgeous," he leers up at the reaper, "I musta died and gone to Heaven."

She rolls her eyes and huffs. "You've been spending too much time with Dean Winchester, Castiel. Or should I say, Cas? You know very well what Heaven looks like, and this isn't it."

Cas groans and heaves himself up onto his feet. He doesn't have to take the effort to do that, having no body at all now, but he feels like being melodramatic. "I was just trying to make small talk, Tessa. You know about small talk, don't you? It's a lovely human invention that I've been practicing."

"Yes, I know all about it," she says impatiently. "It's a complete waste of my time. Not everyone has the luxury of rolling around all day with women and drugs. Some of us have been busy because of the Apocalypse."

Castiel shrugs, picks at something lodged under a fingernail. "Okay then. Let's get this show rolling. Where to?"

Suddenly, she's standing in front of him, startling him, looking up into his eyes with the same long stare that all immortal creatures have. "Don't you know?" she asks quietly.

Cas shivers. "I'm the first," he whispers. "Not the first to fall, but the first to die as a human. I don't know."

Tessa nods and steps away, out of his so-called "personal space." "You know I can't tell you."

Cas knows. "I'll go with you anyway. Anything is better than the miserable life I just left."

The reaper simply looks at him. She knows, just as he does, that there are things that are worse.

"I'm going with you," Cas repeats.

She holds out a hand. He takes it without hesitation. It pulses with an energy that is at once familiar and strange.

When he opens his eyes, he knows exactly where he is.

It looks different from the way he remembers. He remembers. He thinks it was bigger before, warmer, better, safer.

He remembers everything...

He does not feel safe here. There is danger lurking around every corner.

He feels a presence behind him and turns.

"Castiel! Welcome back!" cries Zachariah with a sickeningly phony grin. He holds his arms and six wings out wide, like a caricature of a father welcoming a prodigal son back into his fold.

"Zachariah," Castiel says, stepping forward. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you."

He pulls his right arm back and punches the cherubim's lion face. Then he punches the other three (the dumb ox face, the vulture's scaly bald head, and then the humanoid face, in that order). Left, right, left. The lion yelps in pain and surprise, the ox blinks stupidly, the vulture snaps his beak in irritation, and the human face gushes liquid grace from its broken nose. Zachariah claps his hands over the dripping appendage and whimpers.

The six wings flutter and ruffle, lifting the angel several inches in the air, the silly-looking calf legs kicking uselessly before clattering back to the heavenly ground again.

"W-what?"

Cas glares at the sputtering angel and rubs his smarting knuckles.

Zachariah finally gets his voice back. "You miserable ingrate! I allowed you back into Heaven, after you Fell! I did that. I didn't have to, but I did." He shakes in anger.

"Who says I wanted to come back here?" Cas shoots back smugly.

Zachariah surges forward, grabs bunches of Cas' shirt in both hands. "Look here, you little—"

"Little?" Cas interrupts. "I hardly think I'm little," he says with the Dean Winchester Smirk of Supreme Arrogance. (He's had years to practice.)

Zachariah gives Cas a hard shake. "You—"

"No," Cas cuts in again, voice cold, "I think it's more about you, Zachariah. You did do this. You ruined it, My Heaven, My Earth, My Creation."

He glances down at the two human-like hands clutching his cotton shirt in a limp and suddenly sweaty hold. He tilts his head at the gaping cherubim staring at him in fear. A small, terrible smile graces his lips.

"Forget something, Zach? Like your theophory, maybe? 'Castiel' means 'My cover is God,' remember? My cover is God, Zachariah."

He dislodges himself from the loose grip of the disgraced angel who immediately falls to his bovine knees and averts his eight eyes. He's striding away when something catches onto the hem of his bedraggled jeans.

"Father. Forgive me."

He looks down on the wretched mess at his feet and puts a gentle hand on the cheek of the angel's last face, the face like a man's. As he does so, a bright light shines out from where his hand meets the flesh.

When it subsides, there is only one pair of wings sprouting from the angel's back, and the face under Cas' hand is the only one he has. "Your punishment," Cas whispers.

"My Lord." Tears run down the angel's two cheeks.

He leaves the former cherubim with a lighter spirit. He's walking along a small street in the City of Heaven, humming Houses of the Holy, when he senses a familiar presence.

"Kinda harsh, don't you think? What you did to Zach, I mean."

Cas turns with a grin. "Michael."

"Hey Dad." The archangel embraces his long-absent father. "I mean," he continues, "it was a nice showing of Your Wrath and Forgiveness and all that in one go, but still. You know everyone's going to pick on him now, don't You?"

Cas grins and laughs. "I'm actually counting on it. He really was acting out in a terrible way. Dick."

Mikey gives him a knowing look. "You could have come back sooner and kept him from getting too drunk on power. I was seconds away from blowing his heads off because of the uppity way he's been acting. Even just one. He didn't need all four of them."

"Well," Cas shrugs, "I did tell you to let everything play out without our interference. Good job on not answering Dean, by the way." He turns to his archangel. "Was that cruel, do you think? What I did to the Winchesters?"

Mikey examines the gold pavement at their feet, hands in the pockets of his white robe. "I don't know what You were trying to prove with them, but yeah, I thought so."

Cas sighs. "Free will. It's always about free will. I was actually wondering if giving angels free will would be a good idea. Decidedly not. I mean, look at Luci. Look at Zach. Look at Me. I gave Myself a fresh memory and went undercover as an autistic angel and look where I ended up." He picks at a stray thread from his fraying shirt and humphs.

Michael doesn't say anything, just keeps walking beside him.

Cas sighs again. "But you liked it. You think it's a good idea?"

"You know what I think about it, Dad," Michael says mildly. "You know what I have thought, and You know my thoughts that I have not had yet. But if You really want my opinion on it, yes, I think free will for everyone is good. We just all have to understand what it is, and that we should not abuse it."

"That's the hard part, Mikey, that's the hard part. Okay then," Cas waves a hand, "Let there be free will for all creatures, big and small. Except for some of the douchier angels," he can't help adding.

"Dad!"

"Okay, I take it back," Cas says in response to his son's reproachful interjection. "Let there be free will for all."

Mikey chuckles. "So where to now?" he asks, repeating Cas' words to the reaper.

"Dean Winchester's heaven," Cas replies. "He's gonna punch Me for getting Myself killed, then I'm gonna punch him for being a dick without his brother around to puppy-eyes him—oh yeah, I forgot, I have to put Luci back in time-out and bring Sammy up here—and then Dean's gonna punch Me for being a holy douchebag bastard sonofabitch and starting all this, and then we're gonna have a couple of beers. Wanna join us?"

Mikey shakes his head in amused bewilderment. "I think You've gone native, Dad." He shrugs, "Eh, sounds like fun. I choose to go with You."

Cas cackles in delight.

They stop at a door that wasn't there previously (but that's not an uncommon occurrence in Heaven).

"Hey Dad?" Mikey says suddenly. "I've got a question I've been meaning to ask You for some time. What was it like looking for Yourself?"

Cas blinks at the archangel. "It was...very existential."

AN: *moans* Why do all my serious stories end up silly? Whyyyyy! *wails and thumps keyboard in agony* fasjdhiorfhweavkn

How the heck did I end up with this from that prompt? This is what I get for not planning the story all the way through before I started writing it.

*hides under a rock*