I don't know if this has been done before, but I thought 'why not give it a try' and this happened. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think, it is highly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

Castiel was skipping ahead, the sand of the beach warm under his feet. His older brothers were behind him, most of them had their hands clasped behind their back and serious looks on their faces. Well, except for Gabriel – he was standing apart from them, and Castiel thought that his brother looked like he was trying not to laugh.

Castiel had never been to a beach. He had never been to earth, either.

The sky was dark, and from time to time lightning was breaching the black and grey. The water was loud and heavy and frightening.

The shoreline was nothing but dark mud and countless shades of green and red algae. There were seashells and small bones and flat stones, hard edges softened by the perpetual rising and falling of the waves. It was alive, that was all Castiel could think, and he took a step towards the water, curiosity rising in him.

Suddenly he could feel a hand on his shoulder.

"Be careful, Castiel."

Michael was standing behind him, his face solemn and distant. Whenever Castiel looked up to him, it made him feel eternally small.

Michael pulled him to the side and pointed at something that moved just on the edge of the water – a fish, small and grey and slowly crawling out of the water that Father had created it for.

"Don't step on that fish, Castiel." He might have sounded like an older brother scolding his younger sibling, but there was something else in his voice, something grave and important. "Father has big plans for that fish."

Castiel's mouth formed a silent oh and he took a careful step backwards. He caught Lucifer's eye and thought he saw distaste for something on his older brother's face, but it didn't seem to be directed at Castiel's behaviour. There was something odd about Lucifer these days, and Castiel couldn't help but feel sad. He was still young, but he knew what it meant for a family to drift apart.

In the distance, Gabriel was laughing. It sounded loud and intrusive and Raphael shot him a disapproving glance, but the archangel didn't care.

"Come on, it's funny!" he said as if he couldn't help himself. "I mean, one day descendants of that fish are going to invent candy canes. And man, am I looking forward to that..."

"That fish is a freak." Lucifer stepped forward now, a sort of fire in his eyes. "It doesn't know that it's a freak, but somewhere deep down it feels that it can't be made for the water. Why would Father do that? Cast it out, make it different, make it leave? Isn't it cruel?"

"Lucifer!" Michael sounded horrified, and Castiel winced even though the reprimand wasn't directed at him. Forgotten were his curiosity and the light-headed feeling that came from sand under his feet and wind on his face.

He had been wrong to believe that going to earth to witness this moment would change anything.

Just when he felt the tears swelling up inside him – he was just a lonely child after all, and though he did understand things that were beyond what would once be the human mind, he wasn't beyond simple emotions like sadness – Gabriel stepped up to him and put an arm around his shoulder.

"Don't listen to them," he whispered like he was sharing a secret, and maybe he was. "They're just dicks, they can't help it."

Castiel just looked at him with big, blue eyes, not quite understanding what Gabriel wanted to say but hearing the reassuring tone of his brother's voice. Gabriel sighed and picked him up, carrying him away from Michael and Lucifer who were raising their voices in an argument that Castiel had already half forgotten about, at least when Gabriel was leaning down and Castiel could see the fish again.

"You know that's going to change everything, right?"

Gabriel looked at him, and Castiel could see a sadness on his face, too. But it wasn't sadness about brothers fighting – not the same sadness Castiel felt – but a sadness that was concerned with something ending. Someone leaving.

"Father knows it, too. Michael knows it. And I'm sure Lucifer feels it, though he might not know it yet."

Castiel looked at the fish. It had already put quite some distance between itself and the water, and it didn't seem affected in any way. Gabriel's voice was a reassuring hum in the background, and the words didn't matter so much.

"It's going to get harder for you, little brother." Gabriel patted his head. "But it's going to be worth it, just you wait. Stay strong."

Michael and Lucifer seemed to have settled their argument for the time being, or at least they weren't shouting anymore. Gabriel looked over his shoulder, and he seemed concerned now, seemed to be making last-minute-preparations for something in a rush.

"Just listen to your friends when those dicks ask you to do something you don't want to. You can stand up them too, you know?"

Gabriel put him back down again. "And sometimes the person you save can save you as well."

Castiel tilted his head in confusion and wanted to ask what Gabriel meant by that, but Michael was calling that they were leaving and then Gabriel shooed him back to the others to return to heaven.

Castiel would walk the earth many times before he would finally come to understand what Gabriel had wanted to say to him on that beach. And that the most remarkable event in his unfathomably long life wasn't the day that this story began, but the day he took part in making sure that the story would not end.