God I hate present tense.

[solitarysloth]

...and yet I keep doing this to myself.  Never again. 

So Point of No Return was fucking epic.  Have a completely unrelated fic.

ETA: FU formatting.  Never trying to copypasta from google docs again.
Son of ETA:  Hoshit, I actually just cross-posted a fic to a community.  Took me long enough. *is proud*

Title:  Same Old Song
Characters/Pairings: OCs, references to Team Free Will

Wordcount: ~1000
Rating: G

Summary:  In the future, some things change and some things stay the same.

Notes:  A response to measuringlife's prompt, we become the stories we tell about ourselves on comment_fic that got a bit away from me.  Title from the Kansas song, 'Dust in the Wind'.  Unbeta'd.

I was supposed to get this posted before 5x18, but failed miserably, so some of this has now been jossed. I don't think there's anything spoilery, though.

 

Hunters know better than anyone the power of stories.  Stories have power and give power.

That doesn't stop them from telling stories of their own.

Of Sam and Dean Winchester -- Anti-Christ and Messiah, but both beloved by the Lord.  Of their own sacred duty to rid the world of evil, for they are God's warriors just as surely as the angels are.

The original house, where the Winchesters once stayed, is long gone, but the old sign has been carefully preserved and rusted, ancient cars still scatter the lot.  This place will always by a haven and a Mecca for Hunters.  They make pilgrimages here, and to Lawrence and Detroit, but this place is more than that, a sanctuary.

After the Winchesters, with their army of hunters and disciples of the Prophet Chuck, had saved the world, the Earth had been cleansed of evil.  For sixty years the peace had lasted, long enough for the hunters to die out, and almost long enough for all living memory of the Apocalypse to be lost.

But when ghosts and vampires and demons and all manner of corrupted things began to walk the Earth once more, the dispossessed slowly began trickling into the old Singer Salvage Yard in Sioux Falls.  They were led by the books already coming to be known as the Winchester Gospels, and the descendants of Chuck Shurley were ready, waiting to welcome them and to guide them.

Now Sam Shurley and Jason Blake arm the Hunters who come to them with knowledge and provide sanctuary.  They teach those who are willing to learn and turn none away.  And they take in the children of Hunters, raising them and teaching them, protecting them from the dangers of the world, so that they might not suffer as the Blessed Winchesters had.

And so a new generation of Hunters went out into the world, spiritual descendants of Sam and Dean Winchester, of Bobby Singer and Ellen and Jo Harvelle, of Castiel and a hundred others.  And they went out, armed with the knowledge that they were warriors of God and that, one day, it would fall to them to save the world again.

Sam and Jason will never have children of their own, but the house is always full of them, nevertheless.  Right now, they are gathered in the kitchen, children clustered around the table, while the eldest of them, a boy of fifteen, reads from a large book.

"'And then Castiel, who had already given everything for Dean, gave unto him again, as he always would no matter what Dean did.  When three angels appeared before them, he turned to Dean, his heart in his eyes, and raised two fingers to Dean's forehead.

'"Please, Dean," he said.  Dean didn't need to wonder what Castiel was asking him; it was the same thing that he had once asked (an eternity ago) of Castiel -- to fight.

'In the next moment, Dean was back in the motel room a state away, safe, with his brother.

'Castiel turned back to face his brothers.'"

There is silence for a few moments, until they realise that he isn't going to to continue, and then --

"Hey, no fair Richard.  You can't stop there!"

"What happens to Cas?  He's too weak now to fight all those evil angels."

"Yeah, and what about Dean?  Does he still want to say yes?"

Many of the youngest have still not heard all of the stories.

Richard laughs and says, "Tomorrow night, but for now, get up to bed with y'all."

Of course, it is at that point that the adults start filtering in from where they had been gathered outside on the porch.

"Why don't you ever want to stay up late to read the Bible?" asks one of them, leaning against the counter.

A blonde girl rolls her eyes.  "Mom," she says,  "That's because the other Bible is boring.  Who cares about shepherds and gardens?"  The other children nod solemnly in agreement.  Some of the men and women now lining the walls of the kitchen, beers in hand, find themselves nodding along, too.

But then, it was in the Winchester Gospels that most of them had found their calling in the first place.

A boy leaps down from his seat at the table and climbs up into Jason's lap, in his armchair by the door.  Jason smiles down at him and ruffles his hair.

"Did you ever meet Dean and Sam?"

Sam laughs and says, "We're not that old."

The boy shoots him a disappointed look, as though this is Sam's fault.  Sam softens and lays his hand over Jason's on the boy's arm.  "I did meet Castiel, though."

The room falls silent and suddenly, he is the centre of attention.  Sam has never told this story before.

"It was only the once, as far as I can remember,"  he adds, "and I can't have been much older than you are now."  He nods towards Richard.

"What was he like?  Was he like in the Gospel?"  Richard asks.

"He seemed...sad.  He had come here to use the library, I think, but I think he also just wanted to visit.  There must be a lot of memories for him, here."  Sam pauses, looking wistful.  "He was here three days and I never got up the courage to talk to him -- I wish I had.  He seemed so lonely.

"And then he left.  He went on another hunt and so far as I know no one has seen him since."

"So he's still alive?"

Sam shrugs.  "Maybe.  Who knows.  It's not as if there's not much known about him or how much of his Grace he retained.  But unless he was killed...If he was still alive for me to meet then I don't see why not.

"Maybe he is still out there somewhere.  Travelling the world alone and saving people, hunting things.  Waiting until maybe he can see Dean and Sam again."  It's a sad story, he thinks.  The angel should have been rewarded too.