Fanfic Short Stories

Supernatural: Winging It

Story description: Heaven 2.0 has some bugs, or as Dean puts it, "Heaven sucks." Fortunately he has some new features to suggest.

Winging It

"Heaven sucks," said Dean.

The new kid — Dean couldn't remember the angel's name — winced. "Have you really given the new and improved version a chance?" the new kid asked. "You've barely been dead for a decade. I personally tested the new design and found it a vast improvement."

"Humans have shorter lifespans," Castiel pointed out. "You had millennia of experiences to draw from."

"But these two are the only ones complaining," the new kid said, looking woefully at Dean and Bobby.

"We'd seen behind the curtain," Bobby explained. "We got here knowing we'd experience a continuous replay of our glory days. You can take my word for it, you're in for a flood of complaints as more humans realize heaven is just reruns."

"You can zoom in, fast forward, and rewind," the new kid said. "Those are all new features."

"But it's still reliving the same memories," Dean objected. "I can't even pause and talk to Sammy about what just happened to us, because he's not really there."

"You can pause," the new kid mumbled.

"But what's the point in pausing the movie if..." Dean trailed off. "Forget about it. We're not getting anywhere."

"No," Castiel said. "This is important. Last time we waited until heaven was dying before we tried to fix the issues. This time we should fix things before there's a crisis."

"Is it going to be a crisis?" Dean asked.

"Not right away," Castiel said. "We could go on as we are for thousands of years, but the flaws are already apparent."

The new kid bristled at the mention of flaws.

"It's a power supply issue," Bobby said. "The new design was supposed to be more streamlined, so each soul could power their own personal piece of heaven forever, but something's draining the souls. It's barely perceptible, but it's happening."

"It didn't happen during my tests," the new kid protested.

"You only tested on angels," Bobby countered.

"It sucks," Dean repeated, more to himself this time.

"Your negativity is not helping," the new kid said.

"No, I mean it," Dean said. "When the boredom sets in, it literally sucks the life out of the experience. So if we make things more interesting for people, we could reverse it."

"Build up power, instead of draining it?" Bobby asked.

"Sure. Did you notice that your slice of heaven here is getting brighter? This is the most interesting thing that's happened to you in a long time, and it's giving you a boost." Dean reached for a pad of paper. "Tell me the rate of the drain, and then let's calculate the rate of the reversal that's happening to you." He started writing down a formula and plugging in the numbers.

"You're going to attempt to compute heavenly physics?" Castiel asked.

"Sure, I like math," Dean said.

"You do?" asked Bobby.

"Not something I got much chance to do as a hunter, but yeah, I like it."

Dean worked while Castiel explained the concept of heavenly potential. "Anyone here can excel at anything they have a genuine interest in," he said. "You don't automatically know all of the answers, but you can pick it up quickly if the desire is there."

And it was. The desire was there. Over the next few days... time periods... whatever they called it in heaven... Dean studied and then essentially pioneered a new branch of mathematics. And wow, the numbers were amazing. When he poured his passion into the project, the power his soul generated was off the charts. Even the new kid had to admit it was spectacular.

They added more features to heaven. Instead of simply replaying memories, you could alter them. You could play what-if, and see what could have happened. You could not only slow down, but actually pause long enough to learn a new skill, as Dean had with his detour into higher math. New experiences were key to reversing the power drain.

So was interacting with other people — real people, not just memories of them. The new kid warned of chaos, and they had to design a complex system of ensuring that people got along with each other, but once they worked out the kinks heaven was buzzing with power.

###

Dean looked up when he heard the door to his heaven-room open. It was Castiel. With the bugs fixed in Heaven 2.0, Cas had more free time to spend with Dean.

"There's one puzzle I still haven't gotten around to yet," Dean said. "Where do your wings go when you fold them? Do they move into another dimension?"

Castiel chuckled as he unfurled his wings. One of the perks of being in heaven was that Dean could finally perceive the true form of angels.

"Why don't you try folding them and see?" Cas offered.

There was a lot of pleasure to be had in the touching and experimenting, but it was also frustrating. Trying to fold angel wings was like trying to fold a map. The wings could bend in many places and directions, but Dean couldn't get them to fold flat.

With a chuckle, Castiel spread his wings again. "That tickles," he said.

And Dean grinned, because that's what Castiel said when he was done being played with, and wanted to take his own turn playing.

###

One day they visited a pond. It was Castiel's idea. An odd idea, but his oddities were part of what Dean loved about him.

Ducks swam to the edge and then waddled toward Dean, quacking.

A side effect of heaven was an elasticity of time. Used to jumping back and forward in his memories, Dean reacted simultaneously as an adult who had recently been geeking out over physics, and as a four-year-old who thought ducks were so cool and could he feed one, huh, please, 'cause look at that baby duck, it's so soft!

One of the ducks flapped its wings and then settled down again, the wings seeming to melt back into its body.

Oh.

Dean looked at Cas.

Cas looked at Dean. "Yes, the design is similar," he said.

Dean ran a hand down the angel's side, feeling the slight edge of the wing. "I was so obsessed with how they close. I should have been paying more attention to how they opened."

"That would be a wise place to start if you truly wish to understand how they work," Castiel agreed. "Or better yet, you could practice with your own set."

"Really? Like, I could learn to fly?"

The wings Castiel gifted him with weren't permanent appendages, but here at this pond, with an angel and ducks to guide him, Dean could slide on a pair of wings the way he'd pull on an old, comfortable jacket that almost felt like a part of him.

He crashed many, many times. He got the wings jammed in awkward positions trying to open and close them. But he didn't care. This was heaven. He had an eternity in which to learn, and a personal angel to catch him.

Eventually he soared through the sky, with music blaring in the background, because this was Dean Winchester's personal heaven, and in this heaven you had to rock and roll.