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Death remembered the beginning of creation. They had come to attention sluggishly, somehow knowing that they had as long as they wanted to open metaphorical eyes and blink into full metaphorical existence. They stretched themself out into the floating void and immediately bumped into something else.
God had already been up and fiddling with something, wrapped around it protectively. Death was instantly curious, going over and prodding them.
I want to see. Speech wasn’t really a thing yet, and Death really didn’t have a mouth to speak with, so they simply imprinted this demand onto God and God responded by opening themself, as a child opens their hands to show a friend a caught salamander.
The universe began with God’s open self and a huge explosion of sound that was forever after the loudest thing Death had ever heard, because at the time it had been their first experience with the concept. Atoms spun together like sugar in a candy floss machine and God scooped darkness and light and gave it celestial intent and Death saw the archangels come into consciousness.
Death wrinkled his nose at the archangels, who were inspecting themselves and each other and moving clumsily. One of them accidentally reached out to touch a collection of molecules that had managed to form the first element and destroyed it carelessly. They’re very…bright...he said kindly.
With a long sweep of his hand, God created the rest of the angels. Wait until the stars form.
Death liked the stars, and eventually warmed up to the angels, and everything else that God created. He felt a kind of peace when the first strands of life came to him and he put them back in their own little place. The balance soothed him and once the reapers came, broken off from himself like shed skin, he was able to exist in contentment.
Until those fucking Winchesters.
The younger one is less a thorn in his side and more of an enabler. Death knows the boy respects the absolute power of him; Sam Winchester didn’t need a college degree to understand that when Death himself comes and tells him to stop fucking around with dead souls, he goddamn means it.
It’s the eldest who is particularly annoying, who would race to the end of Hell and back again for his brother, who defied Death again and again and made the balance teeter around like a seesaw. Death wondered if he was selfish or just incredibly stupid to jeopardize the fact that the universe would crumple in on itself like an imploding submarine if Death was not there to keep it together, all for one other person.
But the Righteous Man had been a pivotal piece since the instant that God placed the spark of life in Earth’s tepid oceans. Death could see the tight snarl of strings caught up in his own, and he dragged his feet after the Winchesters as they gallivanted across America.
The first time he saved Dean Winchester it was in Fort Worth, Texas, and he was about to be gutted by the exaggerated sickle-like claws of Callisto. Death saw it happen on several planes – the bear swung upwards and slashed into the soft flesh of his belly, pulling the skin from his torso like thin, sheer fabric. Warm blood spurted. His diaphragm was pulverized. He took two shallow, gurgling breaths and dropped the shotgun in his hands to try and catch his own blue intestines. Dean died when Callisto removed her massive paw from his chest cavity with the smeared remains of his heart across her leathery pads.
Of course, that could not happen, Death groaned. He was getting a little tired of watching promising worlds wink out of existence because some dimwit from Kansas was too codependent on his brother.
But, even so, he was caught up in the havoc of the Apocalypse and Death would rather have to collect several billion withered bacteria from another Goldilocks planet than watch Lucifer take control of this universe.
So he stepped forward, walking through dimensions and stopping next to Callisto. Reaching out, he touches her arm and sucks the life from strong, healthy muscles. Tendons wither and her fur loses its shine. Without the force behind it, her claws sink an inch or so into Dean’s belly and stop, essentially harmless.
Death reaped her after Dean shot her several times in the head, breaking through the thick frontal plate of her skull. Her soul was burning hot anger and confusion in the crook of his arm, but he was focusing on the boy checking the wounds in his stomach. There was a lot of blood, but it was a superficial wound.
“Fucking nailed it!” Dean crowed, oblivious to just how close Death was. His shouting irritated the gouges on his stomach and he doubled over slightly, groaning with a smile on his face. His hands were red with his own blood but he would live for the time being.
Cut to Lowell, Massachusetts weeks later, where he’s charging a massive white Cú-Sith with that ridiculous demon-killing knife of theirs. Death could sense his arrogance from the rim of the Mariana Trench, where he was collecting echinoderms by the handful. The complete blackness of the deep sea was calming, and he regretted having to hand off the job to one of his reapers to deal with the infuriating Righteous Man.
The Cú-Sith was about to bay for the third time, a haunting sound that would seize the hearts of both Winchesters if it was allowed to happen. It was backing away from Dean and his shining knife, almost rearing up on its hind legs, red mouth open wide and tongue tucked in the corner.
Death struck out, his hand passing through delicate flesh and cartilage, fingers tangling in veins before coming to rest around the great dog’s vocal cords.
Without even ruffling the beast’s silky white fur, Death severed its chords and the third bark was turned into a strangled rasp. The Cú-Sith’s eyes went wide and its shock was masked by Dean shoving the knife into its deep chest. It fell into a heap, and Death collected it and put it with the echinoderms.
Sighing heavily in exasperation, Death stepped across several billion light years and universes to watch one of his favorite little stars get sucked into a black hole that had just come into itself. The Winchesters passed around congratulatory slaps on the back and jeering insults.
It was only after the Apocalypse, after giving Dean his ring out of the goodness of his metaphorical heart, after that child angel released the leviathans and Death found himself having to control his wrath when the Winchesters actually attempted to bind him. After that, Death was less than eager to half to keep going around and picking up after those two little shits.
He popped in around Appalachia and saw the unfolding events. Dean Winchester and his brother are hunting a roc in the mountains, and it’s perched in the trees high above them. He knows it will swoop down on them and scoop Dean up like a rodent, its talons piercing him through the gut and chest. He would die in the air when its cruelly curved beak takes a bite out of his throat.
Death was all too ready to let it happen. Reaping Dean Winchester and carrying him off to Heaven will be the final nail in the coffin that holds all of his recent grievances. He expected the boy will kick and scream like a toddler, but securing him in his own bubble of Heaven would be an utmost pleasure and Death almost looks forward to it.
But as he watched the roc spread its wings in preparation, Death felt a tingle of thought in the back of his being. He froze and inspected it, his mouth twisting when he realized what it was.
You cannot be serious, he told God, or at least a fraction, a phantom of him. You’ve left for all of this time and you return only to tell me to save him? Save this one man? What has he done to deserve this kind of attention, when infinite amounts of life before have not? When your own angels have not?
The tingle came again, and it felt infuriatingly omniscient.
Don’t you be ineffable at me, Death fumed, I work damn hard at what I do and I don’t have time to be following this one little soul around and picking up his messes. He’s a grown man, he can handle dying – he’s done it so many times. I’m going to reap him and you can just deal with that. He realized that he was being fantastically petulant for an ageless being that was more a metaphorical representation of a phenomenon, but Death figured that he was entitled to talk back to the Almighty this time.
The roc was in the air. Dean Winchester was oblivious to the danger that was spreading its wings. It’s going to happen, Death said smugly to his fellow concept still tickling what could be considered the back of his right heel, if he had a physical form at the time. Truly gruesome. I look forward to it.
Dean Winchester was smiling and teasing his brother, walking in that easy way of his with his shotgun on his shoulder. Completely arrogant while on the hunt, as per usual.
Without a sound, the roc was impaled on a convenient branch, one that seemed to come out of nowhere to spear it through its deep chest. The other end of the branch burst out of its back and blood dripped down its length – a handful of bloody feathers floated down behind the Winchesters.
Death transported the bird to its place and didn’t spare the trickle of God at his back another glance, appearing down on the Massachusetts Cape and walking down to a little shanty that had his favorite fish and chips. Passersby noted the particular frustrated set of his shoulders and wondered about a complete stranger’s mood.