[JP] Religion Quote from February
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource
which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds - Susan Sontag
It had been the right thing to do. Becky. Sweet, innocent Becky. Though her creative writing skills did tend to lean toward implying she had a bit more experience, there had been a moment and when it came, Chuck just didn't take it. Even if he had seen the outcome then, even if he had seen those final scenes playing out in his mind, he was pretty sure that this was going to always be the right choice. If nothing else worked out for him, at least he knew, in this moment it felt like he had done the right thing.
Of course, it didn't stop him from making a phone call once he got to his home. Miss Magda... she was a trooper.
The visions had never stopped.
As long as the war was on the horizon, there was little Chuck could do to stop them. They invaded his sleep, his private time, even some of his waking hours were inundated with flashes of things that he didn't exactly need to see before he went to grab a burger. Famine. He was a nasty thing. They came though, just the same, and all Chuck could do was put them to paper. Stacks of manuscripts filled a desk drawer. Each of them marked and titled. All of them written exactly as he saw them. Chuck figured, if anything, he was going to at least do this right.
The night he woke up to the end, he put it off. The logic, faulty at best, was that the longer he waited to put it down, the more time the brothers had to change it. They had always been very big into the free will, into making it their own choices. Sometimes, though, in the midst of everything else it was difficult to make out if this free will was actually the thing pushing them all this way.
Sam could've said no. He could've looked Ruby in the eye and told her she was insane for thinking that he'd do that sort of thing. It was blood and he wasn't trying to be the cool goth kid on the block. Desperation though, it calls out and most times it doesn't get told it's a wrong number. Dean could've looked for his father on his own. He'd been a good soldier, followed orders and maybe when John Winchester went missing, he could've just left it alone. Let things work out on their own, maybe even think that the grown man had gotten tired of the hunt and wanted out. Dean could've continued on that dusty highway alone.
There wasn't just one choice to be made. Not one moment that could've derailed it though, because there were so many other ways to just put them back on the line. They were always presented with a choice and they always made the choice their own.
Chuck just wished he didn't know what was going to happen. Knowing made it real and watching Sam say yes, watching Lucifer play them... seeing the way things fell into their places, Chuck just wanted to give them more time.
Time just wasn't something they had.
Rather than jump to the end though, Chuck wanted to do it right this time. He started at the beginning. Giving them their roots, their home, the one thing that was going to always be there for them - even if they couldn't be there for each other.
He wrote the story, because it was what he was supposed to do. He'd been given this story and of all the Prophets that had a look into the world, he had been given this point of view, this perspective, and he wasn't going to just look the other way. There were to be no more books, but he couldn't stop their story from actually happening. There wasn't anything that could be done once those final key events got put into place.
So, Chuck sat at his desk, bottle of whiskey at his right and the visions he'd been given being put to word. Five chapters into it, there was something different pressing in at the back of his mind. It was a feeling, some sort of lighter sensation that felt as if the weight of these two boys lives was being lifted off of his shoulders. He hadn't ever been able to write anything but this and now, watching it come to an end, he felt relief that it was him that was putting their story to rest.
As Dean watched his brother say his goodbye to Bobby, Chuck put the words to the page. He tried his best to give Castiel's tone the proper amount of completely wrong for the situation, even knowing that there was no correct adjective to use that implied that look of 'socially-awkward-and-unaware' quite the way that he was seeing it in his mind. He poured another glass of whiskey as he knew Sam would ask Dean to turn away.
When the rings mount themselves to the wall, Chuck opens his eyes and tries not to see the look on Dean's face when everything falls apart. It's been playing in his mind for a week and now that it's come to that moment in the story, he's not sure if he can continue. Emptying his tumbler, his hands steadied a bit against the keyboard. Resting fingertips with slight hesitation as he knows the words will lack the actual emotion Dean feels.
Desolation.
The word itself lacks the pain and hurt, that come through Dean's eyes.
The phone stayed close. It helped him pass the time, distracting him from the painful truth of what he was writing. Also, there was a bit of curiosity edging in on Chuck, trying to see where he was in writing as in comparison to the events actually happening. In a bit of foolish pride, he almost wanted to write it out as it occurred, but he was certain there was no real way to sort that out. Dean called, though. Chuck didn't say his goodbyes. He knew that part of the story, too.
He knows, that one phone call could've not happened. Dean could've accepted the fate of the world, he could've just fought until he couldn't fight anymore.
Dean chose differently though.
Hanging up the phone, Chuck smiled. Things were going to be fine. They were going to work out and he had just a little bit further to go. The bottle was nearly empty as he screwed the metal cap back onto it.
Pushing away from the desk, he exhaled. There was only a little bit left of this story to tell. Pulling his fingers tightly into a fist, he flexed his arm, tensing his hand, trying to work out any dull aches that came from typing out nearly forty years of history. He'd taken a few shortcuts along the way, but he knew he was doing the right thing.
In the bathroom, his usual bathrobe hung on the back of the door as he trimmed his beard. The dress shirt, cleaned and pressed waiting to be slipped on. He had considered shaving clean, but he wasn't sure what the rules were. If he shaved, did that mean he'd never grow a beard again? It wasn't as if he felt he could just ask for a guidebook. Running the short bristled brush through his hair, he made a face at the way it looked. His hand cut through the running water, trying to pat down the soft look of his hair, making some attempt to get it to stop looking like he had actually brushed it.
Taking a deep breath, he shook it off. His hands pressed to the cool porcelain of his sink, staring at himself in the mirror. He felt different. He didn't feel like the guy that had broken up with a fangirl a few months ago. Truthfully, he wasn't sure he felt like a Prophet either, but he knew, especially now in this moment that was what he was. He had been given a story to tell and he was making sure that it would be there for whoever wanted to read it.
Returning to his desk, he tried to push out of his mind all the mistakes he'd made. The countless times he'd sinned, the women - the drinking... some of it he didn't even remember, but the life he had lived wasn't exactly a bad one. With the exception of trying to fraud an escort service out of a few thousand dollars last year around the time of Lucifer's rising, he hadn't had much time to actually sin, so to speak.
Well, Miss Magda, but she was really... more of an inspiration, a reminder, if you will, of the choices that he made that had been the right ones.
Even as his fingers rested above the keys, waiting to put the ending down, he could feel the hesitation in his hands. Anyone else might've seen it as fear. Thinking that writing it down, meant that it was real and that this thing had happened to people he'd actually known in his lifetime.
For Chuck, it was almost anxiousness.
Believing in something was difficult. It wasn't meant to be easy and there were always going to be bigger things that made you want to just dismiss it all. You could say you believed, sure, that was an easy way out, but why not have faith in your own answers? Why doubt yourself, when you could just as easily say that it just wasn't for you. Saying that you don't believe, that's almost as hard as believing, which is probably why so many people just shrug when you ask them.
Chuck believes.
It took him a while. It took two guys standing over six feet tall knocking on his door, a monotoned guy in a trenchcoat, and a bit of convincing to give him a definition to what he was doing, to make him understand that bigger picture.
Chuck believes, because he saw the ending of the story.
He believes, because it wasn't such a bad ending, after all.
He believes, because, he knows, it could've been so much worse.
He believes, because he's done what he was supposed to do, and now, as he types those final words, he's preparing himself for his reward.
He believes, because he wouldn't have gotten dressed up just to sit in a chair and wait.
Because really, it's not like he can just snap his fingers and make things happen. He's a Prophet, the Prophet Chuck, and all he could do was tell the story the way it was meant to go.
So he did.